#unornamented

[thecottageinthedark]

Finally got to Shadowbringers on ffxiv and I both hate and love the Crystarium. Hate it because i keep getting lost, the map is NO help. Love it because that aesthetic though.

I got spoiled by accident on the Exarch's identity long ago and I must say, I never thought he'd be such a dedicated student of the Arts and Crafts movement but I'm sure not complaining...

[jewellery-box]

Underdress, c. 1835, American

The extraordinary decadal morphing of dress forms in the nineteenth century begins in the late 1810s with the shift away from the essentially columnar, high-waisted shapes that characterized the Napoleonic period. By the 1820s the corseted waist shifted from the previous Empire line directly under the bust to a lower point at the mid-ribcage. Simultaneously, sleeves began to balloon into the gigot, or leg-of-mutton, puff together with a similar expansion of the skirt into a full bell shape.

As the volume of the skirt increased in the 1830s, the hemline retreated, ultimately to a point slightly above the ankles-promenade dresses in the 1770s were similarly revealing of the lower leg. This fashion, with its sudden emphasis on the feet and ankles, precipitated a range of increasingly decorative stocking designs. This relatively unornamented dress, its crochet lace inserts appearing only discretely at the shoulder line, might therefore have been worn with hose, also white, embellished with similar lacelike openwork. A wide belt with a gilt buckle would have introduced further visual interest to the ensemble.

The MET Museum

[katieaki]

Set Out Running 🐇🐇🐇

details under the cut

I wanted to make a sort of companion piece to Artie's wolf portrait for Lou. They're different styles, I was trying to emulate a linocut here (there are only four colors: red, yellow, cyan, and pink!), but I think the two pieces speak to one another. It was VERY easy to fill Artie's drawing with STUFF, but Lou is so much more practical and unornamented. I also didn't want to put any words (since she can't read) or any food (she don't eat) or any church stuff (she don't pray), which all served prominently in Artie's piece. I think the colors aren't exactly right for her, but that's alright bc I think they look nice & I'm the bosslady around here.

[viric-dreams]

At some point, Roberts gathered up her old uniforms, the ones that came with her to London, packed them into a bag weighed with stones, then cast them off into the Zee.

There's one thing she kept, however. The medals. Placed in an unornamented, unmarked box.

She's not proud of them. Not anymore. But they're a reminder. A reminder of the Commodore, of her service, of who she was, of what she did to earn them. It's not that she can't let go, but she feels she shouldn't be able to.

Maybe the box might find its way from the mantle to an old, forgotten attic corner, one day. But it stays with her. It doesn't feel right not to.

[hughiecampbelle]

Unornamented (Hughie Campbell Oneshot)

Character/s: Hughie

Word Count: 1,691

Requested: Not requested, but here are the prompts I used :) 13.) Hum, 36.) Scraped Knees 34.) “Still awake?”

Inspired By: Foxglove by Haley Heynderickx

A/N: I love him, I love him, I love him!!!! Anyways, just an appreciation fic for your patience!!! Thank you my loves!! I actually kinda love how this turned out. I think it's very soft and sweet, even a little sad. Heavily inspired by the song/album. Slowly working through my writers block so that once I start posting again, my work will be what you deserve!!! Feedback is always appreciated!! 💜💜💜

The cicada's sharp pitch moves with the wind, seeping through the open window screens. You never knew what that peculiar sound was, the screaming, bleating, wailing, only that it swept through you each night on your long, humid walks home. A kind of begging. A performance. A tongue you have not yet mastered. Shakespearean tragedies, you imagine, wars between families, between forbidden lovers and bitter marriages. Feuds. They step out into costumes covered in ruffles, pearls, thick collars and high stockings. The children dress as fauna and flora, roaring like cubs, nipping at one another playfully. On stage, they are someone else. Largely unseen as the sun sets, they intend to make their presence known. The rest of them, the crowds for miles and miles, sing their songs in appreciation. A hum that vibrates through the leaves, the open air, their roaring praise and applause settles goosebumps across your flesh. They’ve grown accustomed to sweet summer shows and they will be forever grateful. Harmless, they went about their time as you wished to do. No biting, nor stinging. Without violence. They draw out these shows, afraid they will be left alone to bear their lives, their thoughts, mundane and overpowering respectively. 

Beneath you, the springs of the mattress puncture the thin fabric, poking at the spokes of your spine the way a mother would her child. It tickles, her bony knuckles, the sharpness of the spring. Interchangeable. A comfort you have forgotten of, one that fills the cavity of your chest with dread. What else have you forgotten? What else have you given up for a life like this? The sheer curtains blow with the breeze. Thoughtlessly, they move and dance and grab at one another, like sisters. They must be laughing, you think, for they are warm underneath the butter yellow street lights and safe and together. They must be laughing, because they are together and that is who they’ll only ever need: their twin. Leaves rustle underneath the insect melodies. A bass, low and of the earth, the tone of an old man telling stories of his youth. You can hear him smiling. 

The sheets are soft, newly washed, and sticking to you. Wrapped around your torso, your legs free to breathe, kissed by the thick air. Lying like this, with your knees tented, you can see the scrapes across them. Earth scorched. What was once torn open, alive and mouthy, had healed only slightly. The skin is pale and thick and chewy. Shiny. They don’t hurt as much as they did. You’re not sure how it happened, only that it must’ve been recent. There are other aches and pains. Healed and unhealed, bruised and not. Old wounds stitched together. Deep purples, cobalt blues, sickly greens. They’ll yellow soon enough. You were always getting hurt. You were always in some sort of danger. Unwise, you knew, and yet there was something about the thrill. The taste of blood in your mouth. Last time – the last time – you’d almost been sliced in half. Not yet a scar, the settled skin inching its way across your belly remained snakelike. Sensitive, you were careful to wash and dry, to dress and dress again. Your fingertips brush where it rests beneath your shirt. You don’t like looking at it. It remains too much of a reminder. On that day. Of what you were attempting to leave behind. Too soon to joke, to laugh, the both of you still a little rattled. 

It’s how you ended up here. 

There is a body beside you. Not unfamiliar. His skin is warm, and though forgiveness was never one of summer's virtues, you find yourself curling into him, all his nooks and crannies, despite the humidity in the air. His chest rises and falls evenly. His lip is split and there is a scab at his temple. How many times have you kissed that very spot? How many times had you checked on it, to make sure it was healing properly. Free of infection. His shirt is worn and thin and it smells of him: soap and sky and the dinner he burned earlier. One arm rests beneath you, your head, the other thrown behind the pillow, perching it up further. His rest is not easy, not without effort, but there is a certain softness to his features. Maybe it’s the light, the setting sun, the deep, bright blue of the night sky. Maybe not. Either way your eyes follow the slope of his nose, the curve of his cheek, the furrow of his brow. His hair is wild, some of it slicked back. It is his best effort not to overheat. His dreams are still water, not yet broken by growing, gruesome waves. Not yet entering the heart of the storm. It will, of course. And when it does, he will startle awake. Panting. Gasping for air. Clinging to you. 

For now, though, he is quiet. 

The bedroom is cozy. Cozy, you think, is a nice way of saying it’s small. No matter. You had little with you anyways. A lamp. A mattress. You have yet to get a frame, a bedside table. Frivolities. A single dresser you split down the middle, neck to groin. Autopsy-esque. Photos of friends. Notes and doodles. Passports, fake IDs. Enough clothes to get you through the season. You know, when the snow threatens to fall and the cicadas are long gone, you will need more than what you’ve got. The drawers stick and, embarrassed, as quiet as he can, he’ll shake it open. He has done this since you got here. Untethered himself from you, from the bed, gentle enough not to startle you. He’ll dress, and kiss your head, and leave a note: Be back soon. XO Hughie. He’ll disappear in the early morning. Wandering, you suppose. It is the only way he can breathe easily, if he knows where you are. If he understands the layout of the land. You weren’t in the city anymore. The crowds you’d slipped into, becoming just another strange face, were no longer an option here. The hiding places were minimal. Open roads, nothing for miles. The underbelly you could run to for safety, the trains you could crouch into, your hoods up, your faces low, were unavailable. Nonexistent. You’d traded one anonymity for another. You’d pretend to be asleep, watching him, wide eyed, as the morning sun enveloped him. The rays are subtle, not yet full, and they stretch out towards him. Sometimes you’ll fall back to sleep. Sometimes you’ll lie there, soaking in every inch of the room, wondering what became of everyone you’d ever cared about. Wondering if you could make a life like this. When he comes back, he will make you coffee. The only two mugs you brought with you. Chipped and worn. He’ll place his on the dresser, careful with yours, as if it were something precious. He doesn’t voice what he’s seen, what he’s taken into account, but his features are quick to give him away. You will reassure him: he could never find you here. You are both safe. Everyone is safe. The words are hollow, You know this. As long as Homelander is alive, you are in danger. There is only so much of you you can give to him anymore. There is only so much of your mind, your body, your fears, that you can dole out to him. Hughie nods, the steam from his cup bringing color to his face. You will find something else to talk about. The strangers you met on your long walks. The pets you wave to through fences, through windows. The long summer you’ve been granted. How lucky you’ll be when the weather chills and the leaves begin to turn. Anything but Vought. Anything but him. 

That isn’t for many hours, of course.

Your thoughts spread like fog through the apartment. The kitchen (tiny) and the bathroom (even littler). Enough utensils for two. A spongy bath mat. Anything that would fit in the backseat, really. Silly things you grabbed without thinking. The kitschy salt and pepper shakers. A dozen mismatched socks. Only the case of Hughie’s mouth guard. Half a set of slippers. A handful of books. The rest? You would never be sure what happened to them, to anything. You had what the old tenants left behind. The dresser, the lamp, a table for four with three chairs, a shower curtain. There are other things here as well. Spiders in the corners, weaving their webs. Occasionally, you might find one on the bar of soap by the sink, crawling across the counter tops, making its way through the length of the apartment. A mouse or two. If you’re quiet enough, you might hear them scurrying in the walls. Worse, you suspect, though that’s as far as you can name definitively. The first thing he did was get you a mattress. Paid in cash under another name, beaming with pride, he pushed it up the stairs and through each doorway. It was perfect.  The cicadas sing their songs, harmonizing with one another. The sky has darkened. There are so many stars here. That was the first thing you noticed. Driving for days on end, you watched the inky black glitter, thousands and thousands of holes opening up, letting the twinkling light through. It wasn’t like this in the city. It had never been this clear. Perhaps it was the running, the escaping, the tiresome ways you’d been living since you left. Perhaps it was the first beautiful thing you’d been allowed to take in in a long time. There were wildflowers and small towns and houses built long before you, but the time to look in awe, to appreciate, had been so fleeting. Mere moments, that’s all you were allowed. This would go on forever. The scars embedded in your skin ache just a little. You readjust, placing your head on his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart. Hughie, coming to, wraps his arm around you, pulling you even closer. “Still awake?” He asks in his sleepy voice, and you know he is smiling.

[suffersinfandom]

A Summary of The OFMD Meta (Part III)

Thank you for all of the likes and comments! I’ve never really had anything noticed on tumblr and it’s very cool. And scary. Thank you!

This is part three of an incomplete summary of A Meta-Discussion Of The Subtext by meratrishoslee (Mera) on AO3 (linked to, as the author requests). I’m trying to stay impartial and keep all of the important bits in.

This chunk includes chapters sixteen through eighteen, which are an analysis of the final episode of season two. The overarching thesis of the first two chapters is, as it was in the previous part, this: “Ed’s the face, head/mind and body of Blackbeard, Izzy is Blackbeard’s heart/soul -- as well as the heart of the show itself.”

I can’t recommend not commenting on this meta on AO3 enough. Replies that aren’t completely positive will just fuel more “defending myself from the haters” chapters. If you’re inspired, maybe write your own tumblr meta with these takes as a jumping-off point? That way, there’s a chance that someone who’s willing to listen to what you say will read it. 

Other posts Part I Part II

Chapter 16: The Sacred Heart (Part 5)

Episode eight opens on Ed and his girlblogger nature journey, where “we get to see the real people who are having to do the real actual labor to prop up Ed’s navel gazing. Edward does an incredibly colonizery prayer at the dinner table until [Pop-Pop] sets him straight with a smack across the face. [...] The truth comes out about Ed’s lack of skills and experience, and [Pop-Pop] goes into (what I feel is) a justified rage again. But it’s not about Ed’s lies or laziness or self-absorption. It’s again about ‘we are not simple! We’re not simple!’”

We’re not that simple doesn’t make a lot of textual sense because we need to look at the subtext. “Both the skilled labor of fishing for survival and income, as well as this entire show and specifically this episode, are not nearly as clear cut as they initially appear. Perception is NOT reality, so question the logic of what you’re being told and shown.” It’s not that simple. 

Pop-Pop is subtextually telling Ed that he’s not his father -- he’s a textual good father figure (a mirror of Izzy) “trying to instruct/correct Edward while reminding him: we absolutely do not have a father/child relationship.” Ed goes into another non-apology, fucks up dinner, and “gets thrashed not simply for that but *gestures expansively at the previous three minutes of broadcast*.”

(It’s telling that Ed leaves both Stede and Izzy behind and immediately seeks out a replacement for Izzy instead of Stede.)

Ed yells that ‘it’s just a fish,’ but “it’s not just a fish -- it’s dinner, it’s livelihood, it’s disrespect, it’s dealing with this bullshit after a full day of physical labor,” and this is only “our first example in this episode of Ed minimizing a loss that he should in no way be minimizing.”

The fish is also Izzy: “here we have one loss of a creature of water dumped into the fire, as mirrored to the later, greater loss of Izzy -- a creature of water and air, who belongs on or in the ocean -- inexplicably buried in the earth.” (Don’t forget: Stede and Ed are ALSO fish.)

The next scene is Ricky at the Republic of Pirates. He’s polishing his small hidden pistol -- the one that will be so deadly later in the episode. Ricky’s uniform is tailored to make him look smaller. He’s now a mirror to Izzy: “often underrated, underacknowledged, and treated as a joke by the people around him.” His outfit details mirror Izzy’s: ” the ruffled shirt cuffs, the saber on his left side, the cravat at his throat with its own gold accent -- a pearl for purity instead of an emerald for grief. Lots of white/cream/gold in contrast to Izzy's unrelieved and unornamented black.”

At Spanish Jackie���s, Ricky makes Jackie fish his nose out from the nose jar, or “reach into a grave to retrieve something he’s lost,” and “we don’t see Jackie locate the object of her search, exhume it from the grave the jar and show it to him…”

We see Zheng Yi Sao devastated by the loss of her fleet and, she thinks, Auntie. She’s not sobbing; she’s numb, shocked, unable to so much as cry. Stede’s being an insensitive idiot. “Stede’s heard of empathizing, but has no idea how it actually works -- and has also never had a failure as awful as this one. He’s mansplaining struggle and loss to a woman of color.”

The closeup on Ed’s face as he sees what has become of the Republic of Pirates mirrors the closeup at the wedding in S2E1. “I want you to drink it in: We have been here before. We are doing it all again. You don’t have to be afraid of it; the same road just looks different in the dark.” We’re also watching Ed go into shock (Mera is “feeling a few motes of compassion here”).

“Edward doesn’t actually need the Blackbeard kit to be a warrior. He just killed two soldiers with his bare hands, [...]. But in this moment of shock and grief, Edward craves the invisible mantle of something more powerful than mere knives or guns: the image he and Izzy created between the two of them, the incredible and indestructible myth that deals death and cannot itself die. An Izzy mirror [Pop-Pop] told Edward something he could construe as ‘become Blackbeard again’ – and, alone in this instant of world-shattering shock [...], he clings to the thing he trusts the most, at the instruction” of a character who mirrors Izzy.

We see Ricky descend into a basement. He tells the jailed crew that they will be hung and their stories will be lost. “I hereby re-invoke my personal prohibition against Season 3 speculation, other than the certainty that we will see the text bear up and explain what the currently available subtext so fulsomely insists: that Izzy is alive in the last frame of this episode.”

Izzy is sitting in the middle of the room, primed to make himself the best target to protect the crew, given a position of respect on what might be the only chair. Either Izzy has had a chance to rest (he was exhausted and in pain the previous day) OR “our Sacred Heart, determined to watch over and protect everyone else in the room, has not fucking slept a wink all night. That’s two nights and a day of effort, for a disabled man (who, if you believe the HIV/AIDS coding, is also in a constant battle of autoimmune illness).”

“And now: our beautiful, hurting, self-sacrificing Sacred Heart is drawn into the dance of death -- one that, because it happens almost entirely in silences of the mind, can be and is ignored by people who only see the pretty pictures flashing in front of their eyes.”

Izzy baits Ricky so thoroughly that “Ricky will put off having them all hanged just so he can get Izzy’s full and undivided attention -- as well as keep Izzy’s family as functional hostages to Izzy’s good behavior.”

Izzy and Ricky sit down to chat. “Izzy’s defense of his loved ones is like chess, and he’s his own most useful (and yet sacrificial) game piece. Izzy does change his tactics whenever he realizes something isn’t gaining him ground -- but he’s got Ricky fairly well figured out.” Izzy knows he needs to keep Ricky occupied until Ed, Stede, and Yi Sao show up. He needs to keep him interested. 

Ricky is projecting when he calls Izzy the brains of the Blackbeard operation. “He’s his own ‘brain’ with no heart. We have it proven by his plan to immediately double-cross Zheng [...]; that’s devious and clever on a level Izzy (who doesn’t even carry a pistol so that all his violent power remains connected to his body so he can control every bit of it -- and you can’t redirect a bullet or change what it’ll hit once it’s in flight) would not have gone to on his own.”

Izzy stops playing with the candle flame (recall that both he and Ed toy with flames when they’re lying). This is his ‘it’s about belonging to something’ speech.

“The Sacred Heart is level, unmoving, and intense when he delivers his raison d'être into Prince Ricky’s hearing. What response does he get, upon confessing his all? The worst possible one, unfortunately. Ricky can’t resonate with Izzy’s essential truth spoken blatantly into the text: Ricky has never once done anything in his life simply for the love of another person, much less a whole group of them.”

But it’s fine, because “Izzy is subtextually confessing, via the text, to us as the Unseen Crew. The Sacred Heart put into the text the reason for everything he’s done this season, and everything he will do before the end of the episode: not for glory, gold, public acclaim, or even the satisfaction of personal desire or the pursuit of romantic love. It’s for the crew, and the crew alone. It is utterly selfless, having let go of the ego-self. It is agape love.”

Zheng Yi Sao, Stede, and Ed are all at the beach. Ed and Stede reunite and Stede gets an actual, real apology from Ed. Stede responds to Ed’s love confession with an ‘I know,’ and maybe that’s supposed to feel a bit off. (When something feels off, look at the subtext.)

Ed and Stede run off to battle with their two battlecries: ‘Die, motherfuckers!’ ‘For love!’ And guess what? “...We will get to see someone do just that: die for love.”

“Now the center of the mirror episode, held between its textual and subtextual midpoints: Archie and Fang trying to create a literal ‘narrow escape’ by twisting fabric around the bars until they bend.” 

Olu finds Auntie, “who is such a capable person that she’s already decided she’s dead and went off to a quiet spot to finish dying where it wouldn’t bother anyone else,” and calls Jim over to help her. 

Why Jim? “...While Buttons bit Lucius and the wound got infected and he nearly died from sepsis -- Jim’s Nana said that they once bit a priest's finger off and the priest swore that he'd die of rabies, but he didn’t. [...] Jim’s assistance also contributed to Izzy surviving an unsurvivable amputation and healing up afterward; we can go ahead and say that Jim’s hands are canonically (and magically) healing.”

To recap: “an Izzy mirror character [Auntie] thinks they’re dead and all’s lost so they ‘bury’ themselves as best they could… and then they resurrect with a beam of holy white light. It’s possible that the addition of a dove in the scene was rejected as being ‘too on the nose.’”

Back to Izzy. Ricky calls himself the ultimate pirate, but of course “Izzy's the ultimate pirate: not because he's loud and brags and destroys things, but because every other real pirate knows him and follows his orders when he gives them.”

Izzy plays RIcky and “...we see Prince Ricky absolutely stunned and captivated by Izzy’s all-encompassing conviction.” Izzy continues: ‘Our spirit will last throughout your entire fuckin’ empire because we’re good. And you are a rancid, syphilitic cunt.’ Izzy looks on Ricky with pity and “Ricky’s damn near openly weeping, because the Sacred Heart’s speaking of the unspoken truth has always and without fail been fucking devastating.”

Why does that hurt him? “Ricky’s presenting with a ‘saddle nose’ deformity/infection due to raging untreated syphilis,” and “Izzy’s just told Prince Ricky: Jackie only took what you were probably going to eventually lose anyway, and you and I both know it.” As you can see, “...these two mirrored characters are both infected with STI’s that can cause pain and dementia, prevent safe intimacy with others, and eventually result in death.”

Chapter 17: The Sacred Heart (Part 6)

We pick up with Zheng Yi Sao, Stede, and Ed arriving on the scene a bit too late. “As the soldiers begin dying all around them, the rage on Ricky’s face is turned -- not toward our sword-wielding heroes or to Jackie’s crew who have so deftly distributed their poison -- but to the Sacred Heart, who played an immaculate game that no one else spotted until it was too late.”

Speaking of poison, there’s a Bible passage about that: ‘And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons [Ed and Auntie referring to demons]; they will speak with new tongues [Buttons reading the magic scroll]; they will take up serpents [Lucius roasting snake on a stick]; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them [Jackie’s household is poisoned trained]; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover [Jim healing Auntie].’

Is this too much of a reach? Nah. “For myself… I’ve never seen we queer folk portrayed as holy in mainstream western media to such a loving, complete, and human extent before. I have never seen us be both the divine and the disciples before, so textually and overtly.” 

Mera continues:

Last night the Universe gave me a quote, from an unexpected source: “Hell is not what you expect it to be.” That part, I been knew. [...]

I’m pleased to confess: ‘Jesus was not what we expected him to be!’ 

And that feels like it’s given that ideal back to me: Jesus doesn’t have to be conventionally pretty, conventionally young. He doesn’t have to be spotless and pure and inoffensive to the point of being bland, untouchable and unsexed, in order to represent God and reunite us with the divine power of the Universe. 

He can be a small, aging, angry, bitter, disabled, leather-clad, lust-filled queer man with a filthy mouth and AIDS in his arteries -- as long as he carries God’s agape love for his chosen family.

And that means any of us can be Jesus, too -- as long as we truly love. 

That’s the only part that matters. [...] It makes me better understand the Christ that bad Christians have tried to make all of us forget: the one that loves the whole world, no matter what. No exceptions, because he can love them and they need to be loved, and so he does. 

I can love that Christ in return, because he’s the real one.

Auntie and Zheng Yi Sao reunite. The blocking in this scene emphasizes the mirroring of Auntie and Izzy: “Auntie [is] in the center of the shot (because she’s a badass) [with] Izzy occupying the far left frame [...]. The candle’s brilliant flame is equidistant between these two mirrored characters (as if Auntie removed Ricky from the scene only to step into his place again as Izzy’s mirror); its light shines on Izzy’s family in the space on the other side of the table that they bracket. And here, too: Izzy’s one deadly, naked hand, clenched in a loose fist on the table’s surface. The cross he always bears. The living death he cannot escape.”

Auntie’s wound is on her left side.

“But moving on: Stede says we need a plan. And… we the Unseen Crew don’t get to hear the plan but from the looks of everyone who was present, it’s probably not a totally great one.”

Closeup on Stede’s face. Cut immediately to Alex Sherman’s ass. “THIS. IS. NOT. AN. ACCIDENT. So I’m not saying that Stede’s an ass. I’m saying that the show is subtextually showing you that Stede’s an ass.”

It’s time for the “Roads To Moscow” by Al Stewart montage. Every line of this is analyzed in the meta, but let’s cut right to the end: “It jumps to the last and most tragic verse of the song, that describes how a triumphant soldier returning home is instead assumed by Russian command to be a traitor, and sent to die a horrible lonely death in the gulags and never see his home again.” During this verse, “Ricky glances down to prompt the camera to glance down from the soldier’s POV, spotting Izzy’s golden hoof behind Ricky’s boots. Ricky draws his hidden gun from his left side and shoves Izzy back from him --”

“The song’s mostly about a soldier going home after a victory against a truly evil enemy: the Nazis. However, someone (mistakenly) thinks he’s a traitor and therefore he’s sent to die alone in a gulag in the freezing cold of Siberia and never see his home again. A traitor's death. Traitors die like that. Judases die like that.”

Izzy is the one holding Ricky at knifepoint. Significantly, the hand that he’s holding his dagger with -- his right -- is initially ungloved. “Izzy’s not just threatening Ricky with the tiniest knife I’ve ever seen anyone on this show use for something that wasn’t eating a meal. Izzy is threatening Ricky into compliance with his own blood.”

They turn a corner and “Izzy’s put his glove back on – but Ricky doesn’t know this. That’s why he shoves Izzy back before taking the shot. He can’t risk getting cut with a blade also contaminated with Izzy’s blood.” Ricky could have shot Izzy then if that was his intention, but…

Ed is centered in the shot, gun drawn. “Ricky wasn’t aiming for the Sacred Heart.The traitor Edward Teach, sometimes and most famously known as Blackbeard -- traitor to the British Crown and traitor to Izzy Hands -- was his intended target. Ricky was aiming for Ed, and Izzy took the bullet meant for him.”

Izzy positioned himself as he did because “...he's done the next five or six chess moves in his head already, then planted himself without comment or drama wherever it is he needs to be in order to best respond to it.” He intentionally placed himself between the threat and his family. “He's sacrificed himself to save them, and specifically the one among them he has loved the longest: Edward.”

Mera compares this to a scene to one in the 2005 adaptation of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. In this scene, the White Witch demands that Aslan give her the traitor (Edmund). Aslan protects him.

“Here’s the important part that I do recall from the story: that there is nothing the traitor can do to save themselves, or to deserve or earn the sacrifice that is given in their stead. (So it’s not that Edward deserved to be saved or somehow deserved to live more than Izzy does.) It’s something that only Aslan, the Christ-figure, can give through his divine grace and agape love.”

In The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, two sisters see the lion Aslan tortured and sacrificed. He’s completely dead, but the following morning, he is resurrected. When one of the sisters asks how this happened, Aslan says, “...when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”

Anyway.

The crew makes their escape. Ed finally notices that something’s wrong with Izzy; he and Frenchie help him to the ship. No one else has been injured. “No one else has blood on themselves at all except Edward. Not even Frenchie, who was closest to Izzy's wounded side.” Ed is “practically washed in Izzy’s blood.”

“No one else but Edward interacts with Izzy’s bloody clothes and body. At least half the crew that was in the boat with them now knows not to touch Izzy’s flesh or blood.”

Going off of the blood on Ed’s vest, he held Izzy and they were both brought up to the ship using the barnacle-scraping swing. Ed may have even held Izzy on the ride to the Revenge, trying to minimize the amount of blood that the rest of the crew was exposed to.

Once on the ship, Roach and Stede run off. “Why? Bandages? Sure. But also: Stede’s brown leather gauntlets from S2x05. We’ve seen he has them. If he can find them and they’re not too damaged from the rope work, Roach can help bandage Izzy up.”

Izzy weakly fights Ed off and Ed pokes at the injury; he’s worried about Ed examining the wound without the protection of gloves. “Even now, he carefully keeps his hands separate from Edward’s. If I was dying in the arms of someone I loved… oh, I’d cling to them. I’d grip their hands and I’d touch their face; I’d knot my fingers in their shirt. I would cling to them as I’d cling to life itself, for their sake if not my own. Izzy does none of this. His physical love is death, and he knows it. The last of his emotional love he can demonstrate is to still try to keep Ed safe.”

Izzy apologies, and Ed says that no, he’s sorry. Izzy says no -- not in response to what Ed said, but because Ed’s drenched with his dangerous blood. 

Izzy tells Ed that he fed his darkness -- that he needed Blackbeard. “It was their partnership, a closeness not shared with any other person. It was their marriage of mind and heart. Was there a supernatural element in this intimacy? I’ll wager there was and is, even though we've not seen it in the text and it's barely hinted at in the subtext. But even if there wasn’t… it was intimacy nonetheless. They never could leave each other for long. And when they couldn’t touch each other at all, they still at least had the Blackbeard union.”

Ed tells Izzy that he can’t go, he’s his only family. “Thing is? Ed’s absolutely correct, here -- and he has no one to blame but himself. He’s figuring things out with Stede, but that’s barely hours old… this time around. He hardly got to know Fang before he was brought back from the dead; he’s only spent a few hours with him. He alienated the rest of the crew and hasn’t bothered investing in them since.”

“Thing is? Before Edward lashed out as the Kraken, the crew really did like him. He was charming. He was interesting and cool. And if he really tried again, he could win their hearts again.”

Jim is standing behind them, watching, not trying to help even though “...they did fine during the amputation that Izzy otherwise shouldn’t have survived or thrived after, and they healed Auntie enough she came back from what she thought was going to be certain death.” Someone must have told Jim the rules about touching Izzy (the HIV/AIDS victim). 

Jim can’t help. “But we see Jim twitch and fidget in the front line of the crew now, their eyes filled with unshed tears, shaking their head in negation. They want to try to help, no matter what. Even if the bullet from Ricky's textual gun carries Ricky's subtextual syphilis into Izzy's bloodstream, making his blood even more dangerous.”

Izzy tells Ed that the crew loves him. Remember that Izzy’s flaw is projection. “This is the last projection, and it is half-conscious, and it is entirely a gift since it is from the Sacred Heart in the last moments of his self-sacrifice: Izzy’s last gift to Edward.”

Izzy realizes unconsciously that the crew loves him. In Mera’s words:

And he’s not ready to be able to accept their love on a personal basis. His reception of it in the form of his new unicorn leg prosthetic resulted in obligation: they gave to him, and he had to give back in order to earn it, to feel himself in any way worthy of that affection and acceptance. 

What would he give? 

Everything he’s ever had: his entire life, all of his heart, his very last breath. 

Izzy gives it now. 

Something in him does know that the crew loves him… and in his last dying seconds he knows he’s going to leave a gap in their lives. They need a protector. They need someone to love them and take care of them like he did. 

And if Edward decides to, he could step right into that empty place and fill it, and become a loving heart of his own to the entire crew -- beyond simply loving Stede. 

If Edward had made the decision to try… the end of this episode would be very different indeed.

‘There he is,’ Izzy tells Ed. “Not Blackbeard, if Ed’s ready to let go. He could just be Ed now. His heart told him so.”

The crew stay back for two reasons: 1) AIDS; 2) “The Christ-figure reason: they are dressed as the modern Roman empire; they are garbed in the enemy’s clothing who crucified Christ and stood around and callously watched him die. They are also prevented from approaching and interacting with his dying body as Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and the other disciples were all prevented from doing.”

Why aren’t they crying? Now “… the much beloved new unicorn of the crew [is] dying in front of all their eyes and no one can take his hand or hold his arm or touch his face to comfort him in any way as he dies, because it will kill them. These. People. Are. All. In. Emotional. Shock. And people who are deeply in shock often don’t cry!”

“The next scene is the burial. But we’re not there yet. There’s a timeskip where we the Unseen Crew have not seen the things that would have had to happen.” They have to return to land with Izzy’s body, “which is a beloved relic now, and also a biohazard on an incredible scale.”

Ed is covered in Izzy’s blood. Did he prepare Izzy’s body for burial? That task was once considered women’s work (we had a song about that when a man was coming back to life). Ed may also clean the deck, since he’s already covered in blood.

“Then he has to bathe his own body before anyone else can touch him, probably in the ocean so as not to contaminate Stede's tub. He’ll have to scrub clean, and scrub again, and again, and again. What’s finally safe? Does he know? Can he trust, when it’s now Stede’s life at stake? [...] (Edward might not be safe to lay in Stede’s bed, in Stede’s arms, anymore.  He might never be again.)”

Why was Izzy given a simple burial by the shack? “Any other supernatural speculation aside: the simplest reason is because Ed’s not ready to let Izzy go, just as Izzy wasn’t ready to let go of Ed’s body in S2x03. Where Izzy is, Edward wants and needs to be. If he put Izzy’s body into the ocean -- the simplest and most hygienic means of burial, and appropriate for a pirate, yet one that Izzy too also rebelled against for Ed… it would separate them too far.”

At the funeral, Ed’s back in the Blackbeard leathers that used to protect him.

The burial itself is “fucky” because “the creators of OFMD have, apparently rightfully so, been concerned that they didn’t give enough previous subtextual clues to the viewers that Izzy Hands will rise out of his grave (again), this time to fully conquer HIV/AIDS and his own queer grief.” 

The song is too different from the other songs in the show. It’s not semi-contemporary, and information about it is hard to track down. “What if it's the right title... but not quite the right song?  What if it's text that covers up or obscures the subtext? What else comes up if you search ‘that's alright lyrics’?” You get Fleetwood Mac’s That’s Alright. “...It's not quite the correct tone for a death scene, of course.  But for a long-term relationship that's about to be changed or left behind between two people who do still love each other in some way…”

Izzy’s prosthetic leg is used as the gravemarker. “It’s not going to last in any sort of weather. And for another reason: imagine that it was a taupe plastic prosthetic shaped like a naked human foot and leg and perhaps that helps you visualize why IT’S WEIRD. IT’S GROSS ON A SPIRITUAL LEVEL. YOU DO NOT DO THIS THING.”

Additionally: “They’re using IZZY’S FUCKING SWORD AS THE SPIKE FOR THE MARKER. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.” Izzy was a legendary swordsman. “You’re taking his saber and, instead of laying it to rest honorably at his side, ARE STICKING IT BLADE FIRST INTO THE DIRT ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!”

“They took his cravat and ring off and laid it over the top of the makeshift driftwood/leg cross. NO.  Just... no. It [...] was so important and significant to him that he has worn every moment we’ve ever seen him except removing it one time for exercise and sweaty exertion. No, just like his sword: they didn’t lay it to rest with him, leaving it on his throat so that it goes with him into his grave. They hung it out where the elements will visibly rot it eventually.”

Why? 

1) “The OFMD creative crew wants you to be reminded of Pet Sematary… and of what happens in it.” In this movie, there is a pet cemetery on land where anything buried will come back. Now the ground is “sour,” and when things come back, “they Come Back Wrong: they’re strange, overly aggressive, and most tellingly? They smell bad.”

It’s also “gross and fucky” that they’re burying Izzy in a way that, at least superficially, gives ‘pet burial,’ “visually [coding] Izzy as something like Ed's pet.”

“The other reason the cravat and its mourning ring is on the grave marker? It’s the symbol for queer grief -- not only for living under the specter of HIV/AIDS but of everyone we’ve lost to it and queer/transphobic violence since the dawn of time.” 

Con O’Neill said that he wanted the stone to be set in Izzy’s ring to be emerald, in honor of his recently deceased mother. He wanted a reminder of one of the “freshest and most present griefs. [...] The most queer-coded character of the show, who is also HIV/AIDS coded, has carried around his overwhelming grief constantly with him, usually tied so tight to his throat it nearly chokes him [...]. The crew part this grief from his dead body to hang it on the cross.”

In Protestant churches, you hear about “sin or grief or some other unwanted thing being ‘nailed to the cross.’ If Izzy’s grief is now visibly left behind on Izzy’s cross, he will rise again without it.”

The crew leaves without getting to “perform any of the other socially acceptable parts of the mourning rituals that help the living internalize their loss and let go of the dead. Blackbeard’s heart has been put into the ground to keep it close to where Blackbeard’s mind is determined to wait for… whatever happens next. But it couldn’t lay in state like Edward’s own body did; unlike Ed, Izzy’s body is just as dangerous dead as alive. These people are still in deep emotional shock -- and the Sacred Heart of the show lies dead in its grave, leaving everyone feeling listless and directionless.”

Ed and Stede stand alone, touching:

That’s the strained and sad expression of a man trying to figure out how to have an honest, mature conversation with the man he loves about the fact that he might now be carrying a deadly disease and so they can’t fuck anymore, and probably shouldn’t even be touching that much. 

Because look at that: Ed’s hand not on Stede’s bare skin but on his shirt over his shoulder.  It may look like a caress but to me it also looks like a restraining gesture; it stops Stede from getting closer. Stede’s hand on Ed’s elbow, because Stede doesn’t Get It yet. 

The curse continues: the mind of Blackbeard loves what it will lose the ability to touch. (And, once the Sacred Heart of Blackbeard and the show is dead, this is the most we see these two ever touch again.)

Ed is apathetic about going after Ricky. Why? “With Blackbeard’s heart dead, Blackbeard’s mind will soon die also. It might be a matter of hours.” Alternatively, “with Edward now infected with Izzy’s ‘curse’, he may die in a decade or so… or much sooner. Average lifespan of HIV/AIS without treatment is 8-10 years but there’s many different factors involved.”

We head to the Revenge for a rushed wedding, and “during this matelotage ceremony, Edward gives Stede a Look – definitely seeming like he’s thinking about Stede in a marriage sort of way himself. But we don’t see them kiss or even touch again. We can’t even be sure they’re holding hands or touching at all during this ceremony...”

We get one final shot of the Revenge and its crew. What’s the last we see of the ship? “The damaged unicorn figurehead, still protecting its crew.”

“I said it before and I’ll say it again: I believe that every time we see a shot of that unicorn sailing with the Revenge, it means Izzy’s alive and present in the universe.”

There’s a lot to analyze in the final shot of Ed and Stede:

First off: omfg, this is a horror movie “creature about to jump out at you” camera POV. Why would we get this shot during what we’re told by everything else is supposed to be a triumphant romantic ending? What the fuck would be in the house to be looking out at our two heroes? [...]

But also… that’s Stede and Edward, our two new lovebirds… standing pretty far apart for two guys supposed to be hot for each other’s bodies and totally alone with one another. (See that long leather sleeve? That was the side best armored because that’s where Izzy stood most often. That’s what’s between Edward and Stede now.) 

And look at that blocking/framing; Stede’s in the center, and it looks like that left arm of his is menaced/sliced at by the broken glass. Being alone in the center of the frame means Stede is therefore the most important thing and not their romantic partnership; Edward is shoved all the way into the right third of the frame. 

And subtextually? ‘Izzy’s Revenge’ has now come between Stede and Edward. It’s keeping them separate.

Ed’s smile is “fake tight tense.” 

“...Stede and Edward stranded themselves on this beach with no supplies or food or tools that we can see -- and the crew of the Revenge just… fucking… let them do that, too. Without even a sammie. (Their Heart is dead and their immense grief at that fact is not even a full day old. Have you ever had anyone very close to you die suddenly? How soon was it before you were back to anything like normal on the inside, even if you still had to fake it?)”

Ed asks Stede if he’s having second thoughts. “Ed might be (is) having second thoughts and has no idea how to begin to talk or even think about them, much less the massive horrible thing he needs to share with his lover… before he shares anything ELSE with him.” (The “horrible thing,” remember, is HIV/AIDS.)

The shack is small and shitty. “This is only 384 sq ft of floor space at best.”

Stede and Ed stand far apart. This is the closest that Ed gets to a real smile. There’s a bad smell.

“(How long was the rest of the crew back aboard the Revenge for the LuPete wedding? Could say maybe two hours or so? Long enough for something dead to grope its way back toward life (because the crew's unicorn can't rest in peace if Blackbeard's mind won't be taking up the mantle of crew's protector!), crawl out of its shallow grave, drag itself up the hill toward shelter… and not quite make it up the ramp stairs to the porch to be spotted immediately?)”

Seagull Buttons lands on the cross that marks Izzy’s grave.

Mera references The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. “Our boy… our beautiful and much beloved boy Izzy Hands… is, I believe, under the floorboards awaiting discovery. He couldn't make it up the stairs with as weak as he was, so he crawled under the house.”

We’re here in this new reeking pit (Izzy survived his first death in this season, remember? He got over it, just like Con said) and you and I both have hold of Izzy’s warm bare hands, because we have no fear and we know that he left his living death behind him in the grave, along with the queer grief nailed to hung up on his cross. 

We have hold of his hands because that’s what the lovers do to call someone back into life; Stede showed us how it works in this fairy-tale realm of OFMD. 

Izzy doesn’t have lovers in the text yet. But we can be that for him, because we love him just as much as the Visible Crew does. We will sit here however long it takes.

Chapter 18: Mirror, Mirror: S2x08

“Our Flag Means Death Season 2 Episode 8 is an intense internal mirror to itself, in that most of the emotional beats and plot points of the first half of the episode are repeated in reverse order for the second half. In addition to that, TWO midpoints are made visible when examining the thirds and quarters timestamps -- that hold between them a THIRD midpoint scene that is the key to understanding the stinger after the end credits... and the episode in its entirety.”

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail here because I am not serious enough in my media analysis. Here’s the chapter if you want to read!

And here’s the super-short version:

In their initial timestamp calculation, Mera finds that, “In this textual reading, Izzy's sacrifice and death are fucking ABSENT from the major beats.” The Gentlebeard reunion kiss is at the midpoint. That couldn’t be, “so I did it again, the other way, with end credits and stinger included in the overall run time... and got something WAY different.”

The quarters: face closeups of the two halves of Blackbeard, talking about or actually becoming Blackbeard. [Closeup on Ed’s face when he thinks Stede may be dead, Izzy’s face as he talks about feeding Ed’s darkness.]

The act transitions: Izzy and Ricky in a dance of death; first Ricky appears triumphant, then Izzy. 

The midpoint: Oluwande, Petra to Izzy’s Jesus throughout the last half of S2, unshrouding an Izzy mirror (Auntie) in a beam of holy light; this moment leads to Auntie being [sic] restored healed by Jim’s hands. [...]

So now we’ve discovered a textual midpoint (the Gentlebeard kiss) and a subtextual midpoint (Oluwande and Jim “resurrecting” Auntie from the dead). 

Season 2 Episode 8 is an internal mirror to itself, with not one but TWO midpoints -- and a THIRD midpoint centered between them that appears irrelevant on first watching, but is actually key to the episode’s message!

The center of this entire “mirror” is “Archie and Fang trying to bend the cell bars while Olu, somewhat undressed Lucius, Wee John, and Frenchie watch.” Why? “The way out is the way through! This one otherwise apparently useless scene, centerpiece of the mirror, aims us at the stinger of the episode after the credits.”

Okay, but why is that really the center? Why is the stinger Frenchie squeezing through the cell bars? “Because it’s literally a narrow escape that happened during the episode but is only explained after the credits -- achieved by Izzy’s closest mirror this season [Frenchie]. Frenchie squeezed through a very tight spot that several others thought might be impossible to get through. 

“With everything else I’ve just showed you that were mirrored events/beats in this episode… it’s highly suggestive of a possibility that there’s a second narrow escape that happened during the episode that will only be explained after the credits: in Season 3.”

There are a ton of mirrored events, but here’s the most important one: “Ed has attempted a bucolic life twice; first one failed miserably. Is that second attempt looking any more well prepared, well thought-out, or in line with his textual skillsets?”

On to the next!

[zubata-zhaba]

This sketch has been around since 2017 and I guess it will never be more finished than this.

A couple of samodivas, some things more true to traditional beliefs than others - I gave them different complexions to reflect Bulgarian women, whereas traditionally they are blonde-haired and black-eyed. Their powers are stored in their chemise, which is unornamented (embroidery is to protect mortals). The different sleeves are based on different 19th-century and medieval chemises from Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. In some beliefs they wear colourful (but mostly green) belts, and green zubuns (outer garments). They are also typically imagined to be archers, riding six-winged deers.

[timothywinters]

Ketuba of Ismael Judeu & Hannah de Mattos, from Sivan 11, 5489 [June 8, 1729] in Paramaribo, Suriname. The couple were married at Tzedek ve-Shalom Synagogue. Both Ismael & Hannah are referred to as "emancipated," -formerly enslaved.

Both the Portuguese and High German congregations of Paramaribo retained signed, unornamented versions of ketubot (marriage contracts) for all marriages in the community. 1.05.11.18, no. 408 Jews Across the Americas. (x)

[johannestevans]

Hallo, I was here the other month but I’m back to going insane over Drumknott/Vetinari and I’d quite like to draw some fanart for In Duty. Or well, I’d quite like to generally draw Drumknott in some sort of sparring stance so I figured I’d do two versions because it’s heavily inspired by your fic - one with Drumknott the way I tend to draw him and then one with a Drumknott that’s more accurate to the way he looks in the fic.

On that train of thought, I realised that I didn’t really have much of an idea of how he’s meant to look in the fic so I was wondering if you had some references! Ideally for hair style, face, glasses and clothes if you have any! (Oh also possibly a reference for the room that they spar in if that even exists)

Thanks :3

(If you don’t have any or would rather I didn’t then don’t worry, I can just do a general version with my usual Drumknott design!)

In Duty on Ao3

Honestly, babe, you're so real for this, I am always going insane for Drumknott and Vetinari, it is my constant state of being.

I don't typically use many image references myself when writing - Drumknott is generally quite small, has a round face and large brown eyes, brown hair combed down and greased with a centre parting, with a reddish tint, especially in the right light. The glasses are round, like the top two left options here with a thin gold frame:

The clerk's gown is brown and made in a similar design, unornamented, to academic gowns worn in old institutions in Britain - people only really wear them for graduations now, but it used to be standard practice for teaching staff to wear them all the time, open over their suits:

I hope these help, it sounds like a fun project! Have a good day!

[flameswallower]

Briar's Favorite First Time Reads of 2023!

I read sixty or so books (start to finish) for the first time this year, which is pretty average for me. I liked most of them pretty well, since if I dislike a book I usually won't finish it. But there were some stand outs, which I'm going to list here.

First up: NOVELS!

Pseudotooth, by Verity Holloway (2017) is the first portal fantasy coming of age novel I've read in a long, long time that I found genuinely charming. It has a very dark Gothic edge to it, with shades of Gormenghast and Edward Gorey making for a uniquely unsettling and bleak fantasy world. The novel also deals frankly and seriously with themes of ableism, eugenics, medical abuse, xenophobia, socio-economic class, rape/sexual abuse, and the psychic fallout of rape/sexual abuse. But it's got a lot of whimsical absurdist humor to it, too, and a deep humanist compassion for its characters. The three young adults at the center of the story are all quite likeable, and though they are involved in a kind of love triangle, I found the particulars of it refreshingly queer, strange, and not the primary focus of the story.

The Marigold, by Andrew F. Sullivan (2023) is a pitch-dark, stone cold bummer that is also frequently hilarious and emotionally moving in tender ways that took me by surprise. In this dystopian satire, a bunch of down-and-out relatable characters and one horrible rich guy struggle to survive as near-future Toronto is engulfed by "the Wet"-- a sapient mold-based hive mind accidentally created by the depravity and greed of big business. The residents of the titular condominium/apartment complex feature in short vignettes that demonstrate the despair and alienation people suffer under late stage capitalism, and the way the Wet calls to these people, lures them in, hunts them.

The Open Curtain, by Brian Evenson (2006) is a harrowing nightmare about madness, violence, possession, Mormonism, and the destabilization of one's known reality (well, see also "madness"). It's a type of story that could easily feel shlocky and exploitative of people with certain mental disorders, or just predictable (there are some plot twists you'll guess very quickly if you've ever like...read books or seen movies before...), but Evenson's unornamented yet masterful prose, his meticulous attention to detail, and his non-condescending empathy for both victims of violence and people struggling with delusions, violent impulses, etc. make it rise above those potential problems. At least in my opinion! This one's very disturbing, will definitely leave you feeling like shit.

Hummingbird Salamander, by Jeff VanderMeer (2021) is very emotionally moving and a suspenseful, well-plotted eco-noir page turner! Also a bummer, but leaves one feeling awe and hope and determination as well as mourning the devastating loss of life that climate change has wrought. The protagonist is great, a truly unusual and unlikely detective. I loved her voice-- like any good noir hero, she can throw off a legitimately funny sarcastic quip with the best of them, but she's also prone to astute social observations and flights of breathtaking lyricism.

How to Get Over the End Of the World, by Hal Schrieve (2023) is a TRAGICALLY under-promoted and underrated punk rock magical realist YA masterpiece about trans high schoolers, and their dysfunctional adult mentors, putting on a rock opera to save their community center. This one, unlike most of what I read, is NOT EVEN KIND OF A BUMMER. It's delightful and hilarious from start to finish, though it's definitely not saccharine-sweet or afraid of conflict. In fact, it deals quite bluntly and refreshingly with topics ranging from the relationship one character has with his violent, abusive father, to sexual relationships between teenagers, to the ever-looming awareness of climate change. Every major character is trans! Every single one!! This is kind of a spoiler, but, like, not really lol

Sudden Glory, by Hal Johnson (2023) just goes to show that guys named Hal can really write comic novels. This book has perhaps the highest joke-to-paragraph ratio of anything I’ve ever read, and also probably the most varied types of joke: a person whose sense of humor runs to preposterous situation comedy, slapstick, and lowbrow sexual humor will find a lot to like here, and so will someone whose sense of humor runs to moderately esoteric literary/historical references, social satire, five-layer wordplay, and Wildean bon mots. Since it’s set in the New York City of 2003, there’s even room for a few 9/11 jokes, which could not have appeared without controversy in a book actually published in 2003. This slightly "politically incorrect" edge comes off as good-natured and in keeping with Johnson's commitment to absurdism-- there's never a "laughing at" vibe, more one of "laughing with" human folly, futility, pretensions, etc. At base, this is a story about a person who feels he can't tell the truth or be himself for fear of social rejection, and all the trouble that gets him into.

Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke (2020) is fucking gorgeous, probably one of my favorite books of all time now, this hole was made for me, etc. I can't reasonably expect that most others will have as intense a response to it as I did-- I felt it perfectly conveyed some very important and difficult to articulate things about, like, my personal experience of consciousness, and my experience as a person with certain types of neurological/cognitive/developmental disability navigating the world, through a kind of fabulist prism. But it got great reviews, so, you know, give it a shot! I think it's better not to know anything about it going in, but let me just say, if you're into weird, massive labyrinthine buildings, this hole might also have been made for you.

Devil House, by John Darnielle (2022) is exactly the novel you'd expect "the Mountain Goats guy" to write, in all the best possible ways. It's a story that elevates the inner lives of neurodivergent outsider teens to the mythic heights they deserve. It's a story that brutally critiques the true crime industry. It's a story about the problems of defining people exclusively by their victimhood, or exclusively by the worst thing they ever did. It's a story about the importance of having a little space to oneself, a shelter from the demands and threats of an often cruel world, and the lengths to which a person will go to defend such a shelter if it's broached. Also, there's a long, nauseating section about how it's actually really difficult and gross to chop up a human corpse for disposal.

[aokozaki]

Best Trick that Supergiants' Pyre ever pulled was having three separate OSTs - the main OST for the "soundtrack version" of most songs, the White Lute for the in-game jukebox' acoustic covers of everything, and the Black Mandolin for the "extended" OST, alternate versions of tracks that fall outside the scope of a normal game OST.

Like, for each Liberation Rite, the song Never to Return actually changes depending on which Triumvirate you're facing. The lyrics and instrumentals change to match their theme.

(For instance, the Fate's version of the theme pulls instrumental ideas from Glorious Tradition, and the Dissidents' pulls from Thrash Pack).

But they're also similar enough that having all nine versions on the main OST would be a bit repetitious.

So the version of Never to Return on the main OST is the "Nightwings" version, and you think, "oh, it's just the generic placeholder one, since you'd never face the Nightwings in-game".

And then it turns out that the plain, unornamented guitar sound of this "default" version of the song is actually pulling from Will of the Scribes.

[wispstalk]

intermediate conjuration

prompt from the @nirnwrote discord server- 'who are you' from this list

The practice hall is the only pragmatic thing about the Arcane University; its walls are lined with targets and leather dummies instead of bookshelves and enchanted curiosities and splendid Ayleid tapestries. Unornamented flagstone floors with a few cushions scattered around, a shelf of basic restoratives for magical mishaps, and polished metal sconces with runes that will hold a magelight for hours. It feels more like an armory, or the common hall of a barracks. Aside from the gardens, it is the only place in this school where Tanis Irathi feels at home.

He came here thinking to rope one of the other apprentices into a practice duel; what is there to learn from casting fireballs at steel plates? He looks among the throng of chattering students for a likely opponent, until he catches sight of Anaht.

They often see each other in the Archives, but he had forgotten that she teaches from time to time. So this must be a class. She squints at him and waves an elegant enameled claw as if to shoo him away.

"This is a conjuration class," she says flatly.

He smiles and shrugs and pulls up one of the cushions to rest his bones. He’s not going anywhere. Only an hour ago he made his breakneck ride from Skingrad, apparently victorious, although the book he was sent after doesn’t exist.

Raminus was apologetic for the lie. In truth Tanis hadn’t minded all that much: the necromancers had hardly given him a fight and he is accustomed to taking orders. But he will allow the Mages’ Council to think their errands an imposition— so long as they keep showering him with expensive enchanted trinkets in reward for his dedication.

But the Master Mystic had told him he was now free of duties and could return to his studies, and he remembered that he had come here to do just that, so he probably ought to, even though he’s not exactly sure what to study. As Anaht calls her students to attention, he reckons this is as good a place for him as any.

“Welcome to Intermediate,” she says, delicately stressing the word, “Conjuration. Most of you have completed Master Traven’s prerequisite readings but I do not think a little review of the concepts would be out of line.”

He sneers at her; she glides smoothly into her lecture without acknowledging him. A quick scan of the room shows ten other students, all garbed alike, their sashes embroidered with the twin hands that mark the rank of Evoker. He shares their rank, but he won’t be caught dead in the sash or the secondhand robes— they’re itchy and mothball-scented and the cheap blue dye washes him out. His own robes are dark and dramatic, enchanted to augment his magicka reserves and cut in a crisp Altmeri style for ease of movement. Combat, riding, running like hell. The fabric doesn’t bunch around his scabbard and the sleeves aren’t as likely to catch fire.

Some of them throw surreptitious glances to where he lounges in the back of the room, apart from them. Who is this black-clad interloper, those eyes say, this pretender in our vaunted halls? He knows the whispers that trail after him: Raminus’s running dog, they say, he struts about armed like a common soldier, not a serious scholar at all. He lets it roll off. The ranks mean little to him. Better to be a dog on a long chain than spend his days in a crate. Squinting at yellowed pages ’til his eyes turn square.

“Every year,” Anaht is saying, “I get a crop of students with heads full of silly ideas. Many skilled conjurers have befriended their conjurings, you might say. Put those notions aside. You are not skilled and they are only your allies so long as your bindings hold. They despise you for it. First and foremost you must be an iron-willed tyrant.”

One student raises a finger with a look that says she’s dying to argue. Anaht, unmoved, raises a staying hand.

The sound that comes from her gives Tanis a jolt. He jumps to his feet, joints loose and ready to spring. Her smooth deep voice is unlike a dremora’s growl but he recognizes the harsh words of her binding. He knows all too well what’s coming.

A shimmer of light resolves itself into a snarling scamp. A few appreciative oohs sound through the crowd until it hurls itself at Anaht— then stops short, as if choked by an invisible leash.

Tanis realizes he has reached across for the hilt of his sword. He lets it go.

“Iron-willed tyrant,” she repeats. A few nervous titters. The scamp slinks to heel, its shoulders hunched in obeisance and its eyes burning with hatred.

Anaht produces a bundle of scrolls on sheepskin palimpsest — they are economical, those Archivists — and raises them for all to see. “You will all pair off and use these scrolls to summon scamps of your own. Your object is simply to hold them in place with the strength of your combined wills. Do not let them run, do not let them flee back to Oblivion. Maintain your bindings until this magelight” — she casts a fat yellow orb into the air — “burns out.”

She slips among the pairs and passes out her scrolls. “If your focus slips it will try to kill you.” Her bejeweled tail twitches and chimes with a hint of amusement. “So attend closely. None of my students have died yet. Do not embarrass me.”

Tanis is the odd one out. Anaht crosses toward him, her scamp trotting along behind. “I have no scroll prepared for you, since you did not bother to register—”

He says, “You don’t think there are enough of those fucking things running around?”

“I am a conjuration expert. Since Traven took half my curriculum off the table, this is what I have.” She spreads her hands. “Are you only here to tell me what an irresponsible wizard I am for teaching such dangerous arts? During a crisis, no less? Spare me.”

“Those things are easy to kill,” he says with a wave of the hand, then glances at the scamp as if it might have taken offense. “It’s the big bastards I don’t like.”

He pulls aside his collar so she can see the ring of scars around his shoulder, the bite from a daedroth that had picked him up and thrown him into a death roll as if he weighed no more than a rag mop.

“Ah. A defensive approach to education. It is a wonder that Traven has not laid claim to you yet.” She throws a half-glance back at her students to make sure none of them are dying. “Nevertheless, he is the Master Conjurer and writes the prerequisites for conjuration study. I would advise you to read them before coming to my class. As flip as I may sound, it is indeed dangerous.”

He gives a dismissive wave and speaks a binding— or rather coughs it out in that harsh and alien tongue— and a dagger flashes into his hand. Anaht regards him with bright eyes, and he grins. After all the tumult in their long years of friendship, he does still enjoy earning her approval.

“Who are you, Tanis Irathi?” she says softly. "The longer you are here the more I wonder if I ever knew you at all."

The dagger vanishes with a flourish of his wrist. He tells her of the day he spent at the temple, bored out of his wits, conjuring daggers for hours in the courtyard until they came easily to his hand. He was thinking of the Mythic Dawn cultists that hunt him like jackals— how they’re fucked if he disarms them, how they leave themselves open for precious seconds while they draw their weapons from thin air. There had to be some advantage he wasn’t seeing.

He badgered the priest into teaching him. Martin was less than pleased, but all the same, he brought out the Daedric lexicon and told Tanis the way of speaking accursed blades into existence. He leaves the priest out; suspects he oughtn’t burden Anaht with Imperial secrets, oughtn’t shatter the illusion of escape he finds in the University.

“They’re fine weapons,” he concludes. “But I noticed I wasn’t getting the same one every time. I called up one that was everything I want in a knife: perfect balance, slim and sharp, good heft in the hand but light enough to be fast. Next time it was a bit heavier, a bit wider grip. So I spoke the binding again but I added: give me that hairsplitter back.” He conjures the dagger again and gives it a few slashes through the air. “So here she is. Hairsplitter. Every single time.”

Anaht’s nictitating membranes slide over her eyes in irritation at his theatrics, but her tone is pleased. “Yes. That is often a sticking point in Daedric conjuration— you are given whatever Oblivion sees fit to grant you, unless you learn the finer points of the language. Subtle inflections, much like Jel. You and your talent for tongues. Let me draw you up another scroll and—”

“No need.” He speaks the binding, exactly as she had. The words are ash and sulfur in his throat and something in his mind wrenches — he hears Anaht let out a parallel yelp of surprise — and all at once he is doubled over, nauseous and staring at the flagstone, while somehow also looking up at his own face.

“Vaxei kuuda,” Anaht mutters— roughly, cocky son-of-a-bitch. A hand clutches his arm before the vertigo can lay him out on the floor. “Never mind what I said, you have not changed at all. Attend me closely: you are seeing through the scamp’s eyes as well as your own. My scrolls are designed to circumvent that. Experienced conjurers can shut it out with the mental discipline that they learn… from the prerequisite studies. You will have to make do with closing your eyes.”

It helps with the dizziness but only just. His eyelids are squeezed shut but he still sees, from a height of about three feet off the floor, his own swaying form and Anaht’s tail quivering with amusement. “I hate this,” he says.

“This is the least you deserve! You stole my scamp.”

He swallows, forcing his mind into a feat of triple acrobatics: conversation, holding his focus, trying to push out the intrusion of that creature’s awareness into his own. “What?”

“You spoke its true name. Exactly as I did,” she tuts, and says again, “You and your talent for tongues. I’m taking my scamp back.”

Another wrench. The strange double vision clears, resolves to blackness. He keeps his eyes screwed shut and takes slow breaths until the nausea fades and the rawness in his throat ebbs away.

“So you see,” Anaht concludes as he opens his eyes, “there is a point to the prerequisites.”

Saxhleel don’t laugh, not in the way he’s used to, but he knows the body language well enough to understand he’s never going to live this down. The scamp is cowering now, stealing looks between the two of them as it creeps to hide behind Anaht’s skirts.

All the other students are gaping at him, their own scamps banished back from whence they came. Save for one pair who is determinedly holding their binding in place, perhaps in hope their instructor will offer a scrap of praise for their relentless focus.

“The prerequisites. Xhu-xhu, deelith,” he mutters, and straightens his sweat-soaked robes.

“You won't weasel your way out of proper study with flattery,” she hisses. “You will come to private lessons on the second floor practice room, Middas evenings, at sundown.”

She claps him, a little too hard, on the shoulder, and turns to her students with a bright and cheerful posture. “Meet the newest member of your conjuration cohort. I do believe we have a savant on our hands, who is well-accustomed to the danger of the art, so you should all know my standards will raise accordingly.”

A few groans at this. The practicing pair of students both turn to shoot him scrutinizing glares, and the light between their hands wavers, and the scamp breaks free of its bonds. Screams erupt as it rampages through the practice room, chittering and flexing its claws after the fleeing mages, hurling fireballs that catch on their stupid dagged sleeves.

"Oh, put that away," Anaht says, and swats Tanis with her tail. "This is a conjuration class."

Tanis, throwing an exasperated look into Anaht’s smug one, sheathes his iron sword and calls up a dagger.

[sliptohk]

Prompt #9: Lend an Ear

Fat popped and sizzled as it rendered off the spit and dripped down to the coals below, lending an acrid hint to the aroma wafting forth. Rich meat browning nicely as it turned slowly with an fragrant aura emanating forth. Denston had spent some time grounding down a savory paste from garlic, sage, mint, rosemary, and basil. Herbs collected, and cultivated, from the spoils of the woods for purposes like these. Cooking twine kept the pork loin wrapped tightly around the mixture within, where chopped apple and nuts blended with more of that seasoning.

Their home was livelier than it had been in some time. Space enough for the five extra bodies filling the living space. The brothers sat next to each other on one unlucky bench. No ominous creaking from the solid wood for the moment. While always well-behaved under their roof, it took little rough housing for lads of that size to break something inadvertently. Vagrant's watchful eye assured him they would not do so.

Oliver had one of his maps spread out across the table with small figures balanced on different locations. The motions of each as they slowly went from forest to mountainside made it clear their purpose. Biased as he might be toward the boy, Denston had always seen him as a solid sort with a good head on their shoulder. A fine choice of companion when it came to tasks requiring a more tactile approach.

Wrapped in blankets, Arlette mumbled quietly to herself. Once, he had considered asking just what was spilling from her lips, but his lovely wife had discouraged the conversation. Another of the Wyrd clan had made their acquaintance some time back, so some small degree of peculiarity was to be expected. Best not to risk offending them with unwanted questions if one could avoid it.

Though the thought may have been unkind, it was true that the crew did not gather an equal share of his attention. Most was lavished upon Ellory, who sat obediently before her mother. Vagrant Falcon was several ilms taller, and considerable ponze heavier, but there was no denying their lineage. The two bore a striking resemblance, from the set of their nose to their complexion, though it was his eyes that beamed out from her. One could easily have mistaken an adolescent Falcon for their daughter. Better not to mention it to the younger woman, though. While taller than him, she would just insist another growth spurt was waiting soon to match her mother and cousin.

A bone comb worked in neat strokes through tangled hair, taming the mane while deforesting it of twigs and leaves that had caught in her tresses when she rode with helmet nestled under her arm. Not that the occasional tug bothered Ellory, as she chattered away while her mother worked the instrument crisply. It stirred pleasant memories that past the time ever quicker.

Finally, after drifting in that river for a while, he prodded the thickest part of the meat. Juices running clear and finding the proper resistance he sought.

"Its done."

Waving away Crater, who started to rise to help, Denston hefted the sizeable haunch clear of the flames to a sturdy table beside him. One point resting upon the blackened surface as tendrils of smoke rose from where the tip of the spit rested upon it. He hardly cared, as he drew a heavy knife to begin carving fat steaks to flop down on carved wooden platter. Unornamented, save for a plain D & V centered on one edge.

Bodies gathered around the rounded table, food nested in the middle to pass freely between guests. It was always plentiful at their table, though given the diners it may well be nothing but empty vessels by night's end. Arlette claimed a seat beside Oliver, which suited the hunter just fine. It just let him sit nearest his daughter - cornering her neatly between both parents as she threw back her hair to avoid dipping it into her plate.

The map dragged between the two hyur, "Mr. North. We were discussing our approach to the Spine. Might you have any further detail to guide our planning?"

It may have been too much to expect a leisurely meal before discussing logistics. But there was some degree of pride to be had from the youth turning to their predecessors for a crumb of hard-earned wisdom. Pride won, as he placed one thick forefinger down on the forest near them.

"You think you can cut across the Spine to the east. Don't bother. Rock slide left it nigh-impassable for a ways. Better off swinging down through Coerthas and taking a more northerly approach. Looking for a lost courier? If it were after the disaster you won't find him on this end. Haven't heard of any bodies up in the hills lately." Slowly, his finger curled down and around through the swiftest pass to the more frigid stretch to the southeast, "My guess? Overnighted in one of the old mills. Weather has been fierce for a while, fiercer than normal. Would've found a carcass there, so bound to be up in the mountains around there. Lot of caves that way. Mountain bears had an early Starlight when the Horde was devastated and opened up some good hunting grounds. Fat and sleepy this time of year, so mind which ones you enter."

Dutifully, Oliver bent to his journal, taking note of little tidbits of knowledge as they came. He took a moment to stuff a cut of pork into his mouth. One of his better dishes, if he said so himself.

"Travel warm and bring what firewood and rations you can. Been rumblings of a bad storm moving in soon, so be quick before it hits or be prepared if you get stranded for a time. Again, don't think a cave makes for safe campsite. Especially not if the smoke wakes up something that isn't looking for a neighbor."

The lot of them should have been able to figure bits of it out themselves, but Denston was a thorough man. And the smiles he earned from Ellory for each shared scrap only encouraged him to continue drowning Oliver in advice.

"Now if you head into Coerthas, there's a hunter's camp up near the southern stretch. Check in with them, ask for Karhken. We spent some time trapping bandercouerl, owes me a favor. Could get some good furs, and pays to let them know you're heading in from there. Bound to come looking if you don't come back the other way within a sennight…"

The evening grew longer, and Oliver's notes did too.

[if-one-of-us-falls]

ask game: dark 😈

The place was drab, unornamented, but that didn’t matter in the dark.

Thanks for playing!

Send me a word, if it’s in my wip document I’ll answer your ask with the sentence that it appears in

[houndstoothjacket]

Another Ask!

25. What's the best personal gift someone could give you?

This is a bit tricky. My gf often complains that I am difficult to shop for, but I just don't express desire for stuff often. Mostly I think about small, simple gifts. Something I'll use every day. I'm not much for jewelry, but I do like flowers. I don't want a fancy dinner but I do still cherish the mug and bowl and ex of mine made for me ages ago. I still think fondly of my gf when holding the carabiner she bought me. And I still feel such gratitude to my friend who helps maintain my buzzcut. Things that are reliable, personal, and usually unornamented but clearly well-made. A good leather belt, a handmade patch, a simple but quality watch, a nice unscented lotion, boot polish, or expensive olive oil would all make really good gifts, I think. And I am always a sucker for fresh sunflowers.

[dustedmagazine]

Bar Italia — The Twits (Matador)

“Your pretentious ways made me die a little.” That line, drawled in a deadpan by Nina Cristante, is the first thing you hear on The Twits, Bar Italia’s second album overall (and second this year). The London-based band with the breezy Mediterranean name recorded these tracks during an early spring session in Mallorca, just before their break-out Tracey Denim arrived. However, if you’re looking for Spanish sunshine—or even the Euro film star glamor that buoyed parts of the debut—it’s not much in evidence. The Twits is a darker, noisier outing, where unruffled cool wars with undercurrents of strong feeling.

As before the songs flit between three distinct voices and personas, so the mood and meaning can shift on a dime. In “My Little Tony,” for instance, we begin with Cristante lacerating the poseurs above a saw-toothed Jesus & Mary Chain riff. But soon Fenton enters with his typical inchoate longing, his voice seeking the shape of the song as it goes, as he chants about a disjointed romantic connection. It’s a futile gesture. The nearest he can come to contact is leaving something on the loved one’s car seat. The song—and the record—pits the appeal of not engaging against its emptiness.

These songs are a bit louder and more chaotic than on the debut, with slashing, seething guitar roiling under sing-song-y chants. The drums bash and crash in the most unornamented of ways, all snares on the upbeats and ride cymbal all the time. The songs stop abruptly sometimes like someone pulled the power plug, dead silence for a few seconds and then something else entirely. And yet, out of this stinging, stomping detuned murk, a thread of real human longing emerges. “I won’t bore you with the details of what happens when she left,” croons Cristante in “The Twist.” Her voice suppresses a sob as she describes what she won’t talk about (a lover who left her for a man). She makes a great effort to stay unaffected, but the thing is too powerful.

We worship “cool” in rock and punk. We love the bands that stay unaffected behind their dark shades, from the Velvets on down. But what’s so great about this second Bar Italia album is that it shows how hard that is, and what a cost it exacts. It hurts being human, no matter how slack your guitars, no matter how breezy your melodies. In fact, when you pretend it doesn’t, it might be worse.  

Jennifer Kelly