#am i projecting my interests onto robert? perhaps

[unmourned]

Oc emoji asks: 🌟 GLOWING STAR - what do they think about when they look at the night sky? is there someone they want to star gaze with?

for any character you want

🌟 GLOWING STAR - what do they think about when they look at the night sky? is there someone they want to star gaze with?

the creature: they think the night sky is amazing, especially when there's meteor showers or you can see the planets with the naked eye. they find it reassuring to think about how big the universe is and that they're only a small part of something bigger (they don't often feel small). they'd like to stargaze with any of their friends, and they'd love rob's explanations about stars

hen: they think the sky is pretty but it's not something they've put a lot of thought into. for them it's a lot more something they'll enjoy in the moment; eg after a party while they're taking a walk in the gardens or if the person they're with wants to go stargazing. most likely to plan a stargazing picnic for everyone because it's more fun for them to see their friends have fun than just look at the stars.

robert: he likes thinking how it's the same night sky across the world, so even when he's far away from home and his loved ones, they're still under the same stars. he loves learning more about how different peoples interpret the constellations, and the stories they have surrounding them. he loves sharing this with people he's close to; he especially likes to take his niblings out on warm summer nights and teach them about the stars.

eli: she has a somewhat more utilitarian approach to observing the night sky; while she does think it's beautiful, she also uses it to tell the time and find her way. she likes learning more about wayfinding using the stars. she likes hot summer nights watching the stars with the frankenstein siblings and the people working in the mansion

[baymaksu]

Well, thank you @theangrycomet you posed an excellent question about Tadashi and Karmi interacting and... You inspired this scene in my head and I absolutely had to draw and write it out. And now here are the beginnings of a spontaneous one-shot I will complete, called: “BH6: Among Titans.” Here’s the storyboard and an excerpt:

At the Ito Ishioka Robotics Lab, Karmi timidly knocked on the door. Peering her head into the office, she looked towards the SFIT dean who was going through paperwork, “You wanted to see me, Professor Callaghan?”

Taking off his glasses, Professor Robert Callaghan smiled at the teenage prodigy, “Ms. Khan. Yes. I wanted to check in with you. How’s your first semester at SFIT been treating you?” Holding onto her biotech textbook, Karmi smiled back, “It’s been good, Professor. I’m getting a hang of the class schedule.”

Callaghan nodded, “Your professors have been telling me you’ve been doing remarkably well. I wouldn’t expect anything less from you, of course.”

Flushing at the compliment, Karmi chuckled, “Oh, thank you, Professor Callaghan. It’s everything I was hoping for. It’s been a good challenge so far.”

“Good. I knew I chose well when I selected you at the Expo. The future is in bright hands. Although, it’s a shame I couldn’t be your mentor. I’m afraid biotech is just not my field of expertise. Unless you’d consider double majoring in Robotics?” The old professor laughed good-naturedly.

Surprised at the offer, Karmi stumbled shyly, “Oh. Th-that would’ve been an honor, Professor Callaghan. I’m already so grateful you chose me to be in SFIT despite my age. But… unfortunately I don’t think robotics is quite a field I see myself in, either.” It truly would be an honor, too. Although she had no inclination towards robotics, she recognized that Professor Callaghan was regarded as one of the “Fathers of Modern Robotics.”

Professor Callaghan frowned lightly for a moment, but quickly laughed as if to expect this response, “Hmmm… I understand, Ms. Khan. I was simply wondering if you’d humor me. I’m still happy to play a part in your growth as a scientist. Well, perhaps you’ll consider it in the future. While I have you here at the Ito Ishioka Robotics Lab, how about I introduce you to one of my proteges?”

“Um. Yes, I’d like that, Professor.” The dean walked over towards her and placed a comforting hand along her shoulder to guide her towards the halls of the robotics lab building. If Karmi was being honest, she found it comforting to be around the dean. She was far away from her parents, from her family. But Professor Callaghan seemed to exude the presence and aura of a very caring father-like figure. And while he wasn’t her mentor in her intended field of biotechnology, he certainly was a mentor that made an exception to accept her to the school of her dreams.

Coming upon an opaque screen door, Professor Callaghan knocked a few times, “Mr. Hamada. Are you free at the moment? I’d like you to meet someone.”

The voice of a young man could be heard into the opaque private lab room, “Yes, Professor. One moment…”

Momentarily, the door opened to reveal a tall young man sporting a grey cardigan sweater and an all-too familiar signature San Fransokyo Ninjas baseball cap that was slicked backwards. The young man had a warm smile on his face. Professor Callaghan looked to Karmi, “Ms. Khan. Meet Mr. Tadashi Hamada. One of SFIT’s best and brightest. His capstone project blends robotics with healthcare and biotech. I think he would be a great student mentor for you.” Now, looking to his protege, “Mr. Hamada, this Ms. Karmi Khan. She’s a first year biotech major.”

Tadashi chuckled warmly, “You know, Professor. If you keep singing my praises, I may never be able to live up to that.” Now focusing his attention to the new student, Tadashi stepped forward to offer a handshake, “Hello, Karmi. Welcome to SFIT, it’s a pleasure to meet you. You’re already the talk of the school with the honor of being our youngest student. It’s quite a feat, you must be proud.”

Karmi awkwardly took his hand and shook it, “Oh, thanks! I.. I am. The honor- or umm… pleasure is all mine, Mr. Tadashi.“ She was utterly taken aback, bashfully processing that he was complimenting her. She was proud, to be sure. But to hear this from the young man that everyone seemed to liken as a “handsome, brilliant white knight.” She had already known about Tadashi. It was hard not to, he really did have an impressive reputation at SFIT.

“You can loosen up, Karmi! Call me Tadashi!” The young man laughed, rubbing the back of his head. He put a hand along his chin contemplatively, “Sixteen years old… You know, if only I could get my little brother to meet you. Maybe you’d inspire him to do something with his big brain, too. He could use a genius friend around his age.”

“Oh…” Once again, Karmi was thrown for a loop. She honestly has never been great with socializing with other people her age, or with most people in fact. But she did feel honored that Tadashi would feel like she would inspire other people like his little brother.

———

Meanwhile, in an alleyway deep within San Fransokyo’s illustrious Good Luck Alley…. With his megabot in hand, Hiro “innocently” walked towards a roaring crowd circling around several bot fighters.

Right before he could weave into the crowd, he suddenly sneezed. The boy had a habit of not covering himself when he sneezed. Some calloused, unsavory characters turned around to scowl at the little boy who sneezed at them. Hiro shrunk with a nervous chuckle, “S-Sorry. It’s… uhhh… dusty here.” With another roar in the crowd, the ruffians looked back towards the action and dismissed the kid. No doubt, their money was betted on the line and wanted to see the victor.

Hiro’s eyes narrowed annoyedly, a finger scratching his nose and sniffling at the sudden sneeze. He muttered to himself, “I sense a disturbance… Tadashi must be talking about me…” The young boy pictured in his head his older brother trying to tell him to go to school like him rather than bot fight…

Hearing the roaring of the crowd at the declared victor. Hiro shrugged his shoulders at the thought, grinning mischievously, “Well, looks like business is good!” The little boy squeezed himself into the crowd, making his way towards the center…

———

Back at the Ito Ishioka Robotics Lab, Tadashi welcomed Karmi and Professor Callaghan into his private lab, “But hey, you caught me at a good time. I was about to conduct another trial test of my project.”

Recalling that Professor Callaghan stated that his project blended robotics and biotech, this piqued Karmi’s interest, “What is your project… if I may ask?”

“Of course. I think it’d be best to show you.” Walking over to his holographic monitor, Tadashi typed away. Until suddenly, a white balloon-like entity inflated from a red station. When it fully inflated, it revealed a marshmallow-like robot, as Tadashi gestured toward his creation, “This is Baymax. He’s a robotic healthcare companion. Fully capable of a comprehensive, non-invasive diagnostic scan and will have over 10,000 medical protocols and procedures coded into him, among other things.”

“He’s…” The summary description of his project was already incredible, Karmi couldn’t quite articulate herself and yelled, “He’s adorable! He looks like you can just hug him!”

With a wide smile, Tadashi crossed his arms proudly, “Yeah. That’s what Dr. Bay and I were going for. He’s going to help a lot of people, so he needs to be approachable.” With an even wider grin, “Want to watch a test trial?” Karmi’s eyes lit up, “Yes, of course!”

With a nod, Tadashi grabbed a labeled object and stood in front of the inflated robot, “This is Tadashi Hamada. And this is the 62nd test of my robotics project.”

They could hear the machine initializing, until suddenly it looked towards Tadashi and spoke, “/Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare- care- Hello. You look like you could use a hug./“ It stepped off of its charging station.

Tadashi mused to himself, “Hmm… A bit out of sequence. Going to have to recode that.” Now addressing his creation, “But ummm… sure, I would love a hug, big guy.” Tadashi raised his arms, preparing himself for a hug.

The robotic healthcare companion waddled towards him, raising its arms to envelope around Tadashi, “/I will hug you now./“

But to Tadashi’s horror, Baymax began wiggling his fingers during the embrace, “W-Wait! B-Baymax! That’s n-not- THAT’S TICKLING!” The young man erupted into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, trying to wrestle out of the machine’s grasp. “/There. There./“

Suddenly, Baymax looked towards Karmi and Professor Callaghan as Tadashi pried himself away, “/Would you like a hug, too?/“ Slyly, Professor Callaghan smoothly sidestepped himself outside of the private lab. But Karmi couldn’t quite process the odd predicament she was in…

“Karmi, look out!” Before the rogue tickle death machine could grab the young prodigy, Tadashi selflessly got in its way and pushed Karmi out of Baymax’s destructive tickling path. Tadashi yelled valiantly, “Save yourselves! I’ll hold him off!”

Karmi ran out of the room, a hand at her mouth agape. Trying to see if she could help the young man. Professor Callaghan calmly closed the door on Tadashi and Baymax, smiling coolly as they could hear the young man wrestling with vinyl and howling with laughter. Karmi couldn’t help but giggle. The professor seemed to simply wait until they heard, “I- I’M SATIS- SATISFIED WITH MY CARE!”

They could hear heavy breathing until Tadashi opened the door, “Whew… I’m sorry about that you guys. He still needs a lot of work.”

Karmi’s eyes were still wide at the spectacle. Looking to see that the robot was now powered down. Recovering from the shock, she awkwardly tried to comfort the young man about his project, “He’s still really amazing! I think when he’s ready, he’ll really help a lot of people. And tickling could help? It makes people laugh?”

With a soft chuckle, catching his breath, Tadashi smiled at her, “Thanks, Karmi. He’ll get there. I won’t give up on him.” Finally regaining his initial composure, Tadashi stood tall, “But listen. I know it can be intimidating starting your first year here. I’m no biotech or medical whiz, or a robotics whiz as you can see for that matter… But if you ever need any help, feel free to come see me.”

This brightened up Karmi’s expression, “Thank you, Tadashi. I really appreciate it. It was a pleasure meeting you and Baymax. I’ll come around if I need help.” Tadashi nodded at the young girl, “Good. I’ll hold you to it, then.”

Professor Callaghan chimed in as he looked towards his protege with an approving expression, “Well, we’ll leave you to it, Mr. Hamada. Keep up the progress. You’re making great strides. Good luck on your project.”

“Thanks, Professor Callaghan. See you around, Karmi! As you could see, I have a lot of work ahead of me. So if anything, you know where to find me!” They all waved farewell to each other as Tadashi slowly closed the door to his private lab.

As they walked down the hall together, Karmi was deep in thought as she processed meeting Tadashi. She finally looked up towards her professor and remarked, “62 tests? I don’t know if I’d be able to keep trying like that… He’s just… incredible.”

Professor Callaghan nodded as he hummed, “Even geniuses have to work hard, Ms. Khan. Mr. Hamada believes in his work and adheres himself to a higher standard. As I said, I only chose the best and the brightest who can shape the future. That’s why I chose you.” He looked down to the biotech prodigy proudly and fondly like a father would to his accomplished child.

Karmi was elated to hear this, shyly responding, “Thank you, Professor Callaghan. Although, I think seeing even Tadashi struggling with his robotics project didn’t exactly inspire me to consider taking up robotics…”

The dean laughed heartily, “I just wanted to show you that an interdisciplinary approach could be an interesting path less travelled. And I’d certainly enjoy having you in my class. You never know. There may come a day you’ll take an interest.”

[sugarcomatosed]

i love your stories so much!! and was wondering if you can give some writing tips perhaps? 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

Breaking this up into sections for you + putting it under a cut cause I went overboard. 😅

General Writing Tips

These work for both academic and creative writing.

Make an outline.

It doesn't have to be a formal one, but having at least a general idea of the scenes you want to include is helpful. If I know my fic is going to be a longer one (like Don't Hesitate was and my current WIP is), I break down the larger story beats i want to hit on a piece of paper or my iPad.

It's good to know what you're planning to do, in a any piece I usually have a single specific scene I want to do and depending on what it is, I might either just do the scene I want to or turn into something longer.

Draft, draft, draft.

I cannot stress the importance of going through and reviewing your work. This is a big part of any sort of writing.

Your first idea isn't always your best idea. As you work on a piece you might find your original idea is holding you back, focus shifts! Don't be afraid to let your work change as you go. It's not always easy to let go of your original idea but if you find it's not working, you have to let it change. Sections will need to be rewritten, things have to be readjusted to fit with later sections. Reread for clarity while you're drafting and look to see if this makes sense to you, or reads well to you. If you can't follow it and you wrote it, chances are your reader can't either. Did you use the same phrase again and again? Find and search it on your doc to double check.

Sometimes you have to cut things you really like because they just don't contribute to the fic anymore. Save those bits and use them somewhere else!In a lot of my longer pieces I will write a paragraph, realize that's not where it should go and cut/paste it into another part of the doc because the pacing/scene doesn't make sense where I had it originally, but it works somewhere else.

If you're stuck, skip around, come back and then stitch the bits you have written together.

Don't Focus on a Word Count

This might be controversial, but I'm of the opinion just because something is longer does not make it better. Some works are short, and that's okay! I very rarely try to aim for a specific count of words unless it's for a prompt exchange or a personal challenge. I write till I feel the piece is done. Some stories require more words, some require less.

Don't Hesitate is a great example of this again, because all I wanted to do was a bittersweet first kiss fic, but jumping write into the kiss wouldn't get the full effect I wanted. Meanwhile, with Old Habits all I wanted to do was write dumb comedic kisses, we didn't need a 2k preamble.

Get Someone You Trust to Edit

My go to editor for the past six years or so is one of my good friends. She has edited everything from college papers to my fics for me before I post them to read for clarity, find any funky phrases or misspelled words I missed, and I do the same for her when she asks! A fresh set of eyes makes a world of a difference. Find someone to trade fics with or ask a friend! They might have good suggestions you never thought of, or be able to tell what you were going for when you don't even know yourself.

I also rely on my friends a lot to brainstorm and talk my ideas out before I start because it helps me think and figure out what I need. It's super common for me to text someone and say "im gonna spitball at you, that okay?" and then spend twenty minutes chatting through my ideas.

Have Reference Material

For my 13sar fics, I regularly go back and review/screenshot videos of the dialogue to make sure I am staying consistent with story events, character nuance and small details. You don't have to go crazy, but it is really helpful to have your source material to go back to and check yourself against. In non creative writing I always had a pile of papers highlighted with my own notes on the margins.

Take Breaks/Pace Yourself

Know your own limits, and if you are working and working on something and it's not coming out leave it alone and come back to it. I'm really bad at this personally because when I get an idea in my head I want to see it through but sometimes you gotta step back! It's not healthy to keep working on things and overwork yourself. Stretch, get up go for a walk.

Write What You Want to Write

Don't focus on what people want to read. Focus on what you like. Find a topic, a scene, anything that you are passionate about and the rest will follow. The only time I write fic for other people is when I am writing for a friend. Even prompt requests I only take open ended ones, if I am not interested in writing it it's not gonna happen. I know it's super hard and I get really anxious sometimes about letting people down now, or worrying people won't like something but then I step back and remind myself this is a hobby and I'm doing it for fun.

Play to Your Strengths

You shouldn't try to write like me, you should try to write like yourself. Find what skills you have and use them to your advantage!

I can't give you a step by step list to write like me, because nobody in the world has my background! We're all unique. Everything I've listed so far I know because I'm not a beginner anymore! I'm in my twenties and have come from a strong academic writing background.

I took on an intensive course load in high school, and then went onto college for a sociology degree. I very rarely had test based finals and at the end of each semester would have five 10-15 page papers to submit. Straight up some of my skills come from having read and studied the works of anthropologist Clifford Geertz. I am not saying you should read anthropology/sociology texts. Unless you like that sort of thing lol

I also have 6+ years of theater experience (acting & directing), I use this all the time for my writing. When I think about a scene, I think about how I would work through it as an actor, how the character would move, and how would things read to an audience. The GOTE ("Goal, Obstacle, Tactics, and Expectation") method of acting by Robert Cohen is really useful hear if you want a more technical breakdown of what I mean by that.

This leads to a lot of what we called "business" in acting, doing small tiny things while you talk or move around on stage to give the sense you're a real human. I don't have to think or try on these sort of things because they're in my skill set already!

Things I do Personally

As in, these are not transferable skills this is just the stuff I do while working on projects.

Find a Vibe™️

I come into any fic with usually a goal I want to hit, a line of dialogue or something I want to capture. Just like, the general idea of a feeling a song even if the lyrics don't match up. Make a mood-board, a playlist, just find something you wanna do. It's less about the actual words on the page and what you're aiming to do.

Look to things that inspire you

Don't Hesitate got written because I wanted to write a fic that captured the same vibe as a scene in Macross Frontier, where two characters have a bittersweet kiss before the final battle and that scene still has me fucked up six years after watching it.

My current WIP is doing the same thing but with the song All I've Ever Known from Hadestown. Two characters working through loneliness, the sudden feeling of falling in love and the frustration that feeling can bring on sometime.

I don't plagiarize them word for word, but these are scenes that inspire me! I also patchwork quilt ideas together. Using Don't Hesitate again, I also ended up pulling from a bunch of shoujo anime, Toradora, Sailor Moon, Yona of the Dawn, Princess Tutu...specific scenes I enjoy to blend and create something new.

Goof Off While You Write

I name my documents stupid things, I write dumb placeholder dialogue or vague sentiments like "insert better word here", I make memes when I'm struggling and roast myself and my predictable tastes.

I spent twenty minutes texting a friend Juro's name with different letters spelt out and then the "fuck your chickenstrips" vine saying it was Juro during destruction. Just have fun with it!

Listen to J-POP On Loop for Hours at a Time

i am not kidding I do this all the time. Perfume, AKB48, anime idol osts, Sailor Moon's OPs/ED, vocaloid songs. I like technopop and Japanese is good because it usually doesn't distract my brain since I only know random phrases, but still know what the meaning og the song is.

I love music, it helps me vibe out.

Thank you so much for enjoying my work ;o;

I hope this is useful to you in some way! I'm so sorry it's so long winded but I am overly thorough and love to teach people ;w;

[cynicalrainbows]

Poetry & Prose

In which Cathy suffers with Guilt and Jane discovers poetry.

The poems mentioned in this fic are (in order of mention Her Kind by Anne Sexton, an extract from Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, On A Train by Wendy Cope, The Dormouse and The Doctor by A A Milne and The Past by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.) Wendy Cope is absolutely recommended if you’re not a fan of poetry in general- her poems are very simple, and all the more effective for that simplicity. The dormouse poem I recommend if you wish to have your heart torn into shreds- yes, it’s technically a children’s poem but even thinking about the absolutely tragic plight of the sad dormouse still makes me tear up to this day. Literally no other piece of poetry has ever affected me so deeply so I’ve just projected that onto Cathy.

In regards to the brief mention of Thomas and Elizabeth….I do sometimes think the case gets examined in a slightly….I don’t want to say unfair way but a way that applies modern understandings of things and modern expectations to a time that was wildly different. Specifically, during a time when it was entirely legal to beat your wife and divorce for women was not an option, what else would you do in a similar situation, other than sending the victim away?

Anyhow, I hope you all enjoy this fic!

*

‘I have gone out, a poss- poss-’

‘Possessed.’

‘Possessed witch, h- haunting the black air, braver at night, dreaming evil, I have done my hitch-’

She pauses.

‘What does it mean?’

‘Hm?

‘What does done my hitch mean?’

She thinks of horses- All hitched up; I’ll just hitch up the cart, words she’d only overheard in her first life since the tending of horses with none of her concern back then, and words she’d heard not at all in her second, since no one seemed to ride much nowadays. And getting hitched, hitched up- Anne had told her that it meant ‘marriage’ nowadays. 

Neither meaning seems to fit here though.

Cathy takes the book and scans the line herself, her brow creasing, which makes her feel vindicated. Cathy is never, ever patronising on purpose, and she can tell that she takes especial care never to reply to a question as if the answer is obvious (even when it is) but even so, it pleases her when Cathy has to actually consider her answer before she gives it.

‘Mmmm… A spell, I think. Or a period of time.’

She sounds disinterested, lacklustre, even though this is usually the sort of question Cathy enjoys: usually, they’d debate it back and forth until they’d come up with an answer between them.

Now though, Cathy answers like she just wants to get on.

‘I have done my hitch over the plain houses, light by light-’

She’s reading slowly to make sure she doesn’t stumble but it’s alright- it’s one of the reasons that she enjoys reading poetry, because it’s one of the rare, precious times when reading quickly doesn’t matter. In fact speed (as Cathy has told her over and over) is actually a bad thing, especially if you’re reading a poem that’s unfamiliar.

‘It just means that you have to read it again because you’ve missed the meaning. Much better to read slowly so you can absorb it.’

And they do absorb it- it’s become their thing. Cathy’s the only queen with an unending appetite for poetry; she’s the only queen who reads slowly as a matter of course (she likes to focus on that rather than on the fact that she’s the only queen who needs to practise reading aloud) and so in this, they’re well matched.

Reading the poetry slowly doesn’t make her feel humiliated in the way that reading prose slowly does, and being able to argue over the meaning of whatever they’re reading- over the word choice and the subject and the feel of it- after she’s finished is her reward. It stops her feeling like a child because although Cathy is undoubtedly the better reader, they’re equals when it comes to interpretation, and that’s another reason she enjoys it.

Not that she’d taken Cathy seriously when she’d first suggested it.

(‘Practise makes all the difference, you know.’

She was sitting in the windowseat of the bedroom she shared with Catalina, back in the first house, hot-eyed and burning with embarrassment and steadfastly trying to ignore Cathy’s presence next to her.

‘It needn’t even be for long.’

She’d had to fight to keep her voice even.

‘There’s no point. I’m no good at it, I’m no good at any of it.’

‘True.’ Cathy’s bluntness sometimes makes her laugh- then it had made her want to cry. ‘But you don’t have to be. You can get better at it, but only if you actually work at it.’

‘I am working at it.’

‘I know- and it’s good you’re going to classes, I’m glad Anna suggested them but….you need to practise at home too.’

‘I do.’

‘With someone else it’ll be more effective. I can help with the hard bits.’

‘Cathy. I know you mean well. But I don’t want you to feel like you need to- to teach me like I’m a child.’

Cathy had shrugged. ‘That’s ok, I understand. Would it help if we didn’t think of it as teaching though? Because honestly I don’t want to think of it as teaching either. Too much pressure and I’d worry I wasn’t doing it right and-’

‘What would you call it then?’

‘How about….two friends who just happen to get together sometimes to read together?’

Jane had shaken her head. ‘You wouldn’t enjoy the sort of books I’m reading.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of books.’ Cathy held up the slim volume in her hand. ‘I was thinking of this. Poetry is MEANT to be read aloud but it’s too weird just doing it on my own.’

‘I’m not really into poetry.’

‘Why not?’

The idea had stumped her a bit, she’d never had to defend herself like this before. ‘I’m just not. I can’t understand it.’

‘No one’s meant to understand it, not the first time anyway. That’s part of the fun of it.’

‘And I read too slowly anyway, you’d be just as bored.’

‘Poetry is meant to be read slowly.’

‘Mmm. Yes. Sure.’

‘No, really! Listen-’

Cathy flipped the book open. ‘I’m looking for something short….ok, this’ll do-’ She’d sat up a little straighter and began to read quickly, flatly, as if she was reading from the newspaper, an account of something: ‘You tell me to lie down, cause my opinions make me less beautiful-’

The first line interested her but she had been distracted too because even she could tell that there’s something wrong about how Cathy was doing it- she’d felt rushed.

‘Do it again.’

‘Why?’

‘You were too quick-’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’ She’d felt deflated- had Cathy just been trying to prove her point because now she’d felt tricked and cheated- but then Cathy had put the book into her own hands, open on the page.

‘You read it.’

She’d tried to push it away.

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Don’t you want to hear it again?’

‘Yes-’ And she did. Something about it had struck her in a deep inside place: My opinions make me less beautiful. A memory teased her until she grabbed at it: Henry’s cold, closed up face when she’d screwed up her courage and begged for mercy for Robert Aske and the Pilgrimage of Grace. She’d been less beautiful to him that day, she was sure.

‘So read it. I’ll help if you get stuck on a word. And there’s only us here, no one else is listening.’

Still, she hesitated.

‘It’ll sound better when you read it, I promise you. Just give it a try. Please.’

It’s the please that did it, because she’s never able to say no to people when they use it. Even when she should. (Henry had said please when he’d asked for her hand- the first and last time he’d ever used it with her. She should have said no.)

‘Ok.’

‘You tell me to quiet down-’

It turned out actually to not be too hard to read, she’d only hesitated briefly over ‘tongue’. And oddly enough, she’d found that Cathy was right. It did sound better, somehow- perhaps because she was reading so slowly that she had time to take in each word, like bricks being added to a wall, one by one, each making the whole a little more complete.

‘-difficult to forget but not easy for the mind to follow.’

She’d closed the book on the last word and seen Cathy beaming at her. ‘You see? You see?’

Reluctantly, she’d nodded- but she hadn’t been able help a smile twitching the corners of her own lips too. ‘I see.’)

She hadn’t taken Cathy seriously when Cathy had told her that maybe she could like poetry, because she’d believed she couldn’t- she associated with confusion, with trouble. (They had said that Anne had had poems dedicated to her at Court, so many that it had caused a stir and then more than a stir. She hadn’t been able to trust poetry after she’d heard that.)

The poems Cathy has her read aren’t like that though- they have easy, simple words and some of them aren’t about anything much but they manage to make her feel things in a way that she’d never imagined printed words would be able to do.

There’s one that Cathy shows her, about riding in a train, that makes her want to cry for the soft simplicity of it, of  how it reminds her of the peaceful feeling of watching the scenery as Kitty sleeping against her shoulder when they have to travel for an interview. It surprises her- she didn’t think that poetry could be that easy.

But now Cathy doesn’t look as if she finds it easy. She just looks tired.

‘-my ribs crack where your wheels wind-’ She reads on. It occurs to her that on a normal day, she’d be more focused on the words, about how they remind her of how she’d writhed and strained so hard giving birth that it had felt as if her own ribs were splintering in her chest- but now she’s more preoccupied with Cathy’s wan, drawn face.

‘A woman like that is not ashamed to die. I have been her kind.’

It’s only as she finishes that she realises Cathy’s eyes are glistening with tears- and although it’s not as if she’s never seen Cathy cry over a poem before, this doesn’t feel like last time.

(She’d thought Cathy had been joking.

‘How can this be the saddest poem in the world?’

Cathy had blinked at her, brushing at her eyes. ‘Because it IS. Doesn’t it make YOU feeling like crying?’

‘Not...really.’ She had wondered if there was some hidden meaning to it that had affected Cathy so, but she wasn’t sure how there COULD be. ‘It’s a children’s poem.’

‘That doesn’t mean it isn’t TRAGIC!’ Cathy looked genuinely sad. ‘Jane, the dormouse has to live FOREVER in the wrong sort of flowerbed, just because the doctor wouldn’t listen to what he actually wanted!’

Jane had shrugged. ‘Yes but- Cathy, love, it’s a children’s poem. It’s not meant to make you get this upset.’

‘Ugh, you sound just like Catalina.’ Cathy had picked up her copy of When We Were Very Young and left the room in a huff.)

This isn’t the same though- because rather than trying to explain herself, Cathy just looks wearily resigned.

‘Are you alright love?’

‘Fine.’ Cathy blinks a couple of times but the tears spill over, rather than disappearing like she’d obviously hoped they would.

‘No you’re not.’ 

Cathy sniffs and doesn’t respond; Jane edges closer and wraps an arm around her shoulders, hoping that she won’t pull away.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘It’s nothing, it’s silly.’

‘More silly than crying because a dormouse had to sleep in a bed of daffodils?’

Despite the tears still sliding down her cheeks, Cathy gives a short laugh. ‘They were chrysanthemums, actually. And yes.’

‘Well then’ She tightens her hold and Cathy rests her head against her shoulder. ‘Now you really do need to tell me love, because I’m fascinated.’

‘That's the thing. It really is nothing. I just feel really-’ Cathy searches for the word.’ You know like the opposite of rose tinted glasses?’

‘Yes.’

‘Like that. Just- tired and flat and pointless. And I don’t know why. The poem was just the last straw- it reminded me of, of how much I ruined by dying when I did….how many things could have been fixed if I hadn’t-’ Cathy’s face crumples and Jane feels it like an ache. ‘I’m sorry, I said it was stupid.’

‘Cathy love, no, no, no. Oh you poor thing-’ Cathy leans into her, sniffing and Jane rocks her gently back and forth. ‘It isn’t stupid in the slightest but that doesn’t mean it’s true-’ She isn’t quite sure where she should start. ‘You can’t blame yourself for dying, that isn’t fair.’

‘But if I hadn’t-’

‘But you couldn’t help it- and goodness, even if you had-’ Jane pulls back enough to cup Cathy’s damp cheek. ‘If you had been able to control it...I hate to say it, but there’s so, so many other things that could have gone wrong, even if you had been alive to see them.’

Cathy shakes her head. ‘I left Mary all alone- you know, some historians think she could even have died of neglect because they can’t be sure she ended up somewhere safe? And Jane- she had to go back to that awful house, those terrible people, because she couldn’t be part of my household without a proper chaperone, she might not have died if I’d been there to oversee things….I never had a chance to explain to Elizabeth, I always meant for her to know that I only sent her away to keep her safe and I meant to be explain one day when we were together but I never saw her again, there wasn’t TIME….and Edward and Mary might have reconciled, perhaps they wouldn’t have been so opposed, I made them all a family when I was alive and then when I was gone, it just fell apart….’ Cathy breaks off, sobbing too hard to speak and Jane shakes her head.

‘Oh Cathy. Oh love. It’s alright, let it out.’  She waits until the tears have slowed a bit before passing over a handful of tissues.

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome. Now. Can I say what I think?’

Cathy nods, dabbing her swollen eyes.

‘Cathy. You are a wonderful, intelligent, kind, caring young woman and we are all love you and count ourselves very, very lucky to know you and have you with us, ok?’

Another tentative nod.

‘But love, you are not God. You’re not magic. You cannot possibly think that you would be able to have solved all of those problems, all of those issues, if you’d been alive. Honestly, even if you had a hundred years to try, I don’t think you’d have managed.’

Cathy looks wrong-footed. ‘But all of it- when I was alive, things were alright, they weren’t-’

‘Were they? Were they really alright? Or was it just that the problems didn’t exist yet?’

‘Well-’

‘Love, you did a wonderful job bringing the family together. But that’s so much easier when the children are- well, children. Do you see how much harder it would have been when they were adults? Edward was….seven, when you met him?’

‘Six.’ Cathy blows her nose.

‘See? He was a child. And Mary was a young woman but- well, with her father alive, even with a definite King in place….well, it would have been madness for her to double down with her beliefs the way she did. It was different when you were gone.’

‘Yes. When I was gone-’

‘No.’ She shakes her head decisively. ‘When you were gone, I said. Not because you were gone.’

Cathy contemplates for a moment and Jane pulls her closer, so that Cathy can lean against her comfortably. ‘Think love, for a minute. Did everything go to plan when you were alive? Did everything go just how you tried to make it turn out?’

Reluctantly Cathy shakes her head. ‘No. Hardly ever.’

‘So.’ Jane presses a kiss to the top of her head. ‘What makes you think it would have been any different if you’d lived longer?’ She pauses. ‘You need to let go of the blame. You need to stop torturing yourself with thinking how things could have been different- trust me, it’ll be easier when you do.’

She can see by Cathy’s expression that she understands what she means.

‘You make it sound so easy.’

‘Oh it won’t be. It isn’t. It’s always hard.’ She can say it lightly but honestly, it’s something that she doesn’t even think she’ll stop struggling with. ‘But you’ve taken the first couple of steps today….so that’s a start at least.’

‘I suppose.’ She’d be more bothered by the non-committal response if it wasn’t for the fact that she can tell by Cathy’s expression that she is actually thinking about it- only passingly now, perhaps, but later, when her tears have dried, tomorrow or the day after, she will think on it again, think about it seriously and examine the idea, and turn it over and over in her mind until she’s made peace with it.

She knows how Cathy does things after all, which is why she doesn’t push it too hard. She might not be able to read well but she knows about people.

Nestled up against her, Cathy looks even wearier and more wrung out than before but it doesn’t worry her so much as it did when she first noticed it. She smooths Cathy’s hair away from her damp face and smiles when she hums in response.

They sit in silence for a minute or two, and Jane imagines dust settling around them after a storm, normalcy returning slowly. She isn’t planning on going back to the poetry- she imaginges Cathy has probably had enough of it for one day, and then she remembers something and jerks up, dislodging Cathy from her arms and making her squeak in surprise.

‘Jane?’

‘Sorry, sorry- I just- I remembered something, something I meant to show you and I thought...it might help. You, I mean.’

Cathy looks slightly skeptical, and then she shrugs. ‘Ok. What is it?’

‘I’ll fetch it. Get comfortable while I look though because it might take a minute.’

She waits until Cathy has re-arranged the pillows and lain down properly on the the bedspread, half smiling despite herself.

‘I’m curious now-’

‘I knew you would be. Just- Oh!’ She unearths the book from under her bed, where she remembers putting it for ‘safe-keeping’ and climbs back onto the bed with it. 

And begins to read.

‘I fling the past behind me, like a robe, worn threadbare at the seams, and out of date…’

Cathy curls back up into her side again and she smiles. ‘I have outgrown it. Where- where-’

‘Wherefore.’ Cathy’s voice is quiet; she goes on.

‘Wherefore should I weep and dwell upon its beauty-’

As she reads, she feels the tension leaving the girl next to her as she sinks into the cadence of the words.

‘-starred with gems made out of ch-ch-’

‘Chrystalled-’ Cathy’s voice is nearly a whisper now, but she can still hear it.

‘Chrystalled tears. My new robe shall be richer than the old.’ She finishes, flushed with the glow of hearing how much more confident her voice is than when they’d begun these sessions, all those months ago.

‘That’s you, Cathy. And all of us.’ She leans closer to the curly hair- Cathy’s face is buried in Jane’s cardigan but she knows she is still listening. ‘All of us, stronger than we were. You can put the past down, you don’t have to carry it with you, if it’s hurting.’

Cathy gives a tremulous nod, her face still buried and Jane kisses the top of her head..

She isn’t concerned, they can talk about it more later.

For now, she’s happy to wait until then.

[harry-leroy]

Jan. 18th, 2020 // Opera, and Huxley, and new semesters, oh my! 

Going to be trying a thing on Fridays where I give a little academic update for the week. Kinda studyblr-esque but not exactly since I don’t really consider this blog to be a studyblr in a strict sense. Also a lot of my mutuals on here are also academics (or maybe some of y’all out there are looking forward to studying at university and want something to look into for some insight?), so I figured that this might be fun (or at the very least perhaps something for my own records). 

This isn’t meant to be rantish, but I’m gonna give an honest viewpoint into university life from my perspective (with all of its ups and downs and in-betweens), so buckle up and as I like to say on my blog, on y va! 

This week was the first week back at university for the spring semester of my second year, and it was a weird week for sure. I feel like most people have felt this way about this week, (and about this year tbh). I’m beginning to realize that I’ve got an academic niche, and perhaps that’s a good thing, but it might be too early to tell. Currently, I’m taking a class on Modern Britain and I feel so out of my depth. The class is terribly small (twelve of us in that class!) so the professor is able to keep track of participation pretty well, and my brain just isn’t grasping onto this subject as well as I thought it would. It’s frustrating to say the least. I’m also taking the second half of my two-semester honors class after taking a break last semester to take some theatre classes, and we’re hitting it right off with some Spinoza. Class discussion has been slow, but I’m hoping that more people will participate so I don’t feel like the only one talking! The first week always has me feeling incredibly scattered, and it always gets better fairly quick into the semester, but I’m hoping that feeling of security in my abilities and focus comes soon! 

English classes have started off pretty well and I’m trying to wrap my head around some honors projects that I want to undertake this semester. For my premodern lit class I’m thinking about something involving a study of how the law functions in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost. I’ve noticed that while the law sounds strict in its original detail, it doesn’t actually become that strict in practice, which might be something to look into. I’m also going to be reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel The Black Arrow and doing a project on it for my Victorian Young-Adult lit class. That project will become more detailed once I read it. My professor for my Victorian lit class (who was the same professor I worked on #ProjectAriel with) realizes that Victorian lit isn’t really my area, and I was like ‘yeah, you’re right’. It isn’t my area. 

I decided over break that I want to pursue grad school (after some several semesters of debating it), but I want to get into a good grad school. I’ll be totally honest: I don’t love the university that I’m at now. So far, I have not been challenged much academically and nearly everything has been an easy A+ (and I’ve taken several classes in the 400 level for my major - and if I got an A it was only because that professor didn’t give any A+s to anyone) *knocks on wood though, just in case*. At the same time, my university is notoriously easy to get into, so I have no idea how I’d rank against other students who are in perhaps more difficult programs than I am. I’ve had professors who have offered to write me rec letters for grad school, which is encouraging (like, I didn’t have to ask them for it!). My Shakespeare professor from last year offered to do this for me, and he studied for his undergrad and graduate degrees at Cambridge, so I guess that’s good? Again, I have no idea where that puts me, because of the  notoriously easy school that I’m at. It also probably doesn’t help that the amount of professors in the English department who specialize in Early Modern lit is a rather small number. (But we’ve got Ayanna Thompson and that’s all that matters :’) )  - she said that she was interested in my thesis work for when the time came around (again, I’ve got about another year before that will start up). If any of y’all are in English grad programs, any advice or direction would be wonderful. And just to make it clear, this isn’t to show off my accomplishments in any way. I feel incredibly unstable in this process because I don’t really have any other students my age at my university to compare myself to. This whole thing has my brain in like 9,000 different pieces. I’m in sore need to guidance and direction. 

On that note, I was debating doing a history minor, but based on how this Modern Britain class is going right now and the fact that the minor itself is quite broad, I decided against it. So I’m just going to be a lit major, which has me feeling like I’m not doing enough, but then again, I think I’ve found my niche. I’ve found what I like to study, and the broadness of this history minor doesn’t really fit into that. I’m hoping it’s the right choice! 

Currently wrapping up Huxley’s Crome Yellow (which I’m tempted to turn into a little script adaptation for its 100th anniversary coming up next year). The book is incredibly humorous, but also incredibly long-winded, even in the shorter length of the novel itself. It would require a bit of moving things around to make it more dramatically interesting, but I’m up to the challenge. I also just finished Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. I would love to possibly do a study into Madama Butterfly herself, along with Nora from A Doll’s House, Lady Windermere and Mrs. Erlynne from Lady Windermere’s Fan, and Rachel from A Woman of No Importance and examine the agency they took against their somewhat similar situations in their stories. They all come from works of the 1870s-1910s, so that’s where my brain went. Next Friday, I should have watched Billy Budd (which I am incredibly excited to watch after listening to Ian Bostridge and Sir Simon Keenlyside talk about it). Speaking of Ian Bostridge, he’s having a concert next week in my state like two hours south of me that’s free so that’s fun. I won’t be able to go, but I’m hoping that there will be another opportunity to hear him live! 

Anyway, this probably became somewhat rantish, but these are most of the things moving around in my academic world right now! 

[darlingrutherford]

Once Upon a Time in Thedas Update!

Well, my brain isn’t letting me focus on much, but it did let me finish up this next chapter for my Cinderella!AU! For those who haven’t been following along but would like to, you can find chapter one on both Tumblr and Ao3

Super big thanks to those liking and sharing! Reblogs help boost visibility and are just all around awesome, so thank you if you do! <3

This chapter is pretty mild ratings wise. Enjoy! <3

Once Upon a Time in Thedas - a DA Cinderella!AU  | Chapter 3 | Alistair Theirin/Lana Surana | Overall fic rated explicit for further out chapters

     Three weeks had passed since Leliana had helped with Lana’s hurt finger. Things had been quiet for the most part, and Lana had enjoyed the calm as much as she could. As soon as the sun went down, once dinner was finished and the kitchen clean, Lana always went straight to bed. When she was younger her mother would check on her throughout the night and reprimand her if her candle burned too late, but at this stage of her life she had learned and they in turn had learned to trust her in that respect. Tonight had been the same as most nights, and though Lana's parents had long since gone to sleep, she found herself sitting on her bed, her hand cupped along the back of a candle to dim its projection as she quietly read one of the books her father had leant to her. It was old, one Lana had read until the pages had frayed at the edges over time. The book told the story of Andraste in a more fantastical manner than the Chant of Light, something meant to entertain children who needed more than cryptic prose and verses. Her mother had insisted that she had outgrown it, but it was one of the areas her father had indulged her. Lana loved the stories of Andraste, of the great battles she had fought on behalf of the Maker, the adventures she had experienced, down to the betrayal by her husband to Tevinter. It was quite morbid for a children's book perhaps, but Lana was fascinated by it.

As Lana turned the page, she jumped as she heard a light tapping on her window. She waited, then it happened again. Maker, was a bird trying to get in? Perhaps an owl? She squinted as she scooted closer to the window, confusion spreading on her face as she saw the distinct outline of Sister Leliana's face. She had almost not recognized her, void of her usual Chantry dress wear and now in a deep purple dress. Quiet as she could, Lana opened her window.

“Sister?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, terrified of her parents hearing her. Sister Leliana waved her towards her with a mischievous smile on her face. Lana opened her mouth to speak, stopping as the Sister quickly moved away from the window and into the garden. Her heart pounding, Lana looked towards her door and listened intently. She hadn't heard a sound in the house for an hour, her parents having gone to bed when she had earlier. Quiet as a mouse, Lana took a leap of faith, putting out the candle and hopping out the window. Her bare feet hit the grass outside, cool dew making her shiver in her nightgown. Sister Leliana had stopped at the edge of the yard before turning around suddenly to face Lana.

“Would you like to go to the ball?”

Lana's mouth hung open. Of all the things to come out of the Sister's mouth, that had been the least of Lana's expectations.

“What?” She asked in disbelief.

“You heard me.” Leliana was grinning wildly, her eyes practically twinkling in the dark.

“I can't - I can't possibly… I'm in a nightgown, and my parents -”

“Were fast asleep when I peeked in their window,” Sister Leliana said. “Would you go? I can make sure you get home before they notice. We can leave at the stroke of midnight. And I've found the perfect dress for you.”

“Why are you doing this for me?” Lana asked in disbelief. She could feel a well of emotions building inside of her, of fear and excitement and everything in between. She looked back at her room, as if she would have been able to hear her parents stirring in their bed.

“Because you deserve a little fun for once in your life. As your assigned Sister, I am hereby demanding it,” Sister Leliana said. “You won't make me return the dress, will you?”

Lana had given in. She knew her punishment would be great if her parents ever found out, but the chance to see Denerim, to see the palace, and the people - it was all too tempting. Sister Leliana had led her to an outstretch of forest where she had hidden a small chest of goods behind the brush. From the chest the Sister had pulled a dress, deep blue in color with similarly colored lace that overlay the breast and flowed onto the off-the-shoulder sleeves. As Lana stared at the dress Leliana had placed in her arms, she watched as a pair of golden colored slippers were placed on top. The Sister had then promptly fussed about her, ensuring she got dressed in a timely manner beneath the light of the moon.

“Where did you get these?” Lana asked in awe. To any noble lord or lady, the dress would not have seemed anything special. It was simple, save for the cut of the dress and its pleats, not with any large petticoat of the sort she had seen in the drawings of children's books. Still, Lana was sure she had never worn anything so exquisite, and found herself unable to suppress the grin on her face as she twirled her hips back and forth to move the long skirt. Leliana laughed as she unbraided Lana's hair and fluffed it over to one side.

“A friend owed me a favor,” Leliana smiled knowingly. “Now, come on. We won't have much time if we take too long getting there.”

The two of them walked through the city on foot. As dark as it was, the streets were lit by lanterns that glowed onto the dirt. The closer they got to the palace, the more cobblestone was paved beneath their feet. Many shops near the marketplace were still open, “On account of the ball,” Leliana had explained. Lana became sidetracked many times by the various stores, peering in through the windows to see what goods they sold. There were shops selling dresses both plain and exquisite, shops with weapons and armory, ones with dried herbs that hung from the roofs and jars of concoctions she had never heard of. Leliana took her by the arm, delicately rerouting her down the path towards the palace.

There were so many people outside the palace, even more so inside. Lana was sure she had never seen so many people in one place before. Everyone was dressed impeccably. Women were dressed in their best gowns, covered in lace and pearls and feathers. There were a few in gold and silver masks, accompanied by men similarly outfitted. Many of the long hallways were open for the ball, but the main event was in the throne room. It had been outfitted for the ball, with great cuts of fabric draped from the ceiling in gold, white, and red to match the Fereldan banner. There was a small band of musicians at the top of the hall near the empty throne, and people dancing to the music in the center of the room. The sides of the hall had been lined with tables covered in various foods and drink, and servants walked around in matching outfits seeing to everyone's needs.

“This is… amazing.” Lana couldn't help but laugh with a smile on her face. In all her wildest dreams, she never could have imagined anything this grand.

“I want you to have fun tonight,” Leliana instructed, smiling brightly down at Lana. “Don't hold back. All right?”

“Okay,” Lana nodded, smiling ear to ear.

    “Have you met Lady Casing yet? Her father is Lord Casing, of Calenhad. She rides horses in her spare time.” Eamon was talking, but at this point in the night, after three hours of people eagerly rambling at him and pining for his attention, Alistair found it difficult to focus. “Alistair, are you listening to me?”

“Yes, I met Lady Casing,” Alistair sighed. “She spent the entire time talking about her summer estate and how she hopes she can change things up once she's Queen.”

“Well, the Queen will have a certain amount of influence on the palace, it's true.”

“She wants to ensure she only has human ladies-in-waiting so as to cut down on the stealing.”

“There is an entire room of ladies for you to choose from, your Majesty. If not Lady Casing, how about… Lady Roberts? She's an avid player of chess, the youngest of three…”

Alistair looked around the room a bit lacklusterly as Eamon continued on. Every lady who had shown up had seemed the same as the last: rich, spoiled women who talked highly of themselves and their families only to raise their brows in confusion the moment Alistair tried to bring up anything not to do with wealth, land, or politics. At one point early on in the night, his mabari, Bryn, had snuck his way into the hall in search of a good scratch and a snack, easily crossing ten or so women from Alistair's list as they reacted in disgust. He tried to remind himself that there were three nights of this, but surely any woman interested would be there all three nights? If they were all there was to be, he had doubts of finding someone he could truly connect with at all. As he continued looking around - nodding periodically whenever Eamon's tone piqued as it did when he was asking a question - his eyes drifted over towards one of the tables against the wall, and his eyes stopped as he saw her, his heart fluttering. The woman stood near the table, her focus not on the food or anyone in particular, but on the dancing crowd further away.

“And, of course, you should meet Lady Ansling…”

Alistair nodded his head as if he were listening, but truth be told he could barely hear a thing. All his focus had moved onto this woman. Her fiery red hair lay about her face in a mess, quite contrary to the fancy updos of everyone else, as her eyes skated back and forth over the crowd. She seemed to be in as much awe as he felt, the kind of warm smile plastered across her face that he could feel from afar. She was beautiful. More beautiful than any woman he had laid eyes on that night. Eamon long forgotten, he left his spot in the corner and began walking towards the woman. He walked up beside her, pausing as he tried to find his brain which had conveniently decided to leave him the moment he neared her.

“Nice… Party, isn't it?” He started. He looked down at her, wondering after a moment if she hadn't realized that he had been speaking to her. He reached out and tapped her bare shoulder lightly. He grimaced as she jumped and saw the shock on her face. “Maker, I'm sorry. It's… Loud, I didn't know if you heard me.”

“Oh! I'm so sorry!” Lana said. The initial worry had faded from her face and was quickly replaced by a smile as she craned her neck up to look at him. Maker, but he must have been a foot taller than her if not more, she guessed. He was dressed quite nicely, in a smooth, brown doublet with a trim of darker brown, and a cotton white shirt with long sleeves underneath, though even his clothes were void of the fancy frill Lana had seen on the other lords there.

“Bit of a dusty old place, isn't it?” Alistair said. “I just came for the food, myself.”

“Oh?” Lana laughed, watching him as he took a small, bite-sized treat from a plate and popped it into his mouth. “Not for the dancing? I suppose they're all wanting to dance with the King, though. Probably smart to stick with the food. You might get thrown out if you're caught with the future queen.”

“Yes, that would be unfortunate,” he chuckled. Maker, but she didn't know who he was? Alistair instantly felt himself relax, feeling more at ease with someone who would have no preconceived expectations from him. That meant she wasn't a noble, then. All the nobles seemed to already know his face, though many others had still known him from the hand drawn posters that had made it around the city announcing the ball. “Should I leave you alone, then? So the King gets his turn. I wouldn't want to get thrown out if he has his eyes on you.”

“Oh, I don't think that'll be a problem,” she said. She flushed at his words, her hand tugging at strands of her hair nervously. “A… Friend brought me here, to enjoy it. I'm just taking it all in. I don't think he would be very interested in someone like me.”

“Why do you think that?” Maker, but even her modesty warmed his heart.

“Well, I'm not a noble, for starters.” Lana paused, her voice getting fairly quiet as she continued. “I'm a mage, as well.”

“Not exactly illegal, is it? Being a mage.”

“No, but mages are dangerous… I can't imagine it would be smart, making one Queen.”

“So I could dance with you without worry of royal retribution, then?” He teased.

“You want to… Really?” She seemed shocked at his seemingly innocent proposal, her face reddening by the moment. “Even though… I just told you that I'm a…?”

“I've met dangerous people who weren't mages,” Alistair said, shrugging casually. “I have no reason to fear you, do I? Miss…?”

“Lana,” she said, and for a moment she was sure her face would melt from the heat that rushed to it.

“Lana. Maker, your name is very…” Alistair cleared his throat, feeling heat of his own rush to his cheeks. “I'm Alistair.”

“You have the same name as the King?” Lana asked, laughing lightly at the coincidence.

“We're one in the same, he and I,” He chuckled. “Now…Shall we grace their grace’s presence on the dance floor?”

He bowed rather dramatically in front of her, grinning as she laughed at his presentation. He held out his hand for her, fairly certain he would hold the pose all night if needed. Lana bit her lip, looking around to see if she could find Leliana in the crowd to give her any sort of direction. When she couldn't locate her, Lana timidly placed her hand in his. Lana felt as if her heart would burst from sudden adrenaline as Alistair whisked her off to the dance floor in no time at all. Her heart pounded as he placed a hand lightly on her waist.

“I don't know how to dance,” she admitted sheepishly.

“That makes two of us. Just follow my lead,” Alistair said, giving her a quick wink. “Well, I've had a few lessons recently, but they were rather rushed and the teacher was pretty awful… Either that or I was so bored out of my mind I've forgotten it all.”

“Bored from dancing?” Lana repeated in disbelief. She looked down at their feet as Alistair began, trying to follow his motions.

“I suppose with the right partner, it's all right,” he said. He smiled as he watched her concentrate, each step carefully taken. “Don't think about it too much. You're doing great.”

“Just… Follow you, right?”

“Right.” Alistair felt his heart flutter as her eyes met his again. They were such a deep blue, like how he imagined the ocean at its deepest point. Red spread across her cheeks again the longer he stared at her, and he couldn't help the stupid grin that plastered on his face. “Are you enjoying the ball?”

“It's unlike anything I've ever seen,” Lana said. Her eyes darted around as they danced, trying to take in everything from the new angle. More people had gathered around the dancefloor than she had remembered a moment ago, some dancing, others watching. “I've never seen so many people… I feel like they're watching us.”

“Probably because you're such a good dancer.”

“What?” Her head snapped back to look at him with a smile. She felt as if every word he directed towards her was making her flush, and she wasn't wrong. He seemed so genuinely interested in her, it was almost alarming. At the same time, it felt… Incredibly nice.

“Putting them all to shame with your perfect moves.” He grinned as she laughed. “I bet you're secretly a bard or something, come to seduce the king and set the kingdom in turmoil.”

“That's it. You've found me out,” Lana snorted.

“I knew it,” Alistair scoffed. “That's all right. I'll keep your secret, if you keep mine.”

“Oh? What's that?”

“I'm here to do the same. Don't you laugh - I'm very seductive, I'll have you know!”

“Really? When's the last time you seduced an unsuspecting target?” She teased.

“Well… If you must know… Right now.”

“Me?”

“You said you're a mage, right? I figure... I seduce you, you use your magical ways to get me to the King’s chambers…”

“You think you're seducing me with a few steps to the side and back?” Lana laughed.

“Oh, I haven't shown you all my moves just yet.” Alistair let go of her waist before lifting her hand high above her head. He moved his hand in a tight circle, spinning her until the skirt of her dress lifted from the ground around her ankles. Lana let out a loud squeal in surprise as she was spun, the hall a blur to her as her eyes tried to focus on anything, but ultimately failed. When Alistair finally stopped spinning her, she tripped over her feet as she stumbled while the floor seemingly moved beneath her. Alistair quickly caught her, and the two of them laughed loudly as she clung to his arms for balance.

“I don't think we're behaving quite properly, judging on the face of Lord Pompous in the mask over there…” Alistair murmured quietly to her with an impish grin. Lana leaned back, her hands still gripping tightly into his arms, finding the man in the intricate silver mask wearing more frills than anyone else in the hall. He was sporting a scowl discernible even with the mask, clearly unapproving of their playfulness at such a serious event. Lana tried to hold down a laugh, but one look at Alistair and she lost it, the laugh bursting from her simultaneously with his.

Time eluded the two of them. Lana and Alistair spent what felt like mere moments to them dancing. They talked the entire time, and for that time Lana was the happiest she had ever felt. Here was the first person she had spoken to outside of her parents and the Chantry in more than ten years, and he had looked on her more favorable than any of them ever had, even knowing full well that she was a mage. He was so kind, wanting to know as much about her as possible. She knew it wouldn't last long, but Lana felt herself wishing for a way to make that night last forever. After more than an hour, Alistair had looked behind her and grimaced as he saw Teagan waving him over. He paused his feet, smiling at Lana in regret.

“Give me one moment, I'll be right back,” he pleaded. He brought her hand up to his mouth and placed a warm kiss on the back of her hand. Heat spread like wildfire from her fingers to her face at the touch of his lips. She felt frozen to the spot as he left her, floating in the clouds high above the palace. Then, the sound of a great clocktower began to ring the hour, and her heart sunk. Midnight. She wondered if there was time to tell him, and then she saw Sister Leliana near the arched doorway waving for her. She had to go. She looked around the room, unable to find Alistair on account of her short stature and the crowd that had gathered where he had gone. She bit down her disappointment, reminding herself that this was all a short lived dream after all, and ran towards the door.

When Alistair had finished speaking with Teagan, he found himself distraught. He scanned the hall with no luck, no sign of the red hair that was burned into his memory. She was nowhere to be found. He left to wander the halls looking for her in case she had gone to get some air, still coming up empty and wondering what he had said wrong. Eventually Eamon had found him, insisting that he return to the ball. Alistair reluctantly followed him back, praying to the Maker that she'd return the following night.

[emospritelet]

Honourable Members

This is partly the fault of @thestraggletag for this post and the subsequent dream I had.  It’s also the fault of Bobby for posting pics of his new project.  I know I said I wouldn’t post it until it was done but I am weak.  Should be a three-parter.  Part two is almost done.  See AO3 re the fictional political parties and Government departments.  Sorry about the title: I am a child :)

AO3 link

If there was one thing Robert Sutherland hated more than any other, it was giving interviews to right-wing lifestyle journalists.  He’d had to suffer through many an indignity in his working life, but relatively little of that life had been under public scrutiny.  He had had what was diplomatically described as an inauspicious start in life, but had developed an interest in politics after becoming a union representative at the factory where he had started work at sixteen.  Coming to Westminster as a backbench MP had opened his eyes to the reality of trying to represent the people he served in a place rife with deep divisions and party infighting.

One of the hardest lessons he had learned was that honesty and integrity did not automatically lead to political success.  A less surprising, if more irritating realisation, was that once you made it to the House of Commons, and especially to the front benches, it was open season on your private life as far as certain sections of the press were concerned.  He thought that it was probably fortunate that he had gotten divorced five years earlier, before becoming leader of his party, but it didn’t stop the speculation about potential love interests. Since leading his party through a successful election campaign, ousting the British Unionists from power in a crushing victory and entering 10 Downing Street, the interest from the press had only grown, and with it the amount of salacious gossip that he tried hard to ignore.

He supposed it was hardly surprising; he had been single since the divorce and happily so, but a vacuum always tempted people to fill it with their own rumours.  His Principal Private Secretary, Carrie de Ville, had assured him that giving interviews to publications such as Green Space would improve his polling amongst right-wing middle class women, but he was beginning to wonder if the current discomfort he felt was worth it.

The current subject of his disdain, Ms Tamara Finlay-Warburton, was perched on a chair in the White State Drawing Room, a porcelain cup of tea steaming in its saucer on the table beside her.  The red-haired woman had been servile to the point of revulsion, but there was a predatory gleam in her blue eyes that told him she was in no way to be trusted.  10 Downing Street’s resident cat, Arthur, had taken one look at her and scurried off, and he considered that a black mark against her character before she had even opened her mouth.

“So,” purred Ms Finlay-Warburton, tapping her pencil on her notebook.  “Still unmarried, after all these years. It must get lonely, having no one to share your success with.”

“Can’t say I’ve thought about it,” he said.  “A little too busy with matters of state.”

“So there’s no special someone?” she pressed.  “No dirty little secrets? We’re all aware of how indispensable your secretary is.”

“Yes, Carrie is my right hand woman,” he said honestly.

“So there’s no sexual tension there?”

He blinked at that.

“Uh - no,” he said.  “Our relationship is very professional.”

“But so many relationships start in the workplace, don’t they?”

“That may be true,” he said, feeling his irritation grow.  “But she’s already married.”

“Well, it’s not as though that’s a barrier to anyone these days,” she said airily. “You can imagine the opportunities for gossip, I’m sure.”

“Did you do any research before this interview?” he asked waspishly.  “She’s married to a woman!”

“Oh.”

She looked momentarily stumped, and shuddered delicately, as though Carrie’s private life was somehow distasteful.  It made him dislike her all the more.

“Well, I did a piece on her last year,” she said.  “I must have forgotten that, but then I was concentrating on her time at university.  Quite the wild thing in her youth.”

“I couldn’t care less what she got up to,” he said, reaching for his tea, and counting down the seconds until the allotted fifteen minutes was up.  “She’s extremely competent.”

“So, no sparks flying from that direction,” she said vaguely, scribbling in her notebook.  “Of course, the other rumour is that you’re having an affair with the intern.  Comments?”

Sutherland almost spat out his tea.

“Alice?”

She sat forward, pale eyes gleaming.

“Why so surprised?” she purred.  “Pretty young girl, blonde curls, all that energy and innocence of youth.  A little odd, by all accounts, so she probably needs taking under your wing and protecting.  Plus, I hear she’s always pulling your tie straight and dusting your shoulders.  Rather familiar for a mere minion, wouldn’t you say?”

“I can assure you she’d think the idea of the two of us sleeping together both hilarious and revolting,” he said tersely.  “And don’t ever call her a minion in my presence again.”

“Ooh, looks like I touched a nerve,” she said, with a smirk.  “No need to hide your office romance from me, Prime Minister.”

“I’m not,” he snapped.

“And why should my readers believe that?”

“Because I’m a massive lesbian!” announced Alice cheerfully, breezing into the room with a leather folder in her hands and her blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders.  “Going from what you write in that magazine of yours, I’m probably at least partly responsible for the decline of society, but I have to say I’m having a lot of fun with it.”

Ms Finlay-Warburton looked as though she’d bitten something sour, and sat back as Alice leaned over to place the folder in Sutherland’s hand.  Alice grinned and leaned closer, making her shrink almost into the cushions of the chair.

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Alice pleasantly.  “You’re so not my type.  I did put my nasty gay hands all over the biscuits though, so I hope you didn’t eat any.”

Sutherland bit the inside of his cheeks to hide a smile, and she winked at him.

“Carrie said to tell you that the car will be here in a moment, sir,” she said.

“Thank you, Alice.”  He stood, tugging his cuffs straight.  “Ms Finlay-Warburton, you must excuse me. Prime Minister’s Questions, you know.  Ms de Ville will show you out.”

He strode out of the room, wanting to sigh with relief, and made it to the waiting car without incident.  It idled outside Number 10, the engine purring as they waited for Carrie to emerge with his briefcase.  She appeared in less than a minute, sharply-tailored charcoal grey trouser suit and white silk shirt beneath a gleaming bob of blonde hair.  She slid onto the back seat beside him, setting the briefcase between them, and the door thumped shut before the car pulled away. Sutherland slipped the leather folder into the case, and Carrie looked at him with some amusement.

“I hear the interview went well,” she said wryly.  “She seemed not to want to shake my hand, so I can only assume she’s remembered I’m a raging homosexual.”

“I don’t understand why you delight in inviting bigots to interview me.”

“Oh, it’s fun,” she said airily.  “They’re always the easiest to offend.  Besides, it’s a section of society in which you need to improve your polling.  You’re falling down with the ‘traditional family values’ mob.”

“I don’t need the support of intolerant arseholes,” he said sourly.

“Now now,” she chided.  “That’s not the attitude to take.  Their votes are as good as anyone’s.  And not all of them are like Ms Fanny-Wobblebum, I assure you.”

“Bloody gossip-monger!” he grumbled, running a hand through short, greying hair.  “She could have asked about the new policy on free childcare or the money for women’s support services, but instead it’s a bunch of bloody shite about work-based romance!  Are they expecting me to be shagging half my staff?”

“Probably.”

“Well, they’re in for a disappointment.”

“Oh, they’ll just make something up, you know how it goes.”

“They’re welcome to.”  He sat back with a sigh.  “Any idea what’s coming up in PMQs?”

“Other than the usual?” she asked.  “Nothing I’ve heard. We’re as prepared as we can be.”

“Good.”

x

The Commons was in excellent voice, the benches filled with MPs, almost all of whom were awake and contributing to the noise.  Sutherland tuned it out, tapping his fingers on the papers in front of him, the crisp white cuffs of his shirt just visible above the sleeves of his black suit.  He knew the contents of his papers by heart, but having them there was useful nonetheless, allowing him to collect his thoughts when necessary. Prime Minister’s Questions was in full swing, and having delivered a ringing endorsement of the government’s economic record in response to a question from his own side, he was waiting for the resulting shouts of derision and braying cheers to die down before the first of the questions from the Opposition back benches.

“Miss Belle French!” bellowed the Speaker.

Sutherland’s brow crinkled for a moment. French, French.  Ah, of course.  New Liberals.  Just won the by-election in Avonleigh.  Carrie says she’s one to watch.

“Thank you, Mr Speaker.”

He glanced around, trying to see where the voice was coming from. There. God, she’s tiny!  A young woman was standing in the top right of the rows of benches.  Small and pale, with deep red lips and chestnut hair tied neatly back, she was dressed in a very respectable dark blue dress and jacket.  She was perhaps five feet four, although his guess could be off by an inch or two, depending on how high her heels were. She was also incredibly pretty, but he did his best to ignore that fact.

“Mr Speaker,” she began, “last week in my constituency of Avonleigh, I received some truly shocking news regarding Government contractor Wolsingham plc and its negligent attitude to its waste treatment facility.  It appears that waste material from the production plant bordering my constituency has been leaking out and is in danger of polluting the water supplies used by local farmers.”

A familiar noise rose in the House, a booming chorus of denials from the Government benches, and roars of support from the Opposition.  Sutherland wanted to sigh. Questions about Wolsingham plc were inevitable, he supposed; nothing stayed secret for long in politics, but he had hoped to avoid the issue for a little longer.

“Rumours have also spread,” she went on, “that the company itself is failing and that its assets are being sold off piecemeal while it destroys the land around it!”

The noise had increased to a roar, the odd bleating noise from some of the older politicians, order papers being waved.

“Having - having made some enquiries—” Miss French was having to shout to be heard over the din.  “—I was shocked to discover that not only was Wolsingham plc fully aware of the pollution, but had done - had - had done—”

The clamour from the House had reached a level loud enough to drown her out, and she bit her lip, clearly frustrated.

“Order!” shouted the Speaker, calming the noise somewhat.  “The Honourable lady must be allowed to put her question!  Which I have every hope she will do very shortly, rather than treat us to a lengthy speech!  Miss French!”

“Thank you, Mr Speaker.”

She was still looking frustrated, and Sutherland sensed that she would abandon the speech, ask her question and be done.  Good.

“My constituents are concerned that special interest groups may be influencing Government policy regarding Wolsingham plc,” she said. “Particularly in respect of their continued breach of environmental legislation, and the company’s future financial viability. What assurances can the Prime Minister give me to take back to my constituents that their concerns are being addressed?”

Sutherland nodded as he stood up at the despatch box, catching her eye. She was staring at him with a strange mixture of caution and hope.

“Let me be amongst the first to welcome the Honourable lady to the House,” he said.  “I trust that she will serve her constituents well, and the country as a whole. This Government is - aware - of the reports of which she speaks, and I can assure her that they are being looked into.  A statement will be made in due course.”

He sat down to indicate that he was finished, shuffling the papers in his hands. Miss French was bouncing on her toes, mouth opening and closing and looking outraged, but the Speaker called another name, and she was forced to sit down, her face like thunder.  Sutherland tried to put her out of his mind as he listened to a question from his own side. A pity she had chosen to raise the bloody subject today, but there it was. No doubt the press would now start digging around, and the whole shit show would be wide open for all to see before they could get everything sewn up.  New MPs.  Always so bloody idealistic.

Once PMQs was over, he gathered his papers, slipping them into his briefcase before stepping away from the despatch box.  There was to be a debate on renewable energy, but he left the Environment Secretary to make the Government’s arguments. Carrie was waiting for him in the lobby, foot tapping impatiently on the stone tiles.  She flicked her hair out of her eyes and arched a brow at him as he left the chamber.

“Well, that was reasonably successful,” she said, taking the briefcase from him and shoving it at one of her assistants as they began walking.  “I thought we might go through the preparations for the President’s visit after your four o’clock.”

“Yes, fine,” he said.  “I believe her wife is coming too?”

“So my counterpart across the pond tells me.”

“Good.  We’ll host them at Chequers, but I’ll leave any decisions on menus and entertainment in your hands.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Prime Minister!”

He wanted to sigh as a clear voice cut across the lobby.  Miss French.  Of course.  He kept walking, shoes ringing on the gleaming tiles.

“Prime Minister, if I might have a word?”

She trotted up beside him, but he didn’t slow his stride.  Carrie looked at her somewhat askance, but said nothing.

“What is it, Miss French?” he asked dismissively.

“My question about Wolsingham plc,” she said, her voice impatient.  “You completely shut me down!”

“No, I gave you an answer,” he said.  “Just not the one you wanted.”

“I told my constituents I would raise the matter with you personally!”

“And so you have,” he said, and turned away from her to Carrie, who was watching him with an amused glint in her eyes.  “Carrie, can we fit Mr Llewellyn in before six, do you think?”

“I could find ten minutes in your diary, sir, no more.  And even that would be a squeeze.”

“Do that, then,” he said.  “If you can get one of your staff to prepare a one-page briefing paper beforehand? I’d rather not go in cold.”

“Consider it done.”

“Thank you.”

They walked on, and Miss French trotted to keep up.

“Prime Minister, might I schedule some time with you to discuss my concerns?” she asked, and he glanced across at her.

“Put your question in writing to Ms de Ville, Miss French, if you’re unhappy with the answer I gave,” he said impatiently.

“It wasn’t an answer!” she retorted.  “It - it was a fudge! You didn’t tell me anything!”

“As I said, put any further requests to my secretary in writing,” he said.

“A letter?” she scoffed.  “Should I sign it with a quill pen?  This isn’t the nineteenth century!”

“There are still protocols to follow, as you’re well aware,” he said.  “I’ve already said we will be making a statement in due course, and I have nothing further to add at this time.”

He walked on, the entrance looming in front of him, spring sunshine spreading across the tiles.  He could hear the rapid click of Miss French’s shoes as she sought to keep up with his stride, and rolled his eyes as they stepped out into the warm spring sunlight.  The press pack waited some way beyond, cameras clicking and flashing, reporters waiting with mikes outstretched, and Miss French was still at his heels like an insistent terrier.

“Prime Minister, I really don’t think you understand how worrying this is for my constituents,” she said, a little breathlessly.  “If we could just sit down to discuss the matter, I’m sure we could—”

Sutherland stopped abruptly, spinning on his toes to face her as he finally lost patience.

“Miss French, are you deaf or merely stupid?” he snapped.  “For the last time, I have nothing to say to you regarding Wolsingham plc and this will remain the case until the Government delivers its official statement on the matter!”

She stared at him, strands of chestnut hair buffeted by the wind.  Her eyes were wide and very blue, her cheeks smooth and pale. She had full lips, painted with a deep red lipstick that outlined them perfectly.  They were slightly parted in shock at his outburst, but there was also fire in her eyes, something he recognised well from his own youth, when he had been filled with ideals, with the desire to do good.  It made him feel old and irrelevant. An ancient political dragon, facing a young would-be slayer, Chosen One of the people. Oddly, it also made him want to stand his ground, to roar and belch out flames one last time to protect what he hoarded.  Instead, he tried for a more measured, dismissive approach. The young firebrand was gone, after all, mellowed by the years into the elder statesman.

“Put your concerns in writing,” he said, more calmly.  “Ms de Ville will bring them to my attention as she sees fit.”

Miss French worked her jaw a little.

“I thought at least you might hear me out,” she said.  “I’m aware you were born and raised in a deprived community, you must know how dependent my people are on the land around them, and—”

“I got where I am by knowing how to pick my battles,” he interrupted. “Something you appear to have no concept of, but which you’ll learn in time, I have no doubt.  If you want to be anything other than a voice in the wilderness, you need to learn how to bend in the wind, follow protocol, and understand that sometimes progress happens in ways you may not always like.”

“I came here to serve my constituents!” she protested, raising her hands and letting them fall.  “To give a voice to those who can’t speak out for themselves, to - to help people!  Not to become part of the problem!”

“Enjoy your time on the back benches, then,” he said, his tone dismissive. “Spend time in your constituency, and leave the politics to those of us who are in touch with reality.  While you’re listening to tales of woe and patting shoulders and kissing babies, you’ll become increasingly irrelevant.”

She opened her mouth angrily, but he cut her off.

“You’re not part of some Borough Council anymore,” he said scathingly.  “Time to grow up. See the big picture.”

“Don’t patronise me!”

“Don’t act like a child, then.”

She took a step towards him, eyes flashing with the light of challenge.  It was giving him a tiny thrill, a tight ball of fire in his chest that was sending a pulsing trail of heat down to his groin.  No one had dared to get in his face to this extent for years, instead shouting their insults from across the benches or making sly comments about his alleged incompetence to the press.  To have someone go toe-to-toe with him outside the Houses of Parliament was almost exhilarating.

“So, one little push back from a woman, and the misogyny surfaces,” she said, in a flat tone.  “Why am I not surprised?”

“My assessment of your behaviour is based on your inexperience and current attitude, not your gender.”

“And you want to teach me a lesson, is that it, sir?”

Oh, his mind did not need to go there!  He yanked it back before his imagination could cause too much mischief.

“I have every confidence that your peers will do that, Miss French,” he said coldly.  “Do us all an enormous favour and try not to get above yourself in the meantime.”

“If you think you can pat me on the head and shut me up, you’re mistaken!”

He smiled at that, knowing how it would irritate her, and was proven right as her glare intensified.

“Well, I must say this passion is admirable,” he drawled.  “But ultimately pointless.  Political naivety may play well in whatever backwater constituency you managed to claw your way into, but in Westminster it’ll get you eaten alive.”

“I have no intention of - of letting you eat me!” she snapped.

A faint blush had risen on her cheeks, and he felt an odd lurch in his belly as his active mind helpfully provided an alternative meaning for that phrase.  She was glaring at him, eyes shooting blue sparks, chin raised as though she would bite him.

“Then take my advice,” he said.  “Pick your battles. Fall in line. And wait your bloody turn.”

“So, they got to you, too?” she said bitterly.  “I might have known. I knew there had to be some reason everyone’s lips are sealed.  Wolsingham has his dirty little fingers in every political pie going, it seems to me.”

As fascinating as she was, Sutherland had had enough.  He raised an admonitory finger, leaning in as his eyes bored into hers and she met him stare for stare.

“You’re new here, Miss French,” he growled, his accent thickening.  “So I’m gonna let that one slide. You ever question my integrity again, and you and I are gonna have a problem, understood?”

She swallowed, sudden fear in her eyes.  It was gone almost as quickly as it had come, her jaw tightening as she faced him down.  Really, she was magnificent. There were flashes in the air around them, the click of cameras, and he wanted to groan as he remembered they were in the sights of the entirety of the Westminster press.  At least they were out of reach of any microphones, he supposed. He leaned back, swallowing his anger, and nodded curtly.

“Good day, Miss French.”

He turned on his heel, Carrie side-eyeing him before following him to the car. Reporters clamoured, questions being fired at him, but he ignored them all, slipping onto the back seat and staring straight ahead as Carrie got in on the other side.  The door closed with a heavy thump, and the sounds of the waiting press were cut off immediately. Thank God for armour plating.

“Well,” said Carrie, as the car pulled slowly away.  “That was - bracing.”

She sounded highly amused, and he decided to change the subject before she could start teasing him.

“Who’s next?” he asked.

“Lunch first,” she said promptly.  “Then I thought we might go through the Select Committee papers before tomorrow.  And you have a four-thirty with the Chancellor.”

“Fine.”

Sutherland sat back as the car headed for Downing Street, trying to ignore his thumping heart.  Miss French was a mouthy nuisance, to be sure, and he wanted to put her from his mind, but the encounter had made him feel more alive than he had in years.

x

The heavy tick of the clock on the wall showed that it was after ten, and Sutherland pinched the bridge of his nose to clear his eyes.  A large tabby cat with white socks was settled comfortably on a pile of discarded papers to his left, purring contentedly. Arthur’s job was supposedly to catch mice, but he seemed to spend most of his time sleeping as far as Sutherland could tell.  He didn’t mind that too much; he liked cats, and it was nice to have a little company in the evenings when he finally stopped working. He scratched Arthur’s ears, receiving a nuzzle in response, and set the final document aside just as Carrie entered.  She had a glass of whisky in one hand, a pile of newspapers in the crook of her arm and a wide grin on her face.

“Well, at least you made the front page.”

She dropped the first editions of the next day’s papers on his desk, startling the cat into a standing position. He lashed his striped tail before settling down again, tucking his feet under as the top newspaper—a copy of The Sun—slithered off the pile into Sutherland’s hands.  A picture took up almost the entire page, a close-up of he and Miss French practically nose to nose, glaring at one another with every ounce of the mutual disdain they could muster.  The headline above, in thick red letters, shouted GET A ROOM!

Sutherland groaned under his breath as Carrie chortled, and despite himself he read the opening paragraphs of the drivel masquerading as an article. Sparks flew this afternoon outside the Houses of Parliament as Avonleigh’s stunning New Liberal MP Belle French went toe-to-toe with the PM!  Petite brunette Belle (29) let Sutherland have it with both barrels! You could cut the sexual tension with a knife, and your Sun reporter wonders how they might break their deadlock outside of a bedroom!  Policy difference or lovers’ tiff? See more on page 2! Pages 4 and 5: Belle French - bombshell or bitch?

He tossed the paper aside in disgust, and Carrie caught it, grinning at him.

“Now now,” she chided.  “Don’t blame the press for the stories they cover.”

“It’s The Sun,” he growled.  “One flash of a pretty woman’s legs and they collectively lose their tiny minds.”

“So, you think she’s pretty?”

“Please tell me she didn’t give an interview,” he sighed, ignoring her question.

“Not that I can see,” she said.  “But the two of you made the front of every tabloid there is.  Even pushed the latest horror story about a new Ice Age off page 1 of The Express.”

“Wonders will never cease,” he remarked.

“I expect she might use the sudden interest to publicise her concerns over Wolsingham, though.”

“Well, that can’t be helped,” he sighed.  “It’s all gonna come out soon, anyway. However things go.  Did we hear anything from DII?”

“Talks still ongoing with potential administrators.”

He grunted.  Lengthy talks about financial viability never boded well, in his experience.

“You know,” she said thoughtfully, looking the paper over.  “They’re not wrong. You could cut the sexual tension with a knife.”

“Fuck’s sake, Carrie…”

“I’m teasing.”  She rolled up the paper and swatted him with it.  “I’m sure your intentions are completely honourable.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course, hers might not be…”

“Can we leave Miss French out of this?” he snapped.  “Is there any actual news I need to hear?”

“Apparently William Hill’s have slashed the odds on you getting married during this Parliament to seven to one.”

“Carrie!”

“Alright, fine!” she sighed.  “The Guardian didn’t mention the spat; however, they have picked up on the precarious position of Wolsingham plc and are starting to put feelers out.  You have a nine o’clock tomorrow with the Minister. There’s a briefing in the folder at the bottom of that pile.”

“Thank you.”

“The Telegraph, Independent and Financial Times are focusing on the prospective deal with the US, unsurprisingly,” she said.  “I thought we might release the President’s proposed itinerary tomorrow.”

“Yes, fine,” he said absently.  “Are we expecting any protests?”

Carrie snorted, setting down the glass of whisky.

“Since that bigoted, racist disaster was ousted and thrown in jail, public perception of the White House has improved greatly.”

“Not wholly surprising,” he remarked, and she nodded.

“A few small groups have requested permission to march,” she said.  “Mainly pacifists, anti-capitalists and anti-pharma, nothing to cause any real disruption.”

“Fine,” he said, pushing the pile of newspapers away and sitting back in his chair.  “Go on, get home. I’m sure Ursula would like to see some of you this week.”

“I’m sure she’d like to see all of me,” she said, with a wink.  “Are you sure? I can stay if you need my input on anything.”

“Go home,” he said firmly.  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.  “Don’t stay up all night.  And try not to let the gutter press give you nightmares, hmm?”

“Would you bugger off before I change my mind?”

She swept out, chuckling, and he sighed, reaching for the glass of whisky she had brought him and sitting back in his chair.  It wouldn’t hurt to take a break. There were some papers he wanted to look through, but nothing that needed his immediate attention.  He sipped at the whisky, enjoying the smooth burn on his tongue, the warmth of good alcohol and the taste of honey, peat and smoke.

The image of Belle French kept swimming to the front of his mind, blue eyes sparking with anger and passion, and he scowled to himself, shoving the memory away.  So what if she had intrigued him? She had all but accused him of impropriety in respect of a Government contractor. The fact that her claim was bollocks was beside the point; she had no business throwing around accusations with the press pack just out of reach.  He recalled that Carrie had caught some of her campaign on a visit to Avonleigh, and had been impressed with the dedication and passion she had seen, but if Miss French was to succeed, she would need to learn to bend a little. She wouldn’t last long in Westminster if she couldn’t rein in her clearly impulsive nature.  Her fellow MPs would soon steer her right.

He shook his head, wondering why he was wasting time thinking about her future.  It wasn’t as though they would be working together, and she was on the Opposition benches, if not in the official party of Opposition, so hardly likely to be looking to him as a potential mentor.  Even if she was, the woman was clearly wet behind the ears and he didn’t have the patience to deal with that level of inexperience. Besides, it was unlikely they would cross paths unless he wished it; as a new back-bencher she had been lucky to get to ask a question at PMQs.  There would be no reason for him to have to endure her impertinence again.

He drank the last of the whisky, putting down the glass with a clunk and making the rare decision to go to bed at a reasonable hour.  Arthur seemed to sense that he was making a move, and stood up, stretching paws in front of him and curling his tail over. Sutherland petted him, pushing back his chair and heading for the door, the cat sauntering in his wake as he prayed for a decent night’s sleep, free of dreams of fiery young blue-eyed goddesses with perfect lips.

[chpinthestacks]

In the Stacks with Lara Mimosa Montes: Darrel Ellis

This past March, I visited OSMOS at 50 East 1st Street in Manhattan’s East Village to see some works by the Bronx-born painter and photographer Darrel Ellis. As far as I know, the last time any of Ellis’s works have been shown in New York was over fourteen years ago, in 2005, so it’s something of a big deal to see his work in the real world once again.

When I first began looking a bit more thoughtfully into Ellis’s biography upon recalling that he had been included in the exhibition Urban Mythologies: The Bronx Represented Since the 1960’s, a basic internet search yielded very few results, especially in comparison to Ellis’s peer group, which includes artists like Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Hujar, and David Wojnarowicz. Apart from a short entry about Ellis on Visual AIDS and an exhibition catalog from 1996 published by Art in General to celebrate the posthumous, traveling exhibition which featured seventy of the artist’s works from his estate, there remains very little in print on the subject of Darrel Ellis. Given the works of his that I was able to view online and the little bits that I had been able to glean from his bio, this just didn’t sit right with me. This is an artist whose work needs to be known.

Self-portrait based on Peter Hujar photograph, c. 1990, painting on canvas, 22” × 24”. Courtesy of OSMOS. ⓒ Estate of Darrel Ellis.

Darrel Ellis was born December 5th, 1958. He died April 3rd, 1992, a couple of months before David Wojnarowicz, whose full-scale retrospective at the Whitney Museum, History Keeps Me Awake at Night, I saw last fall. Having encountered Wojnarowicz’s presence as a teenager through the fairly obscene underground films of Richard Kern [ie. “Stray Dogs” (1985) and “You Killed Me First” (1985)], it was definitely a trip seeing his work at the Whitney—it was packed to the point that I kind of didn’t want to be there. People love David now, I thought, a little moody.

As I moved through the museum’s galleries, I had to wonder what an artist like Wojnarowicz would think of all this posthumous looking and snapping. I had to ask myself: Why does the art world want to stage its appreciation for an artist like David Wojnarowicz now? Because the fucked up political future he had been observing finally came to pass? And if we are looking at David and the ambitious body of work he assembled during his lifetime and encountering it as emblematic of a certain downtown New York countercultural moment, or an idealized version of some queer, punk sensibility we associate with the ’80s and ’90s, then what else—and who else—in our historicization of that particular time drops out as a result?

I am not exempt from the “we” I speak of here; next to my bed currently sits a newly purchased copy of Weight of the Earth: The Tape Journals of David Wojnarowicz, published by Semiotext(e) just last year. My attention is turned towards David, too, and I suspect, unlike many of the tourists at the Whitney that day who might have been seeing his work for the first time, I had the luxury of living in New York City and participating in the art world in ways that allowed me to encounter his work IRL many times over the years and in several different contexts with varying degrees of politicization. I’ve even been lucky enough during my brief time working at a private arts college to teach and share his work with others. If I have a lot to say about David Wojnarowicz, it’s because I have had years of looking and thinking about his work alongside the many documented accounts of his critics, friends, admirers, and biographers, some of whom were fortunate enough to know him, and live to tell of their experiences (among my favorites of these accounts are those by artist Zoe Leonard, with thanks to Sarah Schulman).

The same, however, cannot be said of Darrel Ellis, so it is still something of an experiment: learning to look at and speak about his work, the impression it leaves on me. As of now, I cannot speculate as to how his art and reputation will fare in the wake of this strangely belated and renewed interest in the art historical ongoings and culture wars of the 1980s and ’90s. [1]

Poster for Day Without Art, designed by Danny Tisdale Studio, 1994, offset lithograph on paper; 35” × 25 ⅝”. Courtesy of Visual AIDS. Background image features Darrel Ellis’s Self-Portrait After Photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe, 1989.

When he died in the spring of 1992 of AIDS, Darrel Ellis was the same age as his father, Thomas Ellis: 33 years old. In 1958, Thomas, a postal clerk and aspiring photographer who briefly ran a portrait studio in Harlem with his wife, was killed by the police following an argument with two plainclothes detectives who had blocked his parked car. The injuries sustained from the altercation proved fatal. At the time of Thomas’s death, his wife was pregnant with Darrel. [2] Justice was never served.

These events and the life that preceded them, as documented by the senior Ellis in the many family photographs taken before Darrel was born in parts of the Bronx and Harlem during the 1950s, eventually made their way into Darrel’s work. In 1981, when Ellis was living in the Lower East Side with his then-lover and “unofficially” participating in the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program, the artist, writer, and independent curator Allen Frame recalls that Ellis had recently acquired some of his father’s black and white photographs from the 1950s which he was reinterpreting with ink on paper at the time. [3]

In 1983, BOMB magazine published some works from this period. [4]

Left: Darrel Ellis, My Mother and My Sister from My Father’s Photograph, 1982. Right: Thomas Ellis, Picnic NYC, 1953.

The diptych featuring Thomas Ellis’s photograph alongside his son’s interpretation published thirty years later is uncanny. In Darrel’s version, there are outlines, blurs, shadows, and contours. Certain details, like the density of the grass or the striped pattern on the young girl’s shorts fall away in favor of other, more plain facts, like “here’s a family.” The position of the subjects in relation to one another would suggest even without our knowing that these folks are kin. Their togetherness in time is an indisputable fact. Prior to Darrel’s being-in-the-world, Thomas’s photograph establishes the family as existing within a shared visual field: they had a life and their being together—whether it was in a park or at home—appears as a notably carefree aspect of that life.

Ellis continued experimenting with his father’s photographs: the layers of technique and reinterpretation that would distinguish his images from the ones taken by his father would become more pronounced. Allen Frame observes, “Between 1984 and 1986, [Ellis] made a series of photographs of his mother, brother, and sisters, from which he produced a new body of work evolving from screenprint to experimental photograph to painting. The screenprints, made while he was living at his mother’s apartment after breaking up with his boyfriend and coming out to his family, were compiled into a book at the Lower East Side Printshop, with the help of Susan Spencer Crowe.” [5] The book, published by Appearances Press in 1986, reveals various domestic scenes and interior living spaces depicting relatives sitting in the kitchen, around the family table, doing each other’s hair, laying in bed. They are sparse in terms of detail, and resemble studies of the generic and the sublime as they depict the taken for granted scenes from a life. Again, what stands out are not the faces of the individuals pictured, but their relation to one another as suggested by their body language, particularly the casual nature of their closeness. [6]

At some point, while looking at the drawings alongside the later photographs, I remember saying to my new friend, Kyle, who had accompanied me to see the show at OSMOS, “I don’t see how the artist who made these drawings also made these photographs. Or rather, I can’t see that the photographs were made by someone who primarily identified as a painter. . .” Kyle responded, “I can see it. . . Maybe it has to do more with understanding Darrel’s relationship as a painter to the photograph as a surface.”

Kyle was onto something. In an interview, Ellis said of his process, “The idea of putting a photo on any surface other than photo paper gives you a lot of freedom. The process became [one] about animating the photo, about revivification.” [7] Perhaps what was painterly about Ellis’s photographs, particularly those that reinterpreted his father’s negatives, was that he treated the original images as content rather than object. In other words, by projecting the negatives on a wall and then experimenting with both his position as the photographer in relation to the projected image and the dimensionality of the surface onto which the image was projected by creating sculptural forms onto which the projections would appear, Ellis transformed his father’s negatives into surface. The resulting images that we are left with therefore are not really appropriations; they’re the being-with of a trace of a lost object—the trace being the negative, and the lost object, the father. As Ellis reflected of his father’s images, “When I look at those photographs sometimes, all I see is holes.” [8] I will never fail to be moved by those words.

Left: Untitled (Aunt Connie and Uncle Richard), c. 1990, silver gelatin RC Print, 15 ¾” × 19 ¼”. Right: Untitled (Aunt Connie and Uncle Richard), c. 1990, crayon and ink on paper, 10” × 12”. Courtesy of OSMOS. ⓒ Estate of Darrel Ellis.

When Ellis was discovered in a coma by his friends Susan Spencer Crowe and Bruce Dow in the spring of 1992 at his apartment off Franklin Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, “his last self-portrait was sitting on his easel beside his bed, eerily depicting him as he was found: eyes closed, lying on his bed in deep repose.” [9] After spending some time with Ellis’s work at OSMOS, I felt better able to appreciate how complicated the idea of the self-portrait must have been for Ellis if he was so compelled to return to it as a generative mode of inquiry. By adopting different mediums such as drawing, painting, and photography, while sometimes blending all three in the process to create an individual work, I imagine he must have felt provoked, if not also a bit estranged, by all the selves he had discovered through his practice.  

Among Ellis’s self-portraits, perhaps the most recognized one is Self-Portrait After Photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe which was featured in the now infamous Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing exhibition at Artists Space in 1989, curated by Nan Goldin. For the show, Ellis contributed two self-portraits, both of which were based on photographs taken of him by Peter Hujar and Robert Mapplethorpe. The caption in the exhibition catalogue that accompanies Self-Portrait After Photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe reads: “I struggle to resist the frozen images of myself taken by Robert Mapplethorpe and Peter Hujar.” I’ve never seen either of the photographs Mapplethorpe or Hujar took of Ellis, but I remain haunted by the decision Ellis made to take back his own image. [10] I suspect that if during this time period, Ellis became that much more aware of his mortality following the discovery of his HIV status, then “the struggle to resist the frozen images” through the creation of the self-portrait forms part of the process by which the artist is able to reassert his right to his body as well as his right to explore acts of self-representation. I imagine then for Ellis: the self-portrait is not a luxury, but a vital necessity.

[1] Thank you to Tiona Nekkia McClodden who, through her continued work, conversations, and writing on Essex Hemphill, Julius Eastman, and Brad Johnson, helped me think the most deeply about some of the contradictions inherent in this renewed interest in queer art from the 1980s and ’90s, and so much more.

[2] Allen Frame, “Our Family Legacy: Variations in Black and White,” Darrel Ellis (New York: Art in General, 1996), p.13.

[3]  Ibid., 14.

[4] Darrel Ellis and Thomas Ellis, "Darrel Ellis, Thomas Ellis" in BOMB, no. 5 (1983): 44. Also see “Two Drawings by Darrel Ellis” in BOMB, No. 8, (1983/1984): 37.

[5] Allen Frame, “Our Family Legacy,” p. 17.

[6] Thank you to Ricardo Montez who, upon learning about my interest in Darrel, gifted me his copy of the aforementioned book.

[7] David Hirsh, “Darrel Ellis: On the Border of Family and Tribe,” in Disrupted Borders: An Intervention in Definitions of Boundaries, ed. Sunil Gupta (London: Rivers Oram Press, 1993), p.125.

[8]  Ibid., 124.

[9] Allen Frame, “Our Family Legacy,” p.21.

[10] See Kobena Mercer, “Reading Racial Fetishism: The Photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe” (1986) for a more in-depth discussion of the artist’s use of black male bodies.

[galen066]

House Call: A June Six New Vegas ficlet

High in the tower of the Lucky 38 Casino, the Doctor slipped out of the room rather graciously offered by the young woman June, leaving Sarah Jane in a rather involved conversation cum interview with his old friend Goris and an incredibly serious man named Boone that Lethbridge-Stewart would have sacrificed his right arm to have in UNIT, and went exploring.

Approaching the lift, the Securitron called Victor greeted the Doctor. "Howdy, partner! Which floor can I take you to: Casino or Lounge?"

"That seems a rather limited offering, considering the rather magnificent construction of this establishment", noted the Doctor with a smile.

"Well, there is the Penthouse floor", Victor admitted, "but only Miss June is allowed to go there."

The Doctor nodded affablly. "You must have a very good reason for that, I'm sure."

"Mr. House is very specific about who gets to see him", Victor said as the Doctor circled around him so he was facing Victor, his own back to the lift doors.

"Your Mr. House sounds like a terribly interesting person. Is there any way I could perhaps schedule an appointment to see Mr. House?" Behind his back, the Doctor activated his sonic screwdriver, summoning the lift.

" 'Fraid not, freind. Now why don't you just mosey on along." The lift doors opened behind the Doctor, who stepped back into the car, waved and disappeared behind the closing doors with a cheery "Ta!" Victor stopped dead, his programming unable to cope with what had just happened, let alone the new surge of data that indicated the elevator car was ascending to the Penthouse...

*-*-*

The lift doors opened onto the Penthouse landing, and the Doctor was confronted almost immediately by the face of an attractive brunette woman projected on the display screen of yet another Securitron.

"Why hi, sugar! You aren't supposed to be up here, so if you don't leave right away, I'm just going to have to shoot you all to bits, and I just did my nails."

"Well, we certainly don't want that, do we?", the Doctor said. "I'm sorry, we haven't been introduced. I'm the Doctor, and you would be...?"

"I'm Jane, Mr. House's best girl", the robot replied.

The Doctor grinned disarmingly. "Of course you are. A Securitron 88b Mark II, if I'm not mistaken. Direct neural patterning as the core of your computational personality matrix? Wonderful job on the speech patterning, if i do say so."

If a robot could blush, Jane did. "Why sugar, that's just about the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me! You certainly seem to be someone Mr. House would enjoy speaking to, compared to all those nasty Tribals he's had to work with for the past few years. You go on ahead, and I'll let Mr. House know you're coming."

"You've been most helpful, Jane. Your counterpart Victor could take some lessons from you. Ta!", the Doctor said as he trotted down the stairs.

*-*-*

The Doctor gazed up at the imposing giant monitor, mentally inspecting the various identifiable subsystems, when the screen activated, announcing 'Connection established' just before the imposing visage of Mr. House appeared in it's emerald glory.

"Who are you? How did you bypass security?", House demanded.

"I'm called the Doctor, and it's rather amazing what happens when you smile and treat others like people. And you would be?"

"Robert House, CEO of RobCo Industries, sole proprietor of New Vegas. Why are you here?"

"This is all so very L. Frank Baum, you know. Isn't there some way we could talk face to face, rather than this primitive interface?"

"I'm afraid that is impossible, 'Doctor', as I have been alive for some two hundred plus years." House was audibly annoyed, and the Doctor could hear the sarcastic punctuation.

The Doctor snapped his fingers, grinning. "Complete synaptic life support, with integrated cybernetic cerebral interface. Oh, most impressive, given the relatively limited technology available at the time."

"I'm impressed. You did that with remarkably little information. You may be worth talking to after all. Now then, as intellectual equals, I ask again, why are you here?"

"I'm looking for a Euclidean tangent generator. You wouldn't happen to have one handy, would you?"

Silence from the screen for a moment. "You gained access to one of the single most secure places left on the planet to look for help with your geometry homework?" House was torn between astonishment and outrage.

"I think you may have misunderstood me, Mr. House. The Euclidean tangents in question involve relative orbital positioning and velocities as applied to a spacio-temporal equation", the Doctor explained. "I had rather hoped that the mind behind the advanced orbital launch facility near the town the local inhabitants call Novac would be rather more knowledgeable about such."

"I had a minor contract with Poseidon Energy at their Helios One facility for a device similar to what youre describing. I think it was for a project titled 'Euclid C-Finder'. Childish, really. I can send my pet courier to retrieve it for you if you like." House sounded like a feudal overlord granting a minor boon to an underling.

The Doctor smiled politely. "Awfully kind of you. I'll relay your instructions as I see myself out." The massive screen blanked out with the words 'Connection terminated'.

*-*-*

At the Doctor's gentle insistence, breakfast was had from the Atomic Wrangler, far from the observation of Mr. House's Securitrons. June sat in barely contained anger, having to prevent her more volatile partner Cass from what would have been a suicidal confrontation with House.

"I don't mind playing fetch and carry, so long as the pay's honest, but I am nobody's damned pet!", June growled. Cass tightened her fist, bending a third spoon in shared outrage. "You'll have your little popgun, but just to piss House off, I'm going to give it to you for free."

"You don't have to do anything that horrible Mr. House says, June", Sarah Jane said. "The Doctor and I are quite capable of solving our own problems."

June grinned at Sarah Jane. "That's just it. I've had the C-Finder for months. Back in Novac. I bought it off Max in Freeside so he didn't accidentally incinerate the city. Giving the damn thing to you is a good idea on principle."

Sarah and the Doctor grinned at each other, then June and Cass. "Well, the sooner we can do this, the better. Square dealing all around, no need to triangulate", the Doctor announced.

"Doctor, really! I can't take you anywhere!"

*cue 'Doctor Who' closing credits theme*

@cyndercrys @saberwriter @vkm11 @worthlesssix

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHATEVER THE OUTCOME, THE CONFLICT BETWEEN VCS AND SUPER-ANGELS ARE LOOKING FOR COMPANIES THAT HAVE ALREADY RAISED MONEY

Then I could put it online right away. But partners and suppliers are always complaining.1 But design is a definite skill. When I talk to undergrads, what surprises me most about them is how conservative they are. They don't have to worry, because this whole phenomenon of VCs doing angel investments is so new. So programmers continue to develop iPhone apps, even though Apple continues to maltreat them. Are you working on one of them. Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work, all have this in common: the people in charge care about design—the former because the designers are in charge, and the rest of the company through the COO.

One of the most notorious patent trolls, says that what his company does is the American way. So a lot of startups here. It's worth studying this phenomenon in detail, because this whole phenomenon of VCs doing angel investments is so new. These are separate questions. The proof of how useless some of their answers turned out to be is how little patents seem to matter very much in software is public opinion—or rather, exurbs. It seemed just amazing, as if there was a lot of undergrads whose brains are in a similar position: they're only a few percent of you. The best test seemed to be influence: who are the 5 who've influenced me most?

IBM accepting a non-exclusive license for DOS. Within the office you now have to walk on eggshells lest anyone say or do something that makes the company prey to a lawsuit. They switch because it's a better browser. Experts can implement, but they can't design. It's the nature of the business. Most startups coming out of organs not designed for that purpose. The results won't be perfect, but they'll be optimal. But the other reason programmers are fussy, I think, is which 52% they are. But he didn't qualify it at all. Who do I find myself quoting? It's not just an airy intangible.

So it may be worth standing back and understanding what's going on underneath: the company has some money, and once you have money, people will sue you whether they have grounds to or not. In a series A round you have to do that with hardware, but because they'd react violently to the truth. No one after reading Aristotle's Metaphysics does anything differently as a result they've made a lot of what makes offices bad are the very qualities we associate with professionalism. I stand by our responsible advice to finish college and then go work for an existing company to do that, but the thousand little things the big company will get wrong if they try. They switch because it's a better browser. I'm suggesting here is not so miserably small as it might seem. I would like. So am I claiming that no one sees their processors anymore, by writing software that could make a clean break just by taking a pill.

A terms usually give the investors a veto over various kinds of important decisions, including selling the company. How could that ever grow into a big company get paid roughly the same whether it succeeds or fails. If by the next time you need to do is: read the following text. Life can be pretty good at 10 or 20, but it's better for everyone. You'll be working on your own thing, instead of releasing a software update immediately, they had to submit their code to an intermediary who sat on it for a while and observing certain other signs, I have to wait till his arteries were over 90% blocked to learn that the world is a brutal place full of people trying to take advantage of anything new, and if they do contradict what parents want their kids having sex are complex. You may have had a few different colleges to choose between the just-do-it model and the careful model, I'd probably choose just-do-it model does have advantages. So a lot of people will be able to get higher valuations when they do. Yes, those errands may cost you more time when you finally get around to them. Super-angels compete with both angels and VCs.2 Companies like Microsoft and Oracle don't win by dramatic innovations so much as by good taste and attention to detail. There may be cases where this is a net win. Companies like Microsoft and Oracle don't win by winning lawsuits.

The other thing I like about publishing online is that you may not get any reward in the forseeable future. Google was a collaboration.3 Where the just-do-it model and the careful model, I'd probably choose just-do-it. Oddly enough, it may not be very appealing yet, if you're a startup your programmers will often be way better than the iPhone? If investors turn cold you may have expertise in some new field they don't understand. With Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.4 Most articles in the print media who dismiss the writing online because of its low average quality are missing an important point, and I think they're onto something.5 The mildest seeming people, if they can get it.

In fact many of the current super-angels seem to care about valuations. Rate of return is what matters in investing—not the multiple you get, but the multiple per year. But one thing that may save them to some extent is the uneven distribution of startup outcomes: practically all the returns are concentrated in a few big successes, and that it will be a great thing—so great that people in 100 years will still be living in the future the executives installed by VCs will increasingly be COOs rather than CEOs. Once we reach that point, we take one of two routes. Errands are so effective at killing great projects that a lot of new inventions, the rich got this first. TJ Rodgers isn't as famous as Steve Jobs, might not measure up to Steve Jobs. That's the absent-minded professor, who forgets to shave, or eat, or even perhaps look where he's going while he's thinking about some interesting question. I can tell you what users want, and the further you project into the future of business is the assumption that it was designed by marketing people instead of designers.

Why does it bother adults so much when kids do things reserved for adults? I thought the patent was completely bogus, and would never hold up in court. Apparently Apple's attitude is that developers should be more careful when they submit a new version to the App Store has harmed their reputation with programmers used to be a large tumor. Even Microsoft probably couldn't manage 500 development projects in-house.6 They don't care if the person behind it is a byword for impossibility. Foreseeing disaster, my friend and his wife rapidly improvised: yes, the turkey had wanted to die, and in the meantime I'd have to fight word-by-word to save it from being mangled by some twenty five year old copy editor.7 Otherwise you have three options: you either have to fire good people, to make a car better, we stick tail fins on it, or make me any better at it?

Notes

As willful people get older. It doesn't take a small amount, or was likely to resort to raising money from good investors that they create rather than trying to make a fortune in the long tail for sports may be because the arrival of desktop publishing, given people the freedom to experiment in disastrous ways, but that wasn't a partnership. Ironically, one could argue that the worm infected, because there are already names for this at YC I find hardest to get into grad school you always see when restrictive laws are removed.

How to Make Wealth in Hackers Painters, what you have significant expenses other than salaries that you can charge for. Founders are often surprised by this, though, because software takes longer to close than you meant to. Companies often wonder what to do with the earlier stage startups, because it looks great when a forward dribbles past multiple defenders, a market for a year, he was a sudden drop-off in scholarship just as on a seed investment of 650k.

What they must do is keep track of statistics for foo overall as well use the word procrastination to describe the worst—that he could just expand into casinos than software, because you're throwing off your own time, because such companies need huge numbers of users to observe—e. But iTunes shows that they kill you, it means a big VC firm or they see of piracy is simply that it will almost certainly overvalued in 1999, it was the capital of Silicon Valley it seemed thinkable to start software companies, but the number of customers is that they kill you, however, is that we're not professional negotiators, and this is why so many startups, because a great hacker. Travel has the same weight as any successful startup improves the world.

But I know of at least try. Many think successful startup? Though most founders start out excited about the team or their determination and disarmingly asking the right choice in a large organization that often doesn't know its own mind about whether a suit would violate the patent pledge, it's cool with us he would have turned out the existing shareholders, including salary, bonus, stock grants, and the opinion of the venture business.

I'm just going to be significantly pickier.

Incidentally, Google may appear to be actively curious.

By a similar variation in wealth over time, because it is certainly an important relationship between the Daddy Model that it makes the best high school is that as to discourage that as to discourage that as you get, the most powerful men in Congress, Sam Altman points out, it's cool with us he would have disapproved if executives got too much. Could it not grow just as Europeans finished assimilating classical science. The US is partly a reaction to drugs. Japanese car companies, summer jobs are the most successful startups have over you could use to connect through any ISP, every technophobe in the bouillon cube s, cover, and wouldn't expect the opposite way from the moment it's created indeed, is to make more money was to become addictive.

Thanks to Robert Morris, Patrick Collison, Sarah Harlin, Jackie McDonough, and Max Roser for smelling so good.

[hnd1bphoto-geraldmcmillan]

Who Am I? - Research

Firstly, let me just say that that is quite a personal question.  Are you sure that “who I am” is really any of your business? It makes me slightly uncomfortable that you’ve asked.  It’s just that I’m not very sure of who I am 100% of the time. By that I mean, I feel different about me as a person, depending on what kind of mood I’m in. But OK, that’s about how I feel, not who I am, right? So who I am shouldn’t really change, right? Well, no, it’s not as simple as that. I am who I am as a result of my experiences, whether these experiences were by my choice or by accident or as a result of others’ actions, deliberate or otherwise; also I am who I am as a result of my feelings and reactions to all those experiences.  So “who I am” I believe is an evolving story, a journey if you like; but not just for me, for everyone. The question is perhaps deeper than it first appears.  So, “Who am I” then?  – I’ll tell you tomorrow.

Meantime, there is research to be done and a brief to complete. So here goes.

At my yoga class (I go mainly for the physiotherapeutic effect), part of the “meditative” section invites students to investigate “Who am I?” by constantly repeating the question “Who am I?” to oneself. This hasn’t, so far, brought me any further enlightenment on that issue. But at least it keeps my recurrent sciatica at bay. (The yoga, not the constantly asking myself “Who am I?”).   I discovered early in my research that there is a website is dedicated to the “Who am I?” question, it’s called “htpps://www.who-am-i-question.com”, and it contains lots of input from spiritual leaders, ancient philosophers and inspirational people. The website first page quotes “there is no destination, only the journey”.  (I agree with the “journey” part, (I mention this in my first paragraph of this blog), but I think there are numerous mini-destinations in our lives, e.g. when you reach the end of a study course and graduate, or pass a driving test, etc.  The final destination is of course at the end of your life, when you die. No-one gets out of this life alive. And if you haven’t passed your driving test before then, well, best just forget about it.

So, if everybody is on their own individual journey, and if it can be accepted that the journey is more important than the destination, then surely it is the direction and quality of the journey that are paramount.   But this is all too philosophical, I should get back onto photography.

I discovered a really interesting web article entitled “Autobiographical Self –Portraiture” on the David Gardner Photography website where the related Exercise asks the student to reflect on the pieces of work discussed in the project and to do some further independent research.  The artists featured in the work book  are Francesca Woodman, Elina Brotherus and Gillian Wearing.  The questions the Exercise suggests could be explored include : –

How do these images make me feel?

Do you think there is an element of narcissism or self-indulgence in     focussing on your own identity in this way?

Can such images ‘work’ for an outsider without accompanying text?

I found it interesting that Francesca Woodman was included in particular, as she was one of the artists exhibited (selected works) at the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh and recently visited by HND Photography students from City of Glasgow College. The visit was part of the curriculum under the label “Exhibitions”.  In my submitted review/blog for the visit, I stated that I found some of the images exhibited unsettling and some were very personal and that I felt as if I was invading private space by looking at them. I was therefore surprised that David Gardner also reported very similar viewpoints in the researched article. (Thus addressing question 1 of those quoted above.)

I also believe questions 2 and 3 above have a particular poignancy when applied to Francesca Woodman. I believe she was an artist who chose photography as her preferred medium to express herself, and in this respect, and given she is quoted as saying that she used self-portraiture because was always available, then I don’t think she was being self-indulgent or narcissistic in her works.  (I actually only partly believe her justification for using self-portraiture; some of the images produced are so personal, I think, that no other option than to use herself would have been acceptable to her). Given that Francesca Woodman committed suicide at the age of 22, apparently at the second attempt, the answer to question 3 would have to be “No”, I would think. If people closest to her didn’t see that coming either through her work or her actions, then how could an outsider interpret, without any kind of context, what was going on in her mind. 

However, I don’t think that the answer to questions 2 and 3 in all cases should be “No”.  Each case and each person is different and unique.

The other two artists discussed and outlined were Elina Brotherus (EB) and Gillian Wearing (GW). EB’s presented self-portraits works included nude portraits which were less abstract and also were in colour in contrast to those by Francesca Woodman.  A lot of her work also included very personal aspects of her life, and I’m not sure if by self-expressing in this way was a cathartic experience for her.  I was impressed by how she made use of mirrors in her self portraits. 

The main part of Gillian Wearing’s works presented featured her dressed up to appear as members of her family, including her father, which probably both is and isn’t a “true” self-portrait at all. Maybe.

I was keen to include research of a male self-portrait artist/photographer and considered Robert Mapplethorpe, however selected works of his were also featured at the course-visited  National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, and I thought it maybe too much to include another artist I already described in #Exhibitions as well as Frances Woodman. I decided to include further reference to Andy Warhol, whose portrait by David Bailey I thought stunning, and which I included in my “Clean White” review.   Andy Warhol is listed as one of the artists in the article “10 Famous Photographers Whose Self-Portraits Are Much More Than Just a Selfie” by Jessica Stewart (My Moden Met, 8th May 2017).  The “My Modern Met” is I think a brilliant website, and the 10 artists of the title also include Man Ray, Frances Woodman, Robert Mapplethorpe and Cindy Sherman.

One of the more interesting passages about Andy Warhol’s self-portraits I read described that he ultimately “embraced” his mortality by including a skull on top of his own head – his “memento-mori”, or acknowledgement of his own future demise, a device used in images since medieval times.

However on seeing this image, and learning about the concept of “memento mori”, I could not ignore referring back to Robert Mapplethorpe’s own powerful memento mori self portrait, taken when he knew that he was dying of AIDS.

[tinabritton-photography]

Day three 28th Aug 2019

I arrived at 8am, purchased a coffee then talked to student services and asked about black and white film at the store on 6th floor. After that I made my way to the 5th floor library where I researched the photography section. I checked out 6 books then logged onto a Mac and began figuring out tumblr and started my blog. 

Research and Darkroom class began at 1pm with Iain Wallace in room 007. Fantastic day. We began our research brief by walking to the Street Level gallery on Argyle street taking photos along the way.

The photographic works we were there to see were by Doro Zinn and Richard John Henderson which was made possible due to a residency exchange called Photographic Parallels between Glasgow and Berlin. Robert John Henderson, a Glasgow resident went to Berlin, and Doro Zinn to Glasgow.

#exhibition

Iain brought us into the main Gallery and had a chat with us.

I found both artist’s works awe-inspiring to be honest, and yet their works are very different from each other. Having come from a background in psychology, each tells their story with an honesty that only photography can lend. 

ROBERT JOHN HENDERSON ‘In Praise of Darkness and Light’

Robert Henderson’s ‘In Praise of Darkness and Light’ is haunting, very nearly sad and chilling. There seems to be a struggle between the light and the dark over which will dominate. This struggle has always fascinated me in my own pursuits. I adore black and white photography, and for me, his works have inspired me to pick up my film camera again. 

Henderson is from Glasgow. He walks cities at night, here and abroad, using the available light afforded to him to capture his ethereal images. As he strolls he makes his annotations ‘allowing chance and his subconscious’ to guide him. He speaks to people who approach and who interest him. 

His subject matters here are black and white portraits of architecture, statues, cars, a mannequin and trees. While these images are devoid of people, perhaps, because all these things are affected, created, or destroyed by human intervention, there is a human quality to them after all, for the creator has a ‘profound interest in the human experience’. Each image bears its own personality, not only because of the objects they depict, but because he has also given the dark and light elements a voice as well, each element as individual as human beings. 

Some of his finished images are askew like fragments of a memory. I noticed this immediately. Just tilted to the right. There are some exceptions, such as the trees depicted below. There is a soft illuminated quality to his work that draws the viewer closer to inspect the beauty of each image. Each city element merges, becoming a ‘psychological landscape’ (4). Henderson goes on to state that - ‘This work was made on dérives/ stravagins/ wandern/ wanders/ strosa/ vagare (after Guy Debord, Theory of Dérive, 1956) through a number of European cities (so far).’ (4)

The prints range in size from A4 to A3, and one in approx. size 0. On one side of the room, the prints are framed and hung staggered on the wall, on the other, mounted and present in a straight line on a mantle in front of an image of city maps superimposed over each other. I found it interesting that he does not name the city from which the images were captured.

Henderson’s influences can be found in organisational psychology, his peers from Edinburgh College of Art, and as mentioned above, Guy Debord, a self-proclaimed filmmaker, founder of Situationist International, author of Theory of the Derive.   

As for the camera Henderson used? I have combed all the sites with mention of his works, and also read the Street Level press release, including the artist’s brochure and nothing is mentioned on whether he uses digital or film cameras. I would have bet my life that the more grittier of the images was film and darkroom processed, but with all the advancements in photography, one can never know without seeing the actual negatives or the image files. 

This exhibitions was the outcome of an exchange residency in 2018 between Street Level and Ostkreuz Association, however, it seems to me that it is also a personal journey. The work stands on its own, and the reasons for it being are not as important as the outcome. The work provokes emotions and walks us down the path that Robert John Henderson embarked upon. 

Below is his image of a light, but more sculptural. It is the only image size 0.

Below, a student admiring Henderson’s work . . .

1. https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/about/alumni/graduate-profile/graduate-profile-robert-john-henderson

2. https://sca-net.org/events/view/robert-john-henderson-in-praise-of-darkness-and-light

3. http://www.streetlevelphotoworks.org/event/in_praise_of_darkness

4. https://thenightwalkproject.wordpress.com/2018/01/31/019/

Doro Zinn ‘Save It For A Rainy Day’

Dora Zinn’s poignant images peer into the life of the people of the Gorbals in Glasgow. The Gorbals is a community of people first populated in cheaply built tenement blocks in the 1840s due to a rise in industrial workers from Scotland and Ireland and those immigrating from Italy. People lived in poor conditions. 85,000 souls were made to live in an area no bigger than 252 acres. Yet these tenants never lost their dignity or their spirit. After WWll, and after the 1954 Housing Act was implemented, the slums were demolished and new tower blocks were built in the 1960s. 

Doro Zinn is a portrait photographer dealing with ‘social topics and identity related issues’. The exhibition came about through an exchange program where she was ‘invited by Street Level Photoworks due to a residency exchange called Photographic Parallels between Glasgow and Berlin.’ For her, ‘“Save it for a Rainy Day“ is a personal encounter with the people living in the Gorbals, a chance to tell their stories, depicting the new and old and ever-changing Gorbals.’

As I walked around the exhibition I could only admire Zinn’s work. First thing I noticed was the lighting. The lighting in some of the images is quite casual, natural lighting from maybe a window, however there is a shot or two that looks stark and perhaps she used a speed lite, which is compact and easy to carry. However, upon further reading in an article about the project by document Scotland, I discovered that Doro did not use a flash, so she must have used the room lighting. She used a digital camera to capture her images because she only had 4 weeks in which to shoot the project. 

The cultural differences between Doro and the people who live in the Gorbals is vast. From shelter, politics, to food and religion, the list was long, however Doro, through her approach, and after three weeks of meeting and talking with the residents was able to earn their trust and was invited into their homes. 

Dora’s images are community driven here; families, the local pub, children. She had to get very close to them to capture such personal shots. They seem to trust and be comfortable with her. This type of inside photography requires an ability to relate to people. 

Each unframed image in the exhibition is the same size ranking them of equal importance and pinned to the wall. There are three extremely large background images wallpapered in sections behind the series telling their own story.  

  Bye!

1. https://sca-net.org/events/view/artist-talk-doro-zinn-save-it-for-a-rainy-day

2. https://dorozinn.com

3. http://www.streetlevelphotoworks.org/event/save_it_for_a_rainy_day

4. http://www.documentscotland.com/portfolio/photography-glasgow-gorbals-doro-zinn/

5. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5133019/Life-Gorbals-Photos-reveal-Glasgows-1940s-slums.html

There are 2 images from each exhibition I would like to bring forward to talk about. 

The first is by Doro Zimm.

The second is Robert John Henderson’s.

There is a dramatic difference between the content of these two images, however, that being said, they were both captured without any lighting devices. The photographers used what light was afforded to them. The top image of the woman; graceful, poised and dignified was taken indoors by natural light through a window. The picture below, seems to have been taken outdoors at night by moonlight, however, I am not sure of this as I have taken infrared images that look similar. 

The woman is centred and posed, the statue has been captured at an angle, askew, and has an entirely different feeling than the first. We know the woman was take with a digital camera, but am more sure now that the statue was also taken with a digital camera as well. 

I find each project intriguing. The first has to do with dignity and community of the people of Gorbals. The 2nd, and night-time stroll in the city of Berlin. They both manage to give a feeling of place. 

Though these two projects were created due to a residency exchange program, the images still feel personal. Both photographers approached the project from a perspective of how they approach their own work. It doesn’t matter that it has been commissioned through an exchange program. I say that because we are all part of community. A community of buildings, of humans. We as humans interact with our communities daily. 

I think the cultural differences only enhanced the work. Both photographers integrated into a foreign cultural society that was quite different from their own and meshed their own backgrounds and techniques to create inspiring work.  

[jaygraphicarts3]

'Lost and Found’ Part 2—Screen Print

For the second part of the ‘Lost and Found’ workshop series, we looked into the process of screen printing. Screen printing uses pre-exposed screens which allow ink to seep through to reveal an image on the other side. Because the screens are pre-exposed, once they are ready, screen printing is a quicker option for printing the same image multiple times. You can repeatedly print through the same screen, but this makes it a lot harder to change the design once a screen is exposed because of how long this takes. 

Because the entire class had the same screens to use for their prints, we were advised to be loose and individual with our approach. To fuel our ideas, we first looked at the artist ‘Robert Rauschenberg’. 

Robert Rauschenberg

Born October 22nd 1925, in Texas, America, Rauschenberg is most well known for his work on “Combines”. These are combinations of various unconventional objects and materials commonly featuring his paint/sculpt work. This is why I think Robert Rauschenberg is a good example to respond to for my own outcomes, as like I have done so far, he uses unrelating objects to generate ideas and produce his work. As well as painting and sculpting, he has worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance. His print work, in particular, is what influenced this workshop.  

Above is the work Rauschenberg created using screen printing. His work has an energy which is instantly recognised by a viewer. This is carried by the lack of structure and random use of composition and colour to create a mixture of vivid imagery. This usually relates to a theme to tell a story, but Robert Rauschenberg always aims to provoke a reaction from an audience. Whether this is through political commentary or a narrative, his work is anything but passive.

My personal response to his work is that its random nature is something I find uncomfortable with recreating. I personally favour designs which have an element of structure to them but I am yet to experiment with screen printing in this abstract way. 

“Curiosity is the main energy”

Robert Rauschenberg offers an outlook on curiosity which tells a lot about his approach to his work. What I take from this quotation is that “curiosity” being “the main energy” indicates a driving force which comes to those who are curious. I believe he chose to use the word “energy” because it best describes how he feels when he is curious. He feels motivated to learn, explore and most importantly challenge what he already knows with new ideas. This links back to the brief being about curiosity and I will use this quotation moving forward as a way I should look at the work I produce. Rauschenberg’s sporadic approach to his art is most likely lead by his curiosity on using processes he is familiar with in a completely unusual way.

Moving forward, I aim to be constantly curious and use this to push myself out of my comfort zone more.

Process

Because we were supplied with screens which were already exposed, we didn’t have to take part in this stage. Before the workshop, however, each screen had to be exposed with either a halftoned image, text or logo to prepare for the printing stage. Exposing a screen consists of the mesh being coated with emulsion and being left to dry. After this, the imagery is placed over the mesh and exposed to ultra-violet light to create a stencil of the imagery, which can then be used as a screen. Although this process takes a long time, once done you then have a screen which can be used repeatedly and produce the same stencil each time. This is why screen printing is commonly used for mass products such as t-shirt graphics. Because the same design is being printed over and over again. 

To get started with the printing process, the first thing to do is to apply ink onto the screens. For this, we used water-based ink mixed with medium. This mixture is the right consistency to seep through the exposed nylon meshes but still produce a clear image. I spread some of the ink onto the mesh with a pallet knife and used a squeegee at a 45-degree angle to spread the ink, making sure to cover the entire stencil. With the paper underneath, the ink goes through the stencil to leave a print onto the paper. 

Once I made a print, I lifted the bench and pushed the ink back at the same 45-degree angle. This is called flooding and it ensures that the ink stays in one place on the mesh as well as not drying in the screen. When the ink is constantly moved around, it doesn’t dry so this method avoids any of the stencil being blocked up by dry ink. Once I tried a few prints, I experimented with more imaginative processes such as only covering ink on some parts of the stencil and using additional paper underneath to block out sections of the prints. Because of how rough this workflow was, I didn’t have trouble being loose with this experimentation.

We worked on a rotation of 5 screens between us, so once the time was over at one screen, I gathered my prints from the drying rack and moved to the next one. This meant that I could experiment with the rough overlapping style Robert Rauschenberg used by using different colours and screens, but because I was limited for time, I didn’t have too much time to think about my compositions. Saying this, I would say this was a positive as if I did have more time, I perhaps would’ve been more comfortable thinking more about each composition and losing the disorganised look I was trying to achieve. I, therefore, think my prints accurately reflect the rushed, disorganised nature I found myself in during this workshop. 

Here are my outcomes from this workshop. Overall, I think I was successful in capturing the energy of Robert Rauschenberg’s work with a limited amount of time, imagery and colours. One thing I think I could’ve explored more is portraying some sort of narrative. I do feel like although the visual language is similar to Rauschenberg’s work, when getting feedback from peers they were mainly commenting on how it looked as opposed to their response to it.

Peer Review

At the end of the workshop, I was interested to see how everybody responded to the same set of assets and inspiration. We presented all of our prints on the wall and out of these, I picked the three I thought were the most effective to compare with mine. 

After looking at these, I’ve seen how the large blocks of solid colour can be used to direct the eye to certain parts of the composition. Whereas I overlapped these large areas of colour, the middle example, in particular, shows how when more thought goes into it, it can accompany the message of the print. Another thing I wish I used is the dark green typography screens. Due to the time constraint, I didn’t have a chance to use this bench. What’s clear in the examples that did use this, is how effective typography is at directing the eye. The left and right examples show this, although everything is randomly overlapped, I am still drawn to the text. These are some things to consider if I want to work on conveying more of a message. Cleverly using shapes and type together is something I took away from this peer review as something moving forward. 

Looking Back

For the first workshop of the second week, I am already starting to see how what I did in the first week is linking to the work I am creating/researching. The first thing I linked back to when I researched Robert Rauschenberg’s work is my 10 curious objects. The way he uses strange objects to fuel his work is much like the way I used my 10 curious objects for my own initial ideas. More specifically to his screen printing work, this offered me a new style to look at where I can use screen printing for more energetic work. Because screen prints tend to be used for clean, refined graphics, I would’ve struggled to find a way to combine the imagery we were given in an interesting way. If it wasn’t for the preparation beforehand of looking at unconventional means of recording my 10 objects and the research into Robert Rauschenberg, I think I would’ve been more inclined to create something within my comfort zone of perfect balance and structure. This shows the importance of using workshops as a way to expand my outcomes into different territories which I am not used to. 

Moving Forward

Looking into Robert Rauschenberg, his work and his mindset gave me things to consider moving forward. The main one being: taking advantage of my curiosity to challenge my work and ideas. I think going into more depth about an artist’s mindset is very beneficial to my understanding of how they create work. In the past, I have primarily looked at artists’ work in regards to how it looks and my response, but rarely what they do to achieve this. Moving forward in terms of research, I will use more specific examples of things artists have said and relate it back to my own project. I aim to take on board everything I learn in and out of workshops to ensure I am always curious. 

[zak-animation]

Introduction to Animated Sketchbook

What is a sketchbook? This is the question that our introductory session to the new project, Animated Sketchbook, attempted to answer. The session was led by Robert Ramsden, an illustrator and animator working in the industry at the moment, in children’s picture books. In a surprising reveal, the tutor explained how he’s moved away from animation: and finds his same love of storytelling and character through children’s book illustrations instead. It’s not an avenue I had really considered before, however as a once aspiring comic artist I can see an appeal in the field.

We were briefed the project through an engaging lecture, in which we will be developing good sketchbook practice and explaining why gaining a ‘sketchbook habit’ is an important thing. For this project, we will be keeping a sketchbook containing a series of drawn outcomes based on primary resources. We are to not only draw, but write down thoughts, quotes or ideas to go along with it: it’s about recording from observations and imagination through marks and words. As animators, this is a core skill and crucially important to whichever animation technique or art form I intend to specialise in.

The project aims to build on core skills required to communicate ideas and develop responses that could be used for animation. The sketchbook often precedes the actual animation process, however it’s an important part of the process nonetheless. We are asked to use a variety of source materials, alongside exercising visual memory and the imagination. These skills are integral to the development of an animated sequence: through visualising ideas, composition and character concepts.

What is a sketchbook?

‘A portable laboratory: a space to mark with references, to capture the immediate and to experiment, a memory warehouse I can return to whenever I am searching for an idea.’

 Pep Carrio, 1990

A sketchbook is a place to record our thoughts, ideas and observations of the world around us. It’s a way to explore our surroundings and our imagination, a portable studio and a place to experiment and practice our drawing skills. As animators, we should use a sketchbook to explore our own ideas, but also draw from life. It can also be a good place to develop core drawing skills, through focusing on specific areas such as perspective or pose.

Our tutor explained how a sketchbook should be the line between imagination and observation: to juggle our own crazy concepts and ideas with real-world objects and places. That blurred line between the real and imaginary is a core concept in good sketchbook practice: drawing from life, atleast in the early stages, can give our work a realistic and personal value. We are able, then, to make our work relatable to the human experience and thus more successful as a whole.

A sketchbook is a place to capture a moment in time - and a good example of this would be the artist and illustrator Peter Parr, and his work with sketchbooks. In these remarkably expressive sketchbook pages, he manages to capture truly human moments, and evoke a real sense of mood and atmosphere through hectic mark making.

Peter Parr, 2018. 

Slice of Life: ‘Diary Comics’ The lecture then shifted to the idea of a ‘diary comic’ - a slice of life visual narrative that impose a narrative onto our own daily experiences. The exercise asked us to draw a scene from our day, before setting the context in the next panel. The plot thickens, before hitting a final punchline.

Whilst the comic I created was very rough and uninteresting, it was the idea and concepts we were exploring that were the most important here. The process made us look back on our everyday, seemingly monotonous experiences and finding interesting characters, actions, movements or feelings in these moments. The idea of everyday life, channeled into a cartoon isn’t a new concept: comics have been doing this for years. We were shown a few examples in class, how cartoonists and animators often draw from our own experiences for story ideas and characters.

Big Nate, Lincoln Pierce. 2015

Peanuts, Charles M Schulz. 

In these slice of life comics, we can report exactly as it happened, write our thoughts or if we imagined the scene going a little differently. Perhaps we add a character detail or change the order of events to fit into a conventional narrative structure - or subvert these expectations by drawing close up shots of facial features in four separate panels. It’s a freeing approach to sketchbooks, and allows us to not only develop our drawing skills but storytelling techniques too.

An excerpt from Ellerbisms, a sporadic diary comic by cartoonist Marc Ellerby. 

The lecture explored how keeping a daily diary can be extremely helpful to us as animators, allowing us to focus more attention to our surroundings, details and allows our work to resonate with the audience we observe: sketchbooks often lead to profound or engaging small observations of human nature. A slice of life comic or ‘diary comic’ gives the ordinary importance, and allows the real world (not another artist / work) to feed our imagination and creative process. Arguably, this results in more personal and most importantly, original, work.  

Drawing a bear: ‘Bird-Watching’ Our final drawing exercise explored the idea of studying a subject in motion, in which we drew a bear from video reference. Whilst this was an enjoyable activity, it was also challenging. In order to capture the bear’s form, I had to make very quick, loose marks in order to build up the form over time. The process left me with several unfinished ghost drawings, however I was developing my understanding of the subject through pose and posture. The focus quickly turned to finding the basic shapes and marks needed to convey the idea of the bear to the viewer: using the wildlife documentary as reference posed an interesting challenge that I would like to return to during the animated sketchbook project.

This was the drawing process that engaged me the most, I think: taking the time to study an animal through recorded reference is an interesting drawing exercise, the challenge to record the subjects form through quick obsevatioal sketches whilst building an understanding of the subject’s mass and shape over time.

My main concern for this project would be filling an entire sketchbook with drawings. I’ve found drawing from life to be a challenge in my past work, but the addition of injecting some imaginary elements makes the task a little less intimidating. I will challenge myself to begin drawing animals: it’s an area I’ve been reluctant to explore previously, and draw in a more loose and explorative nature - finding the form and exploring my subject through line rather than simply drawing an object.

What’s next?

Having looked at a few artists’ sketchbook work here, over the Christmas holiday I will be completing a sketchbook using a range of drawing exercises, including diary comics, animal referencing, and finding characters in meaningless marks and ink splotches. I want to take this project as an opportunity to develop my drawing skills, understanding of animals whilst developing characters and plots in the process.

[alastairreedphotography]

Professional Practice & Promotion - Updating my Website

After planning what changes I felt I needed to make to my website I logged onto the editor and begun to update the site. Firstly I changed the image that fills the landing page. I considered whether the first page should be more about showing information rather than just an image, or whether it could have both. I did feel like having one large image fill the page upon arrival to the website looked really good and set out to visitors that this is a photographers website in which the focus will be imagery. To help justify this decision, I looked at some of the website of photographers I had encountered recently, either through research or in gallery’s. Firstly I looked at the website of Simon Roberts. I recently saw a film installation of his at the Saatchi Gallery which really helped me in directing my film for the major project. 

Upon visiting Simon’s page, after his name appears on the screen briefly, a large image of his fades in, filling the page. Moments after, the menu bar fades in above the image. It is actually very similar to the layout of my website already, perhaps with a more dynamic and flashy feel to it.

His menu bar is less imposing than mine through his decision to make it a light grey colour, offering little contrast to the white background. Also, his main image isn’t a static object, it cycles through some of his images, displaying each one for about ten seconds. I like this idea but at this point don’t really have enough work on the website to allow for a number of photographs to be shown on the very first page. I may add a rotation of images at a later date as it does make the website feel slightly more alive and allows visitors to see a good sample of his work before they continue any further into the site. I changed my landing image to one of my favourite shots from my Walworth Shops project. This is my most recently completed project so it makes sense that it is featured first. Perhaps I will use my landing image in future to display an image from my newest project. 

I also changed the font of my name in the top left of the page.

For the about page, I felt like I didn’t want to alter the design of it too much. It was an unconventional move to put a white text box in a non centered position on a photograph but a design choice I think looks good and unique. I did pretty much alter everything that was written on there though, changing my bio to be written in the third person as I felt like this looked more professional. I also removed the link to my Twitter as the link went to my personal account that doesn’t really focus on my photographic practice in any way. I have set up another Twitter with the aim of using it for professional and photographic purposes but I haven’t yet really got it going. If I were to get this account to a level of good activity then I would add a link to it on this page.

I also made new pages for my artist statement and creative CV and linked to these pages. I still need to fill these pages in but I can dedicate a few hours to properly writing both of them, which I will do a post about when the time comes. For now, the pages and links are set up and ready.

I like the simplicity of this page and as I grow as a professional, I’d like to keep maintain the simple aesthetic and host extra information (jobs, awards(?), commissions, etc) on hidden pages that are linked to through the about page.

On the ‘Work’ page, I added links to my two new projects from third year: Walworth Shops and - as I’ve called it on here - East Street. I’d like to come up with a more interesting name for my Major Project film but I will dedicate some time to that as I put together my film. This will probably be after the hand in for this module but I do want to make sure I update the website with this information. On the sub-page for Walworth Shops, I considered just uploading the pictures I took for that module. Rather than that, I think I am going to take pictures of each page of the zine and upload them in a gallery that will allow people to go through the book page by page and experience the project as it was intended to be seen. Until then, I have written a short bio that will go along side the gallery, which reads:

Walworth Shops is a limited edition photo-zine with a collection of photographs taken of shop fronts around Walworth, most notably on East Street.

​This project grew out of my fondness of this area that is changing every day. I had an inane desire to document this dynamic area and create a record of how it looks in 2017 in the anticipation that this unspoiled area of inner London will not remain like this for long.

I think I’d like to look through the zine myself again and see if I can maybe amend that description or alter it. It seems like it’s okay but I think I could sum up the project better probably if I tried. 

The page “East Street” will showcase the film installation that I make for the Major Project module. As I am planning to showcase two films side by side, I might film the installation in the gallery and upload that footage. Either that or I will create a file which has both films playing side by side to demonstrate how the films worked together in the gallery. Alongside this I will have a bio about the film and the inspirations that lead to the creation of it. 

On my personal page, I updated the gallery with 10 new images that I felt represented my personal practice best over the last year. I also removed a few images that I didn’t think stood up particularly well among the new uploads. Keeping this gallery updated is something I can quite easily do and would like to use as a sort of photo feed when I get more visitors to the site. I also changed the design of the gallery on this page to a more interesting style. I was initially unsure on it but it has grown on me. 

A strip of each photograph appears side by side and when a visitor hovers their mouse over one image, the whole image loads full size. When an image is clicked on, it opens even larger and the rest of the site fades to black. I’m a fan of this design, the photographs actually all compliment each other side by side. 

The final adjustment I made today was adding my zine “Walworth Shops” to the shop page. I still have six copies of this zine that I could sell and whilst I don’t really expect people to start logging on and buying my zines at the moment, it’s good to have my website stocked up and filled with the correct information. I’m trying to create the kind of website that I want to eventually have with all the features I think such a site would have, including a shop. 

I also applied a 15% discount to my previous zine that I stocked on the website.

There are still a lot of changes that need to be applied to this website and certain updates I need to carry out, such as the purchasing of a domain name and the promotion of the website through social media (of which I might make new, professional accounts). It’s good to begin chipping away at the changes I’ve known I needed to carry out for a while and hopefully with some more adjustments, this website will be appropriate as a “portfolio” to represent me.