#something. THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END MR BECKETT WHERE WOULD YOU RATHER DIE … HERE ??? OR IN A JAEGER . gasp. silence. nodding

[pavl0ve]

i’m trying soooooooo hard to be calm and normal and casual but oh my god i want to scream about pacific rim about chuck hansen i love media i love characters I LOVE SYMBOLISM

[drakewalkerfantasy]

Stand, Overcome Your Fear (Beckett x F!MC): Part 7

Summary: Finally the longest month in Beckett’s and Maeve’s life come to the end and they find out themselves in a Mirror Hall. Will they finally find peace and solitude in their new home in Ireland. Or will someone stand on their way? Will they finally be able to be happy and end the nightmare that lasted more than 2.5 years.

Author note’s: This is AU for my MC Maeve Raven and Beckett Harrington. AU where happiness seems not possible for this two but is it so? All characters as usually belong to PB. Please let me know if you want to be tagged or removed from the tag list.

@fluffy-marshmallow-heart huge thank to you for all your support during me writing this AU, we are almost near to the end so thank you honey a lot. I appreciate this so much. @elles-choices thank you for your brilliant idea you gave me.

And thank for anyone who didn’t abandon this series just yet and read them :)

We are almost there. Next part supose to be the last one.

Author note’s 2: This lyric belongs to Aria (Kipelov), this is Russian Heavy Metal band and the name of the song is Stand, Overcome Your Fear. This song ideal for what to come next after this time of solitude

Warning:  battle, violence

Words: ~2910

Attunements:

Maeve Raven: Sun and Earth

Beckett Harrington: Moon and Metal

Tagging: @elles-choices @fluffy-marshmallow-heart @brightpinkpeppercorn @briarsunicorn @walkerismychoice @tmarie82 @boneandfur @darley1101 @scgdoeswhat @harrington-sinclaire @feartheendlesssummer @damienazarionos @timmagicktoad

Exactly one month after the moment when they said their goodbyes, one month after their heated kisses, woven bodies and sincere promises, they met again in the Mirror Hall to finally depart from Penderghast to their new home in Ireland. They both could feel how their hearts fluttered, anticipating solitude this place would give them, anticipating the powerful protection this place would provide. They eyes met and a small smile of happiness played on their faces. Finally together, finally free. Their fingers intertwined, their bodies close to each other, standing here, ready to walk through the mirror without any suspicion what fate had prepared for them.

- Are you ready, - whispered Beckett almost touching the Mirror’s glass, waiting for Maeve to nod. When he touched the glassy surface of the mirror, he knew, the same instance his fingers connected with it, that something is wrong. Instead of a shimmering glass surface, the mirror turned into pitch black, sucking them in. He tried to pull his hand away or let go of Maeve’s hand, but this was already too late as they both were swallowed by the blackness of the swirl. They could feel vacuum sucking them further and further into the void, not knowing where it takes them, not knowing what to expect. The time seems froze as they fell onto a stone floor from ceiling height. Beckett could hear Maeve’s weak groan near to him, feeling the warm liquid flowing from his broken nose. He rolled over on the side groaning, raising up and helping Maeve to her feet. His eyes met hers after carefully examining her for bruises, surprised and relieved to see that she is okay. He gently pulled her into his embrace. She could hear his heart thundering matching hers not understanding where they are and what had happened.

- Where are we, - she asked, mirroring Beckett’s thoughts, taking a step forward from him looking around on the high walls covered with claw marks and blood stains. She could smell the foul odor of blood, decaying flesh and deadly fears in the air. Maeve covered her mouth, feeling the sickness rises to her throat, feeling terrified of this place. The realization where they are and what is about to happen slowly sunk at her and she turned around to look at Beckett, fear in her eyes. She noticed the figure behind him, feeling with all her being the imminent danger looming on them. She tried to warn him, but no sound came from her stifled throat. Maeve could feel hot tears started to flow down her face feeling despair crashing her. Beckett’s brows furrowed in concern, but before he could do something, he felt the cruciating pain by every cell in his body, feeling like all the air was knocked out of him and his body hit the floor before being raised into the air and confined to the wall. He could feel the paralyzing fear enveloped his whole body, to no avail trying to fight with an invisible force holding him in place. The cold alien voice echoing around them, making their blood chill in their veins.

- STOP IT, - the voice bounced off the walls, - How dare you, fooling me. You thought you can just pretend that this is over in hope to escape me? Did you planned to live happily ever after with this…, - something similar to the smirk or animal grin crossed her face while she looked at Maeve’s terrified face, sending another wave of pain through Beckett’s body, - you may be protected by Professor Swan’s magick, but I just waited for the right moment when I could fully and slowly enjoy my retribution. You thought you can fool me? That you can get stronger? That you can fight me and be free? - her voice grew stronger and louder when her face changed to the white mask and her veins grew pitch black moving under her skin like a snake ball. Maeve could only stand still not able to move, not able to say a word. She felt as if chained to a place as if the ability to speak has been mercilessly ripped from her. Maeve’s eyes met Beckett’s taking the courage from him, feeling the growing strength in both of them as some invisible power was binding them as one whole. The power that they yet about to discover. She smiled softly at Beckett showing him that everything will be fine before fearlessly looking straight in his mother’s eyes. She could sense with all her body Mrs. Harrington’s fixed gaze, instinctively wrapping hands around waist listening for the harsh sound of her voice ringing in the silence,- Well, well, well… Then this is the infamous Maeve Raven, who stubbornly tries to date my son, thinking that I will allow this to happen? I would better watch him die than will let him date the kind of yours… I probably should know better of his own stubbornness and kill him, rather than give him a chance to break up with you on his own… I should know better, that he is weak. He always was a white sheep in our family. The only one who didn’t have the worthy attunement. The disappointment, the failure in our line… So, now he will learn how to respect me. I will teach him a lesson in obedience and what can happen if you do not obey. He will beg me for death after I’m done with you. 

- What kind of mother are you… you are a beast… a monster. He is your son and you put him through the hell, - Maeve fought back tears, her voice was strong but soft like a whispering meadow. The evil laugh broke through the room, stopping as abruptly as starting.

- SILENCE…, - the stabbing pain in her abdomen made her scream falling to her knees, but something pushed it back releasing the pain as quickly as it raised, hot salty tears run down her face, - do you want to know, what kind of mother am I? The one you never had… and the one you will never become, my dear, - she laughed mercilessly watching Maeve’s face distorting by the inner pain, her eyes meeting Beckett’s watching them mirroring the pain she felt of something that now never meant to be. She heard his screams cut through the air, watching him struggle to try and escape, watching his wrists bleeding to the floor and his face getting paler, - Stop fighting, my dear son… Is this little toy of yours really worth to die for? But don’t worry I took you both there not to watch you die, even if your disobedience should be punished. No, no, no my dear. I want you to watch her suffer… I want your pain to last forever, after her womb will be dried out not able to reciprocate, I want you to live knowing, that her tears are all your fault.

- Why are you doing this, - Maeve groaned while her insides twisted in pain, but some invisible power gaining strength pushed this pain away.

- Awwww, you will find out why. Don’t worry you and my traitor son will know exactly why I’m doing this, - she laughed circling around Maeve as a black kite around its victim looking for a better opportunity to strike, - I think you both will be interested in what I about to tell you and what will never come true now, - she stopped for a moment a smile of Death spreading on her lips, - There is a prophecy that a girl born on the summer solstice will develop the power of the sun, and will change the boy born on the winter solstice of the blood moon. Together they will be the greatest force of good that the world ever saw, and with their child, the blood attuned will stop existing, - and with this, she twisted her hands making the world explode in pain taking her breath away slowly dissolving into blackness. What happened next took everyone by surprise. Maeve could feel how some power started to rise from her, protecting her from the pain, making her body glow with a pink shimmering light. She could feel how the strength filled her and her eyes met Beckett’s while the light from her slowly enveloped him healing his wounds. Holding his mother in place by incantation, as under someone’s command she waved her hand tearing invisible chains holding Beckett down watching him getting free, rushing to take her side. His hands securely placed around her not leaving her gaze shocked and relieved at the same time. He could see his mother’s face distorted in a rage with futile attempts to break free.

- Mae, you need to leave, - he whispered to her in a rushed voice taking her hand in his, searching her eyes, not leaving any opportunity to object, - please run, don’t look behind, run as fast as you can. I’ll hold her as long as it will be possible and then… and then I will join you, - after a moment when Maeve didn’t move as if knowing her thought he continued, - I promise you, you will not lose me. I love you. I love you more than anything. I can’t lose you know.

- No, - spoke Maeve firmly, her voice hushed feeling confused and scared, but taking his side, -  I love you and I will not leave your side. I’m so sick of losing you again and again. We will fight together, as this is our fight... not yours... our, - their eyes intent on each other magick flows through Maeve’s fingers while she loses her concentration feeling how the spell stops and Beckett’s mother gets her freedom again sending the first incantation toward them. Beckett moves quickly in front of Maeve feeling how his mother’s magick hit him leaving a trail of blood at the point of contact with his skin, making him hiss in pain. Maeve’s eyes grew darker with fury when she met Mrs. Harrington’s black abysmal eyes, and she fought the urge to hit her with all the power she had within her. She knew she must not... for Beckett, but watching his shoulder bleed made her blood boil and anger rise... She put her hand gently over the wound healing it, watching his face flinch with pain from the contact. Her power pulsed through her as she still held her hand over Beckett’s wound focusing on his mother. She closed her eyes focusing on her innate energy pulling it up, feeling it coursing through her veins. She looked at her shining hand sending the beam of light in Beckett’s mother direction watching her deflect it with the darkness around her. She could feel Beckett’s body gone rigid under her touch, feeling the cold spread through him and his eyes glow with a moonlight. They could hear his mother’s cold merciless laugh when she sucked the blackness inside her releasing it with the doubled force. They could see this force reaching them ready for it to pass through them, not expecting the pink light protectively dispersing the force around them not letting it reach its goal. They both could see the opening in his mother’s protection hitting at the same time, making her stumble back watching at them stunned, feeling fury bubbling in her and the cold black as the night voice thundered in the room:

- YOU... DO YOU REALLY THINK, YOU CAN FIGHT ME? - her cold laugh bounced through the darkness, making them shudder to their bones, - DO YOU REALLY THOUGHT, YOU CAN FIGHT BLOOD ATTUNED?

- We don’t want to, - sighed Beckett, - but if... if you think I’ll be watching you hurt my family then you are wrong.

- Then so be it.

Beckett could see his mother’s eyes glistening red and her hands turning into claws. Black energy with sparkles of blood pulsating around her turning into a stream of air rushing toward them. They reacted both at the same time, Maeve’s beam of sun cutting the dark energy making it fall apart, while Beckett sends the energy of Moon toward his mother hitting her in the chest making her stumble backward in surprise. He could feel Maeve’s hand on his calming and soothing like a breath of fresh air, not letting his anger to rise, sensing the power around them pulsating and throbbing. He can feel his own energy started to rise, getting stronger. They caught sight of a red vapor coming from Beckett’s mother hands, slithered over to them like a snake making their hearts race and their heads spin from the lack of air, feeling like suffocating. Not thinking twice Beckett called for Air spell brushing it off, reverting the red vapor backward, watching his mother’s black aura absorbing it. He groped the metal surrounding them, concentrating on it, pulling it toward him forging it with hot flames into a pair of handcuffs. He sends them toward his mother, to chain her to the wall, watching them twisting and writhing before disappearing in the air. His mother’s eyes were focused on him, not noticing how Maeve slowly raised her hand pointing fingers where she stood watching how the stone floor crumbled quickly beneath her and the roots came out of it circling up binding her body. The scream of anger filled the air making it thick and foul ripping off roots that bond her throwing them in their direction not giving them a chance to block debris from them. They could feel how she started to lose temper hearing her murmur ancient incantation filling them with fear. They never heard it before, but Beckett knew what that meant and what is about to come. His mother was performing the spell that would cause shadow monsters to be released and it will mean that while his mother will feed on their strength, they will lose more than just their powers, they will lose their lives. Not thinking twice Beckett interlocked his fingers with Maeve’s, watching how her power pulsating around her in a golden light creating a perfect bubble of safety wrapping the pink light inside. His own power starting flow making his hand glow in blue moonlight interlacing with Maeve’s golden light. They both could feel how their magick started to transform becoming stronger lighting up everything with Northern lights ready to burst out of them. They eyes met knowing that they need to act fast or it will be late, unleashing this new combined power toward his mother, making her stumble backward in surprise. They could feel her struggle against this wall of light, that hit her in the chest in pulsating waves, fighting it, losing her power, anger and fear flash in her eyes. They could see blackness dissolve around her leaving a tired being lay on the floor not magnificent anymore, but vanquished. They let go of each other’s hands their eyes met, feeling drained and tired. Beckett took a step closer to Maeve placing his hands around her, wrapping her tighter into his embrace, his hands securely placed on her waist. His face buried in her thick golden hairs, his heart still pounding in his chest after the battle with his mother. Lifting his eyes on his mother he started to speak.

- Mother, no matter how much pain you made us feel, you will not be able to break this bond between us. I’m sorry for you, sorry that you cannot understand or feel what we can. But I forgive you..., - he looked at Maeve smiling at her weakly watching her to nod, before continue, - we forgive you. I hope you will find it in yourself to let us be. Goodbye, mother, - he said lowering his head and reverting his gaze from cold and bloodshot eyes of his mother, - Let’s go, - he murmured into Maeve’s ear brushing his fingertips over her still slim belly and kissing her forehead. He carefully took her hand in his turning to the only mirror he could see, hoping that it will take them to the destination in mind... their home. Not quite able to believe that they created a new life, still scared to lose them both. As by instinct, he turned his head meeting the cold eyes of his mother pointing at Maeve the black aura pulsating around her and he could feel how his heart drops. Without thinking twice, he let go of Maeve’s hand gently pushing her aside and taking her place reverting his mother incantation at her, watching it hit her in the chest where the heart supposed to be. He could feel hot tears pricking his eyes running down his face watching as his mother hit the floor breathless. He stood motionless feeling pain clutching his heart, not able to move. He felt a soft hand placed on his shoulder pulling him out of his daze, turning his head to meet the warmth of Maeve’s forest green eyes. He could see the pain and the grief in her eyes... the one that he felt himself... the one he tried to fight. “If only she would let us go,” he thought, taking Maeve’s hand in his, squeezing it lightly, hoping that they will find the way home.

[thestudiopumpup-blog]

Shit Happens by Amy Sillman

from here

‘… but what do such large, loose, baggy monsters, with their queer elements of the accidental and the arbitrary, artistically mean?’

HENRY JAMES, from the Preface to The Tragic Muse, 1908

The first question confronting artists is, ‘what should I do’? And the next question is, ‘what would make it better’? Is this ‘aesthetics’? I don’t know – but I know that we are no longer making things for the Beaux Arts, for truth, beauty, elevation or virtuosity. Yet the familiar forms of what could be called ‘negative aesthetics’ also fail to adequately describe what a lot of artists are doing in their studios. Dada, the readymade, ‘bad painting’, the Dandy, ‘provisional’ painting, deskilling, etc. – none of these ring quite right in accounting for something I would call negativity-at-work, the arduous search for form, the feelings of dissatisfaction, the endless decisions and changes that constitute the work of various artists. How to discuss this, without resorting to a cliché of artistic work? What is everyone doing, and how do they decide to make it ‘better’?

We are trying to surprise ourselves and that is hard to do. I think it is a kind of metabolism that drives me to change and change and change my forms, searching rather earnestly for something I don’t quite know already, a kind of questioning machine, endlessly discontent. I would say that form is the shape of my discontent, and that what interests me is how form can match that feeling or condition – of funny, homely, lonely, ill-fitting, strange, clumsy things that feel right. In other words, a form that tries to find itself outside of what is already okay. Awkwardness is the name I would give this quality, this thing that is both familiar and unfamiliar.

The internet tells me that ‘awkward’ comes from an Old Norse word, afugr, meaning ‘turned the wrong way’. In Middle English, awk is backwards, clumsy. Art school used to be where you learned how to make things well, but most people (outside of some academies) nowadays are masters-of-none. On the other hand, the ‘deskilling’ discoursejust doesn’t account for what I’m talking about. There’s this diligence, this nerdiness to the search; it is a demanding job to attempt Beckett’s fail-better. Paintings can look good just after one stroke. What urge makes you want to do something that pushes further, on towards contingency, clumsiness, strangeness or even brutality? Awkwardness is that thing, which is fleshy, funny, downward-facing, uncontrollable; it is an emotional or even philosophical state of being, against the great and noble, and also against the cynical. It is both positive and negative, with its own dialect and dialectic.

There was a time in the ’90s when, as a younger artist, I started to be invited to panels about ‘beauty’ and ‘visual pleasure’. People were trying to reclaim some idea about pleasure for political purposes, sometimes with a feminist agenda. People assumed that as a painter and feminist, I would be interested in these discussions, but instead I would find myself quiet, sullen, usually blurting out at some point that I couldn’t give a shit about beauty. They would look at me: what, then, was I looking for? I came up with the idea of hatred – a shortcut for sure, but I didn’t really know how else to say it. I just knew that attractiveness was the enemy. I recently heard Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi give a talk about not working (something that doesn’t make a lot of sense if you actually like ‘working’ in your studio). Finally he made a distinction between work and art, saying that to make art is to make something beautiful, meaningful, erotic, empathic – and as usual, when this is the language used to describe what we’re doing, I wanted to barf. We’re not making sexy beasts. If anything, call it libido instead of erotics – but we want an art also animated by ugliness, destruction, hatred, struggle. Punk seems as close as one can get to describe it, but what could be Tless punk than staying up late in a studio trying hard to make a ‘better’ oil painting? That’s so earnest, so caring – with a smock, and our tongue between our teeth, paintbrush poised, trying so hard – like the artists in a Jerry Lewis movie. So what are we doing? I can still only call it looking for this fragile thing that is awkwardness. This is not alienated labor, nor a commodity precisely, but a need, a way of churning the world, as your digestive system churns food.

I spent last year reading Ovid, and was excited to learn about a Roman poetry metre called choliambic, or ‘lame iambic’, in which the stress at the end of the line purposefully comes down on the ‘wrong’ foot, giving the line an unexpected little thud or sonic punch: da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum — DUM. The off-beat turns around and questions the whole rest of the line, and is therefore a signal of the poet’s aggression or satire. The idea of an ignoble form, named for limping, me in mind of the way Mr. Hulot walks in Jacques Tati’s Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (1953). Mr. Hulot’s funny walk is a running gag throughout the film, a symptom marking his difference from the rest of the bourgeois holidaygoers. He skitters along like a sand crab, and ends up alone, even though he gets a dance with the pretty girl at the costume ball. Tati’s movies deftly portray the comic mechanics of modern living, almost as illustrations of Henri Bergson’s quotient for the comic, the starting point for which is ‘something mechanical encrusted upon the living’. In the digital age, this relationship also goes the other way around: the living weight of the body is encrusted like a barnacle upon the perfection of the algorithm. Just having a body is a daily comedy. From the control tower of the head, one gazes downward, always downward, upon this ‘loose baggy monster’ that we find ourselves in, this laughable casement that is the body below, as ankles swell, farts are emitted, rolls of fat jut out, the penis does its own thing. Shit happens and then you die.

It’s not an accident that people use ‘awkward!’ after a faux pas, a moment of tension between the ideal and the real, where supposed to happen goes awry. The real, like the body, is embarrassing: your hand is too moist, your fly is open, there turns out to be something on your nostril, somebody blurts out something that I wasn’t supposed to know, your ex-partner shows up with their new lover (and your work is uncool). But you’re stuck there. Thattension is what abstraction is partly about: the subject no longer entirely in control of the plot, representation peeled away from realness.

This ambivalent state is precisely the state of mind for making a painting, being stuck with the uncertain future of the loveable, but fallible, body that is the artwork. Oil painters work with a substance that’s low anyway: putty, shit, dirt, mud that is scraped, pushed, smeared, scumbled into form. After a while, your body is the partner to the materials, you are the medium as well as the tool, the boundaries between you and your object become unclear, mirroring or antagonizing each other. The art-making process is a recording of these restless interactions between subject and object on a par with one another, locked together. In fact, really, improvisation is about working between subject and object; the object is merely a place through which questions are addressed. Perhaps this is particular to abstract painting, where you often don’t really ‘know’ what you’re doing, and so you are doomed to work in between hoping and groping. In abstraction, time goes by in fits and starts, with resistance of materials being part of that time. Like the body, you look down at your creation and think, ‘My god, you are ugly’.

I know of no artist who is attempting to make something more beautiful, but I do know many artists who are looking for a form that ‘feels right’ without knowing why. Maybe it’s just satisfying to see something productive come of feeling like an idiot and the accompanying feeling of embarrassment. Isn’t embarrassment what Kafka’s Metamorphosis is partly about? The book matter-of-factly narrates Gregor Samsa’s miserable discovery that he is a bug, while the real drama is the Samsa family’s embarrassment to be living with a bug, and their relief when Gregor finally dies. He literally dies of embarrassment, because the family no longer knows how to take care of him.

Kafka’s bug, a good example of making do with what you’re stuck with when you’ve got a body, is a contrast to the much-cited Bartleby position of ‘I’d prefer not to’, an aesthetic style of negation. The awkwardness I’m trying to describe is not a style, but could be one result of a dialectic. I would rather call it a metabolism: the intimate and discomforting process of things changing as they go awry, look uncomfortable, have to be confronted, repaired, or risked, i.e., the process of trying to figure something out while doing it. I don’t know if that’s abstraction, but I know it’s awkward. Finding a form is building these feelings (in this case, dissatisfaction, embarrassment and doubt) into a substance. This is a very fragile thing to do.

Amy Sillman is a painter based in New York. She is currently a Professor at the Städelschule, Frankfurt. Her exhibition at the KUB Arena, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Yes and No, is on view until 10 January 2016.

Image credit:

George Grosz

The Painter of the Hole I, 1948

Oil on canvas

77 x 56cm