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fivveweeks · 11 months

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hi its me it's verdante angst anon (angstnon? idk) again

shaking ur hand SHAKING UR HAND you get me you get me you fuciigndnsn get me

"They're a tragedy, the both of them. Dante's fine with that. (They have to be, they have no choice in this) Given enough time a tragedy turns into a comedy. Maybe they'll be able to laugh about this in the end. Maybe it'll even be divine."

you don't undertsysnds how feral i am about these two. i am firm staunch zealous believer in verg not seeing himself being worthy of like anything good not until he has payed for his sins or wtvr he wants that to mean. i think he exercises a lot of self control to make sure he has like an arm and a leg and several bodies worth of space between him and anyone trying to get close to him (xcept Charon ofc). actively turns and runs from that shit bc 1. he doesn't deserve it. 2. he literally does not have the time for that shit

dnate on the other hand— chronic workaholic, to the point they can and will push personal feelings aside for the sake of their job. if u look up the word professionalism you WILL see Dante Limbus Company as a synonym. they keep their feelings in check (under several locks and keys) in the back of their mind aging like fine wine. they're aware they're not a choice and they're okay with it. it's their fault anyway, they're such a silly little fool.

it has always been doomed from the start. do you understand? it has always been hopeless. it was never meant to be.

dante knew/knows/accepts this, they do not have a choice. (but then again when do they ever?)

ANON YOU'RE SO FUCKING INSANE I NEED TO TWIRL U AROUND LIKE HOLY SHIT U GET IT!!!

YOU HAVE NO IDEA how much of a firm believer i am about Dante being a chronic workaholic. NOBODY FUCKING TALKS ABOUT IT YET BUT literally i do not think they need to sleep/they cannot sleep/gets little to no sleep at all and instead spends all their time up night reviewing battle plans and rewatching past battles on their little PDA. its a combination of anxiety and wanting to step up as a better manager (if we take into account of limbus players dissecting the gameplay meta of EGOs and ids we can literally translate that into Dante pouring over how to better manage the sinners). god forbid them from stepping out of line due to personal feelings bc they a) do not want to piss off vergilius and risk his wrath b) do not want to piss off vergilius bc they respect him (and like him) as a coworker, a boss, a color fixer and their guide too much. they are the EPITOME of professionalism. their work and responsibilities as a manager COMES FIRST

Vergilius too, you put it into words on him as a person. Literally he doesnt think he deserves it AND he doesnt have the time for that shit (for real verg in canon seems to really hate ppl wasting his time over trivial shit). i think even theres some distance between him and charon but he mostly crosses the space bc he's too guilt bound to deny charon some form of connection (bc it is his fault in the first place), so he is soft to her and her only.

it's like watching two parallel lines running along each other and no matter how close they get they will NEVER touch ever. ISNT THAT A TRAGEDY???

but its not all angst, they at least find a little light in the situation. verg would come to appreciate how dante respects him and his circumstances and would be pleased that they are like-minded enough to keep things professional between them, so he is comfortable in confiding in dante on certain topics (in canto 2 where verg and dante stands together by the side to watch the sinners get their ass peeled and verg telling dante why they should experience it for once lives rent free in my head bc he actually bothered to explain to dante wauhgshfh). he admits that dante is the only sinner that he can have a convo with. he fucking told dante to not befriend him after sharing a little history on charon. dante would appreciate the little moments they get to spend with him

just brief pockets of time with each other, despite everything. i like to think they are both the kind of ppl who would accept that things are just not meant to be, so they will take what little they can (what little they're allowed).

in the grand scheme of lcb and the city they are both nothing but a pair of pawns trying to make the best of their situation without getting in the way. they have no choice.

and to come across another who understands this is a rare, rare gem in their crapsack world, so how can we blame them for having a little bit of pining among the acceptance. mutual respect blooming into requited love that is unable to be acted upon. a divine comedy in its own right. im going to kms

#limbus company #verdante #chatter #SCREAMING AND CRYING OVER THEM BOTH WAHHHHHH #WORKAHOLIC DANTE BC THE COMPANY AND THE POSITION IS ALL THEY HAVE AFTER LOSING THEIR MEMORIES

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laufire · 2 months

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I was tagged by @aninkwellofnectar (ty! <3)

3 ships you like: just to name ones living rent free in my head rn: Beth x Addy x Colette, triangle of all time (Dare Me); Cass x Barbara (DCU); Michael/Nikita (CW's Nikita).

First ship ever: Cole/Phoebe in Charmed was probably my first shipping experience lmao.

Last song you heard: Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve played last.

Favourite childhood book: The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman <- yeah I'm just living that there lol.

Currently reading: "Investigating Lois Lane: The Turbulent History of the Daily Planet's Ace Reporter", a non-fiction book about the history of the character. Yeeah, I'm now reading non-fiction about detective comics comics, too... but I'm only a few chapters in and it's such an interesting historical perspective (even if the section about corporal punishment made me see fucking red).

I'm also still following a couple of newsletters, like Letters from Watson (Sherlock Holmes long novels) or Divine Comedy (which ends this month), rereading Camilla Andrew's "We Will Devour the Night" via her ko-fi (ditto), and of course, slowly reading a bunch of actual comics (Batgirl 2000, Green Arrow 2001, Outsiders 2003, RHATO v2/rebirth!Jason, or War Games, among others).

Currently watching: Superman: The Animated Series/the DCAU in order, plus the stacked100 rewatch. And I took a detour and rewatched some key scenes from Nikita, as one does.

Currently consuming: I made tuna pastries for dinner today.

Current craving: nothing after I got my tuna pastries.

I'm tagging (no pressure!) @thecruellestmonth @mockerd3light @staliaofatreides @bombshellsandbluebells @bellamygate @faintingheroine and whoever feels up for it!

#tag game #talking to the void #my thoughts #dc

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baroquepopcorn · 9 months

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Shout out to this crazy Lorax fanfic I randomly read as a child. Basically it’s O’Hare doing the Divine Comedy. Lived rent-free in my head ever since

#fanfic #the lorax #o’hare #divine comedy

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zielenna · 3 years

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tagged by @thelibraryiscool to list “5-7 snippets of literature/media that live in your head rent-free.“ in the reading order.

this got long, so I am putting it under the cut!

And than Sir Launcelot prayde Sir Urre to lat hym se hys hede; and than, devoutly knelyng, he ranskaed the thre woundis, that they bled a lytyll; and forthwithall the woundis fayre heled and semed as they had bene hole a seven yere. And in lyke wyse he serched hys body of the othir thre woundis, and they healed in lyke wyse. And than the laste of all he serched hys honde, and anone hit fayre healed. Than Kynge Arthur and all the kynges and knyghtes kneled downe and gave thankynges and lovynge unto God and unto Hys Blyssed Modir. And ever Sir Launcelote wepte, as he had bene a chylde that had bene beatyn.

Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, which always hits me.

The Greek word eros denotes ‘want,’ ‘lack,’ ‘desire for that which is missing'. The lover wants what he does not have. It is by definition impossible for him to have what he wants if, as soon as it is had, it is no longer wanting.

Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet, which I first read at 16, or 17, and wrote an essay on at least once a year.

Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, further westwards, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling too upon every part of the lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

James Joyce, ‘The Dead,’ from The Dubliners, which I always think about (with a sense of relief) when it snows.

I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting.

T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, which I wrote an essay on in my first term, in something of a fugue a state, & kept mining for epigraphs for years to come.

Also in this he shewed a littil thing, a quantitye of an hesil nutt in the palme of my hand; and it was as round as a balle. I lokid thereupon with eye of my understondyng and thowte: 'What may this be?' And it was generally answered thus: 'It is all that is made.'

Julian of Norwich, A Revelation of Love, with an image I tried, on many occasions, to stick into my own writing, creative and not.

Eventually there will be only the abiding structure and, perhaps, an ineradicable sense of love.

@septembriseur‘s Stargate epic, which expressed many things I failed to express before, or simply didn’t notice; this here reads to me as a definition of the absence of trauma; how would it feel, if it was.

Our relation with the other certainly consists in wanting to comprehend him, but this relation overflows comprehension. Not only because knowledge of the other requires, outside of all curiosity, also sympathy or love, ways of being distinct from impassible contemplation, but because in our relation with the other, he does not affect us in terms of a concept. He is a being and counts as such.

Emmanuel Levinas, ‘Is Ontology Fundamental?’, which, well. I spent two very intense weeks writing an essay on knowledge in Shakespeare’s tragedies (& Divine Comedy & Francis Bacon & everything & anything else I cared about at that point), via Levinas.

I will also attach two images that, I think, determined the trajectory of my academic career.

#passed another application milestone (first interview) so here's a meme. thank you A for supporting my coping mechanisms #if you scroll to the very end there's a sixteenth century anatomical illustration. if you go for that sort of thing #meme

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ambitionsource · 4 years

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favorite recurring characters ? personally i have to say Dave , Jade and Yogi

Katie: There is something about Yindra that is so personal. From her high comedy to being a lesbian icon... I love her so! Plus the trio that consists of her, Nigel, and Zay is literally iconic. Her and Charlie during Les Mis lives in my mind rent-free. Can't wait to see what my queen is up to in the upcoming season!

Esther: Yeah I love Yindra as well, she’s just so iconic and is unapologetically herself. She has all the star quality a diva needs but without the more negative aspects that comes with that label. I’m so excited to be doing more with her this season. I also have a special place in my heart for Jade, hardworking legend that she is. She’s the type of person I would want for a friend, and while she’s so lovely and friendly, those moments when she snaps are powerful. You know you’ve gone wrong if Jade is mad at you! Nate I also am fond of. I used to not like him all that much but I’ve grown to really like him and honestly he’s the sort of person I actually would’ve been friends with in high school. Then there’s Chai, who I’m so excited to have back as I find her so interesting and complex. I’ve loved delving into her mind more this season and exploring who she is, so she’s for sure one of my favourites.

Natalia: Yindra, Dave and Nigel, all icons, genuinely nice people and all of them have a special place in my heart. Yindra and Nigel are super talented and they deserve way more praise than they get. Dave is such a sweetheart, he's always earnest and kind, he brings me joy and you can always count on him for a good laugh.

Divine: I’d say Jade and Dave, just because they’re such sweethearts and I love hearing their POVs and just hearing from them in general. Also Jade is the queen of fashion and costuming and I wish I could physically watch her do what she does.

Maggie: This is a very difficult question, because all of the recurring characters have such distinct places in my heart. I’m very excited to be able to do more with all of them season, like in a really genuine way. In terms of the A class, I will say that I have such a deep love for the techie crew. All of them, in all their quirks and complexities. I’m getting to write more of their interactions this season, which is a dream come true, and so much fun. I also love Nigel, and I’m excited to see what’s cooking up with him and Jade this season... and also, Darby has actually developed such a soft spot from me. Outside of the class, though, I really love writing Rosie Gardner, and Grace Friar. I’ve mentioned that the Haverford boys are very fun. Then Evelyn Rand is the queen of minor recurring characters. Always a joy when we get to include the head bitch in charge!

AMBITION Creative Team Takeover !!

#ctt s3 #ctt #answered #Anonymous #ask and you shall receive

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kierongillen · 6 years

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Writer Notes: The Wicked + The Divine Christmas Annual #1

Spoilers, obv.

There's a backbone of Specials which I consider essential to WicDiv's plot. This is one of the main reasons we've ended up putting the Specials trade into the schedule before the last trade in the series rather than after it – as fractally as WicDiv is structured, this is information you should know before the end rather than after it.

They also work off a weird time-switched aspect – so they're read at the time of publication (for single readers) and also at the latter point in the story (for trade readers). In other words, they're revealing different information and to different import depending on whether you read them as they're released or as they're collected.

Which is an interesting challenge.

The Christmas Annual is the first Special which doesn't work like this. Looking at the schedule, we thought it healthier to add an extra month to the gap between arcs. The next arc is six issues, as is the one after that. We decided to add another special, and then saw what would be fun to do.

This was a boon for me. The problem is never not having enough material, y'know? The difference between something I'd like to do and something that is essential I do is narrow. Jamie had the idea of going back to periods we skipped and showing some of their key moments. I initially kicked against it a little, but when the thing I was trying proved too hard to make work, it seemed the simplest thing to do for me, and seemed a cute gift to the fans in a year that's been pretty fucking brutal.

(That we rarely get happier than bittersweet speaks to me, really. All happiness is tinged with sadness. “I love you” is married to “and one day we will all be dead”.)

But it was also a fun time. We got a gang of our favourite people together and did a bunch of short stories. Most of all, I got to write a bunch of people I haven't written for a while. I've missed them.

How were the stories chosen? Rapidly! The main limitation was not choosing anything which would spoil anything in Imperial Phase: Part Two. The Specials are designed to be spoiler-free for any trade which isn't released when it's released. We also wanted to show a bunch of kissing and similar social activities, as for a book which has as much emotional and sexual stuff driving the characters, there's relatively little on panel.

I wrote 'em, showed them to the gang, and then we worked out who we could ask to draw them. I was expecting I would remove several of them, but they all ended up going in, with tweaks in some cases in the story's focus. In terms of the characters selected, I definitely paid attention to characters who had relatively little screen time – so, Lucifer, Inanna and Tara.

Jamie's Cover

Using a bought Photoshop filter, this actually a lot more work than Jamie was expecting. It is wonderful though. It is to my eternal regret we never actually arranged it as a Christmas Merchandise thing. This is a delight to me. Really, we're aware that Jamie doesn't do many playful covers, so this was an opportunity we grasped with both hands. For all the iconic drama, there's also a playfulness to WicDiv that doesn't always show up on the covers.

Kris Anka's Cover

It's a Christmas Annual in the mode of a British Annual – in that these are annuals released at Christmas rather than having Christmas as a major theme per se. Anyway, despite all that, Inanna and Baal in hot make-out beneath the mistletoe is an absolute joy. I am pleased we get to do this.

IFC

The main editorial note to Designer Sergio was “Tackier! Tackier!”

The photo was taken in North London cocktail bar “Every Cloud.” Jamie is probably drinking some manner of Old Fashioned. I think I'm drinking some kind of Buttered Rum-containing cocktail. Chrissy draped the only decorations she could find over our heads.

1-6

Kris Anka! Jen Bartel helped out on inks on this as well, due to time constraints. Kris is currently on a Marvel Exclusive, so we had to get permission to do this story. Marvel said yes, so thanks to them enormously.

Yes, if you examine the timeline, Valhalla was certainly erected quickly. And yes, “Erected quickly” is a major theme in this story.

It's one of the lighter stories in the issue – obviously delineating what we know about Baal to this moment says a lot, and the same for Inanna.

I tried to write the scripts to the artists, but I also was interested in leaving it open for them to express things in their own ways. Generally speaking, I let the artists choose how to show the characters in a sex scene, as I want to see their own interpretation. It was a delight to see Kris go as far as he did here.

We did wonder whether we'd be okay with showing hard cocks. We're told that hard cocks are fine, but ejaculation is the problematic limit. I'm glad it's not an issue. This is a hot scene, but it's primarily a romantic one.

I love what Matt is doing with the panel on page 5 – the pinks and purples of Inanna here.

Baals expression on the first panel is very funny, as is the confidence in panel 3 of it.

7-8-9-10

There's seven stories, but several were just two pages. We realised the best way to do it would be to group the shorter of the long ones with the short ones so all collaborators get 5-6 pages each. This makes it much easier with trade royalties down the line, and organising 5 artists (plus colourists and flatters) is a significantly easier one than organising 7 (and their associated collaborators).

This is the first of the stories coloured by Tamra Bonvillain. I've never worked with Tamra before, but we loved her work, approached her, and she said yes. Thanks for joining us on this journey.

The artist here is Rachael Stott, who is probably best known for her Doctor Who work, but is about to do Motherland for Vertigo with Si Spurrier, which looks excellent.

There was quite a lot of careful balloon work here, to try and guide the eye and provide the necessary exposition (or really, reminders – all this is building upon or just showing events that have been alluded to earlier.) The eye-guiding is key – for example, due to a minor quirk of the first two panels, the Shard is hidden by the column which means that the view in the second panel feels instantly wrong. We end up disguising the shard with the dialogue so it's far less noticeable.

This event is alluded to by Lucifer in issue 3 of WicDiv.

The penthouse is the one we see in issue 1, which I presume is rented by the Pantheon for their purposes.

Writing Lucifer after all this time was a pleasure. Well, pleasure may be the wrong word. She's herself, and she's always very able to show bits of herself. Lucifer says things that no one else in the cast does, which is obviously one of her huge problems.

Yes, the first panel of page 9 did make me think of an OBJECTION! style WicDiv Phoenix-Wright-esque game.

The panel is also a place where we really had to do the work to put this in continuity – the obvious assumption would be that Baal is pissed off about Lucifer sleeping with Sakhmet, which is only really a minor cause of WTF-ness.

That Lucifer explicitly fucked with Baal and Inanna was hinted at early in WicDiv and made explicit in WicDiv 23. Inanna didn't consider the relationship exclusive, as he doesn't see why anyone would automatically assume a romantic relationship is exclusive. Inanna's great weakness is not always realising that everyone is like him.

The “You're a bad person” ties off why Lucifer and Sakhmet never slept together many times, also mentioned in issue 3. Sakhmet, I suspect, just doesn't like the complications and drama. She is deeply averse to complications.

The last three panels are classic comedy steady-angle shots. That the sprinklers aren't visible led to adding an alarm sound at lettering, to avoid the possible assumption that Baal made it rain indoors or something.

Reading this I find myself thinking about Lucifer in the Special versus Lucifer in the Annual – in the sense that we're seeing her much more humanly, which is leaning into what makes her comic (and awful). The last three panels are not ones you could imagine in The Faust Act, as seen through Laura's star eyes. Nice fucked off expression in the last panel from Rachael.

11-12-13-14-15

Chynna Clugston Flores is just one of my indie comic crushes. Blue Monday is basically one of those key links between 90s and 00s comics. Bryan Lee O'Malley pitched Scott Pilgrim as Blue Monday meets Dragon Ball Z. We pitched Phonogram and Blue Monday meets Hellblazer. She's a wonder.

As such, writing for her was a dream, and I was explicitly writing for her. While this is much more rigid in terms of panel shapes than Chynna would write for herself (the steady angle on the two people in the front seat is very much me trying to write a sort of claustrophobic talking heads kind of set-up) but I'm really exploring a very Chynna type place.

I've been thinking of Dionysus as a “Umar” for a while. When thinking up Dio, the image of writer Umar Ditta leading the Thought Bubble dancefloor was definitely in my mind, and I thought it'd be fun if they share a name, despite being very different dudes. (Not least that Umar could bench Dionysus now.) I asked Umar, and he said yes, so Umar he is. His first comic Untethered has just come out, and is well worth your attention.

This is the second sort of story in the special. One is just showing some key things which impacted the rest of the book, which were usually sexy funtimes. The other was showing some key relationships in the pre-pantheon lives. We've said that Dio was a friend of Baph and Morrigan, but never actually showed what that meant. It was good to get it here.

For those studying the timeline, this is the same day as Hazel become Amaterasu. It would also be the same day Dio takes a photo of Morrigan, and Cameron sits in the tunnel waiting for Morrigan. Busy day!

If I call out my fave Chynna moments, we're going to be here forever. Cameron with his sign on the rain is a joy. Honestly, this is such an odd thing – it makes me imagine what a Blue Monday set in the Midlands would be like.

There was a panic when page 12 arrived and I thought that Chynna had (for some reason) reversed all the seating orders in the car and had the car riding on the wrong side of the road. This is obviously a disaster, because the only way this story works is the characters' speaking order is based upon where they're sitting. But then we realised that the page had been flipped in the dropbox for some reason. Phew.

The quote is from Young Avengers 13, which came out a week or two before this arrived. Yes, I know.

(The question who wrote YA13 in this universe, when Kieron Gillen's career ended with Phonogram: Rue Britannia, is open.)

Page 13 was designed to be a mood break of the lived-in autobio, and Chynna really goes for it, in terms of the leaves and the panel breaking. Not using techniques in the whole piece makes them especially meaningful when they turn up. Tamra also did wonders in the colouring, going for the spooky autumnal reds, teals and purples.

(Tamra and Matt basically split the issue near 50:50.)

This is definitely a more Morrigan way of publicising gigs rather than standing outside shitty clubs and passing out flyers.

The WHAT!? panel is everything I could have hoped for.

The “Oh god. He puns. Morrigan fucked a punner. A wet punner's in my car.” immediately made me feel that I'm trying to channel a Warren Ellis character.

The off-panel MOTHERFUCKER is also a delight.

16-17-18

Emma's one of my favourite people, but I haven't worked with her since a B-side in the second issue of Phonogram: The Singles Club, with a Kate Bush short story. (EDIT: Plus in the Young Avengers Afterparty, which I’d blanked. This is the second time that’s happened to an artist from that. Which, given the time period I was writing that, is unsurprising). So it's lovely to get back with her, and she does some of my favourite work in the Special. Do go and have a look at her Breaks, which she draws and co-writes.

When Tara has had so little panel time, trying to work out how to approach her is key – and Emma manages to find a place which is clearly her, but also informed by Tula's iconic take. Matt also brings us much of those choices to the page in the colours.

It's useful, as this story almost acts as a prequel to issue 13. It's essentially the first time Tara pitches what she wants to do to Ananke, a moment which is at least alluded to in 13.

I wrote the story originally as two pages – specifically, the last two pages. I talked about it with Editorial Assistant Katie, and she noted it's a shame we never actually see Tara happy ever. Which struck me as true, and a problem – at least in part this Special is about showing different sorts and times of happiness. So I added the first page, which is my best pitch for Tara at her most positive. This is the unspoken stuff that's under the surface in issue 13, and Tara talking about the drive is one of her main bits of happiness. I talk about how the cast are all me in different ways? Tara definitely includes the part of me which never feels better than after having written something I think is good. I've certainly done the “if get a disease which means I have six months to live, have I got time to finish writing WicDiv?” maths.

Much like issue 13, I wrote considerably more captions than are used on the first page. You write it like a diary entry and then edit to the core.

I always say that an artist can make the script their own, and that I try to write to the minimum number of panels. Of all the artists in the script, Emma's the one who added most panels. This looks great, and is very much a part of her style.

Quick call-out to Clayton in the second panel of page 17: that tiny string of notes positioned either side of those captions is beyond perfect.

The last page is all kinds of sad. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm pleased with how the masks work on the page.

19-20

Second Rachael story. She's an enormous Lucifer fan, so was very excited to do this.

This is as simple as the stories get, in terms of a tiny yet meaningful continuity insert. This was there already, but I felt underlining it and reminding people of it at this point in the narrative is meaningful for obvious reasons.

(I had things I wanted to do in Imperial Phase II which I never found space for – or when I did find space, felt off and wrong.)

Writing Laura captions again after all this time was definitely a thing which took a while to find again. But I liked it.

(Spangly New Thing has captions to the fore again, for various reasons, so them as a formalist element is certainly on my mind.)

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This absolutely was formative Indie Crush mode. Carla Speed McNeil's Finder was one of my initial loves when I came into comics in the early 00s. It's just astounding stuff. I'd suggest starting with Mystery Story, I suspect, but there's two big omnibuses of it, and I'd recommend just getting them. She's continuing doing other Finder stories alongside her work elsewhere.

It was originally 5 pages, but Carla suggested an extra page. I'd deliberately left an extra page space in the issue, in case anyone wanted more space... and Carla grabbed it. Good work.

When writing this, I was thinking of Carla's storytelling... but I also realised that a part of Carla's storytelling is to warp and make her own. Seeing what she would do with my script was a big part. I wanted the Carla magic applied, and she did – the extra page is a big part of that.

Notice how Tamra uses the palettes to distinguish the two different settings. Eleanor in the dark and Hazel in the light seems pretty useful, right?

That Lucifer and Amaterasu were friends and knew each other were one of the elements of the background I never had a chance to really run with, for obvious reasons. In the same way as I wanted to do some Dio/Baph pre-scenes, doing a Lucifer/Amaterasu: The Early Years appealed.

H's fanart was mentioned in issue 15, I believe.

As much as it's a dual story, it's really more about Lucifer. Amaterasu may not even appear to really aware of how much she's been slighted in the story. Or maybe she is? It is Eleanor's perspective. This is also the first dialogue we've ever had as Eleanor, rather than Lucifer reporting Eleanor. The resentment and anger is so much cleaner, the saying the unsayable aspect with less glitter.

Hazel is right. Eleanor is mean.

Adding a page appealed for various reasons, but at least part of it was that it's the only in-story chance to see a Lucifer performance. There was an alternate cover in the first arc, but it's not the same – though it's probably the same performance. We've talked about her Brixton performances before, and this is there. This would be a gig that Laura saw, as previously referenced.

The last page (and final panel of page 5) is a take on a scene that's already on canon – specifically, the story as reported in the WicDiv Magazine Special.

The last-minute panic of the issue was Jamie realising we'd forgotten to have Amaterasu’s facepaint on her in the final panel, so that was a quick patch from Tamra. Phew.

The “I'm sorry” panel is A+.

As an example of the Carla Speed McNeil of it all, the last montage of shots is her addition, which brings a visual closure to the sequence.

27-28

Back with Emma Viceli, with a missing scene after issue 8. The actual core details were alluded to in issue 10, but this actually takes us there. If you remember, at this point Inanna and Baal are no longer in any way romantically involved, but fucking the best friend of someone you were with is almost always drama. The purple and red colouring seems to make that be the subtext there.

We checked Laura's age here repeatedly, to ensure she was 18 in these images. It would be actively illegal if we messed up.

Clearly my fave thing is the call back to issue 4's PLAY IT COOL gag.

This issue's structure came after all the art started coming in. It's a mix-tape curation – in terms of what's the best order to take people on a journey. Things like Kris' story being first seemed obvious – his was the alternative cover after all, featuring Inanna and Baal, which makes it a de facto lead story. That this story is furthest along in the timeline made it a suitable end, plus that we open with Inanna/Baal. The real thing is that it's a story which ends with something resembling a concluding beat. “This is going to be complicated” feels like something that ends an issue in the way that many of the stories don't. I suspect the only other credible option was Chynna's story, with Dio/Baph riding off down a motorway. What feels like it could be an ending? What feels like Closure?

IBC

The titles were all added in the last minute, when we realised the best way to actually discern which story was which for the credits was to actually give them a title.

SUMER LOVING was miscorrected to SUMMER LOVING at every stage of production, and had to be changed back every time. There is no love for Sumerian humour in the modern comic market place.

Anyway – off for the season now. The Imperial Phase II trade drops in January, followed by The Wicked + The Divine 1923 special in February and the new arc in March.

Thanks for reading.

#WicDiv #the wicked and the divine #Kris Anka #chynna clugston flores #carla speed mcneil #Rachael Stott #Emma Vieceli #tamra bonvillain #writer notes

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theseventhhex · 5 years

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Operators Interview

Operators

Photo by Brit Kubat

Operators is a Montreal based project created by Daniel Boeckner, (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Divine Fits), Devojka, and Sam Brown (Divine Fits, New Bomb Turks) in 2014. The band released an EP in 2014, and released their first LP in 2016. Operators supported these releases with a series of international tours across North America, and Europe. Their latest release, ‘Radiant Dawn’ consists of nine tracks that meld raw analog hardware with Boeckner's distinct voice to create an immersive cinematic sound. Interspersed between the tracks are instrumental intertitles that amplify the album’s 1970s sci-fi dystopian feel. ‘Radiant Dawn’ maintains a completely fresh energy for a band very much in top form… We talk to Dan Boeckner about working in an isolated setting, the VHS era and HBO’s Chernobyl …

TSH: How would you sum up your creative partnership with Devojka in the lead-up to ‘Radiant Dawn’?

Dan: Once the ‘Blue Wave’ touring cycle ended and I had time off from Wolf Parade, I started putting together some basic ideas for what I thought would turn into ‘Radiant Dawn’ tracks. We had this sort of unspoken understanding that we weren’t going to limit ourselves to the same gear that we used to write ‘Blue Wave’, so I’d set up a few limited combinations of synths and drum machines and just started carving out patterns and chord progressions I liked. I had a lot of false starts. It wasn’t really until Dev and I began working on things together in our studio that the aesthetic of ‘Radiant Dawn’ revealed itself. We did a few days of free form jamming direct to 2 track cassette with Andrew Woods (who ended up mixing the album) processing the entire mix through a table of guitar pedals. When we were listening to the playback, it pretty much set the tone for the sonic aesthetic of the album. Dev and I got to work on building a kind of psycho-geography for the songs to live in. I got obsessed with the idea of a kind of Irradiated Pastoralism. These banal landscapes made completely unrecognisable by an “event”. Maybe a visitation, nuclear fallout, the effects of extreme climate change. Not post-apocalyptic but post-post-apocalyptic. Everything has grown back, the sun is shining, but the landscape and objects have been changed. The foliage has changed. Everything is unrecognisable. Dev and I worked really quickly after that. I felt like once we built the world, it was easy to fit the songs into it.

TSH: As you guys fleshed out new material, what was the level of focus in the studio like?

Dan: We’re pretty intensely focussed when we’re writing. One of the great things about having Dev as a writing partner is that we’re both completely comfortable and happy to play 4 bar bass sequence for hours and just reach a kind of trance state, adding and subtracting melodies and trying out different vocal lines. It’s really my favourite part of the process because it feels pure and totally removed from the world of the “intellectual”. Usually we’d record voice memos and then go over them, pick out the exciting moments and work those moments into a structure.

TSH: You’ve touched on this album pushing you forward into a new chapter of writing. Can you tell us more about auditioning your lyrics…

Dan: I’ve never really done it before, so it was a bit nerve wracking. I wanted the lyrics on this album to function like a bridge between the different narrators and protagonists in the different songs. To reinforce the narrative and show that they all lived in the same world that we’d built. Once I got over my initial uncomfortableness about sitting in a room and reading/singing lyrics to Dev, it was a blast. We got to dig into the songs and try a bunch of different things out. I filled an entire notebook with lyrics for this album and used probably 10% of them.

TSH: Also, what were the benefits in working in a really isolated setting?

Dan: Our studio is down the street from our house, on a semi bustling street…but the studio itself feels like a space station. Walking in the door for me is like walking through an airlock. There’s the outside world where linear time exists, people are getting drunk at the bar below, cars driving by, occasionally I look out the window and see someone I know…inside the studio, time stops, everything is calm, it’s a blank space where you just work and build something. I like being able to access both of those things. To spend a whole day isolated and working and then shut the door and go back to normal city life.

TSH: Was ‘Days’ identified early on as the album opener?

Dan: When I finished the first, extremely rough pass of ‘Days’ and played it for Dev, we both knew that it should be the first song on the album. The protagonist wakes up in the woods mumbling the lines of the chorus and the whole song rushes forward to a collapse where the drum machine and pads just start falling apart. The album ends in the woods with the protagonist of ‘Low Life’ watching his small town become unstuck in space/time and there’s a similar disintegration of the track. There’s a kind of loop there. I also really liked the idea of the first melodic thing you hear on the album being just Buchla bass and smeared out vocals.

TSH: Moreover, what sort of motivations do you draw on to pen a track like ‘Faithless’?

Dan: ‘Faithless’ is about the hallucinatory nature of reality (online and offline) under late period capitalism. The same grotesquely funny reality bending force field that happened in the USSR during the last years of its existence. When I wrote it, I was thinking about the absurd effects of 80s GOSPLAN (a factory that makes 10s of thousands of platform shoes that no one wants, based on calculations made by state bureaucrats) and the existential horror of watching verified fast food chain twitter accounts “interact” with each other about depression and how they’re pretty much the same thing. The failure of an ideology, political system and ecumenic ideal creating this gradual psychedelic effect on our daily lives. Accepting that. Not really knowing or caring if anything is true because…our last individual agency in this collapsing system is being able to believe something ridiculous like the earth is flat or that vaccines are a government conspiracy. Losing faith in pretty much everything. I wanted to write a song about that ending up being a liberating force for change.

TSH: How key is it for Operators to continuously have a strong visual element?

Dan: It’s become really important to the way we want to present the band. When we started, it was more of a stark, Fugazi style minimalism where we wouldn’t think about lighting onstage or a constant aesthetic, but with this record Dev and I are so invested in the world we built for ‘Radiant Dawn’, we felt like it was important to invite people into it with short films, projections onstage… to give people an immersive experience.

TSH: Speaking of visual elements, when you think of the VHS era, what sort of nostalgia and memories come to mind for you?

Dan: When I think of the VHS era I think of one thing: McQuinns Video. I grew up in a very remote rural community in Canada. We had one video rental store and it was in the basement of this guy Dick McQuinns house. You’d go in his front door, walk down a hallway and open another door. You’d walk down a flight of stairs and be greeted by a massive poster for the movie Maniac, which is an oil painting of the titular Maniac holding the severed head of a woman and a giant bowie knife. His stock was probably 50% “regular” films and 50% insane horror movies. I loved going there and wandering through the stacks of VHS tapes, looking at the covers. My brother and I would rent a bunch of horror movies and spend summer afternoons with the blinds closed mainlining Lucio Fulci and John Carpenter. I think it broke my brain in the best possible way.

TSH: Is the notion of being adaptable one that you’ve had to master being an artist over the years?

Dan: I’m not sure if I’ve mastered it, but it’s a really important skill to cultivate. One thing I do know is that in 2019, no one who works on the business side of music has any fucking idea what’s happening. All the models that “worked” 5-10 years ago are obsolete and irrelevant. That coupled with the fact there seems to be this weird, Lovecraftian shadow of the “good old days” still guiding a lot of the decisions that get made about how to direct an artist’s career means that WE as artists need to trust our instincts and experiences on the road/in the business more and more. If you’re a working musician and you’re paying attention, you’re going to know what works and what doesn’t more than any of the management class people around you. Being fluid and adaptable to this new paradigm is the way to stay happy and working.

TSH: You’ve touched on how ‘shooting stuff around on the internet can be really damaging’. Do you feel that today’s technology is information overload and that real communication is crumbling?

Dan: I don’t feel like communication and engagements are suffering but I do feel like the networked nature of these systems and the way they’re a perfect vector for political brain poisoning has been incredibly damaging to social and political life, even here in Canada.

TSH: Having some German in you, do you have any strong attachments to German ways of life?

Dan: Haha! Not at all. I do love krautrock though! And, now that I think about it… currywurst.

TSH: What do you and Devojka bond and laugh over most whilst on tour?

Dan: Late night forced karaoke in the van, whatever weird regional American gas station items we come across, terrible hours long comedy riffs (usually based on a single word) that are just the product of the collective insanity of being in a van for 6-10 hours day.

TSH: Does your dog Archie still sleep on your suitcase when you need to access it?

Dan: Yes. Every single time we leave on tour. Always my suitcase. Probably because it’s bigger and more comfortable than Devs. We used to bring him out on the road with us and it was great… he’s an incredible equaliser. Say you’ve got a surly promoter or stage tech…it’s incredibly hard to be a complete asshole when there’s a little, friendly dog wandering around and charming everyone.

TSH: What impressed you most about HBO’s Chernobyl? And what else have you been watching lately?

Dan: I loved Chernobyl. I’m a huge fan of Jarred Harris. It’s jarring to watch something produced in the West in 2019 that’s not just ultra-reactionary and critical of Russia in general, even though the story itself is an indictment of late period Soviet bureaucracy. I liked how the director acknowledged how much of the series was lifted from Svetlana Alexeivichs incredible book, as well. I’d recommend that anyone who enjoyed Chernobyl go out and buy her latest work Secondhand Time - one of the best things I’ve ever read. Some other things I’ve watched lately: Neon Genesis Evangelion (still great), The Wailing (amazing Korean horror film), The Dark (the German Lost but good), Stranger in a Strange Land (1987 Nick Cave in Berlin doc), Marketa Lazarova (Czech new wave and the most black metal film ever made) and Ian Nairn - Nairn Across Britain. The whole series is up on YouTube and I think I learned more about UK social geography from it than anything I’ve ever read. A lot of the locations seem bleak (it’s always raining and grey) or run down (it was filmed between 71-78) but the way he imbues these places with magic and history makes you feel like you’re listening to Alan Moore talk about sacred geometry. It’s a deeply odd and very British documentary series. There’s an entire episode about Wolverhampton that’s completely gripping, if that’s any indication of how charming this guy is.

TSH: Devojka has previously made drinks for her neighbourhood – do you get treated to some cocktail specials on tour?

Dan: Without a mobile full bar, it’s hard to get the same quality of drinks out BUT, we did a pretty big booze buy on the last tour and had a box full of some top shelf liquor that just came with us into every backstage.

TSH: Finally, what’s pleased you most about the band’s progression to date?

Dan: The fact that we got to the point where we could make a record like ‘Radiant Dawn’. I’m not discounting our other stuff but to me ‘Radiant Dawn’ was one of those “signpost albums” you get to make once every 5 years or so. A record where you push through into another phase of your creative life and discover some new tools, new approaches, new language for making music and everything becomes challenging and exciting. For me, that’s really only happened twice before in the last 15 years and I’m glad we kept pushing at our song writing process. Evolving as a live band has been really rewarding too. To be so linked and tuned into each other on stage you can be in the middle of a set and just throwing new things, flourishes, new parts back and forth at each other and playing off them. Those moments are the closest I get to pure, mindless joy.

Operators - “I Feel Emotion”

Radiant Dawn

#Interview #Operators #dan boeckner #devojka

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beatmagazine · 7 years

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Elf Lyons - Typically Different

With her new show Pelican out on the road to brighten up the otherwise gloomy months of January, February and March, and a new-new show kicking off straight after that, Elf Lyons isn’t one for hanging ‘round.

After high-tailing it from Bristol Uni to London in 2012, Elf has spent the past four years building a reputation for her fresh, playful, brilliantly scripted and often plain weird live shows. She’s picked up a string of 5 star reviews and a growing crowd of fans along the way.

Elf took a late night quiet moment to talk to us about Pelican, writing and why eating sausages in the morning is weird.

photo by Andy Hollingworth

Hi, Elf. How are you?

Great. At the time of writing this it is 1am, I’ve just eaten a bar of Green & Blacks Mint chocolate in the bath, and I’ve got a new lava lamp.

Describe a typical day in the Life of Elf.

Typically, each day is typically very different to the one before - but usually each one is very sexy, full of fun, including ten parts coffee, one ‘Oh Fuck Moment’, at least five costume changes, twenty cuddles and human interactions, Magic FM on full and one moment of wobbly cellulite nudity. Either accidental or on purpose.

This last week alone I did a new magic comedy striptease in French, a tax return, my drag night The Matron Presents, some awful gym activities involving squats - causing me to walk like Clint Eastwood with an erection, attended a ball for the Inspired4Life charity, taught a comedy workshop for teenagers, re-edited Pelican, rewrote a short script and came fourth in a film pub quiz. So overall, busy.

You've done a load of shows at The Etcetera Theatre, regularly compère at Camden Comedy Club and host an LGBT comedy night at Her Upstairs; you're a bit of a Camden legend. Which has been your favourite role so far and why?

I couldn’t pick a favourite role - they all congeal together to make this huge big bulbous colourful globule of memories which encapsulates my whole weird experience of Camden.

There is a growing idea that Camden is past it, that it's relevancy and culture died with indie and Amy Winehouse. Do you think that's fair? Does Camden have more to offer than tat for tourists and unaffordable rent, particularly for young people?

Camden is about the alternative, trying new things out and taking a risk. Sure it is a tourist attraction, and there are many other developing areas of London with their own cool creative hubs which are blossoming - Peckham, Brixton, Shoreditch to name a few. But like so many other bits of London, you just need to look past the high street and you’ll see that there is a thriving creative community that isn’t difficult to get involved in. There are music gigs, poetry gigs, queer gigs, political stand up gigs, lots of new theatre and community projects going on.

To make one person, like Amy Winehouse, the emblem of the culture of a town undercuts the other creative aspects of the area. Comedy in particular has always been vibrant - since I first started doing comedy and still now. Yes - Camden is so much more expensive, but still hosts some of the only affordable central performance spaces for artists to showcase their work. If it wasn’t for festivals like the Camden Fringe it would be far harder for artists to get their work seen.

It may not be perfect but is it part of the patchwork quilt of London’s creative scene.

Now that you're back home, what was the highlight of your time at L'Ecole Philipe Gaulier?

Gaulier was all my favourite coming of age films in one. Like Dirty Dancing except based in a tiny little cramped run down part of Paris, with only one bar and 50 of the weirdest people you’ve ever met. And Patrick Swayze was replaced by a love-hate frenchman who resembled a bowling ball. Rumplestiltskin - if he had discovered crocs, fine millinery and whisky. It was fantastic!

One highlight was meeting my comedy soul mate Ryan Lane.

Ryan and I learnt the Parent Trap handshake on our first week together of Le Jeu and that birthed a relationship akin to step-siblings. We write well together and since our success in creating characters we have teamed up and are developing our play Hilda & The Spectrum - which we are previewing around the UK from March and then the Edinburgh Festival.

The great thing about Gaulier was that it helped birth so many surreal and stupid ideas that I would have felt too ridiculous to consider developing back in London. It taught me to be free and to feel less reserved about looking an idiot. You learn that as long as you are performing with complete joy - nothing matters but that moment - no matter how stupid it is.

London or Paris?

Tough. London has the dress sense and the quirks, the better coffee (I will fight any french barista on this point) and unlike Paris we are allowed to sit on the grass in our parks. But, Paris has the attitude and there is nothing more beautiful than Bautes Chaumont. Their queer scene is great and there’s something just fantastic about the way Parisians host things. There is a real artistry to it.

Also - the bread... my god... the bread.

Croissant and coffee or full English?

Croissant and coffee. Always. I think eating sausages in the morning is really weird.

Being Barberella photo by Will Hazell

What does your writing process involve and where do you look for inspiration?

I pick a subject, anything: from the underground / politics / porn legislation / Barbie etc - research it, play with it, learn about it, then meet someone and talk to them about it, get drunk, argue about it, then after I’ve ruminated on it enough I’ll then improvise around it on stage and see what comes.

I like to give myself challenges - for example: the new show is a one woman production of Swan Lake. I don’t know ballet - so I am going to have to learn. Challenge No 1. Challenge No 2? I want to do the whole thing in french. Because, why not? Problem is I can’t speak french. So I am learning french.

Crucially I read tons (every day in the morning) and that really helps - with language, words, ideas and reference. I recommend reading as much as you can. Everything and anything.

What advice do you have for young, female writers who struggle with confidence and believing in their creative output?

Once you have decided to book yourself a gig / open spot / venue / whatever it is, you need to actually get your act together and showcase to people what is going on in that wonderful head of yours. Accept that you are going to be crap for a while and at random points doing what you want to do. You’ll be great one day, on top of the world, and the next day you will be awful. THAT IS NORMAL. Embrace it and laugh it off.

There is nothing more dignified than trying an idea, it not working and you going “Okay. That sucked. What’s next?”. Don’t beat yourself up about it. You need to be rubbish in order to be good - so lose any pride you have about being bad, lose your ego, get on stage and get ghastly. AND DROP THOSE FRIENDS WHO MAKE YOU FEEL BAD FOR TRYING IDEAS AND TAKING RISKS. If your friends make you feel ashamed, don’t invite them to your gig.

Going on stage and trying out an idea is the equivalent of showing your working out for a difficult equation on a maths paper - people appreciate seeing your process, not just your end result. SO TAKE RISKS AND PLAY WITH DIFFERENT WAYS OF DOING THINGS.

Remember - each time you do whatever it is you want to do, in front of a crowd - it will get easier. You’ll become familiar with how your body reacts to nerves and to audiences and you’ll be able to plan your gigs accordingly - based on how you know you work in order to get ‘in the zone’.

And read lots. Read and read and read. And watch as much live work as you can.

Your blog post on polyamory genuinely made us laugh out loud. Firstly: art gallery or Nando's?

Art Gallery. Always.

Secondly: have you ever actually had sex in Nando's?

No comment.

You're a queer woman in a very male-heavy field. Have you experienced any difficulties because of it?

I am lucky that I gig with wonderful people on a lovely circuit and have been blessed with not facing any horridness. I know many other people who haven’t been as lucky.

When you aren't blogging naked or writing hit comedy shows, what are you watching on Netflix?

Recently watched the DIVINE documentary which was fantastic and any film with Diane Keaton in it, as she is a goddess. And Drag Race.

And how excited are you for Stranger Things season 2 on a scale of 1-11, or are you more of an OA girl?

I’ve never seen OA and I’m excited about ST on about a level 5. Give me Daredevil and Jessica Jones any day.

How do you prepare for your live shows?

Rene Bazinet taught us some Feldenkrais techniques at Gaulier and since then I’ve become obsessed. It makes my body feel like a calm loose piece of cotton.

You wear some interesting things on stage. What's been your favourite outfit so far?

Hayley Cherkas has designed my last two costumes for Pelican and Being Barbarella and I love them both so much. She’s a fantastic young designer. She sees exactly what I see in my head and translates it to paper and to fabric, in such a beautiful way. Her technique and designs are masterful. She has a great eye. Through her choice of materials, silhouette and cut she balances the surreal with the elegant in a way that makes me feel glamorous whilst still capable to move and play the fool on stage. I like that bizarre balance. She makes me feel like a High Fashion Malvolio.

Writing or performing?

Can’t choose. It’s like picking a puppy over a kitten.

After the Pelican mini-tour, what have you got on for 2017?

Hilda & The Spectrum with Ryan Lane at The Old Joint Stock Theatre in Birmingham in March, alongside previews of my new show (like at The Old Joint Stock Birmingham amongst others) from March. Perhaps back to Gaulier. The Matron Presents is back on the penultimate Wednesday every month at Her Upstairs from March, and finally I also have some writing and filming projects under way...

Favourite Simone de Beauvoir quote?

“The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project”

= I remind myself of this when I start hating on my curves and my bits.

“To be oneself, simply oneself, is so amazing and utterly unique an experience that it’s hard to convince oneself so singular a thing happens to everybody”

= I think about this when people watching on the underground.

And finally, do you really want to kill your mother?

What do you take me for?

Elf Lyon’s Pelican is on tour around the UK throughout February and into March 2017. Firestation tickets are here, or full details on Elf’s website.

Interview by Louisa Austin

#elf lyons #comedy #gig #interview #comedian #tour #uk

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