#This COULD be Max Vogel

[jugendmagazineart]

untitled - unknown, M. V., 1897

[audehtz]

Presentation of my primary and secondary sources

Hi everyone! This week I will present to you the primary and secondary sources of my topic!

Reminder of my topic: In stranger things, what is the impact of 'running up that Hill' and 'Should I stay or should I go' on viewers, from the point of view of 80s nostalgia?

To analyse that topic, my primary sources will be these two songs. My secondary sources will be the chapter 'Mediation' of the Negus + 1 article and a book. I will also gather statistics and references in reactions, including chart ranking on Tiktoks).

From the Negus, I will use the "Mediation" chapter with the concepts of

1) Nostalgia and Collective Memory in which Negus says that music is a powerful arbitrator of collective memory, capable of transporting audiences to a shared time or place. "Running up that Hill" and "Should I stay or should I go" evoke the 80s, not only for those who lived in this era but for younger viewers who seek that era’s aesthetics and emotional feelings.

2) Authenticity and Cultural Representation: The use of iconic 80s songs helps the representation of the era. According to Negus, music in media often reinforces cultural values or memories, making these songs seem "real" to viewers and goes with their expectations of 80s life.

3) Emotional Resonance and Character Connection: Negus says that songs can bring emotions, mixing personal experience with broader cultural feelings. In Stranger Things, the songs become part of the characters’ stories ("Should I stay or should I go" is Will's comfort song), showing an emotional connection with the audience that goes with all generations.

4) Music as a Narrative Tool: music can "mediate narrative, setting the tone or adding layers of meaning". For example, "Running up That Hill" paints Max's traumas and pain, amplifying the story's suspense, provoking emotional reactions from the public.

-The book: "Stranger Things and the '80s: The Complete Retro Guide" by Joseph Vogel (2018). I find it relevant because it explores the cultural impact of the show’s use of 80s nostalgia. It explains how the tv show uses music, such as "Running up that Hill" and "Should I stay or should I go", to evoke emotional responses and stimulates viewers’ cultural memory -> how the show’s music impacts viewers, enhancing its nostalgic appeal.

-an article: "Netflix Nostalgia: Streaming the Past on Demand" by  Kathryn Pallister, chapter: "Nostalgic things" page 185, "Twelve: Nostalgic things, stranger things and the Pervasiveness of Nostalgic Television" by Joseph M. Sirianni: This article discusses how Stranger Things uses 1980s nostalgia, including music, to connect with viewers. The article could help explain how nostalgia works in TV shows and how music from the 80s plays a role in creating emotional connections with the audience. This would be useful for my research on how the songs in the show impact the viewer experience.

[littlesolo]

Started Bates Motel...

I may have to stop watching?

I got started watching because of Olivia Cooke. I love her and I'm interested in her character and how her story goes, but I don't buy Freddie Highmore as Norman??? Some of it is the approach they took.

In Hitchcock's Pyscho, you're only really aware that something is off with Norman once you're in a conversation with him. Tony Perkins had that smile and he didn't look threatening??? The approach in Bates Motel is that you know something is off from the beginning.

What's off for me probably isn't what they intended? I feel he was miscast? It feels.... I know he's a British actor, but when he's speaking, for some reason it feels like he's trying too hard to land the American accent. Max Thieriot is another actor that never really grew on me? Grow all the facial hair and muscle you want, you still look like a kid. Mike Vogel (one of the cops in the show) might have the same problem, but he makes those aspects work for him.

Maybe it's because I've seen part of the first season of The Good Doctor??? I don't know.

I'm not the kind of person that usually sticks to source material or anything, but there's something just not working with this. It could be that the motel is the same, but the series is modern? The merging just doesn't work?

Not sure.

Can someone tell me if I should stick with it???

What are the thoughts of someone who has watched it already???

[sandrateitge]

GALLERY WEEKEND FESTIVAL

16 & 17 September 2023

Hosted by Studio Mondial at the former Hotel Mondial on Kurfürstendamm, the festival offered a multifaceted program of performances, screenings, sound events, readings, and installations that will bring the lobby, the former restaurant, both hotel bars, the courtyard, and the underground parking garage.

The program kicked off at midday on Saturday with alternating performances and readings on the indoor and outdoor stages by Yi Ten Lai, daniel ward, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, Ana Prvački, Angharad Williams, Nicholas Grafia, and Mikołaj Sobczak, as well as a conversation between Nora Turato and author Stephanie LaCava. The afternoon will feature sound performances by Leyla Yenirce with Vienna Gist, Susan Philipsz with Luca Diebold, and Theresa Patzschke and Eleni Poulou, as well as a performance and a DJ set by Maque Pereyra.

The festival recommenced at noon on Sunday in front of the hotel building on Kurfürstendamm with a sound performance by DAF (Dynamische Akustische Forschung), readings by Philipp Simon and Sofia Defino Leiby, a new choral piece by the BWŁKS Choir, a text and and music-based performance by Raphaela Vogel with Juliane Liebert and Daniel Roth, followed by a extension of the film by Elisa Giardina Papa feat. the musician duendita, a sound performance by Leda Bourgogne, a reading by Karl Holmqvist, and a performance by Anna Ehrenstein with Göksu Kunak and Yara Mekawei that oscillated between text and sound. FRANKIE brought the program to a close with a cello and vocal performance.

Films were shown on both days in two separate screening rooms that were formerly the hotel bars. The shorter films ran on a loop throughout the day, with contributions from Peter Wächtler, Nina Könnemann, Kandis Williams, Isabell Heimerdinger, Jordan Strafer, Pauline Curnier Jardin, Eli Cortiñas, Juliette Blightman, Penny Goring, Peter Friedl, Christopher Aque, Leyla Yenirce, Adrian Ganea, and Cornelia Schleime.

The long films were screened once a day at fixed times. The program featured films by Heike Baranowsky, Ulla von Brandenburg, Peggy Buth, Stephanie Comilang, Michael Franz, Christopher Aque, Elisa Giardina Papa, Loretta Fahrenholz, Cemile Sahin, Jenkin van Zyl, Su Yu Hsin, Britta Thie, and Friedrich Kunath.

Additionally, installations and sculptural works were presented in both the interior and exterior spaces. Towards Ku’damm, Dan Peterman’s modular sculptures invite the public to enter the building; Raul Walch’s site-specific intervention, a textile banner stretching across the entire facade of the former hotel, draws attention to the festival from a distance while simultaneously referencing its surroundings – West Berlin’s popular shopping district with its numerous clothing stores. In the lobby, festivalgoers encountered both of Max Paul’s Berlin Beds: in addition to their obvious modernist echoes of Mies van der Rohe, the works allude to Berlin’s ongoing obsession with demolition and construction, a phenomenon that has clearly affected the former Hotel Mondial. Jasmin Werner drew direct comparisons to the United Arab Emirates with its architecture and power structures fueled by globalization. In the hotel reception, visitors could listen to Jenna Sutela’s sound work over the telephone and view works by Laure Prouvost and Asta Gröting; a nearby textile wall work by Ulla von Brandenburg invited visitors to pause. Waiting to be discovered in the stairwell was a sound installation by Jan St. Werner that acoustically and spatially expands the exhibition venue.

On view in the entrance area were two video works by artists Taína Cruz and Petra Cortright. Four glass vitrines feature ceramic works, drawings, and installations by Ghislaine Leung, Gerrit Frohne-Brinkmann, Lena Henke, and Galli. The former restaurant presented sculptural works by Nadira Husain, Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili, Anna Ehrenstein, Yi Ten Lai, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, Lap-See Lam, and Raphaela Vogel – some of these were activated by performances during the festival.

Artistic interventions by Fortuna Forest and Lila Steinkampf welcomed visitors to the courtyard, while Monty Richthofen’s tattoo studio and an installation by Anne Duk Hee Jordan occupied the underground parking garage.

The bookstore a.p. was on site selling publications by participating artists and other selected books.

Free childcare was also be available.

[mhqinspo]

🦷 You only brush your teeth once a day. You just don't feel the need! You brush them in the morning to get rid of the morning breath, but night brushing? Who needs it?

kyle christopherson

🙊 You've never actually seen an episode of The Office and just fake it. You just never could get into it. But now everyone just assumes you've seen it so you play along hoping no one will find out you haven't.

sebastian smythe

rachel berry

🤢 You like the smell of your own farts. There's just something about your own gas that's really pleasing to you. You'd never say it out loud, of course.

catrina clark

tina cohen-chang

🙅‍♂️ There's one person in your friend group that you absolutely can't stand. You know exactly who I'm talking about. You only hang out with them because they're part of your group, but you'd never want to be with them one-on-one.

kitty wilde

blaine anderson

max moore

noah puckerman

ali vogel

💃 Showtunes help you fall asleep. It's not the most popular genre, but hey, you LOVE a good Ethel Merman before bed. It helps you unwind, and it fills your dreams with all the theater you could ever wish for.

jesse st. james

🎤 You hate Beyoncé. You don't love her music and never understood why people seem to care about her so much. You just don't understand the hype!

hunter clarington

[bestprintbuy]

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[feetoffire]

third (and final) rotation:

(how do people jump with two sets of reins. everything happens so quickly that one set of reins is trouble enough.)

Spain: Eduardo Alverez Aznar on Rokfeller de Pleville. two sets of reins - finally got a look at this setup and it seems like it’s one bit with a snaffle ring and a shank attachment. not a fan. possibly a combined noseband, but it could also just be a flash; they’re at the wrong angle for me to tell. gape, tongue sticking out to the side just before the round started. ew.

Austria: Max Kuehner on Elektric Blue P. cool name. drop noseband, some gape and froth. jumped the upright at 3 (?) on the slant and had a tight turn to the oxer at 7. one rail down

Mexico: Eugenio Garza Perez on Contago. tiny bit of visible froth; the bit guard might be hiding some gape. i think his fly bonnet is fixed to his noseband with a bit of string to keep it from flapping up on course. Contago looks like an Arabian type - he’s got a very fine face. 

Switzerland: Martin Fuchs on Leone Jei. drop noseband, gape. head tossing between fences. happy ears. 

Sweden: Peder Fredricson on Catch Me Not S. gape. ducked the wall on the first try, racked up the time penalties. 

Japan: Eiken Sato on Conthargo-Blue. hyperflexed before the round. red ribbon in the tail. shadow roll and what looks like blinkers at some angles. two sets of reins. sheepskin on the center strap of the breastplate - i really do think it’s cool to see each horse’s preferences (about sheepskin). 

Poland: Maksymillian Wechta on Chepettano. some froth and gape. i think that’s a red ribbon? head tossing on some approaches. tried to add a stride to the last jump and it didn’t quite work. 

France: Julien Epaillard on Dubai du Cedre. mare! she’s in a hackamore with two throat latches. whatever her noseband is does not look comfortable. gorgeous chestnut. a few moments of pinned ears after jumps.  

Ireland: Cian O’Connor on Maurice. some gape. one of those jumpers with the little extra kick behind. threw a crow hop in at the end, which is a very jumper thing to do. bit looks complicated, and he’s also got two throat latches.

UK: Scott Brash on Jefferson. drop noseband and i think blinkers. some gape. 

Germany: Richard Vogel on United Touch S. plain bridle with only a martingale. extra kick from the hind end over jumps. clear and in time, and i’m not seeing any gape or froth. nice boring round. 

Israel: Daniel Bluman on Ladriano Z. figure eight bridle and a running martingale. two bit attachments, a little bit of gape. clear and in time. i think the martingale and breastplate are separate. 

USA: McLain Ward on Ilex. looks hyperflexed before the round. very pretty lighter bay with a big blaze. threw a crow hop in for funsies. two bit attachments, some gape. clear, not quite in time. nice enough round. i think he also has a separate breastplate and martingale, rather than one of the combos. 

Netherlands: Harrie Smolders on Uricas V/D Kattevennen. in one of those ergonomic bridles it looks like (can’t remember what they’re called, doesn’t it start with ‘m’?). some froth. extra kick with the hind legs over the jumps. 

Brazil: Rodrigo Pessoa on Major Tom. withdrew/scratched. (i’m not going to make a built-in sponsor joke. or a Space Odyssey joke.)

UAE: Abdullah Mohd al Marri on McGregor. (i’m guessing on the capitalizations in the horse’s name.) two throat latches and two nosebands, both above the bit. i’m….not sure what the point of that is. decent round, knocked a handful of rails. 

Saudi Arabia: Ramzy al Duhami on Untouchable 32. withdrew/scratched. (mare!)

Australia: Edwina Tops-Alexander on Fellow Castlefield. some gape and froth. red ribbon. are the bib martingales the ones with the triangle thingy on them 

Canada: Amy Millar on Truman. dip in front of the withers. double bit attachment, but no gape or froth (likely bc the noseband is normal). a handful of rails down, otherwise a decent ride. 

Belgium: Jerome Guery on Quel Homme de Hus. some froth and gape; they’re already fighting about speed before the round starts. unsurprisingly, Quel Homme de Hus is scopey as hell (i swear the ones with amazing scope are the hottest). bouble bit attachment. i think that was a bell boot that just went flying.

olympic jumping qualifiers this time. less in-depth because of how quick the rounds are vs dressage tests, and i’m sure i missed some details, especially in terms of tack/tack names. if anyone is actually reading these and knows the names of things, please tell me!

(please assume everyone is in a running martingale, they're so common i quit mentioning them.)

Spain: Ismael Garcia Roque on Tirano. pretty gray. i know it’s hard to not have (some) mouth gape when you’re fighting about speed (i jump too) but i can’t help cringing. interesting running martingale set up - i don’t think i’ve ever seen one like that. 

Austria: Katharina Rhomberg on Colestus Cambridge. also a gray. three rails down, which is rough.

Mexico: Carlos Hank Guerreiro on Porthos Maestro WH Z. that is an…interesting set up. looks like a normal noseband and drop noseband on the same bridle? not sure i like it/why not just use a flash

Switzerland: Steve Guerdat on Dynamix de Belheme. a mare! her blaze is cool :) she’s gaping a lot coming out of the arena - again, i get it, you do really have to fight them on tempo sometimes, but i’m still cringing. knocked a rail or two; that triple combination has gotten everyone so far and i think it’ll continue to do so.

Sweden: Henrik von Eckermann on King Edward. i have no idea what’s going on with his bridle. i think that’s a net of some sort to keep the flies off his nose? idk. kinda cool that he has no browband. watching the jumpers’ big canters is awesome. the first pair to go clear and inside the time! i think he threw a shoe on that last jump - something shoe-shaped goes flying in the slo-mo replay.

Japan: Taizo Sugitani on Quincy 194. this boy wants to look at the crowd and go. not the cleanest round i’ve ever seen - my instructor would have made me go back and do some of those again (in a lesson). 

Poland: Adam Grzegorzewski on Issem. several rails down - this course is tricky. 

France: Simon Delestre on I Amelusina R 51. a stallion - look at that crest. so much gape. too much gape, even for a jump course. i want a closer look at his bridle - two sets of reins. 

Ireland: Shane Sweetnam on James Kann Cruz. okay that’s a decent pun. i wonder how old he is; he’s really grayed out. the bit set up looks ridiculous - there’s so many straps. 

UK: Ben Mahler on Dallas Vegas Butilly. this mare has some favorite cities, it would seem. she’s got a nose net thing too. low, tight frame in canter before the round started. they’re also clear and in time! she’s frothing tho 🙁

Germany: Christian Kukuk on Checker 47. nice, plain figure 8 bridle for once. he does a little extra kick with the back legs as he’s in the air over the jump. clear and in time. 

Israel: Ashlee Bond on Donatello 141. it’s always interesting to see how much sheepskin each horse likes; Donatello has it on all three straps of his breastplate. 

USA: Laura Kraut on Baloutinue. i like them. came in nice and quiet, gave Baloutinue some pets before they started. fantastic, chill feeling round/not frantic at all. clear and in time (5 seconds under!)

Netherlands: Maikel van der Vleuten on Beauville Z. for a horse who apparently likes wiggly lines, they looked very straight through the triple combination. also a nice round - boring, as my instructor would say. (that’s a good thing)

Brazil: Pedro Veniss on Nimrod de Muze. i couldn’t help it, i laughed at the horse’s name. there’s some head tossing, especially as Veniss tries to steady him before a fence. clear and in time. 

UAE: Omar Abdul Aziz al Marzooqi on Enjoy de la Mure. pretty dark bay. happy ears, even over the jumps. nice pair. 

Saudi Arabia: Abdulrahman Alrajhi on Ventago. red ribbon tail, watch yourselves y’all. his stirrups are green to match his coat and the saddle pad and ear bonnet. it’s cute. lots of sheepskin on the breastplate. not the ride Alrajhi was hoping for, methinks - he was shaking his head a little after the round. 

Australia: Hilary Scott on Milky Way. a gray mare, as her name suggests 🙂 sheepskin on her breastplate too. four rails down, but a nice ride in other respects. 

Canada: Mario Deslauriers on Emerson. head tossing in the turns and coming up to some of the jumps. two sets of reins - i don’t think it’s a double in the two bits sense, but there’s a definite elevated-control situation happening. looks like there’s a star under his fly bonnet! touch of froth. 

Belgium: Gilles Thomas on Ermitage Kalone. gorgeous chestnut and a big bold blaze. he’s got a nose-fly-net thing. lovely round (clear and under time) and lovely ride (no gape or froth). i like this pair.

[beautifulfaaces]

Max Thieriot & Mike Vogel

Thieriot was born in 1988. He is an American actor with blonde/ dark blonde hair and blue eyes.

Vogel is also an American actor, who was born in 1979. He has blonde hair and blue eyes.

They could work as brothers, half-brothers or cousins.

[wheatlev]

Coloured the thing

Gonna copy my explanation:

inspired by @armorabs, (see also: these) these two are based of of two (of the three) german versions of Plankton - Thomas Petruo (his voice until 2018) and Maximilian Vogel, currently playing the part in the German/Austrian/Swiss Tour. Both related (possibly half-siblings. are copepods monogamous in the AB universe?).

Tom’s a very tired underground radio moderator (based on Thomas’ other work) and Max is a. Well he is even smaller than regular Plankton cause he’s the only Musical!Plankton I know to be smaller than their respective Karen by design, lol.

Tom also looks done because most of the pictures I could find of Thomas were of him looking done, likely unintentionally.

Also yes, Max is wearing a suit jacket over a (sleeveless) hoodie.

[lune-hime]

Garden of Tulips (Levi/Reader) Chapter 1

https://lune-hime.tumblr.com/masterlist

~Click me for more chapters~

“What did it look like?”

“Hmm?” Levi looked up from his place next to your sleeping form. “The titan that tried to snack on my darling granddaughter.” “Ugly as fuck.” “Aren’t they all?”

Levi recounts memories of the reader and their shared life together while she recovers from a serious injury.

!!WARNINGS!! - Violence, gore, smut, wholesome content ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tulipa Estella Rijnveld ~ A tulip whose soft white petals are stained with a crimson pigment.

↞↠↞↠↞↠

The putrid sounds of screaming and bones cracking were gradually soaked up by the trees and replaced by the stillness of the evening. The newfound silence of the countryside left an eerie calm over the two scouts but only amplified the ringing in Levi’s ears. The thumping of the horse’s muddy hooves against the hardened spring ground made his head throb as they rode further and further away from the massacre. Any sound was better than nothing, though, otherwise the silence would make him hear their foul cries.

Your pained shrieks.

In his arms you laid limp, the only sign of life was your slight breaths that just barely caressed the bottom of his chin. Whenever it became uneven the ringing in his ears sharpened. He would squeeze your side instinctively, something he would usually do to wake you up when you slept in too late. Only this time instead of your hand in his it was your blood staining his palm. He applied constant pressure to your bleeding side with one hand while the other, white-knuckled and bruised, held the reins. His grip was the only thing that kept him from floating off that damned horse. He was grateful he had lost his horse in the chaos instead of you; you loved the animal too much for Levi’s liking and he knew how devastated you would be when you woke up and it wasn’t there.

Once we get there you better fucking wake up, Y/N.

Levi had somehow managed to stop your bleeding with the piece of his cloak tightly wrapped around your waist combined with the pressure of his hand. This gave him minor peace of mind as you galloped through forest after forest. Emerging from the thicket, the last obstacle blocking your path to safety materialized on the horizon. The towering structure of Wall Rose was baked pale in the waning rays of light, it's untouched bricks proudly protecting those who resided inside. Levi wasted no time in grabbing the guards’ attention the moment he reached the barred gate.

“LET ME IN.” He screamed, his voice scattering the crows that rested on the railing of the wooden lookout post. Though he was extremely winded, his command was firm. There were some muffled curses and the sound of glass shattering before one guard peaked his heads over the edge, making eye contact with Levi’s impatient form below. To say he was startled was an understatement.

“C-captain Levi?” He called out in disbelief. The guard looked from the captain to the limp body in his arms, eyes widening in shock when he saw the remnants of your profuse bleeding.

“Captain Levi is here?” Another voice slurred from behind the first guard. A second soldier appeared, rushing over to lean heavily on the railing and gawk in awe.

“Hey, Captain! What are you doing all the way here at Krolva? What an honor, do you have a minute? My niece is a big fan and if I could get your autograph I’m sure she would really appreci-” He rambled excitedly before being cut off by a brisk slap from his comrade. He stumbled from the railing with a groan, clutching the back of his head in pain.

“Are yer eyes still workin’? Can’t you see he’s a little busy for that.  He’s riding with a wounded soldier, idiot.” His more sober counter part scolded. They soon got into a drunken argument about how to address superior officers, especially ones with pressing issues. The more their pointless conversation droned on the more Levi’s anxiety level rose. If he was delayed any longer he felt like he was going to shatter like the soldiers’ discarded beer bottle.

“I don’t have time for your shit!” He exclaimed. Your horse had begun to sense Levi’s urgency and started pawing at the ground and pacing restlessly in front of the gate.

The guards immediately halted their chatter and turned their full attention to him once again, looking like scolded children. There was a brief silence, broken by a single hiccup.

“Just. Let. Me. In. The. Damned. Gate.” Levi seethed, voice dangerously low. The guards exchanged nervous glances before scrambling to make the call that would raise the iron bars. The second the gate creaked upward, your horse was ready and anxiously bouncing on its hooves. When the opening was just large enough to fit through, your horse bolted through.

When the soldiers stationed at the guard tower would later tell the story to their comrades, and eventually Commander Pixis, they would swear that they saw the devil himself within Levi’s eyes.

Time had no meaning anymore as he weaved between stalled carts and yelping pedestrians. His eyes were on the prominent steeple that jutted out like a sunflower among dandelions from the jagged edges of the residential buildings. After rounding corner after corner and navigating the winding side streets he applied pressure to the reins at the front of the aged church. The grim sight that befell him festered at his already bleeding heart.

Sickness hung so thickly in the air that Levi felt it seeping into the pores of his skin. Hoards of ill residents congregated outside of the newly deemed hospital. Ymir’s stoney outstretched arms beckoned them to be herded like sheep into the eglise by their shepherds donned in nurses uniforms. So slowly were they being admitted that Levi could ascertain that the establishment, as grand as it looked on the outside, would not be able to harbor all of them. The mob groaned, wretched, sputtered and seemed to move as one undulating blob of disease.

Levi’s face contorted as the stench of bile singed the inside of his nose. Every one of his brain cells was scolding him for even contemplating the idea of having you treated at a place with such levels of contamination, but by the fucking walls he had no other foreseeable option. He kicked your horse briskly in the gut, abruptly trotting away to confront one of the nurses.

“You have to let me in. She’s bleeding out and needs stitches now.” Levi ordered with the remaining level-headedness he had hanging by his pinkie. His sanity was flowing out of him at the same rate blood was leaving your body. But he would not let his emotion influence his body and mind. The nurse’s eyes widened to the size of eggs, obviously overwhelmed by the sheer ghastliness of the situation.

“Captain Levi?!” She exclaimed in disbelief, first at the sight of the infamous soldier and then to the limp body clutched in his arms. Levi was aware of his so-called “popularity” but he swore he was going to explode if one more person acknowledged his name before the critical state of the soldier in his embrace. The nurse’s eyes darted to Levi’s bloodstained palm and she let out a small gasp barely audible through the cloth. Her eyebrows furrowed and Levi could infer she was frowning deeply.

“Sir, I’m sorry but we are at full capacity.” Her smooth voice was muffled by her mask. “A recent outbreak in the eastern district has us overwhelmed.”

Her excuse passed through one of Levi’s ears and right out the other. Every minute he sat here idly was another precious minute of life drained from you.

“You absolutely don’t have anyone that could treat her? Or- just give me some goddamn stitches and I’ll do it myself!” Levi demanded, tone flaring at the latter half of his proposal. The nurse gulped and shook her head somberly.

“The capital has been limiting the export of medical supplies to selected districts, including Krolva. We are maxed out now due to the illness...I’m afraid we can’t offer you anything.”

Levi dug his hand into the reins and tugged at them in frustration, making your horse skitter sideways. The scouts prided him in being one of the most rational members of its legions, which was a gift he was honing into as his head spun so quickly with what little options he had left. Uncharacteristically irrational thoughts tempted him, however when a splash of floral color caught his eye just behind the nurse’s shoulder it clicked.

He was in Krolva.

Krolva was your hometown.

You had family here.

Family with a distinct profession.

He stared at the ornamental tulips in the church yard for a moment before whipping his head towards the nurse.

“Where is the tulip farm.” Levi’s simple inquiry held the esteem of a military order of the utmost importance. Anticipation bubbled up within him as the nurse sputtered at his seemingly random change of subject.

“Um-The Vogel Estate is located slightly out of the district. If you go through the gates of Wall Rose its about a half an hour off the main road. There are signs for it you can’t miss.” The nurse instructed, pointing in the direction of the gates. Levi nodded once and was about to turn your horse around when the nurse let out a sound of protest.

“Wait!” She said hurriedly. She looked around nervously before reaching into her dress pocket, pulling out an ivory handkerchief and a small vile. Her gloved hands reached out to you looking at Levi for permission to remove his crimson caked hand.

“This saline won’t do much, but it will minimize infection.” She instructed, carefully lifting Levi’s hand. Sticky blood attempted to reconnect his limb to your side, however the nurse blotted the most recent stream away with a steady hand. Her breath hitched at the severity of your wound as she began pouring the contents of the vile onto your torn skin. She then folded the handkerchief and placed it firmly onto your side, grasping Levi’s hand and placing it over the fabric.

“This should keep more dirt from getting into her wound and irritating it. Keep applying steady pressure; thankfully it looks like you have been doing that already.”

Levi looked from his hand to her eyes, grateful for the sympathy that they held despite his frustration.

“Thank you.” He said curtly. Then, tugged on your horse’s reins and with one swift kick was off towards Wall Rose. To his relief, the gates were wide open as merchants filed through them. He deftly rushed past their inventory checks, unsympathetic to the whines in protest when your horse’s side rammed into a cart resulting in the spilling of an expensive keg of whiskey.

The signs to the estate took him through a picturesque village that made him question if the both of you were even residing in the living world anymore. When the crisp clacking of hooves against the brick road manifested into drum beats on the hard earth Levi had a small sliver of hope he was finally nearing his destination.

He had no idea how long the two of you had been riding for as crop fields turned into whistling wheat fields; the euphoric rolling hills were laughable in comparison to the bloodbath you had fled from. Levi only had a vague idea of where he was headed; his mental map painted by fond childhood memories and other stories of your youth. Based on your descriptions the place you talked so much about couldn’t be hard to miss.

You had taken Levi to Krolva once, a little less than a year ago he reckoned, on a rare scouting legion day off. However, you were unable to stay at your family home due to a myriad of circumstances. He wouldn’t have admitted it but a sweet, syrupy nervousness would churn in his stomach whenever you would talk about introducing him to your family and the other intimate aspects of your childhood. He had, indeed, already met the closest members of your family. One a scout that Levi was quite familiar with and the other the owner of this estate. He could count on one hand the amount of times he had met her and could say with the utmost certainty that it perplexed him beyond hell how you two were related. The fact that this was the first time you two were going to be there together, well the irony was ludicrous.

As humble houses began to litter the landscape he regained some confidence in his surroundings. Levi began analyzing each structure as your horse sped past, hooves hitting the stone path with the intensity of gunshots. His frantic mind began convincing himself that he was in fact in the wrong location when he saw the subject of all your musings.

Tulips.

A vast ocean of tulips that extended so far they seemed like they could caress the horizon. Levi had never seen such a sight in his life. He was never able to fully comprehend the pristine scenery you always described but seeing it laid out in front of him had enlightened his mind. Across from the floral sea sat a grand house, its elaborate frame sticking out against the rural landscape. Levi urged your horse on with a firm kick, a pained whinny erupting from its belly.

Upon reaching the structure Levi yanked on reigns, causing your horse to slide to a stop along the dirt path of the front yard. The homestead was silent except for your horse’s labored panting. Not even the sparrows that nested along the siding of the ornate porch chirped or rustled about. Levi took advantage of the quietness to make his presence known.

“H-HELP!” He shouted, his voice faltering a bit from his sore throat. He was far too used to being on the receiving end of this plea and it made him sink even more into desperation that this time the roles were reversed. The stillness lingered but a moment before the grand door swung open with a force that sent it bombarding against the siding of the house.

“Y/N!” A figure cried from the porch, their bellow echoing over the high entryway. The woman hurried down the steps with a spryness that betrayed her age. As she neared, Levi was faced with the familiar features of your grandmother.

“What in all hell happened, Levi?” She exclaimed with viscous horror. Her face contorted into various morphs of worry and disdain with each new angle she viewed of your mangled body.

“Y/N...she-” Levi wheezed, but his throat was too dry to formulate a proper sentence. His voice was cracked and his shoulder was numbing to the point where he was beginning to lose feeling. Your grandmother exhaled and collected herself, a wave of determination fastening like a uniform onto her being.

“Shit. No time for my questions, we need to get her inside now.” She stated firmly, releasing the reins from Levi’s locked grip. He nodded and allowed his hands to rise to your shoulders to pass you off to the woman. To his delight instead of fresh blood a layer of dark liquid caked his palm. This meant you hadn’t bled a significant amount since the hospital. He let out a shaky breath as the woman gathered you into her arms. You fell limply into her embrace, her knees buckling a bit at your weight but she quickly regained her posture. You looked like a corpse, pale and utterly dead looking, which made Levi want to throw up.

He never threw up.

As the woman began carrying you inside, Levi lifted his leg to dismount your horse but winced in pain. He hadn’t noticed his own injuries due to your condition, but now that the adrenaline had started to wear down they were catching up to him. When he landed the dismount he was met with a sharp pain along his shoulder blade. The pain was just an annoyance though in the grand scheme of the situation. The one thing that mattered the most in his life had almost been torn to pieces. So his shoulder could wait.

He began to hobble towards the front door, leading your horse along with him. He let go of the reins just shy of the porch steps.

“Wait here.” He coughed. There was of course no way your horse would understand him, let alone obey him. Knowing that animal it most definitely wouldn’t stay in the same place Levi left it.

Making his way into the house he paused in the entryway, taking in his surroundings. The foyer ahead of him was spacious; a large staircase laid directly in front of him and tall archways to both his sides led further into the lodgings. The quarters screamed quaint luxury; from the high ceilings, the perfectly intact pearl colored walls, to the elaborately carved hand railings of the stairs. He knew your family wasn’t exactly poor, but he didn’t know they were this economically endowed.

“Up here, quickly.” The woman called from the second floor, consequently snapping him from his daze. Blinking a couple times he charged up the stairs, taking the polished wooden steps two at a time. Once at the top he saw an open door to his right, one of many along the hallway. Just like the rest of the house the room was big, wide windows letting in the evening sunlight and casting a warm glow across the chambers. You were splayed across the silk sheets, the smooth linen now dirtied by your blood and god knows who’s else's. Your shattered form contrasted with the affluence of the room and he felt like he had just walked into your funeral service. The woman was seated at your side next to the nightstand. She had a variety of medical supplies splayed across the small table; needles, thick thread, cotton, alcohol, steel scissors, gause.

“Help me adjust her.” She requested in a low tone. Levi nodded once before walking to the opposite side of the bed and gingerly grasping your shoulders. The woman had laid you haphazardly on your side, unable to properly lay you straight due to her old age. Levi was impressed nonetheless, however, that she had carried you all the way up those stairs from the front yard. He moved your body so you were laying on your back, arms against your sides. Not wanting to get in her way, Levi planted himself on the bed at your other side.

“I’m thankful that you brought her here.” She said as she cut away pieces of your shirt with the scissors. “But why in holy hell did you not bring her to a proper medical facility? Half of her got torn up by one of those fuckers.” She exclaimed, her voice quaked with emotion but her hands remained steady.

The woman really had a way with words.

“Apply pressure to her wound while I get the stitches.” She instructed, immediately padding about the room to gather her medical supplies. Levi did as he was told and cringed when your flesh squelched under his palm.

“The hospital at Krolva was full, they wouldn’t let us in because of the illness.” Levi explained in a voice uncharacteristically small. His gaze remained fixed on his hands. Damn, his fingers were twitching.

Your grandmother slammed a bottle of alcohol down on the nightstand in disgust. Her weathered arms shook slightly at the impact.

“That damned hospital, if you can even call it that, is never prepared to take on the ailments of this city.” She spat. Now having gathered all the necessary items she pulled the stool from the vanity and set it so she was level with your injury.

In the fray he hadn’t been able to get a proper look at your injury. The woman had bunched up your tattered shirt just under the swell of your chest. She examined your torso with seasoned eyes, yet Levi saw a tinge of worry laced in her gaze. The skin that was exposed looked like someone had taken a rake to it; indigo bruises framed a sea of tattered skin in the shape of a crescent moon. Your body bent in at an unnatural angle where the titan had bitten down on your side and Levi was just thankful that he couldn’t see any bone. Seeing you in this crippled state caused tears to sear the inside of his eyes but he refused to let the floodgates burst. This was not the time to be weak, especially with this woman here.

“Don’t go crying on me now, shorty. I know you aren’t the soft type.” Levi jumped at the familiarity in her tone. It put him on edge at first; he had arrived under dire circumstances now she was calling him names and was talking as if he was an old friend. But it was oddly comforting; the boldness and confidence in her voice eased away some of his jitteriness. He huffed in response before watching her work again.

Your grandmother used gentle fingers to assess the wound, gingerly prodding the areas where you should have had skin but you didn’t. She then reached for the cotton and alcohol and began to clean the wound as much as she could; the large teeth shaped holes in your side would be difficult for any trained physician to work with. But she handled the medical supplies with a grace Levi never considered possible. When she was finished cleaning your side she spoke up.

“She’s unconscious but she could still accidentally bite her tongue.” She stated, standing from the chair to rummage through the carven dresser. Out of the top drawer she pulled out a leather belt. She returned to the bedside and handed it to Levi.

“Place this in her mouth. I’m about to start stitching her wound.” She instructed, cutting a long piece of thread with the steel scissors. His fingertips brushed your jaw as he guided your mouth open. You were already slack jawed as little puffs of air were rising from your agape lips. He folded the belt in half two times and placed it between your teeth, careful to keep your tongue along the bottom of your mouth lest you started to choke.

Once he was done, Levi studied the woman’s hands as she prepared the needle. Her fingers were wrinkled, coarse, bent at the joints, and they looked like they had endured a lifetime of hard labor. Those aged fingers preformed with precision and finesse from the moment the needle entered your skin to the tying of the final thread.

Although not awake, you had in fact tried to bite down on the belt, letting out muffled groans each time skin met needle. Levi desperately wanted to look away each time but didn't out of fear you would bite through leather.

“Talk me through what happened.” Your grandmother said without a wavering of her concentration. Had she sensed his uneasiness? Levi swallowed hard, the action painful on his parched throat.

Levi’s whole body stung with exhaustion and pain as he prepared to explain. When he spoke again his voice was still hoarse but not as jagged as before.

“What was planned as a routine expedition turned into a recovery mission for Eren-”

“Mhmm, the boy who can shift into a titan.” Your grandmother interjected, mostly as clarification for herself. She attentively continued to thread you back together as if you were one of your chewed on stuffed animals that sat atop your dresser.

“Yeah. Y/N’s squad was set to clear out any incoming titans on the western edge. That’s when the abnormal appeared. I saw the flare and-” He explained, almost in a whisper. Damn did his throat hurt. Damn did everything hurt.

“You acted out of order.” Your grandmother stated simply. A knowingly somber smile upturning her wrinkled mouth. Her words and the soft manner in which they were said caused Levi’s mouth to hang agape mid sentence.

“Which I am grateful for. Otherwise she might have died alone out there.” She added. Her expression was as even as her handiwork but Levi could see that in her eyes concern was brewing like freshly charred coals.

“A ripe piece of shite it is that this is the longest conversation we’ve had isn’t it?” Your grandmother huffed a dry laugh. Levi could only nod in response as he watched your jaw clench when her needle deftly plunged into a heavily bruised area.

She was right. The other times he had interacted with the woman were brief and professional. Both were at military events that left little room for idle chatter, seeing as she was a highly praised veteran of the garrison. One interaction occurred before you two were committed and one...well that awkward experience could not have been far enough from the forefront of his mind.

It took thirty minutes for the woman to piece you back together but it felt like a fortnight for Levi.  When she was finished she exhaled loudly and wiped her hands on a now stained crocheted dish towel.

“All done.” She stood and placed her hands on her hips. Levi couldn't begin to thank her enough for all she had done in such a short amount of time.

“Thank you, for everything.” He coughed, thus sending a wave of pain down his shoulder blade.

A huff of laughter left her lips and she sent a wyry smile his way.

“Well, what kind of grandmother would I be if I left my granddaughter as the remains of titan fodder? Come on let’s get her in some clean clothes and wash some of this blood off.” Levi nodded once and proceeded to help your grandmother get you changed and cleaned up. When the two of them had finished you almost looked back to your normal self; your body tucked under the satin covers in an elegant ivory nightgown. Your features were soft, plush lips parted and breathing steady. You now fit in with the lavish ambiance of the space. He couldn't take his eyes off of you. That is until he felt a poke on his arm.

“It won’t do either of us any good if we just sit here staring at her. Come downstairs, i’ll make you some food and stitch you up too.” Your grandmother was looking up at him sternly. Levi shot her a confused glare and she met his gaze with another chuckle.

“You don’t hide your wounds very well, humanity’s strongest. Now come on, don’t make an old lady wait.”

[sciforce]

Computational Aesthetics: shall We Let Computers Measure Beauty?

As we all know, tastes differ and change over time. However, each epoch tried to define its own criteria for beauty and aesthetics. As science was developing, so was the urge to measure beauty quantitatively. Not surprisingly, the recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence pushed forward the question of whether intelligent models can overcome what seems to be human subjectivity.

A separate subfield of artificial intelligence (AI), called ‘computational aesthetics’, was created to assess beauty in domains of human creative expression such as music, visual art, poetry, and chess problems. Typically, it uses mathematical formulas that represent aesthetic features or principles in conjunction with specialized algorithms and statistical techniques to provide numerical aesthetic assessments. Computational aesthetics merges the study of art appreciation with analytic and synthetic properties to bring into view the computational thinking artistic outcome.

Brief History of Computational Aesthetics

Though we are used to thinking about Artificial Intelligence as a recent development, computational aesthetics can be traced back as far as 1933, when American mathematician George David Birkhoff in “Aesthetic Measure” proposed the formula M = O/C where M is the “aesthetic measure,” O is order, and C is complexity. This implies that orderly and simple objects appear to be more beautiful than chaotic and/or complex objects. Order and complexity are often regarded as two opposite aspects, thus, order plays a positive role in aesthetics while complexity often plays a negative role. Birkhoff applied that formula to polygons and artworks as different as vases and poetry, and is considered to be the forefather of modern computational aesthetics.

In the 1950s, German philosopher Max Bense and French engineer Abraham Moles independently combined Birkhoff’s work with Claude Shannon’s information theory to develop a scientific means of grasping aesthetics. These ideas found their niche in the first computer-generated art but did not feel close to human perception.

In the early 1990s, the International Society for Mathematical and Computational Aesthetics (IS-MCA) was founded. This organization is specialized in design with an emphasis on functionality and aesthetics and attempts to be a bridge between science and art.

In the 21st century, computational aesthetics is an established field with its own specialized conferences, workshops, and special issues of journals uniting researchers from diverse backgrounds, particularly AI and computer graphics.

Objectives of Computational Aesthetics

The ultimate goal of computational aesthetics is to develop fully independent systems that have or exceed the same aesthetic “sensitivity” and objectivity as human experts. Ideally, machine assessments should correlate with human experts’ assessment and even go beyond it, overcoming human biases and personal preferences.

Additionally, those systems should be able to explain their evaluations, inspire humans with new ideas, and generate new art that could lie beyond typical human imagination.

Finally, computing aesthetics can also provide a deeper understanding of our aesthetic perception.

In practical terms, computational aesthetics can be applied in various fields and for various purposes. To name a few, aesthetics can be used in the following applications:

as one of the ranking criteria for image retrieval systems;

in image enhancement systems;

managing image or music collections;

improving the quality of amateur art;

distinguishing between videos shot by professionals and by amateurs;

aiding human judges to avoid controversies, etc.

Features

The backbone of all classifiers is a robust selection of features that can be associated with the perception of a certain form of art. In the search for correlation with human perception, aesthetic systems apply specific sets of features for visual art and music that are developed by theorists in arts and domain experts.

Visual Art

Image aesthetic features could be categorized as low-level or high-level plus composition-based. However, some research is based on features related to saliency (Zhang and Sclaroff, 2013), object (Roy et al., 2018), and information theory (Rigau,‎1998). The selection of features largely depends on the type of art and the level of abstraction, as well as the algorithm applied. For instance, photography assessment relies heavily on the compositional aspects, while measurement of the beauty of abstract art requires another approach assessing color harmony or symmetry (Nishiyama et al.,2011).

Low-level features try to describe an image objectively and intuitively with relatively low time and space complexity. They include color, luminance and exposure, contrast, intensity, edges, and sharpness.

High-level features include regions and contents as aspects that make great contributions to overall human aesthetic judgment and try to establish the regions of an image that seem to be more important for human judgment and find the correlation between the content and human reaction.

Composition-based features differ for photography and artwork and may include depending on the form of art a range of features, such as Rules of Thirds, Golden Ratio (Visual Weight Balance), focus and focal length, ISO speed rating, geometric composition and shutter speed (Aber et al., 2010).

Music

Similarly to image analysis, music aesthetics assessments try to combine research in human perception and cognition of basic dimensions of sound, such as loudness or pitch and in higher-level concepts related to music, including the perception of its emotive content (Juslin and Laukka, 2004), as well as performance specific traits (Palmer, 1997) to develop a comprehensive set of features that would be able to assess a piece of music.

In 2008, Gouyon et al. offered a hierarchy organized in three levels of abstraction starting from the most fundamental acoustic features, to be extracted directly from the signal, and progressively building on top of them to get to model more complex concepts derived from music theory and even from cognitive and social phenomena:

Low-level features are related to the physical aspect of the signal and include loudness, pitch, timbre, onsets, and rhythm (e.g., see Justus and Bharucha, 2002).

Mid-level features move to a higher level of abstraction within the music theory and cover tempo, tonality, modality, etc.

High-level features try to establish a correlation between abstract music descriptors like genre, mood, and instrumentation and human perception.

Methods and Algorithms

At its broadest, we can speak of computational aesthetics as a tool to assess aesthetics in visual art or music and as a means to generate new art.

For aesthetics assessment, various algorithms have been proposed over the past few years based either on classification or clusterization.

Classification approach

There are a number of algorithms that are extensively used to assess image aesthetics by means of classification. Among the most popular are AdaBoost, Naive Bayes, and Support Vector Machine, and substantial work is also conducted using Random Forests and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs).

AdaBoost in computational aesthetics is a widely used method that is believed to render the best results. It was first offered in 2008 by Luo and Tang who conducted a study on photo quality evaluation, with the unique characteristic of focusing on the subject. They utilized Gentle AdaBoost (Torralba et al., 2004), a variant of AdaBoost that uses a specific way of weighting its data, applying less weight to outliers. The success rate obtained was 96%. However, when Khan and Vogel (2012) utilized their proposed set of features for photographic portraiture aesthetic classification, the accuracy rate with the multiboosting variant (multi-class version) of AdaBoost fell to 59.14% (Benbouzid et al., 2012).

Naïve Bayes is another popular method that was used in the same study by Luo and Tang (2008). In 2009, Li and Chen utilized the Naïve Bayes classifier to aesthetically classify paintings in which the results were described as robust. The success rate achieved utilizing a Bayesian classifier was 94%.

Support Vector Machine is probably the most wide-spread algorithm for binary classification in computational aesthetics. It has been used since 2006 when Datta et al. studied the correlation between a defined set of features and their aesthetic value, by using a previously rated set of photographs and showed up to 76% of accuracy. Other studies that rested on the same classifier include Li and Chen (2009) who aesthetically classified paintings; Wong and Low (2009) who built a classification system of professional photos and snapshots, Nishiyama et al. (2011) who conducted a research on the aesthetic classification of photographs based on color harmony, and others, with an average accuracy rate of about 75% and higher.

Random Forest, though usually showing lower results as compared to Bayesian classifiers or AdaBoost, were used in a number of studies of photograph aesthetics. For instance, Ciesielski et al. (2013) achieved a 73% accuracy to assess photograph aesthetics. Khan and Vogel (2012) utilizing their proposed set of features for photographic portraiture aesthetic classification, achieved an accuracy of 59.79% by making use of random forests (Breiman, 2001).

Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) rendered extremely good results when used with compression-based features by Machado et al. (2007) and Romero et al. (2012). The former research aimed at the identification of the author of a set of paintings and reported a success rate from 90.9% to 96.7%. The latter work used an ANN classifier to predict the aesthetic merit of photographs at a success rate of 73.27%.

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are state-of-the-art deep learning models for rating image aesthetics that have been extensively used in the past few years. CNNs learn a hierarchy of filters, which are applied to an input image in order to extract meaningful information from the input. For example, Denzler et al. (2016) applied the AlexNet model (Krizhevsky et al., 2012) on different datasets to experimentally evaluate how well pre-learned features of different layers are suited to distinguish art from non-art images using an SVM classifier. They report the highest discriminatory power with a Network trained on the ImageNet dataset, which outperforms a network solely trained on natural scenes.

Clustering

Image clustering is a very popular unsupervised learning technique. By grouping sets of image data in a particular way, it maximizes the similarity within a cluster, simultaneously minimizing the similarity between clusters. In computational aesthetics, researchers use K-Means, Fuzzy Clustering, and Spectral Clustering in image analysis.

K-Means Clustering is widely used to analyze the color scheme of an image. For instance, Datta et al. (2006) used k-means to compute two features to measure the number of distinct color blobs and disconnected large regions in a photograph. Lo et al. (2012) utilized this method to find dominant colors in an image.

Fuzzy Clustering is a form of clustering in which each data point can belong to more than one cluster, therefore it is used in multi-class classification (see, for example, Felci Rajam and Valli (2011)). Celia and Felci Rajam (2012) utilized FCM clustering for effective image categorization and retrieval.

Spectral Clustering is used to identify communities of nodes in a graph based on the edges connecting them. In computational aesthetics, a spectral clustering technique named normalized cuts (Ncut) was used to organize images with similar feature values (Zakariya et al., 2010).

Generative models

A separate task of computational aesthetics is to generate artwork independently from human experts. At present, the algorithm that is best known for directly learning the transformations between images from the training data is Generative Adversarial Network(GAN). GANs automatically learn the appropriate operations from the training data and, therefore, have been widely adopted for many image-enhancement applications, such as image super-resolution and image denoising. Machado et al. (2015) also used GANs for automatically enhancing image aesthetics by performing mainly tone adjustment.

Example that combines the content of a photo with a well-known artwork

Conclusion: Restrictions and Limitations

Aspiring to reach objectivity, research in computational aesthetics tries to reduce the focus to form, rather than to content and its associations to a person’s mind and memories. However, from a psychophysiological viewpoint, it is not clear whether we can have a dichotomy here or whether aesthetics is intrinsically subjective.

Besides, it is difficult to ascertain whether a system that performs on the same level as a human expert is actually using similar mechanisms as the human brain and, therefore, whether it reveals something about human intelligence.

It might be that in the future we will rely on machines in our artistic preferences, but for now, human experts will dictate their opinions and try to get machines simulate their choices.

[crimsoncityhq]

                                                       PART II

The Crimson City has taken new shape as The Emerald City, and the booze pours like water. Of course, anyone with foresight will know even a Saint Patrick’s Day celebration can’t go untouched by at least one of the families. The drinks have made their rounds, whether that’s lounged at the bar or courtesy of the green and orange clad waiters delivering martinis on a tray. Everyone found their way to their favorite attraction—more like staggered to their favorite attraction—when the heat pooled at their toes, licked its way up their ankles. Before they knew it, their entire bodies were consumed in heat, reddening their cheeks like a sunburn in the middle of Chicago’s burning summer. 

It clicked just a little too late that they had been dosed, and the rage set in before common sense. Something erupted in the crowd, volcanic and angry, and the fights broke out like they were on a schedule. It was chaos; chaos that couldn’t be contained by the police guards eyeing the perimeter to prevent an event like last time. Civilians and family members alike, everyone present, began to lose their grip on reality. Attachments were lost in the wildfire of it all, and those who looked like friends morphed into something to be feared. 

The O’Shea creation, BUA, and its side effects come from equal parts LSD, methamphetamines, and cocaine, all without the floating euphoria of feeling high. It’s very capable of killing, even in small doses, and even with the likelihood that you’ll survive, the drug leaves its traces on your brain for weeks after ingestion. BUA comes in all forms, and it can be injected, snorted, and smoked, depending on the vehicle of delivery. BUA is incredibly addictive, and it’s hard enough to get a hold of that anyone who ingests the drug will deal with the aftermath of withdrawals. 

Your character, for the time being, is under the influence of BUA, meaning they may act out of character and violent toward their surroundings. That includes friends, enemies, and strangers. 

Part II will run from March 20th through March 23rd. For this event, we’ll be throwing characters into groups, so they may interact with whoever they’re teamed up with. You can find all of your assigned groups below. If your character is not included, please feel free to reach out to the admins, and we’ll find a place for your muse. Also please note that your character could have been drugged by drinking any drink or eating any food.  

SHORT-TERM SIDE EFFECTS (2-3 HOURS): 

Rapid breathing

Increased sweating (typically with accompanying chills)

Pin-sized pupils

Skin redness

Hallucinations 

Extreme agitation

Violent tendencies

Obsessive tendencies

Spiking energy and heart rate

Memory loss/lack of attachment

Death

LONG TERM SIDE EFFECTS (1-2 WEEKS)

Night terrors

Fever

Increased sweating (typically with accompanying chills)

Mood swings (ranging from violent outbursts to extreme depression)

Spiking heart rate

Lethargy

Muscle pain

Paranoia

Nausea

Mental confusion

Excessive hunger or craving

Death

O’SHEA ESTABLISHED GROUPS 

FAUST MANOR - Liam O’Shea (Leader), Aurora O’Shea, Chester O’Shea, Harley Kincaid, Holden Mercer, Ingrid Vasile, Levi Bohani, Ophelia O’Shea, Richie O’Shea, Sammy O’Shea, Ivy Ivashkov, Mateo Jiminez VASILE MANOR - Freyja O’Shea (Leader), Audrey Rousseau, Cecilia Cavendish, Charlie O’ Donoghue, Davut Demir, Dawn Montgomery, Frankie Underwood, Saoirse O’Shea, Seth Graves, Arielle Hernandez, Dylan Calluso

GROUPS AT NAVY PIER :

CENTENNIAL WHEEL - Axel Reyes, Calliope Lane, Dominique Capra, Esmerey Demir, Hana Faust, Jesse Valencia, Salvadore Leon, Titus Lei, Zane Washington, Lorenzo Cavalli, Leslie Galahad

DINNER CRUISE (Spirit of Chicago ship)- Autumn Dawson, Chaeyoung Moon, Clara Davila, Eli Vogel, Helena Maxey, Laurenne Auxier, Nathan Andersen, Raven Ward-Vasile, Val Price, Zyra Gilmore, Amelia O’Shea

MIRROR MAZE- Amara Ricci, Bas Meyers, Dante Pierce, Edgar Ortega, Juno Song, Luciana Marquez, Nikolai Zima, Safiye Demir, Vanessa Keer, Zoe Washington, Nolan Willougby, Fatima Morales

BILLY GOAT TAVERN- Asli Demir, Audric Noire, Constansia Fournier, Evan Montague, Joey O’Shea, Max Wolfe, Phillip Daphne, Thomas Artyomov, Zion Washington, Helle Mae

HARRY CARAY’S - Barnaby Eaton, Blue Daniels, Christian Yi, Edith Cohen, Griffin Dyer, Lawrence Dupree, Mikhail Morosov, Poppy Levenberg, Teddy Cohen, Percy De Luca, Milo Arrington

CRYSTAL GARDENS- Birdie Mendoza, Daniel Faust, Darcy Faust, Erin Cerci, Joel Maddison, Maeve O’Connell, Monika Adler, Rosalia Leon, Veronica Pierce, Xavier Harris, Jules Leon, Lennon Novak

FERRY RIDE- Alexander Washington, Caroline Shephard, Easton Diaz, Effie Faust, Jace Dubois, Lev Vasile, Oskar Alma, River O’Shea, Vasilisa Vorobyeva, Walter Vasile, Sebastian Lopez, Elena Caines

TALL SHIP WINDY- Andrew Whittmore, Alon McCarthy, Demetria Krovopuskov, Genevieve Bisset, Joseph Do, Letitia Valentine, Oliver Faust, Rosalie Halliday, Vitomir Kipriyanov, Ximena Vasile, Francis Belle

OFFSHORE ROOFTOP & BAR - Andrea Reed, Cassidy Faust, Dahlia Cavalli, Jackson Marston, Marcel Washington, Matthew Tyler, Micah Ransone, Rahi Kumar, Viktor Ivanov, Wynter Ellis, Gang Eun-Young, Stella Bianchi

MILLER LITE BEER GARDEN- Aria O’Shea, Blake Faust, David Sharpe, Eva Clarke, Isabel Faust, Mathias Attano, Nova Deveraux, Sloan Washington, Tristan Deering, Rafferty Donoghue, Gloria Garza

END OF THE PIER- Caleb Duval, Chance Hamilton, Giovanni Rossi, Irina Koshkin, Juliet Leon, Katarina Vasile, Peyton Bridges, Sasha Vasile, Violet Madden, Melissa Woods

WEST PARKING GARAGE-Atticus Mercer, Blair Faust, Dominic Murphy, Evvie Martin, Jamie Rowe, Natalia Baskin, Toby Hayes, Silas Belmont, Tatiana Blanter, Vivian Sinclair, Thiago Caines

[sophiexrph]

@artcmisrpt wanted to know about them so i’ll give a little tldr !!

samuel (was originally a max irons fc, now an alex fitzalan fc) is the son of a preacher (? reverend? idk im jewish i dont know the difference) in small town upstate new york. he’s the second of five brothers and his mom died when he was in middle school. he and his brothers take care of the church and help their father run the services - they’re well-known around town and thought to be the picture-perfect religious boys, purity rings and all. samuel doubts his religion, though; he’s closeted gay and doesn’t even know where to start going about exploring his sexuality, especially not the crush he has on his older brother’s best friend.

riley is ex-airforce. (originally a mike vogel fc, but you can pretty much put any semi-muscular beefcake/himbo in mike’s place and riley’ll still work). born and raised in louisiana, he’s got a younger sister and is pretty much the epitome of the Older Brother stereotype. he played football in high school and could have continued on into college if he didn’t want to join the military as badly as he did -- his father and grandfather were also military men. he suffered a bad injury in the field and was forced into early retirement. he’s now a volunteer at an animal shelter while working at reception for a law firm for actual money. pretty much a golden retriever in a human’s body. also likes flowers but cannot take care of them for the life of him.

caspian is....a disaster bisexual. (david corenswet fc this is not changing) he was born into an incredibly wealthy family with a pretty large age gap between himself and his older brother. his brother is a shining star, everyone loves him, it seems as if he’s done nothing wrong in his life. no matter how hard caspian tries, he can’t seem to live up to his brother’s spotlight. so he started acting up for attention. in high school he was a heavy partier, would go to any party he knew about. in college, that got worse - he developed an addiction to cocaine and lost the scholarship he’d earned because of his now-low gpa. he took up bartending lessons to pay his own way through school without his parents finding out about his failure. now he’s still working as a bartender and his favorite part of the job is that people just talk to him thinking he’s a brick wall, thinking he won’t remember their little secrets... but he does remember. he remembers very well. and he’s still got that little habit he hasn’t kicked quite yet.

gil is a revolutionary. (michael evans behling, reece king, etc; he’s a poc who looks a little Too Pretty) he’s tired of america’s inequality and he wants to fight back against all forms of it. anti-capitalist, acab, you name it - if there’s a left-leaning protest, he’s there, making a lot of noise. he’s got a tight-knit group of revolutionary friends, they’re the sort to go around the city and plaster posters about the statistics of police brutality in their city anywhere they can find. also he’s queer and Does Not Fuck With gender roles. catch him in skirts and flowy blouses especially in the summer !

margaret (lucy boynton, elizabeth debicki, sophie turner, literally anyone with Powerful Woman Vibes) owns her own literary publishing company. she takes no shit from anyone ever. she takes her coffee black and owns at least three pairs of louboutins. she is the exact opposite of soft -- except for when the girl at the coffee shop on the way to her office hands her her coffee every morning.

shira (beanie feldstein, zoe kravitz) works at a local bookshop. it’s almost as if she’s read every book that they have for sale. she’s always in a good mood, is practically the equivalent of a ray of sunshine. she also has a passion for volunteer work (animal shelters, food banks, pretty much anything, anywhere, at any time). she went to columbia for undergrad and speaks three languages fluently, also will not drink coffee if it isn’t at least 50% cream

[ridefm]

MW male FC's by mods and members?

ahh, one of my favorite questions ! i could truly go on forever. we have a bunch listed here but to reiterate, i’d love to see cillian murphy, danny pino, jack o’connell, joseph morgan, clayton cardenas, andy bean, pedro pascal, chris evans, chris hemsworth, joe manganiello, theo james, jensen ackles, colin o’donoghue, idris elba, jamie dornan, tommy martinez, max irons, sean teale, chris pine, beau mirchoff, gavin leatherwood, oliver-jackson cohen, david castañeda, wolfgang novogratz, david giuntoli, ryan guzman, torrance coombs, dan stevens, frank grillo, milo ventimiglia, can yaman, joel kinnaman, tyler hoechlin, mike vogel, mena massoud, keanu reeves, paul wesley, michael b. jordan, jeffrey dean morgan, alexander & bill skarsgard.

[mysharona1987]

Me, watching Bates Motel, season one: 'It's odd that Norma is having an affair with Shelby. Because Mike Vogel (Shelby) looks *so* much like Max Thieriot, who plays Norma's older son, Dylan. Like, it's rather weird. They could be twins.'

Then I realized: 'Oh, right. This is Norma we are talking about it.' 

And it makes 100% sense.

Why I like this show: I do not believe the casting was a coincidence.

[wheatlev]

inspired by @armorabs, (see also: these) these two are based of of two (of the three) german versions of Plankton - Thomas Petruo (his voice until 2018) and Maximilian Vogel, currently playing the part in the German/Austrian/Swiss Tour. Both related (possibly half-siblings. are copepods monogamous in the AB universe?).

Tom's a very tired underground radio moderator (based on Thomas' other work) and Max is a. Well he is even smaller than regular Plankton cause he's the only Musical!Plankton I know to be smaller than their respective Karen by design, lol.

Tom also looks done because most of the pictures I could find of Thomas were of him looking done, likely unintentionally.

Also yes, Max is wearing a suit jacket over a (sleeveless) hoodie.