#Bristol Magnum

[dementedfilament]

Gavin Ward

With a careful bend, Bast closed a portion of the gap between his breath and the flame, then granted it repose.

Around the circle, distorted expressions of ill were plastered to the young man. “That’s…” Alina spoke first, “Disgusting…”

“It was quite disgusting, yes,” he agreed. “But a fascinating spark of inspiration.”

“Was it…really throbbing?” A disturbed Bristol asked.

“Yes. It was fresh roadkill after all.”

“And you heard its heartbeat?” Cherry uttered, tears along her lashes.

He took a moment, pondering the depths of truth within his tale. “To some degree, at the time, I believed I could hear it, yes.”

Alina trembled. “You’re such a weirdo…”

“With a very creative mind,” Maggie said.

“I consider myself an author, Miss Kotova.” He then turned to his second commenter. “And that use of language didn’t escape me, Maggie.”

The girls avoided his gaze awkwardly.

“Now that I’ve shared my own story, would you like to tell yours?”

Gavin’s visible eye, uncertain and withdrawn, met Bast’s steely golds. “Yeah…sure.”

***

It was an ordinary day…unfortunately. So many magnificent things had happened to his closest friends, and all those popular student bloggers in the district. Just for once in his life, Gavin wished he could have an extraordinary tale he could share about his time at the school.

With a heavy sigh, he pushed open the door to the Paranormal Research Club (known colloquially as the Occult Club) room. It was his day to tidy up, and he did so sulking all the while.

However, as he moved fabrics and dusted crystals, he stumbled over a wrinkle in the carpet and dropped an arm-full of pristine cases and other occult goodies. To his horror, one he was unfamiliar with popped open. Plopping beside him was an item he didn’t believe was allowed on school grounds: a ritual knife.

He scrambled away. Why was Hestia keeping a literal knife on campus? Surely the teachers didn’t know about this…but why was she hiding it??

Wait. Ah, so was this the answer to his pleas? This was his “extraordinary” tale: reporting a hidden weapon and getting the whole club shut down?

Another sigh. If that was really the answer, then he spitefully didn’t want to be known for that actually. Plus, Hestia would hex him if he got the club shut down, and he especially didn’t want that.

Thus, he pushed himself off the ground and carefully picked up the stupid thing. “Man…” As he picked up the case, he flipped the blade in his hands, examining every little engraving, the carefully wrapped cloth, the glint across the shaped blade. “I wish I really had something interesting happen to me.”

Suddenly, he crouched, swinging the blade out towards invisible enemies. ‘Maybe if I had a cool ability…I could at least be a side-kick.’ Dramatically swinging it around as if he were on a stage, he continued his personal play. ‘I could help out on the front lines maybe—not just be useless in the background. I could stand at their sides and it’d be super cool!’

Finally, he slumped. ‘Gahh…what am I doing?’ He moved to grab the knife with his other hand, then cried out.

Blood instantly pooled out of the cut on his finger. ‘Shoot…shoot shoot shoot.’ He hurriedly sucked on the wound while placing the knife back in its case. ‘That didn’t happen. There’s no blood on it. It’s fine. I’ll just put it back and it’ll be no big deal.’

It was the next day when Gavin had accidentally slept in, and made a mad dash through the halls to avoid tarnishing his attendance record. ‘Shoot, I’m gonna be late!! Aaaagh…if only the bell wouldn’t go off, I might be able to slip in without the teacher noticing!’

To his surprise, after he slinked inside the room and collapsed into his seat, lungs heaving, there was an announcement on the intercom that the morning bell was malfunctioning, and asked for teachers to be lenient with tardy students for the day.

‘Thank you…thank you so much!!’

“I’m…definitely going to fail this test…” The boy sitting beside him groaned with a complete lack of self-confidence.

“What? I’m sure you’ll do great!”

“Nah man…I’m toast.”

He smiled brightly. “You’ll do great.”

The boy huffed with a little smirk. “If you say so.”

‘He must not have studied…or maybe he did. He struggles with his academics a lot.’

Once the papers were delivered, Gavin honed his focus on the test.

‘Easy.’

After slipping his to the teacher, he made for the door for a promised early departure. However, he paused and turned his head. ‘...Good luck, Laz. I hope you pass. You need it more than me.’

While making his way down the hall, his gaze idly drifted to the windows, observing the thick cover of clouds in the sky. ‘Ah…isn’t there a showcase for the Robotics Club today?’ He bounced between some particularly dark clouds, having already sprinkled mist upon the city. ‘They’ll have to cancel with this weather. Aw…I wanted to see Fuyuki’s work in action. I wish the weather would clear up.’

The bell ended his class, and Gavin meandered into the hall, only to be met with the awed chatter of students around him. Tuning in, that was when he noticed just how bright it was all of a sudden.

Initially frozen, he then moved to press his body against the window and gaze upon the crystal-blue sky.

The next day, Hestia had sent the group chat a text. She said Kory had fallen unconscious, and she’d have to cancel the meeting for the day since she had to take the girl to the hospital.

‘Oh no…I hope she’ll be okay…’ Gavi ruminated on this as he left for his next period. ‘Hestia was looking forward to today’s meeting too. I hope it’s just nothing, and maybe we can keep our plans. Kory’s been stressed enough…she doesn’t need this too.’

“Gavin! Bro! Hey!” Laszlo sprinted to catch up, slamming a hand on the taller boy’s shoulder.

“Wh-What is it?”

“Look!!” He shoved the paper, unusually deprived of red ink, in Gavin’s face. “I passed! I fucking passed!!”

His visible eye blinked in amazement. “...You did…”

“Yo, man…this saved my fucking grade! I can go to the big game now!”

“Congratulations!” Gavin smiled. “Good luck.”

“Thanks!” The smaller boy did a little happy dance. “Right before the weekend hit too! I’m so damn lucky!”

He was lucky, Gavin thought. And as they headed into the classroom after stopping by his locker, he was met with an unusually disappointed teacher. “Gavin…I’m surprised. Did you not study?”

“...Huh?”

“If the stresses of school are beginning to weigh on you, please visit the counselor some time. And let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

His jaw dropped.

D–

The first in his life.

“Whoa, man,” Laszlo peeked around his shoulder. “Were you asleep or something? This looks like my kinda grade.”

Yes…yes it did.

Still stunned, he allowed his friend to drag him to their seats. “By the way, did you hear about that freak storm over the other half of the state?”

A commotion rose in the lunch room as a student Gavin was unfamiliar with suddenly dropped her tray. It clattered to the ground, and with the spilled contents, her body met the ground and fell still.

Students and faculty rushed to her aid. Before a thought could form in his mind, his phone buzzed.

Turns out, Kory woke up perfectly fine, and the doctors cleared her to return for the day. Despite her worsening health, it was as though she’d never been sick at all.

And, the meeting was back on, per request of their now-healthy club member.

Slowly, his eye moved from his phone to the girl, and back to his phone.

What…the hell was happening…?

Soon after, he was met with other passive thoughts that had been answered as if prayers.

Another classmate in the Gardening Club: he had wished her dying plant well and it sprouted beautifully the day of her contest. Her rival’s impeccable bloom, on the other hand, had completely withered.

His and Laszlo’s passive complaints about the lunch menu that day were met with the cafeteria shut down due to the hazard of spoiled food, despite the fresh ingredients brought in every morning.

Gavin’s desire to put off lab work for his science class was granted a fire that tarnished the entire room and forced the student body to evacuate.

It wasn’t long until he reached his limit. The final straw was when he witnessed a student being regularly bullied. ‘That’s not right. They wouldn’t like that if it was done to them.’

News spread like the science room fire that a student had been hospitalized the next day. Apparently, some drama had exploded on social media, resulting in a mass-harassment on the group of bullies, to the point that the main culprit of the misdeeds had attempted suicide.

Gavin poked his head past the door to the “Occult Club” room. All clear. He slinked in, immediately setting to work trying to find the ritual knife again. He looked high, he looked low. Looked to, looked fro. He could not find that damn knife.

Hestia had since done some rearranging, so there was no telling where she put it, especially since she had obviously…probably, intended for it to be for her eyes only.

‘Damn it…’ He planted himself in the center of the room, and slowly rotated around, vigilant for the same shape, size, colour, and details that he remembered from before. ‘I still can’t find it…you’d think it’d pop out at me with how different it looked compared to everything else…’

The thought barely finished before a loud crash made him jump.

On the carpet lay the ritual knife, tumbled out of its box from wherever it had previously been hidden.

Hesitantly, he swiped it from the ground. “Hey…make this stop! I don’t want this!”

As one would expect, there wasn’t any sort of reply from the cold metal.

“I’m not meant for this power! Please! Take it back!”

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting by yelling at it, really.

Coming to his senses, he held up the finger he had just ceased bandaging. “...If this is all you need…please, take your power back. You’re very kind, but I can’t watch people get hurt like this anymore.”

Once the blood was drawn, he snuck the knife back to where he believed it had originally been placed.

And, sure enough, the bending of fate to his innocent musing ceased, and things returned to their usual, boring, routine.

Scaretober 2023

Brisk Wind on a Dark Trail

Midnight Moon

Gargoyle's Watch

Cold Stones in the Fog

Spirits Rising

Haunted House

Witching Hour

Bubbling Cauldron

Candy

Eyes

Spider Silk

Feathers

Tail

Scales

Fangs or Talons

An Offering of Blood

Dark Ritual

Spook Scary Skeletons

Carnivàle Morte

Still-Beating Heart

Sharpened Blade

Mask

Looming Shadows

The Devil's Hand

Monster

Reflection in the Mirror

Rusted Chains

Stitches

Precious Jewels

Incantation

Halloween

Epilogue

[in-death-we-fall]

Parallel Lives

Kerrang 923, September 28 2002

In Slipknot, Joey Jordison gets to rage. In the Murderdolls, he gets to rock. In both bands, he shits in public…

Words: Ian Winwood Photos: Roxy Erickson

Never let it be said that the Murderdolls lack the capacity to surprise. It’s Thursday night, the penultimate date of their sold-out tour of British clubs, and the band were due onstage 10 minutes ago. Getting a band like this to do anything on time is like turning an oil tanker around, so they’re running late. Which means that the 500 people packed inside Bristol’s Fleece club are just going to have to wait.

Joey Jordison, on the other hand, cannot wait. Opting to change from ugly-men-without-make-up to ugly-men-with-make-up not in the venue’s intimate and inaccessible dressing room, but in their tour bus, the Murderdolls have, for the past 45 minutes, been saying “Excuse me” and “Could you pass the hairspray/lipstick” and getting dressed into stage clothes that have seen less washing powder than the Turin Shroud. It’s like playing Twister with Max Factor.

And it could be worse. Joey Jordison – five feet not very many inches tall, even in ridiculous stage boots – needs to ‘go to the toilet’, and he needs to do this in the ‘I’d leave that for 10 minutes if I were you’ sense of the term. Which is unfortunate, considering that ‘No solids shall be deposited in the tour bus toilet’ is appropriately Rule Number Two in the rock ‘n’ roll code of the road, second only to ‘Do not blow the bus driver’s brains out with a .45 Magnum as he’s hurtling down the motorway at 120 miles per hour’. For Jordison, looking quietly concerned, this is a problem. Think, think, think: what to do?

Joey Jordison decides to resolve his predicament by performing a bowel movement on the pavement, in the street.

You did read that correctly.

“Man, I just took a shit in the street,” he says, almost skipping with joy and pride.

Perhaps to celebrate such a commendable achievement, one of the Murderdolls – and, let’s be honest, aside from Joey Jordison, they all look the same – decides to smash a pint glass. The jar arcs through the air, hitting the cobbled floor with a smash that is, strangely, as satisfying as it is entirely redundant. Then another glass takes flight. Then another, then another. There isn’t much whooping and there isn’t much hollering, but there is plenty of debris.

We’re standing outside a pub, next door to the Fleece. The landlady leans out of the doorway.

“Could you stop that please?” she asks.

“Go back inside lady,” says vocalist Wednesday 13, winner of this week’s stupid name competition. “Go back inside and no-one will get hurt.”

Five minutes ago Wednesday was giving serious consideration to urinating on a Puddle Of Mudd fly poster. He decided not to because the band, as people, are “cool”.

The Murderdolls are now walking toward the stage door.

“Hey, you know about American football right?” asks Eric Griffin, the bass player. Eric has missed a part of the tour after his father died, but now he’s back. “Well in American football this is called a drop-kick.”

Eric throws a pint glass from his hand and tries to kick it. The glass spins from his boot and smashes six inches away.

He adds: “Although it’s not a very good drop-kick.”

Inside the venue, the crowd have heard the intro tape and are starting to cheer. Outside, the band are going inside.

Please welcome, from the United States of Stupidity, The Murderdolls.

The Murderdolls have a song called ‘I Like (sic) To Say Fuck’, which is just as well, because they say fuck all the time; they also have a song called ‘Let’s Fuck’ which is not just as well, if you’re the one in line, because they’re all as ugly as fuck.

Onstage at the Fleece, the band say the word so many times that if they were to keep a swearbox they could, at the end of the tour, purchase a country. So it’s, “Here’s a fucking song for you, Bristol,” and “Are you tired of hearing all the fucking shit on the radio, Bristol?”.

In case, heaven forbid, you get bored of the word “fuck”, The Murderdolls do spice it up and throw it around with the odd “motherfucker” as well. They’re inventive like that.

They’re also, on a night like this, at the very core of their element. When the album, ‘Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls’, is boiled down and fried up in a hateful hall before 500 loving people, you’re seeing this band as they were intended to be seen. It’s here that you can view the parts of the Murderdolls that are A Good Thing, such as the schlock-punk shtick that recalls bands such as the Misfits and the Necros. This is also the place to see the parts of the Murderdolls that are A Bad Thing, such as them revisiting the era of hairspray and shiny guitars that epitomised the glam-metal years.

The Murderdolls will try to guess a woman’s cup size by feeling her breasts. It’s worth asking: what is the point of the Murderdolls?

“Just to have some fun,” says Joey Jordison. The guitarist – for this group at least – sits in the upstairs lounge of his band’s tour bus. Adjacent to him is Wednesday. Before the tape recorder is switched on, a request is made that the whole band are questioned, but Joey, quietly, won’t allow it. Make of this what you will.

“I get all my angry shit out with Slipknot, so this is something else that I can do. And I have fun doing it. We may not be the most serious band in the world, but that doesn’t really matter. That doesn’t mean that this can’t mean something to me just the same.”

For a band that aren’t serious, by the way, Joey Jordison chose to meet this question in serious tones, and with some immediacy – ready with an answer, almost leaping in with his response.

Would you like your audience to be serious about liking you?

“Yeah, I suppose I would.”

Joey Jordison didn’t actually make an appearance today until 8pm, fearing that he’d contracted a fever after standing in the cole – straight after his band’s set – in Manchester for three hours signing CDs and body parts for his fans. Later in Bristol it would seem that this is no more than a chill, but his earlier absence means that his bandmates have to endure the mind-shrivelling tedium that is the afternoon before a show without him.

Wednesday and guitarist Acey Slade are upstairs in the Fleece’s dressing room, talking small and killing time. Wednesday is attempting to fit brown plastic holsters to his trousers, in which he can hold the blue plastic pistols that will spurt water into the crowd later tonight. Slade – the funniest and most impressive member of the band – is looking through photographs taken in Germany. He says the word “cool” a lot. Wednesday has a bastardised image of Colonel Sanders on the back of his jacket. Kentucky Fried Chicken is his favourite food, he says, with the humorous delivery of a serious sentiment. Although if he lived in England he would open a chain of fast food franchises called Kentucky Fried Fish And Chips.

Wednesday is from Louisiana (sic). Acey is from Pennsylvania.

But you’re based in Los Angeles, right?

“Fuck no,” says Wednesday.

I thought that’s where you all lived.

“We don’t really have a base,” says Slade.

Is that because you’re not a proper band?

“Fuck you,” says Wednesday.

The Murderdolls take this well. The Murderdolls, fittingly, know how to smile.

This is Joey Jordison’s band. He laughs and jokes along throughout the evening – and his humour and tolerance of a piss-taking journalist is more impressive than many – but, in subtle moments, his demeanour betrays a seriousness and focus that is hardly disguised. He is acutely aware of how he wishes to be portrayed although, strangely, he appears more concerned with visuals than words. He applies his make-up on three separate occasions for the photographs that partner this piece. The last time he has to do this, at 1am, he doesn’t appear overly thrilled. He has a quiet word with Roxy Erickson about what she can and can’t shoot (admirably, she opts not to fall in with the conspiracy).

In conversation, conversely, Jordison is almost slanderously unguarded. He wants to make it clear than our own Josh Sindell, in his review of the Murderdolls’ set at the Whisky A Go-Go, was wrong to say that Kerry King left early out of disdain, but rather had to leave for LAX airport. Then he says that while the other eight members of Slipknot were furious with K! Dep Ed Jason Arnopp for the things he wrote in his Slipknot book, this was only because they knew that what he wrote was “true”. He’ll also tell you about how he fucked-up his voice by mixing two different batches of cocaine together earlier in the tour. And how, on the road with Slipknot in America, he walked in to the Clown’s dressing room and emptied his bowels right into the rubbish bin. Right there in the room.

Why on Earth did you do that?

“Because he was fucking with me.”

Is there tension in Slipknot?

“No.”

But then he’ll say this. And he’ll say it with some joy and no disguise.

“We had more people at our gig (in Los Angeles) than Stone Sour did.”

Yeah, but Stone Sour are selling more records in America than you are.

Joey Jordison nods his head and curls his mouth into the thinnest, and cruellest, of smiles. Quietly he says, “At the moment”.

Are you sure there’s no tension in Slipknot?

“Yes.”

In the pub next door to the Fleece, there is something approaching mutiny. It’s 11:50pm, and the Murderdolls left the stage a quarter of an hour ago. Four men in their 40s are arguing about the merits – or otherwise – of the band. They all went to the show, but only half of them enjoyed it. You’ve got to move with the times, say the defenders. They weren’t even playing their instruments, say the detractors.

Listening to this is the landlord. He manages to be friendly despite glowing incandescent with fury. It was his glasses that were smashed by the band, and it was his wife who Wednesday instructed to go back inside so that “nobody would get hurt”.

The landlord also thinks the Murderdolls are the worst band ever to have performed next door. So furious he was with the incident, he confronted the Murderdolls’ tour manager and, threatening to summon the law, elicited an apology and £50 in compensation without hesitation or complaint.

Rock ‘n’ roll.

Just round the corner, the Murderdolls are milling in the street, signing autographs for the 200 people who have braved the chill and missed the last bus to talk to them. They will stay there for two hours. Then they will board the bus and, knowing nothing of the furore left behind them, sleep in their bunks and wake in another town. And there the Murderdolls will emerge to laugh and bullshit their way through another day.

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … December 13

1912 – England requires flogging for a second violation of the 1898 law prohibiting Gay solicitation.

1913 – Sir John Pope-Hennessy (d.1994), was a British art historian and museum director. He was a scholar of Italian Renaissance art. Many of his writings, including the tripartite Introduction to Italian Sculpture and his magnum opus, Donatello: Sculptor, are now considered classics in the field.

Pope-Hennessy was born into an Irish Catholic family in Belgravia, London, to Major-General Richard Pope-Hennessy and Dame Una Pope-Hennessy (née Birch), who was the daughter of Arthur Birch, Lieutenant-Governor of Ceylon. He was the elder of two sons; his younger brother James Pope-Hennessy, also a homosexual, was a writer of note. At Oxford John was introduced by Logan Pearsall Smith (a family friend) to Kenneth Clark, who became a mentor to the young Pope-Hennessy. Upon graduation Pope-Hennessy embarked on what he referred to as his Wanderjahre, travelling in Continental Europe and becoming acquainted with its great art collections, both public and private.

Pope-Hennessy served as the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum between 1967 and 1973, and then as the director of the British Museum from 1974 until 1976. His nickname to staff was "the Pope".

When his homosexual brother James, (1916-1974) was beaten to death by a lover in 1974, Pope-Hennessy left the British Museum after only three years as director. Pope-Hennessy looked for a change in life venue. Initially he withdrew to Tuscany, but was enticed by an offer from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to head its department of European painting, and moved to New York. He combined this curatorial post with a professorship at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, and enjoyed mixing with the city's high society.

In New York, Pope-Hennessy met Michael Mallon, a young scholar attending Pope-Hennessy's Frick lectures. Pope-Hennessy secured him an internship at the Metropolitan and Mallon became Pope-Hennessy's life partner. The two retired to Florence in 1986.

Pope-Hennessy died in Florence at age 80 from complications from a liver ailment.

Peter Dorey (L) with Ernest Cole

1947 – Peter Dorey (d.2021) was the co-founder of Gay’s the Word, the first bookshop in the UK dedicated to selling books and magazines for the LGBT+ community.

Dorey founded the shop in Bloomsbury, central London, together with Ernest Hole and Jonathan Cutbill, in 1979. Naming the shop after the Ivor Novello musical, the trio aimed to provide a safe space where LGBT+ people could meet and share a love of books, including many titles that were not available elsewhere.

Peter Dorey was born in 1947 in London to Frederick and Irene Dorey and educated at Preston Manor Grammar School in Wembley. Whilst at the University of Leeds he became interested in broadcasting, working for the student radio station on campus. Upon graduating he joined the BBC as a sound engineer, spending more than 20 years at studios in Belfast and Bristol. It was at a meeting of Gay Icebreakers, a social group, that he and his colleagues came up with the idea of a specialist bookshop for the LGBT+ community, with Dorey providing the funding.

During the miners’ strike of 1984-85, the bookstore became the meeting hub for Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), a group which raised funds for striking coalminers in south Wales. Their story is celebrated in the film Pride (2014), directed by Matthew Warchus.

As the subject of long-term surveillance and institutional homophobia, Gay’s the Word was raided in 1984 by HM Customs and Excise, which claimed that “indecent or obscene” material was being held there. Thousands of pounds of stock was removed by Customs officers whilst Dorey and his colleagues were charged with conspiracy to import indecent books, under the archaic Customs Consolidation Act of 1876.

Questions in parliament from Chris Smith and Frank Dobson and pressure from campaigners forced a review of the case. A crowdfunding campaign raised £55,000, including £3,000 donated by the author Gore Vidal. Smith came out as Britain’s first openly gay MP a few months later. The charges against Dorey and his co-directors were eventually dropped.

Dorey met Timothy Groom in 1985 and they were partners until Groom's death in 2010

1969 – Allen R. Schindler, Jr. (d.1992) was an American Radioman Petty Officer Third Class in the United States Navy who was murdered for being gay. He was killed in a public toilet in Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan by shipmate Terry M. Helvey, who acted with the aid of an accomplice, Charles Vins, in what Esquire called a "brutal murder". The case became synonymous with the gays in the military debate that had been brewing in the United States culminating in the "Don't ask, don't tell" bill.

Airman Apprentice Terry M. Helvey, who was a member of the ship's weather department (OA Division, Operations Department), stomped Schindler to death in a toilet in a park in Sasebo, Nagasaki. He was left lying on the bathroom floor until the Shore Patrol and the key witness to the incident (Jonathan W.) carried out Schindler's body to the nearby Albuquerque Bridge. Schindler had "at least four fatal injuries to the head, chest, and abdomen," his head was crushed, ribs broken, and his penis cut, and he had "sneaker-tread marks stamped on his forehead and chest" destroying "every organ in his body" leaving behind a "nearly-unrecognizable corpse" that was only identifiable by the tattoo on his arm. Jonathan W. witnessed the murder while using the restroom. He noticed Helvey jumping on Schindler's body while singing, and blood gushing from Schindler's mouth while he tried to breathe. The key witness was requested to explain in detail to the military court what the crime scene looked like, but would not because Schindler's mother and sister were present in the courtroom.During the trial Helvey denied that he killed Schindler because he was gay, stating, "I did not attack him because he was homosexual" but evidence presented by Navy investigator, Kennon F. Privette, from the interrogation of Helvey the day after the murder showed otherwise. "He said he hated homosexuals. He was disgusted by them," Privette said. On killing Schindler, Privette quoted Helvey as saying: "I don't regret it. I'd do it again. ... He deserved it."

After the trial, Helvey was convicted of murder and Douglas J Bradt, a captain who tried to keep the incident quiet was demoted and transferred to Florida. Helvey is now serving a life sentence in the military prison at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, although by statute, he is granted a clemency hearing every year. Helvey's accomplice, Charles Vins, was allowed to plea bargain as guilty to three lesser offenses, including failure to report a serious crime and to testify truthfully against Terry Helvey, and served a 78-day sentence before receiving a general discharge from the Navy.

The events surrounding Schindler's murder were portrayed in the 1997 TV film Any Mother's Son. In 1998, Any Mother's Son won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Made for TV Movie.

1975 – Lionel Baier, born in Lausanne, is a Swiss film director. He began his career with a short called "Good Enough To Eat" and two docs: one for Swiss television called The Pastor, the other about gay pride in the Valais.

At 28 he released his first feature, a breakout festival hit, Garcon Stupide, about a confused, uneducated, perpetually frisky 20 year-old named Loic who wants more than the quick tricks he turns with older men on the streets of Lausanne. The marketing department tried to sell Baier's follow-up, Stealth, as another gay romp but the character's main preoccupation is coping with the discovery that his family's background is Polish, which leads to a road trip, which leads to a providential hookup.

In 2009, Baier made Another Man about a straight writer who stumbles into a job as a small-town newspaper movie reviewer For something different, the next year Baier shot Low Cost on his cell phone in a month. Low Cost is a 60-minute drama about a 34 year-old who knows when he's going to die. In 2013 he released Great Waves, his first period drama, set in April 1974 during Portugal's Carnation Revolution.

1990 – Anton Hysén is a Swedish footballer who plays in the Swedish third division for Utsiktens BK, which is coached by his father Glenn Hysén. He is a former member of the Swedish national under-17 association football team and was given a trainee contract with BK Häcken from 2007 to 2009,[3] but was hindered by injuries and instead joined Utsiktens BK, for whom he plays in his third season. He was previously a member of Torslanda IK. His older brothers are football players Tobias Hysén (half-brother) and Alexander Hysén. He won the seventh season of Let's Dance, being the first openly gay person to win this competition.

He came out as gay to the Swedish football magazine Offside in March 2011. Daily Mail has described Anton as the "first high-profile Swedish footballer to announce that he is gay" and as the second active professional football player to come out, after English footballer Justin Fashanu in 1990. The BBC called him "a global one-off".

Hysén was profiled on Swedish broadcaster TV4 on March 9, 2011, in a debate show moderated by Lennart Ekdal titled "Can gays play football too?".

He works part-time as a construction worker.

1999 – US Defense Secretary William Cohen ordered a full review of the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. The policy had recently been criticized for creating a hostile environment.

2002 – The Belgium Senate approves same-sex marriage, making Belgium the second country to do so.

[the-memories-we-keep]

sirens. pen and ink on bristol. 2022.

hey! here’s an illustration i’ve spent the past couple months widdling away at, even moving 7000 miles away with the piece. it’s honestly my illustration magnum opus and if you showed it some love that would mean the world to me :). also lmk if you’d be interested in prints?!

[photos-tell-stories]

#BoP Bristol, UK, 2023 - Books on Photography

#BopBristol, 2023: A great weekend at @bop_bristol of books and talks by a couple of legends – Tony O’Shea / @tonyoshea1697, in conversation with Tracy Marshal Grant / Northern Narrative, and Magnum’s Ian Berry / @ianberrymagnum talking about his work. Tony O’Shea talks with Tracy Marshall Grant about his work – Royal Photographic Society, Books of Photography, Bristol, 8th October 2023. Image ©…

[jocosejoni]

HI ok I love ur stuff and ur stories and ur style of making comics and im looking to start making comics in the near future, do you have any advice or tips???? I hope u have a good day :] !!

!!! Ooo!! Get ready this is gonna be a lot! Maybe I'll put in random art???? to separate it????

So for advice:

Before you draw any pages or anything, have the story written! It doesn't have to be a book it can even just be a word doc w/ bullet points of what you want to happen. For CoD I have a general 5 point story thing (beginning, rising action, climax, falling action, and ending) with big things I want to happen under them that I end up building the chapters around.

Have your characters fully fleshed out too. Maybe your story doesn't have anyone get ice cream, but we all need to know what their favorite flavor is and why.

Find a style you like that's fast and easy and ideally doesn't do too much damage to your hands/wrists cause with comics you're gonna be drawing A LOT. Remember to take breaks to stretch your wrists/fingers/shoulders and to not look at a screen for a bit. And mental health breaks, they say "Comics will Break your Heart" and they mean it.

Lots of people say to start with short projects first and I think that's a good idea!!! you can always build on short stories if your heart desires, but also if you have a giant magnum opus idea that you think is perfect, just start it now! ALSO, also, if something happens and you gotta end it early its okay too, you can always reboot it! IF CARTOONS CAN HAVE A BILLION REBOOTS so can your comics.

Vintage 2013 Conner (technically CoD is a reboot of a comic I started in hs/early college that I had to end because a character I had based on a real person died in the comic and a few weeks after that page went up the real person died irl and I got SCARED.)

For Tips:

I love using all mediums. Sometimes its fun to experiment and use mediums specific to your story. Maybe you wanna do a mermaid comic, maybe try it in a watercolor style??? I normally use like a heavy ink style, but with CoD I wanted something sharper so I've been trying that.

Usually the flow with comics is Script, Thumbnails, Pencils at page size, inks, colors, and finally lettering. But after Scripting and Thumbnailing It can go in whatever order.

For lettering font choice is important! You want it to be legible and fit well with the tone of the story/dialogue. There's lots of good lettering info and free fonts for personal/self publishing use here: https://blambot.com/ They also have a scripting guide but there's been a newer guide floating around too that's trying to standardize scripts (cause if you start working with writers you'll find that EVERYONE is so different when they send you a script) https://www.oheysteenz.com/scs-template

I am inhumanly fast at comics usually, and that's because I like to cheat. I don't always do pencils. on digitally drawn comics I'll take a photo of the thumbnail and draw over it cause its just a general idea of where things need to go. On traditionally inked ones I do the same thing but I end up printing the thumbnail onto the Bristol paper.

Following sample is from apoppy chapter 2 and features traditional penciling which allows you to make fun notes like "less dick shapes" very accurate inks and to flesh out any drawing problems you might have.

For Drawing Print Comics:

In Clip Studio/photoshop/procreate, You want a canvas that's 300 DPI or higher sized appropriately for what size book you want to make. Regular size comics I make at 11x17 inches and size down for books to like 10 something by 6 something. Different printers have slightly different requirements and they all should have templates available. If you're coloring it export your image in CMYK, its gonna look weird on the webpage but don't worry.

For traditional drawing: 11x17 Bristol Board and ink. Some people swear by certain brands, I'm cheap and use a giant bottle of Speedball Ink and a brush or a set of fine tip pens like Faber Castell Pitt Pens or Microns. I like those because they're waterproof and I like to paint at random. Scanning should be done in full color at 300+ DPI but, that size is a challenge, I've had to scan in sections and piece it together digitally. It Sucks, but large flatbed scanners are hard to find. I haven't tried one of those kind that feeds the paper through tho.

I don't know much about the mobile format comics as far as pacing goes. I'm in the grandpa zone and think mobile format is making you do more work for nothin cause if a "normal" episode has like 60 panels you could equate that to print comics and say that it's 10, 6 panel pages or 6, 10 panel pages (which is a lot of panels you sorta don't wanna go over 10 if you don't have to but that's all up to you) and over the course of history webcomics have only ever posted like 1 page a week or more. anyone posting a page every day is wildin.

Oh oh oh also! Coloring!! everyone colors differently but i swear by making your own color palette. CoD started with a limited color palette and has been building over the years, and Apoppytheosis has a very very limited color palette and a rule for that comic was to not use any other colors. (any other colors seen were from another palette color doing something weird over the top of that layer) (This is the apoppytheosis color palette. Apoppy 2 is similar but more vibrant.)

Anyway I'm going rambly!! feel free to reach out if you got specific questions on pages or approaches to stuff!! I went to college for comics and I could talk about this all night.

[abigailvonah05]

Artist Research #7: Alec Soth

Introduction/Background: 

Alec Soth is an American photographer born in 1969 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Throughout his career as a photographer, he has published over 25 books and done over 50 solo exhibitions. Growing up he was known to be very shy during school, but nevertheless he successfully studied and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College In New York. His photographic style is documentation and with this style he is concerned with “mythologies and oddities that proliferate America’s disconnected communities' ' (Magnum, profile). His projects tend to feature the midwest in America in a large scale format. Soth’s view of photography is very unique with his work being compared to works of literature, but Soth believes photography to be more fragmented; “It’s more like poetry than writing a novel” (Magnum, profile). 

Notable works: 

Alec Soth’s Sleeping by the Mississippi is one of his most defining photo book publications. Published in 2004, this was Soth’s first book and established him as one of the leading figures of photographic practice. This photo book depicts a series of road trips along the Mississippi river. To show these road trips, he photographs a mix of individuals, landscapes, and interiors that all convey the mood of loneliness and longing. Sloth merges a “documentary style with poetic sensibility” (Mackbooks). He first began to get the idea for this project when he began to get influenced through seeing the tradition of road trip photography. He decided to make this his own tradition and started following the Mississippi river in the car. He used the river as a way to connect with the people he photographed along the way. His strategy was to stop his car as soon as someone or something caught his eye, although this didn’t go exactly as planned since the photos he ended up taking weren’t what he envisioned. He eventually was able to capture what he wanted when he met the people along the Mississippi and they let him into their homes.

Awards/Nominations: 

Alec Soth has won many awards in his life so far. A few of these awards include the following: 

1999: McKnight Foundation Photography Fellowship, Minneapolis, MN.

2001: Travel and Study Grant, Jerome Foundation, for Sleeping by the Mississippi.

2003: Santa Fe Prize for Photography.

2004: McKnight Foundation Photography Fellowship, Minneapolis, MN.

2006: Finalist, Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. A £3000 prize.

2008: Bush Fellowship, Bush Foundation, Saint Paul, MN. A $50000 grant.

2013: McKnight Foundation Photography Fellowship, Minneapolis, MN.

2021: Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society, Bristol

Personal thoughts: 

From researching Alec Soth and his work, I feel like his process of taking pictures is similar to mine, especially with how he took the photos for his project Sleeping by the Mississippi. Oftentimes I don’t have a set plan for how my pictures are going to look or even what pictures I will be taking at all. I did this for the scavenger hunt assignment, which I walked around Fresno State as well as my house looking for anything that stood out to me. I take a lot of comfort in the way he does this and even the fact that he almost didn’t stick with photography comforted me in a way as well. This gives me hope that even if I’m discouraged about how my photos look now, I know that if I keep on going I can accomplish everything I want to achieve. 

Works cited: 

https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/alec-soth-sleeping-by-the-mississippi/

https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/alec-soth/

https://www.mackbooks.us/products/sleeping-by-the-mississippi-br-alec-soth

https://alecsoth.com/photography/about

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

[theart2rock]

Am 12. Januar erscheint das neue Magnum Werk "Here Comes The Rain"

Magnum veröffentlicht neues Studioalbum "Here Comes the Rain" am 12. Januar 2024 Es gibt nur wenige große Bands auf unserem Planeten, die man innerhalb der ersten paar Takte eines ihrer Songs unfehlbar identifizieren kann. Ihr einzigartiges melodisches Können, ihre geschmackvolle Instrumentierung, die richtige Mischung aus Tiefgang und Eingängigkeit und dann natürlich diese charismatische Stimme: Magnum sind Magnum! Das gilt auch für ihr neuestes Studioalbum Here Comes the Rain", das am 12. Januar 2024 als CD + DVD, Doppel-Vinyl-LP, als Box-Set und als digitaler Download erscheint und einmal mehr beweist, dass klassische Rockmusik kaum stimmungsvoller klingen kann. Die Band um Frontmann Bob Catley und Gitarrist & Songwriter Tony Clarkin wird außerdem am 22. November 2023 ("Blue Tango") und am 3. Januar 2024 ("The Seventh Darkness") zwei Leadsingles veröffentlichen und Anfang April 2024 eine Tournee starten. Das höchst inspirierte Artwork des Albums stammt wieder von dem großartigen Rodney Matthews, der bereits eine Reihe von Magnum-Hüllen für die atmosphärisch dichte Musik der Band entworfen hat. Sagt Tony Clarkin: "Die Rückseite des Covers zeigt eine Art Vogelbataillon im Angriffsmodus, was ich für eine großartige Allegorie halte"! Neben den typischen Trademarks von Magnum hält "Here Comes the Rain" auch einige durchaus angenehme Überraschungen bereit, wie etwa "Blue Tango", eine echte Riff-Rock-Nummer, die Lust macht, die Füße zu bewegen. Oder "The Seventh Darkness" mit einigen tollen Bläsersätzen der Gastmusiker Chris 'BeeBe' Aldridge (Saxophon) und Nick Dewhurst (Trompete), die dem Song Glanz und Form verleihen. Daran gibt es keinen Zweifel: Mit "Here Comes The Rain" ist der Magnum-Besetzung, bestehend aus Catley, Clarkin, Keyboarder Rick Benton, Bassist Dennis Ward und Schlagzeuger Lee Morris, einmal mehr ein außergewöhnlich buntes, abwechslungsreiches und inspiriertes neues Studioalbum gelungen. "Jeder hat seinen Part gespielt, ohne dass ich irgendetwas diktiert habe", schwärmt Clarkin, "jeder hat einfach instinktiv das gespielt, was seine Inspiration ihm sagte". Wie gut, dass sich diese hervorragenden Musiker auf ihre Intuition verlassen können. "Here Comes the Rain" wird am 12. Januar 2024 über SPV/Steamhammer in folgenden Konfigurationen veröffentlicht: - CD+DVD ("Live At KK's Steel Mill") DigiPak - CD Jewel Case Version - Limitiertes Box-Set - 2LP Gatefold, 140 g, stabiles babyblaues Vinyl, bedruckte Innenhüllen - Herunterladen / Streaming - Exklusive CD/LP Bundles mit einem Shirt nur im Steamhammer Shop - 2LP Gatefold exklusive farbige Edition nur im Napalm Shop Nur für UK: - Exklusive CD/LP-Bundles mit einer signierten Fotokarte nur im Townsend-Shop Tracklist: 1. Run into the Shadows (5:22) 2. Here Comes the Rain (4:37) 3. Some Kind of Treachery (4:28) 4. After the Silence (4:34) 5. Blue Tango (5:26) 6. The Day He Lied (4:34) 7. The Seventh Darkness (4:41) 8. Broken City (4:39) 9. I Wanna Live (5:29) 10. Borderline (6:16) European & UK Tour Dates 2024: 04.04. DE-Mannheim – Capitol 05.04. DE-Bochum – Christuskirche 06.04. DE-Neuruppin – Kulturhaus 08.04. DE-Berlin – Metropol 09.04. DE-Hannover – Musikzentrum 10.04. DE-Hamburg – Fabrik 12.04. DE-Memmingen – Kaminwerk 13.04. CH-Pratteln – Z7 14.04. DE-Regensburg – Airport 16.04. DE-Munich – Ampere 17.04. DE-Nürnberg – Hirsch 19.04. DE-Markneukirchen – Musikhalle 21.04. SE-Malmö – Babel 22.04. NO-Oslo – John Dee 23.04. SE-Uppsala – Katalin 25.04. SE-Gothenburg – Pustervik 26.04. SE-Stockholm – Fryshuset Klubben 29.04. UK-Bristol – SWX 30.04. UK-Southampton – Engine Rooms 02.05. UK-Holmfirth – Picturedome 03.05. UK-Wolverhampton – KK’s Steelmill 04.05. UK-Nottingham – Rock City 06.05. UK-London – Islington Assembly Hall 08.05. UK-Glasgow – The TV Studio SWG3 09.05. UK-Manchester – Academy 2 Weblinks: www.magnumonline.co.uk www.facebook.com/groups/MagnumOfficial Lesen Sie den ganzen Artikel

[wewerecore]

The Great Pro-Wrestling Adventure Hour - 021 10/05/23 Defy TV 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM EST Filmed at the Good Time Theatre at Dorney Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania

SEGMENT ONE (EIGHT MINUTES):

- Our show this week opened with Sudu Upadhyay voicing over still images from CORE's live event at the Bloomsburg Fair. We then join Sudu and Raven at the commentary booth where Sudu announced that as part of CORE's landmark strategic alliance, we will be joined by special guests from All Style Pro Wrestling and GLEAT. One of ASPW's top luchadores Tromba will be in action and from GLEAT we are joined by blue chip young wrestler Tetsuya Izuchi and referee Soft Imai. Raven said he had some special guests of his own, and with that the lights in the building were replaced by the glow of black lights and smoke began to fill the studio. Six individuals wearing make-up and fluorescent outfits ran into the frame and began to take turns sliding on their hands and knees in front of commentary booth, the metal they attached to their bodies sent sparks shooting up. Raven welcomed the slider scare actors from Dorney Park's Haunt event to the set. Sudu was impressed but confused by the display. Raven said as a special treat for the viewers during commercial breaks the scare actors will be giving Sudu a spooky slider makeover and at the end of the program Sudu will perform a slide of his own. Sudu said he never agreed to this, but Raven told him that the viewers are already looking forward to it and Sudu wouldn't want to disappoint them.

- The Great Pro-Wrestling Adventure Hour opening aired set to "Black Swan Lake" by Janko Nilovic.

Queen Aminata and Raychell Rose vs. Gin Sevani and Gypsy Mac Queen Aminata and Raychell Rose defeated Gin Sevani and Gypsy Mac with a spear from Rose on Mac. (3:45)

- A music video aired set to "No estamos solas" by Ana Tijoux promoting a new tag team making their debut next week, two wrestlers from Chile that have made a name for themselves in CMLL and rings around the world, Stephanie Vaquer and La Catalina.

SEGMENT TWO (EIGHT MINUTES):

Tetsuya Izuchi vs. KUUKAI Tetsuya Izuchi defeated KUUKAI via submission with a hammerlock in full guard. (4:09)

- Following the match we join Daphne Oz at the CORE news desk from the COal REgion Roundup. - Daphne first sends us to comments from Fuego Del Sol on his unlikely alliance with Giant Baba Yaga. After weeks of coming to the aid of local talent that were being attacked by The Production, he never anticipated that it would be Giant Baba Yaga that would be there in his time of need. Fuego said that he and Baba will team up later today to face Derek Dillinger and Magnum CK, and after that we'll just have to see what the future holds. Regardless, Fuego is confident it will end better for him than it did for Jake Something and Vincent Nothing. - Next up we get comments from the folkstyle team of Shaw Mason, Tim Bosby, and Hunter Holdcraft. They expressed a desire to get back to basics following their recent loss to the Southern 6. So they will be having a series of singles matches over the next three weeks against one another, the first of them to defeat both of their partners will go on to face "Filthy" Tom Lawlor at CORE's 15th Anniversary Show on October 27th in Jim Thorpe. - We are then sent to a video of Starboy Charlie at ringside at the Worldwide Dojo in Bristol, Pennsylvania where Marcus Mathers is in the ring doing a number on some of the students as he gets back in ring shape after the injury he received prior to Trios Kingdom. Alex Taylor then appeared to the apparent surprise of the two men. Taylor said he streamed the training session for Kerry Morton to see, and Kerry was so impressed he got Starboy and Mathers a match next week against Big Dan Champion and Joshua Bishop of the TrustBusters Reserve. - We close the segment out with Daphne Oz announcing the return of a familiar face. After a disappointing first run with CORE, the Von Trier brothers returned to the family ranch to regroup. After months of soul searching, next week one of the Von Triers will be back in CORE, Keith Von Trier. But as part of his journey, Keith has taken on a new moniker. So next week we will see Trench take on The Pennsylvania Polar Vortex.

SEGMENT THREE (SEVEN MINUTES):

Black Generation International (Titus Alexander and Bendito) vs. Tromba and Mike Skyros Black Generation International defeated Tromba and Mike Skyros with the Chaos Theory from Alexander on Skyros. (4:47)

- Disappointed with his assigned partner, Tromba attacked Mike Skyros after the loss. Tromba locked Skyros in a submission hold and refused to break it. CORE officials made their way toward the ring to put a stop to the attack, but one of them caught the attention of Titus Alexander as he made his way up the aisle. Alexander shoulder checked Jigsaw and then got in his face. Jigsaw tried to deescalate the situation while Alexander shouted for Jigsaw to let Eddie Kingston know that he wants his rematch. Local talent and CORE officials turned their attention to the altercation and got between the two as Skyros was left to cry out for help.

SEGMENT FOUR (NINE MINUTES):

Giant Baba Yaga and Fuego Del Sol vs. The Production (Derek Dillinger and Magnum CK) Giant Baba Yaga and Fuego Del Sol defeated The Production with a running neckbreaker from Yaga on Magnum. (7:33)

SEGMENT FIVE (NINE MINUTES):

- Before the main event, we got a shot of the commentary booth where Sudu's slider makeover was near complete, his face painted like a skull, hair spiked up a sprayed with temporary hair color, and a neon colored spiked vest over his suit jacket.

Sonny Kiss vs. Hyan - Hyan went for the busaiku knee on Sonny Kiss, but Sonny pulled referee Allison Leigh in the way to absorb the strike. With the referee down, Trench made his way toward the ring. Before Trench could interfere, referee Scarlette Donovan entered the ring and sent Trench to the back. While this was transpiring, Sonny Kiss placed an international object in their boot. Hyan got back to her feet but was met with a superkick with Sonny's loaded boot and pinned. Sonny Kiss defeated Hyan with a superkick. (7:07)

- Sonny Kiss called the members of the TrustBusters Reserve to the ring after the match. Trench was first out but Big Dan Champion, Joshua Bishop, and Invictus Khash all looked reluctant to enter the ring. Sonny Kiss requested that two of them lift Sonny's arms in victory. Trench was first to volunteer, but Sonny wanted one of three longer tenured members to do it, with Big Dan and Bishop eventually performing the honors.

SEGMENT SIX (THREE MINUTES):

- The lights again went down and were replaced by black lights, smoke filled the set, the disco version of the Friday The 13th theme from Part III began to play, and Raven announced that it was time for Sudu Upadhyay's very first slide. Sudu ran into frame preparing to send sparks flying with a tremendous slide, but just then one of the scare actors hit Sudu with a drop toe hold into a steel chair. Raven began laughing uproariously and said that while Sudu had been training during commercials breaks to learn how to slide, he had been doing some training of his own showing some of the scare actors his favorite wrestling maneuvers.

Next week on The Great Pro-Wrestling Adventure Hour Starboy Charlie and Marcus Mathers vs. TrustBusters Reserve (Big Dan Champion and Joshua Bishop) Shaw Mason vs. Hunter Holdcraft Trench vs. "The Pennsylvania Polar Vortex" Keith Von Trier Also in action… Giant Baba Yaga and Fuego Del Sol and the CORE tag team debut of Stephanie Vaquer and La Catalina

Upcoming Shows:

CORE Pro #124 10/27/23 Ancient Footprints Are Everywhere - CORE 15th Anniversary Show Penn's Peak - Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania

[silvstory]

Hello! I hope you’re ready for a fun little adventure!

I really love my character Gary, and while I’m already working on an actual novel (my magnum-opus hopeful that will eventually be traditionally published), I really wanted to write something that I can share with people on the internet that doesn’t need to be so well-refined and is allowed to have rough edges.

So, here it is! The Stupendous Silver Striker! Or, if you don’t want to have to type out that mouthful, SilvStory or tSSS works just fine!

I’ll be updating (hopefully) every Sunday, though that is subject to change once I get back to school. But for now? Yeah, I’m hoping to meet a weekly upload schedule! Hopefully y’all like my silly little guy Gary just as much as I do!

Volume One

(Current) Cast:

Gary Hammerschmidt - Our protagonist! A 16-year-old boy who gains the dormant powers of his grandfather, Jazon, and becomes the superhero Silver Striker! He’s brave, friendly, and the kind of guy I would love to have as a friend for sure! He may be a superhero with some pretty epic powers, but he still has a lot to learn!

Bristol Lucian - Gary’s best friend, loyal to the end, but also harboring his own secret! While he may be Gary’s ride or die, Silver Striker and him have a bit of a rocky relationship, especially when his alter ego Fumblestrike tends to have some less-than-lawful ways of handling bad guys.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

Propaganda posters in Wuhan, mid-1938. Found in an album that had belonged to Leslie Reginald Frederick Shrimpton RN (1910-1964), who served on the gunboat HMS Falcon in China waters from 1937 to 1939. All photographs and descriptions with translations from University of Bristol - Historical Photographs of China. 

1) The banner depicts Nationalist forces attacking the Japanese. The Chinese text on the banner urges viewers to join the military, fight the Japanese, and thereby defend China. Bi-s168

2) Anti-Japanese public hygiene banner. The slogans on the lower banner (depicting a fly with a Japanese Rising Sun Nisshōki emblem) read: 'We need to knock down our enemies with the world's sympathy on us'. 'We need to prevent cholera and kill flies; and if you want to survive, kill the Japanese soldiers'. 'If you don't kill it, it's going to kill you'. The higher banner depicts Japanese bombers attacking a train. A wall poster on the left reads: 'Build a new Great Wall with our heads'.

3) Banner by L'Association des Etudiants Chinois de Retour de FBS (France, Belgium and Switzerland Returned Students Association), Hankow (Hankou). The banner text provides explicit details that accompany the image of 'cruel massacre and rape never before heard of'. Bi-s163.

4) Propaganda banner featuring Chiang Kai-shek. The slogans on the banner read: 'War of Resistance to the end!' and 'Support the leader'. Chiang Kai-shek is depicted beside Hankou (Wuhan) on the map of war-torn China. This photograph was taken in Wuhan. 

5) The banner slogan reads: 'We demand that the Japanese repay their blood debt!' Photograph taken in Wuhan. Bi-s164. Photograph 3 shows the same building in a different location.. The actual term used here for 'Japanese' is 倭寇 'Dwarf pirates'. Bi-s167.

6) The main banner, showing charging soldiers and workers, bears the slogan: 'Defend Wuhan!' The Hankou (Hankow) bund is depicted in the banner - the clock tower is part of the Custom House. The banner was made by the 'Korean Youth Wartime Service Corps' (朝鲜青年战时服务团), founded in Wuhan in December 1937 by leftist Korean nationalists. Bi-s166.

7) Banner outside the headquarters of "L’Association des Etudiants Chinois de Retour de FBS", Wuhan. The banner was made by L'Association des Etudiants Chinois de Retour de FBS (France, Belgium and Switzerland Returned Students Association). The banner slogan reads 'Mobilize the power of the masses to defend Wuhan'. Sign on the window of the L'Association des Etudiants Chinois de Retour de FBS headquarters building at 69 Jianghan Road (江漢路六十九號) in Hankow (Hankou), in French: BUFFET & BILLIARD. Sign on the window in Chinese: Cold drinks / Coffee. Bi-s162

8) Remarkably, famed war photographer Robert Capa took this photograph of the street from inside of 69 Jianghan Road. This was identified by the excellent Visualizing China blog, and the image is marked from the International Center of Photography/Magnum Photos, who published it with other photos in 2018.

[dementedfilament]

Kordelia Wickham

“If you’re both finished,” Lisette spoke sternly, “We should continue with our stories.”

Alfie and Bristol pouted, angling away from each other slightly. Snickering over their behaviour, Kendrick blew out his candle.

“Kenny, you haven’t told your story yet!!” Cherry chimed in.

“Oh!! Sorry! Um…” His panicked eyes found Cedric’s. “I did kinda tell a story…it wasn’t a complete one, but…does it count?”

The older man closed his eyes. For the minute they all waited, they could sense a soothing aura swimming, circling around him. “It is accepted.”

“Ah, cool.” He turned. “Your turn then, Miss Kory.”

Silently, she nodded.

***

Once upon a time, a girl’s older sister disappeared. The girl searched and searched for her sister, but to no avail. The sister was gone.

Gossip and rumours spread about where this social media star disappeared to. Through the girl’s struggle, she managed to keep those fans appeased, but the flimsy excuses were but a bandage for the problem.

After extensive research, the girl learned where her sister was spirited away. But how could she rescue her from that place?

The girl’s closest friend, Starr, began to worry about her, as she was pulling away from her life and her health was rapidly declining. Starr reached out and offered support and, though it was difficult to open up about, the girl confessed the dark arts in which she’d been delving.

She had expected Starr to turn her back, shut her out, disappear from her life similar to her sister. But no. Her friend believed her, and chose to submerge into the supernatural dangers at her side.

Through tribulations, the two girls came across one of the most precarious, but more accessible of the forbidden, items that could assist them: an old spellbook in a special library outside the country. They took the first plane there, and ended up having to steal it to access the contents that could save the sister.

The girl was much too afraid to hold onto the book herself, so Starr kept ownership of it until they could figure out how to utilize it properly.

Then, one day when the girl was in trouble, Starr came to her aid using an incredible magic from within the book. When asked about how she was capable of performing such feats, the friend confessed that she had made a contract with the book and it was assisting her as she assisted the girl. It was simple, she had stated. Easy. Natural.

What Starr didn’t reveal was a deadly curse burned over her heart that would slowly consume her body in blackness until she, herself, vanished completely.

That was, until she could no longer conceal the mark from the girl.

There was no argument from the revelation—merely a plethora of fretting over Starr’s safety. But the friend reassured the girl that everything would be fine, and she wouldn’t be vanishing without finding the sister first.

Only a few months passed. The curse mark devoured Starr’s skin as she gained more and more expertise with the book and combatted the demonic entity within it. But everything was alright, and they were making progress, and Starr reassured the girl that she was completely capable of handling the situation.

Then, one day, when the girl was asleep, Starr appeared before her in a strange dream. Tearful farewells and apologies were exchanged as the friend was swallowed in the very darkness of dreams itself.

When she awoke, the girl found her older sister, standing in the living room blogging as if nothing happened.

But Starr was nowhere to be found. No calls answered, no texts read, no knocks attended to. And whisked away with her was all memory of her existence.

Scaretober 2023

Brisk Wind on a Dark Trail

Midnight Moon

Gargoyle's Watch

Cold Stones in the Fog

Spirits Rising

Haunted House

Witching Hour

Bubbling Cauldron

Candy

Eyes

Spider Silk

Feathers

Tail

Scales

Fangs or Talons

An Offering of Blood

Dark Ritual

Spook Scary Skeletons

Carnivàle Morte

Still-Beating Heart

Sharpened Blade

Mask

Looming Shadows

The Devil's Hand

Monster

Reflection in the Mirror

Rusted Chains

Stitches

Precious Jewels

Incantation

Halloween

Epilogue

[feigeroman]

Station to Station (funk to funky...)

So, spurred on both by one of my previous headcanon posts getting liked and reblogged by @mean-scarlet-deceiver​ (who is totally awesome - go check them out), and by The Unlucky Tug’s magnum opus of a video essay about his take on the Island of Sodor (check it out below, and then check him out - both are totally awesome), I decided it’d be a fun idea to share some of my own headcanons about Sodor. Most of these are things I remembered while watching the video, which you can see here...

...And I’ll be presenting them in the order I remembered them. The video isn’t strictly necessary to understand this post - I just wanted to share it. It’s also worth having a copy of the Sam Wilkinson map (mentioned in the video) to hand, as it’s what I used as the basis for my take on Sodor. Yes, I know it’s a bit of a clusterfuck, but so is my version of the timeline, so...

***

1) Knapford is Tidmouth, and Elsbridge is Knapford

What do I mean by this? Well, what the RWS calls Tidmouth, the TVS calls Knapford. And what the RWS calls Knapford, the TVS calls Elsbridge.

Confused? I certainly was the first time I tried typing that! I’ll just explain the headcanon:

Basically, I go with what the RWS says. In other words, what the TVS calls Knapford, I call Tidmouth (incidentally, I prefer this version with the big yard alongside)...

...And what the TVS calls Elsbridge, I call Knapford. I know this shot doesn’t really show the station, but I decided the yard in the background is part of Knapford as well.

2) Which harbour is which?

This is somewhat similar to HC1, in that I’m changing up some of the names of established locations. There are many docks and harbours on Sodor, but the show mainly focuses on Brendam (and either Knapford or Tidmouth in earlier seasons). Those locations change drastically from season to season, and I wanted to account for most of the various appearances. So in no particular order:

For Tidmouth Harbour, I use the current Brendam Docks (though my headcanon is something nearer to the real-life Southampton Docks).

For Knapford Harbour, I use a mix of S2 Knapford Harbour and S3B Brendam Docks Just imagine that the former evolved into the latter over time.

For Brendam Docks, I use the S2 Brendam Docks.

I’ve loosely based Arlesburgh and Kirk Ronan on the real-life Bristol and Weymouth harbours, respectively.

3) Two or three-track mind

Okay, this was something I only thought up after seeing Tug’s video. He points out that the number of tracks tends to vary between sets, and he decides on the following:

Three tracks means it’s somewhere on the main line.

Two tracks means it’s a branch line.

One track means it’s either the far end of a branch line, or a freight-only line.

However, he also makes the point that some parts of the main line are inexplicably double-tracked, such as Cronk Viaduct (which he moves to Wellsworth, but that’s neither here nor there):

In cases like this, my headcanon is that the main line was originally completed as a double-tracked railway, with most of it being upgraded to triple-track later on. Obviously it may not have been possible or feasible to upgrade certain sections, hence them being left as double-track.

4) Lower Tidmouth

Now here’s one that I really like. This unnamed station from The Three Railway Engines was christened Lower Tidmouth by the TVS modelmakers. It’s located between Tidmouth and Knapford, and sits on the southern outskirts of the former town. Even though Tidmouth is a pretty large town - especially in my headcanon - its main station seems to cope well enough on its own, so why this extra station?

My headcanon is this: During the War, Tidmouth would most likely have been of great strategic importance, with its harbour and rail links - and therefore a prime target for air raids. Just in case the main station was bombed out of action, Lower Tidmouth was constructed just outside what was then the edge of the city, to serve as a temporary passenger terminus. After the War, the rudimentary station was given a major upgrade, after it was discovered that many people living to the south of Tidmouth found it more convenient than the main station.

5) Lower Tidmouth Tunnel

A much smaller idea now. This short tunnel is located between Tidmouth and Lower Tidmouth, and I just want to say I like to imagine that this looks the same as Henry’s Tunnel does in the TVS - two tracks in one bore, one track in the other. The only difference is that it’s built from red brick, as shown here.

6) Some ideas above Edward’s Station

This is a double-barrelled headcanon concerning Wellsworth. One concerns the station itself, and the other concerns its goods yard.

Firstly, the station itself. There’s been a lot of debate about which way round it should be. Should the footbridge be at the western or eastern end? Personally, I think it should be at the western end. My reasoning is that that would allow the bay platform siding (where Henry is in the above picture) to be at the eastern end, facing towards Gordon’s Hill. I assume that’s where Edward would normally be stabled when he’s waiting to bank trains up the hill. I just think it’s more convenient on that front.

As for the goods yard?

Well, I think this is Wellsworth Yard. That’s it. That’s the headcanon.

7) The Parkway Stations

This next headcanon concerns a rather obscure part of the Sodor railway geography - namely, these two tiny stations on the main line.

These stations serve the tiny villages of Balladrine and Kellaby respectively - though, in true railway fashion, they’re actually located some distance from the communities they serve. My original idea was to go down the usual route and just add the suffix Road to the station names, but then I was struck by a flash of real-life inspiration.

In the 1970s, British Rail opened a number of park-and-ride stations, which basically means you drive to the station, park your car and continue your journey by train. They usually have the suffix Parkway, as the first one was built close to the M32, which is also known as the Bristol Parkway.

Anyway, that’s the gist of this headcanon. The North Western jumped on this Parkway bandwagon around that same time, allowing people from the villages to either drive or catch a bus to the stations, and then catch a train to wherever.

8) The new Kellsthorpe Road

In my own personal timeline (which is a whole other headcanon in itself), Season 8 takes place in 1976, and it’s during this season that we see Kellsthorpe Road being built. Obviously the station had existed since the railway was built, so what’s with this new one?

Well, I like to think this was actually a relocation to somewhere more convenient for both the town and the junction with the Kirk Ronan branch.

9) Crovan’s Gate and other small works

I already touched upon this idea before in my Victor’s Haulage Truck headcanon, but if you haven’t read that, it goes like this:

I’m not a huge fan of the Steamworks and Dieselworks being separate facilities in separate locations. I just think the RWS version of Crovan’s Gate makes more sense, seeing as you would want all your major repair equipment and facilities to be concentrated in one location.

That being said, I wouldn’t say all this sort of work should be concentrated at Crovan’s Gate. It’s implied in the RWS that more minor repairs are carried out at smaller workshops across the rest of the system - I’d assume these are located at all the major engine sheds, and that there’s at least one on each branch line. These would also be useful for when there’s more work than Crovan’s Gate can take on at once.

10) The Sheds

Speaking of sheds, I have a handful spread across my version of Sodor. Basically, I have a couple at each end of the main line, and one on each of the branch lines. And since the highest operating district number in real life was 89 (for Oswestry), I’m gonna say all of the NWR’s engines are allocated to District 90, covering all sheds on the region:

Tidmouth (90A)

Knapford (90B)

Crovan’s Gate (90C)

Vicarstown (90D)

Barrow In Furness (90E)

Arlesburgh (90F)

Ffarquhar (90G)

Brendam (90H)

Peel Godred (90I)

Kirk Ronan (90J)

Great Waterton (90K)

Norramby (90L)

11) Dryaw Goods Station

Alright, this one is more about a specific episode than a location, but I thought it was worth throwing into the mix. This goods station only appeared in Thomas Gets Bumped, and nobody is quite sure where it’s meant to be. Some people say it’s Hackenbeck. Others say it’s Toryreck. Me? I’ve always thought of this as the original Dryaw Station, on what is now the Harbour line on the Ffarquhar branch.

I say this because the surrounding scenery matches what’s shown on the map, and it makes sense for a freight-only station to be located on what is now a freight-only line. But if that’s the case, why does Thomas seemingly pass through daily with his passenger train?

I toyed with the idea of Thomas being there because he’s pulling a workers’ train, but then I came up with something better. In my personal timeline, this episode takes place during the initial construction of Knapford Harbour, and the new passenger line with it. More specifically, during a brief interim period between the closure of the original Dryaw to passengers, and the opening of the new passenger line.

12) The Sports Field Halt

At the end of the Sodor Explained video essay, Tug admits that he couldn’t think of anywhere to put this station from Three Cheers For Thomas.

Sam Wilkinson’s map places this halt just south-west of Elsbridge, and that’s where I’ve decided to place it too. Not just because it’s semi-canon, but because do you know what other location is just south-west of Elsbridge?

Yes, this cricket field. In my headcanon, I’ve merged these two locations together. Makes sense, right? They’re both sports related things, next to an embankment, and just south-west of Elsbridge. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch, and you can always imagine the halt is a request stop serving the sports field.

***

Alright, I think that’s enough headcanons for one post. Firstly, because I underestimated just how much I had to talk about. And secondly, I’ve always said it’s not wise to put all your eggs in one basket. It’s much more sensible to just put out a short thing, let it simmer for a while, and then finish off the rest later.

I hope you guys have enjoyed this post. I certainly enjoyed finally getting all these thoughts out there. Stay cool, stay safe, and I’ll share the rest of my thoughts at some point in the future (even if they are as insane as the ones I’ve already shared so far!)...

[reverseblackholeofwords]

WE’RE GETTING YANCY??? AND ILLINOIS???? AND CAPTAIN MAGNUM???? DREAMS REALLY DO COME TRUE!!!! Maybe we can recruit Yancy for our mischief....

The meeting the next day is tense. All the Ipliers are present aside from the Jims who never attend meetings because of their Jim religion, which Dark thinks they just made up to get out of attending, but he doesn’t question it because they usually have very little to add anyway. Everyone takes their places around the table, even Host despite the Doctor’s protests. And they wait.

Wilford is, as always, fashionably late, and when he parades himself in the door, everyone is craning their necks to see behind him. Will props his elbow on the door and gives a flourish with his hand that conjures a pathetic explosion of confetti above his head. “Everyone put your hands together for... the three newest Iplier Egos!”

He hits the button on a boom box that has appeared from absolutely nowhere, and dramatic music begins to play. “From the rolling cornfields of the state that bears his name, the grand explorer and booby trap--ha, trap--dodger... Illinois Janes!”

The explorer ducks into the room looking a little befuddled. He’s obviously not used to all eyes being on him, but he waves the attention off with a practiced grace. “Hello, hello, the name’s Illinois. Please, everyone settle down.” Of course, the room is mostly silent. So he just calmly files over to the far wall as he was told and folds his hands in front of him.

Wilford pokes out his lip at everyone’s lackluster response to his first guest and decides to amp up the music a few notches while making the lighting more dramatic as he casts a spotlight at the door. “Up next, the big daddy, the pirate that shakes the whole world with one big stumpy step, Captain Magnum!”

It takes the Captain a grand total of ten minutes and fifty-three seconds--Google was counting--to squeeze his ginormous frame through the door to the Board Room. When he finally pops into the room like a cork from a bottle of rum, he nearly crushes Dr. Iplier who yelps and throws himself onto the floor to get out of the way of the bumbling pirate.

“Ooh, ahoy!” The captain surveys the Egos like they’re a crew fresh off the docks and narrows his eyes. “Bunch o’ land-lubbers, I see. Well, don’t worry. In no time at all I’ll have ya shipshape and Bristol fashion, ready to tame the high seas!”

Dark pinches the bridge of his nose. “Mark Edward Fischbach, if I ever get my hands on you, I swear...”

“Yes, yes, you can go stand over there now,” Wilford shoos the pirate gently to the other side of the room. Every water glass on the table shakes like something out of Jurassic Park as the giant makes his way to stand beside Illinois who has taken on a calm air of indifference.

Wilford blows his hair out of his eyes in annoyance and makes a final flourish. “And last, but certainly not least! The jitterbugging jailbird who stole our hearts! The man, the myth, the legend...” Wilford blinks and sticks his head back out the door, whispering, “Excuse me, what was your name again? Hey! Get back here!”

There are weird cartoonish action noises that echo from the hallway before Wilford drags Yancy inside while the striped man screams, “Take me back to jail! I wanna go back to jail! Youse guys is insane!”

Wilford spins Yancy around, dips him, and then spins him once more until he twirls all the way to stand beside the other two. Then the pink man brushes his hair back, folds his arms, and fixes them all with a stare. “Well? Applaud!”

The Egos around the table all give a slow, confused applause while Captain Magnum takes a bow, Illinois brushes it off, and Yancy grumbles angrily to himself.

Dark stands at his end of the table as Wilford swiftly cuts the music. “Welcome, gentlemen. It’s truly... nice to make your acquaintance. I’m sure that you might be a little confused, but allow me to explain...”

“Sorry, um, where’s the treasure?” Magnum rubs his hands together greedily and grins. “I was told there would be a great treasure?” He looks around. “And... I’m not seeing anything particularly shiny, so...”

Dark shoots a glare towards Wilford who smiles and shrugs. He takes a deep breath through the nose. “I’m sorry, Captain, there is no treasure, but I believe...”

“Oh, then I’ll be rejoining me crew.” Magnum begins to stomp from the room. “Thanks for the invite! Certainly appreciated meeting you fine gents!” And just as quickly as he came, he went. Which is to say it took him another ten minutes and fifty-three seconds to get back out the door, but by this time, no one was going to try to stop him.

Dark looks back towards the other two and raises an eyebrow. “Let me guess.” He gestures to Yancy. “You want to go back to jail.” Yancy nods emphatically, and Dark points to Illinois, “and you...”

“Work alone,” the two of them say in unison. Dark nods. “Yes. Of course.” He begins to rub his forehead and groans. “Alright, never mind. This was obviously a mistake.”

“Well, uh, I don’t wanna disappoint nobody,” Yancy admits nervously. “That is to say, I could give it like a trial run?” He glances around. “That is, if none of youse guys mind that I, uh, killed my parental figures and all.”

Dark sighs. “Show of hands, who in here has killed someone before?” Nearly all the Ipliers raise their hands. Wilford raises both of his. Dark gestures around. “Believe me, you’re among friends.”

Yancy’s face lights up. “Wow, youse guys is actually kinda cool!”

Dark raises an eyebrow at Illinois. “And you? How about a brief trial period?”

Illinois shrugs, and Red raises his hand. “We happen to have a particularly interesting specimen of crystal you might be interested in studying if you promise not to get your disgusting human germs on it.”

Illi’s eyes light up. “Oh, well, you didn’t say you had rocks! Of course, I’ll stay for that.” Then he immediately snaps back to cool, calm, and collected. “Not that it matters to me.”

Wilford throws his hands in the air. “Yay! Two out of three!”

“Give them all a tour. I suppose we can do all proper introductions later...” Dark drops into his seat and massages his temples. “Become a dark side, they said, it’ll be fun they said. Never said I’d end up the babysitter.”

Will pats Dark on the back. “That’s why you’ve got me here, Darkipoo!” Then he gathers together his touring party and sets off to show the newbies around Ego Inc. while Dark fishes around in his void for some migraine medicine.

It’s going to be a long, interesting day.

[burlveneer-music]

Memotone - Invisible Cities - as perfectly-realized an expression of Fourth World principles as I’ve ever heard (Diskotopia)

We at Diskotopia are incredibly excited to be presenting the new album Invisible Cities from Memotone, the principal alias for Bristol-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer William Yates. As a solo artist, he has released on labels such as Black Acre, Bedouin, Project Mooncircle, and Brownswood either as Memotone or under his other alias Halfnelson. In addition to doing composition work for film and television, he works as a session musician for the likes of Dmitry Evgrafov, Connie Constance, and Phaeleh. He’s also part of the Avon Terror Corps project helmed by Bokeh Versions, Giant Swan. Noods et al., and is a member of ATC-affiliated Pheasantry Society. His music has been championed on the radio, a key influential medium for Yates growing up, by the likes of Gilles Peterson, Mary Anne Hobbs, Tom Ravenscroft, Nick Luscombe, and more. In 2019, Memotone debuted on Diskotopia with the highly-praised split single Luaka / Sidewise Dub, and we are delighted to be working together with him again for the release of the stunning full-length LP Invisible Cities. Informed by the atmosphere of the Italo Calvino novel of the same name, the ten tracks on Invisible Cities mutably shimmer somewhere between neo-classical-leaning ambient, fourth-world new-age exotica, and post-krautrock OSTs. By intermixing the different timbres of live string and wind instruments with astute synthesizer touches and skittish drum machine strokes, Yates has created an organic and ethereal magnum opus in which a brooding but graceful energy is manipulated into a delicately interwoven narrative. All tracks written & performed by William Yates. Wrapped One Within the Other features the voice of Stac Dowdeswell.

[ghostflowerdreams]

Writing Research - Alchemy

Alchemy (from Arabic: al-kīmiyā) was an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition practiced throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia, originating in Greco-Roman Egypt in the first few centuries AD.

Alchemists attempted to purify, mature, and perfect certain materials. Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of "base metals" (e.g., lead) into "noble metals" (particularly gold); the creation of an elixir of immortality; the creation of panaceas able to cure any disease; and the development of an alkahest, a universal solvent. The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to permit or result from the alchemical magnum opus and, in the Hellenistic and Western mystery tradition, the achievement of gnosis. In Europe, the creation of a philosopher's stone was variously connected with all of these projects. [x]

Alchemy is generally seen as an archaic proto-science based on superstition that is of little interest to the modern chemist. In truth, chemistry owes much to alchemy because many of the discoveries and chemical knowledge we have today is because of it (such as the chemistry-related processes of the working of metals and alloys, glassmaking and glass coloring, and the preparation and use of pigments, dyes, and therapeutic agents). 

Live Science - What is Alchemy?

Britannica - Alchemy

Encyclopedia - Alchemy

Royal Society of Chemistry - What is Alchemy?

MINING - What is alchemy and is it even real?

University of Bristol School of Chemistry - A Brief History of Alchemy

AlchemyLab - Origins of Alchemy

Science Museum - Alchemy

Encyclopedia - Alchemy: Renaissance Alchemy

American Institute of Physics: Inside Science - Alchemy Renaissance

ThoughtCo. - Alchemy in the Middle Ages

The Scientist Magazine - Medicinal Alchemy, circa 1512

Khan Academy - From Alchemy to Chemistry

The Getty - Your Questions About Alchemy—From Its Origins to The Philosopher’s Stone—Answered

The New York Times - Readers’ Questions Answered--Ask Science: Alchemy

The New York Times - Transforming the Alchemists

Wikipedia - Alchemical Tools

The Robinson Library - The Alchemist's Equipment

Reddit: AskHistorians - Where did an alchemist get their metals?

Reddit: AskHistorians - What did early chemists/alchemists use for heat sources?

Ancient Origins - Speculum Alchemiae: Secret Underground Alchemy Lab Discovered in Prague During Flood

The Washington Post - This man is not a wizard -- but he knows all about alchemy: Inside the lab of an alchemy expert

AlchemyLab - Alchemy Electronic Dictionary

ThoughtCo. - Alchemy Symbols and Meanings

Brown University - Alchemical Symbols As Secret Code

Science Notes - Alchemy Symbols and Their Meanings

Wikipedia - List of alchemical substances

Britannica - Philosopher’s stone

HISTORY - What was the philosopher’s stone?

MEL Science - What is the philosopher’s stone?

Wikipedia - Philosopher's stone

ThoughtCo. - The Three Primes of Alchemy

Wikipedia - List of Alchemists

Reddit: AskHistorians - Did women participate in alchemy in medieval times? If so, how were these women viewed by society? Was there a gender bias in favor of men, as there was in the infancy of science?

University of Bristol School of Chemistry - Famous Alchemists

PBS - Newton the Alchemist

Discover Magazine - Isaac Newton, World’s Most Famous Alchemist

Listverse - 10 Alchemists Who Created Strange Modern Legacies

ThoughtCo. - Ancient Chinese Invented Gunpowder: A History

Real Archaeology - The Creation and Adoption of Gunpowder

Live Science - How Gunpowder Changed the World

Science History Institute - The Secrets of Alchemy

Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) - Science Historians Revive Ancient Recipes

Scientific American - Fact or Fiction?: Lead Can Be Turned into Gold

ThoughtCo. - Turn Water Into Liquid Gold With an Alchemy Experiment

Scientific American - DIY Alchemy: How to “Transmute” Copper into Brass

MEL Science - “Alchemist’s gold” Experiment

Youtube - Testing A Possible Origin To Alchemy: The Golden Rain Experiment [Video]

ACS Publication: Journal of Chemical Education - Experiments in Alchemy. Part I: Ancient Arts [PDF]

ACS Publication: Journal of Chemical Education - Experiments in Alchemy. Part II: Medieval discoveries and “transmutations” [PDF]

Youtube - TheBackyardScientist: How to Grow A Lead Crystal Tree! Old Alchemy Demonstration [Video]

University of Warwick - Reproducing Alchemical Experiments

National Public Radio - Phosphorus Starts With Pee In This Tale Of Scientific Serendipity

Youtube - The Alchemist Who Discovered Phosphorus in Pee [Video]

The Vintage News - German alchemist Hennig Brand discovered phosphorus when he tried to make gold from urine

Stanford University - Artificial Men: Alchemy, Transubstantiation, and the Homunculus

HowStuffWorks: Stuff to Blow Your Mind - How to Make a Homunculus and Other Horrors

Ancient Origins - Homunculus: The Alchemical Creation of Little People with Great Powers

Youtube - Home Alchemy: Man creates Monster in his basement with Sperm and Chicken Egg [Video]

Forbes - The Day England Outlawed Alchemy

Internet Sacred Text Archive - The Theory and Practice of Alchemy: Part One

Atlas Obscura - How to Turn Plants Into Tinctures, Like an Ancient Alchemist

Ancient Origins - Spagyric Secrets of The Alchemists: Alchemy as Alternative Medicine

Hermetic Library - Practical Plant Alchemy: Part One

Youtube - SoF/Heyman Center: Testing the Panacea: Antidotes, Alchemy, and the Problem of Proof in Early Modern Europe [Video]

University of Cambridge - All is not what it seems: The blurred boundaries between alchemy and medicine

The Boston Globe - What alchemists got right about chemistry

Indiana University: Research and Creative Activity - Sir Isaac's Alchemy

National Geographic - Isaac Newton’s Lost Alchemy Recipe Rediscovered

The Washington Post - This chemist is unlocking the secrets of alchemy

Youtube - Bytesize Science: Inside the Mind of an Alchemist featuring Larry Principe [Video]

Ultraculture - How Alchemy, the Forbidden Science, Changed World History

Phys.org - Why many historians no longer see alchemy as an occult practice

Smithsonian Magazine - Alchemy May Not Have Been the Pseudoscience We All Thought It Was

Numericana - From Alchemical Recipes to Modern Chemistry

History of Alchemy | A podcast by Travis J. Dow [Audio]

Science History Institute - Books of Secrets: Writing and Reading Alchemy

Science of History Institute - The Secrets of Alchemy

AlchemyLab - Original Alchemy Texts: Suggested Books

Internet Archive - Collection des Anciens Alchimistes Grecs [Collection of Ancient Greek Alchemists] by Berthelot, M. (Marcellin), 1827-1907 & Ruelle, Ch.-Em., 1833-1912

Google Translate - Collection des Anciens Alchimistes Grecs

Amazon: Books - The Book Of Alchemy: The Pursuit Of Wisdom And The Search For The Philosopher's Stone by Francis Melville

Google Books - The Alchemist's Kitchen: Extraordinary Potions & Curious Notions by Guy Ogilvy

Amazon: Books - Real Alchemy: A Primer of Practical Alchemy by Robert Allen Bartlett

Google Books - Alchemists Handbook: Manual for Practical Laboratory Alchemy by Frater Albertus

AlchemyLab - Resources for Alchemists

Note: This post does NOT focus on fictional alchemy.