#and then render like. 8 fully separate drawings

[autisticaradiamegido]

WAUGH I fell asleep early last night and didn’t get a chance to post art, but in lieu of a proper 6/12 post:

I’ve got another zine to share with y’all!!

All proceeds will be going to Gaza Soup Kitchen, and I know I always say this but this is YET ANOTHER bangers-only art compilation and I highly recommend checking it out!

Here’s a lil preview of my contribution >:3c

[daphwritesworld]

#6 L. Williamson — Partition. (part of the Be My Baby series AU) SNEAK PEAK

Leah Williamson x Athletic Trainer!Reader

!! MINORS DNI 18+ !!

Series Masterlist: here.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♥♠♥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Your whole closet is thrown around your room at this point. Pants, skirts, blouses, and dresses scatter the scene. You’ve been running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off, makeup finally done, outfit on, hair looking semi-okay, but shoes is your biggest problem right now. Nothing looks right and the walls are starting to close in. Why is this so difficult, why is your heart pounding so hard in your chest, and holy fuck did you just hear the doorbell? You whip your head towards your clock— 8:15p.m. She’s 15 minutes late and you’re still not ready? Lord help you.

“JUST A MINUTE!” You shout out towards the door.

You throw on the matching shoe to the single on your left foot, it’ll have to do. The mirror in the wall beside your front door becomes your best friend for a second as you check your appearance one last time, fixing any details that need a little ironing out. You grab the door knob, taking a deep breath as you close your eyes for a second. You gather yourself before opening the door, being met face-to-face with sex on legs.

There Leah stands, black suit adorning her figure. Her under shirt is unbuttoned a bit, showing off her collarbones and down towards her chest a bit, a gold chain hanging down from her neck. Her hair looks curled to perfection, framing her face just right as it shows off her little hoop earrings. The rings sitting on her fingers catch your attention last, drawing your gaze as you get lost in studying them.

“My eyes are up here, darling,” it’s let out with that signature Williamson sass.

Your eyes snap up, your lips parting open as you stare at her face— fully caught in mother fucking 4k.

“Oh s-sorry! You just look very, very good,” your cheeks start dusting a light pink color as you avert your gaze from hers.

She chuckles lightly, her hand coming up to cup your cheek. her fingers dip down to lift your chin up, making your eyes meet hers once again. It doesn’t last long though, because yours are darting back down as her tongue goes to lick at her lips. A small smile gracing them as she watches you fawn over her.

“Not as stunning as you look. This dress is absolutely perfect, made just for you, darling,” Her eyes rack up and down your body as she says it.

You’re rendered speechless at her comment, staring at her face as she drinks in your appearance.

“You ready, my love?” It’s said so delicately. Like flowers floating out her mouth as you get lost in the soft melody of her petals. Everything about her is intoxicating, and you’re falling deeper into it the longer she’s near.

“Yeah,” you say it breathlessly. Like your floating away on cloud 9 called Leah Williamson. She got an arm around your waist as she leads you down your apartment elevator. Your heart’s pounding in your ears now. The rhythmic thump, thump, thumping moving downwards as you spiral from the way her rings are freezing cold— burning through the thin mineral of your dress and igniting your skin underneath.

Your brain finally catches up, not even registering you’d left the building until Leah’s guiding you into the back of the all white limousine. A stark contrast to her dark attire for the night. You go to sit on the bench seat, but right as your butt goes to touch it you’re being yanked to the side. A yelp leaves you as you feel hands around your hips, man handling you into her lap as you face her.

“Leah! T-The driver!” Its whisper-shouted out in shock.

“It’s fine— look. No one’s going to bother us,” it’s said against your neck. Her lips brushing against the skin as her breath lights goosebumps up in its wake.

You turn your head to see the partition rolled up. A barrier separating you both from the rest of the world now. You turn your head back to her and she’s impossibly close. Your noses are touching and her hands start sliding up your back as she tugs you closer.

“Can I kiss you, darling?”

Your head starts shaking before your brain catches up, a light laugh sounding out inside the private space.

“Use your words, pretty girl.”

“Y-Yes!”

Then before you know it her lips are pressing against yours. It’s electric and sends a tingling between your legs. Her hands pull you down onto her lap, a moan breaking out between your lip lock. Your clits right against her belt buckle, sending a cold zap through your body as you grind lightly into the pleasure.

Her hands start sliding your dress up to your hips. The cold air hits you like a ton of bricks, a shiver rocking through you. You hear Leah let out a groan before one of her hands comes down onto your ass.

“No panties, baby? You knew we’d end up like this, huh?”

“I-I just didn’t want pantyl-lines!” you get out between moans.

Her lips consume yours ones again as you feel the vibrations from her laugh. One of her hands runs down from your ass to your pussy. Her fingers rubbing up and down your slit as you drench her two digits teasing you. They start circling around your opening as she talks.

“Sure, darling. You keep telling yourself that, but we both know you always end up like this with me around,” and then she’s slipping those two fingers inside of you.

A wicked smirk spreads across her face as you start riding her fingers in time with her thrusts. Her other hand comes up to pull your boobs out, her fingers pinching at your nipples as you whine out into the back of the limo.

She loves getting you like this, so wrecked for her. You’re usually so prime and proper, but something inside of Leah craves to break that facade. Always carrying yourself with a more innocent aura compared to her own. She loves breaking that in private— for her eyes only…except for when she leaves behind some marks. Oops.

[a-weird-cryptid]

Low budget comissions!

I did a few comissions for free and it worked pretty well. So let's try out something new. :)

I will draw:

character art (Ocs, franchise Ocs such as DnD characters, etc.)

fan art (of franchise characters, etc.)

small groups (2-3 characters)

I won't draw/boundaries:

sexually explicit art

racist, sexist, homophobic or similar art

colored analog art

naturalistic/realistic art

DM me if you're interested!

Prices:

Lineart

Sketch

Depending on your combination, prices will add up and vary. The prices stated act like individual puzzle pieces that you have to put together to get a full picture.

→ simple/simplified backgrounds only! (No additional charges)

-> Payment only via PayPal. You can either pay at the beginning (after which I'll send you the end result without watermark) or after finished the commission and send the watermarked, final version. Once you've payed, I'll send it without watermark.

→ small group (2-3 characters): each additional character will act like a separate character and be treated based of the previously stated prices.

Examples:

Someone wanted to have 1 character.

Digital lineart (5€), colored and fully rendered (10€), full body (10€)

5€ + 10€ + 10€ = 25€ in total.

Someone wanted to have 2 characters.

Character 1:

Digital sketch (3€), flat/base colored (8€), bust (no additional charges)

3€ + 8€ + 0€ = 11€

Character 2:

Digital lineart (5€), colored and fully rendered (10€), full body (10€)

5€ + 10€ + 10€ = 25€

Character 1 (11€) + character 2 (25€) = 36€ in total.

Someone wanted to have 3 characters.

Character 1:

Analog lineart (5€), half body (5€)

5€ + 5€ = 10€

Character 2:

Digital lineart (5€), 3/4 body (8€), not colored (no additional charges)

5€ + 8€ + 0€ = 13€

Character 3:

Digital lineart (5€), bust (no additional charges), flat colored (8€)

5€ + 0€ + 8€ = 13€

Character 1 (10€) + character 2 (13€) + character 3 (13€) = 36€ in total.

[piowasthere]

Hello!

I’m curious- how long does it take to draw a sketch versus a rendered drawing?

I really love your art! It always amazes me with how detailed it turns out to be.

I hope you have a great week!

it really, really depends

a doodle like the ones i often do for the asks can take up from literally 5 min to i'd say 30 min? depends if i want to shade it in any way tbh

as for full rendered pieces - hours, usually days i can do one in one day (hard to call it a day when i start at like 12pm end up 4am but ykwim) but it can also take like 3 or 5 depending on how many breaks i take

honestly comes down to how many characters and the environment cuz the thing that takes up the most time, i'd say is coloring and shading i can sketch up pretty quickly and i don't go for super clean, smooth line art anyway i like the messy, free style (also saves a lot of time) so filling in the colors takes a bit and i honestly don't enjoy it all that much (that's why most doodles r just shaded and not colored)

and then it just comes down to what the bg is and how it affects the char cuz then it's just shading both to fit in, to look natural and blend tgt nicely (or not at all cuz i like funky, neon and eyestrain lol)

2 pieces i can think of rn that took me the longest (that i still consider fresh enough to take up for consideration) r the SAMS anniversary art and first piece for my Calamari Lunar i did both took me like a week from what i can remember

the former bc of the amount of characters on it, each one had to be done fully and separately so it just took a bit the latter cuz it's a really detailed, lineless, heavily shaded (also cuz it was me designing a char, so it always takes a bit back and forth until it just feels right)

i'd love to give u actual numbers, but i don't keep track of it that much and my program doesn't say it either (at least idk abt it) so i'm just going off of my memory, how long i feel like it took and mayhaps looking at dates of when i send a friend a sketch, when i first started talking abt it, the file info vs the posting date but usually idc enough to do so, and often it just simply isn't possible

TL;DR a doodle can take like 5-30 min and rendered shit a few days most often cuz i'm slow af; it all comes down to what the piece is

also tysm! so glad u enjoy my little hellhole wonderland of mental instability and mostly just thirst traps! :D

yall have no idea how actually happy it makes me when ppl notice small details i put into my work there's just smth in my brain that says it needs to have so many lil details and things and be so well done even if it's gonna get blurred out, shaded til binary and covered by 8 diff layers of shit

das the talk.

[georgedunmorefmpyr2]

Presenting my Outcome Research

Okay, so for this bit of research, I wanted to look into some different people's art stations that are "similar projects" to mine, that being buildings, and take notes on the kind of layout and renders they used to present their work. I am going to keep track of the common types of shots I see in a tally.

The page I looked at was ZUGZUG Studio which was presenting a Modular house building pack for an MMORPG game.

Here is my breakdown of their page:

10 Pictures Total

9 shots of the house

1 shot showing off the Modular Pieces of the artpack

A 360 degrees Looping video of the house model Rotating

A sketchfab Model Viewer integration.

There is 1 Low angle Render from an Orthographic Projection, 5 Medium Shots of different versions of the modular house, and 2 High angle shots of the house in different Modular Configurations.

^ I believe the simplicity of the pack complements the models that they showcased previously, as they were able to represent a great amount of detail with such little pieces in my opinion.

Obviously, with this person's page, they have a modular pack, which means that overall, they technically have a lot more to show off in terms of building configurations.

Lastly something I picked up on was the fact that this person was making use of a backdrop in their scene. I think this was to pick up on shadows being cast which makes the model have a bit more depth in my opinion.

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Next, I looked at a portfolio by Charlotte Carda. This piece is of a House designed to appear like a Banana. Her work was inspired by a piece of concept art generated by Charlène Le Scanff. The Portfolio includes:

8 Pictures Total

1 shot showing off the Final Finished piece, 3 showing an Occlusion View, 1 showing the wireframe of the model, 1 to show the diffuse pass of the model, 1 to show the specular pass of the model, and lastly a collage showing the stages for her lighting process on the model.

A Sketchfab Model Viewer integration.

I find it interesting here compared to the first one as she chose to show off all the intricate detailings of the model process which I think she took a lot of time and care into. Overall a lot of this generally doesn't apply to my process except for maybe the wireframe view as I spent some time ensuring it was fairly well optimised during the modelling process. She also kept the same medium shot for all these different renders, and the only difference was that she slightly rotated the model. I don't believe that this uses a backdrop like the previous model which personally I think is a shame as I think it would have really captured that final thing that render was missing.

^ I would potentially like to attempt something similar with my own model as I think capturing one side in such a detail draws the viewers attention more to a specific detail you're wanting to highlight.

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The next piece I looked at was by a Freelance Environment, Texture & Tech Artist called Marvin Tischler. It is a stylized house based on a concept made by Dong Dong. Here is what he included with his portfolio:

8 Pictures Total

5 Pictures of the rendered house, 1 Picture to show the separate props he modelled, 1 Picture detailing how process of creating the houses deformed and curved design, and lastly 1 image of a breakdown of the Contrast and Colours.

A sketchfab Model Viewer integration.

What is different here from the previous model is that he makes use of more than one final render (which I want to do) to fully show off all the different angles of the model and its little details. He makes use of 1 low-angle shot, 2 high-angle shots, and then 5 medium-angle shots (with 4 of them in one image). I do like how this model uses a backdrop, which allows for a faint shadow to be cast. I just think personally that adds that missing detail or depth to a final render.

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The next piece I looked at was by Andrew Melfi, a 3D Prop Artist and Hand-Painted Texture Artist. This piece is of a Viking House based on the concept art of Geraud Soulie.

8 Pictures Total

6 are renders of the house (3 Unlit, 3 Lit), 1 showing off the props used to cover the house, which is kind of like what the previous artist did, and then lastly 1 image to show the wireframe of the model.

A Sketchfab Model Viewer integration.

I definitely am starting to like the idea of doing this wireframe picture as 2 out of the 3 models I have looked at so far have done this. The model itself has pretty much all medium shots with some I think you could consider as a more Medium-High angle shot. I'm not to sure on the reasoning behind the unlit version of the model, maybe to show any details that could've been hidden by shadows, potentially?

^ Front and Back white wireframe.

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Next I took a look at this cool little Fishing house model developed by Caterina Sumalla, a Senior 3D Character Artist at Socialpoint. It was Modeled in Blender, sculpted in ZBrush, textured in 3DCoat/Substance Painter and rendered in Marmoset Toolbag 3.

7 Pictures Total

2 Renders, 1 Coloured wireframe with the texture map next to it, 1 blank wireframe, 1 Ambient Occlusion, 1 Flat Colour Image and lastly 1 Image for the Concept art she produced.

This time there was NO Sketchfab integration.

All of these shots are medium angle shots again, and I don't really like how again with these renders is that no backdrop is not used. It makes the model in my opinion feel very flat and "floaty" with it just sitting there in an empty void.

^ I do however like with this having all the textures maps be divided up into their sections next to the wireframe.

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Lastly, I looked at a model by Arnaud Bourriot, a Freelance 3D Artist / Environment Artist. This piece is of a little stylized house which is based on Baptiste Boutié's concept art.

4 Pictures Total

3 Renders (Front left corner, Front right corner, Back Right Corner), 1 Concept art at the bottom.

A Sketchfab Model Viewer integration.

The renders all feature a Medium Neutral Camera height to best show off all the details in the model. I like how this artist seems to take the quality over quantity approach with his number of renders. He ensures he has 3 High quality renders that cover all the main aspects of the model, which he focused his time on. Although he does not use a backdrop again which I can slightly look past as the grass he has below the house fades away into the darkness while also capturing shadows cast from the house.

^ This is probably my favourite out of all the renders as it covers a wide area of the houses details along with some depth with shadows being cast.

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In conclusion, I have defintely learnt some areas that I want to cover in my own work. Firstly, I want to create a nice dark backdrop for my renders to make my house stand out and have shadows being cast onto the backdrop itself. I feel that this adds that final polish to making your model really pop in its final renders. I also want to had close-up renders which I didn't see any of these do. The only reason I got this Idea is because in these models they like to showcase areas they put lots of time into like the topology for example. I put a lot of time into my texture painting so I want to get some closeups for that.

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3D Online Model Viewer Research

For this, I wanted to look into 3D viewing options for my model as all the ones I looked at previously were using sketchfab. I first had a look at P3D.in which is a free online model viewer. I exported my model as an fbx and tried uploading it to p3d but unfortunately it has a size limit of 50mb which does not work for me because of my 3k textures. It is a cool alternative to use to something like sketchfab but only for smaller project and models.

The next way I looked at for presenting my 3D models was through Sketchfab. Sketchfab is an online platform where you can upload, view, and share 3D models in real time. It also supports Art-Station allowing you to link your models straight to it and view them directly on your portfolio page seen in my previous research. The pricing is where it gets interesting,

Basic: Free — includes up to 10 uploads per month.​

Pro: $15/month — offers 50 uploads per month, private uploads, and priority support.​

Premium: $79/month — includes 200 uploads per month, unbranded viewer, and app-free AR.​

Enterprise: Custom pricing — tailored features for large organisations.

I think this would be a really solid choice, considering its free and supports direct integration for my portfolio.

The last way I looked at for presenting my 3D models was through Marmoset. Pretty much, Marmoset is a real-time rendering and baking tool used by 3D artists for creating high quality visuals, textures, and animations. From what I've found, it is mainly popular for portfolio renders, texture baking, and previewing game assets online. The only problem is that it is a paid for service that only offers a "free" option for 30 days. It is either subscription based £15 per month or a one-off payment of around £320. Taking this into consideration I think that sketchfab is the bets route to go as first off its free and second off it will support direct integration for my portfolio.

[the-tzarina-alexandra-paracosm]

Some of my favourite art - a timeline

Part 6: 2016

This was a very prolific year!

Undated. I like the flow of this one

April. Trying my hand at designs whilst practicing drawing clothing folds, shading etc.

March. These two are the most high effort drawings of this year. Notice that in the drawing on the left, I wrote that the total time was 3 hours and a half, which was unusually long for a drawing to take at that time. I didn't time myself whilst drawing the one on the right, but I like it better.

August. In terms of concept and composition, this is one of my favourites of this year. I contrasted two characters from two of my novels, who were kind of similar in terms of personality (hence the title in red, "alter ego"). I like the colour contrast on this, too.

August. I have like 8 pages of Olympics sketches in that sketchbook (I filled out an entire sketchbook in 2016 and I treasure it to this day), and this was chosen as a representative. I was trying to practice more complex and dynamic poses.

September. I like this drawing because it marks the beginning of my Insect Fairy worldbuilding project.

June. I had rewatched my childhood anime, Tokyo Mew Mew, and drew a double page spread on my sketchbook.

Undated. Really love the colours on this one.

Undated. This is possibly my favourite drawing from this year.

~~~~~~~

I would say that the main characteristics of this stage are 1. Highly renderer drawings in terms of shading and colouring 2. Attempts at learning dynamic poses 3. Increasingly moving away from the anime style and developing my own style

In a meta sense, this year is very relevant because of the sheer output I had in terms of art. I drew much more than the previous years, filled out a sketchbook from January to December, did many sketches and drawings separately from that sketchbook, had other notebooks in which I was drawing, doing comics and writing, I did many full render pieces, either detailed shaded pencil drawings or fully coloured ones, and I even did some digital drawings (in MS Paint). I also allowed myself to be very experimental during this era, which helped my art grow.

[030615]

Unit 4 Reflective Journal - Lim Lin Year 1 Production Arts for Screen (WEEK 6-10, Creative Research)

Continuing from the previous post, I appended the flowers modelled by Jin into the scene and tried drawing a cloud using a Ghibli film still as reference, however the result of the clouds did not turn out well due to the shadows casted by the tree.

Week 6

After the Easter break, we showed the tutors the current progress of our project. Franciska was able to edit the animatic with sound effects and the result was shared. The main issue the tutors had was the timing of the shots and certain camera angles. They suggested the animatic to have longer pauses and the inclusion of more frames.

For the environment concept art, we were told that the garden did not resemble an Italian garden as the tones were not warm enough and we missed certain elements that should have been made to make it loom authentic. Instead, we were told to make it a British garden.

The feedback given for the 3d environment was the textures and length of the grass particles. For the corrected version of the scene, I shortened the length of the particles and changed the shaders of the fence. As the image texture clouds looked off, I also replaced them with a HDRI which worked much better with the environment. The texture of the fence was also changed for the noise to be more prominent as to be more consistent with the rest of the scene. After making those changes, the fixed environment looks like this.

Daisy helped in designing the supporting characters and Jin modelled them with colour variations.

Week 7

As the bird had yet to be rigged, we decided to work on the Previs instead to get the blender files for each individual shot confirmed, making the workflow easier once we began animating. The Previs and animation work were split between me, Franciska, Jin, and Marina. I did shots 1-11, and 36-42. Although we had to add an extra step in the pipeline for a placeholder of the bird model, this was useful in organising the shots and setting up the camera angle.

Week 8

The Previs was complete, and Franciska helped to create a side-by-side reel to check the timing of the shots.

For the animation, the work was also split between the four of us as shown below, with my section marked in blue.

The bird rig was also sent to us, however there were some problems with the eyes. I eventually realised the main problem was with the modifiers, as the mirror modifiers were not applied before the model was sent to Molly, and the separate eyelids were hidden so it was not moving with the armature, but there were still some issues with the hips and joints so we spend most of this week on shots that require little to no change in the bird's movement.

Week 9

By this time, the rigging of the bird had been fixed and we continued working on the animations. As the time taken to render the shots was too long, our tutor Paul told us to render the viewport animation instead to review the entire animation rather than individual shots. This was my personal favourite shot as I didn't expect the animation of the eyes popping out of the binoculars to work.

After most of the shots were animated, Franciska compiled all the viewport renders onto the animatic which was then reviewed by Paul. He gave us feedback on the timing and camera angles of certain shots, as there were a few continuity and flow issues with the scenes. Once those shots were fixed, we began fully rendering the project.

However, the main thing that disappointed me was the rendered grass particles as they looked different from the viewport. I assumed the grass particles looked okay through the material and rendered view and proceeded to do the Previs with the viewport render. The main problem was how it looked in the actual rendered scenes, as for some reason it appeared more rigid and unnatural with many objects clipping into each other. As I had already uploaded the file as the final environment and everyone had completed their section of the Previs, it would be unfair to fix the environment and make the other members redo the camera and object placements.

Week 10

The last week of this unit went smoothly, given we chose a simple story and had an effective production pipeline. The key issues we had in the final lap was the rendering quality of the shots, as we had to redo most of the renders to a 4k resolution to reduce the number of artifacts in each shot. Given that we decided to render everything in a large resolution, it took much longer than expected. This also made me realise how badly optimised the main file was since there were too many calculations made outside the camera view that were still being processed in the render. Fortunately, we did manage to render all the shots before the deadline and Franciska helped with adding post editing effects as well as the transitions.

Overall, I am thankful to be put in a group of people who have vastly different skills and worked in the areas we were strong in. Marina helped to lead out group not only by doing tedious portions of work such as the storyboard, and making sure that we stay on task and meets the goals of each week. Franciska contributed a lot in the planning stage of the production through the prop and character sheets, then helping us with her great expertise in 3d software and video editing. Jin gave us unique ideas in stylisation and modelled many of the props that needed to be interacted, with incredible attention to detail. Daisy also helped in giving us the idea for the story itself and created many 2d illustrations that gave life to the characters.

I hope to do more in the early stages of production such as storyboarding in future projects and will learn from the mistakes I made this time to create a better quality work for my groupmates in the future.

Creative Research

For this unit's creative research portion, we were given a lecture on researching objects. There are varied reasons to research an object and a general definition of an object in this unit's context. The idea that objects are “relational” guided me in understanding this topic as strong storytelling could be done through the physical items. After each lecture, we were also given time to discuss what was covered through seminars. I found the seminars to be useful in helping me understand the content of the lectures at a better level, as well as allowing us to develop our own opinions about what was taught.

A lecture that helped me greatly for my research topic was about researching makers. This was interesting to learn more about as the discussion about the "Death of the Author" has been prevalent on social media, and learning different ways to perceive a creator's authorship of their work especially in collaborative media, as well as the importance of being critical towards the actions of a maker.

For essential readings, the few that stood out to me as engaging and eye opening. Ursula Le Guin's 'Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction'. gives a unique perceptive of fiction that I had yet to consider. The idea of fiction as a "container" and the "botulism" of narratives stuck with me throughout the discussion. Edward Said's 'Orientalism' also made me more aware of the level of otherness which is placed involuntarily of those from different cultures and ethnicities, and is also an informative reading due to current tragedies of the world and the global reaction to the situation. These seminars and lectures have genuinely helped me in analysing the texts I read more critically and these skills would be useful not just for school essays but with the media seen in everyday life.

After the weeks of lectures and seminars, the topic I decided to choose was the production behind the Spider-Verse films. This topic interested my greatly as this franchise had one of the greatest impacts on me as an aspiring artist, and I distincly remember the disappointment I felt hearing about the mistreatment and harsh working conditions behind one of my favourite sequels and films of all time. I ended up using a lot of online articles as research as I found those to be the most useful in obtaining direct sources from producer interviews and recounts from the production staff.

[kan-be]

do you think you could ever make a step-by-step tutorial on how you draw hair? the way you render it is so shiny and soft✨

hii!! yep, sure! tho my rendering process is a hot mess i hope it will be understandable enough

1. so first of all I start with base colors

2. then add shadows on the new layer with Multiply, a bit darker at the edges of the lighted side. I also color lineart here

3. on another layer i add lighting either with Normal or Add

4. lastly layer with Overlay to add some more warm and cold tones to make it look less dull

5. at this point my layers usually look like this

6. then i make new layer on top of everything and start rendering, mixing colours, making transitions softer, turn most of the lines into shadows , and separating hair on locks

7. here i usually fix tones either with Curves or with new layer on Color mode or Tone. then add some strands that come out of hairstyle to make it look more lively on the previous layer or new one to be more flexible with placing. yet another layer with Screen mode to make distant strands of hair fade away into background, kind of imitating aerial perspective. and then I slap all the layers together and make final additions, somewhere combine shadows, somewhere remove too small and unnecessary details, adding an outline on some parts.

8. and finally I add colors again with Overlay, in general lighting it’s yellow-reddish tones in the light and begging of the shadows, a bit of cool bluish colors in the shadows. I also like to add colors from nearby objects to each other. In this case, the color of the clothes on the ends of the hair, for example. and lastly i use Add to make highlights even shinier 🤩

and that’s basically it, may seem a bit excessive but I use all of these layers for the whole pic at once only in my fully rendered pieces and as i said, hot mess, so yep, hope it helps, ask me anything if I didn’t make it clear 🌸

[sepublic]

Belos’ Day of Unity

            This episode confirmed a HUGE detail for us, and it’s that the Day of Unity involves merging the human and Demon Realms together! This better explains why Belos wants the Portal… If he just wanted to access the human world, he could do that with regular Titan’s Blood alone, but he needs something on a level that can maintain a lasting, open connection between the two! Not only that…

         But as Boscha so ‘kindly’ reminds us later this episode, Luz’s glyphs don’t work in the human world! Magic is a gift from the isles… And with the association of wild magic as ‘elemental’, how Luz’s glyphs take an elemental form… How they were the first form of magic, learned from observing the isles themselves and whatnot-

         It seems wild magic, at least as how Belos defines and hates it, takes a lot of cues and even draws power from the Boiling Isles! From the Demon Realm itself… Which, is interesting because;

         Belos clearly wants to control magic. He sees it as something witches have to more or less earn back… But ideally, they have to earn it from him entirely! Bile magic is something Belos can control, it’s confined to people’s bodies and he has the coven bindings to do so- Belos can control bodies, he can override that autonomy, and it comes from a source he can regulate. You can even see it with staffs, especially the one that Hunter has!

         Staffs can be taken away, they can be broken and drained. They’re external, but in a way that Belos can easily separate a witch from… And with Hunter, this takes on a whole new twisted meaning, because Hunter’s staff is (or rather was) his ONLY source and means of magic… 

        And as someone who created that staff no doubt, Belos can easily tamper with and restrict the spells that Hunter can access with it, no doubt- I wouldn’t be surprised if Belos could turn off Hunter’s staff at will! It’s his to give and take as he pleases, and given Belos’ unwillingness to create more Palismen, we still see plenty of carefulness with staffs as an external source of magic as well. Belos might intend to replace magical staffs with his own version that he can control!

         But wild magic and glyphs? They come from the isles, they come from the very land itself… And Belos CAN’T restrict the very fabric of the reality he lives in. Glyphs are an outside-context problem, you don’t need a bile sac to wield them; And they completely bypass the issues of coven bindings. You can’t restrict glyphs, the way you can’t restrict knowledge- It’s always bound to slip through Belos’ grasp, no matter how hard he tries. And once a secret is out, it tends to spread like wildfire…

         Belos can’t just apply some massive coven binding to the Demon Realm entirely… Can he?

         That’s of course where the Day of Unity comes in. Where OUR world comes in… If magic, specifically the wild magic that fuels glyphs, is sourced directly from the Demon Realm itself… And our world has no magic, glyphs are useless there? 

        Belos might intend to neutralize the Demon Realm’s magic entirely, by fusing it with the human world! And/or, with how the human world seems more vast than the Demon Realm (the Boiling Isles is only the size of Vermont), the magic inherent to it will be spread so thin that it’ll be too weak to utilize.

         And that’s… As Luz might put it, fiendishly clever! Belos recognizes his limits. He knows he can’t control the knowledge of glyphs, the memory of them- And even if he could, people can still learn directly from the isles itself, from the Demon Realm itself- The Light Glyph can be found in the stars! So long as the original source exists to learn from, nothing is truly stopping someone from paying attention and finding it on their own, potentially by accident!

         If Belos can’t truly, physically control this magic and restrain it- Then it’s a liability, especially since it can grant coven-bound witches access to full magic again, and allow them to turn the tides. It makes Belos and his system redundant… So he has to remove the original source of wild magic, WITHOUT destroying his own world and of course himself in the process!

         In comes our world. With the Demon Realm’s magic neutralized and/or diffused, the only source will come from the bile in witch’s bodies, which Belos CAN restrict. Sure, some witches might escape here or there, slip through the cracks and have unbound children… But that’s nothing compared to the threat of glyphs, which anyone can learn at any time!

         And if Belos plans to somewhat conquer the human world, at least to defend and maintain his own utopia- It works out again! Because our technology is based on knowledge, nothing is stopping the witches of Belos’ society from learning and adapting to our own technology, repurposing it for themselves. We already see technology exist to some degree anyway, such as in the Abomitons, and Belos’ own creations! It’d be easy for witches to repurpose our own technology for themselves.

         But humans? We can’t cast magic. We have no bile sacs… And even glyphs, the one form of magic we COULD wield, would be rendered powerless by our own world! Sure, there might be a few witches here or there that would come to our side, that would oppose Belos’ conquest and imperialism… 

        But those select few wouldn’t make up for the vast differences in numbers, nor could they have kids who’d grow up at a fast enough rate. Magic can replicate technology’s uses in its own way –scrolls can access a magical version of the internet- and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Day of Unity will also empower Belos as some kind of all-powerful, magical god who could easily handle what us puny humans throw at him, anyway.

         Aside from a much smaller population… Again, it seems magic is a good way for Belos to ensure his own power and conquest over our world, too- Or at least to keep us out of his own borders. Perhaps Belos only intends to rule his select portion of the Demon Realm within Connecticut, and bar out everyone else to their own devices, occasionally checking in to make sure we don’t ‘invade’ his own bubble.

         Maybe Belos doesn’t even intend to transport the entire Demon Realm, just the Boiling Isles itself, to the human world… Which of course isolates witches from that source of wild magic even more.

         There is an issue of course- And that gets down to how witches create magical bile. With how magic is a gift from the isles, it’s possible witches are simply able to convert the innate magic of the atoms and molecules around them in their digestive system, and turn that into bile- Meaning without this ‘magical radiation’, eventually a witch will run out of magic bile and be depleted, should they stay in the human world without any access to the Demon Realm.

         Does Belos know, or even care? Maybe this is his way of also removing magic entirely… Or as I said, with how magic will be spread thin when our worlds fuse; Perhaps it will exist in enough of a capacity in this fused realm, that biological witches can still harvest this magical radiation and produce bile. 

        Or, based on how King described it in The Unauthorized History of the Boiling Isles, witches just naturally produce their own magical radiation in the form of bile- They don’t need to be connected to the Demon Realm to do, they are their own sustainable source!

         Either way, Belos’ plan makes a disturbing amount of sense… It’s the final nail in the coffin as a way for him to physically control magic, and it’s the outright death and eradication of wild magic as well! He has no interest in conquering our world, not necessarily- Just in bringing his over so he can kill off the final source of magic that manages to elude his control.

         Any imperialism may come as a natural byproduct of this type of crossover, but it’s not what Belos specifically intends from the fusion- So in a way, he wasn’t lying when he said that it wasn’t his plan to conquer the human world. 

        Belos didn’t say it’d NEVER be his plan… Just that this specific goal doesn’t involve that, not necessarily. Plus, he’d argue that any conquest would come fully as a means of self-defense, which… Would not be wrong either, because there’d definitely be humans who’d reject the society that Belos would bring in, and seek to eradicate and/or control it for themselves too!

         Once the Day of Unity’s crossover ensues, it seems the only magical liability that Belos would have to worry about is… Unbound biological witches, witches who DO have a bile sac, but aren’t under Belos’ control! Hence why he stresses to his coven heads;

         “The larger your covens grow, the more power we have to unite our realms, where the worthy shall inherit a utopia free of wild magic.”

         It’s possible Belos plans to use his coven bindings as a means of powering whatever magic he needs to pull this crossover off- I’ve speculated before on the demon realm’s solar system forming a glyph combo to do this, but it’s not out of the question that Belos would need a little extra power for such a massive event. 

        Perhaps Belos intends to drain the unused magic of every bound witch- After all, about 8/9ths of every bound witch’s magic is sealed away, presumably unused… So to Belos and his coven heads, they’re not really depriving anyone of anything by draining that unused magic?

         Especially if witches’ magic can still replenish over time anyway (unless you’re cursed), plus spreading the individual cost that each witch will have to fork over for the Day of Unity, across more witches, is arguably the moral thing to do anyway! 

        Hence why coven bindings are necessary, not just to fuel the Day of Unity, but to also remove the final liability that Belos would need to deal with. Ideally, Belos wants every witch bound before the Day of Unity, so he won’t have to worry about any biological witch when the crossover occurs…

         But at the same time, I doubt it’s strictly necessary- So even if it’s ideal, Belos is obviously going to go ahead with his crossover if there are still unbound witches. He can still deal with them later… They might have a bigger world to escape out into, which is why he stresses this be done sooner, rather than later, when witches are more confined to a smaller space and easier to find- But Belos still ultimately wins, one way or the other.

         Belos’ plan and Day of Unity is unimaginably grandiose, horrifying, and worst of all… Makes so much sense, it connects everything together in a reasonable way! Though it only makes sense from a viewer’s speculative perspective, and in-universe from the perspective of Belos, for the kinds of goals he’s looking for of course. 

        From a general and moral perspective this plan is completely nuts and terrible, but in terms of what Belos is actually trying to accomplish, a society where magical is truly bound… (Albeit not an actual ‘utopia’ like he claims), I hate to say it but this works perfectly, and that’s terrifying! Unfortunately, it seems this fucker does know EXACTLY what he’s doing, very much! And Belos is batshit nuts.

        And there’s a good chance that somebody in this meeting is very understandably not enthused with Belos’ plan, even outright intimidated, and determined to stop it as a result...

[wulfies-kpop-fanfics]

One Photo → Mark Lee [2]

↳  Pairing: Mark Lee/Reader

↳  AU: Soulmate!AU - The first touch of two soulmates permanently scars their bodies.

↳  Word count: 2,610

↳  Chapters: Prelude | 1 | You Are Here! | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

⁙ Summary: For an end of the year photography project, you’re tasked with taking a photograph for your favourite group, NCT127, and coincidentally, discover your soulmate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TUESDAY - 2

The next day you get up to your alarm, a little groggy and on autopilot. You mumble a greeting to Rhiannon who is already in the kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal. It's not uncommon for you to be undressed in front of her, so she barely reacts for a few moments when you reach into your clean clothes hamper in the living room and begin to change right there. 

However, in the midst of putting on your bra, Rhiannon squeals in excitement, nearly making you pee yourself.

“What the hell?!” You exclaim, now convinced that you're fully awake. 

“You-your front! Your entire torso! Look!” Rhiannon stands from the little dining table and approaches you, poking your stomach. You nearly let out a scream yourself when you see it.

Your entire torso, from collarbone to hip is completely covered with scar tissue, as well as the underside of your arms and the palms of your hands. “Rhiannon, I-” 

“Turn around.” She spoke quickly, and you obey her. She is silent for a little while, which is freaking you out even more than you already were. When she traces an outline over your right shoulder blade, your skin twitches in response. “(Y/N), this is the largest soulmate scar I've ever seen,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. 

“I-” You're barely able to stutter out any words. You stand there, half-naked as your best friend examines you.

“Does it hurt?” Rhiannon pokes and prods on the newly formed scar tissue, primarily focusing on your shoulders.

“N-no, not at all.” You purse your lips. You feel like normal if not a bit overwhelmed. 

“This has got to be from a hug,” she concludes, nudging you to turn you back around. “There are perfect handprint scars on your back, too. You hugged Mark yesterday, right?” 

“He, uh, hugged me three times,” you confirm. “Johnny and Jaehyun hugged me twice.” 

“Then it's one of them!” Rhiannon is squealing with delight. “That is so exciting!” 

Your face fell a little, finishing putting on your bra and shirt you picked out for the day. “Yeah,” you say softly.

“What's wrong?” Rhiannon is beginning to look concerned, ghosting a hand over your shoulder.

“It's Mark,” you state, “I can feel it, but…”

“But what?” 

“If that's true, everything changes. When he leaves, am I going to be able to handle it?” you finish getting dressed and stop to look at your hands. “I… I already know I won't be able to handle the depression and separation anxiety, I won't be able to handle being constantly sick… I was never taught about any of this and I never even thought it would happen to me.” 

“(Y/N)...”

“I need to go. I have class.” 

~

You took in a deep breath as you gripped your tablet pen. You had been spending the last month's worth of photoshop labs on drawing a picture of Iron Man for your digital rendering final, and you had been doing well enough until today. Now that your hands had part of your scar, they gripped your pen differently and you were slowly growing more and more frustrated. 

It's not that you were angry that you had found your soulmate, and you were definitely happy it was Mark- but everything was happening so quickly. What were you going to say to him? Would his scar ruin his career? Were you ready for any of this? You looked up to your computer screen, seeing your reflection in the black screensaver. Seems like you had been overthinking long enough for the monitor to go to sleep.

You can see the buds of forming tears in your reflection. They were totally uncalled for and you knew it. Finding a soulmate was a happy time. In a world where all of this was completely normalized, you had no idea why you suddenly started feeling like a freak. On your way to class, you had already started to feel eyes on you. Most scars were small, dainty and cute, like a handshake or a poke to the shoulder- not a giant one that covered your entire chest, the inside of your arms and the palms of your hands. Scars larger than an apple were extremely rare, and ones like yours were the rarest of all.

What a wonderful scar, you heard your teacher say when you walked into class that morning. They say that if your scar is big, you're meant to be together for more than one lifetime. 

Maybe that was true, and it felt like a big responsibility you weren't ready for. You jumped in your seat when your phone vibrated in your pocket. 

Mark: Are you in class?

You: Yeah, but it's almost done

Mark: What is your classroom number? I'd like to pick you up if that's okay

You: Are you sure? 

Mark: Yeah! I wanted to spend more time with you today, I feel like it wasn't enough yesterday 

You: You're cheesy 

You: My classroom is 103A in M building 

Mark: You know it

Mark: See you soon 

You found yourself smiling at his texts. Talking to him eased some of your anxiety, but it still lingered in the back of your head. You put your phone down and shake your mouse so the screen comes back to life. Iron Man stares back at you, and you almost close the program. Your thoughts were irrational, and the only thing your scars were stopping you from doing was finishing the touch-ups of the last few pixels of this piece. 

Your hands will get used to it, you scold yourself, this is a good thing, (Y/N). You're not your parents.

You're snapped out of your thoughts again as your classmates begin to pack up, the quiet rustle of backpacks filling the room. You look back at your piece, over a month's work put into it and all you needed was maybe five minutes more of touch-ups and it would be perfect. 

The next time this classroom was going to be used was later tonight for the college's dungeons and dragons party, so you didn't think anyone would mind you staying to finish up.

The five minutes of touch-ups turned into 20 minutes of improving mistakes you've noticed, and 20 minutes of improving mistakes turned into an hour of being completely absorbed in your work. You had been so focused on everything that you barely even perk up when you hear one of the computer chairs rolling closer to you.

“I thought you went home, Moose,” you say casually, sticking your tongue out and swiping a line of light reflection onto a strip of red plating. 

“You have a friend named Moose?” The voice replies, and you nearly jump out of your seat, the pen swiping across the tablet and drawing a large white streak across Iron Man's face.

“Mark,” you sigh, placing a hand on your chest and trying to take in a deep breath. “You scared me.” 

Mark smiled sheepishly. “Sorry…” he looks at your computer screen. “I didn't mean to ruin your piece.” 

You smile gently, hitting ctrl z on your keyboard. The streak disappears, you save the piece and turn off the computer. “It's okay. I'm just lucky I don't have autosave turned on.” 

Mark sighed with relief. “You kinda scared me,” he starts, looking you in the eye. “You didn't come out of the classroom for so long that I thought you might have forgotten. I probably would have left if your teacher didn't recognize me and say it was okay for me to come inside.” 

Your frown at him and avoid his eye contact, deciding to focus on zipping up your backpack. “I'm sorry,” you say dejectedly. “I was dumb, but I would just be a downright moron if I stood you up on purpose.” 

Mark laughed softly, watching you pack up. “What did you want to do today?” he asked, voice softer. 

“I don't know,” you say, standing and slinging your backpack over your shoulders. “I would like to drop this off at my dorm, though. It's kinda heavy.” 

“Okay,” Mark nods. “We can start with that and go from there.”

While you travelled back to your dorm, nearly all of your anxiety about your scars disappeared. You talked about anything but the scar that was easily noticeable through your summery outfit. The more people looked at you, the more you wonder if Mark was keeping quiet out of courtesy for your aversion to his first question on the subject. 

Mark was sweet, complimenting your outfit and keeping up a strong conversation about marvel movies.

“Have you seen Endgame yet?” you asked him once you got back to the subject of Iron Man, and Mark laughed sadly.

“To my disappointment, no,” he answered, letting you board the subway first, pulling up his face mask. “Haven't had the time.” he stood close enough to you on the busy subway car that you could still hear him properly.

“Well, if you want we could see it,” you offer quickly, blushing and looking away as you saw his smile through his eyes.

“Are you asking me out, (Y/N)?” he asks, nudging you gently with his elbow. 

“N-no,” you respond, swearing up and down mentally that you were as red as a tomato. 

“I would graciously accept, but how about we wait until tomorrow? I want to catch up a little bit, I haven't watched any of the films in a while, I've been so busy preparing for the tour.” Mark smiled when you turned back to look at him again.

“Okay, well, I have all the films at my dorm,” you say, biting your lip.

“Would your roommate be okay if we stayed in?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, she would be more than okay,” you tell him, which causes both of you to start laughing. “She will probably faint if she sees you again.”

“I think I've had my lifetime fair share of people fainting in front of me,” he says humorously. 

“I wouldn't worry. She is working on her finals today and probably won't be back until after you leave,” you say. “We will have the place to ourselves.” 

“Okay, that sounds good. I'm looking forward to catching up. Do you have popcorn?” he asks sheepishly. 

“Yeah, we-” the subway comes to an abrupt stop at your station, and you nearly lose your balance. Mark catches you before your face ploughs directly into his chest. He’s holding your arm gently as you exit the subway car, and it is then you truly notice that Mark's scars are clearly visible, from his palms to the edge of his t-shirt, just like you.

When you get back to your dorm room, you place your bag and your shoes in the hallway, leading Mark inside. He pulls down his mask and sighs happily, joining you in removing his shoes and placing them on the shoe rack.

“I remember when my dorm was about this size,” he says wistfully, looking around. You frown a little. 

“You mean everyone in NCT used to live in a place like this?” you ask, walking into the kitchen to prepare a pack of popcorn.

“Not exactly, the different subgroups all had their own dorms, but they were all tiny, for more than 3 guys to live in at once.” Mark wanders over to you in the kitchen, leaning back on the counter and crossing his ankles.

“I'm sorry,” you say. “I hope it's different for you now.” 

“Yeah,” he replies, watching you put the popcorn in the microwave and press the appropriate numbers. “We all live pretty comfortably now.”

You smile at him. “Good, I'm happy. You deserve to live in a place where you're comfortable.”

Mark is silent for a moment. The microwave finishes and he moves out of your way as you grab a large mixing bowl to put your snack in. He’s watching you diligently, and you feel that too familiar pinch in your chest. It's more intense than you've ever felt from just watching internet content of him on your laptop.

“What film did you want to start with?” you ask, leading him to the living room as you pull a tote bag out from under your coffee table that contains your Marvel movie collection. “We can just watch Infinity War if you want, or we can watch them in story order if you're feeling a little daring.” 

“You know the order to watch them chronologically?” he asks, sitting down with the popcorn bowl in his lap. 

“Yeah. Rhiannon and I watched them all in order up to the release of Endgame.” 

“Wow, I'm impressed,” Mark comments, popping a couple of pieces of the snack into his mouth. “What's the order of the last three films?” 

“Let me see… it's Thor Ragnarok, Ant-Man and the Wasp and Infinity War,” you answer. “Wanna watch those?” 

“Yeah. Let's do that.” 

A few hours later you both are now watching Infinity War, about halfway through the film. A blanket had made its way over your laps and the popcorn bowl has been long empty, sitting on the coffee table in front of you. 

You can tell Mark is nervous. You're sitting close, your legs nearly touching, and you wonder if you should say something. You hoped you didn't scare him away from saying anything when the topic was brought up the night before. You didn’t want your bitterness to ruin it all.

Once you spare one glance from the movie to look over at him, you notice Mark has already beat you to it. His gaze pierces right through you, and somehow you feel as if Mark is seeing your soul.

“I don't want to make you uncomfortable,” he says, half-smiling at you. “I don't want to repeat yesterday's mistake.”

“It's okay,” You say softly, “you didn't know.” 

“But I should have.” He sounds serious and definitely looks the part, too.

You lick your lips as you watch him. There's something that hits you, like a wave of anxiety that is different from your own. 

“Mark,” you have to pause to gather your words. “You've known me for two days. Mistakes are bound to happen, and I… I don't actually hate the premise.” 

“Would you be okay with, um, talking about it?” The movie is playing in the background, the flashing images reflecting different lights onto Mark's face.

“There is not much to talk about, is there?” you asked, holding up your scarred hand. “It's here, on both of us, and I'm happy. Scared, but happy.” 

“You're not upset about it?” he asked, and it was almost like he was bracing for rejection. 

You took his hand, lacing your fingers with his. “No. You said you wanted to know someone so well that you didn't have to think about it, right?”

“Yeah, I did.” Mark returned the grip, his eyes glancing between your eyes and your hand. “You're right, we don't have to think about it.” Mark smiles softly at you, freeing his hand from yours so he can wrap his arm around your shoulder, guiding you to lean into his side.

It's maybe two hours later when you're stirred ever so slightly by the jiggling of the lock to your front door. You don't open your eyes, trying to ignore the sound and continue to cuddle into the warm body squished against you on the couch. 

Soft voices are muffled through your ears, and in your half slumber you can't exactly make any words out. Fatigue eventually grips you once again, returning to the vivid dream you were engrossed in just moments ago. 

[rye-views]

Joe Dirt (2001) dir. Dennie Gordon. 7.3/10

Oh look, it’s Malcolm in the Middle’s Dewey.

Vague Tiger King vibes.

I wonder where Joe’s actual sister is.

Spoiler: [About Joe Dirt heading to work at the radio station as a janitor. The security guard makes fun of his beat up car and his name. Zander Kelly is talking for his radio show and a producer brings in Joe Dirt after seeing his mullet hair. Zander interviews Joe on air and learns of his life story. The top of his skull wasn’t fully formed as a child so his mom put a wig on him until the skull formed and mixed with his wig. He’s been on his own since 8 years old after getting separated from his family at the Grand Canyon. He’s been jumping around homes ever since. One guy made him fetch the animals he shot down, Joe had a cow cause an explosion after it farted on the fireworks he attached to their tails, a lady wouldn’t stop the dog from humping his leg, and then he ended in juvie. He saw a meteorite crash and kept it with him as he went along. He gets bullied everywhere constantly, but holds himself well. He gets the meteorite checked to see how much it’s worth and discovers it’s a ball of shit from a plane. He then steals from a home in Silvertown and the dog’s balls are frozen to the porch floor. He works with the dog’s owner to use warm water and a spatula to help the dog. He and the owner, Brandy, become lifelong friends. Robby and his crew come by and disses Joe while vying for Brandy. Brandy ends up leaving with Joe. Brandy’s dad is drunk and gets his foot stuck on the railroad track. He gets the dog, Charlie, to run for help. Brandy’s dad shows up to the home with his leg amputated and kills Charlie. Joe takes Charlie’s ashes and decides to go on a journey to find his parents. He leaves Brandy behind. Joe gets a job advertising for a dentist and sees a woman selling her hemi. He can’t afford it, but she gives it to him for whatever money he has after learning of him looking for his parents. She also mentions that it’s $360 to pay an artist to draw up what someone looks like. A storm is coming and Joe has to tie down the hot air balloon of the dentist and ends up flying away. He crashes in South Dakota and gets a job at an oil rig for $360 a week. He gets fired and gets into a fight with a coworker, who gets himself burned at the rig. Joe falls asleep in a home that’s full of insecticide. He gets the artist rendering of his parents, but it’s horribly incorrect since he had difficulty describing them while he was drugged up. He goes to the Reservation to get a native tracker. He finds one, Kicking Wing, who is holding his own firework stand. The stand is doing horribly and Joe offers tips for better fireworks. They become good friends. They play with fireworks together until Joe falls on his head. He dreams that they find an atom bomb and it blows up. He wakes up to see that he tripped on the atom bomb and they use it to threaten the tour bus company from the Grand Canyon to get the records of who was there at the time. The cops come and reveal that the atom bomb is actually an RV septic tank and it opens, causing all the shit to blow over on Joe. On Zander’s radio show, Joe is invited to come back the next day. Joe has the record of the tour buses and leaves Kicking Wing after encouraging him to follow his dreams of becoming a vet. Joe works for a carnival and meets Jill and they go on a date. Joe goes to the towing place to pick up his hemi that’s been there for 2 years. He can’t afford to get it out so they sell him a cheaper car. He goes on the date to a carnival and heads back to her place. He learns of her life story and that she has a brother and got separated from her parents as a child. He believes that she’s his sister.  He has sex with her anyway. He then tells the radio listeners that she confirms that he’s not her brother since her brother’s name is Cletis Buckwalter. They have sex again, but he fails. After having her fake being his sister, they have good sex again. Joe calls Brandy and leaves a voicemail about him on the radio show and how he hasn’t gotten to the sad part yet. Joe visits one guy on the record and he’s Buffalo Bob. Bob puts him in a hole in the ground and has Joe put on lotion

until the cops come. Joe gets rescued and learns that Bob wants to make a skin suit out of him. He finds Buffalo Bob’s photos from the Grand Canyon and sees his parents’ license plate to be from Louisiana. He goes to Louisiana and gets a job as a janitor at an elementary school. He cleans some cafeteria puke and the kids throw food at him. A chemistry class accidentally makes killer mustard gas and Joe’s boss, Clem, saves the students and teachers inside. When they thank him, he convinces them that Joe Dirt saved them. Joe ends up on TV and mentions him looking for his family. He also reveals Clem’s identity as the real hero. Clem ends up in a shootout later in his home and the cops take his body away. As Joe apologizes to his body after discovering that Clem was in the witness protection program and is originally a crime boss, he finds Clem to be alive. Joe works to get the list of people who have bought the car that his parents had. He gets the list of 73 people. Joe works at a crocodile park and talks with his coworker, Charlene, about her parents. During a show, Joe gets attacked by a crocodile. As Joe is talking to Charlene, he remembers his parents’ last name to be Nunamaker. He finds the address to his home from the list. He goes and it’s abandoned. A guy passes by and says they moved a long time ago and that home is where you make it. Later, Joe realizes that he had a home with Brandy all along. He goes back home to Silvertown and meets Robby. He says he’s married to Brandy and shows him a note telling him to not tell Joe that she found out where his parents are. Joe doesn’t believe it at first, but is confused and leaves. He tells this to the radio station and Zander has the station call Brandy. She reveals that she didn’t want Robby telling, because she wanted to tell him in person. She says his parents were dead and got into a crash at the Grand Canyon. Joe goes outside and is greeted by many fans of his. He then goes on many television shows as a celebrity. During one show, they get a call from people claiming to be his parents. He believes that it’s them and gets the call traced. He goes to California and finds his parents. The TV reporters are all here to record it. His parents talk about how they’ve been looking for him and that they are selling products. Joe sees them promoting themselves and confronts them. They say they abandoned Joe and when he yells at them, he pushes off a shelf of what they’re selling and leaves. He goes to jump off a bridge, but is brought down by Brandy. She talks about how she found out about his parents and was trying to protect him from them. A cop manages to attach Joe to a bungee and he falls and hits his head. He wakes up to Kicking Wing, Clem, Charlene, and Brandy. He got his head redone with a new wig. They go home and have Charlie Two join since Charlie knocked up a neighboring dog. Robby comes to diss him again, but they speed away from him after his friends back him up.]

[thewatsonbeekeepers]

Chapter 8 – Dream a Little Dream of Me: parallels with Doctor Who

What’s queer film and TV without a bit of Doris Day in your chapter title?

This was never intended to be a chapter by itself, but having seen @tjlcisthenewsexy’s fantastic video on Wholock parallels here X I had to start writing. Full credit for inspiration here to @tjlcisthenewsexy, who has definitely had many of these ideas independently, and I would fully recommend watching the video before you read this. I personally only really buy Moffat era Who as a direct parallel to Sherlock, largely because Moffat wrote both, but also because 2010-17 matches up exactly with our boys. Lots of people have drawn parallels between 2005’s Bad Wolf Bay scene (by Russell T Davies) and the tarmac scene – those parallels are definitely there, but I think they’re more due to common tropes in love-declaration scenes than from intent.

The Doctor Who episodes I’m largely going to be drawing on here are Amy’s Choice, Last Christmas, The Name of the Doctor and A Good Man Goes to War. Others will feature, but if you want a really strong grip on what I’m talking about, I’d recommend taking a look at all of these, or at the very least Amy’s Choice! But now – on with the show.

Time travel has always been possible in dreams. This line comes from The Name of the Doctor, which came out in 2013. The dream in question is a psychic telepathy connecting five of our main characters whilst they sleep, controlled by Madame Vastra. Much has been made of Madame Vastra being an explicit Sherlock mirror (X) with Jenny as her wife and explicit John mirror, so using a dream state to connect people across time should already ring TAB bells. But crucially, we’re not just focusing on telepathy here – we’re focusing on the ability of 19th century characters to use a dream state to connect with the 21st century. Given that we never see where River Song is connecting from, it’s safe to say that it is the 19th – 21st connection between the other characters that is important, like in TAB. The use of the word ‘always’ is really important here – it’s not saying that time travel is possible in dreams in the Whoniverse, but that it has always been possible. There’s an implication here that before time travel was invented, in a non science fiction world, dreams can still do this – and that’s what helps us to jump across to TAB.

In the dream sequence in TNotD, Jenny is supposed to lock up before they go into their trance, but she forgets. Intruders break in, but because Jenny and Vastra are unconscious they can’t defend themselves and so Jenny is murdered. This is the spur for everybody to wake up, to save themselves. Pretty much all of our dream states in Doctor Who are focused on the possibility of dying in the outside world, but TNotD is the one which articulates the problem of EMP theory most specifically. Jenny, our John mirror, dies because her protector’s unconsciousness means that she can’t protect her wife. (Vastra’s Silurian abilities very much put her into the role of protector here – she could save Jenny where Jenny couldn’t save herself, and frequently does.)

Between the time travel and Jenny, then, TNoTD is probably the best framework we get set up for TAB. This came out only a few months before s3, in which EMP began, so it’s safe to say that these ideas are well-formed in Mofftiss’s heads at this stage. However, if we jump all the way back to 2010 and Amy’s Choice, we can see that this has been in the works for a lot longer.

The first point of note here is the casting of Toby Jones as the Dream Lord.

Casting the same actor to play dream merchants, knocking characters unconscious and altering their memories and psyches? The universe is rarely so lazy. Other mirrors in this episode are easy to pull out. The Doctor and Sherlock have long been read as mirrors for each other – characters who have existed for a long time and are constantly evolving through adaptation, super-intelligent loners, but in case that wasn’t obvious, Moffat went to a reasonable effort to style them very similarly when both tenures began.

Both of these are very conscious remodellings of old characters. Much was made of Matt Smith being the youngest Doctor ever (26!), and Cumberbatch’s youth set him apart from the Rathbone/Brett image in everybody’s heads. There’s something young and modern here – but both still dress like they’re slightly ‘out of their time’, which of course they are. Coming to terms with modernity is the central challenge that Sherlock is going to have to face. And then, of course, there’s the hair – instantly recognisable to the character in both cases, yet remarkably similar.

If the Doctor and Sherlock are mirrors, Amy as the Doctor’s companion should be linked to John. Amy ran away on the night before her wedding, and whilst she is reasonably happy with Rory in the long term of the series, this episode is about her making the decision between domesticity and adventure – a pretty clear link to John in s3 and 4. This episode is particularly important for TST however, because Amy is heavily pregnant in the domestic dream – but she is far from enthused, torn between domestic life with Rory and wanting to run off with the Doctor. However, I grant the similarity with Martin Freeman isn’t striking.

Do note, however, the similarly uncomfortable dynamic in both of these photos – hilarious.

The parallel dream!verses created broadly represent John’s dilemma from TST, and if we followed Amy’s Choice as it seems on the surface, we would end up with a pretty straight reading of TST – John spends too much time with Sherlock, they’re all in danger, Mary dies and John is suicidal because of it. Broadly speaking, this works – Rory is killed in the dream (with a really nice visual parallel to TST) and Amy crashes a bus and kills herself because she doesn’t want to live without Rory. Amy picks the domestic sphere and although it takes several more series to play out in full, this is broadly the direction the series takes us in.

In both scenes, Sherlock and the Doctor are left standing off to the right, unsure of what to do – if you watch both scenes in parallel, it’s striking. There’s a great article here talking about how the angle demonstrates the Doctor to be powerless for the first time, amongst other things. X Amy asks the Doctor what is the point of him, and John’s declaration that Sherlock has broken his vow carries similar weight – they were supposed to save them.

The title of the episode is Amy’s Choice, and this, we’re led to believe, is the moment when Amy chooses Rory. I don’t believe this. The Doctor/Rory conflict goes on for a lot longer than this, and it’s far too early in their first series to resolve it. It would leave a lot of later episodes without nearly so much tension. It’s true that Amy does have some agency in choosing – the science is questionable, as the Doctor says they’ve all tapped into some space LSD equivalent from an unmentioned offscreen adventure which has induced a mutual psychic trance, which means that we’re not sure how much agency each of the characters has in this dream. It’s not seeded, and so it sounds like a fudge – deliberately. Because a pseudoscientific explanation like this can’t explain the Dream Lord himself, Amy and Rory point out, and the Doctor admits that the Dream Lord, the architect of the dreams themselves, was actually the Doctor’s psyche. The space LSD sounded like a fudge – and Amy and Rory expose that it wasn’t just a fudge on Moffat’s part, it was a fudge on the Doctor’s part.

And, crucially, what was the first thing the Doctor said about domestic!dream, long before he realised he created it?

“Oh, you’re okay. Oh, thank God. I had a terrible nightmare about you two. That was scary. Don’t ask. You don’t want to know. You’re safe now.” X

Later, when asked how he knew that the Dream Lord was him, the Doctor merely says that no one else hates him so much. Domestic!verse, then, is a manifestation of everything that the Doctor dreads – it’s his worst nightmare, being conjured by his subconscious. That nightmare involves Amy’s suicide, Rory’s death because the Doctor can’t protect them – this maps pretty neatly onto EMP theory and TST. Although John doesn’t kill himself, he is rendered suicidal in the domestic nightmare that is left behind. As the previous chapter discusses, Sherlock not being able to protect John is definitely a nightmare, but the nightmare also maps onto reality – John is suicidal, but he’s struggling to work out why, so he has to construct it through a heterosexual lens. John’s potential death and love for Mary are the two things that form the worst nightmare in both dreams, and the nightmarish sense is highlighted in TST by the deep waters metaphor.

At the very end of the episode, the Doctor’s reflection is still the Dream Lord, suggesting that this isn’t some psychic drug phenomenon, an explanation which was frankly crap. The Doctor’s dark side is still inside him. This feels like an allegory for mental illness, and mental illness crops up aplenty in Moffat’s depictions of the Doctor, particularly the later we get – the seeds of it are here. Again, although Sherlock is being killed rather than killing himself, we have seen the suicidal side of him before and it is made clear in TAB that his opinion of himself is low. EMP s4 is about him coming to terms with how he views himself, and the cognitive dissonance that we see in Amy’s Choice is a nice separation of the psyche in two that foreshadows the immense splintering that’s going to come in EMP, but particularly between John, Mycroft and Eurus.

Another nice parallel between s4 and Amy’s Choice is the idea of predictability. Way before we know that this is the Doctor’s dream, the Doctor displays a remarkable ability to finish what the Eknodines say before they do, an ability which becomes an obvious hint in hindsight. Moving over to TLD, Sherlock has similarly ridiculous powers to predict what other people will do; because this underpins TLD, it jumps out as being something that rings very false to me, almost like a parody of who Sherlock Holmes is meant to be, and so we should pay attention to it. An uncanny ability to predict what others will do – yup, that’s a dream world.

One key similarity that Amy’s Choice has with EMP theory is that a false dream premise is set up in both. Amy’s Choice suggests that there are two worlds, and only one is a dream; their survival depends on recognising which is the real one. This is, of course, a lie – both worlds are dreamed, and that false premise is created to trap them in the Doctor’s psyche, presumably until the Doctor dies (although the threat is never clearly explained). TAB sets up a real world in the form of the modern day and a false Victorian age, but the supernatural graveyard scene is the first hint that the reality/dream binary is not real, just like Amy’s Choice. This one scene is not an anomaly – the chronology of the ‘man out of my time’ scene coming after Sherlock gets off the tarmac suggests that such mixing is still going on, and we shouldn’t trust our senses. In case that point needed hammering any more, however, Steven Moffat gave us A Good Man Goes To War.

This episode is the culmination of a series in which Amy is actually an almost-person, and Amy has been dreaming all of their adventures with a flesh avatar actually having them with Rory and the Doctor. Here it is Amy, rather than the Doctor, who is dreaming, which is a little ambiguous, but there are two key aspects that parallel Amy’s Choice. The first is that, like Amy’s Choice, the flesh avatar/dream person threat doesn’t just go away. These words of Madame Kovarian are extremely important:

Fooling you once was a joy, but fooling you twice, the same way? It’s a privilege. X

Exactly what the Dream Lord does in Amy’s Choice. Furthermore, although there’s a later meta in blindness across Doctor Who and Sherlock which at some stage really needs writing, many people have made the point that Sherlock is associated with blindness throughout series 4, and so we should note that the architect of the dream people/flesh avatars is Madame Kovarian, better known (and usually credited) as the Eyepatch Lady. However, there’s one other key message they’re giving us, which comes at the end of the clip linked above – the baby’s not real. Both Amy’s Choice and A Good Man Goes To War feature Amy’s child, and in both cases the plot revolves around the emotional recognition that that world isn’t real. Given that we know that Amy is a John mirror, and that her choice between the domestic and the adventurous is consistently paralleled to John’s choice in Sherlock, this is a pretty huge indicator that something is up with Rosie even if we didn’t know it already. Indeed, the cot and mobile that the child has in Amy’s Choice are similar to Rosie’s. That baby never stood a chance.

The last episode I want to briefly invoke is Last Christmas. If we’re looking for dreams, this episode really goes above and beyond. The premise is that there is an alien species called the dream crab which latches onto your face and dissolves your brain whilst putting you in a dream so that you don’t notice. To make this more confusing, it often places dreams within dreams to confuse you – whilst you’re dying. This episode came out on Christmas Day 2014, so a year after series 3 aired but before TAB, so in Sherlock-time we’ve just entered the mind palace. The title, Last Christmas, is pretty helpful here I think – of course it has relevance within the episode, but this episode should also get us thinking about what was going on this time last year, when Sherlock was airing.

We’re no stranger to dreams within dreams at this stage, but it’s interesting how the saving-the-companion vibe is still going strong here. Ostensibly, that’s not what the episode is about at all – it’s a classic everyone-trapped-on-a-base-working-together episode, but the last five minutes tacked on the end suggests that it’s far more about the Doctor’s relationship with Clara, the episode’s companion, than one might think. In this clip (X) the Doctor thinks he’s broken out of the final dream but goes back to visit Clara and realises that she is now old, and that he’s missed her life. It culminates in him apologising for getting it wrong, for not coming for her in time, for failing her; we get more of this with Clara’s actual death later in the show, but given that it’s a kid’s show and Christmas, this scene is a touch lighter than that. It’s then that Father Christmas comes in to tell the Doctor that he’s still dreaming, he can still save her – and his first word when he wakes up is “Clara”. None of the others trapped in the dream have needed his help to wake from the vision and survive; Clara, who as the companion is our John mirror, specifically needs saving, and the Doctor needs to wake up from his dream within a dream to do that.

Nick Frost’s appearance as Father Christmas gave us all a good laugh, but he was also used as the indicator that the world we were perceiving was a dream world. This was made a bit of a joke of early in the episode – in a sci-fi world like this, are we seriously looking for what’s not realistic as the code to crack the dream? The exact same joke is made in Amy’s Choice, and here we’re hitting a pretty silly version of the show where they joke that just about the only character who can’t be real is Father Christmas. These hints about looking for what’s not real, though, should be taken as just that – hints. From the emergence of ‘something’s fucky’ theories early on in s4, this has been the abiding reasoning for the various forms of EMP theory that have sprung up, and they’re not wrong. However, if I had to put my money on a figure like Santa Claus, something iconic which functions as a kind of dream thermometer, I’d be guessing:

You were there before me. The fucky skull that glows, almost like a warning that this is too mad. Crucially, in Last Christmas they explain that Santa is a warning that your brain is sending you, picking the most unbelievable thing possible so that you know you’re trapped, dying in your brain. Santa Claus? Well, it’s a kid’s show, and it’s Christmas. But if I were picking a dream siren to tell me I was dying, I like to think that my subconscious would pick the glowing skull on the wall; without explanation, it’s an awful lot more direct.  

There is more reference than necessary made to dream crabs making one blind, and between Madame Kovarian and the blind Doctor in the later dream episode Extremis, there’s a lot more to unpack there, but I’m going to leave that for sometime down the line, or for someone else to jump into if they would like. I also want to throw out a thought I haven’t quite come to terms with yet – the elephant in the room in Amy’s Choice. Arwel Wyn Jones would be proud of the script for Amy’s Choice – twice, it mentions the elephant in the room, and so I feel I have to do the same. The first time, you could blink and miss it – the Doctor calls pregnant Amy ‘elephanty’. But the second time, we get this exchange:

DOCTOR: Now, we all know there’s an elephant in the room.

AMY: I have to be this size, I’m having a baby.

DOCTOR: No, no. The hormones seem real, but no. Is nobody going to mention Rory’s ponytail? You hold him down, I’ll cut it off? X

The elephant in the room – that the baby’s not real? Possibly, but not what we normally take it to mean. Rory’s ponytail also has not shaving for Sherlock Holmes vibes, but again it’s not quite concrete in my mind. These little bits at the end aren’t quite tied up, and I would love to hear what people have to say about them. That, however, is for another day! The next chapter in this series will be jumping back into episode-by-episode analysis with TLD – see you there.

[knoughtwright]

Tatterdemalion Ch. 8: Weaver

(A couple notes: The previous chapter ended on a cliffhanger and that was... a while ago, so if you’ve been following along you might want to reread the previous chapter before starting this one. Second, I’ve painted myself into a bit of a corner where I’m unenthusiastic about any of the possible ways to move the story forward, so there might not be any more after this.)

Table of Contents

Previous Chapter

When I asked Anpiel what a weaver was, it told me “A spider which has made its web in the hole left by the death of God.”

When God died, Anpiel said, creation had been torn open and lay vulnerable to the chaos outside. The hungry things which waited beyond could worm their way into the fabric of the world and take some of it with them as they left, tearing it further and making it all the easier for the next thing to come in. But to our great fortune, the first one that had come through did not want to devour the world, but only to take it as a home and refuge against the battering sea of chaos for as long as possible. The First Weaver entered the world and set about repairing the tear through which it had come, guarding its new home against other invaders. And it created other weavers in its image to help it with its work.

The repairs were far from perfect. The weavers could not create anything new, as God had; all they could do was stitch together the pieces they had been given. The geometry of the world distorted as they joined together pieces that had previously been distant. The pieces didn’t fit together quite right at the seams, and things still managed to sneak in through the gaps. And whenever things did make their way in, they would make new tears which the weavers would repair to their best of their ability, but the world would get a little more ragged. Eventually it would disintegrate beyond the weavers’ ability to maintain, and the outside would gobble up those scraps that remained.

In the meantime, though, the weavers were an invaluable boon to the angels, which lacked the ability to carry out such repairs themselves. They were, however, often at odds. The weavers had no concern for God’s plan, only the canvas on which it was to be carried out. Many of the things the angels had been tasked with protecting --the humans most of all-- were to the weavers merely vulnerabilities, providing a foothold for invading outsiders. And the weavers would without hesitation destroy anything they saw as threatening the structure of the world.

---

The first part of the weaver I saw was shaped like one of the little spiders I would see in the ruins, but magnified a thousandfold. The core of its body was larger than mine, and with its stocky legs included its diameter was close to three times my height. Its surface was a total, reflectionless black, making it look more like a patch of darkness or a hole in my field of vision than a physical object taking up space. If there were eyes on the head, they were the same flat black as the rest of the body. I could see the movement of mandibles but their overall shape was utterly unclear.

Above it was what looked like a second spider floating in the air, as if the first spider was being reflected in a surface just above our heads. This one was many-colored and shimmering, its surface like resin floating on water. Its eyes and mandibles were radiant, so bright and complicated they hurt to look at. Although it seemed to mirror the first spider’s movements step-for-step, a closer look made it clear that it wasn’t walking along a reflected ground. It was hanging as from a web, and indeed I could make out thin shining threads in the air around it. Except... following the legs out from the spider, they branched, and they kept branching, becoming thinner and more numerous as they went out, until they were indistinguishable from the web it was climbing on.

For several minutes, the weaver ignored us entirely, its focus totally taken up by the tear I had created. Both sets of mandibles and both sets of legs worked at the hole and the air around it, the black spider periodically reaching a leg back to draw almost-invisible thread from the abdomen of the shimmering one. The thread was wrapped around the hole in a pattern I couldn’t understand, and gradually the hole shrank and disappeared to nothing. There remained a distortion in the air, like looking through one of the glass shards that we’d sometimes find in the ruins. But the opening to the outside was entirely gone.

The weaver, both parts of it, turned to face me. It spoke, sounding like a chorus of almost-human voices speaking almost in unison and not at all in harmony. “The mouth-which-is-also-a-human has bitten the world and swallowed nothing. The weaver requests an explanation for the bite.”

I responded, almost managing to keep the stammer out of my voice. “An outsider had infected the crow, and this was the only way I knew to lure it out.”

“The threads binding the human-which-is-also-a-mouth to the crow are weak and easily broken. The chain from the human-which-also-a-mouth to the human-which-is-only-a-human to the crow is stronger but still insufficient to motivate a dangerous act. The weaver requests a causal thread binding the crow’s condition to the bite.”

Introspecting under the weaver’s stare was not exactly easy, but I had a feeling that providing an answer it considered satisfactory was my best chance of getting out of this alive. “Um, I wanted to prove that I could be useful to others, that I wasn’t just a dangerous burden.” It didn’t respond, so I continued: “I felt like maybe if Starlight, that’s the crow, could be saved then so could I. And... maybe I wanted to pretend that the threads binding me to the other human were stronger than they were.” I didn’t realize that I was aping the weaver’s language until the words were already out of my mouth. I tried not to think about the fact that Sumac was next to me and had heard everything I had just said.

“The weaver requests a clarification of the usage of the word ‘saved’ by the human-which-is-also-a-mouth.” When it said “saved” the many voices abruptly died off, replaced by a single voice --my voice-- saying the word exactly as I had said it.

“Saved from infection, I mean. I want to be... only a human and not also a mouth.”

The weaver considered me for a long moment. “The interests of the weaver and the human-which-is-also-a-mouth are perhaps sufficiently aligned for a conflict to be avoided. The human-which-is-also-a-mouth desires to be ‘saved’ and the angel will not permit the mouth-which-is-also-a-human to reenter with world-blood dripping from the teeth. The weaver cannot separate the human from what the human also is, but the weaver will render the mouth-aspect inert while leaving the human-aspect intact. The human-which-is-also-a-mouth will be made more similar to humans-which-are-only-humans, the world-blood will be concealed from the angel, and future bites will become impossible.” A brief pause, and then “The weaver wishes the human-which-is-also-a-mouth to understand that no choice to leave unchanged is being offered. The mouth-which-is-also-a-human will permit being sealed shut or the human and the mouth will alike be destroyed.”

I almost laughed. Minutes earlier, I had fully expected to die; now it seemed like the weaver was going to do me a favor instead. Of course, there was a lot I didn’t understand about its proposal, and it could easily end up being to my detriment in ways I had no way to anticipate. But as the weaver pointed out, I wasn’t exactly in a position to refuse, and I allowed myself to hope that the curse on my body and life might be, if not broken, at least alleviated. I nodded.

The black half of the weaver lunged suddenly towards me, and the world went dark.

---

When I came to, it felt like only seconds had passed, but the weaver was gone. I looked at the teeth on my leg, and they had been covered with a thick layer of webbing, like a captured fly. I tugged on it experimentally, but it wouldn’t come off. I thought about asking Sumac how much time had passed, or what the weaver had done, but I was too exhausted for speaking to be worth the effort. We returned to Anpiel in silence.

It was days before I thought to wonder why the weaver hadn’t just killed me. It was months before what I now believe to be the true answer occurred to me: If the weaver had tried to fight me, it wasn’t sure that it would have won.

[a-motivation-to-study]

Books to Read in 2019

This past year I finished reading MAYBE 2 books. How incredibly disappointing is that? In high school I read ALL THE TIME, and I have a whole wall covered in books, yet I have barely read! I’m really going to force myself to read more this next year. I know for a FACT that my semester next year will hinder my goal, but I’m hoping to follow this plan as closely as I can (although I am darn positive that I probably won’t be able to finish all of these). Most of these books I have selected relate to other personal goals I hope to achieve. The boldened titles are the books I feel are most important in my personal growth (and thus the books I will read first). I’m also hoping my love for reading can be reignited. I know a lot of us can lose the habit of reading, especially with busy college schedules, so I’ve added the descriptions of the books (from the back or from the amazon descriptions) I hope to read in case any of you would also like to read more!

Productivity Books

1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People People, author Stephen          R. Covey presents a holistic, integrated, principal-centered approach for         solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living  with       fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity- principles that give us the      security to adapt to change, and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates. 

2. Getting Things Done by David Allen 

In today’s world, yesterday’s methods just don’t work. Veteran coach and        management consultant David Allen shares his his breakthrough methods for stress-free performance that he has introcued to tens of thousands of people  across the country. Aleen’s premis is simple: our productivity is directly   proportional to our ability to relax. Only when our minds are clear and our thoughts are organized can we achieve effective results and unleash our creative potential. From core principles to proven tricks, Getting Things Dones can transform the way you work an live, showing you how to pick up the pace without wearing yourself down. 

Meditation and Buddhist Books (from Wisdom Publications mostly)

3. Zen Vows for Daily Life by Robert Aitken

Zen Vows for Daily Life is a collection of gathas, vows in verse form for daily practice, similar to prayers or affirmations for use at home, at work, and in the meditation hall itself. Reciting these poetic vows can help us be fully present in each moment and each activity of our lives. These gathas serve as gentle reminders to return again and again to our highest aspirations, with acceptance, joy, and compassion—for ourselves and all beings. Zen Vows for Daily Life will be a steadfast companion in keeping the reader inspired and committed on their spiritual path.

4. A Heart Full of Peace by Joseph Goldstein

Love, compassion, and peace—these words are at the heart of all spiritual endeavors. Although we intuitively resonate with their meaning and value, for most of us, the challenge is how to embody what we know: how to transform these words into a vibrant, living practice. In these times of conflict and uncertainty, this transformation is far more than an abstract ideal; it is an urgent necessity. Peace in the world begins with us. This wonderfully appealing offering from one the most trusted elders of Buddhism in the West is a warm and engaging exploration of the ways we can cultivate and manifest peace as wise and skillful action in the world.

This charming book is illuminated throughout with lively, joyous, and sometimes even funny citations from a host of contemporary and ancient sources—from the poetry of W.S. Merwin and Galway Kinnell to the haiku of Issa and the great poet-monk Ryokan, from the luminous aspirations of Saint Francis of Assisi to the sage advice of Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama.

5. Open Mind by B. Allan Wallace 

Lerab Lingpa (1856–1926), also known as Tertön Sogyal, was one of the great Dzogchen (Great Perfection) masters of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries and a close confidant and guru of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. This volume contains translations by B. Alan Wallace of two works that are representative of the lineage of this great “treasure revealer,” or tertön. This volume will be of great interest for all those interested in the theory and practice of the Great Perfection and the way it relates to the wisdom teachings of Tsongkhapa and others in the new translation schools of Tibetan Buddhism.

6. Interconnected by Ogyen Tinley Dorje

Plucked from a humble nomad family to become the leader of one of Tibet’s oldest Buddhist lineages, the young Seventeenth Karmapa draws on timeless values to create an urgent ethic for today’s global community. The Karmapa shows us how gaining emotional awareness of our connectedness can fundamentally reshape the human race. He then guides us to action, showing step by step how we can change the way we use the earth’s resources and can continue to better our society. In clear language, the Karmapa draws connections between such seemingly far-flung issues as consumer culture, loneliness, animal protection, and self-reliance. In the process, he helps us move beyond theory to practical and positive social and ethical change.

7. I Wanna Be Well by Miguel Chen

A punk rocker’s guide to grow, learn, and appreciate the present moment—in short, to live a life that doesn’t totally suck.

8. Discovering Your Soul Signature by Panache Desai

Your soul signature is your spiritual DNA - it is who you are at your core, the most authentic part of you, and your singular contribution to this world. And yet, we reject our authentic selvs. We allow our soul sigature to become blocked by any number of emotional obstacles that life throws in ou path: anger, fear, guilt, shame, sadness, despair. Any or all of these feelings overtake us and create a density, a heaviness that doesn’t permit us to embrace who we truly are, deep inside. We are energetic beings, Panache Desai reminds us, and emotions are energy in motion. When we are blocked we feel unworthy, less than, unloved, incomplete. 

In Discovering Your Soul Signature, Panache Desai invites us on a 33-day path of meditations-- shot passages to be read at morning, noon, and night that are designed to dismantle the emotional burden that holds us back and open us up to changing our lives. Through this distilled, poetic, practical, and inspiring course, he invites us to live a life of authenticity, to rediscover purpose and passion, and to believe from our soul in the possibility of all things.

9. As Man Thinketh by James Allen 

This little volume (the result of meditation and experience) is not intended as an exhaustive treatise on the much-written upon subject of the power of thought. It is suggestive rather than explanatory, its object being to stimulate men and women to the discovery and perception of the truth that -

"They themselves are makers of themselves"       by virtue of the thoughts which they choose and encourage; that mind is the master weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness.

Religious Books 

10. The Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball

In The Miracle of Forgiveness, President Spencer W Kimball gives a penetrating explanation of repentance and forgiveness and clarifies their implications for Church members. His in-depth approach shows that the need for forgiveness is universal; portrays the various facets of repentance, and emphasizes some of the more serious errors, particularly sexual ones, which afflict both modern society and Church members. Most important, he illuminates his message with the brightness of hope that even those who have gone grievously astray may find the way back to peace and security. Never before has any book brought this vital and moving subject into so sharp a focus. This classic book is a major work of substance and power.

Science Books

11. God’s Equation by Amir D. Aczel

In God’s Equation, Amir Aczel tells the story of what lies between these events: the history of modern physics and the development of the sciene of cosmology, the study of the nature of the universe. 

Other Books

12. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex—to "redeem" him—the novel asks, "At what cost?"

13. Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

In 1845, Thoreau moved to a cabin that he built with his own hands along the shores of Walden Pond in Massachusetts. Shedding the trivial ties that he felt bound much of humanity, Thoreau reaped from the land both physically and mentally, and pursued truth in the quiet of nature. In Walden, he explains how separating oneself from the world of men can truly awaken the sleeping self. Thoreau holds fast to the notion that you have not truly existed until you adopt such a lifestyle—and only then can you reenter society, as an enlightened being.   These simple but profound musings—as well as “Civil Disobedience,” his protest against the government’s interference with civil liberty—have inspired many to embrace his philosophy of individualism and love of nature. More than a century and a half later, his message is more timely than ever.

14. The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracian

In the Art of Worldly Wisdom Baltasar Gracian gives us pertinent and pithy advice on friendship, leadership, and success. Think of it as Machiavelli with a soul. This book is for those who wish to have an ambitious plan for success without compromising their integrity or losing their way. Audacious and captivating!

15. For One More Day by Mitch Albom

For One More Day is the story of a mother and a son, and a relationship that lasts a lifetime and and beyond. It explores the question: What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one?

[6505-blog1]

The Greatest Rock/Metal Albums of the 21st Century.

21st century marks the most diverse decade for rock and metal continuation. Absorbing, if not radiated by the long progenitors from Led Zeppelin who cranked up their amps and Black Sabbath that turn it out murky and sinister grim, to the dazzling theatrical persona of KISS and Motley Crue, to the new level heavy metal confronter of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, to the head crusher of Motorhead and Metallica, to the destructo maniac of Slayer and Kreator, to the prog menu offerer of King Crimson and Tool, and finally aligned to have some peculiar layers and brooding tendency of Korn. We have come a long way. Yet our engine keeps raging.

I have cumulated the finest, the most influential, and the most prominent albums released in the new millenium by the descendents that took their predecessors to a whole different level, sustain the genre, and move myriads of people to mosh.

In a particular order:

10. Avenged Sevenfold - City of Evil (Warner Bros, 2005).

Rolling Stones magazine has named the sonically-punk with the flames of Iron Maiden, City of Evil on the last number of their 100 Greatest Album of All Time list. That should be a fair consideration since the extravagants like Beast and the Harlot, Bat Country, and Seize the Day altogether with the rest of the setlist ultimately transced the whole level and the destiny of the band as a leading force of eliticians in not so distant future. The 11 tracks have also successfully resurrected the triumph of classic guitar virtuosso portrait demonstrated on 80's as the talisman, Synyster Gates embarked over tons of appealing riffages and dueling solos which was buried after Nirvana and grunge breaktrough on the early 90's. Veteran and Ozzy Osbourne/Black Label Society guitarist, Zakk Wylde acknowledged him as a "Torchbearer" for arguably giving a birth and cultivating the guitar culture to the next generation.

9. Behemoth - The Satanist (Nuclear Blast, 2014).

The tenth album of Polish most profound extreme metal giant after Adam "Nergal"s battle with leukemia. Unlike the speed and precision exhibited over prior releases, the coagulated dense and horified cultish doom are found intensely throughout the setlist as to explicit the heretic messages. The result is astonishing and stronger than ever. More to add, The Satanist is pure, cathartic, flawlessly emotional, carefully-savage, and conquering by its complexity of repertoire within vivid and cinematical gradation as multi-dimensional tracks Messe Noire, In the Absence ov Light, Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer, and the leadoff Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel ravage in none but diabolical fervor. This album expansive flair has comprehensively unfolded the darkest caverns and creates the new standard of underground craftmanship.

8. Bring Me the Horizon - Sempiternal (RCA/Epitaph, 2013).

I wouldn't believe that i need to make Sempiternal in the cut. Who would have guessed? But i will beat every negation towards it. It is the album that eventually transforms Bring Me the Horizon from bunch of hipsters to one of the most important unit in the 21st century modern rock landscape. A year and a half after the release, Oliver Sykes and co. took over the world attention of rocking Wembley Arena, the same monumental venue where Queen — one of the biggest rock band in the history — was there doing the same story. It was approximately 12.000 attendees which made Sykes stated: "So this is our biggest show ever". The soaring Can You Feel My Heart, the furious The House of Wolves, the euphoric Shadow Moses, and the melodic of Sleepwalking are undeniably the new testament of rock music.

7. Lamb of God - Ashes of the Wake (Epic, 2004).

Count how many metal bands on the planet started after invented Laid to Rest or Now You've Got Something to Die For! It was countless. Lamb of God has became the crowned icon of "New Wave American Heavy Metal" and one of the most distinctive band in the scene. Their ferocious riffs, blistering drum works, lyrical contents, sound, even how to sing like Randy Blythe are largely imitated and seem to be the ideal menifesto of modern metal anatomy with obviously Ashes of the Wake as the highest pedestal. It contains tremendous chaos of 11 front-to-back blazing tracks immensely portrayed after Mark Morton - Willie Adler's virtuosity and of course, Chris Adler's voraciousity. Implying both abundance and how well they grasp the roots that will less likely be outnumbered.

6. Mastodon - Leviathan (Relapse, 2004).

We are now talking (and unravelling) the true genius minds of Atlanta-based extraordinary quartet. The newborn Metallica, Mastodon — the group that always exceed anyone's expectation — has seamlessly ranged their pinaccle from sludge to prog to avant-garde to even folk with staggering exponents of highly sophisticated masterpiece. With any fruition that comes in, the sheer Leviathan is believed as the opener tap. Written after Herman Merville's 1851 novel entitled "Moby Dick", the 46-minutes concept album is nothing but endless breathtaking experience of capturing bizarre Ode to the sea soundtrack. Blood and Thunder, I Am Ahab, and Aqua Dementia are torrent of forceful yet fascinating guttural power chords with Brann Dailor's tracherous drum tempo reflecting the theme while Iron Tusk sets sail upon muscular stoner riff and Naked Burn for menacing-tactical intro and flaunted visceral jarring chorus are hulking the imagery of the beast. Until the epic Hearts Alive with a glimpse of Metallica's The Call of Ktulu patiently reigns and all the greatness rendered.

5. Evanescence - Fallen (Wind-up, 2003).

The album that made Evanescence — a small town band from Arkansas — a megastar in the blink of an eye. It was the second semester of 2003 where the breakthrough hit single, Bring Me to Life played million times on the radio around the globe (and MTV as well) picturing the female face lead singer and her gleaming voice, Amy Lee who started the band with the co-founder guitarist, Ben Moody (though the relationship didn't survive and separation happened in the midst of suporting Fallen tour). The fame that nowhere expected begun when the terrific duo met on a camp and cliche of having the same musical taste brought them to finally sign the major label Wind-up and dominated the world stages in a brief. Fallen with the added values of enchanting piano, symphonical strings livery, and haunting soundscape that most nu-metal groups didn't have at that time effortlessly stood-out and arised in comparison to even Linkin Park. Other songs served like the down-tuned goth Going Under and the everlasting ballad My Immortal are only legitimating their popularity.

4. Ghost - Prequelle (Loma Vista, 2018).

In our nearly five decades of heavy music, such names as Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Van Halen with their fantastic works and spirits have became a catalyst that will be remembered greatly in the faraway future for causing an enourmous impact to our community. Those that have bloomed and paved the way many artists to follow. And if there is a chance for this millenium bands to extend the list, Ghost will be the first to step up the grace.

This year, their most recent release Prequelle has been nominated for The Best Rock Album and its single Rats for Best Rock Song of 61st Grammy. An award that should be familiar since they have been winning it two times with Infestissumam (2013) — their second major label album — as The Best Hard Rock/Metal Album and Cirice — the single taken from previous album Meliora (2015) — as Best Metal Performance. A peak of a decade existence for one superior man behind the wheel, Tobias Forge. Appear himself as a satanic pope, Papa Emeritus I, II, III, Zero, and now with the newest fully renowned ascencion clergy Cardinal Copia has completely shaped the band's identity. But the latest Prequelle has more than to be attained to an award. Forge's admiration to film makes no surprise if any substance on the record is prone to get visualized and draw medieval realms so alive and real. He could blend joyous disco with scattered shock rock backbone for Dance Macabre, provide brilliant exotic pop-esque instrumental opus for Miasma, and close all the novelty and intellegiousness by a soothing grand finale of Life Eternal. That is the last strike.

3. Greenday - American Idiot (Reprise, 2004).

With the overwhelmed mainstream-breaking punk rock hit single American Idiot, it was an album (a concept album, for specific) everyone knew which handfully restored a big disappointment both sales and critical of their previous release. Taking the power back after four years gap with anti-Bush vitriol narration over long and merged tracks was everything we could expect from an ambition. Performing sarkastic American-post 9/11 political singable outcry and dragging down to emotionally-related suburban decline on Holiday/Boulevard of Broken Dreams, followed by californian sunset accoustic staccato and straighforward revv Give Me Novacaine/She's A Rebel, a love story of Whatsername where a street punk main actor St. Jimmy fell and how it all ended on Homecoming.

The grandiose worths 16 millions selling CD is the anthem of this generation where a generation ago pridefully have The Clash with the classic London Calling.

2. Slipknot - Iowa (Roadrunner, 2001).

The most brutal and confrontational album of 21st century nothing to this day can bear. That is the deal. A remorseless turmoil just from the first second of welcoming to the house of pain intro, (515) to the last 15 minutes epilogue of magnificent unrelenting drama title track, Iowa. Please recognize the insolent hate mantra "Here we go again motherfuckers" as Corey Taylor opens up and rips off anything with hammer to the face misanthropic followed track, People = Shit that seems a vulgar warning to extend the torture of their 1999 debut phenomenal self titled album. But things got tenfold. They were all damaged animals, making it excuriatingly worst instead, and wanted any living to hear them. That they fuck what trend you live up on bludgeoning bestial Heretic Anthem, that they are adamant bastards you can't bleach their darkness out on atmospherical assault New Abortion, that killing is their primal instinct on grinding jaw-breaker scorn Disasterpieces, that they are fucking obsolete machines on the scorching psychosis Everything Ends. There lies Neurosis-ian dressed Gently and never eschew Grammy nominated singles, Left Behind and My Plague.

All the violent rampage should be addressed to Ross Robinson (producer) for being able to wrap up the devastating times the band encountered in the studio and that was how its ruthless resonated the world where many people are pissed-off to everything. An absolute impossible album to be re-recorded due to its hell of organic material. Yet apart of any malevolence, Iowa is sadly, a gift to liberate your heart and soul.

Honourable mentions:

System of a Down - Toxicity (American/Columbia, 2001).

Converge - Jane Doe (Equal Vision, 2001).

My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade (Reprise, 2006).

1. Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory (Warner Bros, 2000).

The world seriously gives us no chance to break. After Lemmy, Bowie, now we have lost the most beautiful voice that represents our generation.

May rest in peace and honour, Chester Bennington.

We miss you everyday, and we do care if someone whose time runs out is you.

The album that took nu-metal to a whole different level forever and highly contributed to shape the sound that outbursted the 21st century. For two decades, Linkin Park has became the most iconic group on the planet. Breeding the bands like Bring Me the Horizon, Asking Alexandria, and Bullet For My Valentine (with their recent 2018 album, Gravity).

Hybrid Theory (which was the actual name of the band before settling to Linkin Park) is the sublime fusion of heavy metal, alternative rock, hip-hop, pop, and electronica desired only to make a lifetime change. It is truly no derivative. Yet recalling back, it was multiple rejections of label after label before it took off with Don Gillmore (previously worked with Eve 6, Lit, Pearl Jam) to produce the album and pushed the band excessively. It was the part that would not have regretted where all they saw afterwards and going on was all miracle. 28 millions copy sold should be a very serious sensastion everyone must have a seat to talk about. A rock n roll revival after Guns N' Roses's Appetite For Destruction (1987) so to speak. With angst to fuel, Hybrid Theory yielded the catchy single opener One Step Closer, the drug abuse easer Crawling, the unhinged paranoia Papercut, and the most well-known last single sung by anyone In the End. Not to mention its cohesive supplementaries A Place For My Head, Runaway, and My December that blur the foursome due to their equivalent prowess. Admit it, Linkin Park and Hybrid Theory are the gateway to rock and heavy metal empire.

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