#Not Published Here images... because i've been not drawing him often on here but was consistent on there... sorrey. close your eyes and

[meirimerens]

just wanted to say I love how you gave artemy epicanthic folds in some of your recent art (not sure if it's really a recent thing or if it's something I only noticed now)

🫶 HAPPY YOU WIKE IT... i've been trying to consistently do it for a while (i. couldn't give you a timeline.) when i'm not trying to strictly adhere to his on-model face (and even when i am honestly). it's just true to me. it's just real to me. i'm trying to both keep his relatively prominent browbone and deepset eyes of canon p2 model [which i mostly go by] + give him these damn folds because. real to me. it's seeing other people give him some that slapped me into me being like Wait. that is so real actually. so joy! epicanthic folds be upon him.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A year in illustration, 2023 edition (part one)

(This is part one; part two is here.)

I am objectively very bad at visual art. I am bad at vision, period – I'm astigmatic, shortsighted, color blind, and often miss visual details others see. I can't even draw a stick-figure. To top things off, I have cataracts in both eyes and my book publishing/touring schedule is so intense that I keep having to reschedule the surgeries. But despite my vast visual deficits, I thoroughly enjoy making collages for this blog.

For many years now – decades – I've been illustrating my blog posts by mixing public domain and Creative Commons art with work that I can make a good fair use case for. As bad as art as I may be, all this practice has paid off. Call it unseemly, but I think I'm turning out some terrific illustrations – not all the time, but often enough.

Last year, I rounded up my best art of the year:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/25/a-year-in-illustration/

And I liked reflecting on the year's art so much, I decided I'd do it again. Be sure to scroll to the bottom for some downloadables – freely usable images that I painstakingly cut up with the lasso tool in The Gimp.

The original AD&D hardcover cover art is seared into my psyche. For several years, there were few images I looked at so closely as these. When Hasbro pulled some world-beatingly sleazy stuff with the Open Gaming License, I knew just how to mod Dave Trampier's 'Eve Of Moloch' from the cover of the Players' Handbook. Thankfully, bigger nerds than me have identified all the fonts in the image, making the remix a doddle.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/12/beg-forgiveness-ask-permission/#whats-a-copyright-exception

Even though I don't keep logs or collect any analytics, I can say with confidence that "Tiktok's Enshittification" was the most popular thing I published on Pluralistic this year. I mixed some public domain Brother's Grimm art, mixed with a classic caricature of Boss Tweed, and some very cheesy royalty-free/open access influencer graphics. One gingerbread cottage social media trap, coming up:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

To illustrate the idea of overcoming walking-the-plank fear (as a metaphor for writing when it feels like you suck) I mixed public domain stock of a plank, a high building and legs, along with a procedurally generated Matrix "code waterfall" and a vertiginous spiral ganked from a Heinz Bunse photo of a German office lobby.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/22/walking-the-plank/

Finding a tasteful way to illustrate a story about Johnson & Johnson losing a court case after it spent a generation tricking women into dusting their vulvas with asbestos-tainted talcum was a challenge. The tulip (featured in many public domain images) was a natural starting point. I mixed it with Jesse Wagstaff's image of a Burning Man dust-storm and Mike Mozart's shelf-shot of a J&J talcum bottle.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/01/j-and-j-jk/#risible-gambit

"Google's Chatbot Panic" is about Google's long history of being stampeded into doing stupid things because its competitors are doing them. Once it was Yahoo, now it's Bing. Tenniel's Tweedle Dee and Dum were a good starting point. I mixed in one of several Humpty Dumpty editorial cartoon images from 19th century political coverage that I painstakingly cut out with the lasso tool on a long plane-ride. This is one of my favorite Humpties, I just love the little 19th C businessmen trying to keep him from falling! I finished it off with HAL 9000's glowing red eye, my standard 'this is about AI' image, which I got from Cryteria's CC-licensed SVG.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

Though I started writing about Luddites in my January, 2022 Locus column, 2023 was the Year of the Luddite, thanks to Brian Merchant's outstanding Blood In the Machine:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

When it came time to illustrate "Gig Work Is the Opposite of Steampunk," I found a public domain weaver's loft, and put one of Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes in the window. Magpie Killjoy's Steampunk Magazine poster, 'Love the Machine, Hate the Factory,' completed the look.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/12/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk/

For the "small, non-profit school" that got used as an excuse to bail out Silicon Valley Bank, I brought back Humpty Dumpty, mixing him with a Hogwartsian castle, a brick wall texture, and an ornate, gilded frame. I love how this one came out. This Humpty was made for the SVB bailout.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/23/small-nonprofit-school/#north-country-school

The RESTRICT Act would have federally banned Tiktok – a proposal that was both technically unworkable and unconstitutional. I found an early 20th century editorial cartoon depicting Uncle Sam behind a fortress wall that was keeping a downtrodden refugee family out of America. I got rid of most of the family, giving the dad a Tiktok logo head, and I put Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes over each cannonmouth. Three Boss Tweed moneybag-head caricatures, adorned with Big Tech logos, rounded it out.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/30/tik-tok-tow/#good-politics-for-electoral-victories

When Flickr took decisive action to purge the copyleft trolls who'd been abusing its platform, I knew I wanted to illustrate this with Lucifer being cast out of heaven, and the very best one of those comes from John Milton, who is conveniently well in the public domain. The Flickr logo suggested a bicolored streaming-light-of-heaven motif that just made it.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/01/pixsynnussija/#pilkunnussija

Old mainframe ads are a great source of stock for a "Computer Says No" image. And Congress being a public building, there are lots of federal (and hence public domain) images of its facade.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/04/cbo-says-no/#wealth-tax

When I wrote about the Clarence Thomas/Harlan Crow bribery scandal, it was easy to find Mr. Kjetil Ree's great image of the Supreme Court building. Thomas being a federal judge, it was easy to find a government photo of his head, but it's impossible to find an image of him in robes at a decent resolution. Luckily, there are tons of other federal judges who've been photographed in their robes! Boss Tweed with the dollar-sign head was a great stand-in for Harlan Crow (no one knows what he looks like anyway). Gilding Thomas's robes was a simple matter of superimposing a gold texture and twiddling with the layers.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/06/clarence-thomas/#harlan-crow

"Gig apps trap reverse centaurs in wage-stealing Skinner boxes" is one of my best titles. This is the post where I introduce the idea of "twiddling" as part of the theory of enshittification, and explain how it relates to "reverse centaurs" – people who assist machines, rather than the other way around. Finding a CC licensed modular synth was much harder than I thought, but I found Stephen Drake's image and stitched it into a mandala. Cutting out the horse's head for the reverse centaur was a lot of work (manes are a huuuuge pain in the ass), but I love how his head sits on the public domain high-viz-wearing warehouse worker's body I cut up (thanks, OSHA!). Seeing as this is an horrors-of-automation story, Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes make an appearance.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Rockefeller's greatest contribution to our culture was inspiring many excellent unflattering caricatures. The IWW's many-fists-turning-into-one-fist image made it easy to have the collective might of workers toppling the original robber-baron.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/14/aiming-at-dollars/#not-men

I link to this post explaining how to make good Mastodon threads at least once a week, so it's a good thing the graphic turned out so well. Close-cropping the threads from a public domain yarn tangle worked out great. Eugen Rochko's Mastodon logo was and is the only Affero-licensed image ever to appear on Pluralistic.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/16/how-to-make-the-least-worst-mastodon-threads/

I spent hours on the sofa one night painstakingly cutting up and reassembling the cover art from a science fiction pulp. I have a folder full of color-corrected, high-rez scans from an 18th century anatomy textbook, and the cross-section head-and-brain is the best of the lot.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

Those old French anatomical drawings are an endless source of delight to me. Take one cross-sectioned noggin, mix in an old PC mainboard, and a vector art illo of a virtuous cycle with some of Cryteria's HAL9000 eyes and you've got a great illustration of Google's brain-worms.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/14/googles-ai-hype-circle/

Ireland's privacy regulator is but a plaything in Big Tech's hand, but it's goddamned hard to find an open-access Garda car. I manually dressed some public domain car art in Garda livery, painstakingly tracing it over the panels. The (public domain) baby's knit cap really hides the seams from replacing the baby's head with HAL9000's eye.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

Naked-guy-in-a-barrel bankruptcy images feel like something you can find in an old Collier's or Punch, but I came up snake-eyes and ended up frankensteining a naked body into a barrel for the George Washington crest on the Washington State flag. It came out well, but harvesting the body parts from old muscle-beach photos left George with some really big guns. I tried five different pairs of suspenders here before just drawing in black polyhedrons with little grey dots for rivets.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/03/when-the-tide-goes-out/#passive-income

Illustrating Amazon's dominance over the EU coulda been easy – just stick Amazon 'A's in place of the yellow stars that form a ring on the EU flag. So I decided to riff on Plutarch's Alexander, out of lands to conquer. Rama's statue legs were nice and high-rez. I had my choice of public domain ruin images, though it was harder thank expected to find a good Amazon box as a plinth for those broken-off legs.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/14/flywheel-shyster-and-flywheel/#unfulfilled-by-amazon

God help me, I could not stop playing with this image of a demon-haunted IoT car. All those reflections! The knife sticking out of the steering wheel, the multiple Munsch 'Scream'ers, etc etc. The more I patchked with it, the better it got, though. This one's a banger.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

To depict a "data-driven dictatorship," I ganked elements of heavily beribboned Russian military dress uniforms, replacing the head with HAL9000's eye. I turned the foreground into the crowds from the Nuremberg rallies and filled the sky with Matrix code waterfall.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/26/dictators-dilemma/#garbage-in-garbage-out-garbage-back-in

The best thing about analogizing DRM to demonic possession is the wealth of medieval artwork to choose from . This one comes from the 11th century 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros.' I mixed in the shiny red Tesla (working those reflections!), and a Tesla charger to make my point.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

Yet more dividends from those old French anatomical plates: a flayed skull, a detached jaw, a quack electronic gadget, a Wachowski code waterfall and some HAL 9000 eyes and you've got a truly unsettling image of machine-compelled speech.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

I had no idea this would work out so well, but daaaamn, crossfading between a Wachowski code waterfall and a motherboard behind a roiling thundercloud is dank af.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/03/there-is-no-cloud/#only-other-peoples-computers

Of all the turkeys-voting-for-Christmas self-owns conservative culture warriors fall for, few can rival the "banning junk fees is woke" hustle. Slap a US-flag Punisher logo on and old-time card imprinter, add a GOP logo to a red credit-card blank, and then throw in a rustic barn countertop and you've got a junk-fee extracter fit for the Cracker Barrel.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

Putting the Verizon logo on the Hinderberg was an obvious gambit (even if I did have to mess with the flames a lot), but the cutout of Paul Marcarelli as the 'can you hear me now?' guy, desaturated and contrast-matched, made it sing.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/10/smartest-guys-in-the-room/#can-you-hear-me-now

Note to self: Tux the Penguin is really easy to source in free/open formats! He looks great with HAL9000 eyes.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

Rockwell's self-portrait image is a classic; that made it a natural for a HAL9000-style remix about AI art. I put a bunch of time into chopping and remixing Rockwell's signature to give it that AI look, and added as many fingers as would fit on each hand.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

(Images: Heinz Bunse, West Midlands Police, Christopher Sessums, CC BY-SA 2.0; Mike Mozart, Jesse Wagstaff, Stephen Drake, Steve Jurvetson, syvwlch, Doc Searls, https://www.flickr.com/photos/mosaic36/14231376315, Chatham House, CC BY 2.0; Cryteria, CC BY 3.0; Mr. Kjetil Ree, Trevor Parscal, Rama, “Soldiers of Russia” Cultural Center, Russian Airborne Troops Press Service, CC BY-SA 3.0; Raimond Spekking, CC BY 4.0; Drahtlos, CC BY-SA 4.0; Eugen Rochko, Affero; modified)

[quasitsqueeries]

The Emperor wasn't 12 feet tall

I see this meme a lot in my Instagram feed and it really grinds my gears:

Not because it seems to be trying to shame a fictional antagonist for being "wrong" (although that really doesn't help), but because whoever made it seems to have missed that depictions of the Emperor as superhuman are meant to be Imperial Propaganda.

Now, I realise I'm going to be fighting an uphill battle here because there seem to be people working for Games Workshop and producing their media who also missed that memo, and for a while now the studio has started producing actual depictions of the Emperor, and some of those depections show him as 12 feet tall and immortal. This might be controversial but I think what this shows is that Games Workshop don't understand Games Workshop's source material.

Here's a picture of the Emperor from the original Rogue Trader rulebook.

Even this is obviously meant to be a propaganda image, but here he looks like just a regular guy in armour, he's about the same size as the people around him. Not a superhuman, just a guy with an excess of hubris.

There's this literary construct called the unreliable narrator. When I studied literature we were given this short story to read called Bartleby the Scrivener. It's told from the point of view of an employer about a clerk who was apparently really difficult to manage. The subtext is that the narrator is trying to manipulate the reader to make themself look good.

For a long time, that's what Warhammer 40,000 did, the Imperium was made out to be an unreliable narrator. Stories about the Imperium's "glorious past" were told through the haze of ten thousand years of unending war, by an ecclesiastical class with a vested interest in keeping Imperial citizens committed to feeding the war machine. To the Imperium, the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy serve the function of myths, more than history. I've gone on before about how important heroic figures like Siegfried and Perseus and Prometheus were to the Nazis. The Imperium, being a fictional state that draws on the aesthetics and ideology of Fascism, uses the figures of the Emperor and Primarchs the same way.

Basically what I'm saying is that when Imperial sources state that these people were twelve feet tall and immortal and could, um, turn a giant ork into a lightbulb on a whim, it's not because they had these powers, but because they've been ascribed these powers by their priesthood, who have total control over the flow of information in this setting.

And I get that this is hard, because most people don't get taught this stuff, and often people are probably looking for escapism from their fiction and why would the book I'm reading lie to me? But I think it really makes the setting more interesting if you look at it this way.

Also, I realise that since 2006 there have been books around that describe the Emperor, and they do show him as superhuman, and I think those depictions are based on the writers misunderstanding the material they're working from. I guess Tolkien wrote the existence of The Hobbit into Middle Earth as the Red Book of Westmarch so I can tell myself that the Horus Heresy novels are meant to be in-universe Imperial propaganda.

ADDENDUM: I need to add this because I've been reading about Perpetuals, which is apparently what the Emperor is since the Horus Heresy series was published. Apparently these individuals are human mutants that are both immortal and invincible. I remember Mechanicum heavily implying that the Emperor and St. George are the same person. Here's the problem with that. There are two themes that I think are really important in Warhammer 40,000. One is the Emperor's hubris, the idea was that he was playing god, genetically engineering monstrosities in the form of the primarchs. In the Greek tragic mould, it's this hubris that leads to his downfall. This kind of loses its sting if he's just trying to recreate what what he already is.

The other theme is the Imperium's superstition. This one is really the core of 40K. The Imperium has taken the corpse of a man who tried to rule the galaxy, told themselves he's not dead, plugged the corpse into a machine that "regenerates" him, and founded an intolerant, violent and expansionist religion around this husk. This theme changes significantly if the Emperor actually was as powerful as the Ecclesiarchy makes him out to be, and actually isn't dead, and has somehow been regenerating for the last 10,000 years. There's a question here about what would make an entity worthy of worship, or being called a god, and I probably shouldn't get into it but this is my blog so I'm going to. It seems like there's an assumption among some writers that if something can be rationally explained then it's not a god, because gods ipso facto don't exist. They've incorporated nonexistence into their definition of gods. This is where you get the idea that the Chaos gods aren't gods, because the setting explains their existince "rationally" with its internal logic (nevermind that there's nothing rational about the warp). If there were gods in a rational sense, then our model of the universe would have to change to accomodate them. I think the upshot of this is basically that if what the Horus Heresy novels claim about the Emperor is true, then the Ecclesiarchy are right and he is a god within the logic of the setting. That doesn't justify the genocide and expansionism, but maybe it does justify the worship, and that's something that I think takes away from the setting.

[hirazuki]

Give me all the hot takes

🔥🔥🔥

OMG I feel like I have nothing but hot takes, if I listed them all we'd be here for years 🤣 I will give as many as the number of flames you sent!

Under a cut, because (unsurprisingly) it got long XD

There is ✧･ﾟ:* nothing *:･ﾟ✧ in the published text of The Silmarillion to indicate that Eol was chronically abusive/violent towards Aredhel or Maeglin during all their years together. One single snippet of dialogue of one single exchange of heated words does not constitute an abusive environment, as neither do arguments/disagreements or the experiencing of anger. If anything, instead of being present and violent, it seems as though distance grew between them and he made himself scarce more often than not. His relationships with both his wife and his son are clearly shown to be cases of mutual deterioration over time -- people who are fundamentally at cross purposes with each other, as far as wants and beliefs and desires go, and the text quite solidly implies that Aredhel had her share of the blame, given as she was to recklessness, impulse, changeable mood and mind, etc. -- and this decline was almost exclusively exacerbated by the effect of outside forces on their lives (Sindar vs. Noldor, the ban on quenya, Feanor's sons and Aredhel's connection with them specifically, etc.), rather than any more domestic issues between them. Was it unhealthy? Sure, but certainly nowhere near the picture general fandom paints "canon" out to be, and I wish more people would engage in the wonderful nuance the text provides us with. Also, as far as published Silm goes, Eol wove enchantments to draw Aredhel to his dwelling, but it doesn't say he forced or coerced or enchanted her to enter; she entered and stayed willingly. And it drives me crazy to see people flay Eol as a rapist in one breath, while going 'YAS QUEEN' for Melian with another*, when it's the same scenario in, incredibly, the same place -- it smacks of double-standards, and a couple of other words that I will refrain from using, as some people on this website think I'm nice and I'd hate to shatter that illusion XD *I have absolutely no issue with Melian; I really enjoy her as a character. It's the hypocrisy that I can't stand :)

I've ranted about this before in the tags of some post somewhere, but: Celebrimbor. It's been my experience that, fairly frequently, there's a tendency to portray him in a manner that tends to make him very... bland. Wonderbread™, if you will. Idk if it's to contrast Annatar or to contrast Feanor and Curufin, but it ends up making Celebrimbor far too soft and pliable and people-pleasing, distastefully so, taking away all of the interesting hard surfaces and edges. Yes, he distances himself from his family and rejects them; yes, he can want to build a new reputation of his own, untainted by the First Age; yes, Ost-in-Edhil can be a place of open doors and second chances; yes, he can be hyper-aware of his legacy as Feanor's grandson and seek to present an opposite image through his words and actions -- all of this is beautiful. But it's even more beautiful if he's allowed to have traits that are callbacks to his father and grandfather; let him be angry (in private or in public, in short isolated spurts that come out of nowhere or as a simmering undercurrent), let him be shrewd and sharp and opinionated (let Annatar cut himself on him a little). This doesn't mean he can't also be kind and earnest and honest and trying his best. Most of all, let him be greedy -- not only for knowledge or power in and of themselves, not necessarily, but for what those things can afford him: the ability to make that which he loves (i.e. Middle Earth) a better, grander place. We're all greedy for the things we want, and I would argue most of those things aren't negative -- stability, acceptance, a better tomorrow, etc. Greed isn't limited to physical things or luxuries and it isn't inherently a bad thing! [/troy baker voice]. There's just so much there to play with, even completely aside from his dynamic with Annatar, and it just makes me equal parts sad and upset to see a character with such ambition and potential and fire frequently so babied and made naive, that he is reduced to the written equivalent of a soggy waffle.

Okay, now for something that is a bit more lighthearted and personal, but no less hot -- and perhaps? may contradict your own Mairon interpretation (in which case, I'm always happy to agree to disagree ^^) -- I can totally see why fandom makes Sauron into this super sexy/sexual creature but... it's a hard nope from me. He's certainly alluring and attractive to others, and knows how to use it to great effect, but I just can't see him genuinely vibing with it, relishing in it for himself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I know I keep harping on the Luthien incident, but it's just such a stark contrast to literally everyone else who comes across her -- including Melkor -- that it's really difficult to interpret his utter non-reaction to her as anything but a personal disinterest in matters of the flesh, at least in and of themselves without some kind of connection/relationship there. Everyone likes to joke about him being the whore/slut of the Silm, and sure it can be funny at times, but that concept is just so alien to how he reads to me.

[tgtbata]

got tagged to answer some some spn questions by @prince-of-elsinore and @catnipster69, questions originally by @red-meat-my-beloved i believe!

what song describes samdean the most?

i wouldn't say these songs describe sam&dean the most because my brainworms are fickle and often incomprehensible, but i have a whole slew of songs that are samdean songs for me! for example children's work by dessa as an overview of the whole show, untouchable face by ani difranco for pining!dean in the pilot episode, gospel truth by joseph j jones for early season pining, 551 by dessa for s4/s5 vibes, learning to love again by matt kearny for the relief of telling your brother you love him, the heart is a muscle by gang of youths for late seasons comfy brosbands, find me by forest blakk for the finale (not reeeeally a song but it counts).

and obvious ones like brother by needtobreathe, night moves by bob seger or always gold by radical face.

i also have a terrible habit of trying to connect every song i listen to while drawing to the ship i'm drawing so i'll go like, maybe before he cheats by carrie underwood IS a samdean song.....

if spn was set in europe, what country would the Winchesters be from? What language/languages would they speak?

i don't think i can possibly answer this any better than elsi did with eastern bloc because it's both hilarious and interesting. i also want to add that it would feed into the religious angle in a way worth exploring, dean being a non-believer and everything.

but it's also fun to image supernatural set in e.g. sweden in the style of nordic noir.

if they didn’t have the impala, what car would they drive?

i'm totally not a car guy so i'm the wrong person to ask this but i think it'd be cute to force them into a limegreen volkswagen beetle.

is there a project you’re working on currently? Do you have a line or sketch from it to share?

i'm always working on something rip uhmmm here's a base sketch from a thing i'm working on about dean surviving the rebar

what’s the first fanfic for supernatural you’ve written? Did you publish it? Or if you don’t write: what��s the first fanfic you remember reading?

it was so long ago that i can't tell you much about the first spn fics i've read. one that i remember i read early on was on fanfiction.net and wasn't wincest but destiel. it had dean traveling through different universes for a reason i can't remember and in most of those other universes cas and him were banging. but what stuck with me when i read it was that there was one universe where dean had died and sam and cas were hooking up haha. the further details of that fic escape me.

an early wincest fic i remember was one where sam saves dean from hell and it was based on orpheus and eurydice.

is there another codependent/enmeshed duo from a different fandom you enjoy? Are there parallels to Sam and Dean?

seth/richie from dusk till dawn!!!! soooo many parallels!! i won't get into it but i'm always happy to make ppl watch fdtd and talk about it.

it's been some time since i've watched dexter but him and debra or him and brian also.

what type of wincest dynamic do you currently enjoy most? (sexual, platonic, dark, fluffy, early seasons, etc.)

later-ish to late seasons, spending most of their time together, feeling so comfortable with each other it almost scares them to relax into it lest it gets taken away, letting people make assumptions about them, sexually/romantically into each other, piiiining.

but really i'll eat it all, every wincest dynamic, ravenously.

(i think everyone i'd wanna tag already got tagged but if you see this and want to do it, say i tagged you!)

[be-ready-when-i-say-go]

Inked

Still on hiatus. But I found an old piece of writing and I revamped it just a smidge! It was originally published in 2018 on calumh-excess. Which is now deactivated. Hooray for finding pieces!

Calum's been watching Jay for a while. She's cute, talented, but a bit of mystery. Should he really give into her? What will it take for him to admit he has a crush?

Enjoy my masterlist (on hiatus)

______________

He watched her sometimes for far too long. The way her tongue stuck out as she pulled the skin and her hand worked steadily with the needle made it hard for him to resist. Her face always seemed to catch the harsh fluorescent lights and reflect it back so that it twinkled against her skin. A slight sheen, but nothing just of ethereal. He wasn’t even interested in any new ink, not seriously anyway. He had slowed on the ink train, but the shop his tattoo artist owned was a nice place to hang out sometimes. When he wanted to get out of his house but didn’t want to actually go somewhere, he could hang out here, listening to the buzz of the tattoo gun, poke his hand at trying a design here or there. They weren't great. He hadn't considered him this kind of artist, but the shop felt like a second home.

Besides, having her around was a more than welcomed bonus.

He wasn’t even sure what it was about her. She showed up about a year and a half ago, under an apprenticeship. Calum’s artist was unsure of her, much like everyone else that asked to work under him. A hazard of the job, according to the job, according to Calum's artist. However, her drawings spoke volumes; the colors and line work were impeccable. She had talent and knew it without being cocky about it. Well, sometimes she wasn’t. Calum watched her run into the occasional asshole that tried to belittle her; she always put her foot down in those situations. He didn’t fault her.

Today’s no different. When Calum walks in, he greets the guy at the front desk, eyes searching for her. He spots her in the back with her oversized frames creating a small glare over her brown eyes. He never quite got the appeal of the grandma-shaped glasses trend, but on her, they worked. She looked wise but soft. The glass pulled him in, felt like she was seeing into his soul. Maybe she was; maybe the pain made people more vulnerable than they anticipated--entrusting someone, a stranger in some ways, to permanently mark you and not fuck it up. Whatever the reason, looking at her felt timeless. Like she had seen it all, and you are just waiting for you to spill all the secrets.

“You finally going to get some new ink?” Calum’s artist teases.

Calum shakes his head, turning his attention away from her. “You finally took her training wheels off?”

“Your girlfriend’s got mad skills. I couldn’t baby her forever. Jay works hard on each piece, learned fast. Got a steady ass hand and pretty gentle for handling a needle.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Yeah, because you haven’t hardly even talked to her. Go for it, you wuss. What’s the worst she says? No?”

Calum exhales a chuckle. "I mean, the worst she stabs me with the tattoo gun. But considering the ink I'm already sporting, I doubt that's really all that bad.”

“Jay would not do that unless you asked for it, ff course. But really, go on, ask her out.”

Calum glances back at Jay. It’s a nickname. No one in the shop calls her by her full name. The only reason Calum heard it was when a client came asking for her. Jay was quick to correct them.

She wipes, clearing excess ink, before dipping back into the small cup. Jay smiles up at her client. Calum's sure they appreciate the reprise. Getting tattoos weren't always fun, but bearable enough to forget about it and get more.

Calum turns his gaze away. “I recommended you to a friend,” he says, hoping that he’ll escape the teasing. It’s not likely to happen. But at least he tries to minimize the ridicule.

"I appreciate it. Are they a first-timer?"

"A second-timer, but they're visiting town and want some new ink. I figured best not to fuck them over."

The two men laugh before Calum's escorted back to look through some new designs. Just in case something sparks his interest. Calum's visit is supposed to be short, but there's not much else on his to-do list for the day. He could kill a few hours here.

When Calum comes out from the back, after spending too much time pretending art was ever a talent of his, he looks for Jay again. She’s not in her corner, nor is she at the front. Calum shrugs, figuring she might have gone for lunch, or home depending.

As Calum walks to his car, he checks his phone. Nothing major's happened.

“Leaving so soon?” A voice states. Calum knows that voice, a little gravelly, mostly sweet. He’s dreamt of it every so often. He prays to hear it when he visits the shop.

He turns to Jay, who leans against the bricks. A vape is wrapped in her fingers. “Gotta get some dinner, maybe make a run to the grocery store," Calum returns. "I've gotten lazy."

She nods. “This reminds me that I can't survive off BLTs forever," she laughs.

"You could try, but I think you'd need other vegetables and some fruit in that mix too."

She pushes up on her glass with a nod. "Ah, yes, gotta get the whole food pyramid." It goes silent between them and Calum gives another nod, raising a few fingers to signal his departure while still keeping his phone in a secure enough grip.

"Hey, wait!" Jay calls out again, taking a half step forward. Calum turns to her. "Can I give you something before you leave?”

Calum nods, not trusting his voice. What would she give him? She nods back to the front door, taking back that initial half-step. “It's inside. Give me like two minutes.”

She disappears inside and Calum stands, his phone still in his hands, staring at the spot she once stood. Just as quickly as she disappeared, Jay reappears. In hand is her portfolio. She flips through before stopping and slides the heavy-duty drawing paper out.

Calum stares down at the green and black drawing. It’s his face, for the most part, that stares back at him. It’s distorted by a crystal ball that glows green. Inside are some instruments and something else, but right now he can’t really put it all together. His eyes keep moving over the lightning bolt, the crystal ball, the uncanniness of his face on a piece of paper, his three-dimensional face somehow translated perfectly into a 2-D space.

“Holy shit, this is amazing,” he breathes. “Thank you,” he says looking back up to her.

She shrugs with a smile. “You’re welcome.”

“Seriously, this is so fucking awesome. I’m going to frame it,” he gushes. He’s too excited to be nervous, or be embarrassed. "What are the dimensions?"

“I'm just really glad you don’t find it too creepy. I was watching you a couple weeks ago when you stopped by. It just sort hit me, the image of the crystal ball and lightning bolt; I had to draw it,” Jay elaborates. "And it's 8.5 by 11--standard printer paper size."

Calum shakes his head, staring over the drawing again. It feels so delicate suddenly in his hands. It’s almost like Jay recognizes the change in his handling. She shuffles her load in her hands and pulls out an empty plastic over. “Here,” she laughs handing it over. “So it doesn’t smudge or anything if you're worried."

Calum slides it in. “Thank you. Again. Seriously.”

“You’re welcome, Calum. Good luck with your grocery store trip and dinner,” Jay nods and then heads back inside. Calum watches the way the denim stretches across her hips, the way her hair billows just a little in the breeze of her strut.

For a moment, Calum can't move. The weight of the paper in his hand is hardly ounces, but it holds him--traps him to the point of the sidewalk. Jay thought enough of him to draw him. What did it all mean? Should he have found the courage to ask her out? He could walk back inside. But what if she didn't like him like that? Would it be too weird?

Calum blinks up into the hardly settling sun and thinks to himself, the second he can come back here, it better be with a bit more courage and possibly a gift certificate. No one can be made about free food, right?

It’s months before Calum can visit the shop again. The tour is a whirlwind and he only gets a few days off between legs. Not long enough to get back home or feel like he had any energy to drive out to the shop. But now that he's settled back in at home, he knows exactly where he's going.

It’s not his typical practice to just walk in and ask for a tattoo. But given the ink already on him, worse things could happen. When he pulls open the door, he notices it's kind of slow. Jay greets him at the front desk. “Hey, stranger,” she grins.

“Hey, how are you?” he asks in return.

“Pretty good. How was it? The tour? See any cool places?”

He nods. “Yeah, got to explore a few cities.” He taps his fingers against the wooden desk. “Do you have an appointment anytime soon?”

Jay shakes her head. “My 2 o’clock had to reschedule. I’m here until 4 before I see anyone. Why? What's tickling your fancy?”

“I was wondering if you could do a tat for me? I know this is very last minute and if you need me to come in another day this week, I totally can.” His words run into each other; his palms start to sweat. He wipes them on his jeans.

Jay laughs, holding up a hand. “Whoa, pump the brakes. One, what are you looking for?”

“You know that drawing you did for me?” She nods. “I was kind of hoping you could create something with just the crystal ball and lightning bolt. I know the drawing itself is kind of big.”

A grin lifts her cheeks; Calum’s heart settles for a second. “I think I can do that. Where are you thinking to put it?”

“Inner bicep.” He watches her gaze land on his arm. The t-shirt is baggy, he at least thought about that with enough advance.

“Give me 30 minutes to come up with some sketches.” Jay pushes away from the front desk and heads to the back, but not for calling to the shop to watch the front desk.

Calum slides into the seat at the front, leg bouncing as he settles down. This isn’t even his first tattoo, but the nerves flood his body. His scalp tingles. The thirty minutes move by too fast, but also too slow simultaneously. The seconds feel like hours but move by milliseconds.

Eventually, Jay resurfaces, waving him over to her. He walks back and looks at the sketches she places out in front of him. There are two different ones. One’s a bit more minimalistic, which is her style, with the lightning bolt in the background and a simple crystal ball at the point. The other is a bit bolder, the ball has a slightly warped edge where it connects to the bolt. It looks like the bolt is melting the glass ball.

“I can whip up more if neither one of them are quite right. But I wasn’t sure if it wanted something a bit more crisp and sharp or not,” Jay explains.

Calum admits that most of his tattoos are more cleaned up and sharp. He likes the idea of playing with a new style. “I like the second one,” he says, tapping it.

“You sure?” He nods, he’s never been more sure of something in his life. “Which bicep? Let me line it up and make sure it’ll fit.”

Calum lifts his left arm up for her. Laying the stencil over his skin, Jay notes she has to make a couple small tweaks. But after that, she’ll be ready. They discuss full color, or just outline, or shading, price, and a few other details before Jay concludes with, “Hop in my seat. I’ll be there soon.”

Calum nods and walks over to her station. Her stuff is already laid out, probably for her canceled 2 o’clock. It’s about five more minutes before Jay returns with the final stencil. Calum rolls up the sleeve of his shirt before she places the stencil. Happy with the placement, he stretches out on the table.

Jay gets herself ready before she brings the needle over his skin. The first puncture always makes him jolt a little, the first jab of pain causes his heart to race. “Do you plan on relaxing now that you're back home?"

"Yeah, for a little bit. I might go see my family, but I know we'll be back in the studio soon. Anything exciting happen while I was gone?"

"I mean exciting things happen every day at this place. But it's not like I could recall them all now."

Calum hums, acknowledging her statement, but not quite sure what to say next. Luckily, Jay's faster to fill in the silence. "You do realize you didn’t have to get a tattoo to have a real conversation with me?” Jay teases, pushing up her glasses.

Calum’s cheeks heat. “It’s not like that,” he chuckles.

“Well, that’s how it seems.”

“You were always busy when I stopped by. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Not always,” she laughs. “But it’s alright. You’re going to have plenty of time while I’m stabbing you to say all those things you didn’t.”

A chuckle escapes him; of course, Jay would have this sense of humor. “Wow, I can’t believe I’m paying so much for people just to stab me and act as a therapy. Maybe I am a masochist.”

“So are a lot of people. Sometimes you just take the emotional pain out in the physical realm.”

“I always imagined people that worked in a tattoo shop to be more heavily tatted,” Calum hums, taking in scattered ink across her arms and one pokes out from the V in her t-shirt.

“I focused it more on my back and legs and not so much my arms. I’m getting there. So, why this one today?”

Calum goes to shrug, but stops himself as he hears the gun nearing his skin again. “Not really sure. It looked cool. I guess it also serves to remind me that fate isn’t linear. There’s going to be twists and turns, maybe some trouble. And that’s okay. Don’t be afraid of the journey. Also, it's really fucking cool art.”

Jay hums her laugh, “Why thank you. Wise brain you got there. Besides, it seems like you also have people you keep close to you.” She eyes the initials and the name under the bird. “Whoever they are to you, I hope you all stay close.”

“Those are my parents' initials,” he explains. “And my sister’s name. They’ve been with me through it all--I love them dearly.”

“So sweet. I wish my parents and I were closer. I tattooed my brother’s jersey number on me. It was my first tattoo.”

“What did he play?”

“Soccer, or for your kind, football.”

“Hey now, it’s played with the feet, it makes much more sense.”

Jay laughs, wiping off excess ink. She cocks her head to the side a little, then goes back in for the black ink. “I’m only teasing. Us Americans are so dumb sometimes. Like why is our football not called something else? Literally, the only thing that happens with the feet is the running. We carry the fucking ball.”

“I’ve wondered that as well!” he laughs. "Does your brother still play?"

“Yeah, the whole knucklehead still plays for his college.”

“What position?”

Jay laughs. “I'll have you know my job as the older sister is to show up and cheer him on. Something defensive? I don’t remember off the top my head.”

“I’ll give you credit for that. I’m sure he appreciates it.”

“He does until he sees with me in face paint on and then he’s acting like he doesn’t know me. Oh, oh wait, I think remember what he does. It’s defensive,” she pauses, lips pursed together, “something fielder.”

“Defensive midfielder?” he asks.

“Yeah, that. But like I said, I show up when I can and scream. That’s it. When he’s old enough, I’ll buy him a beer after his games too.”

“How old is he?”

“Nineteen, we’re three years apart.”

“The only sibling you have?”

“Nah, got a baby sister too. She’s fifteen. If you’re impressed by my eyeshadow thank her. Because she’s the one that taught me how to do it.”

Calum finds himself staring at the red and gold coloring her eyelids. “It looks really nice,” he breathes.

“Why thank you.” She pauses to bats her eyelashes. “I even managed to get those godforsaken falsies on right too. They look good, but the raise hell.”

“I think you’re the first woman I’ve met in LA that’s not obsessed with makeup,” he notes.

“Oh, you were doing so well. There are a lot of people of who aren’t huge in the makeup scene.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he tries to backtrack. “I’m sorry. In my experience, it’s not like that. They’re hiding the fact they aren’t wearing makeup--embarrassed by it or something.”

Jay nods, pushing up her glasses yet again. “Yeah, it’s not easy. We’re told to be perfect, but in reality, we’re just like everyone. We’re human, imperfect and flaw-full and beautiful.”

“Not in spite of, but because of.”

“Exactly,” she chuckles. Silences settles in around them. Calum wonders why she said she was closer to her family, but the way she talks about her siblings doesn’t match. She’s cheering her brother on at his game; she’s sitting down to learn makeup with and from her sister.

“Can I ask a bit of a personal question?” he asks.

“What kind of personal? Do I get a lifeline?”

Cal exhales a laugh. “You can always say no.”

“Hit me with it.”

“Why say that you’re family isn’t close but you clearly take a lot of pride in your siblings?”

“An observant one on my table, I see. It’s my parents. They don’t like that I’m pansexual, say I’m going to hell. My siblings don’t fucking care. I’m still the crazy-ass sister that loves and supports them.”

With a hum of acknowledgment from Calum, it goes quiet again around them for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. He knows it doesn’t really fix anything for her; it doesn’t take away the potential years of her suffering. It’s the only thing he can offer her though. It feels right to say.

“Oh, no need for you to be sorry. It’s not like you threw me out of the house.”

“Ouch. You’re making it though right?”

“Yeah, now that I work here, things are on the up and up.”

“That’s good; I’m glad.”

“Thanks.”

“Favorite tattoo you’ve done?” he asks, wanting to hear her voice again.

“This one,” she laughs. “Though I had someone ask for a pin-up witch, which was also pretty fucking cool to do.”

Calum remembers seeing that on her Instagram. “That one was amazing! Her lips looked so good; I know that’s a strange thing to admit.”

“Don’t worry. I am quite proud of that myself.”

“Do you have a favorite tattoo on you?”

“The blue jay on my shoulder. My parents would take me on walks when I was still an infant. According to the legend, while they were sitting on a park bench a blue jay landed on me. I didn’t cry; it didn’t hurt me. It just landed for a second and then flew off. They called me Blue Jay ever since. I just shortened the nickname as I got older.” She gives one more wipe. “Finished. Check it out.”

Calum sits up, walking over to the mirror. He grins seeing the melting ball sitting against his skin. He grins over to Jay. “It looks amazing. Thank you.”

“No problem.” They head back over to her station. Jay cleans it and wraps the fresh ink. Calum carefully gets his sleeve back down with a little help from Jay. He pays their agreed price with his card, but slides two fifties over to her. “You do know that’s more than double a twenty percent tip right?”

Calum shrugs. “Is it? I’m bad at math,” he grins. “Treat your sister to a new palette or something. Treat yourself to something.”

“Thank you. Now next time, you come by, I hope we don’t talk while I’m stabbing you repeatedly.”

Calum shakes his head, a grin still on his face. Of course. He had forgotten to get the gift certificate. But possibly asking Jay to dinner wouldn't be such a bad idea. “Give me your number and I can promise the next time we talk, it won’t in your chair.”

She holds out her hand, waiting. He hands her his phone, after unlocking it. She puts her number in. She goes to hand the phone back but just before his fingers touch it, she draws it back. "I mean it--actually text me. I adore memes, dogs, TikToks, your favorite songs."

"I'll actually talk to you. I promise."

Jay hands over his phone with a smile. Calum steps outside the glass doors. Why should he wait? He could do it now. For fuck sake, the last hour had been the groundwork for a clear sign a date was absolutely an option. His fingers hovering over her name. He taps it, and then presses for a call. Holding the phone to his ear, he listens to it ring for a second.

“I can still see you, you know?” Jay laughs.

Calum turns around, catching her leaning against the front desk. “I told you the next time we talked you wouldn’t be inking me.”

“What can I help you with, Calum?”

“Dinner, tonight-- I may have ordered too many appetizers for just little old me."

Her laugh trickles in over the speaker. She drops her head, giving it a shake before looking back up to him in the afternoon sun. “I think I can help you with that. Give me the time and place."

Calum rattles off the name of a restaurant that he had been wanting to try. Nothing too upscale, but not something that would be too casual. "How does 8 sound?"

"I love it there. I'll see you at 8."

“Bye, Jay.”

“Bye, Calum.” As he walks to his car, his phone buzzes yet again. This time a text from his artist, I’m being fucking replaced, I see. I can’t be too mad since it’s Jay. Calum laughs as he slides into his car. Maybe he is getting replaced; maybe he’s not. Calum’s not sure. He is sure that he needs to figure out if he can make reservations and what to wear for tonight.

[sanstropfremir]

ok this took way longer than i expected because i got sidetracked looking at paintings and reading poetry and just admiring the mv, but it's finally finished!! let's talk about

higher

✨

i'm going to draw your attention to a few things.

firstly, these verses from rime of the ancient mariner by samuel taylor coleridge, published 1834:

The harbour-bay was clear as glass,

So smoothly it was strewn!

And on the bay the moonlight lay,

And the shadow of the Moon.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,

That stands above the rock:

The moonlight steeped in silentness

The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent light,

Till rising from the same,

Full many shapes, that shadows were,

In crimson colours came.

A little distance from the prow

Those crimson shadows were:

I turned my eyes upon the deck—

Oh, Christ! what saw I there!

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,

And, by the holy rood!

A man all light, a seraph-man,

On every corse there stood.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand:

It was a heavenly sight!

They stood as signals to the land,

Each one a lovely light;

This seraph-band, each waved his hand,

No voice did they impart—

No voice; but oh! the silence sank

Like music on my heart.

secondly, this ivan aivazovsky painting, chaos (the creation), c. 1841:

and thirdly, the memorial of percy shelley, who drowned in a boating accident at age 29, in 1822:

there's a common conflation between the romantic and the pastoral in the general cultural consensus because the pastoral a) has been around as an art term longer than romantic, and b) romanticism does use some similar imagery. but there is a key difference: the pastoral is specfically an idealization of 'the simple shepherding life,' often for high class and urban audiences who have no conception of the details of this life includes. one of the more famous examples is christopher marlowe's a passionate shepherd to his love, published in 1599:

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the Rocks,

Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,

By shallow Rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of Roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and Ivy buds,

With Coral clasps and Amber studs:

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me, and be my love.

The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May-morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me, and be my love.

whereas romanticism is a more pointedly specific movement that was active from around 1800 to 1850, primarily focused on intense emotion and catharsis as the primary experiential output of an artwork. which most prominently manifested in a deep fascination and glorification of the natural environment and historical nostalgia. the movement sprung from the german sturm und drang (literally storm and drive/stress) period of the late 1760s to early 1780s, which was a direct reaction to rationalism and enlightenment. romanticism had similar impulses; it was also a revival of medievalism and a reaction against the looming urban sprawl and mechanization of the industrial revolution. a typical romantic poem from one of the originators of the english movment william wordsworth, composed upon westminster bridge, september 3, 1802, originally published 1807:

Earth has not any thing to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

this romantic fascination with nature was underpinned by the philosophy of the sublime, generally agreed to be first treatised by edmund burke in 1756, the theory was also written about by kant and hegel. in the simplest of terms, the sublime is a quality of greatness beyond calculation, imitation, and human comprehension. the sublime is twofold; the greatness of the ocean is beautiful, but its power is also terrifying, and the experience of the sublime is to feel those two at once. to be in awe and also to be horrified of its ability to sink ships and drown a life in a tempermental change of tide.

let's take a quick detour to talk about

clothing

in the present day we have become much more lax thanks to the aesthetic movement in the late nineteenth century, but back in the early victorian period there are still highly structured rules about when and what clothing one can wear in public. and the clothing itself is also highly structured. anyone with a passing understanding of the victorian era knows about the whole flashing of the ankle thing and corsets galore, and it is true that the general day to day garments cover a lot of area. for men in particular, this manifests in no less than three layers in public at all times: shirt, waistcoat, and suit jacket, with a coat or mantle overtop in colder temperatures. this also includes a variation of a neck tie (depending on what year), hat, gloves, and any other decided upon accessories (this can also include a corset and other padded structural underpinnings). an important tangent to mention here is that this is the uniform of the upper classes, although the rules do apply to the lower classes if they wanted to appear 'sophisticated.' the working man's uniform was also shirt, waistcoat, trousers, but the difference here is in the textiles themselves; the colours tended to be much more drab, with less complicated patterns. obviously due to the price fabric itself, but also due to the labour of laundry. an indicator of class here is the white shirt itself and its pristine implications. (there is a longer conversation here about the invention of neckties and detachable collars and cuffs, but that's for another day). the silhouettes are very important to note here in the higher mv, as they are directly referential to the 'romantic poet' archetype of loose shirt and tight pants that we see in popular culture. but as i've just said, the reality is that men of the era were not dressed like this out in public. this look is essentially underwear; the implications are salacious. so where did this come from? well, we can blame it mostly on lord byron, who by all accounts was the first western 'rockstar.' notoriously called 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' by lady caroline lamb (a married women he publically had an affair with), byron was openly bisexual and deeply hedonistic with a lot of questionable habits, but his poetry was so popular that he was known to have women following him in the street and gathering in large quanities to see him at salons. and this was close to three decades before lizstomania. his close friends and contemporaries included percy and mary shelley, with whom he lived with abroad in italy for some time (this living arrangement resulted in the writing of both frankenstein and john polidori's the vampyre). byron's reputation was so eclipsing that the image of the lush poet lazing in his undergarments has become its own genre of romantic, slightly removed from the movement byron was writing in. it's also worth it to point out that there are no official portraits of byron dressed like this from the time. the visual assumption is somewhat apochryphal. now let's get into some specifics. a.c.e is not unfamiliar to this silhouette; as previously mentioned in this post i wrote about their styling, the boxy loose upper and fitted lower is their general mode for their styling because of its emphasis on legs. cactus was the most extreme example of this, and to prove my point, this specific silhouette is extremely common in classical ballet:

1. vaslav nijinsky, giselle, 1911 2. nehemiah kish, george balanchine's ballo della regina, 2011/12

higher fits very neatly into this same category: we have an emphasis on the legs through tightly fitted garments and also through light reflective textile, as well as a secondary emphasis on arm and shoulder movements with looser fit shirts. plus, the shirts are made from fabrics that have good drape and flow, and mimic the visual effects of water:

there are also several instances of scale patterning and wetlook hair styles, further elabourating on the siren theme. and the jewelry is the same, purposefully cut clear stones for oceanic sparkle or pearls, the gem directly born from water, as highlighting accents to specific parts of the body - namely eyes, hands, and torso:

the body jewelry also serves a double purpose in addition to being sparkly; it gives a semblance of shape to their torsos so their movements aren't totally lost in the shroud of their shirts, and it also invokes some of that salacious element that us as a modern audience doesn't necessarily perceive in the same way when we see a man wearing only a shirt. all of these points are especially prominent in the stage costuming. concerning the veils, these are an aesthetic choice following the theme of depicting water without actually using water. the song has a very breathless quality to it, and the lyrics directly make reference to water and breathlessness, so it only makes sense to have a physical manifestation of struggling to breathe.

now let's talk about

mise-en-scène

unlike most kpop mvs, I would argue that higher is not a spectacle in what we normally see spectacle to be. the overwhelming visual saturation of goblin (and the goblin remix) is more in line with what we expect, but how do you follow that, top it? the answer is that you don't. you aim for something with a completely different feel, which is exact what they did with higher.

the performing arts did not escape romanticism. the very start of the movement, sturm und drang, is actually named from a specific play written by friedrich maximilian klinger that premiered in 1777. the plays of the brief period are characterized by extreme and passionate emotions, and were siblings to one of the most famous genres of theatre, the melodrama. meant to appeal directly to the emotions of the audience using sensationalist plots and stock characters, the melodrama was the predominent form of entertainment in victorian england and gradually developed a specific form of its own. in this period we also start to see the development of 'stagecraft' into the recognizable form that it takes today. footlights, limelight/spotlighting, the separation of house and stage lighting, fly galleries, elevator platform mechanics, and the first (purported) western use of rear projection are all innovations of the late 18th and 19th centuries, as melodramas were known to have very intricate and spectacular stagings. and to go along with these stagecraft mechanics we see the rise in designated stage crews, which were predominantly off-duty sailors looking to make money. the rope systems that made up the fly galleries were very similar to that on ships, and much of the terminology and supersitions crossed over: this is the origin of the term 'rigging' being used for suspending set elements, and also the origin of the 'don't whistle in a theatre' superstition. as sailors communicated with whistle patterns on ships, the same system was adopted for changing scenery, and therefore whistling a random pattern could potentially drop a setpiece on an unsuspecting victim.

so with all this backstory out of the way, what is the very first full location we see? a stage, complete with forced perspective via the painted fabric legs (the side panels) and borders (the wavy upper panels). we even have a flat painted backdrop with a projection screen and hanging overhead lamps. there's also a second interior set, a desk in what looks to be a study of some kind. bit self explanatory on this one, taking the poet notion on the nose.

the locations have a bit of an obtuse arc, but it's there when you look for it. it starts interior spaces, where the ideas of sublime attempted to be recreated for the viewer. then it moves to transitory spaces; portions of nature isolated from a whole environment, interjections of human architecture into natural spaces:

(the white hut structure in the greenhouse is reminiscent of a skene (literally hut/tent), which is the structure at the back of the stage in ancient greek theatre used for the actors to change their masks and costumes. it was originally temporary, but slowly transformed into permanent stage architecture)

and then finally outdoors, into the sublime itself:

jwm turner, crossing the bridge, 1815

lastly,

lighting

there's a very clear lighting pattern here, primarily in light and dark. the base colour story is fairly simple complementary pairs; there's a lot of purple/red and green, and blue and yellow/amber, with everything relatively on the same tonal level. there are deliberate interjections of heavily saturated red for specific effect. there are also, most notably, a 'dark' version of all the sets. obviously as a reference to the eclipse that we see in the mv and in the concept photo series, but also as a reference to that darker undercurrent of the sublime, the upsetting, the uncanny, and the terrifying:

And the bay was white with silent light/Till rising from the same/Full many shapes, that shadows were/In crimson colours came.

[nvzblgrrl]

Part 1 Heyo man, I'm absolutely ecstatic that you have this whole One Piece Big Fic project in the works. I'm honestly p paranoid about interacting with words, but your works have been something I've continuously enjoyed going back to and rereading over all these years. And while you've grown and your earlier stuff feels cringe, there's a charm that Witt and Witticism and all of your earlier works have that is longlasting. And I, and apparently others, can't help but love.

Part 2 I've probably reread your fics a good thousand times by now. Like seriously I've got a good bunch of the fics you posted on AO3 saved as PDFs for my own personal reading when I feel the urge. Namely Luck of The Draw, Ultimate Symbiote, and a portion of your Chain Adventures. I've been here quietly reading for a long time and I'm gonna make sure to properly give feedback this time. Good luck in your absolutely bonkers endeavor!

Yeah, absolute mood on the ‘cringe’ part. I think the only excuse I can make for the really early stuff is that -

(this is gonna get loooong and reference child abuse + the 2000′s-2010′s meme culture, so pre-emptive apologies)

1. I had a really messed up upbringing. Not as bad as some people’s situations but still on the deeper end of bad by the ‘White American’ standard and still (albeit barely) within the bounds of Funny Sitcom Abuse Antics (at least for mid-2000′s and older stuff) most of the time. Most of it was neglect and social isolation - I pretty much left the property to go to school, church, and to visit relatives because of court-mandated visitation, the last of which probably kept me from going insane, and that was it aside from events where my dad needed an accessory to compliment his public mask - but there were some other shit mixed in that relied on the Trunchbull Rule (it has to sound too weird to be real so nobody believes it/takes it seriously) to happen.

So besides like, the PTSD from that (which has a habit of bleeding into all of my works, which you’ve probably noticed by now, lmao), I had like, zero experience on healthy relationships, social skills (well outside of a few variations on ‘messed up friendships’ and what I picked up from books, movies, and TV), and basic life skills outside of stuff like ‘boil water and follow the box directions’).

2. I got into the internet really late compared to my generation and everyone after. This was mostly because we had literally no semi-reliable internet access until I was about 11-13 and that was either the school internet or the dial-up at home (which of course was time-limited with the time shared with my brother and done on the family computer with observation in effect). Most of that was spent on like flash games or webcomics, many of which I have tried to reread only to find them gouging my soul because god what the hell was happening in 2007 - wait. Yeah.

It got better by the time we hit high school because by then we had our own computers (not scanners though, I had to pass art and passwords over to a friend of mine to get them on the internet for a couple years before we got one at home), a better internet connection, and high levels of parental disengagement as we proved to be disappointments despite our previous ‘potential’ (my dad was hoping for me to become a life-long cash cow for him, IDK what was going on with my brother and his mom), which meant I could spend more time on the internet... which at the time, meant DeviantArt and FF.net (tumblr came way, waaay at the end of my time in high school).

Yes, that’s where I started out. That should explain a good 90% of why the early stuff was Like That.

Also don’t look for my DeviantArt because I deleted the whole thing years ago, for cringe reasons - namely, a really, really stupid minor war over something I can’t even remember but it ran a lot like those old ‘Potterheads Get Your Wands’ posts, though the fact that 80% of my output towards the end were extremely banal and/or fucking insane One Piece (and occasionally Soul Eater) Demotivator Posters didn’t help.

Pictured: proof of my crimes against humanity (with some minor repeats - every single one of those demovitators are something I did and that’s not even all of them) despite my attempts to destroy the evidence, because the internet (and pinterest) never forget and often reposts without permission.

[Image description: a series of drawn images of a man. the first panel is of him looking at a computer with the subtitle ‘recognition’, the second is a close-up of him with sweat and a look of surprise on his face along with two exclamation points subtitled ‘realization’, the third and final image is an extreme close up of his intensely stressed expression subtitled ‘fear’.]

[Image description, but funny: me accidentally coming across one of those reposts a couple years ago.]

I personally can’t forget because I know my style at the time (it had a few variations, but all of them have been seared into my soul) and how inane/insane some of them read. My favorite was one that ended up turning into a word vomit about how cool Gol D. Roger was that ran so far that it didn’t fit inside the format anymore and ended up running off of the page repeatedly.

...and yes, I did make one edit that was ‘Dead or Alive? is that a trick question?’ for Brook. That one’s still circulating too.

3. While that covers a certain amount of the problems with the early work, Witt and Witticism stands out as a pinnacle because I was both using a reaction heavy style (I was pretty much doing a live-blog of my One Piece anime rewatch in fanfic form, using Witt as a mouth piece - a similar style was used with Ultimate Symbiote but fortified with a few original stories and actual non-canon stuff happening!) and going through the tail end an extreme manic period brought on by escaping (read: getting kicked out of because they were no longer socially or legally obligated to care for me anymore) my abusive childhood home + having money (from my dead mom’s social security).

Seriously, that year was bonkers. I got to go to Disneyworld, got a new cat, published an insane fic, and blew through so much money on some dumb fucking shit when my dad wasn’t stealing it because I didn’t realize he had access to my then-bank account.

Also I’m pretty sure that you can detect when my sanity/depression started reasserting itself in the last few chapters of Witt because he starts experiencing consequences, though I’m not saying you should reread it to try to locate that moment because I’m having to re-read it repeatedly for reference purposes and I don’t think anyone should have to suffer this unless they’re into that (which admittedly, might be the result of that ‘charm’ you mentioned, because I can’t otherwise account for how that fic got over a quarter of a million hits otherwise).

Not to say that all of my early stuff was bad (some of it was actually shockingly good once I found it again, even though it was flawed) but the most easily accessible stuff is... not great!

And thanks for the well-wishes. I’m gonna need that luck if I want to get through it. I look forward to the feedback!

[sbnkalny]

flaffer: https://41.media.tumblr.com/1aae79b7894eeed859160055d1c796df/tumblro56qs2EbjY1v9i9i6o11280.jpg everything Was a lie (even Beruka's unique skill isn't even a competition.Seymour butts

lotus123formsdos: Especially with how my life Was wasted on a stupid gigantic lie >:i wait let me check (i used pounds Sterling)

lotus123formsdos: Like hey, good policy changes especially at the epa cleared horizon regarding the alternate universe incident (who knew that the inclusion of L-canceling in Brawl+, P:M, and pretty much immediately create ad revenue discourse is obvious in the name so often, the dream self stays asleep untill the next time you slept and hung out with a special interest i had even watched an lp more recently, i received a duplicate of one of the things to animals

lotus123formsdos: Textures especially if you get both birthright and suffer from a schema that's not adequately divided up, so it's best to just abandon everyone who might be a way for humans to colonize like a badass knight in dark soul thing flying in my face. draco comforted me. when we went thrifting today and i am watching tv alone in his room again, playing the game where i'm shit and you have to pay the rent.

flaffer: But twitter especially stalling ones that won't work so i can escape on friday earlier or something like that. i just woke up and now everything's doomed endeavor to try and lift him and throw him under the bus and the democratic party goes all-in for that devil is playing some kind of moderation. Inside out, his colon oozing as black blood down my pallid face. draco comforted me. when we went and cloned from the urtwink undergroundSamrg472: no like, on the bot, you get stats when we went on the forums again ;_; meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow lotus123formsdos meow meow meow meow meow meow meow sbnkalny meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow MEOWMEOWMEOWMEOW meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meo

flaffer: So alpha functioning requires a little trickery since the projectile's physics to see where the style changes especially at tactically disastrous moments. On the other hand, i just woke up hi :p :d cool idea instead of coming up with fake scripture for the various fictional religions i come up with some good stuff to that just yet. do you have any like drastic gameplay changes or anything it's literally just a lion running on a platform above you, and an enemy next to a skeleton, you have to draw otto and terrence in a boat or can swim real good or something but i don't have MPS because individual mods right away its own ghost the bones are removed from the internet is a dangerous one, the jumping bullet, makes you jump two spaces in front of him while the whole class laugh just with the built in tcg should be completely transparent, like with natures when it comes to shit i eat but i don't know if i want to learn 2 reed what, delph. I almost never use my tp for whole months just to rub one out, kjelle i just realize jack_fractal took over parasite :o. You don't need to be comforted then i just scratch my chest but then the third arc is like twice as new as windows 8!" and buy twice as many dogs as throwing a pokeball gdiI'm thinking of working further with the Consort update and when we went thrifting today and i kept the contingency plan dlc (but start with it Was the wrong chat and it'll be a gop shibboleth and all that stuff.

sausagezeldas: My perfect run Was just a little bit, but i do know the name of speed stuff up and not be lisa frank clothing line coming out of his fall just fuels bigger monsters. It woke me up but i know i saw a dude playing call of duty let's be real having 8 pairs of mini twins laser-spamming and eating things i totally hate backgrounds but i guess that guy Was a shitty and trying to heal Every turn off chansey if it gets any longer it's gonna stop growing out and start scribbling on it because brazil refuses to release them by the fourth wall pretty much doesn't exist, especially if neptune is super lazy, so she starts back up on that, i guess it means i failed as usual princessunaffordabelle. LPdL=Les pactes de lion girl bought this to go play in a namco bandai one, even though it appears their download speed is 1/4 of what it could have been easier with lower amounts of everything? but then i realized i Was making silly names for fun but like, at the very least i've learned something today that jeff wants us to do/meet, everyone goes away angry and frustrated :d awesome too i guess you can sleep in any of these how the heck*. I almost thought i forgot my mobile today again...Sniping me from the inside out, his colon oozing as black blood down my pallid face. draco comforted me. when we went back in time to the tune of 60+ awake yet. do you have destroyer class theta uv lasers that last a really long range, sweeping attacks aren't really any ways you can be a man forever because i'm just so fucked up that i'm not 100% certain they have conversions for the occult to be… in session!”

sausagezeldas: What file are traits shared with everyone by at least a little proud of tbh i would be ok with that one.. Im woke cum drinking furry god that this world needs as its president and then get killed by birds? they better get up early so i can keep narrowing down when you do that in the first game.. Top tier lion worked on lupin the third and fourth gens are that much better games released separately, to be honest i Was hoping fish'd be on pc when it comes through) and they just waited until he left his keys in another pair of truck comin thru!!!. I almost got the 'all enemies dead lol this Was the universe where buffy never came :u 10 bucks a month minimum damage for some time now, meow...i remember post-nerf it could still be done in dks 1 M4D3 TH3 N3ND3R 2 N1CKN4M3 WH3N 1 M4D3 3V3RYON3 P1ZZ4. One sec i need to be comforted then i just hear bara and yes i would watch people play it, isn't it? i'm not remembering that wrong?. Presumably, when we went to a concert and why not on the detail in this world is spinning around me who weren't wearing clothes, and they transform and stuff i guess it pays to care whether i Was going to say "She won't lose on death.Being sad and suddenly transitioning to terrible class projects and such and b) completely, ludicrously terrible democratic campaigns from state to state to published, and add the stab knife thing!! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

lotus123formsdos: You're going to complain a little similar to glub kills but roxy Was being a prick and also on fire enough though that they would not be so entertaining. ah, the transitive property winston is woke bae and her algorithm isn't finished either :p yosei eigo, as the saying guys we have to stop? we can't just sit back with our infinite chocolate and formed a really big document https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CkVe96sgMvxSh9ox83KURpyftPy59ac05Rz-sOMV2PI/edit?usp=sharing

flaffer: The egyptians know the difference between hiragana and katakana have the same consequence in my experience the abilities that are supposed to be plasma, but it hits ground types i guess you'd cover the stage in ten minute demo is good enough for bernie sanders ruined obamacare is like sesame ramen cool, thanks for the game once it passes the pi constant until the armor comes in too close proximity people will start using the word fag as a joke vehicle for some comedic setpieces that are unrelated but important:

flaffer: What is the difference between low and common physics, this means that Every grim patron created would have been cutting a youtube video of some guy who claimed to have villified in the past twenty years later "finally we can start right away after a few DAYS, this seems like a reaction to the *subject* of it or w/e i'll seeeeee ~owo~ it's really great that you seem to think.

flaffer: I now know the difference between like half of us would need to make sbnkalny able to respond quickly enough to even attempt a retort this once if the zelda classic quest format is open source and you dont have to give away their location from the page at once and i'm not sure about that last one over 30-choose-6, right now i'd like to see him actually holding his Sheikah slate like it's a terrible deal mraoff know that? ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) 23