#might make a saw related snow sculpture

[k7ino]

!! this is a peter strahm centric post !! yes the second one is him as marvin falsettos .whatever

[nilolol30]

so l Saw you were asking for requests !!

what about the traffick light trio with an ice demon princess s/o ( headcanons pls)

I think of the shenigans !

Ty!!!

I didn't know if you wanted it platonic or not so I didn't make it specific sorry if this is a bit short

Mk

• Omg he has so many questions.

• Asked if you could make ice sculptures like the ones he's seen in those really fancy party's or restaurants.

• If it's a hot day he'd ask if you could make a small pile of snow if you agree he'd have a snowball fight with you.

• Wonders if you're somewhat related to the snow queen story he heard about once.

• If you invited him to your place he's gonna act like he did when he saw Mei's place you will have to supervise him constantly unless you want a priceless artifact broken.

"So when you use your ice powers do you get cold? Can you even feel cold? Can you feel warmth?"

Mei

• Thinks of so many fighting duo moves you two can do together.

• During party's she might ask if you could cool her drink for her she won't hesitate to pull the puppy eyes.

• She's a little curious about your family history she won't pry but asks subtlety and drops it if she thinks you're uncomfortable about it.

• If she's watched Frozen she begs for you to make a living snowman unfortunately you'll have to explain why you can't create a sentient living being.

• She has so many winter theme outfits that complements both you can her.

"Aww my drinks all warm...if only there was a amazing cool princess that can cool it up! pretty please"

Redson

• He holds some respect towards you not only because of you being "a fellow royal" or something like that but you have power and strength.

• If you ever pick up his habit of calling people peasants he's going to be so prideful. (that one meme of the lil minx licking the baby one y'all know what I'm talking about)

• Begs asks for you to join him in his schemes on taking over the world.

• He is a fire demon so I'd think he's never really experienced the feeling of cold so when he around you and your presence cool the entire room he's surprised and curious.

• Often invites you to dinner with his family his mother and father assumed he's courting you (the way that ends is up to you).

"If you join my plan those insufferable peasants won't stand a chance!!!"

[church-history]

Our Lady Of Akita

A few pious women known as the Institute of the Handmaids of the Holy Eucharist were leading a quiet, hidden life of prayer in Yuzawadai just outside of Akita when they welcomed into their novitiate Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa, who was then 42 years old and a convert from Buddhism. When she entered on May 12, 1973, Agnes was totally and incurably deaf, however she was blessed with various mystical favors; soon this convent would become so well known that their little chapel would attract pilgrims from around the world.

The first miraculous event at Akita occurred on June 12, 1973, only a month after the entrance of Sr. Agnes:A brilliant light shone forth from the Tabernacle. This happened several times and was often accompanied by something resembling smoke which hung around the altar. During one of these illuminations Sr. Agnes saw ". . . a multitude of beings similar to Angels who surrounded the altar in adoration before the Host." Bishop Ito was staying at the convent to conduct a week of devotions. Sr. Agnes confided to him the circumstances of this vision, as well as all the events and apparitions that followed. Bishop Ito and the convent's spiritual director, Rev. Teiji Yasuda, were witnesses to many of the events.

Seitai Hoshikai Convent, Akita Japan

Sr. Agnes was also favored with visitations of her guardian Angel. Asked to describe the Angel, Sr. Agnes replied: "a round face, an expression of sweetness . . . a person covered with a shining whiteness like snow . . ." The guardian Angel confided various messages to the sister and often prayed with her, in addition to guiding and advising her.

On the evening of June 28, 1973, Sr. Agnes discovered on the palm of her left hand a cross-shaped wound that was exceedingly painful. On July 5, 1973, a small opening appeared in the center from which blood began to flow. Later, the pain would ease during most of the week except for Thursday nights and all day Friday, when the pain became almost unbearable.

Then on July 6 the guardian Angel appeared, telling Sr. Agnes: ". . . The wounds of Mary are much deeper and more sorrowful than yours. Let us go to pray together in the chapel." After entering the chapel the Angel disappeared. Sr. Agnes then turned to the statue of Mary situated on the right side of the altar.

The statue, which is approximately three feet tall had been carved from the hard wood of the Judea tree: it is a figure of Our Lady standing before a cross, her arms at her side with the palms of her hands facing forward. Beneath her feet is a globe representing the world.

When Sr. Agnes approached the statue, she said, "I suddenly felt that the wooden statue came to life and was about to speak to me . . . She was bathed in a brilliant light . . . and at the same moment a voice of indescribable beauty struck my totally deaf ears." Our Lady told her: ". . . Your deafness will be healed . . ." She then recited with Sr. Agnes the community prayer that had been composed by Bishop Ito. At the words "Jesus present in the Eucharist," Mary instructed, "From now on, you will add TRULY." Together with the Angel who again appeared, the three voices recited a consecration to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, TRULY present in the Holy Eucharist. Before disappearing, Our Lady asked that Sr. Agnes "pray very much for the Pope, bishops and priests . . ."

The next morning, when the sisters assembled for the recitation of Lauds, they found blood on the right hand of the statue and two lines which crossed, in the middle of which was an opening from which the blood flowed. The wound matched that on the hand of Sr. Agnes except that, since the statue's hand was smaller, its wound was smaller. It bled on the Fridays of July during the year 1973, as did the wound on the hand of Sr. Agnes.

One of the sisters wrote: "It seemed to be truly cut into flesh. The edge of the cross had the aspect of human flesh and one even saw the grain of the skin like a fingerprint. I said to myself at that moment that the wound was real . . ."

Of special noteworthiness, the drops of blood ran the length of the statue's hand, which was open and pointing downward, yet the drops never fell from the hand.

Sr. Agnes Sasagawa

The wound on the hand of Sr. Agnes appeared on Thursday, June 28. As predicted by the guardian Angel, the wound disappeared on Friday, July 27 without leaving a trace.

The second message of Our Lady came on August 3, 1973, a First Friday, when the heavenly voice from the statue warned:

". . . Many men in this world afflict the Lord . . . In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind . . . I have prevented the coming of calamities by offering Him the sufferings of the Son on the Cross, His Precious Blood and beloved souls who console Him forming a cohort of victim souls. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father's anger . . . know that you must be fastened to the Cross with three nails. These three nails are poverty, chastity and obedience. Of the three, obedience is the foundation . . . When Sr. Agnes was professed, she pronounced these three vows. Although the wound on the hand of Sr. Agnes disappeared on July 27, the wound on the hand of the statue remained until its disappearance on September 29. At that time the statue emitted a bright light. The wound had remained for three months.

While wounds in the hands of the statue bled, Bishop Ito advises that, contrary to some reports, ". ..the statue did not sweat blood or weep blood at any time."

On the evening office of September 29, 1973, the whole community saw a brilliant light coming from the statue. Almost immediately the entire body of the statue became covered with a moisture resembling perspiration. Sr. Agnes' guardian Angel told her, "Mary is even sadder than when she shed blood. Dry the perspiration."

The sisters used cotton balls to collect the moisture. Following Our Lady's message, the dazzling light that had surrounded the statue gradually disappeared.

Toward the end of May, 1974, another phenomenon occurred. While the statue's garment and the hair retained the look of natural wood, the face, hands and feet became distinguished by a dark, reddish-brown tint. Eight years later, when the sculptor came to see the statue, he could not hide his surprise that only the visible parts of Our Lady's body had changed color, and that the face itself had changed expression.

Then on January 4, 1975, to the amazement of the community and Fr. Yasuda, the statue of the Virgin began to weep and did so three times that day. Also witnessing these tears, in addition to the sisters, were Bishop Ito and a number of people who had joined the nuns for a New Year's retreat. In the 10 years following, scientific studies excluded any explanation other than the supernatural.

the tears collected on the inside edge of the eyes flowed down the cheeks, collected at the edge of the garment near the throat, rolled down the folds of the garment and fell upon the globe under Our Lady's feet.

Fr. Yasuda recorded in his book, The Tears and Message of Mary, that the statue:

. . . had completely dried out during the years since it was made and little cracks had begun to appear. It is already miraculous if water would flow from such material, but it is still more prodigious that a liquid sightly salty, of the nature of true human tears, should have flowed precisely from the eyes."

Eventually, Bishop Ito arranged for Professor Sagisaka, M.D., a non-Christian specialist in forensic medicine, to make a rigorous scientific examination of the three fluids, although the Bishop did not reveal their source. The results were: "The matter adhering on the gauze is human blood. The sweat and the tears absorbed in the two pieces of cotton are of human origin." The blood was found to belong to group B and the sweat and tears to group AB. Sr. Agnes belongs to group B.

Bishop Ito was advised by the Apostolic Nuncio to seek the assistance of the Archbishop of Tokyo in creating a commission of canonical inquiry. Unfortunately, the Inquisitor who was not Catholic was named president of this group. Without any of the members visiting the convent to conduct a personal inquiry, the commission rendered an unfavorable verdict.

Unwilling to accept a negative verdict to the events he himself had witnessed, Bishop Ito asked the advice in Rome of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as well as the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. He was then advised to form another commission to study the events from the beginning. This commission rendered a favorable verdict regarding the supernatural aspects of the events.

The tears of December 8, 1979 were filmed by a televiion crew at 11 o'clock in the evening, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and was shown on television to 12 million people throughout Japan. It is now shown by the nuns at the convent and was shown during news broadcasts throughout the world.

The sculptor of the statue, Saburo Wakasa, a non-Catholic and a citizen of Akita, was asked his reaction to the occurrences relating to the statue. He answered:

The statue of Mary was my first work connected with Christianity. Of my various statues, it is only with the statue of Mary at Yuzawadai that mysterious events occurred . . . I sculptured the whole statue of Mary, globe, and the Cross from the same piece of wood, so there are no joints . . . The wood from which I carved the statue of Mary was very dry and rather hard . . .

When questioned as to whether he regards as a "miracle" the reported shedding of tears from the statue of Mary, he replied, "It is a mystery."

Another examination of the fluids was conducted by Dr. Sagisaka of the Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Akita. The results were given on November 30, 1981 and revealed that:

"The object examined has adhering to it human liquids which belong to the blood group O." Since the first analysis revealed that the blood belonged to group B and the sweat and tears to group AB, it has been established that the fluids belong to three different blood groups.

It is a medical fact that the blood, tears and sweat of an individual all belong to the same blood group. One fluid cannot differ in type from the other fluids of the same body. Since Sr. Agnes belonged to group B she could not have "ejected and transferred" blood or fluids belonging to group AB or O. The theory of the Inquisitor that Sr. Agnes exercised had ectoplasmic power wass thereby refuted.

On the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows [September 15], the statue cried for the last time. Two weeks later, Sr. Agnes' guardian Angel presented a large Bible surrounded with a brilliant light. The open Bible revealed the reference, Genesis 3:15. The Angel explained that the passage had a relationship with the tears of Mary and then continued.

 . . . sin came into the world by a woman and it is also by a woman that salvation came to the world . . .

The lachrymations number 101, and they took place at irregular intervals from January 4, 1975 until September 15, 1981. The first 1 is Eve, the second, Our Lady and the 0 represents the eternal Holy Trinity.

According to the records kept by the sisters, the number of persons witnessing the tears went unrecorded on five occasions. However, all the other times they were witnessed by no fewer than ten persons, and other lachrymations were witnessed by various numbers of people, sometimes as many as 46, 55 and, for the last lachrymation, 65 people. Some of the witnesses were non-Christians and some were prominent Buddhists, including the mayor of the city.

 On October 13, the anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, 1973, Sr. Agnes heard the beautiful voice speaking from the statue once more: "The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against other bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres, churches and altars will be sacked. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the devil will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord. The demon would be especially implacable against souls consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the cause of my sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there will be no longer any pardon for them."

She continued, "As I told you, if people do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the Flood, such as one will never have seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by my Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary pray for the Pope, the bishops and the priests."

The statue wept for the last time on September 15, Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.

Sr. Agnes was totally and incurably deaf when she entered the community, having lost her hearing on March 16, 1973. Sister was able to speak, and understood spoken messages by lip reading. As predicted by her guardian Angel, she temporarily regained her hearing on October 13, 1974. Deafness returned on March 7, 1975. Her hearing was permanently restored on May 30, 1982, as predicted by Our Lady during the first message of July 6, 1973. Both healings occurred instantaneously during Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Sr. Agnes is today in sound health, except for the rheumatism that has affected her hands.

A canonical law regarding the judgment of a Marian apparition was issued in 1978. According to a Vatican official: ". . . the authority to hand down a conclusion regarding the authenticity of any Marian apparition is given canonically to the ordinary (the bishop) of the local diocese where the apparition took place . . ."

In his pastoral letter dated April 22, 1984, Bishop John Ito, the Ordinary of the Diocese of Niigata, wrote that having been given directives in this regard, "I authorize throughout the entire diocese of which I am charged, the veneration of the Holy Mother of Akita." The Bishop noted that the events are only a matter of private revelation, and are not points of doctrine. The Bishop also mentioned in his pastoral letter that he had known Sr. Agnes Sasagawa for 10 years. "She is a woman sound in spirit, frank and without problems; she has always impressed me as a balanced person. Consequently the messages she says that she has received did not appear to me to be in any way the result of imagination or hallucination."

Four years later, on June 20, 1988, during Bishop lto's visit to Rome, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith approved the contents of the pastoral letter.

 Bishop Ito's official recognitions of the occurrences and the Madonna's messages were reported in the October, 1988 issue of the magazine 30 Days. In the August 1990 issue, Cardinal Ratzinger is quoted as saying that "there are no objections to the conclusion of the pastoral letter." Cardinal Ratzinger has invited the Bishop to continue to inform him about the pilgrimages and conversions.

[swanqueeneverafter]

The Once & Future Queen Pt.11

Land Without Magic. Past. October 24th, 2011. 8:15 A.M. Phuket. (August is in bed with a girl, sound asleep. He suddenly wakes as if in pain, sits up and sees his leg turning into wood. He turns around.) August: (Speaking Thai to his bed-mate:) “Wake up. Wake up!” Isra: (Looks at the clock, then reluctantly at him:) “It's only 8:15, go back to bed...” August: (Pointing at his leg:) “Look at this. Right here. Isra, wake up! Help me!” Isra: (Gets up half way and looks at him:) “August, it's early. I'm sleeping.” August: (Reaching out and touching his knee:) “Look, don't you see it?” Isra: (Looking up:) “I see your leg! Now please, be quiet...” August: “I need to go to a hospital...” Isra: “What the hell is wrong with you?” August: (Speaking English:) “I'm turning into wood.” Storybrooke. Present. (Henry lays beneath the food truck covered in grease and engine oil.) Tiana: “Is there a person attached to those legs under there? (Henry slides out from under the truck:) Hmm. Writer boy. What the hell are you doing here?” Henry: “Operation Food Truck.” Tiana: “Am I supposed to know what that means?” Henry: “It means that as soon as I get the engine running, I'm gonna install the fryers, and then I'm gonna go in the back, and I'm gonna get the -” Tiana: “Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Does this newfound industriousness have anything to do with a certain date you have with Ella later. Cause you know, she’s feeling pretty nervous about it too.” Henry: “No. I just thought that you two might appreciate an actual working vehicle.”

Tiana: “Oh. Hey, shouldn’t you be getting ready for that date? What time is it anyway? (Henry ignores this and climbs into the truck. Switching on the engine, the truck roars to life. Tiana chuckles in surprise as Henry also turns on the lights. Smiling:) Huh. You actually fixed it.” Henry: (Switching off the engine, climbs down to join her:) “Well, your confidence in me is astounding, Tiana.” Ella: (Entering:) “Wow! This is fantastic. Now I get why you stood me up. You must’ve lost track of time while you were doing all this?” Henry: “Yeah, it's, uh, good as new. And I didn’t forget our date.” Ella: “Then why-” Henry: “Consider it a parting gift. (At Ella’s blank stare:) Will told me what happened between you two. In Wonderland?” Tiana: “Uh, say what now?” Henry: (Grimaces:) “Ah, sorry Tiana. I didn’t mean to break it to you like this.” Ella: “Henry what are you talking about?” Henry: (To Tiana:) “It appears that Will and Ella didn’t quite spend all their time searching for answers, but rather finding other ways to entertain themselves in each other’s arms. (Tosses the keys to Ella who catches them:) It's all yours.” (Henry walks away dejectedly while Ella looks to Tiana in disbelief.)

Granny's Diner. (A small group has gathered while the Red Queen stands frozen like an ice sculpture in the middle of the diner.) Regina: "I just don't understand it. Even when she was the Red Queen, Anastasia was never known to be violent." Xena: (Dryly:) "Must be beginners luck." Regina: "I'm serious. By all accounts, the people of Wonderland were more afraid of the Queen of Hearts than Anastasia." Gabrielle: "Who's the Queen of Hearts?" Regina: (Coughs, then mutters:) "My mother." David: (While playing with his granddaughter's foot:) "Well, prior instances of violence or not, Anastasia was in the midst of terrorising the town before Elsa stopped her.” Regina: (To Xena and Gabrielle:) "Do either of you know why Anastasia might have been targeting you?" Xena: (Shakes her head:) "I've never met her before." Gabrielle: "She kept referring to herself as the Red Queen. In between using her magic against us I mean." Regina: "Well clearly there's something going on. Need I remind you that this is Ella's step-sister we're talking about here? That makes her family." Ruby: (Scoffs:) "Like that's a big deal. Everyone's related around here. (At Regina's look:) What? They are." David: "Family member or not, I think the best thing to do right now is keep the Red Queen on ice. At least until we find some answers." Ruby: "Will she be safe staying frozen like that?" Regina: "Ana's not the first person to have been frozen solid around here. (Circling the frozen woman:) I left Marian like this in my vault for weeks."

(Sitting at the counter, Lily tries to reassure Elsa.) Elsa: "I just feel so guilty freezing her that way." Lily: "Don't. You saw how out of control she was. If you ask me, Anastasia's lucky you were here to turn her into a block of ice." Elsa: "Really?" Lily: "Yeah, absolutely. I mean if it were down to me, I'd have turned her into a pile of ashes. Your way is much less messy." (Elsa smiles, then steals a french fry from Lily's plate.) Storybrooke. Past. The Final Battle. Main Street. (The family rushes to Emma’s side as she lays, unmoving, on the ground.) Henry: (Crying:) “I love you.” (Henry leans down and kisses Emma’s forehead, causing a pulse of magic from True Love’s Kiss.) Emma: (Opening her eyes, softly:) “I love you, too. (They hug:) I love you, too!” (David helps Emma to her feet and the family share a group hug. Catching a glimpse of something in the corner of her eye, Snow White looks over and spots the storybook laying in the road.) Snow White: (Picking it up:) “Henry! I think this belongs to you.” Henry: (Taking the book and reading the last chapter:) "When Good and Evil both did the right thing, faith was restored. The final battle was won. (Closes the book:) That’s it.” A Short Distance Away. (Running up the street towards the Sorcerer’s door, Emma chances a glance behind her to see her family all gathered together before pulling the door open and dashing through it.)

The Sorcerer's Mansion. (Arriving back at the mansion, Emma finds the Apprentice waiting for her with another storybook.) Emma: "So you're telling me that I'm the reason the storybook appeared at that exact moment?" Apprentice: (Smiles:) "That moment, and others. Come, we've still much to do." Storybrooke. Present. Main Street. (Ella catches up to Henry.) Ella: “Henry! Wait. (She blocks his path:) I don’t know what Will told you, but it was a lie.” Henry: “Yeah? Well he sounded pretty convincing.” Ella: “You really think I’m capable of such a thing?” Henry: “Well I don’t know, Ella, you tell me. You were pretty gung-ho about accusing my mother based on somebody’s word. So what am I supposed to think?” Ella: “I don't have feelings for Will. How could I? I love you!” Henry: “And I love you! It’s just... I don’t know what to believe anymore! Things haven’t been right between us for a long time.” Ella: “I know, we’ve both been so busy, we’ve hardly had time to be together. That’s why I asked you to come with me to Wonderland in the first place.” Henry: (Nods:) “Yeah, and I should have been there. I was just so wrapped up in making enough money so we could get our own place that I lost sight of what was really important. You and me, side by side facing things together, head on.” Ella: “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” Henry: (Pulling her in for a hug:) “I’m so sorry, about everything.” Ella: (Wrapping her arms around him:) “Me too.” Elsewhere In Storybrooke... (Staggering towards the library, Will tries the doors but they are locked.) Tiana: "Opening hours till 10:00." Will: (Bows his head:) "Very generous. (Turns to face her:) Tiana, I can explain." Tiana: "I didn't ask." (Tiana punches Will square in the face, causing him to fall back against the library doors and slide, unconscious, onto the ground.)

Blanchard Loft. Past. (Emma, Mary Margaret, David and Regina are looking for Henry’s storybook. David and Regina search the bedroom, Mary Margaret and Emma the closet. Regina opens one suitcase and looks inside searching for the book. It’s empty. David opens a chest. Shoe boxes are stored inside.) David: (Picks one shoe box and sets it aside:) “Why do women keep their shoe boxes?” Mary Margaret: (Overhearing the remark:) “Because after true love there is no more powerful magic than footwear. It has to be protected.” Emma: “Any sign of the book?” David: (Shuts the chest:) “No. I don’t think it’s here.” Mary Margaret: “You don’t know that.” Emma: (Carrying another wooden chest, she joins David and Regina:) “Maybe it’s in this thing. (Places the chest on the bed and opens it. Clothes are stored inside:) Some winter coats. Some scarves. The book is not in here.” (Emma sighs and lays back on the bed. At that moment, a pair of hands reach up from under the bed and covertly place the storybook inside the chest.) Mary Margaret: (Exiting the closet:) “Hang on. Let me check.” (After a short search, Mary Margaret is able to find the storybook.) Emma: (Confused, sits up:) “I don’t understand.” (As all eyes turn to the book, Emma scurries out from under the bed and crawls quickly out of the room on all fours towards the door in the next room.) Regina: “Can I see that? (Mary Margaret gives the book to Regina:) I know there are chapters on Oz in here. I wanna know who’s heart Zelena crushed to enact this curse. Because if there’s something she loved, that’s her weakness. (Regina exits the room. David follows her. When they enter the living room, Regina catches a glimpse of something in the corner:) Did you see that?” David: “See what?” Regina: “I’m sure I saw something. (Shaking her head, she returns her attention to the storybook:) Never mind.”

Land Without Magic. Past, October 2011. Hong Kong. (August sits in a hospital in Hong Kong, waiting for his leg to be examined.) Orderly: “August W. Booth?” Exam Room. Doctor: (August shows his leg to the doctor. To the doctor's eyes his leg looks perfectly normal:) “I don't see anything.” August: “My leg is turning into wood.” Doctor: “I think you should go.” August: “Wait, wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'll prove it to you.” (August puts his leg up on the table and stabs his leg with a scalpel.) Doctor: “No! Stop! Aah! (Speaking Cantonese:) Orderlies! Restrain him! Take him to psych! (The orderlies chase August through the hospital:) Wait! Get back here! Hey! Get back!” (Seemingly with no place left to run, August is grabbed from behind and taken into the stairwell. August spins around ready to fight then sees a woman standing before him.) August: “Who are you?” Mulan: “Someone who can help. I heard you yelling about your situation. And I work with a man who fixes those kinds of problems.” August: “What kind of problems?” Mulan: “The kind most people just dismiss. For the right price, he can cure anything.” August: “Who is he?” Mulan: “They call him the Dragon.”

[darkparablesthorst]

So since everyone on is on the thirsty list and ya need requests, can I please aske for dating headcannons for everyone's favorite Snowy Queen, Snow White?

THIS GOT LONG HOLY HELL TOOK ME 4 HOURS

Constructing her Personality

Alrighty ho! I’m not going to add her history here anymore as I believe that that the game provided detailed information about her life before she turned into the Snow Queen and what her life led to after being freed from the False Mirror. Her actions in-game show that she strongly cares for her family and will go to great lengths for their sake. Desperate to cure her son of his comatose, she clung to the promises of the False Mirror even if it meant gambling her soul and the whole world away to save her son. Even when Floralia fell and Snow possessed no leads to her brother Ross Red’s survival, she still went to the fallen kingdom to look for him herself. Snow White is a hardy woman who will fight tooth and nail and freeze hell all over (hehe) to ensure the safety of her family. 

I feel like Snow places huge importance on blood relations, mostly because they are the only people who remained by her side in all her immortal life. The Mountain King, her father, sacrificed his kingdom for her sake, and this testifies to their deep familial bond between father and daughter. At his death, Ross Red and Gwyn are the only surviving members of her family and the people she has ever intimately known who still survive to this day. That said, she is not quick to be friendly with strangers, unless she owes them a huge debt (like the detective), or are familiar with her family. With strangers, she maintains a stern, impassive, yet kind countenance, cordial yet impersonal. However, she warms up easily with who her family considers as friends and treats them extremely well. For example, she sponsored Gwyn and Gerda’s extravagant wedding where royalties from all kingdoms were invited to. That’s some extreme mothering right there. 

However, she keeps grudges, and no family is exempted from that.  I feel like she still resents James a bit for what had happened to Gwyn. Also, when Rasputin crashed the wedding, Snow Queen had no reservations in fighting him although he was her uncle. She will destroy anyone who compromises the safety and happiness of her small, tight-knit family, no matter who they were. 

All in all, we have a fiercely caring queen and mother who is determined to brave all odds for the sake of her family. Of course, the responsibility of maintaining her precious family leaves little time for meeting new people. Add to that her reserved and icy personality that she presents to strangers, and it might prove difficult to approach the Snow Queen. Gain the trust, love, and approval of her family, and you may have a chance of warming her heart. 

Dating Headcanons

Snow is the type of woman to spoil her lover. She has the power and wealth to give you whatever you want and does so with pleasure. She also fusses over you, making sure that you have eaten well and gotten the proper amount of sleep. Her maternal instincts kick to overdrive if she sees a single bruise on your body. She may get overbearing, so be sure to calm her down and assure her that you’re fine. 

She doesn’t expect anything in return, but if you give her a gift, she will be overjoyed. It doesn’t have to be any expensive items as long as it’s from you. But if you handcraft something for her? Say, paint her a portrait, make her a sculpture, craft her jewelry, or brew a potion to exfoliate her skin, her brain will reset and she will legitimately b l u s h. The first time you saw it, you were just as baffled, but she looked so adorable with her face flaring up that you got embarrassed as well for staring too long. 

She’s a respected queen, so you’re going to have to dress to impress. You get to wear the finest clothing known throughout the kingdoms perfectly tailored to your size. You and Snow will be the most beautiful couple in any balls you attend, and the spectators will know you belong together through your matching/complementary clothing and regalia if your entwined arms and loving glances are not enough to clue them in. You might feel concerned that she’s giving you too many clothes, but she really enjoys dressing you up in gorgeous silks and make you look your best. 

Dates for you and Snow White are private affairs that aren’t at all extravagant. Too busy for that. Your dates (not counting the balls and events you attend for social and political matters) would be enjoying each other’s company in her study as you drink tea. If she’s feeling more stressed, she pops off the cork of aged wine from her personal wine stash and rant about her worries, frustrations, and anxieties. They mostly concern the safety of her family, the matters of wicked curses and ancient treacheries popping out of nowhere (the dp universe is saturated with family drama and it involves magic my fucking GOD ) and, sometimes, when she’s particularly drunk, she bitches about James and his curse and his stupid face gods why did i fall for that idiot 

Snow is cute when she gets drunk, but she is just as much as a pain in the ass when she is. She gets whiny and clingy, and it would have been cute if she’s not spilling the glass of wine she insists on holding all over the cushions as she attempts to cuddle you (”Snow, they’re velvet! You’re going to have to replace them if you don’t put the wine glass down!”).

Most of the time, you keep yourself sober and just short of tipsy to revel these rare moments of vulnerability. You fondly watch as her uncontained giggles break through her icy demeanor and her pristine diction slurs. When the morning comes, you rise before Snow.  You retrieve the painkilling elixir from the dresser, prepare her a glass of cool water, and peel a fresh orange, and set the items on the nightstand. When she wakes up, groaning from the hangover, it was your turn to fuss over her. You hand her the elixir, mindful of the dosage she gulps down, give her the glass of water next, and feed her each slice of orange. Her face is contorted in discomfort at first, but it gradually relaxes as the headache disappears and makes way for the awareness of your caring actions. The both of you cuddle afterward, only parting when one of the butlers knock at your door to remind you of your duties. 

That said, you’re Snow’s most trusted confidante. She tells you everything and trusts that you’ll swear secrecy to whatever you hear. If she’s having difficulties with a certain matter, your encouraging words and affection lift her spirits. Knowing that you are there with her to share her burdens gives her comfort and propels her to see her problems through. 

I feel like this queen is touch-starved. In private, she clings to you at every waking moment. If she’s busy reading through letters and contracts, she has her hand on your thigh as you read a book beside her. When you’re strolling in the garden, enjoying each other’s company amidst the beauty of the castle flora, she has her arm entwined in yours. When you’re both in bed, she cuddles to you and leeches off your warmth until you both fall asleep. 

I feel like Snow studies magic, herbology, alchemy and potion-making in her free time. She has an extensive collection of books about said subjects in her library. When her schedule isn’t too tight, she goes on excursions by herself to research and collect ingredients and new species of plants. She values learning and curiosity and desires to see the same spirit in her partner. If you accompany her in these adventures, you can help her in logging in information, stocking supplies, and holding her stuff for her. When you’re out camping, you get to stargaze and identify constellations in the sky.

Before you make it to Snow, you have to gain the good graces of her family first. Gwyn will be more forthcoming, but good luck dealing with Ross. Even if you already are dating Snow, he will always have his reservations about the relationship. Nevertheless, he doesn’t dislike you as much as he disliked James. It’s just his protectiveness over his sister showing. To earn the complete trust of Ross would require you to perform an act of self-sacrifice. Are you willing to lay your life for Snow? Will you compromise your own interests for her sake? Succeed, and not only will you obtain the loyalty and good graces of the fearsome Ross Red, but Snow would also admire and love you more. 

Dating Snow would mean being Gwyn’s foster parent. You get free access to dote and fuss over Gwyn, and on really good days, you and Snow get to do it together. Gwyn will be frozen in embarrassment, but he is grateful for having such caring people in his life. 

WIth you, Snow gets to loosen up more. Once, you managed to convince her to create a Snow Wonderland inside the castle. Everyone was absolutely thrilled and joined in the fun. The best thing about it is you convinced her to do this stunt in July, in the middle of summer. It was truly one of the more exciting things that happened inside the kingdom.

Snow needs a partner, an equal who she can trust and rely on. By herself, she survives well enough, but with a partner, she wants to thrive gloriously. The both of you will be a formidable power couple.

[eugeniekwon-blog]

Eat and Explore Assignment

Keelty, Caitlin, George, and I met up at the Dragon Statue at 12PM before heading to Rittenhouse Square via SEPTA bus; it took a few stations to get there. After getting off the bus, we had to walk a few streets in order to arrive at The Rooster, our destination for lunch. It was a crowded diner that sells sandwiches. I really liked the choice for lunch because it was not too greasy. 

We went to Rittenhouse Square Park, which was close from the diner. I liked the peaceful atmosphere it gave in the middle of the city. The fallen leaves and some of the remaining snow from yesterday might have added that. Not only were there grass and trees but there were some sculptures, statues, and small murals, which grabbed my attention. The little bits of art here and there contributed in making this park unique. However, the park was smaller than what I expected. It was a great walk around the park.

After visiting the park, we wandered around Rittenhouse Square without a destination in mind. We put more focus on viewing the architecture on streets we went to. While walking, we would mention things that we learned in art history and design classes, and I was surprised to see that what we learned actually exists closer than we think. For instance, we saw two doors next to each other that portray figure-ground; we saw pixilated murals and mosaics. It was one of those moments where I realized that I did learn something from my classes.

When we were wandering around, I realized that the streets of Rittenhouse Square were a lot more calm. Compared to University City, it was more like a place where there are more residents and cute little shops. The colours on the buildings/houses were a lot more diverse and vibrant; we came across many purple doors. 

Overall, it was a time where I was able to connect more with friends from my major since I do not really spend time with them as much as I do with my other friends. Because we take the same classes, we relate to on so many more things. Also, since I do not really go off-campus, this assignment forced me to go explore a new part of Philadelphia. It was a nice break from my assignments!

[nataandreev]

Fragments from “The Pursuit of Art” by Martin Gayford

Way Out East 11 In Beijing with Gilbert & George

I had accepted a seat in the smoking section. A relatively recent non-smoker, I thought it would not make much difference. The result, however, was the periodically smokers came back to have a cigarette, sitting in the empty seat next to mine - and every one of them felt it would be polite to have a conversation while they did so.

No one seemed sure why this Gilbert & George show had been allowed.

by South Korean artists a while before, was forcibly taken down. G&C’s approach, in contrast, had beed accepted with alacrity - and here we all were.

whereby decadent, bourgeois art was expected to be abstract.

‘normal conservative rebels’ - would have baffled most secret policemen.

This show is said to help Peking’s bid for the 2000 Olympics.’

‘What is a Rembrandt? It is himself. All the inner feelings of the artist. Or Van Gogh. It’s just him, a completely maniac person. You see his mad vision and that’s it.

‘I think it’s very good we’re in the picture reminding the viewer that its not a boring artwork, only an aesthetic experience. It’s us saying something to them.’

Gilbert & George started out, proclaimed themselves one artist, and defined their idiom as ‘living sculpture.’

a community high in the Alps close to the border with Austria who speak neither Italian nor German. but a language of their own, Ladin.)

‘You mean the vision. We only believe in that, Even when you see a Michelangelo, it’s just his vision, that’s the important thing. Then you find your form. But the important thing is to have a vision.’

The globalization of the international art world had already, begun, and, like the economic variety, was to gather ever greater pace in the years to come.

Way Out East 12 Naoshima: A Modern Treasure Island

‘The art, the building and the environment should work together to wake up the viewer.’ The phrase he used - ‘wake up’ - recalls the term satori, meaning ‘awakening, comprehending or understanding’, used in Japanese Buddhism.

It was made about 500 years before the modernist architect Mies van der Rohe remarked that less is more.

how oriental Claude Monet really was. After all, he was a collector and lover of Japanese prints, which hung all around his dining room, 6,000 miles away in Giverny.

Monet’s western identity was already blending with the east. The freedom of his paint strokes might seem just a flourish of the brush, but when you step back they become plants, water or reflected sky.

I had a moment of satori. I could see that Monet’s subject was everything - growth, change, light, dark, heavens, earth - and nothing (just passing shadows on few feet of pond), which is very Zen.

Way Out East 13 Travelling in Chinese Mountains

the Sea of Mist from the peaks of Huang Shan, the Yellow Mountain range. In its way, this is a sight as fundamental to Chinese culture as the Pantheon is to the Greek, or the Pyramids to the Egyptian. In a way it is the subject of Chinese art. 

There, in the excellent Shanghai Museum, for the first time in my life I saw a large collection of classic Chinese painting.

Anish Kapoor cited them as one of his sources of inspiration; the poet Kathleen Raine suggested that the Chinese masters of the Song Dynasty were perhaps the greatest landscape painters of all.

Chinese thinkers believed - rather before Albert Einstein - that matter and energy were one. Everything was a manifestation of divine energy or qi (pronounced chee). Literally, the word means air, water or breath: a life-force powering the cosmos.

Just as the Innuit are said to have fifty different words for snow, Chinese commentators on art distinguished a whole thesaurus of ink marks.

Such vocabulary, incidentally, is sadly lacking in European languages, which is one reason why it is so hard to discuss painting with precision.

Xunzi, born about 310 BC, there was a hierarchy of qi. Such elements as fire and water had qi, but not life. Plants had qi and life, but not understanding; animals and birds have all three, but not ‘propriety’, or a moral sense of how to behave and shape the world. Only human beings have that.

The Chinese phrase for pilgrimage means literally ‘paying one’s respect to mountains.’

But these are not warring forces like good and evil in the Middle Eastern Manichean - and Christian - view of the world, but complementary forces. The sinologist Rolf Stein translated them as ‘shady side (of a mountain)’ and ‘sunny side (of a mountain)’. They were necessary the each other.

This was, he argued, quite distinct from the European, post-Renaissance system of fixed-point perspective, which automatically also fixed the spectator in a certain spot in relation to the world.

The viewer navigated, as we do in the real world, through ever-shifting surroundings using our senses and our intuition. 

the point was why this kind of sight meant so much to the Chinese. To them, it seemed to be a direct experience of the universe at work. The landscape came and went just as all things do: people, dynasties, empires, event mountains. Only the swirling energy is immortal. As a view of the cosmos, it is astonishingly up to date.

[objectsurfaceword]

Carl Andre, Floor Pieces /

“Andre moved to New York in 1957 and began making sculptures in 1958. These mainly consisted of large, often vertically oriented structures comprising cut and stacked blocks of wood or plastic (see, for instance, Last Ladder 1959, Tate T01533). However, a period spent working on the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1960–4 and the resulting access to industrial materials prompted Andre to begin making works that used fabricated metals such as steel, copper, zinc and lead, and that were flat and horizontally presented, covering large areas of the floor. He encouraged viewers to walk directly upon these floor sculptures, such as Steel Zinc Plain, claiming that a physical connection with the works allowed for a fuller experience of their materials. In 1970 Andre said, ‘There are a number of properties which materials have which are conveyed by walking on them: there are things like the sound of a piece of work and its sense of friction ... I even believe that you can get a sense of mass, although this may be nothing but a superstition which I have’ (quoted in Meyer-Hermann 1996, p.48).”

"I find in my work a quality of serenity that I find absolutely impossible in my life." - Carl Andre

Carl Andre Sculptures, Politics, 1959-1976 // Alistair John Rider (selected sections)

Indeed, Andre's sculptures are composed of simple arrangements of identical particles of material, which often appear to be requisitioned from the realms of construction and manufacturing. However, once these units are arranged in the gallery, they are intended to be seen not just as mere materials,  but as `art'. The scenario is so simple it is easy to overlook: it plays off that cliched conundrum of not knowing whether or not the fire hydrant in the corner of the gallery is part of the display.

If Andre obliged viewers to identify his mass-produced, machine-manufactured modules as `unique' sculptures, then in equal measure he also required that they see these materials literally, without illusions. The bricks, for instance, are not representative or symbolic of anything other than what they simply are: bricks. Nonetheless, viewers are still invited to regard the works in two ways at once - as requisitioned materials and as art.

For Andre, though, the main breeder of mystification was clear: it was the commodity form. I argue here that the artist's works should be read as closely engaged with the way social values are magically accorded to material artefacts in a capitalist economy. By simply taking units of material out of circulation and placing them inside the art gallery, his sculptures trouble the ease and naturalness with which values are ascribed to objects.

Andre's is a funerary art - an art devoted to storing up and holding onto things as a gesture of compensation for that which has been irretrievably lost. The material substantiality of his work I take to be a form of restitution for that which is no longer bodily present. `Petrification' thus becomes the operative word: these exertions towards the retrieval of the past never entertain the illusion of offering up anything other than mere shards and fragments. Andre's emphasis on memorialisation, loss and attempted recovery might be said to be themes that emerge in equal measure in many of his sculptures.

`Placing' and `arranging' are here the key terms, for Andre's sculptures are always mere alignments of separate particles: the chosen units are not glued or fixed together in any way.  

“Arrangements of identical units that exist as an art object only when assembled as such in the proper context.” --  Viewers are made aware that the modules can always be dismantled and stacked away, and that the dimensions of the work are merely an aggregation of separable units. In that sense, nothing might seem more perfunctory and provisional. Yet, on the other hand, Andre arranges them into simple configurations that, for the duration of their display, are never variable or alterable. These contingencies of the arrangements are made to register, phenomenally, as not only `inevitable' but also as laden with a sense of `presence'. 

The `craftlessness' of Andre's sculptures might be said to stand in serious contradiction to the way `craft' is often alluded to in relation to his family background. And in turn, these tensions pose some serious questions about the role biography can play in interpretations and explications of his practice. 

For Andre, who was brought up just south of Boston in Quincy, his chosen memories also reflect with telegraphic succinctness the social and geographical make-up of the place of his birth. For him, these were the vast granite quarries up in the hills behind the city and the `rusting acres of steel plates' that lay beside the shipyards `under the rain and sun'.

Carl Andre on his birthplace:  “...There were just acres and acres of these steel plates [...], they were just stored there until they were used, until they were bent or formed into whatever shape for the hull and deck plates. You can still see it now if you go by there, full of these enormous heavy red sheets or blue sheets or the color of the steel depending on how long it's been out in the rain or what formula the steel is.”

In fact, once the sculptures are composed, they are perhaps best seen as only the memory of the handling of the materials that went into their arrangement. Andre's sculptures are best understood in these terms: a memorial to the ideal of craftsmanship, a memorial to the thought of constructing things by hand.

QUINCY BOOK / CARL ANDRE: THE RELATIONSHIP OF SCULPTURE AND PHOTOGRAPHY

Nowhere in Carl Andre's oeuvre does the nature of memorialisation seem more pressing a preoccupation than in his Quincy Book. This is a slim collection of photographs he published in 1973, on the occasion of two exhibitions in his home state of Massachusetts. In tact, on the basis of Andre's pictures, Quincy hardly resembles a city in any conventional sense at all. It is more a hook of views of the spaces on its periphery: the park and the cemetery and the beach, interspersed with depictions of places whose character has been inexorably changed by industrial activity.

An absence of any individuals serves also to emphasize the extent to which almost all these landscapes bear the markings of human activity and presence: from piles of sawed logs by the roadside, to graffiti on the blasted rocks in the quarries, from paths and prints in the Snow, to shards of discarded scrap metal poking out from the snowy ground in the woods. We should remember too that at certain exhibitions over the years these pictures have been framed as individual prints in conjunction with his sculptures. 

THE NEW AVANT-GARDE: ISSUES FOR THE ART OF THE SEVENTIES /

It contains entries on twelve artists, including Joseph Beuys, Dan Flavin, Mario Merz, Robert Morris and Richard Serra. Each artist is represented conventionally enough, first with a portrait photograph, then with a series of images that show them either installing, producing or performing their work. It is a book of artists at work. Andre is represented in this volume by five large photographs of seemingly abandoned building materials, lying in one of the more industrial districts of New York. The pictures show beams and logs, metal plates and cobblestones sitting slacked and piled beside empty stretches of street, materials which do have a certain similarity to the resources he has used on occasion for his sculptural practice.    

“Andre has refused to give art a special status of existence.”

There is a noble egalitarianism about pulling art down from its pedestal to the level of the everyday, taking it out of the galleries and back into the streets, as though delivering it again to the places that first inspired it.

Moreover, the lack of textual additions in Quincy Book does draw attention to Andre's use of the photograph as a medium in itself: a way of self-consciously emphasizing that this is a selection of photographs in booklet form and nothing else. Each image is printed on a separate page and fills the entire sheet, which means that as you turn the leaves you are made extremely aware that the spine and edges of the book are also the frames of the photographs. The images are also square, which provides the book as a whole with a distinctively symmetrical format. It seems that any description of Quincy Book will have to hold onto these attributes and be able to account for these details. In fact, it will have to keep a grasp of the two distinct media - sculpture and photography - and ask how they are made to speak to one another in Andre's hands. It could be said that Quincy Book implies, or at least intimates, that there is for him a conversation - at some deep, residual level - between his sculptural practice and photography.  

This is especially apparent in the shots of the abandoned, flooded quarries in the hills behind Quincy that fill the book's front section. We see them from varying angles, so that there is something very filmic about the way the photos pan out and close in. The entire series of images sutures the viewer into a fractured, shattered landscape of rocks and ice. But it is a landscape that is only revealed to us in equally Fragmented, snap-shot glimpses. It is almost as though in these photos there is a certain correlation between the nature of these images as fragmentary glimpse; and the actual subject matter that the pictures themselves reveal.   

[kayincolwyn]

Passion, People, and the Heart and Art of Kristen Stewart (reflection, 10 - 16 - 2017)

I know that the title of this post may seem like a strange one to some, especially to those who may think very little of the actress Kristen Stewart, who is best known for her role in the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Twilight film series, and I didn’t think much of her myself up until recently I admit, having prejudged her mainly because of her association with Twilight, which I judged as being stupid and really not worth my time and I enjoyed making fun of it (even though I never took the time to watch the films myself before passing judgment, and only got around to watching them recently, more on that later) but I have since changed in how I see her and even now consider her to be one of my favorite (if not my favorite) actresses, and now consider myself something of a fan of ‘K-Stew’ (which her fans affectionately call her). In this post I’ll be reflecting on different things, like what we are most passionate about and what really drives us, and our true selves that others may not always see or understand, but I will in large part be reflecting on the films and the heart and art of Kristen Stewart (or at least from what I’ve being able to pick up from her performances and her interviews). Up until recently I hadn’t seen any of Kristen Stewart’s films aside from seeing her when she was a teenager in the film Panic Room back when it first came out in theaters, and then in Snow White And The Huntsman which I watched it with my wife Kaylyn a few years ago. I only saw Panic Room just the once when it first came out so had kind of forgotten about it and her role in it, and while I admit that I did kind of like her in Snow White And The Huntsman and it softened my view on her a little, it didn’t really change my overall impression of her. That was until, going on a young adult film kick this summer, I decided to watch Speak, a film adaptation of a young adult novel of the same name (which I also read and appreciated, not long after seeing the film), which Kristen starred in around the same time she was in Panic Room.

Her performance in Speak as Melinda, a teenage girl trying to recover from being raped by a classmate, was powerful and heartfelt and really impressed and moved me. In the film the story of Melinda unfolds gradually, and while she carries a deep pain within her she also looks at the world with a refreshing honesty and with sarcastic wit, so her story is at turns funny, as she observes the shallowness and insanity of high school life, as well as poignant, as she tries to process her pain through her art (with the help of her art teacher) and find the courage to open up to others, to speak. After her rape at a party in her distraught state she had tried to call the cops, which led to her classmates at the party getting into trouble, which turned all of her friends against her and turned her into a social pariah at school, and because of how she was treated she kept what happened to her to herself, feeling that no one would understand or care, and so she becomes very quiet, rarely talking with anyone and just keeping to herself. But her art teacher begins to inspire her to express herself through her art and then she discovers this forgotten and unused janitor closet at school which becomes her hiding place where she hangs up her drawings and sets up her sculptures and has some time to herself where she can be quiet and get away from everything and everyone. (This reminded me of my days in middle school and high school when I was something of a social outcast myself, and during lunch period or after school was over I would often try and find some quiet place on the school grounds to get away from others and just be by myself.)

The most moving scene in the film for me was when she finds the courage to show her art teacher her hiding place and he sees all of her artwork, dark and full of pain but also beautiful somehow, and there are tears in his eyes (and admittedly there were tears in mine too). At the end of the film the classmate who had raped her tries to assault her again, and in her hiding place of all places, after he discovers that she had warned her former best friend, who was now dating him, about him, but this time she fights back and fights him off, and then she walks away down the hall, bruised but strong and with her head held high, as her classmates look on, realizing that they had all been completely wrong about her, and after this she finds the courage to tell her parents about her rape. I think Speak delves into themes of loneliness and wanting to be able to communicate and express what is most important to us (including our pain) and who we really are and how much of a struggle that can be, not only because it takes courage to open up, but also because others may not always understand or even care. I know that I’ve used this quote before in some of my other writings, but this reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, which is the opening paragraph to The Body, a novella by Stephen King which was adapted into the classic film Stand By Me:

‘The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear.’ This also reminds me of a beautiful song by the singer Birdy (who I’ve also recently become a fan of) called People Help The People. The song is a cover, the original being by a band called Cherry Ghost, but Birdy certainly makes it her own.

Birdy recorded this when she was about 14 or 15, back in 2011, as well as making a powerful and moving music video for it which you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmLNs6zQIHo The lyrics of the song are deep and poetic: [Verse 1] God knows what is hiding in those weak and drunken hearts Guess he kissed the girls and made them cry Those hard faced Queens of misadventure God knows what is hiding in those weak and sunken lies Fiery thrones of muted angels Giving love but getting nothing back [Chorus] People help the people And if you're homesick, give me your hand and I'll hold it People help the people And nothing will drag you down Oh and if I had a brain, oh and if I had a brain I'd be cold as a stone and rich as the fool That turned all those good hearts away [Verse 2] God knows what is hiding in this world of little consequence Behind the tears, inside the lies A thousand slowly dying sunsets God knows what is hiding in those weak and drunken hearts I guess the loneliness came knocking No one needs to be alone, oh singing [Chorus] People help the people And if you're homesick, give me your hand and I'll hold it People help the people Nothing will drag you down Oh and if I had a brain, oh and if I had a brain I'd be cold as a stone and rich as the fool That turned, all those good hearts away The second verse is my favorite part of the song, which I interpret (though it could be interpreted in other ways of course) as being about how God can see into our inner world, which is sadly of little consequence to most of those around us, since we are strangers to most of those around us, and behind our tears and our pain and the lies we may tell others or even tell ourselves there is desperation and beauty mingled together (a thousand slowly dying sunsets), the desperation and beauty of our soul, and God knows our deepest hearts, as busted up and broken as they may be, and we feel alone with loneliness knocking at our doors, though none of us really need to be alone, and then in the chorus there’s that beautiful line ‘people help the people, and if you’re homesick, give me your hand and I’ll hold it’.

Whether you believe in God or not (and I struggle with belief in God myself, going back and forth between faith and doubt) I think many of us can relate to that feeling of homesickness, of wanting to feel like we are loved and accepted and like we belong, and we look to eachother for this, wanting to find someone who will hold our hand and take away that feeling of homesickness, but oftentimes when we try to do this we are let down or disappointed, which is how I interpret those lines of the chorus about having a brain (like it might be more logical if we put up walls) and being cold as a stone and rich as a fool turning those good hearts away, because even hearts that are good at their core may not really understand or be able to help, which goes back to that Stephen King quote above, about the secret staying locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear. But even while we may often be let down and disappointed by others (just as we ourselves may let down and disappoint others), we can keep trying to reach out for a hand to hold, and may find some understanding, some love and acceptance and a sense of belonging, or even in spite of ourselves be able to offer it, with our fellow human beings who are more likely than not just as flawed and fallible and busted up and broken as we are, much as Melinda found that with her art teacher who saw not only the pain in her but also the beauty, which gave her the courage to open up, to speak. After watching Speak and being impressed and moved by Kristen’s performance I decided to go ahead and binge a large number of her films, about 25 of them in total. Here’s a list of the films I watched, in chronological order: Speak Catch That Kid Undertow Fierce People Zathura The Messengers In The Land Of Women The Cake Eaters Into The Wild Cutlass (short film) The Yellow Handkerchief Twilight Adventureland Twilight: New Moon Welcome To The Rileys The Runaways Twilight: Eclipse Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 and 2 Camp X-Ray Clouds Of Sils Maria Still Alice Anesthesia American Ultra Equals Personal Shopper Most of these films she had larger or starring roles in, in a few she had much smaller roles (Undertow, Into The Wild, and Anesthesia), and some I didn’t like as much or weren’t so memorable for me as others but I liked and appreciated all of them to some extent or another. Of course part of this has to do with how forgiving of a viewer I am, and also with my newfound interest in and appreciation for Kristen and her work, but some of her films were generally well done or even beautiful. My favorites were Speak, Zathura (a fun sci fi adventure film reminiscent of Jumanji), In The Land Of Women (a romantic comedy with heart), Into The Wild (a powerful and thought provoking film about the last couple years in the life of the controversial figure of Christopher McClandess, which includes Kristen in my favorite of her smaller roles), The Yellow Handkerchief (a moving drama about a man trying to find a lost love), Adventureland (a hilarious and quirky but heartfelt romantic comedy), Welcome To The Rileys (a drama about a man grieving the loss of his teenage daughter who tries to help a young stripper), Camp X-Ray (a thought provoking drama about a guard at Guantanamo Bay who befriends a prisoner there), Still Alice (a powerful and award winning drama about a woman with early onset Alzheimer’s where Kristen plays her daughter in one of her best roles), American Ultra (an underrated but I thought very fun and enjoyable action comedy with heart), Equals (a beautiful romantic reimagining of 1984), and Personal Shopper (a thought provoking drama about a woman who is trying to contact the spirit of her dead brother). As I don’t want this post to be too long (and it’s already pretty long as is), I won’t review or reflect on all of her films, or even on all of my favorites, but I will touch on some of them through the rest of my post.

I’ll start with Into The Wild, where Kristen only has a small but important supporting role, as a young woman named Tracy who takes a liking to Chris at one point in the film, sharing some of the best scenes in the film with him. I don’t want to go into too much detail as it is a long and complicated story, but for those who don’t know the story of Christopher McCandless, he was a man in his early twenties who left his family in 1990 and began hitchhiking throughout America meeting people and having different kinds of experiences and keeping a journal along the way, until he eventually found his way to Alaska where he found an abandoned school bus to set up camp, but he became trapped there and accidentally ate some poisonous berries which made him unable to eat after which he starved to death. It’s a tragic story however you look at it, but McCandless is a controversal and dividing figure as some see him as a hero or some kind of martyr while others see him as a narcissistic and foolish young man who died because of his selfishness and stupidity. I don’t think the film really sees him in either way but sees him simply as someone who was searching for his truth or meaning in life but sadly only found it in his death. Throughout the film, even though he connected with others along the way and there were people who wanted to be closer to him and wanted to be a part of his life, including Tracy, he still felt that he would only find true happiness in solitude, being one with nature like Henry David Thoreau and others that had inspired him, but in the end when he was trapped and approaching his death he realized that, as he had written in his journal towards the end of his life, that ‘happiness is only real when shared’.

He realized that, in short, no man is an island and we need other people, and if we are unable to share what we are most passionate about and what means the most to us with others then our lives are somehow the lesser for it. In other words, while we do need times of solitude and we do need to search within ourselves if we want to know and understand ourselves better, still, whether we like it or not, we need others, we need human connection, or else we will always be missing something. The film ends on a mystical and moving note with Christopher looking up into the shining sun as he lays dying in the bus, with tears in his eyes as he has some kind of wordless epiphany, so while the ending is tragic, as it must be, it is hopeful too, and Christopher’s story, while tragic, can still serve as an important lesson to all of us about how much we need eachother and how we aren’t meant to be alone. I found this theme of the importance of human connection and relationships throughout many of Kristen’s films, and I even get the sense, in part from her interviews and what she has to say about her craft, that Kristen gravitates to films like this because this is something that is important to her.

In The Yellow Handkerchief, we follow a man named Brett who was recently released from prison, who is kind of wandering aimlessly at first, and ends up running into and joining up with a teenage boy named Gordy (played by Eddie Redmayne, who starred in Fantastic Beasts) and a teenage girl named Martine (played by Stewart), and as the story progresses you get more insight into all of these characters. Brett was with a woman named May, and they had a passionate but tumultuous relationship (especially after she miscarried their child, which he discovered was because she had had an abortion years before that led to some complications for her), which led up to them getting into a heated altercation outside a bar where he got physical with her, and when a man on the street stepped in to defend May from Brett he pushed the man and the man accidentally struck his head during his fall and it killed him. Brett, at his core being an honorable man and feeling guilty for killing this man, who it turned out had a wife and children, turned himself in and plead guilty for manslaughter, after which he was sentenced to a number of years in prison. During this time May tried to visit with him and reconcile with him, as she still loved him, but he pushed her away, feeling like she was better off without him. After hearing his story Gordy and Martine coax him into searching for May to try and reconcile with her, and while he is hesitant he goes along with it, assuming that he probably won’t find her, thinking she has since moved on. And as the story goes along you get a little more insight into Gordy and Martine as well. Gordy is autistic and struggles with connecting with others while Martine ran away from home and had a difficult relationship with her father, and while at first there is tension between Gordy and Martine they end up connecting and even falling in love. In one of my favorite scenes in the film, Gordy talks about how sad he is, and how he feels apart from everything, and he asks Martine why she joined him and Brett, and she says that she was hoping she could get someone to care about her, and he tells he that she has that. The film ends with Gordy and Martine succeeding in helping Brett find May, who was waiting for Brett after he had sent a note to her in hopes that she would receive it and wait for him, standing by their boat where she hung up pieces of the yellow sail (making yellow handkerchiefs out of them) all around as a kind of welcome for Brett, and they embrace and weep for joy as Gordy and Martine look on, leaning on eachother. It was a beautiful ending to a beautiful film.

In a brief interview that Stewart did on the set of the film she said how the film was about three lost loners, and how so many people live their lives looking for some kind of reprieve or to connect with someone, and she says that it’s okay to be you and it’s okay to not be okay. What I take from what she was trying to say, and from the film, is that being broken and messy and imperfect is part of being human, and while there should be consequences for our actions (consequences that Brett accepted for example when he turned himself in for accidentally killing that man), this fact in itself is okay, or not anything to be ashamed of, and it is something we can accept as part of being human (even if we can keep trying to learn and grow as we live our lives), and we can actually find a kind of kinship and can connect in this shared brokenness and messiness and imperfection. In that one scene that I mentioned above, Martine even speaks of how she has an easier time trusting sad people, people like Brett, which is when Gordy opens up about how sad he is, which ends up helping them connect, as when he reveals his pain she can see past all of his idiosyncrasies and shortcomings and can see his humanity and see that he isn’t much different from her, because he is also human. While we can connect in meaningful ways through shared interests or joys, there is something about people connecting through shared pain and struggle and grief and loss that is unique and can bring us closer together then just about anything else, and this is where more than just about anywhere else all our masks and fronts that we put up are removed and we can see our true selves laid bare before one another. In short, our wounds and our sorrow is what reveals our humanity more than just about anything and makes us more real and important to one another and brings us closer together. This is also shown in Camp X-Ray, where two people on opposite sides and who are supposed to be enemies somehow connect in a beautiful way. In the film, Kristen plays Cole, a new guard at Guantanamo Bay, where she takes on the responsibility of making rounds checking on a handful of prisoners, including one who is particularly vocal and troublesome named Ali. Ali tries to talk to Cole (nicknaming her Blondie) and at first she ignores him, but eventually begins talking back, at first trying to get him to shut up, but eventually she begins to lower her guard and her walls when she sees how he and the other prisoners are being treated in inhumane ways, and she eventually strikes up a tentative but growing friendship with this prisoner. They communicate through the door of his cell or through a cage in a yard, only touching towards the end of the film when he threatens suicide and she reaches through his door and offers her hand and he takes it and her gesture of compassion and shared humanity stops him from taking his life.

Through the film there is a funny little thing about his love for Harry Potter and wanting to read the last book in the series which for whatever reason hasn’t been made available at the prison, and at the end of the film when she has to transfer and leave she makes sure that he gets the last Harry Potter book, and she leaves a message for him in it: ‘To Ali. I don't know if Snape's a good guy. But I know you are. Love, Blondie’ The film is thought provoking in that you don’t know whether or not Ali is guilty and a terrorist or if he is innocent as he claims, and whether he is just playing with Cole or if he is genuine, but there is the sense that both of them are truly lonely and want to connect with someone else, and somehow they do, and also they see good in one another, and whether or not Ali was guilty or whether or not he was completely honest with Cole doesn’t change the fact that they were both lonely and had a desire to connect with another person, and somehow, in the most unlikely of ways and in the most unlikely of places, they did, and then no matter what side you’re on or what you’ve done you are still human and still crave connection with others, and when others are willing to lower their walls and see through whatever we’ve done to the fellow human being underneath and connect with us, one human being to another, it’s a beautiful thing. Looking at another film, Anesthesia, which wasn’t one of my favorite films of Kristen’s as it was kind of slow and depressing, it still had something to offer and I appreciated how it delved into the sense of alienation that many of us have in the modern world. The film centers around a college professor named Walter Zarrow, played by Sam Waterson, who is wounded in a mugging, and looks at the lives of characters who are connected to him in some way. Kristen plays a student of his named Sophie who is deeply depressed and who is self harming (by burning herself with a curling iron) and while her role is small it is meaningful and her scenes with Waterson are among the best in the film. She opens up to him and a counselor about her loneliness, where she forcefully speaks of her anger and frustration towards a world that has become so inhuman and makes her feel alone and alienated while also hating herself for being so bitter and full of rage, and how she craves human connection and feels like she is not of this world. The film title, Anesthesia, speaks to this sense that there is so much numbness and apathy in the world, and Sophie talks about how we are all ‘plugged in’ with our technology and our work and we cut one another off constantly and leave one another feeling alone as we alienate eachother. While I don’t completely agree with Sophie’s sentiments, as I do believe that there is still love and empathy and hope in the world (and some of the problems Sophie points to may be more prevalent in the Western world) as the film also shows, Sophie’s sentiments aren’t without truth as they look at the darkness that exists in our world and in our hearts, and while there may also be light in the world sometimes that light can be hard to see when we feel so consumed by its darkness, as Sophie does.

Aside from Kristen’s performance, I also appreciated Sam Waterson’s performance as the professor, who gives this thought provoking and moving speech in his final class before retirement towards the end of the film (which is another one of the best scenes in the film) which is in a way a kind of answer to Sophie’s angry but heartfelt comments on the state of the world. He says this: ‘But then, what do all these thinkers we've examined this semester have in common, if we truly explore to find a common thread? At the outset of a century that would constitute the bloodiest in human history, along with scientific and technological advancements that would literally make us like gods, even as we began to dismantle the very meaning of God, they ask, what is a life? Does to live any longer have a how? Does it any longer have a why? Against a backdrop of industrialization, people will contend with alienation, dislocation, population on a mass scale, and murder on a mass scale. They'll consider the constraints of truth. Whether metaphor or paradigm, with many concluding actual truth has never existed. A nexus in the great human saga, when we dared to trade the organizing bliss, of good and evil, right and wrong, as determined by a creator for other opiates: communism, socialism, capitalism, psychology, technology, any learnable system to replace what had begun to evaporate: the 20th century. My own. But also the one into which each of you was born. For many, an era of hope, liberation, possibility. For others of abandonment and despair. A most human century in which we begin really to understand that Nietzsche was right: we are beautifully, finally, achingly, alone. In this void, philosophy at its worst becomes self-reflective, linguistic, semantic, relativism having rendered any discussion of right and wrong, good and evil, to be the quaint concerns of another age. At its most provocative, it asks other questions. Those concerned with locating our stranded selves, when meaning seems to have died, nothing less, in short, then 'why do we live at all?' and 'what makes us who we are?' They ask, 'what now?' And we're still asking it. What will fortify us as another century, your century, commences? Do we abandon finally the search for truths that seem ever more elusive, even silly to some? The ethical? The moral? The good? Principles that by definition can never be proven when so much now can be proved? Or is all this finally and forever pointless? Are we done? We can destroy cities, alter the planet irreversibly, speak instantaneously face-to-face from across the globe, create life where there was to be none, even while intoxicating ourselves with it all. And yet, how do we still seek purpose? And where do we hope to find it if we're so busy convincing ourselves there needn't be any? And so we wander, eyes closed to the dark, while technology, science, medicine and godlessness blaze illusions around us, with less to guide us now than ever, seemingly omnipotent, but more human and just as afraid. These quandaries do not end with this course in a week from today. They begin. And I certainly haven't taught these writers for 30 years just so you can drop references to existential thinkers and their antecedents at dinner parties. The crowd is untruth. In an era darkened by the false shade of imperviousness, you and those who pause to question, carry the light. It's been a wonderful 34 years. Let's not be strangers, either to one another, or more importantly, to everything we've learned from one another. May your best years be yet to come. And so for us all.’

In this speech Professor Zarrow looks into the abyss of all the numbness and apathy, the anesthesia, that has been created by all the changes that have taken place throughout our world (and especially the Western world), which have certainly had their benefits but have also had their drawbacks, and shows how when you deconstruct everything and question everything (which is sometimes necessary) you can be left with an emptiness that leaves you longing for meaning and purpose and hope, and while Zarrow doesn’t offer any definitive answers to how we can fill that emptiness or find meaning or purpose, he holds out hope, implying that those answers may yet be found by those who dare to keep searching even when sometimes it may seem pointless, and those who do carry a light in the dark, and also he implies that we can also find light in one another, pointing back to Sophie’s need for human connection, a need that we can’t ignore and must always remember as it central to our humanity. Basically what we need is love. And this leads me to one of my favorite performances from Kristen, in the film Still Alice. The films follows a linguistics professor named Alice (played by Julianne Moore) who develops early onset Alzheimer’s, and one of the main themes of course is about the importance of memory, and the sadness in its loss, but another theme, which is especially shown through the relationship between Alice and her daughter Lydia, played by Kristen.

In the end of the film Lydia becomes like Alice’s rock, sticking by her as her memory and her sense of self fades away, and in the final scene of the film, which was beautiful and moving, Lydia reads to Alice from the popular play Angels In America, and they have this exchange: Lydia Howland: [reading to her mother, but mostly from memory] "Night flight to San Francisco chase the moon across America. God, it's been years since I was on a plane. When we hit 35,000 feet, we'll have reached the tropopause, the great elt of calm air. As close to the ozone as I'll get, I - I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was... frightening. "Lydia Howland: "But I saw something only I could see because of my astonishing ability to see such things. Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who perished from famine, from war, from the plague... And they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling, spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles and formed a web, a great net of souls. And the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules of the stuff of ozone and the outer rim absorbed them, and was repaired. Because nothing is lost forever. In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. A longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead. At least I think that's so." Lydia Howland: [moving over alongside her mother] Hey. Did you like that. What I just read, did you like it? Dr. Alice Howland: [barely grunting] Lydia Howland: And what... What was it about? Dr. Alice Howland: Love. Love. Lydia Howland: Yeah mom, it was about love. I think these lines from the play speak to the core themes of the film: ‘Because nothing is lost forever. In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. A longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead.’ And while I don’t think in her mental state Alice can grasp all of this, still on some level I think she can feel Lydia’s love for her, the love of a daughter for her mother, trying to reach through everything and touch her within, that soul still inside of her somewhere, and I believe that is why she says the play is about love... and maybe the play of our lives is ultimately about that too, and this love still holds meaning even as our memories fade, because love can go deeper than memory alone... Speaking of love, in one of my favorite of Kristen’s films, Equals, an underrated gem that is something of a romantic reimagining of George Orwell’s 1984, there is this wonderful love story between Nia, played by Stewart, and Silas, played by Nicholas Hoult (who also played R in Warm Bodies). They both live in a world set in a dystopian future where emotion and touch and intimacy have been outlawed in the belief that emotions led to the near destruction of Earth in nuclear war, so humans are programmed to be stoic and analytical and to gives themselves to scientific pursuits (especially looking to the stars in search for other worlds, hopefully to one day colonize) and human feelings are seen as a disease to be eradicated. However this programming breaks down in some individuals, which begins to happen to Silas, who begins to notice Nia for the first time and he becomes attracted to her and soon discovers that she had regained her ability to feel emotions quite some time ago and has been hiding it and simply pretending to not feel anything so as not be discovered. It is tentative and awkward at first, but eventually, in spite of the potential threat to both of them, Silas and Nia find the courage to reach out and make contact with one another and they begin to fall in love.

While the film had mixed reviews, I appreciated their love story and how it unfolds in the film, and how the film delves into the philosophical aspects of love and connection and how important it is and how it is central to what it means to be human, much as was done in 1984. In one of my favorite exchanges in the film between Silas and Nia, they say this: Silas: It's so weird; I'm like... I keep thinking about... ever since we were kids, it's been drilled into us that our purpose is to explore the universe, you know? Outer space is where we'll find the answers to why we're here and where we come from. It's like everyone's... searching for these answers eight hundred million miles away and the truth is the answers are right in front of us. [looks into Nia's eyes intensely] Silas: I know why I'm here. Nia: Me too. While this exchange may seem a little cheesy to some, I think there’s a lot of truth in it. If anything I think there is as much mystery in the human soul as there is among the stars, and you could even say that there is a whole universe inside of each of us (which we may or may not be aware of) as there is out there, and while it isn’t wrong to search for some answers among the stars (and I have a sense of childlike wonder about what’s out there as much as anyone), maybe we can find the answers to some of our deepest questions about why we are here in one another, in loving one another. Towards the end of the film Silas and Nia are found out, and eventually it leads to Nia being captured, and when he believes that she has been executed he decides to take a new cure for the ‘disease’ of human emotion in order to escape his grief, but through help from within the government who have also tapped into their emotions and sympathize with them she escaped and returned to Silas, though the cure had begun to take an effect, which seemingly meant that their love story would end in tragedy as he forgot everything that he had ever felt for her, but rather than give up on him she stays with him and they leave their city to go out into the wastelands to hopefully find freedom, and as they go Nia has tears in her eyes heartbroken because of Silas’ loss of feeling, but seeing her crying he takes her hand and holds it, showing that he is still in there somehow and there is hope. And speaking of hope, there is Kristen’s latest film, Personal Shopper, where she plays a woman named Maureen who is trying to make contact with the spirit of her brother Lewis, who had died some time ago. The film is strange in some ways, with Kristen playing a personal shopper for this celebrity model, and then she begins receiving these progressively more and more creepy texts from someone and she thinks it might be her dead brother, though after the famous model that she works for is murdered she wonders if it may be her murderer, who turns out to be her ex boyfriend, but then at the end of the film she is still left with the question of whether or not her brother as been trying to contact her, and then she travels to Oman (which is somewhere in the Middle East) where her boyfriend has been staying, and there she enters this room by herself and hears this knocking, and thinking that it may be Lewis who somehow followed her to Oman, she begins trying to communicate with him, asking yes or no questions with one knock for yes and two knocks for no, etc, and she asks ‘Lewis is it you?’ and there is a pause, and then she asks ‘Or is it just me?’ and you hear one knock, and the film ends.

This ending leaves you wondering if everything Maureen experienced was just in her head, or if it was Lewis, or even if it was another spirit, even an evil one, that was just playing with her, or maybe some combination of all of these things. Whatever the case, Maureen is shown as someone who is struggling to understand her place in the world and who she really is in the wake of her brother’s death, and she is passionate about trying to find out whether or not he is truly gone, and while the answer she seems to receive at the end is somewhat ambiguous it seems to give her some kind of peace, even while it leaves the audience with questions. I wonder if her peace is found in the midst of that ambiguity, not really knowing for sure whether it’s actually Lewis or something else or just her, because whatever it is she knows that she loved her brother and she misses him and somehow he will always be a part of her and she can somehow keep living knowing that, while holding onto the hope that somehow he is still there and will see him again. In my last post I talked about grief and death and the afterlife so I didn’t want to delve into that again too much here, but I will say, in connection with the themes that I’m talking about in this post, if one of the things we are most passionate about is our close relationships, then that passion can become even more powerful when it turns to grief (because who we are is all wrapped up with them as they are a part of us) as there is a drive to regain what we have lost, until perhaps, like Maureen, we find that somehow we never really lost them, or at least not completely, or that maybe our loss is really only an illusion (although it certainly may not feel that way) and one day our eyes will be opened and then we will see them again... or at least this is something we hope for... In Kristen’s interviews she can come off as socially awkward, stumbling to find words to express herself, and she can jump around from thing to thing and sometimes it can be hard to follow, but in spite of this I appreciate her passion and her honesty and how she is entirely herself even on camera, and as she said in the quote at the top of this post and has said in other places, she aims to be sincere, to be herself, even if that means others may hate her for it. She also has said that even though she isn’t active on social media as that isn’t something she is drawn to and in some ways she is a private person, she still ‘wants to be seen’ by others in her work, or she still wants to express her heart through her work so that others can know and understand who she really is on the inside. She has said that the way she tries to approach her performances is by tapping into different parts of herself and channeling them into her characters, and while I’m sure she isn’t the only actor or actress to take this approach, just hearing her reveal that about her craft makes me wonder if you are getting some glimpse into her soul here and there while she is on screen, and then broadening that I wonder if the same could be said about other actors and actresses as well as artists of all kinds, and really all of us. I could even say this of myself in my writing, where I try to express my heart and give others a glimpse of my soul through my words. Perhaps (and there is probably no perhaps about it) it isn’t perfect, but it’s my way of trying to be seen by others, or at least taking a chance in the hopes that I will be seen by others.

Before I concluded this, I wanted to touch briefly on the Twilight films, or at least what I thought of them, and how easy it is to make assumptions about things or about people or to judge them based on what we don’t like about them or on their faults or flaws while ignoring everything else about them. Kristen has said that she tries to choose all the roles she takes on carefully and there are only a few, especially when she was younger, that she has any regrets about, and while she hasn’t said that the Twilight films are among them, there are those who see her presence in those films as something to be held against her. I actually watched them and I will say that while I didn’t absolutely love them and they weren’t among her best work in my opinion, I didn’t hate them either, and they were at times oddly enjoyable (especially the last one where they kind of went all out and seemed to have more fun with it, and Kristen was admittedly pretty cool as a super strong badass vampire) because of the sheer cheesiness and weirdness of all the goings on (like vampires playing baseball for example), and I liked some of the characters or some of the character interactions or character developments and I didn’t think it was all bad. So in short I no longer hold her association with ‘sparkly vampires’ against her and while that’s mainly what she is known for by mainstream audiences, it’s not all there is to her. I regret having judged Kristen Stewart so harshly for her part in those films, and this makes me think of other times when I have passed judgment when I didn’t really know what I was judging and was just judging based on assumptions, like when as an evangelical Christian for a time I thought Harry Potter was bad, as others in my church thought or told me, until I actually watched the films and read the books for myself and really enjoyed them and even discovered that the books and films contained many Christian themes. I think when any of us share something of ourselves with the world, whether it is a book that we wrote or a film that we acted in or a reflection that we typed up in a blog on Tumblr, there is always the chance that it won’t be seen or understood or appreciated in the way that we hope it will be (if it is seen at all as others may simply ignore it and pass it over), or more likely than not that will happen as everyone is different and has different perceptions, so one man’s trash is another man’s treasure and all of that. I mean, just look around on social media and you’ll see how many differing opinions there are on pretty much everything, ranging from profound love to utter hatred when it comes to Harry Potter or Twilight or blog posts like mine or celebrities like Kristen Stewart or political figures like Donald Trump or when it comes to current events or social issues or really anything you can think of... And others may judge us for our mistakes alone, like others may judge Kristen for supposedly cheating on Robert Pattinson when she was dating him or condemn her for now dating another woman or whatever tabloid drama they may hear about, or they may judge us for our differences or idiosyncrasies, like Kristen’s acting style that some don’t really like or how they think she doesn’t smile enough or whatever, all the while ignoring or forgetting about or simply not seeing or understanding all the good in us and about us or not remembering our shared humanity, and regardless of our station and standing in life. And yet we still hope that what we are trying to express or share with others, whether it is what we are passionate about or whether it is who we really are, that we will be seen and understood and that a connection can be made through that, with others perhaps seeing something of themselves in us or seeing our shared humanity, and thus feeling a little less alone in the world. I think that is what I aim to do in my writing or what my hope is at least in part, that not only can others get a glimpse of my inner self through my words but can maybe even get a glimpse of their own inner self by getting a glimpse of mine and maybe feel a little less alone because of that. I hope to receive something in return for trying to express myself and share something of myself, and I think that’s what many or most of us hope for, but I also hope to give something, which is something else many or most of us hope for as well I think. I imagine, from what Kristen has said at different times in her interviews and from just watching some of her performances in her films, that this is something that she is aiming for too, and I respect that and appreciate that in her, just as I respect and appreciate that in myself, because this is part of what makes us human and I believe it’s a beautiful thing, because whether you’re a janitor that hardly anybody knows like me or you’re an actress that almost everybody knows like Kristen Stewart, you’re still human, and you still have passions, whether that is a passion to share what is in your heart through your art or to share your pain or sorrow or your wonder or joy or to share what you love or care about or feel strongly about, or to share your happiness, or you may still have a desire to be and to show who you truly are deep down and have others see you and understand you and accept you for who you are, and you still want to be loved and accepted and want to know that you’re not alone. I’ve never met Kristen Stewart, and probably never will (though I wouldn’t mind meeting her as she strikes me as a pretty cool and interesting person that I would like to be friends with), I still think I have ‘seen’ her in some sense, or caught a glimpse of who she really is on the inside, in her work, and when I am paying attention I could say the same of family and friends and even strangers, by the look in their eyes or through their art or their words or their actions I can see something of who they really are, and I hope that others can glimpse who I really am too at times. And I doubt Kristen Stewart will ever read this, but if by some miracle she does, then I will say this: -------- Thank you Kristen for trying to share something of your heart with the world through your work, and even while many may misunderstand or even hate you, there are those like myself who can see something of what you are trying to express to the world, and appreciate it, and also remember that just because you’re a famous celebrity that doesn’t mean that your value as a human being has decreased, even if others may forget it, seeing you only as an idol to idolize or a target to attack, when you are at bottom no different from them because you are a human being just like them, with passions and desires and fears and hopes just like anyone else. Keep being sincere, keep sharing your heart, and keep being yourself, because you’re beautiful and wonderful just the way you are, even with whatever faults or flaws you may have, because as you yourself said, it’s okay to not be okay, and it’s okay to be you. I see you and I appreciate you, and I wish you all the best in life. -------- And I could say something like this to others as well, but I admit that I don’t very often and not only because it’s admittedly awkward and can make you feel just a little weird and self-conscious (and I probably only have courage to say this to Kristen because of the anonymity of the internet and the very very very slim chance that she will actually read it herself) because it can be really easy to miss the beauty in another person, or even miss the pain and desperation that we share and that may bond us together, just as that shared beauty may. I think many of us are passionate about being seen and understood by others, and about connecting with others, and about making a real difference through our voice and our art and our way of expressing ourselves in the world, and I think deep down we want to be and show who we really are and be able to see others as they really are and want them to be who they really are, or at least that’s what I hope can be found in the human heart underneath it all, a desire to be true to ourselves and to one another. And it is the love and the connections between us, that sense of being seen and understood, when the teller finds an understanding ear and when happiness is shared, that can beat back the loneliness knocking at our doors and can beat back the darkness, whether in ourselves or around us or maybe even the darkness of death, and that can teach us to look past everything and see another soul like us who feels homesick just as we do, and maybe sometimes we may even find the courage to say to another soul something like, whether in words or in some other way, ‘give me your hand and I’ll hold it’.

[grandestblood]

Chapter 03: Burn the Bridges

When I opened my eyes, I found myself lost in a space of seamless darkness. The emptiness of it was eerily soothing and I never wanted to leave here. There was not any place to run. Still, I took a step towards a vague direction. Of course it was futile. I could feel my body moving but it was as though I had not moved at all. My pace was aimless. I did not have the faintest idea where to go. I was still wandering in the darkness when I saw a glimpse of red light that beckoned to me. It shone cryptically in the midst of the void. It grew bigger and brighter with each of my step toward the red bleeding into the darkness. Soon, the darkness was gone and it was crimson everywhere I looked. I stopped in my tracks. Should I keep moving? Or was it safer if I stayed here? Suddenly, a black shadow danced at the corner of my eye. I turned around to look at it, half-expecting an entity to be looming behind me. But there was nothing. In the search of what I thought I saw, I looked down at what seemed like a floor made of blood. There was a single black feather just inches away from my toes.

Curiously, I bent down to pick it up. I held it close to my face, revelling its velvety texture. An odd nostalgic emotion crept from the bottom of my subconscious. I tried to mentally chase after it to determine its root but as I looked away from the feather in my hand, dozens of black feathers were fluttering to the red endless ground. At first, it was just a handful of them so I tried to catch or pick them up but eventually, it was raining with black feathers. There were hundreds falling from the sky.

Sky?

I supposed there was no sky in this space because I was not outside. I was not anywhere. If this place was somewhere to be, it was where the dead go. Hesitantly, I looked up. Sure enough, there was the source of the feathers. Hanging high above me were a pair of gigantic black wings folded together as if they were encasing something inside, trembling as though they wanted to break free. Thick unforgiving chains, that made tight ropes out of themselves and stretched towards the vast redness coiled around the wings. They must attached to something somewhere to restrain the wings above securedly. It was so tight it almost looked cruel. Those chains looked like they could break those wings. Or maybe they were already broken. I wondered what will happen if those wings were set free.

Having recovered from my initial wave of curiosity, I sat down due to the lack of a better thing to do, unconcerned about the black feathers that kept piling up around me. I sat alone in the redness, my legs bunched up for me to embrace as I rested my forehead on my knees, the strange calmness still soothing me. Acceptance was one thing I was quite fond of. The softest of the feathers bathed me with comfort. I was almost burried under the velvet. I could fall asleep here if not for the frustration that made me grind my teeth.

When I met Casra, I forgot any other bond that restrained me and sent me to Alexandria. We spent time frolicking together. We explored Aegyptus, visited the obelisk and the countless pyramids. She even wanted to break into a pharaoh’s tomb but I held her back. She promised me we would do the same when we visit her hometown, Athenia. She wanted to drag me there ever since I told her I only had one night in one of their cheapest lodgings. I looked forward to it. We could probably go there after finishing our earth research for geology.

But I was such a fool.

Casra was not the person I thought she was. She was a fraud. Fake family, fake hometown, fake face. Even the name I was so accustomed with was not real. She was playing me all along. What for?

Was she ever my friend?

The calmness evaporated out of me and in its place, I felt hot anger. Casra was not pleased to be related to me by friendship if her reaction to Usmu saying what he did, when he did, was anything to go by. It seized me with fear that Casra never thought of me as a friend and that she only made me think we were. And I had easily let her do it as she pleased. Everything made me feel vulnerable. Casra – or whoever that fake was – easily manipulated me and there was no finding it out if not for what happened. Did Casra even care if I died? Or was I just a pawn in her game of deceit and was nothing but collateral damage? I felt the blade cut through me. At that moment, before I fainted, I thought I heard Casra call my name.

I was going to die. I was probably dead already. If not, maybe it was much better to stay here and fade away.

Gasping to catch my breath, I awoke with a jolt.

Tears trickled down my cheeks, wetting my hair. My heart was pounding and my blood ran fast and furious at my temples. I sweated heavily, making my clothes damp and stick to my skin. I looked down and realized these strange clothes – a tunic of liquid night that felt as smooth as silk – were not mine. Somebody changed me into them. I was still sobbing as I felt my face get hotter at the thought of somebody else dressing me up.

I must calm myself down. I closed my eyes again and let a sigh escape my mouth. My eyes moved nervously under my lids. I knew I was stabbed. I did not see Usmu but he was the only one that could have done it when everybody else was present before my eyes. I didn’t know whether to be thankful or not that I still lived.

How could I be alive?

Did Casra save me?

Tears started pooling at the corners of my eyes again. My shoulders trembled as I slung my right forearm across over my eyes. I bit my quivering lower lip to keep myself from screaming. I tried to compose the best explanation for this but without knowing anything about who Casra actually was, I was at a lost for words.

Damn it! We were together for years! But I knew nothing at all!

“Are you awake now?” a deep baritone voice came from my feet to my surprise. I quickly wiped my tears away and lifted my head slightly to look south of me. My surroundings failed to register to me when I awoke but now I realized I was lying on a bed in a room and there was a stranger standing by the entrance, between the door and the wall. A stranger had seen me cry. I bit my lip with a frown.

He came in from the outside or whatever was beyond that door. I narrowed my eyes at him. The tears probably did some trick to my eyes. I sat up to get a better look at him. He was a tall slim man with white long hair and bluish gray skin. His thin pale lips were lavender. I felt a trepidation creep up on me when I looked into his slanted crimson eyes framed by long white eyelashes. His thin eyebrows were like slivers of snow. But his most intriguing feature was his long pointed ears.

Did I cry my eyes out too much that I started to see things?

I blinked twice. They were still there. The man cleared his throat and his ears twitched up and down. I made an oval shape with my mouth as I gaped at him. I only heard about elves from tales. I couldn’t get my hand on any writing be it scrolls or tablets. It was only from the words of the different people I met from my travels with my father that I knew about elves. It was said that they lived in dense forests and rarely interacted with humans. They were extremely long-lived and incredibly dexterous by nature. Long pointed ears were always associated with elves. Those ears were nothing but elven.

An elf stood right in front of me. And he did not look like he appreciates my presence. Which begged the question: where was this? Obvioysly, this was nowhere near Alexandria. There were no elves in Aegyptus and if one wandered by, at least there would have been rumors. But there were none. Was I still within my own world? Where was Casra and our mentors? Thoughts after thoughts raced through my mind as I broke into a cold sweat.

“If you’re fine now, get up and follow me,” said the elf, still stoic as he first appeared.

No, I was not feeling fine. But I needed answers so I gingerly stood from the bed. I wasn’t able to find any footwear but the floor was clean and smooth enough it was probably best to walk barefooted so as to not spread any dust. The elf was already leaving before I even started walking. When I stepped out of the room, I was greeted with a huge gathering of many other elves like the first one who came to get me. I noticed that the room I came from was only enlightened by a spell. The rest of this place was in darkness. Only a few torches were lighting the midst of the gathered elves. The settlements here were crafted like houses with a surprising complication for carved designs. They were made delicately probably from day to night. But I was not be sure if there was a day here because even the space overhead was full of darkness as though we were in a cave. I wanted to call unto the elf that I first met but I still didn’t know what his name is.

“Elf, sir?” I called out to him, trying not to scrutinize the twitch of his ears.

Crimson eyes turned to glare at me venomously as if I were a fish ready to be filleted. I shuddered out of instinct like an animal daring to flee.

“What did you say?” he bit out the words harshly, stressing them out as if I wouldn’t understand if spoken any differently. I didn’t know what I did wrong but his words together with his eyes made my mouth go dry and my heart flutter like a captured bird in my ribs. I made a mental checklist of everything I did wrong in my whole life.

“W-what?” Crap. Why did I feel so guilty I actually stuttered? “You’re an elf, right?”

I raised my voice in panic. In a second, the rest of the elves were looking in my direction. What felt like hundreds of crimson eyes pinned me on the spot. If those eyes could turn me to stone, I could be having a sculpture exhibit by then. As if that was not enough, the elven man in front of me disappeared. I didn’t know what happened; I wasn’t even able to blink. But in a moment, the longest and sharpest nails I’ve seen in my life were suspended in the air, only a strand of hair away from the middle of my eyes.

“You’re not forgetting the law of hospitality, are you?” a deep melodic voice sounded from my right. I was petrified before those nails so I could only move my eyes. The tanned silver-eyed man stood beside me, his right fist firmly locking in place the wrist of the hand whose nails were about to drill into my head.

“As if you’re one to observe laws faithfully,” the elf hissed. He was grinding his jaws so hard that I could see his teeth. Pearly white teeth with protruding canines…were those fangs? My heart’s beating quickened as I tried my hardest to recover from shock. I flinched when I felt a hand touch my shoulder. I was about to scurry away until the hand ran soothing circles on my back. I looked up and saw the worried pale face of sir Theon as he shook his head disapprovingly while panting hard. He looked like he ran a mile before getting to me. I opened my mouth to ask a string of inquiries but decided I really must shut up now. The professor helped me up and then that was when I noticed that sir Neiro was at my other side, also catching his breath. Still behind the silver-eyed man, we stood petrified. He was the only defense we had against the elf that was still poised to attack. But the man did not look like he was even half-threatened. I noticed he was no longer wearing his black armor. He was dressed in a red doublet that cut across his waist, showcasing the toned lean bronze biceps of his arms. He wore black wool pants and black leather boots, all simple but looked comfortable enough Behind us, I heard a slow capping of hands. The hair from the back of my neck stood on their ends as my back and arms were covered in goosebumps. The sound of the clapping steadily grew louder and nearer but I did not dare to move. I strained my eyes to watch out from the sides until I saw a figure walking towards the silver-eyed man. I followed the figure with my gaze. This one had the same features as my attacker but larger in built. I could see toned muscles from those biceps and if not for the firm large breasts she bore I would have mistaken her for a man especially when she spoke.

“That was a nice catch,” said the huge lady, her voice deep and threatening even as her fiery eyes squinted and her full lavender lips stretched for a smile. “Now, if only you’d let my boy go, then I assure you nothing else would thwart our evening tonight.”

“Huh? So there’s night and day even when you’re underground?” said our defender as he let go of the wrist he was holding unto. Despite the gray skin of the elf, I could see the dark blue bruise that marked around that wrist and the small glint of blue blood that made its way down his palm. His wrist was bruised, bloodied and broken from the look of it as it went limp as soon as he was free.

“An advantage of being sensitive to light,” said the big-breasted woman with a hearty laughter. “We can differentiate day and night even if we live beneath the land. Now, let me lead you to my sleeping chambers. You shall rest with the matriarch tonight.”

The silver-eyed man’s lips curled to a lopsided grin. He was about to turn his back on the bruised elf but he stopped midway.

“You can act all high and mighty,” the elf’s words were whispered but still clear enough to be heard by everyone around the five of us. “But sleep well in your bed and I’ll be there to suck your blood dry.”

The silver-eyes gleamed murderously and the same monstrous expression was back on that sun-kissed face before he twisted around using one foot as a pivot, his right hand balled into a fist and drawn back as far as he could before he was rushing towards the elf with all of his weight. But his fist did not connect to the elf’s face. The matriarch blocked his fist easily and pushed it down to his side, all too gentle as if she was reprimanding a child. Still, the silver-eyed man’s expression did not change.

“Why don’t we drink for tonight, Gil?” said the matriarch, smiling gently. But her smile was too full of teeth and fangs. It was a warning.

“Not in the mood anymore,” Gil said, his expression softening while still looking tense. Finally, I had a name for this jerk.

The matriarch laughed that booming laugh again. “You say that but you just can’t hold your liquor.”

Gil stood at six feet. Even when he was disguising as Casra, he was already way too tall compared to average people. A man his size could not possibly be a lighweight when it came to booze, could he? I realized the female elf was teasing him. These two had known each other for a long time if they could tease each other like that.The faces of every elf except the one who remained by our side were livid with rage. Their lavender lips were turning blue as they tried to control their anger. But elves were not known for physical resilience. Nobody dared pick another fight.

“I won’t be taking your son under my tutelage if you won’t let him take one of my punches,” Gil sneered at the elf behind the matriarch and that elf sneered back.

“I know. Can we go to my chamber now?” the matriarch said with a huff, disinterest evident with the way she slouched and slumped her shoulders.

“You better get his wrist checked,” Gil said as he returned to a relaxed standing position.

The huge female elf laughed uncontrollably. She wheezed a few times before she was able to calmly speak again. “Please. He can deal with worse than that.” she shrugged. “You should have seen him when he fought a divine beast. He made me so proud.”

The matriarch started walking back the way she came from, gesturing to us to follow her. I waited for the silver-eyed man to walk first but he pushed my shoulder for me to get going. Apparently, he wished to be the last to go to watch our backs as we retreated before the numerous crimson eyes still following us until we disappeared into the largest and grandest structure I saw in this civilization.

The structure effectively proved to be the palace of the woman who called herself the matriarch when we paced along a grandiose hallway of towering black marbled pillars and at the end of which was a stone throne that the female elf seated herself upon.

“Well,” the female elf coughed a few times and cracked a smile. She tried for a friendly demeanor but the smile immediately caused me to feel intimidated. “I suppose we do the introductions now. I, Shamirasha, govern this realm. I apologize for that kind of welcome but the Utukku have no grudge on you. We especially hate being called names but I understand where you’re coming from. No human lived to tell tales about us, you see. I understand your confusion but please also understand why my son assumed you were insulting our community.”

No humans lived to tell tales? Oh, for gods' sake, did that mean we won't leave here alive?And I did not know mistaking anyone for an elf was already insulting. Sure, I assumed things and gawked at his ears. That could have been what angered her son. I shouldn’t have spoken out of turn. Still, I felt torn between apologizing for real to clear things up and avoid getting killed or ridiculing their standards for insult.

“Uttuku? As in blood-sucking demons?“ Sir Theon gasped with wide eyes and, I daresay, fear.

At gaped at them. Blood-sucking demons? Really? At this point, my fear had reached painful levels of headache. I looked back and forth from him and the matriarch, feeling the fear for myself. I turned to Gil, seeking an explanation. Not only was he a fraud, he was a demon worshipper too. The crimson eyes of Shamirasha shone with interest. She curled her lips, showing the tips of her fangs. If she was indulging in bloodlust or a different kind of lust, I did not want to know.

“Well, you're misinformed but I'm impressed that you heard of us,” Shamirasha gracefully clapped her hands together. “Gil! You never told me you have such a wonderful companion on your travels.”

The silver-eyed man answered, “It’s not like I wanted to take them with me.”

“Is that so?” the matriarch smirked as she rested her hands together, ending her applause. “Then I can keep them?”

Gil did not respond. He simply glared at the matriarch. He had his arms crossed over his chest.

“What was so impressive about misinformation? You absorb energy. Sucking blood is a way to do that but unnecessary,” said Gil, tilting his head to one side. I noticed the way his long lashes curled upward and I couldn’t help but gauge how feminine it looked. “And humans often label anything they fear as demons. You only discovered a kind of magic that lets you live long and stay young by absorbing energy, at the price of worshipping the useless gods.”

The atmosphere tensed at the blaspheme and the look of utter mockery on Gil’s chiseled face. He resented the gods, it seemed. This person had a long-standing strife with the divine. But instead of focusing on his words, I was fixated on his voice. Then Shamirasha said, "Bold words from a queen who once served gods."

"That's a thing of the past. I've told you many times." Gil made a sputtering noise and blushed before regaining composure.

“You were a queen?” I managed to squeak after swallowing dryly. Gil’s face was still for a moment until his expression softened. Or her. I gasped and quickly bit my tongue. I assumed this whole time she was a he. I really should stop assuming people's identities based on looks. It got me into trouble and now I almost questioned Gil's gender. I tried to mask my surprise by the fact that she was once a queen. A queen that ruled a country. I wondered what country.

“Yes. Why do you ask?” Her silver eyes dared me to keep asking. Which meant that I should not but curiosity got the better of me.

"Because queens are not supposed to be in another country while faking her credentials, I assume."

Shamirasha chuckled and sir Theon gasped. Sir Neiro only sighed as if he had been expecting me to say it. I could never hold my tongue back when an argument presented itself. And what better time to press for answers than now that someone is slowly revealing who Gil actually was. I half-expected Gil to be angry at me but she stayed calm. Dangerously calm, like the sea before a storm. I started praying to every pantheon, some gods I was most familiar with. I could almost feel her fist approaching my face. But all she did was smirk. That smirk very much reminded me of Casra. That one which exuded arrogance; the one she won’t even try to hide. I focused on the anger and pain of betrayal when I discovered the truth. Now it was much easier to be angry at her since I needed something else to distract me. I needed answers and I will pry them out of her.

"Stop smirking.” I noticed how quiet it was after I hissed. I did not raise my voice. When you wanted to be heard, there could be no better way than to say something nice and cold in a moderate voice. But Gil still smirked at me like nothing happened.

I sucked in a breath as I met Gil’s intense gaze and closed the distance between us. I could smell her, that cinnamon and chocolate scent that used to calm me down. Now it won't stop assaulting my senses like sweet poison. My ears were ringing again. Those eyes like molten silver always managed to unnerve me since I first saw her real self. "You almost got us killed. And you actually wanted to abandon us, didn’t you? All this time you were deceiving me. "

Was our friendship even real? I didn't dare ask lest she knew that she could use my emotions against me. Gil chuckled. My eyes stung with unshed tears but it barely had any effect on her. What could I hope to do against someone like her? I thought I was following closely behind Casra. I thought we were each other’s equal. I thought I found my place right beside her. But everything was a lie. I was not even close enough. Her power and ability far exceeded a human’s as though she was a god herself. I was just a lowly peasant in front of this wandering queen.

“Who are you?” I gritted out the words in a breath.

“That’s for me to know and for you to find out,” she answered coldly. It looked like prying will take longer than I intended.

“So you won’t deny risking our lives?” I laughed humorlessly. “At least you have that much shame to not lie again.”

“I'm not denying what I was but it doesn't have anything to do with our business here,” she said, putting stress on the last word. “I left for a reason. And now here we are. You’re not in the human world anymore, have you noticed? I brought all of you to a different dimension after you were stabbed by a god. This is far from my intended destination. The least you can do after you wasted my plans is to not question me about irrelevant things.”

I tried not to show interest at the fact that I was breathing and living in a different world. Whatever she did, surely it was no ordinary magic. She knew many lost arts and commanded them freely from her fingertips. I didn’t want to be tempted to follow her. But she saved me enough already and I must repay that at least with respect. But how would you respect someone who repeatedly lied to your face and might still be lying to you now?

“I’m assuming ‘Gil’ is not your real name either,” I said to which she responded with a shrug. A carefree opponent that I couldn’t perceive. Well then, I only had to ascertain who you are and give form to your identity. “Let’s have a bet. If I guess your name correctly, you will tell me everything. Answer true to all of my questions as accurately as you can.”

She arched her dark brow at me, the gesture a favorite action of Casra. “Then you have yourself a deal, Lady Elisavet.”

She held out her hand at me, offering a handshake. But she used her left hand. I knew that sign. Sorcerers used their left hand to create a contract of unbreakable bond. Only the one who made it could decide its conditions. If either party violated the contract, the spell will become a curse. Depending on the conditions, the violator can die. It was up to the maker whether to use that much severity or not.

“Stop,” sir Theon objected, grabbing me by the wrist just as I was about to take Gil’s hand with my left. "Do you dare insult me, your mentor, by violating the natural order before my eyes? You know binding spells are forbidden by the obelisk.”

He glowered at me and Gil so I assumed he still considered Gil as one of his students. He was furious, I knew, but I snatched my wrist free from his grasp. I returned my attention on Gil who still offered her hand. She remained silent, recognizing neither the mentor’s prohibition nor his remaining attachment to the student image of Casra that we all knew was a lie.

“I will follow Gil until she answers everything,” I said, staring down on her lips. How much of what she told me was a lie? Then I met her eyes again. “I want the truth. I know the risks of a forbidden magic. But if I cower from that, what right do I have to know the truth?”

“It’s not actually forbidden,” Shamirasha said, amused like a cat. “Temple shamans make these contracts with kings, queens and other political leaders. This one is unauthorized but not forbidden.”

“Making a contract follows a list of rules,” said sir Theon. “First one is the law of mutual trust. Without that, it’s no different from making a demonic contract.”

A demon? Is Gil a demon? Does associating with the Utukku make her demonic?

“I’m not a demon,” said Gil. “I can reveal that much.”

“But you are not much of a human either, are you?” I stated more than asked. I wanted to keep demanding for answers but other than making a contract, there was no other way to determine if she was saying the truth. At least with a contract, lying would be painfully obvious if one of us started dying or maybe just died. Gil winced. Visibly winced despite the invitation still shining in her eyes.

“What are you willing to exchange for information about Gil’s history?” Lady Shamirasha offered.

Gil growled at her, finally breaking the eye contact we held together.

“What do you want?” I asked, turning to the matriarch. Not that I have anything on me at the moment. What can I offer a demon?

“The importance of it to me doesn’t matter,” Shamirasha continued. “Its importance to you is what pays it off.

"Don’t you dare,” Gil warned, lowering her offered hand to ball it into a fist and glaring spitefully at the matriarch.

“I will think about it,” I said, averting my gaze away from them. My eyes hurt. I need to rest. “I don’t know if I have anything valuable on me but I will take you on that offer. After knowing what manner of being this fraud is, I will think about whether or not she’s worth binding to with a contract.”

“Suit yourself,” Gil hissed but she turned around and walked away instead of picking a fight. I wondered if the matriarch could fight on equal terms with her.

Assuming it was night, we dined then slept in the rooms of the matriarch’s chamber. Gil did not come back.

[hacu-271-blog]

Ana Mendieta Research Project- Diane Richard

Beginnings / inspiration

November 18, 1948 – September 8, 1985

Born in Havana and arrived in the US as a refugee at 12 with her sister fleeing Fidel Castro

After various foster homes, studied at university of Iowa

Rape and murder of fellow student Sarah Ann Ottens, 20, inspires her early art work

Work and feminism

Mendieta was already active in second-wave feminist circles. She said that "American Feminism as it stands is basically a white middle class movement" and wanted to change this through her About Ottens’ rape and murder: “I think all my work has been like that – a personal response to a situation. I can’t see being theoretical about an issue like that.”

Direct response to the murder, 1973: Untitled (Rape scene), Untitled (Rape performance)

Other pieces using blood: Untitled (Death of a chicken), Untitled (Blood and feathers), Untitled (People Looking at Blood, Moffitt, Iowa), Untitled (Self-portrait with blood), Untitled (Bloody mattress), Sweating blood

Silueta series: “earth-body sculptures” = land art + body art + performance art

Rupestrian sculptures: rupestrian = made of rocks, inspired by indigenous art

Body tracks

Visual analysis

Untitled (Rape scene), 1973

This picture represents the same Rape scene than the previous picture, taken from a different angle. Whereas the previous picture was taken from behind, this one is taken from above her and focuses on the artist’s hands which are tied to the table and lifted above her head. The rope is attached to the upper left corner of the table, so that the corner, the rope, her hands, her arms and her head draw a straight line from one corner of the picture to the other, with her tied wrists lying in the center if picture, drawing the attention of the observer. The knots around her wrists seem to be very strong so that she cannot free herself, reinforcing the impression of violence and the observer’s unease. All the lines in the picture are straight and almost parallel or perpendicular (her hands, arms and head, the edges of the table, the rope), giving an impression of forced order and immobility, in opposition with the violence of the situation. The lines are all directed to a point behind the artist, where her imagined aggressor might be standing. The blood on the table and on the rope suggests that she had a violent struggle with her aggressor, who may have beaten her before tying her up. She wears a visible ring at the left hand, which, as usually considered as a “feminine attribute”, may indicate that rape victims are the most often women. The artist’s face is resting on the table and we can only see her thick dark hair. The fact that we can’t see her face gives her an anonymity that may suggest that rape victims are often invisible and are ignored or don’t tell their stories. James Wendell Hall, Sarah Otten’s alleged murder, was freed after his second trial, and was sentenced to life in prison only after he murdered another young woman 19 years later. The picture is very clear and sharp so that we can see every detail. The dominant colors of the picture are black, white, red and blue. The shadow falls on the bottom left corner, highlighting the blood on the upper right. The white table highlights the darkness of the artist’s hair and the blood in the upper right corner. The blue light casts a cold atmosphere on the picture and gives the impression of a small, dark space, which reinforces the idea of unwanted intimacy between the artist and her imagined aggressor.

The very first audience of this scene was composed of Ana Mendieta’s friends who were invited to her apartment in April 1973. This picture is already very disturbing, but we should try to imagine how it felt to witness this scene in real. In a 1977 interview, Mendieta recalls “they all sat down and started talking about it. I didn’t move. I stayed in position about an hour. It really jolted them.” This picture captures the scene exactly as the artist’s friends saw it, in all its details and rawness. The fact that it is a picture and not a performance anymore slightly diminishes its power, but at the same time it enlarges the potential audience as everybody can see it. The obvious purpose of this picture and the performance that led to it is to denounce rape and violence against women in general. It forces the audience to face the reality of this violence, which is often hidden in the intimacy of a room. The closeness of the shot makes it very easy for the observers to put themselves in the position of the artist, which makes the image very disturbing.

Untitled (Silueta series), 1976

This silueta picture from 1976 represents the artist’s body imprinted in rock. Her profile is imprinted lying down with her legs straight and her arms lifted above her head. The biggest part of the silueta is covered with blood, which redness contrasts sharply with the white rocks. The picture is taken from above and is slightly angled up, so that the legs and blood are the most visible parts and immediately draw the attention. The light is soft and natural, reinforcing the idea of connection with the nature and the earth that is at the origin of the Silueta series. All the lines in the pictures are curvy and soft; there are no straight lines or angles. This conveys the idea that this silueta represents a female body, which is at the center of this series.

Indeed, the artist’s goal with these siluetas is to draw a connection between the female body and the earth, in relation to her emigration from her homeland, Cuba, when she was very young. About her siluetas, Mendieta writes: “I have been carrying out a dialogue between the landscape and the female body (based on my own silhouette). I believe this has been a direct result of my having been torn from my homeland (Cuba) during my adolescence. I am overwhelmed by the feeling of having been cast from the womb (nature). My art is the way I re-establish the bonds that unite me to the universe. It is a return to the maternal source. Through my earth/body sculptures I become one with the earth ... I become an extension of nature and nature becomes an extension of my body. This obsessive act of reasserting my ties with the earth is really the reactivation of primeval beliefs ... [in] an omnipresent female force, the after-image of being encompassed within the womb.” The act of imposing her body on the earth is related to symbolism from indigenous religions, such as Santeria, which is a syncretic religion from Caribbean origin. Mendieta thought that her art relates more to indigenous artists than to her contemporaries, proclaiming “[My work] has very little to do with most earth art. I’m not interested in the formal qualities of my materials, but their emotional and sensual ones.” The use of blood also refers to ritualistic traditions and the act of burying her body relates to the Mexican preoccupation with death. There is a sharp contrast between the ephemerality of these siluetas and the eternity of the natural materials they are made of. This is particularly obvious in this picture, as rock is a symbol of immobility and eternity. The photographs, which are unique prints of 35mm color slides, are the only witnesses of this work, as the siluetas were quickly executed and then destroyed or left to deteriorate. Through these pictures, the spiritual and physical presence of the artist is still there long after the work disappeared, which may suggest the persistence of nature and culture in opposition to the short span of human lives. The siluetas merge land art and feminist art in a radically new way. Mendieta’s references to the “maternal source” and the “omnipresent female force” are an effort to reassert the place of women in history, culture and religious traditions.

Death and controversy

Died at age 36 after she mysteriously fell 34 floors from the window of her husband’s apartment in Greenwich Village

Did Carl Andre kill her? Tried and acquitted of her murder, possible accident or suicide.

Relation to her work (imprint on the roof)

Feminist protests: “where is Ana Mendieta?” “We wish Ana Mendieta was still alive”, animal blood and guts and make siluetas in the snow.

Bibliography

Articles

O’Hagan, Sean. “Ana Mendieta: Death of an Artist Foretold in Blood.” The Guardian, September 21, 2013, sec. Art and design. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/22/ana-mendieta-artist-work-foretold-death

Weinman, Sarah. “In Death, an Artist and a Young Woman Meet.” The Guardian, April 21, 2016, sec. US news. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/21/ana-mendieta-death-sarah-ottens-university-of-iowa

Warchol, Julie. “Performed Invisibility: Ana Mendieta’s ‘Siluetas.’” Smith college museum of art, February 6, 2017. http://www.smith.edu/artmuseum/Collections/Cunningham-Center/Blog-paper-people/Performed-Invisibility-Ana-Mendieta-s-Siluetas

Bunyan, Dr Marcus. “Rupestrian Sculptures | Art Blart.” Artblart.com, February 6, 2017. https://artblart.com/tag/rupestrian-sculptures/

Frank, Priscilla. “The Haunting Traces Of Ana Mendieta Go On View (NSFW).” Huffington Post, April 2, 2014, sec. Arts & Culture. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/02/ana-mendieta_n_5071279.html

Art

Untitled (Death of a chicken), 1972

Untitled (Rape piece), 1973

Untitled (Rape performance), 1973

Untitled (People Looking at Blood, Moffitt, Iowa), 1973

Untitled (Self-portrait with blood), 1973

Untitled (Bloody mattress), 1973

Sweating blood, 1973

Untitled (Silueta series), 1973

Untitled (Silueta series), 1973

Untitled (Blood and feathers #2), 1974

Untitled (Silueta series), 1976

Untitled (Silueta series), 1976

Old mother blood (Rupestrian sculptures), 1982

Untitled (Rupestrian sculptures), 1982