#✦ — • aesthetic • verity williams •

[deathvisited]

aesthetics tag -- verity williams

rules: bold all the aesthetics that your muse relates to

side a - the city

glittering lights, yawning skyscrapers, broken glass shards, street gangs, hip hop music, late night strolls, blinking stars, sleek cars, flickering neonsigns, glittery earrings, small tattoos, empty subways, dark eyeshadow, snapping cameras, cozy apartments, fried churros, silver necklaces, dyed hair, ripped jeans, bright lipstick, dazzling smiles.

side b - the book nerd

large glasses, steaming hot chocolate, thick books, lofi music, hot pastries, soft smiles, large sweaters, quiet libraries, small flowers, melting candles, sweetened coffee, messy hair buns, soft pillows, fairy lights, vanilla scents.

side c - the stereotypical girl

soft pinks, mini skirts, crop tops, romantic fantasies, love songs, strawberry milkshakes, lipgloss, high ponytails, candy hearts, nail polish, starbucks coffee, clear skies, hoop earrings, excited ramblings, stuttering heartbeats, rose bouquets, soft blushes.

side d - the stereotypical boy

arcade games, graphic t-shirts, baseball caps, chocolate milkshakes, messy rooms, acoustic guitars, chocolate chip cookies, multi-colored bruises, rap music, nightly escapades, stolen glances, pencil-drumming, chocolate milk boxes, low hums.

side e - the nature hippie

mini plants, cloud-watching, stars, damp forests, sandy beaches, ocean waves, wildflowers, hiking, iced lemon tea, gardening, hippie music, buttered toast, birds chirping, multi-coloured leaves, evening sunlight, fruit cups, sundresses.

side f - the rebel

cherry lollipops, devil hand signs, grape flavoured bubble gum, rock music, killer boots, dark make-up, horror movies, denim jackets, switchblades, handguns, stargazing on rooftops, glowing cigarettes, large headphones, skull rings, converse shoes, graffiti murals, glowing moonlight, rose thorns, fishnet stockings.

side g - the winter

busy cafes, oversized hoodies, drizzling rain, small snowflakes, marshmallows in hot chocolate, loose hair, sad music, reading a book, blanket forts, frozen lakes, crackling fireplaces, old movies.

side h - the summer

tank tops, lemonade, sunny days, dripping popsicles, short haircuts, tinted sunglasses, cotton candy, amusement parks, traveling, blasting music on the car radio, wagging dog tails, large sunflowers, snow cones.

side i - the autumn

pumpkin lattes, warm bakeries, warm colours, hair braids, soft sweaters, colourful leaves, purring cats, dark chocolate bars, romance movies, soft music, zen tangling, vintage cameras.

side j - the spring

floral scents, peach tea, mint shampoo, tinkling laughter, video cassettes, colourful paintings, excited smiles, lollipop sticks, blooming flowers, melting snow, action movies, singing in the shower.

[redgoldsparks]

February Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross read by Alex Wingfield and Rebecca Norfolk

This book started a little slowly for me, as I waited for Roman to regain his memories and for Iris to get back to reporting at the front. Luckily, the magical typewriters once again play a major role in this story as they did in the first one; Roman and Iris's letters are the emotional heart of this series. I also love how it fore fronts the importance of journalists during wartime. Iris's bravery and constant willingness to move towards danger and the unknown in service of sharing the truth makes her a very compelling character. Unfortunately, the magical divine conflict behind the war just didn't compel me very strongly in this book. I think the gods were introduced too slowly into the narrative, and that a lack of a human motivation behind the war simplified the conflict in a way that sucked some of the tension from the text. If you are looking for a solid romance with a strong epistolary element and the aesthetic of wartime setting, this series delivers; if instead you want a complicated, devastating, deeply emotional story of young people surviving a real historical war, pick up Code Name Verity or Rose Under Fire.

Mamo by Sas Milledge

Jo has lived in her small seaside hometown her whole life, and loves it there. But then things start to go wrong- curses, bad luck, mysterious illnesses. She seeks out the town witch and finds a teen girl about her own age, named Orla, who Jo has never met before. It turns out Orla has just returned to town after the death of her grandmother, the previous witch. She wasn't buried properly and her bones are scattered around the town, stirring up bad energy, disturbing the local fae and trolls. Jo and Orla set out of lay the old witch properly to rest, but there's more going on than either of them realize. This is a fairly short but well told tale, queer and magical, and with a little bittersweet edge.

Look on the Bright Side by Lily Williams and Karen Schneemann 

This is a very charming follow up to Go With The Flow, taking place over the friend group's following high school year. Brit, who was diagnosed with endometriosis at the end of the previous book, had a surgery to remove it over the summer. When she goes back to school, she finds her affection caught between two different boys. Christine has finally admitted to herself that she likes Abby as more than a friend... but telling Abby that is another matter. Abby is still working on her campaign of menstrual justice on campus, while Sasha struggles to balance her homework, sports, and time with her boyfriend. The girls learn, grow, make mistakes, and support each other.

Gathering Moss written and read by Robin Wall Kimmerer

It took me a little longer to get into this one than Braiding Sweetgrass, mainly because I had much less personal knowledge of mosses than the larger types of plants which Kimmerer wrote about in Sweetgrass. It doesn't help that mosses do not have common names, so are referred to mainly by scientific names, and I was rarely able to picture them well in my head. However, by about a third of the way through I had fallen into the miniature world of mosses and the striking and insightful ways Kimmerer links them to all other organisms in their ecosystems. I loved learning how mosses, like tardigrades, with which they probably co-evolved, can survive desiccation and be revived by water even after all seeming signs of life have disappeared. I was intrigued by the story of a moss species which changes its gender over its lifespan, starting out producing only female reproductive stalks in its early days, shifting producing a mix of male and female stalks as it matures, and then producing solely male stalks as the patch reaches peak density. I was frustrated by stories of the illegal moss harvesting which is stripping Oregon rain forests bare. And I was once again completely charmed by the beauty and generosity of Kimmerer's writing and worldview. She's a bestseller for a reason; I highly recommend everyone pick up at least one of her books at some point.

The High Desert by James Spooner 

James' white mother and his black father divorced when he was in elementary school, and he moved around a lot. For high school, he moved with his mom to Apple Valley, a barren small town in the desert an hour inland from Los Angeles. Already a skater, James encountered punk music just went he needed it most: as an isolated and angry teen in a racist town with little to no underground scene or counterculture. The music, and later, the politics, of punk raised James in the semi-absence of parents and role models. This memoir, chronically roughly a year, is an unflinchingly honest look at the cruelty, creativity, friendship, and solidarity of teens. It has the density and scratchy texture of a 90s zine without ever sacrificing clarity. I was very impressed by how clearly and in what detail Spooner was able to recreate his high school angst and activist awaking in this coming of age tale. Punk wasn't the music that found me, but I still remember the high of finding a new favorite band or song that felt as if it spoke right to my teen soul. This book is a testament to the power of music to reach into the dark and pull someone out into the light.

Falling Back in Love With Being Human written and read by Kai Cheng Thom 

Short and sweet, this book is half confession, half spell book. Each chapter is written as a letter- to trans women, to activists, to sex workers, to johns, to those contemplating suicide, to TERFs, to children's book writers- each followed with a little action or ritual. I listened to it as an audiobook and loved hearing the letters in the author's voice, but I can also see how reading it in print and lingering over each letter one at a time would be wonderful too.

The Great Beyond by Lea Murawiec translated by Aleshia Jensen 

Manel Naher is an anti-social and idiosyncratic young woman living an endless city in which everyone advertises their own names on street signs, sandwich boards, at social events, on business cards, and by simply shouting them at strangers. This may not sound so different from our own world except that it's driven by an even more intense desperation: if one's name is not known, and one's presence fades fully from people's minds, and the forgotten person will literally die. Manel wants nothing more than to escape the city into the wilds beyond it, but her presence is so low she suffers a near fatal heart attack and is scared into a fearful scramble to gain enough fame to live. Her attempts to claw her way into people's memories is surprisingly successful, and in the process of becoming one of the 1% she leaves behind everything and everyone she loved. Never before have I read a comic that felt so much like literary spec-fic. The concepts are fascinating and the cartooning knocked me off my feet. A visual masterpiece I'll be thinking about for a long time to come.

The Spectred Isle by KJ Charles read by Ruairi Carter

Saul Lazenby is a disgraced archeologist who served time for a war crime during the recent WWI. Back in England, disowned by his family, he struggled to support himself. The only job he is able to secure is as a personal assistant to a batty old major who believes in fairy stories and keeps sending Saul off to various parts of London to investigate supposedly occult sites. Saul knows it's all fake but he keeps investigating anyway... and then a tree bursts in flames in front of him. And a mysterious gentleman keeps showing up at the same sites of sacred groves or ancient wells which Saul's been sent to look at. That gentleman is Richard Glide, who just happens to be the heir to one of the oldest arcane families in England. And he can't tell if Saul is causing the spiritual problems that keep occurring around him or if it's all an unlikely coincidence. This historical romance is a fun and quick read, shorter than most of the KJ Charles books I've read before. Be warned, the end sets up a sequel which has not, and may not, ever actually come out- but I still enjoyed this one on it's own.

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson 

A gorgeous, nonlinear novel about three generations of a Black family living in New York between roughly the early 1990s to the mid 2000s. The chapters rotate between multiple POVs, covering moments of change, tension, or reflection for the family. The opening scene is the evening of a debut party for sixteen year old Melody, who wears the dress her own mother was supposed to wear at her debut... except that she was already pregnant. From that moment, the narrative spins back time to how each character arrived there: Iris, a teen who refused to give up her baby but also refused to settle into motherhood; Aubrey, a young man in love with a girl who was already leaving him; Iris's mother Sabe, a daughter of a survivor of the Tulsa massacre, a women who stores her money in gold bars hidden around the house; Iris's father Po'boy, who as a young man ran races, and as an old man holds more love for his family that his body can carry. The character work here is so strong- I was immediately swept away into the cares, worries, secrets, and longings of the family. I read the whole book in one day, but I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

We Are The Land: A Native History of California by Damon B Akins and William J Bauer Jr 

It took me a long time to read this book, as it was challenging to read a history of genocide while also seeing genocide in my phone every single day. But I'm ultimately very glad that I finished it. This is a well researched, approachable, indigenous-authored history of the native people in the land now called California. I enjoyed how place specific this book is. I felt much more connected to the history recognizing nearly every place name, and once the book got passed around the year 1900 I started to also recognize names of organizations that still exist and activists who I'm familiar with. I have a much better understanding of the patchwork creation of and the broken promises of the reservations, land allotments, and rancherias. I was happy whenever the book mentioned Pomo master basket weavers Elsie Allen and Mable McKay, who my mom has been telling me about for years, or Greg Sarris, Santa Rosa based chairman of the Graton Rancheria and author. I have a better understanding of this land where I have lived and worked all my life after reading this book.

Zodiac: A Graphic Novel by Ai Weiwei, Elettra Stamboulis and Gianluca Costantini

I've been following Ai Weiwei's work since about 2010, and was absolutely delighted to learn he was releasing a comic memoir. I managed to snag a signed copy though the Comix Experience Graphic Novel of the Month Club and I will treasure it. This book is organized into 12 chapters, each themed around one animal from the zodiac. It weaves together slice of life moments from Ai Weiwei's day to day life, stories of his father (the revolutionary poet Ai Qing), memories of Ai's time as an art student in New York, his incarceration, time spent with his mother, his partner, and his son, conversations with artist friends and some of his international exhibitions. It is not a tight narrative; it wanders, it indulges in myths and fairy tales, it is open ended and I enjoyed it so much. It was written along with Elettra Stamboulis, and draw in a delicate lose line art style by Gianluca Costantini. A few of the lines from the end of the book haven't left my head since I read them: "Freedom of speech and human rights are not given to anybody for free. They always come through fighting and struggle" (101); "Any artist who isn't an activist is a dead artist" (165) and "... the purpose of art, which is to fight for freedom."(166)

Witchy Vol 2 by Ariel Salmat Ries 

This volume was just as beautifully drawn as book 1; the cartooning is masterful, but I don't have a very good sense of where the larger plot is going. This book was mostly a long side quest in which Nyneve learned how to make a broom under an exiled gay broom making master. I enjoyed this! However it didn't particularly seem to move the story forward. I will keep reading, but the sense of drama and urgency from the beginning of the first book is slightly missing here.

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull read by Dion Graham  

What a ride! I went into this book knowing almost nothing, and I think that was the right way to go so I shall not summarize the plot. This is the first book of a series; it's ambitious, it's weird, it's got a very large and extremely diverse cast; it is such a fresh and original take on a contemporary sci-fi in which the world realizes that monsters, gods, and magic have existed all along. I worried a little in the first third that the book maybe had too many POV characters, most of whom seemed very unconnected from each other except by geographical proximity to either Cambridge, Mass, or the island of St Thomas. However by the end almost all of the characters had been at least tenuously linked by plot events in a way that really worked for me. The book also has trans, nonbinary, asexual, queer, and poly characters whose identities are only revealed slowly, and usually after you've known the character for a while. I am very impressed by the scope of this story and definitely plan to continue with the series.

Arrive In My Hands by Trinidad Escobar 

Sensual, at times tender, at times haunting, this beautiful little book is a collection of lesbian erotic comics from a poet artist at the top of her field. I am definitely biased, having been friends with the author for years, but I also deeply admire this work. The women, witches, and creatures in these stories yearn for pleasure and for freedom; they chase both through oceans, forests, broken suburban towns, and through dreams. The book is perfectly sized to hold close to your heart.

Bird by Bird by Annie Lamott read by Susan Bennett

I've been hearing about this book for years as a writing guide, but it is almost equally a memoir or collection of anecdotes about the writing life. Parts of it worked for me and other parts didn't. The author has a very different type of brain than I have, and the chapters on working through the anxiety, neurosis, and depression she suffered from when trying to write didn't really speak to me at all. I also did not enjoy the handful of flippant jokes about killing yourself when the writing isn't going well. However. There are also some genuinely really moving pieces about writing books as gifts to loved ones, especially loved ones who are soon to leave us. I thought a lot of the advice in the middle about focusing on details, on recording memories, on research, and on character development was really solid, and I want to keep some of it in mind when I start developing my next book. There was also a set of lines in the introduction, about how writers are able to participate in public life while also working from home and without leaving the house which hit the nail on the head of why I entered this career!

Recitatif by Toni Morrison read by Bahni Turpin with an intro written and read by Zadie Smith

I've been wanting to try another Toni Morrison, since the only one I had previously read in high school went completely over my head at age 15. Recitatif is Morrison's only short story, and this audiobook version is read by the wonderful Bahni Turpin (who you might recognize from Angie Thomas or Akwaeke Emezi's audiobooks). Also included in an excellent essay written and read by Zadie Smith. This comes first in the audio, but if you are new to the story as I was, skip the essay and listen to the story first! Then go back and listen to the essay afterwards. This way the cleverness and impact of the story can hit you fully. It is so smart, so well crafted, and such a master class in writing that both reveals and conceals so much about the complicated relationship of two damaged women.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 1 by Ryoko Kui 

I can immediately see why so many people are charmed by this world and these characters! This is the start of a really fun D&D infused adventure story, with a small group of down on their luck adventures deciding to cut their adventuring costs by eating the monsters they kill in the dungeon. The man behind this idea, Laos, is also searching for a missing sister who may or may not have already been eaten by a dragon. I already have books 2 and 3 on hold; I haven't been so captured by a manga series since starting Witch Hat Atelier.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 2 by Ryoko Kui

I devoured this book as quickly as book one. Our adventure party gets a bit deeper into the dungeon and begin to have more meaningful interactions with the beings who dwell there, including an Orc family just trying to get by, golems which grow vegetables on their backs, and living paintings which might reveal more of the buried castle's history.

Delicious in Dungeon vol 3 by Ryoko Kui

A flashback reveals more of the school friendship of Marcelle and Falin; a deep underground lake leads to many encounters with watery monsters of various types. I continue to have a very fun time with this series!

Bunt by Ngozi Ukazu and Mad Rupert

Molly grew up in Peachtree, Georgia, in her lesbian moms' hardware store, in the shadow of the town's prestigious and expensive art college, PICA. Every since she can remember, she's wanted to attend PICA- despite the fact that her best friend dropped out last year and says the school chews people up and spits them out. But Molly got a full ride scholarship, so her first semester should be a breeze, right? No! Because when she shows up to orientation, no one can find her scholarship or even her registration. It turns Molly will have to pay for her first year after all; she takes out some dodgy loans and scours the financial aid booklets for any other scholarship she can apply for. It turns out, if she can scrape up a full team of softball players... and they compete against other college teams in the same division... and they win at least one game over the course of the semester... the whole team gets a free tuition! Is it possible to win one game with a bunch of big-ego, burned-out, athletically-challenged artists? I loved the energy of this story, with many well-informed digs at art school culture and hypocrisy. The team has great chemistry and the art style is full of action, physical humor, and delightfully expressive cartooning.

[romanrhodes]

relationships;

biography | wanted connections | wanted & ongoing plots | aesthetic | home - rhodes farm

FAMILY.

Eric Rhodes (npc); father

Ryan Rhodes (npc); older brother

[Wanted Connection]; younger sister

Waverly Erickson; distant cousin

PLATONIC. 

Aarin Duskin; professional peer, friendly acquaintance

Benjamin Jackson; brother to ex-boyfriend, professional peer, friend

Callum Jackson; brother to ex-boyfriend, friend

Chantel Bedford; close friend, neighbour

Charlie Davis; farm mentor, neighbour

Dean Walker; friend, best friend of ex-boyfriend

Logan Walker; a journalist who ran a story on him, friendly acquaintance

Elian Browne; drinking buddy

Evren Osman; fishing buddy

Haven Sinclair; friend, grief support group buddy

Johnny Wagner; former babysitter of Johnny, catered his wedding, friends

Julian Heywood; fishing buddy, celebrity friend

Lenny Clairmont; neighbour, the major's wife, friendly acquaintance

Logan Walker; a journalist who ran a story on him and the diner, friendly acquaintance

Marcus Reyes; friendly acquaintance

Nancy Lee; professional peer, friendly acquaintance

Nate Clairmont; the mayor, friendly acquaintances

Nora Sinclair; employer (private chef), friend

River Jackson; nephew to ex-boyfriend

Sarah Peterson-Ruiz; friend, best friend of ex-boyfriend

Stevie Wagner; catered her wedding, friends

Travis Jackson; brother to ex-boyfriend, friend

Wyatt Wheeler; friendly acquaintance, batting cage buddy

ROMANTIC | SEXUAL | EXES

Andrew Jackson; recent ex-boyfriend

Aindreis Blythe; former lover (Italy)

Aubrey Miller; childhood friend, one night stand

Jaslene Clairmont; ex-girlfriend (Paris, France)

Julieta Alvarez; former friend-with-benefits (New York), turned good friend

Viktor Pierce; high school sweetheart, ex-boyfriend

ANTAGONISTIC.

PROFESSIONAL.

Luciana Medina; weekday manager, friend

Joshua Pryce; former weekend manager, on good terms

Verity Wagner; former waitress, on good terms

Sunny Side Up Diner regular customers

Wyatt Wheeler

SOCIAL GROUPS / TOWN ACTIVITIES.

Aqua Avengers ( kayaking group, spring-summer )

Francisco Fontenelle, Apollo Williams, Andrew Jackson, Aindreis Blythe, Archie Morgan, Tyler Day, Fredrick Sullivan, Jeremy Lieberman

Lake Legion ( fishing, catch and release )

Julian Hawthorne, Aindreis Blythe, Josephine Spring, Fredrick Sullivan, Jeremy Lieberman

LGBTQIA+ ( casual, currently not attending to avoid his ex-boyfriend )

Apollo Williams, Andrew Jackson, Santiago Pierce, Aindreis Blythe, Riley Day, Keely Harper, River Jackson,Tyler Day, Grace Cheung, Luciana Bentley, Prue Cassidy, Donny Morgan

Ready Set Clean ( localised to Driftwood Haven )

Apollo Williams, Andrew Jackson, Santiago Pierce, Aindreis Blythe, Riley Day, Keely Harper, River Jackson, Tyler Day, Grace Cheung, Luciana Bentley, Prue Cassidy, Donny Morgan

Watchful Eyes ( localised to Hawthorne Hideaway & Driftwood Haven )

Noah Sinclair, Gale Peterson-Ruiz, Riley Day, Charlie Davis, Max Diaz, Diego Castro, Frederick Sullivan, Jeremy Lieberman, Stevie Wagner, Owen Bentley

[pallases]

hey everyone! i recently unfollowed a lot of inactive blogs and my dash is p dead so please reblog if you post the following (and preferably tag which ones):

the raven cycle & dreamer trilogy

classic literature (particularly jane austen, william shakespeare, victor hugo, and mary shelley)

v.e. schwab (adsom, vicious, monsters of verity, tiloal)

strange the dreamer

one last stop

radio silence & loveless

six of crows

the infernal devices & last hours

like those... aesthetic themes... with the quotes & poetry snippets and occasional art?

thank you!

[themildestofwriters]

Writing Ask Game

Thanks to the magnificent @gottaenjoythelittlethingzz​ for tagging me in this wonderful little tag.

I don’t think I’m going to choose one WIP rather just the universe itself – The Divine Intervention universe. By that, I mean I’ll be doing it for these two novels I’m working on: Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality? & The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess.

1. Describe the plot in one sentence.

Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality? 

A goddess and a girl meet at a bus stop and while things are a bit awkward at first, they soon begin hitting it off and begin regular correspondence, however, there’s something more lurking under the surface that neither of them wish to peruse and that one thing is forgiveness and love respectively.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess

Sex and Babette go together as well as water and oil, yet it was not always this way and in this story she decides to heal herself, to improve herself, and to choose love over her almost selfish desire to dwell on the past and wallow in a pit of guilt and suffering.

2. Pick one sight, smell, sound, feel, and taste to describe the aesthetic of your novel.

Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality?

Flashes of blood, death and gore in the small hours of the night. The smell of petrichor as rain descends. The sound of deathly silence. The feel of soft arms holding you tightly. The metallic taste of blackened blood coughed from the lungs.

The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess

Bodies intertwined in a lover’s embrace. The smell of lust in the air. The sound of ceaseless screaming. The feel of suffocating pain and smooth stone. The bittersweet taste of lip balm.

3. Which 3+ songs would make up a playlist for the novel?

Because I’m not very knowledgeable on music myself, this list is filled only with songs I have on my phone.

Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality?

“Viva La Vida” by Coldplay; “Accidentally In Love” by Counting Crows; “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” by Five for Fighting; “Stressed Out” by Twenty-One Pilots; “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran

The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess

“Somewhere Over The Rainbow” by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole; “All of Me” by John Legend; “Let Her Go” by Passenger; “Like A Virgin” by Madonna; “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri

4. What’s the time period and location in which the novel takes place.

Both books take place in the modern era and mostly in Salisbury/Adelaide, South Australia. WCAI? takes place in 2016 and TTVG takes place in 2017. However, at least specifically in TTVG, it does take place in other countries with Babette visiting Japan, America and perhaps even England as either a part of her job (Street Performer) or as the plot demands.

5. Is this a standalone or a part in a series?

Well…

6. Are there any former titles you’ve considered but discarded?

For WCAI? I only had Divine Interruption and for TTVG there was “Babette Visits A Sex Shop” “Babette Visits An Adult Shop” and The Weird and Wonderful Sexual Awakening of Babette Mewlyn.

7. What’s the first line of your novel?

I have a tendency to only have a single line to begin a book.

Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality?

“The sky was a dark crimson haze.”

or

“It was supposed to be a bright and sunny Saturday morning in suburban Adelaide.”

The Trials and Tribulations of a Virgin Goddess

“We had planned this for nearly an entire week now and today was the day.”

8. What’s a dialogue you’re particularly proud of?

“ “心配しないで,” she said, a devilish smirk twisting onto her lips. “少なくとも 見る かわいく 、ジョセフィーン様.” “ – Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality? Chapter 2(draft)

If you’ve got a problem with my Japanese, please tell me because I’m winging it on Google Translate and outdated information.

“ “It—it hurts.” It took all my power to just say that and once I did, I was hit by a new wave of grief—of agony—of heart-rending guilt. ” – The Trials and Tribulations of Babette Melwyn Chapter 3(draft)

9. Which line from the novel most represents it as a whole?

“It—it hurts.”

10. Who are your character faceclaims?

Babette… well, I’m tossing up between these girls: Jaimie Alexander; Abbey Lee Kershaw; Amanda Seyfried; Astrid Berges-Frisbey; Zoey Deutch; and Willa Holland.

For Josephine, she’s a bit difficult to find a face claim for. If you’d like to help, that would be appreciated but so far, I’ve not found anything that fits her yet.

11. Sort your characters into Harry Potter houses!

Babette Melwyn – Slytherin

Josephine Williams – Hufflepuff

Henrietta Phillips – Ravenclaw

Maria Camhain-Schmidt – Gryffindor

Kurt Schmidt – Gryffindor

Flynn Camhain-Schmidt – Hufflepuff

Adrien Williams – Hufflepuff

Samuel Meric – Gryffindor

Sofía Meric – Hufflepuff

Harrison Williams – Ravenclaw

Alyssa Williams – Gryffindor

Samantha Bailey – Ravenclaw

12. Which character’s name do you like the most?

Respectfully, I love them all, specifically the girl’s names. Henrietta, Josephine, Babette, Alyssa, Maria, Sofía.

13. Describe each character’s daily outfit.

Babette Melwyn; Babette’s daily outfit could be summarised as well cared for rags with a history with radioactivity. By this I mean, Babette hasn’t changed out of the dress she wore when a group of revolutionaries decided to nuke her. While incredibly old, magic makes a great cleaner and preserver for the cloth and during the course of this novel, she’s usually seen wearing it often. It’s a plain black form fitting V-neck dress with long sleeves that reach up to her hands. The skirt used to be long and flowing, but since being nuked, it’s much shorter, ending around her calves—jagged and looking like some kind of tattered flower blooming from her waist down.

Aside from the dress, she wears leather strapped calf-high sandals and her ruby necklace—her ruby necklace is a constant with every single last outfit she wears.

After settling down on Earth, she finds herself wearing other bits and pieces. She feels comfortable outside her tattered remains and has a small wardrobe filled with a verity of clothing. Her aesthetic could best be described as gothic and Victorian gothic. Expect lots of lacy black dresses of varying lengths along with several sundresses and perhaps a few gowns. Hats are usually wide-brimmed and floppy, and she will not wear heels.

Josephine Williams; Josephine doesn’t have a daily outfit because she’s a normal person who doesn’t have a set outfit and often changes as the clothes she wore previously gets dirty. However, she has that kind of… art student vibe to her, befitting her artistic inclination, though she does were certain jewellery or outfits that have a certain Hellenic aesthetic. What you’ll mostly see her around in is either some kind of cardigan, perhaps a really large jumper while wearing a dress, whether short or long with some leggings underneath. She mixes it up, shirts and shorts, pants and with different colours as well. She keeps her options wide and varied but if you spent enough time with her and paid attention, you’d notice similarities.

Heels, like her girlfriend, is a no-no, but her outfits are certainly more colourful then Babette’s who prefers black and occasionally other colours.

14. Do any characters have distinctive birthmarks/scars?

Babette has a lot of scars but specifically there’s the scars across her heart��two, specifically, one on her back and on her chest, both from being impaled by a weapon that wiped out all life in a galaxy. It wasn’t fun getting that one.

Josephine once had a scar on her calf, but I think she might not have any major scars nor any tattoos—yet. I might give her a distinctive back tattoo that’s basically a string of astronomical symbols which relate to the Underworld in Greek Mythology.

15. Which character most fits a character trope?

I wouldn’t be able to say for sure but I’m sure that Babette and Josephine both fit into a character trope/archetype.

16. Which character is the best writer? Worst?

Babette, hands down. Babette’s not so good at writing songs and whatnot but she’s an academic and a Bard, having transcribed ancient texts, her own stories and a few she’s plagiarised from Earth because Earth Copyright doesn’t exist outside of Earth. Out of the main characters, I’d say that Josephine isn’t so good at the writing of things and prefers visual art. Like, she could write a story, but it’d read like a synopsis.

17. Which character is the best liar? Worst?

This entirely depends on when we take the characters. Before Babette was unceremoniously dethroned, she was a magnificent liar who would often use the skill in her youth on the run. However, at the same time, she’s spent literal aeons alone and her skills at lying have atrophied. She still does it, she’s just noticeably worse. I would say the worst liar would probably be Adrian because out of the children characters, he’s younger and got the biggest tells out of the lot of them. And yes, I have to pick children because everyone else are massive liars whether it’s lying to themselves, their parents, or others. In my experience, everyone lies at least once and their skill isn’t proportional to how much they

18. Which character swears the most? Least?

Henrietta swears like a fuckin’ sailor, Josephine can swear but only does it rarely—or at least where people can’t hear her.

19. Which character has the best handwriting? Worst?

Babette, again due to living for millions of years and the necessity she had to perfect her handwriting. So far, I’ve described her handwriting thusly:

‘…it was clear that it was one-hundred per cent handwritten, and it was a masterpiece. Each letter, each word was written in a way that made reading it clear and easy to read, but also incredibly pleasing to the eye. Cursive, almost like calligraphy but written in clear bull-point pen, as if someone managed to distil handwriting into an artform then decoded to perfect it because why not?’ – Divine Intervention or: What Comes After Immortality? Chapter 4(draft)

Unfortunately, she’s not so good at art unless it’s literally putting the image in her mind onto paper using magical means. Nevertheless, I could see her girlfriend asking Babette to do some calligraphy for her blog.

Flynn has the worst but honestly you can’t blame the kid… he’s a kid!

20. Which character is most like you? Least like you?

I’d probably have to say Babette, but it’s a close tie between her and Josephine because both of them contain facets of me but are also their own people with different desires and personalities.

Least like me are the other characters, pretty much. Henrietta, Maria, Kurt, Samuel, Sofía, Flynn, Harrison, Alyssa, I’m not really like these characters at all.

21. Which character would you most like to be?

Josephine. Hands down, Josephine. Listen, I like Babette and all and she’s an extension of myself in some ways, and, honestly, I’d feel a lot more comfortable in her skin then my own, but Josephine is just a quiet suburban girl with her own slice of the Earth doing her own thing. She’s an artist, she’s got a loving family, a healthy online presence, a healthy sleeping schedule, and… yeah.

To tag some folks, I think I’ll tag: @randomestfandoms-ocs; @rose-writes-and-drinks-tea; @ariellaskylark; @focusdumbass; @i-tried-and-i-loose; @undinisms; @alixismad; @sweet-scribes; @sunlight-melodies and literally anyone else who wants to try it!

[carefulboo]

verity williams body aesthetic.

[ephillipsresearch]

BLOC PROJETCS HARSH LIGHT- NOTES The concluding webinar of our December installment will welcome artists Verity Birt and Una Hamilton, and researcher Dr Edwin Coomasaru in conversation. Variously working on gender, British identity, folklore and the occult, the speakers will be reflecting on the “E” of ACE—Arts Council England—and that which constitutes “Englishness”. The conversation will self-reflexively think through these English textures and their adoption in sub cultural contexts, including white supremacist narratives of “blood and soil” nativism, as well as feminist and black metal re-inscriptions of a more ecologically entangled landscape.

Question – how the occult has shaped their respective ideas of myth landscape and English identity

Verity Birt - reading ridley walker- inspiration, novel written by russel hoborn, imagining post apocalyptic future in the dark ages, written in phonetic language, returning to an oral history- did a residency in Newcastle with newbridge project, running experimental workshops at prehistoric sites with a community choir – thinking about how features of the landscape impact improvisation – what can happen when you allow for more imaginative and experimental exchange with these sites installation at black tower projects mapped through memory, dream space, tracing the contour lines of the space, exploring the notion of giving/receiving from the landscape - ceramic offerings – recreated the channel in ceramic, vaginal shape references strong feminine energy- workshop not directly documented. – choreographed performances in space in the summer equinox 2019 performance looking at deep time/ fragments of lineages, evolution, how they are continued and transmitted, questioning enlightenment, theory of time as progress – battersea pleasure gardens – live improvised performance to text piece a mash of feminist theory, myth, fiction, archeology uncommon ground – attempt to confront dark side of mythology within the English psyche – white horse stone kent- during research came across white supremacist group that used to guard the site- 2 chanel video – follows icon of the white horse and its relation to alt white narratives and history in mythology – also included fragments of conversions with ethan d white about alt right pagan rituals and beliefs at these sites – anglo saxon mythology Una Hamilton helle - 2009/10 – makes work in landscape, place, nature and how we encode them with our own theories and experiences – the lay archive, ‘after math’ or ‘trauma’ photography- events can linger on in places and can you capture this through camera, looking at political troubles in Ireland. Attempt to explore what could be captured on camera, lay lines connecting places of worship etc, energy lines, ufo sightings, can you capture any of this in images? Short film   the return from Annwn, 2015, inspired by sci-fi and the English landscape. Sacred sites, mound burials, paces of energy, becoming the forest- long term art project interrogating sense of belonging what is heritage, connecting with the landscape - looked to black metal genre that uses landscapes/ Nordic aesthetics – looking at how topography and environments influence people – short stories about black metalists worshipping spruce trees - zine , becoming the forest to explore those ideas more critically, - commissioned essays about the topic from different political, cultural and scientific perspectives commissioned by waltham and epping forest to do installation that looked at epping forest as the peoples forest, and how human narratives have shaped the forest – workshops, performance

Dr Edwin coomasaru Complicated relationship to concept of Englishness 2018 – research driven by questions of ‘why has occult imagery become so importanct for feminist art and activism? What might this renewed interest in the supernatural from across the political spectrum tell us about the current crisis of British identity, shaped by colonial narratives, enlightened Europeans spreading rational modernity while committing oppression murder and theft 18/19 – courtold project on politics of gender and race in brexit visual culture – interested in the way artists responded to issue of irish border in eu negotiations – rita duffy collabed with women of both sides of irish border to create installation that straddled the border – knitted votive figures on the black line bridge – image above from derry 10 exhibition Kerry powell Williams on tarot, held supernatural performance on walker plinth, looked at history of somerset house – building once hq for royal navy and hmrc, all implicated in histories of empire increased interest in supernaturalism a response to corporate wellness culture, welfare state cutbacks and precarious employment – as feminist and anti racist activism surged in 2010, so did far right extremist, brexit articulated and exacerbate crisis of British identity, colonial/rational/modern narratives against those considered supernatural, other or primitive, created conceptual binary between magic and science 1876,eng traveler William h Dixon –‘ if we wish to see order and freedom , science and civilization preserved, we should give first thought to what improves the white mans growth and increase the white man’s strength - gina rippons gendered brain – challenged idea that science was ever neutral or objective, it s all implicated with power and projection feminist and anti racist artists are turning to the occult to reclaim/ challenge the myths that underpin patriarchal white supremacy

How do materials beings and sites become co-opted into story and myth? what stories and myths can artists today extract from the land that will forge a path for post Brexit Britain that is inclusive healing and open and how does this approach include a celebration of Englishness.

VB -Turned to the supernatural and tarot as a way of generating hope in a very hopeless situation- the 2008 recession – allows for mystery, imagination and nuance – using tarot to guide the work, relinquish control – don’t see it as a supernatural things, it’s a way of connecting with natural forces, seeing it in a post modern, materialist light

UH – mysticism as opposition to the narratives the nation tells themselves – also retaining a sense of imagination, not buying into protestant work ethic – productivity is everything – found this is in occult theories – trying to understand what we are actually listening to in occult stories and myths- who’s histories are these? DC- family interested in se Asian forms of spirituality , became interested aspects of activist that used the occult as an insult and those that were interested din magic –  bbc article ‘brexit leads to resurgence in tarot’ intense uncertainty about the future and finding ways to narrate a story to the self – there is nobody NOT engaging in magical thinking – storytelling and the ability of narratives to conceptually present the world to us in different ways Vb storytelling – critical awareness of the falsehood of truths, hierarchy of belief and value we assign to certain myths over other revisiting feminist myth making trajectory – how it has shifted between waves, changing ideas of gender, how gender and myth are intertwined, etc  how myths have sedimented in the body – whiteness embodiment  - how can we excavate that? Romanticism of neo paganism – grey areas between liberal left and alt white spaces  

Englishness, an important part of brexit is the tensions between Englishness and brutishness – England drove the vote but Wales also voted leave

VB- looking for line of flight from Englishness- stuck with facing own white Englishness – (not proud of heritage?) coming from rural working class land based peasantry – most family were brexiteers, ideas of people living in different worlds – respective the world view but navigating conversations of black lives matter. Huge disconnect between rural and urban landscape – trying to reconfigure clashes in own identity rural/urban recent work ‘crossings’ about encountering rural landscape after being urbanized

UH– myth of the nation state – disconnect with place? Disenfranchisement – enclosures, uprooting, urbanization, industries disappears – possibilities for community eroded at every corner for a hundred years – what does place/ local place mean? Nobody has that deep rooted relationship with the land anymore?

DC – anxiety about living off the land – spells about butter,- sense of powerlessness and feeling out of control  -the occult has very specific histories and its consciously appropriated

mass displacement in the industrial revolution -

are myths just replaced with others? Everything is myth – there is no objective reality

VB – counter myth making, everything is myth, these are imaginative worlds, capitalism is a shared belief – counter myths – opens up new potentials

the enlightenment was created to enable imperialism and capitalism - how can we generate new worlds that cater to non-conforming folk –modern myths have been generate to support the cis white able man

[eekhaut]

M. John Harrison on Agency (The Guardian):

Agency by William Gibson review – a world in an instant

This dazzling vision of politics and power across alternate timelines is both observation and warning

M John Harrison

Wed 22 Jan 2020 08.58 GMT. The Guardian

William Gibson has never believed that science fiction predicts the future: it only ever talks about the present. His most recent novel, 2014’s The Peripheral, introduced us to an ecopolitical disaster called “the jackpot” and a world subsequently run by the loose, shadowy group known as “the klept”. Thanks to the development of massive quantum computing, these oligarchs, the history of whose money is deeply implicated with the history of gangster capital, amuse themselves in 2136 by discovering – or perhaps it might be better described as creating – their own precursors, the broken remains of alternate timelines. These abandoned pasts, stubs of futures that might have been, are recognisable as versions of the world we live in now. They’re not exactly colonies – no money is made, no extractive capitalism takes place. Instead, members of the klept run them like computer games, or meddle like the old gods on Olympus, manipulating culture and geopolitics at will. They are a leisure space for multi-trillionaires: the reference to the political meddling of our own billionaires is clear and self-explanatory.

Agency, the second novel of the series, begins with the classic Gibsonian unboxing scene. Verity Jane, “app whisperer” by trade, and new recruit to a startup called Tulpagenics, takes home some of the company’s product, comprising a pair of mysterious glasses, a headset and a phone; and, trying it out, is instantly placed in communication with a sophisticated artificial intelligence called Eunice or UNISS. “Is it real?” she asks her new boss, surprised. That, he tells her, is exactly what she has been employed to determine. Instead, Eunice bustles into Verity’s life, fixing it and messing it up at the same time, employing everyone Verity knows, from ex-lovers to ex-employers, for what seems at first to be a project of self-understanding. The AI wants to know how she knows things, why she does things, why she’s been switched on. But nuclear war is looming in Verity’s stub, which in 2016 began to diverge in two important ways from our own, and we realise that there’s a lot more to Eunice than meets the eye (even her own). Soon she has vanished, leaving Verity caught up in a carefully assembled tangle of secret operators – including “trust networks” (those ramified interpersonal connections that in Gibson’s work often maintain and extend digital cottage industries and the communities based around them), tech barons, masters of the gig economy and algorithmic sub-Eunices – in service of a plan to which none of them is privy.

Meanwhile, officials of the klept look on from 2136, led by Lowbeer, the shadowy enforcer we remember from The Peripheral – who would be played in the film by a pleasantly acerbic Tilda Swinton lookalike, perhaps, or Suranne Jones at her most commanding – and Wilf Netherton, her mild and often puzzled sidekick. From the outset the information environment is hectic. This is William Gibson, after all: a world in an instant. Across the first two pages, names of brands, places and people we haven’t yet met swirl thick and unexplained. Retrospective material about the focal character’s life and world – her new job, her typical supper, the apartment where she crashes, why she isn’t in her own apartment, what brand of sleeping bag liner she prefers for sofa-surfing – is pumped into our virtual feed via parenthesis, inside sentences that are always about something else. Or if not something else then something uneasily parallel, as if the author is used to thinking on two levels and urgently needs us to be doing the same.

It’s a sensual, remarkably visual ride, vigorous with displays of conceptual imagination and humour. There’s a man wearing a “chocolate brown terrycloth tactical bathrobe”; there’s a bar called “3.7-sigma”; there’s a shopping bag that returns itself to the shop after you’ve used it, by origami-ing itself into a butterfly. Want to eat breakfast at “The Denisovan Embassy”? The name is only Gibson’s opening bid: before you’ve been there half a page, Lowbeer herself arrives in full-sail steampunk, wearing “a Victorian lady’s riding habit, but reimagined as having been cut from nylon aviator jackets” and carrying a top hat. Almost all of the author’s interests, from the political aesthetics of technology to the technology of political fashion, are collected in this near-Moorcockian curation of images. Gibson’s ability to simultaneously destabilise and entertain is both celebrated and used to the full. But it’s also linked firmly to his signature themes, the prime one here, of course, being agency.

Along with trust, a sense of individual agency – heroic centrality in your own story, the ability to make and carry out choices of your own, the “capacity to act” – is the central offer of most Hollywood dreams, and the product sold to us by the majority of corporate ads; but it’s the least likely attribute most of us will ever possess. Like it or not – know it or not – we tend to do what nudge and soft power would prefer. From his beginnings in 1984’s Neuromancer, Gibson has offered the struggle for agency as an unacknowledged, quietly devastating war – fought by hackers, gig economy workers, off-gridders and their networks – against the algorithm, against the manipulation of our needs, our personal information and our appetites, by big data and gangster capital. If he was “prescient” back then, he’s right on the ball now, when it’s so much harder to believe in those loose human associations he imagined in the 1990s, whose combination of technical nous and cultural know-how enabled them to quickly distinguish the real from the sucker fantasy.

Agency’s author now finds himself referenced by prime-ministerial fixer Dominic Cummings

This is reflected in the novel’s narrative structures. We suspect that the kleptocracy must take final responsibility for what’s going on, but despite frank exposition in dialogue, its complex internal rivalries remain as distant and difficult to parse as they seemed in The Peripheral. In 2136, wise actors understand that you don’t have agency – you only work for one. And that one probably works, without knowing it, for another one, and that one for another. Motives, finance and goals are unclear at every scale. The text grants least apparent agency to Verity – whose name of course means “truth” and who, from the moment she meets Eunice, becomes a parcel in someone else’s delivery system, dispatched by chauffeured Harley D or Fiat 500, passed hand to hand, safely or otherwise, by algorithms derived from both military and white van logistics. (Although poor Wilf Netherton, whose positioning as a major fixer on Lowbeer’s team of digital nomads and black ops dropouts often seems ironical in the extreme, runs her close.) This is a timely, politically relevant story in which none of the central characters can fully understand what’s going on.

Hard to say whether such a gleeful act of predicting the present is observation or warning. Probably it’s both. You’re comforted by the feeling that Gibson would never write a word without at least trying to understand the primary forces, the shadow operators of our own world; but you’d be forgiven for wondering if that’s now worth the effort. And here’s where the divergence of Verity Jane’s continuum from ours becomes important: there, the UK picked remain in the referendum of 2016; the US elected Hillary Clinton. This can hardly be an accidental choice of turning points. Ironic, then, that Agency’s author now finds himself referenced by prime-ministerial fixer Dominic Cummings, who recently called publicly for “weirdos from William Gibson novels” to help him disrupt the UK civil service; and is thus caught up unexpectedly in multiple recursive real-life reflections of his own fiction.

[obuljagon]

RANDOM FACTS ABOUT THE MUN.

Repost, not reblog! Tag 6 muns you would like to get to know better when done!

Name:   lor Nickname:   lor Age:   28 Face-claim:   tatiana maslany Pronouns:   she/her Height:   5′1 & 1/2 Birthday:   july 17th Aesthetic:   salt, good rp, distracting myself in photoshop Last song you listened to:   safe and sound, capital cities

Favourite muse(s) you’ve written: damon salvatore ( tvd ), verity williams ( oc ), draco malfoy ( hp ), james potter ( hp ), roan kom azgeda ( t100 )

What inspired you to take on your current muse (that you are posting this on): i’ve always really loved dany, and honestly it was my two friends urging me that i wouldn’t fuck her up that made me actually start writing her. and here we are, and i’m loving it.

What are your favourite aspects of your current muse: i like how she has little mannerisms that i try to get across into my writing that just show she’s powerful. she’s a very confident character and i think that sometimes is what gets her into trouble with things as well as being extremely nervous and unsure sometimes.

What’s your biggest inspiration when it comes to writing: re-reading the books is helping right now, i haven’t read them in years so that’s very helpful and also watching every week is helping me out.

Favourite types of threads: angst. angst. angst.

Biggest struggle in regards to your current muse: wanting her to achieve her goals in a way where she doesn’t mess everything up irrevocably and realizing that may not be an option with her characterization, oh and you know also learning how to simply be happy? that’d be nice.

Tagged by: stolen from @reodwulf Tagging: say i tagged u. go on. do it.

[arizona1x1-a]

tag dump

[deathvisited]

tag dump

[famousobservationbouquetme]

Wood Coatings Market 2017 – Challenges, Key Vendors and Trends by Forecast to 2022

Wood Coating Market – Overview

Apart from the aesthetic aspects, the wood needs to be protected against mechanical, physical and chemical attack is the reason why we coat the wood. There are verity of demands on wood coatings. The demand for materials for exterior application are different to those for products for furniture or floorings. To fulfil this demand, several types of binders and additives are available. Furthermore, the application technology used depends on both the binder and the market. Improvement in sustainability, reduction of harmful substances and reduction of volatile organic compounds (VOC) are some of the general trends all follows as per the requirement and regulations. The relative importance of the various trends depends on the governmental regulations and on consumer need.

The growth in Wood Coating Market will primarily be driven by a boom in residential construction activity in the world and increasing spending capacity of people which has stoked sales of furniture, which in turn benefits the major applications in which Wood Coatings and preservatives are used – namely furniture, decking and siding among others.

Industry/ Innovation/ Related News:

January 2017 – Conestoga Wood Specialties completed a 47,000-square-foot addition to its East Earl, Pennsylvania, and facility to consolidate and expand its finishing operation and streamline capabilities. The cabinet components manufacturer cited consistent market growth and a rising demand for painted kitchens among the reasons for the expansion. This expansion has significantly increased the finishing capabilities, enabling Conestoga to meet the customers’ demands for the highest quality finishes and on-time delivery they’ve come to expect for many years to come.

March 2017 – Nippon Paint announces strategic alliance with IVM Chemicals from Italy. The paint and coating maker is expanding its portfolio by launching ‘wood art by Nippon Paint’. As part of the strategic alliance with Italian Wood Coating Manufacturer IVM Chemicals, The Company will promote Wood Coatings in India.

February 2017 – BASF introduced new light stabilizers for wood and metal coatings. The five products from the Tinuvin® DW (N) range as well as Tinuvin® 249 will meet the increasing demand for high-performance light stabilizers to formulate durable coatings for exterior use. The trends in the field of light stabilizers are cost efficiency, increased performance and sustainability. With the new Tinuvin products, BASF offer the customers innovative solutions to meet these key challenges in wood coating market.

Request a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1619  

May 2017 – Axalta Coating Systems, a leading global supplier of liquid and powder coatings, has completed its previously announced acquisition of The Valspar Corporation’s North American Industrial Wood Coatings business. Valspar divested the business in connection with the antitrust approval of its acquisition by The Sherwin-Williams Company. The acquisition strategy by Axalta Coating Systems would help the organization to increase its market share in North America region.

May 2017 – Teknos has entered into an agreement with Looser Holding AG, an industrial holding company recently acquired by Arbonia AG, to acquire its global wood coatings division, Feyco Treffert, operating in Switzerland, Germany, Malaysia, China, the USA and Liechtenstein. The acquisition strengthens Teknos’ position in the wood segment globally, provides access to new markets in Europe, Asia Pacific and North America, and opens up new business opportunities in the wood and construction industry.

Wood Coating Market   – Regional Analysis

Asia Pacific region accounted largest market share in the Global Wood Coating Market and expected to dominate during the forecast period due to rising population and growing residential and non-residential activities in the region. China being largest consumer, manufacturer and exporter of Wood Coating. Chinese manufacturers are mostly small manufacturers and some of the prominent manufacturers. In addition to this, North America & Europe have witnessed healthy growth in Wood Coating Market owing to a growing non-residential repair, renovation and new construction activities in the region.

Competitive Landscape

The report analyses the degree of competition among the industry players as well as industry growth and market scenario. The Global Wood Coating Market is at a growing stage, which represents moderate stats in terms of market value and overall volume. Over the past few years, Wood Coating Market has witnessed healthy demand due to increasing spending capacity of people which has stoked sales of furniture. Nevertheless, the degree of competition among the market players is still less owing to limited major key market players across the globe. Globally market for Wood Coating is fragmented and it is moving towards growth expansion by specifically adopting partnership, expansion and joint-venture strategies and product launch strategies.

Browse Full Report Details @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/wood-coatings-market-1619

About Market Research Future: At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.

MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, Application, Logistics and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.

Contact: Market Research Future +1 646 845 9312 Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com

[isobelmck]

Practitioner list (week 2) 10/?

Peter Bil’ak

Born in Czechoslovakia, lives in the Netherlands; worked at Studio Dumbar, before started a design studio in The Hague, Netherlands, where he works in the field of editorial, graphic and type design, combined with part time teaching at the Royal Academy of Arts in the Hague; in 1999 started Typotheque type foundry, in 2000 founded, edited and designed art & design journal DOT DOT DOT; in 2009 co-founded Indian Type Foundry, now writing for various design related magazines; and collaborating on creation of modern dance performances.

His Platforms: 

Typefaces- from 1992 to 2012 he has created a number of different typefaces/ fonts some of my favourite fonts that he has come up with are IRMA SLAB and Greta Grande (as seen below)

Design-this is a series of images that he has come up with a taken that get across a concept ranging from 1998 to 2015 one of the pieces of work that he did was 

Masculine / Feminine: Masculine / Feminine explores some of the biggest mysteries of our day to day life — the differences between men and women which are the inescapable result of our biology. The dance piece consists of two parts, each in four sections, weaving together punchy facts and aphoristic generalizations, which are often so true that you might find them awfully familiar. Peter wrote the story, and created the stage design, Lukas Timulak choreographed and directed the piece.

Texts- this is a number of articles that can either be used to help a person with what fonts to chose form to opening your eyes to different ways of thinking.

Photography-

Monastery Sera, close to the tibetan capital Lhasa, is of the three Gelugpa School of tibetan Buddhism university monasteries of tibet. After the Chinese invasion, the university was relocated to Indian city of Bylakuppe. though badly damaged and heavily reduced in population, Sera monastery is still standing and active. Lively debates of future lamas is accompanied by vivid gesticulation, clapping, and even physical contact. My tibetan guide has translated a fragment of the conversation: ‘’Is money important in life?’, ‘No!’. ‘Is education important in life?’. ‘Yes!’ ‘Do you need money for your education?’, ‘Yes.’, ‘So is money important in life?!’, argument closed with a loud clapping of the master student.

Magazine- works That Work, ‘a magazine of unexpected creativity’. As the title and tagline suggest, it is dedicated to exploring various manifestations of human creativity. One of the fundamental assertions of Works That Work is that creativity is not the exclusive domain of artists or designers, but something that surrounds us in our daily lives, something so embedded in our everyday experience that it often escapes our attention. Works That Work is a design magazine for non-designers.

MY OPINION: i really like every single aspect of  Peters work and love how much he dosent their isn't one thing that i don’t like. 

Irma Boom

Irma Boom is an Amsterdam-based graphic designer specialising in book making. With her use of unfamiliar formats, materials, colors, structures, and typography she makes the book into a visual and haptic experience. Her design for 'Weaving as Metaphor' by American artist Sheila Hicks was awarded 'The Most Beautiful Book in the World' at the Leipzig Book Fair. Her books have been shown at numerous international exhibitions and are also represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. On 7 November 2011 over 900 people gathered in the beautiful city of Delft for the first TEDx event in Delft, the Netherlands: TEDxDelft. We had 20 live speakers on stage talking about a wide range of subjects. A few of our speakers:  Theo Jansen, Irma Boom, Huba de Graaff, Leo Kouwenhoven, Erik Meijer, Lodewijk van den Berg, Kas Oostheruis, Bauke Steenhuisen and Lowie Vermeersch. More information on http://www.TEDxDelft.nl In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event.

MY OPINION: i love the design of her work and all the colours and just the overall verity of her work with the different uses of everything and how alternative the final products look. this is some work i am going to be looking at for inspration. 

Bibliotheque

Bibliothèque are a London based design consultancy. We produce effective and captivating design solutions that are underpinned by conceptual thinking, meticulous attention to detail and innovative production.

Branding & Identity

Print & Communications

Digital & Web

Exhibition & Environment

Retail & Packaging

Posters

Kontor

Kontor are a new London based Real Estate Consultancy, focussing on the Media, Technology & Design industries. The founding partners approached Bibliotheque, to create a name and identity that would stand out in this competitive marketplace. The name is a nod to the contours of the urban landscape that they work across. With the change from a 'c' to a 'k' the word also becomes the Swedish word for 'office'.

Real Estate agents have a traditionally very conservative visual language. Kontor wanted to create something more disruptive, that would directly appeal to the sort of tenants that it needed to attract. The logo reflects the 'contour' lines on a map, with highlighted zones, similar to areas on a building floor plan. It is an responsive logo, that adapts to the format of the digital viewing device.

The identity is supported by a full range of communications and marketing literature. The project is still in development and the full website will launch later in the year

Treasures Gallery

The Treasures Gallery at the Natural History Museum exhibits 22 unique objects, chosen from the 70 million specimens in the NHM collection. Each has a fascinating story to tell and was selected to represent the Museum’s scientific, aesthetic, historical, social and cultural worth.

The first edition of Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’, a 4.5 billion year old meteorite, the most expensive book in the world and the fossil that sparked the discovery of dinosaurs, are just some of the amazing objects on display.

Bibliiotheque developed the interactive digital labels and environmental graphics, alongside Casson Mann who delivered the spatial design. The digital labels enable visitors to understand each object in more depth, than a conventional captioning system.

This beautiful Gallery was officially opened by HRH The Duchess of Cambridge on 27th November 2012. The Treasures Gallery is free to enter, and open to the public daily

Digital Labels

Each of the digital labels is presented on a touch screen device, which allows viewers to explore up to 8 levels of content, plus more information about the museum.

MY OPINION: the are a very smiler look to AKQA in what they do and also the design of course because this is based around the client more than what i like their are going the be some work i like more than others.

Bedow

It all started in 2002 when Perniclas Bedow lost his day job at an advertising agency. Trying to impress Stockholm’s design agencies with a lousy portfolio wasn’t the easiest task and the industry’s neglect was the  he needed to start his own studio — Bedow. In 2011 — after singing acappella for a few years — Bedow took the  and signed lead guitarist Anders Bollman. A few percussionists auditioned and in 2014 Mattias Amnäs completed the trio. Since then the band has expanded with bass player Kung Hiu Ching and another two guitarists — Nikita Dudson and Karin Bellander. At the moment they have a three month guest appearance by keyboardist Xia Miaoyan. The band resides at Krukmakargatan 22 on Södermalm in Stockholm.

The following interview is an excerpt from the Australian design magazine Process Journal, Edition Nine 2013. Perniclas Bedow is being interviewed by Editor in Chief Thomas Williams about running a boutique design studio.What did you imagine for Bedow when you first founded the studio in 2005? More than a decade later, have you achieved your expectations?In late 2004 I had no job. I had been working in a couple of advertising agencies since the late 90’s but felt that design was more interesting and I started looking for a job in a design studio. With a mediocre portfolio and an industry still suffering from the dot-com bubble it was hard. I came to a point where I understood that the only solution was to start my own business, so I rented a desk and my expectations were to make ends meet. And they still are — the difference now is that I have two fantastic designers and we have our own studio. Your portfolio shows that Bedow works with a vast range of clients and businesses. I know that many of the organisations you work with are in the cultural sector. Is this because you are attracted to their creative output, or is it because they are attracted to yours?Since we spend more than half of our lives at work, I think the most important thing is that we work with clients we like. Working with clients we like also makes us care and I think you can see that in our work. So the answer would be that it is mutual — careful work attracts careful clients and vice versa.A big studio might find it difficult to retain a single design vernacular because of the large number of people who have input. On the other hand, a small studio might find it difficult to produce work that is varied enough in its style because there are fewer opinions to rely on. How do you ensure it has a consistent quality while still being able to satisfy a range of different clients?We have a quite rational design process. We set up a strategy together with the client and decide what is relevant to communicate. When we have boiled everything down to one keyword, we start thinking about how to visualise that word. Those who take a closer look at our portfolio can probably spot a keyword in many of our projects.A design team of three, do you take on different roles when working together?In the strategic phase we all work together, then the designers start sketching and I manage the project. When we are satisfied with our work, we present one proposal to the client. Since they are involved from an early stage, they already know what will be communicated and rarely have any major objections.Your work is proof that it doesn’t take a large team of people to create brilliant pieces of design. Can you explain the advantages, for a designer, of working in a small studio?I can only speak for my own studio, but I would say there are only advantages working in a small studio. You are involved in all the studio’s projects and also involved in all decisions — which clients you want to work with, what solutions to choose, what photographer to use, etc.The intimacy between a small studio and a client means the designer has the opportunity to become fully immersed in the brief without the interception of a middleman, like an account manager. Do you think clients are beginning to realise the benefits of working with a small studio over a big one?Yes. But I also think working with small studios or handpicked creatives is a trend among marketing directors. You can save quite a lot of money hiring a small studio since it doesn't cost that much to start the engine.The most important thing for a marketing manager is to understand the company’s value for the agency — too many clients choose a big agency without realising they are too small to be cared about. The caring is the biggest benefit of working with a small studio.Bedow has created an extraordinary amount of work and has almost as many awards to match. Beside the acknowledgement that the quality of your output is world class, what other positives for a small studio come with winning awards?We are working in an industry where nothing is right or wrong. The only receipt you get of doing something right is when someone tells you so. And if that person is a colleague in a jury, it means something for your self-confidence. An award is also a guarantee for someone who does not have the ability to judge design by themselves — for example, as a non-experienced buyer, it is easier and more comfortable to choose a studio that an industry body has already approved.Tell us about your studio’s relationship with different clients. If a designer is briefed directly by the client, and not by an account manager, does this prevent information from being lost in translation?The relationship with our clients is very close; we invest a lot of ourselves in our work and we are eager to keep the client satisfied with the result. Regarding information being lost in translation — that might happen in some agencies, but, once again, managing the project is the key to a good result.If you find yourselves extremely busy in the future, are you more likely to employ another designer or turn down work? Do you want Bedow to remain a boutique studio?There are no ambitions to build a big agency, but as long as the quality of our work can be guaranteed, I have no problem growing if the opportunity arise. We have a solid foundation today and as long as we are independent, we are happy.

June, 2017.Visual identity for Fable Skateboards — a new skate brand aimed at skaters that want to ride and make a difference at the same time. Half of Fable’s profit goes to charity — mainly to projects that keep skateboarding an inclusive sport. The assignment included a logotype, character design, color palette, illustrations, merchandise, naming, patterns, skateboard design, animations and typography.

Jonathan Barnbrook

Barnbrook is one of Britain’s most well-known and highly regarded independent creative studios. We work with major clients in the United States, Japan, Korea and other countries across Europe. Barnbrook’s contribution to design was recognised with a retrospective at the Design Museum in London titled ‘Friendly Fire’ in 2007.We handle projects of varying scales, from the printed and environmental graphics for the Art Basel art fairs to our much-discussed David Bowie album covers, to charity works for the British Heart Foundation and catalogues for independent museums.

Dutchmann: Delft Surfboard

In collaboration with South African craftsmen, Barnbrook designed a limited edition surfboard. The graphics is based on the Dutch heritage of Delftware ceramics. The concept addresses the decline in the value of these objects, by using the visual language of promotional tags and discount stickers to create a visual that is both beautiful and thought-provoking.

2013

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July 19, 2017

Environmental Ethics, Vol. 38, #4, 2016 Erkenntnis, Vol. 82, #4, 2017 FPQ: Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, Vol. 3, #2, 2017 Journal of Nietzsche Studies, Vol. 48, #2, 2017 Journal of Philosophical Logic, Vol. 46, #4, 2017 Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 113, #12, 2016 Journal of Practical Ethics, Vol. 5, #1, 2017 Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 55, #3, 2017 Mind, Vol. 126, #502, 2017 Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Vol. 6, 2016 Philosophy Compass, Vol. 12, #7, 2017 Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 95, #1, 2017

Environmental Ethics, Vol. 38, #4, 2016 News and Notes Features Tom Dedeurwaerdere, Benjamin Six. Toward a Broadened Ethical Pluralism in Environmental Ethics: From Bryan Norton’s Discursive Ethics to William James’ Experiential Pluralism. Lantz Fleming Miller. Individual Responsibility for Environmental Degradation: The Moral and Practical Route to Change. Discussion Papers Lawrence E. Cahoone. Is Stellar Nucleosynthesis a Good Thing? Vincent Blok. Thinking the Earth: Critical Reflections on Quentin Meillassoux’s and Heidegger’s Concept of the Earth. Brendan Mahoney. Engaging the Sublime without Distance: Environmental Ethics and Aesthetic Experience. Neall Pogue. The Religious Right’s Compassionate Steward and Conservationist: The Lost Philosophies of Pat Robertson. Book Reviews Steven Fesmire reviews Bryan G. Norton's Sustainable Values, Sustainable Change: A Guide to Environmental Decision Making. Bernard Daley Zaleha reviews Lucas F. Johnston's Religion and Sustainability: Social Movements and the Politics of the Environment. Jeremy Bendik-Keymer reviews Steven Vogel's Thinking like a Mall: Environmental Philosophy after the End of Nature. Referees 2016 and Index. Back to top

Erkenntnis, Vol. 82, #4, 2017 Original Research Daniel Enrique Kalpokas. Experience and Justification: Revisiting McDowell’s Empiricism. Colin R. Caret. The Collapse of Logical Pluralism has been Greatly Exaggerated. Christian Lowe. Boltzmannian Immortality. Jesse R. Steinberg, Alan M. Steinberg. A Multiply Qualified Conditional Analysis of Disposition Ascription: Mapping the Conceptual Topography of Ceteris Paribus. James DiFrisco. Time Scales and Levels of Organization. Jan Almäng. An Argument for Shape Internalism. Gregg D. Caruso, Stephen G. Morris. Compatibilism and Retributivist Desert Moral Responsibility: On What is of Central Philosophical and Practical Importance. Joshua Spencer. Counting on Strong Composition as Identity to Settle the Special Composition Question. Sander Verhaegh. Blurring Boundaries: Carnap, Quine, and the Internal–External Distinction. David Alexander. Unjustified Defeaters. Gil Sagi. Contextualism, Relativism and the Liar. Lorraine Juliano Keller. Against Naturalized Cognitive Propositions. Back to top  

FPQ: Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, Vol. 3, #2, 2017 Symposium on Catharine A. MacKinnon's Toward a Feminist Theory of the State Articles Lori Watson. Introduction: Symposium on Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, Twenty-Five Years Later Catharine MacKinnon. Feminism, and Continental Philosophy: Comments on Toward a Feminist Theory of the State—Twenty-Five Years Later. Natalie Nenadic. 'We Must Find Words or Burn': Speaking Out against Disciplinary Silencing. Susan J. Brison. On the Politics of Coalition. Elena Ruíz and Kristie Dotson. Judging Women: Twenty-Five Years Further Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Clare Chambers. Response to Five Philosophers: Toward a Feminist Theory of the State Some Decades Later. Catharine A. MacKinnon. Response to Five Philosophers: Toward a Feminist Theory of the State Some Decades Later. Back to top  

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 55, #3, 2017 Books That Shaped the Historiography of Philosophy Paul Guyer. The Bounds of Sense and the Limits of Analysis. Articles Carlo Davia. Aristotle and the Endoxic Method. Ruth Boeker. Locke on Personal Identity: A Response to the Problems of His Predecessors. Lawrnece Pasternack. Restoring Kant’s Conception of the Highest Good. Christopher Yeomans. Perspectives without Privileges: The Estates in Hegel’s Political Philosophy. Colin Koopman. The Will, the will to Believe, and William James: An Ethics of Freedom as Self-Transformation. Fabio Gironi. A Kantian Disagreement between Father and Son: Roy Wood Sellars and Wilfrid Sellars on the Categories. Book Reviews David Ebrey reviews The Possibility of Inquiry: Meno's Paradox from Socrates to Sextus by Gail Fine. Jakob Leth Fink reviews Levels of Argument: A Comparative Study of Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Dominic Scott. Stephen D. Dumont reviews On Being and Cognition: Ordinatio by John Duns Scotus. Mary Sirridge reviews Nicholas of Amsterdam: Commentary on the Old Logic by Egbert P. Bos. Erik De Bom reviews Truth and Irony: Philosophical Meditations on Erasmus by Terence J. Martin. Andreas Blank reviews Julius Caesar Scaliger, Renaissance Reformer of Aristotelianism: A Study of His Exotericae Exercitationes by Kuni Sakamoto. Yitzhak Y. Melamed reviews The Influence of Abraham Cohen de Herrera's Kabbalah on Spinoza's Metaphysics by Miquel Beltràn. Michael A. Rosenthal reviews The Collected Works of Spinoza by Benedictus de Spinoza. Kristen Irwin reviews Bayle, Jurieu, and the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique by Mara van der Lugt. F. Scott Scribner reviews Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation Reconsidered ed. by Daniel Breazeale and Tom Rockmore. Lawrence J. Hatab reviews Nietzsche's Earth: Great Events, Great Politics by Gary Shapiro. Andrew Bowie reviews Adorno and Existence by Peter E. Gordon. Books Received Back to top  

Journal of Nietzsche Studies, Vol. 48, #2, 2017 Abbreviations and Citations of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Works Proceedings from The North American Nietzsche Society Paul Katsafanas. NANS Editorial Note. Christopher Janaway. On the Very Idea of “Justifying Suffering”. Beatrix Himmelmann. Nietzsche’s Ethics of Power and the Ideas of Right, Justice, and Dignity Matt Dill. On Parasitism and Overflow in Nietzsche’s Doctrine of Will to Power. Akshay Ganesh. Nietzsche on Honor and Empathy. Daniel I. Harris. Nietzsche and Aristotle on Friendship and Self-Knowledge. Patrick Hassan. Does Rarity Confer Value?: Nietzsche on the Exceptional Individual. Book Reviews Interanimations: Receiving Modern German Philosophy by Robert B. Pippin, and: Nietzsche, Psychology, and First Philosophy by Robert B. Pippin. Review by Christopher Fowles. Nietzsche and The Birth of Tragedy by Paul Raimond Daniels. Review by Vinod Acharya. Nietzsche, Tension, and the Tragic Disposition by Matthew Tones Review by Elisabeth Flucher. Nietzsche nella Rivoluzione conservatrice ed. by Francesco Cattaneo, Carlo Gentili, and Stefano Marino. Review by Selena Pastorino. Nietzsche and Dostoevsky: On the Verge of Nihilism by Paolo Stellino. Review by Christoph Schuringa.  Back to top

Journal of Philosophical Logic, Vol. 46, #4, 2017 Original Papers Nicholas Asher, Soumya Paul, Antoine Venant. Message Exchange Games in Strategic Contexts. Richard Booth, Jake Chandler. The Irreducibility of Iterated to Single Revision. Ken Akiba. A Unification of Two Approaches to Vagueness: The Boolean Many-Valued Approach and the Modal-Precisificational Approach. Andrew Tedder. On Structural Features of the Implication Fragment of Frege’s Grundgesetze. Elisa Paganini. Vague Objects within Classical Logic and Standard Mereology, and without Indeterminate Identity. Back to top

Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 113, #12, 2016 Articles Wade Munroe. Words on Psycholinguistics. Andrea Iacona. Two Notions of Logical Form. New Books Back to top  

Journal of Practical Ethics, Vol. 5, #1, 2017 Articles Lea Ypi. Structural Injustice and the Place of Attachment. Stephen M. Gardiner. Accepting Collective Responsibility for the Future. Masaki Ichinose. The Death Penalty Debate: Four Problems and New Philosophical Perspectives. Back to top

Mind, Vol. 126, #502, 2017 Articles Donovan Wishon. Russellian acquainatace and Frege’s Puzzle. Luca Incurvati; Julien Murzi. Maximally Consistent Sets of Instances of Naive Comprehension. Igor Douven; Lieven Decock. What Verities May Be. Daniel Waxman. Deflationism, Arithmetic, and the Argument from Conservativeness. Jack Spencer. Able to Do the Impossible. Stephan Krämer. Everything, and Then Some. Anil Gomes. Naïve Realism In Kantian Phrase. Discussions Jake Chandler. Preservation, Commutativity and Modus Ponens: Two Recent Triviality Results. Richard Bradley. Supporters and Underminers: Reply to Chandler. Hans Rott. Preservation and Postulation: Lessons from the New Debate on the Ramsey Test. Book Reviews The Logical Structure of Kinds, by Eric Funkhouser. Review by Joseph Laporte. The Possibility of Inquiry: Meno’s Paradox from Socrates to Sextus, by Gail Fine. Review by David Bronstein. Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception, by Bence Nanay. Review by Ophelia Deroy. Persons, Interests, and Justice, by Nils Holtug. Review by Tim Campbell. Between Probability and Certainty: What Justifies Belief, by Martin Smith. Review by Kelly Becker. Back to top

Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Vol. 6, 2016 (located on Tanner New Journal shelf) Acknowledgments // List of Contributors Introduction by Mark Timmons Articles Stephen Darwall: Taking Account of Character and Being an Accountable Person. Claudia Card: Taking Pride in Being Bad. Kate Abramson: Character as a Mode of Evaluation. Jack Woods: The Normative Force of Promising. Hallie Liberto: Promissory Obligation: Against a Unified Account. Susan Wolf: Two Concepts of Rule Utilitarianism. David Schmitz: After Solipsism. Barry Maguire: Extrinsic Value and the Separability of Reasons. Kenneth Walden: The Relativity of Ethical Explanation. Paul Hurley: Two Senses of Moral Verdict and Moral Overridingness. Erich Hatala Matthes: Love in Spite of. Gilbert Harman: Moral Reasoning. Index Back to top

Philosophy Compass, Vol. 12, #7, 2017 Naturalistic Philosophy John Turri. Experimental work on the norms of assertion. Marco J. Nathan and Guillermo Del Pinal. The Future of Cognitive Neuroscience? Reverse Inference in Focus. Philosophy of Religion Michael Almeida. Theistic Modal Realism I: The Challenge of Theistic Actualism. Michael Almeida. Theistic Modal Realism II: Theoretical Benefits. Bronwyn Finnigan. Buddhism and animal ethics. Back to top

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 95, #1, 2017 Articles Peter Millican. Hume’s Fork, and his Theory of Relations. Ryan Wasserman. Vagueness and the Laws of Metaphysics. Simon M. Huttegger. Inductive Learning in Small and Large Worlds. Jonas Åkerman. Indexicals and Reference-Shifting: Towards a Pragmatic Approach. Weng Hong Tang. Transparency and Partial Beliefs. Una Stojnić. One's Modus Ponens: Modality, Coherence and Logic. Book Symposium : Outside Color Mazviita Chirimuuta. Précis of Outside Color. Joshua Gert. Outside Color from Just Outside. Anil Gupta. M. Chirimuuta's Adverbialism about Color. Mohan Matthen. Realism, Relativism, Adverbialism: How Different are they? Comments on Mazviita Chirimuuta's Outside Color. Mazviita Chirimuuta. Replies. Back to top

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CARNIVAL OF CROWS Writer/Performer: Molly Beth Morossa The Cavern – Vault Festival 13th-17th February 2019 ‘Morossa is undoubtedly a captivating and talented artist’ ★★★ Carnival of Crows takes as its foundation the weird, the strange, the macabre world of Victorian era Carnivals. The show could not have asked for a better set up than the Cavern in the Vaults; arched ceilings, old brickwork, and a dark, damp coolness that really drags the audience right into the sinister underworld of the carnival life, whether we like it or not. We are introduced to our nervous, gregarious narrator for the night, Poppy (Molly Beth Morossa) who inducts us into her world, setting the scene and introducing us to the characters who will play an important part in the events to come, including Virginia the fortune teller, a sister figure to Poppy, and Edward B. Friday, ring leader and unfortunate father figure (it seems). As a one-person show Morossa plays pretty much every character herself. Morossa is undoubtedly a captivating and talented artist. Her greatest performance is as Poppy; resilient, likeable, and full of wonder for the carnival and the possibilities she thinks it presents for her. Although we are sorry for the circumstances, she finds herself in, she is not a pitiable character and praise must be given to Morossa for walking that fine line with skill. Morossa also has great proficiency as a physical performer, particularly in her hands, and it is lovely to watch. The whole show benefits from a well thought out and consistent aesthetic, almost monochromatic, except for a few notable moments of exception (the Tim-Burton-esque puppet being one of them). Rags combined with feathers, black satin, white wire bird cages, black sequins and the occasional red spotlight, it really was visually a treat. Despite its many merits however, there were aspects of the show that I think haven’t reached their fullest potential and left me wanting for more. As stated Morossa has great physicality, as Poppy particularly, but for me I needed even more of a change when she adopted other characters. A more emphasised physicality and more specific movements, as a show that is based around concepts of Carnival, I would love to have seen some of that hyper exaggeration other worldly-ness come through even stronger, especially as Edward B. Friday, a character that can only be said to be certifiably a psychopath. I think one of the reasons that the physicality felt slightly under-pitched to me is that the writing is highly poetic, taking direct from the gothic tradition, the writing moves between prose and Edgar Allen Poe-esque poetics. To match the intensity of the words, the physicality needs to be at Bahktin’s Body Grotesque level. The biggest issue I had with the show was the way the plot was structured. Nothing very much happens, and then all of a sudden everything seems to happen at once. It did sometimes end up feeling a bit bitty, and I would be watching scenes, that were lovely and well done, but I couldn’t figure out why they were there. For me Carnival of Crows is on the cusp of being a truly extraordinary show; at the moment it feels like a good show, with some exceptional moments. There was one scene involving Edward B. Friday stalking Virginia the fortune teller, set to the rhythm of Virginia’s heels on the pavement, Morossa tapping out a separate rhythm herself on stage, it was one of the finest scenes I’ve seen in theatre in over a year. But these fantastical captivating moments, of which there were more, do not hold up the rest of the show. Morossa should be extremely proud of this show, and I do hope she continues to work on it and takes it elsewhere, I’ve no doubt that it will only become better and better. Photo Credit: Steve Edwin Keep up with Morossa here – https://twitter.com/MBethMorossa Verity Williams is a poet, actor, playwright, dog enthusiast and committed gin drinker (not necessarily in that order). Born and raised in Dorset, Verity has a BA in English and Drama from Royal Holloway, an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa and an MA in Acting from East 15. @Verity_W_

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RICHARD II Directed by Joshua Jewkes Presented by Open the Vault Productions The Bread and Roses Theatre 21st – 25th August ‘streamlined Shakespeare without being confusing’ ★★ One of Shakespeare’s lesser known histories, Richard II really does deserve more attention as a play. It is one of only four of his plays written entirely in verse. Open the Vault productions have set their show within ‘the modern political landscape’; charting the fall of Richard II counter to the rise of Henri Bolingbroke (later Henry IV) it explores the ideas of absolute rule, figureheads, coups, ambition, greed, honour and dishonour. Other than stating that it is set in our contemporary political time there seems to have been very little effort to draw any further comparisons or highlight any similarities. But there were moments that floated around my head after I’d left. Thomas Mowbray’s line before his banishment: ‘The purest treasure mortal times can afford is spotless reputation…Take honour from me, and my life is done’, with the constant character assassinations coming from all sides of the political spectrum, and a man with a highly spotted reputation running things over the pond, it’s hard not to love Mowbray for this line. The production had over an hour cut from it and ran at an impressively short 80 minutes. The cut was big but well done, it was streamlined Shakespeare without being confusing as we were able to follow the main plot easily. Another good directorial choice was to keep the fights mercifully short: Mowbray and Bolingbroke’s duel in the first scene was smooth, succinct and well performed. However, despite being cut down to such a short running time, there were still moments when the play felt like it was dragging its feet. The cast need to watch some of the pacing in the scenes and make sure the rhythm doesn’t begin to slump; as it’s all in verse, it’s like singing without a conductor to keep you in time, and if they’re not careful it will only get slower and slower as the show goes on. Also, picking up their cues as soon as they enter; not letting the stage completely die between each scene will save them from drawing up the energy from scratch every time. Unfortunately, a lot of the characters ended up feeling very similar to each other. They tended to be slightly one note, and unfortunately I got to the end without really liking any of the characters. It became a case of lesser evils, which I suppose may have been the point. But I didn’t really care that much for any of them. Joshua King as Richard seemed slightly overwhelmed by the part. There were quite a few fluffed/forgotten lines, and again, a lack of emotional diversity. He played Richard’s delusional arrogance and obliviousness to his cruelty very well, but other than that, we didn’t see much else. I believe it is possible to play Richard as a tragic hero of sorts, brought down as much by the people around him as by himself, which I think would be more interesting than presenting him as just another mad, greedy, corrupt leader. Melanie Beckley played Henri Bolingbroke, she played the rise to power well, and the thrill Bolingbroke had in taking power from Richard, but there was no evidence for me that Bolingbroke would be any better a leader than Richard. Hannah Victory performed well as the Duke of York, probably the most empathetic of the characters, she watches the chaos and death around her with a sad eye, but also does what she knows must be done to preserve herself. The main cast were ably supported by Christian Warwicker who gave excellent performances as the honourable and charismatic Thomas Mowbray, and then as the cynical northern Northumberland. I feel like the cast would benefit from being more aware of their bodies in the space. There was a lot of floppiness, which again, lowers energy. Some stronger alignment and presence I think would really help bring the characters more into the space and draw our focus. It’s a shame this show wasn’t everything I hoped it would be, as it has a lot going for it: a good script that has been cut down very well, some good actors that with some more direction and character depth could deliver the story brilliantly, a well-designed space and aesthetic, and a story that really does have something to say about our times. They haven’t quite found their way to it yet, but I hope they do. Get tickets here: https://camdenfringe.com/show.php?acts_id=2006 Keep up with the company here: https://twitter.com/OTV_productions Verity Williams is a poet, actor, playwright, dog enthusiast and committed gin drinker (not necessarily in that order). Born and raised in Dorset, Verity has a BA in English and Drama from Royal Holloway, an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa and an MA in Acting from East 15. @Verity_W_