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hailbop1701 · 3 years

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Fleet Week

October 5, 2021 (Stabbed)

Word Count: 2,018

This one has to be one of my favorites! Not beta-read (yet I think it may be updated later on) but I hope you enjoy it anyway!

-H

Masterlist

Starfleet medical was bustling with activity, this was due to the fact it was the busiest time of the year. Fleet Week; like the days of old. Fleet Week was the tradition of being in a port town for shore leave. Now it was when multiple fleet vessels were orbiting Earth for some well-deserved shore leave at home.

San Francisco is sprawling with multiple different species with multiple different diseases, drugs, and STDs. So this means that the local hospitals were overflowing and doctors and nurses were at their wit’s end.

“Fucking Fleet Week,”

One doctor growled his southern drawl more pronounced after working the ER for the past seven hours after his regular thirteen-hour shift. Rushing in and out between cubicles of overflowing patients, he saw almost ten people in the last ten minutes. And he definitely saw more than he ever wanted to, but unfortunately, that’s the job.

Doctor Leonard McCoy scowled his way through the throngs of people in the Emergency room, upon seeing him they parted like the Red Sea. He looked down at his PADD with a grumble, the man he had just treated had shoved several data chips down his throat in hopes to hide the information from the police. McCoy rolled his eyes and signed the PADD before shoving it into the hands of the officer who brought the guy in, “Watch him closer next time,” he growled as he walked past.

Taking another PADD from the nurse who was trailing him. “Cube seven, multiple lacs, and a dislocated shoulder.” She said with pursed lips. McCoy stopped and looked at her and then the name on the PADD.

“Really?”

The nurse shrugged, “He asked for you specifically,” she crossed her arms knowing exactly how to deal with the cantankerous doctor. Throwing up his hands in defeat, Leonard strode over to the cubicle and glared at its occupant. Sitting there with a shit-eating grin was James T. Kirk. He was bleeding from multiple different deep cuts and gently held his arm to his chest,

“Hey Bones!” the kid greeted and McCoy snorted his brewing headache steadily growing worse and worse. The stabbing pain made him wince ever so slightly as he moved to examine his battered friend.

“Damnit Jim,” the doctor muttered. Kirk winced but laughed as McCoy gently poked and prodded at him. “I swear it wasn’t my fault this time!” the young cadet said hissing in pain when he accidentally jostled his shoulder. McCoy hummed sounding unconvinced,

“Yeah, who was she?” he asked looking at Kirk with a raised eyebrow. The kid laughed dryly and nodded, “Lucy…” he breathed and then frowned,

“Shit, I forgot to get her comm. number.”

McCoy shook his head looking exasperated. Clicking his tongue Leonard gestured for the nurse to take Kirk’s other side. Together they managed to get the cadet’s shoulder back into place. Jim gritted his teeth but otherwise didn’t make a sound; unsurprised McCoy took the hypo the nurse offered and unceremoniously jabbed it into Kirk's neck. The young man yelped,

“I thought you were supposed to do that before putting my shoulder back into place?!”

Leonard gave his best friend a smirk and shrugged, “I forgot,” he said innocently tapping away at his PADD. Jim grumbled curses under his breath, he slowly laid down, shifting uncomfortably as the nurse began to clean him up and place a regen unit on his lacerations.

A loud shriek and crash from outside made Leonard fumble and drop his PADD to the floor with a shatter. Kirk sat up quickly and groaned in pain at the sudden movement. The screaming and shouting continued, “Stay here!” he ordered his patient and nurse. Striding out into the bay McCoy swiveled and saw immediately what the problem was.

A very large man was rampaging through the ER. “Fucking Fleet Week,” he snarled. Rushing over to a sealed medical cabinet Leonard placed his hand on the scanner. It beeped and lit up green before opening with a low hiss. Grabbing a detox hypo and a potent sedative Leonard moved cautiously back into the fray.

The man was wrecking and tearing apart the ER was practically naked; right down to his skivvies. Leonard eyed the screaming snarling man as he quietly approached, ‘Elevated body temperature, confusion, extreme agitation, adrenaline-induced strength. He was either drugged or taking drugs, it’s similar to old PCP.’ he thought mind running a mile a minute.

McCoy froze as the heavily drugged male roared and kicked a biobed, patients, nurses, and doctors alike screamed and quickly moved out of the way. That’s when he saw it, the knife. Huffing a quiet sigh Leonard eased himself forward as quietly and quickly as possible.

When he was only a good five feet away McCoy stashed his hypos up his sleeves and straightened. He gave a shrill whistle gaining the attention of his new patient, the man whirled around screaming at the medical cadet. Leonard didn’t flinch, instead, he made eye contact and slowly raised his empty hands in a placating gesture.

“Easy now big fella,” he said keeping his voice calm and even. The man screamed and kicked a hoverchair out of his way; it missed McCoy by several feet but it didn’t make the security team that just arrived any less twitchy. “Easy, I just want to help. If you put the knife down we’ll get you some water,” Leonard offered hoping that the man’s thirst outweighed his need for violence.

The man seemed to relax slightly, he lowered the knife so it was by his side instead of pointed at McCoy. Leonard moved a touch closer hands still raised and visible.

“Okay now if you want that water, I need ya to sit down for me,”

The man looked at the doctor numbly before heavily sitting down on a gurney. McCoy breathed a little bit easier and tried to not focus solely on the knife that was still in his patient’s hands. He was almost standing in front of the drugged-out individual when his luck took a turn for the worst. The area had been silent, everyone was watching with bated breath, keeping silent in fear that the slightest noise might provoke the man again. They were right.

Someone stepped back, but by doing so sent medical instruments crashing to the floor. The noise was deafening. Time stood still, McCoy’s eyes widened as the man in front of him reared up like a spooked horse. Knowing he had very little time Leonard pulled the two hypos from his sleeves. Security fired their phasers, bystanders screamed and ducked for cover, McCoy called out trying to stop them. But it was too late.

The man was on the ground smoking, multiple phaser wounds covered his chest and stomach. McCoy raced forward and checked his pulse, there was none to be found. Growling he glared up at the boys in red,

“Bones!”

Kirks’s voice echoed over the revived hustle and bustle of the ER; doctors and nurses moved with renewed energy trying to reestablish some kind of order to things. Jim ran over to him but stopped short when he saw the body being lifted off the ground,

“You okay Bones?” Jim asked warily upon seeing the thunderous anger on the country doctor’s face. Tired hazel eyes met worried blue ones, “I’m-” Leonard sighed and shook his head in disappointment.

“Let’s finish getting you fixed up and discharged,”

Under normal circumstances, Jim would have groaned and moaned but he figured in this case he thought it would be best if he did as he was told. Kirk sat silently on his exam bed as Bones flittered around the room doing some unnecessary straightening as the regen unit was doing its work. Jim chewed on the inside of his cheek nervously, he wanted to talk to his best friend, to say something that would make him feel better but he just couldn’t come up with the right words. Kirk wholeheartedly blamed the painkiller he was on.

Jim sat up when he saw it, at his sudden movement and hiss of pain McCoy turned. He opened his mouth to berate the young cadet but it fell short. Leonard staggered feeling suddenly light-headed.

“Bones, you’re bleeding!” Jim gasped, Leonard followed his gaze. He was right, there on his right side was a giant blossom of red coating his uniform. Cursing under his breath he was beginning to feel it, the bloodloss, and now that his adrenaline was dissipating the pain and fatigue. “Damn he must’a knicked me,” he murmured sounding annoyed. Jim spluttered,

“We need help, why don’t you-”

McCoy held up his hand silencing his best friend mid-sentence. “No need to fuss, Jim, I got it,”

Kirk’s jaw went slack as he watched McCoy sit heavily on a stool and lift up his shirt. Jim blinked, sure he was inclined to a special male friend every once and a while. But Bones was off-limits. Only brotherly love there. Jim couldn’t help but think,

‘Damn Bones where did you hide the abs?��

“This puts a whole new spin on ‘Physician heal thyself,” he said aloud with a snicker. McCoy rolled his eyes. ‘This isn’t the worst thing I’ve had to fix,’ he thought with a slight grimace.

Leonard pulled his shirt up and held the ruined fabric in between his teeth. He leaned back and examined the bloody wound, grunting in annoyance he reached out blindly for the cleaning wipes that had been left on the tray beside Kirk’s bed.

Upon finding what he was looking for McCoy expertly cleaned away the blood only hissing at the occasional sting the alcohol made.

“Bones, are you sure you don’t want me to call a nurse or something?” Jim asked disbelief coloring his tone. McCoy curled his lip,

“No, they’re busy with half of the galaxy and their mother. I’ll be fine,”

Kirk cocked his head to the side only managing to decipher half of what his best friend said; his mouth already preoccupied with his shirt made him sound completely muffled.

The blood finally cleaned away despite more and more leaking from the open wound Leonard grabbed the portable regen unit. Flicking it on he carefully placed it on his abdomen. Sighing the doctor looked up,

“What?” he asked raising a single eyebrow at his dumbfounded speechless friend. Jim just shook his head,

“You look like you’ve done this before,” he muttered with a dry chuckle. Leonard snorted and nodded at the kid’s guess. Leonard let go of his shirt allowing it to fall and rest on the regen unit he held.

“Jim, I worked the ER in Atlanta. Things occasionally got a little hairy,”

Kirk stared at the country doctor like he had grown three heads and sprouted wings. McCoy snickered, “Boy, I’ve seen some shit in my time, ain’t no little cut is going to stop me from doin’ my job,” Leonard’s southern drawl became pronounced. So pronounced that it made McCoy wince and wrinkle his nose. Jim pressed his lips into a thin line, the appearance of McCoy’s accent meant the older man was tired. Very tired. He knew that the doctor hid his drawl almost as if he were self-conscious of it. Kirk remembered once hearing Bones admit (heavily drunk, mind you) that people tended to not take him as seriously. It may have been the twenty-third century but there were still biases.

The regen unit beeped happily and lit up green. McCoy lifted it away and examined the wound again. Grunting in approval he set the regenerator down and grabbed a thick gauze bandage, glancing up he gave a little shrug,

“Knowing my luck, I’ll end up opening it back up,” he muttered wryly. Jim snorted and shook his head, “Man you can’t say shit to me now. You’re just as bad!” he accused with a grin. McCoy rolled his eyes,

“Sorry Kid doesn’t work that way. I don’t go searchin’ for trouble,”

Jim barked out a laugh, “Bullshit!”

Leonard rolled his eyes and scowled hoping to hide the slight smile that wants to spread across his face.

Tags:

Everything: @lauraaan182, @chickadee-djarin, @cowenby2, @bluesclues-1234,@sayuri9908

WhumpTober: @theatrevicki, @ekna1307

#whumptober2021 #leonard bones mccoy #leonard mccoy #star trek aos #james t kirk #jim kirk #hailey the queen of typos #yeah the readshirts went hard #just go with it

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vex-bittys · 6 years

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Undertale Interactive Dating: Final Round (Finale)

Your burgers cool rapidly, sitting forgotten on the table between you and Sans. You and your skeleton date face each other, mouths nearly touching. You want to kiss him, but he drops a bombshell instead, insisting that he tells you the possible answer to your amnesia before you take things any further than science puns and ketchup-soaked French fries.

[ Moving away from the abandoned kiss, Sans tells you his theory about your problem. ]

Leaning back, he closes his sockets for a moment, gathering his thoughts. You push your french fries around your plate, too nervous to eat them. You hope the information is worth cancelling the almost-kiss for, but you also hope it’s not something too serious to fix.

“i know you were focused on the timeline variants when we were in the lab,” Sans says, and you nod your agreement. You didn’t bother looking at any of the other screens because the timeline signatures of your hodge-podge collection of pocket trash distracted you.

“i don’t think you noticed the SOUL trait scan, but i did. you have a really lovely SOUL,” Sans continues. You blush at the very intimate compliment. “you also possess an extremely high amount of Determination.”

“That’s what you scanned me to check for, right? Do you think that the reason for my memory loss might be related to Determination?” Sans hadn’t told you very much about Determination, but he said enough for you to get an inkling of where this conversation is going.

“in the presence of strong ambient magic like we have here in the Underground, humans can learn to harness their Determination and use it to RESET timelines or LOAD timelines from certain important points,” Sans explains.

“I’m not doing this on purpose! I don’t want to forget what happens to me,” you protest.

“i know,” the short skeleton reassures you, “but with your high levels of Determination, i think it’s happening outside of your control. when you kissed my check during Paps’ puzzles, it activated and RESET us to the beginning of the puzzle. a stronger emotional attachment might cause a bigger RESET, one that would take you back farther than your memory could keep up with, causing you to forget what appears to be several different timelines of travel.”

You panic. It could happen at any moment. Any attachment you form with anyone could vanish in an instant, and you wouldn’t even remember enough to miss it. You start to hyperventilate, and Sans reaches out to gently touch your cheek and calm you. You recoil as if he raised his hand to strike you.

“Can you do anything to stop it?” you ask desperately, terrified that his answer will be no.

“it’s complicated,” Sans hedges. Your face scrunches up in the precursor expression to uncontrolled sobbing, and Sans hurries to continue, “but i think i can fix it.”

“How?” you sniffle, still not able to fully dispel the tears burning your eyes. How can Sans fix an overabundance of Determination, and if he can’t, how can you live your life always worried that you’ll lose everything?

“well, i would have to extract the Determination from your SOUL. i’ve never done it on a living human’s SOUL before, and it may be dangerous. it also might not work. i know how important this is to you, but i’m scared of the risk. i… i really care about you.”

“I want to do this,” you say firmly. “I need to do this.” Sans tentatively reaches out again, but this time he takes your hand.

“i don’t make a skele-TON of promises, but i promise that i won’t let anything bad happen to you. if things start going wrong, i’ll stop the procedure, and we’ll figure something else out.”

Sans’ sincere words put you at ease. You’re able to finish your meal with him in pensive silence. Once your food is gone and your plate pushed away, Sans takes your hand and teleports both of you back to the lab.

You fight off trepidation when Sans instructs you to lay on the metal gurney with the stange James Bond laser apparatus over it. You trust Sans. Without so much as a joke or a pun, the short skeleton goes to the control panel and begins painstakingly adjusting the settings. He checks and rechecks his work while you wait with growing anxiety.

“everything is set,” says Sans, walking over to the large extraction mechanism and positioning it carefully over your chest. “scream if it starts to hurt, ok?”

You can’t tell if he’s joking or not, but when he goes back to the control panel and asks you if you’re ready, you give him a thumbs up. He pulls a lever. Nothing happens… at first.

White-hot pain sears your body for a few excruciating seconds before the soothing embrace of darkness pulls you under into blissful unconsciousness.

You groggily surface into wakefulness to see Sans’ worried face hovering over you. Your whole entire body aches, and you want to rub the sore spot on your ribcage that houses your SOUL, but you don’t want Sans to feel guilty for hurting you. You know he didn’t do it on purpose.

“Did it work?” you ask, not bothering to shift your sluggish body into a sitting position if you’re only going to slump over in defeat and disappointment a moment later. Standing is for celebrating.

The too-wide, but entirely genuine smile returns to the skeleton scientist’s face, and you know the procedure was a success. You celebrate by leaping to your feet… or trying to. You lurch upright and stumble a bit before catching your balance. The flurry of activity winds you, so you sit back down on the gurney.

“I still don’t remember anything.” You sigh. It was too much to expect for the Determination removal process to fix everything. At least you wouldn’t accidentally RESET again.

“actually, while you were busy catching some Z’s, i managed to stabilize your Determination level. i also used my timeline portal machine to pinpoint the timelines you’ve visited. i thought that seeing the places you’ve been might jog your memory.” Sans points to a machine in the corner that you never noticed before.

A frame holds whirling blue magic that crackles like lightning. You can see images through the swirling movement, images that seem familiar. Suddenly, the memories come pouring back.

You recognize your home, your bedroom in fact. You remember laying on your back and staring at the ceiling, wishing you could be somewhere else, anywhere else but there.

A tall, gold-fanged skeleton smiles shyly at you from another section of the portal. Mutt. You touch the hem of your jacket, his jacket actually. You recall his look of longing after you kissed him, the taste of woodsmoke and spice, and a hunger he refused to let control him.

Another skeleton with angular features and a scar over his left eye watches you from another scene. His brother called him Boss, but you know him as Papyrus, lover of chocolate cereal. “NOBODY HAS EVER MET MY STANDARDS BEFORE... I TRUST YOU.”

The last image contains a smiling skeleton with sweet soft features. You stroke the honey bear in your pocket, which once belonged to him. Stretch, the honey fiend, who drank the sweet treat straight from the bottle and once told you: “you’re the only one other than Blue who’s ever been impressed with me before” after claiming to have a PhD in the napping arts.

Emotions overwhelm you, and you feel Sans sliding his arm around your shoulders. How could you forget these moments? How could you leave those skeletons behind? Tears stream down your cheeks at the bitter sweetness of your reclaimed memories.

“you have the power to choose your own path. you have enough Determination left to LOAD one of these timelines,” Sans explains softly, “or... you could stay here with me…”

“What happens to the ones I don’t choose?” you ask, voice barely a whisper.

“since you RESET, it will be as if you were never there at all.”

It’s so very difficult to decide.

[ Abandon your skeleton dating ways (Return home) ][ Stay with Sans (Do not LOAD) ][ Choose Mutt (Return to Swapfell) ][ Choose Boss (Return to Underfell) ][ Choose Stretch (Return to Underswap) ]

There will be a finale chapter based on your votes in this round.

(Leave an ask or comment, or reblog with your choice)

INDEX | Read on AO3

#undertale interactive dating #undertale dating sim #choose your own adventure #undertale #swapfell #underfell #underswap #undertale sans #ut!sans #swapfell papyrus #sf!papyrus #underfell papyrus #uf!papyrus #underswap papyrus #us!papyrus #now you must choose #there can only be one

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sketchesofsam · 6 years

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The Illustration Master Class - A First Timer's Journal

This is a long blog post. It's mostly for my own purposes, but also for those who want an in-depth look at what being at the IMC is like. I have some pointers for first timers, things you might not think of and things to consider in advance. They'll be at the end of the article. I want to thank Dave Palumbo for allowing me to use a couple of his amazing photos too, he's a talented SOB.

probably won't forget the moment my Facebook messages suddenly started pinging off. 'Congrats Sam!' 'Hey Sam, you won!' I distinctly remember thinking, hmm, what did I win? Did I enter another twitter giveaway or something? Then someone followed up with 'you won the scholarship!' It took me a moment. Then the chat I was in the middle of with my other half suddenly filled with lots of expletives and capitals on my end. Holy shit. I'd won the Muddy Colors scholarship to the IMC, something that had been a long-term wish of mine since I'd found out about it 5 or 6 years prior but hadn't ever had the funds to attend. So to find out that my entry to their scholarship program - through the generous donations of the Muddy Colors Patreon - submitted on a 'what have I got to lose' mentality that was still shadowed by the fuzzy sting of not getting into Spectrum, had scored me the full cost of the course. I'd honestly forgotten I'd applied. Let that be a lesson to those of you who hold back on submitting to things, especially the things that are free. It's always worth a punt.

So what's it like to go to the IMC? I can tell you that winning the scholarship made the pre-IMC thumbnail assignment a lot more stressful than if I'd paid for it. The weight of imagining disappointing the people who had seen my work and voted for it - artistic heroes of mine - was pretty heavy. It made me feel like I couldn't just go and do the same thing I'd always done, even if it had won me the scholarship. Before I started drawing, I reconsidered my influences. I'd started a secret pinterest board a few months back simply called 'Ho Fuck That's Good.' Stuff that gave me a gut punch when I looked at it. I spent a lot of time looking at those images and a lot of the others I had pinned. I stopped paying attention to work that I simply found technically impressive, that had awesome composition or great values. I looked for what moved me. Why it moved me. I started making notes about themes I found compelling or that cropped up a lot in my own work. I decided I wasn't going to do just a straight up realistic narrative Whaler Girl piece, I was going to try and make my own work be more like that which moved me. A risky, and perhaps somewhat dumb move, given those same realistic, narrative images had won me the scholarship.

We were asked to provide 4 or 5 thumbnails, either of our own choosing, or from an assignment provided, such as an illustration to accompany a short story, the likes of which are often published on Tor.com. With themes like duality, death, grief and love in relationships crowding my brain, I created a lot of thumbnails. I wasn't going to take the first 3 or 4 that came out. I did about 20 in total and narrowed it down to the 6 I felt most attached to. Some of them even had hints back to The Whaler Girl in a very asbtract way. They'd come out better than I'd hoped for and I could see a tiny glimpse of the sort of painting I might get out of it. It made me excited to put them in front of my chosen faculty member.

We were asked to pick a top 5 from the vertiable smorgasbord of faculty. That was hard. It turned out that most people got grouped with their top pick and that dictated who the other faculty were that would give you feedback. I suspect my pick would have surprised a few people. Kent Williams was actually the instructor I was least familiar with, but researching his work, especially his most recent work, it hit the same kind of buttons that my inspiration board had. His work felt emotionally personal and while I knew I didn't want to necessarily paint like he did, I felt he might be able to give good feedback on how to tap into that sense of the personal. Perhaps someone who could help keep me on track with the first wibbly steps I was taking with my own work. I count myself lucky to have landed in the group with Rebecca, Kent and Tara (McPherson).

I wanted to make a good first impression, but there were so many approaches to the dreaded 'crit day'. Some folks brought only one or two finished colour thumbs, some folks just had small, traditionally drawn thumbnails, occasionally done on arrival the night before. Some brought photo mockups of the exact piece they wanted to work on. All approaches got good feedback. I'd been forewarned that crit day could be rough, but I think the Studio 201 guys were pretty chill. I did peek my head in on the other two rooms briefly. Donato, Greg Ruth and Scott Fischer were all highly animated and I've been told often argued with each other's feedback. Dan Dos Santos, Irene Gallo and Greg Manchess were part of the group that, from chatting to folks, seemed to get the most direct feedback.

I was a little surprised when there was no tracing paper used during my crit. All three faculty members responded favourably to what had been my favourite thumbnail, despite its weirdness. No direct suggestions other than resolving the shapes in my minimal, non-figurative space (that minor bit of feedback would come to haunt me by The Thursday of DOOM, but I'll get to that later). Inspirations like Inka Essenhigh, Hope Gangloff and Dorothea Tanning were thrown my way, I loved all three for very different reasons. It was safe to say inspiration was running high and I had a tonne of positive energy to run with.

I felt like I was well prepped going into the IMC, but I wasn't. Choosing to go full traditional when having to fly internationally was a pain. I didn't have a lot of the stuff I needed and had to rely on the infinite kindness of my fellow students and faculty to see me through. Stephen, Annie, Chris, Julia, you were all lovely, I can't thank you enough.

My Tuesday started with James Gurney sat at my breakfast table. That was surreal but awesome. He and his wife Jeanette are as lovely two people as you could hope to meet, full of insight and always taking notes. The previous day's lecture on photo reference was flowing through my mind and I dreaded having to ask fellow students. My figures were both nudes and that wasn't something I was comfortable with, though I thought perhaps I could take individual legs and arms and use a little online ref to fill in the rest. I wish I'd drummed up the courage to ask my fellow students, but that particular social step eluded me the whole week. I spent the day instead with many sheets of tracing paper, figuring out What marks were what. I had discussions with Greg Ruth and Donato Giancola about how to find those shapes and make them fit in my piece. You have to figure out who to listen to, and whose advice to stash for a later date. You get bombarded with advice if you go in as open-minded as I did. I'd thrown myself into a pool I should have been paddling in first, pretty much at the very public deep end. I'll admit I found ways to put off getting to painting, as it was only the 2nd oil painting I'd done in the last 20 years and the company I had in the room was stellar and a little overwhelming. Eventually, I chose to redraw via a grid so I could edit as I went along and I used some reference I shot of my own limbs to help flesh the drawing out. I left Tuesday feeling reasonably positive about the work.

Wednesday was a full day with faculty feedback, up to the first 5 pm lecture. Dan Dos Santos, who is perfectly lovely, but also very honest with feedback, stopped by my easel. Overall, very complimentary, he pulled me on a bit of weird anatomy, that after using a lot more photo ref with the rest of the piece, had begun to stand out. He suggested I grab Rebecca after our discussion. I'd responded best to her feedback, as she seemed to understand what I was trying to do, so I grabbed her after lunch. She immediately told me the leg and anatomy I'd had in the thumbnail had been working, and that if I liked the weirdness (which I did) to go weird with the rest of the piece to make the leg fit. Literally the opposite of Dan's feedback. Feedback is such a personal thing, every instructor has their own view of art and own journey. I'd probably tried to take a little bit of everyone who'd stopped by and given feedback and every little bit had nudged me slightly off the course I'd intended to take. Dan's feedback was spot on, if I'd been after something with a solid grounding in realism, but I wasn't. I was after an emotional feeling rather than muscles that looked like they fit where they were supposed to go. Rebecca suggested I just print the thumbnail out, mount it to masonite and paint on that. But resolve my shapes first.

That led me to ask Tara for advice and after some back and forth, I thought I knew where I was going, and decided rather than be tied to the values I'd got in the thumbnail to start with, I'd trace down the printed thumbnail and resolve my shapes. All went well, I got the drawing on the board, and aware of the ever-ticking clock and my ability to get feedback on my painting process, I was keen to get started the following day.

I nick-named Thursday 'Thursday of DOOOOOOOM' in my sketchbook notes. With that many 'O's'. It started well, with my sketch on my illustration board, I figured I'd use acrylic underpainting to speed up the process, then seal with matte medium and start on top in oils. I'd brought a lovely lime green and violet with me, my underpainting was done in warm purple-reds as a counterpoint, and I was winging it. It felt good. I stepped away for a bit before lunch and came back after to the horror of a C-shaped warped board. A brand I'd not used before, I hadn't been heavy with it at all. I threw some matte medium on the back in the hopes it would pull itself out of the curve, but it only stiffened. I think panic set in at this point, I knew there was no point in doing more on the board, but I'd been stubborn over mounting the printouts I'd done. Old dog, new tricks and all that.

Distraught, I knew I had no choice. I slunk off to the back of the studio and tried not to blub my eyes out as I tried a totally new method of mounting with less than perfect tools. Flustered, my hair constantly got stuck in the medium, making me even more panicked that the whole thing would be a disaster and that I'd missed the last supply run and would have to face the very public shame of asking someone for actual help. If there's one thing I hate, it's not being self-sufficient. My fellow students would have happily helped out, but shame is a pretty powerful emotion, it tends to rule what you do. I prayed the mounted paper wouldn't need a 2nd sheet mounting on the back to counter the drawing mounted on the front. At best, in the blazing sun, this stuff would take a couple of hours to dry to the point I could paint on it. The wind did its best to prevent me from stacking the board outside and in my hours of deepest bleakness, I figured that maybe if it blew over into the dirt and insects, I'd say fuck it and make them part of the fucking thing too. It was also at this point I realised the printouts had cropped the two thumbnails I'd chosen to work with, altering their composition drastically. My own dumb fault for not setting the page size up properly in the printer. One more shame I'd suck up and live with. I wish I'd asked for help. I think knowing the pieces weren't what I'd initially intended broke my ability to give them my full attention and killed my mojo for the next couple of days. My anxiety rats, as Rebecca delightfully referred to them, were in full swing.

While I waited for it to dry, I headed back into the studio and mentioned to Rebecca I'd given in with the curved board and mounted the thumbnail and would she have a look over what I'd chosen to do with the background. Rebecca is gracious and lovely and patiently listens to me explain what I've done. Then she points to some of the graphic elements I'd put in and gently says that they still feel too literal and forced, that the motifs I choose should be something I relate to closely and that it doesn't quite live up to the right hand, figurative side of the painting. I suggest a couple of other ideas, feeling a scrabbling panic bulding in me, only to hear her tell me everything still feels too literal. My logic brain knows she's right, but after a distraught morning, I'm clasping at any straw I have to salvage the situation. I don't know if it showed, and she saw that I was struggling with it or if it was just honest feedback for the moment, but at that point, she looked at me and said 'maybe this piece is a step too far for you right now, maybe you should do the other piece, if that's something that's more comfortable for you.' I think I agreed with her, nodded and extolled the virtues of taking a step back into my comfort zone, getting a painting I knew how to do done was a good thing, yes? But damn if that wasn't a kick to the gut at that very moment.

She was absolutely right, though. I'd throw myself into a deep pool, with people who were olympic athletes at diving its depths, and in the course of a week expected to be able to at least dive a good distance with them. I'd been able to get my head underwater with my well-planned thumbnails, but in this overwhelming, information packed, inspiring, public test of artistic mettle, I'd punched above my depth, so to speak. Trying to shift gears artistically when you have your own space and the time to find your journey is one thing, I don't know if it can be done in a week, no matter how much amazing input you get from your artistic heroes. Chris, Erin, Annie, I'm sorry if my energy those next 48 hours was a bummer, it wasn't a place I was familiar with being.

Kent Williams came to the rescue of my very bruised ego that evening with a talk about his personal journey through art. Indirectly, seeing the bredth and depth of his work over such a long time span, I confess to feeling a little idiotic that I'd expected to be able to make that leap in a week. Every faculty member who gave a talk like that had shown me that their journeys were long, and often fraught with failed ventures or periods of doing artistic things they didn't want to. I left the lecture with my tail between my legs, but a renewed sense that I would do my best with the hand I'd given myself. I did a couple of colour studies that evening, traditionally, inspired by seeing James Gurney's master studies in his lecture. I loved doing them, and wish I'd had more time to do more. But I found a piece online that had a palette I liked and did a couple of explorations of a similar theme. I finally, finally, 4 days into the escapade, managed to put down some oil paint.

Friday and Saturday I painted as much as I could, but tentatively, I was making marks I'd never made before. I listened to the feedback being given around me and let anyone who wanted to stop and give me feedback, do so. I'm not sure I actively asked for it. I struggled as the ladies around me with their amazinly characterful pieces drew the attention of everyone who went past. I wondered if I was so far off the mark and weird that no one knew what to say about my piece. Maybe it was so bland that they couldn't praise or crit it. In retrospect, I recognise that my mood and lack of decent sleep was tinting my mood heavily, and I suspect I was giving off the same vibe, which is enough to make folks give you a bit of a wide berth.

The theme of finding your niche and doing what you love came up in more than one lecture over those days. I went to bed at 2 am both nights, in an attempt to get as much done as I could. I socialised a little more, realising that was as much a part of the experience as the painting. If not more. I'm hugely thankful for the bonds I forged during that week, something I couldn't have done at home, no matter how much I painted. Those bonds were worth much more to me than the painting I half finished. I think I came to accept that what I wanted to do was going to be a journey that needed a little longer than a week to take. I wish there had been more 'round table' lectures with all the faculty, seeing them interact together on the business lecture was amazing.

Sunday was chill. I'd had the intention of painting more, but clearing up took a while, and I felt good being relaxed. So I socialised more instead. Our final lecture with Donato was the perfect note to end the experience on and the open house was a chance to take in everyone's work, the standard of which was amazing. After a super tasty mexican dinner and strawberry margherita, the bar beckoned. After drawing I don't know how much hentai in people's sketchbooks and getting a badass Bill Nighy sketch from the awesome Bud Cook in my own sketchbook, alongside the weirdest pseudonyms and animal drawings ever, I crashed and burned as being under the influence after a week of mental stress and lack of sleep took its toll on me. Conan, thank you for making sure I got back safely that night, I really appreciate it, I suspect I'd have passed out in a dark corner of the bar otherwise. Sad I missed out on the late night partying that ensued, but damn, did I need that night's sleep.

So there's one woman's view of what it's like to go to the IMC, to throw yourself at the mercy of the faculty and your own desires. To fail and not deal with it well, to realise that the painting was never the important thing. IMC was amazing. I can only hope this gives those of you who haven't been a teensy insight. I'm not going to cover what the lectures were or what faculty shared with us, that's a very specific IMC experience, that you really have to go to appreciate. I will say I am hugely thankful to Dan, Rebecca and all of those on Muddy Colors who made that experience real for me. It has enriched me in ways I suspect I'll only realise as my journey continues. Thank you to everyone who gave me kind words and praise and to those who tried to guide me on my way. If ever the opportunity arises for you to attend, I would say grab it with both hands and run with it. Even if your experience doesn't run as profound as mine, and it simply lets you have some time to paint whatever the hell you want, being in a huge room full of people going through the same thing is well worth the price, not to mention watching faculty paint in real time is invaluable.

So, what if you've taken that leap, some months from now and you're going to the IMC? Here's a few pointers from someone who thought they were prepared and was woefully not.

1 - THE DORMS Are basic AF. I was somewhat prepared, but when the FAQ says the beds are firm, they mean it. Think springs wrapped in a bit of plastic tarp. The sheets are functional, but the blanket looked like someone had put used dog bedding through a shredder and mushed it out into a rectangle. I bought a spare blanket at the CVS store, cause no way was that thing touching my skin. I may be a little sensitive though. I affectionately referred to the whole set up as my prison bed, cause honestly, that's all I could think of. If you can bring your own bedding, I'd recommend it.

The dorm bathrooms are gender neutral, which means anyone can use them. I was fine with it, but it's odd the first time you wander into the bathroom and find the opposite sex brushing their teeth. I never had any problems taking a shower, though, they were pretty quiet.

Morris Pratt Dorm was definitely the more social, I was very thankful to be on the 3rd floor, as a light sleeper, the partying into the wee hours would have kept me awake had I been on the lower floors. The box fans helped with white noise, but the doors are all pretty heavy, so unless folks are very delicate with how they close them, expect some noise. I found the box fan enough without the AC, even when it got pretty warm on the last couple of days.

2 - FOOD. Having never been to a large educational establishment in the US, I wasn't sure what to expect with the food. Would I have to venture into Amherst to find healthy stuff, would there be much choice? The food was surprisingly decent. It's still a large facility, so it's never going to be amazing restaurant quality, but there were a few choices every day and a well-stocked salad bar. They even had a soft serve ice cream machine, that I managed to avoid until Sunday. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I had it on good authority that the coffee in the dining hall wasn't great. It might be an idea to bring a drinks container with you, as mealtimes are the only time you can get drinks on campus, outside of water fountains. Amherst is only a 10-minute walk down the road, though.

3 - ART SUPPLIES AND STUDIO SAFETY. I brought paints, brushes and surfaces with me, with the knowledge I'd ordered a couple extra things for while I was there and that there was a supply run. If you work on specific surfaces, it's best to bring those with, Michael's wasn't super well stocked, and more speciality things like large clayboard weren't available. A lot of people bring extras and are happy to share, thankfully. I would have brought more old rags or kitchen towels and some tape. People often used walls to tape up thumbnails or other pieces of art.

The university runs a very strict number of safety policies surrounding paints, water and mediums. Bring some lidded jars with you for mediums and water. Everything has to be labelled clearly and remained closed when not in use. Even water used for rinsing acrylic and watercolours. All have to be disposed of carefully too. Same with anything you wipe paint or mediums on, so using something a bit more disposable like kitchen towel might do you better. They ask you to cover your oil paints when not in use, though that can be with a simple piece of palette paper.

If you choose an easel, if you have space for a little extra table, you'll likely make good use of it. The chairs they supply are also very basic and not comfortable for long periods, so bringing a cushion is definitely a good idea. Oh, and they say the studio opens at 8 am on Monday but I got there at 8 am and a lot of the spaces had already been taken, so if you want prime real estate, get there early!

4 - SELF PROMOTION This sounds like a no-brainer. I brought business cards for the faculty and my portfolio review with Irene Gallo. I thought I'd sorted my work out reasonably well, but actually, my website would have been a better place to show off my work. I also wish I'd brought a physical portfolio to leave out for students and faculty to flick through, perhaps an example of finished work that was either nicely printed if I was doing digital, or one of my traditional pieces. The latter is tricky when flying. My business cards were on the pricey side so I wish I'd had some decent postcards or stickers, printed for the open studio, where folks were picking stuff up. You never know who's going to pick one up! The internet can be spotty in the building, so unless you have some 4G going on, it can be tricky to show off folios digitally.

You might also be lucky enough to score a second portfolio review if the guests have enough time, I am so glad I could put my work in front of WotC's Jeremy Jarvis. It cheered my Saturday up no end! Make sure you check the lists when they go up and bag your second spot early. And don't puss out.

5 - DON'T BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR HELP I'm stubborn and British, so asking for help is the worst, but everyone there will gladly help you out if they can. Especially the assistant team, Daneen, Julia and Stephen and the 'honored easels' who've been in your situation. Take advantage of them, they are all lovely people.

And that sums it up! An amazing, tiring, exhausting, mentally demanding, inspiring, overwhelming experience that I wouldn't change for the world. I hope to repeat it in the next year or two. I count myself lucky to be part of the alumni and perhaps if you're reading this, I might see you there too.

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invisibleanonymousmonsters · 7 years

Text

My Eyes - Part 13

Pairing: Bucky; Steve x Fem/Reader

Word Count: 4,665

Story Description: Steve is a good man, America’s golden boy, a hero. He’s Captain America for christ’s sake! So it’s normal to want what he has… right? Bucky knows he doesn’t deserve her. He doesn’t even deserve the second chance at life he’s been given. But Bucky can never let him know. Steve can never find out that his friend is in love with his best girl.

Story takes place post “CA: CW” and all tension has been resolved.

Previously On...

Y/N grabbed all Jimmy’s necessities and threw them in a bag. Suddenly her son dropped to his knees.

“Mom…I don’t think I can walk.” Jimmy groaned.

Y/N tried to stay calm, knowing that her panic would only frighten Jimmy more. Before she could call out for his help, Bucky came into the room and scooped Jimmy into his arms as if he were still a toddler.

“Grab the things, Y/N. I got him.” Bucky assured her.

Next thing she knew, they were taking off in the jet. Bucky pulled down a built-in cot and laid Jimmy down on it before piloting the quinjet. For a moment, he had a flashback of Steve being in the same position the night he died.

“FRIDAY, give me analytics on Jimmy.” Bucky activated the A.I.

“James has a temperature of 105 degrees. His heart is beating erratically. Sergeant Barnes, it appears his body is triggering a suppressed mutant gene.” The A.I. reported quietly enough so Jimmy didn’t overhear, not that the boy could focus over the pain.

Y/N was muttering comforts to Jimmy as her hand gripped her sons tightly. Bucky could tell from her slightly pained expression that she was using her ability to take away as much as her son’s pain as she could.

When Bucky landed the quinjet, there was already a team of doctors in the hangar. Banner and Stark were waiting with them, giving as much instruction as was needed. The rest of the Avengers were standing out of the way.

The doctors didn’t say anything to Y/N as they rushed Jimmy’s gurney out of the jet and rolled him in the direction of the medical bay. Y/N almost barked at them for taking her son away. But Bucky stopped her from following.

Her eyes blinked back the tears and she looked around the hangar. This all felt too familiar. The gurney and being held back from someone she loved as they were in pain.

“He’s going to be okay, Y/N.” Bucky whispered as he held her shaking body in his arms.

---

Bucky and Y/N waited just feet away from Jimmy’s bed. They had placed him in a patient room. The doctor’s assured them he would be fine. But they gave him a sedative to make his transition less painful.

Y/N had fallen asleep against Bucky’s shoulder and he had his arms wrapped around her. She’s used so much of her power to take away Jimmy’s pain that her body was finally responding to the exhaustion.

One of the doctors came into the room quietly. Bucky wasn’t familiar with her, but Banner assured them that she was the leading researcher in mutant and enhanced human beings.

“He’s not your son?” She whispered to Bucky, hoping not to wake Jimmy or Y/N up. She moved around Jimmy, checking vitals and writing things down.

Bucky shook his head.

She nodded calmly with a small smile.

“Steve Rogers is his father, isn’t he?”

Bucky’s jaw clenched at the question. He knew he could trust the people Stark brought into the compound. But his instincts were still to protect his family. Y/N had always been clear about keeping Jimmy’s heritage a secret.

“It’s okay.” The doctor seemed to sense his inner turmoil. “I figured it out after I studied his blood work. Not only does James have the mutant gene, but there were traces of the ‘super-soldier’ serum in his genetic build.” She gave him a sad look. “I thought he could be yours since you have a similar serum. But look at the kid, he’s practically his clone.”

“She doesn’t want the world to know.” Bucky muttered, glancing down at Y/N who remained asleep against him.

“I understand.” The doctor nodded. “I have kids too. I know it’s not my place to say, but she did the right thing. I can’t imagine what you’ve all gone through.”

Bucky blinked rapidly at the comment.

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Once the analysis is complete, I’ll have a better understanding of what’s going on with James.”

He said a quiet, but sincere, thank you before the doctor disappeared again.

---

“Mom?” Jimmy’s voice was raspy as his eyes squinted up.

Bucky shot forward. “Your mom’s taking a shower and getting something to eat right now, bud. How are you feeling?”

Jimmy slowly sat up and his eyes caught sight of the water next to his bed. He chugged the whole cup in one gulp.

He nodded slowly. “Better.”

Bucky sighed and leaned back in his chair. “You gave us quite a scare.”

Jimmy looked around. Through his pain and fever, he hadn’t really been able to process much yesterday. “Ugh…Bucky? Where are we?” He noticed that everything was too high tech and fancy to be a normal hospital.

Bucky chuckled. “You’re at the Avengers’ compound.”

Jimmy’s eyes lit up and his jaw dropped in a grin that Bucky couldn’t help but laugh harder at. “Really?” Bucky nodded. “This is where you live?” Bucky nodded again. “Can you show me around?”

The boy was already trying to move his legs to the side of the hospital bed. But Bucky locked him in place.

“Easy, easy, easy. Your fever just broke. I promise I’ll show you around…as soon as the doctors discharge you.”

Jimmy sighed and frowned in disappointment.

“Jimmy! Oh, thank god.” Y/N came rushing back into the room. Her hair was still wet from her shower and she was wearing a pair of Bucky’s sweatpants and his t-shirt. Her arms wrapped around her son, careful not to hurt him.

Y/N started asking him a million questions about how he was feeling. Jimmy appeased his mother and calmly answered all of them.

A few minutes later, the same doctor from last night strolled in with an army of nurses and other doctors.

“Miss Y/L/N, we finally have a diagnosis on James.”

Y/N nodded and sat on the edge of the bed, with Jimmy’s hand in her grasp.

“It seems Jimmy will have similar changes in his body as Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes did. Since it was hereditary and not an injection, his body’s absorption is delayed. He will most likely show noticeable changes as soon as he hits puberty. And if my calculations are correct, that won’t be for a few years.”

Y/N shared a look with Bucky. Her son was going to be just like him? “I’m confused. What caused his fever then? Does Jimmy not have a mutation?” She asked.

The doctor’s jaw clenched. “He does have a mutant gene. Or as people here like to say… Jimmy is enhanced.”

“With what?” Bucky asked quietly.

“Unfortunately, the fever and pain were only the first steps of the process. If Jimmy does get exceptional abilities, they haven’t manifested yet. But we believe they will be quite strong with the way his body reacted yesterday.”

“Mom?” Jimmy whined in fear. These teams of doctors weren’t even talking like he was in the room. He was scared. What was going to happen to him?

Y/N put her full attention toward her son. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

“Miss Y/L/N, can I give you and your son my professional and honest opinion?” The doctor was genuinely asking.

Y/N looked at Bucky and he gave her an encouraging nod and small smile.

“Please do.” She answered.

“Maybe it’s best for you and your son to relocate closer to the compound. You won’t find better help anywhere else. This building is filled with the brightest and most extraordinary people. And I have a feeling that Jimmy won’t be much different.” With that, the doctor jostled her team out of the room.

“Maybe she’s right, mom.” Jimmy whispered, breaking the tension filled silence in the room.

“Jimmy, we’ll talk about this later.” Y/N warned.

Bucky had never heard her use that tone with him before. It made him watch Y/N closely, desperately trying to read her.

Suddenly the team was parading in, making the room feel tiny.

Y/N managed to slip out from the room after seeing that Jimmy was preoccupied and in good hands. Bucky had been watching her like a hawk and quickly followed.

“Y/N, we need to discuss this.” Bucky muttered as he caught up with her.

“There’s nothing to talk about, Bucky.” She answered curtly without slowing down her pace.

He wasn’t going to play this game and gently gripped her arm enough to force her to a stop. “Y/N, please don’t do that.”

She ignored his soft plea. “Can you watch over Jimmy for a bit?”

Bucky sighed and nodded.

---

Y/N knew Tony wouldn’t mind if she borrowed one of his cars for a bit. It was like her heart was in control as it drove right to it: the house she lived in when she was with Steve. It was barely 15 minutes away from the compound.

She was relieved to find that no one else was living there.

The house was still beautiful. But now it looked cold. It was obvious that no one had resided there for quite some time. Y/N found her feet guiding her to the back porch. There was still a bench to sit on.

Y/N didn’t know how long she sat there, but the sun was almost past the horizon.

She heard Bucky’s motorcycle before his footsteps.

Without greeting her, he slowly sat down and joined her on the bench.

A few minutes of silence passed between them. All they could hear was the rustling of the tree leaves and cicadas.

“You know, Tony bought this place right after you left. He was convinced that you’d come back eventually…said he wanted to make sure you felt at home again when you did.” Bucky told her.

Y/N said nothing.

Bucky ran a hand over his scruff. It had been a stressful 24 hours for him too. “Y/N, sometimes it scares me how easily you can run away and hide from me.”

That finally got her to acknowledge him. It was an unfair yet true point. “We should’ve never brought Jimmy here.”

“You know that’s not true, doll.”

“One look at him and doctors are drooling over my son’s genetic code. Some of them even looked at him like he was Steve resurrected.”

“Y/N, I know it’ll never be true. But I see James like he was my own-” He can’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

She watched him. “Like he was your own son?”

Bucky just nodded guiltily. “I know you built a life in Montana. You wanted to get as far away from here as you could. But there is no other place that will be able to help Jimmy.”

“I didn’t need a place like this to get used to my abilities.” Y/N argued.

“But you can’t ignore the possibility that Jimmy could be stronger. His enhancement might have more repercussions than yours.”

“So what? I’m supposed to abandon our lives? Take Jimmy out of school and bring him here, where everyone will just compare him to Steve for the rest of his life? It’s not fair to him!” Her eyes watered. “And it’s not fair to me! I can’t live in what’s left of my past. This house is a tomb!”

“We can find another place!” Bucky encouraged.

“No. Everything in this stupid town reminds me of Steve! I hate it here.” Y/N’s anger made her stand up from the bench.

She started to leave, but Bucky grabbed her wrist.

“Y/N, you can’t keep running from your past.” He said softly.

She glared at him and ripped her wrist away. “Yeah? And how would you know?” Her voice was low and threatening. It was meant to hurt him. Bucky ran from his past for as long as he could. If it weren’t for Zemo, who knew how much longer he would’ve hid from Steve.

Y/N started walking away again.

Bucky quickly stood up. “Y/N?” The gentleness in his voice made her pause for a split second. “Please don’t shut me out.” He recognized the tactic. It used to be his go-to defense.

His plea wasn’t enough. She kept walking away.

---

Y/N woke up to her son jumping onto her bed.

“Mom! I got discharged!” Jimmy said excitingly.

She couldn’t help but giggle. “Yes, I can see that.”

“Bucky promised he’d show me around the compound. Do you want to come with?” His voice was filled with energy and enthusiasm. No one would ever know that he had almost died a few days ago.

“I think I’ll sleep more.” Y/N sighed. She didn’t need to go through memory lane of the compound.

But her answer seemed to disappoint Jimmy. He sighed an okay and slowly sulked out of the bedroom.

---

Bucky immediately noticed how quiet Jimmy was as he took him around the facility. Even when he showed him the Tony’s lab, Jimmy’s enthusiasm was subdued.

He stopped walking to face the boy. “You feeling okay, Jimmy?”

He didn’t take his eyes off the ground. “Mom hates it here, doesn’t she?”

Bucky sighed. “This place…it just has too many memories for her. It reminds her how much she misses your dad.”

That made Jimmy look up. “But she’s with you now!” He pointed out innocently.

“It’s more complicated than that. She’s always going to miss him. Nobody is ever going to change that… Not even me.”

Jimmy huffed in frustration. “If she misses him so much, why does she never talk about him with me?” It was a childish reaction. But that’s exactly what he was: a child…a child who didn’t understand the complex relationships of adulthood.

“I can’t answer that. I’m sorry, bud.” Bucky gripped his shoulder.

As they walked through the compound, dozens of people sporadically crossed their paths. Jimmy started to notice a pattern with all of them. They watched Bucky with caution, especially agents or tech people that didn’t usually converse with him.

Jimmy tugged on his metal arm. “Uncle Bucky?” He almost whispered.

“Yeah, bud?”

“Why is everyone so scared of you?” He stopped walking as he asked, giving Bucky no chance to escape the question.

Bucky’s jaw tensed at the question. He was fully aware of people’s wariness towards him. He just chose to ignore it. The reaction was normal and he couldn’t blame any of them. They’d probably seen countless footage of him as the Winter Soldier. Once people see that, it’s hard to trust the man underneath.

But it was sweet that Jimmy was so confused by it. Bucky had never been anything but loving and protective over him. Yeah, he’d heard about the Winter Soldier and kids referenced it every once in awhile. It wasn’t uncommon for kids to play make believe as the Avengers. But Jimmy had only ever seen Bucky as a superlative example of a man and a hero.

“Ugh… “ Bucky had no idea where to begin. Sadly, he was scared that if he explained to Jimmy how the world perceived him, then the boy would never look at him the same. “There was a time where I did a lot of bad things, Jimmy. It wasn’t really me. I didn’t have control. But I still make people uncomfortable sometimes.”

“What did you do?” Jimmy asked carefully.

“What if I promise to tell you when you’re older?” Bucky smirked. There would always be a part of him that wanted to keep Jimmy’s innocence. The boy looked at Bucky like a hero. It would break Bucky’s heart the moment that was lost.

Instead of a whining or begging for the information right then, Jimmy considered the offer. “What’s your definition of older?”

Jimmy could easily look it up on the Internet. But he wanted to hear it right from the source. He knew how tainted media could get. He’d made the mistake of reading things about his dad.

Bucky chuckled at the boy. “16-years-old.”

“Fine. But you have to take me to the training facility then.” Jimmy countered.

“Deal.”

---

“Well, look who got discharged!” Sam bustled at the sight of Jimmy. He and Natasha were sparring. The gym was filled with noises. Various agents were working out and fighting.

Jimmy just smiled at his unofficial aunt and uncle.

“Should I teach you a few moves, James?” Nat asked mischievously.

“Uncle Bucky beat you to it.” Jimmy laughed. Then he realized he had just accidentally let the secret slip. He slammed a hand over his mouth and looked up at Bucky in fear. “Sorry.” He winced.

Bucky had no intention of reprimanding him. But he rubbed his face roughly.

“Oh, I can’t wait to see Y/N’s face when she finds that out.” Sam laughed.

“Please don’t say anything.” Jimmy begged the two of them.

Natasha and Sam just gave him a look that said all that was needed to assure him his secret was safe.

“Barnes, want to spar and embarrass yourself in front of Jimmy?” Natasha offered.

He was about to open his mouth to decline but Jimmy hit him lightly on the arm. “Please, Uncle Bucky?! I want to see what you can do!” He’d never seen him in action. Yeah, Bucky trained him. But Jimmy knew he was barely going 1% against him.

“Is someone scared?” Natasha teased.

“Fine.” Bucky held his hands up in surrender.

Sam guided Jimmy to a bench as Bucky chalked his hands and wrapped them up.

“You know, Romanoff, I never did get back at you for secretly inviting Y/N to your birthday party.” Bucky threatened lowly.

“Oh, yeah? Maybe it was because you were too busy sleeping with her.”

Bucky glared, but couldn’t stop his devious smirk from appearing.

With that, they started sparring. It felt like it went on forever. Every once in awhile, Bucky would hear Jimmy cheering for him. Sam, on the other hand, cheered against him just for the entertainment of it.

They’d been fighting for a straight half hour when Bucky finally nailed a kick to Nat’s stomach. She flew back so hard that the air was knocked out of her as she landed roughly on her back.

Nat grumbled. “Yep. I guess I deserved that.”

“Holy fucking shit! That was amazing!” Jimmy stood up and cheered.

“James Wilson Y/L/N, what did you just say?” Y/N had snuck into the gym during the fight without anyone noticing. Bruce and Tony were flanking her.

Fear flew into Jimmy’s eyes. He looked back at Bucky for help, but he looked just as displeased.

Bucky wanted to say, ‘He gets it from you.’ But he knew better.

“We’re heading out, Jimmy.” Y/N quickly said.

“What? Right now?” Jimmy gasped. “But mom, can’t we stay a little bit longer?”

Bucky stepped forward, still breathing heavily from sparring. “Y/N, shouldn’t Jimmy rest a-”

“Come on, Jimmy. Tony is flying us back. You’ve already missed the first week of school. We have to get home.” Y/N cut off Bucky’s defense and didn’t even look at him.

Nat, Sam, and Bruce all shared uncomfortable stares.

Bucky looked dejected.

Tony felt bad for the poor guy and managed to wrangle Jimmy away. They walked ahead of Y/N quickly. The rest of the team disappeared and it gave Bucky a small window of privacy with Y/N.

“You won’t even let me take you home?” Bucky hissed in frustration.

“Tony offered.” Y/N lied, continuing to walk briskly.

Like always, Bucky grabbed her arm to pull her to a stop.

“You can’t be mad at me for giving my opinion on what’s best for Jimmy.”

“That’s just it, Bucky. Jimmy is my son. Sometimes I still think we’d be better off if I managed to stay hidden.”

Bucky’s heart shattered. “You don’t mean that.” He whispered.

She wouldn’t meet his gaze anymore.

“I’m here, Y/N. I’m here for you and Jimmy. I’m not going to tell you how to parent. You don’t need anyone’s help. But why are you treating me like I’m your enemy?”

In his frustration, Bucky quickly raised a hand to run his fingers through his shaggy hair. But he stopped sharply when he caught Y/N flinch at his movement.

Y/N thought he was about to hit her.

“I’m sorry!” Y/N blurted out. She didn’t mean to flinch at his innocent action. It was barely a few months ago that she was dating Brian. Her body was still constantly ready to physically defend itself.

Bucky wanted to wrap her in a hug. But physical contact clearly wasn’t going to help the situation. “Y/N! Y/N…I-I would never-”

“I know.” She stopped him. Her cheeks were red with embarrassment and she looked like she was about to cry. “I know you wouldn’t. It was just a natural reaction. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apol-” Bucky started.

“Miss Y/L/N, Tony is waiting for take-off in the hangar.” FRIDAY interrupted their conversation.

“I gotta go, Bucky.” Y/N spoke to the floor.

“Y/N, please!” Bucky asked desperately.

Why did this feel like a different goodbye? It was scaring him.

“Maybe we did this too quickly.” Y/N sighed. “Bucky, maybe we should just take some time to-”

“To what? To figure out what we want? Because I know what I want. I’ve always known.”

Y/N glared at him. “Well, it’s not that easy for me.”

“I know it’s not, Y/N. But Christ, it would be nice if you met me halfway sometimes! I don’t know what else to do!” Bucky’s frustration was growing. But it was just his desperation rising from the fear that she was going to disappear.

Y/N said nothing.

“Is this going to happen every time something reminds you too much of Steve?” Bucky accused.

“That’s not fair!” Y/N snapped.

Bucky crashed his lips onto hers. If Y/N were truly mad at him, she would’ve found the courage to push him away. But her body refused to stop the kiss.

He finally pulled away roughly. “Go home. Figure out what the hell it is that you want. You can’t keep making decisions because of a ghost. We both know he wouldn’t want that.”

“Why do you have to be so god damn perfect? It makes it so hard to stay mad at you…” Y/N scoffed. But her furrowed brow proved she really was irritated with it.

She started walking away. Bucky caught her wrist. “I love you, okay?” He stated quietly.

Y/N nodded. The words still shook her… And every time she wished she could say it back. But she owed it to Bucky, and herself, to only say it when it was actually real.

Y/N started walking away. But she still couldn’t leave like that. Bucky didn’t deserve this. She turned around and gave him one last passionate kiss.

“Thank you for helping Jimmy. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.” They were hard words to admit. But Y/N managed to look beyond her own pride to thank him.

---

Retiring as an Avenger felt like a horrible decision as Bucky tried to entertain himself. The team never talked about missions, intel, or injuries around him. They knew that if he overheard something concerning, he would feel guilty for not helping. The team took it upon themselves to keep Bucky in retirement, no matter what.

Bucky still trained like he would have to save the world at any moment. He kept reading book after book in Tony’s library. He continued his hobby of cooking. But it quickly turned depressing when he had to eat all the meals alone. He wanted so badly to call Y/N. He just needed to hear her voice. Furthermore he couldn’t help but worry about Jimmy. But he knew she needed space.

Y/N was confused and stressed.

Maybe they really had rushed into things too quickly. For Bucky, it felt so perfect. He’d waited so long to love Y/N. But for her, it happened so fast. She went from thinking Bucky hated her to being told he’d secretly loved her since the day they met. Bucky felt guilty the more he thought about it. Had he put too much pressure on her too soon?

It had been weeks since Jimmy and Y/N left the compound.

The darkest parts of Bucky’s mind worried that he would go back to Montana to find her house abandoned…that history would repeat itself. It was hard to keep those thoughts away.

“Sergeant Barnes, you have a visitor in the living room.”

Bucky’s brow creased. Who the hell would be visiting him? For a moment, he panicked. Maybe it was one of his one-night stands. But there’s no way security would have let them past the gate.

He stopped when he rounded the corner.

Y/N quickly turned around at the sound of his arrival.

“What are you doing here?” Bucky gasped.

Y/N gave a nervous smile and shrugged her shoulders. “You were right.”

“…I was?” He was so stunned by her presence that his mind didn’t seem to be working properly.

“You were right about a lot of things, actually.” Y/N laughed lightly at herself. She walked closer to him, drawn to Bucky like a magnet. “I can’t keep running and hiding from a ghost.” She sighed. “This is the only place that can help Jimmy.”

Bucky just nodded slowly, taking in everything she said.

This was by no means a victory of any sort.

“I’m sorry.” Y/N whispered. Her lower lip started shaking. “I’m sorry for constantly trying to push you away.”

Then Bucky’s arms were wrapped around her tightly. “It’s okay.” He soothed her.

But Y/N shook her head. “No. It’s not okay. You’ve done so much for me. And you’re right: you’ve always loved Jimmy as if he were your own son.” She pulled away to look up at him. Bucky brushed away the tears with his thumb. “It’s been so long since someone’s truly loved me. It freaked me out. Steve made me so weak. I relied on him too much. He was my world. After he died, I told myself I’d never let anyone else in. I couldn’t stand being weak again.”

“You’re not weak, Y/N.”

She gave him a shy smile. “You don’t have to say that.”

Bucky sighed and kissed her forehead. “One day I’ll make you believe me.”

Y/N couldn’t find any other words. She’d said her peace. So she just curled into his chest, letting his warmth calm her.

“Doll, how the hell did you get here?” Bucky finally asked.

Y/N chuckled. “Oh, yeah. About that…”

He pulled her away from his body so he could look at her expression. She looked playfully guilty.

“Jimmy and I may or may not have just moved back into my old house…”

Bucky’s eyes widened. “What?” He gasped.

“Yeah. Jimmy made his wishes very clear. I couldn’t stand keeping him away from his family anymore. He wanted to start over. So that’s what we’re doing. We drove across the country in a few days. And here we are.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve helped.”

“I know you could’ve, Buck. But I’m not completely helpless.”

“Your capability has nothing to do with it, doll.”

Y/N smiled and shook her head. “I know.” She took in a deep breath. “Anyways, Jimmy said he wouldn’t unpack a single thing until I came over here and talked to you…and invited you over for dinner.”

“The kid is stubborn, that’s for sure.” Bucky chuckled.

“He’s a clone of Steve Rogers, what do you expect?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Yeah, because none of that comes from you...”

Y/N scoffed at the accusation and started heading for the exit. But Bucky gently wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back toward the kitchen. She looked at him with confusion.

“I have a bunch of leftovers I made.” He said casually.

“Oh, thank god! I really didn’t feel like unpacking all the kitchenware tonight. I was honestly planning on just ordering takeout.”

Bucky chuckled.

“Plus, your cooking is a million times better than mine.” Y/N sighed and kissed him on the cheek.

Bucky’s heart warmed from her touch.

For a moment, everything felt normal and right.

--------

Part 14

Real talk fam, do you guys hate how much Jimmy is involved in this fic? I’m just curious. Let me know!

#marvel fic #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes fluff #bucky fic #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes angst #my eyes part 13 #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes x you #marvel reader insert #bucky reader insert

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eggs-n-ham-sam · 6 years

Text

List of Ten Things -Ten Personally Influential Artists

@jemsauce tagged me... months ago. Sorry this took so long -I just really hate essay writing.

This is a short-list of artists I’ve personally been impressed by, and want to emulate in some way. Have fun.

Greg Manchess- Kentucky native Manchess’ thick alla prima strokes are delicious and distinguishable. Despite earning his BFA in college, Manchess’ art school experience was disappointing. His teachers advocate traditional methods of drawing, sculpting, and coloring are dead, and the future is conceptual art (cuz wearing gold and talking to a dead rabbit in a gallery totally pays the bills -this really happened). After graduation took it upon himself for a proper education. Manchess’ wide range of interests and intelligence has made him a favorite for many publications.

Nicolai Fechin- Nicolai started painting to help with his father’s carpentry business. In is teens, Fechin start’s learning art in Russia and Europe, and gains more international recognition from winning competitions. That was a blessing, for the Fechin family left their country after the Russian Revolution to New York, and Nicolai was able to continue as an artist. Fechin’s style is strange, but what’s rendered keeps the subject within the realm of believably. Some of his painting methods remain unconventional, such as licking wet paint on a pallet knife to achieve an effect.

Michael Gorban- I personally didn’t care for abstract art -thought it was soulless and cheap- till I discovered Michael Gorban. His style is very alive and delicious. Soviet Russia noticed his fabulous talent as well, and Artist’s Association of the Soviet Union gave him a grant for education. By the time Michael was 30, his artwork was already displayed in the world famous Hermitage museum.

Yoshitaka Amano- At an early age, Yoshitaka studied Pop, Art Nouveau, and Ukiyo-e styles. Even though Amano never had proper education, Tatsunoko Production (yeah, I had to Google how to spell it) recognized his work ethic and unique style, and hired him as a character designer. After working for several decades in Tatsunoko, Amano perused a freelance career, clients including Nintendo, DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse.

Nathan Fawkes- A known and liked name in the animation industry, few artists have the work ethnic Fawkes has, and even fewer have a control in color and brush strokes. In his first movie, Prince of Egypt, Fakes was put in charge creating the color script for a critical scene. In a conversion, he probably wasn’t supposed to hear, a superior was upset the art director gave such an important task to ‘a nobody’. Worried for his job, Fawkes painted dozens of different color scripts (maybe hundreds). No one complained ever again.

Mark Rothko- Because of Jewish persicution, and social unstibility, the Rothko family moved from present-day Latvia to Oregon. After dropping from Yale, Mark moved to NYC for work. There, he was first exposed to Avant-garde style. Mark saw art, and the style, as a mean to express. Simplistic the end result is, Rothko’s method was complex and kept secretive; only forensic scientific methods have been about to get a glimpse of his process. He striven for the viewers to have a spiritual experience.

Minerva Teichert- Subjects done for nearly 2000 years can yield a sense of ‘been-there-done-that’. But Idaho native Teichert takes over-exhausted subjects, recreating them into something new, theatrical, and personal. Being a wife of a rancher, mother several times over, and living in a small cabin didn’t stop her from creating. Once the wees are asleep and chores done, Teichert would paint into the night. She used creative viewing methods, such as backwards binoculars and mirrors, to create large paintings in her kitchen. (This picture is such a whitewash to the original image, which has rich blues, greens, oranges, and purples)

Bill Sienkiewicz (sn-kev-itch)- Beastly name in the comic book industry, Bill’s mastery of anatomy and color is recognizable. But while most comic artists stay close to typical illustration methods and mediums, Bill is unafraid to experiment. At every demo, Bill brings with him an assortment of spray bottles, inks, paints, brushes, pens, etc. You can play bingo of what he’ll bring.

Wassily Kandinsky- Russian native Kandinsky needs little introduction. From a rich pedigree, Wassily first perused law and economics education. However at 30 he set aside the higher education career for his childhood interest: art. Kandinsky was fascinated by colors, especially the bright colors in folk art, and would paint impressionistic landscapes with bright colors. His style would change over the decades, perusing and refining his theology and philosophy of art and color.

Sergei Bongart - Ukraine native Bongart studied art all over Europe, and, like Fechin, had Iliya Repin as a teacher. Then Stalin and Third Reich rose into power, and ruined Eurasia (his father was arrested by KGB agents in the middle of the night, and tortured to death). Bongart moved to America. There, he was a sought after instructor because of his mastery of the Russian method. Bongart would teach not to duplicate the subject in the paint, but rather how the subject would look like if it was made from paint.

Those who got axed from the list: James Gurney (he was hard to cut out), Richard Schmidt, Rebecca Guay, Gustave Dore, Klimt Petar Meseldzija, John Singer Sargent (who doesn’t cite him as an influence???), Auguste Rodin, and Hayao Miyazaki.

Anyone who reads this is tagged. That means you. Have fun!

#ten things #greg manchess #yoshitaka amano #sergei bongart #wassily kandinsky #mark rothko #bill sienkiewicz #minerva teichert #nathan fawkes #nicolai fechin #michael gorban #I just put Jesus and Electra next to each other #darn it!#I meant Elektra...

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brightlycoloredteacups · 7 years

Text

Something Beautiful

Series: Sugar Daddy

Warnings: None

Tag List:@ivars-pet, @ivartheboneme, @nekodalolita, @vitalanidragonbane

Ivar was worried about you. This would be your first time seeing what he was truly capable of. He knew you were under no illusions when it came to him. You knew what he did, but knowing and seeing were completely different. Half of him wanted to shield you from this side of him, the other half was excited to show you what he could do with a baseball bat.

If he showed you this side of him, that meant a great deal would change between you two. He always thought of you as his equal, intelligent, charming, and drop dead gorgeous, you were a perfect match for him. But depending on how you handled his interrogation methods, you’d become something more, you’d become his partner.

He’d be lying if he didn’t admit that he’d wanted this for some time. Having you work beside him, helping to run the family business, was one of his best well-kept secrets. No one wanted to say it, especially not the old man, but they needed new blood. They were losing their footing in the drug business. Their legitimate businesses were struggling as well. Not to mention all the territory they were losing. They needed fresh eyes and new ideas at the top, and Ivar felt you were just the person.

He had the utmost confidence you wouldn’t disappoint him. Maybe it was in part because he was trying his hardest to live a fantasy he’d had for years now, but the confidence was still there.

Your heels were loud on the concrete as you rolled him down the hall. Ivar would prefer to walk, but his current state made it impossible to hold on to crutches. He had explained to you what would happen. He would beat Aaron, maybe break a few bones, maybe put something underneath his fingernails. Whatever it was, it would be violent, and there would be blood. But in the end, you got the adorable look of determination in your eyes and told him you were going to see this out.

You stopped in front of his father. Ragnar looked critically at you. “I don’t think-”

“I don’t care what you think,” You say, tone flat as possible. “I’m here, and this is happening. Open the door.” You order. Ivar didn’t bother keeping his smile from his face. Ragnar gives you a look filled with curiosity. You were a new entity and he wasn’t sure how to feel about you yet. He nods to the goon standing guard, they immediately snap to attention and unlock the door for them. Without bothering to wait for Ragnar’s go ahead, you roll Ivar into the room.

Aaron looked a little too happy to see you. “Ah,” He says, giving you a charming smile. “It’s always lovely to see a woman in situations like this.” Ivar watches as you take the seat that had been provided for his father, returning Aaron’s smile. It’s a smile he’d never seen on you, utterly provocative in its innocence. No wonder the man had underestimated you. Ragnar stands behind you, trying to figure out what it was you had in mind. “I assure you Mr. Goldstein, Ivar and Mr. Lothbrok won’t be going easy on you even though I’m here.” You say sweetly.

Aaron pales and Ivar’s look of jealous turns to one of surprise. “You know my name?” He asks. Your smile only turns sweeter. “Aaron James Goldstein, only son of Martha and Jeremiah Goldstein, three sisters, Sarah, Hannah, and Amelia. You’ve three nephews, and a niece you’re rather close to. You worked as an accountant for a while before you wife-”

“Enough!” Aaron barked, looking panicked. “How did you find all this out?” You cross your legs and lean back in your chair, looking at ease. Ivar feels a stirring of lust in his gut. “I have my ways.” You tell him coyly. “The point is, you’re at an extreme disadvantage.”

“Clearly,” Aaron says, looking defeated. “Now,” You say. “We can go about this a few different ways. Ivar here can beat the hell out of you, and you talk. I can make a few phone calls and have your family ruined, and then you can talk, or, you can talk freely, and you might just live to see your little girl again.”

Ivar looks up at his father. Ragnar has his face carefully schooled into impassivity, but his blue eyes let the world know he’s impressed. Ivar feels an overwhelming sense of pride mix in with his lust. This wasn’t how this interrogation was supposed to go, but clearly, you had come prepared. Ivar smirks, realizing that the three hours you took to ‘collect yourself’ had been spent finding everything you could about Aaron. Not even Ivar had been able to find out this much.

Aaron takes a long time in responding to your possibly empty threat. You patiently waited, picking at invisible dirt underneath your nails. A habit you had when you were nervous. Thankfully, it just made you look aloof. “You’re bluffing,” he finally decides. You look at him, brow raised. “Am I?” You ask. “You couldn’t make that call. You’re too nice. There’d be blood on your hands and you wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. You’re playing a losing hand.”

“Oh?”

Aaron laughs. “Of course, you are! I’ve seen this tactic before!” He says, laughing. “You’ve gotten some information about my family, big deal. You use it to scare me a little in the hopes that I’d talk. But nothing is going to come of it. I’ll take the beating.” He winks at you. Ivar and Ragnar move to the table filled with various torture devices. They begin to inspect the table, and as soon as they have their respective instruments, you speak up. “Wait,” You say.

Getting out of your chair, you saunter over to Aaron, looking predatory. Ivar is extremely thankful he’s wearing lose clothing, because his jeans would absolutely be tented by now. You whip out your phone and scroll through it. “Samantha Peterson,” You say. “Took her mother’s maiden name after she died to distance herself from you. Blond hair, green eyes, freckles galore. She wants to become an oncologist in honor of her mother’s fight with cancer. Brilliant child I must say.” You flip the phone around and show Aaron the screen. Presumably it’s a picture of his daughter.

Aaron’s mouth begins to work, little noises coming from the back of his throat. “Mr. Goldstein, I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, I am not playing games.” You pull your phone away from him, and fold your hands behind your back. “I admit, I’m sort of new to this, however, I am as serious as your late wife’s brain cancer. We humans are great at rationalizing our terrible deeds, and I did a hell of a lot of rationalizing. Now, you will tell us what we want to know, and quickly, or I will have your little girl taken, brought here, and tortured in front of you. The choice is yours.”

If looks could kill, the one Aaron is giving you would turn you to dust. “The clock is ticking Mr. Goldstein.”

“Fine,” He sighs, sitting back in his chair, “What do you want to know?”

Ivar is back in the gurney. You’re in the gurney with him. His back to your chest, you’re running your fingers through his hair, giving intermittent kisses to his head. He’s comfortable, feeling a mix of emotions. He’s incredibly aroused and impressed with how easily you had twisted Aaron, but he was disappointed he didn’t get to personally tear Aaron a new asshole. He was proud of you too.

The women in the Lothbrok family tended to distance themselves from their husband’s work. His mother helped with the accounts from time to time, but otherwise turned a blind eye to her husband’s dealings. Margrethe wanted absolutely nothing to do with any of it. Even Bjorn’s wife, Torvi, simply let the man come and go as he pleased. But you went in, grabbed the bull by the horns, and rode that damn thing to victory.

“Baby girl?” He mumbles. You grunt to show you’re listening to him. “How did you find all that stuff about Aaron?”

“Called a few people.” You mutter. “Well, obviously,” He says, taking your free hand in his. He kisses it gently, hardly believing you’re his. “But how did you know who to call?” You shift and remain silent for a long time. “I just know people Ivar. I’m a social butterfly, so I have a great deal of acquaintances.”

“But ones willing to give you a bunch of information?”

“Hey, call your police friend that’s not so secretly in love with you crying about how you think your boyfriend is leading a double life and they give you everything you want to know.” Ivar stiffens, pressing another kiss to the palm of your hand. “Don’t worry,” You say. “the man’s a Neanderthal, besides, I know way too many junkies to date him.”

“How many more people do you know?” Ivar is curious. You both kept your separate lives from each other quiet. Ivar realizes that he knows too little about your life outside of your relationship. “Uh, well, I think I know enough to get you whatever you need.” You tell him honestly. “You need prescription pills? Need cocaine? Need someone followed? Hell, you need an order of three hundred cupcakes over night?”

“What would we do with prescription pills?” Ivar grunts. “You’re kidding, right?” You say in disbelief. Ivar twists his neck to look at you. “Good lord, do you guys do everything old school? Prescription pills can sell anywhere from twenty to eighty dollars a pill.” You tell him. “The Oxy’s are the ones that are big sellers. Narcotics, Benzo’s, pseudoephedrine.” You pause, looking at the wall, brows furrowed in concentration. “Pseudoephedrine is harder to get a hold of though, thanks to the meth heads. But I know a few pharmacists and doctors that will get you what you need no problem as long as you give them a cut of the sale.”

Ivar settles back into you, thinking it over. This was exactly what he wanted from you, fresh perspective. A way to branch out. “Plus, I hear there’s a bigger market for pharm drugs, people think it’s safer than the street stuff, so I think we can make a killing if you want to try it out.”

Ivar works his bottom lip. “We’ll bring it up in the next family meeting.” He assures you. “Meanwhile, do you have any other ideas?” You immediately start listing off the ideas that have been rattling around in your head. Ivar listens, mostly quiet, asking questions only when he wanted to figure out how your plans would work exactly. When you’re done presenting your ideas, Ivar smiles. “Baby girl,” he says, “This is the beginning of something beautiful.”

Hope everyone is still enjoying this little series. I know this part isn’t anything special, but next bit will have some fun times, promise! (suggestions welcome)

#ivar the boneless #ivars heathen army #ivar ragnarsson #vikings #sugar daddy ivar #reader #safe for work #sfw

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eddycurrents · 7 years

Photo

For the week of 21 August 2017

As I write this, the gulf coast of Texas is being battered by hurricane Henry. I can only hope that everyone was able to evacuate and that those who couldn’t, or were and are caught in unexpected turns of the storm, are able to stay safe and sound. My thoughts go out to everyone effected by this disaster.

My two favourite books of the week were Hi-Fi Fight Club #1 by Carly Usdin, Nina Vakueva & Irene Flores and War Mother #1 by Fred Van Lente & Stephen Segovia. Published by BOOM!/Boom! Box and Valiant Comics respectively.

Hi-Fi Fight Club is essentially Empire Records or Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity recast with an all-female staff. And, well, the staff also has a secret, but it’s not revealed until the end of the issue really, so I’ll leave that out for you to figure out.

The first issue is from the point of view of Chris, Vinyl Mayhem’s newest and youngest employee, as she struggles with her identity and finding her place in the world/at work. Carly Usdin does a good job of presenting the setting and characters through Chris’ eyes.

One of the main draws, though, is the art. The art team of Nina Vakueva & Irene Flores with colours by Rebecca Nalty are a joy. Vakueva has a style that reminds me a lot of Veronica Fish mixed with a bit of Terry Moore, leading to some fairly expressive faces and overall some very pleasant art to convey the story.

I’m really looking forward to how this series deepens.

And then there’s the return of War Mother.

I’ve been waiting for a follow-up to the War Mother one-shot that was part of the 4001 AD crossover from last year by Fred Van Lente and Tomás Giorello, and this doesn’t disappoint. Van Lente is back for this new mini while he’s joined by Stephen Segovia for the artwork.

Van Lente does a good job of getting the reader up to speed on what occurred in the previous one-shot, while giving a concrete introduction (or re-introduction depending on if you’re a new reader or not) to the characters. I’d have liked a little more about the time’s overall current state, but I’m sure that will be addressed whenever Valiant gets back to a new Rai series, and isn’t really necessary to enjoy this issue.

War Mother (Ana) and her people’s biome, The Grove, is failing and she’s searching for something new before they run out of food completely. In doing so, she investigates a broadcast of a safe haven and goes to check out its source and the viability of the building claiming protection. This leads her to a confrontation with a couple other factions fighting to survive in this world, and a revelation that perhaps not everything is as it seems. It’s fairly compelling to find out what happens next.

Stephen Segovia also is a great addition to the book, giving the futuristic world a distinct lived-in feel. His depiction of the Urbanites is a suitably creepy addition to the world.

Quick Bits:

Archie #23 is kind of an “after the big event” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, focusing more on character ramifications and fallout of the horrible accident in the previous issue. It’s rather morose, but Mark Waid tries to alleviate that a bit through some of Archie’s natural clumsiness.

| Published by Archie Comics

Black Hammer #12 reminds me that David Rubín really deserves to be a household name. His panel transitions and page layouts are gorgeous. His art just flows. It also helps that Jeff Lemire’s story is quite compelling as well.

| Published by Dark Horse

Doctor Strange #24 concludes the Secret Empire tie-in story-arc from Dennis Hopeless and Niko Henrichon. Overall, the arc was decent, even if the victory is less than satisfying. I would have liked to have seen more from Hopeless & Henrichon, because they seem to have a good grasp on Doctor Strange himself and his magical world, but I’ve liked what they’ve given to us. Henrichon’s art is joyful in itself.

| Published by Marvel

Edge of Venomverse #5 closes out the prequel mini-series of mostly one-shots before the Venomverse event can start proper. Every issue of this series has been incredibly well done and this issue is no exception.

This may be the best, not necessarily due to the story of Deadpool working to stop an alien worm parasite from invading Earth--although Clay McLeod Chapman’s altered “Sound of Silence” lyrics are fairly humorous--but because of the truly incredible artwork of James Stokoe. I think there’s probably nothing that Stokoe can’t elevate with his art.

| Published by Marvel

Generation Gone #2 still feels like a new take on Akira to me. I don’t know if it will shape up to have nearly as much impact as that, but it’s very good so far. Aleš Kot and André Lima Araújo are doing something interesting here.

| Published by Image

Generations: The Thunder #1 is another that reminds me that they’ve never quite lain out what Generations actually is, how or why the modern heroes are being thrust wherever or whatever this “Vanishing Point” is in what’s mostly been various pasts, but still manages to deliver a decent story. Mostly winding up feeling like annuals or possibly an extended version of those old fifth-week events where every one-shot special followed a specific theme; like everyone was turned into an ape or all of the heroes rocked ‘80s mullets and big hair. Okay, maybe that last one didn’t happen, but you get my point.

The other three (Hulks, Jean Greys, & Wolverines) haven’t been bad, by any means, but they do feel kind of inconsequential with character points that have either already popped up in their source series or look to be brought more to the fore in upcoming issues. Jason Aaron’s work here with the Thors feels a little bit more like another important wrinkle in his ongoing Thor saga, as well as laying some groundwork for the upcoming Marvel: Legacy #1.

It also has some great art from Mahmud Asrar and Jordie Bellaire.

| Published by Marvel

The Hard Place #1 is a solid first issue, very nearly rising to one of my favourites of the week. Doug Wagner pens a fairly standard man-out-of-prison story that you see in film and television, complete with the temptation to get back into crime, but he does a great job of making AJ Gurney feel like a fully realised character.

Nic Rummel’s art is also compelling. He has a style similar to Shawn Martinbrough’s with angular features and heavy use of thick lines and solid black shading. The muted colour scheme from Charlie Kirchoff adds greatly to the feel and atmosphere of the issue.

This one comes highly recommended if you like crime dramas.

| Published by Image / 12 Gauge

Incidentals #1 is the first of the Catalyst Prime series that I’ve read since picking up the Free Comic Book Day issue back in May. I gravitated toward this one solely because Larry Stroman’s name was attached and I was in no way disappointed by his work here with Rob Stull inking his pencils and Snakebite Cortez providing the colours.

I’m not as sold on the story. The concept is fine, one of a team being gathered out of those transformed by “The Event”, but Joe Casey’s execution leaves a little to be desired. He’s got several plates spinning in following the different characters, but he provides very little in terms of exposition and narrative context. It leaves you wondering a bit as to who some of these people are and in some cases what exactly is going on. I normally tend to like Casey’s work, so I’ll give it a chance to grow on me, but I can’t say that I was won over by the story in this first issue.

| Published by Lion Forge / Catalyst Prime

Redneck #5 gives us the revelation of what really happened in the first issue and, well, all I can really say is “Ah, hell.” Donny Cates and Lisandro Estherren can really do no wrong here.

| Published by Image / Skybound

ROM vs. Transformers: Shining Armor #2 is every bit as dense as the first issue, even as we focus more on the initial battle between the Autobots, Decepticons, Space Knights, and Dire Wraiths. We also get to see what happens when a Cybertronian is taken over by a Dire Wraith, depicted in all its terrifying glory by Alex Milne.

| Published by IDW

X-O Manowar #6 closes out the “General” story-arc, but, like “Soldier” before it, it’s less a hard story break, and more of an end of an act. There’s some nice forward momentum in regards to the monoliths causing havoc on the planet Gorin, who’s behind them or at least allied with them, that looks like it’s going to come to a head in the next arc.

This issue also has some very beautiful shots of the landscape and the monoliths from Doug Braithwaite that break up the pace of the action and intrigue.

| Published by Valiant

Other Highlights: Conan: The Slayer #12, Daredevil #25, Dept. H #17, The Dying & The Dead #5, Eternal Empire #4, First Strike #2, I Am Groot #4, Lazarus: X+66 #2, Letter 44 #35, Lumberjanes #41, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers #18, Plastic #5, The Punisher #15, Red Sonja #8, Renato Jones: Season Two #3, Shipwreck #5, Shirtless Bear Fighter #3, Sisters of Sorrow #2, TMNT: Dimension X #4, Underwinter #6

Recommended Collections: The Beauty - Vol. 3, The Few, Guardians of the Galaxy: Mother Entropy, Sif: Journey Into Mystery Complete Collection, & Snowfall

d. emerson eddy is really, really bad at Quake Champions. Like “your grandma is probably better at this” level of bad.

#This Week in Comics #Hi-Fi Fight Club #War Mother

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verdantwinter · 7 years

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Hi! Do you have any advice or tips regarding digitally painting skin tones? Thank you in advance for a reply! :)

Hello!I think the following text vomit is going to disappoint you a little bit, because there is very little I can tell you practically about how to paint skin tones. I’ve mentioned some things to watch out for (far, far below), but most of it relates to how to teach yourself how to do it rather than me imparting any great wisdom.

(All the advice below will generally apply to both Digital and Traditional Paint. I’m going to try to be pretty broad with advice because I am not the best technician).

I also want to make a disclaimer that you can spend an entire lifetime learning how to paint skin tones in any media. It’s the kind of skill that has a steep learning curve at the beginning and never really quite stops. Which is not to say that you can’t learn to do it well fairly quickly, but it is endlessly nuanced and you have to decide what your own stopping point is going to be. Which brings me to more below the cut:

The first step in tackling skin tones is that you have to decide the effect you are going for. You can do anything from Flat Coloring to Hyper Realism (and beyond), all of which require a different approach to picking colors (and also a different approach to using brushstrokes). I think your basic decision here is what you want to focus on. Are you interested in Atmospheric Paintings (think Concept Art) or something more character based (think Charlie Bowater who has some fantastic tutorials and is amazing). The former is (more) light based and the second is (more) interested in local skin color. (Another example of local color is painted comic book art which is basically a local skin color + shading with a dark and light tone). A good painting will cover both light and color, but it’s still a matter of what you’re interested in. I am guessing that you’re looking for a kind of mid-range painting style that’s realistic but flexible?

I think my best piece of advice is going to be the most boring, but one of the best ways to paint anything accurately is with references. Find a reference in the lighting you want of the right skin tone and just use it as a color reference. Don’t use an eye dropper, just use your best judgement to choose a set of colors. Training your eyes to look for color (and to find them in your color palette) will allow you to develop your own color sense and will teach you the colors that are actually there, rather than the colors you think are there (there is a lot more green and purple in skin than people seem to realize). If you are working from the ground up and don’t have a reference it gets much trickier (depending on how realistic you are going for). In any good painting you should be worried about light. How harsh or soft it is, temperature, color, how bright or dark it is, all of these are going to effect every color choice you make, including the skin tone. (Also going to put in a tip here that you should never work -just- on skin color. In any painting you should always start with a mid-tone for the background and at least basically give everything some basic tones before you jump into something as specific as skin… this is an entirely separate tutorial, actually).If you just want to do something based in local color (i.e. having light skin being a straightforward pinky beige rather than a light blue like it would be under moonlight), then it becomes mostly about the structure of the body, with some attention paid towards what is happening under the skin.These are things like subsurface scattering and how thin the skin is, where blood pools underneath the skin, whether there are skin markings, what kind of texture the skin is (soft, rough, weathered), if there are hair follicles (especially with men and their jaw). If the skin is over bone or fat or more skin? All of these will (in real life) have a separate color.

The good news is that you don’t have to worry about any of these things if you don’t want to. You just have to actively decide that’s not what you’re going to include and then be consistent. Intention makes your art stronger and will make it more unique (based on what you emphasize).

It also feels prudent to include that skin tone is only a small piece of accurately diverse representation. It is worth investing time in learning how various ethnicities look. Use real pictures of real people. You have to learn how to interpret these features in a way that makes sense to you and not how someone else has done it. Painting people in a way that makes them identifiably diverse is at least 75-90% about the way their faces and bodies are structured. (I have seen far, far too many people who just recolor a Caucasian person rather than learn how to draw someone who is black or hispanic).

So. I guess in summary the best thing you can do to learn how to paint skin color is to work from life and decide how you are going to interpret it. Tutorials and other artists work can act as good signposts and advice, but it is important to use real life as your starting point so your work can be as fully you as you can make it, rather than your interpretation of someone else’s work. If you are interested: ‘Real’ artists who are good at skin tone are people like Lucien Freud (his paintings are a bit raw but he has an excellent sense of color) and James Gurney (of Dinotopia), or more classically someone like Rembrandt or Leonardo Da Vinci (I hesitate to mention them because they’re working in a much different place than most digital painters are (in physical painting techniques and lighting concerns), but they are masters for a reason). Speaking of James Gurney I am going to plug his book Color and Light because it is a great book and has painting tips about absolutely everything.

Also check out people like Loish or (again) Charlie Bowater. They have tutorials!

#Art Advice #skin color #erm #i am sorry there are no pictures #I don't have anything that really shows this off well #do as I say not as I do ma peeps #c:#kaylaevs5162

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manmanloi · 5 years

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Comics Production - Week 1

Welcome to my new blog! This entry is about my first week on taking the Comics Production course.

We are given a task to write a sci-fi comic script for a 2000AD project. Comic script-writing is something that I have never done before. Therefore, this task sounds very overwhelming yet thrilling because this is what I have signed up for.

Upon learning that I have to create a new story in the sci-fi genre, I feel devastated. Don’t get me wrong, I love science fiction. I took sci-fi comics for the previous semester and a sci-fi literature course in the final year of my BA studies. Despite my interest towards the genre, I got a B for both classes which I considered as a disappointing grade (asian standards). The problem is I understood the sci-fi theories or themes, but I always failed to put them in words when it comes to writing my research essays.

During the Christmas holiday, I went to Denmark, Germany and Belgium. I got the chance to visit the Herge Museum and the Belgian Comic Strip Center in Brussels. In Denmark, there was a science fiction exhibition in the Brandts, an art museum in Odense. Attached are some pictures taken in the exhibition that I found intriguing and maybe useful for brainstorming and visualizing some early ideas for the comic.

The exhibition content is richer than I thought, ranging from the themes of dinosaur, earth’s core, under the sea, space, Egypt myth, alien, cyborg, superhero, utopia/dystopia, etc. It showcases re-imagined props, models, landscape designs, books, and movie clips.

For example, the undersea rifle from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

We get to launch a rocket!

Waterfall City: Afternoon Light, from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara by James Gurney, 2001.

The credit of this design is unknown as I took a very blurry picture of the credits. But these two pictures match my aesthetics on science fiction landscapes.

Science fiction comics!

Here is my plan so far:

1. Read the script (I know this may affect the originality of my creation process but I really have no idea how does a comic script work, if that makes any sense)

2. Re-write a comic (In the instruction, it says “an excellent way to practise script writing is take a 24-page American comics and re-write it so you can tell the same story in four pages.” I would like to try rewriting a comic within this month!)

3. Think of a story/character/anything...

#comics

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hermanwatts · 5 years

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Men are From Cimmeria, Women are From Earthsea

There has been round of blog posts in the wake of an interview I had at Jared Trueheart’s Legends of Men blog. That interview spurred a response by Jason Ray Carney who disputes that sword and sorcery is man’s fiction. Daniel Davis joined in at his Brain Leakage blog. Jason Ray responded to that. Go read these posts. Jason said that Jared, Daniel, and I were hysterical. You are not subjective when you are the object of comment. Comment if you find where any of us were “hysterical.” Jason states that sword and sorcery is “gender neutral.”

Gender neutrality: Are we talking androgyny, hermaphrodites, eunuchs, or neuters?

Sword and sorcery got its start in Weird Tales magazine with a few stories in its competitors Strange Tales and Strange Stories. I have already written on female readers of Weird Tales push back against Robert E. Howard once the Conan series got rolling. E. Hoffmann Price wrote later in Amra that Conan saved Weird Tales more than once.

Farnsworth Wright knew his readers.

Let us look at some random issues of Weird Tales. September 1932– twelve stories and one poem. Two stories by women and one poem. October 1935– nine stories, three poems; one story by a woman. March 1938– 10 stories, two poems; one story by a woman. So, the average female percentage as writer is around 10%.

Now to the letters section, “The Eyrie,” to get an idea of female readership. August 1932– 12 letters, all from men. March 1934– 3 out of 19 letters by women. September 1938– 3 out of 23 letters by women. So, female readership of Weird Tales hovered somewhere around 12-15%. This is probably a higher percentage than the science fiction magazines of the period.

Weird Tales used Margaret Brundage as the almost exclusive cover artist from 1933-1936. Most of her paintings have nubile, beautiful young women in various stages of undress. Editor Farnsworth Wright who was notoriously nervous about not alienating readers had no problem with art that would be considered offensive today. He must have had an idea of gender breakdown of readers.

The case of C. L. Moore is used as a battle cry as a True Cross for Amazon equality crusaders. I first read about Jirel and C. L. Moore from Avon’s Reader’s Guide to Fantasy in the early 80s. Ace Books did a mass market paperback collection in November 1982. I remember distinctly buying it along with two Fritz Leiber paperbacks in mid-May 1983. Back then, you could go to the local B. Dalton or Waldenbooks and get the paperback Conans, Elric, Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser, Kane, some Brak, David C. Smith, and even the Timescape Clark Ashton Smith. I tore in Jirel of Joiry finding “Black God’s Kiss” on the slow side. “Black God’s Shadow” even slower and then just bogging down and scanning through the stories. This past winter, I sat down and reread in detail and it was not a pleasant experience. Moore’s prose is painfully slow and overwritten. Her narrative also had a habit of turning into word salad at crucial scenes.

“Around the dark image a mist was swirling. It was tenuous and real by turns, but gradually she began to make out a ring of figures–girls’ figures, more unreal than a vision–dancing girls who circled the crouching statue with flying fee and tossing hair–girls who turned to Jirel her own face in in as many moods as there were girls. Jirel laughing, Jirel weeping, Jirel convulsed with fury, Jirel honey-sweet, Jirel convulsed with fury, a riot of flashing limbs, a chaos of tears and mirth and all humanity’s moods. The air danced with them in shimmering waves, so that the land was blurred behind them and the image seemed to shiver within itself.”

W.T.F?

There is one scene at the beginning of “Jirel Meets Magic” where Jirel handles a sword. That is it. She deals with adversaries as a vehicle using supernatural third parties. When you look at the plots of the stories, “Black God’s Kiss” is a captivity/kidnapping narrative. It is The Sheik with hallucinogenic passages. “Black God’s Shadow” is the second half of a romance arc. As a friend of mine said, Jirel was treated rough by Guillaume and she liked it. “Jirel Meets Magic” is Alice in Wonderland. “The Dark Land” is another captivity story. “Hellsgarde” is a haunted house story. Moore did not seem comfortable writing scenes of physical combat as I could find only one brief scene with no carnage depicted, just Jirel flailing around with her sword.

There have been three mass market and one trade paperback printings of the Jirel stories, each over a decade apart. That puts her a notch ahead of reprints of Norvell Page’s “Prester John” series. If Jirel is such an iconic series, why hasn’t the book been in continuously in print? People like the idea of Jirel, many just don’t like reading Jirel.

I was thinking of Moore’s influence through the Jirel series. The only thing that came to mind were two stories by Tanith Lee in the Amazons! Anthologies featuring “Jaisel” that read like homages to Moore. C. L. Moore’s writing style would change. Some stories reprinted in the collection Judgement Night are listed under Moore’s name instead of “Lawrence O’Donnell.” “Paradise Street,” “Heir Apparent,” and her novel Doomsday Morning are written in a stripped-down hard-boiled manner.

CL. Moore was a gracious and lovely lady from what anyone who met her has told me. One friend did tell that in the late 1970s at a science fiction convention, she laughed at the idea she was some sort of feminist icon.

If you add up the writers of sword and sorcery in the 1930s- Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, H. Warner Munn, Nictzin Dyalhis, Clifford Ball, David H. Keller, Seabury Quinn, Henry Kuttner, Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, Fritz Leiber, Norvell Page, and C. L. Moore, you come up with a little under 10% female participation rate, a percentage that equals that of Weird Tales and a little under the readership.

There is a type of story found mainly in Planet Stories that is not technically sword and sorcery but has the attitude of it. Poul Anderson’s “Virgin of Valkarion” is Exhibit A. Leigh Brackett was a writer for Planet Stories in the 1940s with a few stories in the 1950s. Her writing style is a cross between Edgar Rice Burroughs and Dashiell Hammett. It is an interesting case of gender ventriloquism. Brackett wrote in a faux-masculine style most of the time. Every now and then the mask would slip as in “All the Colors of the Rainbow.” I can remember sending a Leigh Brackett book to a friend of mine. He returned it unimpressed. He pointed out a fight scene where Brackett had two guys rolling around in the dirt and the emphasis was on how they were getting their clothes dirty instead of physical damage. I can remember the first Brackett I ever read was “The Secret of Sinharat” and being disappointed at the rather tame ending. I was expecting Eric John Stark (aka N’Chaka) was pile up the bodies at the climax. The follow up “People of the Talisman” was more blood and thunder. That was the story that was rewritten by Brackett’s husband, Edmond Hamilton and expanded by 40%. I need to compare the texts someday.

If we look at writers of sword and super-science for Planet Stories, the list includes: Gardner F. Fox, Bryce Walton, Emmett McDowell, Ross Rocklynne, Basil Wells, Erik Fennel, Alfred Coppel, Stanley Mullen, Poul Anderson, and Leigh Brackett. Again, the female participation rate is around 10%.

There were a few sword and sorcery stories that filtered out in the 1950s with E. E. “Doc” Smith, John Brunner, L. Sprague de Camp, and of course Jack Vance. The 1960s gave us Roger Zelazny, John Jakes, Michael Moorcock, Lin Carter, Gardner F. Fox, Ben Haas as “Richard Meade” and “Quinn Reade.” You did have Jane Gaskell’s “Atlan” books shoe horned into the genre. Those are Perils of Pauline type books featuring Cija. They are not very good but always seemed to have great covers whether by Frank Frazetta, Jeff Jones, Boris Vallejo, or James Gurney.

Leigh Brackett could have written a bona fide sword and sorcery story with an antediluvian setting and supernatural elements. Editors would have snapped up anything she wrote. She didn’t but she at least gave us the excellent Skaith trilogy which had its share of physical action.

Sword and sorcery spread out into popular culture starting around 1966 with the paperback books and the Warren magazines. You could buy Frank Frazetta posters at a lot of record stores. Bands like Nazareth were using sword and sorcery imaging on their record album sleeves.

Ted White became editor of Fantastic Stories in 1969. The magazine was a grab-bag of different types of stories. Sword and sorcery did have an increasing presence. White tapped into all sorts of artists talent and you had very traditional sword and sorcery type covers by Jeff Jones, Esteban Maroto, Doug Beekman, and especially Steve Fabian who painted idealized female bodies. Ted White must have known who was buying the magazine.

Ted White knew his readers.

In the middle 1970s, you had the next great female talent, Tanith Lee. I have written on her sword and sorcery when she died. She was unique. I prefer her stories to her novels, but her novels are preferable to much other out there.

Not Sword and Sorcery

Lee showed up in the original sword and sorcery anthologies of the late 1970s. Swords Against Darkness ran for five volumes 1977-1979. It had a total of 57 stories, seven stories and one poem by females for a participation rate of 14%. Heroic Fantasy (D.A.W. Books, 1979) had 17 entries (including some non-fiction pieces), two were by female for a participation rate of 11.7%. Tanith Lee was present in five out of six of those anthologies.

Jessica Amanda Salmonson edited to Amazons! Anthologies (1979 and 1982). Technically, they are not sword and sorcery but amazon anthologies. She was able to invert the 10% number that keeps popping up. Amazons II had 12 stories, three by men so the ratio rose to 25%. Salmonson probably took the series as far as she could though she edited two more anthologies for Ace (Heroic Fantasy).

Marion Zimmer Bradley edited the Sword and Sorceress anthology for D.A.W. Books. It has all the appearance of continuing the idea of Salmonson’s Amazons! But with an in-house writer. The books were not so much sword and sorcery but fantasy of all sorts with a feminist orientation. The first volume had 15 stories, six by men for a 40% participation rate. That would shrink in subsequent volumes. It has a type of fiction that I call “femizon” which split off into its own genre the same way Glen Cook did with military fantasy around the same time.

One last example. My favorite sword and sorcery anthology of the past 10 years is Rogue Blades’ Entertainment’s Return of the Sword. The stories were by amateurs and small press people. It has heart and sincerity. 21 stories by 22 authors, one female for a 4.5% participation rate.

Not Sword and Sorcery

A personal observation: I have known two women personally that like reading Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. One is mid-50s, the other around 60. One is a pharmacist, the other a nurse that runs a hospital operating room. So, just like the authors, the XX chromosome readers are on the rare side. I think most women are not particularly interested in reading fiction with lots of scenes of intense physical action.

I will give an anecdote that forms opinions. About 15-16 years ago, my office manager’s high school aged daughter read The Lord of the Rings. I thought I would build on that. I lent her one of L. Sprague de Camp’s sword and sorcery anthologies, either Sword & Sorcery or The Spell of Seven. Either of those books are excellent introductions to the genre. She did not like the book as she has problems with the vocabulary. She was constantly going to the dictionary to look up the meaning of words. If you want your kid to score high on the English potion of the S.A.T test, have them read sword and sorcery fiction. Then I lent her Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword. She did not like that at all. It really upset her. Sword and sorcery is not going to pass through the feminine filter of a good portion of the fairer sex.

This came to me this week. A good portion of women like horror especially that more in the Gothic fiction end of the spectrum. Horror light if you will. There might have been an opportunity for a clever editor to sell sword and sorcery disguised as gothic romance to women readers. Phyllis Whitney did have a story in Weird Tales in the 1930s.

Here is a writing exercise of high school or college students. Have them start with a scene of traveler in the woods looking for shelter and finding a manor or castle. See how the story breaks down between the sexes.

So to wrap this up. My friend, the late Steve Tompkins used a phrase “the exception that proves the rule.” Crunching some numbers swerves that way. The history of sword and sorcery has had a few female outliers who wrote in the genre but the 10-12% rule appears consistent for decades.

Where’s the Sword and Sorcery?

Sword and sorcery fiction may not be totally male, but it skews heavily in the XY chromosome end of the spectrum. Women were not excluded but participation was also for the most not much beyond token entries. I think gender skewed, not gender neutral is a better way to describe the genre. I think editors like Don Wollheim, E. F. Benson, Larry Shaw, and Roy Torgeson were quite happy to pick up a few female readers along the way, but they knew which side their bread was buttered on when publishing sword and sorcery. If the genre is gender neutral, why did the incoming female editors such as Betsy Wollheim at D.A.W. Books and Susan Allison at Ace Books pretty much kill off publishing sword and sorcery? Wouldn’t all the female readers keep it going? I was there, there was a K-T event in 1985. A few books that were already probably slated made it into the later 1980s, but the genre was decapitated. David Gemmell adapted by writing 300 page + novels with an ensemble cast and lost of domestic goings on but the efficient 60,000 word novel featuring one hero was gone.

This is an example our modern society’s obsession with equalitarianism. De-gendering the genre strikes me as post-modernism. It is also risible. A few weeks ago, an endocrinologist was telling me about hormone supplementation for trans-gendering. The men upon getting estrogen become emotional and weepy. The women getting testosterone develop a sense of humor and are generally less depressed.

I can sympathize with Jason Ray Carney. He teaches at a college. If he were outed that he is interested in what is perceived as masculine fiction, outside of a few sane colleges like Hillsdale or Grove City, he would be hauled up against a tribunal by the commissars for Wrong Think.

Gender Neutral

Men are From Cimmeria, Women are From Earthsea published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

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thejoydaily-blog · 6 years

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Brothers, We Must Not Mind a Little Suffering

Meditations on the Life of Charles Simeon

Brothers, We Must Not Mind a Little Suffering

Meditations on the Life of Charles Simeon

1989 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors

Resource by John Piper

Topic: Biography

In April, 1831, Charles Simeon was 71 years old. He had been the pastor of Trinity Church, Cambridge, England, for 49 years. He was asked one afternoon by his friend, Joseph Gurney, how he had surmounted persecution and outlasted all the great prejudice against him in his 49-year ministry. He said to Gurney:

My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ’s sake. When I am getting through a hedge, if my head and shoulders are safely through, I can bear the pricking of my legs. Let us rejoice in the remembrance that our holy Head has surmounted all His suffering and triumphed over death. Let us follow Him patiently; we shall soon be partakers of His victory” (H.C.G. Moule, Charles Simeon, London: InterVarsity, 1948, 155f.).

Patience in Tribulation

So I have entitled this message, “Brothers, We Must Not Mind a Little Suffering.” I have a very definite biblical aim in choosing this theme and this man for our meditation. I want to encourage you all to obey Romans 12:12: “Be patient in tribulation.” I want you to see persecution and opposition and slander and misunderstanding and disappointment and self-recrimination and weakness and danger as the normal portion of faithful pastoral ministry. But I want you to see this in the life of a man who was a sinner like you and me, who was a pastor, and who, year after year, in his trials, “grew downward” in humility and upward in his adoration of Christ, and who did not yield to bitterness or to the temptation to leave his charge — for 54 years.

Escaping Emotional Fragility

What I have found — and this is what I want to be true for you as well — is that in my pastoral disappointments and discouragements there is a great power for perseverance in keeping before me the life of a man who surmounted great obstacles in obedience to God’s call by the power of God’s grace. I need very much this inspiration from another age, because I know that I am, in great measure, a child of my times. And one of the pervasive marks of our times is emotional fragility. I feel it as though it hung in the air we breathe. We are easily hurt. We pout and mope easily. We break easily. Our marriages break easily. Our faith breaks easily. Our happiness breaks easily. And our commitment to the church breaks easily. We are easily disheartened, and it seems we have little capacity for surviving and thriving in the face of criticism and opposition.

A typical emotional response to trouble in the church is to think, “If that’s the way they feel about me, then they can find themselves another pastor.” We see very few models today whose lives spell out in flesh and blood the rugged words, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various trials” (James 1:3). When historians list the character traits of the last third of twentieth century America, commitment, constancy, tenacity, endurance, patience, resolve and perseverance will not be on the list. The list will begin with an all-consuming interest in self-esteem. It will be followed by the subheadings of self-assertiveness, and self-enhancement, and self-realization. And if you think that you are not at all a child of your times just test yourself to see how you respond in the ministry when people reject your ideas.

We need help here. When you are surrounded by a society of emotionally fragile quitters, and when you see a good bit of this ethos in yourself, you need to spend time with people — whether dead of alive — whose lives prove there is another way to live. Scripture says, “Be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12). So I want to hold up for you the faith and the patience of Charles Simeon for your inspiration and imitation.

Simeon’s Life and Times

Let me orient you with some facts about his life and times. When Simeon was born in 1759, Jonathan Edwards had just died the year before. The Wesleys and Whitefield were still alive, and so the Methodist awakening was in full swing. Simeon would live for 77 years, from 1758 to 1836. So he lived through the American Revolution, the French Revolution and not quite into the decade of the telegraph and the railroad.

His father was a wealthy attorney, but no believer. We know nothing of his mother. She probably died early, so that he never knew her. At seven, he went to England’s premier boarding school, The Royal College of Eton. He was there for 12 years, and was known as a homely, fancy-dressing, athletic show off. The atmosphere was irreligious and degenerate in many ways. Looking back late in life, he said that he would be tempted to take the life of his son than to let him see the vice he had seen at Eton.

He said later he only knew one religious book besides the Bible in those twelve years, namely The Whole Duty of Man, a devotional book of the 17th century. Whitefield thought that book was so bad that once, when he caught an orphan with a copy of it in Georgia, he made him throw it in the fire. William Cowper said it was a “repository of self-righteous and pharisaical lumber.” That, in fact, would be a good description of Simeon’s life to that point.

How God Saved Him

At nineteen he went to Cambridge. And in the first four months God brought him from darkness to light. The amazing thing about this is that God did it against the remarkable odds of having no other Christian around. Cambridge was so destitute of evangelical faith that, even after he was converted, Simeon did not meet one other believer on campus for almost three years.

His conversion happened like this. Three days after he arrived at Cambridge on January 29, 1779, the Provost, William Cooke, announced that Simeon had to attend the Lord’s Supper. And Simeon was terrified. We can see, in retrospect, that this was the work of God in his life. He knew enough to know that it was very dangerous to eat the Lord’s Supper unworthily.

So he began desperately to read and to try to repent and make himself better. He began with The Whole Duty of Man but got no help. He passed through that first communion unchanged. But knew it wasn’t the last. He turned to a book by a Bishop Wilson on the Lord’s Supper. As Easter Sunday approached a wonderful thing happened.

Keep in mind that this young man had almost no preparation of the kind we count so important. He had no mother to nurture him. His father was an unbeliever. His boarding school was a godless and corrupt place. And his university was destitute of other evangelical believers, as far as he knew. He is nineteen years old, sitting in his dormitory room as Passion Week begins at the end of March, 1779.

Here is his own account of what happened.

In Passion Week, as I was reading Bishop Wilson on the Lord’s Supper, I met with an expression to this effect — “That the Jews knew what they did, when they transferred their sin to the head of their offering.” The thought came into my mind, What, may I transfer all my guilt to another? Has God provided an Offering for me, that I may lay my sins on His head? Then, God willing, I will not bear them on my own soul one moment longer. Accordingly I sought to lay my sins upon the sacred head of Jesus; and on the Wednesday began to have a hope of mercy; on the Thursday that hope increased; on the Friday and Saturday it became more strong; and on the Sunday morning, Easter-day, April 4, I awoke early with those words upon my heart and lips, ‘Jesus Christ is risen to-day! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!’ From that hour peace flowed in rich abundance into my soul; and at the Lord’s Table in our Chapel I had the sweetest access to God through my blessed Saviour. (Moule, 25f)

Bearing Fruit Worthy of Repentance

The effect was immediate and dramatic. His well-known extravagance gave way to a life of simplicity. All the rest of his life he lived in simple rooms on the university campus, moving only once to larger quarters so that he could have more students for his conversation gatherings. When his brother left him a fortune, he turned it down and channeled all his extra income to religious and charitable goals. He began at once to teach his college servant girl his new biblical faith. When he went home for holidays he called the family together for devotions. His father never came, but his two brothers were both eventually converted. And in his private life he began to practice what in those days was known as “methodism” — strict discipline in prayer and meditation.

You can catch a glimpse of his zeal from this anecdote about his early rising for Bible study and prayer.

Early rising did not appeal to his natural tendency to self-indulgence, however, especially on dark winter mornings. . . . On several occasions he overslept, to his considerable chagrin. So he determined that if ever he did it again, he would pay a fine of half a crown to his “bedmaker” (college servant). A few days later, as he lay comfortably in his warm bed, he found himself reflecting that the good woman was poor and could probably do with half a crown. So, to overcome such rationalizations, he vowed that next time he would throw a guinea into the river. This [the story goes] he duly did, but only once, for guineas were scarce; he could not afford to use them to pave the river bed with gold. (Moule, 66)

The Call to Trinity Church, Cambridge

In spite of this disciplined approach to spiritual growth, Simeon’s native pride and impetuousness did not disappear overnight. We will see shortly that this was one of the thorns he would be plucking at for some time.

After three years, in January, 1782, Simeon received a fellowship at the university. This gave him a stipend and certain rights in the university. For example, over the next fifty years he was three times dean for a total of nine years, and once vice provost. But that was not his main calling. In May that year he was ordained a deacon in the Anglican Church, and after a summer preaching interim in St. Edwards’ Church in Cambridge he was called to Trinity Church as vicar, or pastor. He preached his first sermon there November 10, 1782. And there he stayed for fifty-four years until his death November 13, 1836.

Celibacy

Simeon never married. I have found only one sentence about this fact. H.C.G. Moule said he “had deliberately and resolutely chosen the then necessary celibacy of a Fellowship that he might the better work for God at Cambridge” (Moule, 111). This too requires a special kind of endurance. Not many have it, and it is a beautiful thing when one finds it. Who knows how many men and women Simeon inspired with the possibility of celibacy and chastity because of his lifelong commitment to Christ and his church as an unmarried man.

I find it interesting that John Stott, who is also an evangelical Anglican and Cambridge grad, and long-time pastor and celibate, has a great admiration for Simeon and wrote the introduction for Multnomah Press’s collection of Simeon’s Sermons. Stott is a latter-day Simeon in other ways as well — for example, his social concern and his involvement in world evangelization through the Lausanne movement.

Global Impact

In his fifty-four years at Trinity Church, Simeon became a powerful force for evangelicalism in the Anglican church. His position at the university, with his constant influence on students preparing for the ministry, made him a great recruiter of young evangelicals for pulpits around the land. But not only around the land. He became the trusted advisor of the East India Company, and recommended most of the men who went out as chaplains, which is the way Anglicans could be missionaries to the East in those days.

Simeon had a great heart for missions. He was the spiritual father of the great Henry Martyn. He was the key spiritual influence in the founding of the Church Missionary Society, and was zealous in his labors for the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. In fact, on his death bed he was dictating a message to be given to the Society about his deep humiliation that the church has not done more to gather in the Jewish people.

A Preacher Without Labels

Probably most of all, Simeon exerted his influence through sustained biblical preaching year after year. This was the central labor of his life. He lived to place into the hands of King William the Fourth in 1833 the completed 21 volumes of his collected sermons.

This is the best place to go for researching Simeon’s theology. You can find his views on almost every key text in the Bible.

He did not want to be labeled a Calvinist or an Arminian. He wanted to be biblical through and through and give every text its due proportion, whether it sounded Arminian as it stands or Calvinistic. But he was known as an evangelical Calvinist, and rightly so. As I have read portions of his sermons on texts concerning election and effectual calling and perseverance he is uninhibited in his affirmation of what we would call the doctrines of grace. In fact he uses that phrase approvingly in his sermon on Romans 9:19–24 (Horae Homileticae, Vol. 15, p. 358).

But he had little sympathy for uncharitable Calvinists. In a sermon on Romans 9:16, he said,

Many there are who cannot see these truths [the doctrines of God’s sovereignty], who yet are in a state truly pleasing to God; yea many, at whose feet the best of us may be glad to be found in heaven. It is a great evil, when these doctrines are made a ground of separation one from another, and when the advocates of different systems anathematize each other. . . . In reference to truths which are involved in so much obscurity as those which relate to the sovereignty of God mutual kindness and concession are far better than vehement argumentation and uncharitable discussion (Horae Homileticae, Vol. 15, p. 357).

A Conversation with John Wesley

An example of how he lived out this counsel is seen in the way he conversed with the elderly John Wesley. He tells the story himself:

Sir, I understand that you are called an Arminian; and I have been sometimes called a Calvinist; and therefore I suppose we are to draw daggers. But before I consent to begin the combat, with your permission I will ask you a few questions. Pray, Sir, do you feel yourself a depraved creature, so depraved that you would never have thought of turning to God, if God had not first put it into your heart?

Yes, I do indeed.

And do you utterly despair of recommending yourself to God by anything you can do; and look for salvation solely through the blood and righteousness of Christ?

Yes, solely through Christ.

But, Sir, supposing you were at first saved by Christ, are you not somehow or other to save yourself afterwards by your own works?

No, I must be saved by Christ from first to last.

Allowing, then, that you were first turned by the grace of God, are you not in some way or other to keep yourself by your own power?

No.

What then, are you to be upheld every hour and every moment by God, as much as an infant in its mother’s arms?

Yes, altogether.

And is all your hope in the grace and mercy of God to preserve you unto His heavenly kingdom?

Yes, I have no hope but in Him.

Then, Sir, with your leave I will put up my dagger again; for this is all my Calvinism; this is my election, my justification by faith, my final perseverance: it is in substance all that I hold, and as I hold it; and therefore, if you please, instead of searching out terms and phrases to be a ground of contention between us, we will cordially unite in those things wherein we agree. (Moule, 79–80)

But don’t take this to mean that Simeon pulled any punches when expounding biblical texts. He is very forthright in teaching what the Bible teaches and calling error by its real name. But he is jealous of not getting things out of balance.

He said that his invariable rule was “to endeavor to give to every portion of the word of God its full and proper force, without considering what scheme it favours, or whose system it is likely to advance” (Moule, 79). “My endeavor is to bring out of Scripture what is there, and not to thrust in what I think might be there. I have a great jealousy on this head; never to speak more or less than I believe to be the mind of the Spirit in the passage I am expounding” (Moule, 77).

He makes an observation that is true enough to sting every person who has ever been tempted to adjust Scripture to fit a system.

Of this he [speaking of himself in the third person] is sure, that there is not a decided Calvinist or Arminian in the world who equally approves of the whole of Scripture . . . who, if he had been in the company of St. Paul whilst he was writing his Epistles, would not have recommended him to alter one or other of his expressions.

But the author would not wish one of them altered; he finds as much satisfaction in one class of passages as another; and employs the one, he believes, as freely as the other. Where the inspired Writers speak in unqualified terms, he thinks himself at liberty to do the same; judging that they needed no instruction from him how to propagate the truth. He is content to sit as a learner at the feet of the holy Apostles and has no ambition to teach them how they ought to have spoken. (Moule, 79)

With that remarkable devotion to Scripture, Simeon preached in the same pulpit for fifty-four years. What drew me to him was his endurance — not just because of the length of time, and not just because it was in the same place for all that time, but also because it was through extraordinary opposition and trials.

The Unripe Self

That is what I want to turn to now. First his trials, and then finally, the resources that enabled him to press on to the end and not give up. How was he able to be “patient in tribulation”?

The most fundamental trial that Simeon had —and that we all have — was himself. He had a somewhat harsh and self-assertive air about him. One day, early in Simeon’s ministry, he was visiting Henry Venn, who was pastor 12 miles from Cambridge at Yelling. When he left to go home Venn’s daughters complained to their father about his manner. Venn took the girls to the back yard and said, “Pick me one of those peaches.” But it was early summer, and “the time of peaches was not yet.” They asked why he would want the green, unripe fruit. Venn replied, “Well, my dears, it is green now, and we must wait; but a little more sun, and a few more showers, and the peach will be ripe and sweet. So it is with Mr. Simeon.”

Simeon came to know himself and his sin very deeply. He described his maturing in the ministry as a growing downward. We will come back to this as the key to his great perseverance and success.

The Unwanted Vicar

The vicar of Trinity Church died in October, 1782, just as Charles Simeon was about to leave the university to live in his father’s home. Simeon had often walked by the church, he tells us, and said to himself, “How should I rejoice if God were to give me that church, that I might preach the Gospel there and be a herald for Him in the University” (Moule, 37). His dream came true when Bishop Yorke appointed him “curate-in-charge” (being only ordained a deacon at the time). His wealthy father had nudged the Bishop and the pastor at St. Edwards, where Simeon preached that summer, gave him an endorsement. He preached his first sermon there November 10, 1782.

But the parishioners did not want Simeon. They wanted the assistant curate Mr. Hammond. Simeon was willing to step out, but then the Bishop told him that even if he did decline the appointment he would not appoint Hammond. So Simeon stayed — for fifty-four years! And gradually — very gradually — overcame the opposition.

The first thing the congregation did in rebellion against Simeon was to refuse to let him be the Sunday afternoon lecturer. This was in their charge. It was like a second Sunday service. For five years they assigned the lecture to Mr. Hammond. Then when he left, instead of turning it over to their pastor of five years they gave it to another independent man for seven more years! Finally, in 1794, Simeon was chosen lecturer. Imagine serving for 12 years a church who were so resistant to your leadership they would not let you preach Sunday evenings, but hired as assistant to keep you out.

Simeon tried to start a later Sunday evening service and many townspeople came. But the churchwardens locked the doors while the people stood waiting in the street. Once Simeon had the doors opened by a locksmith, but when it happened again he pulled back and dropped the service.

The second thing the church did was to lock the pew doors on Sunday mornings. The pewholders refused to come and refused to let others sit in their personal pews. Simeon set up seats in the aisles and nooks and corners at his own expense. But the churchwardens took them out and threw them in the churchyard. When he tried to visit from house to house, hardly a door would open to him. This situation lasted at least ten years. The records show that in 1792 Simeon got a legal decision that the pewholders could not lock their pews and stay away indefinitely. But he didn’t use it. He let his steady, relentless ministry of the word and prayer and community witness gradually overcome the resistance.

But I mustn’t give the impression that all the troubles were over after the first 12 years. After years of peace, in 1812 (after he had been there 30 years!) there were again opponents in the congregation making the waters rough. He wrote to a friend, “I used to sail in the Pacific; I am now learning to navigate the Red Sea that is full of shoals and rocks.” Who of us would not have immediately concluded at age 53, after thirty years in one church that an upsurge of opposition is a sure sign to move on? But again he endured patiently and in 1816 he writes that peace had come and the church is better attended than ever.

Despised in His Own University

As the students made their way to Trinity Church, they were prejudiced against the pastor by the hostile congregation, and for years he was slandered with all kinds of rumors. Basically his enemies said that he was a bad man with a front of piety.

The students at Cambridge held Simeon in derision for his biblical preaching and his uncompromising stand as an evangelical. They repeatedly disrupted his services and caused a tumult in the streets. One observer wrote from personal experience, “For many years Trinity Church and the streets leading to it were the scenes of the most disgraceful tumults” (Moule, 58).

On one occasion a band of undergraduates determined to assault Simeon personally as he left the church after service. They waited by the usual exit for him, but providentially he took another way home that day.

Students who were converted and wakened by Simeon’s preaching were soon ostracized and ridiculed. They were called “Sims” — a term that lasted all the way to the 1860’s and their way of thinking was called derisively “Simeonism.”

But harder to bear than the insults of the students was the ostracism and coldness of his peers in the university. One of the Fellows scheduled Greek classes on Sunday night to prevent students from going to Simeon’s service. In another instance one of the students who looked up to Simeon was denied an academic prize because of his “Simeonism.”

Sometimes Simeon felt utterly alone at the university where he lived. He looked back on those early years and wrote, “I remember the time that I was quite surprised that a Fellow of my own College ventured to walk with me for a quarter of an hour on the grass-plot before Clare Hall; and for many years after I began my ministry I was ‘as a man wondered at,’ by reason of the paucity of those who showed any regard for true religion” (Moule, 59).

Even after he had won the respect of many, there could be grave mistreatment. For example, even as late as 1816 (34 years into his ministry) he wrote to a missionary friend, “Such conduct is observed towards me at this very hour by one of the Fellows of the College as, if practised by me, would set not the College only but the whole town and University in a flame” (Moule, 127).

Broken and Restored for Ministry in Old Age

In 1807, after twenty-five years of ministry, his health failed suddenly. His voice gave way so that preaching was very difficult and at times he could only speak in a whisper. After a sermon he would feel “more like one dead than alive.” This broken condition lasted for thirteen years, till he was sixty years old. In all this time Simeon pressed on in his work.

The way this weakness came to an end is remarkable and shows the amazing hand of God on this man’s life. He tells the story that in 1819 he was on his last visit to Scotland. As he crossed the border he says he was “almost as perceptibly revived in strength as the woman was after she had touched the hem of our Lord’s garment.” His interpretation of God’s providence in this begins back before his weakness. Up till then he had promised himself a very active life up to age sixty, and then a Sabbath evening. Now he seemed to hear his Master saying:

I laid you aside, because you entertained with satisfaction the thought of resting from your labour; but that now you have arrived at the very period when you had promised yourself that satisfaction, and have determined instead to spend your strength for me to the latest hour of your life, I have doubled, trebled, quadrupled your strength, that you may execute your desire on a more extended plan. (Moule, 127)

So at sixty years of age, Simeon renewed his commitment to his pulpit and the mission of the church and preached vigorously for 17 more years, until two months before his death.

The Roots of His Endurance

How did Simeon endure these trials without giving up or being driven out of his church? I will mention some of the many fruits of Simeon’s life that I think gave him such endurance and staying power. Then we will conclude by looking at Simeon’s inner life and its deepest root in the atoning work of Jesus on the cross.

Simeon had a strong sense of his accountability before God for the souls of his flock, whether they liked him or not.

In his first year in the pulpit he preached a sermon on this and said to the people standing in the aisles,

Remember the nature of my office, and the care incumbent on me for the welfare of your immortal souls. . . . Consider whatever may appear in my discourses harsh, earnest or alarming, not as the effects of enthusiasm, but as the rational dictates of a heart impressed with a sense both of the value of the soul and the importance of eternity. . . . By recollecting the awful consequences of my neglect, you will be more inclined to receive favorably any well-meant admonitions. (Moule, 46)

Fifteen years later he preached on the subject again. Years after this sermon, one of his friends told of how its power was still being felt. He said the pastor is like the keeper of a lighthouse. And he painted a vivid picture of a rocky coast strewn with dead and mangled bodies with the wailing of widows and orphans. He pictured the delinquent keeper being brought out and at last the answer given: Asleep. “Asleep!” The way he made this word burst on the ears of the hearers never let at least one of them ever forget what is at stake in the pastoral ministry.

It did not matter that his people were often against him. He was not commissioned by them, but by the Lord. And they were his responsibility. He believed Hebrews 13:17 — that he would one day have to give an account for the souls of his church.

Free from the Scolding Tone Even Through Controversy

How many times have we heard a pastor’s wounded pride or his personal anger at parishioners coming though his preaching! This is deadly for the ministry. Moule said of Simeon that his style of address in those early years of intense opposition was “totally free from that easy but fatal mistake of troubled pastors, the scolding accent” (Moule, 46).

Years after his conversion he said that his security in God gave him the capacity to be hopeful in the presence of other people even when burdened within: “With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God, I have always enjoyed much cheerfulness before men; but I have at the same time laboured incessantly to cultivate the deepest humiliation before God” (William Carus, Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. Charles Simeon, 1846, 519).

Joseph Gurney saw the same thing in Simeon for years and wrote, that in spite of Simeon’s private weeping, “it was one of his grand principles of action, to endeavor at all times to honor his Master by maintaining a cheerful happy demeanor in the presence of his friends” (Moule, 157).

He had learned the lesson of Matthew 6:17–18, “But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret.”

Simeon was no rumor-tracker.

Not a Rumor-Tracker

He was like Charles Spurgeon who gave a lecture to his students entitles “The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear.” The pastor must have one blind eye and one deaf ear, and turn that eye and that ear to the rumors that would incense him.

Simeon was deeply wronged in 1821. We are not given the details. But when he was asked about his response (which had, evidently been non-retaliatory) he said, “My rule is — never to hear, or see, or know, what if heard, or seen, or known, would call for animadversion from me. Hence it is that I dwell in peace in the midst of lions” (Moule, 191).

We would do well not to be curious about what others are saying. Nothing makes me want to tune someone out more quickly than when they begin a sentence, “A lot of people are saying . . .”

Dealing with Opponents in a Forthright, Face-to-Face Way

In 1810, a man named Edward Pearson accused Simeon of setting too high a standard of holiness in his preaching. This criticism was made public in pamphlets. Simeon wrote to Pearson and said,

Persons who have the same general design, but differ in some particular modes of carrying it into execution, often stand more aloof from each other than they do from persons whose principles and conduct they entirely disapprove. Hence prejudice arises and a tendency to mutual crimination; whereas, if they occasionally conversed for half an hour with each other, they would soon rectify their mutual misapprehensions, and concur in aiding, rather than undermining, the efforts of each other for the public good. (Moule, 126–127)

It is remarkable, as Simeon said, how much evil can be averted by doing things face to face. We attempt far too much fence-mending by letter and even by phone. There is something mysteriously powerful about the peacemaking potentials of personal face-to-face conversation. It did not spare Simeon years of criticism, but it was surely one of the means God used to overcome the opposition in the long run.

Receiving Rebuke and Growing from It

This is utterly essential to survive and thrive in the ministry — the ability to absorb and profit from criticism. From the Lord and from man. You recall how he interpreted his 13-year weakness from age 47 to 60 as a rebuke from the Lord for his intention to retire at sixty. He took it well, and gave himself with all his might to the work till he died. At seventy-six he wrote, “Through mercy I am, for ministerial service, stronger than I have been at any time this thirty years . . . preaching at seventy-six with all the exuberance of youth . . . but looking for my dismission [i.e. death] daily” (Moule, 162). He was not embittered by a thirteen-year rebuke. He was impelled by it.

It was the same with rebukes from men. If these rebukes came from his enemies, his sentiment was the sentiment of James 1:2. He said, “If I suffer with a becoming spirit, my enemies, though unwittingly, must of necessity do me good” (Moule, 39).

But his friends rebuked him as well. For example, he had the bad habit of speaking as if he were very angry about mere trifles. One day at a Mr. Hankinson’s house he became so irritated at how the servant was stoking the fire that he gave him a swat on the back to get him to stop. Then when he was leaving, the servant got a bridle mixed up, and Simeon’s temper broke out violently against the man.

Well, Mr. Hankinson wrote a letter as if from his servant and put it in Simeon’s bag to be found later. In it he said that he did not see how a man who preached and prayed so well could be in such a passion about nothing and wear no bridle on his tongue. He signed it “John Softly.”

Simeon responded (on April 12, 1804) directly to the servant with the words, “To John Softly, from Charles, Proud and Irritable: I most cordially thank your, my dear friend for your kind and seasonable reproof.” Then he wrote to his friend, Mr. Hankinson, “I hope, my dearest brother, that when you find your soul nigh to God, you will remember one who so greatly needs all the help he can get” (Moule, 147).

We will see the root of this willingness to be humbled in just a moment.

Unimpeachable in His Finances with No Love of Money

In other words, he gave his enemies no foothold when it came to lifestyle and wealth. He lived as a single man simply in his rooms at the university and gave all his excess income to the poor of the community. He turned down the inheritance of his rich brother. Moule said he had “a noble indifference to money.” And his active involvement with the relief for the poor in the area went a long way to overcoming the prejudices against him. It is hard to be the enemy of a person who is full of practical good deeds. “It is God’s will that by doing good you put to silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Peter 2:15).

Seeing Discouraging Things Hopefully

When the members of his congregation locked their pews and kept them locked for over ten years, Simeon said,

In this state of things I saw no remedy but faith and patience. The passage of Scripture which subdued and controlled my mind was this, ‘The servant of the Lord must not strive.’ It was painful indeed to see the church, with the exception of the aisles, almost forsaken; but I thought that if God would only give a double blessing to the congregation that did attend, there would on the whole be as much good done as if the congregation were doubled and the blessing limited to only half the amount. This comforted me many, many times, when, without such a reflection, I should have sunk under my burden. (Moule, 39)

One illustration of the truth of Simeon’s confidence is the story of one of his preaching trips to Scotland. He happened to visit the home of a minister named Stewart who was not truly converted and was quite miserable. Through the personal life and witness of Simeon Mr. Stewart was transformed and for 15 years afterward was powerful for the gospel.

One of the couples who said later that they “owed their own selves” to the new preaching of Mr. Stewart were the parents of Alexander Duff. They brought up their son in the full faith of the gospel and with a special sense of dedication to the service of Christ. Duff, in turn, became one of the great Scottish missionaries to India for over fifty years. So it is true that you never know when the Lord may give a double blessing on your ministry to a small number and multiply it thirty- sixty- or a hundredfold even after you are dead and gone. This confidence kept Simeon going more than once.

Suffering as a Privilege of Bearing the Cross with Christ.

One striking witness to this was during a time when the university was especially cold and hostile to him. He reflected on his own name “Simeon” which is the same as Simon who was compelled to bear the cross for Jesus. And he exclaimed about that text: “What a word of instruction was here — what a blessed hint for my encouragement! To have the cross laid upon me, that I might bear it after Jesus — what a privilege! It was enough. Now I could leap and sing for joy as one whom Jesus was honoring with a participation of His sufferings.” (Moule, 59–60)

We recall his words when he was 71 and Joseph Gurney asked him how he had surmounted his persecution for 49 years. He said, “My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ’s sake.”

The Deepest Root of Simeon’s Endurance

But where now did this remarkable power and fruit come from? This is not an ordinary way of seeing things. This is not an ordinary way of life. What was the root of all this fruit. We get a step closer to it when we notice that . . .

A friend of Simeon’s named Housman lived with him for a few months and tells us about this discipline. “Simeon invariably arose every morning, though it was the winter season, at four o’clock; and, after lighting his fire, he devoted the first four hours of the day to private prayer and the devotional study of the Scriptures . . . . Here was the secret of his great grace and spiritual strength. Deriving instruction from such a source, and seeking it with such diligence, he was comforted in all his trials and prepared for every duty” (Moule, p. 66).

Yes it was the secret of his strength. But it was not the deepest secret. What Simeon experienced in the word was remarkable. And it is so utterly different from the counsel that we receive today that it is worth looking at, in conclusion.

Growing Downward in Humiliation Before God, Upward in Adoration of Christ

Handley Moule captures the essence of Simeon’s secret of longevity in this sentence: “‘Before honor is humility,’ and he had been ‘growing downwards’ year by year under the stern discipline of difficulty met in the right way, the way of close and adoring communion with God” (Moule, 64). Those two things were the heartbeat of Simeon’s inner life: growing downward in humility and growing upward in adoring communion with God.

But the remarkable thing about humiliation and adoration in the heart of Charles Simeon is that they were inseparable. Simeon was utterly unlike most of us today who think that we should get rid once and for all of feelings of vileness and unworthiness as soon as we can. For him, adoration only grew in the freshly plowed soil of humiliation for sin. So he actually labored to know his true sinfulness and his remaining corruption as a Christian.

I have continually had such a sense of my sinfulness as would sink me into utter despair, if I had not an assured view of the sufficiency and willingness of Christ to save me to the uttermost. And at the same time I had such a sense of my acceptance through Christ as would overset my little bark, if I had not ballast at the bottom sufficient to sink a vessel of no ordinary size. (Moule 134)

The Ballast of Humiliation

He never lost sight of the need for the heavy ballast of his own humiliation. After he had been a Christian forty years he wrote,

With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God, I have always enjoyed much cheerfulness before men; but I have at the same time laboured incessantly to cultivate the deepest humiliation before God. I have never thought that the circumstance of God’s having forgiven me was any reason why I should forgive myself; on the contrary, I have always judged it better to loathe myself the more, in proportion as I was assured that God was pacified towards me (Ezekiel 16:63). . . . There are but two objects that I have ever desired for these forty years to behold; the one is my own vileness; and the other is, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ: and I have always thought that they should be viewed together; just as Aaron confessed all the sins of all Israel whilst he put them on the head of the scapegoat. The disease did not keep him from applying to the remedy, nor did the remedy keep him from feeling the disease. By this I seek to be, not only humble and thankful, but humbled in thankfulness, before my God and Saviour continually. (Carus, 303–304.)

If Simeon is right, vast portions of contemporary Christianity are wrong. And I can’t help wondering whether one of the reasons we are emotionally capsized so easily today — so vulnerable to winds of criticism or opposition — is that in the name of forgiveness and grace, we have thrown the ballast overboard.

Simeon’s boat drew a lot of water. But it was steady and on course and the mastheads were higher and the sails bigger and more full of the Spirit than most people’s today who talk continuously about self-esteem.

Ballast Below, Full Sails Above — at the Same Time

Simeon’s missionary friend Thomason writes about a time in 1794 when a friend of Simeon’s named Marsden entered his room and found Simeon “so absorbed in the contemplation of the Son of God, and so overpowered with a display of His mercy to his soul, that he was incapable of pronouncing a single word,” till at length, he exclaimed, “Glory, glory.” But a few days later Thomason himself found Simeon at the hour of the private lecture on Sunday scarcely able to speak, “from a deep humiliation and contrition.”

Moule comments that these two experiences are not the alternating excesses of an ill-balanced mind. Rather they are “the two poles of a sphere of profound experience” (Moule, 135). For Simeon, adoration of God grew best in the plowed soil of his own contrition.

Simeon had no fear of turning up every sin in his life and looking upon with great grief and hatred, because he had such a vision of Christ’s sufficiency that this would always result in deeper cleansing and adoration.

Humiliation and adoration were inseparable. He wrote to Mary Elliott, the sister of the writer of the hymn “Just as I Am,”

I would have the whole of my experience one continued sense — first, of my nothingness, and dependence on God; second, of my guiltiness and desert before Him; third, of my obligations to redeeming love, as utterly overwhelming me with its incomprehensible extent and grandeur. Now I do not see why any one of these should swallow up another. (Moule, 160–161.)

As an old man he said, “I have had deep and abundant cause for humiliation, [but] I have never ceased to wash in that fountain that was opened for sin and uncleanness, or to cast myself upon the tender mercy of my reconciled God” (Carus, 518f).

He was convinced that biblical doctrines “at once most abase and most gladden the soul” (Moule, 67). He spoke once to the Duchess de Broglie when he made a visit to the continent. He comments later “[I] opened to her my views of the Scripture system . . . and showed her that brokenness of heart is the key to the whole” (Moule, 96).

“My Proper Place”

He actually fled for refuge to the place which we today try so hard to escape.

Repentance is in every view so desirable, so necessary, so suited to honor God, that I seek that above all. The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit, are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this vale of tears. I long to be in my proper place, my hand on my mouth, and my mouth in the dust. . . . I feel this to be safe ground. Here I cannot err. . . . I am sure that whatever God may despise . . . He will not despise the broken and contrite heart. (Moule, 133) When he was old and could look on much success, he wrote to a friend on the fiftieth anniversary of his work, “But I love the valley of humiliation. I there feel that I am in my proper place” (Moule, 159).

In the last months of his life he wrote, “In truth, I love to see the creature annihilated in the apprehension, and swallowed up in God; I am then safe, happy, triumphant” (Moule, 162).

Why? Why is this evangelical humiliation a place of happiness for Simeon? Listen to the benefits he sees in this kind of experience:

By constantly meditating on the goodness of God and on our great deliverance from that punishment which our sins have deserved, we are brought to feel our vileness and utter unworthiness; and while we continue in this spirit of self-degradation, everything else will go on easily. We shall find ourselves advancing in our course; we shall feel the presence of God; we shall experience His love; we shall live in the enjoyment of His favour and in the hope of His glory. . . . You often feel that your prayers scarcely reach the ceiling; but, oh, get into this humble spirit by considering how good the Lord is, and how evil you all are, and then prayer will mount on wings of faith to heaven. The sigh, the groan of a broken heart, will soon go through the ceiling up to heaven, aye, into the very bosom of God. (Moule, 137)

Enjoy the Cross

So my conclusion is that the secret of Charles Simeon’s perseverance was that he never threw overboard the heavy ballast of his own humiliation for sin and that this helped keep his masts erect and his sails full of the spirit of adoration.

I love simplicity; I love contrition. . . . I love the religion of heaven; to fall on our faces while we adore the Lamb is the kind of religion which my soul affects. (Moule, 83)

As he lay dying in October of 1836, a friend sat by his bed and asked what he was thinking of just then. He answered, “I don’t think now; I am enjoying.”

He grew downward in the pain of contrition and he grew upward in the joy of adoration. And the weaving together of these two experiences into one is the achievement of the cross of Christ and the deepest secret of Simeon’s great perseverance.

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