#which is why his halo is incomplete/smaller | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

zenosanalytic · 4 years

Text

HoXPoX Liveblog: House of X #3

Ok here’s HoX 3 and Here’s The Link

Not a lot going on in this one symbolwise, but it feels... Deceptive *looks around shiftily*

Time to continue the HoXPoX readthrough with House of X #3! This is a second printing so the cover’s the same deal as the last; a duochrome variant of the 1st cover the x-men in yellows/golds down the right side&a menacing sentinel-head as the background.

before getting into it though, I’m wondering abt the implications of the PoX3? Like: X2 was the 9th TL, but what about X3? Given Cylobel and the archive the obvs assumption would be X3’s a continuation of X2, but there’s no guarantee similar events dont happen in dif tls.

The thing is: if it was just the future of 9 PAST learning Nimrod’s inception date, then why would we keep following it? If all following X2 did was show us how TL10 got nimrod’s birthday, then why would we need to even KNOW abt X3? I feel like there’s something more going on

Also: why would X in 10 need to steal this information if they already had it from Moira? Also Also: some STRONG circumstantial simultaneity vibes from these repeated heists, which also also also contribs to me feeling like this story’s being a bit deceptive abt what’s going on.

Anyway: open’s on an Xavier quote: “you make me so *proud*” *indicating italics cuz twitter has no font options >:|

X1 Krakoa. Cyclops framed by an unactivated portal, center-frame, backlit/haloed by a light-blue sky. He’s telling X and M he’s put together a team which accepts the mission’s a suicide run. X and M are colored in whites, full-figure but dwarfed by Cyclops’s bust-closeup.

X promises he wont allow him of his team to die. M that the only true death is to be forgotten which “the righteous” will never be. Their narration calls him “the founder of a nation”. M is oft melodramatic & here he’s decidedly biblical: “righteous” “mighty works”

Of course the assumption is that we already know how this turns out. He and the rest will die and be “resurrected” by the RootTree as we saw at the beginning of HoX#1 Like I said tho, I get the feeling there’s some deception &the depictions of X&M here reinforces that; Impish.

Anyway: the two closeups of Scott here are really well done. The major difficult with him is conveying emotional state when his eyes are always covered of course, but the shading above his visor&turn of his mouth manages to convey his worry and doubt excellently.

Cyclops explains the sitch to his team in a really flippant way. He’s established as someone preemptively managing the emotions of those he leads, so considering them, and ironically acknowledging the dangers/absurdities to make them seem smaller than they are.

His team looks like: Wolverine, Dazzler, Angel, someone I dont recognize(Braddock/Psylocke? dont rec the costume)?, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, and Mystique.

The team immediately begins debating the plan(Scott encourages debate and the XMen aim for collegiality; well characterized) The one I dont rec isnt Braddock but Monet; not a character I’m too familiar with.

Cyc asks Mystique if she’s listening; she’s wonderfully and appropriately dismissive. Jean and Scott talk about minimizing casualties; there will be “innocent” civilians. Wolvie points out “innocents” dont build genocide-machines. Jean says “they’re just scared of their future”

Jean’s last line is actl super-ominous; it’s the last frame on the page, and the last two frames are bathed in that neo red-purple which up to now is usually associated with endings and death. I think, ironically, Jean might end up killing lots of these people.

Another cool bit; in the forth frame, where Mystique is mouthing off to Scott for his condescension, the sun is placed just behind&above Mystique’s head, placing it btw her and Jean, shadowed frame left, & making it’s glare imply Jean using her telepathy…

… it could be that Scott’s comment isn’t as unnecessary and condescending as it seems; it could be Jean’s been listening to Mystique’s thoughts, saw her intent to go off-mission,& informed Scott so he could head that off now. Maybe why she brings up question of casualties?

They’re launching from the Summers Moon Mansion. As they do Wolverine comments: “Just scientists huh? How exactly do you think humans went from sticks to bombs?” Obvsl he sees the whole installation as a threat.

An infopage on Sentinel progression. Starts with the well-known giant combat bot Alpha model, then mastermold(Alpha factory), Mothermold(mastermold factory capable of designing nanosentinel tech), then Omegas(nanosent infected humans), then Nimrod(pure nanosentinel construct)

Followed by a timeline of the plot from L9 to L10. Bscl confirms this is X1. States that Moira&Apoc have id’d that, while emergent AI is unavoidable specifcally antimutant ones, Nimrods, arent. Mentions the files Apoc acquired are incomplete, but imply preventable tech thresholds

mentioned in passing but may become relevant later: Moira&X had technopath mutants create a system that could detect Nimrod tech thresholds called Sleeping Giant.

Cut to Sabertooth being tried at Project Achilles, a “supervillain supermax”. The proceedings are about as farcically unconcerned with justice as you’d expect(treating the defense attorney as a joke is pretty Ick, as well).

Sabertooth's not having any of it, drawn center-page, towering over everyone else(though I wouldnt say security's drawn as frightened of him; more alert). Seems like a breakout attempt is imminent as he notices the smell of jasmine(?) and tells his attorney he's fired

:D It's Frost & two of the Cuckoos :D :D Emma's halo'd by a sun-like light on her entry. Judge IMMEDIATELY draws a guns XD Frost reminds them all Krakoans have diplomatic immunity(doesnt work this way but whatevs), judge calls him a Thing, Bravado Bravado...

In the end they walk out with only mutual chest-thumping. An important point; Frost says mutants wont be judged by human courts any more, so apprntl the treaties include jurisdictional concessions.

an infopage on the Omega Process; how a human is transformed into a sentinel by nanosent tech. The focus this is getting suggests this'll be plot-relevant(wonder if a mutant is infected?) Seems like a year's long process which inevitably ends in a anti-mutant exterminator.

cut to the Mother Mold; Karima/Omega and Doctor Gregor are arguing abt Orchis's plan(Karima against). Of course it's a bad idea; any being you make caged is going to resent you, and if you give it the ability to make things it designs it will design itself free of you.

(of course the reality of AI is that basic common sense, let alone originality, is way more difficult to code that humans think, and meat way better at information processing)

the X men Attack! And it's immediately thwarted, seemingly, by an improvised explosive. In hindsight all the red-purple images of the Blackbird's cockpit were Not Promising :T Oh! There's a Krakoan alphabet at the back ^u^

Well that was anti-climactic, but surprising, but also I think something else is going on still, so we'll see what's up in future issues.

#X Men #Marvel #HoXPoX #Hickman et al #House of X 3 #House of X #HoXPoX Liveblog #zA Liveblogs

0 notes

theladysmith · 5 years

Text

Elevation

It’s been such a long while. I’m going to fight the urge to do that thing where I lament about how much time has passed and all the ways I suck for not posting more often…

Anyway, hi. It’s good to be back - and I mean that in a few ways. We recently got back from an amazing 5 day trip to Colorado Springs, that equal parts vacation and hard work. Well, if you’re Mike, it was more hard work than anything, but I got to unwind a little and immerse myself in mind-blowing scenery before immersing myself in the deep end of learning about my craft. More on that later.

I haven’t really been to the mountains before. I grew up near “hills” and have skied “ranges” and toured “highlands” and lived near “escarpments”, but I’ve never really experienced that #mountainlife. Colorado has been on my bucket list since I was a little kid, mostly because the name itself sounds like an adventure epic. Thanks to Mike’s hard work, we suddenly had an opportunity, and I couldn’t wait to see somewhere new. Like, totally, never-seen-it-before new. The majority of the past 6 months have been flat af. My eyes were actually hungry for it.

We flew with friends to Denver, rented a car and drove south to Colorado Springs, a smaller, chill little city just over an hour south, and way closer to the mountains. They grew increasingly more impressive with every mile we drove - a car full of creatives and we started to run out of expletives to describe what we were seeing. Half an hour into the road trip, I feigned wanting a quick break at a look-out point so that we could take some photos, but if I’m being honest, I needed some fresh air to calm the sensory overwhelm that was swamping my sleep-deprived brain. There was too much to take in; too many colours, too many beautiful subtleties, too much dramatic contrast, too many extraordinary qualities of light, too much texture and pattern and rhythm. Too much. And not quite enough oxygen for my little low-lander lungs, as I felt the overwhelm of the scenery highlight the fact that I was feeling actually breathless. In those 2 hours, I realized that all I could do is just greedily open myself up to this shameless consumption of beauty, open my eyes to every damn detail and trust that my brain wouldn’t short out, open my lungs as wide as I could (given my usual shallow breathing habit) and trust that my lung capacity/comfort would improve, and if I could just do that, this trip might just be the thing to blow the front door open on the past 6 months.

At the risk of sounding like I’m backtracking on my promise of not lamenting on all the time that has passed, the past 4 months (well, year, really…) have been a thing. I’m going to assume that if you are reading my blog you might have some interest in the environment that feeds the life that feeds my process as an artist, so I’ll be brief in catching you up here. Letting go in CO was really hard, because the past 6 months have been all about holding on for dear life. Our financial situation hasn’t been exactly “fluid”, I’ve been working longer hours than I’d like, I’ve been in more constant pain than I’d like, there’s been an unending shitshow of chasing clients to pay their invoices, big changes rolled through Mike’s work life, there has been so much work to do all the time, and a long-ass, very cold winter to contend with (although we did a pretty good job getting out into it as much as we could.) And then there’s the neighbour sitch. For 10 months we have been living next to an ever-changing cast of loud, violent characters who have kept us awake all hours of the night, whose constant high-level noise have stressed my cats out to the point of visibly changing their behaviours and personalities, and whose explosive anger has woven a sharp thread of uneasiness into the fabric of our home life. Hell is other people*. Shitty neighbours are the worst.

Anyhow, onwards. The neighbours are finally gone (evicted; like I said, they were terrible), the shitshow has been reduced to chasing just one client (goddamn it Kennedy Ford, pay me…) and while it won’t immediately improve my financial situation, I’m dropping back to working 3 days a week at the shop instead of 4, which will probably help reduce my retail fatigue* (and possibly the extensor tendonitis in my feet) and allow me more time to work on my freelance business and to get into the studio to prepare to for the upcoming show season.

It will also give me more time to hang out here. I’ve been aiming to “complete” my website for some time, but the longer I work on it, the more I realize that completing what is supposed to be a running log of my creative life is impossible. I’ve put it off for almost 4 months, citing all of the above as reasons why I couldn’t get it done. So I’m “launching” it this way - incomplete - on the 3rd anniversary of my cancer surgery, feeling a bit silly and sentimental that this little project that I’ve been planning, working through and dreaming about for probably a decade is finally aloft. I’m proud to say that this site is me, as far as representing myself digitally, and it will stand as my sounding board and experiential diary of my creative life. I intend to write more about how I’ve gotten to be 43 yrs old as a semi-fuctioning artist/human, about how Mike and I navigate running our businesses together, and my on-going observations and frustrations with this life I am living. I am not pretending that I know even 1% of it all, but I’m 43 and I’ve lived some shit and I’m still making art, now more than ever. That is my motivation for this website, at its more basic. That, and publishing my work. Oh, and selling stuff

Aaaaaanyway… So, when we were in Colorado, I had the great fortune (and fun) of studying with Bonnie Nelson and Jerry Ruhland of Cottonwood Silversmithing and Lapidary Supply in downtown Colorado Springs. I spent about 6 hours a day on Saturday and Sunday, learning the ropes of casting a wire ingot, drawing it out to beautiful bezel wire with the rolling mill (which really put me through the ropes of learning how to fully use my recently acquired rolling mill!) I worked on a pendant using a eudialyte cabochon and 5 tiny faceted sapphires haloed above, that Jerry spent most of Sunday showing me how to flush set. Bonnie taught me about fold forming while we put some copper through its paces, and Jerry taught me some fabrication and hammering techniques that completely changed how I understand metal. As instructors they were excellent; friendly and open and eager to let me work at my pace in my own direction. I loved working in another artist’s studio, and getting a feel for their ergonomics and workflow. I loved it so much that as soon as I came home to my studio, I knew it totally had to change. It had to change because I had.

I think the thing that really stuck with me the most from studying with them was of how capable they held me. Both instructors gave me lots of positive feedback on my technique and approach, which made me feel skilled, relaxed and resourceful. I rarely feel this way in my studio. So much of my inner dialog is low-level imposter mutter when I am working - I am generally convinced that I am doing everything wrong (sometimes that is backed up by project fails) and that everyone will be able to tell that I am teaching myself as I go along, that I obviously haven’t gone to school for this, and that because I haven’t been able to connect with any sort of supportive metalsmithing or jewellery artist community here I must be unqualified, unlikeable, or an outsider. I know it sounds melodramatic, but this is how my brain works.

The kind of practical, targeted instruction and positive, friendly feedback that I received in Colorado, coupled with the intense atmospheric beauty really made me soar. I had renewed confidence when I got home, full to overflowing with ideas and audacity and with a newly expanded skill set. I couldn’t get into the studio fast enough to tear it all down and rebuild it into something more supportive, something evolved. After spending a few days creeping Kijiji for a suitable desk, a perfect one showed up in the garbage area behind our building, and Mike heroically got it up 2 flights of stairs, through the confusion-corner that is the hallway to the studio, and assembled for me as a surprise when I came home from work. I bought some casting equipment so that I could start reclaiming some of my sterling scrap to make new work. I got to know my new big torch better and experimented with drawing bezel wire on my own mill. And through all these experiments, this whirlwind, this chaos, some strong new work has been made and there is more underway.

I admit that sometimes I’m not very good at remembering that there are edges to the storm when I’m stuck in the middle of it. It’s been a long, flat low period, the last few months, but just as flat plains feed a gathering storm front, they are also instrumental in pushing the storm through. The last decade of doubt and timidity about publishing myself and my work, the last 10 months of hellish neighbours, the last 6 months of crap luck and kicks when we’re down…all flattened, blown away, as if by wind whipping down the mountains. With this new confidence, this new certainty, it’s easier for me to see each day as fresh and new now, even if it isn’t, really.

I’m eager now to just work at what I’m here to do. I’m glad to be able to share my perspective and my work here, and I’m absolutely thankful for any and all support be it reading my words, engaging with me here or on IG or irl, or purchasing my work to embellish your life in some way. The storm has passed, clear skies ahead. Thank you for holding fast.

0 notes