#Johanne James

[emotionally-charged-arson]

Character lineup, Transitus historical redesign edition. In their sepia tone versions, in actual artwork they’d be drawn against some pretty vibrant painted backgrounds. Come back to me on that. Been meaning to do this for a while!

Have some design notes:

Daniel - Third from left. In @hawthorn-crow’s words: "like a stiff breeze would blow him over." His shoulders/upper body have deliberately been scaled down from that of real-life Tommy Karevik. I don’t know how else to say this but if I were Henry I wouldn’t be easing around in my brother’s personal life if he could drop kick me directly into the sun. Looks pretty normal, all things considered. The "standout" trait comes from the trust fund kid status: his clothes have a LOT of variety. Literally a different jacket, vest and tie almost every single scene in a period where that was not something easily attainable. Common thing between all of the ‘normal’ outfits is the little watch chain, somewhat prominently displayed.

Abby - Third from right. The exact opposite as Daniel; cycles through two or three outfits maximum outside of her work uniform before 1884. Her box braids are thicker than the original design. Has a pair of emerald drop earrings; gift from the himbo. As for the shoes, homegirl is working minimum 13-hour days, for Christ’s sake, put some treads on those industrial strength high heels. She likes quilting Why? Cause I said so and wanted her to have hobbies like human beings do. The dress shown here is one fabric/color all the way down, but the seams form a fun little pattern that looks nothing like fire haha what.

Henry - Second from left. Lots of age lines, grey streaks. Visibly much older than Daniel. Loads of aggressive angles, you want a sense of the douchebag aura from a distance. Literally Andrew Carnegie but with none of the redeeming qualities. Really narcissistic and intent on showing off his status and is thus obsessed with outward appearance. Sharply dressed and deliberately so. Flashy, patterned waistcoats and one very expensive and painstakingly tended to pair of sideburns.

Lavinia - Second from right. Same as Abby, just a few outfits to her name and sturdier shoes. Though she comes off to me as someone who has expensive tastes that can’t be pursued to their fullest extent. Don’t we all. Pays close attention to new fashion and alters her existing clothes (and hair) accordingly under budget. Is keen on appearing above her station, though not with any malicious intent. More just a desire to fit in and look nice.

Abraham - Far right. The beta version of Abraham of from the earbook bonus pages is peak and this is very heavily inspired by that. Has not purchased any major clothing items for himself since the mid 1860s; he’s got other priorities. Any new stuff is smaller, and usually cut from the same material as Lavinia’s skirts. Fabrics are worn out (along with their dyes) and lots of layers are worn as a result. Outermost layer that he wears pretty much everywhere on account of it being the only coat he has is a bleached and dyed Union army jacket.

Dee - Far left. Entire character is defined by being stuck in the past. Like Abraham his clothes are very 1860s based but in a more fashion forward and emotionally stunted, "I never got over my wife dying a d am making it my kids’ problem" way, as opposed to the much more reasonable "being impoverished" route. Hair is also very much mid-century and meant to look out of place next the shorter, clean-cut 70s/80s style that Henry has. ….old. Like basically on death’s door, he kicks the bucket almost immediately after Daniel does.

[ponderingrandomthings]

I just love (and agree with) the insight by Pete Pardo (from Sea of Tranquility).

This band has some amazing deeply philosophical lyrics and good music (keyboardy prog metal) that I go back to after years...

This is a good album Dividing Lines (2022).

[Edited part transcript of this video]

I always thought this about Threshold. You don't get immediately the big wow factor like a new Dream Theater album or Symphony X album. There's less eye-catching 'wow' moments but more throughout the whole album. That's always been the music of Threshold. I like to listen to their albums as albums and it's always very pleasing. It's just heavy enough, it's just prog enough. It's just good song-based progressive metal. They're just one of those consistent bands that just keeps pumping out really really great albums that sometimes I think we take for granted. I'm just as guilty when in conversations with people I talk about like some of the great ProgMetal bands and ProgMetal albums I always forget to bring them up. Yet every time they come out with a new album, I get it, I review it, I love it. It ranks very high on my year-end list. They're one of the best ones out there… but I overlook them. I have conversations with people all the time and they very rarely come up. And then when you mention (Threshold), then "Oh yes! Threshold is great. I love them. But I didn't think to mention them right they didn't pop into my head first."

'Taking a band for granted' - I'm so guilty of this - to this band in particular.

Oddly, I don't feel that about Rush. (I can always rattle off some Rush recommendations without thinking - Subdivisions, Red Sector A, Force Ten... See? And more if needed.)

Besides, I've cited Rush lyrics for quite a while. (A friend once told me he knows me to be the Rush guy. That he got interested because of me. There was a time I didn't stop talking about the meaning behind the Rush songs.)

Just like I have cited Dream Theater lyrics for a longer (earlier) while. I've even correleated so much of life with some DT lyric from Awake or A Change of Seasons.

And Megadeth lyrics before that...

Interesting how all these people from such faraway countries have impressed my mind. And remained important decades later.

--

Interesting 'Trivia':

The drummer Johanne James, has a band KyrbGrinder, in which he is both singer and drummer! Check this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35rV7b2xIrQ

Johanne gave vocals in the Ayreon album Transitus.

[hunter-sylvester]

Pride month may be over but I'm still gay as fuck so. hcs ig

Hunter Sylvester - Metal Lords / Zakk - Deathgasm / Turo Moilanen - Heavy Trip

[diioonysus]

hair + art

[illustratus]

Ossian by Johann Michael Wittmer

[why-i-love-comics]

Thunderbolts #4 (2024)

written by Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly art by Geraldo Borges & Arthur Hesli

[missin-you-already]

Li Bingbing (Ada Wong), Michelle Rodríguez (Bad Rain), Sienna Guillory (Jill Valentine), Colin Salmon (Clone One), and Oded Fehr (Clone Carlos)

Boris Kodjoe (Luther West), Aryana Engineer (Becky), Milla Jovovich (Alice), Michelle Rodríguez (Good Rain), and Johann Urb (Leon S. Kennedy)

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

[spooky-donut-ghost-house]

I think it's a stupid decision to completely forget Kang and replace him with Doctor Doom

Doom is a major threat yes but imo he is a significantly lesser threat compared to Thanos and Kang

Why couldn't they just recast Kang? They did it with Bruce, they did it with Rhodey, they did it with Red Skull hell they recasted Cassie in Quantumania

So why not recast Kang? There's plenty of black male actors who can play him far better than JM did like Denzel Washington

Do you know how awesome it would've been to see Denzel as Kang?

They could've recasted Kang it's not a situation like Chadwick Bozeman and Black Panther but it's obvious that even that doesn't really matter because William Hurt has been dead for two years and they replaced him with Harrison Ford

Now you're probably thinking "Well, wouldn't it be weird if Kang suddenly looked different from the last time we saw him?" Not really nobody questioned how Bruce changed between The Incredible Hulk to The Avengers or how Rhodey changed between Iron Man 1 to Iron Man 2 or how Cassie changed between Endgame to Quantumania and nobody is gonna question how Ross changed from Civil War to Brave New World

Not to mention by retconning Kang they basically made Loki and Quantumania redundant

Literally if Quantumania and Loki were there to set up Kang as the next big bad and now they're not even using Kang anymore then Quantumania and Loki were just a waste of everyone's time

[thevondoom62]

Learn now why they call him the Master of Magnetism!

[pythiaswine]

thinking about how difficult it must have been for Rachel Fawcette [Hamilton] to leave her firstborn behind in order to safely remove herself from Lavien's house. how much it must have eaten her up inside and how there was nothing she could do because her husband owned her and he owned their son and he owned everything that was hers and if she stayed, there's no telling what could have happened to her. And she lost her firstborn son over it, fuck the rest of everything she lost and how people treated her, she had no claims to her son who clearly grew up to resent her for what she, if we think critically for a moment and look at the context and the subtext and hey, let's face it, the TEXT, likely had to do. how women were constantly pitted in the most volatile of situations in those days and how she did the difficult thing and saved herself.

but yeah sure let's reduce her to Whore because that is so much more impactful through a modern lens, like sure let's give her disgusting husband, and every other fucking man throughout history, the glory of successfully making the women they hurt out to be cheating whores. let's tell her son's story by calling his mother a whore every other fuckin song. let's act like "son of a whore" at the end of all things is more of an insult to him than it is to his mother, the so-called whore who clearly had it so bad at Lavien's that she fucking left. do we not realize that by reducing her to that, we let Johann Michael Lavien fucking WIN? i'm sick. so fucking sick to my stomach I hate it here

[emotionally-charged-arson]

More Transitus bullshit. Call it a distraction casserole.

[comicwaren]

From Avengers: Twilight #004, “The Firefighters”

Art by Daniel Acuña

Written by Chip Zdarsky

[johbeil]

Behind Conad

It’s yet another dreary rainy day. I’m in Castel di Leva to pick up Sa. Had coffee at the bar, then went to the store to avoid being in the rain. Now I’m in the car, across from a car port with a banged-up black Fiat Uno with the windshield missing and a pair of pink high heels sitting on the hood, as if put there for a purpose. Or as a sign? Like, honey, I’m back, left the shoes on the ride, come visit me upstairs.

I’m typing away on the touchpad, hitting the wrong letters sometimes. My fingers are too big. The phone keeps suggesting things.

Will have to write something using that feature. “Automatic writing.”

But not here right now.

– James Steerforth (© 2023) Notes Conad is a chain of supermarkets in Italy. Castel di Leva is a small Italian town in Lazio close to Rome.

Photo credits: Pink high heels by Johannes Beilharz.

[nofatclips]

Castrati Stack by Tim Hecker (with The Icelandic Choir ensemble, arranged by Jóhann Jóhannsson) from the album Love Streams

[diioonysus]

artemis & diana + art

[okanb]