#THE MANIFESTATION PARTY IS ALWAYS OPEN AT MY HOUSE 24/7

[stormyoceans]

we are expecting gmmtv 2024 in october. what's your list of manifestations? share with us, dear!

GMMTV 2024 HAPPENING IN OCTOBER CAUGHT ME COMPLETELY UNPREPARED TBH LIKE LAST YEAR I HAD A WHOLE LIST OF PREDICTIONS AND THINGS I WANTED TO SEE AND RN IM MOSTLY LIKE ???????? JIMMYSEA AND THEN ???????????????????

i also don’t know how to feel about the line up being announced before last twilight and 23.5 even got the chance to air (unless we’re getting last twilight replacing hidden agenda which means it would start on october 1st, but i do not dare to hope), however i thought about it a little and here’s a very rough list of my hopes and dreams that im gonna actualize with the power of manifestation and delusion:

JIMMYSEA NEW SERIES DIRECTED BY P’JOJO. LISTEN I DON’T CARE IF IT’S UNLIKELY FOR THEM TO GET A SHOW 3 YEARS IN A ROW MY CLOWN WIG IS ON MY SHOES ARE SQUEAKING MY MAKE UP IS IN PLACE. the amount of p’jojo+jimmysea online interactions we’ve got since p’jojo visited them on the last twilight set is just TOO SUSPICIOUS to be meaning nothing I WANT TO BELIEVE. that being said, i feel like it will probably be an ensamble cast kind of series, so im praying for the medical drama QL of my dreams with jimmysea + earthmix OR the heist QL of my dreams with jimmysea + forcebook. im not picky though I REALLY JUST WANT A NEW PROJECT FOR JIMMYSEA AS A PAIRING but also..

SOME SOLO PROJECT FOR BOTH JIMMY AND SEA. they’re both great actors and sea in particular is able to portray an insane range of emotions so it’s time for GMMTV to start giving him more roles.

regardless of whatever happens with jimmysea, i do want earthmix and forcebook to have a new series next year.

PAPANG AS THE MAIN LEAD IN A BL. do i believe this is gonna happen? sadly, no. will i still be manifesting this every single day from here to october? DAMN RIGHT I WILL MY MAN DESERVES IT. actually i said this before but i think GMMTV should just give me papang+guy+pond+pepper in a BL. MY MEN DESERVE IT.

AT LEAST 2 GLs BUT PREFERABLY MORE. freenbecky got me gagged with their upcoming sci-fi movie and period drama series, so i think GMMTV should step up their game and give us ALL THE GIRLS. im frankly starving for more GLs so i don’t really have any specific plot i want to see, i just want the genre to thrive and be allowed to explore different stuff like BL has started to do. if i really had to pick tho, i would love to have a sizzy series (maybe with janaye and ciizejane) and to have prigkhing and piploy in a GL. and namtan. and jamie.

QL exploring other sexualities and gender identities. just give me ace main characters, trans main characters, non-binary main characters, ALL THE DIFFERENT QUEER MAIN CHARACTERS!!!!!!!

i want to say enigma season 2 because it was actually a great show but with bright leaving GMMTV i don’t think i should get my hopes up ;;;;;;; unless they recast his character since he appeared for 5 seconds at the end of the series.

these are the main things that come to my mind for now, but im sure that by the time october comes im gonna have some more!!!!

[sloanerisette]

Sloane Writes It - Writing Commissions

Hi everyone!

I'm currently going through some rough financial struggles because of medical stuff and insurance, so I'm opening up writing commissions! Have you enjoyed my work and want me to write something for you? Do you want some smut and need someone to manifest it for you? Good news! I'm here to do that for YOU!

Here are all the details you need to know!

All prices are in USD

Rate is 1.2 cents per word. This totals out to $12 for 1000 words, $24 for 2000 words, $60 for 5000 words, and so on.

Original fiction and series/fandoms I am unfamiliar with work at a rate of 1.5 cents per word.

For something I am unfamiliar with, I promise I will research characters, relationships, and dynamics to the best of my ability, but as a result, it may take longer to get your story to you.

All commissions may take anywhere from 1 week to 1 month.

Payment will happen after I finish your story. I will reach out with an invoice with the exact word count, and upon receiving payment, I will send you your story as a PDF.

Commissions can be kept private on request, otherwise are permitted to be posted on my AO3 or elsewhere.

When reaching out, please pitch your idea (setting, characters, upper range of words you would want, and general idea). As a note, a particularly dense story idea might need to have a longer word count, be split into multiple parts, or pared down in scale if you want a specific word count.

If I don’t feel comfortable with an idea for any reason, I will turn it down. However, you’re free to send another idea my way! While I am pretty open there are still some things I might not want to write, but that does not mean I’ll turn down all ideas from you!

All of these apply to SFW and N*S*F*W stories

If you want something other than a story (maybe help conceptualizing a character or setting, or writing a oneshot for a tabletop campaign as examples), I will be able/willing to work with you still, but it might require more time or a different pay rate.

Writing Specifics

Here’s just a few noted specifics in terms of genres, fandoms, and other things that I prefer to write or am best at writing (by no means should you let these limit you when commissioning)!

Fandoms: Digimon, Pokemon, Marvel (please ask regarding specific characters, settings, etc.), TWEWY, Persona (3-5), Fire Emblem (7, 8, Awakening, Three Houses, Engage), Danganronpa (1 & 2), G-Witch, Life is Strange 1, Dungeon Meshi, Sound! Euphonium, Armored Core 6

Genres: Romance, Slice of Life, Action, Science Fiction, Fantasy

If inquiring about a N*S*F*W story, please let me know whether you want a focus on plot or not. With plot will lead to a longer word count, but a bigger buildup to the acts, alongside a greater focus on the characters and their relationship/dynamic, while without plot will be much shorter, to the point, and with more of a focus on the act than the characters.

I will write M/F, F/F, and M/M stories. Trans characters are ALWAYS open to be written, as well as making characters trans.

Examples

Emblazoned With Divinity: Fire Emblem: Awakening smutfic focused on Chrom and Olivia. Set before the end of the Gangrel arc, this fic explores the whirlwind romance between the two, including carriage breaking sex and character accurate awkwardness.

Chimera Eggs/Elf With Semen Glaze: Dungeon Meshi smutfic focused on Marcille and Chimera!Falin. An AU from the series itself, trans!Falin takes her girlfriend away from the party, going into heat, and impregnating her with eggs.

At The End Of The Day: Post-series Gundam: The Witch From Mercury fic focused on Suletta, Miorine, and Eri. While at home, Eri relentlessly teases Miorine, leading to frustration from her and laughter from her wife.

You Never Forget Your First Time: AU Life is Strange smutfic focused on Max and Chloe. During an afternoon alone, trans!Max and Chloe decide to share their first time together, and have intense oral sex.

Take Back The True Mask: Persona 5 AU fic with Joker as a trans woman. This fic is part of a series recontextualizing Persona 5 through the lens of Joker being a trans woman, while this fic in particular focuses on the Third Semester arc with Joker being the one pulled into Maruki’s reality.

What You Are To Me: Digimon fic set between Last Evolution Kizuna and The Beginning focused on Kari and Yolei. With her best friend frequently away from Japan while studying abroad, Kari feels herself losing the connection they hold dear, and Yolei shows her there’s nothing to worry about.

A Voice On The Ice: Armored Core 6 fic set during the Ice Worm mission, focused on C-621/Raven and Ayre. During the mission to take down the Ice Worm, Raven speaks her first words in a long time, and Ayre loves the sound of her voice, no matter how rough it is.

[nriacc]

Nothing Revealed In A Common Crisis | Masterlist |

Description: Alex Turner x Reader (Female) x Matty Healy | You had described your life as normal until one summer, a change in you and your life long best friend, Alex Turner triggers a seemingly unending chain of events. As the Monkeys take off, you two slowly begin to drift in an out of your friendship. But this opens a place for a new friend, in that of one of your cousin’s best friends, Matty Healy. 

As seasons change and songs are sang, your relationships with each man fluctuates in intensity, causing you to sometimes take time away from both of them. But with both men always grasping for your attention, it’s not uncommon that you feel torn between the two. You just don’t know how much longer you can survive in your common crisis.

Written by @imagine-that-100​

| N’s Masterlist | NRIACC playlists | NRIACC Memes | NRIACC vibes | Manifestations |

(Complete Story)

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Events in this fic are purely fictional and used for the purpose of entertainment.

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Part 1: Only Ones Who Know

Part 2: This House Is A Circus

Part 3: The City

Part 4: Despair In The Departure Lounge

Part 5: Heart Out

Part 6: Hiding Tonight

Part 7: Sex

Part 8: Dance Little Liar

Part 9: An Encounter 

Part 10: Do I Wanna Know?

Part 11: Settle Down

Part 12: Head.Cars.Bending

Part 13: Do Me A Favour

Part 14: R U Mine? 

Part 15: Separate And Ever Deadly

Part 16: One For The Road

Part 17: Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?

Part 18: Somebody Else

Part 19: How To Draw / Petrichor

Part 20: UGH!

Part 21: The Birthday Party

Part 22: Settle For A Draw

Part 23: What Should I Say

Part 24: Be My Mistake

Part 25: D Is For Dangerous

Part 26: It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)

Part 27: Star Treatment

Part 28: From The Ritz To The Rubble

Part 29: Playing On My Mind

Part 30: Frail State Of Mind

Alex Ending: I Wanna Be Yours

Matty Ending: Me & You Together Song

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| Chapter Summaries ~ For those rereading only (Spoilers) |

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[kryetara]

IRA J. DUNHAM                HEROIN.

following  on  from    my first post regarding ira and vices (link),  the time has come for me to dive into his addiction to the class a drug    heroin.  clearly a difficult subject matter,  so drug abuse content warnings apply going forward,  including also issues of sexuality and mental health.

0 1 .    BEGINNING.       right from his initial formative years, it’s clear that ira is the sort of person that struggles with confidence and self-image.  something that is,  generally speaking,  natural to his personality,  but partially driven into him by a childhood that was less than exceptional ;  first and foremostly,  his distaste for self coming largely from a difficult relationship with an emotionally unavailable father figure.  andrew duhnam is a quiet man that says very little,  rarely showing emotion and finding it extremely difficult even to appease his wife and daughter,  let alone a son he finds it impossible to communicate with ;  his own lack of confidence as a husband and father finding it’s way to infecting ira all the same with his own manifestations of it,  teaching him over time to bottle things up as oppose to letting them out,  to keep a tight lid on your emotions and don’t let them spew.  his mother siobhan’s firm bond with her daughter samantha,  the eldest of the two and the most favourable in and outside of school,  causes her unrest when attempting to figure out her son due to her need to compare them ;  especially amplified by andrew’s near non-existence in the family.  as ira grows and discovers in his teenage years that he has an attraction to men,  he is further driven into himself like a hermit crab  ----  too embarrassed even before at the prospect of being a poor son,  now doubly so at the idea of him being even more a deviation to their normal.  a typical middle-to-lower-class family in northern english suburbs in the 90s,  this was just after the conservative government under prime minister margaret thatcher passed section 28 of the local government act ;  banning local authorities from ‘promoting homosexuality’ and prohibiting the funding of educational materials and subjects that were perceived to support it    ----   meaning students like ira couldn’t discuss their changing feelings and wouldn’t receive any help understanding it.

0 2 .   THE NEED FOR DISTANCE.      having made it to an age where he could consider leaving home for university,  a family life that had now become one of almost total avoidance of each other ;  andrew spent more evenings holed up in the working men’s club than he did even looking in his son’s direction ;  ira felt an impending frustration to escape,  and to put up walls between himself and his difficult life at home,  additionally in the midst of his parents bordering on divorce.  having not divulged his attraction to men to anyone beside one of his friends,  of who rejected his attempt at an advance,  ira decided he would disappear to a university three hours down to the south of england in the bustling expanse that is london city   ------   wishing he could study history,  but at the bequest of his mother  ( pleased, at-least, that he was going to study ),  studying law and finance.  the transition from being trapped by absent authorities in his household,  to being met with such consuming freedom,  was overwhelming for him to say the least,  and ira spent a long time hiding most often in his room in the standard student accommodation ;  but as he began to make friends on his course and in his lodgings,  with this came the inevitable hedonism of teenage life.  exclusive to ira however was a need to match his peers and to yet go even further,  perhaps driven by his feelings of frustration for being locked so tightly in his shell,  labelling ira to become something of an ‘enabler’ ;  constantly pushing others to keep drinking more,  and,  eventually,  taking more,  even beyond the point of it being bad for their well-being  ( a total self projection  ---  if he saw someone drinking or taking excessive amounts of substances,  he felt it was suitable for him to do it too ).  ira’s relationship with drugs begins with smoking weed,  but his fascination for people involved in drug dealings opened him to a very different world than what he was used to.  to spite his sheltered life,  and in need of something that cut out the constant feeling of inadequacy,  ira adopted a ‘try anything’ motto ;  that no drug could escape his use,  even if it was just once.  in all actuality,  ira ended up doing just weed,  mdma,  lsd,  and on various occasions cocaine.  but it was a brush one night,  accompanying a friend to somewhere he didn’t know for a party,  that people were injecting themselves there ;  and from what he could see,  the results were quite enviable.  this drug is heroin.  the year,  at this time,  is 2008.

0 3 .    DISGUISING REALITY.        heroin,  also known as smack,  skag,  and gear  ( most common nicknames ira has used for it in the past,  though not the only ones,  as he liked to refer to it often as his ‘girlfriend’ ),  is a drug usually in white-brown to brown powder form,  that is made from morphine,  and extracted from opium poppies.  the unrivalled intensity of it’s effects were for ira an immediate success in his efforts to remove himself from life around him ;  to cut out those feelings of self-distaste.  the euphoria it presented him with was unparalleled,  unmatched by any other drug,  any drink,  any feeling ;  to not enhance reality around him or to distort it,  but to simply make him uncaring of it ;   it was always going to be a recipe for disaster.  ira began by smoking it,  inhaling the fumes when burnt on foil,  but soon was introduced to injecting it,  of which the hit is much faster and more intense.  initially cautious and denying injecting heroin at first,  but warming to the prospect over time,  as friends he made that also enjoyed the drug demonstrated it’s tidal wave effects.  when he took heroin,  he found that his anxieties and pains in life were numbed so effectively,  that by the time he came around,  he’d enjoyed life far too much a few hours before,  when these feelings melted into nothing.  it was immediately apparent to ira that life with those thoughts cut out was a much more preferable existence.  heroin’s addictive quality is also simultaneously it’s most destructive,  and it is the feeling of numbness that ira craves the most deeply ;  that illustrious mind wipe,  that ocean of dopamine. so thus a chase is born,  and ira spends the next 6 years of his life on and off this extremely dangerous drug.  it’s likely also that ira becomes so quickly hooked on it as a result of his peers about him using it,  and his need to blend into the background and ‘fit in’ amongst others,  to be unnoticeable,  also fuelled his first few uses of it,  and the beginning of injecting it ;  the drug however eventually demonstrating to him that his life wasn’t just bearable,  but enjoyable,  when using it.

0 4 .     DRUGS OR ME.      ira first attends a rehabilitation clinic,  of which was nhs funded,  at age 24 in 2010,  not too long after leaving university.  this is persuaded of him by his older sister,  of who discovered ira’s intravenous drug use after coming to visit him one day out the blue.  he remains in rehab for the space of a month,  able to kick the withdrawal cycle,  but this pattern doesn’t stick,  and ira would then revisit rehab innumerable times from this point forward.  this being the first year that ira’s family find out about his drug abuse,  sam and his mother siobhan attempt to try and help him as best they can,  offering him a place in their homes,  but most instances such as this are declined,  likely as a result of ira’s shame for his actions,  and for lying about passing his second two years in university.  his father andrew still remains passive and largely uncontactable,  again,  much to siobhan’s downfall,  and this burden then appears to lie most heavily with sam ;  perhaps maternally,  wishing in some way to protect her younger brother.  ira,  however,  still struggling to admit that he feels unconnected to his family and feels as though he doesn’t belong with them,  allows this to underline his actions,  and more often than not ignores them,  leaves texts unanswered,  dodges phonecalls,  unwilling to try.  this allows the void between them to grow,  and in the space where his absence lives,  the anxiety and pain felt by his mother and sister spreads like a vine ;  frustration on all ends ;  ira,  for his guilt and his displacement,  sam for her inability to help and for ira’s self-imposed distance,  and siobhan for her helplessness and pain for her son’s addiction.  as time progresses and ira found his supply of money wearing thin,  he would often pick up communications again,  largely with his mother ;  asking for some pennies here,  some pounds there ;  always with different stories.  siobhan,  though aware of where her money was likely going,  found it impossible to say no to him,  happy enough he was speaking to her and that she could hear his voice,  and sent it over without question ;  though the moment sam found out,  this,  to the largest extent,  stopped.  relations began to deteriorate even further as ira and sam would often have heated arguments over the phone,  and it was clear that life was soon to reach a crescendo.  this came in the form of ira visiting for a weekend,  and stealing things of value from sam’s home,  with the intent to sell them or trade them for drugs.  once this act was discovered,  and sam accused him,  she cut him out of her life completely,  and firmly advised siobhan to do the same.  this happens in 2013.  as it stands ira has still not spoken to sam since this point,  of which up to now has been 7 years.

0 5 .     THE RAT RACE.      addiction,  no matter what to,  is difficult to kick.  in the present day ira has been clean and sober for an impressive 5 years ;  but the thoughts are often still the same,  the reflexes are still the same,  that gut feeling,  that need,  still lingering on.  (  he’s simply gotten better at ignoring it.  )  in ira’s house on a pine bookshelf by his tv is a small wooden box full of the chips he managed to keep from rehab,  small tokens that he found himself unable to dispose of,  a trophy of sorts.  but just the same,  tucked under his bed,  is an old star wars lunchbox that he picked up at a charity shop,  of which contains a spoon,  cotton,  a lighter,  foil,  an old leather belt,  and a tin case with various needles.  sometimes taken out,  sometimes simply looked at,  unopened  ----  sometimes taken apart with waning intent,  then put together and away again.  ira manages to keep a lid on himself for enough time to last him until the deal is made with kel mehmeti,  and now suddenly entrenched in a world themed by the very thing he has spent such time trying to avoid ;  there may well be a 6th chapter to this meta soon.

[eddycurrents]

BPRD: Being Human - “The Dead Remembered”

Story: Mike Mignola & Scott Allie | Pencils: Karl Moline | Inks: Andy Owens | Colours: Dave Stewart | Letters: Clem Robins

Originally published by Dark Horse in BPRD: The Dead Remembered #1-3 | April-June 2011

Collected in BPRD: Being Human

Plot Summary:

In 1976, Professor Bruttenholm takes Liz with him to investigate a haunting in Massachusetts that may have ties to the witch trials. While there, Liz experiences her first real crush, trying to come to terms with her powers and the ghosts that haunt her, both from the past and the present.

Reading Notes:

(Note: Pagination is in reference to the chapter itself and is not indicative of anything found in the issues or collections.)

pg. 1 - Interesting cold open, on the confrontation of a “witch” by a mob threatening to do her ill. The terror in her eyes is aptly captured by Karl Moline, Andy Owens, and Dave Stewart here in the art.

It’s also interesting in that in our current understanding and hindsight, witches as envisioned by witch hunters, priests, and such during the height of the Salem Witch Trials don’t exist. These women were generally falsely accused out of politics, jealousy, spite, etc. or in the rare case where they exhibited some natural or scientific knowledge. No magic powers. No communion with the devil. So, in general, we often find stories in which these women are accused, the women are given a sympathetic outlook, because we don’t believe they’re actually “witches”.

In a world like Hellboy though, magic witches and demons do exist. The women can actually be what the people accuse them of. As such, it adds a certain level of doubt as to the veracity of the claims that otherwise wouldn’t be there. So you wonder, is she really a witch? And, if so, is she a good witch or a bad witch?

pg. 2 - And we’re into the present of the story in 1976. I absolutely love Hellboy and Bruttenholm here interacting as adults. It’s an interesting dynamic, also when it comes to Bruttenholm getting nostalgic about young Hellboy. It is funny to see a kind of inversion of HB wanting to go on a trip.

pg. 3 - It’s also great to see Hellboy acting like a big brother.

pg. 5 - One hell of a nightmare to carry around with you as baggage. Compared to the somewhat neutral palette (other than the vibrant reds), it’s interesting to see this explosion of bright colour for Liz’s memory from Stewart. It gives a very nice impact to how overwhelming it can be to Liz.

Also, there’s an idea put forward here that her “minders” are terrified of her. That’s got to do one hell of a number on a kid.

pg. 7 - Hellboy’s probably the most human and humane of any person at the Bureau. You really get the impression that he wants Liz to succeed and be “normal” (whatever that normal may be).

pg. 8 - I hate this car game. I have a few friends who do it still, and I always see it as a kind of gatekeeping and flouting of knowledge rather than the sharing of information that I know at least one of them means it as. I’m probably guilty of it in some regards as well.

The song is “Loves Me Like a Rock”, by the way. Which is kind of interesting since it involves the devil and being fooled.

Though Liz’s response of ultimately diving into reading is the perfect teenager reaction, regardless of time period.

pg. 9 - The Father’s dilapidated house is interesting. Who puts a priest out to pasture in the middle of nowhere?

pg. 11 - The incorporation again of Henry Hood is nice, as is the possible ties to the Whittier family we met earlier in The Whittier Legacy. That gives further credence that Anne perhaps actually is a witch.

I like the simple purple wash Stewart uses for the flashback.

pg. 13 - I like that the priest is building the possibility here of Anne’s innocence throughout the terrible ordeal. It sets up the idea that this could be a revenge haunting.

pg. 14 - It’s somewhat funny that the witch, or whatever it is at this point, would use fire to spook Liz. It feels like something intentional that a spirit would utilize in order to sew doubt in Bruttenholm.

pg. 15 - Which seems to have worked. You get the impression that Bruttenholm thinks that Liz caused the fire.

pg. 18 - Why is it always smudging? There are other ways to cleanse and purify an area, especially when you consider that Bruttenholm is a stodgy Brit (even if he has been living in America for at least 30 years at this point).

pg. 19 - Liz is also downright mean to Teddy here. I mean, it’s understandable given what just happened with the professor, but wrong target.

pg. 22 - Now that’s just creepy. The bullet hole in the back of her head just makes it even more terrifying.

pg. 24 - You’d think that this happening in the woods would clue the professor and the priest that it’s not necessarily the house that’s the problem, but no.

pg. 25 - It’s also kind of sad that Liz is effectively being unheard, disbelieved, and denied here. It would only further her feelings of alienation.

pg. 28 - It ultimately didn’t seem to stop Teddy, though...

pg. 30 - Teddy emphasizes that it always does seem to be the kids who know the truth. Also, that adults tend not to believe the kids.

pg. 31 - There’s something about those shell wind chimes.

pg. 33 - I think it’s kind of weird that Bruttenholm is still pursuing the ghost as if it’s in the house and not tied somewhere else. Sure, there are manifestations within the house, but his previous attempt at purification didn’t even get a little bit of cupboard rattling.

pg. 34 - Being concerned about occult methods now is a weird quirk.

pg. 36 - It would have to be scary to find out that you’re developing pyrokinetic powers. Add that to the usual problems that any adolescent goes through and this is just a recipe for a firebomb.

pg. 39 - It’s a wonder that Liz didn’t go into a permanent state of shock from this. Actually seeing the full flashover event that caused the death of her family, friends, and more is just horrifying.

pg. 40 - Also the guilt from knowing that her mother knew about her lie is clearly eating at her.

pg. 42 - Awkward...

pg. 43 - More about those wind chimes. Also, regardless of whether Anne Caldwell was guilty or not, the mob “justice” is just nasty. 

pg. 44 - The repetition of “Behold, I am against thee, saith the lord of hosts.” is interesting.

pg. 46 - I like the seeds of doubt planted as to who or what the ghost is, though Bruttenholm still seems to be looking in the wrong direction.

pg. 47 - This has got to be hard for a kid to understand. Also, Bruttenholm really isn’t great at interpersonal skills. He does at least seem to be trying.

pg. 48 - Third time’s the charm, right?

pg. 49 - It is good, though, that Bruttenholm seems to have finally clued in on what Liz really needs. Locking her up and treating her like a feral animal definitely isn’t good for her.

pg. 51 - I do like that the kids are taking the approach ultimately that the witch was the wronged party here.

pg. 52 - Or maybe she is evil.

Also, if this was what happened the first time I ever tried a cigarette, I’d never smoke. Ever. (I don’t and never have, but you get my point).

pg. 53 - The increasing severity of the storm is wonderfully depicted.

pg. 54 - Definitely evil.

pg. 55 - Just great art from Moline, Owens, and Stewart. The horror feel is intense.

pg. 58 - Liz being forced through the stages of Anne’s death in the present is very weird. It gives the impression that the witch wants her to experience something, 

pg. 60 - There’s an interesting line here about power. Giving you the impression that maybe Anne wants Liz as a vessel.

pg. 62 - That’s an impressive column of fire.

pg. 64 - Poor kid.

pg. 66 - Good on them. This is sweet.

Final Thoughts:

Liz is probably my favourite character outside of Hellboy himself. For a character who was going to die because Mike Mignola didn’t know what to do with her, she’s come very far, suffered a lot of adversity, come to terms with her own agency, and become the fire. This origin story, delving further into what happened regarding the death of her parents and also some of the formative events that clearly imprinted on who she became, paints a complicated picture out of fear, self-doubt, and building an abrasive personality in response to it.

It’s also really nice to see more art from Karl Moline. His art on the Liz-centric issue of War on Frogs was wonderful and he, with inks here from Andy Owens, was the perfect choice to come back to flesh out this period in her life. Also, his witches are creepy fantastic.

d. emerson eddy does not want to burn the witch.

[guidedbynors]

Quest RPG Adventure: GromSurf Championship

Alright, I changed the name of the adventure. But it's a silly one.

Premise:

In Lifeguard Life, Questers take on the role of magical lifeguards at a beach resort. Out across the water, over the horizon is a dimensional rift, which is beautiful in its swirly galactic colors, but dangerous from time to time, hence the lifeguards that are on patrol 24/7. Sometimes wonderful things come swimming (or drifting) out of the dimensional rift, like bunnies, unicorns, and perfectly arranged charcuterie boards. But there is an equal number of horrors, as well, like severed heads, oil spills, and mimic charcuterie boards!

Once a year there is the Grand Finals of the GromSurf Competition. One of the most prestigious surf comps in. . . wherever. Regardless, Groms from all over the world come to compete in the competition, and it’s up to the lifeguards (Questers) to make sure everything goes according to plan.

As the most senior lifeguards on Beach of Infinity (Not Infinity Beach--totally different place), Questers are tasked with keeping the first place trophy safe.

Note: If Questers would rather be surfers rather than lifeguards, allow them to be. If some want to be lifeguards and others are surfers, then make sure they have a clear understanding of how they know each other before the session starts. If any Questers decide to be surfers, insist that they are not Groms, as that would take away from the tension of the module.

Note: Grom, shortened from grommet, is Australian and Californian slang for a young, often precocious surfer. Gremmie is a common synonym.

Setting:

The resort town is called Little Jiroma. There are many villas, resorts, and tourist attractions along the Beach of Infinity. The lifeguard culture is one of the ironic hipsters and social media influencers. As a Guide, you can really set the tone for this session by riffing on the beach/hipster/social media culture that claims to be unpretentious, yet is exclusionary (at times) in the same breath. Think of the most lavish yet ironic surf resort imaginable, that's Little Jiroma.

Waking Up

The life of a lifeguard is one of the long days in the sun and long nights at the party. Because of this, waking up is always an issue. Questers start the session waking up at a strange house where there was a party the night before. At first, it seems as though they’ve just had a really killer night, though nobody else is around. As they wake, let the Questers introduce their characters and what they look like.

As you describe the scene, broken windows, door hanging open, beer and hard spritzer cans all over, hummus platters and vegan cookies on a tray (half-eaten), one of the Questers realize they’d brought the GromSurf Trophy to the party, and now it’s gone. They don’t see it anywhere. The competition starts at 1pm and the Questers are supposed to present the trophy at the opening ceremony. It’s actually been stolen by someone, but Questers can take some time searching the house. If they succeed on a search roll, they do find a clue. They realize they are all wearing wristbands to a swanky and popular music club. They don’t remember what happened there, but it’s clear they visited the club for a reason--and together.

Infinity Beach

Infinity Beach is a fancy music club. It is a huge Victorian-style hall, with a large dance floor made of frosted glass, bars, a balcony, and a basement swimming pool that looks up through the glass dance floor to those above. The proprietor of the Infinity Beach is a slick and stylish Tiefling with dark blue skin, small, yet curved horns, and a rather pointed chin. He wears fine suites of satin and is a strict pescetarian. His name is Chrechil. All of the Questers would know him, however, when they arrive at Infinity Beach (the music club, not the Beach of Infinity, which is totally the beach and not the music club), Chrechil isn’t there. Instead, a rather sleepy-eyed bartender answers the door (as it is locked). The bartender is a human girl with dark hair and pale skin. She wears blue lipstick and comes off as sort of goth. She’s not particularly happy to help, but she doesn’t need any persuasion to answer the Questers questions. Her name is Nadi and she was working the night before. She’ll tell the Questers that everything was super cool last night and Chrechil was having a great time, and then the (number of Questers) showed up, and that’s when everything started going to shit. This is why she’s not thrilled about helping them out.

There are a collection of likely questions I can imagine Questers asking Nadi. Here they are with the answers she would give:

What happened once we got here?

“Well, it took a while, but once you got here a bunch of Groms showed up.”

Why would Groms show up once we were here?

“You wouldn’t stop bragging about the GromSurf Trophy.”

Was there anything suspicious going on?

“Other than X number of people bringing a trophy to a music club that should have been locked away? No. Why you didn’t lose it, did you?”

Where is Chrechil?

“How am I supposed to know? He’s my boss. He was pretty upset when all the Groms showed up, he sort of stormed out of the place after the X (Questers) were talking to him.”

Is there an obvious place Chrechil would be right now?

“Probably surfing before all the Groms take it over for the championship.”

Searching for Chrechil and Grom Attention

As Nadi has told them, Chrechil is, indeed, at the beach, surfing before the championship tournament begins. While Questers look for Chrechil they may not notice the amount of attention they are getting from the contestants (Groms), as they get ready. Due to the weighted probability of success in Quest, think about what makes logical sense for your party. If they are all intent on finding Chrechil, you can assume they are not paying attention to the Groms who are getting their numbers for the competition. However, if any character wants to pay more close attention to the Groms, breaking from their intention to find Chrechil, they will notice that the eyes of the Groms follow the Questers, pretty much wherever they go. Think of the Groms like creepy dolls in a horror film. The Groms don’t have any expression, but their eyes move in their heads, and then once they can no longer track the Questers, their heads begin to turn. On closer inspection, if Questers approach the Groms, Questers will see that some of their heads are in a full 180, or even more. Something is certainly not right.

If no Questers break their attention away from the Chrechil search, then they’ll find Chrechil on some huge swells a couple hundred yards from the bank. To get to Chrechil, the Questers will need some surfboards. The problem is the only surfboards around are those the Groms will use for the tourney. If any of the Questers try to take the boards, the Groms will spring into action.

Note: If Questers try to swim out to meet Chrechil, a school of Aboleth will attack them from below. (Monster Manifest p.18)

The GromSurf Trophy, Grom Manifest

As Questers try to reach Chrechil, the Groms see an opening to stop them.

What’s Actually Going On? The Groms stole the trophy while at the party, a collective will to share the trophy. This plays on the trope of the “participation trophy.” It was the Groms that got the Questers wrecked the night before. In stealing the trophy from the Questers, the Groms summoned a Manifestation of Gromness from the dimensional rift on the horizon.

The Groms think the Questers know about the Manifestation they have summoned from beyond the rift. The Manifestation holds the trophy within it. The trophy is the source of its power. If Questers are able to make it into the deeper waters, near where Chrechil is, the Manifestation of Gromness will reveal itself as a wave of a whiney, rather entitled water elemental that believes everyone deserves a trophy because they’re all pretty good surfers. The Manifestation of Gromness is, like the Groms themselves, terrified of losing, and thus, is willing to share the trophy among all Groms.

It is revealed by Chrechil that, in their intoxicated state, Questers were moderately accepting of the Groms’ ideas. As an old-school and solid surfer, Chrechil doesn’t think it pushes people to be their best when trophies are handed out indiscriminately.

The Manifestation of Gromness can’t really be reasoned with. It’s pretty whiny and very entitled. While Questers talk with it, the real Groms will attack, trying to protect their collective trophy. The only way to defeat the Manifestation of Gromness is by pulling the GromSurf trophy from its innards, and since it’s just water, it shouldn’t be too hard.

I suggest making the task of retrieving the trophy harder than a single roll. Set the Manifestation’s HP pool in accordance with your Questing party. Then make the attempt to dive into the Manifestation a roll that must be a triumph, at first. Give the Manifestation HP benchmarks that will lower the dive and retrieve roll by a value of 1, each time a benchmark is hit. This way Questers must fend off Groms, argue with the Manifestation, and attempt to retrieve the trophy all at once. The Manifestation cannot be killed while it has the trophy, though it can be diminished for a short time before it replenishes itself with Gromness.

Aftermath

When the trophy is retrieved the Manifestation is defeated. The Groms all come out of a trance, and even though they say it was like a really good dream, they also can let the tournament proceed as it was supposed to. Questers get to present the trophy to the audience which consists mostly of the Groms’ parents.

[maudanouk]

ACT I - ABOUT VEIL AND IMAGE

EXT. GARDEN - DAWN

LENNY arrives at the WITTGENSTEIN HOUSE. Here is the garden and around it some flower beds, a space cultivated for flowers for Margot, to make a spray for her hair, to perfume the sheets.[2] The WITTGENSTEIN HOUSE embraces him warmly with its garden.

WITTGENSTEIN HOUSE

Every man must create it new and different out of himself: new and different. [3] Once on a June evening, in those long gone years when the ends of days sank into silence, I was waiting for a total eclipse of the sun on a terrace facing a garden, overlooking the foliage of a maple tree. [4] And I thought of you Lenny. In the sudden darkness I saw you, hidden behind a veil, the massive walls of the Vatican Palace. A faceless silhouette.

LENNY 

I have no image [...] because I am no one.[6] To become like everybody else; but this, precisely, is a becoming only for one who knows how to be nobody, to no longer be anybody. [9] And so, for my first adress the lightning was so dim, no photographer, no TV cameraman, and not even the faithful saw anything of me but a dark shadow, my silhouette. They did not see me because I do not exist.[10]  The prim speech imposed upon them, the lessons in good behaviour, the veil of mystery you profess to hang before their eyes, serve but to stimulate their curiosity. [7] In being everywhere and nowhere I was [...] the object of much social curiosity; people payed attention to this, spoke about it, remembered it.[8] Now that I am pressed on all sides, I maintain my equilibrium, because, no longer attached to anything, I depend on myself alone.[10]I love the immediate presence of him who is in possession of no space other than that in which I exist.[11] I keep praying for You to make something happen so why this awful, crawling feeling that nothing ever does? [11]I either hardly feel it, or don't feel it at all.[12] God does not shout. God does not whisper. God does not write. God does not hear. God does not chat. God's infinite silence...[13] I said to myself: Why should I strive to find what does not exist? [14] By extending myself precariously I exist, outside of the stability where the other subject remains asleep or dead. [15] And in the end I only thought of her[16], my Margot. I don’t know her yet but you will help me find her.

WITTGENSTEIN HOUSE (hesistates)

The new is born of the old; the new is only the repetition of the old.[5] What you’re looking for is a complete inversion. Again a mystery, a face that is not yours but this time it will not be no image but all image. The new self is constructed from a triple contingency: faith and doubt; hope that will be happy at an indeterminate time; bonds of unconditional Love.[18] When i watched the total eclipse of the sun that summer evening it soon became dark and an eclipse wind, like a wave, had risen when suddenly from the neighbouring house burst forth a sort of wild dance, with the strange, biting, astringent sound of Pan’s pipes. Young people were celebrating some festival, they had confused shadow with twilight and were playing as night fell. However much one knows about it, the veiling of the sun’s light is disturbing and transports one to another world. [18] I saw you cover up in darkness and now i see you longing for the unveiling of the sun. And in this twilight a party shall rise so that the heart, that obscure, celestial flower, undergoes a mysterious blossoming. 19]That is the only way great loves stories are born and I don't want any more part time believers.[20]

ACT II - ABOUT BEES AND HONEY 

EXT. GARDEN - MORNING 

LENNY discovers a garden in this Genesis, naturally, and in this garden only the apple tree interests him, tempts him: he can see its flowers.[21] He walks towards the tree. The WITTGENSTEIN HOUSE is observing him. As LENNY reaches for one of the blossoms a bee flies out of it.

LENNY

But how can i find my Margot in this city still so strange to me?

WITTGENSTEIN HOUSE

You have to understand what she likes. Margot is the bee and you are her honey. What does Margot like?

LENNY (looking at the flowers)

Margot likes wind in her hair and salt cristals on her skin, lace and hoodies, rings on her fingers and flowers in her hair, black panthers and partridges, walking barefoot on wet grass and wearing mid calf boots, day dreaming and ADHD, dancing underground and sleeping in white sheets, birch trees and skyscrapers, gel nails and knitting, smocking and drinking tee, equal rights and mini skirts, her birthday and celebrating christmas with her family, a Ferrari Portofino and umberella pine trees, Fellinis Roma and Mario Cart, Los Angeles and Palermo, seashells and pinecones, Zorra by Bad Gyal and playing the Bach Suite Nr. 1 on her Cello, passion fruits and rough fights, oranges and jeweled persian rice, fig trees and Coke, dry white wine and soft cheese, creaky parquet and soft carpets, stone basins and hot springs, ....

WITTGENSTEIN HOUSE

The mask does not hide the face, it is the face.[21] Your new face should combine all these elements to a story. You become invisible by making, on the contrary, a lot of noise.[22] [...] the veil of mystery you profess to hang before their eyes, serve but to stimulate their curiosity[23]. In being everywhere and nowhere [...] the object of much social curiosity[24] people will pay attention to it, speak about it, remember it. And I will be the embodiment of your story the place where all elements manifest in a happening. A great feast Margot will want to attend.

ACT III - THE INVITATION

INT. MARGOTS MURCIELAGO - AFTERNOON

A downpour of summer rain patters on the front window.  MARGOT is waiting at a red light. Her phone buzzes and she opens the message. 

TEXT ON SCREEN

My darling friends, there’s one spectacular party in the making! Join us tonight at the Wittgenstein House to another glass of white wine under the fig trees, eating fresh fish on soft carpets next to blossoming anthuries. Glowing cheeks from dancing till dawn. Bring a delicate, floating, spring bouquet of florets in new leaf green, cherry blossom pink, and marigold yellow[25] and we’ll serve everything else. XOXO EROS (Gossip Girl, Prince Charming, SHY GIRL, haha)

ACT IV - THE PARTY 

EXT. THE CITY INT. AVAS FERRARI PORTOFINO - SUNSET

The rain had stopped. The water evaporated on the hot asphalt and left a sultry summer evening air. AVAs car is speeding down the Ringstrasse. The roof of the cabrio is folded down and the wind blows through their hair. 

AVA (lost in thought)

Do you think EROS will attend the party today? I wish we’d find out who’s behind all this uproar. Maybe it’s one of our friends hiding behind a second persona. It would make sense because EROS seems to like all the things we do. 

MARGOT

Some weeks ago we’ve never heard about him and now he's everywhere.  Noise, ruckus, rumors spread.[27] I’ve heard the parties are supposed to be unique in its kind and his face, enveloped by a more or less dense veil[26] has sparked many suspicions. (sighs) I think he looks like Hauru, wearing drop earrings made of rubies and emeralds combined [...] dripping down[27] his lobe, a radiant boy [...] his blonde chin length hair making him the cynosure of all eyes.[27]

AVA shakes her head and starts laughing.

EXT. THE SITE - RADIATION INTO NEIGHBOURHOOD -  SUNSET

It’s dark but the garden is enlightened by the colourful lights emerging the windows. The WITTGENSTEIN HOUSE is radiant and reaching in all directions, emitting visual, audible and perceptible vibrations. The air smells of Un Jardin en Méditerranée. The Ferrari Portofino enters the SITE. AVA and MARGOT step out of it. Instantly they are surrounded by an electric atmosphere. People get chauffeured around in Mercedes Benz with Cristal champagne.[28] On inspecting the entrance facade, you can discover a series of metaphors and symbolic signs.[29] It would be too strong to call this fantasy a portal to Hell, but it is surely no entrance to a Heavenly Jerusalem[30]. AVA and MARGOT join the stream of guests walking through the garden towards the WITTGENSTEIN HOUSE greeting, kissing, hugging.

INT. THE ENTRANCE - APERO - THE FIRST IMPRESSION - SUNSET

The party begins as people are moving in, gathering in the entrance hall and taking a stand up cocktail.[31] There is champagne, caviar and fireworks.[32] Ahead, some distance from the entrance, is a great mural of brilliant color.[33] Opulent Ornaments, heavy textiles, reflecting surfaces. The materials come from the everyday domestic sphere, much having to do with ornamenting the body: copper and brass wire, buttons, beads, baubles, hooks, eyes, straps, false fingernails, makeup, hair, ribbons, lace, thread, shells, feathers, and bones. The amulets are fetishes, beautiful ornamental objects, and they are connected to the fetishism of architectural representation.[34] 

WITTGENSTEIN HOUSE (whispering to the YOUNG POPE)

This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. First Impressions are made. About me as the entrance always affects the following impression of the whole house and about you. Especially Margots first impression of you. I am preparing you, bit by bit, so that, at the desired moment, I can give you the final instructions and have it all fall into place.[35] 

MARGOT (whispering)

Ava! Look at this man sitting on the seashell sofa in the garden. He’s knitting all alone while everybody else is clinking glasses. 

AVA (teasing)

Why don’t you bring him a glass of Prosecco. I know it, I feel it, and you will say it.[35]

MARGOT (concentrated)

You just know me too well and yes, he is cute.

EXT. THE GARDEN - THE TALK ABOUT LOVE - SUNSET

MARGOT walks over to the LENNY carrying a glass of prosecco. Rising up in a warm haze, the innumerable modern statues towered on their pillars half way up the golden webs of sunset.[36] The garden is a collection of living beauties, rare Plants, exotic Flowers and Fruits. The trees are old and high and in between long white cotton cloths are hanging in the trees, blowing in the wind, rendering shadow plays. LENNY is sitting in the seashell sofa sheltered from the wind, warm sunbeams began to play, streams to flow, and groves of pines diversified the rocks. [37] MARGOT hands him the glass.

MARGOT (laughing)

Hello strange man, what are you knitting? 

LENNY

Some of the more exotic plants have to be taken indoors for protection from the cold night air and swaddled in thick woollen garments.[38]

MARGOT We have, indeed, become a flower growing people.[39] So you’re actually a textile and dress designer[40] for plants of all kinds. (laughs)

LENNY

When, on a summer evening, the melodious sky growls like a tawny lion, and everyone is complaining of the storm, it is the memory of the Meseglise way that makes me stand alone in ecstasy, inhaling, through the noise of the falling rain, the lingering scent of invisible lilacs.[41] Or when I reach out to touch a fragile tree and blossoming spicules float downwards and fade, each with its clear, tiny tinkle.[42] These are the moments I cherish most. I am in love with them and that is why I take care of them. 

MARGOT (hesistating)

But for me love is not only loving and caring. It fun when it starts getting way more complex. It is raucous, low, full, pleading, vulgar, sharp, cutting, jovial, harmonious, commanding, harrowing, seductive, explosive or irritated[...] noble, high pitched, servile, majestic, ample, sick, affronted, clothed in silence, echoing with the sea or forest, undercut by the twittering of birds, howling like a wild beast, [... ]asking questions and saying come here, an alarming voice, broken, sobbing [43]. 

LENNY (sighs)

Until now I’v only got to know a more one-sided monotonous love but thats another story. I’d be excited to get to know your kind of love.

MARGOT (excited)

Oh look over there! It’s a real black panther prowling through the peach trees!

EXT. WINTER GARDEN - DAWN

People are appearing in the open doors of the WITTGENSTEIN HOUSE following the excited call of MARGOT. People start bringing out plates with all kinds of foods. The WITTGENSTEING HOUSE opens all the windows that all the curtains flow in the summer breeze. A stone basin appears and now the air is filled by lapping and cricket chirping. 

INT. SALON - DANCING AND TEASING - NIGHT

After eating the WITTGENSTEIN HOUSE starts playing Promiscuous Girl by Nelly Furtado. Slowly the dancefloor is filled with curiously dancing people. Tossing their hands in a wanton and lascivious manner, rolling around, twerking. MARGOT catches LENNYs eye and they dance towards each other.

SPEAKERS

♪ Promiscuous girl You're teasing me You know what I want And I got what you need ♪

MARGOT (smiling)

Feeling a little afraid is normal when facing something new, in a place or in a way you’ve never experienced before.[44] You don’t look like you’ve ever danced before. SPEAKERS

♪ Promiscuous boy Let's get to the point Cause we're on a roll Are you ready? ♪

LENNY (laughing)

You’re not that wrong with this assumption but you dance the way you love, it seems. Raucous, full, pleading, vulgar, sharp, cutting, jovial, harmonious, commanding, harrowing, seductive, explosive.[45] SPEAKERS 

♪ Wait... I don't mean no harm I can see you with my t-shirt on ♪

LENNY takes MARGOS hand and twirls her around. SPEAKERS

♪ I can see you with nothing on Feeling on me before you bring that on ♪

[2] Serres, The Parasite

[3] Deleuze, Francis Bacon The Logic of Sensation

[4] Serres, The Five Senses

[5] Serres, Hermes Literature Science Philosophy

[6] The Young Pope

[7] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[8] Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 2

[9] Deleuze Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus

[10] The Young Pope, (Grammatics changed)

[10] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[11]  Serres, The Five Senses

[11]  The Young Pope

[12] Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

[13] Aquinas, Summa Theologica

[14] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[15] Serres, The Five Senses

[16] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[18] Serres, The Five Senses

[18] Serres, Branches

[19] Hugo, Les Miserables

[20] The Young Pope

[21] Deleuze Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus

[22] Serres, The Parasite

[23] Rousseau, Collected Works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

[24] Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 2

[25] Kassinger, Slime

[26] Deleuze, Cinema 1 The Movement Image

[27] Serres, Troubadour of Knowledge

[27] Rand, The Fountainhead

[27] Hovestadt Buehlmann, Quantum City

[28] Hovestadt Buehlmann, Quantum City

[29] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968

[30] Frankl, The Gothic

[31] Schumacher, The Autopoiesis of Architecture Vol 2

[32] Carter, Anthony Blunt His Lives

[33] Ockmann, Architecture Culture 1943 1968

[34] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968

[35] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[35] The Young Pope

[36] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol IV Sodom and Gomorrah

[37] Wollstonecraft, Complete Works

[38] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol II Within a Budding Grove

[39] Gothein, A History of Garden Art

[40] Callan, Dictionary of Fashion and Fashion Designers

[41] Proust, In Search of Lost Time Vol I Swanns Way

[42] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[43] Serres, The Five Senses

[44] Del Toro, Cabinet of Curiosities

[45] Serres, The Five Senses

[andryuska]

2, 5, 7, 12, 15, 16, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 29, 33, 39, 46, 48, 50 //

the excessively detailed headcanon meme ( accepting whatever i haven’t already done )

this got long, so the answer to questions i haven’t yet done are under the cut. for my reference : this post has headcanons about organization and cleanliness, goals, home / family, and processes for feeling better when drained, and wasting time.

5. Cleanliness habits (personal, workspace, etc.)  & 23. How organized are they? How does this organization/disorganization manifest in their everyday life?

andrei would like to think himself as very organized and cleanly, and in some aspects of his life, he very much is. everything has a place in his home and work space, and when he does tidy things up, he does it meticulously —- all of his books are ordered alphabetical by author’s last name, he takes special care ot ensure all the dishes are totally cleaned off, he makes sure there’s nothing lying around on the bed, desk, or on any chairs, and if there is, he puts it where it belongs.

that said, he’s also very absent minded when it comes to mundane things like day to day cleaning, and when he uses things, he does not always remember to put them back, but instead will use them and move on with whatever is occupying his mind, because putting it back is an interruption to what he sees as more important matters. things build up, and eventually, andrei is left in a moderately disorderly space that, while everything is generally organized, it still isn’t necessarily pristine, and he doesn’t often bring himself to clean it up. some spaces of his end up in sort of an ongoing cycle, then, of clean and messy —- his study or study space being one such location.

it’s not uncommon to go into one of his prefers spaces, then, and to find little things are out of place —- a sweater thrown over a chair, a cuple books left off the shelves, some possibly still open to the page where he left off, writing utensils around wherever they’d ended up. all of it will end up back in place eventually, but not right away. 

in terms of the actually cleanness of everything, andrei either relies on others to maintain his high standards, or himself devotes at least half an hour a week to ensuring things are basically clean. he hates doing things like dusting and sweeping the floors, but he understands the benefits, and he’s very responsible, so if he has to do them, he will, it will just be in an annoyed and rather quick way, as to minimize the time he spends doing mundane things.

7. Favorite way to waste time and feelings surrounding wasting time.

first things first, andrei hates wasting time, sees it as completely useless, and thus avoids as much as he is able the feeling that he is wasting time. he doesn’t like to be idle, and it takes a lot to make him comfortable doing things that don’t really have significance ( he’ll only really give his time over to meaninglessness for someone who he’s very close to, and even then if it’s important to their relationship, it’s not really a waste of time, is it ) and whenever he finds himself not occupied by something that is actually important, andrei will try and make tasks for himself to keep busy.

he genuinely likes to spend his free time reading —- andrei is incredibly well-read and has a lot of interest in books, having read more than what most of society has heard of and is familiar with. even if he doesn’t remember everything, he picks up knowledge from books very efficiently, and will generally be able to grasp and remember the main ideas of texts that he reads. he likes writing and responding to those ideas as well, as it makes him feel as though he’d done something useful with his time.

and when someone is important to him, and they’ve nothing to do, however they ‘waste time’ will catch his interest, even if he doesn’t genuinely like it that much —- he’ll never be one for parties or large social things, but otherwise, if he really cares, andrei will try and engage with what his partner likes to do when wasting time, even if it won’t matter to him. it’s a way that he shows his care, doing something that bothers him and trying genuinely to accept and enjoy it.

15. Biggest and smallest short term goal?

andrei’s goals are pretty verse dependent —- in my main canon verse, his biggest short term goal is to have bogucharovo finished completely and functional, and his smallest one is to have the supplies in his study replenished —- he uses them frequently, and so they deplete very quickly. in my main modern verse, his biggest short term goal is to do extremely well on whatever text or assignment he has due next, and actually, his smallest short term goal is the same as in canon, he is in a perpetual state of needing to buy himself some new pens because he runs through them so quickly.

25. How do they see themselves 5 years from today?

earlier in his life, andrei always wants to see himself at the head of some great command in five years, and he does believe that he deserve it, however whether this is actually a personal goal, or something he’s that passionate about, is hard to say. andrei wants glory because he wants to love that accompanies it, from both society and the military, and because he has expectations to meet with his family, and so personal goals are kind of impersonal for him. he wants success only in that it will bring him happiness, and so where he sees himself in the future will always be based on what he thinks will make him happy, and thus isn’t set and moves around a lot in canon. only at the end, when he’s hunting down anatole, does andrei have no real vision of himself in five years, because he doesn’t really care about living, and thus is no longer planning for the future.

modern andrei is a little more set with how he sees himself in five years, because his life is under greater control of his father, and so he has less in deciding what he wants —- it’s important to his family that he has a military career, and so in five years he sees himself enlisting or recently enlisted in the army, working toward some sort of command. that’s not what he wants ( he wants to be living a quiet life with someone who loves him, and whom he loves dearly in return ) but this isn’t realistic, and so he won’t allow himself to really think about it.

29. Reaction to sudden extrapersonal disaster (eg The house is on fire! What do they do?)

andrei reacts impulsively and not always intelligently to sudden things like this! when there is a disaster it rises a lot of panic and emotion in him, and so he won’t freeze up, but instead will put himself right into action without much thought on the actual usefulness of what he’s doing. he just has to do something. for example, at austerlitz, he’s all around disaster, and when he sees the russian flag fall, it’s something very significant to him and so he rushes in and picked it up to carry it —- he won’t do anything effective, and he doesn’t have his weapons out or any real experience in the fray of battle, but he reacts regardless to what he sees as a disaster.

33. Concept of home and family?

home —- the nature of how andrei grew up, moving around estates occasionally and then going on a long tour of europe, means that home is not necessarily tied to a physical house or location, even if that seems more convenient. while he does have preferred residences ( he quite likes bogucharovo, as bald hills has a lot of bed memories for him ) whether or not they could be called home in the sense that he has a deep emotional attachment to them is questionable. his estate is, to him, more just a place to live with a few safe spaces within it, but he doesn’t feel particularly moored to it.

for andrei, home instead can be truly found in a sense of belonging and comfort that comes with very close interpersonal relationships, which through canon he doesn’t necessarily have ( we’re going to talk some blog - only content for this, because this is largely headcanon based ) and that he can only find by becoming deeply familiar to someone. with that attachment, the spaces that they share can become home. for example, anatole’s room starts to feel like home for andrei as their relationship become more serious and more genuinely loving. bogucharovo starts to feel like home when he starts to get close to izolda as well, and thus begins to attach their relationship to that estate. that saying —- home is where the heart is —- applies to andrei in a very deep and important sense.

family —- overall, there is very little that is more important to andrei than his family, and if he does label something as more important ( glory, or love ) then it really is super important to him. andrei feels of family that they are a part of himself, an extension of who he is. he doesn’t consider them others, but instead thinks of his family as a group of people who, through attachment, are the same as he is, and thus must be protected in the same way. his son, for example, is his reason to live after losing lise and dealing with austerlitz, and he is patient with masha and his father in a way that he is not with anyone else —- even pierre does not get from andrei the level of patience that andrei extends to his blood relatives. when he says that he lives for himself, he means that he lives for himself and by extension his family —- he will do almost anything for them.

andrei’s conception of family, however, is very traditional and very much tied into formal familial relations —- people who are his family are either his blood relatives, or have officially married into the family, and thus become like blood relatives. he isn’t the sort of person who will consider a lover or a very close friend family, because that’s just not within the range of what he thinks as a familial relationship —- and on the other hand, if he has a partner who he doesn’t particularly like ( like izolda, for example, at the beginning of their relationship ) he’ll still consider them family and extend to them some of those same benefits even if he doesn’t really love them. he doesn’t need to love family in that active, kind sense —- that they are family automatically earns them some degree of love, in spite of faults and disagreements.

both —- because of how andrei conceives of home and family, they become pretty closely linked, though not so much so that they can exist separately. his home, for much of his life, was wherever his family was, and so when he feels homesick, it’s really more about missing his family. however, these two can also become detached if he feels a greater love for someone outside his family than he does for his family members —- which of course, would likely never happen simply because his conception of real, consuming and rapturous love is so idealized that it is impossible for him to consistently feel. in any case, both mean a lot to him and are highly significant concepts in his life.

39. What recharges them when they’re feeling drained?

to be fully honest, short periods of solitude and quiet are the best ways for andrei to recover from social and emotional exhaustion. he finds people to be extremely draining, and so the absence of people naturally allows him to have some peace and quiet, and to just escape things like noise and touch and emotions. and as much as isolation is an unhealthy coping mechanism for big problems, solitude is good for him with small things. andrei is, after all, still introverted ---- he values his alone time regardless of whether he needs it to recover, and he likes being by himself.

complete and lasting solitude, however, do not help constantly, and after he’s had some time to himself, being alone with someone he’s comfortable with can help him recharge socially and feel less drained ---- he tends to feel, when he’s trained, emotionally very low, and having someone to comfort him and treat him lovingly can bring him out of the depths and make him feel a little less low. 

[howinteresting]

Mood Ring Dressing

Last week I met my friend M.A. for a lunch that we did not have, having two cups of coffee each instead. We gossiped athletically and yet I was in a mood. The weather was bad. There was no incessant rain or thunder, no hail, no storm; rather it was the lack thereof that got me. It was overcast and chilly but manoeuvrable and manageable. It required four season dressing: umbrella, covered shoes, a trans-seasonal coat, a thin blouse tucked into knickers and hair kept close to the scalp to avoid whiplash. Uncontested, this it is the worst weather.

Two days prior I had manifested what to wear in my mind. It was a repeat outfit, one worn a weekend earlier when the first sign of spring yawned back into life. A turmeric blouse with generous sleeves covered in large black polka dots, a ladybird with a suntan. I was to add black high waisted jeans and clompy white Dr Scholl’s that are objectively ugly and, disappointingly, bereft of any comfort a brand with the name ‘Doctor’ would otherwise imply. If they had a purpose it was for comic relief alone. The day of the lunch, however, was cold. I looked out of a bedroom window and with the knowledge of thirty years of looking out of windows; I knew the weather was dire. I wanted to cancel, stay at home and eat a sticky date pudding watching the X-Files.

Opening my wardrobe was uninspiring. I was freezing in the house, sick of all my winter clothes- another year of avoiding jeans as though it was an accomplishment. By now the layering method was trite; I’d had it with dressing like an onion. I wanted to be a single layer, ruffled along the edges in a cooling gradient like a cos lettuce leaf, preferably wearing Cos. I pulled on my second pair of black jeans, stiffer with a higher waist ending an inch under my tits. The pants had a slight flare, perhaps the greatest marker of time passing. The last occasion I’d wore jeans had been that period of skinny jeans exclusivity and I had skinny legs. Of all the tops in front of me I went with a blouse Medlock would have worn in Agniezka Holland’s The Secret Garden – high neck, all coverage with parsimonious clusters of needle-point (machine) flowers. It was black as expected. Socks were abandoned for fashion and the selected mary-janes were laced liked Scottish Highlander shoes. An added scarf felt like strangulation and the coat was a salt and pepper ‘coatigan’ purchased from ASOS in 2013. It was big then, too small last year and in this moment of indecision it was a perfect fit. I had dressed for a funeral.

Last year I became infatuated with wearing a single colour. I’d already done days and weeks of my life donning black from scalp to toenails, but the other tones? I wanted to pull off an entirely white outfit, be like a glass of milk. A discussion with a friend about this was unfavourable –“white?!” - and she claimed someone in an undergrad class of hers used to do monthly colour immersions- purple in May, lime in June and with a party at the month’s end revealing the new hue. He was a dickhead, was the consensus. What I have been craving is a bite of yellow, from fluffy duckling to a rich yolk. It seems a radiant tonic to an S.A.D. winter, and maybe it was wearing black puffer 24/7 that created my fashion malaise. I was over it. And the assemblage of clothes that I had arranged that day to have lunch was mood ring dressing at its worst: tense, cold black. Achtung baby! Take care.

Sven clog: antidote in zany colour in fun shoe form

Mood rings are a false economy, IMO. They always stay dark. Or I just have cold hands. But the idea of dressing for one’s mood makes perfect sense and yet do we really follow through? Or is thinking so verging into fashion frivolity? Toddler dressing, costumes, blue eye shadow, ugly Christmas knits, garish tourist scarves from Rome or Zurich to connote a faraway time and place when sitting in front of the office PC. And we are also conscripted into the uniforms of adulthood: corporate wear, gym gear, ‘Sunday Best’ whatever the meaning is these days – that Zara dress on everyone.

Why should mood factor into it? In this world, after all, you’ve got to turn up, log on and grind out, as a wise man once said. Put on the Tarocash pants or Portmans ¾ sleeve, it doesn’t matter. Certainly some may opine that indeed, what we wear should be invisible to our cognition; all that is necessary is adequate coverage in colours unbecoming of second glances or fleeting quizzical thoughts. This works if you have the right clothes, or job, or mindset and can anyone tick all those boxes every single day for an entire life? Steve Jobs- but he’s dead now?!

The phrase ‘you are what you eat’ is commonplace, we are constantly being informed that the right foods will provide succour and vitality to create the best versions of ourselves striving for immortality (that is, 84.6 years for women, 80.5 years for men). But surely this should be an all-encompassing mantra; what we choose to put around us, can be, as nourishing as what we consume. It is the elementary algebra formula re-contextualised- FOIL: First, Outer, Inner, Last. And maybe abiding in this sequence will attain some form of enlightenment. Even if only for the sole pleasure of seeing a beaded daisy chain bracelet on your wrist, or some other ephemeral, joyful shit. Good mood dressing :-)

[mastcomm]

Best Coast Almost Had No Future. Now Everything Has Changed.

LOS ANGELES — Bethany Cosentino can be eerily good at predicting the future.

She wrote the song “Boyfriend” before the guy in question took on that role. She released a track with the lyric “What a year this day has been” in 2012, well before our 24/7 news hellscape took hold. She spoke out about sexual misconduct in the music industry in 2016, a year before #MeToo took off. And she wrote a new song called “Everything Has Changed” about quitting drinking and finding happiness 14 months before she took action.

“Deep down inside, it was a life that I wanted — it was just not one that I thought I would be able to live,” said Cosentino, the 33-year-old singer, guitarist and songwriter for the indie rock duo Best Coast. She added that in an early version of a mission statement about the group’s fourth studio album, “Always Tomorrow,” due Feb. 21, she explained her seemingly divine powers in the lingo of the feminist internet: “As it turns out, I am indeed a very powerful witch.”

With that said, she paused to dip a thin brush into a small ceramic palette. Cosentino was spending a December afternoon decorating an oversized mug at Color Me Mine, a pottery-painting shop with an outpost minutes from her childhood home, steps from the since-closed record store where she’d first discovered the Blink-182 albums that inspired her to take up the guitar.

“If you had told me at one point in my life my hobbies would have been like, talking about my life over Color Me Mine, I would’ve been like, ew, that’s not true,” she said and laughed. “I’ve never been happier.” She shaped a large “S” for Scorpio in black, a homage to the so-called Stussy doodle.

On the topic of botched prognostications, Cosentino also didn’t foresee that the very qualities that made her such an appealing rock star over the past decade — her openness about her life in lyrics, her availability on social media, her seemingly cavalier attitude about her vices — were simultaneously causing her to unravel. “Always Tomorrow,” a powerhouse rock record with a sharp perspective and loads of hooks, is a document of an artist stitched whole again. It’s also the sound of an invigorated band rejecting the idea that the greatest music comes from tortured roots.

When Best Coast — Cosentino and the guitarist and bassist Bobb Bruno, 46, a friend from the Los Angeles scene — released its first album, “Crazy for You,” in 2010, it arrived with a sonic fingerprint: chiming guitars, gobs of reverb, girl-group grooves, vocals delivered with a casual affect. With the producer Jon Brion, the duo wiped away a layer of haze on its follow-up, the 2012 LP “The Only Place,” and spread its sound out further on “California Nights” in 2015.

Cosentino is what the “Always Tomorrow” producer Carlos de la Garza calls “one of the greatest singers I’ve ever recorded.” He described her “rich tone” in a phone interview as “a classic type of voice, almost like a Patsy Cline” in an indie rock slipcover. But an outspoken mob always seemed to be challenging the band in its early days. Best Coast’s songs weren’t all lyrical love letters to California — or weed, or Cosentino’s beloved ginger cat, Snacks — but the idea that the group was beholden to a guiding aesthetic and a thematic shtick stuck to them like sap.

Female musicians don’t just get asked a lot of questions about being women in bands; they face an outsized amount of verbal abuse. Best Coast’s rise coincided with the growth of social media as a marketing tool and omnipresent force. Cosentino was very online, and very sensitive to the digital daggers piercing her music, her personal life and her looks.

“I was so good at acting like I don’t care what you think of me, but deep down, I read every review, I read every comment, I cared so much,” she said. “And I believed those things. Like if somebody said, ‘This girl’s music is mediocre,’ I was like, oh, I’m a mediocre human. I should lock myself in my room for five days.”

Bruno cited the snarky and now defunct blog Hipster Runoff as emblematic of the era’s freewheeling fire hose of negativity. “There was a lot of misogynistic and really wrong, hateful stuff that site would put out there, and yet it was popular,” he said in a phone interview. “It still upsets me.”

The story Cosentino wanted to tell on “California Nights” five years ago was of maturity and evolution, of demons conquered and ladyboss status achieved. That wasn’t exactly accurate. While contemplating the lettering on her mug, she quoted the lovably loose-moraled “Seinfeld” character George Costanza to explain her personal relationship to the truth at that time: “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

She added: “And literally the entirety of my 20s, that was my M.O.”

During the five-year gap between “California Nights” and “Always Tomorrow,” Best Coast toured with Wavves, the band led by Cosentino’s boyfriend at the time, Nathan Williams, as well as with the pop-punk juggernaut Paramore. The duo released a children’s album, and served as the house band on “What Just Happened??! With Fred Savage,” a parody of TV after-show programs.

Cosentino’s very public relationship with Williams, whom she said she has “nothing but respect for,” made her a tabloid figure for the Stereogum set. (They shared a Spin cover in 2012.) She said it was hard to navigate a “relationship that was at times very unhealthy” while “feeling like my identity was so tied into it.”

Outside of it, she remained a public figure in indie rock, rallying behind women who accused the music publicist Heathcliff Berru of sexual misconduct in 2016 (he apologized for “inappropriate” behavior), and appearing on “The Daily Show” to discuss sexism in the music industry: “I literally was sitting there being like, how did I get here and how did I become the spokesperson for this?” (She took Xanax before the show taped, “which wasn’t smart,” she realizes now.) She later wrote an op-ed about misconduct, revealing that a family member assaulted her when she was a child.

When she wasn’t on tour, destructive patterns awaited. “My self-care at the time was like, oh I just get really [expletive] up and watch Bravo,” she said. (She still watches Bravo, sober, for the record.) She was blacking out often, “mixing a lot of things that shouldn’t have been mixed,” she said, “to the point where I’m like, really lucky that I’m still alive.” On the advice of her best friend since childhood, Cosentino returned to therapy, but kept some things secret. She was abusing her prescriptions. She was burying feelings. “I knew if I said certain things out loud, I would have to address them,” she said.

And for the first time, the prolific songwriter was creatively paralyzed: “I would sit and try to write and nothing would come out.” She ultimately broke down and asked Bruno if he would send over tracks for her to write to, something she’d never requested before.

Bruno, a longhaired, chilled-out musician with omnivorous musical tastes — inspirations for “Always Tomorrow” include Avril Lavigne, Kool & the Gang, White Lion and the Spinanes — said he didn’t fear the worst: “I have the utmost faith and belief in Bethany.” Four of the tracks he sent ended up on the album.

The first one became “Graceless Kids,” a song anchored by a chugging riff with glimmers of ’80s pop-metal. Lyrically, it’s a message to Cosentino’s fans, who need “a hero not a wreck,” and it includes a spoken-word section that both thrilled her and thoroughly freaked her out. “My fear was that it was going to sound like when Taylor Swift does it,” she said. “When I recorded it in the studio, I made everyone leave.”

The music was inching along while Cosentino’s Instagram was filling with images of wine glasses and Coronaritas, but she started to crave change. “I had friends that had quit drinking, and I would look at them and be like, how did you do that?” One of them, Jennifer Clavin from the band Bleached, had likewise manifested her sobriety in song before it happened, and became instrumental in Cosentino’s journey.

“It’s almost like we subconsciously know the lifestyle we’re living is really unhealthy and self-harming and we want to get out, but we aren’t ready to fully accept that that’s what we need to do,” Clavin said in a phone interview, noting how easily the music industry facilitates and glorifies drinking and drug use. “Beth is such a huge inspiration to me,” she added. “She knows what she wants and is willing to go for it.”

Playing older songs on the Paramore tour, Cosentino gained an awareness of the pain in her own music. “I remember listening to my lyrics and thinking to myself like, why are you still doing this if you’re so miserable?” Not long after she returned, she woke up after a friend’s birthday party, hung over and bawling, and says she hasn’t had a drink or taken a drug since.

Bruno recalled that their conversation about it was brief. “She was just like, I’m not going to do any of that stuff anymore,” he said. “I was like, O.K., cool. And that was it.” Writing sober didn’t hold Cosentino back; it helped her break out of a creative lull: “Being awake to everything in such a clear way is so [expletive] crazy.”

The producer Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Paramore, M83), an early “Always Tomorrow” collaborator, described the duo’s unique working relationship as an “easy coexistence.” “It’s almost like Bethany and Bobb are two halves of one person” in the studio, he said in a phone interview. He explained that the pair’s goals for the new album were to avoid rehashing the past, and to “honor their influences without it ever seeming pastiche or too on the nose.”

Part of Cosentino’s enduring charm is her willingness to reveal her inspirations and gab about pop culture. Her current obsession? The anthemic band White Reaper. Lana Del Rey, who invited Cosentino to share the stage last year? “Literally the nicest person I’ve ever met.”

You can hear dashes of everything Cosentino absorbs on “Always Tomorrow,” an album about looking to the future while stealing enough glances at the past to stay on track. There’s crisp pop-punk (“Different Light”), spacey fuzz rock (“Used to Be”), a song about Snacks (“Rollercoaster”). And yes, Fleetwood Mac is still a touchstone.

While the lyrics lean toward the earnest, Cosentino did allow herself a wink on “Everything Has Changed,” rhyming “lazy crazy baby” as a nod to the doubters who have dismissed her writing as repetitive.

Being anything but brutally honest wasn’t an option. “I realized if I didn’t tell this story, I’d be lying to people,” she said. “I would just be doing exactly what I was doing in the past, which was putting on an act and pretending like I didn’t give a [expletive].” Success looks different to Cosentino now, too. When she bought her new house, she downsized to something “super teeny.” She traded in her Mercedes for a Subaru.

Nearly four hours after her mug odyssey began, she carefully applied a series of dots (her signature), then thrust out her hands. “My tattoos are a perfect example of where I used to be and where I am now,” she said. One finger displays “trust no one.” On her other hand, there’s “let it go” and “surrender.”

“So it’s fully like old me, new me,” she said. “But they still both exist.” And she doesn’t plan to remove any of them.

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