Hear the music, hear the pipers!

See how life is beautiful. When a life drifts away, a thousand more memories prevail. For a life that is lost, they'd live in thousand stories, and a thousand more hearts will tell them again !

Found Families and Why We Love Them

Dominic Toretto once said "I don’t have friends, I got family" with that in mind, that will be our intro for today! Although we find that iconic line cheesy as cheese, the audience loves a great found-family setup.

Something about how a bunch of misfits and inconsiderate douchebags developing to be a family of their own in spite of their quirkiness and tragic backgrounds makes us love them more than the typical and already functional groups. Like most families, there is the father, the mother, and the child. The rest is kind of subjective.

I've talked a little bit about actual families via [The Addams Family] but I think Found Families are a different breed. Let's discuss that and explain why we love them so much~

- Crows Never Forget -

While conversing with a friend I've met on Tumblr. My friend suggested that I should watch the show < Shadow and Bone > based on the Grisha Trilogy by [Leigh Bardugo] The story mainly follows Alina Starkov who lives in a world divided by the haunting dark cloud placed at the center of the three counties known as; The Fold.

Aside from the main plot you can already guess if you know enough fiction. The show features a merry band of dangerous outcasts. The Six of Crows from Ketterdam. Led by the cunning leader; Kaz "Dirty Hands" Brekker.

The team is supported by, Inej Ghafa The Assassin, Nina Zenik The Heartrender, Jesper Fahey The Sharpshooter, Matthias Helvar The Convict, and Wylan Van Eck The Runaway. Like every group that shares this type of beat. The teammates do not trust one another and are only united for the cause.

This will develop as the series goes on and their trust will change from strangers to allies to family beneath the backdrop of a sinfully cut-throat and exciting city. While the series only showed Five of the Six so far. I've grown very quickly to love this group for their chemistry and their respective motivations to stay as a team.

What's so interesting to watch is, despite how typical this trope is. I still couldn't keep my eyes off this concept. It's so much fun to see the Six interact even though for now, it's just Kaz, Inej, and Jesper (also, The Goat; Milo) planning a heist to kidnap our heroine. On the other end of the world, we learn about Matthias and Nina. The Convict and The Witch (Matthias's words, not mine)

Dysfunctional groups like these feel very human. They don't act like they care for the world or for one another but instead, grow in the process.

Similarly, another dysfunctional group called < The Guardians of The Galaxy > shares the same vibes as the Six. Their talent is great but it's their destructive tendencies or personal vendettas that make them less like heroes. Rather, they are people who just so happened to be doing heroics.

- Where is your Supervisor? -

Part of the trick in making fun found families is the will to condense the group down to about four or three characters. In most Shonen manga/ anime, the main character (eg, Naruto) is often supported by a lancer character (eg, Sasuke) and the heart (eg, Sakura) There is also the mentor/senior (eg, Kakashi) and it will always be these four. Other examples like Harry (Potter) and Co are good samples of the main trio with a mentor (Hagrid).

It's rare that we find trios with no mentor figure. Such is the case of another show I recently watched, < Lockwood and Co > based on the book series by [Jonathan Stroud] For a quick summary, Lockwood is set in London with one big exception. The city/ world at large is haunted by lethal ghosts (AKA The Problem) and only kids can sense them. Therefore, fight them.

The main cast consists of Anthony Lockwood, the cool and fearless badass gentleman who is strongest with Sight. George Karim, an all-rounder but a highly talented Researcher. Finally, our main character, Lucy Carlyle. An incredibly talented girl who's the most gifted with Hearing and Touch. Unlike the other agencies which are by the book and led by a Supervisor (an adult). Lockwood is purely independent but is unfortunately small and always in trouble with the law due to their incredibly dangerous methods.

Still, they are the best at what they do. Hunting ghosts while solving the bigger mystery behind The Problem. Despite their terrible coordination, the team has proven themselves to be better and far more personal with the cases they crack. Making it less like a job.

They are reminders that less is better. The cast plays the role of Hero, Lancer, and Heart very well and their chemistry is great and funny. Anthony and Lucy will sometimes bud heads, George will do his own thing making two of his partners incredibly proud and, you might see some tender/real moments between them.

Lockwood also removes the typical hero's journey of losing a mentor figure and instead makes the characters each other's mentors. The team relies on one other with their lives to survive every mission and navigate through life as a whole.

It felt more organic for them to grow together because there's a sense for when an adult shares a piece of advice (no matter how good it is) feels very smug and dull. The characters feel like actual teens because the setting for the agency sounds like something actual teens will do. Break the rules and do right for the fun or for some deep-rooted conspiracy that the world has yet to know.

- You Chose The Wrong Side! -

From the dysfunctional groups like the Six or the Guardians to the power of Three. There is one other interesting layer to the Found Family troupe. The Disbanded Found Family.

While most stories tell of how the team came to be, rare stories tell of how they split off and are no longer on speaking terms. For a while, The MCU's Avengers were at war with one another during < Captain America; Civil War > With Steve Rogers and Tony Stark budding heads harshly over the Sokovia Accords.

Seeing a well-rounded team break up is difficult for the characters and the audience because. For all the disagreements they had with one another, they've developed along the way to be close like a family. Seeing them split is like watching a divorce happening on screen and it's heartbreaking and sometimes a little bit awesome because you've got the best of the best competing to declare their superiority.

Perhaps one of the best examples I have seen is through < Kuroko No Baskue > where our main character; Tetsuya Kuroko entered High School and vowed to defeat/ beat some sense to his Former Junior High School Basketball Team with his newfound team; Seirin High

Kuroko's former team is famously known as The Generation of Miracles; an elite team of young talents that excel on the court, thus making them prodigies of their generation.

The Miracles consist of; Daiki Aomine (The Power Forward Beast), Shintarō Midorima (The Star Shooter), Atsushi Murasakibara (The Ultimate Center), Seijūrō Akashi (The Emperor's Eye) and Ryōta Kise (The Perfect Copycat) From the little we have seen, the team is passionate about the sport they play and they share a very brotherly relationship with one another.

As the series develops, we learn more about their personal relationships with Kuroko and with each other. We see the infighting between them and we learn about how their respective egos build. We learn about their vow during graduation and we get to see them reunited once again.

The series as a whole function in two ways. Kuroko develops new relationships with his new team and Kuroko confronts his old team to mend their relationship. It tackles the dysfunctional team setup at its lowest state and rekindles the flame for the respective parties to be healed. Also, it's really cool to see such a colorful cast together.

- I Didn't Pick The Damn Team! -

With that said, it's a wonder for why Found Families are a timeless troupe no matter the settings. But, like how Amanda Waller sets up Task Force X/ The Suicide Squad. Sometimes it's not by choice and it always starts out bumpy.

What I find fun in teams like the ones mentioned is that they share a common language in spite of their unique flavors. The teams are built on trust, a common goal, and the willingness to open up. For all the gimmicks, the core values stay the same.

We, the audience love a good Found Family because in an indirect way. We wanted a group like that. We longed to have a group that we can call family but, the reality of it all is. It's really up to how the characters interact with one another.

Every circle is different and no matter the status or the seasons. All are maintained by the will to reach out. It's something I hope to use for my own team in the process. To have [Them be there for you, Cause you're there for Them too]

Thanks for reading

- Caw4B -

EPISODE SEASON 1 DISC 1 S01E01 "THE NEW HOUSEKEEPER" S01E02 "THE MANHUNT" S01E03 "THE GUITAR PLAYER" S01E04 "ELLIE COMES TO TOWN" S01E05 "IRRESISTIBLE ANDY" S01E06 "RUNAWAY KID" S01E07 "ANDY THE MATCHMAKER" S01E08 "OPIE'S CHARITY" DISC 2 S01E09 "A FEUD IS A FEUD" S01E10 "ELLIE FOR COUNCIL" S01E11 "THE CHRISTMAS STORY" S01E12 "STRANGER IN TOWN" S01E13 "MAYBERRY GOES HOLLYWOOD" S01E14 "THE HORSE TRADER" S01E15 "THOSE GOSSIPIN' MEN" S01E16 "THE BEAUTY CONTEST" DISC 3 S01E17 "ALCOHOL AND OLD LACE" S01E18 "ANDY THE MARRIAGE COUNSELOR" S01E19 "MAYBERRY ON RECORD" S01E20 "ANDY SAVES BARNEY'S MORALE" S01E21 "ANDY AND THE GENTLEMAN CROOK" S01E22 "CYRANO ANDY" S01E23 "ANDY AND OPIE, HOUSEKEEPERS" S01E24 "THE NEW DOCTOR" DISC 4 S01E25 "A PLAQUE FOR MAYBERRY" S01E26 "THE INSPECTOR" S01E27 "ELLIE SAVES A FEMALE" S01E28 "ANDY FORECLOSES" S01E29 "QUIET SAM" S01E30 "BARNEY GETS HIS MAN" S01E31 "THE GUITAR PLAYER RETURNS" S01E32 "BRINGING UP OPIE" SEASON 2 DISC 1 S02E01 "OPIE AND THE BULLY" S02E02 "BARNEY'S REPLACEMENT" S02E03 "ANDY AND THE WOMAN SPEEDER" S02E04 "MAYBERRY GOES BANKRUPT" S02E05 "BARNEY ON THE REBOUND" S02E06 "OPIE'S HOBO FRIEND" S02E07 "CRIME-FREE MAYBERRY" DISC 2 S02E08 "THE PERFECT FEMALE" S02E09 "AUNT BEE'S BRIEF ENCOUNTER" S02E10 "THE CLUBMEN" S02E11 "THE PICKLE STORY" S02E12 "SHERIFF BARNEY" S02E13 "THE FARMER TAKES A WIFE" DISC 3 S02E14 "THE KEEPER OF THE FLAME" S02E15 "BAILEY'S BAD BOY" S02E16 "THE MANICURIST" S02E17 "THE JINX" S02E18 "JAILBREAK" S02E19 "A MEDAL FOR OPIE" DISC 4 S02E20 "BARNEY AND THE CHOIR" S02E21 "GUEST OF HONOR" S02E22 "THE MERCHANT OF MAYBERRY" S02E23 "AUNT BEE THE WARDEN" S02E24 "THE COUNTY NURSE" S02E25 "ANDY AND BARNEY IN THE BIG CITY" DISC 5 S02E26 "WEDDING BELLS FOR AUNT BEE" S02E27 "THREE'S A CROWD" S02E28 "THE BOOKIE BARBER" S02E29 "ANDY ON TRIAL" S02E30 "COUSIN VIRGIL" S02E31 "DEPUTY OTIS" SEASON 3 DISC 1 S03E01 "MR. MCBEEVEE" S03E02 ANDY'S RICH GIRLFRIEND S03E03 "ANDY AND THE NEW MAYOR" S03E04 "ANDY AND OPIE – BACHELORS" S03E05 "THE COW THIEF" S03E06 "BARNEY MENDS A BROKEN HEART" S03E07 "LAWMAN BARNEY" DISC 2 S03E08 "THE MAYBERRY BAND" S03E09 "FLOYD, THE GAY DECEIVER" S03E10 "OPIE'S RIVAL" S03E11 "CONVICTS AT LARGE" S03E12 "THE BED JACKET" S03E13 "THE BANK JOB" S03E14 "ONE-PUNCH OPIE" DISC 3 S03E15 "BARNEY AND THE GOVERNOR" S03E16 "MAN IN A HURRY" S03E17 "HIGH NOON IN MAYBERRY" S03E18 "THE LOADED GOAT" S03E19 "CLASS REUNION" S03E20 "RAFE HOLLISTER SINGS" DISC 4 S03E21 "OPIE AND THE SPOILED KID" S03E22 "THE GREAT FILLING STATION ROBBERY" S03E23 "ANDY DISCOVERS AMERICA" S03E24 "AUNT BEE'S MEDICINE MAN" S03E25 "THE DARLINGS ARE COMING" S03E26 "ANDY'S ENGLISH VALET" DISC 5 S03E27 "BARNEY'S FIRST CAR" S03E28 "THE RIVALS" S03E29 "A WIFE FOR ANDY" S03E30 "DOGS, DOGS, DOGS" S03E31 "MOUNTAIN WEDDING" S03E32 "THE BIG HOUSE" SEASON 4 DISC 1 S04E01 "OPIE THE BIRDMAN" S04E02 "THE HAUNTED HOUSE" S04E03 "ERNEST T. BASS JOINS THE ARMY" S04E04 "THE SERMON FOR TODAY" S04E05 "BRISCOE DECLARES FOR AUNT BEE" S04E06 "GOMER THE HOUSE GUEST" S04E07 "A BLACK DAY FOR MAYBERRY" DISC 2 S04E08 "OPIE'S ILL-GOTTEN GAIN" S04E09 "UP IN BARNEY'S ROOM" S04E10 "A DATE FOR GOMER" S04E11 "CITIZEN'S ARREST" S04E12 "OPIE AND HIS MERRY MEN" S04E13 "BARNEY AND THE CAVE RESCUE" S04E14 "ANDY AND OPIE'S PAL" DISC 3 S04E15 "AUNT BEE THE CRUSADER" S04E16 "BARNEY'S SIDECAR" S04E17 "MY FAIR ERNEST T. BASS" S04E18 "PRISONER OF LOVE" S04E19 "HOT ROD OTIS" S04E20 "THE SONG FESTERS" DISC 4 S04E21 "THE SHOPLIFTERS" S04E22 "ANDY'S VACATION" S04E23 "ANDY SAVES GOMER" S04E24 "BARGAIN DAY" S04E25 "DIVORCE, MOUNTAIN STYLE" S04E26 "A DEAL IS A DEAL" DISC 5 S04E27 "FUN GIRLS" S04E28 "THE RETURN OF MALCOLM MERRIWEATHER" S04E29 "THE RUMOR" S04E30 "BARNEY AND THELMA LOU, PHFFTT" S04E31 "BACK TO NATURE" S04E32 "GOMER PYLE, U.S.M.C." SEASON 5 DISC 1 S05E01 "OPIE LOVES HELEN" S05E02 "BARNEY'S PHYSICAL" S05E03 "FAMILY VISIT" S05E04 "THE EDUCATION OF ERNEST T. BASS" S05E05 "AUNT BEE'S ROMANCE" S05E06 "BARNEY'S BLOODHOUND" S05E07 "MAN IN THE MIDDLE" DISC 2 S05E08 "BARNEY'S UNIFORM" S05E09 "OPIE'S FORTUNE" S05E10 "GOODBYE, SHERIFF TAYLOR" S05E11 "THE PAGEANT" S05E12 "THE DARLING BABY" S05E13 "ANDY AND HELEN HAVE THEIR DAY" S05E14 "THREE WISHES FOR OPIE" DISC 3 S05E15 "OTIS SUES THE COUNTY" S05E16 "BARNEY FIFE, REALTOR" S05E17 "GOOBER TAKES A CAR APART" S05E18 "THE REHABILITATION OF OTIS" S05E19 "THE LUCKY LETTER" S05E20 "GOOBER AND THE ART OF LOVE" DISC 4 S05E21 "BARNEY RUNS FOR SHERIFF" S05E22 "IF I HAD A QUARTER-MILLION" S05E23 "TV OR NOT TV" S05E24 "GUEST IN THE HOUSE" S05E25 "THE CASE OF THE PUNCH IN THE NOSE" S05E26 "OPIE'S NEWSPAPER" DISC 5 S05E27 "AUNT BEE'S INVISIBLE BEAU" S05E28 "THE ARREST OF THE FUN GIRLS" S05E29 "THE LUCK OF NEWTON MONROE" S05E30 "OPIE FLUNKS ARITHMETIC" S05E31 "OPIE AND THE CARNIVAL" S05E32 "BANJO-PLAYING DEPUTY" SEASON 6 DISC 1 S06E01 "OPIE'S JOB" S06E02 "ANDY'S RIVAL" S06E03 "MALCOLM AT THE CROSSROADS" S06E04 "AUNT BEE, THE SWINGER" S06E05 "THE BAZAAR" S06E06 "A WARNING FROM WARREN" DISC 2 S06E07 "OFF TO HOLLYWOOD" S06E08 "TAYLORS IN HOLLYWOOD" S06E09 "THE HOLLYWOOD PARTY" S06E10 "AUNT BEE ON TV" S06E11 "THE CANNON" S06E12 "A MAN'S BEST FRIEND" DISC 3 S06E13 "AUNT BEE TAKES A JOB" S06E14 "THE CHURCH ORGAN" S06E15 "GIRL-SHY" S06E16 "OTIS THE ARTIST" S06E17 "THE RETURN OF BARNEY FIFE" S06E18 "THE LEGEND OF BARNEY FIFE" DISC 4 S06E19 "LOST AND FOUND" S06E20 "WYATT EARP RIDES AGAIN" S06E21 "AUNT BEE LEARNS TO DRIVE" S06E22 "LOOK PAW, I'M DANCING" S06E23 "THE GYPSIES" S06E24 "EAT YOUR HEART OUT" DISC 5 S06E25 "A BABY IN THE HOUSE" S06E26 "THE COUNTY CLERK" S06E27 "THE FOSTER LADY" S06E28 "GOOBER'S REPLACEMENT" S06E29 "THE BATTLE OF MAYBERRY" S06E30 "A SINGER IN TOWN" SEASON 7 DISC 1 S07E01 "OPIE'S GIRLFRIEND" S07E02 "THE LODGE" S07E03 "THE BARBERSHOP QUARTET" S07E04 "THE BALL GAME" S07E05 "AUNT BEE'S CROWNING GLORY" S07E06 "THE DARLING FORTUNE" DISC 2 S07E07 "MIND OVER MATTER" S07E08 "POLITICS BEGIN AT HOME" S07E09 "THE SENIOR PLAY" S07E10 "OPIE FINDS A BABY" S07E11 "BIG FISH IN A SMALL TOWN" S07E12 "ONLY A ROSE" DISC 3 S07E13 "OTIS THE DEPUTY" S07E14 "GOOBER MAKES HISTORY" S07E15 "A NEW DOCTOR IN TOWN" S07E16 "DON'T MISS A GOOD BET" S07E17 "DINNER AT EIGHT" S07E18 "A VISIT TO BARNEY FIFE" DISC 4 S07E19 "BARNEY COMES TO MAYBERRY" S07E20 "ANDY'S OLD GIRLFRIEND" S07E21 "AUNT BEE'S RESTAURANT" S07E22 "FLOYD'S BARBERSHOP" S07E23 "THE STATUE" S07E24 "HELEN, THE AUTHORESS" DISC 5 S07E25 "GOODBYE DOLLY" S07E26 "OPIE'S PIANO LESSON" S07E27 "HOWARD, THE COMEDIAN" S07E28 "BIG BROTHER" S07E29 "OPIE'S MOST UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER" S07E30 "GOOBER'S CONTEST" SEASON 8 DISC 1 S08E01 "OPIE'S FIRST LOVE" S08E02 "HOWARD THE BOWLER" S08E03 "A TRIP TO MEXICO" S08E04 "ANDY'S TRIP TO RALEIGH" S08E05 "OPIE STEPS UP IN CLASS" S08E06 "HOWARD'S MAIN EVENT" DISC 2 S08E07 "AUNT BEE THE JUROR" S08E08 "THE TAPE RECORDER" S08E09 "OPIE'S GROUP" S08E10 "AUNT BEE AND THE LECTURER" S08E11 "ANDY'S INVESTMENT" S08E12 "HOWARD AND MILLIE" DISC 3 S08E13 "AUNT BEE'S COUSIN" S08E14 "SUPPOSE ANDY GETS SICK" S08E15 "HOWARD'S NEW LIFE" S08E16 "GOOBER THE EXECUTIVE" S08E17 "THE MAYBERRY CHEF" S08E18 "EMMETT'S BROTHER-IN-LAW" DISC 4 S08E19 "OPIE'S DRUGSTORE JOB" S08E20 "THE CHURCH BENEFACTORS" S08E21 "BARNEY HOSTS A SUMMIT MEETING" S08E22 "GOOBER GOES TO AN AUTO SHOW" S08E23 "AUNT BEE'S BIG MOMENT" S08E24 "HELEN'S PAST" DISC 5 S08E25 "EMMETT'S ANNIVERSARY" S08E26 "THE WEDDING" S08E27 "SAM FOR TOWN COUNCIL" S08E28 "OPIE AND MIKE" S08E29 "A GIRL FOR GOOBER" S08E30 "MAYBERRY R.F.D."

2020

Rap:

Lil Uzi Vert - Eternal Atake Playboi Carti - Whole Lotta Red Polo G - The Goat Los and Nutty - Panagnl4e Vol. 2 Preservation - Eastern Medicine, Western Illness Sada Baby - Skuba Sada 2 (Deluxe) Medhane - Cold Water $ilkMoney - Attack Of The Future... / G.T.F.O.M.D Akai Solo - Eleventh Wind Roc Marciano - Mt. Marci Chief Keef - Ferrari Musik Rio Da Yung Og - City On My Back Armand Hammer - Shrines Max_B - Charly Tony Shhnow & 10kdunkin - Rp's & Plan B's Shawny Binladen - Merry Wickmas Babyface Ray - For You Tae Dawg - Ooze God / Dawgprint 2 Lil Baby - My Turn (Deluxe) TisaKorean - Wasteland Lil Uzi Vert - Luv vs The World 2 R.A.P. Ferreira - Purple Moonlight Pages Ka - Descendants of Cain 03 Greedo - Load It Up Vol. 01 TyFontaine - 1800 / Virtual World Moor Mother & billy woods - BRASS Boldy James - The Price Of Tea In China (Deluxe) Mad Moon - Mad Space Smino - She already decided mixtape G Herbo - PTSD B Side WTM Scoob - A Beautiful Drug / Don't Be Proud / I Went to Plu2o Young Nudy - Anyways KanKan - B4 AMGs & SRTs Drakeo the Ruler - We Know the Truth (Deluxe) Tree - The Blue Tape Yak Gotti - Gotti Outta Here KrispyLife Kidd & Ysr Gramz - Kid N Play CeeFineAss - Welcome to My City H31R - ve·loc·i·ty Baby Smoove - Hardwood Classic Lucki - Almost There Bandgang Lonnie Bands & Bandgang Javar - The Scamily Damedot - Mafia Lord (Chapter I)

Hm:

18veno – R4z / Pablo 21 Savage - Savage Mode II Akai Solo - Ride Alone, Fly Together / Like Hajime Autumn! - Ils Verront / Solitary DaBoii - Tour Vibes Dopeboy Ra - Mobstyle Duwap Kaine - Bad Kid From The 4 Flo Milli – Ho, why is you here Goonew - Big64 2 Hook - I Love You 2, Hook Key Glock - Yellow Tape Lil Durk - Just Cause Y'all Waited 2 (Deluxe) Lil Keed - Trapped On Cleveland 3 (Deluxe part) Lil Shane Krush - 5000 Degrees in the Field Los - Carlos \ G Shit Vol. 1 Master Holy - A Holy Journal Megan Thee Stallion - Good News MIKE - weight of the world NLE Choppa - Top Choppa PG RA - God's Gift Rod Wave - Pray 4 Love (Deluxe) Rylo Rodriguez - G.I.H.F Rx Papi - The Real Dominic Toretto/ Mood Sada Baby - Bartier Bounty 2 Spotemgottem - Final Destination Starlito – Paternity Leave Su'lan - Baby Glock Gang WB Nutty – TWYH (That's What Ya Heard) Yhung T.O. x DaBoii - Demon and Mufasa YN Jay - Coochie Land (Deluxe)

R&B:

amaarae - The Angel You Don't Know Brent Faiyaz - Fuck The World Teyana Taylor - The Album Liv.E - Couldn't Wait to Tell You... Brandy - B7 Kehlani - It Was Good Until It Wasn't keiyaA - Forever, Ya Girl

Amplify20 (info @ amplify2020.blogspot.com) :

Michael Pisaro-Liu - Tai Pi Bryan Eubanks - Qualia-Cosmos English - Democracy Keith Rowe - an assemblage - construct for 45 voices / GF SUC TARAB - 41 containers Vanessa Rossetto - perhaps at some time you have acted in a play- even if it was when you were a child Bonnie Jones - An Hour is a Sea Joe Foster - Since I Don't Know When Michael Rosenstein - Outer Cape Sojourn Lionel Marchetti - L'ignorance Kevin Drumm - Q Manja Ristić - Out Of Thin Air Benedict Drew - Music for crawling inside a costume Marc Baron - Elle a traversé deux fois la même rivière Shira Legmann - The Ganges Heather Frasch - The sound of objects helps me remember Zhu Wenbo - Open Reinier van Houdt - friction sleep maze (22 april 2020) / horizon without traveler (22 may 2020) Moniek Darge - Quarantine Butterfly Ivan Palacký - Sanctuary

Contemporary:

Choi Joonyong & Jin Sangtae - Hole In My Head Olli Aarni - Mustikoita ja kissankelloja Linda Catlin Smith - Meadow Naomi Pinnock - Lines and Spaces Dominique Lemaître - De l’espace trouver la fin et le milieu Manuel Pessôa de Lima - Realejo Sarah Hughes - I love this city and its outlying lands Philip Sulidae - Tupik Paolo Coteni - Nel Corso Del Tempo Lil Jurg Frey Live 5-2-2020 / Live 5-14-2020 Delphine Dora - L'inattingible Greg Stuart - Colluvium Du Yun - A Cockroach's Tarantella Clara Ianotta - Earthing Timothy McCormack - Karst Lucy Liyou - Welfare YIN YUE- An Amateur Compilation

Digital Beats:

DJ Diaki - Balani fou DJ MC - DA LEGENDARY HIT FACTORY Equiknoxx - Equiknoxx Music in 2020 Gooooose & DJ Scotch Egg - jac DJ Lycox - Kizas do Ly NÍDIA - Badjuda Sukulbembe FELIX - Oito ou Oitenta

Nice forms:

Elysia Crampton - ORCORARA 2010 Joanne Robertson - Painting Stupid Girls Lorenzo Senni - Scacco Matto Beatrice Dillon - Workaround Dylan Henner - The Invention of the Human Brannten Schnure - Ei, wir tun dir nichts zuleide! Space Afrika - hybtwibt Autechre - PLUS James Ferraro - Neurogeist Mohammad Reza Mortazavi & Burnt Friedman - Yek 2 Mark Fell & Will Guthrie - Infoldings Merula - Sleep Eiko Ishibashi - Hyakki Yagyō Various - Kulør 006 Employee - Hold Music Vol. 1

Techno / House?:

Serwed - Serwed II 33EMYBW - Arthropods Terrence Dixon - Galactic Halo Actress - 88 / Karma & Desire Nkisi - Initiation Speaker Music - Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry Lord of the Isles - Whities 029

Jazz?:

Moor Mother - Circuit City Nick Malkin - A Typical Night in the Pit Lemon Quartet - Crestless Moor Mother and Olof Melander - ANTHOLOGIA 01 Jon Hassell - Seeing Through Sound (Pentimento Volume Two) Moor Mother - Clepsydra

Pop?:

Charli XCX - How i'm feeling now LISACHRIS - uchushimin meat computer - virtual house arrest FROMTHEHEART - things happen- it's ok! EM Records - S.D.S -零- (Subscription Double Suicide -Zero-)

New Old:

Foul Play - Origins Roland Kayn - Requiem Pour Patrice Lumumba George Lewis - Rainbow Family Henning Christiansen - Op.201 L´Essere Umano Erravando La Voca Errabando Adult Fantasies - Towers of Silence Notchnoi Prospekt - Курорты Кавказа (Health Resorts of the Caucasus) Charles Curtis - Performances & Recordings 1998-2018

chapter 11 paragraph x

In the car, out on the main road again, all was jubilation: laughter, high fives, while my heart was slamming so hard I could barely breathe. “What’s going on?” I rasped, several times—gulping for breath and looking back and forth between them and then, when they kept ignoring me, babbling in a percussive mix of Russian and Ukrainian, all four of them including Shirley Temple: “Angliyski!” Boris turned to me, wiping his eyes, and slung his arm around my neck. “Change of plans,” he said. “That was all on the fly—improvised. We could have asked for nothing better. Their third man didn’t show.” “Catching them short-handed.” “Flatfooted.” “Pants down! On the crapper!” “You”—I had to gasp to get the words out—“you said no guns.” “Well, no one got hurt, did they? What difference does it make?” “Why didn’t we just pay?” “Because we lucked out!” Throwing up his arms. “Once in a lifetime chance! We had the opportunity! What were they going to do? They were two —we were four. If they had any sense, they should never have let us inside. And—yes, I know, only forty thousand, but why should I pay them one cent if I don’t have to? For stealing my own property?” Boris chortled. “Did you see the look on his face? Grateful Dead? When Cherry whipped him back of the dome?” “You know what he was complaining about, the old goat?” said Victor, turning to me jubilantly. “Wanted it in Euros! ‘What, dollars?’ ” imitating his peevish expression. “ ‘You brought me dollars?’ ” “Bet he wishes he had those dollars now.” “I bet he wishes he kept his mouth shut.” “I’d like to hear that phone call to Sascha.” “I wish I knew the name of the guy. That stood them up. Because I would like to buy him a drink.” “Wonder where he is?” “He is probably at home in the shower.” “Studying his Bible lesson.” “Watching ‘Christmas Carol’ on television.” “Waiting at the wrong place, most like.”

“I—” My throat was so constricted I had to swallow to speak. “What about that kid?” “Eh?” It was raining, light rain pattering on the windshield. Streets black and glistening. “What kid?” “Boy. Girl. Kitchen boy. Whatever.” “What?” Cherry turned—still winded, breathing hard. “I didn’t see anyone.” “I didn’t either.” “Well, I did.” “What’d she look like?” “Young.” I could still see the freeze-frame of the young ghostly face, mouth slightly open. “White coat. Japanese-looking.” “Really?” said Boris curiously. “You can tell apart by looking? Like where they are from? Japan, China, Vietnam?” “I didn’t get a good look. Asian.” “He, or she?” “I think is all girls that work in the kitchen there,” said Gyuri. “Macrobyotik. Brown rice and like that.” “I—” Now I really wasn’t sure. “Well—” Cherry ran his hand over the top of his close-cropped hair —“glad she ran, whoever, because you know what else I found back there? Sawed-off Mossberg 500.” Laughter and whistles at this. “Shit.” “Where was it? Grozdan didn’t—?” “No. In a—” he gestured, to indicate a sling—“what do you call it. Hanging under the table, in some cloth like. Just happened to see it when I was down on the floor. Like—looked up. There it was, right over my head.” “You didn’t leave it there, did you?” “No! I wouldn’t have minded to take it except was too big and had my hands full. Unscrewed it and knocked the pin out and threw it in the alley. Also—” he pulled a silver snub-nosed pistol out of his pocket, which he passed over to Boris—“this!” Boris held it up to the light and looked at it. “Nice little conceal-carry J-frame. Ankle holster in those bell bottom jeans! But to his misfortune he was not quick enough.” “Flexcuffs,” said Gyuri to me, with slightly inclined head. “Vitya thinks ahead.” “Well—” Cherry wiped the sweat from his broad forehead—“they are light and slim to carry, and they have saved me many times shooting people. I do not like to hurt anyone if I don’t have to.” Medieval city: crooked streets, lights draped on bridges and shining off rain-peppered canals, melting in the drizzle. Infinity of anonymous shops, twinkling window displays, lingerie and garter belts, kitchen utensils arrayed like surgical instruments, foreign words everywhere, Snel bestellen, Retro-stijl, Showgirl-Sexboetiek. “Back door was open to the alley,” said Cherry, elbowing off his sports coat and swigging from a bottle of vodka which Shirley T. had produced from under the front seat—hands a bit shaky and his face, the nose particularly, glowing a flagrant, stressed-out, Rudolph red. “They must have left it open for him—their third man—to come in at the back. I closed it and locked it— made Grozdan close and lock it, gun to his head, he was snivel and crying like baby—” “That Mossberg,” Boris said to me, accepting the bottle passed over the front seat. “Evil dirty thing. Sawed off—? sprays pellets here to Hamburg. Aim it way the fuck away from everyone and still you will hit half the people in the room.” “Good trick, no?” said Victor Cherry philosophically. “To say your third man is not there? ‘Wait five minutes, please’? ‘Sorry, mix up’—? ‘He will be here any moment’? While he is all the time in back with the shotgun. Good double cross, if they had thought of it—” “Maybe they did think of it. Why else have the gun back there?” “I think we had a narrow miss, is what I think—” “There was one car pulled up front, scared Shirley and me,” said Gyuri, “while you were all in there, two guys, we thought we were in the shit but was only two gays, French guys, looking for restaurant—” “—but no one in the back, thank God, I got Grozdan on the floor and cuffed him to radiator,” Cherry was saying. “Ah, but—!” he held up the felt-wrapped package—“first. This. For you.”

He handed it over the seat to Gyuri, who—gingerly, with his fingertips, as if it were a tray he might spill—passed it to me. Boris—downing his slug, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand—chucked me gaily in the arm with the bottle while humming we wish you a merry Christmas we wish you a merry Christmas. Package on my knees. Running my hands all around the edge. The felt was so thin that I sensed the rightness of it immediately with my fingertips, the texture and weight were perfect. “Go on,” said Boris, nodding, “better open it, make sure it’s not the Civics book this time! Where was it?” he asked Cherry as I began to fumble with the string. “Dirty little broom closet. Piece-of-shit plastic briefcase. Grozdan took me right to it. I thought he might fuck around a bit but burner at the head was all it took. No sense getting popped when all that good space cake still around for the taking.” “Potter,” said Boris, trying to get my attention; and then again: “Potter.” “Yes?” Lifting the briefcase. “This 40 rocks is going to Gyuri and Shirley T. Keeping them green. For services rendered. Because it is thanks to these two that we did not pay Sascha one cent for the favor of stealing your property. And Vitya—” reaching across to clasp his hand—“we are more than equal now. The debt is mine.” “No, I can never repay what I owe you, Borya.” “Forget it. Is nothing.” “Nothing? Nothing? Not true, Borya, because this very night I carry my life because of you, and every night until the last night…” It was an interesting story he was telling, if I’d had ears to listen to it— someone had fingered Cherry for some unspecified but apparently very serious crime which he had not committed, nothing to do with, perfectly innocent, the guy had rolled for reduced prison time and unless Cherry, in turn, wanted to roll on his higher-ups (“unwise to do, if I wish to keep breathing”), he was looking at ten sticks and Boris, Boris had saved the day because Boris had tracked down the slimebag, in Antwerp and out on bail, and the story of how he had done this was very involved and enthusiastic and Cherry was getting choked up and sniffing a bit and there was more and it seemed to involve arson and bloodshed and something to do with a power saw but by that point I wasn’t hearing a word because I’d gotten the string untied and streetlights and watery rain reflections were rolling over the surface of my painting, my goldfinch, which—I knew incontrovertibly, without a doubt, before even turning to look at the verso—was real. “See?” said Boris, interrupting Vitya right in the heat of his story. “Looks good, no, your zolotaia ptitsa? I told you we took care of it, didn’t I?” Running my fingertip incredulously around the edges of the board, like Doubting Thomas across the palm of Christ. As any furniture dealer knew, or for that matter St. Thomas: it was harder to deceive the sense of touch than sight, and even after so many years my hands remembered the painting so well that my fingers went to the nail marks immediately, at the bottom of the panel, the tiny holes where (once upon a time, or so it was said) the painting was nailed up as a tavern sign, part of a painted cabinet, no one knew. “He still alive back there?” Victor Cherry. “Think so.” Boris dug an elbow in my ribs. “Say something.”

But I couldn’t. It was real; I knew it, even in the dark. Raised yellow streak of paint on the wing and feathers scratched in with the butt of the brush. One chip on the upper left edge that hadn’t been there before, tiny mar less than two millimeters, but otherwise: perfect. I was different, but it wasn’t. And as the light flickered over it in bands, I had the queasy sense of my own life, in comparison, as a patternless and transient burst of energy, a fizz of biological static just as random as the street lamps flashing past. “Ah, beautiful,” said Gyuri amiably, leaning in to look at my right side. “So pure! Like a daisy. You know what I am trying to express?” he said, nudging me, when I did not answer. “Plain flower, alone in a field? It’s just —” he gestured, here it is! amazing! “Do you know what I am saying?” he asked, nudging me again, only I was still too dazed to reply. Boris in the meantime was murmuring half in English and half Russian to Vitya about the ptitsa as well as something else I couldn’t quite catch, something about mother and baby, lovely love. “Still wishing you had phoned the art cops, eh?” he said, slinging his arm around my shoulder with his head close to mine, exactly as when we were boys. “We can still phone them,” said Gyuri, with a shout of laughter, punching me on the other arm. “That’s right, Potter! Shall we? No? Maybe not such a good idea any more, eh?” he said across me, to Gyuri, with a raised eyebrow.

Title: The Knight (and friends) before Christmas Type of work: Fic Wordcount: 5.9K Pairings/Characters: Scott Lang/Steve Rogers, Scott Lang, Steve Rogers, Cassie Lang, Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff, Cassie Lang's Pet Ant Rating: Gen Giftee: @ijustreallylikecaptainamericaok​ Warnings: None Summary: When Cassie wishes for the Christmas Knight and his merry band of friends to visit her instead of Santa Claus, Scott calls in a few favors and bakes a few cookies.

Besides, ’Tis the season!

Read it here!

Title: A Normal Life Type of work: Fic Wordcount: Pairings/Characters: Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers Rating: Explicit Giftee:  @dixons-mama​ Warnings: no archive warnings apply Summary: As soon as Steve vanishes from the platform, Bucky turns to go. He knows Steve isn’t coming back, is certain of it from the way Steve had hugged him, told him not to do anything stupid, and he doesn’t want to just stand there like an idiot, waiting. His heart can’t take it, so he takes a lingering step backwards, staring at the platform, not wanting it to be real, but knowing it is.

Read it here!

Title: Outliers Type of work: Art Pairings/Characters: Bucky/Steve Rating: T Giftee: @vaysh11​ Warnings: None Summary: The knight finds his enemy dead on the battlefield. He doesn't want the man to wake up alone.

See it here!

Title: What are you doing New Year's Eve? Type of work: fic Wordcount: 5.2K Pairings/Characters: Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers Rating: General Audiences Giftee:  @averyrogers83​ Warnings: n/a Summary:

"All right. So, New Year's... I don't know. Please don't drag me to Times Square, I have asthma."

The laugh Bucky gives on the other end of the line is sudden and sharp and fond, and Steve can practically feel it in his own chest.

"You hardly have asthma anymore. Anyway, I'm dragging you to my work party, not Times Square, and honestly, I'm not sure if that's any better or worse. Please come," Bucky adds in a smaller voice. "Please be my fake date, Steven."

Read it here!

Title: The Winter Soldier: Temporary Sugar Daddy and Guardian Angel Type of work (art/fic/etc): Fic Word count: 4.2K Pairings/Characters: Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes Rating: T Giftee: Jakobthour Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Summary: While Steve is working a late shift in the toy store, a bleeding man stumbles inside, looking for a gift.

Read it here!

Title: I'll get by Type of work: Fic Worcount: 12.6K Pairings/Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson & Natasha Romanov, Alpine Rating: Teen and Up Giftee: @bicappy Warnings: Suicidal thoughts, mention of depression, mention of a badly performed top surgery Summary: "Welcome to our new home," Steve said as he opened the door with a kick, arms full of boxes. Bucky followed him close, careful not to knock over what he carried.

Bucky and Steve move into their new apartment and slowly learn how to heal and carry on, with the gentle help of Sam, Nat, and Alpine.

Read it here!

Title: Bucky and His Stubborn Goat Type of work: fic Word count: 6K Pairings/Characters: Bucky, Steve, other Avengers, Stucky Rating: M Giftee: @moonythejedi394​ Warnings: mentions of Non-Consensual medical procedure, Omega Rights, mention of assault but not by/to Steve or Bucky, Alpha leaving an omega, Communication failure about Steve's body Summary: A goat is a stubborn hard headed creature. But is also an animal that can be fearless when it needs to get where it needs to go. Bucky has been dealing with this type of attitude since he was a kid. So if it is one thing Bucky can handle it is someone who is more goat than his herd. Sometimes Bucky just wants to let that someone lose on the world and watch what will be created from the chaos it causes.

Read it here!

Title: Chaotic Good Type of work: Fic Word count: 4K Pairings/Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson Rating: T Giftee: @glim​ Warnings: None Summary: Thumps and thuds, running water, and the sound of familiar laughter.  Which, oddly enough, turned out to be the kitchen.  Natasha rounded the corner and went still as she took in the absolute chaos unfolding in front of her.

Read it here!

Title: My Type Type of work: Moodboard + Ficlet Pairings/Characters: Maria Hill & Sam Wilson Rating: General Audiences Giftee: 27dis Warnings: N/A Summary: While on a mission together, Sam learns something new about his partner.

See it here!

Critical Role fan playlist masterpost

Based on an anon request, here are the songs that people have sent in for Critical Role characters (and groupings/pairings.) Apologies if it’s a little confusing — I figured that if you were looking to see who a certain song’s about, you could CTRL+F to find the song. 

I’ve put almost all the songs — all the songs that I could find! — in the Spotify playlist. I will update the playlist and this masterpost as I answer asks, although I can’t promise I’ll answer the asks in the most timely manner!

CAMPAIGN 1

Vax

Immortals - Fall Out Boy I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous - Frank Turner Bargain Store - Dolly Parton Two - Sleeping at Last  Dinu Lippatis Bones - Mountain Goats Fortune 500 - Everything Everything The Parting Glass - The High Kings

Percy

Spirits - Strumbellas Dust Bowl Dance - Mumford & Sons Bad Bad Things - AJJ There’s Something Dark - Dustin Kensrue In Fantasia - Kishi Bashi

Keyleth

Overgrown - Machineheart

Scanlan

You’re Gonna Go Far Kid - Offspring

Vox Machina

Noah - Amber Run Windmills - Toad the Wet Sprocket In the Embers - Sleeping at Last Which to Bury: Us or the Hatchet - Relient K

Percy & Vex

Meet Me in the Woods - Lord Huron Shrike - Hozier Surrender - Stephanie Mabey

Vex & Keyleth

I Do Adore - Mindy Gledhill

Vax & Keyleth

Photographs & Memories - Jim Croce NFWMB - Hozier Save the Last Dance for Me

Keyleth, Vax, Gilmore

Love Love Love - Of Monsters & Men In the Middle - Dodie

Percy & Cassandra

Malinda Kathleen Reese - Surrender 

CAMPAIGN 2

Caleb

Glitter and Gold - Barnes Courtney Arsonist’s Lullaby - Hozier This Night - Black Lab OK - 8 Graves Welcome to the Family - Watsky Burn It Down - Daughter Bad Luck Charm - Jeff Williams Evil - Interpol Outer Scorpion Squadron - Mountain Goats Overgrown - Machineheart All These Things I’ve Done - The Killers אם אין אני לי מי לי - Yonatan Razel  Sunny Came Home - Shawn Colvin Gallows - Shelby Merry You’re Gonna Go Far Kid - Offspring Bury a Friend - Billie Eilish Running Up That Hill - Placebo Play With Fire - Sam Tinnez Icarus - Jason Webly The Village - Tuung Losing Control - Nell Beekper - Keaton Henson Home Alone - Ansel Elgort An Act of Kindness - Bastille Micro Cuts - Muse Library Magic - The Head and the Heart Believe - Hollywood Undead Bullets - Tunng I Have Made Mistakes - Oh Hellos

Molly

Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo Last Ride of the Day - Nightwish  Moondance - Nightwish  The Only Thing - Sufjan Stevens JOYFUL - X Ambassadors Youth - Daughter Remain Nameless - Florence + the Machine Blood on My Name - The Brothers Bright Hopeless Opus - Imagine Dragons Dying in LA - Panic! At the Disco Black Dirt - Sea Wolf Dog Days are Over - Florence + the Machine Rather Never Know - Bronze Radio Return Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1 - Mountain Goats Help I’m Alive - Metric Still Feel - Half Alive Old You - Madison Cunningham

Yasha

Last of the Wilds - Nightwish Thousand Eyes - Of Monsters and Men Stormbringer - Deep Purple Chasing Twisters - Delta Rae Misguided Ghosts - Paramore Breath of Life - Florence + the Machine You Won’t Feel a Thing - The Script Carry You - Ruelle Saint Claude - Christine & the Queens Good Grief - Dessa

Fjord

In All My Dreams I Drown - Devil’s Carnival Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Avantika Broken Crown - Mumford & Sons Ship in a Bottle - Steffan Argus Notos - Oh Hellos Pacific Blues - Sleeping at Last

Jester 

Song of the Traveling Daughter - Abigail Washburn Don’t Leave Me - Regina Spektor Breaking Down - Florence + the Machine Something Wild - Andrew McMahon Boy Crazy - Dessa Velodrome - Dessa Lollipop - Jester Brand New Key - Melanie Shallow - Carys Selvey

Beau

Wild Things - Alessia Cara Somebody to You - BANNERS Firedrills - Dessa Say When - Dessa You Won’t Feel a Thing - The Script Overgrown - Machineheart 5 out of 6 - Dessa All These Things I’ve Done - The Killers Handmade Heaven - Marina & the Diamonds Sky Full of Song - Florence + the Machine Breaking the Habit - Linkin Park Nobody - Mitsiki She - Green Day Get Up - The Blow Come With Me Now - Kongos The Biggest Disappointment - Missy Higgins Dutch - Dessa Fighting Fish - Dessa Solemn Oath - Band of Horses Fille de Personne II - Hubert Lenoir

Caduceus

In a Week - Hozier Sound the Bells - Dessa Follow the Sun - Xavier Rudd

Nott

Reflection - Mulan Drown - Seafret Bottom of the River - Delta Rae Absolutely Smitten - Dodie Watertight - Zero She Flies Brave as a Noun - AJJ

Frumpkin

Plea from a Cat Named Virtue - Weakerthans

Mighty Nein

Home We’ll Go - Walk Off the Earth Shameful Company - Rainbow Kitten Windmills - Toad the Wet Sprocket Re: Scripts - Bon Iver Degenerates - I the Mighty Friends - Miracle of Sound Family - Mother Mother Abandon Ship - Steffan Argus Lost - Amanda Palmer Turn the Lights Off - Tally Halls Little Wonders - Rob Thomas Which to Bury: Us or the Hatchet - Relient K

Beau & Yasha

This Empty Northern Hemisphere - Gregory Alan Isakov Paper Bag Princess - Hello Kelly

Beau & Jester

Spell - NIKI Send Me the Moon - Sara Bareilles Paper Bag Princess - Hello Kelly

Caleb & Beau

Quite Nice People - Katla LA is Burning - Bad Religion

Marion & Jester

Altas: Daughter - Sleeping at Last Seal Lullaby - Erik Whitaker

Caleb, Nott, & Beau

It’s Alright - Mother Mother

Beau & Molly

We Were Here - Lights

Nott & Yeza

Like the Dawn - Oh Hellos Fresh Eyes - Andy Grammar

Nott, Beau, Jester, & Yasha

Honey - Kehlani

Fjord & Jester

Whiskey and Wine - Tow’rs Waterloo - ABBA

Caduceus & Jester

Laughing With - Regina Spektor

Caleb & Nott

Friend Without a Name - The Nursery No Children - Mountain Goats Two Birds - Regina Spektor

Fjord & Caleb

If I Had a Heart - Fever Ray

i can’t believe i’m doing this

@jhscdood​ listen i got No Time to write the fics for this right now, but have some Fellowship of the Pod People (but not like that) Headcanons.

@ all of the rest of you, please for Eru’s sake help yourselves: literally nothing would make me happier than to have someone else write this shit so i could read it like the lazy asshole i am.

None of this will make a DAMN LICK OF SENSE if you aren’t familiar with the Not Your Mama’s ABO Clownfish AU that @silentwalrus1​ created with @skellerbvvt​ and @galwednesday​ in the Magnificently Weird MCU Stucky Gem Scents & Sensibility 

shit this got hella long don’t look at me but please all feel free to correct/expand/modify because I just whipped these off to decompress after a long day

The Númenóreans are responsible for all that “reef” “pod” and assorted “fishy” terminology, so while “pod” “reef” etc may be the accepted academic names, they’re often replaced with local variants and colloquialisms. The Númenóreans picked this linguistic quirk up from the sea-obsessed Noldor elves, so it’s sometimes used in Rivendell and Lothlorien too.

(The Sindar elves fucking hate that)

(Sindar use bee euphemisms instead. It’s all “hives” and “skeps” etc etc etc. Try to tell me Thranduil isn’t a Queen Bee. I FUCKIN DARE U. The wine is all honey mead. Hex honeycomb aesthetic for the win. Even the dungeons.)

(FYI Dwarves ALSO have a Hexagonal Aesthetic and that just Really Gets Thranduil’s Goat.)

everyone’s got their own local names for alphas and omegas too because seriously who fucking came up with that, i bet there’s a whole appendix at the end of the red book about terminology and shit

(Now I’m having meta thoughts about linguistics and there being a clownfish!Tolkien to go with the clownfish!Middle Earth. And now I’m thinking about the Inklings being a pod and if i follow THAT rabbit hole any further I’ll fu cki ng  AS C E N DHJKfghjk.)

Anyway

Men smell gross. Everyone else is agreed upon this. Unflattering comparisons to badgers and weasels have been made.

This makes “MANFLESH” 12000% more hilarious ur welcome

it’s funny cuz Men are big into perfumes. Incense! Herb Sachets! Oils and tinctures! Have you ever seen a olde tyme perfumers’ box? That kinda shit. Everyone has their Signature Smell.

but elves especially are like you still smell like man stop trying to hide it.

The Dúnedain embrace The Musk. (some have fully weaponized it)

this is very important: Aragorn Smells Amazing. (to be clear, still very Man Smelling, but awesome. first time he goes all I AM UR KING everyone in the throne room goes a little glassy eyed.)

Minas Tirith, being old, is very Old Numenorean Oceanic Aesthetic. Give me all that white stone carved to look like coral and driftwood holy shit YES. 

WHITE! TREE!! GARDEN!!! 

ATHELAS!!!! SCENTED!!!!! EVERYTHING!!!!!! (pairs well with lemon and other citrus smells.)

veering away from Gondor now

The Rohirrim stick with horse metaphors because of course they fucking do. Also, since they’re more nomadic, the entire concept of a “reef” as in a physical structure is kind of ??????? to them. So. “Reefs” = “herds” and “pods” = “bands.” 

Fresh Hay is considered to be Peak Homely Smell in Edoras. Tapestries! Only The Softest and Nicest and Most Beautifully Tooled leather! leather smells!

OH SHIT GIVE ME ALPHA-FOR-LIFE-EOWYN MEETING FOREVER!OMEGA FARAMIR *HEAVY BREATHING*

(oh shit while we’re in the neighborhood, Dúnedain Rangers tend to be solitary As, which spooks the natives like whoa, but the Ithilien Rangers are generally O, and their waterfall hideout is totes a big ole reef.)

hang on i forgot about elves

Listen, I’m not super into elves myself but I’m imagining that they are perpetually switching back and forth between A and O depending on the day — nay, the HOUR — and the extremes between A and O are much less extreme for them than other races.

Every other race finds this super weird and disturbing.

Legolas is like “hm this forest is making me feel very O.” And Aragorn and Gimli are just like ‘what’ and then suddenly Leggy smells very O too and Aragorn and Gimli are like ‘WHAT’

Feänor is the exception. He turned the dial all the way to A and broke the goddamn knob off.

Galadriel can go from Maximum Softe O to Roid Rage A in .0004 seconds. “iiiinstead of a dark lord yyYYOU WOULD HAVE A QUEEEEEEN!!!1!” and the Hobbits are literally bowled over.

Elves in general smell woody but also very ocean-y i think? Have you ever stood in a pine forest by the ocean, where you get those light, clean wood and cedar and pine smells all shot through with sea breeze? Like That.

But elves are more into visual/audio. Soft singing. Leaves moving in the breeze. The whisper of pages in a library. 

and the light. Elves are lighting wizards, they are all about that gentle starglow.

(I’m also having thoughts about the Lothlorien Elves embracing that A-ish urge to be Up High. A holdover from Galadriel’s time with the feanoreans? I'm not as up on silm lore as I should be)

but let’s get back to my happy place: 

THE MUTHAFUCKIN SHIIIIIIIIRE

Hobbits really embrace dat sweet sweet O lifestyle. good food and warm hearths. throw blankets and pillows. hugging and cuddle puddles and playing footsie. gardens. Gardens. G A R D E N S. 

“Going A” is done as rarely as possible. the transition takes about a month and Hobbits who are “going A” tend to call in sick like it’s some unsightly thing. 

Tooks have an unusually high rate of going A. Of course they do.

Bilbo has never gone A. Not! Once!

Neither has Frodo.

Sam did, after the breaking of the Fellowship. Merry and Pippin did, in Fangorn, when they grew six inches. The three of them all stayed A after that, for the most part. YES EVEN SAMWISE. it was v scandalous.

Hobbit “reefs” are called “warrens” (unless ur rich, then they’re Smials and they’re Only For Family) and their “pods” are “nests.” “Nesting” is a whole Thing.

Hobbits! Smell! Like! Baked! Goods! Not sweet but like… warm. Humans sometimes turn their noses up and call it a “yeasty” or “beery” smell but it’s usually much more a rising-bread smell. Pipeweed smoke and sweet florals make a nice contrast to the perpetual bakery window smell.

Hobbits are very mouth/taste/chew oriented. Mouthfeel is a Big Deal. Recipe Books are Heirlooms. Courting is frequently Food/Drink Oriented.

Rosie Cotton brews the finest ale in all the land and she did that for the express purpose of seducing Samwise Gamgee

He Did Not Realize.

Courting that is not food/drink oriented is Flower/Plant oriented.

Sam Gamgee became the finest gardener in all the land in the desperate hope of wooing Mr. Frodo.

He Did Not Realize.

Everyone Else Realized. Merry and Pippin especially considered it Peak Comedy.

(they eventually worked it out.)

last but not least:

there’s just no way around it. Dwarves smell like dirt. nice dirt tho! Petrichor and stone with hints of copper and metals. Smoke smells. Rich spice smells. Eau de forge is considered a particularly desirable perfume. Dwarves don’t particularly notice smell though (for reasons that will become apparent) when it comes to Softe Things they’re much more about dem sweet sweet sparklies, and fur, and being super fucking tactile.

Dwarves are SUPER into haircare, like, every night the Company of Thorin makes a braid circle and exchanges hair beads. 

(elves are also super into hair care. this too really Gets Tharanduil’s Goat)

Dwarf social structure is like… hobbits in reverse. They tend to default to A status, hence their general rowdiness but with strict codes of conduct to help manage conflict. They’re just these huge roving groups of A’s just rough-and-tumbling around their one O. dogpiles are peak pod bonding. aaaaand the alpha reek kind of tends to make them all a little noseblind.

Poor Bilbo.

Lucky, Lucky Bilbo.

But also poor, poor Bilbo.

Most dwarf Royals go O, but Thorin hadn’t been O since he was 24 and got chased out of Erebor by that pesky dragon.

Dwarf “reefs” and “pods” have their own terms in Khuzdul that do not translate well but have to do with crystal growth. Rough translations are “lattices” and “cells” (Hence the hexagon aesthetic)

Wizards Have No Designation. They Smell Like Gunpowder and Lightning. It Is Very Disturbing For Everyone Around Them.

A

N

Y

W

A

Y

Give me EveryoneLives!au Hobbit stuff. Bilbo trying to homely up the lonely mountain! Thorin going O and chilling the fuck out as a result! 

Give me fellowship!pod!! Aragorn is the diplomat! Pippin is the wild child! Gimli is the Adventurer! Frodo is the peacekeeper! Boromir is the den mother!

How Much More Heartrending is the Breaking of the Fellowship if the fellowship was a pod????

and then you’ve got the fractured podlings: Merry and Pippin bonding hard with their new Rohan and Gondor stress-pods. Sam going A to protect Frodo from Gollum while Frodo tries to adopt this weird frog into their pod. The Three Hunters as Nick, Nora and Nelson (Gimli is Nick, Leggy is Nora, Aragorn is Nelson.)

Give me post-war Legolas and Aragorn and Gimli (and Arwen too) breaking cultural boundaries and proving that yes! Interracial Pods Can Work! these differences are cultural, and cultures can be melded! nothing wrong with this! if half-elves exist and can have kids of their own, then elves and men are not separate species, and I’d bet a significant limb that the same is true of all the other races so

GIVE IT TO ME

ok i gotta stop now.

...

yeah there’s probably a star trek one of these coming too

kill me

(And hey jhscdood I’m not saying you have to come back at me with more lotr clownfish or ocean’s 11/Star Wars/M*A*S*H/Leverage/West Wing/whatever clownfish But I would certainly consider it a Fair Exchange if you did. MORE INSTITUTIONALIZED SOFTISM. MAXIMUM SOFT FISH FRIENDS.)

Another FroodPad Update

(I’m sending an email instead of tagging people about this one because the majority of you guys have changed urls.)

For anyone who used the original FroodPad (PiratenPad) teamsite for fic writing, the host is taking down the site next month.

As before with the Mozilla alternative, I have backups of most of the text.

Here’s what I do not have:

Backups of locked pads

Chat logs

Authors / authorship colors

Time slider histories

If you want any of those, you’ll need to grab them yourself asap! If you’ve forgotten a password, the quickest way to grab my attention is to let me know via the tumblr messager (or my Discord, if you have it) and I can help you.

As for the actual text of the pads, I have these saved! I can send them to you whenever you like. Under the cut is a VERY lengthy list of the pad titles I have backups of. I can also do a text search if you need.

!!HEY GUYS -- WRITER PROFILES *Goat scream* 2SPOOKY 2c Stories 365 days of Rabbit No! A Very Frood Pad Christmas An attempt to organize chaos And the Band Plays On Annie got her gun Ask Walter Kids BADLY SINNING BRAINTHUNDERING Best Ship Around Broken little pieces CC 4 editing Care Cat!Steve. Don't ask. Cat's sehr whichtig grad portfolio stuff Catori's Little Pad ^^ Cheeroko: ES Drabbles And Possible Story Cheeroko: Elder Scrolls Brainstorming Cheeroko: Fanficing Fanfics since ... Today? Cheeroko: Has Started Yet Another AU Cheeroko: Rabbit Appreciation Pad (Aka, SPG Pad) Cheeroko: Walter Manor Cheeroko: What Should I call this? [{Original Fic}] Cheeroko: You Know What? I'm Just Going To Use This Pad For My Gender Stuff Christmas List Come keep French Company! Please? Configuration (new-new CC and biocore planning) Counter Nonsense Crazy Community Fanfiction Crazy Community Fanfiction II Crazy SPG Collab Thing 2.0 DANGER 5 SOLVE THE GREATEST CRIME OF ALL Derelict (spoilers yo) Derelict 23 and other stuff Derelict Chapter 20 Derelict Chapter 24 Derelict Chapter 25 Derelict Chapter 25 for real this time Derelict Dragon Dreads Derelict Take 73 Derpy-Nuns Don't come here unless Fish is whining at you Don't look Dr. Babblefish's Quest to Only Become Moderately More Insane Dragon Lurve Elephants and Nachos Everyone Writing Everything FRANKENPAPPY Fantastic Mister Vox Fish Does Terrible Things Fish Fanfictions Salgexicon Now Fish and Serif attempt a role play thing. Fish and its monospaced text Fish has an F in evil Fish is Sailing a Ship Fish is a terrible person. Fish is just rambling Fish writes things about other fandoms Fish's Awkward Nonfandom Headcanons Fish's Lupin Drabbles Fish's Magical Tragical Guide to Not Writing Mary Sues Fish's OC Boat Fish's Originalish Pad Fish's Plots and Characters French Rambles French Writes Stony French is a Poet Froodpad Rules and Instructions Further proof we're all insane Futureverse G-Mans and Watering Cans GW2 Cav stuff Ghost! Ghostfacers! Hangout pad Happy Little Family Happy Little Family Notes Here ye go, Redacted Heyo, Achgfd Homestead-Ch.1 How to be nice in RP I blame everyone but me I figure at this rate I should just make a Weird SPG Dreams pad I have no idea what im working on I never tire, I serve I- I- I- LOVE ROBBIE DARREN IT IS A SMUT POWERED BLANKET MY GOOT SAR Ice Cream and Knit Bow Ties Imma figure this thing out by posting prompt responses Improb In Which Pappy Dies In Which Reed Becomes a Robot In Which Steve Drops Bass In Which There is an Abandoned Lab In which robots become metaphors for Autism Spectrum stuff Laying Down The Law Here MATURE REPLY MBG Tumblr Planning   MERRY HOLIDAYMAS YOU WEIRDOS! MWFGOH Notes MY FRIEND MATT WHERE YOU AT May B. we Feta get outta here May B. we Feta get outta here pt2 Muppet Baby Giraffe Fics Myth fanfiction maybe??? NOBODY PANIC (MICHAEL GOT THE D) Neoma's Writes Not Actually a Funeral Not!Derelict Nuns could use help writing a comedy piece for English Nuns does a research paper on GAY GODS Nuns fools around with a hero's journey Nuns hunts for the Holy Grail (and a good essay grade) OC ADVENTURE!! OFF Musingses OOPS Oedipus Script Old Money On the wings of steam One of the Fanmily Original stuff is harder than we anticipated PSILENCE WILL FALL Pappy Pad 2 Pappy Rabbit Old (Still needed though!) Pen & Kari's Pad of Fairytale Badassery Philosophy Notes Pokemanz SPG Post-Derelict Headcanons Princey and Leeland's Walter People Pad Princey definitely isn't using this pad for homework anymore Princey is the best right Leilani right Princey tries Original Stuff Princey wanted to write OC stuff too Princey's self-indulgent stuff Princeyfic (An Accident of the Smallest Kind final chapter) Princeyfic: An Accident of the Smallest Kind Princeyfic: Basically nothing but a mermaid OC Princeyfic: Canoe Catastrophe Pronz Psi does homework and other stuff Psi does homework occasionally Psi gets his shit together Psi is in pain. Also class. Psi jacks Cat's characters Psi plans the Derelict!Verse RP blog early because he's bored Psi reads Marsupial Psi takes out dysphoria on The Spine Psi tries for "canon" SPG Psi writes Cabin Pressure stuff Psi writes a thing about an author Psi's Headcanon Psi's Kazooland OCs??? Psi's class notes Psi's class notes and HatchWorth stuff Psilent's Hatchworth Feels Psilent's Pscribblings Psilent's Pstuff Psunny's Muppet Babby Stuff Public pad 2: 2 public 2 pad Pun and Psi Make a Porno Punny: Ask Index Punny: Broken little pieces Punny: Crack Fic ideas Punny: Ficlets Punny: HLF Th teen years Punny: Happy Little Family Punny: Justice Giraffes Punny: Major fics Punny: Rainbow! The Spine Punny: Trying to figure out how the hell Super spg works RABBIT NO RABBIT NO 2: electric boogaloo Rabbit writes fanfic Relish's Ramblings Reverse Pre Mid Life Crisis 3000 Rex and Captain. Rover! SICK ROBOTS. (Princey and Leeland) SIMNANIGANS SO I may have discovered aquabats and it may have given me some muse SPG/Avengers cross over collab-fic SS kills a lot of young women SS: Aftertheendverse SS: Aggressively writes happy fanfiction SS: Amnesia Home Pad SS: Amnesia Revisions SS: Amnesia!Spine Headcanoning SS: Ancient Mariner SS: Angsty Poetry xP SS: Annie/V SS: Dragon!Steve SS: Genderbends because of reasons SS: Just our positronic electronic harmonic SS: Michael wants the D(erelict!Steve's dick) SS: Michael wants the D(erelict!Steve) #2 SS: More Spine/OC junk SS: Okay actually writing Amnesia now SS: Poems by Peter VI SS: Possible Natalia 'Verse SS: Private Party SS: Ratchet and pumpkin SS: Spine/OC SS: Spine/OC #2 SS: Spine/OC #3 SS: The Only Constant SS: The Way Home SS: hoamwork Satyr Adventure script Secret Santa (Sign-ups closed, Santas have been assigned!) Serif needs to kill something apparently Serif's Dump Pad Serif's Dump Pad 2 Seth only starts things and never finishes them Sewing Stitches SisterofaFish's Pad So much craft poisoning Something Wicked This Way Comes Space-Opera Spoons' Stuff Goes Here Stalking Information Steve has Joined Your Party! THIS IS WHERE THE PARTIES AT TIME TO SCARE THE BABIES Tango's Reason Why The Case of the Quest of the Missing Coffee The Mythos Mythos The Rake This is a public pad because Fish is bored This is utter crap Thunder Charge Title! Too Many Thoughts Untitled 180 Untitled 217 Untitled 314 Untitled 322 Untitled 323 Untitled 324 Verse Fable...or something like that WE GON WRITE FLUFF WE LAV U HRUP WRITER PROFILES We write Mirrormask fics now. Mirrormask is cool. Well look what the cat dragged back in World Building You know what, ignore Nuns a surprise in every pad and no one was ever happy the end awkward monsters/spg campfire song song cat used to write hannafic class notes copper conduction 3: REVELATIONS copper conduction p. 4 death lullaby ye everybody look down fear and loathing in san diego half-baked hatchworth stuff hesitantly works on new chapter how rabbit got his groove back 2 i leik ur silileh lteile hat incdrop - frisk incwrites it's sort of like hellraiser except not lemarchand's fic oh heck there's a plot one time ruffy wrote angst original sexy awesomeness possibly part of Two Birds One Stone possibly not psi is the batman psi's original story (caution may contain robots) ((totally contains robots)) psi's presentation that's due in six hours ruffy's writing a thing schoolwork and such (go away) shit so many fics so little time so much writers block sometimes i doubt your commitment to sparkle motion the end. the fucking crying game the future doesn't love you the wit and wisdom of spg woo lets write pirates woo

Scary Christmas Stories: A History of the Holiday’s Ghostly Tradition

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“It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story” – Jerome K. Jerome, 1891

In the English countryside, dinner had ended, and the company retired to the drawing room. They gathered around the fire as the parson, who sat in a high-backed oak chair, proceeded to tell of goblins and ghosts. The squire, not a superstitious man himself, listened intently  as the parson spoke about the crusader who rose from his tomb for a nighttime ride. The old porter’s wife added to the tale with her own of the crusader’s march on Midsummer Eve, when fairies became visible.

Such was Christmas Night at Bracebridge Hall, England, in 1820.

The story set in the fictional manor was written by American author Washington Irving, and published in 1820 in the fifth installment of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. This was less than three months before the world was introduced to the Headless Horseman in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” prior to the start of the Victorian era – and when Charles Dickens was only seven years old.

Twenty-three years before Ebenezer Scrooge changed his ways on the holiday in 1843, and 143 years before Andy Williams first sang about the most wonderful time of the year in 1963, Christmas had already been established as the season for telling scary ghost stories.

Irving’s English countryside story reminded readers of the idea of the paranormal and Christmas connection, but he didn’t invent it by a long shot.

Before it was “Christmas,” it was midwinter, solstice, Saturnalia, Sol Invictus, and Yule. It was the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It represented death, and rebirth, and was a time when the veil between worlds was thin. And it took place around December 21. 

Prior to the emergence of what we know as the seasonal mascot Santa Claus, there was Sinterklass, and Saint Nicholas before him. There was the long-bearded Odin who would lead a band of hunters, or fairies, or armies of the dead across the sky during Yuletide on the Wild Hunt of Old Norse and Germanic Pagan beliefs. And much like Odin, and solstice, were appropriated, or enveloped, into Christmas, so were seasonal pagan songs turned into carols.

As Christianity spread, folklore incorporated the supernatural with the religious holiday. The anti-Claus Krampus is possibly from a pre-Christian era, but the beast of Germanic and Eastern European origins became a counterpart to St. Nick, and appeared as a hairy goat-like demon with horns and cloven hooves. Written in the 9th-11th century, the Sagas of the Icelanders has some pretty heavy duty spectral action during the season, including revenants. And the underworld race of goblins known as kallikantzaroi emerged in Southeastern Europe in (approximately) late 14th Century with a mission to wreak havoc during the 12 Days of Christmas.

The idea of paranormal stories told during the winter had already been documented in fiction by 1589, when Christopher Marlowe wrote of the season’s tales of “spirits and ghosts” in The Jew of Malta. Shakespeare shortly thereafter wrote of a sad story best for winter, “of sprites and goblins” in 1623’s The Winter’s Tale — nearly two decades ahead of Oliver Cromwell banning, or trying to, Christmas celebrations in 1644 during the English Civil War.

Meanwhile, in the colonies, the Puritans rejected the pagan trappings and revelries of Christmas. Stephen Nissenbaum, author of The Battle for Christmas, writes that from 1659 to 1681, Massachusetts made public celebrations of the holiday a criminal offense carrying a fine. Notably, Captain John Smith of Jamestown celebrated the holiday in 1607, but festivities in America weren’t widespread. Christmas wasn’t even a national holiday until 1870.

By the time Irving came to write of English Christmas traditions, which also involved “mumming” and hanging mistletoe, it was a romanticized notion, and not likely being observed with much fanfare outside the countryside. In the industrial areas, December 25 was just another day of work.

But Irving’s story nonetheless connected with Charles Dickens. In his book Dickens, Peter Ackroyd writes the author had lived an idyllic life in the country until that happy existence abruptly ended, and his father was sent to a debtor’s prison when young Charles was just 12. So Irving’s Bracebridge — a setting familiar to Dickens, and based on the real-life Watt Family at Astor Hall — must have stirred up nostalgia for his childhood lost.

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In time, Dickens and Irving became friends, and the former credited the American author with influencing his own Christmas writings. A Christmas Carol, in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas was published December 19, 1843, but Dickens’ previous work The Pickwick Papers had already included a story about a Christmas Eve with ghost stories, reminiscent of Irving’s “Old Christmas.” He likewise introduced a proto-Scrooge in “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole A Sexton” in 1836 as a chapter of Pickwick.

Interestingly, from a paranormal perspective, Dickens’ “ghosts” in Carol are more inhuman entities than traditional spirits of those who have passed. Christmas Past is described as an “it” with a bright flame atop its head; Present is described as quite large with a wreath of holly and icicles; Christmas Yet to Come is the Grim Reaper-esque figure in a black shroud without a discernible face and body. The ghost of Marley is a familiar sort of ghost, though trapped in chains, returning when the veil is thin much like the old pagan tales suggested.

If Irving’s successful Sketch Book reminded English readers of the ghost story tradition, it was Dickens’ blockbuster hit that made it mainstream. Like any good creator, he gave the audience more, and wrote four additional Christmas books, and several essays on the topic – many of which involved supernatural elements, and promoted Dickens’ “Carol Philosophy” and themes of generosity.

After Jesus and Santa, Dickens gets a lot of well-deserved credit for how we celebrate Christmas. He helped remind the urban English population of the good ol’ days of Christmases of yore, and popularized the holiday as a secular charitable observance (and he coined the phrase “Merry Christmas”).

Though Dickens didn’t create the idea of Christmas ghost stories, he helped make it quintessentially British. Victorian magazines and newspapers took to publishing these themed stories for holiday fireside reading, and readers ate it up. Not surprisingly, other authors wanted in on the trend, even if they didn’t echo the Carol Philosophy.

Elizabeth Gaskell contributed the ghost yarn “The Old Nurse’s Story” to Dickens’ 1852 collection, A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire. The list goes on: John Burwick Harwood’s “Horror: A True Tale” (1861); Ada Buisson’s “The Ghost’s Summons” (1868); Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Markheim” (1885). Even American Edgar Allan Poe set his 1845 poem “The Raven” in “bleak December,” and American ex-pat Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw (1898) begins on Christmas Eve.

By 1891, English humorist Jerome K. Jerome commented on the popular tradition in Told After Supper:

“It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story. Christmas Eve is the ghosts’ great gala night. On Christmas Eve they hold their annual fete. On Christmas Eve everybody in Ghostland who IS anybody…comes out to show himself or herself, to see and to be seen, to promenade about and display their winding-sheets and grave-clothes to each other… Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about spectres. It is a genial, festive season, and we love to muse upon graves, and dead bodies, and murders, and blood.”

This popularity of ghost stories in Christmas was aided by the fascination with the paranormal, and the rise of Spiritualism in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. As seances and the use of spirit boards became more vogue, so did the holiday trend. When the religious movement faded from the spotlight in the 1920s, the ghost story tradition stuck around even if the English slightly cooled on it during the early-to-mid war-torn 20th century.

M.R. James, the medieval scholar, and one of the best ghost story writers ever, took to telling fireside tales of the supernatural while he served as Provost at Eton College from 1918-1936. In North America, Canadian novelist Robertson Davies would do the same at Massey College, according to bibliographers Carl Spadoni, and Judith Skelton Grant. Meanwhile, American horror author (and racist) H.P. Lovecraft set his 1925 Necronomicon story “The Festival” during Christmastime.

Anecdotally, it seems Halloween now dominates when it comes to the season of the ghost, even in the United Kingdom. But the Christmas tradition has not entirely faded. The 1970s BBC special A Ghost Story for Christmas has returned in recent years, and The Guardian published five such stories over the course of as many days in 2013.  

Contrary to the “scary ghost stories” lyric of classic American Christmas carol “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” the U.S. didn’t take to the Christmas ghost story in the same way our British cousins did in the late 19th century  (which makes it especially peculiar the song was written by two New York City kids, Edward Pola and George Wyle, and sung by Iowa’s own Andy Williams).

Rather, Christmas in America became especially defined by the jolly (but also supernatural) Santa Claus character presented in the 1931 Coca-Cola advertisement, painted by Haddon Sundblom, and inspired by Clement Clark Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” aka “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” The folklore of Christmas in America in the early 20th Century was candy cane sweet. Lacking was the ominous spookiness that reminds us to seek the light.

(The indigenous peoples of North America also celebrated solstice, such as with the Iroquois Haudeshaune; the Passamaquoddy tribe’s belief that frost giants returned north during this time; the general idea across different native nations that this time is a celebration of light returning to turtle island (Earth). These traditions were never incorporated into American culture, and were instead purged by colonization.)

Still, America has gradually been making up for its absence of Christmas ghosts and goblins. The angelic 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life, directed by Frank Capra and starring Jimmy Stewart, espouses enough of the Carol Philosophy of goodwill to make Dickens proud. In Dr. Seuss’ 1957 book, and 1966 animated special, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, the creature on Mount Crumpit is a modern-day Krampus. Rod Serling toyed, somewhat literally in one case, with the notion of magic and ghosts in his 1960-62 Christmas episodes of The Twilight Zone (“Night of the Meek,” “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” and “Changing of the Guard”).

These days the holiday horror subgenre of film has channeled the scary nature of Victorian tales. Santa -as-slasher is well-tread territory thanks in large part to 1974’s Black Christmas, directed by Bob Clark (who also co-wrote and directed A Christmas Story).  More than ghosts, the monsters of Christmas in American cinema has included Gremlins, Krampus, Jack Frost, Gingerdead Man, and the zombies of Anna and the Apocalypse. And the “real” Santa and his creepy elves themselves become the monsters in the Finnish film Rare Exports.

But perhaps with the exception of A Nightmare Before Christmas, and some of the more effective adaptations of A Christmas Carol, such as Scrooged, the sentimentality of Irving and Dickens is mostly absent from modern holiday tales of the supernatural. Yet they certainly bring us right back to the monsters and undead of the pagan tales.

However, with the seemingly nonstop demand for “content” across streaming platforms — and the seasonal English tradition gaining fresh attention on media outlets — we might be on the threshold of a new age of December-set stories populated with spirits and goblins.

Perhaps once more in the near future, every Christmas Eve will be a great gala night for ghosts.

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Watch out, it is time for spring, it is time for love, and the big bad monster is going to eat your nose!

This Cult From the 80s Was Patient Zero for Epstein and Pizzagate Conspiracies

On February 4, 1987, a woman in Tallahassee, Florida called the cops on a man playing in a park with six “unkempt” children. In doing so, she unwittingly sparked a long-lasting conspiracy theory about the government’s involvement in child sex abuse that—thanks in part to recent theories surrounding Comet Ping Pong or the Jeffery Epstein’s death—still enjoys life to this day, centered around a mysterious group called The Finders.

Late last month, after years of demand from conspiracy theorists, the FBI released over 300 pages of documents related to The Finders—a D.C.-based organization whose origins date back before WWII but didn’t become known to the general public until that phone call in Tallahassee swept them up in the Satanic Panic of the late 80s. The police reports, memos, and archival press clippings—particularly related to the arrest of two members in 1987 on misdemeanor child-abuse charges that were dropped a few weeks later—have recaptured the attention of conspiracy theorists around the Internet.

The release of the Finders documents, after years of requests, is as good a time as any to look back at an incident that set the stage for several modern child trafficking conspiracy theories. These were among the most heavily requested documents from the FBI due to the lingering, decades-old allegation that the group was some kind of front for the CIA, which led to a coverup of the Finders’ most heinous and abusive activities. Anyone looking for a smoking gun in the docs will come away disappointed. But even just the agreed-upon facts around The Finders, and the mysteries those facts create, make for a compelling yarn in their own right.

By their own account, The Finders were a kind of alternative lifestyle commune based in the Washington, D.C. area, made up of 20 adults and 7 children around the time of the 1987 arrest. Whether they’re more Manson Family or Merry Pranksters—abusive Satanists or whimsical followers of a charismatic leader named Marion Pettie—depends on how much you’d like to read between the lines on the official reports, and which side of the conspiracy theory you fall. Whether they were evil or harmless, the existence of The Finders seemed to revolve entirely around Pettie, a high-school dropout who said later in life that the group began in the 1930s, when he rented two apartments in D.C. and “opened them up for anybody that wanted to come in, and the idea in my head was that they were going to teach me something about power, money, or sex.”

Pettie, who died in 2004, eventually evolved his group so that he was giving orders, and the Finders who obeyed would be forced to experiment with their lives in unconventional ways. To Washington City Paper in 1996, Pettie described his life’s work as a “topsy-turvy university” where he learns from the “fools” who come and follow him. Here’s the Finders experience as described by former member Robert Terrell, who met Pettie in 1971:

“Pettie used the term ‘pressure cooker,’” he says. “The idea was to explore your own person and discover your own true nature. You can’t do that just sitting at a desk or on a couch in a routine way. You have to have some experiences, so Pettie was good at structuring experiences from which you could learn. He called himself the ‘game caller,’ and what that meant was that he’d call a game for you to do something where you’d gain experience.”

For Terrell, game playing ranged from working a temp accounting job in a downtown D.C. law firm to catching a flight to Japan on two hours’ notice to gather information on Japanese companies and report back to Pettie. It was a subculture built on whimsy and intrigue, undergirded by a sense of tribal affiliation.

The Finders eschewed private property, taught their kids through “hands-on” experience, and were essentially invisible to the outside world until Feb. 4, 1987. When police responded to the aforementioned 911 call, they found two men in their 20s with six kids aged two to seven, all six of whom were dirty, bug-bitten, underfed, and living in a smelly van, according to police reports. The men were identified as Michael Holwell and Douglas Ammerman, and their conduct when questioned, as described in a handwritten report, was certainly suspicious:

“This writer spoke to Suspect #1, who stated that he and Suspect #2 were teachers from Washington D.C., and they were enroute to Mexico with the children. Suspect #1 stated that they were going to Mexico to set up a school for brilliant children. When asked about the parents of the children, Suspect #1 became very evasive and stated that the children’s parents were in Washington D.C. Suspect #2 refused to give this writer any information, and he pretended to faint when told he was under arrest for child abuse. Suspect #2 fell face down on the ground and refused to stand up. He was carried by this writer and two other law enforcement officers and placed into a patrol vehicle.”

When an officer talked to the oldest of the children, named Mary, the answers weren’t any more reassuring:

The strange reference to “the game-caller”—Pettie—was incomprehensible to investigators, and made them believe the children may have been brainwashed. The report adds that the investigator asked Mary about sexual abuse, and “she became very evasive. She denied any ‘bad touches’ or any inappropriate behavior by the adults, became very fidgety, and wanted to end the interview.”

When Tallahassee police contacted D.C. police, the story got weirder. When D.C. police found out the Florida cops had arrested Finders, “Their response was, ‘Holy shit! We’ve been looking at these freaks!’” according to Tallahassee officer Scott Hunt in a 1988 Washington City Paper article reprinted in the document dump. D.C. Police believed at the time that The Finders were satanists and/or survivalists, though not necessarily criminals. Just a few months earlier in December 1986, as noted in the February search warrant, a D.C. detective found the following in the rear of the house whose address Mary had given investigators:

A clearing approximately seventy yards behind the house and several stumps surrounding the open area. Several round stones had been gathered near the circle, this practice is sometimes used in Satanic rituals, and evidence that several persons had gathered in the clearing recently. The rear of the residence is covered from the alley by heavy bamboo growth, save a small entrance to the rear yard. In the rear yard was a small very ornate gravestone propped up against the support pillar for the porch.

The timing was perfect for the national media to descend on the case. The country was in the midst of a moral panic over satanic rituals, stoked by books like the discredited bestseller Michelle Remembers, media-circus trials like the McMartin Preschool case, and completely unfounded worries that heavy bands pledged allegiance to the devil. (If you’re interested in this ridiculous chapter of American conservatism, I highly recommend this 1988 Geraldo Rivera NBC special, “Devil Worship: Exposing Satan's Underground.”)

Further developments in the Finders investigation only increased the hysteria. Along with personal documents and then-uncommon computers, which featured esoteric communication between members over an early version of email, a search warrant on the Finders house in D.C. found photos of children with slaughtered goats. And in Florida, a doctor’s examination of the children did not rule out sexual abuse in two of them, but didn’t confirm it either.

Somehow, this led Officer Hunt to say in a press conference that “physical examinations showed sexual abuse to one of the children.” As City Paper describes in a retrospective article from 1988, the media coverage only got nuttier:

Mike Buchanan (of D.C.’s CBS affiliate), citing police sources, reported that the Finders had “worldwide connections,” used “sex and children to obtain power and money,” and had two bank accounts with over $100,000 in each one. The Glover Park residence was “a breeding house where women exercise great control.” The children in custody were “like shells, zombie-like.”

Officer Hunt of the Tallahassee PD didn’t calm anyone down. He told the Miami Herald, “It is our belief these kids were not kidnapped but that their parents gave them away, because one of the rites of passage into this satanic organization is that you have to give up your rights to you children, and that the leaders of this organization can do what they want to with your children.”

And he told the Tallahassee Democrat, “As far as we’re concerned, this goes from coast to coast and from Canada to Mexico … There is no doubt in our mind that this will have at least national, if not international, repercussions.”

But quickly, The Finders—specifically the biological mothers of the children found in Florida, who traveled to speak with investigators—gave explanations that apparently satisfied law enforcement. According to police reports, the mothers said that in late December the men in the group took the children to Kentucky, where they would work a construction job, while the women went to California for temporary work. When the men arrived for the project, however, they found that it was at a standstill, and instead told the women that they would take the children on an “adventure” to Florida.

According to the documents, the mothers understood why the police would be asking questions, and agreed that the men had handled the situation poorly by lying about Mexico. But they also insisted they had nothing to hide. They denied being Satanists—the photo of the slaughtered goat, they said, was similar to a biology class, and was part of a lesson for the children on where meat comes from. They insisted that they children were well fed, and they completely disbelieved any allegations that the men with their children could have committed sexual abuse.

These interviews seemingly convinced investigators that The Finders were abnormal, but not criminal. “Probably the two men-caretakers could have provided a better atmosphere for the children and been more open during interviewing by police at the scene,” the Tallahassee report allowed, before closing the case on a note of relative open-mindedness:

This hoopla would have all been forgotten, and certainly these documents would not have been so heavily requested from the FBI, if not for a report written by a junior Customs Service agent in 1987 that became public in 1993 and noted that the D.C. Police’s investigation of The Finders was dropped because it became “a CIA internal matter” and classified as secret. That revelation prompted a Department of Justice investigation to discover if there was some sort of cover-up at work, which found no evidence and was closed in 1994.

The CIA itself, of course, has maintained that this is a non-story, and says that there are only two connections between the organization and The Finders: Isabelle Pettie, Marion’s wife who died in 1984, was employed by the agency from 1952-1961; and in the 80s, the CIA used a company for its officers’ computer training that happened to employ members of The Finders. In the released documents, the belief that there’s some connection between the CIA and The Finders is most prominent in some April 1987 speculation from a D.C. police officer, written up in a bizarre official report:

Because of the assumption that there must be something bigger behind Marion Pettie’s band of weirdos, rumors about The Finders have outlived the group itself, which is believed to have died out with Pettie. But the most damning point against the CIA conspiracy comes from a 1993 FBI memo from their reopened investigation into the handling of the Finders case, which revealed no CIA interference in Florida when the child-abuse investigation would have been taking place.

The lingering doubt about the truth behind The Finders can maybe best be explained by the question, “Why the hell else would two men in their 20s take a bunch of kids who aren’t theirs down to Florida just to hang out and explore?” In the search for an answer, and in light of the many other conspiracies theories that implicate high government figures in sexual abuse—i.e. Pizzagate or Jeffery Epstein’s so-called suicide—The Finders become a sort of Patient Zero. If these documents had provided some kind of proof that U.S. Intelligence was covering up sexual abuse in the ’80s, the thinking in some corners of the internet goes, it wouldn’t have just shed light on an injustice from decades ago. It also would have provided much-needed support for the FBI/CIA conspiracies of today.

Of course, that the FBI’s documents don’t include a smoking gun for a CIA coverup probably isn’t going to change the minds of many conspiracy theorists. Motherboard has found many tweets and blog posts saying as much, and a page about the Finders on a conspiracy theory website notes that there is “clear evidence of suppression of an investigation into a child trafficking ring with blatantly obvious ties to US military and intelligence organizations.”

But in the absence of anything but old allegations, the theory that The Finders were somehow a part of the CIA looks more like an effort to impose some sense onto a mostly nonsensical group. Providing support for that logic is Wendell Minnick, an author and researcher of the group who said this to City Paper in 1996, as the group was disintegrating:

“The Finders would love you to think they’re a CIA front, but I would say they’re really nothing,” says Minnick. “You’re going to hear a lot of bullshit on the Finders, because they lie. These are dysfunctional adults, but they’re all working their asses off. They’re constantly working on some project. If you have a cult, the best way to control people is to keep them busy, to keep their minds occupied—if you have people standing around doing nothing, then they start thinking.”

You can poke holes in either side of this conspiracy theory if you set your mind to it, and maybe that’s just how Marion Pettie would have liked it. With its key figure long since passed, and the FBI's dossier now available for public consumption, it's unlikely that anyone searching for a satisfying conclusion to the saga of this strange cult will ever find it.

This Cult From the 80s Was Patient Zero for Epstein and Pizzagate Conspiracies syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

Top 10 Memorable Scenes Of 2016

Along with great films comes sometimes ever greater scenes. This year I broke down 10 of my favorite. These are all my personal favorite and are on this list because I haven’t stopped thinking about them since I saw them in the dark room with the giant shining light where I do my worship. These scenes are Heaven and film is God.

10. Morris From America (Car Ride) Of all the films I saw this year, Morris From America was one of the best surprises. Chad Hartigan’s coming of age tale about a young American boy growing up in Germany with his single father played brilliantly by Craig Robinson is the perfect examination of the loneliness of growing up and being grown up. In a key scene from the film Morris, played by Markees Christmas, has gone out of town with some new friends and gets stranded when he no longer wants to follow the group and starts getting taunted. His father has to come pick him up and the car ride in which Robinsons character explains to Morris all about his own loneliness and sense of sadness with being out of place in Germany is a beautiful revelation for both characters. It’s one of the best things Craig Robinson has done. The sadness and loneliness that we all feel but never can convey is brought out wonderfully in this conversation. As children we assume our parents could never understand our loneliness and as parents we aren’t sure how to connect with our kids but this scene shows that conversations can move mountains and break down barriers.

9. American Honey ( Star Grows Up) American Honey is like if Andrea Arnold was able to capture the wild excitement and the unstable emotional state of the youth of America. Throughout the film you follow Star, played by newcomer Sasha Lane, who is a young Midwestern girl who isn’t exactly living the best life. She and her younger siblings dig through trash cans for food while she also deals with sexual advances from her absent mothers boyfriend. It’s a situation you want her to get out of but what way out is there? Star comes across a van of misfits and lowlifes lead by king rat tail, Shia LaBeouf as Jake in an unusually good performance, who go door to door selling magazines. Star joins this merry band of arm pit stains and sets off on a literal journey to self discovery. The final scene displays the group dancing around a camp fire like some tribe of young stoners who worship Rihanna and it’s a mesmerizing site. Jake and Star and the rest of the group dance around the fire and sing songs as if it’s their most natural state. Jake pulls Star to the side and hands her a little turtle. Throughout the film Jake has been giving Star gifts but it’s mostly to disguise the fact that he’s really taking more away from her. The mind games he plays with himself and her are leaving Star emotionally confused and scarred. She takes the turtle and sets it back in the lake and even taking a dip in it herself. The scene plays like a baptism of sorts, allowing Star to let go of the childish games and relationships and start to become herself, whatever that may be.The scene doesn’t guarantee that Stars life gets better or that she even learned what she needed to from her interactions with Jake and the rest of the crew but it shows one persons internal growth in a masterful way.

8. Swiss Army Man (One Last Fart) Throughout Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s brilliant Swiss Army Man you are subjected to Daniel Radcliffe as a farting corpse named Manny and Paul Dano as the miserable loser Hank who finds his body washed up on the shore of a random island he choose to kill him self on. After Hank uses Manny as a speed boat he ends up in the wilderness with the need to survive and the only way he can is with the help of Manny and his many uses. He can chop wood and shot bullets out of his mouth and everything else like some ummm… Multi Purpose Dude?…. NO! Like a Swiss Army Man! Throughout the film Hank displays an unhealthy obsession with a female character named Sarah, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, we only see in flashbacks or pictures. You come to find out that, even though he has a picture of her as his screen saver, Hank has actually never talked to her and has been too scared and shy to really function as a socially expectable human being. When we get to the end and Hank ends up in Sarah’s backyard and finally on a beach where he’s already been outed as an obsessive stalker he lets out a fart and declares very proudly it was him who farted and in a lesser film Sarah’s reaction would be one of Joy and maybe she would have even entertained dating him seeing that as his self discovery but not in this film. Sarah and her husband a long with the rest of the crowd gathered on the beach watch in horror and never excuse the behavior. It throws the whole idea of all you have to do is be yourself and you’ll get the girl right out the fucking window. Sarah and the audience know Hank has a problem and regardless of how whimsical and cute it is, it’s a problem and he needs help and she or any woman of your dreams for that matter isn’t the answer and shouldn’t be forced to be your savior. Hank is off but he’s growing and watching Manny smile and fart his way up the ocean waves as everyone watches in disgust and horror and Hank,who stares and smiles knowing he saved a life,was one of the funniest and heartbreaking moments I’ve seen all year.

7. The VVitch ( Unholy bond with Black Phillip) Robert Eggers delivered one of the best horror films to come out in a long time. A slow burn of a film that deals with a family living out in the woods in 1630s New England. The family is cast out of their community and forced to live out in the woods where an evil presence lurks. The Witch is about liberation. It’s about freeing yourself from the shackles of society with all their religion and rules for how one should act. It is especially a tale of liberation concerning Anya Taylor-Joy’s character Thomasin. She’s carried down by the weight of her responsibilities within her family. A role she didn’t ask for but is expected of her since she is a growing young woman. She must watch after the kids and clean the house and cook and do all the things her families religion and society has assigned to her. Throughout the film an evil lurks in the woods in the form of a witch. You know you’re in for some fucked up shit when the film starts with a naked lady cutting open a baby and bathing in its blood. You don’t see all the gory details but you get the feeling that living out in the woods in New England during the 1630s was a pretty stupid idea. The scene I want to talk about is the ending of the film. An ending that pretty much will make or break what you thought of the film up to that point. The ending in which Thomasin pledges an alliance with Black Phillip, the goat who Thomasins younger siblings claim to be the Devil earlier in the film and Thomasin brushes it off, and follows him into the woods to find a camp fire of witches laughing and screaming until all at once they start to lift towards the sky in what is one of the best visual representations of liberation I’ve seen. Now, I’m not saying this movie got me to denounce God and start worshipping the Devil but it did.

6. Jackie ( Assassination Scene )

Pablo Larrain has knocked the biopic on its head with this amazing psychological horror film and Natalie Portman gives the performance of her career playing Jacqueline Kennedy in her most vulnerable and fragile moments. The key scene in question is the sun in which this film revolves around. The assassination scene could have been done in a very exploitive and classless way in the hands of a lesser film maker. The fact that we can actually see footage of the event only adds to pressure surrounding the scene. We all pretty much have watched the film footage. It’s morbid and violent and chaotic and it satisfies the worst of our voyeuristic tendencies. This could have been done in a way that glorifies the scene as some action set piece head shot but Larrain films the scene with a real heavy grace, dropping you in the car with a loud BANG! we are chaos and panic and we’ve landed right on Jackie and you feel as she pushes and struggles with us as we tear through the scene like a bullet creating uncertainty and dread. Every awkward movement and confused look is captured perfectly in this scene and it’s like we are seeing it for the first time and really feeling the weight of it.

5. La La Land ( Traffic Jam )

The opening scene of Damien Chazelle’s spectacular film La La Land is pretty much the opening scene to your life if you live in LA. Being stuck in traffic is hell but almost everyone of those people, honking and shouting, are here because they have a dream and trying to successfully realize that dream can make life one huge traffic jam. This glorious musical sequence is made all the more spectacular by being done in what is made to look like one unbroken long take that slips and glides up down the 105 as morning commuters dance and sing as if though Los Angeles is the casting director for Hollywoods latest big budget musical. They don’t make them like this anymore and Chazelle makes the case that as long as you know what you’re doing and you have a passion for film musicals can still be relevant and fresh but still remind us of the optimism and joy of early Hollywood. The scene encompasses everything about the film. Ambition, talent, and guts. You gotta have them to make it in La La Land and you gotta have them to think you can open a film like La La Land with a musical number as ambitious as this.

4. Captain America : Civil War ( Airport Scene )

The Russo Brothers snuck into my brain and unlocked my comic book geek dreams and wildest fantasies and used that collective knowledge to create not only one of the greatest superhero films of all time but one of the all time greatest superhero film scenes ever put on screen. I can write pages and pages about this scene and every little detail that was done correctly and with such care that it made me cry but I am just going to remind you that Spider Man is the best he’s ever been on screen in his brief moments in this film. Ant- Man and Paul Rudd as Ant Man is the superhero we didn’t know we needed. HE FUCKING TURNS INTO GIANT MAN! Just go watch the scene. As a matter of fact I’m going to stop typing and you should stop reading and just GO WATCH CIVIL WAR NOW!

3. Moonlight ( End of act 1/ Closing Shot )

What can I say about Moonlight that hasn’t already been said? It’s considered one of the best films of the year and for a very good reason. This beautiful film about self discovery and connection in a world that doesn’t give you a chance to do either of those things for yourself is a master class in subtle filmmaking. Barry Jenkins creates a giant effect with small intimate moments and although he is the cook it is his main ingredients that really bring this dish together. All the actors playing the 3 stages of Chiron’s life are pitch perfect and are supported by an array of brilliant performances. One of those performances belongs to Mahershala Ali, who plays Juan the drug dealer, and gives one of the best performances of the year. The scene in question puts us at Juans home where he lives with his girlfriend, played by Janelle Monae, and it’s the end of act one. We’ve just experienced Juan coming across a young Chiron ,who was being bullied and chased by older kids, and eventually forming a bond. This bond allows young Chiron to not have to go home to his crack addict mother, played by a fantastic Naomie Harris, and use Juans place as a safe haven from her addiction and verbal abuse but what Chiron doesn’t know is that Juan is where his mother gets the drugs that are sending her and his life spinning out of control. In an emotional gut punch of a scene young Chiron walks up to Juan who is sitting at his kitchen table and asks him if he is the one who sells drugs to his mother. What follows is one of the most heartbreaking exchanges I’ve ever seen on film and Mahershala Ali as Juan quietly figuring out in his head what to tell Chiron and eventually telling him the truth is an automatic Oscar in my opinion. Juan’s reluctance to tell Chiron and his eventual feelings of disappointment and anger towards himself are all shown in Ali’s eyes and body language. He never goes for the big scene and makes it larger than life because of it.

2. The Lobster ( David picks up on the Heartless woman while biscuit woman dies on the floor next to them ) In Yorgos Lanthimo’s brilliant relationship satire we follow David, played by Colin Farrell, as he is forced to live in a hotel for 45 days because he is single and being single is outlawed and in order to avoid being turned into an animal after 45 days he must find a partner and create a relationship with them in the hotel. Sounds like every other fucking day, am I right? In this brilliant comedy our characters find love with each other by finding certain traits that each can relate to. For example, a young woman has constant nose bleeds and instead of trying to win her over with a personality, another character decides to bang his head or stab a sharp object into his nose in order to give the impression that he also has constant nose bleeds and wins her over. It’s the perfect metaphor for the way people court each other and try to win each other over with surface and artificial things like being into the same bands or having the same fashion sense. In this key scene David decides he needs to find a partner soon and that he will also need to fake something in order to find her. David finds himself being attracted to The Heartless Woman, played by Angeliki Papoulia who was also in the directors previous film Dogtooth, who is given that nickname because she is mean and has no heart. The scene that really brought this film together and makes it stand out above the rest is a scene where one of the hotel guests has just jumped out of a window in an attempt to kill herself. She lays on the floor all crippled and screaming in pain when David sees this as an opportunity to try and court the heartless woman, he walks up behind her as she sits in a hot tub not very far from the attempted suicide and say’s out loud how he hopes that the lady will die soon so that she stops screaming because it’s really disturbing his day and with that heartless statement he gets a glance from the heartless woman and from there they are a couple. It’s doomed from the start and he knows it but with the pressure on us everyday to find a partner we are willing to go against ourselves to please others and even willing to complain about a dying woman’s screams. It’s hilarious and heartbreaking and dark in ways that give me joy beyond comprehension.

1. Green Room ( Patrick Stewart vs. Anton Yelchin )

Jeremy Saulnier’s punk rock horror film Green Room stands above the rest this year when it comes to thrills and twists you never see coming. It’s a master class in suspense and tension. This isn’t some free for all shoot ‘em up stab 'em frenzy, it’s a calculated cat and mouse game that requires our characters to think before acting. A punk rock band has just witnessed a murder in the green room of the venue they just played that just so happens to be run by a menacing skinhead gang. The bands bassist, played by the late and talented Anton Yelchin, was able to dial the cops on his cell phone before it’s grabbed from his hands and this creates a problem for both parties. Now that the band has seen what they saw the venue can’t exactly let them go but after having the cops called on the venue they can’t exactly just straight up murder these kids so they have to figure something out and they get their help in the form of their quiet but menacing leader Darcy, played by a brilliant Patrick Stewart, who figures out a way to get rid of the band and save face. At this point our band is locked up in the green room holding one of the skinheads hostage while they have his gun and figure out how the hell to get out of there. One punk suggests shooting his way out but this isn’t that movie and our characters know that they could have more guns on the other side and at this point the band believes the cops are on their way to the venue. Enter Darcy who shows up to clean the mess by promising that they will let the band go without harming them as long as they hand over the gun and the person they have in the room safely but the band as well as the audience knows that isn’t the case and it isn’t going to be that simple. What follows is one of the most tense stand offs in cinema history. It’s Anton Yelchin trying to figure out if he should unlock the door and hand over the gun to Patrick Stewart on the other side but it’s a back and forth that has both actors matching wit and verbally trying to knock the other out. It isn’t until the end of the scene that we get a burst of violence and chaos but leading up to that is a strategy game that leaves you at the edge of your seat and asking yourself “ What the fuck would I do in a situation like this?” and then showing you there is no right or wrong answer and you can’t always just go into action hero mode because the situation calls for it. For the most part you just die.

🔎Captain Banjo and Kenny take a look at their map to see how they can escape from a sticky situation...  From Captain Banjo and His Merry Band of Marauding Pirate Goats written by Glen Allen Stadler #art #illustration #goats #pirates #kidsbooks #publishing #painting #digitalart #adobe #photoshop #drawing #sketch #sketching #kids #animals #paint #ebooks #cartoons #comics #kindle

To Please God

  The portals of the village temple stay washed and clean A billy goat walks in stride with an aurora.

The black kid has no suspicion. Enjoys the parade. Folks make merry. A band plays. It sets up the mood. Looks an entertainment.

The priest sprinkles turmeric water. Scared, Billy bleats, breaks and rushes away.

The party chase him, while the priest urges him to return. He attempts to escape.…

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Can you hear it, in the distance ?

Can you hear the pipers, the sound of the tabors and the tambourines, the singing of the deads and the livings that were, the music of the luths and the guitars?

Can you hear it, my friend? It is the call of the parade.