#charlie bone and the blue boa

[a-crack-in-the-universe]

The happy endings in the first three books feel very different when you know that while the good kids and adults are having fun, Lyell is still hypnotised and imprisoned, and Billy is stuck in Bloor’s Academy. 

I mean, everyone is having a jolly good time during the party at the end of Time Twister and the trip to Sparkling Castle at the end of Blue Boa, while Lyell and Billy are unhappy. 

And what’s worse is that in Lyell’s case, no one even knows about what he’s going through. :’(  At least the heroes can feel sorry for Billy, because they are aware of his situation. But no one is aware of what Lyell is going through during the first five books and I find that really sad.         

[synergysilhouette]

Plotting out "Charlie Bone" (Disney movie)

Link to the OG post of the Reinvention era here.

Background

(Disclaimer: Given that this is an adaptation of a novel, I'm making changes that I'd assume would happen given how books are translated to film, whether good or bad. I love this series, but I wanted to do a kinda realistic adaptation with how the film industry works)

Following Disney's recent successes, a pitch eventually makes their way to them for a story that came in the form of something they don't often adapt: a novel. Not having done so since the 2000s with "Treasure Planet," "Meet the Robinsons," and "The Princess and the Frog" (and very loosely), the idea is met with hesitation, even at the suggestion of making it a musical. The story--a proposed adaptation of the "Children of the Red King" series by Jenny Nimmo--is 7 books long, and in executives minds would be much better suited for a live-action series on Disney+, citing the recent success of "Percy Jackson," especially seeing how young most of the main characters are in the story and concern that it will alienate a big chunk of their audience. However, they're eventually coaxed into the idea, but decide to make notable changes pending Nimmo's approval, ie several characters are removed, altered, or conflated with someone else (notably conflating the characters of Henry Yewbeam and Ollie Sparks, given their similar mistreatment at Bloor's Academy), most of the students are now moved into the age bracket of 14-18, and Charlie's Welsh heritage being a bit more pronounced in the story, and making the Red King's history known in the film rather than waiting later. Wanting to emulate the "Harry Potter" series, they decide to use the film as an intro into the world of Charlie Bone rather than throwing in every vital piece of information seen in the series. While originally considering Peter Baynton as director due to his work on "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse," they eventually approach Chris Sanders to direct and write the film due to his successes with Dreamworks, and the Anderson-Lopez team is brought on to do the music once more (making this their 3rd Reconstruction-era film). While 2D animation was considered, they decided that 3D was better for a more "serious and grounded" look to fit into the modern-day setting with magical elements. They also decide to keep most of the focus on the younger cast with the older characters being hinted at as a threat to be dealt with later. Juuuuuust in case the film didn't meet critical and/or box office expectations, Disney decides to leave the film slightly open-ended, but with no specific hints to the future.

(Note: The film would be influenced by the first 3 books, but I never really decided if it would be 3 books in one film, or if it would be an original story containing certain details from the 3 books such as Emilia's kidnapping, the time twister and Dorothy, and the blue boa.)

Plot

Charlie Bone has always had a funny way with images, be they photographs or paintings. Sometimes he sees them move, sometimes he hears them talk--and sometimes he can even hear their thoughts at the moment the picture was being taken. This makes his Grandma Bone enroll him in Bloor's Academy, a school for young people gifted at music, art, or drama, though the school is known for also admitting descendants of the Red King, a mysterious figure from whom Charlie is descended and gets his powers from. While there, he falls under the watchful eye of the Bloor family, who plan to use his powers for sinister purposes.

Characters

(Note: As usual, this isn't an extensive list of characters. While I usually list 3-5, this is a novel adaptation, so I recommend going to the wiki for a better understanding of the characters, which in my mind Disney would mostly follow. Given the large cast, I'm only discussing two characters who represent the two "sides" of the Red King's Descendants)

Charlie Bone--A young man able to hear paintings and pictures (and then some), his paternal grandmother immediately sends him to Bloor's Academy, where other people "like him" go to school. Thankfully, his friend Fidelio goes there, and he makes friends with several people, particularly Olivia, Lysdandre, Tancred, Emma (once Emilia) and Gabriel. They all have sympathy for (and are somewhat protective of) the younger Billy Raven, but his vulnerability and easily influenced personality thanks to be raised by the Bloors for years has made his allegiance questionable. Charlie's main goal is finding out about the death of his father, which no one at home talks about, and some of the staff at Bloor's act strangely about. His only allies outside the school are his mother, maternal grandmother, and paternal uncle, while his paternal grandmother and her sisters report directly to the headmaster of Bloor's Academy, and they seem to be hiding a sinister secret with Charlie at the center of it all.

(Important note: to reduce the already large cast size, Benjamin is removed, with aspects of his character and story being given to Fidelio and Billy)

Manfred Bloor--The son of the headmaster of Bloor's Academy, Manfred is endlessly spoiled due to being the only person in his direct family who's been given a gift in ages, notably the ability to hypnotize. It's been noted that there's something "not quite right" about him, being quite prone to evil deeds but also emotionally vulnerable, particularly where his mother is concerned. With the expectations thrust upon him, he's grown up to be quite mature for his age (even if he can be a bit childish and still have regular teenage insecurities), and uses his powers of hypnotism to the benefit of the Bloors. He has very few friends; in the film, they are only Asa, Zelda, Joshua, and Dorcas.

Songs:

Passing Through--Ever since he was a child, Charlie has been drawn to images. When a friend's birthday card is accidentally sent to him, he discovers that he can actually hear what the subjects in the painting are saying and thinking. He wonders if he can use this skill to find out how his father died, but his paternal grandmother has removed all pictures of him, and Charlie suspects it has to do more with his gift than with her grief.

Shadow of a Doubt--Going to Bloor's for the first time, Charlie is overwhelmed by Manfred Bloor, the son of the headmaster who reveals he is a hypnotist, and a very skilled one at that. The Bloors are assured by Charlie's grandmother and her family (minus her brother) that Charlie will be compliant to the school and the Bloor's goals, but Charlie himself won't make it easy on them.

Waiting in Silence--As Charlie gets accustomed to Bloor's and makes new friends, he feels sympathy towards Billy Raven, who stays at the school perpetually due to being an orphan. While Charlie and his friends try to include him in their social circle, it becomes apparent that Billy is used as a pawn for the Bloor's, and they reluctantly exclude him from their more clandestine activity.

Fly Away--Upon the discovery that she is Emma Tolly and she was brainwashed by Manfred Bloor, Emilia Moon takes flight from her so-called "parents," and realizes that her "brother" Henry (a cross between Henry Yewbeam and Ollie Sparks) is also an imprisoned victim of the Bloors, and she rescues him too.

The Red Tree--Charlie meets Manfred's mother, who has been kept at Bloor's Academy against her will, and tells Charlie about the history of the Red King (sans Shadow). She hopes that the insight into his family history will shed some light on the sides chosen at the school.

Blackout--Paton, Charlie's uncle who often tries to stay out of his older sisters' way and keep his head down, stands up against Charlie's Grandma Bone and successfully intimidates the Bloors into leaving Charlie alone, at least for a time.

Shadow of a Doubt (Reprise)--Following the aforementioned "open-ended" ending, a last-minute lullaby is sung by Manfred, who seems to become more controlled and relaxed, singing about how despite Charlie's triumphs, he still has an ace in the hole: Charlie's father is actually alive and well, and is under a spell placed by Manfred.

Hope you enjoyed this idea! Lemme know if you have any questions. I'm a big fan of the series (wish there were more of us), so I kinda felt awful about having to slice and dice up the books to fit the style of book-to-film adaptations. Next up is the final film in my Reinvention era!

[cotrk-poll-fun]

Best Paton Yewbeam Quote Bracket

Round 0.5a - Poll 4

Spoilers for Charlie Bone and the Red Knight below the cut!

Quote 98, Charlie Bone and the Hidden King, chapter 18

Ah, there you are, Charlie. It is you, isn't it? I can't see a thing.

Quote 163, Charlie Bone and the Blue Boa, chapter 19

Lyell: But how do we prove it?

Paton: Quite easily, I hope. I’ve made an appointment to see Judge Sage tomorrow morning.

[mey-rin-is-fabulous]

Hello I saw the words Charlie Bone. You read them?

Yes I do mostly just Blue Boa and Hidden King because I had those ones as a kid.

[theflikchic]

i finished "The Blue Boa" and as you can see, i adored the ending.

[existential-dad]

Quarantine Tag Game

Instructions: Tag 10 followers or people you follow who you want to know more about.

I got tagged by: @rymartini

Name: Charlie

Starsign: Libra (I know 😪 I'm sorry)

Gender/Pronouns: Trans guy, he/him or they/them

Height: 5'8" :/

Sexuality: Bi ✌️

Hogwarts House: When I took the Pottermore quiz in 2011 it said Ravenclaw but I got curious and took it again just now & got Gryffindor so??

Blankets you sleep with: My gf and I actually struggle with this because I have a big white/grey reversible comforter that isn't too heavy and is old & cotton so it feels like a soft tee shirt but she has this thin but heavy blue blanket that's like... kinda fuzzy but kind of velvety? Its very soft but its too hot imo. We are both very passionate about our blankets

Favourite Animal: Arabian sand boas. Look them up you will not regret it

Dream job: Oh god. I used to want to be a music journalist but I abandoned that. Being a high school history teacher could be cool? Right now I'm doing part time graphic design for merchandise for a local coffee shop chain and it has me considering something art related, like maybe tattooing? Uh I've always wanted to be a pilot too idk

When I made this Blog: 2012 maybe? Sounds about right

Follower count: 143 on this account and I think they're mostly legit? I have 900ish on my main but I'm positive at least 70% are bots lmao

Reason for the URL: Honestly I'm pretty sure this is what its been since like 6 months or so after I made my primary blog. No idea what the reason was. I think it was because I found a sweatshirt at a thrift store once that says "All-American Grampa" and I wore it a lot and wanted the url to be existentialgrampa but it was taken? I could be making this up I really don't know

I’m tagging @wander-ardently @bones-and-rose @thanatosoph

[a-crack-in-the-universe]

Mrs Bone clapped a hand over her forehead. “Stay out of her way, Charlie. She tried to keep you father up there, you know. When he was young. Luckily it turned out that Lyell wasn’t endowed, so she lost interest in him.” (Charlie Bone and the Blue Boa, Chapter 10)

This passage is so interesting to me. Did Yolanda abuse Lyell when he was a child, and Lyell told Amy about it? Amy’s understandably alarmed reaction makes me wonder about that. And does “she tried to keep your father up there” mean that Yolanda tried to brainwash Lyell like she did Grizelda, Lucretia, Eustacia and Venetia?

[moozixxx-blog]

5

오반 (OVAN) - 진짜를 꺼내봐 (For Real) MV - YouTube

유카리(Yukari) - Hang on - YouTube

유카리(Yukari) - Just friends - YouTube

유카리(Yukari) - Lass (Single) 2015.8.22 - YouTube

이달의 소녀 1/3 - Into the New Heart (Guitar by 김정모 of TRAX) - YouTube

이달의 소녀 오드아이써클 (LOONA/ODD EYE CIRCLE) - 01. Add [Max & Match] - YouTube

제로 JERO - 비행기 Airplane (feat. 기리보이 Giriboy) Official M/V - YouTube

좋겠어 (If I) - LOCO (feat. Gray) [ENG SUB / HANGEUL] - YouTube

티파니 (TIFFANY) – I Just Wanna Dance (Kago Pengchi Remix) [English ver.] - YouTube

피타입 Love, Life, Rap - YouTube

하우스 룰즈 (House Rulez) - Feel Good (Girl Ver.) (Feat. 김호연 & Steeb) - YouTube

하우스 룰즈 (House Rulez) - Feel Good (Man Ver.) (Feat. Steeb & 김호연) - YouTube

하우스룰즈 - A Night Like This ft.Jinryang Toyokawa - YouTube

ナニダトnanidato - Disco Lady 『ディスコレディ』 - YouTube

ゆるふわギャング (Yurufuwa Gang) "Palm Tree" - YouTube

任然 - 空空如也『曾經笑容燦爛，如今卻空空如也...』【動態歌詞Lyrics】 - YouTube

八王子P「Beautiful Nightmare feat. 巡音ルカ」 - YouTube

北島詩 - 9277(女聲版)「要我唱幾首歌才能夠將你捕捉」動態歌詞版 - YouTube

安室奈美恵 / 「Golden Touch」 (from New Album「_genic」) - YouTube

抖音超洗腦 Mereke《拍灰舞》#抖音BGM #Tik Tok - YouTube

方大同 Khalil Fong －Run From Your Love feat. Fifi Rong (Official MV ) - YouTube

方大同Khalil Fong feat. 張靚穎 Jane Zhang － 無所謂 Que Sera (Official MV) - YouTube

有何不可-封茗囧菌 Gấu Ở Đâu Khi Gió Đông Về Nhạc Hoa - YouTube

杜德偉 Alex To【脫掉】Official Music Video - YouTube

林俊傑 JJ Lin - 因你而在 You N Me(華納official 高畫質HD官方完整版MV) - YouTube

水曜日のカンパネラ『ラー』 - YouTube

踊るRAPシリーズ『裁判』【AIDANO MOVIE】15th Anniversary Tour 2017 ​ Question​？ - YouTube

鄧福如 Afu【前面路口停 feat.小宇】- 〈豐華唱片official HD官方正式版MV〉-八大綜合台《Healer治癒者》片尾曲 - YouTube

鈴木亜美 / FREE FREE - YouTube

Charli XCX & Troye Sivan - 1999 [Official Audio] - YouTube

BAD 4 US by SUPERFRUIT - YouTube

NIKI - Dancing with the Devil - YouTube

LVNDSCAPE feat. Cathrine Lassen - Dive With Me (Official Lyric Video) - YouTube

Higher Brothers - Trickery (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO) - YouTube

Higher Brothers - Room Service (Official Music Video) - YouTube

Higher Brothers - Young Master (Audio) - YouTube

Higher Brothers ft. Keith Ape - WeChat (Official Video) - YouTube

The Ringer · Eminem

Stepping Stone · Eminem

Not Alike (feat. Royce Da 5'9) · Eminem, Royce Da 5'9"

Kamikaze · Eminem

Fall · Eminem

KICK THE CAN CREW 「magic number」- mama said ～ハタラキッパ～ - YouTube

Interlude : Wings - YouTube

RM - seoul (prod. HONNE) (from MONO) - YouTube

BONES - HEARTAGRAM ADIOS (Prod. Jayyeah) - YouTube

【抖音 音乐】《我的天空》 刘至佳CHOCO | Bầu Trời C���a Tôi - Lưu Chí Giai CHOCO | Bài Hát Hot TikTok Tháng 10 - YouTube

Sefa - Leven is Lijden (Official Clip) - YouTube

Hoody (후디) - Sunshine (Feat. Crush) (ENG) - YouTube

Linkin Park - In The End (Mellen Gi & Tommee Profitt Remix) - YouTube

Underoath - No Frame - YouTube

[AUDIO] BoA (보아) – 습관 (I want you back) | ALBUM WOMAN - YouTube

luke chable - melburn - YouTube

Dee Montero - Headspace feat Meliha (Anjunadeep) - YouTube

RIRI - That’s My Baby (Official Video) - YouTube

RIRI - RUSH (Official Video) - YouTube

RIRI feat.Rim Nakamura「Keep Up」 - YouTube

m-flo / MARS DRIVE Lyric Video (New Edit Ver.) - YouTube

Denzel Curry- Ultimate (Lyrics) - YouTube

Tokyo Ghoul Unravel - Lyrics - YouTube

에릭남 (Eric Nam) - Miss You MV - YouTube

SKY-HI / 何様 feat. ぼくのりりっくのぼうよみ (Prod.SKY-HI) - YouTube

ゆるふわギャング (Yurufuwa Gang) "Speed" (Produced by Ryan Hemsworth) (Audio) - YouTube

RIP SLYME - Good Times (2D Ver.) - YouTube

RIP SLYME - JUMP with chay - YouTube

DJ 逆流成河 - YouTube

[MV] CLC (씨엘씨) _ BLACK DRESS - YouTube

Ariana Grande - thank u, next (Lyrics) - YouTube

【完整版MV】Dragon Pig - All About You 全部都是你 (feat. CNBALLER & CLOUD WANG) 中国嘻哈 Chinese Hip Hop - YouTube

Full opening naruto Blue Bird [Lyrics] - YouTube

LTN feat. Arielle Maren - Let Me Go (Vintage & Morelli Remix) - YouTube

[M/V] PRISTIN V(프리스틴 V) - 네 멋대로(Get It) - YouTube

Blood Groove & Kikis - Falling (LTN Remix) [Silk Music] - YouTube

스텔라 (Stellar) - 떨려요 (Vibrato) MV - YouTube

스텔라 (Stellar) - 마스크 (Mask) MV - YouTube

Galantis - Emoji (Official Music Video) - YouTube

레이샤 laysha - PINK LABEL Official M/V - YouTube

스텔라(Stellar) - 찔려(Sting) MV - YouTube

5 Seconds Of Summer - Youngblood (Official Video) - YouTube

「I know only you」MUSIC VIDEO - YouTube

anders - Bad Guy (Audio) - YouTube

anders - Take It Back (Audio) - YouTube

anders - I Don't Want Your Love (Audio) - YouTube

anders - Rain (Audio) - YouTube

anders - Notice (Interlude) [Audio] - YouTube

anders - Undone (Audio) - YouTube

Loud Luxury x anders - Love No More (Official Music Video) - YouTube

[MASHUP] 9MUSES / Stellar - Figaro / Vibrato - YouTube

Justin Bieber - I'll Show You - YouTube

Justin Bieber - What Do You Mean? (Lyric Video) - YouTube

Justin Bieber - Sorry (Lyric Video) - YouTube

Justin Bieber - No Sense (Audio Only) ft. Travis Scott - YouTube

Justin Bieber - The Feeling (Audio Only) ft. Halsey - YouTube

Skrillex and Diplo - "Where Are Ü Now" with Justin Bieber (Official Video) - YouTube

Justin Bieber - Been You (Audio Only) - YouTube

Justin Bieber - No Pressure (PURPOSE : The Movement) ft. Big Sean - YouTube

Justin Bieber - Get Used To It (Audio Only) - YouTube

Justin Bieber - We Are (Audio Only) ft. Nas - YouTube

Justin Bieber - All In It (Audio Only) - YouTube

Justin Bieber - Mark My Words (Audio Only) - YouTube

Crystal Lake - Apollo【Official Music Video】 - YouTube

DJ BAKU / NEO KHAOS feat. Ryo(Crystal Lake)【Official Video】 - YouTube

Crystal Lake - Dreamcatcher (Audio) - YouTube

A Scent Like Wolves - Angelwrath ft. Ryo Kinoshita of Crystal Lake (Official Music Video) - YouTube

Crystal Lake - Waves (Track Video) - YouTube

Crystal Lake -Ups&Downs- 【Official Video】 - YouTube

Crystal Lake - ”Beloved” (Ft. Kenta Koie from Crossfaith) 【Official Video】 - YouTube

Crystal Lake -Matrix-【Official Video】 - YouTube

LTN feat Arielle Maren - A Different Side Of You (Original Mix) - YouTube

A Scent Like Wolves - "Devilspit" - YouTube

[AUDIO] BoA (보아) – Like it! | ALBUM WOMAN - YouTube

【PV】DJ BAKU - SPIN STREET - YouTube

Maybeshewill - In another Life, When We Are Cats - YouTube

APINK x CHUNGHA - Sick Roller Coaster | Short Mashup by JANNY - YouTube

Red Velvet - #RookieJar || MASHUP by JANNY - YouTube

(G)I-DLE/SHAKIRA - LATATAs Don't Lie || MASHUP by JANNY - YouTube

Red Velvet - Peek-A-Boo || 80s Version - YouTube

TWICE - LIKEY || 80s Version - YouTube

Red Velvet - Russian Roulette || 80s Version - YouTube

MOMOLAND - BBoom BBoom || 80s Version - YouTube

EXO - Monster || 80s Version - YouTube

Red Velvet - Bad Boy || 80s Version - YouTube

Lariss - Dale Papi | Official Video - YouTube

Heeriye Full Song Video - Race 3 | Salman Khan & Jacqueline | Meet Bros ft. Deep Money, Neha Bhasin - YouTube

Johnny Johnny - Entertainment | Akshay Kumar & Tamannaah - Official HD Video Song 2014 - YouTube

लॉलीपॉप लागेलू - Pawan Singh - Lollypop Lagelu - Bhojpuri Hit Songs HD - YouTube

Maybeshewill - Japanese Spy Transcript - YouTube

Tera Rang Balle Balle - Video Song | Soldier I Bobby Deol & Preity Zinta I Sonu & Jaspinder - YouTube

Maybeshewill - Accolades - YouTube

Maybeshewill - An End To Camaraderie - YouTube

Ciara - Level Up - YouTube

[MV] SF9 (에스에프나인) _ Now or Never(질렀어) - YouTube

SF9 Now or Never -Japanese ver.- 【OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO】 - YouTube

Borai & Denham Audio - Make Me - YouTube

ISHARE TERE Song | Guru Randhawa, Dhvani Bhanushali | DirectorGifty | Bhushan Kumar - YouTube

"Dilbar Dilbar [Full Song]" Sirf Tum Ft. Sanjay Kapoor, Sushmita Sen - YouTube

Official Video: Nikle Currant Song | Jassi Gill | Neha Kakkar | Sukh-E Muzical Doctorz | Jaani - YouTube

PLAZA - Personal [Official Music Video] - YouTube

Phum Viphurit & Higher Brothers - Lover Boy 88 (Official Video) - YouTube

Gux Jimenez & Jaroak - Balearia (Southern Tier Remix) [Soluna Music] - YouTube

josh pan - give it to ya (feat. ABRA) [Virtual Simulation] - YouTube

[MV] Los(로스) _ Bad(Feat.Jay Park, G.Soul)(나쁜놈(Feat.박재범, G.Soul)) - YouTube

옐라디 (Yella D) - 가고있어 (On The Way To You) - YouTube

HYUNA - Ice Ice (얼음 땡) (Ft. Yook Ji Dam 육지담) - YouTube

HyunA (김현아) - Blacklist (Lyric) ft. LE of EXID - YouTube

Red Velvet 레드벨벳 'I Just' MV - YouTube

[LYRICS/가사] SEVENTEEN (세븐틴) - ROCKET [TEEN, AGE 2ND FULL ALBUM] - YouTube

바빌론(Babylon) - The Body Remix 'TIGHT' (Feat. Owen Ovadoz) - YouTube

G.Soul (지소울) - Tequila (Feat.후디(Hoody)) Official Music Video - YouTube

luvbird - your smile - YouTube

스텔라장 - 아름다워 (디깅클럽서울ver.) MV - YouTube

Usher - U Remind Me (Video Version) - YouTube

Usher - I don't know (ft. P.Diddy) - YouTube

Flashtech - Closer [Silk Music] - YouTube

Bad Girl - YouTube

Devlin - Paid My Dues - YouTube

Usher - Confessions, Pt. II - YouTube

Usher - Burn - YouTube

Usher - No Limit ft. Young Thug - YouTube

Red Velvet (레드벨벳) - Butterflies (Color Coded Lyrics Eng/Rom/Han/가사) - YouTube

Blue Lemonade - YouTube

Hit That Drum - YouTube

East & Atlas – Whispers - YouTube

Ata - Euphoria - YouTube

21 Savage, Offset & Metro Boomin - "Ghostface Killers" Ft Travis Scott (Official Audio) - YouTube

Tory Lanez, Rich The Kid - TAlk tO Me - YouTube

Lil Baby "My Dawg" (WSHH Exclusive - Official Music Video) - YouTube

Lil Baby x Gunna - "Drip Too Hard" (Official Music Video) - YouTube

Zeds Dead at TomorrowWorld 2014 - YouTube

Akh Lad Jaave With Lyrics | Loveyatri | Aayush S | Warina H |Badshah,Tanishk Bagchi,Jubin N,Asees K - YouTube

GOT7 "You Are” M/V - YouTube

JPM 那不是雪中紅 (官方完整版MV) - YouTube

[쇼미더머니 4 Episode 6] 송민호, 지코 (MINO, ZICO) - Okey Dokey MV - YouTube

SHINee 샤이니 'View' MV - YouTube

[MV] UNTOUCHABLE(언터쳐블) _ CRAYON(크레파스) - YouTube

[Crayon Pop] 크레용팝 'FM' M/V - official - YouTube

[MV] 주헌, 형원, I.M - 인터스텔라 (Interstellar) (Feat. Yella Diamond) - YouTube

아웃사이더 (Outsider) - Bye U (feat. G.O of MBLAQ) - YouTube

蔡依林 Jolin Tsai - PLAY我呸 (華納official 高畫質HD官方完整版MV) - YouTube

ЯрмаК - Вставай (TS Prod.) - YouTube

[M/V] 요즘애들 (feat. Freelow) - 제이슬로우(J.slow) - YouTube

2NE1 - '안녕 (GOODBYE)' M/V - YouTube

[MV] B.A.P _ That’s My Jam - YouTube

[cotrk-poll-fun]

Best Paton Yewbeam Quote Bracket

Round 0.5b - Poll 9

Spoilers for Charlie Bone and the Shadow of Badlock below the cut!

Quote 40, Charlie Bone and the Blue Boa, chapter 10

Praise be, refreshments!

Quote 122, Charlie Bone and the Shadow of Badlock, chapter 3

I hope you’re not damaging a rare book.

[mey-rin-is-fabulous]

Also Jenny married a Welsh man I wonder if that has anything to do with why the Red Kings best friend happens to be a Welsh wizard and the Welsh language gets mentioned. Something about Hark and in the prologue it's mentioned that Mathlowny or whatever his name is is singing in Welsh

Edit: his name was Mathonwy but I was close

[sharkjumpers]

A poem to progressives plotting mass exodus

by Lauren Zuniga

There is a sick pit in your stomach. A plantation in your front yard. The static flicker of black and white. An absurd talking picture, where sepia skin is now villain. You are not sure who to trust anymore. Everyone walks backward in your neighborhood. You are surrounded by billboards with hate-sized font. You are looking for a secret handshake. A fish with feet drawn in the sand. Blue paint on the door frame. You resent even the dirt for being so damn red. At night you are a furious search engine. Screaming down the track toward some kind of Shangri-La. Portland has no jobs. Canada doesn't want you. You hear property is cheap in Costa Rica. Even Cuba seems safer than your next PTA meeting. Anywhere is better than here. But here is your home. Here is where you chose to raise your kids because the people are so friendly. Do not let them drive you away. Here is where you are needed the most. Here is where the sunset stretches its arms wide as forgiveness across stolen plains. Here is where Clara Luper sat down at the Katz lunch counter and asked to be served. Here is where black and white soldiers fought alongside each other for the first time. Where Kate Barnard was elected before she could even vote. Where hippies squatted in Paseo until it became an art district. Here is where Charlie Christian learned guitar. Where Wayne Coyne keeps the bubble. Where Woodrow Wilson Guthrie played the harmonica for sandwiches. Here is where the healing has to take place. Tell them you are not moving. Oklahoma is worth the wait. Sometimes evolution feels like the stinging cramp in the back of your knees when you grow too fast for your outdated bones. Sometimes it feels like a house in the city with three goats, 10 chickens and 12 wild kids. Tear up the sidewalk. Plant a garden. Bake a squash casserole and invite all your terrified neighbors over. Say "As-Salamu alaykum" to everyone you meet. Fill out all government forms in Español. Check all the boxes for your race. Ride your bike to work. Make art in the streets. Feed people without a license. Go to city council meetings. Sit in at the state House and Senate. Wear a purple boa. Don't apologize for your presence. Write love letters to mothers and fathers in prison. To the wardens, the police officers, the judges. Write love letters to queer kids and their bullies. Tell them you are staying here for THEM. Kiss a Republican on the cheek. Show them how to love someone you don't understand. DO SOMETHING with that tight fist. That broken heart. That liberal mouth. Progress is a series of small bold moves. Don't leave. Here is where we need you.

The thing blue state leftists don’t seem to understand about red states is that telling minorities to “just leave” is really insidious. That is exactly what the republicans want. They want to make their state so miserable and dangerous and scary for everyone who isn’t a conservative cisgender heterosexual white Christian that those people leave. Leave behind their family, their homes, their friends, their jobs, their community, the places they’ve lived their entire life. With every person who leaves it is one less gay person teaching their children, one less person protesting outside the capitol, one less blue voter trying to stop the place they call home from sliding into fascism.

Many of us cannot afford to ‘just leave’ and many of us don’t want to because contrary to popular belief, North Carolina isn’t an irredeemable shithole with nothing to offer and no sense of community. People do leave red states for their safety but that does not fix the underlying problem, that doesn’t even make the problem better.

[believermag]

ELECTRIC BLUE

All photographs by the author.

Kim Wood on David Bowie

1.

There are roughly ten blocks between the theater where David Bowie watched rehearsals for Lazarus, and the studio where he recorded Blackstar. In his last years, we both lived between them, on opposite sides of Houston Street.

My side is the Bowery, known in real estate speak as NoHo (North of Houston). On the street where I live—a two-block stretch of 3rd Street known as Great Jones—is a chandeliered butcher shop occupying the spot where Basquiat worked, and died, of a heroin overdose. Twenty years before his time, Charlie Mingus’ heroin-addicted presence on this corridor is said to have birthed the term jonesing.

I’ve passed a decade in Brooklyn, but never before now lived in Manhattan and love being a downtown kid, stepping through the door and onto crowded streets, passing CBGBs—now a skinny pants boutique I’ve never entered—on my way to buy groceries, or borrowing books from a library branch housed in the one-time factory of Hawley & Hoops’ Chocolate Candy Cigars—that Bowie lived above, in a modern penthouse perched atop the turn of the century brick building.

For twenty-four months, barring the occasional trip to Central Park, I’ve lived below 14th Street and in this time Bowie loitered here too, sipping La Colombe’s double macchiato, fetching chicken and watercress sandwiches at Olive’s, or dinner supplies at Dean & DeLuca. One day I’d catch him on the street, I figured, hailing a cab or taking out the recycling in his flat cap and sunglasses, and when I did my well-worn New Yorker discretion would be jettisoned as I tried, and likely failed, not to cry.

I didn’t, of course, know that for most of the time we were neighbors David Bowie was dying. Today I walk the familiar stretch of blocks to his building, eyes tearing, I tell myself, from the frigid, bone-dry air. At the front entrance, a group of fans stand gutted, surrounded by news trucks, generators, vulturing reporters.

A growing pile of daisies, tulips, roses, daffodils leans against the wall, along with a few photographs, a pair of silver glitter heels, a Jesus candle with Ziggy Stardust face. Tucked here and there are handwritten notes: Look out your window, I can see his light and We are all stardust and Hot tramp, we love you so.

Everyone here, news crew aside, feels known somehow, the mood is gentle, polite, quiet. Too quiet, I realize, when someone plays “Life On Mars?” from a tinny smartphone speaker. As the closing strings swell, a woman turns to me to say through tears, “I love this song!” All I can do is nod, “I know!” and take comfort among fellow kooks.

A pair behind me wonders aloud about a “world without Bowie,” and while I know what they mean—the way some people feel like a force and invincible—you could argue we’ve been living in such a world for a long while. David Jones-ing.

2.

Three days earlier, on the night of Bowie’s 69th birthday, I danced in my kitchen to the foppish, falsetto, “‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore,” delighting in his rude lyrics and wild whooping. Later at a dinner hosted for the birthday of a friend, I commented on Bowie’s continuing fixation upon mortality, but also his energy, sly humor, return to form, exclaiming, not tentatively, “Bowie’s back!”

I was thrilled he’d finally slipped the ghost of what he called, “my Phil Collins years.”  In one of the endless interviews now flooding my screen in text and video, he explains, “I was performing in front of these huge stadium crowds and at that time I was thinking ‘what are these people doing here? Why did they come to see me? They should be seeing Phil Collins.’ And then that came back at me and I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ It’s a certain kind of mainstream that I’m just not comfortable in.”

Like the divisiveness of fat and skinny Elvis, there were those of us who fancied ourselves glittering, androgynous, apocalyptic half-beast hustlers who bought drugs, watched bands and jumped in the river holding hands, and there were others, contentedly jazzin’ for Blue Jean.

When, in your Golden Years, your mentor of not only music but all things relevant—art, clothes, books, films—enters his Phil Collins Years, suddenly high-kicking in Reeboks and staring in Pepsi commercials, how not to feel betrayed?

I took it personally, coining the unforgiving term David Bowie Syndrome. As a burgeoning artist, I feared (a scaled-back version of) his creative arc with my whole heart—reaching the greatness of Bowie’s 1970s only to follow it up with Let’s Dance. To say nothing of Tin Machine. Like many old-school fans, I’d stopped tuning in to modern Bowie to keep my vintage Bowie flame flickering.

In my most youthfully caustic moment, I joked that Bowie’s personal Oblique Strategies deck—that famous stack of cards, creative prompts such as Ask your body, Abandon normal instruments, and Courage! allegedly used when Bowie and Brian Eno recorded Low and Heroes—should be made up of cards that all read, simply: Call Eno.

Unfair, untrue. Kindly allow this counterpoint mea culpa admission: I secretly love the ham-fisted, cringtastic video for Dancing in the Street.

3.

On the third day after Bowie’s death I step outside, wondering if I’ll still hear his presence hum. Just feet from my front door I’m greeted by his face gracing one of two large posters advertising Blackstar. Well hey there, Mr. Jones.

They’re wet with wheat paste and like a teenage fangirl I consider stealing one, but then notice a smaller poster hung next to them, featuring the Sesame Street characters peering out joyously, encouraging me to attend an event entitled… Let’s Dance!

I accept Bowie’s cosmic joke, had it coming I suppose, and briskly hoof it to Union Square where at the farmer’s market I find apples, apple cider, cider doughnuts and not much else. My gloveless fingertips smart as I pocket change and consider the possibility that the visitation was an invitation to dance through the sorrow. A bit maudlin perhaps, but then, so was Bowie.

When I return home the Blackstar posters are gone. In under an hour someone has pasted them over with clothing and gym ads—leaving all the posters on either side for the length of the street untouched. Like Steppenwolf's Magic Theater, the message—whatever it was—had appeared and just as quickly vanished.

My feet walk me to Bowie’s memorial, which has exploded in a heap of bouquets, black bobbing Prettiest Star balloons, cha-cha lines of platform heels, disco balls, eye shadow, quarts of milk, British flags, drawings and paintings of Bowie’s many incarnations, fuzzy spiders, bluebirds, boas, vinyl copies of David Live annotated Forever in thick silver marker.

A giant orange tissue paper flower hangs from a nearby tree, electric blue eye at its center, petals edged in lyrics: Give me your hands, because you’re wonderful! Let the children lose it, let the children use it, let all the children boogie.

Here and there are tucked personal notes: You taught me that weird = beautiful, and: When I was a teenager I wished I could check off “David Bowie” for both my gender and my race. I still do.

“Taking away all the theatrics…” Bowie said, “I’m a writer. The subject matter…boils down to a few songs, based around loneliness, isolation, spiritual search, and a looking for a way into communication with other people. And that’s about it—about all I’ve ever written about for forty years.”

Perhaps, then, my “Let’s Dance” visitation was an anti-message, a warning against wasting creative juju by pandering for cash. Of course, Bowie made not a dime (relatively, and thanks in large part to shifty management) from his artistic era I find most inspiring. The seed of the fortune that brought him financial security was that very song. So what then?

When I return home, Bowie’s spot on the wall has been papered over yet again, all white this time, as though to say, as he has when pressed to interpret his lyric’s meaning, “nothing further,” “you figure it out,” “space to let.”

4.

I rise before the sun, pull on bright turquoise tights and red clogs and walk the cobblestone of Lafayette Street in the dark. Collar up, breath ghosting, I feel as I secretly do in all such moments, like the cover of Low, or The Middle-Aged Lady Who Fell to Earth. Car headlights slide over me as I approach the memorial that is, it appears, being dismantled.

I quickly make the photograph I awoke imagining: my platforms meeting Bowie’s shore of flickering candles, cigarette butts, stray boa feathers, sea of glitter. Beside me a sweet lone man sorts out the dead flowers, shuffling handmade things to one side, candles to another, not tossing it all as I first suspected, but tidying up, preparing for another day.

What drew me into this frigid darkness, half dressed in pajamas? Perhaps a need to meet Bowie toe to toe, promise to honor the contract, all in, heart wide, funk to funky.

Put on my red shoes and dance the blues.

“I don’t think (the act of creation is) something that I enjoy a hundred percent. There are occasions when I really don’t want to write. It just seems that I have a physical need to do it...I really am writing for myself.”

Before Blackstar, the last time I know of Bowie creating under extreme duress is when making the album Station to Station—which coincidentally also opens with an epically long titular song wherein a man yelps from the darkness, singing with pride and pain about a fame that has isolated him beyond measure.

As the Thin White Duke, Bowie sings with bitter irony, It’s not the side effects of the cocaine! I’m thinking that it must be love! It’s well known that Bowie, living for a year (1975-1976) in his despised, self-chosen, wasteland of Los Angeles, had fallen victim to a kind of Method Writing, unable to escape in life the character he’d crafted to hide behind on stage.

Subsisting on a diet of cocaine, chili peppers and milk, he grew paranoid, hallucinating, allegedly dabbling in Black Magic and storing his jarred urine in his refrigerator. I was six years old at the time, living less than a mile from Cherokee Studios where Station to Station was in session, and smudging my mother’s brand new Young Americans vinyl with powdered sugar fingerprints.

He said of the following album, Low, “It was a dangerous period for me. I was at the end of my tether physically and emotionally and had serious doubts about my sanity. But I get a sense of real optimism through the veils of despair from Low. I can hear myself really struggling to get well.”  

It’s the pale, shimmering hope that makes Low my favorite of all of Bowie’s offerings, but for Station to Station’s Duke of Disillusion it’s too late—for hate, gratitude, any emotion. It’s not, however, too late to lay himself bare in the work: there’s no reach for sanity, just a man collapsing while still directing, as the camera rolls.

Blackstar has been called a gift, and on “Dollar Days,” a song that describes his effort to communicate in the face of death, Bowie breaks the fourth wall to address this directly: Don’t think for just one second I’ve forgotten you/I’m trying to/I’m dying to(o).

I believe as an artist he had no choice, no other way to confront his circumstance other than to talk himself through it, put it in the work.

The profound generosity of Blackstar, and a vast swath of Bowie’s creative output, is that in this most intimate conversation with death, god, time, himself, we’ve been invited to listen in.

5.

What makes a good death? Bowie withdrew from the public in the last decade and was characteristically silent regarding his illness, in this tell-all age (that owes him not a little for its status quo “tolerance” of Chazes and Caitlyns). He was also, in his time post-diagnosis, compelled to make his most raw and exposing work in years, and between the play and album, likely spent a long part of each day in their pursuit, while presumably also tending to his needs as a father, husband, friend, man.

In Walter Tevis’ book The Man who Fell to Earth—the basis of Nicholas Roeg’s film that inspired Bowie’s production Lazarus—stranded, despondent space alien Thomas Jerome Newton records an album called The Visitor: we guarantee you won’t know the language, but you’ll wish you did! Seven out-of-this-world poems! Newton explains it’s a letter to his family and home planet that says, “Oh, goodbye, go to hell. Things of that sort.”

Bowie’s seven-song swansong, Blackstar, is rather more generous, and from a writer notorious for lyrical slipperiness, layered meanings, a cut-up technique (copped from Burroughs) that spawned lines about Cassius Clay and papier-mâché, its text is frequently plain-spoken and direct.

Even my favorite frolic sounds a combative calling down of his illness, time: Man, she punched me like a dude/Hold your mad hands, I cried/She stole my purse, with rattling speed/This is the war. It would not be the first time Bowie referred to Time as a “whore.” (see: Aladdin Sane.)

In the title video’s most vivid sections, Bowie becomes god—less vengeful than dismissive—singing, from heaven’s attic, a swaggering takedown of Bowie himself: You’re a flash in the pan, I’m the great I am. (From Exodus: And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.)

His button eyes in both videos suggest a puppet, and so the presence of a puppet master, but I don’t read these images as signs of deathbed conversion. Bowie was a spiritual seeker who borrowed magpie style—in this case from Egyptian, Kabalistic, Christian and Norse iconography—to create a language to give voice to his fears and dark entries.

“If you can accept—and it’s a big leap—that we live in absolute chaos, it doesn’t look like futility anymore. It only looks like futility if you believe in this bang up structure we’ve created called ‘God’.”

In his last gestures Bowie answered not God, but himself, regarding the way he’d lived, and in particular, as an artist. The pulse returns the prodigal sons suggests that the characters he inhabited—some regrettable, but not irredeemable—are with him as he assesses the intentions behind, and perceived short-comings of, his creative offerings: Seeing more and feeling less/Saying no but meaning yes/This is all I ever meant/That's the message that I sent/(but) I can’t give everything away.

In his almost unbearably haunting last video, it seems we’re finally invited to meet David Jones, or Bowie playing Jones. Jones the man lies in bed, clutching a blanket with those mortal, frightened hands. Nearby the writer manically, fretfully reaches for immortality, while Bowie the performer, dutifully dances to the end.

“There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unspeakable, all those things come into being a composer, into writing.”  “You present a darker picture for yourself to look at, and then reject it, all in the process of writing. I think that’s what’s left for me with music. Now I really find that I address things to myself. That’s what I do. If I hadn’t been able to write songs and sing them, it wouldn’t have mattered what I did. I really feel that. I had to do this.”

This morning I remembered where I'd seen the writer's austere, black and white striped costume before: the program for the 1976 Isolar tour, wherein Bowie self-consciously poses with a notebook or makes chalk drawings of the Kabbalah tree of life. Isolar is a made up word—and name of his current company—said to be comprised of isolation and solar.

I love this costume—a kind of artisan worker-bee uniform. There are satin kimono-sleeved ass-baring rompers for when its time to present the work, but when making it, roll up your revolutionary sleeves and get to it.

1976 saw the success of Station to Station, the premiere of The Man Who Fell to Earth and the recording of The Idiot and Low. It was not the most grounded time for Bowie personally (to understate it), but arguably his most vital creatively, and this nod to the continuum of creative spirit seems to suggest that the artist dies, but through the work, like Lazarus, rises again.

6.

So what, then, is a Blackstar? Perhaps a marked man, a sly reference to Elvis’ song of the same name whose lyrics include, Every man has a black star/A black star over his shoulder/And when a man sees his black star/He knows his time, his time has come.

Although Bowie did not, as rumored, write “Golden Years” for Elvis, he did find (somewhat bashful) significance in their shared birthdays, took pains to catch his concerts, had his white jumpsuit copied to wear while performing “Rock and Roll Suicide,” modeled his own costume in Christiane F after Elvis’ ensemble in Roustabout, and perhaps his Aladdin Sane red/electric blue lightening bolt was inspired by Elvis’ signature gold one. Which is to say, he likely knew of The King’s “Black Star.”

Blackstar could also suggest the theoretical transitional state between a collapsed star and a singularity—a state of infinite value in physics, a metaphor for immortality.

I’m not a gangstar/I’m not a film star/I’m not a popstar/I’m not a marvel star/I’m not a white star/I’m not a porn star/I’m not a wandering star/I’m a star’s star/I’m a blackstar.

“Sometimes I don’t feel as if I’m a person at all...I’m just a collection of other people’s ideas.”  Is Bowie simply claiming his right to throw off all mantles?

The car crash that is the documentary Cracked Actor opens with a reporter asking, “I just wonder if you get tired of being outrageous?” “I don’t think I’m outrageous at all,” Bowie throws back, miffed. The reporter persists, “Do you describe yourself as ordinary? What adjective would you use?” Bowie searches his brain for an appropriate response to the inane question and finally lands upon: “David Bowie.”

Or perhaps, as Isolar suggests, a Blackstar is someone hidden in plain sight. In an interview that seems more therapy session, with Mavis Nicolson in 1979, mostly drug-free and grounded Bowie speaks of the appeal of life in Berlin, whose physical wall seemed to mirror his psyche. Without referencing himself or the characters he’s inhabited, he describes an isolated figure who finds no home in the world, but instead creates “a micro world inside himself.”

When Nicolson suggests that as an artist Jones must keep himself from love, he rejects the idea outright, but when gently pressed about the demands of relationships in actual life and not “from afar,” he concedes, extending his arms before him like a shield, “No, love can’t get quite in my way, I shelter myself from it incredibly.”

The moment is so resonantly raw that the two break into manic humor, shifting to the story of his eye injury in a childhood fight over a girl, wherein he laughs and says, “I wasn’t even in love with her.”

In “Lazarus,” the dying Jones sings: everybody knows me now, and perhaps that is so, as much as it ever could be for a man who spent an artistic career in self-sustained exile.

And why shouldn’t David Jones have been—with the exception of a few deeply druggy years—free from the curse and blessing of being Bowie? What are we owed by our artists?

7.

Blue, blue, electric blue, that's the colour of my room.

The Bowie song that forever circles my brain describes a writer waiting for the muse, describing the loneliness and blessing of the electric blue of creation. Vishuddhi, or the electric blue throat chakra of Hindu tantra, is associated with the vocal cords, communication, creative expression, one’s inner-truth.

For sixteen months I lived in Berlin’s Schöneberg quarter, around the corner from 155 Hauptstrasse and the apartment that song was composed in and of. I’d pedal my bike past and nod to the ghost Bowie inside, still wondering and waiting for the gift of sound and vision.

It’s the seventh day since Bowie’s death, the final day of shiva I’ve sat beneath his window. I’ve never much understood funerals, always felt they were for a “living” that didn’t include me, but this has been different.

Over this week I’ve shared glances with occasional bleary-eyed oldsters coming or going from where I’m headed or have just been–there have been no young folk to speak of and no platform boots necessary to recognize the kooks.

Today, from a block away, I spy a pair of women making the pilgrimage. The taller of the two—who for one moment I mistake for Patti Smith—has Smith’s hair, a floor-length bright blue shearling coat and an armload of exquisite orange, flame-tipped roses.

Trailing my comrades I think of Smith’s line in Woolgathering when, upon being given a dandelion, she asks, “What could I wish for but my breath?”

At Bowie’s door the energy feels less personal, dissipating. After the roses-bearers depart, a lone woman and I stand shivering before the diminished pile of offerings framed by narrowed police barricades: plastic-wrapped bodega flowers and a few handmade items, the most prominent being a cigar box shrine with a Halloween Jack eye patch and what seems a bunch of random stuff tossed in. The woman plays “Starman” on her phone, and rather than poignant, it’s just sad.

A years later follow-up to his first solo release, “Major Tom,” “Starman” takes the isolation of planet earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do and turns it into an anthem where a cosmic DJ messiah tells us misfits not to blow it, ‘cause he thinks it’s all worthwhile.

The 1972 Top of the Pops performance famously featured Bowie’s flirty finger wagging at the viewer, and casually intimate embrace of Mick Ronson, which blew the minds of much of Britain and beyond and marked Bowie as a more than a one-hit wonder. I silently give thanks to many, including Bowie, not to live in a world where a rock and roll arm thrown over a shoulder can cause a stir.

Over the song’s fade out the woman shrugs and says something about bears—at least I think that’s what I hear. I smile and nod remotely, then realize she’s drawing my attention to the carefully rendered Ziggy Stardust teddy bear—complete with lightning bolt and guitar—hanging from the police steel.

This bear abrades me for no good reason. A few young women pass by on their way into American Apparel. “That was David Bowie’s house,” one says over her shoulder, and the other makes an “awww” sound like she might at the sight of a teddy bear, or the memorial of that musician guy that died the way people do—other people, older people. As they pause to take a selfie in front of Bowie’s memorial offerings I turn and nearly sprint downtown.

I learned in this week of Bowie Internet inundation that he trailed these streets too, often at dawn, in solitude, but right now I need Chinatown’s chaotic, smashing life. I’ll buy those killer clementine from that vendor on the corner, I think, and eggplant, scallion and ginger for supper.

I weave among cardboard boxes of dried silver fish and lotus root, tourists linked arm-in-arm in matching New York pom-pom hats, Chinese grandmas pushing plaid shopping carts in (Harold and) Maude braids. A man exits a hallway, arms loaded with red-ribboned funeral flowers. A chef in a paper hat leans against a wall, smoking beneath a pumpkin-sized, spinning dumpling.

Beneath crisscrossing wires strung with giant, glinting snowflakes, I warm my hands on a cup of milky tea and wonder when we’ll get winter’s first snow. Glancing up to cross Mott (the Hoople) Street, I wonder when the city’s details will cease to conjure Bowie.

I tuck dragon fruit into my sack, humming “Starman”—whose chorus melody is plainly lifted from The Wizard of Oz’s “Over the Rainbow.” Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly/Birds fly over the rainbow./Why then, oh, why can't I?

In performance, Bowie sometimes coyly sung a mash-up of these anthems of longing for belonging. On “Lazarus” he sings, seemingly of his death, This way or no way/You know, I’ll be free/Just like that bluebird/Now ain’t that just like me.

Blackstar begins by naming the Norse village of Ormen. In Norse mythology, the rainbow bridge that connects this world to that of the gods is Bifrost, which translates as tremulous way. Tremulous—as in trembling—as Bowie does so heart-wrenchingly as he backs into the armoire and out of this world.

When he heard the call, David Jones, who could walk the streets of Manhattan undetected, slipped over the rainbow and into his own imagination.

But with generosity and courage it seems he did not fully recognize, David Bowie spent his life pulling back the curtain on the Great Oz, showing the man, his frustration and fallibility, questioning art-making and then making it anyway.

I fear in the end he imagined himself “a very bad man but a very good wizard,” when in fact the opposite was true. The droves of people gathered at his front door and around the world may have found the masks fascinating, but only as much as the man, and heart, behind them.

I imagine catching David Jones wandering past shop windows plastered with red New Year monkeys, beneath golden, swaying lanterns. I would thank him for Ziggy Stardust, whose hair my mother copied and Scary Monsters, whose poster graced my eleven-year-old bedroom wall. I’d say thanks for Low and Hunky Dory, which got me through hard times. Thanks for The Man Who Fell to Earth and The Hunger, Aladdin Sane and the Thin White Duke. Thanks for Diamond Dogs, Heroes, Lodger, Station to Station. Thanks for creating a soundtrack for my life and the lives of my favorite people.

Thanks for being a fierce, literate libertine, giving permission when I so badly needed it and inspiration always. Thanks, from the strange kids, for saying, No love, you’re not alone! You’re wonderful!

On the afternoon of January 10th, in what I later learned were the last hours of Bowie’s life, a double rainbow drew me from my desk and to the window. It arced across the skyline and ended at the Empire State Building, so strikingly that fire fighters in the station across the street took to the emergency dispatch microphone to exclaim to the neighborhood, “There’s a rainbow!”

As the first snow falls over Chinatown’s back alleys, I think: rainbowie!

There’s a Starman, over the rainbow, way up high, and he told me—let the children lose it, let the children use it, let all the children boogie.

Kim Wood's writing has appeared in Out Magazine, McSweeney’s, Tin House's Open Bar, and on National Public Radio. She has received grants from the Jerome Foundation and is a MacDowell Colony fellow. She is working on a book, Advice to Adventurous Girls, based upon the unpublished archive of a 1920s motorcycle daredevil. Her documentary film on this subject has screened internationally in festivals and museums including Sundance and the Guggenheim, where it double-billed with an episode of ChiPs.

[endoyamato]

it's not really a linear fanfic or anything, we just RPed them or wrote little scenes, but here's some old art for you:

here you see Ana (long black hair, red eyes), Elijah (ponytail black hair, grey eyes) Phlame who are twins. then Asa and Manfred. Ana and Elijah's powers were to turn into a red and silver fox + fire& ice control, respectively.

and i found an old scene:

The loud knock at the door made Manfred and Ana look in its direction at once, and Manfred got up from his desk with a sigh. 

Ana looked back at the highlighted lines on the script she was holding, having been in the middle of going through them with Asa in preparation for the first rehearsal next week. Asa had shifted and turned his head at the sound too, but didn’t move from his position leaning against Ana’s shoulder. He looked extremely comfortable.

“I suppose that’s yet another student you gave lines to?” Elijah didn’t look up from his work, and Manfred scowled.

It had been a while since someone had knocked on his door with lines, and the lack of interruptions had been very nice, especially after all the knocks the previous day. Manfred had met everyone at the door and shooed them away quickly upon collecting their lines, and returned to the companionable atmosphere of his office. 

When Manfred had reached the door and looked outside, there was no one to be seen. He thought he caught a glimpse of a corner of a blue cape disappearing into a nearby classroom, but he couldn’t be certain.

Manfred had just drawn the door shut again and returned to sit at his desk when there was another knock, followed by a loud burst of quickly stifled laughter. He flung the door open in time to see some first year students disappearing down the corridor, giggling as they ran.

Manfred stared after them, fuming for a moment. Another day, he might have pursued them and made sure they had all been given detention.

Another day was not today. Instead, he settled with slamming the door shut, and stalking back to his desk.

“Was that invisible students again?” Asa asked innocently, turning to hide his face against Ana’s shoulder and snickering when Manfred glowered at him.

“Maybe we ought to start searching for that snake again,” Elijah said, looking over at Manfred. “In case the school ends up full of invisible students. Class attendance will surely plummet.”

“The blue boa isn’t on school grounds anymore, as you well know,” Manfred huffed. “After Charlie Bone and his friends took it upon themselves to steal it from my grandfather.” Even so, the idea of a school full of invisible students stuck in his mind, if only because of how troublesome it sounded. “I have enough trouble with visible students visibly breaking the rules and visibly being annoyances.”

“What if they were doing those things invisibly though?” Asa grinned. “I’m sure that would double the work for your important role as teaching assistant.” 

“Just get back to your rehearsing,” Manfred said irritably. “Stop slacking.”

He hadn’t really meant the last part, but Asa jumped up at once, looking very put out, and began to recite several of his lines. 

The others listened in silence. When he had finished, Asa feigned taking a deep bow, and Ana applauded, which just annoyed Manfred all the more.

manfred bloor deserved better than his canon fate

[amira-jolie]

Charlie Bone and the Blue Boa. By Jenny Nimmo

Charlie Bone and the Blue Boa. By Jenny Nimmo

Date: 7/9/17 Charlie Bone and the Blue Boa. By Jenny Nimmo   Write a Summary of the Book: Dangerous events are starting to bloom around Charlie Bone. While Benjamin Brown and his parents are in Hong Kong, there is a constant fear of Grandma Bone finding Runner Bean. A strange girl called Belle may also be one of these dangers. Along with Uncle Paton gone. What are your favorite parts of the book…

[cotrk-poll-fun]

Best Paton Yewbeam Quote Bracket

Round 0.5b - Poll 8

Spoilers for Charlie Bone and the Blue Boa below the cut!

Quote 12, Midnight for Charlie Bone, chapter 5

None of your business, Grizelda.

Quote 44, Charlie Bone and the Blue Boa, chapter 10

What have you done, Charlie? I thought that life couldn’t get worse, but now here I am, done for, and that person is on the loose.

[cotrk-poll-fun]

Best Paton Yewbeam Quote Bracket

Round 0.5a - Poll 10

Spoilers for Gabriel and the Phantom Sleepers below the cut!

Quote 182, Gabriel and the Phantom Sleepers, chapter 15

Gabriel, the cloak is your ally. If it falls into the wrong hands it will fight back. It can punish most horribly.

Quote 41, Charlie Bone and the Blue Boa, chapter 10

I was in the kitchen having a midnight snack when they arrived. I don’t care for their chatter, so I hid in the pantry. Very undignified, but luckily they only had a cup of tea.