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duhragonball · 4 years ago

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (135/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[14 November 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Zatte was a Dorlun, born with a unique ability to manipulate energy. She mostly used this for bending light and other radiation around her body, to make herself invisible, or for deflecting ki to protect herself or to hide her own power level from those who could sense it. She had accompanied her wife, Luffa, the Legendary Super Saiyan, on what she considered to be a holy mission to Nagaoka. Luffa had sworn to destroy the planet, and the wicked Saiyan cultists who lurked beneath the thick grey clouds of the Nagaokan atmosphere.

Mostly, Zatte's job was to keep the ship running and coordinate with Luffa's attack fleet. And she was more than happy to do this. This was Luffa's epic story, and Zatte was simply honored to be a part of it. The Dorlun culture prioritized survival, and the Dorlun religion commanded its people to stay alive so that they might eventually find a worthy cause to support. Zatte believed that Luffa was her cause, a pivotal figure destined to change the course of history, what the Dorluns called xan-nil'Dor. Zatte's life had become a swirling mass of contradictions since she realized Luffa's importance. It was hard to balance out all her roles-- loving spouse, devoted disciple, martial arts student, sensible advisor, down-to-earth sidekick-- but now those roles seemed to have finally converged into one. As Zatte stood on the bridge of Luffa's yacht and watched Nagaoka, she felt a serenity in her heart that told her that everything had worked out for the best. Luffa would triumph, and the universe would prosper. All Zatte had to do was follow her beloved the rest of the way.

And then the bombardment failed. Every ship in the fleet fired conventional weapons on the planet, and nothing happened. It was like some enormous force field surrounded the entire planet, but Zatte couldn't locate a power source on the surface big enough to support such a technology. She had never heard of a force field big enough to shield an entire planet, but she knew such a device had to run on something.

Undaunted, Luffa went to the cargo bay to fire on the planet herself. As the Super Saiyan, Luffa's power was greater than any other Saiyan in the universe, greater than the firepower of the entire fleet. For a moment, Zatte felt reassured. Nagaoka would be destroyed in an instant, and its secrets would die with it. From the bridge, Zatte could sense her bride's immense ki energy building. On the viewscreen, she could see the lance of golden energy streaking out to the planet.

And then the energy faded away, only for the planet to split it up and shoot it all back from a hundred different directions. Even if there was a force field big enough and strong enough to do this, there was too much cohesion in the reflected energy. It should have just diffused evenly, leaving little more than a harmless wave of radiation. To split a beam into dozens of smaller beams was something more like Zatte's own innate ability, but how could anything achieve this on a planetary scale? It was impossible, unless...

Her mind raced with horrified speculations, but soon the answer appeared before her as she watched the clouds on Nagaoka shift and swirl until they formed the image of a man's face. She instantly recognized it as the likeness of King Rehval III, the Saiyan monarch who abandoned his kingdom to start his bizarre alchemical cult on Nagaoka.

And then, as the lips of the cloud-image began to move, Zatte could hear his voice in her mind. "Hello, Luffa. I'm so glad that you've finally arrived. Now, at last, we can put all of this to an end."

Saiyans all had a low-level telepathic ability. Over a limited range, they could send their thoughts to other beings, like a sort of mental walkie-talkie, although they lacked more advanced mind-reading powers. Luffa could read minds, but only by making physical contact. In this case, it seemed like Rehval was projecting his thoughts across a much larger range, not just addressing Luffa, but anyone nearby. Zatte began to wonder if the entire fleet could hear this.

"I'm sure you remember Pozet," Rehval began, and Zatte's heart sank. She remembered Pozet well. Zatte had killed that horrible creature aboard this very ship. It had tried to prevent her from rescuing Luffa on planet Pflaume. It should have marked the end of that nightmare, it looked like Rehval wasn't finished with it yet.

"Homuncular synthesis is one of the greatest tests of an alchemist's skills. Many of the greatest alchemists die without ever achieving it. I actually pulled it off on my first try, but I didn't feel like I had truly mastered the technique until I created Pozet using folicle samples from your wife. She's an amazing woman, really. My compliments."

Zatte forced herself to look away from the viewscreen and get back to the computers on the bridge. The energy bursts from the planet hadn't been aimed at anything in particular, but a number of ships had been hit anyway. She needed to contact the fleet commanders and get them to back off from Nagaoka before something else happened.

"I created Pozet to act as that serial killer," Rehval explained, "which I used to lure you to my trap on Pflaume City, but she was also a peace offering if you changed your mind and decided to see things my way instead. I thought we could join forces, Luffa. I thought there would be no limit to the things we could achieve together, but you rejected my gift and you spurned my friendship, and now you've come here to destroy me. Fortunately, Pozet served a purpose for that scenario too."

"No," Zatte murmured to herself. "No, no, no..."

"I made three of her, Luffa," he said. "One to present to you, the second to act as my 'serial killer'. You and your lovely bride made short work of them, but the third Pozet I used for my research. I was fascinated with the energy manipulation powers, you see. Imagine what a Saiyan could do with that sort of ability! Imagine what I could do with it, the greatest Saiyan of all!"

Zatte looked up at the viewscreen and clutched at the fabric of her shirt over her heart. She didn't know exactly what all of this meant, not yet. She didn't know how Rehval had become so powerful, or what he planned to do with that power, but she knew that it would be something terrible.

And worst of all, he had used her to make it all possible.

*******

[14 November 233 Before Age. Despye.]

Prester Ganzut paced in a tight circle around his office in the capital city of Despye. There had been no word from the Federation fleet they had sent to Nagaoka. He didn't expect to hear anything, since they were avoiding communications to prevent anyone from learning of their counterattack. He would only receive word when the battle was over, and by his reckoning, the fleet would have just arrived in the Nagaoka system. A cold pitcher of iced tea was waiting for him at his desk, slowly soaking the wood with condensation. Every time the pitcher caught his eye as he walked around the room, he told himself that he would drink it later, but he never got around to it.

Nothing would be the same when this was over. Even if Luffa won the battle, she had all but promised to bring sweeping changes to the Federation when she returned. He had no idea how drastic those "changes" would be, and she probably had no idea herself, which was what made her so dangerous. Even if it all went perfectly, he doubted that her plans would bode well for his career.

As he mulled over his political prospects, the ground began to shake under his feet. He wasn't sure what to do about an earthquake, as this part of the planet had never had one before. Just as he decided to take cover under his desk, two of his security detail rushed into the office and escorted him to an emergency transport. This was standard procedure during an attack on the city, but he couldn't hear any air-raid sirens or any other sounds he had come to associate with a battle.

The way to the transport was underground, connected to his building by a tunnel, but before they could reach it, they found the entire entrance smashed into rubble. A large column of earth was rising out of the ground, and the tunnel entrance simply had the misfortune of being located in its path. So too, was the ceiling above them, and the upper floors of the building.

His security team managed to get him outdoors, and they even evacuated most of the other people inside, but as Prester Ganzut watched the Despye Executive Hall being impaled by a giant column of rock and dirt, he was certain that there had to have been causalities. Angrily, he demanded an explanation for what was happening, even though he doubted that anyone else had one to offer.

Then the great tower of earth began to shape itself, like clay in the hands of an invisible sculptor, and Ganzut suddenly knew.

"The cultists!" he gasped as the column finally took the form of a man. He had heard of this taking place on other planets, but Luffa had always been there to stop them before they could do any real harm. But Luffa was at Nagaoka, supposedly fighting the cultists, wasn't she? If so, then she wasn't fighting them hard enough for Prester Ganzut's liking.

"Prester Ganzut, I presume!" the earthen giant said aloud. It looked right at him, and Ganzut's blood ran cold. "Good day to you, sir. I'm King Rehval III, also known as Trismegistus. Well, this is an avatar of me, anyway. My followers planted it here so that I could talk to you when the time was right."

"This can't be!" Ganzut said. "You... can't be here! Luffa's fortuneteller, she told us there wasn't gonna be any more attacks from you Jindan Saiyans!"

"Fortuneteller?" Rehval asked. By now, the avatar was so detailed that Ganzut could see the look of surprise in its "eyes". "Well, now, that does explain a few things. I expected her to defeat my warriors, but I could never understand how she always seemed to know exactly when and where to find them. Such a resourceful woman. Well, Luffa's fortuneteller was right, Prester. There will be no more attacks on your territory. Right now, my avatars are rising up on planets all over the Federation, but they aren't going to fight. They'll just be standing by, awaiting your unconditional surrender!"

"Surrender?" Ganzut asked. "Are you sayin' you already defeated her at Nagaoka?!"

"Prester, you don't understand!" Rehval said with a laugh. "I don't need to defeat Luffa, anymore than I have to attack you. As of today, I've become invincible, and Luffa? Well, she's simply no longer relevant!"

*******

[14 November 233 Before Age. Chai I.]

A similar scene was playing out on the grounds of the Imperial Palace on Chai I, seat of the Camelian Empire.

"The war with the Federation was never about conquest or revenge, your Majesty," the rock-Rehval explained to Zinenz 15, the Emperor of Camelia, who had been playing cricket on horseback when the avatar rose up from the field.

"It was a diversion," Rehval continued. "Luffa had to stay put inside her own territory to defend it from my warriors, while the rest of you watched from the sidelines, believing that I was only interested in the Federation. All the while, my agents were traveling to your planets in secret, and pouring a special potion into the soil of your planets."

"All of them?" Zinenz 15 asked with some skepticism in his voice. His mount was very nervous in the shadow of the earthen giant, but the emperor did his best to stand his ground.

"Enough of them," Rehval replied. "The figure that stands before you know is more than powerful enough to destroy Chai I with ease. I can't destroy every planet in your empire so quickly, but I can threaten enough of the important ones to throw Eternal Camelia into turmoil."

*******

[14 November 233 Before Age. Festid III.]

"Unless we submit to you, is that what you're saying?" asked General Zinfandel asked.

"Precisely," said the rock-Rehval that had manifested on Festid's capital city. "You cannot defeat this giant creature that stands before you, General. The potion that animates it was already absorbed into the very matter that makes up your planet. You might destroy this physical form you see, but another will rise out of the ground to replace it, again and again, for as long as I see fit. Luffa has the power to break the spell, but your armies simply don't have what it takes. You'd only destroy yourselves in the attempt."

"Or we could simply take the fight to you, Your Majesty," Zinfandel suggested. "Killing you on this planet, you mentioned, Nagaoka, would surely disrupt your control over this thing you have created."

"Indeed it would, General, which is why I've taken measures to protect myself," Rehval explained. "Even now, my stronghold is under attack by a Federation fleet, led by Luffa herself. The entire planet is impervious to her strongest techniques. Even if she could find a way to reach the surface, she would have to fight through tens of thousands of my followers. Each of them has been empowered by my Jindan potion. Luffa struggled to defeat twenty of my warriors at a time. How can she hope to beat them all at once?"

*******

[14 November 233 Before Age. Goldwall.]

"This planet has seen enough tyrants, Rehval. I won't allow it to be dominated by another, no matter how powerful."

These were the defiant words of M'ranga, formerly known as Ensign Liberty, now the Kami of Planet Goldwall. Being a goddess was still new to her, and her performance of the role was highly unorthodox. When the giant Saiyan-thing emerged from the dirt, she descended from her Heavenly Lookout and met him directly, rather than watch passively from a distance. The gods of the higher realms might not have approved of this hands-on approach, but Ensign Liberty was a revolutionary, and to her the divine hierarchy was just another power structure to be questioned whenever possible. Likewise, she saw King Rehval as simply another bully.

"I respect your position, Your Grace," the rock-Rehval said. It knelt before her in a mocking show of respect, and kept angling its ear closer to M'ranga as if straining to hear such a tiny creature. "For the time being, I'll allow you to indulge in whatever comfortable slogans you like. Devastating your planet right now wouldn't accomplish anything. I don't want to make an example of Goldwall, but if it comes to that, I'd prefer to have witnesses to see it happening."

"Then wh--?" M'ranga began to ask, but then the earthen giant rose to his full height and looked away from her.

"I only produced these giant avatars because I wanted to inform you all of what was happening," Rehval said. "The Age of Trismegistus has begun, but it hasn't really reached you just yet. For now, this is mostly just to prove a point to Luffa, but once I've finished discussing it with her, I visit all of your worlds again, and I'll explain exactly what it is I expect from each of you."

M'ranga continued speaking after that, delivering a fiery speech about freedom and the irrepressible spirit of sentient beings, but if the rock-Rehval could hear her, it gave no response whatsoever.

*******

[14 November 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

"It's amazing, truly amazing," Rehval said as he bathed in the glowing red liquid that filled his sunken bathtub. It was a public section of his compound, and his followers were encouraged to enter and watch him soak. Some fell prostrate at the edge of the bath and worshiped him, while a parade of attendants added scented oils and other chemicals to the liquid as he soaked in it. Behind him, Treekul lounged on a mat and massaged his neck and shoulders.

"Tell me about it, boss," Treekul said. The hair on her head was over two inches long.

"I'm everywhere at once now," he said. "Not literally, but but I might as well be everywhere. I'm talking to a thousand people at once right now. I can see them, Treekul. They all look so outraged, so envious of what I've become."

"I'm sure Luffa looks pretty ticked off right about now," Treekul said with a smile.

"Oh, I can't see her," Rehval said. "But I can see her ship, and all the other ships she brought along. They're just hanging there in space like little toys. And beyond them, the stars, my kingdom. My laboratory. The very clouds have become my eyes, Treekul. I can see it all as easily as I see you."

He looked back at her, and raised one of his hands to caress her cheek. She pulled back at the sight of the crimson fluid still dripping from his fingertips.

"Oh, it's harmless, I promise," he said. "I've been drinking different potions and rubbing ointments into my skin for weeks to prepare myself for this. Without all those treatments, all of this would be useless, like stewing in melted candlewax."

"That's what you said about this lotion, too," Treekul replied. She held up her hand to show the oily film she had been rubbing into his shoulders. "And you talked me into that, but let's just say I'd like to know more before I jump in there with you. How did you pull all of this off?"

"It's like I told you from the beginning, my Apprentice," Rehval said. "The energy of living things is what gives rise to ki. Saiyans have more of it than most, but it never seems to be enough, and there's more than one way to get it. There's untapped power within the very planets themselves. My namesake, the original Trismegistus, found ways to study that geomantic energy, but he lacked the vision to do anything with it. I named myself Trismegistus to honor the fulfillment of his discoveries."

"I thought you took that name to claim supremacy over all other alchemists," Treekul asked. "You know, 'Look at me, I'm the best.'"

"Well, that too," Rehval said with a satisfied smirk. "I can have more than one reason."

"Yeah, I guess you can have anything you want now," she said as she went back to rubbing his shoulders. One of the attendants handed him a crystal sifter of wine, and he sampled the bouquet with relish.

"I had more than one reason for keeping you here, too," he added. "Of course, I couldn't let you just tell outsiders about this place. Not until I had its defenses prepared, anyway. It took some doing to incorporate Pozet's abilities into my link with the planet's geology. But besides that, I needed someone I could talk to. Someone removed from the Saiyans, who could appreciate everything I put into this plan."

She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "Well, it's not like there's anywhere else for me to escape to, is there?" she asked. "You've practically conquered the whole universe, so I might as well stay here where all the magic happens."

"Exactly," he said. "Admit it, you didn't think any Saiyan was capable of this sort of genius. We're all nothing but brutish warriors to you."

"I gotta admit, I have been rethinking a lot of old attitudes since I got here," Treekul said.

"The whole universe has looked down their nose at the Saiyan species," Rehval said. "And rightfully so, because many of us believe in the same stereotypes. I tried to reverse that perception, to play the dignified statesman, an ambassador of goodwill from the Saiyans to the rest of the galaxy, but I knew they didn't really believe me. They thought I was a curiosity, or an aberration. Sooner or later, they expected me to revert to type. What those haughty princes and emperors didn't understand was that I was counting on them to underestimate us."

He raised his glass to toast the worshipers at the opposite end of the bath, then drank. "That was how my flock was able to seed so many worlds in such a short span of time. No one thinks of a Saiyan using stealth. They expect us to crash onto a planet's surface and run wild, pillaging everything in sight. No one imagines a Saiyan infiltrating a group of tourists, or a work crew. No one is on guard against a Saiyan stepping out of sight and pouring a vial of liquid into the soil near a government building. And even if that Saiyan were spotted, no one would understand what he was doing. They wouldn't even know he was a Saiyan, not without a tail to give him away."

Treekul gestured at everyone else in the room. "That's why you had everyone lop off their tails?" she asked. "So they'd be sneakier?"

"More than that," Rehval said. "I did it to prove that we no longer need the tails, that we're so much more without them. Look at Nagaoka. Surrounded by clouds, its moonlight is useless here. Even if you had a tail, on another planet it wouldn't be good for more than a day or two. But I've channeled the geomantic currents of this solar system. The planet's relationship to the moon serves me at all times, without a tail. That's progress, Treekul. Why would anyone want to escape from that?"

*******

"Aren't you forgetting something, dad?" Seltiss asked from the bridge of the SFC's command ship. It was unnerving to stare into the eyes of his image on Nagaoka's surface, but she fixed her gaze anyway, determined to show her resolve.

"Ah, Seltiss," Rehval said telepathically. "I hear you've kept busy while I've been away. I'll admit, I was somewhat surprised when I found out you had joined forces with Luffa."

"You were surprised? I thought you were dead," Seltiss shouted. "Or that you had gone totally freakazoid after you evacuated Planet Saiya! Then this cult shows up and I thought some lame-o wizard was trying to enslave us all! Turns out it was you all along."

"Then you should be relieved," Rehval said. "The Saiyans are in no danger from me. The Jindan power is a way for them to become stronger, and a way to make myself stronger in return. That's how I've made all of this possible. By merging my spirit with the planet, and drawing power from my followers, I--"

"You've empowered yourself," said Xibuyas, who stood beside Seltiss on the bridge. "But only yourself, from what I can see. You say you have rock-avatars on a thousand key planets, ready to destroy them if anyone defies you. The only way to stop them is to destroy Nagaoka, which you've made indestructible. That's not like you, Your Majesty. You always taught Princess Seltiss and me that wielding power was a much more subtle art."

"Yeah," Seltiss added. "It's a scalpel, not a club. That's what you always told us. Its like a strategic game. You make one move at a time, building your position until you can win."

On the viewscreen of Seltiss' ship, the clouds on Nagaoka chuckled in time with Rehval's telepathic laugh. "Don't you understand, children? It was a game, but it's over now! I've won! I wielded the scalpel, since long before you were born, and now the surgery is finished! The game is over, and this is the end of history. Whatever happens from now on will be decided by my power, and mine alone. This was always the point, Seltiss. It was always about securing the future of the Saiyans at the top of the universal food chain. Everything before today was a means to an end."

"But you've forgotten something, dad!" Seltiss insisted. "Whatever this creepy future is you've envisioned for the Saiyans, it can't outlive you! Who's going to maintain all of this when you're gone? You need heirs for that, and right now you haven't got any!"

She was trembling now, and Xibuyas nearly reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, until he thought better of it. He knew this was something she had wanted to say to her father for a long time, and now that the moment was finally here, she was building confidence in her words. Seltiss pointed her thumb at herself, then poked her own chest with it, deforming the logo of whatever musical act was featured on her 7000-credit t-shirt.

"I know about your eugenics plans, dad," Seltiss said. "You told me about it often enough. The genetic profiling, the incubation chambers, that was only just the beginning. You wanted to breed a stronger generation of Saiyans, and you wanted your descendants to be the strongest of each new generation, right? That's why you needed Xibuyas! He was your special project to make an ultimate Saiyan, but you needed me to bear his offspring, so they would share your bloodline!

"Well guess what? Xibuyas and I aren't playing along anymore. You may need us, but we sure don't need you, not anymore! So even if you are invincible, your new era won't even last another century... unless!"

Her lips curled into a triumphant smile, like a high-stakes gambler on the brink of winning the pot. Xibuyas couldn't help but smile himself. He didn't understand her fashion sense, or why she insisted on dyeing her black hair pink, or how she could possibly think Luffa was "cool." Xibuyas only knew that he admired this girl more than he could possibly express.

"We can work something out, father," Seltiss said. "You'll have to agree to share power, and grant certain concessions to my Saiyan followers. They have their pride, you know. They're not about to start bowing down to you like some sort of graven image, not when they came to me to get away from your bogus brand of order."

The cloud-image of Rehval seemed genuinely impressed by her bold demands. "Concessions," he said, as though trying the word on for size. "Interesting, Seltiss. Suppose I agree to your terms. What do I get from you in return?"

Seltiss relaxed slightly. "When we're older, Xibuyas and I will produce those heirs you want," she said. "And the two of us can take over your rule when you... well you know... die. And I can talk the Free Companions into a working relationship with you. They can act as enforcers, since you and yours are probably, like, stuck on that planet for the long term right?"

Xibuyas chuckled quietly. Luffa and her Federation fleet would be furious over this, but what could they possibly do about it? She had them over a barrel. As powerful as Rehval had become, she was the one person in the universe who had something he wanted. He watched Rehval's face on the atmosphere of Nagaoka, curious to see how he would react.

The face in the clouds simply laughed.

"Seltiss, Seltiss, Seltiss," he said as the cloud-image shook its "head". "I'm impressed with how far you've come. I really am. Organizing this Free Company of yours, building a coalition against me, well I knew you would try it, but I honestly wasn't sure how well you would succeed. You really are my twenty-seventh greatest creation."

"You... you knew I would turn against you?" Seltiss asked.

"I raised you, my dear. Sent you to all those private schools to teach you political theory. I chose those programs because I knew they would fill your head with ideas about taking bold steps to secure power, and how important it is for leaders to take initiative. I wanted you to grow up looking for ways to seize power from me wherever you could. At first, it was just so you would be a worthy successor if something ever happened to me. But when I abandoned Saiya, I knew you might start gathering all of my enemies together. Every Saiyan who would oppose my rule, all united under one banner. And how thoughtful of you to deliver them to my doorstep!"

"You wanted me to do this?" Seltiss gasped.

"Either this, or maybe you'd get them all killed in a war you couldn't win. Or they'd abandon you in disgust and recognize my power as the only one that works. But this! Oh, you've made me very proud. Your sisters were never capable of this kind of leadership, Seltiss. That's why I chose you to be the one who bore Xibuyas' children. It had to be you."

"Well it won't be!" Seltiss shouted. "I'm not your puppet, dad! I don't care how powerful you are, I'm not going to play along with your sick plans!"

She began to stamp her feet on the deck, not quite hard enough to smash the deckplate apart, but enough for everyone on the bridge to feel the rumble.

"We won't do it!" Seltiss insisted. "You can send your goons to chase us all over the galaxy, but you'll never get your heir! And Xibuyas can beat those rock monsters of yours. Luffa's already shown us how! So unless you plan to die of old age on that planet of yours, you'd better--"

Rehval started to laugh again.

"Seltiss, do you really think you were ever that important to my plans?" Rehval asked. "Would I really let a spoiled teenager out of my sight if I actually depended on her cooperation?"

"You knew you couldn't stop me, so you didn't try!" Seltiss protested. "That's why you didn't send your men to stop me from rescuing Xibuyas from Pflaume--"

"I let you have Xibuyas," Rehval said, "because I had no further use for him. He failed to defeat Luffa, and I knew he wouldn't bother me too much while he was with you, so I abandoned him. Just like I abandoned you when I had no further need of you."

The cloud image shifted, forming a planet-sized monochrome photograph of a cryonics laboratory. A scientist could be seen handling frozen embryos.

"I wanted grandchildren through you and Xibuyas," Rehval expained, but I never needed your cooperation to get them. I took genetic samples from both of you when you were small children, and sent them to a facility that specializes in genetic engineering projects. It's on Planet Bliff in the Nullon Sector. I'm telling you this because one of my avatars is already on the planet, ready to protect it in case one of you tries to interfere with my business there."

Seltiss was horrified. "You... you what?"

The image in the clouds shifted into a wider view of Rehval, soaking in his alchemical bath, surrounded by his faithful. "I saw great potential in both of you, but I had to see what you could do in practice, and I didn't want to risk losing your genomes if you got yourselves killed. You see, Seltiss, I want a line of descendants, but not as heirs. No, I needed you to produce a line of enforcers. Saiyans of royal blood who would go out and handle provincial matters in my new kingdom. You would be the matriarch of that line, and I think you'd be very good at that work. But your sons and daughters will fill the role just as well. I wanted you to cooperate, I really did, but I only needed one thing from you, and..." he paused to chuckle, "I already have it."

In the cloud-image, Rehval clapped his hands together with great enthusiasm. "As for my death, I wouldn't mark your calendars anytime soon. I'm not just bonded with the energy of this planet. I am the planet now. Its vast geomantic energies are mine to control, like the ki of my Saiyan body. The process has merged us in a way that I can't quite put into words, but I think I'll have plenty of time to figure that out. We Saiyans think of planets as things that are fairly easy to destroy, but Nagaoka is now a planet that can defend itself. Or rather, myself. And we think of Saiyans as creatures with a finite lifespan, but I've become so much more than that now. How long does the moon live in the sky? Well now I am the moon. I am the sky. I am the planet. So now that we've got that straightened out, let's talk about the concessions you can make for me, my daughter."

Xibuyas saw Seltiss trembling again, but this time it wasn't out of anxiety or excitement. Now, it was despair. He couldn't help but share it. He wanted to call Rehval's bluff, to say that it was impossible for him to do the things he was claiming. And yet, he knew he owed his life to Rehval's alchemical skills, and he had fought the rock-Rehval creatures before. As for Nagaoka, he could sense the strange power of this planet, and he had already seen how ineffective their weapons were against it.

"Every Saiyan who partakes in the Jindan potion has given me a portion of their energy," Rehval began. "Every Saiyan who does not, will be considered an enemy of the state. You, Seltiss, my daughter, will bring your followers to the surface of Nagaoka, and they will join me. Any who refuse, well, that's fine. I can destroy you here and now, or my followers can hunt you down later. I know there are other Saiyans out there who haven't taken sides yet. I'd like your help in finding them, Seltiss. But I don't need your help, and honestly, I don't mind taking my time. Those other Saiyans are no threat to me."

*******

Aboard Luffa's star-yacht, Luffa and Guwar watched Rehval from the open door in the cargo bay. The force field that maintained the bay's atmosphere offered a perfect view overlooking Nagaoka, and Rehval's telepathy relayed everything he had said to Seltiss.

"I'll go ahead and offer an invitation to Luffa as well," Rehval said. "No harm in that, since I know she won't accept it, but I would suggest that you consider the alternative, Luffa. You can't defeat me here. Even if you reached the surface, you'd never stand a chance against my armies. You can defeat my avatars, true, but you'd have to get to them first, and it'll take you weeks to get back to your precious Federation. If I were you, I wouldn't bother. I'll command my avatars to destroy any planet at the first sign of your approach. The Federation will surrender to me, immediately, I think. And you... well, I guess you can roam the stars, Luffa. No inhabited planet in the universe will dare accept you, not if it means incurring my divine wrath. I suppose you can find some remote world to settle on, or just fly your star-yacht as far as you can go until it runs out of fuel.

"I'm willing to let Guwar return the fold as well. Yes, I can sense you aboard Luffa's ship, Guwar. You were part of my plan, after all. I knew my scheme would make no sense without an understanding of what I intended to do with this planet. That was why I took you into my 'confidence', Guwar. I knew your faith in me would falter, and that you would go running to the only person you thought was strong enough to stop me. Hopefully, you see just how wrong you were to doubt."

It horrified Guwar to hear Rehval speak to him directly. He hadn't wanted to come along on this mission at all, and he had hoped the cult wouldn't learn of his presence on Luffa's ship. But now, Rehval had seen him, and.... forgiven him?

"I hope you appreciate my revenge, Luffa," Rehval went on. "I sacrificed so many of my favorite things when I tried to kill you on Pflaume City. And then I had to give up my kingdom on Planet Saiya. Well now I've taken away the thing that matters most to you, Mrs. 'Super Saiyan'. I've taken away your relevance. I've become more powerful than you now, and that makes your power meaningless. Now you can slither under a rock, the way I only seemed to do when I left Saiya. The difference is that I came here to achieve an even greater glory! While all you can do is decide how you want to die. Have fun making up your mind, woman."

Here, the telepathic words of Rehval Trismegistus came to an end. Luffa didn't move as she watched the clouds resume their natural patterns. She didn't move when Guwar approached her.

"I guess that's it then," he said with a sigh. "He played us all. Nothing left to do but head down there and accept d--"

Luffa powered down, her gleaming yellow hair resuming its natural black color. She turned and shot Guwar a murderous glare. "I'm going to kill them," she said. "Every last one of them."

"What?" Guwar asked. "Whoa, wait, you heard what he said! You saw what happened when you fired on the planet. There's nothing anyone can do! Let's just be glad that he's being graceful enough to let us join him. I mean, I've been there before, you know. The cult's not so bad, once you get used to it--"

There was a loud "crack" as Luffa swatted her hand across Guwar's head. Guwar himself didn't hear it, as the force of the blow killed him a split second before the sound arrived at his ears. The last thing to go through his mind was the right side of his skull. For a brief, horrific moment, his dead body remained standing, and then it finally collapsed, as though remembering what it was supposed to do.

Luffa turned and walked out of the bay.

NEXT: Become The Wind.

#dragon ball #fanfiction #super saiyan #luffa #lssjluffafic #zatte #trismegistus #king rehval iii #guwar #zinfandel #prester ganzut #seltiss #xibuyas #m'ranga: ensign liberty #chai #despye #festid #nagaoka #goldwall

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shinneth · 5 years ago

Text

subject to future deletion

Normally I wouldn’t resort to that and I might end up being too lazy to do it anyway, but between getting sick again, dealing with some very intense verbal abuse every day irl, and the monthly burdens of the gender, I’m really not in a good place right now and I need to vent something.

It’s officially gotten bad enough to interfere with my ability to write, even though I’m at a point in my current story that I’ve been very eager to reach... and every step of the way I’m struggling to write it and I hate what I currently have and it’s taking everything in my current power to not just scrap it entirely.

Basically, I think I’m failing as a writer.

The irl stuff is actually not what I’m gonna get into because it’s really nothing new and it’ll probably resolve itself, but the side-effect of suffering that kind of negativity is that it enhances lingering negative feelings you’ve had about other things.

Namely, things you do to get away from the pains of the real world. The things you do to have fun and get some enjoyment out of life, no matter how challenging it is to be in this thing because it’s so wrongfully derided and demonized by the majority of your peers.

I try to keep telling myself it’s just because I’m still relatively very new to the fandom compared to my contemporaries, but as I’m typing this right now and listening to my favorite wrestler Shelton Benjamin in an interview, immediately I see the pit I’m starting to fall into.

Like, it’s uncanny. This is what he said as I started on the above paragraph:

“If I sit and constantly compare myself to other people’s successes, you would drive yourself crazy. Because no matter what, there’s always someone who’s gonna be more successful.”

“I need to remember where I come from; how far I’ve came.”

Basically, in the very small world of Stevidot (and to a lesser extent, SU’s fandom as a whole), despite my efforts, I feel very much like the Shelton Benjamin in a small, dedicated group of talented Stevidot content creators.

Which is to say, I’m basically a midcarder in the mix with a bunch of top-tier legends. Shelton graduated from the same group as some modern very well-known mainstream stars that I can easily associate with a very well-known and accomplished Stevidot contributor.

Shelton graduated with the likes of John Cena, Brock Lesnar, Dave Batista, and Randy Orton. At least half of those names should be at least vaguely familiar for my followers as most of them have had such great success that they’re known in avenues beyond wrestling (save for Randy Orton, but he’s well past outshined his father as a legendary wrestler who’ll never be forgotten).

I could easily say Watcher is the John Cena of Stevidot, while Platon’s probably the Brock Lesnar... sinderella0069′s the Batista. But I honestly don’t feel like I’ve done enough (or stood out enough) to even be a Randy Orton for this pairing. I’d at least give that honor to Ig just for being so active with it on Tumblr despite the wave of hatred thrown her way (even though she’s shifted focus onto Stevinel now).

Again, I keep trying to tell myself that it’s because I’m not even remotely as tenured in the fandom as any of them are.

Then I see this said in a review on a very recently-made Stevidot story...

And said reviewer has not once ever left a review on any Stevidot story of mine. Not even a follow or a favorite or a goddamned kudos. Considering I currently have an actively-updated Stevidot story going on (and a two-shot that I just did last month), I highly doubt my stuff was just overlooked.

Now, is it true that Stevidot is hard to come by? Of course it is. But this isn’t the first time I’ve seen a fellow Stevidot fan lament about the lack of Stevidot content while completely disregarding anything I contribute.

I know there’s one that outright doesn’t like my content based on personal taste (nothing to do with Stevidot itself, just how I execute it). There’s another big-name who shows no interest whatsoever in reading what I have to offer - and at this point I feel that’s for the best, because I have a feeling they’d hate my execution as well.

While I’ve always primarily written for myself, I also felt a great fulfillment for providing content for a niche crowd that really deserves more than what they have. I think Stevidot’s a fantastic pairing with tons of unexplored potential and should be much more readily available than it actually is. Even if I tend to not get many reviews, I keep track of the site traffic every day on my stories and I know for sure that there are people reading my stuff. Since I’m really bad at leaving reviews myself, I go out of my way not to whine about not having very many overall for my series since I’d be a huge-ass hypocrite to do so.

However.

Statements like the the aforementioned review and statements I’ve seen elsewhere by those who I know are at least aware of me are like stakes through the heart.

Because it can only mean one thing: my content doesn’t count.

I’m honestly not sure which is worse for me; being critically panned for the stuff I’ve put my all into over the past year, or being treated like my stuff doesn’t even exist.

I prided myself on contributing as much as I did for Stevidot over this past year. Quantity doesn’t = automatic quality, but I’ve got 20+ years of writing experience in, so even someone with a shit self-esteem like myself can’t just say I’m an objectively bad writer, because I’m not.

But apparently it doesn’t matter that I put in over half a million worlds in the name of Stevidot to a good chunk of the very tiny Stevidot fanbase; according to them, my contributions are irrelevant.

Is it my fault?

One thing I will admit is a detriment to my particular brand of Stevidot is that, save for one story (which happens to be by far my most successful Stevidot story in terms of recognition numbers), the rest of my series follows a continuous narrative that greatly deviates from canon as of Change Your Mind. I’m also notoriously a very verbose kind of writer - I have the tl;dr curse something fierce.

So all stories I’ve written since my main 3-act series (which ended up being nearly 200k in length on its own) have been direct sequels to that. Because of the heavy deviation from CYM, the environment of the following stories is very different and easy to get lost in if you skipped GA entirely.

Because there are so many dangling threads and new opportunities to be had after GA ended, I basically committed myself to my AU.

It’s not like anyone else is going to explore these possibilities.

Beyond that, honestly, I just don’t want to rewire my brain back to the canon status quo - not after the shitloads of character development I’ve not only given Steven and Peridot, but nearly everyone at this point has had a moment or two of really intense character growth.

I like having Peridot co-star with Steven. I like having her become a more competent and active teammate than she’s portrayed in canon (while still giving her comic relief moments). I like that I didn’t redeem the Diamonds and instead had them killed off to force our protagonists to deal with the fallout of the collapse of a mighty empire on a much grander scale than what’s going on in the actual show.

In a way, this AU of mine has helped me cope with the shortcomings of the show itself. I already went on a stupid tirade once about how the sadistic nature of my writing has basically made me no-sell whatever trauma Rebecca Sugar’s throwing on Steven and upsetting everyone else. I’m still fairly certain I’m still outdoing her in that department.

And because 100% of my passion for creating Stevidot is through this narrative I weaved, I have no desire to leave it.

So I’ll admit my stories aren’t exactly the most accessible to the average reader who hasn’t been following my work since Day 1.

Then again... I first got into Sinderella’s series completely ass-backwards at first. I eventually read it in the proper order, and like many of the great Stevidot epics, it’s canon divergent from a much earlier point in the series, so it was very easy to get confused about why certain things happened differently at first... but ultimately, I wasn’t that bothered by it because I just wanted some good Stevidot. I’d figure out the finer details later.

I really do owe this author more props than I’ve actually given - she’s one out of two readers I know for a fact have been following my series since the beginning without missing a beat. I’ll probably review her newest story sooner or later now that it’s complete.

Not gonna lie, though... when I saw our numbers side-by-side like this:

Considering they’re very similar stories (Stevidot smuts that were originally meant to be one-shots), mine is over a month old and hers is only a few days old and there’s already that big of a gap in our numbers?

It’s hard not to feel like a failure; like I did something horribly wrong to suck this bad by comparison.

I really should stress that I bear no ill will against Sinderella or any Stevidot author; this isn’t a competition, so this isn’t a matter of popularity. I knew coming into this that I wouldn’t get popular overnight; especially not with such an unpopular ship being the focus of my story.

But when other Stevidot stories get frequent reviewers that I’ve never seen once acknowledge my stories even passively, I can’t help but feel like I’ve massively fucked up somewhere. That despite all my efforts, I might as well be invisible. When they say “Oh, good thing your story is here! It’s been such a Stevidot drought around here until you came along!” to other authors after I’ve written half a million fucking words in under a year for this ship...

You know, is it unreasonable to feel that I utterly fucking failed in several ways?

I guess it’s no wonder why I’m struggling to keep writing. I still want to - like I said, I’m at a part I’ve been eager to write for a while now - but ever since I started it, I’ve just hated almost all of what I have so far (almost 8k words). And I’m really having trouble trying to salvage it.

I’m honestly not the type who’d scrap all my progress and start from scratch once I’ve gotten this far in. But maybe I’ll have to make an exception this time, because I think I finally made the mistake of trying to write while being mentally and emotionally distraught.

I thought I’d calm down once I wrote all this out, but honestly, I’m not really feeling it. Now I’m wondering if I should have just reached out to someone instead of making this, because now I’ll come off as a whiner with my pansy-ass first-world problems.

But then again, I’d be an asshole to subject anyone to my idiotic woes.

Maybe this’ll pass. I’m hoping it’ll pass. I really, really really really don’t want to lose my drive to write again. I was used to it coming and going in short and random spurts for almost all my life - then it finally came to me and stayed with me just a little under a year ago, and I’ve been desperate not to let it go because I’ve been more productive now than I’ve ever been in my 20+ tenure as a writer.

I don’t want this to go away. There’s still so much more I want to tell.

But then my logic goes... if you tell the story and no one’s there to hear it, is it ever really told?

#irl shit #stevidot #fanfiction #writing #self-esteem issues #self-worth issues #a cry for help #or therapy #or something #I probably shouldn't have made this #where did i go wrong

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duality-deactivated · 5 years ago

Text

Name: Violet 'Vi/Vi-Vi' Carmelia

Alias: Stitched

Age: 26

Gender: Female

Affiliation: Neither; Was once a part of Overwatch's Blackwatch program but now she works with Satya in the Vishkar Corporation.

Backstory: Violet lived a rather peaceful life before the Omnic Crisis. She grew up in southern Texas, her homeland being one of the many cities that developed in poverty and by Violet's recreation, it was not a good place to live in. Violet is also a person with very heightened anxiety, she prefers her environments to be tidy, quiet and free of distractions. Seeing the potential in her, one of Vishkar's leading members took her in under the command of the gonverment of the area in exchange for money. Isolated and forbidden to return to her home, Violet busied herself with both the classes and the training of the new equipment that the company gaver her access to. Unlike the rest of her peers who used the equipment in a construction manor, Violet used it much like the old habits she formed at her home, the act of knitting and sewing. Hench her given name, 'Stitched.' She quicky grew in ranks and her classes before she ened up joining Satya at the Rio de Janeiro field mission.

Weapon of Choice: A submachine gun. It is a gun similar to Symmerta's Photon Projecter yet uses the power of Electrons to create hard-light bullets. The gun is known as a 'Electron Enforcer.' It holds 90 Bullets and used a 'clip' to recharge. All shots fired from this gun have a small knock back effect from the electrons repelling whatever it happens to come in contact with.

Appearance/Face Claim: Amy Nelson.

Nationality: American/Indian

Health: 250; 150 Health, 100 Shields.

Abilities:

Primary Fire- Right Trigger- Electron Enforcer.

Stitched rapid fires small needle shaped bullets from three chambers in her gun, each chamber holding 30 bullets with each bullet doing around 4 damage each. After each chamber is emptied (The chambers empty out one at a time) the gun repels enemies within a one meter radius until the gun in fired again.

Secondary Fire- Left Trigger- Electron Enforcer

The gun charges up a large needle shaped bullet to shoot and repel enemies at the cost of ten ammo, meaning the gun would have to be reloaded after nine shots from the secondary fire; very useful for long range in comparison to the short range of the primary fire.

Switch Weapons- D-Pad- Darting

Stitched exchanges her gun for duel wielding sewing needles called Dartings. These needles are made out of hard light snd are msotly used for melee damage yet can be thrown during one of her abilities. They do roughly 50 damage per strike.

Ability 1- Right Bumper- Yarn-Ball

Stitched uses a capsule filled with the same Electron bullets to throw at her enemies. If the Balling directly hit an enemy, it locks them in place while repeling all other enemies within a two meter radius.

Ability 2- Left Bumper- Threading

Stitched throws one of her sewing needles at an enemy and if it lands on the enemy, it brings the enemy closer, if it doesn't land on an enemy and instead lands on an object, it brings Stitched to the object.

Ultimate- Triangle- Patchwork

Stitched takes her two sewing needles and attatchs yarn to them before trowing them at nearby walls. The two needles connect and blocks off the enemy team with damage if they try to enter through it. The patched wall has holes in it that both teams can see through. Since the needles don't reach all the way up, the ally players could walk across the tops of the needles if they wanted to. This last for 12 seconds.

Era: Petras

Class: Damage

Love Interest: Symmerta

Difficulty: 3 Stars (***)

Other: Along with her heightened anxiety, she also suffers from paranoia.

Name: Void Hanagan

Alias: None. He just goes by Void.

Age: Around 42

Gender: Transgender from Female to Male.

Affiliation: Overwatch (Formally) Talon (Current)

Backstory: Physically abused and abandoned by his father at around age 5. Void was stranded within the busy sector of Kings Row. He was taken in by a young Ana Amari and raised as her own. After being taken in by Ana, he was also partially 'raised' by Zenyatta starting when he was around age 18, the monk helped Void control his anger and frustration as well as gave him coping mechanisms for his schizophrenia. He was taught and trained by what was his family at the Overwatch HQ. Once Overwatch was disbanded due to the Petras Act, Void fell into hiding, becoming a guns for hire until Overwatch was recalled. During several missions before the Petras act, Void was forced to gain several prosthetics due to a lack of safety on his regard. He is currently residing with Talon due to the Blackwatch controversay

Weapon of Choice: A semi-automatic gun nicknamed 'Cosmic' The gun has two scythe heads located on the top of it.

Appearance/Face Claim: He wears a deep navy blue jacket that holds a galaxy pattern with the hood appearing like a black hole. He makes use of a protruding black, diamond shaped helmet that has a shaded visor to protect his eyes. He wears reinforced blue jeans as well as calf high, black combat boots that have white stars near the bottom. His face claim is Matthew Patrick/MatPat. His hair is a deep brunette with his eyes being a hazel color. If you were to look closely, his right arm, from his shoulder downwards, is robotic. His spine was also replaced as was his left leg. Both replacements being synthetic and/or robotic. He is 5'4" and weighs 162 pounds, being a bit on the chubby side.

Nationality: Arabic/American

Abilities:

Primary Fire- Cosmic:

His Primary Fire is a semi automatic gun that has a maximum number of bullets, that being 85. The bullets are easily depleted within a five second period and use a clip to reload, each bullet does about 7 damage, meaning it would take you about two-three clips to kill a Roadhog or a Winston.

Health: 350. (200 Health, 150 Armor, affecred by Torb's Molten Core bonus on armored enemies)

Ability 1- Right Bumper- Hyperspace

Void charges forward with his head lowered to inflict 75 damage and stun a target directly in front of him. It, in turn, will stun Void if he hits an object instead (This includes any Shields, Orisa's Supercharger, Torb's Turret or Symmerta's Teleporter (All Enemy items)) This has a six second cooldown.

Ability 2- Left Bumper- Supernova

Depending on the number of allies nearby, Void will gain shields to himself to held guard against enemies, with no allies around, the base amount of shields given is 100. This has an eight second cooldown.

Ability 3- Left Trigger- Blackhole

Void sprints to the nearest high platform at the cost of 50 Armor, once his 150 Armor has been depleted, this ability has a twn secons cooldown in order to let the armor recharge. (Does not affect armor given from Brigette's Rally or Repair Pack)

Ability 4- D-Pad- Comet

Void shoots off one/both of the scythe head(s) from off of the top of his gun to give a 'Shutdown' effect to an enemy, this effect shuts down an enemies passive ability, if they do not have a passive, it inflicts 50 damage. This also reveals the location of the enemy to Void and can be placed like a Widowmaker Venom mine.

Ultimate- Triangle- Extrasensory

Void makes use of his adaptive shields by spreading it to his teammates within a ten meter range: This act allows him to absorb the damage they are delt and return it two-fold, this lasts for 8 seconds.

Era: Founder

Class: Damage-Tank Hybrid

Love Intrest: Siberian Du Kuiplr

Difficulty: 3 Stars (***)

Other: He suffers from heavy schizophrenia, having many reoccurring nightmares as well as visual and auditory hallucinations. He is known to disassociate and he had a long history with anger issues.

Other 2: He is good friends with Xavier.

Heroes/Quotes:

Void/Quotes

Hero Selected

"Don't need a big name to break the mold"

(This is a reference to how planets are named after their discovery)

During Set Up

"Is it possible to reach space from here?"

"The stars are aligning tonight."

"Bright night. Good fight."

"Entertain yourself with the idea of creation."

"Lets' make this space something worth while!"

Respawn

"Look at the stars"

"Well, That wasn't supposed to happen."

"Get into the fight!"

"Entertain the cosmos."

"Reach into the void."

"Let's try that again."

"A cosmic shutdown."

"The cycle will continue on."

On Fire

"I am on fire!"

"The stars align with me! Stay out of my way!"

"The universe is on fire!"

Damage Boosted

"This power? A gift from above."

"Rain down upon our enemies"

"Strike like a black hole."

Nano boosted

"I feel unstoppable!"

"I'm Unstoppable!"

"The multiverse has empowered me!"

Discord Orb Recieved/Northstar Destroyed

"Crap!"

"Damn!"

Voted Epic (5 votes)

"The universe thanks you."

"I knew I could help!"

Voted Legendary (10 votes)

"The universe has chosen me."

"Aw! Thank you!"

Enemy Resurrection

"They rise like the stars*

Resurrected

"I return"

Heroes/Communications

Void/Communications

Hello

"Heya!"

"Hi!"

Need Healing

"Need Healing!"

"I gotta get some healing!"

"Hey Doc!"

(When hidden interaction with Zenyatta) "I need Harmony!"

Group Up

"Group up with me!"

"Group up!"

"Yo! Group up here!"

Ultimate Status

(0-90%) "Extrasensory is charging"

(0-90%) "My ultimate is charging"

(91-99%) "Extrasensory is almost ready!"

(91-99%) "Almost ready with Extrasensory!"

(100%) "Heads Up! Exteasensory is ready!"

(100%) "Hey! Extrasensory is ready to pop!"

Voicelines

Void's Guide "Void's Guide to the Galaxy" (Default Voice Line)

Planets "Some planets are much smaller than you would think"

A New Discovery "A New Discovery is always exciting!"

You stared "You stared into the void, and it stared back"

Fun Fact "Fun Fact, Blackholes are actually invisible"

Watch Out! "احترس"

Follow Me! "اتبعني"

Gathering Shadows? "What's this about gathering shadows?"

I love stars "I love the bright stars"

I couldn't "I couldn't stand you if I tried"

Acknowledge

"I got you"

"Understood"

Thanks

"Thank you!"

"Thanks!"

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veridium · 6 years ago

Text

Short Story: Theia Gets Cold Feet

It’s night four in The Emerald Graves. Seeker Cassandra and Inquisitor Theia Trevelyan sit by the camp fire, just north of Villa Maurel. Cassandra finally gets the chance to ask the nosy questions for once.

The greenery was dark and lush around them, new and wondrous for Theia, who for many years would sketch or paint daydreams of faraway places such as these. Laying on her side, legs tucked, she watched the fire crackle and cast flights of shadows on its surroundings. Funny thing, fire. Well, not funny, but something peculiar. Although, she had seen enough of it for a life time.

“I wonder something. Something about your abilities,” Cassandra said, an elbow resting on her knee, multiple bandages on her arm from the day’s skirmishes.

“Hm? What specifically?” Theia responded, her voice husky with fatigue, but nevertheless intrigued.

“I know about the pathways of study for mages, but perhaps it is more personal than erudite. Why you do what you do, I mean,” Cassandra rolled her head around, cracking a couple sore bones in her neck tediously.

Theia chuckled in a hush tone. She had been through many phases of her self-discovery, including her powers, her abilities, and what she did and did not like to do. Well, what she’d rather not be able to do, anyway. First it was her family, who had a disdain for any and all ability. Then it was her tutors, who had their own worries and at times seemed to only craft student in their images rather than pay attention their individuality. Templars, who wanted to know to who to blame for the scortched fireplace or the frozen doors. This time, though, from a friend, she felt as though it wouldn’t come back to bite her in the ass.

“You ask, I’ll answer, Seeker,” she teased, rolling onto her back to gaze up at the abundant stars.

“Why do you favor ice and storm abilities?” Cassandra said, her solid voice had a rare tone of childlike curiosity.

Theia thought about it for a moment.

“When I was young, no more than 8 years old, my brother, Tristan decided he would see if my sister’s and my hair could catch on fire. He broke off a candle from the dining hall and lit the thing like a flare. He caught my sister at her mirror, combing her hair, and snuck up behind her. He singed a chunk of it. I still remember her shriek. Tris, you’re banquet meat! She wailed, and wailed. It took months for her hair to go back to normal, because she wouldn’t cut it. Her hair was fair like mine, and the color is coveted in our family. Even if half of it looks like burnt kindling.”

Cassandra scoffed. “Such a petulant child, your brother sounds like.”

“He had foolish phases. Now, he’s a scholar, but he still lacks a certain kind of...tact,” Theia said with a grin on her lips. Her brother was many things, but he was loved.

“So, what happened when he came for you?”

“Well, my sister was older, so he thought I would be easier to fool. He found me in the garden, by our bed chambers. A small terrace with a bird’s fountain. I would go there and splash the water, as if I could cause a great flood if I just splattered my hands fast and hard enough! Hah. But, when he got to me, I was able to see him coming. Candle, and all. I got scared and hid behind the fountain. I heard his steps coming closer and closer, and I closed my eyes as if I could turn invisible.”

Cassandra’s eyes locked on Theia as she seemed to tell a great, epic story out of a childhood memory. How endearing, she thought, to discover such dangerous talents out of something so...docile.

“I thought I was done for, but then I heard something crackling, like the ice thawing on the river. My brother gasped and dropped the candle, and the noise made me look up. The flame on the candle was out. Actually, it was frozen over with ice. He looked at me like I was a demon crawling on all-fours. I didn’t even think at the time that it was me, my magic, defending myself. I was just as shocked and terrified as he was.”

“Remarkable. Did he finally leave you alone?” Cassandra asked.

“He did, for the rest of my life,” Theia replied, a soft yawn escaping her mouth. She shook her head to wake herself up a bit.

“Oh. I see,” Cassandra looked toward the fire. “I suppose that is predictable.”

“It was. It is. I still write, though. One letter goes to my Mother, and she disperses the details accordingly. It’s best that way.”

“The proclivity for ice, then, stayed with you all this time?”

“Yes and no. I stopped and started, especially when my lack of pyro knowledge became a weakness. I was supposed to be well-rounded. I never enjoyed it as much as I did learning how to freeze entire boulders to break, or strike a tree down with a beautiful stroke of lightening,” Theia’s purple eyes danced with subtle energy. She could still see all the “firsts”: first lightening lock, first ice wall. It was enthralling to be so capable.

“Some wouldn’t be as jubilant, but we all have paths in life we must give our all too. I remember when we first met, I thought you were a walking explosive with a mouth,” a smirk came from the Seeker’s mouth.

“I thought so of you, too, but look at us now. Dormant as stone,” Theia said, her arms stretching over her head.

“Stone is anything but, Inquisitor.”

“Valid. Especially when encased in a sheet of ice and whirling through a lightening cloak,” she said with excitement.

“Inquisitor, please refrain from the light show, if you don’t mind.”

“Only in my dreams, Seeker. Only in my dreams.”

There was a moment of breath, where both watched the flames and kept quiet. Then, second question.

“Does this mean abilities are more pertaining to what gratifies you, instead of objective capability?” Cassandra’s chin tilted.

Theia shook her head, lips pursed with care. “Not at all. It’s complicated, friend. You can’t expect such things as magic to be “point A” and “point B” processes. Everyone’s journey is as fraught as being alive is. Just a big, bloody mess at times.”

“But then, where is the line of personal responsibility?”

“When you find it for the Seekers, Templars, and warrior forces of Thedas, let me know. It may be nearby that.”

“Point taken.”

Theia sighed. “I know for me, it was about staying disciplined, and dedicated to myself. I had no one in my corner for...a long while, and I was so young. When I saw ice, when I say electricity come from my two hands, I felt as though I was connecting with myself as raw material. Organic power. I had been taught to hate myself for being alien, unnatural, unwanted, but...everything about my power felt raw and earnest.” The rubbed the back of her head, her hair knotted and dry. Brittle from the cold air.

“Part nature, part conditioning, those fears...” Cassandra thought out loud.

“It’s part-everything. At least for me, it doesn’t matter. But I knew peers who would beat themselves against standards. Some would kill to be the best and brightest Knight Enchanters one day. Others acted like they wanted the whole world to burn down, roof to soil. Some got to where they needed to be, others suffered for a long time. I was lucky I was in touch with who I needed to be. Not always, but in the end.”

“Would you have done anything different as an apprentice? As a child?”

Theia pondered, and then chuckled under her breath. “If I could, I’d go back and freeze my brother’s hands to his mouth. That would have sent Mother into an episode for a week, though. Worth it still? Probably.”

Cassandra smiled lightly. “Running before walking. I can sympathize. My strategy would have featured more blunt-force-object appeal, though.”

“It’s your style, don’t suppress it,” Theia teased.

The fire popped with a stray spark, and both the women took it as a reminder to keep noises low while others slept.

“Do you see your views on mages changing since we’ve become friends, Seeker?”

“As much as I understand you, Inquisitor, old habits take long to rest. I feel obligated to a higher standard than heeding the existence of those close to me. If everyone in power yielded to the likeness of one or two friends, boundaries would break down.”

“But, does it then follow that those boundaries which oppress must remain?”One of Theia’s eyebrows raised with question.

“Not at all. There’s...nuance.”

“I wish you could say the same to the conditions of those made tranquil.”

The tension rose, but it was a sorry kind, a bruised kind.

“We do not have all the answers, Inquisitor. But we do have all the reason to find them.”

“I agree.”

“I am glad you challenge me. Even as I put up a front. We should continue these conversations. I wish more would.”

“And I hope they are paired with actions.”

Cassandra swallowed hard. “Maker, I do, too.”

Theia rolled onto her hip and lifted a hand, opening the palm flat. “Good, I would hate to have things be so...static,” she joked, a spark of purple escaping her hand, gone as quick as it came.

Cassandra had seen this kind of clever trick from the Inquisitor before. It used to make her flinch with concern, but now it annoyed her like a younger sibling’s chides.

“Hilarious, Inquisitor.”

#oc stuff #fanfic #Theia Trevelyan #cassandra pentaghast #dragon age inquisition #the emerald graves

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langwrites · 7 years ago

Text

How to Make Friends and Influence People

I have been toying with a revamp of my Dragon Age fic, so... I guess it might end up being a bunch of drabbles? Here’s a sampler.

A Discordant Note

“This is the story of how I died.”

…Morbid, I think, and perhaps not particularly accurate despite its pithiness.

“An elf, a witch, and an abomination walk into a cave…”

I think not.

Perhaps I should start from the beginning, without all of this posturing. I should leave the tale-spinning to true masters of the art, and instead tell my story as I remember it.

My name is Nyx.

This is certainly my story—my memoir, if you will—but the story as the world sees it is not mine, you see. I am, at best, something of a background figure in the epic saga of the Warden-Ensigns who ended the Fifth Blight. I should know; as a Warden myself, I am hardly ignorant of the trials they faced in their journey.

But once, I was in their position.

I was a bright-eyed youth with no notion of what my future would hold. All I knew was that my mistakes had somehow earned me a second chance—a chance to be free of Kinloch Hold, to turn away from blood magic that marked my recent past, to find a future with those who would value my power over the source. I owed my future to those who allowed me to live long enough to have one.

I joined the Grey Wardens when I was twenty and never looked back.

This is not the story the Wardens remember.

Per Weisshaupt’s records, I joined Warden-Commander Duncan of Ferelden in the Frostback Mountains, during the early spring of 9:24 Dragon. By all accounts, I was already a seasoned apostate who had successfully evaded Templar notice for years before volunteering to join the Wardens as an adult. That I was already afflicted with the Taint was a confounding variable, but not an insurmountable one. The Grey Wardens have had many strange and unique recruits over the years, after all.

By my own account, I was recruited through the Right of Conscription in 9:30 Dragon. I have a reason for it, and it does not involve madness outside of the ordinary course of the life of a Grey Warden. No, that comes later.

That story will follow.

With regards to fellow historians, Senior Warden Nyx Surana

??? Dragon

Crawling out of a fetid swamp and breathing in the sort of air cold enough to freeze your lungs solid: Not anyone’s idea of a pastime, I should think.

I would have honestly preferred to take a second shot at that Eluvian and just face-plant in the Brecilian Forest in the middle of a werewolf infestation but, alas, it was not to be.

On the other hand, I am now dry, clothed in actual cloth as opposed to mail, and not freezing to death. It was a near thing, but it seems I have survived. When I get my hands on that bastard, I will make him rue the day he dared step foot out of his cozy lair and strip the flesh from his spongy bones while I am at it.

First, though I need to get my bearings. Then I may properly contemplate taking up demon-slaying in addition to darkspawn-slaying as a lifelong career choice.

1 Drakonis, 9:24 Dragon

Even looking at that date, written longhand, gives me chills.

Something is very wrong.

2 Drakonis, 9:24 Dragon

My worst fears are confirmed. The Eluvian does indeed lead to a world beyond the Fade, after a fashion. But it does not lead to a place farther from the Thedas I knew—rather, further. Backward.

I have to wonder if Morrigan knew what I was about to do.

Lesson learned: When a great big demon makes a point of herding you toward the mirror, Nyx, do not let him do so. Certainly not if the mirror is active.

Lothering’s Chantry has at least been helpful, assuming that the Revered Mother indeed believes that I am a mere misplaced Dalish tribeswoman. Were she clever enough to identify me as an apostate, Grey Warden or no, I would have a fight on my hands. Not for the first time, I appreciate how little humans understand about the Dalish. While I myself am no expert, I would hardly expect the Templars to be so forgiving to a tattooed elf woman wielding a staff such as I have.

Hiding my equipment outside of town worked out well. I only have to hope that no hapless farmer comes across it. Not all of the things I carry on a mission are safe to handle.

Addendum: Or, if someone does so anyway, that the farmer in question has two apostates in the family. Himself included.

7 Drakonis, 9:24 Dragon

Perhaps running south hadn’t been his best idea.

It was the sort of thing that made Anders regret his penchant for escaping without an actual plan, per se.

Slightly.

The Frostback Mountains composed most of the border with Orlais, which was part of the reason why he hadn’t expected to run into the foothills so soon. The maps in Kinloch Hold didn’t really do it justice—after miles upon miles of green hills and gently rolling landscapes dotted with fir trees, the Frostbacks rise up out of the earth like spines on a dragon’s neck. And the path just kept going up.

It wasn’t cold yet, but sunset would probably bring a brand new array of interesting frost patterns and icicles soon enough. The grey-streaked green slopes were hardly inviting, snow or not. Spring came slowly to a place like this, meaning that there was enough snow far enough down the slopes to be unnerving, almost as much as the lack of humans in the area. Thus far, he had only seen scattered herds of sturdy mountain goats, probably tended by handlers no other living human had seen in ages. The lack of human contact was downright disorienting—after Redcliffe and Honnleath, he’d made the mistake of supposing there would be more people to talk to, even well into the mountains’ shadows.

At the very least, the inevitable templar pursuit party was probably going to have just as much trouble as he did. The frigid weather in the Frostbacks didn’t agree with the metal armor templars insisted on wearing. Granted, it didn’t much agree with him—see the robes? Not insulated!—either.

If he looked back, down through the vale he’d already passed through, Anders was almost certain he could see the faintest gleam from a pack of the helmeted bastards following in his footsteps.

Or maybe it was a trick of the fading light.

Anders turned back to the seemingly endless uphill climb ahead of him, sighing. His breath made a translucent white cloud.

It would all be worth it… Well, if he could get out of the country. True, Orlais was on the other side, but White Spire didn’t have his phylactery. The jurisdiction confusion could hold the templars up for a day or two, if they realized they’d popped over into the next country. Unless they just handed the tracker over to the Orlesians, anyway.

Of course, by the end of the day he still hadn’t gotten out of Ferelden, properly run away from his niggling worry about the pinheads inevitably dogging his heels, or managed to find shelter.

Worse, it got astoundingly cold as soon as the sun finally decided to drift off behind the peaks. Almost without thinking about it, Anders found himself speeding up whenever he saw a patch of rock or greenery still bathed in light—there, at least, it would be slightly warmer. Eventually, though, there was no more light and the wind continued to howl mercilessly across the rock, and he shivered in his suddenly too-thin robes.

Clutching his staff, currently more of an expensive lyrium-infused walking stick, he continued onward and upward into the thin air.

Sometime after the sky began to darken in earnest, and every breath he took was wheezy and showed up in the air, Anders crested a small hill and stumbled into something he hadn’t expected. The tree line had started to clear out a little, probably because there was a little game trail winding through the cliffs, but there was still a grove a little ways off and up.

Ringed by knotty mountain trees, crammed against the meeting place between a rock and a tree, was a sort of improvised tent made of evergreen boughs, moss, and dirt. The camp was well above the road, providing a perfect vantage point while being almost invisible to any creature passing below. In fact, Anders wouldn’t have seen it at all if he hadn’t smacked right into the low-grade illusion over it and known how to dispel it.

(Though he was certain that he would never tell anyone that he’d poked it with his staff first. That sort of thing could have cost a foot off the end of it, with a different spell.)

After confirming the camp was empty (by throwing a rock into it), Anders crept into it with curiosity leading him by the nose. Not for the first time, really.

Well, for a camp there wasn’t terribly much in it. Aside from the evergreen bedding, a campfire that didn’t look like it had yet been lighted, and a burlap satchel sitting on the ground, it looked like no one had bothered to do much at all to the little clearing. Anders didn’t have much experience with camping or tracking, but he did have enough book knowledge to know to test for traps. He prodded experimentally, looking for ankle snares or tripwires that most people used when trawling for thieves.

Granted, if the illusion had been cast by the sole owner of the campsite, then at least he might have a sympathetic ear (of the sort that didn’t generally use traps. Nasty things).

Though one of the trees nearby looked like it had taken a sword to the trunk at some point, peeling the bark back, which was less encouraging.

Still, nothing in the campsite looked abandoned, precisely. No dust (…did the outdoors gather dust?), no extra ashes in the fire pit…

Hm.

Well, if his options were staying here and probably being captured by Templars again, versus trying to run off on his own and likely being eaten by a red lion or breaking his fool neck trying to scale a cliff, Anders could honestly say that the former managed to win out by the slightest of margins. Assuming that the Templars were close enough to reach him in a day or so, anyway, he’d probably be woken by a kick to the head and have to trek downhill again.

…At least they couldn’t kill him. Not after he passed his Harrowing. In hindsight, perhaps it was best that his first and second attempts at apostasy had been short-lived.

Anders sighed to himself and began to settle in. Hopefully, the campsite’s owner wouldn’t be any angrier about his presence than the Templars would be, though he was at a loss to imagine such a thing.

#Dragon Age #Dragon Age Origins #Dragon age Inquisition #Anders #Warden Surana #Nyx Surana #fanfiction #snippet #snippets

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writevswrong · 7 years ago

Text

FANFIC * NESSIAN * PART THREE

Sorry for the delay! I’ve been on a damn quest, an adventure...an epic journey to get to my current location and I am finally here and part three is edited!! Just to let you know, the longer I take editing-the better these parts will come out. haha. Anywhoha, enjoy! :)

Nessian Part Three by L.J. LaFleur

“You stole something precious. Something sacred,” his gravelly voice made my skin crawl with bumps. Darkness surrounded me, blocking my view but I knew that voice. We had only come face-to-face a couple of times yet he was forever burned into my memory…my nightmares.

I could feel his breath on the back of my neck, tiny hairs pulling away from me. “You’re dead,” I shuddered, turning only to face nothing but an unending black pit. “I took off your head. I watched you die.” I almost stuttered, not out of complete fear, but outrage. I killed him, I twisted and twisted until his head popped off. It was a nightmare that I couldn’t outrun, bloody hands that I couldn’t get clean.

Hybern’s unnerving laughter echoed around me, I couldn’t tell where he positioned himself. “Nesta Archeon, the Cauldron thief.” Spit left his lips-hitting me on my neck. The smell of rot made my nose wrinkle with distaste. “The cauldron wants your gift back. It wants more than what you received and what you stole, it wants you.”

“I have nothing, I took nothing,” I hissed as I felt his decomposing hand tightly grip my left shoulder.

“You do and you did,” he waved his hands, revealing a dim lit sandstone cave. Several iron sconces lined the rocky tanned walls, loose sand beneath my bare feet.

My hands instinctively flung upwards to defend myself, hoping that I could handle his counter attack while my eyes adjusted.

“No, no, no-Nesta. I don’t need to fight you in physical combat. It’s much more rewarding breaking spirits than bones.” Hybern’s head was reattached to his body, his decaying skin had a pale sheen to it. There were areas where flesh and bone no longer connected, a string of tissue connected his cheek and jaw bone.

Chunks of vomit raced up my throat but I swallowed hard, hoping he didn’t notice.

With a reverberating snap of his fingers, my father appeared in his grasp. Terror overtook me, smothering my breath. Not only was Hybern alive, but so was my father. My trembling hands reached for him only to be blocked. One by one, they all appeared. Feyre, in her battle gear, already assessing the situation as Elain cried beside her. Their arms heavily chained with a turquoise glow.

“Release them,” I demanded, a pungent cold chill blasted towards me as he laughed.

“I forgot how fun you were to play with.” Hybern lifted his nose, what remained of his mouth adjusted into an unsettling grin, “when you give back what I want, they’ll be released.”

“Burn in hell,” I shot back, patience thinning. Feyre struggled against her chains, I could see her attempting to use her power--nothing.

Hybern’s smile fell, a grimace lining his rotten face. “Let’s try a different tactic, shall we?” He reached around my father’s neck, slowly squeezing the life out of him.

Father gasped, his strained voice professing his love for us. The harder Hybern gripped, the more my father’s eyes bulged.

“No…” I whispered, my heart cracking as I watched him die in front of me--again. Our father’s hands gripped around the death hold on his frail neck. Gasping for oxygen as I stood frozen in place.

“Let him go!” I reached for him but it was too late, I was too late. Hybern snapped his neck, the bone crushing sounds my father’s neck made twisted inside me. My hands ignited, flames roaring into talons while my stomach recoiled. I moved a step forward only to be pulled back into place. Again, and again, I tried and failed to move.

He released father’s body, letting the thud reverberate against the cave walls. Hybern’s already cold stature turned to ice, matching his milky colored eyes, “now, let’s try this again, give back what you stole.” His decomposing fingers clutched Elain’s bicep, digging into her flesh as he forced her to the other side of the cave, flames fighting against the wall above the sconces.

“Don’t touch her!” I screamed as he curled his finger, rubbing his bony knuckle against her smooth, tear stained cheek. He pulled out a blade--Azriel’s blade-- and touched it to her thin neck. “I don’t know what I stole, I don’t remember.” Elain wept as Hybern tightened the turquoise shackles, a fragile yelp left her rose colored lips. “Release her,” I snarled, my lower lip quivering with rage.

“Nesta, please. Help me, ple…” Elain’s trembling words were cut short as he slid the blade across her throat.

“No, no!” I shouted, watching the waterfall of scarlet gush out of her, “Elain!” I tried to rush to her but something was holding my feet in place, I looked down, iridescent chains of blue stone had wrapped around my feet. What was it? What, what is it? The stones…the name, the magic. It’s to lock down my power. I pulled against them, struggling to break through. Whatever was coursing through me tingled, the smell of magic fading from my nostrils.

Elain’s eyes focused on me, glossing over as the crimson stain widened on her pale gray nightgown.

“You’re going to run out of family members soon…” Hybern snickered while reaching for Feyre. Her war cries sounded when he touched her, tears rushing down her face. Feyre fought him, kicking and punching as much as she could to break free despite her lack of mobility. “Sad--making a deal that not only will end your life, but your mate’s too.”

Feyre spat in his face, her fighting useless against her restraints.

“Let go of my sister,” I seethed, the fire had grown up my arms, entangling itself around my skin like vines as light poured out of my hands. I could hear the bending and cracking of my shackles.

Hybern sneered, his guttural voice growing louder, “your light is no match for my darkness.”

“You’re terrible at one liners,” Feyre grunted as she shoved herself into him, forcing him backwards as she ran towards me.

“Run, get back to Rhys!” I bellowed, still struggling to break free.

“We’re leaving together,” she muttered, clenching her jaw. Feyre ran towards me, her messy braid waving behind her in the thick, damp air of the cave. An invisible wall shot up between us, her face smashing against it before falling to her feet. Blood drained from her broken nose and busted lip, a moan escaping her lips.

“Get up, get up…” I repeated while slamming my shoulder into the shield between us. “C’mon, Feyre!” I looked behind me, adjusting my position to keep Hybern in view.

His haunting laugh bounced off the walls, his body disappearing from my side of the wall. I threw my entire body against it, in hopes the wall would move with enough force.

“Feyre?” I called to her, “sister?” Heartache sinking into the marrow of my bones.

Hybern reappeared on Feyre’s side of the wall. He gripped her golden-brown hair, raising her head for me to see, “she’ll be free if you give your gift back-and the one you stole. Or you can come with me--I’ll take either option.”

“No,” Feyre let out a breath, “don’t go…” she struggled speaking as she choked on her blood.

“I’ll go! I’ll leave with you.” I cried out, my body shaking viciously. “I will kill you,” I promised, my veins setting fire within me.

“Nesta?” Feyre tried to crawl towards me, she winced as he pulled back her hair, her hands flinging to his. “Nesta!” She cried, “run.”

I shoved myself towards her, only to bounce back. Over and over, I slammed myself against the wall until my shoulder cracked under the pressure. A blinding white light flashed in front of my eyes as the pain rumbled through me. “I’ll kill you!”

“You already killed me and look, I’m still here.” Hybern taunted, shoving Feyre’s head into the sandy floor, a violent crack against the buried stone made my heart stop. The shield between us disappearing along with the bonds around my feet.

“Feyre?” I ran to her limp body, “wake up! Feyre?” I begged her, my hands clasped against my back revolting with fear. Her back rose with a short breath. Blood soaked her golden-brown hair, a small halo beginning to from around her. I couldn’t speak, it hurt too much to say her name. Tears of amber and flame dripped from my eyes as I watched the crimson seep out of her. “Hold on, please.” I watched her chest rise and fall, then nothing.

“What did you think would happen? Thieves always get what they deserve. You robbed me of my future, of my kingdom.” He was shouting by the end of his sentence but all I could focus on were the three bodies circled around me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered in my baby sister’s ear-my lips trembled against her cheek.

“I didn’t realize you cared so much for her--good.” Hybern snickered, his yellowed teeth had turned to chipped daggers.

I stood heavily, afraid I might fall over if I came up too fast. The ache in my shoulder felt like nothing compared to the loss of my sisters, the loss of my father. “You’ve taken everything away from me,” my wrists twisted against Hybern’s shackles, cracking against the heat.

“Not yet,” he coldly laughed, with a flick of his fingers, Cassian appeared across from me.

Cassian’s face was bloodied, his left eye swollen with a deep purple bruise. His shirt had been torn in several places, unveiling bloody gashes and torturous burn marks.

“Nesta,” he fought against the same restraints they had all been wearing, his hazel eyes growing with rage as he took in the silent chaos--the bodies around us.

“Cassian,” I ran towards him until Hybern’s hand went in the air, thrusting me backwards, I heard several cracks in my rib cage from the force of my body hitting the sandstone wall.

Cassian fighting towards me, unable to move in any direction--he bellowed a curse. Sand made its way into my eyes, scratching and stinging until more tears formed.

“Nesta!” Cassian croaked, his muscles tightening as he pulled against his chains. “Nes,” his wings opened, Cassian flapped his wings once, soaring towards me.

Hybern shook his finger, his decaying, taut lips barely moving, “no. Not yet, no happy reunions until I get back what should have been mine.” He lifted his hand, pulling on Cassian’s wing effortlessly as he threw him back towards the earth.

The bones in my knees and shins felt the crushing pressure of an invisible weight, I couldn’t lift up against it, “I told you I would go with you. Let him go, spare him,” my teeth gritted against each other. Amber streams trickled from my eyes as I watched Cassian reach for me. Cries escaped me, shaking my head, begging him not to fight-not to endanger himself further.

“That wasn’t the answer I was looking for,” he huffed as his eyes shifted from me to Cassian. Hybern’s face contorted into a wicked fox grin.

My blazing eyes blocked out everything and everyone but Cassian. “Don’t hurt him,” I barked to Hybern. The fire in my body erupting like a volcano, exploding through every cell, every vein and limb flowing with lava. I shimmied myself to a seated position, flattening my back against the sandstone.

“Beg me,” he pressed, watching Cassian struggle against his invisible hold.

“Please…” I breathed deep to avoid further crying, “don’t…hurt him.”

“Not good enough,” Hybern raised his hands, flinging Cassian towards the wall opposite of me.

Cassian let out a gut wrenching scream as I watched his wings get pinned to the sandstone with dozens of iron spikes, invisible claws shredding him one section at a time.

“Cass!” I screamed-unable to get his entire name out as I cried with him. The fire dancing against my skin ignited from the inside, “No!” I reached for him, for his hand, for anything I could touch. “Cassian,” I begged as I watched the blood leave his face.

“Nesta!” Someone violently shook my shoulders with icy hands. A bitter coldness encasing my arms.

“Feyre? What…? What happened?” I asked frightened, she was dead. I, I saw her die. Tendrils of smoke curled around them, “you’re okay, you’re alive.” My body crumbled with relief, crushing a pile of ashes beneath me.

A shadow disappeared out of the corner of my peripheral. Puffs of gray swirled against the darkness of the room. I adjusted myself on my elbow, barely needing to squint my eyes to see the emerald room was charred, several puddles of water crowded the dirty floor.

“What the hell was that?” Feyre whispered, her hands working on a couple of flickering flames on the chaise across the nonexistent bed. Water and frost built around the fire, suffocating it until it was nothing but a shadow marking the floor.

“I did this,” I didn’t need to ask, the ice around my hands melted, my limbs still burning. I peered down to see the light in my hands fade. “Is everyone okay?” I couldn’t look at her, not out of embarrassment or anger, not even out of fear or envy.

“No one’s hurt. I was up when I smelled the fire.” She held out her hand over a small set of flames, water pouring from her palm, “painting.”

I crossed my arms around my shaken legs, I was naked. I swallowed hard as I watched the wind from the window pick up ashes. My body trembled as I stood, damp air attacking every pore. I stood with my bare feet in another heap of ashes that were once a dresser and desk. “I didn’t mean to do this, I had no intention of damaging your home.”

“It’s your home too and it’s fine. It finally gives Mor an excuse to redecorate,” Feyre mentioned. The sound of Mor’s name pierced what portions of my heart I had left. I buried my fighting tongue into my left cheek and opened the closet. A floor length dusty blue nightgown was all that remained. Hesitantly, I pulled it on, lace panels itched against my dried skin but I wasn’t going to complain after nearly burning down the entire house.

Feyre completed putting out the remaining fires, her face softened as she caught me looking away from her. “What did I do to you that caused so much malice, so much hatred? Just tell me so I can fix it or at least acknowledge it and not repeat the same mistake.” Her voice coated with despair, with exhaustion as she rubbed her temple.

“You did nothing, Feyre,” I hesitated, caught in between wanting to say more and not wanting to remember the past. My jaw tightened, grinding my teeth together as I debated.

“Hopefully one day you’ll tell me. That you’ll be able to look at me without seeing whatever happened,” she looked upwards, towards the onyx colored ceiling and then back down.

Our eyes met, “you look like mother,” was all I managed, my arms wrapping around me as I noticed the frosty areas of the room.

Feyre nodded, her face clouded with frustration until she looked away from me. “I’ll be out of Velaris tomorrow. I think it would be best if you attend training with Cassian. It could help.”

“Already in my schedule,” I replied, careful not to sound rude.

She nodded before heading towards the door, my lips parting, “I won’t tell anyone if that’s what you’re about to ask.” Her head hanging as she took a deep breath.

I nodded, relief soothing my aching chest, “Curse Breaker and Secret Keeper.”

“One in the same, really.” Feyre raised her head, cooling the handle with ice and swiftly closed the door behind her.

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bearhatarmy · 6 years ago

Photo

Here’s a hot take from conservative pundit and massive transphobe music fan, Ben Shapiro. Normally I would tackle the more serious topics Ben discusses, but this really felt like it deserved a response.

Though, if I wanted to take a more serious angle, I suppose I could make the argument that rap is a huge part of the black community’s cultural identity & heritage and by belittling it, Ben is insulting and diminishing one of a marginalized group’s main creative outlets that they use to communicate their struggles.

But that would be racist! Ben isn’t racist! He is constantly explaining over and over just how not-racist he is. Which is what all non-racists have to do.

This has nothing to do with racism and Ben has some solid FACTS explaining why.

HE LIKES JAZZ, OKAY?

AND OPINIONS ARE NEVER RACIST.

I GUESS.

EVEN THOUGH HE SAID IT WAS A FACT.

So, to be clear, this will just be a not-serious analysis about Ben’s totally not-racist FACT that rap is not-music.

Let’s get this not-party started...

You see, Ben is famous for his motto, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”

He’s even leveraged his factual wisdom and made it into merchandise.

That’s a real thing people can buy. It even has 6 whole reviews on Amazon!

Beyond the Box rated it with 3 stars saying, “It's okay but small.”

(Aww, just like Ben!)

And Tim S. described the shirt’s fit as “Liberals are destroying the country.”

(I’m pretty sure that means it’s a tad itchy.)

Before I saw Ben’s factual tweet, I really FELT like rap was an amazing musical artform. It took poetry and made it musical. It gave people a new way to express themselves that didn’t require expensive music lessons or even instruments. A friend could just bang on a table while you let it flow. It made creating music more accessible. And as long as you had good rhythm you could participate. It FELT groundbreaking at the time.

The very first cassette tape I bought was Good Vibrations by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. (I know that isn’t a great start, but I was like 10, okay?) The very first compact disc I bought was 2 Legit 2 Quit by MC Hammer. (Don’t laugh, he was the shit in 1991.) As I reached my formative years, I started listening to DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Beastie Boys, and House of Pain.

I jump’d around. (squeeEEEEEee)

But as some of you may have noticed, most of my musical selections were very mainstream. You’ve probably also noticed that I am very... white.

To this day, even! I think it is a chronic condition.

My skin is near translucent due to lack of sunlight. I often say things like “indubitably” and “bloviate” and “I’m sure this chicken will be fine with minimal seasoning.” And at one point I owned the entire Creed discography.

I was in desperate need of a Hip Hop education.

Now using the official Rules of Republican Conduct™, if I want to talk about something with a racial component, all I need is a single black friend. This will absolve me of any consequences.

Interesting Froggie Fun Fact... I went to a mostly black high school!

Check this out...

That’s TWO black friends!

Shawn is the one teaching me a complicated handshake I instantly forgot. And Marcus is photobombing us in the back there.

I wish I could say our school was super progressive and everyone got along dandy. But in the mid-90s that just wasn’t the case. There were no major conflicts, but a lot of the white kids would sort of... self segregate. They’d all choose lockers in the same area. They’d sit in the same area at lunch and in class. And not a lot of them would interact with black kids outside of school.

That said, I did not get the segregation memo. I got along with everyone. I’m not saying I was some amazing colorblind trailblazer crossing racial boundaries at every turn. My locker was in the white section too. And I only had two black friends (not pictured) that I hung out with outside of school.

But I do think humor can break down a lot of barriers. And I used comedy to cross those invisible lines from time to time.

Do you remember “Yo Mama” jokes?

Like uhhh... Yo mama so old, her social security number is 1. Yo mama so lazy, she stuck her nose out the window and let the wind blow it. Yo mama so classless, she’s a Marxist utopia.

You get it.

Before school or before class, a lot of kids would have these competitions. They would face off with their best motherly insults and typically the person who received the loudest “OH DAAAAAAMMMMN!” would be declared the winner.

One day I just kind of decided to make fun of Shawn’s mama. After a few seconds of stunned silence I got the loudest OH DAMN of anyone and we were suddenly friends. And then his friends were my friends too. Our friendship didn’t go outside the school premises, but it was still a lot of fun joking around with them at lunch or when we were supposed to be doing homework.

Shawn and I started a sort of cultural exchange. He would tell me about all of the amazing music he was into. And I explained why Batman: The Animated Series was not a kid’s cartoon. IT WAS ANIMATION. Says it right in the name.

He introduced me to a wide range of artists of color. Old and new (at the time). We talked about Boyz II Men, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Prince. He introduced me to Mary J Blige who I follow to this day. And Aaliyah :(

He also told me about not-music.

Ya know... rappers.

I’ll be honest, sometimes this was challenging for me. I did not like or understand everything he suggested. I had a lot of racist baggage leftover from an all-white Catholic elementary school and my brain resisted for longer than I care to admit. But after seeing Shawn’s passion for this not-music, I became rap-curious and willing to keep an open mind.

Let me try to name-drop from memory...

Puff Daddy, Lauryn Hill, Wu-Tang Clan, Naughty By Nature, Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, Dr. Dre, Biggie Smalls, Ice Cube, and some guy named Tupac Shakur. You’ve probably never heard of him.

He’d even sneak a Walkman in his backpack so he and his friends could sample his latest acquisitions.

He’d be like, “Hey Ben, you want to listen to some Master P?” And I’d be like, “Sure! You wanna listen to Nine Inch Nails?” And he’d be like, “Naw, I’m good.”

Okay, so the cultural exchange could be a bit one-sided at times. But Batman bonded us all.

Admittedly, when I was at home, I still mostly listened to Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Stone Temple Pilots on repeat. And I do not listen to a great deal of Hip Hop these days. Mostly due to lack of guidance. I don’t have a Shawn in my life anymore. (But that Cardi B Money song was crazy good. And I’m not just saying that cuz the video had boobs.)

Shawn was able to get me to a place where even if I didn’t like what I was listening to, I understood why other people enjoyed it. I really learned to appreciate rap and many of Shawn’s suggestions made an appearance on my super rad 90s Winamp playlist.

Sometimes when I was having a bad day, it was nice to have a good day to fall back on.

So when I was very whitely bobbing my head to the beat of that communal Walkman, I didn’t think my friends were stupid. I didn’t think I was stupid. I didn’t FEEL stupid.

But facts are facts. And my feels about facts don’t matter.

You see, Ben Shapiro is known for being a master debater. You can find videos of him CRUSHING LIBRULS WITH LOGIC. Or DESTROYING FEMINISTS with TRU FACTS. Perhaps even DEMOLISHING SOCIALISTS with STATISTICS.

His big Harvard brain is pretty relentless when it comes to DESTROYMOLISHING The Left.

He’s great at taking standard conservative talking points, couching them in academic speak, and peppering them with dubious facts that don’t always hold up to scrutiny after the fact. Some might argue he cherry picks his opponents and the subject matter, creates scenarios where his point of view will be well received, and uses bad faith tactics to give the appearance of the upper hand.

But that would be speculation and this post is all about FACTS.

And Ben’s facts are too powerful to dispute. I doubt anyone is up to the challenge. Not even a transgender woman with epic makeup, glorious costumes, creative lighting schemes, and a degree in philosophy could take him to task.

It’s just... unpossible.

*cough* Contrapoints *cough*

Sorry, had a froggie in my throat.

SO... let’s see Ben defend “rap isn’t music” using his fancy debating skillz. It took him 6 years to come up with this, so I’m betting it’s bulletproof.

OH I SEE.

He plays CLASSICAL music.

CHECKMATE, RAPPERS!

Ben Shapiro DESTROYGASMS Hip Hop with UNDERWHELMING TWEET.

If you’ll allow me to expound his logic, being a classically trained musician makes you more specialer than a regular musician. It makes him an arbiter of what is and is not music. I forgot that classical musicians were automatically given that power.

I know Ben only ever presents facts, so I’d like to take him at his word, but I think I’d like to see this music master perform something. Just to be sure he has the proper classical credentials to make these bold claims.

Here is a music video he produced for The Daily Wire. Clearly a high budget homage to one of the most thrilling television themes in recent history.

youtube

Did anyone else feel like they were watching 3 robots play the blandest arrangement ever conceived? Or was that just me? SUCH ENERGY.

I will say, those special effects were... something.

And Ben really PWNED CNN. I’m sure they felt that slice all the way in their Atlanta headquarters.

Ben, if you’re reading this, that video was totally funny in the way you intended. People are definitely laughing with you and not at you. I didn’t cringe even a little.

But does this prove that Ben is a proper CLASSICAL musician? With all the power and privileges that entails?

Does he have the authority to judge musical worthiness?

Despite his robotic performance, I suppose he did hit all the correct notes and everything.

Is music like facts? Does music care about your feelings?

I think what we need is a comparison. Something we can judge Ben’s performance against in order to gauge his level of classical musicianship.

This is Tina Guo.

She is a Chinese-American immigrant from Shanghai. She moved here at the age of 5. She probably was able to sneak in because there wasn’t a border wall yet. She is taking the jobs of American classical musicians. Probably why Ben isn’t in a top-tier symphony orchestra as we speak.

Tina is a cello prodigy who was trained classically. She attended the USC Thornton School of Music for professional cello studies on a full scholarship where she studied under Nathaniel Rosen and Eleonore Schoenfeld--some of the most influential cellists of the 20th century.

She also made a huge splash on YouTube casually playing Flight of the Bumblebee as a teenager. No biggie. I’m sure Ben can play that too.

Oh, and do you remember that badass Wonder Woman theme written by famous composer Hans Zimmer?

That was her playing the lead.

Now for the comparison.

Watch Librul Immigrant DESTROY the Game of Thrones theme that she arranged ALL BY HERSELF without the help of a BIG STRONG MAN.

youtube

I don’t know.

I think that was a smidge better than Ben’s version.

What do you folks think?

So here is the dilemma.

We have two CLASSICAL musicians who are at nearly identical skill levels...

HOWEVER... after some investigation...

It’s possible Tina Guo thinks rap... might be music.

*GASP*

THE EVIDENCE

One of her favorite ways to practice improvisation is to jam along with Hip Hop tracks she finds on YouTube.

Now, conservatives like Ben LOVE dictionary definitions. It’s their go-to debate tactic when trying to legitimize the idea of racism toward white folks. So let’s use the dictionary really quick.

When I looked up what this “jamming” word meant, it sent me to “jam session.” I was shocked by what I found.

Musicians? MUSIC? But those backing tracks she practiced to were used for rap non-music. BEN I AM CONFUSED.

I think I need to dig deeper.

After scouring the internet for almost 2 minutes I was able to find something even more shocking.

Here is LIBRUL CLASSICAL SNOWFLAKE IMMIGRANT FEMINIST MUSICIAN sharing the stage with a CUCK NON-MUSIC RAP ARTIST.

That kinda looks like Tina Guo... and LUPE FIASCO.

*DOUBLE GASP*

And I’ve double checked this... it seems this Lupe fellow is definitely a rapper.

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

I mean, she has her cello. And he has a microphone. But it’s a FACT that rap isn’t music. So I guess they are doing some experimental anti-music performance together.

ANOTHER SHOCKING IMAGE HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION AFTER ANOTHER 12 SECONDS OF GOOGLING.

What the heck, Tina?

Why are you, A CLASSICAL MUSICIAN, on a stage with Common? Another rapper!

I’m a little worried that Tina might be stupid.

Ben’s FACT clearly states if you think rap is music, then you are stupid.

And not only is Tina playing music near a rapper... I’m pretty sure she is playing music WITH a rapper.

That’s like... double stupid.

I really don’t know what to feel about these facts I’ve uncovered.

These FACTS kinda FEEL like bullshit.

At least I can take comfort in the absolute fact that Ben Shapiro is a solid 5 feet 9 inches tall. It gives me comfort knowing he can ride any roller coaster he wants.

Sick burn, Ben. Though you’re kind of implying that when Milo sees you he is giving you blowjobs. I’m sure you’re fine with that implication. It’s not like you’re homophobic or anything, right?

The important thing is that everyone knows how you’re a big boy. Two inches taller than Napoleon!

I mean, it would be silly to lie about such a thing so easily disproved, right? And there is nothing to be ashamed of if you are a shorter individual. My mom is short I think she’s the best!

So I’m confident you are 5′9″ as you have stated.

I CAN’T FEEL ANY MORE FACTS, BEN.

MY SOUL CAN’T TAKE IT.

You know what... screw it.

I’m going to make it serious.

Not liking rap isn’t racist.

Telling people they are stupid for liking rap is super racist.

And being too stubborn to apologize for a 6-year-old tweet compounds that racism.

Liking jazz is just the musical version of “I have a black friend.”

Not understanding that rap is a cultural staple vital to the black community and then comparing it to frickin’ Titanic makes it profoundly racist.

And... *takes a deep breath* continually defending a shitty 6-year-old tweet as recent as last July, even though you could probably just apologize, blame it on youthful ignorance, delete it, and never have to deal with it again, just because you can’t ever admit you ever said anything wrong...

Well, that just makes you look...

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jewishphilosophyplace · 8 years ago

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(Pasolini) Hardscrabble Religious Image (The Gospel According to St. Mathew)

I think one could reasonably argue that in modern art, including cinema, including cinema that touches upon “the spiritual in art,” the background frames are more important than the figures operating on the foreground. The ones that grabbed me most in Pasolini’s classic black and white The Gospel According to St. Matthew are the dark, hardscrabble shots. These are the flinty landscapes, Herod’s rough and buff young man-soldiers at the massacre of the innocents, stony Jerusalem cityscapes, tough priests and imposing headgear, and the death of Judas by suicide. We could organize these under the rubrics “landscape,” “cityscape,” and “anthro-scape.” Drawn from southern Italy, the created environment is inhospitable to life. In this piece of Vitalist visual thinking, the rough material and cruel social substrate appears as if dead in order to highlight the mysterious, life-sustaining miracle of the revelation. Reflecting no doubt a Jewish prejudice of my own construction, I was less drawn to the shots of Jesus and his companions. Just too pretty, Jesus and Mary were unable to match the raw topographical, urban, and human brutality of the background. To do that, they would have needed to be as nasty, brute, and “ugly.”

More so than the figure of Jesus himself and the gospel words, it was the soundtrack that carried for this viewer the strong sense of “spirit.” There was Bach (Mass in B Minor) along with Odetta’s “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,” the thundering “Gloria” from the Congolese Missa Luba, and a quiet Kol Nidre. All of these were complemented by the haunting sound of “wind” insinuating itself over the landscape, the literal form of spirit as ruaḥ.

About sound in relation to topography I’m grabbing a piece from Deleuze in Cinema 2. He’s not writing here about Pasolini per se, but he makes good sense of the point I’m trying to make. That point concerns how in film the “aesthetic of the visual image …takes on a new character: its pictorial or sculptural qualities depend on a geological, tectonic power as in Cezanne’s mountains…The visual image reveals its geological strata or foundations, whilst the act of speech and also of music becomes for its part founder [sic], ethereal (Cinema 2, p.246). (The use of that term “ethereal” gives Deleuze away; it appears, he had an eye and an ear for “the spiritual in art.”)

In avant-garde films like the Gospel According to St. Matthew, what should be most clear is that narrative-linguistic content is subordinate to images, understood as poetic. This seems especially necessary in movies that handle religious or spiritual material in which “content” threatens to overwhelm and flatten the aesthetic sensation that shapes the shape of the content. The opposition between poetry and prose is one of the basic points in Pasolini’s well-known essay “The Cinema of Poetry” (1965). There he develops the idea of the irreducibly irrational, oneiric essence of cinema as being more like poetry than prose. While I would reject much of Pasolini’s thinking as too binary in structure, the structure gives one a good idea regarding what to look for in his larger body of work, this film included. Simply put, the landscape in the background, I would argue, is more irascible than the primary figures. In much the same way, Derrida privileged the picture frame over the picture in his unjustly neglected Truth in Painting.

http://ift.tt/2aDYVJs You can read all of “The Cinema of Poetry” here. While it is not Pasolini’s intention in this essay to write about religion and art, I want to focus on how his analysis highlights the brute irrational as the most “significant” component in “the spiritual in art.” Again I want to direct attention to environmental features such as a landscape, cityscape, and anthro-scape. Pasolini writes, “Here, we must immediately make a marginal observation: whereas the instruments of poetic or philosophical communication are already extremely perfected, truly form a historically complex system which has reached its maturity, those of the visual communication which is at the basis of cinematic language are altogether brute, instinctive. Indeed, gestures, the surrounding reality, as much as dreams and the mechanisms of memory, are of a virtually pre-human order, or at least at the limit of humanity in any case pre-grammatical and even premorphological (dreams are unconscious phenomena, as are mnemonic mechanisms; the gesture is an altogether elementary sign, etc.).”

Setting aside the semiotic terms of Pasolini’s analysis, about the imagistic quality of the shots that I selected above, see this 1965 interview, in which the filmmaker underscores again the brute, mystical and irrational, which in The Gospel According to St. Matthew are best evoked by non-human and inhumane features. http://ift.tt/2pHmLh2 Pasolini explains, “Although St. Matthew wrote without metrics, he would have the rhythm of epic and lyric production. And for this reason, I have renounced in the film any kind of realistic and naturalistic reconstruction. I completely abandoned any kind of archaeology and philology, which nevertheless interest me in themselves. I didn’t want to make an historical reconstruction. I preferred to leave things in their religious state, that is, their mythical state. Epic-mythic. Not desiring to reconstruct settings that were not philosophically exact—reconstructed on a sound stage by scene designers and technicians—and furthermore not wanting to reconstruct the ancient Jews, I was obliged to find everything—the characters and the ambiance—in reality.”

What is of interest here in the analogical method is the collapse of time into a single image that belong neither entirely to the past nor entirely to the present. The Gospel According to St. Matthew was intentionally made in such a way as to not resemble conventional biblical epics built on a logic of “representation.” The register is not historical, but nor is it ahistorical. Building on top of temporal strata (Scripture, Catholic tradition, and Italian art), the film is supra-historical in structure, the brute milieu being non-specific to the text and the time of its origins. The landscapes are what below we will see Deleuze refer to as “any-place-whatever.” In Pasolini’s film, the place of the film is southern Italy, not Roman Judea. The “jews” are Italian. Relating to what Deleuze called a “time-image,” I want to mean by this term simply the way the sense of the past and the sense of the present are crystalized into a single image. The image includes biblical gospel compressed alongside ongoing realities of poverty and revolutionary struggle, caught best in long shots devoid of either a human presence or sympathetic visage.

The reality has been made strange by film, and that too was deliberate. On shooting the film piece by piece, Pasolini describes his own working method as a filmmaker. “My work is facilitated by the fact that I never shoot entire scenes. Being a ‘non-professional’ director I’ve always had to ‘invent’ a technique that consists of shooting only a very brief bit at one time. Always in little bits—I never shoot a scene continuously. And so even if I’m using a non-actor lacking the technique of an actor, he’s able to sustain the part—the illusion—because the takes are so brief.” This then is the trick in relation to the shots framing my own analysis. On one hand, the sense of strangeness depends upon long and extended shots, the camera lingering in sharp, mosaic segments, on the other hand.

The roughness that is characteristic of the raggedy film-segment conveys something that Elizabeth Castelli observes in her introduction to her translation of St. Paul, the screenplay of an uncompleted project just published by Verso. Against what Pasolini dismissed as the modern “bourgeoisentropy,” Castelli notes his claim that modern consumerism “would overwhelm modern society and render the peasant and the worker invisible. Such entropy would, in his view, make unsentimental expressions of authenticity increasingly difﬁcult, not to say completely impossible.” “Translating Pasolini Translating Paul” in St. Paul, Verso, 2017, p.28)

What I am picking up from Castelli is not the filmmaker’s otherwise unremarkable Marxist-Christian critique of modern capitalism. What matters more to the analysis offered here is how she flags Pasolini’s critique of sentimentality, which is a feature so often an infelicitous part of the warp and woof of religion and film. Pasolini’s shots of landscapes, cityscapes, and anthro-scapes are powerful as “religious” or “spiritual” only to the degree that they are, on the whole, the most unwarm quality of his film on Matthew.

This lack of sentiment glosses those silent moments and spaces, figures of alienation which are haunting as wordless and without world. About long topographical shots in Pasolini and in other works of postwar cinema, Deleuze is keen to show how the movement-image (i.e. the image of action, which, like language, works according to a cause-effect chronological sequence of an extended shot) is suspended in the compressed form of the time-image.

I can conclude this post no better than by citing Deleuze, who writes, “The break in the sensory-motor link does not only affect the speech-act turning in on itself and hollowing itself out, and in which the voice now refers only to itself and to other voices. It also affects the visual image, which now reveals the any-space-whatevers, empty or disconnected spaces characteristic of modern cinema. It is as if, speech having withdrawn from the image to become founding act, the image, for its part, raised the foundations of space, the ‘strata’, those silent powers of before or after speech, before or after man. The visual image becomes archaeological, stratigraphic, tectonic. Not that we are taken back to prehistory (there is an archaeology of the present), but to the deserted layers of our time which bury our own phantoms; to the lacunary layers which we juxtaposed according to variable orientations and connections. These are the deserts in German cities. These are the deserts of Pasolini, which make prehistory the abstract poetic element, the ‘essence’ co-present with our history, the archaean base which reveals an interminable history beneath our own” (Cinema 2 pp.243-4).

http://ift.tt/2pHE9Ct

#uncategorized #Christianity #cinema #Deleuze #Pasolini

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shirtlesssammy · 8 years ago

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Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell: Savor it because we won’t see Cas for over a month Recap

Then:

In which writer, Davey Perez, continues to ascend to the Fan Throne of Goodness vacated by the much missed Robbie Thompson.

Now:

On a camping excursion in the wilds of Nebraska, a young woman, Gwen, attempts to split firewood against the grain, her boyfriend, Marcus, is busy watching nature on his iPad, and the audience realizes -with or without monsters- this cute city couple is DOOMED. Before their imminent demise, they talk about her acceptance to a veterinary school out-of-state, and the ability to make a long-distance relationship work. On the premise of getting more firewood, the boyfriend wanders away to practice his proposal speech. Gwen stumbles upon the ring. And unfortunately for Marcus, a hellhound stumbles upon him! He just makes it back to camp before getting shredding to pieces. Gwen stands paralyzed but eventually gets the wherewithal to slash the invisible beast with the ax (also against the grain --the hellhound lived, even if Gwen escaped.)

RIP Marcus.

At the bunker, Sam and Dean and Lucille are just getting back from an epic hunting trip. (Fun Fact: Boris had to stop watching The Walking Dead just when Papa Winchester showed up. Too many sads.) It seems Sam keeps finding new jobs through a new computer program, aka, Frodo, aka, Mick Davies. So I see Sam hasn’t told his brother of his little allegiance yet. Dean’s ready to go, after all he has baby wipes in the car to remove any residual siren gunk, but Sam insists he shower first.

Dean acquiesces but insists he’s going to use Sam’s fancy shampoo in retaliation. (Boris is willing to hand-wave Dean’s lack of cleanliness for himself due to his overwhelming need to hunt and forget about his mom issues, but getting monster gunk in Baby? That cannot stand.)

The boys make it to the scene of Marcus’s demise, finishing phone calls as they exit Baby. Sam (talking to his mom): “Let us know.” Dean (talking to Cas): “Love you too.” Oh wait, scratch that, reverse it. Sam fills Dean in on their mom’s recent hunt with the Brits. Dean fills Sam in on more angel killings (like, doesn’t that warrant a drop-everything-and-help-Cas situation? Finding the nephilim seems WAY more time sensitive than bear attacks, but don’t mind me, I’m just a bitter Cas girl.) (Natasha: raises hand in solidarity.)

Speaking of Cas, or Agent Solange...

He’s at a diner, investigating the death of a waitress. Herb, the diner’s manager, believes she was killed by a Reptilian alien, you know, like the Queen of England. Cas is dismissive but Herb has proof and pulls out a tape! Man, this whole scene played like a goofier episode of The X-Files. It gave me happy feels. It also reminded me of Ronald Reznick and Mandroids. (And I love the silly reference to Misha Collin’s weird thing with the Queen.) In any event, they watch the video, which consists of Kelly Kline’s confrontation with angels and her rescue by Dagon, and her yellow eyes. “Like I said, reptilian,” Herb confirms. Cas takes the tape and leaves.

At the campsite, Sam and Dean hear about Gwen’s strange account of the attack. They were attacked by an invisible wolf. “Invisible dog. Sounds like a hellhound to me,” Dean concludes, and Sam agrees, as they head out to interview Gwen.

Once at Gwen’s house, the brothers disagree on how they should explain the situation. The much handsomer brother spitballs telling her the whole disturbing and unbelievable truth, but Sam says they just need to lie, a lot.

Of course, by letting in Agents Clapton and Baker, Gwen unknowingly lets in the hellhound. They tell her that a bear killed her boyfriend. She is not in danger, but Gwen doesn’t believe them, and tells them to leave. And the hellhound attacks! Sam and Dean burst in and shoot the hound, but it escapes out the window.

Crowley. Oh Crowley, what are you doing with Lucifer? You’re a smart demon, Fergus. But this seems...ill-advised. Yet he continues to hold Lucifer prisoner and taunt him. Lucifer isn’t too concerned. “I’m still gonna peel off your skin and eat your soul.” Lucifer makes it clear that they both know that the chains that hold him are just a temporary situation. “I’m already 10 steps ahead,” Crowley reassures the audience. He then meets with Demon #1 and #2. There’s a lot of Hell business to handle.

Back at Gwen’s, Sam and Dean tell her the whole disturbing and unbelievable truth --a hellhound just attacked her. Dean’s admission that they’ve tangled with hellhounds in the past is an understatement. *crying in corner over sad season 3 feels* The boys tell her that hellhounds only go after people who have sold their soul to a demon. They ask her to recall anything in her past or Marcus’s that they might have done unknowingly. Her answer is a firm “No.” The brothers call in the big guns for a conundrum like this: Crowley.

Summary: Dean calls Crowley “Peaches”, and Crowley is still pissed about the whole Gavin thing. Dean asks about the hellhounds and Demon #1 and #2 admit that Ramsey escaped. Crowley pops over to the brothers without hesitation.

Outside the diner a new angel, Kelvin, confronts Castiel. He’s looking for Kelly Kline as well and suggests that they partner up.

Back at Gwen’s house, Crowley unhelpfully introduces the hellhound as “THE Hellhound.” Sam squints inquisitively. Well, God created posies, koalas...

...and hellhounds! He wanted to make God’s best friend but ended up with a vicious beast instead. Rather than killing all the hounds, Lucifer rescued Ramsey, a pregnant hellhound. Loyal to her first master, she’s the one hound Crowley has never been able to control. As to why this wayward hound is after Gwen? Well, she did whack it with an axe. You could say that hound has an “axe to grind.” (Shows myself out.) Everybody looks exasperated at Gwen when instead, IMO, they should be high fiving Gwen’s bad ass self for sticking an axe in a hellhound and surviving the encounter. Anyway, everybody - even Crowley - is ready to saddle up and put an end to Ramsey.

“That mutt’s head, mounted on my wall - good for the brand,” Crowley says, explaining his participation.

“A hellhound gunning for revenge,” Dean snarks. “Just when I thought this gig couldn’t get any weirder.”

“It can always get weirder,” Crowley tells him, weirdly. (I APPROVE of this message and also your weirdly significant look, Crowley...and by extension Andrew Dabb / Davy Perez?? That is a damn fine motto right there.)

Back in Crowley’s palace, two demons open up Lucifer’s cell with a key they purloined from Crowley’s pocket. They walk in to find Lucifer trussed up and mouth gagged.

(At this point there was a commercial break during the broadcast. I feel compelled to tell you that I spent the whole commercial break cursing Crowley’s stupidity for locking Lucifer up with simple chains that open with a key. Crowley! Who is always so clever when it comes to self-preservation. Anyway.)

The two minions immediately begin fawning over Lucifer - and complaining about Crowley. He killed everyone involved in “the cage project.”. Minions 1 and 2 set Ramsey free as a distraction so they could bust Lucifer out.

Back in the woods Dean pulls out two holy-fire-treated pairs of eyeglasses. Dean and Crowley will patrol the woods for Ramsey while Sam drives around with Gwen in the Impala.

Dean settles a soulful look on Sammy. “Take care of her,” he implores. Oh Dean, you big soft package of cotton candy! Don’t worry! The Winchesters always find a way to save the day! While we’re all clutching at our hearts, Sam realizes that Dean was referring to Baby - not scared little axe-swinging, hellhound mauling Gwen. “Imagine she’s a beautiful woman,” Dean tells him. (The rest of us: side eye.) Okay, great talk, Dean. He heads off into the woods with Crowley as Sam drives away.

Boomeranging back to Castiel, he’s parked in a bar with Kelvin sipping waters. (Bartenders must HATE angels.) Heaven’s running along in an orderly fashion but the angels want him back to help with their nephilim problem. Castiel has the most field experience, after all.

“I think you overestimate me,” Cas says, profoundly underestimating himself (as is his way lately).

Kelvin begs to differ and suggests that having Heaven waiting in the wings when the wee human Winchesters fail is just smart strategy. Plus, as a bonus, if Cas does Heaven a solid then he can go back to coming and going as he pleases. Cas doubts Kelvin’s ability to actually follow through on any of the promises he’s spinning, so Kelvin drops his power card. Kelvin is just a messenger from Heaven - Joshua can restore Cas to his rightful place in Heaven. Go on, emotes Cas, turning towards Kelvin.

“Imagine it, Castiel. For you to come and go as you please. Part of your family - your true family again.” Cas looks at him in consideration. (Me: Noooooooo Cas!)

Back in the palace, Lucifer is suffering through the worst Hell-torture of all: irritating minions. They finally finish outlining their list of demands. Well, one of them has a long list of demands. All that Minion #2 cares about is “Making Hell great again.” (Me: laugh cries)

At last they unlock Lucifer. Stupid STUPID minions. Minion 1 disintegrates in a puff of fire and ash. Minion 2 offers himself up. “My life is yours to devour!”

Lucifer: “See, now you just made it weird.” POOF.

In the woods on the hellhound hunt, Crowley flirts with Dean. He’s all “those glasses bring out your eyes” and “remember that fivesome we had when you were a demon?”

Dean and Crowley marvel at a Winchester and the King of Hell working together yet again. “You saved Cas,” Dean says, at last thanking Crowley for saving the day a few episodes ago.

“Just to spare myself the Winchester man pain,” Crowley snarks.

Dean sees something in the woods - it’s Gwen’s boyfriend’s body, dragged back to Ramsey’s den. The hellhound’s den is empty!

For Science

And back to the Impala, where Sam drives along merrily with Gwen who succumbs to the Impala’s magical confession and introspection powers. “This is all my fault,” she mourns. She asks Sam to pull over so she can vomit. When she returns she confesses that she wanted to break up with her boyfriend, but she still acted like everything was perfect between them. “Why couldn’t I just tell him the truth? I lied to make things easier.”

Sam weeps along with her (internally) and reflects upon his own lying lies with Dean. He finally pulls himself out of his miserable slump and looks up to see Ramsey snarling in front of them. (Me: Hit it with the car, Sam! Wouldn’t be the first dog, amirite?)

Ramsey busts up Baby a bit, then Sam grabs an angel blade and heads out to kill the dog. The glasses get knocked off of his face during a scuffle and things look bad for our hero. Then Gwen comes out and knocks the hellhound off of Sam like a fucking bad ass.

This gives Sam just the distraction needed to climb to his feet. When the hound rushes him again, he stabs her with the blade, killing her.

When the four regroup, Dean castigates Sam for his damaged car. A relieved Gwen gives Crowley a giant happy bunny hug. Sam thanks Crowley with actual words and feelings and Crowley zaps out. “He seems nice,” Gwen says, chirpily.

Crowley heads straight for the palace where Lucifer’s torture chair is empty! He finds Luci in his throne room. I’m yelling ZAP OUTTA THERE CROWLEY WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU when Crowley snaps his fingers and Lucifer’s magical archangel wings fizzle out.

“I’m always ten steps ahead,” Crowley reminds Lucifer. He had his vessel fixed up and heavily warded. Lucifer’s meatsuit is his prison! (Me: punches air in joy at this development) Just as Crowley learned not to underestimate the Winchesters, Lucifer really has to learn not to underestimate the MacLeods.

Crowley dusts off his hands, steps over a whimpering Lucifer, and settles onto his throne. Crowley’s going to rip apart Lucifer’s child in front of him, and then he’s going to continue his revenge. (I’m guessing with more torture-by-irritating-minion.)

Elsewhere, the boys are just making it back to the bunker when Cas calls. He has a lead on Kelly Kline. (Hooray!) Cut to Cas, getting out of his truck and walking into...fuuuuuuuck...a playground. While I’m freaking out, Cas tells the boys about Dagon.

They hang up and Dean frowns at the phone. “He sound weird to you?” Dean, your worried husband rader is SPOT ON.

There’s no time to reflect on that, however. Sam gets an alert from the Men of Letters about another case. He decides to come clean to Dean, telling him that instead of a computer program feeding him cases, he’s been getting jobs from the BMoL. Sam tries to explain his position and apologizes for lying to Dean.

Dean hates it, but he agrees that they work with people they don’t trust all the time. Hell, they just worked with Crowley. So he’ll work with them on one condition: the second something feels off they both bail.

The phone rings again. “It’s Mick,” Sam says, holding up his phone.

“Pick it up,” Dean says, not radiating any kind of deep man pain at all.

Boris: Overall, on the surface, I felt like things were a bit off this episode. Dean seems to be taking all these lies and deceptions really well. What’s he thinking? Is he going along with Sam and Mary because he doesn’t want to lose them? Suddenly Sam has another family member to choose--and in a way he picked a side. Dean’s gut instinct is usually right --so it hurts to see him cave so easily to Sam and Mary. And Cas? I want to believe that he went to heaven for one final goodbye. Can he find a way to use the angels to TFW’s advantage? So much hasn’t been said after his big confession. He’s said and done SO much for the Winchesters this season, but there’s been very little given to him in return. And, I’m totally on board for cleaning up the ridiculous Lucifer Meatsuit improbability. I just thought it was such a stupid reason for it, but to have Crowley be 10 steps ahead of Lucifer is satisfying to watch. And Sam saved the flipping day again! And started the trials again? He killed a hellhound. I realize it’s nbd for them these days, but it’s, uh, really not.

Natasha: Sam didn’t do the incantation, so no trials. I thought Dean was shocked about Sam’s news - bitter and worried, but also respecting Sam’s right to make his own choices. He’s probably going to angry fix his car the first chance he gets. I agree that Cas trying to get back into Heaven’s good graces is a tired storyline by this point. What I’m hoping is that Cas appears to agree because he sees the tactical advantage of using Heaven’s resources. After all, he just saw two angels confront Kelly Kline...they must have some resource that’s beyond him to find her. Furthermore, he seems intrigued by Joshua’s involvement. I think Cas wants to know who’s on the game board. I’m hoping that Cas gathers intel and heads down to the Winchesters when he’s put together a solid plan. However, there are definitely parallels between the Winchesters/BMoL and Cas/Heaven in terms of our heroes working with people they don’t trust, but that might help them achieve their goals in an efficient manner. Given that Cas is gone for the next 3 episodes leaves us with a ton of questions about what could explain his absence. And the fact that he isn’t telling the Winchesters a thing is breaking my fuckin’ heart.

Who’s a good Quote?

It’s two and two. Doesn't count if you flip ‘em inside out.

Computers. Monsters? Porn? Is there anything they can’t do?

Most sheeple can’t handle the truth. But not me. I’m woke.

Who ya gonna call? Douchebusters.

The FBI, the Man in Black. Well, you know, Beige.

#spn 12x15 #somewhere between heaven and hell #spn recap #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #cas #crowley #lucifer #supernatural season 12

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ihfsttinuf · 8 years ago

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Screw It, I’m Making a Webcomic

So, as I made it abundantly clear on Twitter mere moments ago, I have a real honest-to-Glob New Year’s Resolution for 2017.

I am going to create a webcomic.

I am going to write a sequential art narrative which I will draw and provide various artistic accoutrements to and post it on the Internet. This is going to happen by the end of this year. I am doing this.

Perhaps this sudden outburst and declaration of artistic intent seems a bit out of left field, both in its overtones of grandiosity and relative lack of context given what most of you guys know about me. So let me provide some of that much needed context, both to show you why I am doing this and what I am really saying, which is probably even more ambitious (and maybe pretentious) than you think it is.

I’ve been writing weird little stories and drawing accompanying illustrations for them since I was a wean, as most of us did at that age, but since that point I’ve never really stopped. At a very young age I encountered not only excellent children’s books ranging from the charming and heartwarming to the downright mind-bending—Peter Sís and Henrik Drescher were big in my household—but also illustrated works whose contents and subtext were far too old for me yet entranced me nonetheless, particularly the works of the great New England illustrator and satirist Edward Gorey. By the age of six or seven, I had memorised “The Gashlycrumb Tinies” and would recite it with morbid glee to anyone who would ask (or didn’t). I discovered books through Gorey’s cover illustrations, first accidentally discovering the alternate history genre through his work on Joan Aiken’s Dido Twite series, and was only drawn deeper into John Bellairs’ junior Gothics when I discovered that Gorey had provided the frontispiece and dust jacket to every one of the entries in the series he’d written up to his death—which I mourned, with a mix of vague incomprehension, sorrow, and creeping disappointment. I was eight at the time.

Parallel to this, I spent a lot of time at my town’s local art centre, which provided free classes in all sorts of artistic endeavours. I took most to theatre and improv in particular—I was a wee ham; now I am a large ham—but what stuck with me was drawing and, to a lesser extent, animation. As I fixated on Gorey’s superficial techniques and aesthetics, the simple sunken eyes and odd little triangular noses, I’d also more subtly acquired his less obvious techniques: The way he used cross-hatching and simple, intense linework to suggest different textures entranced me, and indeed still does. I am told that a very strict art teacher, who I thought disliked me and of whom I was somewhat afraid, freely admitted that a sketch I’d done of a horned figure playing a flute on a rooftop by the light of the moon had taken her breath away.

Which is not to say that I was, or am, some prodigy of form, or that I lacked for more prosaic influences. The former, I will get to, but the latter is best expressed in the fact that a recurring scene which I have since revised and transfigured many, many times began life as... well, thinly veiled Darkwing Duck fanfiction, minus the duck part, given a sound twist of Lovecraft’s “The Statement of Randolph Carter”. I was maybe eleven or so at the time.

It was in one of these classes that this weird little scene deep beneath a ruined graveyard was born. It was also there that I made plans for an elaborate series of beast fables, set in a world quite unlike our own.

It is perhaps worth noting that one of the handful of these early sketches which sticks in y mind to this day was a tale of two young male lizards falling in love only to be torn apart by a disapproving society. Even at an age when I was functionally unaware of homosexuality and bemused or outright repulsed by what I knew of sex, a queer romance was perhaps the most emotionally intense thing that I had conceived of up to that point. But I digress.

The setting in question and certain characters in it would perennially re-emerge in my other writing, which I was quite certain would be my career path throughout late elementary and middle school. In seventh grade, I was part of an experimental programme where middle and high school students were allowed to enrol in a creative writing course at a nearby university. Only two students wound up attending: Myself, and a classmate of mine who had skipped a grade and would later become known in my high school as something of a mad and insufferable genius. (We got on pretty well.) After several semesters of studying poetry and short fiction, there was a presentation. One of the selections I made for my reading was a list-poem, from the perspective of an older character trying to live day by day with the memory of his deceased wife hanging over him, with the distinction that the final entry was a reminder to keep his claws neatly filed.

It was around that time that I began to come under the influence of Thomas Ligotti, and it was with this exposure to the refiner’s fire of such elegant horror—the kind that brought the same sort of visions into my mind that Gorey brought to the page—that I realised what form my true opus should take, at least in plot. I took it with me into high school, and beyond into the wilderness of these past six-and-a-half years of confusion. The polestar of this mad endeavour formed here.

I had been thinking a lot about epic high fantasy at the time—I was eleven when The Return of the King hit theatres, and I had read enough in the genre and in styles adjacent to it to be aware of the tropes—and it occurred to me that the moral framework and cosmology of a lot of such works rang a bit hollow to me, not because right and wrong did not exist, as certainly people do good and bad things to one another all the time, but because there was always this sense of certainty that the side one was meant to root for was indubitably in the right and some great objective force of Good deemed it so, blessing their struggle against a force similarly ordained by some great objective Evil. It was that last dimension which particularly irked me. It felt reassuring in the most painfully reductive and philosophically trite way possible. And so often the battles were so... literal. I never much cared for war films to begin with, and by putting such struggles in a fantastical framework, you subtracted the one thing that made war films kind of neat: The recognition that these were people doing the fighting and the killing. Not symbols, people.

Very middle school analysis, yes, and unfair to some things I quite enjoy, Tolkien included, but the ultimate conclusions were the important part.

Which is where Ligotti comes in. Much has been made of his non-fiction opus The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, but in terms of his philosophy and its influence on my thinking at the time, I’d rather stick to his fiction, as that was what I was reading and that is what made me. In brief, Ligotti is not a reassuring writer. The universe of his stories reflects his views of our own, which are, in essence, a wholesale rejection of the commonly held notion that human consciousness and life in general are good things that we should all be even remotely enthused about, instead proposing that the very idea that we are aware of ourselves and that we should think of ourselves as individuals for whom some higher power might just be watching out is more likely an obscene and sadistic joke on that hypothetical power’s part or else, more likely, a horrible accident. His stories are filled with personal totems and surreal motifs, the fates of his characters determined by blind chance or the detached malicious prankstery of a party with whom they cannot bargain or reason, the sadistic frenzies of Poe’s maniacal villain-protagonists writ large, often on a cosmic scale. There is the feel of a nightmare and yet also of the sleepless hours after, alone in the dark, thinking, where wakefulness and dream bleed between one another and all the world is a nightmare to which the hells of sleep might well be preferable.

If I’ve lost you, well, I’m sorry; but you and I probably have something to talk about if your first reaction to all this was, “I’ve certainly had *those* days.”

And if you’ve had enough of those days, the rest probably follows easily enough.

Wouldn’t it be interesting, I thought, if one took that quest narrative key to so many epic fantasies, and put it through a world where the rules of the game were so utterly reversed? If our well-meaning hero—of course, as in Tolkien, basically some poor backwater schmo, by no means stupid nor necessarily naïve but very, *very* far from the classical man of virtue—were to bear with him some artefact of power that could, perhaps by its very existence, rend the veil of normalcy that should keep all of the sane and happy citizens of this world from confronting what writhes beneath all that they see, what might he choose to do with it, particularly if he were, say, by some inexplicable invisible bond, *tied* to it?

Now, what makes a fitting antagonist for such a tale? What sort of character provides the ideal foil for a kind-hearted soul confronted with all the horrors of what may be in a neat little package? Rather than some cosmic sadist intent on throwing us all under the bus, why not something a bit scarier: Another kind-hearted soul. Someone who has seen behind the veil their whole life. Someone who has seen the truth and the agony of this world and seeks nothing less than perfect closure

And there it was.

And then it began to get complicated.

For every character that I created to flesh out the story, another came into being, and I wanted to know more about them. A side-plot salvaged from some other silly project merged seamlessly into the new whole, and suddenly there were whole new plots, full of new characters with motives that I wanted to understand. Characters grew, changed, lightened and darkened as my thoughts steeped. Exposure to other writers through classes and forums and variably disastrous shared writing projects made me realise what I did and did not know, what I could and could not do.

It was also in high school that I began taking music seriously, first toying around in Garageband and singing in the school choir and then as part of a band with several close friends. I wrote a lot of poetry, and I sang a bit, so we had lyrics; I still drew sometimes, so we had art when we needed it, although we rarely needed it. I was always ambitious with my lyrics: One of our most successful songs was structured to simulate one character murdering another during a snowstorm in a glade where they had played and hidden as a child. Morbid character studies were common; I was always taking grim little vacations in people’s heads, my own or otherwise. Informed by my middle school studies of haibun and my lyrical adventures, my prose grew more experimental, collapsing into poems or switching into strange persons and tenses. My mind was full of images, yet where to go with them?

My path to sequential art was an odd and rocky one. As mentioned, I loved picture books and illustrated stories as a child, and while I failed to touch upon them earlier (mea culpa!), Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side were pretty important in their own right. I even attempted to create something of a running series at around the time I was in that poetry programme, mainly for the amusement of myself and a very affable art teacher who found the premise amusing. It was only a year or two later that I would read Doom Patrol—the first superhero comic that I would ever admit to liking, and still one of the chosen few—and realise that Grant Morrison, the bastard, had stolen my idea before I’d even been born: Of killing one’s own imaginary friend, only to be tormented by their vengeful spectre years after the fact at the least appropriate of times.

But the comic idea sort of fell by the wayside for the longest time, for the simple reason that I am, to my own mind, an atrocious draughtsman. I cannot reproduce figures to save my life. Hilarious, seeing as I can draw you a teeming alien cityscape, or a perfectly detailed mosquito in flames, but in terms of doing the same thing twice, I’ve spent years hanging my head in shame and self-loathing.

The secret is, though, not that I couldn’t learn this, but that for such a long time, pride had kept me from allowing myself to be bad at things until I was good. As someone to whom a lot of fairly complex ideas just come naturally, someone who just absorbs information like a souped-up Dyson vacuum, the idea of having to draw the same damned thing ten thousand times just to get decent at drawing that same damned thing was a horrifying prospect. It still is.

I got pushed into it. My own fictions put a knife to my throat and told me, “This is what needs to happen.” But it took two different interconnected experiences to understand how, both courtesy of my boyfriend being a huge dork.

The first was his recommendation that I read LAMEZINE 02, at that time the latest salvo from the wonderfully deranged comic artist Cate Wurtz, then going by the moniker Partydog; the second was his use of a Bec Noir avatar on a forum we’re both on, which got me to finally bite the bullet and read Homestuck.

Wurtz’ Lamezone comics are a trip. Her art style is by most technical standards fairly primitive, but it’s a very *refined* jankiness, part and parcel to her overall embrace of scuzzy punk ‘zine aesthetics, immediately recognisable and all-around immediate. Her approach to story and tone is just the same, at once surreal and ridiculous and incredibly emotionally potent, ranging in tone from giddy B-movie absurdity to crushing Carver-esque sorrow, composed of as many little side-stories that flesh out what sort of world these characters live in as of its “meat” and all the better for it. The way that her comics are often framed only adds to the ambience: DVD menus of hit TV series that never existed, tales from the everyday lives of people living on the precipice of madness (and/or suburban Kansas), the wild Lynchian adventures of a man who talks to the spirit of the good ol’ USA through Twitter while traipsing through other people’s comics and the comment sections on furry porn sites. She was even working on a video game at one point about a woman trying to battle her way through deformed iterations of her past selves while maintaining a sufficient ganja supply. I have no idea if that’s still happening. It looked awesome.

Homestuck has already had much said about it, so I’ll keep it brief. Comparisons to Pynchon are not unwarranted. It takes the hypertextual potential of the webcomic to the next level, and is longer than many novel series. The art is, quite intentionally, all over the place, and uses collage surprisingly effectively. The story is a beautiful mess that is, fundamentally, about the process of storytelling and how “things that happen” become “stories” in the first place. It’s very oblique about this, and generally quite funny.

And so I looked to the story I was writing.

I looked at the multiple plotlines growing out of one another, intersecting, snakes devouring their tails, thematic parallels on parallels, spirals of mental imagery with bits of torn wallpaper making the fabric of waistcoats and cathedrals made out of lines of scripture and trees bearing watches like fruit, and I went: “This should be a comic! A hypercomic, in fact, McLuhan-style! This should be a wondrous blend of visuals and text and...

“I...

“I can’t draw. Fuck me. I should stick to prose, like a good loser. Get rejected that way instead.”

So I waffled. For months. And then for years.

But you know what?

I’m done waffling.

Limitation is power in its own right. Ever since I learned of Oulipo in that long-ago three-person poetry class, I’ve been fascinated with the idea of innovation through defining what you cannot do, or what you must do, no matter what. Of forcing yourself to start from a set place or end at one, no ifs, ands or buts.

I am limited. Within that, I am omnipotent.

I am going to draw this comic. I am going to write it and I am going to draw it even if it starts out looking like total shit and the process drives me half-insane. If things that I love, in sequential art but also in music and painting and writing and animation and all sorts of other forms, can make a perceived deficit into a key strength, I can do it, too. Even if I can’t be a classical master, I can be the best at that crazy thing I do.

I guess this is also my grandiose way of saying “fuck last year,” where I made so much progress that felt so thwarted by external circumstances and my own failings, and where so much went wrong for so many of us. So I’m embracing this year as a year of progress. Even if everything else sucks, I’ll be running up that hill.

And just so there’s no mistaking it, I will still be making music and probably writing at least a smidgen of prose fiction and poetry on the side. In the former category, I might even start a band.

Oh, wait. We’re not doing half-measures any more.

I’m starting a band, too.

Tell your friends.

Happy 2017, everyone, and have a lovely rest of your night.

#Writings #my artwork #New Year's resolutions #important #rant #so many words my laird #DOING THE ART #comics #so many tags

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nikitasbt · 6 years ago

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Bruegel exhibition in Vienna: Getting blood from a stone

The Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna has opened a remarkable 3 months Pieter Bruegel the Elder exhibition to mark the 450th anniversary of his death. This is the first Bruegel solo-exhibition which is going to last in the Austrian museum until January 2019 and claims to be unique in terms of number of Bruegel's presented. Many masterpieces have never been loaned for exhibition purposes to any other museum, but The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Some paintings arrived from Prada Museum in Madrid, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Antwerp, Berlin State Museum and other museums to relish the epic permanent collection of Brueghel in Vienna. With that said, visitors have received a unique opportunity to immerse themselves into the reality of Pieter Bruegel the Elder at the fullest seeing around 60 of his works, including almost 30 comprehensive works.

Two weeks after opening, I was delighted to visit the exhibition in Vienna. Pieter Bruegel is particularly famous for his outstanding talent to observe people's every day life and routine and fascinate the viewers with a broad number of details from this life he depicts on the canvas. These details of Bruegel's people show different dimensions of life and fill the world with either passion, amusement, lament or desperation - according to the master's conception to deliver his ideas. Bruegel also excels in his religious themes in art. The signature features of his painting are the littlest things and almost invisible details, multiple scenes and episodes of life depicted simultaneously at the same picture, rich colors creating an unmistakably Bruegel-type environment and the evocative topics and themes he employs. The exhibition does not only offer the paintings of Bruegel brought together in one museum. The attention of visitors is being directed to the sketches, draft works of Bruegel, as well as separate exhibition of the highlighted the littlest details of his famous painting explained - the best part of the whole thing, from my point of view. The Tower of Babel or The Triumph of Death contain various themes in abundance that we can hardly notice many important details which are yet drastically important. I was really glad to concentrate attention on these details with this exhibition. I would also like to notice that the way the paintings are arranged is great, there is nothing to find fault with.

Hunters in the Snow, The Tower of Babel, The Triumph of Death - all these world-known masterpieces created by Pieter Bruegel are now here in The Kunsthistorisches Museum. One can witness this boundless painter's anxiety depicted in The Triumph of Death from Prado Museum. The world goes into the oblivion, as the bells tolls. The complex details of killing, torturing are here to prove the supreme power of death which is about to claim the world. People will all perish, and we see how Bruegel shows it - there are thousands of ways invented by the human beings to slaughter themselves. No one will be left alive.

Hunters in the Snow must be noted as one of the examples of Bruegel's philosophy. It ravishes spectators with the multiple views on the people's life. They are here engaged with everyday's problems and business. The scenes of their life depicted on the canvas are amazingly vivid and colorful. Yet it is filled with the cold. Looking at the birds and sky, you see how pointless the life is. The inevitable death is watching over everybody remaining out of the public eye. People are not quite dead yet, from the other hand they are already on the count of death - Brughel's paintings always convey it.

The Great Tower of Babel which has always been presented here in Vienna since the times of the House of Habsburg is often called an allegory of their power. Referring to the Bible, it shows us the pivotal place of the world where people dared to poke their noses into the sum and substance of their existence. With the abundance of scenes and details, many views and features The Tower of Babel certainly remains one of the greatest work of the Flemish master. The Habsburg empire later became something similar to this tower which has never been completed. There were the days when the center of the world was literally in Vienna, yet it was incoherent in its diversity and lack of dedication and dignity. The Great Tower of Babel can be compared with The Little Babel of Tower of Babel made by Bruegel due to the exhibition format. The other Tower was brought from Rotterdam museum to relish the exhibition. The culmination of the exhibition from my point of view is the work The Fight Between Carnival and Lent. The masterpiece is located on a separate wall of the museum where you can enjoy every single detail not being distracted by any other paintings. We observe the parts of traditional celebration - the common people's amusement and religious observation. The work is very rich, in terms of categories. One should not generalize them, but to sum up I see the triumph of nonsense here. The people in their activities are driven by the folly and pointless stream of life. As time goes by, the young become old very fast. We see the children and old man here - they are all ugly and unappealing. Their existence is a formality, and the life doesn't go anywhere. No matter who you are, it is just a carnival of nonsense around us. In addition, there is a lent to bring people some fun. But the fun would not last.

At some point, I had a feeling that The Fight Between Carnival and Lent is looking through the frame at us. The lame crowd on the canvas is us! If we look at this exhibition, we see how deranged it is - just as the fight between carnival and lent. This lent had received quite a buzz in media being called the most significant exhibition of the year in the world of art. We have experienced the power of media advertising it very well. As the result, there are thousands of visitors in the lines willing to adore Bruegel. One can buy the ticket only for a particular time slot which has to be reserved in advance. New time slot starts every 20 minutes when they let the new batch of true art lovers come in. In 10 rooms there will be like a thousand of people trying to click the craving pictures, talking, laughing - nothing but The Fight Between Carnival. How come the masterpieces of Raphael in the same museum get almost zero attention? Is is true that Bruegel is way better? Of course not. This is just a personification of the way the art exists in the present days. Everything is driven by the revenue, so the classical art. It seemed to be turned into a stone already - the number of those who admire art does not grow as fast as the number of social media photographers and bloggers. However, there is a way to get the blood from a stone convincing people the exhibition is something fashionable and fancy. Tizian, Raphael, da Ponte - they all are going to be ignored since this is the time when Bruegel is on sale. I suppose, someone had knocked down the big bucks out of it. As an implication, we received the horde of art lovers being ready to go only for Bruegel today, though there was the largest the collection of Bruegel in the world without exhibition, in a possession of The Kunsthistorisches Museum. Do we really need 60 works of Bruegel at one place to enjoy the ideas and philosophy of Bruegel the Elder? My answer is no. There are the painters who entertain with their technical ability to depict the things and people or their admiration of the human beings. There are others who give us the room to think and imagine. Bruegel is certainly this type of philosopher who gives us the space to delve deep into the sum and substance of humankind. He is one of the greatest masters of observing people's nature, and he is able to convey it on the canvas like nobody else. To me, Bruegel has always been in an opposition to the classical Flemish art. Despite numerous details, he does not have an intention to show them so clearly, he doesn't try to create vivacious image of human kind either, as many Flemish masters used to do. He is different, and his art requires proper immersion into his ideas. The permanent exhibition consists of 12 works of Bruegel which is good enough to become thought-provoking. You may enjoy it anytime with no thousands of people clicking selfies next to something famous which was selected to be sold. The exhibition of this type is a personification of the art becoming another niche of market. The real art's purpose is not sales, though it seems to be different now. This is the last mockery, and there is nothing else to protect it. We are already used to the ideas of "free art" claiming that no matter when painter created can be considered his unique depiction of the world. Someone might spit on the paper and it would be a good sale if the famous critics and auctions confirm it paying some money to make the world aware of it with the power of media. This time Bruegel is being sold to those art lovers who arrived in The Kunsthistorisches Museum to mark their collection of selfies with another shot. With that said, the art is not going anywhere, though there are still many opportunities to make money out of it. Someone is certainly going to utilize it, but I want to know nothing about this type of art world. On the way to escape the crowd and fight between carnival and lent, we pass by the paintings of Rubens of Rembrandt in the last few rooms of the museum. These works are subtle, wonderful, adorable and stunningly beautiful - they color you amazed! Of course there is almost no people here, though one can't skip it after seeing Bruegel. After interacting with that crowd, you need a gulp of air badly. You get it with the works of these Flemish masters which cannot be bettered by anything! Rembrandt and especially Rubens due to the large number of his works presented here are just fantastic, and you can enjoy it at your convenience since we have not been told they are on sale today. These paintnigs cast shiver down the spine and make your heart beat with their brilliance. Bruegel is surely one of the greatest philosophers in the world of art, but is there anything else to compare with these sophisticated works of Rubens? Not speaking of the crowd, the exhibition is arranged quite well, as I already mentioned. It is going to remain the most significant exhibition of the year for sure. The problem I see is more about the mayhem the art in general goes to. Without a doubt, Bruegel the Elder himself has nothing to do with all that. I reject the idea of such a commercial exhibition. Nevertheless, it is a delight to see so much of Bruegel and enjoy the largest collection of the great Flemish master.| Nikita Subbotin, 10/23/2018 - Vienna

#bruegel #art #art exhibition #kunsthistorisches #museum #flemishart #vienna

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xxionlinemovies-blog · 7 years ago

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Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) Movie Review

Checkout Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) Movie Review on http://xxi.online/captain-underpants-the-first-epic-movie-2017-movie-review/

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) Movie Review

MOVIE REVIEW

George Beard and Harold Hutchins aren’t all that great at being students. In fact, they’re pretty mediocre students. But they’re the best of buds. Best friends who make each other laugh and, well, who are pretty good at coming up with what they consider incredible school pranks, too.

Like, say, the day the Jerome Horwitz Elementary sign mysteriously changed from saying, “Sewage Plant Field Trip Today,” to, “Come See My Hairy Armpits.” Oh yeah, that was them. Or how about the exploding goo in a teacher’s lunch bag fiasco? Yep, they did that. The great girls’ bathroom toilet flood of ’16? Uh huh.

Those practical jokes are the school’s last laughing line of defense against teachers’ tyrannical ways, as far as these pranksters are concerned. Without them, why, the whole student body might just keel over from a lack of fun.

And fun is the key here.

George and Harold just love the fun of exploding things, upchucking things and gaseous things … not to mention drawing raucous pictures of exploding, upchucking and gaseous things. In fact, one of their favorite treehouse co-creations is a series of out-there, exploding, upchucking and gas-passing comics they call *The Adventures of Captain Underpants.

*Of course, none of that really awesome backstory matters all that much right now. Because today they’ve been dragged into Principal Krupp’s office. He’s the only other person who knows about Captain Underpants, since he’s confiscated at least half of the boys’ comics. And it doesn’t look like he’s in a mood to give them back today.

From the way the principal is huffing and puffing like an over-stoked furnace, to the way his red face and bugged-out eyes make his hairpiece look like a small dancing octopus on his head, the guys can tell he’s just a wee bit upset. Could it have been that little toxic spill in the lunchroom that they caused?

What Mr. Krupp does next, though, hits these pals with the unexpected force of one of their own pranks: He says he was just signing an official order to have them … separated. Separate classes, separate gym periods, separate lunch times, even separate detention rooms should the need arise.

Why, they’ll never see each other again! It’s the end of the world as they know it!! Something has to be done!!!

That’s when George makes the biggest decision of his life.

Like a slo-mo camera shot that you’d see in some crazy action movie, Harold watches as George’s hand slowly reaches into his pocket and pulls out his most prized possession. Their eyes connect—George’s determined, Harold’s unsure. Then George rips the cellophane wrapper off of the most powerful item to ever be found in a box of sugar-frosted doodles: the plastic hypno-ring. As Harold calls out a super-slow “N-o-o-o-o!” George slips the ring on his finger, points it’s swirling patterned face toward the incrementally recoiling Mr. Krupp. And as the incredible hypno-magic fills the air and the principal falls back in his chair the boys realized that their device has truly hypnotized their tormenting teacher.

And when they soon spot a discarded comic that they’d previously created, an idea strikes them both at the same time: They’ll command Principal Krupp to take on the persona of none other than Captain Underpants himself. And …

Well, of course it works. I mean, there wouldn’t be a movie otherwise, right?

POSITIVE ELEMENTS

George and Harold would go to any lengths for each other. (Of course the fact that those “lengths” generally involve lots of catastrophes that upend school life isn’t quite so positive.)

This kid flick also lightly suggests that rabid sugar consumption and totally unsupervised kid craziness doesn’t end well. And it leaves the impression that making fun of someone can have a negative effect.

SPIRITUAL CONTENT

A musical line from Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” plays beneath one short scene. The magical, hypnotic effect of George’s ring is never explained, but we do know that a splash of water will bring the principal out of his alternate-mind state, while a subsequent finger snap will send him back.

SEXUAL CONTENT

None. (Unless, that is, you can somehow envision an egg-shaped cartoon principal in his tightie-whitie undies as something other than just silly.)

VIOLENT CONTENT

As Principal Krupp/Captain Underpants bounds off mindlessly into the world dressed only in a large pair of white underpants, plenty of thumping mayhem ensues. He gets hit by passing vehicles on a couple of occasions. He leaps off tall structures thinking he can fly. (He can’t.) He bounces around town on a giant ape balloon. He falls out of the sky onto the backs of some running criminals. He punches a mime in the face while trying to break him out of an invisible box. He throws an old lady up into a tree after her cat.

That slapsticky violence is only amplified when a new school teacher named Professor Poopypants joins the rollicking nonsense. The prof gets hit by passing vehicles, too. He creates scientific mechanisms, such as a shrinking/growing ray, that cause all sorts of damage. He also creates a gigantic animated toilet that’s filled with and powered by toxic waste. (Captain Underpants is thrown into this toilet at one point and swallows some of that glowing sludge.)

The prof shoots energy rays at school children, wiping their minds clear of thought. A flood of smaller, enlivened toilets takes to the streets, biting backsides and gobbling people whole. Goopy things explode, hitting people in the face with a gush. Buildings are uprooted and smashed. A vision of the future involves robots with lasers zapping people and each other.

CRUDE OR PROFANE LANGUAGE

At least 10 exclamations of “oh my gosh” and one of the phrase, “What the heck?”

DRUG AND ALCOHOL CONTENT

[Spoiler Warning] Captain Underpants accidentally gulps down toxic waste water that gives him actual superpowers.

OTHER NEGATIVE ELEMENTS

The fact that the main bad guy in this pic is named P.P. Diarrheastein Poopypants Esquire, should give you a sense of the main, uh, flush of the humor. Urination is sung about. Underwear is shot in people’s faces. Kids guffaw repeatedly over the planet Uranus, and a chorus of them perform a gas-powered overture, etc.

On other fronts, George and Harold defy the rules repeatedly. They break into someone’s house and snoop around. Principal Krupp meanly tells them “Your parents are obviously failures.”

CONCLUSION

With villains like Tippy Tinkletrousers, the Bionic Booger Boy and Wedgie Woman in their pages, the Captain Underpants comic books were never going to be accepted as top-notch educational tomes for kids. In fact, all they ever had up their proverbial pant leg was a collection of zany, sketch-like cartoons and a whole lot of goofy poo-poo humor.

Now that’s been translated to the big screen.

Anyone who’s ever seen a modern comedy knows there are different gradations of toilet humor that can dribble to the screen. Gags range from wink-and-stink giggles all the way down to excremental explosions. Captain Underpants lands on the occasionally creative, but eye-rollingly silly side of that odious scale.

For a very slim segment of the populace—say, grade schoolers who consider a wet palm under a flapping arm to be high art—this pic will likely be a winner. For the rest of us, who might get dragged to this flick by our kids against our better judgement, well, there’s always a sleep mask and a good travel pillow.

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krissysbookshelf · 8 years ago

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