#how he told her about his mother and her being a self-annihilator and the dream is basically her hospice.

[glacialswordsman]

[bandydear]

I think the sad thing about the Rue Royale family is that they really are operating the best that they can considering everyone’s circumstances.

Take Claudia for example: She’s a 14 year-old orphan who has never ever been loved. She was abused from the moment she could crawl by her aunt, exposed to creepy uncles at the boarding house, and has had 0 friends. A goose egg. Louis and Lestat were the first people. Ever. To love her. The only people who would care if she died. And they loved her. They poured all the devotion that bounced off each other’s defence mechanisms onto The Child.

So she’s a spoiled teenage apex predator who has had zero socialization her own age trapped in eternal homeschooling with BPD The Clown and the vampire embodiment of self-loathing. She was never going to be Normal. The fact that she grows up to be so socially capable is really a testament to her willpower.

And they’re fucking trying to raise her right too! Lestat’s parents did not give a shit about him. If he wasn’t being abused he was being neglected. Beatings, withholding food, withholding love*, he never learned how to read! So he feeds Claudia, he teaches her to drive, to play chess, to play piano—all the things he is proud of. All that nourishes his soul he gives to Claudia. He gives her a priceless amulet all while thinking she’s impermanent. That she won’t last.

And then there’s Louis. Louis who always had the expectations of “carrying the family line”. Louis who was told to marry a woman named Hazel by Paul the moment before he died. Louis, whose familial and social rejection for what he is (in layers) sent him spinning out in self-destruction and what he find on the brink of annihilation was Claudia. His beautiful daughter. She’s the embodiment of all his hopes and dreams. Only child to all the expectations of an eldest child. He brings her to the lake his dad took him and Paul to when he was a child and they catch fireflies. He does her hair and he dresses her like the little rich girl he’s always wanted to parade around at church.

But Claudia is a person, not a doll.

And Louis is still caught up in the living drama of his family. Louis spends Claudia’s entire life mourning the mortal man he never was. He wants to make his mother proud. He wants her forgiveness for Paul. He wants to be there for his sister and her family, and he wants to be a married man with a child of his own. His war with his own nature extends to his family. He cannot accept being a vampire the same way his mother never accepted his queerness. And, just like his mother, he withdraws love as punishment when his family does not follow his rules. He cannot accept a daughter with sadistic house cat tendencies, and he can’t accept the horny Shakespearean menace he married. He punishes Lestat when Claudia goes off to college (typical empty nester behaviour) and he punishes Claudia when she starts having a life outside of him in Paris.

And yet! They were happy! For years! Happy until what was always going to happen happened. Lestat has always had a wandering dick and Claudia was always going to want independence and companionship outside of her parents and Louis was always going to be jenga tower of emotional stability. On a tight rope of personality disorders and abusive upbringings they actually lasted longer than a lot of vampire covens.

[stramberryparadice]

SHINGEKI NO KYOJIN #139 - THE IMPOSSIBLE FREEDOM ?

Here is the English translation of the post I wrote here in French.

I apologize in advance for my mistakes, I'm not good in English but I hope that will be understood.

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Shingeki no kyojin is finished. A leading manga of the 21st century has just ended in tears, blood, mourning, disappointment, frustration… and love. So many emotions come to me when I read this final chapter, I needed to express them as clumsily as it is. I’m sure it’s going to get lost in the Internet, but whatever— it is necessary to remove both the joy and the frustration that I feel to pay tribute to Isayama who offered us a work as powerful as it is cursed.

As intense as it is uneven, as perfect as it is imperfect.. like his tragic hero Eren Jäger, who shows us that men are so weak and pitiful in the face of time and the cruelty of the world. How much even if this hero possesses in his hands the power of a God. My analysis will surely be clumsy, I apologize. And I will not fail to point out at the end the bitterness felt on the final development of some characters including that of Misaka Ackerman.

Eren like “CryBaby”

What a slap for the reader to witness such an emotional picture. Yes. Isayama reminds us to what extent Eren isn't a brave knight, not a charismatic hero, not the genocidal demon of this story but a child.. whose weight of Destiny is too heavy to bear. Scan 139 reminds us to what extent we have lost ourselves, just as Eren has in the way, forgetting the very essence of the story that has been told to us from the beginning. It’s not a story of geopolitical warfare, a biological parasite, titanic monsters, a northern deity, or a philosophical-esoteric trip. It's the story of a boy who wants to emancipate himself, to live for himself, tasted of the thirst for adventure, the tranquility of his loved ones but born in a cruel and alienating world that leaves room only for death, abuse of power, betrayal and despair .

A journey where the child becomes an adult at the cost of his or her life. Learning the most painful lesson… To be an adult is to renounce one’s dreams, to bend one’s knee in the face of the servitude of one’s mortal condition, to be content with one’s cage in order to enjoy the little that one can have at one’s disposal, to mourn those who may disappear from one’s life.

A young boy who dreamed only of freedom, surrounded by people who love him. A child whose inspirations, as impulsive, unreasonable and immature as they may be, will push him to his limits. A child who grew up too fast, who could not mourn his mother, aware of her physical and spiritual weakness, who was confronted with the violence of this world which reminded him of his condition of being insignificant, a pawn on the chessboard of the "Way".

A child whose powers worthy of a God then gives him the possibility to realize the unthinkable, almost the absolute fantasy of every Man : to shape a world in his image, to be as free as a bird flying above the clouds without reddish stain to touch the sky. Move forward, Move forward whatever the price… move forward for an illusion of freedom, for an infantile obsession.

And by assuming the role of the wicked “demon” of tales so that the brave knights can free this world from the evil that eats it.

Lost between the present, the past, the future.. time no longer makes sense. Only finality counts, annihilating its titans whatever the price. They have to pay for his mother. They have to pay for his fallen comrades. They must pay for reminding us of our pitiful helplessness as human beings.

But the Demon also has a heart, remorse, feelings, there are people who attach him to this world. Therefore, what to choose?

Divine Freedom or Mortal Love? The impossible equation... Although Eren may have travelled the road in search of the answer, how can freedom and humanity be reconciled? Free your people and protect your loved ones, though imperfect?

______

He will not find the answer— neither by searching the past of the goddess Ymir, not by consulting the other Titans carriers, not by creating the different alternative realities that led to the same observation… only death can free the bird from its cage, only the death of Humanity is able to reconcile the sublime and the hideous. Or rather, a common enemy that will crystallize all their ills. But who would be crazy, brave enough to accept being the victime ?

Like a Christic figure, Eren will assume this role. But not without having to confide his last wishes, his last secrets that can no longer contain… because yes, the demon is limited by his adult condition of 19 years. Yes.. the child has grown up. Recklessness, impulsiveness, daring in the face of death, the omnipotence of the child leaves room for a teenager who is now afraid of dying, who has succumbed to love, who doubts, who is aware of his weakness.

Eren has finally become a man...in pain. He finally accepts his feelings, his weakness in the face of death that awaits him.

He’s not a running child anymore. The plates are only explicit about this. The power of narration.. we come back to the fundamental of this history, which is human psychology. The feelings, the relationships that unite all people between them. Friends or enemies, men or women, child or adult, Eldien or Mahr... Despite our differences, our disagreements, we are all equal and weak in the face of death... but also in the face of the love we can bring to others.

Yes, Eren is a weak hero. Yes, he admits to loving Mikasa. He admits that until the very end, he didn't know how it was going to go. That he was himself a pawn in the divine game of Ymir. Another puppet at the service of a little girl who is also blinded by her duality, by her toxic love for her executioner. One cannot remain insensitive to this remarkable development of the character of Eren whose death was inevitable. For whoever plays with divinities can only lose his humanity, his freedom too. By the ultimate sacrifice of his selfish and human desires finally. Eren alone became the true savior of this world. He will also have kept his promise to his friends, to the beings he loves by offering them last memories through the “Way”.

Selfless Love or True Freedom

As Mikasa said: The world is cruel, but also … Very beautiful.

Whoever sets a glance without hatred on the world, with compassion, with love for his neighbor will be able to claim to touch with the finger this Freedom so sought.. a selfless love, not turned to satisfy one’s own selfish desires.

Because Love, like hate, takes different forms.

Love connecting us to our roots, our family of blood…

Love binding two beings who love each other, desire each other, cherish each other, seek each other….

Love that binds us to his comrades, his battalion, his family of choice, his heart…

Love that life brings to us in all its forms…

Love… this power that is unpredictable and uncontrollable.

And that can become the obsession of a lifetime. It is by becoming an obsession that love becomes as destructive as hatred, and sends us back to our condition as an alienated Man… locked up in his “Path”, in his cage.

It's by demonstrating resilience and self-sacrifice that man can taste freedom. We can find redemption in the love that others have for him, that we also have for him. For a few hours, a few years…

At the cost of a renewal of the cycle of hatred, because man remains selfish, not all are ready to make sacrifices. Therefore, Mikasa and Eren have made the greatest of sacrifices for the survival of their comrades and the world: they give up their chance to be happy together, sacrifice their desire to be together for the rest of humanity. As in tragedies, the main heroes are victims of Destiny, are those who will pay the price so that others can flourish and live. The children have become adults.

Just as Armin is no longer the whiny little boy to protect. Unlike Eren, he managed to learn from his mistakes, grieve, face his own fears, confess his love to the girl he loves. It is finally he who will raise the wounded little boy, who will comfort him.

The frustration

Mikasa is the main character of the story. It's through her that awakening is made, it is through her hand that she closes this long journey. In Eren’s memories, it is always central. It is the key, the final solution.

It's his psychological, his emotional journey that we will follow throughout the manga. Eren is only a complement, the character who crystallizes his goals. In a world where men are “dominant”, the woman must bend her knee, support her prince so that the light shines on him. Isayama knew how to play perfectly on this classic code of narration. Whether one agrees or not with the conclusion of certain female characters, the work often highlights the fact that men are only victims of their passions and obsessions.

-------

Only women seem to emerge victorious in the face of the cruelty of the world : they take up arms (Historia), continue to fight in the face of despair (Mikasa), enjoy life and bring joy around her (Sasha), support other women in their emancipations ( Ymir with Historia) question their education (Gaby) disobey (Annie), go against the “moral” principles to survive (Ymir Frizt who continues to love his executioner), sacrifice for the common good (Hanzi Zoe)… But of course… without also paying the price of sacrifice and making concessions.

Historia bears a child of a man whom she does not seem to like but assumes the role of the mother whom she would have liked to have while assuming the heavy attribute of the office of Queen in a country plagued by nationalist tendencies guided by fear. With Eren’s help, she did not give in to the temptation of self-sacrifice but decided herself who she would save or not, what path she wanted to follow. Her desire was to be a mother, a good mother. Whatever the father, it was an indestructible motherly love that she wanted to offer to a child. The one she never had.

Mikasa agreed to kill Eren because, if she had given him another answer, their life as fugitives would have been but a fleeting dream and Eren’s death was inevitable.

Despite her powerful love for Eren (as addicted as he may be, explained by the power of the Ackermans?), she will break the chains of her servitude by killing her only Love. She is the light. She accomplished the journey of a true heroine by demonstrating resilience, by giving of herself for the world.

She had only eyes for Eren.. was open to others, to show empathy, a desire to continue living for other comrades who are dear to him.

-------

Mikasa also leads the way in Ymir Fritz… you can love a monster, you can be a prisoner of a toxic relationship but you can free yourself from it. One can become free, but the price to pay will be to carry this infinite sadness, this frustration of having been able to live another story if things would have been different. By her kiss, she showed what true Love is.

Although the frustration is present, although we would have liked her to turn the page and rebuild her life, she must also pay the price of her “freedom”, of her “survival”: haunted by the sacrifice of Eren, guardian of her memories, from her grave as if to preserve her existence as long as she can live.

Once again, women show that they are stronger than we think. So Ymir was also able to free himself of his toxic link with the King by making the Titans disappear.

In the image of the bittersweet end of the chapter, which shows us that the disappearance of a monster, of a divine force “responsible” for the horrors, is not the long-awaited salvation.

The vices, the human fears will remain the poison, preventing us from reaching this illusory freedom. Men do not need deities to dig their own way to death.

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From "occidental" point of view, it is true that this is a blow to the “strong” women of the work still alive. Reduced to being collateral victims of Love, as toxic as this link may be (Ymir-Mikasa). Reduced to attaching themselves to winning or losing romantic figures depending on whether their love-interests is the villain of the story (Mikasa-Annie). Reduced to their role as mother-benefactor (Historia-Gaby).

It’s awkward, but I think Isayama wanted to show that no one is spared. That no character can claim complete tranquility and sweet freedom.

Everyone has had to sacrifice something to survive, and women and men are equal in this judgment. Women also remain victims in a world that remains dominated also by the cruelty of Men (the human race in general). They are not completely free, they are also trapped in roles.

Everyone carries the weight of his choice. That characters have a duty to remember, to pass on to future generations the horrors they have lived to try not to reproduce the same mistakes. Even if their new life choices are imperfect, disappointing for those on the outside.

Levi sacrificed many of his comrades to fulfill his promise to Erwin in his quest for truth and to continue the fight for Eldian freedom.

Armin and Mikasa sacrificed Eren: their friend, their love, the dearest being to fulfill their promise to discover the outside world and touch that freedom.

Like Levi Ackerman and his love for his battalion comrades. As for Mikasa and his love for Eren (because she saw the human behind the monster). She has been waiting for a sign for 3 years to see him again in order to follow up on “see you later Eren”.

Finally, a bird comes to give him his wrap. To encourage him to go forward again. To continue to live…

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The most free people are those who honestly and sincerely love someone. Those who are able to see the beauty of the world despite its ugliness. Who give without waiting for return. Those who continue to look at the world without hatred, those who do not succumb to its cruelty. Tears are running down…

[moonbaby26]

Title: The Battle

Pairing: Peter Maximoff x Reader

Summary: Continuation from last chapter. Set during X-Men: Age of Apocalypse, you and the others fly to Cairo to confront Apocalypse and his soldiers in an attempt to rescue Xavier.

Warnings: Apocalypse being a leg breaking, hero strangling jerk. Characters fighting for their lives, but bookended with fluff from Peter x Reader pairing.

Chapters: Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Taglist: @drikawinchester , @n0obmaster69 , @alexloveskili , @what-a-silver-lining , @bluesprings18 , @weakmoony-stuff , @slytherinsi-mp, @wintwrsoldiwr, @tommy-braccoli, @amourtentiaa

Peter Maximoff x Reader Masterlist

———————————

You’d at least gotten to clean up somewhat. Earlier as Hank and the new woman you’d just met, Moira, had worked on readying the jet, you’d found some bit of helpful supplies. Clean rags to wipe off the blood, and bandages that’d you’d hurriedly applied to your shallow claw wounds.

All the remnants of your restraints were gone, and your old, torn clothes you’d just tossed in favor of the thin jumpsuit and lightly armored black flight suit over the top of it. You all wore these suits, commandeered with this experimental jet now rumbling beneath you as you shot off to Cairo together.

There was silence for a good while, after some initial nervous chatter and joking from the others. It would have been too easy to fill this quiet with any of the myriad of questions still rushing through your brain, but you really had just listened and little more when they’d filled you in earlier with the gist of what they’d learned.

All that really mattered was that the Professor was being held captive by a seemingly omnipotent mutant. One that had now declared war on all and recruited his own powerful soldiers. This was a rescue mission, with likely all your lives at stake.

You leaned your head back, wondering if anyone else would really even know or care what had happened to you if you never came back from this.

The escape from Stryker’s lab had been life threatening as well of course, but it was so different when it’d just been one thing after another. Events unfolding too quickly to really develop any sense of dread, it’d been all adrenaline and luck really.

But even in a jet like this, flying all the way to Egypt was more than just a skip and a jump. It was well enough time to dwell on your own inexperience and shortcomings, to wonder if this was the last time you’d ever do anything at all.

“Hey,” Peter’s voice was quiet, just to you, as you glanced over, having been mired only in your own thoughts until that moment.

He was sitting beside you, both of you strapped in these jump seats that ran along both sides of the jet. Vaguely you realized the others had started talking once more as well then. Maybe that was why he felt more comfortable speaking to you again now.

He hadn’t addressed you directly since you’d reunited with the others. Though you wouldn’t blame him if he was just as nervous as you were deep down. But from his self deprecating jokes in front of your friends earlier, about still living at home with his mother, he would at least seem better at hiding fear if he did have any.

“Hey,” You answered back reflexively, looking at him fully again.

“So uh....” He was chewing a piece of gum, as if some part of him still had to stay in motion in order to remain comfortable. “That car, that was pretty sweet. That yours or what?”

Honestly it took you a very long, awkward pause before you could piece together any idea of what he was referring to. But being that you’d only known him since literally just earlier today, there wasn’t anything else he could possibly mean. “The yellow convertible?” You questioned anyway, not really surprised by much of anything now.

“Yeah, I mean, I take the road if there is one. I saw you guys on the way to the house,” He answered, still offering a little explanation regardless. “Looked like you knew what you were doing though.” There was a more sheepish grin emerging. “I was going to stop and say hey I guess. But then I saw the, you know, fireball coming out the house and all, had to go see what that was about. Save everybody or whatever...” He trailed off after a bit, maybe realizing that you were just letting him ramble.

It reminded you of how you’d acted with him during the whole lab fiasco. He seemed the more confident one down there, while you got easily flustered. You really wondered if having your friends here now was making the difference. As if he was more unsure of himself when there was a potential audience to hear what you might say back to him.

It was interesting, getting to put more of those pieces together, or at least starting to be able to when it came to him. For putting on the display of an extrovert, and if you could finally admit it, even him being an outright flirt, you felt more and more sure that that was only skin deep really. That was just the outer layer he protected himself with.

“It was one of the Professor’s cars,” You smiled genuinely, probably the first one since they’d told you where you were going in this jet and why. “We were on our way back from the mall.”

That warmth from you seemed to ease him back into his normal tone, maybe a slight relief in him that you didn’t find it off putting that he’d already taken notice of you before you even knew he was anywhere around.

“Oh, mallrat, huh?” He quipped, “I can picture that.”

He was teasing, but you gave it right back. “There is no way you can tell me that you don’t end up in music stores wherever you live, like a lot.” You hadn’t forgotten his band t-shirt after all. You thought you’d seen him putting away headphones at some point too. “And that leather jacket and pants you had? Come on, that didn’t come from some bargain clothes rack.”

You might have had him for just a moment there. Just a flicker of surprise in his eyes to know you really had paid him that much attention, before he retorted, “Hey, what’s the point of a fast car if it has no style, right?”

“Says the guy who most people can’t even see until he slows down.” But you were purposeful to make clear in your tone that that wasn’t an insult at all, just continuing a little more bravely afterward, “Though their loss I guess.”

There was no mistake then, he really did pause. You could feel the slightest bit of heat in your face again, but you were not about to take that back. Not when you didn’t even know what was really awaiting you all at the end of this flight.

And you were still the next one to speak, that resolve remaining. “If we make it out of this, maybe you can come with me back over there to our mall. Help me pick out some new stuff.” You tried not to make it sound funny, but on some cosmic level it still was. “Seeing as how my room and everything I owned was incinerated and all.”

“Deal.” He said immediately. Only a little afterward seeming to realize that maybe he sounded a bit too eager. He cleared his throat, shifting in his seat. “I mean, I’m pretty good at Ms. Pac Man too. They have an arcade, right?”

“Yes.” You answered, trying not to look too amused, and going along with him to help him feel more comfortable. “I can’t say I’m actually any good, but they do have a Flash Gordon pinball machine I always play. And a couple of air hockey tables. That’s my go-to.” No question with his speed that he would likely annihilate you on both. But the idea of being in a much simpler, safer place like that with him some day was a pleasant one right now.

“Oh yeah. I can show you a thing or two.” He was clearly back in his element then, looking smug once more.

“I’m sure you will.” You could only wonder if the god complex mutant and his lackeys you were now off to go challenge would have any idea that in the back of your mind you’d now be dreaming of a simple date in an arcade as extra motivation to get back home in one piece.

———————————

It wasn’t long before things had started spiraling in quick succession again. You’d all arrived in Cairo to find it essentially destroyed, save for what this fake god had already erected in monument to himself. A huge pyramid in the style of the ancient Egyptians, one he’d taken Xavier hostage inside.

It hadn’t been clear though how much of the destruction was done by this mutant, and how much had actually been at Magneto’s hands as it was with more shock that you’d found him in the middle of this as well. Now serving this apocalyptic mutant.

You knew enough about Magneto to both fear and respect him. Even though his history with the Professor went back so many years, Erik Lehnsherr as he was actually named was always more on the side of peace through violence. While Xavier preached ideals of tolerance and education for regular humans to one day accept mutant kind, Magneto thought them incapable of such, and had no qualms on preemptive strikes against non mutants as well as eye for an eye type vengeance.

But even for Magneto this seemed surprising. He would really just give Xavier up this way? As you’d gotten closer, Jean had sensed that Apocalypse (what you were now calling the new enemy in your own mind) intended to take over the Professor’s body, possessing him permanently to gain access to his mind control powers and become basically omniscient. He’d be unstoppable with everyone as his puppets then. Free will would cease to exist.

“You guys help Nightcrawler get into the pyramid!” Raven called back to all of you as the jet was landing. “Get Charles and I’ll take care of Erik.”

You’d snapped back to attention at the orders, and you saw that Peter was suddenly at her side.

He looked so focused all at once, “I can get you in there,” He told her, referring to the debris field of broken buildings and all else now churning, stuck in a huge magnetic orb with Magneto at its center. When she didn’t look sure, he continued quickly. “I came here for him, let me help you.”

Raven nodded to Peter then in agreement, knowing there was no time for more back and forth. “The rest of you, get Charles on this plane and get him out of here!”

You too knew what was at stake, there was no reason to argue, even if there still must have been concern on your face. You didn’t understand Peter’s change and sudden fixation on Magneto.

But it was only Kurt that spoke up immediately, yelling back to Raven and Peter, “We’re not leaving without you!”

Peter looked back at that, “Don’t worry.” In fact, you realized he was looking directly to you for one moment. “We’ll catch up.”

———————————

While Peter had sped Raven out of sight to try and reason with Magneto, Moira had stayed with the jet and Hank had come with you, Scott, Jean, and Kurt.

But as you all ran along the rubble, trying to make your way to the pyramid, it hadn’t been but moments until you encountered Apocalypse’s other soldiers, mutants set on stopping you all from interfering by any means necessary.

A tall, blonde man with wings made out of metal, a ninja seeming woman with a pinkish purple energy she could wield from her hand like a blade even while also carrying a katana, and a girl nearer your own age with stark white hair and seemingly the most power out of the three as she’d flown right towards you throwing lightning bolts from her hands.

You’d had no choice but to split up. Which you were sure was what they’d wanted even as you’d chosen to try and take the white haired girl’s attention. You didn’t really want to find out what would happen if one of those bolts struck you directly, but you could guess you had the best chance of anyone to maybe absorb some of it in your energy form.

You’d immediately powered up, glowing white as she’d chased you around the sky, both of you darting and flying in some kind of bizarre dog fight.

Your heart had been racing though, no amount of training at the mansion could actually prepare you for dueling with someone who actually wished to harm you. Everything to this point had just been about learning to control your powers, maybe even firing an energy blast at a dummy or paper target or two. But you’d never tried to hurt anyone. Not on purpose.

“Why are you helping him!?” You yelled out to her, swerving again as she tried to get close enough to you to land a hit. You generated an orb of light energy from one hand, letting it destabilize before you threw it towards her. It collapsed into itself, exploding to make a shockwave through the air that pushed her back again.

“He’s going to make it so we never have to hide what we are again!” She growled back in frustration, steadying herself in the air before her eyes hazed over into solid white.

You doubted that could be good, and of course it wasn’t as she raised her arms, a tornado like blast of wind then trying to knock you from the sky. You were able to shield yourself somewhat with your force fields, but the barrage of debris and wreckage that came with the winds made it too difficult to keep track of her as she did nearly land a direct lightning strike then.

“You’re wrong!” You yelled back, even as you felt numb and disoriented briefly, like the electricity surge was messing with your own energy. “He’s just using all of you! He only wants slaves, nothing more! And you’re just going to hand us all to him!”

She didn’t answer back after that, but you knew it wasn’t as if you could change anyone’s mind for them. She’d have to live with her own choices, just as you’d have to live with yours.

After a good while of this tit for tat though, you were really trying to take her out of the sky at last, knowing you needed to find and help the others as this had already been going on for far too long. You started trying to get her in the chest with white energy beam after energy beam shooting from your hands. She was fast, but you were able to at least get her in one shoulder at last as she spun with the force, losing altitude quickly with the hit.

Even as she fell, you could see her already correcting course though, trying to take aim at you again as she glared upwards.

But you didn’t get to see what happened next. A three fingered hand grasped your left arm suddenly from thin air, and then you were collapsing onto the floor of the jet you’d come here in.

“Gotcha, time to go!” Kurt spoke quickly as you looked to him in surprise, that strange burning smell hanging in the air briefly that always accompanied his teleporting. It was as instant a feeling as moving with Peter, but thankfully without the subsequent vertigo as you stood quickly, powering down, even as you were already looking around for the speedster.

With relief you did see Jean cradling the Professor’s head as they sat on the floor, Xavier unconscious but still breathing. But you did not see Peter or Raven.

Moira and Hank were already firing up the jet engines and you grabbed hold to the wall as you felt the craft quickly rising. “What about Peter and Raven?” You called out over the noise of the turbines spooling up faster and faster.

“We’ll have to trust them to figure it out, we’ve got to get Charles out of here now!” Hank answered back, leaving no room for debate.

You felt an unease building in your stomach, but it was true that if Apocalypse got Xavier, that Peter, Raven, or anyone else would then no longer matter anyway. At least for now you could hope Peter would just take Raven and run somewhere far from here. Xavier and Jean could use their psychic abilities to find them later and you could reunite.

But a hard thud above you left you all looking upward as the jet rattled.

“What the hell was that!?” Moira called out.

As soon as you saw that pinkish energy blade emerging through the jet’s hull, you had already powered up again, glowing and ready to shield the others as best you could. Apocalypse’s soldiers were proving too difficult to shake.

Yet Jean had other plans, “Everyone, grab onto Kurt!” She yelled.

You didn’t know what altitude you were already at, but you knew it wasn’t a survivable one for the jet itself if it was ditched now. Yet a fight in this close of quarters with all your powers would likely end in the same result. So her choice wasn’t as irrational as it first seemed.

You reached one hand quickly back, firmly grabbing onto Kurt’s shoulder, even as you kept your other hand raised towards where the metal winged mutant and the blade wielding woman were now trying to force their way in through the breach they’d created in the hull.

“I’ve never done it with this many people!” Kurt warned as you all held to him.

“Get us out of here!” Jean commanded, her desperation bringing out a forcefulness you hadn’t yet seen from her.

But Kurt was still straining, the sound of his opening whatever portal he used clearly heard but not bringing you anywhere as he tried several times.

The man with the metal wings jumped down into the cockpit, now just feet away as you realized what you had to do.

“Go without me!” You screamed over the rush of wind now coming through the hull breach. You let go of Kurt, making direct eye contact with Jean.

You could get out on your own. At least you were going to try. It was the only way. Kurt wasn’t able to take you all.

You felt that Jean was listening, that she heard your thoughts and that as difficult as it was, she agreed just as quickly. It was the only way.

“Do it!” She urged Kurt even through the horrified look he gave you both.

“I’m taking it down.” You also heard her voice say in your head almost simultaneously. That briefest warning to ready yourself before she willed the controls to throw the plane into a nosedive and cause Apocalypse’s soldiers to lose their footing.

The last you saw of your other friends was still their shocked and frightened expressions as they disappeared from right in front of you. But this was your only chance as well, propelling yourself as fast you could, right through the fading cloud of gas they left behind and past the now tumbling winged mutant as all your focus went to that small square of sunlight that they’d cut into the hull.

It was your one window of survival. For just the briefest moment, you felt him try to grab hold of your leg as you flew past him. But you kicked him with the other leg as hard as you could manage, breaking free into the open air as the jet plummeted on without you.

Out the corner of your eye you saw the woman had remained on the outside of the jet, but jumped free from it as well. You lost sight of her as you both fell, focusing only on trying to slow your descent to a survivable speed. It was one thing to levitate yourself up from a neutral position, and wholly another to try and control your energy field around yourself enough to reverse the terminal velocity transferred to you from being within a crashing plane.

The ground still came too fast, too hard. You blacked out on impact, laying alone in the dirt as your light energy faded, receding back inside you.

————————————

An unknown time later, something jolted you awake. You could hear screaming as you opened your eyes. You were laying on your side. Everything hurt and you could taste blood in your mouth.

But you were already forcing yourself back up as you swallowed. Disoriented as you were, you still recognized that voice. It was Peter. He was hurt.

You were looking all around you, and it didn’t take long to see the source and reason for the screams.

Not far from you at all, Apocalypse stood in a clearing from all the rubble. Peter right beside him, half crumpled to the ground. One of Peter’s feet was encased in the earth, trapping him there like an animal in a snare. His other leg was clearly broken, twisted at a grossly unnatural angle.

You felt a foreign rage beginning to burn up inside you, but before you could even physically react you saw the woman with the katana again. Nowhere in your mind did you take any time to consider how she would look so clean and uninjured having just come from the same circumstances as you of barely escaping the crashing jet.

All you saw was her walking towards her master, sword at the ready to finish Peter.

“Stop, (Y/N)!”

Charles screaming inside your head was the only thing that kept you from revealing yourself at that moment.

“It’s Raven! I’m telling you, it’s Raven!” Even Charles was struggling to break through your flaring emotions, as he repeated himself desperately. “He’ll kill you, (Y/N)! Stay in place, I beg you!”

The Professor had never spoken to you in such a way before. You gripped onto the broken wall in front of you, still only just obscured from their view as you saw Apocalypse grab Peter by the hair, jerking the young man’s head back roughly to expose his throat to the woman.

“It’s Raven, please trust her!” Charles did not let go. You could feel him actually starting to control you even, something he had absolutely never done before, though your emotions were exploding like they also never had. He didn’t want you to make a life ending mistake.

“(Y/N), please.” He called again and you realized you were being held in place, unable to move out any further. You were forced to only watch as the woman raised her blade, Peter wincing in fear and pain beneath her as she swung it.

But it was only Apocalypse’s throat that ripped open. Yet even in your surprise, any sense of victory was still non existent. No blood poured from the wound, and it healed completely within moments as he only grabbed his supposed traitor by the neck, holding her up immediately.

Raven’s feet hung in the air while she choked, her blue skin and true appearance quickly returning as she could no longer control her disguise as Apocalypse strangled her.

And it was only then that you felt Xavier letting go of you, in his own shock as Apocalypse tried to bait him out.

“Charles! Come! Rescue your weaklings!” Apocalypse challenged aloud, still dangling the now helpless Raven while Peter stayed trapped at their feet. “Give your life for theirs!”

He was going to kill her right in front of you. You powered up, knowing there was no other choice. You had to-

“No. I’m still connected to him. Let me get in his head, (Y/N), then you can go to them.” The professor spoke quickly, yet with a touch of new resolve.

“Charles! Will you do nothing?” The false god continued to bellow.

This time you listened without being forced to. You did see Apocalypse pause as if Xavier was indeed making contact. It was still an agonizing wait, but when he finally let go of Raven, you allowed yourself some shred of hope. You’d never seen anyone be able to overpower the Professor mentally, once he was fully in.

But that hope was also short lived as just moments later Apocalypse raised his hand abruptly. At will he dissolved the outer wall of a nearby building. You could see Scott and Hank then exposed, themselves just as surprised and staring out. But you knew it could only mean that Apocalypse had used Xavier’s connection against him just that quickly to root out his hiding place.

This could be the end then. You resigned yourself that the only choice was to die fighting if that is what it had to be. But you weren’t as alone as you thought.

As Apocalypse had left Peter and Raven behind, now striding confidently to his prize, two massive steel beams suddenly shot into his path. They buried themselves into the ground, crossing into an X to block him.

You looked back into the sky, glad in this single moment that you had been right about at least one thing. Magneto wouldn’t give Xavier up in the end. Not without bloodshed anyway.

“You betray me?” Apocalypse asked, already turning to deal with Erik instead.

“No. I betrayed them.” Magneto unleashed hell then, every bit of metal he could pull shooting towards Apocalypse in an unending assault as the other raised a shield that incinerated each and every piece as it hit. But doing so clearly taxed him, allowing the perfect moment for the rest of you to join the battlefield.

You got to Peter almost simultaneously as Hank got to Raven. You and Beast were clearly in the same mindset of getting the injured out of the immediate firefight before you would join in.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, the Professor froze me,” You spoke in quick apology to Peter, using a small energy blast to break up the earth that had been hardened around his trapped foot. Once cracked, you broke the rest of it free just with your fingers.

He was obviously surprised, grateful, and maybe even confused all at once as you gently lifted him with the help of your powers. You wrapped his arm around your shoulders, trying to mind his broken leg as you helped support him while gliding over to a safer spot some distance away.

“Stay here.” You spoke, sitting him down so his back was against a mostly still standing wall to shelter them.

Hank was sitting Raven down in the same manner beside him as Peter suddenly spoke up to you. “Wait.”

You were still crouched in front of him, you’d been about to stand back up when his hand went around the back of your neck and pulled you in closer.

Before you could register anything else, you felt his lips press against yours. It was a bit harsh, desperate even, and then it was over just as fast as you pulled back in surprise.

“In case we don’t ever get to make it to that arcade,” he responded to your shocked expression that was still evident even in your energy form like this.

You took a breath, now was not the time for verbalizing any of this. But you wanted to show you agreed with the sentiment. You leaned back in, kissing him yourself for one longer moment, one hand gently cupping the side of his face before you stood back up. He allowed the contact readily and you could only wonder what it felt like to him when you were enveloped in light like this.

Hank and Raven just gave you both the most confused of looks, but nothing was said as you and Beast had then rushed back off to throw yourselves into the fight.

————���—————

(Continued in next chapter here)

[blushing-starker]

Cold mates and black coffees

For @starkerfestivals prompt of mates

There is, he supposes, something beautiful about a world such as this, primitive yet advanced and sophisticated. Children no taller than his knee carry around super computers that fit in the palm of one's hands, talk to friends thousands of miles away whenever they want. It used to take him months to receive his preferred concoction for the early night wake up call, now stores inhabit every corner of every city. They patiently wait to receive their dependents, all sorts of people relying on some version of the simple black coffee to jolt their system. Convenient, sure, no doubt about that. A quick stop at a Starbucks and violá, five hours of productivity guaranteed. But nothing builds character like swimming laps through a freezing lake infested with piranhas to keep away the urge to rest for just another five minutes. Unfortunately, sleepless days were the norm for him and Rhodey whenever they endeavored to race each other underwater.

There are clothes, too. Clothes for each season available year round. Fox fur adorns a lanky mannequin next to a twin showcasing how breezy summer fabrics can be. Riding boots that he would have spent a small fortune on decades ago shine below man made light for the cost of a nice meal over at Pepper's. Jewels fine enough for the family vault enchant any who take so much as two steps in either direction. Everything is for sale; it just means swiping a plastic card, presenting a number off a super computer or giving the cashier the remains of ancient trees. He could buy an ice cream cone (with sprinkles, of course, he's not an idiot) and immediately wander over to a restaurant selling sizzling curry. It's what his father dreamed about, a thousand years ago. How odd then, that his only heir couldn't be more nonchalant to all this.

It's his what, first month back from sleeping for half a century? He got accustomed to this whirlwind of a consumerist world by the first week. The soft purr of self-driving engines, flashing neon street signs, a melting pot of twenty, thirty languages, glittering clothes clashing with garish makeup, an overwhelming scent of smoke, perfume and money is as familiar as the palm of Rhodey's left hand or Pepper's right. Is it fantastic, being alive for the wild ride that is the twenty-first century? Yes, of course it is. But it's his father's dream; not his. His dream is the same as what drove Maria Stark into the world: finding his mate. Which, logically speaking, won’t happen until time has colored his hair with quite a bit more starlight and streaked thin lines around not too shabby cheekbones. (Rhodey’s teasing words.)

Going along with logic, there is a chance his mate will never show up. It was mere luck his father met the only woman besides Peggy that could stand his whole. Well, that could just stand him, period. A mate is found by scent, identified by touch and only bound with words. If his father had gone for one more drink, he’d probably be as real as the tooth fairy. In the back of his head, there lives a voice. And this voice he named Miss Lucky. She told him how lucky he would need to be in order to find a mate not too close to cradle or grave, a person that saw eye to eye in the majority of the basics and was open to his predilection. Someone that wouldn’t fear or expose him, wouldn’t want to strike the killing blow themselves. And Christ, with or without Miss Lucky, it’s a fool’s idea, thinking that in the middle of New York amidst one of the coldest winters to ever grace the city, his mate, his soul’s match, his other heart will chance upon him and actually accept the fact that he barely exudes a scent. Let alone something useful enough to help others recognize his class.

That’s the one downfall to living in this time; so much tension regarding one’s class. It is infinitely better than before when there were only three possibilities and the social restrictions could very rarely be shattered. But now it’s about pulling rank, percentages listed on a piece of paper could be used against you or signify one’s survival. A double-edged sword. To be a nurse, any applicants must be less than thirty percent alpha. Soldiers were forbidden from entering foreign countries if they had more beta characteristics than not. Lovers, in some parts of the world, could marry exclusively when their percentages were compatible. In the old times, if you smelled like an omega, you were treated as such. That could entail being thrown into a whorehouse or perceived as royalty destined to bring life into the world. Once puberty came, a simple prick and a vial of blood determined one’s next decision regarding the future.

He took the test. Just out of curiosity and it’d be rude not to provide a mate with information so readily accessible merely because of an unjustified fear over his identity. He is an alpha. And if the test had said otherwise, it would have been no problem. Of course not, he would have been proud to identify as a beta or omega. His mother was a beta and his nanny, basically his second mother, was an omega. No shame would’ve clouded his mind at receiving such news. The matter was this, though, he had believed to be an alpha the entirety of his life. If the paperwork said that was his lowest percentage, different rules and procedures, updated to today’s society, would need to be learned.

And he’s so tired of it all when only a handful can smell the fact he’s an alpha. What was he supposed to do, carry the results in his pocket in case a bigot searched for a fight? No, that would be, as Pepper had made very clear before, extremely silly.

He carries the test in case his mate considers such matters important. Or their family. Yes, it’s not because he worries that society will somehow doubt his identity. In the end, being an alpha is an integral part of who he is. It shouldn’t be that way and he barely knows what that means, but it’s true. Miss Lucky comes back around swiftly now, what if his mate isn’t interested in him because of his percentage? What then? Learn what the other classes represent to that person and behave in ways they believe suit said classes? Could his match be with a pureblood, intent on “staying true” to their highest percentage? Would he be able to, cinnamon. Wait, cinnamon and honey? Is that rain and sunlight? Since when does Starbucks incorporate those smells? And how the hell does he know what sunlight smells like? He’s insane. There’s no other explanation, oh that must have hurt.

A young man has just barreled into him. Slammed into his arm like a linebacker. A linebacker that weighs a feather and a half. How is he this light, a breeze had more force. What should he, what’s the proper ritual here, oh my god

“Your nose is bleeding- “

“I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking. I’m just late for class and- “

“Calm down and let me buy you some coffee; you’re half dead- “

“Shit, your coat. I will pay you back, I swear.”

He hums, looks down and apparently he was too involved in his quest to find a mate that he completely bypassed the thought that this man had accidently crashed into him while holding a coffee…

A mate. He doesn’t know what sunlight smells like. How could he? Unless that’s what his mate smelled like. The young man inhales sharply, lets out a little “oh, I think, I know it’s you.” and, on further reflection, he notices this kid has the voice of an angel. Soft and kind while not being so lilting he’d think it weak and demure. Ah, he looks like an ethereal entity too. Of course he does.

It’s the eyes that do it for him, enchant him enough he wants to kneel and propose right there in the hopes of waking up each night to those amber pools as familiar and mysterious as the universe itself. The rosy lips, pink cheeks and sweeping lashes are also quite nice. He has the body of a being from the old tales, a nymph or a muse destined to bring light and joy to the world. And black coffee to coats older than his father and grandfather combined.

“Could I touch you properly? I think spilling sugar over that coat didn’t really give me the chance to feel my mate, Mister?” Rhodey’s gonna annihilate him. This is a child, twenty-one at most. They could exchange numbers; communicate when his best friend wouldn’t be tempted to take one look and accuse him of going for jailbait. He could make a plan, organize a way to gently explain how he’s an undead creature of the night whose low circulation means that somehow his hormone production slowed and therefore he barely smells like wood let alone an actual human being. They could make it work. If he’s lucky, Angel here won’t fall for another. If he’s lucky, lots of things won’t happen. Or they will anyway.

“Stark. Tony Stark. It’s a pleasure to meet you, all things considered. When I learned one’s mate smells like something unknown, I didn’t quite expect literal sunshine to be what I noticed. And don’t worry about the coat; it’s nothing.”

Marie Antoinette gave him this coat as a gift on his sixteenth birthday a few years before her death. It’s fine.

“Oh. I, I wouldn’t have thought I smelled like that. It’s really nice, actually. You smell, and please don’t take this the wrong way, like alpha. And home. I know it’s weird, but I can’t explain it any other way. I’m sorry if it’s too- “

At least he already knows he dislikes that worried furrow on such a happy face. He surges forward, clasps a soft hand and lets slip a shocked gasp, sees the mirrored reaction because Jesus, it’s as if he licked his finger and then stuck it inside a power outlet. Every hair on his body stands on end and when was the last time his heart beat that fast? Surely it was the night his old flame left or when they, no. No memories of a past lover when his mate is right here, clutching his hand like a lifeline.

“I don’t believe I know your name. Seems a little unfair, don’t you think? Wanna even the odds?” It’s meant to make the young man smile and he does.

It’s only when he grins that Tony notices the sharpened incisors and the slight cold coming from the small figure. The same fog that follows him around even on the hottest of days. The exact shape of teeth Tony cleans in front of his bathroom mirror each night.

“Peter. My name’s Peter. Nice to meet you, Tony.”

[rpmemesbyarat]

RP Meme from "Chapter One: Caliah (Lore)" in the Bastet breedbook from "Werewolf: The Apocalypse"

Once there was a cat who dreamed he was a man.

Like the morning mist, she appeared from nowhere, or so it seemed.

The winds have spoken of your dilemma and I have come to show you the way home.

Why do you call me brother?

We are family.

We have different parents but share the same blood.

You need to meet your people

You are my sister

I have no other family. Don’t leave me!

We all have family

What are the dreams of a cat?

Let us welcome each other and speak of hidden things.

If they come in peace, we welcome them.

I’m just a mutt.

Listen up and listen close, ‘cause this isn’t stuff you’ll hear from any old place.

I’ve got friends with friends, if y’know what I mean, and this is good stuff.

They don’t get along, y’know.

A good lorespeaker tells different stories every time, and she makes ‘em as cool as possible.

Sound like anyone we know? Nah! Couldn’t be!

So how do you trade secrets, anyway? After all, isn’t a secret shared a secret lost?

If you don’t play the game, you don’t learn a thing.

Each element of the message becomes a metaphor, and the message becomes a story.

Florid? Hell yeah! But ya gotta admit it’s more graceful — and exposes a hell of a lot less — than blurting out the truth.

You might say, “I heard a story about so-and-so” but you’d never say “I did so-and-so.” If your audience has a clue, they’ll catch on.

Everything’s told in metaphors.

A good obtuse metaphor makes you look imaginative if someone gets it, really stupid otherwise.

Everything is larger than life. People don’t just cry, they “explode in showers like the sea.” Folks don’t just get mad, they “turn into coals that burn through the floor.”

If what you’re saying is important, bigger is better.

Simple? Not if you don’t get the lingo.

A wounded cat can surrender without disgrace.

Not enough to go around.

Hey, don’t let on you know what I told you, huh?

It was a time before life, a longing when the dream of birth was yet to be.

This marked the end of peace and the beginning of struggle.

Such promises are soon broken.

Why does even the skin of my daughter flee from my hands?

Why must I always be alone?

Master, what would you have of us?

Nothing exists for him but annihilation.

Go across the world

Let that which is pure stand whole, but erode that which is impure from within.

He tells many tales, but all of them are lies. He is rage made manifest, and he coils within us all.

There was no want, no war, no anguish, and all living things gave of themselves to help others exist.

Until some cataclysm happened, everything lived in peace and plenty.

Life has ever been a struggle, my brothers and sisters. Life has always meant that some may die for others’ pleasure.

That pleasure may be as necessary as hunger or as frivolous as sport, but it has always been fatal and always will be.

Only through struggle can we progress.

Only through sacrifice can we succeed.

We were born from conflict and we grow through adversity. Our ancestors are predators, great cats and human hunters who rose above their surroundings and mastered them.

We know our place in the Great Order, and it is not passive.

Like the moon, our world waxes and wanes.

Each era glows brightly, then fades into night before rising again as some new age.

As creatures of light, dark and twilight all, we are not moved much by the vagaries of fortune.

Each tribe has its creation story, and they differ in many ways.

I have my own ideas.

We are a breed eternally apart, and we are rare.

Water runs silent, yet crushes with the power of an elephant.

Its depths hold secrets that only the brave can find.

The first of our kind were nearly the last.

Those it caught were devoured.

Let this be your legacy

My tears, shed for you, will boil in your veins.

All people will fear you, and all animals, too.

Begone and tend the flocks that need killing.

I banish you from sight!

They still live on in us, and we carry their curse to this day.

As the humans prospered, they grew quickly out of hand.

It was a bloody, useless time, and we fractured as a people.

Secrets became the only thing to bind us.

It’s hard to forgive these raging bastards.

Very territorial, and I know how that feels.

There are enough horrors in the night already.

Corruption has a million voices; sometimes they drown out the song of the moon and lead us over cliffs.

That song wails from nightclubs, boom boxes and televisions every day.

Stop up your ears, my friend and listen to the wind.

Those secrets led the wolves to our door — literally.

Gods damn the dogs for that!

Their misbegotten crusade killed hundreds of our Kind and Kin.

She mated with serpents, wolves and great cats in an effort to become like them, but gave birth to monsters instead.

Some legends portray her as one of our kind, but we know this isn’t so.

If the tales I’ve heard are any measure, they have no pity for us at all.

We are where we are born.

I think our unique insights show us that humanity is a mixed blessing — especially where the earth and the wild are concerned.

Men are the cleverest monkeys, no doubt, but they don’t have much sense of self-preservation.

Our forebears fought to let humanity prosper.

We have an amazing world at our fingertips, but it’s filled with poisons and lies.

Honor seems to be a fading dream in lands where the rich starve their people and the poor kill each other.

We hold magic within ourselves, within our hearts and minds and spirits. To dishonor ourselves is to disperse that magic and scatter our souls.

It’s acceptable to lie to other creatures; they’re not of our blood and not bound by our laws.

We will flee to survive a fight, but will not run when others depend on our strength.

We must make restitution to those we deceive, in deeds, trade or money.

We may be exiled or branded.

Our weapons are many — secrets, claws, teeth and allies — and we will not hesitate to employ them for our world’s

survival.

Our people have walked too close to extinction for us to take such matters lightly.

We will not ally ourselves with shadow powers or drink corrupted wisdom.

We do not fail our Earth and mother. That path leads to death.

We are the keepers of secrets, and our fates depend on silence.

Each of us bears the hidden doom of our own people, and we know the cost of betraying that trust.

We also know that we have what others want — or what they think they want — and it amuses us to make them squirm.

Our knowledge is our concern.

We will not share it unless we wish to.

We will hide ourselves from outsiders; they will think they know us, but we will delude them.

We will wrap our lore in riddles and tales; let the clever ones puzzle out their meaning.

We will act as if we know even more than we do, for it keeps outsiders guessing.

Let them wonder at our insight; they value us more highly when they do.

We will cover our tracks with misdirection, pretend to be other than what we are, fill the air with idle rumors and hide messages in code.

There is no forgiveness for this crime.

Well, let’s just say I know what I’ve seen. And I’ve seen a lot.

His eyes were so filled with pain that I decided to help out.

I’d swear he was grinning as the semi ran him down.

That felt good.

Guess they’ve gotta live here, too.

I say they’re not as smart as they might think.

Maybe I’m the one who’s being fooled.

I could tell you stories all night, all week, all month and more.

As the temples rose and the hordes crossed through, our parents sat on the sidelines of history and observed the passing of kings.

The cultures we witnessed shaped our own ways.

Cities rose, each with secrets too tempting to ignore.

For a long time — 4,000 years — there was all the room in the world for us, and no lack of secrets to keep us entertained.

We should have seen the signs in the Classical Age, when armies swept across the land in the names of gods, kings and conquerors.

We should have met en masse when trade and crusades brought East and West together.

I will not belabor the point. We know what happened.

Explorers, slavers and great white hunters bounded into the wilderness and cast a chain around our kind.

Suddenly, we went from having all space to having little.

I can’t say I don’t share the sentiment just a bit.

We didn’t stop until a greater evil forced us to align, but that’s another story.

It’s a wonder anyone survived.

We studied their secrets, but could learn nothing from them.

We have no one to blame but ourselves.

For all our vaunted sight, we’re blind. For all our gathered lore, we’re stupid.

The world is falling apart.

I don’t know whether to believe it or not, but we are living in interesting times!

We must pool our secrets, combine our efforts, and bring the world’s secrets to light.

We must act on what we discover and disperse what we learn.

Do I lose my cool?

The modern age is the greatest puzzle we could want endless streams of secrets, enigmas, wonders and dazzles, wrapped up in an explosive package that could blow us all to hell.

Anywhere, at any time, the whole ride could fly off the rails.

Those who ignore the warning feed the vultures the next morning.

I’ll simply say the tigers are not where you’d expect.

People have begun to open their eyes, but they still need your counsel to see the cliff’s edge before falling off

Those stories are true — violently true — and they add up to an appalling picture if you string them all together.

They get an idea, work on it a bit, and try to rule the world. Typical. We’ve seen their kind before.

Look around you if you doubt it.

Surely the secrets you’ve uncovered have given you the idea that maybe, just maybe, something’s going on, something bigger than another plunder, another invasion, another city that falls to ruin in a century.

Discover what you can, but bury your tracks well.

We’re strangers to each other for most of our lives, and we like it that way — a few careful gatherings are all we

can stand.

The moon is our patron, but the shadows are our father too, and they call to us at our weaker moments.

Most of us dance on the edge, though, and that’s where we like to be!

Despite our pains, we’re spirited and wild, inquisitive yet careful, sensual yet refined.

Our beauty is our greatest pride, and our wits are second to none.

We know what we are.

To hell with them all!

Still, we cannot let pride blind us to the facts.

The morning it foretells is up to us.

We must come together, yet retain our pride.

We are the keepers of secrets.

Perhaps it’s time those secrets were revealed.

[felicianacariocapistoles]

@siodymph hello, I am your Secret Satan! I hope you enjoy this little Chaggie one-shot I made~

It had been a week since extermination day, the streets of Hell were cleaned-- thanks in part mostly from the various cannibals rather than the cleaners, but that was typical of every year so why bother bitching? Life returned to normal quickly as if the extermination never happened which again, was typical. This is Hell after all, nobody cares if you get exterminated or not. Well, there was one person that cared- Hell’s very own Princess, she had been working on a plan for a while now on how to fix the overpopulation issue so that the exterminators would have no reason to come to annihilate any more of her people- A Hotel that rehabilitates sinners!

-

With her plans finalized, she went to her parents, eager to see their reactions and hoping that her father would approve and be proud of her…Of course what happened was the exact opposite, Lucifer, the King of Hell simply laughed at the idea and most likely would have said more too if not for his wife’s interruption. Lilith, despite knowing her daughter’s idea would not work, she also didn’t want to tarnish her dreams and hurt her much like Lucifer had and gave her permission to go on ahead with the idea.

-

Charlie smiled, thanking her mother before excusing herself. She wanted to curl up and cry, but instead she held her head up high with a smile as she made her way out of her home. ‘That was it. That was my last chance of proving myself to him, and I fucked it up…I’m still a failure in his eyes…’

-

“Charlie?”

-

Hearing a familiar voice made her snap out of her depressing thoughts, forcing herself to smile as she saw her girlfriend. “Heeey, Vaggie! What are you doing here?”

-

“I came to see my girlfriend, and it’s a good thing I did…” The sinner approached the princess, caressing her cheek softly. “Don’t force a smile for me, hun. If you’re upset let it all out and I’ll be your shoulder to cry on.”

-

Hearing such comforting words from her girlfriend made Charlie tear up, wrapping her arms around Vaggie as she started crying. “I thought this was going to be the thing that would make him proud of me…To…To change the fact that I’m a—”

-

“You’re not, babe.” Vaggie stroked her girlfriend’s back soothingly. “I hate that he says such awful things about you, especially since they’re not true…”

-

Charlie cried in her girlfriend’s hold from a few more moments before the tears slowed to a stop and she pulled away. “Vaggie…” She hesitated a moment. “You…You believe in my cause, don’t you...?”

-

“Of course I do.” She answered without hesitation, even though what she said was partially a lie; but she was afraid if she told Charlie about how uncertain she was, that Charlie would get upset…Maybe even break up with her. “I’ll be with you every step of the way to help and support you however I can, I promise.” At least that part was one-hundred percent true.

-

Charlie smiled softly, giving Vaggie a peck on the cheek. “Vaggie, you can be honest with me, it won’t change anything between us, I promise.”

-

It was Vaggie’s turn to hesitate now, letting out a slow breathe, the sinner finally spoke the truth. “I…Don’t even know if the idea of rehabilitation is even possible for sinners or even if Heaven would welcome reformed sinners…” She sighed, shaking her head. “I’m sorry for not being honest, but I will help you see this dream of yours through to the end, no matter how it ends…I…” She looked down, afraid of looking her girlfriend in the eye. “If that’s okay…?”

-

The sinner was expecting the other to cry or lash out about being unsupportive, but was surprised to find herself being hugged instead.

-

“What are you talking about, silly? Of course that’s okay, I wouldn’t have it any other way!” Charlie beamed, back to her normal cheerful self. “Now, how about we get some coffee and I’ll go over the details, after all, you will be the manager!”

-

Vaggie was relieved that Charlie wasn’t mad or upset, smiling she took hold of the other’s hand. “Sounds good, Charlie.”

[artmotherhoodandmadness]

Breaking the trauma bond with the help of EMDR

Trauma bonds have punctuated my whole life; in fact my very first one was probably the relationship with my middle sister. I put her on a pedestal and thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world and a genius. She took umbrage with my perception of her and in seconds her volatile outbursts could leave me flattened and annihilated. My mother and stepfather frequently had outbursts too; you never knew when another bomb was going to be detonated. But then my sister could be funny, charming, charismatic and erudite; my mother made exquisite food; and my stepfather would buy my art materials when I needed them. They could behave monstrously, but they could be nice too. This was how the intermittent reinforcement was cemented, there would be storms peppered with moments of sunshine and you hoped there would be more sunny days than stormy ones. Like the lab rats experimented on in Skinner’s experiment, the rat would keep pulling the lever hoping for a reward but Skinner ensured that the pellets came with less frequency; nonetheless the rat would keep pulling the lever and neglect everything else hoping for another pellet. Just one last high, one last reward, one final hit of dopamine. Without realising it the rat had become an addict, and without realising it as a child I became an addict, too, addicted to a lethal combination of chemicals, unleashed when I was shouted at, namely cortisol, followed by my reward dopamine if I was on the receiving end of a moment of kindness. But moments of kindness were inconsistent and unpredictable.

The next trauma bond lasted ten years with a girl at school who really didn’t like me and could be cruel, indifferent and a bully, but I was blindly devoted to her and it caused me great distress and sadness when she discarded me, then hoovered me up, gave me a crumb of attention only to devalue and discard once more, it was an insidious pattern. I watched her develop from a vibrant, happy girl, to one who was obese and an alcoholic from the age of 10 to 18. I didn't understand at the time that it was another trauma bond and so a pattern has persisted in my life to this day. When I look back on specific friendships and numerous interactions, there were often unhealthy attachments with typically narcissistic types.

During my session with Dr S I told him about my friend of three years, a fellow, artist, who struggled with emotionally unstable personality disorder. His outbursts left me decimated, but then I focused on his talents in music and photography and believed, as a mental health campaigner, I could not abandon him.

Dr S said, ‘No good comes from maintaining contact with a narcissist. The only person that benefits is the narcissist, you are being used as supply.’

Dr S ascertained that my friend was a narcissist in minutes after I shared a text exchange. I had told my friend that I was doing EMDR and very quickly his texts became rebarbative.

‘You have to delete his number, you cannot allow someone to speak to you like that, he’s a scumbag.’ Dr S said matter of factly.

I thought of the times in the past, since I had my psychosis, when I had erratic outbursts and said things that I would never have said if I had been well, and I was convinced me deleting his number would be tantamount to abandoning him.

‘You are spreading yourself too thin,’ Dr S concluded.

‘You are in therapy, you are trying to get better, you have to focus on the here and now, your husband and children, not saving others.’

My friend reminded me of my sister, just as I had hoped to save her, I hoped to save him, but Dr S was right, I had to reinstate myself. What good would come from having a ‘self detonating fire cracker’ in my life?

‘Charity begins at home,’ Dr S said.

‘He has made you his slave. He has become heroin. You are behaving like an addict.’

All of this was shocking, I didn’t want to be anyone’s slave and the EMDR commenced. I held that thought. ‘Slave.’ The word got bigger and louder in my head to the point where I said, ‘No more.’

Had the penny dropped? I had a high tolerance for abuse, because I grew up in a volatile household but everyone has their tipping point. My husband knew about my friendship and didn't approve, in his eyes my friend was a ‘loser’.

Suddenly I was confused, were there some mentally ill people that you just dismissed as beyond help?

‘Could he ever get better?’ I asked.

‘Yes, with EMDR it’s possible.’

He was a cannabis user, too, and as long as he smoked he would continue to have delusions of grandeur and a strong sense of entitlement. I thought of my other friend, a photographer who was addicted to cannabis. He was on medication and receiving mental health support but still had not turned his life around, and it was frustrating to talk to him. I realised that it did not serve me to listen to him talking about cannabis, it brought me low, he was doing nothing with his life, just frittering it away. I was proactive, productive, a creator and I wanted to be around people who appreciated my talents, who were supportive and encouraging, who were stable and kind. My digital paintings reflected the conflict between the turbulence that I was facing and the desire for calm, there was a stark dichotomy of disparate forces coming into play when I looked at them.

Dare I say it I needed normal people in my life, not dysfunctional ones and this predilection for the dysfunctional stemmed from childhood. Did I want to be dysfunctional or functional? Of course I wanted the latter.

Dr S continued with the EMDR focusing on the analogy of the friendship being like heroin and as he moved his fingers I said to myself, ‘I don’t want to be a heroin addict, I am not a junky, I will go zero contact, I will no longer respond.’

Dr S went even further and said the abuse I had received during the friendship, had left me with battered wife syndrome and a diminished sense of self, this was also shocking. But it reminded me of how I felt as a child when my stepfather hit me in public, or my sister and mother shouted at me in a public place, my self esteem would shrivel to the size of a pea. I always felt that I had done something wrong and that I deserved it.

My friendship with the artist, accompanied with his volatile outbursts, replicated these seminal childhood relationships and subliminally I knew all of this. In fact I had tried repeatedly to break contact.

My husband, by contrast, was stable, solid, responsible, patient and consistent. I didn’t get the same chemicals from my bond with him, but I did get a sense of security from an attachment with someone I had known since I was 19. And of course it had not been easy for him to see his wife go through a roller coaster ride of mental health struggles, often I had seen him as the enemy but that was no longer the case. It was like a dense fog had lifted. With the right treatment maybe I was going to finally turn a corner. Certainly he was happy with my progress, I owed it to my family and well being to stick with the treatment.

Maybe this would be my last ever trauma bond?

I told Dr S that everyday I did my writing, art, music and exercise. I also tried to be present with the kids, my focus was on being calm, fostering a stable environment at home and so far I had achieved this. I didn’t believe that I could have psychosis again, or raise my voice or have an episode. In fact, I didn’t recognise who that person was. I was returning to the person I was before the psychosis.

Dr S said it would be a long road but that all the dots could be joined together from childhood, and there was still much to investigate and unpick. My life was filled with so much trauma, how would it be possible to process it all? The bilateral stimulation that came from EMDR activated the left and right hemispheres of the brain; these memories would become less potent as they were processed. I saw EMDR as a method of breaking down and diminishing the power of unpleasant memories and when I got home I decided to try it myself. I took a recurring and unpleasant memory and then I analysed and focused on one aspect of it. For example, when I was in London, I met many famous people and often it made me feel uncomfortable and inadequate, I couldn’t deal with such interaction and yet at the same time I wondered if they were better than me because they were richer and more successful. Instead I said, ‘I am me, I like my simple life, they have skills, but so do I, do I want to be them? No I am happy painting, writing and composing, my heroes are the underdogs, the ones that never got any recognition but carried on regardless.’ Then I held onto that idea and did the EMDR. I did this repeatedly with memories that  have kept on recurring for decades until I felt giddy with mental exhaustion. Dr S said that I might have vivid dreams as a result and sure enough my dreams were filled with random recollections of trauma. There was so much of it and it was shocking that I had endured and survived it all, but that was the point, I had survived and I was still standing.

I read online that it was possible to do EMDR on your own, I realised that there were things that I didn’t want to share with Dr S, they were too harrowing and sometimes his response was not gentle, he was tough with me, he did not mince his words and I was just too sensitive. I felt judged by him in many ways, judged by everyone and of course I wanted to hide it all, hide everything that had happened but that was not possible, I had to face it.

Thankfully my relationship with my mother is healthy now, she acknowledges  that when my sisters and I were growing up she could be irascible and identified that it stemmed from her relationship with her father who was always screaming at home, it left her terrified and unwittingly she emulated this model of parenting. I have learnt from the past and don’t shout in front of the children, they are happy and vibrant and thriving, there is no need for patterns of childhood to be repeated.

EMDR seemed to be the right treatment, I would stick with it, bit by bit I was getting stronger and yes, my artist friend, despite his talents, I would have to let him go. He would be my last trauma bond and my brain would recalibrate and no longer be addicted to the chemicals that it had fed off for most of my life. It was not going to be easy - that’s for sure -  but with patience and persistence and support and critically, EMDR, it was possible to break the trauma bond for good.

[ariainstars]

The Last Skywalker or Homecoming of the Children or It’s About Family

This is my very own interpretation of the outcome of the Star Wars saga and its wrap-up, after having rewatched the movies twice last year as well as made researches in the web and thought about it for some time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The final battle on Crait in TLJ mirrors, with many visual parallels, Anakin’s assault on the Jedi Temple in ROTS, which had its terrible climax in the annihilation of the Jedi children padawans. In Kylo’s case, the attack is a total failure: the Resistance escapes, and Rey has brought with her the sacred Jedi texts from Ahch-To ensuring that their philosophy will not die.

In the final scene on Crait we see a frame of Kylo’s / Ben’s face which shows the opposite of Anakin / Vader after the battle at the Temple - on his knees instead of standing, bathed in white instead of yellow-reddish light, bare-headed instead of shadowed, his features vulnerable instead of hardened, his eyes directed up at his left instead of down at his right. That this story is going in the opposite direction of the prequels, closing up the saga making a circle and leading Ben Solo to his redemption, is undeniable.

Ben’s anger against his family led to nothing, and he wanted to eliminate Snoke to be free of him, not because he had an ambition for power; he strained for freedom and purpose and belonging with Rey, whom he feels as his equal. But we have already seen that General Hux would not hesitate to kill the new Supreme Leader at the first occasion; so it would not surprise me if the next and last chapter of the saga would begin with an act of state which would disempower Kylo / Ben and force him to flee across the galaxy, kicking over the traces. He killed Snoke to become the master of his own fate at last, thus mirroring and growing beyond Anakin, who had told Padmé he could overthrow the Emperor and rule the galaxy with her but remained Palpatine’s slave until shortly before his death. Both Anakin and Ben are no leaders or governors by nature; as Force users, their task is the galaxy’s spiritual welfare, not its political union. However, this union will not be possible unless the populations know and feel that there is an all-encompassing ideal behind it, that of a Force being and remaining in balance.

Although many fans lamented its seeming lack of purpose, in my opinion Finn’s and Rose’s journey to Canto Bight was pivotal for TLJ. It was important that they meet D.J. and hear his point of view as an outsider, i.e. that war is a dirty business which only makes people rich who have no qualms selling weapons (often to both sides), and that every kind of war is useless in the long run because “you blow them up today, they blow you up tomorrow.”

Even more important, in my opinion, is their encounter with the enslaved children who take care of the fathiers. These children seem insignificant sidekicks, emphasized by the fact that they only communicate with Finn and Rose through gestures and by the end we hear one of them speaking in an alien language; thus, they seem estranged to the story. Nevertheless, in all three scenes when they appear their features are very clearly discernible, including the few seconds when Finn observes them through the binoculars.

The children enjoy the fathier’s liberation because they would love to have the opportunity to run away, too. And the ending scene of TLJ shows that one of these children is a Force user and that he dreams about being a Jedi - a parallel with Anakin, who was a slave himself and dreamt, when he was a child, of being a Jedi and coming to free Tatooine’s slave population. (Another small detail: Cantonica, too, is a planet almost entirely covered in desert.)

The role of children in Star Wars always is very important. Anakin’s friends on Tatooine were slaves like himself, but the Jedi padawans we see at the temple don’t seem to be in an enviable position either: they are separated from their families at a very young age and taught to learn emotional detachment, since Jedi are not supposed to have close connections. In AotC and RotS we see how the affectionate and protective Anakin cannot endure his isolation, and how his intelligence criticizes the Jedi’s chief interest in politics and their lack of compassion. (As in the classic trilogy, it always comes up to him to speak the disagreeable truths nobody wants to hear.) His attitude results in setbacks and humiliations by the Jedi, who are convinced of being unquestionably in the right. All of this, in a chain reaction beginning with his mother’s cruel and senseless death, leads to his damnation; even though they had no really evil intentions, the Jedi were for a large part responsible for the disaster initiated by the future Emperor and then continued by him and his apprentice, turned into the ruthless Darth Vader.

Anakin’s ultimate moment of damnation is the carnage of the Jedi children, who were completely innocent and who additionally, before he raised his light sabre against them, had approached him with respect and trust, even calling him “master”, obviously not knowing that the Jedi had humiliated him additionally by denying him the title.

If we now assume that Kylo Ren’s / Ben Solo’s journey is basically an inversion of Anakin’s fate, it seems most logical to me to assume that he will have to meet the Canto Bight children (maybe also other children, but I would assume these, since they were already introduced in detail) and to find his future by bonding with them.

Let us consider his character as we have known him until now. Ben does not seem aggressive and violent in his nature, he has to hide behind Kylo Ren’s mask to do his evil deeds. On Crait he makes a fool of himself; the only successfully cruel act he commits bare-headed is Han’s killing, which he only manages because Han lets him do it, and which traumatizes him to the point that he can’t kill any more except in self-defence. During his interactions with Rey we meet a timid, awkward youngster, who is however also patient (he never gets angry despite Rey’s repeated aggression) and empathic (he is the one who listens to her and supports her after her experience in the Dark Side cave).

Kylo’s / Ben’s personality, like Anakin’s / Vader’s, is torn in two, but the fracture is much less deep, which can also be seen from the names: while Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader sound perfectly dissimilar, there is not much difference between Kylo Ren and Solo Ben. He is not physically maimed and handicapped like his grandfather, amply shown when he easily takes off his mask, when we see him shirtless, or when he offers Rey his hand - the right one, which distinctively is not a robotic hand. Luke could sense Vader’s inner conflict, proof that this conflict was always there but so deeply buried that only a Force-sensitive close blood relative could feel it; while Kylo’s / Ben’s outbursts of anger show that his own conflict is much more below the surface.

We can only conjecture what led Kylo to kill his own father; Snoke called it a “test” for him, probably threatening to kill Kylo himself if he didn’t commit the deed, but we do sense that there is also some personal reason. When he says to his father that Ben was “a weakling and a fool who deserved to die”, this leads us to understand that he has never learned to accept his introverted, thoughtful and vulnerable nature, even less to value it: Ben is practically his roguish, charming, good-looking father’s opposite. Knowing Snoke, he probably threw salt into Ben’s low self-esteem making him believe that by giving up the name and life of Ben Solo and becoming “the mighty Kylo Ren”, a persona modelled on Vader’s example, he would become someone “strong” as opposite to his attitude towards the Ben Solo persona. For the purpose, Snoke suggested that Ben had to kill his father, of whom he allegedly “has the heart”. But the exact contrary happens: Ben is traumatized by the act and finally understands that Snoke only used him (proving that Han’s words to him were right), destroys Kylo’s mask and never speaks to Snoke or even looks at him again. Allowing Ben to kill him, Han committed his last and most significant act of heroism - forcing his son to look at him while he committed the deed, the horror of which never leaves him again. This closes the cycle to Anakin, who had first become a killer, annihilating the tusken village, after his mother’s senseless death.

As we know Anakin when he is a child, he is intelligent, fort-right, self-assured and supportive of others. When we see him again in AotC, he is a padawan - frustrated, isolated, suffocated by the Jedi’s expectations and the lack of chances they offer him, and burdened by his master’s lack of faith in him. The child he was seems gone for good. (Another parallel: his son Luke, who had grown up with his aunt and uncle in a normal family until he was about twenty, is a pure, authentic soul full of dreams and ideals, and we even see him play with a toy aircraft in one scene on Tatooine.) We have never seen, until now, a “normal” family with mother, father and children in the saga; our heroes grew up in surrogated families or without one altogether, like in Han’s or Rey’s case. We can only speculate how far Ben Solo’s family was “normal”; their parent’s marriage was difficult, his mother busy with politics, and he was sent to training to his uncle at a young age - we do not exactly know when, but he assuredly wasn’t an adult yet. This is a big hint, for me, that peace throughout the galaxy will be possible if children could grow up in a safe place, well-educated but also loved and respected. The purpose of peace, in my opinion, is always to make the concept of a home possible. Superficially seen, Star Wars is a story of Good and Evil, but it’s not; it’s about Love and War.

At the end of TLJ, Ben is in love with Rey, but his feelings are not requited and now he has no one to whom he can offer them. I believe it would be a godsend for Ben to meet the children and learn to love them and be responsible for them. Among other things this would make him grow and find again the child he once was, the son of Han and Leia who, despite the mistakes they made with him, most certainly loved him. When they meet again in TFA, Leia immediately takes responsibility speaking with her husband, saying that she never should have sent their son away from home. She was convinced that her brother, the Jedi, would protect him, but by now she has understood that in his family sphere he would have been safer from Snoke’s evil influence. At the end of RotJ Luke was already showing the emotional detachment he retained until TLJ; this was, on the long run, neither good for him nor for his pupils. He could teach them the ways of the Force, but his wisdom was not enough to protect them. Tragically, and unknowingly, as a master he had gone a similar path as Obi-Wan and Yoda, who were wise but not truly compassionate because the Jedi ways had taught them to be detached, i.e. not to really care. Luke could not offer his nephew the comfort of a home, and this probably applied to his other students as well. Spiriting a dozen of powerful young men off to a distant planet, away from the happenings in the galaxy and without distinct purpose, and trying to teach them to suppress their emotions, Luke was unwittingly sitting on a powder keg, repeating on a smaller scale the disaster that had been caused by the Jedi Order during the times of the Old Republic. The young man who once was compassion incarnate became, ironically, uncaring precisely due to his commitment to the Jedi rules. Only after being shaken by Rey’s anger and later by Yoda’s advice he finds back to himself one last time and projects his image to Crait in order to rescue his sister and apologize to his nephew, giving up his life in the process.

If there is anything we can learn about the Jedi is that they were no heroes; Luke truly was a hero, but he was not infallible, and his story also teaches that being a hero is not a happy and fulfilling task. As beautiful as the classic trilogy is, it’s a story about longing for the past, about the desire to bring back the “past order”. None of the rebels seems to consider that the old Republic can’t have been all that good if it enabled the rise of the Empire or at least couldn’t foresee it. What the galaxy needs is not the old, but a new order, and children are demonstrative of a fresh and better start.

Ben Solo is the last from the Skywalker blood, and the Skywalkers are notoriously family men: Anakin wanted nothing more than a home. He got mad with grief when his mother died, he married although he was not supposed to, and the day Padmé told him that she was pregnant he declared that it was the happiest day of his life. Luke himself, even before knowing so, always did anything he could and ignoring the risks, to save and keep his family together (his sister, his father) and adding to it (befriending Han, who by marrying Leia became his brother-in-law). It’s when the Sykwalkers are united as a family that the galaxy is at peace. Ben has turned his back on his family feeling rejected and betrayed; all we see him do with the First Order’s means has only one aim, finding Luke and confronting him with all of his pent-up anger. So we can assume that he is not cold towards his family but on the contrary feels a lot for it, else he would not be so frustrated and disappointed. But by the end of TLJ Luke as well as Han’s dice, his last keepsake, have dissolved; a sign that his anger has literally gone up in smoke.

We have heard repeatedly the opinion other people had of Ben: his parents and his uncle feared that he might be or become like Vader, Snoke accused him of having his father’s heart… but in my opinion, Ben shows his Skywalker blood most by having, like all of them, his mother’s heart. In TESB Han pointed out that Leia would not be so angry with him if she didn’t care; and it was always she who comforted the others when they were hurt or traumatized. Ben killed Snoke in cold blood, but his extremely aggressive demeanour against Luke shows that he still cares a lot about his uncle; and in the scenes with Rey we have repeatedly seen his underlying compassionate nature. Although he is raw and immature, we feel his mother’s passionate heart in him. He has his father’s shrewdness at times, but the way he feels comes all from Leia.

Once again, the saga’s love for figurative speech helps us, emphasizing the theory of Ben Solo’s redemption: at the beginning we met a child who had no father, and the young man who is his reincarnation is the only one whose sword has the form of a cross. I do not doubt that Ben Solo will indeed “finish what his grandfather started”, as he had promised. He is the Chosen One now, Anakin being dead. That is also the main reason why I’m sure Ben will not die in the end: in Darth Vader we already had a figure who died for his sins and it would be unoriginal, mildly speaking, to simply go there again. But most importantly, Vader had left something good in the galaxy in form of his two children. If Kylo / Ben dies, the power he has inherited from his grandfather, his loving upbringing by his parents and the teachings from his uncle will all be gone with him, too: which would mean that the Skywalker family was begotten only to bring death and terror to the galaxy. This family was always meant to bring peace and stability, but it was often prevented from doing so by influences stronger than them.

The last Skywalker is now free from all outward influence - Snoke, his father, his uncle; and he has no past sins to repair for but his own, differently from Luke who spent the rest of his life trying to atone for Vader’s crimes. Ben finally has the freedom to make his own choices and to go his own way; he is the last Skywalker, but he is also the first who must learn to live without a father figure. In theory, he could now go anywhere: Snoke (albeit not voluntarily) left him his power, Luke his knowledge, Han his love.

Many viewers are of the opinion that Kylo Ren can’t hold a candle to Darth Vader in his villainous role. But this is deliberate: the tormented galaxy does not need another Vader. When the saga began, the central figure was Darth Vader, the Dark, the Evil Father; yet as we meet him when he is a child, he is the Good Son. When we first see Kylo he is the Evil Son; so narratively, I assume that his goal is that of becoming the Good Father. With a family of his own, the last Skywalker would finally find his balance and thus, bring peace to the galaxy.

On a side note, Ben may have an encounter with his grandfather aided by the Force, in order to get to know him how he truly was: an affectionate, protective person whose alleged “power” as Darth Vader hid the tragedy of a torn soul and dismembered body.

I am not quite certain about the galaxy’s political goal, but I would suggest that the only viable solution would be through matriarchy; the few working political systems we briefly know of are Naboo under Padmés rule and Alderaan under Breha’s, both of whom queens. In any case, none of them was a Force user; they did not reign using the Force the way Anakin / Vader / Kylo wanted. But not being Force users, they had never been padawans: thus they had not learned their caring and responsible attitude from the Jedi.

Ben Solo is by now the only known person in the galaxy who was actually trained in the ways of the Jedi and also knows the Dark Side. (In theory there are also the Knights of Ren, but their destiny is unknown as of yet.)

I believe it will be Ben’s task, together with Rey who is his equal in the Force, to find and keep a new and better balance in the Force without suppressing the Dark Side, and growing Force-sensitive children in a more natural way; not separating them from their families (respectively giving them one in case they don’t have it), not teaching them emotional detachment but compassion, and leaving them the choice as to whether they want to become Jedi or not. (Keep in mind: the Skywalker men from all three generations had the ambition of becoming pilots, and were pushed into becoming Jedi because it seemed to be the right thing for them. None of them actually wanted or ever was happy with being a Jedi.)

Most viewers were irritated on first seeing Kylo’s face without the mask: the reason for that being that his looks are diametrically opposite to Vader’s, he inspires trust and sympathy instead of fear. My assumption is that Ben would win the children’s confidence easily, and that his connection with them would lead to his salvation. Also, the girl he loves and whom he saw as “his” right from the beginning is someone who desires nothing more than a family, which would give both of them what they truly need - a home, and a sense and purpose in life. This would at last put an end to one of the central rules of the Jedi Code, which is that they are not supposed to marry and have families of their own. Ben Solo is the father figure the Skywalker family, and with him the whole galaxy, has been waiting for.

Carrie Fisher, whenever she was asked why she thought the saga was so loved, allegedly always answered “It’s about family.” This is perfectly true: the importance of an intact family where children can grow protected and loved is perhaps the most crucial theme of the entire story. And what makes Ben’s and Rey’s relationship so touching and inspires so many people to think and dream about them is that we instinctively feel why they fit so well: officially they impersonate Dark and Light side of the Force, but deep down they both are lost children, who desperately wish for nothing more than a home.

The technical preliminaries fit to this theory, too - George Lucas is father or three adopted children himself, and he sold the rights to the third trilogy of the saga to Disney, a production firm that knows like no other how to tell family stories and happy endings.

Narratively, it would close the circle with the other third chapters of the saga, which also deal with a return, a reckoning: after the revenge of the Sith and the return of the Jedi, now it would be time for the ones who are neither one nor the other to have a chance.

I am quite certain Ben and Rey two are meant to be together, but not on their own. Their task is to start another Skywalker story, one that is about love and not power. Ben and Rey are the beginning of the new Skywalker family, one to which everyone is invited, boy or girl, from a good family or poor and abandoned, Force-sensitive or not; the Canto Bight children are only the beginning. The “Reylo” love story so many fans are imagining these days is, in my opinion, a red herring just as Rey’s family background was in TFA, when after all of the speculating and fantasizing whose child she was, she turned out to be an absolute nobody. Her name was a dead giveaway, by the way - “Rei” in Japanese means “zero”. I know more than one Japanese manga or anime where the protagonist is named Rei which hints at her not having a belonging or family, and having to find her place in life through her own abilities and the friends she makes.

Ben’s name makes things clear, too: he bears the name Obi-Wan assumed while he was in exile; Obi-Wan / Ben was a Jedi, a mentor and a father figure, so now it’s up to Ben Solo to pick up this task.

The relationship between Ben and Rey will not lead to a grand romance but to their “place in all this”: as mother and father. The authors are drawing wool over our eyes to keep up the suspense and make us imagine all sorts of romantic outcomes, or terrible retaliations in store for Kylo / Ben, instead of the obvious truth staring in our faces.

Anakin never found another home after he had to leave his mother on Tatooine. His marriage to Padmé was secret, so they could never share a home together and present themselves in public as husband and wife. His children never knew him the way he was; and later they didn’t talk to anyone about him, Ben learned only at age 23 that the infamous Darth Vader was actually his grandfather. Luke had forgiven him and called him “father”, but even he didn’t accept the truth of his heritage, he tried to amend for the evil his father had done, but never learned about the good man he had once been. As for Leia, who had been imprisoned and tortured by him, she probably never wanted to waste a thought on him.

But Ben, who is Anakin’s reincarnation, reinstalled his place in the family the moment he called him “grandfather” in TFA. And if he manages to have a family in the end, Anakin, too will at last have come home again.

This is what I think the scene at the ending of TLJ is anticipating: we see the Force-sensitive boy sweeping the platform in front of the stables and then dreaming about being a Jedi, lifting the handle of the broom which in the starlight begins to gleam like it was a light sabre. The platform recalls a stage, and the little boy is not dreaming but, effectively, playacting.

Message received: free the stage, it’s time for us - the galaxy’s children.

[oblio-k]

whom are your st ocs!!! tell me stuff

ive got!!!! a lot!!! because i have no self control! 2.5 crews n a bonus OC i made for my sibling’s oc crew. im going to ramble about All Of Them given this opportunity here they are under the cut.

My first (all OC) crew is the USS August AKA The USS Rejects. Basically starfleet’s former ‘best’ got shoveled onto one ship after they outlived their use. 

Captain Hyrel, a gender-neutral Axanar, is like the parent of the whole crew and refuses to court martial any of them even though they beg them to. Used to be really good at winning battles during various wars, but then gave up and said they would only take peaceful scientific missions from there on out. They’ve got a lil human son (Hyrel Jr.) they rescued when he was a baby.

Commander Petrov ‘J’ Jorge is their first officer, human dude. He was a model officer on his way to being Captain when a first contact mission went horribly wrong and he was left permanently disfigured with a head injury that completely altered his personality. Has anger management issues and wants to quit, but Hyrel won’t let him. In love with a Romulan centurion he met in neutral space.

Lt. Commander T’kae, vulcan lady. She hates J and really wants to be the first officer, but Hyrel won’t promote her. Impatient with her 2 superiors and is usually fed up with the crew, though she’d die for any of them.

Ensign Saurvin, my disaster vulcan boy!! He’s been promoted and demoted a lot, and has completely rejected logic and embraced emotion. Gets into fights a lot but cares a LOT about his friends, starts a little club on board for crewmembers who are too different from the rest of their species. He’s engaged to a Ferengi and plans to quit starfleet as soon as his bf becomes a Daimon so they can travel the galaxy together and have a blast.

Doctor Stovek, not the CMO, human/vulcan hybrid dude who resents his human heritage and hasn’t spoken to his human dad since his mother died a decade ago. Close friends with T’kae and they both try to follow the path of logic together. Refuses to join Saurvin’s club.

Counselor Fer Xeandi, betazoid guy who can’t help but read everybody’s thoughts. Really friendly and outgoing, and has a crush on J.

Ensign Kaya, betazoid/ullian hybrid girl. Fresh out of the academy and is very shy and quiet. Has a lot of family issues (her betazoid dad is really sick, she doesn’t talk to her mother, and her twin brother hates her and convinces the rest of their betazoid family to disown her) due to her not having any telepathic ability at all. She’s Saurvin’s best friend and a member of his club.

Chief of Security Arcus Nyo, a caitian dude who has a LOT of fur and is big. He hates Ensign Saurvin because Saurvin makes tons of cat jokes around him to make Kaya laugh. Has a massive crush on the chief engineer, Aaraa, and everyone knows it though he insists it’s not true. Loves arachnids a lot, owns some tarantulas & stuff in his quarters.

Chief Engineer Aaraa, an Aaamazzarite guy. Kind of quiet but firm when giving orders. His quarters are absolutely coated in his webbing which is disgusting to almost everyone but Arcus. Has no idea what a spider is, but boy does he love them when he finds out. His eventual dream is to retire, get married to Arcus, and live out the rest of their days happily on a tarantula farm.

CMO Sokaa Eri, a human woman raised by a human and vulcan couple. She’s really sweet but also terrifying when she wants to be. Deals with so much all the time, she needs a vacation but refuses to take shore leave out of fear that someone will die on board without her there.

Nurse Kive Idor, a mostly Bajoran man. His grandfather was a Cardassian, he assumes. He was raised by a Cardassian woman named Ricana Idor in Federation space after his parents died in a transport shuttle accident. Really doesn’t like being called by his first name, and doesn’t care for Bajoran culture, even though his mother made sure to teach him all about it and encouraged him to follow it if he wanted to.

SECOND CREW i made after watching ds9, the USS Akira ! A bunch of useless gays are gathered onto one ship by a captain who actually listens to his first officer when told not to go on an away mission, every time.

Captain Niko, human dude. Literally says “Oh, if I wasn’t such a nice person I wouldn’t have picked up so many strays.” and surprisingly no one around him wants to kill him for saying that because he is just a nice person. Joined starfleet to get away from his physically abusive father to try and find a faraway planet he could start a new life on, was accidentally really good at being an officer and before he knew it he was being promoted to Captain and being sent on a long exploration mission. Found and adopted a Vulcan boy, Sarin. Won’t go on dangerous missions because he doesn’t want to leave Sarin without a father.

First Officer Commander Onarog, ferengi dude. Very smart and hardworking, but not very good with social skills. Very perceptive and can always tell when someone is upset. Niko likes joking he should have been a counselor.

Second Officer Lt. Commander Qihata Xirad, a Bolian girl. She’s very friendly and loves gossip. Likes surprising people but doesn’t always realize when someone isn’t in the mood. Excitable and has a big crush on one of the nurses, Kezrell.

CMO, Meneha Adado, betazoid. Quiet lady who keeps to herself and uses her telepathy to figure out how her patients feel. Has a wife and kids on Betazed that she visits sometimes, misses. Niko’s oldest friend, but respects his wishes for her not to read his thoughts and find out about his past.

Chief Engineer Taiggok. Orion male, very nervous and doesn’t like talking to anyone but his team and the bridge crew (when he has to). Very strong, and his favorite thing is to go back to his quarters every day to take care of his pet salamander.

Chief of security, Lt. Zac Ramirez. Human/orion hybrid guy, but hides the fact that he’s half orion. Kind of withdrawn, but is best friends with his second in command and really wants to befriend Taiggok.

Security officer, Lt. jr. Vimio Zh’raqass. Andorian, they’re always by Zac’s side and are very excited. Don’t realize that they’re in love with Zac, just think they really want to be his best friend. Worries about their friends a lot, has no clue that Zac isn’t fully human.

Nurse Kezrell, an unjoined Trill girl. Is absolutely terrified of the thought of being joined. She actively avoids other Trill and falls in love with every pretty girl she sees.

Science officer, Lt. Terim. He’s a Xindi-Reptilian, and is handsome, since i was using a character generator and it said a xindi-reptilian that everyone thinks is very handsome. Thoughful/kind dude who will gladly try to cheer up anyone. Loves a friendly tussle, is very handsy with people he’s friends with, and is close friends with Onarog.

Ensign Genna, a Xindi-Arboreal. She’s always tired and is very forgetful and often confused, though she tries her best. Is friends with Terim, and tries to be friends with the rest of the crew. Is too tired to notice that her fellow ensign is in love with her.

Ensign Zura Jejo, a Bajoran girl. Pretty fearful and depressed, misses Bajor a lot. She’s really scared of Yeoman Loket, since he’s mean to her because her station is right next to his. Gets really flustered around Genna, and prays to the prophets that one day Genna will notice.

Yeoman Loket Arlat. A Cardassian man exiled after being framed for murder. Niko saved his life and he feels he owes the Captain a debt in return. Says that he’ll leave after he returns the favor, but Niko refuses to put himself in harm’s way so he’s been there for years. Pretty much like Niko’s second son. Is pretty mean to everyone but Niko and Sarin.

Bonus non crew member: Commander Rutora, an exiled Romulan who failed a huge mission. Stole a warbird and after meeting Niko and falling in love with him he follows their ship around and acts like a nuisance. Ashamed of being in love with a human and keeps promising to kill Niko, but can’t bring himself to.

The OC members of my ‘next generation’ style ship, the USS Nobility, where i gather up all the canon kids and stick them on one ship and fill in the blanks with OCs:

My life and love, my baby boy and darling Bug Man, CMO’s Assistant Doctor Yek. He’s an original species I made up called a Parasitoid, based on parasitoid wasps. Big bug boi who wears a life support suit because he comes from a class Y planet he can’t reveal the location of. Is married to Mekor Dukat and has a small lizard/bug hybrid baby with him, Saint. He would do anything for his family and doesn’t follow his people’s tradition of killing their chosen hosts and returning home. Wants to find a nice planet far away from Cardassia to raise his family.

Acting Ensign ‘Checkers.’ A two-spirit teen who comes from an alternate universe after the ship hits an anomaly. Is the fusion duplicate of Janeway & Chakotay after a transporter accident, but won’t tell anyone because they don’t want to interefere with the timeline. The entire crew adopts them.

Ensign Hoji Andu, nervous Bajoran man who joined starfleet to explore, but feels guilty about leaving Bajor and his two older siblings, who are the Cardassian/Bajoran hybrid twins (named Irza Miyo & Moha) his mother had during the Occupation. He and his father weren’t the best to them, and he regrets it and believes they hate him. He promised his mother he would look after them before she died.

Lt. T’rea, vulcan woman who is an engineer, but also acts as an unprofessional therapist for the rest of the crew when she has spare time. Very much misses her wife who lives on Vulcan, though she’d never admit it.

BONUS OC for my sibling’s crew of beautiful women who could annihilate me, a kind Vulcan man, and my nonbinary goblin who deserves an ass kicking

Ensign Alek Ch’zei, a Cardassian/Andorian hybrid who loves flirting and has yet to find a temperature they find comfortable. No one likes them because they’re rude, keep fighting people, and won’t shut up. The vulcan lieutenant (a dude named Stafuck) dates them on and off to explore emotion and a lack of Logic. When Stafuck reaches his pon farr and the Captain starts worrying because they’re too far from Vulcan, Alex unzips their shirt and goes ‘don’t worry. i’ve got this’.

[aion-rsa]

The Devil All the Time Ending Explained

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This article contains The Devil All the Time spoilers. You can read the review here.

After so much bloodshed and tragedy, few could expect to find peace at the end of things. That includes Tom Holland’s taciturn Arvin Russell. Yet sitting in a Volkswagen next to a long-haired gentleman, one who appeared to be part of the vanguard for the next generation, the often hyper-observant Arvin is letting his guard down, and a sense of ease washes over him for the first time in probably his whole life. On the radio, President Lyndon B. Johnson is droning on about some type of troop build-up in Vietnam, but Arvin’s mind is on his past, and the bodies it left buried. Or perhaps it’s on his future too, as he mildly considers the prospect of joining the U.S. Army.

The truth is he doesn’t know. As author Donald Ray Pollock’s own voice narrates, “Grandma would tell him to pray on it, and he’d laugh at her, but maybe she knew something he didn’t? Right now he needed sleep and just felt lucky someone was giving him a ride.” This is a far cry from the Arvin who seemed to all but swear off religion after the horrors inflicted on him by his God-fearing father, as well as the young man who only days ago was able to deduce that smiling Carl Henderson (Jason Clarke) was hiding a gun in his pocket. But here he is now, open to the first time since boyhood to the concept of God and the kindness of strangers.

Should his innocence be reborn, and is this a happy or dark ending? By design it’s left ambiguous. As director Antonio Campos told Esquire, “I always struggle with happy endings. I like endings that leave you with the hope for something better but the chance for something else and you have to kind of pick your own version of it.”

But if that is the case, allow us to dig a little deeper by picking our own destiny for Arvin after he falls asleep, dreaming both of a better life and the violence wrecked on him by his parents’ own traumas.

If there is a point to The Devil All The Time, it would be how the culture of a place, and the people who occupy it, predetermine for us the outcome we do not want. While the presence of God is a nebulous thing in this backyard fried noir, ‘the Devil’ of the title is present to just about every character inhabiting Pollock and Campos’ fictional town of Knockemstiff, Ohio and its surrounding areas: It is the hell they make for themselves and their heirs by pretending to be better than they are while ignoring the pain underneath. Consider almost every narrative thread of The Devil All the Time ends in calamity for its protagonists, often after they delude themselves into thinking they’re making a noble gesture.

Take Holland’s Arvin. A quiet and skeptical boy after he saw his father’s piousness drive him to suicide, Arvin very much is the product of his father’s upbringing. His Dad Willard (Bill Skarsgård) came to this part of the world by accident. He was passing through after seeing the horrors of the South Pacific when he met the woman who would be Arvin’s mother, Charlotte (Haley Bennett). While the chance romance might have been coincidence, his fate was already sealed by what Arvin said was “the Devil all the time” in him. Arvin did not mean that his father was possessed by a supernatural spirit—Arvin is as close to an agnostic as we have in the plot. Rather there was something horrible eating at Willard’s mind from the war. And while Arvin never saw the flashback of the American G.I. Willard discovered crucified, we know this violence haunts Willard every time he stares at a cross.

For violence very much is the religion on which The Devil All the Time’s fatalism is built. Violence is the only thing Willard bequeaths his son. While Arvin as a boy is wary of praying before his father’s outdoor cross, he remembers well Willard’s lesson about beating the lecherous poachers they’d let escape after an earlier insult. Finding them scenes later and pummeling them to a pulp, Willard returns to his son and says, “You’ve just got to pick the right time.” This lesson of optimizing your anger and need to destroy was the happy part of Arvin’s childhood. The narration even confirms it was “the best day he ever spent with his father.”

That is all the more revealing when one realizes Arvin thinks this of the day he and Dada discover Mama has cancer. The slow-killing disease ruins what little innocence there is left in the lad. Before his mother is in the ground, Willard inflicts permanent psychic damage on Arvin by attempting to appease what he thinks must be an angry God via the ritualistic sacrifice of Arvin’s dog to their Maker. It doesn’t work, and after the mother is dead and buried, Willard soon follows her by his own hand.

Willard’s primitive reliance on violence as a form of salvation is of course backwoods craziness, but then everyone in this story believes violence will save them, and likely live to regret it in their dying breath. For if Arvin’s bitterness and irreligiosity was borne out of his father’s slaughtering of the family dog in the vain hope it would give him the power to save his mother, the piousness of his “sister” Lenora (Eliza Scanlen) is the fruit of similar delusions.

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The reason Arvin and Lenora became orphans in the same house is because her Born Again preacher pappy, Roy Laferty (Harry Melling), was also blinded by his lunatic ideas. Roy killed Lenora’s mother Helen (Mia Wasikowska) in the woods, under the fallacy that God would grant him the powers to resurrect her. Instead he just murdered his wife and ran for the state line, escaping far enough to never be seen again, and allowing Lenora to grow up with her own eventually self-destructive delusions about her father and his faith not being so warped. Thus Lenora attempting to replace the hole left by the violent act of her father by believing the silver-tongued lies of another fire and brimstone orator (Robert Pattinson), who for all his zealotry really only liked his flock when they were young, childlike, and suggestible.

Pattinson’s Preston may be the evilest character in the story besides Clarke’s serial killer Carl. For these are the only two men who lack any self-doubts about their hypocrisies or cruelties. Willard took his own life after he discovered devotion conjured neither gods nor devils; Roy Laferty was wondering if he’d really fly to Heaven before his last breath. Both left broken legacies to their children. A man like Preston, however, only takes what he wants and cares about nothing else, including the girlhood of Roy’s underage daughter Lenora.

The resulting pregnancy leads to Lenora’s semi-suicide (again with the second-guessing at the last minute that no one will know about), and to Arvin committing his only premeditated murder in the movie. While he would kill again, as with how he handled the bullies who attacked Lenora earlier, Arvin has already taken his father’s lessons of violence to heart when he claims his other birthright, a German Luger his father bought off another G.I. from the war, and annihilates Preston in cold blood.

Later in the movie, we learn that copper Lee Bodecker (Sebastian Stan) told Arvin as a child, “Some people were born just to be buried.” Whether this is the actual point-of-view of the movie is murky, but it’s an actual religious tenet Arvin can get behind, and the world of Knockemstiff quietly prays to.

Most of the characters of The Devil All the Time lead empty, fractured lives that they inherited from their folks. Lee Bodecker himself was saying this as a comfort to Arvin after the boy’s father committed suicide. Hence Lee recalling that he and his sister Sandy (Riley Keough) also grew up without a father since the old bastard abandoned them. The sentiment was meant to speak just of their fathers. Yet those traits seem inherited, with Lee becoming a corrupt lawman who commits and covers up murders as the years pass, and his blonde free-spirited sister falling in with her serial killer boyfriend, Carl.

The revelation late in the picture that Lee told Arvin some people exist to die creates a self-fulling prophecy to Arvin’s life. He is here to make good on that promise, as most of these broken people would be better off in the ground where they can’t hurt anyone. It begins with the calculated murder of the predatory Preston, but through a series of convoluted circumstances, he also winds up bumming a ride with Carl and Sandy, who’ve lived in their own separate little movie as mass murderers. The only killing we see in depth is how they slaughtered Lenora’s missing father, but they’ve been collecting “models” for 15 years by the time Arvin gets into their car.

Like their victim Roy Laferty, Sandy is having second thoughts about her life as a serial killer before she dies. She did it mostly just to please Carl. Years later though, she wanted out. She even daydreamed about running away with Arvin before the young man puts a bullet in her lover’s head. Soon she follows him across the bar, unaware the path she is on has been set for years—a cynic might say since the day her father walked out—and now all that’s left is the sudden surprise of oblivion.

And this brings us back to the ending where Arvin soon sends the man who told him some folks are just here to be buried to an early grave. He didn’t want to kill him, but Bodecker wanted revenge for his murderous sister. And after that showdown, all the people who an Old Testament God might say had it coming have met their fates. But Arvin doesn’t believe in God, per se, even if he returned to his childhood home to make peace with Him and the father who created a world in fear of spirits. Arvin buries the dog his father killed, plus the Luger, which is an obvious metaphor of him trying to bury the trauma his father imparted to him. With the dog given the rest he hoped his mother and father found, he’s free to leave this dark corner of America.

But is the rest of it any better? Sitting next to a proto-hippie as he falls asleep listening about escalation in Vietnam, Arvin can imagine a world where he breaks the cycle of violence he and everyone he knows lives on. He can find a girl and settle down without the trauma that manifested itself as the Devil in his papa. But he’s already embraced Willard’s inheritance for violence, hasn’t he? Sure, he buries Dad’s Luger in the final moments, but only after using it to kill four people, the first of which was not in self-defense.

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And then there are his own second thoughts about trying to find a peaceful life. It’s troubling he entertains the idea of signing up for the Vietnam War while thinking of a better tomorrow. And then he is also considering that maybe his grandmother (and father) could be right about prayer. Even outside of Knockemstiff, he is still in a vision of America that is violent, circular, uncaring, and doomed to repeat the sins of its fathers. One war has ended but another is begun. The narrator even says Arvin “wasn’t sure if he was going backwards or forwards.” His end is his beginning.

As his father went to a war that defined him, Arvin is already on the path to repeat that horror. Hell, he’s already haunted by visions of ‘Devils’ and dead bodies he left to be buried. The greater devil is the culture Arvin’s in, and as teased by the prospect of the Vietnam War, that culture extends beyond Knockemstiff’s town limits or that of its neighbors. It’s the American legacy and a predilection toward violence The Devil All the Time seems to suggest is inescapable. Arvin can have hesitations and hopes, but like those experienced by Sandy before he shot her, or Roy before her lover shot him, or Roy’s daughter Lenora before the rope around her neck tightened, they’re just illusions of escape. And the end of the line is fast approaching.

The post The Devil All the Time Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[nimueriesa]

THE BOOK OF MORDRED →  SENTENCE MEME [ 2 / 2 ]

Part two of a two part series of lines and dialogue taken from THE BOOK OF MORDRED by Vivian Vande Velde. Feel free to change pronouns or anything else to better suit your needs.

Pretty. I like pretty things.

Use it and die.

Stupid girl, I do not like children and I do not like children’s games.

Tell me, do you enjoy being this second-rate wizard’s lickspittle?

Wrong tactic. She doesn’t like me enough to care what you do.

What makes you think he cares what you have to say?

_____ has special plans for your body, or I would cut out that foul tongue of yours and shove it down your throat.

You’re incredibly fearless — virile even — with a wizard behind you.

He is all talk because he knows he is helpless — a snapping little dog.

He just seems to have such delicate sensibilities for what he is: bastard.

What in the name of all the powers of Hell is it now?

_____ overrated you when he called you a second-rate wizard.

Damn you! I can heal any injuries! I can reward you beyond your dreams!

Twitch, and I’ll roast your innards.

Do you think my magic cannot go around corners?

If you go and get the key — quickly — and bring it back, you will not be harmed.

Do not let me suspect your sincerity. Do you understand?

Never do that again. Don’t you ever make promises that I am supposed to keep.

Merciful saints in Heaven, he tricked me.

You fool! You interfering stooge! You have no idea what has been going on here. How dare you come in here, with your archaic sense of fair play, feeding your sense of self-worth with empty magnanimous gestures that endanger all?

And I want you to know that I’ll always love you, no matter what.

What am I supposed to do: Be grateful that you’d still have me? So what? I’m not impressed.

Outgrown us village folk, have you?

Has anybody ever pointed out what a horse’s ass you are?

Listen, and I will tell you a story about chivalry.

Honestly, you’ll be the death of me yet.

You know your mother gets upset when you use magic.

And, anyway, what am I supposed to do when a horse or a dog talks to me — not answer? Pretend I don’t hear?

I’ve never called on Satan.

You really should be trained, your power given a proper channel, so that you can control your magic rather than the other way around.

Then you must be the greatest magician of all time.

Not exactly as I planned it, but here we are anyway.

Since when do you fight ladies, Sir _____?

Your quarrel is with me.

Back-stabbing bastard, keep your hands where I can see them.”

Don’t! Don’t hurt her.

That’s the way you killed my cousin, in the back.

You and your brothers have been trying to annihilate my family for years.

Did _____ beg for his life? Did he?

Can you stand there and watch your woman bleed?

What do you want from me?

I want to hear you beg.

What do you think I’ve been doing?

I want you on your knees.

I want you to say, ‘Please, _____, spare _____.’

Please, _____, spare _____.

There is nothing we can do.

You tried to kill me once before.

They’re going to kill you. They’re going to kill all of us.

I can do nothing without a sword.

They would never let you live that long, and you know it.

I am only giving you leave to choose for yourself whether to go or stay.

Lord, have mercy on our souls.

Burn her!

You wanted this; you pushed for it.

Well, now I am on your side, I admit you were right about _____ all along.

This…this is not what I wanted.

Don’t let her look in your eyes, and she won’t be able to put a spell on you.

Miserable witch!

Know what they do with witches?

I never meant to kill them.

You never mean to kill anybody. I remember that.

You’re in danger _____, mortal danger.

You’re on my side, _____. I can trust you, can’t I?

What have you done?

_____, this is madness. You cannot win this fight.

You’re dividing the country?

We want the same thing. We should work together.

What have we come to, that you don’t trust your own Auntie? You know you’re my favorite nephew.

At this point, I’m your only nephew.

You accused him?

You had him tortured, didn’t you?

I hope vengeance feels good, _____. I hope it is warm and comfortable.

What is the proper protocol for treaties?

The Devil take you!

Put your sword down before it’s too late.

Put it down, I have already surrendered.

Take the sword, throw it in the water.

How touching, I just love sentimental endings, don’t you?

If we’re lucky, they’ll live long enough for everybody to hug and kiss and be friends again.

Be still, or I shall see to it that you look your true age.

I have you and you know it.

You told me I had a dried and shriveled old heart.

I will come back for you as soon as I can.

Let me take a look at that wound.

Since when has your mother ever needed anybody?

I have always loved you.

Stop. Save your strength.

Do you think so? Could I still be the ruler of all Britain?

You aren’t going, are you? Now that you don’t need to?

What is there here for me? People afraid of me? People hating me? People wanting to use me?

I love you. Be happy.

[jillmckenzie1]

Critic & Son – Star Wars Edition

You shouldn’t expect your kids to be into the same things you are. It certainly wasn’t the case with my father and me. Bill was a World War II veteran, a lover of big band music, and a guy with the kind of effortless charisma that made him likable to everyone he came across.* He was also a casual moviegoer. I remember him laughing himself into a mild asthma attack during The Naked Gun, and I remember us seeing both Goodfellas and The Silence of the Lambs theatrically.

However, I should emphasize he was a casual moviegoer. Did he care about the works of Altman and Kurosawa? Nope. Not even a little. Movies were strictly for entertainment, full stop. For some odd reason, I dove into movies far deeper than he ever did. Along with my desire to visit Loch Ness and my wish to make a pilgrimage to the grave of John Belushi, obsessive filmgoing was one more piece of evidence to my father that his son was defective, perhaps fatally so.

With my son, Liam, things are different. At twelve years old, he’s already developed strong opinions of his own regarding film. In between snickers, the mother of one of his friends told me about Liam critiquing their video library. He’s said, “I love Sonic the Hedgehog, but it’s not a good movie.” He’s a perceptive kid, and like just about everybody else in this time of plague, he’s bored to tears.

For the last couple of months, I’ve gotten numerous comments from Liam that were variations of, “Can I help write a review? Please? Please?” In the interests of familial harmony and for my own physical safety, we’re going to have a recurring feature around these parts  On a semi-regular basis, Liam is going to join me in ranking the top five picks of franchises and genre flicks to you, our discerning readership.** We’ll begin with our Top Five picks for Star Wars Visual Media:

  Liam’s #5 – The Last Jedi: My reasoning for placing this here is that The Last Jedi chose to experiment with the mythos of the Star Wars universe. It made bold moves, took characters in unexpected ways, and had the coolest space fight of all time, even if it came out of nowhere. There could’ve been more brand-safe plays, and a heck of a lot of people disliked this movie for said bold moves, but this is the movie from the sequel trilogy that I re-watch the most.

Tim’s #5 – The Mandalorian: Maybe all this time Star Wars is better suited for television? As the crown jewel (and virtually only series of note) on Disney+, The Mandalorian follows the adventures of a taciturn bounty hunter tasked to take care of an alien infant that’s both Force-sensitive and cute as the dickens. It’s essentially Lone Wolf and Cub with spaceships and blasters, along with some interesting ideas about parenting and nature vs. nurture.

Liam’s #4 – Rogue One: The best way to fill a plot hole is to make a feature-length movie about it! Rogue One is a smart, witty, and brutal Star Wars movie. It introduces a cast of fun and intriguing characters and then kills them off in a variety of ways. It features cameos from C3PO, The Ghost from Rebels, and the best scene of Darth Vader ever, which really makes his next duel look sad in comparison. A solid war film, and the best prequel movie from Star Wars.

Tim’s #4 – Rogue One: For a minute there, it looked like we’d get a series of self-contained Star Wars movies that had nothing to do with the Skywalker Saga. Then Solo killed that idea stone dead.*** Before that happened, we got Rogue One, an honest-to-Tarkin war movie about a suicide mission to swipe the Death Star plans. A game cast and director Gareth Edwards’ intense sense of scale took an idea that was unnecessary and transformed it into an engaging piece of entertainment.

Liam’s #3 – Revenge of the Sith: I know I called Rogue One the best prequel, but it isn’t my favorite. Revenge of the Sith is the movie that makes the prequels feel important. It shows us Palpatine annihilating four separate Jedi Masters, we finally see Anakin become Darth Vader, and we see the decimation of the Jedi through Order 66 in what is, in my opinion, the best half an hour of Star Wars.

Tim’s #3 – The Last Jedi: If I’m being honest with you, I have to admit that I kind of hate the sequel trilogy that kicked off with The Force Awakens. Both that film and The Rise of Skywalker look gorgeous, have fun action sequences, and rely almost entirely on nostalgia to push the narrative forward. The polarizing middle chapter The Last Jedi took big chances, including a grizzled Luke Skywalker who’s given up being a hero due to a moral failing. Writer/director Rian Johnson had very little interest in catering to fans. That’s a good thing, and I prefer having my expectations subverted.

Liam’s #2 – The Mandalorian: In easily the best piece of Star Wars television, The Mandalorian shows us what it is like to be a bounty hunter after the fall of the Empire. We see a cast of colorful characters interact with the bounty hunter, we get Taika Watiti as a murder droid and, most importantly, Baby Yoda. It is breathtakingly beautiful and has some of the best writing in Star Wars.

Tim’s #2 – The Clone Wars: Hey kids! Instead of swashbuckling adventure, how about we spend time focusing on trade disputes and political skullduggery? We all know that the Prequel Trilogy, by and large, sucks. But showrunner Dave Filoni saw through the layer of anti-entertainment. It took some time to get going. Over seven seasons, The Clone Wars managed to make the fall of Anakin Skywalker tragic, managed to turn faceless clone troopers into mostly sympathetic characters, and managed to introduce Ahsoka Tano. She’s Anakin’s apprentice and her journey from an annoying sidekick to a hero with the courage to walk away from the Jedi Order is genuinely mythic.

Liam’s #1 – The Empire Strikes Back: In one of the best sequels ever made, Empire blows the original Star Wars out of the water with how smart the writing is, one of the best lightsaber fights of the series, and causing the heroes to lose by the end of the film. It made Darth Vader into one of the best villains of all time and caused all other Star Wars projects to feel meek in comparison. It’s no wonder that this movie still is one of the most impactful movies even after 40 years since its release.

Tim’s #1 – The Empire Strikes Back: We can all agree that Star Wars is one of the most important movies ever made. Its sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, does what most sequels can only dream of doing. It takes everything that works about the first film and makes it better. The action scenes are more interesting, the dialogue isn’t as clunky, and the characters have arcs that are deeper and better defined. We have a hero who makes many, many stupid mistakes, making his eventual wisdom feel more hard-won. We have a plot twist that’s astounding. We have a Harrison Ford performance that’s charming and engaged. What’s not to love?

  *The racist Border Patrol agent that he got fired? Probably not a big fan of my pops. Buy me a beer sometime and I’ll tell you the story.

**Huge credit goes to film writer Drew McWeeny, whose outstanding column Film Nerd 2.0 examined his introduction of classic movies to his boys. It’s excellent writing and I’ve wanted to try something similar myself. His work is well worth paying for and you can buy their introduction to the Star Wars movies here.

***There was talk about a riff on Seven Samurai, in which a squad of Jedi Knights had to defend a small settlement from hordes of Imperial troops. I would have loved to have seen that.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/critic-son-star-wars-edition/

[nathalieofearth]

A Self-Rescuing Princess, Chapter 1

I should start at the beginning of my life, where I suppose my life made the most sense. 

Ahem...

“Once upon a time, not so very long ago…I’ll stop right there. Because while my story does begin not so very long ago, it’s never been a fairy tale and I tend to think of myself as a self-rescuing princess. Yet, in one prospect, there is something I’ve always loved about fairy tales and that is the knight in shining armor prince that one day saves the lady from distress and seizes the day.  I’ve been reading fairy tales too since I was about three or four, and I wouldn’t say I’ve stopped reading them either. They were later replaced with comic books and graphic novels about superheroes; Men and women that save the planet from destruction and all sorts of villainy.  So, in order to portray my story, I’ve chosen to do it with style. I’m going to tell you my story, the most epic story of all time, and give you the spin of fairy tales and superheroes…maybe because writing is just what I do best. I do note however, and give the disclaimer that this is not exaggerated and should be taken in all seriousness.”

“Since the time of my epic birth and I say that because my birth really was epic; I was the miracle child of my mother after she had four miscarriages, and the day I was born, I was actually incredibly lucky. I had to fight my way out of the fetus; hence forever known as, The Angry Fetus, as it was my first challenger and villain. It wanted me to stay in there and kill my mother, and of course, being the heroine of this story, I could not simply allow that. So after an enduring 13 hour labor, I punched that Angry Fetus and defeated it in a single knock-out punch. Or rather, I was delivered by a C-section, but regardless! In that very spectacular moment, right there, I knew that I was meant for greatness. It was also lucky for the fact I was born in the seventh month of the year, seven days overdue, was born around seven in the evening and weighed something about eight, seven pounds. If I went by those odds at a casino table on craps, I would be a millionaire by now. The Fates has designed it so well that there is now a convenience store in commemoration of that most legendary day…and the people chose to call it a “Seven-Eleven.” But no, seriously, my birthday is July 11. The tradition is still celebrated today, where the people go and get their free slushy drinks today.”

“However, this is still not the most amazing thing to happen in my life. I was going to face the toughest enemies and villains the world had ever seen...two enemies that would completely alter the fate and destiny of our heroine with a thieving plot to destroy her. They were named…Father Figures. Now, both Father Figures were from a distant land where hell and demons roamed freely and had reigned free for many years, being brainwashed into villainy against their will. However, our heroine had no idea how conniving and evil their plan was. One Father Figure decided that he would try to kill our heroine through sheer, blissful ignorance then make sure every effort was put into blaming the heroine’s mother for all the problems that Father Figure had gained over the years. He came and went every so often, making sure that our heroine never forgot who he was. However, this Father Figure was not defeated by the heroine herself. She was still much too young to defeat such an evil mastermind, and so the heroine’s mother deftly carried out a plan and cleverly took down the first Father Figure. Unfortunately though, he would return many years later, and this second round, our heroine crushed the Father Figure with her amazing use of verbal linguistics and general badassery that the Father Figure walked away in shame and disgrace. No one today knows where he went and many believe he will probably die alone.”

“Now as for the second Father Figure, he was the strongest, meanest, evilest, villain there ever was. This Father Figure was trained in all sorts of cruel, black magic and it was rumored that he was forged in the fiery, darkest pits of hell. It was as if he was created by Satan himself and possessed by a demon. By the time our heroine encountered this foe, she was much too weak for him after the years spent fighting First Father Figure made her too vulnerable and weak. The Second Father Figure preyed upon her and waited for the perfect moment to attack and locked her up in the dungeon for nearly 10 years. He brutally abused her, pillaged her, raped her and manipulated her and he got away with it for many years. Even the heroine’s mother could not save her as he charmed the mother and made her blind to the harm he was causing her daughter. So much so, she became completely unaware that her daughter was being held captive in her own castle all the while he controlled her and poisoned her mother’s mind. After so many years, the heroine’s mother gave in and was completely brainwashed and under his complete and total control. 

“A decade goes by, and our heroine, left for dead and almost devastated on every hope and just about to give up, somehow manages to see a strong, white light beam across her face. A gentle, but firm voice speaks to her, telling her, 

“Today is not your day, my child. You must not give in to the darkness. Have faith and courage, but always be kind. Be strong, child, and be true to your heart.” 

It was as if the white light was the message she needed and she gathers up all her strength and musters up her courage to stand up and fight this evil Father Figure. In this heroic battle, she uses all means necessary to defeat him and calls in all her friends and resources to annihilate him. These people were there, waiting the whole time, for some message of hope that she was still alive, that somehow the darkness hadn’t completely killed her. When news broke out that she was still alive and captured away in a far off land, all her people got together and sent every available resource to find her. Our heroine was relieved when the resources arrived in the nick of time to help her.”

“Meanwhile, back in this battle, the Father Figure uses all the sorcery and evil magic he knew to try to get her right where he wants her. But it was too late…our heroine had broken free from his spell and after an infernal decade of this horrific struggle gave her the courage she needed and even more so, the strength the fight the battle, and win her freedom. With a few more thrashes, our heroine finally wins over the battle and destroys almost every piece of the Father Figure. However, our heroine realizes that she must have mercy on him and she simply lets him live as a sign of her humility and forgiveness. Our heroine does not know what happened to Second Father Figure as well…it may very well be that he will have his revenge, but it may also be that Father Figure realized there was no way he could ever triumph over the goodness and purity in our heroine’s heart.”

“However, the battle was far from over. Our heroine goes to find her mother, but finds that 

after being subdued to it for a long while, the heroine’s mother gave in, lost all her hopes and dreams. Our heroine tried to bring her mother back, but it was too late. The mother’s mind was poisoned and could not be brought back to reality. To this day, the mother is said to be wandering still with the Second Father Figure, somewhere far away where no one can reach them. Many have faith that she will come back from her catatonic state, but her whereabouts are still unknown.”

“To this day, our heroine’s tale is being told less and less, but many still speak of her triumph and her wisdom. Her story has now become legend and many that still know her, are grateful for her friendship. She has lived her days in relative peace since and to be honest, fairy tales usually have a happy ending, but in my case, I’m not so sure my life is ending. As a matter of fact, I feel like my life is only beginning and that every time a door closes, another one opens.

Our heroine is in fact, me. And while I’ll spare you the grisly details of my beginning, this is a more (or less) accurate account of my tragic past. And what better way to do that that with a fairy tale. After all, aren’t fairy tales just stories told by word of mouth? 

“So this is mine. 

My origin story. 

You’ll want to know it too, 

especially since there never was a story of more woe, 

than of this, 

of Nathalie and her epicness, yo.”

[jeannemalo-blog]

On self awareness, the creative process and  visual essays: Marshall Arisman

Self proclaimed illustrator and storyteller, not only he’s a great example of how far staying true to yourself and to your perspective on art takes you a long way (long enough to be considered one, if not, the pioneer of modern illustration).A teacher and storyteller, the way he speaks about himself is easily relatable on a personal level. 

Born in Jamestown, a small town in upstate New York (known for a thousand psychos and being the place where “nobody dies” according to the BBC) the landscape of his youth gave him a really different perspective on life, that made itself evident as he was trying to find himself as an artist in the 1960’s New York. By the time he was in his early twenties, he tried experimenting with all sorts of techniques, indulging in art movements in vogue at the time (pop art, abstract painting, fluxus). However, this movements, to him, were nothing but becoming what they were supposedly criticizing; “pop art was in essence doing what it pretended to be agains, becoming a commercial market” were his words when describing this period. It the heyday of expressionist and surreal graphic work. Non of this spoke to him due to the circumstances in which he grew up, away from pop culture and into a more traditional and simple way of living. Trying to create something real, close to home, he dig into his life, and started recreating subjects that he’d piled up in his poetic memory (there where without dates or precision you just keep stuff that touched you at some point). He then thought of things like deers, which he had killed, eaten seen but never drew. Cows, which he milked, ate, named but never drew. His mother, his grandmother, a spiritist who was able to see auras. He thought of his relationship with his brother, which he said came from a different planet than him - they had completely opposite personalities. All of this spoke to him truly; it allowed him to speak of something he actually knew, setting the foundation for his work on the next 40 years. 

After working in general motors as a graphic designer and going to the war, he came back and realized  one of the things he needed to explore through art in order to explain or understand (sometimes those two things are kind of the same thing) was violence. This brings us back to his brother. A hunter, gun-loving representation of the american dream, who thought violence was an ordinary thing in every man’s life. He represented a reality so alien; a way of thinking he could never embrace, and yet something so close that this became the subject of his first independent work Frozen Images (1974)

He tried to find a place for this series in quite a bunch of galleries in New York, and he says at least six told him “Man, you better take this thing to Germany, they love this dark shit over there”. Eventually he gave up on trying to fit this into NY pop galleries ‘cause apparently counterculture wasn’t as countercultural after all’, and finally his work was welcomed in print. He landed a job as an illustrator for the Times Magazine where he became the go-to guy for anything related to violence and crime. Influenced by Robert Weaver and André François, he realized that his story telling could be put into illustration (before that, illustration was but “pretty ladies” in feminine magazines) and he developed a thing he called visual essay. It consisted on allowing illustrations to speak for themselves, and to tell stories too, instead of relying on text (in literature this is called poetic images). Though now days this might seem a bit obvious to us, he’s one of the guys that actually made it that way. His style and way of thinking on what to portray relied on the works of Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Goya. That’s kind of like a bomb if you think how unapologetic and reckless they were.

Eventually, as time went by he became bolder and rawer and there’s an anecdote he likes to talk about of the time he was asked to make a cover for an article on death penalty. He came up with a painting (the one above this paragraph) and when he got to the office, the chief editor came out holding it under his arm and says “Kid, we’re not printing this; it’s too violent.” Arisman replied “Well frying a guy in a steel electric chair is pretty violent” and the editor then told him something he found rather profound. He said “We live in a culture where when people look at a picture, they don’t asks who the photographer was. They just take is as a reality. They don’t think of the guy taking the photo standing on the dead body. However, when they look at art, they know it takes time. They don’t think of it as a reality, they say the guy who made this is a psycho”. This kind of stories, not only the ones told on illustrations are what makes his work so rich. The context of the work, to him, is the work itself. 

With time, he sought to engage the context of his art in his work, as it enlarged the meanings of his work, and it revealed his creative process. This will inspired  works like The Last Tribe (2009) an exploration of nuclear annihilation (cheerful) or Ayahuasca series, Quechua people rituals (2012) where he used all the mediums taught himself along the way, putting painting, anecdotes and sound in videos where he speaks about the things around these series related to The Bomb. 

“The stories that surround the artwork are always more interesting to me than the artwork itself. And it’s been a luxury frankly, to be able to spend most of my life making pictures about things I’m interested in. And they generate all kinds of other things. I feel lucky about all that. I’ve had the time to do it. I mean I don’t know what it is I’ve done, but I’ve had the time to do it.”

Seldomly, artists allow themselves to reveal the integrity of their creative process, keeping to themselves the not so great, perfect parts of it. He however doesn’t pretend to come out as other “elegant” artist (elegant understood as hiding the processes and rough patches to make the final result seem effortless). In various interviews he’s been emphatic on how personal development relates to the evolution of his work. One of the things that were blocking him when he started was forcing himself to portray subjects that didn’t speak to him in a genuine way. He gives some advice on how this makes art meaningful for you and others regardless of what’s being done:

“If you’re lucky, and you go back to yourself and you start talking about yourself, you suddenly find out that there’s a connection there between you and other people.

Communication is part of the fun, right? It’s just so good when people respond, and say, “I know exactly what you mean” or “These pictures mean something to me.” That’s the nice communication.

It’s also the nice thing about being into print. All kinds of people are looking at it and I don’t have a clue who they are. It’s part of the fun, I think.”

He talks about his reflections naively, focusing on the human said of it. Though in this particular case he speaks only about the creative process, This anecdote is might ve valid when speaking of affecting other people’s life. Sometimes out of experience, or perhaps because we have the means or good intentions, we tend to interrupt the natural course of personal development for those around us. He makes the point when speaking about how he “killed” his mothers creative process:

“I killed the creative spirit in my own mother. Watching this process was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do. My mother was a folk artist and made sheep out of bread dough that were her masterpieces. In an effort to bring her more income I marketed her abilities to the Smithsonian gift shop. The sheep sold out on the first order and they re-ordered. After designing a logo, tags invoices and opening a bank account for my mother I called her to find out how it was going. “Don’t ever interfere with my life again” my mother said. “I am so sick of making sheep that I could scream.” My mother never made anything again. The issue was never resolved. The morale is: Do not foll around with the creative process”

To analyze the evolution of an experienced artist like him, who’s still active is that we’re not only witness their process, but we can have its opinion on how things have changed. Despite the fact that illustration no longer offers the stability it used to as a job, he’s got a really optimistic perception on what’s happening in freelancing projects. 

“It’s not really a depressing time. But, if you talk to old-time illustrators, they’re all depressed. These are people who were booked up six months in advance. People who never had to pick up a pencil unless the phone rang. People who made more money every year with the same style for 30 years, and it looked like it was going to go on forever.

But it hasn’t. And those people are bitter. And that’s a shame. But that’s not what it’s about anymore. One of the ironies for me is that the very group of people who are trained to tell stories, the illustrators, never told their own stories.

But what’s replacing that is quite exciting. People are doing graphic novels and comic books. People are creating games and whatever. And what’s generating that, is that freelancing editorial work, which was the mainstay of illustration for most illustrators, is not a market that they can rely on totally anymore.

They’re doing some freelance. And, they’re patching it together with everything else, doing Flash animation and all kinds of things.”

Evidently times have changed, and illustration and the ways contemporary artists work nowadays is radically different. Nobody ever predicted how much technology, internet, social networks or the media would get to affect the panorama of, like, absolutely everything. Still, i believe that some things are inherent to the process of creation, no made which medium, which subject or which time. His story, and the way he tells it illustrate obstacles we ourselves experience in totally different context, and most importantly, the way he overcame this obstacles using art to vehicle the changes of life.

If you want to read all the other anecdotes and things he’s done check the sources for this article;

https://www.societyillustrators.org/marshall-arisman

success ideas from master illustrator marshal arisman:

http://thesherwoodgroup.com/interviews/interview-with-marshall-arisman/#.WPuRWlPyjEo

the last tribe (2009) an exploration of nuclear annihilation

https://vimeo.com/5432640

the new york times

wonderful look at the past. beautiful poetic simple image. Brilliant graphic dog. True aesthetic

https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/08/his-night-train-and-his-dog/?_r=0

On his referents:

Rober weaver

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leifpeng/sets/72157603995211043/

bacon

https://fumeedopium.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/if-you-can-talk-about-it-why-paint-it-francis-bacon/

Lucian Freud

Andre françois