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bitchin-b33 · 5 years

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Akumanette

So this is a challenge I want to create because I am unable to come up with a good akumanette design and I think it would be a helpful way to get some creativity rolling (Not that it isn't already lmao) This challenge is going to show up in my fic (Be it an animatic or comic or written, idk yet.) so anyone who wins will get linked and properly credited for the akumanette design. That being said, I'll begin to describe the parameters for the designing. You can make the object, weapon, and look whatever you wish. I only ask that the name I chose remain (Memoire, getting to that in a bit) and the power in general (Ability to force people to relive her worst memories.) And the fact it was caused by an argument between her and Alya over Lila and Marinette 'claiming' she's lying (Yes yes, overused, bite me.) So I chose to use the name Memoire because the memories of Alya hurt her plus I thought it was cheeky and would fit in with other names of akumas. Her power is through her weapon, which in my orginal design for her had been the akumatized object (A picture of her and Alya ripped in half.) and turned into a whip. I wanted her to look like a vengeful spirit, all pale and creepy. Almost like a forgotten memory (Y'know, how you can't remember someone's face and their exact colors right. How things look off and you can only go off of pictures or the feelings you remember of this person.) Her power is because of that forgetten memory bit and why she was akumatized (Her anger and grief. Anger at Alya and grief of the pain of memories together.) However, that was just my initial design and you can feel free to change that (as I said).

I will be choosing the akumanette for the fic by the end of August, and I will hopefully announce the winner of this competition by first week of September (Depends on the amount of entries, though I doubt I will get that many.) I also want to take the time to go over some scrapped akumanette designs I had now since I have had many ideas for Marinette's akuma form but none of them ever seemed good enough. Perfecta- Caused by anger at Chloe because she gloated that she was all perfect and that since Marinette wasn't perfect Adrien would never get together with her. The akuma is in either the lucky charm that Adrien gave Marinette or it was the umbrella (I could never decide, part of the reason it was scrapped.) She would make people more imperfect than her, and she would finally be perfect enough for Adrien. Her hair is out of the pigtails and into a ponytail (or tight bun), she wore a floor length dress with a high collar (but sleeveless), elbow high gloves, and she wore a masquerade mask that covered her entire face and was "perfect" (Unmarked face, perfect makeup, ect.) The object would fire a pink blast that would make people imperfect. The idea was scrapped mostly because I didn't like it/didn't have a story/couldn't decide the object. The mixture just soured the akuma concept for me. Her name also fits in with the other akumas and y'know "Perfect"... Perfecto? Bam, I had the name. (I had thought Perfectionette at one point too.) Miss Fortune- After getting embarrased in front of Adrien and getting angry at her own luck she decides to take luck into her own hands. The object would be the the lucky charm, which she would measure someone's good and bad "luck" (Basically if she liked them or not), and if it was good she would place a blessing (Basically becoming her servant.) or if it was bad she would place a curse (Something relating to how they might've hurt her in the past or something about them she didn't like. For example, with Lila it would be that she would be forced to tell the truth. Or that the lies about herself that impacted her negatively would come true. So like her tinnitus.) She is probably the one I most visually liked, but I could never find a place for Miss Fortune. She has bi colored hair (One side is the normal black, but the other side is red.) and bicolored eyes (Blue/red), and her outfit is much of the same. She has on her normal jacket, but the inside is red and the outside is black. Her jeans are the same way only reversed. Her flats are also bicolored as red and black too. Her skin is white aside from the half and half drama mask on her face. I wanted to keep her as normal looking as possible mostly because I couldn't come up with a better design in clothes and such. Spyder or Weaver- Based on Alya digging too deep in trying to get LB's identity or get her and Chat together (was undecided and if I were ever to do something with her maybe a mixture of both?) It was technically a LB akuma, but still, akumanette. The object really wasn't decided, but probably her phone (Har, Alya caused it and the object is the phone. Oh the irony.) And she was very spider based, obviously with the name. Her power really wasn't the best, but she could trap people in her web and they would be forced to divulge any information that she wanted to get out of them (Secret identities being the most angsty thing I thought of after reveals of what people truly thought of one another.) For the second name I thought maybe being able to weave something into existence. This akumanette was mostly scrapped because I couldn't think of a design, finalize a name, or even really a power. It was all just rough drafts and I never continued entertaining the idea of her. These three(four?) were really my only other ideas for an akumanette. I've probably had more, but I can't think of any.

So yes, if you want to draw out an entry for this "contest" I'd love to see it. I like seeing people's designs and why they chose it, so be sure to submit the post under #MagicMariAkumanette so I can see it. Also if you want to be sure I see it, DM me the design and your reasoning for the design. Once again, you have only until the end of August before I start to go through the tag to decide an akumanette. Any original akumanettes will be glossed over though, sorry (But I'm sure you put a lot of hard work into it and I'd be grateful to see it!) Have fun arting everyone!

#Akumanette #ML #Au #ML Au #akuma!marinette #Ml fic #ml contest #akumanette contest #art contest #MagicMariAkumanette

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athena1138 · 5 years

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Tattoo Ideas

I need to figure my tattoos out. I used to have a big long list but I’m not really feeling it anymore? Idk, these are just ideas. Not a single one of my tattoos was planned beyond a week before I at least talked to an artist, so ultimately the list is bullshit lol. I know just one thing: I want a fuck ton.

I want an Ursula tattoo to go with my Medusa tattoo. I’m thinking with a similar design--a famous actress (maybe Liz Taylor since that’s who I wanted Medusa’s face to predominantly be instead of Eva Gardner) in a portrait/mirror, maybe with tentacles coming up instead of snakes going down idk. I haven’t worked it out yet, but Medusa for sure. Fat, too. She has to be fat.

This is from my old list but I’d really like a tattoo of the tree from Minas Tirith, maybe on a wrist or something, maybe with Tolkein’s drawing of Smaug nearby.

I’d like a Jabberwocky tattoo. My old list said “the full poem written on a calf” but that’s excessive, I feel. Maybe just the dragon. Idk where. Calf, I guess.

If I could have more Chinese, I’d like that, but idk what. The two phrases I do have ( 加油 and 漂亮 ) both had significance behind them, so I think it’d be hard to find new things to put on me.

I’d like a memorial tattoo for my dad and my grandpa. I’ve been thinking about it for years but I still have no idea what. Maybe just their birth-death days, somewhere small and innocuous? Maybe something personal above them, like a Star Trek badge for my dad and a little airplane for my papaw? ooh, that’s cute, I hadn’t thought of that.

I need a tattoo with my sister. For that I was thinking a pisces/scorpio thing where instead of 2 fish it’s a fish and a scorpion. I haven’t run it by her yet.

A tattoo with Brittani and Kerrigan. Will be Disney themed but we haven’t worked it out yet.

A bigass octopus tattoo. Maybe around a bicep once I lose some weight. Idk if I’d want it to be more realistic or like black and white and pirate-y. Tbd later.

From my old list, I’d like a Harlivey tattoo with Harley’s diamonds and then a rose blooming in the middle with ivy weaving throughout it all. I had that listed as “for the thigh.”

Also from my old list, Betty Boop as Rosie the Riveter, but that’s not an original idea apparently so idk anymore.

I’d like a sleeve. I don’t know with what in it or even how to go about designing a sleeve, but a sleeve nonetheless. Maybe two? One badass to go with Medusa and one cutesie to go with my shoulder tattoo? Idk.

Flowers. I’d like a lot of flowers. Maybe they can go in my cutesie sleeve.

At least one panda. They’re my favorite animals. And then a penguin and an elephant and an owl. Just a mini zoo.

Totoro? Totoro. It’d be cool if I could have a whole Studio Ghibli thing going on somewhere, with like Totoro sleeping and Mei and Ponyo and Sosuke playing and Howl’s castle in the distance and Haku and Chihiro flying overhead with Kiki? (Those are my favs, Ponyo, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle.) But frankly I don’t see me having the space for something like that.

Maybe a Dragon Age tattoo? Idk what, though. I’m not gettin the fuckin Chantry sigil put on me, or the Templars or anything like that. Idk. Will consider. (Maybe something like my “horns up” sticker with Bull’s horns. Maybe a “the dawn will come” thing. FINE DWARVEN CRAFTS)

I’d like some random shit, too. Like, vines going down somewhere. A spider web. Maybe a jewelry tattoo that looks shiny when it’s wet. A snake. A heart. A little circle of game controllers.

I don’t like this idea anymore, but I had an idea with the various Cheshire Cat forms where I put them on a clock. But now I’m just thinking some random Cheshire Cats. The original drawing, Disney’s animated version, American McGee’s from the first game (that one will DEFINITELY make it on me at some point,) the newer live action version.

#shut up becca #becca's tattoos #becca's tattoo ideas #tattoos #tattoo ideas

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jafreitag · 3 years

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Grateful Dead Monthly: Hollywood Sportatorium – Pembroke Pines, FL 5/22/77

On Sunday, May 22, 1977, the Grateful Dead played a concert at the Hollywood Sportatorium in Pembroke Pines, Florida.

The Sportatorium was built in 1968 in a then-sparsely-populated and unincorporated area of Broward County southwest of Fort Lauderdale and northwest of Miami. The developers were a couple of guys – Stephen Calder and Norman Johnson – who opened a horse track and later a motorsports track nearby. The plan for the venue sounds like a proto Florida Man’s fever dream. From the Wiki:

Among the plans for the Sportatorium were sports events, ice follies programs, auto and boat shows, and eventually a “Gold Coast State Fair”. The Sportatorium was constructed as a hangar-like facility constructed out of concrete, a steel roof, an asphalt floor, and no air conditioning. Originally designed to seat 18,000 for stage events and 15,000 for arena events, it opened in December 1969 with only 6,000 seats.

“The idea was to have a facility which could have entertainment and events out of weather”, said Bruce Johnson, Norman Johnson’s son, who managed the arena until 1980. At first, it hosted indoor rodeos, indoor motocross events, wrestling, boxing, and some concerts.

According to the Wiki, the first event in the Sportatorium was the 1969 Miami Rock Festival on 12/27-29. The Dead played that Fest on 12/28, but Deadlists indicates that the venue was the International Speedway (the aforementioned motorsports track?), so the Wiki is likely inaccurate. The Sportatorium ultimately did become the premier concert mecca in South Florida, fulfilling the Johnson family promise of something something inside. Here’s a list of who played there in the early/mid-’70s: ELP, Zeppelin, the MC5, Fleetwood Mac, and Spirit in 1971; ABB, Floyd, and Yes in 1972; Uriah Heep, Zappa, Elton John, and Chicago in 1973; Dylan and King Crimson in 1974; the Doobies and Skynyrd in 1975; and the Eagles, ZZ Top, Clapton, and KISS in 1976. Yeah, the ’70s were eclectic and amazing, and dominated by duuudes.

By the late ’80s, the Miami Arena was the main stop for big acts, and the Sportatorium was reduced to booking stale metal bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. (Zero shade: I’m fine with Maiden and Priest, but they were past their primes at that point.) The last show there was on 10/21/88 – some country and western unknowns. In 1992, the land was zoned residential. In 1993 after Hurricane Andrew, the Sportatorium was leveled.

The Dead played there for the first time in 1977. (They returned in ’78, 80, and ’85.) Let’s get to the tour and the show. Caveat: I am a complete ’77 geek. I don’t think that the band played a bad show that entire year, and most of them were exemplary.

The band started the year with a handful of Cali shows – San Bernardino (2/26), Santa Barbara (2/27), Winterland (3/18-20) – before heading to the other coast. By then, the weird/cool segue-happy ’76 approach had been jettisoned for something leaner, setlist-wise. The 1977 template was basically the one that the band would use until 1995: A crowd-pleaser opener or openers; Bobby stuff (sometimes cowboy, sometimes blues, and Dylan in the ’80s-90s) interspersed with Jerry stuff (mostly ballads); a big first-set closer; a big second-set opener; a song or two leading into something sorta jam-able; drums and space; a vaguely-segued, three-to-five-song, crowd-pleaser ender that could/would include Bobby energy and Jerry gravitas; and encore that might be fun. Shit was predictable, but it worked.

In April, the band landed in Philly (4/22), traveled up to Springfield, MA (4/23), traveled back down to Passiac, NJ (4/25-27), camped out for five nights (4/29-30, 5/1, 3-4) at the Palladium in NYC, then jumped from New Haven, CT (5/5) to maybe the best three consecutive nights in their history – Boston (5/7), Ithaca, NY (5/8), and Buffalo (5/9). The tour then wound its way around the eastern half of the country: St. Paul > Chicago > St. Louis > Tuscaloosa, AL > Atlanta > Florida (two places, including the Sportatorium) > Richmond, VA > Baltimore > Hartford, CT. My recitation of that itinerary isn’t gratuitous. Like the setlist architecture, the tour structure was starting to take shape. The only reason that ’77 didn’t become the template for the latter was Mickey’s June 20th car accident, which gave the band a summer break that extended until September.

On a recent road trip, my best friend and I deep-dived into the Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast, the “official” podcast from Rhino Records, who owns the vault. The first season was a track-by-track dissection of Workingman’s Dead. The second season was a track-by-track dissection of American Beauty. Those records celebrated 50th birthdays last year. Somewhere in the second season, main talker Jesse Jarnow mentions that touring wasn’t really a thing in the late ’60s and early ’70s. His point, which comes across with great aplomb in an interview with road manager Sam Cutler, is that the Dead had to create the tour concept for themselves before they could draw ‘heads into following them across the country year after year. Anyway, I can’t recommend that podcast highly enough – it’s been fantastic so far, and I’m excited to hear when it goes next. Well worth a listen.

So. 5/22/77. It must be alright if Dick Latvala picked it as the third release in the vault series that bears his name? Yep.

The show starts with a fun Funiculi Funicula wiggle, then drops into a funky The Music Never Stops. Next is a fantastic Sugaree that seems to go on forever. Is it the longest of the tour? No. According to a post on the Dead for a Year blog, there were seven versions of Sugaree in 5/77. (I confirmed that.)The longest is 5/28 (18:43, per Deadlists); the next longest is 5/19 (17:02). The rest, including 5/22, fall into the 13-15 minute range. This one is 15:38, and it doesn’t disappoint. The rest of the first set is a trade off between Bobby and Jerry. El Paso, Peggy-O, Minglewood, Friend of the Devil, Lazy Lightnin’ > Supplication, Ramble on Rose. All excellent. The first set-closing Dancing in the Street is just slightly less great than the Cornell version.

The second set-opening Help on the Way > Slipknot! > Franklin’s Tower is just slightly less great than the Buffalo version. (Hey, DW. Just checking if you’re awake.) The Samson & Delilah pops, and Donna isn’t a minus, until she is. After a so-so Brown-Eyed Women and an even more so-so Good Lovin’, she’s back to lead Sunrise. Whatever. The Estimated > Eyes ticks all the boxes for me. Estimated is big and round, and Eyes is plenty fast. The segue from Eyes into Wharf Rat is an honest >, noodly and smooth. (Deadlists calls it Space, but it’s better than that.) A short Terrapin and a long Dew ends the set. And Sugar Magnolia is a suitable encore. That’s my take.

Here’s everybody’s favorite Deadhead with his listening notes. Ladies and Gentlemen, Emcee ECM…

When GD archivist, Dick Latvala unearthed a damaged analog tape of 5/22/77, it was probably one of best finds/surprises in Grateful Dead taping history. Of course, the story of Rob Eaton acquiring the Betty Boards of 5/8/77 (among many other shows that were missing from the vault) takes first prize, but most people in the taping community already knew about Cornell from audience tapes that circulated. With 5/22/77, nothing circulated. It was a completely unknown show, which made it’s mystery all the more intriguing. Latvala and crew painstakingly restored the damaged analog tape and released it for all of us to hear as Dick’s Pick Volume 3 in 1995. The show opens with a mind blowing Music > Sugaree combo, the latter being an all-time version. Listen to the way Garcia weaves a hypnotic spider web of notes in Sugaree. Later in the set we get a sizzling Lazy>Supplication and a tender Peggy-O. The set closes with a groove-a-licious version of Dancing In The Street that gives Cornell a run for its money.

In Set 2, we get our faces melted with a spellbinding Slipknot! and a joyous Franklin’s Tower. Eyes of the World starts with a gorgeous lengthy opening jam before the verses and ends with an otherworldly jam that leads into a stunning Wharf Rat. Then we get to the reason why Dick Latvala released this show. It’s one of those magical Grateful Dead moments where everything seems right in the universe. Here, somehow, Wharf Rat finds its way into Terrapin Station WITHOUT the Lady With A Fan section. It’s the only time this ever happened. From there we get another incredibly rare treat: Morning Dew. The last version the band played was at Cornell two weeks before this performance. Dew was only played five times in 1977, and all of the versions are astounding including this one. Also, this is the third of only four performances ever of the TerraDew combo. Wish they would have played it more just as I wish they would have performed the Playin’ Palindrome more often. A legendary Grateful Dead show in the legendary month of May 1977. Time to revisit this Dick’s Picks if you haven’t done so already.

As Ed mentioned, most of this show is an official release, Dick’s Picks #3. (Idk why they opted to include Sunrise over BEW or Sugar Mags.) Here’s the Spotify widget…

And if you’re not on Spotify, or just want the whole show, transport to the Charlie Miller remaster of the soundboard recording HERE.

More soon.

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#IFTTT #WordPress

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garden-ghoul · 7 years

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bloggbblog, part 8

“my GOAL for this one is to do 2 chapters since I have jack else to do. idk if I’m using jack correctly in this sentence.”

FLIES AND SPIDERS

Why is it my most vivid memories of this book are of the dwerrows getting captured in sacks/spider webbing. Is it just because it’s KIND OF WEIRD that this exact thing gets repeated. Wait shit the point is probably to contrast “Gandalf has to save everyone while Bilbo hides” and “Bilbo saves everyone because getting the Ring made him suddenly competent.” No uh why is he competent now? I like the bit where he’s the only one with eyes sharp enough to spot Beorn in chapter 7, and now he’s turning into a real hero. I think what might have done it was the moment when he steps out of the cave, finally free, and then realizes he’s going to have to go back into danger to save his friends. That bit was really good, like just understated enough that clearly Bilbo doesn’t even realize how much he’s changed.

Sorry. That’s what I got from the TITLE of the chapter. Uhh let’s start reading it. So far the first paragraph informs us in a very fun way that the forest is dark because it’s covered in trees. It’s also full of cobwebs bigger than any Bilbo has ever seen, though thankfully (but mysteriously) they don’t go across the Path. And at night many eyes come to stare at our heroes--the forest is completely zero-photon black, though, so honestly this just proves that Tolkien put all his points into mythology and none in biology. I’m pretty sure spiders don’t even have tapeta lucida, so what the fuck. Basically Tolkien spends a couple pages enumerating all the ways the forest sucks, and then the party stumbles upon the Lethe. They don’t want to wade it, for fear that forgetfulness is absorbed via skin contact, BUT there is a boat on the far bank that they are able to hook with their convenient grappling hook (it’s not a grappling hook it’s like one of those bungee hooks).

As they’re just barely across a hart runs over Bombur and knocks him into the water, causing him to fall asleep. In the distance: a horn, baying hounds. Maybe they were hunting the hart! Or maybe they were hunting these other deer that show up--the dwerrows use all of their remaining arrows trying in vain to shoot them, and now the bows are useless. Fools. Tolkien informs us that they are actually getting close to the eastern edge of the wood, but they don’t know this and are beginning to despair, because they’ve been carrying Bombur for four days. Um is he just. Asleep now, permanently. In time the trees start to thin, even as the party begins to hear strange eerie songs and laughter. I wonder if the elves also don’t want to live too deep in the forest. Bilbo is made to climb a tree to try and see the end, because he’s lightest; finds some spiders “after the butterflies.” Listen. Butterflies are a fool’s errand. They’re mostly wing and they destroy webs really easily. Don’t bother with them. I get that this is like a metaphor or something but I’m cheesed. Oh they’re cool butterflies, though, and tons of them. With velvet black wings. Bilbo sees no end to the forest, because he’s in a valley, and everyone is miserable.

Bombur wakes up. I’m not sure if this is of consequence yet, but he has dreamed of feasting with the elves. He sees torches and fires lit, a ways off the path, which is honestly very will-o-wisp and oh great there he goes. He’s trying to go over there. It is decided that a couple people should creep over and spy, but since they might get lost forever, uh, everyone decides to go, which is the opposite of what makes sense in this situation, but whatever. They smell roasting meat and all try to leap toward it, and the elves vanish. Orrrr possibly they were an illusion the whole time, unclear. Now everyone is lost, so good job. Should have! left someone! on the path!

The lights come on again. Thorin decides to send Bilbo, the least scary, to parley.

The lights go out, and Bilbo is lost. They find him asleep a while later (weak from hunger?)

"I was having such a lovely dream," he grumbled, "all about having a most gorgeous dinner."

"Good heavens! he has gone like Bombur," they said. "Don't tell us about dreams. Dream-dinners aren't any good, and we can't share them."

This is just cute dialogue. The dwerrows STILL haven’t learned their lesson, because the next time they see lights--a huuuuge feast--they go and try to crash it again. Look the elves are just trying to eat and they keep having to pick up all their stuff and sprint away while they’re trying to have a good time. Let them alone. Thorin steps out and everyone looks at him for a moment, and then they snuff the lights and kick ashes in the dwerrows’ eyes. All the dwerrows get lost, and Bilbo can’t find any of them. So he lies down against a tree and goes to sleep, the only reasonable course of action.

He wakes up and a spider is trying to wrap him up. He panics but manages to kill it with his sword, and then passes out again. When he wakes up there’s a dead spider and he’s still alone. But.

Somehow the killing of the giant spider, all alone by himself in the dark without the help of the wizard or the dwerrows or of anyone else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins. He felt a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach, as he wiped his sword on the grass and put it back into its sheath.

"I will give you a name," he said to it, "and I shall call you Sting."

Birth of a legend.

He uses his innate hobbit stealth and also the Ring to sneak up on some spiders. That is, he sneaks in a random direction and falls ass-backward into a rescue. Also I want to interject here that the cobwebs these spiders make, unlike normal cobwebs, are black. If their hugeness wasn’t enough, this is probably a Clue that they are descended from Ungoliant or her like. They digest the light and excrete the darkness that is left over! Maybe that’s why this forest is so dark! Hey hey did we ever get any good descriptions of Nan Dungortheb. I bet it’s like this.

Bilbo listens in on some spider conversation, which makes me really wonder if Shelob could talk and just didn’t feel like it. It’d make sense if she could talk, right? Anyway it’s really fun how all the Horrible Monsters in this book talk like average Toms, Dicks, and Harrys. Hang ‘em up for a couple days and they’ll be bee-autiful, says one of the spiders. I’m serious. One of the spiders goes up to inspect Bombur and almost gets kicked off the branch and everyone else laughs. It’s like. Every kind of sentient creature is essentially the same. Why does Tolkien keep making people relateable and humanizing them and then turning right around and having the heroes remorselessly kill them?? Johnald you might want to get that checked out???

Turns out Bilbo is a good shot with a stone, and always has been. This is one of those things where you just assume he has a lot of mundane skills and you can just make one up if it happens to be useful. Bilbo throws the stone at the spider that’s about to gank Bombur (?usage?) and it falls off the branch and lands flop with its legs all curled. I like how he sometimes puts onomatopoeias into sentences like that, it flows real nice.

The next stone went whizzing through a big web, snapping its cords, and taking off the spider sitting in the middle of it, whack, dead. After that there was a deal of commotion in the spider-colony, and they forgot the dwerrows for a bit, I can tell you.

Good diction thanks. AND THEN HE SINGS. I love these songs so I’m going to stick them right in for you to enjoy too.

Old fat spider spinning in a tree! Old fat spider can't see me! Attercop! Attercop! Won't you stop, Stop your spinning and look for me! Old Tomnoddy, all big body, Old Tomnoddy can't spy me! Attercop! Attercop! Down you drop! You'll never catch me up your tree!

I think I recall at one point looking this up and finding that ‘attercop’ and ‘cobweb’ have a common root that means spider in like Old English. Tomnoddy, from a cursory googling, means “hey dumbass.” Bilbo successfully leads the spiders away from his friends, but now they are weaving webs to fence him in. Tolkien doesn’t know how long it takes to make a web, either.

Lazy Lob and crazy Cob are weaving webs to wind me. I am far more sweet than other meat, but still they cannot find me!

Sounds like Shel Silverstein. Alsooo I’m very happy about both internal rhyme and alliteration. Bilbo is a great fight-for-your-life spur-of-the-moment poet. Bilbo books it back to where his friends are (impressive sense of direction) and starts freeing them. After killing another spider! And then half a dozen more when they start to return! He’s growing into quite the murderer, is our Bilbo! The dwerrows try and join in, but they uhh have all been poisoned, and aren’t doing too good. Eventually Bilbo decides in desperation to draw the spiders off so they rest can escape. It takes hours but finally they do.

Everyone is bone tired. They rest in the elf campsites, which are maybe protected? And Bilbo tells them the story of getting the Ring, and they all decides that he Knows Things and must have a way to get them out of their pickle (still starving to death). Oh also Thorin is just straight up missing, he was kidnapped by the elves. Tolkien hastens to assure us that even though wood elves are dangerous and have kidnapped Thorin, “still elves they were and remain, and that is Good People.” Fake. Don’t tell me every elf is good. You’re the one who came up with Eol and Maeglin. Feanor. Every one of Feanor’s dumb ass sons. Anyway the woodland king is questioning Thorin. This bit’s hilarious.

"Why did you and your folk three times try to attack my people at their merrymaking?" asked the king.

"We did not attack them," answered Thorin; "we came to beg, because we were starving."

"Where are your friends now, and what are they doing?"

"I don't know, but I expect starving in the forest."

"What were you doing in the forest?"

"Looking for food and drink, because we were starving."

At least Thorin gets fed in elf jail.

BARRELS OUT OF BOND

The party is sort of staggering along, hopefully in the direction of the path, when twilight falls. Twilight is Elf Time. The dwerrows are glad to be captured, though; Bilbo goes invisible and sneaks after them, so as to have a hope of rescuing them. None of the dwerrows is willing to talk when questioned by the elf king, so that’s good. Apparently he has a great liking for treasure and is probably trying to get gold out of them. How the tables have tabled! He gets angry at them for just being in his kingdom and throws them in prison with some food but no talking. And he doesn’t tell them he has Thorin.

Bilbo lives for a week off stolen food, creeping out the door after hunting parties occasionally but unable to find the way out of the wood. It’s absolutely miserable, he never takes off the Ring and hardly dares to sleep. He finds Thorin eventually and acts as a secret courier between him and the rest of the dwerrows. Guys I Fuckin Love the narrative where people are imprisoned and have only the slimmest hope of getting out, someone sneaking around in desperation for their own life. It’s such a specific thing but I Love It.

Bilbo does not love it. He doesn’t like the hypervigilant life, and he doesn’t like having fourteen lives on his shoulders. Eventually he puts the river delivery service and a lucky break of the guard getting drunk... into a Plan. Steals the keys and goes around unlocking dwerrows. They don’t like “escaping in barrels on the river” but what are you going to do? Unfortunately Bilbo packs everyone into barrels and then has no-one to pack him. He panics while the barrel-rollers sing a barrel-rolling song that is much more elvish than their dialogue, puzzlingly. Bilbo has to cling to an empty barrel “like a rat.” It’s hard, because of how it is Round. The rest of the chapter is basically more “barrels are hard and the dwerrows might be dead.”

#urgh teatime #there's just too much daylight in the summmer #and I'm very tired #blog of the rings

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joannalannister · 7 years

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Bright and many-colored are the webs the dream-spiders weave.

I finished “The Tower of Ashes” and, let me tell you, if you love the psychedelic horror aspects of ASOIAF, this one’s for you.

This story... I can’t tell you if I love “Tower of Ashes” or if I hate it. This story fucked me up, in a weird way, and I’m not sure I like it. I think it’s a Beauty and the Beast story... Or Phantom of the Opera... idk. It’s horror, I know that much.

Spoilers below. Srsly, spoilers.

Someone please read this and tell me if my theory is crazy. Please. It’s like I’ve just theorized that Aegon VI is a fake in ADWD, and I have no one to turn to. Please talk to me.

First, a point of clarification. In my previous post on “Tower of Ashes” I said the narrator was a dealer of dreams, but in truth he only supplies raw materials to the actual dealers. His name is John, evoking the idea of a John Doe figure. He’s such a vague character that I’m not entirely sure who he is ... or what.

I first started questioning what was going on right at the beginning, when the narrator introduces his pet, named Squirrel. Squirrel’s a cat. “With ears like a fox.” Allegedly Squirrel’s a cat, if you believe the narrator. I don’t.

Squirrel’s described as much smaller than a normal cat. (btw, an average dream-spider is “the size of a big man’s fist”.) And at the end:

Sometimes when Squirrel comes behind me up the stairs, scraping the sooty bricks with his eight white legs, the wrongness of it all hits me, and I know I’ve dwelt with dreams too long. Yet the dreams are often better than the waking, the stories so much finer than the lives.

This is one of two things:

John’s too addicted to the dream drug and he can’t ~wake~ to reality properly anymore.

Squirrel’s a spider. Did I mention the dream-spiders are deadly predators that live in pairs?

Anyways, GRRM immediately introduces this dissonance, this idea that things aren’t as they first seem.

John lives alone on the mainland, where no other human lives. There’s this sense that he’s trapped there, in a prison of his own making. “The mainland’s no use to anyone, except the spider-men.” Spider-men here refers to the drug dealers / dream dealers, but ... what if it means something more? The people in the story repeatedly ask whether there’s sentient life on the mainland.

There’s some language and sentence structure and words that just -- they don’t jive with the narrator as human, as if the fantasy he’s spinning for himself has slipped away momentarily, letting us see through the glamour:

I was down …

… and sinking.

It’s this WTF moment that you just slide by on first read. But coming back to it a second time ... knowing the dream-spiders are up there in the canopy, and they sink down to hunt, scuttling along the ground... It’s creepy, my friends.

John eschews the laser guns, preferring to hunt with a bow and arrow, and a knife, weapons strangely akin to the spider venom and barbs.

I had, all unthinking, built myself another fantasy.

“I’d spun a pretty web, bright and alluring as the trap of any dream-spider”

“I lived from twilight to dawn, as the dream-spiders do.”

I know all this is metaphor. I know. But.

I know this sounds like crazy reddit tinfoil crack. But

I think John is a spider.

Yeah, I said it. I think this guy’s a giant fucking spider.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think the story is better if he’s a spider. I promise it jives with the themes and all that good stuff. Just hear me out.

IF John is a spider ... he’s the Beast.

“I wanted Crys to be happy, simply, and she could not be happy with me”

The love interest, Crystal, doesn’t have much to her character, but I think that’s the point. She’s a crystal, a bright beautiful rainbow of longing for John. She’s his fantasy. (Fantasy helps us “find the colors again”.) The nickname John gives her (“Crys”) made me think of Christine, from Phantom.

He takes Crystal (and us) to this land of enchantment, a fairyland of bluemoss that glows in the darkness, before Gerry (a Gaston figure if ever I saw one) ruins it all. Gerry wants to kill the Beast(s), you see; he wants to spray the continent with napalm and eradicate all the spiders and the bluemoss and everything else wondrous and beautiful.

Maybe Crystal is supposed to be Belle / Beauty, but I don’t think so. I don’t think Crystal even exists as anything more than a story John told himself, to soften the darkness and make his loneliness a little more bearable.

I think the readers are meant to be Beauty. We’re the ones who see the humanity in Spider!John and feel his longing and realize he isn’t different from us at all. In fact, he’s so much like us that we couldn’t even see through his glamour in the beginning. We’re the ones who stay with him, long after Crystal has vanished. (Or he stays with us, lingering in our nightmares.)

Come on, my friends, we’ve built more from a rusty piece of metal washing up on the banks of the Trident. Surely it’s not absurd to think that John is secretly a giant spider, dreaming of his life as a human and of winning back his lady love?

ANYWAYS GRRM’s definitely playing with the idea of fantasy as something “more real than real” here. It leads to questions about the nature of reality, viewed through a highly unreliable narrator. It’s also a story about storytelling, as so many of GRRM’s stories are. (Remember the Frog Prince in ADWD? Remember all those allusions to other fantasy stories in ASOIAF? GRRM loves to talk about stories.)

“I wanted to think myself a hero”

I hear echoes of Tyrion in these lines.

John (surely a spider? one of the most evil creatures in all of fantasy) wanted to play the hero. He wanted to love, and be loved. He wanted those simple human things, like Tyrion’s dreams of a snug cottage by the sea with Tysha.

John can’t play the hero. As Crystal makes clear, he has no choice, he doesn’t get to go out in a blaze of glory. Instead he lingers, grotesquely, long after his story, this fantasy he built for himself, has run out.

have you ever known anybody to die at the right time? No, don’t happen that way. Some guys fall over before their lives have properly gotten started, some right in the middle of the best part. Others kinda linger on after everything is really over.

But even spiders feel loneliness. Even spiders can sit on the roof, under the stars and look out across the water at the city lights and wonder about the stories over there:

Each night I return from the cool forests, my arrows black with the caked blood of the dream-spiders and my bag heavy with their poison sacs, and I set aside my bow and wash my hands and then climb up to the roof to spend the last few hours before dawn. Across the narrow salt channel, the lights of Port Jamison burn on the island [...]. The square black buildings wear a bright romantic glow at night; the lights, all smoky orange and muted blue, speak of mystery and silent song and more than a little loneliness

Even spiders can dream.

...SO...

GRRM MADE ME FEEL EMPATHY FOR A GIANT SENTIENT SPIDER

FUCK YOU GEORGE

//SHRIEKS IN HORROR//

#the tower of ashes #nobodysuspectsthebutterfly #im tagging you butterfly because i'm curious what you think #dreamsongs #someone talk to me about this

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