#setting up the diptych

[occamstfs]

Sticky Fingers

Junpei finds himself drawn to sneak an early peak at Arcadio Carvajal's new exhibition. When the chance to take a piece home presents itslef, he'll find himself a little more than changed from the experience.

My first sequel! Arcadio from Marichismo decides to take the chance to find a new assistant and lover! In other don't forget to vote on my Viral Transformation poll, ends Sunday! Otherwise enjoy this tale of muscle growth and otherwise masculine changes! -Occam

Junpei can’t believe that he somehow hadn’t heard about this art exhibition until just now. Like many a young thirsty gay across the country he does well to keep a tab on the illustrious (Read: Hot) work of Arcadio Carvajal. Many institutions are a little hesitant to host an artist whose name may well be synonymous with sexual provocateur but, with attendance numbers down across the board, even more museums are thrilled at the chance to host a man who almost magically draws in hordes of adoring patrons.

His latest exhibition on homoeroticism in popular culture is setting attendance records at just about every museum it stops at. Junpei was beyond thrilled when his friend Corey leaked that the gallery he works at was going to be hosting an exhibition of Arcadio’s starting tomorrow! Ignoring any concerns as to how odd it is that he’s not heard anything about the opening until the night before, Junpei grabs his backpack and makes for the gallery immediately, almost as if possessed. Something in his chest flutters with anticipation as he wanders the few blocks down to the hall where he’ll hopefully be able to sneak an early peek of some of the works on display. 

Making the trip down a few blocks with haste he finds  there’s surprisingly little activity at all in or around the gallery. Sure it’s after hours but the night before an opening, let alone an opening by an artist as impressive as Arcadio Carvajal? You’d think there would be some last minute prep work to be done. Skulking up to nonchalantly look through the front door, he puts his weight on it just as a little test. Just to see if it's locked, no overt plans as to what he would do with the information, he just wanted to know. Just wanted to see.

When the door gives, he can’t suppress the grin rising on his lips. In for a penny, he decides. Fighting to keep his expression guiltless he surreptitiously looks around to make sure no one’s watching the entrance before he sneaks into the dark hall. He tries to scheme up an alibi as he digs out his phone to use as a flashlight. Probably wouldn’t buy that he thought they were open. Could just say he was supposed to meet his friend here, though he’d hate for Corey to catch blowback. Junpei then rolls his eyes as he figures he could come up with something on the spot, if he’s even caught that is! Adrenaline keeps his conspiratorial mind from noticing he of course already has been, as the gallery’s cameras follow the young student into the exhibition hall holding Arcadio’s exciting exhibit.

The amateur intruder almost has a heart attack as he steps into the gallery proper and the lights flash on. Stumbling into a wall in shock, he ducks behind a display case and nervously scopes out the new space he finds himself in. After quietly ensuring that no one is actively here, Junpei chalks the lights up to be automatic and hastens his pace. Switching off his now unneeded flashlight, he starts scoping out the litany of artwork dedicated to the male form surrounding him.

His excitement eclipses whatever paltry dregs of anxiety or fear remain as he sees the works of incredibly influential artists gathered here. Junpei knew Arcadio was a titan but he could never have expected the prolific art that fills this place. First things first, as he enters he sees a diptych of the artist himself, under his breath he murmurs, “god he’s so fucking hot.” Somewhere out of sight surveillance footage shines onto a man watching him explore the gallery as he mischievously smirks.

On the student’s left are a wall of nudes and more softcore fare from artists across the ages. Mizers and Mapplethorpes hang floor to ceiling alongside more modern work by Arcadio and his own gay contemporaries. Near the far side there seems to be a whole section dedicated to portraiture of St. Sebastian but Junpei is less eager to explore the thorough history of homoerotic photography. Certainly a medium that has brought him endless pleasure, as it were, but they may as well just be prints to him. No, he wants to see the real stuff.

Wandering past some dozen miniature recreations of Michaelangelo’s David made of shining plasticine latex, some clad in leather, others in the buff as the artist intended, Junpei finds what he snuck in for. Spotlights shine down unto the wall opposite the photography, teeming with works from gay trailblazers of the art world. Namely the ones whose primary focus was on nothing but bulging fetishistic muscle and strong-jawed pretty boys. Those who crafted overt unapologetic pornography and others who snuck homoeroticism covertly to the masses. This is to say there is more work by Tom of Finland and Leyendecker than he could possibly appreciate in this brief time alone. 

He spends as long as he thinks he can just staring at the work. Drinking in the graphite scraped bulges and tight leather uniforms of the massive men drawn by the Finn. Reverberations from his work still echo into the art and lusty imaginations of countless gay men today. Indeed upon gracing dear Junpei’s eyes they immediately cause some mobility issues to arise. He struggles with his pants as he struggles to walk forward with a package that only surges harder with each fervent tug of his pants. His rising issue stops not as he moves on to observe the bright colors and hungry eyes of the men in Leyendecker’s advertisements. Masculine forms idealized and gleaming opposed with the raw heightened sex found in the work nearby. Junpei can barely control the desire coursing through him, but knowing he can’t stay forever the young man continues onward, biting his lip as he tries to will his boner away. 

Going through a curtain into a still darkened room, it takes a second for Junpei’s eyes to adjust before he sees a room dedicated to non-western homoeroticism. Finding aged Chinese scrolls of gay eroticism he snaps pictures, quite thankful that they are less visceral arousing than the work he just left behind, though he’s decidedly happy to see some shred of himself in the gallery. Turning around he gasps as he sees something he wasn’t quite expecting. Next to a wall of more deliberately pornographic bara men he sees panels from his favorite mangaka depicting bulging muscled men in provocative poses. But more thrilling than that, it seems the main sketch isn’t in a display case. It’s just sitting there, loose, free.

Junpei doesn’t know what came over him, he wasn’t even planning on coming in illicitly, but staring at the crisp art in front of him he cannot stop himself as he pulls a folder from his backpack. Before he can even issue a command to his body, the sketch is already in his bag and he’s sprinting away. The smirk of the man watching his every move grows wider as he watches Junpei clumsily flee the scene. Fleeing out the door into the dark streets, Junpei pushes past other students thoughtlessly as he races home, delirium setting in as struggles to understand and realize what he just did. Slamming his apartment door behind him he yoinks out the swiped art. He isn’t sure if it’s the image itself or the exhilaration from his crime but his only recently stilled cock begins to harden once more. 

Mind barely present what can he do but obey his rising erection. Junpei begins to masturbate, staring at his stolen artwork, panting as he quickly comes close; free hand moving thoughtlessly he feels it scrape against something taped to the back of the sketch. Eyebrows furrowing as he continues to beat his meat, Junpei turns the picture around and he instantly stops as his blood grows cold. “Evening Junpei. I know what you did. See you Soon. Yours, Arcadio Carvajal.” Junpei drops the drawing and it flutters to the floor, lying face down, leaving the note facing up at him. His mind escapes from whatever haze compelled him to commit larceny as his thoughts race faster than could possibly be productive. 

What do I do? I need to bring it back now. How did that note get there!? It certainly has my name on it, and it’s signed by Arcadio. Fear seizes him as he backs away from the stolen piece, tripping over the pants that had fallen around his ankles. In his scrambling he falls back and hits his head. Before he completely loses himself to unconsciousness he sees the picture purloined face up once more. Groaning as his vision begins to fade, his eyes latch onto his legs as searing pain slowly burns through him. Cresting into a trancelike state he mumbles incoherently as it almost seems like veins are bulging onto his thighs?

Perhaps unsurprising given the prominence of Arcadio in what lead him into this stupor, but as he’s truly overtaken Junpei sees the massive artist himself. The man’s arms are crossed but the expression on his face is not one of judgment or disdain at Junpei’s actions. Rather, to the best of the young man’s judgment, it looks like one of anticipation. Junpei tries to speak but finds his mouth dry up as the man across from him waves a finger, “Ah ah ah mi ladrónito. I believe you have something of mine.” The eponymous little thief pats himself down trying to dream his plunder into existence but produces naught. Arcadio pouts his lips but there is a sparkle of mischief in his eyes.

“Well perrito. For your little transgression I think you owe me, si? Think I could use some more hands on deck to watch out for petty thieves, don’t you?” Arcadio’s expression loses all the performative animosity that remains as he looks at Junpei with glee and his intentions begin to suffuse the young man. Feeling his ability to speak return, Junpei opens his mouth but before he can produce a word he is wracked with burning pain from the artist's stare.

Beginning from his feet, clad in the cheap tennis shoes that he wore to his haphazard heist, heat sears the soles of his feet. At first it’s as if he’s standing on coals before simmering down to the pain of sprinting across a hot beach; finally it shifts to the pleasant warmth of a warm footbath. Pain swiftly gives way to pleasure as Junpei flexes his feet just to ensure he feels every sensation he can, only then does he feel his toes bump against the front of the small shoe, just as the bridge of his foot strains against the tongue. Junpei grunts as he hears stitches begin to give way, toes blasting through the cheap fabric while his soles rear through the sides and spill onto the floor as his feet totally eclipse the remains of his shoe.

Looking down at feet that may as well need clown shoes compared to the petit ones he’s always had, Junpei feels some new instinct in his mind. Almost like an intrusive thought, he feels a need to be brash, to spar with the man he so respects more than anything. Ignoring his usual nature he follows this instinct, it’s just a dream right? Fighting through the pain and pleasure still coursing through him, Junpei speaks up, “Grgh- What are you- Are you giving me a foot fetish or what?” Arcadio’s face lights with a smile as he hears the young man speak up with the slightest amount of acid on his tongue. With no words to betray his emotion at the seed of Junpei’s changing psyche he moves his eyes up to Junpei’s legs.

“Oh what the fu-” he’s unable to even finish the thought as his whole body convulses with the sensation of his legs lengthening before they start to pack on muscle. Shooting almost a foot higher, Junpei falls back on his ass as he clenches at his calves and thighs. His gaze follows Arcadio’s as the man stares at his tight calves, expanding with each pulse of the heart. Just like every other inch of Junpei’s body there’s initially little at all impressive, and then they flex larger, and then there's a bulge that will never leave, and then there is a calf that would inspire jealousy by any lesser men who glimpses it. More than baseballs, muscle bulges enough for even socks large enough for his massive feet would struggle to contain them. This is nothing however compared to the transformation moving upwards into his thighs. 

Veins bulge thick as power seeps upwards, burning warmth sears his hands as they clutch at the hocks of meat that now constitute his thighs. Junpei blushes as he sees new distinct masses bulge out of his once bony thighs. Staring down at his increasingly powerful lower body he is filled with determination to get them even larger. The need for power begins to wash over whatever ideals or needs the young man had before this dream. Seeing the thick veins clearly pump and bulge larger with each beat of his heart, Junpei traces them with his finger and bites his lip as Arcadio can’t help but stare at the growing package that demands attention from the both of them.

Arcadio is more than pleased to stare, each second spent lingering on the cock sends waves of pleasure through Junpei as his mind struggles to parse that his cock and balls are stretching larger by the second. Quickly surging higher and thicker, his dick eclipses the size its been at its most turgid erection before now and it still pushes further with each groping grasp and sweaty breath. Similarly, beneath it his balls hang lower and the few dark hairs that shade his groin grow thicker and curl longer as his heavy balls rapidly increase production of the hormones this increasingly massive body demands. He cannot help but thrust into the air, his thin arms struggling to support the power his thighs summon. Landing back on his ass it too bulges larger with every flexing movement, quickly regaining its position as the largest muscle on the body as it becomes a bubble butt that would entice even the least male-interested eyes.

Moving on, lest Junpei blow his load all over himself, Arcadio's eyes continue upward to begin the most impressive work yet. Junpei groans as he desperately needs a break from the overwhelming pleasure burning in his lower body. He drags his hands across his inner thigh,  feeling callouses scratch his sensitive sweaty skin before palming his cock to a spurt of pre before moving on. His fingers trace towards his torso as veins begin to trail upwards, crossing his abs as they bulge into existence.

His body involuntarily goes into a crunch as every powerful ab cramps, sending stabbing pain and searing pleasure through his mind. Drool flings out of his mouth as he launches forward moaning. Junpei’s rougher hands grab his beefy thighs to prevent himself from falling backwards once again. His eyes almost cross as he seemingly loses control of any unengaged motor function. Across from him Arcadio just smirks and watches as Junpei’s sweat soaked hair changes from the same unintentional look he’s had all his life into something far more deliberate and fashionable. Exactly what he would want in a body man.

Hearing the strained groans and hungrily looking to the ephemeral expression dancing across Junpei’s face, Arcadio hesitates before continuing. Feeling the briefest of pauses from otherworldly bliss, Junpei cries out, his voice rumbling deeper as he finds his neck has thickened, “Mrgh- Don’t stop boss. I want, more.” The artist’s lips twitch as he is more than happy to obey the thief’s desires. After all, it's about time to get to his favorite part. At the same time Junpei’s mind flickers to the massive pecs that he so enjoyed observing at the museum as he begins to feel building pressure, increasing potential, on his chest.

Summoning a laser focus, Arcadio stares at Junpei’s arms and currently non existent pecs. He has trouble ignoring the bulge dawning in his own pants as he sees Junpei’s stick thin arms begin to bulk up. Immediately his arms fly behind him as he rapidly alternates between stretching them and flexing. With each thrust away from his body into the air they lengthen, fingertips shoot longer as his palms widen. With every bulging flex veins are forced to protrude even further through his faultless skin. His biceps may as well be forged of cast iron as they become impossible to ignore, power courses through them as from now on even the smallest movement causes a medley of muscle to dance across his beastly arms.

In between his bulging biceps, above the cobblestone abs, underneath shoulders still widening and taps pushing against a shirt that barely holds on, his pecs finally begin to receive the attention they have always lacked. Junpei’s nipples increase from the dimesize they’ve ever held into half-dollar protrusions that will be impossible to hide under a shirt. Similarly, the measly pecs they stand strong on begin to grow at a rate more prominent than any change so far. 

The sound of Junpei’s shirt giving way to muscle he couldn’t truly fathom before now burgeoning onto his chest overwhelms him more than he could ever know. In the moment of them bursting larger than life, he feels himself let loose of whatever restraining fragments of his past self remain. He wasn’t sure what caused him to take the sketch from the gallery, but Arcadio knew he would. Arcadio Carvajal, his boss, clearly had more planned for him than Junpei ever could imagine. As his pecs bloat beyond reason and he feels his chest pulse with power does he give himself totally over to become the perfect, powerful man that not for a moment in his life he thought he could become. 

His body shines with sweat as he finally loses control, loosing load after load into the white dreamscape around him. He opens his mouth to cry Arcadio’s name but before a sound could release he finds his godly body pressing up against one of the few men he considers an equal. His new burning muscled form grinds against that of Arcadio. Getting his sweat all over his boss, his lover, his best friend, Junpei smirks in between labored breaths and slobbered kisses. Somehow feeling the scratch of Arcadio’s chest through his shirt the new body man can’t help but frot against the artist’s torso.

Shoving his bearded face into Junpei’s neck, which certainly doesn’t help matters, Arcadio moves his scratchy mouth to his lover’s ear and whispers, “Me esperas… See you soon mi amor.” Seeding desire more potent than anything, every bulging muscle clenches and forces itself larger one last time. Every inch of his impossibly large, inhumanly powerful new form sizzles with the capacity for more pleasure than could ever be bestowed upon him before. Junpei will evermore dominate any room he decides to grace. He will do so physically and intangibly with an aura that exudes strength and entices the appetites of all, though perhaps that due to constantly sweating through any clothing or deodorant he throws on within an hour. 

Feeling emptiness fill him as Arcadio disappears from his dream after whispering in his ear, the now massive man has no recourse besides willing himself to wake up. And so he does.

Junpei wakes up on the floor of the apartment he’s been renting with Arcadio in the leadup to their new exhibition, for some reason the back of his head is sore as if he hit it. Though that’s nothing compared to the soreness that absolutely fills every last inch of his body. The giant groans as he wills his titanic upper body to sit up and smirks as he sees the sweat he must have just worked up. Scratching his pits and struggling not to sniff his hand after, his head briefly filled with countless memories of Arcadio chiding his poor hygiene, he hesitates before noticing some expensive paper lying on the ground. 

Tilting his head and grabbing a nearby towel to wipe the sweat almost dripping from his hand, he takes great care to grab whatever this is without getting too much of himself on it. Turning it around he’s floored to see a sketch that’s supposed to be on the museum wall right now, worse than that it’s from an area that Arcadio has left to him! Taking no time at all to question how this possibly ended up here, Junpei puts it in one of Arcadio’s artsafe folders and sprints down the street to the gallery. 

For being the assistant of such a fastidious man, Junpei has a habit of letting things slip through the cracks, but Arcadio never minds. He knows in the end Junpei will always more than make up for it, always aiming to go above and beyond and, somehow, more often than not exceeding what Arcadio even thought was possible. Entering the gallery the behemoth switches into the closest thing to a sneak that he can muster, unfortunately his massive clumsy feet would always betray his presence. His lover smiles as he hears Junpei’s failed covert operation.

Standing in front of the frame that is supposed to hold the piece that Junpei is now overtly returning, he turns with a sly smirk to see the man doing his best impression of a cat burglar. Arcadio rolls his eyes and goes to grab the folder, lest his lover get his streaming sweat onto it and create an awkward situation with the mangaka. After depositing in where it belongs and shutting it into a plastic case that was conspicuously absent earlier Arcadio returns his attention to Junpei who now looks around the gallery in wonder at what they have crafted together.

Arcadio’s grin grows wider with every step towards Junpei, nearing close enough to kiss, he stands tall and the two enjoy each other’s passion for the first time in reality. Though as Junpei’s deific form clearly demonstrates, what is real doesn’t matter all too much at all. Arcadio doesn’t quite understand the whims of the world he exists in and he’s pretty confident given enough time he won’t even remember being the impetus for his lover’s changes. In fact, as he stands in the arms of Junpei, memories already begin filling his mind of their years together that are as real as anything. Looking around he sees a room full of decisions they made together, body man he may be but the two of them are more than equals. Breaking away from the kiss, he sniffs the air and steps back from Junpei.

Arcadio looks at Junpei’s puppy dog eyes and ruffles his short hair, “Now go take a shower, perrito. Opening is in two hours and you stink, mi amor.” Junpei looks down at himself in shock, somehow forgetting the cold sweat covering his clothes and nods fervently before sprinting back out the door. The two lovers remain on each other's minds as they go about preparing for opening day. Ever but a thought away and always eager for the next moment that they will have alone together. 

[netherfeildren]

FEAR OF GOD : Chapter IV : Mouth full of blood

Series Masterlist ; Moodboard

Pairing: Joel Miller x OFC

Summary: A trap is set, the two of you fall.

Content Warnings: canon-typical violence, gore, threat of sexual assault, PTSD, rough sex, heavy angst

Rating: Explicit 18+

A/N: Art is Healing by Laura Makabresku. 

Word Count: 6.8K

Read on AO3

CHAPTER IV: Mouth full of blood

Without violence, how do I understand my life as

meaningful?

As if the only tool I owned for finding truth were a knife. -Gabrielle Bates, Eastern Washington Diptych

A silence as vast as it is particular surrounds the two of you. The loud, wheezing gasp of his breath, the only discernible thing he can make out. It was like you’d been sucked into a vacuum, the rest of the world taken through the maw of a black hole. Trees and darkness and your small hand clutched to the back of his jacket as you follow close behind him. 

He makes his way slowly through the dark, one precise step in front of the other, rifle trained ahead of him. The two of you’d been separated from Tommy and the others one by one, picked off like goddamn flies. He didn’t even know if they were all still alive, if his brother was okay. 

It was a trap. It was a fucking trap. Goddamnit, he’d known. He’d known this was a mistake. 

He was going to kill someone, several someones, for this. 

They’d come out of nowhere, the so-called group of weary travelers the girl had told you all about. She’d appealed to your soft nature, tears and timidity, and scrapes and bruises you’d tended to with the gentlest hands that’d ever graced this world. You didn’t belong out here. He should’ve never let you come. You needed to be somewhere safe and warm and protected. Surrounded by your books and your soft things, and him there, to watch over you, always. This was all so fucking wrong. 

The men had diverted the group, spooking the horses and separating you all, a coordinated attack. Whether they were trying to find an in to Jackson, or if they’d heard rumors of a doctor, the resource you posed was a valuable one any group or community would vie for, he didn’t know. They’d targeted you first, spooking your mare. She’d reared and unseated you, and he’d almost cracked his neck he’d whipped around so fast watching you go down. The small thud your body had sounded as you’d hit the ground, the seconds it took you to open your eyes and start to move again, the longest moment of his entire life. He’d scrambled off his horse and lost it in his rush to get to you. Hands smoothing over you, down your neck and back, your limbs, checking for breaks. And then he’d looked around to find the two of you were alone. The sound of the others echoing off in the distance, accompanied by other, more harrowing noises. The shot of a gun firing, rushed footsteps and shouts going in and out of his ears. He’d told you to stay close and had set off in the opposite direction, away from where he thought the sounds of the group were coming from. 

And then the clicking. 

Singular in the darkness, the croaking click of an infected. He pauses your movements, halting abruptly so that the soft weight of you thumps into his back. What the fuck was an infected doing so far out here? Was this part of their plan? Had they connived some way to herd infected out here as part of their attack? Who the fuck even were these people? He needed to get you back, get you safe. Now. This was all wrong, wrong, wrong. 

“Was that an infected?” your scared, cracked whisper.

He holds up a single hand, listening, listening. “We’re gonna move, slow and steady. Silent,” he whispers. “It’s okay, baby. Don’t be scared, I’ve got you.”

“Joel–” fierce little hand clutched in his jacket. He starts to move again. And then the splintering of a nearby tree, gunshots directed at you, and he’s spinning and grasping the back of your head to push you down onto the ground. “Down, down,” he shouts at you, “Crawl to the tree!” He hunches over your form, knees bent to hover over you and shield you with his body, towards the protection of the trunk. The shooter has shit aim, trees feet away from the two of you fracturing in the ricochet of the bullets. But then there’s a heavy weight slamming into Joel’s side, taking him to the ground, and he hears you scream his name as the man struggles to straddle his middle, get the upper hand. A heavy fist slams into his cheek and Joel grapples to get his arms and legs around the fucker. He can hear your voice sounding in the darkness, but all he can see is the man above him, his sloppy fists swinging without precision or direction. The man is haggard and dirty — months of traveling and wilderness apparent in his face and clothes. Joel manages to get a strong hold on his throat, and then he’s heaving his legs around the man’s torso and cinching him in a lock between his thighs, pulling his face down to meet his fist over and over. His knife is in the holster at his belt, and he’s able to reach it with the hand not gripping the man above him at the same time that he realizes Joel’s reaching for a weapon. He scrambles to knock the knife away and goes for Joel’s throat. Joel manages to turn his head enough to find you in his periphery while still grappling with his attacker.

He watches as the man above you grabs you around the ankle and slowly starts to drag you across the forest floor. Your screams reverberating in his ears like a gong, like the shredding of metal. They’re desperate and visceral and the worst fucking sound he’s ever heard in his entire life. You claw viciously at the ground, nails cracking and bloody, trying to find purchase on anything to pull you away from the man’s grasp, to use as a weapon against him. And then he’s gripping your knee and flipping you over roughly, boot planting his heavy weight on your chest as he pins you in place like a broken butterfly. He bends to say something to you he can’t make out from where he is, but the look of sheer terror and disgust on your face tells him everything he needs to know. Joel sees red, doubles his efforts into a savage mess of limbs and fists, trying to get the man attacking him off. 

The dead man standing over you pauses then, turns his head slowly to Joel, and his smile is revolting – dark and rotting, “You ready to watch?” This is every nightmare Joel has had since the end of the world, come to life. 

The man crouches down over your struggling form, hand wrapping around the delicate column of your neck. Get your hands off, off, off, get your fucking hands off. There’s fire in his lungs, in his blood. He hears the sound of a clicker again, the screeching monstrosity charging through the dark wood towards you all, and with a burst of extra strength, born of pure terror, he finally finds purchase on the ground with his foot, enough to leverage up and reach his hand towards his lost knife. The sound of the clicker getting closer, closer – and then he’s slamming the knife into the eye of the man above him, the sick crunch of steel meeting bone, and then deeper, until he feels the tip meet the softness of brain – rips it out and then slams it back in again at his neck – blood spurts hot and metallic across Joel’s face. And when he turns his head back towards you, preparing to take in the worst thing he’s ever seen since he watched his daughter die – there you are. Small, trembling frame straddled over the much larger body of your would-be attacker, a hunting knife the length of half your arm stabbing over and over again into his chest and abdomen. He can hear your guttural screams over the white noise in his ears –  great heaving sobs shake your chest. Your face, tear streaked and splattered with blood. He sees the eye socket closest to Joel is empty, optic nerve hanging torn and bloody. The gouged eyeball lies a few inches beside his lolling head. The sight of you, his little bird, with hands that hold such power for healing, for care and love, imparting such violence – this is his greatest failure. 

He calls your name, loud and sharp, and you pause your massacring immediately. Look up, as if waking from a haze, brought back to consciousness at the mere sound of his voice, eyes glazed and vacant, and his heart is breaking for you, a savage howling ringing within him, his bones vibrating with the very force of it. This is no place for his gentle little bird, no, no, this is all wrong. 

“Run, Birdie. Run. Hide. I’ll find you. I promise, I promise. Run.” He can see the refusal in your eyes. The stubbornness threatening to set in. “You promised. You promised you’d do as I say,” he grits through clenched teeth, voice filled with desperation and panic. You shudder, body jerking violently as his words settle inside you, and then you’re shooting up quick as a bullet and turning to run into the darkness. He watches the wood swallow you, and then he’s pushing himself up and squaring himself to face the clicker.

-

The pounding of your feet in the dark, the rattle of your breath in your chest are the only things you can discern in the black surrounding you. 

You have been here before. 

You’re terrified that at any second you're going to see your sister. Her ghostly specter, her savaged and torn body, her beautiful, warm face, whole and healthy and smiling at you, the massacred pieces of her torn flesh, scattered along the forest floor. 

But you need to go, you need to run, to hide, to do as Joel ordered you. Even though every fiber of your being is telling you to turn back. That the worst thing in the world you could ever do would be to leave him. And then you’re slamming into something, jarring and painful. Something blunt and heavy jabs into your gut, slams into your knee with so much force you see stars, sends you to the ground. 

A woman screams, guttural and shrill, as your two bodies collide and a sharp needling cry echoes. Your back slams against the hard forest floor, your head bouncing sickeningly, and white streaks of light flash against the swallowing darkness. 

“Fuck, fuck –” she spits, already scrambling back up to prepare to flee, the high pitched cry sounds again. A baby, you think dazedly. There’s a baby here. The baby the girl mentioned? Your head feels hollow, your brain pulsing against the confines of your skull.

“W–wait–” you croak. You can’t get your bearings, too many sounds muddling your pounding head: the far off gunshots – getting closer, the horrible clicking, your memories battering within your mind over and over, Beth’s phantom screams of pain, Joel yelling at you to run, run, run, the baby’s wail fueling your panic to rise higher and higher inside of you. You have been here before. A sense of déjà vu so acute – as if this moment is the only one you’ve ever existed in. Your skin throbs in echoes, a hair raising chill rolls through your body and you shiver, jerking. “A baby–” you stutter, “You have a baby–” you roll over, reach out to try and grasp her kicking ankle. Her boot collides with your wrist, and you swallow an agonized scream, rolling away from her. 

“Get the fuck away from me! Fucking murderer!” she screeches, over the baby’s cries. A flash of the moon illuminates the woman’s figure for a second and you see the bulk of the child cradled to her front. And her face, panicked, dirt streaked and desperate. You lock eyes for one interminable moment, take each other in, they’re light, almost glowing translucent in her skull with the reflection of the moonlight. 

“Let me– let me help you — Wait–” you urge, you can’t get up, can’t get your limbs to work. 

“Get away from me!” she screams again, and then she’s up and gone, fleeing into the darkness. You need to move, the vicious sounds of a fight are drawing nearer – Joel’s pleading voice in your head run, run, run. The thought of having left him behind makes bile curl in your belly, burn your throat, but you’d promised him you’d listen to anything he said, and the instinct to keep your word won out. You hear Beth’s voice more clearly in this familiar darkness, and you force your shaky mind to move, to work. The way she’d say your name so patiently when trying to teach you something, imparting some of her slightly snooty big-sister-wisdom, always well meaning: The trees, the trees are always our friends. They can do so much for us. And then you’re clawing your way to your feet, just like that long past night, and grappling for any sort of purchase you can find with your hands and boots. Up, up the tree, go up the tree. It saved you once, it’ll save you again. 

It terrifies you to think that life was only ever a recurring set of events; cyclical in an inescapable way. That you were all doomed to repeat the same steps, relive the same instances, again and again. Beth forcing you up the tree last time, the night of her death. You’d been taken by surprise by clickers that night also, but only you had made it up to the first branches before they were on her. Before you were forced to watch, helpless from your perch as she was ripped to shreds. You had been here before and you’d lost something essential to you last time. You would not survive a second loss. 

Joel, please be okay, please, please. 

You manage to foist yourself up into the lowest hanging branches, the blood in your head throbs so strongly it’s coupled with a wave of nausea with every beat of your heart, up higher, a little more. You’d perched on that tree branch for hours after she was finally dead. Staring unseeingly at the scattered pieces of her body. A sudden gunshot echoes loudly in the darkness and you almost lose your purchase on the branch, and then it all stops. Like all sound is suddenly sucked out of the air in a vacuum echo – the struggle of the fight, the clicking and screaming – and the vacant wilderness is so consuming, so terrifying, tears stream silently down your cheeks. You can hear your breath rattle in your chest. You feel very, very alone, as if every other human in the world had vanished with the sounding of that gunshot. 

Alone in a sick and destroyed world. 

But then there’s a sudden bumbling through the trees. A body breaking against the brush and leaves on the ground, and another one of the attackers stumbles into the clearing. You turn your head in the direction the woman had fled, perhaps she’d been part of this group, but the sheer terror in her eyes, the desperation to get away as quickly as possible, her words, calling you a murderer, inclines you to think not. Joel stalks into the clearing after him, and you huddle deeper into the shadow of the branches. The moon slants just so allowing you to take him in. 

It’s like he’s grown five inches taller, the look in his eyes – there is no hint of the man who’d touched you with the gentlest hands you’d ever felt in your entire life – it’s terrifying. His gaze swings almost manically in his head, taking in the clearing, and then his eyes stop on your tree, pause on the patch of dirt at the base and slowly travel up, looking into the looming darkness of the branches. He will always find you. You know this as surely as you know your own name. His face, his hands are steeped in blood, his clothing savaged. There’s no weapon in his grasp as the man turns to swing a long, serrated hunting knife at him. He jerks back, smoothly evading it. “I’m gonna find your little bitch, gonna fuck her dead – gut her. Make you watch the whole thing, you motherfucker,” he taunts. He’s laughing, provoking, and Joel’s countenance is so terrifying in this moment – his face seems set in stone, unmoving and frozen in a rage so black. Your whole body shivers so violently you almost lose your perch. The branch creaks beneath you, and you let out a small whimper as your hands scrape and scramble to hold on, your bloody, broken nails clawing at the wood. The man turns at your sound, but Joel’s gaze remains trained on him. The man’s eyes are manic with sick glee. “Oh, there she is,” he croons. His teeth gleam red in the moonlight, and he never should’ve taken his eyes off Joel, not even for a second. He’s on him faster than you can blink, shoulder to the man’s gut, he slams him to the ground and his skull rebounds with a sick crack on the hard dirt, the sound of his skull breaking with the sheer force of the tackle. 

Joel is an animal, hungry and vicious, ready to gorge. 

The knife is in his hand then, and the sick, slick squelch of it plunging deep into the man’s chest sounds loud and victorious in the night. He lets out a small surprised oh, as he looks down at the knife impaling him, and Joel’s teeth are bared in a snarl, he grinds it harder, deeper.

“That’s right, fucker,” he says, voice low and guttural, almost unrecognizable in this darkness. “Shoulda never put your hands on her.” The sound of it makes you more afraid in this moment than anything else that’s happened tonight, the thought of not knowing the sound of his voice – of losing him so far to his rage you’d be unable to recognize him, to bring him back to you. But then he speaks again: “I’m going to kill you now.” He’s nodding his head mockingly, and that familiar monotone is back. His tone so matter of fact – almost like a reassurance to the three of you. The oily grip of your fear slides off you, and you’re left only to appreciate the magnificence of his violence as he starts beating the man’s face in with his closed first, again and again. The sound of crushed bone and flesh resonating in the dark night air like some gruesome song. And the sight of it: it is lurid, grotesque, but also somehow, erotic. Joel’s huge, heaving body, his fist breaking repeatedly over human flesh; you are mesmerized. You slowly start to lower yourself back to the ground, never once taking your eyes off him, barely blinking. The sight of him, wrathful, murdering, the way he kills for you, the way he protects you; you understand it. It is very much like the moment in which Beth died in its violent inevitability. It will always happen like this; Beth dying, Joel protecting you. The way her body was torn apart piece by piece by clickers as you watched on from above. The basest display of violence imaginable. Joel, meticulous, precise in his strikes, protecting you with everything he has. The man’s skull is an almost bloody mass of pulpy, bone riddled sludge beneath his blows. But in this instance, the scene before you is now something that is being given to you, something being done for you – not something being taken away.

There have been many times where the lines between the infected and the humans blurred in your psyche. Unsure which was more violent, more horrifying, more willing to inflict damage. But there never existed a question of which had a greater capacity for cruelty. It was always, always the humans. Cordyceps had taught you that nature could never be cruel – it only existed as it was meant to, did as it was always intended to. There was no cruelty behind it’s actions, no motivation behind the consequences it wrought besides to go on existing, no choice. But humans, people, the well of cruelty that existed within humanity was endless in its possibility. Endless choices. Nothing else like that lived in the world. The man you killed – his disgusting whispered words ring in your ears as you watch Joel: You think your man over there’ll get off on watching? ‘Cause I sure as hell am gonna enjoy knowin’ he is, pretty thing. 

There are no lines in this moment – the way you’d murdered him – there is no sense of division. There is only Joel’s desperate violence existing with the three of you in this clearing – the echoes of your own.

And the sight before you, the violence in him, it is not frightening to you. He is not frightening to you. To see his very basest nature – to see him protect you in this way – that violent heart, beastly, savage – it does not frighten you. You step forward, closer to the massacre, to the man you love, and he instantly stops. Hearing or sensing your approach, he stops and turns his bloody, savage face towards you, chest heaving, fist still raised. The look in his eyes as he registers your presence, that you’ve witnessed him in this way – to Joel, to Joel it is devastating. You can see it in his gaze, the moment it settles within him – catastrophe of the highest order. 

The possibility of losing you, of you being hurt, of him not being strong or fast enough to protect you; every fear, every moment of unimaginable danger, every point of no return flashes in his eyes – it’s like you’re reading his mind in this moment. The instance of connection, of knowing, of intimacy you share in the wake of his violence – it tethers you to him in a way that is deeper than anything else the two of you have experienced before. To share this, to know what he’s feeling in this space his violence has forged, to understand his rage – he’s seen this play out so many different ways, so many times, with different versions of someone he cares for. Sarah, Ellie, you.

His eyes like glass, broad chest heaving, painfully out of breath; it’s like you can see him recall another moment like this as he looks at you, as he takes in the familiar look of hungry reverence in your eyes, mirroring another set too young to churn with so much appreciation for violence. 

He straightens from his crouch over the massacred form of your attacker, and comes to you, bloody hands fisting in your hair as he takes your mouth, open and fierce. The groan he licks into you is guttural, eliciting a shaky, broken moan in response.

“My brave girl,” he murmurs softly, nose nuzzling your cheek.

His hands roam down, gently pressing for wounds or hurts. “You’re okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” You press yourself to him, gaze peeking over his shoulder, staring out into the empty darkness, only the sound of your shared breaths now. 

“There was a woman,” you whisper, “With a baby.” Where did she go? Why did she have a baby out here with her in this hell?

He pulls you back, grips your jaw gently, “Are you hurt?” He demands, ignoring what you’d just said, and you shake your head, wide eyed. Do they have shelter? Somewhere to go? Someone to help them? 

“Are you?” you ask him. 

“I’m fine.”

“I saw a woman, Joel. She had a baby.”

“Was probably with those bastards. We have to go – find the others. I have to get you back home.” 

“But she had a baby–”

“That isn’t our concern,” he says sharply, and turns, clutching your hand in his, pulling you forward to bend for the knife still plunged in the man’s chest. He isn’t letting you go again. You feel the promise in the strength of his grip around your bones. The skull is caved in, and your eyes volley back and forth between the slaughter and Joel.

“But I–”

“Don’t.” There is no room for discussion in his tone, only an urgency that begs for your obedience. His panic, his terror, envelopes you both in its asphyxiating embrace. “Not now. We have to go.”

-

You make it back to Jackson within several hours. Never coming across the group or the horses again. Joel sets an uncompromising pace that has your exhausted, overwrought body shutting down once you finally set eyes on the gate. 

He hasn’t said a word in hours except to check if you’re okay. His breathing, harsh and angry — you’d focused on the rhythm of it, the reassurance it provided you. Let the sound settle in your bones and guide you forward along with his hand. He’d not let go of you since he’d picked it up, and your fingers have long gone numb in his strangling grip. But you know, that like the sound of his breathing, the feel of your palm in his is his own form of reassurance. The embrace he’d not allow himself right now. Not until you’re safe. 

The dark, red thread of tension pulls taught between the two of you. His earlier violence, still palpable on your tongue, felt in the rigidity he holds himself with, it buzzes between your bodies like a hive. A restless anxiety overshadowing the exhaustion threatening you, making your skin itch and sweat. 

You return to find Tommy safe and unharmed, Kenneth and Pablo being patched up by Nancy and interrogated by Maria. The fourth in your party, Ben, is dead. A group already assembled to go out and search for the two of you. The teenage girl had disappeared from the clinic shortly after your group had headed out – the whole thing was a trap. Joel recounts the fight in tense, short bursts, never letting go of your hand. Pulling your body slightly behind his, as if these people, familiar to you, your friends, your family, also pose a threat. Anyone who dares too close is met with the fire of his glare, bared teeth. He’s yet to shed the blanket of violence he’d dawned to defend the two of you earlier, and your body seems to answer it, a keening cry only he can hear. Shaking and sweating, clutching the back of his jacket, pressing your feverish brow to his shoulder. You know you should pull yourself together, tend to Kenneth and Pablo, clean and wrap Joel’s obviously broken hand and your own scrapes and bruises – it’s your responsibility – but you can’t focus, can’t pin a rational thought in your mind long enough to propel yourself into action. The wet sound of Joel’s pummeling fist plays over and over in your mind, the only thing you can focus on, the feel of his warm back under your touch. You need him, need something from him after that trauma, after your fear of being taken from him, of one of you being killed. You need him to remind you that you’re both okay, alive, that you belong to him and only him. 

You block out their conversation, eyes closed, you try to match the rhythm of your breathing to his, try to ground yourself with his body. The feeling of never having left those dark woods, of still being in that tree with Beth, not Joel, beneath you, of being lost, lost, lost, of never finding him, is overwhelming you. And then he’s turning and pulling you into his arms, guiding you away from the group and whispering into your hair, “It’s alright, it’s alright, just a little longer. We’re going home now.” Home, he was taking you home. The words out of his mouth allow you enough clarity of mind to squeeze the wish from your heart into your brain – that you want so desperately for his home to be yours also. That you could both share the same space you call just your own. 

“I’ve got you, baby. Stop your trembling now,” he presses into your hair. His voice, so comforting, so reassuring. 

Your eyes are blurry, colors passing your gaze in a hazy amalgamation that makes your heart beat faster. You can feel the mass of it pounding against the ribs in your back, the sensation sick and uncomfortable. And then you’re in his bedroom, and his hands are everywhere, ripping aggressively at your clothes, sliding through your hair, squeezing your ass and your breasts and your hips. 

“I need you– need you, need you– Need to feel you, Birdie.” His voice pushes an urgency into your skin that has your heart beating even harder against your ribcage, his mouth sliding over your neck, tongue laving into the hollow of your collarbone, teeth biting, sharp and painful, into your shoulder, and you find your voice finally, keening and broken, calling out his name. He’s moving lower, sucking on your breast, biting, as if he could fit the entire heavy weight of it into his mouth, “Joel– Joel, please.” You push and grip at his head, his hair. 

“I know, I know, baby. I know what you need.” He pushes you back onto the bed, rips your legs open, fingers and nails pressing painfully into your soft skin, he spits on to your exposed sex, rubbing his saliva into your folds, bends for a long lick, and then two of his thick fingers are shoving into your cunt. He curls them forward and presses, presses, hooks into that spot that belongs only to him and bares his teeth at you. Snarls like an animal. Mine, mine, mine, you’re okay, you’re mine, he chants. He moves his fingers fast, with a lewd squelch that has you writhing and gasping, scissoring them to stretch you open. He pulls them from you, too soon, not enough, you want to say, but you hear the drag of his zipper – he spits again – and then the hot, wide head of his cock is there at your entrance, swiping along you in a wet arc, and then pressing, pressing in, and he’s there, surging into you and fucking hard and fast into your tight heat, hitting the end of you. The groan he lets out when he sinks to the hilt vibrates through you. You aren’t fully ready to take his thick length, and you don’t care, want it harder, faster, want it to hurt more, to remind you that you’re here with him, that you made it out of that dark wood. You curl your fingers under the damp crook of your knees and spread yourself wider for his ravaging. Eyes never leaving his, you arch your back to allow yourself to take him deeper. The moan you give him, pleading, almost pathetic in its desperate supplication – like an animal, like prey, pinned beneath the claws of a savage beast.

“This is what you needed – this is what you needed. You’re okay, you’re okay” he chants. You cannot discern where it is he ends and you begin. You never want to be able to tell again, want to meld your souls, your bodies together like ore. 

-

Still standing over your naked form at the edge of the bed, he lets himself fall forward, rigid arms holding himself up. He takes in your flushed, sweaty face, the glassy, terrified look you’d worn for hours replaced by the glassy haze of arousal. Delirious at the pleasure he’s forcing into you right now, he picks up the pace of his hips, gives it to you harder. Snakes a hand down to give your clit a gentle swirl, then further down, where his fingers part in a V to feel where his cock splits you open. 

“Just take it, just take it.” His cock inside you is brutal, cunt stretched to the point of obscenity, stuffed full. “I need you to take it for me, just like this – be a good girl – don’t struggle, lemme give it to you how I need.” His desperation has a flavor, a scent to it. He changes the angle to fuck up, up against something no one but him has ever touched, a space inside you that belongs to him, thumb soft as a whisper on your swollen clit, around and around. He can tell you almost need to tell him to stop, that it’s too much. “Fuck, that’s so good, baby, you’re such a good girl,” he praises, and you make a soft, obscene sound that he feels in his battering cock. He gives it to you harder. It’s a sound of acquiescence, of complete capitulation, that he rings out of you. He’s conquered you in this moment – conquered you in a way that grants you no option of stopping. The sound is his permission to conquer. With his body over yours, within yours – you are completely at his mercy and protected from everything else in the world that could ever hurt you. He feels god-like. There is no fear or loss or hurt, no possibility of failure, only his body moving within yours. Your warm wet heat swallowing, gaping for him as he fills it like you both need him to.

The panic of that darkness surrounding him, of being unable to find you, of killing everything in his path just to fucking get to you, sings through him. He’d kill this dead world over and over and over again a thousand times just to find you in that darkness. 

-

He hooks your knees over his arms, hitches them higher – holds your legs open wider to receive him – your bare tits pressed up against the bloody, savaged cotton of his flannel – too desperate to bother stripping his own clothes, and the rough fabric rubs your soft skin raw. Each time his hips slam against your ass, balls slapping, your breath stutters out of you in broken gasps, and you don’t think he’s ever been as deep in your cunt as he is now. He wraps one of his arms around your back, gripping your shoulder to impale you down onto his cock. His other fists painfully in your hair to keep your head in place and tilted up to him; your jaw hinged open so you can breathe into each other. Your own hands clutch uselessly at his wrists, trying to exert some semblance of force against him – to remind him of your own strength while he overwhelms you with his. He’s fucking you as if he could burrow his way inside of you forever, live within the confines of your skin. You’ve lost track of how many times your cunt has spasmed and come around him, your muscles milking him relentlessly. Your clit engorged and rubbed raw. You’re one unending, throbbing orgasm. Everything is wet and messy between the two of you, the gush of your lust sticky and clinging to the hair on his pelvis and thighs. Birdie, Birdie, Birdie, it’s like a prayer. 

“Should’ve never left you alone in the dark, baby.”

He wants to break you, you're sure of it – to turn you into a creature reduced to only the virtue of his whims, ruled by the savaging of his cock. The very nectar of you pooling at his feet, leaking out of your pores under the unrelenting focus of his body and you know you won’t survive him. Not after this. But no, you realize, no, this is Joel breaking, not you. His fear is a living creature sharing the room with the two of you right now. Everything that’s ever held him away from you, everything he’s ever been too scared of to admit, lives and breathes with you in this moment. Like some sort of monstrosity crouched in the corner, bloody and frayed and wanting. 

“Birdie, I love you. Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie,” he brands the words into your skin. “I was so scared—” searing kisses pressed to your face, your neck, your breasts, in the wake of his words. 

Oh, this is it. Your heart, your heart, it’s going to burst, to cleave in two. He’s wrought a fracture through the core of your very being. 

This will never mend. 

The rhythm of his hips speeds up, becoming sloppy and stuttered – he’s close – and his grip transfers to your jaw, so tight and bruising; you’ll have the ghost of his fingers on your skin tomorrow. His cock kisses your womb with each brutal thrust, and he bares his teeth at you as he starts to come, the blazing wash of his spend filling you. “You’re gunna take all of my fucking come.” Anger and violence and all the feelings he wishes he didn’t have to experience, churn in his dark eyes. And you’d hold onto his anger soaked skin for the rest of your life if you could, if he’d let you. His eyes flick between yours, still holding your face, he ghosts his thumb over your wet bottom lip. “Birdie, I– I…” His hips are still moving, fucking his come deeper into your messy, used cunt. You see the realization of what he’s just said settle in his eyes, moving back and forth between yours, as if he’s watching him bare himself to you over again in their reflection. 

You’re losing him, you can feel the tension – regret, please, please don’t be regret – slowly start to seep into him as soon as he’s finished, to steal him away from you, and you cling more desperately to him, pull his face to yours and press soft butterfly kisses across his cheeks and nose. Joel, Joel, Joel. Please, don’t. His eyes flutter closed – the image of you beneath him already too much to bear.

“Stop,” he growls. Again: “Stop,” and suddenly he’s ripping himself out and away from you. The loss of him from between your legs, so violently abrupt, is almost a physical pain. The emptiness after being so full leaves you clenching around nothing, pushing his come out of you, and embarrassment, shame, fills you so acutely – to have your sex bared to him like a wound he’s left you with. You shut your legs, clutch your knees to your chest and gasp for breath, almost a sob. You gouge your nails into the skin of your knees trying to draw blood – before he can. You know what’s coming. 

“I didn’t mean… all that. I– fuck—” he spits, clutches his hand in his messy hair, “I– I got carried away.” He’s backing away from you – other hand outstretched as if to keep you away. As if he could keep the reality of his confession, the betrayal to his own self, away from him with just that outstretched hand. 

You’re still on your back, vacant eyes trained towards the ceiling, sucking in painful gulps of air, but you register him from the corner of your eye, the look he wears – you can’t decide if he was more terrified at the possibility of you being ripped apart by the clickers, taken and brutalized by the hunters; or in this moment, if his fear is more acute now, in the wake of his fortuitous confession. At the risk of being laid bare and vulnerable at your feet; as you’ve lived at his since the moment he first took you.  

“Okay,” you say – try to temper your voice, slow your breaths, remain quiet and calm. Only one of you can be overwhelmed by panic right now. And yet part of you wants to rage at him. Your heart beats painfully in your chest, and you want to say, it’s not like I’m asking you to open your vein and let me drink – only just to love me.

Birdie, I love you. Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie.

“Okay…” you say again, “I– it’s… it’s okay. I know.” You sit up slowly, your body throbs and aches, still not able to look at him – the sight of him so terrified of all you represent, it would burn you – but you feel his gaze like a brand across your skin. You wrap your arms around your naked breasts, shielding yourself. His own bloody shirt is askew, his pants still open, cock slick with your mingled come, still semi-hard. If this were any other moment you’d tease him – how are you still hard after all that? 

You turn your head away, towards the door, a traitorous little tear escapes the corner of your eye, and you quickly wipe it against your lifted shoulder, press your fingers to your mouth to keep in the threatening sobs. One of his flannels is strewn across the ground and you toe it towards yourself. “It was the adrenaline.” Your voice is limp, dead. Diminishing this will be the thing to kill you, you’re sure of it. How can he expect you to turn away from the one thing you’ve wanted from him more than anything else? 

Birdie, I love you. Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie.

You shrug on his shirt, and he’s still not said anything else, but you see him move to tuck himself into his jeans now. “I- I’m gonna get some water,” you mumble, give him a moment to recalibrate.

Chapter V

Netherfeildren Masterlist

[astriiformes]

hello!! this is kit. happy birthday!!! you don't have to answer all of these but

🎞️if you could change one scene from any of the movies, which one would you change and how?

⏲️what time period would you want marty to travel to and what would you want him to do? for fun or for something serious?

💫if you have any bttf related wips, here's the oppurtunity to ramble about them! (<-PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLSEPLSPEL)

Thank you!!

🎞️ - If you could change one scene from any of the movies, which one would you change and how?

Oof, just one scene is difficult, because the thing I'd like to change most would be how Jennifer's plot was handled in the second movie, and that requires a bit more overhauling. I think you could still make it better with a little tweaking though -- maybe she doesn't get knocked out and is simply told to stay watch the DeLorean, which still ends up being a problem when she tries to lure someone away from it, or something like that.

I guess that still modifies more like two scenes, but you get the idea! Anything to make her feel like she's got a little more agency. Because I like her a lot and it bothers me that the BttF movies aren't even that terrible at writing women (Lorraine and Clara are both really interesting characters!), but sidelined her anyways.

⏲️- What time period would you want Marty to travel to and what would you want him to do? For fun or for something serious?

Already answered this one but since there are plenty of time periods to choose from I will simply pick another. As someone who studies the history of science, I think that Doc and Marty could get up to some peak shenanigans in Enlightenment-era America (thinking late 18th and early 19th century here) when everyone was obsessed with the phenomena of electricity. I want to unleash Doc Brown on the people that thought lightning rods defied the will of God.

💫- If you have any BttF related WIPs, here's the opportunity to ramble about them!

OH BOY DO I

So, four years ago I started a diptych of stories I am yet to finish but that are some of the fics nearest and dearest to my heart, surrounding the idea of Marty being transgender. (I once called them my love-letter to transmasculinity, which is a little dramatic, but genuinely a bit how I feel about them)

The first is from Doc's perspective, and deals with the fact that, when Marty was first born, the version of him who'd been visited by 17 year-old Marty back in 1955 must've had an absolute heart attack at first. It features a very confused Doc and (eventually) a younger Marty figuring some important things out about himself, and is probably about half-written at uh. Almost 9k words.

The second, companion piece is from Marty's perspective, and set post-trilogy, dealing with him navigating questions of identity as someone who is trans and who now grew up in a different timeline. It follows his relationships with the important people in his life, his dueling existential crises, and the isolating feeling that maybe there's no one who understands you in the entire world -- and the relief that comes from learning that you're wrong.

I've done a truly monster amount of research for these fics--including having a librarian friend help me track down digitized historical documents during lockdown back in 2020--and am contemplating diving into the historical queer archive where I currently work for a second round, though we'll see what I can find. Regardless, I really want to finally finish these stories now that I've circled back around to having a lot of Back to the Future feelings again.

(Also to show the BttF fandom that I'm a much better writer when I'm not churning out only-mildly-edited 1-2k fics every day for a writing challenge, rip, although I'm honored people have been enjoying those ones, too! Just, you know. I can do better.)

[deadpresidents]

"It's pretty much impossible to go anywhere in Iraq and not be reminded of Saddam. Thousands of portraits of him appear on walls and in glazed mosaic tiles on concrete plaques. In granite, bronze, and gilded statues he holds a sword aloft; he prays; he rides a prancing stallion. Saddam smiles, frowns, fires guns, smokes cigars. He is depicted wearing a black leather greatcoat and matching trilby; in military uniform; in Arab robes, three-piece suits, and even, oddly, trekking gear. He is sometimes thin, sometimes imposingly muscular, occasionally fat, his face pouchy and double-chinned. He wears a judge's robes and holds scales in his hands; dandles small children on his knee; stands with bloodied sword over a mutilated serpent whose tail is in the form of a cruise missile. On one building, eight identical smiling Saddams are set together, creating an effect not unlike that of Warhol's 'Marilyn Diptych.'" -- Jon Lee Anderson, "The Unvanquished", The New Yorker, December 11, 2000

It's almost chilling how similar this sounds to the ridiculous propaganda images on social media used in the present-day United States to build up the MAGA/Trump personality cult. This is happening here.

[shredsandpatches]

fic writer self-recs

@titleleaf tagged me in this and I'm not gonna miss a chance for self-promotion, so here you go.

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favourite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers.

The Kindest Use a Knife (2014, Richard II, Richard/Aumerle, E, 11k words)

This is, to date, still my most popular fic and I'm still proud of it even though I'm a better writer than I was ten years ago (how was this ten years ago? What the fuck, passage of time). It's based specifically on the RSC production with David Tennant and was born out of a general sense of confusion over how the Stabby Aumerle ending seemed to work okay despite it making no sense in the context of the production and the ways the characters were played. I figured Stabby Aumerle in this production would only really make sense if Aumerle were under the impression it was the most loving option under the circumstances, and this was the result. Also, this fic made me realize I love writing the Yorks (the Duchess in particular just kind of charged into this fic). Fun trivia: my depiction of Exton owes a lot to Arthur Darvill's Mephistopheles (because I did love Doctor Faustus even before Hot Faust Summer).

Jesu dulcis memoria (2014, 14th-c RPF, Richard II + family, G, 1k words)

This was a Yuletide treat--one of those instances where someone's request lines up with something you'd been thinking of writing for ages anyway and the prompt makes you get off your butt and do it. It's centered on the creation of the Wilton Diptych from the viewpoint of the painter (who is fictional, since we don't really know much about who actually painted it) and focuses on the idea that the painting is not only a statement about kingship but also a memorial to Richard's (many) dead loved ones. Also there's one simile in there that everyone seems to love and so now I think about it every time I encounter gold leaf (which is a lot. I'm a manuscript librarian, although I wasn't when I wrote this).

Andělíčku rozkochaný (2019, 14th-c RPF, Richard II/Anne of Bohemia, E, 9k words)

Anne of Bohemia is, as you all know, my forever girl, and I'm still proud of this character study of her and her marriage to Richard and their approach to their infertility. I wrote a lot of stuff on this basic theme around the time I was writing this fic; maybe it was because turning 40 was getting to me on a subconscious level. The first scene of the fic is one of those things that came to me pretty much fully formed, while the last scene is another one of those things I'd had in my head for a while and finally had a reason to write down. (This is, therefore, another fic that has part of its genesis in a shiny historical artifact.)

not half so fair as thou (2023, Doctor Faustus, Faustus/Mephistopheles, E, 6k words)

We have arrived at Hot Faust Summer! The premise of this one came out of my pondering a line not from Marlowe's play but from Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust, which I was in last May and have not yet shut up about, but long story short, it set me thinking about productions where Faust(us) and his shadow-self Mephistopheles look similar (not unheard-of in Marlowe productions--the 2011 Globe one low-key did it and the 2016 RSC high-key did it--though I can't think of any operatic versions off the top of my head) and eventually I arrived at the premise of this fic. Which was a complete party to write. It was perhaps a little unsettling to realize that Faustus POV came to me extremely naturally but hey. That's academics for you.

none but thou shall be my paramour (2024, Doctor Faustus, Faustus/Mephistopheles, Faustus/Helen of Troy, M, 7.5k words)

It's the Codependent Faustopheles Manifesto! With boring academic dinner parties and sexy contract renewal! This is my most recent work (although it took me kind of forever to write; the tumblr post in which I proclaim my intentions to write it is here) and I'm really proud of it. It's weird, kind of gross, and has some massive tonal shifts in it, but I think it came off all the same. Plus I got to put some of my elaborate headcanons in there and I think I did a really good job with the "sex scene that is not actually sex but is definitely still a sex scene" trope.

Anyway, yeah! Go read my fic. I'm going to tag @skeleton-richard, @oldshrewsburyian, @themalhambird, @misskriemhilds, @heartofstanding, and anyone else who feels like doing this.

[vexversion]

[MA: Cross and Reactor Christmas]

Here's my final event art for the MyriadAnthology comic group

This is part one of a diptych christmas story alongside @\ASP_Ian, the creator of Reactor and Wicky! Cross and Wicky have set up a round-the-world present hunt, and it looks like Reactor is very fond of this gift!

[dramatisperscnae]

blame @knightlier for this, someone decided to mention a soulmate AU >w>

...In A Different Light

Kyle Rayner has always believed in soulmates. Why wouldn't he? The idea that there is one person out there so perfectly meant for you has just resonated with him since he was old enough to understand the concept. His art has often reflected this, with images drawn from all manner of inspiration and sources: the red string of fate, mirrors and reflections, diptychs showing individuals with matching or complimentary marks,triptychs depicting the sudden burst of color into a monochrome world upon a fated meeting, they've all sparked his imagination. As to which ones are true, for that Kyle has no answer.

He hasn't found his soulmate yet.

He thought he had, once. Alex had been perfect. She'd kept him grounded, especially once he'd gotten his ring. She'd been his inspiration, his muse, everything he could possibly have imagined; she'd been his light, keeping him on the path of heroism rather than letting him simply use the ring for his own entertainment. And then she was gone. Killed in the most brutal fashion Kyle could have imagined and stuffed in her own refrigerator. And he hadn't even known.

That's the one thing all the stories agree on, after all: once you meet your soulmate there are things you just know. Their emotional state, maybe, or whether they've been injured, but definitely - oh, definitely - when they die. And he hadn't known. Hadn't felt a damned thing. The single best person that had ever entered his life, and she hadn't been the one.

That didn't mean her loss hurt any less. The thought that his soulmate was still out there somewhere was no consolation for the loss of Alex. After all, couldn't the soul-bond be built? Maybe it takes time to establish itself; that's a theory, too. But it's not a widely-accepted one and it feels…well, wrong. He loved Alex immensely - still does - but she hadn't been his soulmate.

Neither is Donna, but Kyle knows that without even wondering. Donna's great, she really is, but she's not the one, either. She's someone he can see him spending his life with, maybe, sure, and plenty of people don't actually marry their soulmates, but she's not his. And he's not hers, either. He knows that now. Because he knows he was wrong. He has found his soulmate.

And he's just lost them.

Here, watching the sun come back to life, feeling its warmth fall across his face, Kyle feels an intense, incredible pride, and an even more incredible loss. There's a hole in his chest now twice the size of the one Alex left. He can feel tears welling up in his eyes, trickling down his cheeks behind his visor as he stares up at the sky, at the brilliant ball of light that now burns thanks to one man's heroic sacrifice. Dimly, almost as an echo in his mind, Kyle can almost hear what he's sure were the final words spoken. An oath, a mantra, a source of pride and a legacy that is now his alone to bear.

But god, how had he not known? How had this happened? He can still remember meeting the man for the first time as the entire universe crumbled out of existence, fighting to stop the end of everything and ultimately destroying an entire planet in order to stop a man he'd only ever heard stories about. A man who had tried so hard to be a hero, to set right an incredible tragedy, and had lost himself to his pain even as he'd started working.

The second time they'd met hadn't been much better; things had been more personal then, Kyle's ring hanging in the balance. It had hurt, having what should have been a living legend try to take his ring, but it had hurt more to see that fallen hero depart with shoulders bent, hope dashed. That was a sight Kyle's sure will stick with him for years yet. And now this.

It had been an off-handed comment to Donna that had brought the idea to mind. Every hero on Earth had been trying to fight the Suneater, but there had been one hero not on Earth who Kyle had been sure could help. A fallen hero, perhaps, but a hero nonetheless, and Kyle had been so sure that he could get through. That this time that fallen hero could rise again. Could truly help, the way he so wanted to.

And he had.

He has.

The sun is shining again, no trace of the Suneater remaining at all. One man's sacrifice to save an entire world. A hero's death. All around him people are smiling, happy and relieved and overjoyed that the crisis is over, but Kyle can't bring himself to join the celebrations. Not with what he'd felt in those final few moments. That searing, bone-chilling pain that had surrounded his very soul, and then the nothing that had followed. The sudden, sucking absence of a presence that until two seconds ago had somehow always been there.

Parallax is gone.

Hal Jordan is dead.

And Kyle Rayner will never have the chance to truly know his soulmate.

[zhnnveuxpasdrmir]

Trying to explain that this quiet, braided anthology of short-short, thought variant, actor driven one-offs is a must-see breakthrough teleplay, a timeless masterpiece!, a work of explicable magic.

I was one of the six people in the world that actually saw this in 2010, but I'd only caught a few bits of it at the time. They were arresting as hell. It's exciting to finally get a chance to appreciate it now, due to the grisly stupidity of all corporate media conglomerates, and the ease of getting high quality archives of unfairly treated past media anonymously on the dark web, along with heroin and guns! 😁

I liked how The Booth At The End examines the fallacies inherent to popular reads of morality, and somehow criticizes specific religious cultures without once mentioning any of them, or admitting to any particular central framework by name. The script is rooted in widely understood monotheist ethics.

It's unrepentant, dour, merciless, and openly, loudly, glaringly deceptive in its candor.

Xander Berkeley. Holy shit. was just unbelievably powerful on this show. Every actor turns in a lifetime achievement award worthy scene, but mr Berkeley is just: setting your disbelief aside, so casually! You believe. The unthinkable is thoroughly plausible in these weency, handy little scenes that.... feel longer. You'll think it was an hour. It was like six minutes.

I don't know fully why this isn't a better known show! Maybe it's too hard to face. If you have an interest in the craft of acting, in show, this little one-sitting binge demonstrates expert theatrical film making.

And these goddamn endings will fuck you up for life!

so here's my theory on the Man, Doris, and the doom of human kind:

oh he's certainly not the Devil. He's a creation of G-D though for sure. As is Doris.

If he has to be a specific character from the stories, he's The Christ, not exactly The Messiah, but something a lot more like christian Jesus if he'd lived on since Resurrection, only through a magical realism lens instead of a worshipful one. The Man is aware of what G-D is, knows it's not what humans think it is. Some say "the wandering Jew" but no: this is not and never was a human.

if Doris has to be a specific character from the stories, she's Satan, or a fallen angel, but let's be real, G-D's ex-favorite, luring the new boy away from G-D's detachment, and into "the trap". I don't agree with the above article in thinking it ended too soon, it ends exactly where it should, where it has to.

because that demand Doris makes is real, and it's one that our planet's conception of G-D has always, always failed. She's right to state this demand, and the Man must comply. Both of them will be literally destroyed by the task. This is shown over and over in both seasons.

The Booth At The End is a genius series of stage teleplays that criticizes flaws in popular conceptions of G-D, how it distorts our perceptions, and how those distort our experience of need. Each "normal" character symbolizes a specific 'mistake' or foible; each supernatural character represents an attempt, by 'history' ambition institution or spiritual quest, to understand and eliminate those errors. The two seasons are a diptych demonstrating respectively How and Why we are trapped forever in a Hell of our own device. 🌞❤️

[mcgiggers]

London, Paris - March 2024

Just back from a fantastic art viewing adventure in the old world which featured stops at the Tate Modern and Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art in London, and the Musée d’Orsay, the Foundation Louis Vuitton and the Bourse de Commerce in Paris. The four-day trip was on the back end of a stay in the 13th century hilltop village of Petritoli, located in Le Marche, where local churches and those in the neighboring towns displayed marvelous medieval and renaissance style treasures. In the big cities, however, the focus was more on contemporary offerings. The whole made for a fascinating journey through an exciting part of art history.

London

An attempt to see the Yoko Ono exhibit at the Tate Modern was stymied by sold out crowds. The serendipity in poor planning however resulted in an opportunistic visit to the museum’s permanent collection, more specifically the magical second floor featuring modern masters and post war stalwarts. With entire rooms dedicated to the likes of Joan Mitchell and Gerhard Richter, among others, the walk-through played out like a greatest hits tour where around every corner an even more marvelous sensory treat was served up. Highlights of the visit included: Georges Braque’s early cubist masterpiece “Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on Mantlepiece”, 1911, oil on canvas (31.9 x 23.6 in.); Giorgio Griffa’s painterly “Tre linee con arabesco n.111”, 1991, acrylic on unstretched and unbleached canvas (114.4 x 76.4 in.); and Agnes Martin’s contemplative grid patterned renderings “On a Clear Day”, 1973, thirty screenprints on paper (each 12 x 12 in.), edition 32 of 50.

On the other side of town on the campus of one of the world’s most renowned art schools, a Matt Connors exhibit, Finding Aid, opened its doors at the Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art. Featuring new and older works by the American abstract artist, the expansive grouping of paintings, sculptures and drawings cleverly paired Connors’ soft geometric abstraction and minimalist marking styles.  Showstoppers included: the large-scale bold vertical diptychs “Mural for a Gay Household I” and “Mural for a Gay Household II”, 2018-2020, acrylic on canvas; the vibrant “Red Top (deployed hatch)”, 2015, acrylic on canvas; and the sparse “Echo Implies Room (Orange/unprimed)”, 2012, acrylic and colored pencil on canvas.

Paris

Forty-eight hours later, the Eurostar abetted transition to Paris was speedy and eventless. Even under cloudy skies, the City of Light was totally sublime and uniquely picturesque. The art stops along the way were knockout shows in beautiful venues which in and of themselves were artistic and architectural marvels. At the Musée d’Orsay, the magnificently repurposed train station was the setting for the Paris 1874: Inventing Impressionism exhibit. The show celebrates the 150th anniversary of the inaugural exhibit of the then avant-garde movement and chronicles the transition from staid and traditional realism to hazier and freer interpretations of subject matter capturing a moment in time, an impression, so to speak. The cast of characters that led the way included MVPs in the annals of art history - Monet, Renoir, Degas and Cézanne, among others, all of whom figure prominently in the exhibit. The highlights included: Auguste Renoir’s “La Loge”, 1874, oil on canvas (31.5 x 24.8 in.); Claude Monet’s “Impression, soliel levant”, 1872, oil on canvas (19.63 x 25.63 in.); and Edgar Degas’ “Classe de danse”, circa 1870, oil on wood (7.75 x 10.63 in.).

The next visit on the journey was the futuristic Frank Gehry-designed Foundation Louis Vuitton and the Mark Rothko retrospective. The comprehensive exhibit brought together 115 or so works of the powerhouse American abstract artist and presented a chronology of the evolution of his early figurative renderings to mystical and surreal style paintings and finally, to his entrancing iconic floating forms. The highlights included: the early representational scene “Contemplation”, 1937-1938, oil on canvas; the surrealist masterpiece “Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea”,1944, oil on canvas; and dozens upon dozens of mesmerizing large format colour abstractions, including, “Orange and Red on Red”, 1957, oil on canvas (68.8 x 66 in.) and “No. 14”, 1960, oil on canvas (114 x 105 in.).

The last planned stop in Paris was the Pinault Collection at the impressively remodelled Bourse de Commerce. Spiralling up the majestic rotunda, works by contemporary art rockstars were prominently displayed. Among these were: Peter Doig’s haunting “Pelican (Stag)”, 2003-2004, oil on canvas; Maurizio Cattelan’s poignant “Him”, 2001, wax, human hair, suit, polyester resin and pigment; and a monumental installation by Sturtevant replicating the mythical room staged by Marcel Duchamp at the 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition in Paris.

Closing off the trip and reaching back in the art history timeline, a truly memorable work was discovered by happenstance during an unplanned visit to Eglise Saint-Séverin. Dating back to the 13th century, the gothic style place of worship housed numerous elaborate chapels which were all built around altars and adored by art of the time. A particular work stood out as it was presented alone hung high on a huge wall under a circular stained-glass window surrounded by nothing else but the serenity of the immediate environment. It totally radiated under the spotlight that illuminated a depicted religious figure sitting at a table who perhaps was Saint Séverin, a devout 6th century hermit and the church’s namesake.

Meanwhile, in the new world, there was a lot more commotion as Hogtown’s Jurassic Park was hit with an asteroid of epic proportions that essentially wiped out all remnants of a recent championship team.  The Dinos were dissected and dismantled. Gone are Crazy Eyes and OG-Won Kenobi, and team leader Scottie B and the much-maligned Austrian Big succumbed to season ending injuries. All the while, the newly minted Raptors including RJ the Prodigal Son Barrett and Immanuel La Squig Quickley struggled to stay healthy and make their mark. The result has been a team that is nowhere near relevant in the standings nor the hearts of fans. With the prospect of a lengthy and bumpy rebuilding process ahead, Dino fans can perhaps take some solace in rooting for the success of Raptor expats applying their trade elsewhere or maybe even Canadian hoopsters playing for true championship contenders. It’s all a lot rosier than the current state of affairs in Jurassic Park.

For more information on any of the venues, artists or works mentioned, or the sad sack Dinos, “Just Google It”.

There you have it sportsfans,

MC Giggers

(Https://mcgiggers.tumblr.com) Reporter’s Certification

I, MC Giggers, hereby certify that the views expressed in this report accurately reflect my personal views and that no part of my compensation was or will be, directly or indirectly, related to the specific views expressed herein.

I also certify that I may or may not own, directly or indirectly, works of artists mentioned in this report and that I may or may not have a strong bias for such artists and, more generally, for “Pictures of Nothing”.

[glyphreader]

Mountain & Island (Shadowmoor No. 295 & 288, Illus. Brandon Kitkouski)

One really cool thing about the Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block is the fact that it features a super-cycle of 20 basic land diptychs - one for each of the 10 two-color-combinations in each mini-block.

Panorama-style basic lands have been done a few other times in Magic's history (the original Kamigawa Block and Scars of Mirrodin come to mind), but as far as I'm aware, the Lorwyn/Shadormoor basics are the only ones that combine different colors (I'm only considering "regular sets" here and ignoring special releases - there definitely have been a few five-color basic land panorama promos).

Why are the diptychs cool? Well, for one, it's just neat to be able to physically put two (or more) basic lands next to each other and have them form a bigger picture. And from a Vorthos perspective, they give the viewer a "wider view" of the setting. I especially like how these lands show the "border regions" between different areas. They give you a concrete idea of how all the individual set pieces (the forest, the plains, the mountains etc.) fit together.

This Mountain-Island diptych features the weird, spiky Shadowmoor mountains on the left side and some kind of lakeside settlement on the right. The houses shown on the Island are special in the sense that they show up only on this basic land and nowhere else in the card art from Shadowmoor and Eventide. Outside of the sets proper, a concept scetch of this Island can also be found on the DeviantArt page of MtG artist Anthony Scott Waters.

I love weird, unexplained one-offs like this. We don't know who these houses belong to. But we can always speculate. The fact that they're built into a lake makes me think that they are connected to the merrow, Lorwyn/Shadowmoors merfolk. However, merrow on Shadowmoor are almost exclusively portrayed as marauding bandits and don't seem like the type that would build a nicely organized settlement. Also, if the merrows are just among themselves - why build stuff above the waterline in the first place?

On Lorwyn, where merrow often acted as merchants, they built above-the-water stilt-house structures called crannogs (a real-world term) to interact with the world's non-aquatic denizens. The presence of this Island in Shadowmoor, then, has to mean that not all communcation between merrows and non-merrows has broken down, and there are still some places where they interact with kithkin or elves on a non-hostile basis.

For the longest time, I've had the idea for a MtG story that features this Island as one of its main setpieces. It's a settlement of a weird bunch of (blue-aligned) Kithkin outcasts, who didn't fit in in their douns and formed a secret wizard society, working together with some merfolk. The protagonist, too, is exiled from his doun and stumbles upon their community. He finds a home there - but then it turns out that the merrows have been pulling the strings all along, grinding away the minds of the Kithkin wizards to awaken a terrible lake monster. The protagonist manages to sneak out of the settlement, and has to save his new-found family and friends...

I've never come around to actually writing the story, but it's intriguing details in card illustrations like this that get my imagination going.

[artbycaos]

Whoo-hoo! First post! Haven’t been here since high school so it definitely feels odd but i’m determined to fill this space with all fun darksy artsy goodness. And what better way to start this than with my current big project! Twin oil paintings, kinda like a diptych set up. All very baroque and dramatic. Just as we like it.

[feliciagarrivan]

Marianna Rothen

Marianna Rothen (1982) is a Canadian artist who is based in New York. After becoming a model as a young teenager, Marianna spent several years traveling, working and documenting the experience through photographs. Influenced by the need to reclaim her own image, Rothen now uses her photography and films to explore and deconstruct conventional conceptions of female beauty and gender politics. Using a mix of traditional photographic processes with digital media she creates images that evoke a sense of mystery and discomfort.

Rothen has made three bodies of work, translated in photo books and films, in which the development of her vision of patriarchy and empowerment are addressed. In the first series, Snow and Rose & other tales (2014), she constructed a richly resonant dream world where empowered women are free to be themselves in an environment entirely without men. Shot in a retro style, the images revel in natural unselfconscious nudity and contagious smiling confidence.

In her second body of work, Shadows in Paradise (2017), Rothen builds up a subtly different mood, where uncertainty and insecurity reenter the psychological terrain and introspection takes hold. While Rothen’s women still inhabit an all-female domain, there is much more implied tension. We voyeuristically watch as the scenarios start to unravel. Scenarios where the realities and perils of life intrude on the idyllic freedoms of the setting we saw in Snow and Rose & other tales.

In Mail Order (2018/2019), Rothen’s third body of work, men are introduced for the first time. They are literally objectified, turned into objects, one semi-fictional woman’s projected idea of masculinity and maleness. As she does in all her series, Rothen features in her own work. Though her character is alive, she is just as fake as the men; her gender is as much a performance as theirs. The crucial difference is they are not human. Rothen, as photographer, and Rothen, as model, wields no actual power over these male dolls, no actual men are exploited for her play. She suggests what it is like to be a woman who is looked at by men and who is powerless; whose identity is puppeteered by the patriarchy. The dolls start to become ridiculous, risible. They have no depth, no story – like so many of the female leads in Hollywood films. As a former fashion model herself, Rothen’s own experience in front of the camera also shapes the way she inhabits and examines this position. By staging these absurd situations, she strongly criticizes the fact that people are still products of patriarchy. This makes her work an important advocate of women’s empowerment. 

Shadows in Paradise

(titles above photographs)

Eclipse, 2016

Donkey Skin, 2015

Shadows in Paradise, 2015

Risky Business, 2015

Still Life, 2015

Betty and Veronica, 2015

Betty and Veronica #2, 2015, diptych

Thinking Ability, 2015

Robbers, 2015

Mirror, Mirror, 2015

Beside Herself, 2015

Persona, 2015

Sister, 2015

Sister #2, 2015

Minor, 2016

Mrs. Dubinbaum, 2015

Pins and Needles, 2015

The Hot Spot, 2016

Whiskey Nose, 2016

She, 2016

20/20, 2016

Fear of Fear, 2016, diptych

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, 2016

Dark Spring, 2016, diptych

Zig-Zag Girl, 2016

[art-h]

For this week we are looking to respond to our chosen techniques. For this I chose to look at impasto with oil pastels. I composed the first photo as the subject for part one of my diptych response. I purposefully chose accentuate the colours in view, making bold choices with how to portray the different browns of the woods involved.

Working on an A3 sheet and working with Pentel Oil Pastels, I chose yellows and beige to colour the foreground and really making the charcoal mark on the wood stand out by design. For a bit of fun, while I was eating lunch, I also noted how the foreground was shaping to be the same colour as egg yolk, so I smeared some egg yolk in amongst the oranges in the foreground. Impasto is created by use of lots of small marks to create a layered look to pictures, while I found this process time consuming, I also found myself being hypnotized by the process and falling out of space and time. I imagined if this is why Van Gogh used this process. I was overwhelmed with pride when I put down my pastels and saw the finished image. I have since sent the below scan to the printmaking department to be lasered onto a zinc plate for making prints at a later date.

Following on from this success, I was inspired to utilise the photo day on Thursday to use the studio time to capture myself in clothes similar to Van Gogh for a base image for a self portrait inspired by "Self portrait with a straw hat" I referenced in my Van Gogh research post.

I dressed up a bit by using a deep royal blue coat and straw hat of my own in homage to Van Gogh and created the below self portrait, using impasto again.

I tried to use varying shades of blue in the coat, to capture where the light fell and used purple to accentuate where parts of the fabric overlapped to the eyes. I found oil pastels very difficult to capture my eyes though, I found myself going over them time and again trying to perfect them. I showed the finished piece to another set of eyes and they said a viewer can clearly tell it is supposed to be me. I used spirals in the backdrop to represent fleeting thoughts and again, in homage to Van Gogh's own use of them in some of his other self portraits. I briefly presented it to some of my group and asked for critique on my self impression I strongly feel that in time, I will come back to this and try again as Van Gogh did.

[rhetoricandlogic]

Book review: Stella Maris, by Cormac McCarthy

By Stuart Kelly

Published 16th Nov 2022, 16:38 BST

Updated 16th Nov 2022, 16:45 BST

t is a curious kind of question to ask, but what kind of a book is Stella Maris? In a daring move, the publishers brought out Cormac McCarthy’s new novel The Passenger last month, and then this other new work this month. I have known of novels – often science fiction – which are scheduled at six month intervals. But this is unique, particularly because McCarthy is such a renowned figure. So what is this book?

It is not a sequel to The Passenger. It is not a parallel text, telling the same events from a different perspective. It is not really part of a literary diptych, as it is stylistically very different indeed – it would be like having a diptych with one half from the Baroque period and the other half in startling Cubism. Is it, perhaps, a pendant to the first novel; or a ravelling up of unanswered question? Not really. The publishers have opted for “coda” which seems as good a word as any. I suppose I would describe the relationship between Stella Maris and The Passenger as akin to symbiotic. Now, having read Stella Maris, I went back and looked over passages of The Passenger, and they appeared in a different light, like changing the angle of a mirror. Likewise, The Passenger sets up some of the mythology which Stella Maris expands.

It is, whatever it is, quite remarkable. As with only a few other authors – Roberto Bolano, Brian Catling – it has the distinction of having given me bad dreams. Scratch that: nightmares. I mean that as a compliment. The Passenger introduced Western, a marine salvage diver who turns fugitive. We learned that his father worked on the Manhattan Project, that his mother died when he was young, and that his sister, Alicia, is both a genius and insane. There were also dark hints from Western’s roguish friends that he was in love with his sister. Western is not just a fugitive from nefarious forces with inexplicable agendas, but a fugitive from his own past. In Stella Maris we get Alicia’s full-on flight from reality itself.

“Stella Maris” is a “non-denominational facility and hospice for the care of psychiatric medical patients”. A note, dated October 1972, reports that Case 72-118 (is that a nod to how many patients were admitted that year?) is 20, Jewish/Caucasian, female, arrived with $40,000, is a doctoral student in mathematics, has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and has been a resident on two previous occasions. At least one of my hunches from reviewing The Passenger proved to be right. She is not, we find out, actually called Alicia, but changed her name by deed poll using forged documents from Alice.

Alicia, to use her chosen name, is caustic, wry, rebarbative, sarcastic and dismissive. She is also phenomenally clever, and the book takes in topology, physics, ethics, Schopenhauer, Grothendieck, religion, music and at times wonders if mathematics is something we impose on the universe or a set of truths that would exist without any consciousness to comprehend them. She has a pleasing disregard for Carl Jung. It is pretty heady stuff, and one can see that McCarthy has made good use of his time at the Santa Fe Institute for multidisciplinary research. Alicia revels in being a paradox – that she was sane enough to know she had to go to an insane asylum. She certainly does not go easy on her psychiatrist. (A slightly indulgent anecdote: when I had had my insides visiting the outside world, I developed delirium from the painkillers, so a psych was sent. My Dad arrived and the ward sister told him I was seeing the psych and he said “Poor sod”. She replied, “No, he’s in very good hands”. Dad said, “I wasn’t speaking about Stuart.”) It is not so much that this Alice has fallen down a rabbit hole, she excavated the rabbit hole with her fingernails and built a labyrinth at the bottom for good measure.

Formally, the book is only the interchanges between Alicia and Dr Cohen (with the exception of the fake document about Stella Maris on the first page). The reader has to be nimble in not skipping, although the longer disquisitions are usually Alicia. This form is reminiscent of the Greek stichomythia, to use a technical term, which in tragedies in particular uses alternating lines of dialogue to emphasise the underlying conflicts. One of the few books I know in a similar form is William Gaddis’s equally difficult JR. So, from the very first page, we get: “How are you? Are you all right?” “Am I all right.” “Yes.” “I’m in the looney bin”. She is a master of negation: “I’m not really serious”. “Oh”. “Alicia’s okay. I prefer it to Henrietta”. “You’re not being serious again”. “No”.

Alicia’s one condition is that they do not speak about her brother, which they duly do. She tells us about her hallucinations – the Thalidomide Kid and his vaudeville entourage from The Passenger – and her self-awareness about them, which includes using maths to figure out their heights and being sceptical about them having any meaning whatsoever. In some ways the reference to Greek tragedy is key. Western and Alicia are a modern day Orestes and Elektra, siblings from a cursed family, fleeing Furies. The two together, for two doomed not to be together, are a staggering achievement.

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Artist Research (Week 10) 

Images source: https://www.carylineboreham.com/public-works 

A particular style that I like of Caryline Boreham’s work is her diptych’s. Each picture is able to stand by itself, depicting a different aspect of the same scene. When stood next to each other, they create the same effect that a panorama has due the continuous horizon line in both images. However, they have been edited in a way that creates the idea of them being two separate photos. Both images are the same size, but one image frame is positioned slightly higher than the other. There’s almost an uneasy feeling about this slight skew, despite the horizon line being straight. In one image we see a little more of the sky, and in the other more foreground is seen.  

The uneasiness that comes with the slight skew isn’t something I’d like to include in my work, but I like the idea of setting up a panorama in this way. Taking multiple photos while panning from the same point is an immersive way to explore a scene. The viewer is taken to the place where the photographer is standing and can see a wider viewpoint than that taken with one image. This is something I would like to apply to a particular reshoot of the banks of Ōrewa Beach where the erosion of the land is occurring. I took one image in week 8 (below) of an area that received serious damage from the storms in 2023. The focus in the image is the tree that has grown at a peculiar angle due to the strong onshore winds. However, the damage to the banks and the landscape has only been touched on in the lower half of the frame. By using the method of panning that is displayed in Boreham’s work, I would be able to capture more of the detail in the surroundings of the tree, while continuing the use of this composition. I plan to explore this in my shoot next week.