#i am nothing without the symmetry tool

[omotelie]

me when i need to draw anything other than a front facing bust

[remmushound]

If you are still taking requests, I would love to see something about the 2012 boys finding out about Donnie's soft shell. Like why he wears a battle shell. Why his brothers are a little more protective of him. Maybe Donnie is a little self conscious about it. Just an idea that I would love to see explored! I really enjoy your writing and just want to see more of it!

“Hey other Donnie?” Mikey asked suddenly through his mouthful of pizza, “Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.” Donatello answered calmly.

“Oh. Then can I ask another question?”

Donatello raised a brow.

“Oh! Dang! Can I…”

Donatello raised both brows, as if daring Mikey to do it again.

“...ask you two questions?” Mikey piped finally.

“You got one left.” Donatello waved with a smile, “Make it count.”

“Why do you wear your outside stuff inside?”

Donatello was silent a moment before waving a hand. “Elaborate, my dear Michael.”

Mikey finished off his crust before answering. “You know. That stuff on your back. The armor—”

“Mikey.” Leo tried to correct, “that’s impolite.”

“It is fine, Nardo—“

“Nardo?”

“— I shall indulge the curiosity so it may flourish into the blossoms of knowledge!”

“What?” Leo tilted his head.

“I’m gonna answer his question so he doesn’t ask again.”

“Ah.”

Donatello stood up, placing his pizza safely in one of his metal claws while holding a hand out to Mikey. Donatello pulled Mikey to his feet and wrapped an arm around him to guide the smaller turtle away into his lab.

“To answer your question, dear Michael, we first must address the Wall of Babies!”

“Wall of what?” Mikey echoed, looking Donatello up and down.

“It’s not nearly as weird as it sounds, trust me.” Donatello ressured, clapping his hands to turn on the lights and reveal the beauty of his wall to the box turtle. “BEHOLD!”

Lined along the wall in perfect symmetry were small storage pods with see-through containers, the lowest row filled with several duplicates of Donatello’s goggles. The top row was filled with extensions and additions to his bo staff— a drill, a shovel, among many other tools— as well as extra arm screens like the one one Donatello usually wore on his right forearm. In the middle were featured five pods, one of them empty and the other four showing off various, similarly-shaped armors all different in their own right. One was soft and cushioned while another was bulky and thick and another looking almost furry. The last one seemed by far the most advanced, the one Mikey usually saw Donatello wearing— the one he was wearing currently was more simplistic, but of equal grandeur.

“WOAH!” Mikey’s eyes shimmered like stars. “You have loads of them!”

“Want to try one on?” Donatello offered.

Mikey gasped and turned to the softshell. “Really? Aren’t you scared I’ll break it..?”

Donatello shrugged. “If you do, I’ll just make a new one.”

“Can I try on that one?!” Mikey pressed his face to the glass as he pointed at the furry one, “It looks soft!”

“Great eyes, Michael. If you’ll please step away from the glass?” Donatello gave a patient bow and motioned Mikey away so he could open the pod by punching in a key code. The case opened with a hiss and Donatello pulled the battle shell gently off of its hooks, turning to Mikey and immediately starting to fit it over the boxturtle’s shell. “Might fit a bit weird, considering anatomical differences, but shouldn’t be too bad.”

He loosened the straps so they could fit on Mikey’s bulky frame and adjusted the armor itself accordingly. Mikey excitedly stroked the outside texture and practically churred with the lovely, furry feeling.

“You like that huh?” Donatello smirked. “Then you’ll like this even more~”

Donatello adjusted some settings by a control panel on the shoulder latch. For a moment nothing happened, but when it did the pleasure hit Mikey immediately as a warmth centered in his carapace and spread quickly through to the rest of his body.

“Ohhh…” The turtle melted, his shoulders drooping in the induced relaxation. “That’s nice…”

Donatello smiled proudly. “I wear that one whenever the temperature gets too low—I’m a summer turtle at heart you know, and I like to keep warm. That, mixed with my normal winter wear, keeps me all toasty while my idiot brothers freeze.”

“Mm… my Donnie would never let me wear any of his things. Or touch any of his things…”

“What’s the point of being smarter than everyone if you can’t sHOW OFF YOUR GENIUS TO THOSE BELOW YOU IN EVERY REGARD!” Donatello’s voice went deep and menacing like a supervillain, leading into a devilish and dramatic laugh. He cleared his throat and recovered smoothly while Mikey was still in shock. “You can admire my genius any time, but uh. Don’t touch anything unless you ask me first. Some of the stuff in my lab is highly dangerous. And flammable.”

“Really?”

“But of course! Remember: curiosity killed the cat, but Donatello brought him back because he can do anything he puts his mind to.”

“I… don’t know how that applies, but… okay!”

“Now, onto your question Michael!”

Donatello turned so his back was away from Mikey as he unlatched his battle shell with skill acquired from doing it every day for the past several years. He carefully replaced it in the proper pod without turning around so he wouldn’t ruin the reveal, typing in another passcode to seal it.

“Riddle me this, Hamato Michalangelo Di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni! What species… am I?” He motioned to himself.

“Uh. Turtle?”

“Don’t sell yourself short— give me details!”

“Um… softshell?”

“Apalone Spinifera, to be precise!” Donatello replied, “Good answer, though. Mostly a water dwelling creature, we are flexible, fast, and highly endangered due to overhunting. The main weakness of a spiny softshell is…?” Donatello encouraged Mikey to speak with a wave of his hand. “Come onnnn~ it’s in the name~”

“Your… soft shell?”

“Correct!” Donatello swiveled to reveal his vulnerability to the other mutant. Donatello’s shell was almost completely flat, similar to a human’s back if not for the width, and the only protruding parts were several, rubbery spines going down along the middle of his carapace. The shell was several shades darker than the rest of Donatello and speckled with light tan freckles. Mikey raised a hesitant hand forward to touch it, both he and Donatello flinching at the first contact before both settled into the other’s touch.

“Duuuuude. I feel like I’m petting like, a dolphin or something!”

“Well, I tend to lotion.” Donatello joked to help with his own anxiety at the touch.

Mikey started to trace his fingers along some scarring that criss-crossed the carapace, but Donatello winced once more and spun around quickly to grab Mikey by the wrist.

“DON’T DO THAT!”

Mikey recoiled and naturally flinched away waiting for a hit, but he opened his eyes with a slight confusion when Donatello let go of him and took a few deep breaths instead.

“Sorry— ah.” Donatello rubbed his hand along his back as if the gentle touch of Mikey had brought him pain, “Just sensitive there.”

He quickly took the cushioned battle shell from its pod and put it on himself, and once it was on securely he seemed to regain much of his confidence.

“Now then!” He walked forward and spun Mikey around, grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him deeper into the lab, “Allow me to brag about even more of my brillance!”

[thecrackedbead]

Presenting 'A Reflection on Asymmetry'

A new product at my store.

So I had a few beads lying around in my place...

...Here my mum would raise an eyebrow and say, "A few?" in a tone that mothers everywhere use when discussing a dirty bedroom or convey that a person that has enough piercings to be mistaken for a cyborg is perhaps not the best one to date....

So, okay, okay, I have TONS of beads lying around my place but I had about two handfuls of green jasper beads which isn't a massive amount where larger beads are concerned. I had accidentally acquired them along with the rest of my Bead Horde of Doom™ when purchasing them a bunch of second-hand jeweler's tools and the seller had insisted I take two boxes work of beads as well. A fair number of those beads and a few tools I have resold to the point that I have made much more than than I bought them for and I was all for selling the jasper as well. I like a degree of consistency and symmetry in my work and the jasper beads were anything but. Except...

...Green is my favourite colour. To me it is the colour of life. (Red is too but when red is splashing around, something tends to be horribly wrong.) It makes memories of hiking under the gorgeous cedars of Western Canada rise to the surface and I am soothed.

---

Alas, I did not take this photo. The image is from istock.

---

In addition, part of the reason I picked the Cracked Bead as my handle and my shop name is because I am trying to accept my imperfections along with the fact I deal with mental illness. If you can't fully get rid of your mental illness, you might as well embrace it. Thus what to do with a bunch of oddly shaped beads? I couldn't see myself making them into earrings and bracelets just didn't interest me for them so how about a necklace instead?

With a swish of my magic beading needle, my jasper, pewter and glass beads swirled around in a extremely magic cyclone of magicky stuff and assembled into the brilliant and beautiful necklace shown above.

---

From @memegenerator

---

Why are you looking at me like that? I don't care what the image says. I didn't most absolute, definitely did not, never EVER scrawl on it!

---

QFrom @loisalexa.

---

Seriously. Magic exists!!!! That's what made thee necklace. It's obvious.

---

From memegenerator.

---

...Alright. I screwed up a lot first. I am not very experienced making necklaces and had countless screw-ups before I produced the above. The reality is that they sat with the rest of the Horde of Doom™ for months with as much clue what to do with them as the Wile E. Coyote has the ability to catch the Roadrunner, while my sensible stuff bugged me to either use them or sell them.

Eventually I was organizing the Aforementioned Horde™ and found myself looking at them. I starting sorting them into vaguely similar piles based on how rough or smooth them were then into size. I stared at them a bit, went back to cleaning up (I informed my mother of this later, but she was extremely a touch skeptical.), then returned and played around with rearranging them. It occured to me as I did so that I could give a feel of symmetry without the beads actually being symmetrical by having beads that where roughly the same size, colour and texture mirroring each other.

---

Have a weird shaped bead that nothing else looks like? Don't toss or hide it. Embrace it instead and put it in the front as seen in the prototypical arrangement displayed on my messy bed exquisite, clean and organized 'work table'.

---

It didn't go well. I blame my magic beading needle crapping out on me...or the fact that I have little to no experience making necklaces. I broke a few of my first attempts by my doing the 'horrible and inconsiderate and strenuous' thing of putting them on and made a few more that resembled a four-year-old's macaroni art. At least my new flush cutters got a good work out during those days. Plus, if I am more painfully cheerful, "failure is a sign of a life well-lived. " (Brandon Sanderson) You can't learn to walk if you aren't willing to fall-down a few times.

Remnants of attempts 1-4. Mistakes were made, but that's okay. Really and truly and without sarcasm.

---

Finally, I came up with the final one and I truly and sincerely love it. So much that I had to remind myself fervently that I cannot make a decent online business if I keep all my products. As things stand, I am looking for more of these funky, weird beads so I can do more with them.

---

The necklace 'A Reflection on Asymmetry is for sale at my Etsy store.

[thedreamingscorpio]

Undulations

Chapter 2

Well I think it goes without saying but in case I wasn’t clear earlier:

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended. 

Thank You, please lemme know your thoughts on my work!

Love Always!

Time had gone by in a whirlwind, with Goten finding some warm clothes for his company, making some tea and gathering the necessary tools and supplies. While the whole time the young woman had only exchanged common courtesies whenever Goten would bring her something, which they were done with in the first ten minutes of her arrival.

Despite the ruckus that he had created, the house was quiet, almost too quiet. 

Case in a nut shell, the last twenty minutes saw the three occupants of the house to, in Goten’s case grow increasingly curious and observant, the woman’s gaze to get lost in the depths of infinity, and for well, Cepheus to become more irritable with each passing minute.

Goten had finally found his cauterizer. It was kept in his store room since he hadn’t had to use it in quite sometime now, it was the one he used previously, and since getting a new one he kept it at home in case of an emergency. He didn’t think that he’ll be requiring it today, given the bored and irritated expression that marked his patient’s face. But that was the thing, the dog although one of his most frequent patients, still managed to throw him for a loop with his seemingly impenetrable expression, the same ‘the hell do you care ’ expression adorned his face, be it an ingrown nail or a gaping wound. 

It seemed as though if given the chance to converse akin to a human being, he’d list all the complaints in the world and manage to find a fault with even the most perfect of things.

Well in reality Goten himself never really believed in the concept that the word 'perfect' embodied, in his opinion nothing was completely flawless, it was just the mere coincidence, that if what one sought was what the other provided, the two pieces seemed to fit together, therefore creating the illusion of what people called 'perfect’. And of course,  he was familiar with the universal use of 'perfect’ and came to the conclusion, that there are certain things people perceive as desirable universally, like symmetry for one, and that’s okay, but to then announce that the person or the object is utterly flawless was a bit absurd in his opinion.

But then again, was it his need to rationalize everything, or his general dislike for the word, he didn’t know, perhaps he’d heard it too many times in his lifetime as a constant reminder to know exactly what he wasn’t, eh no point dwelling over things that bring a sour taste to your mouth…

Though that still lead him to think, that if people’s version of 'perfection’ was so hard to come by, almost everyone did settle for something less, like 'good’ or even 'great’ at times. 'Cause unlike 'perfection' , Goten knew for a fact that those things existed and that they weren’t half bad, in fact, despite the irony of his thought-process, those 'good’ or 'great’ may even be somebody’s version of 'perfect’!

So, why the hell did Cepheus, have that rotten expression on his face, no matter what hour of the day it might be! He really failed to understand how an baby animal could prove to be much more difficult to deal with than an adult human being. Weren’t animals supposed to be nicer?

 Every time he happened to meet him, it appeared as though he were mocking, challenging him to do something, anything to change the opinion his little underdeveloped mind had conjured up of him. Oh and how Goten hated it!

Moreover what really worried him was the state of the young woman currently sitting on his couch. Empty tea cup held in hands, as if it were a life-saver, determinedly staring straight ahead unblinking, it was a miracle how the wall didn’t have a hole burned through it. It was her reaction that had told Goten to be prepared for anything and everything, and he was glad to have found his cauterizer.

Now with all the necessary tasks out of the way, he went to the kitchen to fetch his cup of tea…only to realize it had gone cold. 

“Ah shit!" 

Now Goten wasn’t a person for whom cursing was a regular occurrence, also given the fact that he was in the presence of one of his patients, it was highly unprofessional of him. So, instinctively as soon as he realized he had cursed out loud, he immediately regretted it and his eyes darted towards the couch. But noticing that the house was still eerily quiet, and that his slip-up had gone unnoticed, his more pressing concern was to talk to the woman as soon as possible.

That’s how he found himself  in the kitchen reheating his long forgotten chamomile tea, while silently mulling over how strange the whole incident was! The woman’s features weren’t lost on him, the way her green eyes looked at him, flipped his stomach.

She reminded him of someone, someone he could never forget, the girl from his early days with his reputation as a womanizer, the only girl he had been silly and pretend-serious with, the only girl he could be anyone with, yet she still wouldn’t forget his name, the girl who had made him realize that although fun, that wasn’t the life he wanted, the girl who had seen him transition from a technical adult to behaving like an actual adult, the girl who’s heart he had broken, by telling her it wasn’t her, it was him…Valese.

Valese had brown eyes, with a tinge of green, not quite hazel, no, but not quite brown either, her chestnut hair cinched at her waist, making her seem incredibly gorgeous, her pale skin contrasting against her dark features, her plum lips always chewing a strawberry flavored gum, and the way she spoke his name, blinking her large eyes at him, always managed to melt him.

So, then why did he leave her you ask? 

Well, the answer was simple really, or complete bullshit depending on who you are, she was too easy. From the moment he’d met her she was googly-eyed, and was willing to put up with his every whim, without batting an eyelash. She acted as though star-struck, which although boosted his ego, did not make him feel good in the long run.

People, be it family, friends, passersby or even young kids seemed to adore them, and on one occasion Trunks told them that they were even compatible when it came to  their level of intellect, Valese had just laughed it off, yeah she was like that, but Goten seemed to take it a bit more seriously. Of course, it was to be taken light-heartedly, but it did make him question, was he her king and they the world’s laughing stock?

He knew that she was a bit ditzy he did, but that never bothered him, she was beside him in almost all he did, gave him the confidence to pursue his career as a vet, and was beside him through all his embarrassing phases while he figured himself out. The best thing about her she was always smiling, rain, shine or thunder, she kept her smile on and the only time he had ever seen her cry was when he ended his relationship with her, he had never seen her look so...broken, but he supposed it was for the best given that he was subjecting himself to an insane amount of study, and to be honest, he was afraid.

Afraid, that he may take her shine away, as ridiculous as it may sound to anyone else, he knows he was right in his decision.

So, when the brunette had shown up at his doorstep in the wee hours of the morning, with the most troublesome patient he had ever come across, he was feeling a lot of feelings, but above all he was confused. Why was this happening? Was it all a coincidence? And if not, why so many years later?

Now that his tea was hot enough to be consumed, he made his way towards the living room where the as of now unknown woman and Cepheus, sat looking just like they were, about twenty minutes earlier

He grabbed himself a chair from the dining table, not wanting to get comfortable on the couch just yet, and knowing Cepheus, ready to entertain him at a moments notice.

The scraping of the chair’s legs against the floor wood seemed to snap her out of her reverie, and she gave him the same frightened look as earlier in the morning.

She quickly got off the couch, and started exclaiming animatedly.

"Dr. Son, my apologies, I know this isn’t by any means the right time to have disturbed you, hell I did not even give you a call, or notify you of my arrival, but the thing is that it was an emergency…”

Noticing how she was panting and red-faced again, he decided to cut her off..

“Please, call me Goten. I’m off-duty and these aren’t my working hours..”

At this, the woman gave him an abashed look and hung her head low.

Noticing this he quickly amended..

“…not that I mind in the least, after all I am a doctor and if I’m not available to my patients when they need me, what good am I?”

At this, the woman, lifted her head so fast he was afraid she had snapped something vital, and gave him a disbelieving look, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears .

He held a calm composure and gave her a reassuring smile. Noticing this her features softened and a small smile tugged at her lips.

“Please take a seat, calm yourself and talk to me so that I’m capable of helping you.”

Slightly nodding her head, apparently still shaken, she sat down waking Cepheus, who was seemingly comfortable nestled into her arms resulting in him growling slightly.

Taking a deep breath, she attempted to compose herself and looked up with twinkling eyes.

“Let me start by introducing myself, I’m Odette…”

[ventriloquistrose]

Jewelry looks best with gems.

A human au

(The scene was pictured through a camera.)

"Yo yo yo! Hey you guys! Today is the day!" Amethyst shouted into the camera, holding it herself in her hands. "Yeah you heard it! Because today's the day we're gonna get pierced!!!"

Amethyst was sitting in the backseat, filming the two women up front.

Pearl was a very pale woman, her skin almost close to white. Her hair was Peach-dyed and really short, only barely touching her ears and with a small pointy part at the back. Up front she had bangs which were split in half and almost looked as if they were trying to avoid eachother.

She had a tall, slim build with a big, pointy nose and big, blue eyes.

Her outfit was causal, a short-sleeved turquoise blouse tucked inside a pair of blue jeans.

She was driving the car, a grey dundai.

Next to her was Garnet. She was way taller than the other two, and compared to Pearl, was at least 50 shades darker than her in skintone. She had an hour-glass build with a set of wide hips hidden in a pair of tight sweatpants, a thin waist clothed in a purple tank-top and a pair of thick, black glasses hiding her eyes. And on top of her head was a massive, square shaped, black afro.

"Amethyst! Turn that off! I don't have my face on!" Pearl immediately scolded, blushing heavily but tried to hide it with one hand waving about.

"Oh come on P! Admit you're excited!" Amethyst laughed, holding the camera a bit closer.

Pearl sighed in frustration. "Alright, fine! But I still don't get what the joy is about sticking holes in your body only to hang some piece of jewelry!" She said.

"Come on, P. I know you want it!" Amethyst teased. "You've wanted it ever since Rose got her bellybutton pierced."

"Hers could easily be hidded with clothes." Pearl argued, looking back at her through the mirror. "Garnet, why aren't you helping me here?" She looked almost frustrated at the woman beside her.

"I think it's cool." Garnet simply replied. "It really reflects your personality on some people."

"So why don't you get one?" Amethyst asked, standing up and leaning forward onto the seat.

"Don't have any place to put it." She plainly answered. "You on the other hand, can barely choose."

"You're just mad cause' you can't pierce your hands like you wanted." Amethyst teased.

"My hands are not important." Garnet warned, and Amethyst silenced. "Besides. I'm the only one with a tattoo." She continued.

Amethyst nodded. True. True.

"It better go fast. Steven promised to make us dinner." Garnet reminded them.

"Hey! Hey guys!!" Amethyst laughed. "How do you think Steven would react if I pierced my-."

Just in time, someone drove past them in a hurry and Pearl lost control of the car.

Soon, Pearl had found control over the car and clenched the wheel. Garnet held the handle above the door and Amethyst practically laid on the floor.

"I'm gonna pretend that you were going to say 'nose'." Pearl said strictly, frowning.

Garnet turned around in her seat, looking at Amethyst on the floor. "That's why we use seatbelts."

Amethyst grunted in annoyance. "I hate you."

"Love you too." Garnet smiled.

-

About an hour later they were inside the piercing studio with a few other people inside.

And for now they were just strolling around shelves, looking at all the different jewelry incubated in glass-boxes.

But as Pearl looked through all the different, more extreme jewelry such as plugs or huge extensions, she got more and more off put.

"I think I've seen enough." She alarmed and looked away.

"Come on, P! You promised you'd do one too!" Amethyst told her, loudly slurping a soda with a straw.

Pearl rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Fine! I can do.... I don't know, my ears, maybe?" She said.

"Ugh, you're so lame!" Amethyst blurted out in annoyance.

"Excuse me, do you need any help?" A young co-worker with piercings and brown hair suddenly walked up behind them.

"Yes. We had an appointment. Pearl and Amethyst." Pearl told her politely.

"Great! We'll have you in just a moment." The woman told her and walked back behind the counter.

And again, they started wandering about between the half a dussin of people inside the store.

"This one is quite pretty, don't you think?" Pearl sung as she pointed a finger at the diamond- adorned septum jewelry.

Amethyst joined her side to see. But as she had bored herself, she returned to her own searching.

"I don't think piercing your nose is anything for you, P. You know?" Amethyst told her honestly.

"Why's that?" Pearl asked simply as she looked at the jewelry in peace.

"You know. Because of your nose, you know?" Amethyst started getting nervous.

This made Pearl react. She turned around and frowned at her. "What's wrong with my nose?" She crossed her arms.

Immediately Amethyst realised her mistake and started studdering excuses for her words and had really started to sweat.

"You have a distinctive nose, Pearl." Garnet suddenly cut in, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. But before Pearl talked back, she showed her a piece of thick paper. "These would suit you."

"Oh." Pearl hummed in curiosity as she grabbed it. On the thick paper; the jewelry holder, hung a pair of earrings in gold. One was just a simple pearl-ish stud, while the one next to it was similar, but had a star hanging from it.

"Well, they ar quite lovely." She admitted as she leaned against Garnet.

"Yeah! You should get those!" Amethyst blurted, somehow had sneaked to her side without any of them noticing.

But Pearl frowned with discomfort. "I am not quite comfortable with the symmetry of these, though." She muttured, looking at the difference between the simple stud and star adorned stud.

"We're in a relationship of three." Amethyst said, crossing her arms. "How much symmetry do you have in your life, you think?"

"And what, if I may ask, are you planning on getting?" Pearl asked dandy, crossing her arms again and frowning.

"The place I use the most!" She then stuck her tongue out and pointed her fingers at it. "This guy!"

"I believe your heart is the most used spot. Or perhaps your skin." Pearl corrected.

"Come on, P! You guys have already pierced my heart, at least let me do the second best!" Amethyst grinned, resting her hands on her chest.

For a split second Pearl smiled at the romantic words before quickly frowning again.

"Pearl and Amethyst?" A voice called behind them. And there was a pink haired, tall woman with a lip-piercing standing by the door deeper inside the store.

-

(Twenty minutes later)

Pearl was sitting on the chair, nervously playing with her hands.

Garnet stood at her right side, leaning against the backrest.

Amethyst was busy admiring her new tongue piercing in the mirror on the wall, sticking her tongue out.

"P, there's nothing to be scared of! They're just sticking a needle through your flesh! You'll just look like that horror movie dude who has lots of needles in his face!" She laughed, tongue still out of her mouth.

"Amethyst!" Pearl scolded at her and Amethyst just started laughing.

"It will be fine." Garnet's calm voice and smile made her smile.

"So. Are we ready?" The woman with pink hair asked, putting on a pair of plastic gloves.

Pearl nodded and leaned back as the woman grabbed her tools.

Garnet and Amethyst held her hands.

"Okay, Pearl. Take a deep breath." She told her.

Pearl took a deep breath and clenched her eyes shut.

"Relax, P." Amethyst laughed.

"Okay. One, two three." The piercer counted and pulled the needle through her ear.

Pearl made a startled whimper for half a second and tensed into a stick.

"Okay. One to go." The piercer announced and switched side.

"One, two, three." Five minutes later, Pearl was done with her ears and watched herself in a mirror.

"You look good, P." Amethyst told her. Garnet nodded in agreement.

"You were right, they are very pretty." She turned to her right side with the star. "Garnet." And then to the stud. "Amethyst."

"Hey! Why do I get to be the little one?!" Amethyst blurted.

"Because you are my little stud." Pearl sang.

"And Garnet gets to be the star? Fair, P. Fair." Amethyst complained.

"Rather a stud in your ear than a kick in your rear." Garnet cut in and everyone burst out laughing.

"Are you ready for the third one, ms?" The pink-haired woman asked, changing gloves.

The two women looked at her in confusion.

"Third one?" Amethyst asked.

Pearl smiled shyly. "Rose's was personal to her. I think I should give it a try as well."

Garnet and Amethyst smiled proudly at her.

"You know what?" Amethyst asked, crossing her arms. She turned her head towards the piercer. "Yo! Lady! Got time for one more?"

-

About an hour later after walking back to the car and started driving, they were once again on the road, nighttime starting to sneak in.

"Happy with your day, Amethyst?" Pearl asked her, looking at her through the mirror.

"Yep! And my girls are looking hot!" Amethyst stuck her tongue out again, showing her tongue-piercing while at the same time pointing at the purple, small one in the middle of her chest.

"How about you, Garnet?" Pearl asked the woman beside her.

"Never better." Garnet smiled, taking off her glasses to wipe them off with the bottom of her shirt, revealing her blue and brown heterochromia eyes and her old, third eye tattoo in the middle of her forehead.

She then grabbed Pearl's hand and lifted it up so she could kiss it. Pearl giggled and did the same thing with hers.

"Hey! Where's my sugar?!" Amethyst shouted, leaning forward.

Garnet just chuckled and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

And Amethyst fell back in the seat, pretending to faint.

"You look great, P." She said before drifting off into sleep.

Pearl smiled back at her. And then she saw Garnet nodding in agreement at her. And then she smiled at herself in the mirror. Admiring the small, pearl-looking dermal in the middle of her forehead, between her bangs.

The End

[ha-yen-nhien]

DANH NGÔN CỦA WINSTON CHURCHILL

— Thành công không phải là cuối cùng, thất bại không phải là chết người: lòng can đảm đi tiếp mới quan trọng.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

— Người lạc quan luôn nhìn thấy cơ hội trong mọi hiểm nguy, còn kẻ bi quan luôn nhìn thấy hiểm nguy trong mọi cơ hội.

The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity.

— Sự gọn gàng là một đức hạnh, sự cân đối thường là một yếu tố của cái đẹp.

Tidiness is a virtue, symmetry is often a constituent of beauty.

— Thành công bao gồm việc đi từ thất bại này đến thất bại khác mà không đánh mất lòng nhiệt huyết.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

— Những người dân khỏe mạnh là tài sản lớn nhất của bất cứ quốc gia nào.

Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.

— Người suy nghĩ tích cực thấy được thứ vô hình, cảm nhận được thứ không thể sờ nắm, và đạt được điều bất khả thi.

The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.

— Ta sống bằng thứ ta thu được, nhưng ta tạo ra cuộc đời bằng thứ ta cho đi.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

— Đây không phải là thời gian để thanh nhàn và thoải mái. Đây là thời gian để dấn thân và chịu đựng.

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.

— Sống có nghĩa lý gì, nếu không phải để đấu tranh vì những lý do cao thượng, và khiến thế giới rối ren này trở thành một nơi tốt đẹp hơn cho những người sẽ sống trong đó sau khi chúng ta ra đi?

What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?

— Mọi điều lớn lao đều đơn giản, và nhiều điều có thể được thể hiện chỉ bằng một danh từ: tự do, công lý, danh dự, bổn phận, khoan dung, hy vọng.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

— Để thực sự hạnh phúc và an toàn, người ta phải có ít nhất hai hoặc ba sở thích, và tất cả chúng đều phải chân thực.

To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real.

— Bạn có kẻ thù ư? Tốt. Điều đó có nghĩa là bạn đã đứng lên vì thứ gì đó, vào lúc nào đó trong đời.

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.

— Bạn sẽ không bao giờ đạt đến đích, nếu bạn cứ dừng lại và ném đá vào mỗi con chó bên đường, chỉ vì tiếng sủa của chúng

You will never get to the end of the journey if you stop to shy a stone at every dog that barks.

— Đừng đầu hàng, đừng đầu hàng, đừng bao giờ, đừng bao giờ - trong bất cứ việc gì, quan trọng hay nhỏ bé, lớn lao hay tủn mủn - đừng đầu hàng trừ khi vì bị thuyết phục bởi lẽ phải và danh dự.

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.

— Nỗ lực không ngừng - chứ không phải sức mạnh hay trí tuệ - là chìa khóa để mở ra tiềm năng.

Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.

— Người ta phải chính trực trước khi hào phóng.

One ought to be just before one is generous.

Nếu ta bắt đầu cuộc tranh cãi giữa quá khứ và hiện tại, ta sẽ phát hiện mình đã đánh mất tương lai.

If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

— Tất cả lịch sử thế giới được tóm gọn trong sự thực rằng khi quốc gia hùng mạnh, họ không phải lúc nào cũng công chính, và khi muốn công chính, họ thường không còn hùng mạnh.

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that when nations are strong they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are often no longer strong.

— Bài học lớn nhất trong đời là biết rằng thậm chí ngay cả kẻ ngu xuẩn đôi khi cũng đúng.

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.

— Tôi luôn luôn sẵn sàng học hỏi, dù không phải lúc nào tôi cũng thích bị dạy dỗ.

Personally, I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

— Khẩu v�� của tôi đơn giản lắm: tôi dễ dàng thỏa mãn với thứ tốt nhất.

My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best.

— Lời nói dối đi nửa vòng trái đất trước khi sự thật kịp mặc quần.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

— Bạn sẽ phạm phải đủ loại sai lầm; nhưng chừng nào bạn còn rộng lượng và chân thực, và dữ dội, bạn không thể làm thế giới tổn thương, thậm chí dù là làm nó phiền não.

You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.

— Làm chủ được khó khăn là chiến thắng được cơ hội.

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

— Không có truyền thống, nghệ thuật là bầy cừu không có người chăn. Không có đổi mới, đó là con cừu chết.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

— Chúng tôi có nhiều nỗi lo lắng, và nỗi này dập tắt nỗi kia.

We have a lot of anxieties, and one cancels out another.

— Cái giá của sự vĩ đại là trách nhiệm.

The price of greatness is responsibility.

— Về tôi, tôi là người lạc quan - là bất cứ cái gì khác đều không có vẻ hữu ích mấy.

For myself I am an optimist — it does not seem to be much use being anything else.

— Không gì khiến một người trở nên xác đáng hơn là thư viện.

Nothing makes a man more reverent than a library.

— Nếu ta thắng, sẽ không ai quan tâm. Nếu ta thua, sẽ chẳng còn ai quan tâm.

If we win, nobody will care. If we lose, there will be nobody to care.

— Hãy cho chúng tôi công cụ, và chúng tôi sẽ làm xong việc.

Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.

— Nếu bạn đang đi qua địa ngục, hãy bước tiếp đi.

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

— Tiến bộ là thay đổi, vậy nên để hoàn hảo nghĩa là phải thay đổi thường xuyên.

To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.

— Diều bay cao nhờ chống lại gió, chứ không phải với gió.

Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.

— Hãy học lịch sử, hãy học lịch sử. Trong lịch sử có tất cả những bí mật của tài trị quốc.

Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.

— Lòng can đảm là thứ cần để đứng dậy và lên tiếng. Lòng can đảm cũng là thứ cần để ngồi xuống và lắng nghe.

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

— Làm hết sức là chưa đủ; đôi khi chúng ta phải làm điều gì cần thiết.

It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.

— Tài giao thiệp là khả năng bảo người khác xuống địa ngục theo cách mà họ trông chờ được lên đường.

Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.

— Từ sự phức tạp tột cùng, sự đơn giản tột cùng xuất hiện.

Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge.

— Tôi chắc chắn một điều này, rằng bạn chỉ phải chịu đựng để chinh phục. Bạn chỉ phải bền bỉ để cứu bản thân, và cứu tất cả những ai dựa vào mình. Bạn chỉ phải tiếp tục đi, và ở cuối đường, dù đường dài hay ngắn, chiến thắng và vinh dự đang chờ bạn.

Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer. You have only to persevere to save yourselves, and to save all those who rely upon you. You have only to go right on, and at the end of the road, be it short or long, victory and honor will be found.

— Thời gian và tiền bạc là những khái niệm có thể thay đổi cho nhau.

Time and money are largely interchangeable terms.

— Chúng ta phải cẩn thận với sự đổi mới không cần thiết, đặc biệt khi có logic dẫn đường.

We must beware of needless innovation, especially when guided by logic.

— Người ta luôn đo tình bạn bằng việc nó xuất hiện trong thời tiết xấu như thế nào.

One always measures friendships by how they show up in bad weather.

— Trách nhiệm là cái giá của sự vĩ đại.

Resposibility is the price of greatness.

— Trong chiến tranh, bạn chỉ có thể bị giết một lần, nhưng trong chính trị, rất nhiều lần.

In war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.

— Hãy nuôi dưỡng hy vọng, nhưng đừng bỏ qua hiện thực.

Nourish your hopes, but do not overlook realities.

— Tạo ra tin tức thì tốt hơn là đón nhận nó; làm người hành động thì tốt hơn là làm người phê bình.

It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic.

— Bạn chẳng bao giờ có thể đoán được liệu vận rủi có cuối cùng lại hóa ra là vận may hay không.

You never can tell whether bad luck may not after all turn out to be good luck.

— Hướng dẫn đúng của cuộc sống là làm điều đúng đắn.

The true guide of life is to do what is right.

— Chúng ta định hình những tòa nhà; sau đó chúng định hình chúng ta.

We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.

— Báo thù là sự xa xỉ đắt giá và dễ hao mòn nhất.

Vengeance is the most costly and dissipating of luxuries.

— Khi đại bàng im lặng, vẹt bắt đầu liếng thoắng.

When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.

— Những vấn đề của chiến thắng dễ tiếp nhận hơn những vấn đê của bị đánh bại, nhưng chúng không hề ít khó khăn hơn.

The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

— Thật sai lầm khi cố gắng nhìn trước quá xa. Ta chỉ có thể nắm chuỗi vận mệnh bằng một mắt xích ở một thời điểm.

It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.

— Đừng bao giờ nhượng bộ. Đừng bao giờ nhượng bộ. Đừng bao giờ, đừng bao giờ nhượng bộ - trong bất cứ chuyện gì, dù vĩ đại hay nhỏ bé, lớn lao hay tầm thường - đừng bao giờ nhượng bộ, trừ khi bị thuyết phục bởi đức hạnh và lẽ phải. Đừng bao giờ thỏa hiệp trước thế lực. Đừng bao giờ khuất phục trước sức mạnh tưởng chừng áp đảo của kẻ địch.

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

— Thói xấu cố hữu của chủ nghĩa tư bản là sự phân chia không đều điều sung sướng; thói xấu cố hữu của chủ nghĩa xã hội là sự phân chia đều nỗi bất hạnh.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

— Nhiều khi người mạnh mẽ ít lời chỉ im lặng vì anh ta không biết phải nói gì, và được coi là mạnh mẽ bởi vì anh ta im lặng.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

— Lòng can đảm được đánh giá đúng là phẩm chất đầu tiên của con người, bởi nó là phẩm chất cho phép thành lập tất cả phẩm chất khác.

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others.

— Mỗi ngày bạn đều có thể tiến bộ. Mỗi bước đều có thể có thu hoạch. Nhưng phía trước bạn là con đường mãi kéo dài, mãi dốc lên, mãi mở mang. Bạn biết bạn sẽ không bao giờ đi đến cuối đường. Nhưng điều này không khiến nản lòng, mà chỉ bổ sung thêm vào niềm vui và vinh quang của cuộc hành trình.

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and the glory of the climb.

— Người chính khách khuất phục trước cơn sốt chiến tranh phải nhận ra rằng một khi tín hiệu truyền đi, anh ta không còn là người làm chủ chính sách mà là nô lệ của những sự kiện không thể đoán trước và không thể khống chế.

The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

— Không phải việc gì cũng đúng đắn bởi vì chúng khó khăn, nhưng nếu chúng đúng đắn, người ta không được buồn bực bởi vì chúng cũng khó.

Things are not always right because they are hard, but if they are right one must not mind if they are also hard.

— Thành tựu rực rỡ nhất của tôi là khả năng thuyết phục vợ tôi gả cho tôi.

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

— Chúng ta không có quyền năng đoán trước được vận mệnh của mình.

It is not in our power to anticipate our destiny.

— Tôi không bao giờ 'lo lắng' về hành động, chỉ lo về sự thiếu hành động mà thôi.

I never ‘worry’ about action, but only about inaction.

— Có thể tạo ra cái ác nhanh hơn nhiều chữa trị chúng.

Evils can be created much quicker than they can be cured.

— Nếu ta phá hủy thị trường tự do, ta sẽ tạo ra chợ đen.

If you destroy a free market you create a black market.

— Thái độ là một thứ nhỏ bé tạo ra sự khác biệt lớn.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

— Tôi thích các chuyện xảy ra, và nếu chúng không xảy ra, tôi thích khiến chúng xảy ra.

I like things to happen, and if they don’t happen I like to make them happen.

— Con người đôi khi vấp phải sự thật, nhưng hầu hết con người chống mình dậy và vội đi mất như thể chưa có chuyện gì xảy ra.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.

— Nói "Tôi đang nỗ lực hết sức." chẳng có ý nghĩa gì. Bạn phải thành công làm điều đúng đắn.

It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.

— Vinh dự nên đi ở nơi mà cái chết và nguy hiểm đi.

Honours should go where death and danger go.

— Có những lúc luật lệ hà khắc còn tốt hơn là không có luật lệ.

Harsh laws are at times better than no laws at all.

© TuDienDanhNgon.vn

[grigori77]

Soundtrack of my life ...

the ten bands and recording artists that have most influenced me, my life and everything about me ...

(as usual, in no particular order)

TOOL

fave tracks:  Forty Six & Two, Ænema, Stinkfist, Schism, The Grudge, Lateralus, Reflection, The Pot, Right In Two, Vicarious, Jambi, Rosetta Stoned

fave album:  Lateralus

exquisite complexity in musical form, truly epic soundscapes and a pulsing, building intensity of sound.  NOBODY does opening tracks better than these guys.

NINE INCH NAILS

fave tracks:  Wish, Closer, Happiness in Slavery, the Perfect Drug, Gave Up, Head Like a Hole, Survivalism, Less Than, The Hand That Feeds, Just Like You Imagined, The Hand That Feeds

fave album:  Broken (technically an EP, but still ...)

Trent Reznor is a genius.  Discordant soundscapes and tortured vocals, an almost painful industrialized percussive pulse and moments of sudden, unexpected beauty.  There’s a reason his music gets used SO MUCH in trailers ...

QUEEN

fave tracks:  (too many to name, but most of all ...) Brighton Rock, One Vision, Who Wants to Live Forever?, Innuendo, Seven Seas of Rhye, Is This the World We Created?, Under Pressure, Radio Ga Ga and, of course, Bohemian Rhapsody

fave album:  A Night at the Opera (and also Sheer Heart Attack)

Quite simply they were the best band in the world. EVER.

MUSE

fave tracks:  Sing for Absolution, Map of the Problematique, Plug In Baby, Citizen Erased, Dead Inside, Time Is Running Out, Knights of Cydonia, Hysteria, Butterflies & Hurricanes, Reapers, Sunburn, Uno, Thought Contagion, Get Up & Fight

fave album:  Black Holes & Revelations

An ever evolving epic sound, compellingly powered by Matt Bellamy’s devastating voice and ridiculous talents with guitar and piano.

TORI AMOS

fave tracks:  Cornflake Girl, Space Dog, Pretty Good Year, Caught a Lite Sneeze, Father Lucifer, Talula, Spark, Northern Lad, Cruel, Carbon, Scarlet’s Walk, Bouncing Off Clouds, Roosterspur Bridge, Programmable Soda, Beauty of Speed

fave album:  Under the Pink

my first real musical crush, with an amazing voice which is by turns seductively breathy and thoroughly soul-piercing, whose piano skills are without compare.

FLORENCE + THE MACHINE

fave tracks:  Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up), Cosmic Love, Between Two Lungs, Bird Song, Seven Devils, No Light, No Light, Never Let Me Go, Spectrum, Breath of Life, Queen of Peace, Ship to Wreck, Third Eye, St. Jude, Conductor, The End of Love, Grace, Sky Full of Song, No Choir, Wish That You Were Here

fave album:  Ceremonials

for me, Tori’s natural successor, with one of the greatest voices I have EVER heard.  Haunting vocals and an exquisitely symphonic sound of incredible richness.  Florence Welch is a goddess.

THE CURE

fave tracks:  From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, Inbetween Days, Just Like Heaven, Lullaby, Pictures of You, Disintegration, Cut Here, Dredd Song, Burn, A Forest, Boys Don’t Cry, The Walk, Love Cats, Close To Me, A Night Like This

fave album:  it’s between Disintegration and Wish

my introduction to alternative rock and goth music in particular, a truly awesome band who continue to be awesome regardless of how long they’ve been going, and this band is as old as I am!  Robert Smith is a LEGEND, one of my genuine, bona fide IDOLS.

METALLICA

fave tracks:  For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Thing That Should Not Be, Orion, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Master of Puppets, One, The Unforgiven, Of Wolf & Man, Sad But True, Wherever I May Roam, Nothing Else Matters, Hero of the Day, Mama Said, Until It Sleeps, The Outlaw Torn, The Unforgiven II, Turn the Page, Hardwired, Atlas, Rise!

fave album:  Master of Puppets (the first album I ever bought!)

the band that first got me into metal, and for me still THE BEST metal band around.  At their best when they’re HEAVY, an unstoppable juggernaut of pounding drums, chugging power chords, to-die-for solos and James Hetfield’s incomparable voice.

LINKIN PARK

fave tracks:  In the End, Crawling, Runaway, Pushing Me Away, Numb, Breaking the Habit, Figure.09, Somewhere I Belong, Nobody’s Listening, Leave Out All the Rest, No More Sorrow, The Little Things Give You Away, The Catalyst, Iridescent, Waiting for the End, Castle of Glass, Powerless, Roads Untraveled, Burn it Down, Lost in the Echo, Until It’s Gone, Heavy, Battle Symphony, One More Light

fave album:  Meteora

they may have started out as the definitive nu metal band, but I’ve loved them in EVERY iteration of their ever-evolving sound, from raw, savage power to pure, transcendent simplicity.  Mike Shinoda is a musical genius, and Chester Bennington was a magnificent talent who was taken from us far too soon ...

BIFFY CLYRO

fave tracks:  Folding Stars, Semi-Mental, Machines, The Conversation Is..., Living is a Problem Because Everything Dies, Now I’m Everyone, Mountains, Many of Horror, The Captain, Booooom, Blast & Ruin, Know Your Quarry, Bubbles, Shock Shock, Stingin’ Belle, Victory Over the Sun, Biblical, Picture a Knife Fight, Spanish Radio, Skylight, Sounds Like Balloons, Howl, Wolves of Winter, Don’t, Won’t, Can’t, Re-Arrange, Flammable, Friends & Enemies, Animal Style, Different Kind of Love, Colour Wheel, All Singing & All Dancing, Tunnels & Trees, The Naturals, Fever Dream, Balance Not Symmetry

fave album:  Opposites

last but MOST CERTAINLY in no way least, in my opinion quite simply THE BEST BAND to ever come out of Scotland, a trio of musical maniacs who are never anything less than thoroughly surprising and always original.  Seriously, there’s no other band like them out there, and I love them for it.  Probably my favourite alt rock band of all time ...

honourable mentions:  Funeral For a Friend, PVRIS, My Chemical Romance, Big Country, Sara Bareilles, a Perfect Circle, Witterquick, Don Broco, Smashing Pumpkins, Fightstar, Tonight Alive, The Killers, Pearl Jam, Idlewild, Editors, Fall Out Boy, Genesis, 30 Seconds to Mars, David Gilmour, U2

[fanfics-await-you]

Sometimes It Comes Down to a Choice (Part 4)

Pairing: Christopher Pike x Female OC

Takes place some point in the future after the events of the Red Angel

Summary: Alina has always carried a secret flame for her Captain and she's always known that it could never lead anywhere. However, the combination of a party and some drunken words might just make that a little more complicated. The only problem, everything just seems to be going wrong. Who knows, maybe a proper goodbye is just what they need.

Tags: angst, injury, a pair of dumbasses unnecessarily complicating things, mild blood

Notes: I like my characters to be strong and have stories and relationships in their own right. Like, I just don't like writing stories where they justs exist for the romance. I find it…eh. also, i've been without internet so i still haven't seen the finale!

Also, thank you everyone for the kind reviews and support! I've really appreciated it!

Word Count: 2,328

masterlist

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

———

Ba-bump.

Ba-bump.

Ba-bump.

All I can grasp is agony. It's in the strands of my DNA, it's the only thing holding me together, it's all I know.

Ba-bump.

My heartbeat is as loud as a pulsating thunderclap.

Ba-bump.

I can't move. Not a single finger. I can't tell if it's the pain or the weight of the sky.

Ba-bump.

Light.

Ba-bump.

The world becomes a maelstrom of indistinguishable sensations.

Ba-bump.

Echoing shouts of meaningless sound drill into my skull.

Ba-bump.

Without warning, someone touches me. A choked shriek more animal than human pierces the air. Somehow, I realise it must be me.

Ba-bump.

I'm being touched all over and the only reason I don't scream again is because my lungs won't fill.

Ba-bump.

The thunder is fading.

Ba-bump.

I can feel the great black swallowing me but I want to stay.

Ba-bump.

As much as it hurts, I want to stay.

Ba-bump.

The dark doesn't care. It devours me anyway.

———

I'm warm.

It's the first feeling that my mind conjures. Slowly, the physicality of the world comes into focus underneath my skin. The tickle of my hair against my neck, the light press of a blanket across my legs, my fingers curling into a weak fist against the sheets; I allow the sensations to wash over me without judgement. The absence of pain is a welcome but deeply alien lightness. Once I've taken some steady breaths and feel sure that I can take whatever lays beyond me, I open my eyes.

A medbay?

No, not a medbay. I recognise this place.

Everything is still too foggy for thoughts to come easily but any panic that had been growing in my chest dissipates. It's safe and it's home and that's enough.

"Hi Alina."

I turn to blearily look at the man next to me. Dr Culber…

"Hugh?"

His face breaks into a huge smile like I've performed some miracle.

"You have no idea how good it is to see you awake."

…Maybe I have.

"What happened?" He helps me sit up as my muscles ache from disuse.

He scratches his head apprehensively before starting, "I should alert the crew…Shit, the captain."

I shake my head before I find my voice, "No, not yet. I-I need answers first."

Hugh seems unsure but sits next to me on the bed anyway, "I guess there's the question of how much you remember?"

I furrow my brow, "I remember running for the surface and then-" my fingers go to the bandage on my forehead-"something hit me. I went down. Then there was a lot of pain, and now we're here."

He brushes my hair away from the bandage gently, "It's mostly healed but I wanted to wait for your permission to remove the scar…I know how much they can mean to people."

I nod gently but say nothing.

Hugh continues, "We found you not long after the bunker's collapse. We managed to track your bio-sign and use the Discovery's tractor beam to clear away the debris. Almost all of your bones and organs had sustained trauma and you were clinging onto life. You've been in a coma for four days to give your body time to heal and…"

"To see if I would wake up?"

"Yeah. I knew you would, though. You've always been a fighter, Alina."

He pauses to take a deep breath and it settles like a heavy weight in my throat.

"If you hadn't stayed conscious for so long, or had been much deeper underground or any number of things, we wouldn't have been able to find you. But you'd nearly made it to the surface all by yourself…Your fingers were bloody from trying to climb out."

The quiet admiration on his face is enough to make me tear up. I feel him take my hand.

"You saved yourself, Alina."

A little hiccuping sob sneaks out.

"Not that anyone was surprised by that."

This time, a breathy snort slips out.

A silence settles between us for a little while as Hugh holds my hand and I find my calm.

"Can I go back to my quarters?"

He seems surprised, "I mean, yes, after some tests…People will want to know you're awake."

I close my eyes for a moment, "I know but I-I just can't right now…I need some time to process first. Just say that I'm okay if people ask but that I need some space."

"…I understand…Well, sit still and I'll go get my diagnostic tool."

I lean back against the pillows.

"So, first question: the scar?"

"How does it make me look?"

"Like an absolute badass."

For the first time in a while, I feel a smile curl across my face, "Well then I've got to keep it."

———

Sleep is elusive with dreams of my dirt-filled lungs keeping it at bay. So instead I'm sitting by my window and try to piece together some answers from the stars before me. Unfortunately, they're not saying much.

I survived.

It just doesn't feel concrete, like this is my mind's final comfort and any minute the world will fall away. Absentmindedly, I trace the thin scar mirroring my eyebrow. If anything, this mark is the only thing grounding me right now.

The gentle ring of the doorbell breaks my trance. I quietly sigh. The ship's day-lighting had flared not long ago; I knew someone would come past soon enough.

"Door."

However, I am not prepared for Chris to be on the other side of the door.

For a couple of seconds, he doesn't move. His expression is somehow two parts admiration, one part grief. I feel the weeks apart slip off my shoulders like sandbags. I don't care that he won't- can't -choose me. The sliver of me concerned about pride or dignity has melted away. I don't know if this is forgiveness or simply acceptance.

"Chris?" the word is both pleading and unsure.

I stand too quickly and the room becomes painted with technicolour streaks of black. The fear that everything will dissolve into darkness surges up my throat and I squeeze my eyes shut to stave off the panic. Before I can fall, strong hands are holding me upright. Instinctively, my hands go to his shoulders and I lean closer. It's a couple of darting breaths before I can open my eyes. I'm met by vibrant blue eyes lined with warmth and concern.

"Are you alright?" Chris' voice is interwoven with worry.

I nod, unable to find words or take my eyes off him.

The strong grip at my arm and waist are an anchor but I still don't know what to say to him. There's so much that I couldn't say but now can that is haunting the tip of my tongue.

"I am so sorry, Alina."

"No-"

"I should never have pushed you away."

"I-"

"I should never have put you at risk."

"That's-"

"You should never have had to put your life on the line."

"I made-"

"A choice. I know. But-"

"Chris," I cut through his flood of words.

I cautiously brush a thumb across his cheek just to feel his skin. His eyes search mine- for what, I don't know.

"There's no need to apologise. There never was. You've always done what you thought you had to. It's something I've always…respected about you." I don't stop drawing patterns against his cheek.

Chris closes his eyes and lightly leans into my hand. I take the moment to study the lines of his face. The bone-deep weariness drawn across his features cracks something within me and finally the words find a way out.

"When I was down there, waiting for the countdown…I only thought about one thing."

Chris' eyebrows furrow and his eyes open to meet my gaze in silent question.

What I would give to kiss him one last time.

I would truly give anything just to have him here, holding my hand, as the world ends.

I lean forward until our foreheads meet. He gently nudges me back, brushing our noses together, in a familiar, simple movement that ruptures the floodwall. Tears begin to fall before I find the strength to speak.

My voice cracks, "How much I wanted to come back to you."

Chris' hands come to frame my face but I screw my eyes shut. I can't bear to look at him anymore. I can't bear to know that he will always be right there but never mine.

The words cascade out of me without regard, "I know that this can't happen but I need you to listen, to know what you mean to me. You gave me the strength to stare death in the face. You were the one I wanted to run back to, those weapons be damned. You were the person I wanted by my side when I thought my time was up…I choose you, Chris, even if you can't choose me."

"Alina…"

"Chris, please, I don't want pity, I coul-"

"Sometimes it comes down to a choice," his voice is quiet but steady.

I dare to open my eyes. He bears a tentative smile that I can't help but gently return through the persisting tears.

Please, please, please.

"Sometimes you make the wrong decision. Sometimes you lose the only thing that ever really mattered and you have to bear that regret for the rest of your life…but sometimes, if you're truly lucky, you get the chance to try again."

The hope in my chest is expanding with every breath. I'm trying to not grin, to not prematurely celebrate a moment that's not yet mine, but I'm failing. Instead, I take one of his hands in mine and gently press it to my mouth in a lingering kiss to hide my budding smile. Chris tucks back a stray strand of my hair as his own grin grows from hesitant to glowing. I am suddenly struck by the symmetry of this moment with the last time we were this close and find myself praying that this story will end differently.

"Alina, it was unfair of me to think that you would ever make me choose between you and our crew. I underestimated you and for that, I am sorry…I also know that I caused you pain and I know that you said you wouldn't wait around for me to come to my senses but-"

I don't let him finish.

I pull Chris tighter against me as I bring his lips to mine. This time he tastes ever-so-slightly of honey and I want to drown in it, in him. He presses back against me like he's the one drowning and it gives me a little thrill that I am so wanted. Chris' hands dig into my shoulder and back, and his strength is probably the only thing keeping me on my feet. I can feel every line of his body against me and the pressure against the aches of my injuries is nothing short of delicious. The fevered beat of Chris' heart echoes beneath my fingers and every pulse further washes away my fears. This is real, I am alive, we're going to be okay. I break away first but the very welcome cage of his arms means I don't go far.

"I know you Christopher Pike, you don't need to apologise to me for trying to do the right thing."

Maybe I'm forgiving or risking more than I should but I love Chris. With every fallible, mortal, and adoring part of me, I love him. He nods, his face still unsure. Gently, I brush my thumb across his brow and smooth out the worry lines before going up on my tiptoes to plant a soft kiss on his forehead. Chris' arms tighten at my waist but his eyes are bright. He leans in for another kiss but I place a single finger against his lips, making him pause. His puzzled expression is enough to make me laugh but what I need to say sobers me slightly. I take a step back as Chris continues to look on in confusion. Slowly, I place a splayed hand just above his heart and take a moment to admire how alive he feels beneath my fingers before I speak.

"I choose you, Chris. In this life, the next, all of them, whatever I don't care- I choose you. I-I love you."

His expression almost makes me cry again simply because no one has ever looked at me like Chris does, like I put the stars in the sky. Steadily, his hand comes to mirror mine and rest just above my heart.

"I've loved you since you saved me back on Kaminar. I choose you, Alina Osborne, and I'll follow you to the ends of the universe if you let me."

This time when Chris leans in for a kiss, I don't stop him. The taste of his smile against mine is enough to wash away the weight of the world.

[queenglimmr]

Dae-Ra and the Legions of Hordak

Rating: T | Chapter 1/8 | No Warnings Apply | cross posted on AO3

Concise Summary: Entrapta has built something no one could have anticipated, something even she doesn't fully comprehend; a sword of power. Unstable and desperate to find a wielder, the foul Sword of Destruction finds the hand of Yani, a lowly foot soldier who has spent her whole life trying to fly under the radar.

“How did you even… is that even possible?” Catra demanded, eyes locked onto the jet-black blade that glinted on the work bench before her.

“I have no idea!” Entrapta replied giddily, the beeping of her scanners already putting Catra on edge.

“You invented it,” she said bluntly, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, no,” Entrapta shook her head, her hair shifting a pile of tools away from the soft red glow of her latest creation. “It wasn’t so much invented as it was assembled. The plans were already there, tucked away in the data core, waiting to be found. And I did! I found them!”

“So, it’s old,” Catra muttered, mostly to herself. She glared down at the hunk of black crystal set into the cross guard, it’s jagged edges barely allowing for symmetry but oddly matching the strange geometric edges the Princess had built into the design.

“No, it’s brand new,” Entrapta gave her a confused look, probably wondering whether she needed to explain how time worked too.

“I mean it’s First One’s, the design? It’s like Ado… like She-Ra’s?”

“Oh, absolutely. I mean, the crystal is First One’s, and the metal is a complex alloy I melted down from their tech and the design and structure are all…”

Catra drowned out Entrapta’s babbling, her eyes locked onto the blade her pet genius had called the Sword of Destruction. This was the key. So what, Adora had a sword? Now she did to. She could beat her. She could finally be done with that stupid rebellion.

Catra reached out, ghosting her fingers along the ice-cold metal. The sword glinted and buzzed with power. She could feel it crackling in the air all around, something confined within trying to push out into the world.

“How do I activate it?”

“I… don’t know,” Entrapta deflated. “There’s not really an on switch.”

Catra gritted her teeth. Of course, that would have been too easy.

“Find one,” she ordered and spun on her heels, stopping at the door to stare down Lonnie and Rogelio.

“Not one gets in. No one but Entrapta touches the Sword until I come back.”.

Personnel Code: Y03197. Missive [Priority One]: Temporary Reassignment. Report to Unit Leader Lonnie (alt. Force Captain Scorpia), Black Garnet Unit.

This was the last thing Yani wanted. Nineteen years she’d served without special assignment. From her very first memories until that afternoon, she’d flown so silently under the radar she’d thought maybe she’d get away with it. Just serve quietly and die quietly. No fuss.

“Get going,” Force Captain Lionel jabbed his chin toward the door, prodding Yani out of her daze.

“Yes, sir,” she saluted clumsily and hurried for the door, heading straight out of Basement Level 4 Maintenance and toward the moon light above ground. Hopefully, she’d be back down here before too long.

Why had she, of everyone, been called up? She supposed it could be pure chance. The newly designated Black Garnet Unit, Commander Catra’s squad, had been down a member since their old Force Captain had defected, plus the whole Horde had been significantly thinned by the loss at the Battle of Bright Moon. Maybe Yani was just the next in a dismal line of underlings being called to step into the lost soldiers’ places. She hoped so. She really, really hoped so.

Whatever this was, she needed to make a good first impression. Where was her hair tie? On her wrist, of course it was. She pulled out her hair and drew it back again, making sure she caught every black strand as she tied it into a tight bun and smoothed her uniform, examining her reflection in the elevator walls.

When the lift doors drew back, Yani felt a wave of unease grip her. She’d never been in this part of the Fright Zone. It was quiet. Way too quiet.

“Soldier!”

She nearly jumped out of her skin as the sharp voice sent her stumbling from the elevator.

“You’re late.”

Yani pulled up a sloppy salute and stood stock still, trying to catch sight of the owner of the voice but too afraid to try.

“I’m sorry, Captain.”

“I’m not the captain,” the voice kept steady and an unfamiliar face stepped into view, dark skin, dreadlocks. “It’s Unit Leader Lonnie, and your new UL.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Yani saluted again, less clumsily.

“Stop apologising, Soldier!” UL Lonnie ordered, an intimidating scowl set firmly on her face. “Catra’s got us on round the clock supervision of the lock up. You’re here to stagger the guard rotation.”

“Would that be Commander Catra, sir?”

“Whatever,” Lonnie waved her away. “Just do your job and we’ll have no problems. You’re filling in the gaps. Nothing special.”

“Yes, sir.”

Nothing special. That sounded just perfect.

Okay, not so perfect. Guard duty was tear-inducingly boring. Plus, Kyle seemed adamant that if they spoke, Commander Catra would personally murder them both. Kyle, the skinny and pale boy she’d been assigned with. He wasn’t mean, per say. Just so plain and perpetually scared. And… wait… what was that noise?

Yani perked up, ears straining in the quiet of the corridor. Not in the corridor… inside the room beyond the door. Behind the door they were supposed to be guarding!

“Psst, Kyle!” she gave him a soft shove awake.

“What? I didn’t do it!” he jumped, spinning on the spot.

“Shhh… I think someone’s in there.”

“In… there?” Kyle’s eyes widened in panic, and Yani put a finger to her lips.

She really, really hoped not. She wanted to ignore it and hope it was nothing and maybe it would…

There it was again. Like a soft whispering, the words too quiet to discern.

If she didn’t check, and someone really was in there, stealing whatever needed a round-the-clock guard, and Lord Hordak found out…

“We need to check,” Yani murmured, pressing her ear to the door.

“Catra said we’re not allowed in there.”

“If there’s no one, then we don’t have to tell. But if it’s something…”

“I’m not… I don’t know if…” Kyle stuttered.

Yani paused for another long moment, holding her breath. It came seeping through the cracks in the metal, in an unfamiliar, dull tone.

“You can wait here,” she nodded to Kyle, prepping her stun rod and pulling out her ID, tapping it on the entry pad and letting the heavy metal doors draw back with an uncomfortably loud clattering.

The room beyond was sleek, with reflective walls and smooth floors, and in the dim light she could see something on a stand in the centre, glowing a stranger shade of deep red.

“Yani,” Kyle whispered nervously, but she ignored him.

There came the voice again. It slipped out of the dark and into her mind, whispering sophisticated gibberish.

She stepped inside, half crouching, weapon ready. Sure, she’d trained for this, and she’d seen active combat more than once. But there was a big difference between intentionally missing shots taken at Princesses and creeping into a dark room to confront an enemy you couldn’t see.

There was a voice though, she could hear it. She crept forward and found her feet carrying her toward the centre of the room, toward the glowing red light. Toward the voice that whispered…

“Come… to me… take up… the sword…”

She was standing over the altar-like stand, staring down at a sword of black metal that whispered invitations into her mind. Her thoughts were blurred, her eyes couldn’t turn away, and the desire to just touch the sword was suddenly overwhelming. She just had to reach up, to see why it spoke… she just had to…

Her hand hovered over the black gem that dominated the cross-guard, and as the tips of her fingers brushed the cold and jagged surface, the world melted away and the voice crashed into her mind.

“Dae! Ra!”

She stumbled back, but the room was gone. She was in a dark hall, with smooth metallic walls and a red light pulsing at the end of the way.

“Come back… to me…”

The world shifted, the light grew closer and the walls fell away and the deep voice, like a breeze in the stillness of the air, slithered into her ears and latched onto her darkest thoughts.

“Dae-Ra… I see… you… are mine… take up the sword… take up my sword…”

The voice echoed through the sweeping ceilings and shadows too deep.

“Take up my cause… Dae-Ra… the world in darkness… on your brow rests a crown…”

“Who are you?” she called out, voice horribly timid.

“I… am yours…”

“What have you done?”

Yani woke to a slash of pain across her cheek. She blinked away the tears and fatigue, looking up to find a snarling Commander Catra glaring up at her, stun rod in hand. Yani was standing near the… no, she wasn't standing. She was being held upright. Her own legs felt numb.

“Answer me!” The Commander screeched, yanking at her collar and pulling her closer.

“I… I heard a voice,” Yani stuttered, finding her own.

“Gee, Catra. Don’t you think that was a bit harsh?” The question came in a chipper voice from the person holding her upright.

“Not if she’s done something to the Sword it’s not.”

“The Sword seems fine,” the voice said again, and behind Catra, Yani saw Kyle breath a sigh of relief.

“You can’t know that for sure.”

“Yeah, but I mean. Come on. This kid is nobody. Entrapta said that Sword was the strongest thing she’s ever built. And she built Emily.”

Yani’s head was pounding, and her cheek was burning from where Catra had slashed it. She just wanted to be back in Basement Level 4 Maintenance with the gentle orders of FC Lionel.

“Please, I didn’t mean to…”

“I don’t care,” the Commander growled. “Tell me exactly what happened, and I might let you live.”

“I heard a voice,” Yani said hurriedly. “In here. In the room. And I knew we were guarding something important, and if someone was stealing it right from under our noses… so I opened the door to check and the voice… it was coming from the Sword.”

“The voice was coming from the Sword?” The Commander rolled her eyes skeptically.

“It told me to take the Sword, and I touched it…”

The Commander let out a soft growl, and Yani wasn’t sure if she believed anything she’d said.

“That’s all you’ve got?” She asked sarcastically.

“It said it… it was… mine. It said it had a cause I… I could see the world fall to darkness.”

Catra suddenly perked up and gave her another once over before she spun on Kyle. “Where’s Entrapta?”

“She's coming, Commander,”Kyle squeaked.

“Well bring her faster.”

“Yes, Commander,” he bobbed and scurried out of the room.

“And you,” Catra brandished a stun rod at Yani. “If you’re lying, you won’t live to regret it.”

‘I’m… I’m not, I promise.”

“You can promise all you want.”

“Well, to be fair, that’s perfectly plausible,” nodded the purple haired Princess.

“But why did it speak to her, and not someone else?” Catra demanded.

“I don’t know. If it’s like the Sword of She-Ra, maybe this nobody is like Adora.”

“Don’t say that name,” the Commander ordered through gritted teeth.

“Which one? Adora? Because that’s her name,” Entrapta asked, entirely serious and oblivious Catra's gritted teeth. “I’m probably going to need an alternative. How about, the Tall One?”

“Forget about that. Just tell me how it works.”

“I told you already. I don’t know.”

“Not helpful, Entrapta.”

“Yes, but it’s still the truth,” Entrapta pushed off from the sword’s altar and began spinning across the room as she tapped away at a screen. “The crystal is the key, but the code is way more complex than I was prepared for, and my algorithm is still working to decode it.”

“Well, work faster.”

“That’s… not really possible,” Entrapta shook her head sincerely.

“Fine, so this nobody is the key to the sword.”

“Ah, my name is Yani,” she gulped, trying to steady her thudding heart. She wasn’t the key to anything. She just wasn't.

"I don’t care,” the Commander didn’t even look at her, eyes still locked onto the black blade. “The first time I saw She-Ra’s sword work, she was under attack. So maybe…” Catra turned on Yani and extended her stun rod with a grinned, “it’ll work the same here.”

“Catra, I don’t know if…” FC Scorpia began, but she was too late. Catra was already swinging.

Yani knew it would hurt. She’d been hit with a stun rod plenty of times in basic training. It was always a sharp pain that you could feel all over, down to the roots of your teeth. She was prepared for the pain. In the Horde, you were always prepared for pain. But that didn’t mean she was okay with getting zapped.

She mustered her strength and pulled from Scorpia’s grasp, dropping her weight as Scorpia tried to manoeuvre her away from Catra’s blow and tumbling down. She staggered up and away as she heard Catra growl as her hit sliced through empty air. She stumbled up and grabbed the closest thing she could find, and her fingers wrapped around the cold metal of… the sword.

“Dae-Ra…”

Okay. Two choices. Another hit from the stun rod, or pick up the sword?

Sword it was then. She heaved it up, and spun around to face the room.  Catra hovered back, smirking, even as Scorpia held up her hands and Entrapta gave a frankly disconcerting grin.

The sword was heavier than she'd expected. It seemed to drag her down with it, but she held it aloft. Barely.

“Good choice,” the Commander said, slowly stepping to the side, keeping her low crouch, stun rod up and ready.

Yani let the sword drop slightly, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible while maintaining her defences.

“Please, don’t. I’m nobody, you said it yourself.”

“Apparently not.”

“We don’t have to fight. I’ll try and speak to the sword. Just let me try...”

“Why try that, when this is so much more fun?” Catra smiled, and lunged.

Yani’s vision clouded. One moment Catra was leaping, and the next she was scrambling back, stun rod dropped and forgotten. Everything was darker, everything was… she was angry. No, she was furious. How dare this stupid cat lady… how dare they even try to touch her… she would destroy them for…

Yani caught sight of herself in the reflection of the walls, and her anger instantly dissipated.

It wasn’t her. It couldn’t be. She was taller and stronger and her hair flew around her head like a dreadful halo. Her clothes had melted away, replaced by black fabric and armour of sleek silver. And her eyes… her eyes glowed red.

Fear gripped her and devoured her courage. That wasn’t her. It couldn’t be. Because that was… she was terrifying.

A flash of sickly red light and she was herself again, panic etched across her face. The Sword clattered from her grip as she stumbled back, looking up at the horrified faces of her superiors.

Catra straightened from her crouch and some unkind emotion stretched across her face. “I can work with this.”

[naruhearts]

13x20: “I don’t care what happens to me”-- Dean Worthless Winchester, John Winchester’s Death and Destiel

Oh my god!

I gotta say, 13x20 was an ANGSTY FEELSY amalgamation of meta and foreshadowing for the Big Finale Triad of 21, 22, and 23. It laid down S5 tones, key themes, and narrative direction, hoo boy!!! 

I’m sorry I posted late! Time-of-month sickness was an interruption, yikes.

I’d like to start with the Dean & Sam final scene, then talk about the major culminating implications this Father-centric episode specifically holds for our beloved protagonist Dean Winchester the shackled child — the Man behind the Mask (which S13 has been a gigantic narrative mirror of) — and the Destiel narrative/Cas in relation to Dean’s arc and character disposition *rubs hands together*

Glynn & Co made Dean’s axel-swinging between communication and miscommunication pretty clear to me in the last scene of 13x20, especially regarding the dialogue that people thought was character regression into Brodependency.

After sleeping on it, I didn’t see the same scale of toxic codependency from seasons ago a la ‘there ain’t no me if there ain’t no you.’ It wasn’t mutual. I saw it as: 1. more from Sam’s end, and 2. Dean’s willingness to protect his loved ones (Sam and CAS, in bold) combined with letting go and the textual acknowledgement of his low self-worth carrying over from 13x05 (the low self-worth he internalized across 99.6798% of his life course).

Firstly, Dabb’s subverting S5. 

He put independent Dean in S5 independent Sam’s shoes here, and it’s surely not a coincidence that Dean himself referenced their implosive S5 Michael-Lucifer mess: “Where we were last time we had front row seats”. S5 exhibited Dean’s Holding On vs Sam’s Letting Go, with lost Dean crawling to Lisa’s door and yeah, we know how that prickly-edged story went. It’s finally Dean Letting Go vs Sam Holding On. It’s indicative of S13 faithless Grieving!Sam re: Mary/Jack seeking his own emancipation and finding real introspective purpose away from the codependent strings he’s clinging to. We heard Sam’s “If we die, we die together”. Don’t fret, his current arc is constructed to get rid of this kind of thinking and move towards Faith!

Dean’s prepared to cut the codependent strings — already has via 12x22, and then in 13x05 (albeit in a suicidal grief-ridden manner. Speaking of, 13x20 this time shifted focus to Sam’s risk-taking re: Lucifer and the Apocalypse in itself. Unsurprisingly, we already witnessed this narrative train running in reverse -- early S13 Grieving!Dean and Functioning Sam swapped roles post-13x06 and in 13x11. Man, I am pumpin’ my fists).

Atop the bro dualism, Dean’s behaviour in 13x20 concerned me the most, saddened me the most, and intrigued me the most. 

:’( 

I may have yelled said that Dean has emotionally matured, eliminated toxic coping mechanisms, achieved an internal balance between his femininity and non-performative masculinity (acknowledged in 13x04; actively manifested in 13x16 onwards x, x), and gained a sense of non-combative communication and understanding (seen in 13x14), yet his low self-worth constitutes the biggest roadblock to his FULL personal growth.

Okay, I know you’ll exclaim: after Cas returned, Dean wasn’t depressed anymore! 

Well, that’s accurate and relatively inaccurate. Dean’s low self-worth is the central facet of his characteristic development, and it does have a guaranteed correlation with depression. Yes, you can feel worthless without being clinically depressed, but worthlessness is maladaptive and contributes to feeling depressed --> Dean’s depression. 

Dean’s case is a heartbreaking one. He’s been depressed for YEARS. He never really cared about what happened to him for YEARS = our Dean meta textualized in gloomy letters!!

Yes, the single individual -- the canon WIN -- that placed him back on the rails was Cas, his Everything, resurrecting from the dead. Cas’ return drastically mitigated Dean’s severe nihilistic depression (aka his rock bottom nihilistic grief when he lost Cas) BUT it didn’t necessarily fix his pre-existing depression.

S13 depicts Dean -- despite Cas’ bright presence -- as traveling the rails empty. There’s not enough coal to fuel his engine because he LACKS the mental faculties to appropriately cope re: trauma and give up his control. This is why he seems to oscillate between character progression and regression, and he still isn’t 100% HONEST and OPEN about his feelings. He’s keepin’ it in. There’s no healthy psychological unload taking place.

Case in point? Dean’s regressed to drinking the hard booze again; Cas FILLS the negative spaces (as he’s been doing throughout S13). Dean is not disclosing the whole truth -- not saying what he’s genuinely feeling (to CAS. I discuss it x, x, x). 

Plus, Dean’s internal worries re: Death, the next apocalyptic war, Cas’ Heavenly plans, and his respective destiny/fate (Death’s “See you soon”) just exacerbate the personal instability he’s experiencing.

And then we observe Dean’s parental duty rearing its head:

To me this is what reiterated the Brodependency being dismantled in late S12/S13 (12x22 and 13x12/15 in particular). Don’t get me wrong – Dean’s mostly let go. He was willing to leave Sam behind in 13x05 after losing the one person who textually means Everything to him. 

Dean’s psyche is at a point right now where he AIN’T okay with Sam’s risk-taking. He questions his little brother’s half-baked plans and sympathizes with the close-to-here manic desperation (again, mirroring S5 and S13 Grieving!Dean), except Dean’s low self-worth puts him in the dark position: I’m doing it, all of it, for YOU (Sam and Cas) since I don’t value myself enough to do it for ME. He further says--

He obviously does, but us, the audience, know--in dramatic irony fashion--that this is NOT Dean’s entire truth.

He values his brother more than himself, and he values CAS more than himself. He cares about what happens to CAS. Nothing Else Matters. And we’re aware that Cas canonically occupies the highest pedestal in Dean’s life, which TPTB absolutely highlighted during Dean’s grieving arc, Cas’ return, and 13x16 onwards. 

(In this scene, Dean continues to tell Sam what he’s NOT telling Cas. USE THE RIGHT WORDS.)

 Cas is the love of Dean’s life, his Everything, and his Win. I mentioned before that losing Cas a second time would destroy him.

(**Dating 101: Dean therefore cannot establish a truly healthy, mutually interdependent relationship with Cas if he has low self-worth. He’s trying, but his personal losses -- more LOSSES than wins this season i.e. AU!Charlie/Mary/Jack in AU, non-confronted traumas i.e. Cas’ death, and insecurities cripple his ability to give Cas ALL of himself, out in the open!)

Although Dean HAS FAITH (Cas), the decisions he’ll formulate to protect/save Sam, Mary, Jack, and especially Cas aren’t exactly derived from mental stability. Keeping them safe is too paramount to Dean that the choices he’ll encounter could be questionable/dangerous, putting him in the line of (sacrificial) fire. 

Sound familiar? It’s deliberately supposed to sound familiar!

Jack, TFW’s Unity/Balance symbol and characteristic mirror, even stated that ‘if he can’t keep others safe, what’s the use’?

Dean will make the penultimate save-the-world (read: save my family) decision ALONE regardless of Sam’s regressive wish to die together. And I wrote that his arc is now DIRECTLY paralleling S11 Casifer & Depressed!Cas’ S11/12 arc, especially (mis)communicative 12x19 --> 12x23 ‘I Have Faith’ Cas. There’s prevalent narrative symmetry in Dean’s arc (intrinsically linked to Cas’ arc).

“You, me, and Sam...we’re just better together” indeed, and this year’s season-ender should unite TFW like last season--unite Dean and Cas--in order to change their fates/defeat Death, but Dean’s decision will be an isolated one --> one that was foreshadowed as he faced expositional Daddy Issues™ Loki by himself. And Dean may not tell Cas, just like Cas hadn’t told Dean in 12x23 about his sacrificial act.

These vastly important storytelling threads ultimately conjoin with “I don’t care what happens to me. I never really have” as the PINNACLE of Dean’s 13-year long characterization; the progressive climax sparking his death/decay so that he can be reborn and revitalized aka THIS IS IT!! Dean’s impending death and self-sacrifice for his loved ones (CAS) = the ultimate catharsis in that S13′s narrative has finally approached the IRL scenario of 13x16 ghost kid (DEAN)’s release from father figure Bad Man -- from the negative influence of all the other literal (Loki, Odin, Lucifer, James Turner) and metaphorical (Asmodeus, Buddy, Michael) fatherly mirrors permeating this season. He’ll LET GO of everything that incarcerated him since he was 4 years old: his Blunt Tool role, control, manipulation, parental abuse and absenteeism, parental duty, the heteronormative patriarchy, and the long-standing trauma slapped on him by Alastair, Amara, and Cain.

He’ll burn the remaining pocket knife of all pocket knives tethering him to his past -- John Winchester x, x He’ll self-transform.

And Dean’s S13 death would fulfill the sacrificial Act of True Love (with Cas holding heavy weight in Dean’s decision for LOVE)--

--and S14 Winning Him Back in the subverted flavour of S10. Romance tropes abound!!

 @thetwistedwillow and @sactownbrowns3 both ignited my stomach-churning feels. This is an extremely pivotal visual. The Michael-reminiscent sword and radiant halo-like lights atop Dean’s head? Yeah, set off HUGE Michael!Dean radars. Complete moral dualism with S10 Demon!Dean--selflessness vs selfishness. Free choice (saying yes to possession) vs stolen choice (demon transformation against his will).

Secondly, as aforementioned, Dean’s harbouring a LOT of traumas he hasn’t mentally confronted, with Daddy Issues™ re: John Winchester (reflected via Dean’s solo faceoff with Loki) as his overarching undealt source of trauma.

Loki tells Dean: “The truth is, [Odin] despised me, but he was my father. I’m sure you understand. What would you do for your father?” 

And Dean stabs Loki’s hologram. He stabs the metaphorical father figure who neglected his sons. He stabs another narrative embodiment of John’s ghost, foreshadowing that Dean’s death = John Winchester’s final death. It’s time to deconstruct and conquer his influence.

(Gabriel was an extended mirror of both Dean and Sam, too. Gabe, the little brother whom deadbeat Daddy Chuck never paid attention to. ‘Ah, big bros, right? Always think they know best’ Gabe, who stabbed and killed deadbeat Loki. Gabe, who subsequently ran away from home, was used and tortured beneath Asmodeus’ control, embarked on a revenge trip, and didn’t feel good about it. Dean and Sam themselves knew what it felt like to be manipulated. While it’s true that their traumatic experiences are subjective, they share common Deadbeat Father-adjacent life courses.)

What beautiful and consistent silent storytelling!!

And oh look, narratively associated to this ^^ is the reappearance of Dean’s John-linked BAG OF EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE--

I can’t can’t can’t wait for him to let go of it PERMANENTLY! 

And of course, Cas’ death remains his immediate significant source of undealt trauma (same links above:  x, x, x)

*looks at Dean’s serious, intense, and emotionally laden expression* *clutches chest tight* *blinks away tears*

I additionally wrote something about Endverse!Cas and D/C (mis)communication a few months ago which I feel is relevant again:

And we know HUMAN Endverse!Cas was representative of that, a sad, depressed, and hollow depiction of the wrong choices for the right reasons who festers (AND DIES), in part because of Dean’s wrong choices, and also because of his own consciously uninformed, narrow-minded choices that led to this literal apocalypse of mind, body and soul.

5x04 laid down what Cas (and Dean) shouldn’t become. If both Cas and Dean (TFW) continue to fail in learning their lessons regarding healthy interdependence (where control must become equality; ignorance must become understanding; intransigence must become compromise; stonewalling must become transparency; lying must become honesty; silence must become communication), Endverse will be their life.

Thankfully, they’re learning as of S13 onwards and I’m ECSTATIC. Slow but sure progress (13x15′s conveying the shift), yet they still have to use the RIGHT WORDS.

Endverse!Dean, who never gave up his control to Cas nor listened to him, was himself consumed by the NEED over the WANT and an authoritarian means to an end. He lost everyone. And Endverse posed an ultimatum for Dean (and Cas’ own characteristic progress): keep your control forever, and you’ll have one destination–no growth, no life, no freedom. 

Full circle!

Dean Winchester must die so he can live.

And what are Dean’s WINS (plural) by dying? Saving people instead of losing people--saving Mary, Jack, Sam, and Cas. Saving the world. Reuniting his family unit. Interacting instead of performing. OUTING INSTEAD OF HIDING. HIGH DEPRESSIONLESS SELF-WORTH INSTEAD OF LOW DEPRESSIVE SELF-WORTH.

Better yet, Dean will undergo character development in relation to his loved ones (and Cas). With high self-worth, Dean’s capable of learning how to value HIMSELF independently. In turn, without personal obstacles he’ll learn how to sustain HEALTHY interdependent relationships and COMMUNICATION as well as learn how to WHOLLY GIVE HIMSELF to others (Cas).

Tell Cas he’s not expendable, Dean. Disclose the real reason YOU “needed him back”. Expose your feelings, choose Want over Need, and push away your rejection fears! Cas loves you dearly—let him know that his love for you is reciprocated. Nothing but good things ahead!!

Gosh, this post is way longer than I expected—thank youu for sticking to it! Circumstances shall get worse before they get better, and it’s totally necessary to ensure our characters meet the final demise of their prisons.

BTW, I still can’t believe we got a borderline blatant onscreen bi!Dean (and Cas insert) treat!! What’s by is by! Overall I’m incessantly praising Dabb’s spectacular work so far + Glynn and Rich Speight Jr’s craft in this ep!!

Very little sub is left in the text, my friends. TPTB are rendering years’ worth of meta increasingly explicit in S13. I can only HOPE and expect that 13x23/S14 brings us past the Point of Know Return subtextual boundaries and into full-blown textual narrative! Authorial intent EXISTS. 

**I know, I know--S14 wasn’t confirmed as the last season and S15 is fair game. The plot accordion, as per usual, re-emerges with the slight overhaul/pullback of characteristic arcs and narrative plot due to season renewals, but I’m Endgame Positive that slow progress is SURE progress. Imho Dean and Cas are so close in saying everything from saying nothing. THE UNSAID WILL BE SAID.

Bracing myself for the last 3 episodes—they’ll burn us in awesome ways!! 

[overseer2020]

A Ninja’s Preparations 4

And so, we end this series about early Vigilante equipment with what I would consider a high note: The Leatherwing cycle!

I started out with the obvious realization that my ersatz Batman would need a utility belt. So I put in a placeholder. Later, I decided I needed more Ninja-related gear, but I couldn’t decide how to position it in the set. I clearly couldn’t go around the color wheel as I had been doing with everything else in order to maintain balance. That’s when I realized they should be a vertical cycle! I’d lose the symmetry of only having created five-card cycles, but I wouldn’t have to figure out what a red ninja equipment would look like (for now -- I suppose there’s enough conceptual overlap between Ninjas(b/u) and Rogues (g/u) with their “saboteur abilities” that green and/or red Ninja-type equipment wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility).

By making this a vertical cycle, I can also reinforce the three color Vigilante motif while only using two colors in these Part II (the section of Heroes and Villains that encourages players to use just two-colors) cards. The cycle includes a WB common, a WU uncommon and a UB rare with increasing mana costs.

Can’t be a Vigilante without vigilance, right? But seriously, this is a simple common equipment intended to keep one’s options open when building a Ninja deck. “You, too can be a Ninja with just three easy payments!” (The creature spell, the equipment spell and the equip cost.)

I should also point out that while I am using the creature type Ninja in Heroes and Villains, I am not using the keyword Ninjutsu. I already have a bunch of stuff going on, and the players need not concern themselves with trying to memorize the details behind such a narrow keyword I can conceivably only get away with using a handful of times.

Finding an image of a hooded cloak that didn’t have a (visible) person on it was challenging, but finding an image of a grappling hook, smoke bombs and throwing stars in one useable image proved to be impossible. There was always something I didn’t want in the image. (The above image has climbing claws, for instance. In fact, I wanted a grapnel gun instead of a grappling hook, but those were almost never in an image alongside other things, and when it was, it was too specifically a Batman [not generic or fantasy enough] or just had the wrong look.) 

I ended up deciding that this would be one of those cards with multiple images. That sort of thing is usually reserved for commons, but I’ll make an exception here. Or swap the rarity with Cape and Cowl.

This little aside has little-to-nothing to do with actual card design, but since I am the concept team, the design team, the development team and the art team, I often use my unique “sees-all, knows-all” position to do several jobs at once. After all, if I don’t do it when I’m thinking about it, there’s a good chance it won’t get done or get done poorly. Here’s a glimpse into art selection:

This is the other one at the top of the list of images I intend to use and the only one I could find with smoke bombs and anything else I wanted to display in the same image. I could probably get away with separate images for each ‘subweapon’, though.

This one has a nice “laying out my equipment look to it” with a throwable dagger, throwing spikes and caltrops. But I wasn’t trying to have a dagger in the image, throwing spikes are not common enough to recognize right away and my original flavor text (seen here) doesn’t even mention caltrops. This one has the right tone, but all the wrong elements.

This one has a grapnel gun with different attachments, I guess? But nothing else that says “I’m a fantasy-world Ninja!”. I could still see using this as a third image.

And this one has batarangs in it. I had been trying to avoid the Batsymbol, even in these placeholder images, but it’s the best representation of what I want this card to look like.

As for the rules text and the flavor text. I actually came up with the rules text first, then when I went to choose the wording for the flavor text, I realized that the line launcher would effectively give the creature flying, smoke pellets (in the original) make it nigh-impossible to hit and throwing darts let it hit your opponent’s creatures before they even get within punching distance. I accidentally wrote perfectly flavored rules text! (I altered the flavor text on the two I intend to use to better reflect the objects seen in the images.)

But of course, when you think “Batman”, there’s one piece of equipment so iconic, I had to make it legendary:

As you might have guessed, “This is a work in progress and is not necessarily indicative of the final product.” This isn’t listed as Leatherwing’s Utility Belt because it’s part of a “possessions” cycle of rare artifacts as well as the top of a vertical cycle of ninja equipment. I might end up having to split the cycles and/or change the name of this equipment, but for now, it’s Bruce’s.

I can’t be sure if “regrowing” sorceries also would be too much. Meanwhile, I figure most sub-2-mana instants are combat tricks, but since you already dealt combat damage in order for this to trigger, you’re going to have to get creative to get the most out of BUB. So allowing them to be cast for free shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

It occurs to me that Iconic Projectiles will probably need a name change, as it will be narratively dissonant to represent some ninja tools as instants and others as equipment. Iconic Projectiles should be named after the Skill involved in marksmanship. Like Ninja’s Accuracy or something.

I think that’s all I can think of to say about these character-inspired equipment pieces. And with that, the early phase of design comes to an end. At the moment, I don’t have any posts ready to go, but I intend to remedy that right now. In case I don’t, you might see some unrelated posts as filler until I can get some more material made.

Next time: We get kicked in the side. Or is it to the side?

[zakariazakri]

5 things  you should be wondering about before taking a photo

Q1: what's the aim of this shot?

Before you even lift the camera to your eye, I would like you to approach each shot with an end goal in mind - in other words, what are you trying to capture?

I know that a lot of people devour their camera just within the hope of getting “something good” but attempt to get a touch more detailed than that, because the more you'll visualize the top result, the more purposeful your shooting is going to be, and therefore the better the image will be!

So consider whether the goal is just a life-style/documentary shot for your family albums, or are you going for a full-on portrait to hold on the wall? Also, believe what does one wants to point out with this image? What does it get to include to urge your message across? What shouldn’t it include?

The more intent you've got, the higher in-camera decisions you create, so this is often a crucial one!

Q2: Where is that the light coming from?

So now that we all know what sort of image we hope to require, the subsequent thing you ought to do is check out where the sunshine is coming from, and the way this is often hitting our subject.

You want to use the available light during a way that flatters your subject. Remember, if your subject doesn’t look good to the eye, they’re not getting to look good within the picture either! Although you'll do tons to a picture in processing, you merely can’t “fix” bad lighting (or a minimum of not well) - so this is often something that you simply really must get right privately.

Try to confirm that the shadows are falling in places that are flattering and molding the features, which their eyes have much light in them (called catchlights). Catchlights are often really important because they assist bring your subject to life!

So, look to the sunshine, and move your subject or yourself (or both!) to a neighborhood that's flattering and best tells the story you would like.

Q3: Are there any distractions within the frame?

Now that you simply have decided what sort of photo you would like to require, and where to position yourself and your subject with reference to the sunshine, take a fast second or two to see your background.

Try to confirm there's nothing distracting within the background, and if there's, remove it. Although you'll definitely clone items out later, there are some things that are just really difficult to get rid of, for instance, plant pots growing out of someone’s head, or items that merge together with your subject in how. Plus, are you able to imagine having to edit 30 blue balls out of the background when all you needed to try to was take 30 seconds to maneuver it out of the way at the time?

Of course, if the background is simply super busy (but that provides you the simplest light) consider perhaps shooting down on your subject, or blurring the background.

Q4: What settings do I want to use?

Finally! We’re able to lift our camera to our eyes. (Can you see what proportion of taking a photograph starts without even the camera is there?!)

At now, you would like to work out which settings you would like to use here. I’m talking about Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO settings primarily, but also your other settings too - like you focus mode, white balance, etc.

I wrote a cracking blog post (if I do say so myself) about choosing your settings in manual mode, so I’d give that a read, and also download my FREE manual settings cheat sheet also.

Q5: How am I able to compose this photo?

Purpose of photo clear? Check! Subject positioned in the best light? Check! Distractions removed? Check! Settings in? Check!

Then now, if you've got the time (which I appreciate you don’t always have!) attempt to consider which composition tool you're getting to use. you've got numerous options here that it can feel overwhelming.

If you're new photography, then stick with using the rule of thirds, for now, moving on to other composition guides once you desire you'll “do” the rule of thirds in your sleep.

If you're more advanced, then try something new - framing, symmetry, negative space, golden spirals or rule of odds, to offer a couple of examples. Have a glance at what's the frame - for instance, is there a line you'll use to steer to your subject? does one have an ideal triangle? an excellent background for a few negative spaces?

Then make the subtle adjustments to your position to urge the composition you would like.

[cupkayke]

11 Answers, 11 Questions

I got tagged by @nardaviel! <3

Rules: Always post the rules. Answer the questions asked, then write eleven new ones. Tag eleven people to answer your questions as well as the person who tagged you. 

1. what’s your favorite thing to do when you want to chill out and just enjoy yourself?

I’m so lame, it’s sleeping, mostly lol. I love naps like nothing else. As for hobbies, if I’m actively roleplaying with anyone it’s that, or relaxing and reading fanfics or watching Markiplier videos. Just hanging out by myself, really. (Tho cuddling the BF ranks on the list too lol)

2. describe the most beautiful thing you can think of or imagine

Object or concept? If we’re going with object... the perfect-fitting dream dress, heart shaped neckline, flowing skirt with iridescent colors that all blend into one another in varying shades of pinks, purples and blues... (idk I’m working on cosplay right now so all I’m thinking about is clothes). Concept? Coming home to your loved one(s), falling into an embrace and feeling that all is right with the world.

3. what is your favorite combination of colors?

Pink is my all-time favorite standalone, but I really like how royal blue and turquoise look together especially on clothing. 

4. tell us about an AU that you desperately want to make but haven’t been able to, for whatever reason (can’t think of a plot, your faves don’t work well in the setting, w/e)

;^; I actually don’t like AUs too much... I get attached to a world AND its characters, not just one or the other. That’s why I don’t particularly care for reading fics/doing rps that are set in an existing universe but using OCs or AUs. Now Alternate Reality/Slight Canon Divergence I can do- I love me some ‘what if X happened instead of Y’. So I guess I’ll go with an AR answer since it’s kind of AU...

I’d want to do an AR of Boueibu where the CA don’t leave and join the DC, either staying in their CA outfits or becoming Battle Lovers themselves to fight the VEPPer. Now that would be entertaining.

5. what does your phone case look like? did you go for style or sturdiness?

I work in cell phones, so I love me some cases lol I swap out cases so often it’s not even funny. When I had an iphone 6/6s I had something like 10-15 cases at one point but now I have a 7 for work so I don’t have as many  yet;

I have the first one I bought, a Speck hardshell with a purple/blue galaxy print on it. I got stuck with a black phone since it’s a work phone, so I wanted something that matched but was cute. The one I actually use at work is another Speck in turquoise with a slot for a credit card so I can keep my Target card on me at all times so I can buy lunch faster and not lose my card. The one I’m using right now because the Galaxy one is starting to deteriorate is a pink and navy otterbox symmetry that I got on clearance. I wanted the teal one but it was too light colored and was gonna get dirty too fast. All my cases are a blend of protection/function and style so...

6. what is your ideal hairstyle for yourself?

Just cut my hair again, actually; something short and easy to maintain with bangs to hide my forehead that I don’t like but cutesy. I always go with a chin-length bob with sideswept bangs when I cut my hair so... that’s it. 

7. what’s the first favorite song you can remember having?

The first song that I liked just for myself and not because my parents played it all the time was Blue (Da Ba Dee) by Eiffel 65. I fucking love them. 11-year-old me was all over that early 2000s electropop shit. Going back even earlier, though, I want to say it was Hey Hey (We’re the Monkees) or Last Train to Clarksville by the Monkees because my parents played their favorite music for me and my sister when we were really little and I’d dance to everything. I also really liked the Beatles and Kansas around that time but the Monkees pops into my head more easily.

8. what’s the grossest food anyone has ever tried to make you eat? (and did you eat it?)

OH GOD I’M SCARED OF TRYING NEW FOOD WHEN IT’S NOT MY IDEA. 

No, seriously, I actually cannot think of an answer to this question because I am so afraid that I’m not going to like something new/want to vomit when I try it that I actively avoid trying things when someone tries to shove a forkful of something in my face or encourages me to eat it. So any new food is gross. I get so pissed off when my bf or my parents do this because they KNOW I don’t like to try things unless I decide to do so, myself (because then I’ve mentally prepped and imagined what it tastes like and why it might be good) but they don’t understand my anxiety/aversion. They just think it’s a picky thing. It’s absolutely a ‘I am afraid of vomiting therefore I do not want to risk trying something that might make me gag especially in a public setting’. I don’t even have a strong gag reflex, I just have a texture thing and a phobia of vomit :/

I guess to phone in an answer- at the time cheesy potatoes were my worst enemy. I still don’t like cheese that much, but I’ve learned to like varieties of cheesy potatoes prepared well enough. 

9. would you rather never drink anything but water again, or never eat anything again besides the blandest, most boring necessities?

Ack, this is difficult. I suppose while I like water well enough I suppose I’d rather eat bland necessities because my palate is rather limited anyway and that’s kind of been my diet in general until recently when I’ve been experimenting with cooking. I don’t think I can live without soda or flavored carbonated water.... or alcohol. <.<

10. describe your dream home

Somewhere near an ocean where it’s cool enough that I can have the windows open to air out the house and somehow there are no bugs to fly inside. It’d smell like the ocean and i’d be able to hear it outside. The house would be big enough for my family but small enough that it isn’t too huge with lots of cozy living spaces, a game room, a huge sewing/craft room/office for me with more cozy seating while I work. It’d have a nice, well-stocked kitchen with a dining room close by surrounded by windows that look out at the sea. There’d be windows everywhere, basically, but all surrounded by thick, heavy curtains to draw when it gets dark. There’d be a screened-in patio with comfy deck furniture and maybe a minibar, that overlooks my own private pool (maybe an infinity pool!) and backyard oasis with lots of flowers and trees that mostly blocks anyone from seeing into the yard but has views of the ocean peeking through. The bedrooms would all be large enough and super comfy and my bed would be so, so soft and huge enough so I could fit my partner and several cats (and maybe a small, not smelly dog) comfortably. The master bath would be my own private sanctuary, with heated floors, some seating, a huge, gorgeous bathtub big enough for two people and a separate shower that has multiple heads. Y’know, rich people bathrooms. My pets would have everything they’d ever need (catios, lofty cat highways and lots of scratching posts and toys; a big enough side yard for the dogs to run around and maybe a built in doggy bath to get rid of dog smell lol). Oh, and the entire house would have one of those sweet Sonos sound systems so I could play music all day in each room. <3

That was long and specific...

11. i need u to come up with a brilliant, scathing insult that contains five words or less

Fuck... I can’t think of anything other than “Douchnozzle McCuntWhistle”. Its not scathing as much as it’s ridiculous but I love it.

NEW QUESTIONS:

1) If you could have any animal in the world (currently living or extinct) as your pet, what would it be and why?

2) If money were no object, what would your dream career be? 

3) How many hours of sleep would you get a night if you were free to sleep as much or as little as you wanted?

4) What’s more frustrating, having a great idea (for a fic, costume, song, presentation, anything) and being unable to produce it (either not having the means, motivation, funds, etc) or having all of your tools to create the thing at your disposal but not having any ideas?

5) Describe your favorite meal ever. Including dessert (if there is any).

6) What’s the most-used bookmark on your phone’s browser?

7) What chore do you absolutely hate and wish you would never have to do ever again?

8) It’s the end of your best day ever. What’s happening?

9) Would you rather go skydiving or climb to the top of mt. everest?

10) If you suddenly became rich beyond your wildest dreams, what would be the first thing you’d do with your money?

11) If you could master any skill on earth, regardless of what your current abilities are, what would it be and why?

Aaaaand I tag @magiccatprincess, @vashtijoy, @vagarius, @liarino, @angry-jewish-magical-girl, @cryptid-crusader, @metalliclioness, @amateurcatalyst, @thatlittledandere, @dazesprite and @nakedxtime <3

[brentoy4u4me04-blog]

MARCO CARDONA: FROM HELL TO THE ASIA GRAND PRIX IFBB PRO 2018 PLATFORM

MARCO CARDONA: FROM HELL TO THE ASIA GRAND PRIX IFBB PRO 2018 PLATFORM

The distinguished professional bodybuilder of the IFBB and pride of Colombia, Marco Cardona, returns to the competitive platforms!

Yes, the South American bodybuilding star will go up this Saturday, September 22, 2018 to the platform of the Asia Grand Prix IFBB Pro League, which will take place in the capital of South Korea, in Seoul.

For Bodybuilding lovers and for the sport itself, Marco's return to the competition arena is great and welcome news. His last show was in October 2014 in the city of Arizona, at the Phoenix Europa Pro.

It is four years without competing, it is four years that the Colombian who dazzled the renowned Flex Wheeler by his symmetry and physical condition, has not adorned the IFBB Pro League shows, but God's time is exact and it always takes good, but arrives (pump-biceps).

In the hours before taking the plane that will take him to the other side of the world, to Seoul, the capital of South Korea, where he will make his competitive return, Cardona with her kindness to which we are already accustomed, made a space in her busy schedule and He contacted us by phone to give the world first to MD Latino, an honor for which we are grateful.

RESCUED BY GOD, FROM THE HELLS OF LIFE ...

Nobody, not even Marco Cardona, imagined that after that October 2014, when he made his last presentation in Arizona, on the platform of the Phoenix Europa Pro, he would begin to fight the hardest of his competitions, preserving his health and his reborn as a competition athlete.

The year of 2015 surprised Marco and all his relatives, with the bad news of a liver complication, which required urgent and prolonged treatment to save his health, but when everything seemed to be solved, 2016 received him with the bitter news that his Right knee suffered from patellar deviation and cartilage damage, so it had to be operated immediately, at Galena's suggestion the surgery was postponed and could not be postponed.

Quite a way of the cross, a drama worthy of a Hollywood movie, but also worthy of a warrior and champion of a thousand battles in life such as Marco Cardona and to which we give faith and testimony of it.

For something I always say to this great human being: The champion of life.

Once again Marco Cardona overcame these mishaps with God, lived his own personal hell. Thank heaven, Marco was overcoming health difficulties, but as he says, another very hard fight came: heart against mind ... It was seeing that everything he had gained in bodybuilding was going in a jiffy and to add more tension To the lived situation, there was a whole tidal wave of criticism and discouraging words that initially undermined the spirit of our interviewee, but not his faith.

Even those closest to him told him that he would not compete again, that everything was history, that so much sacrifice was not worth it, because look at how everything was finished, in short, the Apocalypse in life with its riders declaring it in full.

But Marco clung in a more powerful, if possible the term, in a deeper and more sincere way to seek God and Our Lord Jesus Christ and He saw that there was sufficient merit and sincerity and helped him to see the new light of his own inner sky; But who is more precise than Marco Cardona to tell it in the first person, that's why we bring up what was discussed with him.

Greetings champion, welcome once again to our pages of MD Latino.

Orlando is an immense pleasure and a great joy to be able to be with you again. A very sincere greeting for you, for Kit Sanderson and Israel, and for all MD Latino.

Just as Orlando recounts it, so it happened, for health reasons that were urgent and above all inescapable, I had a mandatory break of four years. By the blessing of God, to whom I owe everything in my life, I was able to come out ahead of these medical emergencies, but during the post-operative process of both cases, I began to see that I was losing my own muscle mass due to the medicines and antibiotics that I ingested, in addition to the mandatory medical rest decreed for the recovery of the same.

Me agarró un mar de dudas e incertidumbres, pagué mi novatada en este tipo de casos y como te conté, todo el mundo se me vino encima con comentarios irreales y falsos diciendo que tenía cáncer, ¡Dios Santo me cuide!, y demás falacias; por otro lado mis amistades y conocidos diciéndome que hasta ahí llegó mi carrera deportiva, que mire cómo quedé, peor que un recién llegado a los gimnasios etc, etc… Es decir, hicieron leña del árbol caído y eso me dejó unas cicatrices muy fuertes, las cicatrices mentales, ya que el temor, la duda y el desespero se hicieron presentes en mi mente.

And like Saint Job, I forced myself to cultivate patience, another achievement at this stage of my life and I clung body and soul to God and Jesus Christ his Son, and for the glory of God, who filled me with sufficient courage and passed from being a self-condemned to sporting exile, to the person most capable of facing the most difficult challenges that are presented to him to achieve victory.

¿ When you decide to take that step to get fit to compete again?

On January 8, 2017 I reflected that if I wanted to, it was because I could, that if God helped me overcome my medical cases, now it was my turn to give my best to return and demonstrate that I was a winner and that is how the day Monday, January 9, of that year 2017, I decide to implement the return plan.

That "operation back to the trenches" must have a road map, a plan drawn up to face the upcoming shows, tell us more about it, please.

Without a doubt, nothing has been left to chance. At this level of professionalism, more with the path taken in this sport, we have been able to learn that all success is in the organization, love for what is done and discipline.

I have a good experience, but always in life there are more sapient and experienced people than us, to those foci of light and source of knowledge is that we must seek, that is why now I have the guidance as my coach of the world-renowned and glory Bodybuilding: Milos Sarcev IFBB Pro. With him, who is a teacher in every sense of the word, I have been able not only to recover my physical condition, but to improve it.

At this very moment that I am talking to you, I am weighing 94 kilograms with an excellent condition, such that if today were the event, I would present myself to battle without fear because I am already on point.

What a champion, and with Professor Milos Sarcev, what have you learned ?, because you have already clarified that you have improved your previous version, we are eager to know

I learned with my coach Milos Sarcev to be patient, I knew and recognized that intensity triumphs or is more beneficial than the weight we are going to use, that the ego of lifting more is the one that does not stop stimulating the muscle well.

In a higher octave, I redefined the methodology to achieve muscle development, taking care of the three basic factors: training, nutrition and rest. I started with a radical change of training from scratch, he taught me to cultivate the so magnificent tool that is the mind-muscle connection , that is to enter a magical world, it is very gratifying to feel it.

Now I ask you, what is the philosophy or training system that Milos Sarcev dictates?

Professor Milos instills the Hyperemia Stimulation System, which leads to a hyper-anabolic state . Hyperemia is a condition in which blood becomes congested in a particular area of ​​the body. The giant series are the basis to get to apply this method, applying a variety of angles, weights and speeds.

The goal is to reach failure in each exercise, to achieve muscle failure regardless of the amount of weight you are using. This will bring more blood flow to the area (increased hyperemia) and help to reach the inactive muscle fibers that are not usually stimulated through conventional training methods.

To create muscle hypertrophy, we need to train intensely and during training we have to deplete the storage of muscle glycogen, ATP, and damage the muscle fibers creating micro tears in them. That impact on our muscular system will initiate a hypertrophic response, as our body will recognize the loss of nutrients and a few hours after training it will send the available nutrients to replace what is lost and repair damage .

Tell us about your next events in which you will compete, we know that you start this September 23 at the Asia Grand Prix Pro, but we want to know your complete travel blog

I will compete in these countries and dates:

-Seoul, South Korea: September 22 at the Asia Grand Prix

-California, USA: September 29 at the Legion Sports Fest Pro

-Punta Cana, Dominican Republic: October 13 at the Dominican Republic Pro

-Tokyo, Japan: November 18 at the Japan Pro

-Bucharest, Romania: on November 25 at the Romania Muscle Fest Pro.

In this preparation phase, what has your diet been like?

It has been attached to the nutritional basis of any bodybuilding athlete, that is, based on proteins, fats and carbohydrates. What is relevant is that Professor Milos Sarcev, to stimulate my nervous system and get me out of monotony, every day made me eat something different and tasty, which I liked enormously, since it gave me that tranquility of not doing something so methodical and boring, that is to say I enjoyed all the preparation .

Already for you to say goodbye, please your words to those who want to thank for the support provided for this return:

First of all, without a doubt and with all my heart, I give my deep thanks to God for allowing me to see the beauty of my existence and giving me another lesson in life, especially for showing me his blessings for this humble servant.

How not to thank my support column, my inspiration to fight: I speak of my beloved wife Jessica Olaya, for her it is also that I am here giving the fight, every day not only do I love her more, but I value her more. Thanks to my son Juan Esteban, my encouragement to live, he is my life and my joy, he is my everything, "I love you son".

I cannot overlook my coach and life coach Milos Sarcev; it is a blessing from God to have him, "thank you professor for your help".

I also thank the entire MD Latino team who have been watching me through thick and thin, thank you for so much solidarity, and all my sincere fans who were there at the most critical moments, millions of blessings because they never took me back. Your support and always encouraged me to keep going, "Thank you, you are worth all the gold in the world!"

God bless you all and until next time, stay tuned that MD Latino will know about my performances.

With nothing more to add and full of joy at Marco Cardona's return to competition, I say goodbye to all of you; until next time.

[lindyhunt]

The Best Editing Apps for Photos

By now, it's clear that creating great visual content is critical for marketers -- and that's especially true on social media.

As of 2017, Instagram has doubled its monthly active user base in the last two years, which means a lot more people are viewing and sharing photos in 2018. Plus, visual content is 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types.

In other words, people like to be shown, not told -- and in turn, they share.

For that reason, it's important for marketers to know how to create compelling photos for their business' social networks and blogs. And while it can be worth putting the investment of time and money into photo editing software on your computer, many of us are exclusively using our phones to take pictures and could stand to edit them without uploading them to a desktop. That's especially true when you're posting in real time, like at an event. Luckily, there are numerous great inexpensive and free photo editing apps out there for mobile devices -- some of them even cost just a few bucks. But which apps are the best?

Check out our short list of 12 apps below -- organized by apps that are compatible with both iOS and Android, apps offered just for the iPhone, and apps designed to edit face-focused photos.

Inexpensive and Free Photo Editing Apps for iOS and Android

1. Afterlight

$0.99 | iOS | Android | Windows

There was a time when I was a bit more old-school in my photo editing. I counted on Instagram tools alone, sometimes combining them with the "enhance" feature on my phone's Photos app. Then, I learned about Afterlight -- a somewhat rudimentary tool, but one that has all the features you need to do a basic photo edit.

From controlling the color tones, to adjusting exposure and brightness, to rotating and straightening a photo, it has everything you need for lighting or color fixes. It also contains 74 filters, including a Fusion feature that lets you mix tools, filters, and textures to create your own personal look. Into frames? Afterlight has a whopping 128 to choose from, boasting a perfect pairing with Instagram.

My favorite tools, though, have to be the ones for Brightness and Shadows. Some pictures do well with a decrease in shadows and increase in brightness for cleaner, fresher look. But flipping those around can also create a more mysterious, nighttime feel -- That's what I did with this photo of tree ornaments.

2. VSCO Cam

Free | iOS | Android

Over the past few years, VSCO Cam has become a highly popular photo editing app for mobile. While it does boast a wider set of editing tools than most other editing apps, its main claim to fame is its filters.

These filters have a softer, more authentic look that resembles real film, compared to the over-saturated looks of many Instagram filters. Plus, it's great for when you need to edit a photo on the fly. Simply upload the photo to VSCO Cam, slap on one of the great filters -- I used C1 below -- and call it a day. (There are more filters available for purchase, too.)

3. Photoshop Express

Free | iOS | Android

Believe it or not, Adobe Photoshop isn't just for your computer. Adobe Photoshop Express puts most of what people love about Adobe's popular photo editing program in their pockets -- lighting, color, and sharpness options included.

Photoshop Express is especially useful for making photo collages -- something the app's developers likely highlighted for mobile users who want to share many photos at once on Facebook or Instagram. The app's "Decorate" setting even allows you to annotate your photo with digital stickers before saving and posting directly on social media.

Although this photo editor makes Photoshop's best features easily accessible, keep in mind it does carry the natural limitations of a mobile app. Specifically, you can only upload JPG files smaller than 16 megapixels (MP).

Nonetheless, what it does on a smaller platform is still super impressive. You should also try similar Adobe photo editing apps such as Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Capture.

Here's how Photoshop Express helps you choose different collage orientations for multiple photos:

4. Snapseed

Free | iOS | Android

Snapseed is another app that's great for basic image enhancements. It's got all the classic adjustment tools, such as tuning, cropping, and straightening. Plus, its sharpening tool is one of the best we've seen -- it really does enhance a photo's detail, without making it look grainy, like many other photo sharpening adjusters out there.

But what makes this tool particularly unique is its "Selective Adjust" tool. It allows you to pinpoint an area in a photo and adjust the brightness, contrast, and saturation of that single point. So if you want viewers to focus on a certain part of your photo -- say, the buds in the center of a plant -- then you can make the buds more vivid.

Want more help with Snapseed? Google, the maker of the app, created a dedicated support page with tips and instructions.

5. SKRWT

$0.99 | iOS | Android

Ever taken a picture of something straight-on -- a doorway, a building, your food -- and found the perspective was just a little bit askew or tilted? The SKRWT app lets you adjust the perspective of your photos to make the lines look clean and square.

Have a look at what I was able to do with a simple window shot.

Before:

After:

At first, the "before" image doesn't look that skewed, but seeing the "after" version really shows what a difference symmetry can make. If it bugs you to see a photo that's slightly at an angle, then this app is well worth the dollar.

6. Live Collage

Free | iOS | Android

Collages made on Photoshop Express can be great, whether it's to show a comparison (like a before-and-after series), or to highlight multiple photos from the same event or theme. But our favorite photo collage app is Live Collage, mostly because of its wide variety of layouts. It contains several options for photo organization, both classic and fun, with interesting and colorful backgrounds. Plus, you can add customized text in different fonts, colors, and sizes.

If you're strapped for time, there are basic photo editing options within the app, too, making it a handy one-stop shop.

7. Foodie

Free | iOS | Android

If you're anything like I am, your personal social media feeds are loaded with images of food. It's no wonder that food-specific apps are coming out of the woodwork to make photos look even more delectable.

Called out by Bustle for taking "food pictures to some next level gorgeous," Foodie uses more than 30 filters and other editing features to turn what might otherwise be a humdrum snack into a visual feast.

When I applied the CR2 filter to a photo of chocolate candy, this was the result:

Best Photo Editing Apps for iPhone

8. Camera+

$2.99 | iOS only

With the highest price tag on the list, you have to wonder what makes Camera+ so special. When it was first released, Lifehacker called it "The Best Camera App for iPhone," with TIME writing, "If the iPhone's standard camera is like a digital point-and-shoot, the Camera+ app is like a high-quality SLR lens."

While the app has many of the classic photo editing tools like color tints, retro effects, and crops, there are a few gems that make it unique. First is its image stabilizer, which helps you capture the sharpest photos possible before you even take a picture. It also lets you zoom in up to 6X, which can really up the quality of your shot if you're trying to hone in on something far away.

Finally, its Clarity filter is what The Wall Street Journal's Kevin Sintumuang calls its "secret sauce -- it adds pro-camera crispness to almost any shot." I'd have to agree -- just check out how it enhanced this photo of my dog.

9. Mextures

$0.99 | iOS only

Mextures is one of the more advanced apps on this list -- and its crown jewel is layer-based editing. That allows users to stack different adjustment layers on top of each other, moving and editing them individually, allowing for nearly limitless creativity. You can also apply multiple filters, textures, and blending models to the same photo to create a really unique look. If you find an editing formula you really like, you can save it to apply to other photos later, or even share it with your friends.

Here's what happened when I took a simple photo of candlesticks on a white background only and applied three enhancements -- Waterfront overlay, Bokeh Baby Overlay, and the Color Dodge blending mode.

10. Enlight

$3.99 | iOS only

I'll just say how I feel: This app is incredible.

Winner of the Apple Design Award in 2017, Enlight will change the way you see even the most ordinary picture the next time you open your iPhone camera. Among its 10 different photo editing features, the app's Photo Mixer allows you to blend multiple photos together -- or combine a photo with text -- for a super artistic result.

According to Les Shu of Digital Trends, Enlight is "a powerful Photoshop-like app, minus the steep learning curve."

Check out a stunning example of what the app's Photo Mixer can do below.

Best Face Editing Apps

11. Facetune

$3.99 on iOS | $5.99 on Android

Never take a selfie you don't like again. Facetune is considered the top photo app in more than 120 countries, allowing you to make up for unflattering mobile photos with professional-level corrections to numerous facial features.

The app offers eight different types of corrections and enhancements to a person's face in a given photo -- including to the hair, eyes, skin, and smile. Taking a new professional headshot? I highly recommend you touch it up in the Facetune app before adding the photo to your LinkedIn profile (not that I don't think you're beautiful already).

Here's just one example of a skin tone correction done with Facetune, making all the difference:

12. Visage Makeup Editor

Free | iOS | Android

Disclaimer: There's absolutely nothing wrong with under-eye circles. We all have them, and we sometimes wear them like medals. (We do, however, take issue with and don't recommend a lack of sleep.)

That said, when it comes to sharing photos of ourselves on social media, vanity sometimes enters the picture. Sound familiar? There's an app for that.

We like the Visage makeup editor, which instantly retouches photos and lets you add some special effects, like a "Pop Art Style" filter that can make your selfie look slightly Warhol-esque. The app comes equipped with some interesting backgrounds, as well as lighting and color features, with more available for purchase.

The only drawback? The free version is a bit ad-heavy, and unless you upgrade to pro, your finished product will be stuck with a branded hashtag at the bottom.

Now Comes the Fun Part

See how easy it is to create and share visual content? Of course, mastering these apps will require a bit of practice, but if you're unsure where to start, just look around you -- that's what we did when we tried each of them.

Think about your marketing goals for this year. Then, ask yourself what kind of photos will help you accomplish them. From there, you can pick and choose the best apps from this list.

So start getting visual. We can't wait to see what you create.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Beer with a Painter: Tom Uttech

Tom Uttech, “Ajawakamig (1014)” (2017), oil on linen, 84 x 96 inches, 91 1/2 x 103 1/2 inches including artist’s painted frame (all images courtesy Alexandre Gallery)

Tom Uttech greets me in Saukville, Wisconsin and leads me to his studio carrying a tall walking stick. Uttech lives and works on a former farm, and is an advocate of prairie restoration and an avid bird watcher. He has reestablished hundreds of native plants to the fields around his home, and reported sightings of record numbers of bird species to Wisconsin ornithological groups. The studio — a converted barn — is a workshop for these multiple interests: containing not only major paintings in progress along with his own black-and-white landscape photographs, but also animal skulls and antlers, lengths of bark, old tools, bird nests, vintage Native American canoes hanging from rafters, binoculars, and well-thumbed bird guides on sturdy drafting tables. He is curious to know what a New York writer is going to make of it all, and conscious that his work is anomalous.

As beautiful as the fields and old stone walls around his home are, his paintings are actually studio inventions, based on memories of canoeing and camping in the northern reaches of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Canada — a true wilderness. They are both highly fictionalized and hyper-real: invoking sublime American landscape painting and magic realism, with a dreamy but tightly realized rhythm of compositional organization. The landscapes are populated by dozens of intricately rendered creatures: wolves, bears, moose, and birds — running or flying from right to left, or facing us head-on and unflinching. His wide, flat, pine molding frames are part of the work: stained and decorated with painted images of animals, tracks, canoes, and fish.

We decide to sit outside so that Uttech can give me a lesson in birdcalls while we talk about art. Our conversation is punctuated by his observations; he pauses to point out the sounds of house wrens, a red-bellied woodpecker, a Great crested flycatcher, a hummingbird, an Eastern wood peewee, and a red-winged blackbird. The awe and reverie in his paintings is matched by his pragmatic directness. In the newest paintings, this quality is even more present.  They have frontal symmetry of organization: it is a maximalist vision of nature, both orderly and untamed.

Tom Uttech in his studio

Uttech was born in 1942 near Wausau, Wisconsin. He studied at the Layton School of Art and University of Cincinnati, and he was a professor of art at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, until 1998. Since the inclusion of his paintings in the 1975 Whitney Biennial, his work has been the subject of more than 40 one-person exhibitions. Examples of his work can be found in the collections of the Chazen Museum of Art, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Georgia; the Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., among many others. His work is represented by Alexandre Gallery, New York, where a solo exhibition of his paintings is currently on view.

 *   *   * 

Jennifer Samet: Do you have any memories of drawing or art-making from childhood that stay with you?

Tom Uttech: According to my mother, I was never unhappy if I had a piece of paper and a crayon in front of me. That started when I was still sitting in a high chair. The two things that brought me pleasure were art and birds.

My first memory is from before I was three years old. I was living with my grandparents, since my father was in the Navy at the time. My grandfather had a cheese factory and a farm, and it was a beautiful spring day, when the grasses were very green. As I was looking out across the field, a red-winged blackbird coasted through. They perform a certain type of a flight when they are about to land — singing and proclaiming territory. So I saw this absolutely black bird, with a red epaulet, fringed by yellow, against the green field. I’ve always wanted to replicate that experience, but of course that can’t happen.

When my dad returned, we moved to town, to Wausau, and I’d go out and watch the nighthawks. Most kids would be doing other sorts of things. My interest in art and birds were two strikes against me as far as normalcy.

Installation view of Tom Uttech: New Paintings (2017), Alexandre Gallery, New York

JS: You did your undergraduate work in Milwaukee and then went to the University of Cincinnati for your MFA. Who were some of your influential teachers there?

TU: My experience at Layton School of Art in Milwaukee was very positive. I was lucky to have teachers who let me follow my own path, including Guido Brink, a German immigrant from the Bauhaus, from Düsseldorf. He had been in the Nazi army. He understood that my interest was to replicate the feeling of an experience, rather than describing the appearance of it. In two years, he hardly said a word, but I remember one thing he did say. If a painting was not working, no matter what the problem was, he would say, “Paint a tree yellow.” It’s a way of jarring reality. I still don’t follow that advice, but it’s a great attitude.

My experience at the University of Cincinnati was unpleasant, and I was in an environment that was not supportive of the kinds of unusual interests that I had. After graduating and teaching for a few years, I became disillusioned.  There was a big discrepancy between what the art world was supporting and what I wanted to do. I tried to adjust. Over time, I realized the work I was making was a compromise, between who I was as a person and who I was as an artist. I reached a point where I decided, “If this is art, I’m not an artist.”

But when my daughter was two or three years old, I would sit with her while she was watching Sesame Street, and I would draw. Since I had made the decision that I wasn’t an artist, none of it meant anything or was important. So I could do anything. I drew things until I got sick of them and then tried other things.  I expelled the compromised ideas I had been working with, and in the process, a new set of images emerged. They returned to my appreciation of the northern landscape. Images came to me from reading Finnish mythology. I was led to that through the music of Jean Sibelius. I made a series of paintings of with biomorphic images, such as landscapes populated by women with deer heads. It was 10 years of real weirdness, and during that period I was teaching in the art department of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, with students following current interests such as highly minimalist paintings and conceptual work.

JS: How does drawing fit into your process now? Do you plan the paintings by drawing them out?

TU: They are not at all pre-planned in the drawing stage. I like to start without any idea of how it’s going to end up. I invent a place where I’d like to be, or a place where I can create this unified experience. It is like starting out on a canoe trip and not knowing what is going to happen. That is wonderful as an experience. The drawing of the painting becomes the most enjoyable part of the whole painting process, because I’m able to spend my time finding things.

JS: I know that your paintings refer not to this landscape, where we are now in Wisconsin, but to an area farther north. How is specificity of place significant to you, even though you work from memory in your studio?

Tom Uttech, “Ganawaabandiwag (Northern Lights)” (2003/2017), oil on linen, 66 x 72 inches, 73 x 79 inches, including artist’s painted frame

TU: There are places I feel a spiritual affinity for. They are found in an area of the North Woods geologically known as the Canadian Shield, which stretches from central Canada all the way out to Newfoundland, and which dips into the extreme north of the northern US.  It is a land of glacial lakes, boreal plants and animals, and few human inhabitants. When I am there, I feel at home, complete, and invisible. I try to have my paintings contain and communicate that feeling.

JS: Are there experiences in the wilderness that have been particularly spectacular and have informed your work in some way?

TU: There are many, like the time I was camping on a small island with a group of friends. We were sitting around a fire late at night. We didn’t know it, but there was a wolf on the island with us, and he started howling. There is something about the transmission of that voice and the sound waves that I could feel in my body, rather than hear.

JS: Why are the birds in your paintings all flying from right to left?

TU: It is not about anything you might imagine. I was making a landscape painting that was not looking interesting. I figured I had nothing to lose; I couldn’t ruin a painting that was already ruined. So, I decided it might be more interesting if I added two or three wolves in it. Then I thought it would be more interesting yet if they were running. For no particular reason, they went through in that direction.

It did make the painting more interesting, so I added even more. They were all moving in one direction. Something was born. After doing it accidentally, I had to do it again. I’ve tried paintings where they go in different directions, and the paintings never feel right.

I often think it’s easier to draw a creature if you start at the nose. I’m right-handed so it works that way. Drawing it from the tail to the head for a right-hander feels like doing everything backwards. On the surface it is totally superficial, but, sometimes, decisions like that may reveal more — a deeper quality of some sort.

JS: Although you are working from memory, photography must play a role in these paintings. How do you paint the specific species of birds that are represented?

TU: I use the illustrations in David Allen Sibley’s book, The Sibley Guide to Birds, because it is only when birds are flying that they expose the patterns and shapes of their wings. However, when they are flying, it is all a big blur. We would never be able to see those details. In that sense, one of the crazy things is that the paintings are so wrong. We are able to see all that, as if I was capturing a 100th of a second.

Tom Uttech, “Kikinawadad (996)” (2017), oil on linen, 32 x 36 inches, 38 1/2 x 42 1/2 inches including artist’s painted frame

JS: Can you tell me about the painted frames, which are a significant element of your work?

TU: While I was teaching at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, I was exposed to several influential and politically important professors who followed strict formalist theories. It was not correct to refer to the image of a tree and call it a tree. It was necessary to call it a green vertical shape. When I berated the limiting characteristics of that practice to a faculty member, he sarcastically asked, “Well, do you want us to start teaching rosemåling?” I walked away thinking, “Why not? That stuff is pretty interesting.”

At the time I had begun to use wide frames, and I thought adding decorations to them would bug him. So of course I had to do it. The decorations started with northern themes, like moose tracks, and gradually grew into images that complimented and augmented the information in the painting itself. They could tell a different story, and therefore make the whole story more complex and interesting. I was hooked.

JS: Many of your paintings utilize a deliberate symmetry of organization, and in your newest paintings there is a vertical symmetry. How do you think about symmetry and compositional organization?

TU: There is a lot of symmetry in life, of one kind or another. One of the neatest things about nature is that it is totally chaotic at all times, while it is simultaneously totally organized. And a lot of that organization has to do with symmetry. Symmetry is life; it’s reality. That is magic. Painting, hopefully, can do that too.

The symmetry of the reflections is a different story. In the far north, twilight lasts a long time. If you paddle at just the right pace on a calm day, you will see in the water a perfect reflection of the real world. This upside-down world exists just like the “real” world, although it’s not actually there. It becomes like a ghost; it seems to complete reality.

Tom Uttech, “Nanagatawendamowin (994)” (2017), oil on linen, 66 x 60 inches, 73 x 67 inches including artist’s painted frame

If the water is clear, it further complicates and completes the meaning of life. The things we see under the water — fallen trees, submerged plants and fish and such — are real, but they exist in a realm where we humans are denied entrance. So there is a combination of real, unreal, and also unavailable. That is mind altering. I want to generate that in my painting — not describe its appearance. So far I am not totally satisfied with my efforts.

JS: Although you are making representational painting, you seem also to have a real affinity for abstraction. Who are some of the artists you think about?

TU: Even though I rebelled against rigid formalism, I do know and love the necessary role that formal abstraction plays in visual communication. I love the way the early Abstract Expressionists were able to do so much without representing anything, and how older representational painters like Vermeer made paintings that are actually rigidly abstract. Joan Mitchell is one of my absolute favorite painters. I wish I had had the chance to get to know her. She must have been a dervish — all the work she did, and the energy. Her paintings are all so good; they never disappoint me.

The same is true of Willem de Kooning. The paintings say that you don’t need the representation to express the feeling. J.S. Bach, and a lot of music, does that. Instead, you are being transformed out of life into something else, which is undefinable. I’ve been very jealous of de Kooning. He was able to paint beautiful paintings that are some of the most abstract paintings ever. They are not about anything, and he gave them incredible, specific titles, like “Montauk Point.” What can I do? “Landscape with birds.”

JS: Can you tell me about your painting’s titles?  I had assumed they were names of places.

TU: They used to be, but then I ran out of names of places I’ve been. They are words in the Anishinaabe or Ojibway language. I title them after the sound of the word, and then, secondarily, the meaning of that word. It is meaningful to me because I grew up surrounded by their words and came to love, respect, and appreciate both the language and my contacts with its speakers. I like the way that language can reflect the physical character of the North Woods and therefore further complete the experience of seeing my paintings.

JS: How do you think about the play between a symbolic or visionary depiction in your work, and the highly specific elements that are represented?

TU: I want to use the metaphoric possibilities of painterly technique to energize the stories the paintings are telling. For instance, when painting trees, I often try to use erosion as a method. Paint is applied in a very liquid consistency and allowed to freely run down the painting. I augment this by flooding the space with turpentine, which further erodes it. The painting process replicates the natural forces that cover the face of a tree or cliff, and I’m simultaneously representing its appearance. If a tree is painted this way, it will communicate differently than if it were painted with gooey impasto. This nearly uncontrolled erosion is contrasted with tightly rendered birds and animals. This is hard to do successfully.  But that contrast is fun and adds a lot of spice.

Tom Uttech, “Nin Kikinge (998)” (2017), oil on linen, 21 1/2 x 27 1/2 inches, 27 x 33 inches including artist’s painted frame

Recently, I was sitting down by the creek on a chair of two rocks, made by the man who built this place, including all the stone walls. He had an uncanny relationship to rocks, like a Zen priest. It was an evening after there had been an inch of rain, and the creek was roaring like mad.  It became a sensory experience like the wolf calling.

After a while it was no longer a literal experience, for my mind was lost in a reverie of complete peacefulness. I was no longer a hungry person with a bad knee. I was a consciousness that was a part of the creek, and rock, and the falling light of night approaching. I felt the same as the mosquito biting my face, and the breeze disturbing its meal. Attaining this state is important to me. I keep trying to use all the forces of painting to replicate that, so I can repeat it for myself — and, if I do it well enough, share it with viewers.

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