Roads to Safe Places

This is a fairly unorganised collection of really great SSMM pieces I really like, and mostly a calicogoat fanpost. Some of them are quite old and you've probably seen them all already, I'm also not very articulate in my fondness for these amazing pieces and they deserve a better introduction than my uncoordinated squeeing, but they're all worth checking out. 

( One: Duellers )

( Two: Losses )

( Three: Lovers. By ~Calicogoat.  )

Also noteworthy is ~hellanim's  beautiful 12 Pictures from Snape's Life in beautiful monochromes with a dash of red and ~calicogoat's Flight of the Goldfinch which has Minerva and Severus battling a dragon on a flying machine and what could be more awesome than that?

Title: Timid / Beginnings
Rating: G
Credits =cloaks's Vintage Texture Pack and ~Eterea86's beautiful corner brushes
Summary: Minerva and her owl being escorted to the train by her mother because her father is busy that day.

There are such a lot of discussions on art and violence these days which make my skin crawl so much I can't speak about them coherently and this probably clouds my judgement on them. Still, I'd like to say this: art can be harmful to people who didn't consent to be a part of it.

( Recent sexual violence in what people say is art, trigger warnings )

If people use one oppression as a ~metaphor~ for another that is harmful to the party whose experiences it exploits to express yourself. It's the limit of freedom of expressing yourself - the moment your freedom touches that of another person and you take on their voice to speak about experiences you made, and I'd like to see more self-limitation at work.

I guess the question I'd like to put to people who argue that things like these are important enough to be made regardless is if they consider the message or artistic value of this particular piece to be more important than the problematic content and exploitation of others and why.

Because I don't see it.

Heads of House brushing up relevant skills for the Yule Ball. Not entirely successful on the part of the Head of Slytherin, which is part of the reason why he ended leaving early with Karkaroff and skulking around among the rose bushes, leaving the hosting duty of the other guests to the other Heads of House.

Yes, this is silly, but I got tired of preparing for the teach-a-thon of doom.

Trying to put off both work and housework? Staying up way too late?

Who, me?

I liked the first picture so much I added some more.

Like playing with digital hand puppets, wheee.

Then I discovered some of the specimen that populate DA.

Oh boy.



TL;DR - or rather, too pink, didn't read - yeah, that's Severus' little sister, half mugle, is obviously not only in Gryffindor, but also stood up to their father and was sent away for that, she's also Sirius' One True Love, Remus is her best friend and she dislikes Peter. Note the animagus shape there.

At first I thought that this was some kind of rather overdone technicolour parody, but not so. Also, the artist (age 21) doesn't seem to realise that anything might be ... off about this character and is impervious to irony or subtly incredulous questions as to wtf is going on here.

There's apparently also a fic, but I don't think that anyone can be more mind-numbingly awesome than this picture.

I'm still hoping that this is a parody. Oh, please let this be a parody.

So things aren't going too great with my exam preparations and I'm scared stiff (lack of concentration being a major factor here - I blame the meds), but at least I discovered what I think are good hues to use for skin colours. I realise her nose is weird, her shoulders are broader than my bishie!Severus' (because I can't do human anatomy), and the background shows that I ran out of patience and motivation, but I'm new to this stuff, and considering that I last seriously drew something in 2001 before the dog and the dragon the other day I'm hugely inflated with pride here.



Another thing that has me in raptures today was reading through isurrendered , which everybody needs in their lives and ought to consider watching. It's a community which this meme spawned:

"THE MEME
1. Comment to this post with "I surrender!" and I'll assign you the basis of some TV show idea. (Science fiction show, medical drama, criminal procedure, etc...)
2. Create a cast of characters, including the actors who'd play them
3. Add in any actor photos, character bios and show synopsis that you want.
4. Post to your own journal this community!"

The submissions are all so awesome I'm sad they don't exist IRL - they have the most interesting plots, great characters, surprisingly gender- and race-balanced casts and seem to have spawned their own fandoms and fanfics already. I might go back and do recs for individual shows on there, but everybody needs to check this out for themselves, anyway. 

Day 01 → Your favourite song
Day 02 → Your favourite movie
Day 03 → Your favourite television program
Day 04 → Your favourite book
Day 05 → Your favourite quote
Day 06 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 07 → A photo that makes you happy
Day 08 → A photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 09 → A photo you took
Day 10 → A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 → A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 13 → A fictional book
Day 14 → A non-fictional book
Day 15 → A fanfic
Day 16 → A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 → An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)

This is really trite,  but I really do like the Lübecker Totentanz by Berndt Notke.

Day 18 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 → A talent of yours
Day 20 → A hobbie of yours
Day 21 → A recipe
Day 22 → A website
Day 23 → A YouTube video
Day 24 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 → Your day, in great detail
Day 26 → Your week, in great detail
Day 27 → This month, in great detail
Day 28 → This year, in great detail
Day 29 → Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 → Whatever tickles your fancy

In search for the most realistic oil painting of an open book I have ever seen (of which I had a postcard which I lost. Buggeration. It was by a German artist and probably over two-hundred years old. But I have really no idea whatsoever, and you can imagine what a search for "Book" and "oil painting" got me...), I stumbled upon two artists I really like - Jack Vettriano and Francine Van Hove.

I don't really know why, something about their paintings just appeals to me and makes me go "Pritteeh!" It's something between the situations they draw and the style which is - just pritteeh. Not fancy or mind-blowing - simply pritteeh.

Jack Vettriano:



and Francine Van Hove: