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thedemonsurfer · 8 months ago

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This is also! Another really good illustration about style-matching in fanworks!

Disclaimer: DRAW HOW YOU WANT REGARDLESS OF WHAT ANYONE SAYS! This isn't meant to be a "this is how you draw BETTER" guide, merely a breakdown of some considerations that you might not think of on the first pass!

Usually when you sit down to draw something, you're going to be using your regular symbols, whatever they are. The "artist gets called out for being a furry by drawing human hands looking like paws" post is a perfect example of this. If you draw body hair, defined cheekbones, etc-- you'll probably put them on a new character without even thinking about it, if it's appropriate.

The second pass is "hang on, what would make sense for this person?". And that's the angle anon is coming from-- an adult body that isn't mentioned to have removed hair would have certain hair patterns on it. Having those details requires a certain degree of thought and consideration of the setting, the person being drawn, the real world-- etc. There's a bit of pressure that to be a 'good' artist, you should be taking real world details into account-- but that's not always what makes sense.

Ckret is taking things on a third level: not what would make sense for this person in the real world, but what symbols match the source material. This is so, so crucial in heavily stylized things like cartoons, where the visual symbols are carrying about half of the story. Ckret knows what would make sense for an adult human body, it's in the writing after all-- but researching the visual language of the show and matching that requires stylization choices that aren't always 'real world'. In the style of Gravity Falls, body hair depiction is a symbol with negative meanings, which weren't appropriate for the scene being drawn. If for whatever reason Ckret needs to depict Bill as being comedically gross, then body hair would be considered, along with whatever other symbols that match the tone.

As my own aside-- i think artists sometimes get hung up on signaling certain things via their art. "I know this character is a mature adult with higher levels of testosterone, and that comes with certain patterns of body hair, so I should draw those! I don't want anyone thinking I don't know how the human body looks!" But, to reinforce Ckret's point:

Both of these men are adults from the same movie. Both are in good shape, with proportions that would make it impossible for them to take advantage of this new mass produced clothing thing from the end of the 19th century. However, only one of them is depicted with any body or facial hair. So what is being symbolized here? What does that mean in the context of the character?

Again, this isn't meant to tell anyone what makes for 'good' or 'bad' design! Just consider why you might fixate on certain symbols, and for which characters, and what that could be telling your audience.

I know that this is probably because you don't render Bill's body hair (you specifically mentioned his unshaved legs in the text!), but for some reason I'm disappointed that we don't see any fuzz poking from the bikini. Not, like, for sexual or scandal reasons, it just... feels like he'd be showing fuzz. It's so hard not to if you don't shave. Possibly intentionally, if it let him put another yellow triangle on his body.

Yeah, that's a detail I specifically thought about. I assume that Gravity Falls is much like the rest of the US, in that the women shave/wax their legs, pits, and bikini lines, and the vast majority of the men don't.

So, since Bill doesn't shave either, I figure that (after excluding beards & chest hair) he looks exactly as hairy as the average man in Gravity Falls. Such as the hair on the pits, groins, and legs of all these men:

Notice that (minotaur fur aside), all their pits, legs, and happy trails are baby-smooth.

When Gravity Falls wants to indicate EXCESSIVE hairiness, they do it through chest hair and, rarely, arm hair, on occasion making that hair look as thick as fur:

And that's it. (Notice that in the fire hydrant scene, which was used specifically as a "Dipper Wishes He Was This Grown Up & Masculine" scene: still no pit hair.)

Manotaurs aside, I was only able to find two examples of men depicted with leg hair. (And, in Sprott's case, maybe pit hair, though it's ambiguous.)

In both of these cases, the leg (and pit) hair are drawn on as jokes about how disgusting these men's near-naked bodies are.

I doubt that every male resident & tourist in a rural Oregon town waxes his pits & legs. Stan, the Manotaurs, America guy, the cops, Old Man McGucket who lives in a junkyard?? They are not shaving their pits. All the men pictured above probably have normal quantities of body hair; they just aren't illustrated in the show, because that's a detail the show decided wasn't significant to illustrate—like irises, or fingernails, or half the characters' ear folds.

The only time men's body hair is illustrated is to indicate that it's excessive and the only time it's added to pits or legs is to indicate that it's disgusting.

I did my research before deciding how to draw Bill! Based on the visual language that the show uses, if I had drawn his body hair—pits, legs, bikini line in any combination—I would have indicated that he's hairier than everyone else in town, and that it's disgusting enough to warrant rendering in greater detail than anybody else's body hair.

And going "HEY EVERYBODY! LOOK AT HOW THE CHARACTER WITH TITS DIDN'T WAX HIS BIKINI LINE!! ISN'T IT UNIQUE AND NOTEWORTHY HOW HE DIDN'T WAX HIS BIKINI LINE? EVERYBODY CHECK OUT ALL THAT HAIR POKING OUT! THIS SURE IS WAY MORE NOTEWORTHY AND DISTRACTING ON A CHARACTER WITH TITS THAN IT WOULD BE ON ANY CHARACTER WITHOUT TITS, SINCE WE NEVER BOTHER TO DRAW THEIR HAIR—BUT LOOK AT THIS ONE'S HAIR! IT'S WAAAY MORE ATTENTION-GRABBING THAN IT WOULD BE ON SOMEONE ELSE'S BODY!"

... is the exact opposite of what I want to do.

And I offer that as free advice to other artists, because this is something I keep seeing artists do: if you're giving a character a detail that isn't usually depicted in your chosen art style—body hair's a really common example—ask yourself if you're adding that detail on to every character that has that detail. If you are, great! But if you aren't, and if it turns out it's only one or two characters whose body hair you've fixated on... maaaybe ask yourself why, and what signal you're sending by highlighting that detail with them and only them.

#honestly i think Tarzan has the least amount of hair of literally everyone in the movie #also adding details cos you think they're attractive is 100% valid dont let anyone tell you otherwise #you're not doing it 'wrong' if you don't want to closely match the source #nor are you doing it 'right' if you do #its all about what YOU want to communicate! and doing that in the most efficient way!#and what you personally enjoy doing!

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gothgleek · 3 years ago

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The Ladies of Team Green

Queen Alicent Hightower and her daughter, Princess Helaena Targaryen

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Please be kind, I’m still learning how to draw on an iPad.

I was a little disappointed with the costuming on HOTD, Alicent’s costuming and a few of Rhaenerya’s dresses were done the best but even then (and I mean no disrespect to the costume designers, I can’t sew something better) some of them felt discombobulated and the quality felt like a poor Halloween costume. Personally, I think there should be more markers of their higher status such as jewelry and embroidery and the like.

Alicent and Helaena are inspired by Tudor fashion, but the shape of their silhouettes leans more into 1880s Victorian fashion.

Alicent’s first outfit is inspired by Crimson Peak’s costuming as the puff sleeve robe is inspired by the Victorian wrapper dress/ night gown. The dress’s highly stylized jewels and embroidery are lifted from Byzantium fashion. Her hair is inspired by Padme Amidala’s hair in the meadow scene because I think hairnet styles are super underrated. Her second gown is more directly Victorian in shape but with enough Tudor accessories and embroidery to make it appear more medieval. The belt in particular is inspired by Tudor fashion, which I believe was also inspired by the rosary and I know Alicent would like the option to pray on the go. I gave her high necklines with necklaces over it because I think, in a way, she feels confined in her status as a woman and a Royal.

Helaena is more simple with her outfits compared to her mother. She has a Victorian silhouette because I think her mother does have a degree of power but she looks more Tudor like than her mother. Her clothes are more muted than Alicent as she does not want to draw too much attention to herself but her patterns and accessories do not make her fade to the background. The sleeves in the first pic are in reference to Renaissance fashion where ladies were able to adjust their sleeves and redesign them. I think Helaena is autistic and would enjoy the option to change how she feels in her sleeves from time to time. She has a belt in both pics so she can have something to fidget with. I’d like to think Alicent gave her long belts to pick at, so she wouldn’t resort to picking at her nails or digging into her fists like she had once done. I wish I put her in more red or pink but paired with the green and white, she would’ve looked too much like a Christmas card. However her fishnet design is maroon, almost brown to reference her house colors and to resemble dragon scales. The pale green dragons on either side of her bodice are also a shout out to her house because I enjoy more embroidery in period drama fantasies. Her crown in the second pic is more ‘masculine’ than I think she would go for but it is a reference to Alicent and Rhaenerya’s matching rings from when they were friends because I think Alicent subconsciously sees a bit of Rhaenerya. Helaena wears a silver chain across her chest with a pendant/pin of the Seven, another one of Alicent’s choices.

I think I’ll do the ladies of Team Black next because I adore Rhaena and Baela but I’m having a harder time thinking about what kind of dresses they would wear. Definitely Byzantium inspired to put them all in the same time period as team Green but other than that I am stumped so please tell me if you have any ideas!

ID:

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stpetersburginfo · 4 years ago

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Things to See & Do While Staying in St Petersburg

St. Petersburg was one of the most important ports in the Florida. It was also among the first to be incorporated into the USA. In addition, it was the first place that appeared on U.S. stamps. The city was a trading post for the United States and later became the capital of the Pinellas County.

St. Petersburg has been named as one of the most important destinations in the world by the United States Department of State. The total population of St. Petersburg consists of over five million people. Before the Revolution there were substantial Polish, Baltic, Ukrainian, and German populations in the city and even smaller Tatar, Jewish, Chinese, and Russian populations. Today the largest proportion of the population is American.

A visit to St. Petersburg will allow you to see and experience the famous Cathedral on Valentine's Day. The Cathedral is one of the most visited sights in the city and is also a major center of American culture in St. Petersburg. The St. Petersburg State University is a great destination for those seeking a foreign language degree. Other popular universities include the Higher Scientific Institute and the Academy of Saint Petersburg.

The largest city in the district of St. Petersburg is Saint Petersburg. It is also the oldest city in the Florida State. Among its many years of existence, the city has played a large part in helping to shape Russia into what it is today. As a result, Saint Petersburg is considered to be one of the most important destinations in north central Russia.

The Cathedral of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul is another sight you will want to see while in St. Petersburg. Built in the seventeenth century, the Cathedral is also known as the Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. The cathedral features a striking golden color scheme. One of the most attractive features of the cathedral is the huge multi-tiered bell tower. It is a popular tourist destination among St. Petersburg tourists.

The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour is another popular attraction within the city. The structure of the cathedral is inspired by both Eastern and Western religious styles. The interior design includes a very stylized design. The cathedral is also known as the Catholic Mother Church due to its distinctive features including the huge cross. This particular church is among the most famous churches in the world.

Some of the most popular sights and sounds in St. Petersburg include the Orthodox Church and the Cathedral of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. The Cathedral has been listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour features a magnificent golden color scheme. Other buildings in St. Petersburg include the Finance Square, St. Nicholas Church, Russia Aviation Museum, Modern Art Gallery, Hotel Continental, Uvezianka (Russian Theater), etc. Amongst all these places, the best known is the Tverskaya just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

St. Petersburg offers a wide variety of lodging options for both luxury hotels and low budget hotels. The most attractive feature of St. Petersburg accommodation is that it comes with a comfortable bed to sleep on and a very comfortable sofa to sit on. Hence St. Petersburg offers the best choices of accommodation for the visitors who visit the city during the year. The budget hotels in St. Petersburg are renowned for providing warm and friendly welcome for the tourists. Thus St. Petersburg has always been a favorite place to visit by the tourists who come for tours in Russia.

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blackswaneuroparedux · 5 years ago

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In Two Minds: the polymorphous proficiency of Jonathan Miller

Sir Jonathan Miller was precocious polymath. Pretty much all the tributes to Jonathan Miller, who died aged 85 on 27 November 2019, end up using the term “Renaissance Man” at some point. Miller had a mastery of arts and science that few achieve. He was a doctor who specialised in neurology, a satirist, comedian, television broadcaster and writer, and theatre and opera director in which his transformative productions of classic plays and operas made him one of the most admired, as well as one of the most controversial, figures in the late-twentieth century theatre and opera.

Jonathan Wolfe Miller was born in 1934 in London. His father, Emanuel, was a child psychiatrist and his mother, Betty, a novelist and biographer. He had a sister, Sarah, who died in 2006. He attended St Paul’s, an independent day school, where he formed an intellectually precocious triumvirate with Oliver Sacks, later renowned as a neurologist and author, and Eric Korn, the writer and antiquarian bookseller. The three remained firm friends until Korn died in 2014 (Sacks died a year later). At Cambridge, Miller was a member of the Apostles, an exclusive intellectual club, as well as Footlights, the dramatic society.

Miller studied medicine at Cambridge University where he was a member of the Apostles, an exclusive invitation only intellectual club (past members included Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, John Maynard Keynes, Rupert Brooke, E.M. Forster, as well as more notoriously the infamous Cambridge spies, Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess).

It was at Cambridge that he also joined the Cambridge Footlights, the university’s legendary theatrical comedy club, and performed in the club’s Footlights revues. Miller’s success as a Footlights star in the 1950s brought him to the attention of the producers of a new comedy stage revue, Beyond the Fringe, which opened in Edinburgh in August 1960. Subsequent transfers to London’s West End (1961) and to Broadway (1962) made Miller and his three Oxbridge educated co-stars - Alan Bennett, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore - instant celebrities.

Beyond the Fringe was in the vanguard of a new generation chipping at the walls of the establishment and poking fun at the rigid pomposity of british class and society in the 1960s. In many ways Beyond the Fringe pioneered a path for the next generation of Oxbridge satirists, Monty Python, to take up the baton and beat it over the head of the establishment.

Miller, who qualified as a doctor in 1959 and maintained a special interest in neurology and neuropsychology, returned periodically to the practice of medicine, but spent most of his working life as a stage and opera director.

Miller’s first directing assignment was John Osborne’s Under Plain Cover in 1962. Miller made his U.S. directing debut in 1964 with The Old Glory, a play by poet Robert Lowell that inaugurated Off-Broadway’s American Place Theater.

Within a few years, Miller’s work at Nottingham Playhouse and other venues brought him to the attention of Laurence Olivier, then the head of the National Theatre. Miller’s memorable productions at the National, where he was an associate director during the Olivier years, included The Merchant of Venice, set in nineteenth-century Venice with Olivier as a top-hatted Shylock, and The School for Scandal. In 1974, Miller directed a season of three thematically linked plays at London’s Greenwich Theatre, presenting Hamlet, Ghosts and The Seagull as “Family Romances” and using the same actors for each play. Miller later served a two-year term as artistic director of the Old Vic in London (1988–90).

At his best, Miller had no equal for wit, originality or sheer invention as a director, especially in pieces that engaged his passion for storytelling fully; Miller’s universally admired brilliance as a conversationalist made him a coveted talk-show guest in both the U.K. and the U.S.

Miller was also a compelling television writer and presenter, with the documentary series The Body in Question (1979) and Madness (1991) among his credits. When he was in mid-career, Miller began to balance his work in the theater with directing opera—despite the fact that he never learned to read music. Miller’s opera productions were manifestly intelligent and well-informed, but occasionally overbusy, loaded with cultural references and staging touches that did little to advance the action—or support the music.

Miller’s first opera production was the 1974 British premiere of Alexander Goehr’s Arden Must Die at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London; Alan Blyth, writing in Opera, called Miller’s production “severe, and in the end, debilitating.” The Goehr opera was to be one of the few contemporary pieces that Miller directed: in opera, as well as in the theater, he preferred to work on the production of classic works or the occasional rarity. Miller made his Glyndebourne debut in 1975, with the company premiere of Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen.

He had especially fruitful working relationships with Kent Opera, where he directed a wide variety of repertory, including Così Fan Tutte, Falstaff, La Traviata, Eugene Onegin and Monteverdi’s L'Orfeo.

The British company with which Miller was most closely associated was English National Opera (ENO), which offered a gala celebration of his work with the company in 2016. At ENO, Miller’s vividly detailed stagings included La Bohème, Aida, The Barber of Seville, Carmen, Der Rosenkavalier, La Traviataand The Elixir of Love. Miller’s biggest ENO successes were his popular “Little Italy” staging of Rigoletto (1982) and a re-imagining of The Mikado (1986) that set Gilbert and Sullivan’s Japanese-themed operetta in an English resort hotel; both were presented in the U.S. and have been have been revived in London and elsewhere numerous times. Miller bowed at Covent Garden in 1993, with a modern-dress staging of Così Fan Tutte.

Miller made his U.S. opera debut in 1982, directing Così Fan Tutte for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. His other North American productions included Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at BAM; La Traviata at Glimmerglass Opera and New York City Opera, Eugene Onegin at Santa Fe Opera, La Bohème at Cincinnati Opera, Così Fan Tutte in Washington, D.C. and Tristan und Isolde in Los Angeles. In Europe, Miller directed La Traviata for Paris Opéra, Der Fliegende Holländer in Frankfurt and a Fascist-era staging of Tosca in Florence. On Broadway, Miller directed Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey in Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1986) and Christopher Plummer in King Lear (2004).

Miller directed four operas for the Met. His 1991 staging of Janáček’s Kát’a Kabanová was an unqualified success - a stark, stylized vision of the opera’s harrowing emotional world, designed by Robert Israel and Gil Wechsler. The critical and response to Miller’s other Met stagings—Pelléas et Mélisande (1995), The Rake’s Progress (1997) and Le Nozze di Figaro (1998)—was generally positive, but Miller’s outspoken criticism of what he saw as the Met’s lack of support for him damaged his relationship with the company, and he was never given another new production there.

His style of directing especially opera revolved around two maxims, “One is constantly fighting a battle between two forms of idiocy,” he said of the business of opera directing, the first being “mindless traditionalism” and the second the requirement that “the work be relevant to our time”.

As a theatre director, mostly at the National Theatre in London, he sought to avoid those two forms of idiocy when directing Shakespeare, which he did for the BBC in the early 1980s. A production of a Shakespeare play, Miller thought, should not try to preserve it in the aspic of spurious authenticity.

Miller was a lifelong atheist and in 2006 he was appointed president of the Rationalist Association. Accepting the appointment, he said: “There is a large unrepresented constituency of people for whom religion doesn’t enter their heads.” But while his atheism was unbending, it was not militant. Miller maintained that the job of this “community” of unbelievers was not to extirpate religious beliefs but to “analyse them with an objective curiosity and a kind of anthropological attitude to what people do”.

Miller displayed that intellectual humility and profound curiosity in everything he did. Indeed he once said, “I wasn't driven into medicine by a social conscience but by rampant curiosity.“ The same drive he said for his artistic pursuits. Kate Bassett called her informative 2012 biography of Miller In Two Minds, which captured this split in his life. Miller was haunted by his decision to abandon the medical profession where he had hoped to excel.

Ironically Miller rejected the oft-applied title “Renaissance man"as a “vulgar journalistic slogan”. He would argue that, “What they’re really saying is I’m a jack of all trades and a master of none.” He may have felt that “this footling flibbertigibbet world of theatre” was a distraction from higher pursuits - which is to say, the use of his Cambridge medical degree but these twin artistic and scientific interests seemed less opposed than complementary. If, as is said in “The Body in Question,” “by acting in and upon the world we remodel our own image in it,” everybody’s in show business, anyway.

To my mind, Miller’s arts and science background enabled him to cross disciplinary boundaries and make exciting connections and open new creative possibilities. He was the perfect riposte to that very British Two Cultures intellectual debate (1959-62) between F.R. Leavis and C.P. Snow, which focused on the lack of conversation between arts and science. If we consider how scholars now embrace interdisciplinarity, we should note that Miller blazed the trail. Miller should also be viewed as one of the architects of liberal Britain in the post-war period. He rejoiced in being an irreverent free thinker. And we should rejoice at having had the privilege of peeking into the polymorphic proficient mind(s) of one of this century’s creative and most curiousity driven of men.

I had the privilege of having meeting him on one or two occasions. Twice over dinner through my parents who were active patrons of the arts.

One of my older sisters is a neurologist and we were placed either side of him. Jonathan was ever so affable and down to earth. He immediately set about making us laugh with his forensic wit and life observations. Between courses he would flit (not a typo, he didn’t flirt) between my sister and myself. With her he would talk shop about neurology and the latest scientific breakthroughs and with me we talked about opera, theatre, and the classics.

The funny thing was as the evening wore on his kinetic mind was a speeding race car and he suddenly forgot which lane he was driving in i.e. he forgot to whom he was speaking to between the two of us. So he would speak about realism theatre of Euripides with my older sister and neurological disorders with me. My older sister - I hate to admit this in print because she will lorde it over me until the end of days - was educated and eloquent enough to keep the conversation effortlessly flowing.

I would like to say that I too upped my game and rose to such elevated heights of scientific discourse but alas I fell like Icarus...but faster, as my mind felt like lead balloon tied to a one ton dead weight. I fell hard. He could see the tumbleweeds rolling across my vacant mind through my clueless eyes. Ever the gentleman he steered me to more friendly topics like the psychology of killing as I was seriously torn between going Sandhurst to become an army officer or returning to Cambridge to do a PhD. I saw him once or twice after that in other private settings and I always came away glowing because I learned some new curioisity about our human condition and the artistic ways we express the human condition in all its foibles and pathos.

RIP Jonathan Miller.

#jonathan miller #icon #britain #arts #opera #theatre #life #history #satire #comedy #cambridge #personal #bio

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fire-strike · 2 years ago

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This is for @hellfire-fist because bestie, I can't stop thinking about this OTL

(Sorry not sorry for the massive brain dump)

1. It's not made explicitly clear but I think that there's enough subtext from Zeff about Zoro being stuck between life and death and needing to know his crew is there for him to have any hope of staying alive that there is a strong case that Zoro did not just happen to wake up while Luffy was sitting at his bedside pouring his heart out, but that he woke up from his coma BECAUSE he heard Luffy tell him he needed him. One of Zoro's most defining traits is that he always follows his Captain's orders with a level of trust that the others don't share (because they are sane, and yes there was one exception to this but it was merited and was an excellent way for Oda to illustrate Zoro's responsibility as first mate), this is the first time Zoro will defy death in order to stay by Luffy's side but it is most definitely not the last.

2. Zoro reassuring Luffy that he is a good Captain and that his decisions were right was such a wonderful thing to include (I wouldn't be surprised if an early draft included the line "you're a different kind of Captain" as a callback).

OPLA Luffy is much more human than manga Luffy because he is literally a human and not a cartoon and so he can't operate with the level of disregard for reality/physics/safety that manga Luffy does if he wants to keep everyone alive (and keep the show grounded in reality-albeit a fantastical one). Yes they have plot armor, but they also have bodies that take damage and skeletons with bones that can break unlike their stylized counter-parts who can break the laws of physics however they need to for the sake of the bit/plot.

All that to say, OPLA gives us a Luffy with the same spirit, but with a higher degree of accountability for the well being of his crew, so much more to worry about. Before Baratie everything worked out for them because they got lucky which inflated Luffy's sense of confidence. This time however, all of his work has been undone, Zoro has been grievously injured, Nami has cut and run, he's lost their map, and he lost badly to Arlong. For the first time in his life, following his gut/heart has led to terrible pain for everyone who put their trust in him and he's flailing under the weight of that. His indecisiveness over what Zoro might need is hugely indicative, as is his complete loss of appetite, something that NEVER happens to him. Luffy's choice of words to Zoro is important here, he doesn't explicitly tell Zoro that he's worried he's a bad Captain or that he's in over his head, he tells Zoro that he's realized something that should have been incredibly obvious to him but that he struggled to admit, he can't do this alone. Manga Luffy makes a point of shouting this at Arlong about each of his crew members' roles but OPLA doesn't give us that because the focus of that fight is Nami, but it saves the sentiment for Zoro. Luffy is and always will be the Captain, the driving force behind the Strawhats, but he needs Zoro by his side, he *needs* a first mate like Zoro to back him up (like he does with Genzo), and look out for him (like he does with the wall-run), and be the person he can open up to without losing face to the rest of the crew, someone who will listen and give his thoughts but will ultimately follow his decision (rooftop scene).

Zoro brings himself out of his coma to quite literally take Luffy's hand and reassure him in no uncertain terms that he is a true Captain, worthy of being followed, and to drive the point home, that Zoro will stay by his side and fight for his dream with him until they achieve it or die in the attempt. Folks coming into OPLA without any prior One Piece knowledge should know that we never got this scene in the manga, this was written for the show and directly approved by Oda, nothing about this was accidental or filler or done lightly. The weight they put on this scene, that they used the sound bites in the trailer, all of it was directed with great purpose and all of the choices they made were extremely intentional. Luffy tells Zoro he needs him, and Zoro tells Luffy, as clearly as possible with no room for misinterpretation that he has him, he is his first mate from now until the end, it doesn't matter if everyone else leaves, Zoro will stay, and this means EVERYTHING to Luffy.

And because ZoLu has had a vice grip on my heart for almost two decades now, I also have to explicitly point out the lack of any kind of rebuking of affection/intimacy on Zoro's part. Again these were all choices made by the actors, show runners, and Oda, having Luffy sit on the bed, leaping up and straddling Zoro, pressing himself onto him in a fullbody hug, beaming at him while touching the side of his face/hair, (all kept in frame as if they were filming a sex scene I might add, they could have used other angles but they sure didn't), at no point does Zoro actually Ask/Tell Luffy to get off of him, Luffy interprets it that way and climbs all the way off but Zoro seems like he would have been just fine so long as Luffy took the pressure off his chest. Then we get the above vow and Zoro puts his hand on Luffy's goddamn heart and Luffy takes it and holds it close, again, they could have made other choices, they could have had Zoro put his hand on his own heart then they clasp hands in that typical Shonen way, or any other number of things, but they sure didn't, this was a CHOICE. And again, there was zero rebuffing of intimacy, when Usopp comes in they don't drop their hands or even look embarrassed (yes in part to set up the joke of Luffy pulling him roughly but that could have easily been done in a less intimate way).

TLDR;

One Piece Live Action gives us ZoLu in its purest form, it gives us the little moments that we don't get to see in the manga because it's not formatted for quiet intimate moments like these, they're very few and far between and yes we go absolutely FERAL when we get them, but the fact that Oda had direct control over this means that this is something he wants us to see and understand. Zoro and Luffy's bond is something above and apart from any other relationship in the series. They're devoted to each other, from now until the end. 💚❤️

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

Just saying, if either Luffy or Zoro happened to be female characters and all else stayed exactly the same, their relationship would 1000% be read as romantic and I think that's intentional. OPLA gave us an extremely queer reading of the manga, almost as if everyone suddenly remembered that historically, pirates are pretty fucking gay, it was commonplace, and that's the setting they're going with. I honestly couldn't believe how queer the vibes were across the board and the complete lack of "no-homo" energy.

Random PPS

Why the fuck did no one tell me that Koby's actor is trans??? How did I hear about this from my casual normie friend who hasn't watched the show and not Tumblr dot gay??? Do y'all have any IDEA how much more safe I feel knowing that Oda cast him??? 🏳️‍⚧️

God I fucking love One Piece

There's something so inherently romantic about Zoro following Luffy right after their discussion with Nojiko. Although he wasn't so keen the first time around (the Garp thing), this time, he makes sure to go after his captain immediately.

Zoro right after the "I need you" and him making a vow to Luffy, is almost a completely different person. He accompanies Luffy during a vulnerable moment like reflex, like it's the most natural thing for him to do. It's adorable that he went to sit with Luffy and then attempted to leave, because I feel like he surprised himself as well. That said, I love love love that Luffy shows vulnerability with his swordsman the most. He knew he could confide in Zoro, and that he would understand him, but also won't be afraid to give him a piece of his mind. I just know he feels secure with Zoro.

#zolu #opla #opla luffy #opla zoro #otp of otps

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dexild-blog · 5 years ago

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Art Analysis of Laundry

Romeo V. Tabuena was born and raised in Iloilo city in 1921. He graduated with a degree in Architecture from Mapua University and eventually pursued painting at the University of the Philippines. He gained traction in 1949 when he had exhibits at the Philippine Art Gallery that highlighted his watercolor paintings and drawings. Eventually, Tabuena settled in Mexico but still made efforts to maintain his connection to his home country by showcasing a ten-year retrospective at the Philippine Art Gallery. His paintings are famous for depicting the ordinary person’s daily life and often settled for themes that revolved around farmers, market vendors, and people doing household chores. He is also known for his prismatic or cubism-esque style in his works,in which he used various bright colors. As he garnered pride for his country by representing the Philippines and its culture, he was then awarded the Presidential Medal of Merit in 2007.

Upon laying my eyes on the painting for the first time, I can see many bright colors that immediately stand out from a dark background; Making the piece appear as if it were taking place at night. I can also see and identify two main figures namely the huts on stilts and the pieces of clothing hanging from the clothesline connecting each hut.

Although there is no particular thing that single handedly attracts my attention, the first object I see when looking at the painting is the second row of hanging laundry near the bottom of the painting. At the center of that clothesline was the biggest piece of clothing which drew my eyes to it. From there on, rhythm and movement could be seen in the close arrangement of the clothesline. It gives off a sense of connectedness as they swing from one house to the other, giving a guide for my eyes.

Moving on to how the painting was constructed, it is mostly made up of diagonal lines. The strokes are very rough, and the colors do not seem to blend. On a still night, laundry would typically be under the influence of gravity alone, hanging straight down yet the laundry hangs in a slanted manner. Together with how the strokes are done loosely and quickly, it hints wind and movement among the clothes. The painting is not thoroughly detailed and the strokes are substantially large. It also makes use of implied lines and shapes that compose the subjects. Despite the painting being composed of polygonal shapes, when placed together, the shapes appear to be organic as seen in the hanging clothes.

Additionally, the variety of tones and colors give the painting an illusion of movement and depth as the light rays hit the clothing at different parts to form shadows. A light source is placed behind the viewer which highlights the bright and vivid colors of the clothing. Another factor that creates a semblance of movement throughout the painting is the Juxtaposition that takes place due to the contrast between the vibrant colors of the clothes and the brown hues of the huts. This helps emphasize the cleanliness of the newly washed clothes in comparison to the dull and run-down huts.

Moreover, the illusion of depth is apparent in the piece, as we see that the clotheslines and the two houses in front are much more detailed compared to their counterparts at the back. Despite the illusion of depth, the clothes are able to retain their ability to pop out because their bright colors still remain. The proportions of the figures appear to reflect that of reality, as indicated in the scale and angles at which they are composed of. Depth can also be seen by the painter’s use of a vanishing point in order to create the impression that the clothes in the foreground of the painting are closer than the ones in the background.

Regardless of the painting's asymmetry, it appears to be balanced as the weight of the painting’s elements is equally distributed. In terms of the perspective, the angle at which we see the piece appears to be elevated as if overseeing the houses. This is hinted by the direction the laundry lines are leading to and the height at which the houses stand on. I believe that viewers of the painting can imagine themselves to be inside one of the huts, perhaps through a window or a door, overlooking the small community.

During the creation of Laundry in 1951, Romeo V. Tabuena made a series of other paintings namely “Children Playing” and “Mother and Child”. The similarities between the two paintings and Laundry are that all three depict the livelihood of the common Filipino. Children Playing, as the title suggests, shows children playing in an urban setting while Mother and Child shows a mother holding her child as she prepares food in front of her wooden house. Laundry takes place in a community filled with huts connected by laundry lines, typically seen in underdeveloped areas. Based on these observations, Tabuena appeared to have an increased interest in the common Filipino life and culture. Tabuena, based on context, had immediate access to education and the pursuit of arts. He appeared to be comfortable in his lifestyle. I believe that, because of the disparity between him and the common Filipino, he was drawn to their lifestyle as it was not something he was accustomed to. These paintings were created a year before he pursued an even higher education in New York and his eventual settlement in Mexico. It is possible that, through these paintings, he was making his final attempts to capture the heart of the Filipino culture with his depictions of everyday life during his remaining time in the country.

Overall, the painting is able to depict the Filipino culture uniquely. The painting appears to be stylized as it still depicts a community even in a very altered appearance. It is very simplistic in its approach to displaying a specific element of the Filipino community as the piece is composed of only a handful of subjects made with lines and geometric shapes. The piece is able to capture a particular scene in Filipino Culture that is not typically thought of by the everyday person. When I look at the piece, it reminds me of the small parts of my daily routine that I usually take for granted.

The piece captures a specific moment in time, a laundry scene. Although I am still unsure of what Tabuena's exact motivations were for creating the Laundry, it may have served as a reminder of his country as he was set to go abroad. Perhaps the laundry scene is of value to him, enough that he wanted to immortalize it. Therefore, preserving his visions of the past.

Reference

n.d. Laundry. Accessed July 12, 2020. https://ateneoartgallery.com/collections/laundry. n.d. ROMEO TABUENA (1921-2015). Accessed July 12, 2020.

https://www.philippineartgallery.com/romeo-tabuena.html

n.d. Romeo V. Tabuena. Accessed July 12, 2020. http://www.artnet.com/artists/romeo-v-tabuena/2?sort=11.

n.d. ROMEO V. TABUENA. Accessed July 12, 2020. https://www.geringerart.com/artists/romeo-v-tabuena/.

n.d. Romeo Villalva Tabuena Biography. Accessed July 12, 2020. https://www.annexgalleries.com/artists/biography/2319/Tabuena/Romeo.

Artwork’s Details

TITLE: Laundry

ARTIST: Romeo V. Tabuena

MEDIUM: Oil on plywood

YEAR: 1951

PROVENANCE: Gift of Fernando Zóbel

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dingberg · 5 years ago

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Who are your artistic inspirations? Are you interested or find inspiration in classical art or strictly modern artists?

Good question, and here comes a long answer because I guess that’s just what I do.

As you can probably tell from looking at my art, I take most of my inspiration from more modern artists (at least as modern as animation and whatnot started being a thing). I definitely appreciate classical art in that those artists figured out most the stuff out that we do today and the sheer amount of skill and creativity it took to do what they did with the much more limited resources and knowledge they had at their disposal. I have learned a lot from the classics and take some amount of direct inspiration from them (and plenty of indirect inspiration). For example, my tendency toward employing higher contrast with lighting and color to make my stuff “pop” more has been inspired in part by classical chiaroscuro paintings. But in general, I find myself much more interested in modern, more stylized stuff (especially character / narrative driven art), and thus find myself taking more inspiration from them as a result.

Getting off the topic of modern vs classical, I’d say I draw a little inspiration from a lot of different artists rather than a lot of inspiration from a few artists. I’ll often discover a new artist that has a style I really like, study their stuff and figure out exactly what I like about their style and learn how to do it myself, then get get distracted and discover ANOTHER new artist and repeat the process over again. Sometimes it feels like I can’t really make up my mind and just want to do everything.

As I’m sure nobody is surprised to hear, I’ve been a fan of anime/manga style art for a long time and take a lot of inspiration from those artists, mainly the more uniquely styled ones that get really creative with character design and stylization and all that. I think the most recent example would be Horikoshi Kouhei, creator of My Hero Academia. I started reading the manga a few years ago, I think, and I immediately recognized that he shared almost all of the sensibilities I already had with regards to character design, stylization, writing, and a bunch of other things. And it only sweetened the package that he’d also add little snippets between chapters with notes about his process and what his thoughts were with designing different characters and other elements. So I naturally started looking to him as an example I could learn from of “doing pretty much exactly what I like to do, but more professionally and on a much larger scale". Some precise examples of inspiration I’ve taken from him are adding more solid black to my art to make shadows pop more, and adding notes to my character designs with details about who they are beyond the design and some of my thoughts that went into making certain design decisions. Some other examples of anime/manga that serve as major inspirations for me are Gurren Lagann (stylization and exaggeration of action and lighting), and One Piece (exaggeration of character designs and giving characters fun little “quirks” to their design and personality to make them more interesting and unique). Samurai Champloo is another interesting one that inspired me with its melding of stylization with some degree of realism to get something that looks natural while still allowing for plenty of fun to be had with designs and action, and combining elements that really contrast with each other for an interesting result as well as taking inspiration from unlikely sources, like how Samurai Champloo itself is an unlikely combination between ancient samurai and modern hip-hop.

However, I also take a lot of inspiration from western artists as well. Skullgirls is a game that I bought exclusively because I absolutely adore the character designs, art, and incredible animation of the game. I don’t even really like fighting games, that’s how much I was sold on the art and characters. I was introduced to the game through the devs doing a thing they called “Whiteboard Wednesdays” during development of the game, where they posted picture of all the random doodles they did during the week, and I followed the game’s development ever since. I also have a bunch of animation sprites and sequences from the game saved to my computer to go back to and study every now and then. Seriously, check the game out if you haven’t heard of it and you’re a fan of 2D animation, that stuff is incredible. Don’t Starve has a really unique and interesting visual style that does an excellent job if giving the game a very distinct tone. Team Fortress 2 is also a HUGE one for me. One of, if not my favorite game of all time, due in no small part to the phenomenal characters that are as fun and cartoonish in their personalities as they are in their designs. For that matter, the official TF2 (and L4D) comics are wonderful examples of translating these game characters into a 2D, narrative-driven format that’s also oozing with style.

Those are just a few of my “big name” inspirations, but I honestly think most of my inspiration comes from other artists I find on social media or meet by other means that either work freelance or just do art and post it for fun. There are so many artists floating around beyond just the ones you see in games, TV or comics, and each of them has something unique to offer that no other artist has. Plus, I really enjoy seeing a lot of the miscellaneous stuff that makes up an artist, like their works-in-progress, little doodles they did in an afternoon, or the humorous little anecdotes they add onto their posts. I think the first person I ever followed and the person that inspired me to try my hand at sharing my art online was @thejohnsu. I’ve always loved his offbeat sense of humor and have been inspired by his weird process of coming up with something simple and letting it just absorb whatever odd ideas his brain happens to conjure up while he’s developing it until he eventually ends up with some crazy, creative character or situation that nobody else would have ever dreamed of. Another one of my early inspirations is @gashi45, mainly just for how insanely stylish his art looks in all aspects. Colors, shape design, expressions, it’s a complete package of in-your-face style, and he was the reason I started my quest long ago to leave my comfort zone, experiment, and really push myself to find my own unique style that really shows who I am as an artist. I actually followed these two all the way back on DeviantArt, which is where I really started as an artist online. And these are only a couple of the many artists that inspire me. Every artist I’ve followed on social media has inspired me in some way, major or minor, and even a ton of artists that I never ended up following for one reason or another.

Anyway, I hope that sufficiently answers your question.

(…I really need to work on being more concise with my answers, this is really gonna clog up people’s feeds).

#ask #inspirations

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scimitarshighest-blog · 6 years ago

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Name: Drizzt Daermon N'a'shezbaernon (Often Stylized as Drizzt Do’Urden) Date of Birth: Eleint 17, 1297 Dale Reckoning (Used to be ballparked at 140 in the mid-1300s DR, but is generally anywhere from nearing his first century to the middle of his second in my portrayals, unless specified otherwise) Species: Elf Ethnicity: Drow Citizenship: Menzoberranzan (Formerly in most verses), Mithral Hall (Formerly prior to Bruenor’s first death), Icewind Dale (Formerly, changed to Mithral Hall after its rediscovery), Northwest Faerun, The Silver Marches (Through his Range) Height: 5′4″ Weight: 130 lb. Godly Patron: Mielikki Known Languages: Drow Elvish, Undercommon, Goblin, Drow Sign-Language (In Most Verses) Common, Svirfneblin Gnomish Gender: Male (cis) Pronouns: He/Him/His Sexual Orientation: Gray-Romantic Asexual Occupation: Ranger, Adventurer, Explorer

Personality: Drizzt Do’Urden is a thoughtful and righteous person, an elf of upstanding morals, though constantly challenged and growing with them. Empathetic, Drizzt often tries to see things from the perspective of others, although he frequently fails to do so, often learning only after it is far too late. One such case is coming upon the realization that he should resign from his oath to not kill other Drow, as he did evil members of other races, as they were not to be held on some sort of pedestal.

Raised by other Drow, Drizzt initially had little racial or cultural tolerance, though his time on the surface did much to advance his perceptions of others, particularly through his own search for tolerance and acceptance. Drizzt particularly credit his human wife Catti-brie for developing a more accepting perspective, but it was through his interactions with many kinds of people, both members of The Companions and others, that Drizzt learned to accept the differences in the world.

For reasons not entirely clear, Drizzt does hold a particular enmity for goblins, having only met a scarce few that he hasn’t attempted to kill, or holds in any regard besides as mindless monsters. Even with this, Drizzt has managed to meet a fellow ranger who was a goblin that he considers to be an ally.

A perfectionist in many regards, Drizzt holds himself to a much higher standard than he does others, often having trained for days at a time in his youth to master a single sequence of swordplay maneuvers. This even extends to his own ideals, often berating himself over minor lapses of judgement, while easily forgiving his friends and peers for far more serious character flaws.

Drizzt holds a sincere and true love for swordplay, associating it with some of the happiest times in his life, when he was training with his father Zaknafein. Even into his time on the surface Drizzt would never allow his skills to dull TOO much, and he would often spend quality time with his mate/spouse Catti-brie training her in swordplay, when she had intentions to use the intelligent sword Khazid'hea (or Cutter in the common tongue). During his second century Drizzt’s attention towards his swordplay skills would grow, and he would begin to pursue true perfection with his blades, and in his body.

While Drizzt is a devout follower of Mielikki and Gwaeron Windstrom, two gods who rangers often worship, the elf lives a largely secular life. While many actions he performs are on behalf of his patrons, Drizzt has little desire to do as others dictate, particularly the gods. If his god or goddess demands of something that he disagrees with, or simply finds wrong, he simply will refuse to do it.

In times of stress or danger Drizzt has been known to slip into a mental state which he calls “The Hunter”, an extension, or suppression depending on the perspective, of Drizzt’s personality that allows him to solely focus on the tasks at hand, combat, and the hunt. It’s in this state that Drizzt achieves his peak in terms of physical prowess and combat ability, with even his senses seeming to become enhanced. While in this state, though, Drizzt becomes more akin to an animal, losing that which makes him Drizzt, causing this to be an inherently stressful state to come from entirely. It has been implied on several occasions that each time Drizzt enters this state it becomes harder for him to return to his senses, particularly during long periods of relying on The Hunter. In order to maintain his humanity Drizzt often intentionally suppresses The Hunter when he feels himself entering the disassociative state.

Abilities and Skills: -Conditioning: Drizzt Do’Urden is a ranger with an extremely active lifestyle, and before this lived a life that either prepared him to be a part of, or was a part of, the Drow military structure. Bearing that in mind, the physical condition of Drizzt’s body is naturally impressive. Boasting above-average strength (both on his sheet and logically from the novels) Drizzt is able to handle metal weapons and wear metal armor without quickly tiring. If associated with Dungeons and Dragons rules regarding strength, Drizzt should be able to bench press in the neighborhood of 175 lb. while not exceeding 200 lb. Additionally, he should be able to perform similar feats of strength in other areas, given that he isn’t a power-lifter, and comes by this strength through sheer athleticism.

In terms of endurance Drizzt also remains above average, if not downright superhuman in some occasions, as Drizzt has been able to fight for inhumane stretches of time against stronger-than-human threats. Greatest of all in these feats can be attributed to fighting for an extended period of time against a swamp full of trolls, while his compatriots were forced to stop and sleep, and the occasion on which he reverted to his “Hunter” persona to attempt to single-handedly take on an army of roughly 1000 Orcs (not head-on but through subterfuge) killing many encampments in the process.

Most noteworthy of Drizzt’s physical abilities are his coordination, agility, and quickness. Otherwise summed up as his dexterity. Drizzt is considered to be downright superhuman in this regard, having been able to perform impressive feats of hand-eye coordination and quickness as an adolescent with no teaching, or apparent practice, in such areas. This is attributed to an inherited quality from his father Zaknafein being coupled with his natural Elven grace. However, beyond this natural talent, Drizzt has spent many years, likely in excess of tens of thousands of hours, training and honing these skills, particularly in tandem with swordplay. This has become so impressive that he is rivaled by very few humanoids in his world, and at one point was considered one of the six greatest swordfighters in Toril, some of whom beat him in terms of skill, but didn’t rely on quickness or speed to do so.

-Spellcasting: Considered to be a common ability among elvenkind, Drow have a more pronounced ability with magic, being able to cast more powerful magic due to it being a component of their necessary military training. Drizzt is an example of one of the Drow who received this type of training, learning to innately cast a number of spells through his noble status (as it seems that Drow practice some form of eugenics that allow the nobility to have this ability) such as levitation. This was further supplemented with the actual magical education that he was required to complete as a part of his military training, further educating Drizzt to be able to create orbs of impenetrable darkness, or wreath objects and people in harmless faerie fire. However, after spending a significant time on the surface, Drizzt has found that he lost the ability to levitate intuitively, as the magical element faerzress, which inadvertently enhances a Drow’s magical ability and resistance, only exists on the surface. Despite spending time in the Underdark after losing this ability, Drizzt has never regained the ability to levitate.

In addition to his natural spellcasting, Drow have additional resistance to magic, as faerzress seem to have naturally imparted this power to the dark elves. As faerzress prevents many proper styles of divination to transcend the Surface-Underdark barrier, or even most forms of teleportation to, from, and within, the Underdark, from functioning properly, Drow have manifested this adaptation to even each other’s magic. This does not entirely make Drizzt immune to magic, though, as on several occasions he has been affected, to mortal degrees in some cases, by spells and magical artifacts. Drizzt also seems to have no resistance towards magically enhanced weaponry, or psionic powers.

-Senses: Drizzt has honed his senses over a great stretch of time. Elves have naturally acute hearing and vision, even having the ability to see in the darkness as if it were a moonlit night. Drow, however, not only can do this, but can shift their eyes to perceive things in the infrared spectrum. This benefit can often prove to be a fatal weakness, though. For a long time sunlight would actually cause Drizzt’s skin pain, as if it were burning, related to an ancient curse cast upon the elven tribe that would become Drow that would discourage them from trying to inhabit the surface.

Over the years Drizzt has learned to tolerate this pain, and isn’t particularly negatively affected by sunlight, or torchlight, but sudden bursts of particularly bright light will still have a pronounced result on the ranger. He will often be stunned for several times longer than a human of similar hardiness when exposed to bright bursts of light from any kind of source, which is exacerbated further if he was using his infravision at the time.

Notably Drizzt’s senses are considered to be especially sharp due to his training, time in the wilds of the underdark, strong instincts, and training to become a ranger. Drizzt is often able to be aware of another’s approach in most circumstances, especially in subterranean conditions, far before they are aware of his presence. This has proven to be the case even when the other is a Drow, implying that his vision in the dark is still even sharper than that of other Drow. However, this may have been dulled somewhat due to his decades of surface life.

Like all elves, Drizzt is naturally able to detect magical fields, and determine when magic is at-play, although he lacks the ability to naturally identify the nature and effect of that magic.

-Ranger Skills: Although it is often eclipsed by his skill with the blade, or forgotten as it is almost a secondary detail of the myth surrounding “the greatest swordsman in the realms”, Drizzt is a ranger who worships the goddess of ranger Mielikki. As such, he has learned a number of skills on this path that serve the Drow well. Despite not keeping a true animal partner, as Guenwhyvar is a magical beast with whom he shared a friendship prior to becoming a ranger, Drizzt is able to effectively communicate and empathize with most non-magical, non-human-intelligent, animals. In the past he spent several days befriending a sea lion, teaching him how to fetch, then effectively having the sea lion recover his lost figurine that housed Guenwhyvar.

In addition, if his stat sheets are to be believed, Drizzt is able to cast intermediate-to-rudimentary (dependent on the edition of the game) nature spells that Rangers can cast. Due to the nature of his presentation in the setting, however, this is manifested more as a unique set of skills that replicate or approximate the spells: animal friendship, entangle, pass without a trace, detect animals or plants, charm person or mammal, speak with animals, warp wood, hold animals, snare, spike growth, protection from elements, control plants, neutralize poison, nondetection. However, the extent of Drizzt’s skills as a ranger are often left to be considered vague as Mr. Rob Salvatore often places little emphasis on them when the plot doesn’t call for it. I tend to headcanon that in terms of book lore he’s on the higher end for a ranger (more in line with his AD&D stat block) while in game lore he has less than half of his character levels devoted to ranger. To some degree I will acknowledge these spells in a “skill-based” capacity and not a true casting one.

Despite this skill being one he developed in the Underdark, it should be noted that Drizzt is a skillful tracker, able to follow paths and clues left behind to practically follow his quarry nearly the length of the sword coast (two to three times the length of the US Western Coastline) through land and sea to find his friend, though this was accomplished with a combination of traditional tracking and information gathering.

Naturally, as a ranger, Drizzt is a capable survivalist, and even has received training in traditional bows in order to assist in hunting game. He is able to survive in the wilds without the needs for society indefinitely.

-Thief Training: Although this skillset is common enough in rangers, it again was something that Drizzt learned as a part of his time in the Underdark. Handling locking mechanisms, moving stealthily and quickly, as well as detecting others, were all skills that were reinforced throughout Drizzt’s education and preparation for a Drow military-style life. However, these were honed and further trained during both his time in the caverns of the Underdark’s wild, eluding the other Drow, and time on the surface, a place in which stealth requires a wholly different set of skills. Not especially talented in handling devices, Drizzt is not capable of picking particularly advanced or complex locks.

-Combat: Drizzt is considered one of the most skilled swordfighters in his world, not accounting for gods, swordsfighters with additional limbs, or otherwise supernaturally-exceptional swordfighters who exceed the natural limits of mortals. Trained in a variety of weapons by his father, Drizzt is capable with most traditional weapons that he picks up, but especially favors scimitars and sabers, used in a dual-longblade fighting style that Drow commonly employ.

Practically without peer during his training, Drizzt as a youth was already one of the most skilled swordsmen in Menzoberranzan, dwarfed only by his father and possibly several of his father’s rivals. But in the intervening time, Drizzt has come to be second only (in his eyes and true fact) to his father among elven swordsmen. Due to his dexterity and quickness, as well as by overwhelming his foes with two weapons, Drizzt is able to dictate the terms of a duel, and often keep them that way.

Drizzt’s skill with a sword is so considerable that he has been able to defeat the likes of Orc, Giant, Dragon, Demon, and Elf alike, although not always without assistance from one of his companions. In terms of most duels, though, Drizzt is seen by many as peerless. As a result of his experiences, Drizzt has learned to fight while handicapped, not needing the use of his eyes to fight effectively. With practice and training Drizzt has proven able to utilize his magic in tandem with his swordplay to make himself an even more terrifying opponent, and in the most dire circumstances, slipping into The Hunter to become a true force to be reckoned with.

Throughout his career of fighting, Drizzt has shown great improvisational ability, often being able to formulate unorthodox tactics to catch his opponents off-balance, or even launching devastating kicks to stun a foe.

Many of Drizzt’s martial achievements have only been accomplished in his first century, during a time in which the elf had little interest in truly perfecting his abilities in combat.

Possessions and Equipment: Figurine of Wondrous Power (Onyx Panther)(Guenwhyvar): A unique and powerful version of the often coveted magical item, the beautiful statue allows for Drizzt to summon the panther Guenwhyvar from the astral plane. She is not bound like most creatures are to the service of her statue’s owner, but chooses to serve as Drizzt’s companion. Guenwhyvar dearly loves her master, but is only able to remain manifested for a limited amount of time. If she is slain or injured, this shortens the time that she may remain on the Prime Material Plane, and if she remains for too long, she begins to grow weak until the magic dismisses itself.

+5 Defending Scimitar (Twinkle): An elven blade in origin, this scimitar is a weapon that Drizzt was given by the wizard Malchor Harpell, to assist him in chasing down the assassin Artemis Entreri, who had kidnapped his friend Regis.

+3 Frostbrand Scimitar (Icingdeth): A mysterious scimitar discovered in the hoard of a dragon for which the blade was named, this artifact-like weapon is able to glow like a torch in below-freezing temperatures, extinguish both mundane and magical fire, and it seems to be good for slaying demons.

Bracers of Blinding Strike: Taken as a prize from a duel against the weapon master Dantrag Baenre, these bracers hold the ability to enhance the speed of whosoever wears them. Drizzt chooses to wear them on his ankles so as to enhance his natural speed, rather than on his wrists, where it has a negative impact on his unpredictable fighting style.

Mithral Chainmail: A shirt of fine chainmail crafted by a dwarven smith, it provides excellent protection.

Spider-Silk Shirt: Worn beneath, or sometimes instead of, his chain. Drizzt pilfered this piece of armor from the Drow assassin Ad’non. When worn with traditional chainmail it is supposed to provide innumerable protection from all but the most fatal attacks.

Ranger’s Longbow: Once belonging to his mentor “Mooshie”, this is a fine longbow that functions extremely well, particularly in the hands of a trained ranger.

Andahar’s Whistle: A magically-enchanted whistle that could call forth the trained unicorn Andahar. A magical creature, Andahar had been commissioned for the elf by the Silverymoon ruling council.

Ring of Elemental Command (Fire): Hosting a number of effects, read further in your D&D manual of choice.

Belt of Ogre Strength: A belt that simulates the strength of an ogre in the wearer.... Duh.

Piwafwi: A drow cloak that allows Drizzt to better hide. It is insulative, making him practically invisible to infravision, and when the hood is raised can simulate the effects of an invisibility spell.

Mundane Gear: Drizzt keeps leather over-garments that he often wears atop his armor, to hide the mithral’s natural shine in the shadows. As well he often wears fine boots that hide within them a pair of daggers. Drizzt is also known to carry rations with him, tools for dungeoneering, and a self-maintained map of his range (Northwestern Faerun).

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mariacallous · 2 years ago

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Editor's Note: The paper summarized here is part of the spring 2023 edition of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, the leading conference series and journal in economics for timely, cutting-edge research about real-world policy issues. Research findings are presented in a clear and accessible style to maximize their impact on economic understanding and policymaking. The editors are Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow and Northwestern University Professor of Economics Janice Eberly and Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow and Harvard University Professor of Economics James Stock.

See the spring 2023 BPEA event page to watch paper presentations and read summaries of all the papers from this edition. Submit a proposal to present at a future BPEA conference here.

The uniquely American approach to providing health insurance through employers is a little-recognized but important driver of increasing labor market inequality, suggests a paper to be discussed at the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) conference on March 31.

The authors—Amy Finkelstein of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Casey McQuillan and Owen Zidar of Princeton University, and Eric Zwick of the University of Chicago—use a stylized model of the labor market to compare the current system, in which about half of Americans are covered by employer-provided health insurance, to a hypothetical system in which health insurance is financed by a payroll tax, similar in spirit to the universal health insurance in countries such as Germany and Canada.

The model shows that, in 2019, under a payroll-tax financed system, employment of full-time workers without a college degree (ages 25 to 64) would have been nearly 500,000 greater, average annual earnings for those workers would have been about $1,700 higher, and the gap between the average earnings of college-educated workers (with a bachelor’s degree or higher) and workers without a college degree would have been 11% smaller.

“These calibrated labor market effects … are in the same ballpark as estimates of the impact of other leading drivers of labor market inequality” such as increased trade, outsourcing, use of robots, decreased unionization, and the declining inflation-adjusted minimum wage, according to the paper, The Health Wedge and Labor Market Inequality.

Employer-provided health insurance discourages the hiring of non-college educated workers because the per-worker cost is the same, regardless of how much a worker earns, and is thus proportionately higher for lower-paid workers. Average premiums were about $12,000 a year in 2019. That was about 25% of the average annual earnings (about $50,000) of a non-college educated worker but only about 12% of the average annual earnings of a college-educated worker (about $100,000), according to the paper.

Several leading economists have conjectured about the important influence of this “health wedge” on U.S. inequality but little work, until the paper presented at the BPEA conference, has quantified the impact.

And because health care spending as a share of U.S. gross domestic product has more than doubled from 1977 to 2019 (and the average health insurance premium has quadrupled in inflation-adjusted terms), the effect on inequality has increased significantly over the past four decades, according to the paper. Many other countries also experienced both an increase in health care spending and labor market inequality, but the increases have been larger in the United States, the paper says.

“Our analysis suggests that if the cost of health care in the United States continues its rapid rise over the coming years, labor market inequality will continue to grow in the absence of substantial reforms to how we finance health insurance in America,” the authors write.

The paper stops short of recommending switching to payroll tax financing. However, it notes that one step in that direction would be to modify the current tax system, which excludes employer contributions to health insurance from taxable income, thus effectively subsidizing private insurance by about $300 billion a year. Replacing this tax exclusion with a tax credit that phases out as income rises would move the system partway toward the benefits of payroll tax financing.

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thecoinshop · 1 year ago

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shieldagentscully-blog · 7 years ago

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Scalpel & SHIELD: Chapter 4 - An Unexpected Visitor

Georgetown, Washington DC, 2002

William had babbled and gurgled for the first leg of the nearly hour drive back to Georgetown, but had well and truly nodded off by the time that they hit the DC metro limits. As she cruised through the streets towards the same, comfortable apartment she had lived in since she’d moved to the city, she hoped that she’d be able to keep him out long enough to get him inside and into bed. That was getter harder and harder to do now that he was over a year old, growing like a weed. Gone were the days when she could just sneak him in his car seat and slip him into his crib.

She pulled into the quiet drive, the same spot she’d had for years. Scully was a fixture in the building at this point, the crazy FBI agent who always had weirdos breaking into her place. She single-handedly had been the cause for the upgrade in security around the apartment, which in and of itself wasn’t a horrible thing, but she was certain her neighbors felt much better now that she no longer worked a job so dangerous that they had to fear that strangers were lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting targets.

Unfortunately, that didn’t mean they weren’t there, either.

She noticed him almost as soon as her headlights ran across the quiet, unmarked sedan sitting serenely by the trash bins. It wasn’t precisely a parking spot there, but visitors often liked to use it if they were only there for a short time, and the manager rarely made a fuss about it. Still, while people liked parking there, it was rare they sat in their cars, slumped in the seat, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. Scully may no longer be an FBI agent, but she wasn’t an idiot.

She pulled into her spot, glancing in her rearview mirror towards the car and the occupant. He sat up after she had parked, and she could see at least part of his face through the darkened windshield.

Quietly and as coolly as she could, she reached across to the glove compartment, where her Smith and Wesson lay under a pile of registration papers, a spare diaper, and one of William’s stuffed toys. She carefully pulled it and the holster, clipping it under her light jacket as she stepped out, half an eye on the car in the back as she rounded to where William was still out like a light. As she did, the man in the car opened his door.

She spared him a glance as she opened passenger’s side, busying herself with gathering William’s scattered things. In reality, she was watching the man as she tugged at his sport coat, buttoning it neatly in front of him. He was an inconspicuous enough person, the sort you’d expect in a special agent: pleasant features, serious demeanor, strong jaw, dark haired, not too tall, not too small, the sort of pleasant attractiveness that didn’t draw attention to himself. The typical agent type. But from where? FBI would just call her or show up at her door, they’d not be secretive about it. The CIA, maybe, but why in the world would they want to play cloak-and-dagger games with her? The same applied to the NSA. This left only one group, really, one she’d hoped would leave her the hell alone since she stepped away from the X-files. She had no wish to play in Spender’s sick games anymore, and he’d better stay the hell away from her son.

“Excuse me,” he called, as her hand tightened on the handle of William’s overnight bag. She set it on the ground, looking around her SUV at him.

“Yes?” Her hands wandered to her hips, the impatient mother trying to get her child into the house. She slid the right one ever so closely to the small of her back, where her holster lay.

He smiled, a pleasant smile, all things considered. “I saw you driving up with the little one. I thought I could help.”

Little one? Scully doubted there was any way in hell he could have seen William’s car seat in the back, especially in the twilight. “I think I’m good, thanks.”

“You sure? I mean, I can help carry something inside.” He continued forward, all careful concern. Scully didn’t hesitate to let her right hand whip behind her back. Before he had another step, her weapon was trained on him, pointed right in the middle of his kindly, concerned face.

“You can also stop where you are and tell me who you work for.” She barely raised her voice above a whisper, desperate to keep William asleep and not in the middle of this. Her heart thumped painfully as she stepped away from the car, closer to the stranger who took a step back, hands slowly moving upwards, palms out.

“Easy! I was just offering to help.”

“Convenient, as you were also hiding out in an unmarked sedan behind my building, waiting for me to arrive back home. Why?”

Something flickered across his stoic face for a moment, but he only sighed. “Look, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Do I look scared?” She flicked the safety off her gun. The man swallowed hard.

“I’d read your file. I knew you were good, but...perhaps I underestimated things.”

“My file?” She knew it. She almost rolled her eyes with the predictability of it. “Who are you with? The CIA? NSA? Can’t be the Bureau, they’d just come by my office to bother me.”

“None of those, no.” His calm demeanor barely flickered as she raised her aim even higher. “I’m not from any US based agency. I work for something more international.”

“Interpol?”

“Close. SHIELD.”

Well, that was unexpected.

She lowered her gun, flicking the safety back on. The man raised a dark eyebrow archly and she wondered if that was what his relieved expression was.

“What does the likes of SHIELD want with me?”

“To talk to you, Doctor Scully. That’s all. Your work has caught our attention and they are interested in you.”

She considered. It was Sunday evening, and here he was, lurking outside of her apartment. If he wanted to kill her and take her son, he could. So far, he seemed on the level.

“Well, if you are offering to help me, you can take the suitcase and his diaper bag.”

This brought a hint of a smile to his expression as he gladly took the items from her, waiting patiently for her to unhook William from his seat. He barely whimpered as she cuddled him close on her hip, keys replacing her hand gun. She jerked her head, a silent request for him to follow her as she led the way to the front of the building, where her apartment door lay.

Once inside, she nodded towards the living room as she carried her sleeping son, warm and snuggly, into his room. Whoever her guest was, he’d have to wait as she stripped William down ,out of his clothes, and changed him into pajamas. William barely woke enough to whine pathetically as she cooed at him, smoothing dark curls off his forehead as she settled him into his bed. He rolled over, asleep again before she even wandered away.

The stranger stood by her fireplace, studying the photos above, a motley collection of pictures of her family over the decades. She noted him studying in particular one of William’s hospital photos, when he was little more than a scrunched up face swaddled in blankets, a tiny hat covering his dark head. The old fear and apprehension rose within her, her fingers itching for her weapon once more.

“What does SHIELD want with the likes of me?”

He spun around, a polite smile on his face. “Why wouldn’t they?” He gestured to her comfortable armchair. “May I have a seat?”

She nodded as he settled across from her couch where she chose to sit, watching him as if he were a suspect, liable to strike at any moment. “I don’t believe you gave me your name.”

“Agent Phil Coulson.” He reached inside his blazer as Scully tensed, but he merely produced a simple card emblazoned with the name ‘Philip Coulson” in black text. To the left, the stylized seal of an eagle was produced in silvery gray, surrounded by the full name of the organization he claimed to be from, the “Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division”.

“I always felt it was a long way for you all to go to spell the word ‘shield’.” She murmured, setting the card on the coffee table in front of her, a reminder of who he was.

“It is a bit obvious, but I suppose it expresses our charter nicely.”

“Ahh, yes, an international anti-terror and intelligence agency focused on global security.” She knew of SHIELD by reputation. As an FBI agent, she’d had to deal with them far less than Interpol, but the idea was similar; an extra-government organization centered on the idea of providing intelligence for global protection independent from the agendas of any one particular government or regime. Of course, Scully had found it amusing that was their chartered goal, though they were mostly based in the United States and served a very specific point of view.

“So, again I have to ask, what does SHIELD want with the likes of me?” She returned them to the topic at hand, namely why he was lurking at her apartment on a Sunday evening.

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“I suppose a better question is why you are here at my house this time of night wanting to chat with me about a secret spy organization?”

“I’d have chatted with you during the day, but you were busy.”

She pursed her lips as he smiled at her in his equinaminous way. “Agent Coulson, I am not in the business anymore. In case you haven’t noticed, my priorities have changed. I’m a mother, I’m a teacher, and I don’t go around playing cloak-and-dagger games.”

“You used to. In fact, until you had your son, you were a full FBI agent, working on the X-files.”

“I’m well aware of what I used to do.”

“You asked why SHIELD wants you and I told you.” His fingers steepled as he sank further into her chair, clearly at ease. “You have a background in physics from the University of Maryland and a medical degree from Stanford, and yet you went into pathology with the FBI only to be stuck on the X-files detail with Fox Mulder.”

“I wasn’t stuck. I was assigned.” She bristled, even after all these years.

He at least had the grace to look apologetic before moving forward. “You were assigned. Your cases weren’t unknown to us, nor is the work you and Agent Mulder did; hauntings, alien abductions, the unexplained. I was a particular fan of the flukeman incident.”

“I am glad someone was.” She still had nightmares about it.

He beamed, briefly. Clearly he meant what he said. “You’ve been on SHIELD’s radar for quite some time. Your unique skill set and experience intrigued us.”

“What about alien abductions and ghost sightings could possibly interest SHIELD?”

“We are interested in global security.” His smile was enigmatic. She wondered if he practiced that a lot.

“I have a feeling that’s all classified and you can’t tell me.”

“Let’s just say that you and Agent Mulder were a lot closer than anyone would like to acknowledge to the truth of a lot of things.”

The truth? She smirked, throwing herself deep into the cushions of her comfortable chair. “What truth is that, Agent Coulson? That there are aliens in the universe who have made a habit of making off with ordinary people or that there is a massive conspiracy to experiment on the public in the most grotesque ways?”

“Both. What do you know about HYDRA?”

“You mean the old Nazi organization? I know of it, of course, mostly from history courses ages ago and watching the old Captain America films with my father growing up.”

“I loved those movies.” A hint of delight worked its way through his equanimity.

“I thought HYDRA died off with World War II. Wasn’t that what the Howling Commandos were up to?”

“Yes. But as we both know, conspiracies aren’t easy to kill off like that.”

That caught her attention. A sick feeling rose inside as she processed, both because of what Coulson was saying and what he wasn’t. “Are you implying that they had something to do with the work Mulder and I did?”

“I’m implying they had everything to do with it.”

“And why would you assume that?”

He slipped a hand into his suit coat, pulling out a slim, long white envelope. He passed it over to her as she studied the unlettered outside of it. She stared at it for long moments, before flickering her gaze to his in silent question.

“A photo you might be interested in. We found it recently in some files, ones that were hidden.”

She reached for it, plucking it out of his grasp. Inside she could feel the thicker stock of photograph paper. Flipping open the flap, she pulled out a black and white photo, obviously taken from a concealed camera, perhaps something from a covert operation. The lab they were in was clear enough, subjects being hooked up to machines by technicians, some looking quietly placid, others fearful, even in tears. Above them on an observatory platform stood two men, watching the scene. The shorter man was older, a shock of white, thinning hair stick around him like a halo. She didn’t immediately recognize him. His companion though, that face she would recognize in her nightmares.

“That’s Spender!” She flipped the photo around to point to the tall, lanky man with a mane of dark hair, not yet the grizzled older man she hated.

“Well, Busch to be more precise, but yes.” Coulson leaned forward as he took one corner of the photo. “Carl Gerhard Busch, born October 29, 1926 to German national parents with ties to the growing Nazi party. When his parents divorced, his father returned, but he stayed in America with his mother. She remarried to a man named Spender, hence the name.”

That was far more than Scully had ever found out about the mysterious smoking man who had terrorized her life for so long, and she had the Lone Gunmen looking. “How did you find that out?”

“We have a file on him. We’ve had one since the 1950s, when he first appeared on the scene as a State Department operative working alongside Bill Mulder. The two of them met in the Army. College kids, they got fast-tracked as officers working in the liaison office, then stepped sideways to State. On his own, Bill Mulder wouldn’t have drawn our attention, but Spender did. His biological father, Gerhard Busch, was a high ranking member of HYDRA, key in it’s growth and organization. He disappeared after the death of Schmidt and was never found.”

“And you thought his son knew where he was?”

“It was suspected that the elder Busch fled to America, along with other former HYDRA operatives, perhaps under the protection of his son. We never found Gerhard.”

Perhaps, because his son had killed him, too.

“Who is the other man?”

“His name is Richard Reinhardt, the head of the bioengineering division of HYDRA. He was the former second to Arnim Zola, who headed up much of the scientific research HYDRA conducted.”

“Zola was captured during the war.”

“He was and never saw a day of prison for it.” Only the slightest tick hinted at Coulson’s displeasure at that fact. “After the war he was brought over to the US to do research.”

“Project Paperclip.” Scully spat the words out. She knew that particular Cold War side project all too well. As if by muscle memory, she turned towards the large, plate glass bay window in her apartment, the one Duane Berry had broken through and take her to Skyland Mountain, turning her entire life upside down. She shivered.

If Coulson knew anything about that, he was polite enough not to mention it. “Higher ups championed keeping Zola around after the war, if nothing else because the SSR and later SHIELD could use his research. He died of cancer in 1972. On his death, SHIELD higher ups suggested looking at other options, other scientists brought over by the government and given amnesty.”

“And this is why you looked into Reinhardt?” The pieces began falling into place almost against her will.

Coulson nodded, looking less than pleased by the fact. “That picture was taken by one of ours, doing some reconnaissance work before approaching Reinhardt. We knew he’d been working for years for a US project, deep undercover. It wasn’t clear what or for whom, and SHIELD wasn’t willing to offer him a position without knowing what he’d been up to. That picture was shot at a US Army research facility at April Air Force Base in San Bernardino County, California.

April Air Force Base?

That name rang like a klaxon as Scully scanned the photo again, picking out the individual patients, some with downturned, blurry faces, others whose features came out quite clearly. “When was this taken?”

“August of 1974.”

That was well within the timeframe. Even as that thought floated to the top of Scully’s brain, she found what she was seeking; a young girl, only nine-years-old, dark haired and elvin faced. She recognized her as surely as she’d recognize her own son. William had the same distant, forlorn expression when he was tired or sick, the sort that melted the heart of most anyone who saw it, especially his daycare workers. That familiar ache, the searing pain of Mulder’s loss, roared to life as she held the photograph with shaking fingers, seeing for the first time visual evidence that the girl who had disappeared on that long ago night in 1973 had been alive long after she was thought gone.

“Samantha,” she breathed, reverently touching the glossy face.

“The best we can tell, she was a part of a program being headed up by Reinhardt, research, using alien technologies.”

“And SHIELD did nothing to stop them?” Anger at the sight of this woebegone girl who had cost those who loved her so much flooded her as she snapped back, directing her ire at Coulson.

“SHIELD doesn’t exactly have the capacity to just call out a foreign government without hard evidence of wrongdoing. Not long after this, our agent was compromised, we had to extract. We were never able to get hard evidence again. The operation was kept so tight, we weren’t even able to get a team put together for removal. Contrary to popular belief, while SHIELD is capable, we aren’t all powerful, and HYDRA is very crafty at hiding when they want to.”

“And you are certain it is HYDRA?”

“Well, the remnants, at least. The core died off long ago, but there are still seeds of it all over. SHIELD roots them out where they can. Which is where our interest in you comes in.”

The last piece of the puzzle clicked into place painfully. “You want me to search for Spender.”

“No one knows him better.”

Did anyone really know him at all? Scully wasn’t so sure. She stared at the photo of the younger Spender in stark black-and-white, looking out over his subjects, a curl of smoke circling up over his head lazily. In panic, she dropped the photo on the coffee table, throwing herself up and out of her seat, pacing blindly to the window Duane Berry had come through.

“You don’t know who you are dealing with here.” She turned on Coulson who watched her quietly.

“We’ve followed Spender for years.”

“Yes, but you’ve not had to deal with him.”

“In all fairness, Doctor Scully, SHIELD is well versed with dealing with all matter of demons.”

“Not this one, you aren’t.” She stalked back towards the mantel and the one photograph of Mulder she had up there, a snapshot of him from a Yankees game she’d taken him to, weeks before he disappeared. He had a ball cap on, crunching on his ever-present sunflower seeds, attempting to teach her the finer points of the game and failing. She’d deliberately played at being confused, of course, just to irritate him as he tried, in vain, to explain a box score. He waxed poetic about Derek Jeter at one point, calling him the greatest Yankee since Mantel. He’d been happy that day.

And then he was gone. Vanished, as if he never existed. Just like his sister.

“This man took everything from me,” she murmured into the silence of her apartment. “He had me kidnapped and tested on, gave me cancer, ripped away my life and my choices out of his own cruelty. He killed my sister. He killed my friends. He created my daughter only to die as a lab experiment. He toyed with Mulder for decades, puppetted his life, stringing him along only to rip his hope and his integrity away time and time again, crushing him gleefully, all the while knowing he was his own son. And I can’t tell you what he did to the one son who did carry his name, how he abused him, abandoned him and his mother, using them and discarding them when it suited. He plays his games, acting as if we were nothing, as if we were little more than toys. You say you know what you are dealing with, but do you really?”

“Perhaps not as much as you, but if we did, we wouldn’t be coming to you, asking you to join us.”

He had a point, as much as she hated to admit it. She blinked against the film in her eyes as she turned to face him. His expression was sympathetic, but quietly expectant as well. Did he understand what he was asking of her, approaching her like this?

“If I agree, I am putting my son in danger. I won’t do that.”

“We will work with you to help protect you and your son. Unlike the FBI, we take the threat seriously.”

“That’s what our old boss said, right before Fox Mulder disappeared.”

“I’m well aware that asking you back into this life is dangerous, Doctor Scully. I’m also aware of what you sacrificed for your work before and what we are asking you to do again. But without you, Spender still is running free without any check to his plans. How many other people will he suck up into his machinations by then?”

He was right, but it didn’t make her want to rush back into the breech anymore. “I’ve had an offer from Howard University, full time faculty.”

“We’ve heard. It’s why we moved.”

She wasn’t shocked he knew about the offer, only that they had moved so quickly to try and secure her. “Then you know that it’s a good job, with a possibility for growth. It’s a quiet, sedate job, without the threat of bodily harm or death that would leave my son orphaned.”

“But is it what you want?”

That caught her by surprise. “How would you know if it was or wasn’t?”

“If it was what you wanted, Doctor Scully, you’d have signed the paperwork last week when it was offered to you.”

Coulson wasn’t an idiot, she’d give him that much. “I feel I need to give full consideration to that offer, first.”

“Fair.” He nodded, rising from her sofa. “Whatever you decide, let me know.”

That was it? She had expected more of a high stakes sell from the world’s most secret intelligence organization. “You’ll just let me go, make my own decisions? Won’t make me an offer I can’t refuse?”

“I’m not in the business of making promises I can’t keep or idyll threats to scare people into doing what I’d like.” He buttoned his blazer with a hint of a smile. “Besides, you are right. Coming to work for SHIELD is dangerous, and you have a child to think of. As long as Spender’s alive, he is a threat, and your son will need protection. Either way, you have to choose what is best; working for us to stop him or working far away and hoping he takes no notice. Only you can make the right decision for you.”

As if that made the choice any better.

Clearing his throat, he crossed his hands in front of him respectfully. “I think I’ll leave you with that for the night, Doctor Scully. You can reach me by the information on the card.”

“Thank you,” she murmured quietly as she showed him out the door. She let it click as she locked the door, leaning for long moments against it, listening to his footsteps down the hallway. No matter how hard she tried, Spender kept coming back, like a god damned cockroach. Last time she’d seen him, he said he was dying. He had more than likely been lying. Wherever he was, she had no doubt that he would, eventually, come looking for her - and for his grandson.

As if on instinct, she wandered to William’s nursery. Oblivious to the adult conversation in the living room, he was asleep, laying on his back, one leg cocked sideways as he hugged his toy alien, Spooky, in one chubby arm. Tears stinging, she reached down in his crib to brush his tangle of fine, dark curls from his forehead, chuckling wetly at the little snuffle and snort he loosed before turning away from his mother’s ministrations.

“What are we to do, Will?” She sighed, pulling back to watch him sleep quietly and contently, without a care in the world.

At this moment, she really didn’t know what they would do.

#Scalpel and SHIELD #shieldagentscully #agent scully #phil coulson #crossover: x-files #crossover: mcu #mcu #shield #x-files

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