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tailsrevane · 2 years

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[comic review] dark horse's the thing from another world comics (1991-93 & 2011)

the thing from another world (comic 1991-92) writer: chuck pfarrer artist: john b. higgins

struggle, until thought is lost–until dreams are lost–until time is lost– swallowed by the howling maw of antarctic night.

yeah, no, this is not good. it did absolutely nothing to justify its existence.

the only thing stopping me from declaring it a soulless cash grab is that the art is actually pretty fantastic, like i think quite a bit of effort went into it, but they just didn’t have a story to tell here. and to me, that is the absolutely one essential element you need to even bother with something like this. d-rank

the thing from another world: climate of fear (comic 1992) writer: john arcudi artists: jim w. somerville & brian garvey & robert jones

“i give up. i can’t do this anymore, i just can’t.”

this wasn’t great or anything, but it was definitely an improvement over the other one.

in this one mcready wakes up on a base in mainland argentina, and it’s honestly just pretty refreshing to at least have some new characters and something different going on. also there’s a huge herd of sheep on the base and obviously one of them gets infected and it’s very tragic but also aww sheep.

the first issue is probably the strongest one, overall this is just kind of okay, but “okay” is still a definite improvement. c-rank

the thing from another world: eternal vows (comic 1993) writer: dave devries artists: paul gulacy & dan davis

“the conflict between the memories of your human nature and the needs of your cells will take time to resolve. it hurts, but it will pass. and i will always be there for you. now that our blood has mixed, we live within each other. we are one. together. forever. ’til death do us part.”

whoa, dang, one of these was actually good! (and is apparently the most-hated of these. what the heck, guys?)

i knew this one had potential when i first heard about the concept. in this story, one of the things that survived the other two stories assimilates a couple and the pair of them just want to live quietly in a small coastal town, eating as many other humans as they need to to survive.

i don’t think this quite fits in with how the things were supposed to work in the movie, but i kind of don’t even care since we finally got a wholly original story in one of these comics. macready eventually shows up because i guess he’s some kind of thing hunter now, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense imo, but again i kind of don’t care!!

issue 3 has a truly iconic moment where one of the things is in human form but with tentacles going everywhere from her, and she licks up some human blood from one of her tentacles. it was weirdly sexy?

also, just when i was starting to think there wasn’t much more they could do in their current setting, issue 4 takes place mostly on a boat!

seriously, i can’t believe this is the most-hated one of these. it’s one of the best ones imo. and it’s largely self-contained so you can safely skip the other two stories and read this one on its own. b-rank

the thing from another world: questionable research (comic 1993) writer: edward martin iii artists: ted naifeh & w. “moose” baumann & alex niño

“you’ve thrown your sense of science, as well as your common sense, out the window.”

this one was much shorter than the others by virtue of being serialized in dark horse comics’ short-lived eponymous anthology series. it appeared in dark horse comics #13-16 alongside the likes of aliens and predator and whatnot, and each of the four parts was around half a dozen pages long. so if you put all of them together you get basically the length of a single issue.

still, this one was in a similar vein to eternal vows inasmuch as it featured wholly original characters. it’s also even more disconnected from the other comics, picking up with a research team investigating the destruction of the antarctic station from the movie. macready doesn’t even show up in this one!

it’s hard to compare this to the other comics given that it’s so much shorter, but it definitely fits in with the movie better than most of them, if that matters to you. but it manages to do so while still also telling a new story with a new group of characters, which is honestly how all of these should be approaching things in my opinion. macready is great, but having him survive the movie at all never really felt necessary to me. if you want to continue this story, you really should find another way to do it like this comic did. b-rank

the thing: the northman nightmare (comic 2011) writer: steve niles artist: patric reynolds

of all the lands they conquered, the icy mass to the north proved to be one of the vikings’ greatest challenges. unlike many of the lands they explored and settled, it was not the indigenous people who were the greatest threat. the enemy was the land itself.

i really loved the concept of this. the idea of a bunch of vikings facing off against one of the things in greenland had a lot of potential. but sadly this was totally phoned in.

i know this was a single issue but it doesn’t give anything time to breathe, you don’t get to know any of the characters at all, and at the end of the day i’m just not sure why i’m supposed to care even a little. the art was good, though? so there’s that i guess. d-rank

#the thing #the thing from another world comics #the thing comics #dark horse comics #comic review #reviews #comics

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yandere-daydreams · 3 years

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Title: Karma.

Pairing: Yandere!Xiao/Reader (Genshin Impact).

Word Count: 2.1k.

TW: Imprisonment, Mentions of Kidnapping, Codependence, Possessive Mindsets, Non-Consensual Touching, Physical Abuse, Slight Victim-Blaming.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Xiao knew that this was what he deserved.

This, all of it, everything. Whatever the world had to throw at him, all the things he’d earned over centuries of bloodshed and death and guilt that grew more crippling with each passing day. He’d come to terms with that, and if he was being honest with himself, he might admit that he was growing numb to the pain, that despite his distaste, violence didn’t seem as utterly unpalatable as it used to. He wasn’t thankful for it, he didn’t want it, but he was resigned, apathetic, too used to it to care the way he used to, when fighting left him as battered as his enemies. He'd grown accustomed to it. He’d adapted.

He just wasn’t used to this. A new sort of discomfort. A different kind of pain.

He just wasn’t used to you being the source of his karmic suffering, whether or not you realized it was quite that poetic.

He’d earned it. He knew that. He’d earned every part of his current punishment – your glare, your locked jaw, the unadulterated loathing that emanated off of you in waves, unignorable from the moment he shrugged open the heavy, wooden door to his crowded room on the inn’s top floor. He’d managed to stave off the urge to use chains, ropes, anything more solid and more restraining than an idle threat and a locked door, but you were smart enough to stay balled up in the furthest corner, your knees pulled into your chest and your eyes on the floor, narrowed with an intensity he’d only ever seen in demons, moments before their deaths. It hurt him to see, the stance too defensive not to be learned, but it was better than the alternative. He’d caught you on the balcony, once or twice, leaning over the railing or admiring the view, and…

You could’ve slipped. You could’ve tried to jump. He shouldn’t have lost his temper, but you shouldn’t have been so reckless. It’d been dangerous, even you were still too naïve to see that.

Xiao grit his teeth, shaking his head as he forced himself to focus on the matter at-hand. You didn’t move as he approached, only shrinking further into yourself, becoming something small, something timid, a form of passive resistance you’ve perfected, in the weeks since you last put up a real fight. If he was feeling any less patient, he might’ve resorted to less honorable methods, throwing you over his shoulder and dragging you through his routine of self-indulgence despite your attempts to struggle against him. He’d tried it before, broken his own promises countless times, but it was almost never worth the way you’d cry afterwards, like he’d hurt you, like he’d done anything wrong. Like you could expect him to do anything less, when you were determined to be so stubborn.

So, instead, he tried talking. Talking was more peaceful. He didn’t like talking, but you did, and he was trying to be more considerate of what you liked. “I’m back.”

He waited, but there was no response. That was fine. He was fine. He couldn’t say he’d never given you a reason to ignore him. “You’re not reading,” He tried, again, fighting to keep his voice even. You tended to flinch, whenever he got too loud. “It’d be a better use of your time than sulking around, like this.”

You didn’t look at him, your voice muffled by your self-made haven. “You keep burning my books.”

Burning? That sounded like something he would do, as an act of precaution or anger or the same petty vengeance creatures so far beneath him were so prone to. It’d probably been one of the anthologies you were so fond of – folklore hiding under the guise of real history. Usually, he didn’t pay it much mind, the liberal retellings of events no living mortal could possibly be old enough to have witnessed, but he didn’t care for it when you found value in such trash. Stories about the Adepti were far too common in Liyue literature, and you’d always been the type to ask questions, to try to pry your way into subjects you could never hope to comprehend. It was better to eliminate the problem entirely. That was how he’d survived for so long, among humans -- terminating issues before they could arise.

But, you wouldn’t understand that. And even if you did, it wouldn’t do anything to heal the wound he’d already created.

He was beginning to think nothing he tried would ever be enough to mend your anger, not when you were so content to tear at the stitching yourself.

“I said I was sorry, didn’t I?” He wasn’t sure if he had, but you didn’t correct him, only squaring your shoulders, digging your nails into your legs, going even further to block him out, push him away, isolate yourself and leave him to suffer for your insubordination. Xiao rolled his eyes, scowling to himself, but whatever irritation he could summon was quickly replaced by his exhaustion, that perpetual desire to fall into your arms and have you welcome him willingly, lovingly, the way you used to before he decided he had to ruin it. He was tempted to touch you, to reach out, to cup your cheek or wrap an arm around you or draw you close by force, rather than natural attraction, but he thought better of it, crouching by your side, instead, letting his back hit the wall with a heavy thud.

When he opened his mouth, his tongue felt heavier, his throat hoarse. Like the weight of his conscious had found yet another way to make itself known. “You hate me.”

It was a fact, like the color of the sky or the scent of the air before a storm. It was true, both of you already knew that, but you were kind enough to hesitate, lifting you head just high enough to see him. For him to see you, tiny and terrified. A trembling rabbit that knew better than to hope for mercy from a hawk. “I do.”

It stung more than it had any right to. “And there’s nothing I can do make you stop hating me.”

You laughed, at that, the sound breathy and sardonic, melodic and unabashed, akin to bird songs and wind chimes and every other beautiful thing Xiao could think of, even in its most beaten down state. He wanted to kiss you, to hold you, to deafen himself because he knew nothing would ever be half as lovely as that laugh, but you were talking before he could act on the impulse. That was for the best, really. Acting on impulse was what got him into this, and he wasn’t eager to drive you away any further. “I don’t have any other choice,” You started, your tone light, your anger softened into something playful. The kind of tender rage only you were capable of. “If I could choose not to hate you, I would. You were my friend, and if I could find any way to justify your actions, you’d still be my friend. I don’t want to think of you as anything else.” You paused, letting out a deep breath, relaxing slightly. Xiao couldn’t bring himself to celebrate the small victory. “I don’t want to hate you, but I have to. You see that, right? After everything you’ve done to me, I have to hate you.”

He deserved this, and you deserved to say it. He deserved to have his heart broken, crushed and shattered in his chest, and you deserved to be the one to break it. “I don’t want you to hate me, either.” It felt more intimate than it should’ve, a confession rather than common knowledge. You might’ve teased him for it, months ago, smiled and said something about softening him up. Now, your frown only deepened. “But, I need to do this. Your safety comes first. If something ever happened to you, I’d—”

Even in his own mind, his logic faltered. ‘If something ever happened to you’, like he hadn’t already done more damage than any monster ever could. It might’ve been more redeemable if he was honest, if he admitted he was doing this for himself, because he wanted to, because just for an hour, a minute, a few key seconds, he was idiotic enough to think he deserved to have you, permanently, whether or not you wanted to have him.

But, he couldn’t say that. He didn’t know how. His mouth wouldn’t form the right words, so he was left to say the wrong ones, his tone taking a sharp turn towards hostile as he spoke. “The door isn’t locked. I’m not keeping you here. You can leave, if you’re really that miserable.”

You shifted, and Xiao’s throat went dry. He knew the answer, and yet, it still hurt to hear it in your voice, to know you were capable of inflicting such insufferable pain. “If I try to, will you let me?”

He wouldn’t. Of course he wouldn’t, he couldn’t even tell himself he’d try. He’d hunt you down to the ends of Teyvat if he had to, spend the rest of his immortality finding you and making sure you never had the chance to do something so short-sighted again. He could make the guilt more bearable, promising himself he’d take care of you, that since he couldn’t do away with the cage entirely, he’d do his best to make your prison a comfortable one, but you’d still be unhappy, you’d still hate him. He’d hate himself, too, but that might be the one aspect of your relationship he thought he could stand. If nothing else, Xiao didn’t make himself a stranger to self-loathing.

“I love you,” He mumbled, as if that counted for anything. “So much. More than you could possibly understand.”

“I know.” You were the one to bridge the gap, this time, a hesitant hand coming to rest over his. Something in his chest tightened, and for a moment, Xiao had to wonder if it was possible for a mortal to be so cruel. “But, I don’t love you. There’s nothing you can do to change that.”

You moved to pull away, fear fading into sympathetic pity, but Xiao didn’t want your pity, he didn’t want you to go back to hiding from him, trembling and screaming and treating him like some monster, a beast waiting to lash out. That’s what he was, really, but he didn’t have to admit it. He didn’t want to admit it. He didn’t want to let himself believe he’d fallen that far, and he didn’t want to let you treat him as if he had.

His grip was too tight, a whimper escaping your parted lips as he caught you by the wrist, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, not when it was so easy to jerk you towards him, forcing you out of your pathetic, laughable shelter and into his lap, his free arm latching onto your waist before you had a chance to pull away. The remorse was reflexive, immediate and instinctual, but for the first time, he allowed himself to ignore it, to bury it underneath the pleasant warmth of your skin against his and the bliss that came with being so close to you, with burying his face in your shoulder, with indulging every necessity he’d denied himself in the name of your comfort. Your hands were already on his chest, your entire body shaking as you made a weak attempt to push him away, but Xiao was stronger than you, and he loved you so much more than you could ever hate him. This was fair. That had to be enough to make it fair.

You shifted, the air catching in your lungs, but Xiao only bared his teeth, letting pointed fangs ghost over the side of your neck before he could regret scaring you. Maybe he wanted to scare you. Maybe it’d be better, if you were scared of him. At least then, he wouldn’t have to keep playing dutiful lover.

“Don’t move,” He snarled, and instantly, you went still. He could feel your heart racing in your chest, hear the cracked sob you failed to swallow, but he wanted this, he needed this. You’d get used to it, with time. You might even begin to appreciate the weeks he spent coddling you, once you were exposed to the alternative. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I need this. I need you to let me have this.” He paused, giving you just enough to time to stiffen, to realize he wasn’t letting go. To realize he was never letting go, even if that meant you only grew to hate him more. “I don’t care if you love me. I need you.”

Because he’d already gotten what he deserved. He’d already suffered, anguished, submitted himself fully to karma and reaped the consequences. The lesson had been drilled into him a thousand times, by his own hand another hundred. He already knew pain.

He’d already gotten what he deserved.

For once, he wanted to know what it would be like to get what he wanted, instead.

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letterboxd · 3 years

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Best of SXSW 2021.

From properly good Covid comedies to an epic folk-horror doc and an Indigenous feminist Western, the Letterboxd Festiville team reveals their ten best of SXSW Online.

We dug out old lanyards to wear around the house, and imagined ourselves queuing up the block from The Ritz (RIP). We dialled into screenings and panels, and did our level best to channel that manic “South By” energy from our living rooms.

The SXSW festival atmosphere was muted, and that’s to be expected. But the films themselves? Gems, so many gems, whether shot in a fortnight on the smell of an oily stimulus check, or painstakingly rotoscoped over seven years.

When we asked SXSW Film director Janet Pierson what she and her team were looking for this year, she told us: “We’re always looking for films that do a lot with little, that are ingenious, and pure talent, and discovery, and being surprised. We’re just looking for really good stories with good emotional resonance.” If there was one common denominator we noticed across this year’s SXSW picks, it was a smart, tender injection of comedy into stories about trauma, grief, unwanted pregnancy, chronic health conditions, homelessness, homophobia and, yes, Covid.

It’s hard to pick favorites, but here are the ten SXSW features and two short films we haven’t stopped thinking about, in no particular order.

Recovery Directed by Mallory Everton and Stephen Meek, written by Everton and Whitney Call

“Covid 19 is in charge now” might be the most hauntingly funny line in a SXSW film. In Recovery, two sisters set out on a haywire road trip to rescue their grandmother from her nursing home in the wake of a severe Covid 19 outbreak. There’s no random villain or threat, because isn’t being forced to exist during a pandemic enough of a threat in itself? If ever we were worried about “Covid comedies”, SXSW managed to flush out the good ones. (Read about the Festiville team’s other favorite Covid-inflected comedies, including an interview with the directors of I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking).)

Alex Marzona praises the “off-the-charts chemistry” between leads Mallory Everton and Whitney Call. Best friends since they were nine, the pair also wrote the film, with Everton co-directing with Stephen Meek. Every laugh comes from your gut and feels like something only the cast and crew would usually be privy to. “You can tell a lot of the content is improvised, which just attests to their talent,” writes Emma. Recovery doesn’t make you laugh awkwardly about how awful the last year has been—rather, it reminds you that even in such times there are still laughs to be had, trips to be taken, family worth uprooting everything for. Just make sure you’ve packed enough wet wipes for the road, and think long and hard about who should babysit your mice. —EK

The Spine of Night Written and directed by Morgan Galen King and Philip Gelatt

Don’t get too attached to any characters from its star-studded cast—nobody is safe (or fully-clothed) in The Spine of Night’s raw, ultra-violent and cynical world. Conjured over the last seven years, directors Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King’s rotoscoped epic recaptures the dazzling imagination and scope of their influences Ralph Bakshi and Heavy Metal. Approaching an anthology-style structure to explore how ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’—a proverb more potent now than when Gelatt and King began their project—the film packs a franchise’s worth of ideas in its 90-minute runtime. Though the storytelling justifiably proves itself overly dense for some, it will find the audience it’s after, as other Letterboxd members have declared it “a rare treat” and “a breath of fresh air in the feature-length animation scene”. For sure, The Spine of Night can join Sundance premieres Flee and Cryptozoo in what’s already a compelling year for unique two-dimensional animation. —JM

Kambole Campbell caught up with Gelatt and King (who are also Letterboxd members!) during SXSW to talk about animation inspirations and rotoscoping techniques.

The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson Written and directed by Leah Purcell

Snakes, steers and scoundrels beware! Writer-director-star Leah Purcell ably repurposes the Western genre for Aboriginal and female voices in The Drover’s Wife. Molly Johnson is a crack-shot anti-heroine for the ages, in this decolonized reimagining of a classic 1892 short story by Henry Lawson. And by reimagining, we mean a seismic shift in the narrative: Purcell has fleshed out a full story of a mother-of-four, pregnant with her fifth, a missing husband, predatory neighbors, a mysterious runaway and a young English couple on different paths to progress in this remote Southern land. Purcell first adapted this story for the stage, then as published fiction; she rightly takes the leading role in the screen version, too.

As a debut feature director, Purcell (Goa-Gunggari-Wakka Wakka Murri) already has a firm grip on the macabre and the menacing, not shying away from violence, but making very careful decisions about what needs to be depicted, given all that Molly Johnson and her family are subjected to. She also sneaks in mystic touches, and a hint of romance (local heartthrob Rob Collins can take us on a walk to where the Snowy widens to see blooming wildflowers anytime). Judging by early Letterboxd reviews, it’s not for everyone, but this is Australian colonization through an Indigenous feminist’s eyes, with a fierce, intersectional pay-off. “Extremely similar to a vast majority of the issues and themes explored in The Nightingale,” writes Claira. “I’m slowly realizing that my favorite type of Westerns are Australian.” —LK, GG

Swan Song Written and directed by Todd Stephens

Udo Kier is often the bridesmaid, rarely the bride. Now, after a lifetime of supporting roles ranging from vampires and villains to art-house muse, he finally gets to shine center-stage in Swan Song. Kier dazzles as a coiffure soothsayer in this lyrical pageant to the passage of queer times in backwater Sandusky, Ohio. “He is absolutely wonderful here,” writes Adrianna, “digging deep and pulling out a mesmerizing, deeply affecting and emotionally textured performance, proving that he’s an actor with much more range than people give him credit for.”

A strong supporting cast all have melancholy moments to shine, with Linda Evans (Dynasty), Michael Urie (Ugly Betty) and Jennifer Coolidge (Legally Blonde) along for the stroll. Surreal camp touches add joy (that chandelier, the needle drop!) but by the end, the tears roll (both of joy and sadness). Writer-director Todd Stephens ties up his Sandusky trilogy in this hometown homage, a career peak for both him and Kier. Robert Daniels puts it well, writing that Swan Song is “campy as hell, but it’s also a heartfelt LGBTQ story about lost lovers and friends, vibrant memories and the final passage of a colorful life.” —LK

Leo Koziol spoke with Todd Stephens and Udo Kier during SXSW about Grace Jones, David Bowie and dancing with yourself.

Islands Written and directed by Martin Edralin

Islands is a Mike Leigh-esque story that presents a Canadian Filipino immigrant family full of quirk and character, centered around Joshua, a reticent 50-year-old homebody son. The story drifts in and out of a deep well of sadness. Moments of lightness and familial love make the journey worthwhile. “A film so Filipino a main plot device is line-dancing,” writes Karl. “Islands is an incredibly empathetic film about what it’s like to feel unmoored from comfort. It’s distinctly Filipino and deals with the psychology of Asian culture in a way that feels both profound and oddly comforting.” In a year in which we’ve all been forced to physically slow down, Islands “shows us how slow life can be,” writes Justin, “and how important it is to be okay with that.” Rogelio Balagtas’s performance as Joshua—a first-time leading role—won him the SXSW Grand Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance. —LK

Ninjababy Directed by Yngvild Sve Flikke, written by Flikke with Johan Fasting and Inga H. Sætre

Ninjababy is as ridiculous as its title. When 23-year-old Rakel finds herself accidentally pregnant, scheduling an abortion is a no-brainer. But she’s way too far along, she’s informed, so she’s going to have to have the baby. The ensuing meltdown might have been heartbreaking if the film wasn’t so damn funny. Ninjababy draws on the comforting and familiar (“Lizzie McGuire if she was a pregnant young adult,” writes Nick), while mixing shock with originality (Erica Richards notices “a few aggressive and vulgar moments [but] somehow none of it seemed misplaced”).

An animated fetus in the style of Rakel’s own drawings appears to beg and shame Rakel into motherhood while she fights to hold onto her confidence that not wanting to be a mother doesn’t make her a bad person. Ninjababy’s greatest feat is its willingness to delve into that complication: yes, it’s righteous and feminist and 21st-century to claim your own body and life, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to turn away from something growing inside of you. It’s a comedy about shame, art, finding care in unlikely places—and there’s something in it for the gents, too. The titular ninjababy wouldn’t leave Rakel alone, and it’s unlikely to leave you either. Winner of the SXSW Global Audience Award. —SH

The Fallout Written and directed by Megan Park

Canadian actress Megan Park brought the youthful wisdom of her days on the teen drama series The Secret Life of the American Teenager to her first project behind the camera, and it paid off. Following the scattered after-effects of a school shooting, The Fallout may be the most acute, empathetic depiction of childhood trauma on screen in recent memory. “It sneaks up on you with its honesty and how it spends time with its lead, carried so beautifully by Jenna Ortega. Even the more conventional moments are poignant because of context,” writes Kevin L. Lee. Much of that “sneaky” honesty emerges as humor—despite the heavy premise, moments of hilarity hang on the edges of almost every scene. And Ortega’s portrayal of sweet-but-angsty Vada brings self-awareness to that humor, like when Vada’s avoidant, inappropriate jokes with her therapist reveal her desperation, but they garner genuine laughs nonetheless.

In this debut, Park shows an unmatched understanding of non-linear ways that young people process their pain. Sometimes kids try drugs! Sometimes they scream at their parents! But more often than not, they really do know what they want, who loves them, and how much time they need to grieve (see also: Jessie Barr’s Sophie Jones, starring her cousin Jessica Barr, out now on VOD and in theaters). The Fallout forsakes melodrama to embrace confusion, ambiguity and joy. Winner of both the SXSW Grand Jury and Audience Narrative Feature Awards, and the Brightcove Illumination Award. —SH

Ludi Directed by Edson Jean, written by Jean and Joshua Jean-Baptiste

When Ludi begins, it’s quiet and dreamy. The film’s opening moments conjure the simple pleasures of the titular character’s Haitian heritage: the music, the colors, the people. Ludi (Shein Monpremier) smiles to herself as she starts her morning with a tape recording her cousin mailed from Haiti to Miami, and listens as her family members laugh through their troubles before recording an upbeat tape of her own. But that’s where the dreaminess ends—Ludi is an overworked, underpaid nurse picking up every shift she possibly can in order to send money home. Writer-director Edson Jean fixates on the pains and consequences of Ludi’s relentless determination, which comes to a head when she moonlights as a private nurse for an old man who doesn’t want her there.

Ashton Kinley notes how the film “doesn’t overly dramatize or pull at false emotional strings to make its weight felt. The second half of the feature really allows all of that to shine, as the film becomes a tender and empathetic two-hander.” George’s (Alan Myles Heyman) resentment of his own aging body steps in as Ludi’s antagonist. Jean throws together jarring contrasts: George throwing Ludi out of the bathroom, followed by Ludi’s memories of home, followed by another lashing out, followed by a shared prayer. The tension is unsustainable. By interspersing the back-breaking predicament of a working-class immigrant with the sights and sounds of the Caribbean, Ludi elegantly, painfully reveals what the cost of a dream can be. —SH

Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror Written and directed by Kier-La Janisse

Building on the folk horror resurgence of films like The Witch and Midsommar, Kier-La Janisse’s 193-minute documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched is a colossal, staggering undertaking that should school even the most seasoned of horror buffs. “Thorough is an understatement,” says Claira.

Combining a historian’s studied, holistic patience with a cinephile’s rabid, insatiable thirst, the film, through the course of six chapters, broadens textbook British definitions, draws trenchant socio-political and thematic connections, debunks myths and transports viewers to far-flung parts of the globe in a way that almost feels anthropological. As Jordan writes, “Three hours later and my mind is racing between philosophical questions about the state of hauntology we generationally entrap ourselves in, wanting to buy every single one of the 100+ films referenced here, and being just a bit in awe of Janisse’s truly breathless work.” An encyclopedic forest worth losing yourself in—get ready for those watchlists to balloon. Winner of the SXSW Midnighters Audience Award. —AY

Introducing, Selma Blair Directed by Rachel Fleit

There’ll likely be some level of hype when this intimate collaboration between actress Selma Blair and filmmaker Rachel Fleit comes out later in the year on Discovery+, and that’s okay, because that is Blair’s intention in sharing the details of her stem-cell transplant for multiple sclerosis. There’d be little point in going there if you are not prepared to really go there, and Introducing, Selma Blair is a tics-and-all journey not just into what life is like with a chronic condition, a young son, and a career that relies on one’s ability to keep a straight face. It’s also an examination of the scar tissue of childhood, the things we are told by our parents, the ideas we come to believe about ourselves. “I almost felt like I shouldn’t have such intimate access to some of the footage in this documentary,” writes Andy Yen. “Bravo to Selma for allowing the filmmakers to show some truly raw and soul-bearing videos about her battle with multiple sclerosis that make us feel as if we are as close to her as family.” —GG

Femme Directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping

I May Destroy You fans, rejoice: Paapa Essiedu, who played Arabella’s fascinating best friend Kwame, takes center stage in Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s intoxicating short film Femme. It’s a simple premise—Jordan, a femme gay man, follows his drug dealer (Harris Dickinson, mastering the sexually repressed brusque young man like no one else) home to pick up some goods on a night out. Except, of course, it’s not that simple. The co-directors build a world of danger, tension and electricity, with lusciously lensed scenes that lose focus as the threat rises. Frankie calls it “hypnotizing and brutal and gorgeous” and we couldn’t agree more. A crime thriller wrestling with hyper-masculinity seen through the eyes of an LGBTQ+ character, with a sucker-punch ending to boot, the world needs more than twenty minutes of this story. —EK

Play It Safe Directed by Mitch Kalisa

If you (unwisely) thought that the vulnerable, progressive environment of drama school would be a safe space for Black students, Play It Safe confirms that even a liberal bunch of actors (and their teacher) are capable of being blind to their own egregiously racist microagressions. Mitch Kalisa’s excellent short film explores structural prejudice head-on, in an electric acting exercise that rests on where the kinetic, gritty 16mm camera is pointing at every pivotal turn. At first, we’re with Black drama student Jonathan Ajayi as he receives the assignment; then we are with the rest of the class, exactly where we need to be. “Literally in your face and absolutely breathtaking,” writes Nia. A deserving winner of the SXSW Grand Jury and Audience narrative shorts prizes. —GG

Follow the Festiville team on Letterboxd

#sxsw #south by southwest #sxsw 2021 #sxswonline #SXSW Film #janet pierson #film festival #letterboxd #letterboxd best

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tibbinswrites · 4 years

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Prompt #170: Part 3

So @day-fire asked (fist slammed a table) for a part three and made grabby hands... how could I leave those grabby hands empty? I’ve now done prompts for: #1, #2, #4 and #16, #9, #10, #20, #33, #77, #78, #170 (part 1), (part 2), (part 3), #327 and #502 and I’ve finally completed my backlog so I’m not accepting any more prompts at this time.

Also, just in case you weren’t aware, I’m part of an incredible destiel fanfic, art and podfic anthology. Our indegogo page is live here and there are tiers ranging from simply gorgeous PDF copies and all the podfics to beautiful print books with a bunch of other merch like bookmarks and art prints. We are now FULLY FUNDED so this project is a go! Everyone who buys a printed copy of the book now shall definitely be receiving one (and hey, maybe even a hardback one if we make it to 143% funded).

So here it is. The third (and final) part to the original prompt: “Why are you doing this to yourself?”

I hope you like it ^_^ Read the first part here

Read the second part here

Before Chuck’s body even had time to cool (metaphorically of course, there hadn’t been an actual corpse left behind once Jack was through with him), Billie showed up.

“Well done,” she said in that perpetually-sarcastic-yet-somehow-still-serious tone of hers. “You actually did it. I have to admit I’m surprised, it was touch and go there for a while.”

“Okay,” Dean immediately shifted from one fight to the next as he turned to confront Death. “We followed your plan, did your thing and we won. So now, you owe us.”

Watching Billie’s face transform into shocked indignation was worth the demand all by itself.

“My thing?” She said, drawing herself up to her full height, a crackle of dark energy seemed to buzz around her for a moment. “My thing was saving the world, the world that you all live on. I believe that what you mean to say is ‘Thank you’. I owe you nothing and our alliance is done.”

“That’s not how I see it,” Dean insisted stubbornly. “You going after Chuck was more personal than doing us a solid. He was messing with your books and your big picture plan so your beef with him wasn’t exactly altruistic.”

“Dean, what are you doing?” Sam murmured in his ear, stepping forward to grab his shoulder but Dean shook him off, his eyes only on Billie.

“Well you’ve got balls, Winchester, I’ll give you that,” she allowed, looking more amused now than anything, which Dean counted as a win because, you know, even by his standards, he knew that pissing off Death was a monumentally stupid idea. Even Sam’s presence retreated from his side, back towards Jack. “Go on then, tell me. What is it you want? Aside from… oh, I don’t know, your lives, the lives of seven billion people, your entire universe, and of course the fact that your future is your own again. Because none of that counts if my perceived motivation isn’t up to your very hypocritical standards.”

Okay, so maybe she was a little pissed. Nonetheless, Dean ploughed through, his hands balled at his sides, ignoring the warning looks from his family.

“The point is—”

“Just ask me for the favour, Dean,” Billie interrupted smoothly. “It does you no credit to be making demands with faulty logic to try and save yourself a debt. Either I’ll help you or I won’t, but I’ll be more likely to be on your side if you stop insulting me.”

Dean hesitated at that and swallowed hard. She was right, but that didn’t make it any easier. Sure, he made skeevy deals all the time that almost always backfired but at least he usually expected them to. Quid pro quo was something that he understood well. In this life you had to be willing to give a lot to get a little back. Straight up asking for help from a cosmic entity though? That was new, humiliating territory. He had nothing that she wanted from him anymore. He could ask, hell, he could beg, but he knew as well as she did that he had no leverage to stop her from just walking away.

“I want Cas freed of his deal.”

“Dean!” That was Cas, stepping forward, his face filled with compassion and gratitude as he moved into Dean’s line of sight and Dean’s face flooded with heat that Cas could look at him that way, that Cas could still look at him that way. “You don’t have to do this for me.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Dean said, dragging his eyes back to Billie, who was watching them carefully. “I got nothin’ to bargain with, you know that. You don’t want our lives or souls or whatever. Chuck’s already dead and you don’t care if we’re happy or not. I’m just asking, please. Break the deal.”

Billie considered him for a long time, her dark eyes taking him in, taking in Cas and then she was looking past them to where Sam and Jack probably stood before falling back on him. He briefly wondered what she saw… she didn’t like him all that much he was sure and if he had learned anything about her it was that she didn’t do anything that contradicted with whatever her big picture was. What Dean was asking was a pretty heavy shift of the way the stage had been set. But he couldn’t let her just leave without taking what might be his only shot to save the man he loved.

Finally, Billie sighed and took a step back, her grip shifting on her scythe.

“I can’t.”

Dean tried not to wilt, resolutely did not look at Cas. He didn’t want Cas to see the apology in his eyes, the failure.

The entire room was still, not even the dust motes seemed to move. Which was ironic really considering the fact that the world Dean had just helped save was starting to fracture around him.

Dean felt a warm hand on his arm then and a soft voice in his ear.

“Dean, it’s alright.”

“No!” He turned on Cas with all the fury he wanted to direct at Billie, at the Empty. “It’s not alright! How can you just stand there and tell me that you’re fine with being miserable for the rest of your life? How can you justify that? How can you?” he jabbed an accusing finger at Billie, who stared back, impassive in the face of his rage. “After what he’s done for this world, and his part in your plan—which was freaking huge by the way, he did way more than any of us—how can you just stand there and tell me that he doesn’t deserve to be happy?!”

“Deserve has nothing to do with it,” Billie told him calmly. “I told you, I can’t break the deal, because I wasn’t the one to make it. I can, however, make a call.”

And with that, her eyes rolled up into her skull, leaving the blank whites staring out at them all. Disconcerted, Dean glanced around at the others. Cas was still next to him, his presence solid, his eyes almost hopeful. Sam had herded Jack nearer the door in case they needed to bolt, though Dean knew that was more for appearance and instinct’s sake, neither of them were going anywhere, no matter how hairy things got. Jack was staring at Billie, looking pleased if not relaxed. Sam’s eyes met his and Dean wasn’t surprised by the conflict he saw there. He felt it too. He knew as well as Sam did that if he put all his hopes in this and it didn’t pan out, it would destroy him. Sam would back his play, of course he would, he wanted Cas to be happy and safe as much as Dean did, but Dean could see the deep concern there that he knew wasn’t for Cas. He looked away, back to Billie, whose irises were slowly sliding back into place, and the growing puddle of darkness that was beginning to materialise on the concrete floor.

Dean watched, feeling increasingly sick as the black, liquid-looking substance bubbled and rose and solidified into a vaguely humanoid form. There was no face, which was disconcerting as all hell, and the thing’s limbs were just a little too long and… wobbly to be truly human. It was making his brain fuzz over just looking at it. He felt Cas’ grip tighten on his arm.

“What do you want now?” The thing whined, it’s non-face turned in Billie’s direction. It’s voice was perhaps the most surprising thing about it, it was high pitched and nasal (which was impressive considering the thing’s lack of nose) with a slant to the words that Dean couldn’t place. He supposed ‘afterlife dimension’ came with its own accent.

“The angel wants out of his deal,” Billie said. “The humans wish to make what I’m sure will either be a heartfelt plea or some kind of threat.”

“You called me for that? Isn’t this over? Hmmm... I have God and His sister all nicely tucked away and sleeping. Why am I still awake?”

“Look...” Dean said to the goo-creature, and the head swivelled around on a too-loose neck. He stared at where he thought the eyes should be, trying not to be creeped out by the fact he had no idea if his gaze was being returned or not. He also wasn’t sure what tack to try here. He had no more leverage over this thing than he did the Grim Reaper, would it respect a strong stance or was grovelling the way to go? He would do it, if that’s what it took to let Cas live the rest of his life chasing joy. Hell, he would get down on his knees if it meant that he could finally return the words Cas had voiced not three weeks ago. His mind was spinning, but coming up a blank.

So Sam stepped up, taking slow, measured steps to stand at Dean’s other shoulder. “You’ve helped us out before, done Jack a solid when you let him come back and we appreciate that. We also know that you’ve got some issues with Cas and we’d really like to resolve those so that… so you don’t take him.”

“Yeah,” Jack piped up, moving to Cas’ other side. “We’d really rather he stay with us. Without giving up his happiness.”

“Cas is the main reason you still have a place to go back to,” Dean added. “Can’t you just give him a pass? More than anyone he’s earned that.”

“The little shit woke me up!” The creature screeched at them out of its non-mouth. “I haven’t been woken up in the history of ever until that feathered moron came along. All he had to do was sleep, yes, and he couldn’t even do that! So I’m taking him when I damn well please. I gave up my legitimate claim to you, nephilim, just to squeeze out every drop of revenge. You think I’ll go back on that now? Oh, no, no, no, not when the due date is so close, am I right?”

Dean blinked, suddenly getting the feeling that the Empty had stopped talking to them at some point and had started addressing Cas, who he felt perfectly still beside him.

“Am I right, angel?” The thing cooed, “You almost have your happy, don’t you? You’re holding it back by a mere membrane. And now it stands right next to you and tries to get me to change my mind. That has to be nice… seeing how he cares. How they all care.”

Cas said nothing, but in a quick glance Dean saw his lips press together, his eyes lower. The submission hurt Dean more than any outburst of rage at this creature who had stolen all the things that people lived for, everything that Cas had fallen for and given so much of himself to protect. It wasn’t fair that he was now just as cut off from it as when he was a mindless automaton. He should be angry.

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me,” he said, still looking down at the floor. “But if this deal breaks, Jack’s soul is forfeit, and I can’t—”

“No it’s not.”

Every head turned to look at Billie, who was the picture of nonchalance, except for the gleam in her eye. “Jack’s soul will go to heaven.”

The Empty spluttered. “I think you’ll find nephilim are my jurisdiction.”

“They are,” Billie agreed, “but Jack’s not a nephilim anymore. Is he?”

Dean gaped in Jack’s direction. The kid frowned, then looked like he was concentrating really hard on something, and then surprise lit his features. “I’m human?”

“Your power was what was needed to defeat God,” Billie explained. “The exact amount of your power. No more, no less. It was never really yours anyway, it was inherited from your father. But you disowned him and chose a father of your own.” She nodded towards Castiel. “That severed the power from you, made your human soul separate from the archangel grace. In reality, Chuck was fighting two of you, Jack, and He was only able to destroy one. Of course, He thought the one worth destroying was the one with the power, leaving you as the other. Pure human. Which,” she smiled at the Empty, “is my jurisdiction.”

If the Empty had a face, Dean was pretty sure it would be glaring fire at Billie. “You’re on their side?” It screeched. Dean winced at the piercing volume. “You want me to break the deal. What? Are you going to keep me awake until I obey, yes? You can’t pull that lever twice, Reaper. I helped you with the old man and the dark one all on the promise that once this was over you’d let me sleep and I know you to be a being of your word.”

“You’re right,” Billie said evenly. “I will keep my promise, regardless of whether or not you help the angel. But I would prefer it if you did. As a favour.” Her eyes flicked briefly to Dean’s at that and a newfound well of respect for Billie threatened to spill out of his dumb mouth. He swallowed it back. He was pretty sure she could see his gratitude. She had already helped them by calling the Empty here, and it would have been more than fair for her to leave them to do the convincing, which he was pretty sure wouldn’t have worked on its own.

The Empty seemed to consider that; clearly weighing the benefit of having Death owe it one against whatever pleasure it would gain from torturing Cas. The decision took far longer than Dean was comfortable with and something snapped in him at the tense silence. His hand found Cas’ and he held it tight, ignoring the surprised look that melted into fondness on his left. He felt a hand land on his opposite shoulder and looked up into Sam’s face. There was a soft smile there, and pride, but there was a twitch in his eyebrow that begged him not to entwine himself so deep that he couldn’t disentangle himself if this all went to shit. Dean couldn’t bring himself to tell him that it was far, far too late for that.

“Hmmm...” The Empty said. “Well… There it is. Looks like Castiel just cashed in his happy.”

Dean’s head snapped around. Cas was looking at him, beaming really. His eyes glittering in the low light, radiant in a way that was different from his grace and far more beautiful. The hand in his gave a gentle squeeze, though there was fear in those eyes now, his moment of pure joy eclipsed by the fact that this could all be gone with his next blink. Dean brought his other hand around to clasp their already joined ones, as if he could just hold tight enough, then nothing could make him let go.

Seeing Cas afraid was like an icy fingertip sliding down his spine. He turned back to the Empty, readying himself to throw a punch or to prostrate himself on the ground and beg, or start another goddamn apocalypse just to draw the fear from those blue, bottomless eyes. It couldn’t end like this, not when they were on the precipice of whatever this promised to be, not when they could finally, finally start living for themselves.

“Please,” Dean said, his voice thick and unwieldy in his mouth. “Please let him stay with me.”

The creature hummed again, an irritating sound that buried into his skull. “Alright.”

It flicked one of its (too bendy) arms in Cas’ direction and the angel cried out in pain, dropping to the floor like a sack of bricks and dragging Dean down too where their hands were still clasped.

“Cas!” Dean yelled as Cas began a low moan that rose in volume and pitch and agony until it was a scream, and then his back arched so dramatically Dean heard it crack, and Cas’ eyes widened to the point of popping. In the next painful convulsion, Cas ripped his hand away from Dean’s.

“Cas!” Dean cried again, scrambling to get it back, to offer what little comfort he could. If these were going to be Cas’ last moments, Dean couldn’t bear the thought that he would have to endure them alone.

Cas’ lips were moving, but all that was escaping was a wordless scream. Dean shook his head, not understanding as Cas’ agitation only grew. He looked around at each member of his family crouched next to him, and terror dominated his expression.

“Eyes!” The word was strangled. “Help—”

Suddenly, the sound of Cas’ screams cut out at the same moment the world turned black. Dean’s vocal chords strained around Cas’ name, around Sam’s name, but he couldn’t hear either. He felt Cas in front of him, writhing and solid and silent, felt the hard concrete under his knees, felt the fabric of a jacket as he reached out blindly with his other hand. But all he saw was blackness. Fear roared inside him. He couldn’t see his family, he didn’t know what was happening to Cas. Had he gone blind? Deaf? Was Cas looking to him for a final comfort?

Worst of all was when Cas’ hand went limp.

Dean was pretty sure he was losing his mind. He was sure he was screaming, sure he was yelling himself hoarse, cursing the Empty, Billie, God. He dropped his hand from what he was pretty sure was Sam’s shoulder and moving it to his own face. He felt wetness there, sweat or tears he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that Cas wasn’t moving and he had no idea what to do except clutch that hand in between both his own and hope.

Just as suddenly as it had vanished, sound returned. He heard his own name in Sam’s voice and a moment later, his brother’s scared face materialised in front of him, and Jack was there too, his own face pale and scrunched in confusion and discomfort as he shook himself. There was also a horrible, burbling sound that it took him far too long to realise was coming from him. He took a deep breath to stop it and looked over at where the Empty and Billie had been stood.

They were gone.

“What the hell was that?” Dean asked, his voice raspy and worn out.

“No idea,” Sam said, looking a little ill. “But it really sucked.”

“Yeah.” As the adrenaline leaked away from his brain, leaving his extremities tingling, he flexed his hand and found he was still holding onto something.

Cas!

With a jolt, Dean looked at the still figure lying on the ground. His eyes were closed and there were black shapes on the floor extending from his shoulders.

“No,” He moaned, squeezing his eyes shut again, flashbacks of a cabin, of another joyous moment turned to ash, of a grief so heavy he’d buckled under it the first time, how could anyone ask him to even lift it now?

He heard Sam swallow next to him, clearly floundering for whatever words he thought Dean needed to hear.

He heard Jack’s breath hitch, then. “Wait. Look!”

Dean blinked heavily. Jack was staring at the black marks, then he reached forward and picked up a feather. Four inches long and inky black, the thing gleamed in the poor light. Despite the urgent pleas of his heart, Dean looked more closely at what he had assumed to be just scorch marks. There were more feathers. Loads of them, filling in gaps in the patchy outlines of Cas’ wings. They were how Cas’ wings had looked the last time Dean had seen their shadows; there weren’t enough feathers to make the wings complete, Cas had shed plenty over the years after all, but there were still dozens of them. All the feathers Cas had had left, if Dean were to guess. He didn’t know what to make of it and although he could hear Sam’s brain whirring as it tried to put the pieces together, Dean couldn’t quite bring himself to care what it meant. He leaned over Cas and smoothed the hair back from his forehead, numbness crawling its way along Dean’s limbs and tightening around his nerves. He arranged the body how he would if the pyre was already built, pretty sure someone was talking around him but unable to take any of it in. He adjusted the coat, laid Cas’ hands carefully by his sides, fixed the tie.

While he did that last one, his hand passed over Cas’ chest and he felt a flutter beneath his fingertips. He paused for a second and felt it again. Hope surged through him so fast it was painful. He pressed his palm to Cas’ chest and waited. Please, please, please, please, please.

Thump.

“He’s alive!”

Dean began to gently tap his fingers against Cas’ cheek, calling for him over and over again, his other hand feeling the steady, human beat of Cas’ heart.

“Come on, sweetheart, wake up.”

Cas groaned, the most wonderful sound that had ever graced Dean’s ears. All the air escaped him as Cas began to twitch, his eyelids fluttered and he blinked them open.

“I love you too,” Dean blurted out, physically unable to keep the words in any more. “I love you so freaking much Cas, and I’m real glad you’re not dead.”

“Me too,” Cas said blearily, pushing himself to a sitting position, only to be bowled over again by Dean launching himself into his arms. Corny or not he couldn’t help it. He needed to hold him, surround himself in Cas’ warmth and Cas’ smell and Cas’ love. He needed to feel the life around them. “You make me very happy, Dean.”

Dean said nothing, but he shoved his face in closer to Cas’ neck.

After a few moments he deemed himself recovered enough to pull back and help Cas to his unsteady feet. Jack moved in for the next hug and Cas’ eyes went soft with wonder as he embraced his son, finally allowed to feel the joy that such a gesture brought. Sam was next, pulling him into a sasquatch-worthy bone-crushing hug and whispering something that Dean couldn’t catch, though their grins were bright and a little teary as they separated.

Cas then looked down at the feathers scattered on the ground and bent to gather a few. “Angel feathers can be useful spell ingredients,” he said by way of an explanation as he stuffed them into his coat pocket. “And it’s not as though I have a use for them anymore.”

“You know, we could try and find a way… if you wanted...” Dean started to offer, and even though Dean wasn’t sure if the Empty had completely destroyed Cas’ grace or what and had no idea how to even start that quest, he knew with certainty that he would find a way if that was what Cas chose.

Cas was already shaking his head, a small smile on his lips.

“No. I think… I think I’m tired of being an angel. I don’t want to watch humanity anymore, I want to be a part of it. I want to enjoy this, every moment that I get to love and be loved in return is a treasure I never could have imagined before I met you.”

“So… home?” Dean asked, more than ready to start building the rest of his life with his brother, his son and this newly-human man who had never looked like more of an angel to him.

Cas nodded and reached for him, slotting their fingers together.

“Home.”

#supernatural #spn fanfic #prompt #part 3 of 3 #fanfiction #writing #angst #happy ending #Destiel fanfic #TibbinsWrites

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luzialowe · 6 years

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On The Vulvic Trans-Missionary

Having seen the cacaphony in some of the tumblr occult circle surrounding opinions on this writing, I have a lot to say. Most of y’all aren’t gonna like it. Buckle the fuck up.

I’m an AFAB person working on the demonic/sinister feminine current. I live it and breathe it and bleed for it; it constitutes the majority of my praxis.

I write, choreograph, and participate in feminine led (in fact, exclusively feminine performed) public ritual on this current, inviting others to experience and learn about the how, what, and why of this type of magick from a specifically unique feminine perspective.

I’m currently writing multiple pieces for publication, one of which is slotted for inclusion in an upcoming anthology work specifically concerning the sinister feminine and the Dark Mother archetypes, with multiple contributions coming from AFAB and feminine practitioners, myself included.

I literally branded the star of Babalon into my palm over the course of a seven hour sex magick ritual while channeling. That shit was rugged, I tell you what.

I’m pretty fucking qualified not just as a “woman” but MORE IMPORTANTLY as a serious devotee in the cult to offer my perspective.

You know what? I’m tired of men writing about the demonic feminine too, and I’m skeptical of most men who do too. But I actually work deeply on that current and it’s a huge part of my praxis, so I get to have a seat at this table and fairly critique when and where it’s necessary. That seat comes with its own responsibility to contribute to the body of work surrounding this current. No one I’ve seen complaining about the work in question works with Babalon in any actual capacity, or the demonic feminine current, and in fact most of the people in question don’t work with either of those things AT ALL. I am just as unwilling to let the current be hijacked by non-practitioners as I am to see it hijacked by dudebros. If you aren’t working on this current, then this doesn’t concern you.

And I know what y’all are gonna say- it’s about women in the occult. Except no, it kind of really isn’t. Because Babalon is not a woman, Babalon is a feminine archetype, and there is a HUGE grey area in how we talk about archetype figures and what they are meant to represent, to inspire, and to unlock, because they aren’t actual women. Or actual people. At all. Babalon encompasses a great many qualities that women CAN possess, but which not every woman does, in whole or in part, and that’s okay, because Babalon is not a woman, she’s an archetype. Every religion since the dawn of time has had archetypes, both masculine and feminine. None of those are men or women. So no, you don’t live this everyday because you aren’t Babalon, nor are you a feminine archetype figure in a devotional religious or magickal current, nor are you even a fucking practitioner on the current. So sit down.

Just like any other field of study, the occult requires accountability, study, practice, and working knowledge in order to lend credibility or validity to your opinion. Just because I’m AFAB doesn’t mean I’m qualified to talk about certain aspects of women’s health, because I’m not a fucking doctor- so if you haven’t studied Babalon, don’t have a relationship with her, and don’t work with her, I’m gonna need you to bench it because being a woman isn’t enough to justify your misinformed opinion.

Speaking of misinformed opinions, Babalon is a fucking archetype with whom it is not out of place to use devotional, poetic, or even sexual language. Funny that most of the people I see complaining about the writing are Catholics (your modesty is showing and fyi Babalon is in no way a chaste figure) or followers of Sarah Wreck, who once said that Babalon is a “passive” “receptive” and “empathic” energy, which couldn’t be less informed if she tried. So I don’t think any of y’all have any place to be talking as non practitioners, and especially as ignorant ones, about a current you don’t participate in.

I take no issue with the language used around Babalon in the writing, and neither would anyone else who actually worked with her or was familiar with her history. I don’t write about these things clinically either, I write about them with ecstatic love, with religiosity, and with passion, because this is not an academic introduction to the occult, this is fucking FAITH and DEVOTION.

So what if there’s little substance? If any of y’all were deep in this current you would find the substance you need in that mystery, and no author is required to provide substantive background information in their work when they’re writing for an audience that is already in a relationship with the current, as this author CLEARLY is. If you want substance, there are plenty of books written with introductory information on Babalon; this isn’t one of them. You can go read the ones for beginners instead, since none of y’all seem to know fuck all about Babalon.

Finally, we DO need more feminine perspectives on the dark feminine currents. So if you have a critique or a complaint, y’all are WELCOME to get the fuck up and write something. It’s not always enough to just critique- sometimes you need to roll up your fucking sleeves and MAKE better content if you’re not happy with what you’re getting. I get to critique the writing in this current because I actually contribute to it- but not a single person I’ve seen complaining has or is working on publishing fucking jack shit. You want better? Then bring better to the table. I live and breathe this current and I’m doing the work that needs to be done on this current. What the fuck y’all doing? You’re complaining on tumblr instead of writing the substantive feminine oriented works that you seem to really want. And you know what? If you can’t be fucked to bother doing the work, then you DON’T CARE and aren’t invested enough to have a seat at the table in the first place, because obviously this ain’t your game. So get out and sit on the bench.

#fuckin goddamn tired of people who don't know fuck all talking about shit they don't know about #babalon #777 #occult #occultism #demonic feminine #sinister feminine #vulvic trans-missionary #magick

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centerednscholared · 5 years

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This book. Is. Absolutely. Brilliant.

“The Salt Eaters” is one of those books that took me years to read. For some reason, I always seemed to begin to read it and after the first few pages I had to put it down. Part because I couldn’t grasp the concept of what was going on and because I had too much going on in my life. See, this book demands you be abandoned when you read it. After finally reading the book, I realized it was difficult to read because it was personal. It felt like a conversation I would have with my girlfriends. It was “an older book” that was still relevant. It gave me the feel of a Zora Neale Hurston book or Toni Morrison. It is time bending and revolutionary.

I was introduced to Bambara around the time I began to consume myself with literature from black women. The summer going in to my sophomore year of undergraduate school when I sat on the library floor and found Sanchez, Shange, Giovanni, Walker, Brooks, Jordan, Clifton to name a few. I was a theatre student, who also loved poetry, scouring for material to perform and interpret for auditions and competitions. Bambara was one of the names that kept coming up so I kept her on my list of authors that “changed the game”.

Those who know me know that I am a thrift store book shopper. I never buy used books for over $3.00 and one day (years ago) I came across this book:

Of course what attracted me was the cover, but inside were essays by all the women I had been self educating myself about. This book was Bambara’s first book, The Black Woman: An Anthology, in which African American women of different ages and classes voiced issues not addressed by the civil rights and women’s movements. I realized I needed to pick up a Bambara book and get to know her creatively. When I asked around what book to read first, everyone said “The Salt Eaters”. I remember trying to start this book for like two weeks until I justified with myself that this book was like “Meridian” by Alice Walker and “Song of Soloman” by Toni Morrison… I just didn’t get it. I put Bambara down and would come back to her a few times after that and could not get in to it. But when I did, it was a “game changer” for me!

Her novel “The Salt Eaters” centers on a healing event that coincides with a community festival in a fictional city of Claybourne, Georgia. In the novel, minor characters use a blend of modern medical techniques alongside traditional folk medicines and remedies to help the central character, Velma, heal after a suicide attempt. Through the struggle of Velma and the other characters surrounding her, Bambara chronicles the deep psychological toll that African-American political and community organizers can suffer, especially women. This material and subject matter was simply not being published. A brilliant and wise story!

Fast forward years later to 2018 and I sit in one of my grad school classes and on the book list is Bambara’s “The Black Woman”. All in time… all in time things will make sense and connect themselves. I am sitting in a setting where Bambara is being discussed as a scholar, black feminist and a creative. The most important thing, neither one was considered more important than the other. In my studies of Africana Womens Studies, interrupting the duality of women’s scholarship is a language encouraged for others to perceive and understand that black women scholars are shift makers and are both.

Today I honor Toni Cade Bambara on her birthday! Do yourself a favor, make sure you have these titles in your personal library:

Toni Cade Bambara, the scholar This book. Is. Absolutely. Brilliant. "The Salt Eaters" is one of those books that took me years to read.

#revolutionary #africana womens studies #black arts movement #black feminism #black feminist #black scholars #black woman #black women scholars #gender studies #literary icon #literary legends #the salt eaters #toni cade bambara #womanist #womens history month #womens studies

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lazyfartbouquet-blog · 6 years

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Read It For The Pictures 28: Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Annual 2018, by a Buttload of Creators

NK: Hello and welcome to Read it For The Pictures, the comic book Blog where we read it for the pictures! I’m Neil Kapit, and with me as always is the man voted Spiciest Shrimp on the Barbie in the Mr. Australia competition ten years running, Dave Clarke! How you doin’ Dave?

DC: Doing good cos we’ve got a special one on his week. We’re talking about special anthology issue for a long running beloved property

NK:You mean Action Comics 1000?

DC: Of course not that may actually bring in some readers. I’m talking about power rangers annual 2018

NK: This comic by Boom Studios was drawn by Artists: Marcus To, Patrick Mulholland, Dylan Burnett, Hyeonjin Kim, Simone Di Meo Writers: Kyle Higgins, Caleb Goellner, Anthony Burch, Adam Cesare, Becka Barnes, and Alwyn Dale. Though I haven’t been reading the new Power Rangers comics, I dunno, there’s a lot to compete with in Action Comics 1000. I mean, we learn the origin of the car on the cover of Action Comics 1 back in 1938. THE CAR!

DC: Sadly this book doesn’t have anything quite so needlessly banal, though it is chock full of confusing continuity.

NK: I thought that was the sole providence of Marvel and DC. Explain.

DC: The reason I thought to pick this is I picked up the 2017 annual on a sale a few weeks ago. It was a bunch of one of stories with weird artists and was pretty great. This however seems to not only setting up an event in the main title, but also building off lore in main title and is involving characters from 5 different unrelated seasons of the show.

NK: So I only ever saw the first Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers as a kid, then matured to real adult comics like X-Force and Bloodstrike, and thus only understood who the characters were in the first chapter by Higgins and To. And for the rest, I had no idea who all these colorful yet ultimately indistinguishable characters were running around and fighting. For one solemn moment I learned what it was like to be you, listening to me.

DC: Yes folks, this is the episode I’ve been threatening to do for ages where I nerd out about Power Rangers Thank god they don’t make Metal Gear comics.

NK: I am pleased to note that even though there's six different artists here, there isn't nearly as much tonal whiplash as I'd expect. Since this is a collection of short stories that all tie together to set up the "Shattered Grid" crossover, it's important that they maintain cohesion, even across different eras and universe. Aside from inevitable questions like "who the fuck is the guy with the dog's head", I wasn't lost in terms of basic narrative flow

DC: That’s one of the stranger things about it, to my eyes at least, is how conventional each of the artists are. At least compared to this in last years annual: So how much did you get of the “plot”, such as it were.

NK: TLDR: Drakkon, the Green Ranger Tommy’s evil parallel universe counterpart, is going across different worlds stealing different artifacts of power from different sets of teenagers with attitude. And other than the Power Rangers SPD sequence, they all end with “To Be Continued In Shattered Grid”, because that totally makes me feels as though this $8.00 comic was a justified purchase,

DC: Yeah I didn’t look at the price tag before picking this one.

NK: Well I've got you paying for a lot of shittier comics over the course of this project, so this is karmic payback to me.

DC: Seeing as I’m now firmly in the having to defend this position I think the cartooning in the RPM section is pretty solid. Ninja Steel section also does some very nice environment shots.

NK: It did break the common problem with licensed comic artists doing painfully obvious photo references of the actors and actresses. Not many of these actors are big-time celebrities, notwithstanding my shrine to Johnny Yong Bosch (which is much more for his anime dubbing work), so I can see why they'd do it from scratch. Still, if I knew who any of these guys were, I guess I'd feel their personalities were captured?

DC: I guess the reason this annuals exists is that whatever interdimensional epic they have planned for the main title doesn’t give enough attention to characters outside the core cast and this is a way to do that. That being said I still think they should just do an RPM title and not tease us like this

NK: And your other pick for this week was "Hunt for Wolverine", another extra-priced special that was a prologue for a larger story and did even less to advance its own plot ( flashback to Wolverine's funeral, then fight scene over Wolverine's grave, then the X-Men finding out Wolverine's not actually dead). So...bullet dodged?

DC: What can I say, I have expensive terrible taste :P I did actually start reading the Power Rangers B-title and it’s really good, so chances are I will eventually be catching up with this story. Can’t imagine I’ll have much luck in getting you to join me.

NK: I feel like this isn’t entirely fair to the multiple artists and writers, because there wasn’t anything notably bad in this comic, each one did the impressive task of setting up their respective Rangers’ unique world, and they managed to synchronize with each other surprisingly well. Other than Marcus To (the first artist, who’s done work for the Big Two) I didn’t recognize any of the names, perhaps owing to Boom Studios having less pull to get star artists, even for small part of a book this pricey

DC: Weirdly I thought the first part was the weakest art wise, though it was the most just friends hanging out and chatting. Besides this panel.

NK: It does capture the dynamism and meticulous choreography of the low-budget Sentai footage that they imported from Japan to fill out half of the Power Rangers show.

DC: I have this theory that the Power Rangers, like the Justice League, are very hard to make look good because they’re all different bright colours. The exception being the original mmpr team because black is more flexible a colour than green.

NK: Pistols at dawn, sir. They also have white as a unifying color though.

DC: You use a tonne of neutral colours to break up the brighter primaries though.

(Art from Go Go Power Rangers #2, art by Dan Mora and Raul Angelo)

NK: OK, I've got a lot of love for Dan Mora after he worked with Grant Morrison on Klaus, so I may have to check this out

DC: Ohh.. and as great as the cover art for this annual was it features Super Samurai Red, Time Force Pink and Dino Charge Blue, who don’t appear in this issue. That’s what it needed: more teenagers with attitude.

NK: They could've brought in the 2016 movie Rangers, for the three of us that loved it.

DC: This shattered grid event isn’t over yet.

NK: Fingers crossed for autistic Billy.

DC: One final thought on this annual and Power Rangers in general: Power Rangers is everything that grant Morrison wanted the DCU to be. Constant variation on a few archetypes (see the three Batman arc, Batman inc, superman 1,000,000), always doing completely new things with the formula while also being reverent to the legacy of the franchise, never stopped being primarily for kids and completely impenetrable to newcomers. Whether you take that as a compliment to Power Rangers or an insult to Grant Morrison is up to you

NK: Also yes.

#power rangers #sentai #boom studios #graphic novels #comic books #neil kapit #dave clarke #art #illustration #how to draw

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bakechochin · 6 years

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The Book Ramblings of February

In place of book reviews, I will be writing these ‘book ramblings’. A lot of the texts I’ve been reading (or plan to read) in recent times are well-known classics, meaning I can’t really write book reviews as I’m used to. I’m reading books that either have already been read by everyone else (and so any attempt to give novel or insightful criticisms would be a tad pointless), or are so convoluted and odd that they defy being analysed as I would do a simpler text. These ramblings are pretty unorganised and hardly anything revolutionary, but I felt the need to write something review-related this year. I’ll upload a rambling compiling all my read books on a monthly basis.

Gogol - The Collected Tales (as published by Granta) It took me a while to find a Gogol collection with all the stories that I wanted; this is still not it, but it’s as close as I could get without buying the Everyman’s Library edition with the shite cover. I’d describe Gogol as a nice writer; his narration is always warm and inviting (even when adopting different voices for the frame narratives of the individual stories), his tales are often engaging, funny, and easy to follow, and there’s no shortage of amazing weirdness. The book is separated into his Ukranian tales, which remind me a lot of Russian fairy tales (and I guess by extension Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale), and his St Petersburg tales, which are more like what I’ve known Gogol to be from my readings of his work in the past. I haven’t the foggiest idea what to call his works, which is just as well since critics can’t figure this shit out either; it’s like magical realism but with subdued magic and a loose grasp on realism, where weird and unrecognisable events happen in a weird but recognisable world. I love both of these varieties of stories for different reasons, but I reckon I prefer the St Petersburg stories; fairy tales can get a wee bit repetitive (especially if you read them one after the other), but the St Petersburg stories are just inherently interesting, if only because of how bloody difficult they are to describe. Gogol manages to create some bloody great characters, distinctive and memorable, out of just a few sentences of description, and yet his descriptions are worded so nicely as to find the good in everyone and never outwardly antagonise any position in society (with the noteworthy exceptions of dissolute drunkards and the devil - Gogol really hates those guys). This does mean, however, that the really minor characters get a maximum of one sentence dedicated to establishment, and when there’s a shit load of minor characters being introduced as soon as they appear, it can be a tad confusing and not a little frustrating when it comes to trying to figure out if I’ve missed something. Also, not to seem thick, but I found remembering all of the million Russian names, and being able to match everyone to their names, a bit of a challenge (especially since, in some stories, the spelling of said names changes every now and then). There are some much-appreciated fiddlings with the storytelling format in Gogol’s tales that usually make for interesting reading; some of such additions to the stories, such as the establishment of some definitive narrators to form a frame narrative to the tale in question, or how unreliable narrators mess with the reality of the story, work quite well, but there are some that are a tad frustrating by how unnecessary they seem. For example, 'The Terrible Vengeance' does not reveal the framing explanation for the story’s events until right at the end, making everything prior to the explanation confusing and subsequently tedious, and 'Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt' is deliberately written to not have an actual ending - I get enough of incomplete stories from writers who unintentionally don’t finish their works, without Gogol pulling a deliberate fast one on me because he cannot be fucked to resolve one of his stories. I will, however, admit to being a tad hypocritical in this complaint; consider for a second ‘The Nose’, how it is deliberately written to be obscure or to have no clear explanation for the story’s bizarre events, cuts away from every encounter without revealing why anything happened as it did, is questioned even by the author, and yet is probably my favourite Gogol story (to some extent because of this stupid structure). The titles of the story’s bely how interesting they actually are; in the St Petersburg stories, the titles are short and succinct and can convey mystery through ambiguity in just a few words, but the titles for the Ukrainian tales were often needlessly verbose and consequently established the stories as perhaps being a tad boring (kind of like the titles of the short stories in Lem’s anthology Mortal Engines).

Voltaire - Candide This is some quality satire right here. This is a ridiculously fast-paced rollercoaster of a novel, a wild world-spanning picaresque narrative of stupid proportions. Harking back to Oliver Twist, another novel that uses satire to examine the world, I wrote that I found its highlighting of social issues to leave a sour taste in my mouth, as I didn’t believe the reasons for foregrounding these issues to be noble; society doesn’t dramatically change its flaws just because some dickhead wrote about them, and so I reckon that writing with the intentions of ‘improving the world’ is folly and what’s more total bollocks. However, this book is not trying to change anything. It is a big fuck-off harangue in novella form, less concerned with changing anything as it is with taking the piss. It expertly highlights exactly how the optimistic philosophies spouted by its idealistic cast are total bullshit, by writing this whole book to completely and utterly fuck these characters up. Reading these characters stumble from one horrendous catastrophe to the next is bloody hilarious; you’re prompted to keep on reading just to see what shit these lads would end up in next, and how their circumstances could possibly get any worse. Obviously a book that emphasises the very worst acts and disasters that the world has to offer might come across as a bit sad and fucked up, but this book avoids such labels by a) making the pace so fucking fast that you don’t have any time to have a contemplative pause about the atrocities being written about before you move on to the NEXT horror, and b) our protagonist Candide is so unwaveringly happy and genial, emphasised excellently with the reductive language of the characters and narrator. The story is absolutely ridiculous, spanning half the bloody world and satirising every city Voltaire could get away with writing about (although I will say I wasn’t a fan of how England was not a major part of Candide’s adventure), and yet characters still fortuitously stumble across one another (usually in significantly shittier circumstances than when we last saw them). If I was feeling cynical I would say that the constant returns of characters previously thought to be lost was due to the fact that there really aren’t many memorable characters in this story, and so Voltaire needs to get the most out of the few interesting characters that he has; of course all of the characters are funny because of their status as reductive character archetypes (and because of their laughably hyperbolic downfalls), but aside from Pangloss and Martin there aren’t many characters in this story who will stick in your memory. However, I am well disposed to this convoluted and stupid story, not only because such serendipity is justified within the framework of the picaresque narrative, but because the circumstances behind characters’ impromptu returns to the text are often fucking hilarious (especially Pangloss). The story is just the right length; it’s fast pace ensures that it gets more than enough out of its ninety-something pages, and if it was any longer than it would probably outstay its welcome and lose some of its novelty trying to come up with new problems for its protagonists to be fucked over by. I’ll freely admit to knowing absolutely fuck all about the setting that this book takes place in, but for the most part, thinking about that was hardly forefront in my mind as I was reading; the setting changes so rapidly that you hardly have a chance to focus on any one setting, and since the story is entirely defined by a long stream of grim and miserable events, it’s hardly as though you need to know all the relevant historical context to understand what’s going on. This does, however, make the constant namedropping of place names and historical details seem a tad incongruous with the breakneck pace, as I’ve got to keep flicking to the annotations at the back to understand them. (Yes, I really ought not to bother, as not knowing all this shit isn’t essential to understanding what is going on, but I still feel like I’m missing something in my reading if I’m not understanding everything). I feel that the story takes quite a long time to get to the moral; as much as I love the great amount of shit that is dealt to the characters, the book really keeps dealing out the shit right to the very end, to the point where when the ending moral does finally come along, it seems very much out of the blue and wasn’t really given enough build-up.

Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita This is among the more interesting texts that I have had to analyse, due in part to the fact that the narrative is split into two storylines, one of which is incredibly compelling and fun to read and the other is really rather dull and boring (especially by comparison). I suppose it’s lucky that the Pontius Pilate storyline (i.e the really boring one) is overshadowed by this book’s vast quantity of good shit. I’ve been trying to take a more professional look at the books that I ramble on - these are classics, after all - but I must admit that I struggle to think about this book in a professional way, because it’s very reminiscent of the usual low-brow fantasy nonsense that I pass the time with. Anything ‘proper' I can think of to talk about this book pales in comparison to the nonsense and hilarity of its content. Supposedly it is a satire, and I’ve held the view that all messages in satire are painfully obvious once you know that the text in question is meant to be satirical, but I struggled finding the message of this book. The gist of the book is that the Devil comes to Moscow to bring havoc and disarray to society, but the trouble with this is that I’m no expert on how the seemingly very complex and convoluted Russian society is supposed to run, and so any disarray catalysed by the Devil and his entourage is somewhat lost on me when I could have just as well attributed it to the overall madness and chaos of this sensationalised depiction of normal Russian society. Even before the Devil comes along, there are aspects of society that are told by the narrator as though they are attributable to otherworldly or otherwise fantastical sources, but because I often wasn’t fully sure as to what such fantastical stuff was actually satirising, I didn’t really get the full impact. Some elements of the satire are basic comments on universal human nature, with the Devil making fools of people who are vain or gluttonous or whatever, but oftentimes the satire is indeed dependent on knowing the ins and outs of 1930s Moscow; some of it I could surmise, some of it I couldn’t. The story follows a series of different characters whose lives are negatively altered by the influence of the Devil’s entourage, with things going wrong in any number of ways, and it is amazing fun to read; it’s very disorderly, but that’s the whole point. What did pose a challenge to me is how, with all these characters popping in and out of the story, with minimal descriptions and often not as much characterisation as I would have liked, I often got confused between them all - because, of course, we’ve got an abundance of three-part Russian names with ten bloody syllables in them (honestly whoever thought up the idea of patronymic surnames can bugger off). Obviously this isn’t a deal breaker, and anyone who reads this book will get the hang of it, but this book’s abundance of minor characters posed a bigger challenge than usual. (Oh and also the character names differ in different translations of the text, which is ever so fun to have to figure out). The characters are all alright, especially the Devil and his retinue, who are an absolutely delight (though they are admittedly best when they don’t have to carry stories on their own). I did however feel that the eponymous Master and Margarita didn’t really seem like main characters; the Master isn’t introduced until a good ways into the book and even then could easily be mistaken for another of the minor characters who appear and disappear in that part of the book, and though Margarita has a good few chapters to herself that really establishes her as quite a good character, by the end of the book she is subsumed pretty much entirely by her relationship with the Master. Also their connection to the ever-so-boring Pontius Pilate storyline can get a tad vexing, having to keep on returning to read about Pilate for a bit before the actual storyline can continue. I was wondering how a book with such a basic premise as this would have ended, since I didn’t really think this book could have ended in a way more interesting than ‘the Devil went home again and things returned roughly to normal’, but this book cleverly subverted my expectations by making the ending more Pontius Pilate bollocks.

Burgess - A Clockwork Orange I get the feeling that a lot of modern classics that are heralded as ‘the book that will change your life’ are going to be like this one, in that the actual story will by far and away be the most forgettable aspect of the book. Most of the things I love about this book are attributable to the narration. As someone who loves colloquialisms, Nadsat is an absolutely incredible language and it colours the book so brilliantly. Not only does it make the book incredibly fun to read, but it’s incredibly versatile, being able to diminish the horror and repulsion of the book’s acts with its alien descriptions and subsequently reflects Alex’s desensitisation to such matters. Alex is an incredibly interesting and compelling character, to the extent that I can forgive the book for not really having any other memorable characters. The book is really rather disturbing at points (to the extent that I don’t reckon I’ll ever be able to watch the film), but the aforementioned beautiful writing style/language and overall black comedy tone of the book carries it well. You don’t get a detailed look at the dystopian setting that the story takes place in, but what you can glean from Alex’s perspective is bloody amazing. However, the story is exactly what I expected it to be; heavy-handed satire with a few cool bits interspersed throughout, but overall the least interesting part of the book simply because it only serves to highlight the issues that it is satirising. The premise for this book is really cool, but in practice the story cannot do much other than display Alex being a bad person, or describing how his sadistic tendencies are remedied, over and over again. And in the end it hardly really mattered, because he goes back to the way he was at the beginning of the novel, and the one permanent change of his character occurs right at the end of the book in a rather anticlimactic manner. But of course you can’t feel too irritated by it, because the story, seemingly uneventful and circuitous as it is, is written so eloquently and fantastically that it is still a joy to read, and you’re willing to forgive its possible flaws.

Himes - The Heat’s On I haven’t read many books in the hardboiled genre, mainly because I felt that I didn’t need to read a lot of them to get a feel of what they are all like. This book features most everything I would expect from the genre, but perhaps a tad more sensationalised, which I like a lot. There’s a big horrible crime-ridden city, and there’s not one but TWO hard-as-nails policemen who have got to swear a lot and pistol-whip some motherfuckers for the good of society. Reading the blurb of this made me think of Sin City; the setup is generic but the characters and events within the story are absolutely ridiculous and very memorable. Characterisation is kept minimal because this is hardly the most profound of books, but none of the characters are one-dimensional. The writing is of course bloody great; it’s tight and clear, employs some excellent turns of phrase that make for surprisingly rich analysis despite how simple it is when taken at face value, and facilitates the story’s fast pace. Oh and of course, an important trope of hardboiled literature, this book included, is that the ending simply must be an anticlimactic frantic tying together of all loose ends. Since this book is essentially what I’d expected from a hardboiled text, I don’t have anything to say about it as an overall piece that couldn’t have already been surmised from me saying ‘it is a hardboiled text’; therefore, any comments that I have on this book aren’t really especially academic, but are more of just little subjective nitpicks. I do think that this book does venture at points into being a bit too silly; obviously I’m not expecting, or even hoping, for sophisticated literature here, but there needs to be consistency in its established stupidity. There’s a fine line this book walks between Machete’s level of dumbness and Machete Kills’ level of dumbness, and it often threatens to audaciously cross that line. Though I do appreciate the fast pace, because you need a fast pace in a book like this, there are times where character development occurs too quickly to be logical, and said development is often made when the plot itself has somewhat slowed down, which makes the irrational changes within people all the more noticeable. I base what I know about the hardboiled genre off of Hammett’s Red Harvest, and I reckon that although Himes is better than Hammett, Hammett did a few things better. Red Harvest took place in a fictitious city, and whilst Himes’ representation of Harlem is very sensationalised and fun, his constant name dropping of real place names can be a bit alienating when I know fuck all about anything American. Also this book isn’t really as centred on Harlem itself as I would have liked, instead continuously reaching out to other places in the world for its characters and plot progression. The lack of any molls or femme fatales was a bit saddening in some regards because that is a trope that I enjoy, but honestly the pursuit of love isn’t really forefront in the protagonists’ minds, and I’m content to substitute some romance subplot with more stupid action sequences.

Stuff I read this month that I couldn’t be arsed to ramble about: Maud: A Melodrama by Tennyson and a few miscellaneous poems from Christina Rossetti.

#book reviews #book ramblings #gogol #candide #voltaire #the master and margarita #bulgakov #a clockwork orange #burgess #the heat's on #himes

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hub-pub-bub · 6 years

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Not sure where to send those great short stories you’ve written?

As with writing contests and fellowships, sometimes it can be hard to know where to begin. To help you figure out where to submit short stories, we’ve put together this guide to 23 publications that publish short fiction. The list includes a mix of publications across various genres and styles, ranging from prestigious, highly competitive options to those specifically seeking new and emerging voices.

While we’ll give you a brief idea of the flavor of each magazine and site, you’ll definitely want to spend some time reading your target publications before submitting to become familiar with the sort of pieces they prefer. And before hitting “send,” make sure you’re not making any of these submission mistakes!

Ready to get started? Here are 23 outlets that publish short stories.

1. The New Yorker

Might as well start with a bang, right? Adding publication in The New Yorker to your portfolio puts you in a whole new league, though it won’t be easy. Author David. B. Comfort calculated the odds of an acceptance at 0.0000416 percent!

It accepts both standard short fiction as well as humorous short fiction for the “Shouts & Murmurs” section. No word counts are mentioned, though a quick scan of the column shows most pieces are 600 to 1,000 words.

Submission Guidelines: http://www.newyorker.com/about/contact

Deadline: Open

Payment: Huge bragging rights; pay for unsolicited submissions isn’t specified. Who Pays Writerslists several paid pieces, though as of this post’s publication, no rates specifically for short stories.

2. The Atlantic

Another highly respected magazine, The Atlantic publishes both big names and emerging writers in fiction and nonfiction. Submission guidelines advise, “A general familiarity with what we have published in the past is the best guide to what we’re looking for.”

Submission Guidelines: http://www.theatlantic.com/faq/#Submissions

Deadline: Open

Payment: Unsolicited submissions are generally unpaid, although if the editors choose your piece for online content, you may receive $100-$200 depending on genre and length.

3. The Threepenny Review

This quarterly arts magazine focuses on literature, arts and society, memoir and essay. Short stories should be no more than 4,000 words, while submissions to the “Table Talk” section (pithy, irreverent and humorous musings on culture, art, politics and life) should be 1,000 words or less.

Submission Guidelines: http://www.threepennyreview.com/submissions.html

Deadline: January to June

Payment: $400 for short stories; $200 for Table Talk pieces

4. Zoetrope: All-Story

Founded by Francis Ford Coppola and Adrienne Brodeur in 1997, Zoetrope: All-Story’s mission is “to explore the intersection of story and art, fiction and film” and “form a bridge to storytellers at large, encouraging them to work in the natural format of a short story.” Submissions should be no more than 7,000 words.

Submission Guidelines: http://www.all-story.com/submissions.cgi

Deadline: Open

Payment: None, but this magazine has discovered many emerging writers and published big names like Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez, so publication here could win you some serious prestige points.

5. One Story

One Story is just what the name says: a literary magazine that publishes one great short story every three to four weeks, and nothing more.

Its main criteria for a great short story? One “that leaves readers feeling satisfied and [is] strong enough to stand alone.” Stories can be any style or subject but should be between 3,000 and 8,000 words.

Submission Guidelines: http://www.one-story.com/index.php?page=submit

Deadline: September 1 to May 31

Payment: $500 plus 25 contributor copies

6. The Antioch Review

The Antioch Review rarely publishes more than three short stories per issue, but its editors are open to new as well as established writers. Authors published here often wind up in Best Americananthologies and as the recipients of Pushcart prizes.

To make the cut, editors say, “It is the story that counts, a story worthy of the serious attention of the intelligent reader, a story that is compelling, written with distinction.” Word count is flexible, but pieces tend to be under 5,000.

Submission Guidelines: http://review.antiochcollege.org/guidelines

Deadline: Open except for the period of June 1 to September 1

Payment: $20 per printed page plus two contributor copies

7. AGNI

Thought-provoking is the name of the game if you want to get published in AGNI. Its editors look for pieces that hold a mirror up to the world around us and engage in a larger, ongoing cultural conversation about nature, mankind, the society we live in and more.

There are no word limits, but shorter is generally better; “The longer a piece is, the better it needs to be to justify taking up so much space in the magazine,” note the submission guidelines.

Submission Guidelines: http://www.bu.edu/agni/submit.html

Deadline: Open September 1 to May 31

Payment: $10 per printed page (up to a max of $150) plus a year’s subscription, two contributor’s copies and four gift copies

8. Barrelhouse

Published by an independent nonprofit literary organization, Barrelhouse’s biannual print journal and online issue seek to “bridge the gap between serious art and pop culture.” Its editors look for quality writing that’s also edgy and funny — as they say, they “want to be your weird Internet friend.”

There’s no hard word count, but try to keep your submission under 8,000 words.

Submission Guidelines: http://www.barrelhousemag.com/submissions

Deadline: Currently open for books, comics, and a few other categories. Check the webpage to see all open categories and sign up for the newsletter to learn as soon as new open categories are announced.

Payment: $50 plus two contributor copies (print journal); unpaid (online issue)

9. Cincinnati Review

The Cincinnati Review publishes work by writers of all genres and at all points of their careers. Its editors want “work that has energy,” that is “rich in language and plot structure” and “that’s not just ecstatic, but that makes is reader feel ecstatic, too.”

Fiction and nonfiction submissions should be no more than 40 double-spaced pages.

Submission Guidelines: http://www.cincinnatireview.com/#/submissions/guidelines

Deadline: August 15 to March 15

Payment: $25 per double-spaced page

10. The First Line

This cool quarterly is all about jumpstarting that pesky writer’s block. Each issue contains short fiction stories (300-5,000 words) that each begin with the same pre-assigned first line. You can also write a nonfiction critical essay (500-800 words) about your favorite first line from a piece of literary work.

If you really want to get ambitious, you can also write a four-part story that uses each of that year’s first lines (which is due by the next year’s spring issue deadline). To find each issue’s assigned first line, check out the submission guidelines below.

Submission Guidelines: http://www.thefirstline.com/submission.htm

Deadline: February 1 (spring); May 1 (summer); August 1 (fall); November 1 (winter)

Payment: $25 to $50 (fiction); $25 (nonfiction) plus a contributor’s copy

11. The Georgia Review

Another one high on the prestige list, The Georgia Review features a wide variety of essays, fiction, book reviews and more across a wide range of topics. You can read specific requirements for each in the submission guidelines below, but the common theme among them all is quality, quality, quality.

Bear in mind submitting requires a $3 processing fee if you’re not a subscriber.

Submission Guidelines: http://garev.uga.edu/submissions.html

Deadline: Open except for the period of May 15 to August 15

Payment: $50 per printed page

12. Boulevard Magazine

Boulevard Magazine is always on the lookout for “less experienced or unpublished writers with exceptional promise.” It accepts prose pieces (fiction and nonfiction) up to 8,000 words (note: no science fiction, erotica, westerns, horror, romance or children’s stories).

There is a submission fee of $3.

Submission Guidelines: http://www.boulevardmagazine.org/guidelines/

Deadline: Open October 1 to May 1

Payment: $100 to $300

13. Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura is a biannual independent literary journal that publishes contemporary literary fiction and photography. Fiction should be between 250 and 8,000 words, although its editors have made exceptions for the occasional “exceptional novella” between 12,000 and 30,000 words.

You can also try your hand at a “Bridge the Gap” piece, where you review the current photo gallery and construct a story that “Takes the reader on an unexpected journey from the first image to the next.”

Submission Guidelines: http://www.obscurajournal.com/guidelines.php

Deadline: Stay tuned to the guidelines page to find out when the next deadline is announced.

Payment: $1,000 to one featured writer published in each issue, as determined by the editors; all other contributors receive two copies of the issue in which they are published. The best Bridge the Gap piece receives $50.

14. Crazyhorse

Open to a wide variety of fiction from mainstream to avant-garde, Crazyhorse puts no limitations on style or form. If you’ve got something people haven’t seen before and won’t be able to forget, its editors are looking for it.

Crazyhorse also accepts nonfiction of any sort, including memoirs, journal entries, obituaries, etc. — we told you it’s open to anything! Keep your word count between 2,500 and 8,500 words.

Submission Guidelines: http://crazyhorse.cofc.edu/submit/

Deadline: Open for submissions from September 1 to May 31, except for the month of January (when it only accepts entries for the Crazyhorse Prizes)

Payment: $20 per printed page (up to a max of $200)

15. Story

Story Magazine is, you guessed it, all about the story, whatever shape it takes. Each issue is based around a theme, but its editors encourage writers to think outside the box when it comes to how to address that theme — fiction, nonfiction, hybrid forms, “hermit-crab essays” and more are all up for consideration.

Submission Guidelines: http://www.storymagazine.org/submit/

Deadline: Open January 1 to May 1 (print magazine); open February, April, June, August, and October (online)

Payment: Not specified

16. Vestal Review

Prefer to keep your short stories extremely short? Vestal Review publishes flash fiction of no more than 500 words. Its editors are open to all genres except for syrupy romance, hard science fiction and children’s stories, and they have a special fondness for humor. R-rated content is OK, but stay away from anything too racy, gory or obscene.

Submission Guidelines: http://www.vestalreview.org/guidelines/

Deadline: Submission periods are February to May and August to November

Payment: Ten cents per word (for stories up to 100 words); five cents per word (101-200 words); three cents per word (201-500 words). “Stories of great merit” in their estimation can receive up to a $25 flat fee.

17. Flash Fiction Online

Flash Fiction Online allows for slightly longer flash stories — between 500 and 1,000 words. Its editors like sci-fi and fantasy but are open to all genres. As with Vestal, stay away from the heavier stuff like erotica and violence. As of March 1, 2015, FFO accepts previously published works.

Submission Guidelines: http://flashfictiononline.com/main/submission-guidelines/

Deadline: Open

Payment: $60 per story, two cents per word for reprints

18. Black Warrior Review

Black Warrior Review publishes a mix of work by up-and-coming writers and nationally known names. Fiction pieces of up to 7,000 words should be innovative, challenging and unique; its editors value “absurdity, hybridity, the magical [and] the stark.”

BWR also accepts flash fiction under 1,000 words and nonfiction pieces (up to 7,000 words) that examine and challenge beliefs and boundaries. There is a $3 submission fee.

Submission Guidelines: http://bwr.ua.edu/submit/guidelines/

Deadline: Submission periods are December 1 to March 1 and June 1 to September 1

Payment: A one-year subscription to BWR and a nominal lump-sum fee (amount not disclosed in its guidelines)

19. The Sun Magazine

The Sun Magazine offers some of the biggest payments we’ve seen, and while its guidelines specifically mention personal writing and provocative political/cultural pieces, they also say editors are “open to just about anything.”

Works should run no more than 7,000 words. Submit something the editors love, and you could get a nice payday.

Submission Guidelines: http://thesunmagazine.org/about/submission_guidelines/writing

Deadline: Open

Payment: A one-year subscription plus $300 to $2,000 (nonfiction) or $300 to $1,500 (fiction)

20. Virginia Quarterly (VQR)

A diverse publication that features both award-winning and emerging writers, VQR accepts short fiction (2,000 to 8,000 words) but is not a fan of genre work like romance, sci-fi, etc. It also takes nonfiction (3,500 to 9,000 words) like travel essays that examine the world around us.

Submission Guidelines: http://www.vqronline.org/about-vqr/submissions

Deadline: Submission periods are June 15 to July 31 and October 1 to November 15. VQR also accepts nonfiction pitches from June 15 to December 1.

Payment: Generally $1,000 and above for short fiction and prose (approximately 25 cents per word) with higher rates for investigative reporting; $100 to $200 for content published online.

21. Ploughshares

Ploughshares’ award-winning literary journal is published by Boston’s Emerson College. They accept fiction and nonfiction under 6,000 words and require a $3 service fee if you submit online (it’s free to submit by mail, though they prefer digital submissions).

Submission Guidelines: https://www.pshares.org/submit/journal/guidelines

Deadline: June 1 at noon EST through January 15 at noon EST

Payment: $25 per printed page (for a minimum of $50 per title and a maximum of $250 per author).

22. Shimmer

Shimmer “encourages authors of all backgrounds to write stories that include characters and settings as diverse and wondrous as the people and places of the world we live in.”

Traditional sci-fi and fantasy need not apply; Shimmer’s editors are after contemporary fantasy and “speculative fiction” with strong plots, characters and emotional core — the more unique the better. Keep your stories under 7,500 words (4,000 words is around the sweet spot).

Submission Guidelines: http://www.shimmerzine.com/guidelines/fiction-guidelines/

Deadline: Opens for submissions on September 4

Payment: Five cents per word (for a minimum of $50)

23. Daily Science Fiction

Sci-fi and fantasy writers, this one’s for you. Daily Science Fiction is looking for character-driven fiction, and the shorter, the better. While their word count range is 100 to 1,500 words, they’re especially eager to get flash fiction series (several flash stories based around a central theme), science fiction, fantasy, and slipstream.

Submission Guidelines: http://dailysciencefiction.com/submit

Deadline: Open except for the period between December 24 to January 2

Payment: Eight cents per word, with the possibility of additional pay for reprints in themed Daily Science Fiction anthologies

Where to find more places to submit your short stories

These 23 magazines and online publications are just a small subset of what’s out there. For more potential places to share your short fiction, check out the following resources, several of which helped us compile this list:

The Review Review’s Magazine Search

Every Writer’s Resource’s Top 50 Literary Magazines

Let’s Write a Short Story’s 46 Literary Magazines To Submit To

Do you write short stories? Where have you submitted them?

This post was originally published in May 2015. We’ve updated it to reflect the most accurate information available.

About the Author: Kelly Gurnett

Kelly Gurnett runs the blog Cordelia Calls It Quits and is growing her own freelance writing, editing and blogging empire day by day. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook and hire her services here.

Cordelia Calls It Quits | @CordeliaCallsIt

#short stories #call for submissions #online publication #resources #writers #writing

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vegalocity · 7 years

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Scapegoat

This was my contribution to the Superhusbands Aluminum Annniversary anthology! I wrote an EMH fic which I’m so excited for you guys to see! (And yes, I have not given up on this ship, I love this ship)

Thank you so much @stevetonystudios! You guys are awesome!

Go check out the Anthology here! (Click!)

But here’s my contribution under the cut!

Tony was used to taking the blame for things that weren't necessarily his fault. It was something that came along with being the CEO of a technology company; Every so often, something will go wrong, somewhere down the line, someone will overlook a variable, or round a decimal they shouldn't have. In the end it was just inescapable and when they were dealing with innovation and technology, that meant when things went wrong, someone might end up hurt or killed.

And when that happened he would call a press conference, and humbly take the blame for what happened―because in the end any oversight down the line would be his own, granted he personally hired most, if not all, of his staff.

And so when the Avengers came into his life he had no problem with doing the same. Sure, there were times when reporters would pointedly go after certain avengers they thought would be interesting to toy with, but for the most part, Iron Man was the Avengers' leader, PR department, and scapegoat.

He was fine with that. It was his life before the Avengers, so why wouldn't he be fine with it?

In a way he actually relied on it, if the reporters were swarming him with questions about why the Avengers did or didn't do something, that meant they weren't crowding the others. Also―and he was objective enough to admit this―with T'challa, Hank, and now Vision on the crew, there wasn't too much he could contribute to the team that someone else couldn't take over if pressed.

So he used his training as a businessman to his advantage. T'challa had to remain away from the press―being the king of a foreign country, if he even tried to justify the actions of the Avengers, his words would be skewed into a political format. And Jan, while gifted in PR, would wilt completely under the almost nonstop attention and release of statements.

If he handled the press, then nobody else had to.

Clint wouldn't have to nearly punch a reporter in the face, Steve wouldn't look one cue away from defaulting to his original public speaking lessons and start selling war bonds, Carol wouldn't have to worry about seeming to choose the Avengers over SWORD―all in all everyone was better off.

What made him most infuriated at the end of the Skrull fiasco―after The battle had been won, after the paranoia had passed and he'd had run routine scans through the mansion to alert him should any Skrull DNA be present at any time―was when the public decided not to listen to the explanation that had been told to them honestly. Steve was wrongfully scapegoated for an oversight on the Avengers' behalf. An oversight on his behalf.

He talked to everyone he possibly could to clear Steve's name. As many government officials as would listen to him, did every exclusive he could possibly fit into his schedule, stressed that Steve was blameless and the issue was an oversight from the Avengers in general, specifically his oversight. Allowing his feelings of betrayal and paranoia to cloud his judgment and running off to Malibu when his team had needed him most.

And he'd been convincing. People were used to Tony Stark being the fall-guy for Stark Industries, making him the fall-guy for the Avengers was the easiest thing to do considering the circumstances. He'd gotten every paper to stop circulation of 'Captain America, traitor to the planet' articles, and instead circulate recycled exposés questioning Tony's reliability as leader of the Avengers.

Every paper, of course, except for the Daily Bugle. But no matter how much hell he personally threw in that building, J. Jonah Jameson was the most stubborn man he'd ever met, and that included a startling amount of the supervillains they'd faced.

But nevertheless, eventually even Jameson stepped off of Steve and went back to his smear campaign against Spider-Man. And Tony was―relatively―happy.

By now most of the team had figured out that this was just how Tony handled the PR for the Avengers, and finally―finally―the concerned glances at him over the newspaper were changed with exasperated annoyance.

Jan would pat his shoulder and insist he model her newest design to try and get both of their minds off of the whole thing. Thor would insist that what he was doing to keep the people's trust was as honorable as any fight, usually before challenging him to a training session. Clint would often read the headline aloud and crumple the paper up in over exaggerated irritation to try and make him laugh, most of the time it worked. But no matter who it was overlooking an article featuring Tony taking the fall for something that was only his fault because he was the leader, he appreciated the care. Even if he himself didn't care much about it anymore.

But Steve... oh boy. While everyone else had come to the conclusion that they couldn't stop this, that this was simply what Tony did as their impromptu PR department. Steve didn't. He read the paper every morning. He read whichever paper was at their door that hadn't been snatched up by someone else, and whenever there was an article about the Avengers in any negative connotation―whenever Tony had done a press release about Avengers issues, doing his usual song and dance―he'd look up from the top of the Paper and give Tony a pensive, worried, look.

But after he'd been used by the Purple Man―after his brain had been poked and prodded and manipulated by Killgrave, After he'd taken over the entire planet and had his stray ideas brought to life and used against his friends―He needed a moment before he went to the press and did what he always did.

He watched construction workers take down one of the billboards he'd been manipulated into putting up, the mauve irises of his Billboard image offset by the phrase 'A better world' practically bored into him. Pierced right though the Arc reactor and into his stubbornly pounding heart.

“Don't pretend like this wasn't your idea in the first place. Everything I've made you do in the last few weeks? It all came from you. ”

At least this time he wasn't just guilty because he was the Avengers' figurehead. This time it really was his fault. He might not have been the one to make the decisions, but if he hadn't considered such... terrible things... had never considered the Sentries, never wondered in a bored stupor how complicated bureaucracy would be if some supervillan actually did take over the world, Purple Man would have had nothing to work with.

First thing tomorrow, he would be getting to making sure his lack of proper willpower over the past few weeks didn't reflect poorly on the Avengers as a whole. Pepper had already texted him about how a couple of communities were already making effigies of him to burn, so it would have to be first thing in the morning.

A news release over breakfast.

Rhodey called him about an hour ago―part of his 'taking over the world' debacle had involved putting Rhodey on paid leave so he could spend some time with his friend (Purple Man really had thought of everything to make him as emotionally complacent as possible) and had told him his higher ups had immediately ordered for his re-deployment.

“None of this is your fault, Tones. Some people might not believe it―hell, you might not believe it―but this clusterfuck? Not. Your. Fault.”

And honestly? Some part of him wished he could believe his best friend. Rhodey knew him better than anyone. He should know that while Tony's intrusive thoughts had a tendency to be a touch on the megalomaniacal side, he would never dream of acting on them.

Still...

”Stark, I just gave you the push you needed!”

It wasn't fun to have a literal supervillan point out everything he ever worried about himself.

“Iron Man?”

Tony jolted in place, spinning on his heel to see Steve. His cowl was still up―he was still, to some degree, in Captain America mode.

For a moment Tony wondered if the others had had some sort of meeting and decided he had to leave the team; maybe Cap drew the short straw and had to be the one to tell him.

But the furrow in his brow wasn't that of someone preparing themselves for a 'you're fired' speech―a speech he was well acquainted with, so he did know the signs―nor was his stance anything but the firm parade rest of the paragon of American virtue he was well acquainted with.

“Hey, Cap.”

He didn't bother trying to plaster a fake smile on, he knew Steve would see right through it in a heartbeat if he tried―so after the greeting he simply turned his gaze back to the construction workers, trying to remove the stain he'd put on the world, billboard by billboard.

Steve came a little closer and for a moment Tony almost feared his approach. He might still be dangerous, some sort of grip of another being might still be messing around in his brain and he might not even know it.

“Are you alr-”

“It'll take some time” He cut Steve off. He couldn't handle a loaded question right now, he wasn't prepared. Couldn't he just drown himself in guilt? Just this once? “But I'll put it right. Everything I did, I'll fix.”

Steve stepped forward, meeting him at the edge of the rooftop and stepping half on top of the ledge. Steve turned to look at him―his oh-so-serious expression had that same sort of determined glint in it that Tony could remember through a purple haze.

An expression that said he believed in him, even if it was with his dying breaths.

He didn't want to make anyone have to feel bad for him―his whole mess was caused by the twisted things he made up in his head, brought to fruition by a third party.

“You know, ever since I became Iron Man, I've been working to keep weapons out of the wrong hands.” He actually found it in himself to grin then, wry yet humorless, like he were about to burst into laughter and tears at the same time. “And then I became the weapon.”

Steve's expression, Tony wasn't sure if he had the word to describe what he saw flicker across his generally stony look. He'd seen something similar before, when Rhodey used to catch him in his depressive spirals back at MIT, when Pepper would catch him tapping mindlessly at the Arc Reactor after a particularly harrowing business meeting.

A look similar to worry but going past the patented question of if he was alright. As though he already knew the answer was no, but was unsure of what he could actually say to try and help.

“Nobody blames you Tony.”

Tony almost wanted to laugh at that. It was an attempt at reassurance sure, and it was coming from Steve, so it was sure to be as heartfelt as they come. But that didn't make it right.

“Everyone knows it was the Purple Man. We were all in the same boat as you.” And wouldn't that have been just the ideal.

Maybe that would have worked if Vision had been the only one up and about, fighting them, and freeing him.

“No.” He turned away just barely catching Steve's expression shift again from the corner of his eye. Something timelessly sad flickered across his face when he denied the opportunity to shrug off the blame. “You shook his control. So did the others. The ideas came from my brain. And I'm taking the fall for it.”

“Just as you take the fall for the Hulk getting a little too overzealous in smashing? Or Ultron going haywire to keep Hank from putting too much guilt onto himself?” His voice was tight, like he'd been wanting to talk to Tony about this for awhile, and had finally found an opening.

“Really? Right now?” he responded, annoyance pricking in the back of his throat. Honestly, he dealt with this fight more times than he could count from Rhodey, Jan, and Pepper, he honestly wasn't sure if he could handle it from Steve too.

“Tony.”

Did he ever mention how aggravating the Disappointed Cap Voice could be whilst he was trying to make a point?

“Steve,” he replied, trying his hardest to copy the inflection.

When he turned back to Steve he saw the minor tic in his jaw that proved that he actually pulled it off rather well.

“You know, one of these days you're going to be completely right on an issue, but because everyone is used to you taking the fall for the team as though they were your own mistakes, nobody's going to believe you.”

What was his point in all of this?

“Look, I've had this argument a million times, Cap; I really don't need the millionth and one for the inarguable time that something is my fault.”

He heard more than felt Steve's hand rest onto his shoulder then. Steve looked him directly in the eye, practically daring him to interrupt him.

“You were fighting too. It was practically impossible for how much time Purple Man was near you, but you were. After how long you'd been exposed to him, almost anyone else would have given up by then, but not you.”

Steve smiled at him then and Tony tried to convince himself that the stinging sensation along the edges of his eyes was solely due to stress.

“And I don't think you forgot about Vision either. I think you sent me there because you knew he would be able to get through to me―Tony, you were fighting him the whole time.”

He wanted to say something to that, that wishful thinking could only get them so far, that Steve's theories wouldn't stop the public from wanting to string him up and send him to 42. But something kept him from doing just that. Something he couldn't name but lingered on the tip of his tongue.

Steve smiled just a touch wider at him, an emotion like warmth dancing across his face.

“You've always said you believe in the future, but I believe in people.”

Steve squeezed his shoulder plate a little harder, and Tony was unable to feel it through the armor―he really wished for a moment that he had forgone the suit this evening so he could feel it

“And I choose to believe in you, Iron Man.” His hand dropped from Tony's shoulder, but the warm look on his face didn't fade.

You know, there were downsides to being completely infatuated with Captain America, but the weird mix of relief and happiness that bubbled up in his gut wasn't in any way shape or form one of them.

“And we put it to a vote―you're taking tomorrow off. Wasp and I will cover press relations regarding the Purple Man. You deserve rest, Tony.”

And honestly, what could he say to that? Put to a vote among the other Avengers, so no matter what he'd say the rest of them would stubbornly back Steve up.

He reluctantly let Steve put his arm around his shoulders and guide him back inside.

As it turned out, everyone had decided to take a brief post-brainwashing staycation. Carol, Clint, Jan, Vision, Thor, and even Hank were all in different states of relaxation in one of the main rooms. Jan and Hank cuddling in a small nest of pillows, Clint perched on top of the couch that Carol and Thor were splayed along. Vision sat alone on the floor, legs crossed and seemingly content. The lot of them seemed to brighten up, even just a little, at seeing himself and Steve in the doorway.

They weren't complete. Not by any stretch of the imagination, T'challa was still making sure Wakanda could tick right without him, and the Hulk was still in captivity for nothing that was his fault. But as many of them that <i>could</i> be here were.

Jan's grin was practically cheshire-like as she hopped up―much to Hank's clear disgruntlement―and zipped over to the two of them.

“Tony! Steve! Change out of your uniforms ya dweebs, we're watching The Thing and then IT! I wanna see Thor shriek like that time we marathonned the Nightmare on Elm Street films!”

Thor puffed up behind Jan, affront on his features. “I was simply taken aback at the gruesome legends Midguardians celebrate so intensely.”

“Come on! Off you two go! Don't come back until you're in civvies!”

Jan began to shoo the two of them off, but before they could get down the hall proper Jan had one last quip for them.

“And if you two are too busy hitting first base somewhere else we're starting without you!” she singsonged.

For a moment he'd wanted to swat Jan upside the head. If he wasn't as good at keeping his composure as he always was, he might have died right on the spot.

But when he'd turned to Steve to lightly apologize for Jan being more Jan-ish than usual, Steve wasn't giving her the Official Disappointed Face.

The bottoms of his cheeks had turned bright red, and though he could barely see Steve's expression under his cowl, he had a feeling that the majority of his face had followed suit.

If today hadn't been such a roller coaster he would want to do something about it. Or at least find an outlet for a feeling he could actually place as hope...

But from everything that's happened today?

Steve was right. Today was a day of rest. He could 'thank' him for handling the press tomorrow.

Because nobody was taking the fall for this except for the Purple Man.

(But, honestly?) This was the only time he'd let that concept slide. Come next mission he was handling PR again.

And no amount of Cap pep talks, hands on his shoulders, or―dare he hope―hands holding his, could change that.

#sa3 #stevetonystudios #Stevetony anthology #vega writes stories too #Stony #fanfics #okay but I was so excited to do this project!#it was so much fun!#I can't belive my fic is in the same Anthology as some of the Stony Greats

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jillmckenzie1 · 6 years

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Colorado Poet Series: Interview with Elizabeth Robinson

As a part of the Local Emerging/Established Poet Interview Series, I am excited to introduce Elizabeth Robinson, a local established poet! For those of you who aren’t familiar with her name or work, here is Elizabeth Robinson’s poet biography:

“ELIZABETH ROBINSON is the author of multiple collections of poetry, including the National Poetry Series winner, Pure Descent, and the Fence Modern Poets Prize winner, Apprehend. Her poetry has appeared in such anthologies as American Hybrid, The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry, and The Best American Poetry of 2002. She works as the homeless navigator for Boulder Municipal Court and teaches at Lighthouse Writers’ Workshop.”

—Parlor Press

Rumor hosts Elizabeth’s reading and responses to an unnamed nonfiction work about an unsolved Victorian murder. The opening introduction posits the work’s jumping off point—its pressing focus, its questioning and central conflict, — “How do we create, perpetuate, absorb violence?”. And this is just a glimpse. Rumor’s unique, obscure subject matter is the egg shell from which the speaker-poet’s abstract conceptual explorations emerge.

What scared you about the first few poems you wrote which gave origin to Rumor? How long did it take for you to revisit these works and ultimately let them have their say?

When I wrote the initial poems for the book, I was going through a really difficult time, and coming out of an employment situation that was very abusive and left long-lasting damage in my life. I was thinking a lot about why people enact damage on others—where that energy and need comes from. It was at this juncture that I was traveling and I found the book I mention at the airport. It was so badly written! But it was clear that the author was writing under a sense of compulsion: she wanted to figure out who the perpetrator of the crimes was and why he committed them. Of course there is no way for her ever to prove her hypothesis, and her frustration with that was manifest in her writing. Also, she was talking about gendered violence and how victims become perpetrators, and all of this—though the book was written about Victorian England—seemed pertinent to both my personal situation and our cultural moment.

This gave me an opening to think and write about some of the ugliest impulses and feelings. It seemed easier/more doable to take on a persona and distance myself from my own situation. But I also felt that it might be instructive to try to enter into the mind of the perpetrator and (try to) inhabit it with some sympathy. This is what was initially scary to me about writing these poems. I voiced feelings that are anathema to me and seemed, in the poems, to be justifying anger, hatred, violence. It was a frightening place to linger. I probably wrote in and out of these poems for a year and then didn’t do much with the manuscript for several years. Belladonna published a small selection of the poems in a chapbook, and my friend, the poet Craig Watson, responded very affirmatively to them, so that helped me to see that they might have a life beyond my personal exploration and dilemmas. Still, it was several years before it was published as a book, and I feel that it was helpful to me to let some time pass so I could evaluate what this material is and what purpose it serves.

How would you describe the overall central exploration of Rumor? How would you describe the way the poems in Rumor fit together to form one text?

For me, all creative exploration has a relation to the spiritual—that is, it is an effort to press beyond the horizon of the known. Rumor caused me to think more deeply about the ambiguities of violence, malice, and destruction. As a woman, I’ve experienced violence, both physical and emotional. I doubt that I am unlike other women in that way: we are all in a state of constant negotiation with the forms of violence and subjection that threaten us. As a woman I’ve also been socialized to be polite and affirmative. I think the core work of Rumor is to acknowledge that ugly and beautiful things coexist, that boundaries that we prefer to think of as discrete are actually quite permeable. Is it ethical to try to inhabit the mind of a perpetrator with sympathy? I thought I might learn something if I attempted that, and part of what I learned was that I had to acknowledge my own anger and how I am implicated in unintended damage that resulted in my efforts to survive. It was disorienting to enter into such a state, and like the author of the true crime book, I entered into and left the situation that was intrinsically unresolvable.

Rumor confronts and conflates issues such as gender, power, violence, and language in order to examine and expose these concepts. How does the abstract expression of this discussion effect this ongoing dialogue?

I am fascinated by history—the stories, I guess, of how humans grapple with the contexts that constrain or enable them. Gender, power, violence—these are ongoing social energies that shape us, though I was trying to conjure an older, foreign social milieu and—in the frame of these poems—force that historical moment to gesture toward contemporary experience. In my writing, I often employ narrative, while trying to stretch narrative out of its tidy accustomed shape, to think more philosophically. It’s an effort to move back and forth between the specific/historical and the abstract in order to question assumptions and create new approaches to what we think we know.

What poets influence and/or inspire you? If you could have one of these poets read your work, who would it be, and why?

This is a hard one to respond to because there are so many poets whose work I love. I guess I tend to gravitate toward poetry that is cleanly crafted, intellectually demanding—for example poetry by Cole Swensen and Martha Ronk. But I’ve recently been very interested in Brenda Shaughnessy’s work for its passion and, recently, Kate Greenstreet’s work for its ability to drift within the uncanny. I’m reading Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s Rocket Fantastic with admiration for the ways that she can make various and ostensibly mismatched things speak coherently to each other within a poem. My field of reading is always shifting, but I’m very fortunate to have a rich community of fellow poets who are friends and, of course, the poetry world is always producing wonderful new books.

How does Rumor compare to your other works, Pure Descent, and Apprehend?

I think all of my writing is, in one way or another, concerned with the ethical and the spiritual. Pure Descent included some poems, for example, that dealt with ultimacy, including a poem about the death of a young child. How does one make meaning out of that? In Apprehend, I used fairy tale material extensively, partly because I realized that fairy tales are so often about people in precarious situations culling all their resources in order to make way in the world against all odds. Survival, it turns out, can be deeply magical. Rumor is different than the other two books in that it is more entrenched in despair. But all three books are preoccupied to a large degree with the multiple realities that exist simultaneously within human existence, whether ugly or redemptive. For me, poetry is consistently about tapping into presences that aren’t normally discernible and finding some way to manifest or witness to them.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/colorado-poet-series-interview-with-elizabeth-robinson/

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tanmath3-blog · 7 years

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For those of you that don’t know Paul Flewitt you are missing out on a great friend and an awesome writer. He has a wonderful sense of humor and is always ready to help out his fellow writer friends. He is very passionate about his writing and is always glad to spend some time with a fan talking about his books. If you are looking for a good story I highly recommend anything he writes. Please help me welcome Paul Flewitt back to Roadie Notes…….

1. It’s been awhile since we talked what new books do you have out now? Latest release?

I have nothing new in print at the moment. I’ve spent the last couple of years concentrating on shorter work for anthologies, honing my craft and really trying to tighten up on my style and structure. I’m finding my own voice and my own way of doing things now, though little has changed on the page it HAS made a difference to the process I work to. It’s different for different authors, so I’ve experimented with notes, pantsing and writing at different time of the day. Now, I think I have a routine which should mean I get far more productive. Also, having completed work on the new house it means I’m not trying to get things done amid the chaos of builders and trades-folk around the house. I said I had nothing new in print, but I DO have something that was released that I couldn’t speak much about last time we spoke. It’s quite exciting that some of my work found it’s way to TV at the beginning of the year, thanks to a TV project called Fragments of Fear. It aired and went live on YouTube, so now I can tell you more about it and actually show it to you. The Silent Invader is a 15 minute story in which I explore the dark relationships that some people have with their TV sets. I often hear that people like Marilyn Manson, Eminem and Judas Priest are blamed for events like Columbine and other tragic atrocities, because of the themes of their art. I also often see that movies and TV shows have also been blamed for inciting people to violent acts, so this is something which inspired me to write a monologue involving a television. It’s a lovely piece of darkness, with a neat little twist at the end. If you’re not faint of heart or easily offended by dark themes and descriptions of violence, then please check it out here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10xJ9z1ip8k

2. If you could pick any author alive or dead to have lunch with who would it be? Why?

It would be Clive Barker. Looking at reviews and talking to people who read my work, his name is one that often pops up. I’ve read him since my teenage years, and his stuff has always spoken my language. His method of opening doors to possibilities beyond human knowledge has enthralled and enraptured me and I can truly get lost in his art; whether that be his books, artwork or films. In interviews, he never fails to engage with his audiences and leaks little snippets of information regarding his own methods. I could listen to him speak all day long, because you learn something about horror and dark fantasy every time he speaks. Who wouldn’t want to have a one on one conversation with someone who has a mind like his and has the ability to convey his ideas so eloquently.

3. What is the strangest thing a fan has ever done?

You know, my fans are all pretty normal. It’s quite disappointing really. I do get the occasional anorak type reader, who pulls up inconsistencies or facts that might be slightly wrong, but I haven’t had anyone send me dirty underwear or the innards of sacrificed animals. I really don’t know whether I should be upset or relieved about that.

4. What is the one thing you dread to do when writing?

Editing and writing synopses, without a shadow of a doubt. There’s something inherently difficult about trying to write a synopsis and simmering down your story into a couple of paragraphs. Am I giving too much or too little? Is it engaging or is it yawn-til-your-jaw-breaks boring. I think it’s something that most writers struggle with. Editing is the same; picking apart something that you’ve spent months writing and omitting lines and paragraphs that you might’ve loved at one time. Thankfully, my editor, Patti is awesome. She’s worked with me since Poor Jeffrey and our relationship is more friendly than professional now. She understands my style and instinctively knows exactly what I’m trying to achieve with every story. Editors are invaluable and often very giving of their time and selves. I couldn’t publish a word without her assistance nowadays.

5. Did you have imaginary friends growing up? Tell me about them

I didn’t have imaginary friends, but I did always have an active imagination. This would be displayed in many ways; in playing with real friends and messing with toys, creating worlds that I could inhabit for weeks on end. That developed into writing poetry and short stories for friends or just for myself. I dunno about imaginary friends… I never seemed to need one.

6. Do you go to conventions? If not why?

I’ve been to a couple. My publisher is Matt Shaw, so you can imagine the fun and frolics that happen during a weekend with him. Last one I went to was with a few guys that Matt has either published or been friends with for a while and it was a real hoot. For myself, I don’t really have the following to justify the financial outlay of attending as a writer. I’ll get there, I’m sure, but now isn’t really the time. That said, if my friends are getting a table and want me to attend then I’m always happy to join them. Conventions are fun and at the right ones you can meet potential readers and existing ones, at the same time as getting together with good friends. Yeah, cons are cool.

7. How many times did you have to submit your first story before it was accepted?

Once, and I was truly amazed. It was for a Clive Barker tribute anthology based on the Cabal book and Nightbreed movie, coinciding with the screenings of the Cabal Cut. It was only a 500 word flash piece, but it was snapped up. Right after that, my first short story and Poor Jeffrey were also picked up by two different pressed, so I had a really lucky start to my writing career. I still don’t quite know how that happened, but I’m thankful that it did.

8. Ever consider not writing? If so what made you continue?

Yep. Sometimes I find writing a real struggle. The words don’t come and when they do, they’re just not as great as I hoped it would be. I do get over these periods pretty quickly, I just need a quick kick in the pants, but it’s never great when it happens. It usually comes at times when the writing has been flowing really well, and then I hit a wall. In fairness, the past year or so haven’t been the best for me. Between some family issues and the renovations, it’s seemed like I’d never get anything published again. I know I’ve let a couple of people down with not being able to hit a couple of deadlines, but that’s life and they’ve been very understanding about my situation for which I’m grateful. Hopefully, there’s light at the end of the tunnel though, and I can get back to the productivity that I had a couple of years ago. Fingers crossed!

9. Ever thought about writing in a different category?

You know, I never felt the need… yet. Horror and dark fiction has such a wide remit that there’s a lot of ground to cover, so I can satisfy my appetites without stepping out of the genre. Whether it’s full on horror or dark fantasy, I can spread my wings as much as I need to and tell the truths I want to explore within that framework, so why muddy the waters by stepping into another area? The great thing about the genre is that I can do horror, dark fantasy, crime fiction and a plethora of other styles and it will still fit the remit of horror, in the broad sense. No, I’m pretty much at home here… I paid the rent in advance.

10. Any new additions to the family?

Hell no. I have two children that occupy my time and my wife has allergies which have stopped us from having pets since our son was born. Weirdly, she never had allergies before, but since being pregnant with our son she’s allergic to every damn thing. It’s heartbreaking, because we’re all animal people and have had pets in the past which we’ve loved unconditionally. My siblings are all younger than me and are showing no interest in starting their own families, so it’s not even like I have nephews and nieces that I can corrupt. That time will come though, they have been warned.

11. What is coming up next for you?

Well, I have three manuscripts in various stages if completion so it depends which one I finish first. One is a thing that Matt Shaw challenged me to write a couple of years ago, but I’ve never been able to get it right. It’s for the black cover strand, so there’s a responsibility to deliver something truly horrible for him, especially given the subject matter that he challenged me with. One is something that I’ve been working on since school and it really embraces my love for fantasy, while retaining the darkness. The third is a continuation of a story that I wrote for Dean M Drinkel’s Demonology anthology. The character deserved to have more of his story told, so I began writing it but never got it finished. Hopefully, one or two of these projects will see daylight before the end of the year, but I make no promises. I won’t release anything until it’s absolutely right.

12. Do you do release parties? Do you think they work?

Not so much. I prefer to take over blogs and other people’s pages and corrupt their fans. Of course, these things work as a way to reach out to new readers and to allow seasoned fans to chat to you personally. I always feel that talking to readers is the best way to promote your work. Ask me anything, I’m an open book… and they usually do.

13. Do you have crazy stalker fans? Have you ever had one you wish would go away?

Again, my readers tend to be fairly normal people, so no. I do get people who want to have an in-depth conversation about character motivation and why I made certain choices, but no one that I’ve felt has been a pain in the ass. They are the guys and girls who pay my wages and put spending money in the pockets of my kids, so I at least owe them a bit of my time to chat.

14. Do you still have a “day job” ? If so what do you do?

The whole reason that I got into publishing was because the job market where I live slowed right down and I was finding it difficult to find work. My wife was working and earning more than me anyway, so she suggested that I take a year out with the kids and concentrate on doing something with my writing. She gave me a year to get something published, and I’m here talking to you so something must’ve worked.

15. What is your process for writing? Do you have a voice in your head?

No voices, that’d be worrying. Seriously though, I just sit and write. I don’t write notes and I don’t really plan anything before I sit down. All my stories begin with a great first line or a title and I run with it from there. Wherever it ends up is where it ends up, and I’m as surprised by the twists and turns as the reader. I guess this is why it takes me so damned long to write anything. I write all first drafts longhand, and each draft can run into hundreds of handwritten pages. It takes time, but it means that typing it up becomes the first edit run and I can weed out errors and polish it up as I type. This saves time. After that, it’s a case of working with Patti (editor, Patti Geesey) to eradicate typos and other errors, weeding out the unnecessary stuff and honing it. I might go back over it three or four times to make sure that it’s as perfect as it can be. It’s time consuming, and I’m a bit of a perfectionist, but the outcomes are usually worth the hassle.

16. Is there a book you want to make a sequel to you haven’t yet?

Yes! People have often asked about a sequel to Poor Jeffrey. Often, they want to know what happened to Jade and the circle of ghosts… which is cool, I wanna know too! I’ve started work on things that could exist in that world, but never finished them because they just weren’t good enough. One day I’m sure that I will revisit that story, but it was a very spontaneous one that came out of left field and I think it’s difficult to catch lightning in a bottle. Jade will call one day, and I’m sure she’ll have lots of stories to tell regarding herself and her friends. I can’t wait for that moment. You can connect with Paul Flewitt here:

https://www.amazon.com/Paul-Flewitt/e/B00FG34L7O/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1493531654&sr=8-1

@PaulFlewittJEA

https://www.facebook.com/Paul-Flewitt-Author-of-Dark-Fiction-352745188170046/

Some of Paul Flewitt’s books:

Getting even more personal with Paul Flewitt For those of you that don't know Paul Flewitt you are missing out on a great friend and an awesome writer.

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raystart · 7 years

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A Driver’s License Can be Revoked for the Elderly, but Artistic License? Never.

She was due for retirement. Try telling her that.

Louise Fili, the designer behind logos for Tiffany & Co., Good Housekeeping, Paperless Post, and Sarabeth’s was, as always, a font of great ideas. “I think you should be focusing on the great octogenarians out there — Seymour Chwast, George Lois, Ed Sorel, R.O. Blechman, Bob Gill, Henrietta Condak, Sara Giovanitti…there are so many,” she said in her graceful decline to be a part of this story. “I will be happy to participate when you update the article in, say, 20 years.” Fili is 65, the touchstone — albeit arbitrary — retirement age. Time will tell. But that’s an offer she can make confidently.

Artists exist in careers without reply-all emails about the break room fridge, or dress codes, or — and most importantly — without punch clocks. They are timeless talents.

In 1972, at 90 years old, Pablo Picasso painted “Facing Death,” a self-portrait; he died the next year, having painted since 1891, when he was 9. I.M. Pei, the architect, is set to turn 100 this year as he works on 28 projects in six countries; he’s been working since his designs first caught fire in 1949. “I know how lucky I am,” Roger Angell, then 93, wrote in The New Yorker in 2014, “and secretly tap wood, greet the day, and grab a sneaky pleasure from my survival at long odds.” He has been contributing to the august magazine since 1944, most recently about the Chicago Cubs’ World Series victory, their 108-year championship drought being one of the few things in this world that predate him.

Now 94, Norman Lear is rebooting his 1975 sitcom classic One Day at a Time for Netflix, a Latina spin anchored by Rita Moreno, the 85-year-old EGOT superstar, who plays a 73-year-old sexualized grandmother. Hayao Miyazaki, the anime demigod, has came out of retirement to turn a 12-minute short film titled into a feature-length project, as you do at 76 years old.

There is an element to vocation beyond Western raison d’être, the French “reason for being” mired in Enlightenment sensibilities, that approaches the looser Japanese concept of ikigai, which can be translated as “a reason to get up in the morning” but was best described in a 1990 article in the Japanese business publication The Nikkei (formerly The Nihon Kaizai Shinbun) as “the process of allowing the self’s possibilities to bloom.” That process is itself a craft. Sorry, Tim Ferriss, there is no Four-Hour Ikigai.

These are all-work-and-all-play lives lived in the livelihood of humanity’s lifeblood: art, creativity, design. “To create is to live twice,” Albert Camus famously mused. While that wisdom may have been a gesture at the metaphysical immortality of fame and legacy and the stuff of lifetime achievement awards, it can also be taken literally as the doubling — or more — of creative professional lives as compared to the workaday world’s corporate drones, to say nothing of the relatively fleeting glories afforded professional athletes, dancers, and porn stars. A driver’s license can be revoked for the elderly, but artistic license? Never.

“To create is to live twice.”

“It’s not about doing something well over and over. It’s about doing something new over and over,” said Ivan Chermayeff, the 84-year-old graphic designer behind iconic logos for Barneys, Mobil, National Geographic, NBC, and the Smithsonian. “People who want to retire want to do other things. Travel. Plant a garden. I don’t. I’ve been doing those things every day my whole life. It’s a good racket,” he added from his office, with Wally, his Australian labradoodle barking in agreement at his feet.

Ivan Chermayeff, image courtesy of Chermayeff.

Chermayeff noted the physical costs of activity outweigh the mental and emotional costs of lethargy. “I have a bad knee but thankfully it has very little bearing on graphic design abilities,” he said.

“I was a professor, a teacher. I just stayed in offices. It was awful,” said the prolific architect Daniel Libeskind, 70. “I have lived in reverse, my active period coming after the introspective, reflective period. With architecture, I fell into a new dimension. I made my first building when I was 52! Instead of withering me, time gave me a sense of flowering, of growing. To be honest, I don’t think of aging. There is an immortality to being creative. You are like God, who is the poetic symbol of creation, the poetry of creativity. As your work continues, you become younger. You discover youthfulness — braver, bolder, more confident, more adventurous. You discover possibilities.”

Daniel Libeskind at the Roca London Gallery. Photo courtesy of Libeskind.

Not that it’s easy. “You have to make a conscious decision early on that the suburbs and its finished basements aren’t for you. I had an illegal apartment for ten years, 1971 to 1981, $50 a month in a garret at 55th and 7th. I paid another $50 a month for a work space. So I was free,” said Larry Hama, 67, the comics superhero who single-handedly revived the series G.I. Joe and Wolverine, among other feats. “I’ve had years without any work. But I still did what I wanted. The only difference is I got paid during the working years, which was nice, but it wasn’t the reason I worked.”

There are, of course, life hacks to this Fountain of Youth.

For Libeskind, it is thermodynamics: A body in motion stays in motion. “I’ve lived in 18 cities,” he said. “Sometimes without knowing the language. Sometimes without having a job. Warsaw, Berlin, New York, São Paolo, Milan. They contribute so much energy to your mind. I’ve never been one for the beach or solitary walks in the woods.”

“As your work continues, you become younger. You discover youthfulness — braver, bolder, more confident, more adventurous.”

For Jonas Mekas, 94, the filmmaker who founded Film Culture magazine in 1954 and what would become the Anthology Film Archives in the 1960s, it is cultivating prickliness — not antisocial, just countersocial. “I was an urchin, a sea urchin, covered in spikes. Society could not swallow me. I did not fall into its holes. And those of us who escape enjoy a camaraderie. We don’t have to talk or get together. But we show other people what life is. We lure them into life with the things we make,” he said.

“You want what? That I go to the beach? I hate the beach. For one thing, it’s hard to get an espresso at the beach. And what is there? Ugly, grotesque people indulging their laziness while they cook and bake in the sun like slugs. That is joy? That is freedom? I don’t blame them for retiring at 65 because they have lived as robots in mechanical, menial, tedious tasks. They deserve a few years trying to feel human after all of that. They took my humanity and my youth in the camps. I was 17 in Lithuania and the next day, on the other end of the war, I was 27 in Brooklyn. I will never lose my youth again. I’ve worked too hard all my life to be this young,” Mekas says.

For abstract artist Carmen Herrera, as she puts it, “my bus was slow in coming.” She first sold her paintings in 2004, when she was 89. But what a ride it has been since then. Last year, at 101 years old, she had her first museum retrospective, at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her secret is her stealthiness. “I was liberated by being ignored,” she said. “I was free to do as I wish.” Not to suggest too much whimsy; asked her morning routine, she laid out her breakfast: “Cafe con leche, toast, butter and jam, orange juice, and work.” And work. As if it were a chewy bagel or bowl of porridge. She devours it. And it nourishes her. But at her own pace. She takes all week to read the Sunday New York Times, favoring the alchemy of its stories over the checklist of the task. Asked what advice she would give youngsters — y’know, people with mere double-digit ages — she spoke in her native Cuban Spanish: “Patience, darling, patience.”

Carmen Herrera in her New York studio. Image courtesy of Herrera.

For Hama, it was saying yes. “Whenever the train got into the station, I got on board. And wherever it took me, when I got there I didn’t want the guided tour,” he said. “I was in an elevator in 1974 and a woman asked me if I was an actor. I said no and she asked ‘Do you want to be?’ And later that day I was in an off-Broadway production of Moby Dick put together by the starlet Jean Sullivan. I was on M*A*S*H and Saturday Night Live. They needed guys and I raised my hand.”

How do you retire from saying yes? “I can’t imagine retiring, and I have a great imagination,” he said. “If I go to the beach and try that, after an hour or so I just feel inert. Life is for action. Wander. Wonder. Surprise yourself. That’s the only adventure. You can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket. I’ve done, I think, 239 issues of G.I. Joe and never ended with a coming attractions of the next issue because I never knew. I don’t know what’s on page three until I’m halfway through writing page two. And I guess I’ve lived my life like that, too,” Hama says.

“Life is for action. Wander. Wonder. Surprise yourself. That’s the only adventure.”

When he was a child, Mekas’ home would be visited by an old man who climbed his roof and stood on his head on the chimney. He was 100 years old and his upside-downness had a profound impact on Mekas.

“You’re asking all the wrong questions. You’re asking why I’m active at 94. But why are people living like they are already dead at 60? Or 40? Even 30?” he said. “I am not the abnormal one. I am normal. I am alive. This is life. They are the abnormal ones. They just don’t see it because they happen to be the majority, sadly. They believe in patterns that suck out their energy — ads and transactions and labels and paperwork and technology that all tell them they are not enough, that they are behind, that they are lacking. What is retirement or even vacation except a stupid trap built to justify the first trap of this draining existence? I reject it! Instead I choose art! Art and the avant garde is the difference between making a life and mirroring one.”

#startups #text #startup #advice #busieness #howto #news #tech #love

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