#just a simple study of a great masterpiece

[nordinarilygood]

My watercolor interpretation of the 1831 masterpiece "The great Wave of Kanagawa" by Katsushika Hokusai.

[sparklingblu]

Inferior Activities

Lia x M Reader

"How's the salad?"

"Oh, it's great" you answer as you try not to grimace after swallowing the lettuce that taste no different from paper.

"I made few twists to the dressing, you know. A family secret" The bald man winks as he takes another bite of the potato that would have turned to coal if it have been roasted a minute more.

Studying the plates of green laid out all across the table, you make a firm decision never to become a vegan. At least not if your father in law is gonna be your chef. Lia has warned his cooking skills are terrible but you didn't expect it to be this awful. The only tolerable content of the table seems to be the so-called vegan meat and even that's starting to taste lesser and lesser like meat with each bite. No offense to all those animal loving vegans out there but they really are missing out a lot in their life. You wouldn't have lasted a day if you have to survive without meat.

Your eye flicker up to Lia, seated across, to see if she's on the same page with you on the matter. She lazily plops a broccoli into her mouth, her eyes betraying no signs of disappointment. The corner of her lips twitch in a thin smile as if to mock your suffering. She looks contented even.

In the end, you only have yourself to blame. When Lia suggestsled you visits her dad on the weekends, you agreed with a simple nod. Sure, it's your first time meeting her old man but what could go wrong? Right?

Except that everything does. As soon as you enter the house, the first thing the dude asked you was your opinion on wildlife conservation. At first you thought he was joking then you find out he's actually very serious about the matter. Weather talk would have been a good starter. Seriously, who starts a conversation like that?

Then after seeing the dishes he has prepared, you find out making conversation is the least of your worries. He's your father in law and you have respect for him and all but this dude is horrible at being a vegan. If he calls his mushroom soup which tastes more like mushroom-flavored dishwater 'a masterpiece', you might as well consider becoming a chef. Who knows? Maybe you will even get a couple michelin stars.

You are thinking of a way to escape this organic hell and the constant ear rape about how billions of animals are killed per year for human consumption when Lia finally comes to your aid.

"Dad, we are nearly done. Why don't you go make your signature smoothie? I haven't got the chance to taste it since I left for college" she suggests and the old man's eyes twinkle with maddening joy.

"Oh, of course! How could I forget that? It was your mother's favorite" his tone turns solemn at the mention of his late wife but you are too focused on the idea of finally getting some breathing room to care. "Two smoothies. Coming right up! You will absolutely love it" He winks at you again and leaves the table.

You drop your utensils and exhale in relief. "Finally. I was gonna turn into stone if I hear one more second of his animal talk"

Lia chuckles. "I get used to it after living with him for 18 years. He's actually a really sweeet guy. He just tries to focus on something else after my mom passed, I guess"

If the fact is supposed to make you feel sorry, it doesn't work. But you are not gonna tell her that. "How do you survive with this kind of food all these years?"

"It wasn't always that bad" Belle protests. "And sometimes he even cooks meat. But his skills get rusty with old age"

"Yep, I'm never becoming a vegan"

Lia pouts in annoyance. "Oh, come on. It's not that bad"

"Suits yourself"

"You just hate vegetables in general"

You roll your eyes in feigned annoyance. "Look, who's trying to follow her father's steps"

"Whatever" Lia finally gives up, pushing up her glasses from her nose. "I'm still hungry you know...."

"Maybe we can go to McDonald's or something later"

"No, daddy" Lia's voice turns low and sultry. "You know exactly what I want"

You look around in a panic to see if her dad has overheard your conversation. Thankfully, the guy's busy cutting carrots on the kitchen counter.

"Lia, I told you not to call me that in public. Especially not when your literal dad is right here" you warned, though you can't deny the fact that hearing her call you the name get your blood flowing backwards.

"Oh, come on, daddyyyyy" she pushes on, stressing the last word to make it sound even more fervorous. "I know you secretly love it"

"Look, babe. I love the name but this isn't the right place. Seriously, your dad's right there"

"So what?" Lia puts her elbows on the table, propping her chin in her palms. "Don't you enjoy a little risk?"

"Come on, babe. Not right now. I will make it up to you when you come back"

"But I want it now" Lia whines, the pout reforming on her lips. "Need to taste daddy's big cock. Need it shove down my throat"

"Lia...." you hiss, becoming aware of her tone, increasing by the second.

"Daddy pleaseee" she gives you those bambi eyes she knows you can't resist. "Let me suck your huge cock. I need you to fill up my mouth with your hot cum. I have been a good girl, haven't I? I deserve my reward" Lia runs her tongue along her top lips to punctuate her wish.

With the way her words get your asleep mamba waking up, you already know you are fighting a losing battle but you still need to be the one in charge here. "Alright, fine. But-"

"Oops. I drop my spoon" The metal hits the floor with a loud clang and Lia immediately dives down the table. It's an overused trope. You have seen it in hundreds of porn videos and you are no stranger to it. But you have never thought you would be in a similar situation and this time, the risk is very real. Her dad is not a paid actor who would pretend to be oblivious at the scene which would soon unfold.

"Is everything ok?" Lia's dad shouts from the kitchen counter, now washing.....are those eggplants?

"Yes, mister! We are gold!" You replies, hoping he would stay focused on his veggies.

You look down and find Lia already kneeled between your legs, a flicker of amusement in her eyes behind those glasses. Her lips curve into an impish smile. "Just stay still and let me do all the work, daddy" she whispers, her hands already working on your zipper. With one swift pull, she opens it up, revealing your red underwear underneath. "Oh, daddy's wearing my favorite colour today" Lia muses as she grabs your cock over the thin fabric, her thumb tracing slow circles. "Daddy, you are already so hard"

As much as you want to prolong this pornographic session, her dad is not going to be in the kitchen forever and you don't want to give him a heart attack. "Babe, enough teasing. Make it quick" you warn and her thumb rests on your head, pressing down on that sensitive spot she only knows. You let out a half-formed moan, not daring to be loud.

"You know the magic word, daddy. No need to be so formal" she presses again and you grit your teeth.

"Start sucking my cock, you slut" you calls her by her favorite nickname, which intsantly gets her engines revving.

"Yes, daddy" she release her grip, pulling down your underwear. Your rock hard cock springs out in a flash, hitting her spectacles. "Someone's eager" Lia chuckles, placing her brown locks behind her back, preparing for the main course. Her left hand close around your base, pumping it up and down in an agonizingly slow pace. She looks at your cock like it's something glorious, something she should be worshipping. But that's not so far from the truth. If this slut wants to choke on your cock, you are gonna permit it happily.

"Daddy, you are so big" Lia mutters dreamily, her free hand fondling your balls each at a time. The combination gets your mind cloudy, basking in the pleasure you nearly forget the whole point of this.

"I don't see you sucking my cock?" Lia stops her movements at your words and you nearly reget telling her to stop. But that doesn't last long because Lia instantly starts obliging to your command.

"Patience, daddy" With that, her rosy lips seal around your tip, taking you partly into the warmth of her mouth. Meanwhile, her hands grab your shaft, working in unison with each drag of her lips. The twist of her fingers along with her tongue that swirls around your slit gets you throwing your head back, letting out a graon. Then you quickly recompose not to expose yourself.

Lia doesn't seem to be bothered. Getting caught seems to be the last thing on your mind as she slurps on your head with fevorous vigour. Like it's the most delicous lollipop she has ever tasted. Her tongue gathers up any pre cum that leaks from your slit, taking it straight down to her stomach. She would takes anything your cock has to offer.

Every moment or so, you would check on her dad, making sure the guy's still busy brewing his organic potion which contents are starting to get weirder. But as long as he's busy, you don't care what he's putting into that blender. It's the best for him and you. You doubt the old man would be as merciful to you as he is to wildlife if he finds out his daughter is giving you head under his table.

But the task proves to be harder because Lia's dad would throw you ocassional glances and you have to put on this stupid grin everytime, which is not so easy with how Lia's sucking you off. Now she has taken half your cock into her mouth, her cheeks hollowed with unfathomable suction. Her hair sways with every bob of her head, forming silky waves of hazel. All the while, she keeps her eyes on you behind those circular frames, those pools of black seems to be asking if she's doing a good job.

"God, Lia....just like that" you grip the edge of the table to compensate for not being able to rejoice in the bliss of Lia's wet hole freely. Your head darting up and down as you keep watch on her father as well as enjoy the view between your legs.

Your shaft is now ringed with red as Lia leaves tarces of her lipstick mixed with her saliva while her lips glide smoothly along your cock, making it a red wet mess. Not like you mind. She can keeps messing it up all she wants.

Her tongue action doesn't waver either, licking up any available part but escpecially under your tip to tackle your weak spot each time she takes you in. To add icing on the cake, she has her left hand wrapped around your base to pump the lengths unattended by her mouth, not leaving out any throbbing vein.

You are helpless against her attack, the only action from your side to keeps grabbing the tablecloth into an unshapely tangle. And even that's starting to fail at holding back your moans.

A loud whirring sound fills up the place as Lia's dad starts brewing all those green stuffs in the blender. He gives you a thumbs up and you smile back, shammming excitement. The sound of the blender blades reminding you of the disguisting smoothie you will soon have to drink.

However, Lia takes advantage of the noise by taking your whole length down on her throat, the loud gagging sound lost in the echoes of spinning blades. You take the chance to make any audible sound that would let you express your euphoria. A moan. Then two. Then a couple more. It no longer seems to be ending as Lia devour your cock like a hungry animal, hitting the back of her throat each time she deeothroats.

Drops of saliva litters the ground. The evidences of Lia's godly work. Gags after gags escape her mouth in rhythm with your moans. However, escape won't be suitable here with the way your cock is blocking her airway. But that isn't a problem because she would choose your dick over oxygen.

The blender keeps whirring and Lia keeps choking on your cock. Her glasses now tilted at a strange angle from the force of her movement, the temple hanging on one ear only. Currently, her vision isn't as important as the taste of your dick on her tongue.

Lia finally pulls back, trails of saliva running from your tip to her lips. A waterfall of saliva staining her white shirt. Her tongue rolled out and her temples dripping with sweat.

"Daddy....am I...good?" she pants like a bitch in heat, all her lipsticks all gone.

"Very. But you gotta finish what you start my little slut"

"Yes, daddy. Feed me your thick cum. I want it all"

"Then come and take it"

Lia dives back on your cock, immeditaely swallowing your whole length. You groans out at the burst of pleasure, her throat constricted around your shaft. Lia holds her position, her nose pressed to your pelvis for a few moment before pulling back, just to start fucking her throat on your cock again and again.

The sound of the blender stops and you hear the clink of glasses. Turning your head, you find Lia's dad pouring the green liquid into two glasses. It would only be a few minutes before he comes back.

Lia seems to realize to because her lips form an airtight seal around your head and her hands satrt pumping your shaft furiously. Using all your willpower to hold out from finishing earlier leaves no strength left to withstand Lia's final assault. Your cock starts throbbing and soon you are spilling your cum into her mouth. Some reaching her tongue, the other flowing straight down her throat. Lia's fingers keep twisting back and forth and you empty the last drops of your protein rich fluid into her welcoming hole.

You close your eyes, breathing hard. The relief is instant as much as the build up is agonizingly blissful. Lia releases your cock with a pop and lick up the remnants of cum on the tip. You are too lost in the euphporic finale you totally forget the perilous situation you are in. When you realize, it's too late.

Lia's dad is near the table, two glasses of the green smoothie in his hands. His face is a mixture of shock and distress as he stands rooted to the spot, his eyes fixed on her daughter's face a few centimeters away from your spent cock. His mouth opens but before he can speak, Lia chimes in.

"Thanks for the meal daddy. But I don't think I'm going to need the smoothie. I already have dessert"

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[ivy-loves-chocolate]

✧˚ · .Painting their portrait ✧˚ · .

Note: I hope everyone is doing well 💖 I hope you will enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it 💖 If you want to commission me check my ko-fi and pinned post for prices. Thank you!

When he found out about your talent, he immediately bought you the most expensive equipment. Whether you like to paint on a canvas or on a graphic tablet, he will buy you only the best products. 

He's very old-fashioned and wants a classic portrait. He'll arrange a proper setting to fit his taste. With a fireplace in the background, an expensive suit, and some other decoration that screams old money, he’ll sit with his legs crossed in his comfy chair while he looks at you. A soft smile would appear on his face, especially when you two locked eyes. You thought about painting that lovely smile and contouring those sweet dimples, but you know him better and chose to leave a stoic expression on his face. His soft side is for your eyes only. 

He won’t mind sitting for hours because he'll have the greatest company. You two will gossip about the hottest tea at work, talk about his latest projects, and besides that, he'll have his romantic moments when he tells you how much he cherishes you. 

The final result leaves him in awe.

"Darling, this is astonishing." He said, amber eyes studying every inch of the canvas and feeling an immense sense of pride washing over him. He couldn't take his eyes off your masterpiece.

"I knew you had it in you," he began after a short period of total silence. "Yet you managed to exceed my expectations."

You breathe a sigh of relief. Even if he was your boyfriend, it was hard to please him. He didn't coddle you, so when he praised you, you knew it was real. 

He will hang that portrait with pride in his office, and he’ll tell everyone with pride that his partner made the incredible art.

With the corner of his eye, he noticed how you kept shifting your gaze from your notebook to him. Sometimes you'd stare longer at him, and sometimes your hand would go faster and then slower as if you were trying to remember something. Sometimes, you would scratch your head with the pencil and sighed in frustration. 

Whatever you were doodling, it wasn't coming along as you wanted.

Not being able to control his curiosity anymore, he slowly approached your desk. 

"Whatcha doing there?" he asked, looking over your shoulder, directly in the notebook. A wide smile appeared shortly. 

You didn't hide the page in time, and Leon saw the sketches with his face. You drew him from three different angles. Even if you were in a hurry, you still captured his soft features—his genuine smile and his gentle gaze.

"I- uh-I..." you fumbled, hands going in random directions over the paper.

"You don't have to hide it. I think it looks good." He smirked and went back to his desk. 

"Thanks. Listen, I was taking a break, and I felt a bit of inspiration coming in-"

"You don't have to excuse yourself." He chucked and turned to face you. In that moment, you saw a faint blush on his cheeks. "I think it looks great, given how fast you draw."

"And given how much you fidget,"

He chuckled. 

"Seriously, man, lay off that coffee." 

You both laughed, making some people turn their attention to you out of curiosity. A quick glance around, and you quiet down a bit. 

"If you want to finish, I'll try my best to stand still." 

"I would appreciate that." 

You both smiled at each other. Time went by fast, and by the time you finished, the office was empty. None of you felt the time passing by as you got to know each other better. Leon loved his portraits and "stole" your notebook. 

He loved everything you did. Every gesture, every tic, everything was just perfect for him. 

What he cherished most was your talent when it came to art. Everything you touched turned into a masterpiece, something so beautiful that it can’t be described by a simple man. So, when you wanted to paint him, he looked at you in shock. 

"Me?" 

"Yes, you." 

"Why?" he chuckled. 

"Because I want to. And because I want an excuse to stare at your picture for hours while you are away on missions." 

He pulled you closer and placed a gentle kiss on your forehead. 

"Alright. Make sure to highlight my good side." 

"As if you have a bad one." 

Despite loving how affectionate and supportive you were with him, he never understood why. He viewed himself as a rough, cranky man who got on everyone's nerve. For short, an asshole. But to you, he wasn't like that. Despite the hardships in his life, he still maintained a soft gaze. 

Naturally, he wondered why you wanted him to be part of your beautiful portfolio. And more importantly, did he deserve to be part of it?

For the next couple of days, he waited for you to finish. He would peek in your room to see the progress, but you didn't let him. You wanted to surprise him.

When he came back from his mission, arriving in your comfy apartment, you shoved your art in front of his face. 

"Do you like it?" you asked excitedly.

He reluctantly took the canvas and stared at it for a few seconds. It's not that he didn't like it. It's the fact that he didn't recognize himself. His scars weren’t so prominent, his eyes weren't so full of sadness and anger, and his lips were curved in a soft smile. His features were softer, friendlier, even. 

“This… I know it’s me, but it feels like I’m looking at a stranger.”

"Why do you say that?”

“It feels like you retouched my face.”

“Hmm, no, this is how you look in real life. You're not as tough-looking as you think."

He loves it regardless, and he loves you even more. 

His muse in this life was you. Every time he looked at you, every time he saw your pretty face, his mood would lighten up in a heartbeat. A catastrophe at the moment would turn into something insignificant, something he could overcome with ease.

What he loved most about you was your talent. He was amazed at the beautiful things you could create with your hands, unlike him. He found refuge in your art, staring at your finished and unfinished projects for hours.

"Mi dulzura, what masterpieces are you creating?"

"Thank you, mi rey. Wanna be part of them?"

He smiled. He approached you with light footsteps, rubbing your shoulders gently when he reached your back.

"I'd be honoured."

He was thrilled. Being fascinated by your talent, he wanted to ask you long ago, but he didn't want to overcrowd you as you had many projects and clients. He didn't want to put more pressure. He simply told you that he doesn't want anything fancy.

He waited every day for you to finish, barely containing himself from asking dozens of questions. You had to kick him out multiple times from your room because you wanted to surprise him.

"Luis," you called out, "it's done!"

He came in a hurry, and as expected, he loved the result. He wouldn't stop praising you for creating another masterpiece.

"This is...I have no words. It's simply stunning."

"Well, you are stunning," you said, wrapping your arms around his neck.

"I guess I really am your Prince Charming."

You chuckled and were ready to say something, but he caught your lips in a quick, gentle kiss.

From that moment on, he becomes your one and only muse. You'd paint him in various poses and various clothes, sometimes with you as well. He would sit near you, watching you do your magic without saying a word. He loves and respects what you do a lot. 

[1dcommunityficrecs]

Long Distance Fic Recs

I didn't know this would happen when I picked this theme, but my fiancée spent the last week away at her sister's -- celebrating a new nibling! So an exciting time, but I definitely missed her, even for only a few days. So really feeling this list of long distance recs, loving each other despite the miles and yearning to be reuinited. Here are seven amazing fics!

Baby, I'm Right Here by FallingLikeThis/suddenclarityharry (8186, Explicit, Louis Tomlinson/Harry Styles) – fic post

Leave it to Harry to not realize he's in love with his friend until they're living in different hemispheres. It takes a date with a lovely guy who just isn't HIS lovely guy for Louis to finally say what they've both been thinking.

Reccer says: I love their easy back and forth banter and the comfortable solidness of their friendship. And when that transitions into romance -- beautiful. I'm always a fan of a meddling Niall, too, even if he's meddling in a different way than usual here!

Danger I can’t hide by CelticSky (227290, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson)

Flying Officer Styles and Sergeant Tomlinson would have likely never crossed paths in a time of peace, their lives laid out neatly, predictably before them. But then the world became unrecognisable. Too soon they grew accustomed to fear, surrounded by death and destruction, not even their freedom a certainty any more. Until they found eachother. Comfort. Companionship. Understanding. Another person to lose.

Reccer says: In my opinion, this fic is the masterpiece of 2023. It's one of those fics that should be a movie. It's perfect. The script is masterful. The story is gripping. The characters are masterfully constructed. There's emotion, anguish. It's beautiful. It's powerful. A gem.

Du är mitt livs kärlek (You are the love of my life) by goldenkinglouis (1749, Teen, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson)

Harry finally meets Louis at the airport after six months of long-distance love.

Reccer says: This fic is so sweet my teeth hurt and I just want more. So adorable and romantic and full of love.

From Eight Until Late, I Think About You by supernope (35227, Explicit, Louis Tomlinson/Harry Styles)

Louis and Harry are both YouTubers, and if they didn't want all their viewers to ship them they should maybe stop flirting in the comments of each other's videos. They don't live all that far apart in miles, but it still takes almost a year for them to meet in person. When they're paired up as roommates at a YouTube meetup, there is NOT only one bed, but that doesn't stop them.

Reccer says: I always love watching a relationship build and grow, and this fic does it beautifully. From joking comments to texting to Snapchat to meeting up (and promptly making VERY questionable but hysterically funny decisions together) it's just great.

miles away from seeing you by LiveLaughLoveLarry (SoLongAndThanksForAllTheFic) (1749, Teen, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson)

Harry is in his final year studying marine biology, and is doing an international exchange at the University of Auckland. This fic is entirely told through images of social media posts and conversations (Image descriptions are available)

Reccer says: it was the first all-media fic i've read, but i was impressed how the entire story/feelings etc came across in just pictures

seven hours behind by justanothershadeofblue (5000, Explicit, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) – fic post

Harry gets Louis off over the phone during Louis’ first tour.

Reccer says: Really fun slice-of-tour-life fic, and also hot!

the blue never ending sky by justanothershadeofblue (4000, Teen, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson) – fic post

a heart-aching AU where Harry and Louis had a dream to go off and make music together after school, but then Harry goes… without Louis. Louis PoV, with an epistolary element.

Reccer says: this fic is simple but perfectly angsty! you don’t see a lot of ambiguous-ending fics in this fandom, but this one nails it.

[spadesncrows]

Hey ! I have a little question : how do we start drawing ? And, if we need tuto, what tuto do you recommend ?

Have a good day !

Lord almighty, I hope ur ready for the rant of ur life. Buckle up buster bc we are diving headfirst /hj

Ok so first things first, there’s really only one way to start drawing: grab a pencil, get some paper, and just go. Ik, it’s very anticlimactic, but the only way to really get started with it is to just start. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, it doesn’t have to be some big illustration, just start somewhere. You don’t need expensive or fancy supplies, just a pencil and paper are great (or even just ur finger and ur phone if u wanna do digital!!)

Just remember: everyone starts somewhere!! Don’t beat urself up if it doesn’t look how you want it to the first go around. Art is just like any other hobby: you get better the more you practice, the more you get into the groove of it and the more you learn the fundamentals and building blocks of it. You don’t have to draw everyday, but drawing consistently does help.

Now let’s say u got ur paper & pencil, but nothing comes to mind. Here’s a few simple exercises that I personally enjoy as warmups and simple doodles to fill my sketchbooks:

𒊹︎ Shapes !!

- This is one of my favorite warmups bc of how simple it is. Draw spheres, cones, cubes, etc!! (Bonus points if you add a light source and do some shading as well <3)

- this can be rlly good for studying perspective using very simple objects and adding a light source can make it feel a bit more fleshed out. Plus, it’s always good to study how light affects 3d objects so it can be applied to full illustrations and the like later down the line !!

- to add onto that, learning how to draw basic 3d shapes can be very beneficial when moving onto more complex designs and figures, as it can make the area/object appear less flat and more fleshed out if that makes sense !!

Examples :

𒊹︎ Look at the world around you !!

- find different objects, buildings, etc, and take a picture of them.

- next, using that photo as a reference, try breaking it down into simpler 3d shapes

- Think of these shapes as the building blocks of the figure. They create a general silhouette and portrays the figure in its most simple form. Being able to break down complicated visuals into simpler shapes will make it easier to draw them from scratch !!

Examples :

𒊹︎ Find reference photos online !!

- Personally, I like sites like Pinterest or Instagram for this, but pls note that these aren’t ur only options !!

- some other sites include: Line of action and QuickPoses !!

- reference photos can be very good for studies, but you don’t rlly learn much if ur just copying off of it. While there isn’t anything wrong with that, I suggest trying to break it down. Try to understand the form in a 3d space. Like I said before, doing that will make it easier to draw from scratch and may even help when trying to draw it from a different angle

- reference photos can also be a very good way to get inspiration!! Whether it be for just one drawing, for a storyline, or for a whole production, if ur stuck on a scene it wouldn’t hurt to look at few refs to get a feel for what ur looking for.

Tutorials:

If there’s one thing to remember, just know that you don’t need to follow any tutorials to make art. Hell, u don’t even have to listen to my advice abt art either. There are no rules to art, so take everything I say as suggestion rather than gospel !!

That being said, tutorials are mainly there to help you improve by teaching you various fundamentals and techniques. In other words, to help you make your art look a bit more visually appealing or look like a specific style. There’s not exactly one set list of tutorials that every artist needs to follow, so you kinda just pick and choose depending on what you want to focus on!!

Here’s some tutorials I’ve seen and/or used before :D

𒊹︎ GOOD vs BAD Character Design: Tips & Tricks!

- a classic 🫶🫶, goes over various subjects such as color and shape theory in order to make characters and scenes more memorable. This can be especially useful if u intend to make characters & scenes for animation, but it works for other mediums as well!!

𒊹︎ Basic Color Theory

- pretty self explanatory!! Goes over the basic fundamentals of color theory and how this artist likes to apply it themselves. Color theory can be good to use to ur advantage as it can be used to set the tone of ur art, to show the general time of day, to draw ur attention to specific areas, etc!!

𒊹︎ Anatomy Quick Tips

- this is actually a playlist instead of just one video ^^ each vid is dedicated to different parts of the human body and tips for drawing them!! There are 15 vids total as of today going over stuff like hair, eyes, hands, backs, hips, etc.

If there’s anything I missed or anything anyone would like to add on, feel free to do so !!

[evolnoomym]

hello hello hello!

💌 birthday bash ask here for you. so, you requested one of each so, I’ve linked them 🌝 hehehe.

which pedro boy would you ask to make you a birthday cake, what flavour and how well would they do? (any images in mind, is appreciated)

now, when it comes to the clean up, do you help? does things get messy, and if there’s frosting, where oh where are you eating that off their body or equally yours.

hehehe, lots of love @undercoverpena aka birthday jo

I’ve finally gotten around to answering so here we go :

I would of course ask my favorite Joel Miller to bake me a birthday cake 🎂

In my opinion Joel’s not the most advanced baker, sure he can cook me a good meal but baking is not for him. However for me he’ll try his best. Since he knows which cakes I like he picks the one he can’t fuck up too bad, a simple chocolate cake and after going over the recipe a million times (and even considering to ask Maria for help) he completely, on his own, without too many problems bakes the cake.

His decorating skills are also not too great but he doesn’t let that discourage him. Once the cake has cooled down he smears Vanilla cream cheese frosting allllllll over it and then with light pink frosting writes a sweet message on the cake. Here I present the end product to you 😅🩷

Now we get to the second part :

It’s close to 8pm when you get home from spending all day with your girlfriends celebrating your birthday. Those lunatics practically kidnapped you earlier, dragging you from one activity to the next and all that was partially a ploy so your wonderful boyfriend Joel Miller could have enough time to bake you a cake.

He put so much sweat, energy and love in to baking you that much loved chocolate cake you swoon about every time Maria decided to make it for party’s. He got the recipe earlier in the week and spend almost every day studying the instructions as if it was the most important test of his life. Which, let’s be real, it was. Joel was nervous about your reaction to the finished creation, but if this present flops he has one other option, something you too love devouring as if it’s your last meal.

When Joel hears the car of your friends screech to a stop outside, he starts to get really nervous. The seconds before you enter the house feel like hours. He wipes his clammy hands on the jeans fabric of his pants just as you enter the kitchen.

“Hiiiii Baby wha-….” You don’t get to finish the sentence instead you kinda gasp like a fish out of water. Your eyes frantically scan the kitchen from top to bottom.

“Oh my god, Joel….What did you do to the kitchen?” Before you even have the chance to freak out about the state of the kitchen, he tugs you out of said one and pushes you towards the dining room table, where his masterpiece was sitting waiting for you, the birthday girl, to come home.

Immediately the emotions switch from being upset at the mess to sheer overwhelming joy. Not once before did a partner ever did something so sweet and mindful for you. Joel and you have only been dating for 6 months and this is the first birthday you spend together. Clearly he wanted to make it a memorable day.

Joel stands by your side fishing out a lighter from his pockets to light the single candle resting in the upper half of the cake.

Once he does that he leans in close to whisper “It’s Maria’s recipe, the chocolate cake ya love so much. Happy birthday sweet girl” pressing a kiss on your cheek.

“Joel this-….this is way too much I lov-“ you scrunch up your eyebrows and tilt your head away from Joel’s. Then after a moment you turn to look him in the eyes. “Did you really write that on my birthday cake?” Pointing a finger toward the pink letters. Seems you did not read what was written on it before, due to being so stunned by the gesture. “Well it’s true, you do make me smile and superrrrr horny. I mean look at ya sweetheart how could I not write that.” He’s nervous until the angelic sounding giggling from your lips makes him return his eyes to your face, which now looks quite amused. “Ah very funny, ya lucky it’s your birthday today otherwise I’d have to punish you for being a lil bratty girl huh?” That send a shiver up your spine, Joel knew exactly what that sentence combined with his deep Texas drawl would do to you.

“Hmmmm let’s see, how bout that, huh?” You swipe one finger through the white frosting Joel seemed to have spread on the cake and wipe that on the top of his prominent nose. You were so quick that he couldn’t even react fast enough. “Ohohhhh Baby ya did not just do that, did ya?” You could tell he slowly got more riled up. “Don’t worry Daddy I’ll clean my mess up.” With that you lean up to gently suck the frost off of his nose. “Hmmmm Vanilla, my favorite flavor, well second favorite” you say winking at him. Joel did not think that this could turn him on as much as it did. “Fuck sweetheart blow the candles out, so ya can unpack the biggest present waiting for ya.” You did as instructed and then glanced down at his crotch, the growing bulge in his jeans looked almost painful. Flicking your eyes up to his you asked “Do you have more of that frosting?” Joel’s expression turns curious at that “I do, whatta ya want with that?”. A mischievous smile grazes your lips “Well since I’m the birthday girl, I want to enjoy some more frosting with my second present.” Joel’s breath hitches at that, his throbbing cock perking up more and more at those filthy prompts falling from your lips. “Hmm sounds good, but how bout we make it even better?” At that you just nod so he continues “I’d love to lick some sweet cream off of ya gorgeous tits and then eat that juice pussy, how bout that Angel?” You are speechless the two of you play this game so well.

“You got yourself a deal Miller, now take me to bed and show me that big present.”

I ignored the cleaning up part, sorry, but my man would not have me clean up his mess, at least not that kinda mess 😏😌

[pynkhues]

curious as to your thoughts on the may december discourse (some spoilers i guess) - vili has come out and essentially said that he felt the film contributed to his victimization and hurt him. and the response from a lot of film twitter seems to be to yell ITS NOT A BIOPIC and to say he doesnt understand the film (gross). i feel like i dont really care if its a biopic or not, when the film literally quoted vili/mary kay, recreated the mary kay in prison photo exactly, and both charles melton and julianne moore studied vili/mary kay for their performances. to hand wave that all as "not a biopic" feels like a way of writing off any discomfort. i feel like the film should not have made those specific choices, but having done so they had a duty of care to vili. i dont think the film that ended up getting made is worth the continued trauma to vili even if it is art. there were other ways they could have told the story to minimize the harm and they chose not to - and i dont think that choice is a great commentary on tabloids or whatever, its just a ghoulish thing to do

I did see that, anon, and I do have thoughts on it as it's a real grey area in terms of creative license, art and storytelling, and it's a grey area that's been around really since storytelling existed, but before I get into that I just want to quickly clarify what Vili said, because I do think it's important.

Vili didn't say that the film contributed to his victimisation and hurt him, he said the film offended him because it was a ripoff:

“I’m still alive and well,” says Fualaau, now 40 and still living in the Seattle area, where the scandal unfolded. “If they had reached out to me, we could have worked together on a masterpiece. Instead, they chose to do a ripoff of my original story. “I’m offended by the entire project and the lack of respect given to me — who lived through a real story and is still living it,” he adds.

“I love movies — good movies,” he says. “And I admire ones that capture the essence and complications of real-life events. You know, movies that allow you to see or realize something new every time you watch them. “Those kinds of writers and directors — someone who can do that — would be perfect to work with, because my story is not nearly as simple as this movie [portrays],” Fualaau adds.

The reason I think this distinction is an important one to make is because in interviews since Mary Kay Letourneau passing, it's pretty clear that Vili - while absolutely being a victim-survivor - doesn't see himself that way, and even says pretty specifically in his Doctor Oz interview from 2020 that he doesn't see her as a predator or himself as having been preyed on ('there was no perversion...she was my wife and my best friend' are his exact words), and he's pretty clearly open to the idea of a film being made about his story.

I'm not saying this to diminish his feelings about May December at all (I strongly believe that Vili is entitled to feel any and every which way about the film) or to patronise his own understanding of what he experienced - I can't even begin to imagine the complexity of trying to unpack the life he shared with her - but I think it's important to reflect his feelings accurately and to provide a little context to those feelings.

With that said, do I think the creative team should've reached out to Vili before making the film?

Honestly, I don't know.

I think it's one of those questions in art where there's not really a right answer. If Vili's feelings towards Mary Kay are still lost in the silver linings of her grooming, any film that has his direct approval or involvement is going to run the risk of tacit endorsement. It also hamstrings the creative team and opens them up in terms of liability (I actually was a writers assistant on a TV show a million years ago that was sort of a bio pic and I can tell you for a fact that it was a disaster once the person it was based on got involved), and, of course, it runs the risk of shifting the focus of the story the writer is wanting to tell.

And that's the thing about art, right? By design, art is supposed to reflect us back to ourselves in ways that we might not always be comfortable with. Of course, that usually happens less literally than in how Todd Haynes has used Vili and Mary Kay's stories, but not always. Todd Haynes is certainly no stranger to the technique given Velvet Goldmine is pretty transparently inspired by David Bowie and I'm Not There is often confused as a Bob Dylan bio pic despite the fact that it's actually not.

Hell, everyone loves that Succession points a pretty clear finger to the Murdoch's, and while, of course, the Murdoch's - and Bowie and Dylan for that matter - have social, political and economic power that Vili doesn't which does impact the ethics of the decision, it's still made under the same creative ideology that aspects of a real story can render an artwork, a story, a film more emotionally authentic, can create greater resonance, can offer a sharper reflection of the world we live in and offer, perhaps, a message or a question that lingers.

All of this has actually kind of been funny timing as I just finished reading Sarah Weinman's The Real Lolita the other day which is a really excellent blend of true crime, literary history and critical commentary on this exact topic. The book explores the real life case of Sally Horner who was kidnapped by a pedophile in 1948 when she was 11 years old and was forced to roadtrip with him around America for two years. It's actually mentioned in passing in Nabokov's Lolita, but once you go a little deeper it's pretty clear how much of Horner and her story Nabokov used to create Dolores Haze / Lolita.

In the book, Weinnman asks the question as to why Lolita gets to be remembered when Sally's been left to obscurity, and of course, the answer is that there are other Sally's in the news cycle, but only one Lolita in art, and that hopefully in her writing Sally Horner's story she can write her back into bookshelves and place her back into this artwork but who knows if that's what Sally would've wanted (Sarah does, at least, talk to Sally's lone surviving family member, and makes a measure to show that it's very unlikely Nabokov ever did the same).

Was Nabokov wrong for not seeking out Sally's family for Lolita? Honestly, I doubt it even would've occured to him to do so, and the fact that we do now ask questions like this about the ethics of inspiration is, I think, a good thing. We should be critical of how stories are told and who is, and isn't, involved in the telling of them, but again, I don't actually think there are right or wrong answers here.

Fiction is always inspired by real people, real events, real life, it's a part of creation, it's a part of capturing a moment in time, it's about reflection and authenticity, but of course that's been rendered more complex in recent years by the fact that we live in a world that's ever shrinking and the people or the events that inspire new stories are inevitably brought into the public narrative in a way they just weren't back in 1955 when Lolita was first published.

So what does that mean for creativity and inspiration? I don't know, but personally I guess my thoughts would be that Vili is absolutely in his rights to be offended by the film, but I also don't think the filmmakers were wrong necessarily to not reach out. It's not the most ethical choice, but I also don't think it was an inherently bad one either. This isn't a Blonde situation where they write fiction and present it as fact, the creatives have been clear about it being inspried by what happened between Mary Kay and Vili, but they're also not saying Vili and Mary Kay are Joe and Gracie.

I appreciate you feeling like it's much of a muchness though given how they've apparently lifted entire scenes of dialogue. It's a murky question after all, and it's certainly one that's more complex when it comes to people like Vili and Sally than it is with the Murdoch's or even David Bowie, but yes, I'm not sure I see it as something inherently wrong, and I don't personally think it was ghoulish. I just think the specifics of this particular case just kind of shows how the sausage is made when it comes to storytelling.

[shirefantasies]

I have only asked for one matchup in the past like 8 years of imagine blog requesting but I figured hey, why not? I've been reading your blog nonstop for like 2 weeks, lol! Lets see, I'm about 5ft 4 with a bob of ringlets and a round, even, bespectacled face. I'm pretty curvy and perhaps on the heavier side but I've got a lot more strength to my frame than most give me credit for! In the day to day folks look at me and think I'm a 100% cerebral kind of person and for the most part they'd be right, at least when I was younger. I used to be the ultimate shut-in for the simple fact that I suffer from a family curse on my father's side- when we aren't learning we feel like we're *fucking dieing*(i didn't make tht up it's the family running joke!). These days I'm much more outgoing; I play DnD in 2 groups, have tons of online friends I talk to regularly, I've got a routine of 'sister night's where me and my sister paint together, I sing in a chorus, and I've got study sessions with my mentor going too- so I'm kinda a former-antisocial-dork-turned-deliberate-part-of-their-communities kinda chick. I feel like if i was dropped in middle earth I'd wanna try and build a printing press, my first degree was in graphic design so I know a ton about all the different kinds, I'd love to share! After all, what's the point of learning if you don't use your information to *help* people? Guess I'd be a scribe if I was born there tho. I skew towards liking the hobbit characters more than LOTR, but I'm up for anyone that's in both, too. Congrats on 300, you deserve it!!

Thank you so much for your support and heck yeah, *you* deserve the treat of a matchup too 😘 I’m so glad you said that about the hobbit characters because I definitely had someone in mind for you…

Dear Ori!

Ori finds out someone is causing quite a stir with a new invention, so of course he has to see what all the fuss is about! Something about a revolution amongst his world of scribes happening right at the foot of his home down in Dale. Making his way down to the study named, he musters up the courage to knock on the door. Coming to call unannounced isn't exactly the most polite behavior, he knows, but then again this inventor must be having a lot of that these days. He isn't expecting to see a cute young woman open the door, though, and his first thought is one hoping you aren't just the inventor's wife opening the door for them.

You are not. The moment Ori shyly greets you, asking if it's true what the scribes are saying about an exciting new device, your eyes light up and you usher him in. Inside your home is a bit messy, but the comforting sort of messy where charming china sits out atop tables, game boards at their sides, papers are strewn about with notes and diagrams and drawings Ori wishes he could see better. A potted plant sits in one corner with an unfinished sketch of its likeness on the adjacent shelf. A fire is fighting its best to stay lit behind an elaborately styled metal gate, no doubt to keep it that much further from all the paper. All in all, Ori thinks to himself that this is somewhere he could live. As you begin taking him across the room to a door, you animatedly discuss your many trials and errors before you reveal your masterpiece. A great structure with some sort of metal rod and a bunch of blocks? Printing press, you call it. You had blocks for each letter, the rod pulled down to press the ink down... "Now we can save some time if we need a lot of copies! What do you think?" You stood there with your head expectantly tilted, hands clasped in front of you. "They say Thorin or Bard might like something like this for decrees, but as a fellow scribe do you see a future with this?"

Gaping at your smarts and flushing at the faint flutter of your eyelashes, Ori nods. "This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen, and I fought a dragon." "You...fought a dragon?" It is your turn to gape as you peer at the dwarf with new interest. "Threatened to show him dwarvish iron where the sun don't shine," he replied with a proud smile, arms crossed, "but you know, in the end Mr. Bard got 'im. We all showed him what for, though! This tops that by a long shot, though- how'd you think of this?" Kettle on first, hours of discussion later. Soon it was near nightfall and Ori was apologizing profusely and you were waving it off, asking him for promise of a return with the sketches he mentioned.

A whole new page of sketches gets dedicated to figures with bobs of lovely curls, gorgeous curves that have Ori blushing, smiles upon a round, cheery face and spectacles never fully betraying the eyes' secrets. Whole hours of Ori’s day get dedicated to carving blocks for your press and trying them out with you and feeling his heart flip at the way you take his hands and leap in celebration. He can listen to you talk, whether it’s explaining your invention process or the instructions of the game you’re teaching him or even simply sharing some random animal facts from the latest book you picked up, all day, he thinks. And then one day as he’s leaving you press a kiss to his cheek and that’s it.

Flowers and a new book are thrust into your hand the moment you open the door, Ori standing before you telling you how much he likes you and can’t stop thinking about you and you positively must interrupt him to tell him he’s been like home to you or else he’ll keep going, the poor dear. He wants to take you out that day, walk you around proudly and savor the feeling of your hand in his as he shows you off.

Taglist: @lokilover476 @fuckyoumakeart @kilibaggins @mossthebogwitch @ibabblealot @joonies-word @stormchaser819 @pirate-lord-of-narnia | Reply/Ask/Message to join!

[onetwofeb]

LARGER THAN LIFE

A note on the death of Fredric Jameson

Slavoj Žižek

Fredric Jameson was not just an intellectual giant, the last true genius in contemporary thought. He was the ultimate Western Marxist, fearlessly reaching across the opposites which define our ideological space – a “Eurocentrist” whose work found a great echo in Japan and China, a Communist who loved Hollywood, especially Hitchcock, and detective novels, especially Chandler, a music lover immersed in Wagner, Bruckner and pop music… There is absolutely no trace of Cancel Culture with its stiff fake moralism in his work and life – one can argue that he was the last Renaissance figure.

What Jameson fought throughout his long life is the lack of what he called “cognitive mapping,” the inability to locate our experience within a meaningful whole. The instincts that directed him in this fight were always right - for example, in a nice stab against the fashionable cultural-studies rejection of “binary logic,” Jameson calls for “a generalized celebration of the binary opposition” – for him, the rejection of sexual binary goes hand in hand with the rejection of class binary… Still in a deep shock, I can only offer here some passing observations which provide a clear taste of his orientation.

Today, Marxists as a rule reject any form of immediacy as a fetish which obfuscates its social mediation. However, in his masterpiece on Adorno, Jameson deploys how a dialectical analysis includes its own point of suspension: in the midst of a complex analysis of mediations, Adorno all of a sudden makes a vulgar gesture of “reductionism,” interrupting a flow of dialectical finesse with a simple point like “ultimately it is about class struggle.” This is how class struggle functions within a social totality: it is not its “deeper ground,” its profound structuring principle which mediates all its moments, but something much more superficial, the point of failure of the endless complex analysis, a gesture of jumping-ahead to a conclusion when, in an act of despair, we raise our hands and say: “But after all, this is all about class struggle!” What one should bear in mind here is that this failure of analysis is immanent to reality itself: it is how society itself totalizes itself through its constitutive antagonism. In other words, class struggle IS a fast pseudo-totalization when totalization proper fails, it is a desperate attempt to use the antagonism itself as the principle of totalization.

It is also fashionable for today’s Leftists to reject conspiracy theories as a fake simplified solutions. However, years ago Jameson perspicuously noted that in today’s global capitalism, things happen which cannot be explained by a reference to some anonymous “logic of the capital” – for example, now we know that the financial meltdown of 2008 was the result of a well-planned “conspiracy” of some financial circles. The true task of social analysis is to explain how contemporary capitalism opened up the space for such “conspiratorial” interventions.

Another Jameson’s insight which runs against today’s predominant post-colonial trend concerns his rejection of the notion of “alternate modernities,” i.e., the claim that our Western liberal-capitalist modernity is just one of the paths to modernization, and that other paths are possible which could avoid the deadlocks and antagonism of our modernity: once we realize that “modernity” is ultimately a code name for capitalism, it is easy to see that such historicist relativization of our modernity is sustained by the ideological dream of a capitalism which would avoid its constitutive antagonisms:

”How then can the ideologues of “modernity” in its current sense manage to distinguish their product—the information revolution, and globalized, free-market modernity—from the detestable older kind, without getting themselves involved in asking the kinds of serious political and economic, systemic questions that the concept of a postmodernity makes unavoidable? The answer is simple: you talk about “alternate” or “alternative” modernities. Everyone knows the formula by now: this means that there can be a modernity for everybody which is different from the standard or hegemonic Anglo-Saxon model. Whatever you dislike about the latter, including the subaltern position it leaves you in, can be effaced by the reassuring and “cultural” notion that you can fashion your own modernity differently, so that there can be a Latin-American kind, or an Indian kind or an African kind, and so on. . . . But this is to overlook the other fundamental meaning of modernity which is that of a worldwide capitalism itself.”

The significance of this critique reaches far beyond the case of modernity—it concerns the fundamental limitation of the nominalist historicizing. The recourse to multitude (“there is not one modernity with a fixed essence, there are multiple modernities, each of them irreducible to others”) is false not because it does not recognize a unique fixed “essence” of modernity, but because multiplication functions as the disavowal of the antagonism that inheres in the notion of modernity as such: the falsity of multiplication resides in the fact that it frees the universal notion of modernity of its antagonism, of the way it is embedded in the capitalist system, by relegating this aspect to just one of its historical subspecies. One should not forget that the first half of the twentieth century already was marked by two big projects which perfectly fit this notion of “alternate modernity”: Fascism and Communism. Was not the basic idea of Fascism that of a modernity which provides an alternative to the standard Anglo-Saxon liberal-capitalist one, of saving the core of capitalist modernity by casting away its “contingent” Jewish-individualist-profiteering distortion? And was not the rapid industrialization of the USSR in the late 1920s and 1930s also not an attempt at modernization different from the Western-capitalist one?

What Jameson avoided like a vampire avoids garlic was any notion of the enforced deeper unity of different forms of protest. Back in the early 1980s, he provided a subtle description of the deadlock of the dialogue between the Western New Left and the Eastern European dissidents, of the absence of any common language between them: "To put it briefly, the East wishes to talk in terms of power and oppression; the West in terms of culture and commodification. There are really no common denominators in this initial struggle for discursive rules, and what we end up with is the inevitable comedy of each side muttering irrelevant replies in its own favorite language."

In a similar way, the Swedish detective writer Henning Mankell is a unique artist of the parallax view. That is to say, the two perspectives – that of the affluent Ystad in Sweden and that of Maputo in Mozambique – are irretrievably »out of sync,« so that there is no neutral language enabling us to translate one into the other, even less to posit one as the »truth« of the other. All one can ultimately do in today's conditions is to remain faithful to this split as such, to record it. Every exclusive focus on the First World topics of late capitalist alienation and commodification, of ecological crisis, of the new racisms and intolerances, etc., cannot but appear cynical in the face of the Third World raw poverty, hunger and violence; on the other hand, the attempts to dismiss the First World problems as trivial in comparison with the »real« Third World permanent catastrophies are no less a fake – focusing on the Third World »real problems« is the ultimate form of escapism, of avoiding to confront the antagonisms of one's own society. The gap that separates the two perspectives IS the truth of the situation.

As all good Marxists, Jameson was in his analysis of art a strict formalist – he once wrote about Hemingway that his terse style (short sentences, almost no adverbs, etc.) is not here to represents a certain type of (narrative) subjectivity (the lone hard-boiled cynical individual); on the contrary, Hemingway's narrative content (stories about bitter hard individuals) was invented so that Hemingway was able to write a certain type of sentences (which was his primary goal). Along the same lines, In his seminal essay »On Raymond Chandler,« Jameson describes a typical Chandler's procedure: the writer uses the formula of the detective story (detective's investigation which brings him into the contact with all strata of life) as a frame which allows him to fill in the concrete texture with social and psychological apercus, plastic character-portraits and insights into life tragedies. The properly dialectical paradox not to be missed here is that it would be wrong to say: »So why did the writer not drop this very form and give us pure art?« This complaint falls victim to a kind of perspective illusion: it overlooks that, if we were to drop the formulaic frame, we would lose the very »artistic« content that this frame apparently distorts.

Another Jameson’s unique achievement is his reading of Marx through Lacan: social antagonisms appear to him as the Real of a society. I still recall a shock when, at a conference on Lenin that I organized in Essen in 2001, Jameson surprised us all by bringing in Lacan as a reader of Trotsky’s dream. On the night of June 25 1935, Trotsky in exile dreamt about the dead Lenin who was questioning him anxiously about his illness: “I answered that I already had many consultations and began to tell him about my trip to Berlin; but looking at Lenin I recalled that he was dead. I immediately tried to drive away this thought, so as to finish the conversation. When I had finished telling him about my therapeutic trip to Berlin in 1926, I wanted to add, ‘This was after your death’; but I checked myself and said, ‘After you fell ill…’”

In his interpretation of this dream, Lacan focuses on the obvious link with Freud’s dream in which his father appears to him, a father who doesn’t know that he is dead. So what does it mean that Lenin doesn’t know he is dead? According to Jameson, there are two radically opposed ways to read Trotsky’s dream. According to the first reading, the terrifyingly-ridiculous figure of the undead Lenin “doesn’t know that the immense social experiment he single-handedly brought into being (and which we call soviet communism) has come to an end. He remains full of energy, although dead, and the vituperation expended on him by the living – that he was the originator of the Stalinist terror, that he was an aggressive personality full of hatred, an authoritarian in love with power and totalitarianism, even (worst of all) the rediscoverer of the market in his NEP – none of those insults manage to confer a death, or even a second death, upon him. How is it, how can it be, that he still thinks he is alive? And what is our own position here – which would be that of Trotsky in the dream, no doubt – what is our own non-knowledge, what is the death from which Lenin shields us?” But there is another sense in which Lenin is still alive: he is alive insofar as he embodies what Badiou calls the „eternal Idea“ of universal emancipation, the immortal striving for justice that no insults and catastrophes manage to kill.

Like me, Jameson was a resolute Communist – however, he simultaneously agreed with Lacan who claimed that justice and equality are founded on envy: the envy of the other who has what we do not have, and who enjoys it. Following Lacan, Jameson totally rejected the predominant optimist view according to which in Communism envy will be left behind as a remainder of capitalist competition, to be replaced by solidary collaboration and pleasure in other’s pleasures; dismissing this myth, he emphasizes that in Communism, precisely insofar as it will be a more just society, envy and resentment will explode. Jameson’s solution is here radical to the point of madness: the only way for Communism to survive would be some form of universalized psychoanalytic social services enabling individuals to avoid the self-destructive trap of envy.

Another indication of how Jameson understood Communism was that he read Kafka’s story on Josephine the singing mouse as a socio-political utopia, as Kafka’s vision of a radically-egalitarian Communist society – with the singular exception that Kafka, for whom humans are forever marked by superego guilt, was able to imagine a utopian society only among animals. One should resist the temptation to project any kind of tragedy into Josephine’s final disappearance and death: the text makes it clear that, after her death, Josephine “will happily lose herself in the numberless throng of the heroes of our people”(my emphasis added).

In his late long essay “American Utopia,” Jameson shocked even most of his followers when he proposed as the model of a future post-capitalist society the army – not a revolutionary army but army in its inert bureaucratic functioning in the times of peace. Jameson takes as his starting point a joke from the Dwight D Eisenhower period that any American citizen who wants socialized medicine needs only to join the army to get it. Jameson’s point is that army could play this role precisely because it is organized in a non-democratic non-transparent way (top generals are not elected, etc.).

With theology it’s the same as with Communism. Although Jameson was a staunch materialist, he often used theological notions to throw a new light onto some Marxist notions – for example, he proclaimed predestination the most interesting theological concept for Marxism: predestination indicates the retroactive causality which characterizes a properly dialectical historical process. Another unexpected link with theology provides Jameson's remark that, in a revolutionary process, violence plays a role homologous to that of wealth in the Protestant legitimization of capitalism: although it has no intrinsic value (and, consequently, should not be fetishized and celebrated for itself, as in the Fascist fascination with it), it serve as a sign of the authenticity of our revolutionary endeavor. When the enemy resists and engages us in a violent conflict, this means that we effectively touched its raw nerve...

Jameson’s perhaps most perspicuous interpretation of theology occurs in his little-known text “Saint Augustine as a Social Democrat” where he argues how St Augustine’s most celebrated achievement, his invention of the psychological depth of personality of the believer, with all the complexity of its inner doubts and despairs, is strictly correlative to (or the other side of) his legitimization of Christianity as state religion, as fully compatible with the obliteration of the last remnants of radical politics from the Christian edifice. The same holds, among others, for the anti-Communist renegades from the Cold War era: as a rule, their turn against Communism went hand in hand with the turn towards a certain Freudianism, the discovery of psychological complexity of individual lives.

Another category introduced by Jameson is the “vanishing mediator” between the old and the new. “Vanishing mediator” designates a specific feature in the process of a passage from the old order to a new order: when the old order is disintegrating, unexpected things happen, not just horrors mentioned by Gramsci but also bright utopian projects and practices. Once the new order is established, a new narrative arises and, within this new ideological space, mediators disappear from view. Suffice it to take a look at the passage from Socialism to Capitalism in Eastern Europe. When in the l980s, people protested against the Communist regimes, what the large majority had in mind was not capitalism. They wanted social security, solidarity, a rough kind of justice; they wanted the freedom to live their lives outside of state control, to come together and talk as they pleased; they wanted a life of simple honesty and sincerity, liberated from primitive ideological indoctrination and the prevailing cynical hypocrisy . . . in short, the vague ideals that led the protesters were, to a large extent, taken from Socialist ideology itself. And, as we learned from Freud, what is repressed returns in a distorted form. In Europe, the socialism repressed in the dissident imaginary returned in the guise of Right populism.

Many of Jameson’s formulations became memes, like his characterization of postmodernism as the cultural logic of late capitalism. Another such meme is his old quip (sometimes wrongly attributed to me) which holds today more than ever: it is easier for us to imagine a total catastrophe on the earth which will terminate all life on it than a real change in capitalist relations – as if, even after a global cataclysm, capitalism will somehow continue… So what if we apply the same logic to Jameson himself? It is easier to imagine the end of capitalism than the death of Jameson.

[thatbeautifulbluebird]

Two Dorothy x Scarecrow Short Stories

♡ | A Beautiful Masterpiece | ♡

Note: In all of my stories, Dorothy is an adult (usually around 20-23).

Dorothy's hand moved quickly yet skillfully across the surface of the canvas. Colorful, broad strokes of paint were added with each touch of the brush. Her eyes moved between her painting and her subject. She tried to capture the texture of his burlap face and the structure of his gloved hands as realistically as possible. This wasn't her first time painting the king of Oz, but so far, she wasn't completely happy with any of her work. No matter how hard Dorothy tried, she always felt that something was missing.

This painting was no different. The library setting where the canvas was set up did nothing to change the farm girl's perception. It was hopeless. However, the king believed his girlfriend was very talented. He wanted to prove that to her and eventually came up with a plan. Getting up from his spot, the straw man walked behind her to look at what she was painting.

"Dorothy," Scarecrow said softly, laying his gloved hands on her shoulders. "You know I love how you paint me, right?"

"I know you do, but..." The farm girl replied, staring sadly at the canvas. "I don't like how I paint you. I feel like I don't do you justice."

"You're too humble sometimes. Everyone in Oz thinks you paint beautifully, and I do as well." The straw man reassured her, but he didn't want to invalidate her feelings. "Still, I understand how you feel."

"You do?" Dorothy sounded surprised at this revelation.

"Of course! I'm an inventor. People see me as one of the best inventors in Oz's history, but I don't think so. The machines I've made, except the Rainbow Mover, have all been very simple." Scarecrow sighed, reflecting on what he saw as his own failures. "The same goes for my leadership. I think I'm an okay king. I keep the Emerald City together, but how does that make me any greater than the Wizard or Pastoria?"

"Your inventions are brilliant, and you're a great king too." The farm girl refused to let him discount his abilities and achievements as his modesty showed. "You always have been, even when you were just starting. You did everything you could after the Jester destroyed Oz, you dealt with a rebellion, and you stopped the Nome King from taking your throne."

"No, Kansas, it wasn't just me! Remember when you came back for the third time, and I was trying to act all regal? I wanted to show all of Oz that I could be more than just that simple scarecrow in the cornfield, but I betrayed myself in the process." The king then brightened, recalling a specific moment of happiness. "This is going to sound corny, but you brought me back to my senses. You taught me that I could be a decent ruler and still be me. Now, you're doubting your ability to paint, but the truth is that you know me better than I even know myself. There's love in every stroke of your brush, and I see it."

Dorothy shook her head. "I'm still not happy with how every portrait of you I make looks. Something is missing, and it bothers me so much."

"Hmm, I think I know what's wrong." He studied the half-finished painting with a pensive expression. "Perhaps, you need to take a new approach."

The farm girl was confused by what she wasn't seeing. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well, in every painting you create of me, it's always just me alone," Scarecrow suggested with a mischievous smirk, clearly hinting at a hidden desire. "Maybe painting someone that I love next to me would make your art more engaging."

"Oh! I see." Dorothy smiled at his statement, knowing exactly what he was trying to say. "I think I have an idea for a new painting."

"Wonderful, I can't wait to see it!" The king briefly kissed her on the lips before leaving. "I do have to go since I have a meeting, but I'm sure you'll create a masterpiece that could rival the talents of Picasso and Van Gogh."

"You only know those painters because of me!" The farm girl commented, picking up her brush once again. "And I am not at their level yet. Also, how can I make a masterpiece when my muse isn't right next to me?"

"Oh, I know I'm always on your mind, and that you never forget me." Scarecrow chuckled at his own joke, feeling quite amused. "You said so yourself all those years ago: 'I'll miss you most of all'. If you miss me, you won't ever let the image of my face leave your mind."

"Okay, wisecracker, you have somewhere to be," Dorothy responded playfully before whispering to him. "I appreciate your attempt at flirting with me though."

————♡————

Hours later, the Scarecrow was in his study, writing his signature on several documents. He remembered the days when he didn't get tired or needed sleep. His human side took a lot out of him, but becoming a shapeshifter was a choice he didn't regret. Being able to change back and forth will make it better. The ability to dream was also nice, although needing to sleep left less time for reading.

Once all of the paperwork was complete, Scarecrow was going to head to bed until he remembered Dorothy and her masterpiece. He decided to go check on her, just to see if any progress had been made. He gently tied his long blonde hair behind him and entered the library where she was working. Covered in paint, Dorothy was working at the canvas fervently. This scene of organized chaos made the king smile. That was his Dorothy who wanted nothing more but to make him feel special. The farm girl was so focused on her work that she didn't notice him. Scarecrow crept up behind her to take a peek at what she was painting, and he gasped. Dorothy heard this noise and turned around to face him with a loving smile.

This painting was different...

A cornfield with a sunny, bright blue sky overhead,

A scarecrow on a pole dressed head to toe in blue Munchkin rags, taking his hat off in greeting,

And a girl with her little dog, dressed in a gingham dress, staring up in amazement at the living scarecrow,

There was a love, a spark evident in the scene, between the two of them.

These were the elements needed to create the perfect painting, at least to most Ozians. Namely, a moment in time was captured, a wonderful memory in both their lives.

"So, I'm guessing you like it?" Dorothy asked confidently, knowing that the painting she made was her best work yet.

"Like it? No! I love it!" Scarecrow exclaimed, absolutely beaming with joy and pride. "It's so beautiful that it almost rivals you, but would you like to know why it's so pretty to me?"

"Why? Because it's so colorful, and you are doing something that isn't sitting?" The farm girl questioned, playing dumb on purpose.

"No, silly!" Scarecrow chuckled at her question. To him, it was obvious. "It's because you're there with me. This is the first time you have ever painted us together, especially in that moment."

"Oh, well, you're right about that." Dorothy looked critically at the painting, pointing out its flaws. "I could have blended that spot a little better."

The king sighed, wishing that she saw her work the way he did. "Kansas, it's perfect. It's the most beautiful painting I've ever seen! Trust me when I say that!"

"Yes, that's true, Stitches, but it's not my masterpiece." The farm girl remarked plainly, disregarding the importance of her work.

"Huh? Then what is? If this isn't it, I don't know what could top it." Scarecrow wondered what could be better than this painting, except for Dorothy herself.

"You forgot this whole time that I already have a masterpiece in my life. The most perfect creation that anyone could lay their eyes on." Dorothy spoke of this supposed masterpiece as if it were ethereal. "How can one of my paintings compare to the handiwork of a paintbrush and Lurline herself?"

"Oh?" Scarecrow folded his arms, raising his eyebrow playfully. "Please show me this masterpiece. I would like to see it."

"Change back first." The farm girl said in a direct but still gentle tone. "You can only see it if you're a scarecrow."

"Okay, if you say so, darling." The human man changed back into a scarecrow, although he was slightly confused.

Dorothy pulled a small handheld mirror out of her pocket and put it in front of her boyfriend's face. "The masterpiece is right there."

Staring back at Scarecrow was his reflection. At first, he struggled to comprehend what she was saying, but eventually, he understood perfectly well. He, a sack of living straw, was her masterpiece. Why didn't he get that message before? As his marvelous brain was processing this new realization, Dorothy confounded Scarecrow even more by kissing his burlap lips. That day, the king realized that there was no question about one thing: this woman would, one day, become his wife.

There was only one reason that Scarecrow knew this, for she accepted him as he truly was, not how he needed to be.

————♡————

Hello everybody! I hope you enjoyed this story! I tried to make it as wholesome as possible and highlight Dorothy's artistic skills. She ends up painting Scarecrow a lot throughout their relationship and subsequent marriage. Also, for those of you who are new to my Oz universe, Scarecrow is a shapeshifter who can change from a scarecrow into a human at will and vice-versa. That will be explained later as to how he became that way.

————♡————

♡ | The Best Medicine | ♡

Dawn was steadily approaching, and Scarecrow hadn't slept a wink. Being part-human brought many new and wonderful sensations like dreams and rest, but being sick was truly awful. The day before, he felt completely fine, and overnight, his forehead became hot, his throat grew scratchy, and his limbs ached. Some sunlight was peaking through the curtains of the window, so he figured that everyone in the palace would be up soon. Scarecrow tried to get out of bed to start his work, but an oppressive coughing fit started.

In the bedroom right next door, Dorothy heard the coughing. She had gotten up early that morning since she had a meeting with the Queen of the Field Mice over a certain Kaildah problem. As Oz's unofficial professional monster slayer, it was her job to make sure that everyone was safe from any dangerous creatures. However, she hoped to deal with the animal civilly without resorting to violence. Lion, the ruler of all the animals who lived in the Ozian forests, would be the arbiter in the dispute.

Although she had to leave soon, Dorothy needed to check on him. Scarecrow would often tinker with broken inventions that would produce smoke, but normally he was in his scarecrow form while doing so to avoid inhaling any harmful substances. After changing out of her nightgown, the farm girl walked up to the king's room. It was rude not to knock, but Dorothy was growing super worried about him. She opened the bedroom door and found that the room was almost completely dark. She saw a figure sitting on the edge of the bed, bent over and coughing uncontrollably. He looked up at her and tried to talk.

"He—Hey—Dor..." Scarecrow remarked quietly, his words being interrupted by coughs. "How—did...you sleep?"

Dorothy sighed with concern. "Scarecrow, you're sick."

"Sick—? You know—I—can't get...sick—like...you can." The king replied folding his arms, still sounding quite hoarse. "I'm—your nurse...not the other way around..."

His girlfriend couldn't help but smile a little at this. "Stitches, you're part human now. Of course, you can get sick, and now I get to help you feel better."

Dorothy went over to the window and opened the curtains. When the morning light shined into the room, she saw what illness Scarecrow had that explained all of his symptoms. A blue rash had formed on his face and had traveled down to his neck, arms, and legs. The king looked down at his rash-covered hands and strangely, he let out a strained laugh.

"Ah, Evian Blue Rash...finally got—me. No wonder—why my body aches..." Scarecrow remarked as if relieved. "At least—you can't catch it, Kansas..."

"That's true, which means I can take care of you without having to keep my distance," Dorothy said happily, sitting beside him on the bed. "And better yet, I can give you plenty of affection."

The king was delighted with the idea of spending the day with her until he realized something. "Wait, don't—you have—to meet up...with Lion and...the Queen of the—Field Mice...? I...don't want to infer—with your plans..."

"Oh, Scarecrow, you don't have to worry." The farm girl reassured him, gently holding his hands in hers. "My number one priority is you. You've always put your work aside to care for me when I have been sick. Besides, I'm sure Lion can handle most of it. Just lay back, and I'll take care of everything."

"Thank you...Kansas...that's sweet." Scarecrow replied lovingly before asking softly. "Can...you...please bring me—my paperwork? I want to...at least be...a bit productive..."

"Of course! I'll be right back." Dorothy left the room and quickly returned with a stack of papers from his desk. "Do you have any important meetings today that I need to go to?"

"No, Dorothy...I had none today thankfully..." The king relaxed a little until he remembered that he did have a meeting. "However, I did...need to—meet with some Munchkin farmers today..."

"Do you want me to write a letter explaining why you can't come, dear?" His girlfriend asked, trying to be as helpful as possible. "I can get on a horse and ride it over to them if you like."

"Thank you...you're—the best regent...any king could ask for." Scarecrow shook his head at her offer to deliver the letter. "I'll have one...of the guards do it—so you don't—tire your beautiful self out..."

A red blush appeared on Dorothy's cheeks. The farm girl glared playfully at him. "You're such a flirt, even when you're sick!"

The king smiled at this, looking back down at his paperwork. "Well, maybe...if you weren't such...a gorgeous woman—I wouldn't feel...the urge to flirt...with you."

"Well, control that urge before I turn into a tomato!" Dorothy's blush deepened a little the more he called her pretty. "Anyways, I'll grab some ink and a pen, and I'll seal it for you. I'm just going to need your signature."

"Oh, anything for you...sweetheart...I'll gladly do..." Scarecrow remarked quietly, closing his eyes and with the cough still affecting his speech. "Just...let me know when you...get back..."

"Will do, Stitches!" The farm girl then went out of the room. She headed to his study to write the letter and afterward went to the library to see if she could find anything on how to cure his disease.

————♡————

Around an hour later, Dorothy returned with the letter and a book titled The History of Ev. In a chapter of it, there was a section of Evian Blue Rash. There was no known cure, but it usually went away on its own in two weeks. This fact discouraged the farm girl a little because she was hoping to bring Scarecrow some relief. He seemed to be in pain, especially from the incessant coughing. There wasn't much written on the disease, so Dorothy resolved to give him cough medicine and try to bring the fever down.

She managed to brew a pot of tea and found a bottle of cough medicine. Jellia had offered to bring both up to the king, but Dorothy declined but thanked the maid anyway. She remembered all the times Scarecrow had cared for her, especially when she caught a terrible flu that eventually turned into pneumonia. He was right by her side the entire time and was reluctant to leave her when he had to. He would even sit in a chair by her side for hours while doing paperwork or writing letters. The farm girl saw this illness as her opportunity to repay all of the love and compassion that the king had shown her.

Dorothy carefully opened the door and walked into the bedroom with a tea tray in hand. The farm girl set the tray down on a dresser near the door and went over to him. She noticed he was finally asleep, snoring softly. His peaceful face made her smile, and she gently kissed him on the forehead. His whole forehead was covered by the blue rash; however, a few seconds later, the rash disappeared on the spot where her lips landed. Dorothy gasped in surprise and confusion. Were her eyes deceiving her? The farm girl decided to see if the kiss had gotten rid of the rash. She picked up his limp, rash-covered hand and brought it to her lips. Sure enough, the spot she kissed was soft once again. There was a cure!

Although she felt bad, Dorothy knew she had to wake Scarecrow up. She tried to do it quietly, but her excitement came out. "Stitches, wake up, please. I found a cure!"

The king jolted awake, but when he saw it was just Dorothy, he smiled and looked up at her. "Did...I hear—you say cure?"

"Yes! I think I found a way to get rid of your rash! It may seem weird but bear with me." The farm girl remarked, taking his hand once again, kissing it, and showing him the rash-free patch of skin. "My kisses make your skin smooth again!"

"Oh...Kansas..." Scarecrow replied skeptically, letting out another strained laugh. "Are you sure...this isn't just—some optic illusion...so that you have...an excuse to kiss me...everywhere?"

"I'm being serious!" Dorothy exclaimed, confident that it was real. "My kisses cured your rash!"

"Well—kiss me on the lips—and let's see what—happens..." The king suggested with a sly grin, still thinking this was some elaborate flirt.

"Alright, sweetheart." The farm girl sighed in defeat, knowing he didn't believe her. "If that will make you feel better."

With that, Dorothy kissed him on the lips for a few seconds. When she eventually pulled back, the farm girl noticed his rash was completely gone. She was in shock. The king's entire body was back to its normal peachy tone.

Scarecrow, whose voice was still hoarse, lovingly cupped her cheek and spoke. "I knew...the cure this whole time. Though...a kiss from one's true love—only cures the rash..."

Dorothy smiled down at him and held his hand that was on her cheek. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Well, I wanted you...to figure it out—for yourself...so you could—feel like you were...helping me." The king remarked as a faint blush appeared on his face. "I knew...you would...end up kissing...me eventually."

"I'm confused as to how a kiss gets rid of the rash." The farm girl flipped through the pages of the book, looking for the answer. "Also, the book said there was no cure."

"Magic, I suppose..." Scarecrow smirked at her. "Oh, Dorothy...the reason why—it isn't in the book...is because...no one in Nonestica...has ever been—with someone from your world...other than me..."

Dorothy seemed surprised as she connected the dots. "Wait, so did it only work because I'm not from Nonestica?"

The king nodded slightly, too tired to raise his head off the pillow. "I guess...any Nonestican who kisses an infected person...gets the rash...but you can't catch it."

"Well, you still aren't completely cured yet!" The farm girl went back to grab a cold compress and a bowl of ice-cold water. "I'll use 'my magic' to get rid of that awful cough and raging fever."

Scarecrow seemed a little delirious when he sighed in content. "I'm happy that my true love...is a woman from Kansas...you have the softest lips ever..."

"Stitches, that's your fever talking." Dorothy gently put a cold compress on his forehead before commenting on his remark. "Still, I'm glad you enjoy my lips."

Before the king could speak, he felt increasingly sleepy. Dorothy noticed this and softly kissed him on the lips. "Sleep well, sweetheart. I'll replace the compress every twenty minutes or so to hopefully get your fever down."

Scarecrow smiled at her and opened his eyes a little bit before drifting off. "Good—night...Kansas...thank—you..."

After he fell asleep, Dorothy sat down at the table with the teapot. She poured herself a cup of tea and drank it quickly. When she saw him at first, the farm girl was afraid, not knowing if she would be able to cure the disease. True love's kiss was actually a real thing and it was effective medicine. When he woke up, Dorothy would give him a cup of tea with some cough medicine mixed in and a glass of water to prevent any dehydration. She looked at the sealed letter in her hand and sighed. Dorothy didn't like going against his wishes, but she was a faster rider than any of the guards. Jellia took her seat while the farm girl delivered the letter. Luckily, the king didn't wake up and was none the wiser about how the letter got to its destination.

————♡————

Hello again everyone! Yes, of course, I did the old switch-a-roo. It's Scarecrow's first time being sick, and Dorothy wants to take care of him. I do believe that true love's kiss can have some power in stories, but it's not a cure-all. As seen here, Scarecrow still has a cough and a fever as a result of the rash.

————♡————

Sorry for the super long post, but it's 2 stories in one. I also wanted to post them both on here. Anyways, I hope all of my fellow shippers enjoyed this!

[bangjiazheng]

The SECRET TRUTH About 3 Act Structure

His analysis is very good. He is a good teacher, and the story structure he tells is very helpful for story creators.

And,I add some interesting content(Meow~…………): Decades ago, I was still a middle school student. There were some classmates in my class who were more interested in literature than me. But I have more creative practice than them. Moreover, I write better than them.

Because I understand the structure of articles (3-paragraph structure, 3-act structure), I am very good at 3-paragraph structure.I don't need to draft my articles(Finish the homework as fast as possible,Saving time.), and I write better than they do when they draft seriously. In the high school The teacher reads almost every article of mine and shows it to the students as model articles(Very Proud,Meow~…………). But several literature lovers don't think my articles are better than theirs. Perhaps, they imagine themselves as great writers. Great writers look down on me (my writing is too simple in their eyes.)

They even read many world masterpieces, but they didn't analyze the novels from the perspective of the creators. They just looked at the local sentences and dialogues, imitated the local fragments, and didn't have an overall understanding of the structure of the article.

When I was a student, I participated in the composition competition and won it. After I became an adult, I worked as a writer in a magazine (writing test was required for employment.), and they couldn't do any 1 ot these things.

When they were young, I write better than them. (Although they are prouder than me.) After I became an adult, I did a lot of creative practice(big quantity), and the gap is even bigger. Decades have passed, and none of my classmates who love literature more than me can write stories.

If those proud literature lovers could put aside their pride and discuss story creation with me, they can also write stories today. I don’t think I am good at writing stories. On the contrary, Every Day,I always found many new shortcomings in me. I will continue to study story creation seriously. Seriously improve my skills. Friend,Do you want to see my stories~? I want to share countless Happy Stories!!!!!!Happy Meowing~!!!!!!!!!! Countless Happy Stories!!!!Happy Happy Meowing~ Meowing~!!!!!!

=================================== PS: For repost 1 good video,I see 3 videos at 2X speed…………Used many times…………I will save time,Serious doing houseworks,saving time for learning Czech language………………

[bakaity-poetry]

Slavoj Žižek on Jameson

—————————————

LARGER THAN LIFE

A note on the death of Fredric Jameson

Slavoj Žižek

Fredric Jameson was not just an intellectual giant, the last true genius in contemporary thought. He was the ultimate Western Marxist, fearlessly reaching across the opposites which define our ideological space – a “Eurocentrist” whose work found a great echo in Japan and China, a Communist who loved Hollywood, especially Hitchcock, and detective novels, especially Chandler, a music lover immersed in Wagner, Bruckner and pop music… There is absolutely no trace of Cancel Culture with its stiff fake moralism in his work and life – one can argue that he was the last Renaissance figure.

What Jameson fought throughout his long life is the lack of what he called “cognitive mapping,” the inability to locate our experience within a meaningful whole. The instincts that directed him in this fight were always right - for example, in a nice stab against the fashionable cultural-studies rejection of “binary logic,” Jameson calls for “a generalized celebration of the binary opposition” – for him, the rejection of sexual binary goes hand in hand with the rejection of class binary… Still in a deep shock, I can only offer here some passing observations which provide a clear taste of his orientation.

Today, Marxists as a rule reject any form of immediacy as a fetish which obfuscates its social mediation. However, in his masterpiece on Adorno, Jameson deploys how a dialectical analysis includes its own point of suspension: in the midst of a complex analysis of mediations, Adorno all of a sudden makes a vulgar gesture of “reductionism,” interrupting a flow of dialectical finesse with a simple point like “ultimately it is about class struggle.” This is how class struggle functions within a social totality: it is not its “deeper ground,” its profound structuring principle which mediates all its moments, but something much more superficial, the point of failure of the endless complex analysis, a gesture of jumping-ahead to a conclusion when, in an act of despair, we raise our hands and say: “But after all, this is all about class struggle!” What one should bear in mind here is that this failure of analysis is immanent to reality itself: it is how society itself totalizes itself through its constitutive antagonism. In other words, class struggle IS a fast pseudo-totalization when totalization proper fails, it is a desperate attempt to use the antagonism itself as the principle of totalization.

It is also fashionable for today’s Leftists to reject conspiracy theories as a fake simplified solutions. However, years ago Jameson perspicuously noted that in today’s global capitalism, things happen which cannot be explained by a reference to some anonymous “logic of the capital” – for example, now we know that the financial meltdown of 2008 was the result of a well-planned “conspiracy” of some financial circles. The true task of social analysis is to explain how contemporary capitalism opened up the space for such “conspiratorial” interventions.

Another Jameson’s insight which runs against today’s predominant post-colonial trend concerns his rejection of the notion of “alternate modernities,” i.e., the claim that our Western liberal-capitalist modernity is just one of the paths to modernization, and that other paths are possible which could avoid the deadlocks and antagonism of our modernity: once we realize that “modernity” is ultimately a code name for capitalism, it is easy to see that such historicist relativization of our modernity is sustained by the ideological dream of a capitalism which would avoid its constitutive antagonisms:

”How then can the ideologues of “modernity” in its current sense manage to distinguish their product—the information revolution, and globalized, free-market modernity—from the detestable older kind, without getting themselves involved in asking the kinds of serious political and economic, systemic questions that the concept of a postmodernity makes unavoidable? The answer is simple: you talk about “alternate” or “alternative” modernities. Everyone knows the formula by now: this means that there can be a modernity for everybody which is different from the standard or hegemonic Anglo-Saxon model. Whatever you dislike about the latter, including the subaltern position it leaves you in, can be effaced by the reassuring and “cultural” notion that you can fashion your own modernity differently, so that there can be a Latin-American kind, or an Indian kind or an African kind, and so on. . . . But this is to overlook the other fundamental meaning of modernity which is that of a worldwide capitalism itself.”

The significance of this critique reaches far beyond the case of modernity—it concerns the fundamental limitation of the nominalist historicizing. The recourse to multitude (“there is not one modernity with a fixed essence, there are multiple modernities, each of them irreducible to others”) is false not because it does not recognize a unique fixed “essence” of modernity, but because multiplication functions as the disavowal of the antagonism that inheres in the notion of modernity as such: the falsity of multiplication resides in the fact that it frees the universal notion of modernity of its antagonism, of the way it is embedded in the capitalist system, by relegating this aspect to just one of its historical subspecies. One should not forget that the first half of the twentieth century already was marked by two big projects which perfectly fit this notion of “alternate modernity”: Fascism and Communism. Was not the basic idea of Fascism that of a modernity which provides an alternative to the standard Anglo-Saxon liberal-capitalist one, of saving the core of capitalist modernity by casting away its “contingent” Jewish-individualist-profiteering distortion? And was not the rapid industrialization of the USSR in the late 1920s and 1930s also not an attempt at modernization different from the Western-capitalist one?

What Jameson avoided like a vampire avoids garlic was any notion of the enforced deeper unity of different forms of protest. Back in the early 1980s, he provided a subtle description of the deadlock of the dialogue between the Western New Left and the Eastern European dissidents, of the absence of any common language between them: "To put it briefly, the East wishes to talk in terms of power and oppression; the West in terms of culture and commodification. There are really no common denominators in this initial struggle for discursive rules, and what we end up with is the inevitable comedy of each side muttering irrelevant replies in its own favorite language."

In a similar way, the Swedish detective writer Henning Mankell is a unique artist of the parallax view. That is to say, the two perspectives – that of the affluent Ystad in Sweden and that of Maputo in Mozambique – are irretrievably »out of sync,« so that there is no neutral language enabling us to translate one into the other, even less to posit one as the »truth« of the other. All one can ultimately do in today's conditions is to remain faithful to this split as such, to record it. Every exclusive focus on the First World topics of late capitalist alienation and commodification, of ecological crisis, of the new racisms and intolerances, etc., cannot but appear cynical in the face of the Third World raw poverty, hunger and violence; on the other hand, the attempts to dismiss the First World problems as trivial in comparison with the »real« Third World permanent catastrophies are no less a fake – focusing on the Third World »real problems« is the ultimate form of escapism, of avoiding to confront the antagonisms of one's own society. The gap that separates the two perspectives IS the truth of the situation.

As all good Marxists, Jameson was in his analysis of art a strict formalist – he once wrote about Hemingway that his terse style (short sentences, almost no adverbs, etc.) is not here to represents a certain type of (narrative) subjectivity (the lone hard-boiled cynical individual); on the contrary, Hemingway's narrative content (stories about bitter hard individuals) was invented so that Hemingway was able to write a certain type of sentences (which was his primary goal). Along the same lines, In his seminal essay »On Raymond Chandler,« Jameson describes a typical Chandler's procedure: the writer uses the formula of the detective story (detective's investigation which brings him into the contact with all strata of life) as a frame which allows him to fill in the concrete texture with social and psychological apercus, plastic character-portraits and insights into life tragedies. The properly dialectical paradox not to be missed here is that it would be wrong to say: »So why did the writer not drop this very form and give us pure art?« This complaint falls victim to a kind of perspective illusion: it overlooks that, if we were to drop the formulaic frame, we would lose the very »artistic« content that this frame apparently distorts.

Another Jameson’s unique achievement is his reading of Marx through Lacan: social antagonisms appear to him as the Real of a society. I still recall a shock when, at a conference on Lenin that I organized in Essen in 2001, Jameson surprised us all by bringing in Lacan as a reader of Trotsky’s dream. On the night of June 25 1935, Trotsky in exile dreamt about the dead Lenin who was questioning him anxiously about his illness: “I answered that I already had many consultations and began to tell him about my trip to Berlin; but looking at Lenin I recalled that he was dead. I immediately tried to drive away this thought, so as to finish the conversation. When I had finished telling him about my therapeutic trip to Berlin in 1926, I wanted to add, ‘This was after your death’; but I checked myself and said, ‘After you fell ill…’”

In his interpretation of this dream, Lacan focuses on the obvious link with Freud’s dream in which his father appears to him, a father who doesn’t know that he is dead. So what does it mean that Lenin doesn’t know he is dead? According to Jameson, there are two radically opposed ways to read Trotsky’s dream. According to the first reading, the terrifyingly-ridiculous figure of the undead Lenin “doesn’t know that the immense social experiment he single-handedly brought into being (and which we call soviet communism) has come to an end. He remains full of energy, although dead, and the vituperation expended on him by the living – that he was the originator of the Stalinist terror, that he was an aggressive personality full of hatred, an authoritarian in love with power and totalitarianism, even (worst of all) the rediscoverer of the market in his NEP – none of those insults manage to confer a death, or even a second death, upon him. How is it, how can it be, that he still thinks he is alive? And what is our own position here – which would be that of Trotsky in the dream, no doubt – what is our own non-knowledge, what is the death from which Lenin shields us?” But there is another sense in which Lenin is still alive: he is alive insofar as he embodies what Badiou calls the „eternal Idea“ of universal emancipation, the immortal striving for justice that no insults and catastrophes manage to kill.

Like me, Jameson was a resolute Communist – however, he simultaneously agreed with Lacan who claimed that justice and equality are founded on envy: the envy of the other who has what we do not have, and who enjoys it. Following Lacan, Jameson totally rejected the predominant optimist view according to which in Communism envy will be left behind as a remainder of capitalist competition, to be replaced by solidary collaboration and pleasure in other’s pleasures; dismissing this myth, he emphasizes that in Communism, precisely insofar as it will be a more just society, envy and resentment will explode. Jameson’s solution is here radical to the point of madness: the only way for Communism to survive would be some form of universalized psychoanalytic social services enabling individuals to avoid the self-destructive trap of envy.

Another indication of how Jameson understood Communism was that he read Kafka’s story on Josephine the singing mouse as a socio-political utopia, as Kafka’s vision of a radically-egalitarian Communist society – with the singular exception that Kafka, for whom humans are forever marked by superego guilt, was able to imagine a utopian society only among animals. One should resist the temptation to project any kind of tragedy into Josephine’s final disappearance and death: the text makes it clear that, after her death, Josephine “will happily lose herself in the numberless throng of the heroes of our people”(my emphasis added).

In his late long essay “American Utopia,” Jameson shocked even most of his followers when he proposed as the model of a future post-capitalist society the army – not a revolutionary army but army in its inert bureaucratic functioning in the times of peace. Jameson takes as his starting point a joke from the Dwight D Eisenhower period that any American citizen who wants socialized medicine needs only to join the army to get it. Jameson’s point is that army could play this role precisely because it is organized in a non-democratic non-transparent way (top generals are not elected, etc.).

With theology it’s the same as with Communism. Although Jameson was a staunch materialist, he often used theological notions to throw a new light onto some Marxist notions – for example, he proclaimed predestination the most interesting theological concept for Marxism: predestination indicates the retroactive causality which characterizes a properly dialectical historical process. Another unexpected link with theology provides Jameson's remark that, in a revolutionary process, violence plays a role homologous to that of wealth in the Protestant legitimization of capitalism: although it has no intrinsic value (and, consequently, should not be fetishized and celebrated for itself, as in the Fascist fascination with it), it serve as a sign of the authenticity of our revolutionary endeavor. When the enemy resists and engages us in a violent conflict, this means that we effectively touched its raw nerve...

Jameson’s perhaps most perspicuous interpretation of theology occurs in his little-known text “Saint Augustine as a Social Democrat” where he argues how St Augustine’s most celebrated achievement, his invention of the psychological depth of personality of the believer, with all the complexity of its inner doubts and despairs, is strictly correlative to (or the other side of) his legitimization of Christianity as state religion, as fully compatible with the obliteration of the last remnants of radical politics from the Christian edifice. The same holds, among others, for the anti-Communist renegades from the Cold War era: as a rule, their turn against Communism went hand in hand with the turn towards a certain Freudianism, the discovery of psychological complexity of individual lives.

Another category introduced by Jameson is the “vanishing mediator” between the old and the new. “Vanishing mediator” designates a specific feature in the process of a passage from the old order to a new order: when the old order is disintegrating, unexpected things happen, not just horrors mentioned by Gramsci but also bright utopian projects and practices. Once the new order is established, a new narrative arises and, within this new ideological space, mediators disappear from view. Suffice it to take a look at the passage from Socialism to Capitalism in Eastern Europe. When in the l980s, people protested against the Communist regimes, what the large majority had in mind was not capitalism. They wanted social security, solidarity, a rough kind of justice; they wanted the freedom to live their lives outside of state control, to come together and talk as they pleased; they wanted a life of simple honesty and sincerity, liberated from primitive ideological indoctrination and the prevailing cynical hypocrisy . . . in short, the vague ideals that led the protesters were, to a large extent, taken from Socialist ideology itself. And, as we learned from Freud, what is repressed returns in a distorted form. In Europe, the socialism repressed in the dissident imaginary returned in the guise of Right populism.

Many of Jameson’s formulations became memes, like his characterization of postmodernism as the cultural logic of late capitalism. Another such meme is his old quip (sometimes wrongly attributed to me) which holds today more than ever: it is easier for us to imagine a total catastrophe on the earth which will terminate all life on it than a real change in capitalist relations – as if, even after a global cataclysm, capitalism will somehow continue… So what if we apply the same logic to Jameson himself? It is easier to imagine the end of capitalism than the death of Jameson.

[hatigave]

Archie Kennedy, his sexuality, and the relationships that shaped him through the course of his canon life : aka the relationships I might refer to in threads if the situation calls for it. These will always be part of my interpretation of him aside of some very particular exceptions, but are dependent on his canon or canon-adjacent verses. These do not apply to modern verses.

As a boy and as a young teen, Archie did not even consider the possibility that he was anything but straight. Not that he even knew that there were other options out there, but he was able to see the beauty and charm of female performers on stage just fine. He was able to envision what it would be like to fall in love with a woman (with his childlike and innocent idea of love, that is) and he had no issue when it came to flirting and kissing them when that was what his friends were doing.

Girls and women always held a certain charm in his eyes, and if he had been able to study that thought further, he would have noticed that it wasn't really the women themselves, but the traditional feminine expression that they were able to display. Alas, that's a ramble for another day, and I will not expand on it right now.

He was fully convinced that the thoughts he had in regards to kissing his friends (or even male performers in the theatre where he spent most of his youth) were normal and that every boy experienced these around his age. He understood that they weren't to be acted on, but he thought that it was just super common to dream of another man between your legs - almost like how he thought that everyone experienced thoughts of death as early as 13 years old.

When he finally made out with a stage boy behind the curtain on a Friday night just after they had cleared and cleaned the theatre, he realized that perhaps he had a different experience than most.

Through the events of the show, four relationships are of great importance to him, and my portrayal of him. (below the cut to stop this from clogging up the entire dash) please note that these are somewhat suggestive.

Clayton. The first few years Archie spent in the Navy weren't too bad all things considered - his easy-going personality and his infectious laughter meant that he made friends rather quickly, and Clayton was no exception. While there was never any love between them, they fooled around enough times for Archie to develop a deep-rooted sense of affection for him. By the time Jack Simpson made his way to the Justinian, they had established a routine. The arrival of Jack obviously changed everything, and whatever was between them was torn to shreds by the abuse and a fear of being found out.

By the time canon rolls around, Archie and Clayton only 'reconnect' for old time's sake and to catch a fleeting break from the gruesome state of things. Aside from simple carnal pleasure, Archie does not care deeply for Clayton at this point. Truly, how often can you soil yourself due to a seizure in front of your friend with benefits before it becomes deeply embarrassing? But he did show him how to have a good time and did help him feel more secure about his sexuality.

Horatio. There is a disconnect between Archie's relationship with Horatio as portrayed by K80 ( @iinmortales ) and 'general-unscripted-vague-concept-in-other-threads' Horatio. K80's Horatio obviously follows it's own timeline and thought process, and for the sake of this post I'll focus on the generic concept of Horatio rather than the masterpiece K80 provides.

Obviously, Archie develops a much deeper bond (emotionally at least) with Horatio over the course of the years. While his bond with Clayton was rooted in the horrors that took place on the Justinian, his connection to Horatio is perhaps the first time he feels romantic love so deeply that it unsettles him. He would follow Horatio to the ends of the earth and back again if the other asked it of him.

Archie idolizes Horatio, even before the events which see him set off adrift on the sea. And it is the first time he genuinely allows himself to dream of a gentle touch and the mere concept of romance. While previous relationships were purely carnal, it is with Horatio that he learns how to actually love another human being.

Major Edrington. (kara come back to me, I miss you and our kids) Archie's whirlwind 'romance' with The Earl of Edrington is short-lived, but impactful in the way that it's the first time he genuinely considers leaving the Navy. Even when he's gone through the wringer, he feels obliged to stay as he has nothing else in the world to turn to. Even when he has grown long since uncomfortable within his position as acting Lieutenant, he stays because he thinks he has no alternative. Edrington shows him that there is an alternative to the life he thinks he is forced to live. Naturally, nothing really comes from it, but it was truly a life-changing shag.

William. Much like with Horatio, this section is about generic off-brand William, and not the masterpiece Sunara ( @willixmbush ) keeps delighting me with.

God, Archie really did not like William at first. His experience with men who ooze authority had obviously been hell up until the point of their meeting, and it took a great deal for William to even convince him that he was not about to harm him (either emotionally or physically) but when they eventually connect on a level deeper than friendship, it is one of the most intense experiences of Archie's life. As their relationship slowly developed and went through various stages Archie, who's already prone to feeling emotions very deeply, did not quite know how to respond to it.

Mindless flirting which could still be played off as innocent was quickly reciprocated once they crossed that initial hurdle, but Archie struggled to take it any further. William is the first (and perhaps only) man who actually had to work to get Archie into his bed. Not because Archie didn't want to, but because Archie was once again the teenager who struggled to understand what exactly he was feeling in regards to William.

[slashdementia7734]

A Eulogy to Gary Floyd by Jeff Smith (Hickoids).

Pour one out for the man I hold up as the greatest American punk vocalist of all time, Gary Floyd of The Dicks.

I first saw The Dicks when I was 16 or 17. They were a ramshackle freight train oozing danger and a dark romance that telegraphed the message  “our love is doomed — but the cops will probably kill us before we can fall apart.” Fatalistic but defiant with some unquantifiable level of simmering violence lurking beneath.

If all the clownish portrayals of punk rock to be seen on television and in movies during the late 70s through the mid-80s had conveyed one fourth of the power of The Dicks on a good night, punk rock might have actually been banned.

To be sure, the original outfit was more than the sum of its parts - a true band. Glen Taylor’s twitchy, dissonant and inimitable guitar playing cast a hollow spread over the relentlessly bouncing frame of Buxf Parrot’s ever-moving groove while Pat Deason’s steadfastly off-kilter drumming reminded one of a twenty-five-cents-for-fifteen-minutes motel bed shaker that occasionally coughs and still chugs when the quarter has run out. All of this propelled Gary to sing at the top of his lungs while laying atop this queasy chemistry, secretly hoping his voice will rattle the plaster off the ceiling and maybe the whole fucking roof will cave in so he can forget about that man, the pigs and every other cruel thing the world has thrown at him. And then maybe the whole seedy motel will collapse and it will all seem random rather than intentional, so he can go to sleep for a long, long time in the comfort that it’s not just him.

It’s the soundtrack of decay and desperation.

Decadence fed by heartache.

I saw some fucking great punk and hardcore bands in the day…but I have rarely if ever seen a punk band (or rock-adjacent band of any genre) who could deliver with the emotional power of The Dicks.

The reason was simple: Gary’s struggle was real. By late ‘70s Texas standards, the notion of an openly gay, morbidly obese, Maoist poor boy from East Texas fronting a band of novice outcasts was the stuff of a pornographic sci-fi novella a la Martin Amis. And, not to short change another group of local heroes fronted by an outsized gay man, the Big Boys, but they had more to do with the good times than the bad. It’s not necessarily a great analogy but they were the light of The Beatles compared to the darkness of our Austin punk rock Stones.

On a musical level Gary and The Dicks found their greatest power (like the Stones on their epiphanic masterpiece Exile On Main Street) with the blues, and were the first punk band, American or otherwise — with the possible exception of The Gun Club — to fold the style into punk in a successful way. In spite of the greatness of the art, one could make the  argument that Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s narrative and musical choices had a studied contrivance not found in The Dicks. “Successful” is used here to mean artistically high-performing rather than financially rewarding, of course.

The world is chock-full of guitar players who can hit the notes and bend the strings while making the ugly sex face. Our planet is also fully stocked  with those who can carry a tune and string together a rhyme of heartbreak and appear emotionally vulnerable while doing so. That doesn’t make it either good to my ears or moving to my heart.

Gary was free of artifice when it came to his singing. Not to say that he couldn’t be a sometimes silly yet riveting frontman, but his poetry was always forceful and direct. Folk music stripped of everything that distracted from the point. As a young man, I failed to fully grasp where he was coming from - it was too far from my realm of experience. But he sang with his whole body and absolute conviction, whether the subject was heartbreak or injustice. I might not have understood where all of his pain came from, but his voice told me it was real. And while a lot of other punk singers of the era spewed opportunistic political diatribes that amounted mostly to complaining, Gary simply belted out his truth. Even though the conflict might not have been mine, his voice made me understand the righteousness of the fight. Gary’s words helped provide me with the empathy starter kit I lacked.

Gary had a couple of other very good and more commercially palatable bands after The Dicks - Sister Double Happiness and Black Kali Ma. He didn’t get the commercial success he deserved, but he’s not alone there. Still, I believe he died a happier man than he was in the era I remember him most vividly from. We exchanged messages on FB and spoke on the phone occasionally during the past decade.

Rest in power my friend. It’s not just you - it is the world.

You might not have changed the world in the way you once hoped, but you changed mine.

Gary Floyd // 1979 // 📸: Tom McMahon

[happilyaloof]

First Indian CinemaScope film and last film directed by the legendary Guru Dutt.

The innocence portrayed by the protégé Waheeda Rehman and the strength shown in choosing an incomplete life, is talked about less, when the other character is played by her mentor himself.

GuruDutt’s melancholic hold over the entire film was made possible through VK Murthy’s precise and thought-out lighting. It is then you realise the cinematographer’s contribution in delivering to the world a dream, out of the director’s womb.

And how it would break a person if that dream was not just a film but your whole idea of reality, and it fails to find its place in the reality of Life.

Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) was not a commercial success like Pyaasa, CID, Mr and Mrs 55; it was disliked right from the premiere for introducing the audiences to the dark side of showbiz. Fast forward to 1980s, it received the recognition it desired and lamented for, being given titles like “a masterpiece” or “a cult classic.” It is hard to believe it is the same film that broke the already broken man. He left, his search for meaning through his work had failed him, or so he thought. We couldn’t comprehend and he couldn’t wait.

However, there are endless articles now, discussing every little detail of the film. International film festivals laud Guru Dutt for his creative thirst. We are celebrating its release even today in 2024. Is it because we have come close to accepting the paper flowers more practically now, given the simulated feelings have become our only basis to study depth.

It is not so simple to describe Kaagaz Ke Phool as a tragedy of two lonely people seeking support in each other, when the great actor-director goes beyond the film and lives the character. It is brilliant as much as it is tragic.

[citricdolphin]

The accessibility of drawing has been on my mind lately, and I'd like to offer my thoughts on it as a non-artist just barely starting to draw. I feel like whenever I talk to experienced artists about it, it often feels like there's a miscommunication.

The most intimidating thing about learning to draw is that *there is no trick to it.* The only way to get better is to just keep doing it. A lot of it. Like A LOT a lot of it.

This isn't really the case for most learned skills. You can study a language for a day and be able to form a few basic sentences. You can practice lock picking for a day and pick your first lock. You can practice the piano for a day and be able to play a simple tune. You can study programming for a day and be able to write a super simple program.

Obviously you can not get very good at any of these fields without loads of practice, but they all have clear starting points, clear next steps, and a clear sense of progression. The student can quickly get their feet wet and understand the feeling of what the field is like and acquire the very most basic tools.

Drawing just isn't like this. If I practice drawing for a day, there's no clear sense of progression. It doesn't feel like my skills at the end of the day are any better than they were at the beginning. I've drawn a whole bunch of pictures, sure, but it doesn't immediately feel like I've gotten any *better* at drawing them. It dossn't feel like I've picked up discrete and valuable sub-skills, the way I would if I had spent the time learning a different skill.

It seems like no matter who you ask, the conventional advice is always the same: practice. Want to get better at drawing faces? Then draw faces. Draw a lot of faces. Look at your reference image to see what you did right or wrong. Then draw more faces and focus on your weak points. Just keep. Drawing. Faces.

This is really intimidating for a new learner because it feels like such a steep uphill battle just to learn the basics, and also without a sense of direction. There's no obvious starting point. People say to "practice," but what should I practice? If I want to draw arms, but right now I can only draw a cylinder, then what am I to do? How can I practice drawing arms when I don't even know how to draw something that resembles an arm? Yeah, I get that you put basic shapes together to form complex ones, but how do you do that? What if I can't easily tell what shapes make up an object? Almost every guide out there, even those aimed at total beginners, seem to start with the assumption that you can draw at least an extremely basic impression of your model.

When people claim that art is inaccessible, this is what they're talking about. Yes, anybody can learn to draw and become a great artist with time, but the amount of time and effort it takes to hone your craft to a satisfactory level is WAY beyond what it takes to reach a similar level of prowess in other fields. Or at least, that's how it seems to somebody like me with zero experience.

I hope all of you who draw, whether it's huge masterpieces or simple doodles, are proud of your work, because there's people like me *leagues* behind you who *wish* they could draw a cute little doodle. You're all amazing.