Good Friday

The more you think about it, the worse it gets.

No part of the Passion Gospel, the Gospel for Good Friday, has any hope.

Even the tender moments – Jesus asking John to take care of his mother, Joseph and Nicodemus making sure that Jesus has a proper burial – they’re just people dealing with the fallout from death.

You know what Joseph and Nicodemus are thinking about while they’re wrapping Jesus’ body up for burial? How much this sucks.

And whether the Romans will stop at killing Jesus. Or will they, and other followers of Jesus, be next?

The more you think about it, the worse it gets.

You know what Joseph and Nicodemus aren’t thinking about? How anything good can come from this.

Much less how God is already using all of it to do more good than either of them, or anyone on Good Friday, could ever imagine.

And yet, you and I know, that’s exactly what’s happening. Because you and I know something that Joseph and Nicodemus don’t know. Not on that worst of Friday’s.

They don’t know that Sunday is coming.

But that’s how it is, when you’re where they are. When you are right in the middle of the very worst.

When you and I are right in the middle of the very worst, there is nothing that human eyes can see to tell us that it’s ever going to get any better.

When that’s where you are, the only open question is whether it’s going to get worse.

In the middle of everything that you are dealing with right now – whether it’s death or illness, divorce or the end of a friendship, job loss or financial problems – while you’re waiting to see whether you’ve hit bottom or if it’s going to get worse. You get Joseph and Nicodemus. You are right there with them.

The more you think about what you’re dealing with, the worse it gets.

There’s nothing that our human eyes can see to tell us that anything good can come from what you’re going through.

And yet, you and I know, that’s not true.

Because you and I know something. Something that’s easy to lose sight of when you’re in the middle. Something that’s hard to hold onto when you’re scared.

But it doesn’t matter. It’s okay if we lose sight of it. Because it’s still true. Even if we’re scared. 

Today is Good Friday. And Good Friday shows us that none of it, not even the very worst, can hold down our God.

Because Sunday is coming.

Today’s Readings

watching this was a religious experience

I have never been more motivated to learn a new hobby

Needle felting is the best hobby!!! And I should do this honestly. I have so many slightly fucked sweaters...

How does this not come off?

#textile tumblr help me out

@madamewesker Wool fibers as I understand them are slightly barbed and lock together when felted! Imagine it like backcombing the strands into a tight mat, but on purpose. If the original sweater had wool content (which I imagine it must have, if moths were eating at it) then this artist has essentially fused the felted wool to the knit itself! I did this once to make a kitty ear hat :3

please just read the whole thing

“You get to drive away”

sorry, professor whats his nuts

you all forgot the most important part

I’m glad we all got closure. This is amazing.

At least the professor has a good sense of humor about it?

This is a man who has never once obsessively checked ratemyprofessors.com every 2 hours after grades are posted.

THINKING ABOUT DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS‼️

My buddy lives in China so when the sun is setting for him, it’s rising for me. So, naturally, I sent him this

@giftofjay us lmao

Guys I reblogged this post five days ago and it's been flooding my notes ever since, what is going on 😭

It made my top posts what the heck

I feel like I'm being haunted

WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE AND HOW DO YOU KEEP FINDING THIS

The person I tagged has now blocked me there's no point to this the post is invalid YOU CAN STOP NOW

The person has since unblocked me and we're friends again now so go wild ig

just a reminder that "listened to marginalized people about their oppression" means "people know their own experiences better than you do" not "the most oppressed person in the room is always right about everything"

Some of the beautiful illustrations by S.D. Schindler from Brother Hugo and the Bear by Katy Beebe.

The book is based on two real medieval figures: Hugo, a scribe who added a self-portrait (pictured above) to the end of his copy of Jerome's Commentaries on Isaiah, and a bear who appears in a letter from the abbot of Cluny Abbey to a neighboring abbot asking to borrow a copy of The Letters of St. Augustine, "for a large part of ours has been accidentally eaten by a bear."

me: oh man im starving but im not sure what i should make for dinner……

the spirit of a 12th century templar knight that died a horrific death due to torture that started haunting me after i found a sword in the middle of the woods: spaghetti once more, prithee?

me: henry you are brilliant. spaghetti it is

a relationship should be 50/50

i have a sword. you have a sword. we duel in the woods.

can i come over and play for 10000 years

ok.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTdQuxw52/

I think I found my new favorite rabbit hole. This voice actor does Shakespeare scenes in a southern accent and I need to see the whole damn play. Absolutely beautiful

if you're not from the us american south, there's some amazing nuances to this you may have missed. i can't really describe all of them, because i've lived here my whole life and a lot of the body language is sort of a native tongue thing. the body language is its own language, and i am not so great at teaching language. i do know i instinctively sucked on my lower teeth at the same time as he did, and when he scratched the side of his face, i was ready to take up fucking arms with him.

but y'all. the way he said "brutus is an honourable man" - each and every time it changed just a little. it was the full condemnation Shakespeare wanted it to be. it started off slightly mock sincere. barely trying to cover the sarcasm. by the end...it wasn't a threat, it was a promise.

christ, he's good.

the eliding of “you all” to “y’all” while still maintaining 2 syllables is a deliberate and brilliant act of violence. “bear with me” said exactly like i’ve heard it at every funeral. the choices of breaking and re-establishing of eye contact. the balance of rehearsed and improvised tone. A+++ get this man a hollywood contract.

Get this man a starring role as Marc Antony in a southern adaptation of this show PLEASE.

This man is fantastic. 💕

The thing that just destroys me about this, though -- we think of Shakespearean language as being high-cultured, and intellectual, and somewhat inaccessible. And I know people think of Southerners as being ill-educated (which...let's be fair, most are, but not the way it's said). But that whole speech, unaltered, is so authentically Southern. And the thing is: Leaning into that language really amps the mood, in metalanguage. I'm not really sure how to explain it except... like... "Thrice" is not a word you hear in common speech...unless you're in the South and someone is trying to Make A Fucking Point.

Anyway. This was amazing and I want a revival of Shakespeare As Southern Gothic.

One of the lovely things about this, and one of the reasons it works so well, is that from what we can piece together of how Shakespeare was originally pronounced, it leans more towards an American southern accent than it does towards a modern British RP.

In addition, in the evolution of the English language in america, the south has retained many of the words, expressions, and cadences from the Renaissance/Elizabethan English spoken by the original British colonists.

One of the biggest examples of this is that the south still uses “O!”/“Oh!” In sentences, especially in multi-tone and multi-syllable varieties. We’ve lost that in other parts of the country (except in some specific pocket communities). But in the south on the whole? Still there. People in California or Chicago don’t generally say things like “why, oh why?” Or “oh bless your heart” or “Oh! Now why you gotta do a thing like that?!” But people from the south still do.

I teach, direct, and dramaturg Shakespeare for a living. When people are struggling with the “heightened” language, especially in “O” heavy plays like R&J and Hamlet, a frequent exercise I have them do is to run the scene once in a southern accent. You wouldn’t believe the way it opens them up and gives their contemporary brains an insight into ways to use that language without it being stiff and fake. Do the Balcony scene in a southern accent- you’ll never see it the same way again.

This guy is also doing two things that are absolutely spot-on for this speech:

First, he’s using the rhetorical figures Shakespeare gave him! The repetition of “ambition” and “Brutus is an honorable man”, the logos with which he presents his argument, the use of juxtaposition and antitheses (“poor have cried/caesar hath wept”, etc). You would not believe how many RADA/Carnegie/LAMDA/Yale trained actors blow past those, and how much of my career I spend pointing it out and making them put it back in.

Second, he’s playing the situation of the speech and character exactly right. This speech is hard not just because it’s famous, but because linguistically and rhetorically it’s a better speech than Brutus’ speech and in the context of the play, Brutus is the one who is considered a great orator. Brutus’ speech is fiery passion and grandstanding, working the crowd, etc. Anthony is not a man of speeches (“I am no orator, as Brutus is; But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man”) His toastmaster skills are not what Brutus’ are, but he speaks from his heart (his turn into verse in this scene from Brutus’ prose is brilliant) and lays out such a reasonable, logical argument that the people are moved anyway. I completely believe that in this guy’s performance. A plain, blunt, honest speaker. Exactly what Anthony should be.

TLDR: Shakespeare is my job and this is 100% a good take on this speech.

definitely one of the challenges I have with reading Shakespeare is that it sounds so weird to me. “The good is oft interr’d with their bones”?? Who talks like that?

Well,,, rednecks. Despite being Elizabethan English, none of this is really out of character for a man with that accent; southern american English has retained not only (I am told) the accent of Shakespeare, and the “Oh!” speech patterns, but also so many of the little linguistic patterns: parenthetic repetition (“so are they all - all honorable men”), speaking formally when deeply emotional, getting more and more sarcastic and passive-aggressive as time goes on, etc.

Co-signed

"I bet it doesn't hurt that bad, I don't have time for this shit."

"at least one"

now this is a gender binary i can get behind

Very generous of them to describe it as the "Thinking Period"

They correctly excluded the outlier Electroshocks Georg

i see posts here about how people are so mortified when they are acknowledged as being a regular customer somewhere that they never return. cowards. the employees at taco bell treat me like a celebrity. like royalty. i am their strange little pet customer who gets traded along as staff comes and goes. they know my car before i even speak in the drive-thru speaker. today i was 2 hours late and she ran over and squealed that she "thought i'd left them!" and that she "made my order with extra love!" and you what, she did

it's funny that this is getting notes again, because last night i went to the thai place in my neighborhood. it's run by a family and during covid times i ate there literally almost every day. later i cut back on eating out so much and hadn't been there in two years but last night we went and ate inside for the first time ever and the owner ran over to say hello and ask how i was, and repeated our old regular order. it was sweet. it's so easy to feel like you are an island, but stuff like this reminds you that you are part of a community.

I have significant experience in customer service jobs and through this post am letting nervous tumblrs know that we hate every customer except our regulars. be a regular somewhere. you might make some friends. in the very least workers will be vaguely fond of you because a portion of your lunch money is their grocery money.

there are old men at bars whom have significant credit for feeding, schooling, and clothing cocktail waitresses children just because they like drinking a few bud lights and chatting with other specific old men every day, as compounded over time. I have seen it with my own eyes (RIP mr Boston), it's a noble and easy thing to be a regular.

This isn't very hard when you know some of the most genius strategies in human history were incredibly stupid, circumstantial events that led to victory by sheer luck of that strategy working.

Case in point: Tsun Zu's rival defended a city with 10 men against Tsun's army of hundreds by disarming his own soldiers, dressing them in plain clothes, INVITING Tsun's army to come in, and it only worked because Tsun knew the guy was an ambush master and thought "if we attack the city he's inviting us into, we will die." and left without even trying ON THE BASIS OF HIS RIVAL'S REPUTATION AND NOTHING MORE

Another example: Tsun Zu, on being told his soliders were out of arrows during a battle against a city across a river from them, had his men craft scarecrows, put them on a boat, send it out on a line, leave it there for half an hour, then pull it back in and used the arrows the enemy had fired at the boat to restock their own ammunition. It only worked because it was foggy and the enemy couldn't tell the difference between the scarecrows and actual soldiers.

Stupid things like that work INCREDIBLY WELL if the circumstances favor them, so you really don't need to come up with some multi-layered, Shikamaru-esque strategy. You just need to come up with a strategy you like for the characters involved, then write the circumstances (weather, environment, individuals involved) to favor it enough that it works.

Repairing with gold, kintsugi

Nick Valentine, the Detective Archetype, and the Mettle of a Man

If you browse social media, chat to your friends, brave what old-school forums are left or plunge into comments of various subreddits, you will find a fair amount of people who truly, earnestly enjoyed Fallout 4. It has been the subject of numerous (earned) critiques regarding everything from its convoluted story to its oversimplification of once interesting game mechanics. This isn’t an essay that focuses on those elements, numerous though they are, but something I noticed as I did my best to grapple with the unwieldy main plot and the significantly better Far Harbor. 

If you gather a crowd of people who have played the game and ask ‘how many of you had a great time?’ some people, by merit of how taste works, will happily raise their hand. That I’m writing this at all is a sign that, for all the faults I found, I genuinely engaged with it in a way I didn’t expect to as I (apparently a lawyer) slogged through the opening with my assigned soldier husband and Apple-Cheeked Infant You Will Love. In that respect, I suppose, I’m raising my hand.

If you peruse those same places, with the same people, and ask ‘how many of you really liked Nick Valentine?’ 

The number of hands up will be significantly higher. 

In fact, it isn’t uncommon for people who didn’t enjoy any part of Fallout 4 to instinctively throw in a ‘Nick was cool’. But, as somebody who agrees, why is that? He’s got a lot of cool elements, sure. He’s a wisecracking robot detective. He has the most fleshed out backstory of any companion and, come Far Harbor, is the deuteragonist. Stephen Russel delivers an incredible vocal performance. He has a sick-ass fuckin’ detective name. What’s not to like? But he isn’t just a well-liked character in a game with many failings, he’s one of the most beloved characters in the entire franchise. That takes some doing. So how the hell did they do it? 

Valentine is a character defined by contrasts; man to machine, past to future, ‘me’ to ‘not me’ and, less obviously, ‘archetype’ to ‘antithesis’. Nick Valentine is both a stereotypical gumshoe, the hardboiled detective of the neo-noir setting of Fallout 4, and every element of what makes up that stereotype turned completely on its head. He is, and is not, what he claims to be. He is noir and neo-noir. He shouldn’t be well-written. But, by accident or miracle, he is.

He is, and is not, Nick Valentine.

Let’s pull back a little and talk about noir, detectives, and detectives in noir:

The role of The Detective isn’t to solve crimes in the seedy underbelly of whatever city he lives in, seducing dames and cracking wise as he goes toe to toe with gangsters. That’s the window dressing. Press your cheek up against the glass and squint a little and you’ll make out a murkier shape, something that wraps around all the others like chiffon. It accentuates, highlights, is easily overpowered by the glitzy parts it surrounds. It is vital to the context of what makes or breaks a noir detective yet makes an effort to avoid your scrutiny. It is, and is not, the point.

The role of a detective is to suffer.

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