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anangelicday-mrwolf · 3 years

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Wolfsbane : Noblesse Fanfic (post-ending)

(previous chapter)

Chapter 42 – Does This Mean I Can Hope?

“G-good evening to you, sir.”

Lunark bowed to Raizel out of gut reaction, but he gave not a single sign of acknowledgment.

He merely positioned himself, reticent and elegant, bestowing shine upon the entire balcony, so tiny and unimportant, by simply staying poised.

Like a lake in silent slumber under the moonlight.

Like a crane standing upon a snowy meadow.

Those who know him well would have seen immediately that was his characteristic way of responding to someone’s greetings.

Unfortunately, Lunark’s personal history with the Noblesse was not long enough for her brain to identify such behavioral pattern of his.

“Forgive me for making myself a guest without your permission.”

Lunark spoke, feeling compelled to defend herself once more. To her greatest relief, this time Raizel yielded a visible reply.

“...Have no concern. The door of this house is always open to my family. And their guests.”

Instantly relieved, Lunark let her shoulders slouch, and her head thawed enough to dissect Raizel’s words.

‘A family, huh?’

What a heart-warming term, thought Lunark.

During the course of her personal chronicle as a warrior of wolfkind, she could not find a chance to experience what a family is like.

It has been several centuries since she parted ways with her biological parents, and she had been admiring Muzaka and thus aspiring to be a warrior since young.

She had never allowed idleness to dare constitute her life, in a fierce, almost bloody competition against fellow werewolves, ones she would have dubbed her friends or colleagues had she been part of the human world.

Naturally, her life has come to center on her identity as a warrior and the relations based on such identity.

Including, for example, the “warrior crews” and their “components” within her race.

Or the “elders” she used to share elder’s chairs with, before her departure from the Union.

And as of now, she has only her “fellow warriors” and “lord” to bring up if she is asked to name those meaningful to her.

From her past to present, she has found relations somehow distant from “a family.”

Which is why she could not stop retracing the terminology from her mind.

And she could not stop thinking about Frankenstein, who provided a family for Raizel.

‘Ugh, not again...’

Her self-reprimand was close to a lament.

The werewolf beauty’s head dropped, and Raizel’s crimson eyes flashed with intrigue as she was exhibiting the top of her head in the presence of the Noblesse.

Which did not last for long.

She presumed Raizel was not hinting any accusation for her visit.

For such reason, she could not imagine why he would confront her now, when he was mere minutes away from a snack party with his friends.

Apparently Raizel read the question from her stare; his aesthetic lips slid open.

“A bidding I have for you.”

“A bidding...?”

The situation was so sudden, out of blue, because of which Lunark could feel her logics thinning.

Raizel kept his gaze locked upon her face as he continued.

“Frankenstein, it concerns.”

Right then Lunark could feel a pregnant weight plummeting from her head to toes.

‘Frankenstein?’

Automatically and habitually, anxiety and tremor started to creep upon her entire form, causing subtle yet definitely-there wrenches in her chest.

That was when a well-known fact about nobles knocked her memories.

All nobles are gifted with mind control, and it is common for them to utilize such endowment to sketch what lies within their audiences.

‘Did he notice that I have feelings for Frankenstein...?’

Promptly following her cognitive process, a grief almost biting shook her undivided presence.

‘Is my love so unacceptable, so outrageous?’

Muzaka already lectured her to withdraw her feelings, and she could still remember how bitter she had felt.

And now she is faced with another lecture from Raizel.

Lunark minced her lips, despising herself for lingering for the sake of her stupid curiosity.

She was hit with an urge to bolt away from her spot, but she was educated enough to tell herself that there is no way she could commit such discourtesy to the Noblesse.

Instead, she steeled the dual ventricles of her heart and intentionally disconnected her mind.

She did not want to listen to whatever Raizel had in his mouth to ruthlessly drill her heart with.

To her appallment, her eardrums disregarded her stance and sharpened themselves for Raizel’s words, perhaps because they would involve Frankenstein.

“Anything do you know about Frankenstein?”

Upon hearing him, her eyes were inadvertently drawn to his countenance.

“What do you mean by that...?”

“Quite a long time has passed since Frankenstein left this place for his individual mission. Nothing have I received from him ever since, though the distance between us I deliberately maintained, in honor of his choice.”

Raizel provided no further explanation, yet Lunark could picture what his most trusted lieutenant would have appeared upon leaving his house, as bold and determined as a patriotic general about to face off against millions of invaders to his homeland.

Lunark gave her head a few waves without realizing it, and Raizel squinted his eyes in a mysterious shape as he witnessed her action.

“Frankenstein is bound to me under our contract, breathing within our spiritual essence as a mental link. Which stays in power as we speak.”

“You mean... At this very moment?”

Lunark was mystified. She knew Frankenstein and Raizel were at least miles away from each other.

She projected a link of the Noblesse is nothing like those from the lesser nobles, until he revealed that is not the case.

“Frankenstein remains in the dark regarding this – ever since I have returned, more influential and substantial our link has grown. Now distance serves as no barrier for me to feel the climate of his heart, one of small changes I have gone through since my return; natheless, as a secret I have kept so far, for I feared I would add one more to his troubles.”

Lunark briefly wondered if he could hear Frankenstein’s heart as they were conversing.

The moment she thought of such possibility, her heart tore itself from her dominance to fire a soundless scream of inquiry: Do you know by any chance how Frankenstein feels about me?

Luckily her lip muscles remained loyal to her and secured her screech within quiet.

“Howbeit, not available to me are all of infinitesimal emotions and ruminations embroidered upon his heart. The book may be his heart, but it will not open its pages and allow its lines and characters to pour into my cognition. It will simply spill some of its most predominant words only occasionally.”

So mind control is not another name for a master key, murmured Lunark in her head upon learning something new.

The topic was quite appealing, but she was still clueless why he would mention it to her out of all people.

“And to my gravest dismay, as of late the words from Frankenstein’s book were too heavy and too dark in depth and color.”

“What do you mean by that...?”

“I am afraid too shy is the reason in treating me. It is true that I am his master by our contract of blood, but it is not in my power to pick out and examine his heart whenever I please, as if picking out books from a library.”

Lunark began to squeeze her brain for a potential theory, calculating everything she knows about him as of now.

She already knew that Frankenstein is pushing himself to his limit to find out the secret of Raizel’s return, even taking tonics to force insomnia upon himself.

And it was highly likely that the darkness within Frankenstein is the result of his strain.

‘But how come I have a feeling that there is more to this than it seems?’

Raizel is utterly respectful of individual choices and decisions; nevertheless, here he was, seeking her privacy to discuss Frankenstein’s state without his knowledge. Which suggested to Lunark that Frankenstein’s emotional state is somewhere very far from healthy or normal.

“Anything do you have to provide for me about this?”

He even asked her right in her face, because of which Lunark could see how serious the situation was.

And she felt so remorseful that there was nothing she could tell him.

Or rather, she could not tell him though she had something to tell him. She did not want at all to do something Frankenstein would not be happy with.

And Raizel would note that she is hiding something on purpose; however, she could only hope for his understanding regarding her deceit.

To her gratitude, Raizel did not pose any more question or accusation, though Lunark felt something was off.

‘Why would he ask me about Frankenstein?’

Even a toddler would be able to speculate that there had been a communication or two between her and Frankenstein, in coordination of their tasks.

‘But it looks like it’s not simply because I’m his... His ally in battlefield, to say. Or did I go too far?’

Perhaps her heart was shrieking too ardently.

Or perhaps the inquisitiveness on her face was too conspicuous.

But Raizel did not hesitate to clarify.

“For a reason and cause I have yet to explore, your name would spark in my head whenever I collect Frankenstein’s heart. It has happened in the past, but recently the occasion has turned more frequent.”

“Beg your pardon...?”

“Like I said, the pieces I can collect from Frankenstein’s heart are keywords from a book he safekeeps within. In other words, the shards of his heart that would ebb and flow into my mind are what he holds priceless to himself.”

Suddenly Lunark could feel her head spinning.

Her brain cells were busily replaying what the Noblesse just disclosed, in furious skepticism of her comprehensive aptitude.

“I do not know how you would accept this, but... I suspected the tempest in his heart is somehow related to you.”

That was when with a thump Lunark’s heart resonated in an unnatural way.

Her heart was adrift in midst of chaos, glittering in a surreal color – a color she would have labeled as “hope.”

“Hey, Rai! Where are you?”

“Hurry up! It’s almost ready!”

As she was frozen, baffled by her own reaction, a boy and a girl called upon Raizel, and his head rotated towards the living room.

“I believe it is of no manners to hold you any longer. No easy decision would have been your visit, with your pathway teeming with tasks. I wish you a safe return.”

Raizel gave a solemn nod before he turned away.

Lunark was glued to her spot, before she hopped from the balcony, her a motion very clumsy for a werewolf warrior.

‘There is storm in Frankenstein’s heart... Because of me?’

Of course, concern was the first and foremost thing that gripped her heart. After all, it was about Frankenstein out of all souls.

At the same time, she could not restrain her mind from whispering: Does this mean I can hope...?

She came to find herself looking back at Frankenstein’s house, before she gritted her teeth.

‘Snap out of it, Lunark. This is not what you are here for.’

Her job was done, and it was time to leave.

Feeling how her heart grew murkier upon her every self-rebuke, Lunark was about to kick off from where she stood, when someone called upon her.

“Wait!!!”

(next chapter)

Like I mentioned at the end of the previous chapter, this chapter centers on conversation between Rai and Lunark. This is something that troubles me whenever I present Rai in a chapter: how to make Rai’s speech eloquent as expected from the Noblesse but at the same time easily readable and understandable. And his appearance has never failed to trouble me so far lol. By the way, Lunark’s parents have never been mentioned in the original webtoon, let alone featured. I didn’t want to waste the progress giving my personally invented details about them, so I just decided they parted with their daughter long time ago (though that created another question to be left unanswered for my fic). Now this fic is moving on to the highlight of the entire plot, and I will do my best to unleash everything I have built up so far. :)

#korean webcomic #korean webtoon #fanfic #noblesse #frankenstein #lunark #frankensteinxlunark #wolfsbane

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didanawisgi · 5 years

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W. Kirk MacNulty, 32°

The symbols used in 18th-century Masonic tracing boards are references to the vast body of literature and philosophy which documents Renaissance thought.

Art: Frontispiece from Stephen Jones, Masonic Miscellanies (London: Vernor & Hood, 1797)

Masonic Tracing Boards are training devices. In the earliest days of speculative Masonry, the Master would sketch designs on the floor of the Lodge using chalk. Then he would talk about the drawing during the meeting. During the course of the 18th century, the drawings were transferred to "Tracing Boards" which are pictures, one per Degree, that encapsulate the symbols of each of the Degrees. The Boards to which we will refer are English.

Speculative Masonry started in the 1600s, and its symbols are references to that vast body of literature and philosophy which documents Renaissance thought. In the Renaissance, the dominant metaphysic was Judeo-Christian monotheism with an admixture of Classical thinking. Renaissance philosophers incorporated many Greek (particularly neo-Platonic) and Jewish mystical ideas into their orthodox Christianity. Some of these influences came from the Hermetica which had, itself, been a substantial influence in the formation of early Christian doctrines. Others came from Kabbalah, the mystical tradition of Judaism. This fusion of classical and Jewish philosophy is called the "Hermetic/Kabbalistic Tradition"; and after it had been interpreted in the context of orthodox Christian doctrine, it became the basis of Renaissance thinking. Speculative Masonry dates from the end of the Renaissance (the mid-17th century), and it is no surprise that Masonic symbolism reflects this tradition.

The First Degree Tracing Board, which looks at first glance like a collection of heterogeneous objects, is, I think, a representation of the entire Universe. It is also a picture of a human being standing in a landscape. Neither of these images is immediately obvious, but I think the ideas will become clear.

The central idea of Renaissance thought was the unity of the Universe and the consequent omnipresence of the Deity. This idea is represented by the "Ornaments of the Lodge." The fact that Masonry has gathered these three objects into a single group suggests that we consider them together. The Ornaments of the Lodge are the Blazing Star or Glory, the Checkered Pavement, and the Indented, Tessellated Border; all refer to the Deity. The Blazing Star or Glory is found in the Heavens at the center of the picture. It is a straightforward heraldic representation of the Deity. Look at the Great Seal of the United States on a dollar bill, and you will see the Deity represented there in the same manner. The Checkered Pavement represents the Deity as perceived in ordinary life. The light and dark squares represent paired opposites, a mixture of mercy and justice, reward and punishment, passion and analysis, vengeance and loving kindness. They also represent the human experience of life, light and dark, good and evil, ease and difficulty. But that is only how it is perceived. The squares are not the symbol; the Pavement is the symbol. The light and dark squares fit together with exact nicety to form the Pavement, a single thing, a unity. The whole is surrounded by the Tessellated Border which binds it into a single symbol. The Border binds not simply the squares, but the entire picture, into a unity.

The idea of duality occurs throughout the Board: from the black and white squares at the bottom to the Sun and Moon at the top. In the central area of the Board, duality is represented by two of the three columns; but here the third column introduces a new idea. The striking thing about these columns is that each is from a different Order of Architecture. In Masonic symbolism, they are assigned names: Wisdom to the Ionic Column in the middle, Strength to the Doric Column on the left, and Beauty to the Corinthian Column on the right. How shall we interpret these Columns and their names?

One of the major components of Renaissance thought was Kabbalah. The principal diagram which is used by Kabbalists to communicate their ideas is the "Tree of Life." The column on the right is called the "Column of Mercy," the active column. That on the left is called the "Column of Severity," the passive column. The central column is called the "Column of Consciousness." It is the column of equilibrium with the role of keeping the other two in balance. The three columns all terminate in (depend on) Divinity at the top of the central column. Referring to the columns on the First Degree Tracing Board , note that the Corinthian Pillar of Beauty is on the right; in the classical world the Corinthian Order was used for buildings dedicated to vigorous, expansive activities. The Doric Pillar of Strength is on the left; the Doric Order was used for buildings housing activities in which discipline, restraint, and stability were important. The Ionic Pillar of Wisdom is in the middle. The Ionic Order is recognized as an intermediate between the other two and was used for Temples to the rulers of the gods who coordinated the activities of the pantheon. The Three Pillars, like the Tree of Life, speak of a universe in which expansive and constraining forces are held in balance by a coordinating agency.

The Universe of the Renaissance philosophers consisted of "four worlds." The Kabbalistic representation of this idea is shown in the figure above by the four large circles denoting four "worlds." They are the "elemental" or physical world, the "celestial" world of the psyche or soul, the "supercelestial" world or spirit, and the Divine world. These same levels are represented on the First Degree tracing board pictured on the front inside cover of this issue. The Pavement represents the "elemental," physical world; the central part of the Board, including the columns and most of the symbols, represents the "celestial" world of the psyche or soul; the Heavens represent the "supercelestial" world of the spirit; and the Glory represents Divinity.

These ideas describe the "landscape." Where is the man?

Another important Renaissance concept was that of a Macrocosm (the universe as a whole) and a corresponding Microcosm (the human individual). The idea is that the universe and human beings are structured using the same principles (both being made "in the image of God"). Consider the Ladder. It extends from the Scripture on the Altar to the Glory which represents the Deity; and in the Masonic symbolism, it is said to be Jacob’s Ladder. We consider the ladder together with another symbol, the Point-within-a-Circle-Bounded-by-Two-Parallel-Lines, which is shown on the face of the Altar.

These symbols are discussed together because in many early Masonic drawings they appear together as if they have some connection. (See the illustration from Masonic Miscellanies, 1797, at the head of this article.) Consider the Two Parallel Lines first. They, like the Doric and Corinthian columns, represent paired opposites, active and passive qualities. In Masonic symbolism, they are associated with the Saints John; the Baptist’s Day is mid-summer, the Evangelist’s is mid-winter.

Now, this Point-within-a-Circle-Bounded-by-Two-Parallel-Lines, together with the Ladder and its three levels, reveals a pattern very similar to the three columns. There are three verticals, two of which, the Lines, relate to active and passive functions while the third, the Ladder between them, reaches to the heavens and provides the means "by which we hope to arrive there." The ladder has "three principal rounds" or levels, represented by Faith, Hope and Charity, which correspond to the three lower levels of the four-level Universe we observed earlier.

Both the Macrocosmic "Landscape" and the Microcosmic "Man" share the fourth level of Divinity, represented by the Blazing Star, or Glory. Taken together the Ladder and the Point-within-a-Circle-Bounded-by-Two- Parallel-Lines represent the human individual made "in the image of God," according to the same principles on which the Universe is based.

A Mason is sometimes called "a traveling man." One of the Masonic catechisms gives us an insight into this term. "Q. - Did you ever Travel? A. - My forefathers did. Q. - Where did they travel? A. - Due East and West. Q. - What was the object of their travels? A. - They traveled East in search of instruction, and West to propagate the knowledge they had gained." Notice the cardinal points of the compass on the Border of this Tracing Board; they define the East–West direction in Masonic terms, and, in doing so, they describe the nature of the journey to which the new Mason apprentices himself. That journey from West to East is represented, symbolically, by the progress through the Masonic Degrees; and it is, in fact, the ascent up Jacob’s Ladder—one of the "Principal Rounds" for each Degree.

The notion of a "mystical ascent" was part and parcel of the Hermetic/Kabbalistic Tradition. It is a devotional exercise during which the individual rises through the worlds of the soul and the spirit and at last finds himself experiencing the presence of Deity. Some of these ascents are deeply Christian in their character. In De Occulta Philosophia, Agrippa "rises through the three worlds, the elemental world, the celestial world, the supercelestial world...where he is in contact with angels, where the Trinity is proved, ... the Hebrew names of God are listed, though the Name of Jesus is now the most powerful of all Names." (Frances A. Yates, The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, London, RKP, 1979, p.63)

The Second Degree Tracing Board shows a familiar pattern: two columns which have opposite characteristics, and between them a staircase, a form of ladder. We cannot investigate this symbol here because of space limitations (see Heredom, vol. 5, 1996, for a fuller explication), but we know we are to climb this staircase. The picture summarizes the Renaissance idea of the approach to Deity as an interior journey.

On the Third Degree Tracing Board, the grave probably does not refer to physical death. During the Renaissance there was much discussion about "the Fall of man" and its effect. "The Fall" seems to refer to some event by which human beings, who were at one time conscious of the Divine Presence, lost that consciousness. After "the Fall," ordinary human life, as we live it on a day-to-day basis, is "like death" when compared to human potential and to a life lived in the conscious awareness of Divine presence. The grave suggests such a "death" to be our present state. The acacia growing at the top of the grave suggests that there is a spark of life which can be encouraged to grow and refers to the possibility of regaining our original Divine connection.

The view of the Temple in the center of the Third Degree Board shows "King Solomon’s Porch," the entrance to the "Holy of Holies." The veil is drawn back a little offering a glimpse into that chamber where the Deity was said to reside. This suggests that at the end of the journey from West to East some process analogous to death enables the individual to experience the Divine presence. After this process has occurred, he lives once more at his full potential. Again, I think that this refers neither to a resurrection after physical death nor to a life after physical death; both of which are the domain of religion, not Masonry. Rather, it refers to a psychological/spiritual process which can occur, if it be God’s will, within any devout individual who seeks it earnestly and which I believe it to be the business of Freemasonry to encourage. After all, we claim to be Freemasons, and this is that Truth, the knowing of which "make[s] you free."

This article has been shortened by the author from the original published in Heredom, Vol. 5, 1996.

#herodom #tracing board #lost keys of freemasonry

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daughter-o-f-eris · 6 years

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Could Marco be related to Eclipsa?

Ok so first off, I’ll put it out there that this is just a fan theory and could totally be wrong, but it’s a fun theory so let’s enjoy the ride on how I got here.

Obvious spoilers to follow.

Ok so now we know that Eclipsa and Meteora are the ‘real’ Butterfly royal family and that they are in no way related to Star and Moon (making me wonder how they are able to go into their butterfly forms, like is that just through contact from the wand or what?)

Anyway, a few things I’ve notice. One, very small but noticeable, Marco’s iconic mole is in the exact same spot as Heinous’, it’s just a small detail but the crew seems to put a lot of effort into making sure we see it so maybe it’s sappost to be an obvious sign to something later.

Marco is able to use the wand. Now this one may not mean anything. We saw in the last episode that the council gave the peasant baby the wand and she was able to use it, and Star has a great deal of magic even though she is not related to Eclipsa so it seems that anyone can use the wand and magic is just something you are born with. Before Moon mentioned that the cheek marks on the Butterfly family, I’m paraphrasing, are symbols left behind from being in contact with such powerful magic for so long. That’s why the girls have them, the ones who used the wand and other magic, but the boys don’t since they don’t seem to train with magic in this family. When Marco did use the wand he did get red crescent moons on his cheeks, there has been fan speculation as to why these exact symbols and color. Was it because of the blood moon? If so, why a crescent moon - I thought the moon was full on the ball (correct me if I’m wrong and I’ll acknowledge it), was the color red just because it was raw magic ‘cutting’ into him the first time? There have been many instances throughout the show where a sun and a moon have been shown, and a sun is a star, so could Marco’s cheeks just be showing us that he will be the moon symbol in some larger prophecy and Star will be the sun?

Marco’s monster arm. Now that we know Heinous’ monster heritage, it could be possible that the arm Star thought she gave Marco was his all along. That maybe he had a spell to cover it up, or that maybe after so many generations, the monster gene was dormant and the presence of magic just brought it to the surface.

Marco’s wand form. When Marco used the wand it took a rather monster like form. In the original sketches for the scene (which you can find in their black and white glory on YouTube) you can see that his original design was actual more monsterious, the crew has been very clever in placing breadcrumbs that lead to bigger reveals so I doubt that they gave the wand this look just to make it appear more masculine.

Not a big deal, but Marco’s name does follow the Butterfly pattern of celestial names. Marco comes from mars, so if he was related to the actual Butterfly crown, it would be: Eclipse, Meteor and Mars.

Technically Marco could be the crown princess of Mewni and the rightful user of the wand. How? Well 1. he is of age. 2. If my theory holds up and he is Heinous’ son who was separated (possibly she had her memory erased which is why she seemed to have forgotten her past beyond even more than just her super young childhood), then he would be the rightful heir to the thrown after her. 3. He did receive and honorary Princess title, so he is indeed Princess Marco, therefor Princess Marco could get the wand. Which would make an amazing arch for Marco, the kid from the first episode who was literally called ‘the safety kid’ to find out that he is part monster, royalty by blood, has to learn magic, now has the title-castle-heritage-and object that his best friend cared for the most and must now learn how to use it, while she has now literally traded places with him.

And I know what some of you are thinking ‘how could Heinous be his mother when we’ve met his parents?’ Well he could always be adopted. I mean, no one has ever said he wasn’t. We’ve seen creatures from other dimensions have come to earth thanks to the scissors, it is possible that somehow Marco was brought to earth as well. There are plenty of Mewmans that have similar features to other races on earth, so Marco could take after his biological father, or maybe someone cast a spell to alter his apperance to make him blend in better (I doubt the 2nd option).

Honestly, if my theory panned out and Marco was related to Eclipsa and became the new princess of Mewni, I think he would be the saving grace for the entire land. Why? Because he brings an entire mindset that no one else in that realm could understand. He literally understands both sides of the line better than anyone. As much as Star wants to help end the bigotry towards monsters, she cannot begin to understand what they have gone through. Marco can. Earth doesn’t have monsters, well not ones with scales or feathers. As a minority, he knows what it’s like to be constantly judged based on what you look like. Not to get too dark, it is a Disney cartoon, but we can imagine as a teenager some of the racial bias he has had to go through up to this point, so when he goes to Mewni he can understand what his monster people are going through. But he’s more than that. He’s diplomatic, but also sees the value in individuality, he wants to help people, but understands the bigger picture in prioritizing to achieve the most good. Honestly I think Marco would make a better Queen than Star would (following the princess becomes queen pattern).

Side note - following this theory I have a follow up theory that Eclipsa’s husband, the monster, is still alive. Eventually he and Marco meet and to everyone’s absolute shock .... it’s clear that he’s his grandpa. Like the guy is a complete clean freak (Marco later gives him his magical vacuum and granpa monster literally squees), and the two totally bond over different things. I’d love for this theory to play out and for Marco’s earth parents and Mewni family to get along (I figure his earth parents would be cool with it, like ‘hey we’re just glade you’re not dead, wanna see his baby pictures?’).

Lol sorry I just picture Heinous being super protective over Marco after being reunited with him, and feeling guilty after trying to kill him (to be fair she didn’t know who he was). I can just see later like he and Star are on a mission and someone tries to attack him and Heinous goes full monster mama on it. Marco just rolls his eyes. ‘Mom! We agreed no more taking out my targets! How am I going to get any better if you keep beating all of the villains before I get a chance.’ ‘Sorry sweetie’ (rouge villain tries to attack from behind before he gets zapped)....’grandma!’ ‘You can’t prove anything dear!’

#star vs the forces of evil #star vs the forces of evil spoilers #marco diaz #star butterfly #meteora #meteora butterfly #eclipsa #eclipsa butterfly #svtfoe #svtfoe spoilers #svtfoe theory #star vs the forces of evil theory

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miguelmarias · 5 years

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Something Really New: Starting Over

Il faut recommencer de zéro. - J.-L. Godard (around 1966)

In order to be clear, let me tell you three seemingly unconnected stories.

In 1983, my phone rang. A young man I had never heard of named José Luis Guerín, who was then, it turned out, aged 23, and who lived in Barcelona, was to have some sort of preview of his first feature film in Madrid, and wanted me to present it. I told him I had to see it and like it enough. Which I did (both) some days later. Once I had agreed to present it, I asked him why he had thought about me. He replied that he had read and liked some of my reviews, especially one, about 9 years before, on Bresson's Lancelot du Lac. I was doubly intrigued, because very few people (and he was only 14 at the time) had liked that particular Bresson movie, and I had detected some Bressonian attitudes in his film, Los motivos de Berta. Thus began one of our usually spaced but very long conversations, which make him always late at some appointment (I feel guilty that he once kept Marcel Hanoun waiting for a very long time). It was already then quite unusual for such a young man to talk about Flaherty, Griffith and Dovzhenko as his contemporaries, just like Godard, Eustache or Garrel, not that even the latter trio were very popular or even widely known among Spanish cinéphiles or filmmakers in the early '80s.

Guerín was, no doubt about it, one of a kind. And he not only kept but steadily surpassed the promise of his first feature. He made, in Ireland, Innisfree (1990), in English and Gaelic, about the memories left around Cong, County Mayo, by the shooting of John Ford's The Quiet Man (1952); in 1996, he shot Tren de sombras (Le Spectre de Le Thuit), practically with no dialogue, in France, which was a fascinating inquest starting from a "found footage" home movie (actually shot by Guerín); in 2000, he filmed at long last his native city of Barcelona, in the copiously awarded (including the National Cinema Award) and very personal documentary En construcción, which made of him a relatively known figure. I seem to have been the first to watch each of his movies, although I must state (since people wonder when they see your name in the acknowledgements section of the end credits) that I merely encouraged him or supported his stand against producers or other people who wanted him to shorten his pictures, a step which would have impoverished them and damaged their precious rhythm. Since En construcción, he has continued lecturing and teaching, spurring youngsters to make unconventional movies, and has been busy preparing a new film.

In a medium-sized cinema like the Spanish one, which is not really an industry but rather a mixture of small business and individual craftsmanship (not always on good terms with each other), the only truly original, ambitious, and interesting films are made by a shrinking group of independent filmmakers, devoted enough to suffer long periods of forced unemployment, frustration, and even poverty. They still believe film could be an art, and try to do something about it. The reluctant "father figure" or model of most of the younger promising filmmakers is, of course, Víctor Erice, and they incur the risk of doing almost as few pictures as he. There are better and worse seasons in such a fragile cinema as ours, depending on how many of these filmmakers succeed in making something (even a short), but 2005 has yielded, for me, a very poor harvest, despite the official, corporate, or complacent opinions voiced by most critics and filmmakers and the depressing box-office success of some of the worst. And, fittingly, the best film of the year does not exist.

Of course, it does, since I've seen it eleven times, in three different versions so far. But it has no official or administrative existence: the Ministry of Culture does not know about it, has not "reviewed" or "registered" it, and therefore, it will not appear in the catalogue of Spanish Cinema: 2005. It has never been publicly shown. At my insistence, Guerín has screened it privately to only a handful of friends, and has so far refused to allow anybody from festivals to see it. All that on the dubious ground that it is not really a film, but merely a sort of photographic blueprint for a future feature, purportedly to be shot on 35mm film stock (instead of with a small, low-definition digital-video camera and partly at least with a digital still camera), in color (the "prototype" is in black and white, since Guerín completely de-saturated it), with dialogue, noises, and music (instead of being absolutely silent, which I feel is how it should stay), without intertitles (whereas it is a film to be read, and it is a vital part of its experience to see the words appearing on the screen, as in some of Godard's later films), and with full normal movement (actually, it looks almost like a feature-length La Jetée, since most of the images are stills; there are only, occasionally, some slight, brief, rather tentative movements, a bit like in some Godard films starting with Sauve qui peut [La vie]).

But it is not at all true, as its author pretends, that this film is a blueprint, or a collection of random notes taken in order to prepare a film, or a preliminary sketch of a film to be made — which, I feel, would be wholly redundant, since Guerín has already made it, and very successfully, in a more innovative and cheaper way. Far from being a pre-production "scale model," it is a minutely edited, carefully structured and rhythmed marriage of narrative and reflection, of recollections and speculation, full of mystery and with an acute sense of unceasing, perhaps endless search, which often makes one think of Hitchcock's Vertigo only to remind you, a moment later, of Jonas Mekas's Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania, or suggest a longer, more complex development of Eustache's late short Les Photos d'Alix. I throw out all these references not in order to boost the film, but to help readers to grasp the very particular nature of a film they are unable to see, and perhaps will never have the chance of getting a glimpse of. And it is something so unique that I find it very difficult to describe.

By the way, it is provisionally titled Unas fotos... En la ciudad de Sylvia... y otras ciudades. Which could be translated as Some Photographs... In the City of Sylvia... and Other Cities. Or perhaps as Some Stills... In Sylvia's City... and Other Cities, or maybe Some Snapshots... In Sylvia's City... and Other Cities. In any case, the title is what I like least about it. It is self-derogatory (although partial, like everything in the world, the film is far from being merely "some photos") and utterly misleading as a description. Its present title does not even suggest the narrative drive that makes the film move (in every sense of the word), even though its images are mostly still and its pacing quite deliberate. It should be called, for example (to change it as little as possible), In Search of Sylvia through Her City... and Other Cities. Even if Guerín wants to conceal how personal and subjective a film it is (I wonder how, and even why? He's shy, of course, but...) and would rather pretend that Unas fotos has nothing to do with an intimate journal.

However, what is really meaningful is the personal starting point of what finally becomes a very peculiar kind of speculative fiction, which made me think of a daylight version of André Breton's Nadja, a book that, surprisingly, the filmmaker has not read. In 1980, in the city of Strasbourg, Guerín (or the unseen, nameless narrator who addresses us silently, in brief written phrases) met a girl named Sylvia, who spoke a little Spanish because she had studied nursery in Salamanca. He either never knew or forgot her family name. The only "mementoes" of their meeting are a box of matches from the café "Les Aviateurs," where they met and talked, and a beer mat with some annotations on it: the address of a local old bookstore that, twenty years later, when Guerín tried to find her, wasn't there anymore.

Considering her profession, Guerín takes a city map and locates the places where she could be: hospitals and clinics, the Faculty of Medicine and such. He roams around these places with watchful, hopeful anticipation. Looking at every girl on foot or bicycle, standing in wait for a date or a green light at a pedestrian passage, sitting in a café or a restaurant. Seemingly without realizing at first that, since twenty years have passed when the search starts, any young girl resembling Sylvia would more likely be her daughter. Looking at women, finally of all ages, without finding Sylvia, he becomes interested, intrigued or attracted by several others, many of them utterly different from Sylvia, and even follows some through the streets of the city, while recalling the love of Goethe for Charlotte (or Lotte), who was also from Strasbourg and who felt jealous when the character in "Werther," who so closely resembled her, happened to have eyes of a different color from hers.

I will not disclose more about Unas fotos, because part of the excitement it produces comes from the surprising connections and associations that Guerín spins. It would lose its almost Hitchcockian suspense, its Bressonian drôle de chemin where "the wind blows where it wills," the sense of strolling through different European cities — what the French call flâneries — which account for a large part of its most peculiar charm. It is enough to suggest that it is a truly European film in its spirit and its cultural references — Petrarca and Laura, Dante and Beatrice crossing paths in the past of cities visited once and again, and making the narrator wonder where exactly, and from what point of view, the poets first saw the women they would become obsessed with — typically a filmmaker's concern.

Only on one point can I understand Guerín's reluctance to show his new film: it is perhaps a new kind of movie, probably too far apart from the commonplace, and the times are not too open to experiences like this. As a matter of fact, I have difficulty in imagining a time when such a film as Unas fotos would be normally shown at your nearest theater, no matter where you live (even in Paris). It is perhaps too intimate an experience for people you don't know to be sitting around you. And the total, hard silence I find so necessary to look at it properly, without the rhythms of any music interfering with those of the film, without sound or dialogue or music announcing, underlining, stressing, or "poeticizing" any part of it, probably would be as dangerous in an almost empty theater as in a crowded house. Most people react quite aggressively towards prolonged silence, they would think the sound was not properly working and start yelling and guffawing, only to realize, aghast and angry, that the film is really, wholly silent. Which would cause a self-defensive reaction against a film that commanded so much attention and concentration on its images as to give no rest, no truce, no clue, no hope of distraction from the screen. Maybe a new kind of cinema calls for a new way of communication with the audience, which could be not a crowd, but individuals or small groups of friends sitting before a TV set, in the intimacy of their own homes. Perhaps it would have to be distributed on DVD or bought online.

On the other hand, I find that Guerín's new film should be seen everywhere, because it provides an exhilarating demonstration of freedom. It proves that, thanks to new, ultra-cheap technology, you can make a great, daring, personal film without money, on your own, with only (of course) a lot of talent, effort, and time, and I find that this could be extremely encouraging to aspiring filmmakers who almost despair at the difficulty of getting started, of convincing producers, and even — the film once made — of getting a fair release. Since the film really does exist, it should be seen. After all, what are films for whose goal is not merely making money? For seeing and for helping others to see.

Guerín has been collecting images for this project during almost four years, and building it up and reshaping and refining it incessantly. For that he needs no money, no funding, no producers. His main investment is his own time. Time to travel and walk, to read and think, to choose angles and frames, to look around and to edit his recollections, the traces of his search. Modern technology allows that for almost no money at all. But DV may be used — it is often — too recklessly; it is too easy. And for a true filmmaker, it should pose some questions. With digital video you can shoot as much as you want, and make very long uninterrupted takes, rather than carefully thought shots; the cameras are so small you may become easily a Peeping Tom or a voyeur, and so light you can hold them in your hand, forget about tripods and move it around all the time, with no apparent need to care about continuity or even about properly framing and composing. As a matter of fact, digital technology has no photograms, no frames, no 24-frames per second speed, no Maltese Cross, no persistence of vision, no projection, almost no shots to cut and link; that is, almost nothing of what has defined cinema for about a century. Even editing is a different issue: digital video encourages a new, quite passive conception of "montage." I'm sure Guerín has read at least some of Serge Daney's disquieting writings about freeze-frame, about stills, about the variable nature of images. I gather he's given these issues some deep thought, and I believe he has, perhaps unconsciously, found a way of avoiding the temptations and facilities and dangers of digital video filmmaking.

His instinct has made him start at the very beginning. With the new, cheap, almost cost-free equipment, and taking as his model not D.W. Griffith or Louis Feuillade, or even Louis Lumière, but rather the very earliest of pioneers, Étienne Marey and Edweard Muybridge, he has found again the true essence of cinema, its forgotten, invisible, taken-for-granted secret: that there are in fact no real images of movement, but only stills, a succession of photographs whose succession creates the illusion of movement. Between each, there is always at least a diminutive, almost unperceivable ellipse, the black blank piece of film between each frame. Godard was hinting at this very problem, I think, when he began employing videotape and started stopping the movement of images, or slowing it down, then accelerating again, so as to render visible the original isolation and the willful, deliberate linking of the frames that allows the passage from one photogram to another, which also explains Bresson's insistently calling what he did cinématographe instead of cinéma: after all, he was writing with the articulate movement of fixed, still images. That's why I consider it some sort of "poetic justice" that Guerín, reinventing cinema with digital means, has returned to the very beginnings, without any sort of sound, not even music or noise, without color, and has employed only the minimal, bare elements, those available when cinema was not yet entertainment, not even a show, but almost a scientific tool intended to look at what you cannot see with the naked eye, and to register it and keep a record, to take notes, to make annotations. But Unas fotos is not merely a remake of the early steps of cinema before Lumière: I don't recall a single silent film that used titles as some sort of inner monologue, as a kind of silent, written equivalent of voice-over commentary, as Guerín does. As the W. B. Yeats poem quoted at the beginning of Guerín's Innisfree announced, "I will rise now, and go...."

http://fipresci.hegenauer.co.uk/undercurrent/issue_0106/guerin_marias.htm

#Miguel Marías #José Luis Guerin #unas fotos en la ciudad de sylvia #fipresci

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rozebucket98-blog · 7 years

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Mystery in Allenstown

For most people in New Hampshire, the story began in the fall of 1985 in the little town of Allenstown, population 4000ish and best known for being home to Bear Brook State Park.

It was there, on the outskirts of the park, that brothers out hunting discovered the remains of a woman and a girl wrapped in plastic near a 55-gallon barrel.

The bodies were found on private property where a small camp store with an apartment above it had once operated. Bear Brook Store had burned in July of 1983 but the shell of the building remained, along with a mobile home, a camper, and various vehicles, barrels, and appliances scattered across the property. The hunter, himself the father of a young daughter, who spotted a foot sticking out of the plastic was so traumatized by his discovery that he said it took him ten years to go back into the woods.

As NH did not have its own Medical Examiner's office, the bodies were flown to Maine to be examined. These sketches were released in the media and authorities covered a lot of ground hoping to identify what was assumed to be a mother and daughter. However, investigative efforts did not lead to answers and eventually, the two bodies were released for burial. Chief Connor organized a graveside service in the parish cemetery that was presided over by the town's Catholic priest and a Methodist minister.

They were buried together in a steel casket so that they could be exhumed easily if someone came forward to claim their bodies. The owner of Epsom Memorials donated a granite stone for their grave and carved a rose and figures of the woman and child holding hands.

Over the years, while investigators followed the leads that came in, Allenstown residents experienced a deep unease around the questions that lingered. Who were those girls? Who could have bludgeoned and dismembered and discarded them like trash?

Town officials wanted the Bear Brook Store property cleaned up and there was a Danger Notice attached to the 1997 tax record for map 407, Lot 023 that stated, "Posted Unfit." The following year, an assessment card states "mobile home uninhabitable" and "vacant vandalized." It is chilling in hindsight to read the accompanying dump site report which lists: abandoned vehicle Chrysler 4 door sedan (rust), HTG appliance (illegible), enclosure falling down, with wires and pipes, several 55 gallon drums some with trash in them, construction debris, old machines (axles, lawnmowers) strewn about, approx. 30 feet in from the road.

Fast forward fifteen years and

State Police Sgt John Cody was assigned to the case. New Hampshire did not yet have a cold case unit and troopers were assigned old cases to work.

On May 9th of 2000 while examining the area, Cody located another barrel about 100 yards from where the first one was found, and discovered that it, too, contained human remains. They were found to be the remains of two little girls. This led to the exhumation of the 1985 victims in order to have DNA comparisons done. The testing found that the woman was related biologically to the oldest child (who was found in the barrel with her) and to the 2-3 yr. old girl found in 2000. Authorities came to believe that the four victims were killed at or near the same time in the late 1970s to early 1980s. The realization that one child was not related to the other three victims was puzzling and led to speculation about the whereabouts and well-being of her mother. Later, isotope testing done on the victims showed that the woman and the two girls related to her may have lived in the areas highlighted in green on the map below (State abbreviations added by me)

The information was released for the first time that the two little girls had also been killed by blunt force trauma to their heads. The jolting images shown in May of 2016 of the caved-in skull of a little girl generated renewed speculation about what kind of individual was capable of this kind of violence against little children.

Little did we realize then that we were less than a year from getting our first glimpses into a back story that would bring together investigators on both coasts and yield a whole slew of new questions.

~ ~ ~

The first hints came on December 28th, 2016, when a story broke in New Hampshire about a woman named Denise Beaudin who moved away from Manchester with her infant daughter and her boyfriend Bob Evans in 1981 and was never heard from again. The article was entitled "35 years later, authorities call Manchester woman’s disappearance suspicious."

Although the story didn't mention anything about the Allenstown cold case, the name "Bob Evans" set off alarm bells for a number of Allenstown area folks. This was the same name that we (Oakhill Research) had been asking about for several years. In fact, ever since July 28th, 2014 when Ed Gallagher, the owner of the Allenstown property where the barrels were found, told us that he thought that one 'Bobby Evans' left the barrels on his property.

We went to the January 26, 2017 press conference in Concord NH with a a multitude of questions. Also attending were former Allenstown residents Paul Chevrette and Ron Sayles. Speaking that day were Michael Kokoski (Supervisor in the NH Cold Case Unit), Jeffery Strelzin (Senior Assistant Attorney General Chief, Homicide Unit), and Ryan Grant (Detective Captain in the Manchester Police Department).

To assist in relating the story, the presenters distributed an informative summary of events that recounts how these cases on the east and west coasts were finally connected in the story of the man once known in NH as Bob Evans. The authorities presented a succinct timeline to help the public navigate what was known about Evans as well as a handout that listed aliases/characteristics/unconfirmed travels etc. that might have shed light on his true identity. They released pictures at the press conference as well as maps of Evans' travels and made the Power Point of the presentation available.

~~~ In brief, we learned the following:

The name 'Bob Evans' appeared to be an alias and his identity was still unknown. DNA testing revealed that he was the biological father of one of the little girls found in 2000 in a barrel, the child who was unrelated to the others. Her actual identity was still unknown and police were concerned that her mother might have been another victim.

The identities of the woman and the other two children were still unknown but DNA testing showed that Evans was not related to these two children, nor was Denise the woman in the barrel. Authorities now believed that it was likely that the victims found in Allenstown were all killed prior to December of 1981 when Evans disappeared from Manchester with Denise. A possible clue to the adult victim's identity might lie in the story shared about a mystery woman named Elizabeth.

Police feared that Evans likely killed Denise at some point and although he had also killed his own daughter, he spared the life of Denise's baby daughter Dawn. In a story that seemed surreal, we learned that Evans changed Dawn's name to Lisa and later gave her away to strangers. In an ironic twist, it was Lisa's own search for her identity that proved to be the catalyst for unraveling Evans' legacy of lies. She was recently reunited with her relatives in Manchester NH. Her survival was a happy note in a sordid story, although her mother's whereabouts are unknown.

The beginning of the end came for Evans when he was arrested in California in 2002 for the murder of his partner, Eunsoon Jun. He was living under one of his many aliases, when authorities, investigating Jun's disappearance, found her bludgeoned and partially dismembered body under a pile of cat litter in their home. A home he continued living in after he killed her.

'Bob Evans' died of natural causes in High Desert Prison in California in 2010. He left many mysteries in his wake, perhaps none more puzzling than that of his own identity. Who was this man who behaved so savagely to the women and children in his life? Where did he come from? How many other victims did he leave scattered across the continent?

To have pictures and video, new victims, and a string of aliases now attached to the Allenstown killer was an odd turn of events when his identity was still unknown. All over the country, investigators, genealogists, and websleuths began trying to figure out the real identity of the bogeyman who now had a face.

Seven months later, the NH State Police issued a press release. 'Bob Evans' was in fact one Terry Peder Rasmussen. DNA had confirmed a match with a son of his. Exactly how the son had surfaced on the radar of authorities has not been disclosed. There was no opportunity for the media to ask that question as this time around, the detectives did not hold a press conference in conjunction with the release of new information. Suffice it to say, within minutes of the release of Rasmussen's name, websleuths around the country were scrolling through his family's Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace pages, fascinated to learn more about the history of this man of mystery and murder. An uneasy dance unfolded on the Websleuths forum where researchers posted information about him and administrators warned them about not posting information about his relatives, themselves victims of his mayhem.

The reaction from the people of Allenstown was a far cry from that of the websleuths. Learning that Rasmussen had four adult children, siblings to the little girl in the 2000 barrel, Oakhill Research was contacted and asked if there was a way that the people of Allenstown could reach out to his living children. To say that they had never forgotten the little girls in the barrels and had never stopped praying that they would be identified. To say that they had tended the grave and visited it over the years until the day family could come forward. To say that their hearts went out to Rasmussen's children for the difficult spot they found themselves in and that the people of Allenstown would now say prayers for their peace and comfort as they had for the other victims.

Works Cited: http://oakhillresearch.blogspot.de/

http://oakhillresearch.blogspot.de/2010/12/the-missng-theories.html

Dig Deeper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrNG9u3nncs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpglC3B9FF8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4F7yRA3Vms

*Dedicated to Maggie*

#octoberfiles mysteryinallenstown day4

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