#so many layers so much symbolism soooo good

[cecilyacat]

I'm rereading "The Actual Star" by Monica Byrne and I realised that Javier and Xander are just 5 foot (~1,52cm) tall??? What???? I completely missed this on my first way through and pictured them like 1,80-ish, not super tall but yaknow more average man size. But they are tiny. They are Leah's size. They have a "stout build". Hello? Why did I not catch this before? Damn

[ariapmdeol]

Alright. I'll bite. What's COE? I assume it's a game? And where would I be able to watch a playthrough(?) of it?

細胞神曲 - Cell of Empireo is an RPGMaker horror game by Sharktale Factory! You can find an English Translation on YouTube here!! It has the full game with all of the endings, and the first five Records of the DLC! The game itself is playable in both Japanese and Korean.

If you'd like to play it with Machine Translation yourself, I have a tutorial here! Please be aware that MTL is hard to work with, and can be confusing. IF you choose to do this, there is a walkthrough on how to get the best ending here!

TLDR: You play as Haruki Atou, 28 year old detective! When his coworker, Eiji Shinano, goes missing, Atou tracks his last known location to the mysterious cult called the Empyrean Heaven Research Institute. Atou finds himself wrapped up in a situation far larger than expected, and discovers a lot about both the Institute and himself along the way!

This game has everything: it has gay people. It has religious imagery. There is a headless rat. There's a mad scientist who asks to hold hands. The Divine Comedy is everywhere. There is foreshadowing and lore EVERYWHERE and it is sooooo fascinating!!! Genuinely I love this game so so so much!! There is a reason I have been drawing it for (checks watch) almost a year nonstop.

Cell of Empireo play order:

Cell of Empireo DLC: Records of Sanemitsu Isoi [YT tl stops here, after record 5 Hermit's Room Interlude Cell of Mirage (unreleased, fukao-San is working on it)

If you want to go in completely blind, I'll leave it there, but I'll add some of my own rambles under the cut! I'll also post the content warnings there as well o7 This game is recommended for people 17 and up, but I think you should be fine! The rating is for violence mostly. There are some flashing lights and shaking screen moments.

CONTENT WARNINGS (by me)

religious themes, human and animal experimentation/death, gore, hallucinations, suicide, murder, familial abuse, body horror, attempted SA (brief, nothing happens, i can tell you when it happens if you need a warning for this)

aaand some ramblings

There are soooo many different variations based on what ending you're on track for. It is FASCINATING to see lines change in really subtle ways because of Atou's actions.

the lore MAKES SENSE and adds things SYMBOLICALLY and there are LAYERS and you can theorize about stuff!!! This game is so good!!!

the boss fights are SO MUCH FUN. For an RPGMaker game there are so many different mechanics??? There's a RHYTHM GAME SECTION??? it's FANTASTIC

this is a game and a series about love in all its forms. There is platonic love, familial, romantic, whatever the hell flowerpot trio has going on, and more!

There are so many terrible dads that I was able to run a 'Worst Dads' Poll and people had genuine debates, it was fantastic!!

METAFICTION. IT'S METAFICTION (i am very normal)

Sanemitsu <3 Sanemitsu isoi <3 Sanemitsu Isoi my beloved <3

I have written so many theory and analysis essays. there is so much lore i go so insane it's so fun (LORE ANALYSIS NOT REQUIRED FOR A SATISFYING WATCH/PLAYTHROUGH. I AM JUST INSANE)

The information you learn along the way recontextualizes earlier parts so you want to watch Through it again to catch the details that you missed the first time around!!

Also every character has reasons and motivations for what they’re doing, even if atou doesn’t know it. They are all so so painfully human…. Emotionally devastating

[of-lighthouses-and-krackens]

okay so i’m back with some more crane wives ofmd truthing (sorry, i can’t help myself)

i already talked about how the song volta represents ed when he meets stede and falls in love in this post here. to paraphrase, volta reflects ed’s realization that the life he was leading isn’t what he wants anymore, his desire to be with stede, and his acceptance of himself. however, the crane wives have another song called not the ghost that perfectly encapsulates ed post-breakup and would be negligent of me not to mention

so here we go:

ed keeps stede’s chambers dimly lit following his departure. he hides himself away because he can’t look at stede’s things any longer than he has to, otherwise he’s forced to to face the reality that stede left him, and the future he envisioned for the two of them will never happen

break the chain of disappointment!!! “you will never break the chain!” the irony of this line in a context so juxtaposed with the scene where ed returns is heartbreaking. ed left and came back, but stede is gone for good. in ed’s eyes, stede is just another aspect of ed’s life that failed to meet what little hope he constructed, adding another link in the heavy chains tethering him to blackbeard

and what makes me absolutely insane about the ghost of this song is that it’s soooo izzy. izzy is the one who voices ed’s deepest fears about himself, planting seeds of doubt the moment stede’s not around. he’s the embodiment of ed’s past as blackbeard. ed’s not afraid of izzy, and he isn’t afraid of having wanted stede; he’s afraid that izzy is right about him, that deep down he really is a monster. ed’s haunted by the idea that he drove stede away, as well as the fear that he’ll never be worthy of love

*slaps anchor* this bad boy can fit so much fucking symbolism in it. this line relates stede to an anchor again, drawing parallels to both volta and never love an anchor. here, the anchor is a reference to the guilt stede feels over abandoning his family and for “ruining” ed. however just as the anchor has many meanings throughout the crane wives’ songs, the implication of what being an anchor says about stede is similarly layered, demonstrating his complexities as a character whose faults and virtues impact the people in his life

the last part of the song is just the chorus repeated but GAH. i love analyzing music in reference to media. i could write entire essays about these songs and ofmd (and i kind of already have lol). anyway, stream the crane wives. i’m sure i’ll have more to say eventually

[s1utspeare]

20.) Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

oooooohhhhhh you’ve really done it now. I. Have. So much meta feelings. Omg. This is gonna be a long one. If u couldn’t tell i am a whole-ass meta HO and literally any of my work is going to have like. Layers and layers of meta work done in the background. I do a lot of classical literature work so I’m talking shit like writing the ending speech to a play based on The Tempest in the exact meter and rhyme scheme as the ending speech in that play. 

Okay I’m going to do Swiftly Tilting meta bc that’s what most of you know, but if anyone would like to here about the Biggest Dramaturgical Undertaking of my Life, my Untimely Ripped senior thesis project, lemme know ;)

OKAY SO SOME META THINGS I PUT IN SWIFTLY TILTING

this one was mostly about the foreshadowing I think; there was soooo many steps and hints and stuff I was trying to throw in along the way, and a lot of people picked up on them, which was SO FUN. uhhhh. There are some things that turned into plot holes a little bit but there are a few bits that stayed pretty hidden! Like the fact that Jiang Zisuan was the full-blooded human that Wang Meng scented out in Chapter One, not Mao Xincheng. Um I loved putting in all of the species differences and tie-ins to canon, that was super fun. Oh! The journal that Sanshu found when researching Yincangui was Fo-ye’s! Zhang Rishan had put it on the ship and then lost it when he was trying to turn around and go back but was freaking out and all that stuff. Wu Xie isn’t actually a Shouling because he doesn’t own the ship, Sanshu does, but his crew call him that anyway because that’s what he is to them. Normally Kylin would have others of their species with them during regenerations to form those mental tethers, but since Zhang Rishan and Xiao-ge didn’t, Liu Sang was able to keep them psychically linked to avoid losing their memories. Since Liu Sang didn’t remember the execution frequency, he killed the metal porcupine monster on Lehan by literally just Screaming At It. After the gang leaves Yincangui it eventually just gets lost Permanently. Liu Sang never goes back. Huo Daofu insists that Zhang Rishan isn’t human at every single Nine Bloodlines meeting and everyone refuses to believe him and it drives him insane. 

the other thing that I really enjoyed was the different POVs, especially the use of swear words in them??? Xiao Bai would swear, but only in dialogue. Kan Jian didn’t swear at all in his chapter, I don’t think. Pangzi used swear words like every other line (also was not as introspective as the other characters, which is why his chapter is one of my favorites? even though they’re grounded, it seems so active because Pangzi’s constantly in the action, he’s not ruminating on things like all of the others). Wang Meng only swore when Li Cu was in danger I’m pretty sure (also loved doing colors and sounds and smells and different senses with his POV). Xiao-ge swore when he though it was something Wu Xie would say (I also loved giving different emotional weight to his sentences and the ones in parentheses, as well as switching between Xiao-ge calling himself Xiao-ge or Zhang Qiling, depending on the level of danger they were in). Li Cu used Capital Letters to Emphasize Important Words A Lot (@jockvillagersonly pointed out that Li Cu’s chapter was literally just how I talk which I think is funny as shit) and swore a good amount bc he had picked it up from Wu Xie and Pangzi. Liu Sang didn’t swear because he was Literally A Baby (those chapters were also interesting because I had to keep him in the mindset of a child; there were so many ways things could have gone but he was a kid and he was panicking and he didn’t know how to handle a lot of things emotionally, so there’s a lot left out that an older narrator would have gotten). Wu Xie was sort of a combination of all of the pov voices we’ve had so far, which made sense because of how in-tune he was with the languages of his crew.

snake language for Li Cu! I used a lot of words like coiled and constricted and hissed and slithered and struck when describing his words and actions to really drive home his snake-like nature even before I revealed his species heritage. 

I wrote all of the Fo-ye and Zhang Rishan backstory before I had seen much of Mystic Nine so I killed Ba-ye without knowing the Implications. I’m so sorry Ba-ye. 

all of the acoustic stuff!!! the acoustic levitation and sound in space and sonic illusions were researched and like. hashed out before I wrote them! So theoretically they could all be real. I was like. deep in the science articles lmao. 

ALSO!!! ON THAT NOTE (haha)!!! Liu Sang’s name in Yincanguian was an A-flat four. Su Baiyin’s was a G-major five, and if you plug all the frequencies listed in the journal into a frequency generator on the internet, you can hear what those words sound like in their language. 

Liu Sang originally was going to be from a planet called Wangcen lmao. Also in the original outline they were going to completely destroy Yincangui and also pretty much all of Liu Sang’s backstory did not exist.

At the end of the fic, Sanshu is living with Chen Wen-Jin!  

AH THERE WAS A LOT!!! Swiftly Tilting was literally so much fun to write, and so much fun to see what people caught, because everyone noticed different things!!! <3

Thank you so much for the ask, I live for this shit. 

[sleepynegress]

WATCHMEN thoughts from a black woman fan...

Thought I’d do a quick rundown on all the eps so far, because this show has so much to chew on... 

And TBH, I am starved for a perspective that isn’t a smug white dude yelling “I CALLED IT!!” (yeah, fool that’s what good storytelling does *purposely* lay out crumbs on the path!) or “ugh, too lib.” The fact that we have this wonderful internet or a mass forum, means we lose the organic first watch experience that I remember from back in the day. So, too many try to outsmart shows by cheating and then smugly pat themselves on the back for “getting it”.   I’m saying, the point isn’t the twist or the gotcha. The point is good storytelling, which this show does ably.  So relax. You don’t get a cookie for “calling it” and you won’t get lambasted as stupid for not seeing it.   Just. Enjoy. The show.   ANYWAY...  You know I gotta put it beneath a cut and bullet it because my scatter-brain lays out things easier that way....

First LINDELOF?!  I mean LOST was okay and now I feel like I need to make a beeline to The Leftovers, because acting, writing, visuals, plot, food for the brain... All. here. in a genre (which you know is my favorite) package.

I picked up a copy of WATCHMEN on a whim waaay back in 2006 (?) in a dusty used book store I used to frequent to just chill in my corner and read a stack.  And I remember having the exact same feeling reading it then *galaxy brain food entertainment goodness* as I’m having with this show...but sadly didn’t have with the movie.  The fact that people came away stanning the “heroes”?  Was a symptom of how wrong Snyder got it.

So, setting up this series sequel as a different type of hero deconstruction, using blackness, especially given how fandom swerves to ignore all the story cues to stan a white villain...is a BRILLIANT way to make certain the show keeps the essence of what WATCHMEN is about. Basically, Lindelof used blackness and race as his own Trieu empathy bomb for what WATCHMEN is actually about. It’s harder to stan Rorschach as a symbol for white supremacy

....I’m saying... white men ain’t supposed to be good at this... Hey, IDK maybe being Jewish helps...wow. he actually is handling the all the layers of black experience allegory and ancestral memory/trauma *soooo* damn well.

*whew!* So Yahya, is this gorgeous, amazingly smart black actor who is picking some interesting projects!!  He’s like MBJ, w/o the anime hotep taint, in terms of projects he’s picking. LOVED this reveal. 

Someone posted that they wanted that whole centuries of longing love cliche with a black woman centered... *whelp*  How about one better, where time don’t even exist??

It must be re-iterated that the work and thought put into all the easter eggs of connections is just so much hand-rubbingly, awesome, world-building and minutiae food for fans... and most especially and uniquely... “empathy” in the black experience... such as...

the existence of an actual 70′s blaxploitation movie called, and I shit you not: Abar, the First Black Superman

Her husband being Cal (as in Kal -El)

Laurie always thinking Cal is fine, because her subconscious knew!

Her blue dildo being from a company called Excalibur, --Ex. Cal Abar

Cal’s very straight conversation about atheism with the kids

Cal’s eternal calm

the much more resonant imbued meaning in Hooded Justice’s costume now that he’s actually black

the fact that this show went there, when it comes to specifically, white gays and a twist on that Paul Mooney quote “Everybody wanna be [in with] a nigga but don’t nobody wanna be a nigga.”

the latest with... intra-racial dynamics with non-white people, whiteness and assimilation being touched on with that flash of nostalgia-hazed memory of Angela seeing Will being bagged at the same moment as the bomber who killed her parents... which I think foreshadows both the common cause and complicated morality of Trieu’s ultimate cooperative plan with Will Reeves.

REALLY all of the nostalgia flashes have meaning...they are all narrative underlines for character motives and hints of what is to come.

UM!!! That elephant is such spot-on symbolism because the real Lady Trieu  was said to have ridden a white one, and because all the things they say about elephants and memory are true... 10 pound brains, people (but I did not like seeing an elephant in that state)

Okay... so back to the show: Looking Glass remains the most trustworthy of the whites on the show IMO.  Remember, he joined AFTER the White Night. And he has infiltrated the Kalvary, because one of the masks was missing... And purely because “I would like to see it” (.gif) I really hope they provide a full recount of how he dispatched the Kalvary in his bunker.

Laurie is my girl, with all her elder cynicism and remaining longing for her cosmic fuckboy...(and she should NOT be underestimated I KNOW she has a plan) but I think her feelings for the Dr. may cause a stumble or two (maybe that’s why she was slow getting up off the couch)

Angela remains a Regina King whose character has subverted the whole SBW thing by actually have a fully realized character beyond it (love, children, a damn life!) . HELL, we didn’t even *see it* fully until this last ep but yeah...man... she is the dream and nightmare of her grandfather.

I still really want to know what the adopted kids backgrounds are... I feel like of all the theories online...Everyone has forgotten them and given the heavy theme around fertility, cloning, reproduction, memory as empathy AND her son saying to Angela in the first damn ep. (I hit him because you wanted to hit him) etc... I think there may be more *there*-there. Okay... I’ve written enough for now... So, I’m just gonna call his a placeholder for any thoughts I may have forgotten, because I could do this all day.  I’ll add/edit later as I need to. That said, it bugs me so much that this fandom isn’t thriving as much as other lesser shows featuring black women.  Pleease get onboard with this show!!

I both liked and had complicated feelings about the dynamic between child Angela and Officer Jen (can’t wait to learn more about her) because what she saw in the girl, was the pain redirected into resilience and indifference to the violent end of the perpetrator, w/o a trial(!) mind you... which adds up to potential to be a good cop...*mmhmm*

Adrian Veidt is the least interesting aspect of the show for me, albeit weird and funny (I missed our boy Scar, in Jeremy Irons) his prison is surreal and imaginative and Tom and Sarah are both doing great jobs playing the dim imprints of empty-until-filled clones

Most think HE is Trieu’s father and I have to say what her mother-daughter said to Angela gives credence to that. I could see her having the same kind of conversation with Veidt and coming to a conversational space with Veidt’s plan for humanity. Also “D” is the first letter in “daughter”

[loseyoutoloveme]

can you do a rundown/review of every song on folklore like you've done for selena? and what your current top 5 are??

considering this is officially one of my top 3 favourite albums ever i’m v happy to 😌! warning, absolutely every single song will be ranked 10/10

thank for wanting to know my thoughts :( i can’t believe anybody would volunteer to read this JDNSKSDJKDS

first of all, my top 5 is probbbbably gonna change (maybe not tho bc my lover top 5 hasn’t really changed a lot), but for now, i think it’s: august > seven > mad woman > illicit affairs > mirrorball

THE 1:

ngl my very first thought was that it reminded me of same love by macklemore skdjdskjdskjsd but not in a bad way!

literally some of the prettiest lyrics, i knew just from this song that this would top red as her best lyrically (best album in general)

honestly just rly sad and sweet and one of those songs that has such a universal sound i feel?

also the simplest song of the album lyrically (also not in a bad way, just like objectively this is the easiest subject matter on the album with the least opaque lyrics), so a really good opener

best lyrics: “we never painted by the numbers baby but we were making it count/you know the greatest loves of all time are over now” and “we were something don’t you think so/roaring twenties tossing pennies in the pool/and it my wishes came true it would’ve been you”

a cute girl, 10/10

CARDIGAN:

i was surprised by the darkish sound of this one

idk what that like clanking sound in the background is but i find it a lil distracting in the first half of the song - but if i ever find out what it is and it has some symbolic meaning/purpose for being there (i assume it does) i’ll accept it sdjknsd

i love the nostalgia that is so present in like almost every song on this album :(

also the music video is stunning and frames the entire album in the most interesting way, metaphor-wise

best lyrics: “i knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss/knew you’d haunt all of my what-ifs/the smell of smoke would hang around this long/cause i knew everything when i was young/i knew i’d curse you for the longest time/chasin’ shadows in the grocery line/i knew you’d miss me when the thrill expired/and you’d be standing in my front porch light/and i knew you’d come back to me”

10/10

THE LAST GREAT AMERICAN DYNASTY:

love this one bc it’s like a nice lil exhale in an album filled with angst, like it’s cute and boppy without being aggressive

i’m suddenly absolutely obsessed with rebekah harkness, particularly the “bitch pack” thing and her dyeing someone’s dog green

i love taylor’s storytelling and i love how that’s always been a big part of her approach to songwriting. this is taylor at her best narration, like starlight but so much better. this is a type of songwriting that is so underused these days, esp by mainstream artists and i love so much that she has always used it and been so invested in it

the pronoun change made me screech. sooo goooood

taylor’s obv a deeply autobiographical artist which is why it’s so incredible to hear her tell OTHER people’s stories and somehow make them so her own. like i think it’s mostly the english major in me that just gets so emotional over that...... the way that other people’s stories became our own through the way we tell them......

this song is def the one that is most explicit about the album’s theme of telling stories but ones that tell something about her (and about her listeners too), by switching to personal pronouns at the end. it sets up a pattern for the rest of the album, where each song is about one thing (the actual story she’s telling) but also about a bunch of other things.

a good example of why she’s the greatest songwriter of this generation

best lyrics: “there goes the maddest woman this town has ever seen/she had a marvelous time ruining everything”

10/10

EXILE:

bon iver’s voice was a full shock to the system the first time i listened and idk why sdkjnds it is just so deep and i was not at all expecting it esp after the cuteness of tlgad

anyway these lyrics are GORGEOUS

i love a duet where the 2 singers’ lyrics are meant to be directed at each other. is there a word for that type of duet idk but it always makes a duet infinitely better

the miscommunication exemplified in the bridge...... chef’s kiss heartbreaking

out of all the songs this is the one that makes me feel the most like i am in the middle of a forest in winter. i can already picture myself listening to this song in december with the sound of a crackling fire in the background mmmmmmmm my exact vibe

best lyrics: “you’re not my homeland anymore/so who am i defending now?/you were my town, now i’m in exile seeing you out” and “i’m not your problem anymore/so who am i offending now?”

10/10

MY TEARS RICOCHET:

this chorus BRRROOOOKE ME

writing songs presumably about the masters situation and framing them as breakup songs was absolutely galaxy brain

i feel like the image of tears ricocheting has like a million layers to it and is just suuuuch a smart metaphor

also just such a visually rich song ? so is every song on the album but the metaphors of this song are all just so visual

best lyrics: “i didn’t have it in myself to go with grace/and you’re the hero flying around saving face/and if i’m dead to you why are you at the wake?” and “i can go anywhere i want/anywhere i want, just not home”

10/10

MIRRORBALL:

ok so i did like this one on first listen, i loved absolutely everything on first listen, but it didn’t hit my top 5 until like 8 listens later, so it’s def a big grower and i think could be a huge fan fav by next year

the self-awareness in her writing will never fail to amaze me

the way that life is just performing...... yeah

but it’s crazy to me that a person could be like “i’m a compulsive people pleaser and performer and i’ll do anything to get ppl to like me” and that leads to “i am a disco ball” like ???? her brain is so big. it’s such a gorgeous metaphor.... and the circus imagery AHHHHH

best lyrics: “i’m still on that tightrope/i’m still trying everything to get you laughing at me/i’m still a believer but i don’t know why/i’ve never been a natural, all i do is try try try/i’m still on that trapeze/i’m still trying everything to keep you looking at me” and “i can change everything about me to fit in”

10000/10

SEVEN:

this one simply rips my heart out

at first i was like oh this is so weird and then the chorus just would not leave my head

for me personally, nostalgia is literally 90% of my personality and just for so many personal reasons the thought of childhood ending and all of the growing pains that come along with that have been at the forefront of my psyche for the past year. so it just kills me whenever i find a song like this one and it kills me that taylor specifically has several songs about this topic and this is 100000% the best of them all. like it’s the most beautiful experience to have your thoughts and feelings and fears expressed so perfectly by a total stranger, and that’s rly what art is about and i love taylor for doing that for me and millions of other people

i just feel like this song brings up so many vivid beautiful memories of childhood for so many people, like being outside in the summer and screaming and being free. ugh

the pause after “i hit my peak at seven” before completing the phrase........ OOOOOOOOOF IT HITS TOO HARD

and sound-wise, just so off-beat and cool and unique

best lyrics: “i hit my peek at seven/feet in the swing across the creek” and “are there still beautiful things?” and “love you to the moon and to saturn/passed down like folk songs/the love lasts so long” and “before i learned civility/i used to scream ferociously/any time i wanted”

100000000000/10

AUGUST:

i knew immediately that this would be my favourite tbh like i could sense it the second it began

i wrote my first impression thoughts in my journal and you can tell the exact moment i got to the bridge bc i just started screaming sdnjksdkjsdn

i would 100% get a tattoo that said “to live for the hope of it all”

everything about this song is LITERALLY flawless like i have.......no notes......no thoughts.......it’s just an absolutely perfect song

best lyrics: “back when we were still changing for the better/wanting for was enough/for me it was enough/to live for the hope of it all" and “august sipped away like a bottle of wine/cause you were never mine”

100000000000000000000000000/10

THIS IS ME TRYING:

this song is rly good but i keep forgetting it exists omg :/ once i learn all of the lyrics i’ll appreciate her more

the strings are gorgeous

i was rly surprised that this one was done with jack instead of aaron just bc the bridge of this sounds SOOOO the national

these lyrics could be interpreted in so many different ways depending on the listener’s experiences and that’s beautiful

best lyrics: “i was so ahead of the curve/the curve became a sphere/fell behind all my classmates and i ended up here” and “it’s hard to be at a party when i feel like an open wound/it’s hard to be anywhere these days when all i want is you/you’re a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town”

10/10

ILLICIT AFFAIRS:

that soft high note on “down,” “stop,” etc is sooooo nice

i don’t have many thoughts on it, it’s just so soft, SOOOOOO gorgeous instrumentally and lyrically

best lyrics: “it’s born from just one single glance/but it dies and it dies and it dies/a million little times” and “don’t call me kid, don’t call me baby/look at this godforsaken mess that you made me/you showed me colours you know i can’t see with anyone else” and “you taught me a secret language i can’t speak with anyone else/and you know damn well/for you i would ruin myself/a million little times”

100000/10

INVISIBLE STRING:

like i said about tlgad, this is a nice little break from all the angst and pain and anger sdnjksdnskjsd just a sweet little break to remind u there are good things in the world too. so placed really well in the tracklist imo

super super super super cute chorus

so many pretty melodies

absolutely an autumn song btw

best lyrics: “time, mystical time/cutting me open, then healing me fine”

10/10

MAD WOMAN:

i literally lost my mind listening to this for the first time

i have such a thing for scorned women anthems like i will immediately love it whatever it is

the pure rage when she says “cause you took everything from me” gives me full body chills

it is just so eerie and haunting and perfect

best lyrics: “women like hunting witches too/doing your dirtiest work for you/it’s obvious that wanting me dead/has really brought you two together” and “every time you call me crazy i get more crazy/what about that?” and “good wives always know/she should be mad, should be scathing like me/but no one like a man woman”

1000000/10

EPIPHANY:

i find this one so hard to listen to but it’s absolutely beautiful and devastating and so heavily relevant for i think the whole world rn

the heart monitor and the trumpets tying both of the topics in together is so genius and so heartbreaking

i think will be the sygb of folklore where it makes everybody cry so much that it becomes a skip despite being a beautiful song

best lyrics: “something med school did not cover/someone’s daughter, someone’s mother” and “some things you just can’t speak about”

10/10

BETTY:

first of all THE HARMONICA

this made me so happy bc it’s just so debut and so fearless and it made me SOOOOO nostalgic on my first listen, because it really felt to me like i was getting to listen to a song from debut or fearless for the very first time again

it’s just so sweet and cute and simple and yet another very self-aware moment of looking back to her past material/subject matter

best lyrics: “would you have me? would you want me?/would you tell me to go fuck myself/or lead me to the garden?” and “i’m only seventeen, i don’t know anything/but i know i miss you”

10/10

PEACE:

the bass at the beginning is soooooo nice

this miiiiiight be the strongest song on the album lyrics-wise but idk yet

not much to say, it’s just so gorgeous

best lyrics: “i’m a fire and i’ll keep your brittle heart warm/if your cascade ocean wave blues come/all these people think love’s for show/but i would die for you in secret” and “would it be enough if i could never give you peace?” and “i talk shit with my friends, it’s like i’m wasting your honour”

10/10

HOAX:

i have a feeling this one will be underrated/underappreciated bc it’s just simple and dark and the last song, but this is....... a lyrical masterpiece

i feel like i need to be playing this on vinyl with all of the lights off and just a candle burning yknow, like there’s just something so dark and ancient about it

best lyrics: “my winless fight/this has frozen my ground” and “your faithless love’s the only hoax i believe in/don’t want no other shade of blue but you/no other sadness in the world would do” and “you knew it still hurt underneath my scars/from when they pulled me apart/but what you did was just as dark/darling this was just as hard”

10/10

OVERALL: 10000000000/10 literally one of the best albums i have ever heard and (while i wouldn’t put it past her to top it) absolutely the best work of her career. so complex and layered and emotional and painful and genuine and different. not to get ahead of myself but this is/should be considered her blue, her rumours, her abbey road....... god. can’t wait to listen to this album for the rest of my life and play it for my future children and just watch it live on as the greatest work of one of the most important artists of the 21st century

[kashilascorner]

the wonderful @2-dream tagged me to list my 10 favorite characters, so here it is! (in no particular order)

1. John Constantine, from the Hellblazer comics (and others). He is my favorite bastard I swear. I don't know what's about him, but I've loved him since minute 1 and here we are. He is terrible in every aspect, but he is softer than he pretends to be and that just sends me sorry. I love that noir detective vibe and that edginess to him and I just love following his adventures. He is pretty archetypical, yet he has something that makes him himself and that's cool. Plus, he is just funny at times. My favorite disaster bi? Possibly.

2. Data, from Star Trek The Next Generation. I love my android boy and I don't care what ST said, he does have feelings, he just processes them in a very different way. He makes me soft, I love him. That's all.

3. Woland, from The Master and Margarita. Look. It took me too long to read this book. But I loved it. It's so special. Woland isn't exactly my favorite character from the book, but I choose him because the concept of Satan, the ultimate symbol of evil, being actually a positive force in it's own way is incredibly interesting philosophically but also Woland and his entourage are just FUN!! And I love how goofy and not so harmlessly yet funnily evil they are.

4. Yennefer, from The Witcher (the Netflix adaptation). The more I think about her, the more I love her. There's so many layers to her and Anya Chalotra killed it. At first I thought she was a crazy obsessive b*tch but as time went by and the show progressed I got to understand her, and I keep reflecting on her character and finding new things. She is That Bitch, and I love her. So much. It's not that usual to finds such a complex, grey, and unapologetic female character. Also, I thought her desperately wanting to be a mother was a bullshitty patriarchal driven narrative but, actually? It makes so much sense within her character and I just... Ok I won't write a whole essaybon it but anyway. I love her.

5. Alphonse Elric, from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Idk if he is my favorite FMA character, because I love so many of them. For example, May completely stole my heart. But Alphonse... There's a special strength in him and idk maybe he just reminds me of my little brother, but I love Alphonse and I want him to be happy and he deserves only good things. He is big, and big hearted, and soft, and clever, and caring. He and Ed make a very good balance and a perfect team.

6. Minerva McGonagall, from Harry Potter. She is the Baddie I'd like to be honestly. HP has grown with me, like so many others and I will always have a soft spot for it. Ms. McGonagall is one of my fav characters. I love her strenght, her motherly authority, her combination of hard and soft. She is a Bad Bitch and I'm sure she had soooo much fun when she was young. Plus she is a teacher, and I LOVE teachers in general.

7. Hector, from the Iliad. Along with Andromache, he's one of my favorite mythical characters. I just love him and how Homer portrays him (aand Andromache) in the Iliad kills me everytime. He is good, he is a family man, he is soft and wants peace but he's willing to spill blood to protect his family and do what he believes to be right. It's so goddamm tragic, and I'm a sucker for tragedy. I think he is pretty much the ultimate hero because he didn't start conflict, yet assumed responsibility, he faced his destiny, he was a loving man and a good leader, husband, son and brother. And yet, of course, he did terrible things because you know, it's war and all. Also, I think his name is just beautiful. Finally, he was a bottom and yes you can look for it.

8. Megara, from Hercules. My favorite Disney princess -along with Mulan. Megara is mature, she has suffered a lot, yet she learns how to open her heart again, and despite being hurt, she is willing to give it all for love again. Which might be stupid, but it's also certainly brave. She is sassy and sexy and she knows it and I love how unlike many other Disney characters she isn't really a young girl and this is her coming of age story. Rather than that, Meg is already a grown woman, who struggles and learns and evolves, but is nevertheless an adult in every sense of the word. She is not innocent, and that is refreshing in a love interest in a movie aimed at children.

9. Margaery Tyrell, from Game of Thrones. I watched like 4 seasons of this show and didn't bother to watch the rest though I followed what happened via spoilers. Look. There were many good characters, but I just LOVED Margaery so much. She is young, ambitious, cunning, incredibly clever, but she is rarely cruel. She is gracious, she wants power but she knows its dangers as well so she doesn't let herself be carried away with it. I also, of course loved Olenna, and Margaery was definitely her best student of sorts. Also, Margaery was rather kind, and everyone loved her. She had that thing going on with Sansa and all I can say is Yes Baby, Go!

10. Samwise Gamgee, from Lord of the Rings. I don't need to say anything else about this. There are many heroes in this story, but he strikes me the most. He is so full of love. I just love tenderness.

Doing this list I found out that, though I can name a favorite charcter within a show or book, I can basery think of 10 characters from different media to include in a list like this lol. As you all see, I just love soft and kind characters. It doesn't mean I don't like villains and evil shitheads, but my softest spot is for the softest characters.

I tag: @cukibola @viragosouls @marwoood @levcosia @ravenalghul @pynchmee @frenchmurdock @epic-summaries @hypatia-e @maskedlady

[khaosgaming22]

Cryptic Messages from the Deep Stones Below

“Had another nightmare huh?” Rick held the sides of his head and nodded. Chao did not have them nearly as often as Rick and his were much lighter when they occurred. Most of the time he didn’t want to talk about them, but the few times he did he described one as a regular dream. It started out with him in a field of flowers with the sun shining, nothing but the city in the background nestled into the mountain side. Then the sun disappeared, the field of flowers immediately wilted and the city in the background changed. A tower arose and turned the sky from blue to red and it snapped in half to come crashing down on top on him. Then nothing but darkness and an endless army of Exos that came rushing to fight him, leaving no option but to fight back. Chao stopped asking after that dream...

~

The two of them eventually got up and put their armor on to go to the Tower, Exos didn’t need to eat either. Chao did with Ken and Drake on occasion but most of the time he skipped the pointless activity. They made their way toward Shaxx before going to the Crucible for the day, however the Titan threw a bit of a wrench into their plans.

“Ah! Chao and Rick my two favorite Crucible warriors! How has the morning been for you two?” Chao looked over at Rick who gave a shake of his head signaling to keep quiet.

“Been good so far Shaxx.” Chao responded fixing his mark a bit.

“Good to hear. Sorry to interrupt your utter domination of the enemy team but can I ask you something?” Chao shrugged.

“Sure thing. What do you need us to do?” Shaxx showed them a map on a tablet.

“I am thinking about where to put a new Crucible arena and this place looked interesting.” Chao looked at the area and nodded, then he stopped for a second when he read the location: Enceladus. A moon in Saturn’s orbit that was full of ice to most, but to Exos... it was full of terror. He knew he already agreed to it so he couldn’t back out now.

“We’ll scope it out Shaxx.” He replied nodding and Rick gave a thumbs up, the two were inseparable, whatever Chao did Rick did and vise versa.

“Excellent! I would pay you in Crucible tokens but I think you have enough of those already.” Shaxx said laughing in his booming voice.

“Glimmer is just fine, don’t sweat it.” Chao replied, Shaxx nodded and waved as they transmatted to their ships. Chao took the lead and Rick followed as they passed the asteroid belt and the large mass of the gas giant Jupiter.

“So I guess we’re goin pretty far today aren’t we?” Chao responded with a simple “yup”, refraining from telling where they were heading for the time being.

“So... where then?” Chao tensed his grip on the controls of the ship, he couldn’t lie to him, but he could tell him half of the story.

“Moon of Saturn.” He said simply, trying not to say it too quickly in fear of arousing suspicion. Luckily it didn’t and Rick nodded in his cockpit. Chao navigated them past the giant hole in the planets ring, the battleground of the Awoken people’s first push against Oryx the Taken King. Many lives were lost to the energy pulse that created the large gap and it was also the last player Mara was seen until one guardian discovered the Dreaming City. Chao and Rick touched down on the icy surface of the frozen moon and loaded their weapons just in case.

“Huh... this place seems oddly familiar somehow.” Rick pondered as the two walked to the site Shaxx mentioned, which wasn’t easy because the wind was strong and snow was blowing around everywhere. Chao stayed quiet, he would either figure it out eventually, or wouldn’t. He hoped it was door number two.

“Alright, here we are.” He said looking up at the map and taking in the large expanse of ice sheets from the cliff of a glaicer. He looked confused until he saw the cargo ship encased in the mass of the cliff.

“So... where exactly is he thinking this area is going to be?” Rick asked and looked down at where Chao pointed. Rick gave a very pleased smirk. “Oh helllll yes!” Chao laughed and began to make his way down to the ship as Rick followed taking glances at the surroundings. He could see almost all of the planet in the distance.

~

Chao and Rick jumped down onto what was the dock of the Golden Age freighter and looked around. The ship was completely lodged into the ice so they didn’t need to worry about it coming down.

“I can see why Shaxx wanted to put it here, the view is amazing and this ship is the perfect size.” Rick nodded in agreement.

“Definitely, I could see point A here, point B over there and point C right....” He stopped and looked at the logo on the other half of the split ship. Chao glanced over to him and could tell something was wrong even without his helmet off.

“What’s wrong Rick? oh....” He saw the insignia that read clear as day the words every Exo started from: Clovis Bray...

“Clovis Bray?! But we’re not on Mars, we’re on..... Enceladus.” Rick paced around frantically and his vision began to become distorted like he was having flashbacks, except they weren’t, more like visions.

“Hey hey hey, Rick stay with me bud.” Chao said attempting to snap him out of it, it wasn’t working though. Rick’s vision got worse then it blackened and he saw the tower in the distance. Nestled into the mountain range with the city, the ice disappeared along with the ship and Chao was only seen as an enemy to him. Rick’s eyes turned red and he lunged at Chao with arc energy crackling in his fist. Chao jumped and put up his barricade.

“Rick what the hell?! This isn’t the time for a match!” Chao noticed his eyes and terror ran down his synthetic spine. Rick took out his shotgun and rushed him spraying shells that only bounced off his wall. He jumped over it and switched to his Lunas Howl firing hancannon rounds at Chao. Chao realized this was no Crucible fight, if he died now he would tear apart Servo and he’d die for good.

“Alright then Rick, if it’s a fight you want, then it’s a fight you’ll get.” He said switching to his Recluse that hit him dead on but didn’t kill him entirely. Rick made an attempt with his grenade launcher and Chao put up his Ward of Dawn to shield himself from the explosives. They bounced off and hit Rick which sent him flying toward the edge of the ship. Chao exited his bubble and walked over to him keeping his SMG aimed and ready. He couldn’t imagine what this was like for Rick. Rick picked himself back up holding his side and lunged at him slamming the ground in one final push. It knocked Chao off his feet but he quickly shut him down with a well placed tracking rocket. Rick was blasted away and Getty appeared to revive him.

~

“Phew! That was intense.” Chao said putting his weapons away. Rick was back soon and held his head in his hands.

“What... what happened? And why does everything hurt?” Chao helped him up and sat him down on a crate that was frozen shut.

“I honestly have no clue, but since we are on Enceladus I’m guessing the Crypt got to ya somehow...” Rick’s optics snapped open.

“The... the Crypt? Oh god Chao what did I do?!” He grabbed his head and looked down at the dock.

“Hey hey Rick calm down everything is fine okay? You just went a little nuts for a bit, all that matters now is you’re back.” He stopped panicking after a while and nodded slowly. Chao smiled knowing his friend was back but knew that they probably should leave soon in case it happened again.

“Hey?” Rick asked Chao looking at the box they were sitting on. “I think this is a weapon symbol.” Sure enough the crate had the letters CB and a rifle in the middle of the two.

“Well... what say we crack this thing open and see what’s inside? Glimmer from Shaxx will be nice buuuut it’s not like we should let these go to waste.” Chao said smirking and Rick nodded, punched the layer of frost off and shot the latch. A pile of weaponry spilled out onto the dock and Rick grabbed a machine gun.

“Ooh! That looks like it could pack a punch!” Chao said looking it over, it had a dark red paint job with vents on the side, probably to keep it from overheating, as well as the Clovis Bray insignia. Rick arched an eyebrow and slung it over his giant shoulders.

“Yeah well I saw it first soooo dibs.” Chao looked at him and grinned.

“Now Rick, you know our policy with dibs.” Rick cursed under his breath.

“If you call dibs and someone else challenges you fight for it.” He quoted. “Yeah yeah alright...” He put the gun up on another crate and readied his handcannon. “Ready to get your ass kicked Chao-5?” Chao laughed and loaded his Recluse.

“Nope! But I hope you are Rick-6!”

[gr-ogu]

Hey, may I ask how you make your icons (which are really cute btw)? I would love to give it a try myself but I dont really know where to start vor what size they woud need to be. Do you use a specific program? Thank you in advance ❤

Hi again my love!!! ❤

First of all, thankyou so much!! That’s so kind of you to say and I’m honoured that you’d come tome for advice!!! I’m going to put this under a read more because it might getvery long, I hope that’s okay! Also want to say I am by no means an expert - myicon making stems from a lot of trial and error, hahah!

There’s soooo manydifferent ways to make icons! I have seen and read a thousand tutorials, butthe first thing I have to say is it’s got to be what you’re comfortable with.Whatever works best for you is the best way! 

When I first started to make icons, I used paint.net, which is free todownload and such a good program! I still haveit because you can download free ‘plugins’ (like added extra features)that people make and they’re so handy!!!! I used to make coloured backgrounds using the gradient feature, and zoom in very closely and use the rubber tool toerase the background of the characters/people I wanted for the icon, whichworks great if you have a lot of time and patience! 

Now however, I use photoshop CS5, which I got from here (no idea if the link stillworks but I hope it does!!!) which I find a lot easier now that I know how touse it! For sizing, as long as the canvas is a perfect square you’re generallygood - I usually go for 150px x 150px, but I know a lot of people use 100px x100px or 200px x 200px! 

Here are some tutorials that you might find useful to start you off in explaining how to use PS if you’re not familiar with it!! (x) (x)

Once you’ve got that down, usually you want to cut the people/charactersout from the background. There are soooo many ways to do this but I prefer touse the pen tool to draw around them and then erase the background, a tutorialfor that that I like is this one!

For background, I make my own gradients. Generally, you want to pick acolour you like and then find the lighter version of it, so to do that I pick acolour (for example this is a good list of different colours I referto) and then I use the hex code of that specificcolour to find the lighter version of it - so when you click on it, or searchfor it, it gives you the lighter and darker codes for the colours, which youcan put into Photoshop and then use to make gradients! alternatively you cansearch on places like itsphotoshop and find them,which is coincidentally where I get my textures from that I sometimes put onthe background of icons.

The textures are downloaded, and then once you’ve got them, uploaded into PS and usually set to soft light or overlay (I prefer soft light, but it depends on the colours you’re using I think!) in the drop-down menu on the right side of PS, where there’s different tabs (this one is found directly underneath layers!). It looks like this and put it above my colours to get cool effects in the background :-)

For the shapes part, I actually only learnt this really recently (although I’m going to do a demo of how I did my latest icon further down) and this is the method I used to get the shape!!!! Although I didn’t apply it to the icon in the same way that they did, I found an easier way for me!! Haha.

Something a lot of people also do is change the colours of people’s clothes! This is a great tutorial for that and one that I’ve used for my edits, although still learning with icons!

Okay so I think the easiest way to try and tell you how I make icons is just to show you! So, first things first, you’ve got to get your cap - it’s nice if it’s good quality, but it’s not the end of the world if it’s not!

I decided to use this one from the ITV hub, haha:

Once you’ve got that, I usually crop it so there’s not as much of the background, but that’s just personal preference. Then, with my pen tool, I go around it and outline the bits of them I want for the icon! (I’ve circled the pen tool on the left just for clarity!)

You’ll also notice the boys look a bit brighter and more defined in the above screenshot - I’ve added a PSD to them, which I’ve made myself. I have an ‘emmerdale psd’ that works quite well forall the characters so I use that as a base and adjust it depending on thescene! But there’s plenty of places to download PSDs too!

Once I’ve got the outline, I join up the dots to the first dot to make a solid line around the boys. Then, right click on the picture and choose ‘make selection’. 

Then you get a pop up box saying if you’d like a little blurring around them - sometimes I do 1px, sometimes I have none, like in this case, depends on the quality of the photo (and sometimes how well you’ve cut out their hair hahah). Once you’re happy, click okay and you’ll get the solid line around them flashing now.

I’m not sure how to do this on a mac, so really sorry if you have one, but you’ve got to invert this line to select the background instead of them, by pressing Ctrl, shift and i at the same time. Once you’ve done that, you can then click the delete button and the background will disappear! Yay! You should get something that looks like this:

After this, you want to go to the menu at the top that says image and click image size, which will present you with a text box like this:

Change the pixel dimensions’ width and height to whatever your icon size is, so in this case 150px - don’t worry if the height isn’t equal to the width, it’s better that the icon is the full width if its not a person’s full body, as you don’t want the picture to take up the full height of the icon anyways! Like this:

And voila! They are to size. Now, since I’ve made icons before, I have backgrounds already made, so I would drag them onto them. I suggest you make the backgrounds in a separate window and save them for later use (using the gradients for example), meaning you can drag new people onto the backgrounds which will save you time! Once you’ve done that, you’ll get something like this:

Now, you could just leave it there! If you were to do that (I save them with multiple colours for variety!) You might want to go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen and play around with it until they look more defined, but not overly so!

(Also please don’t judge me - it’s good practice to name your layers informational names but as you can see mine are pretty all over the place, oops.)

For the shape part of the icon, please refer to the link I added above to add a custom shape to your gallery. Once you’ve done that, this is how I added it to my icons!

For now, zoom into your icon and place the shape above the icon and use ctrl and t to make it the size you want, making sure to hold down shift when you’re dragging the sides so it’s in proportion. Once you’re happy with this, press enter to confirm it (its usually best to leave a few pixels between the shape and the edge for the ‘transparent effect’.)

Then, drag the layer down in the bar on the right so it’s underneath whatever colours you want to use for your icon. In this case, I’ve just done a few as an example:

You can see the sort of outline of the shape on them, as well as the background colour. Now, you want to move the boys into the position you want them for the icon, and use something called a ‘clipping mask’. 

Right click on the layers at the side and choose ‘create clipping mask’ - the background will then fill into the shape and so will the people once you click it. At this stage, you probably want to use the little eye symbol on each layer to make it visible or invisible, so you can see if this is working or not!

As you can see, there’s a blank bit at the bottom of the icon since I cropped the boys’ bodies there. Luckily as they’re wearing dark colours, I can just paint over this on their layer to fill it in, but you could also resize the original image down to 150px and use a clipping mask on it too! (You can also merge the layers to make sure they’re one layer, by right clicking and using ‘merge down’ which isn’t available in the above screenshot but usually would be!)

Then zoom out, and you should have something that looks like this! (I’ve gone back to the file I made the actual icons on for this screenshot.) Make sure you save the image as .png, not .jpg! Files saved as .jpg can’t read transparency and the edges around the icon will show up as black or white, rather than transparent! 

I hope this has been helpful, and that it makes sense, and gives you a good idea of what to do?? If you have anymore questions don’t hesitate to ask❤❤❤

[perispinel]

Adventure Time Finale Liveblog

Already this episode is off to a weird start, starting with a flashforward in the future with two random one-off characters and- OH MY GOSH THEY FOUND FINN’S ARM AND THEY LIVE IN MARCELINE’S HOUSE NOW!

Did Finn like die? THis has to be a fakeout about this.

King of Ooo is alive far int he future? he melted in the fire as wax remember writers? 

Oh my gosh this is why they showed the Enchiridion episode last, Mount Kragdor is back!

the king of Ooo is BMO! Wait why does he have PB’s crown... oh my god BMO outlived everybody. he is unfazed by death

BMO is kickin’ em out already, what a savage

That arm is giving BMO some flashbacks. Awww adorable!

Heh after so long BMO is having trouble remembering Finn’s name.

The plot description said NEPTR was telling the story, they faked us out totally!

Finally, more Betty! 

Finally, more Maja!

Looking at Finn is like “you die eventually. BMO has your arm now.”

Having BMO narrate the whole story makes it sound like a five year old trying to describe World War II. 

Finally Duke of Nuts, my favorite character!

Literally no one likes him, he wants to be MacGyver

Justin Roiland has work while R n M is off

Princess Bubblegum is going the Leia route of going from Princess to General

Oh no a little cake spy.

Huntress Wizard, played by Mona Lisa from Parks and Rec, did a good job getting rid of that sky

Come along with me, it is time for war you seeeee

Marceline and PB better makeout RIGHT NOW Marceline, yes, please reconsider PB Oh geez Marceline is just casually like “I saw people die PB.” Marceline be like “I felt worse” all over us

Finn is right.

W-what? Finn whatcha goin on about with nightmares? I thought he was gonna break the fourth wall

I love when a war begins with someone repeating “WAR” over and over

Yep yep there goes the banana guards. What a great plan

“You’re weird” isn’t what I’d say honestly

He doesn’t know what fruit is apparently

Lemongrab is totally piiiiiissed... Oh he’s just sad.

Gumbald literally is backing UP because of them being serious Finny boy

Hey Fern, remember when I accidentally killed ya? Good times boi

“You’re a toddler” is the cue for “I kill you or you give up”

What a great time for a commercial break. 

Okay, time for my thoughts in-between the show: this is giving me crazy feelings. Like, knowing BMO outlives everyone, regardless of the war’s outcome... wait, BMO said Finn was heroic til the end right? Oh my gosh will Finn sacrifice himself? Well either way BMO probably SAW him die, old age or not. BMO is literally the imbodement of a child who doesn’t understand the consequences of anything. Back to the show!

Nice job making me almost sad BMO.

Unconscious world? That’s crazy man.

So no war? Aiight.

Finn was all like “go to dreamworld and talk things out” and they be like “let’s have a war again”

Ooh cool, let’s get those songs for the album here

Jake is going back to his roots

Ooh let’s get Tom Sharpling up in this guys

Aww poor Fern. 

PB isn’t reluctant at all to kill someone even if they look like Finn, as long as they be an enemy. 

Oh sweet evolution Fern! 

Fern is going the toddler solution, that’s fine.

Okay Greg from Steven Universe, enjoy your appearance while it lasts.

Is John DiMaggio spending the episode in a dream state?

Pinching people in the dreamworld really wakes you up? That’s dope.

W-what? why’d they just vibrate

Fern does sound like a knockoff Finn sometimes honestly. Heh prove you’re tormented Finn! 

Oh geez this is really dark, PB had a messup life. Recreating that scene for some symbolism I suppose!

Ooh subconscious world!

Aww his girlfriend is here- I wish I spoke korean.

It’s nice his kids- oh nevermind. 

Is this symbolism for him being connected to his wife like by the sides?

Hahah we got a fart joke everyone, wrap it up! Just kiddin I don’t care either way

I bet Pb is learning what it was like living as a completely unintelligent being without any choice. Will this cause some empathy?

Yeah repressed memories must smell awful.

Obviously Fern and Finn share the same memories, but it’s cool to see them confront it Mindful Education-style

I missed Adventure Time’s art style honestly. 

Oh I get it, Fern originated from the Finnsword.

Oh wow, all of that took place in the span of one second!

PB and Gumbald are learning empathy now, are we not having a war or?

“No no no that happened next.” Good job faking out the fake out.

I love these breaks telling us small bits of lore and secrets about what’s going on that we’re not noticing. Anyway, I am excited to find out what this portal is exactly- I’m guessing Magic Man, Betty, and Maga’s weird cryptic chant is gonna cause some big bad event. Will Adventure Time end with the end of the world? I’d be mega shocked if Finn just died. Wait why isn’t Marceline in the future? Realistically she should be there UNLESS she got killed, soooo... back to the show!! :D

We saved the day! Big scary baby is definitely good!

Wait Fern is in the real world now???

Ice King was just gonna leave until he had that flashback

It is so cute seeing Betty and Simon’s past, I wwant fanart of them having a happy life.

Did I mention FP is super cute? I love Flame Princess

This is getting quite dark man. Even Marcy is scared.

PB don’t martyr yourself

Aww what a great leader, telling her army to flee in terror instead of dying without purpose!

Oooh Fern is on good side now!

Gumball Guardians are her real children

Is this even a kids episode? this should be rared PG-13 man

I hope all this rogue gallery characters still get lines. oh there they go

Heh Jake and Amethyst have some similarities don’t they

Wow what a dark end for someone, skull cracks open and innards bounce around and endanger people

Ice King is the savior! How cute

This is more epic than Reunited but that’s not fair to say exactly, one is finale and one is a special

Oh no poor bananas, so dumb

Let’s go Jake, doing what he does best and being helpful!

Did Jake explode and die?

Remember when LSP and Lemongrab dated?

Aww Lemongrab and LSP is a canon ship, only straight ship allowed for those two

Come on Ice King, remember who you and Betty are!

Ice King is reciting the song from the episode. Oh my gosh come on dude, replace at least ONE word in the song silly!

Betty is too crazy to not throw a tantrum I guess.

Maga the Sky Witch- Kill Count 1

No no no Flame Princesssss! Maybe she’s okay?

Fernnn! 

Did PB just die? Oh my glob

Oh Marcy’s going back to her roots

Okay PB is alive, it’s fine.

Marceline just had a PLanet Hulk moment right there.

Aww it’s canon now guys! Marceline X Bubblegum eternally and they kissssed! Guys they made up for so long of teasing!

Oh no I think they’re breaking them apart layer-by-layer

Ice King is Simon again, yeyyy!

I love that the moment PB and Marcy are confirmed gay for real they just have them holding each other close to prove it even more

Finally Jakei s confirmed not dead

Oh no is Jake dead, 2.0.?

Finally we have a reason BMO knows what happens. He nearly died.

Okay so... Flame Princess and Fern are taken out while Maga is definitely dead. I have a feeling Marceline might die,or else we’ll need a thorough explanation for why she’s not living in her house. Like I can tell that this character voiced by Willow Smith is Jake’s descendant but Marceline is potentially an immortal I assumed so they wouldn’t have her be gone without explanation. Then, here’s a question: is Jake about to sacrifice himself to save BMO?? Also, BMO straight-up says the world ended so I have a feeling that he wasn’t just being coy.

Oh my glob, what’s about to happen. Jake and Finnn’s home is destroyed. 

BMO is getting deep. Okay HE’S SINGING THE SONG :D

Is this about to have a Rogue One ending? How is this going to end happily?

This song is meant to be bittersweet, no way is this a happy ending song guys.

Is BMO secretly badass? CARTOON CONSPIRACY No it’s just the power of music.

Oh I get it! Discord, Harmony, Music, it all makes sense! 

Oh literally everyone sings this! along with screaming!

They got so many voice actors for this! 

Is he going to explode? Oh my glob?

Here lies Finn. he was a good man. I love him. 

“No one gets to choose how it happens. the most important thing is that we’re here together.” Nice way to make me sad twice

Is Simon going to become Simon forever? What’s going on here? Is Betty going to get her bones crushed???

Aww how cute of you Betty. not making my heart any calmer

Ooh yes he’s Simon again :DDD

Oh my gosh this is a crazy kind of ending

Oh no I’m scared now.

thanks for the reminder of The Tandem Elephant’s existence man. Okay, so... this is crazy. Simon is back, like for real, he’s not dying or anything... Betty is potentially dead... Finn didn’t die, which is dope... my eyes are watering, definitely not about to cry. I can’t believe it I’m emotional over cartoon show wow. Just knowing I have eight more minutes until it for real is all over. Maybe I’ll just like, watch it again so I can pretend it didn’t end yet? No that’d be fake. I normally don’t even cry in situations where it’d make sense so this is telling for me I guess. These commercials really make me appreciate how good the show I’m watching are. :’D Okay so, I don’t think Magi actually died, although it’s hard to tell really since I didn’t get a good look at her. I have no idea what is about to happen but I am freaking out. 

Ultimate Adventure continues now

Oh wow Betty fused with the crystal boi

Simon and Marcy, reunited for real

Imagine how much it must suck to wake up after so long of being stuck as someone else

I DON’T FEEL SO GOOD. is that a reference... Oooniverse?

Okay so Gunter is the future beard boy I guess.

Oh wow they grew a Fern. and found a new sword. 

YES HE SCREAMED. THE BOY SCREAMSSS!

Thanks for disobeying me Finn

Finn officially has the singular arm. Dope.

Future baby boy has a big beard

Finn and Jake can’t live forever, this is the past yes

Ooh the music hole is here again! Epic callback broos

Ooh the hole sings the End Credits Song oh geez

New Ice King is Gunter, old ICe King is Simon

Ooh nice glimpses of what might become of some of our friends in the future

Ooooh Lemongrab and Jake get along better. 

Aww cute his dad is going to space now

Flame Princess and NEPTR friends forever

Jiggler callback! 

Susan is here!

Normal Man is cool!

Huntress Wizard continues to be fun! 

PB and Marcy are still gay, Pep But is still edgyyyy

THE HUMANS ARE BAAAAAACCCCCKKKK

They found the sword oh glorb! 

OH WOW THEY JUST HINTED AT WHAT A FUTURE ADVENTURE TIME SPINOFF WOULD BE LIKE!

I LOVE THE FACT THAT THEY DIDN’T RESET BUTTON US BUT DIDN’T KILL EVERYBODY OR SOMETHING! 

Okay I have a lot of thoughts... that was a ffinale. It really was. It was not something I got disappointed in because they didn’t wrap up anything. It wasn’t like waiting 10 years for 10 more episodes of a cartoon. It was like epic man. I naerly teared up guys. It didn’t end with a Reset Button like some finales would- Everything Stays, but it still changed. Sorry, this post is too long for anyone to read all the way through, but I still hope you enjoyed my thoughts on the last Adventure Time episode. A zillion out of ten guys.

[him-e]

Just as an idea, would you be able to visualize a version of IX and a satisfying end to the Skywalker Saga that did *not* include a Kylo Ren redemption? I’m rooting for him to get redeemed, and think having him die in evil would make the OT seem even more futile, but I worry sometimes that I’m looking at the series and character with sympathy-blinders on. Do you think it’s possible Kylo’s sympathetic side is there to juxtapose his ultimate worse villainy instead of foreshadow redemption?

would you be able to visualize a version of IX and a satisfying end to the Skywalker Saga that did *not* include a Kylo Ren redemption?

A version of IX—yes. A satisfying end to the Skywalker saga—no. Ben Solo never coming back would mean tragedy for the entire family, since he’s the last survivor of that lineage.

I can picture Kylo’s redemption not happening in IX if they are planning to continue the Skywalker saga with the sequel characters beyond the current trilogy, in novels or tv shows or other tie-in material. If that’s the case, maybe they want to still be able to use Kylo’s redemption as a wild card—will he? won’t he?—to keep the audience hooked. Maybe they want to keep him in a sort of grey area where he’s not an irredeemable villain, but not a good guy either. After all, critics and audience alike responded enthusiastically to his layered ambiguity in TLJ, so they might want to pursue that angle instead of making him unequivocally “come back to the light” at the end of IX.

But make no mistake, Kylo Ren’s arc is headed towards redemption anyway, no matter how long the journey or how many movies, comics or novels it takes (and if it takes that long, it’s only because Disney wants to make more money with him). There’s just too much light/hope imagery surrounding him. The latest sw novels describe baby Ben in such powerfully bright terms—a bundle of light, lighting a room with his presence, full of “pluck and wit”, a ��fighter”, whose “defiance will shake the stars” (!!!). Not only he’s named after Obi Wan “You’re my only hope” Kenobi, but “Ben” is the word for “son” in Hebrew. Villains in Star Wars have names like “Tyranus”, “Maul”, “Sidious”, “Palpatine”, “Savage Opress”, “Grievous”, “Plagueis”, “Snoke”, they’re not subtle at all, lol. But like “Vader” was the father, Ben is the son, and even his chosen “evil” name, Ren, means “lotus” and “love” in Japanese, and is one of the foundational virtues of Confucianism in Chinese. While Kylo… the name Kyle can mean “victorious” or “crowned with laurel” while the “ky” root is reminiscent of ancient Greek κύριος (kyrios), meaning “Lord”, “Master” (and Kylo is indeed “Master of the knights of Ren”, but could have been a Jedi Master in another timeline, and maybe he still can). (interesting how Rey was originally named Kira. Masters of the universe?)

So this nerd is the quintessential son—there’s no one else, he’s the one—and couldn’t even take a full dark name. Soooo evil. So ultimate villain.

And both TFA and TLJ played with the son/sun pun and with sun symbolism. In TFA, it’s only after sunlight fades that Kylo kills Han, echoing Poe’s line: “Remember, when the sun is gone that weapon will be ready to fire. But as long as there’s light, we got a chance”. What happens to Starkiller Base is that after “our friend’s got in” (Poe’s line again) it explodes and becomes a literal sun, shedding the First Order shell that had harnessed and enslaved the powerful light of its core, and if that’s not intended to symbolize Ben Solo then I’LL EAT MY HAT. Then in TLJ there’s again heavy handed light symbolism with sun beams bathing Kylo from behind both during the Crait showdown and in his final scene with Han’s dice, and Leia’s iconic line: “Hope is like the sun. If you only believe in it when you can see it, you’ll never make it through the night.” (Don’t tell me that wasn’t about her son.)And then of course we have Rey’s line: “He’s our last hope”.

So Ben is hope, and hope is like the s(o)n. Got it, Lucasfilm.

Do you think it’s possible Kylo’s sympathetic side is there to juxtapose his ultimate worse villainy instead of foreshadow redemption? 

The bait and switch on redemption was already done in TLJ, and that’s because it’s the darkest chapter—the whole trilogy won’t be a huge bait and switch.Redemption is where this guy’s going, not ultimate villainy. If you don’t trust names and metaphors think of storytelling structure: his arc is not going to be circular. He started this story by murdering an old man and ordering the execution of a bunch of villagers. He’ll end it in a diametrically opposite way. Otherwise what’s the point? Han’s sacrifice won’t be in vain. Luke’s mistake won’t have doomed this family forever. Leia will not be remembered as the mother of a monster. And Rey’s compassion and love for Ben won’t be wasted.

[houseofvans]

ART SCHOOL | Q&A with SABRINA BOSCO

We absolutely love the super surrealistic and symbolic works of New York based artist Sabrina Bosco. Sabrina’s watercolored worlds are filled with symbols and meanings, inspired by Nature, the colorful and psychedelic works fo Heinz Edelmann, tattoo art, and music. We find out more about Sabrina’s awesome art, her art school tip, and what she’s got coming up for the rest of the year! Make the leap. 

Photographs courtesy of the artist and Julie Bosco

Can you tell us a little about yourself and what you do? Hello! My name is Sabrina Bosco, I’m 23 years old and live in New York. I love to create! These days mostly I am watercolor painting, but I also love to write poetry and stitch and sometimes oil paint. And I’m hoping to become a tattoo artist!

How would you describe your works to someone? I would describe it as super symbolic, semi-tattoo style surrealism art that reflects the world inside my mind. There’s symbolism in all the lines, colors, images, shaped, atc. and there’s no wrong way to interpret it. I have my own personal meanings for everything I draw, but whatever people take from it is also completely true.

Was drawing a hobby turned career? or something you knew from the start? It was a hobby turned career. I drew a lot as a kid and a little bit in high school, but never took it super seriously. It was more like a painting every couple of months. I didn’t really have a plan when I graduated from college, so I went into panic mode to find what I’d be doing with my life and decided I was going to become a geologist since I loved to be outside. I even bought textbooks and researched about it for hours. 

Then I had this existential crisis type thing where it really hit me I have one life to live and my geology plan was completely ridiculous and unrealistic for me. That’s when I really jumped into painting, and since then my art has been this continuation of me figuring out my mind and my life. At first my goal was botanical art, and I thought I could make illustrations for books or something. For me, that was way too limiting, and I naturally started adding new elements and turning everything into symbolism. So, although it began as a hobby, it had a goal of becoming a career while also not existing solely to become a career. 

I’m lucky it’s heading towards a career path.

Who were some of your early influences? My biggest influence is the illustrator for The Beatles Yellow Submarine art, Heinz Edelmann. His psychedelic colorful worlds are what made me attracted to the colors and patterns I use, and the format of my paintings being “worldly”.The art and music of the 60’s in general were my biggest influences. Surrealism oil painter, Vladimir Kush, is a huge influence on any surrealism elements in my art. Artists I discovered on Instagram inspired me a lot to push my art further, there are soooo many and it’s easy to be inspired on there. Diego Delfino’s beautiful women inspired me to draw women. They’re all super beautifully posed and inspired by the women of the 30’s, which led to me referencing my ladies from ladies from the 30’s when I first started learning how to draw them. Kane Trubenbacher was also one of my biggest influences, which seems weird because our styles are basically opposite, but the way he configures elements together inspired me tremendously and led to a turning point in my art style.

What type of materials did you start out using and what materials do you love to use now? I started out using Winsor and Newton watercolor, which is a thicker paint you add water to. It’s okay to begin with, but now I use Ecoline watercolor and it’s way easier to work with. I’ve been using that for the past 3 years now. As for paper, I began with hot press watercolor paper because I was trying to make botanical art, but now I use Fabriano Studio 140lb cold press paper and I’ve been using that for about 3 years also.

When you’re creating a new drawing, how do you begin your process? Most of the time it begins with whatever I’m feeling, or thinking being manifested into an image. Sometimes it’s a thought theme I’ve been having, whether I keep thinking about themes like dreams, memory, death etc. and sometimes it’s just how I’m feeling, which could be super happy and excited about life or overwhelmed with anxiety and whatever else is going in my head. 

Any kind of thought or feeling I have I morph into symbols that exist in nature or whatever I think suits it best, and it kind of branches off from the original theme into more connecting themes. Making the actual picture, it always begins different. 

My main goal is always to use different ideas in every painting, so I think beginning every painting differently is kind of a natural thing that happens when I try to accomplish that. Sometimes I begin with an idea I had the night before when I was about to sleep and other times I just start sketching on the paper. I also will sketch on graph paper and keep layering my ideas using a light box or a window to trace. I could probably use flowers growing out of a melting eyeball to symbolize five different things, but I’ll try to use an idea I’ve never used before to challenge myself artistic wise and broaden my perspective on the symbolism that surrounds us in nature.

What type of things are you inspired by and how do they found themselves reflected in your work? I’m mostly inspired by nature. Rainbows, mountains, water, the sun, the moon etc. all exist without any war or hate or intention rather than to be. They surround us in the physical world, but also reflect the conscious mind symbolically and I try to translate that in my art. All my women represent mother nature, and her consciousness that transcends to living beings (humans and animals). I believe nature is a natural teacher, and it’s our choice to view it as just objects around us, or to learn from it. When you begin to study and interpret nature, you begin to open new realms of thought (and lack of thought) and expand your conscious mind. That’s been the only way for me to learn about my true self and all the truths that surround me, and there’s nothing more inspiring for me than the truth. 

Music also inspires me a lot. You can get the same vibe from a song that you find in a painting, and I find when I’m really into a certain band, it’s vibe will reflect off my painting. Whether it’s a more serious, sad vibe or a psychedelic, energic vibe. Right now, The Voidz are my main music inspiration. The foundation of my art is strongly inspired by bands like The Beatles, The Doors, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. Tattoo art is also super inspirational. 

Even though my paintings aren’t intended to be tattoos, I’ve been told its tattoo like, and I think that naturally happened from just looking at so much tattoo art and being in love with it. Every now and then I’ll make a flash sheet, and when I sketch out ideas, it usually looks like a bunch of flash. I usually have an easier time making flash sheets than actual paintings. People in general inspire me. Sometimes a painting will be based on a person I met or saw. Even though everything I draw comes from the secret world inside my head, the secret world inside everyone else head is something that fascinates me and is something that will sneak into my drawings whenever I meet someone interesting.  

There’s a lot of surrealistic type of landscapes and worlds in your drawings from melting rainbows to lots and lots of eyeballs. What can you tell us about these worlds? They’re all part of the same world that exists in my mind, I like to “walk” through my mind and draw what I see. This world is mine because it’s my perspective, but it connects with every other conscious mind’s world. I could never draw theirs even though it’s the same world, because I could never fully understand their perspective of it. The worlds I create are always positive, even if they were born from any negative feelings or thoughts, they transform negative energy into positive energy. In this way they’re kind of healing places to create for myself, and hopefully also for anyone who visits them. Mostly these worlds are super personal, but they are based off the truth I know everyone can connect to in their own personal way if they’re willing to look deeper and find themselves in these worlds.

Where did you learn your knowledge of art or making art? Art School or Self taught? It was self-taught, but watching my sister paint and seeing what other artists use and how they paint, helped me a lot. Most of it was trial and error. I always liked drawing weird and symbolic things, so a lot of my beginning stuff is a big mess of ideas and constant experimenting. When you paint every day, even if no one is there to tell you what to do, you will eventually find your own personal art language and art will begin to make sense to you.

What’s something you can pass along art tip wise that you either learned in school or on the job so-to-speak? My biggest art tip would be to remember there are no rules to art. The only rules are the ones you make yourself. There’s no right way to make a line, or a color, or a face, or anything. That’s the most important rule I can think of, when you stop worrying about if what you’re doing is right or wrong, you start to realize how limitless creating can be. I mean, of course if you are going to do realism or use specific techniques you’re going to need to follow certain rules. But when trying to develop your own style, go with whatever works for you. 

Another tip I’d give is to not compare yourself to other artists. It’s good to be inspired, maybe using similar colors and a similar technique. But if you find yourself trying to be an extension of another artist, or straight up copying what they are doing, you’ll never find out what kind of artist you truly are.

What are your favorite Vans? All the yellow submarine edition ones were my favorite!

What advice would you give someone thinking about art as a career? If you are passionate about art and it’s the only life you can see yourself living, then do it. Art careers are different for everyone, and I don’t even technically have an art career yet, but I’m on my way. Be prepared to dedicate yourself and most of your time to your art. It’s a journey that involves only you. Don’t care what people say who tell you it’s not a good idea if you feel in your heart it’s how you want to live your life.

Anything you’d like to mention coming up the rest of the year? I’m making shirts and prints! Also I’m hoping to get a tattoo apprenticeship this year! Other than that, I’m just continuing to paint my mind and share it with people in hopes it can inspire them in whatever way they need it in their life😊

FOLLOW SABRINA | Website | Shop

[flange5]

Soooo, I feel like this is the obvious question... Steve or Tony?

Which then leads to the next obvious question: WHICH Steve or Tony :D

So the short answer boils down to Tony in MCU and 616, but for very different reasons because the writing and characters are very different. 

cut for length and to spare dash discourse

 I mean. In MCU, hands down, Tony. Though I have a lot of sympathy for Steve’s feelings, I don’t have a lot for some of his post TWS actions, and fan discourse/factionalism has hardened that in what I fully realize is an irrational way, but the bones of my reasons are still what they always were. I also think, though uneven, Tony’s been given more solid writing and development over the films, and Steve’s been largely shortchanged by writers and directors, especially post TFA. 

I don’t always approve of Tony’s choices in the MCU, but I always believe that during and post-Afghanistan he’s trying his best as he understands it and that he is treading a line between his feelings, his demons and his responsibilities, and his responsibilities to others are something he takes seriously even if he cultivates a facade of rejecting that. 

I *adore* TFA Steve, but I feel like his movies have largely all been the same basic arc, which does him no favors, and his character progression, if any,  has largely been his rejecting his responsibility to others as the world lets him down --same arcs, but increasing arguments for unilateralism and lack of accountability to the people he putatively is protecting and it honestly freaks me out. It wouldn’t bother me if his lack of responsibility meant he was going to stop intervening (the actual offer he’s given in CW), but he actually argues that he should be able to intervene when and where he wants according to his personal judgment of when things are going south, with no outside oversight because he can’t be sure that oversight by 117 nations doesn’t have agendas, when the crux of this film is based on how a decision of his was based on a personal agenda). Basically Steve wants to be able to point the most powerful weapons in the world whereever he wants and expects the world to just trust *his* motives and his judgments, when they are the ones who will bear the costs--while he tells them that he will trust no one else’s. That’s a lack in reciprocity which I think is only tolerable in fandom bc of personal investment in the character. Any of us as civilians in that world... could we really accept that? Particularly if we weren’t American? 

Much as in 616, once the genre takes seriously the concept of vigilantism and superheroes in an international and legal aspect, Steve’s arguments make it impossible for me to identify with him, even though I feel for him and his obvious suffering. I guess how I’d explain it is that as the arc goes, neither Steve nor Tony are perfect or like authority but Tony believes that in order to be responsible to the people they’re protecting, they have to accept some limitations placed on them by an imperfect but the only available body of people who represent their interests and Steve ... basically says since that body is imperfect he’ll decide what people need whether or not they like it or want it because ‘our hands are the best’ for deciding how the Avengers’ power is deployed and that just. As a political argument, I just can’t and it colors my sense of Steve and casts a shadow on everything he says and does post TWS for me.  

In 616, I love both of my boys, but again, I identify much more strongly with Tony, both in his flaws and his struggles. But again, I think Tony is given much more frequent opportunities for character nuance, if inconsistently maintained, up until about vol 4 (after which point, I honestly largely wash my hands of it all), whereas Steve has great moments but many writers tend to write him very flatly, and give more nuanced moments to his companions. 

Idk-I think a lot of Cap writers want us to respect/look up to/worship Steve more than know or empathize with him, and that’s a burden Tony to some extent doesn’t carry because while he’s presented from the beginning as a sort of capitalist fantasy of wealth and glamor, in the first panels, it’s revealed to be a false fantasy which hides a reality of tragedy (inviting empathy that his peers won’t know to share bc of his image). 

I don’t know if I am explaining this right, but from the beginning, Tony’s setup in 616 invites the readers in on the secret that Tony’s good fortune is largely a facade which enables his heroism but keeps it from being recognized and also keeps people from really knowing him like the reader does.

Somewhat in a parallel fashion, Steve’s status as an icon and a symbol as well as a man keeps other characters somewhat at a remove through idolization of CAPTAIN AMERICA and keeps them from treating him fully as Steve, which isolates him in many ways as much if not more than his ‘man out of time’ status. 

Both of them are in pain for structurally similar reasons, but I’d argue that the narrative framing invites a different kind of reader response, and also I think the *writers* to different degrees treat them differently as well. 

Both Tony and Steve grapple with the relationship between their civilian and superhero identities and how the relative authenticity of each plays into the other, but I feel like the writers of CA have more of a tendency to conflate CAPTAIN AMERICA the icon with Steve Rogers/the character/Cap at times, and to also use him as a ventriloquist’s dummy for their own moralizing/viewpoints because of the weight of his moral status in the universe–which, again, can make it harder for the reader to identify rather than to idolize–and it plays out really unfortunately when writers appear clueless about Steve’s privilege, or wade into social discourse which ages very poorly.

Tony doesn’t carry that particular extra layer of baggage, so, at least for me, it’s easier to identify with him. 

*ducks flying tomatoes*

[ajourneythroughtime]

Keep in mind, this is about the time commercial air travel began as well...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_aviation

And NO, I am not saying that space is fake. Any ignorant being can easily jump to an instant polarity. If that is your thought process, then you are entangled within this dualist snare that is so difficult for us humans to exceed due to our linear thinking. Clearly space is all around us. It’s what we exist in and move through right here, right now.

It’s a realm. The answers are all around you. Symbolism too. Sit back with your instant opinions and judgments and begin to observe without your emotional, reactive mind and things will fall right into place.

We’re about to move to the next dimension, that seems to be quite accurate. Put on some VR googles and you might be able to add more than just one dimension. Look... all we’re doing is putting on more clothing, adding to the layers of confusion. (This meat puppet is one of them.)

We blast forward without even thinking or understanding the core of our being. The WHY’s behind EVERYTHING that we do. Just flowing with the stream of society and the majority. Follow the Script... You could spend 20 years growing up and learning about this world and then another 60 into understanding your deeper motives and you wouldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of your true motives. Not to mention the layers of the mind that we’re only beginning to understand.

How’s that for space!? The mind, tell me where that fucker is located huh??

You don’t even have any idea where that is, do you? Yet.. It’s the very basis and quantum core of every single thing you (think you) are and do! It’s the beginning of all creation--for humans at least. Every awesome thing that you are aware of today is because somebody thought of it--First. All creation begins in the mind. Yet we still don’t know where that motherfucker is. How ironic...

Humans didn’t know that we were naked until the serpent pointed it out. Since then we’ve been piling on the layers of clothing, masks, and attachments that we think are us. (Well, you, as an individual. Us as a collective. Thanks einstein for your keys to relativity & perspective.)

My point is that space is real. But what the fuck does real even mean??

Thinking that we knew or had any legitimate logic to our reasoning was our first mistake. Real? C’mon. We come into this blank slate and just get plastered with fucking insanity. Ideas, beliefs, morals of all sizes and colors rape our virgin entrance into the world and by the time we might be able to even begin to have the ability to think for ourselves--it’s already too fucking late. Those ideologies and rules are ingrained images straight into our subconscious.

So it’s the undoing that need be done...

We build on to this thing wayyyy faster than we can comprehend. Hell, we can’t even focus for more than a couple minutes. We’re confused, distracted, and everywhere but here and now. Congratulations. We are the zombies. But fuck we love those movies don’t we? The truth in plain sight...

So it’s the undoing that need be done...

Programmed to consume. Programmed to FEAR. Conditioned to obey.

So it’s the undoing that need be done...

Shadow work should be your core. Explore your very own darkness. Quantum should be your lack of entanglement. Yes, You are Good. Yes, You are Evil. Relative. Your Mom. Your Dad. Keys to the serpent.

Why did you do those things that you don’t like about yourself? Why do you keep following routines and falling back into old habits? Are you a robot?? What makes you different, human? Oh yeah, you’re psecial?

Waiting for Heaven? ...you don’t even know what that looks like, do you?

It’s like when you find the perfect job, right? Except you start it and then you begin to pick it apart.

Or how about that perfect lady friend? That cute guy you’ve always dreamed of? Yeah, they were great. Until you started to judge and point out the things that your perfect self didn’t like. Huh.

Maybe that perfect car or house?? Yeah, nobody ever told you about all those things that were wrong with them, did they!?!?!

HEAVEN is a place that humans are destined to chase throughout the end of time. Do you know why? Because we can’t make up our minds. No-thing is ever good enough because we’re judgmental pricks. The purpose of your life and being is whatever you believe it to be. Well, until of course--it’s not enough. Main point here is that it doesn’t matter. Go ahead and try and swallow that for a minute or hour or day. Can you imagine how many couldn’t handle such a truth? It also does matter as much as you want it to. Whatever you need to hold on to for your own sense of security and well-being.

Take the angels for example. The Deathbringer that killed the Creator. Thy Kingdom Come(s). They have been trying soooo hard to create that perfection. Except it doesn’t ever turn out as they imagined. There just always seems to be a...glitch. Hmmm...They hijacked (lots of hacking news lately..) the core code and have been searching #SPACE for eons. That’s why all of these realms were created. Yet, still, perfection seems to elude it’s creation and Creator. Why is that?

Do you have any idea how difficult it would be to create a heaven for all of humanity?? And that is why we are lost in the abyss of creation. Fighting over all of abundance for a taste of our own sanity and selfish desires.

We build up just to have it all come crashing down.

That’s Gravity, folks.

And THAT, is why it’s called Falling In Love.

[edibleflowerseu]

TEXTURES

Anselm Kiefer

(1945 - present)

Anselm Kiefer was born in 1945 in Germany. He was the son of an art teacher and knew from childhood that he wanted to be an artist. There’s no real turmoil it seems in his life but that doesn’t mean you can’t make good or moving art slash what do I know, eh?

Almost all of his work interrogates Germany’s dark past. Born right at the end of WWII, Kiefer thrust forth into a country that was eager to reinvent itself, rebirth itself, distance itself from its horrific past. However, Kiefer was not content to live in that world. Idk much about post-war Germany, but he was part of an intellectual tradition known as “Vergangenheitsbewaltigung” (“coming to terms with the past”). The central tenet of this view was that rather than distance itself from its role in the Holocaust, modern Germany must interrogate and accept its past lest it never truly heal. Hiding from Nazi symbolism was not the way to move forward. Thus, Kiefer was especially interested in playing with taboo symbols associated with the Nazis.

Key themes in his work include Germany myth, history, culture, and topography; he evokes, uses and misuses an idealized German culture in ways that explores and parallels Nazi propaganda. Aside from his early work (see his early photography series “Occupations”), there is no overt Nazi symbolism (which is outlawed in Germany) but more a sense of a warped pastoral, folk images made unsettling. The Nazis invoked German culture and leaders of the past as part of their propaganda, and anything similar to that imagery is often met with shock and disgust. Other themes include memory (public, private, personal, political), myth, poetry, as well as the connection between macro and micro (universal and individual, nature, time, life, the cosmos, etc.). Historical layers meeting historical layers. Sigils pop up a bunch.

He is very inspired by the poetry of Paul Celan; his work will often include signatures and names of real and fictional characters.

He is also quite into forest imagery, as “our stories begin in the forest” (a lot of German art is concerned with the country’s forests; Wolfgang Voigt’s GAS project comes to mind).

Kiefer is very into mixed media, and the use of unorthodox material is extremely crucial to his work and process. He loves using straw, dried plants and flowers, clay, broken glass, shellac, and – most importantly – lead. The use of lead evokes many things in Kiefer’s work – creation and destruction, its use in buildings, in machines for constructing nations and in machines for controlling people, in hospitals and in death camps. Kiefer feels that by using the materials themselves rather than a substitute it captures the fragile nature of those things, a sense of fragility that permeates the work. It’s linked with some other art traditions I think but idk anything bout that shit.

In the 70 and early 80s Kiefer was most concerned with German history, but in the mid-80s and beyond he expanded his palette. He traveled extensively in the Middle East and Asia and developed a taste for the occult and the mystic (especially the work of Velimir Khlebnikov). Ancient and Middle Eastern imagery snuck into his work, and he began exploring the inevitability of life and death in society, the Ozymandias principle, all great societies must fall into dust.

Kiefer is part of an influential generation of German post-war artists and art patrons, a generation that includes Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Joseph Beuys, Georg Baselitz, and I’m sure plenty of other people I know even less about than those guys.

Perhaps Kiefer’s most interesting work is his studio itself. His original studio was a brick building in  Hernback, Germany. But he left there to move to his most notable studio in Barjac, France. Here he worked and resided for many years, filling the premises with installations, miles of corridors, earthy columns and mounds, labyrinths. However, he moved again to Paris later in life and left that studio intentionally abandoned, the site of a once great structure overgrown with grass and weeds. It’s a fitting symbol for what his work aims to probe and also the subject of a documentary called Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow.

The dude now lives in Paris and is also hella fucking rich. Like in the top one thousand richest Germans rich. Art is hella lucrative. He also left his first wife and family behind when he moved to Barjac, deciding to live with his probably younger and prettier new wife. Sounds like a dick move, but typical of artists who think they’re hot shit. No idea if he is hot shit or not probably not very fun to be around didn’t look up any interviews and too lazy to so jury’s out I guess. One of his pieces broke the record for most expensive art sold on this lil website called Christie ($3.6 million).

Kiefer also writes books or like makes visual mixed media types books and are those actually books? It’s up for debate but I think they’re books. Maybe one day I’ll peep one. Get hella rich and leave a million dollar book outside on the patio and it will rust in the rain and Kiefer will pop a boner cause it would be soooo appropriate. I’m also assuming the book is made of metal for some reason.

The dude is still alive and is hella prolific. Which is good, man, love to see people hard at work at what they love.

Here’s a good summation statement about the man I found on Wikipedia. It is from some lifetime achievement award shindig or dinner or whatever:

“A complex critical engagement with history runs through Anselm Kiefer’s work. [He] worked with the conviction that art could heal a traumatized nation and a vexed, divided world. He created epic paintings on giant canvases that called up the history of German culture with the help of depictions of figures such as Richard Wagner or Goethe, thus continuing the historical tradition of painting as a medium of addressing the world. Only a few contemporary artists have such a pronounced sense of art’s duty to engage the past and the ethical questions of the present, and are in the position to express the possibility of the absolution of guilt through human effort.”

Autumn

The Fertile Crescent

Margarethe

Parsifal I

[ajourneythroughtime]

Pop! Goes the weasel. Jack in the box, where’s Jill?

.....so here these parents are, just scaring the shit out of their children. So who’s to say that our parent gods/aliens/fallen angels/lifted angels/interdimensional intelligence--wouldn’t do the same to their children? ie: US! .....muahhahahh

What the hell does that song even mean??? It makes no sense.<-Click for the versions And there are soooo many versions of it! It’s like the (telephone game)  Psssshh...and we think we know what the bible means? And how we got here? And all this other stuff that people seem to be watching around knowing it all. And the interpretations of history, or science, or any other category. Maybe all we are doing is justifying our own perceptions into existence? All we are is whispers of whispers through the whispers of creation. All interpreting it the best we can.

“You win, it’s a contest? It’s like keeping points or something? It’s just something stupid we’re doing or is it like, you keep score?....mumbles..stupid.” 

What if after this life there really wasn’t any scoring system?? No judgement. No praise. No condemnation. No nothing.

Interesting to think about nonetheless. We are consistently bombarded by noise. Not only audible, but inaudible as well in this physical world (and very likely ether or spirit realm as well. Or whatever damn layer(s) of existence are beyond us, but internal.). So trying to understand the god and holy spirit of ourSelves might be a lot like that. Blake: “That doesn’t even mean anything. That’s a person?”.....interesting how the things that we aren’t aware of don’t effect us, no? Also interesting watching those kids play the telephone game. It’s probably a pretty good depiction of humanity as a whole. We are but children in this game of creation, if one must place linear value upon it.

Think about how different that would be though. No scoring system.  Almost like t(eye)m disintegrating. A whole new world. (Symbols appear everywhere the more you study them. Think of encoding, or different languages. Military style encryption. A language few understand. etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.) No scoring system though. No more money. No winners. No losers. No more counting minutes as they pass. No more facebooks timeline. No scoring would pretty much shut duality off it seems. 

ANother good oodle is the insanity keylock. Hah. The ol’ what if’ in order to understand the biggest picture you had to go insane? As you go through and start connecting the dots, they’re so contradictory that it causes your brain to short out and bzzzt, poof!

Silly rabbit