The Dexter El (the Dexter by Design)

@theevildex.bsky.social

176 Followers 191 Following

フィリピン人 (he, they). | GMT+8 | Makes art, writes copy & Z-grade films. Script Girl. Vox/Actor. Fan of funny books & one gacha game. Dice nerd. Whovian. Trekkie. I say weird things. | my carrd: thedexterbydesign.carrd.co

Dex is announcing that his nephew's graduating from elementary school today.
Details from a polyptych. The red top panel looks like it has a flag. The blue bottom panel has texture but no visible object.
An unfinished, stylized tree against a blue background. This is a detail, not the entire work.
Anti-Phrenology 1 The key to fascination isn't symmetry. It's imperfection. While symmetry creates the initial pull, your imperfections sharpen interest, keep you memorable. That interest grows the longer I associate these surface flaws with the rest of you— your drive, kindness, intelligence, all your worthy qualities.
Detail from an in-progress painting. Splashes and amorphous splotches of gold, yellow and green on a dark background.
Med rep Mei Aihara wakes up to a text message in her messy room. You can't see her couch or her coffee table, as they are buried underneath books and loose sheets of paper, pillows, blankets and whatnot.
Detail from a finished painting. Raised gold over red and dark green backdrop, with light blue liquid shapes.
Detail of a work in progress painting. Thus far: yellows, greens, and reds dabbed in a curving pattern on canvas.
Signage for a laundry service: “The Lord of the Rinse. We precious your clothes.”
A miniature of a bug-like alien on simulated terrain. Behind it, armored soldiers with flame throwers waiting to torch it.
Miniature of a hammer-wielding warrior, disassembled and partially painted, on top of a green cutting mat.
Masked, bespectacled brown dude in floral shirt talking a selfie while his camera is pointed somewhere off screen, presumably at a lecturer.
Packaged fruit.
A paperback copy of a translation of Das Kapital. It’s stood up with a cell phone leaning on it next to a mouse. In the background, my keyboard and computer monitor. All of this is on a green cutting mat. I want to cover how massive this book is, even as a paperback.
Two paintings of a quiet beach. The unfinished one on the left is mine. The reference painting is on the right, and belongs to the art studio. It depicts two coconut trees with a white surfboard leaning on them. Closer to the viewer is a yellow surfboard and the rear and of a blue van with white trim, decorated with swirls and the expected island patterns.
April 7, 2014 Sometimes, age and knowledge and experience make you an introvert. It dawns on you that the rest of the world (or at least the country) is loud and shallow. You don't want to waste time with loud and shallow. You know you'll probably die of something painful and degenerative in thirty or so years. You grow more quiet, more reflective, more serious about whom to apportion the gift of your time.
The sun rises from behind buildings along one of the main thoroughfares of Quezon City, Metro Manila.
7 dice, representing the 5 Platonic solids most used by tabletop roleplaying games, scattered on a green rectilinear surface (namely, my cutting mat). In the background, my keyboard.
One of the residents cats on campus looking at my dinner. Maybe he doesn’t like getting photographed.
PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way. GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it. PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what? GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise. PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad. GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.
A white mug on a plastic tray. In the background, the interior of a café.
3 Gashapon machines, with the middle one featuring dinosaurs. Think of them as IRL loot box dispensers.
Chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil. (Not as tantalizing as crypto, but somehow more substantial, despite their shelf life.)
A newly opened airbrush on top of its instruction manual, on a green cutting mat.
Instant Miso Soup, soju, seaweed, soft drink and yogurt in a shopping basket.
My street after the fireworks. In the foreground, the remains of fireworks. In the background MOAR bits of fireworks packaging. There’s a dude walking away from us. He’s likely thankful no one’s lobbing small triangular explosives his way.
Rows of unbaked dough balls in a metal oven, rising slowly, like my career.
Pan de sal, slightly burnt, on an aluminum tray. (I’m not letting that happen again.)
22 cm Optimus Prime with his hand on a light switch.
A one-page tract distributed by local Jehova’s Witnesses. Prominent art on the left against a yellow backdrop: a woman and child; another nuclear family; a couple (possibly a couple) reading from a book in the woman’s hands, while the guy fiddles absently with his laptop. There used to be more pages and more art in these things.
The big got a Yolopart Optimus Prime model kit (for kids 8 and up). The box art features Optimus Prime prominently in the foreground. He’s also weirdly depicted in the background against jungle ruins.
2 bottles of whiskey and one bottle of brandy.
Stainless steel bread knife broken at the hilt, with the hilt in focus. Note the existence of the tang (the bit of the blade that goes into the handle). That’s where it broke. I’m impressed. Would buy again, but relegate it to cutting hard bread like it’s supposed to.
Fist sized bread roll on a paper towel.
The cover to Sam Harris’s “The Moral Landscape.” Subtitle: How Science Can Determine Human Values. Author name on top, title and sun toward the center and bottom. Both against a gold backdrop. There’s commentary to be had considering the company Harris keeps in the year of our Lord 2024, but I’ll save that for another day.
The cover to Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda. Translated and edited by Ben Belitt.
Cover to Jessica Zafra's "Manananggal Terrorizes Manila and Other Stories" (1996). The cover is made to look like a cheap tabloid popular in the Philippines, with the title as a screaming red headline. An illustration of the titular Ma-na-nang-gal (a flying, self-segmenting viscera sucker, a creature of the night from Philippine folklore) that looks suspiciously like the author makes up the main photo on the right (note the glasses and bat wings).
Associate Director: (Yelling) "Props! Gimme the big bag of meth!" (Crew notices we're in the heart of Camp Caringal, and laughs nervously. Someone runs to the set with 20 kilos of rock salt.) --The Adventures of Dex the Script Girl
"The advantage of being relentless in your purging of X'mas music and trappings in the months leading up to December is simply this: you appreciate it more when December finally arrives. You actually miss carolers, instead of wanting to tell them the (toothless) dog is rabid and out of control. Or wanting to hand them play money, or empty (but weighted) boxes of candies. You actually miss the decor. Then when you finally see it set up (in the right goddamn month) you feel positively nostalgic. When you banish Jose Mari Chan from your hearing, from September 1 until December 24, you appreciate his music more come X'mas day. When you finally wind up wishing people a Merry X'mas, you actually mean it."
The cover to F. Sionil Jose's 1988 novel, "Ermita." Author name on the top, stylized arc gate just below it, framing a watercolor painted scene from the titular district in Manila: People and the occasional jeepney going about their business. Below the arch gate, the title and sub: "Ermita A Filipino Novel."
The cover to LIFE science library's "Giant Molecules." There's a dramatically lit model of a giant molecule casting a shadow on a red background. If that book taught me anything, it hammered home the lesson that we can credit or blame the carbon atom for so many things. There shouldn't be commentary on this post, but I'm slapping it here anyway. I wore this and other LIFE Science Library books down until they were destroyed. The various books my mother got me in my childhood didn't lead to me being a scientist, but I am so grateful for the many hours of reading they provided. It's probably how I got my nerd card.
The cover to the self help book, "A Fine Romance: the Passage of Courtship from Meeting to Marriage," by Judith Sills, Ph.D. It's literally just the author text and title text set against an off-white background. There are patterned orange blocks and light green bars that break up the cover, but that's pretty much it.
Cover to "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook" by Gary Gygax. White robed wizard in a red hood and stole is fending off winged imp-like creatures with (presumably) spells. The spell effects manifest as fireworks-like lights and a line of sparkles, curling about one of the imp-creature's wing.
Cover to Nick Joaquin's 1961 novel, "The Woman Who Had Two Navels." A woman in a shawl and dress seems to float in the clouds. One of her shoes has dropped from her right foot. Beneath her, a statue of Billiken (a charm doll depicting a seated, chubby, almost bald, childlike figure with large feet, pointed ears, mischievous smile, and a tuft of hair on his head).