#what a wonderful epic rendering of such a good scene

[fourseasonsfigs]

Tianshu Beichen - Dog's Blood Drama

It always happens - I plan out the order for the next week of fig posts, and then I get a new shipment in and boom, some vault to the front of the line! Like, well, this set.

I don't think it's any secret that the bloody battle-damaged versions of figs are some of my favorites. I'm not sure why, but I can tell you my eventual diorama of all of these various princes and warlords duking it out around a castle is gonna be epic.

I did not buy this set when it was released, but only because I couldn't. The fig maker limited it to buyers who had bought at least 6 figs from their shop, and furthermore limited the total quantity sold to 500. This was at a time when I had just managed to figure out how to able to purchase direct from Weidian, and was still busy figuring out how to best navigate the app, who the sellers were, and how to keep track of them all. At the time I wasn't even aware that fig maker had made more than 6 figs (actually, I'm still not sure I know what the rest of their figs are - I only have 3 of theirs before these). I would certainly have bought them, if so! But in any case, there was no way. I resigned myself to waiting until they were produced and them buying them on the fig black market Xianyu.

And so I did! Had to pay up for them, of course, commerce being what it is, but with the limited quantity available I was happy to at least find someone who would sell them. There weren't a ton of them for sale.

The inspiration for these figs comes from Zhang Zhehan's character Long Feiye from The Legend of Yunxi, and Prince Han Ye from Gong Jun's upcoming Legend of Anle. The name of this CP ship is 烨夜笙歌, Yè Yè Shēnggē.

The exact inspiration for the Long Feiye fig is this scene in Episode 5 (warning, lots of blood and battlefield violence):

As soon as his helmet got knocked off in the show, I was like, oh damn, that's bad, that's real bad. That being said, the shots of him with his long loose black hair and all bloodily distraught are, I can't lie, some of my all-time favorite. He's so beautiful and tragic!

No one can wear long hair like Zhehan. Can you imagine if he had hair like that and just walked around with it? Empires would crumble.

Note, I actually did not realize until this very moment (despite re-watching this scene numerous times in the show and an uh, undisclosed number of times in my post just now) that his armor blew off in the gu-qi-explosion. I was wondering what happened to his beautiful ornate armor on the fig - I had just figured it was too much to render into fig form, but now I see. It's really not there, post-explosion. He just has his vambraces and his beautiful red and black under robes. Alright! It's always satisfying to learn something new.

I'm still slowly working my way through Yunxi - deeply hampered by my inability to care much about the main plotline - but I have to keep going, if only to get to this scene where this picture comes from:

Aww yeah. Red eyeliner and everything. I can't wait.

The only picture I have of a blind Han Ye is this blurry one:

But that's good enough to be going on with for fig purposes, as you'll see!

Oh, the title of this fig set. The fig maker has a long and quite lovely, even in MTL, description of why this set is named Tianshu Beichen (translation courtesy, like all my translations, Google Translate):

天枢为贪狼星，第一桃花星，机智聪慧，吉星。 本次展览出自成语北辰星宫，北极星高悬不动，四面环星。 比喻为政有德，受人爱戴的人 Tianshu is the greedy wolf star, the first peach blossom star, witty and intelligent, and auspicious star. This exhibition comes from the idiom Beichen Xinggong, the Polaris hangs high and does not move, and the stars are surrounded on all sides. An ancient metaphor for a person who conducts a virtuous government and is loved by others.

In the original posting, the fig maker also referenced the fig set as "Dog's Blood Drama", which from what I understand refers to highly (over)dramatic dramas. This is indeed an extremely striking and dramatic set, I must say!

I guess the silver lining of paying through the nose for them was that I absolutely did not neglect to air wrap these for extra protection. Thankfully, these two arrived safe and sound.

There must be something wrong with me, because I am delighted at how cute this Long Feiye is! Poor guy is just having a bad day. Ahaha, look at his crackly eyeballs! Oh I love him.

These two battle-damaged cuties are not able to stand up well. I had to prop them up on a curved angle, and then against each other to get them to pose (barely) for the header picture, and then they immediately went on stands.

The blindfold over Han Ye's eyes is PVC, and very nicely done. I like how you can see his eyes through it still. Long Feiye, you're still so cute! So resolute, and very noble looking despite the whole uh, gu-infestation thing going on.

The gu-infection in the Legend of Yunxi doesn't seem to be quite like the gu-parasites I studied in school. In Chinese medicine a gu is an exceptionally poisonous insect / worm created by a dark and twisted process. It was believed if you took an large quantity of the various kinds of highly poisonous creatures (centipedes, scorpions, etc, if my memory serves I want to say it was 5 classic types) and put them all in a closed system like a jar, they would all eventually attack and devour each other. The insect that ended up alive at the end of this nasty little cage match, the "king", was of course the most powerful one of all, and to make things worse, was believed to have absorbed all the toxins of all the other poisonous creatures it had eaten. As a result, all that poison from all those very poisonous creatures was effectively distilled down and concentrated inside of this one little insect / worm thing, rendering it a subtle, potent, and viciously nasty way to destroy a person. That being said, I learned a much more boring version than what shows up in Legend of Yunxi, which takes this concept and makes it much more dramatic!

Han Ye either just stopped his forward progress, or there's some wind whipping through the area, because his beautiful long hair and the tails of his blindfold are flying out behind him. Maybe he's just blown away by the spectacular presence emanating from the warrior prince in front of him. Did you see the video? That was one wild qi explosion!

That really is some great motion in his hair. And some decent blood splatter going on in all that mane of white hair, my goodness.

Wait, you might be saying, aren't you the person that was scared of decapitated fig bodies and scattered limbs? Why are you totally down for fig blood splatter? Well, first, let me just say I'm not scared, per se. I just really don't care for it, ok? And second, yeah it's true that if Long Feiye had his charmingly funny crackle-eyed, black-poison-lined head removed from his fig body, it would suddenly become a horrible zombie nightmare. But it's firmly on top of his slender and elegant neck, and he's stately and magnificently putting up with a terrible curse. And you know, destroying hundreds of his enemies in a very dramatic and spear-twirly, explody way. It's all good!

Hmm, not sure why Han Ye is leaning off to the side here. Oh yeah, the poor angle of my photography. May I just say though that his hair looks amazing, I really like the effect of the blindfold here with his hair. So nice.

Like the inspiration picture, Han Ye's hand is resting behind his back in the classic Wen Kexing elegant young master pose. Goodness sakes, he looks like he's about to fall over from this angle! What the heck.

Ah ok, this angle is better to see that he's not really leaning forward all that much, just a little bit as he's reaching his hand out. Meanwhile, Long Feiye is standing tall and elegant with Zhehan's perfect posture. This is a great angle to see the pattern on his vambraces too. Oh, I just noticed you can see the channel where the blindfold goes through Han Ye's bigger side bangs there (I was squinting at the picture to see that yes, he has chonkier bangs on one side, and kind of a small wispy piece on the other). It's well done, it blends in very cleanly.

This is an exceptionally good angle for both their costumes, and to see the height difference. Aww, their little frowny mouths. Well, they have good reason to be a little perturbed, I'd say. This IS a dog's blood drama, there's a lot going on here.

Ooh, now get ready for something special...

They can hold hands! Pure romance, folks! I love this a completely unreasonable amount. Prince Han Ye doesn't have to worry about a thing with the noble Prince Qin there to take his hand.

Well, assuming there's a little bit of platform so Long Feiye can be tall enough to reach his hand. The very real height difference between them, unfortunately, translates into their hands reaching out but not quite touching, and NO THANKS, I'm not looking for any angst here (she says to the injured and battle-beaten dog's blood drama figs). Speaking of which, can I just say, I did not like how they cut the catching light scene in Word of Honor so that their hands didn't touch, especially since we know from the BTS that they held hands for a good long time. I mean yeah, it probably got cut to clear review, but it still doesn't mean I can't grumble grumble about it until the end of time.

Unfortunately, I don't like the look of one fig on a stand and one off a stand, plus all my figs are on stands, so I can't have Han Ye left out. So, I have a few very thin standees that I got randomly in some fig bundles that I'll put Han Ye on, and I'm going to order a thicker fig standee for Long Feiye, and then they will hold hands to their heart's content. Love will NOT be stopped!

Definitely had to do both sides of this fig, it's so unique.

Ah, here's where you can see what I was talking about with his boots, how they are angled up at the toes. This wouldn't cause a lean though. It really IS just my bad photography (and the angles)!

What great figs, I love these so much. I'm sure you couldn't tell at all.

Which doesn't mean I am done gushing over how cute Long Feiye is! I'm just so charmed by him for some unreasonable reason. I'll just comment one more time about how big (crackly!) eyed and expressive his little face is on the box cards / box art. He's getting pride of place on my diorama, I'm telling you that. At the very top of the castle!

Material: Resin and some nasty gu parasites

Fig Count: 340

Scene Count: 24

Rating: You're cute too, Han Ye!

[link back to Master Fig Index for more posts]

[agentem]

Is Viserys I a veiled GRRM and more coherent thoughts about "House of the Dragon"

I didn’t want to watch House of the Dragon. Like many readers of George RR Martin’s epic A Song of Ice and Fire series, I did not have any real desire to see HBO churn out more faithless adaptations of the books I loved. A great many people love Game of Thrones the TV series that was based on Martin’s (currently) five-book series. I liked it a lot at first. It was fun to see characters I knew come to life. And it was wonderful that suddenly other people in the world knew what my “House Stark” t-shirt was about. But I had to stop watching Game of Thrones in season 4. Something had changed and now it felt “off.” I unsubscribed from HBO Max.

Then HBO put the first episode of House of the Dragon up on YouTube for free, and I figured I might as well watch. Free things are my favorite kind of things.

It’s easy to get swept up in the grandeur of the scale of Dragon. However I found myself drawn to the little details. King Viserys I Targaryen (Paddy Considine.) wears the crown of Jaeherys I Targaryen as it was described by Martin. The dialogue was dense with references to other places and people in Westeros. All the lords and ladies wear their house sigils on their person at all times, so you know who is from what house.

Basically, it was like GRRM took someone by the scruff of the neck and said, "THIS is what it looks like. Do it right."

Further, the tourney scenes look a lot like George RR Martin’s own models. Yes, GRRM is a nerd like us who likes to play with tiny knights.

Curiously, I thought I recalled him criticizing the tourney scene in Game of Thrones’ first season. He wanted it to be bigger. House of the Dragon comes out of the gate with a big tournament in the first episode.

He also didn’t like a boar hunting scene involving King Robert in Thrones. Sure enough, the third episode of House of the Dragon has a hunt.

Further, Martin had spoken on his personal blog about complaints of lack of diversity in Game of Thrones. He agreed there should be more people of color and though it would’ve been a good idea to make the Valyrians Black people. Now the leader of House Velaryon—the second most famous house from Old Valyria—is played by Steve Toussaint but, unfortunately he is getting hate for it.

Whatever your feelings about House of the Dragon thus far, it’s incredibly clear from the show, that he’s had more input on this series. So much so that I have started to wonder about what some added details might be intended to convey.

In the book “Fire and Blood” that House of the Dragon is loosely adapted from, King Viserys is described as someone who turned the Red Keep into "a place of song and splendor". He looks like this. On the screen, they’ve add the curious detail that he is a fan of the history of Old Valyria, and is making a model (models again!) of it in his rooms. This reminds me of Martin himself, who loves medieval history and model-making.

Viserys is also desperate for his male heir to just come out already, but these things can’t be forced, so in the end he’s torn between two warring factions and doomed to never be able to appease both of them.

It got me thinking about the pressure Martin is probably under to finish A Song of Ice and Fire and his own desire to see his world rendered properly on screen. Of course, all characters are a reflection of their creators on some level, but was the choice to make Viserys more like Martin himself intentional?

If so, whose choice was it and what does it mean for the show and the books? Does Viserys’ decision to replace the impetuous Daemon Targaryen as his heir maybe reflect Martin’s own decision to pick Ryan J. Condal as the co-creator of House of the Dragon over the Game of Thrones showrunners? Could the show’s theme of the patriarchy of Westeros not allowing a woman to sit on the Iron Throne be about Daenerys Targaryen’s surprising end on Thrones?

I have no answers to these questions but House of the Dragon sure has got me thinking about the world of Westeros more than I have since 2011, when A Dance of Dragons was released.

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Monster Hunter (Anderson, 2020)

Maybe I was more tired than I realized watching this, or maybe I'm just getting dumber and reacting to movies on the level of pure sensation than actually trying to keep track of narrative elements, but I had a weirdly difficult time following along with this. I won't rule out those first two reasons, but I also found this awkwardly paced. One can charitably describe this as "lean", in that we're basically hit with incident after ostensibly exciting incident, and it's refreshing when a movie isn't bogged down in exposition, especially for potential future sequels (although this annoyingly ends with a cliffhanger and post-credits scene). But I still expect a movie to set things up and sell us on the significance of certain developments. Perhaps I was too zoned out to notice all the intricate groundwork this might have been laying, but it seemed that every few minutes we were getting hit with a new monster that it never bothered to set up, rushing through the confrontation so as to undermine any awe the monster might inspire, and the racing along to the next action scene. There's no breathing room, no moments to sit back and savour what the movie's serving.

I also think some of that lack of awe stems from the visuals, largely the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, which often suggests grandeur when deployed in the more tactile epics of yore, but feels claustrophobic here, undercutting any real grasp of the monsters' size. And while I understand there was actual location shooting, the CGI-assisted cinematography renders everything plastic in a way I often found unpleasant to look at. Paul W.S. Anderson is a director I've been unable to fully embrace, and I don't think this makes a particularly good case for him. His affinity for clean geometric compositions clashes with the desert setting, as whatever order he finds in the manufactured interiors of his Resident Evil movies is totally absent here, and the plain desert landscape leaves a dearth of interesting things in the frame to look at. And while the action is less incoherent than in the last Resident Evil movie, the cutting is still too frantic to let any of the juicier images breathe. I will at least say that the confrontations here at least seem free of the inconsequential back-and-forths and arbitrary denouements of his fight scenes elsewhere. And there are individual images, like the shells piling up as the heroine fires a machine gun, or the part where she whips out a rocket launcher, that made a direct appeal to my inner fifteen-year-old, the dork who saw the end of the first Resident Evil when the heroine pumped a shotgun and the camera pulled back and thought it was the coolest shit ever (but then waited over a decade to watch the whole movie for fear that the movie would actually be lame, which sadly turned out to be the case).

Despite the fact that production was completed prior to the pandemic, this definitely feels like a pandemic-era "blockbuster" with its small, weirdly insular and artificial world, but I suppose Anderson's movies have always been modestly scaled and budgeted for special effects extravaganzas. I do wonder if my growing interest over the past few years in '90s studio vehicles has been a subconscious reaction to this, as those movies offer large casts, seemingly lived-in worlds and tactile pleasures. This one has a bunch of randos that it fails to define with any personality and throws in even more randos in the third act, although I did enjoy the chemistry between Milla Jovovich and Tony Jaa, who bring their own brands of charisma to the material, and for some reason there's an anthropomorphized cat not unlike the one in Dragon Ball Z, and I will never say no to Ron Perlman showing up at any stage in a movie.

[childrenfuturemind]

Late in the afternoon of 19 November, 1965 – a Friday – the Hungarian conductor Georg Solti steered the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra through the placid concluding measures of Wagner’s Die Walküre, the final downbeat landing at precisely 5.30pm. It was the end of an epic journey to make the first complete studio recording of Wagner's Ring cycle, a cycle of four operas lasting 15 hours in total.

Who was Georg Solti?

Georg Solti was a Hungarian-British conductor of both orchestral and operatic music, best known both for his opera conducting with orchestras in Munich, Frankfurt and London, and for his long and highly successful spell as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The complete Wagner Ring cycle still stands as one of his greatest achievements, alongside complete Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler symphony cycles in Chicago.

That journey had started seven years earlier on 24 September, 1958, when sessions to record Das Rheingold – the curtain-raiser to Wagner’s tetralogy – began in the Sofiensaal, Vienna, a converted 19th-century steam bath known for excellent acoustics. The road to that opening session had, however, itself been difficult. Decca, the company making the recording, needed considerable persuasion that a complete Ring cycle made sense commercially. Would enough copies ever be sold, they wondered, to cover the enormous financial investment required to complete the project?

ADVERTISEMENT

Classical Composers

0 seconds of 1 minute, 39 seconds,

Wagner: why the music of the brilliant German composer is often misunderstood and considered difficult

When Das Rheingold was eventually released as a three-LP boxed set in March 1959 (price £6), Decca executives got their answer. The critics raved about the new recording and, crucially, it began selling in substantial numbers globally, even becoming a popular hit in the US. ‘There it was in the Billboard charts of the best-selling LP albums,’ reported Rheingold’s producer John Culshaw, ‘surrounded by Elvis Presley and Pat Boone, and without another classical recording in sight.’

Who was John Culshaw?

Culshaw himself was a major reason why Das Rheingold was so stunningly triumphant. Seeing exciting possibilities in the new technology of twin-channel, stereophonic recording, he totally rethought how opera should be presented to the armchair listener. Culshaw’s ‘theatre of the mind’ involved careful placement of singers across the stereo spectrum, mimicking stage positions and movements.

Decca to release new high-definition transfer of George Solti's 'Ring Cycle' recordings

Wagner’s own directions were a crucial point of departure in Culshaw’s calculations. The score of Das Rheingold requires 18 tuned anvils for the Nibelheim episode, a stipulation usually ignored in the theatre. Culshaw took it seriously: 18 anvils were duly found, and 18 players hired to hit them. The thunderclap heralding Rheingold’s final scene also got the Culshaw treatment, and was one of several ‘sound effects’ rendered with unprecedented fidelity on the finished recording.

Decca producer John Culshaw played a key role in the recordings

Decca producer John Culshaw played a key role in the recordings. Pic: Evening Standard / Hulton Archive / Getty Images

What is the best 'Ring' cycle?

The recordings from Solti and the VPO are good candidates for a 'Ring' cycle best recording. Das Rheingold’s commercial success induced Decca to sanction a continuation of the Ring project, and recordings of Siegfried (1962), Götterdämmerung (1964) and Die Walküre (1965) followed. Acclaim for each instalment was again virtually universal, many commentators acknowledging that entirely new standards were being set both artistically and sonically in the presentation of opera on record.

One critic hailed Siegfried as ‘the finest recording, as such, of opera that we have had so far’. In Götterdämmerung, Culshaw had special steerhorns made for Act Two, adding to what one reviewer called ‘the alchemy of Decca's magnificent, stunning, overwhelming new recording’.

Which singers performed in the Solti / Vienna Phil 'Ring' cycle?

Perhaps the biggest factor of all in the Decca Ring’s success was the outstanding quality of the singers. Kirsten Flagstad, Hans Hotter, Gustav Neidlinger, Wolfgang Windgassen, Birgit Nilsson, Christa Ludwig, Régine Crespin, Gottlob Frick – all featured prominently, drawn from a classic generation of post-war Wagner performers. Culshaw’s ‘incomparable engineers’ (as The Times called them), led by Gordon Parry, also played a crucial role in capturing performances which, in their extremes of dynamic and expression, often severely stretched the analogue tape technology of the period

[childrenweb]

When was the first studio recording of Wagner's Ring cycle?

November 1965: The momentous project from Decca, Solti, and the VPO set new standards in the presentation of opera on record

Late in the afternoon of 19 November, 1965 – a Friday – the Hungarian conductor Georg Solti steered the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra through the placid concluding measures of Wagner’s Die Walküre, the final downbeat landing at precisely 5.30pm. It was the end of an epic journey to make the first complete studio recording of Wagner's Ring cycle, a cycle of four operas lasting 15 hours in total.

Who was Georg Solti?

Georg Solti was a Hungarian-British conductor of both orchestral and operatic music, best known both for his opera conducting with orchestras in Munich, Frankfurt and London, and for his long and highly successful spell as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The complete Wagner Ring cycle still stands as one of his greatest achievements, alongside complete Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler symphony cycles in Chicago.

That journey had started seven years earlier on 24 September, 1958, when sessions to record Das Rheingold – the curtain-raiser to Wagner’s tetralogy – began in the Sofiensaal, Vienna, a converted 19th-century steam bath known for excellent acoustics. The road to that opening session had, however, itself been difficult. Decca, the company making the recording, needed considerable persuasion that a complete Ring cycle made sense commercially. Would enough copies ever be sold, they wondered, to cover the enormous financial investment required to complete the project?

ADVERTISEMENT

Classical Composers

0 seconds of 1 minute, 39 seconds,

Wagner: why the music of the brilliant German composer is often misunderstood and considered difficult

When Das Rheingold was eventually released as a three-LP boxed set in March 1959 (price £6), Decca executives got their answer. The critics raved about the new recording and, crucially, it began selling in substantial numbers globally, even becoming a popular hit in the US. ‘There it was in the Billboard charts of the best-selling LP albums,’ reported Rheingold’s producer John Culshaw, ‘surrounded by Elvis Presley and Pat Boone, and without another classical recording in sight.’

Who was John Culshaw?

Culshaw himself was a major reason why Das Rheingold was so stunningly triumphant. Seeing exciting possibilities in the new technology of twin-channel, stereophonic recording, he totally rethought how opera should be presented to the armchair listener. Culshaw’s ‘theatre of the mind’ involved careful placement of singers across the stereo spectrum, mimicking stage positions and movements.

Decca to release new high-definition transfer of George Solti's 'Ring Cycle' recordings

Wagner’s own directions were a crucial point of departure in Culshaw’s calculations. The score of Das Rheingold requires 18 tuned anvils for the Nibelheim episode, a stipulation usually ignored in the theatre. Culshaw took it seriously: 18 anvils were duly found, and 18 players hired to hit them. The thunderclap heralding Rheingold’s final scene also got the Culshaw treatment, and was one of several ‘sound effects’ rendered with unprecedented fidelity on the finished recording.

Decca producer John Culshaw played a key role in the recordings

Decca producer John Culshaw played a key role in the recordings. Pic: Evening Standard / Hulton Archive / Getty Images

What is the best 'Ring' cycle?

The recordings from Solti and the VPO are good candidates for a 'Ring' cycle best recording. Das Rheingold’s commercial success induced Decca to sanction a continuation of the Ring project, and recordings of Siegfried (1962), Götterdämmerung (1964) and Die Walküre (1965) followed. Acclaim for each instalment was again virtually universal, many commentators acknowledging that entirely new standards were being set both artistically and sonically in the presentation of opera on record.

One critic hailed Siegfried as ‘the finest recording, as such, of opera that we have had so far’. In Götterdämmerung, Culshaw had special steerhorns made for Act Two, adding to what one reviewer called ‘the alchemy of Decca's magnificent, stunning, overwhelming new recording’.

Which singers performed in the Solti / Vienna Phil 'Ring' cycle?

Perhaps the biggest factor of all in the Decca Ring’s success was the outstanding quality of the singers. Kirsten Flagstad, Hans Hotter, Gustav Neidlinger, Wolfgang Windgassen, Birgit Nilsson, Christa Ludwig, Régine Crespin, Gottlob Frick – all featured prominently, drawn from a classic generation of post-war Wagner performers. Culshaw’s ‘incomparable engineers’ (as The Times called them), led by Gordon Parry, also played a crucial role in capturing performances which, in their extremes of dynamic and expression, often severely stretched the analogue tape technology of the period

[yazthebookish]

Book review: Nightshade by Keri Lake

5 - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “The only torment I wish to inflict is my own. Touching you, and knowing that you will never belong to me. You will never be mine to keep from the world. I want to be good. If for no one else, then for you.” Nightshade is hauntingly beautiful and a heartwrenching story of star-crossed lovers whose love transcends time and space. Even death bows to such love. It is an exquisitely rendered gothic fairytale imbued with the paranormal that promises to create a story and a world layered in lush fantasy and sinister mysticism. Be warned for this book is emotionally devastating but promises to deliver an unforgettable epic romance. A love so forbidden, it would shake the heavens . . . For starters, Nightshade is the first book in a duology and it's an adult gothic paranormal romance. The book includes some dark themes and you'll find the trigger warnings at the end of the review. This book was phenomenal. I read the blurb but went in semi-blind with very little expectations. I knew by the end of it I'd be emotionally wrecked, I mean, that's a Keri Lake signature for those that are familiar with her books. "You no longer belong to the church or these people. You are not bound by the laws of their world. From this night forward, I am your church. When you are lost, I am your shelter. When you are in pain, I am your elixir.”

Keri's intricate writing and storytelling never fails to blow me away and she elicits such strong emotions from me for her stories and characters. I will refrain from writing a detailed summary of the story because dear reader I will not rob from you the utterly beautiful reading experience and I want you to allow the story to unfold itself to you. The author does a fantastic job of playing with the dark/light themes. The hero is intense and extremely morally grey whereas the heroine is a of a pure heart whose life is belittled and shamed for being the child of a cursed woman. The hero seeps his darkness and sins into the heroine and she embraces it all. "We were fated to be together. It is your light to which I am drawn. It feeds the dark thoughts in my head." The story spans hundred of years and so you will experience this story from another heroine's POV taking place in the present day. All her life, 25-year-old Farrynwas haunted by the mysteries and secrets about a world known as Nightshade that her father was obsessed with. Nightshade is said to be a shadowed world likened to purgatory—but Nightshade nothing but a myth. Perhaps a myth no longer when the line between reality and fantasy begins to fade and it eventually brings Farryn to a raven-winged Harbringer known as Jericho Van Croix. “You are a mystifying enigma, Mister Van Croix.” His gaze swung back to me, devouring me in one sweep. “And you are a frustrating distraction, Miss Ravenshaw.” The characters in this book are richly multilayered and complex. If there is anything Keri Lake perfects, it's writing morally ambiguous characters. She does not shy away from writing characters that may not be redeemable. By now your are probably wondering about what to expect from the romance? • It's deliciously angsty • There are many heartfelt moments • Prepare to be emotionally wrecked • Sizzling chemistry • Hot scenes (expect Light BDSM) • A hot-as-sin brooding and morally grey love interest (with black wings and tattoo) She was trouble and temptation wrapped in a scent that would eventually drive me mad, unless I could stay away from her. Force myself, anyway. Nothing like having an enticing little snack, a vibrant soul, innocently cavorting about when you’re fucking starving. The book does not end on a cliffhanger if you're wondering but the story does pause until the next book comes out. Trigger Warnings: death, suicide, drug abuse, graphic content, sexual assault, violence, strong language.

[blush-and-books]

The End of Julie and the Phantoms - A [very long] Theory

The core of this theory was inspired by many posts that I have seen saying that Julie’s “everything was a dream” shirt may have insinuated that nothing happening on the show is actually reality. I brought my series finale pitch to my dear friend @willexx who then helped me develop this headcanon into something I cried about during lunch. 

It starts out pretty heavy, but there are some little light things here and there because it’s what the himbos would have wanted.

We start here:

In the last episode, the boys are ready too cross over. It’s an emotional moment for everyone, they’re crying, Julie is sobbing, and we as an audience have definitely seen better days. With one last “we love you, Julie,” a flash of light overtakes the garage space, blinding our screens. 

The scene flashes to Julie lying in bed, waking up from her ringing alarm. 

She is visibly confused, clearly wondering how she got to bed when the last thing that she remembers is the boys’ painful departure. When she reaches for her phone to turn off her alarm -- it’s a school day -- she quickly notices the date:

It’s the same day in 2020 that she met the boys, that she was going to clean out her mom’s garage, and that she had to perform to keep her spot in the music program. 

So, none of it was real?

Not exactly. 

The experience was a sort of dream-like saga that was designed for her to be able to grieve on her own, and rediscover her voice in her own way. But just as the panic sets in that it was a complete figment of her imagination, the feeling of cold metal on her left hand becomes too hard to ignore: One of Luke’s rings. 

Reggie’s leather jacket is hanging in her closet.

Alex’s fanny pack is slung across the back of a chair. 

But when she runs downstairs, clad in her dinosaur slippers, rushing to the garage to see if the guys were there -- they aren’t. They have crossed over. 

As she moves through the day, she’s a new Julie, but everything else is the same. Instead of a baseball cap and low ponytail, Julie throws on her black jeans and Reggie’s leather and lets her hair run wild. She’s displaying a confidence that Flynn hasn’t seen in a long time, that seemed to have hit Julie overnight. 

Julie sings Wake Up in music, and keeps her spot in the program. She doesn’t oogle Nick in the halls and she tells Carrie off when there’s an attempt at an insult made. 

Real or not, the boys helped her. They did their job. 

When she gets home, and Ray irks her about cleaning the garage or selling the house, she is quick to insist that she doesn’t want to move and that if he needs her for the rest of the night, she’ll be in her mother’s studio.

There aren’t any instruments except for the piano, and the space has the original layer of dust that it had before her and the guys started using the space again. Julie feels empty. But she reminds herself that the ring on her finger is real, extremely real, so she retraces her steps that she had taken in the first episode and tracks down the Sunset Curve demo CD, puts it in the stereo, and plays it. 

Nothing happens. Or, at least -- nothing that she could see.

The camera pans up as Julie is hard at work to organize the garage, and we see the boys in the chairs on the ceiling, watching over her fondly. 

~This is where @willexx started to throw in some epic ideas~

The boys are real, and they have crossed over, which renders Julie unable to see them. However, in her reset reality without them, no one remembers Julie and the Phantoms or the fact that the boys existed in the first place. The boys, while she can’t see them, visit her and try to make contact with her as much as they can, even though their times with her are limited since they are supposed to be on the other side.

She’ll feel a ghost of a touch on her hand or her hair, and know that Luke is there. When she’s in the car and the radio is on a country station, she knows that it’s Reggie. In a journal for school, a small “okay” will be written in the corner of a page, and it is Alex. These little notes keep her going, and she’ll just sigh and say “my boys,” and leave everyone around her confused. 

Sometimes, when she wakes up in the morning, the demo tape can be heard playing in the garage. Somehow she’ll get filled with hope that if she runs into the garage, the boys will be there rocking out without her like she used to scold them for left and right -- but no one is there. Ray comments that the stereo is broken and Julie has no choice but to nod along. 

One day she finds Luke’s songbook that had been buried in the plastic garbage bags of the boys’ belongings. She still brings Unsaid Emily to his parents, and she cries herself to sleep that night. 

When Julie blows up as a solo artist, she actually records Unsaid Emily, and she records Bright, and all of the other songs that her and Luke wrote together. Luke Patterson is in the writing credits for many of the songs, where Trevor never bothered to list him, and a part of Luke is at piece. 

On the two year anniversary of Rose’s passing, Julie finds Luke’s “angst flannel.” Ray asks where she got it; she tells him a thrift store. But it feels warm, like all of the guys are there, hugging her. 

Another morning, she could swear that Luke and Reggie are strumming out Flying Solo on level one volume, and once again finds herself darting to the garage with no good excuse except to keep her hopes up. They, unsurprisingly, aren’t there -- but a note is, that says “you’re a star, Jules. We love you.”

The handwriting is messy. She knows it’s from Luke, who probably fought the boys to even write the note because he just wanted to talk to her even though they need to move on and his handwriting is awful. The note gets tucked into the pocket of the flannel, and when she needs to be reminded that she’ll be okay, she pulls it out of the pocket and holds it tight. 

Before every show, she reads the note, and mumbles a little prayer to them wherever they are -- even if no one else believes they are real. 

When Luke’s flannel starts to lose it’s original sweet scent of Emily and Mitch’s house, Julie spends an hour crying on the floor of her bathroom. A faded orange beanie appears in her room the next day. 

Little notes from Luke appear here and there, but never from any of the guys. In the shadows where she can’t see them, Alex tells Luke that in order for both themselves and Julie to move on, Luke needs to stop leaving her notes -- so most of the ones that Julie finds are even more messy than usual, like Luke was trying to write them without the guys noticing. 

During one of their forbidden conversations, Julie says to Luke: “hey, I never told you this before... But I’m so glad you’re here. I don’t know what I would do without knowing that you guys were still around. I think I would have lost my mind, and would have been convinced that I went crazy.”

Luke could have ran to Alex, repeated Julie’s tearful words, and given the drummer a fat “I told you so.” But he doesn’t. Julie’s validation is the only validation that he needs. 

Whenever her and Carlos and Ray make an extra seat at their dinner table for Rose, Julie imagines, deep in her mind, that it is for Reggie too. Reggie deserved a seat at their table; deserved to be a part of their family. A family that would have loved him.  And when a fork falls off of the table, Julie knows he’s there. One day, Julie asks Ray how he would have felt about having another son. He responds confused, and Julie gets tears in her eyes, and neither of them bring it up again.

When Julie and Flynn go to Pride together, Julie wears Alex’s fanny pack even though she hadn’t gotten any signs from him since they had all moved on. He still doesn’t reach out afterwards, too overwhelmed by her gesture to think of a way to properly extend his gratitude and love for the girl who is keeping his spirit alive -- but Luke lets her know that he was grateful. 

Luke still visits Julie like he visits Emily and Mitch. And on Luke’s birthday every year, Julie goes to a little bakery after school and buys herself a cupcake; sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night to light a candle and sing happy birthday. When she lights the candle, the candle gets blown out. Every year after that first year, she gets candles that you have to turn on and off so that Luke can’t ruin the moment. 

(He ends up throwing the fake candle on the ground out of retaliation.)

Julie is so emotionally stable for the most part that the complete change is a shock to Ray. He tries to ask her what happened, but she always acts like nothing happened and then hides in her room for hours. Sometimes, she makes random little comments out of the blew and Ray has many conversations with Victoria on whether or not he should have Julie seeing Dr. Turner again. 

At her first solo concert, Julie walks into the dressing room to find “Stand Tall” written three times, in three different handwriting styles, in red, pink, and blue. The message in blue is the messiest by far, and is followed up with a heart. 

The name of Julie’s first album is Phantoms. 

[hawkland]

My (mostly) Destiel Recs, Round-up #6

Well, between working like crazy on my DCBB fic and GISH and injuring my neck last month I haven’t kept up with my rec posts, so this one is going to be LONG and have a LOT and I’m going to try to break it up into sections, from oldies but goodies (some things I found on very old rec lists) to smutty delights to just tasty little bits of fluff, hopefully there’s something or everyone here. Most of these are not super-long, largely in the 10-25k range, though there are a few beyond that. With all the stuff I’ve had going on I haven’t wanted to lose sleep diving into 100k epics (especially when I’m writing my own right now, lol.)

“Oldies” but Goodies:  Here are two great fics written some time way back when but that still definitely slap.

Theodicy by manic_intent (11k) - Probably the most brilliant Godstiel fic I’ve read to date. One of Cas’s first acts as the new god is to make a new archangel. Dean isn’t exactly on board with having his soul re-sculpted into wings he hates on sight (especially as they seem magnetically drawn to Cas), but he isn’t exactly given a choice. He, Sam and Bobby struggle with how to handle their former friend suddenly becoming a vindictive deity - trying to make plans to kill him if they must, which is pretty hard when it seems like Cas is always one step ahead of him. Can Dean hold on to enough of his humanity to provide a conscience to Cas and try to steer him toward good acts instead of destruction? This is one that I can’t say has a perfectly happy ending, but it’s a hopeful and imperfect one that’s just right for how the story plays out. 

My Eyes Are An Ocean by entanglednow (10k) - Season 5 AU where Dean averts the apocalypse through a spell that “powers up” all the angels and he sees Cas’s true form - before being rendered blind. Dean tries to adjust to his blindness, Cas tries to deal with his guilt, and it’s just a lovely little read with an ending that’s... *chef’s kiss*

Lots more recs below the cut:

More great reads from some of my favorite authors I’ve recced before:

The Cabin on the Lake by DeanRH (21k) - This may be my new favorite DeanRH fic...at least for the moment. The year is 2152, Sam and Dean are long gone to Heaven, while Cas - stuck somewhere between mortal and angel - remains on Earth keeping vigil, keeping up the hunt, assuming he’ll never see either Winchester ever again. But when he starts hearing things, and imagining Dean visiting him as an angel himself, he starts losing grip on what is and isn’t real, and whether he can trust anything he sees or believes to be the truth. This is one hell of a psychological rollercoaster that kept me guessing right along with Cas until the very end. It also has some super-creepy horror elements, a novel “monster of the week”, and the hot-as-sin smut scenes I always expect from this author.

X Marks the Scot by DeanRH (15.9k) A fun little romp through history in one of this author’s great not-quite-au fics. Crowley sends Dean and Sam back in history to the Scottish Highlands to stop a monster, and while there they meet a blue-eyed clan chief who makes Dean weak in the knees. There’s something familiar about him, too. a very clever au that ties back to canon for an unexpected fix-it. Also, Cas in a kilt. Enough said.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon by DeanRH (12k) - Sweet and slightly angsty AU. What if Dean was a gardener in ancient Babylon when a strange dignitary came to warn that the tower under construction was to be destroyed by angels? Lush, romantic and sexy with some wonderful tie-ins to canon characterizations (of Dean, Sam, John and of course Cas).

sufficient for thee by angelfishofthelord (21k) - This is a beautiful Cas angst-fest and character study that reimagines how angel grace works, particularly in regards to healing others. It covers the whole of Cas’s arc from Season 4 through a post-series fix-it, is absolutely stunning and features some great world-building in regards to the angels. (One important TW: those with cutting/self-harm issues may wish to skip or at least proceed with caution). I love that I can always count on angelfishofthelord when I need a good dose of Cas!whump and pain.

And laugh at gilded butterflies by ireallydidthistomyself (13k) - another great Dadstiel fic from this author featuring one of my favorite angsty subjects! I don’t know how I missed reading this one before. An AU where Cas is raising (baby)Jack on his own until the angels find the two of them and prepare to seal Jack away in the Ma’lak box. Cas begs them to let him go with Jack, so at least Jack won’t be alone for eternity. Meanwhile Dean is frantically trying to find what happened to Cas, and he gets some unexpected help from Crowley.  It’s sad and sweet and all the characterizations are great. A+ Crowley use here, too.

what stays (and what fades away) by dothraki_shieldmaiden (64k) - a fabulous read with some great art, too, that started me reading a bunch of fic from this author. Cas goes missing, and when he’s found he seems deep under a spell. When they finally manage to awaken him, he doesn’t remember anything of this life with Dean, Sam and Cas in the bunker. The last thing he knew he was a nurse living with his wonderful husband, Dean, and their two adopted children, Jack and Claire. What I loved about this one was the clever twist as to who was behind Cas’s curse and also how well-developed his AU world/existence was. I’m not generally keen on mundane aus or the one-dimensional way a lot of djinn dream fics tend to go for them, but this one managed to capture a believable version of Dean and Cas living a “normal” life without monsters without making it sugary/too-sweet. 

before knowing remembers by dothraki_shieldmaiden (14k) Post 15x04, a wonderful fic that plays with some meta topics in a clever way. Dean and Sam are happy - they have free will and they’ve won against Chuck, even if they suffered some big losses along the way (including Jack). But Dean can’t help but think he’s forgetting something...or rather, someone. Yet every time he thinks he remembers, the name and face of that someone slips from his mind. 

weights on my ankles by dothraki_shieldmaiden (9k) Post-15x03 where Cas ends up going back to the Gas ‘n Sip and working with Nora after leaving the bunker. A bitter sweet divorce-arc AU and what I love the most is how it ends - not perfect, not tragic, just very real and believable. 

15x18 and Post-canon fix-it fics:

Orbital Velocity Around a Celestial Body by LeverDrift (26k) - An angsty but lovely fix-it fic, one where it gets worse for a while before it gets better. Dean pulls Cas from the Empty, where he’d been living in a fantasy world with a dream!Dean who was giving him everything real!Dean is certain he can’t. Dean has to struggle with wondering if Cas would have been better off with dream!Dean instead of him. This is one that will break your heart before putting it back together again as Dean struggles with his self-worth issues.

so good at crashing in by Wintertree (36k) - Another post-finale fix-it where Cas is back, the world is saved, and things are still...not as easy as it should be for either Dean nor Cas. Monsters are gone, there’s no more hunting to be done, and Cas wants to move out of the bunker somewhere closer to Claire, to move on with a proper human life. Dean thinks he can move there with Cas and stay as “best friends”, even to the extent that Cas encourages him to go out and have sex with others/women. (And wants to hear about it after the fact!) But can Dean figure out what he really wants, and what Cas wants as well? A refreshingly unique take on what a post-series life could have looked like for them.

Delicious smut:

Empty by squirrelofcelestialintent (43k) - Every day this fandom makes me rethink my previous squicks and DNWs in fanfic. Here I find myself enjoying quite a bit more dom/sub elements than I normally ever would! I think because I was absolutely drawn in by the breathtaking first chapter, capturing beautifully the emotions of Cas returning from the Empty in Season 13 if he and Dean had confessed their feelings right then and there. But Dean’s self-worth is all fucked up, he feels there’s no way he can be good enough for Cas, especially when his sexual desires run a little bit...let’s just say outside the vanilla and he’s struggling with shame over doing sex work when he was younger. This was HOT and POOR SAM really gets stuck in the middle of, well, hearing more about his brother’s sex life than he ever needed to.

He's My Mate by Hatsonhamburgers (22k) - This fic manages the delightful combination of humor and extreme hotness perfectly. Dean and Cas catch each other in some questionable masturbation situations. This leads Cas to decide he needs to buy Dean some proper sex toys. He’s just helping his best friend out, right? Sure. As I said, hysterical AND hot as hell. 

Generals by nanoochka (9k) - Cas/Dean, Cas/Balthazar/Dean, implied past-Cas/Balthazar. An old LJ fic I found on an ancient rec list that is just scorching hot and a brilliant character study of Cas and Dean. Balthazar decides to invite himself in when he catches Dean and Cas engaging in some frisky business, and it turns into a bit of a power-play between the two soldiers of Heaven. Cas gets DP’ed and it’s all...well. It’s fucking good, read it.

The One With The Preening by HolyFuckingHell (5.5k) Can I do a rec post without including some wing!kink/wing!grooming in it? No, I can’t. (I also really enjoyed some of the other fics in this author’s series including The One With Dean's Horny Movies).

A Single Point of Light by Destina (2.4k) - This is a gorgeous Cas/Dean/Benny Purgatory short! A delicious balance of the two each caring for and caring about Dean in their own, protective ways, definitely a delight for any fans of this threesome.

Short and sweet, fluff to angst:

Snugglebird by almaasi (5.3k) - So, so soft and sweet and snuggly, just like the title. Dean’s things are disappearing from the bunker...and so, suddenly, has Cas. What’s going on? I do love my nesting!Cas fics, so...yeah. If you need a smile this is a good one to read :)

And Cleanse Me From My Sin by thisisapaige (1.6k) - another one for my beloveds who also enjoy wing grooming and sweet Dean-taking-care-of-Cas fluff.

Needle and Thread by Misachan (4k) - Season 5 wing!fic hurt/comfort. Cas’s wings are badly injured, Dean doesn’t quite know what he’s doing, but he’s stitched up Sam and himself enough times. He can do this. If you love caretaker!Dean and vulnerable!Cas don’t overlook this little gem.

Deceptive Preludes by sp8ce (2.7k) - One of those stories that delves into some of the difficulties Cas might have after coming back from the Empty a second time, especially in regards to accepting what’s real or not, understanding Dean, and how both of their communication issues can add to their struggles. Painful but hopeful for the future, felt very believable as I read it.

[yurimother]

LGBTQ Comic Review - Amongst Us Book 1

A masterful combination of comedy, subtle romance, and incredible sensuality

I make no attempts to hide my complete admiration and infatuation with Shilin Huang's Yuri webcomic Amongst Us. The slice of life AU featuring reimagined versions of the lead characters from fantasy series Carciphona as a lesbian couple has held a special place in my heart for a long time. I named the series one of the best Yuri works of the past one-hundred years, can frequently be found lurking in the author's Twitch streams, and even have a wall in my office dedicated to the artwork of the main couple (or I did before my office became a remote classroom). So, when a Kickstarter by Shilin and Hiveworks Comics launched promising a print version of the work, I was eager to support it financially and promote it with my humble platform. The Kickstarter took place in March, and books were initially estimated for release in May of 2020. However, as you have probably realized by the dates alone, the world went very South around this time. A combination of disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, a healthy amount of bad luck, and what I am inclined to believe, for various reasons, was some awful mismanagement by Hiveworks led to numerous delays. Indeed, by the time the book finally shipped, I had moved, so my copy arrived a little later as it had to be forwarded. But, at the end of this frustrating and anticipation-building event, I finally have the volume in my hands, and it was worth the wait. While I adore the webcomic, this gorgeous print volume completely enthralls me. The book is absolutely the preferred way to read this spectacular comic.

Before getting into the exquisite details of Amongst Us Book 1: Soulmates, I need to take a minute to praise how well this book is put together. The paperback binding is thick and features amazing spot glass that sparkles in the light. This feature only accentuates the fantastic and bright the cover illustration of main characters Veloce and Blackbird loving holding each other is. The back cover has a simpler but more imaginative illustration of the two flying through the sky, and the character's expressions tell you everything you need to know about this fantastic, odd couple. There are a few things you will notice upon opening the volume. The first is how well Amongst Us made the challenging transition from vertical webcomic to the page. The assembly and paneling are fantastic and clear, and chapters feature stylized illustrations and title cards. You will then see the inside cover, a powerful display that perfectly contrasts the front's glowing and tender love. Finally, there is Shilin's presents moving forward and dedication, where she lovingly dedicates the book to her partner, Kristen.

I assure you, as good as the book's presentation and assembly is, the contents within are even better. Amongst Us follows Veloce and Blackbird's bombastic relationship. The two women are eccentric and striking musicians in their early twenties, and I swear you will never forget them. The slice of life storylines are, per the genre's definition, mundane and include events like shopping at the mall, riding the train, and having lunch with a friend. The charming simplicity of the story serves well to the reactions of the characters. Shilin effortlessly transitions from adorable moments of affection to explosive and hilarious comedy and irresistible and delightful moments of sexual tension; Veloce's neck and jawline alone could topple a monarchy. Often, slice of life works can become dull or repetitive, but these stories and the frequent changes in tone help the reader stay engaged and excited.

Putting slice of life aside for a moment, it is also important to note that Amongst Us is also has an interesting place within the Yuri genre, or "Girl's Love/GL" as it is often called in webcomic circles (originally an analogous term of Boy's Love). Webcomics have often been a bit more adventurous with their storylines and styles than Japanese manga. While the genre rose to popularity in the space thanks to digital manhwa and manhua, some (not all) of the Yuri tropes did not carry over between the similar mediums. Many modern webcomics and webtoons take their inspiration more from manhwa and manhua GL, which has developed its own canon and tropes over the years. However, even for a webcomic, Shilin's work feels somewhat divorced from most other worlds of Yuri. This first volume exists mainly against the Yuri genre's expectations. However, the next book, which flashes back to the couple's origin, undoubtedly is more in line with convention, for better or worse. It feels like the author decided to screw the norms and write a work that she would enjoy, and I am so glad that she did. Veloce and Blackbird are young adults, out of school in an established relationship with no drama. This (sadly) unconventional setting is made all the more irregular because of just how distinctive, and unwonted Blackbird and Veloce are.

Blackbird and Veloce, originally from the fantasy world of Carciphona, take on a new life, literally, in this wonderful modern reimagining and homage. You do not need to be a fan of the original work to enjoy their bizarre and larger-than-life personalities. Indeed, when I read Amongst Us online for the first time, I had not ever even heard of Carciphona. Veloce is the quieter and more stoic of the two, although she is not afraid of showing a more relatable and human side as she reacts to Blackbirds wild antics. Veloce's (not)straight man approach is hilariously sobering. But, her best moments are in those when she lets loose a little bit, like when she is rendered drooling by the promise of her favorite smoothie or in her stoic yet alluring flirtations with Blackbird, only to get close enough to steal a healthy chomp of ice cream.

Blackbird, on her part, is completely insane. She continuously pulls of wild antics like jumping on Veloce to surprise her or singing an especially threatening song after a glorious battle over lunch. However, she is perfectly capable of showing her love and admiration for Veloce in her own cheeky way. However, true to form, each softer or more personal moment between the two is often immediately and perfectly juxtaposed with comedy, with the apparent exception of the book's touching and thoughtful finale. Veloce and Blackbird will both more than please readers individually, but you will fall in love with them as a couple. I must have read this at least a few dozen times between the webtoon and the book, and I am just as enchanted as ever by their loud and unapologetic love.

The ordinary misadventures of Blackbird and Veloce are accompanied by genuinely astounding artwork. No, that statement does not do Shilin's illustrations justice. Veloce and Blackbird lead from the page thanks to stunning, full-color illustrations that detail every moment of hilarity. Every movement from the slightest smirk to the over-the-top dramatizations of regular events thoughtfully and beautifully sprawl across the pages and invite you to stare for hours. Shilin is the only person possible who could make something as simple as someone softly singing Happy Birthday so epic and sultry. Speaking of which, my goddess of Yuri is this work titillating. No, there are no gratuitous scenes, but just the characters leaning over each other or touching the other's chin makes my hands shake. My only small complaint is that some early chapters show their age slightly with noticeably lower quality linework and flatter colors than the dazzling and dynamic work demonstrated towards the end. Still, even on its worst day, Amongst Us looks better than most of its peers and the entirety of its many inferiors.

Amongst Us is nearly the perfect work. It has a uniquely compelling and mirth-inducing way of displaying a young yet very unordinary couple's everyday life. Its characters, from design to personality, are instantly memorable and striking. Despite being ready to rip each other's heads off at the drop of a hat, or rather because of it, Blackbird and Veloce feel the perfect and natural couple we so rarely witness. Shilin's masterful combination of comedy, subtle romance, and incredible sensuality is astounding. This book is worth it for the outstanding and vibrant artwork alone, but its combination with excellent writing create a sonorous and majestic modern romance unlike any other. I believe that Shilin has created something genuinely special here, and I can confidently say that out of the hundreds of webcomics I have read, this one is the pinnacle of its kind and my absolute favorite.

You can purchase Amongst Us book 1: Soulmates exclusively on Shilin's online shop and read the webcomic now for free on Twitter, Webtoon and Tumblr​ @okolnir​.

Ratings: Story – 9 Characters – 10 Art – 10 LGBTQ – 8 Sexual Content – 5 Final – 10

[my-writings-and-musings]

Answering these two asks in a post so all the content can stay in one place!

The original post in question can be found here!

Drift

·He's delighted to have a whole group of young humans on board to foster diplomacy, and he fully intends to do whatever is necessary to make them feel safe and welcome. Though his introduction is polite, the small crowd immediately takes note of his ever present swords, and to his delight their reaction is purely one of innocent awe at his impressive weaponry. Always happy to encourage responsible sword use, he explains the significance of each blade and is incredibly careful when showing the very tiny and very delicate humans what they look like up close. Their delight is so simple and pure some part of him is reminded of his long gone naivety, and his promise to protect them becomes a vow he never intends to break while his own spark still flickers.

·When he casually mentions time on earth one day the group is surprised and effusive in a sudden burst of questions. When he's actually able to recall a surprising amount of pop culture facts their little minds are nearly blown, and from then on they seem to seek him out just to socialize, something that quite surprises him for a multitude of reasons. Even after all his time with the Autobots, many still don't fully accept him as one of their own, so to be seen as a companion by beings so young and innocent... If absolutely touches him, while also making him determined to ensure they never discover that aspect of his life. He tells himself it's for their safety, and that the young shouldn't be troubled with burdens not their own, but he knows that losing the simple delight of their company and respect would hurt him deeply.

·Due to his need for frequent training to keep his skills sharp, it's no surprise that his little fans one day stumble upon him dicing up training dummies in one of the many gymnasium inspired practice areas. Upon seeing them in action he's soon surrounded by a group of very eager wannabe sword fighters, and while he's still recovering from the idea that he's wanted as a teacher a casual mention of Spectralism prompts a new wave of curiosity and interest that he can barely handle. It takes all of his willpower just to keep from letting on how impossibly touched he is by each and every one of them. They're just... interested in who he is? They look up to him just because they think he's cool and want to learn more about his faith, his skills, and his passions...

·The simple goodness of the relationship is all brought to what he thinks to be the end when his past is exposed by accident. He's not even with them when they find out, but he's devastated, and can't bring himself to face them now that they know who he used to be. It's only through sheer determination on behalf of the whole group, and what he thinks is bad luck for him, that the young liaisons manage to find and speak to him once more. For an instant he breaks and can only apologize effusively, begging their forgiveness for... well, everything from the secret to letting them down to allowing them to believe he was what they thought he was. It takes all of them working in tandem to speak over him and make one thing clear; no one is angry.

·His little group of fans makes it abundantly clear they don't see him as "Deadlock" or a Decepticon or anything but the bot they've come to respect. He's not his past in their eyes, and his present has been nothing but kind and welcoming to each and every one of them. Their little hands take hold of his in a gesture of affirmation, and in the strength of their compassion he can't help but feel dwarfed by each of them. Somehow, the experience brings them even closer, and they can frequently be heard referring to their "older brother" when heading off for the training sessions he painstakingly caters to their size. When some of them begin to show him Spectralist greetings and goodbyes he has to take the time to shed a few tears in private, but they definitely notice how affected he is regardless, and each of them make a point to show him how important he is to them every day.

Rodimus

·It was his own genius diplomatic skills that got these little humans secured on the ship in the first place, so he's quite eager to welcome them on board when the day finally comes. The fact that he stresses about impressing them for hours beforehand is something he keeps entirely to himself though... Yet it turns out he has nothing to fear, because each human is rendered speechless merely by the size of the Lost Light when they first see it, and he can't help but be made giddy as a result. He doesn't need to fake any of the enthusiasm he shows as he takes them on a tour, speeding through the hallways and alternating between giving them lifts in vehicle mode and bot mode, the latter of which has him carrying the group on his shoulders and in his arms.

·It's impossible not to be shocked as he sees the humans all... like and respect him immediately? Everything from his altmode to his jokes, they just... their little faces light up and they compliment him and they all want to hang out with him again as soon as possible?! What is this?! Despite having no idea he happily throws himself into this new and strange relationship with these tiny humans. So many of the interests and hobbies he's been told are "unfit" for a bot in his position are met with fascination, support, and requests for him to teach them all he can. It quickly goes from pleasantly surprising to absolutely touching. The whiplash of suddenly having so much positive attention spurs a change in him, namely one of uncharacteristic levels of protective instinct towards these precious visitors.

·Though he's entirely casual to their faces, behind the scenes he's checking on absolutely everything to ensure they're all taken care of. Are their rooms comfortable? Is the food to their liking? Does the crew make them feel welcome? Can he do anything to make their stay better? The various bots he checks in with to ensure everything is running smoothly quickly grow irritated with his constant pestering, though this new side of him is refreshing to most, particularly because he hasn't ever been this responsible about anything in the past. He even checks in with Magnus on the regular! And submits reports in a timely fashion! All to make sure he's doing everything in his power to keep these young liaisons as happy as he can.

·To the humans themselves though, he's the ultimate fun uncle, introducing them to the entire crew and showing them all the fun things there are to do around the ship. If he hears even a rumor that one of them is missing something about their home or wants to try something they don't have the ability to make happen, you better believe he is going to do everything in his power as captain to get things going. But of course he keeps all this work to himself, he wants to be the most effortlessly cool bot they know, and also doesn't want to concern them with all of the details. Unfortunately a slip up for one particularly epic movie night at Swerve's reveals the many sleepless hours he spent arranging it all, and in his rushed reasurances it comes out that he's been working himself ragged taking care of their every need.

·The entire group is shocked by his dedication, but also his incredible talent. He's funny, charismatic, friendly, and he's also been doing so much for them? The entire group brings him into an impromptu hug of appreciation, and he very nearly tears up in front of them. Somehow, these young aliens have become everything he didn't know he needed. They're his friends, but they look up to him, and his new honorifics of "Fun uncle" and "big brother" are there to prove it. But from then on they refuse to let him do all the work of arranging things himself. If someone has an idea to improve the ship, it gets done as a group, with one very happy bot surrounded by his ever present posse of humans ready to help the coolest captain in the galaxy. They're even kind enough to pretend they don't see the happy tears misting his optics from time to time.

Rung

·Not having ever been to earth, along with never seeing humans outside of their media, means he really didn't know what to expect of the incoming humans. Hearing that they were all exceptionally young just made him concerned, especially after a quick bit of research made it apparent that humans are quite emotionally turbulent in this protoformesque stage. He's not concerned for his sake though, even the tallest human is tiny at his side, he's worried they made need a little extra assistance adjusting to life after such a big change. Thus, he makes quite sure to be present when they're brought on board to introduce himself and extend his services. A small part of him can't help but be delighted upon meeting them; so small, yet so exuberant! They're all polite despite their wide eyed wonder at... everything, but his description of his proffesion really catches their attention for a group exclamation; Cybertronians have psychologists?!

·Having prepared to offer help, he's blindsided by their interest in simply... learning about his career? They want to know about the places he's been and the ships he's served on, particularly when they learn he has models of each, and they're so small he's not at all worried when he brings a couple collectibles down for them to see up close. Watching these little beings clamor to see something most of his own kind finds boring makes the protective feelings in his spark strengthen into a promise to keep each and every one of them safe. He takes note of each individual human's traits and personalities while memorizing their names, being quite aware of how much it means to simply have one's designation remembered, and also commits to guiding them all through their unique interests and goals.

·Spending time with the liaisons in their group as well as one on one, it doesn't occur to him that they don't follow the same pattern as every Cybertronian he's ever met until one of them brings it up; why do the other bots always get his name wrong? It's only in that moment he realizes none of them have ever forgotten, mispronounced, or even hesitated to say his name. The surprise is enough that he can't even reply to them initially. When he does manage to find words they're quite insufficient, and he tries to explain that even he doesn't know, but he's always just assumed his small stature and quiet demeanor simply meant he tended to fade from memory rather quickly. Nothing else beyond his "historical constant" theory really explains it, as far as he knows.

·Ever able to defy expectations, the little liaisons react to his indirect self depreciation with emphatic reasurances that he's not at all forgetable, and are so intent on making sure he knows that they speak over one another in an emotional gaggle of supportive youngsters. It's all more than the quiet psychiatrist could have ever expected. Of course he never enjoyed being forgotten, but he's become so accustomed to dismissing those feelings he has no way to process this sudden outpouring of support. The humans are all around him in a kind of embrace, which is made difficult mostly due to the number of them and the size difference, but the affection in the gesture is still quite clear. It's all he can do to hold them in return as they all promise to never forget him no matter what happens.

·He keeps his tears private, but that doesn't stop them from coming when he's behind closed doors, though he just lets the happiness brim over into the few that run down his cheeks after he removes his glasses. The irony of it all doesn't hit him until he and the group are present at a movie night, and as he listens to them all gush in turn to the cinema selection of the evening it occurs to him that his initial intent to help them has been flipped quite completely around. These little ones have helped him, helped him feel worth remembering, helped him feel like he belongs, helped him find a family... Watching them gather around him almost protectively from a forgetful world, he isn't quite sure if he's been adopted or if they have, but he can't bring himself to care about such details. Neither can any of the liaisons who vowed to each other their new friend would never feel lonely again.

[if-it-isnt-cello]

18th Chopin Piano Competition: Stage 2

Check out the competition masterpost for more info. Here's @wobster109's, who's also commenting on the competition, masterpost (and it's usually evening sessions which I am missing).

Repertoire

In short, all participants must present: a ballade (or barcarolle, or fantasy, or a scherzo, a.k.a. an epic, narrative piece), a waltz and a polonaise. (see full list at the end of this post)

Competitors

There are 45 competitors performing on Oct 9th–Oct 12th. According to the drawn order of performances, Arsenii Mun (Russia) will be the first participant.

My posts

Oct 9th, Morning (tbc)

Oct 9th, Evening (tbc)

Oct 10th, Morning (tbc)

Oct 10th, Evening (tbc)

Oct 11th, Morning (tbc)

Oct 11th, Evening (tbc)

Oct 12th, Morning (tbc)

Oct 12th, Evening (tbc)

Results

The jury qualified 23 pianists (see the list).

Trivia

Behind the scenes (stage 2)

YT impressive stats

So on Oct 13th, PR2 will hold a three-hour talk about the second stage, which I will try to sum up here (esp for @wobster109 and @my-heart-will-be-green 🥰). (Tip: if you're from Poland, check out PR2 website, they save every discussion so you can listen to it later ^^ @babinicz)

Varia: the jury was quite understanding with the more unorthodox pianists (here a short discussion about Osokins in 2015 and how now in prelims and 1st stage he played more tempered and then on stage 2 got on the stage and played probably a bit too much, ‘cause he didn’t get a pass to stage 3).

The hardest part of stage 3: everything can be difficult, ballade, waltx, mazurka... you need to know how to build a form. Is it okay to change sonate for preludes?! But it was a compromise to include preludes into the repertoire.

The rules flattened the repertoire a bit, many pianists played almost the same pieces; it also should be good to make pianists play ballade and scherzo. Also, good idea would be a group of brillante pieces, for pianists to show they know the early Chopin. Variations, rondo á la Mazur---it’s good to see that the pianists reach for these pieces. On the other hand, maybe pieces like Fantasy or Polonaise-Fantasy shouldn’t be played such early as during stage 1.

The speakers wondered what happened to the traditional (?) flags that I guess were always on stage, that maybe they didn’t put them out to not show that it’s kind of sports, ,olympics, etc. In the end, it looks like Chopin Institute and Warsaw Phillharmonic didn’t communicate well enough about who’s responsible for the flags 😅

A special prize for polonaise. There were many pianists who didn’t play it well, but there were also many who were able to show the interesting details. Interesting trivia: there was a time when the only one polonaise to play (probably during one of the stages) was Polonaise in F sharp minor Op. 44.

Lots of changes in the programme---you need to know that there’s a programme book printed for the whole competition (and of course the pianists need to choose their repertoire for all stages months in advance). The speakers mused how it’s good to see that due to the various media and a very wide repertoires pianists can decide a day before that they’d feel better playing this or that. Unfortunately, that renders the programme book a bit useless, even as a keepsake---will there be a programme book in four years’ time?...

P. Alexewicz: interesting differentation of his programme, one of the candidats for polonaise prize out of stage 2.

L. Armellini: one of the most interesting Ballade in A flat major. Aaaand, I didn’t catch that, but a nice idea to play sostenuto as an introduction to waltz. Great waltz (a radio speakers’ nominee to waltz prize), played with a noble elegance. Fazioli---sounds differently on stage (the resonance of the hall)  than on the recording, but definitely is rich in colours and sounds a bit like a period piano.

J J Jun Li Bui: variations! rich stillistically. He’s young but mature: he played barcarolle and fantasy very wel, great talent + Dang Thai Son as a teacher ;)

M. Candotti: nice interpretation of fantasy and nocturne. A bit disappointing waltz: with grace, but without the breadth (brillante!) She's a very romantic pianist, lots of passion.

Y. Furumi: she got described as a "middle" of the competition, a good pianist. Polonaise-Fantasy was a bit difficult for her? Played write fast. Heavy programme, maybe a bit too much.

A. Gadjiev: a great consciousness of music, maybe one of the best recitals in stage 2. One again, he said that he didn't come here to win, but to show his interpretation. A new view of Chopin? He really does tell his story by playing. The best barcarolle (or was it a bit too much? The radio speakers aren't in agreement), great vision (and fire!) in Polonaise, very new, not really connected to the traditional national interpretations. Anyway, barcarolle was one of this interpretations that make you stop and wonder, "it's much different, but maybe he's right?" A recital to launch fully on CD.

M. García García: waltz a bit 19th cent klezmer-ish. Too much of everything in polonaise. Some interesting things, he's spontaineous (singing!) and has talent, but his suggestions are a bit controversial, even if interesting.

E. Gevorgyan: ("a snow princess"?) a great pianist. Looks like she may be a gold child and maybe these 40 competitions were mostly for children? Bc she said she sat with Chopin for 6 months before this comp. The speakers wonder whether her playing isn't just taught... But look forward to be amazed by her in stage 3 (very interesting choices). Polonaise: if it's intuition, then it's genius.

N. Khozyanov: incredible fuga! Hs repertoire (like Armellini’s) was constructed really consciously. He’s also seeing Chopin very individually. His polyphonic thinking (see stage 2 description). Could be more emotions, lyrism? bc he’s a bit too monumental? Beautiful Mazurkas, fuga (which sounded a bit like played on organs) as a centre of his recital. Polonaise: a bit too much in times, middle part (trio) too mechanically motoric. (An interview with him was in Polish! He chose his fave ballade, written in Mallorca... tl;dr he sure knows everything about the pieces he played. For him, it’s very important to know the composer, his life, to reenact his works. Chopin’s languages are the languages of his music)

M. Krzyżowski: Good ballade, he held emotions in check (sometimes they can get a bit too much)

S-Y Kim: a classicist way of playing Chopin. Her ballades were quite sequential, she didn’t see them as wholes

A. Kobayashi: a bit sharp on the edges

J. Kuszlik: he has breadth, good for big pieces. Technically, he has quite a small hand, but he fits the repertoire to his capabilities. Nice way of playing a whole opus of waltzes, contrasting them.

H. Lee: the best was Scherzo, with funeral march and finale (and a risk in laying polonaise after funeral march, good for him there was an applause)

B. (X.) Liu (”what do we want to hear out of his repertoire?” “can we do everything?” “I’m sorry, but we’ve got inly 30 mins more”) He greatly balances the time in nocturnes, very mature. An ease in interpretations which he didn’t show fully in stage 2 (3 x brillante pieces). Rondo á la mazur: brilliant, ballade: very hard, but he managed! (left hand crescendo, right on diminuendo), enthralling polonaise.

S. Nehring: he’s got experience, looks like he plays like during the recital, but you can see there’s an additional pressure. For stage 3 he planned Mazurkas (”a choice for the mazurkas prize”)

K. Pacholec: a born chopenist? elegance, grace (waltzes!)

H. Rao, M. Shindo, K. Sorita, H. Sumino

A. Wierciński: 6 years ago his recital wasn’t the best. Colours in ballade, good waltz (not played often)

For stage 3, the radio peakers are mostly waiting for non-rules’ pieces, those outside the obligatory parts.

Repertoire

one of the following pieces:

Ballade in G minor, Op. 23

Ballade in F major, Op. 38

Ballade in A flat major, Op. 47

Ballade in F minor, Op. 52

Barcarolle in F sharp major, Op. 60

Fantasy in F minor, Op. 49

Scherzo in B minor, Op. 20

Scherzo in B flat minor, Op. 31

Scherzo in C sharp minor, Op. 39

Scherzo in E major, Op. 54

Polonaise-Fantasy in A flat major, Op. 61

one of the following Waltzes:

in E flat major, Op. 18

in A flat major, Op. 34 No. 1

in F major, Op. 34 No. 3

in A flat major, Op. 42

in A flat major, Op. 64 No. 3

one of the following Polonaises:

Andante Spianato and Polonaise in E flat major, Op. 22

Polonaise in F sharp minor, Op. 44

Polonaise in A flat major, Op. 53

or both Polonaises from Op. 26

any other piece or pieces by Fryderyk Chopin (if the hitherto performed repertoire does not achieve the minimum performing time indicated below).

Performing time in the second stage: 30–40 minutes.

Competitors who played one of the Scherzos in the first stage should choose another genre from the first group in the second stage.

The pieces may be performed in any order (except Op. 26).

Should the contestant overrun the time limit, the Jury may stop his/her performance.

(rules)

[aion-rsa]

The Suicide Squad: Who Lives and Who Dies

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains major The Suicide Squad spoilers. We have a spoiler free review here.

Five years ago, Will Smith uttered the instantly meme-able line, “So that’s it, huh, we’re the patsies, we’re some kind of Suicide Squad.” Yet by the end of that 2016 film, barely anyone in that squad was put six feet under. How times have changed.

For the entire rollout of his pseudo-sequel/reboot, writer-director James Gunn has insisted he had carte blanche to kill off any character in his The Suicide Squad roster. While we may remain skeptical if Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn and a few others were really that expendable to Warner Bros., Gunn’s finished film speaks to just how much freedom he was allotted in slaughtering potentially valuable DC IP. Major characters from the first film, and a slew of new ones Gunn personally introduced, were pushing up daisies before the movie’s opening title card. And the bodycount only grew from there.

So if you had trouble keeping up with who died, and in what gnarly and grotesque fashion, we’re here to offer a handy dandy list of which members of the Suicide Squad walked away from Corto Maltese, and which were carried away in bags.

Blackguard

Dies

You can’t help but wonder if Gunn intentionally cast Pete Davidson as the first Squad member to get put down. With the exception of a fakeout (more on that in a bit), the mildly divisive SNL alumni goes out in gruesome fashion when he reveals on a Corto Maltese beachhead that he somehow communicated with the local military that a U.S. operation would be landing there. He thinks this will get him in good with the new government. Instead it gets him obliterated by a hail of bullets. All that time in prison and Blackguard never learned what happens to snitches…

Javelin

Dies

Flula Borg’s Javelin cut an amusing figure, as if he wandered in from some low-rent 1970s superhero television series. Even his accent was absurdly disarming, as Harley quickly noticed. Alas, it was not meant to be since Javelin was blasted fast on the beach, barely having a moment to entrust Dr. Quinzel with his trusty weapon.

Mongal

Dies

Let it not go unsaid that Mayling Ng’s Mongal made an epic introduction and exit when she took down several choppers all by herself. Unfortunately, she didn’t really think about a personal strategy as she rode one helicopter all the way down into its fiery ‘splosion.

Captain Boomerang

Dies

The first really major death of the film came when Captain Boomerang, Jai Courtney’s holdover from the 2016 movie, also bit the big one from the same fiery blast that took Mongal. At least he and Harley got to share a few laughs beforehand. We guess this puts an end to any chance of him  showing up in The Flash movie!

T.D.K.

Dies

Okay, as soon as you realized the secret superpower of Nathan Fillion’s character was something as lame as “detachable” limbs, you also knew he was dead meat, right? This character is so lame that Gunn doesn’t even show the Corto Maltese military putting him out of his misery. They just snicker as he writhes in pain, feeling how his detached arms have been shot to ribbons. Bad day to be a Browncoat.

Savant

Dies

Michael Rooker is the actor James Gunn casts when he wants to give a character an epic death scene. It took two movies for that to prove true in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but Rooker’s Savant doesn’t even make it to the end of the opening credits here… well not all of him. The blood and brain splatter created by the bomb Amanda Waller detonated in this coward’s skull spells a lovely “The Suicide Squad” lettering across the waves. And hey, at least Rooker got to rock those epic blonde locks!

The Thinker

Dies

Once you heard that Peter Capaldi was playing an evil supervillain who was also in league with the Suicide Squad’s enemies, you knew there was no way Thinker was walking away from this movie, right? Nonetheless, Gunn goes hard with the doc’s death scene when a liberated Starro the Conqueror gets revenge for 30 years of captivity by ripping his captor’s arms off and then turning him into a red smear across glass. Ouch.

Col. Rick Flag

Dies

This one hurt. Joel Kinnaman’s Rick Flag was one of the better and even underrated elements from 2016’s Suicide Squad, and he got a chance to shine a lot brighter here. From small things like his total war buddies vibe with Harley to showing a backbone when he realizes Waller’s nefarious cover-up game, Flag came out as a real leader this time up to bat. Sadly, he then got Cena’d to death.

Polka-Dot Man

Dies

You did it, Polka-Dot Man, you proved your simultaneously dippy and creepy superpowers could make you a real superhero! Even your Norma Bates-like mama would be proud. Too bad Starro then stepped on you immediately afterward. Yay?

Starro

Dies

The big guy had his giant eye poked out by Harley and then an army of rats swarm into the hole that made and chew up his insides. Honestly, you feel bad for the kaiju in the end. Like King Kong, he didn’t ask to be brought here. Who knew we could get the sniffles for a rampaging monster with mind-control powers?

Harley Quinn

Lives

Come on, did you think they’d kill off Harley? Pfft, Robbie’s performance is way too good for that.

Bloodsport

Lives

Given his world-weary stoicism, I thought going in that Idris Elba’s Bloodsport was too noble for Gunn’s twisted vision. How nice it is to be proven wrong. Elba’s supervillain marksman reveals there’s a heart of gold beneath that gruff exterior, and it’s still beating when the credits come around.

Ratcatcher II

Lives

James Gunn once told us that Daniela Melchior’s Ratcatcher was the heart of the movie with a presence “like somebody from the French New Wave.” And he wasn’t blowing smoke about the actor or the character. Despite being introduced as an easygoing millennial, Ratcatcher turns out to be the most sympathetic Squad member and proves her generation gets the job done by unleashing an armada of rats on Starro.

King Shark

Lives

Thank God. Nobody better hurt our precious man-eating Nanaue. Go ahead, King, have another nom-nom. You earned it!

Sol Soria

Lives

Sol Soria gets to be el presidente in Corto Maltese now. I guess that’s a fair enough trade with the knowledge that the people who put her there also fed her buddies head first to a land shark.

Amanda Waller

Lives

Some characters are too evil to die. Amanda Waller is still stewing back in D.C. by the end of The Suicide Squad, and she’s likely scheming of a way to murder all of her current underlings too.

Weasel

Lives

The first fakeout of the movie is the fate of Weasel. Despite seemingly being the first character to seemingly die off—in a really hilarious fashion when Waller and company realize they didn’t check to see if Weasel could swim—it turns out he didn’t drown. There’s another reason right there for why Savant deserved to have his head go boom. Pity the children of Corto Maltese.

Peacemaker

Lives

Even though Peacemaker got an epic death scene where Bloodsport won a quickdraw showdown, some actors are just too big of a deal to kill. Thus the end credits scene reveals that Peacemaker survived his bullet wound to the neck and is still breathing on a hospital ventilator. Nonetheless, Bloodsport taught him a valuable lesson: It’s not the size of your bullets but how you use them.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post The Suicide Squad: Who Lives and Who Dies appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/37odQFK

[alison-anonymous]

Dicentra Scene Concepts

TAGLIST: @chocolatecaramelcappuccino001

For those of you who have no clue what Dicentra is, it's a multi-book series that I plan on creating inspired by Seraph of the End ;) Check out my page to get more info on it, but I've been working on my plot line and concept work for my main arcs and I wanted to release some rough relationship concept ideas I had to gauge reactions.

Let me know what you guys think and if you'd be interested in reading something pertaining to this! Keep in mind, this series is INSPIRED by Seraph of the End meaning that the characters might not be the same as you know them to be.

Character Key:

Mikaela - Mikaela ;)

Amaris - Yuuichiro (the equivalent of Yuu-chan in this series is "Mari", everyone else calls Amaris "Ari")

Epic - new character that isn't in the series

Vitaly - Lacus (he's in love with Epic in this series and he is fucking confused as to what feelings are)

ENJOY!

🤍🤍🤍

Scene 1 - Epic confronts Vitaly (Lacus) on his feelings for her.

“What do you want from me?”

It comes out in a whisper, the pain and exhaustion evident in Vitaly’s tone that Epic realizes she never once registered.

Her heart heaves.

“Let me ask you one thing. Please, Vita. Just one thing and I’ll leave it alone. We’re friends, aren’t we?” She swears, trying to ignore how her chest aches with each word leaving her mouth.

How the hell did it get to this point?

The purple-haired man before her sucks in a deep breath, but refuses to meet her eyes.

“I can’t promise you an answer.”

Epic bit down hard on her lip, studying him closely. Seeing him so serious, so pained and fearful… It's unnerving.

“Just let me try.”

She calmly waits for his response, and when he finally gives her a small nod, she begins to collect her thoughts silently. Glancing down at his hands gently resting on her waist, she can’t help but silently admire how close he’s allowed himself to stand with her as they slowly dance along the floor. Despite their heavy conversation, to anyone else, they would just seem like a couple enjoying their night.

I wonder if he’ll hold me like this again…

“What do you feel for me right now?”

“I can’t answer that.” Vitaly speaks immediately, like the very mention of his feelings centering her is a confidential subject that no one but himself is allowed access to.

It takes every fiber of her self control to fight down a whimper.

Scene 2 - Mika believes Ari loves Shinoa, so he tries to distance himself by being with other girls

“I’m your family, aren't I? So you don’t need them! I should be the only one in your life! Why would you want them when you have me? Am I… am I not good enough?”

“Mari,” Mikaela starts softly, his heart cracking from the look in the raven’s eyes alone. “I don’t think you understand… It’s different. I can’t use you like I use them.”

I can’t use your emotions as a toy…

“I don’t care what it is!” Amaris sobs, squeezing his eyes shut. His fists tremble by his sides and for a moment, Mikaela braces himself for a hit. “You can use me for it! I love you, Mika!”

Mikaela freezes.

Time stops.

The world pauses spinning on its axis.

He didn’t just say that… did he?

The blond’s heart thuds painfully against his chest. Amaris rarely ever cries and he usually only does when he’s scared of losing something that means everything to him. So perhaps he does mean it?

No, his shattered mind refuses to believe it… But his self control had already been shattered the moment those three words left his mouth.

“You have no idea what you just asked for.”

Mikaela barely managed to push out the words before his lips met Amaris’s in an explosive fury. They melded together like the blond’s life depended on it. One of his hands pressed Amaris to himself while the other tangled itself in his soft, raven locks. Amaris held stiff as a board, letting out choked sounds as he attempted to pull out of Mikaela’s death grip. Every inch of the blond’s being burned as he finally yanked himself away from the subject of his affections, no longer managing to hold back his tears.

Even after saying all that… Amaris still didn’t kiss back.

“S-See?” Mikaela chokes, placing plenty of distance between his burning throat and the stunned Amaris. “S-So you don’t want something like that from me. J-just leave me alone, Mari.”

Mikaela turns to make his leave when a cold hand suddenly grips his wrist desperately. His eyes grew wide, a chill racing up his spine. He doesn’t even need to ask to know exactly who it belongs to.

But why is he stopping me?

Mikaela wants to jerk his hand away, but he can’t. Fear paralyzes him. He wants to look up and glare at Amaris, curse at him, yell at him, something. But Amaris’s one simple action renders him powerless.

“Mika… please, look at me.” No. “Please. It’s okay. I’m begging you, just look at me.”

I can’t.

Amaris slowly draws his arms around Mikaela, making it clear that he holds no intentions of letting go until his wish is fulfilled. Mikaela closes his eyes in misery, tears dripping uselessly onto the floor beneath their trembling bodies.

I hate myself.

Scene 3 - Epic and Vitaly's first meeting (Essie and Monika are characters to be discovered later on)

“I was right… you’re in here!”

A shocked yelp escapes Epic’s lips as the doors slam open, revealing the lean purple-haired lamia she’s been running from. Epic snarls at him, trying to ignore the way her knees betray her, trembling in the armor from her fright. She glances down at her hands, curling them into fists with the lack of her axe.

You have no weapon, meaning you can’t access Monika. In a fight between brute strength, you stand no chance against him.

You can’t rely on Essie. We have no idea what she’s capable of.

Even if you tried to run, it would be no use. You could try to take his weapon, but you can’t even figure out how to use the damn thing.

So what can you do?

“I found you! So this is where you’ve been hiding.”

The female backs up until her posterior hits the wall, watching the lamia before her closely. She slowly glances around the room, searching frantically for any other means of escape.

“There’s nowhere to run, kitten. I’ve got you cornered.” He practically purrs, enjoying the hopelessness beginning to flit across her orbs. He slowly began to approach Epic, his bow flexing with every movement. A frightened look flashes across her face as she tries to take another step back only to remember she has nowhere else to go. A playful smirk pulls the corners of his lips upward, crimson gaze looking at her trembling form like a cat to a mouse.

“How cute,” he muses. “That’s an adorable expression.”

One of complete, unshuttered fear.

As he advances, Epic steps to the side in an attempt to create some distance, only to stumble and fall onto the mattress beneath her feet. Before she even has a chance to sit back up, the purple-haired lamia slams her wrists back down onto the bed. His knee sinks into the mattress as he hovers above her, face dangerously too close for comfort. Epic’s breath hitches.

This is the first time she’s managed to get a good look at him. She hasn’t ever really paid attention to any of the lamia before, but now…

Glowing crimson orbs with dark lashes adorned his porcelain complexion, lips stretched into an attractive smirk that seemed to be tattooed onto his face. Medium length, vibrant purple hair fell from his head. The stray strands that weren’t secured to the back of scalp framed his cheeks elegantly with one side just a little shorter than the other.

A faint blush rose to her cheeks against her will.

Damn. Why does he have to be so handsome?

“Let go of me, you bastard!” Epic writhed beneath him as a last resort, trying desperately to thrash out of his grip through force. She instantly stopped, however, when he suddenly squeezed her wrists with warning, eliciting a whimper from her throat. His eyes narrow.

“Watch it. I’ll break your wrists.”

His threat silences her. She’s not risking any more injury to her person. She stays quiet, but forces herself to stare directly into his eyes.

If he’s going to kill me, then he’s going to watch me every second of it.

He tsked. “You’re a feisty one, aren’t you? Don’t find too many like you nowadays. No wonder everyone’s so intrigued by you. Aren’t you even going to bother asking my name after making me chase after you all day?” Epic stays silent until he releases a borderline-annoyed sigh. “Ah! You’re no fun! I’m Vitaly.”

Epic’s brows furrow. Vitaly. What a gorgeous name…

For such a horrendous person.

“Vita…” He hears her mumble, repeating the name back. He smiles, but it’s full of nothing but malice.

“Yes, kitten? Well, what’s your name? It’s rather rude if you don’t extend the same courtesy.”

Epic grits her teeth. “Don’t play games with me. You clearly know who I am.”

Vitaly smirks triumphantly. “Ah, there’s that attitude! True, I know who you are. But I’d much rather hear it from you.”

“...Epic.”

“Hm, Epic? Cute name.” Knowing she wouldn’t resist much more, Vitaly releases one of her wrists to gently caress her cheek. Epic flinches in response.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be afraid of me…” He sings, orbs emitting a mischievous glint. “I’m not going to hurt you…”

Epic freezes.

He’s not?

Scene 4 - teasers of Epic and Kerenza (Akane) moments ;)

Fluff...

“My dearest Kerenza!” Epic dramatically bowed before the redhead, holding out her hand. “Would you do me the honor of marrying me?”

A dark blush coated Kerenza’s cheeks, heart thudding rapidly against her chest. A slow smile spread along her lips as she nervously tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

She gently placed her hand in Epic’s.

“I’d love to marry you, Epic.”

Now it’s Epic’s turn to blush.

Bittersweet...

“Promise me.”

“Epic-”

“Promise. Me.” Epic slowly turned to face Kerenza, a look of absolute heartbreak written in her irises.

“Please.”

Kerenza pressed her lips into a thin line, before offering the whitenette a soft smile.

"I promise, Epic. We'll get out of here together."

...Well...

Epic tightened her grip on the bleeding girl in her arms, sobbing with each slip of life she felt leave her with every passing second.

“R-Renza, come on, stay with me.” Epic pleaded brokenly.

This has to be a dream.

God, please. PLEASE. Let me wake up. Let us wake up cuddled up together in that rickety attic once more. Let me know those old floorboards and cooking dinner by her side. Let me know fighting for our lives together.

Let me see her smile again.

Through the tears blurring her vision, Epic wasn’t able to see the redhead as she slowly strains her head up to be eye level with the albino.

By the time Epic blinked her tears to roll down her cheeks, all she could see was the loving hazel orbs of her best friend. Using the last threads of strength within her, Kerenza leaned in closer to her.

A sob ripped through Epic’s lungs just before Kerenza’s lips met hers.

Scene 5 - Ari wants Mika to marry him

“Don’t worry, I’ll definitely turn you back into a human, Mika.”

“You make everything sound so easy, but you should be thinking about your future rather than mine, Mari! Unlike me, you and Epic still have one…”

“Of course you have a future,” Amaris counters after a short minute of silence. Mikaela curiously meets his gaze, waiting for him to elaborate.

However, what he says next is something the blond could never have prepared himself for.

“Me.”

“...What?” Mikaela finds his mouth to suddenly be full of cotton, completely caught off guard. Memories of the time Amaris begged the blond to marry him flash through his mind, but that could have been nothing more than a desperate plea to get him to stay. He’s probably already changed his mind…

“Will you marry me, Mika?”

Mikaela’s heart stops.

The question leaves his lips in an uncharacteristically soft voice. Amaris watches closely as Mikaela quickly lifts his head from his chest, looking at him with a beyond surprised expression.

“W-What? Why?!” Is all he can manage to gasp, trying his best to contain the blush clearly adorning his cheeks. Amaris can’t help smiling at his adorable attempts to keep his composure. The proposal’s making him flustered in the cutest way.

“Why not?” He tilts his head to the side in confusion, adoring gaze never once wavering from Mikaela, only making him even more flustered.

“Because i-it’s not something you just randomly ask! When did y-you even think of that idea?”

“Well, before it was when you were threatening to leave me. But I just thought of it now too, and you never gave me your answer.”

Mikaela stares down in complete disbelief at his best friend. Not because of his spontaneity, but because of his absolute sureness. What makes him know for absolute certain that Mikaela is the one?

How can he be so sure that he wants Mikaela instead of someone else?

How can he love a monster?

Regardless, the blond can’t deny his pounding heart, reaching out to Amaris’s. The complete urge he feels to say yes. It’s not like it’s the craziest idea in the world after all, and more importantly…

He would have said yes the first time around.

“I love you, Mika.”

🤍🤍🤍

So... what do you think? ;)

🤍 a.a.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

What do you think the Animorphs would be like playing D&D? Not "the Animorphs in a D&D world", but the Animorphs actually sitting down and having a campaign of D&D. Like the classes/races they'd pick, their play styles, wacky shenanigans (because we all know it would happen).

[Credit to Cates for 100% of the character builds, and most of the lore, in this AU.  In case you were wondering, I’m the Jake-style “never read the manual” chaotic-dumbass bard of our campaign; she’s the Marco-style “uses the rules exactly as much or little as needed” DM.]

It was decided almost right away that one on the team had any alignment.  As DM, Marco attempted to start there, only to have Ax begin questioning whether the manual’s explanations of “good” and “evil” truly captured human ethics on a grand scale.  Tobias claimed that Ax was looking at it all wrong, that the moralities were only default behavior types within the game, and that within this particular context morality didn’t matter.  Cassie got very concerned about the idea of context-dependent morality, Rachel declared that the book was stupid and short-sighted for claiming that destroying things was always bad, Jake quietly asked for the fourth or fifth time if this game was actually a good idea…

“Fine!” Marco announced.  “You’re all amoral characters.  Happy?”

“‘Amoral’ implies that we’re immoral, doesn’t it?” Cassie asked.  “Or that we exist outside the spectrum of moralities?”

“Just…”  Marco rolled his eyes.  “Everyone leave that spot on your character sheet blank, okay?  If it ever comes up, we’ll deal with it on a case-by-case basis.”

“Yes,” Ax said, “although you never did answer my question about the implied ethical structure of this universe.”

After that, character creation went fairly smoothly.  Kind of.

“Why does Dennis need a backstory, again?” Jake asked, looking down at his sheet.

“Dennis?” Marco said.  “Dennis?  

“You already said I wasn’t allowed to use ‘Dylan’ or ‘Brad’, so…’”

“C’mon man, this is D’nD.  There are no Dennises in medieval fantasy epics.”

“Fine.”  Jake crossed out and rewrote the name at the top of his character sheet.  “Why does Keith need a backstory?”

“To explain his motivation.”

“You just said that the whole time we’re going to be chased around by orcs and whatnot.  Isn’t not dying enough motivation?”

“You really don’t understand this game, do you?” Rachel said.

“I really don’t understand this game,” Jake agreed.

“My character’s a dragonborn rogue named Joan, and she’s the greatest gymnast of all time.”  Rachel added a Dexterity marker to her sheet with a flourish.

“I thought I was a dragonborn,” Jake said.  “Is that allowed?”

“Yeah, we can have as many dragonborns as you all want.”  Marco shrugged.  “We just can’t have multiple bards.  And since you called dibs on that class, and Rachel wants to be a rogue, we’re fine.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jake said.  “I just want to help out the team.  Or, uh, Keith does?”

“Great.”

“So that’s my backstory, right?  Being a bard?”

“Yes,” Rachel said, at the same time Marco said, “No!”

In the end, Marco declared that if neither Rachel nor Jake could come up with a proper backstory, he was making their characters cousins.  Tobias, who had a better flair for the romantic, declared that said cousins were from an internationally feared family of highwaymen.

“So does that get us any extra skills, coming from a family of pirates?” Rachel asked.

“Maybe it’d explain how good your character is at gymnastics,” Jake said.  “Because of riggings and all.”

“Highwaymen.”  Marco looked up from where he was trying to salvage Keith’s stats from the hopeless tangle of Jake’s incorrect math.  “Tobias said you guys are highwaymen, not pirates.”

“What are pirates but highwaymen of the sea?” Tobias asked, tilting his head in thought.

“Just put us down as jewel thieves.”  Rachel made a note on her own sheet.  “Jewel thieves of diverse methodology.  Wherever jewels can be found, there we are with threats of violence to take them away.”

“By the way, why is Ax now a tiefling?” Tobias asked Marco.

“I told Marco I have no preference for my class and race,” Ax said.  “And the word is most pleasant, tea-fling.  Ffflllling.”

“They’re blue and have tails.”  Marco smirked at Tobias.  “It’s perfect!”

Rachel and Jake might’ve been vague on the idea of backstory, but Ax was quite definite.

“I am Eldrias the tiefling, fffflllling, paladin.  She was raised by cows,” he announced.

“Don’t you mean raised by wolves?” Jake said.  “Isn’t that a thing, raised by wolves?”

“Uh-huh,” Marco said, “since your land-pirates make perfect sense.”

“Wolves are beautiful animals, but they pale in comparison to cows,” Ax said.  “Among other things, wolves’ meat is not so succulent and does not pair nearly as well with french fries.”

“Okay then,” Jake said, “raised by cows.  Got it.”

Becoming a barbarian was Cassie’s idea.  She spun through the manual in a rapid burst of pages, brushing gentle fingertips over the beautifully rendered illustrations, and then pressed it shut.  “Barbarian,” she said.  “That’s the one that can protect the team the best, right?  So I’ll be a barbarian.”

Marco laughed.  “All right then.  Barbarian it is.  Anything else in mind, for this barbarian of yours?”

Cassie tapped a finger against her lower lip, fluttering through the first several pages of the manual once again.  “I could make my character a big, tall guy, right?”

“Sure.”

“But I want pointy ears.”  She grinned at the rest of the table, somewhat sheepish.

“Half-elf barbarian, then?”

“Half-elf barbarian.”  Cassie looked down at the sheet in front of her.  “He can be named Reisgalan Von Schwartzel of the Morsgalath Half-Elves, Lord of the Plains and Wielder of…”  She glanced around.  “What’s that thing with the spiky ball on a stick?”

“Mace,” Rachel provided.

“Mace is that spray you use on bears and muggers,” Jake said.

“And it’s also a spiky ball on a stick.”  Marco glanced at Cassie’s sheet.  “You have a backstory for Reisgalan Von Whatshisface?”

“Hmmmm.  Can I be widowed and have a tragically dead prince I must avenge?”

“Is it me?”  Jake smiled hopefully.

“What?”  Cassie frowned at him.  “No.  That’d be horrible.”  She looked over at Marco.  “Uh, can my character be a guy and also have a dead husband?  Is that allowed?”

“Yeah, sure,” Marco said.  “I’m the ruler of this universe, so I say it’s fine.  And Tobias is the designated rules lawyer, so he’ll probably have some reason that it’s not.”

“I am not rules-lawyering!”

Marco looked at Ax’s character sheet, and then pointedly back up at Tobias.  “Ax, how did you end up as not just a paladin, but a paladin that’s even more overpowered than the standard build?”

“Paladins are allowed.”  Tobias shrugged.  “It’s right there in the manual.”

“Ax, how you have splint armor?” Marco demanded.

“Paladins can wear Heavy armor,” Tobias sing-songed.

Marco growled.

Ax squinted at his character sheet. “Tobias says when I get to Level Three, I will take the Oath of Vengeance and take a Vow of Enmity. I will know the spells Thunderous Smite, Command, and Detect Magic.”

Marco’s face was turning an interesting shade of red.

“Oh, and Eldrias the paladin is taking Great Weapon as her Fighting Style.”  Tobias wasn’t bothering to hide his smirk.  “It’s all perfectly legal.”

Ax frowned at Marco.  “Banging your head against the table with that level of force may have an adverse effect on your brain’s ability to function.” 

“I’m not rules-lawyering for selfish gain,” Tobias said loftily, looking over Marco’s prone form.  “And besides, Ax is new at this.  He needs all the help he can get.”

“You find yourselves in a magical land.”  Marco made a wild gesture in the air.  It was probably meant to look dramatic and mysterious.  “A land known as Falicornia.”

“Marco sucks at naming things,” Rachel whispered loudly.

“Rachel sucks at listening,” Marco whispered more loudly.

“You were saying?” Jake asked.

“This magical land is under threat from the dread god Cthulu!  You must stop him through using the Philosopher’s Stone, which is powerful but cannot be used except by those who do not wish to use it.  It contains many powerful temptations for the bearer.  You must journey across the land, facing many dangers, to bring it to the only magical mirror that can destroy it before Cthulu has the chance to rise from that mirror and take over the world.”

Cassie raised her hand.

“Yes?” Marco said.

“Why does Cthulu want to take over the world?” she asked.  “Does he need it for something?”

Marco sighed.  “He wants to take over because he’s Cthulu.  Any other questions?”

“First question: did you steal more of this plot from The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter?” Rachel said immediately.  “Second question—”  She turned to Ax.  “Have we showed you those movies?”

“He’s reading the books first,” Tobias said.

“I’m reading the books first,” Ax agreed.

“You were saying about Cthulu,” Jake said to Marco.

“Yes.  He wants to take over because he’s Cthulu,” Marco glared at Rachel.  “Just because.“

“Actually,” Tobias said, “the original version of Cthulu was kind of like the Silver Surfer of Norse Mythology, and his motivation—”

“He wants to take over because he’s Cthulu.”  Marco took a deep breath.  “Anyway.  Moving on.”

“Okay, you’re here.”  Marco pointed to the G.I. Joe figure sitting in the middle of their somewhat crudely drawn map.  “The goblins are…”  One after another, he set four white pawns from his mom’s chess set around the G.I. Joe that represented Jake, forming a half-circle that separated him from Ax’s Smurf, Cassie’s My Little Pony miniature, and Tobias’s Precious Moments angel figurine.  “Rachel is, uh…”  He set the teddy bear pencil topper several inches back, between two goblin-pawns.  “There.  So.”  Marco looked up at Jake.  “You’re under attack.  You’re up first in initiative order.  What’re you going to do?”

Jake frowned, surveying the scene in front of him.  “I have magic, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, so I’ll use magic to turn myself into a bird, and then—”

“Yeah, no.”

“Then I’ll turn my teammates into birds, and they can—”

“You cannot turn yourself into a bird, you cannot turn anyone else into a bird, no one is turning into a bird or any other animal at any point in this game.”  Marco glanced over at Tobias.  “No offense.”

“Oh, I totally agree,” Tobias said.  “A Level One bard performing an animal shapes transmutation?  Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Anyway.”  Marco pointed at Jake’s G.I. Joe figurine.  “Assuming we’re sticking to handheld weapons, what else do you want to do?”

“I… shoot the goblin?” Jake suggested.  “With my…”  He flipped over his character sheet, squinting at his own handwriting.  “With my board-sword.”

“Pretty sure you meant ‘broadsword,’” Rachel said.  “Okay, Jake killed the goblin, now what?”

Cassie peered over Jake’s shoulder.  “It could just be a sword made out of boards, you don’t know.”

“Jake only has thirteen out of sixty odds of killing the goblin on one go,” Marco said.

Tobias flipped open his own manual to the entry on goblins.  “Where are you getting these numbers from?”

Marco selected two dice from the pile, handing them both to Jake.  “Oh, I just figure that if the goblin’s got an armor class of seven and five HP, then Jake’s got a thirteen-in-twenty chance of scoring a hit and then a two-in-six chance of it being deadly, given his hit dice.  So if you reduce twenty-six over one-twenty down it’s thirteen in sixty.  Like, point-two-one-seven out of one.  Simple math.”  He gestured at Jake.  “Roll those.”

“You and I have very different definitions of the word ‘simple.’”  Jake looked up.  “Uh, ten and the other one says four?”

“You grievously injured but did not kill the goblin,” Marco said graciously.  “Now it’s the turn for this leftmost goblin, who is going to run and stick a sword through Rachel…” He rolled, and winced.  “That’s fifteen to hit, and two damage?”

“What’s that mean for my little rogue?”  Rachel waved her pencil topper at him.

“You got stabbed,” Marco said.

“Uh-huh.”  Rachel picked up her pen and sheet.  “Where?”

Marco shrugged.  “The leg, let’s say.  Uh, upper thigh?”

“Mm-hmm.”  She wrote that down.

“Okay, then.”  Marco glanced at his sheet.  “Next in initiative order is—”

“I cast psionic blast as a Level One spell, which would cause additional damage to fiends or the undead.  Are they undead goblins?” Tobias asked.

Marco rolled his eyes.  “Nope.”

“Then they each suffer three points of damage and do not have the opportunity to make saving throws for the next minute and a half,” Tobias said.  “That’s my first spell slot today.”

“Okay.”  Marco tipped over one of the goblin pawns.  “That one’s dead.  Cassie?”

“That one’s threatening Ax?”  She pointed at the pawn within the same square as the Smurf figurine.

“Yep.”

She nodded.  “Then I smash its head in with my mace.”  She rolled.  “Eight to hit, eight damage?”

“Oh yeah, you just annihilated that one.”

“Good, good, so now can I mace the one that attacked Rachel?”

“Cool your jets.”  Marco held up both hands.  “You don’t get to do multiple hulk-smashes in one round until several levels up from here.”

Cassie wilted a little.  “Okay.  But I want to run over next to that one to be ready to mace it soon.”

“All right, center goblin is going to try and swing his big old greatsword at Cassie as an attack of opportunity…” Marco rolled.  “And that’s a miss.  Rachel, you’re up.”

“I’m unconscious,” Rachel said.

Marco gave her a blank look.  “No you’re not.”

“Yes she is,” Ax said.  “You just allowed that goblin— gob-blin? Goo-blin? —to stab her.”

“I did not allow— The dice—”  Marco took a deep breath.  “Rachel, you only took two points of damage.  Go ahead and make a turn.”

“Okay, you clearly said…” Rachel glanced at her own notes.  “That the goblin stuck its sword through my upper thigh.  And apparently these are pretty big swords.  No way in hell that misses the artery, not if I’m only about human-sized at the time.  You also said that the goblin has its sword back, which means it pulled the sword out, which means that by now I have definitely lost enough blood to be unconscious.  It’s just basic logic.”

Marco opened his mouth halfway.  “That’s not how damage functions in this game,” he said at last.

“No, she’s right,” Jake said.  “She wouldn’t necessarily be dead from blood loss by now, but on the super-narrow chance she’s still conscious, she’s not going to have the, like, grip strength to be shooting people with arrows or anything.  That’s just how getting stabbed works.”

“Actually…” Tobias looked up from where he was sorting his flash cards of wizard spells.  “In combat time, each turn is six seconds.  So it hasn’t been five minutes of game-time.  It’s been less than three seconds.”

“So this goblin managed to stick its sword all the way through me, pull it loose, and then get back into position to make a different attack in less than a second?” Rachel said.  “And I don’t need to take a second or two to react to having been stabbed?”

“Yes!” Tobias said.

“This game is not closely aligned with the timing and functions of real combat,” Ax pointed out.

Marco let out a noise somewhere between a sigh and a shriek.  “No shit, Sherlock!  Can we please just play by the rules?”

“I’m just saying it’s not realistic,” Rachel muttered.  “You get run through the leg with a sword, you bleed to death.  That’s how it goes.”

“Would you please shoot someone already?” Marco said.

“If you insist.”

At Level Two, Tobias’s gnome wizard joined the School of Divination for exactly one game.  “He’s rules-lawyering things that haven’t even happened yet,” Marco cried, throwing out his hands like this was the greatest injustice ever visited upon humanity.   At which point Tobias decided that discretion was the better part of valor and switched to the School of Evocation.  Marco’s eye stopped twitching.

“No, no, no.”  Marco leaned over to look at Jake’s roll.  “You add your charisma modifier to your attack roll, and then your strength modifier to your damage roll.”

“So he adds twelve to his roll?”  Cassie looked at her own sheet.  “I add seventeen to my roll?”

“Modifier.  Not the whole stat.  Mod-if-i-er.”  Marco groaned loudly.  “Is Tobias the only one who even tried to read the manual?”

“C’mon, man.”  Jake shrugged, grinning.  “When have you ever known me to do the assigned reading?”

“I have Tobias here to summarize the manual for me,” Rachel pointed out.  “Why bother?”

“I did attempt to read the manual.  Man.  Well.  It was not the most boring human book ever written, but it was very repetitive.”  Ax glanced around at all of them.  “Not to say that all human books are bad, even if they are all repetitive,” he added quickly.  “Take the books of Harry Potter, which are acceptable in addition to being repetitive.”

“‘Acceptable’?”  Tobias shook his head.  “‘Repetitive’?  You, sir, are wounding my entire species — one of my species — Just don’t diss the Potter.”

“There’s no need to call me ‘sir,’ professor,” Ax intoned.

Laughing, Tobias leaned over to bump their shoulders together.  “I take it back.  I love you, Ax-man.  Never change.”

“Anyway,” Cassie said, “we elected Tobias party leader, so he’s the only one who really needs to know how to play, right?”

“‘Elected’ is a pretty strong word for it.  The way I remember it, I was like…”  Marco put on a deeper voice, “‘Who wants to be party leader?’ and Jake yelled ‘NOT IT’ so loud that he probably startled pigeons in the next county over.  And then Tobias was the first one to recover from the shock long enough to volunteer.”

“I didn’t yell it, I said it,” Jake mumbled.  “Said it enthusiastically.”

“And you’re wrong.  We did nose-goes.”  Rachel tapped her own nose to demonstrate.  “Tobias lost.”

Ax’s eyes widened.  “So you and Cassie covering your noses was a primitive selection procedure in the manner of duck-duck-goose?  I thought we were all simply being polite by hiding our hideous human orifices from one another.”

“Anyway,” Tobias said, “as party leader, I’m declaring that we can whine about noses — and bipedalism — at a later time.  For now, let’s play.”

“Ah, yes.”  Ax looked down at the dice, and then back up at Marco.  “Who was attacking whom, again?”

Marco stared around the board, and then back at the dice.  “Like I remember that now!”

It was a small miracle that they all kept showing up after that first week.  Tobias and Marco were the only ones with both the skill and the enthusiasm to be any good at the game.  Cassie and Rachel lacked the necessary motivation: Cassie tended to get lost in long conversations with NPCs and never advanced the plot at all, whereas Rachel was likely to start climbing the walls with impatience after half an hour of sitting still.  Ax and Jake were both reasonably enthusiastic but terrible: Jake paid no attention at all to the math, and Ax paid too much.  They had one set of dice between the six of them, if one was generous and called rolling a d6 twice the same as rolling a d12.  (It wasn’t, but Marco’s and Ax’s attempts to explain this always made everyone else’s eyes glaze over.)

Seriously, though, Marco knew perfectly well why they kept showing up.  And it had nothing to do with everyone getting on board with Tobias’s super-geeky idea.  They’d tried Dungeons and Dragons, and they hadn’t actually started liking it.

It had nothing to do with the storyline.  Or the dice.  Or the characters.  They weren’t here for swords or goblins.  They didn’t drop everything to spend four hours a week in each other’s company because they liked the game.

Duh.

Of course, even their love for each other could be tested, at times, by their sheer incompetence as players.

“We’re still in the undercave?” Jake groaned, looking at the game board.  “We’ve been down here for like six weeks!”

“Yeah, ‘cause we’re stuck.”  Rachel glared around the table.  “Because we keep trying to fight the ooze monster and then almost dying.  Because we suck at this game.”

“Still say there should’ve been illithids,” Tobias muttered.  “We’re in the cave of the illithids, but instead we’ve got apocalyptic ooze where there isn’t supposed to be any.  That’s why we’re stuck.”

Marco sighed into his hands.  “For the last time, man, we’re not having any stupid mind flayers in this game.  There is a way out, I promise you, if you guys would just stop and figure it out.”

“I stab the ooze?” Cassie suggested.

“You take fourteen acid damage and permanently blunt your sword.”  Marco didn’t bother to look up.  “Just like last time.”

“Ugh.”  Cassie wrote down her new HP.  “At least I ruled out repeated stabbing as a way out?”

“Okay, okay.”  Jake stared at the game board, yet again failing to take the this map not to scale memo.  “We can figure this out.  Is it a cave kind of like those caves under Leeran?”

Marco lifted his head, tossing his hair out of his face.  “I got schlooped back to Earth before you guys got to see those, remember?”

“They were very beautiful,” Ax said, “and also full of toxic eels.  So perhaps Prince Jake’s comparison is apt.”

“The real toxic eel is the friends we made along the way.”  Rachel tilted her chair back, picking at her manicure.  “Think we should just call it a day?”

“No, no, Jake’s right.”  Cassie stared at the board.  “I believe in us.”

“It was kinda cool in the Leeran caves, so sorry you missed it,” Jake said to Marco.  “I was dead and missed the Battle of Trafalgar, though, so it all balances out?”

“The Battle of Trafalgar was not cool at all.”  Marco rolled his eyes.  “It was a battle.  It was gross and loud and bloody.  Is no one going to try anything else?”

“I pull out my rope and my flint, I set the rope on fire, we all die of smoke inhalation,” Rachel drawled.  “There, I got us out of the cave.”

“And into the afterlife,” Ax said solemnly.  “If, indeed, this game has an afterlife.  It was designed by humans, so I assume… Soom.  That it must.”

“Look, if we could just fight the mind flayer instead,” Tobias said, “there are clear strategies in place for how to fend off psychic attacks, and even if a few of us end up as mind-witnesses we could still use a handful of different spells—”  He swung his copy of the manual around to face Marco, pointing to a spot low on the open page.  “If you’ll just look at what the book says…”

Marco slammed the book shut, hard.

Tobias had to yank his hand back to avoid smashed fingers.  “Watch it!” he snapped.

“Guys,” Jake said.  “Let’s—”

“Rule.  Zero.”  Marco flattened a hand on top of the closed book.  “I’m the DM here, and I get to say that there are no mind flayers and definitely no mind witnesses, because I say so.  I’m the Ellimist of this little universe, and you don’t get a counter-argument.”

Rachel snorted loudly.  “Bad comparison.  Tobias argues with the real Ellimist all the time.”

“Only when he’s doing something stupid.”  Tobias was looking at Marco, not at her.  “Or breaking the rules of his own game.”

“Tobias…”  Jake inhaled slowly, massaging the bridge of his nose.  “It’s just a game, okay?  Marco… We are kinda stuck, dude, no offense.  Couldn’t we at least try to fight whatever it is Tobias wants, see if that gets us out of here?”

Marco pushed to his feet, face flushed.  “I’m running this game, because you people decided I should.  And I don’t give a fuck how much Bird-Boy complains, this game is not going to involve anyone getting psychically mind-controlled.  It will not feature alien tadpoles that crawl inside people’s brains and take over their bodies.”  He swept a hand across the board.  “There will be no illithids, there will be no brain golems, there will be no controllers—”

Marco snapped his mouth shut.

There was a long silence.  Tobias stared at the floor.

“Mind-witnesses,” Marco said at last.  “I meant mind-witnesses.”

THUNK.

Figurines and dice scattered everywhere.  The play-dough lump of ooze flattened underneath the second game board Cassie had just dropped on top of the first.

“Anyway,” she said, giving everyone an embarrassed smile.  “How about we switch to Monopoly for a while?”

“I call being the little dog piece,” Rachel said, pulling the box open.

“I’m sorry,” Tobias whispered to Marco, as Ax began clattering through the pieces and asking Jake questions.  “I didn’t mean…”

“Yeah.”  Marco pulled the bank toward him and counting out notes.  “Same here, man.  Uh, y’know.  Sorry I…”

“We’re cool.  We’re cool?”

“Yeah.  Yeah.”

“Does this highly successful roll mean I have first chance to stab Income Tax with my—”  Ax squinted at his game piece “—car?  So I’ll be attempting to inflict damage on Income Tax by running it over?”

“Many have tried that strategy,” Rachel intoned.  “None have succeeded so far.”

“You know that your beloved manual lists exactly the same stats for hawks, eagles, and owls, right?” Marco asked, grinning evilly.

“What?  No.”  Tobias frantically flipped toward the back of the book.

“Anyway, is he right?” Cassie asked as Tobias searched.  “Are we all supposed to be dead right now?”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Marco said.  “Yes, the explosion would have done a lot of damage to all of you—”

“Thanks, Jake,” Rachel snarked.

Jake sighed loudly.  “How was I supposed to know you had to throw the hand grenade after you pulled the pin?”

“You mean the part where Ax and Tobias were both yelling ‘toss it, toss it,’ and you were like ‘no, I’m gonna do an investigation check first’?” she said.  “And then we all died?”

“Actually, I believe Cassie was raging at the time when the ceiling fell on us all,” Ax said.  “Therefore, her damage would be halved.”

“Hell yeah!”  Cassie laughed.  “So it’s just…”  She peered at Marco’s roll and winced.  “Everyone else… in the entire party… who automatically failed a death check.  Right, Tobias?”

“No,” Marco said loudly, “because Jake cast Teleportation Circle and got you all out of there before the ceiling fell.”

“But Tobias believes that that would be allowing too many actions on a single turn.  Uurn.  Earn,” Ax said.  “And that Jake wouldn’t have time to set up the circle even if he did have a bonus action left.”

“For fuck’s sake, do you want to end on a total party kill?” Marco demanded.

Rachel smiled sweetly.  “It’s not a TPK if Cassie’s still alive.”

Marco rolled his eyes.  “Oh, in that case—”

“Oh my god, you’re right!”  Tobias sounded outraged.

“Am I dead?”  Rachel pouted.  “Just when this stupid game was starting to grow on me.”

“No, not that.”  Tobias stabbed a finger on the page.  “It says right here.  ‘For hawk, see: eagle.’  It fucking classifies hawks as a fucking subspecies of eagle!”

“What were you just saying about us following the manual at the expense of our lives?” Marco said smugly.

Tobias stared in betrayed horror at the page for another second.  And then he tossed the entire book clear over his shoulder and out of the room.  It clattered loudly in the hall.

“So as I was saying, Jake cast Teleportation Circle,” Marco said.  “And teleported you all out of there.”

“So we’re… not dead?” Cassie asked.

“Given the nature of teleportation, perhaps we are both dead and not, existing in the gap between states,” Ax said.  “Like when our consciousness was trapped in z-space, and yet our matter remained on Earth.  Or we exist in multiple universes at once, some in which we have died and some in which we yet live.”

“Yeah, cool, Schrödinger’s party,” Rachel said.  “Blah, blah.  Anyway, I’m gonna punch Jake in the arm for being a dumbass.  In-game and out-of-game.”

“Good luck with that.”  Marco cackled his evil DM cackle.  “The only universe I care about is the one where the whole lot of you give me an initiative roll.  Because I didn’t say Jake teleported you to a safe location, just a different one.”

[theliterateape]

I Like to Watch | Zack Snyder’s Justice League

by Don Hall

Mythology is fun.

As a kid I loved reading Edith Hamilton’s book on the Greek gods and the myths. Hercules, Perseus, Apollo, and Hera—this fell completely in line with my love for superhero comics. The strangely petty human traits of envy, greed, and lust combined with the power to level cities make for some great storytelling.

Zeus was basically Harvey Weinstein in the retroactive revision we’re mired in today. If Harvey could’ve changed into a golden animal and boned unsuspecting ladies looking for careers in Hollywood I’m pretty certain he would. The gods and demi-gods of the Greeks dealt with daddy issues, mommy issues, bad relationships, and fighting. Lots of fighting. Sometimes for the good of humanity but more often for the glory of winning.

Zach Snyder is in the business of tackling myths and reframing them with a style all his own. His career has become its own myth.

From Dawn of the Dead (not so much a reboot of Romero's zombie mythology but a philosophical reimagining of the genre that arguably jumpstarted The Hollywood fascination with it), 300 (a borderline homoerotic take on the myth of the Greek underdog), and Watchmen (a ridiculously ambitious attempt to put one of the most iconic takedowns on the potential fascism of the superhero legend machine ever written) to his nearly single-handed hack at answering the Marvel juggernaut with Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, Snyder is in the artistic business of subverting and re-envisioning the mythologies we embrace without even seeing them as such.

Snyder's style is operatic. It is on a grand scale even in the most mundane moments. The guy loves slow motion like Scorcese loves mobsters and Italian food. When you're tackling big themes with larger than life stories, the epic nature of his vision makes sense and has alienated a good number of audience members. With such excess, there are bound to be missteps but I'd argue that his massive take on these characters he molds from common understanding and popular nomenclature elevates them to god-like stature.

Fans of Moore's Watchmen have much to complain about Snyder's adaptation. The titular graphic novel is almost impossible to put in any other form than the one Moore intended and yet, Snyder jumped in feet-first and created a living, breathing representation of most, if not all, of the source material's intent. Whether you dig on it or not, it's hard to avoid acknowledging that the first five minutes of Watchmen is a mini-masterpiece of style, storytelling, and epic tragedy wrapped up in a music video.

Despite a host of critical backlash for his one fully original take, Sucker Punch is an amazing thing to see. More a commentary on video game enthusiasm with its lust for hot animated chicks and over-the-top violence that a celebration of cleavage and guns, the film is crazily entertaining. For those who hated the ending, he told you in the title what his plan was all along.

The first movie I saw in the theaters that tried to take a superhero mythology and treat it seriously (for the most part) was Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie. Never as big a fan of the DC characters as I have been of Marvel, it was still extraordinary to see a character I had only really known in pages to be so fully realized. Then came Burton's Batman movies. The superhero film was still an anomaly but steam was gaining. Things changed with Bryan Singer's X-Men in 2000, then Raimi's Spiderman, and those of us who grew up with our pulpy versions of Athena, Hermes, and Hades were rewarded with Nolan's Batman Begins. A far cry from the tongue-in-cheek camp of the 1966 TV Batman, Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne was a serious character and his tale over three films is a tragic commentary filled with the kind of death and betrayal and triumph befitting the grand narrative he deserved.

I loved Singer's Superman Returns in 2006 because it was such a love letter to the 1978 film (down to the opening credits) but by then, the MCU was taking over the world.

Snyder's first of what turns out to be an epic storyline involving perhaps seven or eight movies was Man of Steel. It was fun and, while I had my issues with the broodiness of Kal El, the odd take on Jonathan Kent, and a redheaded Lois Lane, I had no issue with Superman snapping Zod's neck. Darker and more tragic than any other version of the Kryptonian, it was still super entertaining.

Then came Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. By 2016, Marvel had codified their formula of serious characters wrestling with serious issues of power and responsibility peppered with lots of good humor and bright colors. Snyder's desaturated pallete and angst-filled demi-gods was not the obvious road to financial competition.

I'll confess, I hated it. BvS felt half-rendered. Lex Luthor was kind of superficial and played as a kind of Joker. The whole Bruce Wayne wants to kill Superman thing felt undeveloped and the "Martha" moment was just stupid.

When Joss Whedon's version of Snyder's Justice League came out in 2017, I was primed for it to be a turd and I wasn't surprised. So much of it didn't work on any level. I dismissed it as DC trying and failing miserably and was comforted by the coming of Thanos.

Following Thanos and the time heist was COVID. Suddenly, we were internationally sidelined and the movie theater industry caved in. Streaming services started popping up like knock-off smartphones and Hollywood was reeling, doing anything and everything to find a way back. Since Whedon's disastrous helming of Snyder's third act, fans online had been demanding to #ReleasetheSnyderCut but no one was ever really taking them seriously until all movie production was shut down for a year.

The stage was set to remedy a mistake (or at least make some bucks on a do-over of a huge box office failure). Snyder had left the production in part because of the suicide of his daughter and in part due to the constant artistic fights over executives looking for the quippy fun of the MCU but he still had all the original footage. Add to that the broiling accusations that Joss Whedon was "abusive" during the reshoots, the path seemed destined. For an additional $70 million and complete control, Snyder delivered a four hour mega-movie streamed on HBOMax.

Of course, I was going to watch the thing as soon as I could.

The Whedon version opens with an homage to the now dead Superman (including the much maligned digitally erased mustache on Henry Cavill). The SynderCut opens with the death of Superman and the agony of his death scream as it travels across the planet. It's a simple change but exemplifies the very different visions of how this thing is gonna play out.

Snyder doesn't want us to be OK with the power of these beings unleashed. He wants us to feel the damage and pain of death. He wants the results of violence to be as real as he can. When Marvel's Steve Rogers kicks a thug across the room and the thug hits a wall, he crumples and it is effectively over. When Batman does the same thing, we see the broken bones (often in slow motion) and the blood smear on the wall as the thug slides to the ground.

The longer SnyderCut is bloated in some places (like the extended Celtic choir singing Aquaman off to sea or the extended narrations by Wonder Woman which sound slightly like someone trying to explain the plot to Siri). On the other hand, the scene with Barry Allen saving Iris West is both endearing and extraordinary, giving insight to the power of the Flash as well as some essential character-building in contrast to Whedon's comic foil version.

One thing I noticed in this variant is that Zach wants the audience to experience the sequence of every moment as the characters do. An example comes when Diana Prince goes to the crypt to see the very plot she belabors over later. The sequence is simple. She gets a torch and goes down. Most directors which jump cut to the torch. Snyder gives us five beats as she grabs the timber, wraps cloth around the end, soaks it with kerosene, pulls out a box of matches, and lights the torch. Then she goes down the dark passageway.

The gigantic, lush diversity of Snyder’s vision of the DC superhero universe—from the long shots of the sea life in the world of Atlantis to the ancient structures and equipment of Themyscira— is almost painterly. Snyder isn't taking our time; he's taking his time. We are rewarded our patience with a far better backstory for the villain, a beautifully rendered historic battle thwarting Darkseid's initial invasion (including a fucking Green Lantern), and answers to a score of questions set up in both previous films.

Whedon's Bruce Wayne was more Ben Affleck; Snyder's is full-on Frank Miller Batman, the smartest, most brutal fucker in the room. Cyborg, instead of Whedon's sidelined non-character, is now a Frankenstein's monster, grappling with the trade-off between acceptance and enormous power. Wonder Woman is now more in line with the Patty Jenkins version and instead of being told about the loss of Superman, we are forced to live with the anguish of both his mother and Lois Lane in quiet moments of incredible grief.

To be fair to Whedon (something few are willing to do as he is now being castigated not for racism or sexism but for being mean to people) having him come in to throw in some levity and Marvel-esque color to Snyder's Wagnerian pomposity is like hiring Huey Lewis to lighten up Pink Floyd's The Wall or getting Douglas Adams to rewrite Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

I loved Snyder's self-indulgent, mythologic DC universe.

So much so that I then re-watched Man of Steel and then watched the director's version of BvS (which Snyder added approximately 32 minutes). The second film is far better at three hours and Eisenberg's Lex Luthor now makes sense. Then I watched Zach Snyder's Justice League a second time.

After nineteen hours of Snyder's re-imagining of these DC heroes and villains, I saw details that, upon first viewing, are ignored or dismissed, but after seeing them in order and complete, are suddenly consistent and relevant. Like Nolan or Fincher, Snyder defies anyone to eliminate even one piece of his narrative no matter how long. With all the pieces, this is an epic story and the pieces left at the extended epilogue play into a grander narrative we will never see.

Or maybe we will. Who knows these days?

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Black Swan bookgasm review #1: War Music by Christopher Logue (1981)

This is the first in a series of random book reviews taken from my own hand written notes in my journal. Notes are re-edited to make it into a more coherent presentation with the hope others would read the book for themselves.

War Music by Christopher Logue (1981)

War Music by Christopher Logue comprises versions of Homer’s Iliad published over decades since 1981. It’s a modern, cinematic re-rendering of the Greek epic which manages to re-cast Homer’s battles for twentieth-century readers.

I first read parts of it when I went out on tour to Afghanistan as a combat helicopter pilot. It was a ragged dog eared copy given to me by one of my older siblings who had served in the armed forces with distinction and now he wanted me to have it since I was being deployed to Afghanistan.

In between down times between missions I would read it and just soak in its inventive use off language to tell a story birthed at the dawn of Western civilisation and teaching a lesson as old as civilisation itself: that all wars are the same wars.

The English poet Christopher Logue called himself a “Catholic atheist.” Were he religious, he said, he would look out for God in creation. “Did the ancient Greeks believe in their gods as I believe in the ancient Greeks?” he wondered. One of the Lasallian Brothers at his Catholic school in Southsea told him about the elaborate ornamentation hidden from view on cathedral roofs, “safe in the sight of God until Judgment Day.” This information convinced the young Logue to work from that day in the spirit of the medieval carvers: without justification. “That I did not know what I wanted to do was unimportant,” he wrote.

Logue, born in Portsmouth in 1926, described his father as “a devout Irish-English Catholic.” His paternal grandfather, a Catholic from Coleraine in Northern Ireland, spent twenty-two years in the British Army. His Irish aunt Margaret taught him to read and write. “Atheism?” she once admonished him. “There’s no such thing. A silly boast God finds no trouble in forgiving.” Logue never stopped believing in God, he said, because he had never started believing in Him. “I find the idea of a beginning as impossible to credit as that of an end.” His own atheism left him unimpressed. He preferred the company of people whom he knew to be religious.

Logue always envied people with a purpose. It was not until 1959, after a stint in a military brig and a period writing pornography in Paris, that he found his. In his early thirties and already feeling old, he was asked by the classicist Donald Carne-Ross, then working for the BBC, to adapt a passage from the Iliad for an English version he was broadcasting on the Third Programme. Doris Lessing, a close acquaintance, had told Logue that the Iliad, if not the task of its translation, suited him well: “Something to do with heroism, tragedy, that sort of thing.” But Logue found Homer boring. Carne-Ross proposed a section of Book XXI in which Achilles attacks the river Scamander, provided Logue with a prose crib and advised him to read published translations to get a sense of the story. “A translator must know one language well,” Carne-Ross told Logue. “Preferably his own.”

Carne-Ross also advised Logue to go away and “read translations by those who did. Follow the story.” Logue gave it a go, and the result sowed the seed of what was to blossom over the decades into the centrepiece of Logue’s working life; his ultimate creative endeavour.

For more than forty years the English poet Christopher Logue worked in fits and starts on his narrative poem War Music, subtitled An Account of Homer’s Iliad. The poem, which he was unable to complete before he died in 2011, was published in several sections titled War Music (1981), Kings (1991), The Husbands (1995), All Day Permanent Red (2003), and Cold Calls (2005), corresponding, respectively, to Books 16-19, 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, and 7-9 of The Iliad. These books were brought together in a single volume by Faber publishers that tells the story of Logue’s fragmentary and highly original Trojan War.

Clearly the poem cannot be read outside of its relation to The Iliad, but we also cannot call it a “translation” in the familiar sense. To do so would suggest that it belongs in the same category as works produced with an aim of comprehensive fidelity to the original’s language and structure, texts such as those by Richmond Lattimore, Robert Fitzgerald, Robert Fagles, and Stanley Lombardo.

Is War Music, then, a form of loose translation, a “carrying over” of spirit, with all the liberty that implies? Is Logue, as Gary Wills wrote, the third in an exclusive tradition of English poets, after George Chapman and Alexander Pope, “to bring Homer crashing into their own time”? I think so.

Logue drew inspiration from a vast range of sources. The lines with which Zeus surveys the Trojan plain after a day’s fighting have been taken directly from a New Yorker piece on the first Gulf War: “He looks/ Back to the Ridge that is, save for a million footprints,/ Empty now”. When Agamemnon shouts Achilles down, his words are half-borrowed from Milton’s Lycidas: “Blindmouth!/ Good words would rot your tongue”. Snippets of the venerable translations by Pope and Chapman pop up at unexpected moments, amid the ultra-violence of Logue’s battle scenes.

War Music is a translation that takes no prisoners. No line of Homer’s survives un-annealed by the application of English. Like Homer, Logue is absolutely unapologetic about the business of bloodletting. This attitude complements his insusceptibility to beauty. “In verse (as elsewhere) beauty will serve any view and give it a glamour,” he wrote, pondering the case of Ezra Pound. “We should not be afraid to call it whorish.” Logue takes courage in this matter from the example of the Iliad. “The Greeks are not humanistic, not Christian, not sentimental,” Xanthe Wakefield told him on the occasion of his first looking into Homer. “Please try to understand that. They are musical.” Logue sets himself the challenge of converting the sounds of slaughter into the chimes at midnight. This requires an acute sensitivity to fate untinged by timidity. In one of his working notes Logue reminds himself to supply, at a certain point in the poem, a simile for “how far courage can take you.” In truth his whole work stands as an extension of that simile, almost to its breaking point.

Logue’s retelling of the Iliad plays with the idea that, when it comes to war, any sort of ending is an illusion. His decision to illustrate Homer’s story of brave men and bickering gods with flagrantly anachronistic combat imagery (“whumping” helicopters; Uzis “shuddering warm against your hip”) makes the point that, when it comes to war, the best humanity has ever managed is the odd break between battles. This  is certainly how I felt in my down time between missions. The whumping sound of the rotar blades throbbed in my ear as I got into the cockpit of my helicopter - many times it made me think of Logue’s haunting lines.

War Music is incomplete because the war isn’t over. “Someone”, the last line reads, “has left a spear stuck in the sand.” It’s an ideal outgoing image: still, striking, but throbbing with potential; gesturing to the wars to come. As I left Afghanistan I thought about my colonial ancestors who had sought adventure and high service in this beautiful barren land and that I was but a passing present incarnation and then the chilling sad thought struck me that I know I won’t be the last in the wars to come. 

It is, of course, frustrating that War Music will never be complete but the collected edition one can buy now gives us a definitive text of  one of the strangest and most thrilling English poems since the 20th Century. It also confirms that Logue’s Homer deserves a place alongside those of Chapman and Pope.