#WE ARE CAT ILLUSTRATORS NOW JESSE

[tootditoot]

You see the end goal was to draw my fav characters holding hands, but I am somehow better at illustrating cats lmao

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Saturday, June 10th

Host (Lorne): It's like a song. Now, I can hold a note for a long time (laughs) actually I can hold a note forever. But eventually that's just noise. It's the change we're listening for. The note coming after, and the one after that. That's what makes it music.

~~Happy Anniversary~~

The Sunnydale Herald is looking for at least one new editor. Contributing to the Herald is a great way to get your Buffy on! Find out more here.

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

makeover by BeatriceEveryTuesday (Buffy/Cordelia, T)

[Chaptered Fiction]

I Need A Bad Idea, Chapter 41 by Skyson (Buffy/Giles, E)

The Long Haul, Chapter 17 by BlueZeroZeroOne (Buffy & Willow, Stargate Atlantis crossover, M)

Divide & Conquer, Chapter 41 by Removes_and_Cleans_Glasses_00 (Buffy/Giles, E)

Dawn the Vampire Slayer, Chapter 16 by LJ94 (wastedperfume) (Ensemble, M)

Days of Future Past, Chapter 6 by a2zmom (Buffy/OC, M)

Held Together, Chapter 10 by MadeInGold (Angel/Spike, M)

Moments that Make You: The Hero and The Princess, Chapter 11 by myheadsgonenumb (Cordelia/Doyle, T)

Buffy's Ultimate, Chapter 2 by PrePsychPineappleLover (Buffy/Spike, T)

The Other Woman, Chapter 2 by aliceinwonderbra (Buffy/Faith, E)

Tomes of the Apocalypse: Conquest, Chapter 5 by v_o_x (Multiple Spike/Xander/Angel/Doyle pairings, M)

The Slayer's Brother, Chapter 1 by WritingShop12 (Harry Potter/Willow, Harry Potter/Faith, Harry Potter/Cordelia, Buffy/Xander, M)

Ship Of The Line : The Sunnydale Flyer, Chapter 1 by BlueZeroZeroOne (Scoobies, Stargate & Star Trek: Voyager, T)

The Other Side of Paradise, Chapter 1 by v_o_x (Xander/Graham, E)

Daylight, Chapter 3 by Laqt15 (Buffy/Bella Swann, Willow/Bella Swann, Twilight crossover, T)

Rewrite by hopelesswanderer (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

The Neighbor's Point of View, Chapter 18 by the_big_bad (Buffy/Spike, PG)

Those 2 again, Chapter 30 by Julikobold (Buffy/Spike, G)

Exquisite Complications: Part 2, Chapter 1 by yellowb, Holly, Willow91, bewildered, DeamonQueen, DarkVoid116, cawthraven, Lady Emma (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Sparks, Chapter 10 (complete!) by Dusty (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Inner Demon = Literal Cat, Chapter 7 by Desicat (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Cause I'm Beggin', Chapters 1-2 by Ifeelittoo21 (Buffy/Spike, Adult Only)

More Found Family Ties, Chapter 1 by Julikobold (Buffy/Spike, G)

The Long Haul, Chapter 17 by BlueZeroZeroOne (Buffy, Stargate crossover, FR18)

Ship Of The Line : The Sunnydale Flyer, Chapter 1 by BlueZeroZeroOne (Scoobies, Stargate and Star Trek: Voyager crossover, FR15)

Those 2 again, Chapter 30 by Julikobold (Buffy/Spike, G)

Dawn the Vampire Slayer, Chapter 16 by LJ94 (Buffy/Spike, R)

Rising Dawn, Chapter 2 by Jws1993 (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Insubstantial, Chapter 2 by flootzavut (Buffy/Spike, PG-13)

More Found Family Ties, Chapter 1 by Julikobold (Buffy/Spike, G)

The Time We Had, Chapter 43 by Dusty (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

[Images, Audio & Video]

Artwork: vampire!Harmony banners by RachM (worksafe)

Artwork: Spike by It was all a beautiful dream (worksafe)

Artwork: catified Spike by CaptainGHOST (worksafe)

Artwork: Happy pride to all those gay vampires by snails-in-my-mouth (Giles, Buffy, Willow, worksafe)

Artwork: Buffy “Every Outfit” “Help” part 1 by whatshisfaceblogs (worksafe)

Gifs: I say my power should be our power by lopeirce (Buffy, Kendra, Faith, worksafe)

Playlist: Buffy playlist by slayerdyke

Music: Synthesizer V Pro Studios Cover - Buffy the Vampire Slayer but with lyrics - Solaria - SVP+ by TheAmazingKaleb

Video (artwork and discussion): Throwback Sketches (Buffy) by BKM Illustration (worksafe)

Fanvid: Breathe: Angel + Buffy by ClaytonChick8

Fanvid: Giles & Wesley | Buffyverse | Take Control by Jess Wilson

Fanvid: spike + buffy | HUMOR | i'm in a band, a rock band with spike by loveisntbrains

Fanvid: Spike Bad Romance 4K by Moon Child

Fanvid: Spike and Klaus to Buffy and Caroline- Let Me Rest in Peace by Bobblehead89 (The Vampire Diaries & The Originals crossover)

Fanvid: Spike and Klaus to Buffy and Cami- Let Me Rest in Peace by Bobblehead89 (The Vampire Diaries & The Originals crossover)

[Reviews & Recaps]

just finished season 1 of btvs and y’all it has been a little bit of a ride! by of-magic-and-monsters

Video: Buffy [movie]: it's 80s. it's camp. it's interesting by 3 minute movie reviews with crushedparkinglotcandy

Video: The BTVS Twisted Guide - Episode 2: The Harvest by Twisted View

Video: Buffy the Vampire Slayer : Knights F--Ked It All Up? No - Ben (Mostly Ben) - Glory Ruined Season 5 by Examining Kubrick Philosophy Craven Nolan

Video: Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Season 5 Review and Analysis by your cult boyfriend

[Community Announcements]

The Bronze - Buffy Night July 16th in Hollywood, CA by catholicked_

[Fandom Discussions]

missed opportunity on Angel season 5 by Aphony Cree

The thing with ‘OMWF’ is that you cannot focus on the story aspect without listening to the songs by Girl4Music

If Buffy had stayed in Sunnydale after Becoming how long do you think it’d take for her mom & her friends to pull a Dead Man’s Party? by hero-adjacent

ways that they could have done season 6 of btvs that wasn’t the like “horror version of everyday life” by voices-not-echoes

what if angel had a daughter instead of connor. would that have Technically put a wrench in jasmine plans? by Current_Ad_9850

Make the comment section look like Angel's search history by krav_mustaine

Single worst line of dialog from the Buffyverse? by ZeroSugarBear

What was Angel on about in "Helpless?" by MaterialGorlx

Do vampires feel the weather???? by Eagles56

Evil dads are the best dads by murdered800times

Am i the only one who thought the Angel melodrama was the most beautiful love story ever as a teen and now it's just weird? by whyamiherewhatawaste

[Dawn] Casually tazes the driver [Xander] out of nowhere.... by RandomUser132621

Just finished my 1st watch of the show. My 2 cent on Spike and Buffy by snowblind2022

Who do you hate the most? by DawnKatt

90's Icon [If the apocalypse comes, beep me] by Buffy_GIFs

Dawn by Old_and_Cranky_Xer

The body by Leannabananax3

Spike saying out loud there is a woman being attacked in the alley during School Hard by Cat_OHara

I love their [Scoobies] friendship so much by Maximum_Arachnid2804

Which character's actions would you describe as being "way over the top"? by Opening_Knowledge868

Why I think most Slayers don't last That Long: by novavegasxiii

Video: Tara and Willow's Entire Relationship Timeline Multifandom_Fanatic

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[maxwell-grant]

Excuse Me what is pulp and why is it importan?

Good question! And probably one I should have answered sooner. Time to put on the historian hat for this one.

"Pulp" is a term used mainly to describe forms of storytelling that sprang out or were dominant in 20th century cheap all-fiction American magazines from the 1900s to the 1950s. The pulp magazine began in 1896, when Frank Munsey's Argosy magazine, in order to cut costs, dropped the non-fiction articles and photographs and switched from glossy paper to the much less expensive wood pulp paper, hence the name. The pulp magazines would mainly take off as a distinct market and format in 1904, when Street & Smith learned that Popular Magazine, despite being marketed towards boys, was being consumed by men of all ages, so they increased page count and started putting popular authors on the issues.

It was specifically the 1905 reprint of H.Rider Haggard's Ayesha that not only put Street & Smith on the map as rivals to Argosy, but also inspired other companies to start publishing in the pulp format. Pulps encompassed literally everything that the authors felt like publishing. Westerns, romance, horror, sci-fi, railroad stories, war stories, war aviation stories. Zeppelins had a short-lived subgenre. Celebrities got their own magazines, it was really any genre or format they could pull off, anything they could get away with.

Nowadays, although they came quite late in it's history, the American pulps are most famous for it's "hero pulps", characters like The Shadow and Doc Savage that are viewed as a formative influence on comic book superheroes. The pulp magazines in America lasted until the 1950s, when cumulative factors such as paper shortages, diminishing audience returns and the closing of it's biggest publishers led to it dying off, although in the decades since there's always been publishers calling their magazines pulp. That's the American pulp history.

But pulps are a phenomenon that spans the entire world and has a much bigger history to it, because pulps have become synonymous with cheap fiction magazines and those have a much bigger history. In America, before the pulps, you had the dime novels, the direct predecessors of the pulps, as well as the novelettes. England had it's penny dreadfuls and story papers, and continued publishing pulp-format magazines past the American 1950s, and that's how we got Elric of Melniboné. France and Russia arguably got to it first with it's 1800s coulporters, chapbooks and particularly the feuilletons which lasted all the way to the 20th century and created characters such as Arsene Lupin, Fantomas and The Phantom of the Opera. The Germans published pulp under the name hefteromane. Japan also published pulp magazines both original as well as imported, and the current "light-novel" phenomenon started off as an equivalent of pulp magazines (it's even on the Wikipedia page). China has wuxia, Brazil has cordel, Italy has gialli. There were Indian, Persian, Ethiopian, Canadian, Australian pulps and much more. Look anywhere in the world and you'll find examples of "pulp" happening again and again, under different circumstances and time periods.

Even if we stick to American fiction, it's impossible to state that all pulp heroes must come from the 1900s-1950s pulp magazines, because that forces us to exclude some of the most popular pulp heroes like Indiana Jones, Green Hornet, Rocketeer and The Phantom. Pulp may have once been a term meant to refer to pulp magazines exclusively, but it's morphed and lost structure and it's become the closest thing we have to a general umbrella term that allows us to try and consolidate these under a shared history. It's a lot, as you can see, and it's why several pulp historians that broaden their scope outside of 1930s American fiction have adopted Roland Barthes's definition of pulp as "A Metaphor With No Brakes In It", which is still the closest thing to a true working definition we have.

Why is it important? You tell me. I don't like to stake claims about stuff being "important", everyone's got their own priorities in life. Surely a lot of people would scoff at the idea of old populist fiction published in what was functionally equivalent to toilet paper having any sort of "importance". On the other hand, some people definitely want to talk big about the pulps as a cultural bedrock of fiction, something that's baked into the lifeblood of all fiction as we currently know it. Which it is, mind you, but I don't like to talk about pulp fiction's value being derived mainly from merely the things it inspired.

There is definitely a historical importance to be had in cataloguing them. According to the US's foremost pulp researcher Jess Nevins, 38% of all American pulps no longer exist, and 14% of all American pulps survive in less than five copies. Many libraries have very scant, if any, records on them, many collectors are hard to locate and are uncooperative when it comes to sharing information and letting outsiders view their collections. A lot of them are bound up in legal complications that prevents them from taking off in the public domain, and a lot of them ARE public domain but are completely inacessible as research material. And that's the American pulps, foreign pulps have fared far worse in posterity, with records inaccessible to people unfamiliar with the language or locations, many existing merely in mentions on decades-old records, and hundreds if not thousands of them being completely gone beyond recovery or recall.

Gone, dead, wasted, destroyed. They can't be found in barbershops or warehouse or bookstores, not even in antique stores. Hundreds, thousands of characters, stories and creators, gone. Time and posterity have crushed them to dust, forgotten and ignored by their successors. Unfettered by pretenses of respectability that repressed their glossier counterparts, in packages meant to be destroyed after reading, proudly announcing itself as trash. Things that should have never even lasted as long as they did have died many times now. It's heroes peripherical shapeshifters, nearly all of whom seem dead, quite dead, as dead as fictional characters can possibly be.

But they do not die forever. Many of them have, maybe most of them have, but many of them linger on.

"The strange red flickering of 1930’s fiction seems distant now.  You hold in your hand the product of a time too remote to recall, and feel a slow stir of wonder.  The smell of pulp pages, an illustration, an advertisement, these fragile things mark the slow hammering of time and display what it has done.  About you are today’s machines, today’s shadows.

Outside the window, leaves hang against the sky, as did leaves during the 1930’s.  The sound of voices are no different then than now.  You hold the magazine and feel something quite delicate slipping past. These solid forms surrounding you are all insubstantial. Time’s hammer will also pass across them, leaving little enough behind." - Spider, by Robert Sampson

Many of the things people call dead are just things that have been sleeping for a while or haven't had the chance to be born. Pulp fiction is dead on the page, inert, unless your imagination breathes live to it, and every now and then, one way or another, these characters dig themselves out of dustbins. Maybe it's a brief revival, maybe it's a successful reboot. Maybe they find publishers, or maybe the public domain allows them to find new life. Maybe new creators do interesting things with them, and maybe, just maybe, they live again because some won't shut up about them online. Some curious impulse led you to me, did it not? 

We all have our Frankensteins to obsess over, and these are some of mine. As someone who's lived a life perpetually restless over pursuit of knowledge, pulp has lured me like a moth to flame, because I literally never run out of things to discover within it, I never run out of possibilities. As the years pass and the public domain starts being more and more open to the public, more and more narrative real state is brought forth for writers and artists and creators to play around.

Pulp is the dark matter of fiction, the uncatalogued depths of the ocean, the darkest recesses of space. It's the box of your grandfather's belongings, the treasure you find in an attic, a body part sticking out from an old playground. It's the things that don't work, don't succeed, the things that don't fit, that are out of place. That shouldn't live and succeed, and did so anyway. The things that slither in the cracks, the shadows behind the curtain.

Aren't you interested in peering on what's behind the curtain?

The exquisite workmanship of the head, of a pre-pyramidal age, and the hieroglyphics, symbols of a language that was forgotten when Rome was young–these, Kane sensed, were additions as modern to the antiquity of the staff itself as would be English words carved on the stone monoliths of Stonehenge.

As for the cat-head–looking at it sometimes Kane had a peculiar feeling of alteration; a faint sensing that once the pommel of the staff was carved with a different design. The dust-ancient Egyptian who had carved the head of Bast had merely altered the original figure, and what that figure had been, Kane had never tried to guess.

A close scrutiny of the staff always aroused a disquieting and almost dizzy suggestion of abysses of eons, unprovocative to further speculation. - The Footfalls Within, by Robert E Howard, quoted by Stuart Hopen’s The Mythic American Culture

[mldrgrl]

Broken Things 12/24

by: mldrgrl Rating: varies by chapter, rated R overall See Chapter 1 for summary and notes

Fort Worth is not the city that Boston is, but it’s working it’s way up.  It’s bustling and busy and the first time he’d taken Jesse and Jimmy with him, Mulder had feared he may lose the brothers to the excitement of it all.  He was pleased to find out the pair were more like him and preferred a slower pace and less crowds.  He doesn’t have to worry about them gambling or picking fights or looking for any other kind of trouble.

The demonstration they give and the training they provide to the postal service is a success.  The horses are installed in their new home and position as a delivery team and Mulder will be bringing eight horses back to the ranch to train as a set of two teams.  He celebrates the job well done by giving Jesse and Jimmy an early bonus and sending the two off to do some sightseeing.  Deciding he’d like to do a bit of shopping himself, he sets out from their hotel to the city center.

For the last few weeks, Mulder has been making a mental list of the things he’d like to get for Katherine.  He doesn’t care if she protests, he has a mind to spoil her, and she’ll just have to get accustomed to being spoiled.  His first stop is a book shop where he inquires after the most current science journals and texts.  While browsing the bookshelves, he also finds a copy of The Taming of the Shrew and purchases it for a laugh.

The next stop he makes is to a rather impressive three-story building called The Martin-Brown Co.  It advertises clothing, dry goods, and other notions, which is exactly what he’s after.  He buys ten yards of a wool fabric dyed a shade of blue that reminds him of her eyes, two pairs of boots using a template he secretly traced of Katherine’s shoes for size, several pairs of stockings, a new shawl, an overcoat, and the valise he promised.  Everything is to be wrapped and sent to his hotel.

The last stop he makes is to a jeweler.  He would give Katherine his mother’s ring, were it not for the fact that it currently resides in a safe deposit box in Boston.  Even if it were in his possession, he has a feeling that Katherine would consider it too lavish and perhaps she would be right.  Though beautifully made with several square-cut diamonds, a working ranch would not be the best place to wear such a ring.

He wants to get something to symbolize the marriage though, not just for her, but for himself.  A simple gold band is easy enough to find for his own finger, but it’s tougher to pick just the right ring for his wife.  A very nice salesman assists him in trying to find the perfect piece.

“I want it to be nice,” he tells the associate.  “She’d probably like something plain, but I still think it should at least have a stone in it.  I also don’t want her to fret over it getting in the way of the household chores.”

“I think I can help you with that,” the man says.  He pulls out a tray of nice-looking bands, diamonds of various shapes and sizes twinkling from all of them, but still none of them seem quite right.

He looks through four trays of rings and has it narrowed between a gold band with a row of very small diamonds and pearls or a silver band with three one carat diamonds, when another ring catches his eye.

“What’s that stone?” he asks the clerk.

“That’s a sapphire.  Would you like to see it?”

“Yes.”

The man takes the ring of the tray and hands it to Mulder.  He inspects it carefully.  It’s a gold band with three stones inset in a row of small squares, like patchwork almost.  The middle stone is the sapphire, flanked on either side by two diamonds.  

“What do you call this design?” Mulder asks.

“In the middle where the sapphire sits is called a pinched square mount.  On either side of that is what’s called a diamond mount on a geometric plaque.  On the shoulder here you’ll see there’s criss-cross etching.”

“I think this might be the one.”

“An excellent choice.”

“Let me just...let me just look at them one last time and give me a minute to consider.”

“Take your time, Sir.”

Mulder puts the ring down and looks over the trays again, focusing on the three main contenders.  He has doubts about the three diamonds and so just looks to the sapphire and the diamonds and pearls.

“What is this?” he asks, pointing to a different ring that he seems to have missed in his earlier inspection, focused as he was on finding the perfect stone.  “Are those hands?  Holding a heart?”

“Yes, Sir.  It’s a claddagh ring.  It’s Irish.”

“Irish?”

“Yes, I can’t say I know the origins, but you’ll note the inside is stamped with what this type of ring is meant to symbolize.”

Mulder turns the ring around to read the inscription.  “Love.  Friendship.  Loyalty.”

“We have this one as well, if that doesn’t suit you.”  The clerk pulls out yet another tray and the same design of the ring Mulder is holding is etched into the interior of the band with loops around the band that look like infinity rings.

Mulder is torn.  He’s leaning towards the sapphire because the stone is gorgeous, but this claddagh ring seems more suitable, even if it’s not as elegant or flashy.  He’s not the one that will be wearing the ring though, Katherine is.  And he tries to think about it from her perspective.  He could probably buy three or four of these claddagh rings for the same price as the sapphire, but the value of the simpler ring feels immeasurably greater.

“That’s the one I want,” Mulder tells the clerk, nodding to the etched silver claddagh ring the man is holding.

“Very well.”

“And the gold band as well.  What type of boxes do you have?”

“Right this way.”

Mulder follows the clerk to the other side of the store where there is a case of boxes on display.  He selects a black box, oval-shaped, made of leather.  There’s a small gold latch at the front and a gilded border on the top of the case.  The interior is standard velvet and satin.

After Mulder leaves the jewelry store he heads back to the hotel.  The desk clerk informs him his packages have arrived and been taken to his room.  He closes himself in the room and looks at the items that are neatly placed onto his bed.  He takes the ring box out of his pocket and opens it up to look at it.

Diana comes to mind.  All these items he’s purchased would seem paltry to her.  He was always happy to lavish her back when they were courting, but she was never satisfied.  There was no such thing as too much for Diana and nothing was ever good enough.  Katherine is different and he needs to remember that.  He fears that Katherine will see all of this and be cross with him.  The perfect simplicity of the ring in his hand makes him realize that there is more to loving someone than purchasing trinkets.

Money is no object to him.  The ranch does well, but it’s not the source of his income, it’s the source of his joy and passion.  He doesn’t know with absolute certainty, but from what he does know of her, he feels that Katherine gets her joy from learning new things and from stimulating conversation.  Out of all the items packaged up on his bed, what she will probably be the most grateful for are the four issues of a magazine called Science: An Illustrated Journal and one called The Popular Science Monthly.

The ring and the books aside, he tells himself that the items he’s purchased are practical.  He hasn’t gotten anything she can’t use and what wouldn’t be considered unnecessary, but that’s not really the point.  

Well, he isn’t going to take the items back, so he packs each one up into the new valise and thinks that maybe it’s a good thing that at the very least, everything fits nicely into the travel bag.  He keeps her ring in his pocket though, along with the little pouch that holds his band.  He doesn’t want to wear his quite yet.  Not until she can put it on his finger for him.

↭

Katherine is setting out items onto the table in the kitchen to make a pie.  Mulder and Jesse and Jimmy are due back the next day and she’d like to have something nice to welcome them home with.  She’s just sat down to start peeling apples when she hears Queenie bark.

Over the last month, she’s grown accustomed to the sounds of the ranch, and in particular, the way that Queenie herds her flock of sheep.  Her bark is usually quick and no-nonsense.  This bark that she hears now raises the hairs at the back of her neck.  This bark is more like a snarl.  A warning.

Katherine jumps up from the table and hurries to the back door.  She sees Queenie by the pens, crouched low and backing away from something slowly.  The dog growls and snaps as she lunges forward and then retreats again.  Initially, Katherine can’t spot the threat, but then she sees it, black as midnight and sleek, slinking around the side of the corner pen with caution, but without hesitation.  She’s heard there were panthers in these parts, but never seen one.

Melvin is running from the bunkhouse, waving his arms and hollering.  Richard is behind him with a pistol.  She doesn’t spot Trevor, but now is the time that he’s usually watering the animals so he must be out there somewhere, trapped where he is.

“My God,” Katherine whispers before turning and running to the other side of the dogtrot.

There are four rifles hung on pegs in the middle of the wall and a cartridge belt hanging alongside them.  Mulder had told her before not to touch the firearms.  They’re always loaded, he’d said, just in case.  Leave them be.  Of course, he probably assumed she had no idea how to use one.  She grabs the cartridge belt and swings it over her left shoulder and then pulls down one of the rifles and holds it crosswise against her stomach and pointed to the ground as she runs back to the door, cocking the lever as she goes.

Without much thought beyond eliminating the threat, Katherine stands positioned in the doorway, a good fifty to sixty yards from the pens.  Melvin is whistling and hooting, trying to get the enormous cat’s attention.  All the animals are agitated.  The goats and sheep are bleating and the hogs are grunting.  The chicks are fluttering in the coop and clucking like crazy.

“Stay back!” Melvin yells at her.

“Don’t move,” she yells back, raising the butt of the rifle to her shoulder.  She cocks her head and closes her right eye, lining the cat up in her sights.  She’s not in a good position to shoot to kill, but she can definitely incapacitate if she aims right.

She has to do it quick.  The panther is stalking Queenie quietly, not at all threatened by the barking dog.  It’s not close enough to lunge, but it’s getting there.  “God, help me,” Katherine mutters, and then cocks the hammer and squeezes the trigger.  The recoil causes the butt to slam into her shoulder, as anticipated.  She winces, but doesn’t take her eyes off the panther.  It screams seconds after the discharge, baring its teeth as one of its front arms collapses.  She hit it in the shoulder, just as she’d aimed to.

There’s no time to waste.  She reaches up and grabs a cartridge off the belt over her shoulder and shoves it into the ejection port.  It’s cocked and reloaded in under ten seconds, but it feels like eternity.  The panther is now on the defensive, limping backwards and screeching as Queenie barks and takes small lunges towards it.  A frothy and red saliva starts to drip from its mouth.

Katherine keeps the rifle at her shoulder and the panther in her sights as she steps sideways to get behind Queenie.  She prays as she moves that the dog keeps its distance and she prays that the panther doesn’t charge forward with a surge of adrenaline.  Worst case scenario, she shoots the dog before the panther.  Best case scenario, she only has to kill one living creature today.

Queenie snaps viscously at the injured panther and it hisses in response.  As it raises its head and bares its teeth, Katherine fires once more, hitting it in the jugular.  The panther goes down without a whimper.  Queenie is still barking and snapping as Katherine lowers the gun.  She walks to the dog and pulls her back by the scruff to hold her in place.

Melvin comes running.  He’s puffing and sweating by the time he reaches her and grabs hold of Queenie as well as the dog twists and yelps to be set free.  Richard walks to the panther and crouches low over it, inspecting it from all angles.

“Where’s Trevor?” Katherine asks.

“I ain’t seen him.”

“Trevor!” Katherine calls.

“Go on,” Melvin says.  “I got Queenie.”

Katherine stands and scans the pens.  The animals are still agitated, running to and fro and loudly voicing their anxiety.  She spots Trevor crouched low behind the hog trough, trembling.  She sets the rifle up against the fence and climbs over into the hog pen and kneels down beside Trevor.  It’s obvious he’s wet himself and she puts a hand on his back to soothe him.

“It’s alright,” she tells him.  “It’s over.”

“I didn’t know what to do,” he tells her.  His voice is shaking right along with the rest of him.

“You did exactly as you were supposed to do, you kept yourself safe.”

“I saw him come down from that hill back yonder and I tried hollerin’, but nothing came out.  And then Queenie started kicking up a fuss and all I could think was that I got to hide.”

“You did good, Trevor.  Queenie’s worked up, but she’s alright.  Who knows what that panther would’ve done if it had spotted you.”

“You shot ‘em.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

“My father taught me, when I was small.”

“I ain’t ever had a father.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

“You wasn’t scared?”

“I was terribly scared.”

“But, you didn’t look scared.”

“I had the advantage of being near to the rifles, knowing they were loaded, and knowing how to shoot.  If I had been in your position, I would have done exactly as you did.”

“My hands don’t want to seem to quit shakin’.”

“That’s alright, it’ll stop soon enough.  Let’s get you up and you run on to the bunkhouse and clean yourself up, alright?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“You bring your clothes on over to the laundry basket when you’re done and I’ll get a load done tonight.”

“Sorry to be so much trouble.”

“No trouble at all, sweetheart.”

Katherine helps Trevor stand and keeps a hand on his back.  He’s taller than her by about half a foot, but he seems small in this moment.  He is careful climbing the fence, still weak with fear.  She climbs over after him and takes up the rifle.  The cartridge belt is laying in the dirt.  She hadn’t noticed it had slipped from her shoulder.  She picks that up as well and waits until Trevor has started to weave his way to the bunkhouse to go over to where Melvin and Richard are hovering over the dead panther.

“I put Queenie up in the barn and give her some hamburger,” Melvin says.  “She’ll calm herself in due time.”

“When this story gets told,” Katherine says, trying to sound as serious and authoritative as she can.  “I’d like you to please do me a favor and make it very clear that Trevor was trapped where he was.  I know how boys are and the last thing Trevor needs is to be shamed for being afraid of a panther.”

“I’ll see to it,” Melvin says.

“We best get rid of the carcass before any scavengers come sniffing around,” Richard says.

“I’m going to see about the pie I was fixing.”  She turns to walk away and then stops.  “I take no pride or glory in killing that panther.  I did what had to be done.”

“You done good,” Melvin tells her.  

Katherine nods and returns to the house.  She dusts off the cartridge belt and hangs it back on the nail beside the rifles.  She loads a cartridge into the chamber, leaves it half-cocked, and puts it back in its place.  

[nitewrighter]

We've had Uncle Hanzo reading to little Rei but what about little Rei reading to Hanzo?

“Omnicode cipher one-one-eight-Delta-B underscore six is for...” 5-year-old Rei yawned, “Puhhh--pace--Peace!” She was tucked practically into a ball against Hanzo’s side, with Hanzo’s arm draping across the back of the loveseat, arching over her as he leaned his head back and rested his eyes. The late afternoon sun was streaming through the window and turning the insides of his eyelids sepia-red. A part of him knew he would probably stay awake if he took his hoodie off, but Rei was leaning against him and had finally seemed to stop fidgeting and he didn’t want to reset her posture by the action. He felt Rei nudge against him and he blinked his eyes open.

“I was listening--” he said, his voice a little groggy.

“But is it right?” asked Rei.

Hanzo gave a glance down to the page, the text was laid out in both english and Omnicode, with blocky, vivid illustrations showing a human and an omnic holding hands with yellow sunbeams streaming behind them and the Omnicode character for ‘Peace’ smack dab in the center of the sun. One corner of his mouth tugged up. Zenyatta had lent the book, Omnicode Adventure, to them to ask their opinion on it before the Shambali would publish it as a sort of gesture of goodwill between humans and omnics, but Hanzo wasn’t sure if a 144 character language with numerous complex context-and-sequence-shifted meanings translated all that well to a children’s book. It certainly felt far from an adventure.

“Yes, it’s right,” said Hanzo and Rei turned the page. 

“Omnicode cipher one-one-eight-Delta-B underscore seven is for....” Rei rubbed her eyes, “Family. Also Proh--uh...”

“Sound it out,” said Hanzo.

“Prooodue-”

“Little ‘u’ sound.”

“Produc--Produc-tee-own.”

“Production.”

“Production Seeress.”

“Production series.”

“Production series,” Rei nodded as she repeated.

The illustration for this cipher featured both a human family on one page and a group of identical omnics standing with their arms slung around each others’ shoulders on the other. Rei turned the page, rubbing one eye before adjusting her hold on the book.

“Omnicode cipher one-one-eight Delta-C underscore one is for---” Rei started to read when the door to the living room opened and McCree walked in, sighing and stretching. 

“You would not believe what happened with Jack at Winston’s latest--” McCree paused at the sight of Rei on the couch, “Oh hey, Sunshine.”

“Uncle Jesse, I’m reading!” she said.

“Oh yeah?” said McCree, setting a bag down in one of the chairs before plopping on the other side of Rei on the couch, “Something happen with Ange?”

“Something about a vid-com emergency meeting with one of her colleagues,” said Hanzo, with a hand wave, “And with Genji on that mission in Numbani... Rei gets to spend the afternoon with us.”

“And I’m reading,” Rei said again, a bit of that Genji theatrical cockiness in her voice this time. 

“I can see that,” said McCree with a chuckle.

“Zenyatta was kind enough to lend us a book to read,” said Hanzo.

“Really?” said Jesse, “Because you can’t get over your grudge against Little Lamby Lambkins?”

“Ha-ha,” said Hanzo drily, “No, this one is more... educational. If you want, I could get started on dinner while you take over.”

“Oh well you know I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” said McCree, taking his hat off before looking at Rei, “What do you think, Sunshine? You wanna read that book to me?”

 Rei excitedly gasped and bounced over to McCree’s side of the couch, shuffling her shoulders a little as she pushed under his arm and flipped the book back open.

Freedom, thought Hanzo with a slight smile, pushing up from the couch.

 McCree noticed the relative thickness of the book, but had assumed it was some kind of large board book, but as Rei turned the page, his brow crinkled with concern.

“Omnicode cipher one-one-eight Delta-C underscore one is for... Life,” Rei read, as McCree looked over the illustration of an omnic in some kind of farmer’s outfit looking fondly at a butterfly in its metal hand, while framed by greenery filled with more butterflies, birds, and flowers. “Omnicode cipher one-one-eight Delta-C underscore two is for life, sue--”

“’uh’ sound,” said McCree.

“Suuuhh-Sub-c-c-aaate---”

“Sub-cat-eg-or-ee,” said McCree, pointing at different sections of the word with his finger.

“Subcattergory,” Rei said, “Nuh-on-orr-gan-ick. Subcattergory Nonorganic!”

“Great job, kiddo,” said McCree, trying to will up the mental energy to correct her on the pronunciation of ‘Subcategory’ but at the same time it was well within her own half-Swiss-German, half-Japanese quirks of speaking.

“What’s nonorganic?” said Rei.

“...Zen’s nonorganic,” said McCree after a few seconds of thought.

“No, Master Zenyatta’s Omnic,” Rei corrected.

“That, too,” said McCree smiling a little. Rei seemed satisfied with this and kept reading.

“Omnicode cipher one-one-eight Delta-C underscore three is for life, subcattergory... Non?” she looked at McCree.

“Non,” said McCree, nodding.

“Non-sen-tee-ent life,” said Rei, “What’s ‘nonsentient?’”

Someone’s going to have to break it to Zenyatta that this is a terrible easy-to-read book, thought Hanzo, rinsing some rice off in the sink.

“Nonsentient means uh... like... plants? Like... living things but... they don’t uhh... think?”  McCree’s voice trailed off a little helplessly. 

“Like Junkrat?” said Rei.

“Well, no, Junkrat thinks... allegedly,” said McCree, “They’re talking about more like... uh... mushrooms and stuff. Mushrooms are alive, y’know?”

“Mushrooms...” Rei repeated thoughtfully.

“Hey sunshine?” said McCree.

“Yeah?” said Rei.

“Is uh... is the whole book like this?” McCree was trying to keep a smile up but his brow was crinkling.

“Uh huh!” said Rei.

“Do you wanna maybe... switch to an easier book?” McCree rubbed the back of his neck.

“But Master Zenyatta gave me this one! We have to finish it!” said Rei, clearly offended. 

“Okay, all right, we can keep goin’...” said McCree with a shrug.

Rei turned the page and started reading again. “Omnicode Cipher One-one-eight---”

As Rei read, McCree’s head swung around to look at the kitchen, where Hanzo was serenely slicing some onion. Jesse summoned his best, ‘I miscalculated, please help me, I love you’ face. Hanzo paused only momentarily to look up to meet his gaze and gave Jesse the smuggest, most cat-like, shit-eating ‘Suffer’ grin. There was a glint of ‘Oh you bastard’ in McCree’s eyes before he turned his attention to Rei, now struggling through the Omnicode cipher for the Turing test and its later variants. And of course he had to explain to her what a Turing test was. And the variants.

Hanzo let Rei’s chatter and hesitant sounding-out of syllables, and McCree’s stilted murmuring explanations fade to background noise as he fell into the motions of cooking. He wasn’t sure if it was ten or 15 minutes that had passed, but the savory smells of onion simmering in dashi filled the kitchen and lingered with rice cooker steam when McCree’s voice hoarsely drifted over.

“Hanzo--You gotta help me.”

“Mm?” Hanzo glanced up, turned down the heat on the stove, and toweled off his hands as he headed out of the kitchen to the living room. Rounding around the couch, he saw that Rei was asleep, one arm strung tight around McCree’s waist and her face smooshed against McCree’s side.

“She conked out around Omnicode cipher something-something epsilon. She’s like a vice,” McCree whispered.

“Mm-hmm,” said Hanzo, pulling his phone out of his pocket and opening the camera.

“Don’t just take pictures, help me out of this!” McCree hissed.

“Can you pretend to be asleep? It’s cuter that way,” said Hanzo, adjusting the lighting on the camera.

“I am not gonna pretend to be asleep, just so you can---” McCree heard the beep of the camera prepping and closed his eyes and relaxed his head slightly as Hanzo took the picture.

“You will and you did,” said Hanzo, tapping at his phone’s screen.

“That was for the doc and Genji and you know it,” muttered McCree.

“Mm-hmm,” said Hanzo, gently adjusting the lighting on the photo he had just taken and briefly puzzling over adding a ‘hearts and sparkles’ filter before deciding against it.

“...this is where all the displaced Yakuza boss evil goes, isn’t it?” said McCree.

“You love it,” said Hanzo, posting the photo to the family group chat.

“Mark me, Hanzo, had it not been for our 5 year old biotic mutant ninja niece currently threatening to break one of my ribs I would have cussed you out by now.”

“She’s not a mutant and she’s not going to break your ribs,” said Hanzo, bending and crisply kissing McCree on the temple before heading back into the kitchen.

“You don’t know that. I could be in danger right now.”

“Dinner’s in another 10 minutes,” Hanzo said airily from the kitchen.

“Save me, Han.”

“No.”

[libercoven]

5 Book Recs for (and From) Quarantined Witches

Social distancing can prove to be quite the task if you’re not used to spending a lot of time at home. If you’re a witch, this might even mean spending time away from your favorite magical places and people. So, while creating our own lists of things to do, some members of Liber Coven have recommended the following books for when you’re in the mood for reading.

1.  The Green Witch by Arin Murphy-Hiscock 

A book club favorite, Arin Murphy-Hiscock’s The Green Witch is pretty much a staple for anyone interested in nature magic. As for her other books? We love them, but we’ll just leave you with this one (for now).

Recommended by @mossy-smol-child​

2. The Faerie Handbook by the editors of Faerie Magazine

Faerie Magazine is now Enchanted Living, and they have wonderful website that several LC members recommend. New York Times said, “It’s as though Martha Stewart Living and Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’ had a magazine baby.”) If that isn’t enough to entice you, we don’t know what is.

Recommended by @aphro-date-me​

3. Black Cats and Evil Eyes by Chloe Rhodes

No matter what kind of witch you are, it’s always useful to have some perspective on all of the strange and amazing beliefs that have made their way to us from centuries of practices. This book is full of superstitions, where they came from, and even how to follow them—if that’s your thing.

Recommended by @lostinphases​

4. Basic Witches by Jaya Saxena and Jess Zimmerman

More playful than any other books on this list Basic Witches is great for light-hearted spells like eyeshadow grimoires and pop culture magic. 

Recommended by @hedge-witch-des​

5. Wellness Witch by Nikki Van De Car

There are few things we need more right now that a healthy dose of self-care. Why not get it from the potions, spells, and rituals Nikki Van De Car shares in this beautifully illustrated and soothing book?

Recommended by @quokorok​

We hope these recommendations bring you joy, entertainment, and a little magic! Want to recommend something to us? Send us an Ask or tag us. We’d love to hear from you.

[dcnativegal]

Day 55 of Pandemic, & I’m sick

Monday, May 4, 2020. Day 55 of the global pandemic (declared by World Health Organization on March 11th.) We as a planet hit 3,500,000 cases today, and 250,000 deaths. There are many more than that, but the planet doesn’t have enough tests.  But then, there was this announcement:

So obviously we’re in good hands. [Sarcasm alert.]

 The entire planet has slowed down, such that seismologists can detect the quieting of the earth: less shuddering of industry, cars, construction. Check out the drop in electricity usage:

Here’s a bit of perspective from Instagram:

The Lesbians of Paisley have been fertile ground for viruses. Valerie is nearly recovered from the viral pneumonia she was diagnosed with on March 26 at the emergency room at Lake District Hospital. She’d begun to feel feverish and achy, with violent coughing on March 15th, 2 days after what turned into my last day in my office at the hospital’s primary care clinic, and a day and a half after we’d dined with our friends Toni, Al, Bonnie and Bruce in person, sans masks. We began 100% isolation from the outside world the minute she felt sick. She recounted the ER adventure to a friend thusly: We drove in and they have organized a system that resembles getting on a [military] base after 9-11. We sat in the pickup at the checkpoint until a somebody in protective attire had taken my temp and saturation levels and asked a bunch of questions. Then they slapped a red sticker on the dash, told us to park in the ER lot and "don't get out of the pickup." Five hours later I had donated blood and been CAT scanned. I had two pneumonia shots that were current and two flu shots, also current. They checked the blood against 14 different virus strains and came up blank. The chest showed white lungs and my saturation levels were iffy. So they used one of the tests they had been sent, gave me antibiotics (just in case) and sent me home. Took me three days to sleep off all that fun.”

Me and Griffey the poodle waited in the pickup for her. At every sound, he got up from the passenger’s seat and looked at the ER entrance where she’d disappeared. No Valerie? Back to sleep. I walked him 3 times.      Hope, her RN daughter, told us that her flow through the ER was great practice in maintaining distance and perfect hygienic process through the CT scan, taking blood, even pushing her food on a tray to her. Lake Health District Hospital is prepared, and still, technically speaking, zero cases in the county.

I was so anxious about her health, her ability to breathe, that I gave up all thought of working from home. I listened to her breathing and coughing, brought her tea, and finally, asked her to write out her last will and testament. She did, and put it away. I figured, her kids are wonderful and won’t fight about stuff but, better for her to express her wishes, even if the paper wouldn’t be legally binding.

Apparently, I get the FrankenDodge (the pickup which has hit one too many deer and who’s grill is sewn together by wire). I’ll take it but I’d much rather have her.

We waited 10 days for the nasal swab results. While we waited, she got better. Never had that cytokine storm, nor that respiratory crash. Storms and crashes; pretty apt words for the medical horror of end stage COVID-19. Once her test came back negative, despite the warning of her PCP who says that nasal swabs miss between 30 and 47% of positive cases, I was able to go to town on the 10th of April, get some software downloaded onto the computer so I could work from home, and hit Safeway while wearing a mask. I also dropped off one of Valerie’s homemade masks to a friend, along with some toilet paper illustrated with Trump’s kissy face. The moment of levity was greatly appreciated.

I started feeling lousy six days after my jaunt to Lakeview (April 16th). Cough and release of gook high up in my chest. Headache. No fever. Who knows if I have COVID-19. We listen to a British gentleman, Dr. Campbell, daily, as he reviews what’s going on globally, and he interviewed a woman who had exactly my illness course, before she moved on to fever and gastrointestinal symptoms. She never got tested. Too much hassle. Which is so ridiculous, criminal really, and in the USA, a direct result of American hubris and incompetence. Fine. Anyone with any symptoms of any illness is isolated until we have a vaccine and treatment, is my prediction. I’m still feeling shitty, though better. Started taking antibiotics just in case and in the hopes of recovering SOMEDAY.

 My son Jonah and his girlfriend June escaped just in time the terrible plight of New York’s COVID19 deluge of infections and hospitalizations. They’ve been in Baltimore at June’s mother’s beautiful home. He spent his 26th birthday in the basement because they were still in quarantine. See adorable picture, below. Now they’re allowed upstairs, enjoying the quiet. Apparently, writing and directing music videos is not an essential service during a pandemic, but he’s writing pitches and living off the most recent lucrative gig with Kesha, thank goodness.

One of the most moving things that is happening in the USA during this time is the 7pm clapping ritual for medical workers and first responders in New York City, in all the boroughs:

There’s a firefighter in DC who’s going to hospitals and nursing homes to play the bagpipe.

That’s where my daughter Clara lives, in DC, but right now she’s staying with a friend in Laurel, MD, since her group house dynamics are stressful and had a symptomatic guest at last report. She’s working from home to make sure the Latinx school children are getting the tutoring they need now more than ever. We worry about her husband Jose and his country, Guatemala, since there are COVID-19 cases down there, and refugees seeking asylum are being dumped there, with and without the virus. Over 700 cases in Guatemala as of today. We hope he will get to the USA this year. However, Trump referred to it as a shithole country, which doesn’t bode well.

My sister and her husband are well, thankfully. They work fulltime from home in the company of Pepper the cat and Darcy the chocolate lab. Yuuki, 25, stays there, too, mostly in their room; they are out of work and applying for unemployment. Kohji, age 28, works from home in DC and makes more money as a web designer than I ever will after 34 years as a social worker, but who’s counting. (I remember well the admonition of a field instructor back in 1987: don’t go into social work for Power, Pay or Prestige.) His girlfriend is probably out of work; she works for a nonprofit that plants trees in DC. Probably not essential work right this very minute. Makoto, 23, is out of quarantine and looking for something to do; he’ll be a senior at the University of Delaware this fall. As far as I hear on Facebook and email, the rest of the folks with whom I share DNA are well. So that’s good. I worry about my Aunt Mary Lee who is 87. But she says not to:  she’s fine and her ritzy retirement community in McLean, VA is on “lockdown.”

Psychologically, in the experience of quarantine and ‘social distancing’, there’s me, and then there are my clients.

My moods go up and down, but a little further down than usual. The terror that Valerie might die of COVID-19 has passed, but I figure I will always need therapy.  I have “Facebook messenger” video chats with my therapist, Darcy of Bend, every other week now, which helps. Having ‘Generalized Anxiety Disorder’ and a tendency toward major depression, I find therapy to be a corrective. A bimonthly tune up. Without it, I naturally veer toward negativity and neurosis, and a hypervigilance that served me well when I was a child, but is exhausting, overwrought and over-thought as an adult.

Psychologically, Valerie is always fine. Seriously. She was once told as a young woman by a therapist who’d tested her with the MMPI (the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) that she was outrageously and puzzlingly normal. Now that she’s feeling mostly well again from the pneumonia, she’s been tearing up the joint, fixing the sump pump that apparently keeps this little house from drifting down main street on the wetlands it’s built on. Digging out the leaves from our irrigation ditch, chopping and clearing the wood from our front yard.

The BEFORE picture:

The AFTER Picture.

 And this happened one morning in March. Just a cattle drive past our front door.

Valerie’s planning a garden at her daughter’s place, which has a deer-proof fence and lots of sun up on the hill above us. A delivery of horse manure is scheduled, and the garden bed has been rototilled. Val’s granddaughter Jessica and her husband Alan are living up there now, working from home for their Portland-based gigs. They’re almost finished the 14-day quarantine since they moved down here. The new normal: anytime anyone leaves one locale for another, they disappear into strictest quarantine, not to leave their abode. Groceries are delivered to the doorstep. A recent day turned out to be Jess’ 25th birthday: I’d bought a canvas bag with a picture of a pug on it, like her dog Archie, and Valerie found something gluten free flour mix with fresh jam to give her. Birthday gatherings are suspect at the moment.

Here’s a lovely idea for quarantined birthday celebrations:

What a kind and generous offer.

Even in isolation, Val and I do socialize, on zoom. The one pictured below is church.

We ‘visit’ with our fellow parishioners from St. Luke’s on Sunday evenings. Then we say Compline together, from the Book of Common Prayer. My favorite prayer of all time is this one from that service.

Yes, shield the joyous. Because joy is fleeting.

Our writers’ group, Easy Writers, ‘meets’ on zoom every Monday now. I wrote this bit about my yarn for the prompt, ‘write something in your home that means a lot to you.’

I am doing a great deal of crochet and a little knitting.

Yarn is my comfort and my joy. It is the raw material I create blankets and scarves and hats with. My tools are hooks and needles made from wood and plastic and metal. My fingers are also my tools.

Some of the yarn is like cotton candy: spun mohair from a goat is said to have a ‘halo’ or ‘aura’ because of the gentle cloud of color you can see an inch or two away from the spun thread. Some yarn is like twine: you can see every string of ply. My favorite is merino wool and single ply. A unity of color that will not split. All for one and one for all, the fuzzy stuff is twisted and bound into a single string of strength…

My clients are stressed out. The pandemic adds a layer to the stress they were already experiencing. I listen and knit, from within the cocoon of the yarn room which my folks can see behind me.  One of my clients wanders about with her phone in her hand while I get slightly dizzy. I like this kind of counseling since I get a glimpse of my clients’ homes. Reminds me a little bit of being a geriatric care manager. You can tell a lot about a person from their home. From my home you can tell that I have a lot of yarn, and I work multiple projects at a time because there are piles of them alongside my recliner.  

One of the sad weights of being present for my clients is their level of estrangement for most if not all social connections, especially people with whom they share DNA. And every single one has what is called in the mental health world “complex PTSD” from multiple traumatic experiences.  I sit with them, on the phone or via video. I hope to model for them what Carl Rogers called ‘unconditional positive regard.’ I breathe deeply to release my own distress at their sadness. We explore one tiny step toward reducing their isolation, the sense of trust. All during a pandemic where other people could be carrying a potentially deadly virus.

It’s no wonder I’m pawing mohair out of screen for my own comfort.

Sometimes I email clients links or articles on how to keep their spirits up, or about good things that are happening instead of the dire predictions they’re listening to or watching. There is much to share that is hopeful.  I sent one to a client on creative ways to care for everyone and she shot back:

“I believe this is Liberal rhetoric. 

Esp the paragraph below:

 This current emergency provides the possibility for a new emergence—the birthing of a truly civil civilization dedicated to the well-being of all people and the living Earth. “

Oh well. We can’t have a truly civil civilization dedicated to the well-being of all people, now can we?

Sigh.

 Brilliant writing is being penned right now, since the entire planet’s human inhabitants are barely one degree of separation away from this virus, which is apparently ‘barely alive’ and therefore hard to kill, as it spreads onward to make millions miserable and hundreds of thousands die.

I’m saving articles from The Atlantic, The NY Times, and the Washington Post, and following a historian named Heather Cox Richardson who writes a daily blog called Letters from an American. In a recent post she writes:

“The big news … has been the ‘protests’ of state governors’ stay-at-home orders and mandatory business closings to try to contain the novel coronavirus …These protests are a classic example of trying to control politics by controlling the national narrative. The protests are backed by the same conservative groups that are working for Trump’s reelection. …These are not spontaneous, grassroots protests. They are political operations designed to divert attention from the Trump administration’s poor response to the pandemic. Even more, though, they are designed to keep the American public divided so that we do not protest the extraordinary economic inequality the pandemic has highlighted.

These protests have diverted the national conversation by turning a national crisis into partisan division along the lines the Republican Party has developed since the 1980s... The change of subject protects not just Trump but also the ideology at the heart of his Republican Party. Since 1981, Republicans have argued that the economy depends on wealthy businessmen who know best how to arrange the economy—the makers-- and that it is vital to protect their interests. Under their policies, wealth in America has moved upward. The pandemic has highlighted how these policies have removed economic security for ordinary people. They cannot pay their bills, and they might well turn against an ideology that uses our tax dollars to bail out corporations while they must risk their lives to pay their rent.”  [Emphasis mine]

I am so glad someone smarter than me can reveal the interconnections of what’s going on politically.

There is food for thought on Facebook and Instagram: in the guise of a rewrite of Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese, this poem.

Mary Oliver for Corona Times (after Wild Geese)

by Adrie Kusserow

You do not have to become totally zen, You do not have to use this isolation to make your marriage better, your body slimmer, your children more creative. You do not have to “maximize its benefits” By using this time to work even more, write the bestselling Corona Diaries, Or preach the gospel of ZOOM. You only have to let the soft animal of your body unlearn everything capitalism has taught you, (That you are nothing if not productive, That consumption equals happiness, That the most important unit is the single self. That you are at your best when you resemble an efficient machine). Tell me about your fictions, the ones you’ve been sold, the ones you sheepishly sell others, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world as we know it is crumbling. Meanwhile the virus is moving over the hills, suburbs, cities, farms and trailer parks. Meanwhile The News barks at you, harsh and addicting, Until the push of the remote leaves a dead quiet behind, a loneliness that hums as the heart anchors. Meanwhile a new paradigm is composing itself in our minds, Could birth at any moment if we clear some space From the same tired hegemonies. Remember, you are allowed to be still as the white birch, Stunned by what you see, Uselessly shedding your coils of paper skins Because it gives you something to do. Meanwhile, on top of everything else you are facing, Do not let capitalism coopt this moment, laying its whistles and train tracks across your weary heart. Even if your life looks nothing like the Sabbath, Your stress boa-constricting your chest. Know that your antsy kids, your terror, your shifting moods, are no less sacred than a yoga class. Whoever you are, no matter how broken, the world still has a place for you, calls to you over and over announcing your place as legit, as forgiven, even if you fail and fail and fail again. remind yourself over and over, all the swells and storms that run through your long tired body all have their place here, now in this world. It is your birthright you be held deeply, warmly, in the family of things, not one cell left in the cold.

-Adrie Kusserow

 Not one cell left out in the cold. Yes.

There is so much to be grateful for. I have a place to live, and even while paying off my bankruptcy debt, I have plenty. Enough that I can make small donations here and there. Here’s one cause I found: supporting foster children who were in college and now have no place to go. (Terrible visuals for the logo: it’s “Together We Rise.”)

Soon, the nights of below freezing temperatures will pass, and both Lesbians of Paisley will be healthy at the same time.  Perhaps I’ll get my Tricycle-for-Grownups serviced and toodle around for exercise. Perhaps the Stitch & Bitch knitting/crochet gatherings will resume, maybe in a park for physical distance and social connection.

And maybe I’ve already had Covid-19, and so has Valerie. Looks like 50-70% of all the people on the planet, not quite 8 billion humans so maybe 4 to 6 billion people, need to catch this thing in order to give our species herd immunity. Or WILL catch it because we have no way to stop it, only to slow the infections so that health care is not overwhelmed. We live and Love in the Time of Coronavirus, to paraphrase Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I maybe a libtard, a snowflake, a lily-livered liberal, who’s heart bleeds. But I agree with this sentiment, found on Facebook, our American ‘commons’:

Love absurdly and abundantly, my people. And wash your hands. 

[momtemplative]

MASKED.

1.

In a house with two young kids, our quickest sanity-stabilizer in this COVID era was to head outside and go for a walk, or a bike ride, or to roller skate. We’d pay close attention to the proximity of passers-by, but typically the grassy fields by the bike paths were an open canvas for the kids to blow off some steam. And we’d all return home a bit winded and slightly more stable. 

Then, a little more than two weeks ago, a strong recommendation came from Governor Polis for everyone to wear masks in public. But what, pray-tell, was “public” referring to? 

Here’s what the CDC endorsed: wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.

So that’s what we assumed Polis recommended as well. That night we even had a happy hour gathering with our neighbors, all at least 6-feet-away, but without masks. We didn’t feel like we were being sneaky or non-compliant, we were simply following the guidelines as we understood them. 

But then we started seeing people in their yards wearing masks, and on walks wearing masks— in addition to 6-feet! There was an eerie infiltration of mask-wearers, and, with that, the non-verbal communication of an abrupt change of protocol. Our sacred, oft-traveled, 1,000-step bike path that loops around the block started to feel unfamiliar, as if it were a movie set peppered with strangers, wearing homemade cloth curtains over their cheeks. 

We quickly felt like a minority out there with our bare faces.

2.

An afternoon walk was once a favorite time of day—quarantine or not. Quickly though, in light of the current mask situation, and before I began to wear one, my brain started to get stuck in a grinding pattern of managing everyone else’s whereabouts in accordance with my own. I noticed that I was judging those who were masked, at least in part because I was sure they were judging me. 

Their judgment and my judgment felt cut from the same cloth: judgement as a way of controlling the uncontrollable. There is so much confusion about protocols. So much fear of the radio broadcast of white noise and speculation that is to be our future. All these feelings get lumped together into just trying to do it right. I returned from one particular walk stiff as a board and deeply grumpy.

“Jesse,” I said, “I’m not going on a walk again without a mask.”

3.

I opted out of any domestic sewing of masks at first, and started with my old-lady cardigan tied around my face like a waist. I then upgraded to a bedazzled bandana that I bought to fill Opal’s Easter basket last year. I love the happy fabric, but it wouldn’t stay up over my nose for anything beyond the liquor drive-through (my singular biweekly errand). Store-bought masks are not an option. They’ve been back-ordered for weeks and if the stock is replenished, it needs to be saved for the blessed healthcare workers.

By the next weekend, Jesse and Opal wore masks that they made from a YouTube video, using mustard-yellow t-shirts and rubber bands, while on a bike ride. That ride turned out to be very brief because, according to Opal, it was so hard to breathe. 

4.

The solidarity and confidence that come from wearing a mask are helpful and significant, sure. But the act of wearing a mask changes the experience entirely. 

On a purely physical level, it muddles your peripheral vision, steams up your glasses, makes it hot and very hard to breathe. 

On a social-emotional level, the masks create a real separation between people. It feels similar to being at a costume party—even if the invite list includes most of your friends, everyone is suddenly anonymous. 

I walked behind two people (in masks) and a dog from a block away that I thought were my beloved next door neighbors. I even hollered at them. (They didn't hear me.) Then I got closer and realized it was a different dog and very much not my neighbors. It’s all very disorienting.  

5.

One week in, and Opal has taken Polis’s suggestion as gospel. Of course, I don’t blame her. Sometimes when we are out and about, so is the rest of the neighborhood. During those times, the mask feels safe and dare-I-say comforting. (Like we are good, complaint citizens. Go us.) But other times, there is nobody outside. I tell Opal, “Sweetie, we can keep our masks around our chins until we see someone (dozens of feet away!) and then put up our masks.” 

Opal’s reply: NOT A CHANCE.

I try to imagine what it would be like to experience all this at age ten. What other such details has her system become accustomed to over the last month? Zoom call playdates, online school, little sister around all-the-effing-time. Maybe some feelings come out sideways? Maybe everything seems overwhelming and busy even though very little is happening?

In the olden days, before COVID, any sort of outdoor trek was soul-nourishing for all of us. It ticks a lot of boxes: sunshine, fresh air, exercise for me and the dog and the kids, a brain reset. Now, masked, such an activity is beyond taxing. Ruth has no desire to keep her mask on and she’s a runner. We can bribe her with a lollipop to stay in the stroller, but the girth of the BOB, along with the leashed (80-pound) dog requires skill and intentional footing on an average day. Trying to juggle it all through a face-drape is the emotional equivalent of walking through tar. A guaranteed headache.

Returning to our backyard, with its creaky swingset and patchwork yard, and removing our masks (along with the associated invisible constraints) is beyond restorative.

“That’s the best part about a mask,” Opal said. “Taking it off and having the air taste so fresh and cold again.”

6.

On Sunday morning—a few days ago and two solid weeks into the mask-in-public rules of conduct—the kids were scattered on the floor watching Frozen while I folded laundry and Jesse tinkered away at the sewing machine. Project: to sew face-masks that fit each of us properly. It was a lovely scene of the times. I would imagine Norman Rockwell painting such an episode if he were alive during COVID. A family of four (plus cat, plus dog) in their natural weekend habitat. Slow to dress, sipping juice or coffee, and, sewing face masks.

“Ruth,” Jesse said, “Come on over here and try this on to see if it fits.” Ruth scurried over to him to try on her mask like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Later that day, I walked our dog wearing the mask Jesse so lovingly crafted for me (after three fittings). It was exquisite, hands-free, spacious around the mouth. He even used the sweetest yellow-petal, summer dress fabric. When I returned, I kissed him straight through the mask.

7.

In spite of a good fit, it still takes exponentially more effort to greet someone while masked—you have to yell or over-gesture to compensate for the fact that both of your faces are completely erased. Because we wear ours primarily outside, most people are in sunglasses with their masks. But if not, they are far enough away where eye-reading is not an option. It’s all a straight-up guessing game.

More often than not, for the sake of simplicity, it’s just me and the dog these days. Typically, I have my dog’s leash in my left hand, and a steamy bag of his shit in my right that gets carried for countless unpleasant blocks. This is due to the lack of public trash facilities on the neighborhood routes I find are easier to navigate within the guidelines of 6-feet-between. Bike paths are pretty tight if there isn’t open space to veer off on either side. And now I’ve got my mask on, and fogged-up sunglasses. The uniform is similar to that of someone on Halloween in a last-minute ghost-sheet costume, with just the eyes cut out, cobbling along with both hands full. This is not a “path is the journey” sort of moment. I’m lucky if I can twitch out a head-nod or an elbow-wave to a passer-by.

It feels important to counteract the separation that has become synonymous with health and life. But I’d be lying if I said I was able to muster a greeting every time.

8.

In our culture, masks (when not worn in a medical setting) often represent sinister actions—bandits or bank robbers or the KKK who want to hide defining features.

For many Asian countries, mask-wearing was a cultural norm even before the coronavirus outbreak. In East Asia, many people are used to wearing masks when they are sick or when it's hayfever season, because it's considered impolite to sneeze or cough in public.

The 2003 Sars virus outbreak, which affected several countries in the region, also drove home the importance of wearing masks, particularly in Hong Kong, where many died as a result of the virus. Says the BBC news: “One key difference between these societies and Western ones, is that they have experienced a contagion before—and the memories are still fresh and painful.”

I recently read a story about two black men who were wearing masks at Walmart—fully in compliance and trying to keep themselves safe—when they were accosted by police. It hit me like a whip how individualized each of us are experiencing this pandemic. I skoff at my mask because it’s a pain-in-the-ass. But I’ll never be faced with also having to weigh the risks of racial profiling.

Delving further, I read that to-mask-or-not-to-mask has become a way to take a political stance. Trump supporters carrying “My body, My choice” signs, with an illustration of a crossed-out mask—this is a common image to see in the media right now.

The Washington Post said: “Even as governors, mayors and the federal government urge or require Americans to wear masks in stores, transit systems and other public spaces to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, the nation is divided about whether to comply. And it is divided in painfully familiar ways — by politics and by attitudes about government power and individual choice.”

So, clearly, it is about so much more than just a mask.  

9.  

This just in. 

In a press conference that took place a few days ago, April 20th, Governor Jared Polis and state epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy outlined how life may change in Colorado as soon as next week, when “shelter-in-place” shifts to “safer-at-home.” They are essentially the same, just with a select few businesses opening with strict distancing rules and incremental shifts toward less physical distancing over all. Polis mentions nothing different about mask-wearing. Meaning, still wear them in public, especially if you can’t get 6-feet-between, especially if you’ve been exposed or have symptoms.

I noticed an immediate difference on my walk following his announcement. There was a family of four playing frisbee in an open space without masks! My initial feeling was wait, WTF? (And yes, I realize we are living in a strange state of affairs for my initial reaction to a beautiful family frolicking in a field to be contempt.) There was a man throwing a ball for his dog in a park that still had many visible CLOSED signs—also NO MASK. (Again, WTF??) I then gave a wide, grassy birth to a group of mask-free bike riders. 

I notice my mask feels more like a burden on my face without the unifying solidarity of everyone doing it. We all seem to be getting different memos.

There’s a huge relief that people are back to having faces, to be sure. I miss people. I love faces. But I have to admit that in spite of my hemming and hawing, I’d gotten used to feeling protected. It’s impossible to make sense of any of it. Even little Ruth came in yesterday and gave a tiny cough. “I’m sick,” she said, “Since I didn’t wear a mask today.” 

Circling back to the facts, the only thing worth grasping at right now, I am challenged to find any bit of news to suggest that our household need to be wearing masks while out on walks—under any level of regulation thus far. Neither Jesse nor myself are working outside of the house. We don’t visit with friends or family. (Big sigh.* We miss everyone terribly.) The odds of us being silent carriers are beyond slim. We are not immuno-compromised. So wearing masks these last few weeks—while still on socially distanced walks—could probably be categorized as an act of cultural alignment, an act of doing everything we can for the cause. 

As of right now, this moment, I do not see our mask-wearing as being impactful to our macro OR micro community. So, for the sake of preserving the sanity of our tiny culture for the long haul, I vote that we wear our beautifully-Jesse-crafted masks on our chins, like flattened feathers at the ready. 

“As it (the “safer-at-home” regulations) rolls off April 27, we need to figure out how to run the marathon now that we’ve run the sprint,” Governor Polis said in his most recent press conference. “I hate to break it to you, but the easy part was the sprint.”

[quitethepirategal]

Alphabet Headcanons!

List a headcanon that correlates with each letter of the English Alphabet. Can you list that many? It’s harder than it looks! Any tidbit of information counts, from the simplest fun fact to the lengthiest lore!

A - Red Jessica is an Aries. Her moon sign is Taurus and her rising is Leo. She’s also a cusp baby, giving her Pisces leanings.

B - She has quite a few books in her massive library, but her favorites are The Art of War, Anthony and Cleopatra, On the Origin of Species, The Prince, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Frankenstein, and Treasure Island. She reads more textbooks than anything else tho. She really wants to like Jane Austin but she just... can’t.  ( unrelated, I was trying to figure which Shakespeare play would be Jess’s fav and found this. Y’all I screamed. )

C - Cats are her favorite animal. Any kind of cat. The grace, the lore, the silliness, the toe beans; they’re majestic little idiots and she loves them. She has two of her own. Sasha and Rosie. Jessica’s loved cats since she first made friends with one as a very little girl and she remembers every cat she’s ever had or been friends with.  Her first cat was an alley cat that followed her around that she uncreatively named Katjie

D - Dutch Afrikaans and English are her native languages, she grew up speaking both. However, she hasn’t really needed to speak Afrikaans since her mother died, and is no longer fluent as a result. Her first word was “Ahoy” but her second word was “geld.”

E - Red Jessica has some ridiculous eating antics, as a result of living in starvation from birth to late childhood and living as a pirate from then on.  She can bite directly into onions and garlic cloves as if they were apples, will eat ( or save ) the bones and fat of any meaty meal, can eat an entire apple- core included, loves to eat or chew on citrus peels and raw herb leaves, has a somewhat high tolerance for both spicy things and alcohol, and, like all pirates, has learned to tolerate most rotten/stale/moldy/expired food.  On top of that, her pursuit in studying biology and botany crowns her as probably the ONLY person in all of the Neversea who knows what nutrition is and how it works. Also eating avocados make her ears itch.

F - One of Jessica’s signature mannerisms is putting her fists up by her face. When excited or overjoyed she’ll shake them and when shes shy she’ll kind of hide her smile with them. She rests her chin on her fists, holds them still by her jaw when waiting in suspense, and its immediately where her fists fly to when startled or snuck up on ( with the exception of when shes armed, to which her hands fly to her hilt or holster ).  This mannerism makes complete and total sense considering shes a trained kick boxer.

G - Gardening is her absolute favorite stress reliever and you can pry it from her cold dead hands. Just bury your problems in the dirt my dude.

H - Her curly ginger hair is certainly one of the first things you notice about her and she takes very good care of it; a wash every two days, plenty of oils, vinegar once a week for dandruff. Her curl type is 3a.

I - Red Jessica is a closeted artist and frequently engages in illustration, and while this mostly comes in handy for taking illustrative botanical notes, her other favorite subject is the human figure. Specifically, the human figure of people she finds attractive or has a crush on.  And if you ask she’d be happy to try and draw you! Though she isn’t what you would call amazing she is somewhat talented- with her drawings having very technical, anatomical, and minimalist influences. She also like to sketch pastoral scenes when out in her fields.

J - Jessica was a name her father picked out, naming her after his first love.

K - She remembers her first kill. At 13 she was involved in a skirmish and lunged at a man out from under a table with a rapier. She remembers the exact look on his face, and recalls it with pride. First kill is a right of passage to pirates.

L - Jessica’s love language is all over the place, but can be narrowed down to gifts, words, and quality time. Arrogant suitors, take note because Jess will literally never shut up about you; she will brag about you, remind you of your achievements, praise you for your talents, be proud of you, will show you off, insist to EVERYBODY that you’re the best, and in some cases, spoil you.  This goes for friends too, of course but this all goes especially for whoever she has a crush on or is courting her. She JUST!! LOVES STROKING PEOPLE’S EGOS!! Speaking of spoiling, she’s a total gift giver.  No reason or occasion needed whatsoever; she is the QUEEN of  “ I was thinking of you so I got you a little something.”

M - Jessica is really really weird when it comes to materialism.  At a first glance, shes as avaricious as they come. She hoards beauty in the form of an art collection that graces her fine chateau’s halls and eminence gardens of gorgeous flowers.  She is a little crazy about treasure too, never missing an opportunity to treasure hunt, and has been known to loan-shark a time or two.  But in actuality, as made apparent through getting to know her, she isn’t really greedy or possessive at all.  Yes she loves pretty things and yes she is great at making money but believe me when I say that she is in the treasure hunt for the hunt more so than for the treasure.  Were she somehow to loose it all, money, island, treasure, everything, she’d be more concerned that whoever took her priceless art won’t take care of it.  In the best laid plans of mice and men, Jess is totally a mouse.  She’s lived the majority of her life owning nothing but the clothes she had on so, she’d just cut her losses and start over… come to think of it being wealthy is a bit boring…

N - Jessica has never been to Neverland. In my canon, only one pirate ( Hook ) was brave enough to ever set foot on that cursed island. Red Jessica, like the rest of the neverpirates, are too afraid. Most heard tales of an unbeatable foe and that the island itself is watching you, and that’s enough to keep Jessica away.

O - Oranges are her all time favorite food. She’ll eat anything with orange in it. Second favorite is crab or lobster. Third is pineapple chili sauce.

P - Her Myers-Briggs personality type is ESTP- a, the Entrepreneur.

Q - Jessica was Dread Pirate Grace O’Malley’s quartermaster. There are 9 Dread Pirates in the Neversea, each one being a legendary pirate of old, and they have the power to grant only the most talented pirates among them recognized captainship.

R - Red Jessica is is short for Red Handed Jessica for no reason other than I am Peter Pan ( 2003 ) trash.

S - Red Jessica’s crew is a sisterhood of sorts. While she is authoritarian and a captain to be feared, Jessica is friends with everybody in her crew and trusts them with her life. Her ship, The Rose, is practically a floating sorority; complete with weird traditions, gossip, gag rivalries, inside jokes, hazing, and the occasional prank. She even aids in getting them dates ( pro wingman right here ) and babysits some of their kids. Granted, they haven’t done much sailing or piracy in some time. But they all live comfortable lives on Crimson Isle, and they’ll be ready to sail should the need arise.

T - Jessica tends to trust people a tad too quickly and “give too much away” so to speak. It’s gotten her into trouble and even gotten her heart broken a time or two; but for some reason she never learns. She’d like to think she’s great at keeping secrets and to a degree, she is… but I wouldn’t trust her with any of mine- that I will say.

U - Oppenheimer, a pirate in the crew of the Flying Frigate ( in the movie the Pirate Fairy ) is her uncle.

V - Jess finds that she spends most of her days in her vineyard. She’s perfected the growing of grapes and timely shipments of wine, but now shes tinkering with how different aspects of growth effect flavor.

W - Jessica, whether she’s aware or not, is capable of being attracted to women. But she’s never really had any female partners. She’s not homophobic and wasn’t raised in an environment that was homophobic ( pirates pretty much love and sleep with whoever they want to ) it’s just ...never occurred to her to date women. Most of the reasons as to why are subconscious maternal issues but in short, Jess already has difficulty separating different kinds of love. Friendship and romantic love kinda... feel the same. She really only knows how to love one way and she can never tell if a woman is being friendly or flirty, much less if SHE’S being friendly or flirty. For this reason I’ve always labeled her as a questioning bisexual or a heteroflexible...

X - Her most recent botanical experiments revolve around xenogamy, also known as cross pollination. And just to flex, she’s also a huge xenophile for both Spanish and Chinese culture.

Y - Yellow is her second favorite color after red. Pink is her third and emerald green is her forth.

Z - In Jake and the Neverland Pirates, we see a type of rose called a Zebra Rose. While no such flower exists in actuality, I’d like to believe this is a result of some of Jess’s experiments - the medicinal purpose being to combat itching and irritation. 

Tagged By  -  nobody

Tagging  - @emcads @shiningsilverarmor @ofrcvenge @hunterhuntcd @youthflight @rcinbowconnection @jesterabandoned @inhxrmony @captainxhaddock @forvistxkonge @mcnsieur and you!!!

[fyrapartnersearch]

Send Help: Addicted to Roleplay and Chipotle

Greetings from Earth! First time poster to this blog and stoked to meet some new partners. My name is Chris and I'm a male nurse (Yo, you're going to get some medically accurate roleplay) in his late twenties. I have a lovely wife and two stupidly handsome animals (Pictures of the animals available on request) but manage to maintain a pretty active roleplay life due to the fact that I work nights. The Basics: I tell everyone that I'm a professional. I try to reply 1-3 times a week and the length of posts depends on amount of characters in play. If I'm going to take longer, I always try to let you know. I'm willing to write male and female characters and focus on M/F as the male and F/F. M/M just isn't my thing, sorry y'all. My limits include pedophilia, rape, and animal abuse. Anything else can be discussed. I prefer e-mail for writing (Chrisx104@gmail.com) but have Discord for plotting (NurseBatman#3674). If we get along really well, you can convince me into discord roleplay. The text limit just drives me nuts. I do use faceclaims pretty aggressively. Is there anything else? Central time zone?

Onto the roleplay stuff. I'll start with originals and then dive into fandoms. I put extra *s by the lines that I will literally lose my mind if you approach me about. Searching hard! -The Social Media Age****** A m/f line that I've given a little thought to, looking for someone to write a young woman that is pretty much making her living being an instagram model/fitness person, etc. I think the proper term is *Influencer*. Meets and starts dating a successful guy with no presence online, the two falling for each other but at odds over their differing attitudes towards the world. -This American Life Something set in the 1970s, focusing on a roadtrip. A group of teenagers leave their small town behind to head out west. I love this time period. Can be supernatural, supernatural lite (think Twin Peaks weirdness) or totally natural. -Stranger Things inspired A group of four to six friends enjoy their last summer together in a remote town as strangeness begins to unfurl. I'd be willing to set this in the present but think it would be way more fun in the 70s or 80s. I have an idea for one of the kids having lost a sibling in a strange way when they were young and possibly some sort of cult in town.

Fandoms!

-Star Wars**

I know Reylo is all the rage these days, as is Qi'Ra/Han. But, man ALIVE, I really want something focusing on the core four: Luke, Leia, Han, and, ya boy, Chewie. Something taking place in that three year gap between New Hope and Empire as they work among the rebellion. Strange new worlds, getting into scrapes, sharply running from the empire, avoiding Vader, bounty hunters, and all sorts of things. This time period is far from explored and we can really thrive in the galaxy. Primarily I want to focus on the budding relationship between Han and Leia and Luke's training, pre-Yoda. In a perfect world, I'd want to write Han and Chewie (If anyone thinks Chewie is just a NPC, get out my face) while my partner takes on Leia and Luke. I'd be willing to switch out Chewie for Luke if need be, I guess? We could also split up C3PO and R2. I also would enjoy writing a young Amilyn Holdo and a few other soldiers. Let's real build out the resistance and delve into the 'WARS' part of those big yellow letters that never get enough attention. On top of all of that, I also have an original love interest in mind for Luke if someone else plays him! She's a spitfire. Alternatively, I'd be down for writing something set in the clone wars. Perhaps two jedi that broke the order's relationship laws and then survived Order 66 together? -Preacher Seriously. Love this show, love this comic. Would happily write Jesse or Cassidy against Tulip. Just definitely looking for a Tulip -The Boys Would love to write Hughie against Starlight! Currently working my way through the season that just dropped. -Marvel -I will love you forever if you write an Elektra against my Daredevil. They are toxic and in love and I love it. Whether it be the comics or the Netflix series, I don't care. Someone please write me an Elektra. Netflix did a good job of portraying this one -Alternatively, I'd also be happy to write against a Black Widow, either with Daredevil. They were a mainstay OTP in the comics in the 90s and I'd love to write against Scarlet's Black Widow. -Has anyone seen the trailer for the neverendingly delayed New Mutants movie? I would love to write something based on that horror aspect of the mutant universe.* -I'd love to write an older MCU Peter Parker (like college) running across a MCU version of Black Cat. Or just a Spiderman roleplay in general. I've always wanted to write Peter but have never gotten the chance! I have a ton of ideas for this, plus faceclaims for a few of the villains. Would also be willing to play him against Zendaya's MJ, Spidergwen, or Silk (Deepcut)**************************** (I so badly want to write Peter) -One of the pairings that was done for a time in the comics was Star Lord against Kitty Pryde and it was actually a lot of fun. If anyone would want to do a MCU version of this, I would so *DOWN* to play Quill, Xmen hijinks a plenty in space -If you write Jessica Jones, I'd be willing to write almost anyone against her (NOT KILGRAVE). Just let me know. I'd be super down to write Luke Cage or maybe Matt Murdock. I do a mean John Constantine, which, let's face it, is a cross company illustration of the two most terrible people together -Hawkguys! I would love to either write Clint against Kate Bishop (This would be a slightly skewed MCU vibe) or Kate against America Chavez. I would really love to do either of these lines. Or a poly version if someone is willing! -I'd love to write Logan as an active member of the MCU Avengers, possibly as a partner in crime/wetworks/murder with Black Widow. Those two could cause some mayhem. -Honestly, any X-men relationship could be sold to me. Just try it. I would love to find a Kitty for Piotr, a Rogue for Remy, or almost anyone for Kurt.

-DC I'd love to write Batman against Catwoman, please. Or John Constantine against literally almost anyone -Hannibal I've been dying to do a sort of season 4 for a while now, focused on Clarice Starlings interaction with Will Graham and later Hannibal Lecter. Just need to find someone willing to create an original style Clarice. -Resident Evil I'd like to write Leon against Claire Redfield or Jill Valentine in an original outbreak or a new one. I know this is an old school fandom but I'm a diehard fan. -Star Trek Okay, so first up, I am not the most well versed Trekkie in the world. Never watched any of the TV shows but am a massive fan of the trio of rebooted films and would love to give Kirk or Bones a try against Uhura, Dr. Eve, or maybe a female Vulcan OC? Hit me with ideas! -The Matrix Another obscure fandom. Maybe just an original crew, set during the movies, after, or an AU where they're the only survivors of Zion? Im not sure but I could plot something out!

-Uncharted I'd love to write Chloe Frazier against Nadine Ross, continuing their adventures. I'm pretty wide open on what we can do with this one. RANDOM CRACK SHIPS! Caught in a Web: I would love to write an iteration (Daniel Craig or an original) of James Bond/007 against a non superhero version of Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow. Spy vs spy shenanigans as two people working for different governments. Totally impossibly but putting it just in case: Did anyone see all that Wonder Woman/Lara Croft art that was floating around the internet earlier this year? I would love to dive into that. I'd prefer to write Lara but I'm definitely not picky. If you made it this far, you're a hero and I owe you a beer. Hope to hear from some great writers! Let's create something *EPIC*

[pbandjesse]

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. I really really enjoyed my day off. I hope most of you have the day off too. I hope you didn't have to go work somewhere. And if you did I hope that it wasn't too hard.

I really just tried to take as much advantage of today as I could without feeling guilty. That is something I find very very difficult nowadays. My schedule so I don't even hang out where I can take hours and hours to do nothing and not feel bad about it because I have enough hours and getting enough work that I don't have to really worry as much but it's still very hard for me to turn that fear off in my brain. I let myself sleep in really late. I woke up around 10 I just kind of laid in bed for a while. When I did get up I didn't actually get out of bed. I did go feed sweet pea and had some cookies for breakfast but I really just got back in bed. For about an hour until I finish scrolling all the way through Tumblr from last night. And I did feel guilty but I was trying really hard just to have a relaxing morning.

At noon I finally got up. I dyed my hair. It is very green. And I took a long bath. Did a face mask. Shaved my legs for the first time in 2 months. I watched a whole bunch of YouTube while I was in there. And when I got out I went upstairs and took a shower. Washed all the dye out of my hair. I felt a lot better afterwards.

After I got dressed I worked in my studio for a while. I'm almost completely done my diorama for this week. I think it'll be done tomorrow morning I just had to wait for some paint to dry before I could attached a few pieces. But I'm very happy with it. I can't believe the project is going to be over. I mean the diorama making part. The book and the frame for it still need to be made but I'm still really happy. And because of that I rode that wave and took the energy I still had and worked on our next project.

I started on nine different illustrations. We decided to go with wreaths instead of bouquets because I love things in a circle. And besides the first two that we've already figured out just sent me a couple more prompts and I expanded on them. So besides just having the friend zone, and the wish you were dead. We also have one that says so it turns out I'm gay. And one that says I slept with your brother. I sketched out the first two that we had already figured out. I edited down and decided that 7 is going to be the max number of flowers for now. More than that it just seems to get a little jumbled. And it gives me a good editing point. I spent the next couple hours researching and finding definitions. I found a really good website that has like excellent organization and definitions of flowers. So I'm primarily going to be using that one and I'm really happy about the phrases that I've chosen so far. There's a couple that I'm having a little issues with because of the specific word choices I'm using. Like the one where I said that I've slept with your brother I can't find a flower to represent brother. So I'm using a rivalry and affection. I'm hoping that you still got the idea around it. this is really going to be a very text Heavy project. which is where Jess is going to be tackling a lot of this with her hand lettering and typography. I'm excited to see what she comes up with for the best way to explain each piece. When I'm thinking is the illustration with the phrase in the center and then On The Backs the list of the flowers and their definitions. I also think that leads to us being able to do something that is a digital print or a Textile print where we could still do tote bags. Because I think this project is going to be much more monetizable. And I really want to be able to have all of those venues to work around. I think this is going to be a very fun project though.

I finally stopped working around 3:30. I came up here and heated up the leftover stuffing and mashed potatoes that we made the other night. And they came out really good. So I was very happy. It's not as warm up in my living room as it isn't my studio so it wasn't as comfortable for a little while. But I manage to cover the windows and that was enough to settle the heat out in here. I spent some time in the living room with sweet pea. He's been very very affectionate last couple days. And just wants to sit on my lap constantly. He's a very good cat. I eventually moved to my bedroom. I've been watching a lot of history and stuff online and just enjoying my day. Eventually I laid down. I slept for like an hour. And I came back to the living room hang out with my cat. I'm glad I got that nap. And I think I'm going to go and organize my sweaters and get ready for bed. I don't have to work tomorrow. And I don't have to work the next day. Tomorrow I'm looking forward to working on more art. And maybe baking something. But really I just want to have another day where I don't have to do anything and no one expects anything of me. James is coming back from Massachusetts so I'll probably spend the night at his place and we'll celebrate the first day of Christmas together. The countdown begins.

Stay safe tonight everyone. Keep warm.

[diyanimationshow]

Season Break - Thank You Denver! DPCC 2019 Wrap-Up  ::  SB #6

Our DPCC 2019 Booth!

Hello, old and new DIY-ers!  We are back from Denver Pop Culture Con!!

Now that both of us have finished our travels, we’re getting back into the swing of our usual schedules.  We’re a little bit later posting this blog than we intended (jet lag is crazy), and so have had some good time to reflect on the amazingness that was DPCC.

We were lucky enough to table in the Artist Valley with some of our favorite artists, promoting The DIY Animation Show, meeting new friends and regular listeners (hey guys!), and selling DIYA merch (which you can find later in the post) and Jess’ art. It was super fun times, and we’ve gathered some of our fave highlights from the experience below!

Highlights!

Good times with fans and cosplayers who bought Jess' art and a Follow Your Heart print 

Jess I’ve tabled at DPCC for a couple of years now, and it’s easily one of my  favorite conventions.  Between the gorgeous views of the mountains in  Denver, the lively atmosphere of the crowd, and the all-around positive  vibe of the show, I can’t get enough!  One of my favorite things each year is catching up with people I’ve  meet from previous years and meeting new ones, whether they’re fans,  booth buddies, volunteers… the list goes on.  Everyone is always so nice  and welcoming, and I believe they represent the best of what the pop  culture crowd has to give. Other highlights for me include spending quality time with friends and family that traveled with us, seeing Amanda Palmer in concert for the first  time (mind-blowing!!), and finding a super cool Saitama action-figure  from One Punch Man.  Good times all around! 

Lauren found her new vocation in a friend's Iden Versio helmet

Lauren Colorado is even more beautiful than I’d expected; for a long time I’d had a distant hope of maybe - just maybe - seeing those mountains one day.  So wandering around Garden of the Gods was a dream come true.  Never have I seen anything so sublime. Add to that a weekend of DPCC’s excellence and radness, meeting new listeners… and somehow having a knack for missing you regulars (Every. Single. Time. XD I’m so sorry!); there was so much good art and such a joy of expression, it really gave me a kick start in my own creative hopes and plans!  Got the chance to attend Cary Elwes’ spotlight and discover just how hilarious he is, as well as deepen my love for astronomy and space with NASA’s roster of talks. And finally - the cosplay.  This was my first time experiencing cosplay on such a scale, and boy, was it ON POINT.  I saw Henry Jones Sr., Mermista and Katra, and - perhaps the cherry on the cake - got to try on a new friend’s replica Iden Versio helmet.  I have found my new calling.  501st / Rebel / Mandalorian Legions… sign me up for all of them.

Overwatch cosplayers showing how it's done.  Thanks friend Keith for the photo.

Shout-Outs!

We met so many wonderful people at DPCC, here are just a few we thought you'd like, too.

Will Terry children's book illustrator, teacher, & podcaster Website | Podcast I’ve been following Will Terry’s YouTube channel and podcast for a few years now, and he and his co-hosts always deliver great advice, whether you’re an illustrator, animator… you name it.  We were able to catch up as the show was coming to a close, and it was just really great to see him!  

AJ Nazzaro illustrator & character designer Website | Instagram A good friend from the early days of The Oatley Academy, it was so fun to catch up and see just how AJ’s hard work and indomitable spirit is paying off.  Now illustrating for the likes of Blizzard and Overwatch, and trying his hand at a little animation now and again, AJ is nailing it.

Ajay Young comic artist & illustrator Website | Instagram If you’re in need of a good “potentially offensive” laugh and a super-awesome human to hang with, Ajay is another fellow Oatley Academy artist from years past.  He and his wife are always a pleasure to catch up with at the show and see what new things they have in store. (“Mustache Duckstache” is a personal fave!)

Savvy Jensen illustrator Instagram Savvy’s art keeps growing more out-of-control in its awesomeness!  Another fellow OA-er, Savvy and her tenacious spirit are always pushing the boundaries of her painting skills (those colors though!!), and it was fantastic catching up with her.  Dude is rocking it.

Andrew Thompson illustrator Website | Instagram One of those happy con-connections, we got chatting and instantly clicked!  Andrew’s art is super rad, bursting with acid pop colours and insanely energetic, filled with battles and hope.  Can't wait to see what more he creates!

Booth Buddies! Last, but not least, we were so fortunate to have such excellent booth buddies this year!  Fantastic art and wonderful humans: Erin Powers-Kim, AKA Lociro illustrator & webcomic creator Twitter | Instagram Erin's razor sharp wit coupled with her coffee cats and fun art kept our spirits buoyed all weekend.  Thanks Erin! Sean Callahan & Alex Kmeto colourist & illustrator Sean's Website | Twitter | Alex's Website | Instagram (Some work NSFW) Along with their friends Martin, Hallam and Jason, this bunch made for a motley and hilarious crew - great art, lots of laughs, and a plethora of high-five techniques.  Thanks guys!

The 'Follow Your Heart' print started out as a gif!

Merch!

We have a few ‘Follow Your Heart’ prints and sticker sheets left in stock for those who couldn’t make it to the show and want a piece of DIYA!  You’ll find them over on Jess’ etsy store, in the DIYA section.

The package includes a signed and inscribed Follow Your Heart print, measuring 8x8” on matte 80lb cardstock, and a mini-sticker sheet of 6 unique designs.  There’s only a few in stock, so grab them while you can!

Our DPCC Take-Aways!

Jess: My take-away, and honestly I’m reminded of it with each show, is that you and your art will touch people in ways you can’t fully grasp. Making the choice to show up and put yourself out there, whether to sell art, to promote a show, to talk to the people there, can lead to joy, new friends, and so much more.  It’s always worth it.

Lauren: My biggest take-away from DPCC is that there’s so many different types of art, and so much out there to capture, so let’s make the art our heart desires!  I’m so excited to play with my art, grow with it, and love it :D

Smiles and Satisfaction

And with that, Denver Pop Culture Con 2019 has come to a satisfying close!

We can’t tell you just how excited we are for the future of DIYA - we’ve had a taste of that Con Life, and we want moooore!!!  It was incredible meeting everyone, and we’re looking forward to doing more shows in the future, getting more content to you all, and seeing just how far DIYA can go.  Thank you all for your continued support!  We appreciate you.

In the meantime, stay on the lookout for more blog posts this Season Break, and especially stay tuned for the upcoming Season 4 of DIYA!

Catch ya next time, and remember… Follow your heart, and have fun animating! <3 Jess & Lauren

DIYA Instagram | DIYA Twitter | DIYA Facebook | DIYA Ko-Fi Jess | Lauren Thank you Azureflux for our awesome music!

[nitewrighter]

Of Blades and Broomsticks Pt. XV

I have no excuse. Have some Widowmaker in a Lestat cosplay.

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14

Read it on AO3 here.

----

“Seek me if you have the sight.”

“Meet me at the city gates if you’re in.”

“What’s out there?”

The inscription on the cell, the words of the self-proclaimed hunter, and Pharah’s own hunger for answers rang in her head all night, round and round, swapping off with each heartbeat in her ear. Thankfully the continuous exhaustion from trying to cobble Adlersbrunn together kept her from tossing and turning, but she remembered the witch hunter Gabriel in her dreams.

You wish to help me you will be walking a gray and dangerous path. Dogs guard flocks of sheep from wolves, but all dogs were wolves once.

If there is evil in our midst, to treat it with indifference is to enable its existence.

Pharah woke in the dark pre-dawn hours with a sour hunger in her bones. She looked around her bare room, then looked to her window. The moon was shining brightly that night, but the smoke staining the glass rendered it brownish yellow. Pharah wondered if the scent of smoke--not the smoke of a blacksmith forge, but the searing, sometimes sulfurous smoke of magic---would ever leave Adlersbrunn. 

Still so much work to do... It would be very easy, she thought, To let him leave. To keep working on rebuilding the town here. To hope vagabonds like him are enough to keep whatever’s lurking out in the shadows at bay.

She furrowed her brow and looked to the adder stone she kept on her bedside table. No. She wouldn’t leave it like this. And she certainly wasn’t going to leave this situation in the hands of an excommunicated rogue. She rose to her feet, cleaned herself in her washbasin, put on her cleanest, strongest armor, and scrawled out a missive for her fellow guards, establishing the new chain of command in her absence. She sealed the missive with wax and set it on her table in the chamber of the captain of the guards. She wrote another, shorter, more sentimental letter for Torbjörn as well, and left that one on the desk of the castle’s man-at-arms. She packed a few days of supplies for herself and her horse, then mounted a bay rouncey and rode for the city gates.

True to his word, Jehoshaphat Maccrea of Helsing was waiting by the city gates in the mists of the following dawn. She didn’t like the smirk he gave her.

“I like you,” he said as they rode out of Adlersbrunn, leaving the stone of the city walls behind them and heading out into the surrounding farmland.

“And how did you decide that?” said Pharah.

“I like to think everyone’s got that hunger, that curiosity--it’d be too easy to lie down and let death take you otherwise, but few really follow it through to the end,” said Jesse.

“Would you still like me if I had chosen to stay behind?”

“Well I’d respect you, gotta respect anyone who protects their own, but it wouldn’t really matter if I liked you, would it? I’d be long gone.”

Pharah frowned a little, “I suppose so,” she said, looking off.

“I think it makes things more pleasant to like one’s traveling companion, don’t you?”

“I don’t have to like you,” said Pharah.

“It’d make things nicer if you did,” said Jesse with an easy smile.

“I wouldn’t be riding with an excommunicated scoundrel unless it meant making sure what happened to my city never happens again,” said Pharah.

“Scoundrel?” Jesse repeated.

“Yes, scoundrel. It sort of comes with the whole ‘excommunicated’ thing,” said Pharah.

“That is exactly the kind of black and white thinking that’s gonna get you killed out there,” said Jesse.

“I thought you said you’d probably die if you didn’t have me backing you up?” said Pharah.

“I probably would,” Jesse conceded. 

“That’s morbid,” said Pharah as they rode past a pumpkin patch. She wondered if it was the one they found the blood in.

“Didn’t you say you wanted me to be as honest as I can with you?” said Jesse.

Pharah furrowed her brow and readjusted herself in her saddle.

“This is why I don’t have to like you,” said Pharah, looking straight forward as they rode.

“That’s why I like you,” said Jesse with a smirk. She didn’t like that smirk.

-----

Mercy woke the morning after the banquet in a haze of half-sleep. The moans coming from the courtyard of the monastery from the cultists’ revelries lasted into the gray light of dawn. She did her best to try and push what was going on to the back of her consciousness, to treat it like the night birds of the woods or the wind blowing through the trees, but she knew the forests of Adlersbrunn were far behind her now. 

She rose up to a seated position in bed and looked out her window. A part of her was regretting leaving such a remote sanctuary as this, especially with so much still to learn from its library, but at the same time, the previous night had confirmed her feelings that she didn’t really have a place here. The monastery had the feel of a swirling vortex, like the dark portals Zenyatta could summon--and the flame of creation within her thrashed against that void like a wild bird caged. She washed and dressed herself, then proceeded to the library of the monastery for one last look through for anything that might help her better understand the Flame of Creation--a long shot, in a temple to the void, but a shot worth making all the same.

Her perusing though the shelves of the library was half-distracted by her own plans for the journey. She knew she and Genji had agreed to go west, and the Monastery sat on some grim black sea cliffs that.. treacherous as they were, would at least provide a decent amount of visual reference of the area for them to make significant headway in their journey--easier than wandering through the woods, at least. She decided would swing by the refectory for some supplies for their journey when she next met up with Genji. She wondered if he would want human food of if he would prefer to take the form of a sparrowhawk and just swoop up whatever unfortunate creature he could for convenience’s sake. He was certainly strong enough to help carry some supplies--no, no, he was her protector, not her porter. She would carry her pack for herself.

 She was distractedly looking at the illustration in some text of what was supposedly erotic Enochian poetry but just looked like a mass of wings and eyes and circles when Junkenstein suddenly stumbled, swaying as he brought himself to his full height.

Oh that’s right, she thought, with a brief beat of ‘Oh gods, what’s going to happen,’ He was at the banquet too.

“Hoo!” Junkenstein stretched his arms above his head, “What a night!”

Mercy bit the inside of her lip and smiled a little as he walked over. A bit relieved that this was another instance in which she could trust Junkenstein to be Junkenstein.

“You enjoyed the banquet?” said Mercy, glancing up.

“Well that was... anthropologically fascinating. Not a religious man myself but... I understand the appeal.”

Mercy just grinned. “How did they take to your creation?” she asked, tilting her head.

“Oh they like him. I got so much data on his...” Junkenstein cleared his throat, “Social capabilities.”

“Really?” said Mercy.

“Well they aren’t picky about tentacles, so I imagine there’s not a whole lot they are picky about,” said Junkenstein, “And if he has the approval of old Squidface, they’re all over him.”

“Well that’s good,” said Mercy, “I do worry about him... I suppose I worry about all of us having a place in this world...”

“I had to shovel some of them off of him this morning,” said Junkenstein, “Tragically he rolled over on one but, y’know with all the stabbing they do, they don’t get all that upset about that sort of stuff.”

“You still want to leave with us?” said Mercy.

“I told you, you wouldn’t last a second without us,” said Junkenstein, smiling, “Just... don’t mind me if I’m walking funny for the next few days. Well.. funnier than usual.” Junkenstein paused, “You and the demon took off soon as the meal was over, didn’t you?” 

“Well after all the excitement back in Adlersbrunn, I didn’t really have the energy for all that revelry,” said Mercy.

“Right, and you certainly weren’t sneaking off for some moments of privacy with the demon you keep insisting to me that you can’t trust.” 

“He was just making sure I made it back safely to my chambers,” said Mercy, folding her arms.

“Suuuuuure,” said Junkenstein with a wink.

“He was!” said Mercy.

“Nothing happened, I mean--I was covering my face and he kissed my knuckles but that was it. We went to bed---or I went to bed and he... I don’t know. He just flies off at night sometimes. Maybe he turned into a wolf and ate some rabbits or something.”

“You’re joking,” said Junkenstein.

“Look, my cat broke a tea leaf pot, we worked out a deal, he held up his end of the deal, and I spat some blood into his mouth so he wouldn’t die, that doesn’t mean we’re soulmates--” 

“Conveniently leaving out the dramatic rescue (with help from yours truly, of course), riding him in dragon form out of the city---”

“Sprouting wings...” Mercy admitted.

“Sprouting wings!” Junkenstein pointed an accusing finger at her, “Not to mention all the dancing by the light of the cultist fires---”

“What is your point, Jamison?” 

“You’re in deep, Gramercy. I know you. You make a point of not getting in deep with anyone, and as your friend I think I have a responsibility to let you know when you are a lot more emotionally involved with someone than you’re telling yourself you are---especially when, as you said, we may have broken something, we may be kicking off something big that none of us has any control over. And I think we should all be on the same page if we’re going to be traveling together---”

He was cut off by the sound of the door opening, not with the usual grunting of whoever was pushing it open. Both Mercy and Junkenstein looked up to see Zenyatta at the doorway of the library. He hadn’t even pushed on the door, but it had opened for him. Perhaps the stone of this monastery obeyed him just as loyally as any of the cultists.

“Witch,” Zenyatta spoke to Mercy, the tentacles of his face slowly shifting with thought, “A word?”

Mercy looked at Junkenstein.

“Don’t let me hold you up,” said Junkenstein with a shrug, “I’ll keep making the preparations.”

Mercy nodded and walked out of the library.

-----

“So you and Genji are departing?” said Zenyatta as they walked on the cliffs outside the monastery, the white waves and green brackish water crashing on the black rocks below.

“With your permission, of course,” said Mercy, “Genji is my protector, but he was your student before that. I would hate to undermine that. And it is nice to have a place to stay where I’m not too worried of being burned at the stake. But seeing as I am not a cultist myself I don’t want to impose too much on your hospitality.”

“You have my permission--” said Zenyatta, “There are few places you or Genji could travel in this plane that I wouldn’t know where you were.”

 A long pause passed between them.

“Was there something in particular you wished to discuss?” asked Mercy.

“Earlier this morning I asked Genji a few questions about the nature of your relationship---what his plans for the future were. He stated that, as payment for his protection, you would give him your first-born.”

“...That was our deal, yes,” said Mercy, pausing to pick some samphire from a cleft in one of the black rocks.

“And are you aware that I have known the Goddess Satya for longer than mankind has walked the earth? And you can assume, thusly, that I was there when we both gathered our first worshippers?”

“I... I can assume that, yes,” said Mercy.

“And as such I am aware of both the abilities and the physical limitations of those who bear Satya’s flame of creation,” said Zenyatta. His voice deepened and suddenly seemed to surge around her like water , “No seed of man can flourish in a field of fire.”

Another long pause passed before Mercy drew herself to her full height.

“Have you told Genji?” she asked calmly.

“That you cannot give him a first-born? No. No, I haven’t,” said Zenyatta, looking out to the ocean, “I am his teacher, but I find some of the hardest lessons are the ones he must learn on his own. I suggest you break the news to him. Do it on your own terms while you still can.”

“I will,” said Mercy.

“Will you?” Zenyatta’s tentacles tensed.

“The only reason I lied in the first place was because--well, I suppose since he was a demon, I assumed he wouldn’t keep his word, so there was no more harm in me not keeping mine. But he saved my life, he protected me, true to his word. So I will tell him,” she bit the inside of her lip, “When the time’s right.”

“Do you fear his wrath?” said Zenyatta.

“I don’t know,” said Mercy, “He’s always going on about how dangerous he is, and his swift and mighty sword but...” Mercy huffed, “I think I fear hurting him, more--but---that’s silly, isn’t it? I mean, isn’t it more horrible of him to want a newborn baby? He’s probably going to--to-eat it or something, isn’t he?”

“He wouldn’t eat it,” said Zenyatta.

“You know why he wants one?” said Mercy.

“I do,” said Zenyatta.

 “You must tell me what for!” said Mercy.

“That is for him to tell you,” said Zenyatta, “Just as this is for you to tell him.”

“For an all-knowing god, that isn’t very helpful,” said Mercy, folding her arms.

“As is the case with most gods, ‘All-knowing’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘helpful,’” said Zenyatta.

Mercy heard a screech and turned her head to see a handsome silvery skua diving amongst the waves. It wheeled in the white foam, then seemed to catch sight of them and swoop toward them with a cry. The skua swept in overhead, turned in a somersault, and then shape-shifted into a scarred man in black and purple cultist robes, landing lightly on his feet.

“I was wondering where you two were!” said Genji, stretching his arms above his head. “I’ve missed the brisk sea air of your monastery, Master, it saddens me to leave it. But the world calls me--does it not call you, Witch?”

“There is a lot to learn out there,” said Mercy.

“If you have a journey, you have a journey,” said Zenyatta, putting a hand on his shoulder, “You will always have a place here.”

“Thank you, Master,” said Genji, before smiling and looking at Mercy, “And what of you, Witch? Are you ready to leave as well?”

Mercy tucked her hair back and found she was gripping the samphire she had plucked with white knuckles, “I--yes--yes I am,” she said, looking up at Genji.

----

“Remind me again, the point of this,” said Gabriel as he and Moira stood in an ornate septagonal chamber. The chamber had six mirrors, one on each wall, with the exception of the wall containing the door they had just walked through to enter.

“You now walk a line between two worlds, Gabriel,” said Moira, walking to the mirror closest to them, “If we are to free you from the witch’s magic, we will need the help of others who walk that same line.”

Gabriel would have frowned if his pumpkin head was capable of any other expression.

“We’re bringing more demons into this?” said Gabriel, “More damned?”

“If the flame of creation is ignited and spreading in the mortal world, then war is coming. A war between the seen and unseen. We will need allies,” said Moira.

“I was already fighting that war,” said Gabriel.

“You were a child digging a line in a sand to catch the waves washing in amongst his ankles. The tide is coming in now,” said Moira, putting a hand to the glass, “I doubt your god is on your side now, so you will have to make do with me.”

The glass seemed to shift and melt under her touch, their reflections dissolving into darkness and mist. Moira held out her other hand to him and he took it, and they both took a few brisk steps through. There was a sound like the last bits of water in a tub rushing down the drain, and then a brief dipping sensation, like reaching the bottom of the stairs, expecting floor, and finding there was another stair, and then they found themselves on a stone threshold in a high-ceilinged stone room. There was a guard slumped against the wall, dressed in a fine uniform of black velvet and partially leaning on his halberd like a drunkard on a lamppost. He shook himself up to attention as Gabriel’s boots thudded clumsily on the stone floor and he flinched hard at the sight of Moira.

“Oh merde--” he drew a horn from the interior of his cloak and blew it in a stumbling fanfare. Four other guards suddenly charged into the room, halberds at the ready and looked genuinely stunned at the appearance of Moira and Gabriel. He had a corpse-like scent hanging about him that Gabriel thought should bother him more than it did. He noticed his sense of smell was a lot stronger now than it had been when he was alive. He didn’t like it. He couldn’t shut out senses to sleep--he wasn’t even sure if he could sleep anymore.

“Announce my arrival to your comtesse and have her gather her court,” said Moira.

“Th-The comtesse is indisposed---” the guard stammered.

“Do you know why she had this mirror in her chateau?” said Moira, stepping forward.

“Y-yes, Madame, but--”

“But? But what?”

There was a brief tense silence in the room.

“But... the last time you were here was, according to the records, 114 years ago,” said another guard.

“And?” said Moira, “Was there an expiration date set on the terms of her recognition of my sovereignty?” 

“N-no, Madame--”

“Then have her gather her court,” said Moira.

“You heard our honored guest,” said another voice, smoky and smirking. There was a purple flash and guards parted to reveal a woman in an armored doublet and a black hood. She seemed to be fussing with the last buckles of her doublet, and a few stray strands of dark hair hung out from under her hood, as if she had just been roused from bed. Human. Gabriel could smell it on her, warm, and distinct from the rest of the guards. He could smell a faint stench of death on her too, but it clung to her skin like a lover. He could smell magic on her, too, but not like the Witch, more like the metallic smell that issued off of his own adder stone after he had it for years.

“Who are you?” said Moira.

“I serve the comtesse. Come with me,” said the woman, walking out of the room. Moira and Gabriel followed after, 

“You would think the comtesse would keep her estate in better condition,” murmured Moira, “Guards in disarray... food lying around...”

All of the guards escorting them toward the throne room suddenly stopped. The woman glanced over her shoulder at Moira and Gabriel.

“What?” said Moira.

One of the guards leaned close to the hooded woman, “What would you have us do, Spymaster?”

The spymaster shrugged, “She is visiting royalty. Let her have her words. They reflect more on her than on me. Just continue escorting our guests to the throne room.”

“Spymaster?” Moira repeated, incredulously, “Since when would the comtesse keep a human spymaster?!”

“We’re very progressive here,” said the spymaster, a smile in her voice.

There was a brief second where Moira’s eyes flashed yellow, cruel and dead like ghost lights, and a few white streaks suddenly threaded through her hair, but she seemed to regain her composure and her eyes and hair returned to normal.

“Hard to keep the glamour up when you’re mad, huh?” said the spymaster, as they continued down the halls. 

“I know saplings older than you, little insect,” Moira scowled.

“Invite them to court, then,” said the Spymaster, pushing open two massive doors into a throne room. 

The comtesse sat on a throne in the center of the room, a guard at either side of her. Her skin was deathly white, her lips were red and wet, her eyes were yellow as an owl’s, and her black hair was tied back in a loose and low ponytail in a red velvet ribbon. She wore a loose white shirt, the frilled collar of it plunging to her sternum, and high-waisted black trousers. She leaned her head against the knuckles of her hand, looking like all patience was already exhausted by the time court was called.

“Queen Máire. It has been some time,” said the comtesse, not making any movement to rise from her seat as the spymaster took her place at her side.

“Comtesse Amélie,” Moira bowed.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” asked Amélie.

“Would that I could have called in happier times, comtesse,” Moira started.

“Only had 114 years,” the spymaster whispered into the comtesse’s ear and the comtesse snickered.

Moira briefly bristled but continued, ignoring the slight. “I’m sure by now you have already heard of the events at Adlersbrunn,” she said. 

“Yes,” said the Comtesse, “My spymaster is very good at keeping me abreast of the news of the world.”

“Then you know that that news shall spread. It spreads faster in shadows but soon, more mortal ears will hear of it, and more weapons will be drawn against us,” Moira gestured at Gabriel, “I have with me the first casualty of the war to come--bound by magic in servitude to a human, denied the dignity of death.” 

“So the pumpkin’s not a fashion choice?” said the spymaster, leaning against the throne.

“This is a perversion of what magic is supposed to be!” said Moira, gesturing at Gabriel, “This is pain and suffering, wrought by human hands!”

Thanks, thought Gabriel, who would have rolled his eyes if his pumpkin head allowed it.

“And it was wrought by the flame of creation,” said Moira, “Something never meant for a human to wield!”

The comtesse sat up in her seat slightly, apparently more interested now. “The flame of creation hasn’t been snuffed out?”

“It nearly was, but apparently it has been passed down, from human witch to human witch,” said Moira, “I can see through the eyes of crow and hare and hound, but you, comtesse, have far more eyes on wings. If the flame of creation is spreading through the world, then that means this world will re-make itself. It means that war is coming. And I would ask for your allegiance in the war that is to come. Lend me your eyes. Join your strength with mine, and we may survive it.”

The comtesse kept a steady, yellow-eyed look at Moira and Gabriel, and then sat up in her seat slightly. She put a hand on the shoulder of her spymaster and they shared a few whispers. The spymaster shook her head and the comtesse seemed thoughtful for a few seconds, then whispered something more to the spymaster. The spymaster gave a shrugging concession and the comtesse seemed satisfied before turning her attention back to Moira and Gabriel.

“I do not deny that a war is coming, my Queen,” said the comtesse, sitting up in her seat in a bit more stately fashion, “However, my kind can endure through war, and it has endured by not drawing attention to itself. We will clean up the bodies, we will keep ourselves fed, perhaps even grow our ranks in the bloodshed that is to come, but only a few of my kind can even walk in daylight-and we have come to far more...” she glanced at her spymaster, “Symbiotic relations with the humans in our land rather than isolating ourselves. War may be coming, but I will not seek it. Not until it is fully necessary.”

“But our allegiance--” Moira started.

“Was one of non-aggression,” said the Comtesse, “I remember the terms well. But my duty is to my people, first and foremost. Surely your majesty understands that?”

“Of course,” said Moira through gritted teeth.

“Is there any other way I may be of service to you, your majesty?” asked the comtesse.

“No,” Moira’s voice was sharp and brittle.

“You are welcome to stay in the château for as long as--” 

“I have my own estate,” said Moira, drawing herself up to her full height, “I thank you for your time.”

“I understand. Guards, see to it that her majesty finds her way back to the mirrorgate,” said the comtesse, “It’s been an honor, Queen Máire.”

“Lady Amélie,” Moira said with a bow before turning on her heel and walking out with Gabriel and the guards.

Gabriel didn’t say anything as they were guided back to the room with the mirror in it. And he found it prudent not to mention the streaks of white that where threading through Moira’s hair with fury as they walked. They stepped back through the mirror with little ceremony and after another stomach-turning trip through darkness, found themselves back in the septagonal room of Moira’s own underground queendom.

“Well...” said Gabriel folding his arms, “That was a wash.”

“It wasn’t,” said Moira, looking back in the mirror and inhaling to bring her hair back to its previous red shade.

“Please tell me we aren’t going to try the other five mirrors,” said Gabriel.

“No, not yet. I believe it should be very easy to convince the Comtesse to see our view of things,” said the Moira.

“She sounded pretty sure of herself back there,” said Gabriel.

“There’s more than one way to make your point,” said Moira, alighting a violet sphere of black magic in one hand.

“I’m not going to like this, am I?” said Gabriel.

“I said I would help break the magic binding you, Gabriel,” said Moira, “I didn’t say you would like it.”

[gadgetgirl71]

October 2020 Reading List

After last months Birthday Celebration reading list of being able reading any books I wanted, so this month its back to normal.

Most of the books I’ve chosen to read are from my ARC list. If I manage to read these books then I will then pick something off my GoodReads TBR list again.

Don’t forget to pop by again on the 6 October to see what book I pull out of the Random Jar of the Month.

October’s Books:

The Fate of Us by Tori Fox, Page: 261, Publication Date: 27 August 2020

Ghost by Dolly Alderson, Pages: 336, Publication Date: 15 October 2020

The Illustrated Child by Polly Crosby, Pages: 400, Publication Date: 29 October 2020

Reflect (Reclaim Trilogy #1) by Jess Booth & Joanna Reeder, Pages: 507, Publication Date: 8 September 2020

F*THS (Friends that have Sex #1) by G L Thomas, Pages: 216, Publication Date: 17 February 2019

Synopsis: Anna May Cooper owned my heart. Until she did the one thing she promised she wouldn’t. She ran. I cannot live without her. But my ghosts aren’t gone either. And they have the power to destroy everything. Now I need to fight for her.

It should be Anna and me forever. But now I am not sure about the fate of us.

Synopsis: Nina Dean has arrived at her early thirties as a successful food writer with loving friends and family, plus a new home and neighbourhood. When she meets Max, a beguiling romantic hero who tells her on date one that he’s going to marry her, it feels like all is going to plan.

A new relationship couldn’t have come at a better time – her thirties have not been the liberating, uncomplicated experience she was sold. Everywhere she turns, she is reminded of time passing and opportunities dwindling. Friendships are fading, ex-boyfriends are moving on and, worse, everyone’s moving to the suburbs. There’s no solace to be found in her family, with a mum who’s caught in a baffling mid-life makeover and a beloved dad who is vanishing in slow-motion into dementia.

Dolly Alderton’s debut novel is funny and tender, filled with whip-smart observations about relationships, family, memory, and how we live now.

Synopsis: Romilly lives in a ramshackle house with her eccentric artist father and her cat, Monty. She knows little about her past – but she knows that she is loved.

When her father finds fame with a series of children’s books starring her as the main character, everything changes: exotic foods appear on the table, her father appears on TV, and strangers appear at their door, convinced the books contain a treasure hunt leading to a glittering prize.

But as time passes, Romilly’s father becomes increasingly suspicious of everything around him, until, before her eyes, he begins to disappear altogether.

In her increasingly isolated world, Romilly turns to the secrets her father has hidden in his illustrated books, realising that there is something far darker and more devastating locked within the pages…

The truth.

The Illustrated Child is the unforgettable, beguiling debut from Polly Crosby.

Synopsis: Their romance only lasted a short few months… but that was more than 100 years ago.

Ever since his fiancé, Gemma MacLugh, was killed at the hands of a dragon shifter, vampire Leif Villers has mourned his loss. Still, a part of him never gave up on her. He could hear her voice, feel her love even through the grave, relive her memories over and over until they were stripped from him.

Now Leif has discovered the final piece to bring her back from death’s clutches. He carried her brooch, never knowing it held the key to resurrecting his love.

Too bad it’s now in the hands of the formidable kraken shifter who nearly destroyed the Shifter Academy in the recent vampire/shifter war and then slithered away, never to be seen again.

Across time, powerful selkie Gemma MacLugh–a magic user who can shape-shift into a seal–should have a wonderful, comfortable existence at her home in New York in 1897. But jealous sisters target her with their cruelty, making life miserable. If not for her Grandmother and her best friend and fellow selkie, Frederick, things might have been truly unbearable.

But when a mermaid seer foretells her upcoming death and opportunity arises to leave her home and travel across the country to a boarding house in Washington, she takes it. To get away from her cruel sisters.

To escape her destiny. But is it luck or fate’s final joke when she meets a tall, dark and handsome man by the name of Leif Villers?

Their love will challenge time and death itself, but can Leif get Gemma back? Can Gemma truly escape her fate?

**Reflect is the first book in the Reclaim Trilogy within the Shifter Academy Universe written by USA Today Bestselling Authors, Jesse Booth and Joanna Reeder**

Synopsis: If Teddy’s dark secret is discovered, even her wealth and good looks won’t save her.When Asher Rose met Teddy King, he knew it’d be trouble, but it was just the kind of trouble he didn’t mind falling in. What he hadn’t planned on was falling hard for the girl no one could tame. Strap yourself in for a sexy ride fill of intensity and disaster that spirals all the way down.

Note: This is the second edition of this title. It features bonus chapters that were not featured in its first edition. It is also part one of a New Adult I/R Romance. Suggested for mature audiences due to its explicit sex and moderate drug use.

Let me know if you’ve read or reviewed any of these book, and tell me what you think of them. Or just let me know what books are on your reading list for October.

#ARC, #BookBlogger, #Books, #Bookshelf, #GoodReads, #NetGalley, #NetGalleyuk, #October2020, #October2020ReadingList, #ReadingChallenge, #ReadingList, #XpressoBookTours, #XpressoTours

[houseofvans]

SKETCHY BEHAVIORS |  Kris Chau (Los Angeles)

Poetic, fluid and much like a song or ballad, the artwork of Los Angeles based artist Kris Chau sings a visual story on paper, focusing on symbols, shapes, and story-telling. We've been following Kris’s various watercolor and acrylic works, and have fallen in love with the murals she’s created for local shops in her neighborhood. We’re excited to chat with this very talented and magical lady about some of the artwork she makes, what inspires her,  and her upcoming projects for 2017!

Photographs courtesy of the artist.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. What’s a little known fact about yourself?

My name is Kris Chau, or Chau, or Chauface. My friend Emilia who does this amazing thing called Pony Sweat, simply calls me FACE. I am from Honolulu Hawaii and currently reside in the fine city of Los Angeles. More specifically the land of Echo Park. As for something weird or strange, I’m pretty sure my cat is my Grandfather re-incarnated. Mostly because my Grandpa loved cats and was a Chinese herbalist. My cat carries a Datura flower in his mouth and leaves it for me in the morning at the door. 

How did you first become enamored with art and drawing?  Do you remember what your first drawing or doodles were like?

My parents are very stoic, refugees from Vietnam, who laid the groundwork early on in my life that no one is special. So even thought I was drawing things that looked like things as a little kid, it went by unnoticed. And I just thought everyone could draw. It wasn’t until teachers at school or other students started to comment on my assignments or doodles as something different that I realized it was ‘something’ if not special. My first doodles were circle people with legs and arms, and lots and lots of horses. I recently saw some old kid drawings I made my cousins which mostly consisted of Yoshi the Dinosaur and X-men.

Some folks have been drawing from since they were kids, and some folks keep with it and some bail on it.  Did you continue drawing in school or was it something you put away and found yourself doing more and more, till it became your identity and life? 

I am a drawer. There’s no way around it. I knew early on in life and then when I figured out I could trade my drawings for happy meals or erasers in school, it was on. I sometimes wish it wasn’t so much my identity. That this stirring you feel towards such a specific act, didn’t exist. Then maybe I could hold down a great job and not daydream otherwise, or maybe just come home to watch TV instead of turning into a garage art troll. There’s a natural fluidity to your work and some reoccurring imagery.  Can you tell us a little about the things you like to draw?  

Well these days drawing and painting is more about expanding my visual language than it is about just practicing a skill. So if there is a feeling, a story, or a loss, I try to figure out how to sing this song on paper. Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of a universal quiet language that consists mostly of simple symbols and shapes. But I can’t deny i love drawing ladies and weird animals.  

What were some of your early art influences, and who are some of your influences now? 

One of my all time current art heroes is my dear friend Ako Castuera, and when we became friends we realized there were two books that we had in common that definitely defined my art drawing trajectory. One was the Ordinary Princess by MM Kaye and D’aulaires Book of Greek Myths. Later on in life it became Ben Shahn, Andy Warhol’s old illustrations, and pretty much all art from indigenous peoples. And as kindred spirits in terms of their pursuit of their craft and making their way in life I would have to say people like Hellen Jo, Nathaniel Russell, Yumi Sakugawa, Rob Sato, James Ulmer, Chances With Wolves and Jesse Moynihan. 

Can you take us through your artistic process? And how would you say it has changed or evolved since you started?

Well lately I do a lot of meditating and thinking about something before I draw anything. I do lots of research. I try to not be hungry and mostly very comfortable. In the Past I would do sketches or preliminary drawings but these days I think for a very long time and I draw. Very boring, very simple. I try to keep a routine that’s very mundane, so that the rest of my energy goes towards making things. So there’s not a lot of social events or chilling with too many humans. Mostly being alone at least 2-3 days a week, with not too much stimuli. Lots of watering plants and organizing sock drawers.

Artists seem to either keep a sketchbook or just occasionally keep up a sketchbook. Do you keep a sketchbook?  

Keeping a sketchbook is important, it’s not as much a part of my life as it once was, but I keep one that might span a whole year. I think the tactile act of writing stuff down in something you can hold is getting lost in this current world. I normally carry a little travel set of color pencils, a sharpener, and my sketchbook. I try to do more life drawings of wherever I am in those books, or color theory tests. What would be your dream collaboration?  Is it easy for you to collaborate or do you find it can be difficult?

I feel like I am living the dream! I recently got to do some artwork for my dudes at Chances With Wolves and I am currently working on some things with my heros Ako Castuera and Hellen Jo! Lately, I’ve been looking at all my illustration jobs or more commercial jobs as collaborations. Or if its a job where I am just a drawing gun for hire, it had better pay my rent. But since I no longer have the fortitude to be someones drawing monkey, everything has to be a collaboration between me and a client.

These days I feel like the people behind the desks are like, okay we are here, who can we help on the come up and feed some integrity into our design or product. So thank you to those golden hearted desk homies, who are pushing against the tide in terms of the corporate design world. 

You work with various mediums from - ink to acrylics.  What do you particularly love about these mediums or one specifically.  

I’m very curmudgeonly when it comes to my supplies. I use Dr. PH Martin’s Concetrated Watercolors, Lascaux Acrylics, and FW acrylic ink. I like trashy paint brushes that I don’t have to sweat, and if I am doing an ink drawing its with a #2 nib crow quill. I don’t like watercolor paper, i use printmaking paper for all my paintings. Although these days I’m more interested in shapes than any linework.

Is there something material wise new you’ve been messing around with or are looking to experiment with?

A new medium is I would like to go 3D at some point with either fabric sculptures or paper mache. 

Illustrations have been something you’ve been doing for a while with magazine and various clients. Can you share with folks what that process is like? 

Oh man, this is the age old crux of making money off the creative thang you do. Listen up kids, old people, dreamers, fakers, and doers. You make what you make regardless of who is gonna look at it or buy it. I feel very very fortunate that I currently have jobs and clients that are supportive to whatever it is that I currently make and do. But it took a long time to develop my own language that lended itself to peoples needs. When you feel like the act of creating needs to be validated by money or recognition, you end up not giving yourself space to hone your language.

What did you or do you enjoy the most and what are some things you dislike about it?

That being said, my favorite part of illustration work is telling the story or solving the problem with my specific language. The things I dislike about it, is just being someone’s drawing monkey, which can be okay if someone knows what they want. When people romanticize what you do, like you’re a creative unicorn and everything you do will be easy and fun so make me these five logos or graphics in a week. Maybe if I was at home making logos every night for fun, but I’m trying to make paintings, so the day when i make rent with just paintings, maybe the logos will be fun. 

You’ve painted on various surfaces and things–how has been making works on a larger scale been for you? Did it come easily or was it something you had to work through and adapt with?  

Oh man, I love painting real big on something thats not paper or a canvas. Theres something about it that just feels good, which is why graffiti exists I suppose. Well painting big, exercises  the communication between my eyes, brain and hands outside its normal paper sizes. I freehand everything too, no projectors here! Its also athletic in a way that sitting at a desk all day isn’t so conducive to. All the murals and big thangs I’ve painted forced my visual language a certain way, that would read well large scale. 

What’s been the weirdest or coolest thing you’ve put your art on, so far?

One of my very favorite big things I got to paint, is a Pussy Party on my friend Garet’s Van. He gets a lot of attention. What are your thoughts regarding social media for artists? What has been your approach to it?

Whoa heavy topic. Well as someone who was born in 1980, i’m in between. I love how it distributes your work further than you could’ve gotten it just by having shows. I definitely get to live and work from a weird garage and have people find me because of it, so for that I am eternally grateful. What I don’t like about it, is that I feel like people are forgetting what good things look like in real life. Things have to look good on a small screen. So things that pop off or are high contrasted, tend to work very well. But maybe a large scale watercolor won’t translate. Its the same way I feel about going to the movies VS. getting it streamed at home. The ritual of intention is getting lost. Then this new format dictates whats successful out there in the world, when the real life version might be very different. The feed, which does allow for new discovery and wider spread audiences, is taking away the in real life visual impact. 

Having lived in various cities but now residing in LA, what’s it been like and what are your thoughts about the art scene here?

I really love LA, there is a certain magic about this place where if you will it and work hard it might actually be possible. I have my own small community of people who make things that I feel very close to, and keep me working. I always say when the times are hard, that we are all lucky to be here in this city right now in this time. I used to share a studio with James Ulmer in Philadelphia at Space 1026, who really helped me push my drawings and paintings on a bigger scale. But when he moved away to take over New York, I was sort of left without my drawing people. So in my heart I knew all my drawing people, who had the same life ideals when it came to making art, lived and flourished in LA.

What’s a question you never get asked but would love to ask and answer yourself!

Your work is often described as whimsical, how do you feel about that? I actually hate that word and in no way do I identify with that, though I understand where you are coming from when you say it. Look Deeper and allow yourself to hear what you see.

What are your favorite Vans? How would you describe your personal style?

Lately I have been wearing the white cracked leather skate hi slims. But I think the 90’s surly teenager in me is looking for some brown authentic with some black laces.

What’s some of the best and worst advice you’ve gotten as an artist?

The best advice from Ken Rignall : Your problem is that you can draw really well, so that is holding you back. You give up if it’s not easy or you don’t have to try very hard to make things look ‘good’ but all your making is decoration. The worst advice from anyone in the world these days : You gotta work on your brand and your social media presence.

What upcoming projects or collaborations do you have coming up for 2017? 

Guys in the Fall of Los Angeles get ready for a power packed show with Ako Castuera and Hellen Jo. There will be events so get ready for that sign up sheet! It will be only show of 2017 because my brain is very fried. 

Follow Kris Chau Instagram: @chaucfacetime Website: www.krischau.com Tumblr: chaufacetime.tumblr.com

[thepermanentrainpress]

REVIEW: FAN EXPO VANCOUVER AT THE VANCOUVER CONVENTION CENTRE - MARCH 2ND TO 3RD, 2019

The first panel on Saturday was Mehcad Brooks, currently known for his work as James Olsen/Guardian in CW’s Supergirl. He had an inspiring panel, touching on race and gender, social media ‘keyboard warriors’ who attempt to put others down, music (his stage name is King Gvpsv), and doing things one is passionate about. He discussed how DC Comics’ Jimmy Olsen was historically Caucasian, and how proud he was to be apart of creating diversity, portraying a black male version on the show. In fact, one superhero he would love to play is Bruce Wayne/Batman. That being said, he noted the importance of “creating your own superheroes” if you’re passionate about creativity, whether that be starting from the drawing board or adding attributes to those already brought to life – Mehcad is currently developing a superhero of his own, with a graphic novel to stay tuned for.

The one statement he said that stuck with me was, “perfectionism is the highest form of procrastination.” As an artist, it’s the best excuse not to do anything, and he uses that to fuel his spiritual journey as a creator and human being. I was really impressed with his connection to the audience in his words, and look forward to seeing his projects as they continue to unfold.

I caught a brief portion of George Takei’s self-moderated panel, hearing him take the stage with an emphatic “Oh Myyy” (to the delight of audience members)! He recognized the original Star Trek fans, and the new generation that keeps the franchise alive and thriving, noting the success of CBS’ Star Trek: Discovery. He recognized the importance of keeping ideals in mind (“in an insane reality” as the current situation in the US). A fan asked his opinion if achieving a utopia in the real world was a possibility, to which Takei replied no, but it is “still a dream that we should aspire to reach.” Takei is currently in Vancouver filming AMC’s The Terror, set in a Japanese internment camp during WWII.

The Flash panel was wild, this cast knows how to have fun. Featuring Tom Cavanagh, Robbie Amell, Carlos Valdes, Danielle Nicolet and Hartley Sawyer, the panel had mini donuts a plenty (they asked, and devoted fans delivered, not once but multiple times throughout their time on stage)! They talked briefly about the upcoming episode set to feature King Shark vs. Gorilla Grodd, and the large budget they had for its special effects. Danielle addressed the absence of Joe West this season (cast member Jesse L. Martin took a medical leave after suffering a back injury this past summer), but said he would be back on-screen soon. Amell, who no longer appears as Ronnie Raymond/Firestorm, is currently working on Amazon’s Upload, with sci-fi/action film Code 8 having premieres across the globe beginning in April. Cavanagh joked about Amell moving on from The Flash to “more expensive projects” and “greener pastures,” and this continued to be a running joke throughout the panel. New additions Nicolet and Sawyer were praised, for their work ethic and what they brought to their characters DA Cecile Horton and Ralph Dibny/Elongated Man.

During fan question period, Amell was asked about the crowdfunded Code 8 and working with cousin and Arrow star Stephen Amell (who he insisted was pronounced “steph-in” rather than “steve-in”). The pair always hoped to collaborate after having brief interactions in a past Arrowverse crossover, and were happy to do so with the sci-fi flick filmed in Toronto in 2017. There were also plugs for the Tom Cavanagh directed heist short Tom and Grant, which is now available for streaming on Vimeo. One of Cavanagh’s favourite and most challenging scenes, was when Reverse Flash killed Cisco Ramon (Valdes’ character) in Season 1’s “Out of Time.” One daring fan asked Valdes if there was truth to the rumours he’d be leaving the show after Season 5. He stayed mum, answering with an appropriate “I have a donut in my mouth.” It was a nice attempt. Nicolet and Valdes only had kind words to say about co-star Danielle Panabaker’s directing debut in episode 18, shot in February, describing her as a “boss lady” and “in control.” It was a fun panel, and you can see the family atmosphere created on-set translates similarly to their interactions with one another off-set.

During breaks in between panels, I had an opportunity to roam around the floor, to get a glimpse of the vast number of retailers, artists, and cosplayers on-hand for the event. I purchased a few postcards from illustrators Jenny Hsieh and chanteii – they have incredibly adorable artwork of shiba inus and cats, respectively. I also had to buy a couple of stickers from PIKARAR, because of my love for animals, naturally. There were booths with Funko pops, wigs, pins, medieval swords and armour, unique jewelry, kimonos, tees, fan art, boxes chalk full of comic books, and other pop culture memorabilia. It was overwhelming (in a good way)!

We stopped by the booth advertising locally filmed web series Followers: “An Internet Superhero Story.” The plot line is “a group of superheroes inspired by social media must collaborate together to take down Hater, who threatens to destroy the internet.” The trailer looked amusing with their special effects and action sequences, DIY costumes, and I look forward to checking out more of the episodes online!

On the cosplay side, I’m not too knowledgeable on anime/pop culture characters (I’ll be the first to admit this!) but there were many amazing costumes. I saw a Spider-Gwen posing for pictures with young girls, Iron Man, Deadpool, Harley Quinn, Disney princesses, and characters I was told were from popular video games League of Legends and Overwatch.

On Sunday, I sat in on some of Pamela Anderson’s panel. Anderson is known for her modelling and acting work in Baywatch and Home Improvement, but currently uses her platform to do activist work for animal rights, our environment, and climate change. I heard her response to a fan’s question: “everything you do has a repercussion” and the importance of enjoying experiences over consumption. The Pamela Anderson Foundation supports “organizations and individuals that stand on the front lines in the protection of human, animal, and environmental rights.” It is nice to see Anderson (who was born in Ladysmith, BC) be passionate about these global issues, and encouraging listeners to do the same in their everyday life.

My final full panel of the day was the Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow talk with Juliana Harkavy, Brandon Routh, and Courtney Ford. This was largely a fan Q&A panel, with one fan dressed as Roy Harper/Arsenal informing the cast how their characters have provided happiness and strength in darker personal times. It was a touching moment, and you could see the actors’ expressions shift, truly listening to each of the fan questions with understanding and empathy. Harkavy said her favourite part about playing Black Canary was meeting fans, while Routh expressed some disappointment in the Legends being left out of this past season’s ‘Elseworlds’ crossover event, but hoped they might make an appearance in the already announced ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths.’

They admitted that they don’t socially interact much with cast members of their fellow CW shows other than at conventions and dinners to celebrate season kickoffs (on-location filming, studios not being on the same lot), but it’s always fun when they do meet-up to catch up. Routh said that while he loves playing Ray Palmer/Atom on LOT, his role as Superman in Bryan Singer’s 2006 film Superman Returns is his favourite role to-date because of its significance in his career (as his first leading role). All three prepared for their current roles using comic books as guidance, imagery and past iterations of their characters.

We had a wonderful time at FAN EXPO Vancouver, being surrounded by like minded others with an excitement and passion for the arts, cosplay, comics, film and television. Our team also had an opportunity to interview Gotham’s David Mazouz, a stellar actor who shone as a young Bruce Wayne and who’s using his platform to shed light on animal rescue and advocacy, and creating positive change as young adults. The interview will be posted soon! Until then, we can’t wait until FAN EXPO’s return to our city next year.

Written by: Chloe Hoy Photo credit to: Timothy Nguyen