From the light of a different sun

[sauvin]

[sauvin]

[dongregg]

Really lovely.

But, uh, it's impossible to watch too much of Sin City.

Cast
• Josh Hartnett as The Salesman, known in the screenplay as "The Man".
• Marley Shelton as The Customer
• Mickey Rourke as Marv
• Jaime King as Goldie/Wendy
• Carla Gugino as Lucille
• Rutger Hauer as Cardinal Patrick Henry Roark
• Jason Douglas as Hitman
• Frank Miller as Priest
• Brittany Murphy as Shellie
• Jessica Alba as Nancy Callahan
• Alexis Bledel as Becky
• Clive Owen as Dwight McCarthy
• Benicio del Toro as Det. Lt. Jack "Jackie Boy" Rafferty
• Rosario Dawson as Gail
• Michael Clarke Duncan as Manute
• Devon Aoki as Miho
• Patricia Vonne as Dallas
• Nicky Katt as Stuka
• Bruce Willis as Det. John Hartigan
• Nick Stahl as Roark Junior/Yellow Bastard
• Powers Boothe as Senator Roark
• Michael Madsen as Bob
• Makenzie Vega as Young Nancy Callahan
• Jude Ciccolella as Liebowitz
• Rick Gomez as Klump
• Nick Offerman as Shlubb
• Tommy Flanagan as Brian
• Elijah Wood as Kevin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin_City_(film)#Cast
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401792/

[sauvin]

This, believe it or not, is one hundred percent Chloe Grace Moretz, no "shopping and chopping" apart from having been ripped out of one picture and shoved into the truck window of another. She was in her mid-teens when the source photo was taken at some event or other, she's just shown here after getting into a few accidents in an industrial chemical supply store. This image doesn't really try to tell a "story", per se, unless it's the kind where "inside every joke is a kernel of truth". It was just for giggles while I keep experimenting with different ways of doing awful things to pretty pictures. The image is a paradox if you happen to know who and what Abby is because she won't be stupid enough to try this kind of approach while she's looking like something that could kill flying insects six blocks away.

At least two of my foregoing posts are consonant with some of the speculation we've done in the past about how Eli and Abby might do some of their hunting when there's nobody to do the shopping for them.

I think it was the Woofster who pointed out that Eli's attack on Jocke was a model of efficiency: lure them in close enough that there's no possibility of escape, crush them in a bear hug and terrify the living crap out of them so as to increase heart rate (and therefore blood flow), siphon off a few liters really quickly, and then bolt. Maximum benefit, minimum energy expended and minimised risk of discovery. It's quick, it's relatively quiet, and it's probably the best approach in urban or suburban settings. I'd gone a bit further in speculating that Eli may have been able to read enough of Jocke's character to gamble he'd acting more from simple human concern than anything else. Remembering that Abby was in a dress and showed (and accepted) affection much more readily than did Eli, I'd later suggested that Abby may have counted on her random stranger responding either to her "injury" or to the fact that she's a very young girl alone at night in a place where there's probably nobody to hear her scream, and she's showing a bit more cotton than is proper.

Dropping out of trees is good, too. A small problem with that approach is that it might be hard to find a tree in a fairly secluded area where somebody is reasonably likely to drift by alone. I'm thinking it's a bit hard to fight two or more people and eat at the same time, and while both girls have proven they can dispatch several people who outmass and outsize them easily and quickly enough, it might be hard to keep at least one of them alive long enough to get a decent meal afterwards, and most people don't like being out alone at night, especially away from the city's lights.

Dropping out of the sky is even better, but flying is not cheap in terms of energy expenditure. Animals that spend most of their time in the air gliding fare better than animals who have to keep doing the butterfly stroke, but gliders don't tend to fly as fast as Eli can. Hungrier you get, less you're going to feel like trying to keep flapping.

And, well, there's always hanging out in dark alleys in the Big City. Problem there is that you never know what's in the food. Might be mushrooms, might be some wild weeds, might be some kind of designer potion... might even be garlic!

At twelve years old, I don't think the girls have what it takes to truly understand sexual seductiveness, and I think they'd know that. Bluntly put, they don't have what it takes to understand sex. It's "icky". They'll probably tend to try to appeal more to sympathy, and probably much more so in remoter contexts than in metropolitan areas because people who live where the night sky isn't bleached out by city lights tend to be both more conservative and more suspicious of strangers, whereas the denizens in the rougher parts of the Concrete Jungle can showcase beautifully just how thin is the veneer we call "civilisation". In the latter environment, a little girl all alone at night would be as apt to give up the ghost for the money that's in her pockets as for anything else, so being small and pretending to be defenseless is a form of seductiveness they do understand.

I think this is partly why the girls seem to prefer urban or suburban areas: no shortage of wildlife, the bulk of which could disappear without anybody noticing or caring.

They might not understand it, but they've been around quite a while. They'll have seen how other ladies of the night set about looking for a different kind of blood, and they'll have run across the odd couple here and there who find park benches handy when the sun goes down and the blood gets a bit too hot. They'll have seen, and they'll have heard, and they'll have had a couple of centuries to learn "method acting". This image depicts an Abby who's had to spend a day or three hanging out in an area where most of the people within easy reach drive big trucks. It might be easy enough to pretend to be lame when approaching a truck, but not nearly as easy as "falling down" under a tunnel. I've known a few truck drivers, and some of them can be pretty hard-hearted, likely to tell a little kid to get lost when asking for help of some kind. Since the girls really can't afford to attract any kind of attention, I think they'd be likely to increase their chances of a successful hunt by appealing not to kindness, but to loneliness or something darker.

[sauvin]

Only known photo of the subject, reconstructed from a damaged camera recovered at a crime scene.

Wanted for questioning by the State Bureau of Investigation 11/2/2017

Description

Name uncertain, most commonly reported as Christine de la Place but may be Fleurette de la Place, Katerine van Felder and Lisse Chauguin.
Place of birth unknown, possibly French.
Age uncertain, variously reported to be between nine and fourteen years of age.
Height approximately 5' 4" to 5' 6", weight 80 to 100 pounds.
Light complexion, often described as "dead white". Slender build, occasionally reported as "emaciated" or "anorectic". May be lightly freckled.
Eye colour uncertain, often reported as black but may be naturally pale blue or light green. Occasionally reported to have "blood red" pupils with greyish yellow sclera ("whites" of the eyes).
Hair colour uncertain, often reported as black but may be unpigmented (albino) or light grey.
No visible scars, tattoos or piercings reported.

Remarks

Recent sightings reported in northern Vermont, New Hampshire and northwestern Maine. Possible sightings in southeastern Quebec. No daytime sightings reported.

Subject may alter her appearance with contact lenses, padded shoulders, padded bras, dental prostheses and/or wigs, and appears to favour "goth" makeup. Subject is reported to be fluent in or conversant with a number of westerm European regional languages or dialects. Speaks English with marked unrecongised accent.

May be accompanied by a caucasian male, name possibly "Aussone", 35 to 55 years old, height 5' 8" to 5' 10", also possibly of French origin (see notice XXX-YYYY). Eye and hair colour unknown.

Details

The subject and her male companion are wanted for questioning by the State Bureau of Investigation as possible material witnesses to a series of disappearances and/or unusual murders with possible ritualistic significance in southeastern Quebec, northwestern Maine and northern New Hampshire.

Subject should be considered armed and extremely dangerous. If observed, move calmly but quickly away from the area and report the exact time and place of the contact immediately to the state police at (800) YYY-ZZZZ.

I have no idea who this girl is. I'd been spending an hour here, a couple hours there off and on for a few weeks clicking around Google looking for girls of about the right kind of age, face and build to make an Elysse des Champs, but never really found one. Ran across this image, smeared just a little bit of black and purple, and called it good. I really had in mind somebody like Elle Fanning (she has the right kind of skin), but I can never seem to work the girl's hair properly, and she really is a bit tall to be a girl from rural medieval France.

Elysse des Champs is the creature featured in some of my fan fiction contributions, said creature likely (but never explicitly stated) to be an eliform vampire. I don't recall the exact description I gave, but seem to remember her as being eleven or twelve, with coal black hair and black obsidian eyes, and skin so pale she seems to give off a sickly greenish white glow under a full moon.

[sauvin]

You know, it's really very discouraging. They make a movie about you, and you make truckloads of money so you can go wherever you like and do whatever you want, and you could even buy a couple of nuclear power plants if you wanted to, and you still can't find a bed that doesn't hurt your neck and back!

[dongregg]

[PeteMork]

We should all chip in and buy her a "My Pillow."

[PeteMork]

This is more or less the way I pictured her; French, full lips, but a bit younger.

[sauvin]

This is more or less the way I pictured her; French, full lips, but a bit younger.

Same here. This girl is probably closer to the higher end of the age range I gave in the "wanted for questioning" description. When shopping around for body parts to chop up and reassemble a la Frankenstein, life is actually pretty easy because there's absolutely no shortage of naked body parts on the Internet of all different ages, colours, body weights and postures. It gets to be a lot tougher when you do a search on "twelve year old girl with black hair" because you'll get bazillions of preteens, but most of them are just plain morally wrong and the rest of them apparently modelling clothing for online stores, or I can't work with their hair, or they're watermarked all to smithereens, or something.