#rags morales commission

[theragsagainstthemachine]

DRACULAURA

[homunculus-argument]

One fun way to give depth to characters that might otherwise be a bit too one-sided is to give them one exception to the rule they live by, in a way that doesn't detract from the plot or characterisation. A character who's all about being Fancy and Sophisticated is really into exactly one (1) trashy activity, food or music genre, a character who's all about being bold and brave is scared of ladybugs (but not other insects, just that specific one because for some reason those crawling red little beads are creepy to them), a character who's the worst person you've ever met has one specific thing they're moral and ethical about.

One of my book ideas had Beunir Fisher, the One Sane Man of the entire book who is constantly pointing out how idiotic everyone else is being. He doesn't take offense to people saying "fishers have no sense of honour", not because he'd agree with the idea that his people are without morals, but because he's seen too many good people getting themselves killed because they put honour before reason. If this is what "honour" means, then fuck it, he's glad and proud that fisher folk don't understand what it means. He's the angry mom friend yelling at everyone for making stupid choices.

Having grown up in the streets, pickpocketing for survival, he had never had money to spend. Clothes are just something you wear to protect you from the elements, and whatever you can manage to steal from an unattended clothesline and then wear to literal rags is good enough. Due to circumstances that are actually perfectly sensible in context, he ends up being raised from a stray into a baron, and he is informed that going about dressed in rags is no longer fit for his station. Being a sensible man, he doesn't argue this.

Visiting a tailor - who is delighted to figure out how to combine the elements of traditional fisher folk clothing with the correct fabrics and styles of the military nobility class - Beun spots a coat that he likes, being displayed in the shop as a demonstration of the tailor's skills. It's bright kingfisher blue and embroidered with a sparkling pattern that resembles the traditional nets that fisher folk used to make and use, so he says he wants something exactly like it, or for that particular coat to be tailored to fit him.

The tailor becomes embarrassed, explaining that the coat was originally commissioned by a tumbler from a performing circus troupe, who rejected the work for being too over the top and looking too flamboyant on stage. He can't let a baron walk out of his shop wearing something that was too ridiculous for a circus performer. Beun insists on it anyway, if he is the first husband to the first Fisher Baroness, then he gets to decide what is appropriate for a man of his kin and status to wear.

So he dons the coat, and nobody can say shit about it. Once he is re-united with his friends, their immediate question right after "holy shit, you're alive" is "what the fuck are you wearing." It turns out that when given the means and the opportunity to choose how to dress himself, the most logical, pragmatic and sensible man in the Empire who never made a single impulsive, impractical or frivolous choice in his life, has the most bizarre and ridiculous sense in fashion.

And nobody can tell him shit about it.

[about-faces]

I wish more people knew that Gilda was canonically a sculptor way back in her first appearances with Harvey. Aside from her creator Bill Finger, the only person to remember that was Mike W Barr in 1993.

Sad to think she had more of a life outside of Harvey in 1942 than she did in 1996’s The Long Halloween, along with most of her appearances since, where she’s almost universally viewed as a murderous housewife. She had a career! In a story from 1942!

In tribute to her, here’s a Gilda portrait I commissioned from Rags Morales. I envisioned her using clay rather than carving stone, because she’s talented that way.

[fuyunoakegata]

31 DOD: Day 12 - Nightwing comic artist:

pick one... ahahahaha...

It honestly depends on what I'm in the mood for, and I have different favorites for different things. By default, the answer is probably George Perez.

But... then there's the... I don't even know what to call it, but the way Travis Moore draws faces and expressions and... oh man, yeah.

Phil Jimenez has drawn some panels and sketches I've adored (and not just for Dick) and you don't know how upset I was that I couldn't get a spot on his commission list at FanExpo Dallas last year.

And some more Moore and Jimenez 😁

And then there are the other more recent artists who draw a gorgeous Dick. Bruno Redondo, Dan Mora, Jamal Campbell, Javier Fernandez, Marcus To, Marcio Takara, Jorge Jiménez...

Greg Land drew a very handsome Nightwing.

Jock draws such amazing poses that capture the character and the movement and... yeahhh. I think I've seen this one somewhere, before

If you know me at all, you know my undying hatred and loathing for ASBAR... but the art... I can't say I don't like how Jim Lee draws Dick's hair. Especially in Hush,

I won't lie, I appreciate the way Mikel Janín drew Dick when he was teaching gymnastics during the Grayson run. But what I really loved was Grayson 5, especially since it's a Robin Dies at Dawn reference

And I love most of the artists who followed Scott McDaniel on the 1996 Nightwing run and just that era in general (okay, one of these is from Outsiders and one from New Titans) (Ric Leonardi, WIll Conrad, Patch Zircher, and Tom Grummett)

Can't forget Nicola Scott

or Chris Samnee

and I absolutely adore how Joelle Jones draws him

Come to think of it, I love pretty much anyone I've gotten a commission from, even if they don't do what's traditionally considered the best loved art of him. (I've gotten commissions/convention sketches of Dick from George Perez, Steve Erwin, Todd Nauck, Ken Rocafort, Andrew Robinson, Joe Eisma, Scott Hanna, Brent Peeples, Rags Morales, and Yanick Paquette)

We've been ridiculously blessed with some great Dickpics :)

[finniestoncrane]

Enough

Gotham!Riddler x GN!Reader, word count: 500 commission: prompt from a song, gotham eddie pre-riddler, having a hard time commission me here! request info • prompt list • send me a request • kofi • masterlist minors DNI!! 🔞 cw: angst, injury

There was a perpetual dripping from the pipe on the ceiling. It fell into the puddle of stale and rusted water that was impossible to get rid of. The tiles below it covered in mildew, a sight which usually made him shiver, his blood run cold as he walked past it in the locker room of the GCPD. But Edward had far more concerning thoughts on his mind at the moment, and for the first time since he started working there, he was able to suppress his repulsion for the disgusting conditions of the room in favour of worrying about something else.

Standing at the sink, he clutched at the edges. Usually, sensory hell, the way the shoddy grouting had covered the sleek, ceramic surface with ragged spots that were impossible to remove. He didn’t feel it though. His palms were immune in the white-knuckle grip.

His eyes passed over the flecks of miscellaneous materials and liquids that covered the mirror. This communal space, surprisingly, held less disgusting encounters for him than the rest of the building. And he was more than happy to be surrounded by the sights and smells produced by bodies than the bodies themselves.

He hated them. All of them. He couldn’t find a single redeemable person in the whole building. Even the ones who were good, they never seemed to care as much as he did. They weren’t as concerned. They would be collateral damage, if he had his way.

Edward shuddered at the drastic nature of that thought.

It wasn’t always like this. He’d been content before to be walked over. To be mocked. To be listened to without anyone actually hearing what he was saying. To be overlooked, misjudged, underappreciated. But he drew the line at this. The worst of all. Being openly bullied by people who had yet to grow out of their high school clique.

Incompetence and cruelty ran rife, worse to him than the inferior morals and in depth corruption. And as he sat in the locker room, nursing his bleeding nose, he reminisced about the times he had tried to step in and do the right thing. And had ended up worse for it. The first time, the last time. The most recent time, the wounds of which were currently bleeding onto his plain, white shirt.

There had to be something he could do. For himself. For Miss Kringle. For Gotham. For good. It was pathetic to wait around for more from them. He’d made the first step, confronting them. Letting them know he was standing for what was good and right.

Getting up from the damp bench, he stood in front of the mirror. His reflection seemed to smile at him, encouraging his own grin to spread. Maybe he didn’t need to stand for what was good and right after all. Maybe it was enough to just stand.

Edward Nygma had finally had enough. And everyone would know that soon enough. Starting with every officer who had wronged him.

[twoheartsoneclara]

my main boy five.  oh my boy.

i’ll admit, i think they dropped the ball with his writing this season.  aidan’s still turning out an incredible performance, and added a lot of nuance to his characterization despite quite frankly working with pretty much nothing.  go off, king.

i don’t know what to make of him being the founder of the commission.  granted, the commission is literally so fucking nonsense at this point, but it feels like it erases a.  LOT.  of the tragedy of five’s character.  it could possibly be tragic in a different way, but with the writers not doing fucking anything with it this season, it’s difficult to tell.  

a big part of his conflicts over the past two seasons have had to do with the fact that he fucking despises the handler, that the handler is just the one who was next in line after reginald, who saw him as a tool and used him to carry out her dirty work.  the whole “i don’t belong anywhere thanks to you.  you made me a killer.”  “you were always a killer.  i just pointed you in a direction.” and “i saved you from a lifetime of being alone.  you owe me.”  and his “i do owe a debt.  but it’s not to you.” is a key scene.  if the handler is right, that he was always a killer, then a huge part of his moral complexity is wiped away.

a huge part of what makes five compelling as a character is the conflict that he has with not enjoying being a killer and being made into one and being good at it anyways.  one of his biggest themes as a character and his driving force that’s been consistent behind his motives is what would you do, how far would you go, to save the people that you love.  and another key part of that is that he is a weapon and a killer, yes, but he was made that way.  that’s a theme across the whole series and the whole hargreeves family.  the same thing with viktor - their stories clearly parallel each others’, especially in season 1 with leonard and reginald.

the downright horror that we felt at the commission having left him in the apocalypse specifically so they could use his desperation against him and so that they could manipulate him into doing what they wanted becomes so moot when we learn that.  what?  he’s the one who created the commission actually?

and logically, it doesn’t make any sense from what we know about five as a character for him to just lie down and give up, not five as he is now or old old five.  they had to nerf him to make the plot work.  if there had been a bigger timeskip, it might have made sense but he’s still fresh off of the end of season 2.  this is the same man who literally while actively dying managed to turn back time to save his family from dying.  the same one who murdered a boardroom of people to try and get his family home.  the whole storyline about him accepting destiny makes no fucking sense.  the commission said “the apocalypse has to happen” and he said “fuck this fuck you” and utterly refuses to accept the idea of destiny.

they definitely attempted to somewhat justify it with the whole “no life spent going mad” and being just tired by the whole thing which like justified my man.  it’s definitely kind of the fallout of trying to run himself ragged for the past month.  and you can tell that aidan was trying so hard to make it work with the acting choices that he brought to the table, so again, go off, king.  

but at the same time again it’s been a month.  sure, it’s the month from hell, and he so deserves to go apeshit about it, but that’s fucking nothing compared to the 45 years stuck in the apocalypse.  like yeah he’d probably have a breakdown about it (as is his right) but it’s another core trait of five’s is that he doesn’t give up.  literally all of the plot of the entire show hinges on the fact that he doesn’t give up.  stopping the 2019 apocalypse?  five’s the only one who has knowledge about it from the beginning and shows up to stop it, and that’s only possible because he spent 45 years surviving the apocalypse and taking the deal with the commission so he could return home to stop it and save his family.  ending up in the 60s?  only possible because five took him and his siblings back so that they could escape the currently impending apocalypse.  them not fucking dying in that barn and making it possible for them to get back to 2019?  only possible because he rewound time while dying himself and managed to save them.

i understand them making allison the large driving plot force this season and tbh i’m glad they did!!  homegirl completely deserved her chance to shine and emmy fucking gave it her all.  (caveat: they definitely also fucked up that deeply on some points but by and large yes, allison did deserve to go apeshit).  and i also understand somewhat understand making the conflict between her and viktor - their dynamic has been pretty important for viktor’s story (as the second-most important character to the plot overall), and they managed to do something...half-interesting with that.  but they completely had to nerf five’s character to make all of that possible, which is just lazy writing.

on a petty note, give five mr. pennycrumb for fucking real, you cowards.  

[chernobog13]

A Rags Morales Superman commission, based on the cover of Superman (vol. 1) #14.

[pwlanier]

Jan Sanders van Hemessen (Hemessen c. 1504-1556 Antwerp), Double portrait of a husband and wife, half-length, seated at a table, playing tables.

Oil on panel.

Note: Jan Sanders van Hemessen’s Double portrait of a husband and wife is one of the most exciting Early Netherlandish paintings to appear on the market in years. It is a masterpiece by one of the foremost painters in Antwerp during the second quarter of the 16th Century. This revolutionary double portrait, prominently signed at lower right along the edge of the table “IOHANNES[S] SANDERS/DE HEME[SSE]N PINGEBAT 1532” and executed on an ambitious scale, is the second earliest work known to be dated by Hemessen and was undoubtedly an important commission for the young artist. In a cozy interior bathed in bright sunlight, a couple enjoys a game of chance and strategy known as tables, an ancestor of backgammon. Seated in a leather chair embellished with a colorful geometric design, the woman is handsomely dressed in a black gown with fur trumpet sleeves over full undersleeves of dark rose velvet. A sheer partlet covers her décolletage, while a crisp linen hood conceals her auburn hair. The lady’s waist is cinched by a gold girdle from which hangs a string of rosary beads, their bright coral hue popping against their dark background. The woman’s gaming partner is equally fashionably dressed in a black overgown lined with luxurious lynx fur, a cap jauntily perched on his head. Beneath his dark doublet his pristine linen undershirt peeks through, its collar embroidered in blackwork with a pale blue lozenge pattern. Though the sitters have yet to be identified, their costly and stylish attire suggest that they are a wealthy Flemish burgher and his wife.

The couple’s game board, made of two hinged wooden compartments, occupies the center of the table before them. The disposition of the black and white draughtsmen, as well the cast dice that together number eleven, reveal that their game is underway. Nearby, several other elements, each painted with such care that it could stand as an image on its own, also grace the table’s surface. These include a still-life of ripe fruit, a quince freshly cut with a knife featuring a gilded handle, a glass filled with wine, a bird resembling a blue-fronted Amazon parrot, and a cracked walnut.

There exists in western art a long tradition of representing backgammon and its early variations, the origins of which can be traced back to Mesopotamia. From the medieval period onward, the game was often used as an emblem of vice – following the Gospel of Matthew, soldiers appear in countless crucifixion scenes playing dice at the foot of the cross, and a tables board appears beneath the harlequin figure in Pieter Bruegel’s circa1562 The Triumph of Death (Museo del Prado, Madrid). A tables board is equally present in the background of the Magdalene with a Lute (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), a painting nearly contemporary to the Stella portrait and formerly attributed to Hemessen himself (see B. Wallen, op. cit., 1983, p. 94, fig. 38, as Brunswick Monogrammist). There, the game rests on a table in the room behind the saint, an allusion to the transience of the earthly pleasures enjoyed by Mary Magdalene in her earlier, sinful life (P.H. Jolly, loc. cit.). A 1529 drawing by Pieter Coecke van Aelst (Museum Boijmans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam) makes this message more explicit, showing a poor and ragged peasant handing over a chicken, his last worldly possession, as payment to the young temptress who has soundly beaten him at tables (see G. Marlier, La Renaissance Flemande: Pierre Coecke d’Alost, Brussels, 1966, pp. 88-90, fig. 27).

Yet during this same period, many artists portrayed the game as a courtly pastime, free from any obvious moralizing overtones. Such is the case, for example, with a circa 1450-1475 marginal illumination framing the Annunciation page from a Northeastern French Book of Hours (fig. 1; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore) and a pen and brown ink drawing of a Seated couple playing trictrac and standing woman playing checkers attributed to Albrecht Dürer, circa 1492-93 (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris; see B. Butts, and L. Hendrix, Painting on Light: Drawings and Stained Glass in the Age of Dürer and Holbein, Los Angeles, 2000, no. 7). Scenes like these, featuring well-to-do members of the opposite sex playing tables, typically possess an amorous connotation. Such is the case in the present painting, although it has the distinction of seemingly being the earliest to show the game being played in the context of a portrait (B. Wallen, op. cit., 1971, p. 75).

Hemessen’s double portrait may have been commissioned to commemorate a wedding. The painter emphasized the strong connection between the couple by portraying the wife resting her hand on her husband’s shoulder as the two gaze intensely at each other. In his 1971 study on the portraits of Jan van Hemessen, Burr Wallen linked the present portrait, then in the Balcarres collection, to the very popular battle of the sexes that continued to rage on in sixteenth-century Europe, although the couple’s affable demeanor suggests that the quarrel’s playful dimension prevails here. Accordingly, Wallen interprets the composition as an expression of the concordia between the husband and wife. “In fact,” he writes, “there may be reason to believe the couple to be united together against a common foe who lies unseen behind the peaceful domestic exterior” (ibid., p. 76). For the scholar, the ominous nature of this opponent could be signaled by the dice, which have landed on five and six, whose combined sum of eleven carried portentous associations in the 16th century. A similar result of a dice roll is seen, as Wallen notes, in the hand of the gambler in Hemessen’s 1536 Parable of the Prodigal Son (Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels), a painting in which life’s temptations are made explicit.

Though Wallen’s interpretation is compelling, one need not necessarily envisage a common foe to read the scene. Rather, it is equally plausible that just a moment ago, the husband and wife were playing opposite one another, as is standard, but he has now come around to be closer to her to discuss a finer point of the game. Indeed, something of note has clearly occurred, as evidenced by the couple’s gesturing toward the black draughtsmen nearest her. Presenting his sitters in this manner, Hemessen shows his awareness of the artistic advances of his Italian contemporaries and Renaissance masters, such as Moretto da Brescia, Romanino and Savoldo, but also Raphael, Bronzino and Parmagianino, whose paintings he would have seen during his Italian sojourn, a few years earlier (ibid., pp. 76-77). As Wallen observes, in this double portrait Hemessen 'achieves a compromise between northern and southern aspirations that is weighted on the side of the north and its tradition of pragmatic realism in portraiture, a compromise that is in many ways similar to the contemporary works of Hans Holbein'. (ibid.). Indeed, Hemessen may have had occasion to meet Holbein, who likely visited Antwerp on his trips between England and Basle in 1528 and 1532.

Following a pictorial tradition deeply rooted in Flemish art, Hemessen chose to tilt the table upward, and in doing so, defy the laws of perspective, to give the spectator a better view of its contents. Thoughtfully articulated and centrally positioned, the game itself is at the heart of the composition, but the still-life elements too add another layer of meaning to the scene. Placed close to the picture plane, they recall the symbolic objects carefully arranged on foreground tables in representations of the Virgin in Child in early sixteenth-century Flemish painting. In particular, many of the items here relate closely to those found in Joos van Cleve’s Holy Family of circa1512-13 (fig. 2; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art), thus revealing the enduring appeal of this convention. Especially noteworthy in this respect is the pewter charger piled high with beautifully rendered fruit rich in connotations, such as the apples that signify the Fall of Man, the cherries that evoke paradise and the grapes, which, like the glass of wine on the other side of the table, denote the Eucharist. The walnut, as Saint Augustine tells us, is to be associated with Jesus: its outer hull represents Christ’s flesh, its hard shell, the wood of the cross, and its kernels, his divinity.

Common to both paintings is also the elegant knife set at an angle, whose blade catches the light. In the Stella portrait, however, the knife has been used to cut a quince, which in addition to its religious significance, was associated with love, marriage and fertility. In fact, according to Plutarch, brides were encouraged to eat quince, a tradition that was revived in the Renaissance. Andrea Alciati elucidates the reasoning behind this practice in the Emblematum Liber (first published in Augsburg in 1531), under the illustration for the emblem 'Cotonea' (Quince Tree), writing that the fruit should be given to the newly wed because “it is conductive to good taste and disposition, and also that their breath might be sweet / and a seductive charm might linger on their lips” (see A. Bayer et al., Art and Love in Renaissance Italy, New York, 2008, p. 325). The presence of the cut quince can thus be understood in relation to the painting’s presumed marital theme. In addition to being a marker of wealth and status, the parrot may also be interpreted in symbolic terms, as it is an emblem of the Virgin Mary. By placing the halved walnut and Parrot close together, Hemessen thus evokes the pairing of Jesus and Mary, Adam and Eve, and a virtuous husband and wife.

Recent study of the painting with infrared reflectography did not reveal significant underdrawing. No major changes to the composition were visible, with possibly one notable exception (fig. 3). The artist appears to have expanded the length and shifted the angle of the table's left and right edges. Further study would be required to confirm that oblique lines and shifts in tonality seen in these areas are not artifacts of the ground preparation or subtle effects in the paint film itself, but if these are, in fact, compositional changes, they could suggest that the still life and wine glass at left were not originally planned, but added at a later stage in the design process.

Though conceived according to the conventions of Early Netherlandish painting, Jan van Hemessen’s double portrait is in many ways revolutionary. Independent portraits of married couples were already commonplace in the 15th century, but these were almost exclusively painted on separate panels and designed to be displayed as pendants (see M. Ainsworth, Jan Gossart, p. 276). While a discrete number of Early Netherlandish double portraits painted on single supports that predate Hemessen’s painting are known, their sitters almost always appear to be psychologically isolated from one another. Such is the case with Jan Gossart’s Portrait of an Old Couple (National Gallery, London), painted just a few years earlier than Hemessen’s masterpiece, as well the Double portrait of Dirck Borre van Amerongen and Maria van Snellenberg by the Master of the Amsterdam Death of the Virgin (Musueum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; ibid.). One of the earliest examples is Hans Memling’s Portrait of an Elderly Couple, which today is divided between the Preussicher Kulurbesitz., Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, and the Musée du Louvre, Paris, although originally the portraits of the man and woman were joined together with dowels to form a single panel. Notably, in the second half of the 15th century, double portraits on single panels began to develop as a popular format in Germany, and it has been proposed that Hans Memling’s Germanic origins inspired him to bring this style to the Netherlands, but some have challenged this idea, arguing that since the genre developed late in the century, Memling’s portrait should be viewed as his own invention (see de Vos, op. cit., no. 10; T-H. Borchert, Memling’s Portraits, Ghent, 2005, pp. 155-56. The German examples also often appear in architectural settings (see, for example, Thoman or Hans Burgkmair the Elder’s 1498 Double portrait of Jakob Fugger and Sybilla Artzt (The Schroder Collection, London), rather than against landscapes.

Strikingly original in its conception, Jan Sanders van Hemessen’s double portrait is best understood as a continuation of a tradition of allegorical double portraits whose origins lie in Jan van Eyck’s astonishing panel of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Bride (fig. 4; National Gallery, London). Painted in 1434, this small panel represents the Italian merchant and his wife, standing in a bedchamber of a Flemish townhouse. It is filled with objects that appear to have symbolic value relating to the sacrament of marriage, although the painting’s precise message and even the identity of the bride have been debated for centuries. Van Eyck’s invention seems not to have been immediately imitated, although there are echoes of it in the following decade, with Petrus Christus’s Goldsmith in his shop (fig. 5; The Lehman Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), which is now believed by some to represent Willem van Vleuten, goldsmith to the Duke of Burgundy, visited by Mary of Gelders and James II, King of Scots, who are in the process of buying a wedding ring. Like Hemessen’s double portrait, Petrus Christus’s painting is filled with symbolic and moralizing imagery, in particular the convex mirror, a traditional symbol of vanity, and the worldly temptations reflected therein. An even closer potential source for Hemessen’s painting is Quentin Metsys’s The Moneylender and his wife(fig. 6; Musée du Louvre, Paris). This signed and dated work was painted in Bruges in 1514. Though not specifically a portrait and not quite life-size, the panel similarly depicts a husband and wife seated at a table in a room filled with carefully described objects. The figures’ outdated attire, however, removes them from their contemporary setting, allowing the painting to be read as an allegory of Christian Virtue and the condemnation of avarice (L. Silver, The Paintings of Quenten Massys with a Catalogue Raisonné, Montclair, 1984, p. 212). Yet the remarkable casualness of the sitters’ interaction in Hemessen’s painting is nowhere to be found in Metsys’s work. Instead, for a closer prototype, one can turn to the Master of Frankfurt’s Self Portrait with his Wife (fig. 7; Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp), which was painted around 1496 in Antwerp. The painting measures 31.1 x 47.2 cm and presents the artist and his wife on a single panel, seated before a non-descript background. The couple’s tender interaction (the artist has his arm around his wife’s waist) as well as the remarkable still life elements on the table seem to anticipate Hemessen’s composition. The younger artist would likely have encountered the painting due to his membership in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke. Jan Sanders was born in the village of Hemessen (Hemishem) outside Antwerp. In 1519-20, he was apprenticed to Hendrik van Cleve I. Stylistic evidence suggests that he might next have worked with the Master of the Magdalen Legend at the royal court at Mechelen. There, he could have come in contact with court painters Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen and Jan Gossart. During the 1520s, Hemessen traveled to Italy, as confirmed by his painted copy of Andrea del Sarto’s fresco of Charity in the Chiostro Scalzo, Florence (untraced). In 1524, Jan became a master in the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp, and soon thereafter established a workshop in that city. In 1545, he married Barbara de Fevere, the daughter of a successful Antwerp cloth merchant. In part due to this felicitous union, but also thanks to flourishing artistic career, he became a man of considerable wealth. In 1548, Hemessen served as dean of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke. He fathered several children, many of whom became artists in their own right, most famously his daughter, Catharina.

Courtesy Alain Truong

[bedlamgames]

No Haven 0.982 Quality of Life Update

Highlights for this includes the new Endearment mechanic, Slaver retirement, and more

Download links can be found on the No Haven page.

If you don’t have RAGS and you need a copy to run it there’s one on the help page here or the one pinned on the patreon you can find a link to in the attached read me which is more up to date. If RAGS has never worked on your system despite the help page suggestions then it might be worth trying with one of the alternate players. There’s also improvements on there to the RAGS player that can also help with performance.

Change logs under the break:

-Endearment :

---New mechanic to allow submissive focused players a better chance to hold onto their Encampment while providing some some extra power for those who aren't going to be as worried about that.

---You earn an Endearment up to a maximum of three each time an Assignment is completed with a reward of 400 gold pieces or more. You also earn an Endearment when you earn a Slaving Distinction.

---If an attempt is made to dispose you as the leader of the Encampment, and you have an Endearment available, one will be spent to prevent this. This will block any attempts for seven days, and will provide an Encampment Morale improvement.

---You can choose to spend an Endearment to prevent a Forced Encounter with some new text to reflect that.

---You can spend one to gain a buff on Assignments that will last for seven days for each Endearment spent. While this is active an initial roll of 85% or higher on an Assignment will be rerolled once. This does stack with other rerolls such as from the Draconic Majesty racial or having a Manned Watchtower to further reduce the chance than an Assignment will result in a Disaster.

---You can spend one to persuade your slavers to reach into their own pockets to help out to gain some extra gold. This is affected by their traits and race in how willing they are to contribute or if it's going to be like getting blood from a stone.

---You start with the maximum three Endearments on No Pressure and Easier, one on Normal to reflect your slavers being impressed with you bringing them together, and none on Hardcore. Gold requirement to earn one is reduced to 200 on No Pressure.

---All Assignment rerolls now show what the roll would have been before the reroll is applied.

-New Commissions :

---No Haven Title. Has an expanded version used for now when Leviathan is brought up in a lore unlock.

---Imperial Muses (City of Aversol). Thank you to the patron who provided this commission.

---Land Piracy (Dreadsea Coast).

---Shark of the Cards (Dreadsea Coast). Initially will use the Male version, and also has a Female, Bimbo, and Sissy version which will then be used based on who you send. Also used for the Sea Elf Captain start's portraits and examines.

---Unattended (Great Plains). Has an alternative version used for Critical Success. Both versions will be used for Abyss Troll and Dwarf Slave Examines.

---Event: Disbanded! Also used for the Keldan and Ooze Slaver Examines.

---Unique: Alison Graye. New Slaver Examine. Thank you to the patron who provided this commission.

---Personal: Encampment when you have trained your first True-Angel Slave in Advanced Obedience Training. Also has a zoomed in version more focused on the True-Angel used for their Examine, and for the Truly Devine results where you manage to enslave one.

---Personal: Encampment, assigning a new Bedwarmer, or the Finish Day description of your Bed Warmers if you are playing as Nethemir Male.

-Miscellaneous additions :

---Instead of dismissing a slaver you can now give them a retirement instead at the cost of gold and a slave. This guarantees that the slaver is removed regardless of their reputation, and will give a global morale bonus. If you're willing to spend enough and part with an impressive enough slave you can also earn a Slaving Distinction and an Endearment from this.

---Trying to Ambush after receiving the Letter now does something rather than just being a waste of time.

---The Cult Vessel Nethemir start and the unique Kaara de Sindero Oscuro are now smarter than they were before.

---Rynhart's Jewel Arms aspect has been in for a magic tune up. Now she will only be depleted if the new roll, including the modifier, is 15% or less. So roughly about a third of the time the depletion will kick in compared to before.

---The Kitsune Maid start has gained permanent makeup and a lore page.

---Removed the Abyss Troll Futanari placeholder. Will use the standard Abyss Troll Examine for now.

---To Hunt a Paladin now has alternative removal text if the Slaver in question has Obedient or Stubborn.

---The Draenei Mercenary Herald and the Taggerfolk Fisherjack starts can now select Feminine in Full Custom. Those two were requested and so please let me know if you have others that you'd like me to add that option for.

---Being a Convent now adds a Critical Success for the second, third, and fourth position of Temple Takeover.

---As Wise-Woman didn't really fit Wisps who are more likely to start with Magic: Nature their new Profession for having that trait is Evergreen. This also applies to Fae, Nymphs, and Shadow Outcasts.

---Added a mallet to the potential weapons.

---The longer assignments that automatically set out Nightly Planning will no longer overwrite existing Nightly planning potentially robbing you of a bonus.

---Rewrote the Critical Success when you're the one getting used on House of Ill Repute.

---Expanded the Fail if you don't go on Involuntary Membership.

---Expanded the Critical Success and Success results for Scout the Deep Mountain. Now has some specific for you going text, and some Submissive text if you don't go.

-Bug fixes :

---Critical fix for Corner of Your Very Own potentially breaking the playthrough if you go as the slave as the Fae Mist Etendre start.

---Fix for Shadriel not getting the chat option to actually assign her a slave during one of the potential results from her events.

---Fix for the double pause if you do manage to resist a Forced Encounter.

---Fix for the slave being messed up if you repick or cancel your choices on Favoured Pet Training.

---Fix for Oozes and Wisps being assumed to have Tentacle Beasts if they're Beastmasters.

---Fix for the 'I'm the Biggest, so I'm in Charge' start not always being the biggest. Randomly generated Futa player characters will now be bigger in general, those with that option even more so, and there's a check to ensure that the generated Males will be smaller.

---Fix for Advanced Dominance Training Success getting confused about what is being done to who. Text has also been expanded to tidy up the wording and to flesh it out some more.

---Fix for not being able to make use of Futas by fucking them in the pussy (only available if you've not changed the option to make them have a cock only).

---Fix for Bimbo Training Basic or Advanced not recommending a Slaver in the third or fourth position.

---Fix for Ogres having the Supported Assets racial but it not actually doing anything for them.

---Fix for some potential CT errors when earning Slaving Distinctions.

---Fix for exporting a start not including your heritage, so say a Elf Demi-Angel would remember the Demi-Angel but not the Elf part.

---Fix for some variable text errors during corruption including when gaining Cowardly.

---Fix for the Female Dwarf Tunnel Runner start portrait having just gone missing. No clue how that one happened.

---Fix for the potential for someone to be recommended in first position when recommendations are off due to slave escapes.

---Fix for two checks to see if you're in the fourth position during Gorging on the Green.

---Fix for some broken text formatting on Silken Pillows.

---Fix for being able to get a Strong Right Arm sibling for free.

---Fix for the Fail: Male check on Sissy Farm not working.

---Fix for some incorrect text variables on the critical success result when you don't go on Stars in their Eyes.

---Fix for dual wielding riding crops or whips. Now added a proper dual wielding whip option cause that's just plenty of fun for everyone.

---Fix for there not being text for you if you have a Disaster on Scout the City.

---Fix for Keldan Alley continuing to expire when you've started it.

---Fix for not being able to purchase regular earrings from the stylist.

---Fix for the double name if a clumsy slaver is only trusted with a dagger.

---Fix for a missing name on the success for Advanced Lesbian Training. Expanded the text a bit while correcting that.

---Fix for issues with A Brief Foray if you go in the third position and get a Success.

---Fix for starting uniques having a low chance of wearing up part of a custom outfit.

---Fix for getting both the just avoiding being lost regular text for an Assignment along with the text from getting a negative effect like a trait instead of being removed.

---Fix for the positive unit barks referring to another slaver if the actual relationship is that they can#t stand them. Now each one has a negative unit bark instead, and also added a couple of new variations so you won't see the centaur trots into a barn one so often.

---Fix for the Feminine Draenei Examine not displaying.

---Fix for fluidic tentacles missing a gender text variable.

---Fix for the Over Confident Summoner's Aspect not providing Follower like it should do.

---Fix for Loner being a Catastrophic not correctly applying on When Week's End Comes.

---Fix for Word in your Ear not giving the slaver in the first position if you're in the second.

---Fix for the confusing transition between the Success part to the Critical Success of Explore Abandoned Mine by changing the initial sentence.

---Fix for getting tentacles from both being an abomination and from getting it from corruption.

---Fix for some repeated text on House Sitting.

---Fix for most of the Critical Success, Success, and Fail checks on the non-Heavenly version of Stars in Their Eyes being incorrect.

---Fix for the colour formatting on the non successful results on Week's End Comes.

---Fix for the extended expiry version of Meddling Fools expiring in only three days rather than ten or twenty days.

---Fix for Healer incorrectly being a Critical Success on the first position on Gone for a Soldier.

---Fix for being able to Form a Line while Wounded or under another similar effect.

---Fix for some missing gender text variables during tentacle sex.

---Fix for some colour trait formatting on Deluge of Oozes.

---Some text fixes.

[wild-houseplant]

ZevWarden Week Day 4- AU

Well. WELL. It just so happens I’ve got like... 80k worth of futuristic AU material from one story I started bashing out ages ago. I’m publishing about 40k of that now, and since we all know I’m not capable of doing anything succinct, fair warning: it’s going to go on for bloody ages. All six chapters so far available on AO3 here. Content warnings for this chapter: passive suicidal remarks in the first chapter, unintentional weight loss. Other cws for later chapters on AO3.

Now, brief premise before I start the chapter: On 2170s Earth, a morally questionable blip in space where, thanks to unusual technological advances, fiction no longer exists and every Earth-born individual (in theory) has the right to summon one person to join them on the planet. In a moment of sympathy during her teenage years, Vin Amell illegally summoned Zevran. Ten years on, he’s arrived, and it’s on Vin to bypass the authorities and find a way to settle him in– if he’ll let her.

Chapter 1 of Your Personal Hero begins here, rest under the cut. Happy Day 4 of ZWW!

                                                            §§§

It’s a cracking afternoon.

The sun’s out, clouds at a minimum, and the air’s pleasantly warm. I’ve packed a basket with my favourite foods and drinks, and there’s the promise of consuming it with an uninterrupted view of the sea once I reach my vantage point at the top of the bluff. 

It should be enough. A Sunday on la Grande Jatte kept Georges Surat busy for two years. One little snapshot of a nice moment, and he spent two years on it. Two years! And artists, if the rumours are true, eke out an existence of grinding penury between commissions. Not usually the best conditions for kindling optimism. And yet somehow they sustain themselves on snippets of happiness, stretch them out a millionfold. God throws them a splinter, they call it a bone.

It might be enough for me, too. All these grim thoughts about hating life and wanting to die really aren't my cup of tea. When the big wins are hard to get to, though, and your little wins are getting thin on the ground, the pro- nonexistence arguments speak to one more. But then as Mam was wont to say, hope runs on the smell of an oily rag. We'll see about that.

When I'm halfway up the trail, off to my right I catch a pair of bronze, sinewy legs in leather boots sticking out from a patch of tall grass. I set the picnic basket down and jog over, clearing the grass away and sighing with relief upon seeing that the legs are attached to a body covered in leather armour. The owner of said body groans softly when my movement casts a shadow over his eyes. 

As I look at his face, I spot a pair of pointed ears and a wavy tattoo on one cheek, and my mouth falls open.

“I don’t believe this,” I murmur, before a loud, astonished laugh tumbles out of me. “I don’t fucking believe it!”

His eyes flutter open and dart up to me, and another groan ensues as he forces upright. I step on the grass nearby, flattening it under my feet as I squat down near him. 

“Wow!" I say. "You make more noise sitting up than most old people I know.” I don’t know what greeting people usually give their summoned person, but that probably isn’t one of the top 100. 

My wisecrack earns me a raised brow, and he scans me from top to toe before saying anything. 

“You are… not particularly well-dressed for a Blight,” he remarks before giving a hollow chuckle. “I am not complaining, of course. Do other mages show off as much skin as you do when the robes come off?”

I glance down at myself. I’m hardly what you'd call scantily clad; with my t-shirt and knee-high denim shorts, my outfit is quite a reasonable one. I’m even wearing shoes, which goes above and beyond the dress code in this town. 

“Not a mage, so I couldn’t say, I’m sorry,” I answer with a shrug. “So you just woke up, huh?” 

I cast my eyes over his face and ears. No bleeding, no leaking cerebrospinal fluid. He’s awake, talking, and moving. So far, so good.

He nods. “Mmm, so it seems. I took a hit to the head with a wooden shield. The Templar, where is he?” He looks behind me; I'm drawing on ten-year-old knowledge now but the whack must have been Alistair's doing.

I shake my head. “No Templars here. No Blights or mages or rogues, either.” I gesture at him. “Present company excepted, of course.”

The eyes watching me narrow just a little before his entire face becomes impenetrable. “So I have been kidnapped then, I take it.”

I frown and rub my chin, helplessly observing my dignity take its hat and coat and leave. “When you put it that way, I suppose you could say that, yes. Well, you’ve been abducted, at the very least.” 

This is met with a surprisingly accepting nod from my apparent hostage. “Well, I have presumably been kept alive for a purpose, so if you tell me what it is, perhaps I could be of more assistance to you.”

That sphinxlike expression of his falters a fraction when I struggle to find a response. 

“Oh. I… ah... “ I rub my neck. “I wasn’t working in conjunction with the Wardens. And I’m not really keeping you alive-- not that I’m planning to kill you!” I touch my hand to my forehead in exasperation. “Look, I doubt there’s anything I could say that you'll believe, so I’m trying to find a way to put all this to make it plausible.”

“You could try telling me something implausible,” he offers, all insouciance. “At this point, every minute I have is borrowed time until you change your mind and kill me.”

I huff a laugh, which takes him aback again. “Kill you? Oh, Zevran, no.” I shake my head, laughing again as his eyes widen at my use of his name. “I’m not interested in harming you, and I have no weapons on me. I’m the easiest prey you’ll come across bar none, but I trust that you won’t do anything. And if you prove me wrong, well,” I shrug. “It's been a shit time lately anyway.”

I've said too much, and Zevran says nothing at all. It's a hideously uncomfortable balance. Naturally, I continue. 

“Look, I know why you took the mission to kill the Grey Wardens,” I begin carefully, giving a sad nod as his body stiffens and his eyes narrow. “I won’t say her name, but I know what happened to her. Truly, I couldn’t be more sorry that you want to die, especially for something that wasn’t your fault.”

Zevran’s nose wrinkles into a soft snarl; he looks ready to cut my throat and then cut his own.

I hold up my hands to bring some calm back into things. “I would like, if I may, to make a suggestion.”

His face smooths out again somewhat, and the nod he gives is a reluctant one. 

“There are a number of things we could do," I say. "You could kill me. I could, unlikely as it is, kill you. We could kill each other, we could chuck it all and kill ourselves. Or,” I hold up a finger, a flicker of hope threatening to force a smile on me, “We could spite death and press on a little longer.” I shrug. “At this point, what do we have to lose? It could be fun.”

Another silence lingers between us, and sick of squatting, I let myself fall back onto my bum, crushing the dry, prickly grass under me. My legs become irritated immediately, and I start scratching at them. “Whatever you decide, I hope you’ll do it quickly, because I don’t want to carry out a life sentence itching to buggery while you make up your mind.”

I must look absolutely ridiculous, sitting here and scratching at my thighs like a monkey that fucked around and found out with a bag of itching powder, but Zevran devotes his attention to fingering the pommel of the small dagger he has now unsheathed from one of his boots. 

“My options are limited, my dear," he says offhandedly. “I have failed to kill the Warden, who is no doubt well on her way now with her merry band of misfits. My life is forfeit. Even if I somehow catch up to her and succeed the second time, I imagine the Crows will kill me on principle.”

“Oh, my, do I have news for you,” I say through a broad grin that makes him look at me like a crab just scuttled out of my nose. I shake the smile off upon realising how disturbing it must look. 

“Sorry. Ahem. There are no Crows here. You're not in Thedas any more. The only way any of the Crows can reach you is if they’re summoned, and no disrespect meant, but you’ll be very, very hard-pressed to find anyone here who’d consider it worth their while to summon even one of them. So in that regard, you’re clear of them.” I shrug. “Well, unless you decide to go back to Thedas, of course.”

For the first time, Zevran obviously examines his surroundings. “This… is not Thedas.” It sounds like both a statement and a question. Still clawing at my legs, I shake my head. 

“No, it’s not. This planet is called Earth.”

“... Earth,” he repeats, rolling the r and dragging out the th . “As in the dirt.”

“Mmm. Don’t blame me for the name, it was like that when I got here. Ugh, it's too itchy here. I need to get up.” On my feet again, I dust myself off and look down at him. “That’s not to say you’re entirely free of troubles here. The authorities don’t take kindly to people who've committed murder, even as part of a career they had no say in pursuing, and they’d see through any lies you tried to tell to cover it up. They wouldn’t kill you, though, probably just imprison you for some twenty, thirty years. I can help you evade them easily enough until you get settled here legally though.” I put out a hand to help him up. “No strings attached. What do you say?”

He nods and accepts the hand almost immediately, wincing a little as he stands up. “Then I am your man without reservation until such time as you choose to release me. This I swear.” He rattles that off like he’s said it a thousand times.

I raise an eyebrow. “You’re not my man, and I meant it when I said no strings attached. I don’t own you. Ii just summoned you here, which is completely different. But look, before we get into that, I need you to try walking for me. I want to check if you sustained any injuries from that knock to the head. If you don’t mind, walk heel to toe, just a few steps.”

The abrupt change of subject appears to be accepted quite well, and Zevran complies with my request. 

“I do not know what this will achieve, my dear,” he says, looking rather amused as he steps carefully. “I move much faster when my feet aren’t touching.”

“I’m checking for damage to the brain. Try walking normally?”

He does, and his gait is smooth. So far, so good, but he'll need to be looked over properly.

“Good, thank you.” I nod and walk over to him. “Well, I’d like to introduce myself, as an introduction is long overdue. Van is my name. Van Amell.”

“Amell, you say?” He squints at me. “You said you have no connection to the Warden, and yet she was an Amell.”

“I didn’t say that,” I point out. “I said I wasn’t working with her, or the Wardens, which is true. I’m a doctor… uh, physician, you might’ve called them. The only thing she and I have in common is the last name, and in fact, our shared surname is the only way I managed to make contact with you at all.” I gesture back down the dirt road. “Walk with me? My house is down this hill.”

He nods and falls into a step matching mine as soon as I move, and I swipe up the picnic basket on the way.

“This… realm, I s'pose you could call it, there’s no magic in it. Strictly speaking. It's all down to luck and science for us. Until recently, anyway.”

He says nothing, merely keeps his eyes on me. You can practically see the wheels turning in his mind. 

“We had a breakthrough about fifty, sixty years ago in the physical sciences and… ah…” what would you call IT in medieval English? “Intelligent machines. Machines that can think and follow commands. There’s a theory that when this world, and the system in which it exists, called the universe, was made, it started with an enormous explosion. And because the universe is infinitely large, it continues to explode outwards, and other small bubbles like the one we live in here are being formed, with completely different conditions to our own life here." 

I catch myself starting to gesture as I talk, and I’m too excited to curate it. It’s incredible to think that paying attention in high school Modern History class has paid off like this. “The breakthrough came when the theory was taken a step further, that anything could exist, because if the universe is infinitely large, there is an infinite number of different universes, like the one you were born in. And that when we made works of AU-- Alternate Universe, the word fiction is no longer used,” I explain hastily, “it was no longer just a story. We're given a concrete outline of another world.”

“And the second breakthrough?” Zevran’s face is impassive, but his eyes are glued to me. 

“Well, around the same time, people studying intelligent machines had refined portals-- doorways you can walk through that take you to somewhere else. You could step through a door in… what was the name of your country, Antiqua--”

“Antiva,” he suddenly corrects me, and looks surprised to have done it.

“Right, sorry. In Antiva, and if you stepped through the portal you could end up, say, in the Korcari Wilds. Depends on where you told the portal to go. What they found was that having a sufficiently-constructed alternate universe gave the portals enough information to find the places we had in our stories!” 

I clutch my hand into a fist, enthralled with how clever it all sounds. It fills me with pride, even though I hadn’t done anything to help its creation. 

“I did not walk through a portal to come here, though,” Zevran points out. “I was knocked unconscious, and then I woke up in the grass where you found me.”

“Wait, wait, I’m getting there,” I wave my hands. “In theory, the AU portals were a huge success. There was no need to research for knowledge any more. All we had to do was get writers to construct the worlds, we would give the information to the machine, and it would simply open it up and we’d get what we needed, maybe give something back if they had use of it.”

I shake my head. “What ended up happening was utter fucking chaos. People were leaving en masse or ducking through the portals and bringing back dragons, villains, dangerous people, races that weren’t built to survive in our conditions who died in terrible pain. Cities were crumbling, nations collapsing, all that shit. We weren’t ready for what it really meant. So what was left of the governments put a strict lockdown on the portals, hiding them everywhere and forbidding people from crossing them. The latest models are one-use portals that open up, drop you, and disappear. Now, you came through the portal because I invoked my Summoning right.”

“... Summoning right?” he echoes.

“Mmm, this is the bit where you come in,” I nod, sighing. It’s going to be quite awkward explaining this to him, and truly, I’m embarrassed enough now that I’d rather not. But he’s watching me so intently, and well, I’m responsible for dragging him out of Thedas. He at least deserves to know how that happened. 

“The world is crawling with stories, right?” I try.

Zevran nods slowly. “Mmm.”

“Yeah. Well, they made a rule that for everyone born on Earth, you have permission to… uh… ‘summon’ one person from another to here.” I hold up one finger. “One person per lifetime, that’s it."

He squints at me, lips peeling apart as his mouth opens slightly, and my stomach turns. The silence is broken as he gives a scoff. “And I am to believe that of all the people you could have summoned, you chose me?”

I shrug, feeling incredibly awkward now. “Well, you’re here, aren’t you? I mean, I’m not going to tell you what to believe. It’s happened, whether you believe it or not.”

He goes to speak again, and suspecting that he is about to ask why I chose him, I cut him off. “But you don’t have to be here, if you don’t want to. There's a centre close by for unwanted summons, and all you have to do is step back through the portal and you'll return to the last place you were in Thedas, no questions asked.”

Neither of us says anything for a moment. I can’t tell if he wants to go back but is trying to be polite, or if he doesn’t want to leave and is trying not to say anything. It has to be one of the two; he looks uncomfortable as he chews on his lip, fingers slowly tapping his thigh. 

“You don’t have to decide right away, of course,” I continue, almost at a babble now. “Normally, when someone sustains an injury bad enough to knock them out, it’s best to have a doctor do a proper examination.” I point at myself. “I can’t be the one to do it because I summoned you, but I have a colleague close by who can help.”

I’m given a polite nod and a quiet issue of thanks.

"We do need to get you out of this armour first, though," I muse as we reach the dirt road that leads back to my house. 

"Oh?" Zevran raises an eyebrow and gives me a wry smile. "Is having your way with me the cost for a check-over? I believe I can easily pay my way for that.”

His smile slips for a second as I turn my head sharply, but then re-establishes and consolidates with a visible firmness. 

"You look positively stricken , my dear," he croons. "If you have not summoned me for my services in that regard, I cannot imagine why else I would be here. Unless you have someone who needs assassinating?" 

I open my mouth, close it, and then open it again. That hit harder than I expected; is that really all he thinks he can offer?

I clear my throat, "Ah, no. No, I'm not looking to kill anyone, thanks. And no doctor worth their salt accepts sexual favours in exchange for medical attention. It's so unethical it makes my skin crawl." I shudder, rolling my shoulders back to dislodge the revulsion. 

But what is a perfectly reasonable response on my part appears very much not to be to Zevran, who regards me quite strangely now. Which I should have expected, but god, I haven't played Dragon Age for about ten years now. I cut myself a little slack so I have enough room in my head to press on. 

"No, we need to go back to my house and get you suitable clothes so you can blend in a little more." Granted, there's only so much 'blending in' one can do in a small town like this, but it'll have to do.

He accepts my explanation with a nod, and as we draw up to my small hardwood house, I point at it. "This is my place. Not particularly fancy or anything, but you're more than welcome to stay here with me while you make up your mind." 

I can hear the hope in my voice, and I don't think Zevran likes it. He raises an eyebrow at me, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. But he doesn't run, doesn't lunge for me. Just matches my pace, calm as you like.

"Maybe you could see your room first before you decide if you want to sleep there, hey?" 

I turn the handle and open the door, stepping into the kitchen and opening the fridge door. "This is a box that keeps food cold so that it stays fresh for longer," I explain as I transfer everything out of the picnic basket. 

Zevran walks up beside me and peers in the fridge. The light catches his attention, and he touches it before withdrawing his fingers again. 

"The light is cold," he murmurs. His inquisitive glance at me turns his statement into a question. 

I nod; there will be a lot of this if he decides to stay, and though it doesn't trouble me, I do wonder how I’ll explain much of anything concisely. 

"We use electricity-- trained lightning-- instead of physical effort to power our machines."

His eyes widen for a moment, gaze dropping to his fingertips. "I was not struck, even though I came so close."

"No, the casing material- plastic, it's called, stops the electricity from escaping and harming us," I tap the plastic coating with my finger. "We have electricity passing through a thin strand of wire, and it heats it up hot enough to make it glow, and that is what you're seeing here." 

"Very clever," he murmurs, not even begrudgingly. 

"We have some very smart people in this world," I agree with a nod. I close the fridge. "Come on. Your room is up here."

I lead him down the hallway and up the stairs, very pleased that I had actually put in the effort to do up the guest room. It's about the same size as my own room, decked out with my most impressive finds from secondhand shops: a huge purple moon chair, a four-poster bed, an open bamboo wardrobe. Oh, and the centrepiece: a battered IKEA bookshelf. One that was lovingly redecorated, so Howie the shopkeeper had told me, by the donor’s toddler, who had snuck into the study armed with a handful of very colourful, very permanent markers. Absolutely none of the decor matches style-wise, but it all blends well enough in terms of the colour scheme. 

Exactly what Zevran thinks of the room is unclear to me as he steps in and surveys the interior. I have no desire to hover awkwardly while awaiting his decision, and so I excuse myself to go into my own room across the hall and collect some clothes for him. 

It seems rather more gallows than humour when I laugh to myself, thinking it fortunate that my appetite has all but disappeared these last months and shrunk me down like a sponge out of water. Clothes that were loose then and swim on me now should sit quite well on Zevran. 

I fish around in my drawers and pull out a dark green t-shirt and a pair of jeans I hope will conceal his leather boots; his feet are undoubtedly bigger than mine, so loaning shoes is not an option. A button-up shirt to throw over the top in case he wants to conceal any tattoos comes out as well, and before I can close the drawer, I hear his voice at the doorway. 

"Are you quite sure you put me in the spare bedroom, my dear?" 

I look up. Zevran fixes me with a smirk that doesn't match the suspicion in his tone, and my heart sinks in embarrassment. 

"Yes," I reply with a nod and an attempt at a droll smile. "I've lived here for a few years now. Took a while, but I eventually learned my way around my own dwelling. Yours is definitely the guest room."

He scoffs at my sarcasm and folds his arms, gesturing around my pathetically empty room with the least-concealed of his hands. 

"And my gracious host sleeps in a room whose only furniture is a mattress on the floor and a small commode." Another half-question, half-statement. It's frustrating when they're being used to prove a point I'm in no mood to acknowledge.

I shrug. "I put off redecorating because I wanted something to look forward to." That is an honest answer and the only one I’m willing to give when feeling so put on the spot. 

I get to my feet and hold out his clothes before he can wipe the bemused look off his face and ask anything more. "Here, put these on in your room and then we can go to the clinic." 

He raises an eyebrow at me, an awfully bold move for a man who thought I was going to murder him ten minutes prior, but then he takes the proffered garments and disappears again, closing the door behind him. 

"I'll wait for you downstairs," I say through the door before I make my way back down to the kitchen, taking out my phone to call Tamika, the resident neurologist at the town’s assisted living facility.

“Hey Van, what’s happening?”

I hold the phone to my ear with my shoulder as I take some gauze from the first aid kit sitting on the microwave. “Tamika, hi. I’m sorry to bother you so late in the afternoon, but a good friend of mine’s taken a knock to the head and I’m a little too shaken up to check him out myself. Are you still at work?”

“Oh, wow! He conscious?”

“Yeah, up and moving, talks, no real outward signs of any issues. I just found him unconscious and neither of us know how long he was there for.”

“Mmm. I’m in town right now. I can assess him in your clinic?”

I sigh with relief. “That sounds great. We’re at mine right now, so we’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.” After thanking her again, I hang up and finish taping the gauze patch together. It should be long enough to cover Zevran’s facial tattoo so that he doesn’t stand out to any plain-clothes authorities. 

With the kitchen still to myself, I knock back half a glass of water before I stop and grab a spare glass, unsure of how to convince someone who deals with poisons on the reg how to accept a glass of water-- or any fluid at all, when it comes to that. 

A cleared throat announces that Zevran has entered the kitchen. He looks like a lean, athletic person in snug-fitting clothes. The button-up shirt helps to conceal his tattoos. It also helps him to look like the love child of a lumberjack and an early 2000s emo, but that's by the by at this point. In all, it's quite a suitable emergency outfit. 

I hold up the glass I got for him. "Are you thirsty? My house has plumbing, so you can get water from here." I indicate the kitchen taps, and when Zevran comes over to accept the glass, he momentarily squints at me. 

"Thank you," he says, politely taking the glass and easily turning the tap to fill it. 

I die inside. "You have taps in Antiva, don't you?"

He bites his lip, the lines around his eyes deepening, and he nods. 

"Marvellous." I rub my brows with the fingers of one hand. "Don't mind me, I'll just die internally over here." I take a couple of steps away.

Zevran gives me a brief, low chuckle that sounds halfway genuine. "Do try not to. I thought we were meant to visit your clinic?"

"Yes!" I seize the opportunity to shelve my hideous embarrassment and snatch up the gauze. “But here, quick, we need to get this on your face to cover up your tattoo.” 

I’m not sure doctor’s tape or any kind of adhesive backing is a thing where he’s from; I'd guess not from the way he runs his fingers back and forth over the smooth side of it once it’s on his face.

"All done," I say. "Now, if you decide to stay here, we can eat when we get back home, all right? If you'd rather stay somewhere else, we can buy food while we're out." 

"I doubt I would be able to pay my way for lodgings here," he replies, pointed but not unkind as we step out of the house and make our way to the car. 

I can't help but feel a little sad at that, but what was I expecting? Who on earth would he feel able to trust? Certainly not me. 

"Oh, that isn't a problem," I say with a small smile that I immediately drop when I realise it probably isn't helping. "I'm the one who brought you here, so it's on me to keep you comfortable. That's only fair. If you want to stay elsewhere, I can easily arrange it." 

We stop beside my car, and the silence grows heavy as I fish through my pocket for my phone to unlock the car. I mumble something about 'where is it' to try and take the edge off the awkwardness, and to my relief, Zevran speaks. 

"Normally, where assassins go and where they stay, such things are decided by others," he says in a tone that's far too off-handed for such a long pause. 

"This is a place where you can make that decision yourself. You're free to be your own person here. If you are happy to stay here on Earth, even if only for a while, I ask only that you let me stay in your life at least a little longer so that I can help you to settle in and navigate the basics of life here. After that, you don't ever have to speak to me again, if you don't want." 

Zevran appraises me carefully, and I try to keep my face as readable as possible. Whatever he's looking for in scanning my face, he either finds and is satisfied with, or he doesn't find it and accepts that there is no better answer to be had, because he gives an acquiescent shrug-nod combo.

“In which case, perhaps I could stay with you. It will save you money, and you will find I am quite a useful house guest. I can offer protection, chop wood, shine armour, warm your bed…” he flicks his eyebrows and fixes me with a winsome smile. 

I smile back and shake my head, having finally found my phone. “That’s kind of you, but unnecessary. Besides, I can almost guarantee you won’t have time to do any of that while you learn about how to get on in this place.”

Doubting his ability to do a handful of things at once seems not to be the way to thaw this man out, judging by the cynical look he’s fixing me with, but when I turn my phone’s screen on, Zevran’s eyes go straight onto it. An opportunist at heart, I seize the chance to distract him with both hands.

“This is called a phone. One of the intelligent machines I mentioned before. It has a lot of functions, one of which is allowing us to power and use our vehicle, known most commonly as a car,” I point at the car. I enter the pin code on my phone and let the camera scan my face. A small, bright tone ensues, and the sensor buttons on the side of the car light up, which has Zevran’s eyes darting from place to place like he’s at Wimbledon. 

“Press here to open the door,” I gesture at the green circle. He does, and jumps back as the door slides out and then up, exposing the interior of the car. I grin to myself as the impenetrability of his gaze slips, giving way to open, if cautious fascination.

“This vehicle,” he sticks his head inside and glances around, “where do you keep the horses to pull it? Or do you have other beasts?”

I go around to the other side and sit in the driver's seat. “No animals. I’m not very au fait about mechanics, but I think this thing runs on a combination of electricity, like the light you saw, and magnets.”

“... you do not know, and yet you use it?” Zevran's head is going everywhere as he perches on the edge of the seat, eyeing all the buttons and keeping his hands in his lap. “Where in this contraption is safe to touch?”

“All of it. This is very safe.” I make my nod extra confident. “You need to pull it apart to get to the electrical bits, and even then, the car is turned off--goes dormant-- so you can work with it safely.” 

His shoulders un-tense, and he shuffles back until he’s sitting properly. 

“We move fast, though, so you will need to strap yourself down,” I gesture at the seatbelt beside him and grab my own, slowly pulling it down and buckling it so he can replicate the motion. 

He squints a little. “... How fast?”

“Faster than a galloping horse, that’s for certain, but only if I ask it to. We shouldn’t go much faster than a gallop, though, and you’ll find this is much smoother, and safer, than any horse.”

The colour is draining from his face, but he nods and buckles his seatbelt all the same. Honestly, hats off to him for trying to take this all in his stride.

“Then we’re ready to go!” My mouth pulls in a genuine grin; I can’t remember the last time I smiled this widely and meant it. “Would you like to press the button to turn on the car? Everybody likes to press the button.”

[theultimatefan]

Kubert, Johns, Fabok, Hitch Headline Talented Comic Creators Attending FAN EXPO Philadelphia

Batman/Superman #8 - Andy Kubert and Ghost Machine #1 - Geoff Johns, Jason Fabok, Bryan Hitch

A vast array of talented comics artists and writers, spanning more than a half century of work and encompassing dozens of the most popular franchises in the history of the medium through the present, will be on hand as FAN EXPO Philadelphia today announced the Artist Alley headliners for the convention, set for May 3-5 at the Pennsyvlavnia Convention Center. Among the superstar writers and artists are Andy Kubert (“Batman: The Dark Knight III,” “X-Men”), Geoff Johns (“Geiger,” “Junkyard Joe”), Jason Fabok (“Rook: Exodus,” “Batman: Three Jokers”), Bryan Hitch (“Redcoat,” “The Ultimates”), Francis Manapul (“The Rocketfellers,” “The Flash”), Peter Tomasi (“The Rocketfellers,” “Hornsby and Halo”), Ryan Ottley (“Invincible,” “Amazing Spider-Man"), Frank Cho (“Liberty Meadows," “Wolverine"), Jae Lee (“Seven Sons,” “Stephen King’s Dark Tower”), Stephen Platt (“Moon Knight,” “Wolverine”), and Joe Wos (“Mazetoons,” “Charlie the Tuna”).

Just about every franchise imaginable will be well represented, and comics fans will revel in meeting the creators who have made them possible. Q&A’s, interactive demonstration sessions, autographs, commission opportunities, and more make the experience a can’t-miss for comics lovers.

The FAN EXPO Philadelphia field of creators also includes talents such as Rodney Barnes (“The Boondocks,” “Killadelphia”), Yanick Paquette (“Wonder Woman,” “The Incal”), Tom Grummett (“Thunderbolts”, “Superman”), Brad Anderson (“Geiger,” “The Rook: Exodus”), Heather Antos (Group Editor Licensing/IDW Publishing), Russ Braun (“The Boys,” “Jimmy’s Bastards”), Hailey Brown (Dark Horse Comics, Brink Literacy Project), Chris Burnham (“Unstoppable Doom Patrol,” “Batman, Inc.”), Jim Calafiore (“Exiles,” “Aquaman”), Joe Corroney (“Star Wars,” Lucasfilm), Mike DeCarlo (“The Simpsons,” “Archie”), Guy Gilchrist (“The Muppets,” “Nancy”), Jonathan Glapion (“Batman,” “King Spawn”), Scott Hanna (“Amazing Spider-Man,” “Superman: Lois and Clark”), Ben Harvey (“Star Wars: Darth Maul,” “X-Men”), Mike Hawthorne (“Batman,” “Deadpool”), Tim Jacobus (“Goosebumps,” “Spinetinglers”), Bob McLeod (“New Mutants,” “Superman”), Jonboy Meyers (“Venom,” “The Inhumans”), Rags Morales (“Identity Crisis,” “Batman Confidential”), Carl Potts (“Alien Legion,” “Punisher War Journal”), Aaron Reynolds (“Effin’ Birds”), Alex Saviuk (“Spider-Man,” “The Phantom”), Keith Williams (“The Hulk,” “Action Comics”), Ron Wilson (“The Thing,” “Marvel Two-in-One") and many others.

See the full list at https://fanexpohq.com/fanexpophiladelphia/comic-creators/.

The quality of the creators in Artist Alley mirrors that of the FAN EXPO Philadelphia celebrity roster, which features a first-rate list that includes the National Lampoon’s Vacation foursome of Chevy Chase (“Clark Griswald”), Beverly D’Angelo (“Ellen”), Randy Quaid (“Cousin Eddie”) and Dana Barron (“Audrey”), Hayden Christensen (Star Wars franchise), Rosario Dawson (“Ahsoka,” Rent), Rainn Wilson (“The Office,” “Lessons in Chemistry”), Marisa Tomei (My Cousin Vinny, The Wrestler), Adam Savage (“MythBusters”), Danny Trejo (Machete, The Book of Boba Fett), Alan Tudyk (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,”), Mario Lopez (“Saved by the Bell,” “Access Hollywood”), Natasha Liu Bordizzo (“Ahsoka”), Kate Mulgrew (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Orange is the New Black”), Rose McGowan (“Charmed,” Scream), Holly Marie Combs (“Charmed,” “Picket Fences”), Felicia Day (“The Guild,” “Dragon Age: Redemption”), Emily Swallow and Gina Carano (“The Mandalorian”), and more.

FAN EXPO Philadelphia will also feature a variety of comics creators who have written and drawn many favorite stories over the past half century, exhibitors featuring classic and unique pieces from the thousands of memorable characters and scenes that Star Wars and all of its offshoots have produced, and programming panels and special events to help fans across any empire show their love of one of pop culture’s most enduring series.

Single-Day Tickets, Three-Day Passes, and Ultimate Fan Packages for FAN EXPO Philadelphia are available now. Advance pricing is available until April 18. More guest news will be released in the following weeks, including line-up reveals for additional headline celebrities, comic creator guests, voice actors and cosplayers.

Philadelphia is the eighth event on the 2024 FAN EXPO HQ calendar; the full schedule is available at fanexpohq.com/home/events/.

[theragsagainstthemachine]

SKELETOR

[trustwc]

Hasten crossword

Hasten crossword update#

One of the entities that many water managers are looking to for major contributions is the Imperial Irrigation District, which supplies farmlands in California’s Imperial Valley and controls the single largest share of Colorado River water. Gavin Newsom has unveiled a new water strategy to conserve, capture, recycle and desalinate supplies. In a July 18 letter to Touton, Charles Cullom, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, said the four upper states have “limited” options available to protect reservoir levels.Ĭullom wrote that “previous drought response actions are depleting upstream storage by 661,000 acre-feet,” and that the four states’ water users “already suffer chronic shortages under current conditions.”Ĭullom offered a plan with various steps in the Upper Basin but said “additional efforts to protect critical reservoir elevations must include significant actions focused downstream.”Ĭlimate & Environment With California expected to lose 10% of its water within 20 years, Newsom calls for urgent actionĬiting global warming, California Gov. The Upper Basin states have looked to the Lower Basin states, which use more water, to contribute much of the reductions. Touton called for negotiating a plan for the reductions within 60 days, a schedule that hasn’t been achieved. She warned that the bureau has the authority to “act unilaterally to protect the system.” The federal government’s call for urgent action came in a congressional hearing on June 14, when Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton announced that cuts of 2 million to 4 million acre-feet will be needed in 2023 to address declining reservoir levels. They haven’t said how they will respond to the lack of an agreement among the states.

Hasten crossword update#

Reclamation officials are expected to give an update on the proposals for water cuts that have been discussed. Lake Mead and Lake Powell have fallen to record-low levels, now nearly three-fourths empty, and are projected to continue dropping. The federal Bureau of Reclamation is scheduled to hold a news conference Tuesday to present the government’s latest projections of reservoir levels, which will dictate water cuts for the Lower Basin states under a previous 2019 deal. Last-minute tweaks to Democrats’ healthcare and climate bill added $4 billion to address the drought and water crisis along the Colorado River. _ and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 1974 book by philosopher Robert M.Politics Sinema’s last-minute push on Democrats’ climate bill added $4 billion to combat Western drought.in London for short Daily Themed Crossword Moral principles (person's behavioral compass perhaps) Daily Themed Crossword.Shower affection with on Daily Themed Crossword.Water-related prefix Daily Themed Crossword._ log (Christmas cake) Daily Themed Crossword.New York's _ Canal Daily Themed Crossword.Singer Carly _ Jepsen Daily Themed Crossword.Mumbai's country for short Daily Themed Crossword.College term briefly Daily Themed Crossword.Wells tale Griffin whose face is wrapped in rags turns out to be this title guy jeopardy Word Stacks Daily Challenge SeptemAnswers.Puzzle Page Daily Wordy 5238 SeptemAnswers.Who has the most receiving touchdowns in NFL history?.What London stadium is the home of England’s national football team?.Which of the following is currently in orbit around the sun?.Bible Verse of the Day SeptemPrayer of the Day.

[jasposeyblog]

My fourth commission with @theragsagainstthemachine. May I present to you...Mikaal Tomas Starman!

Just take that in!!!

[fuyunoakegata]

I love every single piece of art I've ever commissioned... But wow this one... the memories associated with it, and talking to Mr Morales and just having the ability to go to conventions again definitely made this one special 😁

Thank you so much for the gorgeous artwork and an amazing convention @theragsagainstthemachine

[dontforget2wipe]

The Huntress & Power Girl. Art by Rags Morales, colors by Moose Baumann.