#while still respecting the concept that yeah art can be haunted | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fr-wiwiw · 10 months ago

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Continuation- idk why Tumblr keeps giving me error when I post this answer

10. Has a piece of drawing ever “haunted” you? Has your own drawing haunted you? What does that mean to you? Boy do have several... Let me show you 1 of them

This one basically portrays my love for How to Train Your Dragon and skies. I've always love sky watching when I can. I enjoy seeing the far distance and the fluffs of the cloud. I can see the clouds moving from here to there when the wind picks up. The vast blue or orange pinkish or dark greyish blue when night comes. I love, loveeee skies. This one is me studying color from a post I saw in Artstation. I love the color scheme the artist use for their piece and I saw this shape of cloud from Pinterest by a japanese artist I think or a fanartist where a school girl walks to the end of the open street with railings on the edge and it leads to this big white cool colored cloud and neon warm blue sky behind it. I don't remember their respective usernames, but I try to study the shape and textures, add a lot of my own tastes while experimenting with certain brushes I never used while incorporating the warm colors instead of cool tones. The yellow grass field, birds, Toothless and his Lightfury all are something I put there to give some size difference and perspective. All in all, this study is an inspirational piece that came from 2 different types of artstyle and I marry them in my head and make a baby out of it. Come to think of it, perhaps the yellow grass field is me influenced by RDR2 where I make character gallops her horse in Great Plains near Blackwater. Man I miss playing that game. But yeah, it haunts me because I want to draw skies again. Just.. enjoy environment drawing again but ever since I'm too bored and sick of drawing creatures, landscapes and all. I change my course to character and human drawing. Because I didn't know what to make out of my previous drawings. I didn't understand how to gain commission from that, idk how to get audience that are willing to pay me for what I do ( I still don't, still learning now). And back then I was just desperate for something. It pains me to do that bcs I love it, but I know I had to do something to make money. I wonder if I'll ever go back to paint all these again and let my self just... be.. without worrying about income. I know I will. It'll take time, but I definitely will come back to this because I like concept arts, mainly I do character concept design, so.. there's that. It definitely will keep haunting me along with several other that makes me think, can I draw this again? how tf did i draw this? will I be able to create something like this or much better? Will I get that much likes again on social media? I'm always stressed by my own thoughts so the pressure is wooweee hahah I know a lot of artists or writers can relate with this inner turmoil.

12. If a genie offered you three drawing wishes, what would they be? Btw if you wish for more wishes the genie turns all your current WIPs into Lorem Ipsum, I don’t make the rules Love the question and the quirky-ness lol

1 is that wish is to have the audiences I want and need to prolong my life. I apologize it's not something poetic or grandeur but this one is reality. wish my clients are blessed with fortunes so they can keep commission me :3

2 is confidence and the ability to just do and do, starting from now. These 2 are something related to our inner self. I know I will get there, it'll take time and effort to do it. But I want it instantly right now and it stays in me until I breathe my last breath. How many of us are trapped in our mind and "laziness" and fear? I said laziness bcs I, for one, know that yes I'm lazy but I can overcome this, so why is it so hard for me to just do? It's my perfectionism, self-critiques, fear and my mental traumas that hinders it. All of these are born from external. Perhaps we're shaped like this by our family, parents, siblings. Perhaps the environment we grow up didn't necessarily supports the well being of our mental health, bullied or gaslighted accidentally or intentionally, neglected or just perhaps people love us but they don't know how to really treat us? Or we don't know yet what we need and who we want to be treated- I can go on and on. Some can be our faults, some might be accidents, no one is to blame. But it hurts and affects us all the same.

3 is get opportunities free in-depth tutorials by artists I look up to, timeless tutorials, not racing with time (slow the time!) so I can take all the time I need OR get recognized, get connections that will help me be recognized by my skills. I did think to get instant max level skills in art and other things in creative world I want to explore and not afraid of my age and this.. rushing hours of the world. It keeps changing rapidly ever since technology (I still enjoy this tbh, it's just a fact that the world is changing fast) and AI. Man... I'm devastated that most people who creates and use AI utilize it to cheat their way in life, where it's supposed to help us live our lives. I honestly enjoy the process of growth, despite how fucking hurtful it can be. But that's the joy of the process. Whereas this certain technology makes you want everything instant, it's like you're digging your grave fast while wanting to enjoy everything at such a rapid pace while you're at it. Perhaps some people do enjoy that. Watching videos at 2x speed and said yea that's great and move on. ??? Where's the basking in the feelings and experience? I don't understand but I can't really blame them if they're racing against time to enjoy something. I just can't wrap my head around it yet. Anyway, I'm not gonna ramble too much on this one to save you the pain.

15. Do you write in the margins of your books? Dog-ear your pages? Read in the bath? Why or why not? Do you judge people who do these things? Can we still be friends? - I will assume writing in the margins is like make some random / related doodle to the subject I'm drawing in the bigger picture. Yes I do! Sometimes it gets foggy in my mind and it makes me unable to visualize something (example: a 3D turn of a leg with armor).

I will sketch it out wherever near the subject, map it out first until I make something that looks makes sense and copy paste it or redraw it on the bigger main subject. It's usually messier than the one I post up there, I always delete it immediately when I feel like I've nailed down what I want to do as to not distract me. So I rarely have the doodles existing there ^^" I should tho, that would be a lovely thing in record actually to keep myself reminded of the process how I do that subject lol. - Dog-eared pages.. hmm. I do dog-eared some page in my sketchbook if I like them or if I want to come back and read some notes of ideas or some studies I put in it. I actually slap some post-it too there - Draw in bath. Oh I wish I'm able to do this lmao but I will be dreading my bath time at some point if I don't separate my drawing time with my break and pampering time. But I do imagine things in my head. My brainrot otps (Gahan mainly now) or some games I just played with randoms or friends, some ideas that pops in my head outta nowhere (y'know, that bathroom inspiration) - I don't judge ppl who do this bcs it's just so damn hard to turn off your brain and just be blank in your head. I will probably judge you at some point if you bring your laptop or ipad into your bath, or traditional sketchbooks and paint as you bath bcs... honey, the water's gonna ruin the paper. I know watercolor paper can withstand water but sinking it more than minutes and hours?? I'm not sure, what're you doing huh?? But I do wanna know other people's version of this! If they do bring their stuff to draw to baths, I will be flabbergasted but entertained at the same time cs, tell me! story time! - Of course we can still be friends if that's what you do. I will nag and laugh but I will appreciate your existence anyway and that will probably be in my memory about you forever xD There's a reason why we're friends and your quirkiness are tolerable. We artists and writers and what not are.....unusual creatures anyway.

I will continue on next answer post, Idk why Tumblr is not working for me today :(

hiii, do you want to do an artist's version of this fun writer's asks game? i'm so curious about what you think of 5, 10, 12, 15, 19, 23

hi there! thanks for this fun game! lemme copy the question to change some of the words and answer them right away xD I will put aside my experience as writer and reader too bcs this is artist version so the answers will be strictly from my experience as an illustrator!

5. Do you have any drawing/painting superstitions? What are they and why are they 100% true? Oh gosh, good question- I'm guessing this is some kind like ritual or routine I do before I start scribbling in my sketchbook or digital canvas. I think I kinda do and don't. Since this new year, I started to intentionally journal my thoughts out when I woke up. This is recommended from the book that's called The Artist's Way, some kind like spiritual guide for artists. I've only read up until the page where the author said to take your inner child out to date- creative dates. Anyway, basically the journaling I do religiously now has to be 3 pages and pour any thoughts that came onto my mind. Taking out trash from our mind daily instead letting it piling for months waiting to be taken out. I only do 2.5, my right arm and shoulder always aching since few years ago. But so far, it does helps me a bit with my overthinking and be discipline about my healthy habits. I'm not the best at discipline so I'm proud I'm able to keep this going for almost 3 months now. The other thing, which I'm not sure is something superstitions, is to look up drawings by other artists or watch movies, see fanarts, read fanfics, or just be in my mind, to get inspired and start drawing. I'm mostly brain rot driven or if I'm seeing something very often, I will draw it. I'm trying not to count on my brain rot energy too often bcs I want to be able to draw with and without the brain rot. It's still fluctuates but I'm better than I was years ago. I'm happy with the progress! I will continue on next answer post, Idk why Tumblr is not working for me today :( so this will be 6 answer post, I'm so sorry

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kyberphilosopher · 4 years ago

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Atonement

Requested: yes.

Word Count: 4193 Cal must deal with the consequences of his comrades deception and injuries, while they must deal with what this means for their relationship.

Atonement is the concept of a person taking action to correct previous wrongdoing on their part, either through direct action to undo the consequences of that act, equivalent action to do good for others, or some other expression of feelings of remorse.

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

Once upon a time, Anakin wasn’t all bad. But maybe that was why he died. After that, there wouldn’t have been competition for someone that was all bad, or at least somewhat worse than Anakin was alone.

Not that Anakin was a complete and utter angel. You knew, not better than anyone but still enough, that Anakin wasn’t all good either. And sure, most people aren’t, but your Master wasn’t most people. Far more talented and powerful was he than the other Jedi Knights, but far more unhinged was he who could not control himself. Anakin was the latter.

The other Jedi seemed to pity you. It wasn’t as if Anakin Skywalker was always inherently kind on you. You weren’t funny like Ahsoka, or respectable like Obi-Wan. In fact, Anakin had a suspicion that there was something inside of you that reminded him of his mother. Thus, he was cold. And he rarely bothered to teach in the way that people deserved to be taught.

He doesn’t like me, you remember thinking. He never will.

You had been the perfect padawan. You were certain you had done everything right. And yet, Anakin’s stare was icy, when he bothered to look your way at all. Where had your Master gone after the Purge anyway?

Your eyes open slowly.

Light peels across your vision, smeared from the art of being tired. Once your lids are widened, the back of your right hand lays across your forehead lazily. You had been dreaming, hadn’t you? But what had it been about? And why did it seem so hard to remember?

Maybe it was about your Master again, you realize as you exhale. No- ex Master now. But maybe it had been about him. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

You’re a Clone Killer.

Eyebrows crease with a twitch. You’ve laid in bed with too much comfort now. It’s time to get up. Stars, but the bed is warm and your legs are tangled in your comforter just right. When’s the next time you’ll get to feel this relaxed and sleepy?

Must’ve been the worst Padawan in history.

“Shit,” you whisper with closed eyes. Yes, now you’re more than certain that it’s time to get up. Comfort doesn’t matter today.

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

The restroom door hisses to a close behind you. Rubbing the back of your neck, you begin your sluggish march to the ships deck. You can already smell Greez’s cooking wafting from around the corner. What is that? Sausage and... is that eggs?

Your pants scuff against each other, sweatshirt twisting with the reach of your arm. As the floor transitions from metal to stiff rug, you pull your chair out.

“Ah, good morning sleepyhead,” you hear Greez’s voice call out to you. Your eyes remain sleepy, gazing down at the table. Doesn’t even look present, Cal observes as his eyes flick over your face.

“Well, aren’t you a ray of sun today,” Dritus continues from the stove. One of his four hands flick the pan over the stove up with an explosive sizzle. “Be careful you don’t make me feel bad, so I don’t feel inclined to give you more of my food.”

“I slept in too late,” you mutter, half to yourself.

At the other side of the table, Cal’s stocky form is hunched over. One of his hands is wrapped around a cup on the table, which is covered in cold perspiration. Soft ginger hair falls back as he looks over you. You could feel his pretty, kaleidoscope eyes from the other side of the universe. He doesn’t say anything, though, and you’re too tired to play the “What’s He Thinking About?” game right now.

“You’re damn right you did,” the Latero says. “Cal here was just about to go and check in on you.”

You swallow quickly, glancing up at the man parallel to you. Cal is looking over at Greez, given you a clear view of his jaw and the scar that stretches over his neck. He’s beautiful. He always has been. You can feel your ears start to burn, and you look away almost immediately.

“Thanks,” you say instead, finally pulling your hand away from your neck. Without even realizing it, your intelligent orbs look to Cal again. This time, however, your eyes meet. Electric pulses run through you, tickling from your neck to your pelvis. And, true to your nature, you brake gazes immediately. “I think I’ll skip out on breakfast today.”

“Seriously?” Greez whirls around, dumbfounded. “But... breakfast is the most important meal of the day!”

That’s true. Ever since you gained the privilege of having Greez Dritus the wanted Latero to cook for you, breakfast had been far more likeable. He always knows how to add the perfect amount of spice and flavor without coming off as overbearing. But there’s something in the back of your throat, crawling up to the tip of your tongue. A name of an old master, and the dream that you can’t remember.

“I’m just not hungry,” you push yourself out of your stool and slide it back under the table. Cal watches your form jog down the steps and disappear into the cockpit, his lips parted and near pulling into a frown.

“Wonder what her problem is,” Greez’s raspy voice calls into the air.

“Let her be,” a mature female voice breaks as it rounds the corner. Cere emerges from the hallway by the stares, her watchful eyes also glued on the cockpit archway. “She’ll come around.”

Will you? Cal wonders. You’ve always been a bit tight lipped in the grand scheme of things, but today the anguish is peeling off of you like steam. You seem pale in the way that conveys sickness. The dark circles under your eyes are wise, but tired. Maybe you’re just ill.

It’s not that far off. As you flip switches around on the console pointlessly, all you have to think about are these hands that disappointed your Master. Calloused, rough fingers. Raw palms from holding your saber. Clever, but never enough.

You exhale through your nose, your shoulders sinking.

Oh, that’s right. That’s what happened to your Master.

How could you have forgotten that?

“Rough night?”

You perk up at the sound of his voice, but don’t turn around. It’s not that you don’t want to look at Cal, it’s that you feel to ashamed of yourself to even try it. You don’t deserve to look upon him.

“Just feeling sick,” you mutter so hoarse he can barely hear.

“Is that the truth?”

Your eyes widen stiffly. One heel at a time, your feet turn around until you are facing your companion.

Time slows as you look at Cal. His soft orange hair billows in the air conditioning, kaleidoscope eyes twinkling with wonder. The freckles, the jaw, the chapped pink lips. He is beautiful. The way he looks at you now makes you feel guiltier than usual.

Why don’t you just tell him? Tell him you know the person who’s responsible for that scar on his stomach. Tell him you were trained by him. Tell him about your nightmare last night, how you woke up in cold sweats. But you can’t. You just can’t.

“Yeah,” you say hoarsely, eyes glued to his.

Cal steps forward suddenly, almost losing his balance. His soft, pink lips come dangerously close to yours. You can smell his scent, turning your jaw to meet him instinctively. But it was just an accident.

He steps away to regain his balance. The only sound in the room is that of the air vents.

He wasn’t going to kiss you.

Cal stays still, firm. “I hope you feel better,” he says in the same tone as before, though far more sincere.

And he turns away and walks out of the room, leaving you alone with only the air to comfort you.

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

The leaves crunch under boots as they do. Twigs snap, pebbles crumble. Dirt scuffs against each shoe.

Above you, the Kashyyyk trees whisper in the wind, allowing pools of sunlight to fall in between the loose spaces of green. The breeze tickles at the skin on your arms. It’s a nice day. But this is still not enough to improve the sick feeling in your stomach.

Maybe you really were just a failure of a padawan after all.

“Hey,” the boy beside you calls. “Look up there.”

You raise your head, squinting through the thin, rainbow rays of sun. Up ahead of you, over a steep drop that could be anything from a river to an abyss, is a great mechanical building. It’s sleek and gray, standing out against the natural beauty. This itself is enough proof of Imperial presence.

“I thought they would’ve left by now,” you mutter, slightly in awe. Birds fly over the fort as if it didn’t bother them for a second, and the waterfall nearby doesn’t cease its babbling. “Why haven’t they left by now?”

“Only one way to find out,” Cal tells you after some seconds of silence.

Something rushes through the air then- a gust of wind that only you seem to feel. It’s haunting and low, like it has it’s own voice or musical theme of doom. It’s almost impossible to tell whether it’s a warning, a promise, or some kind of mockery, but it feels dark. More importantly, it feels like a message. But Cal doesn’t move a muscle. Only his orange locks billow in time with his lashes, which close slowly.

“Wait,” you break the quiet. “Maybe we shouldn’t.”

The boys eyes are furrowed when his head turns to you. His pale green eyes flash briefly in the sunlight, but the twinkle of confusion and curiosity remain after the flash disappears. “Why not?”

The rush of wind slows until you can barely feel it anymore. The words are on the tip of your dried up tongue, but you’re not even sure what they are. What can you say to explain your... your fear? It’s more than just intuition or a gut feeling. It’s something you know for a fact, and you have the evidence, but you can’t even hold it.

“It’s dangerous,” you decide, your bottom lip shaking too quick to notice. You say it almost casually, almost as if it were obvious. And of course, it is. Thus the flaw in your attempt.

“Most things are,” Cal replies.

Just then, the pitter pattering of little metal feet tap against the dirt and mulch comes to life. It completely cuts away what little presence the ominous air had left, only allowing BD-1′s happy little whirs to clearly ring through.

Cal’s hands rest on his hips as he turns his head to look at his partner. He squats to the ground with his little calm smile. “Would it make you feel better if I sent BD to scout ahead?”

It wouldn’t at all. All you can think about instead is your little scrapped friend getting his sliced clean off with a long, red blade. Cal wouldn’t even be able to fix him.

“BD, go on ahead,” Cal tells the machine. He scratches along BD’s head for encouragement, and the creature doesn’t even seemed miffed before hopping off into the leaves and trees until he’s completely out of sight.

“I don’t- I don’t think-” your hands ball to fists at your sides. A lump forms in your throat like an invisible bubble, or a heavy ball clogging your airway.

“Y/N?” Cal’s brows furrow once more as he twists and stands again. “You look pale.”

Another wave of wind flows through. It’s the same as before- cold, threatening, filled with something angry and sad and warning you to never have to feel it for real. However, your partner feels it this time too.

His eyes leave yours and drop to the ground behind him as he twists in concern, looking around for whatever could be the cause. Subconsciously, his right hand lifts from his side to the right side of his ribs. Your eyes widen in understanding, but you wish so badly it was anything but that.

“Do you feel that?” Cal calls out to you, still trying to locate the presence that doesn’t even exist.

Yes, you think as you watch the boys other hand slip over his saber. I feel it.

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

Anakin wasn’t always evil. Whether or not he’s even evil now is up for debate. But for as long as you knew him, in your eyes at least, he was your hero. Not because he helped you, which he didn’t, or because he wanted the best for you, which he didn’t care about. But because he was strong, and someone to look up to. He’s the knight in shining armor that every little boy wants to be like when they grow up, and the warrior every feminist wants to be equal to. Anakin Skywalker was, by all means, a dream.

So then why is this the worst you’ve ever felt?

“Master?” your voice wheezes out. There’s a storm all around you, a personal tornado for the three of you that makes everything but roaring hard to hear. Rapid blinking helps to keep the dust from your eyes every few seconds, but not enough. It’s starting to sting.

“Stop,” you hear another voice say, but it’s muffled with chokes. “Stop...”

This isn’t Anakin. This is a man of metal- obsidian and iron and cooled magma. There’s not a single inch of flesh showing. The cape, whipping wildly in the wind, is the closest thing to organic. It’s tattered, and the wind gives the illusion of it bleeding away like inky smoke.

“Join me,” False Anakin calls. His fist clenched with determination, a red glow brightening up the area. “Serve your master.”

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

And from Cal’s position, you just look plain pretty. Kind of distraught, with faded eyes and slightly knitted brows paired with a frown. Your hair is sort of billowing in time with the storm around you, along side that weapon on your belt. Really, you look sad.

Cal’s fingers dig into the dirt and sand beneath his body. His whole form feels like it’s going to rip away into dust, like Vader doesn’t want him there. And of course, he doesn’t. He hasn’t even given Cal a glance. That being said, his whole stomach feels entirely enflamed. Especially that one special place where he’d felt Vader’s touch before. Now Cal knows that you must’ve been touched by him as well. It’s the worst feeling in the world.

“Don’t,” he chokes. Cal gets a mouthful of dirt in the process, but he doesn’t even register it. “Y/N-”

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

“-will come back from this.”

Your eyes open. They feel stiff and dry, like how you imagine a mummy’s would. The light over head is blinding and white, with flecks of rainbow bouncing off it at the sharper edges. You do not react in any way.

Internal bleeding of the stomach, one impalement scar on your right side. There is a long, long series of blisters and torn skin across your shoulder from being tossed and dragged across the ground. Then there’s the slit over your left eye which makes it impossible to open. You might as well have lost it.

Some people would’ve been happy to just be alive. Fighting Darth Vader? Fighting Anakin Skywalker? And surviving it? Well, not everyone gets that privilege. But for some reason the appreciation isn’t coming to you. Maybe you should’ve died back then as some kind of last apology.

“I know they will.”

You hear footsteps from beyond the doorway become more and more faint, until you can’t even hear them at all. The metal door hisses open. There’s a few footsteps against the floor, then a sharp pause.

Your head rolls to your right lazily. A young man stands before you. A cute redhead with a broad chest and wide, shocked pale green eyes. Underneath them are mauve rings- dark circles and bags- and chapped pink lips.

Cal opens his mouth to speak, and then spins around. With the flick of your wounded fingers, the entrance to the room closes and seals itself shut with a click. The cute redhead is still, his back away from you.

Maybe because of the loss of some other senses, your Jedi one’s have heightened. The intuition inside of you is reading his color- his entire aura- something you could’ve sworn you weren’t able to do before. There’s so much anxiety from him. Enough to make up from the lack of anxiety you have right about now.

“You’re awake,” he speaks. You can sense his voice about to crack. “I should tell the others.”

“Don’t be stupid, Cal,” your raspy voice croaks. “Don’t be fucking stupid.”

He turns around to look at you, one foot at a time. His eyes are downturned tiredly, but mostly from sadness. The corners of his lips are annoyed from your words. “You’ve been asleep for two weeks,” Cal says. “Didn’t know if you were coming back.”

You don’t say anything.

His use of the words ‘coming back’ sting. Just two simple words, which to you feel like they mean something far more deep and sinister. Almost as sinister as yourself.

“Are you okay?” he proceeds to question, though you both know it’s just out of politeness.

“I can’t see out of my eye.”

“Do you know why?”

You don’t move. You’re quiet yet again.

Cal’s voice raises frustratingly. “Do you know why? You let someone put a lightsaber to your face just so you could smash in their helmet!”

“I don’t remember that.”

“He stabbed you in your stomach!”

Cal’s never raised his voice at you before. You wish you were more upset about it. His tone alone is enough to make a sinking weight appear in the pit of your stomach. But you can’t cry. You can barely feel anything but both relief and emptiness. Not once in those two weeks did you dream about either Anakin, or Vader.

“I watched him pick you up and slam you on the ground! I watched you die about a million times out there!”

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” you mutter hoarsely. And you mean that, too.

“I thought that...”

Don’t. Don’t tell him.

“I thought that I was going to hurt you.”

Silence fills the room from corner to corner. Even whatever air that once came from the vents has come to a complete halt. Maybe every system in the galaxy has stopped its turn.

“What?” Cal asks, now much softer. He takes a gentle step towards you, his eyes desperately locked to your own.

You glance down before back to him. “I was his apprentice before the purge. Don’t ask Cere about it- he never talked about me. I doubt there was even paperwork to confirm it. I thought this was coming but... I wasn’t sure.”

Cal takes another step forward.

“He never liked me. And then on Kashyyyk... he...” You swallow down the shame for a moment. “He told me he wanted me to be his apprentice again. For real this time.”

“So you fought him,” Cal partially pieces together.

You swallow again and look down to your hands.

“Cal, I fought him because I wanted to go with him. I saw my- I saw the future he was talking about. It was good for me. I was happy... sort of.”

He’s finally close enough to sit on the end of the bench that you didn’t even process lying on. There’s concern in his eyes as he listens, and he doesn’t dare take them off your face. It makes you feel like even more of a coward.

“But I didn’t see you there, too. I didn’t see anyone there. I thought maybe I... I thought maybe I had killed you.”

Cal opens his parched lips slightly, and then closes them.

“And I really don’t want to kill you.”

Cal looks away. From here, sitting up slightly so you didn’t choke in your sleep, you can make out freckles on his neck. They stretch over his tendons, across his jawline. They’ll no doubt stretch over that scar from his jaw down on the other side. His long lashes move as he blinks. His hair looks softer than ever.

“After the battle I carried you away. After it was done you just... looked at me. And then you collapsed, and I had to carry you.”

Silence.

Cal gets up.

“Cal?” you call, louder than you meant.

The boy turns back to look at you.

“I...”

Is he prettier than before?

“Do you hate me?”

Cal creases his brows.

“Do you... are you going to talk to me again?”

He opens his mouth, but you don’t let him speak.

“Don’t say it, if you don’t mean it. I was trained by the most dangerous person in the galaxy. By your biggest enemy. I... lied to you about it. I almost killed you, Cal. You can hate me.”

“Do you think I hate you?”

Your eye squints, and finally it glosses over as it wells with tears. “Yeah.”

Cal Kestis. Man of your dreams. Hero of everything. Angel of infinity. Please, don’t hate me. You have every right to, I know. But please- please don’t.

“I don’t think I could ever hate you,” he finally whispers, looking down at the floor. “Maybe you should’ve told me, but... I think deep down I already knew.”

A questioning look appears over your features, but Cal answers before you can ask. “You’d been acting off for weeks, Y/N. Those nightmares were about Vader, weren’t they.”

“Yeah. They were... Do you... think of me any differently?”

Please.

“...No. I don’t know if I could ever do that to you.”

“I couldn’t think of you differently either,” you say after a moment. You throat is getting scratchy, but it’s hard to care.

“I care about you, Y/N,” he tells you, sincere but calm. “You know that don’t you?”

“You wouldn’t have carried me if you didn’t care, Cal.”

“Y/N on the morning of this whole thing I wanted to kiss you,” he snaps, his hands limply swinging with urgency. “I should’ve kissed you.”

So many emotions in one conversation.

“You can still kiss me now that I’m clean with you.”

Cal looks at you for a long time, his tired, bright eyes searching for something in your stillness. Then he looks down.

“It’s okay, Cal. It’s part of my atonement.”

He looks at you for a long time again. The corner of his lips twitch upwards for just a second. It puts you at ease somewhat, with a warm feeling spreading in your stomach finally.

“You’ve got nothing to atone for,” Cal says. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Y/N.”

You have nothing to say. No words come to your dry tongue, although your lips hang open like something will come out. Nothing does. You just look at your redhead, who’s tired and distraught, but has more clarity and love than he ever has in his entire life. He won’t raise his voice to you again.

Your palm dances again as you look to away. The door finally opens again, and Cal forgot that you had initially even caged him in here.

“You can go now.”

It’s quiet. You can hear shuffling, slow footsteps like maybe he doesn’t want to leave. “Can I kiss you when I get back?”

Even while looking at the wall right next to you, your face goes hot and pink.

“Maybe,” your husky voice answers. And when you turn to look back at him, he’s already looking at you with a genuine smile like a little boy getting a big present that they can’t believe. That’s how he sees it, anyway.

“I don’t hate you, Y/N,” he suddenly says. “I could never hate you.”

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

Idk if I’m happy with this or not? I ran into a bunch of writers block with this I don’t know why. Sorry it took so long to put out anyway. I also might change it to better fit the request because that’s really the most important thing to me and with finishing it after literal months I might’ve lost sight of the whole point. Idk though. Cal is a cutie.

TAGLIST: @omg-we-really-doo @chokemeanakin @anakinswhore @haztory @fanficsforheartandsoul @kit-jpg @ahsokatano-thetogruta

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letterboxd · 3 years ago

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Noir Zealand Road Trip.

Breakout noir filmmaker James Ashcroft speaks to Letterboxd’s Indigenous editor Leo Koziol about his chilling new movie Coming Home in the Dark—and reveals how Blue Velvet, Straw Dogs and a bunch of cult New Zealand thrillers are all a part of his Life in Film.

“Many different types of feet walk across those lands, and the land in that sense is quite indifferent to who is on it. I like that duality. I like that sense of we’re never as safe as we would like to think.” —James Ashcroft

In his 1995 contribution to the British Film Institute’s Century of Cinema documentary series, Sam Neill described the unique sense of doom and darkness presented in films from Aotearoa New Zealand as the “Cinema of Unease”.

There couldn’t be a more appropriate addition to this canon than Māori filmmaker James Ashcroft’s startling debut Coming Home in the Dark, a brutal, atmospheric thriller about a family outing disrupted by an enigmatic madman who calls himself Mandrake, played in a revelatory performance by Canadian Kiwi actor Daniel Gillies (previously best known for CW vampire show The Originals, and as John Jameson in Spider-Man 2). Award-winning Māori actress Miriama McDowell is also in the small cast—her performance was explicitly singled out by Letterboxd in our Fantasia coverage.

Based on a short story by acclaimed New Zealand writer Owen Marshall, Ashcroft wrote the screenplay alongside longtime collaborator Eli Kent. It was a lean shoot, filmed over twenty days on a budget of just under US $1 million. The film is now in theaters, following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where it made something of an impact.

Erik Thomson, Matthias Luafutu, Daniel Gillies and Miriama McDowell in a scene from ‘Coming Home in the Dark’.

Creasy007 described the film as “an exciting New Zealand thriller that grabs you tight and doesn’t let you go until the credits are rolling.” Jacob wrote: “One of the most punishingly brutal—both viscerally and emotionally—first viewings I’ve enjoyed in quite a while. Will probably follow James Ashcroft’s career to the gates of Hell after this one.”

Filmgoers weren’t the only ones impressed: Legendary Entertainment—the gargantuan production outfit behind the Dark Knight trilogy and Godzilla vs. Kong—promptly snapped up Ashcroft to direct their adaptation of Devolution, a high-concept novel by World War Z author Max Brooks about a small town facing a sasquatch invasion after a volcanic eruption. (“I find myself deep in Sasquatch mythology and learning a lot about volcanoes at the moment,” says the director, who is also writing the adaptation with Kent.)

Although Coming Home in the Dark marks his feature debut, Ashcroft has been working in the creative arts for many years as an actor and theater director, having previously run the Māori theater company Taki Rua. As he explains below, his film taps into notions of indigeneity in subtle, non-didactic ways. (Words in the Māori language are explained throughout the interview.)

Kia ora [hello] James. How did you come to be a filmmaker? James Ashcroft: I’ve always loved film. I worked in video stores from the age thirteen to 21. That’s the only other ‘real job’ I’ve ever had. I trained as an actor, and worked as an actor for a long time. So I had always been playing around with film. My first student allowance that I was given when I went to university, I bought a camera, I didn’t pay for my rent. I bought a little handheld Sony camera. We used to make short films with my flatmates and friends, so I’ve always been dabbling and wanting to move into that.

After being predominantly involved with theater, I sort of reached my ceiling of what I wanted to do there. It was time to make a commitment and move over into pursuing and creating a slate of scripts, and making that first feature step into the industry. My main creative collaborator is Eli Kent, who I’ve been working with for seven years now. We’re on our ninth script, I think.

But Coming Home in the Dark, that was our first feature. It was the fifth script we had written, and that was very much about [it] being the first cab off the rank; about being able to find a work that would fit into the budget level that we could reasonably expect from the New Zealand Film Commission. I also wanted to make sure that piece was showing off my strengths and interests—being a character-focused, actor-focused piece—and something that we could execute within those constraints and still deliver truthfully and authentically to the story that we wanted to tell and showcase the areas of interest that I have as a filmmaker, which have always been genre.

Do you see the film more as a horror or a thriller? We’ve never purported to be a horror. We think that the scenario is horrific, some of the events that happen are horrific, but this has always been a thriller for me and everyone involved. I think, sometimes, because of the premiere and the space that it was programmed in at Sundance, being in the Midnight section, there’s a sort of an association with horror or zany comedy. For us it’s more about, if anything, the psychological horror aspect of the story.

It’s violent in places, obviously, but there’s very little violence actually committed on screen. It’s the suggestion. The more terrifying thing is what exists in the viewer’s mind [rather] than necessarily what you can show on screen. My job as a storyteller is to provoke something that you can then flesh out and embellish more in your own psyche and emotions. It’s a great space, the psychological thriller, because it can deal with the dramatic as well as some of those more heightened, visceral moments that horror also can touch on.

Director James Ashcroft. / Photo by Stan Alley

There’s a strong Māori cast in your film. Do you see yourself as a Māori filmmaker, or a filmmaker who is Maori? Well, I’m a Māori everything. I’m a father, I’m a husband, I’m a friend. Everything that I do goes back to my DNA and my whakapapa [lineage]. So that’s just how I view my identity and my world. In terms of categorizing it, I don’t put anything in front of who I am as a storyteller. I’m an actor, I’m a director. I follow the stories that sort of haunt me more than anything. They all have something to do with my experience and how I see the world through my identity and my life—past, present and hopefully future.

In terms of the cast, Matthias Luafutu [who plays Mandrake’s sidekick Tubs], he’s Samoan. Miriama McDowell [who plays Jill, the mother of the family] is Māori. I knew that this story, in the way that I wanted to tell it, was always going to feature Māori in some respect. Both the ‘couples’, I suppose you could say—Hoaggie [Erik Thomson] and Jill on one side and Tubs and Mandrake on the other—I knew one of each would be of a [different] culture. So I knew I wanted to mirror that.

Probably more than anything, I knew if I had to choose one role that was going to be played by a Māori actor, it was definitely going to be Jill, because for me, Jill’s the character that really is the emotional core and our conduit to the story. Her relationship with the audience, we have to be with her—a strong middle-class working mother who has a sort of a joy-ness at the beginning of the film and then goes through quite a number of different emotions and realizations as it goes along.

Those are sometimes the roles that Māori actors, I often feel, don’t get a look at usually. That’s normally a different kind of actor that gets those kinds of roles. And then obviously when Miriama McDowell auditions for you it’s just a no-brainer, because she can play absolutely anything and everything. I have a strong relationship with Miriama from drama-school days, so I knew how to work with her on that.

Once you put a stake in the ground with her, then we go, right, so this is a biracial family, and her sons are going to be Māori and that’s where the Paratene brothers, who are brothers in real life, came into the room, and we were really taken with them immediately. We threw out a lot of their scripted dialogue in the end because what we are casting is that fundamental essence and energy that exists between two real brothers that just speaks volumes more than any dialogue that Eli and I could write.

Matthias Luafutu as Tubs in ‘Coming Home in the Dark’.

What was your approach to the locations? [The area we shot in] is very barren and quite harsh. I spent a lot of time there in my youth, and I find them quite beautiful places. They are very different kinds of landscapes than you normally see in films from our country. We didn’t want to go down The Lord of the Rings route of images from the whenua [land] that are lush mountains and greens and blues, even though that’s what Owen Marshall had written.

I was very keen, along with Matt Henley, our cinematographer, to find that duality in the landscape as well, because the whole story is about that duality in terms of people, in terms of this world, and that grey space. So that’s why we chose to film in those areas.

Regarding the scene where Tubs sprinkles himself with water: including this Māori spiritual element in the film created quite a contrast. That character had partaken in something quite evil, yet still follows a mundane cultural tradition around death. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. I’m not really interested in black-and-white characters of any kind. I want to find that grey space that allows them to live within more layers in the audience’s mind. So for me—and having family who have spent time in jail, or knowing people who have gone through systems like state-care institutions as well as moving on to prison—just because you have committed a crime or done something in one aspect of your life, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room and there aren’t other aspects that inform your identity that you also carry.

It’s something that he’s adopted for whatever reasons to ground him in who he is. And they can sit side by side with being involved in some very horrendous actions, but also from Tubs’ perspective, these are actions which are committed in the name of survival. You start to get a sense Mandrake enjoys what he does rather than doing it for just a means to the end. So any moment that you can start to create a greater sense of duality in a person, I think that means that there’s an inner life to a world, to a character, that’s starting to be revealed. That’s an invitation for an audience to lean into that character.

Erik Thomson and Daniel Gillies in ‘Coming Home in the Dark’.

What is the film that made you want to get into filmmaking? The biggest influence on me is probably David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. I saw that when I was ten years old. A babysitter, my cousin, rented it. It’s not a film that a ten-year-old should see, by the way. I was in Lower Hutt, there in my aunty’s house, and it was very cold, and there’s a roaring fire going. My cousin and her boyfriend were sitting on a couch behind me, and they started making out. I sort of knew something was going on behind me and not to look. So I was stuck between that and Dennis Hopper huffing nitrous, and this very strange, strange world opening up before me on the television.

I’ve had a few moments like that in my life [where a] film, as well as the circumstance, sort of changed how I view the world. I think something died that day, but obviously something was born. You can see what Lynch did in those early works, especially Blue Velvet. You don’t have to go too far beneath the surface of suburbia or what looks normal and nice and welcoming to find that there’s a complete flip-side. There’s that duality to our world, which we like to think might be far away, but it’s actually closer than you think.

That speaks to Coming Home in the Dark and why that short story resonated with me the first time I read it. Even in the most beautiful, scenically attractive places in our land, many different types of feet walk across those lands, and the land in that sense is quite indifferent to who is on it. I like that duality. I like that sense of we’re never as safe as we would like to think. Blue Velvet holds a special place in my heart.

What other films did you have in mind when forming your approach to Coming Home in the Dark? Straw Dogs, the Peckinpah film. The original. Just because it plays in that grey space. Obviously times have changed, and you read the film in different ways now as you might have when it first came out. But that was a big influence because there was a moral ambiguity to that film; those lines of good and bad or black and white, they don’t apply anymore. It just becomes about what happens when people are put under extreme pressure and duress, and they abandon all sense of morals. The Offence by Sidney Lumet would be another one, very much drawn to that ’70s ilk of American and English filmmaking.

‘Coming Home in the Dark’ was filmed on location around the wider Wellington region of New Zealand.

Is there a New Zealand film that’s influenced you significantly? There’s a few. I remember watching The Lost Tribe when it was on TV. That really scared me. I just remember the sounds of it. Mr. Wrong was a great ghost story. That stuck with me for a long time. The Scarecrow. Once I discovered Patu! [Merata Mita’s landmark documentary about the protests against the apartheid-era South African rugby tour of New Zealand in 1981], that sort of blew everything out of the water, because that was actually my first induction and education that this was something that even occurred. I think I saw that when I was about eighteen. That this was something that occurred in our history and had ramifications that were other than just a rugby game.

And Utu, every time I watch that, it doesn’t lose its resonance. I get something new from it every time. It’s a great amalgamation of identity, culture, of genre, and again, plays in that grey space of accountability. Utu still has that power for me. It’s one of those films, when it’s playing, I’ll end up sitting down and just being glued to the screen.

It’s a timeless classic. I will admit that when I watched your film, The Scarecrow did immediately come to mind, as did Garth Maxwell’s Jack Be Nimble. Yeah. [Jack Be Nimble] was really frightening. Again, it was that clash of many different aspects. There was a psychosexual drama there. You’ve got this telekinetic mind control and that abuse and that hunkering down of an isolated family. There are plenty of New Zealand films that have explored a sort of similar territory. They’re all coming to me now.

Bad Blood has a great sense of atmosphere and photography and the use of soundscape to create that shocking sense of isolation and terror in these quick, fast, brutal moments, which then just sort of are left to ring in the air. But I love so much of New Zealand cinema, especially the stuff from the ’80s.

Kia ora [good luck], James. Kia ora.

Related content

Leo’s Letterboxd list of Aotearoa New Zealand Scary-As Movies Adapted from Literature

Dave’s Cinema of Unease list

A Brutal Stillness: Gregory’s list of patient, meditative genre films

Sailordanae’s list of Indigenous directors of the Americas

Follow Leo on Letterboxd

‘Coming Home in the Dark’ is available now in select US theaters and on VOD in the US and New Zealand. All photographs by Stan Alley / GoldFish Creative. Comments have been edited for length and clarity.

#coming home in the dark #letterboxd #daniel gillies #james ashcroft #maori culture #maori movie #maori director #native director #indigenous film #miriama mcdowell #noir #new zealand noir #leo koziol #imagiNATIVE

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everlastingconnection · 4 years ago

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Chapter Three - Expanding

Story: An Everlasting Connection Chapter Three: Expanding Rating: T Word Count: 2,904 Disclaimer: This chapter is most entirely based around the events of Goblet of Fire, quotes and events may be taken directly from the book. Everything else is simply from Hermione’s point of view. Summary: The story of Viktor Krum and Hermione Granger, from the first time they came into each others sights until the day one of them says the binding words of 'I do'. Can they defeat the odds of their everlasting connection to find happiness elsewhere, or will they admit the fact that their lives are brighter with the other near?

Excitement bubbled and filled the halls of Hogwarts to a near suffocating point the morning of the two rival schools arrivals. Hermione felt as much excitement as the others, but for very, very different reasons. While her peers buzzed with the enthrallment at the idea of the Triwizarding Tournament, she could hardly contain her excitement to hear about other wizarding schools from peers. What were the classes like? Did they have an entirely different curriculum? Of course, she’d already found out that Durmstrang leaned heavily towards the Dark Arts, even before Malfoy had gone spewing his mouth on the train earlier that year.

The more Hermione thought on it, the more foolish she felt for not putting the pieces together and guessing that the Tournament was coming to Hogwarts. Of course it was, what with all the Weasleys knowing something through the Ministry, along with Ludo Bagman and Barty Crouch having something more than the World Cup on their plates. Throw in Malfoy knowing something more and bragging about Durmstrang? It all made far too much sense now.

“Honestly,” she huffed as their professor seemingly gave up on attempting to teach anything for the day. No one would stop their whispering long enough to absorb information. “Why they didn’t wait until later to inform us, or at the very least, plan this for the weekend, I will never know.” Slamming her book shut, she ignored the snort of laughter from Ron beside her.

“Reckon no one will be like this in Potions. No one fancies ending up in detention tonight, do they?” he pointed out, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. “Wonder if Fred and George have figured out how to get into the tournament yet...”

Harry hummed beside her, and something akin to pride swelled in her chest. Harry’s disinterest in the tournament gave her hope. A much needed hope that for once, perhaps, he wouldn’t be the center of danger for a year. Oh, what a wonderful concept that would be. To simply watch the action from the sidelines, cheering their Hogwarts champion on with her two best friends. It would only be better if their champion happened to be Angelina Johnson. Hermione always held the girl to such a high regard. Not many knew how frequently she’d helped Hermione in her first year, not to mention, anyone who could wrangle the Weasley twins and make them behave for any amount of time deserved the utmost respect.

“I expect any attempts they make will fall flat,” Hermione mused, shaking herself from her thoughts. Perhaps the excitement was contagious. There weren’t many occasions her mind wandered in such a way while in a classroom. “Between the ministry and Professor Dumbledore, I very much doubt that there will be any way to get around whatever they have intended.”

Ron harrumphed, no doubt upset at the idea of not being able to enter himself. While in a selfish way, Hermione was glad he wouldn’t be able to, a small part of her ached for her friend. After so many years of Harry being in the spotlight, she could too easily see why he would want to have one shining moment. Particularly given his brothers all shone so brightly in their own ways. “Yeah well maybe they’d get disqualified for being under age even if they get picked,” he pointed out, almost sounding hopeful.

Hermione shook her head as she began to gather her things. “The tournament doesn’t work that way. There’s a binding magic to it. Once you’ve been chosen, you are permanently bound to it until the end. In one tournament, a champion attempted to back out after being selected and--” Both boys had already tuned her out, turning in their seats on either side of her to talk to Dean and Neville. With an exasperated sigh, she exchanged the book for their current class for her Potions book, wanting a refresher before Professor Snape’s lecture.

As she expected, Potions went as normal, despite the shortened period. Hermione diligently took notes on every small detail Professor Snape gave them, knowing full well that Ron and Harry’s quills hadn’t moved so much as a centimetre since dipping them in ink. The reprieve from distracting thoughts hardly lasted long enough however as they were all excused to go prepare for the schools to arrive. With a sigh, Hermione packed up her bag, half listening as Harry and Ron discussed what methods the schools would use to arrive as they made their way to Gryffindor Tower.

In her dorm room, Hermione went to her corner, putting her things away as the other girls began to gossip and giggle while debating which eye shadow and lip gloss to wear. For her, it was a simple matter of readjusting her uniform, and swapping shoes as the ones she’d worn all day had a few scuffs on them.

“Can you imagine? French boys and dangerous dark arts boys,” Parvati sighed happily. “Not that Hogwarts doesn’t have plenty of cute boys, but they’ve gotten a bit boring lately.”

Lavender agreed with a nod as she helped her friend pin a butterfly in her hair just right, after having adjusted it countless times already. “I still wish Krum hadn’t graduated. Witch Weekly said he was as fierce in class as he was on the field. I bet he would have won the whole thing. Imagine!”

Both girls sighed happily, positively swooning at the poster that had been haunting Hermione since the first day of school. Honestly, why the things were even allowed to be hung in their dorm rooms, she didn’t understand. Too many times she caught him watching her as she readied for the day. Of course, always after she’d dressed, and as with all magical portraits, he wasn’t always there. Yet when he was...

Parvati turned to look at Hermione. “I can’t believe you were at the World Cup. Is he as handsome in person?” she asked, her brown eyes wide, smile hopeful.

Shaking her head, Hermione shifted her weight awkwardly, glancing again at the poster to find him staring at her once more, as if he too, wanted an answer. Ridiculous. “Hard to tell, really. He looked so unhappy any time I looked at him. I don’t find that particularly attractive.”

Both girls looked at her incredulously. One of their other dorm mates muttered something about fancying Ron, making Hermione frown along with Krum. Who said anything about Ron? Surely no one knew about that... even Hermione wasn’t so sure as to how she felt about him, most days. Of course she loved him deeply as a friend. He and Harry were best things to happen in her life, along with getting accepted into Hogwarts, of course. It could very well be that she simply placed the idea of a crush on Ron due to the fact that the other girls were so obsessed with the idea of crushes and dating now. Then again... those moments when he would flash her that goofy grin... Hermione shook herself from the thought, she couldn’t afford to have feelings beyond friendship for either of the boys. They were far too important to risk any drama that may occur with dating.

After all, she’d feared that her friendship with Ron would never have healed last year had it not been for the fact that Scabbers had actually been Peter Pettigrew the entire time. The anger that he’d directed towards her had been a shot to the heart, one that twisted and severed it further each time he glared in her direction. No, Hermione was quite certain she couldn’t survive such an ordeal again should feelings get jumbled once more.

“Honestly Hermione, I wish you’d let us do something with your hair,” Lavender huffed, eyeing her after putting the cap on her lip gloss. “A simple plait could do wonders for you. Your face isn’t half bad, you know. Not that you can tell with all of that in your face,” The girl waved at Hermione’s wild curls as Hermione grabbed her cloak.

Scrunching her face, Hermione raised her chin half an inch, refusing to show how much her heart rate had increased. “If they’re concerned with how my hair looks, they have no place being in the Tournament, but thank you.”

Turning on her heel, she descended the stairs, ignoring the stinging in her eyes. She tried much more than she wanted to admit to fit in with her dorm mates, yet time and time again it proved fruitless. They simply had too different an idea of what consisted as being important in life. If a boy couldn’t see her as wonderful for her brain and personality, then why on Earth would she want anything to do with them? Surely snogging wasn’t worth putting herself through the torture they did in order to look acceptable to males. Honestly, the girls were pretty enough without all of the extra things they used. It drove Hermione mad to think about.

Wiping at her eyes and forcing a smile on her face, Hermione found her best friends in the common room, joining them to head downstairs, While her words and actions held excitement with her boys, her mind continued to be traitorous. Would Ron prefer her hair to be plaited instead of its normal wild state? Merlin, why was she obsessing over this all of a sudden? Flattening her hair hopelessly before reaching the grounds, she allowed the boys to exit before her, trying to take a moment to get her head back on proper.

“I’m surprised the hat even fits on that mess of hair of hers anymore,” murmured a Slytherin who passed by Hermione, exiting just after Harry and Ron were out of earshot. Gritting her teeth, Hermione raised her chin once more and walked around them, attempting to catch up with her friends. At least now she could pretend the sting of her eyes was due to the crisp fall air whistling around the student body.

Her looks shouldn’t matter. They didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that her teeth weren’t perfectly sized and straight as her parents kept promising they would help her fix, despite the fact she spent most of her years at a school where it could be fixed in moments versus years. It didn’t matter that no matter what hair products her mum bought her each year, the frizz would never grow tame. It simply didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter.

Breathing in the cool air, Hermione linked her arms in with Harry and Ron’s as Professor McGonagall directed them where to stand among the other Gryffindors. She had the best friends a girl could possibly ask for (if not also the most problematic ones- she wouldn’t change them for the world), and that was what mattered. Not some silly elastics or plaits or glosses. Letting go of each boy as they acknowledged her with their own versions of a smile, she grinned, trying not to laugh at each idea their house mates came up with as to how the schools would arrive.

No, her life as a girl was certainly not perfect. Being a perfect girl hardly mattered though, when one lived such an exciting life. Being beautiful and wanted... that was very much to be worried about later in life, if ever. “Really, how has no one considered they may simply take the train and carriages here?” she quipped in at one point, but everyone seemed to think this idea too dull. Giving her head a shake, she allowed herself to indulge in the ideas everyone came up with, knowing full well none of them could be accurate.

And she certainly didn’t allow herself to mentally gloat when Parvarti was told to take the butterfly out of her hair. Okay, perhaps she had bit her lip to hide her grin as Parvarti and Lavendar complained about the unfairness of not being able to show off how cute they could be for the foreign students. Honestly, they were all of age, while they were simple fourth years. Hermione doubted the new comers would spare anyone their age a second glance. Particularly while being focused on something as big as the Tournament.

No matter what idea anyone had for how the schools would arrive, it couldn’t compete with reality. The gorgeous carriage Beauxbatons came in simply took Hermione’s breath away. Gripping Ron’s sleeve, she bounced on her heels, eyes widening as the headmistress appeared. While Hermione had her suspicions about Hagrid, with this woman there were few suspicions to have. She would nearly be willing to bet anything that this woman was part giant. “Ohhh I wonder if we’ll be allowed to get close to their carriage... I can only imagine the details not to mention how much magic it must take to fly so far!”

Of course, her comment went ignored, everyone too wrapped up on the looks of the newcomers. Which yes, some of the boys were rather attractive, but why must everyone be so focused on that? There was so much to be learned from them beyond what they looked like! It was positively infuriating. Besides, all of them seemed to have thought coming north in the fall wouldn’t require more than thin silk robes. Yet, couldn’t take the blame for themselves, instead seeming to turn their noses up at her fellow students, some even glaring at them. Perhaps they too, had become too obsessed with the idea of new people to impress and date. Hermione truly hoped not. Being able to participate in such a Tournament was a once in a life time honor. One no one could claim in centuries.

Once the rather uppity French students disappeared into the school, the true wonder and anger inducing school made their appearance. If Hermione had been excited to learn about Beauxbatons mode of transportation, it paled in comparison as her heart leapt into her throat at the Durmstrang ship. As far as she knew, the lake wasn’t attached to any other bodies of water, and thus the magic used must have been exponentially powerful, particularly given the students seemed to be manning the ship if her eyes were seeing correctly.

Hermione hardly had time to wonder at this however, as the first student off the ship was... “VIKTOR KRUM!” “Is that Krum?” “It can’t be!” “Didn’t he finish school already?” “It is him!” Voices exploded around Hermione, making it near impossibly to even think. She’d only caught a glimpse of him before the crowd went insane, but she’d been certain too. That grumpy face and awkward posture would be recognizable near anywhere these days. Closing her eyes and inhaling slowly, she attempted to focus on her best friends, only to become more annoyed when Ron asked if she had anything he could get an autograph with.

“Honestly this is ridiculous,” she huffed, crossing her arms but listening intently as the headmaster spoke to Professor Dumbledore, her eyes roving over to Krum who unexpectedly met her eyes too. If she didn’t know better, she would almost think he recognized her. A silly idea, considering he’d only possibly seen her for a second at the World Cup. Yet, she couldn’t help the heat rising to her cheeks as she looked to Ron. Yes, she was imagining things. Boys simply didn’t take notice to her beyond her brains, and she was rather okay with that. “Let’s get inside. You can attempt to get his autograph when he isn’t being hounded, Ron.”

Fortunately, Harry agreed and the three trudged inside, into the Great Hall and to their table. Hermione knew it had been a mistake to sit beside Ron, yet she always found the most joy sitting beside him, particularly if she could manage to be between the two boys. As soon as Hermione began to wonder at all the different foods, and grow angry at how much extra effort the poor house elves must have put into this feast all day, Ron started in. Trying to get her to move in order to have Krum sit beside them.

A thrill shot through her as she glared at him. He couldn’t be serious, could he? Worse, Hermione glanced at Krum, who was already taking a seat next to Malfoy (to Ron’s great annoyance), to find him glancing at her again. The moment was brief, but enough to force Hermione to pay attention to her own table and her own troubles. If she kept this up, she’d end up sounding like Parvarti and Lavendar, obsessing over a celebrity, hoping he was looking her way.

No, instead, Hermione ignored the presence of Krum the rest of the night, instead focusing on the new foods around them, explaining the French ones to her house mates, and attempting to guess at the ones meant to honor Durmstrang.

By the time the Goblet of Fire had been revealed and the rules surrounding the Tournament, Hermione felt as though she could breathe again. Even the never ending comments about Krum all around her had finally stopped grating on her nerves. Truly, she believed Harry would have no chance of accidentally ending up in the Tournament. Nor would any of the Weasley’s, no matter how confident Fred and George were. No, Hermione knew Dumbledore was far too wise to let a simple aging potion befuddle his spells.

This year would be good. Of that, she was certain.

#everlasting connection #krumione fanfic #hp fanfic #Krumione #Viktor Krum

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pceexistsinthevoid · 3 months ago

Text

Directors Commentary:

Set 1: Halloween Quilt nails

this will become a recurring theme, but i apparently lost most of my specific nail art dotting tools when i most recently moved (i'm hoping they'll turn back up but i'm not optimistic), so i only have one of them and it's not the smallest. given that, i'm pretty happy with how this one turned out. the stitching could've looked much worse. overall very fun way to start.

Set 2: haunted forest-ish (aka failed shattered mirror) nails

yeah, if it's not obvious from the way i insist on titling this, i went into this trying to make it look like a shattered mirror. gave up on that when i started actually trying to draw the lines for the shattering and it just proved too complicated. the combination of my shaky hands and the fact my main dotting tool that i still know the location of isn't that precise just kinda made it not work. Also, just because i think you can still see it under the red if you look closely, the thing for the accent nail was initially going to be a pair of eyes. it unfortunately ended up just looking really goofy with this concept, so i just put some red over it. just a series of errors, but i was far enough into the process i just couldn't deal with the concept of starting over (they took so long as-is). I just did my best to make it work.

That said, i don't hate the way they turned out. Imo they look kinda cool. i don't think "haunted forest" is actually the exact thing they invoke for most people, but that was how i could justify it for my halloween nails so it's what i call them.

Set 3: tentacle monster nails

Unlike the rest of these, I've actually done this design before (i wanna say two years ago?), but i just had so much fun with them that i was fine with doing a repeat. They turned out roughly the same, and while i have my slight critiques of my own work and the shapes and such, i still really like them. These ones got me called "an artist" by 2 entire, separate strangers, which i was not expecting lol.

I will say, sometimes when people would comment on them it wasn't always obvious that they realized what i was going for? which is fine- angles can make it hard to tell, if nothing else- but if you don't realize it's supposed to be some sort of monster when you see the ring finger, i kinda don't know what it would be/why you'd think they're cool.

(also i am asexual, but if you have a thing for tentacles and a thing for hands...idk, you're welcome, lol? I don't care/more power to you, just make sure to be respectful if you're interacting with me/somewhere i'll get notifications for)

Set 4: bones and rib-cage nails

In general i wanted to have something bone/skeleton themed, but also one of my personality traits is "having an extra rib" so i thought it'd be kinda funny to specifically have rib-cages. Knowing the trouble I've had with my dotting tool, I knew i'd have to find something more precise, so i had to scrounge around and find toothpicks to make this work. obviously if you look at them up close, the flaws/evidence of shaky hands come through more, but apart from that i did still pull it off/clearly convey the concept.

Also, purely anecdotal, but these were the one's where way more men than average both noticed them and took the time to comment on them. Dunno what that means (could be nothing), but it was interesting to experience.

Set 5: Blood spatter nails

until i found out i wasn't scheduled to work on halloween, I just assumed I wouldn't be able to do these ones. Maybe it's weak of me, but I just didn't want to tempt fate at my job by freaking anybody out. But then i wasn't scheduled and realized i could just do it for the day by using the peel off base coat that i have. I rarely have a reason to use it otherwise, so it was a revelation when i remembered i even had it lol. The toothpicks once again came in clutch for getting some of the smaller dots. Also the fact they didn't have to be perfect dots and could occasionally be smeared took a lot of pressure off.

Conclusion:

idk. hope you had fun.

not that i really talk about it much, but i really like painting my nails. specifically in october and june cause those are the easiest to have some kind of theme i can plan designs off of. idk, anyway, here's this past october's:

1) the "halloween quilt" nails

2) the "haunted forest" nails/the (failed) shattered mirror nails

(don't necessarily think there was anything identifying about the background, but still wanted to scribble it out with this one. just to be safe)

3) the "tentacle monster" nails

4) the "bones and rib-cages" nails

and then, lastly,

5) the "tw: blood" nails. it's obviously fake and all, but nonetheless if i came anything close to succeeding it does resemble that. remember to proceed with caution if you need it.

#pce allegedly exists #betcha forgot i had a physical form #long post #tw blood

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kyloren · 5 years ago

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Why do you want to make a new account? Honest question. (Will you still make GIFs? Sorry this sounds so consumerist of me.)

Partly because I always have this haunting idea in the back of my mind that I should have throughly organised my interests from the start. When I made this account, I did the same thing I did with my previous one — dump all of my interests in one place and smoosh them together, with only a consistent tagging system giving my blog any semblance of structure. Since I wasn’t making content at that time (aside from feeble fanfiction attempts), it didn’t really matter. But once you start to actively participate in fandom (via just engagement or content creation) you get more followers from it, more people who pay attention to you, and, of course, you meet more people who hate what you like, or just don’t like you as a person, and you get into fights, you come across drama, and trouble invites itself into your house.

Naturally, the more fandoms you’re in, the more frequently that happens, and you at some point you get stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea when fandoms cross streams. Without naming things, I’m gonna give an example: I like Thing A in Fandom A, but Fandom A almost universally hates Thing B in Fandom B. I’m one of the few and far between people who likes both Thing A and Thing B, but most of Fandom B also likes Thing AA from Fandom A, and I don’t like Thing AA. While people from these respective fandoms almost never cross paths, I’m I get bombarded with ceaseless parade of clashing opinions from both sides since I’m in both fandoms. It just wears one down.

From time to time I just get this persistent thought that life would have been a lot easier if I separated church and state… I did that with Riverdale (by moving all of my content and engagement with fandom to a sideblog and sourceblogs) and I did that early on with anime/animation by putting things I like on a sideblog. Although I have a Reylo/Star Wars sideblog, I didn’t give it proper tagging structure during its conception, so now, it’s a mess with a tagging system that’s all over the place and it will drive me wild if I try move things to it permanently.

So I sit here and dream about I could have my quiet, little main for art and aesthetics and quotes and such, and I’d have sideblogs for films/actors and for my ships and they’d all be separate and content won’t clash, and tumblr will grant me by dreams and treat each blog as a separate thing and that way I can have separate dashes for all of my interests… *sigh* alas.

But I already invested quite a lot into this blog and this account, that giving it all up because I’m frustrated seems… a waste. 🤷🏻‍♀️

To answer your second question, yeah, I’d still make content. Gif-making is a big hobby of mine and I find it relaxing—well, sometimes it can be stressful—but it allows me to express myself creatively, and I don’t get a headache from it as nearly often as I do with fic-writing. Sure, it can be frustrating (example: I spent 2hrs+ on this set and while I wouldn’t call it hard per say, it was time consuming as these are large file gifs with lots of layers which consumed plenty of time and power from my poor little laptop, and then I had to redo all of them because I liked the off-while shade for the subtitles more — I thought it added a nice little touch of femininity to the set; and it’s kinda flopping right now. I’m not complaining, but it is a bit disappointing.), but I like it enough that I don’t see myself giving it up any time soon. I have so many things that I want to do, I must be my own hero and actualise them. Like…AUs…I’m working on three AUs simultaneously and it’s exhausting and frustrating, but fun.

#anonymous #ask box #*

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dailybestiary · 6 years ago

Text

Patch Has Issues: Dungeon #2

Issue: Dungeon #2

Date: November/December 1986 (Pretty sure my Christmas haul that year was full of dope toys from The Transformers movie/show.)

The Cover:

(Use of cover for review purposes only and should not be taken as a challenge to status. Credit and copyright remain with their respective holders.)

Ah, Clyde Caldwell. He, Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, and last issue’s Keith Parkinson were the mainstays of TSR’s amazing stable of artists. I have a soft spot for Caldwell. He did the covers for the D&D Gazetteer series, which means his work emblazoned some of my absolute favorite books from my middle school years. (At the time I had the whole series except the two island books, GAZ 4 & GAZ 9 (which I’ve since collected), plus the Dawn of the Emperors box set. My favorites, for the record, were GAZ 3, 5, 10, and 13. I...may like elves...a little too much.) And even as I sit here, other covers demand to be named. The very first Dragonlance adventure, the iconic Dragons of Despair? The Finder’s Stone trilogy? The first Ravenloft box? Dragon #147? Yep, he did those covers too. He was amazing.

But hoo-boy, we also have to talk about the not-amazing parts. Once Caldwell settled on a way of doing things, that’s how he did them. Points for consistency, but man, he had tropes. Even his tropes had tropes. He had a way of painting dragon’s wings. He had a way of painting swords and boots. He had a way of painting jewelry, and belts and coins—ovals upon ovals upon ovals.

And his way of painting women was with as few clothes as possible. Everything I said about Parkinson last entry? Yeah, that goes double for Caldwell. He never paints pants when a thong will do. His take on the reserved and regal Goldmoon—thighs as long as a dwarf and bronzed buttcheeks exposed—reportedly left Margaret Weis in tears. Magic-users (God, I hate that term) famously couldn’t use armor in D&D and AD&D, but Caldwell’s sorceresses pretty much stick to gauze just to be safe. And the Finder’s Stone trilogy I mentioned above? Yeah, the authors of Azure Bonds took one look at Caldwell’s cover art and literally had to come up with in-text reasons why the heroine Alias—one of the most surly woman sellswords in existence—would wear armor with a Caldwell boob hole.

Don’t get me wrong, I love cheesecake as much as the next dude. (Actually that’s not true; I came up in the grunge ’90s—our version of cheesecake was an Olympia brunette in three layers of thrift store sweaters reading Sandman while eating a cheesecake. Hell, that’s still my jam.) But context matters. The sorceress from “White Magic,” Dragon #147’s cover, may barely be wearing a negligee, but she’s also in the seat of her power and probably magically warded to the hilt—she can wear whatever she damn wants; it’s her tower. So no complaints there. But this cover’s pirate queen Porky Piggin’ it seems like an unwise choice. (The friction burns alone from clambering around the rigging…)

It’s clear from reading The Art of the Dragonlance Saga that TSR was trying to turn the ship around when it came to portrayals of women in fantasy, however slowly. And in Caldwell’s defense and to his credit, he definitely delivered women with agency—in nearly every image, they are nearly always doing something active and essential. They just tend to be doing it half-dressed.

Which is all a way of saying I dig this cover—the explosion, the churning sea (even if it does more look like snow drifts than waves), the sailors all running to the rail to look—but yeah, that pirate captain needs to put on some damn pants.

The Adventures: Before we get started, I have to note that though we’re only an issue in, already the magazine feels more noticeably like the work of editor Roger Moore. This is 100% a guess, but it really feels to me like Dungeon #1 was made of adventures that the Dragon office already had laying around, whereas Dungeon #2 was composed of adventures that Roger Moore and the new Dungeon team had more of a hand in sifting through. (He also has an assistant editor this time in Robin Jenkins, which had to have helped.) Even the cartography looks better. Again, I have zero confirmation of this, but the feeling is strong.

“The Titan’s Dream” by W. Todo Todorsky, AD&D, Levels 5–9

PCs visiting an oracle accidentally walk right into a titan’s dream and must solve some conundrums to escape. What an awesome concept this is! (Spoilers for “Best Concept” section below.) It’s a shame I don’t like this more.

First of all, dreamworld adventures are really hard to do well. And for them to work, there usually need to be real stakes—and not just “If you die in the dream, you die in real life!”—and/or a real connection to the PCs in your campaign. The latter, especially, is really hard to pull off in a published adventure; typically it’s only achieved through tactics that critics deride as railroading. (For instance, @wesschneider’s excellent In Search of Sanity does a great job of connecting the characters to their dream adventures...but it does that by a) forging the connection at 1st level, and b) pretty strongly dictating how the adventure begins and how the characters are affiliated. It works, but that’s high-wire-act adventure writing.)

Being a magazine adventure, “The Titan’s Dream” doesn’t have that luxury—it’s got to be for a general audience and work for most campaigns. That unfortunately means the default “Why” of the adventure—a lord with a child, a wedding, and an alliance at stake hires the PCs to chat with a wise titan—is little more than that: a default.

On top of that...I cannot get excited about anything Greek mythology-related. To me, just the fact I’m seeing it is a red flag.

Look, Greek mythology is why I got into this hobby. Hell, it’s why I got into fiction, period. (For some reason I somehow decided I had no use for fiction books targeted to my age, with the exception of Beverly Cleary. Then in 4th(?) grade, I got a copy of Alice Low’s Greek Gods and Heroes, and the rest is history.) But Greek mythology is often the only mythology anyone knows. When people think polytheism, that’s where most people’s minds go. Which is why, if you ever played D&D in the ’80s, I pretty much guarantee your first deity was from that pantheon. (In my first game, my first-level cleric pretty much met Ares and got bitch-slapped by him, because that’s what 4th-grade DMs do.)

So to me, putting Greek deities or titans in your adventure is the equivalent of putting dudes riding sandworms into your desert adventures—you can do it, but you better blow me away, because that is ground so well trod it’s mud. And this one doesn’t do the job.

The format is three dreams, each with five scenes. Parties will move randomly—a mechanic meant to represent dream logic (or lack thereof)—through these scenes, until all the scenes from one dream have been resolved. This is actually kind of fascinating, and I wonder how it would play at the table—I have a feeling observant players will dig it, but others may find the mechanism’s charm wears off quickly, especially if they have difficulty solving the scenes or get frustrated with the achronicity of events. I also like that every scene has a number of possible resolutions, so the PCs aren’t locked into achieving a single specific objective like they were stuck in a computer game.

But...I can’t shake the feeling of weak planning and execution (or even laziness?) that stayed with me throughout the adventure. Like, okay, the first adventure is a cyclops encounter out of the Odyssey. Cool! But then...why does the Titan follow it up with pseudo-Norse/Arthurian encounter? Did the Odyssey not hold the author’s attention? (Nor the Iliad, the Aeneid, or Metamorphosis? Really?) And then why is the third dream “drawn from the realm of pure fairy tale”? Like, were you out of pantheons? Horus didn’t return your calls? Or be more specific—why not German fairy tales, or Danish, or French Court, or Elizabethan? It feels like a class project where one group was on point, one group got the assignment a little wrong, and one didn’t even try.

Again, it’s not even that this adventure is bad—I honestly can’t tell if it is or not; I’m sure a lot of its success is determined at the table. And I could totally see throwing this at a party if I was out of inspiration that week or we needed a low-stakes breather before our next big arc. But the instant I think about it for more than a second, it all falls apart for me.

Have any of you tried this one? Let me know what you thought. And for a similar exploration into dream logic/fairy tale scenarios, I recommend Crystal Frasier’s The Harrowing for Pathfinder.

“In The Dwarven King’s Court” by Willie Walsh, AD&D, Levels 3–5

Willie Walsh is a name we’re going to see a lot more in issues to come—he’s a legendarily prolific Dungeon contributor, delivering quality, typically low-level, and often light-hearted or humorous adventurers issue after issue after issue. His first entry is a mystery with a time limit: A dwarf king is supposed to make a gift of a ceremonial sword to seal a treaty, but the sword has vanished. Brought to the king’s court courtesy of a dream, adventurers must find the sword and the surprising identity of the culprit before the rival power’s delegation arrives.

At first I was going to ding this adventure for its “What, even more dreams this issue?” hook...but here’s the thing with Walsh—never judge his modules until you reach the final page. Nearly every time I’m tempted to dismiss one of his sillier or more random adventure elements, it turns out that it makes sense and works just fine. In this case, the cause of the dream is haunt connected to the mystery, and I feel dumb for being all judgy.

So anyway, the PCs are given leave to search for the stolen object and the thief, but of course it turns out there is a whole lot of light-fingeredness going around. As Bryce (see below) puts it, “It’s like a Poirot mystery: everyone has something to hide.” This castle has as much upstairs-downstairs drama as any British farce, with nearly every NPC having either a fun personality and/or a fun secret (and with the major players illustrated by some equally fun portraits) that should make them memorable friends and foils for PCs to interact with. Not to mention the actual culprit is definitely a twist that will be hard explaining to the king...

GMs should be ready to adjust on the fly, though—a) it’s a lot of characters to juggle, and b) since the PCs are 3rd–5th level, the right spells or some lucky secret door searches could prematurely end the adventure as written. You may want to have some last-minute showdowns, betrayals, or other political intrigue outlined and in your back pocket if what’s on the page resolves too quickly.

Overall though, I’m a big fan of this adventure, and look forward to the rest of Walsh’s output. Also, given the dwarven focus and the geography of the land, this adventure could be a very nice sequel to last issue’s “Assault on Eddistone Point.”

“Caermor” by Nigel D. Findley, AD&D, Levels 2–4

Look at this author’s list of writing credits! Findley was amazingly prolific, and his work was pretty high-quality across the board, as far as I know. I particularly loved the original Draconomicon, one of the first and only 2e AD&D books I ever bought as a kid. I also loved his “Ecology of the Gibbering Mouther” from the excellent Dragon #160, and some of his Spelljammer supplements are currently sitting upstairs in my to-read pile, recently purchased but as yet shamefully untouched.

Now look at his age at the time of his death. Life is not always fair or kind.

(Speaking of unkind, man is the bio in this issue unfortunate in retrospect: “[H]e write for DRAGON® Magazine, enjoys windsurfing, plays in a jazz band, and manages a computer software company in the little time he has left.” As Archer would say, “Phrasing!”)

Anyway, this adventure is simple: An otherworldly force has been murdering the locals. The locals have pinned the blame on a handsome bard from out of town, and their own prejudices and general obstinacy are sure to get in the way of the investigation—that is, if the true culprits, some devil-worshipping culprits and and an abishai devil, don’t get in the way first.

All in all, this is a tight, well-written adventure, so I don’t have much to say about it, other than that if you like the idea of sending your party to help out some young lovers and save some faux-Scots/Yorkshiremen too stubborn to save themselves (and maybe slip in a valuable lesson about prejudice and xenophobia as well), this is the adventure for you.

One thing that does jump out to a contemporary reader, though, is the comically overpowered nature of the baddie pulling the strings in this adventure: Baalphegor, Princess of Hell (emphasis mine). Overpowered, you-won’t-really-fight-this-NPC happens with a lot of low-level adventures, when the writers want a story more epic than characters at the table can handle or are trying to plot the seeds for future evils. But still, any princess of Hell would already be a bit much...but an 18-Hit Dice, “supra-genius”, the Princess of Hell? Like, what the f—er, I mean, Hell?

If you use the adventure as written, the only way to have Baalphegor’s presence make sense is to eventually reveal that the area is an epicenter of some major badness. (Maybe that explains the lost nation of evil dwarves in the adventure background.) For a good model on how to seed early adventures in this matter, Dungeon’s Age of Worms Adventure Path and Pathfinder Adventure Path’s Rise of the Runelords AP, both from Paizo, are exemplars of small-town disturbances that eventually have world-shaking implications.

It’s also fascinating in retrospect to note Ed Greenwood’s massive impact in the hobby. Any article that appears in Dragon has the sheen of being at least semi-official, but it’s clear that Greenwood’s content was a cut above even that. In this case, an NPC from a three-year-old article of his is not just treated as canon, but also supplies the mastermind behind the adventure! It’s no surprise that in the following year his home campaign, the Forgotten Realms, would soon become AD&D’s newest and then its default setting.

Two final thoughts: 1) There’s some fascinating anti-dwarf prejudice in this article. Nearly every mention of dwarves paints them as exceptionally greedy and/or villains. And 2) how did one even begin to balance adventures in those days? This adventure is for “4–8 characters of 2nd–4th level.” There are a lot of difference at the extreme ends of those power scales…

“The Keep at Koralgesh,” by Robert Giacomozzi & Jonathan Simmons, D&D, Levels 1–3

One of the problems of BECMI D&D being known as “basic D&D” is that writers often assumed the players to be basic (that is, younger/new) as well. Which probably accounts for some of the early suggestions to the DM we get at the beginning of this adventure—like some pretty patronizing advice along the lines of not immediately announcing to PCs what the pluses are on their magical swords.

Fortunately, after that the article settles down and gives us Dungeon’s first real D&D adventure. In fact, not just real, but massive: 20 full pages of content—nearly half the issue! It’s a fully fledged dungeon crawl that has the PCs taking advantage of the summer solstice to open a shrine door that will lead them inside a long-ruined keep said to hold great treasure.

Now, I imagine in the coming installments it’s going to seem to many of you like I’m grading D&D adventures on a curve, because of my love for the system and the Known World/Mystara. That’s a fair accusation, but a better way to consider it is that I’m reviewing D&D adventures for what they are—adventures from a separate system, with a more limited rules system and palette of options than AD&D. You don’t go to a performance of Balinese shadow puppetry and compare it against Andrew Lloyd Webber; you look at it for what it achieves in its own medium. Since they appear side-by-side in the same magazine, comparison is going to be inevitable, but that’s with the understanding that AD&D was the kid coloring with the 64-crayon box of Crayola, while D&D was getting by with just eight.

On its own terms then, “The Keep of Korgalesh” is a decent, if not superlative, success. I love that it’s practically module-length and that we get three complete levels—a far cry from the previous issue’s side-trek-at-best, “The Elven Home.” We also get two new monsters, which absolutely fills my inner BECMI D&D player with glee. And I like that what starts as a dungeon crawl/fetch quest evolves into a “kill the big bad thing” and “find out what really happened to this city.”

There are issues, though. If the whole city was destroyed, getting to see some of it besides the keep would have been nice. Some of the ecology for the dungeon inhabitants is questionable. There pretty much wasn’t a single pool or fountain in this era of D&D adventure design that wasn’t magical, and this adventure was no exception. One of the new monster’s names makes no sense except that “tyranna” and “abyss” are cool words (I mean, I guess you could read that as “tyrant of the depths,” but still…) And there are painfully obvious borrowings from other works, especially Tolkien—a door that only opens at solstice, a lake monster, an orc with a split personality that is clearly a Gollum homage, etc.

What this adventure really needs is stakes—just something to give it a bit more oomph beyond the dungeon crawl. (Finding a blacksmith’s lost hammer is the hook offered in the adventure but it’s pretty flimsy.) Perhaps the PCs are some of Kor’s last worshippers, and clearing out the dangers here and resanctifying his temple is one of their first steps toward returning him to prominence. Maybe the PCs’ grandparents were involved in the city’s demise and restoring Koralgesh will restore the families’ honor. Or you could keep it simple and have a band of pirates or a rival adventuring group also trying to clean out the keep, turning it into a race (with the tyrannabyss causing the scales of fate to wobble at appropriately cinematic moments).

So the final analysis is this is a decent dungeon crawl upon which you can build a good adventure. The real reward of this module isn’t treasure; it’s finding out just what happened to Koralgesh. But for that to matter, it needs to tie into the PCs’ pasts, futures, or both.

BONUS CONTENT FOR KNOWN WORLD/MYSTARA NERDS: Kor is almost certainly a local name for the sun god Ixion. The chaotic deity Tram is probably a local version of Alphaks, though Atzanteotl is another strong candidate, especially since deceit was key to the pirates’ success. Koralgesh could be located somewhere on the Isle of Dawn, the northern coast of Davania, or an Ierendi/Minrothad Isle that those nations haven’t made it a priority to rebuild.

Best Read: “Caermor.” Nigel D. Findley was a pro.

Best Adventure I Could Actually Run with Minimal Prep: “The Keep at Koralgesh,” as a well-written, straight-ahead dungeon crawl. Every other adventure here relies on a pretty strong handle of very mobile NPCs and their motivations, or a Titan’s dream mechanics.

Best Concept: “The Titan’s Dream,” as noted above. It’s a great idea very worth exploring, even if I wasn’t about the execution we got in this case.

Best Monster: This was actually a monster-light issue. Despite some awesome art for the tyrannabyss, I have to go with the epadrazzil, a scaly ape from a two-dimensional plane of existence that has to be summoned via a painting. All of those details are just so wonderfully and weirdly specific it has to win. (Extra points for anyone who noticed the thoul—a classic D&D monster (though it did make its way into AD&D’s Mystara setting) born from a typo.)

Best NPC: Since this is a role-playing-heavy issue, there are a bunch of contenders, and the final verdict will go to whoever your party sparks to at the table. Obviously King Baradon the Wise should get the nod for [spoiler-y reasons], but I also really like the opportunity the executioner Tarfa offers, thanks to his incriminating goblet and how it might bring the PCs to the attention of a far-off assassin’s guild at just the right level.

Best Map: All together the maps from “The Keep at Koralgesh” form an extremely appealing whole. But for best single map I have to go for the palace of Mount Diadem—that is a bangin’ dwarven demesne.

Best Thing Worth Stealing: Jim Holloway’s illustrations of dwarves. Good dwarf, gnome, and halfling art is hard to find, and even the good stuff often leans stereotypical. While Holloway’s art is often humorous—I have a feeling he and Roger Moore jibed really well, though that’s totally a guess based purely on what assignments he got handed—his dwarves, especially in this issue, are fresh, specific, and unique. You could identify them by their silhouettes alone—always the sign of good character art. If you need an image of a dwarf NPC to show the players, “In the Dwarven King’s Court” is a great first stop.

Worst Aged: Female thong pirates on magazine covers. Also using the actual names of actual mental illnesses in game materials.

What Bryce Thinks: “This seems to be a stronger issue than #1, although half of the adventures are … unusual.”

Bryce actually almost likes “The Titan’s Dream,” confirming my loathing of it. He in turn loathes “In the Court of the Dwarven King.” Like me, though, he is pro-”Caermor” and sees potential in “The Keep at Koralgesh.” (Also credit where it’s due: I might have missed the condescension at the start if he hadn’t called it out.)

So, Is It Worth It?: If you’re a Clyde Caldwell fan, this issue might be worth searching out in print. So much of Caldwell’s work from this era was dictated by product needs, cropped and boxed up in ads, or shrunk down to fit on a paperback cover. So to get this cover in full magazine size, with only the masthead tucked up top to get in the way—that could be well worth a few bucks to you.

Also, if you’re BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia-era D&D fan (or know someone who is), again, this one might be worth having in print. “The Keep at Koralgesh” is a legit, proper BECMI D&D adventure, spanning 20 whole pages and with two new monsters to boot. I would have practically have cried if someone had given 7th-grade me this.

Beyond that you can probably just rely on the PDF. But both “Caermor” and “In the Dwarven King’s Court” have strong bones worth putting some modern muscle and skin on.

Random Thoughts:

The Caldwell cover painting was also used for the Blackmoor module DA4 The Duchy of Ten. PS: I’m not trying to tell you what to do or anything, but if you do happen to run across a physical copy of The Duchy of Ten or and of the DA modules, holla at ya boy over here.

Since this is our second issue, we now have a “Letters” column. Turns out Dungeon had been announced in Dragon #111 with a really detailed set of writer’s guidelines; most of the correspondence is questions re: those. In the process of answering, we get some surprisingly frank talk about payment. The $900 for a cover seemed low until I converted it to 2018 dollars, and ~$2,000 does seem right to my ignorant eye. I then made the mistake of converting my current salary to 1986 dollars and felt a lot worse about myself and what I’ve achieved.

Apologies this took so long to post. I had the issue read by early October and most of this review written with the next week or two after...but then I got involved in dealing with a 4.5 week hospitalization and aftermath...and then a second still-ongoing hospitalization...and even though I only had about four paragraphs left I just couldn’t find time to put a bow on it.

Notable Ads: The gold Immortals Rules box for D&D. (I also still don’t have that one yet, and Christmas is coming. Just saying, guys, if you happen to find one in your attic.) ;-) Also an ad for subscribing to Dungeon itself, starring “my war dinosaur, Boo-Boo.” No, really.

Over in Dragon: Beneath a glorious cover, Roger Moore is the new editor of Dragon #115, three authors (including Vince Garcia, who I like a lot) share credit on a massive six articles about fantasy thieves, a famous article proposing that clerics get the weapons of their deity (people were still talking about it in the “Forum” column when I was buying my first issues two years later), and a look at harps from the Forgotten Realms (notable because behind the scenes Ed Greenwood’s home setting was being developed for the AD&D game for launch in 1987.) A photographic cover and a 3-D sailing ship are served up in Dragon #116, along with maritime adventures, more Ed Greenwood (rogue stones), and articles for ELFQUEST, Marvel Super Heroes (Crossfire’s gang), and FASA’s Dr. Who game (looking at all six(!) doctors). (Incidentally, I had an Irish babysitter around this time who first mentioned Dr. Who to me—I wish I’d explored more but I was too young to understand what I’d been offered.)

PS: Yes, I’ve heard about the upcoming Tumblr ban. It is a terrible idea that will affect way too many of my readers. It shouldn’t affect me much (and I have all my monster entries backed up at the original site), but I will keep you posted as I learn more, particularly if I find you, my readers, packing up and going elsewhere.

#daily bestiary #patch has issues #pathfinder #paizo #3.5 #dungeons & dragons #dungeons and dragons #d&d #dnd #ad&d #becmi #dungeon #dungeon magazine

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cinful-stories · 6 years ago

Text

Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in C Minor (Robert x MC)

Angst? Angst.

No warnings! Thanks for reading!

I press my ear to the door, waiting for the music just as Giles had said. “Be gentle enough not to alert him of your presence. An artist can become quite temperamental when disturbed.”

I swallow hard on the lump forming in my throat. My eyes burn. I am too afraid to blink and interrupt his thoughts with the fluttering of my lashes. There was only silence hanging deftly in the air, and I began to believe he was absent from his studio until I heard the arm of the record player settle on a disc.

“There’s a pattern of symphonies, my dear,” Giles had said, grinning at me with sympathetic eyes and a chagrined smile. “Chopin’s Nocturne op. 9 no. 2 is safe, as is Debussy’s Clair de Lune. Those are better days for him.”

“And Mozart’s Paris Symphony?” I asked, offering up the only knowledge of symphonies I had acquired from dancing lessons with Louis.

Giles’s countenance fell grim. “Oh, definitely not. Entrance is not an option if you hear that one. He’s either received very unfortunate news or ran out of his morning tea.”

There were many times when I did leave. The Paris Symphony was almost always on these days, ringing throughout the halls like a haunting melody--a reminder of his suffering. My heart would ache for him as the song played, sometimes for days on end. Those were the days when I considered knocking on his studio door but decided against it. Those were also the days were I felt the most guilty and had trouble sleeping, but it was for the best.

Robert Branche liked to grieve in privacy. After his hibernation was over, there was no mention of it. Memories of a time spent in sadness were locked away somewhere in his brilliant mind, never to be reopened in front of anyone. Being in love with someone was already a difficult task, but being in love with Robert was even harder.

The music begins to play at a deafening volume. It is one I am unfamiliar with, and I remain at my post, wracking my brain for what little knowledge I have concerning symphony composers. The jarring striking of fingers against the piano keys sound like gunshots. Violin strings hiss in agony while bows scrape across them like a knife on a cutting board.

I recognize it. Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in C Minor.

“Shit,” I mutter, clenching my hands into fists. I recall my conversation with Giles.

“That’s the only piece you must never enter when hearing it played. Robert is a mild-mannered and patient man, but do not mistake his restrained demeanor for an absence of rage. His fury is unrivaled by any tempest, unable to be calmed. Your presence will only make matters worse.”

I release a trembling sigh. Months of living in the castle have gone by, and not once have I not heeded Giles’s advice; however, today is an exception. Robert had summoned me to his studio.

I consider leaving. He had not noticed my presence, and it would be easy to pretend that I had fallen ill. In fact, there was an arsenal of excuses at my fingertips that I could use at any time. I decide it is in my best interest to vacate the premises.

“You can come inside, you know.”

Robert’s flat voice strikes me in the gut. Air decompresses out of my lungs so quickly that I have a coughing fit and have to stabilize myself against the door frame. There is no avoiding it now. My hand wrestles with the brass doorknob, warm and clammy, until it twists. I am surprised by what I find inside.

“My God, Robert, what happened in here?”

It’s the perfect murder scene, but the blood is tempera paint and the bodies are shredded canvases. A conglomeration of colors blends together in puddles, coating the surface of the hardwood floor in a rainbow of dripping paint. Brushes are strewn across his desk, snapped in half into wooden shanks.

His hazel orbs never meet mine. They linger on the catastrophe around him. “I happened.” A look of utter dismay is stitched onto his face. His clothes are disheveled and bare an abstract pattern of stains. I cannot tell if they are from paint or other sources.

“You did this?” My voice peters out to a hushed whisper. I step closer to the wounded artist, wading through the sea of paint that laps at my ankles. “But why?”

One painting remains in front of Robert. It sits anxiously on its easel, afraid to join the others that had been torn to shreds or ripped down from the walls. The color scheme is bleak but stark in contrast. Chiaroscuro was an element of art used often by Robert that showcased abrupt transitions of dark to light, black to white. I had never seen it used to aggressively before. There is a lot of texture visible in the painting. Glops of undried paint leak down. Contoured lines coat the canvas, and one can clearly see where his wild brushstrokes had struck it over and over. I am unsure of what the image was supposed to be, but my immediate thoughts are of seething rage.

“I’m not meant to be here, Princess,” he sighs. “I’ve been living at the palace for so long, leeching off of Giles’s kindness when I do absolutely nothing to repay him.” He tugs on his hair. The blonde mane is mangy and tangled with dried paint. “Sure, I’m a decent artist, but I serve no purpose to benefit him or anybody else for that matter. I do nothing but paint these wretched pictures for people and use up your time by making you sit for portrait after portrait when you could be doing other things like running a country! I serve no benefit to you either.”

At this moment, his eyes lock on mine. They are desperate and glittering with more colors than are present on the floor. His hands grab my shoulders roughly.

“You are so fortunate, you know that?”

I nod hesitantly. “Y-Yes, Robert. I’m very grateful for being in the position that I am. I’ve always said that.”

“Yes, I know that, dear. That’s why you deserve every bit of this life. You’re kind, diligent, charitable, respectful. A beautiful, mature woman with sex appeal that drives men utterly mad with lust. You’ve only been Princess Elect for a few months but, by God, you’re already a queen in my mind.”

A blush paints my face a deep crimson. I am unable to move from his commanding grasp. His face, lost in darkness, inches closer to mine until his forehead presses hard against my own. The pain swimming in his eyes is clear.

“You have learned so much in your short time here. Giles, Leo, Louis, Alyn--hell, even Nico teaches you things of value. They pour so much of their energy into you and have shaped you to be a fantastic ruler for Wysteria. But what have I taught you, Princess? Tell me what I have contributed to your life here.”

I am rendered speechless. My mouth hangs open, still reeling over his acknowledgement of my sex appeal.

“See?” he cries, laughing cynically. “I’ve taught you nothing. Nothing except how to shut out your feelings. I’ve taught you to fear me when I’m sad, when I’m angry.”

“Robert, stop,” I demand, twisting away from his grip. He quickly brings me to his chest, holding my face against his breast. His heart pounds against my ears and almost drowns out the screeching music.

“Don’t you get it? I can’t stop. I can’t stop feeling this way, and I sure as hell can’t stop myself from wanting to do this.” He gestures to his arms wrapped tightly around my spine. “I can’t stop feeling like I want to touch you and ravish you, even though I know I don’t deserve to see you in that way. You don’t want to be around me, and I don’t blame you. I could never love someone like me. At least not in the way that I love you.”

“Robert, don’t say things like that!” I protest, tears welling up in my eyes. “Of course I love you!” Hearing my own voice form the words I had been wrestling to say for months is a foreign concept to me, but it feels right. Especially in a moment when he obviously needed to hear it.

He pauses in his outpouring, a wave of shock washing over his face. It quickly fades into inward conflict.

“Oh yeah?” he barks, pushing past me and marching toward the door. Paint sloshes onto his shoes and splatters against the hem of his pants. He slams the door shut. The din clatters down the hall, and I shudder in fear. “Then why didn’t you come inside?”

His voice trembles then. The anger melts into sorrow and suffering. Tears begin to stream down his face as he slides down to the floor, knees tucked up to his sternum.

“You never came inside. You never came to see me. Why didn’t you?” he whimpers. “I asked for you.”

I shatter into pieces. For months I have been warned not to disturb the artist in his time of pain, that he preferred the isolation, the lockdown. The picture of the broken man sobbing before me tells me otherwise, and I cannot help but feel responsible for not acting on my impulses to visit him during the late hours when the Paris Symphony played. He didn’t need silence.

He needed me.

Without a word, I walk toward the crumpled artist. I sink to the ground beside him, ignoring the damp paint soaking into my dress, and nestle my head into the curve of his neck. His blonde hair hangs in my face, and his body rocks as he cries. I allow him the right to cry and give him time before speaking again.

“Do you know why I didn’t come inside?” I ask. I feel him shudder, stifling a sniffle. He shakes his head, and I continue. “I thought that I was doing you a favor by letting you grieve in peace. I thought that I was being a friend to you by letting you process your pain in your own ways, even if I disagreed with those ways. I wanted to honor your privacy and respect your space, but I see now that I should’ve paid more attention. I needed to open my eyes, Robert, and be here for you. I’m sorry I wasn’t.” I am crying now, tears spilling down my face and intermingling with his. “I’m so sorry.”

We stay like that for a spell and watch the sun set through the open window of his studio through blurry eyes.

“I love you,” he whispers into my hair. “I love you so much.” He is a broken man before me.

I cradle his hands in mine. “I love you too, Robert. We’re going to fix this, you and me.”

He nods and weeps harder. I do not know how to remedy his turmoil, and somewhere deep within me, I know it is something beyond my control. Giles was right: nothing can calm him. But I want to try.

Robert settles down in my lap, the back of his head pressing against my abdomen. My fingers comb through his locks, attempting to break apart the paint intertwined in them. As we sit in his studio, the paint dries around us and on us, anchoring our limbs to our spot on the ground. In the background, Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in C Minor drones on, smothering the sounds of our grief.

#Robert Branche #poor robert #midnight cinderella #midcin fanfic #angst #otome games #ikemen series #cybird

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akalegos · 6 years ago

Note

Could you tell us a little about your characters?

Y E S !

but due to me having at least over a thousand characters I’ll just give a quick summary of the 25 I manage to dig up over 3 sketchbooks.

Y’all can pick and choose which of them interest yall or who you wanna hear more about!

Also because I’m extra, I made sketch icons for the 25 characters, info under the cut

I’ll talk a bit more about my actual Original Characters first, starting with

Aiko! Otherwise known as Echo

- A marked individual in a steampunk world that gets mixed with magic, because I like both of those things

- Echo runs an underground lab that does helps the underground world with replacing body parts, illegal surgeries etc etc

- Even though she marked, which puts a bounty on her head already, she is well respected by the community for not cheating for your money, stealing your cash, or shanking/killing you mid-surgery

- however, Echo does long for adventure and sometimes do get bored in the lab

oh yeah,, Echo like stealing eyeballs, so if you’re low on cash and wouldn’t mind losing an eye, you know who to call!!

Bonus:

Here’s Echo’s boring, undeveloped sidekick!! I don’t like her and I don’t know how to make her better. Yes, she doesn’t have a name.

here’s my god playboy that left “heaven” due to having an early mid-life crisis, I call him God boi cause;

- He goes by many names!

tbh, he’s probably the closest character I have to being genderfluid/-neutral? I’m not sure,,

- The god has many powers, from lightning to shapeshifting

- The shapeshifting part allows him to change every part of himself, allowing him to change depending on his situation.

- God boyo, or originally Aristide, is obsessed with the idea of perfection. A god should be perfect, if a god is out of line, he is no god.

- Same goes for him, which means whenever something is wrong with him, it affects him, extremely

However, leaving the land of gods to live among humans aren’t all perks

- Aris isn’t immune to diseases or injuries. In fact, he actually fell down and died on impact when he came to earth, being reborn into another child immediately.

- He doesn’t gain his memories back automatically tho!! He has to have a major shock to the brain in order for him to remember his previous lives

- Sometimes the shock isn’t enough either, when you have a thousand over lives, you won’t remember every single one of them. So forgotten lovers coming back to haunt because your brain hates you? That’s everyday for him!

i just,, i like playing with the concepts of god,,

Up next we got Ayeka Himura! A japanese student going to a neighborhood, but still a pretty good, school living close to poverty due to her father’s constant spending habits and obsession with art supplies. With the household lacking a mother due to wacky shenanigans, Ayeka takes care of her two younger siblings and the house, all while maintaining a very well-paid job and slowly loosing interest in actually studying for a good, honest job.

also she likes birds!!

Yes her design is heavily “based” off Toga but I love her current design too much to change it, h e l p

So like,, I suck at chinese and I made ocs that exclusively spoke in chinese to help with that but I’m still stuck at 40~marks

I forgot his scar but remembered his earring i hate myself

my og chinese kiddo! he was was first to come and I love his design ever since

he radiates fuck you energy except the girl below. He’s neighbors with her and they acknowledge each other existence ever since. he has a dumb cliche crush on her and is a bit protective of her because nothing says having issues than latching onto someone that makes you happy

Only this girl got named!! even tho she was the second character.

Li Shen, yes she doesnt have a surname, is apparently main ho now, according to my old oc chart of my “main” ocs

She’s the group’s resident sweetheart and really does not want you to do stupid shit, stop doing stupid shit. She tutors my son up there ^^ even though he’s actually smart and just refuses to do his work properly. But she still deeply cares for him.

As well as the girl below shdifhd

the last girl of the ching chong trio and the reason I had to switch up my son’s design is this girly over here! Her design was too business-y and formal so I enrolled all of them into college. A rich girl who doesn’t know how to deal with her g a y thoughts. Tried sending Li Shen some flowers once. She didn’t realize attaching her name would be a good idea and son got a good laugh.

i like paranormal stuff so they apparently look into that shit in their spare time. They’re all actually really fun characters to do prompts with I swear!! send some in and I’ll write them

I had a previous concept for son and Li Shen before last girl came and if yall want me to talk about it,,, i found my sketchbook with the old ideas,,

NEXT UP IS MY OLD GIRL ELORA!!

Elora herself used to be a fan character but I pulled her out and wow\

cant fucking believe she used to be straight for Vylad

shes the outgoing, fun adventure type! bit of mommy issues here and there tho,, I don’t want to say too much since I have an entire for her +

her now upgraded bro, Vincent

i really like the name vincent,,

also now he has mommy issues

Ead, the knight who used to have armor

I hate drawing armor

he also have issues

AND IRIS MY SWEET GIRL IM SO SORRY

she doesnt have that much issues tho

basically I made elora and her bro have mommy issues, I’m sorry in advance if that spoils anything

I, sometimes, post about these 4 over on @eloradiesismydocsname and its a gay ol’ time

not that gay tho because uhh,, medieval times,, but I need prompts for a modern au of them and I am happy to talk about their personalities and even go semi in-depth for any of them!!

here we have ghoster.png,, which is her file name cause I didn’t name her,,

A horror enthusiast + film student that goes to a supposedly haunted shack to film her upcoming project with the boys. wacky shenanigans occur and the boys left leaving ghoster here to starve and eventually fall to her death. But because it’s my oc i get to bring her back from the dead, now hungry as ever and will fucking eat you, its not a kink thing, shes just that hungry and angry

tax fraud.png

a robo girl that i created during social studies cause they were talking about taxes and i just went, “what if,, a robo runs on taxes,,, and like,, she haunts you down for not paying your taxes,,” thus she was born! I don’t know what to name her but she is set in the future so-

Time to go future-apocalypse style because I love that setting too and was upset that I didn’t have any ocs in that style. So I created Alex A. ! A cybrog filled with memories of the previous generations as a sad attempt to preserve human life.

He’s accompanied by his sister/cousin idr i didn’t draw an icon for her, didnt like her design. they go on a hunt for food and to return with nothing. She gets to meet this other dude who has a plant arm im pretty sure i based him off someone’s elses oc but i cant remember. The 3 are forgotten. Kinda want to bring them back tho.

Neon! A character set in the future utopia of lazy people, where gamers rise up. its the best I can describe her story without getting too deep. She the new hacker on the block, joining the underground gang of elite hackers. She’s another one of those wacky characters that just has fun. I mean, when you know your way around codes and the world you live in is full of it, would you not take advantage of that?

as for fan characters,, uhh,, i have em

STARTING WITH MY WIFE!

Alexzandra Zara oh my god i forgot to draw her necklace and shirt

anyways,, Alexzandra is one of the more older ocs I have that didnt get a big revamp. Only an au I develop to the point I forgot the actual shows and the original cast are a little different from the source haha what? She’s the emotionally unstable german war veteran, yes the wife thing isn’t mutual, and haha shes only 27~. I cling onto her so much?? She’s hits a lot of “edgy” points but I still love her cause idk,, the story I made for her is something I hold dear cause Alexzandra was one of my first ACTUALLY DEVELOPED CHARACTER. Is it wrong to say I hold her really close to my heart? Is that weird? probably a little cringy sorry haha. I probably project a little into her which might have strengthened my love for her ack. Her story delves more into the depression very unstable needs to talk to someone side and i get scared talking about my wife’s story online so uhh, idk ask me specific questions about her, I’ll be more inclined to talk.

Dr Watts! The spoiled ass dick that stole dst Wilson’s house and yes this is a dst oc, yes im slightly sorry.

He’s just fun?? almost ran a blog with him and a friend’s oc. He’s your typical uptight old science gramps that took advantage of the fact that no one knows his real name that he calls himself a doc. He’s not. I put everything about him up to a 9-10? He’s one of those wacky characters and I love him for it! His story is really wonky tho so might need help solidifying that part

and from the angry old man to my sweet man that will adopt you even if you’re noisy or call him ginger. Pilot here is a TF2 OC I made to interact with other tf2 OCs cause some of them are fun and i wanna join in :((

He’s the Canadian stereotype, and yes, he adopted scout, that was one of my character notes.

Like the actual cast of tf2, there’s barely any real story to him. I only gave him a vague I don’t know my past but hey, i fly really really well. He participated in war unlike certain men but he’s still really nice and will only kill you if you hurt his family. Which he doesn’t know so he just considers the cast his family. He keeps mentioning a wife though, pretty sure he doesn’t have one but you do what makes you happy son.

Ai! an oc I HEAVILY revamped oh my god i hate her old vers. So if yall remember my random shouting of missing my og son, Aru. Here’s his bff. cause he barely has any actual friends that give a shit. And I just cant have that. but here’s your yandere revamped into a last minute addition. I actually feel like I did Ai a lot of justice. I don’t want to delve too deep cause I will start making charts. I’ll do that in a separate post if yall are keen

Isamu Aena! a mp100 oc I made by accident cause idk,, I was thinking about lolita fashion and all of a sudden, the actual oc I was going to make turned into a mob psycho oc. She’s one of my few ocs where her sexuality matters (she’s gay yeah) cause it plays a role in her storyline. She went from being “manipulated”/used to Mob’s wingwomen. She spots out things that can help him in the romantic department cause she’s into romance. A student of the school Mob infiltrated and a fantastic tailor, not to mention a pretty decent pyschic. wait where do models get their lolita stuff from,,

im gonna ignore that and move onto Lillian Yi! Who, i swear i did not meant for it, is very close to lloyd. I mean,, none of the ninjas were with him after s3, who you think he’d meet. Lillian is a survivor from the Great Devourour and yes I’m still pissed LEGO stole my backstory for Lillian to use for Harumi. FUCK YOU LEGO, i still love both of em tho,, The event did leave a big scar and it made Lillian job jumping for a bit, ending at Chen’s Noodles in S6~, where ya know,, stuff got better. She was a medalist for gymnastics and continue the activity, even after her parents’ death, to please others. She was already lost at the time so staying in the sport would help, right? Needless to say, after being rejected at a cop academy for youths, or something similar, she gave up for a while but got back into the idea of saving people by using her skills she already had. It helped with the weight and feelings and meeting the green ninja was a very big bonus. Also Lloyd dubbed her the “mysterious stranger” when she refused to speak in fear of her identity, slight shame, and maybe a bit of being star struck. It helped Lloyd too in a sense where he had something to distract him from Zane’s passing.

Their relationship was eventually formed, strong and almost unbreakable, except for harumi but uhh thats a different story. Throughout the seasons, they stayed close and lloyd was always comforted by Lillian went times get ruff.

Also Lillian is my most light-hearted characters and I think that says a lot

Then there’s Nite “I don’t want to be your dad”. A character that is supposed to be in the ninjago world but barely interacts with the main story and only stays in his self contained plot. He was supposed to get a bf but uhhh idk. He’s the master of shifting and streams that online, taking out small crimes, and is actually really shy and doesn’t like interacting with people.

also haha fortnite

Nora Akino, the sin of despair! its an ad thing, I think. She speaks only in a foreign language that only Odin understands and is either big gay for Ava or Maggi, she can’t pick. And yes she did drink the vial, when TITAN attacks your planet and you accidentally die, how else can you meet your family again? also my grandpa walked in and said she looks like royalty. cool-

she wouldn’t leave my hand for like,, 3 days or something

Petri, a fellow troublemaker at camp campbell’s music camp. She managed to pick the camp because apparently a parent who doesn’t acknowledge your hard work don’t read the fine print! Please let David adopt her,,

LASTLY! Yukimaru Atsuko, hero name; Gummie. She goes by Yuki and is a big dick. She’s a studious student but gets more thrills on the actual battlefield. Living with her uptight grandma and her big bottom energy bro, she has the dom energy thing going. and apparently folks on G+, or the people who comment about her, thinks she’s really pretty, which was oddly a thing back before UA. She’s the dick you can like, not like Bakugou but she will definitely want to fight Bakugou.

A gum-related quirk is not full of perks when its only your hands. I’d dive more into her like her insecurities and stuff but I’ve been here for probably 3hrs. Sorry anon.

Also I’m so sorry to anyone who reads this all the way through.

#not an ask #bkanvas' ocs #ocs

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bthump · 6 years ago

Note

Based on the different arcs in the manga, what's your favorite Guts (like Black swordsman!Guts, Golden Age!Guts etc.)? Also do you prefer Femto or Neo Griffith?

Honestly, Black Swordsman Guts, especially in the Black Swordsman arc (tho he’s also p good in the Lost Children arc). The way he starts out as the epitome of the asshole antihero out for revenge and that image almost immediately starts crumbling until you’re shown that he’s terrified and pathetic and not a whole lot better than the monsters he’s fighting and really sad about a bad breakup.

The way he opens the story by banging an apostle on page one and eventually you realize that is one of a grand total of two occasions on which he’s had consensual sex. The way he ends the first arc crying after a kid swears vengeance against him. The end of the first chapter when he tortures the snake apostle and the art and tone shift to make Guts the villain and the monster the pitiable victim. Encouraging children to kill themselves because he’s upset. Refusing to admit how monstrous he’s getting when he gets temporarily possessed. Letting a zombie kid stab him.

The driving mystery of why Guts is so obsessed with revenge followed by the reveal that it’s because he had a relationship comparable to marriage with the dude he wants to kill and Griffith didn’t just betray him, they betrayed each other and like half of Guts’ motivation is guilt/distracting himself from guilt.

The way his current situation, haunted by monsters claiming ownership of him after being given to them by someone he loves reflects his childhood so effectively.

I mean yeah part of what makes Black Swordsman Guts great is what the Golden Age reveals about him too, but I’ll still take Black Swordsman over the happy Golden Age version.

For one thing, when Black Swordsman Guts is a dick, the narrative is very clear on that being a negative thing. While when Golden Age Guts is a dick (eg most of his scenes with Casca) it feels like we’re supposed to find that at least somewhat endearing. And also like… I just really, really love the way Miura starts Guts out as strong badass archetype and then immediately sets about complicating it by answering the question of: what would make a real human person this fucking over the top and ridiculous? What’s actually underneath the cool image?

Like Guts goes from badass mccool 80s action hero send up to being directly compared to Vargas in terms of how sad and pathetic he is within a couple chapters, and it’s So. Good.

Answer to your second question under the cut

This question… is actually a very tough call lol. Like yeah okay the smart money’s on the character whose introduction didn’t include a gratuitious rape scene, but I genuinely love Femto regardless? Mostly because I disregard that choice of intro since it was um Badly Written lol, and Femto had me at

And I just love dark inner monsters as a concept in general despite the author’s reliance on rape as his primary illustration of evil.

On potential alone I’d go with NeoGriffith, because boy he is full of potential to be amazing depending on where those hints about his feelings, isolation of being a singular god, etc go. But what we actually see from him is like… so bland 99% of the time. Like yeah that’s purposeful, that’s a big part of the point, but still. He does feel like a shell of the old Griffith, literally - the outside with v little of the depth (so far).

I can headcanon and theorize a bunch to make him interesting to me, and I do, but idk if that counts lol.

So as for what we’ve got on the page and how seeing him makes me feel, I’m actually going to pick Femto. Like, the same way I inwardly cheered when we saw Guts’ slasher smile at Godo’s after he killed the pig apostle, because it was such a “he’s baaaaaack” moment, I cheered when we saw Femto confront Ganeshka. I love his stupid offensive camp villain makeup, I love his stupid exoskeleton, I love what a petty asshole he is, I love how silent and scary he was when he first appeared and I love how awkward and pathetic he was when he lowered his hand and let Guts escape, I love that he expresses emotions, I love that Void had to basically tell him to shut up during his petty back and forth with Guts in his first scene, and I love him partially out of spite because Miura tried to make me hate him in the shittiest way possible.

Like yeah okay put your super gay character in vampy makeup and make him a rapist to piss off the manly protag while writing out the woman you have no idea what to do with, fuck you I love him anyway.

I have a tendency to love the characters the narrative goes above and beyond to try to get me to hate, because I don’t like being told what to do lol, and if I feel like the narrative is pushing me to feel something without properly selling it/while poorly and/or offensively illustrating it I get contrary. Like basically the Eclipse rape only made me feel hate for Miura. If I hated Femto for it, then I feel like I’d be validating Miura’s bad and offensive writing.

Which is not to say I don’t fully understand and respect people who do respond to the Eclipse by hating Femto. This is just how I personally respond to fiction lol.

#i'm always hesitant to talk about how much i love femto but fuck it #ask #a #b #ty for the questions hope you wanted overly long navelgazy responses lol #Anonymous #character: guts #character: neogriffith #character: femto #theme: inner monster #arc: bs #theme: revenge

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dzpenumbra · 2 years ago

Text

10/14/22

Man, my brain just ran off while getting into bed. I was just thinking about how I really can't wait to meet new people, specifically skaters. It really sucks, because honestly there aren't a lot of skaters in their mid-30's and I turned 36 today. Officially late-30's. Fuckin... quite a feeling. Not really eventful, you only really get noticeable decades past your 20's, but yeah... Most of the skaters my age are really good.

It's intimidating. I mean it always was, there's always someone your age that's better than you, but there are people my age that have a 10-15 year leg up on me. It's not like... a competition or anything. And I can kinda get past the embarassment of just not being good. But like... I feel like good skaters would get bored hanging out with me. Like... they would kinda just bring me with. I don't know. Like I wouldn't have a lot to offer the group.

I then went - damn, it would be really cool if I found a girlfriend who wanted to learn how to skate, or who used to skate or longboard or something and wants to like... really commit to getting better at it. To skating as often as possible as a social and exercise thing. Not as a "I'm gonna be the best skater at the park someday" kind of way. Like, a "try to refine my style and push myself to progress" kinda thing. It would be really cool, and good bonding, and a constant healthy project. That would be really sick, and make it much more comfortable for me to meet new people. Rather than be the random dude in his late-30's at the park skating by himself. Which is me currently.

Then I went on to... how much it sucks that having a family just... didn't happen for me. Like... I always expected it was going to happen, and that I'm gonna be an awesome dad... but it just... didn't happen. There was never a discussion about it, there was never anyone really encouraging it along, no one seemed very interested in it, and then suddenly I look at a calendar and it's 2022. And when you get into your mid-to-late-30's shit starts to get... different. Well, naw, that's actually a complete lie. There are a TON of people on dating apps that still act like they were just removed from suspended animation, frozen in their early 20's. Some even their teens. And it's... something I try to keep a healthy distance from. I have pretty much moved past all the... social pressures for convention or like... this weird mating ritual of dating rules or whatever... taboos and faux pas - with respect to romanticism and open communication about expectations, but cutting through the anxious pressure and just getting to the point because life is short. So that makes the whole concept of dating itself not as daunting as it used to be. It's just meeting a new person and getting to know them, and I love stories, so getting to know people one-on-one is like... something I really enjoy and miss. I'm not really anxious about it anymore, which is nice.

I actually had an idea this morning (I think) of doing a video series, documentary kinda thing... like an art thing... where I interviewed people and tried to ask them... personal questions that elicit strong emotions, but in a way that's... nostalgic, not like... prying or something. It's a weird concept, but this whole talk about peoples' stories is flashing me back to it. I was thinking of like asking an old man at a park about his first kiss, or something like that. Something that's an unforgettable moment, and seeing the way they light up the second it comes into their mind. Like you can outwardly see the physical expression of their imaginative experience. That is fascinating to me, and a complete mirror of the art installation I was going to do where it was a claustrophobic room full of portraits that react to your motion towards them, like a haunted house portrait trope of the art coming alive, but done with rotoscoping - so it has that uncanny valley thing, where the art is believably real - and using very genuine reactions in the portrait from a video project called "CCTV Man" or something like that. Where the reactions are all like legit "get the fuck away from me, what's wrong with you" reactions. That installation was going to be a literal anxiety machine, used to deliberately induce anxiety attacks in the viewer. This video project, it's like the complete inverse. It's like... summoning love in people. Fond memories, warm fuzzy feelings. Through unexpectedly asking them very personal, but relatable things. What was your favorite gift as a child? Did you have a favorite stuffed animal? Stuff like that. I feel like the unexpected nature of it is the ideal way for the... acting... to not be part. To get a real emotion, a pure, unrefined reaction.

Well that was a hell of a tangent. I was talking about fucking dating. So... what happened was I started to see a lot more single moms on the dating sites after my breakup. Around 32. Wow, it's been a while, huh. And now it's pretty much all that. I'm not even looking now, because I'm moving in a month, it's like... what am I gonna do, ask you to move with me when you probably own a house here? It's weird. So I'm just gonna wait, I guess. Not much of a choice. But the weirdest thing for me, as part of a family who just had the first child born out of my two brothers and I, and that brother is like 3 years older than me... Kids in the family is just, a weird thing for my family. And the majority of people on the sites have kids, some in their teens and shit. And that was a big like... brick wall that hit me. Like my prior relationship was kinda like a mini-pandemic for me. Very literally, I was pretty much a shut-in then. So I came out of my 3-year pandemic, smoked a bunch of weed for like 9 months, then went to a rehab place to get off prescribed benzos for good for like 6 months, then got dumped out into the real pandemic a month later. So that time warp "It's fucking 2022, when did that happen?!" that happened to me twice, back to back. I barely had time to process the loss of 3 years, and then I lose another 2. So while I'm sure a lot of you still feel like it should be 2020... I feel like it should still be 2016-2017. And it fucks with my head a bit. So I just get back on dating sites after what feels like a few months, but was actually like 3 years... suddenly it's a big ol' bundle of single moms who had shitty partners during the pandemic, I assume... Or maybe that just happens at this age, I dunno.

So I actually had to process the idea of being the father to someone else's child. Which is weird, I guess, but not off the table. I nannied for my... former goddaughter. It's a long story. Like 10 years ago, when she was an infant. So I know I'm good with kids, and enjoy it. I remember so vividly and fondly being on like 3 hours of sleep and drinking a red Monster with the textured can, the cranberry something flavored one. And eating Clif Bars, the white chocolate macadamia nut ones I got into eating when I was doing a lot of hiking back then. And feeding her some bits if she wanted some, easy on the chocolate though. And quitting smoking, when I smoked like a pack a day, and only smoking at night like... overnight. Because her mom would like... freak out if I smelled like smoke around her, like it was gonna make her sick or something? I think that's a little excessive in hindsight, but man people can make compelling cases sometimes when they are... master manipulators... anyway... I remember trying different TV shows than her usual ones during naptime. Teletubbies just got her cracked out and excited. Not good for nap. So I thought "what's really slow paced and atmospheric and boring." Old TV shows. Like really old. What old TV show would I enjoy watching? Original Twilight Zone. And she took to it like a fish to water, she had no problem, she liked the music I think, and the pacing was nice and slow and not too abrupt. This was well before the age of jumpscares. And she kinda lost interest in the black-and-white, so she'd just nod off and fall asleep on my chest, and I'd watch a show I really like. And fall asleep like 10 minutes later, too. XD

So I know I can be a good dad to someone else's kid. I know that. And it's not like it's a bad thing. I'm just... part of getting older is having to process that not only am I not going to be able to reproduce forever... but I am also considering that my partner will... kinda... be putting her life in danger a bit the older she gets. At least that's what I hear, and I really want to like... prepare for that. So it gets to this feeling where you're like... "if I ask her to have my kid, at like... say we start dating at 36, want to have kids like... 2 years later? Is that too soon? And then... she's gonna be 38... is asking her to have my kid at 38, and the risks involved... is that too much? Is that selfish?" Especially if she already has a kid of her own.

I just really... always thought I'd have the experience of raising my child from birth. And it's not that I'm averse to coming into the game late, better to get to participate and play a meaningful role in someone's life than not at all, in my opinion. I know there are those that disagree, and that's okay, the world needs all kinds. But... I just never really processed that I might just... not get to have my own kid. And that's something I'm trying to keep exploring a bit at a time, so in case it does play out that way... it doesn't blindside me when I'm 45 or 50 all of a sudden or something.

I think my blessing and curse here is that I'm smart about the decisions I make, and I cave into impulse and peer pressure less than those I've known. So, though I too have had my scary close call moments and have made my share of childishly poor decisions, I managed to have the wherewithal to avoid reproducing. And I have thankfully not been bound to those who I was really not a good match for, and vice versa. I am very grateful for my fortune in that department. And now that I'm much more deeply self-aware, I have a very strong leaning towards what I'm looking for and I'm starting to get much more picky. Well... I need to really get better, to be honest.

Get ready for shit you won't believe. The last chick I "dated" came over, played the special that Bo Burnham made during the pandemic for me. Inside. Which was fucking great, but also basically my entire life story. And I have no idea what she was trying to communicate with that? Maybe like... I see you, and it's time to go outside, and I'll save you? or something? I don't know. I really don't know. But she put her head on my chest, and my whole body just seized up like I was being electrocuted or something. It was a huge shock to my system, physical human contact, it was like electricity coursing through my body. And I had a ridiculous panic attack. Like super deep weed freakout level of panic attack. I thought I was dying. Like the reaper was talking to me through the TV and telling me my time was up. A death omen. Those come sometimes to me, it's not like... literal... it's like I'm just realizing a very pure concept of mortality and death. I like to view it through the lens of shamanism/animism, it helps me not take it so fucking literally so it doesn't make me all paranoid I'm schitzo or something. Death omens, in my experience, have been like getting the Death card in tarot. But experientially. So like, profound change, transformation, sometimes actual death as part of it, but... yeah, like a progression of the cycle of life. It was definitely a very clear - "Hi, I'm the concept of Death, and I'm gonna look you in the eyes for a minute so you can know that I'm in your life right now, and you might be trying to ignore me or something... but I'm here." That kinda reminder to the self, and I guess for her too, because she was haunted by a death as well.

See, the death omens made a lot of sense with this context. My dog had suddenly gotten sick and I had to put her down within 24 hours of finding out she was sick, just a week prior. And she had some very traumatic incident with a horse that she told me about that she carried with her. So... there was a white horse that she passed on the way to my house, she sent me a video of it. Just walking through the woods. Surreal, and traditionally a death omen. I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see the video myself, very sad, not sure how to make sense of it. Then when she called me to give her directions in to the house, she got divebombed by a red tailed hawk. And the red-tail is one of my animals. I have a necklace with a talon on it, I have lots of feathers in my car I keep close to me. It was like a movie, I swear. And then there was the special, saying the wrong things at exactly the right time, and I freaked out.

But the freakout didn't last very long, like 2 minutes, and I just rode right through it, grounded myself. "It's just a profound feeling and a thought of death/mortality, it's not like... I'm in The Ring or something." Though it really does feel that way sometimes... I swear I just watched too many damn horror movies as a kid! XD And then I was back, shaken but doing surprisingly well. And she got all freaked out all of a sudden. And then... like just ran. Like... after I got out of my panic attack alone, with no support from her, right next to her... and just went back to normal... and didn't freak out or lose my shit... She freaked out. I guess maybe she's never seen someone do that before? I honestly have no idea what happened there. Maybe she just saw an out, an opportunity to dip. Because she did. And she booked it real quick.

Oh, forgot to mention. The way I met this chick... I have a thing in my profile about wanting to get into more 3D sculpture, specifically in stone, wood and bone. And she lived on a farm and offered to bring some bones. And she legit brought 2x 10 gallon buckets full of goat bones. And a lot of them are unusable. And I'm really just thinking the whole thing was an excuse for her to get rid of those bones to an artist who might actually do something with them. I probably don't want to know the story behind them, honestly, but who knows. In hindsight, it was like... what was she thinking? There's no way I'm going to use that many, and I have never worked with the medium before. But she just dumped me with the bones and dipped, and now... I have one month to figure out how to respectfully get rid of these bones without looking sketchy as hell. Because I'm in a bit more of a suburban area, and she was very rural. And people around here don't really know what to do with a rabbit carcass when it gets jacked by a fox - I have a feeling an entire trash bag full of bones they can't identify by eye is just gonna have the cops show up at my door. Because I'm the artist who works nights and never leaves his house, and now they're finding bones in my trash. It's like... jesus fucking christ... I just wanted to try dating again!! I swear to god, 100% of this is true and I really am going to need to figure out how to deal with this shit.

My life is often like an emotional version of Mr. Magoo just stumbling into existential hells and movie-like situations. It's... tiring.

So... I'm thinking the best way to go about this is to just call up the police station, some non-emergency line, and just sit them down and tell them this fun little story. About the newly divorced woman who was obsessed with saving every animal that she could, and used me to get rid of goat bones. And I'm moving, and don't want to sketch out the trash guys and have them call the police without context. No one needs that stress. And ask them if there's an animal control guy around or something, which I know there is, and if he knows what to do with like... properly disposing of animal parts. Because I don't wanna dump this many in the woods or something, that feels sketchy. I'd like to keep a skull to make into an incense burner, because... how often does that creative opportunity come around? But I keep going back and forth on it, because of a weird relationship with death, and a reflexive fear of being judged and... persecuted? I think is the word? Because of something that doesn't have ill intentions, that's legitimately a creative pursuit. I hate my anxiety around that, I wish I could just flip the switch on it, it's so dumb.

But it's a gnarly one, "fear of the judgment of others". And it's probably my primary demon I wrestle with. And it's the one I got to meet personally when took mushrooms, so we're very well acquainted at this point. It can just be really sneaky sometimes.

Seriously though, I wear shirts with skulls on them all the time. Metal band hoodies and shirts and shit. But the second I have a real skull around, I get like... "oh what if people start thinking I'm like a violent person or something?" Ugh, it's obnoxious. I wish that voice would just chill a bit, he's so fucking loud nowadays.

My arm is starting to get a little sore from typing, because I type all weird... so I'm gonna start wrapping this up. My dating history is complicated. And I'm not letting this weird situation stop me from dating at all. I just... might need to be a bit more picky. A bit more discerning. And less desperate. It's really hard, after being alone for so long, but I need to remind myself that it may feel like what I want is just dangling right in front of me... and that I should just look past some big problems in order to get to it... but what I want is to be around the right kind of person, and if they aren't the right kind of person... something else is dangling right in front of me. That's not what I'm seeking. It can be really hard to remember that in the moment.

So yeah, this unexpectedly turned into story-time again. So... I've got some work ahead of me. And getting older is complicated. But hopefully I can meet someone who's at my level, who thinks like me, who understands what I'm looking for in life, and seeks the same. And hopefully I can find a respectful way to get these bones to a better place.

My birthday went pretty good. Didn't sleep very well, had a freakout at like 9, but went back to sleep. Got up, ate food, got high and hopped in the shower. Been a LONG time since I've sung in the shower high, and I really do enjoy it. I want to try singing lessons someday. Then played Session a bit. My mom brought us a pizza to share. I started working on my hoodie, the black Sharpie is working very well and I got all the rings and the pencil guidelines for a mandala done. I showed my mom Session, and she actually tried to play. Like picked up the controller and tried to play it. And I taught her. And not only did she start to get it, but she learned to steer, to revert (when she accidentally lost speed and started rolling backwards switch), and to not only successfully ollie (and accidentally kickflip)... but to ollie up a curb, do a line of hopping down a curb and ollieing up another curb, then actually hop down a 2 set, ollie a 7 set, then sharp left turn and firecracker a 5 set. In one night. And she got that feeling. That "holy shit, I did it!" feeling on every one. So... she got to actually feel what the excitement of skating is like for a skater. And that was a really really big bonding moment. And I'm very grateful for it. I will remember it for a long time, it's a very generous gift.

So I didn't wanna head to bed without mentioning that. I don't really care if I didn't get any real gifts or anything... I had a loved one show an interest in one of my passions, and engage with it to see what I love in it. That is the best gift anyone could give to me, sharing my life. :)

#diary #journal #stream of thoughts #spilled thoughts #online journal #stream of consciousness #dating in your 30s

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rescueonefinancialnet · 4 years ago

Text

"I am thou, thou art me."

"I am thou, thou art me!" They announced in unison.

A series of qualms infiltrated the beast within — a heart, so naive to the horrors of the world. Exposed to the horrific incidents that had befallen this house.

My name is Atlas Marsier, currently 24 years old, I work as a Physical Chemist, fundamentally, we research new chemical properties, and from that, we create new pharmaceutical products.

I was five when I was introduced to the household's maxim, "I am thou, thou art me!" (I know quite common, yet I still found it odd). Questions weren't always met with positive reactions, at least in the family. Due to this, I grew up learning by myself, personally preferring chemistry over other matters, learning how the world functioned inside a solitary pen, away from society. My father, Avery Marsier was a respected man, beloved by the people around him, because of his inherent charisma, people were drawn towards him, towards his ideals, to a cause greater than himself. And so, he decided to establish his own community, revolving around the concept of occultism and parity (an unlikely pair).

But, I digress.

Most of you have presumably heard of the "Jonestown Massacre," if you don't, I'll provide a little context. The "Jonestown Massacre" was a dreadful event in history that occurred in Guyana, wherein approximately 918 people died from food poisoning, essentially, it was a flavored beverage — some calling it "Kool-Aid" which was laced with potassium cyanide (KCN).

My grandfather, Calien Marsier, was a firm believer in their cult leader, Jim Jones — a white minister who preached unconventional socialist and progressive ideas to a predominantly African-American community, thus, that was how the People's Temple was formed. My grandfather was one of the few people who also believed in the equality of all, to rid of racial discrimination.

Though, my great grandfather fled to Indianapolis after the massacre, after being subjected to so many dead bodies, leaving him traumatized, and attempting so many occultist ways to ask for forgiveness from those who had died. He passed it onto his family, saying it was his Kins' burden to carry, to do what he could not, to ask for forgiveness from the damned.

It was two days ago when I got stuck inside this haze of a dream, a belligerent phase in between reality and fiction. Though, maybe it was due to those red eyes that lingered in the darkness, or maybe due to the decaying mixture of blood and food, or perhaps the inhumane growling that has been sending chills down my spine. Nonetheless, I believe that my life is facing an immotile peril, which is the sole reason that I am writing this.

The phenomena were as vivid as daylight entering the eyes. Two days ago, I was researching the possibility of Potassium (K) manipulating the nerve cells to function adequately when a buzzing rang inside my ear, it was a ringtone from a phone, my phone. Slowly, I unlocked it only to see that my Sister from Indianapolis was calling me. I hesitated, unable to answer the dark memory that haunted me to this day, though ultimately, I gave up and answered the device that rang endlessly.

"Hello? Sarina?" I called, my voice cracking delicately.

"Yes, hello? Atlas, is that you? Gosh, it's been so long," her soft voice, a mellow autumn that brought a sense of relief. I was glad, I hadn't spoken to family in so long, but if I truly wanted to forget, I should have avoided this call.

"Atlas, Father is at his deathbed..." There was a brief silence, a monotonous tone that was unable to lull this heart of mine, deliberately booming with dismay and anguish.

"Atlas? Are you still there?" She consulted breaking me away from my anticipated trance.

"Uhh... Yeah, I'm still here... It's just, it's too much to take in, sorry," I muttered over the phone truthfully.

"We all know what Father did to you, but, please just this time, see him off, he so badly wants to see you!" She sighed on the other line, and I felt my heart wrench, her muffled cries were audibly clear.

I scratched the back of my head, unable to come to amends with the decisions that scrambled inside my barren abyss.

"Please..." She pleaded, an unbearable break in her voice.

And, on a whim, I mumbled, "Ok, but only for you, and Janne!" A sigh of relief following after.

"Thank you!" She retorted, immediately ending the call after.

I was met with the once monotonous tone of the dead phone as rain pelted through the glass of the laboratory I was situated in. The sensation was dreadful, knowing that a family member was nearing demise was horrendous in itself, though another reason deterred my conscience from going back home.

And so, I drove into the silent night, every inch of darkness consuming my car, the headlights being the only source of light. Soon after, a morose emotion took over, it was my old house, and upon meeting it, a looming gloom that seemingly was withering away along with the wooden structure met my eyes — recollections of a murky past that haunted my very being.

Slowly parking my car in the driveway, I departed towards the deathly reality of my history. My sister stood on the porch at the dead of night, tears cascading down her rosy cheeks that were somehow lit by the faint glimmer of the moon.

"Glad that you're here, Atlas. Janne also just got here," I nodded, peeling off the leather cloth that glued onto my skin, liquid gushing down the fabric.

I inspected the window beside us. Instantly flooding my sight was the ample amount of my father's cult members, solemnly sobbing and whimpering inside the living room. It bothered me, a son like me was distant from his own father, yet people who aren't even blood-related to us were bawling their eyes out. They seemed more of a family than I.

Gagging the discomfort away, my sister yanked me through the hallways — a grandeur, Victorian-inspired ancient home, crumbling due to old age. Deliberately, we ascended the stairs, then a familiar set of orbs locked onto mine.

It was my sister's.

"Janne? I've missed you so so much!" I mumbled, as to not attract any unwanted attention. The owner of the ocean-like spheres beamed and hauled me into a tight embrace — I was the youngest out of the three, and these two were the only ones who've ever treated me like I was part of the household.

"I've missed you, Atlas! It's just sad to see that the only time we all gathered together was at our father's deathbed," Janne extended her arms out to Sarina, Sarina directly accepting the gesture.

We stood there, for quite a while hugging, reminiscing about our days together.

"I guess we all wanted to leave this house," Sarina murmured, her once solemn manner, replaced by a warming smile, a smile that gave me a brief reminder that I was truly back home.

"Yeah..." I managed to blurt out.

We started pacing towards the uppermost master bedroom, my Father's room. And, upon ascending the last flight of stairs, I was immediately met with peculiar eyes, staring right into my soul, slowly drilling away what was left of my sanity which reduced my composure with each passing second.

I excused myself, passing through those demeaning eyes. Eyes that held expectations, it held all kinds of things, and it belonged to my Father's executive cult members. Scrutiny wasn't handled in a calculated manner, and so I shifted my gaze towards the ground, hastening my pace towards my dreaded Father's room.

And there, the horrors began to reminisce, the abuse, the pain, wounds, and bruises that were unable to move on from their horrid history. My chest tightened ever-so-slowly, it felt like I was being constricted, towards death itself, just like this old ragged man before me.

Old white hair, meager to remove itself from the depths of his scalp. Skin, wrinkly as age could have folded, pale as a corpse, yet refusing to give his last breath.

"Can you leave both me and my son in the room? I would like to have a word with him, privately..." He coughed, spitting blood all over his red-stained sheets.

They all rapidly dissipated, like smoke, even the souls of my sisters were not present inside the room. Then, it hit me, I was alone, with the gloom that haunted my very being all of my life, an agonizing one at that.

"Son, Atlas... I'm deeply ashamed of the way you've grown to fear me. Let fear not shape you, instead, let your courage mold you," the pale man coughed once more, spouting red oozing liquid from his mouth. I pitied him, oddly enough.

"I just wanted you to know that it was never my intention to do any of those horrible things to you," he mumbled, his raspy voice laced with a hint of discomfort. This caused something within me to snap — an anger that built itself upon fear, anger that fed on hatred, and it was inclined to the idea of bursting out.

"To what?! Kicking me in the stomach? Beating me until I was unconscious? Or maybe, it was slitting my wrists with a knife?! And, let's not forget you, mixing Cyanide with the beverage for your members, you're lucky I found that one before they could have killed themselves!" I felt my chest lighten, a series of breaths that seemed to ease the beast within — a heart that held all of the resentment and bitterness, flaring like wildfire.

"No... I did not do any of that!" A tear rolled down his saggy cheeks.

"Then who did?!" I retorted. He yanked my hand, nearing my ears until he uttered.

"You're the key, you need to find out, you need to save those damned souls, Atlas! And, I hope that you may come to forgive me when you come to confirm my suspicions. Inside my office, there is a hidden passage, you've accidentally entered it before. You can find my journal there," He coughed again, more blood spewing out of his maws, his eyes slowly turning bloodshot. And, it scared me, what if I was loathing an innocent person?

But, it couldn't be, it was him, every single time.

My curiosity was piqued, and the thought frightened me immensely.

"Plea—" his eyes gazed into the vast nothingness, bloodshot, and lifeless. His head hung down from the pillow as tears began to trickle down from my tear ducts. I was scared, frightened of being truly alone. My father laid there, motionless, everything was followed by a loud bang, the door opening, and people flooding the room, and I sat there, incapable, limp from the dread of death of a family member.

Soon after all of the tears, I met my sisters, talking to a black woman who, if my memory does not serve me wrong, was also a member of Father's cult.

"Yes, Sarina, embalming your father will take approximately two days, the Priest will also come by in two days, and I'm heartbroken of your loss, goodbye!" She nodded and went off into the street at the break of dawn. Makeup, stained from all of the inherent crying.

"Sarina, Janne, are you busy? I'd like you to help me with something, of course, if you aren't," I said shyly, clawing the back of my head.

"Well, surely, we can make time," Janne tubbed my back as a form of assurance, slowly pacing off into my deceased Father's office.

"Remind us what we're doing here again?" Sarina inquired.

"Well, to put it simply, Father said that he wasn't the one who did all of those horrible things to me, and I'm here to find out if he's telling the truth. I don't want to live, hating someone all of my life!" They must have the perceived integrity in my gazes, and so they asked no further.

"So, what are we doing exactly?" Janne queried.

"See those tiny metallic letter blocks on Father's table? We're supposed to find the correct code," I mumbled analyzing shelves and shelves of books that had placed themselves before me.

I fiddled with the books, lining upon my sight when a faded book cover caught my eye. It was a book entitled, "Narrative of Life," the author was a black slave during the 1800s, who wrote about the continued racial oppression, his journey of ending the oppression, and gaining his freedom.

And, upon inspecting the cover closely, I discovered the familiar set of hollowed-out number placeholder. Grabbing the "L" of the "Life," which disclosed a four-number combination that was to be filled by the metallic blocks.

"I remember him, Frederick Douglass, he was the one who said, "This fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn," signifying that the Blacks' were never truly free," Sarina elucidated, as she fiddled with the metallic placeholder.

"Yes, I remember now. Janne, spell "July" inside the four-letter placeholder. It's the 4th of July, 4 letters, and the date that the author said the statement!" I said, Janne deliberately placed the letters one by one on the book, whilst we were waiting for a reaction from any of the contraptions.

"Nothing!" Janne sighed, placing the book on the table, and accidentally closing the lid of the container.

An abrupt quake frightened our notions — a dissatisfied one. The floor started cracking, revealing a dimly lit staircase right below the table, and within that single second, it hit me, the fear, of knowing the truth, of knowing that I might have hated the wrong person most of my life.

I trekked into the darkness, flashing my phone over the darkness, carefully treading towards the enigma when I accidentally bumped into a tough substance. It was a bulb, enclosed in networks of webs. Pulling off the silk from the contraption, I tugged onto the string, instantly causing the bulb to turn on.

"What is this place?" Sarina questioned.

"I accidentally entered here before, which was why I got beaten until I was unconscious. It's Father's Research Room," I informed them, both unable to take their quizzical stares from the substances that were hidden inside the room.

"What's this? It says "Jonestown Journal." Entry number 1, Guyana, October 21, 1978. Journal, during our council meeting, Jones has showed signs of severe psychosis, he doesn't want to lose the lawsuit as it will greatly influence the power of the community. I'm worried, he's been talking to thin air, and I, along with the other inner-circle members are deathly afraid of him," Sarina read. I motioned her to proceed to which she gladly obliged.

"Entry number 7, Guyana, October 30, 1978. I ordered a plane on the 23rd of November. I need to escape from this place, even the inner-circle members want to escape, Jones is slowly losing himself. Every night, I dream of a catastrophe made by himself, I hope it only stays in my nightmares," She finished, immediately flipping the pages.

"Entry number 16, Guyana, November 16, 1978. I saw the Psychopath beat a black child until he was lifeless, I couldn't save him, I've reported to the authorities, but none believed me, the locals all believed the minister. And, also, I saw him in my dreams, his eyes bloodshot, puking a puddle of blood, pointing towards me, and saying that it was all of my fault!" She tossed a few more pages.

"Entry number 18, Guyana, November 18, 1978. This madman fooled his Black cult members! He termed it a "Revolutionary Suicide," I talked to the investigator, he wouldn't believe me! He distributed a beverage laced with cyanide throughout the whole cult. I warned them, but they wouldn't listen!" She gasped, utter disbelief coming off of her mouth.

"Should I continue?" Sarina asked, wanting assurance before anything else, to which I nodded as an affirmation.

"Entry number 28, Indianapolis, November 28, 1978. I arrived last afternoon in here. They've published articles of the massacre I couldn't stop, this was in my dream. And, speaking of dreams, I had a dream last night, there were eyes, bloodshot eyes that stared at me in hatred, fangs that wanted to raze my very being, and I reckon they were nearing a thousand. There were also carvings on the roadside, something about an "Andras," and not only that, Jones, was hunting me, with a sickle, he wanted me to drink the poisonous liquid as well," Sarina muttered, her worry intensifying.

"Read the last part, I need to know what Father wanted to tell me," I told Sarina, she flipped to the last page, a single strand of paper left inside the journal.

"Entry number 836, Indianapolis, July 6, 2021. Ever since my father died, the same dream he was narrating, passed onto me. What he did to me, he wasn't the one who did it, it wasn't those thousands of red eyes and the owners of the boiling blood puddles either. My death is nearing, this is my last entry, and my son is the only one who can put an end to this curse, he can liberate them. The pills are inside the drawers, focus, and let yourself slip into The Nether. But, beware, isolate yourself as to not hurt anyone, you are susceptible to possession in this phase. Chant the family maxim three times, it'll place you in the correct body," Janne and Sarina turned their attention towards me, I slowly paced towards the drawers, snatching a bottle of pills — pills that melted in the dark background, a shade of vantablack, and it sent the ripples inside my tiny mind in disarray.

I eyed both of my sisters, wanting both of them to remove themselves from harm's way, Sarina nodded in affirmation, although Janne begged to differ. She willfully attempted to stop my attempt, and I appreciated her worry, but the truth was the only thing that could set me free from these wretched chains filled with immeasurable doubt.

"I need to do this, Janne, please!" I pleaded, wanting her to get out of the room, and away from the chamber.

"Please, come back, we don't want to lose you as well!" Janne managed to blurt out which gave rise to a smile.

"I'll return, I promise," I assured her, swallowing the pill, along with the entrance closing, leaving me in the dimly lit chamber. Senses, gradually dulling, a paling darkness, along with those horrific red eyes. The body, unable to move at will, fear eventually swallowing the abyss into a sluggish and agonizing insanity.

"I am thou, thou art me! I am thou, thou art me! I am thou, thou art me!" I muttered through the tips of my lips. The darkness eating my conscience away.

Frigid concrete caressing my cheeks, body, lying on the cold hard ground. Shadows, spanning as wide as the eye could see, it almost seemed like a town, an abandoned one, and situated at the very tip of the town was a building, seemingly unaffected by the apprehensive aura of the darkness.

It looked almost like a temple.

The scrutiny shaped itself in the form of the red eyes, maws craving a soul, and a body that was to be torn, limb from limb. Yet, they were incapable of advancing, as if they were scared... of something.

"Calien? Where are you going? I need you to persuade the inner circle, we desire to make a statement, and do it we shall," he laughed... in a twisted and horrid way, it scared me to death, the psychotic look painted on his face was absolutely appalling.

"I-I'm going... uhmm... Jim?" I stuttered, fear getting the better of my sanity. It would be the most tactical idea, to play into the enemy's arms, and from the inside, destroy the structure of the community.

"Very well, Marsier, let us head to the People's Temple!" My grandfather? Peculiar, was I seeing things through his eyes?

"I am thou, thou art me," a shuddered whisper rang inside my ears, a familiar raspiness to the tone, almost like I've known the person all of my life.

"It's luring you... run!" The murmurs moved along with the wind, a sequel of dull heartbeats following after.

Taking the warning, I slowly paced away from Jones, my body pursuing the source of the voices. The murderer must've been too occupied in his daydreams, clarifying that everything was just a misinterpretation, or so it seemed.

But, still, I couldn't get that twisted smirk of his away from my mind, and it bothered me with each passing second.

"Where did you go? Those red eyes and sharp fangs aren't your companions, I advise you to stay away from them!" He shouted with a melody that was almost taunting as if he was questioning my intentions, and it terrified me. After all, the human mind can only endure so much.

Then, a sudden tug on my shoulder alarmed me. It was one of those red eyes, yanking me, all too forceful. Me, fearing for dear life, fought back, only to meet the puddle of blood soaking my face, and percolating inside my eyes.

This was it, death, a gruesome demise. And, for a second, a darkness blanketed my eyes, yet it oddly felt relieving, like it was not meant to kill.

"Stand up! We have much to talk about!" It was a black man, tugging my shoulders, a person, amongst many others.

"Where are those demons?!" I yelled, a wave of panic rushing inside me.

"There's only one demon here," he mumbled, pulling me inside a barren shack, only a single vial of red liquid caught my eye which the man promptly took, about five canisters of fine silver nitrate — easily distinguished if examined by a chemist's eyes, one look was all it took and a dull-looking kris.

"That temple was a sacred ground, me, along with my family have been protecting that place. This is the blood of Jesus, our order salvaged the blood from France, my father, warning us that Jones was planning something sinister, that we need the blood to stop the catastrophe, and that he sensed a demonic presence," I stared at him, demented, frightened by the things that he was spouting.

"That temple is a gateway for evil, wherein the connection between our world and the world beyond ours is severely weakened. Unbeknownst to us, after hearing about the future of his lawsuit, Jones became angry, and with that anger, he accidentally summoned a demon, a demon named Andras, who has been manipulating him to do his vile bidding," he finished, the name grew familiar inside my abyss, it was at the verge of my thoughts, but it was all but futile.

"Andras, detecting the presence of the blood of Christ, started to order home-to-home raids. And eventually, after failing to find the treasure, manipulated the whole community to commit mass suicide," my eyes widened, learning the truth behind the catastrophe seemingly drained my capacity to reason.

"I am thou, and thou art me. My spirit has provided the means to rid of this demon and to finally liberate us, I needed pure people, and your grandfather was as pure as can be. But, none dared to come near the illusions, to us," he sighed, scratching the back of his head in slight annoyance.

"You, luckily, managed to get our blood into your eyes which caused you to finally see the truth," he said, placing the vial of blood inside of my hands.

"If I had a physical body like yours, I would have done this a long time. But, I'm only a spirit, and you have to be the one to save all of us. To be the one to finally banish that demon!" I sighed, escaping peril was only the half of it, I had to come back as well.

I was about to refuse when I recollected, this plight would have no end, a curse that is passed through each member of the family once the holder dies. I bit my lip, anxious about all the possibilities that may transpire, and then it hit me.

"I need those silver nitrates, and I'll take the kris!" An idea instantly coming into mind, I tightened my grip on the canister, on my right, the blood of Christ, and the kris inside my mouth.

"You need to draw a cross on Jones' forehead, or it would be nothing but futile," the man yelled, as I walked towards the temple, the existence of the Nether, and the danger that lurks within, no longer feared.

The once dark-enclosed city inverting shades with the temple which now held a distinguished gloom. Despite the fear, and despite all of the emotions trickling within, hope seemed to fuel my very being, and so, I continuously took the path towards the unknown, with hope.

The gloom embraced all of the vicinity, crosses near the mass graveyard turning upside down as I paced right past them. A series of unnerving claps resonated behind me, and it was no other than the demon himself, Jones. He held a large sickle, his eyes drooping in agony, blood flowing down his eyes, in an effort of hesitation.

It seemed like he didn't want it like he was being forced. A stream of blood came from his mouth, puking out guts onto the dirt which forced me to squeal. And, as if on cue, my legs mindlessly ran towards a ragged building, a series of bloodstains, and organs, left about for flies to infest.

I headed towards the leftmost chairs, hiding behind the brittle wood, and removing the handle of the blade from my mouth. Opening the lid of the canister, I deliberately scattered the silver nitrate on the wooden chair, slowly moving towards the backrooms of the temple.

"Hide, little man! Because when I find you, I'll make sure that you savor every last bit of my drink!" The demon hissed, a hoarse voice that encapsulated the soul in a strange tingle of fear. A maniacal laugh following after.

I slid through the stone slabs, only to find a whole table of corpses, choking on their own blood, guts, and innards spawled on the floor.

"This is what happened to the inner circle, Calien. Poor them, they should have stayed as loyal lapdogs!" Jones laughed maniacally, his grin protruding towards his ears. It was a horrific sight, and I could feel my hands, shivering from fright.

"I saw an empty canister just outside, you should have been more careful," the demon taunted, causing me to frown.

"You demon, you murderer, I'll never forgive you!" I said pathetically, my eyes void of life, with the hope being the only fuel.

"You pitiful human, I've slaughtered billions of lives, and I couldn't care any less. You, humans, are of no significance, just like all of them!" He hissed, jumping onto me with a sickle in hand.

He attempted to slice my neck with the sickle which to my luck, I dodged. Soon after, he pressed the sickle towards my face, attempting to overpower me, my left hand struggling to keep his hand from advancing, and ultimately, slicing my face open.

"Imagine losing to something you call insignificant, Andras!" I yelled in its face, spitting as a form of aggravation.

The strength in his arms gradually increasing with each second, his once pale face growing feathers, into a shape of a horrifying beast, limbs turning pale, blood dripping from the tip of its mouth, eyes that perpetually gushed blood. I pushed with all of my might, which resulted in the blade slipping on my palms, leaving a minor wound.

"You fo—" And, before the demon was able to finish his words, I clinked the kris onto the stone, causing sparks to fly out of the steel end of the blade, and into the silver nitrate, which resulted in a strong explosion.

Both of our limp bodies flew into the air and landing on the ground. The demonic transgression from Jones slowly fading along with the demon that possessed him. I limped towards his body, noticing that his face was burnt in half, and the blade nowhere to be seen. I took the initiative to limp towards him, head still filled with angst, and a vision clouded with haze.

I examined his body, assuming that he was dead due to the dismal lack of beats from his heart. When a hand instantly grabbed me by my neck, choking, trying to grasp even the tiniest amount of air.

But, it was futile.

"Fool, do you really believe you can kill me? I am a Marquis of hell, instigator of discord, of anger!" He tightened his grip on my neck, causing me to scream in pain.

"Go... to... Hell!" I yelled, destroying the vial with my hands, glass penetrating through my thick palms. And, on a whim, I drew a cross on the demon's forehead, which caused him to scream in agony, whilst his slowly deteriorating body blew along with the wind.

I was dropped on the ground, unable to fix the syncopation in my breathing. A strong smell of iron infiltrated the nose, the dissipation of light following after.

I unlocked both of my eyes, sunlight infiltrating both of my orbs. The hazy dream felt all too real, and it caused a certain rush of panic. Then, I was met with two familiar faces.

"Janne? Sarina?" Embracing both of them in a tight hug, relief overflowed through my system. The plight was finally over, the demon was finally gone.

"The malevolence I've sensed has dissipated, Janne and Sarina! A miracle must've happened!" A man, dressed in priest-like garments announced, which resulted in a fit of smiles.

I glanced at the searing pain in my palms, a minor wound, fresh, and clean.

It was real after all, and I'm glad that this curse is finally over.

More debt relief tips at ROF review

#debt reliew

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collection81 · 7 years ago

Photo

Interview: Elizabeth Glaessner, a painter living in Brooklyn, New York.

Before this visit, Elizabeth and I did not know each other but I had admired her paintings for years. I first encountered them in 2014 at PPOW, her NY gallery. Her work exists between abstraction and representation with dark human moments lurking within painted worlds.

It was important to me that the first studio visit in this series be with someone I didn’t already know but whose work interests me, partially because it functions in a realm outside of my own practice. I didn’t want to feel any personal familiarity with her work, or the comfort that comes with an inherent knowledge of that person or their process. This allowed me to be an open and inquisitive visitor.

I asked her a series of questions that address her studio practice and the associated struggles. We talked for about an hour about personal doubt, coping mechanisms, and book clubs.

The following conversations is excerpted from an interview on October 15, 2016 in Brooklyn, New York.

Where did you grow up?

I was born in Palo Alto, California and then moved with my family to New Orleans and then to Houston, Texas. I spent most of my time in Houston. Texas is another world; the landscape is wild. I’ve been in New York since 2007 so I do miss the wide open spaces. Driving across Texas is amazing, you can see and feel the landscape transform from a sticky swamp to a desert.

Houston also has a great art community. My mom is a painter, she taught at the Glassell School of Art, which is part of the MFAH (Museum of Fine Arts Houston). It offers classes like the Corcoran, but there’s no degree program. They also run a highly respected residency program called the Core program.

When I was in High school, I was on the Teen Council at the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston and one of the things we did was visit the Core artist studios. Trenton Doyle Hancock was a resident at the time, so we got to visit him there. That was a pivotal experience for me, everything in that space felt very alive and unreal in the best way and you could see that he was living his work. He was totally committed to what he was doing.

What is the driving force behind your work?

I feel like I couldn’t not do it. Growing up, it was the one thing I could always get lost in. I really enjoy the act of painting; I love that part as much as I love thinking about the ideas or the narrative.

When I am making, the small pieces especially, I reference things that I’m reading or experiencing now but then also combine that with things that have stuck with me from my past. So it feels like a natural way to reflect on the present and the past. I develop a lot of the stories in an intuitive way. With the pure act of painting the most exciting thing for me is trying something new and then being surprised with what happens. That allows for some of the content to be dictated by the process.

What is your biggest struggle in the studio?

Right now it is the size of my working space. If I had more space, I might be doing more of the larger paintings at the same time. I like to work on a lot of pieces simultaneously. Sometimes there is a positive thing in not being able to though, it forces me to put things away, which stops me from overworking them.

Put the following terms in order of importance to your studio practice:

Form, Concept, Process

I feel like they all inform each other. I have been thinking a lot about what I want the paintings to say but they aren’t extraordinarily specific. I am not totally interested in having an idea and then making a painting to show that idea. I start with vague ideas, I’ll think about a specific mood or particular landscape or color, then I start thinking about the narrative. I ask myself if it will be a dangerous painting or a lighter painting. They’re still open for people to experience them in their own way.

Was there ever a time when you felt like you couldn’t keep making work? If so, what helped you to keep going?

Yeah, there have been times when I question everything: the type of work I’m making, is the work important, etc. I’ve also had stretches where I fail a lot and I just keep making bad paintings. I make a ton of small pieces that no one sees. I was working on a huge piece earlier this summer, it’s a great example of a failure that took forever. It was haunting me. I would come in the studio and work on it every day and at a certain point I had to take it down, roll it up, and start new pieces.

This was my first large piece on canvas in a long time, and there was a lot of experimentation at the same time. I like to work fast and get it out and move on, but I got really stuck on this one. Sometimes I felt I had gone backwards that day, I would go home and obsess.

I take pictures in the studio and I would go home and look at the photos over and over again. I think a lot of it was figuring out how the materials I am used to working with on paper or panel worked on the canvas. I love working on paper, it is an amazing surface. Even though it takes a long time to prepare, it didn’t feel as daunting as painting on canvas.

I love the way wet media works on paper too, so when I was working on panel, that felt like the closest thing to the smooth surface of hot press paper. Canvas is more flexible, so when I wanted to bring some of the moments that occur in my other work into the large piece, it was a struggle. I learned that sometimes I’ll build up too much and then the piece dies. I just have to approach it differently. I put it away and work on something else, that’s how I deal with it.

Do you have any routines, rituals, or coping mechanisms that you use regularly in your studio practice?

If I am frustrated with a big piece, I will just sit on the floor and work on small pieces on paper. That feels like, comfortable, play time. I think that kind of stuff impacts my work a lot. Sitting on the floor I am immediately reminded of childhood, which can be very freeing. I also have a big table at my apartment, and sometimes do small pieces there, which is a totally different environment. It’s nice to go back and forth.

My studio mate and I usually listen to music and podcasts (though when I’m by myself it’s always music, I can’t really focus on anything else while I’m working). Every once in a while I’ll be listening to a weird station on Spotify and turn it off and realize that the music was putting me in a weird mood.

If I’m really focused, it all becomes white noise so I don’t immediately realize how it is affecting me. I like listening to This American Life outside of the studio, and recently I had it on while painting. This episode that was so fucked up, I had to turn it off and listen to it later. It was too intense.

Do you have any hobbies or interests outside of your studio practice that help keep you sane?

I run. I have been running forever, I used to run track in high school and my first year of college but it became too much with practices. I don’t do incredibly long distances but I need to do it or I become a terrible person to be around. Because I work a lot on the floor I have been noticing I’m getting back aches and pain, so I think it’s important to be physical. I’m also in a book club/crit group with some amazing artists and writers.

A friend of mine, Jessica Stoller, who went to Cranbrook started this womens crit group with a few of the other members while she was there and a lot of them ended up in New York. They’ve kept it up here and it keeps growing. We go to one person’s studio one day and then do the book club another day. We’ve read one of the Elena Ferrante books, a scandalous book called Tampa and just finished Americanah, which is probably my favorite book so far. The author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is an incredible writer.

We, as artists, are doing so many different things. We have our home life, our studio practice, day jobs, etc. and I think that if I don’t make borders or boundaries I will just feel completely overwhelmed. So my day job is completely separated from my studio practice. But home life/studio life is a gray area for me. I have not yet learned how to not let my art affect my mood outside of the studio.

Is there anything you would like to promote? Upcoming exhibitions, projects, passions?

I just had several small works on paper up in a group show at P.P.O.W. curated by Anneliis Beadnell. I’ll have a couple of pieces in some group shows coming up. One at SVA curated by Peter Hristoff and another in Chinatown. I’ll send out an email and post something on Instagram when it gets closer to the dates.

http://www.bmoreart.com/2016/10/inertia-elizabeth-glaessner.html

https://www.instagram.com/eglaessn/

#Elizabeth Glaessner #art #painting #peinture

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luwha · 7 years ago

Text

My headless oc and universe

a lot of people have been asking and i’ve been too busy with commissions to ahve proper time to explain and repeat to different people the same thing, since yeah i’ll repeat the same thing, so i cut some conversation stuff that i had with @doodlejinx and @og-magnus and some others, and some severe influences by the amazing @starshardfragments and wonderful comic by @videntefernandez!

Remember, it’s a casual conversation i had, it’s literally messy and broke and most are just babbling chat by me, so uh, yeah

also. it’s super long.

with @doodlejinx

i had bad idea for ocworld: magic and stuff is fairly common, yet not THAT common but in 20 classmates at least 3 are witches and one is probably a werewolfthe oc: a regular human with bad touch for magic yet atracts a lot of spirits, not harmful oneshe lost his head. he has no head. but he carries it on a supermarket bag or soemthinghis best friend is a ghoulthey speak ASLhe sleep curling onto his own head

just it, he used to be an pharmacy student but had to quit was hard to work without moving the head that's not on his head anymore

now he's doing arts because he loved it and since he has no main dream he's following it, he's a bit bad but he's doing good with learninghe likes sleepovers with his few friends because he can do his own hair

in the end he got used to it, at first he carried his head with all care but at this point, after a few years, he just puts in supermarket bag

he was extremly vanilla to ever think about that, his mind was full of depression and confusion

then after some years he just gave up and he's like, nice, he can see how he's dressing up and do the dishes and tv at the same timeand since magic is fairly common, no one really stares a lot

there are ghouls around, some visible spirits, full dressed witches going to work, sometimes a 100% transformed werewoman playing clash royaleone day he sleeps and forget his head on the subway

the cats may not present as animals, but mostly do when trying to get dealsand it's a common rule

and almsot a law, no deals must be made other way, if the cat's on streetmaybe Daniel followed the crow? doesn't really matter how he lost his headthere are many cat-like entities, yet there are a lot of cats who are just catscat's are absurdly common, the cities are crowded with them and no one can tell if they're cats or entitiesso they are all respected like entities dog/wolf-like entities, different than expected, ahve their own rules about how they share the spot they protect or make dealsdon't talk a lot, but arent enemiesookamis really hate ghouls

ghouls aren't evil, they are just like people with motor disorder, they can do everything, just not look graceful, they can drive, write, everythingbut their joints is just most stiff and look zobie like but they are finebut can't speak wellyou learn asl on class like you learn english and fae

since there are many entities who cannot speakand yet many can't sign as well, so there's faebut it's only used in rare momentswith fae, you never knwo who listens tonever request or beg in faealways speak clear and never suggest a requestyou don't know who listen

it's common for universitary hourses, to be just the smallest hall ever, with 20~30 doors. and just it. the door only, and the owner is usually a fae creature, who charges nothing for the the stay butthe room is an extra dimension, it'll feed on your magic energy, that everybody have in some extentyou can pay with money if you're bad with energydaniel ahs to use money

it's also not recommended for creating a child-like or dependable one, you're responsable for them until they can care for themselves, if they cannot you must love them until you pass, or thembut you need to present a request and sign so many papers

some universitary teachers make those bodies for the ghost studentsthey're not the good bodies, they're simple and have to be given back, but when the student needs somehting he can use the bodyit's nto common, making those bodies is incredible hardand most of them results in... ghoulsghouls are an umbrella term of those who died and cannot pass yet, those who died while possessing a body, those who were murdered by specific magic, ressurections who were made without permission, homunculi that were created without loveeven deals that involved lifetime, it's a matter of respect never asking a ghoul what the fuckin the 90's the witches where phoibited to fly higher than the cars, for police rules and fairness unless they have special permitbut they still angry that doesn't apply for the angelic ones, who can fly as high as they want

details, plants are REALLY common, they are visible anywhere on the streets, even on the most city-like ones, on the windows, anywherethe sky at night is purple. a very deep purpleand last rule, if a crow rests on yout shoulder, you're not allowed to shoo it awayit gets to stay as much as it wantseven go to your house

unless you offer them the herbs they require, usually hard to have and most advanced witches have, but most of times they just wanna hangwhen they sits on your shoulder you don't shoo, but once they do you can offer them head, the hand, play with it if it wants, it doesn't have to STAY therethey'll be with you as much as they wantif they have the third eye opened, there's someone trying to sell you a cursed itemand since they gave you this information, you tell them a secretthey're good keepers

it's a world that our world and the fae somehow got mixedand it's fineand take care with merfolk, they eat humans

they're cool, but like human foodlike having a pig as a pet? you love it and still eat their kind?they'll be friends liek anyone else

but they'll still eat humans somehwre, human meat isn't that hard to findand it's legally obtaineddan ate but he didn't like that much, he said it was too firm and hard to swallow, the ghoul signed that he doesn't have palate anywaythose are stuff you learn in middle schoolnever give a crow a namenever invite a cat to your house, you don't know if it's an catthose stuff

and hospitals are really scary placeslike that comic on tumble, that has some gorelemme try to findhospitals merge with other realms other than fae, the nurses are actually a wAY more respected than the doctorsso does the pharmaceuticsthe reasons to go to one goes from cuts, surgery, hunting spells, curses, mispellings on deals, whatnot

tw gore and body horrortho the hospitals aren't sentient on my worldbut are "haunted" placesthe ones hu haunt there aren't dangerous and most of them are surprisingly helpful

he went to an hospital to check his head issue, the nurse said it was there and he'd be fine, but she couldn't identify if it was a curse, joke or bad deal, he's have to remeber more, and with fairy sparkle he saw that under the head, there was the white invisble image of his body, and his head over the body too, but wasn't able to touch or seeit was weird but harmlessand defnitly not the first case

------

with @og-magnus

he's average by description

body, average, not fat neither defined

cute, but average, not enough to be handsome neither ugly, just ok

dick, also average, not too thicc neither thin, neither long or short

tho he's uncut

i always end up drawing my average chars too pretty

he's the most bi af

tho mixed with fae world gender is merely a concept

not even humans show only 2 genders, who can say about the other fae creatures

humans with afinnity to magic? the withches? the halflings, crossed with the faes?

people couldn't care less

sOUNDS NICE, i LIKE IT

ssholes about the purity oh the human magic, that they insisted that were different from the faes, like the KKK disgraceful ones

but even those care very little about gender

he likes to present very masculine and is cis, but when it comes to dressing and stuff, neither he or anyone mind at all, he just likes large stuff, he says it comfy ad i agree

tHAT'S SUPER CUTE

if u look again, all his clothes are meme and large, most of them are old so the tshirt look tigh because it was M but he got fat a bit

so they seems tight

but pajamas

he loves it

give him pajamas and socks and he might cry

he could but no he's just thicc, not strong

actually he's quite sedentary

make him run 5 minutes and he'll almost have a heart attack, like me

He sounds like the sweetest boy

mace an oc for this universe

that is the same of ours with our shitty disgraceful leaders and rising of facism but has fae magic and world mixed

and at the night the sky is a deep purple instead of a dark blue

yes!

tho the merfolk don't really like the humans at all but some of them go to study on university on the ground

IT'S PERFECT

he can either use an spell/deal/ritual to have legs or look human or wellchairs that are a way better than the ones we have

or even "float" around like the air was water but that would require a very deep connection with magi

magic*

but he can rent this spell lol

yes you can rent spells

Neat

like Daniel's house

he lives with a ghoul and is an art student at university

the place is a rented place for universitaries, the room's size is based on the magic you have on you

daniel is a disgrace with magic

he can't do the basic light flicker

he seems to have nothing of magic on him

and the ghoul, Marta, doesn't too because she's a ghoul

so they pay the rent with money so someone makes it, what's normal since not all faes have magic

Oh ok, you've put a lot of thought into this haven't you?

you ahve no idea

marta has background

daniel too, the laws, the cats

every cat's color has a bg too

That's great!

even the place he sleeps and the interaction with other fae creatures even the fact that spoken languages aren't so commo0n so as much as you learn english you also learn ASL

marta is a ghoul, very 80's zombie, she can't speak since she has little coordination of her tongue

but she can sign

and dan can read just fine

also even in elementary schools there are small classes of understanding, accepting and using small amounts of magic

daniel coulldn't use any at all

he's not the choosen one, it's a known issue, rare, but known

he's not the only one to really have 0 ability with magic

it's like having extremly rare disease

tho having magic power in harry potter like level is really rare

in a crowd of 100 ppl maybe 3 can

it's common, yes

but not natural

those are the withces

withches*

Aaaa

Ok I see, so most people can do basic stuff but either end of the spectrum is quite rare

yep

it's more rare having no magic contact, it's a magic world after all

there's no dishes washing itself, it's less magical than it suggest

but even a regular human can feel when a cat is a cat or an entity

or feel intentions, if they're trained to understand what the aura gives

but dan cannot really feel those

even marta who's dead can

she's not a zombie she's a homunculi, and there's a lot about homuncili that i wont start it's so long

just know that they're either

- dead, who were wrongfully ressurected - failed or illegal summonings - uncertified and illegal creation of life, which the crator is now bound to make happy and live at it's fullest - dead who'se sold their soul or for any reason didn't pass to other realms - deals. bad deals. oh boy.

caniballism, ressurection and artificial human life are a thing that isn't ilegal but almsot no one can legally perform

you need so many papers signed and permissions and witnesses

also it's extremly illegal and is punishable by the locking of the soul the creation of artificial life for slavery and servitude

so is the creation of a homunculi that wont be loved, tho they are see as our legacy and your child, they cannot eb created without love

or... they'll b a ghoul.

soul lock impedes you of trancending the realms until the soul you imprisioned or created are finally ready to pass as well

and trust, the homunculi aint powerful, they're humans like us that were not created by sex or those, or even deceased child who couldn't born die miscarry, whose parents contacted the soul and brough the child back

in those cases, you cannot force a soul

that's why it takes months to be performed and is watched closely

so is canibalism, which daniel is somehow very into

the fairies and merfolk specially are really needy of human meat, like it was an craving dish

the deceased and suicidal ones leave their body to eb consumed, the burial isn't really a thing

the being part of something bigger is

a meat adquired by murder or cowercion tastes bad and rots too easily, it also goes for animal meat

oh man i build a lot

i'm ranting

I'm gonna try to fit my Triton into this I'd be interested in knowing more about them.

What would you like to know?

Where do they come from/live?

Mostly seas, very hardly rivers

And depend on where they live

So there are town all over the world then?

The entities are like, onis from Japan, headless horses and snakes from Brazil

There are faes that are exclusive from some places

All over

They despise humanity for their pollution on their realms, you know how Japan was closed and not discovered? So we're merfolk, but they were discovered much later, in the 1700s

They are wary of humans and distrust other faes

Speaking generically of course

They live in another ruling setting and are still very closed

But as hard it is to spot albinos it's hard to find them

But some visit and even live on the surface

they use elemental magic mostly, there are many types, but spiritual and elemental are the most commons

followed bu demoniac and holy, as cliche as it is

the hells aren't open enither the ehavens, tho the concept here is absolutly different than chatolic

it's almost impossivle to spot demons or angels

it's almost like they cannot survive on earth

more about gender: 90% of the merfolk known are absolutly intersex, they may or may not prefer one of their genitalia or even present none

and the "known" is because the deep abyss is still a mistery, even tho some merfolk helped, still unexplored and no one knows it's cryptids

and now that i'm back on pc

the inspiration for the cats and fae interactions, and why danel wanted to be a nurse, based on another thing

this would be up to you

maybe yes, maybe not

lemme get the links

http://starshardfragments.tumblr.com/post/159915922140/how-to-deal-with-street-cats

this for the cats

many entities do not react or present their will as humans could read, some are triksters

you never know if a cat is an entity or just a cat, they're numerous and are common in cities as pigons

i'ts so common that dealing with them is something your parents teach, it's just like they etaching like to draw a smiley face

most people have a tingle on the spine, even the low magic ones when it comes to those, they cannot be sure if it's a cat or not, but they will get wary

daniel can't even be sure it's a cat at all

now the hospital: (tw gore, blood, mutilations, murtansts whatsoever gore)

http://videntefernandez.tumblr.com/post/159578140848/im-really-thankful-to-my-patrons-for-making-this

the hospitals are more modern on my setting and less 'sentient' but they are still a place that is absolutly mystical

the nurses are hierarquically more important than the doctors, hence they are the ones who deal and welcome all sorts of stuff

from car crashes to bad deals and bizarre magic, it's a place for curses and modern medicine

daniel wanted to be a nurse, but he was forced out of the gradutaion since even he was really interested, a nurse must ahve some contact with magic

and he was shit

so he folowed his second passion, that is arts

but he's broke since he just started artign at 23 years old, and his dreams were into the blender

he works on a bodega

Aww, and the hospitals are neat

they are!!

they're super neat and they're like

what's the name of those schools where you live at?

they become your house and your coworkers your family

you don't just work there, but you also live there (in the residence inside the area) and be a part of it

specially the cleaners and service people

they're often the oldest and wiser, since the cleaning of what happens on those places is pure madness

and they're either too young or too old, since a young is getting into and the older endured the madness

spirits and ghosts are a thing, they cannot be easly spotted since they're a flicker between realms, but they go to university and even live in manequins once in a while

the manequins are built for them to be present in the material world

most of the witches can see them

they just can't be part of the object or place for too long, or it becomes cursed

but they're just like us, sharing memes on internet

just depend on why they still on this realm

the fact they didn't pass is always their secret and only

isn't it absurdly rude to ask a transgender person if they changed their genitalia? it's as rude to ask a ghost why it still here and to ask a ghoul how it turned into a ghoul

it's their and their business only

oh man the universe is so huge i could spend the whole day rambling

It's sweet that you're so invested tho

just last detail, all law problems ARE solved with truth spells

it's an artifice of the law to use it since an innocent has nothign to hide

the judges and witnesses are also under it

so even murdering has little incidence, since there's almost no get away, but instead, it's a nasty thing the "accidents" and bad deals

people lost when following cats, people locked and dying inside cursed houses

doors that lead to nowhere, people find their way to crime

and the "truth serum", that can be bough, isn't really a truth spell, but an sort of energetic that makes a person less inclined to lie, till, they can lie

and it's considered a crime using one without conscent

this world has a lot of fae rules, and most of them consist on deals

a deal makes you agree or not on using your energy, aura, soul or what you feel like calling it

if you're unwilling, there's very little things that will work

since the energy is pure and reflect the feelings

using forced one is almost like trying to eat a man who didn't want to die

the meat will be hard, frim and will spoil easly

you can buy human meat at the supermarket, tho it's really impossoble to find, it's not like milk, you don't find caviar at all supermarkets

it has to be specialized ones

oh, it's more a comment about how this world is cetic and somwewhat too serious

and about daniel, losing head like this is VERY rare, but yet was seen before, tho the reason depends, could be curse, could be heritage of some fae and entities? could be a lot

sometimes it limbs, most common it's organs, like heart specially

some take their own heart by spell to hide somwhere

daniel dunno how it happened to him

he doesn't mind

happened when he was seventeen

yet he has the feeling it'll never be back to his neck

Guessing it's hard to reattach stuff?

yeah, there's somehting they don't know that impedes it, and he could use an improvised stuff to hold it there, but the edges repel, like two magnetes on the same polar

it's meant to not be there anymore

like, he can rest with the neck parts touching, but if the intent is to keep them connected, somethign wont allow it

he went to hospitals and no one could tell, since daniel himseld had no clue

if he followed a cat, could a an deal he made without really realizing

enemy? an curse?

he doesn't know, just woke up like this

and he's not really seeking to solve, deep inside he knows there's no solving and no explanation will really make him happy

he's ok, it's like a limp. a nuisiance, but you live on

he doesn't mind anymore

Well then, seems like he's doing alright ^^

oh, he is! he totally is

it's far past the point where he cared

it just bothered on the first months, explainign it to people who knew he had a head there

but since i'ts a mixed with fae world, it's not liek people stared at him

no one ask at all

it's rare and most of them never saw it

but so is a lot of stuff that happen

the crying image of him is mostly... he is always lost, he doesn't understand a lot, his dream was crushed by his lack of magic, that no one can tell why it happens, neither seem to solve

he's afraid, he doesn't understand a lot of things

he always feel liek he's being left behind, that he doesn't understand a lot of stuff, that he's not as smart as everyone else

he does have depression, a bit anxious

sometimes he just feel too scared

he really wanted to be a nurse

and very little creatures are watched on this world

vampires are one of them

they're SUPER rare, and they drink the blood? yes, but isn't the blood that feeds them

it's the life itself

all vampires have an bracelet that identifies them

since they're one of the unique creatures that manipulate minds without an satruggle, even by accident

their will is powerful

they may manipulate by accident

most of nurses and judges and enforces of law are watches as closely as the vampires

and artists too

all cameras are heavly certified, to be sure they wont hold your soul on the pictures

so many details

they are extremly influential on the life of the individuals they interact

but it's a world of deals and trickster

they have to be watched

therefore, there's a job for ghosts who want to

it's common sense: someone is always watching

and furthermore: never ask anything to the wind

someone also listen

they live pretty much like us, except that nature is everywhere

not like, futuristic

but everyone have plants, the streets are full

you can easly find a witch

their houses often look like jungles

since not only herbs and mixes they cultivate, but the trees and plants are more than just plants

marta, the ghoul, cultivates rare sorts of plants on the very small room they share

she makes her living selling them

extremly rare, some joke she's a ghoul because she sould her soul to lay hands on those

Oh that I really like

it's higly requires, since witches use a LOT and those who have their magic touch also use once in a while

anyone can put seeds on pots, but they're not magic because of this, they're weeds

it's how you plant them

and marta has her own secrets, she knows how to plant them and nourish them, she has more than a green finger

she's really good at

I think my character has got to have something to do with keys

and fun... she cannot speak, and yet she speaks with the plants, daniel doesn't understand she damn she explaines more than 10 times, detailed

ohh

keys!

on the subject, key is anything that locks a thing

they can or cannot be material, often are

but yet

it's another job that is respected, they key makers, for any doors

there are whole university graduations on keys

a soul lock requires a key

justice files require keys

That's what he's in the human world to study then

he can meet daniel!!!!

same class on design of artefacts: reading, understanding, feeling and categorizing

canibalism is not that common, it's a thing you do like... twice a year if you REALLY into it, and daniel is atrcted to it even eh doesn't know why... it's a nagging feeling he can't shake, a driven will that seems not his

but damn he'd do the joke

everone do the joke

and he's the type of nerd who types LMHO insteaf of LMAO

laughing my HEAD off

he's an absolute dofus

he puts his head with the milkshake on the same bag

so he can walk and drink

cute dork

so many head ouns

puns*

shirts with head related lines

people who know him, every single time sigh because they KNOW the pun is coming

dan is extremey curious, he's almost obonoxious of how curious he is

he's extra intrusive and have very little limits

since he really do not understand a lot

whenever a fae entitiy is around, he finds his way to ask form what is like being an entitie of X stuff and what's your favorite reptile

they would have an awkward start because oh boi he would be intrusive

easly dismissable, but persistent

OMGJFGHGJKEFDHGJKW

DANIEL LOVES COOKING HE'd be so happy to show it

and since he's a good artist even he's a new one, he'd help him with the proportion of paitings and how the oils and saturation worked on dry ambientes, if sygg needs

he would ask to touch his skin, how is to live underwater, how it feels to be under a spell to live on eart and so many and so many endless questions

well, dan respect the share of knowledge he's so often deprived due his lack of magic

how sygg stays on eath? how do you imagine it tho?

he floats around? like air is waterw

there are rulings but they mostly resume on the speed and high you can swim but those won't bother him then!

dan would be mesmerized

and even he was, dan wouldn't understand anyway, but having the knowledge seems to be enough for him

sad, but enough

he's fine with it

how attached to hugs and touch dan is, dan really feels alone most of times, like he was detached from people as his head form him

he hold hands with strangers if they allow

he let them carry his head if they ask

the fact you can lower his head and only at sygg at his wishes? you corrupted me i blame

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weekendwarriorblog · 6 years ago

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND April 12, 2019 - HELLBOY, LITTLE, MISSING LINK, AFTER

We’re almost midway through April (already?) but that also means that we’re one week closer to Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame, which is probably the only movie everyone is really waiting for anyway, going by advance ticket sales.

For those who can’t wait for more super-heroics, Mike Mignola’s HELLBOY (Lionsgate) gets another go in theaters, this time played by David Harbour (Stranger Things) and directed by Neil Marshall (Game of Thrones). I wish I could say I was looking forward to seeing this, but frankly, I loved Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy: The Golden Army, and I have secretly wished for the last ten years that he would be able to continue that story with Ron Perlman, Doug Jones and the rest. This one has some interesting casting including Ian McShane, Milla Jovovich as the main baddie, Sasha Lane and Daniel Dae Kim. I guess with that cast, maybe it won’t be so bad? I expect the movie will be more geared towards the fanboys and girls rather than the mainstream audiences that have been flocking to other comic movies. (My review is now over at The Beat… and I hated it!)

Universal and Will Packer Productions are offering some interesting counter-programming to Hellboy in the comedy remake (of sorts) LITTLE, written and directed by Tina Gordon and starring Regina Hall, Issa Rae and Marsai Martin (from ABC’s Black-ish). This is the type of body-swapping comedy that’s delivered some great laughs in movies like both Freaky Friday, Tom Hanks’ Bigand others like Jennifer Garner’s 13 Going on 30. I mean, there’s still so much that can be done with this sort of thing as seen by Shazam!, and this sort of high-concept premise is also fairly easy to sell audiences. I missed the press screening of this, but if I have a few moments in April (it might happen!) I’d go check it out.

The other movie I saw that’s opening this weekend is LAIKA’s new stop-motion animated film MISSING LINK (Annapurna/UA Releasing), featuring the voices of Hugh Jackman, Zoe Saldana and Zach Galifianakis. I’m not going to review the movie even though I generally liked it, mainly since it’s been a minute since I watched it, but if you like some of LAIKA’s other films (particularly director Chris Butler’s earlier film ParaNorman) then you should enjoy this one, and like with all of LAIKA’s movies, I

Lastly, there’s Aviron’s AFTER, another teen romance drama, this one based on Anna Todd’s fan fiction that pairs Hero Fiennes Tiffin (Ralph’s nephew) and Josephine Langford in the type of Y.A. romantic drama that has had mixed results in recent years. Sure, the recent Five Feet Apartdid fine but others, like last year’s Midnight Sun, released by the defunct Global Road, barely made $10 million. Since I haven’t seen the movie – honestly, I haven’t even watched a trailer -- I’m not really sure what the appeal of this is going to be except that some younger women may not have much interest on other options this weekend.

LIMITED RELEASES

Well, I totally screwed up last week… including one movie that was delayed until this week and neglecting a movie which I thought opened this week. (This is why you need to keep me apprised on date changes, publicists!)

Actor Max Minghella makes his directorial debut with TEEN SPIRIT (Bleecker Street), starring Elle Fanning as Violet, a young woman from the Isle of Wight who hopes to get out of her smalltown blues by performing on a popular talent television show called “Teen Spirit.” Helping her out is the scraggly Vlad (Croatian actor Zlatko Burik, who starred in Nicolas Refn’s Pusher trilogy) who was an opera singer in Croatia and offers to manage Violet and help her get to the finals of the show. While Elle is no Aretha Franklin, I was truly impressed with her singing voice as well as Minghella’s screenplay and direction of the film which has a distinctive look and tone but is also a movie with quite a lot of mainstream appeal. If you like television shows like The Voice and American Idol, you might be interested in seeing one contestant’s (fictional) journey to get onto one of those shows.

You can read my interview with writer/director Max Minghella over at the Beat.

The movie I left out of last week’s column is HIGH LIFE (A24), the new movie and first in English from French auteur Claire Denis, which stars Robert Pattinson, André Benjamin, Juliette Binoche and Mia Goth. I saw the movie at the New York Film Festival last year, but I guess I never got around to writing about it, but I wish I did. Not that I particularly liked the movie, but if I wrote about it, at least I could remember what it was about. I know it takes place on a spaceship with a bunch of astronauts including Pattinson and his young daughter, all of them trying to survive.

But my absolutely favorite new movie of the weekend is Alex Ross Perry’s HER SMELL (Gunpowder and Sky), starring Elisabeth Moss as Becky Something, the lead singer of an all-girl punk band who have hit the big time but are about to implode due to Becky’s addictions and eccentricities. Becky also has a baby daughter who she is constantly neglecting and her bandmates (Agyness Deyn, Gayle Rankin) and everyone is worried about her. I’ve liked some of Perry’s past work, but something about this one really connected, maybe because I spent a couple decades working in the music business, so I can relate to the frustrated engineer in the recording studio section of the film. Moss, obviously, is amazing as Becky, a role that puts her through all the highs and lows of success and fame, but I also liked the cast around her, actors like Cara Delevigne and Amber Heard who I barely could recognize in their respective wigs. I actually saw this at the New York Film Festival, and I liked it even more when I watched it again recently. It opens in New York on Friday and in L.A. and other cities next Friday, and I hope to have an interview with Perry, probably over at NextBigPicture by next week some time.

A movie that I hoped would play the Toronto Film Festival in 2017, but instead got up in the Harvey Weinstein scandal was Garth Davis’ MARY MAGDALENE (IFC Films), the follow-up to his Oscar-nominated film Lion. It stars Rooney Mara as the title character and her real-life boyfriend Joaquin Phoenix as Jesus… and just hat last part gets me worried just because I remember Rodrigo Garcia’s Last Days in the Desert a few years back, starring Ewan McGregor as Jesus. This is being released this weekend into about 50 theaters in select cities after playing in just about every other country in the world last year as it sought out a new U.S. distributor.

Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone of Gamorrah fame returns with DOGMAN (Magnolia), a crime thriller set in a small seaside village where a dog groomer named Marcello (Marcello Fonte) is being coerced into committing petty crimes by an ex-boxer bully named Simoncino. Apparently, this is based on true events, and I generally liked it, particularly the performance of Fonte. It opens at the Film Forum and at the Film Society of Lincoln Center Friday, as well as the Landmark Nuart in L.A. It will expand to more California theaters on April 19.

Martial arts fans will want to check out master fight choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping’s latest The Ip Man Legacy: Master Z (Well GO USA), starring Max Zhang as Cheung Tin Chi, who is trying to make a life in Hong Kong with his young son after being defeated by Master Ip. The movie also stars the legendary Michelle Yeoh (in a great sequence with Zhang), Tony Jaa (ditto) and Dave Bautista… yeah, well I guess two out of three isn’t bad, but Bautista is pretty terrible, and the movie is disjointed in its storytelling. But the action is cool, so there’s that! It opens in select theaters this weekend.

Eva Husson’s Girls of the Sun (Cohen Media Group) stars Golshifteh Farahan (Pasterson) as Bahar, commander of the “Girls of the Sun” battalion, who are set to free their hometown from extremists, while also freeing her son. Emmanuelle Bercot (My King) plays a French journalist who is embedded with the warriors during the mission. Husson’s film opens at the Quad,Landmark 57and the FIAF Florence Gould Hall (now showing first-run films) on Friday, as well as the Laemmle Monica Film Center in L.A.

A movie I sadly had to miss at this year’s Oxford Film Festival is V. Scott Balcerek’s doc Satan & Adam (Cargo), a movie that took twenty years to make, as Balcerek pulls together two decades of documentary footage of the blues duo that were a fixture in Harlem in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. “Satan” is Sterling Magee, who played with so many greats but felt exploited so he walked away from the music scene, before being joined by Adam Gussow, an Ivy league scholar…but then Magee vanished, and the film follows what happened after that.

I had heard great things about Kaili Blues director BiGan’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (Kino Lorber), when it played a number of film festivals last year. It follows a man, played by Huang Jue, who is haunted by a woman from his post who he goes looking for her. And it includes a substantial single shot in 3D… for no particular reason that I could ascertain. To call the movie a “slog” would be an insult to actual slogs, and I barely could stay awake while watching it. It’s playing at the Metrograph and Film Society of Lincoln Center starting Friday.

Also now playing at Film Forum is Camille Vidal-Naquet’s debut feature drama Sauvage/Wild (Strand Releasing) following a gay sex worker, played by Felix Maritaud from BPM (Beats Per Minute).

Tim Disney’s William, opening at New York’s Cinema Village and L.A.’s Laemmle Monica Film Center, is a love story between two scientists who fall in love while trying to clone a Neanderthal from ancient DNA creating William, the first Neanderthal to walk the earth in 35,000 years. The film stars Will Brittain, Waleed Zuaiter, Maria Dizzia and Beth Grant.

Gilles de Maistre’s Mia and the White Lion (Ledafilms Entertainment Group) is an ambitious film about a ten-year-old named Mia whose family moves to Africa to manage a lion farm, bonding with a white lion she names Charlie. The film was shot over three years, so that the film’s young starsDaniah De Villiers and Ryan Mac Lennan could bond with their lion co-stars. The film also stars Melanie Laurent and Langley Kirkood, and it opens in select cities.

LOCAL FESTIVALS

I’m finally shifting my gaze over to Chicago where the 21stAnnual EBERTFEST kicked off yesterday with Alan Elliot’s Aretha Franklin concert film Amazing Grace, as well as a special showing of the Wachowski’s Bound with special guests Jennifer Tilly and Gena Gershon. It continues through the weekend with showings of recent and older movies, including Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous, Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married and more.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Late Nites at Metrographwill screen Werner Herzog’s Bad Liuetenant: Port of Call New Orleans, starring the inimitable Nicolas Cage, while the Playtime: Family Matineesthis weekend is Danny Kaye as Hans Christian Anderson. Although I forgot to include it last week, Michael Blackwood’s 1968 docs Monk and Monk in Europe(as in Thelonious Monk) will continue for the next week, as does King Hu’s The Fate of Lee Khan from 1973. This Saturday night, the Metrograph is presenting a cast and crew reunion for Sidney Lumet’s 1988 movie Running on Emptywith Christine Lahti, screenwriter Naomi Foner and producers Amy Robinson and Griffin Dunne

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

L.A.’s hottest newish rep theater will show Michael Ritchie’s 1975 film Smile as well as his 1992 film Diggstownon Weds and Thursday (and apparently, Bruce Dern appeared in person on Weds!), Friday and Saturday are Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry (1971) and Escape from Alcatraz (1978), while Sunday and Monday screens David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). This weekend’s KIDDEE MATINEE is Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, while the midnight offerings are The Hateful Eight on Friday and The Blues Brothers (1980) on Saturday. On Monday afternoon, there’s a screening Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

On Saturday, Film Forum will screen Jaime Chávarri’s 1976 documentary El Desecanto, introduced by author Aaron Shulman, who wrote a book about the Spanish literary family, the Paneros, on which the movie is based. (FYI, Chávarri’s film was never released in the States, and there is only one screening on Saturday.) Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) will screen Saturday and Sunday as part of Film Forum Jr, and Francesco Rossi’s 1973 film Lucky Lucianowill screen a 4k restoration for a single screening on Sunday afternoon.

AERO (LA):

The late Luke Perry gets a tribute with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) shown on Thursday, and then the Aero is doing its own Claire Denis tribute (cause everyone else is doing i!) with Salt, Sweat and Sunshine: The Cinema of Claire Denis with a double feature of her debut Chocolat (1988) and White Material (2009) on Friday, a screening of Beau Travail (1999) on Saturday, Nenette and Boni (1996) and 35 Shots of Rum (2008) on Saturday, and then Trouble Every Day (2001)and Let the Sunshine In (2017) on Sunday. Most of those will be showing on 35mm and Denis will be there, at least for the first two nights.

MOMA (NYC):

Modern Matinees: B is for Bacall continues with 1948’s Key Largo on Thursday and Jonathan Glazer’s Birth (2004) on Friday. The What Price Hollywood series will screen George Cukor’s Sylvia Scarlett (1935) and John Waters’ Female Trouble (1974) on Thursday, Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place (1950) and Bill Gunn’s Ganja & Hess (1973) on Friday, Mitchell Leisen’s Midnight (1939), Clarence Brown’s 1931 film A Free Soul and George Cukor’s What Price Hollywood (1932) on Saturday and Fritz Lang’s Clash By Night (1952) and Joseph Lewis’ Gun Crazy (1950) on Sunday.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

The Quad begins its new series Wild Things: The Ferocious Films of Nelly Kaplan, a tribute retrospective to a pivotal filmmaker in the French New Wave, which I know next to nothing about, so I won’t even try. Just click on the title to see the movies playing.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

This week’s series is The Anarchic Cinema of Věra Chytilová, a celebration of the filmmaker who emerged during the Czech New Wave, which I know even less about than the French New Wave. Just click on the link if you know who she is.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

This Friday’s midnight screening is the ‘70s classic Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974), starring Peter Fonda and Susan George. I’m not sure when was the last time I had a chance to see this movie but if I were in L.A., this is where I would be on Friday night.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Streaming on Netflix starting Wednesday is THE SILENCE, the new apocalyptic thriller from director John R. Leonetti (Annabelle), starring Stanley Tucci, Kiernan Shipka and Miranda Otto. In this twist on Netflix’s hit Bird Box (and rip-off of A Quiet Place?), this one involves a world being terrorized by primeval beings with acute hearing and a family trying to survive. Also streaming Friday is the high concept teen rom-com The Perfect Date, starring Noah Centineo as a guy who is payed to take a friend’s cousin to the prom.

Next week, another horror movie in New Line’s The Curse of La Llorona, plus the faith-based drama Breakthrough from Fox and DisneyNature’s Penguins.

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