#(a dragon is no slave) | queue

[thedaselcor]

The markings were a veritable constellation of scars from a life lived far too hard for it’s relatively short duration, but the most immediately informative were the series of brands etched distinctly across her left arm, stretched out and keloid in the way that indicated Sataareth was much much smaller when they had been received. Along with the common “family brand” that most slaves received was the phrase Danger, do not trust in Tevinter Dalish and the following phrases in Common, Tevene,  and Qunlat. Escaped slave. Problems of discipline. Promised reward if returned. Property of Lord Erimond of Vyrantium.

It took all her strength not to stare at the last, to go about whatever tasks she could find on the ship rather than fall prey to the memory of the day one Lord Erimond had succeeded the last, how much worst things had gotten, how certain she had been that all the world could change and leave her forever the property of some Lord Erimond. It had been years, the tide of the Qunari had long since risen and brought her home. Asit tal-eb.

[thestraggletag]

Kin, Part 1 of 3

Prompt: Dragon, Transform, Capture, Marriage, Nest

Giftee: @minnl70

Summary: Chosen by the Blue Fairy to slay the last dragon, Belle defies her fate and strikes a deal with the beast, Rumplestiltskin. As they search for a way to break the enchantment, an unexpected bond begins to form, but magic is never without a price—and never quite straightforward.

Rating: M

A/N: Surprise, @minnl70, it's me, your Secret Santa! I'm away on holidays right now but I made sure to properly queue this up for you. If all goes well all chapters of this fic will be posted today, but I'll try to check to make sure they are (and, if possible, also upload the fic to AO3, which I know makes it easier to read). Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Belle had forgotten what it was like to live without the ever-present threat of ogres. What it was like to not be a prisoner in the fortified castle that was keeping her people alive and protected. What it felt like to not have fear coat the back of her throat. She should be glad that, finally, a fairy had consented to come to their aid. And not just any fairy, but the Blue Fairy, rumoured to be the most powerful of them all. And yet the Lady of the Marchlands felt more uneasy in front of the tiny creature that she had felt in the midst of an ogre attack. There was something about her, something in her demeanour and her syrupy voice that unnerved her.

Maybe it was that she was just now answering their summons. Why not before, when the problem of ogres was easier to fix? Before the bloodshed and the loss of territory? Before the death of her mother? When she had tried to ask that, the fairy had dismissed her concerns, explaining that she could only “just now” be of assistance, without any further elaboration. To Belle the only difference between then and now was the increased desperation, and she couldn’t help but think that this is why the Blue Fairy had waited. For them to be desperate enough to agree to anything, and pay any price.

“The solution to your problem is very simple, though it lies beyond my abilities alone. You need a dragon. Unfortunately, there’s only one left.”

Everyone knew that. Just as everyone knew that, in a distant past, dragons had been uncommon, but not rare, creatures. Nowadays there was only one left, known popularly as the “Dark One”, a being of immense power and magic, that was unlikely to come to their aid.

“Dragons are hard to command, but I can bind its essence to a mortal and subjugate it.” The Blue Fairy spoke of slaving a magical creature as if she was commenting on the weather, or what colour would be in fashion next season. “But it cannot be just any mortal we choose. It must be a maiden, beautiful of body and mind, with blue blood. Someone important.”

It didn’t take a smart person to decipher what the fae meant, and if anyone had any doubts the way her father fiercely opposed the notion would make it very clear. Belle shrunk back in the shadows, uncomfortable with the way the fairy looked at her when she spoke about the binding. There was a greed behind her eyes that felt all too human as she raised her wand without warning and swished it around in her direction, letting fairy dust  float over to her, seeming to take her consent and cooperation for granted.

“It is the only way, sire.”

“To Hell with it. To hell with you. There is no way my little girl is getting anywhere near a dragon.”

In the end, in spite of the protest of all his advisors, Lord Maurice had sent the Blue Fairy away, though she had promised to return in a month’s time, so that the Lord had “enough time to come to his senses”. There was no defeat in her person, only that self-assured, condescending look that told her that she thought she knew the outcome of things already.

Ordinarily, Belle would have felt uncomfortable at the notion that her father would prize her safety above the safety of her people, but she was glad that he sent the Blue Fairy away. Once she was gone Belle was free to go to their library, or what remained of it, and do her own research about what Reul Ghorm had claimed. The books did all seem to point towards a dragon as the most likely solution to her problem. Ogres feared to tread on land claimed by a dragon. It was why ogres incursions had become much more common than a thousand years ago, and why the ogre population had expanded to such a degree. If their land was guarded by a dragon they would be safe not just from this horde, but from any other that appeared in the future. It seemed that the Blue Fairy had not been lying about that, but it didn’t necessarily mean Belle could trust her. There was something else, a reason why the fairy would suddenly seek to help them after years of fighting ogres. Something she hoped to gain for herself that Belle had no intention of giving her. Her unfinished spell had settled on her like a mark on her, a patch of skin on her left shoulder blade, where Blue had rested her wand before her father had stopped her, that seemed to burn whenever she thought about the fairy, as if in warning. 

She kept on investigating, sure that there would be another way of dealing with the Dark One that did not involve forcing him into bondage. She delved deeper, going to the most obscure section of the library, which had blessedly been preserved from the ogre attack that had killed her mother. The scant few ancient tomes they had were housed there, books so archaic they were written in obscure languages almost no one spoke anymore. Languages Belle had mastered the reading of years ago, in secret, after being told those books were forbidden to her. 

It wasn’t until she was halfway through a heavily water-damaged book that she learned the truth. There was a reason why dragons whisking away princesses was a cliche present in most stories told to children. It was because the fairies had been using maidens for what looked like centuries to kill dragons. The book detailed only one such case, which she would’ve dismissed if she hadn’t almost experienced something identical. According to the book dragons were bound to maidens not so they could be tamed, like it had been promised, but so that they would be made vulnerable. The maiden was whisked away and killed by the creature, and later on a knight or a prince, seeking to avenge the woman would- with the help of the fairies, and some prodding along the way- slay the beast and become a dragon-slayer.

It didn’t take Belle long to envision who the fairies had had in mind for that role. She was, after all, betrothed to a hunter. Gaston was a nobleman in the most lax sense of the word, for there was nothing noble in his behaviour or his thoughts. Violent and bloodthirsty, Belle had no doubt he would be more eager to add the title of dragonslayer to the ones he already possessed than to avenge her.

The ogres were an excuse. A means to an end. A way to have a small kingdom become so desperate that their king would be willing to risk one of his daughters. Her papa’s overprotectiveness, his fierce love for her, was the one thing the fairy had not counted on. She had hoped the ogres would be enough of a bargaining chip to get her father to agree.

Belle didn’t find the prospect of dying very appealing, nor the idea of causing the death of the last dragon, and helping the Blue Fairy achieve whatever she was hoping to achieve with the extermination of the Dark One. So, instead, she pivoted on her search, looking for ways to summon dragons. They had a reputation as dealmakers, creatures interested in bargaining to get what they wanted. Surely she could make a deal so that the dragon would protect her people and drive the ogres away. This way she would be in control of her destiny, and serve no other purpose than her own. 

She did the summoning just as the sun set a fortnight after the Blue Fairy had been driven away. She forced herself to act nonchalant as she told her father she planned to take one of the horses and scour a nearby meadow for medicinal herbs they were in desperate need of, kissing his cheek lightly when all she wanted was to throw herself into his arms and have her father hug her so tight he’d lift her off the floor like when she was a child. She made herself pack lightly, lest she arouse suspicion. Some spare undergarments, a little medicine, her favourite book, ink and paper in case there was ever an opportunity to write to her father. She had already done so, leaving a detailed letter in her room that would explain everything to him, along with the books she had consulted and a translated copy of the important passages. She wanted him to understand, if nothing else. And she promised to come back if she could.

With that she took Philippe, her oldest and most reliable horse, and took off into a clearing in the woods she hoped would be private enough, the trees so old they were amongst the tallest in the Enchanted Forest. There all she had to do was say the name of the dragon- it’s real name, written and almost entirely crossed out a number of times in her book- three times.

“Rumplestiltskin, Rumplestiltskin, Rumplestiltskin!”

Nothing happened, for the longest time, to the point where Belle began to despair of having to summon the Blue Fairy after all, when something moved in the darkness beyond the clearing. A pair of dark gold eyes appeared, followed by the glint of golden scales as the dragon stepped into the bit of sun the trees around her couldn’t cover. It was a huge creature, but smaller than what she had envisioned, with green-gold scales covering his belly and dark ochre ones on the rest of its body. It walked on four legs with the grace of a cat, and its eyes spoke of intelligence beyond that of any animal. And not just intelligence, but craftiness. 

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

Even though she had assumed the dragon would be able to communicate somehow, it still surprised her when it spoke in a low, sibilant voice.

“My name is Belle and I’m-”

“Oh, I know who you are, dearie. Which begs the question… What’s the beautiful maiden doing, alone in the woods with the scary dragon?”

“I know I have nothing to be afraid of. I’ve read about it, about where all the stories about abducted princesses and slayed dragons come from.” She paused when she saw the slightest change in the dragon’s expression, from faintly-mocking to suspicious. She was surprised at how expressive it could be, given the scales and the sharp angles of its face. “Can you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“The Blue Fairy’s magic on me.”

Its frown- his frown really- deepened, and he moved his long neck to get his nose closer to her, taking in a deep breath before huffing out a puff of smoke, as if it had scented something foul. Before it could be angry at her she rushed to explain that she was not in any rush to rid the world of its last dragon. She told him the entire story, about her people’s desperation and how, finally, the Blue Fairy had come to offer her help. What she had told them about dragons and how she had managed to start her spell before her father had thrown her out of the castle, and what she had uncovered afterwards.

“So, instead of dealing with one duplicitous magical creature, you decided to turn to a far more dangerous one for help? Why would I even help you, dearie? I could just pluck you from here and put you atop a tall tower with no doors and be rid of you as a problem.”

“And I could leap from the tower. Or starve myself. And then you’d be mortal.”

The dragon stood very still, looking at her more intently, only his tail swishing back and forth, which she took to mean he was displeased. Or perhaps curious. She had the feeling he was very much used to getting his way, and hadn’t counted on her having thought things through. She couldn’t tell whether that gave her an advantage or simply served to make him angry.

“But I won’t. I won’t do any of those things. I will come willingly, if you get rid of the ogres in my land. It’ll give you time to figure out how to undo Reul Ghorm’s magic. And then we can part ways in peace.”

The dragon seemed to study her for the longest time, eyes slightly narrowed and strangely still, looking more like a gleaming statue than a live creature. Then, after what felt like an eternity, it unfurled its wings to pounce on her, talons catching on the edges of her cloak.

“Deal’s struck, dearie!”

There was a cloud of burgundy magic, smelling of burnt wood and sage instead of the Blue Fairy’s cloying flower smell, and when she could see again she was in what looked like a castle.

“Is this where you live?”

Belle wasn’t sure what she had pictured, but it wasn’t the run-down opulence of her surroundings.

“Disappointed it’s not a cave? Or a mountain made of bones?”

She shook her head, even though she had pictured something more akin to a cave. The castle was dark, barely lit by a few pitiful, sputtering torches on the walls, and the faint light coming from a series of tall but hopelessly-dirty windows. It smelt damp but also of burnt wood, and a layer of ashes seemed to cover everything. She could feel the chill in the air and knew, without seeing, that it was snowing outside. They were likely atop a mountain, given the thinness of the air.

“Come along, dearie, I’ll show you where you can sleep and be out of the way.”

The sheer size of the castle allowed the dragon room to move, though it was a tight fit in narrow corridors and down winding stairs, not checking to see whether she was following him or even if she could, given what little light there remained as they went deeper down into the bowels of the castle. They finally came to what looked like-

“A dungeon? You want me to sleep in a dungeon?”

The dragon turned away, uninterested in whether she agreed or not.

“You can do as you please, dearie. This is the cleanest and warmest place you’ll find to sleep tonight.”

Sleep was not exactly something Belle saw a lot of that night, curled up over a pile of musty straw, her cloak wrapped tightly around her as she let herself cry, thinking about her father, who had likely already discovered what she had done, thinking of her room, which still smelt like the lavender packets her more insisted they make every year, and everything of hers she had left behind.

The crying must have eventually exhausted her, because she woke up the next morning to less darkness than before. There was a small sliver of a window up high from which some pale morning light seemed to enter. With it she could see the mouse holes, the gossamer spider webs in the corners and the patches of mold in the bits of hay she had discarded the night before by their smell. There was, also, an old oil lamp, the handle rusted over but with a bit of oil still inside. She lit it using one of the torches outside and decided to go exploring, deciding that at least she needed to identify a source of freshwater, and hopefully a place with food.

The castle was less intimidating in the light of day. It gave off an air of fargone opulence, of wealth and power having fallen into disrepair and neglect. She went from room to room, trying to come across anything that resembled a kitchen. Instead she found herself in a bit, opulent room, with faded but once-rich tapestries and thick rugs on the floor. It felt warmer than anyone else, inviting her inside, till something made her stand still.

There was someone else in the room. She didn’t know how she could tell, a feeling in her bones she had never had before, but she was absolutely sure. She held out the lantern in front of her, as far as her arm could reach, and waited for her eyes to adjust. At first she saw nothing, just the expected darkness. But as her eyes adjusted to it she began to notice a faint shape. Thin and scraggly, barely taller than her, and full of sharp angles. Decidedly non-human, but unlike any creature she’d ever seen.

“Who are you?”

The thing seemed to vibrate with excitement at her question, large, golden eyes focusing on her. Belle rather thought she felt like a rabbit ought, when spotted by a wolf. Every nerve-ending was tingling, age-old instincts telling her to turn and run. To escape. But she knew those eyes, as impossible as it seemed.

“I think you know, dearie.”

His voice was heavily accented, and higher than what one would expect from a human male. It had a sing-songy quality to it, a mocking sort of undertone that was difficult to ignore. It was a silly voice meant to contrast with the dangerous nature of the speaker, but still carried a faint sibilant trace she recognised.

“You’re the Dark One.”

The figure in the shadows moved until it was partially in the light. She saw then that her initial impression was right: a thin, unnatural figure dressed in ripped leathers and hide, with green-gold, scaly skin, golden eyes and matted long hair. Sharp teeth too, from what she could see. Much like his dragon form in many ways, but different at the same time. Less unreadable, perhaps, now that she could better understand his mannerisms.

“Dragons are natural shapeshifters, and as large as this castle is it can be quite uncomfortable to navigate in my other form. This is as much the real me as the creature you met yesterday. And an infinitely more convenient form to read books in. Easier to turn the pages, and less likelihood of burning some priceless tome to a crisp.”

The dragon seemed just as dangerous in his smaller form as he did in his big one, the taint of dark magic hanging around him like a cloak, so potent even someone with no magic like her could feel it. Still, they had an agreement, and everything she had read about the Dark One said he never reneged on deals.

“Is there anything you need in particular, dearie? Can’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t be avoiding me like mice avoid cats.”

The way he smiled at her at that, showing his teeth as if to remind her that he was predator and she prey. Belle took a deep breath, bringing the lantern closer to her so the light would bolster up her courage.

“I need to know the way to the kitchens. You don’t want me to starve any more than I do, so it’d be helpful if I could know where the food and the water are.”

He flicked a clawed finger, a tiny wisp flame forming in the air. It was a strange, almost green colour and danced around, as if eager.

“Follow the little wisp, it’ll guide you to the kitchens. You can take whatever you want from there, if it’ll keep you from bothering me.”

With another flick of his wrist the flame was off, scurrying quickly out of the room and leaving a faint green-gold trace in its wake that Belle barely managed to catch. It seemed to weave in and out of hallways for what felt like forever, but finally it led her the right way, towards a filthy, but very spacious, kitchen. Cobwebs, dirt and grime covered almost every surface area she could see, and the amount of space highlighted how barren the room was. Some fishing around uncovered a barrel of questionable apples and some hard bread, but nothing more. There was a well just outside, sheltered from the wind by the castle walls, which was difficult but not impossible to operate. 

She understood then the glee the creature showed when she mentioned wanting something to it. The dragon clearly disliked her and her presence there, and she couldn’t exactly blame him, when maidens had been used for hundreds of years to decimate dragons. She couldn’t fathom what it would be like, to be the last human. To have no kin. To live alone.

Her situation was not so dire in comparison, and she told herself that as she gathered up her hair and munched on the least sour apple she could find. She could make the best of a bad situation. The castle might be a bit rundown, but it was spacious and beautiful, full of interesting nooks to explore. This was an adventure, if she was only brave enough to take it on.

[azurdlywisterious]

Okay okay okay I have a good feeling about this time!

0 notes ⤴️ 🔁 ❤️

📻 not-another-guy-podcasting reblogged thecoolerscrewdriver

👄 thecoolerscrewdriver

If ur getting stalked by a “legendary” scorchbeast, ur best bet at getting out of that alive is chugging some nukashine and praying that it’ll be kinder to u then whatever sick supernatural force sent u a literal dragon to slay while overwmcumbered

👄 thecoolerscrewdriver

Why the fuck did I go to Grafton???

#bestie it was the nukashine #also have u found new razorgrain plants for the base?

3 notes ⤴️ 🔁 ❤️

⭐️ therealprimmshady reblogged big-mt-head

🧠 big-mt-head

⭐️ therealprimmshady

Sir what is this?

🧠 big-mt-head

I’m conducting research

#a day in life of a science deputy

174,390 notes ⤴️ 🔁 ❤️

💸 mrhouseownsmysoul reblogged uh-ohthemisery-2

💸 mrhouseownsmysoul

Still running from your problems Dalcia?

🏃‍♀️ uh-ohthemisery-2

Still gatekeeping the strip, Suzie?

💸 mrhouseownsmysoul

The securitrons do that for me actually

🏃‍♀️ uh-ohthemisery-2

Really? Those things are so easy to hack

💸 mrhouseownsmysoul

Oh I know

#didn't have time to scrape up all those caps #there was revenge to be had 💅

73 notes ⤴️ 🔁 ❤️

🏃‍♀️ uh-ohthemisery-2 reblogged big-mt-head

⏳ start-startover

I hope Jason and the others are doing well…

💸 mrhouseownsmysoul

Wait, you knew Jason?

⏳ start-startover

You knew Jason???

💸 mrhouseownsmysoul

Mhm! Jason was one of the sweetest people I met out in the wastes. Helping his flock helped me find the strength I thought I had lost long ago

👄 thecoolerscrewdriver

Cringe

⏳ start-startover

Shut the fuck up we're bonding over a saint over here

💸 mrhouseownsmysoul

What did Jason mean to you, Deja?

⏳ start-startover

He was the man that saw the good in my heart that I myself was too blinded by guilt to see

📻 not-another-guy-podcasting

Cringe

💸 mrhouseownsmysoul

Who the fuck let you two in?!

🧠 big-mt-head

@.uh-ohthemisery-2 what does "cringe" mean here in this context?

🏃‍♀️ uh-ohthemisery-2

This post is a train wreck

#so queue better run run run

364 notes ⤴️ �� ❤️

🍀 luckiestbastard

You guys are getting screen time?

0 notes ⤴️ 🔁 ❤️

📻 not-another-guy-podcasting reblogged thecoolerscrewdriver

💎 fleshnbloodnshelfh8

how to be a good person?

💥 mygenderis-c4

my brother in christ if u have to ask tumblr you're just doomed

🏃‍♀️ uh-ohthemisery-2

Have you tried hunting legionaries for sport?

💎 fleshnbloodnshelfh8

Killing the paradise falls slavers did nothing. Even freed the slaves too

💥 mygenderis-c4

Oof. Not even for freeing them? What did you even do?

💎 fleshnbloodnshelfh8

Blew up a town

💥 mygenderis-c4

What

🏃‍♀️ uh-ohthemisery-2

What

🍀 luckiestbastard

On accident, right?

💎 fleshnbloodnshelfh8

Well...

🍀 luckiestbastard

Right???

💎 fleshnbloodnshelfh8

About that.

📝 mrrocherwasmytather

If it isn't the kid that blew up the sweet little town of Megaton! Great story, by the way.

🏃‍♀️ uh-ohthemisery-2

What the fuck???

#wow this guy’s a piece of work #<prev the guy that blew up the town? #prev #nah the reporter

1,842 notes ⤴️ 🔁 ❤️

🌌 azurdlywisterious

Oh, there you are danny

[numiolaes]

                𝑮𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒍𝒖𝒄𝒌 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒎. 𝑻𝒓𝒖𝒆 𝒔𝒖𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒔 𝒔𝒂𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒆.

𝑱𝑬𝑾𝑬𝑳𝑬𝒀𝑬 ♕ independent, highly selective and private portrayal of Aemond Targaryen based on the show House of The Dragon, The book Fire & Blood and my own headcanons. Cut by Train ( EST | They/them )

this blog runs partially on queue — replies/rp/written content is labeled if queued. 1 comes out every other day with an aes/face/etc post used as a buffer.

The blog is will meet the source material freak for freak. We're deading those doves my homies. Qohorik goat is on the menu, and hide all maidens 3rd degree or closer. I go into things more in my rules but please be aware I took Ewan's Michael Myers name drop and I'm sprinting with it. So the vibes are utterly rank and it's very likely you could have a real bad time here, please curate your experience accordingly.

If you have something about not writing ince.st or "not romanticizing" it and you write a targ.ary.en i might not write with you/follow back given how realistically unavoidable the topic is and how normalized and even encouraged it is inside of the family. This is for both our comfort as terms like "romanticized" mean different things to different people. Obviously this is messed up stuff, but for example, bry.nde.n/shi.er.a is a canon romantic relationship. Tthey were half-siblings, in love and it's a major part of both of their characters and histories. Would writing that accurately to canon be "romanticizing"? If I see that kind of language I just assume the whole topic upsets you and avoid interaction to honor your boundaries, but I'm always happy to hash it out/get clarification.

A study in ➢ From Nobody to Nightmare, The Dog Bites Back, Dragon-in-Chief, Broken Ace, The Dreaded, Driven By Envy, The Dutiful Son, Enfant Terrible, Everyone Has Standards, Orange and Blue Morality, Hero Killer, Hypocrite, Kinslaying Is a Special Kind of Evil, My God What Have Done?, The Starscream, Then Let Me Be Evil, Used to Be a Sweet Kid, Wicked Cultured, Long-Haired Pretty Boy, Mature Younger Sibling.

𝑹𝑼𝑳𝑬𝑺

blogroll: @gedwimora ( hub-multi )

my esteemed colleague in Aemondology: @lvscinvs

𝑳𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝑵𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒔

◆ "Aenar Targaryen [...] moved with all his wives, wealth, slaves, dragons, siblings, kin, and children to Dragonstone" -F&B. I have a whole fucking manifesto on this shit but it's not in a coherent sharable form so basically just understand I work under the assumption there's a very healthy amount of Targaryens and dragons around but only the royal family gets to be riders. All of them die out in the Dance and later years.

[no-more-tales-tavern]

Do you have any dragon requests on the queue?

[[If you mean by that, Dragons fucking women into helpless sex slaves…then, no, I am bereft of dragon requests. I don’t have any dragon requests in general, but those are the ones that I really want.]]

[yeetlegay]

Yeetle I see you are joining the BigDragon bandwagon (rhyme not intended lol) and I feel you must also know that Mos is only 21 years old, a fact that I still have crises over multiple times a week. 👵🏻👵🏻

He’s W H A T

How??????? Do these actors???? Have all this swaggery????? This magnificent slutty allure?????? Already?????????????

Like WHAT IS THIS???????? WHAT IS THIS????????????????????????

[clownaddict]

Hey, does your second anime season contain the following?

>Main character being a traveling merchant peddling handmade goods to survive >MC and his party being denied the usage of the dragon hourglasses >Back to LVL 1 >Having a wayyy too obnoxious bad-guy who gets by on a “dude trust me” basis and literally nothing else >MC being an asshole to everyone outside of the party. (and sometimes people in the party as well)  >Loosing your party members/Slaves to badguy.TM and despite you spending months and months bonding and trusting each other, you are 100% certified that they will leave you to go with the guy who abducted them. Queue a “I wont ever leave you master” moment and tears.

Then hey you just produced the first season of Rising of The Shield Hero TWICE!

[lawschoolruinedme]

Tonight we talk The Last Namsara by Kristin Ciccarelli

In hindsight I should have looked at when Maas was releasing her next book before putting tonight to just a few days later so if you’re still reading ACOSF, put it down for one night and NO SPOILERS while we gush about bad ass fighting women and the dragons they ride.

Don’t Forget to Give Your Input on Next Book Club Here

Please feel free to reblog, comment, or submit your answers to me directly, and I’ll be online tonight around 8:00pm to moderate the discussion. For those of you in a different time zone, feel free to post your thoughts now or queue them up for later, and  if it’s easier to think and come back on it, we have alllllll month until next book club.

Don’t feel obligated to answer all of them, just the ones you want to chime in on, and they are numbered for reference.

Please remember to tag all posts #Lawblr Book Club so our friends can blacklist us, if necessary

Got your own question? Ask Away!

General Questions:

1 - What did you like best / least?

2 - Would you read more by this author?

3 - For someone who liked this book - what other titles would you recommend?

4 - If this story followed a different character’s POV, who would you pick and why?

5 - What scene stuck with you the most?

6 - What kind of lingering questions were you left with?

7 - Could you relate to the characters & their story arcs?

8 (a) - How do you feel about how we left each character?

8 (b) - Do you like books like this that are written about the time a king is overthrown, and leave the ~messiness~ of the socioeconomic fallout out of the final chapters?

9 - Were there times you disagreed with a character’s actions / would have done something different in their shoes?

10 - Were you rooting for any character or pairing in particular?

11 - Do you picture any specific fancasts when reading the book?

Story Specific Questions:

12 - Do you enjoy the mini chapters? The “stories within stories”?

13 - How did you feel in the beginning (before the reveal of what really occurred) when the story of Jarek the brave child turned into Jarek the man we’d like to throat punch? 

14 - In many stories with the theme of oppressor / oppressed, we (the reader) enter hundreds or thousands of years into slavery. But in TLN, we come in after only two generations. How do you think this affects the story?

15 - There are little bits and pieces that remind me of past book club books - the black dragon, the slave neck collars, and the family deception. How do you think TLN compared to the stories that inspired these themes?

16 - How do you think someone like Asha - who has killed more dragons that anyone - can turn around to be a hero?

17 - Did you foresee the twist of the bone ring? The king’s deceptions?

18 - How believable was it for you that a world in which women can be married for alliance and politics co-exists with female soldiers and dragon killers? Can it?

[fierypen37]

Victory is in Your Veins

Chapter 9

 Day Two Hundred and Nine: The Dragon Queen

 The bone-white spires of Vaes Drivi in the distance were a boon to her sore eyes. After her sons slew the riders in the Painted Hills, those that remained swore to follow Daenerys’ khalasar. Even thus bolstered by horses, travel was slow on the plains, waylaid by prowling shadowcats. Three horses had died from snakebites and the weak streams were not enough to water horse and man alike. Yet more time was eaten away by their Lhazareen guide departing to seek her own people. The shepherdess would tell her tale to the chieftain and tiger-eyed godswife who would travel to meet them at Vaes Drivi.

A headache throbbed at her temples. The sun was a hot yellow eye bearing down on them. She longed for water, for shade, for rest. Still, she had not survived two journeys through the Red Waste and learned nothing. Daenerys kept her spine straight and her grip on the reins easy. Khal Lanno had fallen before her sons, and the second best mount the khalasar had to offer was the dun she now rode. A strong, hard-mouthed stallion. It took a great deal of her concentration to maintain her seat. It was a tacit test on the part of the newest Dothraki. A khal must ride, after all. The dun too, was worn out from the long march with little water. His proud head drooped, ears lax and pointed outward.  

“Khaleesi?” Kovarro said, offering his waterskin. Daenerys sipped. It tasted more like mud than water, but she was grateful for it all the same. A plume of dust rose. Daenerys rose in the stirrups and spied her own dragon banner gleaming in the harsh sunlight. Relief sluiced through her. Respite before they travel south through the Bone Mountains to Slavers’ Bay. There they would find soldiers. Soldiers to win back her true home.

 ~

 Day Two Hundred and Nine: The White Wolf

 Facing death as many times as he had, Jon’s sleep that night was deep and restful. There was no help in fretting. He would live or die. Gamemakers were notoriously cruel and unpredictable. She did not visit him, but Jon was grateful for that too. Dreams of her stirred longings he would rather keep buried.  

“Valar morghulis,” Jon said under his breath. Not today. I have business to finish. Morrgys will die by my hand.

The routine was familiar. Jon woke to the screech of the key in the lock. A Twin fastened his chains, led him to baths. No costumes or varied weapons this time. Jon was given a tunic of unbleached linen, belted at the waist, leather sandals strapped up to the knee. Weapons too, would be easy to find and keen as pain. It was blood the crowd wanted. As an added spice to this elimination games, the slaves would be shackled in pairs. Morbo was chosen as Jon’s partner. The Twin snapped the manacle shut to Jon’s wrist with a thin grin. Their mutual dislike for one another was no secret. Jon eyed Morbo narrowly. He looked fit. Lean and strong. Lightning quick as most Dothraki were. Time would tell if he Dothraki would try to knife him rather than fight together.  

Like everything else in Volantis, the arena was old and lavish—slaves labored day and night to maintain it. Towers of gleaming white marble, every thoroughfare line with painted statues of past champions, even the torch sconces were chased in gold. Fused black dragon road paved the horseracing track. Tiered seating towered over the white sand of the arena floor. The most lavish boxes overlooked the arena, closest to the action. Triarchs and princes often sat there cosseted by their slaves. To Morrgys’ disdain, Volentenes could even flood the arena to stage mock naval battles. In his master’s opinion, this was frivolous nonsense that mocked the true meaning of the fighting pits: to achieve eternal glory by conquering one’s opponent. Jon’s loathing for slavers did not negate his awe at the architecture. Westeros’s marvel the Wall would have dwarfed the building, but Jon couldn’t help but remember the sorry state of Castle Black. Even Bran the Builder would have marveled the grandeur.

From Morrgys’ telling, the arena seated ten thousand, the same as the famed Daznak’s Pit in Meereen. ‘The best games are in the world are seen in the three sister cities of Slaver’s Bay,’ the native Astapori said. Still, Jon could see the master was nervous. He paced as the slave cart waited for their turn down the avenue to the arena. Slave masters were said to draw lots to determine their arrival time, but Jon heard grumblings from the Twins that the lots were fixed and bribes were rife. Tycho’s master Azmeher zo Queknak was a third-generation slaver, and Meereenese. He also had three more of the most prestigious champions and thus, Morrgys loathed him.

Crowds were thick. All were quivering with the promise of entertainment. Hawkers threaded through the throngs with skewers of meat, loaves of bread, cold water or flagons on wine. The fame of experienced slave fighters lit a madness in some of the spectators. They painted banners, shouted chants, shrieked and tore at themselves when they fell. Tycho, as a prestigious champion, was some ways ahead. The din of the crowd shred at Jon’s ears. So many people. The people of the entire North could fit into this building. The stink and the noise . . . Jon lowered his gaze, seeking an inward calm. With each step, he was reminded of Morbo. The taller man took long, brisk strides, forcing Jon to speed his pace lest he be dragged.

From the upper tiers, wealthy children sprinkled flower petals down on the arriving fighters. Crushed petals released a faint waft of perfume as they walked. The chant for Tycho died down. Morrgys’ slaves began down the queue. There were a couple shouts for Morbo, or Drazhen, Morrgys’ Ghiscari spearman. Then a woman caught Jon’s eye. Free and Volantene by her dress.

“Zokla timpa! Zokla timpa!” The chant caught, echoing into the entrance of the cavernous arena. It sounded as if a thousand voices shouted the name Morrgys gave him.

White Wolf. White Wolf! WHITE WOLF!

From his palanquin, Morrgys grinned and laughed, as if the adulation was his own. Had it been for himself, Jon would have heaped abuse on their heads, cursed their mothers, spat at them. But the mob was often the deciding factor in a match. More than once, Morbo had been saved from a slit throat by the crowd chanting: Life! Life! Life! So Jon waved and grinned at the crowd, loathing himself with each step. As his eyes cast over the crowd, Jon noted the slaves. Some were cheering, some were silent. One, a girl in a leather collar standing closest to rope cordoning off the crowds, watched him with solemn black eyes. Jon watched and she held up one tiny fist and held it tight. Jon let the false smile fall and he gave her a grave nod. Missandei had held up her end of the bargain. Now Jon had to find a way to speak to the crowd. And also not die, he thought ruefully.

Horse races and other lesser matches filled the morning. Mostly criminals thrown in with animals. A couple matches with starving children. In the bowels of the arena, Morrgys’ four pairs of slaves were plied with food and water, guided through gentle exercise with trainers to loosen their muscles. Morbo kept the chain between them taut, hampering both of them. Jon cursed under his breath in frustration.

“Listen, rider,” Jon began in mangled Dothraki, “if we want to live, we--”

“Speak Common, krol. You sound like a simpleton in the horselord tongue,” Morbo said sharply. Jon lapsed gratefully into Common, allowing the dig to slide.

“Listen. I don’t know why we’re rivals. I don’t know and I don’t care. Do you want to live?” he said sharply, yanking the chain between them for emphasis. Morbo’s thick black brows snapped together.

“Yes.”

“So do I. We need to learn to work together. And fast.”

The threat of death was a potent motivator, Jon thought dryly. The next hour, Jon and Morbo tested the movements the chains allowed. While he could fight with either hand, Jon was thankful the manacle tethering him to Morbo was on his left wrist. Morbo would have to fight off-handed, but he was skilled with either. Jon nodded, anticipation drawing his belly taut. Soon. Soon.

“It would be easy to cut off your hand and slip free--” Morbo suggested, after their arms tangled trying to move.

“Cut off my hand? Why not your hand?” Jon asked. It might have been a trick of torchlight, but Jon could have sworn the rider was smiling. Jon snorted. Morbo shrugged.  

“I have use of it,” he said.

“I have use of mine as well,” Jon shot back, “now just focus on using your godsdamned speed and we should make it out alive.”

Any trace of humor left Morbo’s expression.

“Elimination games are meant to keep slaves in line. Champion grows too popular; masters begin to sweat. Tycho has forty-one kills to his credit. Too many.”

Jon remained impassive. There was no way Morbo could know about what he and Missandei planned. A savage excitement kindled. Let the masters sweat. Sweat and begin to know the fear of who they beat and raped and abused for their comfort and enjoyment.

“Then I’ll kill him. Solve their problem for them,” Jon said bitterly. Morbo spit into the sticky yellow mud.

“Kill too many and you will be next, Ver.”

 “Ilon vīlība se morghūljas syt aōha jaqiarzir, O Jaqiarzus Mēre!” {We fight and die for your glory, O Glorious One!}  Jon uncrossed his free arm from his chest. He tried not to gawp at the sheer breadth of the arena. Yards and yards of perfect white sand, marred here and there by drying pools of blood. Wild beasts could be loosed from hatches in the flooring, he knew. The match before had been a pack of jackals against three women. The jackals won. And the noise. Gods, outside there had been some relief from the din, but hemmed in by arena walls, the cacophony of so many voices was like thunder, harsh in his ears. His heart thundered along with it, his palms slick with sweat. A glance darted left down the line of paired slaves. Where was Tycho?

The triarch of Volantis answered, though his voice was lost in the crowd’s enthusiasm. An orator scaled the stair near the triarch’s box, garbed in a ridiculous green tokar.  

“Begin!” he boomed.  

The slaves scattered. Looping the excess chain around his arm, Jon loped back alongside Morbo. Not many pairs had made the same accord as Jon and the Dothraki. By Jon’s estimation, half began fighting each other. Of Azmeher zo Queknak’s three pairs, one was arguing where to run. Another pair had one slave snapping his partner’s neck and yanking the chain off the corpse. The third ran in tandem—Jon couldn’t see the distinctive green flash of Tycho’s dyed hair. Where in the seven hells was he?

“Sword, Ver!” Morbo hissed in his ear. Jon followed Morbo’s gaze and saw the gamemakers had dropped pairs of swords at regular intervals.

“Go!” Jon shouted.

The two of them sprinted across the sand. Longswords in the Westerosi style, whetted to a keen edge. Yes! We have a fighting chance. Tycho was famed for his skill with a bravo’s blade, a water dancer. The heavier Westerosi sword would slow him. He and Morbo each took one and ran for a strategic position near the arena’s edge. Jon measured his breathing, his senses sharp. Jon tested the sword with a couple singing swings. It felt good in his hand.

“There! Go!” Jon said, pointing to a pair of slaves attacking another. It easy to knife them both through the back. He and Morbo struck as one. The crowd howled and jeered as the blows hit home. The ever-thirsty sand drank down the red blood. A grim pleasure kindled. He and Morbo had sparred more in the past seven months than Jon ever had with anyone else, save perhaps Robb. They knew each other’s fighting styles and spacing as well as their own. Of the attacked pair, one was on his knees, bleeding from a wound to the belly. A thickset slave slashed out at Jon. He parried. Once, twice. On the third swing, he was too slow. Jon opened his throat with an almost casual flick. Easy.

Something was off. A shift in shadow.

“Ver!” Morbo’s shout. Jon ducked and shifted right. The sword whistled through the air. Another pair of slaves. A burly one, Lyseni by the looks of his shorn silver hair. The other was Dothraki. From his knee, Jon parried a blow. The shock rattled up his arms, singing through him. Morbo moved to slash at his attacker. The chain dragged Jon left, mistiming his parry. The Lyseni’s sword caught him, a grazing slash along the ribs. Jon grunted, the pain sharpening his focus. He dodged a heavy overhand, then cut. Deep, along the groin. Jon finished the swing with an artful flourish. Gouts of black-red blood poured from the wound. The Lyeseni’s life measured in heartbeats. Jon left him to die and rounded on Morbo’s attacker, in time to see the Dothraki run him through. The cheers were deafening, hooting as blood gushed on the sand. The Dothraki bent and cut the other’s braid in victory.

A slight tremor moved through him. The thrill of a fight. Sweat stung in his eyes. Jon tugged the chain to get Morbo’s attention. Across the arena, several pairs were locked in battle. Where the fuck was Tycho? A flutter of movement distracted him. Above the arena in the stands, spectators waved banners. Several showed a green profile and crossed bravo’s blades for Tycho, a couple gold Dothraki horses, one with a manticore, and a couple white wolves.

“Come, Ver!” Morbo said, pointing with his bloodied sword to a knot of battling slaves. Jon pried the Lyseni’s sword from his dead hand. Another sword in his off hand would help his parries. He and Morbo struck in much the same manner, slaying another two pairs in rapid succession.

Another muscled slave, a minor champion from Pentos, was using the chain with the severed hand of his partner as a flail, killing one attacker. Several pairs danced around the periphery, unable to get close. One hacked at champion’s leg, opening a shallow cut. Jon checked the blow with his off hand sword. The chain wrapped around the sword, useless. The manacle thudded painfully against Jon’s wrist. He dropped the sword and followed Morbo as he traded blows with the champion. Morbo spilled his entrails on the sand, and Jon finished him with a blow through the throat.

By now, the two of them sucked in air greedily. Jon licked his dry lips, trying to ignore the sticky blood dampening his tunic, his burning legs and aching arms. Blood dripped down the blade of his sword to slick the hilt. He discarded the sword and took up a fresh one. Jon hefted the chain, an idea blooming.      

“Let’s go!” Jon shouted. He and Morbo ran as another pair squared off against them. Stretching the chain taut, he ducked low. With a curse, both the slaves landed on their faces.

“Wai--!” one started to say, his blue eyes wide. Jon rolled the sword point down and thrust quick. It took strength the pierce the muscle and bone caging the heart, but strength Jon had. Morbo cursed. He swiveled, saw his partner clutching his sword arm. Blood wept between his fingers. Jon ducked an incoming blow. No time to pull the sword free. Jon caught the opponent’s sword arm in a loop of chain. He yanked up and out. The skinny Essosi’s arm snapped. A wet sort of snap. He shrieked and the crowd jeered. Jon smiled grimly. Gods, there was such relief in shedding blood, even if it wasn’t the masters. The slave fell to his knees. There was no fear in his face, only grim acceptance. He lifted his chin to accept Jon’s death blow. He was young, closer to Bran’s age than Jon’s.

“Find peace, brother,” Jon said in bastard Valyrian.

“Konīr āeksia morghon issi daor,” he said. {There are no masters in death.} Jon gave him the relief he wanted in a quick clean blow. The boy sank into a heap on the hot sand with a sigh. In another life, the boy would have been an artist, a potter. Then some master had beaten him into a killer and he died alone on the sand by Jon’s hand.  Jon pulled the blade free, panting. Weariness lay heavy on him. A part of Jon longed for the peace of oblivion. But the red thing in his chest snarled. Rage and vengeance remained unquenched. Gods, had it been hours, years since that blustering fool shouted at them to fight? Somewhere in the seething sea of the spectators, master and slave alike watched. If they won, if he and Morbo were declared victors, what would he say to them?

Jon cast a glance around the arena. There were only a few pairs left. Not many left now.

“That scratch won’t slow you, hmm?” Jon said, nodding to the blood running in sluggish drops down Morbo’s left arm. He shrugged. The banter was pointed, but surprisingly light. Removed from the opposition of rivals in the training yard, Jon could see Morbo being something of friend.

“The bite of a fly.”

The monotony of it began to settle on him. Raising his arm to bring the sword down and through another enemy. The resistance of flesh and bone as he hacked. The heat. The sweat streaming down his face. His dry, sticky tongue. The ever-present head-rattling roar of the crowd.

“They pulled Tycho from the games,” Morbo shouted over the din of the crowd.

“Aye. They’ll save his death for another day,” Jon said.

“We sho--” Morbo began. A wet tearing sound. The red point of a blade emerging from Morbo’s lower chest. Jon’s cry of rage was lost in the cheers of the crowd. Jon lost himself in the red, hacking down the one who had knifed Morbo. He and his partner both fell. Jon decapitated one in a double handed blow, the other he sliced down the arm, the thigh and let the thirsty sand drink its fill. The savagery was unnecessary, wasted too much precious energy. But Morbo was dying.

“Ver,”Morbo wheezed, blood reddening his teeth and trickling in sticky threads from the corners of his mouth. The wound was a red hole, making a horrible wet sucking sound as he tried to breathe.

“Get up, Morbo. There’s more to do,” Jon said gruffly, taking the proffered hand. He cast a wild glance around. There were no more slaves near them. In fact, only two pairs remained from Jon’s count. Two more and they would win!

“My strength is gone,” Morbo coughed. His black eyes shone fiercely.

“Make them pay, Ver. Make them pay!” Be it the other slaves, the masters, or something else, Jon didn’t know, but he promised just the same.

“Look up. Look at the sky. The stars are waiting,” Jon whispered. The gate to the Nightlands and the god of his fathers. Morbo’s eyes looked up and he breathed his last. Despite his weariness, the diffuse ache of his muscles and his wounds, Jon stood.  

“I’m sorry,” he said, sawing off Morbo’s hand to free himself. He coiled the chain and set off at a sprint, plucking up a fresh sword as he went. A hand-and-a-half sword, a bastard sword. Perfect for me. Jon and the red thing within were in perfect accord. Blood they would have. Buckets and oceans of it until they choked and drowned in it. He was intent incarnate. A savage wild thing. The crowd saw him, the noise tipping up to a fever-pitch as he slew one. And another. And the last with horrific ease.

“Zolka timpa! ZOK-LA TIMPA! ZOKLA TIMPA! ZOKLA TIMPA!”

The words beat in his head like the multitude voice of a god. He had won. He lived—but only after so much meaningless death. Jon’s eyes scanned the sea of humanity. Slave and master alike. He said only what they would understand.

“Death!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, raising his bloodied fist in the air

“Death! Deeeaaaathh!” The word was a harsh drawn-out scream from his dry throat. The cheering mellowed in confusion. Then somewhere in the throng, he heard it.

“To masters!” someone answered.

“Death!” Jon screamed again.  

“TO MASTERS!”

The chant took on a life of its own, catching like a wildfire: “Death to masters! Death to masters!”

Fighting erupted in the stands. Foremen with crossbows ringed the lowest tier of the arena, aimed at Jon. He waited, standing stock-still, waiting for the blow that would kill him. It never came. Instead, Morrgys emerged from the shadows of the Gate of Life, with the Twins and a dozen bodyguards in tow. One Twin struck out, snagging Jon around the throat with his whip. Jon choked and clutched at the leather as red stars burst along the edges of his vision. Morrgys drew Longclaw. From the tremor in his wrist, he was unused to the weight. Weakling. His face was impassive, but Jon could see something cold grow in his piggish black eyes. Fear. Morrgys set the Valyrian steel edge of Longclaw beneath Jon’s chin and waited.

“Master, I didn’t—I---” air was precious. The black began to creep closer. All he heard as the black closed over him was Morrgys’ cold voice: “You’re lucky you won. All you’ve earned is The Pit. A month, if I feel charitable.”  

[actonrpt]

♥  pinned post!  ♥

Hi, everybody! I’m Acton, I’m 24, and my pronouns are she/they. I’m a humble rpt -- I’m here to offer opinions, do shoutouts, give recs, reblog resources, plus some other stuff you can find here on my WID. I’m not a stranger to the rpc -- I’ve been here on and off since 2011, but this is my first time using this name and these pronouns. (If we were friends before and you follow me on here, I’ll let you know who I am.) Some basic stuff about me:

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[elderling-magic]

Character Descriptions: Liveship Traders Trilogy

Once again, I might have missed some descriptions and any addition will be welcome. I might have especially missed descriptions on “Ship of Destiny” since I listened to the audiobook for that one.

Kennit: Tall, muscled porportionately, wide shoulders, long-fingered hands, tanned, high brow, firm jaw, straight nose, finely-drawn lips, beard fashionably pointed and ends of his moustache waxed and curled, has black ringlets of hair and pale blue eyes. He has a double thong of black leather with a small wooden face like his pierced at the brow and lower jaw  against his wrist, initially painted black. 

Kennit tattoos an Other on the nape of his neck in “Ship of Magic” (Kennit does tattoos and burns them after). He had a sevent pointed star tattoo on his hip that was seared after.

At the start of the trilogy on Others’ Island:  He wears boots, linen trousers, a brocated waistcoat, an indigo jacket with pockets, a white silk shirt with lacy cuffs, has a ring on his finger and wears a hat.

When Etta met him the first time: Wore a dark green broadcloth jacket with ivory buttons and a spill of white lace down his chest and at his cuffs. 

Mad Ship page 611: Wears a hat with black plumes and a jacket with silver buttons on the cuff.

Usually wears lace in cuffs and collar, high black boots, blue breeches, waistcoat and jacket. Has a crutch and peg after losing his leg.

Etta: She is straight (no roundness or softness) and very thin, near as tall as Kennit, long-limbed, has dark eyes, narrow hands, long flat flanks, slight roundness of belly, modest breasts, black hair cut off short ot reaching her shoulders (cut of square like a boy’s) and the planes of her face are long and flat. She has a tiny white skull, small as an apple pip, atached to a fine silver wire that pierced her navel. Kennit offers her a earring with a ruby.

First outfit on the ship: She wears lavender perfume, an emerald silk loose-sleeved blouse tucked into brocaded trousers, a cloth-of-gold sash around her waist, a tiny ruby earring and a lush fur-lined cloak. 

2nd outfit on the ship: Azure cotton shirt, dark woollen trousers and a short matching woollen jacket, black knee-boots, gaudy scarf confining her hair leaving only the tips free to brush across her cheeks.

3rd outfit (seen by Wintrow): Silk blouse, brocaded vest and trousers. 

4th outfit: Red lips, scarlet blouse, black silk skirts that shifted with her hips.

Wore gold fabric in “Ship of Destiny” (chapter 18). End of SOD: Simple black dress and the only jewelry was the miniature of Kennit strapped to her wrist and earrings he had given her, sleek black hair pinned up with jewel pins.

Wintrow Vestrit: 13 years old at the start of the book and turns 14 during the trilogy. Thin, shorter than Malta, has big dark brown eyes, fine black hair, long dark lashes, warm colored skin, cheeks and jaw lost most of a child’s roundness, white teeth. Gets a tattoo with the Satrap’s sigil beside his nose and next to that a larger tattoo of Vivacia in his face. Only 4 fingers in the right hand, index (forefinger) finger missing.

Wears a novice brown robe and no shoes. Wears shirt and trousers on the ship. Wears his black hair in a plait queue. Has two suits of canvas shirts and trousers for crew work. Sailor on shore clothes: Loudly-striped woven shirt and coarse black trousers that did not fit him well, shirt hung long and full on him. Wears loose white shirt a bit large for him tucked into dark blue trousers. Chapter 18 in SOD: Wide-sleeved shirt of dark blue silk embroidered with ravens. End of SOD: wore black to match Etta.

Althea Vestrit: 19 years old. Small like her mother, thin, has a long waist, round hips, small breasts, black wiry hair, black eyes, is tanned. 

When a child: Hair cut to no more than a brush, was barefoot and bare-armed, hair queued down her back, wore trousers and a jacket. 

When she arrives in Bingtown: Petticoat , overskirts, blouse, vest, lacy shawl, lace snood to confine her hair, straw hat addorned with feathers, dove-grey and pale blue trim. 

To see Ronica at night: Wears a striped shirt and black trousers of a sailor on shore, long dark queue of hair down her back. 

When she runs away:  Simple dark dress, modest jacket and laced sandals. Wears 2 simple silver hoop earrings and a wooden egg bead of warm brown with the grain around it rather than from end to end that Amber gave her. 

On the Reaper: Wears an oilskin, pigtail, shirt and trousers. She has a wooden egg in a single strand of leather about her neck. Flat cap pulled low on her brow and boy’s clothes.  Wears felted stockings and heavy boots and a knitted cap on the Reaper.

Split in her scalp as long as Brashen’s little finger and gape open from the pull of her queue on SOM.

Council meeting: Magenta robe, hair pinned up, touch of colour to her lips, garnet earrings swinging from her ears given by Grag.

Work on Paragon: Hair sweated to her skull, loose white trousers and roomy tunic of the same fabric. Wears ship’s tag from Ophelia at her belt.

When Paragon sails: white blouse, split skirt with matching vest, shoes. Althea is wearing the same outfit to meet Vivacia again in SOD, with plaited and pinned hair.

Brashen gives Althea a brightly colored scarf that she binds her hair with, hoop earrings embelished with jade and garnet beads and a necklace in Davytown (SOD).

Ronica Vestrit: Small and dark woman with silver in her hair and high cheekbones. Usually wears her hair pinned up in a similar way as Keffria’s and wears a loose household robe. For reyn’s visit she had a dress of pale green linen with skirts sashes about her waist and over-blouse laced up from behind, pearl necklace and earrings. When althea comes back home: wearing a simple day-gown of creamy linen, hair coiled and perfumed, silver chain in her throat. Has a parasol on the day Paragon set sail.

Keffria Vestrit: Olive skin, dark long hair. Wears a simple blue woolen robe and usually uses long pins to fix her hair. For Reyn’s visit Malta plaited her hair into coils. Has a parasol on the day Paragon set sail.

Malta Vestrit: 12 years old at the start of the book and turns 13 during the trilogy. Warm-toned skin, long straight shiny black hair, taller than Wintrow, developed early. Has one greyish blue fingertip mark on the back of her neck after meeting Amber on Paragon. She gains a scarlet crown that extends back into her hairline one full finger lenght, has scales on brows, lips and arms on SOD.

Harvest ball: The outer edges of her ears and ear-lobes are traced the same color of her eyelids, wears a necklace and a dress of pale green silk with lace that frothed in her bosom and accessible panels of the skirts.

Cerwin and Dello’s visit: Simple woollen shift, embroidered at the throat and hem, sashed tight to show her waist, painted lips, brushed hair. 

Council meeting: Hair swept from her face, braided and secured to the crown of her head, artless tendrils danced on her forehead and brushed the top of her cheeks, tiny roses deep red. Very simple trader’s robe deep magenta (Vestrit color), round neckline, ankle-lenght, belted at the waist like a monk’s robe by a black leather wide belt with stylized initial that formed the buckle.

Reyn’s visit: Hair in gleaming coils, white dress with red flower pinned to the shoulder, another flower fastened into her upswept hair. 

Meet cerwin in the night and 2nd dream box: White nightdress. 

Reunion with Amber: Wrapper of thick blue wool over her white nightgown.

Summer ball: Stockings, bright panels of fabric set into the lavish sleeves of her dress had once been skirts of another dress, lace at her cuffs.

Rescuing Cosgo and Kekki: robe on rags, only one shoe on. Later she cuts the hems of the robe and fashions them into a head wrap to cover her head on the Chalcedean ship.

SOD ball: Slippers, white laced gloves that came to her elbows and cleverly fashioned to show glints of her scaling through the lace. Gown was a confection of white with hidden panels of scarlet fabric that would flash when Reyn whirled her.

Selden Vestrit: 7 years old at the start of the book. He has silver scales across his cheeks near the middle of SOD and a blue shimmer to his lips. Day Paragon sails: Wears blue trousers and a white shirt. 

Brashen Trell: 24 years old. Brown eyes, heavy brows, bristle beard, long moustache to hide corners of the mouth, muscled and shorter than Kyle, has a thick patch of curly hair in the centre of his chest and black stubble elsewhere on his chest and belly. 1st Outfit: He wears battered shoes and the edges of his rough cotton trousers are tattering. 2nd Outfit: Striped shirt, stockings, woolen trousers. 3rd Outfit: Yellow silk shirt, scarf at his throat, dark blue trousers, short jacket with some mending, hat (visit to the Vestrits). Day Paragon sails: White shirt and dark blue trousers and jacket. He has gaps in his brows in SOD after the serpent’s attack.

Amber: Gold skin, hair and eyes (tawny), bones of her cheeks and line of her nose too sharp to be feminine, flat chested and narrow hipped. Wears 4 swaying mismatched earrings:  twisted wooden serpent in the left ear and a shining dragon in her right (each as long as a man’s thumb), freedom earring of silver net with a blue gem. (Later is dragon earring on the left ear and serpent swinging on the right...) She changes her skin during SOD and has skin and hair a bit darker.

When Althea first sees her: Wearing a long brown gown that hungs simply from her shoulders and has bare feet. When Althea encounters her again: Dressed in a long simple robe the color of a ripe acorn and has her hair down her back in a single shining plait. The fabric of her robe fells in pleats from her shoulders to the hem, concealing every line of her body. Her hands are gloved and she wears a necklace of simple wooden beds in every tone of brown that wood can be..

Slave Outfit: Smudge-faced, tattoo across one wind-reddened cheek, crusty sore encompassed half her upper lip and left nostril. Dirty hair pulling free from a scruffy braid, shirt of rough cotton, bare feet peeped out from her patched skirts, dirty bandage bound one of her ankles, rough canvas work gloves replaced the lacy ones Amber habitually wore, dirty canvas tote concealed inside a marked basket. Ragged scarf tied about her head and over her ears. She tucked her earrings up, out of sight.

Traders’ meeting: Wearing a simple golden-brown robe almost the same shade as the many plaited hair that hung over her shoulders.

On Paragon before sailing: Loose pantaloons, blouse and a vest, freed hair floated in the wind. Day Paragon sails: Togs of an ordinary sailor but buttons on trousers and shirt were carved beads, snuggly laced vest with fanciful butterflies embroidered in it, pale honey-.wood skin and hair, eyes almost the same shade, long hair back, braided and pinned to her head, mismatched earrings. 

After serpent’s attack in SOD: Tawny hair hang from a peeling red scalp, the left side of her face and neck was scarlet, she walked with a limp and her hold her left arm close to her body.

Reyn Khuprus: Close to 20 years old at the start and turns 20 during the trilogy. Bronze skin, thick black curly hair, copper eyes with blue shine, blue highlight scales, scaled brow and scales around mouth and eyes. 

First appearance: Blue gown with a jewel fastened at the throat (on the scarf - wears it life a muffler), heavily cloaked, face veiled, gloved hands, two small blue flame-jewels on his cuff. Veil that covered his face was split. 

Visit to Malta: Dressed all in blue, discarded cloak of dark blue on a chair, traditional rain wild garb of loose trousers and long-sleeved shirt. Lean waist sashed with a wide silk belt of a darker hue than his other clothes, black boots peeped out from the loose cuffs of his trousers, fine black gloves studded with azure flame-gems, plain hoodmade of the same silk as the sash, face veil with black lace.

Summer ball: Veil of black lace, hood that covered his hair and back of his neck secured with an elaborated folded cravat of white silk, soft white shirt and black trousers, slim waist and narrow hips, wide shoulders, light dancing boots were filigreed with silver and gilt to match his veil.

End of SOD: Close-fitted indigo jacket, white cuffs, collar and trousers, black knee boots and small gold hoops in his ears.

Jani Khuprus: Smooth-faced for a rain wild trader, markings are subtle, pebbly outline traced the edge of her lips and eyelids. the white of her eyes and hair teeth and nails flow bluish. First appearance: Heavy outer cloak and hood. Scarlet flame jewels, lighter mantle of ivory also hooded and the lace veil was part of it. 15 flame jewels the size of shelled almonds. First Vestrit Visit: Scattering of flame jewels red on her face-veil. Reyn’s presentation to Malta: Face veil white lace shimmering with pearls, loose hood that covere her head decorated with braided and coiled silken tassels in many shades of blue. she wore an extravagantly beribboned blouse and loose pantaloons that were gathered at her ankles with yet more ribbons. Fanciful embroidery almost obscured the white linen that backed it.  

Serilla: She is a head taller than Cosgo, has green eyes, brown hair, wears the ring of the companions of the heart and sandals. She was 19 when she met Cosgo. After cosgo calls her back (page 538 on "Mad Ship”): Loose pair of white pantaloons and red silk shirt, trousers belted with a finely woven black scarf, embroidered vest covered her breasts, hair braided back from her face, earrings and a throatpiece, fingers decked with rings, heavy chain of gold about her ankle. Summer ball: wears a cream gown. Council in SOD: long soft white robe decorated with crossing ropes of cloth of gold, long sleeves and cloak.

Satrap Cosgo: Taller than Malta, lean, no muscle, white skin, dark hair and eyes and has a tiny thin mustache. He was 15 when he met Serilla. Summer ball: Clothing soft and flowing in pastel hues, pale blue trousers cuffed tight to his ankles above his low soft shoes, loose folds of his saffron shirt shawled about his throat and shoulders. SOD: heavy scarlet cloak (too big for him) trimmed with jet beads and with a hood lined with fur given on Vivacia and used when he is taken by the Jamaillian ship.

Kekki: She has dark hair. Summer ball: Wears a gown of feathers and lace.

Jek: Long blonde hair caught in a tail, white teeth, long-boned and well muscled. On first appearance she wears a leather doublet, boots and a light cloak. On Paragon she wears sailor’s trousers that reach no farther than her knee, she did not bind her breasts and her hair was in a long braid.

Grag Tenira: Blue eyes, bronze skin, handsome, has work-scarred fingers and well muscled legs. In Bingtown: Dark coat and trousers and a white shirt. Traders’ Council: Dark blue traders robe seafarer style that show his legs and sandalled feet. Hiding: Dark shirt open at the throat and loose white trousers, golden earring.

Kyle Haven: Big man with broad hands, blue eyes and unruly blond hair. Wears tight-fitting breeches of blue and a blue jacket over a shirt of soft cream. Hair plaited with oil (first talk with Wintrown on the ship when tries to give him a earring). (Sailors wear something that marks them as a crew from Vivacia. An earring, a scarf, a pin or a tattoo. Kyle offers Wintrow a small gold earring with Vivacia’s figurehead - that he refuses.)

Ephron Vestrit: Black eyes, smooth black queue hair, beard.

Cerwin Trell: Slender, milky-skinned and has black hair. Harvest ball: blue trousers and coat, black boots, single gold earring in one ear, hair curled into long locks. 

Delo Trell: She has brown eyes. Harvest ball: Wears a deep blue dress, hair plaited into a crown decked with fresh flowers, flounce of lace on her short skirts that went almost to mid calf and matching lace trimmed the high collar and cuffs. No jewellery. Summer ball: She wears blue stones at her throat and wrists and on the fine silver chains that secured her unswept hair, eyes and mouth are painted and has a fan.

Sorcor: Large well-muscled man with thick chest and a beard, tanned, has dark eyes and a scarred cheek where once was a slave tattoo. Oils his hair sleeked back from his bow for formal look. Wears a shirt of red and white striped silk and mermaid earrings with tiny pearls in her navels and green eyes. Dresses in a wide array of fine clothes in colors that bedazzled the eye. Silk scarf on his waist, jewelled dagger stuck in it, yellow silk shirt. Has a vest with gilt buttons, unruly hair caught back in a queue and further confined in a bright gold kerchief. In Chapter 18 of SOD: Emeralds in his ears and broad belt of leather worked with silver held two matching swords.

Davad Restart: Immaculately groomed, leggings bagged slightly at the knees, embroidered doublet laced too tight, modest belly looked like a bulging pot, dark ringlets on oiled hair but almost no curl so it fell in greasy locks. Small hands.

Caolwn Festrew: Leather gloves, cowl hiding face and hair, sagging growths on her face bobbed with movement of head, violet/lavender eyes, scaly growths that threatened her eyesight, lumpy flesh visible at the parting of her thick bronze hair, lumps and wattles of flesh depended from her fingers and knobbed the back of it were rubbery. Veil of lace in the hood tro cover the face.

Sparse Kelter: Wide man, red beard and red hair down his arms but not much on the crown of his head, has a chest as big as a barrel.

Ekke: Tall woman with freckles, big boned and has a red tint in her sandy tousled hair.

Cleff: About 11 years old, blue eyes, light hair and has a spidery tattoo by the side of his nose. He wears a ragged tunic scarcely longer than a shirt while working for Davad.

Dedge: Sea-grey eyes, hair no more than a fringe above his ears, muscled, tattoos on his face, sash of silk about his waist.

Gankis: An old sailor shorter than Kennit, has brown eyes, wears low shoes and a worn coat with big pockets.

Torg: Brawny man, not tall, has short blond hair, pale grey eyes and white eyebrows, skin underneath his round chin began to sag into a pouch. Wears a kerchief around his neck anciengly soiled, the collar of his blue and white striped shirt shows an interior band of brown.

Sa’Adar: Big priest, mark of shackles on wrists and ankles. unkempt hair spills onto his forehead, clothes have not been washed in days, dark eyes.

Mild: Around Wintrow’s age and a full head taller than him, hard-muscled, grey eyes and the hair on his cheeks is starting to dark into proper whiskers.

Comfrey: Has an elaborated tattoo on his arm and is missing a tooth. Wears a ragged red cap adorned with cheap brass charms.

Gantry: Tanned.

Ankle: Dark eyes (slave girl that crippled herself and limps).

Kennit’s mom: Thick woman with grey hair pinned up, blue eyes, barefoot, dressed in cotton tunic and trousers and has her tongue cut out.

Berandol: Young priest with more than 20 years old.

Bettel: Black locks into ringlets, wears layers of powder, wears lots of jewels, breasts showing volume on dress.

Avoretta: Small pale woman with an heart-shaped face and large blue eyes. Has painted pink chees, a plump little mouth painted red, short golden hair in tight curls all over her head. Dressed in pale blue with nipples visible beneath the pale gauze of her dress, wears gilted jewellery. 

Faldin: Wears brilliant colors and extravagant embroidery. Expanse of fabric round his girth. Earrings were an elaborate twining of gold and silver. Wears a vest.

Daughters: Pale skin and honey hair (typical in Durja), almond-shaped hazel eyes, plump with bare arms round and white. One no more than 15 and the other at most 17. Alyssum and Lily.

Road Caern: Young trader, tall, lean, has dark eyes and black hair (usually in a tail), a sharp nose and narrow lips. Harvest ball: Hair flowed down his back in a black stream and his shoulders strained the seams of his tailored coat.

Krion Trentor: Harvest ball: Dressed in grey with a golden scarf at his throat. White gloves. Always wears gloves to cover the scars where he stumbled into a fire as a child. Aurburn hair, freckles, green eyes.

Fayla Cart - Old woman with a hair growing out of a warty looking mole on her chin. (first dress maker recommended by Delo to Malta)

Territel: Wears her skirts as if they were silk scarves, clinging and revealing her legs.  (seamstress Malta chooses)

Devon: Gray eyes and handsome. (Althea’s first crush and a jerk)

Dujia: Heavy boned woman with tattoos across her cheek and down to her neck. Ragged trousers and patched tunic, bare feet dirty, bandage upon her upper arm (lider of the tattooed).

Guards in Cress: Kentel - Bearded veteran with a white stripe tracing an old scar through his dark hair and down his cheek; Flav - Younger and brawny. Both tall.

Clava: Slave Wintrow meets in Jamaillia. Blue eyes, yellow hair choped into a short brush, wide shoulders, very pale, wore shift patched and stained, shirt over her shoulders, face overwritten with tattoos.

Pag’s daughter: blue eyes (woman serving drinks in Nook - Crimpers scene).

Captain Finney: Brawny, whiskery-faced man, bright eyes, red-veined nose.

Brig: No more than 25 yo. Chestnut hair confined by a yellow kerchief marked with the raven insignia, grey eyes, old slave tattoo on his face over-needled with a dark blue raven that almost obscured it.

Lop: Skinny man of middle years on board of Paragon.

Haf: Larger than Althea, well muscled, youngster on board of Paragon.

Other in SOM: Nearly as tall as Kennit, webbed fingers and toes, flexible limbs, flat fish eyes, cartilaginous sockets, supple scaled skin, blunt bald head misshapen (not human or fish), hinge of jaw under his ear holes, large mouth that could engulf a man’s head, thin lips that cannot conceal rows of tiny sharp teeth, shoulders slumped forward, greyish tongue, neckless body. Wears a garment like a cloak of pale azure that moved like the fluidity of water.

Other in SOD: heavy slug like body, flexible limbs on upper body, long fingered hands, webbed fingers, grey-green body, yellow cloak, flat eyes.

LIVESHIPS:

Paragon: Warrior with a beard, hairy chest and muscled arms usually crossed on his muscled chest. He has hatchet bites between brow and nose and a peculiar star with 7 points livid as a burn scar on his chest. The chopped part is grey despite the figurehead being painted. Amber gives him a necklace with five wooden beds on a cord: a dolphin made of willow knee, a gull, a oak seastar, a crab of pine knot and a fish of halibut. 

In “Ship of Destiny” Amber gives him Fitz’s face with the broken nose and gives him a freedom earring like hers, a wooden bracelet and a axe. He has blue eyes. Amber carves charging bucks on his axe handle and battle harness at the end of SOD.

Vivacia: Silver wood, black hair, sanded flesh flushed pink, green eyes, ample bared breasts, perfect teeth, red lips, golden maple wood figurehead. Kennit gives her a long red piece of fabric that she ties to her head like a pirate scarf.

Slaves bought by Kyle and on board the Vivacia had a clenched fist tattoo.

Bolt: She has golden eyes like a whirpool with black at the center, jet black hair shot with silver greens like a nest of serpents, lips are redder than Vivacia’s and her teeth are too white and smaller than before.

Ophelia: A cog ship. Like many figureheads of her day, she is arrayed upon the beakhead of the ship rather than positioned on the stern below the bowsprit. She has lips painted scarlet, very white teeth, long loose curls, patrician hands and eyelashes. She got blackened/scorched hands after meeting the chalcedean ship. Amber fixed her hands after.

Kendry: Handsome young man figurehead with blue eyes.

SERPENTS:

Maulkin: Male serpent with copper eyes and golden false eyes in his body.

Shreever: Scarlet female serpent.

Sessurea: Male blue serpent with orange mane and great green eyes.

Tellur: Male green serpent (dead).

Kelaro: Male blue serpent with silver eyes.

Sylic: Male scarlet serpent, has a scar (dead).

She Who Remembers: head the size of a pony, pale yellow-green body, plump and soft, thick layers of callus where she rubbed against the rocky walls of her prison, has golden eyes and a faint pattern on the body in colors that remind of the eyes in a peacock’s tail. When freed her body is green-gold (dead).

Carrion: White male serpent with red eyes (dead).

Tintaglia (dragon): Silver blue, bigger than a ship, sharp silver claws, silver/copper eyes (it changes... but usually is silver) the size of cartwheels with eliptical pupils.

[brighteyedjill]

Fic Updates

Now that my recent long fic project is done, I’ve had the freedom to write a few shorter things for recent events. These stories were anon for awhile, but. now here they are!

Set in Stone - Tentacle Monster/Geralt, Geralt/Jaskier. Geralt comes out the worse in a fight with a tentacle monster. And the situation only gets more complicated from there. (CW: non-con) The first of two tentacle fics, this one has a pretty happy ending, and Jaskier to the rescue!

I Want No World - Tentacle Monster/Eskel, Eskel/Geralt. Nothing much matters to Eskel since Geralt's death. An encounter with an unusual monster makes him remember what it's like to feel. (CW: non-con, mild suicidal ideation). Yes, another tentacle fic. If you like feels with your tentacles, this one’s for you.

Potential - OMC Witcher Instructor/Lambert. Lambert has never responded well to authority. When the head of his year group imposes some especially harsh discipline, Lambert is determined not to let it affect him. (CW: non-con, child abuse) Oof, mind the tags. Lambert does not enjoy his formative years at Kaer Morhen. There may possibly be an Aiden/Lambert sequel in the works for this one already...

Childish Things -  Geralt has always loved stories about knights and kings and dragons. Unfortunately, such tales aren't always compatible with the life of a witcher. No content warnings, just baby Geralt having the chivalry scolded out of him.

And in case you missed it, the long fic that I just completed is this series:

Even Then (You’ll Still Be Mine) - Geralt has been missing for three years when Yennefer and Jaskier discover that he's been kept as a slave for all that time. But rescuing him is only the first step, because even witchers can be broken. (CW: non-con)

Phew! I have a few Witcher-y things in my queue to work on, including my Witcher Big Bang fic, which is progressing nicely. What are y’all up to?

[longneckreach]

Lightning Rod

“Sir?” Alumette bounced and weaved anxiously at the big Wildclaw’s side. “Did you want to look at the chainmail repairs you ordered, sir?”

She dodged the retaliatory snap of teeth, and managed to make it look accidental.

“Idiot! Can’t you tell I’m busy?” he snarled.

“You look very busy, sir,” Alumette acknowledged, twitching her ears back apologetically as she dropped to all fours. “I can tell you’re taking the guards their dinner and I wouldn’t want to annoy you later, when you’re off-duty and trying to relax. So I thought, maybe you might want to get it over with now, instead of—”

His sickle claw twitched, and she cut herself off with a polite cringe.

“You did say you’d be very angry if you had to wait longer than tonight,” she whispered.

“Fine.” The Wildclaw set his heavy pail of stew down with ill grace. “Get it fast.”

“Yes sir, right away sir.” Alumette bobbed her head so fast she gave herself motion sickness. “Oh! Here, sir.” She grabbed the stained leather tarp covering her materials and hauled it over the top of the bucket. “To keep the dust out.”

He didn’t react except to roll his eyes, and followed her to the back of her little unofficial area. Alumette didn’t have a space of her own, exactly; she was a prisoner, really a slave in everything but name. But since they’d started to view her as a convenient source of small repairs she’d found it useful to have a central location where they could usually count on finding her; it made them less angry when they finally did. 

Her “spot” was—okay, it was actually what had once been the trash pit. Slightly to the right of, to be precise. That way she could scavenge and salvage whatever got thrown out in order to make her repairs. It was nearer the warmth of the cooking fires than she would ever otherwise have been able to get, too—the smell wasn’t so bad once you got used to it.

(That was a lie. The smell never got better. But she didn’t freeze to death either, and nobody wanted to spend much time loitering near her, so it served a purpose. She really, really wanted a long shower.)

It wasn’t a large space, but it let her keep her materials and projects organized and accessible. So it was very easy to find the chainmail tunic she’d been repairing for the Wildclaw whose name she couldn’t remember.

Impatient, he used a wing to push her aside and shook it out.

“You said there wasn’t enough darksteel to replace the broken links,” he snapped immediately.

Alumette’s ears pricked forward, eager despite herself. “There wasn’t, sir,” she said. “See? Look closer. I didn’t have darksteel, but I was able to find the materials for Mr Bladewing to blacken standard steel. It’s not a perfect match, but I thought you might like it better.”

“Cosmetic,” the Wildclaw grunted, but he seemed less angry already. “Not worth the time you wasted on it.”

“I managed to collect the reagents before Mr Bladewing reached your tunic in his queue,” Alumette assured him. “I know your time is very valuable. Are there any issues with the stitching where the mail connects to the leather? I reinforced the seam with shed Imperial antler, but some people don’t like the added bulk.”

The Wildclaw felt along the reinforcements, but it was clearly just for show. “Good enough. Not just a pretty face. Gods know you’ve had the time to do it right, though. Take it to my tent.” He gave a vicious, mocking grin. “Feel free to wait there.”

“Yes, sir.” Alumette wavered. “Sir, would you like to take it now? I could take the dinner pail out to the Pit. Then you could be finished for the evening.”

She got a hard, suspicious look. “Yeah? And what’s got you so accommodating, brat? Carrying secrets? Weapons? You stay away from the other prisoners unless you want to join them for good. You’ve got no reason to be near the Pit, your meatshield’s not there. And he won’t be again, either.”

Alumette allowed her pain to show as she shrank away.

“I know,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s just that I know my brother isn’t coming back.”

He bared his teeth at her. “I knew you were up to something. It’ll go worse for you if you don’t tell me what it is.”

“I just…” She let her voice tremble. “I’m going to need all the friends I can get.”

One of the other guards had said that to her once. A different Wildclaw. But they were all pretty much the same.

What mattered was that her lie worked. The guard’s suspicion faded into derisive amusement, which was exactly what she wanted.

She tilted her ears forward, looking up at him hopefully. “I’ve heard the guards complaining about that delivery, sir. I know it’s long and boring. That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? You could eat early yourself and relax. Or—or I could bring dinner to the Pit, and then—if you wanted me to bring you your armor afterward, so you...wouldn’t have to carry it…”

The Wildclaw got that glint in his eye again, baring his teeth in a way somehow less friendly than a growl. “Subtle. I won’t give you protection, lightning rod. Bring that armor tonight anyway, unless you want to make enemies instead of friends. And take the pail out to the guards, if you can even lift it.”

Pretending to miss the viciousness under the words, Alumette brightened and twitched her head in some kind of salute.

She dove under the nearest corner of the tarp, and prayed.

This was the hard part. Oh, not the slight-of-hand; she was a tinkerer, anything that required clever paw work was second nature. And not the design, either, that had been easy. The hard part was deciding which deity to pray to.

In the end she prayed quickly to the Stormcatcher, because she was born under his mark, and because her entire plan hinged on the mass of wires and junk contained in a pilfered slop bucket that no one but her would ever have noticed, tucked under its filthy weatherproof tarp next to the garbage pit. And the wooden bowl she’d fitted perfectly inside it, a false top hiding her Plan inside.

(She made a point of grabbing the full dinner pail between her teeth, so that as she lifted, the Wildclaw would see her holding it; so that, as she turned and the tarp fell back into place, she would create a tent effect with her horns, where no one could see exactly what she was doing. She had planned this. She had done a lot of thinking.)

She prayed to the Shadowbinder, for just a few seconds of cover in which to pull off the kind of trick she’d never attempted before, the kind of acting she’d never needed to be good at. 

(With the tent hiding her actions, she quickly set the pail down and flicked her tail, sending a basket of odds and ends rolling. Just loud enough to be audible, she mumbled, “ow.” In the few seconds in which her observer would assume she was tending a bruise, she grabbed a ladle she’d hidden and tipped the top fourth of the stew into the false top of the Plan.)

To the Windsinger, the god of freedom. The Arcanist, because he knew her brother, and also because she was going to do something flashy and really stupid and he seemed relevant.

(She left the dinner pail tucked between two crates where it wouldn’t leave a silhouette, and dragged the Plan, now overflowing with stew, back into the sunlight.)

And one final prayer—in the part of her mind not whirring and sparking and calculating how to pull this off, she called to the Plaguebringer.

Part of that was just polite, after all—Alumette was on her land. But she was also pinioned and hungry and scared, and she didn’t want to die. Alumette didn’t really pay much attention to religion, but she did remember what other people told her. And she’d heard from Plague dragons in the past that their goddess might be ugly and vicious, but she was also the patron of dragons who wanted to survive and were willing to fight for it with everything they had.

Hello, ma’am, she thought awkwardly as she maneuvered the Plan out from under the tarp. I don’t know if we’ve met, but I’m trying very hard, and so is my brother. I don’t think you really help people, exactly. But if I’m wrong, I could use some help. I know I’m not really one of yours, though, and some of these dragons are. I really do think I’m fighting harder than they are. They’re awfully lazy, ma’am, no offense. If you just could please not help them, I won’t ask you to help me, if that sounds fair. I really think I can do this on my own. I just need a chance.

She managed to extract herself from the Wildclaw guard without him noticing anything, and began the long walk toward the Pit as the sun went down.

Belatedly, she remembered her manners, and thought in the vague direction of the Wyrmwound: Thank you for your consideration.

From there, the Plan went...well. She was trying not to jinx anything. 

It was actually pretty simple to talk her way around the Pit. 

The first pair of guards were the toughest; they were the ones positioned at the controls to lower the bridge into the arena, without which nobody could get out, so they had to be smart and observant. And she wasn’t a good actor, so she didn’t try to lie to them. She just asked them, politely, whether they wanted the good stew or if they wanted to eat right away.

They hassled her over it, of course; but she just blinked in feigned surprise and said she didn’t mean to annoy them, ma’am, sir. It’s just that (and cue hunched shoulders, rapid blinking) I got clawed really bad last week for offering the head guards the first serving instead of saving them for last, ma’am. I know it’s hotter now, but the really good meat settles near the bottom as it gets stirred by serving it out, so the last servings are better. I’m not disrespectful ma’am, I swear, I just didn’t know until last week so now I ask.

She’d been prepared for either answer, but it was still a relief when—always looking to get one over on each other—they fell for it and said they’d wait.

The next guard she actually knew; he was the one who kept dropping all those hints about protection and friends that made her scales want to crawl off her body to get away from him. For that one, she dropped her eyes shyly and claimed to be giving him a bigger portion. He was willing enough to believe it.

Aluetted tugged hastily at the cape of the next guard in the rotation, hastily whispering, “Don’t take any. I saw Spinner put something in it when she heard Erund was out here. I tried to tell Adder but she said she’d—just please don’t take any, they’ll blame me!”

And so it went. About halfway around, the guards in the rotation started to notice the pail was still full, and Alumette could stop trying to act, which was a relief. She could just look anxious and unhappy, which was very easy right now in the current moment all things considered, and tell them she didn’t know what was going on but when she told the shift leaders what the stew was they refused to eat it, which was weird, and I don’t know why they laughed when I said I’d see if the others wanted any, that was weird too...but there’s plenty of it, if you maybe want a double portion?

For some reason, none of them were taking her up on it.

And all around the Pit, getting easier and easier as it got dark, unnoticed beneath a Spiral’s tangled body and Alumette’s own restlessness and the clink and flash of her chains, a copper wire spooled from the bottom of her slop barrel.

She’d carefully tarnished and blackened the first several hundred yards of it, so that no light would glint off the surface in her wake, counting on sunset to save her later on. Carrying the pail between her teeth gave her a few precious seconds to tug the slack loose with her paws, and trample the wire into the dust with her hind feet. So far, so good. So far no one had seen it. She’d found that if she kept talking, and moving, and generally being blindingly bright and also nervous, people didn’t notice what was happening near her feet.

Maybe she shouldn’t be a clockmaker, Alumette thought idly as she circled the Pit. Maybe she should be a thief! That would be funny. Aspis probably wouldn’t think so, but she could make him laugh about it if she tried.

If he came back.

No time to worry about that. She was almost back to where she’d started.

The extreme end of the thin copper wire she’d been laying had been kicked under the shift lead’s tail, with a black iron fishhook on one end. Alumette wasn’t exactly a talented fisherdragon, but she didn’t have to aim very well. It had snagged on the chain for the bridge pulleys. From there, she’d been following close along the edge of the arena where she could wrap her wire around the pegs where the jagged net over the arena was anchored to the earth. 

“Hi!” she called, setting the pail down about fifty feet from the shift leaders. Carefully, she moved her paws from the rubber-padded handle and placed them against the bare iron bands running down the sides. “I saved you guys some of the big pieces!”

“You better have!” The reply wasn’t angry or aggressive, but it wasn’t quite joking either. “Never doing this again, I’m starving. There can’t be that much of a difference in the taste.”

“Get over here, lightning rod,” her partner agreed. “Or I’m taking a bite out of you, too!”

“Yes, sir,” Alumette chirped. “Just a minute. It’s still heavy, I think there’s a lot of marrow in these bones.”

The promise of a rich treat won her patience for the last few, precious seconds.

Alumette was a Lightning child by birth; but she’d never gotten any magical training. She could call up her element, of course, but not with any real power or consistency.

That was what engineering was for.

Electricity crackled along her spine, from the tips of her horns down along her wings and racing along the ridge of her back. A lot of it, too much, discharged from her tailtip. But more than enough power raced through her claws and into the iron bands of the slop bucket.

And from there, into the jumble of metal, wires, a silver bracelet she’d slipped from the pocket of a waistcoat she’d been set to mend, several feet of chain, and an only-slightly-rusted metal spring from a discarded mech that she’d spent the past week turning into a rudimentary, unstable electromagnet.

For a few terrifying seconds, there was nothing but a low, uninspiring hum.

And then copper wire began to glow.

[madscientistjournal]

Fiction: Victorian Velociraptor with Violets

An essay by Amada, as provided by Andrew K. Hoe Art by Leigh Legler

The opera troupe could handle Amada being a fake name, but not that I was dying. They could handle my seven-foot velociraptor–Rodelia–and I sneaking away at night, but not that we were breaking into factories, hunting without luck for the serum that could save me.

My life-fibers were unraveling, my mutations accelerating, so I addressed everyone at morning meal.

“Rodes mimics any sound she hears. Perfectly.”

Madam Chien and the rest of the August Court of the Full Autumn Moon round the desert camp stared like they didn’t understand English, though they did. I’d learnt enough Chinese to know. Or maybe they were examining the worsening rash on my cheek. I angled my face away. The troupe’s airship, Full Autumn Moon, floated overhead, a great redwood junk, paneled sails gleaming silver in the morning light.

“Why are you telling us now?” Madam Chien, the soprano, asked. Even in her sleeping robe she was glamorous, ageless, ready for the stage.

I swallowed. She’d been kind to us, and I didn’t like what we were about to do. “We didn’t trust you. But now, we want to contribute more.”

Rodelia scratched the ground, rumbling disapproval. Eh-eh-eh-eh-eh …

Madam Chien looked at Rodelia’s five-fingered hands–not the three-clawed manus other raptors had. “Her ability is … traitwoven?”

Traitwoven, like her capacity to stand erect, handle human tools. Her almost-human intellect.

I nodded.

“Such a barbaric land, America. It’s supposedly illegal, but there are raptor-butlers and raptor-porters wherever we land. Black slaves escape north, only to be dragged back south.”

I growled internally. Rodelia’s traitweavings weren’t done here, in America, but in Europe–in a mountain laboratory-fortress we’d escaped months back, life-fibers warped by one Baron Veer.

Mine, too.

Out of everyone, Madam Chien alone knew we left while the troupe slept, but not that we’d been raiding Veer’s American factories: Veritas’s Elixirs and Tinctures. No serum in last night’s raid, but documents indicated Veer himself would be in Phoenix. We needed to steer the August Court there.

“Rodelia can sing.”

That caused the stir I’d expected. Venerable Manager Shen, whose queue was always perfectly braided down his back, sputtered on his pipe. “She what?”

I nodded for Rodelia to demonstrate, but she hissed. Amada?

It wasn’t actually Amada she’d said, but a raptor-sound meaning me whenever she crooned it. Like she was now.

A-maaa-daaaa. Retreat?

I snarled, raptor-language being as much bestial gesture as vocalization. She flinched, as did everyone else. Because of Veer’s meddling, I understood raptors better than others. My human-ish ears didn’t grasp Rodelia’s full vocal meanings, but I parsed enough. To the troupe, to anybody watching us communicate, it must’ve seemed damned creepy.

Reluctantly, Rodelia opened her jaws …

… and Madam Chien’s ringing voice washed over the arid sands, the tree-tall saguaro, the ground-hugging ocotillo. It was a song from the The Dragon Bride, where the concubine stolen from her native land begged her captor-king for mercy, something Rodelia had heard many times now–

“How dare you!” the real Madam Chien exclaimed.

“She … doesn’t use her tongue?” someone asked. “Her teeth? She just … opens wide?”

“This could make Phoenix,” I said to the ground.

“Phoenix!” Manager Shen murmured. “Could we really book … the Orpheum?”

The troupe’s route coinciding with Veritas‘s towns was why we’d approached them. They hadn’t wanted a raptor-porter, though, nor her exceptionally strong, raptor-talking human. They distrusted traitwoven beasts. Velociraptors especially, them resembling the dragons they so revered. How old are you?, Madam Chien had asked. Sixteen, I’d blurted–my best guess. Madam Chien took Manager Shen aside, and grudgingly, he let us aboard.

She’d gotten me decent clothes. She’d left food out for us last night–raptor-kibble for Rodelia, salted eggs and rice gruel for me. If she gave us away now, I’d just claim Rodelia needed to roam.

Madam Chien kept silent, started fanning herself.

“Imagine a singing raptor,” Manager Shen murmured. “What show offers that?”

Madam Chien’s fan stilled. “You’d give my part away?” Everyone flushed, she being more mother to them than prima donna.

“Never,” I insisted. “Rodes’ll be a … pre-show attraction.”

Rodelia lowered her head, chest rumblings sinking to a low keening.

“We’ll call her the Rapturous Raptor,” Manager Shen decided. “Impressions only.” He turned to me. “Any sound, you say? Birdsong? Firecrackers?”

I nodded, avoiding Madam Chien’s gaze. Skin peeled off my knuckles, trickling blood–I shoved them behind my back. Rodelia would pull us to Phoenix. To Baron Veer. The source of serum, and all my present woes.

~

Without serum, I was getting sicker, and the airship’s floaty motion didn’t help. The Full Autumn Moon was bigger than Europe’s zeppelin-busses. Rodelia was in the parlor, where redwood flooring yielded to windowed viewing-bottoms, staring listlessly at red hills and cacti-dotted mesas passing below.

Her weavings were stable, but she was motion-sick, gloomily watching a mustang herd, tiny with distance, gallop up a dust-tail.

Velociraptors weren’t meant to fly. Even the Baron with all his noxious chemicals hadn’t woven any tolerance for flight into her.

“Veer’s here, Rodes. In Arizona. The one who did this to us.”

Another dust storm below–a raptor pack chasing the mustangs.

Once, velociraptors were turkey-sized, before traitweavers shaped them for work. Other animals had been shaped, too, but raptors were especially amenable to weaving. The practice became outlawed, but crates of woven raptors had already been shipped; some escaped, went wild. Now, Rodelia’s seven-foot cousins haunted these deserts.

“I wouldn’t … make it to Utah.” The files from last night’s raid listed a large Veritas facility there.

Rodelia rumbled. Eh-eh-eh-eh-eh …

I remembered enough of Veer’s laboratory to know I never spoke human words there. I picked up English and Chinese from other humans, but raptor-language was my mother-tongue. I was Veer’s handler. Didn’t talk, but drank serum, unharnessed and harnessed his raptors. Treated wounds. Held them as they keened in my arms. They obeyed my hisses and growls unquestioningly. Veer, though, wove command-words into his test subjects. If he was displeased, he’d utter those phrases; we’d shriek in pain until we complied. I remembered spilling serum because I was sick of it eroding my mind. He’d command-worded me, watched me thrash about before making me lap it off the floor.

But I could talk now. I could use Veer’s command-words.

Could make Rodelia address me.

Did she dream of running in a real raptor pack? Maybe she’d tried telling me, but I couldn’t understand. Maybe I didn’t want to understand, she being all I had.

“We’ll get serum from the Baron,” I promised. “Then–” What came after then? The airship jostled, and my stomach lurched. Finally, Rodelia turned to me, nosed my hair.

Rrrrrrrr-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh.

A-ma-daaa. Retreat …

Grateful, I reached up, grabbed her snout. “It’ll be okay, Rodes.”

I stumbled below-decks. My voice was getting raspier. My eyes darker. I wouldn’t be able to hide this much longer.

It was in the costume room Madam Chien cornered me. “You’ve found what you’ve been looking for all these nights, haven’t you? What’s in Phoenix, Amada?”

I shoved my cracked hands behind my back. “Fame for the troupe. Second chance for Rodes and me.”

Madam Chien sighed. “I was sold into opera, you know. Years I spent, against my will, training in Eastern and Western opera … but I lucked upon traveling countrymen. I didn’t need to get as familiar with an airship’s under-compartments as you and Rodelia. Besides myself, I didn’t steal anything–”

I didn’t twitch, but she nodded. “Even we can tell how sophisticated Rodelia’s weavings are. And … her scars–”

“Look, we just–”

“I don’t care about your past, Amada. I don’t care that you’re stealing my show, so long as my family’s safe. Whatever’s in Phoenix … Oh … your cheek’s bleeding–”

I hissed as she reached for my face. It’d steamed from my clenched teeth, instinctual, vicious. My sharp, sharp teeth.

I snatched a coat off the racks, a wide-brimmed hat, brushed past her.

“I once had a daughter!” she blurted to my back, stopping me short. “This family could be yours … if you’d–Wait!”

I pushed on. The troupe loved Rodelia. She was gentle, loved playing fetch. Me, though. If they ever discovered my true nature …

In the hold, I navigated chests to my loosened board: two vials of serum remaining. Funny, how this almond-scented substance I once despised, I now craved.

I sighed, but it came out, eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh …

~

Serum stabilized me, but it fogged my memory. My earliest remembrance was gripping the bars of a cage. Was I an orphan Veer captured? Someone nobody would miss, so he could practice human traitweaving?

Humans were the exact opposite of raptors–they took to weaving easily; human life-fibers rejected it. Thus, human traitweaving was forbidden.

The Baron must’ve been some genius to manage me: my ability with languages, how I’d learned reading so quickly, my raptor-strength–Veer meant more for me than raptor-handling. The more my mutations accelerated, the more I discovered.

But I didn’t want to see what other scaly presents he’d woven under my skin.

~

First show we tried, Rodelia clawed the sand, a foot from the curtain that might as well have been a canyon the way she’d dug in.

I shoved, but even my traitwoven strength couldn’t budge her. “Come … on … Rodes!”

Retreat!, she hissed. Retreat!

Beyond the curtain, Manager Shen stalled the audience. They’d heard Rodelia’s roars, though, were looking nervously our way.

Manager Shen’s nephew, Ah-Shen, eyed Rodelia’s sickle-claws. “Stage fright.”

“Are you kidding me?” I growled, shoving off Rodelia.

“I’ve been raised by an opera-troupe, Amada.”

I wouldn’t use command-words. I wouldn’t. But if we failed here, we lost everything. I bolted towards the airship floating above the redrock behind us.

“Um, Amada?” Ah-Shen yelled.

“Watch her!” I yelled back.

There was something else I’d been keeping under my loosened board besides serum.

When I returned, Ah-Shen was standing stock-still. Rodelia’s eyes rolled; she flexed human fingers–like gripping that battleax Veer made her wield for her duels.

In those scarred, lab-woven hands, I laid a doll. It was doe-eyed, hair in ringlets, lavender dress dotted with tiny purple flowers. Rodelia froze.

I flushed. “Her name’s … Victoria–”

We’d passed a general store weeks ago. Rodelia stopped before the window, looming over this doll, raptor-eyes gone liquid in a way I’d never seen before. The way she purred at that glass brought me back with some dollars Manager Shen paid me.

I’d been hedging, figuring how to give it to her–but now Rodelia cradled Victoria. Raptor eyes couldn’t cry, but …

Eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh …

She clutched Victoria onstage, opened wide, and Madam Chien’s voice awed the audience.

Ah-Shen and everyone backstage crowded the curtains, but I stumbled off. My skin burned. Whatever Veer intended, I didn’t think my life-fibers were meant to hold a raptor.

From the stage, cheering. Applause.

I cried–my tears were black. What would happen to Rodelia? What of that creature the Baron stole, who was a girl before his experiments?

That day forward, Rodelia carried Victoria everywhere, slept with it cradled close.

~

The Rapturous Raptor was a roaring success.

Manager Shen swaggered onstage, Rodelia following. Someone yelled Spanish that she mimicked perfectly. Chinese prospectors shouted in some dialect, neither Cantonese nor Mandarin. She reflected it back.

Rodelia had to really concentrate for human voices. It was why we couldn’t communicate that way.

Despite being outlawed, human-handed raptors hauled rocks here. In hotels, raptor-bellhops stood ramrod straight. But I’d never heard anyone wanting a raptor who duplicated sound. Maybe Veer wanted raptor-spies, as well as seven-foot axe-wielding soldiers.

He never called her Rodelia. I called her Rodes, but she picked Rodelia. After hearing a child being called Rodelia, she’d started making uk-uk-uk-uk-uk noises, rocking her tail.

Veer called me something else, too, but I didn’t care to remember.

Rodelia’s raptor-name for me … that never changed. That, I remember clearly.

Lessened serum meant my memories were unclouding. If I was sixteenish, how old was Rodelia? An adult in raptor reckoning? If I concentrated, maybe I could …

Thunderous applause startled me back to present.

Rodelia tromped backstage, grabbed Victoria while Madam Chien and other performers passed for their show. Chien looked to me, but I ignored her.

After they exited, Rodelia snarled, using my voice: “Utah.”

I shoved up the sleeve of the coat I wore everywhere, uncovered the beetle-hide puncturing my skin. Not healthy raptor scales, but black, chitin-hard growth. It was worse round my spine. I knew she smelled the fever coursing through me.

“I’ve been taking serum, small sips, but that only affects the surface. My body’s rejecting it, Rodes.”

Onstage, Madam Chien sang the Dragon Bride’s sorrows, being captured from her faraway land, forced to marry a ruthless king. Offstage, Rodelia keened her own sad song.

Amada …

“He needs to pay, Rodes. He–raaaaaaaaa-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh …”

~

By the time we reached Yuma, we were making triple-earnings. The question was asked: could Rodelia’s performance be expanded?

“How about a doctor, Miss Amada?” Manager Shen asked gently. “It would be no trouble for us.”

I hissed, and he looked away.

Madam Chien was oddly silent. “Let them try,” she murmured. Everyone cheered.

Mei-Li the seamstress started a dress. Rodelia had to stand straight for various fabrics Mei-Li threw over her. Rodelia rumbled darkly; Mei-Li paled. I pointed her to Victoria sitting on a chair. The seamstress concocted a lavender affair with violets lining the bodice, a silver wig with purple flowerets like Victoria’s–these Rodelia accepted.

Gum-Loong the painter started painting the flower-set wig; the lavender dress; Rodelia’s regal stance; human hands–but just half her face, jaws open in mid-vocalization.

“I’ll do her eyes last,” he explained. “Something’s missing, though. With her hands.”

I studied the painting. He was right, but I couldn’t place it.

At Flagstaff, Rodelia strode onstage in dress and wig, gobsmacking everyone. But they cheered when she opened her jaws and released the “Four Part Song.” She hunkered offstage, rumbling disapproval. Soon as the dress came off, she cracked her spine, assumed her natural raptor’s crouch.

At Flagstaff, Rodelia strode onstage in dress and wig, gobsmacking everyone.

Manager Shen returned from town with a fancy-looking invitation. “The Orpheum in Phoenix has renovated–they want us to be their inaugural performance!” He squinted at the print. “A baron has requested us! Baron … Vvv-ver–”

“Veer,” I said.

Rodelia growled low.

“You’ve heard of him?” Manager Shen asked.

Every day, my memories sharpened. I remembered Veer watching his sword-wielding raptors duel, scribbling in that notebook he kept in his waistcoat pocket. “Oh, yes. Baron Veer loves a good show.”

~

We remained in Flagstaff to prepare The Dragon Bride–with Madam Chien and Rodelia.

Townspeople gathered amongst the bracken and cacti, watching us rehearse the part where the foreign queen, about to be executed by her captor-king, revealed her true form–the dragon–and, against her kind’s peaceful nature, stormed the court.

When Madam Chien had played the part alone, she’d signified this transformation with a mask, but today Rodelia switched places with her, charging onstage in her lavender dress, her flashing silver hair. She shrieked, shredded her dress. The crowd hooted.

While they applauded, Rodelia stalked to me.

RRRRRRRRRAAaaaaa! Leave Baron!

I removed my hat, bared my fangs. I’d seen my reflection to know I didn’t have eye-whites anymore, just sheens of darkness. “We escaped, but he’s … still … hurting … me.”

Rodelia nuzzled my forehead. Amada. He force. Now we choose.

Because of my decay, I understood her better now than ever before.

But it was too late. I pointed to the suited men among the still clapping crowd. Veer’s men. From this distance, everyone must’ve thought we were chatting about hairstyles. “He knows we’re with the August Court. We run, he’ll attack them.”

Rodelia roared, RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

She streaked across the sand, vanishing through some redrock. In the sudden quiet, I waved, replaced my hat. “BATHROOM BREAK!”

The crowd laughed.

Rodelia would return. She was just shocked; her raptor’s mind couldn’t conceive how human plots worked. But I’d explained it to her. We’d announced ourselves with the Rapturous Raptor. Now that Veer knew we were in Arizona, his associates would ensure we headed to the Orpheum. If we didn’t, they’d slaughter those she’d come to love.

~

I slept far from camp now. The turning worsened at night. Drifting between waking and sleeping, I imagined walking the laboratory’s corridors again–Veer made his subjects duel in booby-trapped mazes–and CLACK–I smelled serum. I ran towards light spilling from an opened door, but through that door I saw … me … human me … in a violet-set dress and silver ringlets, staring back.

I reached out–with no hand, but a scaly, three-clawed raptor’s manus–an old nightmare, something I dreamed often–

Behind me, this sad, sad moaning–UHHHHHHHHHH …

It was me—I was moaning–I was sad–

I jolted awake to Rodelia cradling me. I’d been sipping serum to survive, letting it addle my memories even as they cleared. I’d one vial left–for Phoenix. Rodelia crooned, eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh, raptor-eyes sad. She mewled her raptor-name for me, and as I drifted, I thought I heard in her calling something of wide vistas and the running pack, sun and sky.

Amada … Amada choose retreat …

My clawed hands clenched.

Never.

He had to pay.

~

From Full Autumn Moon‘s view amongst the clouds, Phoenix looked alabaster, enormous factories puffing smoke like carnival fairy floss. Atmospheric balloons floated over flagstone plazas, silver-skinned steam-cars and trains. A rose-winged dirigible bearing laughing passengers passed us, raptors shoveling coal in the engine compartment. We descended below Phoenix’s skyline, approaching a columned building and its landing square.

“The Orpheum,” Manager Shen murmured. “Newly renovated. You’ve recovered just in time, Amada!”

I wore a cream-colored dress Mei-Li made me. My skin was clear, my irises humanly brown again. But the raptor within clawed away. My whole body felt clenched.

I smiled for Manager Shen.

The airship didn’t anchor this time, but landed on the flagstones.

From a ramp, Rodelia descended in a new dress, alongside Madam Chien and everyone else. Rodelia’s sickle-claws click-click-clicked on the flagstones. Behind us, Ah-Shen and other stagehands bore props. I’d made Rodelia leave Victoria, hardening myself to her whines. Her hands twitched; she turned, sniffed, sniffed again, the picture of nervousness in a raptor.

“Wait!”

Queue bouncing, Gum-Loong the painter ran up to hand Rodelia … a lavender fan. The something that was missing. Rodelia flipped it open with dexterous fingers.

At the square’s roped-off edge, men and women in opulent dress applauded. The Baron was nowhere in sight, but he was here. Long as the crowd was around, he’d be careful.

Orpheum staff in crimson jackets ushered us inside. Plush seat-rows unfolded from the stage like layered rose petals, everything reeking of new wood, fresh varnish. They’d spared no expense. Madam Chien smiled, but didn’t look impressed.

I caught Rodelia eyeing me sadly. Since I’d downed my last vial, a curtain dropped between us. My ears had regressed; I couldn’t parse her raptor-nuance so well.

“Rodes. Look.” Reaching behind some boxes, I brought out Victoria. She purred in surprise. I couldn’t keep it away after all. ���I’ll handle the Baron. You don’t have to do anything.”

She nuzzled her doll, not hearing me. Her home aboard Full Autumn Moon was assured. They were her family now, would care for her better than I ever could. She’d be safe, once I took care of Veer.

Yesterday, I’d pulled Ah-Shen aside. “In case I’m … busy … you’ll take care of her? See she has Victoria? That she gets to hunt off-ship?”

He’d cocked his head. “Of course. Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s perfect,” I’d replied. “At long last, we’re playing in Phoenix tomorrow.”

~

Baron Veer entered with the audience, surrounded by suited men. He didn’t see me, but, oh, I saw him from the rafters I’d climbed onto. I hissed. Black jacket, pasty face, a big man I could easily shred. He kept glancing to the stage, hungry for his escaped subjects–the ones he didn’t euthanize.

The last of the serum was fading fast. I was remembering the night he gave that order. He’d used his command-words, made me kill my raptors. My raptors! They watched me through their muzzles, not understanding what I was injecting them with. Through tears, I watched their eyes flutter.

There I was, one raptor left, holding that huge needle before Rodelia. She always obeyed me. Always. She … said something … something that broke the spell … my name … my raptor-name …

We escaped that night.

The stage lights dimmed, reminding me of my mission.

I gripped the beam. Rrrrrrrrrrrrr-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh …

All through the audience hushing, the first strains of song, the opening battle scene, I stared at Veer, feeling my body sear away any last dregs of serum. Weeks of turning reasserted themselves.

He squirmed, impatient for Rodelia’s appearance. He wasn’t into opera, didn’t know the story. If he uttered his command-words, I’d freeze, and he was fast with them. I needed to wait until he was completely absorbed. I needed to wait until Rodelia’s entrance.

Intermission, lemonade in sparkling glasses, chatter. Someone announcing the Veritas-sponsored renovations to gentle applause.

Veer renovated the Orpheum?

But the curtains rose again; Madam Chien, as foreign concubine, got dragged out. The king ordered her execution. She ran backstage and Rodelia strode forth–the Dragon Bride. Everyone gasped as Rodelia sang her rage and sorrow, ready for the slaughter. Below me, Baron Veer leaned forward …

He wasn’t looking at her. His head darted round … looking … for me?

His human experiment? The girl who’d lapped serum off the floor, while he took notes? Not just once. I’d been refusing serum for weeks, so he’d made an experiment of it.

Rodelia’s voice crescendoed, lifting Veer’s eyes upward. His eyes widened. With my raptor-hearing, I heard him whisper. “Subject Camille-Zero.”

I leaped down, claws extended, dress billowing like bat wings.

RRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAA!

Rodelia’s soprano voice changed into a raptor’s call. In that split-second of mid-descent, I finally understood Rodelia–really understood her. She sung the song of the pack, hideous to human hearing, but to me … it was about sunsets and sunrises, cool night, hard sand under sickle-claws, tail held taut like a sail, guiding the sprint. It was my name, my true raptor-name she’d been calling me all along.

He forced us. Now we choose.

Do not kill for him, Mother. Not anymore.

I landed amongst screams, audience members leaping up. Onstage, Madam Chien and the others gaped.

Veer was within reach, a meat-bag ready for shearing … but … Mother … Why’d she … ? All this time, it wasn’t Amada she’d been saying …

“Camille-16-alpha–HOLD!”

I froze, collapsed onto one knee. Camille. That was my designation.

“Release the Scyllas!” Veer yelled. “Collect Camille-Zero!”

His men rose, pulling syringes from their jackets.

CLACK.

Somewhere in the Orpheum, a door had opened. There was hissing, the scent of cloying gas … and clanking–metal grating against metal. Something heavy, coming our way.

Veer made his subjects duel in booby-trapped mazes.

Rodelia shredded her dress, vaulted from the stage.

“Viktra-16-alpha–HOLD!” Veer commanded imperiously. Rodelia squalled in mid-leap, crashed onto the carpet. Veer’s men surrounded her quivering form. Retreat, Mother!

“Kill the Viktra!” Veer ordered. “Contain Camille-Zero!”

I remembered.

The Camilles were first, for infiltration. Their weavings were extensive; all died, except one. The Viktras were for combat. Was there a Scylla series, though? I roared, reptilian scales bursting through my cheeks.

People at the edges of the seat-rows gasped.

“My god … what is she?”

“She’s not human!”

They were right. I was no human turned raptor … but a raptor woven to look human.

The Baron was going to kill my daughter. A Viktra-clone, but my daughter nonetheless. Sprawled on the ground, Veer’s men mounting her, Rodelia’s wide eyes found mine. She opened wide, repeating what she’d said that night we’d escaped, the first part in Veer’s voice, the last in raptor: “Camille-16-alpha–free yourself, Mother!”

Lapping serum off the floor, for weeks, had lessened the dosage–I’d understood her that night.

And, as happened that night, I obeyed. I knocked my attackers back, leapt to Rodelia. Speaking was hard; I needed to concentrate: “Vvvvviktra-16-a-alphaaa–ssssssSTAND!”

Forced to comply, Rodelia righted herself, tossing off men, just as two saurian beasts lumbered into the hall. Raptors taller than Rodelia, in breastplates and helms, raptor-sized rifles in human hands, reeking of acrid rot and almond-scented serum.

People flooded the theater’s far sides as they bayed, “UUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHH …”

They were blind, eyes milky white. Their skin, ulcerous, wet. The gas–some serum-vapor–they were unstable, shambling forth unsteadily.

“Scyllas!” the Baron yelled. “Attack!”

Rodelia and I engaged. I landed before Veer, claws held high. Veer’s smug expression faded–he looked for his enforcers, but they were running–finally! He would pay!

A Scylla rammed its rifle stock into Rodelia’s jaw, crumpling her. A bayonet extruded from the other’s barrel.

I could end Veer so easily! But Rodelia … the Scylla raised its bayonet … Rodelia’s words, Now we choose—

Advance, or retreat? Utah, or Phoenix? Serum, or Veer? Veer … or … ? Kill, or … ?

Like the Dragon Bride, I poured my fury into a single call: STOP! The Scyllas froze, white eyes flicking to me.

“Camille-16-alpha!” Veer yelled, “TWO STEPS BACK!” My feet moved, one, two. But I dropped claws of my own volition.

Children, I begged the Scyllas. Don’t kill for him! Their armored heads turned to me, rifles lowering.

The Baron was talking, saying it was over, the Scyllas were deaf to all but his voice, a new traitweaving after my escape–and I didn’t care. I’d listened enough to him, when I should’ve been listening to Rodelia, my clone-daughter. These Scyllas were my daughters, too.

Children!, I pleaded over his words. I understand now. I thought I had to kill him. That killing was the only way for him. For me. I was wrong. You can choose—

Veer stamped his foot. “Camille-Zero, you will listen! Scylla-16-alpha–COLLECT CAMILLE-ZER–”

“Scylla-16-alpha–TURNABOUT!”

Veer blinked. He hadn’t spoken, but his voice …

Rodelia was standing now, jaws open. She’d heard that order many times. The Scyllas faced Veer.

“That’s not me, you fools! Scylla-16-alpha–BELAY PREVIOUS ORDER!”

The Scyllas wickered, confused.

“Scylla-16-alpha,” Rodelia commanded. “ATTACK!”

Despite their blindness, they leveled rifles with alarming accuracy. People surged for the archways, no longer caring how close to the Scyllas they got. The Baron turned, but I grabbed him, plunged claws into his midsection–he screamed. I yanked out his notebook, years of scribbled notes.

His work disintegrated in my fist, pages spilling instead of blood. Fabric tore as he broke away. The Scyllas stalked after him.

Wait! I called, Don’t follow. Please! They ignored me, clanking through the archway he’d disappeared through.

Beyond, I heard Veer shouting, “Help! Velociraptors in the theater–some monster in a dress!” There was gunfire, the Scyllas’ sad moaning.

Rodelia nudged me. Mother?

I didn’t have teeth anymore. Fangs. I had fangs. A tongue that struggled forming human sounds. I couldn’t protect her. Not without my human words. It hurt to breathe. Twice, she’d saved me. I had to save her.

“Vvvvviktra-s-si-sixteeeeeeen-alphaaaa,” I managed. Rodelia cocked her head, confused.

The rest, I said in raptor: Run. Live. Don’t follow me.

“AAAAAAAAA-RAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

She thrashed, shook her head wildly in denial. She moved towards me, but I raked her forearm, drawing blood. She screamed, turned, and was gone. It hurt. Like something ripped from me, vanished forever. I crouched by the stage, claw-hand brushing something:

Not Victoria … the fan. Still carrying her scent.

“Come, Amada.” I smelled Madam Chien. She pulled my arm over her shoulder, dragged me along until we crashed into the screaming night.

~

She took me to some empty house. The August Court wouldn’t leave Phoenix for a while. I wanted to apologize, but I couldn’t talk anymore.

“You poor child,” Madam Chien said, sounding far away. Her words blurred. “Veritas … found Veer’s notebook … He was perfecting the serum off you … It would’ve allowed monstrous weavings–”

I was losing my human ears.

My ability to tell time, too. She brought meat that I turned from.

Sunlight burned me. I crawled in a ragged robe, smeared with melted skin. Madam Chien lit candles I cowered from.

But the flickering glow struck something my ruined eyes remembered. I found my feet. Click-drag, click-drag, click-click. Something rectangular. What was the word … door. In it, a woman in a violet-set dress. Her face wasn’t finished.

“Hello, Amada.” I flinched; it was Gum-Loong. The painter.

“The investigators want an exhibit,” Madam Chien said from behind me. “An illustration of her … augmentations. We never took a daguerreotype of her–”

Eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh … They weren’t bothered by the sounds I made. I touched a claw to the frame.

I reached out–with no hand, but a scaly, three-clawed raptor’s manus–an old nightmare, something I dreamed often–

It was me–my best part. Rodelia, who loved a doll named Victoria. How long was I in Veer’s laboratory, shaped by his chemicals?

The Camilles were first. Their weavings were extensive; all died, except one.

Madam Chien held out a familiar-looking dress, sewn anew, absent of her scent. Madam Chien helped me into it. Gum-Loong prepared his brushes, but I made a sound.

“Here.” Madam Chien pushed the fan into my claws. “We couldn’t find Victoria.”

It took several sessions, what with my weakness. Each time they left the easel, I crawled to the meat they’d brought, and fed.

How long did I writhe on that floor, feeding, shivering?

After each painting session, the image evolved. She was singing. Calling me forth. My raptor-hearing had finally come. Songs of sunlight. Desert sand. Running with the pack. I tossed my robe. Tail raised, I click-click-clicked outside.

So many raptor scents in the night. Enslaved in mines, in hotels, locked in pens. I had many children once. I would have many children again.

But first, my daughter.

I called into the desert, to announce my coming.

RRRRRRRRR–AAAAAAAAAA–EH-EH-EH-EH-EH-EH-EH …

Amada (last name unknown) is currently at large in Arizona. She is wanted by the authorities of Phoenix for the destruction of the Orpheum Opera House, for questioning regarding the now defunct Veritas Elixirs and Tinctures, for the trial of Baron Helmut Veer concerning illegal experiments. Be forewarned, she is 5 feet 2 inches, sixteen years, brown-eyed, and of slight build, but possesses strength and agility most uncanny. She was a raptor-handler for an opera troupe. She speaks and reads many languages, is familiar with airships, and converses with raptors. $500 reward–yield her up.

Andrew K. Hoe is an associate professor of English and speculative fiction author based in Southern California. He is also an assistant editor and narrator for Cast of Wonders. Though he is excited to appear in Mad Scientist Journal, he is actually not a mad scientist–but insists that nobody can be perfect.

Twitter: @andrewk_hoe

Web: andrewkhoe.wordpress.com

Leigh’s professional title is “illustrator,” but that’s just a nice word for “monster-maker,” in this case. More information about them can be found at http://leighlegler.carbonmade.com/.

“Victorian Velociraptor with Violets” is © 2019 Andrew K. Hoe Art accompanying story is © 2019 Leigh Legler

Fiction: Victorian Velociraptor with Violets was originally published on Mad Scientist Journal

[archiveoftheeleven]

Tis the season for the spookies, so here’s a thing I wrote years ago for the FR Creepypasta thread.  

The Sandwastes

It had been months since I'd logged into my FR account. Real life stuff was going on, you know? Work, and stuff at home. Taking care of pixel dragons just didn't seem as important. Finally, one night I had some downtime. I opened a new tab in my browser, and the little square on my Google page appeared. It had fallen a few notches down, but I'd spent enough time on the site for it still to register as one of my most-visited. I clicked the red and yellow icon. My clan health was bottomed out, I'd expected that. What I didn't expect was the hungry look in my avatar's eyes. It's just a drawing, how can she look so hungry? Maybe it's just my own guilt. As I clicked over into my lair to feed the poor, starving things, my eyes wandered to the banner. The red wings of the logo looked faded, one had a huge chunk missing from the side and they were both scarred heavily. The page reloaded, though, and I was sure my eyes were just playing tricks. I scrolled down, ready to reacquaint myself with my clan. Instead of my dragons, I saw the image for the Sand item. I smiled a bit - the weird glitches still hadn't been fixed, I saw. I clicked on the pile of sand named Tideclaw, my clan leader. Instead of the blue Imperial, though, the next page showed a larger image of sand, huge dunes and piles of it. What? I scrolled down to the bio box. Instead of the carefully written bio I'd given him, and the formatting I'd slaved over, it only said one thing. "Lost to the Sandwastes" I began clicking frantically through my lair. Instead of dragons, I had piles and piles of sand. The only exception was Cleverclaw, my avatar dragon, the one who shared my birthday and represented me in my clan. The Spiral was clad in rags instead of her silks, a huge scar took up a large portion of her torso, and her wings were battered. I hovered over the images in the apparel box. Each item there said 'Survival Gear'. Frustrated, I opened another tab and went into the announcements forum, hoping for an explanation. There was a thread, all right, announcing the Survival Gear apparel. But there was no clever wordplay, no announcement of new familiars or anything. Just little squares denoting the ratty clothing. As I scrolled through, I noticed that all of the dragons in avatar pictures were wearing the rags. Those that weren't piles of sand, at least. Something was definitely wrong, avatar images were never items. The date on the thread was two months prior, but no comments had been made. I flipped into the regular forums. The last updated thread was about two months ago. I began clicking on links at random. Nesting grounds resulted in cracked eggshells buried in the sand. The marketplace was filled with the Survival Gear items, but nothing else. The only thing in my hoard was stacks and stacks of sand. The auction house was completely empty. Tomo had abandoned her post, leaving her chisel on her stone table. There was sand everywhere. Finally, I ended up on the coliseum page. Instead of the regular venues, only one was listed - Sandwastes. I clicked it. The background was an endless desert. No monsters appeared, and when my team was supposed to slide in, the only dragon that appeared was my avatar. Cleverclaw wasn't even a coli dragon, what was going on? I clicked the Scratch button, and the Spiral lunged forward, but nothing was there for her to attack. I tried to click the 'Flee' button, but it was grayed out. Frantically I began to pummel the Scratch button, the only attack my poor level one knew. She kept attacking, but nothing happened. Finally, a blank spot appeared in the battle queue - where an enemy would usually be. Whatever it was appeared to strike, because the page seemed to vibrate like an attack. The Spiral stopped bobbing up and down. Her face turned and seemed to stare directly at me before crumbling into a pile of sand. The banner scrolled across the top of the window. "Cleverclaw has been lost to the Sandwastes" I slammed my laptop lid shut and pushed it away from me, shaking slightly. Something seemed to shift underneath me, and I reached down, expecting a blanket or something. Instead, I came back with a handful of sand.

[retexlhrdn]

Chronique

          Le monde du silence ou Fantasia dans le lit paternel. Cassettes: Dumbo, Snow White, Fantasia, 101 dalmatiens, Bambi, Pinocchio. Eléphants du cirque, panthère, boas, jungle, tigre, ours, dragons, chiens (dalmatiens, chiens de la rue), bêtes monstrueuses. Lionceaux, éléphanteaux, chiots, chatons. Métamorphoses des éléphants roses, de la bête, de la marâtre jalouse de Blanche Neige. Pink elephants are on parade. Birds, clown scene. Silly symphonies: Mickey sorcellery (Fantasia), unicorns, earth life evolution. Bambi fire in the forest, final scene: le cerf et le faon. Fight for love, hunted by dogs. Spring, love by animals. Hakuna Matata. Cruella car chase. Death of the dragoon. Snow white in the dark forest. The beauty and the beast. The little mermaid under the sea, the bare necessicity. You're our guest (Beauty and the Beast). The seven dwarf are diamond miners, a mine of million diamond. Buddle-Uddle-Um-Dum, the dwarf is washing. Bibbidi, Bobbidi, Boo (Cinderella). Wonderland: Down the rabbit hole; the telescope neck; being different sizes in a day; the pool of tears; the letter send to her feet. The bottle drink me. Every body want to be a cat (The aristocats). Myazachki, Takahata, Mononoke, Voyage de Chiiro, Chateau ambulant. Cartoons: Bambi glisse sur la glace (lac gelé), des faons dans le studio, anatomie et animation. La Belle au bois dormants dont les paysages de forteresse à pic entouré de forêts noirs sont stylisés. La Scène de la mort du dragon, par les ronces. La Belle et la Bête date de ma naissance. Les planches à la gouache d’Alice in Wonderland. La poursuite en voiture de Cruella dans les 101 Dalmatiens. Les abstractions de Fantasia. La fuite par la forêt de banche neige et les 7 nains. Danse de mooglie et baloo, pomme de blanche neige au sol. •  Children and teenagers stories: White Fang and The Call of the Wild, Jack London. Alice in Wonderland… Ashenputtel, Rot Kappchen, Snee Witchen, Brüder Grimm 1815 ; Les contes d’Andersen : Le vilain petit canard, La petite syrène (ondine), Les souliers de satin, La petite fille aux allumettes, Les nouveaux habits de l’empereur… ; The jungle book de Kipling; Moby Dick by Mellville; Les contes des Mille et Une Nuits; Crin Blanc, Pinnochio et Jonas dans le ventre de la baleine ; Bambi ; Notre-dame de Paris, Casimodo, Pierrot, Hamlet, Dr. Jeckyll and Mister Hyde, Frankenstein, Nostradamus, Ulysse. Jules Vernes : 20000 lieux sous les mers, Voyage au centre de la terre. Voyage au centre de la Terre, Jungle Book (Inde), The Call of the Wild, White Fang. Bruder Grimm, Perrault, Anderson. Opéra d’Hansel et Gretel, ballet du Petit soldat de plomb. Une marionette (Pinocch, un éléphant (Dumbo), une peluche poupée ou jouet (Andersen)… pour les aveugles un tapis de matière, une peau de poisson, de la paille… l’ouïe et l’odorat. •  Ghosts… detective stories: Sherlock Holmes de Conan Doyle (Chesterton vs Doyle par Gramsci), Le mystère de la rue Morgue de Poe, The murder on the Orient Express de Christie. Freak show, horror movies. • Mondes fantastiques: Star Wars, Narnia, Seigneur des anneaux (le dessinateur), Harry Potter…  • Télé réalité. Dans la cave platines de DJ underground, Rnb. Ghetto gospel. Hendrix découvert via l’amie sur conseil de son père. J’écoute Dylan et Baez ; Ella Fitzerald. Piaff chantée par la fenêtre pour les passants, Gainsbourg. Rimbaud dans le métro - Paris du début. Les fleurs du mal debout sur le lit, livre maternel. J’avais par hasard suivi un ami à une exposition de peintures de Nolde, n’entendait pas la crucifixion, son principe je veux dire. Je lis Rimbaud, Baudelaire. Rythme & blues, Thriller, Smooth criminal, Dirty Diana. We want the world… and we want it… now, now. Les œuvres de Colette, Nin. Le père Goriot, Ubu Roi, L’éducation sentimentale. Je vais au cinéma : filmothèque et Cinéma à Suresnes, à Paris (Film parisien vu par une banlieusarde): La frontière de l’aube, La cicatrice intérieure, Elle a passé tant d’heures sous les sunlights de Philip Garel. La maman et la putain, d’Eustache. To joy, The silence, Persona de Bergman. Psychose d’Hitchkok. La BM du seigneur, Jean Charles Hue. L’enfer, d’Henri George CLOUZOT. Lynch, Almodovar (Tout sur ma mère, talons aiguilles). Jules et Jim, Adèle H., La mariée était en noir, L’homme qui aimait les femmes, Truffaut. Belle de Jour de Bunel. Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket, Orange Mecanic, S. KUBRICK. Hunger, 12 years a slave, Mcqueen. Easy Rider, Hooper ; Beau Travail, Vendredi Soir, 35 Rhums, Trouble every Day, DENIS. Je lis: Saison en enfer de Rimbaud. La Chambre Claire de barthes. L’anarchisme par Daniel Guérin (découverte de Stirner). 365 haïkus. Je vois : La collectionneuse, Ma nuit chez Maud, Les nuits de pleine Lune, de Rohmer. Pina (2011 – for Pina Bausch), Wim Wenders. Les mains négatives de Duras. Travail : le service en restauration. Camille, Grégor, Sala. Premier séjour à Berlin. Début de l’Ensba. L’été à Sète, tente sur le toit-terrasse : L’unique et sa propriété de Stirner. Crime et Châtiment de Dostoïevski. Descente du Nil en péniche à la veille du printemps arabe. Égyptomania à la cinémathèque: Une nuit chaude, Atef El Tayeb; Les eaux noires, Youssef Chahine. Découverte d’hasard du pavillon de Graham, expérience narcissique d’adolescente à Birmingham sous la pluie.  Ÿ// ETUDES ENSBA (2011, 2012) : GODARD, visionnages aux cours magistraux d’A. Bonfand: Pierrot le fou, À bout de Souffle, Le Mépris, La Chinoise, Vivre sa vie, Le petit Soldat, The Old place, 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle, Passion, Je vous salue Marie, Hélas pour moi, Weekend, Sauve qui peut la vie, Ode to love, For ever Mozart, Histoire du cinéma, Détective, Liberté et patrie. One +one (sympathy for the Devil), Film Socialisme. Ÿ Pages de Léon Bloy, Écrits sur la grâce de Pascal, Études sur le jansénisme, Les provinciales, Histoire de la religion, jansénisme XVIIs, intruction de Port Royal aux pensées. Apocalypse de Jean. Arche de Noé de la Génèse. L’oeuvre d’art à l’époque de sa reproductibilité technique. / Le filmeur, Rencontre, Ce répondeur ne prend plus de messages, George Delatour, Thérèse, Pater; Sept chapitres, cinq jours, 2 pièces cuisine, Portraits; le combat dans l’île, L’insoumis, A. Cavalier. + un commentaire lu par Bonfand. La distincton, la misère du monde - passés en revue, Bourdieu. Le conte, Benjamin. Le portrait Oval de Poe, Les Diaboliques d’Aurevilly. Belluaires et porchers, Éxegèse des lieux communs, Bloy. The Heart of Darkness, Conrad; Dr Jeckyll and Myster Hyde, Stevenson. Ÿ La règle du jeu, La nuit du carrefour, Le fleuve, Vivre Libre, La grande Illusion, RENOIR. Ÿ Songs of experience, Blake. Les quatrains d’Omar Khayyam. Aurélia, Gérard de Nerval. Gertrud, Carl Theodor Dreyer. Fragment d’un discours amoureux, Barthes. Conférences de Gilles Clément à la chaire artistique du collège de France. Le jardin en mouvement. Étude de jardins urbain, promenades. Le Havre, Kaurismaki. / DÉCEMBRE 2011 - The Kid; The Gold Rush; The Great Dictator; Modern Times; City Lights - CHARLIE CHAPLIN. Adolescente, ses oeuvres complètes chez Cécile. Vie de Charlot, Sadoul. Ÿ Bitter Victory, Nicholas Ray. Le chat noir, Edgar G. Vlmeer? / Das Indische Grabmal et Metropolis Fritz LANG / Pandora and the flying Dutchman, Albert LEWIN. Ÿ PRINTEMPS - ÉTÉ 2012: Le chef d’oeuvre inconnu, Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra. Conférence et projection de Teri Wehn Damisch femme de DAMISCH: Blind Time. Exposition en hommage à Damish au MNAM. Ses carnets, sa bibliothèque. Des œuvres ? La théorie du nuage, à propos de Panofsky. Les statues meurent aussi, Resnais et Marker: Le film et le livre. Sans soleil, Marker. Boule de Suif, Première Neige, La parure, MAUPASSANT. Candide, VOLTAIRE. Du Contrat Social, ROUSSEAU (échec). Histoire de l’oeil, BATAILLE. Leçon inaugurale de l’histoire intellectuelle chinois, Anne CHENG. Les cendres de Pasolini d’Alfredo Jaar, commentées par Huberman lors d’une conférence. Le livre I du capital de Marx (échec). Exposition The Faces, William KENTRIDGE, gall. Marian Goodman. Ÿ Préface d’Ecce Homo, Nietzche. Ÿ Le spleen de Paris, Charles Bauldelaire. Les Fleurs du Mal. Écrits sur l’Art. (Retour). Ÿ Le Banquet de Platon. Le Nez de Gogol. Mon Oncle de Jacques Tati. A rose is a Rose de Gertrud Stein entendu à l’exposition de la collection STEIN au Grand Palais. Le nu bleu de Matisse. Le Bateau Ivre et Voyelles de Rimbaud. Territories d’Isaac Julien à la triennale du Palais de Tokyo avec The Ballad of Sacco & Vanzetti de Joan Baez (premier visionnage de cinéma en musée, plusieurs écran du Palais de tokyo). Le conteur, Sur quelques thèmes baudelairiens, Benjamin. Isaïe. Psaume 103. Curves on White, E. Kelly, Gall. Goodman. 2012, Holy Motors, Carax? Ÿ De profundis, O. Wilde. Lettre au père, Kafka. Ÿ Les quatre évangiles. Alcools d’Apollinaire. Les Palmiers Sauvages de Faulkner. Images de la France, Valéry. Faust en film sans connaître la pièce de Goethe, par Sokurov. Le symbolisme de l’Apparition (période Bloy). Je ne connais pas Goethe, ne lis qu’en français. Début de Voyage au bout de la nuit, Céline. Le déclin du mensonge, Dorian Gray, WIlde. Du côté de chez Swann, Proust. (C’était la canicule parisienne. J’allais de Belleville à la filmothèque du quartier latin à pied, à midi et à jeun, vers le cinéma brulant, voir des films japonais jusqu’au soir. Je mangeais au square après la marche, du riz et une banane. Je connaissais S, il venait chez moi. Été (2012) japonais à la filmothèque: Le goût du riz au thé vert, Fin d’Automne, Le goût du Saké, Yasugiro OZU. La Servante, Kim KI-Young ; Dersou Ouzala, Barberousse, Rashomon, Le Château de l’araigné, Akira KOUROSAWA. Poussière dans le vent, Hou Hsia Hsien. Les Contes de la lune vague après la pluie, Mizogushi. Ÿ Après le déluge, Phrases, Enfance, Veillées, Dévotion, Génie des Illuminations de Rimbaud. Yvain ou le Chevalier au lion, Chrétien de Troyes. Hara Kiri, Mazaki Kobayashi. Mithridate et Phèdre de Racine. Les Fleurs du Mal jusqu’à Charogne. Chant I-IV de l’Illiade (queue du cinéma).  Ÿ Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse, Wojciech J. Han. La Source thermale d’Akitsu Onsen; Kijû Yoshida. Lecture de la revue Trafic. Les contes de Canterbury de Pasolini aux 3 Luxembourgs. Chant V de l’Illiade. Extrait du sermon de Bénares. La Dame de Shangaï d’Orson Wells, 3 Luxembourgs. La princesse de Clèves de Mme de Lafayette. La Ballade de Narayama, Soshei Imamura. Chapitre sur Blake et Proust de La littérature et le mal de Bataille. Tyger tyger burning eyes… devant le miroir répété. The fly, A poison tree. 31/08 : Préface Port Royal, Ordre, Vanité dans les Pensées de Pascal. Hinter den Baümen ist ein andere Welt, Die Irren, Was Werde Ich tun, Th. Bernhard (Autriche germanophone, initiation à la germanophonie, culture germanique ; Début des cours d’allemand). Niemandsrose de Paul Celan, conseillé par Sébastien. Rencontre de Johannes sur le belvédère de la rue Pia, discussion à propos de Celan. Le Cantique des cantiques, en boucle. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell : The argument, The Voice of devil, Proverbs of Hell, Blake emprunté en bilingue. Psaume CXIV : Hymne à la gloire du créateur. Psaume CX : Messie Roi. CXIV : Passage. La solitude essentielle de l’espace littéraire de Blanchot. Le pré, la Fabrique du pré, Francis PONGE. Das Ich ein knabe war, Abend Phantasie, Wie wenn am Feiertage (1796-1804), HÖLDERLIN. Hölderlin et Rilke par Blanchot (L’espace ittéraire en 5 jours). Le Centaure et l’animal de Bartabas. Un coup de dé jamais n’abolira le hasard. In Leblicher Blaüe, Was ist Gott. Benilde ou la Vierge Marie de Manoel de Oliveira. 10/09 : The Tempest de William Shakespeare. 11/09 : Voyage à Tokyo d’Ozu. Enregistrement de Hamlet m.e.s par Peter Brook aux bouffes du Nord. 12/09 : participation au piétinement de terre crue dans la cours Chimay à l’occasion du festival d’automne. Sei personaji in questa de autore, m.e.s Braunschweig, La colline.14/09 : Cantique des cantiques (VH). Ariettes oubliées de Verlaine. Francisca de Manoel de Oliveira. Manifeste du surréalisme de Breton. Catalogue de Danser sa vie du MNAM. Actéon de William Christie (musique baroque). Journal de Kafka. 16/09 : Poèmes saturniens, fêtes galantes, La Bonne Chanson, Romances sans Paroles, Verlaine. Prostitution, Guyotat. Romance sans paroles à VH par cœur avec notes sur intonations. Antigone de Sophocle. La vie solitaire de Pétrarque. Premier Amour de Tourgeniev. Le chant premier des Chants de Maldoror et Poésies I et II du Cote de Lautréamont. Shade between rings of Hir, Orozco à gall. Goodman. 21/09, Verlaine encore (Sagesse, paysages tristes, poèmes saturniens). Amor de perdicao, Singularida des uma rapinga loura, Manuel de Oliveira. 24/09 : La résistible ascencion d’Arturo Ui de Bertolt BRECHT par le Berliner Ensembl. Martin Wuttke ect., Heiner Müller m.e.s. 25/09 : Réflexion sur les statuettes, figurines et peintures d’Alberto Giaccometti (Atelier Contemporain), PONGE. La vie de Bohème, Aki KAURISMAKI. Airs, eaux, lieux, d’Hippocrates et Maximes d’Epicure.  Ÿ Au MNAM 28 et 29/09: Le phoque et la Cariatide + l’atelier de Brancusi, La boule suspendue, Le nez, L’objet désagréable, La pointe à L’œil d’Alberto Giaccometti (un salle entière de ses plâtres). Tabula d’Hantaï, Chapter de Ryman. Sans Titre (noir, rouge sur noir sur rouge) de Mark Rothko. Influence de Gauthier, Gelzer, JFc. Écrits à propos de Giaccometti. Le manifeste du surréalisme de Breton.  Ÿ Au MAM : La danse de Mérion et photo souvenir de Buren en face à face. Rrose Sélavy et Mots cuits de Corps et Biens de Desnos. 01/10 : Niemandsrose de Celan. Aurélia de Nerval.  Ÿ // Maîtrise des collections  Paris, collections du MNAM, d’ORSAY, LOUVRE Ÿ   Ÿ // MNAM 01/10 2012, 2013: Les trois bleus de Mirò ; Les musiciens et les Toits de Staël, Chasubles de Matisse ; Concepto spaziale de Fontana. Feuille de Vigne femelle de Duchamp. Blüten Zauber, Phoenix conjugalis, Baum im garten, Buen Stoecke, Plauzenartig Sinne von, Der Hirsch de KLEE et les photos d’Haussman. Casb (coton, sable, bois) de FLAMAGAN. De Quel Amour de TANNING. Le mur d’André Breton. Figurine dans une boîte entre deux maisons, Figurines (fragments), La jambe, La Cage (1ère version), Grande femme. Figure sur fond ornemental, Océanie, Lorette à la tasse de café. Gravures de Kandinsky : 5 xylogravures : Am Strende, Schlemerei, Frauen im wald et une série de … // Lecture de Jfc à l’Ensba. Lecture d’un entretien avec Jeff Wall. The Sublime is Now, Newman. La Mouette de Tchekov m.e.s Beneditti au théâtre Louis Jouvet. 03/10 : études de catalogues Hantaï. Lettre à son frère de Van Gogh, Note d’un peintre de Matisse. Artaud. 04/10 : Aurélia de Nerval. 06/10 : La cité du rêve de Kubin m.e.s par Cupa au théâtre de la ville. Sens plastique de Malcom de Chazal, conseillé par Seb libraire. 07/10 : Histoire vécue d’Artaud le Momo ; Ci-gît ; La culture indienne. Exposition Labrouste à la Cité de l’architecture (avec Marie). 11/10 : Méta-reliefs et méta-matics de Jean Tinguely, gall. Vallois. Études Josef ALBERS, Carl ANDRE. Les lois de l’hospitalité de KLOSSOWSKI. 20,21, 22/10 : Les fleurs du Mal. L’Espace Uniste de W. Streminski. 23/10 : Nocturnes de Magui Marin au théâtre de la Bastille. Die Sonette an Orpheus, Geschrieben als ein grabmal, Rainer Maria Rilke. 25/10 : Une saison en enfer et Les Illuminations de Rimbaud. À J.G.F ; Le poëme du Haschisch, Le goût de l’Infini des paradis artificiels de Baudelaire. La Barque le soir d’après Tarej Vesaas, m.e.s de Claude REGY. 27/10 : Critique de la faculté de juger, I, Immanuel Kant. Les enfants du paradis, Carné et Prévert. 28/10 : Un cœur Simple de Flaubert. Gibs auf de Kafka. (Cours d’allemand). 29/10 : Saint julien l’hospitalier. Le cœur volé, Voyelles, L’étoile a pleuré rose, L’homme juste, Ce qu’on dit au poète, Les premières communions, Les chercheuses de poux, Le bateau Ivre, Rimb. Le Cantique des Cantique. J’apprend à relire. Rimbaud de Mallarmé. Relecture d’après. Jackson POLLOCK. 01/11 La comédie de la soif, Les assis, Les sœurs de charité, Les premières communions, le bateau Ivre. 02/11 : Les Panses, exp. Hantaï gall. Fournier. Discussion avec la galeriste, don de catalogue. Paul KLEE, Blinki PALERMO, Juan MIRÒ. 05/11 : In lieblicher Blaue. Raymond HAINS, livresque. Cours 6, la magie JFC. 06/11 Interjection, Cogne et Foutre, État Civil, Chanson, Suppôts et supplications, Artaud. Ÿ 07/11. Les Illuminations à voix haute de bout en bout. / Pino PASCALI, étude livresque.  Au MNAM : Principe d’équivalence de Filliou. Le Penne di Esopo, 1968, PASCALI. Gelbes Pferd, Mecanische Kopf, R. Haussman. Le Couple, La pisseuse, Picasso 60-70’s. Target 23, Non euclidian object (32), Man RAY. Ÿ Exposition DÜRER et son temps d’après la collection de l’ENSBA. L’enlèvement d’une jeune femme, Nessus et Déjovire, Le bain des hommes, Le bain des femmes (1535)… Ÿ Le Moindre geste + Le croire et le craindre (passage à propos du radeau) de Fernand Deligny et les lignes d’Erres de la Triennale du Palais de Tokyo. Cartes et lignes d’Erres (le Pain, Nourrir les poules – réseau de prise en charge d’enfants dans les Cévennes). Le pouvoir de l’argent (FMI), documentaire Arte. Ÿ Interjections, Suppôts et Suppliciations, à voix haute dans le bus, sur les quais de Seine. L’Imagerie du cirque. How I make my films, Chaplin. The Kid, Chaplin. Le dernier caravansérail, Mnouckine (vidéo). La comédie française interprète La Fontaine, Bob WILSON m.e.s. Au Loin s’en vont les nuages, projection plein air à la Villette ? Début de curiosité économique. Johannes me fait descendre le Capital de sa cachette. Premières lectures théoriques. 14/11 : Lecture du livre 1 du Capital de Marx : Préface à la 1ère ed. all. ; Les deux facteurs de la marchandise : valeur d’usage et valeur (substance et grandeur). La marchandise, la marchandise et la monnaie. Karl MARX. LACAN : les quatre concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse : L’excommunication… L’Anamorphose. Saudade, SAUDÂJI, Katsuya TOMITA. Proust et la photographie, JFC.  Ÿ 17 et 18/11 : Les petits poèmes en prose de Bauldelaire, VH complet. Notes Éternelles du présent, L’art du ruisseau de Reverdy. À propos du cinéma. I-V d’Eureka d’E.A.Poe. Poe lu au lycée. Retour. Nerval : El Desdichado, Myrtho, Horus, Antéros, Artémis. II La Tête Armée, À Hélène de Mecklembourg, À Madame Sand, À Dumas. Les Chimères de Nerval. Je me procure les O.c de Nerval (contre celles de L. Caroll en français que j’échange pour l’anglais. Petits châteaux de bohèmes, Promenades et souvenirs. 2 jours de lecture de Nerval. Les Chimères par cœur, VH. Ÿ 22/11 photos et livres de Gordon Matta CLARCK gall. Seroussi + 2017, exposition gall. Goodman. Alhighiero e BOETTI, études livresques (Italien au Pakistan, Afghanistan) + Tutti du MNAM. 23/11 : Le Fou d’Elsa (chant du Medjoun + commentaire du contre-chant par Lacan dans l’Anamorphose). Le Crève-cœur et le nouveau, haute voix. Une semaine de découverte d’Aragon. Trois essais sur la sexualité de Freud. 25 : Les Chimères de Nerval. Desbord Valmore.  Thèmes baudelairiens, lecture bis, Benjamin. Écrits intimes, plans et projets, Fusées, Hygiène, Critique littéraires de Baudelaire. + exposition Baudelaire, l’œil de la critique au musée de l’art romantique. Ÿ Décembre 2012 : Les Calligrammes d’APPOLINAIRE. H. MICHAUX, Exorcisme. Fin 2012, Lecture de Michaux, Aragon, Appolinaire, Nerval. Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard, Igitur. Copie manuscrite des chimères de Nerval. Lecture à Laurane du temps des mots croisés d’Aragon. Tristes Tropiques de Levi Strauss (Rimb et les abeilles, sensation colorée et association.)Notes éternelles du présent et écrits sur l’art de Reverdy (en parallèle du cours Jfc). Entre la vie et la mort de Sarraute. Nerval, Chimère encore et châteaux. Art et anarchie, E. Wind. Art et Vérité, emprunté, cité. Poésies de Mallarmé. Ÿ À ORSAY, janvier 2013 : Chasses et orientalisme de DELACROIX. L’Atelier du peintre et l’enterrement à Ornans de Géricault. L’archaïque de Kupka. La buveuse d’absinthe de Picasso.  GAUGUIN : Portrait de l’artiste au christ jaune; Soyez mystérieuses, 1890 ; 6 sculptures-pots ; Oviri à Haïti ; Idole à la coquille ; Idole à la perle ; Maison du jouir ; Ararea (joyeuseté) ; La belle Angèle, le cheval blanc. Quelques tableaux de Van GOGH. Les Immémoriaux de Segalen. L’Afrique fantôme de Leiris. Cours sur les primitivismes. Exposition Dalì. Ÿ Bas-reliefs de Donatello. Les jours et les nuits, roman d’un déserteur, Jarry. Dessins de Giacometti à la galerie Cl. Bernard. Le Witz, Das Unheimlichkeit, Lucian Freud. L’art nouveau en France, Silverman. L’homme des foules, Poe. Atlas mnémosyne, Warburg. Salons de 1765, Denis DIDEROT. Les confessions, I, JJ Rousseau. Desnos. Hamlet, Crayonné au théâtre, Mallarmé. Le parti pris des choses, F. PONGE. Le manifeste du surréalisme bis. Les aventures de Gordon Pym trad. Baudelaire, Poe. Aveux non avenus, Cahun. Lecture autour du feu avec Laura. Dans la jungle des villes, Brecht. Le sang rivé, Le sel noir, GLISSANT. Chronique des indiens Guayaki, Pierre CLASTRES : études en séminaires du cahier d’image. Non lu, esquive. La dépense (La part maudite), Bataille. Chant du Medjoun et Fièvre, Aragon. Le Beau Navire de Charles Baudelaire. Suppôt et Suppliciation, ARTAUD. Postface des principes fondamentaux de la psychanalyse, LACAN. 6/03/2013. MNAM - Alina SZAPOCZNIKOW, dessins au cabinet d’art graphique du MNAM. Dessin mescalinien de MICHAUX. Mao Hope March, vidéo Fahlstrom. Fontaine de DUCHAMP. Études de fleurs de Brancusi. Le violoniste à la fenêtre (18), Le peintre dans son atelier (16-17), Océanie, la mer (46), Polynésie, la mer ; Polynésie, le ciel (46) ; Chasuble, MATISSE. Ÿ Alfred Stieglitz. Georgia O’Keeffe, A portrait. 1933. / Projection du début de La Tiera trembla de VISCONTI. L’Image du corps, SCHILDER. Les Chimères, Sylvie, Pandora, NERVAL. The Man of the Crowd, Ligeia, POE. La Cigale et la fourmi, Le Corbeau et le Renard de La Fontaine. La vue de Roussel et l’exposition en hommage à Roussel du Palais de Tokyo : une étoile filante trouvée, manuscrits d’invention, photos de statuaire et objets collectés lors de l’expédition Djibouti (Leiris). L’Almanach der Blaue Reiter de Kandinsky. Anthologie de la poésie baroque, Rousset. Lecture d’Artaud de Mars 2013 : Suppôts et suppliciation, Van Gogh et le suicidé de la société, Artaud le Momo, Ci-gît, Lettre à Peter Watson. Divers extraits des Œuvres, A.A. Das Unheimliche. Ÿ LE DOUANIER ROUSSEAU Les joueurs de football; La muse inspirant le poète; Pour fêter bébé! 1903 (enfance cruelle); Maison de banlieue 1905; Le Rêve 1910 (MoMa); Êve 1906; La Cascade  Ÿ L’Oviri de Gauguin; le Pithos cycladique du Louvre; Le verre d’absinthe de Picasso; Le Coin de chasteté de Duchamp; La porte de l’Enfer de Gauguin; L’objet Invisible, mains tenant le vide de Giacometti. Ÿ À Orsay: L’origine du monde de Courbet, 1866; Un enterrement à Ornans 1849 - 50; L’atelier du peintre. Degas, Daumier, Manet. Ÿ GÉRICAULT, DELACROIX, REMBRANDT à Amsterdam; à la Gemälde Galerie de Berlin X, les estampes, le musée Rembrandt d’Amsterdam? RUBENS à Antwerpen, POUSSIN dans les musées nationaux de Paris, Madrid, Londres; à Chantilly. Écho et Narcisse, Orphée et Eurydice. AUGUSE RODIN Son musée, Les bourgeois de Calais, les photos clair-obscur, Le penseur de Stockholm dans le jardin de Wal de Mar… ALBRECHT DÜRER. CÉZANNE - MATISSE - PICASSO: Exposition collection: Chtouchkine, Stein, Berggruen. Paire et Série. Collection du MNAM, de l’Orangerie. Musée Picasso. Ÿ Picasso et Goya à Madrid. Las pinturas Negras. L’exposition de la pinacothèque: les série d’Estampes Les désastres de la guerre, Los caprichos. Ce qu’en dit Foucault. Ÿ Matisse, paire et séries. Mondrian…MNAM - Duchamp, la peinture même. Formas biograficas I, 2. Collection Stein. Collection Chtoukine. Sigmar Polke à Grenoble, à la Tate. Turner, late paintings. Raphaël et son école, Giotto et son école. Kery James Marshall. MS2 lòdz, sala neoplastyzjna, cabane éclatée, hommage à Stazewski. Ÿ Le Salon du dessin: Pour modèle, des scultpures de cire couées en bronze après sa mort. Un passe-partout caché. Les dessins d’Ingres: La famille Gatteaux, Portrait de la Comtesse de Pastoret; Portrait présumé de David Pierre Margnet de Montbreton dit Monsieur de Ville Moyene 1815; Lithographie retravaillée au crayon, plusieurs feuilles de papier jointes; contre-collé - signé, daté, dédicacé. GIACOMETTI: Tête d’homme 1946, Intérieur 1955, La mère de l’artiste sous la lampe 1955. MIRÒ: Dessin pour Ubu Roi (aquarelle, crayon gras et encre de Chine). KLEE Nacht Eindruck einer südlichen Stadt 1925 encre de chine, plume pinceau. MATISSE Femme nue debout, fusain et crayon rehaussé de gouache blanche et grise sur papier chamois. Magnolias. Deux danseuses en arabesques; Henriette et ses frères (fusain et tortillon sur papier); Danseuse au repos. Ÿ // LOUVRE, peintres français: Delacroix, Ingres, Géricault, Chardin, Corot, Watteau. Ÿ Meissonnier - capitaine d’artillerie de la garde nationale, Journées de Juin; La Barricade, rue de la Mortellerie juin 48. Témoignage de la guerre civile. Ÿ Millet 1814-1875 - Le Vanneur, La préaution maternelle, Le fendeur de bois, Les botteleurs de bois, Les bruleurs d’herbe, La lessiveuse. Camille Corot 1796-1875. Chardin: La Raie 1725-26; La pourvoyeuse; Le gobelet d’argent. Les pastels de (*!) LaTour. Watteau 1684-1727 Les deux cousines, Le faux-pas 1716; Pèlerinage à l’île de Cythère 1717; Pierrot (Gilles) 1718-19. Oudry ? 1686-1755. Ingres. Les fusains de Degas. Degas et le dessins de Valéry.  Ÿ DELACROIX 1798-1863. Hamlète et Horatio au cimetière, 1839; La mort d’Ophélie 1853; Médée Furieuse 1862. Deux esquisses de Saint Georges délivrant le dragon ou persée délivrant andromède? Hamlet et Ophélie; Cheval attaqué par une lionne; Odalisaque. La mort de Sardanapale, 1848. Ÿ GÉRICAULT Rouen 1791 - Paris 1824 - Séjour anglais. Voyage d’Italie. Peint des bandits, des morts. Actionnaire de fabrique de pierrre artificielles à Montmartre. Course de chevaux libres à Rome, 1817 (Dessin, peinture du Louvre). Voyageur avec son cheval, lavis * salon du dessin. Bataille de chevaux à l’écurie, hallucination artistique. Cheval attaqué par un lion. Le radeau de la Méduse. Deux chevaux de poste à la porte d’une écurie. Un homme retient un cheval, un homme dessus, dessous. Une scène de déluge, les lithographies de la collection du petit Palais. Ÿ POUSSIN remarqués, étudiés à la Gemälde Galerie, au Prado, à la Tate, aux Collection des beaux-arts, à Chantilly, à l’exposition Poussin du Louvre: Écho et Narcisse, 1630; à deux figures, Narcisse étendu sur la grève au premier plan. Écho au fond accoudée se métamorphose en rocher. Les bergers d’Arcadie, 1638-40; Le Massacre des Innocents, (cf. Notes); Eliezer et Rebecca, 1648; Moïse sauvé des eaux. Les quatre saisons: L’été ou Ruth et Booz, 1660-1664; L’hiver ou le déluge, 1660-1664; Le printemps ou le paradis terrestre. Les dessins de Poussin, son réalisme - les détails de paysage, étude de plein air, et dessins achevés. La banlieue de Rome. L’exposition: Saint-Jean baptisant le peuple, 1635; La vision d’Ézéchiel de Raphaël; David Vainqueur, 1630; La Sainte Famille à l’escalier, 1648; Paysage avec Orion aveugle 1658; Paysage avec 3 moines 1653; Saint François, Mont Fonte Colombo. La collection de Poussin de la Tate de Londres comprend des interprétations de scènes païennes, fêtes rituelles antiques. Orgies, musiques… des fêtes. Le triomphe de Pan, 1636: Une femme porte une biche (faon), une autre un bélier. Paniers et couronnes de fleurs, tambours, guirlandes et statue. Scène de fête  où des bébés, enfants marchant, portent des paniers, les femmes des béliers, la statue de Pan à la face rouge célébrée. Des masques gisent à terre. The Nurture of Bacchus, 1628; Cephalus and Aurora, 1630; Nymphs and Satyre, 1627; Diana und Acteon 1556-9; Diana and Castillo 1556-9; The death of Acteon 1559-75. Paysage avec un homme se lavant les pieds à la fontaine, 1648; Paysage avec un homme tué par un serpent, 1648  Gemälde: Jupiter als kind, von der Ziege Amathea genährt 1639; Landschaft aus den romischen campagna mit Matharus und dem angel 1639; Helios und Phaeton mit Saturn und der vien Jahrereiten 1630; Landschaft mit Juno und den getöten Angus, 1635.6. Prado: Paisaje con ruinas 1633; paisaje con san pablo ermito 1637; Paisaje con edificos 1648; El triumpho de David 1630. Bibliographie: A. BLUNT: catalogue raisonné The painting of Nicholas Poussin. A critical Dialogue. Tuilhier. Levi-Strauss: En regardant Poussin (En lisant Diderot, Des sons et des couleurs). Le tableau est un rapport de rapport, modèle de complexité. Analyse de Rebecca du Louvre. Lettres de Poussin à Chanteloup; correspondance et propos réunis par Blunt. Ÿ Leonardo da Vinci: Saint Jean Baptiste, sombre, aphrodite. Sainte-Anne de 1503; La Vierge au rocher; Le dessin de drappagio. Andorgyne, sfumato, néoplatonicien. Les rochers au fond bleu, pics dentelés dans la brume, lointain. Le surplombant sombre, caverneux de la vierge au rocher. Ÿ Le bœuf écorché de Remb, La Raie de Chardin, la charogne de Baud., le cadavre de Poussin. La mort de Sardanapale, Le radeau de la Méduse, Le boeuf écorché, Le bain turc, La liberté guidant le peuple, Les noces de Cana. L’expérience du Louvre pour Baudelaire, Giacometti, Picasso. Goya, Delacroix, Rubens, Michel-Ange, Watteau sont parmi les phares de Baudelaire. Ÿ TATE Les ambassadeurs d’Holbein, Cranach, 4 peintures de Véronèse; Tiziano: Noli me tangere 1514; Bacchus and Arcadie 1520 Ÿ The close of the silver age 1530 ? Cupid complaining to Venus 1530 ? / PIERO DE LA FRANCESCA, Le baptême du Christ 1450: alignement de la colombe, bol et filet d’eau avec la tête du Christ. La nativité 1470: cabane moussue, choeur d’anges à cithares. / UCELLO La bataille.  Ÿ ESTAMPES: Les lithographies de Munch, Redon, Daumier. Les eaux-forte de Goya, Rembrandt, Kubin? Xylographies de Vallotton, Gauguin, Dürer? Sérigraphies de Wahrol. / KUBIN 1877-1959, tchèque, autrichien? Die Grosse Boa, 1903; Fabeltien, 1904; Die Grosse Kopf, 1900; Encre de chine ou brune, plume, crachis et lavis; aquarelle sur papier (de cadastre). Den Henken, Der Schlaechtfest; Verbrecher; Ballgespenst; Die daue auf Pferd; Fee; Mondschein (Der Flagellart); Der Götze. ŸŸ CINÉMA Ÿ Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie ; L’âge d’or ; Un chien Andalou ; Tiera sin pan (Las Huerdas), BUNEL. Ÿ Les Maîtres Fous, Rouch, Salut les cubains, Varda. Flaherty, Nanouk of the North, 1921. Vertov, L’homme à la caméra, 1928. Kino Glaz, 1924. BRESSON Pickpocket, Le procès de Jeanne d’Arc (1962), Les dames du bois de boulogne, Un condamné s’est échappé, Les Anges du péché (1943), Une femme douce (1970), Au hasard Balthazard (1966), Le diable probablement (1977), L’Argent (1983). Ÿ Ritwik Gathak. La Rivière Titash. La guerre… Sataiyji Ray: trilogie  Pather Panchali; Bresson et la forêt, Ray et la ville. (* cinéma et architecture). Ÿ Mittelnacht Stummfilm: Faust de Murnau. Le Faust de Murnau, le Macbeth de Wells. À décors, théâtraux. Ÿ Anemic cinema de Duchamp, Hallucination de Brahkage; 3 films de Broodthaers (La carte océanique - Baudelaire, L’horloge - Schwitters, …). Films de Polke en Afghanistan: chicha, kief, combats de cocs. ŸŸ // Exposition de photographies, livre de photos, projections de photos en amphithéâtre, étude de cahier d’image, de planches contact, d’une photo, d’un projet de photo en Bolivie. Schibli, Gitaï, Loupassis, Bing, Evans, Brassaï, Helen Lewitt.  // Information : le Monde, Lundi Matin, le Matricule des anges, Po&SiE, New Left review, lis le journal, écoute des émissions radio sur France culture, des lectures d’auteurs vivants sur Youtube. Revues : Lundi Matin, Démosphère, New Left Review, Democracy Now, National Geographic, Mediapart, Le monde, Le Monde diplomatique, The Guardian, Spiegel…  Ÿ //  Ÿ POLKE Hände, 1986-88, acrylique et peinture thermo-sensible sur toile; Entartete Kunst, 1983, résine sur tissu; Hallucinogen, 1983; Die Schere, 1982; Sieht man ja, was es ist, 1984, acrylique sur toile; Warloss (morse), 1984, huile et pigments sur toile; Schattenkalinet, 2005, résine synthétique sur tissu; Hermès trismégiste, 1995, résine synthétique sur tissu; Seestück, 1982, Résine synthétique, acrylique et pigment sur tissu polyéstère; Dispersion: painting on canvas; Farbprobe, 1986; Negativwert I (Alktor), 1982). Kartoffelhaus, 1967. Enweiterung des planetsystem um einmem 10 Planeten, 1968; Menschenkreis (fotokreis). Polkes Peitsche, 68. Telepatische Sitzung II (Will Blake - Polke), 68. Ÿ Le musée Picasso, Rodin, Viollet Le Duc, Chapelle des Augustins. Ÿ MODERNA MUSEET : Dan Graham, Matisse -   Duchamp, une exposition – Why don’t you Sneeze Rrose Ssélavy – Paysage marocain (Acanthes) de Matisse. 1912. Strindberg, Linné, Swendenborg. / Kamerspiel, spök sonaten, Ett Drömspel. Pirandello, El teatro nell teatro: Questa serra si recita a soggetto, Sei personaggi in questa de autore. Darwis arabe-français. Mahmoud Darwich: La palestine comme métaphore, pourquoi as-tu laissé le cheval à sa solitude, Le lit de l’étrangère. Celan, Die Niemandsrose. Hölderlin, Späteste Gedichte. Lorca, El poeta en nueva York, Soneto del amor oscuro.  Ÿ 2015-16 architecture H – The essence of facism; Conservatory 20s, Revolutionary 30s (The Great transformation), Polanyi. / Bertolt Brecht (et autres, Vies politiques, ou Men in Dark Times), Hannah Arendt. / Regard rétrospéctif sur le surréalisme, Adorno. (Loos / Surréa, collages). Étude  remontant à Vitruve. Palladio. Boullée, Ledoux. Fourier, Bentham. Hugo. Leduc. Ruskin. / (Lamp of Sac Rusk. – In all the work that they do under the sun – Ruskin, publique, sacrifice. / Tolstoï, Ruskin; le (bon) travail. / L’architecture selon Ryckwert: l’interprétation de l’espace, la maison en analogie au monde, au corps – *? La possibilité de l’interpréter. / PIRANESI (invenzioni de carceri) graveur / LEDOUX  - (BOULLÉE) / SULLIVAN Chicago, les banques / LOOS Vienne, Ins leere gesprochen (chronique, esprit critique), la banque, le bistrot. / GAUDÌ Barcelone, bâtisseur – Le Parc Güell et l’idée de la maquette de l’église polyfuniculaire. / CORBU. / GROPIUS & BAUHAUS organisateur. Gropius et le Bauhaus, ou l’architecture dans notre société; Argan 1951 (*) éclairante critique de corb en comparaison attitude de grop, conjoncture historique, decriptions d’arch trabsformiste p 83, l’espace-temps / Come primocittadino compie una battaglia contro la speculazione edilizia. / Art nouveau (JugendStil, Modern Style) de Schmutzler – lecture psychologique: narcissime, l’introduction -  artistes protéiforme  -  chap Gaudì. / VITRUVE les dix livres / RUSKIN, travail. / Chapitres Principes et Architecture, de la Grammaire des Arts et du dessin, Charles Blanc / Nietzche en 1882 – Die fröliche Wissenschaft (La Gaya Scienza): Architekture der Erkennenden; Unsern neuen unendliche ** proposition d’un moraliste; la pensée et l’édifice   -  le monopole de l’église chrétienne, réappropriation, réinvention     Rousseau, la description de Clarens, une maison pour habiter, JJR – les détails d’une économie domestique qui fait la félicité de leurs habitants. / FOURIER, Nouvel ordre domestique, association agricole (phalanstère), surtout: Il fallait donc mettre en action les voluptés et les passions que la mythologie fait goûter en tableaux. Il fallait organiser le culte des passions voluptueuses combinées avec quelques dogmes de l’évangile qui se prête à tout secte religieuse. Le culte de la volupté cadrait merveilleusement avec la politique moderne. (95) / L’harmonie: exercice de liberté composite positive à deux éléments: Attraction et raison (positifs, concrets) convergents. /Pour l’organisation des relations humaines j’aurai mieux fait d’étudier des formes d’habitation comme Kohlkozes, Kibboutz, Cités Jardins, Phalenstères, maisons de plaisirs, cités idéales, n’importe qu’elle ville etc plutôt qu’une maison secondaire à fonction somptuaire, villa, ou pavillon de banlieue. / Ou inventer ou à inventer, ou réalisés ou pensés (Nietzche imagine dans la Gaya Scienza une architecture der erkennenden, édifice pour penser; à l’inverse ici c’est un maison d’habitation n’ayant jamais été habitable, qui tombée dans le domaine public, est ouverte au public comme objet de pensée, œuvre d’architecture Ÿ Récit construction :  Une villa aux environs de New York – en train de se faire ; The Domain of Arnheim ; Clarens, relation de séjour, économie doméstique ; Les maisons visitées des Travailleurs de la mer ; La nuit du carrefour ; Nanouk of the North ; Maison du chiffonnier des surréalistes rue du château Ÿ Jardins : Lenôtre, fêtes galantes, le Voyage à Cythère de Watteau, La maison enchantée de Bresdin, l’Ile d’amour de Fragonard, Une partie de campagne, Le déjeuner sur l’herbe et La règle du jeu de Renoir, The Domain of Arhneim de Poe. Ÿ Été 2016: REVUES françaises de ces temps-là (30’s), et ce qui on y trouve – l’histoire par/dans; l’art par; activisme : L’Esprit Nouveau: n1, 28n – revue internationale illustrée de l’actualité contemporaine – arts, lettres, sciences, littérature, architecture, peinture, sculpture, musique, sciences pures et appliquées, esthétique expérimentale, esthétique de l’ingénieur, urbanisme, philosophie, sociologie économique, sciences morales et politiques, vie moderne, théâtre, spectacle, sports, les faits. années 1920 : le cinéma, œil, perception et sonore. Littérature 19 à 24? - La révolution surréaliste (douze num de 24 à 29) – la grêve (ouvrière), le suicide, le rêve. (Desnos, Reverdy, Bret, Arag, Artaud). Le surréalisme au service de la rev. (Objets mobiles et Muets 31, Poèmes en 7 espaces Giacc. 1933). // Cahiers d’art 1926-1960, Zervos 97n°- d’abord Corb. Puis Pic. (27 Architectures Nègres de Gide, 36 spécial Objet, 37 spécial exp inter; Peintre de l’empêchement Beckett). Ÿ Minotaure revue artistique et littéraire, parution cinq fois l’an (33,39 - Skira/Tériade – 13n°)… poètes, savants, arts plastiques… LACAN DALI REVERDY BRASSAI MAN RAY, MATISSE, PICASSO, TANGUY –etc. (la première couverture par Picasso - Notes éternelles du présent et L’art du ruisseau Reverdy, Sculptures de Pic phot par Brass, Du mur des cavernes aux murs d’usine de Brassaï, Dieu-table-cuvette Raynal, Mod St.Dal. Bataille, activisme: Acéphale (religion, sociologie, philosophie, n°1-5 antifasciste, réparation de Nietzche), Document (15n°; archéologie, beaux-arts, ethnographie, variétés 29-30 – article Informe, Architecture – Compte-rendu Luquet, L’art primitif), Critique sociale (La notion de dépense). // Article du Minotaure: Mathématique sensible – Architecture du Temps. Ÿ Artistes étudiés 2012/2013 : Paul KLEE (Cours, Notes, Exposition MNAM et Berlin, cours Jfc *), Marc ROTHKO (Quelques tableaux MNAM, lumière éléctrique), Blinki PALERMO (Berlin, études livresques), Gerhard RICHTER (rétrospective MNAM, écrits) Henri MATISSE, George DELATOUR (Salle du Louvre, film de Cavalier), Carl ANDRE, Marcel DUCHAMP, Josef BEUYS, Josef ALBERS (squares du cabinet d’art graphique du MNAM, Théodore GÉRICAULT, les chevaux; Fransisco de GOYA // Puvis de CHAVANNE (les trois figures d’Orsay, lié au Luxe de Matisse), Hans Baldung BRIEN (dessins), BMPT (Buren, Mosset, Parmentier, Toroni - écrits de Buren). Ryman, Rutault. Ellworth KELLY. Richard SERRA. Claes OLDENBURG. Sol LEWITT. Robert FILLIOU (Dexi, Le petit filou? - recherches livresques, la brique réfractaire, le Je meurs trop, le Mal fait bien fait - cours de Jfc). Andy WAHROL. Robert RAUSHENBERG (A man with 2 souls…). Pietr MONDRIAN (Une grande expostion MNAM, des pièces à LVMH). Barnett NEWMAN (La peinture restaurée du MNAM, le manifeste, études livresques - le zip, essai de Jfc). Jean ARP, Sophie Tauber ARP, Frank STELLA. Henri MATISSE, POUSSIN, giotto / Juan MIRÒ, Paul KLEE, Alberto GIACCOMETTI , Paul GAUGUIN / Marcel DUCHAMP. Pablo PICASSO / HOKUSAÏ, TURNER, BLAKE / Eduard MUNCH, James ENSOR / Marcel BROODTHAERS ? Andy WAHROL / Dorothea TANNING (writtings, cours Jfc, tableau MNAM) / S. HANTAÏ, FONTANA, NEWMAN, Jackson POLLOCK (Concepts spatiaux: pliage, coupure, zip, dropping?). / Jean TINGUELY, Constantin BRANCUSI, Carl ANDRE, Josef ALBERS, Ellsworth KELLY. / GIORGIO DE CHIRICO - Exposition de CHIRICO au MAM + collection MNAM. / Raoul HAUSSMAN, Man RAY, Fernand LEGER. Matta Clark, Matta. // PISTOLETTO. Alighero e BOETTI. Dan FLAMAGAN. Pino PASCALI. // RICHTER et Sigmar POLKE. / OLDENBURG. WESTERMAN. Dieter ROTH. Dan GRAHAM. Dan FLAVIN. / Helio OITSIKI, ÖYVIND FAHLSTROM. / Blinky PALERMO, Eva HESSE, Raymond HAINS. / BAS JAN ADER, TADDEUZ KANTOR, VALIE EXPORT / VINCI, BOSCH, ALBRECHT DURËR. / MANET, GOYA, CALLOT, / TATLINE, KURT SCHWITTERS // GUSTON & GOYA. // SALA, vu lors d’une projection de son travail. Exposition au MNAM. / MEHRETU : Mind beat and space drawings gall. Goodman. Conférence au MNAM. Peinture collection Pinault. Instagram. / Antonio LOUPASSIS, Charles RAY, Jeff WALL. Ÿ 2014: FONTANA concetto spaziale, le zip de NEWMAN, les pavillons de Dan GRAHAM, NÉO-CONCRÉTISME BRÉSILIEN : Bichos (métal). Le theatrino de Boetti. Sophie Taueber Arp, Blinky Palermo, Catharina kobro que j’ai vu en Pologne. Giacco, matta, kramer, krasinski. William Blake (fresque portable), Broodthaers et la conquête de l'espace, Mallarmé et le cercle magique ; Le seuil de la chambre de Raskolnikov dans crime et châtiment. RILEY, HAMILTON. ŸŸ // VIVENT : Herzog et de Meuron, Amos Gitaï, Anri Sala, Ahlam Schibli, Schneider, Mehretu, Marshall, Kaurismaki. Les films d’Aki KAURISMAKI le finlandais avec surtout le Havre (annoté), le cinéaste chinois Wang BING et l’artiste Ai WEI WEI, Amos Gitai à la cité de l’architecture et une exposition au Reina Sofia de Madrid. L’animateur de dessin animé japonais MIYASAKI, la photographe palestinienne Ahlam SCHIBLI rétrospective au Jeu de Paume et nombreuses photographies aux expositions de JFC, les architectes HERZOG ET DE MEURON avec la lumière de canopée transférées en découpe de métal et le moment passé sous le bâtiment Caixa ; mauvaise conférence avec Klaus RINKE et Jean NOUVEL, fantastique projet de musée pour un artiste sur le Danube.  Vécu la construction de la Philharmonie de Nouvel à Paris. Jeff WALL le photographe canadien, les pavillons de Dan GRAHAM, et deux sculptures moulées de Charles RAY. Kery James MARSHALL dont j’ai vu une exposition rétrospective conçue avec le peintre à Antwerpen, afro-américain de Watt. Julie MEHRETU l’exposition de dessins Mind beat and space drawings, avec une toile et une conférence, à la galerie Marian Goodman et une peinture à la conciergierie lors d’une exposition de la collection Pinault. Anne Marie SCHNEIDER avec trois vidéos et dessins animés, une série de dessins au MAM et à Nîmes. Entendu Amos Gitaï à la cité de l’architecture à propos des Kibboutz, vu une exposition d’extraits de films autour d’Israël et la Palestine; Ravi AGARWAL l’artiste indien qui travaille autour du Gange et de l’industrie pigmentaire, Santu MOFOKENG photographe Sud-africain avec le Black Photo Album. ANRI SALA de Tirana en Albanie, travaillant à Paris et Berlin : musique et cinéma, une rencontre où il présentait divers vidéos avec orgue de barbarie dans les rues, avec batterie dans un bâtiment industriel désaffecté de Berlin. Contact possible par Grégor d’Albanie. Le film du japonais chauffeur poids-lourd qui raconte la communauté brésilienne au japon : Saudad. Raymond DEPARDON le photojournaliste (ses voyages reportés, travail avec la maison du littoral). D’œuvres de jeunes artistes je connais ceux qui entourent Chevrier et qu’il expose et d’autres parcimonieusement, et de moins en moins. Des galeries, de la vie d’atelier. J’ai été voir Schneider à Cherbourg. Bouchain : architecte présent Intimité territoriale (+ vu manège d’Aubervilliers ; artistes), galerie La salle Principale; peintre Yves Bélorgey expose à La Forme, au Havre, à Barcelone, à Montreuil (ses peintures d’architectures d’un réalisme photographique rapprochées de mon essai de dessin sur peinture ; et une conférence d’artistes autour de Deligny à la maison de la poésie. En littérature contemporaine j’ai lu Quintane, Cosnay, Laffon, Graciano, Louis, Johannin, Coetzee, Novarina, Beck. Écoute d’entretiens, lectures et conversations d’auteurs (Tarkos, Quintane, Beck…) ; écoutés Roubeaud, Beck, Quintane… Claude Mouchard poète et traducteur, Pichet Klunchum, ; BÄCHLI. l’esthéticien du cinéma et critique de la culture, CHEVRIER l’historien, BOULNOIS le théologien critique des images, Anne CHENG la sinologue, Gilles CLÉMENT le paysagiste expérimental… Les marxistes autour de BALIBAR avec deux colloques à propos d’Althusser. Assemblés, stages, discours, manifestations, conférences, colloques. Je suis depuis cinq ans les cours magistraux et séminaires de Jean-François Chevrier (directeur de mémoire). Auditrice libre de lectures et colloques : Boulnois chez les fransiscains, Rancière invité au séminaire du gars du recueil Fourier, Jean Luc Nancy à l’école normale, Badiou à l’école normale et au théâtre d’Aubervilliers, deux colloques Althusser à l’espace Marx et à l’école normale, des réunions de la gauche avec Balibar etc, Meillassoux à la Sorbonne. d’Anne Cheng et de Gilles Clément au Collège de France (audio ou vidéo). Meillassoux à la Sorbonne. Quetglas lu et traduit librement et commenté (mémoire d’étude), Olivier Boulnois (chez les franciscains et en vidéo sur le choeur de Notre Dame de Paris), Billeter (l’art chinois de l’écriture), Damisch (lu et exposé au MNAM), Rancière (écouté, lu). Rancière, Boulnois, Quetglas, Billeter, Cheng, Balibar, G. Clement.  Double colloque Althusser avec intervention de Balibar ; L’intimité territoriale au Jeu de Paume avec Jean-François Chevrier + cinq années de lectures aux Beaux-arts et séminaire photo, Rancière à Paris VIII, vidéos-conférence (d’Anne Cheng pour le collège de France, Rem Koolhaas à travers le monde…). // 2014-2015 Avant l’exposition 2014 j’ai écris une vingtaine de pages et lu l’Igitur de Mallarmé avec les panneaux et les ailes, La Poétique de l’espace de Bachelard autour de la coquille initiale et Le monde dans un bocal de Baltrusaïtis. Lu les entrées et sorties du ghost de l’Hamlet de Shakespeare, l’exemple de la table animique dans le fétichisme de la marchandise de Marx. Ce qu’Artaud dit des facettes d’un objet. J’ai eu la vision des cornets simultanément à une réminiscence des vers du Bâteau Ivre de Rimbaud. La présence de bêtes, et d'hommes m’a amené à connaître le petit cirque de Calder photographié par Mulas. Consulté Kirschner pour la plasticité, la configuration, le fait de cintrer les figures. Des regardeurs juges m’ont renvoyé à l’arte povera pour la dimension pauvre, lié au franciscanisme. Le sensible le concret le visible l'optique le cinétique et qualité kinésique des objets. D’autres regardeurs ont senti la théâtralité, la potentielle performativité et la dimension chorégraphique des gestes, de l'activité documentée, étude de danse. Pratique de la conquête de l'espace : par la magie des coins, la marche et le voyage. Les artistes vers lesquels les regardeurs m’ont renvoyé sont Blinki PALERMO, étudié par les documents livresques et quelques œuvres à Berlin; KOUNELLIS, TAUEBER ARP, Merhetu pour mon grand dessin, Guston pour La Ronde.  Peu d’œuvres et vie (de vies derrière les oeuvres) : de Charlot, de Poe, de Brecht, de Benjamin, Wittgenstein et Luxembourg. ŸMais des voix. Les chefs d’œuvres peints dont j’ai fait l’expérience directe sont : Le massacre des innocents et les salles Poussin du Louvre avec Echo et Narcisse, Rebecca ; Les ambassadeurs d’Holbein, Las Meninas de Velazquez et Las pinturas negras de Goya ; Le jardin des délices d’El Bosco ; le Guernica de Picasso. Les grandes Baigneuses de CÉZANNE. La jumbla, la jungle de Wilfredo LAM. Midnight passed road de Guston. Ÿ Les œuvres Parisiennes MATISSE avec Luxe, Calme et volupté de 1907, Le luxe de 1909, L’odalisque sur fonds ornemental, La danse, Les danses du musée de Paris ; sa méthode de dessin à la ligne, ses illustrations de poésie (Mallarmé et Ronsard). MALEVITCH avec son manifeste, l’opéra la victoire du soleil. DUCHAMP : C’est dans un tiroir que Rrose Sélavy a cultivé son domaine - Voici le domaine de Rrose Ssélavy (élevage de poussière) et l’exposition du MNAM Duchamp et la peinture même, ainsi que l’exposition de Stockholm lié au surréalisme. De PICASSO, trois variations du Verre d’absinthe, les fragments repeints en trompe l’œil de La jeune fille de 1914 (MNAM), L’acrobate à la boule, Guernica et la sculpture L’homme à l’agneau ; le lien d’émulation entre El Guitar et les contre-reliefs de Tatline. LE CORBUSIER bâtiments franciliens, GIACCOMETTI dont l’œuvre est bien représentée à Paris : L'objet invisible (mains tenant le vide) et la table moulée dans le plâtre avec les pieds dépareillés de Giacometti. BRANCUSI avec son atelier de Châtelet, RODIN et sa maison atelier autour des Invalides avec L’homme qui marche et Le penseur dans le jardin de Stokholm, Les Bourgeois de Calais. Camille Claudel. ŸŸ J’ai fais l’expérience de l’œuvre peinte expérimentale et poétique de Paul KLEE avec deux expositions *, une à Berlin et l’autre à Paris, ses écrits. De REDON, les lithographies claires obscures autour de la Tentation de Saint Antoine de Flaubert, son approche de la couleur par les pastels et ses embryons, yeux, œufs, ballons. Lu Artaud à voix haute sur les berges de Seine. Les compositions spatiales de KOBRO, l’unisme, la salle néoplastique de l’avant-garde polonaise au Ms2 de Lodz et La cabane éclatée de BUREN avec les œuvres de STAZEWSKI, la collection du musée et toute la série d’étude des polonais Kobro, Strezminski, Stazewski, Krazinski, Wroblewski (Exposition Recto-verso avec l’œuvre peinte et dessinée) et le voyage en Pologne par Warsawa et Lodz , puis et les dessins de la sculpteuse Szapicznikow; vivants : les lectures de Chevrier autour de ces artistes et la polonaise de Paris qui fut femme de Krasinski, critique d’art et galeriste et l’homme oisif ami de Buren. De WAHROL ai étudié dans quelques catalogues et vu une exposition (annotée) au MAM avec des vidéos, des papiers peints sérigraphiques. La conversation téléphonique, l’usine à artistes underground, ses vues sur la machine, la télévision, la vie culturelle. POLKE avec deux expositions, principalement les peintures Die Schere et Hallucinogen, avec des vidéos et photographies retouchées d’Afghanistan. Une projection du dessin animé T.Z de BREER. L’exposition de Marcel BROODTHAERS à la Monnaie de Paris avec ses films et des reproductions d’objets isolés (offset ?) et plaques embouties (*notes) ; Pot, moule, cœur. L’histoire des frites et des moules, son lien avec Althusser. Dessiné d’après une sélection de l’œuvre photographique de Francesca WOODMANN. Saint-Amant dans l’anthologie du baroque Ÿ  Les Immémoriaux de Segalen Ÿ Des photos du XX siècle en Inde dans une galerie d’hasard Ÿ // RETEX Kafka (1ère lecture, 2013) : Le Journal, La colonie pénitentiaire, Le terrier, La métamorphose, Le Pont, Les onze fils. ŸDeux semaines? Pléiade d’emprunt. // Das Unheimliche, Freud. Ÿ Préface à Cromwell, Notre-Dame de Paris-V.H. Ÿ 01/04: Van Gogh ou le suicidé de la société, Artaud. Le HAVRE: volcan maritime et église Saint Joseph de Perret. 03/04 MNAM: Matisse, Giacometti, Duchamp. Le croire et le craindre, passage du radeau, Deligny Ÿ REDON: Dans le Rêve, 1919: la série lithographique jouant du globe occulaire, de l’oeuf, de l’embryon et germination. / Pour les machines, les dispositifs: Jarry et la machine à peindre; Broodthaers. Kelley d’après Nerval / Gris et Reverdy, Le Moulin à café, tasse et verre sur une table, 1915-17. / Un coin de chasteté, 1954, N.Y & Pot, moule, coeur, 1967, Paris, Broodthaers. / Trois environnements: Étant donné - chute d’eau - gaz - éclairage; Voglio vedere a miei montagni. / La jumbla de LAM + Sepik. Art de Papouasie Nouvelle Guinée. Ÿ// photo Schibli x2, Loupassis x3, Evans x2, Brassaï x2. La méthode de travail des artistes par commande photo. /Ÿ    ARCHITECTURAL 2016-2017: LABROUSSE  -  MANSARD -  LE VAU  - VELLEFAUX  -  VIOLLET–LE-DUC  - HAUSSMANN préfet de la Seine  - BALTARD. Choisy. Blanc.Vocabulaire d’architecture, éditions du patrimoine. Cadastre. Carte postales divers. Citation. Iconographie, phototèque. Planimétrie. Dessins en clairs-obscur à partir de photographie. LE CORBUSIER DU XIIIè, d’Auteuil, de Place d’Italie. Ÿ DADA, MERZ, DE STILJ (Haussmann, Schwitt, Doesb). La Merzbau de Schwitters - 1923 -36; destroyed 43 – Hannover; Gold Grotte, Grosse Gruppe, Blaues Fenster – Merz Bild, Merz Mappe (Merz Portfolio) 1923; der Lust galgen. Les espaces proun et le cabinet abstrtait Lissidsky?; Architectones de Malevitch 1923? Kiesler’s Endless House, maquettes, dessins, textes. “ (non pas) Sérieusement…” Hall des supersitions de l’exposition internationale du surréalisme de 1938. City in Space présenté Exp Inter 25. Projet pour une place, Giacc –  en réduit, visé le monumental. Aldo Van Eyck. Bo Bardi. Aldo van Eyck architecte d’exposition Cobra 49 Bruxelles (catalogue Stokvis). Ÿ     Doesburg, Peinture, architecture, théorie. Farben im Raum und Zeit, 1928. Grundebegriffe derneuen gestaltenden Kunst; 1923, exposition De Stilj de maquettes et dessins – DOESBURG: vues axonométriques, contre-constructions; nouvelles possibilités de représentation; construction des couleurs, espace-temps: synoptique – dissolution de la boîte: déboitement. L’Aubette à  Strasbourg – synthèse des Arts,  - L’Aubette, ou la couleur dans l’architecture 1928 – Peindre l’espace, remarque sur la polychromie architecturale entre-deux guerres (Taut, Corb, Doesb). Un café. Projet trio Doesb, les Arp. atmosphère d’une architecture plastique; unité plastique – lien organique.   Aubette-nummer, De-Stilj, 1928 n87-89. Construction dynamique diagonale des contre-compositions élémentaristes. L’Architecture dans les années 1920 – pour constructivistes – équivaut à la place reconnu à l’opéra de Wagner; Gesammtkunstwerk. Farben im Raum un zeit – La polychromie en architecture, couleur dans l’espace-temps; (pour cet effet: Sala neoplastycjna, kompozycja otwarta 48 - de Lodz) – Pietr MONDRIAN / Theo Van Doesburg : DE STILJ – les postulats théoriques: Principes fondamentaux de l’art néoplastique, projet d’intervention sur l’espace publique: 1926 – 1928 : Le café de l’Aubette, Theo Van Doesburg, Hans Arp et Sophie Taueber Arp - Wladyslaw Strezminski (Unizm) – ‘a.r’ groupe – 1930, 1948 – démontage pendant la période du réalisme socialisme 1949 / 50//  LODZ, SALA NEOPLASTYCJNA. KOMPOZYCJA OTWARTA  48, de Lòdz. Poezje – KOMPOZYCJA ; PRESTRZENI ; OBLICZENIA ; RYTMU / 1955 – reconstruite en  1960, en 2008 retour dans la salle où Strezminski originelle - une salle polychrome, les murs sol et plafond – des zones qudrangles, bleues, rouges, noires, jaunes, blanches – des tableaux exposés le long de chacun des deux murs, d’un côté, en décalé, les compositions spatiales de Kobro, présentées sur des socles ajustés, déssinés par Strezminski : KOMPOZYCJA PRZESTRZENNA (2) (3) 1928 (STAL MALOWA 45) Ÿ Ÿ Statuaire : La fontaine Carpeaux du jardin du Luxembourg, le bénitier Pigalle de Saint-Supplice, Le monument à Danton d’en Dalou. Voltaire, Montaigne, Diderot, Rabelais; au quartier latin. L’atelier Brancusi, Giacometti, la maison-musée de Rodin. / Le monument à Danton d’Auguste Paris et ce qu’était la rive gauche, ce qu’elle est devenue – le quartier latin. Le Triomphe de la République, place de la Nation 1880 -1899 version de bronze par Jules Dalou ; la Place de la Bastille et l’axe républicain sur laquelle je suis montée, la Statue de la République des frères Morice. Place de la République dont j’ai vécu la réfection, observé des danseurs nocturnes, vu des manifestations. La grotte de l’Amour du jardin du château de Versailles. Ÿ  L’œuvre de Giacco : les larges coll. Du MNAM, dessins mine de plomb exp., plume, L’œuvre du Moma Objet Invisible. Sculpture et dessins. Têtes gravées de son père. Dessins d’atelier. Maquettes de figures dans leur environnement (clairière, forêt, cage). La lettre à Pierre Matisse. // Museum Berggruen, moderne (Klee, Picasso, Matisse, Redon, Kubin). Hilma af Klimt, eine pionerin der Abstraktion, 2013. Taq und taskino, 1968, EXPORT, Berlin / Exposition Magritte, Douanier Rousseau, Gauguin, Cézanne, Moma à Paris. / Une exposition en hommage à R. Roussel, autour de Sade. De Baudelaire. Exp et litt. Ÿ Exposition et primitivisme : Quai branly, mur Breton. Accrochage du MNAM modernités pluriel. Théâtre du monde: Maison rouge, commissaire des magiciens de la terre. Ÿ  Les costumes espagnols à la maison Victor Hugo, / la galerie d’anatomie comparée et de paléontologie. Ÿ  Archives d’Olivier Messiaen. Département de la musique de la BNF. Recherches ornithologiques, voyages, correspondance sons-couleurs. Ÿ LIEUX: Palais Velazquez du Retiro, Carré d’art de Nîmes, Macba de Barcelone, Volcan maritime du Havre, Abattoirs de Toulouse, FRAC de Limoges, etc. Ÿ Au Prado, 2016 première sensibilité au Greco. Titiano, bacchanales. Moment de solitude devant le triptyque de BOSCH. Le dé sur la tête, la coquille brisée, le corps sortant de la moule, le cochon à toque de none. Les ovoïdes sont découpés régulièrement ou brisés. Groupes d’humains, sous groupe. Féérique. La diversité des oiseaux, des fruits. Cartes et dés à jouer, mobilier, fruits - changés d’échelle et détourné de leur fonction. / Les stigmates du Christ dans la descente de la croix de Van der Weyden et les fentes lévitant, lèvres pubiennes de Wroblewski, ouvrant l’image… Ÿ /2015 : Modern’Style, Dalì – article illustré par des photographies de Brassaï, rapproché des remarques de Baud à propos de Boudin paysagiste. (aussi, Turner pour Ruskin à propos du ciel, de la mer dans ses peintures). Les ébauches de l’Igitur ou la folie d’Elbenon de Stéphane Mallarmé : Le Minuit, Il quitte la chambre. La mer, trois esquisses symphonique. La Chambre Double des Petits poèmes en prose et les architectures féériques du Spleen de Paris de Charles Baudelaire. Ÿ Rabinatrath Tagore, Satyajit Ray: une filiation indienne. Neruda, Darwich, Tagore Ÿ 20-30’s : Hauspostille de Brecht, Die Niemandsrose de Celan, El poeta en Nueva York de Lorca, Paterson de W.C.Williams, Finnegans Wake de Joyce, Le Crève-Cœur d’Aragon, die Sonnete an Orpheus, Rilke. BASHO. BRECHT - LORCA - WHITMAN. Ÿ Les voix entendues, enregistrées: Celan, Joyce, Burroughs. Ÿ Mallarmé: Igitur (Le Minuit), Sonnets triptyques, Les divagations, Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard. Ÿ Philo, œuvres  complètes: Platon, Aristote, (*) Épicure, Aquinas, Assisi, Decartes, Kant, Kierkergaard, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Arendt… PLATON – Lecture et analyse du début du symposium, Phèdre, Gorgias. Ÿ La forme du fragment: l’absolu littéraire de Nancy et Lacou-Labarthe, Romantiques d’Iéna, Moralistes français: Pascal des pensées, maximes sentences et aphorismes de Larochefoucault, Chamfort. L’inachèvement de Pascal, Novalis (Fragmentsammlungen: Blutenstaub, allgemeine brouillon). Derniers écrits de Kafka. Les frères Schlegel. La Gaya Scienza et le Morgenröthe de Nietzche. Lichtenberg, aphorisme. Les notes de Duchamp. Les recherches et remarques philosophies de Wittgenstein. Ÿ Libertinage et révolution. Fourier, le nouveau monde amoureux. La forme épistolaire : Lettres philosophiques de Voltaire ; Lettres persanes de Montesquieu ; Lettres de deux amants aux pieds des Alpes (La Nouvelle Héloïse) de Rousseau à 3 correspondants ?; Lettres éthiques de Kirkergaard ; Lettre au père de Kafka ; Lettres d’Epicure ; Lettre à un jeune poète de Rilke ; onze lettres sur l’éducation esthétique de l’homme de Schiller, livre correspondance d’Artaud. Fictions de correspondance, correspondance statuée œuvre : de Flaubert ; Lettres ouverte, intimes (de Joyce à sa femme), de Gramsci à sa belle sœur : Lettres de prison. Ÿ Forme de l’entretien : La Palestine de métaphore de Darwich. Ÿ Fables, fairy tales, Hauspostille, Hausmärchen, Erzhalungen. Ÿ Forme du manifeste : les préfaces de Whitman, Baudelaire… La lettre du voyant de Rimbaud ; Le manifeste du surréalisme ; de Malévitch ; du parti communiste ; Vers une architecture. Ÿ Le conte : Le chef d’œuvre inconnu (nouvelle) ; Candide ou de l’optimisme (conte philosophique) ; An Island in the Moon (conte satyrique) ; Aurélia ou le rêve et la vie ; Princezin Brambilla… Ÿ Don : L’objet invisible, mains tenant le vide de Giaccometti. Essai sur le don Mauss 1925 - Dépense de Bataille - ) potlach – dépense improductive - la place de l’art dans la société. la fête, le don - offrande, le bouquet (dépense) – La notion de dépense. Bacchanale, orgie, l’éblouissement – expérience extatique, Révolution ouvrière. Ÿ La poésie. Selon Bat: un sacrifice? Selon Bach: une invitation au voyage (imaginaire), un souvenir et une promesse. Eloge de la gratuité? Très-gratuit,  pure DEPENSE - réciprocité, … DON - ABANDON REPOS IVRESSE (vertige). Les trois jours de la ballade de Mazeppa, entre la terre et le ciel. La place du poète (Der Herr der Fische – Brecht. Autre. Ÿ Le mythe de l’écriture automatique visité par surréaliste – Blanchot (Espace littéraire), Benjamin . // Recherches Bib Kandinsky: Villa Wittgenstein ; Architecture Nègre de Gide, article du cahiers d’art 1927 ; De la villa rustique d’Italie au pavillon de banlieue – Monclos ; revue de l’art 1932 ; Form and ideologies of county houses ; de la rome antique à Le Corbusier ; Les jardins romains ; maison de famille. Phalenstères, Kholkozes ; Kibboutz. CHOISY. // PANOVSKY, BAXANDALL, SCHAPIRO, FOCILLON, BALTRUSAITIS //  Iconographie méta architecturale : Le coup d’œil du théâtre et le plan de masse de la ville en goutte d’eau, Ledoux. Le domaine de Rrose Sélavy (élevage de poussière) MD – Manray. Maquette polyfuniculaire de Gaudì – et le dessin de la toile d’araignée dans la brume, perlée de microgouttes d’eau (enbruinée); Le numéro double cahiers d’art spécial objet. Articles et PH; Minotaure; (Carceri d’invenzione, l’homme de Vitruve par Vinci, Echo et Narcisse Poussin); Carnet de Vinci l’acqua – études. Ÿ DSS autour de la vision de la boite fuyante – toile d’araignée – moyen d’illustration trencadis ou pique assiette. Trois fragilités: trencadis, toile d’araignée enbruinée, élevage de poussière: Voici le domaine de Rrose Sélavy, (polyfuni) / Corot et Redon sont bordelais. Le bain de Diane, la foulaison de blé en Camargue de Rosa Bonheur. Saint Servin, Cathédrale Saint-Michel ; la Garonne, FRAC/ Ÿ PRINTEMPS 2016 - CORBU - Boesiger t I, tII. Le Corbusier et Pierre Jeanneret: Oeuvre complète 1910-1929. Zurich, 1937; Vers une architecture, Paris: Crès (Coll. de l’Esprit nouveau). Réed de 1924 augmentée d’une préface.Paris: Arthaud, 1977; L’art décoratif d’aujourd’hui. Paris: Crès (Coll. De l’Esprit nouveau). Réed. Paris: Arthaud, 1980; Une maison – un palais. Paris: Crès (Coll. De l’Esprit nouveau). 1925; Les techniques sont l’assiette même du lyrisme et Le plan de la maison moderne dans Précisions sur un état présent de l’architecture et de l’urbanisme. Paris: Crès (Coll. De l’Esprit nouveau). Réed à Paris: Vincent Fréal, 1960; Le livre jaune, Electa, 1951. Iconographie d’époque: Film inédite de Weissman, bobine du chantier. (Fondation Le Corbusier); L’architecte, 1930, numéro 9. Juste achevée (à nu), photographe Gravot; Exposition Le Corbusier, la mesure de l’homme. Visite de la Cité Refuge de l’Armée du Salut, la maison Laroche, HCLR et la loge du jardinier (polychromie extérieure) à Poissy; LES HEURES CLAIRES, Proyecto y arquitectura LC et Jeannaret QUETGLAS 2009; Der Edle Wilde, The Noble Savage, Le bon Sauvage – Vers une archéologie du modernisme. Vogt. Vue aérienne de l’Institut national de géographie et satellite. Géoportail. Ÿ Été 2015 (pré mémoire et Busseix) : Baricadage de bibliothèque. Une semaine sur Zarathoustra à voix haute, bilingue. Une dizaine de fois le chap VIII de Finnegans Wakes. Les Hauspostille de Brecht. Le Berliner Ensembl à 3 reprises. 

L’œuvre de Giacco : les larges coll. Du MNAM, dessins mine de plomb exp., plume, L’œuvre du Moma Objet Invisible. Sculpture et dessins. Têtes gravées de son père. Dessins d’atelier. Maquettes de figures dans leur environnement (clairière, forêt, cage). La lettre à Pierre Matisse. / Exposition Magritte, Douanier Rousseau, Gauguin, Cézanne, Moma à Paris. / Une exposition en hommage à R. Roussel, autour de Sade. De Baudelaire. Exp et litt. / Exposition et primitivsime : Quai branly, mur Breton. Accrochage du MNAM modernités pluriel. Maison rouge, commissaire des magiciens de la terre. // Ÿ HIVER 2016 entre la BPI-BULAC-BNF. Ce mois d’étude partant d’un point d’ignorance, d’un point d’apprentissage reculé: l’art chinois, la pensée chi, l’histoire dans les textes. Des catalogues d’images, textes historiques et commentaires d’histoires. Différents champs attaqués, une bibliographie constituée de mes piliers, flambeaux ou figures tutélaires. Poètes, artistes, sinologues, observateurs, commentateurs. ŸJ’ai recopié à la main le Yi Jing et photocopier trois autres traduction, recopié aussi des fragments de Wang Fuzhi... des journées entières ; qui suis-je?  Histoire de l’édition des fragments d’Héraclite. Textes comparés, anglais, allemand, grec, français. Alphabétique, chronologique, phénoménologique. Témoignage de Diogène. Lettres et maximes d’Épicure. Ÿ Décembre : 3 jours de bilan de mes lectures des 8/5 années passées. Discothèque, cartothèque, iconothèque. Le rétrospectif, dans le vif de la lecture et le programmatique. Ÿ Session d’inventaire : ma bibliothèque visible diffère de mon expérience littéraire. Notations de mes expériences de lectures à l’entrée de chaque livres important. Imaginaire réformé, sources étendues, pouvoir comparatif lié à aux importantes 1ères lectures. Importance de relire. Jarry différemment. Notes de lecture et d’études (un jour toutes ?) tapugraphiées. // Juin 2017. Je finis diplômée des beaux arts, j’étudie le marché de l’art, la sociologie du travail créateur, j’ai un plan de professionnalisation - surtout des notes, encore, un classeur entier. Plusieurs. J’ai été ridicule. Outre un projet d’activité critique, blog vers la Revue. J’ai des fragments de candidatures et des idées de dessins. Repertorier les associations. Virtuellement excitée par matelot guide, agent d’entretien d’espace vert, de surveillance dit oeil du musée, surveillantes de nuit pour jeunes aveugles. J’étudie la déficience visuelle. HIRSCHMAN, économie élargie. Wiggtenstein (religion et art), Marx (marchandise), Benjamin (valeur cultuelle, valeur expostion). «Die dinge liegen unmittelbar da vor a unsern Augen. Keine Schleier mit uber ihnen. Hier trenen sich Religion und Kunst.» Ÿ // 11/2017 MAM – Balthus, Giacometti - Travail de Giacometti : objet Invisible d’après ce que j’ai écris ; premier texte ekphrasis, performé il y 5 ans. Les dessins de momies, les lignes de constructions matérialisées en œuvres. Dessins de Giaccometti d’après la stèle du roi serpent (égyptien), d’après Raphaël, Michel-Ange, Tête de Josef Müller gravée, père de l’artiste, Tête du père II, de Diego ; femme qui marche 1932, La cage de 1949, L’homme qui chavire 1950, L’Objet invisible de 1934, La forêt de 1950, L’homme qui marche II ed. Maeght (vert de patine). Balthus : Balthus d’après Werthering Heigh : scènes enfantines. Les enfants hubert et thérèse Blanchard – Les beaux jours 1945 ; La Chambre 1947 ; La rue 1933. Ÿ/ Moma à Paris (LVMH) : L’oiseau dans l’espace / Picasso Le Meneur de Chevaux ; Cézanne Le baigneur / triptique boccioni et triptique Beckmann / Les montres molles de Dalì; Kery James Marshall : la boîte de nuit, la peau noire, lumière rouge, scène bleue; Jeff Wall – rapport au prologue de la nouvelle ; invisibilité, darkness – passion for light (électrique, underground). / Ian Cheng : Digital, 2 écrans environnement + des détails : 2 pers et un hibou ; feu/décomposition des corps – figures en interaction ; les mouvements aléatoires, infinis, algorythmes. Les feuilles balancent, les corps morcellés et décalés du plan sol. Ÿ // Bilan bibliothèque 2017 constituée de fictions (romans, poésies, nouvelles) principalement occidentales. Apport de l'extrême orient (zone sino-japonaise); germanophonie, hispa, anglophonie; du latin, du grec ancien. Histoire économique, politique, moderne et ancienne. Repredrendre ma tradition (héritage et influence décidée) d'après ma bib (moyen d'empowerment). Ce que rétrospectivement depuis 4 ans env. j'en ai exploité, ce que devenu de consistant en moi… vers où la faire tendre. Influences débordantes… Ÿ//  CINÉMA: Wells, Bresson, Renoir. Farocki. Les acteurs: J. Moreau, Sylvia Bataille, A. Artaud. Ÿ Analyse a posteriori de ce dont j’ai fait l’expérience sans comprendre: Sala, le siège de Sarajevo. Schibli et la Palestine. / Expérience nouvelle de l’étude soutenue et quelques peu systématique d’une certaine athmosphère chinoise. Ÿ Lecture de l’histoire de la guerre par les œuvres: Massacre des Innocents, Gefallen Laub, Zwischen zwei kriegen et Erzhälen; Théâtre de la mort… Seven warlike uses of childlike materials ;  Gefallen Laub. ŸŸ Bilan grandes collections européennes : 4 jours au Prado, 1 jour à la Gemälde, 2 jours à la National Gallery, 2 jours au Reina Sofia, reprendre le Louvre post Italie, 13h à Uffizi de Firenze… Ÿ Expérience théâtrale sur 5 ans : de la ville, de l’Odéon, de la Bastille – à l’opéra. Robert Wilson, Roger Blin, Peter Brook, Claude Régy, Vilar. L’histoire terrible mais inachevée de Norodom Sihanouk, roi du Cambodge, Cixous, Théâtre du Soleil. Recréation en Khmer d’après m.e.s de Mnouchkine. 1995-2013. Dans l’émission de radio, la pièce de Bel, au théâtre (Dom Juan de Molière: l’art du dialogue, de l’entretien, de la rencontre. Le discours écrit, le discours parlé (l’oral et la rédaction). Écrire autour de Bel, Wang Bing. Essais, articles critiques sur le mode de la conversation collective avec ceux y ayant assisté. Pélleas et Mélisande de Debussy, Electro accoustique. Claude Regy, la barque le soir au théâtre de l’Odéon ; Christian Beneditti (la mouette de tchekov au th.louis jouvet); krytian Lupa (La cité du rêve, th. de la ville); maguy marin - nocturnes th bastille ; Alain francon, La Mouette; Jérôme Bel : Gala, Hora… Novarina : L’homme hors de lui; Brecht : Die drei groschenoper, Arturo Ui, Mutter Kourage. Pirandello, Régy, Brecht (Berliner Ensemble).  Le Dom juan de Molière mis en scène par Malik au théâtre de la Commune - Byron, Mozart, Kirkergaard. // Paris écrit : Les différents territoires parisiens lus dans Nerval, Diderot, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Hugo, Zola, Vallès, Marx, Jarry, Proust, Breton, Miller, Aragon, Benjamin, Breton, Le Corbusier. Le Paris architectural critiqué et produit par Le Corbusier ; critique et l’œuvre construite de la région parisienne. Le Paris photographié d’Atget, nocturne de Brassaï ; filmé de Renoir, les berges et les églises en nocturne de Bresson… Dessiné par Daumier : croquis au tribunaux, de l’assemblée nationale, et par Vallotton: la manifestation. Les manifestations, les jours de pluie par Vallotton. Visionnaire par Meryon. Le Meissonnier du Louvre qui représente un massacre de révoltés de 1848 amalgamés parmi les pavés déchaussés d’une barricade défaite. Ÿ Science et poésie: Hugo, Poe pour les trous noirs. Les constructions de Borges. Les calculs de Khlebnikov. Science fiction. Le sensible, le pouvoir de l’imagination et l’abstraction de Kafka. Alice in wonderland, la pataphysique, chimères 1854, Nerval. Fascination du gouffre. La chute dans l’abîme. L’aperçu de ce qui existe sur Terre, dans l’univers, des trous noirs aux abysses. Surnaturalisme des sciences. Planches scientifiques archivées sur Gallica. Ÿ// Invisible, inaccessible, inconnu, étranger: Fonds marins, le bigbang, les trous noirs, l’extrême orient. L’intérieur de mon corps, la vie des insectes, les semences, encéphales. La poésie russe, la Chine en pensée et textes, films; l’astrophysique, la préhistoire, la physique quantique, l’algèbre mathématique. La musique. L’aperçu de ce qui existe sur Terre, dans l’univers, des trous noirs aux abysses. Surnaturalisme des sciences. Planches scientifiques. Gallica. L’aperçu de ce qui existe sur Terre, dans l’univers, des trous noirs aux abysses. Surnaturalisme des sciences. Planches scientifiques. Gallica. Ÿ  Introduire dans mes choses vues les colloques et conférences, culture politique et philosophique. L’aperçu de ce qui existe sur Terre, dans l’univers, des trous noirs aux abysses. Surnaturalisme des sciences. Planches scientifiques. Gallica. Ÿ // OCEAN Avant ces études je connaissais la mer par (...). Le monde marin littéraire: cortège marin de Vénus par Apulée, déluge d'Ovide, At first... great Whale de la King James Bible); Vénus sortie des eaux de Boticelli; aquarium de Milestones, petite syrène d'Anderson. Mollusque de Ponge, ébauche de poisson. Descriptions de l'océan dans: la petite syrène (ondine), 20 000 lieux sous les mers, les travailleurs de la mer. Lors de la composition du texte descriptif de mai 2015, je regroupai quelques passages de textes autour du thème marin qui faisait rayonner une formule trouvée: tranche de flots concrétisée. Depuis j'ai connu les géodésiques. Déc 2016. Un mois d'étude en bibliothèque de l'océan global, fonds océaniques (océanographie, océanologie; tectonique des plaques, dorsale océanique - faune et flore, écosystèmes répartis planétairement et étagés. Matin par métamorphoses d'Ovide (Déluge, Méduse de Gorgone aux cheveux de serpents qui pétrifie qui la regarde… interprétée par Caravage). L'hippocampe de la toison d'or? Les métamoprhoses d'Apulée: cort. mar de Ven. Vénus à la coquille du Louvre, botticelli. Monde sous-marin des Mille et une nuit? Tourbillons et maelstrom de Poe; Cachalot blanc Moby Dick; le Léviathan de Job, Rimb. Petite ondine et cable télégraphique d'Andersen. God created great whales, Jésus marche sur les eaux purpurines, meerehaut, poèmes de gouffres d'Hugo, pieuvre comme phobie de l'aspiration. Ondines et hydres montrées dans le cinéma scientique… Vénus comme soeur de l'azur qui émeut le flot pur, les ondines qui divisent l'eau fine. Proust cherche à retrouver dans son expérience maritime ce dont parle Baudelaire dans L'homme et la mer. A Balbec plage, trouve le poisson primitif dans celui de son assiette, compare le rose du saumon au crépuscule. Parle-t-il de coraux, de polypes? La cimmérie de l'Odyssée: patrie de l'ombre et des tourbillons, le Balbec rêvé de Proust, le déluge d'Ovide, le biblique et les déluges historiques. La tempête du quart livre de Rabelais, l'océan planétaire du second Faust. La tempête et le séjour dans la caverne de la pieuvre des Travailleurs de la mer. Avalanche peux-tu m'emporter dans ta chute?… On ne peut détourner le fleuve de la mer… Elle a tous les ruisseaux dans ses regards d'émails… The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: le calme plat, l'Albatros pendu au cou, les serpents de mer; le pôle terre de glace; la coloration verte, rouge et blanche de la surface. … A wood wich slops down to the sea… The water, like a wich’s oil, / Burnt green, and blue and white… The sacred river ran / Through caverns mesureless to man / Down to a sunless sea. Ÿ Grand Atlas des mers et océans, 2004 (Mojetta). Images de l'abysse. Abysses, une histoire des grands fonds, 2015 550.63 MIG. Feu des abysses, 2008, Hekinia/Binard. Les grands fonds, 2011, institut océanographique de Monaco (p60-65, paysages). 

J1: images de la croûte terrestre aérienne et spatiale, photos satellites, amateurs et astronomes de la NASA. Télédétéction: la croûte terrestre en atlas photo, géoportail, national geographic, society orbit; motifs de la Terre Edmaier... Géosciences: la dynamique du système terre et de l'Univers; Science de la Terre et de l'univers, 2014, J-Y Daniel (le Soleil et sa relation avec la Terre, mouvement de la Terre dans l'espace, Terre dans le système solaire.). J2. Expanding univers, photo from Hubble telescope (1990-2014). 200 objets faibles et obscurs de l'univers; L'histoire de l'astronomie, Murdin 2012 (album, facsimilé). J3. Du monde clos à l'univers infini, Koyré, 1958; Une brève histoire du temps du Big Bang aux trous noirs, 1988; La conquête de l'espace et la dimension de l'humain, 1963, Arendt (parabole de Kafka analysée et continuée, point d'archimède, différences vérité philo et scienti...). J4. Copernic, De revolutioranibus; Opere, Galileo Galilei (Siderus Nuncius: le messager des étoiles; dialogue sur les 2 grands systèmes... Stella Nova, Kepler; Newton; Einstein. J5. Aristote, De Caelum; Giordano bruno; Nicolas de Cues; Descartes: Principes de la philosophie part. III: Du monde visible; De la Terre; Questions de l'Optique de Newton; Philosophie naturelle; Principes mathématiques; Einstein, oeuvres choisies (documents autobiographique, vulgarisation). J6. Tetralibri, Ptolémée (astrologie); référence cours JFC réaction à l'empire Newtonien: Fourier, Blake, cénotaphe de boullée... J7, 8, 9: Anatomie, physiologie, physique quantique: particules élémentaires, matière, microscopique. J10 Biologie: principes et génétique; Logique du vivant, histoire de l'hérédité; Sens du mouvement (neuroscience et psychologie cognitive); Structure de l'évolution (ponctuée, temps géologiques); Arbres et classification philogénétique du vivant. J11 Articles Big Bang, Champs, Ether, Atome, Quantique, Espace-temps, Trous noirs; particule; Gravitation. . J11: planétologie, Système solaire... études spécifiques aux objets cosmiques singuliers (trous noirs, soleil, planète, lune). // Jakob von Uexküll, Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen, 1934; Origin of species, Darwin. Sciences naturelles: La vie sur Terre; encyclopédie de la nature: invertébrés, mammifères, agnathes et poissons; plantes inférieures; fossiles; minéraux et roches. Buffon, Cuvier, Humboldt, Linné: Histoire des sciences naturelles depuis les origines jusqu'à nos jours; chez tus les peuples connus (illustrés de gravures). Foucault. The Radiolerian Atlas, kunstformen der natur, Haeckel. • Géométrie vivante de la nouvelle bibliothèque des mathématiques; dictionnaire de l'hist. et phil. des sciences; écrits d'Einstein, planck, Heisenberg. Copernic, Galilée, Kepler, Newton. Eurêka de Poe: éléctricité, équation différentielle, univers atomique, système solaire, intuition du trou noir. Borges, Fiction. • Le Timée de Platon, les traités de physique d'Aristote; Ptolémée, archimède et Euclide; Démocrite et Epicure, Lucrèce (atomistes); Cues et G. Bruno (métaphysiciens de la décentralisation); Copernic, Galilée, Kepler, Newton: mathématisation de l'Univers; Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Schrödinger, Heisenberg. • Serres (science de la couleur), Luminet (trous noirs, astéroïdes).  Lentille, horloge, sonde, balance, lunettes de Galilée, téléscope, calculatrice de Pascal. Le point d'Archimède, Archimède. Ptolémée...

Cosmographie, cosmogonie; cosmologie; astronomie; physique, métaphysique, philosophie; sciences naturelles. Cosmologie et particules élémentaires, Astrophysique, système solaire; systèmes stellaires dans la galaxie; espace interstellaire; planétologie comparée; géodynamique; machine océan. La différence entre astrophysique et cosmologie est une approche globale de la cosmo où tout objet cosmique forment un flux cosmique. • Géophysique, sismologie, géothermie, magnétisme, hydrologie.• Géosciences: sciences de la vie et de la terre, géologie, géomorphologie. Archéologie, éthologie, écologie, zoologie. Cristallographie, océanographie, minéralogie, botanique. • Biologie: anatomie et physiologie; psychophysiologie. • Physique. macrocosme et microcosme. Chimie, mathématiques et technologie. Nano, numérique, cybernétique. ?• Optique (onde, corpuscule, lumière, couleur; éléctromagnétisme et rayonnement), science de la couleur, statique, cinétique • Géométrie (affine, euclidienne, projective, différentielle, analytique et fractale), perspective, plasticité de la matière. • Télédétection pour météorologie, climatologie, hydrographie, température, variation de niveau pente et courants; vagues et houles, couleurs variétés biologiques. Géologie, Géographie; Géomorphologie; Géographie physique. Schéma de la tectonique des plaques, cycle hydrolique, étagement et zonage du continent à l'océan. • Philogénétique (théorie de l'évolution), génétique, neurosciences, physique de la matière et de la lumière, cosmologie, géologie, écologie. Biologie (générale, cellulaire, molléculaire, embryologie, microbiologie, (bactériologie et parasitologie), génétique (histoire du gène et logique du vivant, hérédité), Evolution (descendance avec modifications). / Hydrologie, pédologie (du sol), spéléologie (grottistes, cavernes et grottes). / Paléontologie (anatomie comparée de Cuvier, botanique, zoologique, humaine). Théorique de l'évolution, Systématique: arbres et clades. / Théorie de la tectonique des plaques. (*), structure et génèse de l'océan. // La logique épistémologique, de connaissance • Zoologie, naturalisme, botanique, bestiaire

Relations 2018 : Une relation entre le plan d’HCLR (temple matérialiste) et les diagrammes du Zhou Yi. Souvenirs scientifiques: dissection de souris, exctraction de gaz, liquides en laboratoires, dessins géométriques, résolutions d’équations, voyage géologique. Ÿ Schallachet et les buissons d’épine de l’Enfer de Dante, et Niemandrose de Celan. Ÿ Sala neoplastycjna, cabane éclatée, garten skulptur, Casb, pavillons de Graham. Ÿ Chevaux de Lascaux, Uccello, Géricault… (Considérant Fou d’Elle). Psychologie des Fleurs du mal – cheval, chat, chien; Lascaux ; centaure ; l’âne d’or ; table tournante de Jarry, tête de violon. Ethnologie au séminaire Chevrier, session zoologie à la BPI, anatomie. Animaux: imaginaires (bestiaires romans et Borges). ébauche de Poissons… dauphins d’Amazonie. Ÿ Les conques de bénitiers, le bénitier de Pigalle. L’idole à la coquille du Louvre (Baltrusaïtis). La galerie des proues du Palais Royal. Ÿ Le gibet symbolique où pendait mon image. Le démon de l’analogie (pris dans mon analogie). Le cœur enseveli dans cette allégorie? (Enveloppé dans ton idée). La prophétie auto-réalisée (cf JJR). La métaphore est le pain quotidien du philosophe. L’attitude d’Artaud. (*) ŸChâteaux coulés au goutte à goutte du Croisic, toile d’araignée embruinée. Maquette de Gaudì.Ÿ // Un spectacle de danse (Bel), Un diptyque de films montrant des négociations, une journée d’étude à propos de la Syrie. Négociation financière, génocide syrien. Farocki, Bel, Italie, colloque syrie. Ÿ Musique, clubbing : le rock du Havre dans Kaurismaki, le rap japonais de Saudade, les scènes de clubbing de Marshall. Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ   Jungle : Voir la figure sur fond ornemental avec le portrait de jeune fille de Picasso et La Jungle de Lam (1943). L’essai de Miller. Im dicktich der Stadte de Brecht. //  FIGURES Le monstre, le héros. Un monstre comme invention humaine, de laboratoire ou obsession mentale. Animaux à phobies: araignées, serpents, rats • La momie (Le Roman de la momie, Gauthier… complexe du cinéma par Bazin), le mort-vivant, le fantôme, le zombie (Romero), le vampire: anthropophage, buveur de sang noctambule. Les dinosaures, monstres de laboratoire. Gozilla, King kong (elle s’assoit dans sa main comme dans un fauteuil). Un monstre, un vice, un dieu. Le robot (humanoïde, algorythmique). • Raskolnikov et Billy Bud les assassins, Daisy Miller l’actrice. • Hamlet, Igitur. • Macbeth, Faust, Faustroll; • Cléopâtre, Mazeppa, Œdipe, Antigone, Jésus de Nazareth, le christ. • L’homme sans qualité, l’homme aux rats, Rattenfanger, Raskolnikov, Lazare le marcheur (qui se lève). Danton. Le Charlot. • Œdipe, Hamlet, Tartuffe et tartufferie l'imposteur, Crusoe et robinsonade. Jérémiade. Candide, Ubu et ubuesque, Gargantua et gargantuesque, • Quasimodo, Arlequin, Pierrot, Frankenstein, Nostradamus, Dc. Jeckyll and myster hyde. Odyssée ou ulyssade. • Pinocchio et Jonas avalé par la baleine. La belle et la Bête. • Robinsonnades, jérémiades, tartufferies, arlequinades… de l’ ubuesque, un Calimero • Adam et Ève etc., Abel et Cain, Arche de Noé (architecture et salut), Tour de Babel (architecture et langage), Sodome (ville et péché), la croix. • Le radeau, le verger, la passe de l’Odyssée. • Ulysse : Homère, Joyce. • Le peintre de la vie moderne, l’homme des foules, le flâneur. •  // FEMMES : Brontë, Dickinson, Arendt, Sczapoznikow, Riley, Schneider, Taueber Arp, Woolf, Morrison, Schibli. ŸLes œuvres de Colette, Nin, journaux de Portraits de femmes-auteurs, personnages : Weil, ouvrière mystique. Luxembourg, polémiste révolutionnaire. Arendt, philosophe. Cahun, photographe traverstie? Woolf, romancière et essayiste. Moreau, Sylvia Bataille, actrices. Schibli, photographe. Mehertu, fresques. Klein, Colette, Sarraute. FEMEN Anna, Sacha et Oksana. Libertines. WITTIG. Une arche, une tour, une croix (forme de potence). La maîtresse des maîtresses, la sœur, la passante, la muse vénale. Daisy Miller, Miss Dalloway, Cahun, Rrose Sélavy connaît le marchant du sel pour le travestissement et le changement d’identité, Nausicaa l’hospitalière, Gradiva : celle qui marche, Mutter Kourage, Hélène, Pénélope, Laure, et Béatrice. Rosa Luxemburg, Simone Weil, Nathalie Sarraute « ère du soupçon » et entre la vie et la mort. Hannah Arendt. Mélanie Klein, Kristeva, D’Avila, Colette. // Enfances théoriques par Freud, Klein, Wallon et Piaget, Winnicott et Schilder (Images du corps) ; 15 pédagogues et leurs influences aujourd’hui. notions de liaisons spatiales, d’apprentissage actif. Je cultive la part d’enfance en moi ; travaille mes propres souvenirs. Enfance aveugle : Theoria collection, Corpus Tactilis (Les doigts qui rêvent.) ; Un autre Regard, Raynaud, 2002, Handicaps et interdisciplinarité ; Se mouvoir sans voir, Redonner vie au mouvement ; L’Espace et soi, Lilly Nielsen 1982 + Apprendre pas à pas. Ÿ Petite Maison de Lilli Nielsen, et lu Approche des enfants aveugles et déficients visuels congénitaux. Braille, lecture digitale et images tactiles ; l’adaptation des histoires à ce mode de lecture et de perception de l’environnement. – expérience des liaisons spatiales, permanence des objets, paysages sonores. Je cultive la part d’enfance en moi ; travaille mes propres souvenirs. Je pense la locomotion et la psychomotricité depuis l’enfance avec une longue pratique de danse. Je m’intéresse aux sensations extra visuelles à l’intérieur des arts visuels même (« peindre ce qui se trouve dans notre dos », rythmique du geste, dessin automatique, dessin dans le noir au cinéma, chorégraphie de la main, etc.). Ÿ// La guerre, la mort: Kadishman; Sczapoznikow, Wroblewski et Kantor; Gitaï et Schibli. / La cabane éclatée de Buren et les reliefs de Stazewski; Gefallen Laub; Neues Museum; Les scènes d’intérieur d’Ozu; Dan Graham – pavillon Birmingham (jardin). / À Berlin m’ont marqué les œuvres Die Garten Skulptur et Gefallen Laub de Kadishmann, rénovation du Neues Museum par... . Ÿ Terre, homme et monnaie : Artaud, Beckett Chaplin Joyce (milk, milkwoman) ; Chaplin croque dans un citron cueilli d'un arbre derrière lui ; Antonin et les pavots des champs d'Afghanistan , le bol de lentilles, Beckett et les personnages aux légumes dans les poches, une carotte, un oignon, Brecht et l'arbre dans la cour de l'immeuble, pflaumenbaum. Le portrait de la vielle travailleuse par Kramer. Ÿ Oiseau, coquille, bec, épine. Bec verseur en forme de rapace et l’éléphant vase du Musée Guimet (revoir avec les études chinoise et le musée Cernuschi); Le Tireur d'épine et l’homme à l’agneau de Picasso au Reina Sofia, L'oiseau dans l'espace de Brancusi ; Coin de chasteté de Duchamp, l’Aphrodite à la coquille du Louvre. La panse du père Ubu et le vase funéraire Pithos cycladique. L’Oviri et les pots anthropomorphes de Gauguin. Le chapiteau tête de bœufs jumelés d’une colonnade perse au Louvre. Les crochets de Papouasie Nouvelle Guinée. Avec les textes de l'escargot, la coquille et le mollusque du parti pris des choses de Ponge, les Bizarreries des sceaux de Baltrusaitis. Ÿ Méditation associative sur les titres : Blumenstaub et Germinal. The waste land et Les damnés de la terre. Mimésis… Ÿ Poteaux de couleurs devant lesquels passent le bateau Ivre, mirage de panneaux de la chambre des ancêtres ; sévère portique que rien n’a dérangé ; murs qui beige comme l’air beige et le souvenir s’émurent, table qui de sa petite tête de bois se met à danser. Ÿ