#damn i should have done the colours in sepia tones

[pink-wysteria]

uh gillion in the uh the dress charlie was wearing in that one ig story

this is NOT a fixed gill design, I do NOT know how i got him to slay this hard, do NOT expect me to do it again!!

[angelguk]

the one where jeongguk is in love with your voice (and also kind of in love with you). barista!jeongguk and busker!oc meeting for the first time. this was meant to be the intro for a fic but....life happens :/ still! it’s fun and jaykay is in love !! 3.3k words. listen to i want to be with you by chloe moriondo :3

The first time Jeon Jeongguk saw you he swore his heart stopped. It was early autumn and the sun was beating down on the tired pavement you’d paused at. He'd taken an impromptu break during the few moments it had taken you to set up and get your guitar out of its case. At first, he didn’t notice anything, too preoccupied with the game lighting up his phone screen to pay attention to the serene streets outside.

Then he heard your voice.

It wafted through the open windows and stained the atmosphere in the café, mingling with the scent of bitter coffee and burnt saccharine sugar. It took him a moment to register that the sound wasn’t coming from the speakers Seokjin had installed roughly a month ago but rather from the person standing outside in the late afternoon sun. The sound was coming from you.

He got up slowly, oblivious of the inquisitive gaze Seokjin was giving him and ambled to the glass French windows that allowed customers a full view of the cobblestone pavements outside the café. It also served the purpose of giving Jeongguk full view of you.

There was a claret scarf swathed around your neck. It was the first thing he noticed. You’d lazily tossed it over your shoulders in an attempt to combat the cool breeze that accompanied the autumn sun. The colour highlighted your skin, leaving you glowing underneath the afternoon sky. The guitar captured his attention next; it looked loved, stickers and small scruffs against the warm chestnut wood made it evident that that instrument had been in your hands countless times. That wasn’t difficult to confirm because your fingers deftly skipped over the strings with ease, pressing and strumming out notes that flowed into your euphonious voice.

It caught him by surprise, how much he liked the sound of you singing. But what drew Jeongguk in was the pure look of bliss that was painted across your features, a lazy smile gracing your lips as you sang out the lyrics of some song Jeongguk had never heard but he was going to look up in a moment.

He didn’t know how long he stood by the window watching you. Seokjin didn’t call his name when his break was over and time seemed to pass by in an instant yet it felt like it had been dragged out. He only resurfaced from his reverie when you stopped strumming your guitar. By then a small crowd had gathered and he couldn’t make out your face anymore but he heard the sound of your laughter skipping through the air as clear as the ringing of a bell. You sounded so thrilled, chatting away with some people who had the courage to walk up to you and compliment your talents. Maybe he should too — after his shift ends anyway.

(Unbeknown to him his shift had ended ten minutes ago but he still was stagnant at the window, watching you flit about with a grin on your face).

But then you were packing up and sauntering away and Jeongguk felt his heart twang as if he was one of the strings of your guitar. He had no idea if you would come back to the same spot again — he’d never even seen your face before. If only he’d gone out and said something, or just stood in the crowd and applauded.

But there was no point in dwelling on it so he ripped off his black apron in the staff room and bid Seokjin goodbye. His feet were heavy as he walked home and he kept glancing around, a sliver of hope that maybe you’d moved on to busk in a different but nearby location.

He didn’t find you despite aimlessly roaming around for an extra thirty minutes.

The next afternoon he found himself a place in front of the windows, gaze focused on the street across the café, a slight buzz in his veins because he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about you. The urge to see you again was driving him slightly mad and his co-workers could sense that because Namjoon and Jimin had vanished behind the counters. Seokjin didn’t say anything about his unusual behaviour.

He sat there, expectant, but you never come. This reiterated itself for the next few days until he abandoned the routine and reverted to his usual break schedule; he found his old spot in the back of the café and bent himself over his phone screen once more.

And then you came back a week later, a different scarf tangled around your neck (purple this time – or at least that’s what he could discern) and your beloved guitar in hand. Jeongguk found himself at the windows again, staring at your figure with an odd warmth blooming in his chest. You hadn’t missed a single Saturday since and Jeongguk had never been able to approach you either.

↯

Winter's around the corner, glaring by the fading ochre leaves tumbling from branches above. They form a golden carpet on the ground, the trees above left bare and exposed to the bitter winter wind. In general, Jeongguk favoured the feeling of sunlight against his skin — bright emerald leaves over sepia tones — which is why he abhorred this season. And yet he couldn’t help himself from staring out the window, the world falling into a cold slumber before his eyes. But the wonders of winter weren’t the reason Jeon Jeongguk was leaning against the windows of The Container, the café he worked at. He didn’t give a damn about winter; he was too preoccupied watching the girl across the street.

There’s a chill in the air, evident by the stiffness in your fingers as they strum the guitar in your grip. Why you hadn’t worn a thicker jacket was lost to him. Everyone knew how brutal the winters down here could get. Yet there you were, in a flimsy piece of fabric that didn’t hold the chill away, gingerly plucking at the chords of your guitar. For some reason, the sight of you enduring the cold and singing with a smile on your face made something warm kindle in his heart.

���If you keep standing like that you’re going to dent your face into the glass,” Namjoon comments, a cloth in his hands as he wipes the coffee tables  — a task Jeongguk was meant to be doing.

“Just dent the glass? Hyung, Jeongguk turned into a statue months ago. Don’t forget to dust him down, we don’t want our most prized decoration covered in cobwebs,” Jimin adds on, fingers swiftly drying up porcelain cups and saucers.

“Shut up,” Jeongguk retorts, snatching up his cloth and tearing himself away from the view before him. “I haven’t seen her in a while. She skipped the last couple of weekends, remember?”

“I’m sorry but I don’t have her schedule in my head, lover boy,” Jimin says, attempting to balance ten saucers and four cups in his hands, which was only going to end in a calamity of splintered glass and a tomato red Seokjin.  

“That’s not an excuse to stare at her like a psychopath through the window,” Namjoon interjects, kicking in a stray chair as he purposefully misses the glare Jeongguk shoots in his direction. “Jimin put those cups down before you break something. Seokjin will dock that shit from your paycheck and you still owe me five dollars.” His gaze flickers back to Jeongguk who was only half-heartedly cleaning up the café, “Are you ever going to talk to her? I bet she’s wondering who is the ugly guy who keeps staring at her.”

“I will! I’m just taking some time—"

“Time to do what?” Jimin had somehow successfully transferred everything in his grasp back into the cupboard, a triumphant grin on his face. “Your dick is going to shrivel up if you don’t get laid soon. And as far as I know, she's the only girl who has your attention.”

“Jimin has a point. I’m tired of hearing the terrible porn you watch at three am. Like come on, their moans are clearly fake and you still blast that shit.”

“I’ll turn it down when you clean after yourself. How many times have I picked up your dirty underwear from the couch?” Jeongguk snaps back.

“Disgusting. You’re both heathens. This is why I can’t live with you,” Jimin says, nose crinkled up as he dumps another set of dirty dishes into the sink.

“Glad to see my employees are hard at work.” No one had noticed Seokjin amble in and lean against the wall. “Jeongguk has a point, Joon. I can’t keep picking up your dirty laundry, you’re twenty-four not five,” he raises a hand to halt the torrent of words that threatened to spill from both Jeongguk’s and Namjoon’s mouths. “I wasn’t done. Namjoon also has a point, the shit your watch at ungodly hours is loud and disgusting and you need to make a move eventually. This whole stalker thing is starting to creep out customers.”

“Are you concerned about your business or me as a person?” Jeongguk questions, walking over to the sink to wring out his cloth.

“My business. Obviously.”

Jimin's muffled laughter fills the room as he flicks water in Jeongguk’s direction. “Some of us actually care and the last time you stuck your dick in anything was seven months ago. Which is mildly concerning.”

“I don’t need to constantly have sex like you Jimin.”

“You say that but I bet you’d kill to have the sex life I have.”

“STI’s have not and never will be desirable, hyung.”

“Shut it. Even if I dared you to, you wouldn’t have the guts to approach her.” He raises an eyebrow in challenge, baiting Jeongguk magnificently.

“Fuck you, I can and will approach her. Eventually.” He turns away from the sink, abandoning the cloth, a broom in his grasp as he saunters back to the window. You're still singing away to a small gaggle of people, the wind whipping at your skin. You really should have worn a thicker jacket. Maybe he should bring you something to drink? But do you even like coffee? Or were you a tea person?

“She’s probably a college student. By default all college students are required to like coffee whether they want to or not,” Namjoon interjects.

“Wait was I talking out loud?” He can feel the heat of mortification filling his face.

“This is why I need you to get laid,” Jimin remarks.

“I need you to shut up.”

"Jeongguk if I were you I'd go out there right now and give her a cup of coffee. In fact, I dare you to. I'll do the rest of the dishes for the semester if you do it." Namjoon’s arms are crossed over his broad chest, eyes staring Jeongguk down audaciously. The look in his eyes is telling like he knows Jeongguk would rather set himself on fire than talk to you. And he isn’t wrong.

“Jeongguk move, right now,” Seokjin hastily intervenes. “Shoo! He’s offering to wash the dishes! Grow a pair and get out the door right now!”

Seokjin’s right. The three of them abhorred washing the dishes (which was why Jimin was at the sink while they swept and dusted the café). So this was a perfect offer. He knew he should just take it because Namjoon didn’t do shit in the house anyway but he couldn’t help but feel apprehensive, a steady dampness forming in his palms. What if you found the gesture weird? What if you found him weird? What if his actions would make you run away from the café and then Jeongguk would never be able to see you again?

“Hyung...” His uneasiness was evident in his tone, whine sounding exactly like a wounded puppy.

“Knew you couldn’t do it.” Namjoon plucks up his cloth once more. “This really isn’t healthy though. She’s not some mythical creature, Jeongguk, she’s a person and people talk to each other.”

“I’m sorry are you declining Namjoon’s offer?” Seokjin looks as if he wants to snatch the broom from Jeongguk’s grasp and smack it against his skull. “Jeon Jeongguk you are putting your job at stake.”

“You can’t fire me for that! That’s unfair dismissal!”

“I’ll fire you for whatever.” Seokjin shifts towards the machines behind the counter, briefly cleaning his hands underneath the running sink. “I’m going to make you a latte and you’re going to leave this place and give it to her. Namjoon is offering to clean for God’s sake!”

Seokjin doesn’t pay attention to Jeongguk’s protests, swiftly fiddling with the machines as they whirr to life. “Here.” His outstretched hand held a steaming cup of coffee. “Are you going to take it or are we going to stay here all day?”

Jeongguk pauses, acutely aware of the tense atmosphere fusing with the scent of coffee beans and cream.  He doesn’t have to do it; he could just take the coffee and drink it himself. But then the sound of your voice comes drifting in through the open windows and his chest closes up. You’re singing louder for some reason, almost as if you were calling him to come. In all honesty, Jeongguk had to get over his fear of you. Namjoon’s right — you aren’t some mythical creature — you’re just a person like he was. And even if the small (read really big) crush he had over you felt paralysing at times it was better to say he tried then to admit he never did anything at all.

With a wave of sudden sureness rushing through his body he grabs the cup from Seokjin’s outstretched hand and twists around, blatantly ignoring the slow clap Jimin starts up or the shock filling Namjoon’s eyes.

His feet hit the pavement with a resounding thud, one that he feels in his chest but he keeps on walking. The closer he gets the more he feels like the world is slowing down. By now the crowd had dispersed, only one or two people stood around lingering. That’s reasonable because the sun had dipped further into the horizon, dwindling golden rays of sunlight illuminating the pavements. An instant later, he’s standing before you holding the cup of coffee in his hands. It’s then he realises just how stupid he probably looks. It suddenly hits that he’s got no idea if you were lactose intolerant or whether you preferred soy or oat or almond or how sweet you liked your coffee or whether you liked coffee at all and then you were looking at him and he didn't know what to say.

He tries to open his mouth but he can’t grasp at the words he needs. The strumming of your guitar slows down, a curious sparkle in your eyes as you look at the boy before you who’s turning bright rose with every passing second.

Jeongguk immediately goes on autopilot, shoving the cup in your direction. “Um, here, coffee. It’s cold.”

“The coffee? Sorry but I think I’ll pass on iced coffee,” you reply, shooting him a soft smile. “Thank you though.”

“Uh — no. The coffee isn’t cold, the weather is cold. I just thought that maybe you’d want something warm to drink?” Jeongguk wants the ground to open up below him.

The corners of your lip tug upward, eyes flickering over Jeongguk’s body. He refuses to look directly at you but he can feel the warmth of your gaze as you examine him. This is a stupid idea and he was going to kick Seokjin in the balls when he gets back inside. But instead of hearing a rejection floating from your lips, your voice urges his eyes up from the ground with wonder. “Sure, why not,” you say, an easiness in your tone. The coffee cup is out of his hand before he can blink.

He feels something in him shift violently when a smile breaks across your face.

The slamming of his heart against his ribs is nothing compared to the pounding in his head because holy shit your smile was the best thing he’d ever seen. Your face just lights up, the grin on your lips just as dazzling as the bright afternoon sun behind you. It felt as if there’s a hand around his heart squeezing it tight, leaving him breathlessly in love.

“Before I drink this,” you say, fiddling with the cup in your hand. “How do I know it’s not been tampered with?”

He flushes, taken back by your valid direct question. The sentence that leaves his lips is jumbled, a result of his nerves getting the best of him. “Uh — I  —well — um, I work over there,” he gestures to the establishment behind him, ears tinging rouge when his gaze lands on Seokjin standing menacingly behind the window. “My boss made it for you — well not for you, but kind of? I could have made you one too but he did — for no particular reason of course.”

Your laugh is light and airy, wrapping around his heart with a gentleness that leaves him woozy.

“Okay, I believe you.” You take a ginger sip of the coffee, still brightly gazing at him. “Thank you. This is so sweet of you. And a latte too, that's my favourite. Good guess.”

Jeongguk is never going to hit or insult Kim Seokjin again. His words still feel clunky falling out his mouth but he can't stop them from escaping.“You’re welcome! Thought I would bring you something you know. It’s really cold and you’re kind of the reason why we get so many customers.”

The eyebrow you raise is playful. “So you’re paying me with free coffees now? Not a bad move.”  

He rubs the nape of his neck, a sheepish smile on his face. “Got to keep the free advertisement happy, right?”

You laugh again and Jeongguk feels his world rearrange. In a second he’s buzzing, the warmth of your voice rushing through his body and leaving his nerves humming. Your smile was starting to have an adverse effect on Jeongguk’s heart. It might have stopped functioning properly a moment or so ago.

“I appreciate the gesture. Tell your boss thank you for me.”

Jeongguk splutters, eyes soft as he looks at you. “Actually, if you want to come in I could fix you something else as well. On the house! You can meet my boss as well.”

You pause, pretty lip caught between your teeth in thought. He thinks you might say yes. Needs you to say yes more than he’s needed anything else in his life. But then your eyes flicker to the well-worn leather watch strapped around your wrist, gaze crestfallen the second you register the time.

“I can’t today, unfortunately! Got to hurry somewhere right now.” He watches you pack up your guitar, the swiftness in your movements stabbing at his infatuated heart, the coffee he’d handed you sitting lonesome on the ground. You stuff the loose change scattered within your guitar case in your pocket before delicately placing the instrument in there. It only hits him then that he never once tossed something in there as a show of gratitude to you for filling the world with your mellifluous voice. His empty hands suddenly felt useless beside him, swinging forlornly in the winter breeze. He wants to help you, but he’s afraid he’s encroached enough already. “Thank you again. Maybe I'll drop by one day,” you say, smile bright and warm. He commits the image of you looking at him like that to memory, treasuring it deep inside of his heart.

“Yeah, sure. No problem." He doesn't want you to leave, but he can’t think of a way to make you stay.

Then you're gone, coffee clutched in your hand as you melt into the hordes of people roaming through town. Your claret scarf is the last he sees of you before he registers that he never asked for your name.

[realm-sweet-realm]

Moving On

This takes place chronologically after the events of another one of my stories, called “Breaking the Time Loop.” I think it’s understandable without having read it, though. I hope everyone enjoys it.

---

For twenty three years, Sammy Lawrence had longed for everything he had now. Freedom. His old body. The whole, open, colourful world for him to live in. Even his relationship with Susie Campbell had been given back to him. In his daydreams, Sammy had fantasized about publishing the music he’d written in his years of captivity, becoming involved with a church, marrying, and never coming back to that horrible studio or performing demonic arts again.

Less had changed than he expected. Until he was finally free, he had never realized just how attached he was to the churches he already had within the studio, and the people he’d helped there. And so, every day after work, he’d head into the sketch dimension. The portal to it had found a new home in the closet in the bathroom of his brother’s apartment, where he and Susie were staying until they found their own place to stay. Joey had been perfectly willing to help him move it: there was no more closure to be had from the sketch dimension, and a part of Joey was honestly just happy that someone from the dimension was moving on and helping to salvage the souls of the damned.

Within the dimension, Alice Angel was hard at work sending the souls of Sammy’s cult to heaven. A necessary part of that was separating a soul from the hive mind that lost one’s tended to become when left unattended.

There was nothing functionally wrong with separating them out as needed like Alice was doing. The souls, spread out across dozens of bodies, simply wouldn’t be aware of themselves. A few of them, Sammy knew, had never even attempted to separate due to what could only be described as a very weak will to live. The only problem was that Sammy didn’t like seeing his people melt away into a languid hive. That was why he reopened the Church of Unity and returned to it whenever necessary, playing audio logs for anyone who had forgotten who they were.

There was a good deal less to do at the Church of Unity now that Alice was at work- nothing helps one’s will to live like not being hunted by a demon and the concrete promise of escape. And of course, now that Bendy had given life back to every person he could, the Church of the Ink Demon was permanently closed. The only other “work” he had as a pastor was in encouraging the occasional lost one who was afraid to give himself over to Alice. As a result, Sammy had a lot of time to spend hanging out with the important people in his life. He and Jack were still best friends, and would Sammy often played music with him. Jack also joined Sammy, Tom, and Alice for games of cards. He generally wouldn’t leave the sketch dimension until ten or eleven at night, when his body’s need for sleep forced him to.

At first, Susie stayed up for him. Though, his social batteries were usually drained by that point, so he typically just showered off and went to bed after that, careful to remove every drop of ink from himself and the floor. Susie hated seeing ink in any quantity greater than what would come out of a pen, and she hated when Sammy talked about what was going on in the sketch dimension. Thing was, that was pretty much Sammy’s whole life. Eventually, she stopped staying up for him, making him agree to have dinner with her and his brother each night before disappearing into the sketch dimension instead.

Over dinners, he mostly let Susie talk. She’d always been the type to enjoy talking about her day and the like. As of late, she’d been talking about new technologies and other little things that had changed between the forties and the sixties that she wanted Sammy to see. His response was always the same: “we’ll do it on the weekend.” As of late, she’d been doing a lot of complaining about him not becoming more involved in “the real world.”

Sammy hated that. The people of his cult were real. Real and important to him. If Susie didn’t want to listen to why that was (and she didn’t. She didn’t want to hear a word about the sketch dimension) she’d just have to accept it blind.

Despite some bitterness towards her, Sammy did feel bad about neglecting to make a life outside the sketch dimension, especially as Susie began to lose interest in him. And that wasn’t the only problem with living most of his life there. The other problem was that the people that made up his life were disappearing before his eyes.

Sammy had always known that that would happen eventually, of course. And he knew that his people were going to a better place, and that there was no way for them to live in a physical body again. Still, when someone he had known was there one day and gone from him the next, he couldn’t help but think of it as their death. Like people he knew were dying on a regular, steady basis and the studio just kept getting emptier.

Alice was the only one he could talk to about that. He didn’t even want Susie to know about it. So, when his memories of some ascended lost one were keeping him up at night, he’d leave and head for somewhere where no one could bother him. Oftentimes to his old sanctuary. From his time in captivity, he was used to hearing lost ones cry at night. He was even used to being one of them.

Susie noticed that Sammy’s mood had taken a turn, and was even aware of him leaving at night, but she didn’t know what to do about it. He denied that it was even happening, until a particular event pushed her to act.

It had all started when Sammy had come to Alice and Tom’s place, as he had many times before, only to be greeted by a strange, sketchy, black-and-white man. The man was tall, burly, and completely unsurprised by Sammy’s shock. “Like my new look? Oh calm down, Sammy. It’s Tom. Come in.”

“How...?”

“You see, Sammy,” Alice explained, “I decided to get one of the harder cases over with. The searcher that you’d isolated in that cage because she’d gone entirely insane. Well, after a few hours I realized that there was no fixing her. I should have known. She couldn’t even even speak, the poor thing. So I did what I did for Norman’s soul and just blanked it out and let Tom use it to change form. Boris here might be fine as a mute dog, but Tom isn’t!”

“Oh. Uh, congratulations, Tom. You look great!” Sammy replied, though he was much more concerned with his favourite blob with a hat. “She was so insane she couldn’t talk, you say?”

“Oh, Sammy. I promise you that Jack is going to be fine. I don’t know why he’s always stayed a searcher, but you know that none of them can talk. His soul seems pretty normal from what I can see.” From the corner where he was stroking Boris the wolf, Jack nodded in agreement.

“Alright, good to hear,” Sammy had said. That night, though, he laid awake, pondering his friend’s mortality, and the promise he’d made to his church to do everything in his power to save them. And it just seemed so unfair that he should get to live, just because he happened to have kept a bit of his own hair.

Sammy sat up in bed. That was it. The only way to bring him back was to get some physical remains of his. If that tiny, inky bundle of hair was enough for Bendy to do his magic, then anything ought to do.

Sammy retrieved a phone book from the drawer, taking a glance at the clock, which read 2:36. This was insane, and Sammy knew it was insane. Nonetheless, he flipped through the pages until he came upon the name “Fain.” It made most sense to just start at the top of the list and work his way down. He dialed the first number, the noise painfully loud against the silence of the night.

“Hello,” came a sleepy, female voice. Sammy had to wonder what he’d been thinking, doing this at this hour. Yet, it felt too late to back out now.

“Yes, hello. Do you have a relative named Jack Fain?”

“Uh, let me think... yeah. An uncle, I think.”

“Is he dead?”

“What?

“Sorry, I mean, uh...”

“Who is this?”

There was a silence.

“I’m hanging up-“

“Wait! I’m a geneticist from uh, New York University! We have reason to believe that he had a rare but harmless genetic abnormality that we’d like to study. Do you have anything that might have his DNA?”

“Oh, okay. I’m sorry, no. You might have a better chance with one of his adoptive kids, but I doubt anyone has anything. He went missing a long time ago. Can I give you one of their numbers?”

“I’d love that.”

Within the next ten minutes, Sammy had been on the line with all three of Jack’s adoptive kids, and was no closer to securing Jack’s DNA. He hung the phone back up and slumped to the floor, defeated and ready to cry. His sheep might be going to a better place, but he was still losing them, and he wasn’t sure how much more he could take. Susie and Sammy’s brother watched in silence from the hall. Susie beckoned his brother over.

“What should we do?” she whispered.

“I don’t think we can get through to him,” he replied.

“I think I know someone who can.”

Susie left the man’s side and left for the entrance to the sketch dimension. Even just poking her head through the door and seeing the sepia-toned studio on the other side made her heart pick up the pace. Slowly, she forced herself in, and pulled the door shut behind her. She checked it to make sure that it was in fact unlocked. Alright, she could do this. She’d done it before-done it for years. And it wasn’t as though the ink demon was here this time.

“Relentless forward momentum, Susie. Just do it, and don’t look back.”

Susie made her way through the studio, found an axe, slaughtered a few butcher gang trios, and found the elevator.

Relentless forward momentum. Don’t think, just do. There were plenty of artifacts of her past to trigger her memories, but she refused to take any of it in.

After a trip through Bendyland, she came to an ink river and stopped dead. Allison would be on the other side of this. Come on. Relentless forward momentum. It’s not gonna melt you. After some serious hesitation, Susie got in, waded through as quickly as she could, and found herself at Alice’s door. She gave it a few hard knocks.

“Who is it...?” Alice asked sleepily.

“It’s Susie Campbell.”

Confused, Alice got up and opened the door. Sure enough, Susie was there. “Susie! What brings you here?”

“It’s about Sammy. He’s not adjusting to the real world and I don’t think he would listen to anyone else. I want to give him an intervention, but could use you to soften him up. What do you say?”

Alice hesitated. Susie was getting desperate. “This is the last time he’ll ever get to spend with these people, Susie. I’ve seen into his soul, and you have no idea how much his people matter to him and how good his time here was. Have you ever considered just letting him grieve?”

Tears pricked at Susie’s eyes. “I wish I could see how he’s grown. But all he wants to do is come here. And talk about here. And I don’t wanna ever think about here again. All the ways I was hurt, and hurt other people... I just wanna forget it all and he won’t let me. Alice, if nothing happens, I’m going to have to leave him for my own sake so that I can move on. And I’m worried about how he’ll take that. He’s already crying almost every night, and tonight he was lying to people on the phone and acting like a fool in the middle of the night because he doesn’t want to lose Jack. I don’t wanna put a break up on him on top of that. What should I do, Alice?”

Alice looked to Susie with pity. At this point tears were flowing down the smaller woman’s face. “I guess you should at least warn him,” she sighed. “About the breakup, that is. I guess I can try talking to him. I’m biased, Susie. I don’t know what there is to value out there. I only know about in here. But I’ll try.”

“Okay,” Susie choked out.

“Can I walk you to the elevator? You look like you swam here.”

“There’s an elevator?”

“Yep. The lost ones made it.”

That explained why Susie didn’t know about it. Why would the lost ones share their knowledge with a monstress who wanted to vivisect them for their hearts? But, Susie didn’t have to think about that. A few minutes, and she’d be out of this inky hell.

—-

Sammy was overjoyed that Susie was finally allowing him to bring Allison and Tom out of the sketch dimension. He had something very important to tell them. After, of course, showing them around a little.

Allison in particular was awestruck as they walked downtown together. “There’s so much colour. Oh my gosh, what’s this one called?” Allison asked, pointing to a woman’s dress.

“Indigo. And the belt’s colour is called red,” Sammy said. Showing Allison around like this made him feel like a hero. Suddenly, Allison tore off to a cart selling flowers. By the time he’d caught up with her, she was face-deep in them.

“Oh, Sammy... you told me there were a lot of different kinds of these things, but... I never thought there would be this many.”

“Wanna buy some?”

If it were possible, Alice’s face lit up even more. Sammy bought her some small indigo flowers.

Soon, they were at the park they’d intended to go to. “So,” Alice began, voice somber, “I have something to tell you.”

“Really? Me, too.”

“You first.”

“Okay. So, I know you don’t really know yet what you’re going to do once you’re on the outside, and I’ve been thinking that you and Bendy could make a great team for curing mental illnesses like schizophrenia or dementia. Just kill them, manipulate the soul, and have Bendy bring them back to life. Easy, and it would probably bring in a lot of money.”

Alice looked at him like he was crazy. “Don’t the people out here have more reservations about death than us?”

“Oh, right. But, they also have reservations about torturing themselves with mental illness. I think a lot of people would still take it.”

“I don’t know, Sammy. I kind of want to find out who I am when I’m not killing people and manipulating souls. I don’t expect you to get it, but choosing who someone is supposed to be without their input is stressful. I’m not sure I can even do anything about dementia- it’s more a physical thing. And just... look around,” Allison gestured at the park. “It’s beautiful. Tom and I want to come out here and try something new. Anyhow, do you know if Bendy would be up to it?”

Sammy looked pensively to the grass. “No. Can I call him now?”

“Sure.”

So, that’s what Sammy did. Bendy picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Bendy. It’s Sammy Lawrence.

“Hi, Sammy! To what do ah owe the honour?”

“This is... mostly hypothetical, but I was wondering if you’d be up to joining in a little project with Allison. It would involve moving across states to live with her, but I can imagine no greater use of your gifts.”

Bendy was silent a moment. Then, he heard Bendy call out, “Dad! It’s Sammy! He wants me to move in with Alice!”

“What?” Henry grunted before taking the phone and chasing Bendy off to play. “Sammy, hi! How are you adjusting to the real world?”

“Good...”

“Good. Now look, I’m sorry, but Bendy relocating now is not a good idea.”

Sammy was surprised with the strength of his reaction. “But why? You don’t even know what my plan is.”

“Because, Sammy,” Henry said patiently, “Bendy is a child. It doesn’t matter what the plan was. He needs his parental figures.”

“No he isn’t,” Sammy retorted, “He’s a powerful, 20-something-year-old demon that can control ink and raise the dead.”

“Yeah, but he spent several of those years locked and chained in an empty room, and spent the rest of them wandering around in a pocket dimension attempting to steal a soul. And right now, he wouldn’t want to be separated from me for two days, let alone to move to another state with Tom and Allison. Mentally, he’s just a child with abandonment issues. I don’t know what I’m going to do with him long-term, Sammy. Right now we’re going to try putting him in school. He’ll probably be ready for something like what you’re talking about one day. But right now, we honestly just want to move on.”

“Oh. Okay,” Sammy said. Then he hung up.

“What did he say?” Alice asked.

“They want to move on.”

Alice nodded. “That’s the thing I needed to tell you. Susie is worried about you. She thinks you have to move on.”

Sammy hid his head in his hands. A ton of thoughts, most of them nasty, brewed. He counted to ten and said, “Susie doesn’t realize how important my cult is to me. She doesn’t want to talk about anything.”

“She’s traumatized.”

Sammy strained to keep the anger out of his voice and the tears out of his eyes. “Why couldn’t you have just fixed that when you had the chance? It hurts us. You fixed that other guy.”

Alice sighed. “That’s different, Sammy. Depression is basically the brain not producing enough of a couple chemicals. To use the writing metaphor, it’s a matter of correcting a couple grammatical errors. With Susie, it would be like rewriting the plot, or deleting sentences. Susie’s trauma is about her memories, and her interpretation of them. Unless it were necessary, I couldn’t just... delete soul-deep memories. I could have planted thoughts in her head so that she wouldn’t be so affected by them, but after doing so much of that already for her identity issues and aggression, I just wanted to keep it low-interference wherever I could. And maybe that was a mistake. There isn’t a manual for this, y’know. I have to make choices and then live with them.”

“Oh. Okay,” Sammy replied, resigned. “If I can ask, what’s the biggest thing you did to me?”

“I made your thinking less black and white. That’s about it.”

“Okay.”

Sammy sat in silence a while, head on his knees. “What are you going to do when you can come out?” Sammy asked. “Who will you stay with?

“Presumably Tom and I will just live in the sketch dimension until we can afford a real place.”

“Okay. I was just thinking about letting the sketch dimension go for Susie’s sake. The thing is, I don’t want to leave you to learn about the world alone-“

Alice grabbed Sammy’s hand. His perfect, creamy white hand. This was someone pure. Someone who wouldn’t be stared at by every man woman and child out here. “Sammy. Look at yourself. You belong out here. With people. I wouldn’t want to hold you back.”

“You wouldn’t be. Alice, I’m not the person I was going into the sketch dimension, and I wouldn’t want to be. I want to discover who I am now and how I could fit in to this world, too. That’s what Susie doesn’t seem to get- even when my cult is gone, I don’t want things to go back to the way they were. We could figure out our new lives together. Tom, too.”

Alice would have blushed if she were physically capable of it. She also laughed a little, which confused Sammy. “What?”

“Oh, nothing. It just that I was supposed to get you to see the light and leave the sketch dimension behind. It seems like I’ve done pretty much the opposite. I’m gonna warn you, though: Susie and your brother are waiting for you to come back to the apartment so they can do a little intervention for you.”

The two came back to the apartment together, where Susie and Sammy’s brother were waiting. They had a serious talk together about what Sammy could be doing to handle loss better, and Sammy listened. He also explained his side of the story and what he’d planned with Allison. Susie was devastated, but also relieved when she and Sammy broke up. After the intervention was finished, Susie called her sister, and was moved out within a week.

—-

It was a little over a year later, and Sammy was rowing across a lake with Allison and Tom, where they planned on having a picnic to celebrate the anniversary of Tom and Alice’s entry into the real world. Sammy was happy that he’d chosen to be a part of it.

had found their place in a little town that housed the greatest hospice in New York State. The people out here had gotten used to having two sketchy, black and white people around. It had taken time, though. Sammy had gotten a job at the hospice fairly easily, but it took him a while to convince his boss to give Allison a chance. It had turned out to be a good place for them both to use their skills, including ones Sammy had developed during his time as an ink creature. It was far from a secular hospice, so Sammy could even use spirituality to comfort some of the patients. Alice occasionally took a soul home and fixed it up enough to land it in heaven, which she found to be a good balance between using her power and being more than it. Tom was also happy working as a lumberjack. Even aside from work though, it was a nice town, though- small, tight-knit, out in nature, had a nice church.

Not all of their transition was easy. It was very hard for Tom and Allison to discover that just because they’d been together when their were no other options, didn’t mean that their love would survive once they were free to make other choices. Alice and Sammy had had feelings for each other on some level since the moment they’d met, and became a couple pretty much the second that they were both single at the same time. The trio remained friends, though, with Tom living fairly close by and visiting often.

Sammy had readjusted some of his unused music for the modern age and had released them to some success. Susie had called him to congratulate him as soon as she saw a record with his name on it for sale. They exchanged stories about how they were doing. Susie was doing well. She was back in voice acting and was getting fairly good roles, and she was engaged now. That had been a couple months ago, and they hadn’t talked since. That was okay. Sammy had moved on. At their own pace, everyone had.

---

Do you guys think Sammy made the right choice? When I started writing this, I was thinking I’d end it with Sammy giving the portal to the sketch dimension to Henry, forcing himself to move on, and eventually marrying Susie.

[pomegranate-salad]

Seeds of thought : DIE #1

Been a while, uh ? I missed you too. But before we start, we have to adress the horrible, no-good, terribly misguided elephant in the room : I am currently working on solutions to keep posting my work outside of tumblr before it pulls the carpet from under us, but nothing concrete yet. As soon as I have my new internet home, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’ll keep posting here. If all else fails, I’ll migrate on the Wicdiv Discord server. I’m Pom there too.

Alright ?

Alright.

Let’s do this.

IS THIS THE REAL LIFE ? IS THIS JUST FANTASY ?

 Metaphors are like elections : the quickest way to ruin one is to call it early.

Even now as I’m doing this write-up, I am kind of hesitant : do I actually want to pick apart this debut, or do I want to let the rest of the comic do it for me ? There has to be some equivalent of a love bubble for art, this fleeting period before you get one of those “oh… that’s where they’re going with this” moments, before potentiality unravels into concreteness, before, like in the garden of Destiny, you look behind you and only see one path leading to where you are despite seeing so many crossroads ahead.

That’s why, paradoxically, beginnings are also the most liberating moment to write about stories, because there is a round 100% chance that you will get it wrong. The further the story goes, the least margin of error you have, and you find yourself in a situation where you HAVE to get it right, because you actually have a chance to get it right. But now ? I do not know what DIE wants to say. Not yet. If I did, there would be no point for me in reading it, and if we all did, there would be no point for them to write it. Of course, even on first read, I feel like I might know what the master word is – just like wicdiv’s was “Death”, DIE’s is “Time”, which is nothing else than the slowest sort of death – but this master word is, at best, a key without a lock. The door is further down the path.

 So let’s talk about DIE – not to decrypt it, not to crack it open, not to judge it even, but maybe simply to enjoy it.

 The first thing DIE is, is a voice. It emerges from the intricately painted pages in its concrete boxes of black circled with red, in a way that you almost resent it from breaking the perfection of the page, what with its eye-grabbing crude colours. Unsurprisingly, given Cowles’ always excellent work, the content of the text soon comes to match perfectly this first impression. Dominic, our narrator, is dark, jaded, and he knows how to grab his audience. But on the other hand, he’s never being all that smart and elaborate. He’s a big box of black. Even his own hindsight, the way he looks at his younger self with this mixture of indulgence and pity, is nothing that original or ground-breaking : it’s basically the way any adult might look at their own self-important teenage persona. And of course, nothing about that persona is really gone : Dominic, as an adult narrator, is still the self-important, quiet kid with just enough self-hate to balance out feeling better than everyone else half the time.

In fact, every main character in this first issue is the sketch of their own teenage stereotype, whose attributes are listed out by Dominic on our introduction page. There’s a transparent parallel between that page and the spread a couple pages later where each character introduces their game persona. Dominic’s description is just as much of a character sheet as the ones they hand out to Sol. And by way of that parallel, there’s of course the one between the cast’s game personas and their real life personas : the character they are playing, half-consciously, half-unconsciously, just enough to believe it, just enough to call it their identity. This was already a theme in Wicdiv, and it’s not surprise it shows up again here. Between the characters’ former selves, their current adult selves, and their RPG avatar, DIE sets up a game of mirrors, almost daring us to find the real Dominic – or is it Ash ? – the real Angela, the real Isabelle.

Does fantasy escapism allow you to be someone else, or does it do the opposite, and brings you closer to yourself than you’ll ever be in real life ? That’s a question asked by the text, but also by the art. Now there’s nothing I could say that wouldn’t undersell just how gorgeous Hans’ art is, but for all its merits, it’s actually its one limitation that hit me the hardest : its inability to evoke the mundane. The issue is pretty clearly divided between a flashback portion in sepia hues, the real present in bleak red, blue and black, and the fantasy world with its warm tones. The first two parts are designed to come in contrast with the third one, but for all the supposed triviality of those scenes compared to the fantasy world, nothing in the way those parts are designed resonate as ordinary. Everything is bathed in light in such a way that everything always seems to be moving, from the complex hues of the evening skies, to the shadows on the characters’ faces. The smiles are big and toothy, the eyes are either glimmering or deep and sunken. At every moment, everything in the art works to indicates that something is happening, something big. Hans’ art is out of this world, in a very literal sense : it is somehow unfit to depict our reality. And so when we finally move to the fantasy world, it’s as if pieces finally fall to their righteous place and the world is finally set right side up. Everything about the way DIE depicts our reality feels deeply unreal. And because meta is never far when Gillen is writing, this probably says something about the way we think of comic books, and all escapist media.

The entire issue is building up to that fall back into the fantasy world – to the point that I thought they’d make us stew even longer for it – but we’re not the only ones intently waiting for something that, from the very beginning of the comic, is ineluctable : the characters, too, were waiting. They were waiting surrounded by characters who feel like NPC – we never even see the full face of Dominic’s wife – waiting while marrying women who look like their high school boner and having jobs serving as constant reminders of their past. They were waiting to the point that the first sign they get of the fantasy world of their youth, they immediately all show up to the reunion, and play around something they should know damn well is going to drag them back to it.

That’s not to say any of them “wants” to go back, per se ; such is the nature of trauma, that you want to get away from it as it prevents you from totally moving on either. DIE’s characters are stuck in that in-between, as if none of them had ever really left the fantasy world – and by extension, their teenage years.

This is also why I’ve been uneasy with the reviews of DIE out there linking its storyline to “nostalgia” ; for something to be about nostalgia, that thing has to, you know, be over. But none of the characters is even close to being done playing the game they were playing in their youth. And that for the fantasy murder game as well as for the game they played in reality, the game everyone plays. As teenagers, they push each other around about elitist fantasy books. As adults, they pretend not to know what “woke” means. The codes switch, but the game is still the same. Maturity can be a persona, too. They lie. They deflect. They follow their character sheet. And that’s fantasy for grown-ups.

 That’s not to say that these characters aren’t genuine – as I’ve said, it might be precisely because they’re constantly playing that we can get a better picture of who they are – or that we can’t connect with them. In fact, one of the many feats of this first issue is how immediately touching each of these characters is, both in their efforts toward pretend and genuineness. Well, with the one exception of the character who both seems the most dedicated to the game and the only one who doesn’t seem to be playing at all. Even as a teenager at the beginning of the story, Solomon is that one kid who seems uncomfortably comfortable in his role as the star his friends revolve around, vying for his attention. When he drags his former friends back into the game, is he looking for revenge, or has his world simply become boring without the rest of his party to move the story along ? This is where I should mention that the tabletop RPG hobby is one that is completely foreign to me – it’s just not my scene. And I think part of the reason why is that I’m too fundamentally selfish in that regard to share my imagination with other people. Playing RPGs implies losing part of your control over your own stories. Again, I have no idea how RPGs are supposed to work, but being both the gamemaster and a player strikes me as a fundamentally selfish move ; the move of someone who expects his friends to play their part perfectly, only giving them the illusion of control. For a RPG-themed fantasy, quite a fitting portending villain.

If I can be honest : I hope he’s our villain. I hope there isn’t some dark lore that’s manipulated all of them, and that it’s really just the story of how some teenage bullshit got gloriously out of hand. DIE’s premise is a simple one, just like Wicdiv’s premise was a simple one. But two hundred and a half plot twists later, it can be hard to remember just how fucking awful people can be to each other even when they’re not under the influence of some millennia-old force working in the shadows. I hope we never learn where the dice come from. I hope we never get an entire arc explaining how the fantasy world came to be. I hope it remains just as inexplicable as real life is, with its posture, its pretending, its own unreality, its game you can never, ever stop playing.

 And that’s DIE so far. I loved it. How does it compare to the first time I’ve read Wicdiv ? Beats me. The first time I’ve read Wicdiv, I majorly skimmed through it thinking it wasn’t for me – just like comics weren’t for me in general - until maybe issue #11, when I finally slowed down and started again from the beginning. First impressions. I was wrong about Wicdiv, many times, and there is definitely ways in which I am and will be deeply wrong about DIE. And I like that. So join me, if you will, in future write-ups of DIE, where we can be wrong, be surprised, be amazed, be disappointed also, and have ourselves a party.

[momo-de-avis]

So regarding the conundrum I was stuck in, which I expressed yesterday, I’ve reached a veredict. And I would actually appreciate some feedback because this is THE low point. This is where the line on the graph just falls down like a damn slope.

Keep in mind this is the structure: the character who wrote the letter, Etain, is already dead. The very previous chapter shows her death, and why it happened. It is mentioned she wrote a letter, and this would be the letter she sent that her betrothed reads.

Defeated, he fell on a chair, head stuck between his hands. All around him, the two continued to discuss—Flann as cautious as ever, Ewan siding with the younger one, pros and cons being listed, one eager to put together a party to assess his claims, stating that sending a few scouts couldn’t hurt, they should at least try. Flann agreed with the scouts, but not everything else—it was an unnecessary risk, they had to wait until they reached further north and secured a safe passage towards Dunmorrígain so they could contact the ó Conchobhair, with their aid they could then prepare an assault.

But the uncertainty in Seán’s heart grew, a flutter that propelled him to move in his seat like a restless child, hands up and down his body, between messing his hairs and slapping his knees, jittering leg evidencing his despair. I have to have faith, he thought, closing his eyes for a moment as behind him the two men continued to discuss the matter with a growing voice that was borderline a shouting contest. He had come to notice that Ewan and Flann tended to disagree on several matters, far too much than what should be expected of a clan bearing not two, but three leaders. It sometimes caused a fuss between their men, who seemed torn between the two and acted irrationally out of, perhaps, a lack of discipline. He hoped that wouldn’t be the case then.

Time passed; outside, the sounds of merry living dwindled, light decreasing as the sun settled in the horizon, and inside the tent, the fight ensued. Seán didn’t move, only occasionally turning back to say something he believed to be useful, though he was sure none of them paid attention to what he had to say. Then, a man came inside, holding a letter between his fingers and called for either of the leaders. Ewan and Flann exchanged a look, the former taking a step forward and leaning in to listen to the messenger’s whisper.

Ewan looked down at the letter, a layer of pallor cast over his face as he gulped in silence. His eyes skimmed the inside of the tent as if he sought for something, but they rested on him, on Seán. He gave a step forward, handed him the letter and nodded.

“For you,” he said. “From Alba. It just arrived.”

Seán’s hands trembled, his fingers barely able to hold the paper. The seal struck a chord of fear in his heart—the green apple of the ó Cairbre. His mouth went dry and he blinked repeatedly; there was a hazy sensation to the world, as if it swirled and moved despite his existence, outside himself, with no meaning, no connection to his soul, no relation to him whatsoever. It was a good sign, was it not? She had written him a letter—it had to be Etain’s words inside—and that meant she was safe. Yet something inside his heart sent a shudder of a horrifying anticipation, one he couldn’t quite explain.

He broke the seal. The letters danced on the paper when he unfolded it, and for a while, they seemed to bear no meaning. Do not come for me, no matter what happens. His hand waved in the air, found solace in covering his mouth when tears sparked in his eyes. I am lost, and this I have chosen with a clear conscience, now I only pray to Brigid that you find it in your heart to forgive me. A dash of pain, cold and brisk, stabbed his heart and shot up his head; for a moment, he thought he went blind, but was simply blinking. His eyes focused with difficulty, the words now contorting under the yellow tint of the lights that brought out their irrational shape and buried their crude meaning into the depths of his scarred mind. Am I to live, he will make me a prisoner and negotiate my life with Selena—I cannot allow that, my love. I cannot allow myself to put her in that position.

Both Ewan and Flann disappeared from his sight; all there was, was the irritating sepia tone of the air around him, the intense smell of burned wax and wood, and the clanging sounds of metal outside, cups clinking against one another as voices raged in roaring laughter. A distant, inconceivable joy he couldn’t place. He wasn’t there, but thrust into somewhere unknown, a black nothingness where Etain’s words stung his skin like a million needles.

I am told they’re only a day away as I write this. It is likely the ó Cinnéid will yield. They’re weak, have always turned where the money is and hide their tails between their legs like cowards. Do not trust them. Lugh knows I cannot, and I have accepted the fate of our city. Now, I have to accept mine.

The words became blurry. Seán wiped his eyes with the back of his hand when the tears came, blinked repeatedly at their stinging sensation. Protect her. Fight for her. A sob escaped his lips; his hand shivered, he could barely hold the paper. Stay with her, forever. Don’t ever leave her side. She needs you, my love. He crumpled the letter, though he didn’t mean to; he thought of throwing it away, but couldn’t do it. Etain’s very soul was contained in it, her very essence enclosed in the ink that stained it in those daunting words.

Tell Selena I love her, and how much it saddens me that I will never get to see her crowned. Perhaps my spirit will linger, and I shall walk by her side until her dying days. I certainly hope the gods are kind enough to grant me the gift of peering through the veils, if only to make sure her life is a gracious one.

Ewan’s hand moved, trying to reach for his shoulder in a calming pat, but Seán warded him away. The letter was clutched to his hand like an amulet—he couldn’t let it go. He opened it again, pressed it against the table to soften the creases of his impulsive gesture, a sense of regret so great possessing his heart he felt he was tending to Etain herself, muttering the words as he did so: I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, my love, I am so sorry.

I left my wedding dress on my bed. Ever since the day I left the School, I longed to wear it. I chose the colour blue because it reminded me of the seas, the same that’s always scared you so much.

Flann tried to speak to him, but Seán told him to shut up. The map was now a deriding vision, a divine mockery. There was no room for the flashing memories that assaulted him—all he could think of was Alba and its gardens, the marble statues of Etain’s favoured place, sprinkled with apple trees and quinces everywhere as she hopped around merrily. Her giggle. The way her eyes crushed whenever she smiled, her cheeks pink as roses in puerile joy. Her golden locks swaying at the salty breeze, how graciously they framed her round face.

I keep thinking of the day I fell in love with you. That day you found me in the arena and I begged you not to tell the guards on me. We had known each other for eleven years, and I wondered: how could I have missed it? How could we have lived together as friends for so long and missed on the love that bloomed right there and then, so immediate it took me by surprise? How could we have shared a lifetime together and only find this joy so shortly before we parted ways? I wish I could return there. I wish I could stand in the School’s arena with you right now. I wish I was hiding behind a tree or under the benches as you pressed a hand against my lips to keep me quiet while the guards searched for us. I thought the School would tear us both apart if we let everyone know, but as it turns out, it was never in the gods’ plans.

The world, Seán, is more cruel than I figured. Alba was always peaceful. I had my stupid gardens and my ocean, and I had you. And all the while, our beloved Selena suffered. They taught us for eleven years the tools to survive in a world that isn’t ours. They kept us hidden and protected like precious gems, and released us into the world like tamed animals. You and I, and Selena, we don’t know how to survive in it. The three of us were always bound to inherit a war we didn’t start. That’s why you must always stand by her side, that’s why you must always fight for her. So that in one year, two years, eleven years, the next children won’t fear what we feared.

I love you, so much I understand now our fates are not bound together. I love you enough to take the fall so you shall stand. But I promise you I shall not fall alone. You’ve always said I was a better dancer than I was a fighter. I suppose the time has come for my last dance, my love.

“There has to be time for—” his words died on his tongue, sucked in by his own sobbing. When another pair of hands touched him, Séan pushed them away. “You have to go to Alba right now! You have to do something!”

And the world swirled, untamed, distant and disconnected. All he thought about was Etain, her garden, her quinces and apple trees; all he thought about the wedding that never happened, the mistakes committed in the past. Her joy, her smile, her giggle. Her bossy attitude, her imposing stance, the way she pressed her lips together when she wanted things done her way, how her eyes fulminated whoever crossed her. Her blind acceptance of Selena’s reveal, how she hadn’t flinched at the thought of her best friend being Lavinia’s daughter. Devoted and faithful, as she had always been.

Ewan’s hands held him down by the shoulders; this time, Seán didn’t fight him. His strength waned, his vision blurred. The letter shuddered in his hand, the words now indistinct. I love you, and please forgive me. They danced in his mind like a haunting, and images of Etain projected themselves in his mind as a last attempt to hold on to her. Stand with her, fight for her, don’t ever leave her side. Promise me. I promise you, he thought, but he couldn’t; if he promised her, that meant accepting she was gone, but there was still time, there was still a chance.

“I cannot—” tears ran down his cheeks. “I cannot leave her, we have to—” there had to be a chance, there had to be a chance at saving her, saving the city, saving Alba’s gardens; a chance at standing atop the walls overlooking the black rocks whipped by the white foam of the seas, as Etain leaned over with arms wide open, giggling. He had to see her again. “Please, I beg you, we have to—”

“I’ll gather a party,” Ewan said, his hands now holding his face. “We’ll leave in the morning.”

Seán nodded. There had to be a chance.

So yeah, my idea was taunting the reader with this idea of the character being obsessed with the possibility of there being a chance, because there isn’t. By now, the reader knows there’s no chance. She’s dead and the reader saw it. 

(And then there’s one character left for us to see just how much this fucks her up)

[blschaos3000-blog]

Its 11:15 pm dark

A little while ago I was lucky enough to have interview the fantastic artist Louie De Martinis whose drawings of The Shadow just blew my mind. Ever since that interview I have been looking for more artists to talk with but I found out that is easier said then done.    My old friends in the music business will get a laugh about how I met Meaghan C. Kehoe…I found her completely by accident. See,I have been a follower of a small art community center in Oshawa called The Living Room which was founded by the lovely Mary Krohnert for a couple of years now. Once in a while Mary will post on YouTube about community center and upcoming events.    When I saw the Taskmaster Art Challenge video which featured 5 very talented artists creating a project in just 5 minutes and then raffling it to raise money for the center,I knew I had found my next artist to chat with Meaghan.     But securing a interview with a very much in demand artist is no easy task either as Meaghan and I played email tag for while before she able to get a little time to answer her questions.    But the wait was so worth it because Meaghan is pretty damn amazing and I sure am blessed to landed this chance to ask her 8 Questions!!!

 Please introduce yourself and share a little of your background.

My name is Meaghan Claire Kehoe and I am a human, feminist, amateur environmentalist, and some would say artist. I’ve always been excited to create things- things that are visually appealing. From drawing pretty pictures when I was a kid and into my teen years, I started to ask myself where I wanted these pretty pictures to take me in life. I went to Sheridan for Illustration, but dropped out after a year and a half when I found I was bored by the direction the program took me in. After months of deliberation, I decided to go safe and do my undergrad in French at Laurier (choosing this university only because my younger sister was applying there for Business). It turns out I loved the structure of university. I loved the critical thinking of dissecting literature and I loved learning about different cultures across the globe. I took German and Italian as well and was hopeful for a future of globe trotting to fill my life with cross-cultural understanding and meaning. In third year, I was finally allowed to go abroad on exchange. I worked full time for a semester as a barista while on a full time course load and was able to afford one semester in France. I went to Tours (for no other reason than our schools had partnerships for course equivalence), and it was beautiful. A small University city overrun with mostly students, shops, cafes and cobblestone (and of course our late-night shawarma place for post-cheap-wine-and-cheese snacks. But it was a single evening that was pivotal in my life’s direction and probably the reason I am where I am. I had managed to get into a figure-drawing class (really had to fight for that one since it wasn’t a normal elective at Laurier) and I remember surprising my stereo-typically snooty french art prof with my skill in the class- he even stopped me after class to ask about my history in figure-drawing (which was an accumulation of Arts York HS and the stint at Sheridan). Anyway, the experience woke me up again. I felt alive. I remember after the class ended, it was already dark out- a late January evening- I literally skipped back to the cafe where I was to meet a friend. Rolled newsprint underarm, blackened charcoal fingers, and a silly grin, I felt weightless flying over the cobblestone. I knew then, or maybe in the days to follow, that it was time to take this thing seriously.

After 6 months travelling Europe, I returned to finish my final fourth year at Laurier and did so with honours, all the while setting myself up to begin the risky journey of being an entrepreneur and self-employed artist.

 What drew you to art? Was there a defining moment where you knew this is what you wanted to do?

My mum is an incredibly talented artist. When I was growing up, she went from working as a graphic designer for an agency to starting her own business from home so she could spend more time with us. She has always had an incredible eye for composition and a refreshing use of negative space. This seemed to alway translate to her paintings as well. She created gorgeous watercolours with expressive vibrancy, colour and edge. She was obviously a strong influence in my life and I followed in her footsteps though I did not always want to. I knew I had the natural passion and all the learned skill she’d taught me through the years, but I had watched her struggle with the classic entrepreneur hangups: getting clients to pay her, getting clients to respect her choices and knowledge and experience, and… getting clients. I didn’t think I was cut out for it. I was shy and insecure and I didn’t think I had anything original or meaningful to share with the world.

That moment in Tours, France on my exchange really helped me remember why I painted in the first place. It was enough to do it because it made ME happy. And if I couldn’t do that then what else was there?

 What are the pros and cons of getting a art education at a university or college? Some say a “formal” education restricts artistic freedom,how do you respond to that?

This one is tough for me to respond to since I never finished my post-secondary art program. All I have to say is that it is likely like any other program. It has to be the right one for you, but also there is no program out there that is going to satisfy your needs %100. It takes a lot of guts to go against the grain or the prof and take from the experience what you need as opposed to what is provided, but its worth it to do some digging and soul-searching to make sure you don’t conform for the sake of conforming. There are a lot of opinions out there about what constitutes “real” art, but they are all just that. Opinions.

 What does “mixed media” mean? 

Mixed media means you are no sticking to strictly one medium in your work. For example, you are not using just oil paint or just acrylic paint. There are some fantastic contemporary artists using mixtures of paints, pastels, papers, photography, and even found objects. (Anya Mielniczek is a great one for this- she’s a good friend of mine who is also an environmentalist and up-cycles trash to create beautiful works).

 What is your typical day like as an artist? How do you get your creative ideas?

I’d like to say my typical day is a romantic sepia-toned dreamy sequence of me in cute overalls with a smear of paint on my nose, a brush through my messy bun that I’ll continually be losing and looking for, and a giant canvas on my wall splattered in passionate marks that somehow emerges as a perfectly balanced masterpiece. And it is. Is the lie I’ll tell Spielberg when he interviews me for the biography he’ll shoot about me one day.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of stuff I have to do that sucks my soul (like in any job). I usually start with a to-do list, then emails, any phone calls I need to make to clients, sometimes brainstorming/conceptualizing/sketching designs for corporate murals, sometimes cleaning up the mess of spraypaints I’ve dumped in my studio the night before after a project. There’s taxes, invoices (which reminds me I still have a couple to do today), and walking my dog. I actually get a lot of my best ideas this way. A walk alone with my thoughts, 50 minutes or so, gets a great creative brain-flow going and puts me in a better mind set to get work done when I get back in the studio.

 What is your take on “art critics”? 

Well, I’ve never been critiqued by one yet- I suppose my work isnt legitimate enough for them. But thats the thing, isnt it? My art isnt for everyone. Nor should it be. Like I said, opinions are opinions.

 Do you ever go to museums or art galleries yourself? If so,do you look as a fan or an artist?

I do go to museums and art galleries, though I feel most compelled to visit them in Europe. They’ve put a lot more value into their arts and culture than we have in North America (as well as a longer and richer history) so there’s a lot more to see. Plus, they’re usually way cheaper or FREE! It’s like they actually want their citizens to appreciate art!

 What was your first drawing and what was the first piece that you sold?

I really couldn’t tell you what my first drawing was. My mom says I was drawing perfect circles before I could talk. But my first piece I sold was probably when I was 16. I was commissioned to create the cover of Salvation Army’s ‘Faith and Friends’ Christmas zine. Though my mom will tell you that I painted a piece in grade three that all the teachers tried to buy off her. She had it framed and it hung in our dining room for a couple decades.

You have done art in over 50 Starbucks in Canada,how did you get that gig and do you have complete freedom in what you paint?

I got the Starbucks gig through a connection (my sister’s friend’s then-boyfriend was an interior designer for Starbucks and looking for more muralists at the same time I had decided I wanted to get into large-scale wall-art). It was a match made in heaven. I honestly have never had so little control over my work than I did with Starbucks- they are very particular about their branding, but they were really professional and respectful and compensated me well. I had so many jobs with them over the span of a few years that I was able to do things like quit my part time job, buy a car and put money into savings. I owe them a lot.

 Are graffiti taggers artists or vandals?

Yeah this one is a tough one. I have to go with both. It’s funny because a certain few street or graff artists have become famous internationally (e.g. Basqiat and Banksy). Their work questioned societies norms in a way that was clever and beautiful and spoke to people. If that isn’t art, then I don’t know what is. But were they vandalizing property? Sure. But many graff artists would say that property is a societal construct and imposition that should be challenged. Personally, I can see it from both sides and its a constant dichotic conversation for me.  

   You do a LOT of charity work, what drives you to give your gift to others?   How did you get involved with Mary Krohnert and The Living Room?

I think one of the most universal human struggles is finding meaning in one’s life. That doesn’t change when you become an artist. In fact, it is only amplified. Everyone has their own gifts and talents and for me it is crucial to find out why I ended up with mine. The answer is that I still don’t know, but if I just keep helping out where I can, I’m sure I wont get further from answering that important question. Or maybe its just the childhood catholic school guilt… Who knows?!

My introduction to Mary from The Living Room was another serendipitous moment in my life. My partner and I moved to Oshawa two years ago and one day I was sitting on my porch and a pretty lady with a cute dog walked by. So I chased her down to meet her pup (a shy hound named Alice), and found  out they were my neighbours from a few doors down. Mary was really excited to find out I was an artist and the friendship bloomed from there. I really believe in what Mary is doing with The Living Room. Any way I can help out, like in the latest fundraiser event where I got to be a part of their very own ‘Task-Master’ episode (a spin off form a British series), is the least I can do.

What is a art battle?

Art Battle is an event that was started around 8 years ago by two guys, Chris and Simon, that began with a competition of two artists painting live and being judged by audience vote and has evolved into a world-wide organization with monthly contests all around the globe between 16 artists at a time. There are three rounds: 1) 8 artists paint for 20 minutes; 2) another 8 artists paint for 20 minutes; 3) the top two painters from each round voted by the audience paint a new painting for 20 minutes and the audience votes for the final winner. There’s a DJ, a bar and a lot of excitement. The winner goes onto the regional competition and the winner of that goes onto the Nationals. I’ve won the Toronto regionals twice in the couple years I painted at art battle only to be beat out at Nationals twice.

 The cheetah and I are coming to see a exhibit of your latest work but we are a day early and now you are our tour guide,what are we doing?

Oh my goodness! Okay! Well we’d have to go the the Robert McLaughlin Gallery for sure. If it was the first Friday of the month, I’d take ya to the RMG fridays event where they also feature some local live music. That would be after grabbing dinner at Spicy Affairs (my favourite Indian restaurant in Durham and its right near my house). Before that might be an afternoon at the Botanical Gardens. Oshawa Creek runs through there and in the right season you can see the salmon racing upstream to spawn. They’re huge! Theyve also got cool sculptures and some playgrounds for the kids around there. Before that we would go to Isabella’s for coffee and snacks or to Berry Hill for brunch/lunch. And at the end of the whole night, we would end up at Riley’s for a pint and a couple rounds of pool.

 THE END.

I like to thank Meaghan for chatting with me. I think you have a true gift and that you share it with the world is tremendous. You are definitely doing what you were meant to do here,never doubt that for a second.

You can follow the wonderful Meaghan Claire Kehoe by visiting and bookmarking it by going to her website here.

Thank you for your continued support and I hope you enjoy these interviews as much as I do. I have many more in the pipeline that I think you’ll really enjoy.

Feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll make sure to pass it on to Meaghan.

8 Questions with…………..artist Meaghan Claire Kehoe Its 11:15 pm dark A little while ago I was lucky enough to have interview the fantastic artist Louie De Martinis whose drawings of The Shadow just blew my mind.