#SAGE Winter Carnival

[sageuniversitybpl]

Unleashing Dance Energy | SAGE Winter Carnival Day 1 Dance Workshop High...

[shisui-week]

Prompt Discussions 𓅂

Festival 

A traditional Japanese Festival centered around a season: summer, fall, spring, or winter. A New Years Festival, or cherry blossoms. Does Shisui visit a shrine, dress up? How does he celebrate, food, music, dance games, Get his fortune read or watch the fireworks. Or is Shisui working the event, is he undercover, working guard duty. Or use this prompt (like any other) and have it set in another world, a college fair, a town carnival, the circus in a modern world, or a festival as an offering to the gods in a mythology au. Any and all Festivals welcome!  

Flicker

Shunshin no Shisui - Shisui of the body flicker. A flicker of light in the eye of his loved one, the flicker of a candle, or the flicker of a fire jutsu, a flicker of danger across his features.  Or does a dwindling flame flicker out.

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First Aid

Is Shisui in dire need of aid, a hospital, a medical jutsu? How does he react to someone taking care of him, or is he left to his own devices with a makeshift tourniquet. How does he recover? Or Is he the one dishing out some TLC? First aid can be as simple as a bandaid and a smooch over a skinned knee on the playground. Or Shisui picking up some medical skills in a class.

Cozy

There’s nothing like being curled up with a good book by the fireplace. Is Shisui enjoying the change of the seasons, a special holiday, or just nice weather? Is he bundled up with someone special, or taking some quiet time to himself. Is Shisui stranded on a mission with a comrade or an enemy, forced into close proximity to stay warm? Is there is only one bed!

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Memories

‘don’t forget me’ We received lots of memory based suggestions! It can be a fond memory, a sad one, a dark one. Is Shisui or someone close to him suffering from memory loss? How does he cope? Is Shisui worried about the memories he’ll leave behind, or the ones lost to time. How will Shisui be remembered? 

Kotoamatsukami 

literally meaning: Distinguished Heavenly Gods - Shisui’s dōjutsu that casts a powerful mind-controlling genjutsu on his target. Entering their mind and manipulating them with false experiences, acting through Shisui’s will leaving the victim entirely unaware. How does Shisui use this to his advantage? For his own use or the sake of the village? Does Shisui’s dojutsu get stolen, how does the thief use it, does their plan backfire, or does Shisui take revenge. Is his ultimate technique used for good or evil 

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Folklore

Yokai, Zodiacs, Angels, demons, myths and legends or anything to do with the supernatural. Explore the legends of chakra, the moon goddess Kaguya, stories of the sage of the sixth paths, jinchuriki, warriors long gone from the Uchiha Lineage; Madara, Kagami, or gods from above. The origins of the sharingan or legends of Izunami and Amatarasu. Is a yokai terrorizing the village, or is Shisui telling his teammates a scary story around a campfire. Or are the spirits kind and friendly? Is Shisui one of them? So long as Shisui is the focus, any folklore goes! Make up your own or pull inspiration from other cultures. 

Haunted

Is Shisui haunted by his choices, or regrets? A burden he must bear, or a mission he must complete? Is a ghost on his tail, creaking in the floorboards. Does Shisui visit a haunted house in a test of courage, or something more fun for Halloween with friends. 

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Clan Customs 

Traditions and customs of the mighty Uchiha Clan, how do they celebrate holidays, birthdays, funerals. Or is Shisui adapting to a new clans’ customs through marriage or a deep cover mission. Is Shisui bringing someone new into the family fold. 

Rites of Passage

Are there certain expectations growing up in the Uchiha Clan that Shisui must uphold? A ceremony to accept him into the family, or a special jutsu that marks the occasion. A test of courage, or marking a special age. Or is he being hazed before joining the police force, Anbu, graduating the Academy, or becoming a Jonin. Does Shisui take someone under his wing and help them through this new chapter?  

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Teammates

Shisui’s Genin team, Chunin team, how’d he do during the exam! Teammates for a mission, or his squad on the police force. What role does he play on his team, does he take the lead, trail behind, track, scout, work well with others or prefer to complete a mission on his own? Do you have an Oc, been waiting to show them off, are they a part of Shisui’s team, or do they have a rivalry with them?  

Secrets

Secrets, rumors, vows a promise. Can Shisui keep a secret or does he have one to share. Does a secret romance slowly unravel, or add to his desire, do rumors spread through town? Who’s Shisui keeping the secret from. Is it a secret organization, a secret clan jutsu or a planned coup d'etat? 

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Any au 

We got so many great au suggestions we’d need an event just for them all~ so instead have any au! Shisui lives, Fantasy, Mythology, College, Modern, Anbu, Yakuza, Historical, Coffee Shop, Founders, Western, from another show, canon divergence etc. The sky's the limit! 

Birthday 

It’s Shisui's birthday! How does he celebrate? Does a character give him a special present or plan an entire day of festivities? Does he spend it on his own? Or is Shisui celebrating someone else’s birthday, with a surprise up his sleeve.

Free Day

Exactly how it sounds! create to your heart's content. Use this day to mix and match prompts, extend an idea, or share whatever comes to mind.

Have any questions submit them to @shisui-week 𓅂

Prompt list𓅂Rules𓅂FAQ

[thebananaiscold]

My Creeps Au General Headcanons (for Laughing Jack, Will, Frankie, Issac, and Ashley)

Laughing Jack:

Height: 9’2

Birthday: December 25th (around 250 years old)

Favorite Food: Candy (literally all candy, he prefers lollipops the most though)

Favorite Drink: Really sugary energy drinks (The pink starburst one is his favorite)

Favorite Colors: He says it’s Black, White, and Grey (he secretly likes the rainbow colors too and actually misses how he used to look)

Favorite Animals: Weasels/Ferrets and of course rats (he is the rodent king)

Favorite Holiday: Christmas (half because it’s his birthday, half because he genuinely enjoys literally everything about the holiday itself)

Smells Like: An abandoned carnival (a mix of stale popcorn, cotton candy, and a dirty musty smell)

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Will: 

Height: 5’11

Birthday:  September 16th (25 years old)

Favorite Food: Pepperoni Pizza 

Favorite Drink: Pepsi

Favorite Colors: Red, Blue, Black

Favorite Animals: Snakes, wolves, and dogs

Favorite Holiday: Probably thanksgiving (he likes the food and the fact that the week following the holiday, shit actually goes on sale so he can afford the things he wants)

Smells Like: previously like axe body spray and ass, but now he smells like green apple body wash (Ashley threatened to beat his ass with a sock filled with soap bars, if he didn’t take a shower.)

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Frankie: 

Height: 6’4

Birthday: November 13th (28 years old)

Favorite Food: Hot dogs

Favorite Drink: Coca Cola and Whiskey

Favorite Colors: Blue, Grey, and Black

Favorite Animals: Dogs (will actually cry if a small puppy licks him, but he loves older hound dogs too), cats, and Racoons (he feeds the Racoons hotdogs.) 

Favorite Holiday: Halloween

Smells Like: Cigarettes and expensive Cologne 

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Issac:

Height: 6’2

Birthday: October 25th (250 years old)

Favorite Food: Beef Stew

Favorite Drink: Everclear (the alcohol)

Favorite Colors: Sliver, Black, Midnight blue

Favorite Animals: Bears, Wolves, Spiders

Favorite Holiday: Christmas (Because he got Jack as a child then. He doesn’t miss Jack. He misses the power he had with the clown.)

Smells Like: Sage

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Ashley:

Height: 5’9

Birthday: August 6th (600 years old, stopped aging at 24 years old in human years)

Favorite Food: Chicken Pot Pie (it kind of reminds her of the meat and pastry type foods she ate growing up, but WAY better)

Favorite Drink: Hot Chocolate

Favorite Colors: Purple, Gold, Black

Favorite Animals: Birds, Cats, and Skunks (even though she hates how they smell, she loves them, especially baby skunks, she thinks they are so adorable.)

Favorite Holiday: Halloween

Smells like: A winter campfire/ toasted marshmallows 

[cadybear420]

Cadybear's MC Wardrobes: Sage Amin, WEH (Part 1). Featuring some edits by me!

How this series goes: With each book, for a MC I'm invested in, I'll assess each of their in-game outfits. How much do I like or dislike the outfit? Is this something that suits my MC's style, or does it make me go "My MC would NOT wear/own this"? And for the outfits that my MC would not wear or own, how would I alter or replace them? I'm not going to use screenshots from the actual game because I can't be arsed. Also I want to use the different sprite expressions to express how my MC would feel about each outfit.

I like to think this is a good opportunity to elaborate on my MCs' dress styles, and show off some edits :D

And now, let's see how well the WEH closet does justice to Sage Amin!

Directory for the other parts will be included in the reblogs after I've completed the posts for all of the book!

Ch 1: "First Impressions" Premium Starter Outfit

It's a nice enough outfit, but I don't think Sage would vibe with that skirt much. And although I don't personally mind the striped shirt, I don't think it's Sage's style either.

Verdict: Only partly in Sage's wardrobe. Keep the jean jacket, but ditch the rest.

Ch 1: "The Usual" Default Outfit

It's simple and I like it, Sage would like it too. She loves these colors.

Verdict: Part of Sage's wardrobe. Keep it as is (and use as her default fall casual outfit). But also make an addition...

Here's also a version with the jean jacket from the premium outfit.

Ch 4: "Pumpkin Spice" Premium Outfit for Fall Carnival

The thigh high boots aren't really Sage's thing, and I don't think she cares much for off-shoulder tops, but other than that this looks really cozy. I do also think she'd like it better in green, it's one of her 3 favorite colors (the others being blue and purple) and it would still have a fall vibe to it.

Verdict: Only partly in Sage's wardrobe. Alter by removing the thigh-high boots, fixing the off-shoulder, and recoloring.

Here are some variants that fit Sage's style better.

Ch 6: "Camp Cutie" Premium Costume for the role of Elanor in Dakota's film project

LOOK AT THIS LOVELY THING. Sage would absolutely wear it as a casual outfit and not just as a costume.

Verdict: Part of Sage's wardrobe. Keep it as is (and use as her default winter casual outfit).

Ch 8: "Red Carpet Ready" Premium Outfit for Student Film Festival

The fabric on this is lovely. But by this point I think we all know the rule my female MCs have about leg slit dresses.

Verdict: Sage would not buy/own this. Ditch entirely and possibly replace.

I think Sage would be perfectly happy showing up in her Eleanor costume/winter casual. It's cozy, and it technically fits since they're showing the film with the Eleanor character. Plus, Sage wouldn't wanna upstage Dakota, this is his big day.

But she might also wanna dress up, as she was a big part of the production and Dakota would want her to share the spotlight. So here's the dress without the leg slit, and in different colors that are more Sage's favorite. As well as a suit option, also in different colors.

I'm not sure which ones I like best. The red ones suit the "red carpet" vibe. But the green and blue ones kind of match Dakota's outfit better. But the purple ones match her eleanor costume. If I settle on an official outfit preference I'll say so in a bonus round post.

Ch 10: "Edenbrook and Chill" Premium Outfit

Okay, my f!MCs usually hate short shorts, but I think Sage would actually be okay with them in this case. This outfit is just too lovely to pass up, especially that robe. Honestly, I think having a robe like this would be the only condition in which Sage would wear short shorts. Plus the shorts could be argued as not being that short anyways.

Verdict: Sage actually would own this. Ditch entirely and possibly replace.

Ch 11: "Bon Voyage" Premium Outfit for Mateo's going-away party

This is a really good outfit, especially the top! Also longer skirts like this are such a rarity in Choices. But while we both like the skirt, I think she would like this outfit better with pants...

Verdict: Sage would own this. Keep it as is, but also make an alternate version with pants.

Here is an alternative with pants.

Ch 15: "Night to Remember" Premium Prom Outfit

A lovely dress, but I feel like Sage might prefer a suit. Or at the very least, she'd prefer the dress in a different color.

Verdict: Sage would not quite buy/own this. Alter by changing the color, and also making suit alternatives.

Here's the dress in Sage's preferred color, as well as some suit options. Once again, I'm indecisive about which one I like best. I feel like the green ones would go better with the patterns, but the purple ones and kind of the red one matches the prom decorations better. But the blue suit is also very snazzy.

Aaaaand because that's the 30 image limit, we'll return in Part 2!

[sheetmusiclibrarypdf]

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)Three Movements from Petrushka: The Shrovetide FairThree Movements from Petrushka: The Shrovetide Fair ·Arthur Rubinstein, piano · Igor StravinskyNew Highlights from "Rubinstein at Carnegie Hall" - Recorded During the Historic 10 Recitals of 1961Please, subscribe to our Library. Thank you!Best Sheet Music download from our Library.Igor Stravinsky's PetrushkaIgor Stravinsky (short bio)

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Three Movements from Petrushka: The Shrovetide Fair

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSSWuIfb0LU Three Movements from Petrushka: The Shrovetide Fair · Arthur Rubinstein, piano · Igor Stravinsky New Highlights from "Rubinstein at Carnegie Hall" - Recorded During the Historic 10 Recitals of 1961

Igor Stravinsky's Petrushka

Petrushka (French: Pétrouchka; Russian: Петрушка) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1911 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Michel Fokine and stage designs and costumes by Alexandre Benois, who assisted Stravinsky with the libretto. The ballet premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet on 13 June 1911 with Vaslav Nijinsky as Petrushka, Tamara Karsavina as the lead ballerina, Alexander Orlov as the Moor, and Enrico Cecchetti the charlatan. Petrushka tells the story of the loves and jealousies of three puppets. The three are brought to life by the Charlatan during the 1830 Shrovetide Fair (Maslenitsa) in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Petrushka loves the Ballerina, but she rejects him. She prefers the Moor. Petrushka is angry and hurt, and challenges the Moor. The Moor kills him with his scimitar. Petrushka's ghost rises above the puppet theatre as night falls. He shakes his fist at the Charlatan, then collapses in a second death. The gestation of Petrushka was not a straightforward matter. While completing The Firebird during the spring of 1910, Stravinsky had a "vision" of a solemn pagan rite: sage elders, seated in a circle, watching a young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing her to propitiate the god of Spring. Such was the theme of The Rite of Spring. Immediately following the stunning success of The Firebird in June 1910, Diaghilev approached Stravinsky about a new ballet; the composer proposed the Rite theme. Diaghilev accepted in principle and suggested that the premiere might take place during the Paris season of the Ballets Russes during the spring of 1912. At the end of September 1910, Diaghilev went to visit Stravinsky in Clarens, Switzerland, where he was living at the time. Expecting to discuss the new ballet, Diaghilev was astonished to find Stravinsky hard at work on a totally different project. Stravinsky, it seems, had had another vision: "I saw a man in evening dress, with long hair, the musician or poet of the romantic tradition. He placed several heteroclite objects on the keyboard and rolled them up and down. At this the orchestra exploded with the most vehement protestations – hammer blows, in fact …" Later, Stravinsky wrote: "n composing the music, I had in my mind a distinct picture of a puppet, suddenly endowed with life, exasperating the patience of the orchestra with diabolical cascades of arpeggios. The orchestra in turn retaliates with menacing trumpet blasts." Although Stravinsky had conceived the music as a pure concert work—a Konzertstück, Diaghilev immediately realized its theatrical potential. The notion of a puppet put Diaghilev in mind of Petrushka, the Russian version of Punch and Judy puppetry that had formed a traditional part of the pre-Lenten Carnival festivities in 1830s St. Petersburg. Stravinsky composed the music during the winter of 1910–11 for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. It was premièred in Paris at the Théâtre du Châtelet on 13 June 1911 under conductor Pierre Monteux, with choreography by Michel Fokine and sets by Alexandre Benois. The title role was danced by Vaslav Nijinsky. The work is characterized by the so-called Petrushka chord (consisting of C major and F♯ major triads played together), a bitonality device heralding the appearance of the main character. The original 1911 version of Petrushka is scored for the following orchestra. Stravinsky's 1946 scoring is for a smaller orchestra: Compared to the 1911 version, the 1946 version (given in 1947) requires 1 less flute; 2 fewer oboes, but a dedicated cor anglais player instead of one doubled by the fourth oboe; 1 less clarinet; 2 fewer bassoons, but a dedicated contrabassoon; neither of the 2 cornets, but an additional trumpet; 1 less snare drum and no tenor drum, thus removing the offstage instruments; no glockenspiel; and 1 less harp. While the original idea was Stravinsky's, Alexandre Benois provided the ethnographic details of the Shrovetide Fair and the traditions of the Russian puppet theater. And although Petrushka is frequently cited as an example of the complete integration of libretto, music, choreography, and scenic design, Stravinsky had composed significant portions of the music (chiefly the Second Tableau) before Benois became involved with the project. Petrushka begins with a festive orchestral introduction based, in part, on historical Russian street-hawkers' cries. The curtain rises to reveal St. Petersburg's Admiralty Square during the 1830s. The stage set (also by Benois) depicts several hucksters' booths, a ferris-wheel, a carousel, and (upstage center) a puppet theater. A crowd has gathered for the Shrovetide Fair (known as Maslenitsa), the carnival (analogous to Mardi Gras) preceding Lent. In Fokine's original choreography, a group of Drunken Revelers emerges from the crowd, dancing to Stravinsky's adaptation of the folk-tune "Song of the Volochobniki" ("Dalalin' Dalalin'" from Rimsky-Korsakov Op. 24 No. 47). Suddenly, the festive music is interrupted by strident brass announcing the appearance of the Master of Ceremonies on the balcony of his booth. The equivalent of a carnival "barker", he boasts of the attractions to be seen within. The squeaks of a street-organ are heard (clarinets and flutes) as an Organ-Grinder and Dancing Girl emerge from the crowd, which at first pays little attention as the barker continues to shout. The Dancer moves downstage and begins to dance to another Russian folk-song, "Toward Evening, in Rainy Autumn", while playing the triangle. At the other end of the stage, a second Dancing Girl appears, accompanied by a music box (suggested in the orchestra by the celesta). The two Dancing Girls compete for the crowd's attention to the strains of a ribald French music-hall song about a woman with a wooden leg: "Une Jambe de bois". Both tunes are repeated. The Drunken Revelers return (again to the "Song of the Volochobniki") interrupted several times by the Barker's boasts. The street-hawkers' cries of the very opening are heard once more. Suddenly, two drummers summon the crowd to the puppet theater with deafening drumrolls. The Magician (sometimes called the "Charlatan") appears to mystical groans from the bassoon and contrabassoon. When he has everyone's attention, he produces a flute and begins to play a long, improvisatory melody. The curtain of the puppet theater rises to reveal three puppets hanging on the wall: the Moor, the Ballerina, and Petrushka. When the Magician touches them with his flute (to chirps in the orchestra), they seem to awaken. The astonished crowd watches as, with a wave of the Magician's hand, the three puppets begin a vigorous Russian Dance (based on two more Russian folk-tunes: "A Linden Tree Is in the Field" and "Song for St. John's Eve"). In Fokine's masterly choreography, they first begin to move their feet (while still hanging on the wall), then burst forth from the puppet theater into the midst of the crowd. The Moor (resplendent in turban and exaggerated pantaloons) is swashbuckling. The Ballerina dances perpetually en pointe. Petrushka, on the other hand, is wooden and awkward. It becomes apparent Petrushka loves the Ballerina; but she has eyes only for the Moor. The Magician calls the dance to a halt; the curtain falls rapidly. Although Petrushka's room is inside the puppet theater, the Benois design is fantastical, portraying the night sky with stars and a half-moon; abstract icebergs (or snow-capped mountains), and a prominent portrait of the Magician. Drumrolls announce the beginning of the Second Tableau. Without an Introduction, the music begins menacingly. "A foot kicks him onstage; Petrushka falls…" As Petrushka gradually pulls himself together, we hear a strange arpeggio in the clarinets: this is the famous "Petrushka chord" (consisting of juxtaposed triads of C major and F♯ major). Petrushka gets to his feet (although shakily) to the accompaniment of waves of arpeggios from the piano (revealing the music's origins in Stravinsky's Konzertstück). The "Petrushka Chord" returns, now violently scored for trumpets, marked in the score "Petrushka's Curses", directed at the portrait of the Magician. The music turns lyrical as Petrushka falls to his knees and mimes (in turn) his self-pity, love for the Ballerina, and hatred of the Magician. The Ballerina (still en pointe) sneaks into Petrushka's room, at first unnoticed. As soon as Petrushka sees her, he begins a manic, athletic display of leaps and frantic gestures (although he was barely able to stand before she arrived). Frightened by his exuberance, the Ballerina flees. Petrushka falls to the floor to the mocking of the clarinets. Another passage of arpeggios for piano grows into a second round of curses directed at the Magician, again represented musically by the "Petrushka Chord", this time scored for full orchestra. For just a moment, Petrushka peers out of his room at the crowd assembled in Admiralty Square (Stravinsky provides a brief reference to the "crowd music" of the First Tableau). Then, Petrushka collapses as we hear a taunting reprise of the clarinets playing the "Petrushka Chord", followed by an odd trumpet call signalling "blackout, curtain." As before, drumrolls link the Third Tableau to its predecessor (in the 1911 score, Stravinsky directs that this drumroll should be omitted in concert performance). In sharp contrast to the darkness of Petrushka's Room, the brilliant colors of the Benois design for the Moor's Room evoke a romanticized desert: palm trees, exotic flowers, sand. In Fokine's choreography, the Moor reclines on a divan playing with a coconut. He then jumps to his feet and attempts to cut it with his scimitar. When he fails he believes that the coconut must be a god and proceeds to pray to it. The Charlatan places the Ballerina in the Moor's room. The Ballerina is attracted to the Moor's handsome appearance. She plays a saucy tune on a toy trumpet (represented by a cornet in the original 1911 orchestration) and then dances with the Moor in a waltz (the themes taken from Joseph Lanner's Op. 165 No. 1 and Op. 200 No. 1). Petrushka finally breaks free from his cell; he interrupts the seduction of the Ballerina. Petrushka attacks the Moor but soon realizes he is too small and weak. The Moor beats Petrushka. The ballerina faints. The clown-puppet flees for his life, with the Moor chasing him, and escapes from the room. The fourth and final scene returns to the carnival. Some time has passed; it is now early evening. The orchestra introduces a chain of colourful dances as a series of apparently unrelated characters come and go about the stage as snow begins to fall. The first and most prominent is the Wet-Nurses' Dance, performed to the tune of the folk song "Down the Petersky Road". Then comes a peasant with his dancing bear, followed in turn by a group of a gypsies, coachmen and grooms and masqueraders. As the merrymaking reaches its peak, a cry is heard from the puppet-theater. Petrushka suddenly runs across the scene, followed by the Moor in hot pursuit brandishing his sword, and the terrified Ballerina chasing after the Moor, fearful of what he might do. The crowd is horrified when the Moor catches up with Petrushka and slays him with a single stroke of his blade. The police question the Charlatan. The Charlatan seeks to restore calm by holding the "corpse" above his head and shaking it to remind everyone that Petrushka is but a puppet. As night falls and the crowd disperses, the Charlatan leaves, carrying Petrushka's limp body. All of a sudden, Petrushka's ghost appears on the roof of the little theatre, his cry now in the form of angry defiance. Petrushka's spirit thumbs its nose at his tormentor from beyond the wood and straw of his carcass. Now completely alone, the Charlatan is terrified to see the leering ghost of Petrushka. He runs away while allowing himself a single frightened glance over his shoulder. The scene is hushed, leaving the audience to wonder who is "real" and who is not. The work is divided into four tableaux (scenes). The score further indicates the following episodes: During rehearsals for the 1911 premiere, Stravinsky and other pianists including Russian composer Nikolai Tcherepnin used a piano four-hand version of the score. This has never been published, although Paul Jacobs and Ursula Oppens, among other pianists, have played it in concert. In 1921, Stravinsky created a virtuosic and celebrated piano arrangement for Arthur Rubinstein, Trois mouvements de Petrouchka, which the composer admitted he could not play himself, for want of adequate left-hand technique. Herbert Stothart, who composed the score for The Wizard of Oz, was visited by Stravinsky at MGM in 1936. Stravinsky gifted Stothart a personal, signed copy of Petrushka. As the main characters in the film run through the Deadly Poppy Field, the opening to the fourth tableau can be heard briefly. In 1946, he thinned the ballet's scoring, in part because the original was not covered everywhere by copyright. The rapid continuous timpani and snare-drum notes that link each scene, optional in 1911, are compulsory in this version, which was published in 1947. The Ballerina's tune is assigned to a trumpet in 1946 in place of a cornet, and the 1946 version provides an optional fff (fortississimo) near the piano conclusion. Stravinsky also removed some difficult metric modulations in the First Tableau. Separately Stravinsky created a suite for concert performance, an almost complete version of the ballet but cutting the last three sections. In 1956, an animated version of the ballet appeared as part of NBC's Sol Hurok Music Hour. It was personally conducted by Stravinsky himself and was the first such collaboration. Directed by animator John David Wilson with Fine Arts Films, it has been noted as the first animated special ever to air on television. In 1988, Maddalena Fagandini directed a version of Petrushka along with The Sleeping Beauty (Tchaikovsky), The Nutcracker (and the Mouse King) (Tchaikovsky) and Coppélia (Delibes) in the BBC puppet film Musical Tales which was released in VHS. Basil Twist debuted his puppetry version of Petrushka at Lincoln Center in 2001; it was performed as well at New York City Center's 2009 Fall for Dance Festival. A full transcription of the 1911 version for symphonic wind ensemble in the original key was made by Don Patterson.

Igor Stravinsky (short bio)

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (17 June 1882 – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music. Born to a famous bass in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Stravinsky grew up taking piano and music theory lessons. While studying law at the University of Saint Petersburg, he met Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and studied under him until his death in 1908. Igor Stravinsky met the impresario Sergei Diaghilev soon after, who commissioned the composer to write three ballets for the Ballets Russes's Paris seasons: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913), the last of which caused a near-riot at the premiere due to its avant-garde nature and later changed the way composers understood rhythmic structure. Stravinsky's compositional career is often divided into three periods: his Russian period (1913–1920), his neoclassical period (1920–1951), and his serial period (1954–1968). During his Russian period, Stravinsky was heavily influenced by Russian styles and folklore. Works such as Renard (1916) and Les noces (1923) drew upon Russian folk poetry, while compositions like L'Histoire du soldat (1918) integrated these folk elements with popular musical forms, including the tango, waltz, ragtime, and chorale. His neoclassical period exhibited themes and techniques from the classical period, like the use of the sonata form in his Octet (1923) and use of Greek mythological themes in works like Apollon musagète (1927), Oedipus rex (1927), and Persephone (1935). In his serial period, Stravinsky turned towards compositional techniques from the Second Viennese School like Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique. In Memoriam Dylan Thomas (1954) was the first of his compositions to be fully based on the technique, and Canticum Sacrum (1956) was his first to be based on a tone row. Stravinsky's last major work was the Requiem Canticles (1966), which was performed at his funeral. While many supporters were confused by Stravinsky's constant stylistic changes, later writers recognized his versatile language as important in the development of modernist music. Stravinsky's revolutionary ideas influenced composers as diverse as Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, Béla Bartók, and Pierre Boulez, who were all challenged to innovate music in areas beyond tonality, especially rhythm and form. In 1998, Time magazine listed Stravinsky as one of the 100 most influential people of the century. Stravinsky died of pulmonary edema on 6 April 1971 in New York City, having left six memoirs written with his friend and assistant Robert Craft, as well as an earlier autobiography and a series of lectures. Read the full article

[gear-project]

GG Music Tribute Master List

As you may not know already, I’m a huge Metal Head, this list is just a sampling of songs I’ve come across over the years that GG has either referenced or just sounded like something GG’s music sounds like.

Obviously, you can find a link to a lot of these songs here.

But anyway, here’s the FULL LIST (at least for now):

Guilty Gear Music Tribute Master List

[Character Themes] Sol Badguy "Keep Yourself Alive" > Cochise [Audioslave] Ky Kiske "Holy Orders (Be Just or Be Dead)" > Lord of the Thunder [Rhapsody] Chipp Zanuff "Suck a Sage" > Speed [Angra] May "Blue Water, Blue Sky" > How Can I Refuse [Heart] Millia Rage "Write in Pain" > Nothing to Say [Angra] Zato/Eddie "Feel a Fear" > Kill the King [Megadeth] Slayer "Haven't you got Eyes in your Head?" > Raining Blood [Slayer] Venom "A Solitude that asks Nothing in Return" > Breed to Breathe [Napalm Death] Potemkin "Burly Heart" > A New Level [Pantera] Faust "The Original" > Peace Sells [Megadeth] Bridget "A Simple Life" > Keep Yourself Alive [Queen] Dizzy "Awe of She" > Change My Heart [Concerto Moon] A.B.A. "Keep in Hell's Gates" > Seventh Sign [Yngwie Malmsteen] Zappa "Good Manners and Customs" > Lay all your Love on me [Helloween ABBA Cover] Axl Low "Make Oneself" > You're Crazy [Guns'N'Roses] I-No "Kage Matsuri" > Fight From the Inside [Queen] Anji Mito "Fuuga" > Live Wire [Motley Crue] Baiken "Momentary Life" > Ray Bradbury Attack [God of Shamisen] Kliff Undersn "Pride and Glory" > Your Time has Come [Audioslave] Testament "Bloodstained Lineage" > Carry On [Angra] Johnny "Liquor, Bar, and Drunkard" > The Worm [Audioslave] Jam Kuradoberi "Babel Noise" > Hero [Tengger Cavalry] Dr. Paradigm "Intellect, Reason, and the Wild" > The Course of Nature [Angra] Izuna "Hiruandan" > Dragon String Attack (Finishing Blow) [God of Shamisen] Robo Ky Theme "Under Construction" > Aces High [Iron Maiden] Sin Kiske "Ride on Time" > BLAST! [Viper] Valentine "The Mask does Not Laugh" > Spellbound [Dimmu Borgir] Order Sol "Get Down to Business" > Great King Rat [Queen] Raven "Worthless as the Sun Above Clouds" > Death Trap [Taake] Asuka R. Kreutz "The Man" > Absinthe and Rue [Symphony X]

[Intro Themes/Options/Character Select Themes] GG1 Intro "Prickle Man" > Kickstart My Heart [Motley Crue] GGXX Intro "Feedback" > A Spider's Web [Rage] GGXrd Intro Theme /Alternate > Changes: Sign of Heaven [Rage] Character Select Theme "D.O.A." > Holy Wars:The Punishment Due [Megadeth] Character Select Theme "D.O.A."/Alternate > Kiss of Death [Dokken] Character Select Theme "Mince" > Rage in the Afternoon [Rage] Options Theme /Alternate > Cum on Feel the Noize! [Quiet Riot] DEAD ANGLE THEME > Dead Angle [Saver Tiger] TENSION THEME > Power [Helloween] DUST ATTACKS THEME > Angel Dust [Ария/Aria] THE MISSING LINK/EVOLUTION THEME > The Missing Link [Rage] TEAM NEOBLOOD THEME > Blood for Blood [Ария/Aria]

[Boss Themes] Boss Kliff Undersn Theme /Alternate > Sole Survivor [Helloween] Boss Order Sol Theme /Alternate > The Temple of Hate [Angra] Boss ZATO=ONE Theme /Alternate > Fear of the Dark [Iron Maiden] Boss EDDIE Theme /Alternate > Black in Mind [Rage] Boss Millia Theme /Alternate > Shoot the Fox [Chroming Rose] Boss Slayer Theme /Alternate > Too Much 21st Century [Bauhaus] Boss Johnny Theme /Alternate > Ride the Wild Wind [Queen] Boss Testament Theme /Alternate > Master of Puppets [Metallica] Boss Intro Theme "Death and Republic" > I want Out [Helloween] Boss Justice Theme "Meet Again" > Metal Icarus [Angra] Boss I-No Theme "The Midnight Carnival" > Kurenai [X-Japan] Boss I-No Theme /Alternate > The Gates of Babylon [Rainbow] Boss I-No Theme /Alternate > Megalomania [OUTRAGE] Boss Leopaldon Theme "Kill DOG as a Sacrifice to DOG" > Don't Fear the Winter [Rage] Boss Darkside Sin Kiske Theme /Alternate > Emergency Express [Saver Tiger] Boss Valentine Theme "Dignity" > The Sinister Awakening [Dimmu Borgir] Boss FINAL VALENTINE THEME “Diva” > Queen of the Dark Horizons [Rhapsody] Boss CONCLAVE THEME /Alternate > War Pigs [Black Sabbath] Boss Sol Badguy Theme /Alternate> Mr. Bad Guy [Freddie Mercury] Boss Ky Kiske Theme /Alternate > Emerald Sword [Rhapsody] Boss Ky Kiske Theme /Alternate > The Hellion: Electric Eye [Judas Priest]

[Rival Versus Themes] Sol versus Ky Theme "Conclusion" > Last Goodbye [Royal Hunt] Sol versus Ky Theme "No Mercy" > Don't Despair [Angra] Sol versus Ky Theme "Noontide" > Dream Chaser [Concerto Moon] Sol versus Ky Theme "The Re-Coming" > Time to Die [Concerto Moon] Order Sol versus Ky Theme "Keep the Flag Flying" > In the Name of God [Yngwie Malmsteen] Assassins' Theme "Existence" > Deadly Existence [Meliah Rage] Millia versus Zato Theme "Still in the Dark" > Wings of the Evil [Viper] Mirror Versus Theme "Fatal Duel" > Be Quick or Be Dead [Iron Maiden] Mirror Versus Theme "Nothing out of the Ordinary" > Alive [W.A.S.P.] Mirror Versus Theme "Misadventure" > Deja Vu [Yngwie Malmsteen]

[Ending Themes] Sol's Ending "Beyond the Dark Life" > Fade to Black [Metallica] Potemkin's Ending "D-A-M-E" > Make My Day [Rage] Millia's Ending "Love Letter From..." > Right Now [Van Halen] Staffroll A "Till next Time!" > I want it ALL! [Queen] Staffroll B "Boomtown Blues" > Voodoo Chile [Jimi Hendrix] Staffroll C "Missing" > Unfinished [X-Japan]

[Unaccounted For/Music Tribute To Be Added] Elphelt's Theme > ????? Ramlethal's Theme > ????? Bedman's Theme > ????? Ariels' Theme > ????? Leo's Theme > ????? Jack-O's Theme > ????? Kum Haehyun's Theme > ????? Answer's Theme > ????? Giovanna's Theme > ????? Goldlewis' Theme > ????? Nagoriyuki's Theme > ????? Happy Chaos' Theme > ????? Delilah's Theme > ?????

[mainviper]

Brazilian Tips to Write Raze

So I'm not from the same place in Brazil that Raze is, she is from the North East and I'm from the Center of Brazil but there are some common things that I can talk about it.

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1. We are very competitive and we like to cheer a lot for our country, but not in a cute way, we're loud and very annoying and we know that. When we win, we're going to brag about it for days and celebrate for a looong time.

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2. Our food is very diverse, almost every state has it's own traditional dish and it's own way to eat. For example : Açaí. Açaí is a fruit from the North of Brazil and can be eaten with more salty dishes there, but in the rest of Brazil is used on desserts and it's cream sometimes is chosen over ice cream.

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3. We have carnival, yes, but we also have some winter festivals that are really competitive and beautiful. It usually occurs in June and it's called "Festas Juninas" our "June Festivals". I can do a post explaining just this if you guys want because it's VERY traditional, but now you just need to know that the dance it's called "quadrilha".

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4. Quadrilha it's a group dance, danced in pairs, that have some characters and scenarios. The steps are told by the narrator and the names os the steps came from words in french.

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5. Kiss on the cheek is a common way to greet someone, but it's usually made between women, or a woman to a man in more informal circles. But the discussion is : how many kisses ? Well, it can be one, two, or even three but in Raze's state (I searched for you guys) it's 2, one kiss one each cheek.

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6. Music is very particular and difficult to explain. Because Brazil is huge, each region has a lot of genres and popular singers. On Raze's cinematic we listen to Daniela Mercury, a pioneer on the genre Axé the song is beautiful : Canto da Cidade . This style originated from Reggae, Samba, Frevo and several other genres from our country's african roots. There are countless singers and bands that are famous for it, one group that I particularly like is "É o Tchan" and I think Raze would listen a lot. Another song for you guys : Melô do Tchan

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7. We criticize our country a lot, but if someone that are not a Brazilian say something about us, know that we are very protective of our culture and we don't accept bad comments about our customs and traditionalisms. And we usually don't stay quiet about it, we're very quick to hit back in these situations.

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8. When we enter School we usually study in the morning or the afternoon, the morning shift being from 7:00 am to 12:00 pm and the afternoon shift from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm.

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9. Particular Schools or Federal ones usually have extracurricular activities and sports you can do. There are some activities in public schools but they don't have enough money to mantain equipments and stuff, it's sad but some NGOs and Cultural Programs exist.

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10. School subjects are not optional on High School, at least until next year and since I studied in the "old" method, I can say we learn about everything even though we're going to a field where we don't use advanced math or chemistry.

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11. The Brazilian Sage spoke with the English VA of Raze and the Brazilian VA in the same live stream. The live is in portuguese but there are some voice lines that they exchanged here's the link.

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12. Gambiarra is a concept that you guys need to understand and I'm here for it : the hability to work around things, to make a lot out of not much. Raze is the queen of gambiarra, you can see from her tech. Gambiarra speaks a lot about our creativity and our hability to win obstacles on our daily basis.

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13. We are very affectionate, we're huggers for sure. We hug for greetings we hug for goodbyes, we kiss for goodbyes, we say "kisses" when we're leaving because that's our nature. Even if you're on the phone with a Brazilian, we usually say "okay, bye, a kiss" or "ok, bye! A hug".

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14. Duralex is a brand that is present in almost every brazilian home because we love lasting things. Also we have kind of a caramel pallette in Brazil :

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15. The Clay Filter was present in Raze's cinematic and the water that comes out of it is very fresh and clean. Some peole say it's the best type of filter in the world and I'm not going against it because I agree. I have one.

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15. We name this type of street dogs "vira-lata caramelo" that translates to "caramel turn-cans" because street dogs usually turn the cans and bags of trash. A lot of them are adopted and feed by people, I can see Raze having one and her dog playing with her boombot.

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16. Crochet is a grandma thing in Brazil with some capes and rugs matching in the Kitchen. We put this on top of tables and objects to decorate, it's part of the brazilian aesthetic.

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I hope you guys liked it, if you want more tips just ask! I'm here for it!

[squidproquoclarice]

For the @rdr-secret-santa exchange this year, I got to write for @tiredcowpoke.  The request I wrote was “Molly/Mary-Beth, possibly a post-game au thing related to their writing?” Happy Holidays, Cowpoke, and I hope you enjoy! 

~~~~~~~~~

December 1919

St. Denis, Lemoyne

It had been a solemn few years for a poetess, for the world looked upon things with a grim eye, and who could blame them?  Between the war and the Spanish flu, that was bad enough.  Even a bloody flood of molasses of all things taking lives in a strange and even absurd way.  She needed a change from Boston, feeling that urge come over her.

Just as she’d needed a change so long ago and left Dublin for Cousin Brian’s horse farm in California.  Back in another life, back when she’d then left Cousin Brian’s horse farm after a few months based on the dark good looks and smooth charms of Mister Aiden O’Malley, or so he’d called himself.  Back when she’d been such a fool and become an outlaw’s woman--outlaw’s whore--, something within her liked to hiss still.  That part was the one that had been raised to love and fear her father, God the Father, and Father O’Connell alike, a paternal trinity that seemed to have no room for any woman once she wasn’t a virgin.

Some parts of Molly O’Shea clung beneath the skin of Margaret McCarthy nonetheless, and she’d long since had to accept that.  Though she listened to them less and less as the years rolled on in their relentless pace.  Early on had been difficult.  She couldn’t go back to Cousin Brian, couldn’t go back to her father by any means, couldn’t bear to face their condemnation of her shame.  So she had gone to Boston, after leaving Dutch and his band of grubby fools behind, a place she had never belonged with a man who used and discarded women.  For a woman raised to be an ornament to a man, a true lady, it had been a struggle.  But she found eventually that her pen was enough to keep her, rather than the need of a man for it.  Forged on into a strange new world where she alone was mistress of her fate, and found it to her liking.

Now here she was in St. Denis for the first time in twenty years, and certainly she was older and wiser and a trifle stouter than the lass of twenty-six who’d never genuinely seen these streets, drinking as much as she had for the heartbreak of it all.  It pleased her in some ways to truly experience the city for the first time, finding the old, cultured, European feel of it much to her liking, as opposed to the brashness of Boston that had never quite fit her, no matter how many Irish lived there.  

No sooner had she arrived, not even fully unpacking her trunks at the opulent Castille House hotel, built seven years before, than an invitation came from the Krewe of Minerva, whom she was given to understand, had something to do with the Carnival season of Mardi Gras here in St. Denis, and the misspelling of “crew” was quite deliberate, but mostly that it consisted of some of the most prominent women in St. Denis, the wives and daughters and sisters of the powerful, and a handful of independent women as well.  

The invitation, printed on heavy card stock, gilt decoration and with neat, flowing copperplate script, asked her to attend an evening celebrating St. Denis’ most prominent female literary luminaries.  Oh, the glory of it, to be among people who appreciated such little social niceties as a proper invitation.  She thought she understood what they were about--another woman writer had arrived in their midst, and they wished to draw her into their circle.  Something in her was giddy about it, even at her age, so delighted to be included, welcomed, in such a way.  It hadn’t always been the case.

It was no hardship to attend either given that the reception was in the ballroom of the Castille.  So here she was, dressed in a flattering green gown that highlighted her eyes, here to meet the best and brightest lights of St. Denis’ women.  Hearing snippets of their chatter as she passed, introducing herself or being introduced one by one, recognizing a few of them from their prominence in the papers.

Henrietta Wicklow, the journalist and ardent suffragette who’d marched for the vote right alongside her deceased mother Dorothy, “Next year we ladies shall all be voting for president--”

A loud voice from a group of ladies clearly enjoying their champagne, a young woman declaring with a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other, “Enjoy it now, gals, we’ve only a month until this government foolishness of abolishing liquor begins--”

Philomena Castille, wife of Claude Castille, owner of the very hotel they were now in, “--think that the Mardi Gras ball should reflect the theme of a new dawn for a new decade after the frightful few years we’ve had”, and Mrs. Castille then took charge of her to make further introductions with the brisk efficiency of a talented hostess.

Mary Barrett, wife of one of the men involved in St. Denis’ most prominent bookstore, and apparently also the local literary critic Martin Gillis, hiding behind a man’s name.  Something about the woman, small, dark, and neat, with a striking small beauty spot on her right cheek, looked oddly familiar.  But Margaret couldn’t quite place her.  Perhaps they’d met at some literary event before?  “Very pleased to meet you, Miss McCarthy, your book of poems is quite memorable.”  From her, it somehow didn’t sound like a platitude.

Now another person approached, and Mrs. Castile said, “Oh, and here’s another of our ladies with a talented pen.  We call her by her real name in the bosom of friends here, so here’s Miss Mary-Beth Landry. Though,” she winked one sapphire-blue eye, “you would know her better by her nom de plume, Leslie Dupont.  Miss Landry, this is Margaret McCarthy, the poetess.  She’s moving down from Boston to grace our city.” 

She’d heard of Leslie Dupont, a semi-scandalous writer of semi-scandalous books.  She had read several and rather enjoyed them, though some part of her blushed to admit it.  But there was the part of her that would always adore romance and adventure.  Though she hadn’t touched a great deal of Leslie Dupont’s books, including her most popular novel, “Sunset Over The Red Sage”, because those ones were about outlaws, highwaymen, bandits, and pirates.  If there was one thing she had no wish to read in this life, it was a romance involving that sort of man.  She’d been hurt enough by her own fantasies of that life without needing to read another woman’s ignorant rose-tinted version of it.    

Oh, but she wasn’t so ignorant at all, because as Mary-Beth Landry turned, it had been twenty years, but Margaret still recognized her.  Not Landry at all, oh no, but Gaskill.  Those tumbledown golden brown curls, the soft blue-grey eyes, the liberal sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks and nose that all still gave her something of an appealing girlishness even though she must have passed forty herself, and the lines beside her eyes and mouth said it as much as the ones Margaret saw in the mirror.

Her first instinct was the desire to turn and run before Mary-Beth could say her name, her old name, and expose Margaret in front of all these people as every bit as much an imposter as her.  The second was a flare of anger because even all these years later, she could remember being forced to endure watching Dutch sniffing around her, flirting with her shamelessly, and thinking to herself with raging despairing humiliation, That cheap little tramp, what does she have that I don’t, aside from a few more years of youth?  The third was to calm herself, because that was all old history and Dutch Van Der Linde wasn’t worth her concern, and frankly, she had drunk a glass of very fine whiskey eight years ago in pleasure at hearing the government’s Bureau of Investigation had finally caught up with him.  Bastard.  I hope the Devil himself has you as you deserve.  

Mary-Beth’s eyes went wide and startled, and she blurted, “Molly!”

Margaret might have slapped her, but she held herself together.  “My, it’s been so long since anybody called me that.”

“You two know each other?” Mrs. Castille said, looking at the two of them with surprise, but at least no suspicion.

“Oh, it was so very long ago,” Mary-Beth said, recovering rapidly.  “I’m ashamed to say that I...I broke her cousin’s heart.”

“You’ve broken quite a few hearts, my dear,” Mrs. Castille said cheerfully.  Yes, Margaret had heard about Leslie Dupont’s fast ways and string of romances never quite come to fruition.  Was there such a thing as a rakess?

Mary-Beth’s gaze stayed on hers, and she gave Margaret a shy, apologetic smile.  Surprisingly, she felt her pulse suddenly jump at the gesture, and it didn’t feel like alarm or anger.  “I do hope you can forgive me, M--Margaret.”

“Oh, long since forgotten,” Margaret assured her, glad she’d jumped quickly to cover her gaffe, and happy to follow her lead with that story.  “The fellow wasn’t worth the bother in the end, now was he?  We both said good riddance to him.”

“I’ll let you two catch up,” Mrs. Castille said, gesturing towards the balcony.  “The night air is quite fine.”

Given two weeks before she’d been in a miserable Boston winter, the weather here made for a pleasant change, she had to admit.  Knowing there was no escaping it, she followed Mary-Beth onto the balcony, some part of her very reluctant to have this conversation, but another part strangely intrigued by what the woman had become.  Curse her eternal romantic streak, but of course moving from dreamy guttersnipe and pickpocket to a successful authoress made for quite the tale.

Mary-Beth spoke first, keeping her voice low.  “We all wondered what had happened to you.  You just--vanished.”

“There was nothing to stay for,” she said, managing to keep the bitterness from her tone.  “I was never quite one of you, now was I?”  So she had simply not followed them when they cleared out from Shady Belle in an almighty hurry, saying the bank robbery had gone terribly wrong.  She’d gone to St. Denis and drunk herself silly for nearly a month, and then she’d sobered enough to tell herself she would take the first train in the station, wherever it was bound, which brought her back to Valentine.  Of course she would never stay there.  The first train into the Valentine station was bound for Omaha.  And she kept doing that until chance brought her to Boston.

“Oh, Molly--”

“Margaret,” she corrected with all the fierce, frosty bite of those Boston winters she’d left behind her.  “Molly” was only for her intimate friends, and Mary-Beth Landry née Gaskill was and had been nothing of the sort.  She relented somewhat, and asked, “What happened to them, if you know?”  She might not have belonged to them, they had made that quite clear, but that didn’t mean she wished them ill, let alone shot to pieces by Pinkertons.  She’d read about the big gunslingers of the gang dying in the papers over the years, of course, but all the little people like her, like Mary-Beth, had escaped notice.

“We got lucky.  Nobody else died that year after Lenny and Hosea,” Mary-Beth answered.  “I left a couple of weeks before the end of it all, Pearson and me together, but I’ve run into enough of them in the years since here and there.”  

“Arthur died, though?” Margaret said in confusion.  He clearly had been killed.  The papers had blared it everywhere in triumph, the Pinkertons bagging one more significant quarry even if Dutch himself slipped through their fingers.

If there had been anyone else in the gang she probably should have let herself like and consider halfway to a friend, it might well have been Arthur.  There was an awkward gentlemanliness and kindness towards her and all the women beneath that drawling uncouthness, as if he tried to keep the best of himself well hidden.  Fetching her that mirror only because she mentioned wanting one?  That was the sort of man Arthur Morgan had been, even if she’d been too much of a snob to see it at the time, far more swayed by Dutch’s smooth manners and darkly seductive charisma, the veneer of the proper gentleman of the sort she prized.  She couldn’t say she had mourned Arthur at the time, but she had thought about him now and again since.  He seemed like a better man than Dutch had let him be, and that felt like a shame.

Mary-Beth leaned closer, and she gave a knowing cat’s smile.  “The reports of his death may have been exaggerated.  The Pinkertons left him for dead, but it seems that wasn’t quite the case.”

“No!”  Delicious gossip, that, even if she could never tell another soul.  “Then--what?  Who?”

“Sadie’s the one who got him out alive.  They stayed together, ended up married, and they’re up in Canada with their children.  We don’t write much, just the occasional Christmas card, but it sounds as though they’re well last I heard.”

Margaret had to shake her head, trying to not laugh.  Arthur Morgan had married Sadie Adler?  That brash, angry half-feral woman strolling around in her pants and swearing a blue streak and toting a rifle, who had made it clear she’d as soon kill a man if he looked at her wrong?  But that was old Molly O’Shea talking, a posh lady looking down her nose at Sadie as a coarse farm wife who prided herself on being unnaturally mannish besides.  Well, well.  Hidden depths to her, I suppose.  Or perhaps she changed herself to something finer when it was all said and done.  She had done so herself.  It seemed Mary-Beth had, at least in some ways.

“Some of the rest are up there in Canada as well.  Charles, Karen, Abigail, and such.  Pearson’s out in Rhodes, and the Reverend in New York, last I heard.”  Abigail, still chasing the feckless boy-man father of her child when the boy was growing old enough to read.  Karen, a loudmouthed, chubby creature who fancied herself a hellraiser, had even punched Margaret in the face once.  Though I suppose deserved it, mocking her as I did.  Saying Sean MacGuire was a brainless, reckless fool and I knew hundreds more Irishmen just like him.  Certainly we both turned too much to the drink for the love of men who could never love us as we needed.  Abigail never did that at least, though John wasn’t nearly worthy of her that I saw, but the heart wants what it wants.  I made quite a solid proof of that lunacy. “Susan, Miss Grimshaw, she stayed around here for a bit, but she always was restless.  She’s out in San Francisco now, moved there a year after the earthquake.”  Margaret absorbed that, remembering the older woman and her need to feel relevant by bossing people around.  The two of them had quite the mutual disdain, Dutch’s young lover versus his older former flame.  Whereas back then she’d rolled her eyes at the jealous old biddy who clearly had it in for Dutch choosing another woman, now she was about the age Susan Grimshaw had been then.  She could look on it with some sympathy--how much it had hurt to see Dutch already abandoning her, and Susan’s loyalty and love for Dutch had been there even so many years later.  How hard must that have been?  How hard must it have been to be an unmarried woman approaching fifty, who most men now didn’t value at all?  Margaret had escaped that snare, but Dutch had kept Susan dependent on him all that time.  Perhaps that was the softening of years, and wisdom, that she could see such things now. 

Mary-Beth continued, “Tilly was actually here until earlier this year.  She and her husband Henri headed north to Chicago.  Better opportunities there for them there, though.  I do miss her dreadfully.  We used to try and meet every other Thursday at least, sometimes with the children.  I’d spoil them with candy and books and toys, and Tilly would always just smile at it.  Five children under twelve, quite the handful, but oh, how wonderful they all are.  I wonder if baby Amelie will even remember me.  She’s only two and a half now.”  She wore a wistful, faded, sad little smile at recounting those memories.  

Hearing Mary-Beth talk about all the women that had been with Dutch’s people then, it eased something in her to hear they all seemed to have done well and lived happy lives.  She’d long since had to face the idea that her youthful dismissal of all of them as a pack of cheap, coarse unmannered creatures not worthy of her time, as different from her bearing and breeding as chalk and cheese, had been wrong.  Learned that the line between being one of those women in the gutter and safely embroidering samplers in a graceful parlor was painfully razor thin.   Then Mary-Beth shrugged in a sharp, almost dismissive way, and there was something striving too hard for chipper casualness in her tone when she said, “So now it’s only little old me left here in St. Denis.” “And me now, I suppose.”  She said it before she could think better of it, laying claim to something she hadn’t cared about in so long, and hadn’t even felt a part of when she was in the thick of it.  And yet.

She’d heard that loneliness in Mary-Beth’s voice, and recognized with a startle that she’d felt that same seemingly indefinable loneliness all too often, for all she hadn’t been around anyone else who ran with Dutch’s gang, let alone thought she’d wanted them there.  

There was a part of her she couldn’t ever truly talk about, both from the shame of a foolish romance that would have labeled her as firmly ruined, and from the fear of being known as someone who’d been involved with all that unsavory outlaw business.  To be with one person she didn’t have to fearfully conceal that behind an ironbound mask, and recognizing the sheer bloody effort it had been these past twenty years to do it, felt like an agonizing relief that she had never known she wanted.  Like taking her corset off at the end of the day, laced stern and tight now against the ever-encroaching flesh of middle age, and breathing.

Mary-Beth looked at her, a gentle smile curving her lips.  “And you now.”  She hesitated, and then said almost shyly, “I did read ‘Odes to a Far Country’, you know.  Though my favorite poem in it is ‘The Butterfly and the Phoenix’.”

“Oh!”  She felt herself blushing, pleased but surprised.  “That’s unusual.  Nobody ever likes that one best.” One of her earliest published poems, and she looked back on it now as a somewhat mawkish, clumsy rumination from a woman facing an uncertain future, writing about metamorphosis, slumber, and fire from the ashes.  The symbolism in it felt treacly and heavy-handed to her now.  “It’s...very untidy.”

“Well, I like it.”  Mary-Beth spread her hands and shrugged.  “It’s honest.  It’s a very messy thing to remake yourself, isn’t it?”

She thought she understood now, with a flash of insight.  Mary-Beth had always seemed dreamy, even a bit dull at her insistence on painting everything in a romantic light, as if she simply couldn’t see the awful reality they lived in.  How much of that was true then and how much was an act, Margaret couldn’t say, given she wouldn’t give herself much credit for being terribly perceptive in those days.  But she had the suspicion Leslie Dupont now saw things clearer, and still chose to write those silly romances only because they brought some joy to the world.  Perhaps she wrote about outlaws and pirates only to purge her own demons in some way.

She felt that flicker in her chest again, confessing, “I liked ‘Ribbons of Scarlet’ best.”  That one was about a French noblewoman bound for the guillotine, and her love for the humble gardener who’d been her childhood friend.  Who then, of course, helped break her out of the Bastille itself, and they fled together, escaped to freedom in America.

“Nobody ever likes that one best,” Mary-Beth said, imitating Margaret’s Dublin accent dreadfully, turning it into some God-forsaken stage Irish and a poor one at that, and Margaret found herself smiling helplessly at it.  “People prefer their French Revolution stories with tragic and doomed endings, I’ve found.”

She sighed, looking out into the electric lamp-lit city at night, like a thousand fireflies glowing, fighting back the darkness. “I think we’ve had rather enough of tragic and doomed endings.”

They’d been young enough then, and foolish, and unable to see things clearly, let alone each other.  She’d been twenty-six, and Mary-Beth, what, twenty-one perhaps?  Now here they were, two middle-aged women brought together again in St. Denis by fate and literature both, and looking at the other woman, Margaret thought she felt something about Mary-Beth that just fit in some peculiar, easy way.  “I think we have,” Mary-Beth answered softly.  “I only wrote one.  My first book.  And I only implied it that way, and then, well, I undid it in the sequel anyhow when I thought better of it.”  She turned to look at Margaret.  “But here we are talking away and you’ve just gotten here to the gathering, and I’m keeping you all to myself.”

“I don’t mind, not at all,” she blurted, before she could help herself, and found herself blushing hotly again, and was surprised to see an answering blush in Mary-Beth’s cheeks.  At their age, no less, blushing like two schoolgirls in braids!  “But I probably should make the rounds, of course.  See and be seen.”

“Of course.”  Mary-Beth smiled at her.  “Do you have plans for Christmas?  I certainly don’t, not aside from the usual round of parties, but you know what I mean.  Real plans for Christmas Day, not social ones.  If not, you’d be welcome to come to my home, if you’d like.”  She reached out to touch Margaret’s arm gently, and oh, how glad she was the fashion was no longer for elbow-length gloves along with an evening gown, because the touch of those fingers on her bare arm sent a frisson of longing through her like she hadn’t felt in years.  She’d taken some to her bed discreetly when the mood struck, pleasant enough interludes, but there had never been anything of her heart in it.  This, oh, this?  This had destroyed her once and it could destroy her again, but how she suddenly wanted, something that wasn’t the overwhelming possession she had craved from Dutch, but something finer, brighter, something like kindred souls finding each other after so long.  

She didn’t have a mean bone in her body then, and I very much doubt she does now.  She’s not Dutch.  Telling herself that, feeling her heart hesitantly peek open only a crack, it was enough for now.  She looked up into Mary-Beth’s eyes, and smiled back.  “I’d like that very much.” 

A/N: Since it was a “Molly lives!” AU already, I decided to just go full “The gang members who died in Chapters 5 and 6 actually live!” AU, since neither Molly nor Susan are tough to spare their sad Beaver Hollow fates, Karen’s is ambiguous, and I’ve definitely explored the idea that there was a clear chance for Arthur if Sadie came back for him.  Especially the chance for Molly to reflect a bit on Susan and Karen with greater age and wisdom and see the similarities felt too good to pass up.

[forthegothicheroine]

2020 spring/summer tag game (created by @dahliaborne​)

tagged by @morethanprinceofcats​.  This looks fun!

what songs captures the essence of your ideal s/s mood?

The Mummer’s Dance (Single Remix) - Loreena McKennett / Purple Sage - Lovers / Come My Sweet - Medieval Baebes / Gently Johnny - Magnet / She Bop - Cyndi Lauper / Follow Me - Blondie / The Maiden and the Selkie - Heather Dale / Rolling Down to Old Maui - Todd Rundgren / I Know What Boys Like - The Waitresses / The Magic Wood - Joan Baez / Bedlam Boys - Steeleye Span / She’s a Carnival - Siouxsie and the Banshees

imagine yourself as a persephonesque creature, a nymph, what would be your s/s epithet(s)?

Lady of the Red Blossoms

what do you plan to read this s/s?

Born to Kvetch (finish), Michael Wex

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Stuart Turton

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix

How to Plan a Crusade, Christopher Tyerman

The Winter King, Bernard Cornwell

Melmoth, Sarah Perry

Something that May Shock and Discredit You, Daniel Lavery

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, Kiersten White

flowers you would decorate yourself with?

Bleeding Hearts

Lilacs

Poppies

Roses

art pieces that is in the same aesthetic line with your s/s aspirations?

(The Mermaid by John William Waterhouse, Goblin Market by Abigail Larson, Midsummer Eve by Edward Robert Hughes, La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Frank Cadogan Cowper)

fruits you would like to delight with?

Grapefruit

Berries of all kinds

Kiwis

Nectarines

Plumbs

gems & minerals you would like to fill your seashell with?

Rubies

Opals

Moonstones

Tiger’s Eye

Rose Quartz

Tagging @stoneandbloodandwater​, @absynthe--minded​, @marypsue​, @atundratoadstool​ and @marzipanandminutiae​)

[staygoldsunshine]

The Kindling

(A sort of short story I wrote for my Fiction Writing class that I’m thinking of expanding over the winter break. Hope you guys like it!)

    Something is growing on my spine.

    Whatever it is, it’s not a part of me. It burns beneath my skin like an infection, along the uneven segments of bone all fused together by the cords of my nerves and my pained, fragmented thoughts. I’m an oven, heated from within. Steam curls off of my exposed skin and drifts up into the light leaking in through the windows--the pink and blue of neon and the silver glow of the moon. Take a deep breath and try to relax, I tell myself. Panic only makes it sink its claws deeper.

    I lift the back of my loose shirt covering the raised skin that appears so monstrous when I rise to look into the mirror. I twist and crane my neck only to freeze at the sight of how much it has grown in just a week, now glowing like embers through my skin. Soon I won’t be able to hide it with just an oversized jacket anymore. Soon people are going to start asking questions. More questions, that is. They already wonder why I’ve disappeared, why I no longer call back, why I stopped going to classes or band practice or anywhere at all. All the stories I’ve ever heard say that the monster should stay locked away in its cave. How do I explain that to them? How do I tell them that this is all my fault?

    The bottle of pain medicine sits empty on my bedside table, and I heave a deep sigh that sends a puff of steam into the air. My teeth grind inside my mouth as the thing on my spine digs its claws into my muscles and pulls like it’s trying to shape me into something else. I pull back. Stretching, massaging, hot showers, more medicine--they call it chronic fatigue. Only I know the truth, and I’d like to keep it that way for as long as I can. When the monster does come out of its cave, it has to be careful, after all. One wrong move and the torches and pitchforks come out. One wrong move and it loses its head.

    Night air only strengthens it, but this is the only time that I’ll risk leaving my apartment, under the kind hand of the moon when no one looks too close and everyone is a little bit stranger. The rain-slicked pavement reflects streetlights, traffic lights, and bright windows in little patches of gold and green littering the ground as I flee for cover from the slight drizzle. Down the darkened stairway into the tunnels beneath the city, I can feel the thing on my spine shift with every step. The sickly green subway car speeds along, piloting only three passengers that don’t care to look at one another. Instead I study the still-drying graffiti of green flames consuming a giant, monster rat--someone has quite an imagination.

    Three stops, switch lines, two more stops. Get off. Avoid eye contact. It’s like a slow, winding dance with the underground world of brushing bodies who won’t have time to notice one monster among the mix.

    The street above is bustling, even at night, maybe especially at night. Strings of lights criss-cross above the crowd from building to building like manmade constellations, and I slip beneath these cold stars to find the collection of ratty tents--swirling candy cane colors that are faded from sun and rain--where the people laugh a little louder and smile a little wider. Few things make me feel like I’m not just some sort of doomed host to a wriggling, burning parasite, but this place certainly distracts for a little while.

    No one minds the way that I keep my eyes down or my hood up. They’re too busy ogling the performers. Glistening dancers in their jewels and dripping silks are huddled next to the lion that prowls around politely with a fledgling tamer, age four, riding on his back. The fire breathers scatter cinders across the dying, trampled grass, and they skitter across the toes of my shoes like stardust. Warm little flakes of burning snow.

    One of them offers me a suggestive smile as if my curiosity might possibly entail something more, and my eyes flit away like startled birds. Torches and pitchforks, I remind myself. Quickly stepping through the hustle and the jostle of sharp shoulders and pointing fingers, I find myself at the very last tent in the horseshoe-shaped carnival that lives on this little corner of town. The last tent is silent and solemn as sweet, purple smoke curls upwards from it into the night sky.

    My spine burns like stoked coals, and I breathe smoke like the tent that billows in the slight breeze. An exhale of cinders, a deep inhale of that poisonous night air that this thing finds so refreshing even as I choke. My shaking hands pull back the heavy canvas of the tent’s opening. Coughs make ash feathers flutter in my lungs, and a crackling voice calls out, “Enter, child, and shut that infernal opening.”

    The interior of the tent is even more enchanting than its mysterious exterior. The incense burns on a small table only about a foot tall, and a woman of curves and curls has seated herself across several cushions and pillows decked in embroideries and tassels. She looks like she might’ve been a princess of Arabia at one point many, many years ago. Now she looks more like a grandmother--out of sorts, lost in a circus with a few glass jewels on her fingers. “How have you been since we last spoke?”

    My silence is answer enough. She’s the only one who knows about my… ailment. That’s what she likes to call it, and I don’t mind that over the term that I use. Her name is Jasmine, that’s what she likes to call herself, and she tells stories of deserts and thieves and lost treasures hidden beneath the ever-moving sands. Whether she’s really seen any of these things or not, she’s a talented storyteller, and she never picks up the same thread twice. Each one spools out into a vast unknown of wonder and that sweet-smelling smoke that fills up the tent in place of oxygen. She curls one of those golden threads around her finger now and tugs.

    To escape into these stories, even for just a little while, is a welcome relief.

    “They say the prince still haunts that oasis, waiting to spirit away his true love to their castle in the clouds,” Jasmine finishes finally with a sigh. “Isn’t that romantic, child?”

    “Yes,” I say and not without meaning it, but she can see in the way that my hands twist the hem of my shirt that I did not only come for a story this time. “Jasmine… about my ailment.”

    She stops fanning herself with her painted fan for a moment and glances towards me with milky eyes that reflect the low light like the moon winking in at the fraying seams of the tent. “Haven’t you found a way to get rid of it yet?” Jasmine sighs again. She’s a professional at the art of sighing, practically invented it herself. “How terrible for you, my darling.” One of her silken bony hands reaches forward and takes one of mine. “Are you ready now? For what we’ve spoken of before? I know that you were frightened, but…”

    “I’m still not sure.” I can feel the thing inside of me grow defensive, its spines rising up and pressing against my skin. My nails bite down into the palm of the hand Jasmine isn’t holding until the pain subsides, and I sigh, not with the same theatrics as her but with enough frustration to jostle the creature beneath my skin. “But if there’s someone I could talk to, I think I’m ready for that at least.”

    Jasmine dips her hand into one of the silken folds of her robes and draws out a yellowed business card which she places into the palm of my hand. “Go to this address and tell them that I sent you. They handle all sorts of cases like yours.”

    Felix Fitzwilliam’s Second-Hand Horror Shop, the card reads in curling, faded script, with an address listed underneath.

    “All sorts? You mean there are others like me who have experienced this?” I lean forward, a tick too far and the thing on my spine flutters slightly in agitation. I wince and lean back again. “Or something similar?”

    Jasmine nods her silver head. “Yes, of course, child. You’re not the only one who’s had something strange awaken inside of you. It is a danger that many face, and like you, it is one that they try to face alone.” She adds another lump of the strange, golden wax to the burner, and more smoke begins to fill the room, making it hard to see her. “Don’t make the mistake of letting it control you forever. One day, it’s going to get too big to carry around on your back.”

    The smoke burns my eyes now, and the painted fan in Jasmine’s hand flicks open again like the wings of a paper butterfly, curling the smoke with the gentlest movements of her wrist. In another moment, she’s disappeared entirely deeper into the tent, and I’m left with nothing but a business card and a face full of smoke.

    Sage advice from a circus act comes with its nuances, of course.

[the-writers-realm]

Story Aesthetic Ideas

Story Aesthetics

Herbs

Violin

September

Dawn/Sunset

Cherries

Autumn

Masquerade

Jasmine

Winter

Parsley

Dice

Sage

Orchid

Coral

Shadow

Ocarina

Saffron

Guitar

Ruby

Pepper

Stained glass windows

Clocks

Diamonds

Crystals

Gold

Blood

The moon

The planets

Playing cards

Crows

Prisms and rainbows

Greek

Lanterns

Roses

Stars

Carnival

Computer code

Ink

Irises

Bells

Silver

Ivy

Rain

Lightbulbs

Aura

Oblivion

Royal

Apple

key

Fire

Paint

Egyptian

[kutchrannutsav]

Best Places to Visit in Kutch Rann Utsav

Gujarat's Kutch region is renowned for its stunning scenery and diverse wildlife. One of the best ways to get a full picture of Kutch's culture and traditions is to visit Rann Utsav. Dhordo village in Kutch, famous as "Tent City," is the home of the Carnival of Rann Utsav. The event will only be held at this location on an annual basis. In this way, it portrays the graceful beauty of Kutch while also evoking the region's culture, rituals, and customs. Folk and traditional dances, as well as upbeat music, are included throughout the event.

Best Places to Visit in Kutch during Rann Utsav

Explore this wonderful location and look at the Kutch region's most alluring sights.

Great Rann of Kutch

The Thar Desert and the Arabian Sea are on each side of Kutch's white desert, which is a natural wonder. When the full moon shines over the white grains of the desert, the white desert transforms into a fairy-tale place. The Rann Mahotsav, camel safaris, and tent camping are best enjoyed in Kutch during the winter.

Kalo Dungar 

The best spot in the Kutch is KaloDungar, which offers panoramic views of the whole area. From this vantage point, you can see the Rann and the Indo-Pak border. The 400-year-old Dattatreya temple atop Kala Dungar would make you feel fortunate.

Aaina Mahal

Located in Kutch lies the AainaMahal - better known as the Palace of Mirrors. Venetian glass, marbles, and mirrors are only a few materials used to decorate the castle. Indian and European influences may be seen in the artwork.

Marine National Park

Indian Kutch is the location of the country's first marine reserve, Marine National Park, which was established in 1991. In addition to birds, you'll be able to see sea creatures like phalaropes and gulls as well as osprey, kingfishers, and avocets. You'll also have a chance to see dolphins and beluga whales.

Vijay Vilas Palace

Vijay Vilas Palace served as a summer retreat for the Kutch Maharaos in the 1940s. Stunning Indo-European masonry may be seen here. In addition, it has a secluded beach all to itself.

Narayan Sarovar

The Puranas tell that the area was experiencing a drought. The sages worshipped Lord Vishnu in their devotional prayers. As a result of the prayers, Lord Vishnu arrived, and the Narayan Sarovar emerged when he touched the ground with his toe. It is revered as a sacred site where pilgrims come to take a holy bath.

Lakhpat Fort

The 7-kilometer-long fort wall around the Kutch town of Lakhpat and the opulent Lakhpat Fort draws many visitors. Many well-known stories are connected to it. Because of its one-of-a-kind design, the massive architecture of the fort is incredible. 

Conclusion

In the parched regions of Kutch, a kaleidoscope of color, design, culture, and music and dance come together to form a stunning mosaic that captures the region's unique character and personality. When it comes to music, art, craftwork, dancing, people, and nature—Kutch is a celebration of all things beautiful.

[easterncurvegarden]

Outdoor Gallery of flowers at the Curve Garden

If you’ve visited the Garden recently or even just passed by on Dalston Lane, you will have spotted our new ‘outdoor gallery’ mounted on the wall just outside our entrance, opposite Hackney Peace Carnival Mural.

We are delighted to have been awarded a grant from the ‘Hackney High Streets Fund’ which means that this year, through our ‘High Street Garden’ project, we will be able to share a little glimpse of the Garden, through a changing display of images. One of the aims of the project is to introduce passersby, who may not have previously visited the Garden, to the plants and community life that lie beyond our fence and to spread the word about supporting biodiversity. 

The first of our seasonal galleries puts the focus on ‘Flowers from Dalston Curve Garden’. Over many years we have been blessed to have a number of brilliant photographers recording the plants here and we now have an amazing photographic archive. One of these photographers, Erola Arcalis describes what recording the plants here means to her:

“I first photographed the Curve Garden nine years ago. The Garden has taught me how to look at plants and which ones to look out for each season. Even though the planting has changed and the trees have grown over time, I know the Garden's colours and textures almost by heart. The red spires of the Pineapple Sage and the delicate blue petals of the Crocus in winter; the tiny white Snowdrops announcing the beginning of Spring together with  Lilacs and Alliums; the lively coloured Hollyhocks in Summer; and the ocre leaves of the Silver Birches during the pumpkin season”.

It was such a challenge for us to make a selection of just 12 pictures from our archive, but here’s what we finally chose for display.

Tulip ‘Angelique’ Photographer:Alex Bogdan

Narcissus ‘Baby Moon’ Photographer: Sandra Keating

Tulip ‘Ballerina’ Photographer: Sandra Keating

Tulip clusiana ‘Cynthia’ and Muscari latifolium Photographer: Sandra Keating

Tulip “Menton’ Photographer: Sandra Keating

Erythronium ‘Pagoda’ and Muscari latifolium Photographer: Erola Arcalis

Tulip ‘Abu Hassan’ Photographer: Sandra Keating

Leucojum aestivum ‘Gravetye Giant” Photographer: Alex Bogdan

Crocus tomasanianus ‘Ruby Giant’ Tulip ‘Amazing Parrot’   Photographer: Alex Bogdan

Tulip bakerii “Lilac Beauty’ Photographer: Alex Bogdan

Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ Photographer: Sandra Keating  

Photographer Alex Bogdan says: “Every one of the flowers in these photographs has been planted and cared for by dedicated volunteers. I feel very privileged to be able to capture the beauty that they've created through so much hard work.

When you walk into the Curve Garden you're met with an explosion of colour from thousands of flowers. But when you get closer, you see that every flower has its unique personality and beauty. Tulip ‘Angelique’ have a sort of very delicate but distant elegance, like they belong in an old Dutch masters painting and ‘Amazing Parrot’, with their feathery petals remind me of flamenco dresses. They're some of the most showy tulips, the star of the show. The little Tulip bakerii “Lilac Beauty” are some of the friendliest, genuinely happy to be where they are. For me they're some of the more difficult to photograph in a way that truly captures their joyfulness.

Leucojum ‘Gravetye Giant” (Snowflakes) are some of my favourites. They flower for the longest time. It can be easy to overlook them as they seem to be always there, carrying the Garden through the cold days of early Spring until April when other spring bulbs are ready to burst into colour. But their flowers have the most intricate and delicate design. They're beautiful!”

And the final word goes to photographer Sandra Keating: “This is more than just an exhibition of beautiful flowers on a busy street in Dalston. It’s the people and the place behind these flowers that make it such a special exhibition to be part of. I’ve been incredibly lucky to work as an “in-house" garden photographer for so many years. Photographing plants in this vital green space along with other amazing photographers has quite literally been a dream come true.”

Thanks to Erola, Alex and Sandra for their beautiful botanical record, to our team of staff and volunteers for helping install the ‘Outdoor Gallery’, to www.coloursonic.co.uk for their beautiful prints and to www.futurehackney.com for advising us on printing for outdoor display. 

You can read more here about the other ‘Hackney High Street funded projects’. 

[agitatedwarmachine]

REPOST, DON'T REBLOG

NAME  :  Crosshairs

NICKNAME: Cross

AGE  :  Younger than the war.

SPECIES  : Cybertronian; Paratrooper frametype

PERSONAL !

MORALITY  :  lawful /   neutral  / chaotic   /   good /   neutral  / evil /   true

RELIGION  :  Paratroopers’ Religion

SINS  :  greed   /   gluttony   /   sloth   /   lust  /   pride   /   envy   /   wrath  /  despair

VIRTUES  :   chastity   /   charity  / diligence /   humility   /   kindness   /  patience /  justice

KNOWN LANGUAGES  :  Virtually any language he’s come across he’s learned, sans reading or writing it (he’s still pretty bad at reading and writing the Cybertronian he was constructed knowing).

SECRETS  :  He’s got a huge collection of stuffed animals he’s won at carnivals, using money he’s hacked out of human’s he’s seen being awful’s bank accounts. His favourite is one he got around Valentines Day; a large pink leopard.

PHYSICAL    !

BUILD  :          scrawny   /   bony   /   slender   /   fit /  athletic  /   curvy  /   herculean   /   pudgy   /   average

HEIGHT  :  eighteen feet three inches

SCARS   /   BIRTHMARKS  :  Both legs have really nasty scars from when they got blown off and he had to reattach them himself since Sage was pissed and ordered Anatomy not to fix him as punishment. They’ve sense smoothed out, only noticeable if you’re actively looking for them.

ABILITIES   /   POWERS  :    Active camouflage, antigravitational device that lessens and increases mass on the Cybertronian using it, goggles have multiple filters, canonly has fantastic aim (’can hit an Energon cube on Saturn from Earth’) RESTRICTIONS  :    Active camo means slow or no movement to remain matched with surroundings, he can only defy gravity to a certain point (depends on the gravitational pull, Earth its about ten feet) and if he increases his mass it takes a lot out of him, and he has a minor case of strabismus due to head trauma.

FAVORITES    !

FOOD  :  SILVER DRINK  :   REAL Energon, none of that synthetic shit PIZZA TOPPING  :   if human he’d probably like mushrooms tbh COLOR  :  pastel pink MUSIC GENRE  :    electro-swing  BOOK GENRE  :   n/a, he can’t read MOVIE GENRE  :  Action/Adventure

SEASON  :   Winter, for the cold.

CURSE WORD  :    He likes how ‘fuck’ can be used in so many different ways. SCENT( S )  :  silver, the woods, salt water

FUN STUFF    !

BOTTOM OR TOP  :   n/a bottom SINGS IN THE SHOWER  :  yeah he would LIKES BAD PUNS  :   YES

tagged by: @halfaspark 

tagging: @stainedredhunter and @danceswithautobots

[vivahsaubhagya]

Chhath Puja 2020 Tithi: कब मनाया जाएगा छठ का महापर्व, Chhath Puja 2020 Date, Chhath Puja 2020, chhath puja, Kharna, nahay khay, Chhath Puja 2020 tithi : आज से छठ पूजा की शुरुआत हो चुकी है. आज नहा�� खाय है. व्रति महिलाएं इसकी प्रक्रिया पूरी करने में जुी हुई है. नहाय खाय के द‍िन गंगा स्‍नान करने का चलन है. इस द‍िन घर की पूरी सफाई की जाती है और छठी मइया के स्‍वागत के ल‍िए घर आंगन, घर के आगे और पीछे हर स्‍थान की सफाई होती है. छठ का पर्व चार द‍िनों का होता है और इसका व्रत सभी व्रतों में सबसे कठ‍िन होता है. इसल‍िए इसे महापर्व के नाम से जाना जाता है. हिन्दी पंचाग के अनुसार, छठ पूजा का खरना कार्तिक मास के शुक्ल पक्ष की पंचमी तिथि को होता है. खरना को लोहंडा भी कहा जाता है. इसका छठ पूजा में विशेष महत्व होता है. खरना के दिन छठ पूजा के लिए विशेष प्रसाद बनाया जाता है. खरना के दिन भर व्रत रखा जाता है और रात प्रसाद स्वरुप खीर ग्रहण किया जाता है. इस बार छठ पूजा 18 नवंबर से 21 नवंबर पर चलेगी. अ��र आप भी छठी मइया के पर्व को मना रहे हैं तो यहां देखें छठ पूजा से जुड़ी हर अपडेट..

With thousands of devotees swarming in to pay their idolization to the Sun God, Chhat is the most revered and pious festival of Bihar. It speaks highly of the deep rooted folk culture and origin of the divulge. The word Chhath denotes the number six as it commences on the sixth daylight from Amavasya (Diwali). Devoted to the Sun God, Chhat requires an arduous obedience of quick without water for greater than 24 hours. The Parvaitin (one who observes the parv/puja) follows a time of abstinence and segregation from the main household for two days and is in addition to supposed to carry the ritual of bathing in the holy water of Ganges without help.

Chhath Puja 2020 : कब मनाया जाएगा छठ का महापर्व Nahaye-Khaye –

On the first hours of hours of hours of daylight of Chhat, the parvaitin takes the holy bath and cooks a proper meal sans onion and garlic. Her curt begins after the meal and is single-handedly out of the shadowy upon the neighboring-door evening.

Kharna – On the second hours of daylight of the festival, the parvaitin cooks the prasad re her own that includes kheer and chapattis. She breaks her fast furthermore this prasad and the leftovers are distributed as the most pious prasad of Chhati maiyya.

Pehla Arghya – The two day fast begins, concerning the third day of the puja. The parvaitin along once the devotees, promenade to the Ghats to give Arghya to the atmosphere sun. The Arghya is an offering of milk and gangajal and is considered to be amrit. When I said that consent of Chhat is arduous, I was not just referring to the fasts. Since Chhat is intensely praised in winters, it is hermetically sealed hard for the parvaitins and devotees alike to stand waist deep in the cool waters of the river and pay for Arghya. It is believed that one who observes Chhat must not wear every one one of stitched. Hence, most parvaitins (brave they must be) just drape a sari concerning them!

Doosra Arghya – The journey towards the Ghats begins anew in front hours of daylight about the fourth daylight. Personally, my favourite portion of the festival (except for the share where we profit prasad, of course!), where the state is yet mahogany black and millions of diyas and fireworks enlighten the Ghats; the sight is nothing less than a magical procession. Truly, one can lonesome witness the involve to fall in in addition to and environment the sheer piety and beauty of this festival. The entire Ghat is ornamented when terracotta lamps and canopies of sugar-cane stalks where the devotees desist their soops (baskets). Each soop consists of the Chhat prasad that includes and the first crop of the season. The day Arghya is offered taking into consideration again to the rising sun as soon as hymns and folk songs, praying to the Sun god to ward off evil and dark spirits and enlighten the world taking into account sanctity and goodness.

While the rituals are pious and attractive, there are numerous tempting things roughly this festival. On your mannerism to the Ghats, you will most likely acquire a unintended to see some devotees who feat not promenade around foot! Yes, there are some who roll regarding the subject of their backs all the way from their blazing to the Ghats (which can be several kilometres)! Another bemusing site is to appearance really olden women observe the puja and be absolutely to your liking even after plunging waist deep in the cool river. But most tempting is the ambience that is created during the four days of the festival. The roads are flamboyantly decked when stalls of food and toys upon their sides, women bearing in mind vermillion all along till their nose never seem to halt chanting the Chhat folk songs, kids and men alike drowned in the fervour of the festivity- Chhat Puja is not just a festival, its a carnival of joy and worship blended taking into consideration grip and holiness that brings families and links together.

Why is Chhath Puja 2020 much-admired

There place unit several stories that begin to the lineage of Chhath Puja. it’s assumed that within the accumulation, Chhath Puja was celebrated by Draupadi and in addition to the Pandavas of Hastinapur consequently as to resolve their issues and regain their free kingdom. The mantras from the Rig religious writing texts place unit musical whereas attend the sun. because the version goes by, this Puja was initial started by Hindu deity Putra Karna WHO dominated anew the Anga Desh (Bhagalpur in Bihar) throughout the age of Mahabharatum. The scientific records or rather the Hindooism records dates backing going on to the first sacred writing amount. Legend says that the sages and rishis of that times used this technique therefore as to restrain from any outside suggests that of food and profit energy directly from the rays of the sun.

The Rituals of Chhath Puja

Chhath Puja 2020 Tithi: कब मनाया जाएगा छठ का महापर्व, Chhathi Maiya, normally referred to as Usha is that the deity idolized during this Puja. The Chhath competition involves many rituals, that area unit significantly harsher as compared to oscillate Hindu festivals. These typically cause problems taking dips in rivers or water bodies, strict brusque (one cannot even beverage water within every single one method of fasting), standing and providing prayers in water, facing the sun for long periods and additionally providing prashad to the sun at sunrise and sunset.

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[seres-catalogue]

Eystling Questionnaire

created by fireflytrio!

Part 1.) Characterization. Use these questions as a way to flesh out some of your character’s personality, background, likes/dislikes, etc.

Their surname? Se. It’s pronounced Shay. He was “adopted”.

Halloween costume? Butterfly. (You’re literally only wearing a cape, that’s so lazy! You’re just mad you didn’t think of it first.)

Familiar/animal friend? Female quail, Two Feathers.

Big spoon or little spoon? He’s an antsy sleeper and is more likely to end up sleeping horizontally at the top of the bed by the pillows than next to somebody. If it’s a deep sleep, he’s resolutely the big spoon. He likes being a pillow. (Coincidence?) 

Religious? Not particularly. More superstitious than anything, following the stories and warnings Baba gave him growing up.

Favorite fruit? Cranberries.

Idea of a nice date? Making a meal together, then cuddling while watching (and talking through) a movie or two.

Favorite season? Winter.

When is their Birthday? March 16.

Favorite carnival ride? Gravitron. 

Favorite emoji?  ಠ_ಠ

Like to do in their free time? Make carved eggs to sell at the shop.

What sports would they play? Air hockey.

What kind of car would they drive? Small suv with a hatchback.

How do they treat their significant other when they’re feeling unusually affectionate? Aggressive cuddling. You will be cuddled and you will like it. Don’t try to get away, he only grows in power.

Main store to shop for clothes (if they lived in our world)? Kohls.

What were they like growing up? Kinda ditzy, lots of thousand yard stares. Mostly stuck to the shop.

What kind of drunk are they at a party? He’s gonna pass out in someone’s lap.

Reaction to someone telling a dirty joke? Be embarrassed, but still enjoy it.

Reaction to stubbing their toe? Cuss then check for injury. Will play it up dramatically even if he wasn’t hurt just to get a partner’s attention.

Favorite color? Sage green.

Favorite See’s chocolate? Apple Pie Truffle.

Favorite poptart flavor? Cinnamon brown sugar.

Favorite hobby? Calligraphy.

How they sing at karaoke parties? If you can get him to agree to a song, he’ll perform with confidence. Will probably have to go outside to calm down afterwards. 

Preferred social media platform? tumblr (for the memes).

Opinion on puns? Loves.

How do they typically deal with their problems? Avoidant to a fault.

Spice girl nickname? Sleepy Spice

Personal hygiene routine? Water hot as he can stand it. Calls it “boiling himself clean”. 

Favorite alcoholic drink? Daiquiri

Favorite genre of music? Rock.

Modern AU job/career? Doing tarot readings at a New Age center.

Favorite musical? Shrek the Musical.

How would they celebrate their significant other’s birthday? It’s their day, they are in charge. Would get them a customised cake and make their favourite dishes.

Would they rather turn into a tiny rhinoceros or a giant hamster? Giant Hamster.

What would they do for their significant other for Valentine’s Day? Bath by candlelight then a sensual massage.

Pros and cons to having them as a roommate? Pros: Handy helper who knows lots of random things. Likes to cook. Cons: Hates to clean. Exaggerates and gets dramatic for attention. 

On a scale from 1-10 how Extra are they? 7.

Favorite meme? Arrow to the knee.

Favorite three pokemon? Dratini, Hoothoot and Delibird. 

How tall are they? 5′5″

Part 2.) Scaling. Using your best judgement, where does your fan apprentice fall on these scales?

Shortest to tallest?

Portia, Eystling, Asra, Nadia, Lucio, Julian, Muriel

Most to least superstitious?

Portia, Julian, Eystling, Nadia, Lucio, Asra, Muriel

Most to least excited to be at a WWE event?

Portia, Lucio, Asra, Julian, Nadia, Eystling, Muriel

Worst to best at handling children?

Nadia, Lucio, Muriel, Eystling, Asra, Portia, Julian

Worst to best alcohol tolerance?

Muriel, Asra, Lucio, Eystling, Julian, Portia, Nadia

Best to worst at keeping secrets?

Asra, Muriel, Nadia, Lucio, Portia, Eystling, Julian

Best to worst dancers?

Asra, Portia, Eystling, Julian, Nadia, Lucio, Muriel

Most to least likely to slap you for stealing a mcnugget?

Nadia, Lucio, Asra, Portia, Julian, Eystling, Muriel

Least to most likely to eat something weird on a dare?

Eystling, Nadia, Julian, Muriel, Lucio, Portia, Asra

Least to most old?

Asra, Portia, Eystling, Muriel, Julian, Lucio, Nadia

Part 3.) Extra characterization tidbits (whether you want to make a description or insert a photo for these is up to you!)

MC as a:

•vine: Parents Always Think You’re Up to No Good...

•a piece of furniture: Fancy ass mirror.

•character from the Labyrinth: Truth/Lie Door Guards

•Tarot card: The Star

•Michael Jackson song: Wanna Be Startin Something

•character in the play “Cats”: Coricopat

•cliche high school student stereotype: Hippie/new age chick

•flight rising dragon breed: Coatl

•deadly sin: Envy

•DnD class: Druid (Coast)

•hogwarts house: Slytherin

•cryptid: Jackalope