#an unknown matter

[egoschwank]

al things considered — when i post my masterpiece #1294

first posted in facebook march 27, 2024

fritz winter -- "rot vor blau" [i.e., red before blue] (1966)

"every work is or ought to be a statement about the unknown" … fritz winter

"early one morning the sun was shining i was laying in bed wondering if she'd changed at all if her hair was still red" … bob dylan

"it is not a matter of showing what is there, but of revealing what is also there, because there is far more visible than we can see and far more audible than we can hear and far more there than we are ourselves" … fritz winter

"it is not a matter of me posting that her hair was, or was not, still red … it's more an unknown matter of wondering if she'd changed at all … or only at AL" … al janik

[dyke-o-matic]

So you saw fell in love with Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon and now you want her on your screen as much as possible? I’m here to help.

Certain Women directed by Kelly Reichardt

This was the first time I saw Lily Gladstone in anything and I screamed about her specifically for days. The film is segmented into three stories about women living in the northwestern plains region of the US. All three segments are good, but Lily Gladstone’s is by far my favorite. She plays a ranch hand who starts sitting in on a night school law class when she develops a crush on the teacher, played by (bonus!) Kristen Stewart.

Certain Women is streaming on The Criterion Channel, AMC+, and Kanopy (Kanopy is free!). It is also available to rent on the major platforms.

The Unknown Country directed by Morrisa Maltz

This movie is stunning. Think Nomadland but even more stripped down. Lily Gladstone plays a character on a roadtrip to reunite with her estranged family after the death of her grandmother. Along the way she tries to learn more about who her grandmother was in life and reconnect with her memory. A lot of the film is unscripted, and breathtaking shots of the western US landscape punctuate the brief encounters she has at each stop on her journey.

The Unknown Country is available to rent on the major platforms such as Apple TV, Amazon, and YouTube.

Quantum Cowboys directed by Geoff Marslett

This one’s for the multiverse fans. A really fun romp that might make your head hurt if you think about it too hard. Lily Gladstone plays a character in the 1870’s southwest who encounters a pair of travelers stuck in a time loop (sort of). She enlists their help (sort of) in a plan to recover land that was taken from her and in return helps them in their attempt to break their cycle. Most of the film is rotoscope animation, so it’s a completely different type of a performance from Lily Gladstone. I had the extraordinary luck of meeting her at a festival screening last year and they said it was such a fun deviation from their usual hyper realistic work.

Quantum Cowboys is available to rent on major platforms such as Apple TV, Amazon, and YouTube.

Fancy Dance directed by Erica Tremblay

The most recent Lily Gladstone film to blow me away, and maybe my favorite film of 2023. Lily Gladstone plays a character who has been trying to find her missing sister while simultaneously providing care for her sister’s daughter. When it appears she may lose custody, the two hit the road to search for the teen’s mother. It’s sad and sweet and beautiful. I have to warn that the subject matter is heavy and all too real but that’s why it’s an important story. It’s about something that is so pervasive, yet people outside of the community affected turn a blind eye to it.

Fancy Dance can be seen in select theaters and is now streaming on Apple TV+. Erica Tremblay previously directed Lily Gladstone in the short film Little Chief, which can be found on Vimeo.

[fumifooms]

Canines

The hand that feeds

Mickbell Tomas & Kuro Dungeon Meshi

^ 1: Ink-the-artist, I will remove my teeth / 2: Margaret Atwood / 3: C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy / 4: Mitski, I’m your man / 5: Ojibwa, I love you like a rotten dog / 6: KotOR II / 7: Stardrop, Everything that’s ever been mine is covered in teeth marks / 8: Sodikken, People Eater / 9: Mitski, I’m your man / 10: maxime., The life and death of a dog / 11: Mitski, I bet on losing dogs / 12: maxime., The life and death of a dog / 13: hun, I did not bite with Malice / 14: C. Michael Davis, Don't Pet the Dragon / 15: Mitski, I’m your man

v 1: Early versions of the myth as in aeschylus orestes / 2: Ink-the-artist, I will not remove my teeth

[teddybearsims]

warning: she bites

[hypewinter]

Tim's turn

Dick Jason Damian Cass

Lighthearted

Danny gets reincarnated as Tim's little brother. They grow up thick as thieves so when Tim becomes Robin, Danny finds out rather quickly. Having no desire to be a hero again but also wanting to make sure his brother is safe, Danny helps Alfred on coms. With the help of the knowledge of his past life, he also becomes the resident engineer. No matter what hair brained idea Tim or anyone else comes up with, Danny can build it. This ability isn't used too often though because much to the anguish of Bruce, when Danny starts working on a project, he temporarily develops his brother's atrocious sleeping habits.

Angsty

The Drake parents take Danny with them to their archeological digs because he's too young to stay home with Tim. They're really exasperated about this because Danny takes a lot of time away from their dig time (he's about 2). At one of their digs, when they are at peak annoyance with Danny, they meet a couple hunting for ghosts. When the couple mentions wanting another kid but being unable to have anymore children Janet and Jack get an idea. They tell the couple they can take their son. It is a partial joke but when the couple says sure they think why not? One's enough anyway. When his parents get home without his baby brother and Tim finds out why, he doesn't talk to his parents for months. Meanwhile Danny is constantly crying the first few months he's with the Fentons because he misses his parents. But with his little toddler brain he eventually moves on and forgets about his old family. Tim on the other hand dedicates his whole life to finding his little brother. Whenever he's not working on a case, he's searching for any sign of him. He finally finds a picture of a local hero in a small town in Illinois. His hair may be white and his eyes may be green. He may look older too. But it doesn't matter. Tim would recognize his brother anywhere.

[accio-victuuri]

wang yibo - exploring the unknown interview with cheng er 🎤

Q: What is the biggest setback you have experienced so far? Is it what you wanted but didn't get?

WYB: No

Q: You want nothing that you can’t get?

WYB: Yes. I do what I like, but that doesn't mean that everything I like will accomplish smoothly. When I was learning street dance, it was considered unpopular by everyone. When I wanted to learn it, my parents also refused.

Q: So later, were your parents persuaded by you or willing to support you?

WYB: I remember this very clearly. When I was eight or nine years old, it was in winter when I was getting an IV drip in the hospital and saw a street dance competition on TV. I thought I had to learn this. I like it very much. At that time, I persisted in dancing. I was very persistent. I have been dancing all summer from 1pm in the afternoon to 9pm in the evening. If my parents hadn't seen my persistence and my talent in dance, I wouldn't be who I am now.

WYB: I don't believe that I can't complete it, but I know it's just a matter of time. Just like when I was skateboarding, I did a very difficult move many times and finally succeeded. It became like picking up many terrains, and all the skaters knew how to do it, so try again and again and again, and will succeed in the end.

[catboygirljoker]

hey you ever think about how its implied that you have to be turned into a nobody to get norted, like, every member of the real org13 who isnt literally xehanort or literally possessed by xehanort is a nobody (except maybe vanitas but *gestures* thats a . different can of worms), and the people who were recompleted had to then become nobodies again in order to be in the real org13 and serve as a vessel for xehanort, like perhaps your heart has to be removed in order to make room for another heart,

and then do you ever think about the one character who canonically got norted before becoming a nobody and is still norted even after being recompleted and thus canonically didnt need to become a nobody in order to be norted, and then lose your mind a little bit

[conformi]

Dimitris Papaioannou, Primal Matter, 2012 VS Evzones | Changing of the Guard, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Athens, Greece

[tinesleftnipple]

wei qian, king of freudian slips

[thelostboyslifeforme]

[heretherebedork]

I love Yuan so much. I adore this baby boy and his honesty and his openness even knowing that his brother will struggle with his identity, even knowing that he is truly in love with his brother, he is still going to come out of the closet and be truthful because he loves and he will love and nothing can change that.

What a painful way to come out, to try to be truthful and to be met with not just a questioning of your identity but a complete dismissal.

Pining, my beloved.

Just Yuan over here breaking my heart. I love him so much. And Qian loves him so much but Qian's trauma and upbringing have shaped him so, so much and so, so differently than how he shaped Yuan.

Absolute emotional devastation. The heartbreak of Yuan's identity being rejected by the person who literally taught him to love and has been in his heart forever... destruction.

Ugh, my entire heart for Yuan and he has to state that he's not related to them to try to appeal to acceptance and then just the heartbreak on their faces. Both of them for vastly different reasons.

And then Qian trying to blame himself for Yuan being gay and Yuan rejecting that and refusing to talk more about the person he likes and just shutting down only to reveal that his love is one-sided and that he's coming out as gay even though he doesn't expect to be in a relationship... ugh, my entire heart. Yuan is just so willing to hurt himself for Qian's sake because he's watched Qian sacrifice himself for him for so long that's how he believes love works, that's all he knows of love.

[lavenderwhtever]

The thing about au!sunshipduo being the only happy variant is how incredibly hopeless they seem. Them loving each other and living through it should be literally impossible.

Aimsey is a demon from literal hell. They are mean, they are stubborn, and come from a very different background from Guqqie, who is kind and considerate. That's all they have been told about each other throughout the server. Countless people coming to Guqqie and telling them that Aimsey is bad news. Scott coming to Aimsey and trying to tear them away.

Aimsey has not had an easy life. They've never been shown love. They, again, come from literal hell. He had only read of love only a short time ago. How do they even know what love is? Well, xey don't, not really. It isn't easy for him to love, and it isn't easy to love him. But he's trying so hard when it would be easier, and safer, to just give up. But he isn't.

Guqqie has seen hundreds of other versions of themself get abandoned, forgotten, and even killed. She's had first hand encounters with the results of a relationship between her and aimsey. She KNOWS the risks. She isn't going in blind at all. And despite what they've seen, despite the threats and the incidents, she keeps loving this demon, even if they're cursed and doomed by each and every universe.

Aimsey and Guqqie know the odds are against them. They know that they've been given an awful hand. They know that their chances are barely better than zero. And they keep fighting! They've decided that they love each other enough that nothing else matters. They aren't hoping for a perfect relationship. They know this can't end well for them. But they love each other, so much, regardless. They aren't letting go.

[agoddamnrayofsunshine]

Its fair to say that the DC fandom is a pretty divided space between those who care about canon and those who don’t and I usually veer closer to the canon-caring side but every now and then I venture over to see what those fanon madlads are up to and I have to confess to being, at the very least, deeply entertained every single time

[usefulquotes7]

Just in case you have forgotten today: You matter. You are loved. You are worthy. You are magical. Unknown

[astralleywright]

some context: a few days ago i received a response on one of my posts that asked what the point was of getting rid of the gods now, when all of their wrongdoing was seemingly so far in the past. i wrote a very long answer, they responded with very generic c3 discourse points (lol, lmao), so as to not make all that work a waste of my fucking time here it is divorced of the even longer post it was attached to:

First, the gods have supported the actions of their followers (beyond just being the ones providing their powers, who could conceivably take them away if they disapproved). see the Dawnfather sending an angel down to defend his follower's colonial holdings in Hearthdell. this is not the only way they're seen negatively intervening in this very campaign (not to mention others)-see the Spider Queen corrupting Opal and eventually destroying her memories and identities to make her a slave. when I speak about the imperialist, mass murdering behavior of the gods, I am also speaking about the Betrayer Gods, who are all still alive and still aiming to slaughter all mortals. their efforts to do this, and to free themselves, still lead to substantial amounts of death and misery, amounts that will increase exponentially if any of them manage to escape.

Which may happen very very soon! In their talk with the Hells, the Archeart repeatedly said the gods are actively discussing, and on the verge of, opening up the Divine Gate and starting another Calamity.

This was in fact the Archeart's major fear and what they were desperately trying to avoid. (It's good here to note that this was Abubakar's read on the situation, and how he thought the Archeart would see it-Matt may have other solutions in mind besides releasing Predathos.)

The Matron later issues an even more dire version of this warning-she and the Archeart may be the only two gods preventing them from opening the Divine Gate and unleashing another armageddon.

Which brings me to the "why now?" of it all, and the main reason to consider getting rid of the gods in the first place, which is prevention. If the gods remove the Divine Gate and another Calamity starts, it will be because Ludinus forced their hand. Ludinus, working on this plan for almost a millenia, his hatred of the gods motivated by the genocide of Aeor and growing up in it's ruins. Well, the god's hands were forced in Aeor, because the Aeorians had built the Factorum Malleus to kill the gods-which they did out of fear.

Aeorians made the Factorum Malleus because they were a century into a war between the gods that had been extended indefinitely by the Primes refusal to kill the Betrayers. There is even a faction, represented by Cassida, that specifically only wants to kill the Betrayers and help the Primes win; but the Primes won't consider this option for even a moment, and she dies a brutal death after being humiliated and condescended to by the very gods she gave everything to help.

On the next rung down, you can argue that the Calamity started because of the actions of a mortal, which, sure; but Vespin Chloris was trying to replace Asmodeus specifically because he was a Betrayer God, and getting rid of him would mean there was one less god actively working to kill all mortals.

The Betrayer Gods, who the Primes will not kill. (Even though the reverse is not true-Brennan confirmed they were attempting to keep the Factorum Malleus up and running to destroy the Primes with.)

There are understandable, sympathetic motivations for this on the Prime's part-the Betrayers are their siblings, after all. But consider this all from the perspective of a mortal, who can devote their entire life to a diety that can and will erase them and their own family in an instant to protect their own. The Divine Gate was supposed to be their penance for this, and yet a millenia later they're ready to tear it down again and repeat the same cycles all over.

What happens when the next Calamity ends and there's a whole new generation of refugees and orphans left in the wake of the gods' self-preservation? Or what happens if they keep Predathos trapped, now that so many people know of it's existence and that there's a way to release it? What happens to all the Ruidisborn necessary for it to be released? Do the gods continue to abide their presence, close as they are to the knowledge held by every Aeorian? Is everything fine only if every single mortal on Exandria plays the perfect victim, forgives and forgets?

(I would also point out that, behind the Divine Gate and acting in less interventionist roles, the threat the gods pose to mortals in turn feels even less justified, even if it's more distant. It matters when Imogen, Ashton, Dorian point out that a god never answered their prayers or helped them because it shows that for many, there are no benefits to the current arrangement, only risks).

[cleverreports]

We report some faint hints of twilight at the tail end of night. Bats are still out and busy, the flaps of their wings surrounding us as they swoop to our level. There is a shiver in the trees, shaking out some dew into our hair. We think about our expert, asleep in their bed.