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wisherbysharlight · 5 years ago

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Adrenaline Rush of Admitting a Crush

Word Count: 1622 Ships:Prinxiety, mentioned Pintroverts AO3: here Thanks to @vintagesquid for the beta! Description: Spoilers for FWSA! Virgil can’t wait. He just can’t. He needs to do this now, but there are limits to even the adrenaline high of bravery...

Roman is right there. And he’s smiling, and dancing around the room, and squealing in a way he hadn’t in months, if not a year, and Virgil has to say something.

“Do you need to pee?”

He can’t stop shaking his hands, bouncing in place. He’s hearing Roman spouting off ideas left and right, sees his delighted expression, and,

“Are you sure you don’t need to pee?”

Virgil can’t wait. He just can’t. He needs to do this now, but there are limits to even the adrenaline high of bravery. As impatient as he is, he has to wait for Thomas to not be paying attention to them.

All this energy, all these emotions, all this bravery, he has to do it now, before he loses the adrenaline high, but of course Thomas still needs them. He still needs to run back through the entire scenario at least five times, to check and double check and triple check that it actually happened. Virgil can’t fault him for that, hell, he wants it all too.

But Roman.

Roman is right there. And he’s smiling, and dancing around the room, and squealing in a way he hadn’t in months, if not a year, and Virgil has to say something.

Finally, finally, Thomas goes upstairs to change, claiming to try to use some of his nervous energy for a run. They won’t be summoned again for a bit, most likely, and they’re safe to sink out into the mindspace’s version of the living room. No one else is around, and this is it, this is his moment, he can do this, he squares his shoulders and he looks at Roman and he opens his mouth and-

“You don’t have to say it Virgil,” Roman says before the sound can leave Virgil’s mouth, “I know. I won’t tell the others about,” he waves his hand vaguely at Virgil’s eyes, “sparkle city, or whatever, until you’re ready. I know you, worry. Heh. About the whole ‘emo nightmare’ reputation.”

Virgil’s shaking his head furiously before Roman can even get his whole sentence out, the shadows under his eyes darkening in concern, “No, Roman, they- if they don’t know already I don’t care if they do now. I’m excited, it happens, no use trying to hide it.”

Roman looks concerned at the change, taking a hesitant step towards him without seeming to think too much about it before stopping himself, “Then - then what’s up, Legion of Gloom?” “I wanted to talk to you. About today. And. And tell you that I- shit, I am terrible at this. How did Thomas do it?” Virgil grumbles, feeling his face flame up and sparing a thought to be grateful for his foundation. He has to break eye contact because looking straight at Roman is not helping, “Ok listen. I wasn’t going to say anything. I really wasn’t. But Roman, today. You said - you said a couple things that … that set off alarm bells for me, and I just - I feel like I need to tell you this so just let me get it all out before you say anything.”

Roman nods mutely, but his hands are still restless, still moving and grabbing onto each other then onto his sash then to his belt loops.

“Ok. Ok so, I’ve noticed. Recently. That you have been a little. Ugh, shit, what’s the word. I should’ve practiced this better. I’ve noticed you’ve been a little, uh, insecure? And I just wanted, no. No I needed you to know that I see everything you do and how hard you’ve been trying. How much you want to be right. I’ve been there, Princey, and it’s not a fun place to be. But Roman. Just. Know I see you, and that ... that you can trust me to be honest with you. About my feelings. Because god knows I don’t talk about them often. And Ro? I really, honestly, care about you. Seeing you happy today? Knowing that I, me, I myself was able to do that for you? Well. It forced me to acknowledge something I’d been trying very hard to ignore.”

Roman looks absolutely shell-shocked, eyes wide as saucers, mouth hanging open a bit, hands now twisting his sash between them, face flushed almost as red as his emblem. He drops the sash when Virgil stops talking, gesturing wildly at him, voice clearly on the verge of breaking, “What is it? Don’t leave a man in suspense, Virgil, a story like that cannot be left unfinished.” Virgil huffs out a laugh, fidgeting with the zipper on his sleeve, “You would be focused on the story, dramatic ass.” He huffs again, then stares up at the ceiling, “Roman, I- If I could make you smile like that. You- God you’re just so good Roman, and for a long time I think I was denying ... that I could ever be enough. But if I could do that, today, for you, for Thomas. Well. I think I can try. To be enough. And to let myself want to be-”

Virgil’s voice dies in his throat as Roman’s thumb gently presses on his chin, tilting his head down - when had he even moved that close - and oh. He’s smiling, that brilliant smile that Virgil was worried was reserved just for Nico - “Virgil. I was also concerned. About being. Enough. For you.”

“Well that’s stupid,” Virgil bursts out, then feels his face flame up and theres no way his foundation is enough to cover that. “Because. Because.”

“Because we’re both a bit stupid?” Roman grins, and his thumb moves slightly from where it’s still on his chin, the rest of his hand cupping his cheek, and that feels really nice. Maybe Virgil leans into it a bit, feels that light tingle under his eyes that means his shadow is shifting and fights the urge to sink out and hide it, “And maybe we are both enough? Or rather, that we balance each other quite nicely?” Virgil nods, and idly wonders when he became the mute one in this conversation, and where all this suaveness had been when they were trying to woo Nico, but those thoughts fly out the window when Roman’s thumb brushes feather-light over his bottom lip, “And maybe? We could try to explore how well we work together? As a team, and as more?”

Virgil knows he’s gone full-lavender at this point as he nods, careful not to dislodge Roman’s thumb. He leans in, feeling even braver than when he had shoved Thomas earlier, bolstered even more by the urge to assuage the doubt still hiding in Roman’s eyes, but still slow in case he’s wrong (oh god, what if he’s wrong), but Roman surges forward, capturing his lips and holding onto his face with both hands. Virgil even doesn’t know what to do with his own hands, he’s so happy he can’t possibly keep them still, so he just holds onto Roman’s shoulders, then his arms, then his hair (oh soft hair that’s a good place to stay), and lets Roman take the lead.

Virgil notices a moment later that Roman’s humming, and it doesn’t feel intentional, which makes him grin into the kiss and causes Roman to start laughing, and then they’re both off. They’re leaning into each other still, but Virgil’s hands are flapping on either side of Roman and Roman’s bouncing on the balls of his feet and neither of them can stop giggling long enough to even say anything. They just exist in each others’ spaces, giggling just like before, only this time Virgil can smell the mint from Roman’s breath, can see the sparkle in his eye, and it makes him feel like he can take on the world.

Eventually, Roman quiets enough to speak, though he’s still grinning like a loon, “So, I guess I have to start thinking of fun pet names instead of just plain nicknames, huh Hot Topic?” “I knew you thought I was hot,” Virgil croons back without missing a beat, feeling less off kilter with his trademark smirk, though he knows his shadow still betrays the levity in his entire being.

Roman leans in to kiss him again, and their laughter returns when Virgil is caught off guard enough by Roman nipping at his lip that he stumbles. ‘You’re supposed to be alert, Virgil. Get back on your game.’ the nasty voice that sounds a lot like his own from the past hisses in his ear, but is drowned out quickly when Roman swoons dramatically and coos, “Oh Virgil I knew you’d fall for me eventually.”

“I’ll show you falling,” Virgil growls playfully, pushes Roman to the couch and straddles him, getting his hands back in that soft hair and pulling him up for another kiss, then another, and another, each only to be interrupted when one of them gets so overwhelmed they squirm, or squeak, or hum, or flap, and they dissolve into laughter again, like they have all the time in the world.

At some point, they’ll have to debrief the other sides on the particulars of what went down at the mall food court today. They’ll discuss Janus being overworked and exhausted and in everyone else’s business, and address Patton’s suspicious absence in a matter of the heart, and assist Logan with his inevitable sulking about yet another emotional connection to maintain, and deal with Remus’ certainly ever-growing list of new material featuring that new connection.

Eventually, they, Roman and Virgil, would have to address their insecurities in a less indirect manner, and actually talk through them to make sure neither one was rushing in blind. It all needed to happen, but later. For now, with just the two of them here on the couch, Virgil couldn’t bring himself to fear any of it, even though it was all residing in the back of his mind.

Bravery. Huh. He could get used to that.

#prinxiety #roman sanders #virgil sanders #fwsa #flirting with social anxiety #stimmy virgil #stimmy roman #look at me writing canon fic who AM i #my writing

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siren1song · 5 years ago

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Southern Caribbean

Summary: Pirate captain Virgil has a very big soft spot for the chaotic prince they'd brought aboard and made one of their own.

Warnings: Mentions of murder, mentions of guns, idle threats

Pairing: Dukexiety

Word Count: 1,682

General Taglist: @acanvasofabillionsuns, @emo-disaster, @greenninjagal-blog, @jungle321jungle, @sleepy-sides, @gattonero17, @another-sandersidesblog, @strawberryjellystuff, @logic-with-a-pinch-of-deceit, @gr3ml1n-loser, @main-chive, @firey-alex, @orca-iguana, @spooky-scary-virgil, @yalltookmyurlideas, @sanderssidesweirdo, @stormypaint, @just-a-little-bit-gay-oops, @dying-is-a-hobby, @the-angry-ship, @rosesisupposes, @just-perhaps

Notes: Day 3 of @dukexietyweek Pirates!!! So naturally I wrote Pirate captain Virgil and incredibly chaotic prince Remus.

Commissions!! | Buy Me a Kofi!! | Join Casper’s Crew!! | Ao3 Link!!

If you told Virgil a month ago he’d be the captain of the first crew with a pirate prince, he would’ve laughed in your face before running you through.

As it was, Remus was definitely an interesting type of pirate. Originally captured in hopes of holding him for ransom, the man was more excited about meeting pirates face to face than worried about getting back to his family.

Which was a whole other story, but honestly watching Remus rip off his skirts and declare himself a man right there on the deck after somehow nicking the sword off Pryce’s hip was the best show Virgil had seen in a long while (less for the indecency of a perceived woman and more for the hilarity of a man shocking one of the best pirate crews in the southern seas into silence).

“Let me be a pirate,” he’d proclaimed, “let me join your crew and help you cause so much chaos you’ll be not only the best pirates in the south but everywhere else as well.”

Who was Virgil to deny that offer?

And now they were raiding a small village on the coast of an island they’d just been planning on to hunt on until Remus expressed his desire for his first time doing something more dangerous than embroidering a table cloth.

He was so cute in his excitement, how could Virgil resist?

Watching the tiny man run off with a cutlass that Virgil wasn’t too entirely sure was balanced right for him and a gun strapped to his hip in case he needed it was grin worthy.

“You have a soft spot for him,” Dale commented, earning a glare from his captain.

“And you have a reason for staying on deck instead of stocking us up on spirits and food and gold?”

Dale grinned at him, pointing at the rest of the crew having already taken both the smaller boats and thus leaving him behind.

Oh great, being babysat by his lookout.

“Why you lot insist on leaving someone behind to look after me every raid I’ll never understand.”

“Really? You won’t understand when the last time we left you alone you decided to binge yourself on most of the dried meat on the ship?”

Virgil glared at Dale again before deciding watching the shore to try and see if he could find Remus amongst the chaos his crew had already started.

“There’s another entire half the crew still here Dale.”

“Yes, but most of them don’t know how to stand their ground against you. Some think the bags under your eyes are from black magic and not the lack of sleeping the rest of us know it is.”

“Every raid you make it more tempting to shoot you.”

Dale snorted, thumping Virgil on the back and making him let out a small ‘oof’ sound and hide a small smile.

As he watched the shore, he heard yelling, which was pretty normal for a raid, but the loud clear laughter wasn’t really something he was used to.

“Didn’t think Remus laughed loud enough to be heard over a raid on the shore,” he commented idly, tapping his fingers against the wooden railing he was leaning against.

“He has a laugh loud enough to wake the dead at the bottom of the sea, I think.”

Virgil’s smile grew at the thought. That sounded about right, with the amount of times Virgil heard Remus giggling while playing games with the rest of the crew when they were up keeping the ship from sinking.

Maybe he did have a soft spot for the man, but he doubted he could be blamed when Remus had done nothing but grin the entire time.

Besides, he’d kept his promise and told him many things about coastline royal schedules that made conquering other seas that much easier.

“Hope you’re not thinking your soft spot for the man isn’t just because of the power over the seas he’s given you?” Dale asked, not looking at Virgil now but at the shore where the villagers were trying to defend themselves.

Virgil suspected, with the chaos he could see Remus inflicting, that very few residents would be left when they were done.

“Should I pull out my gun now, Dale?” he asked, not really meaning the threat but making it anyway because what kind of captain would he be if didn’t threaten his crew on occasion?

Another snort from his lookout.

“You wouldn’t dare. I’m gonna head below deck for a bit now though. Gotta sharpen my cutlass and my room is right next to the kitchens so you can’t sneak by without my seeing you.”

Virgil sighed, waving Dale off as he walked away.

The dedication that man had to the upkeep of his sword when the ability to get new ones was just as easy was a bizarre one but Virgil could respect it.

“That was exhilarating!” Remus shouted, now back on board and startling Virgil from staring at the stars to looking at him in his pants and now tattered shirt that showed his chest bindings.

The thumping in his chest and the smile Virgil couldn’t help at seeing Remus’ excitement was almost enough to make him think Dale was right about his soft spot for their prince pirate.

“I trust you had fun then?” he called down, having been a level higher then the deck his crew was climbing back onto.

Remus whipped around and grinned up at Virgil, eyes bright in the starlight and chest heaving to take enough breaths.

“I killed people!”

Virgil let out a bark of a laugh at the enthusiasm, ignoring the little looks some of his crew was giving him.

“You better have! I doubt you could’ve gotten out of there alive if you hadn’t, prince.”

Remus’ face screwed up at that, sticking his tongue out at Virgil, earning another laugh from the captain.

“C’mon up here, let me take a look at you and we can discuss your pirate name, now that you’ve made yourself a bit more known as a part of my crew.”

The way Remus’ face lit up made Virgil’s heart twist in his chest, but he ignored it in favor of waving the man up and stepping into his own quarters to grab the first aid he knew how to do.

Usually Teagan and Logan were the ones to see to injuries. They were the most medically inclined, but Virgil picked up a thing or two in his years of pirating.

“A lady alone in your room with you could start a scandal, captain,” Remus said, making himself known.

“Well then, it’s a good thing you’re not a lady, or that I don’t care for scandals. Have a seat on the cot.”

Remus did so, fiddling with a ragged piece of his shirt and looking around the room in what looked like either curiosity or nerves to Virgil when he looked over.

“Drink this,” he said, handling Remus a glass of whiskey he’d just poured before pulling his medical supplies closer to him.

The prince pirate downed the entire glass, only wincing just a little bit. A month has given the man a bit of time to get used to the harshness of alcohol going down his throat, Virgil supposed.

“Alright, any spots in particular that hurt? And don’t tell me you feel fine. I doubt you got out of that unscathed, almost no one does.”

Remus grinned at him and slipped off his tattered shirt to show the cuts and bruises he’d acquired, making Virgil snort a bit.

There were cuts he could already see through the holes, but there was also a nasty bruise forming on Remus’ side, likely from someone swinging a club type weapon at him.

“You look like you had fun,” he commented, getting started with cleaning the dirt and sweat around the cuts first.

“I did! I’ve also been thinking about my pirate name. I think Pirate Duke Remus has a great ring to it, don’t you?”

Virgil paused, raising an eyebrow at Remus before letting out a quiet snort.

“I have to agree, suppose if someone asks you who you are, you know what to say then.”

“I do! I’m Duke Remus of the Storm Crew, damn that sounds great.”

Virgil let Remus ramble from there, cleaning up his wounds and patching what he could with a small smile while the man told stories of how he wanted to be known. It wasn’t until Remus paused that he looked at his face in curiosity and concern that he noticed the way Remus was staring at him now.

“Is there something wrong?”

“You’re the first man to treat me as a man myself. And you readily accepted me, even if ransoming me would’ve gotten you more money.”

Leaning back on the stool Virgil was sitting on, he watched Remus a little more closely.

“My crew started as one of outcasts. Didn’t feel right not to take in another,” he explained, tilting his head a little to the left while he watched Remus consider him.

“And now? I feel there’s more to it than that, captain.”

Virgil hummed, then decided fuck it and tilted Remus’ head up by his chin with his free hand and placed a short kiss to his lips.

The silence that followed made nerves coil in Virgil’s stomach, but he ignored them in favor of speaking further.

“You’ve definitely endeared yourself to me. I understand if that’s not something you want though, knowing me only a month and all. And you don’t even have to answer right away, given I’m not sure if I’m asking to court you-”

Remus interrupted him by pulling him in for another kiss, making it feel like the kraken he hadn’t realized was there was releasing it’s grip on Virgil’s chest.

“You talk to much when there’s kissing to be done, captain,” Remus said, grinning mischievously in a way that only made Virgil wanna kiss him again.

“You’re a problem member aren’t you, Duke?”

“It’s always been my dream to be one, captain.”

#casper writes #ts virgil #ts remus #ts dale #ts shorts dad character #dukexiety #mentions of teagan/teacher character #mentions of logan #dukexietyweek2020 #pirate au #trans male remus #pirate captain virgil #prince remus #this was so much fun to write oh my god???#look at them theyre gay

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hiddendreamer67 · 6 years ago

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Borrower Analogical (4)

Chapter Summary: November 16th, 2019. Virgil has a plan- get the key and get out.

(Check my reblog for links to previous chapters)

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Virgil had a plan. Oh yes, he had a plan.

...but Logan wasn’t going to like it.

Truth be told, Virgil didn’t like it either. He had been avoiding it, but with the way things had been escalating Virgil knew it was time to take risks rather than play it safe. Logan didn’t deserve to spend even a single night in that cage, and now he had spent three.

Virgil watched through the vent bars as the human, Patton, entered the bedroom where Logan was still held captive. The human offered Logan some food, then locked the cage door back up, the key hanging from his lanyard appearing in view only briefly before being tucked back under his shirt. Virgil leaned forward, watching Patton exit the room. Then Virgil stood, hurrying down through the vents to follow.

Much of the day was spent like this. Every time Patton traveled from room to room, Virgil was sure to follow; albeit at a much slower pace. By the end of the day Virgil was panting from all the exertion. It was quite a feat, trying to keep up with the human’s much larger steps.

Unfortunately, this was a necessary step to Virgil’s plan. He had to keep an eye on Patton as much as possible, tracking his movements. Well, more specifically, the key’s movements.

Strictly speaking, keys were an item never, ever to be touched by borrowers. Humans always noticed when they went missing and were willing to go to desperate measures to find them, sometimes including tearing up floorboards or drywall. And these humans were bound to notice the instant this particular key went missing, which meant Virgil would have to be quick.

But it was the only plan Virgil had. Simply picking the lock didn’t work. If the borrower had the actual key he could rescue Logan easily. They were bound to leave some evidence behind in their haste, but the humans already knew Logan existed. Would it really be so terrible for them to find a misplaced key if it meant Logan could go free? Virgil was certainly willing to pay the price.

However, it seemed Patton was very attached to this key. The human never took it off, and only rarely did Virgil actually catch enough of a glimpse of it to confirm the human still was wearing it. Virgil was beginning to doubt his own plan, trying to think of any alternatives, when it happened.

“Well, I’m heading to bed.” Patton yawned, waving goodnight to his human roommate. He returned to his own bedroom, unaware of the tiny footsteps following him in the walls. Patton got ready, changing into pajamas and brushing his teeth. He crawled into bed, setting his glasses onto the nightstand. Patton paused, but ultimately decided to keep the lanyard on as he slept. Roman’s paranoia was starting to get to him; it almost felt like Patton was being watched.

Patton shuddered, not wanting to entertain that idea any further. Instead he reached over and turned off the light, plunging the room into darkness. Then Patton laid back against his pillows. After a few minutes, his breathing began to even out as the human fell asleep.

“Oh, come on.” Virgil groaned, realizing the human even slept with the key on. Were humans really so obsessed with their keys? Virgil was always a worst-case-scenario kind of borrower. So, even though he had really, really hoped it wouldn’t come to this, Virgil still had a plan.

Virgil climbed through the wall tunnels, his feet sore from the long day of racing between rooms. He arrived at the outlet just below the nightstand of Patton’s room. With a strong push, the outlet cover gave way and revealed an exit.

The borrower peeked his head out, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Looking up, he could see the shifting form of the snoring human, still fast asleep. Good. Virgil could only hope he stayed that way.

Virgil swung his hook up onto the nightstand, knowing that it would be impossible to get the hook to catch on the blankets of the bed. He climbed up, avoiding the various objects placed on the wooden surface. Virgil stood, facing the human’s sleeping form. Virgil tried not to feel nervous, but that was difficult when every instinct inside him was screaming that this was a terrible idea. After all, what borrower in their right mind would go towards a human?

Trying not to think about what Logan would say when he inevitably found out about this, Virgil took a running leap onto the bed. He grappled onto the thick fabric with a death grip, refusing to be shaken as the blankets moved beneath him like a ship caught in a storm. Virgil scrambled up onto higher ground for better footing. With a slight jolt, he realized that in his haste to stay afloat Virgil had ended up on the human’s chest.

Virgil shuddered, trying not to think about what lay beneath the many layers of fabric under his feet. He took a few wobbly steps, making sure to keep his footing light. One false move could wake the giant and this would all be for naught.

It was a slow process, and Virgil kept his head down to focus on his own movements rather than face the very real danger he was heading towards. With every inhale and exhale Patton made, Virgil had to be careful not to be thrown off balance entirely. As he neared Patton’s face, Virgil could also feel a warm breeze that he realized was Patton’s breath.

“So weird.” Virgil whispered to himself. It was terrifyingly freaky being this close to a human. Virgil had never dared to do something this insane before. And he never wanted to do it again.

Virgil stopped, finally reaching his destination at the base of Patton’s neck. He knelt down, crawling on his hands and knees to where the lanyard rested. Virgil pulled on the strap, pulling the key out from under the blankets and into view. First he tried yanking it off, but the necklace was too sturdy. All the borrower got for his efforts was a groan from the human, and the floor shifting beneath him.

The hairs on the back of Virgil’s neck stood up. Quickly, Virgil took out his knife and began to saw at the lanyard. His hands were shaking. Virgil couldn’t stop thinking about all the things that could go wrong. What if the human was waking? The giant would probably be furious, especially if he figured out Virgil was trying to take his key. Would he just bite Virgil’s head off? Virgil knew that sort of thing wasn’t usually what humans did, but-

Lost in thought, Virgil’s hand slipped. His knife, made of a discarded razor blade, missed the thick strap of fabric entirely. Instead, Virgil could only watch in slow motion as his hand continued down as if of its own accord, slicing down across the human’s skin and leaving a scarlet trail.

“Ow!” Patton quickly sat up, and Virgil’s entire world was suddenly spinning. He tried to keep hold on anything in sight, trying not to fall. Unfortunately, this only earned him a startled gasp as the human became fully aware of his presence. A hand larger than him came up and swatted him away, sending Virgil careening across the bed as a thunderous shriek filled his ears.

“Patton!” The other human’s thundering footsteps came rumbling in, causing Virgil to groan. “What’s wrong?” This was bad. Virgil tried to get on his hands and knees, ignoring the way his head pounded inside his skull.

“I- there’s another one!” Patton tucked his legs close to his chest, pointing to the foot of the bed. “It bit me!”

No, I didn’t. Virgil thought vaguely to himself, feeling a bit foggy. Weakly he began to crawl away, but his muscles didn’t seem to be responding. Was that normal? Was this a normal thing for him? Virgil couldn’t remember.

“What? Really?!” The overhead light came on, leaving Virgil completely exposed as two humans gawked at him from a distance. “Well, then, uh, I’ll just-” There was a shuffling around the room, and a large shadow overtook Virgil.

“No, don’t hurt it!” Patton protested.

“I’m not!” A moment later, Virgil was plunged back into darkness. He felt around, realizing from texture alone the familiar feel of cardboard. A second later the wall came towards him, forcing Virgil back to the ground as his surroundings were once again in motion. As everything flipped upside right, Virgil realized he had been caught in a box.

Virgil scrambled into the corner, gazing fearfully up at the giant faces peering down in at him. Patton had grabbed his glasses from the nightstand and seemed a bit anxious to peek very far. Roman, on the other hand, was looking at him with an unreadable expression that might’ve been some mix of excitement and anger. Virgil gulped.

“What’re we going to do about you?” Roman asked, and though Virgil knew the human was talking about him he didn’t dare answer. Luckily the humans didn’t seem to want Virgil’s opinion anyways, turning instead to each other for advice. “Should I put him in with the other one, Pat?”

Virgil’s eyes widened at this suggestion, a small ray of hope in his otherwise bleak scenario. Yes, he was captured. And his head was foggy. But the fact that he would soon be reunited with Logan was a small blessing. Between the two of them, surely they could figure out an escape plan from the inside.

“No.” Patton’s words cut Virgil’s hope like a knife. Just like how Virgil had cut Patton with a knife just moments ago. As if replaying that event in his head, Patton rubbed at his neck subconsciously. “I don’t think that’s a great idea. This one seems too...violent. What if they fight? I don’t want our little guy getting hurt.”

...No. Virgil looked pleadingly up at the humans, but neither of them seemed to be paying him attention as they discussed his fate above his head. No, please, we won’t fight. I promise I’ll be good.

“Well, can you get another cage then?” Roman suggested. Just put us together. Please.

“Yes, but not until the morning.” Patton glanced at the clock. “They don’t open until seven.” I didn’t even stab you that hard!

Virgil pulled at his hair. The Universe just had to treat him so cruelly, didn’t it? It wasn’t enough for Virgil to be put into captivity, he had to be isolated as well. Unfortunately, there was nothing Virgil could do about it. His fate was sealed. The box lid closed, the humans thinking it best to keep him contained until his new prison was ready.

#borrower analogical #part 4 #g/t #borrowers #borrower #borrower!virgil #borrower!logan #infinitesimal!sides #day by day #borrowing #human!roman #human!patton #analogical

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everythingmusicandfilm · 7 years ago

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Oscars 2018

I can’t believe it has been a whole year since La La Land was best picture for a whole two minutes. Yes, it’s that time again, oscar season. Although I am most excited to see Tom Holland in a suit, I am also eager to see who takes home the golden statues. Every year I try my best to watch the oscar nominated films and this year was no different. Before I get into my picks for the oscars, a little reminder that these are my own personal opinions. I do not claim to be a film expert or anything, this is just who I think should win for each category!

Writing

Adapted Screenplay

“Call Me By Your Name” James Ivory

“The Disaster Artists” Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber

“Logan” Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green

“Molly’s Game” Aaron Sorkin

“Mudbound” Virgil Williams and Dee Rees

As much as I LOVED Logan and think it is without a doubt the best wolverine film we have seen, Call Me By Your Name is my pick here. The story addresses a romantic relationship between an unlikely pair, a 30 year old man and a 17 year old boy. As we live in a time where a racist and misogynistic male is president of the free world, this film offers us an escape to remember that love is important. Elio’s father’s speech as he explains that he accepts that Elio is gay, is a moving and inspiring monologue. The story provides a beautiful representation of homosexuality and reminds the world of the importance of love, especially in a time of struggle and pain.

Original Screenplay

“The Big Sick” Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani

“Get Out” Jordan Peele

“Lady Bird” Greta Gerwig

“The Shape of Water” Guillermo del Toro, Vanessa Taylor

“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” Martin McDonagh

Get Out offers a surprisingly unique storyline that successfully combines elements of psychological horror with dark humour. I have never been a huge horror film fan, however I really enjoyed this film and was constantly engaged. The film had me hooked right until the end. It addresses a particular side of racism as it is set in the post-obama era. It connects historical themes of slavery with the contemporary nature of white people being envious of black people. The story line is captivating and innovative and hence why I think it should win best original screenplay.

Technical

Cinematography

“Blade Runner 2049” Roger Deakins

“Darkest Hour” Bruno Delbonnel

“Dunkirk” Hoyte van Hoytema

“Mudbound” Rachel Morrison

“The Shape of Water” Dan Laustsen

Without a doubt. Every single frame in Blade Runner 2049 is a piece of art. The cinematography in Dunkirk of course is spectacular and captivating and don’t even get me started on the lighting in The Shape of Water, however Blade Runner 2049 is so visually stunning that the light almost feels alive. Roger Deakins paints a picture almost frighteningly realistic as the audience faces the realities of human nature. The cinematography highlights the importance of the visual in science fiction films and is a refreshingly unique and powerful aspect that makes Blade Runner 2049 so incredible.

Visual Effects

“Blade Runner 2049” John Nelson, Paul Lambert, Richard R. Hoover and Gerd Nefzer

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Jonathan Fawkner and Dan Sudick

“Kong: Skull Island” Stephen Rosenbaum, Jeff White, ScottBenza and Mike Meinardus

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” Ben Morris, Mike Mulholland, Chris Corbould and Neal Scanlan

“War for the Planet of the Apes” Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett and Joel Whist

Even though I am obsessed with the visuals in Blade Runner 2049, I think it is about time that Planet of the Apes is recognised for the stunning visual effects. Weta Digital has once again proved themselves to be one of the best in the business as they bring these apes to life. Their performance capture technology is so innovative that it captures the smallest details of Andy Serkis’s facial expressions and manages to translate it onto the ever realistic ape. The first two Planet of the Apes films were snubbed by the academy and I really believe that it should win this year.

Production Design

“Beauty and the Beast” Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer

“Blade Runner 2049” Dennis Gassner and Alessandra Querzola

“Darkest Hour” Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer

“Dunkirk” Nathan Crowley and Gary Fettis

“The Shape of Water” Paul D. Austerberry, Jeffrey A. Melvin and Shane Vieau

Austerberry, Melvin and Vieau successfully manage to create an entire world in The Shape of Water. The sets, props and lighting all come together to create a magical film. Elisa’s theatre apartment is so beautifully detailed that it took almost 3500 colour samples to create. Each of the sets are inspired and shaped by water from the rusted down walls to the pipes in the lab. So much thought and detail has been put into the design of this film and that is why it is one of the most beautiful films.

Film Editing

“Baby Driver,” Jonathan Amos and Paul Machliss

“Dunkirk,” Lee Smith

“I, Tonya,” Tatiana S. Riegel

“The Shape of Water,” Sidney Wolinsky

“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” Jon Gregory

It doesn’t take an expert to recognise the amazing editing skills being portrayed in Baby Driver. The entire film is cut to musical cues, which meant that it had to be edited on set. The editing successfully falls to the beat of the music without the audience even realising. The editing is thorough and naturally allows the film to flow the way it does. The pacing and editing of the film is what makes it so unique so I really hope it takes home the oscar on Sunday.

Makeup and Hairstyling

“Darkest Hour,” Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski and Lucy Sibbick

“Victoria and Abdul,” Daniel Phillips and Lou Sheppard

“Wonder,” Arjen Tuiten

Gary Oldman is completely unrecognisable as Winston Churchill in the Darkest Hour. The transformation is shocking and although Oldman’s performance definitely contributes to the amazing portrayal of Churchill, the makeup and hairstyling is what makes it oscar worthy.

Costume Design

“Beauty and the Beast,” Jacqueline Durran

“Darkest Hour,” Jacqueline Durran

“Phantom Thread,” Mark Bridges

“The Shape of Water,” Luis Sequeira

“Victoria and Abdul,” Consolata Boyle

As the film is a story about a fashion designer in the 1950s Couture World of London, it is no surprise that the costumes in the film are stunning. Each piece is so detailed and intrinsic, it is easy to see the hard work that went into making them. Although I feel like any one of these films could take home the oscar as this was a relatively hard category to pick one favourite. Phantom Thread however has become known for its costume design and this could be what edges it out slightly from the other nominees.

Sound

Original Score

“Dunkirk,” Hans Zimmer

“Phantom Thread,” Jonny Greenwood

“The Shape of Water,” Alexandre Desplat

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” John Williams

“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” Carter Burwell

Although personally Call Me By Your Name should win best original score, The Shape of Water is a very close second. The delicate, beautiful piano pieces add to the stunning elements of the film. The score transports us to this other world as we follow Elisa’s story. The music is what successfully balances the science fiction side of the film with the sad story of Elisa wanting to be heard for once. Because Elisa is mute I often feel that the music in the film speaks for her as it reflects how she feels. I believe that the sound is one of the most important elements of filmmaking and if you have a successful score then you will have a successful film, and this is definitely the case with The Shape of Water.

Original Song

“Mighty River” from “Mudbound,” Mary J. Blige

“Mystery of Love” from “Call Me by Your Name,” Sufjan Stevens

“Remember Me” from “Coco,” Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez

“Stand Up for Something” from “Marshall,” Diane Warren and Common

“This Is Me” from “The Greatest Showman,” Benj Pasek and Justin Paul

This is a particular tough category as “Mystery of Love” from Call Me By Your Name is a gorgeous piano piece that makes me feel like I am in Italy during the summer and “This is Me” from The Greatest Showman brought tears to my eyes. However “Remember Me” from Coco is an emotional and inspiring piece of music that represents the entire film. Pixar is not often recognised for the music in their films and think that should change this year with this song.

Sound Editing

“Baby Driver,” Julian Slater

“Blade Runner 2049,” Mark Mangini and Theo Green

“Dunkirk,” Alex Gibson, Richard King

“The Shape of Water,” Nathan Robitaille and Nelson Ferreira

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Ren Klyce and Matthew Wood

The difference between sound editing and sound mixing is that sound editing is about what you hear, sound mixing is about how you hear it. Screw the 70mm screen, I think Dunkirk should win best sound editing because it is the sound that makes the war film so immersive. The sound editing in Dunkirk is so precise and captivating that the audience has no idea they are being manipulated. The constant ticking, the ocean waves and the ascending pitch creates an increasing intensity that unites the three different storylines. The war film that shows no blood is still so intense and captivating because of the sound editing.

Sound Mixing

“Baby Driver,” Mary H. Ellis, Julian Slater and Tim Cavagin

“Blade Runner 2049,” Mac Ruth, Ron Bartlett and Doug Hephill

“Dunkirk,” Mark Weingarten, Gregg Landaker and Gary A. Rizzo

“The Shape of Water,” Glen Gauthier, Christian Cooke and Brad Zoern

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Stuart Wilson, Ren Klyce, David Parker and Michael Semanick

Sound mixing however deserves to go to Baby Driver. The entire film is choreographed to the sound yet it does not feel anything like a musical. This is because the sound mixers successfully managed to have the action cut to the sound while still allowing the film to not feel so choreographed. The diegetic and non-diegetic sound perfectly mix together to make a film based around music, to not be anything close to a musical. Every sound from the placement of a cup to the chewing of gum is synched in time with the music. So much work went into this film to ensure that the sound would drive the story and that is exactly what it does.

Acting

Best Supporting Actor

Willem Dafoe, “The Florida Project”

Woody Harrelson, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

Richard Jenkins, “The Shape of Water”

Christopher Plummer, “All the Money in the World”

Sam Rockwell, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

SAM ROCKWELL 100% !!!!! I was absolutely blown away by his performance in Three Billboards. Rockwell plays a problematic character of a racist cop who’s only answer is violence. While there is criticism of the film trying to get the audience to sympathise for his character at the end, there is no doubt that Rockwell’s performance is inspiring. Dixon is such a complicated character with so many different sides and we see Rockwell successfully show us all of them in this film. Everyone is always talking about Frances in this film but I believe that the best acting performance came from Rockwell.

Best Supporting Actress

Mary J. Blige, “Mudbound”

Allison Janney, “I, Tonya”

Lesley Manville, “Phantom Thread”

Laurie Metcalf, “Lady Bird”

Octavia Spencer, “The Shape of Water”

Although Allison Janney is picked to be the favourite and I did admire her performance, Laurie Metcalf in Lady Bird is the winner for me. Metcalf has a way with words that really brings out her performance. She understands the importance of a mother’s role in her daughter’s life as she delivers an inspiring performance.

Best Lead Actor

Timothée Chalamet, “Call Me by Your Name”

Daniel Day-Lewis, “Phantom Thread”

Daniel Kaluuya, “Get Out”

Gary Oldman, “Darkest Hour”

Denzel Washington, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.”

Another tough pick as Daniel Kaluuya delivered an amazing performance in Get Out, Daniel Day-Lewis and Denzel Washington were as incredible as ever and Gary Oldman in the Darkest Hour is possibly his best performance yet, however Timothee Chalamet in Call Me By Your Name is my favourite performance of all. This was the first time I had seen Chalamet in a film, and he blew me away. He is so young yet his performance is so inspiring, it is what makes the relationship between his character and Armie Hammer’s character work so well. Although I think Gary Oldman will probably win on the night, I think Chalamet deserves it the most.

Best Lead Actress

Sally Hawkins, “The Shape of Water”

Frances McDormand, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

Margot Robbie, “I, Tonya”

Saoirse Ronan, “Lady Bird”

Meryl Streep, “The Post”

Every single one of these lovely ladies deserves best lead actress however if I had to choose one it would have to be Frances McDormand. Her performance represents the pain and suffering of a world where so much sexual harassment is happening and nothing is being done about it. The audience is moved to tears as we follow her struggle of finding justice for her daughter. Frances truly leads the film to success and this is what a lead actress does. Her passionate monologues are just as empowering as to what she doesn’t say and this is why she deserves best lead actress.

Best Director and Best Picture

Best Director

“Dunkirk,” Christopher Nolan

“Get Out,” Jordan Peele

“Lady Bird,” Greta Gerwig

“Phantom Thread,” Paul Thomas Anderson

“The Shape of Water,” Guillermo del Toro

Is it possible to have all five directors win? Because that would be my pick. Jordan Peele delivers what has been called ‘the film of the year’ with Get Out. Greta Gerwig is the only female to be nominated and hence I think she should win solely for that reason, also because Lady Bird is the stunning, coming of age film that we have all been waiting for. Paul Thomas Anderson somehow manages to make emotions visual with his lovely film Phantom Thread and Guillermo del Toro who is an extremely close second delivers my favourite picture The Shape of Water. However I think it is about time that Nolan finally received the oscar for best director. There is no doubt that Christopher Nolan is a mastermind when it comes to filmmaking. Each and every one of his films are incredible pieces of work. Dunkirk however is the unconventional war film that I never thought I needed. There is no blood and guts in this film and the simple long takes and minimal dialogue makes it seem rather minimalistic. However the film still has so much depth and impact. Nolan chose to strip the film down and focus on what is important, the framing and the sound to create an immersive epic film. His choices in the film reflect his genius mind and clearly show that he is indeed the best director.

Best Picture

“Call Me by Your Name” Luca Guadagnino

“Darkest Hour” Joe Wright

“Dunkirk” Christopher Nolan

“Get Out” Jordan Peele

“Lady Bird” Greta Gerwig

“Phantom Thread” Paul Thomas Anderson

“The Post” Steven Spielberg

“The Shape of Water” Guillermo del Toro

“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” Michael McDonagh

I think this is the hardest year ever to pick a film for best picture. There have been so many amazing films this year. I chose The Shape of Water however because it is the only film that exceeds in all areas of filmmaking. The score as I have already explained drives the narrative of the film and contributes to the beautiful aesthetic. The production design transports us to another world. The cinematography and in particular the lighting is so beautiful it perfectly reflects the nature of being underwater. The story is unique and innovative as we are able to look past the weirdness of a woman sleeping with a fish to realise the true meaning of a mute girl wanting to be heard. Sally Hawkins plays a difficult part in making this story focus on the beautiful hidden meaning rather than on the science fiction aspect, and she does this very successfully. Guillermo del Toro manages to bring all these elements together to create a unique and stunning film that has everyone talking. I never thought a film about a romance between a girl and a fish could be so beautiful and that is why it is my pick for best picture.

#oscars #film #the shape of water #call me by your name #dunkirk #get out #phantom thread #lady bird #three billboards #darkest hour #timothee chalamet #gary oldman #christopher nolan #frances mcdormand #sam rockwell #baby driver

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7r0773r · 5 years ago

Text

The Hundred Brothers by Donald Antrim

Elsewhere people came and went, played card games and chess, tended to one another’s injuries, chased the bats. These men’s lives seemed, for the moment, untouched by fear. But I did not envy them. I felt the way humans must have felt in earlier times, at the dawn of our history, when the world was alive with primitive dangers and life depended for its preservation on the graces and fancies of hateful gods.

“Go ahead, kill me,” I commanded the dog. He held on to his bone. What was he thinking? There was no way of knowing. He was just a dog.

Winds blew and the music played. Snow piled up. People talked but I was not paying attention to their conversations. I felt the cold air. Gunner’s eyes shimmered and I held my book close to me. It was easy, looking into the dog’s mouth, at those white teeth and black gums, to imagine the power and authority our ancestors must have felt with companions like Gunner at their sides.

What an animal. What was he doing with an alcoholic like Chuck for a master? “You understand about death, don’t you?” I said to him. He growled quietly then readjusted the bone, expertly, in his teeth. Snap snap. I regarded this as an answer of sorts. I confided to the Doberman, “Once upon a time men celebrated the seasons of death and rebirth with sacrifices and burnt offerings. The world was cold and forbidding, and if you didn’t watch out, your enemies would come up behind you and kill you with a spear or a club. A single night’s foul weather could destroy your crops, and then you might starve. Each day brought terror. Angry spirits unleashed thunder and lightning, diseases and pestilences, every species of ferocious beast. Men developed language to communicate their terror to one another. People were in pain all the time. They believed they would be rewarded for their pain. This is what is known as the human condition.”

It seemed to me that the dog was paying attention. What a fierce nose Gunner had. Perhaps he knew, from my serious tone of voice, that I was speaking on weighty matters. I told him, “Over the years mankind has devised many ways to alleviate the pain of living, and much of human history can be understood as a death march toward this goal. Although suffering in life can sometimes be postponed, it can never be avoided. This is the central lesson of the world’s religions. Please don’t drool on the book. All right, Gunner? Good boy. This is the central lesson of the world’s religions. Where was I? The pain of existence is ours to bear. In order to bear it we must make sacrifices. We must offer ourselves up before God and our fellow man. That is the function of the Corn King.”

The dog really did appear to be listening. It was as if he knew—was letting me know that he knew—what I was talking about. Of course I realize it would be going too far to suggest that animals comprehend the symbolic realm. But I gave Gunner the benefit of the doubt. “The Corn King is an archetypal harvest spirit. His story is as old as recorded time. In rude societies, before the dawn of civilization, when it was believed that spirits resided in all things, in the mountains and lakes, trees and grasses, cats and dogs” —I gave Gunner a smile; his ears pricked up and I went on —”no spirit was regarded with greater awe than the spirit of the corn. From corn came food and grain alcohol. Life depended on the harvest, and so human beings were routinely sacrificed to ensure the fertility of the crop. These were martyrs. While alive—and death was painful, very painful, Gunner—the Corn King’s human representatives were worshiped as gods. It was their blood that enriched the earth, their tears that brought the rains, their flesh that fatted the land. They died so that others might live. Today, mimicry of this ancient practice is common in many popular religions.” At this point the dog began to lose interest. He made a yawning sound and fiddled with the bone in his mouth. I quickly said, “In some instances, the Corn King’s still-beating heart was cut out and devoured!"

I felt nervous telling Gunner this. That blood on my shirtfront was a perfect target. We’ve all heard the frightening stories of domesticated animals regressing into feral states and tearing their owners limb from limb. Gunner had made short work of that pork chop. The dog’s nose twitched. Perhaps he had eaten enough. I explained to him that modern men had lost touch with ancient rhythms of death and regeneration, but that it was possible—if you took intoxicants and wore the right mask and costume—to regain connection with the primeval aspects of the Self, and to enact, in ritualized form, the important celebrations of sacrifice and abasement; that this was, in some respects, what family get-togethers were all about. I wrapped up, “You see, Gunner, the Corn King is my gift to my brothers. Every year I have a few drinks, then get in costume, and they try to catch me. Luckily, most of those guys are out of shape. Ultimately, the Corn King must die. In this way the family of man can prosper and thrive.”

This ended my talk with the dog. But Gunner did not back off right away. First he allowed me to pet his head. What a pleasant creature. He only wanted what we all want from time to time, to submit and feel love. “Gunner, how would you like to be my dog?”

My fear of him was gone. In fear’s place was a new self-possession; I understood why people keep animals. I rose from my chair—carefully holding A Complete Guide to Heraldry in front of my body, just to be safe—and I didn’t even bother pretending to have a hurt foot. So what if Lester said something? It was late and the time had come at last to go over to the African masks, choose a colorful headdress from the wall, put it on my head, then run around and shout the kinds of obscenities that get people mad.

“Come on, Gunner.” (pp. 166-70)

***

There is nothing quite like the primitive ecstasy of pissing somewhere besides the bathroom. I rate the act very highly. Pissing in nature or in some dark corner, as I was, captures and brings into consciousness certain archaic versions of a man’s most secret Self—those aspects of character and identity that remain, in civilized daily life, veiled, disguised, sealed away: the messy, narcissistic, bodily Self of infancy; the wild, magnificent, feral Self of mankind’s prehistoric beginnings; that communal, loving Self expressed in each man’s deep bond with his fellow men; and of course the sovereign, assertive, fiercely territorial Self that announces, Get out of my way! I’m taking a leak!

Feeling such emotions, it was impossible not to elevate the stream and hose down, as they say, a few literary masterpieces.

I may as well point out that I was able to hit titles all the way up on the third and fourth shelves. When you get into your middle years, as I have, these things matter.

I shook and put it away. Since I’m being frank, I ought to say that I went through the mature man’s generic process of shaking: several rapid shakes followed by a brief rest followed by more jiggling, and the whole ordeal repeated until everything feels comfortably dry and secure. As I grow longer in the tooth, I find myself shaking off for greater and greater stretches of time, and I always use this time to fret morosely about my health in general, and about the likelihood that a grave illness, conceivably located in the bladder region, will overtake me in the future, maybe imminently. In this way a pleasurable, natural act becomes the catalyst for somber reflections and an unnatural, incipient depression. So much of life follows this pattern exactly, I think. We begin to lose ourselves in a joyful or gratifying act—it can be a creature comfort or something complicatedly emotional like stimulating conversation or the solitary immersion in a poem, a beautiful landscape, or a work of art—and we forget, in the moment of serenity, all the pain and trouble of life. Until, quite suddenly and, as a rule, shockingly, this very forgetfulness, our fleeting holiday from care, becomes nothing more than another occasion to remember how truly infrequently happiness comes to us, and how likely we are to die in some horrible way. Then, disgusted with ourselves over our inability to enjoy life, we halt the pleasurable activity and move on, as speedily as we can, to other business. It was precisely this kind of dispirited self-loathing that led me to give myself only a few cursory shakes, so that when I replaced myself in my trousers, I felt urine dribbling down my leg. As always when this happens, I became enraged. I became angry and irrational. The night was cold, and I struggled against despair.

The struggle, however, was unavailing.

I wept.

At first I wept for myself—for my incontinence, obviously—and then for my entire, ridiculous existence, and for the loneliness I felt, not only there in the literature section in the late hours on that snowy night, but all the time, constantly, ever since I could remember feeling anything at all. As I wept, I felt lonelier and lonelier and lonelier. I envisioned, one after another, my brothers, the bloated, red faces of my brothers, all my beloved brothers but in particular Hiram and Virgil and Maxwell. These three I loved best. And also George. Would we ever see George again? After a while I was weeping for the rose garden and the former grandeur of our trees and lawns, those green fields where we played as children. We had always hurt one another in our games; hurting was the object of our games; and this made me cry more, and I held the blue pillow to my breast. I wrapped my arms around the blue pillow, hugged it to me, and let the tears come. I was standing in water up to my ankles, and this for some reason became another pressing sadness. I suppose it was because the water was rising that I felt so affected. Before long I was crying for, it seemed, everything. Everything in the red library was deserving of tears. Those eyeless, emaciated, deaf and dead animals on their barren squares of wall always reminded me of past Dougs, the Dougs who perished as youths; and, as I wept, they reminded me, the animals, of myself and of what would surely become of me one day, maybe soon. I was nothing but another Doug. Hiram was the oldest. Father I know really, only from his occasional, shadowy appearances above the lights, his intermittent manifestations as a damp stain. Actually, this is not, strictly speaking, the whole truth. It is true in the sense that it describes the way I have felt for as long as I have known my feelings. I remember, I think, our father's face and his voice. I remember his mustache. I remember our father in his underwear at night. I remember the hair on his legs. I remember the smell in the bathroom after he left it. I remember his unhappiness and his dread of our happiness, and I remember him saying, “How's my Doug?” I remember his body’s smells, his smells of tobacco, of course, and of alcohol and cologne, a cologne like lavender you never smell anymore. I remember the pleasure of seeing him enter the room. I remember certain stories and jokes. Actually, I forget the stories and the jokes, though I remember that these existed. I remember his conviction that he was hated, and I remember the thunder his footsteps made crossing the floor. Time after time my brothers and I have joined together to eat, drink, and bury that man. All we ever did was eat, drink, and injure each other. The sadness of our cruelty was more than I could bear. Tears rose in waves that washed up from the center of my body. The muscles in my sides felt as if they would tear from the strain of that sobbing. The water around my feet was steadily rising. I knew it was prideful to overinterpret broken pipes and a leaking roof, but on the other hand it did seem that I was not completely alone in my crying, that the red library was dripping and pouring out its own tears, its own remorse.

I thought these things because I had failed to shake off after urinating. What a degenerate I was. What sadness, to come to such a point in life, this point at which the simplest acts, acts that promise pleasure, give access only to terrors and an overriding impression of loss. (pp. 183-87)

***

There is an impression, held true in our society, that the father is surpassed, overtaken, outlived, and in these and other respects, killed by the son.

But this is, I think, actually not the case. In truth, I think, it is always the son who is killed by the father. Couldn’t it be argued that each man dies the death made for him by his father? (p. 205)

#donald antrim #book quotes

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roamingholiday · 8 years ago

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Friday, September 29th 2017

POMPEII, AND THE BAY OF NAPLES, IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE.

Before I go into more detail, I just wanted to mention something. For most students at Temple Rome, they have chosen to study abroad here rather than elsewhere simply because our school has a campus here. It’s a study abroad opportunity, true, and they enjoy living here because it’s different from the United States, because they get to experience a new culture, learn a new language, and it’s in Europe, which means quick and cheap flights to anywhere within the EU. I don’t disagree with any of that, and I think they’re all perfectly, excellently valid reasons for choosing to stay here for a semester or a year.

That’s not why I’m here, though. I’m in Rome because it’s Rome. I’m not jetting off to Munich or Paris every other weekend because this isn’t just an easy access point for me. I’ve been studying Latin for six years now. I’m getting a degree in Classics. I never grew out of my little kid obsession with Greek and Roman mythology, and now I’m majoring in it. I was seven when I first picked up a book on mythology and I haven’t really put it down since. I’m in Rome. I get to walk along the Tiber each morning and see the Colosseum in the distance and that is ridiculous to me, even now, after almost two months. I’ve read letters and poems and speeches about the streets that I’m walking down to get to school every day and that’s insane.

Rome is a modern city, though, and it’s impossible to forget it, even with my imagination. So you can imagine how I felt wandering through the ruins of Pompeii.

I’ve been to Pompeii once before, on a day trip for one of my roommate’s birthdays, and we did a rather stumbling self-guided tour which, while very fun, was hardly informative. This particular trip, however, was an excursion associated with my Roman History course, lead by a professor who lives and breathes classical history, and who promised us before we left that it would be a death march through the ruins and we would get more information than we knew what to do with over the next three days. I was, as you might expect, very excited.

We took a big coach bus down on Friday, boarding at 7 in the morning exactly (I am not afraid to leave late students behind!! -Professor, on three different occasions when reminding us that when he says we leave at 7 he means we leave at 7). We were immediately given a forty some page packet of maps, floor plans, and letters of Pliny, and then left to fall, one and all, to sleep during the first couple hour leg of the journey.

We did not end up in Pompeii during the first day. Instead, we went to a beautiful little town called Terracina, in the bay of Naples, to visit the temple complex of Iuppiter Anxur, a gorgeous building that overlooks Terracina and the bay from a cliff, with foundations dating back to long before the Romans were out conquering the whole of Southern Italy (the Roman colony of Terracina, if you were curious, was founded in 329 BCE), though the current iteration was built primarily in the first century BCE, at the time of the second triumvirate, as part of a veteran colony. The temple was probably dedicated to Jupiter (hence the name), though there are theories about it really being a Venus territory.

At the base of the cliff on which the temple sits, notable because it’s not actually a natural cliff. About two thousand years ago, give or take a century or two, the Romans decided that going around the mountain took too long, so they just…. moved the mountain. Carved it flat and made a passageway. If you look closely at the cliff you can actually see Roman numerals that were carved into the rock to indicate how much was cut away at that point. At the highest point, 120 ft of stone was removed.

Terracina and the bay of Naples from the temple, because it was stunningly beautiful.

There is no photograph of the actual temple, I’m afraid, because there was no way to get a good picture from the base of the cliff, and no way to capture everything when we were wandering around inside. Google Terracina Iuppiter Anxur if you’re curious.

Following Terracina, we headed off to the Villa of Tiberius.

CRASH COURSE IN VILLAS: There are two kinds of villas. You might think that there are three kinds of villas. You would be wrong. The two kinds of villas are called villa urbana and villa rustica. Neither of them exist within the boundaries of any ancient city, because villas are, by definition, country estates. If it’s a house in the country, it’s a villa. If it’s a house in the city, it’s a domus at best. The villa rustica is essentially a farmhouse. Rustic, you might say. Like something one might expect to exist in the countryside. The villa urbana is like if you were a very rich person and could pack up everything that you liked about being in a booming metropolis of a city like Rome, and then stuck it in a house in the countryside so that you could feel free from city woes. There is an absolutely hysterical genre of poetry written by Roman poets who think that they should be able to tell you how to live in the countryside and ‘rough it’ because they happen to have access to a house that is, in the most basic sense, in the country. Lots of stuff about how to farm written by dudes who have, once, glanced out of their gilded window frames to observe a slave in the field across the way. Go read the Georgics (Virgil, pre-Aeneid. Don’t get me wrong, fantastic political commentary in that poem, but in no way is it actually about “agricultural things,” even if that is the Greek translation of the word georgic.

Villa culture was, essentially, about flaunting wealth, and reveling in your own status as a highly educated member of the elite. You built the houses to have massive libraries and statuary and a view of the ocean, so that you could roll around in your own cultural and intellectual heritage in front of the fishes, and generally prove that you were better than everyone else.

Anyway, the Villa of Tiberius. Tiberius was emperor after Augustus, and got the entirely unenviable task of trying to convince everybody that emperors were a good idea (Augustus never technically declared himself emperor, you know?) and also trying to sort out the mess that happens when there are no rules because one single genius invented the entire government structure and ran it by himself for forty five years and then died without telling anyone how he did it all. I do not begrudge him his gorgeous villa, if only because he deserved a place to get some R&R after years spent trying to drag a reinvented governmental system from the hands of a dead man.

The coolest part of the villa (both figuratively and literally, actually) was the natural cave in the cliff wall that the villa was built next to. The base of the villa opened onto the ocean (you can not buy beach front property this good today, my friend), but the entire left side extended into the cave, and incorporated a gorgeous series of tide pools, both natural and manmade. This cave was the crowning jewel of Tiberius’s villa, and included several incredible sculptures that now live in the museum next to the villa’s ruins.

Statue of Ganymede, above the cave’s entrance. Looks like he’s got wings, but he doesn’t, actually, this is a statue that depicts the precise moment that Zeus, having looked down across the mortal world and seen Ganymede and thought Wow Pretty, sent an eagle to abduct him. For those of you who don’t know the myth, Ganymede is literally so attractive that Zeus makes him a god on Olympus. Just for being pretty. He’s Zeus’s cupbearer. If you thought people were joking about how very startlingly gay Ancient Greece was, you would be very wrong.

To be clear, there is nothing heterosexual about this story. At all. Zeus did not make Ganymede a god because he was lonely and wanted a good buddy to josh around with. Just. To be abundantly clear. Very very homosexual feelings all around, here. I say this because I once had someone tell me, to my face, that there was no way ancient Greek gods were actually gay. My dude, you have no idea.

(I mean, more accurately speaking Zeus is just very, very pansexual (or bisexual, depending on your preference), but this particular story is just super gay.)

Also, for those of you clever cookies who noticed that I’m not using the Roman name, good for you. The Ganymede myth does exist in Rome, he’s called Catamitus and was abducted by Jupiter, but this sculpture is pretty definitely Ganymede, because the theme for all of the sculptures in the cave was hellenism (or How Greek Can You Be: Roman Edition), but I’ll get to that later.

More cave! You can see the Ganymede sculpture all the way up at the tippy top. It’s a recreation, also, the sculpture is, the original is in the museum to preserve it. Most of the floor of the cave is taken up by a tidal pool, too, and you can see all the way in the back a carved out portion, and what looks like a door, and a glowing white square next to the door. For size reference of just how large (I hesitate to call it gigantic, only because I know there are caves that are much, much larger, but it was big to me, okay?) the cave is, I am about as tall as that glowing white square thing in that cut out room. Yes, I’m bitter about that. Moving on.

Another angle of that same cut out room, now inside the cave. You see what I mean about the floor, yeah?

From the back of the cave. There was a large space behind me, of course, and there were those cut out rooms, but most of the cave was taken up by the pool. The theory is that there would have been a bedchamber area and a dining area in these cut out spaces, so that when the weather was too warm Tiberius could retreat to his cave house and live comfortably.

As you can see in the background, that whole area on the left where there doesn’t appear to be any sign of human habitation is the ocean. Honestly, if this were my villa, I would probably never leave. Screw running Rome, I want to sit in my cave beach house and read from my enormous library and have my servants bring me whatever I want. Sounds like a good life.

Now we get to the museum, and an artistic rendering of the cave statuary as it probably stood. That beautiful still glassy pool wouldn’t have been empty, not in an emperor’s house.

You’ve already gotten the spiel about letter E, Ganymede, so let’s move on to C, all the way in the back there (where I was standing to take that cave mouth photograph, actually, though that means almost nothing to you).

A recreation, of course, we don’t have this entire thing, but we have enough fragments and enough literary sources describing it to thing that this is pretty close to the original. This is, in all his alcoholic glory, Polyphemus, the cyclops from the Odyssey, who captured Odysseus and his men in his cave to eat them. Odysseus disagreed with that plan of action, for fairly obvious reasons, and thus got Polyphemus drunk, stabbed out his only eye with a burning stake, and then hitched a ride on the undersides of Polyphemus’s sheep (poor guy was a shepherd) in order to get out of the cave without being noticed (Polyphemus was blind, see, not dumb, so he felt the backs of his sheep to make sure that none of his captives rode out on them. He didn’t think to check the underbelly of the sheep because who rides on an underbelly? Nobody, that’s who). As one does. He also told Polyphemus, as he left, that his name was Nobody, which is why none of the other cyclops came to the rescue when Polyphemus shouted for help, because Nobody was attacking him.

This is B, from that little drawing up there, though it doesn’t really look like all that much. It’s made from the fragments that we have, rather than being a reconstruction, like the Polyphemus scene. It’s from the Odyssey as well, later on in the story, when Odysseus’s ship must pass by the cave of the monster Scylla. Scylla is a sea monster, who has dog heads instead of legs. Yeah. Not dog /legs/ instead of legs, or a dog head instead of a head, but dog heads, multiple, for legs. I’ll let you figure the logistics of that one out, because honestly I have sat through an entire class where twenty classics students, plus our classics PhD professor, tried and failed to understand how exactly that might work. Horrifying? Yes. Very confusing? Also yes. Something that it is very difficult to make a statue of? Also also yes.

This particular scene is of Scylla taking men directly from Odysseus’s ship to eat them. With her human head? With her dog heads? Who knows! Not us! We don’t want to!

We’re missing most of the figure of Scylla, so you’re just going to have to imagine a beautiful woman somewhere in the center of the piece, somehow emerging out of all of those dogs. Also, that hand in the front there is supposed to go on the prow of the ship, we think, but that doesn’t fit the reconstructed image at all unless the artist just threw all of anatomy out of the window when he made the piece, which is not a thing to rule out.

Interestingly, the sculpture is, apparently, made by the same workshop in Rome that crafted the fairly famous sculpture of Laocoon and his sons being eaten by two giant sea snakes. There is a theme in this workshop’s work, can you tell?

Neither of the other two statues were intact enough to take photographs of, just a fragment here and there. However, we know that D, from the drawing, is Odysseus and his bro Diomedes stealing the Palladium of Troy, which was a little statue of Pallas that represented the safety of Troy.

Interesting story about Pallas time! So, while most people associate the name Pallas with an identity of Athena, as in Pallas Athena, that wasn’t the original Pallas. She was a nymph, a friend of Athena’s who trained with her when they were both young (relatively speaking, seeing as Athena was never technically young, she ‘sprung from Zeus’s head fully formed’ which is also a mental image that you really don’t want to think too hard about), until one day Zeus looked down, thought the two of them were fighting instead of training, and distracted Pallas with his shield in the clouds long enough for her to pause, and for Athena to accidentally put a spear through her heart. Athena was devastated, created a likeness of her friend and placed it in Troy so she would not be forgotten, took on the name Pallas Athena, and also declared herself an eternal virgin, by the way, because that is a totally rational reaction to the death of someone who is definitely just a friend. Ehem. Anyway. That statue was stolen by Odysseus because he has no sense of the sacred, so that the Greeks could defeat Troy without their guardian spirit. The Palladium was then moved, some say, to Rome, and placed in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum, to keep Rome safe.

The final statue, A, on the left of the diagram, is a bit of a mystery. It’s two figures, one of whom is dressed in greek armor circa the Trojan War, we know that. The current theories are either that that is Menelaus holding the body of Achilles, or Achilles holding the body of Patroclus. I prefer the second interpretation, honestly, both because I like that story better, but also because according to the Iliad Menelaus didn’t even like Achilles, and I’m pretty sure the myth has Ajax getting all weepy over his body, not Menelaus. I don’t even know where we got the idea of Menelaus from, honestly, because it doesn’t make sense narratively. Also, there are so many statues of Achilles dramatically holding up Patroclus’s body and looking like his world is ending (which it is) that it just seems more plausible that it’s them.

All of these scenes from the Odyssey and the Iliad do actually have a purpose being in the villa of a Roman emperor, by the way, for all that they absolutely also represent the best of Greek legendary history. The villa is built next to the mountain Circeo, which is supposedly the mountain where the sorceress Circe lives, whom Odysseus visits and is enamored by for a full year (anyone who wants you to feel sorry for Odysseus taking ten years to get home clearly has no idea what he was doing in those ten years, honestly), connecting this place in historical memory to the idea of Greek travel and Mediterranean exploration, a thousand years before Rome became a superpower. The statuary is both Tiberius’s way of proving that he is very educated, because to be educated was to be familiar with Greek works, in that time, but also paying homage to local traditions, and retaining the Greek background that all of Rome is simultaneously enormously proud and very ashamed of. The relationship between Greece and Rome is very big sibling/little sibling, where the little sibling becomes enormously successful in life and the older sibling’s accomplishments, impressive though they might be ordinarily, fade to the background in the world’s eyes, but in the eyes of the little sibling they’ll always be. Well. Their older sibling. It’s one part reverence, one part hatred, and a whole lot of uncomfortable familial feelings that few people ever untangle without the help of a very, very good therapist.

After the Villa of Tiberius, we stopped in the unbelievably adorable little town of Sperlonga for lunch. I cannot overemphasize how beautiful this place is. Entirely made of tiny little streets that don’t allow cars? Check. Built of that beautiful white stone that glows in the ever-present sun and makes you feel like you’re wandering through a castle in the sky? Check. Flowers spilling out of every window box, and overhanging trees and vines providing both riotous color amidst the gleaming white buildings and much needed shade? Check. Absolutely breathtaking view of the ocean from the cliffs that it is perched on? Check. 10/10, would go back just to gape at the sheer gorgeousness of the place.

Following lunch, we got back in the bus and drove until we hit Naples, and the Archeological Museum therein.

I typically don’t…. Well, it’s not that I don’t like art museums, I appreciate them in a general sense as cultural conservation, and in certain moods I enjoy walking through them. I just tend to get distracted when looking at something purely visual for too long. It’s why I also do other things while watching TV and movies. So I go through art museums pretty quickly, and as long as I’ve glanced at everything, I feel like I’ve successfully taken everything in. It’s probably why I am the worst person to go to an art museum with, just in general.

(Books, by the way, in no way count as purely visual objects, and I can happily read a book for hours without getting distracted, but that’s reading, not looking.)

However. If there were ever a museum that I could lose a day in, it’s this one.

We covered quite a bit of material, mostly on hyper specific things (-and this is the scrollwork from the top of one of the columns on one of the temples on the Capitoline hill, note the beginnings of Ionian influence in the for the most part standard Doric structure-) that I feel like would not be particularly interesting to you, and in fact are not particularly interesting to me, mostly because that particular lecture tended to be geared towards the art history class, and not my Roman history class, but there were some great pieces of statuary that I want to note.

First, there were the simply exquisite pieces from Rome’s south east bath complex.

This is a multi-figure piece done in a similar style as the Scylla and the Laocoon pieces I’ve mentioned before, depicting the story of Dirce, a woman who insulted another woman named Antiope, who just happened to have two sons Amphion and Zethis, who got upset at the insult and, as you can see, behaved in that totally rational and calm way that all Greeks and Romans are known for, and punished Dirce by tying her to a raging bull in order to be trampled along the streets of Rome. Fun times.

This sculpture would have been featured at one end of the bath complex, and at the other would have stood a statue of Hercules. We saw that statue, significantly larger than lifelike, as well, though I neglected to take a picture of it. The statue is of a single figure this time, and is called Hercules at Rest, because he’s just kinda standing there, leaning on his club. He looks kinda tired. Me too, buddy, me too.

The statue is significant particularly because it represents a shift in focus in the Greek and Roman art world, from Classical to Hellenistic. In classical style, heroes and gods are typically depicted doing heroic things. Hellenism focuses more on the humanity of heroes and gods, and tends to show them doing rather uniquely human things, like leaning on their clubs to catch a break because just because you can carry the world on your back doesn’t mean you should, Hercules.

Another feature of hellenistic design, and one that makes this my favorite era of ancient art, is that the sculptures take great delight in hiding things in their designs, so that one has to observe the entire piece to get a full understanding of the story being told here. In the case of the Hercules statue, my professor instructed us to walk around to the back of the statue to “see what you observe.”

As the statue was both very large and also not wearing pants, we were all…. mildly alarmed at his suggestion, to say the least. However, we are also sheep, so we dutifully trundled around to the back of the statue to look.

Behind his back, Hercules is holding something. Three round somethings that, back when the statue was painted in its full glory, would have been done in gold.

The presence of the three golden apples, hidden so casually in the statue’s slumped over posture, gives this Hercules at Rest a definitive place in the timeline of the myth of Hercules, and also explains the need for the rest in the first place. Hellenism is about humanizing heroes, sure, but they’re still heroes, and the artist knows that. Even heroes get tired, but heroes get tired from doing things like holding the literal weight of the world on their backs and stealing impossible, Trojan-war-starting prizes from dragons in the gardens of goddesses.

In summary, a good statue.

My least favorite statue, by the way, was this one:

I do not like when the statues have eyes. I just don’t. Why would you do that. She’s going to come alive and murder everyone in this museum. You’re going to have that on your conscience, unnamed dude who thought that five of these were good decoration for his entryway.

(Unnamed dude was actually pretty cool, he owned the House of the Papyri, a villa that was discovered and named for the number of papyri preserved in its library. The statue is one of the Danaids, who were fifty daughters of the king of Danaus, who married his daughters all off in one fell swoop to a fellow king named Aegyptus who happened to have fifty sons. Due to unclear circumstances, the fifty daughters all killed their husbands, all on their wedding night. Except for one, who was clearly just a coward or something. Anyway, there were statues of all fifty of the daughters in Augustus’s temple on the Palatine, and this unnamed homeowner decided to copy his emperor’s super creepy taste in artwork. He was actually probably fairly close to Augustus, at least as much as anyone was, because in his library he had a book dedicated by Virgil himself, and everyone knows that Virgil was Augustus’s bestie. As much as anyone was.)

There was more, so much more, in the museum of Naples but frankly this post is already over four thousand words and I am fairly sure that no one cares about my unhealthily strong opinions about the styling of various Roman emperor busts, so I think I’ll take my leave here.

We left Naples and headed to a hotel in Paestum, called Poseidonia, which was very lovely apart from having a super weird bathroom set up. I may have flooded the bathroom. Just a little bit. There’s just no wall? There’s a little square of tile, with a lip, theoretically to prevent the water from going anywhere, but then the shower head points out into open space and all that the lip on the floor does is block whatever water the shower sprays around the bathroom from getting back tot he drain and long story short I flooded the bathroom a little bit.

But then the hotel was thoughtful enough to provide me with a really delicious gluten free dinner and so all is forgiven really.

#travels #rome #museum #I have forgotten what other tags I might need to use here #I suppose I can add them in later #also I was informed that people wanted to read my blog and perhaps even missed reeading it so no one is allowed to complain about the fact #that it's entirely too long and mostly about Roman art that's just how my life goes okay

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