#YES. YES!!! THISBIS WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY. YES!!!

[funkymbtifiction]

hi darling, how are you doing?

may i ask if i am on the right track in finding my type? i think i am an enfj and either 2w3 or 3w2 sp/so!

i think i use Fe-Ti because i am mostly a through people person in many ways, i focus a lot on others to the point of "merging" with them, let's say we are in a room together and i feel your sadness: i'll probably come over to try to cheer you up and make you feel better, because while sadness is a valid feeling, i feel obliged to make you smile a little. if we are exchanging different opinions or emotions i am the kind of woman that forgets hers, i tend to possess strong opinions and high standards, but i rarely share them, it all depends on who i am speaking with, if we vibe well enough, if there is that spark that makes me think "yes they arouse me" i will be willing to give my perspective, but if the person doesn’t fit certain qualities i search for i may try to meddle a little, if i am helpful to them in some ways, otherwise i will let go. (correct me if i am wrong) i think i use Ni-Se because i find the answers to my questions from within and only after i search for proofs in the yet introspecting is a very hard thing to do, because i long for quality time with people around me otherwise i go nuts, plus it requires alone time which to me means being stuck. when i take a decision i may take a walk and ponder the situation until the right answer rings strong in my head... i don't know if thisbis consistent with enfj but it feels like the right answer :)

This is a fairly good argument for ENFJ, yes. It also feels "attachment" (more 3 than 2, so let's explore the next section...).

as for the enneagram... i usually come off as a confident and fascinating woman and i know it because i have been told so! i actually believe they are right, i mean it's easy for me to see why most people are charming, so there's no doubt i must possess my qualities too. <- 3s and 2s both have pride, but 3s for their achievements and/or ability to connect to others (if Fe users) and 2s for how warm, supportive, loving, and necessary they are to others lives

i developed a personal flavor to myself, a good mix between grunge and coquette style, if we may, but we don't need to label it. i only know i do this to attract the right person and repel the others. <- this sounds more like the sexual instinct than sp/so, like sx/so

if someone has qualities i enjoy very much, let's say elegance in gestures or personality, i emulate it until it becomes mine, but always with a personal finishing touch! <- 3ish

when extremely stressed i go into slumber mode, but when slightly stressed i find ways to overcome each obstacle and excel in doing so! <- this sounds like a 3. Stressed = fall into 9 dissociation and laziness, the rest of the time use competency to launch into decisive action. 2s move to 8 and get angrier and aggressive. do you?

what do you think? am i on the right track about my types? thank you so much for keeping up your blog and i hope you are having a lovely day so far <3

Based on this, I would look at sx/so 3w2 ahead of sp/so 2w3.

#question #mbti #enneagram

[ckxzy]

tbh though i am really ashmed of myself for not even helping editting supporting my own parents form what they are doing?? who am i? why is that when it comes to others which i font even know personally i am automatically needed to pleased rhem and do what ever they want?? and when it comes to my parents?? i cant even help tgen or even support them eith evrything??!!!!!! this trigger me idk i am covered with pride and only find joys at being on others people ideals byt when in faft we hav eour own this is kor beneficial.. it is really saddening this is the growth we are talking about?? impress others and pleased them??? shame.. really shame i dont know who you are anymore bro show something naman like a little consoderation and try to expand that time by time cause i am telling you how will you grow???? PLEASE STOP PLEASING OTHER PEOPLE YES YOU ARE UNCAPABLE OF SAYING NO BUT THAT WAS BEFORE??? YOU ARE YOU RIGT NOW YOU SRE NOT YOUR TOMORROW!! idk they literally needed some help with SOOOO MANY THINGs like evem finamcial support they are so tired i swear and yet we afford to upload pictures on insta like we are tye best person ever lived while behind those lens thosbpost those 'romantic-smart-wise stnadrad shit there is the couple who are trying their hest EVEYFUCKING SINGLE DAY TO PROVKDE THE NEED OFBTHE FAMILY.. isbthis how you show yiur thanks??? shame like lumaki na ulo mo sir you.. no it needed to be say cause if not who?? who will comfrotn you that thisbis wrong?? you ARE wrong you are never right fuck your shit amd stuff go DO SOMETHING we are in the process of bridging casue we keep loosing roads and you afford to be carried by them?? wake up? hello while you are ehing delsuinal about that gorl WHO DONT EVEJ GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOUSOMEONE IS CARRYING THE 'WHY' why you didibt talk or why yiu are cold whole working which offiurse affect them physically an dmentally.. shut the fuck up about everything! if you gonna do something FUCKING DO IT STOP MAKING EXCUSES STOP ISOLATING YOU ARE NOT A KID WE CANT AFFORD TO BE INSIDE IN A SHELL ALWAYS HELLO you need to Move di lang puro aral or what egrr shit you are doing dapat may sende dinsa bahay, you are using electricty amd energy for nonsense things WAKE THE FUCK UO YOU ARE IN REAL LIFE not in dramas or in games BE SERIOUS BRUHHH YOU ARENT SICK ABOUT THESE HOBBY? OH CONSTANTLY DOWNLOADING AND REKETING A GAME IS OKAY?? HUH the time you gave to them?? idgf if you had it worst in your last year, you are wasting evry but of your life do do do do do something fashion art oh common THEY CANT FEED YOU! so leave them and have something.. JUST DO SOMETHING YOU WANNA BE A BURDEN?? FOREVER? HUH YOU ACT STUPID AT SCHOOLS AND ACT COLD I  HOUSE ACT SILLY IN OTHER PEOPLES HOUSE AND TALK AWKWARD WITH PEOPLE, LEAVING PEOPLE ONLINE AMD STUFF??? hello and yet you think oh i am so handsome when in fact you are never and you sill neger be you arebjust what you are scared yes you are belong to them you are just them they are sand you are sand nothing more nothing less so get tf iutta here and sleep delete that insta and be fucking real!

[wangxianficrecs]

it goes like this by moonsteps

it goes like this

by moonsteps

T, 15k, wangxian, background sangcheng

Summary:  Jiang Cheng is staring at him with wide eyes. “You met your soulmate today and didn’t tell me?”

Wei Wuxian stops. “What?” he asks, not quite understanding. “What are you talking about? No, I didn’t?”

“You idiot,” Jiang Cheng spits, holding his hand out to point directly at Wei Wuxian’s wrist. “Your timer!”

Oh.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes dart down, and his heart stops.

(Or, Wei Wuxian finds that he has no idea who his soulmate is. Enter Lan Wangji, resident unapproachable genius, who suddenly requests to be his lab partner.)

My comments:  This is delightful, and also, so funny, because wwx is such an idiot. I should get quotes about the soulmates, but jiang cheng kept butting in, shouting, and it totally reminded me of Austin Powers and the whole sharks with lasers on their heads and the kid yelling to instead, 'just fucking SHOOT them NOW'... and that was jiang cheng through this whole story.

Excerpt 1:  “You know,” Jiang Cheng says, “what I find funny is the fact that you’re more interested in finding out who Lan Wangji’s soulmate is than finding out who your own soulmate is.”

“Shut up,” Wei Wuxian hisses. “I’m just annoyed.”

“Why, because you’re so painstakingly jealous of yourself?”

“I’m not his soulmate!”

Jiang Cheng snorts, spooning his tofu pudding into his mouth. “Sure you’re not. Keep telling yourself that.”

“And I’m not jealous!” Wei Wuxian argues, slapping his palm down onto the table and making it rattle slightly under the pressure.

Jiang Cheng delicately raises an eyebrow, and Wei Wuxian feels a strong urge to rip his face off.

“Okay,” Jiang Cheng says. “Sure. You’re not jealous.” He flattens his forehead lines. “Actually, that’s even more funny than you not realizing that you’re Lan Wangji’s soulmate.”

“Because I’m not his soulmate!” Wei Wuxian says. He’s kind of over this whole thing, if he’s being completely honest.

(He is, in fact, not over this whole thing.)

“Okay,” Jiang Cheng says, “but you wish you were.”

“Fuck you. Yes I do.”

Excerpt 2:  “Enough!” Jiang Cheng bellows. “Are you fucking blind?”

“Don’t be rude!” Wei Wuxian says. “I’m trying to enlighten you! I’m trying to explain my thought process about this whole thing!”

“You fucking idiot,” Jiang Cheng says, throwing his arms up into the air. “You’re the fucking soulmate! Are you serious right now? I can’t believe you called me over for this dumb shit—”

“I’m not!” Wei Wuxian says. “If I was his soulmate, Lan Zhan would have told me already!”

“Even I wouldn’t tell you if I was your soulmate if you were being like this!”

modern au, soulmates, college/university au, soulmate-identifying timers, humor, fluff, oblivious wei wuxian, jealous wei wuxian, drunk lan wangji, idiots in love, side sangcheng, long-suffering lan wangji, long-suffering jiang cheng, angry jiang cheng, light angst, pining, brotherly feels, hilarity, sangcheng have their shit together, unlike wangxian, bless their hearts, fluff, @biqings​

(You may wish to REBLOG as a signal boost for this author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

#Wangxian Fic Rec #The Untamed #wangxian #modern au #soulmates #college/university au #humor #soulmate identifying timers #fluff #oblivious wei wuxian #jealous wei wuxian #drunk lan wangji #idiots in love #sangcheng #light angst #pining #brotherly feels #it goes like this #moonsteps #medium fic 15k-49k #Teen

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

Responses from the Opera Screencaps Captioning Quiz

Hello, everyone, and thank you for taking my quiz! I had SO MUCH fun reading your captions-- there were several times I literally started crying from laughing so hard at the amazingness of your work! With that in mind, the captions (which I will continue to add onto as more people take it):

(also, thank you to @dichterfuerstin​ for translating the German captions I got)

originally taken from: the Wiener Staatsoper’s 2020 production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, featuring Regula Mühlemann (center) as Blonde, Michael Laurenz (right) as Pedrillo, and an unnamed extra (left) as the Grim Reaper

Responses:

(Backstage warm-up) “ok so someone dropped the pulse”

me and my friends watching the fire burn after doing arson

Introducing the polycule to the parents

*boom* ... did...you guys hear that too?

Ma Signor !

Knight in whinging armour gone wrong, look at how he holds the egg. Polyamory with weird knight and death.

the father, son and the holy ghost are very gay

the gays meeting for brunch, 2021, colorized

chicken lady forces death and a very flamboyantly homosexual anthropomorphized pink bird to be parents of her egg (they dont want to be)

That’s just me and my friends on our night out (before covid rip)-- closest

A Good Friday night

good omens (2019)

["the pocket guide to boy/girl/mischief" meme] who's the boy and who's the mischief though????

Papageno and Papagena take their first-born egg trick-or-treating

Angry Birds - The Musical. A pig stole an egg and the bird unites with death to take revenge.

I love my bird wife

Someone got murdered during the funky chicken dance

throuple murders child and steals sibling of said child

When you and your friends have widely different tastes in literature

angel leading twink to his rightful place (hell)

draco malfoy from a very potter musical and a death eater are very much in the wrong show

What have I gotten myself into

Mlm/wlw solidarity but I’m not telling who is who

A woman stands with a pink dipshit with an egg and a reaper.

A bird-couple makes a pact with Death, sacrificing their first-born bird-child in order to bring good luck upon their unborn bird-baby

There are three types of people on Halloween:

Uh oh, I don’t think the mother hen is very happy about this...

oh god, they’ve invented seussical. It’s too early!

gay brunch

Three little maids from school are we

guys maybe if we dress gay enough we can distract everyone from the dead flapper bee in the back

those three killed a duck for her egg and are facing the conswquences.

Duck has egg with human, shocked and upset due to biological impossibility

When you bout to make a banging omelet so you invite your fellow queers

"No mortal man could pass that egg, but heaven shall repair your rectum."

originally taken from: the Salzburg Festival’s 2007 production of Hector Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini, featuring Maija Kovalevska (left) as Teresa Balducci, Laurent Naouri (center, in chimney) as Fieramosca, and Burkhard Fritz (right) as Benvenuto Cellini

Responses:

“In this same interlude it doth befall That I, one Snout by name, present a wall; And such a wall, as I would have you think, That had in it a crannied hole or chink, Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby, Did whisper often very secretly. This loam, this rough-cast and this stone doth show That I am that same wall; the truth is so: And this the cranny is, right and sinister, Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.” - a midsummer night’s dream, act v scene 1

"ah yes a prime specimen. see here, right in this box is our one of a kind hob goblin that can be all yours for the low low price of your soul"

what, YOU don't have a special eavesdropping chimney window?

Hänsel und Gretel plotting against the witch

man takes a wrong turn and ends up in a chimney, catches his girlfriend cheating-- closest

when you end up third wheeling the straight couple

lady cheats on her leather jacket wearing scummy boyfriend and when he unexpectedly comes home she hides the lover in the chimney

A straight girl and her gay best friend gossip about stuff idk

Idk Shakespeare?

experimental couples therapy feat. the chimney mf from mary poppins

Area Couple Inadvertently Traps Santa-in-Training in Chimney as they Attempt Rooftop Flirting

Landlords laugh over student renter's misfortune

I never asked for this

Ay yo lil mama lemme whisper in your ear

voyeurist listens to sandy and Danny from grease

Psssst! Did you hear about Susan? You won’t believe it!

lady and the tramp meets beauty and the beast?

human trafficking

And for just $30 you too could have your own tiny brick cage!

Psst I’m wearing assless chaps under this dress

A couple tortures a man in a box.

It's all fun and games being stuck in a chimney until your greasy uncle steals your crush from right above you-- okay ngl this could actually be a great Don Pasquale concept

Taking eavesdropping to the next level

Will you two stop being lovey dovey and let me out? SUMMER LOVIN, HAPPENED SO FAST— 

overhearing how people talk about you when they think they're alone puts you in the shithouse 

Does he know we can see him?

dear god, i am so fucking hungry, yall please just do whatever heterosexuals do so i can go eat a popsicle 

the human version of the trash man from sesame street is realizing that those two are going to fuck on his trash can 

Tmw you capture an angry short dude and start trashtalking him where he can hear 

Omg what if we kissed but we actually kissed the lil goblin man under us

"Remember, don't feed him after midnight"

originally taken from: the Théâtre de Capitole du Toulouse’s 2017 staging of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Le prophète, featuring Leonardo Estevez (right, on fake horse) as Le Comte d’Oberthal

Responses:

“When I said we needed to drain the swamp I didn’t think there were people actually living there”

horse? what horse? no sir i dont know what horse youre referring to.

definitely don't have a napoleon complex going on

King stole La Scala‘s Lohengrin set

king breaks all his horses, has to use statue dragged by servants as transportation because he’s too kingly too walk

Emperor Söder and his subjects on a carnival procession

man on horse makes a big deal out of being on a horse

That’s not Zeffirelli because the horse is not alive

Who the fuck put a horse on the stage

isn't this that picture of napoleon on the horse

Area Count Thinks Citizens will be Intimidated by his Extremely Fake-looking Horse Statue-- closest

Everyone wants their turn on the giant plaster horse. Police are there to make sure everyone waits their turn.

Night out with the lads

Local royalty horrified at the state of his own damn kingdom

gay army fights different gay aesthetics-- hi author how does it feel to be the funniest fucking person on this quiz

Well at least I LOOK badass

ceasar if he hadn't gotten stabbed (colourised)

some soldiers jumped out of my kindergarten fairytale collection book to burn the don carlos flemish deputies at the stake

It’s just a model

Is that how you feel pulling up in your Honda Civic, Madge?

Someone rides a horse statue in public.

Just a normal party with the bros.

what is this, some kind of crossover episode? 

Terribly sorry for all the fuss, it’s just, that is, my horse is afraid of neck ruffles. I’ve tried to talk to him about it, but he’s—whoaaa there—he said he was a french courtier in a past life and he’s allergic to English fashion 

Horse seller, listen to me! I am riding into battle. I need your strongest horse. - We have horses at home. - The horses at home: 

All hail Incitatus the king 

we are not ripping off shakespeare’s henry viii. what the fuck. this is about lenny xi you uncultured swine, go drown in a pit of your own farts 

oh god is that hamilton 

Guy Removed From Art Museum For Sitting On Statue, more at eleven 

Gay <3

Officer: This horse... is a virgin! Crowd: *cheers*

originally taken from: the Parma Verdi Festival’s 2017 staging of Giuseppe Verdi’s Stiffelio, featuring Maria Katzarava (left) as Lina and Luciano Ganci (right) as Stiffelio

Responses:

That One kid in class

its a mEntAL BreAkDowN *final countdown but kazoo*

*record scratch* yeah, that's me. you're probably wondering how I got here-- closest

Dad keeps monologuing, teenager is done

left: all of my concerned friends, right: my emo ass having a very public mental breakdown

the demons in the corner of my room when im just trying to sleep

lady gets mansplained to (do i need to say more, we've all been there)

It’s probably an area baritone telling off an area soprano-- sorry; it’s a tenor. soprano is right though.

That was a fake horse in the last photo right?

child comes out as gay to father at a particularly bad time

dissociation solves everything

I can't believe it's not butter

Honey we talked about this

My sleep paralysis demon is Crowley from supernatural

child has nightmare of boring job

When you start dating a singer but he won’t stop practicing at night

just an average day in a hetero marriage

what do i do my wife's having period cramps again

Stop having an existential crisis. It’s time to sing!

“No son of mine will kin Gomez Addams under MY roof”

Crowley stares into space while a teen has post nut clarity.

When he wont stop reciting jordan peterson monologues!!

Do you realize how effed you are?

Ugh, not this lecture again! Dad’s Practicing For His Experimental Indie Band Again 

asking your parents for help with your own personal situation and them just ranting off about what they went through instead of helping in any way 

Will he shut up already!

no one tell him he’s yelling in the wrong direction, no one tell him plnsbdjddhdj 

this kid is tired of his dad listening to rush limbaugh (a man who claimed to be pro life but died anyway) 

Me internally vs externally 

Daddy issues

originally taken from: the Grand Théâtre de Genève’s 2020 staging of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots, featuring several chorus members

Responses:

It’s the deadly eye Of Poogley-pie. Look away, look away, As you walk by, ‘Cause whoever looks right at it Surely will die. It’s a good thing you didn’t … You did? … Good-bye. - shel Silverstein

why the fuckith? my good sir, i beg of you to put your pants back on

I hate this itchy hat

Titanic Extras hear that they have to do extra hours

people waiting to board the titanic watch someone fall off the plank

pov: you’re a time traveler

guy in the flatcap is embarrassed by patriotism and pathos

No idea. For some reason Le Marseillaise comes to mind

Is this from Harry Potter?

disneyland main street usa workers on strike

local tries to hide behind Newsies cap to avoid unpleasant but inevitable conversations. meanwhile, some very fashionable ladies look on.

"Thank fuck, 2020 was just a dream after all"

“We gather here today because this bitch got exactly what she deserved” “heaven!” “Stfu Stephanie she’s going to hell and we all know it”-- not quite but this basically happens later on in the opera (and act) so yeah (except the person in question very much Did Not Deserve It)

dc movie filter on bridgerton

america?

looks like my history teacher paused the prohibition documentary again

Who still wears page boy hats bro?

Coming out to a room of people who Already Knew That

Bitches are relieved at some party.

Several drunk people exiting getting off the subway attempting to seem sober and rational but realizing they have somehow lost all of their possessions

How tf do I act natural in this situation-- closest

“do you think any of them noticed that I don’t know the pledge of allegiance” 

It's too fucking hot outside for this outfit 

?

when hyyh yoonkook ending just hits different 

pedestrians watch in horror as the triangle shirtwaist factory burns and the workers throw themselves out of the windows from a dozen stories up 

Starting the pledge of allegiance be like 

He's having a heart attack oh no oh god oh fuck

originally taken from: if I remember correctly, the Semperoper Dresden’s 2018 semi-staging of Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus, with Jonas Kaufmann as Gabriel von Eisenstein

Responses:

“William Shakespeare wrote: "To thine own self be true And it must follow, as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man" I believe this wise statement best applies to a woman A blonde woman Over the past three years she taught me And showed us all That being true to yourself never goes out of style Ladies and gentlemen Our valedictorian: Elle Woods!” - legally blonde the musical

eat ass, suck a dick, and sell drugs

woooooorrrrd

Finally Jonas has graduated! It’s about time, considering he’s an international star.

what my professors think they look like

Prof. Dr. Dr. When someone tells him there are more than two genders

'and since you've now graduated high school, you'll be entering college etc. blablabla' .........meanwhile, there's a whole row of graduates daring each other to chug the cheap vodka one of them has brought in gallons (yes that happened at my graduation, lol)

Jonas darling baby <3-- can’t argue with that

I just realized I have no idea what the actual fuck happens in an opera

ok this one is just what jonas kaufmann always wears you can't fool me.

"as valedictorian i will share with you the importance of loving the floor"

"Yes, mother, my art degree will make me money!"

Graduation speakers are out, singers are in

Senior year takes a new meaninbg

mansplainer professor explains the concept of feminism to women

Your Prof when you finally turn in that missing assignment be like

younger boris johnson (derogatory)

jonas kaufmann retires from opera and takes up motivational speaking

What a fine graduation evening we’re having today

-70 points for slytherin you all have no swag

A man with a college hat sings.

An obviously greying actor trying to play a university student in a low-budget porn parody

How it feels to graduate high school after being held back for years

East High is a place where teachers encouraged us to break the status quo and define ourselves as we choose. Where a jock can cook up a mean crème brûlée, and a brainiac can break it down on the dance floor-

I may not have been "cool" in high school, but in ten years you will all be working for me!

I finally got my GED!

that one guy in ur intro to cultural anthropology class who mansplains to the professor somehow fucking graduated

he;s just graduating and taking his speech too serously idk

Graduation speeches with that one dude who got held back 3 times

Smrt

originally taken from: the Metropolitan Opera’s 2011 staging of Gioachino Rossini’s Le Comte Ory with Joyce DiDonato (left) as Isolier, Diana Damrau (center) as Countess Adèle, and Juan Diego Florez (right) as Le Comte Ory (disguised as a hermit)

Responses:

There is something very [disturbing grunts] About polyamorous couples - polyamorous, Chris Fleming

jinkies

femme fatale (including to herself)

I’ll have a threesome soon !

Hot guy walks by, everyone swoons.

thirdwheeling friend does not realize the other two are having sex

When your girlfriend had „just two beers“ again

jesus is exasperated about having to drag the two ladies towards doing what he needs them to do instead of purple dramatically declaring suicidal intent over the smallest trivial matters and red being equally dramatic about declaring that it's not the way! stay alive! i love you!!

The throuple is thriving

Get off the milf

orgy

my last three braincells because im a horny slut

countess receives too much love and is confused on how to react

Rasputin's lesser known romp with a much older czarina of russia

Woman's soul leaves body

Jesus and co. are worried after another woman gets pregnant without having sex

bisexual looks at photos of celebrity couples

When you go to the party to socialize with new people but your weirdo friend group starts getting clingy

Jesus cumming

one of those weird church christmas pageants but everybody's drunk

What have I done

Hozier??????????

Jesus assfucks some purple lady being hugged.

This time, the chick IS the magnet

An affair/threesome gone awry (2019 colorized)

What do you mean they canceled GLOW?

“I TOLD you it was cashmere!”

Are you wearing the - - The Gucci dress? Yes I am.

It's not what it looks like!

jesus is fucking that one cheerleader who grew up to be a suburban mom with one (1) super cool dress she stole from her kid who is desperately hugging her middle begging for it back because the spring fling is coming up and jason might actually make eye contact with her for more than three seconds.

jesus and mary magdaline and some other bitch

I’m at a bar and these drunk girls are flirting with me, do I lOOK GAY?!

Shrek 5, jesus's return

c. 2025 First attempt of an Officer and his Wife with a Handmaiden (colourized)

just about all of these are close lol

originally taken from: the Bolshoi Theater’s 1993 staging of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Maid of Orléans, featuring Nina Rautio (left) as Joan of Arc and Vyacheslav Pochapsky (right) as Thibaut d’Arc

Responses:

Don’t look, I’m still pooping

yall, the audacity of this man. he fuckin talked to me

*i can't even tell you how wrong you are* *it would be insulting to ME*-- closest

Cospeto!

„No I’m not talking to you, you keep cracking bad jokes!“ - „But I got another!“

when you’re mad at him but he says he’ll buy you food if you cheer up

When I’m wallowing in self-pity but my friends won’t comfort me

right: wanna fuck ;) left: yeah, fuck OFF lmao

Her face is screaming “don’t tell me what to do”

Yeah I got nothing

gay man tries to hit on a lesbian bc he thinks she's a twink. she's not amused but she's watching this happen anyway

me tired of MET's bullshit and them organising a Netrebko, known blackface apologist, a recital during Black History Month. (sorry im still fucking salty lol)

"stop smiling at me like that I'm trying to pout over here"

"I got fleas, you got fleas... wanna fuck?"

I have the best idea!

Haha nooooo don’t hit me with that bat you’re so sexxyy

lesbian is bothered by dilf

Me trying to flirt

if call me by your name was hetero and set in america

how many more dad jokes can i take before i explode

So. You’ve gotten yourself in a little pickle again.

What if we fought in the Russian revolution together ✨???????... unless??

Two people flirt in a poor place of town/

"If you ask me what I've got under this dirty, shapeless tunic one more time I swear to god I will kick your rotting teeth in"

You look like ur gonna kill me but ok

Really? You again?

Okay, I’ve been sitting here for 20 minutes, do you think it’s safe to—oh god, he’s still there.

Have you seen Godot?

she is tired of everyone’s shit. she has done so many derivatives it physically pains her to see a variable. dont test her. ur icarus rn.

idk pick better pictures-- I HAVE DIED THE SHEER AUDACITY AND HUBRIS I LOVE THIS

200% done with your crap 

Homeless man has fucking legs of steel n is gonna show off his Russian dance moves

originally taken from: the Théâtre de Capitole du Toulouse’s 2019 staging of Paul Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe-bleue, featuring Sophie Koch (right) as Ariane and I don’t remember who the person on the left is rip me

Responses:

The knight who wore this into battle sure was swaggy

dear god its hiddeous

Capitalism

Knight in shining armour gone even more wrong.

ghost contemplates the safety of spiky motorcycle helmet

„Stop! He feels bullied!“

'this is my newest take for jesus's crucifixion crown ...... what do you mean they already put him up'

That’s probably a really expensive magic helmet idk. IDK-- closest

Omg I love the adventure zone!

minesweeper (windows xp)

"Okay whatever you do don't touch the shiny spiky ball" "It's so shiny I wanna touch it"

Taking down the trash way too late

IT'S NOT A PHASE MOM

Darth Vader got stuck in the freezer.... again. Leia isn’t happy

Star Wars 2030

“And here is the very latest in motorcycle helmet trends” “Look, I only came to the mall for a pair of socks “

futuristic kkk

long-suffering jewelry store attendant really wants to retire

Put it down put it down put it down

“Hmm no you should see a doctor about that”

A weird ass crown is presented

The creation of sars-cov-2: an experimental Eurotrance nightclub art piece gone horribly wrong

How it feels to want something that u cant have

AND WE WILL CALL IT—SPIKE MAN actually do you think that’s too obvious?? Because of the—yeah, because of the spikes?? See, that’s what I’m worried about. I want it to be SCARY

I know it's risky but... lube me up

?

use the force luke.

that is a weird fleshlight

When you get an ugly gift and need to find a way to get rid of it, so your family member/friend offers to smash it

Touch the orb

originally taken from: the Opera Vlaanderen’s 2019 staging of Fromental Halévy’s La Juive, with Nicole Chevalier (left, with bottle) as Princess Eudoxie, Enea Scala (center, under table) as Prince Léopold, and Roy Cornelius Smith (right) as Éléazar

Responses:

When no one comes to your birthday party :(

fantastic, day 487 of mischief and they have yet to find my masterful hiding spot

i really wonder who he thinks he's playing footsie with

Marriage crisis. Reason sits under the table-- closest but not in the way you think (after all, the man under the table IS a tenor).

the last supper afterparty after jesus left

When you order the last supper on wish

espionage at the Politischer Rosenmontag

Probably the wrong opera but is that Leporello under the table

Now THIS is a Good Friday night

this was every birthday party i went to between the ages of 5 and 11

that awkward moment when you drop your fork under the table but when you re-emerge everyone else has left except one drunk lady and the guy trying to deal with her

After the last supper

Tfw you arrive to the dinner party too early and have to hide until a more fashionable hour

When the cishets aren’t home

waiter hides from customers

Nobody: My dog every time I’m eating:

what's left of the homies Jesus had dinner with

university chem lab experiment gone terribly wrong

I’ve been under the table FOR 30 MINUTES

Set your friends up by tossing them off under the table, they’ll think it’s each other n fall in luv

Someone hids under a table

"You're about to see an surreptitious-under-the-table-dick-sucking master at work"

5 yr old me trying to eat the desert under the table without my parents finding out be like:

They never invite me to their parties!

Just another girl’s night in

Oops! Didn’t notice you the table.

dionysus - bts (2019, colorized)

just a normal episode of eric andre (eric is the one under the table)

Just a normal day with the boys

Thievery

originally taken from: the Théâtre de Capitole du Toulouse’s 2017 staging of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Le prophète, featuring Kate Aldrich (left, surrounded by women in white) as Fidès and John Osborn (center, looking like a Jesus doppelganger) as Jean de Leyde

Responses:

Hold up, is that Eggman above Jesus?

holy disco

Looks like Tannhäuser. Our lord and saviour Richard Wagner. Now I need to be saved from that.

catholicism

me defending pineapple on pizza (THANK YOU)

jesus but hes about to be abducted by the alien ufo above him

Emmmmmmm Heaven? Idk

Lord of the rings?

ewww christianity gross

"behold, I am Important"

"Seriously?? It's not ACTUALLY pyjama day? Fuck you guys!"

Jesus at the Disco

Jesus Finds The Molerat People Who Live Under Bethlehem

disco is heaven

Want to join my new religion?

the kkk

church christmas pageant where everyone's sober but it's based on the director's fever dream

Am I the only one who sees the giant demon? Just me? Okay...

“Oh god I think I’m starting my period”

A party is held with a priest in the middle

"Let's get this secret Vatican sex party rolling!"

The new avengers endgame set is looking great!!

You know, guys, I try not to be a bother but...I can’t help but feel like I missed a dress code memo for this wedding??? It’s cocktail, right??”

Jesus visits Hogwarts

I must really stink if no one will even come close to me

the extra ass funeral i DESERVE

star wars life day

A cult at it’s best-- closest

Shrek 5, Jesus is still there I guess

originally taken from: the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden’s 2013 staging of Giuseppe Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes, featuring Bryan Hymel (left, standing) as Henri, Lianna Haroutounian (center, kneeling in the black gown) as Duchess Hélène, and Erwin Schrott (kneeling to her right) as Jean Procida

Responses:

When the director’s like “great rehearsal guys, just a few notes before I let you go” but it’s already 9:13 and your mom’s waiting in the parking lot

loyalist of subjects

bow before your queen

They forgot to take down the stage boxes after the Vienna opera ball but the show must go on.

somebody forgot to book chairs for this funeral

Me sharing God’s (Hayley koyoko) word on the discord server

mass execution bc the oboe solo sucked ass-- closest

That’s too many black suits I can’t see shit

I can’t even tell what’s going on here

8th grade school assembly about how it's uncool to shit on the walls at school

let's all get fancy so we can go to the opera and sit on the stage (idk this one's hard lol)

"Yes i am a time traveller, now don't freak out"

Tfw you forget to pay your lighting bills

White guys make decisions that will benefit them and screw someone that’s not a white guy over-- OUCH but that is too real (although not really in context here)

dead man gives speech at his own funeral

brotus and the boys ??? last meeting before the stabbing

high society social function ends in mass murder-- right opera, wrong scene

Someone walks into the talent show stage with a dog

Black-dressed bitches worship a man.

Worst school assembly of all time

POV:You're the window in the classroom and someone said "its snowing"

When the conductor shows up fashionably late to the orchestra concert

That's what you get for choosing the cheapest ticket option, get back in the mud where you belong

?

theyre just trying to jump into a grave at a funeral leabe them alone this is normal

oh my god he really whipped his dick out in front of everyone, this is just like in 1776 guys, except some women are actually in the room this time,

A funeral, stop wearing so much black

I want to slap their bald heads like rice

originally taken from: the Teatro Real Madrid’s 2018 staging of Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, featuring Roberto Tagliavini (right) as Raimondo

Responses:

Crowd “haha!! Looks like someone missed the all-black memo!! Now it’s laugh-in-your-face time! / Guy on the floor (whispering to guy against wall): go, save yourself! I’ll hold them off...”

if i leave now i wont be a witness and can tell the police i had no idea

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Guy in the back pretends to help but is to far away to even know what’s going on.

priest walks in on beginning of an orgy, contemplated joining but is too scared-

when someone brings up capitalism but you’re just trying to play minecraft

lol lets trample this guy while the judge isnt looking

Again. Too many black costumes

Loved this Dostoevsky novel

i would know if opera directors were more creative with clothing choices ngl

me on parties lol

"imma just sneak out of here while everyone else is distracted"

"Where did he get this flooring!? Amazing!"

Everyone act normal!

The tell tale heart but they got REALLY drunk

man tposes to ward off vampires after being caught undercover

boys ???? night

the priest really shouldn't have visited the insane asylum-- closest

He’s FINE everyone’s been hit by a car before

Something happens in a room.

Perks of being a wallflower

There's always that one person in the fight whos trying not to get involved when they really wanna

Oh good, they’re all posing for a Rembrandt painting, I can just sneeeeaaak out the back here...

The gamer livestreaming Resident Evil + everyone watching the stream ? waiting for him to open the door just knowing it will trigger a chase scene

Quick!

the guy t posing in the back is regretting his every decision.-- also accurate

the us senate jumps ted cruz, some other wack ass gop senator is trying to sneak away

...I spoke too soon, however this is a James Bond mission

Queers help fellow queer do math but it's a struggle

#opera #opera tag #results #screencaps #captions #caption #caption this #caption contest #this seems to have gone over well and I am Pleased

[thereisonlyoneoption]

Maggie Stiefvater~Rant YA edition pt.1

Let me start by saying that YA was never close to me.When I was younger I missed the trend of reading Young Adult. I only heard the opinions reviews about these books and saw the covers in the bookstore but none of them  encouraged me to try to read them.

But recently I wanted to give them a chance, thanks to my college friends who could talk hours about these books. And the one series that was the most recomended to me was The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater.

I started reading this series with an open mind because hey maybe I was wrong about YA the entire time? OH BOI I WAS SO WRONG !  

I have read the series in a month and I can't believe what inconsistent mess it was.

So forgive me if I miss something.

For context, I have read it in my native language and this books draged on and on. Like seriously I'm a fast reader but TRC took me like three times as normaly would do to finish it. So after that I checked the english version, because maybe it was the translation's fault. NOPE, while reading the orginal I wondered if I can even understand english.

For so long I wanted to write a rant about these books so here I am wasting my will to live and sleep on this hellsite. This is a part one, the next parts will be coming soon. 

Use of folklore/mythology

Ms. Stiefvater in all her series uses many different myths and legends or like she calls "steal" them for her works.

In the first book is described St. Mark's Eve and the main character sees the "ghost" of the other main character. After asking her aunt what it meant, she says: "There is only two reasons: either you’re his true love or you killed him."

Yes but actually no.The Eve of St. Mark was about seeing the "ghosts" of people who will die this year but a girl could see the face of her future husband on her smock by holding it before the fire, this is one of many similar superstitions. But there is nothing about his death.

Owen Glendower

The main quest of the story is to find the sleeping Welsh King, but why nobody asks what is he doing in North America, especially in Virginia of all places?

Owain Glyndŵr died in 1416 in Wales so how they moved his body to America? To yet undiscovered America mind you but okay lets ignore that for the plot sake.

So lets talk about association Glyndŵr with ravens which apperead in this book and well I searched the whole internet and founded only one guy associated with ravens: Sir Yyain who was based on the historical Owain mab Urien but not the Glyndŵr from TRC

Stiefvater is also using anglicized version of his name Owen Glendower, which is kinda disrespectful because he is a Welsh king and he has a Welsh name so maybe use his real name? It isn’t difficult to pronounce his name by the way. That’s why from any point in this rant I will use his real name.

And we know all know the main characters want to find him because he will grant them wishes. This is also bullshit because Glyndŵr fall into category of “King asleep in mountain” who will only awake to protect his country not be like jinn from Aladdin.

Ley line

The whole idea of ley lines is a New Age bullshit, because something  related to this in folklore are corpse roads and fairy paths. They are similar but have nothing in common with what ley lines are.

Tarot

In short, one of the main character pulls out the cart of Death and is told by psychic it means his demise BUT the cart of Death doesn’t mean literally death of person and even if you pointed in your story that this example means death it doesn’t change the fact.

BONUS ROUND (My friend gave me info about this)

In Scorpio Races, Stiefvater uses the myth of water horses, but uses only a fraction of it, leaving out the most important parts. From shape-shifting creatures that can be anything (from a old man to a bird) luring people to their deaths or fooling women in the shape of handsome young man, Stiefvater turns them into nothing more then a killer horses from sea.

The other thing is the name: capaill uisce. The name is irish or old irish and is equal to the Manx cabyll-ushtey. The problem is, the horses Stiefvater presents are closer to the Scottish each-uisge then to cabyll-ushtey. One could say "a water horse is a water horse, what does it matter?", to put it simple: capaill uisce is a water horse, but NOT all water horses are capaill uisce. The kelpie drowns people in fresh water, Welsh ceffyl dwr appears by waterfalls but doesn't drown their victims, and each-uisge are in the sea, devouring humans but leaving their livers. Those are only some examples. Would it be more logical to name the horses "each-uisge"? I don't know, if I knew were Thisby is, maybe I could say it for sure.

More on this in the Worldbuilding part.

#anti maggie stiefvater #anti the raven cycle #anti trc #anti ya #anti shiver #anti scorpio races #anti tsc

[thescorpioracesfestival]

Week 1 - Challenges 1-3 (Kind Of)

@sailingthroughemotion - Jen and Realist This story is continued from the 2018 festival. Check out the #tsrf2018 tag on my blog, if you’re curious (but it’s not necessary).

Huo and I have been busy. And, no, not in that way. Although maybe not without that, but we’ve hardly got enough time to even put a second thought into that because our schedules are constantly jam-packed. 

Our winter was spent mostly coasting - my parents had left me a healthy amount of money which Huo and I split into improving his house a bit to accommodate for aging Jax, who was starting to get a bit fed up with the boarding life, and fixing up my motorcycle. It was enough to pay for electricity for a good while, so I opted for taking shorter shifts at the butcher’s so I could work more on the house and with Realist. He doesn’t get to sit after the race season like he had the year prior - any signs of previous injuries are nothing but distant memories, so I continued to work with him. He’s a young, healthy stallion - he could use the muscle and the brain food. After Huo’s final reconciliation with Blue, he has seemed to have gotten over his aversion to capaill, and after we put the finishing touches on Jax’s backyard resort, he even opted for using Realist as his “ranch” horse. It’s quite a sight to behold, really - a pint-sized capall under a slightly archaic Western saddle with a slightly too-tall Thisby islander settled onto him. I am quite relieved that Realist doesn’t throw a fit about the different saddle or the new rider. Huo does ride differently - he doesn’t play around and debate with Realist like I do, but rather just works with him straight on. It’s a functioning system and sometimes I find myself quite fond of how supple Realist is under a tom-thumb bit. Our spring was spent in a similar fashion, except Realist had become virtually Huo’s horse, and when I wasn’t at the shop or tuning the motorcycle, I was tending to Jax’s arthritic needs. During my brother’s visit, he acquired himself a horse with a distant capall lineage that was suitable for export and agreed to start working our family’s Thoroughbred farm again. Business was rolling in for them again, I guess, so I was welcome to the funds some more, meaning I could get some nicer riding gear and have enough to pay for the insane import prices on some of the supplements Jax desperately needed. Jax is a sweet old man - it’s easy to see how he and Huo have been coworkers for so long, and evening now and again I layer on a few extra blankets under my English saddle and take him for a spin around the pasture. He’s stiff and he doesn’t have the same dangerous energy that a capall does, but he’s still a pleasure to mess around with. Huo, too, hasn’t been empty-handed. When he’s not steering Realist through his sheep, he’s working on his truck, and if the truck is up and running, he’s coursing to Skarmouth and back to sell his wool and some of his lambs. I can definitely say that it’s been nice. We have a comfortable routine, and although sometimes it gets a bit monotonous, it’s at the very least a rhythm rather than chaos. I happen to be one of the few people on Thisby that can say that they have nothing to fear - the whole island may want me dead (it’s been proven every single time I’ve tried to step foot around the races), but as long as I am just living along with this hunk of grass and rock, topped with a generous amount of sand, I can most certainly say that I haven’t got a single thing to complain about. — My knuckles ache from writing with a piece of chalk all evening and I’ve lost count of how many names I’ve written down. A few of the men and women that recognize me ask me if I’m planning on taking another year off while a few of the boys and girls that don’t, look at my scars and ask me if I’ve ever ridden. I recount my evening to Huo as we lay sprawled on the bed, half-reading forgotten letters. Huo is unusually quiet. “I don’t think I’m going to waste my time this year,” I continue anyway, scoffing. “That stupid race has nearly cost me my life twice now and for what? Spare change?” More silence. And then, “I ran Realist this morning.” I can already tell where this one is going and I’m ready to roll my eyes when what he says next catches me completely off-guard. “Some passing couple recognized him.” “From what?” I furrowed my brow. It wasn’t uncommon to see capaill surface and disappear and surface again. I mostly hoped that it was from the races - I wouldn’t want somebody making claims about a horse they lost some number of years ago. “From when you trained Kaitlyn,” he said it so coldly that my heart almost jumped to my throat. I had never told him about Kaitlyn. I only turned back after crossing the finish line with the excuse that she had been ‘just someone I thought I recognized’; I only went ot her funeral under the guise of it having been a surprise shift at the butcher’s and that had been a public service, as most race-casualty services often were, so I didn’t recognize any of the people there. My hear began to beat loudly against my ribcage. “H-her parents?” I stammered. Huo gave me the barest of nods. “How did the find out?” My voice suddenly sounded small, timid. “Her diary,” Huo said with a dry laugh. “I’m sorry I kept it from you, Huo, I-” my breathing began to hitch in my throat - to live under one roof with a man and not tell him about the possibility of a horribly miscalculated risk… “That’s not what I’m…” he exhaled through his nose and tried again. “That’s not the issue. They want an explanation. They want some kind of compensation.” “They’re trying to frame me for murder,” I said out-loud what I knew I never shoudl have. “Thisby laws protect capall owners, but they don’t protect trainers,” Huo continued. “No, hold on - do they think that I forced her to catch that thing?” I sat up, wild-eyed. “That’s not the point, Jen, you can’t just run head-first at this, listen to me,” he took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “You signed the entry form for her, didn’t you?” “Yes, but I-” “Her parents didn’t even know she was racing, Jen!” Huo’s voice was so thoroughly steeped with disappointment that I just wanted to fall through the floor then and there. “But she told me…” my eyes began to fill with tears of frustration. The cognitive dissonance between grieving for Kaitlyn’s death and wanting to blame her for what was slowly registering as the end of the world was tearing me apart. “She kept talking about her brother, and…” “She was an only child,” Huo’s voice softened a bit and he finally sat up and gathered me into his arms. For the first time in a while, he smelled of horse sweat. He really did run Realist. “She lied to you, she lief to her parents, she lied to everyone.” I began to sob like a small child. Not the usual polite, bottled anguish I would usually put myself through to make sure I was silent, but instead helpless, uncontrollable wailing. I was both terrified and awashed with a new wave of grief. Not for the blonde-haired girl with the determined eyes but for the big-withered raven black mare that had the heart to die for her. I thought of Realist and how he longed only for my company and not the lulls of the ocean. I thought of Jax and how many years he’s served and how little he probably has left. And Huo held me, and he let me cry, and let me cling to him like I was not his strong, equally grounded girlfriend, but like I was sickly, toddler-aged granddaughter. Once I felt like I could breathe again I got myself a glass of water and Huo and I stood like coast-worn statues in the darkness of the kitchen. “How much do they want as compensation?” I managed, trying not to hide my disgust at the fact at calling monetary value ‘compensation’ for a human life. “Some… twenty thousand, thirty?” he scratched the back of his head. “Good lord,” I smiled, although I didn’t know why. “And if we - if I don’t pay it back…?” This was my problem, not Huo’s, if I hadn’t thought to tell him of this earlier, why should I have to drag him into it now? “They’re taking it to the mainland court. They family’s not from Thisby.” “Fucking Christ!” I exclaimed, feeling the animalistic urge to shatter the cup I was holding but somewhere deep inside, my sensible, grounded, equestrian self pulled back on the reins. — The road to Skarmouth that night felt like the road to purgatory. Most lights were off or dimmed, only the caterwaul of distant capaill and the perpetual crashing of waves gracing the stillness. I unlocked the back of the butcher’s and carefully snuck my way behind the counter desipte knowing that I was the only one there. I felt a deep need for secrecy, for if anyone found out the real reason I was actually putting my life on the line in these island games again, I’d die of shame alone - to hell with sea monsters and cliffs. I took the chalk in my still-aching hand and added an extra line: “Jen - Realist”. And just for good luck, I threw some coins into the betting jar with my name on it that I had kept from last year, just for good luck. The coins hit the bare glass walls with a hollow, resounding clatter. I needed all the good luck I could get this year.

#the scorpio races #the scorpio races festival #TSRF2019 #submission #TSRF2019: sailingthroughemotion #TSRF2019: Rider Challenges #TSRF2019 RC1 #TSRF2019 RC2 #TSRF2019 RC3

[cow3survivor]

Ep. 13: “I Need To Make Moves Here And This Is A Big One” - Mikey

JENNET

guilt tripping everybody that voted out sammy bc that was such a weird move and shows how weak everyone really is. idk it made 0 difference to me, i honestly could care less about this round. if i get immunity, mikey is playing the idol on himself if he gets immunity im getting the idol so it really does not matter

JESSICA

Woo the plan worked and Sammy is gone! He seemed sad because he said he wanted to stick with me but his actions didn't really align with that. My goal is still to get Jennet and Jones out. I feel bad because Jennet is now in a position where they’ve been targeted every round of merge and a lot of that is for little to no reason. I don't really know why Lovelis tried to vote for them, or why their name came up when Daisy left, and the round Sam went home I only said their name to try and protect Lindsay. And last round their name was a decoy.... but still! They have been through a lot and I feel bad. But unfortunately because of this, they are definitely winning if they make the end. They haven’t betrayed a lot of the jury, they now have this great underdog story if they make it, and their whole game is about loyalty and honesty and all that stuff betrayed jurors jut love to vote for. Which I will say.......... it's easy to be loyal and honest when you don't align or overly strategize with half the team. It also leaves you super vulnerable to being a target sooooo I feel bad but I also feel like that's the reality of blocking yourself off to so many people. Since Sam is sadly gone, my new ideal final 5 is Lindsay, Shane, Mikey, and Jake. That will get awkward because I feel like it'll fall into 2 vs 2 and they'll all expect me to stick with them. That would be the downside to my strategy of "align with everyone and make everyone feel like you're their option" buuuut I think I'm saved by the fact that asides Jennet, I feel I can beat everyone left at the end. I don't think it's a guarantee; I'll definitely have to do a good FTC. But Shane and Lindsay have really bad social games -- Shane fights with everyone and betrays close allies for no reason and Lindsay apparently doesn't even talk to half the people left. Yesterday, Jake and Mikey both said they thought Shane would win at the end because "he's made so many moves!!!" which is ummmm not very feminist because I think everyone credits him with doing a lot more in the Daisy vote than he actually did. I feel very much like the Natalie White of this season because my relationships are really what is holding everything together. I just have to be careful that people don't see me as keeping Shane around when he's an obvious threat because that could definitely damage my chances of winning. However.... there is something that could upset that f5 and that is if this round, Jones/Mikey/Jake/Jennet all want to vote out Shane or Lindsay (again). I'm not actually that opposed to this happening because it would be very useful for me to have a close ally on jury to tell them what I did. It would also mean I don't really have to "decide" who to pick at f5 but I would still be relatively protected. However I also worry that if Jennet gets through even one more round, Mikey, Jones, and maybe even Jake will just refuse to vote them out like they did before. Mikey admitted to me he knows Jennet will win at the end but if he feels like he has no shot, he might just keep them around because they're close and that is not a great sign for me! I guess we'll see what happens with immunity. Also go me for being the last person left with no votes against them :~)

JENNET

something about a white man yelling over me last night when it was my turn to speak doesnt sit right with me... i dont want to make it a race thing or a “gender” thing but .... idk its kinda taken me out of the game i dont even feel like campaigning to stay tbh...

(a little later)

soon as shane won immunity here go jessica pming me saying she hates that he won... pls that is ur ally u love the fact that he won... just admit it tired of these people playing in my face but i dont wanna play into that role that i know i fall into fairly quick

(after taking a beach stroll)

this may be my last week i fear 🕴🏾

(after taking the camera and running into the woods)

jess must think im a fool every round she “leaks” info to me and then she does the complete opposite of what she says she will. im sorry its pathetic at least this round she told me shes voting me pero its like now shes asking me if i have any alternatives that i can convince her into doing and im like... girl its one of my allies and like 5 of urs left dont play me like im some dummy .... so that u can tell them im pushing for them and give more reason for them to want me out? she not getting my jury vote for sure

SHANE

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-4Q_LE3wnSM_Pi3HAmSvuoCVrNzX_dTn

LINDSAY

jennet is the target. if they have an idol i will probably go home. i have crippling anxiety 🤩 im sorry thisbis so short there's not much to report on. there was a miscommunication between everyone that mikey caused but nothing rly came of it. im just you know how sometimes when youre abt to fall bur you catch yourself your stomach does thise little flips? thats me for the past hour. i have a bad feeling abt this, but i also have crippling anxiety so shocker

JESSICA

me yesterday: If Lindsay or Shane got 7th, I wouldn't be sad! me now: ummmmmmmmm no stop being silly Anyways we are all voting Jennet as of right now. I told Mikey that we were splitting votes on him and Jennet potentially (so that I could get Mikey to vote Jennet, meaning Shane or Lindsay could throw 1 vote on Mikey in the event of an idol) but then Mikey went and told everyone I said that??? Which was a weird move, I don't know if he was hoping it would blow up on me but I just admitted to everyone what my strategy was. Now it seems like they just don't trust Mikey. Which is useful for next round, if I can make it there. I also told Shane and Jake that Mikey asked me if they were threats and I'd said yes. I told Shane and Jake this so that in the event Mikey went to them, they'd already have a heads up and wouldn't be suspicious (because Mikey leaks almost everything and I felt like that would definitely happen). I also accidentally implied to Jake that Shane was targeting him?? Not really sure how that happened but there was this weird temporary blowup where Jake went to Mikey and Shane and said he heard they were saying his name. Obviously I was NOT excited for this because I was worried it would come back against me instantly so I tried to smooth things over with Shane and Jake + told Mikey it's not cute to leak info! I'm hoping that the three of them are pointing their daggers at each other and haven't turned on me but it was definitely scary for a minute. I also told Mikey Shane originally wanted Jake to go when Daisy left AND that I thought Shane/Lindsay would vote Jake out next. I can explain both of these away pretty easily to Jake (1. That vote was a long time ago and he only wanted to do it because Jake was saying Lindsay and 2. I was just saying they'd vote him out next to make Mikey comfortable) but he isn't online to give me the chance to do it and I don't want to bombard him with messages. But here's where I am 2 hours before we vote...... I'm ultra paranoid Jennet has an idol. And she knows she's going tonight. Everyone was like "don't tell her she's leaving!" and I was like???? She knows?? I'm not wasting her time pretending like I'm not considering voting for her. So now....... should me, Shane, Lindsay just vote out Mikey (or Jake?) instead? I'm hesitant to bring this plan up to anyone for a few reasons: - None of these people can keep a damn secret!! - If we flip and Mikey does vote Jennet (and there's no idol), it will be 3-3-1. Really not liking that - I don't thiiiiink Jennet would idol me out if they were to idol anyone. I'm afraid to bet on this too heavily but I really, reaaaaally hope because I'm being honest with them this round, they would see me as someone who would maybe work with them at f6/f5 (as opposed to Jake, who has lied to them and Jones who flipped last round, and Lindsay who she says she wants out). I originally!!! Thought that Mikey would never vote for me but I'm honestly not sure after today - Jake is completely MIA today, same with Jones. Jake SHOULD trust me since I've warned him whenever I've heard his name but I'm worried after the shenanigans of earlier + him not responding that he's now sketched out by me - I don't want Jennet in the f6 (sorry Jennet!) because I think if we lie to the others about who we vote, they are more likely to go to rocks for them if we vote them next time. Like right now, Mikey is not going to a rock for Jake (or vice versa) but I think both would do it for Jennet if they felt they were their only path to the end. If people go to rocks for Jennet like we might as well all pack it in now and let them win because that just shows!! How good their relationships are. The reason I'd want to switch the plan is because if Jennet has an idol,  they are absolutely playing it tonight. If they don’t have it, they don’t have it, but that means Jake or Mikey could. So like.... why not do a fake out and have a higher chance of getting the merge idol out of here? Plus if Jennet doesn't play it tonight, we can vote them tomorrow with much more ease. I'm worried people are too aware that I'm really moving things behind the scenes and are going to come for me this round. Here's where I'm hoping my strategy of be everyone's BFF / an option for everyone will help me out -- Lindsay is a bigger threat than me and has done a lot less of that work so in the event Jake and Jones DO decide to turn..... I think they'd vote for her over me. But that's not really ideal because going into a F6 with only 2/3 of my end game trio is not the look! Despite what I delusion-ly thought yesterday!

JONES

fukjlkjdsflakjsdalfskdfja i have a rlly bad gut feeling i'm going home bc its like ,, , too quiet and too straight forward, i think jessica should be going this round ? either she'll be idoled out or voted out 4-3 ya feel,, i'm just ,, my stomach hurts i need jessica to get voted out she's like ,, my only competitor in terms of gameplay style >? ya feel ? i'm not excited for whatever happens after tribal,, so maybe i throw up, maybe i get voted out , either way i'm free

JAKE

Yeah so that last move was a mistake lmaooo I thought Mikey and Jennet were tighter with Sammy than they actually were 😬 so now I’m just trying to regroup from that. Seems like Jennet is the target but I feel terrible voting her out so I’m sort of at a loss. I also don’t want Mikey to be left out again so just trying to figure out what’s best for me eek 🥺

MIKEY

OK SO. Me Jake and Jennet are voting jessica, jones is voting jennet and Im gonna play my idol on jennet. I need to make moves here and this is a big one. Sorry JESSICA!

#cowsurvivor #confessionals

[windwardrose]

The Scorpio Races Festival writing challenge...9.5? 10? (I know not)

Race’s in four days.

The third day before the Races, Niss woke up sick and thirsty and dry-mouthed, her joints stiff and her head aching, her arm throbbing when she moved it unthinkingly. Early morning light stabbed into her eyes and she spent a few half-remembered minutes stumbling around; thinking back she recalled standing in a strange bathroom and splashing water on her face, lapping it up from her hands and tasting the salt from off her skin and hair. The eyes in the mirror stared out from sunken pale sockets.

She slept most of that day – sometimes next to Casey on the bed, it being convenient, and later in a tattered armchair by the window. Neither the doctor nor anyone else seemed inclined to chase her out, or else they told her to leave and she fell asleep before she remembered to obey.

Bren Darvin came at noon and stayed, his plaid mainland coat traded for a shapeless woolen jacket and his hair jagged and messy. The look in his eyes reminded Niss of the look in Casey’s the night of the Festival.

In the middle of the cold gray afternoon Niss woke and saw Bren poking the fire in the woodstove with the tongs, fitfully. He must have felt a notice on him, for he turned his head.

“They said you saved Casey,” Bren said.

“I tried,” Niss said. She fumbled for the glass of water someone had left at her elbow; she was in the chair by that time.

Bren’s mouth quirked up.  “Thank you.” And then, “It’s my fault, really. I left the island. And now she rides that stupid savage beast I hauled out of the sea, back when I was a kid and thought it would fix something.” His shoulders slumped. “She’s got me trained. This’s my third year coming back to see her race.”

“I don’t think she rides just because of you,” Niss said. The water cleared the dusty taste in her mouth. “At least she wouldn’t have to. I figure she’s got her own reasons.”

“What do you ride for?” Bren said.

Niss took another swallow of water.

“Because it’s beautiful,” she said.

“Beautiful?” Bren’s voice was incredulous.

“It’s like the Gloria and the sea and the evening star,” Niss said. “Like things that are made and meant.” Her voice seemed disconnected from her, floating out in the middle of the air. The ache traveled up and down her arm like the ebb and flow of the tide. “The capaill run and we ride them; it’s how it’s meant to be, and to do well what you’re meant to do, that’s beautiful.”

It made her cringe to remember it later – saying things like that to a stranger. Fear and what came after it would do that to you, aside from the dizziness of blood loss. But even when she thought of it later she couldn’t disagree with what she’d said.

 The second day before the Races, Niss’s parents turned up.

Word of her misfortune would ordinarily have reached them sooner – Thisby gossip being as it was – but news of injured riders from the beaches was barely even news, here in the bloody end of October. Niss didn’t mind the mercy of an extra day, so that she could be on her feet again properly by the time Mum swept in.

It took Mum five minutes to notice Casey and Bren, but when she did, things happened quickly.

“Is that the girl you saved from her capall, Niss, love? And you, young fellow – you’re her brother – oh, Jack Darvin’s grandchildren – of course. Condolences for your dear grandfather. I didn’t know you were back to the island – oh – for the races, of course…”

Dad arched an eyebrow from where he stood in the doorframe, but he was smiling. Niss smiled back, cautiously.

Somehow within the hour the doctor was explaining to Mum that Casey shouldn’t be moved yet, and Mum was telling the doctor that there wasn’t any sense in sending the girl back to her boarding-house in this condition; and she, Ann Vesper, would not abandon a poor child in such a moment; the doctor should be sure that Casey Darvin would have a place to go once she was better. And Bren and Niss ended up getting Mum’s command to come back to the Vesper house for dinner, which Niss refused on account of not knowing if she could walk to the end of the block at the moment, and Bren accepted, very hesitantly.

Dad left the room last, after Mum had hurried Bren out amidst a flurry of friendly questions. He looked from Niss to Casey and back to Niss.

“You’re a brave girl,” he said to Niss, “and I don’t mind saying I’m awfully proud of you. I shouldn’t call you brave just for being a rider in the Races – but for being a rider and for doing what you did.”

Niss squirmed, as much as she comfortably could. “I wasn’t brave,” she said. “Just didn’t have time to be scared till I was already there.”

Dad laughed, kindly, but then his face grew more serious. “You’ve heard what the doctor says about your friend.”

“Some,” said Niss, a little lick of fear cold inside her all of a sudden.

“Time’s what will tell.” Dad crossed the room, then, for a quick moment and bent to kiss Niss on the forehead. One rough hand rubbed softly across her hair. “You’re my brave wild girl, Niss Vesper.”

“Love you, Dad,” said Niss into his flannel shirt-front, under the warm touch of his hand. Then, “I’m still going to ride. I don’t know where they’ve put Seal though.”

Dad laughed again, and Niss felt it as well as heard it.

“If Owen Keifer’s got my message yet, your capall’s going to be in our back pasture waiting for you. Your mum’s going to fuss like a damp cat, but I still know how to manage a water horse.”

“Just don’t try to put a saddle on her,” Niss said. “Seal hates saddles.”

 The last day before the Races, Niss woke in the small dark hours of the morning to some indefinable change in the air of the room.

“Hullo?” she said into the dimness, suddenly afraid though she could not tell why.

The answer came half-breath, half-sound, from the bed an arm’s reach away:

“Hullo yourself.”

Niss sat up, then, wincing. The light took a moment longer to scrabble into existence; when it was on, Casey’s wide feverish eyes flicked away from it, bright blue above her hollow cheeks.

“You’re all right,” Casey murmured.

“All right enough.”

“Good.” Casey paused then, a sharp shallow breath that turned into a cough. And then, “Moonset?”

“Back in the sea,” Niss said.

“Blast,” said Casey, with surprising feeling in the whisper. “I am a nitwit.”

Niss leaned forward. “No, you just had your capall try to eat you, like a couple hundred Thisby folk have had happen to them for as long as time. You can catch another one, you know.”

“I was just now getting that one to run straight,” Casey said. She twitched one side of her mouth, something like a smile. “Bren’s here.”

“Yes. I mean, he’s gone now, but he was here and he’ll be back.”

“Here and back,” muttered Casey. “How very like Bren.”

Outside the curtains, the dawn must have been coming, for the room was beginning to gray. Niss waited, because Casey’s eyes had slipped shut again, and listened for her friend’s soft ragged breaths.

“The Races are tomorrow,” Niss said. “You’ve been – asleep for a bit.”

Casey’s eyelids flickered, her mouth shaping a word Niss couldn’t catch.

“I should tell you I’ll win the races for you, shouldn’t I?” Niss found the words pouring out of her, like a loosed spring unwinding. “But I don’t think I will; maybe you would have won, though, and maybe you will next year, you’re a better rider than I. I don’t care about the winning, not really. But I do mean to ride.”

Shyly Niss reached out, then, and touched her fingers to Casey’s hair, brushing through the salt-matted strands. Casey turned towards Niss, ever so slightly, resting her head against Niss’s hand.

And all of a sudden Niss was angry at time, at the clock, at the dawn, at the waves on the beach that washed every mark off the sand no matter how deep it was graven: angry most of all at the small dark corner of herself that believed nothing would last, angry because it was right. Because there was nothing you could do about things really, in the end, if something were to leave you.

Time like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons away, she’d sung in the church choir. They fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day…

A month of fleeting across the sands, like seabirds into the sunset, and this was where it got them – alone together in the dark before dawn, Casey fragile and mortal under Niss’s hand, every breath shaking through her. It didn’t seem fair. Nothing seemed fair.

“Do not die,” Niss snapped. Her voice shook. “Do not dare die. I’m going to go ride Seal now, and I’ll come back tonight, and then I’ll ride in the Races and come again tomorrow night. All right?”

“All right,” Casey said.

In Niss’s mind the song played on, endless and brilliant as the new sunlight she walked out shakily into a quarter-hour later. O God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come…

Niss squinted against the sun just as Casey had squinted against the lamplight. Thisby was coming awake around her, doors and windows opening. Soon there’d be people down at the beaches… She wondered if she could find someone to give her a lift up to her parents’ place; walking might take a while. And then to try to find a path to get Seal down without running into any strange capaill on the way. That would be impossible, likely. And tomorrow there’d be no more escaping from strange capaill, so she’d best get used to the idea.

Nobody seemed immediately around on the street to give her a lift, so Niss decided she had to start walking and hope for the best. Her footsteps caught a rhythm as she set out, boots on cobblestones, singing with the tune in her head.

…Be Thou our guard while life shall last and our eternal home.

#tsrf2017 #thescorpioracesfestival #Seal-and-Vesper #story

[novemberseas-novemberskies]

Tourist Challenge #10: Betting

           “You a gambling woman?” John asks me over tea the next afternoon. He and Gwen have already been to the stables and back for the day. Tomorrow is race day, and there is very little to be done now. The capaill and their riders are either ready or they are not, and even the King and Queen of the Races cannot help them much.

           “Once upon a time it was that Lucy could beat even the cockiest tourists and wiliest islanders out of their money at twenty-one,” Gwen tells him, giving me a wink.

           “Until the head housemaid caught me returning from the Black-Eyed Girl one night with pockets full of money and whiskey on my breath.”

           We all get a good laugh out of the anecdote, and I shake my head at the girl I used to be. It seems she enjoyed life quite a bit more than I have in a very long time.

           “Fancy trying your hand at betting on the Races?” John slides a betting slip across the table to me. “Picked a couple up at Grattons on our way back. I figure between the King and Queen of the Races and the Lady of Luck we can put together a decent shot.

           “Yes, all right, why not,” I say, looking down at the list of names. It’s a jumble of traditional Thisby names, mainland monikers, and appellations that are foreign on my tongue. I recognize a handful of them, old classmates and acquaintances whom I am not sure I would know on sight any longer. I am sure they would no longer know me.

           “Lily Isaac, now she’s ridden in the past, rode in my race last year.” John points to a name halfway down the page. “Didn’t win on Cosmo, but I like the look of them this year.”

           “I’m more inclined toward Manon Voltura. She’s not a native of Thisby, but I’ve watched her work Cattivo all year and that stallion…” Gwen gives a slight shiver. “There’s ferocity in that one I haven’t seen in a long time.”

           “If she can get him going straight and keep him away from the ocean.”

           “Well there’s always Claire Dalton and Elemental…”

           They go back and forth like this, weighing the strengths and weaknesses of horses and riders alike. It is like listening to another language, or sitting in on the meeting of a secret society to which I have never been privy. Watching the Races for years is no substitute for living them I suppose. They are animated, passionate. I cannot remember the last time I saw such a spirited conversation. It has been all polite exchanges and “how do you do” for the past four years. This island and her people are simply more alive. Perhaps it is to make up for all the death that visits it through the year. I wonder if I have simply been living a poor imitation of life these last few years, accepting it as good because of its wealth and luxury and glamour. But sitting in the small kitchen licking the sticky sweetness of cinnamon twists off my fingers while rain lashes the windows and the fire crackles cheerfully in its hearth and two of my oldest friends talk and laugh and live, I wonder how I have accepted such a bland existence.

           I finally settle on Mercy Seaverson and her mare Eitilt. They are both relative unknowns, but are one of the only pairs that Gwen and John can agree on, and I have always felt a kinship with those who take destiny into their own hands. We sit late into the night, long after I have marked my betting slip and we have all tossed a fiver into the pot for good measure. We do not expect to make much money off it, but we dream of what we will do should we win. Gwen tells the story of how John proposed. He blushes through the whole thing and kisses her on the cheek. John shyly reads an excerpt from his book, and I feel sick and proud and sad all at once to know this man who has survived so much. They catch me up on all the mundane happenings of the island: There is a new schoolteacher. That American, George Holly, is still trying to tempt Sean Kendrick to the Mainland. Malvern’s has seen a downturn in business of late. Puck Connolly is rumored to be pregnant and people have already begun taking bets as to how old the child will be before they are sitting astride a horse; the current bet is on three months. It is shaping up to be a harsh winter.

           It is all so very normal, the sort of talk that you exchange with a neighbor in line at Palsson’s. But to me it is a window into another world, a world that once was mine, a world that I feel sitting there by the fire, comfortably warm and tired, could be mine again. I could fit back into this world of horses and small town gossip and November rain. I fall asleep in my chair, and I dream of the life I gave away.

@thescorpioracesfestival

#Tourist Challenge 10 #TSRF2017 #the scorpio races festival #Lucy

[roseravenkey]

Rider Challenge #8: The Mainland

@thescorpioracesfestival​

It’s the morning after the ‘nice family dinner’ and I’m lying in bed still. I don’t know if Sebs is still pissed at me or not. He’s clattering pots around downstairs as if he is still angry, but he does that every morning. I’ll wait until he’s had coffee then I’ll go out to feed the capaill. Problem is, I don’t know when he’ll finish it. So I sigh and get up. I put socks on (who sleeps in socks?) and my jacket which I’d thankfully brought up to my room with me last night. I don’t even bother to change out of my pyjamas. No time. I creep down the stairs as quickly as I can, not wanting to irritate the dragon in the kitchen. I’m hoping to slip out the house unnoticed but the cat comes and greets me with loud mewls. 

“Cap! No!” I hiss “Shut up! Please? Quiet!”

“Morning Tessa.” Sebs drawls as he leans up against the doorframe with a mug of coffee. I look up at his face. He’s still pissed, that much is evident. But whether it’s because it’s pre 9am or because of me I don’t know. 

“Mmmorning?” I say back, a little unsure right now. This doesn’t happen. I can usually avoid the dragon before he’s woken up. I go cautiously towards the door and he lets me pass without moving. I quickly put on my wellies and get out the door before any confrontation.

I said before that I was coming out to feed the capaill. Thing is, they don’t get fed in the mornings. But I need to avoid Sebs. At least until after 10:30.

So I go into the barn and check Dor’s seaweed leg wraps and fill up the water buckets. I then go into Sleipnir’s stable with a leather headcollar and slip it on him. I tie him up on a loose rope so he can still move, but not too much in the roomy stable. I check his leg wraps, pick up his hooves and check the soles for any signs of rot or other impediments. I run my hand over his legs, looking for scratches or cuts that need disinfecting. I’m satisfied when I find none. He’s in tip top condition, like always. I make sure of it. I grab some brushes from the box just outside his stable door and start to groom him. He becomes almost like a normal horse when I groom him. He loves it. I’m careful to remove every speck of dirt from his sleek coat. I keep grooming until he is spotless. I then move onto his mane and tail. I undo them from their protective braids, that keep him from rubbing all his hair off on the stable doors when the sea sings to him at night. The braids make his long dark mane all wavy and soft. I brush through it anyway, mostly just smoothing it all down. Then I move onto the tail, also soft and wavy from the braids. It has a few more tangles in it though, seeing as I only ever braid the top half. So I brush and brush until Sleipnir looks like something from a Disney film. He looks gorgeous if I do say so myself.

At this point, I go back to his mane, weaving small braids into it just because. There’s a barrier in between the stables, but the stallions can still see each other. Dor comes over from whatever he does in his spare time and tries to sniff me through the bars, not maliciously, but not exactly a riding school pony either. The capaill are usually friends, they’re quite good with each other, as stallions go. But not when I’m around. Sleipnir is sort of protective of me, in the way a panther is protective of his kill. Before I know what’s happening, Sleipnir grabs my jacket in his teeth, pulling me to his chest, swings his back end towards Dor and kicks out at him with both hind legs. Nothing happens of course, just a huge crashing sound as his feet hit the wooden divider, but it sure as hell makes me jump. Same for Dor. He retreats back to the far end of his stable, and when Sleipnir is satisfied he lets my jacket out from between his jaws. I sigh and go back to braiding his mane. This has happened a few times now, and it never fails to startle me for a second. Dor begins to hum and Sleipnir joins him. They sing together, in their own beautiful way. I don’t mind the humming, it’s just the screams. I can feel their song raising in volume. There is a brief pause where Sleipnir stops to take a breath. I know what comes next. Quick as a flash I have an iron piece out of my pocket and I’m pressing it against his chest. He will not scream while I’m here. I will not allow it. He freezes at the touch of the iron, the scream dying in his throat before it’s begun.

“Not in my hands.” I whisper in his ear as I put the iron piece back in my pocket. Dor has fallen silent too. 

At times like this, I contemplate what life must be like on the mainland. There’s no capaill uisce there. What a boring life that must be. I can’t really imagine a life without the capaill. Even before Dor and Sleipnir, Dad had one. Skipp he called her. She was a tall, brown mare. Dad insisted she was red, but she wasn’t. She was the colour of age-old dried blood. Brown. He raced against Sean Kendrick on her once. He lost of course. Nothing is as fast as that stallion of his. Until he broke his leg that is and gave the rest of us a chance. Dad let Skipp go soon after we caught Sleipnir and Dor when he retired from the races.

So yes. Life on the mainland would probably be safer in some ways. People die in the races. But people also die in road accidents and machinery malfunctions. Not that we don’t have those here, but there’s certainly fewer. The biggest killer is the capaill for sure. We must be crazy. No wonder the mainlanders come to watch us from the cliffs as we back man-eating horses and try to get them not to drown us. I can’t imagine ever leaving Thisby though. No matter the perils. I’ve grown up here, and I’m most likely going to die here. Whether from old age or at the jaws of a capaill uisce. 

#tsrf2017 #thescorpioracesfestival

[we-dream-instead-of-drown]

Rider Challenge #2: Your Reason

Prologue 

Generations of this family wove back to the time when “Your ancestors made a home here”, as my father would proudly boast. Whenever someone would get married, a new house was built across the field or up the road, branching out like a physical manifestation of a family tree.

Childhood had been an easy mess, chasing and tagging from one house to another with piles of cousins and second cousins and kids assumed to be related somehow. As a child, I was always up. Perched on a fencepost just high enough to escape being tagged, hiding up one of the few scraggly trees the island had to offer, or sitting meditatively on the rooftop trying to chatter with my namesakes.

My father had always called me his “little bluejay” when I snuggled on his lap to get warm. He told me how I was born still holding my breath, turning all blue. My mother, forehead still sweaty, had scoffed at the idea of naming their child Blue. So the compromise was Jay, a nod to the raucous blue birds. Even now, whenever I get cold my lips and fingertips turn a faint blue.

When festival season came around my father would perch me on his shoulders so I could watch the swarm of people, those familiar and strange crowds. From that same vantage point I watched the races. From my gentle, childhood gaze, it had all been great fun. Like watching cousin Sam and uncle Jack get in a fistfight over who was better at catching bugs.. It was violent and exciting, but at the end of the day everyone went home to wipe blood off their noses.

The first year I was too big to sit on my father's shoulders was the first year I saw a body carried off the beach. Something churned along my spine, and from then on I watched the races only because I felt a sense of duty to the island. I watched because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t.

Last year, I had another reason to watch. Beth was riding.

Beth and I had been born weeks apart, and spent every moment together since. When we were teens we found this abandoned fishing shack, twisted and collapsing in a hollow near the beach. The wood was felted from the abusive weather and torn fishing nets mouldered in heaps. We had scavenged the dump to find a table that was missing a leg and two mismatched chairs. We nailed scrap wood over the worst holes, keeping most of the weather out.

It was here that we sat around the table with one driftwood leg, smoking cheap cigarettes, and cautiously talked about our future. In our family, you didn’t talk about leaving the island. With all the effort our ancestors put into getting here, how could we even think about leaving? It had already been decided where our houses were going to be built when we settled down. To speak of a future that wasn’t on this island was taboo.

Despite this, we both whispered about how we weren’t meant for this island. And no one but ourselves would help us leave.

Beth hadn’t told me she was entering the races. We spent less time in the fishing hut, but she claimed that her family needed her around to watch her younger siblings and help sew stuffed horses for tourists.

I didn’t know until the day before the races For the first time in a while, we met at the shack.

“I’m riding in the races.’ She said, nervously, rapping her knuckles on the table to knock ash off the end of her cigarette.

I choked on the smoke in surprise, and wheezed out a “What?” when I managed to stop coughing.

“If I win, the money will get us one step closer to getting off Thisby.” She said, leaning forward intensly.  

“But why wouldn’t you tell me?” Standing, I flung the remain of my cigarette down and kicked it out.

“I didn’t want to jinx it.” Beth put her own cigarette out.

“I would have ridden with you.” I whispered.

She rose to stand face to face with me. “I know.”

I knew the island had been listening, and maybe that’s why it was me who first recognized the body that was tangled in the rocks and surf. Beth, my best friend since before either of us could hold our heads upright. Aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings and parents all slid and clambered onto the beach. We thrashed our way through the shallows and pulled her to shore, rolling her over to free the water from her lungs.

Once she was carried to a warm house and fed soup by what seemed a dozen grandparents, she confessed to the pain in her ankle. The stirrup hadn’t come free soon enough after her cappal lunged for the sea. Wincing, I turned away when the doctor came to set her broken ankle, full of wrong angles and distended by swelling.

Once Beth stopped limping, none of us mentioned the races again. We didn’t go to watch them, and only went to the festival to convince tourists that we sold memories that were too precious not to take home with them.

It was the first of November, and we both sat in the silent darkness of the shack. We often sat in pleasant silence, listening to the distant waves. But tonight it was dangerous out here, so close the November night, so close to the sea. Tonight our silence was heavy.

“You’re going to race, aren’t you.” Beth said, the same moment I drew a breath to tell her.

“Yes.” I said instead.

We didn’t say another word, because the island was listening.

#tsrf2017 #thescorpioracesfestival #@thescorpioracesfestival #mine #966 words

[acourtofhopeanddreams]

The Scorpio Races Festival 2017

Tourist Challenge #10: Betting

Tourist: Hannah Miller Wordcount: 1113 Triggerwarnings: mentions of disabilty, sadness, and murderous waterhorses Written for: @thescorpioracesfestival 2017 AO3 || WATTPAD

“I can’t believe the race will be tomorrow already.” Hannah sat in her wheelchair. The cold November wind blew through her hair and she had her hands folded in her lap while she stared at the maddened sea and the furious horses riding alongside it.

All riders were putting their horses to a final test. For once they were actually trying to reach their maximum speed. For once they were actually trying to ride closer to the shore than they had ever been before. For once they were taking the risks they would have to take the next day too.

“From one to I might actually survive this, how ready are you?” Hannah turned her head towards her brother.

His cheeks were red after the last training he had just done. His chest was moving up and down rapidly while he was trying to catch his breath. “I don’t know…” Charlie bent his head and he tightened his grip on Bud’s rains.

Hannah would like to cuddle the horse, but right now she needed Bud to know that Charlie was his rider, that Charlie was the one in control and that Charlie was the one he was supposed to protect. She would cuddle with Bud after the race, if Charlie and Bud would both survive it.

“I’m planning on surviving it.” Charlie sat down in the sand next to her wheel. He curled his arms around his legs and his knees almost touched his chest. “I never started this race with the intention to die. I started it with the intention to live. Just like you did.”

Hannah smiled. “And what are you going to do after the race? Apart from working on making this relationship between you and Richard serious so you can come to the mainland with him soon?” She turned her head towards her brother.

“I don’t know yet. A little bit of everything.” Charlie shrugged his shoulders. “I’m gonna try out everything and then I’m gonna see what I want to do more often. Maybe I want to become a professional capall uisce trainer.” He winked. “Or I might become a famous book-reviewer.”

Hannah giggled. “If I would bet on someone for the race, I would bet on you and Bud.” She locked her glance with his for a moment. “You maybe had a rough start, but right now you’re doing pretty great. I’m sure you’ll be doing much greater tomorrow.”

“I don’t know.” Charlie looked away from her for a moment. “I don’t think winning is that important to me. I wanted to race to start a new life. Whether or not I finish and whether or not we win something, I accomplished that already.” He paused for a moment. “If Bud and I do better than you did last year, will you be mad at me?” Charlie cocked his head and he tightened his grip on his legs. “Will you regret not racing yourself?”

Hannah thought about that question for a moment. “Maybe…” She eventually whispered. “It’s always easy to regret not participating when it went well. But I’ve been in the middle of that race last year. I know how it is. I know how it feels. My legs were damaged. Bud was damaged. People died.” She licked her lips. “I would have loved to see if I could do better, but somehow I don’t want to take the risk of losing everything.”

“You’re happy now.” Charlie spoke softly.

“Yes, yes I am…” Hannah nodded. “I have a job, I have a boyfriend, we have a nice apartment, enough money to pay the rent and enjoy ourselves. I have a life.”

Charlie raised his eyebrows a little, but a smile brightened his face.

“If I race I might do better than I did last year. I might win. I might become second or third. I might get an awful lot of money.” She paused for a moment. “But I can also lose everything. I can lose an arm. I can lose my job. I can lose my life. I don’t think that small chance to get that glory outweighs the huge chance of losing everything I have.”

“I’m glad you’re saying this.” Charlie let his head rest on her knee. “It sounds different from what you said last year, where you felt like you had nothing to lose and everything to win.” He closed his eyes and Hannah let her hand go through his hair. “I like it.”

“I like it too.” Hannah shook her head. “Coming back to the isle has at least taught me one thing.” She pulled her hand back again. “Sometimes happiness is in small moments, small gestures, small wishes.” She licked her lips. “It doesn’t always have to be epic or big or grotesque. I don’t need a villa in California with an entire ranch and wine ranks.” She paused for a moment. “I’m happy with the small apartment we have now. I’m happy with the horses I get to ride and take care of on the riding school. I’m happy with visiting the cinema or a restaurant or a zoo once in a while. I’m happy with Daniel and him stealing kisses or offering to lift me up so I can get somewhere I can’t get on my own.”

“You’re happy with being lifted up?” Charlie dropped his jaw and straightened his back. “And I thought you hated it so much.”

“You’ve carried me around for years. I don’t hate it THAT much, it’s just…” Hannah weighed her words carefully, even though she knew they would probably come out blunt anyway. “I sometimes wish the world wouldn’t force you and Daniel to carry me around.” Hannah swallowed. “But I also realize that if you two don’t do it, I wouldn’t get to see those places. If you wouldn’t have carried me last year, I wouldn’t have been able to participate in the race at all.”

“You wouldn’t have gotten to the rock all by yourself…” Charlie murmured and once again he looked up so his glance could meet hers.

“Look, Scotland is great. I can get anywhere I want to go, but I know that there will come a moment that I want more, that I want to visit a special place…”

“Like Thisby?”

Hannah grinned. “Yes, like Thisby.” She nodded. “And I know that often the world is simply not wheelchair friendly. I can either not go to those places at all. Or I can let Daniel carry me. It’s not the choice I wanted, but it’s a choice.”

“You, Hannah Miller, are my inspiration.” Charlie stood up and pecked her cheek.

“And you, Charlie Miller, are mine.”

#the scorpio races #the scorpio races festival #thescorpioracesfestival #tsrf2017 #maggie stiefvater #tourist track #tourist challenge 10 #fc: claire holt #fc: Charlie Carver

[dysfunctional-college-roommates]

Part 2 - Rider Challenge 1

@thescorpioracesfestival 2017

The beach is chaos. I always knew it would be chaos, had seen it being chaos from a distance while peeking over rocks, but it’s something else entirely to be in the middle of it. So many voices are yelling at once that I can’t figure out what to focus on. Children inexplicably braver than I ever was dart through legs, chasing after dogs and daring each other to risk getting ever closer to the hungry jaws of a capall, until they’re shooed away by an exasperated adult.

It’s like this every year, I’m sure – the chaos exponentially increasing the closer you get to it. But the beach is different this year, too. I didn’t think to look on my own, but I overhear someone saying it’s odd that Sean Kendrick isn’t here yet, and someone else say that they don’t expect he will be. That’s an oddity that I can ponder later, and maybe it’s the biggest thing for some of these people, but it isn’t what I notice the most.

What I notice is that there are other girls here. Girls near our age. Girls who aren’t just clinging to their brothers’ arms. Girls who are talking to the mongers like they’re any other racer, like they could be. I recognize none of them.

“They’re nothing but looky-loos,” Bonnie sniffs beside me, because she knows where my thoughts wander. “I doubt if any of them will last to race day, if they even have the guts to test a capall.”

“It doesn’t have to be a capall,” I say timidly. And it’s true – there are one or two mongers offering island ponies for sale up the beach. But even I know that Puck Connolly was a special case, a miracle, that it might well be impossible to replicate such a result. I’m not exactly in this race to win, but I’m certainly not in it to be laughed at and called a failed Puck Connolly wannabe.

Bonnie does not phrase it this way. Instead, she scoffs and says, “Leave the ponies for the boys. Maybe Puck was the first across the finish line, but we’ll be the first across it on a capall.” Bonnie has a strange way with words, like when she says things the way she just did, you can’t help but believe her. Just a minute ago, the idea of me in the races, me even within two feet of a capall, seemed impossible. Now, I can hardly stop myself from imagining Bonnie winning first in the races, me right behind her.

I can’t figure out how to speak in the aftermath of such a shift, but I nod my agreement. It doesn’t seem like Bonnie was looking for me to agree, anyways, because she doesn’t even notice. She’s already peering about, trying to spot capaill uisce fitting whatever requirements she’s decided that we’re looking for. I’ll leave that to her, for the most part, because I haven’t spent years planning out what would be the ideal capall. She’ll point me in the right direction, at least, and then I’ll have to decide if I’m looking at a horse that I can ride across this beach come November. I imagine it will be hard to feel that way about any of them.

Bonnie makes a noise of contemplation, and then she’s grabbed my hand and is tugging me across the sand. I’m not resisting, but she keeps pulling harder anyways. “Come on!” she urges. I worry that if I come on any faster, one or the other of us will wind up sprawled on the sand beneath a large set of teeth, but I still try to keep up. I can’t even tell if we’re going towards, away from, or alongside the sea, but Bonnie seems to know where we’re going. She’s always been so much more goal-oriented, while I’ve just been Bonnie-oriented, following along after her in whatever she does. But it’s never led me anywhere that I didn’t enjoy.

Until now.

Bonnie brings us to a stop directly in front of the stinking teeth of a capall uisce. It eyes us mistrustfully, and is almost certainly considering us for a before-dinner snack. It pokes its nose towards us, just a little, and I flinch back, though Bonnie remains unfazed. There’s a snort from the horse, and possibly one from the monger holding its reins. I can tell that I’ve been written off by both of them already, but that’s all right, because this capall clearly is not for me.

“Tough sell?” Bonnie asks, because she just loves to antagonize people.

The monger grits his teeth. “No,” he growls shortly.

She shrugs and takes a critical lap around the horse. I don’t follow her, except with my eyes. The stallion is sturdily built and mostly chestnut. I notice that the white above his hooves is stained with blood and try not to shudder. “Probably set the price too high,” Bonnie comments. “Seems a decent enough horse otherwise.” Then she shoves her hand in its face.

Now, I’ve always felt that the rules for capaill uisce are fairly similar to the rules for dogs: if it belongs to somebody else, don’t ever try to touch it without checking with the owner first – except when it comes to capaill uisce, then you don’t touch it anyways. But Bonnie has never been one for rules, nor has she ever been one for fear, so she reaches right out, gives the horse a second – but not any longer – to have a whiff of her hand, and then gives him a good, long stroke along the splash of white on his brown snout. The horse huffs and tosses his head once her hand is out of the way, but he does it in a sort of way that isn’t entirely displeased. I can tell, because when he looks at me, he does do it in a way that is entirely displeased.

Bonnie starts talking prices with the monger, in a sly sort of way that makes it seem like she isn’t asking about prices at all. I don’t have her finesse, or her patience, or her ability to throw a man off his game, so I leave her to it. I know that if this is to be her horse, I’ll have to spend plenty of time around him in the future, but for now, I’ll avoid him if I can. Common sense means that I don’t trust any of them, but I especially don’t trust this one. Just looking at him gives me a bad feeling.

So, as Bonnie talks the monger into giving her a discount, I duck further into the crowd. Still within shouting distance of Bonnie, should she be looking for me, but far enough to officially be considered alone. I cast glances at the horses I pass, curious but not too curious. I want those of them that pay me any mind to know that I’m looking for a horse, but I don’t want them to think I’m looking for their horse. I understand that this is the barest minimum of what Bonnie does. I understand that I’m probably doing it wrong. To tell the truth, I’m only counting off the time until Bonnie can step through this for me.

“You!” One of the mongers calls out to me. He looks like, when he isn’t holding capaill uisce reins, he partakes in Thisby’s most common profession. Of course, it’s likely that a good deal of the people on this beach are fishermen in other seasons, but some have that look more than others. This one looks as gray as the waves under a storm, and as slimy as the underside of the dock. “You looking for a horse, girl?” he asks in a voice that creaks like a ship.

There is a hint of desperation about him, and if I were Bonnie, I’d have already figured out how to twist it into a bargain. But I am me, and instead of that, I’m wondering if this horse is really so bad, or if he just wants to be done with the beach. His back is a bit hunched, so it must not be very comfortable to stand here in a sea of anxious capaill uisce. I remember Bonnie’s tactic of disdain too late, and even if I’d thought of it sooner, I’m not sure I could have done it right. I do, however, have enough sense not to say yes outright, and I try for nonchalance as I say, “I might be.”

“Bah!” the fisherman complains. He takes three steps closer to me, close enough that his mare could probably take a good chuck out of my thigh if he loosened her rope just a bit. From the way she watches his hand, it seems like she knows so, too. “Do you want it or not?”

I do not respond well to confrontation, internally. I find that my breath comes unwillingly if I look him right in the eyes at the moment, so I have to look at the mare instead. She is the same greasy gray as the man holding her, but her ink-dipped legs make her much nicer to look at. A sudden, unbearable desire flashes through me to take her, at any price, and be done with this man and this beach and this crowd, at least for today. But I channel Bonnie, and cross my arms. “You seem eager to be rid of this one.”

The fisherman waves his hands vaguely. “I sold the first two in the first twenty minutes,” he says, which I can hardly imagine. “This one –” She snaps her teeth at him, finishing the statement for him; this mare is scaring buyers off.

Here is what I see, though: when the mare snapped her teeth, the fisherman flinched, and even as he jerks her reins, there is a glint of smugness and accomplishment about her. I see that the fisherman is holding her rope too tightly, that he is afraid of her. I see that she likes him being afraid. And it sounds ridiculous to think it, but even as I watch her bare her teeth at the fisherman, I see that I am not afraid of this horse.

I uncross my arms. “What are you asking?”

#thescorpioracesfestival #TSRF2017 #I'm not sure I got all the italics on this but I'm not interested in extreme editing #I just shirked some grading responsibilities to write part 3 so I could post part 2 #I don't have the time to read this over for errors and italics #(okay also I don't really want to - I'm lazy)

[welcometothisby]

//WAIT WHAT YES PLEASE TELL US MORE ABOUT YOUR LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH PEG (whispers don't mind me i shouldn't be sending shit on my mostly unrelated rp blog but here we are)

Hello, hello! Glad you asked! So, because Maggie writes characters that I can’t ever hate completely (STOP MAKING THEM SO REAL AND FLAWED AND HUMAN MAGGIE!!!), I have SO MANY mixed feelings about Peg. I’ll probably fail miserably at keeping this short and coherent, but oh well, you asked for it! ;)

Even before Maggie revealed the affair backstory, I struggled with Peg, largely because she often gave really bad advice. It wasn’t bad advice for her time period, but it was bad advice for Puck and I’m glad Puck didn’t listen. I don’t fault Peg her internalized sexism, because I think she mostly did life on her own terms within the patriarchy, which is really admirable for the time, but I would hate for Puck to turn out too much like her? There are, of course, many things Peg deserves praise for: she’s fierce and independent and respected. She’s perceptive. She flouts many conventions of her time. She’s solid. She’s clever. She’s friendly. She gives tough love. 

But there are other things about her that don’t seem so healthy. For one, she never struck me as a particularly happy person. She works, she has a family, a home, she doesn’t cook (shocking!), she’s prominent in the community, and yet she often appears to just be going through the motions, because that’s what’s expected of her. Thisby can grind a person down, unless one chooses their own happiness, and Peg seems more comfortable with the appearance of happiness than actually being happy. She doesn’t really let you see past her mask.

I also think, on some level, Peg resented what Puck was trying to do, as so often happens when different generations of women have attempted to rise above their circumstances with wildly different tactics. (If you’ve seen the show Mad Men, then you’ll recognize a similar struggle between Joan Holloway and Peggy Olson). Peg Gratton, like so many women of that period, learned that they could use or overemphasize their sexuality and gender to manipulate men (see the “a mountain they have to climb” quote). Peg’s brand of mysterious femininity is not exactly mainstream (she’s not that conventionally attractive), but you can bet she has very carefully cultivated her image as a woman who could cut your heart out neat. 

Puck, on the other hand, instinctively knew that she shouldn’t have to change who she is to suit or impress anybody; her fierceness isn’t a mask. Peg knew how to work the system, but Puck already acted like the system didn’t exist, which some could perceive to be more dangerous because the system did still exist and one false move could’ve resulted in the loss of whatever amount of control women found within it. Peg might have had a good grip on reality, but Puck knew herself and what she was capable of. Her risk paid off because sometimes breaking small, unspoken rules (riding in the races) and changing your lot in life can be just as important as breaking the big, spoken ones (the suffrage movement) that technically affect everybody. If you’re “all for women,” like Peg claimed to be, that has to mean all, for all and in all, in big ways and small (trademark Dr. Seuss, probably).

Ultimately, I think Peg accepted what Puck was trying to do and supported her in it, as shown with the symbolic gesture of (literally) passing the (bird) mantle to her right before the race. Peg represents the past, women like her may have paved the way for Puck to get where she is, but Puck is the future of the island and the world. 

But then there’s the elephant in the room: the affair. In this post, @wickedwinterwillow​ does an excellent job of showing why Peg engaging in an affair with Gabriel is so predatory and loathsome. I really don’t want to comprehend the reasons behind the affair, but because I have a terrible need to try to understand everything no matter what, all I can think of is that after years of familiarity, Tom saw her as a teacup, and everyone else saw her as a mountain, and maybe (???) Gabe just saw her as herself (???). Anyway, that’s enough of that because CREEPY and EWW and NOOOO.

It’s so hard to interpret Peg and Puck’s interactions in light of the affair. I cannot fathom how or why Peg could attempt any sort of normal relationship with Puck while all that was going on, but I guess to her credit, Peg always seemed sort of pained. I almost think that maybe Gabe convinced Peg to check in on Puck in his place because that seems like just the sort of cowardly yet brotherly yet wildly inappropriate thing he’d do. Also, the whole scene at the Gratton’s house (where I believe we get a better glimpse at the “real” Peg) is AWKWARD AS HELL. Puck says, “The only time Peg Gratton addresses me is to tell me that I’m welcome to give Dove more hay if she needs it before the end of the night, before the storm gets bad.” She’s not exactly going out of her way to build a relationship with Puck because things suddenly just got TOO REAL under HER OWN DAMN ROOF.

So I almost get the sense that Peg didn’t ask to be a mother figure to Puck, but ultimately she ends up doing a fairly decent job of it (Puck draws out the best in people), minus the dubious life advice. I mostly respect Peg (if we pretend the affair didn’t happen), but she’s not without nuance, both good and bad. That’s just my interpretation of her character, so if anyone is a full-on Peg stan, I want to hear about everything I’ve missed! :)

#SORRY THIS IS SO LONG #the scorpio races #maggie stiefvater #theunluckytraveler #puck connolly #peg gratton #confession #meta #long post #peg x gabe #peg x thomas #feminism #the patriarchy #mad men #the scorpio races fandom #dubious advice #headcanon

[thescorpioracesfestival]

Challenges I to IV

My debut into the festival, starring the tourist Elisabeth and the rider, Jem.

Part 1: Elisabeth Bradbury-Stuart

Chapter I

The island existed only in stories. There was a single photograph that her mother had shown Elisabeth while she was young, and even that didn’t really show it. It was of herself as a young girl, taken in the late 1890s. Elisabeth’s mother was small and slight and happy, nestled into the side of her stern-faced mother.

Elisabeth had thought of that picture often, especially as she got older. She couldn’t help thinking about the unknowingness of those young eyes. No idea that in less than a decade she would leave that island and never return.

But here Elisabeth stood, feet planted on a ferry that bobbed back the way her mother had come all those years ago. Sea spray in her eyes, she lifted one of the last Marlboros she’d brought with her, lighting it.

“Oy, missy!” called a voice, and she turned to see a man looking like two hundred years of wave had been carved into his face. “Don’t you be standing so close to the edge or you’ll find yourself in a capaill uisce’s breakfast.”

Right, it was only breakfast. Elisabeth hadn’t paid attention to the time, having spent all of early morning on the prow.

Elisabeth smiled at him, but only took another step towards the edge, her fingers curling around the railing.

She had been on ferries before while perusing the archaeology of Greece, but this was different. Back there, the air had been hot and balmy; the waves quiet and blue like the petals of bluebells. This ocean, however, was dark like the bottom of a saucepan, the crests of foam like suds of greasy liquid.

The boat made a dip over a rise, and she gripped the railing tightly, suddenly conscious of dress fabric that would hardly help her swim.

The man from before was laughing at her. “I warned ye!” Elisabeth ignored him, going inside and making her way to her cabin. She ignored the sound of her roommate whimpering into a bucket. Instead she tugged out a small bible and focusing on the small pinpricks of letters.

It was a good few hours before the roommate set down the bucket and finally spoke to Elisabeth.

“You going for the races?” she asked, her voice raspy. Elisabeth had never once felt seasick; possibly a side effect of her mother’s island upbringing. Elisabeth raised an eyebrow and the girl stammered. She was a slight blonde waif of a thing, crawled out of a Bronte novel. She looked to be about fifteen, with a tiny upturned nose. “My nan says she saw them once. She said a man died on the beach and everything- You know, I saw a dead body once. When little Marianne got the whooping cough.”

Elisabeth watched the girl, tucking the bible back into its draw. She smiled. “I suppose. My family lives on the island.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Where are your parents?”

“Oh, my mam’s back at home. I’m supposed to be staying with my mam’s old friend to learn how to be a proper lady, since I’m not so good at listening to her.” To prove her point, she sniffed and pulled out a small note. “It’s because Thomas Walley says he’s going to marry me, but nobody believes me. But he told me his own self, and I know Thomas Walley better than any of those girls.”

The talkative girl spoke quickly, forcing Elisabeth to keep up. Elisabeth smiled, in a way reminded of her own sister. This girl was about the same age as Lucy anyway. “What is your name, sorry?” she said, interrupting the girl mid-sentence. The girl’s eyes widened, apparently having forgot the subject altogether.

“My name’s Francine but everyone calls me Dorothy. It’s cause I look just like my cousin. What’s your name-” And then, stuck clumsily to the end of her tongue, “Ma’am.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dorothy. I’m Elisabeth, but everyone calls me Lisabet. Because my mother was Elisabeth, too.” She lit a cigarette, leaning back against the bed and letting smoke fill the tiny room; clinging to the shitty. She felt Dorothy watching her closely, possibly trying to will a cigarette into her own mouth. She seemed like the kind of girl with a sailor for a father.

Elisabeth didn’t know when she fell asleep, because she didn’t know she had until the ferry whistled the signal for land. She had slept through lunch and dinner, and she was suddenly terrifyingly aware of the cavern in her stomach. She reached down, grabbing her belongings and making her way to join the long queue of people leaving the boat. Different emotions spilled over everywhere, and Elisabeth tried to block them out.

But what Elisabeth felt was numbness, as she stepped out onto the only dock on the entire island. It was not the only beach, but it was supposedly the only place where the water horses didn’t breach; the railing covered with rusted iron.

It was beautiful, though. Turning her head, she could see the beach, mostly empty except for a few people still trying their hand at catching a horse to train for next year. Elisabeth paused, watching as sunlight spilled over not-quite-equine flanks. There were a few yells from the men, as well as those around her, but all she could wonder was How could her mother have left this?

“Oy, get a move on,” grunted someone behind her, and Elisabeth rushed to take her place on the land; away from the gruff men and their never-satisfied faces. Some vendors carted tourist trap souvenirs, but the only souvenir Elisabeth intended on taking were the Thisby-red locks her mother had given her.

And answers. Elisabeth was hoping for some answers. She reached into her suitcase for her wallet, and paused when she felt it missing. She remembered that teenager, Dorothy’s, wildly glinting eyes. Elisabeth felt for it one last time before letting out a wild, “Fuck!”, something quickly met by horrified gasps. But she didn’t care, for the young girl had already gone.

The evening didn’t improve. Crackling telephone exchange had told her that her uncle would be there by seven, but it was currently 10 and Elisabeth knew that this island was not that large.

It was strangely quiet in this town, especially after the day she’d had. When night time fell, it truly fell, as the people turned their lights down in order to not be noticed. The only sound that existed was her breathing, as well as the rush of waves in the distance.

No one was coming for her. Elisabeth figured this out and stood up, grabbing her briefcase and making her way through the town.

Her mother had never said a word of her life here. What little she knew came from her father, Earl Ebenezer Bradbury-Stuart. She knew that he’d met her mother at these races when she was 18, that she had jumped at the chance to leave her island home behind and never interact it again, save for bits of money that she sent back to her family for Christmas.

Elisabeth had felt no panic, because her mother had decades to tell her… or she was supposed to have decades.

Biting down on bile, she was suddenly jerked to attention by the sensation of being watched. Horses, Elisabeth thought with a panic, but found that she couldn’t move. Her knees were locked into place by the tension of attention.

She had just mustered up the self-control for a breath when a low voice spilled out over the cobblestones. “If I’d been a horse, you’d be dead already.” Elisabeth shivered, making eye contact with the silhouette of a man leaning against a number of boxes. She couldn’t say anything, because she didn’t know this island, and she certainly didn’t know these animals.

“Are they really horses?” she forced, wincing at the way her voice sounded like a squeaking gate. The man chuckled, the glow of a cigarette humming a few inches from his mouth. “Don’t step any closer; I keep a knife.” A tactic she’d had to learn while surrounded by men in Rome.

“A knife is nothing against a capaill uisce. You’re a tourist, right? It’s not safe at night, here. No place to go?”

She shook her head, crossing her arms. “Someone stole my wallet.”

The man tutted, but then started walking down the street away for her. He stopped, turning to look behind himself. “Are you daft? I know somewhere you can say.”

A million and one reasons bubbled up inside Elisabeth’s mind. Murder, rape, the list went on. But she didn’t really have any other options, and so she ran up the street to follow him.

They didn’t stop until he halted at the foot of a two-storey fixture that looked dangerously close to teetering onto the street. He knocked hard on the door, humming something to himself until the door was cracked open by a young woman looking to be around Elisabeth’s age. The island had worn her older though, her hands appearing cracked and dry below the tassels of her shawl. Still, youth spilled out of her as she pulled the man into a hug. “Jem, what on earth has you up at such an hour? And who’s this?”

The man’s demeanour had changed around the woman, allowing him to crack an awkward smile. He cast a glance at Elisabeth, and for the second time that day found herself saying the name ‘Lisabet.’ “Had a tussle with the Bolley Brothers at the pub, found her wandering the streets in what is hardly appropriate wear.” He gestured to the hem that ended mid-calf. Elisabeth had hardly noticed the weather. “Says she lost her money to a pickpocket on the ferry.”

“Oh dear!” the lady grinned, pulling Elisabeth into a surprising hug. “Don’t you worry, dear, there’ll be no kelpie feasts under my roof. I suppose I can’t be too mad at your drunken antics for once, but for God’s sake, Jem.”

‘Jem’ chuckled again, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “Sorry, Madeline, it won’t happen again.” He glanced at Elisabeth once more and cleared his throat. “Would it be a problem if I stayed the night as well? They say Stu Dorricky saw hoofprints on the sand.”

A few minutes later and Elisabeth was sitting at the table with a bowl of stew. She didn’t know what it was, but in her hungered state it felt like bliss. Madeline was holding a swaddled infant to her shoulder, patting its back as she tried to pay attention. “So, what leads you to Thisby? Just another tourist?” “My mother was from Thisby,” Elisabeth swallowed, “Left here when she was 18 to marry my father, but I never heard anything about it. Until her death, when her childhood best friend ended up talking about Thisbean rituals and whatnot at the funeral.” Elisabeth smiled unsteadily. “Bertha Parton?”

“I know of the Partons,” said Madeline. Jem was sipping stew as well. Elisabeth had filled in the gaps that they were probably brother and sister. “Not personally, but their names get tossed here and there. They’re real old Thisby folk, from right before the Christians came.”

Even this was more than Elisabeth had ever heard, and she felt a wide smile grace her cheeks. Before she could thank her hosts, Madeline was handing off the child to Jem and standing. “Dear Lord, you must be exhausted. Let me set up a bed for you. Jem, please can you handle Tilda.” Then Madeline was gone, leaving Elisabeth and Jem alone.

Elisabeth shifted uncomfortably. “Cute kid,” she mumbled at the same time he said, “Sorry about your mother.” Elisabeth nodded her thanks.

“Our mother’s still alive but barely. Well- our birth mother died having Madeline, so my aunt’s our mother now.”

“I’m sorry,” Elisabeth hummed.

“So, is your mother’s death the only reason you came here? To try and reconnect with her, or whatever?”

Elisabeth shook her head. “I’m an anthropologist by trade, graduated from Wellesley College in America. This place fascinates me. All the age of it,” she trailed her finger along a splinter of wood that clung for dear life to the kitchen table.

“Most wouldn’t,” Jem was watching her hand, “Be fascinated by it, I mean. I imagine there aren’t many who would choose to keep this place in their body. It isn’t exactly Paris.”

At that moment Madeline called Elisabeth’s name, more of a whisper than a call. She said goodnight to Jem and followed the voice to the guest bedroom; a small wallpapered place that teetered gingerly on its side. When at last she was in bed, Jem’s words nagged at her mind. It isn’t exactly Paris. Well, Elisabeth had seen Paris in all its glory, had seen the Eiffel Tower and the Champs Elysees. And she didn’t want it.

  Chapter II. Challenge 4.

Jem Martin.

Jem wasn’t going to buy a horse. He was standing on the strand, sand caked into his boots as he observed the competition with something likened to paranoia. But paranoia was the only rational response to the capaill uisce, especially with a beach that bubbled with the beasts. In the distance a bay was twisting snake-like around her master’s hand, foam telling of the man’s approaching doom.

He already had a horse, bought two years before from a dud auction. Like that interaction with Lisabet, it had been built on a rash decision. He had seen the creature, not quite full-blood but some fucked-up creature that craved the ocean more than anything. Her hocks were thick, forelegs showing hints of feathers, but her neck still held the serpentine anger of the water-horses, her nose quivering at the scent of the ocean.

The hypothesis was that the mixed blood came not from her water horse parents but from a few years back, some Frankenstein’s creature of a Percheron and his mate. As such, she now sported her fair share of brute strength and scars that dotted the length of her body. Some had been made from iron, others from teeth, and one side of her face held no eye but a gaping cavern of a socket. She made up for it with rigid awareness and scent that could mark one out a mile away.

“Hello, Jem, what’re you doing down here? Don’t you have that murder machine back home?” came the barking laugh of Tom Crawley. He was holding his own horse, a thing that appeared more calm than most but that did not deceive Jem. A water horse was still a water horse, a carnivore, a monster that was currently paying slightly too close attention to the side of Tom’s neck.

“I’m seeing who has what.” He lit his cigarette, glancing at the horse as it gave a cautious look to the flame. “What’s its name.”

“Her name is Great Jack. I thought that if I put the part Great in there it would do me good.”

“Why Jack?”

“Because it’s a beautiful fucking name, isn’t that right, Jem?” Tom smacked the mare’s chestnut neck; making her flinch and move her hindquarters away. Her left ear flicked towards the man who held her lead tight enough for his knuckles to pale.

After a few minutes, Tom moved back to the main throng. Time wore on, and Jem was about to pack in for the day when a dreadful scream filled the beach. Every person on Thisby knew that sound, whether they followed the races or not. Jem turned his head in just the right angle to see Tom’s mare, Great Jack, turning and biting a black stallion on the side of the face. The stallion seemed intent on breeding, but the mare was having none of it, and clearly had the upper hand.

Tom tried to get her attention and the chestnut kicked out, her hooves meeting Tom’s face and knocking him into the sand. She shrieked again, her lead ripped out from her ‘owner’s’ hand as she ran to fight the stallion.

Jem just turned and walked quietly away from the agon, not stopping until he reached Madeline’s house.

When he opened the door, Lisabet was with Madeline in the kitchen. She was not particularly talented, asking Madeline for as many hints as possible.

“Uncle Jimmy!” came the cry of a toddler, and he turned around to see his oldest niece, Joyce, tearing up the floor towards him. He let out a whoop of delight as he hoisted the two-year-old into his arms, resting her on his hip.

“Hey there, Joyce. You been behaving well for your mother?”

“No…” she pouted, and Madeline laughed in the background. “I didn’t be quiet when she told me to, and I didn’t go to sleep for a long time last night.”

“That’s not very nice of you, is it?” Jem smiled, pushing a blonde lock of hair behind the prominent ear she had inherited from her father; a sailor who had disappeared in the middle of the night. They’d held a funeral for the fellow, but the truth was that no one really knew if he’d died or gone to the mainland. Either way, it wasn’t much of a loss, but Jem knew when to keep quiet. He knew it too well.

“No, Uncle Jimmy. I’m sorry.”

“Say sorry to your mother and Lisabet.”

“Sorry, Mummy and Lisabet!” He let her down and she ran off again, probably to play with her younger sister.

Jem crossed the room towards the women, before resting his shoulders on the counter. He snuck a carrot off the counter. “I think Tom Crawley died today.”

Madeline stopped mid-smile. She took a deep breath before continuing chopping. Lisabet turned to swipe the carrot back out of his hand, giving him a reproachful glare.

He stole a beer instead, cracking off the lid and taking a swig. “His mare kicked him in the face but I didn’t hang around. But if he bled, then he’s fucked. Broken bones? That’s fine, but god save you if your blood carries on the wind.”

Quiet settled on the house. He knew what Madeline was thinking about- she was thinking about the grey-black mare that was currently nickering for meat in the stable down by his house. If she didn’t get it, she would hardly struggle to get past the gates capped with iron.

“I’d better get back,” he said, and left.

When he got home, he grabbed a bucket of meat. A favour from the butcher, he sloshed it onto the floor of the stall and watched as Angel bowed her head, tearing at it while using her hooves to apply tension. Her ear was flicked towards him, watching him carefully.

“How you doing, Mutt?” he hummed affectionately, reaching out a slow hand to rub her neck. She snorted, blood bubbling along her muzzle. “Nice dinner?”

She didn’t respond, barely acknowledged him until she lifted her head and let him touch her jaw. With him came the one piece of draft horse temperament that had probably ever existed in her at all.

After she was done, he grabbed her halter- a ragtag piece made to match her face of traumas and lackings- and slipped it over her ears. He led her out to the round yard and finally got to work on sliding the blanket and saddle into their proper position.

Then he was on her, easily 18 hands high, but not the biggest horse he’d ever seen. She quivered under his touch, turning her good eye towards him. Her nostrils flared to catch his scent.

Finally he urged her to move. And move she did.

It took a single touch for her to burst into a gallop, bucking as she took off along the grass path down towards the Lachlan household. “Whoaaa,” Jem called, feeling his heart buck out of his chest along with the angry mare’s movements.

But then she was soaring over the partition, and bucking right after. Jem felt his body lift from the saddle and he dropped the reins, his body slamming into the hard dirt of a wheat field. A loud ‘oof’ left his body, and he braced for death. But then he opened his eyes and his mare was looking at him; as though curious.

Movement sounded on the property, however, and she twisted her head in the direction of the Lachlan house.

“Hey!” called Mr Lachlan, one of his children pressing gingerly into his side. “Get that thing off our property before it ruins not just our bodies but our livelihood too!”

“Sorry, Mr Lachlan!” Jem called and turned around. But he needed to figure out how to get over this fence, first.

#the scorpio races festival #TSRF2019 #submission #TSRF2019: jctko #TSRF2019: Rider Challenges #TSRF2019: Tourist Challenges #TSRF2019 TC1 #TSRF2019 TC2 #TSRF2019 TC3 #TSRF2019 RC4

[windwardrose]

Scorpio Races Festival writing challenge #9

(Author’s note: I know I’m deeply off the count and skipped a lot. Here we are, chronologically and thematically, at #9 however; therefore let us go onward. Fair warnings for blood, peril, and animal attack.)

Sometimes when things go wrong, they go wrong very slowly: an imperceptible dwindling away of choices, until one morning you wake and realize there is only one thing left and it is one that you would never have chosen. Niss knew something of that. But then sometimes things go wrong very quickly, so that you barely blink and already the world is hopelessly snarled up.

On the beaches of Thisby, when things went wrong, they went wrong very, very quickly indeed.

It was late October by then, foggy and chilly and gray more days than not, the morning mist lingering almost till noon on occasion. Niss and Seal, Casey and Moonset had had to give up on having their little stretch of sand to themselves, now that the races were closer than not, and what riders remained determined were more serious. Even the evenings would bring company.

Niss didn’t mind company, partly because the company rarely came near them – Seal didn’t like to be near her own kind and would hiss and squeal at the other capaill, darting away fish-swift. By now Niss had gotten Seal to wear a real bridle, though the bit was wrapped because she hated the hard metal in her mouth, so it was easier to direct her back from flyaways. The other riders didn’t mind Seal and Niss, but they tried to stay away from Casey and Moonset; Moonset picked fights and kept Casey busy, still, hauling him out of them.

But the days slipped towards November, and the times Niss and Casey kept for each other on Casey’s old pocketwatch shrank slowly and surely, despite any trouble. They had gotten complacent, maybe. At least Niss had. But then Seal only half meant any snap or bite, and the half that she meant was to warn more than to wound – so complacency was easy, in a way.

In the end it didn’t matter. She and Seal were ten lengths behind Casey and Moonset, splashing through the water-skimmed sand in the failing light, when Casey leaned forward to tug on a rein and Moonset’s usual sideways trick of skitter and head-toss came just a fraction of an instant faster than ordinarily.

Niss was never entirely certain what happened. Only that all of a sudden, Casey was no longer on Moonset’s back, but scrabbling at his slipping saddle as his teeth clamped down on the opposite shoulder of her coat. And there was a spray of blood across the sand, dark and dreadful, and Moonset’s hooves came down as the white foam of the surf hissed up the beach again.

 Niss could not remember deciding to kick Seal forward. Perhaps they were already running fast enough that Seal never had the chance to stop – but Seal could have pinwheeled away easily enough if she’d tried. And she did try, but Niss had control of the reins and her thoughts by then and jerked Seal’s head around to straight, the bells on the bridle ringing shrill and frantic in the wind.

The wave hissed out as it had come in, and Moonset circled and stepped in its remnants, ears laid sharply back. There was a tangled shape of dark cloth and mousey hair in his shadow, still-so-still, a broken toy at the feet of a monster.

Dimly Niss heard the shouts from the others, further up the beach. Moonset wailed, high and shrill, arching his neck and leaning down to catch at his prey again. Niss saw Casey hang limp for an instant in Moonset’s hold, head falling back.

Then Niss drove Seal forward in one last awkward spurt, running her straight into Moonset’s broad flank.

She had never quite known before how large a capall Moonset was, but Niss realized it, in that blank terrified moment. As he spun with a scream to face Seal and Niss, he could have been a giant, carved out of the sea-washed dark cliffs. His open mouth yawned incredibly, jagged fangs bloody, and Seal backed and skittered with a cry like a seabird.

He was on them in a moment. One hoof slid off Niss’s knee and sheered down Seal’s leg instead; Seal tore her mane free of his teeth. There was a hot dreadful pain in Niss’s arm and tugging backwards against a great weight, as Seal circled and Moonset’s huge salt-matted head and rolling eyes seemed to fill all Niss’s sight.

Then both her arms were free, and everyone was shouting, and she wrenched at the string of bells knotted to Seal’s bridle. The ribbon was half-torn already and it came loose at her frantic pull.

With a sort of distant, objective sight Niss saw that the sleeve of her favorite coat was almost as red as the ribbon she held in her hand, and nearly as tattered.

She saw it, and she didn’t care. As Moonset darted at them again, Niss kicked Seal forward one last time and lashed out at Moonset’s face with the string of crude silver bells in her hand.

 Later, far later, they told her that she had been screaming, too.

Later – after the others had reached them at last, after the threats of silver and iron had driven Moonset back and back until the sea seemed a better chance again for him than the land – later, after she had stood the trembling Seal fetlock-deep in the cold salt water, guarding the cluster of folk who had gathered around the silent body lying on the beach – later, once strangers had carried Casey away up the narrow sea path – later, Niss heard the voices of a few windblown riders as if from far away: “Girl? Girl. Come off your capall. You’re bleeding.”

Niss squinted against the haze almost like sea fog filling her eyes, and looked down to see red running down across a hand already stained and caked with blood, to crust in the shiny coat of Seal’s shoulder.

“Oh,” she said. “All right.”

Things were very foggy after that for a while. Somehow, someone took Seal’s reins; somehow, someone else ended up carrying Niss, or at least she remembered opening her eyes during a jouncing upward climb and seeing an unwashed jacket collar and a scruffy unshaven chin in her view before shutting them again.

Clear again though was the lamplight, later, in the front room of some good-natured Thisby resident who living close to the shore was probably used to this sort of thing – Niss came back to awareness with her right arm throbbing and bandaged from shoulder to elbow. Her mouth felt like sandpaper, and when she said Casey? she had to say it twice more before the woman who bent over her said, “Your friend?”

“Yes. Casey.” Niss knew she had to ask quickly or she’d never be brave enough to dare it. “Where – “

“She’s at the doctor’s place,” the woman said – a sharp-faced woman in a canvas shirt, but her voice was gentle. “You might have done to go there yourself, miss; that’s eleven stitches in your arm just now. You riders are all idiots, if you ask me, which you never do.”

“I’m all right.” Though Niss knew that wasn’t true; she could feel herself shaking. “Thanks awfully. But I – I want to see Casey.”

“You’d better rest – “ the woman started, and then paused, and her mouth twisted at one side, and she called back over her shoulder, “Randal, you’ll take her, then.”

Niss did not remember most of the motorcar ride that followed, either.

But she remembered standing next to a bed and looking down to see Casey asleep, eyes closed, with blood and saltwater still drying on her bruised face and in her hair. There was a blanket pulled up to Casey’s chin, hiding all but a few of the bandages, so that for an instant she looked as she had looked that night of the Festival, sleeping on Niss’s floor in the moment before the lamp went out.

“She’s got family?” someone said, and Niss realized they were asking her.

“A brother,” Niss said. Her voice still rasped. “Bren Darvin. He’s at the inn. Don’t know about anyone else.”

And she let her knees fold and take her down to the floor by Casey’s bed, and she laid her face and her good arm down in the blanket, close enough so that if she were quiet she could hear the slow small whisper of Casey’s breathing.

“Race’s in four days,” someone murmured, behind her. “How many more silly kids before then…”

And before the fog rolled in over her again, Niss thought that she had never – for some reason – never expected this to be the end that came.

#thescorpioracesfestival #tsrf2017 #Seal-and-Vesper #story