#the evil machine that explodes room my beloved

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #13- Swerve Doesn’t Have Any Friends

Okay, let’s go ahead and get this out of the way.

It’s a FUCKING SPORTS BRA AND RUNNING SHORTS ALEX.

And don’t think I don’t see that friggin’ cleavage alien back there. You ain’t slick.

I’m going to make it a law that all comic book artists learn how to draw clothes that don’t vacuum-seal themselves to women’s bodies. Milne gets six months for this infraction alone, and Roche gets a year for the initial bra crime he committed back in Last Stand. Learn how women’s underwear works, you ninnies.

Our issue opens up with Swerve stretching his radio personality muscles.

Oh, Guido Guidi, whisk me away to flights of fancy!

Our artist for this issue is none other than Guido Guidi, ascended from fanwork to deliver us from evil with his near-superhuman ability to emulate other artists’ styles and just make things look really pretty. He was responsible for the mythos pages in the 2012 Annual, AKA the best part. He also filled in on some of the art for Last Stand of the Wreckers, not that I really noticed because he’s just that good.

Swerve lets Blurr know that while it might have looked like the Lost Light had exploded, thus killing everyone onboard back in issue #1, that isn’t actually what happened. I’m glad someone filled in the Cybertronian populace on that.

I was never great at math, but those speech bubbles might be phoning it in a bit.

Swerve says that he’s having a great time on the quest, despite all the hiccups, and we get an explanation for why this long-range communications system hasn’t been seen prior to this point. It’s been broken for a while- most likely due to the quantum jump that started the series off with a bang- but Blaster managed to get it running again. Good job, Blaster. With this little setup for our framing device out of the way, we get into the meat of the story.

Swerve is being nosey about things that weren’t any of his business, happening in a closed off room, when Drift drags him down the hall and hid him away for safety. Swerve doesn’t much appreciate being manhandled, but there’s a method to the madness here.

Drift’s nose has vacated the premises once again, so we’re just going to have to deal with that. And how shapely does one have to be to be known as “the guy with the legs”? I mean, Drift is RIGHT THERE.

Drift uses his own powerful legs to kick down the door to Cyclonus and Tailgate’s room. It turns out that the horrific screaming wasn’t the sound of a murder or sexual relations taking place, but rather that of Cyclonus singing in Old Cybertronian.

My god, he’s completely enamored with this unrepentant murder machine.

We are just all up in Cyclonus’ grill for this panel. Nothing but lips. Was this specified in the script? Because it feels like it might have been specified in the script.

Old Cybertronian, or the Primal Vernacular as some might call it, was last seen in general when Rodimus channeled the will of the trapped Titan all across Tailgate’s chest. It was last seen spoken when we met Vos, the terrible murder gremlin who turns into a gun and uses his face to cause puncture trauma.

Comic books are wild, y’all.

Now that we’ve established that no one’s being killed, Drift goes back to what he was doing earlier, with Swerve deciding to tag along because he’s horrifically lonely. He invites Drift to come room up with him, because I guess if you’re going to sell off your comatose roommate’s bed out from under him, you might as well go for the guy who’s third in command,  is probably one of the hottest guys on the ship, and slices people into chunky salsa if they try anything funny.

Drift politely declines, and awkwardly removes himself from the conversation when Swerve doesn’t take the hint, returning to his sword lesson with Rodimus.

Oh thank god, the obnoxiously pink room is back.

Ultra Magnus bursts into the room, appalled by the actions of his fellow crew members. Some of his concerns are well-placed. Others, well…

Is- is that another friggin’ retainer on those lower teeth? Why does this design choice keep showing up?

So Magnus has imprisoned roughly a third of the ship at this point, and Rodimus suggests he take a chill pill. Magnus doesn’t even know what a chill pill even is, so we’re forced to make use of our most dangerous weapon- the threat of a good time, courtesy of Swerve.

The fact that Ultra Magnus hasn’t reduced Swerve to an oil stain on the floor is genuinely astounding. The guy has zero respect for bureaucracy or proper business management. It has been MONTHS, you dinky little man, get your act together as a business owner.

Swerve takes the bribe, and soon everyone’s shipping off to Hedonia, where the drinks are plentiful and the women… well, most of the Lost Lighters don’t even know what a woman is, so that aspect doesn’t really come into play. Thanks, Furman.

Also, Rung’s back to normal. Don’t worry about it, not a big deal.

Swerve isn’t having much luck on his Roommate Quest, as Tailgate spurns his advances, stating that he’s good kicking it with Cyclonus, mainly because they’re both old as shit.

I see we haven’t quite hit the threshold on the “Cyclonus is allowed to have friends now” meter. Give it a few more issues, I’m sure we’ll get there.

Man, zero for two for Swerve on trying to get a hot roommate. Maybe third time’s a charm?

Rodimus pops into the back of the shuttle to remind everyone that their entire race is more or less despised by the entire galaxy, and to play it safe by using their holomatter avatars.

The revamp by Brainstorm and Rung is truly a blessing, because the avatars in IDW were awful to look at up to this point.

Y’all, that is HOT ROD. Jesus wept.

Getting back to Tailgate’s questionable taste in companionship, Tailgate asks if Swerve and Blurr connected right away. Swerve gives him an affirmative, then starts listing off the guy’s racing stats until Ultra Magnus plops down between the two of them, drawn in by the melodious sound of statistics.

Magnus is having a hard time relaxing, but he’s giving it his best, and I think that’s very commendable of him. It’s hard trying new things.

On the surface of Hedonia, it would appear the B-Movies are having a Pride event in the entertainment district.

Okay, moment of truth- show us those avatars!

Oh thank god, they aren’t totally hideous. Though, isn’t Rewind old as shit? I guess youth is a state of mind. Still, I can’t believe we missed out on silver fox Rewind.

Rung’s line is in response to folks at the time claiming that Rung was a self-insert character, which is interesting, because we’ve already seen what a self-insert looks like when it’s Roberts doing the inserting, and we’ve also seen his Mary Sues.

Rung, while an original character who had appeared in Roberts’ pre-professional works (a single line of text in Eugenesis, where he was a psychiatry play-on-words), he isn’t what I’d consider a Mary Sue. Mary Sues are usually stunningly beautiful, beloved by their peers, insanely talented in ways that no other character is, and typically have some sort of connection to another character that more or less forces them into the story despite not needing to exist.

Mary Sues don’t get their friggin’ heads exploded, or exist in a constantly-forgettable state. Sure, he’s the only therapist we’ve ever seen in the Transformers franchise, but there was kind of a massive need for that sort of character to be created, seeing as all of these sons of guns have PTSD and clinical depression. And, as we’ve seen in previous issues and will continue to see later on, he’s really not even that great at it.

That isn’t to say that he doesn’t have certain traits befitting such a characterization, merely that they don’t add up to equal that sort of whole by issue #13. Transformers (2009)-era Drift is way closer to a true Mary Sue than Rung is.

Anyway, where the hell did Tailgate get to?

They really just let Frodo Baggins in this bar all babybjörned up, huh? Does Tailgate even know what a baby even is at this point? Does he just think he’s a very small person? How much human media has he consumed? We haven’t gotten into the reproductive process for the continuity yet, but fresh Cybertronians aren’t exactly a one-to-one to human infants. Damn it, Roberts, what the fuck am I supposed to make of Babygate?

Whirl’s off in the corner, disguised as a 12-year old girl who’s fucking STRAPPED. Magnus has disappeared, but Rewind locates him pretty easily as Rung makes a comment about Magnus needing to make an appointment with him.

Oh hey, Verity. Been a minute. Careful, ol’ six-eyes over there is leering at you.

The fellas come back to the bar as they truly are, and sit down for a round of drinks. Whirl gets Ultra Magnus a drink that sounds disturbingly like a Cybertronian equivalent to Milk Coke, and we get a little anatomy lesson. Transformers have something called a Fuel Intake Moderation chip, something that keeps them from getting drunk on pretty much the only thing they can consume. Swerve suggests Magnus turn his off so he can have a good time- which I don’t personally agree with, but this is Captain Stick-in-the-Mud we’re talking about here. Magnus gives it a shot.

And that’s a series wrap on Ultra Magnus!

No, the man’s just got no tolerance and has been knocked the hell out by his drink. Things begin devolving. Tailgate is crying. Skids has found out that Whirl didn’t give Magnus Milk Coke at all, but instead the equivalent of liquid cocaine. Swerve is convinced he’s going to prison. Rewind is filming the whole thing.

Nobody actually checks to see if Magnus is actually dead, until Rung gets around to it. Swerve, you’re a doctor by original trade, what the hell are you doing?

The boys sit Magnus at the table to wait out his nap. Hours later, nothing’s changed, except that they’ve started up the nemesis game, and Whirl’s decided he’s going to be rude about monoformers being monoformers. Rung gives a non-answer, because that’s just who he is as a person. Skids names Misfire as his worst enemy, only because he’s still missing a good chunk of memory and can’t remember if he had a worst enemy, but still wants to contribute to the conversation.

Rung, don’t be a dick, he did his best. You were right on top of Fort Max, it was a tricky shot.

Ultra Magnus finally starts waking up, and that’s the point where everyone decides to foot Swerve with the bill for the emotional labor he’s going to have to perform by explaining just what the friggity-frack happened.

Magnus starts laughing, then crying, then offloads his troubles onto Swerve. Magnus feels like he just doesn’t fit in on the Lost Light. He’s just trying to do his job and everyone makes fun of him, or disrespects his authority. He’s trying, he really is, but he’s just not built for post-war life. He’s actually tried to leave his position on the Lost Light, but they just keep pulling him back in.

Probably doesn’t help that Rodimus seems more interested in Drift’s opinion on matters than his own SIC half the time.

Oh no, he’s making digs at the things Swerve’s sensitive about. Where is Rung?

Magnus just wants to be understood, y’know? He’s a fully realized creation. He’s got interests. Like music! And the fact that Swerve is missing his Autobot badge!

This was the point where MTMTE was still bouncing back and forth on whether it wanted to commit to the crotch badge. It was a tumultuous time for everyone, very dark days.

WHERE THE FUCK IS RUNG

Magnus, having had enough of sharing his feelings, takes another sip of his cocaine and slips back into unconsciousness. Swerve admits to his limp body that people don’t actually like him, but rather only stick around because of what he can offer- namely, a good time.

The rest of the Swerve posse comes back, with Cyclones having joined the party. Rung shows off his new model ship, which gets Rewind started on his movie collection. He pulls up the opening ceremony for the Ark 1. Y’know, the Ark 1, that ship that Cyclonus was on that disappeared into the Dead Universe for six million years. The Ark 1 that Tailgate was supposed to be on.

Before we can get started however, someone throws the model at Rewind’s head.

That someone is none other than Cyclonus, who proceeds to fly into a rage, throwing tables and shoving the still-unconscious Ultra Magnus to the floor. My word, what a reaction! What could possibly be setting him off so much? Does he not like being reminded of his fated trip to the stars? Is this a manifestation of trauma from that event?

Who knows? No time for questions, Skids is too busy punching him in the face.

Tailgate intervenes, explaining that because Cyclonus and himself are so goddamn old, the engex Cyclonus consumed is wreaking havoc on his body. He tells the rest of them to go on while he tries to calm Cyclonus down. Interesting that Rewind doesn’t have any sort of input on this, given that he is also super fucking old, but there’s no time for questions! We’ve got to get Ultra Magnus back on the shuttle in the next 20 minutes, or else they’ll be stuck on Hedonia FOREVER.

They start throwing Magnus on the floor repeatedly, trying to get his t-cog to spin up. No dice, however.

It’s 4AM. Do you know where your Domey is? Because Rewind sure as hell doesn’t.

Okay, time for Plan B.

I’m guessing not, Rung. I’m guessing not.

Using Magnus as a trampoline does the trick, and the boys are rewarded with the sight of Magnus’ alt-mode… resting on its roof, upside down. They get him sorted, pile in the cab- Rewind is driving, which leads me to believe he at least has some experience handling a vehicle. Chromedome does turn into a car…

I don’t even know what that sort of activity implies for a Transformer. We won’t go any further down this line of thought.

The boys manage to get Ultra Magnus to the shuttle in time, and all’s well that ends well!

This is about the time that Blaster knocks on the glass at Swerve to wrap things up, seeing as he’s been at this for over nine hours now. There’s one last little aside before we’re done with our story, however, and it involves just what happened in the bar after everyone else left.

Cyclonus calmed down almost immediately after the rest of the guys left, paying for what he broke and inviting Tailgate to have a seat.

Well, I say invite, but it’s really more of an order.

If you’d already figured out at this point that this jumpy little marshmallow was lying about being the biggest badass who ever lived, a gold star for you! It turns out, dear Tailgate has been crafting a fabrication, spinning a yarn, telling a tall tale since Day One on the Lost Light. The story has been feeding us a steady diet of fish the whole time!

Red herring!

Red herring!

Red herring of Tailgate’s own design! Autopedia’s mods are a friggin’ joke.

Tailgate was supposed to be a the Ark 1 launch, but it was because he was on the cleanup crew. Boy’s a sluicer, and his arm SHOULD say "waste disposal”. Through a cunning use of his wits and cold reading, Tailgate faked his way through the dismantling of the bomb on Temptoria. A smart boy, he is, if not a bit self-centered.

Which brings us to why exactly Cyclonus freaked out in the bar: he wasn’t having an episode, but rather faking a reaction to prevent Tailgate’s lie from being exposed. He still thinks that Tailgate should come clean about this whole thing, before things get really messy, but it wouldn’t be an issue of MTMTE without some raw-ass emotions getting thrown about.

Cyclonus, who hasn’t allowed himself to feel anything other than simmering rage or national pride for over six million years, is beginning to feel something for Tailgate.

That feeling is sympathy, and maybe a little pity.

He offers to teach Tailgate a song to help him feel better, because that’s what he does when he has feelings.

And given that Cyclonus seems to sing often enough that Tailgate’s gotten used to the horrific sound, it might be that Cyclonus has feelings a hell of a lot more often than he lets on.

Roberts, how many times are you going to make Tailgate cry? How much pain are you going to subject him to before you’re satisfied?

The scene closes out on the two of them getting their karaoke on in the empty bar, in the god-awful language that is Old Cybertronian. I can only imagine that they get kicked out of the bar pretty quickly after this.

Getting back to the present, Swerve has finally, finally finished his story, closing out with an invitation for Blurr to come visit Swerve’s.

Blaster gets ready to shoot one hell of a voice message at Blurr, but there’s a problem; the number Swerve has isn’t long enough to be a personal hailing frequency.

Yeah, turns out that Tailgate isn’t the only liar on board the Lost Light.

Four million years ago, Swerve met Blurr at a publicity event, got way too friendly with a celebrity, pestered the guy until he gave him a fake number, and has convinced himself that he made a life-long friend to this very day.

Big oof.

Later, back at Swerve’s, Swerve is busy cleaning the glassware when Ultra Magnus comes in, sober and having just gotten out of surgery to fix his fuel tanks. Guess that second sip of Nucleon really wasn’t a good idea.

Swerve tries to tell a lie about what happened the night before, only to have the dawning horror that Magnus remembered the entire night, as he’s presented with a new badge. Swerve, bolstered by the fact that, while Magnus didn’t enjoy the previous evening, he appreciated having company, begins to ask Magnus if he’d want to room with him.

Wow, zero for three! That’s rough, buddy.

Kind of a bummer end to this whole issue, but it was still decently light, tone-wise, for MTMTE. A great deal of fun was had, in between all the mortifying reveals of our characters inner demons.

...Well, shit.

#transformers #jro #mtmte #issue 13 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #overthinking about robots #incoming analysis #comic script writing

[lacquerware]

Sekiro has one big similarity to Bionic Commando, and it's not what you think

Spoiler Warning: Sekiro, Bionic Commando (NES)

Progress in Sekiro is meted out through challenging boss fights and punctuated with scenic, relatively safe traversal sequences that enhance the sense that you’re on a textured journey that’s headed somewhere. Fairly early in the game, after you’ve found your initial footing and conquered a few lifebars bearing fancy names, the game pulls a fast one on you: As you’re scaling some cliffs to get to the next part of the game, a snake roughly the size of Godzilla glides into view—filling your view—and looks at you like you’re the last donut hole in Boston. What was supposed to be a rejuvenating slice of downtime is suddenly the most stressful situation Sekiro has placed you in so far. A harrowing stealth sequence ensues, where you must divide your time between hiding and madly dashing for the next hiding spot.

Eventually you escape into a cave and get on with your life without confronting the beast, but a new seed of anxiety has started to sprout; eventually you’ll have to confront this thing. It’s Sekiro’s way of shaking the confidence you’ve spent the first chunk of the game building. “You think you’re all that because you beat an eight-foot ogre who started the fight in shackles? Sit back down, insect.”

From then on, the Great Serpent becomes a sort of sinister mile marker, dividing your journey broadly into acts with recurring reminders that your successes don’t mean you’re not still a tiny worm on a giant fucking cosmic hook. At one point it ambushes you on a rope bridge, leaving you floating helplessly in the water below. Another time, you find its shed skin adorning the scenery.  

In my many hours and playthroughs with Sekiro, I’ve come to learn that there is some variation to the order in which the game’s key events may unfold, but on my first playthrough, I’d done just about everything possible before finally emerging from that Sunken Valley cavern to find the Great Serpent nestled asleep on a cliffside a few hundred feet below. I’d acquired the Mortal Blade as well as all the ingredients for the Fountainhead Incense. The dreaded Guardian Ape was dead, then undead, then dead-dead. It was clear I was about to enter a new, late phase of the game, but then there she was, once again laying watch over my only path forward.

I edged forward on the overlooking wooden beam, scanning for grapple points or other escape options. There were none, but I was startled to find I could lock onto the slumbering Serpent’s head. Ah, I thought. This is the fight I’ve been dreading all along. Nothing left but to walk the plank and wake the dragon. I gulped, wiped the sweat off my palms, and dove . . . .

As I plunged, I was again startled to see the familiar red smudge of a Deathblow opportunity appear on the Serpent’s head. I spewed some fragments of syllables as my finger scrambled for the R1 button. It registered and Sekiro readied his sword in midair. Unexpected as this was, it occurred to me that many boss fights had begun this way, with a Deathblow opportunity that knocked off one of the boss’s multiple life bars. There was no special reason to think this would preclude a grueling fight, until, that is, Sekiro tore his sword through the Serpent’s uncaring reptile brain, drenching the entire landscape in a downpour of strawberry rhubarb jam and leaving the Serpent a dangling dead decoration. The fight was over before it had begun.

I’ve already commended Sekiro for being FromSoft’s first game in the “Souls” template not to be centered around discouragement, but this dramatic display of leniency was downright motivational. It was like your drill sergeant surprising you with a pizza party instead of the expected twenty-mile march.

“It’s fucking dead?!” I said out loud to my wife in the other room.

“What’s dead?”

“A snake in a video game.”

“Oh.”

But to me it was astounding. This colossal demon, whose prime function up to now had been to keep my confidence in check, had now fallen to my little blade in one of the most spectacular shows of player triumph I’d seen in my more than thirty years of gaming. What I’d thought was the game’s way of saying “You’ve haven’t accomplished as much as you think you have” was ultimately the game’s way of saying I’d accomplished more. Even this impossibly large beast, this divine manifestation of terror itself, which had made every other adversary look puny and insignificant, was now dead. What a shot in the arm! There was no stopping me now.

After finishing Sekiro, I realized this moment had been instrumental in creating the lasting impression that, unlike Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Sekiro never seeks to discourage or punish. It also contributed heavily to the dynamic contour of the whole experience, which is a major thing I think Sekiro has over my beloved Nioh. It aspires and succeeds at being more than a game with a predictable loop—it’s an odyssey of diverse sights and experiences, and the Great Serpent kill feels like the centerpiece. My favorite moment of Sekiro.

Some time later, I had a shower thought: Bionic Commando on the NES, one of my all-time favorite games, had done something very similar more than thirty years prior. The Japanese version of the game includes Hitler’s Resurrection (ヒットラーの復活) right in the title, but in America it’s not until the climactic showdown that you even know it’s a game about defeating Hitler. Until then, your ostensible adversary is Generalissimo Killt, an imposing, sneering, decorated man with all the trimmings of a fictional fascist. He taunts you face-to-face early on in one of the game’s RPG town-esque neutral zones, where you have no recourse even though your bionic arm could surely crush his skull like a grape in a condor beak.

When you finally meet again, Killt stands regal before a towering stasis chamber with a human figure floating within. He says something menacing about “Master-D” and a “revival device,” makes a threat on your life, and then the encounter is cut short by an apparent electrical malfunction. With a powerful jolt, the device unceremoniously kills Killt before he can even try to make good on his threat. 

The floating figure within the chamber slowly emerges and speaks. Despite his censored name, the pixelated portrait that accompanies his dialogue box is unmistakable—an eerily lifelike rendering of Adolph Hitler. I was six or seven when I first witnessed this moment, but thanks to Mom’s yearly Yom Kippur tradition of breaking out the Holocaust picture book, Hitler’s stony visage was already imprinted upon my brain. He was my boogeyman, the subject of recurring nightmares, and now somehow he’d invaded my video game. This real-life association made him formidable in a way no other video game villain could touch (no, not even Mike Tyson). It was personal and terrifying in a way no game had been. In an instant, the stakes of this adventure soared sky-high. Hitler was the Great Serpent, a terrible titan sent to ambush your confidence.

After his grand entrance, Hitler unleashes upon you the “Albatros” [sic], a hulking, amorphous war machine outftitted with rhythmically spewing flame vents and a pulsating organ. A tense fight ensues, putting your swinging and shooting skills to the ultimate test. Finally, the Albatross explodes in a screen-filling spectacle of pyrotechnics, and you emerge on an elevated precipice just in time to hear the dying words of a wounded comrade, Hal: Hitler is getting away in a chopper, and it’s up to you to stop him. Even the ultimate test had fallen far short of stopping this monolithic evil.

Hal hands over a bazooka and instructs you to aim for the chopper’s cockpit as you leap from the precipice. You edge forward, scanning for grapple points. You gulp, wipe the sweat off your palms, and swing . . . .

As you plunge, you fire off a single shot. It strikes the glass. You land.

“Your number’s up! Monster!”

Now bear in mind that up to this point, only the weakest enemies in the game had died in one hit. And this wasn’t just any adversary; this was the biggest possible bad. As with the Great Serpent, there was no special reason to think this one shot would preclude a grueling fight, until, that is, Hitler’s cranium exploded in a starburst of strawberry rhubarb jam, the gory detail intricately rendered in four disgusting frames of diverging skin, teeth, and eyeballs. 

The fight was over before it had begun. What appeared at first to be a demoralizing escalation of the game’s peak, was in fact a spectacular way to pat you on the back for making it this far. It's like they shoehorned Hitler into the game at the last minute just to let you blow his head up. For a little Jewish kid, that was just about the tastiest proposition a video game could offer. 

The more I ponder these two moments, the more they feel like twins. The dissonance of the antagonists’ grandeur with the world they inhabit. The ease with which you reveal both to be false gods. The extreme use of gore to convey the weight of your achievement. They even both hinge on a do-or-die attack performed in free fall. Considering Sekiro also stars a grunt with a bionic arm, I have to wonder if there weren’t some Bionic Commando fans involved in its conception.

#sekiro #bionic commando #games #gaming #video games #videogames #fromsoftware #from software #fromsoft #activision #theory #games criticism #review #gameplay #game design #design #great serpent #snake #ekans #bionic arm #rad spencer #spencer #nes #retro #retro gaming #capcom #grappling hook #hitler #adolph #explode

[prolapsarian]

Notes to Sean Bonney (1969-2019)

The great ruse of our political epoch: Cameron, Osborne and Clegg, and their crows in press, scorched a set of oppositions in the minds of the people. The whole of society encapsulated in an image of “workers versus shirkers”, “strivers versus skivers.” The great tragedy of our political epoch: the Labour movement, the left, and the social democrats took the bait of these laminated ghouls. They responded simply by saying that there were no skivers: instead there was a worthy working class, labouring away ever harder, and getting ever poorer. They said the whole thing was a myth, that the shirkers were a phantom, a chimera, a scapegoat, an image invented by evil overlords to turn the working class against itself, leaving it prone to the ideologies of reaction. The labour movement talked instead only about the working poor, or the unemployed who wanted always to get back to a good job, on a good wage, forever and ever.

Few resisted the ruse, but Sean Bonney was one of them. Perhaps it was because Sean himself was a skiver, a drunk, a scoundrel, a villain, an addict, a down-and-out, a fuck up. More likely it was because of his deep political intuition and understanding. For him, the politics of class warfare was never about worthiness; it was never about what the working class deserve at the end of a hard day’s work, but instead its crucible was the hatred of the social conditions that pummelled people, silenced them, boxed them in, boxed them up, oppressed them, made them suffer. This politics was uncompromising because it understood that any compromise was a failure: there is no weekend that redeems the week, no pension that makes good on the life wrecked by the conformity and unfreedom of work.

I like to think of Sean as the thing that terrified those Tories most, as one of those beautiful creatures who so absolutely threatened them that they had to transfigure him into a phantom. His poetry too was one with this politics in this. Every line is written in solidarity with the shirking class, a class whose underground history crawls and stretches backwards, a perpetual dance, an unending squall, as anonymous as it is enormous. If Sean was a skiver he was also always hard at work, undertaking an immense labour of compression, in order to make that history heard. And this furious labour was quick and angular, because it always came with some sense that history was, already, ending. As a singular voice that resisted the ruse, his writing is one of the most important political efforts of our time.

o scroungers, o gasoline there’s a home for you here there’s a room for your things me, I like pills / o hell.

*** Since hearing of Sean’s death I have been thinking a lot about what I learnt from him. Learning is maybe a strange way to look at it. Because Sean’s poetry was not really so complicated. He stated unambiguous truths that we all knew and understood. Just like Brecht’s dictum in praise of communism: “It’s reasonable, and everyone understands it, it’s easy […] it is the simplicity, that’s hard to achieve.” This was the plane on which we met. All of us, Sean’s friends, comrades, loves, beloveds, others we did not know who all were invited, all in this common place where we know how simple these truths are, even if none of us were able to express them with such concision as Sean – even if we were all somehow less rehearsed, less prepared, less audacious. And suddenly I know it was a common place he made, wretched and hilarious.

*** So communism is simple. But running beneath all of Sean’s work was an unassuming argument, from which I have learned so much. Although argument was not his mode – his poems were always doing something, accusing but never prosecuting – an argument is there, even if it was exposed as a thesis in its own right. It is something so simple, easy, and so obvious that it barely seems worth saying. Sean’s poems made an argument for the enduring power of French symbolism – for a power that surged through history in the spirit of that movement. No surprise for a poet who rewrote Baudelaire and Rimbaud. But constantly a surprise to a world that thought that mode already dead, a world no longer animated by the literary symbol, nor transfixed by the resurrection any such symbols could herald. His writing followed the traces of this hyperhistory that wrapped around the world and back, from the high culture of decolonial revolutionism back in to cosmopolitan centre where bourgeois savages feast greedily on expropriated wares; into the dark sociality of the prison, and out again into every antisocial moment that we call “society”; sometimes making the earth small within a frozen cosmos ringing out noise as signal to nobody and everyone; sometimes bringing the whole cosmos in crystalline shape (sometimes perfect, sometimes fractured) as the sharpest interruption within the world - every poem charting a history stretched taut between uprisings and revolts. He knew the rites of symbols, the continuing practices with which their political power could be leveraged.

Sean was one of the few untimely symbolists of our time. His poems are full of these things: bombs, mouths, wires, bones, birds, walls, suns, etc - never quite concepts, never quite images, never quite objects, but pieces of the world to be taken up and arranged, half exploded, into accusations; treasured as partial and made for us to take as our own, a heritage of our own destruction, at once ready at hand, and scattered to the peripheries on a map of the universe, persistently spiralling, in points, back to the centre, some no place.

But if Sean was a symbolist, if he was attentive to its fugitive history, a slick and secret tradition of the oppressed, then this was also a symbolism without any luxuriant illusion. It is a symbolism in which all knowingness has been supplanted with fury and its movements. Sean’s poems are spleen without ideal. They have nothing of the pointed, almost screaming, eternal sarcasm of Baudelaire when he ever again finds the body of his beautiful muse as white and lifeless cold marble, utterly indifferent to the desirous gaze. There is no such muse, no callous petrified grimace, half terrified half laughing, ancient enough to unseat Hellenism itself - although there is beauty still but it exists otherwise, amid a crowd, darkened and lively. When I think of Sean’s monumental work I imagine an enormous bas-relief of black polished marble jutting out from some monstrously disproportioned body, angled between buildings. This great slab flashing black in the white noise of the city. This great slab as populous as the world. Flashing black and seen with the upturned gaze. There is no oppression without this terrified vision that sees in ever new sharpness the oppressor.

When you go to sleep, my gloomy beauty, below a black marble monument, when from alcove and manor you are reduced to damp vault and hollow grave; when the stone—pressing on your timorous chest and sides already lulled by a charmed indifference—halts your heart from beating, from willing, your feet from their bold adventuring, when the tomb, confidant to my infinite dream (since the tomb understands the poet always), through those long nights in which slumber is banished, will say to you: "What does it profit you, imperfect courtisan, not to have known what the dead weep for?" —And the worm will gnaw at your hide like remorse.

*** I haven’t explained what I learnt. I ask the question, What does it mean to find the late nineteenth century stillborn into the twenty-first? Why should these febrile years, from 1848 to the Commune have been so important? What was Sean leveraging when he recast our world with this moment of literary and political history? And what was he leveraging it against? I have a sense that what was important to Sean was a sense of mixedness. There were those who would read these years, after the defeat of revolution, as a dreadful winter of the world. There were those who saw only society in decline. “Jeremiads are the fashion”, Blanqui would say while counselling civil war. And then there were those for whom arcades first provided an extravagant ecstacy of distraction and glitz. These were the years of monstrocity, from Maldoror to Das Kapital. These years of the great machines that chewed up humans and spat out their remains across the city, of great humans who chewed up machines and made language anew. These years in which the fury of defeat burnt hot. These years of illumination. These years where gruesome metallic grinding and factory fire met the dandy. Few eras have been so mixed, so utterly undecided. No era so perfect to carve out the truly Dickensian physiognomy of Iain Duncan Smith. This was neither the stage of tragedy nor comedy, but of frivolous wickedness and hilarious turpitude. The world made into a barb, and no-one quite knowing who is caught on it. The great progress. The great stupidity. Street life. The symbol belonging to this undecided realm.

Marx was famously dismissive of that “social scum” the Lumpenproletariat, who he described at the beginning of this period as “vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux, brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars — in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French call la bohème.” Marx saw in these figures, in their Bonapartist, reactionary form, a bourgeois consciousness ripped from its class interest and thus nourished by purest political ideology. But if he could excoriate the drunkenness of beggars, Marx failed to appreciate its complement: the intoxication of sobriety of the working classes, the stupefaction in methodism, their imagined glory in progress. Wine, as the beggars already knew, was the only salve to the social anaesthetic of worthiness and the idiotic faith in work.

If Sean were here I’d want to talk to him about this learning in relation to a fragment by Benjamin, which he wrote as he thought about the world of Baudelaire; this world of mixedness of the city constructed and exploded, and the people within it subject to the same motion:

During the Baroque, a formerly incidental component of allegory, the emblem, undergoes extravagant development. If, for the materialist historian, the medieval origin of allegory still needs elucidation, Marx himself furnishes a clue for understanding its Baroque form. He writes in Das Kapital (Hamburg, 1922), vol. 1, p. 344: "The collective machine ... becomes more and more perfect, the more the process as a whole becomes a continuous one — that is, the less the raw material is interrupted in its passage from its first phase to its last; in other words, the more its passage from one phase to another is effected not only by the hand of man but by the machinery itself. In manufacture, the isolation of each detail process is a condition imposed by the nature of division of labor, but in the fully developed factory the continuity of those processes is, on the contrary, imperative." Here may be found the key to the Baroque procedure whereby meanings are conferred on the set of fragments, on the pieces into which not so much the whole as the process of its production has disintegrated. Baroque emblems may be conceived as half finished products which, from the phases of a production process, have been converted into monuments to the process of destruction. During the Thirty Years' War, which, now at one point and now at another, immobilized production, the "interruption" that, according to Marx, characterizes each particular stage of this labor process could be protracted almost indefinitely. But the real triumph of the Baroque emblematic, the chief exhibit of which becomes the death's head, is the integration of man himself into the operation. The death's head of Baroque allegory is a half-finished product of the history of salvation, that process interrupted — so far as this is given him to realize — by Satan.

I won’t pretend to know all of what Benjamin means here but I have some idea. And those last sentences terrify me. Modernity begins with a war that is a strike, one that repeats through history. And the shape of this strike, this war, this repetition, is the shape of detritus of production interrupted. We shift perspective and the machine is revealed as other than it was once imagined: it is not some factory churning out commodities, but a world theatre of soteriology. An exchange takes place: the half-finished product for the half-destroyed body. Although what is created (albeit as a “monument to the process of destruction”) is some monstrous combination of the two. One and the same seen with two different perspectives, and the two perspectives separated by the distance between the promise that production will be interrupted, in rhythmic repetition, and the force of the machine that completes the product, kills the body into it, sealing death perfectly within the commodity, as its catastrophe. This distance, a tropic on the edge of the end of the world, is Hell.

This is a lot. But maybe it gets close to what I learnt. That all those bombs, mouths, wires, bones, birds, walls, suns, etc were for Sean the emblemata of our political times. These are the monsters, half-finished, half-human, half-machine, the bird interrupting itself with a scream a silent as the cosmos once seemed. I don’t know if they are to be taken up as weapons in the battle for salvation, or as mere co-ordinates on the map of hell. But they are certainly potent, and set here in commitment to redemption, for the work of raising the dead. Sean’s writing was always ready for this task, in constant preparation, and in constant interruption. Its angles quickly pacing between the two.

This has become theologically ornate. But perhaps something of the point is clear: that in the symbolic realm of Sean’s language are staked the great theological and materialist battles of our age. He had to deep dig into our time for that, furrow and dig so deep that he found the nineteenth century still there, crawling everywhere, right up to us. And all of this was set, furiously, against a more everyday view that production has all but disappeared from sight: society fully administered slips across screens with nothing but a sense of speed and gloss. His poetry decries, digs into, a laminated world with which we are supposed to play but in which we are never supposed to participate, never mind to get drunk, see the truth, raise the dead, even now as they slip away ever further through the mediatized glare.

*** Are we not surrounded by those who cast spells? Sorcery is the fashion, if only for the blighted, the meek, the poor, the oppressed. And it would be easy to mistake what Sean was writing for just another piece of subaltern superstition; promising mighty power for as long as it remains utterly powerless and otherworldly. But this is not right. Seans symbols are not just any old sign, or signal, or sigil. They are not arcana, but materials taken to hand out of the dereliction of the present. They are certainly magic, just as Sean was certainly a seer. But this is a materialist magic, a fury, a joy. They are not drawn from some other mystical world, but from this one. And his magic was to suspend them between this world and the next, between law made in the mouths of a class who hated him, and justice. He saw more deeply than most of us dare, and invited us along. Invited everyone along, including the dead who will rise, even if we have to dig and dig and drag them out of the ground and through the streets, to show the world what streets are really for. Here in this common place, between buildings, together. This is the place of magic, for riots, for burning cars; here a wall, there a blazing comet. Let his poetry dance on, and we will dance on too.

[lemonclemontadmin]

Bonnie’s Nightmare Oneshot

Psst @tiredclemont this is just the start of the Lemon boi angst >:3 

Night time had long fallen upon Kalos and everyone in the cities have begun to drift into dreamland after a hard day’s work. Lumiose City is one of them and the city of light still glowed like it was named for. Locals can still be seen outside, but they’re lesser than in the day for most have already gone to bed. The Lémons are just getting to that after having their supper before bed. Tonight however was a bit different for it was just the kids and their Pokemon at home. Meyer and his Ampharos are out tending to a customer in a farther city. So that night, it was just Clemont and Bonnie and the older sibling was put in charge of things.

Luckily for him, Bonnie had been on her best behaviour today and all Clemont had as a downside by day’s end was Bonnie getting dirty after playing - Which rewarded the little girl a fun shower from the hose in the backyard. The little girl had long fallen asleep with Dedenne in her arms afterward and Clemont had gone to his own room not long after. The day has come and gone perfectly leading to the next few hours of night calm. The two siblings and their Pokemon managed to sleep ever so peacefully as well. However, it wasn’t until sometime later when the slumber of a certain little girl was interrupted by fear. In her bed, she was frowning. She was restlessly tossing and turning...

Bonnie woke up to find herself in a strange place. Something about it seemed familiar somehow. Judging by the many contraptions, the glass chamber and dozens of controls littering the room, it appeared to be a part of someone’s laboratory. It was dark with only the dimly glowing green illuminating everything in sight. The light came from the glass chamber containing a few Zygarde cores, the very ones Xerosic still had and Bonnie had seen them when she, Ash, Pikachu and Serena together with Greninja broke in to save Clemont… Wait a minute.

“That big man with red glasses...”

The girl muttered to herself in recalling as her eyes have widened with fear. She had seen that Team Flare member a few times in the past and those times weren’t the prettiest - They made Bonnie mostly angry and at the same time, terrified. First, her beloved Squishy was forced to rampage after Xerosic managed to control it with that machine. And the next, Xerosic, during his search for Zygarde cells, had come across Bonnie and the others and kidnapped Clemont to later turn him into the first ‘Advanced Human’ with the same device used to control Squishy.

The more she thought about it, the more anxious Bonnie became as she slowly realised. This is the exact same lab where she together with Ash, Serena and Greninja broke in to save Clemont only to find him ‘brainwashed’ by Xerosic. “W-What am I doing here? Dedenne? Clemont? A-Anybody?” Blue eyes continued to scan the area with rising fear and the urge to burst into tears. Nobody is in sight except for her and fear rocketed within her - The strange absence of the elephant in the room isn’t making things any better. Where is Xerosic? And where is her brother? Ash and Serena can’t be here anymore, Bonnie knew. They’ve already gone to different places now. So that leaves only Clemont…

“Well, well, well. Look what we have here~!”

A crude, taunting voice belonging to a man made Bonnie squeak with surprise. The next thing she knew, she found herself face to face with a very familiar face; The last face that Bonnie never, ever, wanted to remember. The pale skinned figure stepped out of the dark corners of the lab and the lighting illuminated his crimson lenses and uniform. His dark smile is enough to send Bonnie into hysterics, but she tried to act brave, putting on her ‘fierce’ face. “Y-You again?! How did you get out? I thought the Officer Jennys put you away forever!”

Xerosic pretended to look shocked and had a hand to his chest in ‘fear’. “Oh they did, did they? Ha! That’s priceless!” He smirked with a snap of his fingers to summon two Pokemon from the shadows - Crobat and Malamar. “They are no match for me and oh! They definitely won’t be once they face Team Neo Flare in full power once again! All of you will pay for foiling with my plans and you will all bow down, before me!” He cackled nastily before the girl and Bonnie was shaking terribly. Her eyes darted around her in desperate search for only one person.

“C-Clemont? Clemont where are you?” Bonnie’s voice was high with anxiety that’s threatening to burst any second. No matter which angle she looked, there was no sign of her brother and her heart was pounding in her chest. She cried out at Xerosic, unable contain herself any longer. “You took him again didn’t you? Where is he? Where is my big brother!?”

The pale skinned man smiled eerily, suddenly looking as if Bonnie brought up something to be proud of. “Hmph, where he is as of now is highly classified. But since you asked me ‘so nicely’, I suppose I might as well tell you,” Xerosic took in the second of hopefulness on Bonnie’s expression before crushing that in an instant. “You see, the moment I slipped away from those Jennys I knew I was going to have that pathetic kid as the first to interfere with my plans of collecting all of the Zygarde cells again. So to spare myself from such trouble I did the one thing I should’ve done to him the first time I grabbed him…”

Xerosic chuckled and he casually paced before the child, hands rubbing like they were fresh from asphyxiating someone. “Ah you my dear had such a strong brother. You should have seen him when I had Malamar bring him in with psychic. Oh how he struggled, shouted, writhed like a Weedle until he broke free from the psychic. It’s a shame really, all his fighting is done for nothing.” His hands clenched together and a devilish grin formed on his face; Bonnie could have sworn she saw his lenses glint with evil.

Bonnie could no longer control her tears at this point. “I don’t understand.. W-What did you do to Clemont? What did you do?!” She screamed the last three words.

Xerosic only smiled more. “Do you really want to know?” He tittered before his smile turned sinister. “Fine then,” He pulled out a walkie-talkie device from his pocket to speak into it, never taking his manic gaze off of Bonnie. “Unit One, calling in Unit One! Please report to the lab, Xerosic out.” His words caused Bonnie to blink in utter confusion. Unit One? Those two words suddenly seemed familiar. It was fuzzy for Bonnie had only heard it once; But it wasn’t until she heard the sound of doors sliding open and smoke began to pour out.

A dark silhouette began to form in the fog and it was advancing towards the two. The only thing that stood out is the electric yellow light emitting from the visors. The figure’s shape grew clearer from the fog’s dissipating and it stopped. Now Bonnie could get a clear glimpse of the figure - But it was a face that made her heart stop. Her lower lip hung and quivered with tremendous shock, eyes never leaving the figure. No.. It can’t be!

The figure was no one other than her own brother.

Clemont stood stiffly before his master and Bonnie, the fog fully dying out now and his full appearance is revealed. The teenager is dressed in Team Flare uniform resembling what Xerosic and his cronies wore only it had a yellow pieces like the tie and even the lenses on his mechanical visors. The sixteen-year-old’s expression was a blank stare with his otherwise lifeless eyes being hidden behind the visor; Bonnie didn’t need seeing to believe that something is beyond off with her brother. But due to the negative worries ready to explode within her, the girl cried out to him in relief.

“Clemont! You’re alive! Did the big meanie hurt you?”

Poor Bonnie had no idea what she’s in for. In her sheer distress she expected at least one mention of her name from Clemont’s unmoving mouth - But there was none. The teen continued to stand emotionlessly in place and Xerosic began to chuckle, clearly amused by the little girl’s attempts. “Oh me? Hurt him? I did no such thing~!” He taunted in a singsong manner. He sauntered to Clemont and casually held the teen with one arm around him. “Your brother here is the one who let me do the job. All I did was threaten him with your life - Which means you are partly to blame in hurting him, my dear.”

Xerosic’s lenses glistened with evil and he cackled once more, enjoying the horrible shock on Bonnie’s face. His words played through her mind again and again. You’re the one who hurt him. The more she thought about it, the more she began to realise the truth in it and she could literally see the scenario in her head; Being stubborn as he is, Clemont refuses no matter how much agony is laid upon him - Until Xerosic resorted to a final blackmail that finally broke the gym leader into hysterics. It was then did Xerosic become satisfied and have Malamar knock out Clemont for the deed, ending the vision just like that.

Tears of anguish streamed down Bonnie’s face and she fell to her hands and knees. But as much as Xerosic’s words cut her like a knife, a part of her felt that it was only lies coming from the man; Clemont told her plenty about him after all.

 “You’re lying! My brother would never give in to you even if you’re controlling him!” She boldly retorted to Xerosic before setting her frightened, but desperation-filled eyes on Clemont. “Big Brother I know you can hear me in there! Please! Snap out of it! He’s controlling you again - You can’t let him do whatever he wants with you!”

Clemont did not move, nor did his expression falter even a bit.

Xerosic clicked in false sympathy and he brushed away a stray tear resulting from his laughter. “Oh your efforts are futile, child! He can’t hear you, not anymore!” He grinned at Clemont as he casually wrapped an arm around him. “You don’t hear a thing from that girl now do you Unit One?” He earned a stiff nod from Clemont and the man smirked at Bonnie. “See? Face it my dear. Your brother belongs to me now and together we will lead Team Neo Flare!”

The blonde child before him quivered terribly. She screwed her eyes shut. “N-No! My brother will never agree to that!”

Bonnie cried out with all bravery she could master. Despite that however, her eyes are leaking tears and Xerosic knew he’s succeeded in breaking her. Just one more push and he could either get Bonnie brainwashed and working for his side, or, he could have his ‘Unit One’ dispose of her corpse… The latter became his final option.

“My poor child. That is indeed true but I hate to tell you that at this point, your brother is gone. Dead the moment I shot him with my enhanced controlling system.” Xerosic wore a look of false pity. “But if it provides you any consolation, I made his last seconds of life at peace by promising that I wouldn’t turn you into an advanced human - Just like he badly pleaded me to.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Which is why I have another plan for you.”

Bonnie shakily looked up at him with teary eyes. “What are you going to do? … Kill me?”

Xerosic doubled over in a fit of laughter at Bonnie’s statement. “What? Me? Kill you? Oh no! No of course I wouldn’t do that heehee!” He shook his head in regaining himself - Before his expression morphed into an enormous grin. “He is.” He snapped his fingers at Clemont’s direction. “Unit One? I have a request for you.” He pointed towards Bonnie. “You see that girl over there? I want you to do the honors,” He reached into his uniform pocket to pull out a lethal looking weapon.

He gave the weapon to Clemont, and the teenager accepted it.

Bonnie’s blood turned cold at the terrible realisation; She felt faint. Brainwashed or not, surely Clemont would have fought hard against the option of pulling the trigger on his own sister? He can’t be that weak! Does he even know what he’s doing? She felt tears threaten to spill once again as she cast her distraught eyes on Clemont. “B-Big brother?”

As usual, not a response. Not a falter, nor a sound. But that was nothing compared to what happened next. Xerosic gave Clemont a nod, turning back to Bonnie. “She’ll be of no use to Team Neo Flare. Unit One, I want you to end her. Make it as painful as possible if you don’t mind.” And to his leader’s command, Clemont turned to face Bonnie, the yellow glass of his visors glinting with the mood to kill.

“As you wish, Xerosic sir.”

Clemont’s tone sounded mechanical; Lifeless as it had been the first time Bonnie heard it and it came crashing down to her. That was not her brother. Standing right before her is a mindless slave who is about to become the cause of her death.

Barely holding back a cry of terror, Bonnie began to stumble back in panic. She didn’t see Xerosic’s Malamar sweep behind her. A startled yelp escaped Bonnie’s mouth and she found herself being trapped by Malamar. The restrained girl tried to struggle against them but to no avail. Clemont already had the weapon pointed towards her and out came an ear-splitting sound. Bonnie’s life flashed before her eyes; Memories of her father, Ash and Serena.. And her brother; Back when he looked much more alive and made sure Bonnie is loved and cared for with his life. She will never see that again. The light cut off as Bonnie cried in pure agony - The last thing she said being a cry for her brother, and she saw him and Xerosic breaking into snide grins as they watched her die in her own blood…

“Ah!”

Bonnie shot up with a frenzied expression looking around wildly in her panic. Her pupils have shrunken from the anxiety and she found herself in her own bedroom. Was it only a bad dream? The girl had never been so freaked out by a nightmare - To her it felt so real, she even reached to her torso where she saw Clemont shoot her. There was none of course, but poor Bonnie was terrorized. Her panicked gaze set on the door and she sprinted out; Accidentally disturbing Dedenne and the mouse pokemon landed on the floor with a plop. 

“De ne? De ne ne!” The orange mouse squeaked and scampered after the upset Bonnie. She is going straight for her brother’s room. To her horror, the door was open and Clemont was not in bed. The covers looked like they have been thrown off in a haste, causing the fear to spike within Bonnie some more. “Oh no…” The girl began to hyperventilate as she scanned her surroundings. She bolted downstairs with that one horrifying thought in her mind; Xerosic has taken her brother.

“Clemont! Big brother where are you?! Clemmy!” 

Her terribly distraught cries for her older sibling rang throughout the house. There was no sign of Clemont in the house at all and it made Bonnie even more terrified. Unknown to her, her anguished cries aren’t unheard and they have reached the ears of a certain someone who was just outside the house - The one she was desperately looking for.

Clemont recognised the voice at once and it caused him to gasp, azure eyes filling with alarm; There was only one person in the house with that voice. “Bonnie?!” His head turned to the direction of the cries and they definitely belong to his sister. His anxiety and protective instinct raising, the teen wasted no time in going back to the house - Grabbing a broom along the way in case he needed to whack a burglar on the head. A dozen thoughts flooded his panicked mind at once. Had someone broken in? Was it a wild Pokemon? Was Bonnie hurt?

The back door was slammed open and Clemont ran in panting heavily. “Bonnie?! Bonnie where are you I’m right here! Bonnie!” His panic-filled eyes scanned the house for any sight of his distressed sister and any possible thief. He stiffened upon hearing hurried footsteps from upstairs and was quick to raise the broom in preparing to make a hit, thinking it was a stranger attempting to make a getaway. He braced himself as the footsteps grew faster and louder; He stopped himself from swinging the broom down the moment Bonnie came running in crying.

“Big brother! Big brother you’re okay! You’re okay!”

Clemont nearly fell back when Bonnie went colliding into him in a tight squeeze. “Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be-!” His words were cut short by the cries - Bonnie was wailing loudly in his waist and wrapping it in a vice-grip embrace. The older brother gasped when he felt just how scared his sister is. He could feel her heart literally pounding in her chest and he could immediately tell from her intense crying - This is not an ordinary display of fear; Bonnie was deathly terrified and never did Clemont see her cry like this.

The elder couldn’t help but wonder what made Bonnie  like this. Asking her was out of the question for the girl was too upset and Clemont focused on calming her down first; He knelt to her level to take her in his arms, softly hushing the child all the while whispering soothing words to her. “It’s okay Bonnie, I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere,” Clemont gently rubbed her back as the young girl continued to cry. Her sobs slowly began to grow lesser, but that did not slow down her rapid pulse, or her unsteady breathing and sobbing. It wasn’t long before Clemont felt Bonnie’s legs give way beneath her and the girl nearly slid off him if it weren’t for his hold on her. Bonnie had passed out…

About half an hour since she lost consciousness, Bonnie began to stir and she opened her eyes halfway. They were still slightly red and puffy from her crying fit and her cheeks had dried tear stains running down. “Hmm..” She groaned a bit and sat up. She was greeted by the familiar scent of lemon, paper and metal, a comforting combination of smell she often found around Clemont. The girl took in her surroundings and she realised she is in Clemont’s room. Beside her, Dedenne had just sensed his caretaker’s awake and he nuzzled Bonnie’s arm.

Bonnie took a deep breath and she stroked the Pokemon behind the ears. “I’m okay Dedenne.. I was just worried for Clemmy that’s all.” She murmured to which Dedenne looked in sad wonder. He continued to nuzzle Bonnie’s palm as a soothing motion for his caretaker. It lasted until Clemont returned to the room and Bonnie felt her earlier anxiety grip her again. She tried not to break down again. “Big brother,” She squeaked out and she was immediately swathed in the arms of her brother. She caught a glimpse of how worried Clemont was for her and looking back, she realised that she had been a crying wreck before passing out. “I’m sorry for being a big crybaby. I didn’t mean to.”

She was hushed by Clemont at that sentence and the elder looked at her with softness. “You shouldn’t apologise for being scared Bonnie. It’s especially okay for everybody to cry sometimes when they are,” He swallowed briefly and continued to caress his sister on the head, just as she loved it whenever she was sad. Now came the stressing part; Getting Bonnie to talk to him. “Why were you worrying about me? I never went far away - I was only near our backyard because I couldn’t sleep.”

Bonnie averted her gaze. A small part of her is afraid to tell Clemont in fear of hurting his feelings. But when she met Clemont’s eyes, she was emotionally stung in seeing how sad and worried her brother is - She can see it in his eyes. It was a sight her heart can never say no to. She sighed looking down, knowing she’ll have to tell him. “I was worrying about you because of this really bad dream I had. I was in this lab. It was dark, and scary… It’s the exact same one we were in last time. And then I saw him...”

Clemont looked tense. “Who did you see?”

Bonnie screwed her eyes shut to fight back tears. “It was that big meanie with the red clothes. The one who took Squishy’s friends, and you.” Her description caused Clemont to look disturbed. Bonnie began to cling to him. “I asked him what he’s doing back there and he said he was going to start his Team again to finish what he started..” She snivelled a bit and Clemont snapped out of his stunned silence. His heart now dreaded to hear the rest of Bonnie’s story. But his need to comfort her outweighed that. “... Did Xerosic do anything else?” He regretted asking that in an instant when Bonnie began to cry into his chest. Clemont internally cursed himself. He rubbed Bonnie’s back. “You don’t have to tell me.. You can stop right there.”

But Bonnie did not. She shook her head in between sobs. “N-No.. I can do it! I can’t hide this from you…” She whimpered and felt around for Clemont’s hand due to her eyes being shut and her face is buried in her brother - The elder sibling took it in his, giving it assuring squeezes. “I got you, don’t worry.” Bonnie looked at him and she sniffled. ‘Don’t let go.’ Her teary eyes seemed to say.

She rubbed her eyes, and she began to continue. “So that big man wanted to start Team Neo Flare again and continue his plans to catch Squishy’s friends. And then I got scared. I started to look for you but you weren’t there! And that was when he told me.. He said he caught you! A-And he wasn’t going to let you stop him so he did something really scary…” She began to hiccup in sobs. Her hold on Clemont’s hand grew tighter. “I-I didn’t know what it w-was at first… B-But then he started to c-call for someone… And y-you appeared!” She grew hysterical at this point. “Y-You looked exactly like that bad man’s workers and when I t-tried to call you *sob* you d-didn’t listen and he said *sob* he said you were gone! You couldn’t hear me anymore And… and… He told you to kill me and when you did.. *sob* That’s when I woke up..”

The room became deathly silent save for Bonnie’s muffled crying. Clemont had never felt so anguished in his life. He killed his own sister in her dream! Hearing this kind of nightmare coming from Bonnie stabbed his heart deeper than the sharpest object and it was something that disturbed him far more than his own nightmare. It may have only been a dream but the fact that it was so realistic enough to scare Bonnie like that and is not to mention, based on an actual event, it sickened the teen to the core. The thought alone of him being partial nightmare fuel for Bonnie is enough to send Clemont into tears - But he can’t, not in front of his sister. She needs him.

With a shuddered breath and rapid blinks to fight tears, Clemont scooped Bonnie onto his lap to hug her close to his heart. “Oh Bonnie that’s terrible I.. I’m so sorry you had to dream of something like that,” He sounded guilty at that, but then he swallowed it down. He gently ran his fingers through Bonnie’s hair and looked into her eyes. “But as scary it is, nightmares are never real and this one is definitely no different, I swear to Arceus. You’re my little sister and I promised that I’d always love and protect you no matter what; Not even Xerosic can ever make me break that promise.”

Bonnie looked up at him with tears. “R-Really?”

Clemont nodded. “Really.” He sighed wearily with a hand running across his head. “Honestly? After that last encounter it’s gonna take a lot more out of Xerosic to turn me into his slave.” He felt the twinge of guilt creep up his heart and he held Bonnie closer. He felt the girl whimper and cling to him. “It’s really scary, Big Brother, and I don’t know what to do…” She looked up with puppy eyes. “Can you invent something that will get rid of nightmares forever? If you do I promise I’ll eat all of my veggies for a whole year and I’ll even do all of your chores! I just want that big meanie to stop bothering me at night.”

The older brother just gazed at her, before melting into a knowing expression. Though he couldn’t help but chortle at the girl’s offers - And feel heartbroken for her at the same time. “Actually Bonnie, I can’t. Because getting rid of nightmares without inventions is already possible,” He paused before smiling suggestively. “And I happen to know the best method known to mankind.” In response, Bonnie tilted her head curiously. “You do? What is it?”

Clemont smiled gently at her. “This,” He reached to hoist Bonnie up so he could lie on the other side of the bed beside her. He allowed the girl to rest her head over one of his arms and laid the other around her - Drawing the girl close in a way that Bonnie is nestled close to his chest and Clemont’s chin is atop her head. Bonnie’s forehead was pressed lightly against her brother where she could feel the soft, rhythmic beating of his heart. It slowly but gradually began to sooth the child the longer she listened - The loving touch of her brother making her feel more comfortable and she felt safe.

Bonnie curled up against her brother with a small smile. “I.. I actually feel much better now.” Her eyes have widened slightly with curious realisation. True to her words, she felt much more calm and her frightened state from earlier had simmered down to nothing. She hardly felt scared anymore; Clemont felt relieved at this. “It may not be able to make nightmares disappear in an instant, but believe me, hugs can help people a lot, especially when they’re scared.” He paused in recalling an old memory with a wistful sigh. “It was mom and uncle Colress who believed in that when they were kids and mom told this to me when I had my first nightmare.”

“She did?” Bonnie’s face lit up with surprise. “Wow I didn’t know that!” She smiled as she was given a pet to the head by the teen. “But now you do,” Clemont chuckled and he let Bonnie cuddle against him some more. The elder exhaled softly and stroked his sister’s hair. Part of him isn’t ready to let Bonnie on her own the rest of the night. “I think it’s best you stay with me tonight. Is that okay with you?”

The little girl lifted her head up, her expression innocent. “I was gonna ask you that, but thanks Clemmy!” Clemont could only chortle in amusement. “No problem. Anything for my little sister,” He gave Bonnie’s forehead a soft kiss and the two siblings slept in each other’s embrace; Bonnie did not get disrupted a single time after that. Her slumber is finally made at peace and it’s all thanks to the one she called her Big Brother.

#pokemon x and y #team neo flare!Clemont #clemont #bonnie #xerosic

[whatitmusttake]

In the Hours of Meditation

Brahman, Self, Purusha, Chaitanya, Consciousness, God, Atman, Immortality, Freedom, Perfection, Peace, Bliss, Bhuma or the Unconditioned, are synonymous terms. If you attain Self-realisation alone, you will be freed from the round of births and deaths and its concomitant evils. The goal of life is the attainment of final beatitude or Moksha. Moksha can be attained by constant meditation in the heart that is rendered pure and steady by selfless service, Japa, etc.

Reality or Brahman can be realised by man. Many have attained Self-realisation. Many have enjoyed the Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Sankara, Dattatreya, Mansoor, Shams Tabriez, Jesus, Buddha were all realised souls who had direct perception of the Truth or cosmic vision or Aparokshanubhuti. But one who has known cannot communicate it to others for want of means. Even the knowledge acquired by the five senses, which are common to all, cannot be communicated to others. You cannot tell the taste of sugarcandy to a man who has never tasted it; you cannot communicate the idea of colour to one born blind. All that the teacher can do is to tell his disciple the method of knowing the Truth or the path that leads to the unfoldment of intuitional faculty.

These are the signs that indicate that you are growing in meditation and approaching God. You will have no attraction for the world. The sensual objects will no longer tempt you. You will become desireless, fearless, ‘I'-less and ‘mine'-less. Deha-adhyasa or attachment to the body will gradually dwindle. You will not entertain the ideas, "She is my wife; he is my son; this is my house." You will feel that all are manifestations of the Lord. You will behold God in every object.

The body and mind will become light. You will always be cheerful and happy. The name of the Lord will always be on your lips. The mind will be ever fixed on the lotus feet of the Lord. The mind will be ever producing the image of the Lord. It will be ever seeing the picture of the Lord. You will actually feel that Sattva or purity, light, bliss, knowledge and Prema are ever flowing from the Lord to you and filling up your heart.

You will have no body-consciousness. Even if there be body-consciousness, it will be in the form of a mental retentum. A drunkard may not have full consciousness that he has a cloth round his body. He may feel that something is loosely hanging from his body. Even so, you have a feeling of the body. You will feel that something is sticking to you like a loose cloth or loose shoes.

You will have no attraction for the sex. You will have no sex-idea. Woman will appear to you as manifestation of the Lord. Money and gold will appear to you as pieces of stone. You will have intense love for all creatures. You will be absolutely free from lust, greed, anger, jealousy, pride, delusion, etc. You will have peace of mind even when people insult you, beat you and persecute you. The reason why you are not perturbed is that you get immense spiritual strength from the Indweller or the Lord. Pain and pleasure, success or failure, honour or dishonour, respect or disrespect, gain or loss are alike to you.

Even in dreams, you are in communion with the Lord. You will not behold any worldly pictures.

You will converse with the Lord in the beginning. You will see Him in physical form. When your consciousness becomes cosmic, conversation will stop. You will enjoy the language of the silence or the language of the heart. From Vaikhari (vocal speech), you will pass on to Madhyama, Pasyanti and Para (subtle forms of sounds) and eventually you will rest in soundless Omkara or soundless Brahman.

Dispassion and discrimination, serenity, self-restraint, one-pointedness of mind, Ahimsa, Satyam, purity, forbearance, fortitude, patience, forgiveness, absence of anger, spirit of service, sacrifice, love for all, will be your habitual qualities. You will be a cosmic friend and benefactor.

During meditation you will have no idea of time. You will not hear any sound. You will have no idea of the environments. You will forget your name and all sorts of relationship with others. You will enjoy perfect peace and bliss. Gradually you will rest in Samadhi.

Samadhi is an indescribable state. It is beyond the reach of mind and speech. In Samadhi or the superconscious state the meditator loses his individuality and becomes identical with the Supreme Self. He becomes an embodiment of bliss, peace and knowledge. So much only can be said. You have to experience this yourself through constant meditation.

Contentment, unruffled state of the mind, cheerfulness, patience, decrease in the excretions, sweet voice, eagerness and steadiness in the practice of meditation, disgust for worldly prosperity or success and company, desire to remain alone in a quiet room or in seclusion, desire for association with Sadhus and Sannyasins, Ekagrata or one-pointedness of mind are some of the signs which indicate that you are growing in purity, that you are prospering in the spiritual path.

You will hear various kinds of Anahata sounds, of a bell, a kettle drum, thunder, conch, Veena or flute, the humming sound of a bee, etc., during meditation. The mind can be fixed in any of these sounds. This also will lead to Samadhi. You will behold various kinds of colours and lights during meditation. This is not the goal. You will have to merge the mind in that which is the source of these lights and colours.

A student in the path of Vedanta ignores these sounds and lights. He meditates on the significance of the Mahavakyas of the Upanishads by negating all forms. "The sun does not shine there, nor do the moon and the stars, nor does this lightning shine and much less this fire. When He shines, everything shines after Him; by His light all these shine." He meditates, also like this: "The air does not blow there. The fire does not burn there. There is neither sound nor touch, neither smell nor colour, neither mind nor Prana in the homogeneous essence. Asabda, Asparsa, Arupa, Agandha, Aprana, Amana, Atindriya, Adrishya, Chidanandarupa Sivoham, Sivoham. I am blissful Siva, I am blissful Siva."

Be a spiritual hero in the Adhyatmic battlefield. Be a brave, undaunted, spiritual soldier. The inner war with the mind, senses, Vasanas and Samskaras is more terrible than the external war. Fight against the mind, senses, evil Vasanas, Trishnas, Vrittis and Samskaras boldly. Use the machine-gun of Brahma-Vichara to explode the mind efficiently. Dive deep and destroy the undercurrents of passion, greed, hatred, pride and jealousy, through the submarine or torpedo of Japa of OM or Soham. Soar high in the higher regions of bliss of the Self with the help of the aeroplane of Brahmakara Vritti. Use the ‘mines' of chanting of OM to explode the Vasanas that are hidden in the sea of subconscious mind. Sometimes move the ‘tanks' of discrimination to crush your ten enemies, the ten turbulent senses. Start the Divine League and make friendship with your powerful allies viz., dispassion, fortitude, endurance, serenity, self-restraint, to attack your enemy-mind. Throw the bomb of "Sivoham Bhavana" to destroy the big mansion of body and the idea "I am the body," "I am the doer" and "I am the enjoyer." Spread profusely the gas of "Sattva" to destroy your internal enemies viz., Rajas and Tamas quickly. "Black-out" the mind by destroying the Vrittis or Sankalpas by putting out all the lights or bulbs of sensual objects so that the enemy ‘mind' will not be able to attack you. Fight closely against your enemy ‘mind' with the bayonet of one-pointedness (Samadhana) to get hold of the priceless treasure or Atmic pearl. The joy of Samadhi, the bliss of Moksha, the peace of Nirvana are now yours, whoever you may be, in whatever clime you are born. Whatever might be your past life or history, work out your salvation. O beloved Rama, with the help of these means come out victorious right now, this very second.

Swami Sivananda

#swami sivananda #yoga #vedanta #meditation

[ecotone99]

[SF] Sassy for Satan.

The final trails of dusk streak through Mariya’s blinds at just before eight thirty pm. There is a slight pink hue against the pale blue of the sky and only a few clouds, the wind blows and makes the blinds bump against the window sill. Mariya reaches out from underneath her cocoon of blankets and presses the on button on the coffee maker on her bedside table. It hisses as it comes to life and soon the smell of mid range French roast is making the idea of getting out of bed more palpable. In fifteen and a half minutes she has showered(though couldn't be bothered to wash her hair, it still looked fine) is on her second cup of coffee and has a record playing on the turntable on the other side of her cluttered room. Yukiko Okada is singing against a fast and upbeat tempo and for a brief moment Mariya thinks today will be a good day. In forty five seconds she is flat on her back and wondering "Why bother." Mariya did not think everlasting life as a vampire would be so tedious. Life's more boring chores tend to seem unending when you are immortal. It seemed so much more glamorous when her perception of it was endless parties of unbridled debauchery, blood orgies, tormenting handsome vampire hunters, or having to keep on the move so as not to alert the humans. "When was the last time I even had to fight or be on the run?" She could not remember. To make matters worse as if existential dread is not bad enough, it was Saturday and she would have to lead the Black Mass for the local coven of mortals who had pledged their everlasting souls in service to her and more importantly Lucifer. "This used to be fun, it was basically a party with violence and all manner of depravity." For a moment her mind travels back through time and she thinks about the haze of blood soaked and alcohol fueled insanity that being a High Priestess in the service of Satan used to bring. Her mind quickly fast forwards to the present day, to the service last week. Fucking goth dweebs that wear vegan leather and spend most of their time bitching and moaning about what is and isn't goth. Mariya rises only because the record needs to be flipped and decides that she might as well get dressed. With one startling revelation her night goes downhill from there. "Fuck." Mariya stands at her dresser and curses the names of God, Satan, Buddha, Mohammed and any other prophet or deity that she can remember the name of. She is out of underwear and will have to do laundry. The sun is still leaving slight streaks she notices with a very slight smile. "I could just go out running into it." She pictures it and in a darkly comical way how absurd it would be to any who saw it. A pale stark naked woman running out of a cheap studio apartment and promptly exploding in both flashes of light and chunks of gore splattering all within fifty feet. Instead Mariya decides to go commando and puts on the cleanest pair of jeans she has and a white shirt with very little coffee stains. Three weeks worth of clothes are thrown into her duffle bag and she is off to the Laundromat down the street. (after taking the record off the turntable and chugging one more cup of coffee) Thankfully true to form someone at the Laundromat has trustingly left their detergent in an empty clothes basket as theirs are being washed. It had been about thirty five years since Mariya last bought detergent, she didn't see the point when it was always laying around. Soon enough the clothes are in and the washer is doing its thing. Mariya scans the place and notices with something that feels a bit like excitement and old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade machine. Twenty five scents is put into the machine and three minutes later Raphael has bitten the dust at the hands of the Foot Clan. Mariya takes a seat next to a young woman reading a comic. For a moment Mariya thinks about making polite conversation or at least the coursory question of what is the comic about. The young woman is wearing earbuds so in the end she doesn’t bother. The crushing boredom of being in a Laundromat quickly sets in and Mariya has slumped down in her seat and she resumes scanning the room desperately searching for anything interesting. Like a beacon from heaven or a siren's song on a tumultuous sea Mariya spots the community corkboard and more importantly the vibrant flier on it. Dead center with a thumb tack in each corner. It is a flier advertising a nine dollar trial month at the local twenty four hour gym and they have just put in a bouldering wall. Visions of climbing sheer rock walls in the desert on cloudless nights flood Mariya's mind. What an intense thrill it would be, and obviously she had the time, limitless time, to train and enjoy it. The flier captivated her, drew her into it and she could see herself at the gym (after dark of course) making friends with people who had no idea who The Cure were or what electro or acid Goth were. Normal people who probably liked sushi and decent mid range cars and patagonia, this was her ticket out of the rut she was in. Mariya spent the next hour and a half sitting in the waiting area thinking about the possibilities that lay before her now that she held the flier in her hands. The walk back to her apartment was much more pleasant and each step was taken with a new found joy that gave her long strides. It had begun to rain only slightly, only enough to warp light into something fantastic and otherworldly. There were not many people on the road and no one else was on the sidewalk at this hour. Mariya could not wait until tomorrow night when she would walk into the gym, pay her nine dollars and learn to climb. For a moment she stops dead in her tracks and thinks that it is a bit odd that with all her years on this planet she had not as of yet learned how to rock climb or boulder. Of course she has not learned to make pasta from scratch as of yet either but what the hell maybe next century. The cinema was advertising this months midnight movies in bright neon bordered windows and Mariya stops and looks at the line-up. Two Fridays from now she decides she will go and see Critters. By the time she arrives back home it is in a frenzy to get ready for the Mass and she should have been out the door heading to the Black Church(it's not actually black, it was just christened that in the eighties.)five minutes ago. Wearing a slightly less bloodstained robe and clutching the ceremonial dagger of Ka'Ndarr in her left hand Mariya runs the entire mile and a half from her apartment to the Black Chruch.(once again, not actually black.) The rain has stopped and only the ound of Mariya's panting as she runs and the sounds of her boots through the mud announce her arrival. Thankfully she is somehow the first one at the Black Church. Though unfortunately in her haste she has forgotten a key element of the Black Mass. The live chicken for the sacrifice which usually is bought from the small market off of fifth was forgotten in her mad dash to make it on time, she also has no idea what she will talk about at tonight's mass, though honestly she could just recycle last weeks and punch it up a bit. The mouth breathers that attend would never know. As the few preparations are made before her flock arrives Mariya wipes last weeks dried blood off the altar, lights all the candles and makes sure the inverted cross is clean and looks presentable. The Black Church itself is an old turn of the century rural church about a mile on the outskirts of town and over the last forty years or so it has started falling in on itself, though that does kind of help to give off the whole "Black Mass/Church of Satan" vibe. Slowly they trickle in, the pale, pimply and in desperate need of any sort of guidance in their lives teens who make up the congregation. Hello's are given and they find their seats on the few structurally sound pews still available in the rotting church. The wind rips through the mostly absent ceiling and Mariya stands at the foot of the inverted cross playing up the theatrical element of organized religion. The sermon is soon delivered, it's a rather stirring piece about the importance of always putting yourself before others and remembering that authority is the true root of all evil. (Which is obviously bullshit, but the teenagers are dumb and impressionable and live on a steady diet of black metal, besides Lucifer is not exactly picky about how he gets his souls, just that he gets them.) The Hymns are sung and the communion wine (Bottom shelf red zin) is passed around in the ceremonial goblet(Halloween city, twelve ninety-nine.) and the evening is coming to it's merciful end and Mariya is chomping at the bit to ditch the nerds. "What about the sacrifice?" It's the chubby one in the back who always wears the iron maiden shirt, Mariya has always found him annoying, a real teachers pet kind of kid. "Unfortunately I was not able to procure the blood that our beloved Lucifer craves, and I alone will pay the penance. I hope you my beloved flock will never have to see our Dark Lord's profound and earth shattering anger." Mariya makes a slight bow as she takes back the goblet from the crowd and hopes they bought her theatrical bullshit. The crowd sits in hushed silence as Mariya starts packing things up. "I offer myself as tribute to the one true Lord of man!" Mariya turns around. It's the chubby one in the Iron Maiden t-shirt. She gives him a long hard stare and in doing so notices several different food stains of different ages and severities on his shirt. One of the dorks somewhere in the middle shouts "Hail Satan." "Hail Satan" Mariya responds with extremely forced enthusiasm. Mariya unpacks the dagger she had just put away. Before she can think of a way to shut down this idea the dork in the Iron Maiden shirt is laying on the sacrificial altar and giving her the thumbs up. The congregation all start speaking in "tongues" and Mariya thinks "Fuck it." The knife goes in, the goth kids go wild, and Mariya yanks out the warm just finished beating heart of the kid who up until just recently was wearing the Iron Maiden shirt. The heart is lit on fire on a small metal tray and the goths pray to Lucifer as black smoke billows and hangs low over the heads of all in attendance. Mariya rushes them out and makes a point to practically push them out the door. "Tonight was great, I can't wait until next week!" Says one of the flock as Mariya shoves her out the door of the Black Church. Finally they are all gone and she too can go home. The air is silent and the scent of blood gives the waning night a slight coppery smell. Mariya reaches into her pocket and pulls out the flier for the gym and looks at the climbing wall and smiles. Mariya throws the body of the deceased over her shoulder and figures he shall make a nice if not easy meal and walks out the door. Soon it will be dawn and she will sleep. Tomorrow night she will go to the gym and start her new hobby. Rock climbing, just thinking the words makes Mariya smile more than she has in years.

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#Blogger #Story

[claraduffy]

on abundance

On these 6 months: the words have been lost to me for some time now. I sure want to find them, or to look for them in an uninhibited sort of way. I’ve done myself some harm, I think, by hesitating to look for them; by sitting blithely in the sunshine without praising it when night-time comes. It sure is a spacious place out here - more spacious than I ever knew or could have known. There are marvels and then there is orange construction fencing around a broken up street; there is pure honey goodness and later there is cheap ice cream and stomach cramps and hurt feelings. This life is paradoxical! 

Some of the very lovely and holy things I want to explain are the true welcome of my team and people I’ve met in Mexico. I want to explain the devastating beauty of Aquiles Serdán - its people so weathered and strong, so hurt and yet reaching out for more. I want to laud the hungry and restless children, their fingers curled around the iron gates, waiting for 5 o’ clock, screaming “ya son las cinco!” I want to stop and remind you that I and my words (my words!) are completely inadequate to really take you there, down Calle Alamo, over the topes and past Lupita’s carnicería, past Antony and Eva sitting under the magnolia tree, to the red gate of the mission where Miguel is sitting on his five gallon bucket. I can’t take you there, but I will try and explain what it has meant to me. 

If there’s one true thing I know it’s that God gives us each other. He gives us to each other and it doesn’t always make sense to me why and how and who and when, but in these six months he’s given me people and given me to people, and through these beloveds God, sometimes gently and other times quickly, is pulling me out of my-comfortable-self, into a place where I am helpless and vulnerable and afraid, doomed except for His hand pulling me along. There are almost no earthly reasons anymore, just this hearty, blind sort of trust in His purpose. 

Let me be more clear: what I mean is that he didn’t have to let me in on the glory of his work in Mexico. I am not Mexican. I am here with a 6 month visa and a short term commitment to serve in a mission. I have no right to be here. But I am helpless when I turn to look at his face of Love and Mercy. He let me come, anyway. 

One thing that I keep coming back to is the hands: holding hands, shaking hands, hi-fives and secret handshakes; the hands of my grandfather, so wrinkled and scarred; the hands of my grandmother, softened by years and always laden with jewelry, memorable in the way they touch - pure tenderness. Hands mean something, and have meant something here because almost every day I have looked down and found my own hands dirty - paint, clay, mud, dust, mulberry juice, soil, mango, markers, glue, chile or masa. And it is delightful to work in this way, with my hands, and to have people working alongside of me, getting their hands dirty, too. 

The other thing is realizing what this picture - me with dirty hands each day - can teach me about my heart and the way I walk toward the throne. I am forever looking in the mirror. I am forever pushing to the front of the line. I am approaching others thinking about what they can give me or do for me. I am climbing up to the top of the jungle gym, perching there and thinking ugly things about my friends playing tag on the ground. I am thoughtless and lazy and sometimes bulldozing through the day like it’s mine to tear down and use for my own purposes. I’m filthy! Todd (Leon) Bridges sings in his song, River, “There’s blood on my hands, and my lips are unclean.” One grace is realizing this: as I get my hands dirty working and playing every day, my hands are also dirty in the way I sometimes walk selfishly and destructively, not caring for others or listening to God’s voice. My hands are dirty when I believe I can do it alone and forget how much I need Him, and I run toward those desires of my heart that are deeply selfish and, really, evil. My hands are dirty in this way, too. 

In Ezekiel, God is addressing Jerusalem, employing the image of a bride whom he loves and who is cheating on him. 24-26: “For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

Every day I get my hands dirty, literally, and at night I get to wash them and take a cold shower and rest, knowing that in the morning his mercy will be new. I get to apologize and ask my friends for forgiveness, and their mercy toward me flows from Him, too. I get to stand, sort of stripped and helpless, in this devastating and beautiful city and accept a little more every day this heart of flesh that is going to be inconvenient and inefficient for the rest of my life. He doesn’t get tired of sprinkling clean water on me. He knows I will get my hands dirty again. 

Isaiah 55 is the name of the mission, and that chapter of the Bible paints a picture of abundance that is ringing in my ears. 1-3: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.” 

I am standing here and I have nothing of true value to offer Him - I am thirsty, I am always needing something. He sees me and sees that I cannot pay for it, but he asks me to come! Because I can see myself this way, I can see others who cannot pay for it either, and I can point to my loving father and say, I know you cannot pay for it but please, come! 

Later in the chapter it says something of the nature of Christian mission, of inviting others (and others you know not!) into this unbelievable grace. 5: “Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations you do not know will come running to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy one of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor.” He gives me the tools and the courage to talk to people in my second language, to ask them about their pain and their joy and sometimes share where my hope comes from. Some days the girls from the community center literally run toward us when they see us from a distance opening the black iron gate. Out of breath, Daniela hugs me with her long, bony arms, pulls a caramelo out of her pocket for me, and asks me to braid her hair. 

The end of the 55th chapter of Isaiah goes like this. 12: “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn-bush will grow the juniper, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the Lord’s renown, for an everlasting sign, that will endure forever.” 

I have gone out in great, dizzying joy and known unexplainable peace in these six months. There have been moments of bursting into song, and creation around me has declared his glory. I want to laud and praise Him for all of it: 

living on Calle Nogal with Kimi, a wise and kind mother-sister-friend, sitting at our little table eating grapes with the sunlight pouring in the window; the kittens born behind our washing machine and the giant bougainvillea plant coming out of the ground a little more each day; the dear friends who flew and drove and dug out their passports to visit me here; to Kate who gave me books to read that I am still rambling about to anyone who will listen; to Keila Alemán with whom I sat in the park with a box of pizza and who listened so well and who walks so kindly and with eyes so wide open (to Keila who has taught me so much by being a friend and caring for others as I watch in awe!); to Mario whose humility and joy and attention to others are rare and precious; to Keila Xoca who is brave and steady and weepy and true; to Jacki and Ashley and Grecia and Jenny and all the girls who answer my endless questions and learned the table beat thing and poured chamoy over their apples; to to initial thrill of driving alone in Reynosa and to the rose man and the men who clean my windshield as I laugh and ask them not to; to Azalia sewing red thread through my ripped jeans and Adalia walking me through the centro; to the giant nemo piñata and cake in my nose and ears after the mordida; to the warm rain falling after sweltering days painting; to baseball and soccer with boys who called me Cristiana Reynaldo; to crying on the back porch of the mission and to staff meetings passing biscuits around; to picking mulberries with Beto then climbing on top of the backhoe to reach more berries; to the crazy Dr. Simi costumed men dancing in the street as the sky explodes in shades of pink and orange and I drive home (this is my home?!) singing in Spanish, ready to kiss the dry, rocky ground littered with broken bottles because all of this is holy and undeserved and pure, 100-proof grace. 

I could go on and on (and I have) but I will stop now. I just want to say that I’m thankful and that I believe this Grace is waiting on you, too. That the God of Mercy wants to sprinkle clean water on your dirty hands and give you good gifts. That there is more room, more grace, that there is abundance, and freedom in this knowledge: Romans 8:15 “The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father!”

[evybeibei-blog]

Storyboard Feedback

Rough Storyboard Feedback:

Feedback Summary of Evy's Rough Storyboard

by Jejomaila Garcia - Saturday, 1 October 2016, 2:23 AM

(Hi Evy, I apologize as I wasn't able to clearly capt a few parts of some the points brought up during class, but am hoping a majority of the notes will have enough clarity to them.)

Tia:

- Sugg. 1: Perhaps show a split screen to illustrate how the doctors' acts are directly linked to the action that is taking place in the world of the illness. (ex: when the doctors use the defibrillator in the real world; in parallel, it causes the earthquake in the illness world. Connecting visuals and sounds)

- Sugg. 2: When the doctors puts a mask on the boy, maybe utilize a dissolve rather than a cut?

Narges:

- Had mentioned something about the reaction of Japanese animation characters that go “Aaaaah!!!!”, but where they don't move much while reacting in this way.

Luigi: “For the evil version of the boy, maybe the boy has to do something different to defeat the monster.”

* * * * *

Jejo // Thoughts and comments:

Visuals that create Connections? When I was contemplating the back-and-forths between the two worlds in your storyboard, I felt a heavy disconnect in their relation to each other. As both worlds are closely intertwined, like Tia, I thought it could definitely help to clarify their connection by providing us with more visual or aural clues and as we go forth from one world to the other and back again. : )

I do have a question though before I continue--

Maybe I missed hearing this point in your presentation, but I am wondering what your character's illness is?

The reason behind my question is because I don't seem to remember elements in the visuals of the Sickness World that helped to clue me in or establish clearly what Ming's sickness is. I'm thinking that if Ming's sickness is clarified, this could possibly help with how the big monster he is fighting against can look like (I am not very knowledgeable with different sicknesses and what they entail, but i.e.: could he be fighting against a sickness that deals with blood cells? With the brain? With the bones? With the nerves?, ... ), as well as with the final look and atmosphere of the Sickness World. Maybe the Sickness world could be a representation of the insides of his body? Or the darkness of his mind and heart as he faces his sickness?

Using Dialogue? I'm thinking that maybe one way his sickness and struggle could be clarified is... Maybe right before the doctor(s?) put the mask onto his face, through the use of the dialogue, two or more doctors could be talking to each other above his head or by the bedside, discussing Ming's situation with each other (and as they have masks on their face, lip-syncing won't be too much of a problem as their mouths will be covered-- not as time-consuming to animate!). It could be a way for you to easily introduce what Ming's character is going through; context will be provided to your audience before you make them dive with Ming into his Sickness World.

Nearby People as a Source of Determination? I'm kind of blanking as to whose story Luigi had commented this on, but since Ming is fighting against his sickness --a fight which could involve not only the physical, but also the emotional, the psychological and the spiritual-- maybe he is actually fighting this sickness, fighting for his life and health for the “nth” time (i.e.: for the third, fourth time) ? If this is a direction you might choose to take, I feel it could help you illustrate his emotional and psychological struggle, which could give more depth to his fight, which currently shows a lot more of the physical. When we see him for the first time in the Sickness world, and he is getting off the ground, perhaps he could look very tired and drained, having a hard time getting off the ground. Maybe he stays lying on the ground for a while, while his sickness engulfs him, and he lets it do so. Maybe he cries while this happens. Maybe one of the challenges you will make him go through in your story will be to summon from deep within himself the will to get better and/or live, and finding the strength to defeat the monster/his sickness/his negative mind(?) (once and for all? Or at least for this battle of his this time around), which has been winning against him consecutively up until now. The sword that he makes appear from his body, maybe it appears as a medicine is administered to him in the Real world; maybe when a beloved family member calls his name (in a distant/echo-ee form)? That way there can continue to be a connection made between the hospital room and the Sickness world.

>> Reading what I just wrote in this paragraph and whether what I stated is actually scientifically valid (“...a fight which could involve not only the physical, but also the emotional, the psychological and the spiritual”), I'm questioning right now as to what people who are fighting against their sicknesses go through when they are dormant or unconscious on a hospital bed. Maybe finding, hearing or reading real-people testimonies about individuals who have gone through the same situation as Ming and his specific sickness might help to inspire you on how you choose to portray his obstacles on the screen, as well as his facial and body language.

An idea on the use of sound/a script: Digging a bit deeper on the use of sounds, does Ming have family members by his bed side calling or crying out his name? Supporting him verbally, hoping and/or praying for him to get better? We might not necessarily need to see them in your visuals as they call out to him, but maybe their voices are what will be a sort of 'turning' point for him in the Sickness world, a reason for him to fight back, and not only fight back, but win the battle he is fighting. Family and loved ones can be very important people that play a big role in giving a sick person hope again and a will to live.

Total ambiguity? Careful orchestration behind Mysterious ending? Another question. Although you had mentioned wanting to remain ambiguous in regards to the ending, where the last shots end with the purple orb exploding, followed by an extreme closeup shot of Ming's eyes wide open (which, through its nature, blocks the audience from receiving any additional clues from Ming's surrounding environment that could help them form a solid conclusion on the outcome), I cannot help but wonder if Ming's character is one that comes out victorious or if he loses the fight. I personally find ambiguity quite enjoyable in a lot of cases, as it allows a lot of freedom in interpretation. However, I think if you are able to choose whether Ming's character will be triumphant, or will end up losing the fight, it could help you decide what will happen to him and what you show the audience. I don't think having an ending shrouded in mystery is a bad thing, but I do believe that if you manage to guide your audience's thoughts toward a certain direction, where we more clearly see Ming's determination either dwindling or strengthening as the story slowly progresses, you will be able to lead our interpretations down a certain path, therefore providing some clarity, while not entirely having to reveal everything in an upfront manner at the end. If he wins and lives to continue seeing the day, what do we see or hear from the Real world that allows us to know we're back there with Ming? Maybe the use of sound here can come into play again; after the purple orb explosion, did Ming maybe lose to his sickness? Maybe we hear a flatline heart-rate from the hospital machine after that the orb explodes; maybe we don't see Ming's eyes at the end, maybe it's a fade from the white, screen-engulfing explosion to a black screen, which could illustrate a passing from life to death. Maybe we hear a family member calling out to him in a joyous and hesitant manner, soliciting his response to confirm his return to consciousness or life. Do we hear the doctors again? (Q: But then... did we hear any of these characters talk to Ming when he was in the Sickness world?)>> Maybe certain groups of characters are only heard in one world or the other, but not both. That could help us associate the sound of their voices with the world Ming currently finds himself in on the screen.

With such a high climax as that of the exploding orb, I think it would be hard for the audience to not know what happens to Ming in the end, especially if we see him go through a struggle to emerge victorious, or to die trying.

I guess it will depend how you choose to go about it! : )

Refined Storyboard Feedback:

by Dylan Alberts - Sunday, 16 October 2016, 10:39 AM

• In Sc.34 Ming is face down and then in the next shot he is face up. Although they are two different scenes, the jump from face to down to face up may seem awkward to some people.

• The monster being a puppet is a cool idea but also adds a lot of animation. Perhaps a plain evil Ming would be better than a puppet and monster? It's not bad but it adds a lot of animation so it is dependent on your personal time constraints.

• I personally find the dream sequence really clear to understand and the story as well. The colours of Ming's dream sequence look nice, I particularly like the dark blue of the night time and the hospital shot where the doctors are putting Ming to sleep. The shots seem very powerful and unique in the sense of colour pallets and camera angles being used. Keep it up!