Haunted One

Artist: Nicholas Elias TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

by Nicholas Elias

Check out Tabletop Gaming Resources for more art, tips, and tools for your game!

Showcasing art from some of my favourite artists, and those that have attracted my attention, in the field of visual arts, including vintage; pulp; pop culture; books and comics; concert posters; fantastical and imaginative realism; classical; contemporary; new contemporary; pop surrealism; conceptual and illustration.

The art of Nick Elias.

Nicholas Elias

Because all the cool kids were doing it (kicked off by @thedeafprophet).

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

Director - E. Elias Merhige, Cinematography - Lou Bogue

"Our battle, our struggle, is to create art. Our weapon is the moving picture. Because we have the moving picture, our paintings will grow and recede; our poetry will be shadows that lengthen and conceal; our light will play across living faces that laugh and agonize; and our music will linger and finally overwhelm, because it will have a context as certain as the grave. We are scientists engaged in the creation of memory... but our memory will neither blur nor fade. "

« Elias the Prophet » by Nicholas Roerich

I'll always choose Nicholas Best over Elias Bouchard because I'm a goddamn American

Welcome back to my obsession!

I saw the other day that director Elia Kazan disapproved of Rebel Without a Cause’s portrayal of parents. He said something like: they were too insensitive and made parents look like the ones totally at fault for rebellious teens.

Which, not only did James Dean not agree with (he said: “The picture deals with the problems of modern youth. It is the romanticized conception of the juvenile that causes much of our trouble with misguided youth nowadays. I think the one thing this picture shows that’s new is the psychological disproportion of the kids’ demands on the parents. Parents are often at fault, but the kids have some work to do, too. But you can’t show some far off idyllic conception of behavior if you want the kids to come and see the picture.’) but neither do I!

Of course, who am I when compared with Elia Kazan? I just mean, if anybody was going to complain about unfair or one-sided portrayals of parents in the movie, it would’ve been me, with no prompting. I’m the person who keeps badmouthing Stranger Things for having incompetent, irresponsible, uncaring parents.

But, I didn’t get that impression from Rebel Without a Cause. So at first when I read Elia Kazan’s opinion I was like, “‘oh, shoot, I got lost in James Dean’s eyes and forgot to think critically! The parents are one-sided!” But that didn’t feel right to me even after watching the movie again (because I’m obsessed.)

So I thought about it and I realized it doesn’t feel right because that’s not what the movie is saying. The movie is a cautionary tale showing audiences what happens when kids don’t get what they need from parents.

Kids don’t know how to be men and they don’t know how to be women. They don’t come with that information programmed into them already. They have to learn it, and they ARE programmed to learn it from their parents. Teenagers, in particular, have all the potential to be the most dynamite, powerful people living at any point in time.

Think about it. Teenagers talk in italics. Everything is major. They’re passionate. If parents would just show them what to do with all that energy and passion and freshness, teenagers would be unstoppable forces. They’re young enough to believe they can do anything if someone believes in them and they’re old enough to actually go for it. I’ve worked with youth for ten years and that’s what I’ve been noticing.  In Rebel, that is what Jim Stark represents. He represents a kid who has all the potential to be a hero, but he can’t do it without his parents. He tries to. He tries to do both; he tries to be a man by participating in the chickie run and he tries to be a hero by helping Plato and Judy. All of this because his parents aren’t showing him how. They aren’t pointing all that energy and potential in the right direction, so it just comes off as a loose canon.

 He could be the good kid that is solid and dependable and sincere, and everybody likes him. But he’s stuck looking for approval from friends because he can’t get it from his family, and he’s stuck getting drunk after curfew to get them to face the fact that he needs help, because they won’t. 

So he winds up giving up on them helping him and choosing to try doing it himself. He tries to be a man, and Buzz dies. He runs away with Plato and Judy, trying to save them and himself from loneliness and the gap left by their parents, and Plato dies. Because Jim can’t do it without his parents. He needs them to pick him up when he tries but fails, and look at him for who he is and love him anyway, and correct him when he’s wrong. That’s the point of him clinging to his dad at the end of the film. 

It’s not that the parents are always wrong and the kids are always tragically right. It’s that the kids are a mess of wasted potential if they don’t have their God-given conduits to run through: parents.  Jim is the prime example. He’s a hero under all the mess, but he needs his parents to bring that out of him and help him fly straight, and they won’t, so he’s just “torn apart” instead. They won’t because the dad is a coward who won’t face anything hard, including the disappointment in his son’s eyes or the mom’s. And they won’t because the mom is a shrew who takes charge of the family only to run them away from anything she doesn’t want to face, like the fact that her son is troubled.

But Plato is a good example of the other direction, too. He maybe had potential, but it was buried under layers of hurt and fear and abandonment well before he even reached teenage years, because his parents were awful enough that he had to run away several times, and then they split up, and then abandoned him. He just represents need. He needs a dad to just be there, which is why he clings to Jim. Without any guardians (except that sweet housekeeper) he lives life afraid and thinking he needs something like a gun, or else he’s not safe, not with cops, not in a planetarium, not with other teens, not even at home.  And Judy is a great example, too. She doesn’t really ask for guidance or safety, like Jim and Plato; what she really wants is love. Her mom isn’t shown giving her any affection other than telling her to drink tomato juice. The main issue, of course, is Judy’s dad: he doesn’t know how to handle the fact that Judy is growing into a young woman and isn’t a little girl anymore, so he runs away. Not literally like Plato’s, and not in a buddy-buddy manner like Jim’s dad, but by being cold and sharp and frustrated with her. She doesn’t understand that, so she just decides he must hate her. So she acts out to get any attention from him at all. 

Love, guidance, protection. That is what this movie says kids need parents for, and it is what all their potential  will spoil and turn rotten and dangerous without. That’s all the movie is saying. Not that all parents don’t give their kids this stuff. Just a look at what happens when they don’t, for whatever reasons.

I HAD FORGOTTEN ABOUT MELANIE'S FATHER GOING TO IVY MEADOWS. WHAT THE FUCK. WE DON'T TALK ABOUT THAT ENOUGH

Ingenious Smith

Artist: Nicholas Elias TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

I feel like yess? He looks like both Lisa and Dean .. and personality is such a Dean! Like sure Lisa said she had a type but the whole time she looks panicky when Dean kept asking.. and then of course it was 8 years since they last saw each and bam 8 year old bday for Ben?? Hmm .. but like I wish they confirmed it. I know Dean would always fight until the end .. but wish he had this.. he saved so many people (and kids) I wish he had one.. (yes he has that daughter but again she was taken too.) Alsooo please don’t fight just vote and share theories sure but please don’t fight over your point of view. Polls are suppose to be fun and hear everyone’s opinion.

Demon Dog AU Wolfwood that's been haunting my brain (pun intended).

One day I'll clean it up but for now you can have the sketch (so I don't go insane for not getting it out there)

My face claims/fan casts for The Magnus Archives.

Jonah Magnus played by the late Sir. Nicholas Courtney.

Richard Mendelson played by the late Sir. John Hurt.

James Wright played by Daniel Craig.

Elias Bouchard obviously played by Ben Meredith himself, providing the vocal dubbing for James Wright as he does in TMA 193.

Thinking about Ockham in Animal Crossing

Behind the Scenes - A Pub in Britchester - Friday 10:25pm

beginning | previous | next