#arkley

[dubmill]

Arkley, Barnet, London; 25.4.2021

[englishcarssince1946]

1970 Arkley SS

My tumblr-blogs:

www.tumblr.com/germancarssince1946 & www.tumblr.com/frenchcarssince1946 & www.tumblr.com/englishcarssince1946 & www.tumblr.com/italiancarssince1946 & www.tumblr.com/japanesecarssince1947 & www.tumblr.com/uscarssince1935

[sepublic]

         Despite my prior clarification that the Queen of Tears is NOT an Escapee… In a way, she kind of is?

         Like the Escapees, she is a prisoner of the Tower of Tears; I included the detail of her being bound to that structure simply because it seemed cool to me, but now I have narrative justifications too. Like the Escapees, she is freed when Wayvren the Fallen destroys the Tower of Tears.

         The Queen of Tears is someone preserved for all eternity because of the Magical Tears… in this case, because she’s made of them. Her spherical, droplet shape mirrors the frozen globes the Escapees are trapped inside; She IS the prison, with nothing really inside as a result. But is a prison also imprisoned by itself?

         She gathered the Escapees to make her child feel happy, understood, and less lonely; And she sees her purpose as essentially doing the same, to alleviate the pain. The Queen of Tears believes she shares a calling with these Escapees, as tools and toys for her child’s benefit. They have a place with each other by her child’s side, and surely will be able to relate to one another over this, find happiness in that role.

         The Queen of Tears is obviously an outlier; She IS a Tear, she is the one who started all of this. She chose it completely, and she was not imprisoned by a Wayvren but herself. But as I’ve suggested before, I might explore the idea of a more conventional Escapee who wasn’t imprisoned by the Wayvrens, but by someone else, and/or the Queen of Tears herself. So that just further blurs the line and distinction between Queen of Tears and Escapee; Like yes there IS an imbalance and disconnect, she is their warden.

         But man. There’s a case to be said that the Queen of Tears is the Proto-Escapee, the original, before the concept was refined. Does she insist on differentiating herself from them, and to what extent? Does she insist on kinship, and believe the Escapees fleeing their assigned task is them denying this; Rather than the Queen of Tears being inadvertently freed, a reiteration of her parallels to THEM, instead?

         Would she see herself above these Escapees, or project a kindred understanding that she needs them to reciprocate, for her child’s sake? In the end, the Queen of Tears would be the only Escapee who actually wants to go back, and is working to ensure all of them return to that status quo, and revoke their status of freedom that made them known as Escapees to begin with. Speaking of, what would those dinguses be called, prior to them escaping?

         Because it’s not like the Queen of Tears would call them Escapees from the beginning, she doesn’t intend for them to escape! Transfer ownership to her child, which COULD be interpreted as ‘escaping’ the Tower of Tears, but not really in her droplet-shaped eyes. Prisoners is too ugly of a word for her, she wants something soothing and palatable for her kid, and everyone else!

         There’s lot of words and terms; She might refer to them as her ‘charge’, people she’s assigned herself over as she has done for her child. The Protected, the Meek, people who need to be preserved and saved. The Salvaged, mayhaps? I’m also partial to the Gifted; To the Wayvrens who don’t know the Queen of Tears’ true purpose, it might seem like a reference to each Escapees’ unique skills, talents, and danger they present to the world. Someone like Midas is ‘gifted’, in the sense that he was a brilliant scholar who became the Golden Man because of this; And his dangerous Gold Touch is a ‘gift’.

         Plus, there’s connections with Arkley’s alumni, who are also a menagerie of freaks and deviants, molded by an older person for a purpose within a tower… I’ve discussed them in a previous post, but there’s a lot to be said about how many alumni are burnt-out gifted kids who’ve suffered from the pressure and expectation to succeed and outdo the others, as can be seen in David Kress especially. People who feel like rejects and failures.

         So then it’s funny to make those parallels with the Escapees and these young adults who are in many ways still stunted kids, and who are being followed by a generation of actual kids; Kids they hate, kids among whom is Lloyd, which the Escapees seek to kill and/or exploit. And these kids escaping Arkley is an inciting incident, just as the Tower of Tears being fled is; The Arkley Gang pursues these children to bring them back, like the Queen of Tears with the Escapees. 

        She does it for her kid; Arkley does it, for many reasons, but part of it may be a twisted paternal sense that he hopes may offset his own empty loneliness and regret. Parallels and foils, one adult expects herself and others to do it all for the kid, the other adult expects all the kids to do it for him. And that goes with the idea that the Escapees are more alike with these kids they target than they care to admit, and that’s part of the senseless tragedy of it all, that they’d target of all people these fellow freaks, instead of recognizing the solidarity to become allies.

         But back to my point; That’s the initial interpretation, the assumption. Each Escapee has been ‘gifted’ with some strange body or power and skills that might’ve led to them becoming like that. But in reality, the Queen of Tears calls them gifted, because they’re the gifts; To be gifted to her child. The presents, the toys for them to wake up to. It’s a double-meaning that the Wayvrens are totally oblivious to.

        She’s a fairly serious person, but… c’mon, the Queen of Tears must’ve been chuckling, patting herself on the back at least a little, when she referred to her prisoners as such in front of the Wayvrens, knowing how they’d interpret it, and thus have nothing to fear of them picking up on that title as a clue to her real intentions. She must’ve felt mighty clever then.

[thegarbagechute]

We're strolling down memory lane and I forgot about the perfect, hilarious shit down along that path ksdjfksdfkjsdf

I made it better.

Again.

[bineshbpt]

Arkley/Barnet

[uhitsmearchive]

[men-lover2]

MARSHALL ARKLEY

[himboculture2]

[topcat77]

"well situated home", 1991

Howard Arkley

[thunderstruck9]

Howard Arkley (Australian, 1951-1999), Sampler: Formal, 1998. Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 120 cm.

[dubmill]

Moat Mount Open Space, Barnet, London; 28.10.2023

[damecolacao]

Marshall Arkley

[sepublic]

Arkley’s Alumni

            For years I’ve toyed with the idea of Arkley’s Alumni, kids who successfully grew up and graduated from that hellish academy, becoming fully-trained agents and assassins for the Arkley Gang. And while I struggled on how to make this work regarding the timeline and other logistical questions… I think I have a compromise!

         There’s a first and second generation of students. The first generation was pulled together some years ago, I dunno the exact number. Arkley gathered a bunch of kids, mostly orphans, within a certain age range; Not too far apart, but with some flexibility to work with, because he couldn’t always be a chooser. His teachers raise and train these kids up to adulthood, where they officially graduate. As gifts, Arkley bestows as many as possible something strange from his collection, or some weird experiment Draik and Arakchos devised; Anything to add to the armaments of these kids and make them stand out from regular humans.

         These Alumni are granted automatic positions of command and authority in the Arkley Gang, as Arkley’s beloved children. Regular members of the Terror Triad aren’t sure how to feel about this, but they have no say in it regardless and have to live with it. The project proves a relative success, and vindicated by the results, Arkley allows maybe a few years before he begins work on raising the next generation.

         This second generation is the one whom Lloyd, Breda, Lycan, Gene, etc., all belong to. They’ve got big shoes to fill, considering how the first generation of Alumni turned out. I think there’s a lot of potential for fun dynamics here; Like, how do the Alumni feel about this second generation, and vice-versa? Do some students admire the Alumni? Do some Alumni feel a camaraderie, a sense of kinship with this new generation?

         Do some of them have mixed feelings, object to more of them being created, put through the grinder? Or do they feel bitterly entitled to see the second generation suffer at least as much as they did? It’s a generational mirror to explore; Every Alumnus is an example to our protagonists of the kind of person they’re probably gonna end up as, if things go Arkley’s way. And do they want to end up like that? Are these Alumni something to strive towards, or a cautionary tale instead?

         Plus, there’s the personal stories of each Alumnus, the transition from being a student to a full-time enforcer and agent for Arkley. How do they respond to their authority over members of the Terror Triad? Do their subordinates accuse them of nepotism, or argue that since these Alumni trained and studied their whole life for this, it’s only fair? What is the relationship like between an Alumnus and a regular Triad recruit, who has a skewed idea of what life in the outside world is like; And how do the Triad members interact with these kids they’ve watched grow up and seen so many glimpses of?

         Having tasted the power and life that Arkley trained them for, how many Alumni decided it was worth it, and how many only resent Arkley even more, now able to definitively declare it was for nothing? Is there any twisted gratitude, lingering anger; What exactly IS the dreaded result of this whole process, what do you end up like, what impact can we see emerge from years of conditioning?

         It’s a lot to look forward to. A second generation in the shadow of the first, with a noticeable divide in age. Some of whom could act as mentors, twisted or otherwise, to these kids. Maybe one of the teachers IS an Alumnus! I’m still figuring out the timelines and ages for the teachers admittedly, and I’m not sure if it’s feasible for Trexdis to have taught the first generation, which raises the question of who was the English teacher before her? What happened to them?

         I might change up the age and timeline for Trexdis, add some more years, since I like the idea of a few Alumni who fondly remember their lessons under her, and feel a sense of loyalty and gratitude as a result; So when Trexdis defects and needs allies, a few of these Alumni call upon their old experiences and decide, you know what, I’ll follow you to Hell and back. I think there’s a very sweet tale there, even if these kids were basically kidnapped; But then again, they have the choice between Trexdis, who chose to show kindness, or the Arkley Gang as a whole. So they mean it when they decide.

         (That, or Trex never taught any of the Alumni and only joined after graduation; But a few did serve under her command on some missions, and that’s how they built trust together.)

         Which, having said that; I really should go into the ages and timeline for the Arkley Gang, for the faculty, alumni, and students. That’s something I never really got around to, so I should get started. On another note, I guess Nick Dragomir Kajumon might be an Alumnus, then…? That’s surreal; Imagine him being made during the tenure of the first generation, and then Arkley went F it and threw Nick in with the rest of these kids. Just this giant, hulking behemoth of armor and metal, who hasn’t aged at all since he was made. Imagine Nick hanging out with (mostly) human kids as they grow up and he doesn’t, at least physically; Developmentally, mentally, I imagine Nick progressed quite a bit. How did he stick out like a sore thumb, then and now?

[389]

A Splendid Superior Home, 1989 Howard Arkley

[tlj1988]

[opticandmasturbation]

Andy Arkley

Lilac Light 2018 - 47”w x 20”h 10”d - Wood, acrylic, light bulbs, wire