#She and Sets were both done DIRTY by the 90's anime

[astromegastar26]

Hotaru, my baby!

Sailor Saturn

[dcarevu]

Batman TAS: Heart of Steel (Part 1)

“I do wish you wouldn’t be so rough with your toys, Master Bruce.”

Episode: 38 Robin: No Writers: Brynne Stephens (Brynne Chandler) Director: Kevin Altieri Animator: Sunrise Airdate: November 16, 1992 Grade: A

Mixing the world of Batman TAS with heavy science fiction elements, particularly those related to computers, could have equated a heavily dated disaster. Even Batman’s bat-computer rubs me the wrong way sometimes, it sometimes seems out of place. I don’t think the decade helped much. I am not nostalgic at all for the computers of the 90’s and early 2000’s. They were a pain in the ass and they were ugly. Batman’s computer may be super advanced, but it was still a 90’s vision. Compare this to the futuristic world of The Jetsons. The Jetsons certainly had advanced technology, but it was also contained to what we already understood about technology. Because of that, it has not aged unnoticeably despite some aspects of that future still being a ways off from today. In many cases, we simply found different ways to advance, and things like the smart phone or the tablet were hugely instrumental in determining the way our technology would wander come the late-2000’s.

Heart of Steel isn’t set in the future, though, and this helps. Sure, the show was meant to be as timeless as possible, and therefore should somewhat translate to our modern times… Right? Ehh… I don’t think that “timeless” necessarily needs to mean that. The purposely dated aspects of the show (such as black and white TV’s) are now not much more retro than some of the technology and ideas featured in this episode. Eventually we will be at a place where the space between black and white TV’s and the Internet will be significantly smaller than the space between the Internet and present-day. Because of this technology in this episode seems less 90’s, and more like it fits in with the show’s atmosphere, blending together elements of the past and present. What do you get when you put together archaic technology with present-day technology? Something kinda in the middle. So we have weird, hybrid-era computers, black and white TV’s, and many other things that mostly existed decades apart, and it works. It’s all like a stew. A good story aids as well, and what Heart of Steel delivers is pretty interesting, incredibly creepy, and cunningly suspenseful.

When the episode starts, right off the bat, we can see that it’s unusually dirty-looking. The Blu Ray release features no such quirk, but goodness gracious, how did this much film-dirt pollute so many of the frames? Char thought it only added to the look, and I definitely won’t argue that. But a little film dirt goes a long way for me. When it’s looking this grubby, to the point where it could be god damn snowing, I see it as a little bit of a problem. Nothing I can’t look past, though. While we’re on the topic of animation, Sunrise is back, a lesser-used studio who, so far, as done a sufficient job, but not much beyond that. They have a style that I don’t recognize until I know it’s them. Hindsight bias? Maybe. But they’re kinda in between Dong Yang’s best work and Akom’s standard-to-best. They typically have some really weird shots every episode, and we get one here that is displayed down below in the section for screengrabs. They did a damn fine job at animating the suitcase robot, which was certainly not something you have to practice drawing every day, and the more dramatic scenes that popped up near the end. They were also able to give us an absolutely gorgeous Barbara and Randa. I have to call special attention to Randa’s design. Apparently she was modeled after Marilyn Monroe, and it shows. Char and I both briefly discussed how attractive she is. Too bad she’s a big ol’ bitch, right? At least Barbara is adorable inside and out.

So we start at Wayne Enterprises, and this mysterious blonde woman (who turns out to be Randa) leaves a suitcase inside, leaving immediately afterward. A guard picks it up and starts messing with it, which seems a little stupid. I mean, god, that scenario has “bomb” written all over it. The guard gets the suitcase open, and it seems ordinary, so he leaves it for the night in case anyone decides to come back for it the next day. Big mistake, because once the suitcase is alone, it grows metallic limbs, a robotic eyeball, and starts scurrying around the building, making its way up to a vault containing some microchips. The microchips are one piece to the puzzle of free-thinking AI, so obviously they are incredibly valuable. The guard and Bruce Wayne take notice on their way out, and after an action sequence between security and the spindly, little robot, Batman follows it to a car being driven by the blonde lady we saw earlier. Unfortunately she is able to stop Batman from following, ending the action for the night.

After talking to Lucius Fox and Commissioner Gordon (who has Barbara with him, her first appearance), Bruce visits a place called Cybertron Industries. Optimus Prime is nowhere to be seen, but a guy named Karl Rossum is running the company, and has a sweet, delicious southern accent. Seriously, this guy’s voice is really good. Like many of the mainstays, it exudes so much character and sounds incredibly natural at the same time. Rossum shows Bruce around, introducing him to some of his mechanical inventions, and then shows him his masterpiece, a giant computer named HARDAC (Holographic, Analytical, Reciprocating, Digital Computer). Oh, and his assistant, who has her hair covered up so that the audience doesn’t recognize her as the same woman who left the suitcase. It is pretty obvious that this is her, though, and when Rossum refuses to reveal the purpose of HARDAC, this whole operation gets even fishier. Hell, when Commissioner Gordon earlier mentioned that the only team (that’s not Wayne Enterprises) researching this type of AI was Cybertron, we might as well have taken it as, “So Karl Rossum is the villain.” I don’t actually remember if he is the villain or not, it’s been too long since I’ve seen the episode, but I’m going to remain suspicious. I do remember another big detail, though, and I’m going to avoid mentioning it for the sake of spoilers. You’re welcome.

Bruce Wayne convinces Rossum’s assistant (Randa) to go on a date with him in order to squeeze information out of her. “Well… Squeeze might not be the best word.” as Bruce put it. I couldn’t even believe I heard that. Huge innuendo! But after leaving, Randa makes her way to a section in Rossum’s lab where she begins an incriminating conversation with HARDAC, and a machine spits out a copy of Commissioner Gordon, naked as a jaybird. This copy makes its way to his house, along with Randa, and takes his place, unbeknownst to Barbara. She can tell something is different with him, though, as he won’t talk to her like he normally does, he stops calling her “Princess”, and he nastily swats her stuffed bear onto the floor, despite the real Gordon seemingly being more attached to it than Barbara is. It’s a very startling moment, actually, and it jumped Char. It made me audibly gasp, and it also made me a little sad. You don’t mistreat stuffed animals like that, you monster!

At the same time, Randa and Bruce are on their date at Wayne Manor. Bruce has to leave for a little while in the middle of it, due to an information theft at Wayne Industries, and while he’s gone, Randa communicates with HARDAC again, seemingly with the aid of an earpiece. Because the information stolen was actually decoy information, HARDAC instructs her to search the house, and she happens to stumble across the Batcave in the search. This makes for the first major time anyone has figured out that Bruce and Batman are the same exact person (Hugo Strange’s efforts didn’t amount to anything), and it ends up being much more dramatic. During the search, Alfred is put unconscious, and when Bruce finally gets back, things are quiet. Randa is nowhere to be seen, and Alfred doesn’t seem to recall what happened. Is this the real Alfred? I can’t recall. He seems to act pretty normal, but he also has no idea what is going on. He could have hit his head, but it leaves me concerned. Another element to the story that I cannot remember from several years back. Batman heads down to the Batcave to investigate, but his computer starts going absolutely haywire. Some mechanical arms from above grab him, and drag him up, ending the episode. The techno-freak-out is just as frightening as the bear-swat from earlier with “Gordon”, and it makes for a great end to the episode. In general, the episode picks up as we get closer and closer to the end. The beginning is B-material, and the end is A-material easily. Because of this, I eventually went with an A, succumbing to the peer pressure supplied by Char (that’s a joke). We’ll look at Part 2 soon (the post for Perchance to Dream may be up first), where we’ll hopefully get a thrilling conclusion. So far, the second parts of the two-parters have been inferior, with the hard exception being Feat of Clay.

Some various moments of the suitcase robot. The eyeball is the one thing that adds a little bit of camp, so they could have done without that. Wouldn’t a little seeing sensor work a bit better? 

The guard fiddling with the key while Bruce patiently waits. Clearly this is here to show the imperfect qualities of man when compared to machine (being totally serious here, without any sarcasm).

And here’s our Sunrise weirdness of the episode. What the hell am I looking at? 

Batman is looking a little husky, but overall it’s a good drawing. Better than that scary monstrosity above it.

Also a decent looking fire. The key is to avoid too many (if any) black lines if you don’t have the chops to really make them look awesome. 

Batman whips out his binoculars for a second to get a better look at the rocket (filled with the microchips) that leaves the suitcase. It’s quick.

Being a Wayne-owned building, Batman has a few secrets hidden around.

Actually, here’s another one I forgot to add earlier. Clever! 

No one pours anything into a bag like this, the shit will spill all over the place. 

Okay, I need one of these in my trunk for tail-gaters. 

More Sunrise weirdness. We can see through the wave, and there’s no Batman. When the wave comes back down, he’s there again. 

Nice water running over Batman’s costume.

Followed by a gross face that we hold on for a few frames. 

Here we see Alfred dusting Batman’s computer system, but Char at first thought that he was playing with a ball. I thought that was so amusing I had to include it. 

As Batman and Alfred discuss AI, we get this detailed shot of Alfred’s mop. I don’t get it. 

BARBARA!!! 

I love Jim and this bear. He takes it to the airport every time he picks up Barbara. “Well, he knows the way better than I.” That’s adorable. 

As Jim leaves, he realizes that Bruce is still holding onto it. He then says, “Barbara forgot her bear.”

Barbara’s first appearance is a strong one, since we have already gotten to know Gordon. She feels like an extension of him.

A little bit Jetsons, and that’s not the color I would have chosen, but a cute robot.

This one is my favorite. It makes music (that sounded like some sort of brass instrument). 

This big red button is for making cappuccinos. Brilliant. 

I’m sorry, but this looked like the worst foot-rub ever. 

This is HARDCAC. Jesus, how much did that run you, buddy? I’d spend more than double what’s in my bank account for a Macintosh laptop.

Seeing the construction of the Gordonbot was eerie. Before we see the face, we have no idea who it’s supposed to look like, so it leaves us in a bit of suspense. Also, HARDAC refers to this as the next duplicate. That has to mean there are others already out there.

Total 2001 vibes. HARDAC has a great voice. 

Isn’t she beautiful? I can see the Monroe-influence. I wonder why, though?

Really disturbing as Gordon answers the door, seeing himself cloaked in shadow. The stuff of nightmares. Basically a futuristic version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. 

The sound it makes too is so violent when you’re not expecting it. 

I feel like this scene represents that space that is suddenly between them. There is one point where the Gordonbot says, “I said I’m fine.” in a really aggressive tone that gives me the willies. Replacements/copies of humans are such a scary concept. 

A really well-composed screengrab. Could be an album cover. 

So is the Batcave entrance behind the clock, or behind this bookshelf..? Not both, there’s only one staircase. Inconsistencies! 

Oddly-proportioned Batman. 

So, why exactly does Batman keep his work files on his Batcave computer? Although I suppose this files this secretive, it’s not a bad plan. Until we run into situations like this, anyway!

Char’s grade: A Next time: Heart of Steel (Part 2)

Full episode list here!

[depitydoda]

Keepers of the Crypt: Spiders Curse pt 11

“Are you that upset about your hair?” Diana sat across from Jericho who was using the reflection of the napkin dispenser to look at his hair. They both sat in a 90’s themed diner. A large empty bowl sat in front of them, the only remnants of what was left remained on their chocolate stained spoons.

“I don’t know. I dislike changing for some guy...” Jericho whined. He used his fingers to comb his hair back before setting the napkins back on the table.

“It’s a god JJ. Not your boyfriend.” Diana pointed the chocolate stained spoon at the newly self conscious Jericho, “You can always dye your hair like Caspian. Make it your own.” Sticking the spoon in her mouth, they both watched as the bowl was taken away and was replaced by their meals. “Why did we get dessert first?”

“It’s something Marcus liked to do. It became a force of habit after a while.” He admitted. Taking a knife and fork, he started to dig into his chicken parmesan. “Have you... thought about what I asked?”

Diana, mid bite, set down her burger. She folded her hands together and looked at the ground. “I was wondering if you were going to ask about that.” She took a deep breathe and leaned back into her chair. “That was the main reason Marcus and I were late yesterday. We were discussing it with the council.”

“And?” For the first time in a while, he felt nervous, but he wasn’t sure if it was him or Midas.

“They’ll have you, but it’s going to come with some conditions.” Diana announced, her tone dropped friendliness, and was replaced with a more serious one. “One, you have to move to Crystalyn, the capital city of the Keeper’s headquarters.”

Jericho felt as if he was punched in the gut. All the air was drained out of him, he couldn’t breathe as he tried to grasp the idea of moving. “But-“

Diana cut him off by continuing, “Let me finish before you start asking questions.” She took her time to speak again, “Second, you’ll be placed under my team with Zoran, and Cheryl. There, I will be responsible for you and your actions. Finally, you’ll be responsible for for the actions you take while possessed by Midas.”

There was a long silence before they spoke. Jericho’s hands lie fidgeting in his lap. “What about Marcus? He can stay in the city with his powers, why can’t I?” She gave him a guilty look. She stared down at her uneaten burger, and it slowly dawned on him. “You’re not planning on taking the crown off him.” Her silence spoke the truth. “That’s not fair... he’s done nothing wrong, you can’t keep him under your thumb like that.”

“It’s not him we’re worried about!” She argued. “It’s Trishula. You have no idea what he did while Trishula took the reins. He slaughtered countless people. I like Marcus, I do, but I refuse to let that happen again Jericho.”

Jericho watched his meal slowly get cold, sighing, he grabbed his utensils and started eating again, he refused to waste his money on a meal. “Ok, I get it. Does Marcus know about this. About... me leaving?”

Diana followed suit, and started to eat, “The crown, yea. But not with you leaving. I felt that was something you needed to do.” She answered with a mouthful of burger.

He nodded, “Thanks... Not looking forward to that talk. What about this case? Do I get good boy points for finishing this one and the wendigos?”

“Since there’s no Keeper pack shadowing you, that’s a yes and as for this case, we need to complete it before we can begin.”

Jericho nodded and swallowed a cut piece of chicken. “Then let’s solve this and get this over with.”

~~~~~~~~

Marcus returned later that day with torn clothes and muddied hair, but despite this he looked happy, “I needed that.” He announced as he walked in, falling onto the couch. “There was a Grudge there, but he didn’t stop me or anything thankfully.”

“That’s good.” Jericho sat on the couch, hands clammy, and breathe short. He was terrible at keeping secrets, he had planned on telling Marcus the news after the murderer was caught, but he didn’t know if he could keep it in.

Marcus smiled as Cleo started to rub against his legs and Yoshi climb up his arm. “How’s my babies doing.” He walked towards the counter and took out their food. “How was your lunch date with Diana? I’m almost jealous.” He joked.

“Marcus I need to tell you something.” Jericho announced, but before he could finish, Cleo and Yoshi started to hiss. Cleo’s back arched as Yoshi’s frills went up. Both of the animals looked towards the door as they slowly backed away.

Jericho slowly stood up and drew his daggers. Looking back to Marcus he shook his head, and mouthed him to stop. Ignoring him, Jericho walked towards the door and looked through the peep hole to see a ghost like figure standing in the doorway. Her jaw was unhinged and rotten, she wore a dirty white dress, stained with blood and dirt and a white vail covering her face. She swayed in the hallway, as if she was submerged under water. She moved forward and passed through the wooden door and Jericho who dropped to the floor and clutched his chest. His felt as if he was tossed into a frozen lake.

“Banshee.” Marcus mumbled. He opened his palm and a small silver scythe like blade attached to a light blue silk scarf appeared in his hand.

The banshee seemed to dislike the metal as she hissed and veered away from it. Jericho got over the shock and slowly got up, his blades ablaze. Looking between Jericho and Marcus the banshee must’ve known how bad her situation was.

Marcus took the initiative and flung the bladed scythe at the banshee, embedding it in her shoulder. The banshee let out a blood curdling wail which shattered the windows of the apartment and made Jericho and Marcus fall to their knees, holding their ears.

Jericho winced and closed his eyes, he wished for the pain to stop, it felt as if shards of glass were tunneling into his ears and to his brain.

Fighting through the pain he looked up and saw the banshee slowly floating towards Marcus, who was curled into the fetal position, holding his ears. The wailing stopped but his head was ringing. He forced himself to his feet and tossed a dagger into the banshee’s back.

He watched as it passed through the specter, hitting the wall in front of her. She turned around and faced Jericho, jaw twitching and letting out a strangled noise that sounded like a deflating tire. For a cruel moment Jericho thought she was laughing.

“You creepy lil shit.” Jericho struggled. Raising his dagger, he changed his stance to better hold it. Willing the blades on fire again, he was willing to try this again with a different angle. “Let’s see if you’re immune to fire.”

He lunged with the intent to keep its attention. Slashing down at her, she quickly fazed through the wall, avoiding the attack. Once again her laugh echoed through the room.

“Undead bridesmaid is starting to piss me off.” He announced. Kneeling down beside Marcus, he patted his shoulder without looking, keeping eyes all around him. He took a moment to look at Marcus to see that he was in a worse shape than he thought.

He was holding his ears, black blood seeped through his fingers, shivering uncontrollably. “Make it stop... please.” He begged.

“Marcus...” He didn’t have time to worry as he felt the same cold as before. His instincts kicked in as he turned around and slashed out with his lit dagger. He received another dose of the banshee’s scream, he held his ears and watched her disappear once again.

Pulling the dagger out of the wall, both daggers were lit again. “It had to be a specter.” He mumbled, “Couldn’t have been a gremlin or troll, it had to be a specter.” Slowly he backed his way into the kitchen, keeping his eyes on his surroundings and Marcus. Once he felt safe enough, he quickly ransacked Marcus’ spice rack. “Please, please.” Feeling the cold wash over him once again he slashed out with his daggers in a wide arc, only to see nothing. Wondering where she went he gasped as his lungs froze as an icey hand gripped his heart. Looking down at his chest he saw a withered rotting arm protrude from his chest. Panicking he flailed his arms, hoping to grab the right spice.

The arm twisted and flexed, causing Jericho gasped in pain. Gripping a bishop shaped bottle, he slammed it against the counter, shattering the glass bottle and tossing the contents on the arm.

The banshee wailed and retreated, pulling her arm out of Jericho. Leaning against the counter, Jericho gasped for air, the relief of pain washed over him. “Thank the gods.” He inhaled.

Looking back he found the banshee gone, the presence of her vanished into the air, yet, he waited. And waited for her to return. Nothing.

Dropping to his knees and hands, he caught his breathe. “Marcus, please say something.” When he got no response he shuffled to him and rolled him over. Tears ran down his eyes as he was looking into the distance. “Gods. What did she do to you.” Resting him onto the couch he rushed to the phone and called Diana, “Come over NOW! Marcus needs help!”

[patchworktail]

ITS 4:30 AM AND I DONT FEEL LIKE SLEEPING so I’m gonna do this meme that i got tagged for twiCE and totally forgot to do til now!!!! (i had 2 dig through your blogs to find them omg)

ANYWAY i was tagged by both @mooitstimdrake​ and @cynessie​ (I MISS U BOTH BTW ❤)

RULES: Share 11 facts about yourself, answer 11 questions provided by the tagger, tag 11 awesome people and leave 11 questions for them to answer!

(I’m gonna skip tagging people/asking 11 questions - 1) because I’m lazy 2) because a lot of people who I would tag either have already been tagged or woN’T DO IT and 3) I have to answer two sets of 11 questions anyway so I’ll let one of those sets take the place of my 11 questions!!)

11 Facts

I was supposed to leave to move into my college 3 days ago but since my college is in Savannah they pushed off move-in/orientation for a weEK BECAUSE OF HURRICANE IRMA AND I’M STILL UPSET/DISAPPOINTED

That being said I’m about to start as a college freshman at art school, planning on majoring in animation! :D

I binged all of Buzzfeed Unsolved in like 2 days and I fuckin LOVE IT

Also BNHA is like my current main obsession???? I fell in love w that anime and uhhhh I’d Die For My Kids

I almost never use skype anymore - I’m always on Discord now (mutuals may add me just message me if you want my tag :3c)

I loooove creating OCs and my main OC is a forest elf named Rally and he’s precious and I LOVE HIM AND COULD TALK ABOUT HIM FOR HOURS (also my best friend @/harpxer and I have a huge ongoing rp with him and her mountain elf oc, Kahl!! they’re really gay)

Hmmm fun fact I guess I’ve been involved with internet communities since I was 10 years old and I made my very first internet friend when I was 10 and we’re still great friends and talk p much every day to this day (hi @/fiishr)

I want a tattoo super bad but idk what I’d geT

I worked at a jewelry engraving stand at an amusement park this summer and one night I accidentally gave myself a 1st degree burn on my finger from the hot glue gun and it hurt So Bad

I had my graduation party this July and it was really fun but the best part was when 14 of us played this giant game of spoons and it got really intense, made worse by people randomly screaming during it, and then we collectively decided to blast hardcore rap music from the speakers and Let Me Tell You i have not been involved in a more stressful card game in my LIFE

I’ll always always always fall for the hero/happy character/protagonist basically....idk what it is about me but I’m so Predictable...I love cute optimistic brave characters who just wanna do Right.....I don’t cARE IF PEOPLE THINK THEY’RE BORING I THINK THEY’RE PERFECT AND AMAZIGN AND I LOVE THEM

AS FOR AN EXTRA 12TH FACT ABOUT ME AS U CAN SEE I WRITE WAY TOO MUCH AND ALSO I’M THE BIGGEST OVERSHARER E V E R IT’S SO BAD SOMEONE STOP ME

ANYWAY ONTO THE QUESTIONS :3c

@mooitstimdrake​‘s Questions:

If you were to make a new blog dedicated to one single thing (fandom, hobby/activity, etc) what would it be? Honestly, right at the moment probably BNHA!!!! it’s legit my most recent big obsession and I love it?? so much???

If you could have any kind of animal as a pet, what would you have? A RACCOON!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THEM SOSOSOSOSOS MUCH and some people actually do have them as pets! They can be difficult though but WORTH IT

Who was your favorite teacher and why were they your favorite? OH BOY......I’m gonna say it’s a tie between my AP studio art teacher and my AP US government teacher from this past year, my senior year! My AP art teacher because our class was super tiny, 12 kids, and it really felt like a family?? She was a-okay with letting us all goof around and say weird shit, she was really chill and funny and like. part teacher, part friend, which was always nice. As for my AP gov teacher, he was SO. FUCKING. FUNNY. OH MAN. NOT EVEN ON PURPOSE he just like? put up with SO MUCH? we had some real character kids in that class and my teacher’s reactions were HILARIOUS. he had a sarcastic streak too so his responses were equally as funny when someone did something weird. He would say the funniest stuff just ask @/harpxer I would tell her so many stories from that class sohboshrb. Aside from the humor that class was really interesting, and he’s a really good, invested teacher - he wanted us to learn, he’s super passionate about government and history, and he always started off each class with 2 current events which was really nice and helped me learn more about things happening in the world too!!! overall that was like my fav non-art class I’ve ever taken!!!!

What’s your guilty pleasure (and I’m challenging you not to say some kind of food)? HMMMMM. Honestly I’m gonna go ahead and say really cheesy or lame movies/shows (like, Disney channel movies, dumb shows - like the one summer I watched all of Glee LOL, stuff like that). Like yeah I know 90% of it is terRIBLE but it’s still amusing/lighthearted stuff that makes me happy KLSDJVLSDHB

Favorite pizza topping? EXTRA CHEESE IF THAT COUNTS, if not then pepperoni!!

What’s the last thing you bought (that wasn’t food)? I’ve actually been buying a lot the past few weeks in prep for college/spending a little money for ONCE since I worked all summer. I got a bunch of boring stuff but the things I’m most excited about are: two posters I got for my dorm (The Office is one and one is Lord Huron), a giant wall tapestry (it’s Up themed!!!), tWO BNHA/POKEMON CHARMS THAT CAME TODAY AND EVERY TIME I LOOK AT THEM I START CRYING BC THEYRE SO CUTE, and oh my GOD I BOUGHT THIS GIANT PILLOW FROM TARGET AND IT IS THE SINGLE SOFTEST THING I’VE EVER FELT AND IT’S HUGE AND IT IMMEDIATELY BECAME MY #1 COMFORT OBJECT AND TOP FIVE FAV THINGS IVE EVER BOUGHT!!!!!! I guess MOST recently though I just bought Clip Studio Paint online today (art program) since it’s on sale for 50% off and I’ve heard great things about it!

What upcoming movies/tv shows are you looking forward to? UHHHHH as for movies... justice league part 1, the incredibles 2, kingsman 2, the neW POKEMON MOVIE I CHOOSE YOU, probably a lot more I can’t remember rn. AS FOR SHOWS HMMM I’m...excited for the next season of the good place and izombie, and oh I’m excited for the punisher netflix show!! and the next season of voltron of COURSE!!! and next season of stranger things!! probably more I’m forgetting too tbh

Any recommendations (this could be anything just throw your best pitch at me)? JFISDJKLBJ I DON’T KNOW OMG tbh rachel you watch a lot of the same things I do already LMAOOO

What’s your favorite thing to wear that you own? OH FUCK I DUNNO HMMM I really like wearing my various leggings and scarves, but as like a Single Item....I like wearing....uhhhh I have this giANT sweater like it’s WAY too big for me but it’s so COMFY and I love it. I also love wearing my Star Labs sweatshirt bc it’s soft and comfortable

What was your first pet? my cat!!! we took her in as a stray kitten living in our backyard when I was like. 2 or 3 and so we’ve basically had her my whole life!!

If you could learn any language, what would it be? UHHHHHH honestly probably spanish - I took it 4 straight years and was okay at it in class but one year went by with me not taking it and I forgot everything LOOOL I’m...bad....at languages....

@cynessie‘s Questions:

Where is the coolest place you’ve ever been? I haven’t been many cool places :( I guess the coolest isssss I dunno it depends? Lake George is where I go on vacation every year, I LOVE NYC, I love Savannah too and it’s where I’m gonna be for college so?? ?? ?  ? I’VE NEVER BEEN OUT OF THE COUNTRY AND I’M SAD BUT I’M POOR AND CAN’T AFFORD IT

What was the first thing you remember wanting to be when you grew up? veterinarian!! 

Look to your right. What do you see? a dirty plate on my desk, my bed just past that, and my CHARMS THAT CAME TODAY THAT ARE SO CUTE I CRY EVERY TIME I SEE THEM

What are you procrastinating on? ajkldjboidj lik e 4 art commissions,,,, and 7 MAP parts,,,, and my pre-work for 2 of my classes,,,,,,,and cleaning my room,,,, and sending thank-you notes to relatives,,, SOMEONE KICK MY ASS AND MAKE ME DO SHIT

Which family member are you closest too and what is their name? UHHHH.... I guess my younger brother Luke? or maybe my mom? I’m not on bad terms with anyone though, I love both my older brothers too and we all have a good sibling relationship I just talk more with my younger bro I think - second closest would be with my second older brother Connor!

What’s the last song you listened to? I’m listening to Ultralife by Oh Wonder right now :3c I’ve been on a huUUGE Oh Wonder kick lately!!

What do you generally carry in your bag/pockets when you go out? my wallet (w my license and money and debit card and all), travel size lotion, phone, and chap stick!!

What is one thing you are excited for? FINALLY GETTING TO COLLEGE NEXT WEEK AND STARTING CLASSES FJIODFHINBDFHBNSBO

Do you believe in ghosts? I’m gonna hesitantly say YES but I’m not 100% convinced I don’t think

What is a skill you want to learn? MAYBE THIS IS WEIRD but I think learning how to act would be kinda neat. On a more realistic note I wish I could learn to exercise without dying

Tell me a joke. I’M BAD AT JOKES DON’T DO THIS TO ME NESSIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO YEAH THAT’S ALL FOLKS it’s 5am now...Nice..... :’) I love my ability to stay up obscenely late while also getting Nothing Done JLSDNVDHAGHVDLAK

[i-am-very-very-tired]

Soon after three P.M. on Tuesday, May 15, six bay horses, each with a plumage of black ostrich feathers, trotted toward Gloucester Cathedral drawing a Victorian funeral carriage, its cargo bedecked with white gardenias and surmounted by a black galleon hat. When the horses fell into step they looked as if they were dancing, even flying, some said. As the carriage entered the courtyard, led by a footman with a silver-topped cane, a black cape, and an undertaker’s top hat, the effect was of consummate gravitas and theatricality, the perfect dramatic exit for English fashion icon Isabella Blow.

The previous Monday her husband, Detmar Blow, had sent out a text message to all their friends: Issie died peacefully last night. I am heartbroken. DETMAR. A bank holiday in Britain, a slow news day, ensured that Isabella, a beloved English eccentric known for her outrageous hats, and who had been at the vanguard of British fashion for a quarter of a century, would be on the front pages the following morning. In New York, it was the day of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute gala, fashion’s premier night out, when the perfectly primped and preened, exquisitely depilated international fashionistas come together for a party thrown by Blow’s mentor, Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

News of Blow’s death at 48 was shocking, but it was no surprise: it was well known she had been depressed. Her husband told the press his wife had died of cancer, but, in truth, she’d taken her own life. “It’s a small detail,” says milliner Philip Treacy, one of Blow’s many fashion discoveries. “There was nothing tragic about Isabella. She was the life of the party.”

A few days earlier, in London, Isabella Blow had sat for her last portrait—for a Vanity Fairportfolio by photographer Tim Walker and stylist Sarajane Hoare, on English eccentrics*.* She was fragile, but the photo shoot lifted her spirits. She laughed with her dirty laugh and was full of ideas for the image—a castle turret, armor by designer Alexander McQueen, the sacrifice of a pair of rare-breed sheep from her home to supply a decoration of blood.

“A funeral, done really well, is just like a wedding,” she said ominously.

It would soon become clear what she meant. Blow’s funeral was at least as dramatic as her wedding had been, 18 years earlier, in the same spectacular Gothic setting. Her pages then were pallbearers now. Then, as now, she wore a hat by Philip Treacy. Detmar wore the same ceremonial Sri Lankan suit for both occasions. Then, as now, Blow had choreographed an event as glamorous and outrageous as the identity that she had forged for herself.

But at the service, Blow’s wide circle of friends wondered if she was driven to her undoing by the shadow of her own creation or if this was ordained in her history. She was drawn to extremes and spent her life on a roller coaster of intensity. In death, the question was the same: How had it come to this?

That Isabella Delves Broughton, a slight and busty English country girl born with blue blood in her veins, had even ventured into the fashion world was unlikely enough. That she became an iconic, globe-trotting fixture of it was the stuff of fantasy.

For more than 20 years, she kept herself on a creative high, her persona preceding her like the bow wave of a ship. People saw her as eccentric, but she disliked the term. “Her humor and eye were eccentric, but her brain really wasn’t,” says Nicky Haslam, the British society decorator. “Most eccentrics are a pose, and it’s a frightful bore. Like Diana Vreeland, Issie could think in a surreal way.”

Nevertheless, her eccentric public image was one she spent her life cultivating with her daring choices in clothing, particularly hats. Dressing without a hat, Blow explained, was like not being dressed at all. “It’s meant to be a sensual, erotic display. You’re there to get a new husband, a new boyfriend, whatever. And you can get it. It’s a sensual thing. It’s the old-fashioned cock-and-hen story, the mating dance. Men love hats. They love it because it’s something they have to take off in order to fuck you. Anyone can wear a hat.”

“Fashion is about emotion,” she once said, standing outside a fashion show in Paris in the rain. “It’s about love.” Women, she continued, “love clothes because they mean something to them—the day you met the man you love, the day you got married, what you did before you made love to somebody. It’s psychological and tied to the spirit of a woman.” Once she had an idea, her enthusiasm knew few limits.“I’d say, ‘Maybe I’ll do a collection based on Catherine of Russia,’ and she’d say, ‘Ooh, yes. Go for it!,’” recalls designer Manolo Blahnik. “Once we had a project doing shoes from animals in the sea. We made an octopus shoe, which was incredibly difficult. Then she wanted a shoe like a carnivorous plant. . . . She would bring in extraordinary books about Surrealists, animals, dresses of queens … ”

Blow could spot talent at a distance, and would push and encourage and promote until they were household names. Along with Treacy, she discovered the models Sophie Dahl, Honor Fraser, and Stella Tennant, designer Hussein Chalayan, and, perhaps most famously, McQueen, whom she found in the early 90s at the Royal College of Art.

Where many fashionistas dress head to toe in the latest labels out of vanity, Blow could hardly care less. She wore clothes for dramatic expression. At fashion shows, she would often be the only one in a sea of serious, black-clad women to cheer on the outfits she liked, effortlessly balancing Treacy’s latest design on her head. She was interested only in originality, says her friend Ronnie Newhouse, wife of Condé Nast International chairman Jonathan Newhouse and an art director. “Most people in fashion get excited about being connected to people who have already made it. Issie got excited by discovering people. They could be from anywhere and usually were.”

She helped bring British fashion to the forefront by infusing it with elements of the island’s history and mythology—whether it was King Arthur, the Bloomsbury set, or the Bright Young Things of the 1920s—and was a central figure in the British cultural renaissance of the 90s. (Blow would help produce *Vanity Fair’*s 1997 portfolio “London Swings! Again!” In it, she posed alongside Alexander McQueen for a memorable portrait by David LaChapelle.)

Early in her career, at Tatler—which, like Vanity Fair and Vogue, is owned by Condé Nast—she was perfectly placed to usher in a new look for the British aristocracy; because she was from it, she didn’t have to take it seriously. She joined the society magazine as a fashion assistant during a creative high point there, and helped to distinguish it with wit and subversion, shaking up conventions, aware of correct behavior but not enslaved to it.

“It was the emergence of the upper classes as sexy,” says the designer Antony Price. “Nobody had seen them as that before. She repackaged them. Up to that point they’d been a joke.”

No one recognized that more than Blow, who proudly traced her heritage back to the Battle of Poitiers, in 1356, where Edward, the Black Prince, routed the French army and captured King John of France. During the battle the Black Prince was almost taken prisoner. One of the squires who rescued him, John de Delves of Cheshire, had a title bestowed on him, along with a family motto, “Haud muto factum” (Nothing happens by being mute), and the right to crenellate his castle. Blow “was proud of her chivalric past,” says barrister Orlando Fraser, a cousin of hers. “She had a medieval heart—bold, haughty. She had an earthy sense of humor and she loved to shock.”

Though inspired by her aristocratic lineage, Blow was also burdened by the strange legacy of her family. Her grandfather Sir Henry John “Jock” Delves Broughton, a gambler and bon vivant, had inherited Doddington Hall, a large 18th-century house, and an estate in Staffordshire, in 1914. He received 34,000 acres of good land and considerable investments that, in all, provided him with an income of £80,000 a year, a vast sum. But Broughton was beset by fears of running out of money and began selling off the land. He made poor investments and gambled wildly. He lived, his friend Lord Carnarvon said, “high, wide, and handsome.”

In 1940, Broughton took his young second wife, Diana, to Kenya’s Happy Valley, locus of a society of licentious expat British aristocrats. Within the year, Diana had begun a public affair with Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll, a specialist in seducing rich married women. Broughton was as jealous a man as Diana was promiscuous, so when Erroll was found in his car on a country road outside Nairobi, killed by a single bullet in his head, Broughton was the natural suspect and was soon charged with the murder. The themes of spectacle, sex, and death were now firmly etched into the template of the family.

Broughton was acquitted, but he returned to Doddington Hall with his reputation ruined. In December 1942, he checked into the Adelphi Hotel, in Liverpool, gave instructions he should not be disturbed, and overdosed on morphine. James Fox’s 1982 book (and its 1987 film adaptation), White Mischief, was about the scandal.

By the time Isabella was born, in 1958, the family was living across the lake from Doddington Hall. As Blow later said, she lived with beauty at a distance.

“It was very macabre. Their cottage overlooked the big empty house. It looked black,” says publisher David Macmillan. “It had that touch of faded glory—very grand furniture from an enormous house stuffed into a small one. The unique English look of trading down.”

At the age of four, Blow witnessed the drowning of her young brother, the family’s only son and heir, in shallow water in the lake. “I can remember everything about it,” Blow said. “The smell of the honeysuckle, and him stretched out on the lawn. My mother went upstairs to put her lipstick on. That might have something to do with my obsession with lipstick.”

The family was devastated by the loss. Blow’s parents, Sir Evelyn and Lady Helen, seemed to lose interest in their three daughters, Isabella, Julia, and Lavinia, and they were soon dispatched to an all-girl boarding school. When Isabella was 14, her mother shook her daughters’ hands and walked out on them. “The repercussions of her brother’s death were enormous,” says author and university friend Liza Campbell. “Here she was, the eldest child, but a girl and therefore quite useless. It’s a hangover from the medieval times she loved.”

Sir Evelyn remarried. On his honeymoon in the Caribbean his new wife, Rona, 25 years his junior, became concerned about his unsightly varicose veins. Upon returning to England, he underwent surgery to have them removed but in the process got gangrene and lost one leg above the knee.

Blow was sent to secretarial school in Oxford. “It was a little hedonistic,” recalls Adam Boulton, political editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News, who was an Oxford undergraduate at the time. “There was always a lot of drinking going on. Isabella always wore cocktail dresses. She’d come into the drawing room, wiggle her hips, and lift her skirt. It was her thing. The only issue was whether she was wearing underwear or not.”

From Oxford, Blow headed to London. She took odd jobs, eventually finding a position as a salesgirl at Medina, a boutique in Knightsbridge, where friends would come to borrow clothes for weekend parties. A career in fashion started to make sense. “She went into fashion because she liked dressing up,” says Macmillan. “She liked being another person, for the day, for the moment, for the event of it.”

In 1979, Blow went to America to study art at Columbia University and then to Midland, Texas, where her first husband, Nick Taylor, an Englishman, planned to make it in the oil business. He didn’t. While in Texas, Blow took a trip to New York, where she was introduced to Anna Wintour, then creative director at Vogue. Wintour offered her a position as her assistant. “She appeared in the corridor wearing a black lace mantilla, looking like a cross between a woman in an El Greco painting and Alice Cooper,” says screenwriter Evgenia Citkowitz, then also a Vogue assistant. “She washed her desk with Perrier. She was completely baroque compared to her co-workers—they looked like androids in the uniform of chic.”

Blow became a part-time Factory girl in the orbit of Andy Warhol. “Issie was seeing Jean-Michel Basquiat, or at least he was sitting in her office a lot of the time,” recalls Wintour. America gave Blow the opportunity for re-invention, but there was an undertow of self-doubt. “One always wondered how she really felt about herself that she had to camouflage herself in these extraordinary outfits,” says Wintour. “That was there from the word go, but it got more extreme as she got older.”

She returned to London in 1986 for the job at Tatler, already separated from Taylor; they would soon divorce. In 1989, Isabella Broughton met 24-year-old Detmar Blow. Sixteen days later they were engaged. Detmar, six years her junior, had an estate 100 miles west of London. In theory, he was wealthy; in practice, he was not.

After their fairy-tale wedding, Isabella put her energy into renovating the cottages on the estate to rent to friends from London. The happy newlyweds lived at Hilles, a large Arts and Crafts house that was filled with tapestries, suits of armor, pikes, and other medieval flotsam. “They were like two children set loose in a big house,” says her friend (and the author’s sister) Lucy Birley, “but they were both desperately insecure about money and fueled each other’s fears.”

They created a salon, entertaining writers, artists, intellectuals, and minor royalty. But as in so much of her life, the fantasy could be hard to support. “She transformed herself into this extraordinary creature,” says interior decorator Camilla Guinness, “but there was always the sense that she was only just keeping her head above water.”

And her marital home was not truly her own. Helga, Detmar’s mother, gave the young couple use of Hilles under the provision they would vacate if she wished to visit. Isabella felt she was a caretaker in her own home, a situation exaggerated by sibling rivalry. Behind the bohemian façade, it became like a daytime soap opera: Detmar and Isabella at Hilles; his sister, Selina, and her husband, Charles Levinson, a doctor, in a smaller house; Amaury, Detmar’s younger brother, roaming the hills in a shawl with two Irish wolfhounds for company; and Helga, pulling the strings from her home on an island off Sri Lanka.

To Isabella’s enduring sorrow, she and Detmar were unable to have children. The Levinsons had more success: they produced one son and a daughter and were encouraged by Helga to see themselves as the rightful occupants of Hilles.

To resolve the dilemma, Isabella offered to make a way for Detmar to find a woman who could bear him a son. In 2004 the couple separated. Detmar began an affair with Stephanie Theobald, the social editor of Tatler rival Harper’s Bazaar and a lesbian*.* Isabella’s choice of a lover was a disaster, a Venetian from an old family of glassblowers. It ended badly in a financial dispute. Her friends cannot bring themselves to mention his name. “He’s not worth the space,” says European fashion P.R. woman Karla Otto. Detmar and Isabella’s separation lasted for 18 months. Friends say this episode marked the start of her decline into serious depression.

Still, her legend only grew in the world of fashion. She committed herself to her visions absolutely. Sometimes the event itself surpassed the vision. Musican Bryan Ferry recalls a shoot in Blow’s apartment: “Issie had blown the whole budget on a cocktail shaker and ice bucket. She had also hired an 80-year-old man in a white tuxedo who used to do the bar at Claridge’s. She spent all her money on extravagant things like that. As I walked in she said, ‘Darling, would you like a cocktail?’ It was four in the afternoon and the poor man had been standing there all day. It was sheer Evelyn Waugh.”

To her old friends, her behavior had not changed with time but had only become exaggerated. “She was a great one for upping the stakes,” says David Ogilvy, a singer and music producer. “She’d always be very funny about the situations she got herself into.” Indeed, she placed unique strains on the institutions of fashion. In one incident, at Tatler,she was sent up to Vogue to look at some photos. “She was banned from going up there for three months,” recalls stylist Joe McKenna, “when a member of the staff walked in to see her bent over a light box with no knickers on underneath her skirt.”

Isabella Delves Broughton was now Isabella Blow, a personality—much sought after for her opinions, endorsements, and keen eye for emerging talent. She was a fashion star. Her outfits more extreme, Treacy’s headdresses more imaginative and extravagant. But her essential dilemma was not resolved. Blow still worried about money. She felt unappreciated, unrecognized by the business; if the creative parts of the fashion world had embraced her style and wit, they were getting harder for the workday mainstream to accept. She had successfully established the Style section of the London Sunday Times and had been a fashion editor at British Vogue only to find herself cast away from both. She was retained as a consultant by Swarovski, the Swiss crystal maker. She convinced her designer friends to use the crystals; Swarovski was re-invented. But they, too, let her go.

“She was brilliant at finding new things and could always find new ways of looking at things,” says photographer Mario Testino, a friend from their early days in New York, “but it was hard for her to define her job, and it was hard to find ways to pay her. So you find a designer, or you find the model, but how do you invoice for that?”

“Issie wouldn’t just sell you the specific skill of someone but their entire life. Like a slave trader! And she did it in an extremely sophisticated, lewd, and seductive way,” says Malcolm McLaren, architect of punk rock in the 70s. “She was like someone constantly in search of an idea. But the idea was her, and nobody ever managed to put the mirror up in front of her and say, ‘Issie, it’s all about you. You are the artist, but you’re not telling anyone, so you never get the compensation or recognition.’”

Blow was still haunted by what happened with her most famous discovery, Alexander McQueen. In 1997, Blow happened to be having lunch with Tom Ford, then head of Gucci, who mentioned that he was looking to make acquisitions to expand the Gucci group. Blow always claimed that she suggested he buy McQueen’s label. They entered into negotiations, and a multi-million-dollar price was agreed upon. The happy party set off on a now legendary train ride to Paris to sign the documents. When they got there, Blow found there was no mention of her—and there was no role for her in the new company. “Isabella’s name was never on the contract,” a lawyer involved in the negotiations said. Fashion was showing Blow its coldest face. She was devastated, and some blamed McQueen. “In a sense, what makes designers successful is their ruthlessness,” offers one well-known fashion insider.

Equally likely, the executives making the deal saw Blow as an unnecessary bottom-line expense. Whatever the truth—McQueen declined to speak for this article—Blow put aside her hurt and the pair remained cautious friends. (McQueen, along with others, would pick up some of her private hospital bills in the year before her death.)

“She couldn’t separate the fact that you can do something for money and it doesn’t have to be any good and that no one will know you did it. You just get paid for it,” says Vogue writer and Bergdorf Blondes author Plum Sykes. “She couldn’t do something unless she loved it, and she couldn’t bear things that weren’t beautiful or interesting.” And fashion, for all its emphasis on creativity, is a business.

As Blow’s world darkened, so did her sense of humor. She began regularly wearing a Victorian mourning ring, and expressed her desire to be buried in Treacy’s Pheasant hat. She told The New Yorker that, upon her death, her heart was to be taken from her body, placed in a heart-shaped box, and given to Detmar. In 2002, on one of her last trips to New York, she was flown in by Swarovski on the enticement of “the two C’s”: the Concorde and the Carlyle hotel. She came in her Spanish-widow look. “My husband recently died and I’ve been left incredibly wealthy,” she told The New York Observer.

Blow was always prone to mood swings, but they were becoming more pronounced. The fear of ending up penniless became a fixation. While her love of clothes and design never failed, her interest in the fashion business waned. “What is happening is they’ve destroyed the spirit. It’s globalization, Americanization. Now it’s just ‘Write the check,’ she told reporters in Paris. She hadn’t given up completely, though. She began to look abroad for opportunities. Adventure ran, she said, in her veins—her paternal grandmother, Lady Vera, who sailed the world in a cross-channel ferry, had a major influence on the young Isabella and remained, 40 years after her death, a heroine to Blow. She began work on producing a series of books titled Arabian Beauty, focusing on fashion in the Middle East, with Sheikh Majed al-Sabah, nephew of the Emir of Kuwait, who owns high-end clothing stores in Kuwait and Dubai. India, too, would soon present an opportunity for renewal.

Blow also flirted with the idea of becoming a fashion reporter for Al Jazeera. “Darling, it’s too exciting,” she told friends. “I’m potentially going to be the Elsa Klensch of al-Qaeda!” “I told her she must be crazy,” says Treacy. “And you can’t go round saying that. You mean Al Jazeera, not al-Qaeda!”

At the Milan shows in February 2006, Blow told her old boss Anna Wintour that she intended to kill herself. She then began telling all her close friends. Talk of suicide was offered conversationally, and was difficult to separate from her wit and sense of humor.

Blow abandoned Milan and returned to London. “She was just struggling within herself,” says Wintour, “but even in that situation her spirit and ability to laugh were undiminished.” Wintour, Birley, and Newhouse arranged for her to enter a residential treatment center outside London. She went, but left halfway into the six-week course.

Two weeks later, while her husband was out at a dinner for designer Vivienne Westwood, Treacy happened to drop by Blow’s London apartment—only to find her in a weak state, having overdosed on sleeping pills. With that first attempt to take her own life, Detmar placed Isabella under the care of the medical authorities.

Blow began a course of electroshock treatment, the controversial procedure that is once again gaining popularity as a way to manage bipolar depression. She told friends she felt as if she were losing her mind. The periods of relative normality grew shorter. “It’s like when you get a sore throat and you know that you’re going to get flu” was how she described the onset of depression. “You know it is coming, but you can’t do anything about it.”

In April 2006, events took a turn for the worse. Blow was traveling unaccompanied to a treatment facility in West London when her taxi was stopped in heavy traffic on the A40 motorway. She got out, walked up a pedestrian overpass, climbed over the railing, and dropped 30 feet onto the road below. She broke both ankles. The seriousness of the incident would come to signal the start of a steeper phase in her decline. Friends say she began to withdraw from her old circle. Tatler began looking for a new fashion director. Designers stopped lending her clothes.

“After all her disappointments, the depression fit naturally into place. She could have all the ideas in the world, but she knew she could no longer deliver,” says Robie Uniacke, an old friend. She began thinking not of how she would kill herself but how she wouldn’t. “Her certainty was absolute. I thought, There’s no way to get through to this person. She’s already on the other side.”

Her ankle injuries did not, however, prevent her from setting off for Indian Fashion Week in August 2006, as a guest of the Indian Fashion Council. Her friend Tikka Singh, adviser for LVMH on the subcontinent, had arranged for Blow’s visit and hoped to collaborate with her on a new handbag. Condé Nast in London began to receive unusual calls: Blow, who was staying in a suite at the Imperial in Delhi, was running up a large bill and planning a trip to the Himalayas. Singh wanted to know who was picking up the check. Not us, said Condé Nast.

In a further complication, Blow was mistaken by the Indian fashion press as being an official Condé Nast representative. Since there was great excitement over the launch of Vogue India, Blow was identified as a kind of envoy for Vogue, sent by management to research potential candidates for the editorship.

“She’d become like a whirling dervish,” says Nicholas Coleridge, managing director of Condé Nast in London. “She started giving interviews to the press. There was an article on the front page of the Hindustan Times with a big picture of Issie in a huge hat and the headline MAD HATTER BLOW ARRIVES IN INDIA TO APPOINT VOGUE INDIA EDITOR.” Before it went any further, Singh put her on a plane home.

For three weeks she’d be on a high from the shock therapy, then she’d start to come down, go back to the hospital, then the cycle would start again. Friends felt Detmar might have been unable to deal with the situation in part because of a previous experience; Jonathan Blow, his father, had committed suicide when Detmar was 14 by drinking the weed killer Paraquat, a poison that causes the internal organs to slowly shut down; it is the method of suicide favored, oddly, by lovesick Hindus of Tobago.

In the fall of 2006, Isabella decided to take flowers to her father’s grave at Doddington and, mirroring her grandfather’s suicide, checked into a nearby hotel. This time she took the precaution of calling Treacy to let him know she would be overdosing with pills—her “Marilyn Monroes,” as she called them. Treacy called Isabella’s Tatler colleague Kate Bernard, who found out that she’d booked a car on the magazine’s account, and traced her to the hotel, where her plan was thwarted. Other attempts took even more bizarre turns. One of Blow’s heroes, and a fellow manic-depressive, Virginia Woolf, drowned herself in 1941 by filling her pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home in Sussex. Blow went to the river, but it was dry after the summer drought.

On another expedition, she went back to the lake at Doddington, where her brother had drowned four decades earlier. She entered the water but found herself too buoyant to succeed. At one point she asked a veterinarian for tranquilizers for a horse that had broken a leg. That scheme failed when the vet wanted to see the horse first. She considered jumping off a bridge over the Thames in London, but upon learning that there were nets to catch jumpers decided that it would be too inelegant to become entangled.

Earlier this year, during a weekend at Hilles, Blow borrowed her husband’s car late one night. Friends feared her disappearance signaled another attempt—and it did. She rammed the car into the back of a Tesco’s supermarket truck. The car was totaled, but Isabella was saved by her air bag and emerged from the wreckage unscathed. “I always hated Tesco’s,” she told Detmar.

Blow returned to India earlier this year with the actor Rupert Everett on a trip sponsored by ICI Dulux, the European chemicals giant, to select new colors and help promote the company’s textiles for saris. But her gloom didn’t lift. She walked out of fashion shows early. “One thing’s for sure,” she said. “I won’t die of boredom.”

Blow went back to Delhi to look into manufacturing for the handbag she wanted to produce, and then to Goa to stay with Karla Otto. There was another overdose, on the beach, and yet another rescue. “It was just a question of time before she would finally succeed,” Otto says.

When she came back from India she underwent more shock therapy, resulting in a spectacular high. “She rang me quite late one night,” recalls Lucy Birley. “I thought she might have taken acid or something. She said she was buying a castle in Kerala and she would have a farm of white peacocks. We were going to lie on the balcony and she would wear a necklace with emeralds the size of bird eggs. It was like being plugged into a surreal film, extraordinary and dislocated from reality.”

In March of this year, Blow was to fly to Kuwait to begin work on the first Arabian Beautybook*.* “She felt the U.K. was not really home for her anymore,” says Sheikh Majed al-Sabah, the financier of the project. “She was hoping that if any major magazine was going to come to the Middle East, she’d have strong contacts and knowledge.”

Blow was the creative director and stylist. She invested her energy and dedication, getting designers excited about making something special and different. Photographers, too, were inspired by Blow’s vivid imagination and committed themselves to the production.

“This will be my comeback,” she told friends.

But as the date for the trip drew close, the £10,000 that Isabella was expecting as an advance to cover the costs of the preparations had not come, nor had the plane tickets for Blow, her assistant, and the photography team. Finally, £5,000 was wired to London, along with two tickets to Kuwait. The sheikh had dropped Blow’s team and selected a Portuguese commercial photographer. He had also decided to use clothes stocked in his stores, Villa Moda. Blow set off for the Middle East anyway.

“You need me more than I need you,” the sheikh allegedly told her, and gave her 20 minutes of his time before flying off to Milan. Blow was devastated. With her vision in ruins, she took an overdose on the shoot and was hospitalized.

“Issie insisted on specific outfits from specific designers. She insisted on a Hussein Chalayan dress that unfolds and nothing can be worn underneath. I cannot put our women in such dresses—dresses with total transparency,” the sheikh says. “And she didn’t have any special feelings for the brands I wanted to push. She looked at it from a conceptual point of view. I look at it from a realistic point of view.”

Back in England, the disappointment of the Kuwait trip pushed the fragile Blow to a new low. A few days later she had surgery to have an ovarian cyst removed. (In some cases anesthesia can trigger depression.) Another round of shock therapy didn’t kick in the way it had before. “It hasn’t worked,” she told Treacy.

On April 30, her sister Lavinia, who lives nearby, drove her three hours to London for the Vanity Fair photo shoot. Two days later, Isabella sent a letter of wishes, a kind of will, to her long-suffering accountant. She told a friend that she had an “idea.” Many had heard of Blow’s ideas before and knew they harbored ill. Back in the kitchen at Hilles that Friday, she mentioned the same thing over the phone to Kate Bernard, but a visitor came in before she had time to elaborate. She promised to call back but did not.

The following morning, Saturday, May 5, Lavinia went out for groceries and returned to find Isabella curled up on the bathroom floor. She’d been sick, the blue in her vomit suggesting something more toxic than sleeping pills. In the car to the hospital she confessed she had drunk weed killer in the field below the house. “She was worried she hadn’t drunk enough,” Lavinia says, but then, in a statement that is harder to interpret, Isabella tried to reassure her. “Don’t worry,” she said, “because I’ve sicked it all up.”

The doctors in Gloucester said they couldn’t be sure how much of the poison she had ingested until tests came back from Birmingham. For most of that day and into the next, Detmar, Lavinia and Julia, Philip Treacy and his partner, Stefan, clung to the hope that she had taken less than a fatal dose. But the next day, Sunday, doctors at the hospital confirmed the worst: Isabella was dying. They could not say how long it would take, perhaps as long as three weeks, but the process under way could not be reversed. Philip and Stefan sat with her through most of Sunday. They laughed about Issie’s having forgone a hospital gown for an itchy and uncomfortable silver lamé shirt. “Since when did I ever care about comfort when it comes to fashion,” Blow reminded them.

“She wasn’t depressed,” recalls Treacy. “Even as she was dying, she was making everyone laugh.” But she told him with resolve, “I can’t bear to look at my feet anymore.” She didn’t mean the injuries to her feet from her jump the previous year. She meant that she couldn’t bear her depression—looking at her feet while lying in hospital beds.

Close friends made arrangements to visit her; she made plans with Detmar. Everyone went back to Hilles for the night, planning to return the next morning, but Blow was weaker than they knew: she had taken several times the lethal dose.

Isabella Blow passed away peacefully in her sleep a few minutes after five in the morning on May 7. Several days later, friends say, Alexander McQueen asked a medium to contact his friend. “Isabella is with her grandmother. She is happy, and wishes everyone would not be so sad,” the medium told McQueen. Sometime later the medium called back with a new message from Isabella. “And by the way,” she had said, “my mother is not to have any of my hats or shoes.”