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writing-the-end · 3 years

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LoL Chapter 26- Next Right Move

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU, designs, ideas belongs to @theguardiansofredland)

Where do the hermits go from here? All this knowledge, it bears so much weight. With their enemy being the leader of Lairyon himself, how can they possibly do anything now? Why should they?

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The hermits wasted no time returning to Eremita. Running as far from Milliara as possible, into the safety of the Ashioll sea. Protected by the mysterious magic surrounding their home, the hermits are able to recuperate from the honor and horror they’ve witnessed. Exhausted from the Chimaera’s Championship, but terrified from what monstrosity Dolios put them through. The phoenix shaped chalice, the grand prize of gold and honor from the games sits discarded at the guild hall. Every night, a few hermits can be found huddled near a fireplace or drinking in someone’s house.

The hermits left Eremita determined to find out who the dark mage was. They knew it was a Councilmember. They never expected it to be the magistrate himself. They never expected to win the Chimaera’s Championship, or stumble in on a plot much larger, much darker than they thought. And now here they are, narrowly escaped the dark mage’s wrath, with no clue what to do.

This is bigger than the hermits. This is bigger than Gildara, or Danes, or anything they’ve ever faced before. This is beyond a scope they can even understand. Why is Dolios doing this? How far has his corruption spread? Who can stop Dolios, the Magistrate and leader of Lairyon? If the king is silent, and the Council is a part of his cabal, then no one is able to stop him.

The hermits take the news in different ways- though no one celebrates their victory. Not after nearly dying in Dolios’s dungeons they only believed were rumors. The training field is empty, except for False. Anger burns through her pain, her kukri digging into the slime dummies she had Jevin make until the bodies rip in half. She decapitates one with a swift swing and turns around, ducking and rolling, before throwing molten blades into the chests of three more. The slime sizzles and burns, as hot as her anguish.

At the sidelines, Wels watches as he buffs out the dents on his armor. He scrubs the metal till he can see his reflection in it, and then a little more. Trying to rub out the memories of the chess game, the dark magic that had trapped them in the sick game.

Zedaph, Impulse, and Tango are together as always. But rather than trying to find trouble, all three sit on a haybale, just watching the animals of Zed’s farm. Tango twirls a stick full of leaves, much to the annoyance of the goat at his feet, eyes distant. Zedaph has been having a sleepover in their part of False’s forge, not wanting to leave his friend’s side. Not after knowing who killed their last guild. He doesn’t want to lose them as well. Impulse has no energy to be his bubbly, happy self. He feels like a cannon with a wet fuse, unable to light up and explode outward. Instead, he just mindlessly runs his fingers through the woolen fur of the sheep chewing on his clothes.

Grian and Mumbo sit on the open windows of the angel’s house. Just watching the sun rise into an afternoon sun across the sea. They say nothing, a rare silence from Grian and even Mumbo. The two friends have nothing to say. They won the championship, but Grian still feels the horror of watching Mumbo forced to move like a chess piece. A pawn, set forward and open to attack. He knew he should have trusted TFC, but in the moment all he could think of was losing his best friend.

Exiting his cave, TFC feels the oppressive mood in the air. He feels like he’s underground in Gildara again. That sense of hopelessness, that dampening weight on his shoulders. The guildmaster looks around, looks at his team, his island. A storm rolls in the distance, likely to come by evening and bless the island with life giving rain. But the hermits are like wilting flowers. Crumpled, lacking the color and life they normally carry with pride. Even the rainbow flags of the guild hall look muted.

TFC hates this feeling, this suspension. Waiting for something to break, something to happen. If it won’t happen, he’ll make it happen. TFC picks up a stone from the mouth of his cave home, feeling the weight of the stone as he wanders to Xisuma’s tower. It’s a good piece of granite, a nice heavy weight without being too strong or sharp. It’s perfect for his plan. He rests the stone in his dominant hand, looking up at Xisuma’s tower, the gleaming telescope at the peak of the building.

And he throws the stone. It clatters against Xisuma’s windowsill, rattling the metal frame but not breaking the glass. The stone falls, and he does it again. And again. Halfway through reeling back for a third throw, the window finally opens. X ducks just in time to miss getting a rock to the head. “What in the name of the gods are you doing?”

“Group meeting. Round up the others.” TFC crosses his arms, looking up at the wizard in the tower.

“What? Why?” Xisuma sighs, but pulls on his mask all the same. It’s too bright for him right now.

“If no one else is going to change the world, then we will.” TFC growls, then walks away. He motions for team ZIT to follow, and even dares to get between False and her training to call her to the guild hall. The open air space, enclosed only by clawlike stones and a ring of younger oak trees beneath the massive, entangling branches of the centerpiece, quickly fills with hermits. Sitting at the tables, Cleo tries to ease some of the tension with her good mead. But even Cleo’s best brews taste like swill right now.

The last to arrive was Grian. Iskall was practically dragging him by the cloak into the guild hall, across the wooden grains of the floor, across the twining knot of birch and dark oak. Once the architechs were seated, Iskall and Grian with their own mugs of mead, TFC looks at the guild before him.

He sighs, shaking his head. “I know what we faced was grim. I couldn’t imagine what it felt like to be you guys, forced to be pawns in Dolios’s sick game.” TFC notices False’s hands ball into fists at the mention of his name. “Especially to be moved by me, I wish I could’ve thought of a better way to stop him.

“But we went to Milliara to discover who the dark mage was. We did that, and more. Dolios thought he could scare us, silence us. Make us turn on each other, make us choose who was more important and who wasn’t. But we’re not just a guild- we’re a family. It was terrible, but we got through it only because we worked as a team.”

Silence meets TFC’s words. None of the hermits answer him. Normally, he struggles to get his guild to stay quiet for more than a minute. He feels he would have better luck teaching toddlers than talking to this lot. And it makes TFC’s stomach burn like magma to be able to hear rustling leaves, the distant bleat of a sheep.

“And he’s winning.” He growls, looking at them all. “Look at us! Silent, still! Wallowing in what’s happened while Dolios is continuing to steal magic for his own nefarious desires! He’s winning, because we are doing nothing!”

“What can we do?” Jevin sneers, leaning back. “We’re nobodies. An outlaw guild of misfits. We don’t have the power like the king, the prestige like a legal guild.”

“That’s exactly why we can do it! We have our freedom, our strength in being beyond all that. If no one else will stop Dolios, if no one else can stop Diolios, then we should. Look at us,” TFC waves around as hermits pick up their heads. “We’re victors of the Chimaera’s Championship. We have more power and strength in this one hall than most guilds have in their entire history. We have a variety of magic and the creative minds to wield powers. To weave unlike magics into something greater.”

“Why us, though?” Even Xisuma is sitting up, though his voice still has a twinge of doubt and exasperation.

“If we don’t, who will?” The guildmaster looks around, seeing a spark return to the crowd. Thank Artyne, they’re finally talking over him again. “We know who the dark mage is, we know how to break a crystal, we’re not afraid of breaking a few rules! We may not be the heroes Lairyon needs, but we’re the only ones who can do it.”

The surge of pride and power shocks across the hermits. A coy grin parts Doc’s hybrid face, sharp teeth revealed and glinting in the hot summer sunlight. Ren’s tail is wagging so fast it’s smacking Stress and Joe with each hemisphere completed. And TFC knows he’s gotten them hooked when he sees angelic feathers plume out from a gremlin smirk on Grian’s face.

TFC pulls out a map from the nook in a tree, brushing an acorn aside that was stashed along with it. Using now empty mugs from Iskall and Grian, he unfurls the map and gazes at the crescent shaped continent that is Lairyon. He pulls out a piece of charcoal, and sketches four marks on the map. One where Gildara was, a diamond shape that is matched with one in Milliara. But the one in Milliara is crossed out. Danes and their home island get swirls, neither crossed out. “We know of four events that for certain included dark magic. In Milliara, we were successful in breaking the crystal.” He taps on the x-marked diamond. “Unfortunately, we can’t be certain if those husk storms will reappear in Danes or here.”

“We should gather information. Listen in to town gossip, meet with contacts, just try and find any stories that match what we saw.” Cleo hums, running her dead fingers along the map. “Go all across Lairyon, destroy any crystals and do our best to weaken Dolios.”

“And try to find a way to stop his reign once and for all.” Doc adds, his voice growling.

“We need every hermit in on this job.” TFC looks at the map, eyes alighting on Crystalla. Wels came back- it’s time for the other hermits to come home. “Joe, send a message to xB, Hypno, and Beef. Tell them that the Order of Hermits are fighting to take back Lairyon.”

#light of lairyon #lol #hermitcraft #hermitcraft au #hermitcraft fanfic #wizard au #wizard hermits #mcyt #wizard tfc #wizard xisuma #wizard false #wizard cleo #wizard jevin #new hermits coming in!

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dear-yandere · 5 years

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aphrodisiac. [kinktober]

yandere! mafia boss! dazai x f! reader. not sfw (18+) scenario. tw: noncon, dissociation, mind break, aphrodisiacs, gunplay. disclaimer: this is not a healthy relationship.

part 1 — part 2 (here)

dazai’s eyes were devoid of any regrets about drugging you; rather, they were brimming with unparalleled excitement and lust. you wanted to feel disgusted, to feel violated and angry, but you couldn’t. part of you always wanted to be taken by this man even though these circumstances weren’t what you had in mind; still, you found yourself almost enjoying the way his body pressed against yours as if baring it all for your taking. you wanted to blame your attraction on the drugs, but you knew you didn’t mind this side of him, as scary as it was. perhaps you knew this day would come, where he’d invariably snap and claim you as his like he always threatened he would whenever you’d misbehave.

and you’d misbehaved to the highest degree, having tried to escape.

brown eyes met yours with a sickening look of sheer love, forcing you out of your reverie. a gloved finger rested on your lip, idly playing with it as if it were a delicate flower whose petals could fall at any moment. “try to stay quiet, i’ll be gentle.” his voice seemed ethereal and distant under the influence of the mixed drugs, but you somehow heard it loud and clear. in fact, it was the only thing you could hear clearly, no doubt a side-effect of the drugs he’d forced down your throat.

dazai chuckled when you slowly nodded and leaned into his warm touch, his finger tracing the contours of your face like you were an exquisite art piece. just seeing you like this, eyes cloudy and practically begging for him, nearly made him lose control -- but he wanted to savor this moment just a bit longer. it’s not everyday he gets to fuck his beloved any place other than the bedroom -- no one else was allowed to see you so vulnerable, after all.

before you could process it all, soft lips danced across your skin in a skillful and passionate display, peppering your collarbone and jawline with gentle nips and chaste pecks. paradoxical feelings bubbled in your stomach at how gently he was handling you despite how messed up this situation was. even without the drugs, he was a master at making you feel conflicted, both yearning for him and disgusted by him.

“don’t look at me like that, darling.” he ordered, hating the way your spiteful glare contrasted the pretty blush on your cheeks and the eager bite of your lips. “this is for your own good. once i make you mine, you’ll see how foolish trying to leave was.” his voice was making you dizzy, but you nodded in agreement despite your better wishes, your expression softening as if simply by his command.

he smiled approvingly. “i love when you’re a good girl. you love me too, right?”

another quick nod, this time accompanied by a delirious smile. it’s true you loved him dearly, but you loved yourself more. leaving was the only way to ensure your survival, but even before knowing of his affiliation with the port mafia, you couldn’t have chosen a more dangerous person to fall in love with. he would never let you go that easily and the drugs altering your mind proved the lengths he’d go to ensure that.

you gasped when cold steel pressed against your panties, vaguely remembering that he had a loaded gun and he fully intended on threatening you with it. you squirmed against the barrel as he lightly rubbed it down your clothed clit, curiously pushing your panties to the side. against the cold air of the warehouse, the steel barrel nearly made you clamp your legs shut had dazai not been holding them apart with his hand and elbow.

“ah ah ah, be a good girl. this’ll be fun, you even lubricated the gun wonderfully.” he chuckled and eyed the still-wet barrel before cautiously pressing the gun against your opening, careful to move your folds apart and slowly work the barrel in. he didn’t want to ruin you -- that’s best saved for later. you hissed at the intrusion, tears speckling your eyes as he pushed the gun further into your warmth. the gun’s girth was far larger than dazai, the latter of which was already so well-endowed it took weeks to get used to his size... especially when he never cared to fully get you in the mood whenever he felt like fucking you senseless.

he waited patiently, like a wolf basking in the fear of its cornered prey, as he let you grow accustomed to the desert eagle’s size. much to his surprise, you hungrily bucked into the barrel with ease. “oh? i didn’t know my darling was so lewd. did i prepare my pet well?” his laughter echoed off the walls as he reminisced about all the wonderful times he shared with you behind closed doors. licking his lips in anticipation, he steadily increased the speed and watched in awe as you met each thrust like a whore that had been starved of pleasure for a mere few days.

“i’m so happy we’re bonding like this. i’m learning so much about you...” his hot breath tickled your ear, the warmth of which quickly radiated in your cheeks. “things i could never hope to learn just by watching.”

your stomach nearly dropped realizing the insinuations of those words, the reality of the situation finally setting in -- he’d been watching you, following you, ruining your life for far longer than he’d let on -- but he didn’t relent in the near-violent thrusts of his gun. pleasure was quickly conquering the fear you desperately tried to cling to. giving in meant you were no longer human, nothing more than a puppet in his hand or a pawn in his game of chess. or, perhaps you were his queen. ironic, for even though the queen was far more powerful than the king in chess, he’d easily overpowered you. without the king, the game cannot go on, and dazai had every intention of playing this game until the bitter end.

you were going down with him, and him with you.

but god, did the way he used you feel divine. each breathy and conflicted moan was met with a soft and restrained whine from him as he watched you soak the large gun and his fingers with hot cum. pleasure coursed through your body like thundering rapids, and the delightful quiver of your hips and thighs was almost too much for the seasoned mafioso. he wanted to bury his face between your legs, to flick his tongue over your heat and listen to your adorable little moans reverberate down your body. he wanted to see you flustered, submissive, helpless -- he wanted to make you completely his.

the gun was quickly becoming a hindrance to dazai, but he liked seeing you enjoy being fucked by his weapon. the way it stretched your skin looked so painful and yet... so delightful. his erection throbbed as if in response to seeing your folds coil around the gun barrel, seemingly trying to suck the entire thing deeper into your core with every thrust. he licked his lips, an impatient and earnest itching shooting to the head of his penis.

he couldn’t take it anymore. patience had always been a virtue, just as much as masks and acting was second nature, but even those years of experience didn’t matter when you came into the equation.

with a final thrust into your abused pussy, he pulled the gun out, earning a pained groan from your parted and bruised lips. the notches and edges of the firearm left an uncomfortable sensation on your insides when he’d harshly pulled it out without warning, the sheer size of the gun leaving your entrance slightly agape -- ready for everything he had to offer.

“someone’s eager~” he chirped and raised the gun to his pink lips, tongue already darting out to lap up your cum. you watched through half-lidded eyes, your own tongue hanging out of your mouth like a bitch in heat, wanting nothing more than to have his tongue on you... in you.

“don’t worry my love, i’ll give you what you want. but first...” he leaned in, sadistic smile finally reaching eyes which shone with his true colors. with his thumb, he traced the contour of your lips, following the beautifully split curves that had resulted from weeks of biting born out of paranoia. nevertheless, you were entranced.

“beg for it.”

you didn’t have to think twice -- you couldn’t, not when the drugs had reached their zenith, forcing you to feel things you could hardly comprehend. you slipped your fingers into his hair, caressing his lightly tousled and curled strands impatiently. your lips parted before you could think, already mewling and begging the mafioso to fuck you senseless.

“p-please...”, you whined and desperately tried to buck into his hips, wishing he would finally undress himself. being the only one naked felt awfully lonely. but he only clicked his tongue in malcontent and moved slightly backwards.

“please what, belladonna?”

“please me!” your voice echoed in the near empty warehouse as your thighs clasped around his waist, struggling to bring him closer. he hummed blissfully and let your thighs latch around his waist, your pleads building a fire within him. “touch me! do me! fuck me, please, dazai!”

his smile was predatory. whatever self-restraint he’d built up had shattered upon hearing your sweet and needy mewls. one thrust and he was buried deep inside you, your slick allowing him to slide in with ease. you let out an elated moan, dazai following in your stead as your hips rutted into his to meet each thrust. your eyes lolled into your head, the sensation of his entire length filling you up practically setting your nerves on fire.

“mm, how i missed this, dear.” he leaned into your ear, his husky and low voice musing sweet moans and whispers of how much he loved you, how you no longer belonged to anyone but him. his words, his presence, his sheer love for you was on full display-- so beguiling it left you no choice but to shamelessly purr in agreement and press into him, marveling at the way your heated bodies intermingled, held together by a thin sheen of sweat across your chests.

his nails dug deep into the tender flesh of your hips, but pain refused to register in your head at this point. the drugs had your vision swirling, fading from black to clear every so often as his body violently and harshly bucked into yours. the only thing you could see, the only thing you needed in life, was him.

his moans were intoxicating as they were blithe, easily stroking and reigniting the lust that had caught in knots within your stomach. whether it was an aftereffect of the drug or from the smothered acknowledgement that you were being raped by the monster who’d taken everything from you, your stomach twisted with indignation and detestation. you wanted to throw up, to close your eyes and pretend this wasn’t happening, to pretend this was no longer you -- but the drugs he’d forced down your throat had brought out a carnal side of you, a side that delighted in how carelessly and reprehensibly he took your innocence from you.

“my belladonna…” his tongue prodded against your neck in hot, wet bursts. you squeezed your eyes shut as his gentle love bites stung as if to leave marks for days to come, your senses heightened by the aphrodisiacs. looking up at you through dim light that pooled into the abandoned warehouse, his eyes were lusty with satisfaction. “you don’t know how long i’ve waited for this, love. i-i can hardly hold myself back, much less drag this out for too long, unfortunately...” he bit at his lips, straining to keep himself from cumming too soon.

instead, he embraced you, allowing himself to enjoy your warmth and scent. your perfume was just as he imagined it, the light sheen of sweat coating your body was proof of how scared you were, but the cum staining your inner thighs and his dazai’s dick was proof of how much you were enjoying him. paradoxical and confusing emotions had blurred your foggy mind, leaving you with remnants of what was right and wrong. you shouldn’t be enjoying this -- you didn’t want to be enjoying this -- not when the bucking of your hips and the parting of your lips was not your own.

you hated this. you hated him. but right now that didn’t matter, and you hated that too.

you’d asked for this, but it was hard not to screw your eyes shut and try to forget about what was happening. you wanted to imagine he was someone else, or that he was someone you actually loved in the first place, or that this was all a fever nightmare -- but you couldn’t. your senses were heightened beyond a boundary you didn’t know you had; whatever drugs he’d used were potent and you only hoped they wouldn’t kill you at this rate.

then again, perhaps death was preferable at this point. whatever he had in mind when he was finished would surely be along the lines of keeping you like a beloved pet for his entertainment.

“don’t close your eyes, belladonna.” he cut into your thoughts with that sultry voice that seemed all the more euphoric and irresistible under the influence of aphrodisiacs. despite yourself, you audibly whined when he stopped fucking you, waiting for you to follow his command like a good girl. it was surely only a few seconds, but the suffocating silence and the sickening heat of his body pressing into yours felt like the length of an entire war -- one which you lost. he smiled, unable to resist a small chuckle when you finally opened your eyes, still avoiding his gaze. “good girl. now watch me make you mine, darling. this will be the norm from now on anyway.”

your lips trembled, successfully resisting a moan, when he continued his ministrations, fingers harshly digging into and grabbing your hips for better access. the sounds of sex -- the slapping of skin, the gross sound of his cock rubbing against your slick cunt, his feverish moans coupled with the ones you couldn’t hold behind closed lips -- it almost felt like forever. dissociating from the situation was surprisingly easy, eyes now wide open -- if only to make this go by faster -- and pinned to the steel beams of the warehouse ceiling. his moans, ragged and animalistic, were fuel for the sickening heat pooling within your abdomen, but there was nothing you could do to drown out your own sounds of pleasure. part of you wanted to scream for help, scream in pain and agony from being taken so ruthlessly by a man who could ruin your life with a snap of his fingers, but that part of you was stifled to near-death under the influence of his black market drugs and the weight of pleasure you didn’t want.

you thought -- hoped -- he’d leave you thereafter he’d had his way with you. but fate was not kind to you; in fact, it liked to watch you suffer. that much was apparent when a playful spark of curiosity flashed across umber brown eyes.

“rid your thoughts of any prospect of escaping, belladonna. you’ll never get far. i’ll chase you to hell and drag you back myself if i must.”

the cold metal he pressed against your left hand was a welcome change to the overwhelming heat of your body... until you felt a tight, clenching sensation wrap around your heart, realization dawning upon you. renewed panic shot through you when he laid an insouciant and loving kiss upon your new engagement ring. his eyes flashed with sadistic bemusement as they rose to meet your frightened gaze. the emotion in his eyes was frightening, a flux of intense adoration and obsession.

“till death do us part, yes?”

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gal-liveblogs · 4 years

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RWBY Chapter 8: Players and Pieces

Hm, that title makes me think those chess pieces are about to become very important.

O.K., what on earth are you doing, Ruby? Are you... Are you riding a giant bird? Is that why you were falling from the sky at the end of the last episode? WHY are you on a giant bird? HOW did you get on a giant bird?

Ruby: Well, why don’t we just jump? Weiss: What are you, insane?

Aaaaaand Ruby’s gone. God damn it, Ruby.

That’s some stellar timing. Congrats, Ruby, you saved Jaune from hurtling even further into the forest. Hopefully he doesn’t crush you when you both land.

Oh great, before Yang and Blake can deal with the Ruby and Jaune situation a Grimm appears from the forest. I sure hope that scorpion Grimm doesn’t join the fray as well.

Nora: Yeeeeeehaaaw!

Oh. Thanks, Nora! That was easy!

Nora: Aw, it’s broken.

She has no respect for danger and I love her.

Nora: I’m queen of the castle~ I’m queen of the castle~

You are fighting hard for my favorite character.

Here comes the scorpion now! It’s fine, the other Grimm is dead and we have a bunch of warriors gathered. I’m sure they’ll be fine. What’s Weiss up to?

Pyrrha: Jaune! Jaune: Pyrrha! Ruby: Woah! Jaune: Ruby! Yang: Ruby?! Ruby: Yang! Nora: NORA!

I sure love the Name Game. Glad to see Nora knows how to play the winning hand.

Yang is shaking in frustration and I can’t tell if Nora is just happily swaying or having fun imitating her, but it’s just the cutest thing.

Oh, there’s Weiss! Boy, that bird is quite a bit bigger than I expected it to be. Gosh... How did you girls manage to hitch a ride on that?

Nora, stop being so adorable this instant.

Ren: She’s falling.

Oh no. Jaune, I know what you’re thinking. Don’t. This is not the perfect opportunity to play hero and save the falling damsel. You are the butt monkey, your role to continually fail for comedy. This won’t end well for you.

I know it’s tempting, Jaune, but don’t even try. Really there’s only two ways this is going to go. You’re going to try and somehow make things worse, or one of the other’s is going to rescue Weiss before you can do anything.

Either things are about to go horribly wrong, or Weiss is gonna smack him and call him a pervert.

Music: *is angelic* Jaune: Just dropping in?

Or this will turn out to just be a fantasy Jaune has concocted after hitting his head trying to jump out of the tree.

O.K., not a fantasy. Cartoons physics was employed so that they could float in the air for a moment before gravity picked back up. Now the question is if the punchline is them still crashing to the ground or will it be that one of the others will still end up rescuing them?

Crashing it is! At least Weiss seems fine, since Jaune acted as a crash pad. So I guess... Congrats, Jaune? You managed to save the girl?

Weiss: My hero.

She just sounds so disinterested. That’s gotta hurt him more than his crushed spine.

Oof. That was a crunch. Poor Pyrrha, I thought you’d be able to put up a bit more fight against the scorpion.

Yang: Great, the gang’s all here! Now we can die together!

Glad to see you being positive, Yang.

And of course Ruby jumps into the fray only to get immediately bitch slapped.

Holy shit! That thing has projectile feathers! I’m more scared of it than the scorpion now!

Be thankful it only skewered your cape and not your body! Still, this is legitimately terrifying!

Ruby, no, don’t try to rip your cape free just take your cape off! Trust me, it’s much faster!

O.K., yeah, wow, thanks for the ice wall and all, Weiss, but could we maybe have the getting along speech after we defeat the Grimms?

Ruby: *sighs and whispers* Normal knees...

What are you going on about, Ruby? I know you just wanted to be a normal girl with normal knees, but what does this mean? Are you reminding yourself to just act normally, or are you thankful that Weiss just said “you’re fine” and thus she sees you as normal?

Really though, these friendship building moments can wait until AFTER THE GRIMMS ARE DEAD, YES?

I’m sorry, but I have to point out Yang’s little run here wasn’t the best. She just kind of, slid across the ground. Not great animation. Very slippery.

Alright, so now everyone has a chess piece. Were those missing chess pieces already missing to begin with, or did those two dudes we saw at the start take them? You know, they two people who had character models but no lines?

So the gang tries to run, but it seems the bird has them trapped. Oh, and then the scorpion comes back too. So how’s that “just run and don’t fight them” plan going?

I love Nora’s gun. She has a grenade launcher. I wonder what it transforms into?

You know, for an exercise all about teaming up with one other person they all seem to be working with, well, everyone. I mean, it’s good to have teamwork with everyone at your disposal, but I would think you’d want to stick with your “assigned” partner and learn how to most effectively work with them.

Calling it now, that bridge is either going to collapse and make the scorpion tumble into the ravine below OR it’s going to collapse and trap out heroes in the ruin. Possibly both. Either way the bridge isn’t going to survive this fight.

Well, I was right about the bridge being destroyed, at least, but it looks like everyone is gonna hitch a ride on the bird on outta here. How did Ruby and Weiss do this the first time??

Oh, never mind, they do get trapped in the ruin after all. Looks like only Pyrrha, Ren, and possibly Blake hitched a ride.

GOD DAMN IT! NO ONE GOT CARRIED AWAY? Bullshit! You could clearly see they were all too far away from the edges with the bird came through!

Oh neat! A hammer! Let me guess, it’s gonna have some sonic blast or something that will propel her across the gap when she swings it down?

Ah, no magic nonsense, just basic physics! Yay for levers! Bye, Jaune! Now what will you do, dear Nora? Also what about the others?

Oh that is awesome! A grenade propelled scooter, basically! Who knew hammers could be so versatile?

Aw, and you were doing so well too, Nora! Now who’s going to save Blake from plummeting to her death?

Blake’s gonna save herself thanks to grappling guns!

I like that during the classic “run up all the falling rocks” moment we get to see that each of the four main girls does it slightly differently. Blake immediately gets off the unstable rocks and goes to another classic, “run up the walls”. Weiss uses her glyphs to give herself more stable footing when there are no rocks. Yang uses her rocket gauntlets to propel herself, and Ruby just stays with the classic approach.

So while Ruby has a plan to fight the bird, Jaune seems to be giving orders to the other team fighting the scorpion. Not so much orders as barking out their names and they knowing what to do already. I could be mean and say Jaune isn’t really needed here, but I’ll give him the credit has leader of this team of four. Clearly Ruby will be leader of the other team so he’s being built up as the leader of the secondary characters.

Nora is just the cutest gosh darn thing! Sorry, Jaune, but Nora has been too precious this episode. She has booted you out of the top spot on my characters list.

Poor Ren, someone get this boy some snacks. Nora, give him pats and snacks!

Wow, this is quite the plan, Ruby, How did you manage to tell the others what to do while all of you were fighting?

Ruby: Think you can make the shot? Weiss: Can I? Ruby: ... Can y- Weiss OF COURSE I CAN!

I’m a sucker for confident “can I?” “that’s what I just asked you” interactions.

Holy shit, Ruby is strong! I know Weiss puts some glyphs down, which are probably helping her with the speed and keeping momentum, but Ruby is still dragging that giant bird by her scythe!

Nice decapitation!

Jaune: Wow.

Yeah, I mean, not to downplay your guys’ scorpion, but that was really cool.

I guess we’re all back at Beacon now. Sounds like whatever piece you took assigns you to a larger team. So I guess only one piece was taken per team of two? Then, since it’s chess, there were two of each piece (excluding the pawns) so then the two teams that had the same pieces would get combined here. Still doesn’t sound like a great way to form actually good teams for four years, but whatever. How lucky that the teams that worked together fighting each Grimm ended up being the actual teams. Now they have a basic understanding of each member’s abilities!

Wait, did I just hear Yang Xiao Long? Not Yang Rose? Do you two have different fathers? You usually take your dad’s last name after all. We saw a Summer Rose gravestone. Hm. Well if they’re half sisters it would explain why they look so different.

Ozpin: From this day forward you will work together as Team RWBY, lead by Ruby Rose.

Wow, who could have guessed the team named after her would be lead by Ruby. Honestly, it would have been a jerk move to name the team “ruby” and then have someone else lead the team.

OH COME ON! NOW THE SHATTERED MOON ISN’T EVEN ROUND ANYMORE! It’s a shatter egg! I’m telling you, it’s fluctuating size and shape, that’s the cause of it breaking! The moon saga never ends!

Oh? And what is our dapper villain up to in this lonely warehouse?

Hm, I see you have various districts marked out on your maps. Also COPS! and Beacon. What dastardly plans are you concocting?

Man, you’re eyelash game is strong. Are you wearing eyeliner too?

Monopoly money!

Oh, credit cards, not Monopoly money.

A better look at the map. He’s not only marked out COPS!, but also DUMB COPS. I wonder if Forever Fall is a town or a landmark. Beacon seems like a pretty big place.

Torchwick: We’re gonna need more men.

BOO. Cliched line is cliched!

We never did find out how Ruby and Weiss got on that bird...

#rwby #rwby liveblog #gal liveblogs #the moon saga

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ariadnediggle · 5 years

Photo

re-uploaded ! thanks tumblr !

❝ Deceit is so natural; but a wolf in sheep’s clothing is more than a warning . ❞ KIM JI WOO? No, that’s actually ARIADNE DIGGLE. A SIXTH YEAR student, this RAVENCLAW student is sided with THE DOUBLE AGENTS ( DE.) . SHE identifies as CIS-FEMALE and is a PUREBLOOD who is known to be DECEPTIVE, HEARTLESS, and VENGEFUL but also WITTY, MOTIVATED, and CHEERY.

STATS.

NAME: Ariadne Persis Diggle NICKNAME: ari, baby. AGE: 17 years old. BIRTHDAY: September 27th. SEXUAL ORIENTATION: pansexual. GENDER: cis gender NATIONALITY: great british. POB: Oxford. BLOOD STATUS: pureblood HOUSE: ravenclaw WAND: cedar / dragon heartstring / 11” / surprisingly swishy. PATRONUS: unable to produce one but claims that it’s a penguin.

please read 2 the end 4 some connection ideas and spicy memes !!

IS A MONSTER CREATED OR BORN / THE CHILDHOOD.

The diggles on the whole, are a slightly out there family that never really made any sense.

the kind of pure blood family that people looked at, and wholly wondered whether those blood lines were … really okay. smiley, happy, carefree, but maybe a few gobstones short.

Dedalus Diggle, his son Dion Diggle, daughter -in -law, Cybil Diggle, all held such similar personalities to them. It didn’t mean that they were anything less than incredible wizards, but their personalities often overshadowed any individual merit they held.

They worked just outside of London in Oxford, but travelled to Wizarding London on most days for their day jobs, all three of whom worked in a selection of odd jobs from the doing something or other at the ministry, to being a wizard tailor. but all three ( mostly just following dedalus ) were heavily involved in the Order at some point.

Another thing everyone in the family shared was the eccentric names, so it was no surprise when Cybil and Dion christened their first and only born, Ariadne Persis Diggle.

unforutanetly, their naming habits wasn’t the limit of their eccentric behaviour.

To Ariadne’s parents it was so easy to misplace time, like the mad hatter, plans were lost or all together forgotten, they never got to anywhere punctually — - cybil would even go on record stating that Dion was late for their wedding ; their child birth. meme for reference

not that they would ever forget their daughter ; but they did. they left her places all the time; dragon alley, the super market, the forest. she got used to spending time by herself, ariadne learning to look after herself from a young age because she simply just couldn’t trust her parents to look after her. a

terrifying concept that a child would have to fend for themselves, cook for themselves; not because their parents didn’t love them, but that they just forget to show it.

part of this was because they were all truly different. ariadne wasn’t scatterbrained, she wasn’t forgetful, or flippant. she was dedicated & serious & incredibly intelligent. what other child by age 4 could cook for themselves? dress themselves? take themselves to school?

ariadne was a child genius ; a fact that their pre-school had to tell Dion & Cybil several times before they finally got the message; Ariadne desperately needed a tutor.

In fact, it wasn’t even the seventeen messages, letters home, meetings with the head ( all of which went dutifully ignored ) it was the fact that at the age of 5 — one powerful sneeze almost completely blew up one wing of the small school. and it wasn’t a request, it was a, “politely let go & no longer wanted at their ‘fine’ institution. “

it was at this point, dion and cybil began to see their own flesh & blood as being a bit of a pain / annoyed with how much upkeep it required to take care of someone so inquisitive. they tried not to convey this to ariadne. but ariadne was smart, and gifted

ventually, ariadne grew very against her family and what they stood for, but as such a young child at the age of 7, she had no idea how to express this burning inside her heart, so she hid her aggression behind a loving smile, and took out pent up aggression on bugs she found in the garden. tearing them apart, and looking up what she saw in her families dusty, never used library.

eventually, the diggle’s gave out and hired a tutor, and hired the first person they could find with little regard for screening the applicants to find the best fit. and so, they let a death eater and all the ideologies they carry with them into the diggle household. see,

after the whole kindergarten incident, word of the young diggle girl had spread through newspapers, and the inside talk of the other pureblood families, it had been noted with interest, so when the job opportunity opened up XYZ I GUESS THIS MIGHT BE A WC were more than happy to step in to act as the guiding compass in young ariadne’s life.

for the concept of a child genius, a young witch showing very strong potential in a wide array of magicks, was an interesting concept – and with such a gullible, malleable, manipulatable family? well, [ it’s free real estate meme !]

from the ages of 5-11, ariadne was tutored & trained in a wide variety of disciplinaries. along with this, a distinct hatred of muggles, a disbelief in absolutely everything her parents stood for, how her parents ignorance for her was how all order aligned people were. that they were ineffective; and useless, and whilst not necessarily the scum of the earth ( that was just mud bloods ) they had little to no use. but whilst they didn’t offer much, they were easy tools to be used.

she had tutoring to what was already 5th year material before she even started her 1st year, plus rudimentary training in extremely difficult types of magic such as apparition and legilimency.

it wasn’t tutoring; it was indoctrination, pure and simple. but they were kind, they were nice, they indulged Ariadne’s interest in learning and inquisitive mind, all the whilst feeding it the less than wholesome ideals that the death eaters had founded themselves on.

They also mentioned the fact that some people she would meet in life, those horrible, horrible people, were awfully bigoted against these blood purity ideas - the superior ideas - that they held.

They told her, when dealing with these “acceptance for all / muggle lovers” people, to keep quiet, keep what was said in lessons between the two of them, because in their words “ there’s no reason for you to go through the trauma we had.” but that wasn’t their reason, no, that was never their reason. They knew full well to get such a death eater loyalist inside the “other sides” ranks would be a feet that required years of predisposition and nudging into a perfect personality.

Even after Ariadne turned 11 and no longer needed to be homeschooled, she continued the lessons throughout her holidays, constantly having them topped up with the most recent ideology, constantly nudged like a pawn on a chess board into the perfect position.

And for all Ariadne’s brains, she was trusting, and easily controlled, for she was near-sighted and once her trust was earned, it was almost impossible for it to be destroyed.

She was sorted into Ravenclaw, inspired by her desire for knowledge, her inquisitive mind that seemed far larger than the rest of her tiny frame ( standing at a whole, 4’9).

But she was never really the best student, because she already could do everything that was taught, she lacked the challenge she was so desperately searching for.

But she couldn’t really find it ever at hogwarts, so she just often choose to not go to class in favour of going to the library to learn things she didn’t know. And whilst she did often do well on exams, the teachers would always end up docking her for her … less than sportsmanlike behaviour throughout the year. A plague to anyone who ever vaguely cared about house points.

But other than annoying other teachers, she wholly seemed to be a popular girl. She could never be found without her trademark smile, lopsided grin, infectious giggles.

She had such a sunny demeanour that contrasted so greatly with her rotten insides. She was friendly to everyone, somehow, only interacting with the muggle borns through an unseen gritted teeth, and glares every time no one was looking.

It also made Ariadne an obvious choice to join the M.A, said everyone with a resounding cheer. It made perfect sense!

She was from a family that had long been associated with the Order of the Phoenix, she was incredibly smart and great in a duel, and seemed to get along with everyone !

Ariadne didn’t know what to say, but agree to sign up, secretly writing an owl to her tutor under the cover of dark. They got her in touch with the heads of the D.E’s at Hogwarts and they came to an agreement, an arrangement. With her tutor to vouch for her loyalty, Adriane signed up for the Death eaters, a heavily guarded secret known by only a select few.

Ariadne personally loved the freedom that the flip-flop nature of her identity, the secrecy, the manipulation.

All in all, the war feels something of a game to her.

Much like how she is a pawn in somebody else's game, she feels a certain sense of control from being vested in both sides, that she has some sort of ability to manipulate everything as she sees fit, that perhaps she is playing the protagonist like in one of the stories she read growing up.

But in reality, she is still just someone else’s pawn, who will end up branded as a traitor, a wolf in sheep's clothing, no matter who ends up becoming victorious.

to people in the MA, ariadne is a very well respected, dedicated (and unfortunately trusted) members. to the DE she is ALSO just a member of the MA unless they’re in the higher leadership !

hi ! thanks 4 reading to the end, do i have any wc? you ask ! not really ! but here’s some concepts i’d love 4 ariadne !

- she can have so many friends ! just so many friends ! give her friends you cowards! - i feel like she’s been in a few relationships / all were quite innocent and ended on seemingly okay terms but maybe there’s an unspoken bad blood ! she’s cute and a pureblood, great for everybody ! - people who lowkey don’t like her or find her annoying / not that they doubt her alliance, but maybe some (lower rank) DE who think she’s a blood traitor or overly nice? or just anyone who thinks her smiliness is annoying. - .... . prankster partner ...... lowkey demon thinks it’s one of the easiest way to take her aggression out on people she doesn’t like .. .. - the ONE person who once really saw ariadne snap for whatever reason / very fun plotting possibilities !!!

#iidyintro #reuploading bc tumblr merced my old blog rip #feel free 2 ignore this there's nothing new just the same old memes !#negligence tw #abuse tw

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tomasorban · 5 years

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THE ZODIAC: SCORPIO THE SCORPION

Date of Rulership: 23rd October-21st November; Polarity: Negative, female; Quality: Fixed; Ruling planet: Mars/Pluto; Element: Water; Body part: Reproductive organs; Colour: Deep red; Gemstone: Opal; Metal:Steel or iron.

Attempting to make sense out of the eighth sign of the zodiac can sometimes mimic the insurmountable task of trying to answer a cosmological question as to why the universe came into being. If we could equate Scorpio with a physical object, it would be an iceberg. Why, you ask? Well everyone finds it difficult to relax and be uninhibited around an iceberg, especially when you’re on a ship and there’s simply no way of telling what lies beneath the surface of the water, how big it is, and if it will steadfast melt or simply tear a slit into your vessel and sink you. What you see or what you think you see isn’t always what you get, and that tenet is truer of Scorpio than it is for any other sign.

In equating the iceberg with the archetype of Scorpio, the part resting above the water would be the desolate, unapproachable, and cryptic exterior that doesn’t quite lend itself to close investigation for fear of judgement and ridicule, and the larger part beneath the water is the smouldering chamber of power-packed emotions and unconscious images that are left to proliferate there unchecked and are rarely, if ever, vented. Just as the iceberg severs itself from a main body and floats into territories foreign to its own nature, so too does Scorpio show the side of itself that is frequently incompatible with social rituals and codes, alienating it from the joys and benefits of social intercourse. Moreover, ice is a solid, concrete form of water and Scorpio’s watery but fixed nature indicates that it is a sign that can quickly become fixated with things. Scalding is usually associated with heat, though conditions of severe cold such as those facilitated by ice can generate analogous effects. Hence just as heat and cold can scald the skin so too can Scorpio’s behavioural extremes, brooding intensity, and fiery emotional outbursts leave people with psychic burns and scars that won’t easily be forgotten or forgiven. Scorpio, then, is the iceberg that drifts through the cosmic ocean, a block of ice that remains acutely aware of its own temporal existence, vulnerability, and composition while at the same time emanating a snow-white radioactive plume around it that alerts others to proceed with caution, or better still, stay away altogether.

The soul of a Scorpio man or woman is extremely delicate, soft, and pliable. Think of it in terms of a piece of twenty-four carat gold that can easily be bent, twisted, broken in half, amalgamated with other metals, and fashioned into material things that do not accurately express the spiritual worth of ‘gold’. Being the intuitive and proud gem that it is, Scorpio knows this and inherently feels that it’s only viable recourse is to raise gargantuan walls and set cunning traps in the immediate vicinity around itself as to thwart any foreign invasion which seeks to dismantle its bubbling motivations and innermost desires. The type and nature of defences employed by the Scorpion to ensure this never comes to pass varies from person to person, however one that exists in the arsenal of all is a belligerent, angry, and red-coloured force field that will not allow another cheap laughs at its own expense. In the mind of a Scorpio, any deliberate attempt to humiliate, threated, scold, or tease, vilify and slander either itself or a fellow conscious projection of the universe violates the most vital of moral codes and deserves shameless retaliation.

As we have thus far discerned, Scorpio possesses an innate sensitivity that renders it receptive to even the slightest changes in external temperatures and environment. Thus it seems only natural that the sign might become unnecessarily fixated on trying to control and manipulate everything around it for the sake of lessening its anxieties and maintaining harmony of its inner empire in the manner that a chess player strategically positions pawns, knights, bishops, and rooks to defend an inner sanctuary epitomized by the royal couple. Like the latter, souls incarnating under the stars of Scorpio enjoy playing games in which they can draw like-minded others into their private little worlds, identify their psychic dowry and talents as well as the positive and negative elementary characteristics of their personality, and henceforward advise them on what course of action and karmic life choices they should make. Scorpio enjoys proposing unsolicited makeovers that they believe will emphasize another’s finest characteristics, inside and out, and can be quite intrusive in prying for information that it perceives to be of utmost importance to the wellbeing of its significant other, its loved ones, and itself. Being the control freak that it is, Scorpios are aversed to and become apprehensive around obstinate and autonomous persons that will steer clear of Scorpionic manipulation, especially when the individual concerned is their own partner. Like its close cousin Cancer, Scorpio doesn’t like to be confronted about the way in which it operates or the manner in which it chooses to live its life and will often go to any length to protect its emotional security and hold onto the few momentous others that comprise its cryptic and often unintelligible chess game.

“One thing you’ll really like about me,” says Scorpio, “is the fact that I’m very understanding. I understand the conflict of interests between the outer and inner landscape that can cause one to feel like a social misfit, a reject, a loser, or simply undesired and unwanted. I don’t judge people who are different from the conforming majority; on the contrary, I embrace and honour them. I’m also really good at fixing things. I simply love to pick at something until it’s either fixed or it vanishes from the face of the earth. I’m also intensely self-aware. I’m aware of gestures, subtle energies, actions, and implications that often move in the opposite direction to that of the spoken word and might have their own story to tell. Really, I haven’t got a problem in diving down into the abyssal depths of the human soul, perusing an inner darkness that contains the carnal impulses, compulsions, instincts, and latent desires within you, and then re-emerging into the conscious light to reveal how your outer landscape will inevitably undergo a metamorphosis for the worse if you don’t confront it.

Life is about experiencing this world, but it is also about learning how to die and resurrect throughout the course of one’s lifetime in order to expand the psychic and spiritual fields of our collective consciousness. Alchemically speaking, we might say it involves a threefold cycle: necrosis, the corruption of death; leucosis, rebirth through intuition; and iosis, the conciliation of conscious and unconscious elements that leads to the much desired ruby-red state of illumination. We must all come to terms with the insecurities, hostilities, and boiling obstructions within the depths of our being that set this cycle into motion, as well as find a way of reconciling these qualities with our conscious personalities in order to attain closure. Why, you ask? Well in my search for the truth I have acquired a hunch that there are other dimensions of existence beyond our physical one, and so the plight of each human being should be to purge oneself of murky, carnal qualities that go far in inhibiting the attainment of illumination, inner purity, freedom and most importantly, unalloyed love. I, for one, come into the world karmically prepared for the emotional tribulations life will inevitably throw at me, and I know of no other sign that experiences such cheerful bliss, soaring through the boundless skies like a carefree eagle, when these obstacles are finally overcome.

Like every animal on this planet, I enjoy having sex and will often engage it purely to release tension and other psychic steam that has been collecting in the confines of my subconscious for weeks if not months. Hence, anyone lucky enough to tango with me will share in the providential gift of a mind-blowing and positively uplifting experience. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ll use sex as a method of exploitation, but one should never take me for easy, and I’m not particularly interested in dispassionate and no-strings-attached casual sex. For me, sex is extremely sacred and must involve love and intimacy between two people who care for one another otherwise the act becomes pointless and futile.”

There are two symbols associated with the zodiacal sign of Scorpio. The animal totem that represents the first of these really does correspond to the distribution of stars in the sign’s constellation, and it appears that all ancient cultures from the Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Indians to the Egyptians, Hellenes, and Romans were in unanimous agreement about this. The most significant stellar body in this vivid star group was Antares, a bright eye otherwise known as the Heart of the Scorpion and inextricably linked with the war god Mars. In ancient Egyptian cosmogony, Scorpio was ascribed prominence as the constellation of Seth, the primordial god of destruction, irruption, anger and chaos. In a book by archaeoastronomer Jane Sellers entitled The Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt, astronomy, archaeological evidence, and mythography come together to reveal that the eighty-year battle between the gods Horus and Seth had a precessional basis, the question being which constellation of the equinoxes, Scorpius (Seth) or Taurus (Horus), would gain the ascendency after Orion (Osiris) had been obliterated from the night skies of the northern hemisphere. Given the fervent preoccupation of our ancient ancestors with celestial events, the Predynastic Egyptians would have envisioned a harmonious balance in the annual circuit of the sun when Taurus (Horus) marked the spring equinox and Scorpio (Seth) marked the autumnal equinox. This was something of a Golden Age, a locus classicus when the v-shaped bovine head of Taurus manifested by the Hyades rose heliacally over the eastern horizon at the vernal point just before sunrise and the arachnid-like form of fiery Scorpio reappeared there exactly six months afterward to herald the autumnal equinox. According to Sellers, this Golden Age would have occurred between c. 6900-4867bce before the relentless yet subtle effect of the precessional cycle knocked it all out of allignment.

The second, an astrological shorthand for the zodiacal sign utilized by astrologers in the creation of astrological charts, looks like the small letter “m” save for the fact that the third leg terminates with an upturned arrow. Many astrologers and symbologists have attempted to anatomically define the contemporary sigil, though it appears that none of the suggestions are wholly convincing. Hypotheses linking the modern shorthand symbol to the male reproductive organs, a severed scorpion tail, the tail of the Christian devil, the tail of a mythical dragon, and a coiled serpent have all been proposed. This particular symbol has undergone many changes through time. In Egypt, four demotic tablets were uncovered that recorded days and months in which the five visible planets entered the zodiacal signs over a twenty-eight year period. These revealed that the shorthand symbol used in ancient Egypt was a snake. Alternatively, medieval treatises show an actual scorpion.

In the northern hemisphere Scorpio appears at a time when the formative forces of Mother Nature are at their weakest, but it is also a time of turbulent change when fermentation has commenced and the scales are about to tip towards the proliferation of life energy. Evolving around the rudimentary myth relating the passions of the beneficent Osiris, ancient Egyptian belief ascertained that the latter suffered death and descent into the netherworld beneath the stars of the vigilant Scorpion. In Peri Isidos kai Osiridos, we learn that Osiris’s penis was the only body part that wasn’t found his wife, the mourning Isis, who solved the enigma of how she might conceive a son posthumously by equipping him with one hewn from a piece of wood. The myth’s preoccupation with the reproductive organs, sexuality, and resurrection fits in well with Scorpio as a spiritual archetype intensely preoccupied with the cosmic cycle of death, transformation, and rebirth.

The Scorpion exudes an energy which works in indirect and often cryptic ways. Consequentially, this sign is one of the most misunderstood in the zodiac and will more often than not encounter hostile adversities and reactions from those that cannot comprehend the benevolent intent indigenous to the Scorpion’s nature. Having said that souls incarnating under this sign possess a psychic dowry that enables them to handle and cope with such situations, for one can be sure that the universe will never impose a blueprint onto something or someone unless it is sure that that something or someone can survive experiences and consequences that might be simulated as a result. When looking at the zodiacal image and the symbols as a whole, one intuitively feels that the poisonous stinger and sharp arrow imply sharp qualities and sentiments that cut like glass such as adroitness, cleverness, and smooth-tongued straightforwardness. They also recalls the Stygian depths of Scorpio’s psyche, a raw, windswept, and multifarious breeding ground of passion, charm, astuteness, creativity, intensity, and both sexual and romantic love. These fiery traits can be attributed to the immanence of Plutonian energy in the sign, a prominent planetary position formerly held by Mars.

#zodiac #astrology #psychology #astropsychology #consciousness

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mrneighbourlove · 5 years

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Shadow Hunt: Ch 1. Setting up the Players

Clara sat back quietly onto the seat of the psychiatrist’s chair, taking slow deep breathes as instructed by her doctor. Work had been dragging on her, and with the anniversary of most of her friends’ deaths at the hand of the being known as Vul’kar tomorrow, she was feeling incredibly depressed. “Can I have another pillow?”

“Of course.” Doctor Kai Neighbour gave a light smile as he got up to select another pillow from his cupboard. Doctor Neighbour had only been working as a professional for six months, but he was the leading psychologist in Hyrule. Sure, this only came about due to most of his predecessors being killed in wars, or having traveled to Danjur to seek asylum from all the death, but Doctor Neighbour was absolutely dedicated to helping all walks of life in Hyrule. No matter if they Moblins, Hylians, or Lorleidians, he wanted to be a neighbour to them, someone they could trust. Everyone had difficulties after all. Handing Clara the pillow, Doctor Neighbour took his seat with easy care. “More comfortable?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Clara relaxed with a few more breathes. “Doctor Neighbour. It’s been getting more stressful. The days are going by harder and harder knowing that my friends are all gone. I don’t know why I’m still sad about this.”

Doctor Neighbour gave a light nod of his head. He too lost people he cared for during the eclipse. “Grief is something that might never go away. Its hold on us being an overbearing force in our lives. We have to accept that, and we have to know that its normal to still feel sad. To be numb to your friends’ deaths wouldn’t be good now. You know in your heart that you care for them, and they’ll be with you.”

“But what do I do now? If it’s not going to go away, how do I cope with it?”

“Do you have any friends that survived the eclipse?”

“Yes… but…”

Doctor Neighbour made sure to not fully interrupt her as she spoke, clueing in at the appropriate time. “Anyone to go to? Old or new friends?”

“I was in a chess league with Prince Ralnor as a teenager. But he’s so busy helping the king. And I heard he’s married and has a child.”

Her psychologist could only smile, and softly clapped his hands together. “Our worries come from a place of possibilities, but possibilities we never achieve due to the worry of only the worst outcomes. And we won’t ever achieve the positive outcomes if we don’t take the chance to reach out to them.”

Clara was still somewhere in the middle of assurance and worry. “Are you sure he wouldn’t tell me off?”

“Clara. I’m sure if you took a deep breath, take that confidence I know you have, and knock on his front door, he’d be more than happy to play a game of chess and catch up with you.”

Clara appreciated her doctor’s positivity. His never give up thinking and to always try made her feel better now. “Alright. If you think that’s what it takes.”

“I’ll even write a note making it mandatory.” Doctor Neighbour smiled another on of his soft smiles.

The meeting lasted half an hour, and after talking about work and saying goodbye, Clara took her bags and walked up to the castle palace. When a guard asked what her business was, she simply showed the doctors note. She couldn’t believe it actually came down to that. Making her way through the palace with a guard escort, she took a deep breath, and searched deep for her confidence. With a steady smile, she knocked on Ralnor’s door.

“Ukuri! Let papa answer the door!” The moment that girl started to hobble around, Ralnor knew she’d be a handful. Picking his daughter up, he quickly placed her back in a crib. “Stay there.”

When the Prince answered the door, Clara was surprised by how much he had grown. They hadn’t seen each other in plenty of years. He still had that long golden hair like his mother though. She instinctively brushed the hair out of her face. “Hello Prince Ralnor. I’m not sure if you remember me. But we used to play chess together.”

“Clara.” Ralnor mimicked her hair gesture with his finger. “You still do that thing with your hair when you’re worried.”

“Oh gosh. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Its been ages, hasn’t it? What have you been up to all these years?”

“Well, I started using my teaching degree and ran a chess club for students, as well as anyone in Castle Town who was interested.”

“I heard. In the Brazzer Corner.”

“Yes. Its…. Its all gone now.”

Ralnor didn’t show a lot of emotion, but he understood it and picked up on it well in others. Clara was clearly hurt by the destruction Vul’kar rained upon Hyrule. Her presence here most likely meant she was looking for a friend. Her nervousness deduced this may have been a last resort. Shyness perhaps? The prince didn’t see why he couldn’t give her his time. He did remember how she was one of the few Hylians to be kind to him without an ulterior motive. “Would you like to come in Clara? I have some water if you’d like.”

Clara wasn’t one to hide her emotions. The fact she was actually let in felt incredibly gratifying. “Thank you. That would be very kind.” She took notice of the little one in the pen, reaching up. “Oh my goodness. She’s adorable.”

Ralnor finished pouring the glasses of water, looking proudly at his daughter. “Yes, she is. My little Ukuri, pride and joy of my life. She has her mother’s charms.”

“I’m sure she’s lovely.”

Ralnor took out an old, but richly engraved wooden chess piece collection, carefully setting it on the table. “Would you like to play? For old times sake?”

Clara felt her heart flutter, excited to play chess with an old friend. “I would. I’m sure you haven’t gotten rusty.”

“Not at all. It’s my favourite hobby.”

“Well, I’m sure your daughter can be a good referee.”

Taking their seats, the two of them played a long, yet fun game of chess, slowly catching up over lost time. Clara carefully moved her bishop to take Ralnor’s rook. “So, how did you and your wife meet?”

“My father always did want Covarog to have a Gerudo wife. Cass disagreed heavily with being forced into any relationship, even with a crown Gerudo prince. To appease my father, I proposed a relationship instead. With time…” Ralnor calculated his move and moved his knight into position. “… we formed an organic love with one another.”

“That’s very sweet Ralnor. I told you that you were likeable years ago.”

“It’s all about confidence now, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is.” Clara moved her rook into place. “Check.”

Ralnor’s lips curled into a light smile as he moved his king into a specific space. Clara took a pawn with her queen. With this move however, Ralnor slipped his knight into place. “Check…” He watched Clara scan the board. Ralnor placed all his pieces perfectly. And she was so close to winning to. How’d she miss that? “… and mate.”

“Wow. You beat me.”

“Well, I should after years of practice. Not a child anymore now.”

“And without mothers help too. I’m sure Zelda would be proud.”

“Well, she did pay a lot for those lessons.” Ralnor shook Clara’s hand in good sportsmanship. “Good game Clara.”

“Good game Ralnor. I do hope we can do this again.”

Ralnor carefully put his chest board away, with all the pieces placed in cushioning. “I do as well. With all the recent events in the past few years, it has been difficult to find some quiet time for one’s self.”

His daughter cried out to him, wanting attention. Going over to her crib, Ralnor picked Ukuri and rocked her back and forth in his arms against his shoulder. “Really though, it was good to see you again Clara. I should really feed her and get her to bed. Not too awake myself either.”

“I understand. I’m sure that you have a private school in mind, but I’d be honoured to teach Ukuri when she’s old enough to start taking school. That is, if you’d ever think of enlisting your children into public schooling.”

“That’s something my wife and I would have to discuss; however, I will consider it as an option Clara. Do have a goodnight getting home. Would you like an armed escort?”

“Oh, please, that’s not needed. I should be fine getting home on my own, thank you.” Clara gave Ralnor a soft hug, surprising the prince. “Thank you for sharing the evening with me.”

“It’s no problem at all. Good day now Clara.”

The young women waved goodbye and took her time getting home. The sun set slowly onto the country of Hyrule. The reconstruction of castle town had been slow, but most of that was due to the city expansion plan. Building the area much larger than before, as well as having defences around the city and castle for greater protection. Two times the city was battered by destruction in the last few decades, so architects under the orders of the King and Queen wanted to make sure that the city could be organized effectively for a large population under evacuation quickly.

Her new house was right next to what would become a moat canal. The area had to have its construction completed before filling it with water that connected from the river. Going through her bag, she looked for her key. Every house on the block needed a key. For some reason, King Ganondorf was obsessed with the rule all new houses needed keys. “Stupid little silver- where are- there we go.”

Opening the door, she took a deep breath. Her house was oddly cool walking in. Setting her bag down, she took a sharp right into her kitchen. It was a small house, with narrow 90-degree angles. Grabbing her cupboard door, Clara heard her cat bounce up the stairs as she looked inside decide what she’d have one her late-night sandwich. The creaking of her steps gave it away, as well as a light purr.

Grabbing the kitty kibble, she poured some out for her cat to eat. Clara was ready for bed, so after eating her sandwich, she threw her clothing off and walked up the steps. More 90-degree turns up tight corners, she took a direct left at the steps, entering her bedroom. At least she was able to afford a nice big bed. Part of her wondered why she got a queen-sized bed if she never had anyone with her in it.

Crawling into bed, Clara relaxed, feeling the heavy blanket over her body. Her head turned slightly to hear her door creaking open. From this angle on her bed, she couldn’t see her cat come in. Closing her eyes, she tried to get comfortable. That was when she felt some weight beside her, pressing into the sheets. “Molly?”

Turning her head towards where the weight was, she saw only her closet. It was dark, but when she looked down, Clara thought she saw the imprint of a hand on her sheet. That was when she felt a shift at the edge of her bed. And it was subtle, but as she turned her head, she saw the blanket slightly move, a shape getting closer to her. Her brain was firing like crazy. Clara couldn’t help it, but a reaction of her unconscious curiosity got the better of her, and her eyes looked down at under her blanket.

In front of her was a man in thick, black latex all around his body, bar a tiny zipper keeping the mouth closed. She could only see the man’s eyes looking into hers. They were full of ill intent. Psychopathy. As she let out a scream, the figure reached out with a black hand covered in blood for her neck. He pinned her naked stomach with his knee as he started to choke her.

Carla felt her oxygen being choked out as the latex man choked the life from her. Reaching for a night candle, she smashed the candle stick against his head. The man let go of her temporally, allowing Clara to get up. Before she could get off the bed fully, she felt her back spike in pain with the sound of a sickening slice across her back. Clara gasped as she fell to the floor. Getting out the door, she looked across the hall to the bathroom, where she found her cat Molly, gutted and left smashed in the door.

“No. Please, take what ever valuables I have. Please don’t kill me!”

She turned to see the man crawling towards her, like a beast on all his hands and feet. His head never bobbed, entirely focused on her struggle. He was a gimp, his body tight and black as death. Raising the sickle in his right hand, Clara couldn’t stop him from stabbing into her leg. With a twist of his wrist, the maniac curved the sickle, and cut Clara’s right leg completely off from the kneecap. She whimpered, trying to scream when he crawled on top of her, holding his bloody hand over her mouth. His other hand trailed her naked body, the cold against her skin. Clara felt terror like nothing she ever felt in her life until now. She whimpered loudly when she felt a tongue trail the back of her neck. The man got a taste of fear, and was satisfied. Her terror was replaced by simple, effective, and life ending pain when the maniac took his sickle, and from between her legs, cleaved upwards on her body.

It was a slow end as Clara couldn’t even scream, overcome by shock and agony. She barely felt her body dragged to her window, the killer still crouching low as he dragged her mangled body. As her insides fell out, her mouth barely made an audible help, seeking sanctuary with her friends.

A man was walking in the cold morning of castle town. He had a morning routine every day. Run around the full area of the town square, go through the alleys, down to the empty moat, up the tall stair way, then back to his house. As he ran through the moat, he felt something drop on his head. It wasn’t supposed to rain was it? Looking up, he saw a nightmare come to life. Crows gathered around the body of a mutilated woman hanging from her bedroom window by her intestines. He screamed with absolute terror; his legs frozen with fear by the sight.

Ralnor received a knock at the door from a guard. He was preparing Ukuri for breakfast when he was interrupted by loud knocks. Grumpy he was interrupted, he opened his door in a huff and a cold face. “I’m very busy right now, so what-”

Ralnor stopped when he saw how pale the soldier was. “S-s-sir. I’m so, so sorry.”

The prince felt an awful feeling in his gut. “What is it soldier?”

“There was an incident down in the town. That friend of yours that was here yesterday. She’s…” The soldier could barely get her sentence out. Ralnor already calculated the dreaded words that would come next from the reaction of the women in front of him, but he still wished she didn’t speak them. “She’s dead my prince.”

Ralnor clenched his fist. Why? Why did this happen? “Get one of my sisters to look after my daughter. And give me Clara’s address.”

“Sir. I don’t think you want to see her…”

Ralnor gripped the soldier by the collar, glaring deep into their eyes. “I didn’t hesitate in giving my order. Now you shouldn’t hesitate in carrying it out.”

The soldier gulped, but the fear in her eyes didn’t waver. “… Very well. Prepare yourself Prince Ralnor…”

Ralnor received the address and quickly made his way down. Townsfolk surrounded the house, with local guards keeping people out. There were a few people crying from the agony of the news, and one investigator came out, puking into a bush. The prince hopped of his horse and showed his royal identification. “Let me through. I won’t ask twice.”

The investigators looked at each other, wondering if he had the authority to propose such orders, but there were no arguments. “We’re all taking a break. We moved the body from the window onto the bed, but warning my prince… it’s graphic in there.”

Ralnor slowly made his way in. Blood was smeared on the door way and trailing down the walls. The prince’s eyes followed the first blood trail to the kitchen. The freezer, kept cold by Zora ice, had bloody hands prints all over it. Opening the door, Ralnor flinched at the sight of a poor beaten in cat with a human heart stuffed in its mouth. Whoever did this wanted to take his time, send a message. Be some sort of sick artist. The cat’s wounds were horrific. It most likely suffered for a while, which meant the killer had time to kill it before Clara arrived home, and to do this with her heart, he had the time to be creative after her death.

Closing the fridge, Ralnor turned to go up to the steps. Making the first turn right, his mind raced seeing Clara’s leg against the wall. Pausing, Ralnor turned right again to the upper hall. His eyes rested on the massive pool of blood, mixed with other bodily fluids. The carpet was stained, a darkness that would have to be utterly ripped from the foundation. Choosing to go right, he saw fur and blood smearing against the bathroom door. That must have been the point of origin of the cat’s death. Walking to the bathroom, Ralnor took note how clean it was compared to the rest of the house, save a little pile near the door. Looking at the toilet, he noticed some blood stains on the toilet seat. Taking a gander inside the toilet, there was wet blood. Did the killer wash his hands inside the toilet bowl?

As Ralnor walked out and opened the bedroom door, his analysis of the situation was forgotten immediately. He didn’t see the corpse of a random stranger, or even someone who worked for his family. He saw his friend. Clara laid on the bed, her body split open down the middle down up to just above her belly button. Her left breast had been cut open, where her heart was removed. The guts that had fallen out were stabbed into the wall in shape of a symbol Ralnor couldn’t make out. Her intestines were removed from her body by the investigators, but Ralnor could tell she was hung by them. The look in her eyes and face, the fear, shook Ralnor to his core. She died terrified.

Ralnor bit his lips in fury. Who would do this to her? Why would anyone do this? They killed her like a monster. She didn’t deserve this fate. Clara was a teacher; she never would have hurt anyone. By the gods, why did this happen under his watch? He should have insisted that she had a guard escort her. No. The killer was waiting inside. Her fate was sealed with or without Ralnor’s assistance. His teeth broke the skin of his lips, and blood dripped. Wiping his mouth, Ralnor shook subtly. After being powerless as a child to stop Kanisa from being kidnapped, after being a puppet to Vul’kar, letting that demon posses his body, and being so sick of the hidden depravity that made Hyrule stink, the Prince had enough. His friend’s death would not stand.

“Clara. I’m so sorry this happened to you. But I swear to you, I will look for who did this. I will find them no matter where they have hidden. I will make them suffer more than you ever did. And then I will kill them.”

_________________________________________

Next Ch.

#FAIR WARNING #Graphic Murders and Crime Scenes in this story #Ralnor is the darkest of the Zelgan Children #Psychopathic Nutjobs doing terrible #TERRIBLE THINGS #Post Death Animals #Warning Now #Revenge story #Ralnor #The Psycho (Unnamed at this time #Doctor Kai Neighbour #Ukuri #Shadow Hunt #Think Criminal Minds level crazy and graphic #Violence #Please comment on all stories. It is super appreciative and kind.

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womenintranslation · 5 years

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From WWB:

Editor’s Note:

We're celebrating the Nobel Prize in Literature of longtime WWB contributor Olga Tokarczuk, who first appeared in our pages in 2005 with an excerpt from her wrenching tale of wartime survival, Final Stories, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. She then returned in 2008 with this short story, "The Knight," translated by Jennifer Croft. Tokarczuk's explorations of relationships under pressure, whether political or internal, combine a keen sense of character with a sure hand at narrative to capture the essence of humanity. As a couple's alienation plays out over a chessboard, Tokarczuk's deft portrayal of feints and attacks maps a marriage at stalemate. We hope you enjoy "The Knight," available only on WWB.

—Susan Harris, Editorial Director

A WWB Exclusive:

The Knight

Fiction by Olga Tokarczuk

Translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft

At first she tried struggling with the locks, but they were obviously not in sync, because when she managed to turn the key in one of them, the other stayed locked—and vice versa. The wind came in gusts off the sea, winding her wool scarf around her face. Finally he set down both bags in the driveway and snatched the keys out of her hand. He managed to get the door open immediately.

The cottage they had always rented was right on the sea, among holiday cabins that all looked alike, that were bustling and noisy in the summers, open to let the air through, surrounded by parasols and plastic chairs, and little tables with radios and newspapers—now they were all boarded up, tight as a drum, sunk deep into a winter coma. This one was a little more opulent, though—it had a fireplace and a large deck that looked out over the beach. The deck was covered with sand, so as soon as they got inside she took up a broom and began to sweep it away.

"Why are you doing that?" he said. "It's not like we're going to be sitting out on the deck at this time of year."

He unloaded the food from one of the bags and put it in the refrigerator. Then he turned on the TV. She protested.

"No, please, no television."

She wanted to say something else, too, but she restrained herself.

There was a dog with them, a fox terrier—lively, restless, and unruly. As he was making a fire in the hearth, the dog dragged several pieces of wood out of the basket, tossed them into the air and caught them as they fell.

He yelled at her.

"She's cold. She's just doing it to warm up," she said.

"Yeah, sure, and I get to clean it up."

"She's just a dog."

"She gets on my nerves, 'just a dog' or not, I mean she never quits. She's hyperactive. Maybe we ought to slip a little something into her food. Bromine, Luminal, something along those lines?"

"She didn't used to get on your nerves."

"Well, she does now."

She carried her bag upstairs, to the small, icy bedroom. She sat down on the bed, which was covered with a blanket. Renata, "that dog," bounded after her and leaped up on to the blanket. She looked into the dog's gleaming brown eyes. She felt a lump come to her throat, and a sudden pain, all over her body—a momentary, piercing pain.

Something was happening with time, she thought, something not good. It was coming unglued, peeling apart. Two great tectonic plates of time were falling away from each other with a bleak rumble, casting a chasm between "then" and "now" for the next several million years. "Now" was silent, with jagged edges—deep sleep at night, and remnants of anger on waking, as if a war were being waged in that sleep. "Then" seemed constant and rhythmic from this vantage point, the light sound of a ping-pong ball striking a smooth table, a cloth of moments in which each thread was part of a larger pattern.

She realized that the easiest way to begin a conversation was with "Remember when . . . " because there was something mechanical in this, like the movement of a hand soothing a baby, like turning on a radio station that plays only soothing music—all those sounds of songbirds, waterfalls, whales. "Remember when" took them back to one place, together. It was always an emotional moment, like when you ask someone to dance, and they answer with a gleam in their eye. Yes, let's dance. It was clear they were telling each other long-established versions of the past, a very familiar narrative, already recalled many times before, absolutely safe. The past is established. It can't be changed. The past is a mantra learned by heart, the foundations of memory that are tiled over with funny little stories of recollection. Like the one about how he used to shell nuts for her and set them out on leaves in the garden. Or when they both bought the same pair of white jeans—that was a long time ago, now they would be two or three sizes too small. Or her red hair, that layered cut that was fashionable then. Or when he used to have to run after his train when he was parting from her. The farther back you went the more stories there were—evidently with time they'd lost the ability to mythologize the little things in life, sentencing reality to the commonplace and the trivial.

Once the fire was burning, they started making dinner, like a well-synchronized duet, she dicing the garlic, he washing lettuce and making dressing. She set the table, he opened a bottle of wine—it was like a dance, a perfect dance in which your partner's movements are so familiar that you cease to notice them, and then your partner disappears, and you're left to dance with yourself.

Then Renata slept by the hearth, the orange glow of the fire drifting over her frizzy coat. The expanse of the evening ahead suddenly seemed unbearable, heavy as a filling meal just before bed. His gaze wandered involuntarily to the TV, and she had a sudden urge to take a long bath, but since this was a special night, their first, they still had untapped reserves of good well. But he was careless.

"Shall I open another bottle?" he asked, but he realized immediately that more wine could ruin the order of things that had gradually been falling into place, that after drinking more wine there would be the familiar sense of discouragement, the feeling of being weighed down, the oppressive atmosphere, the senselessness of human speech, the desire to escape. The need for a conversation that would stop making sense after a few sentences, since they would have to then define all the words they had used over again. As if even their languages diverged.

"I think I'm OK for now," she answered in an artificially cheery tone.

So he took out the chessboard. He felt relieved to find it, among some old books standing on a shelf by the TV. Chess, too, belonged to their collection of "Remember when"s.

They always played in silence, in cold blood, unhurriedly, making the games last several days. He took black—he always took black—and she lit a cigarette. He felt a needle-sharp pang of anger: he hated it when she smoked indoors. He said nothing. There was nothing wrong.

Opening; the first game out of habit, automatic, both of them knowing what every next move would be. It occurred to her that she knew how he thought, and this shocked her. She felt faintly nauseous—the wine had been very dry, bitter. She let him win, and he knew she had let him win. He yawned.

"Let's play again," she said, arranging the pawns. "But this time we have to really try, really focus. Remember the time we played for a week?"

"That first Christmas, at your parents'. We couldn't leave because of all that snow that'd fallen, everything was just covered in it."

She remembered the smell of the cold room where her mother kept all the things she baked every holiday, covered in dishtowels.

They made two moves, and the game stopped. It was his move, so she went out onto the deck to smoke. Through the glass he could see her petite shoulders, draped in a wool scarf. He hadn't made his move by the time she came back.

"Shall we give it a rest for today?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Are you ready for bed?"

He felt again all the artificiality of this question, as if it really mattered to her that she didn't sound indifferent.

"I'm just going to check the forecast, and then I'll make the bed."

He turned on the TV, and things became more ordinary, somehow. The tension between them diminished when each of them went about their own lives. He opened another can of beer. He flipped through the channels, and he was gone.

She went to wash up.

The electric heater warmed up the little bathroom quickly. She set a few toiletries on the shelf below the mirror. She leaned toward the shaving mirror and examined the faint red veins on her cheeks. Then she made a thorough inspection of the skin on her neck and chest. Looking herself in the eye, she removed her makeup with a cotton pad. Only once she had undressed did she remember that there was no bathtub here, the bathtub was back in town, here there was just that unpleasant shower separated from the rest of the bathroom by a plastic shell-print curtain. She felt like crying, and she was furious with herself when she realized she was clearly overreacting, that you simply do not cry for lack of a bathtub.

When she crept into the bedroom, she saw that the bed had not been made, and that the linens were lying on the chair, neatly folded, cold and slick. There was a hum from the TV downstairs. Her rage gathering strength like an avalanche, she began to make the bed, struggling with the corners of the sheets, her physical exertion matching her anger—it was like they were singing a round. It seemed to her that this anger was a general one, an aimless fury, but then, out of the blue and to her great surprise, all at once it became a blade—like in a cartoon—pointed downstairs toward the sofa where there was a man sitting with a can of beer, and like a swarm of enraged bees it plummeted down the wooden steps and into the living room. She stood at the doorway and saw the man's head—he was sitting in profile—and for a moment she thought that materialized malice would pierce him through at the temple, at full speed, and the man would just stop moving and then slump slackly against the back of his chair. Dead.

"Hey, could you give me a hand?" she shouted from upstairs.

"Coming," he said and stood reluctantly, still gazing at the TV screen.

By the time he made it upstairs, she'd already calmed down. She took a deep breath.

"Aren't you going to wash up?" she asked calmly.

"I took a bath before we left," he said.

She lay on her back between the unpleasant, cold sheets, which felt damp. He went to turn out the lights. She heard him shut the door to the deck and put a trash bag in the bin. Then he got undressed and lay down on his side of the bed. They stayed like that for a while, next to each other, but then she drew closer to him and laid her head on his chest. He ran his hand along her bare arm with paternal tenderness, but by the next time he touched her, that tenderness had completely vanished—it was just touching, nothing more. He rolled over onto his stomach, and she put her hand on his back as if to restrain him. They'd been falling asleep that way for years. Whimpering, Renata settled at their feet.

He got up first, to let the dog out. A gust of icy wind tore into the small living room. He watched the dog run off toward the sea, chase away two seagulls, relieve herself, and return. Gusts of wind were surging in from the sea. He put the water on for coffee and waited for it to boil. He cast a glance at the open chessboard and checked to see if there were still any live embers in the hearth, but the fire had gone out completely. He poured the coffee, added milk and sugar—for her. He went back upstairs with the mugs and slipped back in between the warm sheets. He sat up as he drank, leaning against the headboard.

"I had a dream about a plane full of napoleon cakes," she said, her voice hoarse from sleep. "There was already snow on the ground, but it was sort of pink."

He didn't know how to respond. He rarely had dreams, and when he did, it was never anything he could describe. He could never find the right words.

After breakfast he took out his camera and wiped off both lenses—they were supposed to be going for a walk.

They put on all the warm things they had with them—fleeces, boots, scarves, and gloves. They headed down along the beach, toward the dunes, to the point where the wooden cottages disappeared, and there began the kingdom of grasses quivering in the wind. He crouched down and took a picture of a heap of driftwood tossed up by the sea—it looked like the bones of an animal. Then he looked through the lens, turning around and around. She left him behind and walked right along the edge of the sea, her footprints leaving slight indentations in the sand that were instantly destroyed by the water. Renata kept bringing her sticks and nudging her legs with them, but whenever she reached for one, Renata would growl and refuse to give it up.

"How am I supposed to throw it for you if you won't let go, you stupid dog?" she said.

Renata gave up the stick she'd plundered—it soared high and came right back to its spot between her teeth.

The woman realized she was under observation, that the round eye of the lens was trained on her. Briefly she saw herself as the man saw her—a small, dark figure against a background of shades of white and gray, an angular shape with clear contours. He'd caught her red-handed. Had she done something wrong? He was hiding his face behind the camera and aiming at her—like he was holding a gun. She should have been used to it by now—he had always taken pictures of her, but again she felt that same infuriation that had taken hold of her the day before, over the bed. She turned away. He caught up with her, and they walked on in silence. The wind absolved them of this silence, breached their lips and forced them to squint. The longer they were silent the less there was to say, and the more relief there was in that silence. His thoughts wandered off to the left somewhere, toward the sea, flew above the hulls of the fishing boats, and alighted on islands, in foreign countries, wherever. Hers went home again, into drawers and inside handbags, cast a glance at the calendar, and figured up bills. It wasn't a painful silence. It was nice to have someone to be silent with. With a kind of elation she thought, "This sort of silence is an art," and she repeated this sentence to herself several times. She liked it.

"Look," he said to her, pointing out a dark cloud that was racing along the land so low that the tips of the pine trees nearly snared it. He suddenly felt the urge to take this picture, this cloud and woman, both sullen, both swollen with a thunder that would never sound, lightning bolts that would never strike.

"Stay there," he shouted, stepping back to the waterline and looking through the lens from too close.

All he could see was the woman's face, distorted by the wind, a wrinkle down her forehead, lips livid from the cold. The wind fixed her hair to her face; she made maladroit stabs at brushing it aside, at doing something with her face, but it was all in vain. The shutter clicked. She turned away displeased.

"Wait a minute," he said. "Everything looks great now." He stepped a little farther back, until the water was squishing in his boots.

She was infuriated with herself for trying to pose, for caring whether or not it turned out well. With a camera held to his face he gained a kind of unjust advantage over her, and it seemed to her that he was sizing her up, evaluating her, reducing and objectifying. She'd never really liked him taking pictures of her—she was defenseless against that glass eye he donned like a mask; she sometimes got the impression he could see right through her, that he was promising her something along the lines of eternity, that he was immortalizing her, but that for all that he was sapping her strength. She surrendered more and more to him. She was always astonished by those women who worked as models, by all those young girls who would pout as he photographed them, throw back their heads, fully aware that they were putting something up for sale, not that they were someone, but that they had something to sell, like eager little saleswomen. Just merchandise. No wonder he slept with them. Did he know how much power he had thanks to that camera? His face was full of life then, but only then. She saw him again in her mind's eye, with a beer, in front of the TV—and then his face was a blank, as if there were simply nothing there.

"Don't take pictures of me," she said, dourly. Without a word he redirected the camera at Renata and ran after her for a while; the dog kept slipping out of the frame, zigzagging, trying to throw him off the scent.

He felt wounded. Sometimes she could utter the most neutral words, and it would feel like she had just punched him in the face. How did she do it? He felt like a little boy around her, like a child. He never knew when she was going to hurt him. He has mastered only one effective counterattack: hiding his king behind the other pawns, and when it came to her, that incalculable woman, he would simply ignore her, sidestep her, actively not notice her, not respond, not look, disregard, evade, keep her at a distance like in a photograph, and in so doing keep her in check—an angular figure against a background of shades of gray. There would follow, then, an incomprehensible turnaround on her side—she would fall into his arms, shrink and become a lonely, helpless little girl with graying hair, she would weaken, subside, surrender. She would grovel, just like Renata.

He ran after the dog. Renata had found a good-sized stick, clenched it in her teeth, and was now begging. He seized one end of the stick and lifted up the dog, who was hanging onto it. Renata knew this game. This was the lockjaw game. The resistance game. He began to spin around and around with the dog hanging from the stick, flying at waist-level. Then he heard a shout and saw her running toward him. He slowed down, and Renata landed safely in the sand. The woman ran up to him, her face distorted by rage.

"What do you think you're doing? Are you insane? You're going to hurt her! Do you just have no idea? Why are you so stupid, stupid?" she shouted. "Have you just completely lost it, you fucking asshole?"

He was thunderstruck. He thought she was going to hit him. Renata—stick still in her mouth—was swaying slightly.

"Fuck off, you crazy bitch," he said quietly and started walking home.

He felt like crying. A sort of outraged sob was welling up in his insides like something you had to cough up. He'd go home, he thought, pack up and take off. Or not pack up, just leave everything there. He'd take the car and take off. Go back to town. That was it, it was over. She could manage just find without him. She was still young, let her find somebody else, let her do whatever she wanted. He thought how he had tried his best, and this he found moving. He had tried his best.

When she got home, he was sitting in front of the TV drinking beer. She took off her coat and put the water on.

"Tea?" she asked.

"No," he muttered.

"I'm sorry," she said and suddenly felt very weak as if she were walking in the sand, as if she were getting bogged down, feet sinking. Never, never did he apologize to her first. She lit a cigarette.

"Could you not smoke in here?" he said.

She went out onto the deck. The kettle whistled; she didn't hear it. He got up and turned off the stove. There was a program on TV about farming. Renata kept dragging the tinder out of the basket, tossing it up and catching it in the air.

"What do you think, how's it going to end?" she asked and sat down in the armchair next to his.

"What's going to end?"

"All this, us."

He shrugged. He looked up at her, but he couldn't bear the sight of her insistent, searching eyes.

"I'll get a fire started," he said.

He crumpled some newspaper and set it in a pile, and then he laid down some twigs. She handed him the matches. He could sense that she wanted to tell him something, but he didn't make a sound. He wanted her to say something, but at the same time he was afraid that her words would slip out of control again. He knew how to penalize her, and he did—he went upstairs and lay down on the unmade bed, trying to read some old magazine. He was relieved to find an article on computers, but he didn't understand very much of it. Then he noticed an ad for a vacation in Turkey, which reminded him of their last trip together, to Greece—everything blurred, overexposed, like pictures that hadn't turned out. Her tanned, almost naked body. Making love in the hotel room—their last time. The shock of his own embarrassment. He realized he couldn't remember her any other way, and that this vacation several months ago was his earliest memory of her. That in the repeated "Remember when"s the people he saw were complete strangers. He fell asleep in astonishment.

When he woke up, she was gone. The dog was gone, too, so he thought she must have taken her to the dunes. Still, he checked to see if the car was still there. It was. He turned on the TV and half listened to the news. It was getting dark out. He made himself some scrambled eggs and ate them straight from the pan in front of the TV. Then he opened a beer and listened to the messages on his cell phone. Nothing interesting. He saw her come in, face flushed from the wind. Renata rushed at him in greeting, as if it had been years since they'd seen each other. The woman looked at the empty pan.

"You've already eaten?" she asked with some dismay. "You ate?"

He realized he ought to have waited for her.

"Just a snack," he said. "We could go to the Chinese place in town."

"I'm not hungry," she said and hung up her jacket.

Then why are you asking, he thought furiously. He knew why. So that she would have a reason to get upset. "Temper tantrum next. Don't eat anything if you don't want to. I don't give a shit," he told her in his head. He took pleasure in this kind of imagined conversation. He changed the channel, but the next one was fuzzy, so he tried to find something else, but there were only two. There was no escape.

She came back from the bathroom after a little while, hair combed, makeup probably retouched. He could smell fresh cigarette smoke on her—she had obviously been smoking in the bathroom like a schoolgirl.

"Shall we finish the game?" she asked.

He agreed. Seeing the perfect symmetry of the chessboard was soothing. The joy of the existence of rules. The sweet possibility of thinking over every move. The predictability of surprises. The feeling of control like a gentle, cerebral caress. He was adding wood to the fire when she said, "Hey, the white knight's gone."

They leaned under the table, pushed back the chairs, and searched the cracks between the cushions. He peered into the basket of wood.

"Renata. She must have run off with it," she said. "Look in her bed."

She shook out the dog's blanket—several pieces of kindling and the plastic stopper from the sink fell out, but there was no chess piece.

"Maybe she took it out into the hall?" he asked hopefully.

They started a systematic search. He went through the trash; she went out onto the deck. They pushed back the table.

"Was it still there when you went out?"

She couldn't remember.

"What did you do with the knight, you stupid dog?" she said, leaning over her.

"She probably chewed it up," he said.

He poured two glasses of beer. They sat down at the useless chessboard. Then he came up with the idea of using a small piece of wood as a playing piece—he broke off a piece and laid it on the vacant black square. She hesitated.

"I'm not playing with kindling," she said.

"Then I'll take white."

"But we'll have to start all over gain. Won't we?"

"No," he said. "I don't want to play anymore."

She thought it would be best if they got up right now, got their things together, and went home, but she didn't have the courage to say so. It also occurred to her that he was the one who had taken the chesspiece. Or that he had somehow knocked it off. She didn't say anything—she just slumped back into the couch cushions.

She knew he would go away now, abandon her—be absorbed by the TV or go upstairs and sleep again, or start to fiddle with his camera (thank God it was too dark now to take pictures) or start to read, or call people, or send them all text messages—and she knew that this was inevitable. She wanted to cuddle up to his blue-checked shirt, but she didn't have the strength to get off the couch. His hands were busy putting the chesspieces back into the box. Fine dark hairs.

He glanced at her.

"Why are you crying?" he said. "Over chess, over that knight?"

He sat down next to her and put one arm around her. The other arm hesitated for a moment, staying in the end where it was, on the armrest of the sofa.

"It's better to be left than to leave someone," she said suddenly. "Being left gives you strength."

"I'd say the opposite," he said.

"You don't understand."

"I never understand anything."

He got up and went into the kitchen. He asked about wine—shouldn't they have a little drop? She said yes.

She had everything she'd say now already in her head. Sentence by sentence, and the justification for every sentence. And notes on every sentence. He would have to respond somehow. It would be impossible to sink back into silence. When he came back he handed her a glass and sat down on the sofa. He must have known what she was thinking. That they would talk, and it would end, as usual, in a fight. Then Renata, that providential dog, began to whine at the door. He got up to let her out.

"Go on, you stupid dog," he said. "What did you do with the knight?"

Renata leaped out into the darkness with a yelp. A sharp gust of wind blew a thin trail of sand through the open door. He heard the voice of the television behind his back and felt relieved. So she'd turned on the TV.

"It's too bad we don't have the guide. There might be a movie," he said.

She refilled their glasses, although they weren't empty yet. She was suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion.

She stretched her legs out just like him and propped her feet on the low coffee table. There they sat, side by side, sipping wine until the movie ended, an amusing old mystery about an older lady who killed off her enemies with arsenic. She was reeling a little as she went up the stairs.

"I'll be there in a second," he said, but she knew he wouldn't be. He would sit there, as he often did, until morning. Plunged into the ghostly light of the screen, absent, glued to those flashing pictures like a cat—he always turned off the sound. She knew what would happen, and it was good to know. Soothing. Perfect, fully rounded certainty. A smooth glass ball in her palm. She sank heavily into sleep.

He lay down on top of her as if on grass, with his whole body, his whole weight. There was her familiar smell, her special softness. She sighed. His body responded by habit, with desire. She embraced him, as if she were holding on to him. She said something, but he couldn't understand her. He slid a hand across her hips.

"I can't breathe," she whispered.

He hesitated. He stopped. He realized that underneath him was not a woman, not a wife, not a woman's body, but a person, that he wasn't lying on top of a woman, but on top of another human being, another someone, specific, individual, inviolable. Someone with clearly defined boundaries but who beyond these was fragile and prone to ruin, delicate as watercress, like the thinnest wafer. Her sex had vanished—it had ceased to be important to him that she was a woman and his wife—she was like a brother, a comrade in suffering, a companion in pain, a neighbor facing the same looming, unidentified threat. A stranger who was at the same time extremely close to him. Someone who is nearby, who stands there and looks across the fence, someone you wave to on your way home.

This discovery was so unexpected that he felt ashamed. The sense of desire that had welled up within him now ebbed away. He rolled off her and lay down beside her. He drew her towards him, by the arm, and pulled the blanket over her. She was crying. She said something about the knight, about the knight having been lost. It occurred to him that she'd had too much to drink.

Her head was hurting. She got up quietly and went downstairs to let Renata out. He was curled up asleep, cocooned in the blanket, far from her, at the very edge of the bed. She took a handful of vitamins and aspirin. She felt worn out, wrung out. First she spent a long time brushing her teeth; her hair was mussed up from the night before and sticking out all over the place. Eyes swollen. Had she been crying? Yes. Overreacting. She gave the skin on her stomach a hard pinch. This pain was a relief, it opened the floodgates of a mollifying self-hatred. As a child she'd heard that you could catch cancer from pinching. Some adult had told her that, she didn't remember who, when boys were pinching girls' breasts.

When she came down, he was sitting on the sofa, in just a shirt and no pants, reading the paper. He'd made her coffee.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," he said back.

"What are we going to do today?"

"Is there anything we have to do?"

"We'll have to get our stuff together this afternoon."

He turned the page.

"How do you feel?"

"Fine," he said.

After a pause he added, "You?"

She didn't feel like talking anymore. She started to leaf through a magazine. Suddenly the clouds parted, and a whole sea of blinding light flooded the room. She took a cigarette and went out onto the deck, although the very idea of smoking made her feel sick. She forced herself. She saw Renata at a distance. The crazy dog was throwing herself into the water, trying to bite the waves. Stupid animal, she thought. She was shivering with cold.

He went upstairs to put on his pants. He would have been very happy to start packing now. He had so many urgent things to do. He felt reinvigorated. As he passed the bed he saw her pajamas with the teddy bear on the front and for an instant, an instant finer than the layer of November ice on a puddle, he found the same tenderness in himself that he had felt sleeping with her nightshirt while she'd been away. This tenderness, like the desire he'd felt that night, was a habit. He shook his head. After all, she had cheated on him. Anger, a wave of anger he knew well by now, arrested his movements. He became an animal ready for battle, tense, attentive. He put on his pants and tightened his belt. It wasn't even about her anymore—let her do whatever she wants—it was about him: never, ever again would he let himself get hurt like that. He remembered that agony, but thanks to it he felt stronger now somehow, as if he had gone to war and come home safely. On his way down he saw her from the stairs huddled on the sofa, no makeup, eyes swollen. A strange thought occurred to him. I wanted her to die, he thought, and that's why she's gotten so ugly.

"I'm going to go take a couple of pictures," he said.

She said she'd go with him. He waited on the deck for her to get dressed. They went in the direction opposite that they'd gone the day before.

"Look," she shouted to him over the wind and pointed to something he'd already seen: a white band of sky over a navy-blue sea and whitecaps that looked like they'd been painted there by a Chinese artist. Then a flash of sunshine like lightning.

"There must have been a storm last night," she said.

There was a lot of trash on the beach: strips of algae, tree branches, sticks, interspersed now and then with unexpectedly colorful plastic things. She walked behind him and thought that from behind he looked the same as he had looked back then, but she knew it was just an illusion. Nothing could be restored. What's happened once can never happen again. Never. Lightning never strikes twice. She was suddenly struck by the significance of that cliché. There was nothing to be done about it. For a moment she wanted to bound after him and tug on his jacket, turn him around to face her, and then it would turn out that—what? What would it turn out? She slowed down, while he walked quickly up ahead, he and the dog and the camera getting farther and farther away, so she didn't try to catch up with him now, she just sat down on the sand. With some effort, turning her back to the wind, she managed to light a cigarette, and then she sat there in despair, thinking systematically of everything that would never happen again: their hands touching, that spark, sometimes accidental and sometimes greedy, eagerly awaited; the excitement of his scent, and of nestling into that scent; the knowing glances, each reading the other's mind; the same thoughts at the same moment; the calm, confident closeness; hand in hand, as if this were their natural and only position; delight in the shape of an ear; the nightly vine-like clinging to each other's body, treating it as a kind of case for one's own. A long morning. Drinking beetroot soup from the same bowl. The surge of desire on a walk in the park… The suitcase you take into the world with you contains things you can only use once, like those magic charms in fairy tales, like fireworks. Once they go off, once they go out, there's nothing you can scrape back up out of the ashes. That's it.

She thought she would tell him all this when he got back, but as they were walking home she realized that it was banal, that she would be ashamed to share something like this. He would just smile, because it would be as if she had sung him the words of some popular song. Nothing more. Yes, all her despair was simply banal—evidently despair was another thing you could only experience once. All subsequent despair would just be a Xerox copy. And maybe there is some mysterious line in life that you cross unknowingly, unintentionally, and from then on everything is just a lousy replay of what's come before it, which once had come into being fresh and new, but which can now only occur as pastiche, a second-rate paraphrase. Maybe that dividing line from which life only flows downhill was actually right here, today, on this beach, and from here on out, from this day forward, there would be blurred copies of them taking part in their lives, fuzzy reproductions, ordinary forgeries, poor-quality fakes.

They went home in silence, and the wind absolved them of it just as it had done the day before. He walked ahead with Renata and she behind, her face flushed from the wind.

Renata tried to go inside with something in her mouth. He blocked her path with his foot.

"What do you have, you rotten dog? What'd you find? A smelly old bone? A dead fish?"

He forced her mouth open and took out a piece of pale, polished wood. It took him a minute to realize what it was.

"Look what she's found!" he cried out in surprise.

She walked up, took the saliva-wet figurine from his hand and wiped it off on the mat. It was a chess horse, a white knight, but not the one from their set. This one was smaller, nobler, stouter, probably hand-carved. Its little open mouth was turned up, and a crack ran along the whole length of it.

"I don't believe it!" he said. "Renata, where did you get this?"

"It's from the sea," she said. "That washed up from the sea."

"I can't believe it," he repeated and glanced at her quickly, timidly, to avoid keeping his eyes on her. "How could a little horse like that have ended up in the water? And white, just like the one we lost? What are the odds?"

They both went up to the kitchen sink. She washed it off carefully and then dried it was a tea towel.

They set it on the table and examined it as if it were a rare insect. Renata too—she seemed pleased with herself. Then he put it on the empty square where the little unwanted piece of wood was still lying. The knight looked out of place amongst the other pieces, like a mutant.

"Shall we play?" he asked.

"Now? We have to go now," she replied, but she took off her jacket and sat down uncertainly.

"Whose move was it?"

She didn't know. They sat for a moment longer over the open chessboard, and then he said, without looking at her, "I was just kidding."

Read more by Olga Tokarczuk in WWB

From Final Stories by Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Read the excerpt. A First Read from Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Read the excerpt.

#WWB #wordswithoutborders #Olga Tokarczuk #jennifer croft #nobel prize #womenintranslation #polish literature

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lorelylantana · 5 years

Text

Chapter 8: Eagles and Dragons

The weekend went by swiftly, a blur of dancing and practicing my magic. I was able to consistently create a sword and occasionally a halberd. Although, when I did make the halberd, it looked a little different than the one in the sparring hall. This halberd looked more like a long double axe. The axe on the outside was bigger than the one on the opposite side, and both the top and bottom ended in a spear point. Whenever I could form the halberd, I headed straight to the Sparring Hall so Snapdragon could teach me to wield it without killing myself on accident.

On my way to lunch one day I ran into Blackthorn in the hall.

“Hello Allie, I’m glad to see Kyrie is doing well,” he said, seeing her once again on my shoulder.

“Yeah, she was lucky.” I said, and was halfway down the hall when I heard him call out again.

“Allie, I really am sorry I couldn’t do anything about the note, but you must understand such letters are not uncommon. More often than not just fanciful roleplaying,” he said apologetically. “Besides,” he continued, “I doubt I would be mistaken in thinking that you and your friends might find a way to handle a real threat,” he winked, and continued down the hallway without another word.

When Monday came around we met back in the Map room. Once we were assembled, Robin lead us down a series of passages until we reached a vast chamber filled with chests, racks, and closets filled with weapons.

“Blades,” muttered Daedalus, “You could arm a whole battalion in this one room.”

“Daedalus,” I said, “That’s the point.”

“One might wonder if it is wise to arm teenagers.” Atalanta mused, looking about the room.

“It’s Spade philosophy.” Kennedia explained. “We believe that one of the ways to suppress violence is to conquer it. The logic is that if someone can fully comprehend and master force and the damage it causes, they will be less likely to use it.”

“There are also the practical applications,” Continued Robin, “People are generally less likely to attack someone if they know they are just going to fight back.”

We finished up in the armory and continued to the South wing to view the bunk room. It turned out to be a series of smaller chambers branching off of an even larger main area. We decided to use the main area as a makeshift sparring hall. We spent the rest of the hour moving weapons to the South Wing and putting tables along the walls where we would fill them with desserts and hot cocoa.

We spent the rest of the week making sure everyone knew about the Friday night meet and were pleased to find that the vast majority were looking forward to it. We also made great care the teachers didn’t know, because I severely doubt what we were doing was allowed. When Thursday night arrived, we were ecstatic as we were going over the final details for tomorrow night.

“You know,” Daedalus said through an eclair, “I feel like we should have a name for ourselves.” We looked up from our list of weapons to stare at him.

“What do you mean?” Atalanta inquired, and he shrugged.

“If we’re going to found an organization on that grand a scale we should adopt a name.It’s daunting, but I think we can do it if we use our skills correctly. We’ve got an encryptor and a navigator,” He gestured to Kennedia and Robin, but before he could continue, Robin interrupted him.

“I’m actually a healer too.” He said, and explained that his magic allowed him to see various wounds and ailments and if he directed some of his energy to it, he could heal them.

“That’s even better, so now we’ve got a directionally gifted healer, a brawler and a weapons expert,” He pointed to himself and Atalanta, “and Allie is our team leader. We even have a secret headquarters!”

“Hey wait a minute,” I interjected, “since when am I team-”

“So what do you suggest?” Kennedia asked, warming up to the idea, and Daedalus quieted for a moment, then said very seriously.

“Queen Allie and the Knights of the Round-”

“Very funny, and when did we decide I was leader? Shouldn’t we hold an election or something?” I asked, and everyone just looked at me for a second before continuing.

“How about the Order of Blades?” suggested Robin

“No, that’s too pretentious.” protested Atalanta.

“Yeah but it sounds cool.”

That’s how we spent the rest of the hour, bouncing ideas off of each other until we began to nod off. In the end we decided to call ourselves the Eagles after the name of the Observatory we gathered in.

The next night came in a flash and my Eagles and I had just finished setting the sweets on the table when the other students started to file in. At first it was a bit awkward and the students kept to their respective years, but soon enough when they began to eat and drink they started to open up. Within the hour, students from the Flock were singing and playing their music for Dancers while League members started to play the games that they brought with them.

After I danced a for a few songs I was introduced to a few games. Daedalus convinced me into being one of his pawns in the Spade version of chess. This version involved people taking the place of pieces on the board, which was a massive grid drawn on the floor. The king was the player that dictated where the others moved. When to players met on the board, they would have a sparring match in which the loser was captured and taken off the board. The main objective of the game is for the king to take into account the different strengths and weaknesses of the players below them.

Hilarity often ensued when players kept trying to influence the king’s thinking.

“Why did you move me here! I can’t do anything from here!”

“No don’t put me against her, I can’t fight her, now him I can beat, put me there!”

“I can’t believe you sacrificed me just so you could get the bishop!”

“What do you mean I’m expendable?”

Daedalus, as it turned out, was quite the king. He put me up against a Fledgling that didn’t really have a knack for hand to hand combat. He maneuvered Atalanta, his knight, and Robin, rook, to clear a path for me to the end of the board. Once I was a queen I was able to checkmate the enemy king by knocking her queen off his feet.

“You’re not bad, Hatchling. What’s your name?” He asked as I helped him up. He was a senior, or Dragon, named Zephyr.

“Allie Sage.”

“That’s right, you’re the one who started this whole thing right?” I nodded

“My friends and I did, yes.” He laughed.

“You did a good thing here, Allie. I wish I had thought of it. If you ever need anything I can help with, let me know.”

It was well past midnight when people finally started to sleep. When it was a few minutes before dawn I went with my friends to fetch more food for breakfast. We found that the pantry filled itself, and when we looked through some shelves, we found that there were more than sweets. We grabbed whatever breakfast food we could and went back to set everything on the tables before the other Spades woke up.

The night was a success by all means, everyone everywhere was saying how much they were looking forward to the next one, and many volunteered to help with the set up. As implausible as it might have seemed, we were gaining the trust of the other Spades while uniting them into one student body. I began to feel a sense of hope, we might be able to pull this off.

First

#eagles rising #The Spade Chronicles #fiction #original novel #original content #fantasy

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orderoftheavengers · 6 years

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A Game of Idiot Balls

Summary: Steve Rogers and Tony Stark decide to settle their differences once and for all with an epic, illegal Quidditch match. But a sinister Durmstrang student spikes everyone’s food and drinks with fire-whiskey and hobbit weed, and hexed all of the Quidditch balls, turning them into literal “idiot balls,” causing all the Avengers to think, speak and act wildly out of character.

TEAM STARK: Captain: Tony Stark

Beaters: Tony Stark, James Rhodes

Chasers: Natasha Romanoff, T'Challa, Vision

Keeper: Friday

Seeker: Peter Parker

TEAM ROGERS: Captain: Steve Rogers

Beaters: Steve Rogers, Clint Barton (using arrow-spells to deflect balls)

Chasers: Wanda Maximoff, Sam Wilson, Scott Lang

Keeper: Charon Carter

Seeker: Bucky Barnes

A Tragic Accident

The “civil war” that destroys the Order of the Avengers begins with a disagreement and a badly-aimed fireball.

It’s a deceptively sunny day in October, and students are milling about on the grass, after studies.

“You’re not the guy to make the tough call!” Steve Rogers challenges. “To lie down on the burning coals and let the other guy walk over you!”

“Rogers, it’s wizard’s chess. We’re supposed to sacrifice our pawns to violent deaths for our own agendas. Oh would you look at that, guess my knight and your bishop have chosen to make love instead of war.”

“Stark, I’ve warned you about enchanting my stuff with your perverted humor!” Steve fumes.

He’s still angry at Tony Stark for adding rude speech throughout his sketchbook. Being wizard pictures, the sketches actually say them out loud. From Steve’s schoolbag, one can hear a muffled voice recite, “There once was an elf from Nantucket, who saved all his farts in a bucket. He could get laid with any elf maid, so he lubed up his hand and said—” Steve hastily shuts his bag.

Tony makes a rude retort about Steve’s (lack of) dating life, and things escalate. Soon they have their wands out, and have drawn a crowd.

“Honestly,” Rose Weasley says loudly, “why can’t the Americans teach their children how to wager?”

When the boys expressed their confusion, Rose explains: “Here in the civilized world, when two gentlemen have a disagreement, they solve it with finances, not fists. Make a bet on something, if you’re so eager for competition!”

Scratching his goatee with his wand, Tony ponders, “Okay…What should we bet on?”

Suggestions start coming from the students around them, each stupider than the last.

“Which Quibbler articles are true!” suggests Lysander Scamander, son of Luna Lovegood.

Loki lifts his broom-wand threateningly. “How about whether or not I’ll have ‘performance issues’ this time, Stark?”

A mandrake classmate in Hufflepuff finally suggests, “I am Groot!”

“Don’t be stupid Groot,” says Rocket (a raccoon/niffler hybrid, in Slytherin). “You can’t light a fart on fire, even with magic.”

“I am Groot.”

“Huh? No way, you have not done it before.”

“I am Groot! I am Groot, I am Groot.”

“Fine, go ahead and show us.” Rocket folds his furry arms.

Peter Quill’s eyes flare. “Groot wait—!”

With a flick of his wand, and a mutter of “I am Groot” (which his wand can translate as “Incendio”), the mandrake’s bum lights up. Groot enjoys a moment’s giggle, before the poor plant realizes his entire body is now aflame.

“I AM GROOT!” he is running around the castle, on fire. “I AM GROOOOT! I AM GROOT! I AM GROOOOOOOOT!”

“The fire’s gonna spread!” Steve gasps, pointing at some flames that have already left the mandrake to spread through the grass.

Thinking quickly, Ravenclaw Wanda Maximoff uses her wandless-magic to create a bubble, trapping the flaming Groot in a contained fireball. She carefully lifts the screaming, flaming tree up and away from the crowd… until her hand slips, sending Groot and his fireball into the Gryffindor tower, obliterating it.

Luckily no humans are killed, but a many hours of homework and a couple of pets are lost.

A mustached house-elf with glasses, irritated by the mess he must now clean up, yells down from the tower, “Don’t make me come down there, you punks!” The Potter Accords The incident inspires the Ministry of Magic to take action, in the form of the Potter Accords.

This controversial new document puts heavy restrictions on the way teen wizards and witches are allowed to go about solving mysteries and saving the school from evil.

Quidditch now has safety rules; deadly creatures larger than three meters are now required to sleep outside the castle; heroes under the age of 15 will need signed permission slips to solve deadly mysteries or fight dark wizards; the moving staircases are now required to have railings; and applicants for the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor must now pass background checks.

Tony, having recently been guilted by a Durmstrang student who lost her owl to Ultron, and has been dumped by Pepper for being “too out of control,” is desperate for a chance to alleviate himself from of some of the guilt he’s been building up over the years. So he voices his support for the Potter Accords.

Steve on the other hand fears the Accords might contain an agenda, and he hates agendas. He joined the army to fight agendas. He refuses to sign.

Duty-bound Gryffindor Jams Rhodes argues with gut-following Hufflepuff Sam Wilson over the issue. Vision begins a logical argument in favor of the Accords, and ends up on a tangent about all of the plot holes in “Harry Potter.” This in turn leads to a lengthy debate on how responsible of a headmaster Dumbledore really was, which circles back to the Accords. The Avengers are beginning to break apart.

Long Live the King

This Halloween, Hogwarts hosts a special banquet for the adults deciding on the Potter Accords. Nicodemus Fury is unable to attend, busy battling some basilisks on a Muggle airplane . But many parents and guardians are present, including King Odin; Peter Parker’s Muggle Aunt May; and King T’Chaka, whose son T’Challa is attending Hogwarts this year as an exchange student.

T’Chaka is giving a toast to a peaceful semester, when suddenly, one of the decorative floating Jack-O-lanterns shrieks, “LONG LIVE THE DARK LORD!” and explodes in a fireball. Among the casualties are the drummer for the Weird Sisters; another Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher; and King T’Chaka.

Evidence points to one Hufflepuff vampire student named Bucky Barnes.

“Evidence” here meaning, “a fuzzy wizarding photo, of such poor quality that you can barely even make out the middle finger the blurry figure is waving at the camera.” Vice-Headmaster, and Head of Gryffindor House, Thaddeus Ross, and three of his underlings, have personally asked the wizard-photo who he was, and the blurred photo assured them: “I’m Buck Rogers and I bombed Hogwash! I mean Hoggle-wart! Whatever it’s called. I’m that vampire guy who’s friends with that hot Yank with the blue-green eyes. I’m not an embittered Durmstrang kid trying to f*ck with you all, I’m Bucky Barnacle, also known as the Winter Solstice, and my prank-pumpkin killed the king of Anaconda! I’m dangerous hooligan that needs to be corrected! And to those mourning, I highly recommend the pumpkin juice and chocolate frogs. They’re sure to clear your heads.” The experts, having already overdosed on the unusually addictive pumpkin juice and chocolate frogs, express surprise at the Winter Soldier’s Eastern European accent, which Bucky had never displayed before. Nevertheless, the Dementors float over to the Hufflepuff table and snatch up the young vampire, just as he is reaching for the bowl of plums. Poor Bucky is swiftly muzzled and chained to a kinky iron chair, and magically transported up to the Third Floor for his detention, while his fangirls around the castle look on. The Idiot Balls Snowball… Bucky professes his innocence, but is assigned detention for a “careless and dangerous prank that cost lives.” His detention is supposed to involve working on homework with a tutor—a Ravenclaw nerd no one had seen before. The Ravenclaw turns out to be an invading Durmstrang student named Helmut Zemo, cleverly disguised with a pair of glasses. Zemo Imperius-Curses Bucky into going on a vampire rampage throughout the school. Steve finally punches Bucky back to his senses in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, where Sam catches up to them. The trio quickly deduce that Zemo is behind everything. In any other installment of this series, they would rush to communicate the situation to the other Avengers. But instead…. "We can’t trust Tony.” Sam declares. “Huh?” Steve stares at his friend. “Where did that come from? Have you ever even said two words to Tony?” “He won’t believe us.” Sam presses. Steve just gapes at Sam. “…Tony…whose own mentor betrayed him, won’t believe that the suspicious nerd we all just met is a bad guy? Tony, who witnessed Clint and Erik mind-controlled by Loki, won’t believe that Bucky was mind-controlled?” “Even if he does believe us,” Sam continues dramatically, “The Accords might not let him do anything.” “Let him?” Steve laughed. “Okay, I know Tony’s in a ‘follow the rules’ mood at the moment, but do you seriously think Tony Stark would let that stop him from helping us in this situation? Tony, who carried a NUKE for the whole planet and almost died to save all our asses? What’s gotten into you, Sam?” “It doesn’t matter,” Sam says distantly. “For I am you, and you are me, is he as she as we can be.” The spiked food and drink suddenly hit Steve too, and his eyes widen in understanding. “If everybody is nobody, than nobody can be anybody!” Bucky finishes, “I am the walrus!…Geddit? Cuz I’m a vampire, and I has fangs… okee-day I’ll shuddup now.” Steve proceeds to barely ever mention the crucial issues at hand to Tony and the others. Who in turn, never once bother to ask what the heck is going on. Instead, both sides focused their arguments on the Potter Accords, and stumble forth through their “civil war” like idiots. Pointless, drunken arguing eventually leads Tony and Steve to finally agreeing on a wager: whether or not Tony can find a better Quidditch Seeker than Bucky Barnes. Tony sets out to find that Seeker, and both boys start recruiting for their Teams… Picking Teams: Before teams can be arranged, Thor and Bruce Banner are given a detention by the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher (yes, they got another one that fast). This completely pulls them out of the action, unable to participate in the “Civil War” Quidditch match. Tony and Steve agree that the two teams need and equal number of players, as well as one token female Avenger and at one token Black Avenger, each. Falcon laughs, “Imagine if this hadn’t been a planned sport, and had just randomly worked out that way!” Rhodey chuckles, “You’d be more likely to stumble on a recording of one of the Winter Sorcerer’s top-secret missions!” A knut is tossed to determine who gets Natasha, and Tony wins, putting Wanda on Steve’s team, despite her currently sharing Tony’s motivations. But after so much spiked pumpkin juice and butterbeer, almost none of the Avengers are thinking very hard about logical motivations anymore. “Rescuing” Wanda: Already tickled pink (scarlet?) not to be in Azkaban for her past crimes, Wanda is relieved that her only punishment for obliterating that Gryffindor tower is a normal detention in her own Commonroom, under her House Prefect and boyfriend Vision. They decide to study for Home Mag. class, baking pumpkin cake using levitation. A bespeckled, mustached house elf named Stanley delivers the ingredients. Unbeknowenced to Vision and Wanda, but knowneced to the audience, this “house elf” is in fact villain Helmut Zemo, disguised with the Polyjuice potion. The cake mix he gives them is laced with Hobbit Weed from the Shire, and the butterbeer is spiked with Firewhisky from Rosmertta’s. Later on, Hawkeye—already suffering the effects of Zemo’s spiked refreshments—leaps down from the vents into the middle of the Ravenclaw commonroom. “A little tall for a house elf?” Wanda snarks, as Clint brushes dirt and rubble off of his robes. “My name’s Clint Barton, I’m here to rescue you!” Clint says theatrically. Wanda shakes her head in confusion. “Rescue me from what? Baking cake in a luxurious common room with my boyfriend? It’s a bloody miracle I wasn’t in Azkaban even before all this!” She takes an angry bite of the freshly baked pumpkin cake. “And really Clint, I’m kind of appalled that you of all people—the family man, who taught me responsibility and all that—are trying to get me to break out and go criminal, much less now of all…of all……” Her voice becomes distant and dramatic, as the drugs in the cake begin to take hold. “…of all the commonrooms in all the castles in all the world…he walks into mine.” Vision watches in bafflement as Wanda abruptly switches from sensibility to…whatever the hell had gotten into Clint. “Wanda,” Vision warns, “If you do this, they will never stop fearing you.” “I can’t control their fear, only my own.” “I….I think that just may be the stupidest response to a call for responsibility I have ever heard in my short life,” Vision replies. “Though that is kind of a nice inspirational quote, out of context. Maybe hold onto that line and save it for a more appropriate sce—” “STUPIFY!” Wanda cries with a flick of her hands. Her wandless spell sends poor Vision flying through the stone floors of Hogwarts, down to Moaning Myrtle’s toilet, where he is flushed into the lake and swallowed by the Giant Squid. Wanda follows Clint to the Quidditch field, where the Avengers prepare for the most epic, illegal, drunken Quidditch match ever. Pressuring Peter Parker Meanwhile, Tony is doing some “recruiting” of his own. First-year Peter Parker enters the Ravenclaw commonroom to see a big scary seventh-year with an evil looking goatee flirting shamelessly with Aunt May, on one of the long, blue, eagle-footed sofas. The adult Muggle woman laughingly dismisses the high schooler’s dirty flattery, with comments about not wanting to end up in prison or on “Opra.” Wow, Peter thinks, this kid’s got some balls. The only person in all of Hogwarts stupid enough to try hitting on an adult Muggle would have to be—

“Oh my god,” Peter gasps. “You’re Tony f*cking–!” “Ha! I wish.” Tony says jovially, while Aunt May makes a dismissive Oh you, gesture. “Peter!” Aunt May smiles over couch. “You didn’t tell me Tony Stark was tutoring you!” “I was just telling her about that essay for Medieval Troll Literature I proofread for you,” says Tony, while making a subtle face. Playing along, Peter stammers, “Um, yeah, those Trolls are always really big on spelling and grammar.”

Tony and Peter go up to the latter’s dorm, supposedly to look at Peter’s “troll essay.” Once they’re alone, Tony whips out a Wizard Card. “Question of the rhetorical variety…. that’s you, innit?” On the card is a moving picture of Peter, done up in his spider cloak and hood, kicking ass. Below is a short description of the mysterious “Spider Wizard,” and his various talents, which include “flying tricks that make Harry Potter look like a tool.” After some adorkable quivering, Tony finally gets the truth from Peter. “So why do you do it?” Tony asks. “What makes you willing to undertake all the crap Harry Potter did, with none of the sidekicks and helpful mentors and direct recognition he had?” Peter stammers, “Well, when you can do the things that I can do…and then you don’t…and then the bad things happen….it’s your fault…” Tony frowns. “Why do you sound so awkward? Do I intimidate you?” “No. It’s just…. there’s a specific sentence that explains, exactly, why I’m the Spider Wizard. But whenever I try to say it I…. I can’t. It’s basically along the lines of me having these huge advantages, and needing to use them.” “You mean like, 'With great powder comes great redundability?’” Tony blinks and shakes his head. “Wow, tongue-tied! What I meant was, with great Shamwow comes great resale ability–” he pauses again, baffled by his own misbehaving mouth. “See? You can’t say it either! It’s like there’s some kind of magical block on that specific sentence, so no one can ever say it!” Tony strokes his goatee thoughtfully. “Seems like a Copyright jinx…Bastards. Anyway,” Tony lifts his wand, “Accio Upgrade!” Several shattered windows, five toppled book shelves, two unconscious first-years and one screeching cat later, Peter is geeking out over his shinny new broom and magical cloak, with special enchantments to keep his identity and body protected. The Slytherin sixth year then blackmails the little Ravenclaw into joining him in an illegal Quidditch match that afternoon. “But aren’t first years banned from playing Quidditch unless they’re Harry Potter?” Peter asks as they fly towards the Quidditch pitch. “I dunno, maybe.” “Could you like, go to prison for making me do this?” “Possibly.” “Cool! We’re outlaws!” “Er…. yeah… the law… the thing I was fighting the Cap about….erm……….. So! Ready to prove you’re a better Seeker than Barnes & Noble?” “Yes sir!” the first year says eagerly. Black Panther Newly crowned King T’Challa believes Bucky killed his father, and vows revenge. When Steve and Tony approach him in the Courtyard, T’Challa agrees to the match and joins Team Stark, purely so he can avenge his father.

“The Black Panther has been the protector of Wakanda for generations. A mantle, passed from warrior to warrior. And now, because that little sh*t incinerated my father, I also wear the mantle of king. So, I ask you Rogers… as wizard, warrior and king… how long do you think you can keep your blood-sucking little Emo safe from me?” Steve can only stare blankly, not so much out of fear for Bucky, as horror over seeing another Gryffindor stealing his gag of dramatic speeches…and doing it infinitely better.

Tony points out, “Well I’ll have to ask you to wait until after Parker catches the Snitch to kill Barnes—”

“I will not kill the vampire,” T'Challa swears solemnly. “I will put the wooden stake of my broom through his undead heart, as I tear his head from his shoulders using only my Vibranium jaws, painting the land crimson in a symphony of vengeance and justice for my father, my kingdom, and centuries of colonization.”

By now even the giant squid is staring silently, as is Vision, who is dripping wet and dangling from one tentacle by his ankle. Tony adjusts his purple shades. “So that’s a yes? Sounds good. We meet at the Quidditch pitch right after dinner.” A Sinister Enchantment By they time they reach the Quidditch pitch, everyone has had a taste of stupidity. Before supper, Zemo secretly poured Firewhiskey into the pitchers of pumpkin juice and all the bottles of butterbeer, and fed Hobbit Hemp to all of the chocolate frogs. But it’s about to get much, much worse. Because Zemo has also put jinxes on all of the Quidditch balls, turning them into literal “idiot balls.” A different jinx is cast on each ball. On the Quaffle, Zemo casts Dramatis Personae, a sinister spell that causes anyone within three miles of the ball to speak and act overly dramatic manner, at the cost of common sense. On one Bludger he casts Sequelitis, which exaggerates the victim’s personality traits to idiotic proportions, and on the other Prequelitis, which makes people say and do things that contradict common knowledge about their own history. And on the Golden Snitch, he cast the most insidious curse of all: Fratres Russo, the spell that erases the victim’s human empathy, for the sake of all of the above-mentioned spells’ ends. Resuming his house-elf disguise, Zemo lurks below the bleachers to watch his work unfold. Let’s Get Ready to Rumble! The Quidditch bleachers are filled with blazed classmates, and even a few professors. (You can bet the Grand Master found a way to attend both this and his other blood-sport at the same time, with the help of a Time Turner.) Throughout the game, the teams’ supporters blast muggle music from the stands: Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” and the theme to “Team America, World Police,” attempting to drown each other out. Before the game begins, Tony flies out into the middle of the field on his “iron broom,” and announces: “Before we do this, let’s go over the ground rules.”

Everyone listens intently, except Steve Rogers and Charon Carter, who are kissing drunkenly.

“Rule Number One!” Tony bellows sternly. “There will be no touching of the hair or face…”

Steve chimes in, “And that’s it! Now lets do this!”

With this being the only rule, T’Challa sees no reason not to take on his Animagus form, and leaps from his broom at Bucky Barnes, while the vampire races Parker to the Snitch.

“You’re a vampire with a robot arm?” Peter exclaims at Bucky. “That is awesome dude!”

“It’s not robotic, it’s enchanted armorAAAAAAA!” Dodging vibranium claws, the little vampire shrieks under his rock-star hair, “FOR THE LOVE OF MERLIN’S MAGICAL BALLSACK, I DIDN’T KILL YOUR FATHER!” “Then why did you run?!” the panther demands in a growling voice, taking another swipe. “BECAUSE A GIANT PANTHER, HORNY TEENAGE GIRLS AND A LITERAL ARMY ARE TRYING TO TEAR ME LIMB FROM LIMB! WHAT THE F*CK KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT?!” Bucky dodges the cat once more, and yells hoarsely to the universe, “All I wanted this morning were some f*cking plums!” Meanwhile, Friday and Charon Carter both give up on their jobs as Keepers, since on the rare occasion that a ball of any kind actually comes anywhere near the hoops, it is often not even the Quaffle. As tensions and blood-alcohol levels continue to rise, so does the anger and the violence. “God Tony, I can’t believe you pressured a kid into fighting your dangerous war!” Steve Rogers accuses, as he hurls a massive thestral-carriage onto Peter Parker.

The “Spider-Wizard” catches the carriage in both hands, losing the Snitch, and tosses the vehicle into the bleachers, where it crushes Galaga Guy.

Tony yells back to Steve, “At least I’m not snogging my ex-girlfriend’s niece, perv!” “No,” Steve counters, “just your surrogate little brother’s aunt. Freak.” “He’s got you there!” a tiny voice bellows from the bristles of Tony’s broom. “Who are you?” Tony searches for the speaker. “Your sex life,” Scott Lang, in ant-nimagus form, replies. “We don’t talk much anymore.” During the action, Vision accidentally hits Rhodey with a curse that transforms him into a merman. Unless this curse is reversed, Rhodey will never walk again. Tony is coming closer and closer to his breaking point… Steve is headed for Team Stark’s hoops with the Quaffle (forgetting that he’s supposed to be a Beater right now, and not a Chaser). Black Widow soars over on her broom and stops in front of him. The Quaffle that Steve holds is still enchanted with Dramatis Personae.

“You’re not gonna stop, are you,” Nat breaths dramatically, as the Quaffle’s jinx radiates at her. “Power to the people,” Steve replies with an intense stare. “Gondor has no pants, Gondor needs no pants.” In the most cliched way she can muster, Nat sighs, “I’m gonna regret this…” She takes out her wand, and transforms her own team’s Keeper, Friday the snake, into an orange basalisk, now much too heavy for the tiny broom Tony built her. As the goalie plummets to the ground and Steve scores, Tony hollers at Natasha, “What the hell was that? Is the double-agent thing just hard to shake?” Nat glares at him. “Are you incapable of letting go of your ego for one minute?” Tony bobs in the air on his broom, baffled. “Okay, I’m not denying I have an ego the size of Jupiter, but what the hell does that have to do with anything right now?” Breathing deeply, Nat retorts over dramatically folded arms, “I’m not the one who needs to watch my back.” “…what?” Nat shrugs. “I dunno, I’m stoned.” She pulls a chocolate frog out of her robe and offers it to Tony. “Pot-frog?” “What in the hell are you—Ooo, don’t mind if I do, thanks!” Tony lets the stoned frog leap into the air and twirls on his broom underneath, catching it in his mouth. Later on, no one can clearly remember how the game really ended. The one thing everyone can agree probably wasn’t a hallucination was Scott Lang, in his “ant-nimagus” form, taking someone’s “Engorgio!” charm, and growing from a regular ant to a “Them!” ant. Peter Parker then recalled the muggle film “Empire Strikes Back,” and used his own Animagus powers to web Scott’s six legs together, just as the latter was reenacting a Monty Python skit with one of the Quidditch stands. (Said skit being the one with the giant Siamese cat.) Peter then snagged the Snitch, and Tony’s team won. Peter, still holding the Snitch, is now doing a little dance.

Under the conditions of Steve and Tony’s bet, the losing would team take the blame for the illegal Quidditch game, should any teachers ask. Vice-Headmaster Thaddeus Ross did ask, and assigned all of Team Cap a detention of a sadistic sort.

“For the next month,” Thaddeus says sadistically, “You’ll all be imprisoned in the Giant Squid, at the bottom of the lake!”

Steve opens his mouth to protest. Just at that moment, Peter Parker, still dancing on his broom, enthusiastically throws the Snitch behind him. The tiny golden ball goes flying right into Steve’s opened mouth, knocking him backwards into Bucky. Both tumble off of their brooms, and plummet below the bleachers. How Not to Handle Your Teammate Seeing His Parents Killed By Someone Standing Right Next To Him, And In the Same Instance Learning His Comrade Also Standing Next to Him—You—Knew All Along By sundown, everyone within a thousand-mile radius of Hogwarts is roaring drunk, and higher than a hippogriff. The Avengers have just spent several hours handling those jinxed Idiot Balls. But the worst victim of the Idiot Balls was Steve Rogers, who has accidently swallowed one. The worst one—the Golden Snitch. After speaking with Sam in the Squid-Detention, Tony finally realizes that Zemo is the bad guy. He bids his Quidditch opponents goodbye, as the Squid coughs him back up onto dry land. Whipping Squid slime off his robes, Tony mounts his broom, and goes to find Steve and Bucky. Steve and Bucky are chasing a chocolate frog, that tells them it knows where Zemo is. It leads them to the Forbidden Forest. As the sun sets, the frog takes them further and further into the Forest, finally stopping at a glowing stone basin. Tony catches up on his broom, and starts to apologize to them. But suddenly, his broom gives a strong jerk, throwing Tony head-first into the Pensieve. The Peniseve contains one of Bucky’s own missing memories, from his time as the Winter Sorcerer. This is how Tony learns that his parents did not die by accidently aparating into a werewolf’s den, as the Daily Prophet had reported. They had apparated safely to their vacation destination, only to be greeted by one of Howard Stark’s old friends, now a vampire that seemingly didn’t recognize him. When the Pensieve dumps Tony back into reality, he understandably snaps. And yet, Tony never takes any of the ample chances he has to blast Bucky’s or Steve’s heads off, instead going for throttling and blasting metal arms off. It’s almost as if he’s simply having a human reaction to something traumatic, rather than genuinely trying to murder anyone. But Steve is still being influenced by the golden idiot ball he swallowed. After mentioning Bucky’s mind-control situation once (in a bored voice), Steve never brings the issue up again. Instead, he spends the rest of the fight bellowing corny lines at Tony, like, “This won’t change what happened,” and “I could do this all day!” The enchantment on the Snitch he ate now has Steve viewing Tony as another generic villain, in need of generic heroic lectures, instead of a comrade who’s just watched his parents get killed by someone standing right next to him (and in the same instance learned the other guy standing next to him knew for ages and kept it from him). “Steve, seriously!” Bucky yells, as Tony blasts off his metal arm, “If you’re not gonna mention my mind-control to him, then just stop talking!”

Ignoring him, Steve heroically holds up his fists and bellows to Tony, “I could do this all day!” “You already said that!” Tony snaps, aiming his wand for another blow. Steve retorts, “Down with the Empire! Remember Alderaan!” and punches Tony repeatedly in the head….in the exact same manner Tony has just watched Bucky kill his father with in the Pensieve.

Shockingly, Tony remains pissed. With a finally corny cry of, “Gondor lives!” Steve breaks Tony’s his wand in half with his shield, ending the fight. Which, in total, lasted about twenty minutes, if that. About the amount of time one might expect a blind rage from someone in Tony’s position to last. Tony then shouts his famous, “That shield doesn’t belong to you!” line. At this point, a sober Steve Rogers would come out of his rage and realized that Tony was now incapacitated, visibly cooling down, and still conscious, and that this was the opportune moment to apologize, remind Tony of Bucky’s mind-control, and get everyone back on track against Zemo. But that Golden Snitch, oozing with the Russo curse, still flutters around Steve’s innards. So instead, Steve dramatically! drops the shield, and heads off into the Forest with Bucky. To Steve’s credit, his Gryffindor chivlary prevailed when he dropped the shield he was “unworthy” of; his common sense and empathy just… didn’t. A Royal Hairball T'Challa is perhaps the only individual who clearly remembers leaving the Quidditch field that day.

Near the end of the game, he had Bucky in his claws. The Animagus opened his panther jaws to begin another epic speech of revenge. But instead of powerful words, out of the panther’s mouth came pained, wheezing gags. Bucky just stared emo-ly under his rock star hair. T’Challa motioned with a paw that he had to excuse himself from the game. The panther leapt from broom to broom until he reached the bleachers, then rushed underneath them to cough up a violent hairball. Up with the hairball came most of the Firewhisky and Hobbitus Cannibus that he had been unknowingly ingesting all day. His head now clear, T'Challa has been reflecting on the day’s events. He recalls that when the suicide-pumpkin detonated, Bucky Barnes was sitting next to him, snogging Steve. And now that he thinks about it, Barnes doesn’t seem have any trace of a European accent. Could it be that the man evil enough to murder his father might also be evil enough to lie about his identity? Still in panther form, T'Challa begins sniffing for clues… T’Challa finds his way to the Forbidden Forest, where he sees Steve, Bucky and Tony fighting, and Zemo cackling from behind a bush. The panther catches the culprit, and gets the truth from him at claw-point. Helmut Zemo is an embittered and eccentric Durmstrang student, who blames the Order of the Avengers for the deaths of his imaginary wife Gwendolyn, and their three imaginary children, Huey, Dewy and Damocles. Vowing revenge, Zemo set out to destroy the Avengers from within. T'Challa’s Gryffindor chivalry now comes to light, and he realizes, “You have let revenge consume you. It has consumed them. I’m finished letting it consume me.”

T’Challa, still in panther form, drags Zemo back to Hogwarts like a dead mouse, and delivers him to the Dementors. T’Challa later apologizes to Bucky, and offers the vampire amnesty in the secret wizarding nation of Wakanda. Prison Break! Soon after the fight with Tony, Steve belches back up the Golden Snitch. As his head clears, Steve realizes how stupid he’s been. But Tony’s already gone. Steve focuses on the comrades who need his help right now. Sam, Clint, Wanda and Scott are still serving detention inside the Giant Squid’s stomach. Coughing up the Snitch has given Steve an idea.

Steve returns to the lake, and with raised fists, yells and the Squid to come face him like a man. The Giant Squid obliges. Steve then drops his dukes and whips out his wand.

“Accio Nausea Fuel!” A Muggle television set comes soaring forth in from who-knows-where. Playing on the TV is a movie, incidentally staring a relative of Zemo’s: “The Human Centipede.” The Squid is soon puking Steve’s teammates back up, one by one. When Thudnerbolt Ross contacts Tony about the jail-break via the Floo Network, Tony “accidentally” dumps the contents of his snakes’ litter boxes into the fireplace, “missing” the call. How Not to Apologize: Steve then writes an apology letter to Tony, or tries to. Unfortunately, Steve is still half-drunk when he pens and mails the letter, and still suffering some residual effects of the Idiot Balls, particularly Dramatis Personae and Fratres Russo. As a result, Tony ends up reading an embarrassing vanity project about Steve’s life and philosophical musings, spattered with lazy and cliched justifications. Tony finds it particularly ironic that Steve dodges giving him an honest explanation for keeping the information about his parents from him, in the letter where he is “apologizing,” specifically, for keeping information from Tony. Not long after, no one is surprised to see Tony Stark strolling out of the girl’s bathroom, whistling over the sound of a flushing toilet and an angry Moaning. But people are a bit confused when Tony throws up his hands and says, “Great, now I got ink all over my butt!” Separate Ways: Everyone on Team Cap is expelled from Hogwarts, as is Natasha, who violated school dress code one too many times. Hawkeye and Scott Lang finish their education from home through owl correspondence courses. Charon Carter returns home to America. The rest join Steve Rogers in forming an independent study group in Hogsmeade, to finish their schooling. Tony continues tutoring Peter Parker, both for normal classes and being an Avenger. He gets himself much-needed psychiatric help, and gets back together with Pepper. In Wakanda, T’Challa’s brilliant sister Shuri builds an impenetrable, magic glass coffin for Bucky, and begins working on a way to make him immune to the Imperius Curse. Once cured, Bucky takes work tending the flocks of thestrals on the Wakandan castle grounds. “How does it feel to come so far…?” Ministry Auror and former Ravenclaw student Everett Ross stops by Helmut Zemo’s Azkaban cell for a gloat. “So,” Everett teases, “How does it feel to come all this way, only to fail?” “Did I?” Zemo replies sinisterly. “An empire that is defeated by its enemies can rise again, but one that crumbles from within, that is dead.”

“And what’s that got to do with this?“ Everett asks. "The Avengers only crumbled due to an outside enemy—you.” A cruel smile begins to spread on Zemo’s face. “Only because I exposed the true nature of the Avengers.” “If this was about their ‘true natures,’ then why did you have to get them all to act so out-of-character, and inhumanly stupid, in order to make this ‘civil war’ happen?” Everett retorts. Zemo says quietly, “where do you think I got the Firewhisky and Hobbit Weed to spike their food with? who do you think taught me those jinxes, to turn the Quidditch balls into Idiot Balls?” Everett can only stare, now totally lost. Zemo sneers, “From the writing staff! My goal wasn’t just to destroy the Avengers as a team, but as a franchise! Yes, peering beyond the Forth Wall is an especially difficult form of Divination, which I have mastered! Today, I exposed to the entire audience how little the writers truly care about their characters, story or audience, if there’s a chance for cheap ‘drama’ and cartoonish fanboy-service! The MCU’s worst film, in any universe, has exposed to all the fans that this is nothing more than a cheap popcorn franchise. Watch now as the superhero genre loses its steam, and begins to collapse from within. Look at the DC movies, it’s already happening!” Everett can only stare at the sad, strange little man behind the barred window. Azkaban truly does drive its prisoners to incurable madness. Shaking his head, Everett takes his leave.

AN: Guess what my least favorite Marvel movie is. And those naysayers said I couldn’t write an AU fic, a parody, and a movie review all in one post!

#helmut zemo #tony stark #bucky barnes #captain america: civil war #quidditch #hogwarts #hogwarts au #Hogwarts house #captain america civil war #Fix-It #parody #review

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theeurekaproject · 4 years

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Nam Amor Patria

Acidalia’s reflection stared back at her, unblinking.

She looked horrible. Her skin was pale and washed-out, a sickly shade of orange more reminiscent of a bad spray tan than natural Martian carotenes, and the bags under her eyes were about the size of the Americae Septentrionalis continent. An oozing, red gash went down from her shoulder to her forearm, leeching blood into the bathwater and turning it a sickly brown. Ace didn’t wish Acidalia any harm, but he certainly hadn’t been gentle, either, and one of his pins had driven itself into her flesh and just ripped, went down her skin like scissors cutting wrapping paper, leaving a nasty avulsion behind. She thought she’d stopped the bleeding, but it returned with a vengeance the minute she moved her arm.

“Vae,” she muttered to nobody but herself, watching the wound open again. She’d put butterfly bandages on it in lieu of stitches, but they weren’t waterproof, and they kept coming off and taking more skin with them. Now her whole arm was raw and red, scarlet from the blood and stinging from soap and antiseptic. She reached for another bandage, but her elbow brushed against the corner of the box a little too hard, knocking the entire thing into the water.

Acidalia sighed. Reasoning that any attempt to improve her situation was futile, she leant back against the solium and shut her eyes. It wasn’t good for her skin to be sitting in such a hot bath for so long, but at this point she’d most likely be dead before she turned 21, so the long-term health of her integumentary system was not her main concern. How soon will it be? she wondered, sitting up slightly to glance at the door. Would Alestra come in now, gun in hand, and shoot her in the bath, leaving her floating like Gatsby in a pool of her own mistakes? Or would it be tomorrow at dinner, with ricin-laced wine? Maybe she’d be lucky and it would happen tonight, and she’d die just like she fell asleep, painlessly and unaware.

That was a stupid thought. Alestra would never be that merciful.

Part of Acidalia almost wished they’d kill her soon—at least then she’d be dead and she wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. The other part of her was terrified. Existential dread swelled up deep inside of her, making her heart beat at the speed of an FTL starship. She didn’t want to die. She’d prepared herself for her inevitable demise, thought about it over and over in her head, but she still didn’t want to die. She thought she’d be able to treat this whole situation with more grace, but she seriously doubted her ability to retain any kind of dignity or eloquence while facing her doom. Nobody looked elegant strapped to a gurney with pentobarbital in their arm. No one was graceful in front of a firing squad.

Maybe she’d drown herself before they could get to her, Acidalia mused. Then she’d have the last word. But she wouldn’t, not really—she’d be dead either way, then T would be left without a sister and the Revolution would be left without a Cipher. Besides, she didn’t think she could really force herself to do that, to sink under the water and just breathe until her lungs were full and useless. She could hardly inject herself with hypodermic needles; there was no way she could seriously harm herself without giving up.

Faex. This was a no win situation.

Irritated by her inability to change her predicament, Acidalia decided to ditch the idea of a hot bath altogether. It was supposed to relax her, but she couldn’t get the image of her own bloodied corpse floating, facedown, out of her mind. It was late at night, or maybe early morning—Acidalia was a night owl; all of the interesting things in Eleutheria happened after dark—but she dressed in her favorite evening gown anyway, couple with the Imperial crown. She might as well die while making a statement. Soon enough, she wouldn’t have to hear anybody’s judgement anymore.

She hadn’t realized, before, that her impending doom would affect her so much. She knew that this was a hard game to win, and oftentimes victory and death were synonymous; war was like chess, and sometimes pawns have to be sacrificed in order to save the king. The odds of Acidalia making it past twenty were already low before she joined the Revolution, and she thought she’d come to terms with that. Still, standing here, wondering which breath would be her last, was heart-wrenching. There were so many things she would never get to do, so many sights she would never see, so many dreams left unfulfilled. And then there was T.

Oh, god, T. Acidalia felt selfish, suddenly, for musing on all of her life’s shortcomings when T would be the real victim of her murder. Once Acidalia was dead, that was it; there would be no more pain or heartache for her. T, though… T would still be alive. T would have to watch them desecrate her corpse, see the propaganda with her face on it, deal with the remnants of her legacy. Meanwhile, the Revolution would flounder. Acidalia was their secret weapon—without her, they’d be at a horrible disadvantage.

“This is just wonderful, isn’t it?” Acidalia murmured sadly to nobody in particular. She felt trapped like a prisoner on death row, counting her time in hours instead of years. What would her last words be? She hadn’t ever thought to write such things down.

There were escapes, of course; there were always escapes. She could flee to Mars and abandon all hope of freeing Eleutheria from Alestra’s brutal grasp. It would be easy; she’d blend in with the crowd far more than any other Terran girl, and it wouldn’t be difficult to doctor her documents and adopt a new identity. She could settle down and marry someone and find a mediocre job, and the entirety of the empire she once led would be subject to the cruel and unjust laws her mother passed. Acidalia would survive, but T would be crushed, and she’d be abandoning everything and everyone she loved for the sake of leading an unfulfilling life.

It wasn’t worth it. Acidalia didn’t want to die, but she’d rather go out fighting than live as a coward.

And that left… what, exactly? Even if she managed to escape the palace walls, where would she go? If she went to a Revolutionary base, they’d try to tail her, and the risk of being found was much larger than the benefit of a slightly higher chance of survival. She could steal one of the royal family’s stealth ships and hover in orbit, praying that the cloaking tech held up, but there was such a high chance that they’d find her. She’d only be staving off the inevitable. Who would offer her asylum when Alestra wanted her dead? Alestra stopped at nothing to get what she wanted. She’d happily murder anyone who gave aid to Acidalia.

So Acidalia would die. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do other than pen her last will and testament. What would it even say? “I leave all my wealth to my bastard brother, who you’ll kill if you find out he exists?” And her corpse would be shown on every television in Eleutheria, and her mother, the ever-brilliant orator, would make a rousing speech about pruning family trees, and she’d smile poisonously into the camera and say that it’s a shame, really, to have to spill so much Cipher blood, but Acidalia was never much of a Cipher to begin with. And somewhere beneath the waters of the Atlantic T would cry and try to hide it, and Andromeda would pace, and it’d be hours—minutes, maybe—until she had her armies fighting in alleyways and people rioting in the streets. Then Alestra’s icy grip would come down upon them with the strength of a hypernova, and they’d bleed, they’d bleed until the streets were slick with blood and viscera, and there would be nobody left to stop it, nobody left to—

Oh, Deus, Acidalia thought, I’m such an idiot. She should have gotten out of here years ago. If only she had the forethought to realize the lengths Alestra would go, if only she’d seen just how little worth the court placed on her life…

But there was no use in such hypotheticals.

Okay. Either I die, or I don’t. It’s time to start thinking about this logically. Acidalia sat down at the desk in her study and stared at the plain white countertop as if she had documents to look through. There were two options: Alestra killed her, or she lived.

In scenario one, Acidalia would die prematurely, T would have a meltdown, and Acidalia’s extremely unique and specific skillset would no longer be available to the Revolution, leaving them at a firm disadvantage. The initial deaths would be minimal, but it would be days at most before war and rioting decimated the planet, killing untold amounts of people in the process—especially with no Cipher to counter Alestra. Any weapon produced by a Cipher could easily leave half the population or more dead or incapacitated, though Acidalia doubted her mother would go that scorched-earth—she wanted an empire to rule, after all. Alestra would most likely only target a small percentage—ten, perhaps, or maybe fifteen. That was slightly over two billion citizens. Initial deaths, one; resultant deaths, 2,000,000,000. And that was being generous.

In scenario two, Acidalia somehow managed to survive the next few weeks, and she’d be there to serve the Revolution when the time came. If she were to live, she’d have to find help from other people, most of whom Alestra would kill. She considered again the option of seeking asylum on Mars. If Alestra could find hints as to where she’d gone—and she would find hints—she’d murder everyone who had ever interacted with Acidalia, probably after torturing them for information. That’d probably be somewhere in the realm of 200 people. And then there’d be rioting anyway, because Acidalia was well-liked amongst certain castes, and tensions would rise to dangerous levels. But Acidalia would be there to help, and two billion people would not die.

So Acidalia had to survive. It was basic math. The damage Alestra could do in her absence outstripped any issues her survival could possibly cause. Two hundred people dying painfully was horrible, but two billion people bleeding to death in the streets and begging for help from long-dead Katherine was much, much worse.

***

An hour later, Acidalia left her bedroom with a designer purse stuffed full of illegal documents and guns concealed in holsters beneath her skirts. She’d formulated the most basic of plans involving a faked suicide and a disguise. It sounded like something out of a terrible B-movie she and T would make fun of together on one of their rare outings, and it wouldn’t be enough to convince Alestra of anything, but it might keep her busy for a while. All Acidalia really needed was time.

As she walked through the palace hallways, the servants gave her a wide berth. They’d all seen the events at the coronation, and they knew how much of a target Acidalia was—none of them wanted to be caught in the crossfire. Acidalia didn’t blame them. She’d stopped using human servants years ago once her mother made it clear that just being around her put their lives at risk. Still, Alestra and Aleskynn liked the dopamine rush that came with ordering people around, so the humans stayed in the palace, tiptoeing around the hallways and whispering to one another in vulgar Latin.

Acidalia tried to appear calm and causal, so as not to ring any alarm bells. There were very few noblewomen awake at this hour, but she could hear her sister giggling in the distance, and even little Aleskynn could be dangerous when she wanted to be. Alestra was nowhere to be seen, and the Imperial Guard was strangely absent. The silence made Acidalia’s skin crawl.

I have every right to be here, she told herself. I am the Imperatrix Ceasarina, and I can go wherever I’d like. But her internal monologue’s attempts to convince her conscious mind that everything was fine did not change the reality of her conundrum whatsoever, and she could feel her anxiety increase tenfold with every step she took. She brushed her fingers against her thigh holster, checking to see if it was still there.

As she crept closer to the hangar where her personal ships were stored, the corridors grew more silent, and throngs of servants dissipated into tiny clusters of robots hovering a few feet off the ground. Aleskynn’s laughter faded into nothingness, leaving only the haunting hum of air conditioning and eerie electronic chimes behind. The air felt stale, suddenly, and less perfumed than it had been before. More tension hung in the atmosphere, and every one of Acidalia’s footsteps felt as loud as a nuclear blast. Still, she moved forward, trying desperately to control her fear, pushing it underneath layers of determination. If it came down to it, she’d fight her way out of here. She had to. Otherwise, the consequences would be immeasurable.

She was almost there, now, almost to the hangar, and the silhouette of the Revelation loomed in the distance. Acidalia hurried her pace, wishing she’d had the foresight to wear flats instead of these ridiculous heels. But she could change later when she was safe and sound someplace else; every one of her ships was stocked with enough clothing and accessories that she could live in orbit for years and never repeat an outfit. The Cipher family was materialistic that way, and when Acidalia’s grandmother had this shipyard built, she probably wasn’t considering the possibility of her little girl turning murderous and starting another civil war. Poor Harmonia, Acidalia thought bitterly. Being Alestra’s daughter was bad enough. She couldn’t imagine what raising her must have been like.

Then again, Harmonia had died young, probably at Alestra’s hands. So maybe Acidalia could imagine. Not for the first time, she shuddered, and tried to pass it off as a response to the ice-cold air of the hangar.

She was so close, so close she could see her target’s shadow flickering in the false candlelight. She wouldn’t be like Harmonia—she wasn’t half as spineless or as shallow. She had a plan and an escape and a means to get away and a revolution behind her and a brother who loved her and a thousand other resources that the stars never graced Harmonia with. She’d survive this. She’d survive, even if it meant fighting Thanatus off herself. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to.

Suppressing nervousness with arrogance, Acidalia made her way across the hangar, well aware that she was a sitting duck for any sniper. There was nothing to hide behind, and her heat signature was probably painfully obvious, a splotch of red paint against a backdrop of cool blue. At least a bullet in her skull would be a quick death, she reasoned. Only a few more paces, only a few more steps, and—

There was a person sitting on the Revelation’s steps, gazing up at the sky.

Acidalia’s heart skipped a beat before resuming its pulse faster than ever before. The woman seemed to sense her presence, and she turned, smirking. Her smile was scarily perfect: two rows of impeccably straight teeth surrounded by candy-coated, sparkly, blood-colored lips.

“Salve, Cassiopeia,” Acidalia said breezily, though she was forcing the words out of her mouth. Every instinct in her body screamed at her to run, but there was no escaping now; there’d be a fight this evening, whether with bullets or clever wordplay.

“Ave, Acidalia,” Cassiopeia replied, her voice icy. “What’s a girl like you doing out this time of night?”

Shoot her, Acidalia’s subconscious screamed. Shoot her! But Cassiopeia wasn’t dumb enough to do this alone—impetuous, maybe, but not dumb. She’d have reinforcements, and murdering their leader was bound to incite even more violence.

“I’m going on a short excursion to Mars. I have meeting with President Arlen Tycho regarding the quality of the latest Utopian warships.” It was a plausible lie; Cassiopeia had no way of knowing who on Mars was responsible for what, and there had been issues with Utopian warships in the past, though they had more to do with Revolutionary sabotage than oversights in Utopia Planitia. Still, something told Acidalia that Cassiopeia wasn’t here to listen to her stories about Martian shipyards.

“That’s interesting.” Cassiopeia’s voice was gentle, but there was something dangerous in her eyes, electric green and burning like Greek fire.

“I must ask what your purpose here is,” Acidalia added, well aware that any wrong move could cause this woman to snap. She had always been about as stable as a decaying radioactive isotope, and just as deadly, too.

“I think you already know that.” And with that, Cassiopeia’s voice shifted; she lost the saccharine awe most people took on while interacting with the Imperatrix and replaced it instead with an angry roughness.

“I’m afraid I do not.” Sometimes playing dumb was the best option. Acidalia reached into her dress for her pistol.

“Isn’t it obvious, Cipher? I’ve come to finish what I’ve started.”

#on the edge of eureka #eurekaproject #POV Acidalia #Cassiopeia #short chapter this week sorry guys #Acidalia

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pluiethewolf · 7 years

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PATERSON

Recently I went to see Paterson with a friend and when I got home started writing a message to him about it which quite quickly became 1000 words long. It really struck a chord with me which I didn't necessarily notice while watching it.

For me the whole film is about people's personal passions and art, as well as the joys of life even when it's unexceptional. In fact I think the word 'even' doesn't fit what the film's doing, it doesn't feel like there's a hierarchy in it of what success means, that Paterson's life is good DESPITE being unexceptional. In a 'mainstream film' (i hate using phrases like that but it's an easy standin for 'films not like this') it would be about Paterson and/or his wife trying to hit the big time and the joys and difficulties that come from achieving or not achieving that. They would be special in their talent and ambition. But they're not. The film shows that through little girl's poems and the guy in the laundrette rapping and the barman's chess. Even the conversations on the bus are about passion and interest and enjoyment. The characters live in a town filled with the memories of people who 'made it big' by their art but they're ALL making art and living passionate lives. It reminds me of a really, really good show I saw called 'The Castle Builder' by Kid Carpet and Vic Llewelyn. It's all about people making amazing works of art in their free time. Not for money or fame or even sometimes to be seen by anyone else but just in order to make it. (That's a real simplification of what it's about but this is a fantastic review of it which gives a much better picture http://exeuntmagazine.com/reviews/review/).

In general I feel like the film wasn't just about people having their own art but through that about people having their own lives. Film's so often are about exceptionalism and encourage exceptionalism in us. There's some shitty motivational quote that I've seen about how we always let ourselves get away with much more than other people because we know the context and the motivations of our own actions and to me that's how we relate to the main characters most films (really a lot of fiction in any medium). We can support them doing things that would normally make us hate a character because we’ve been shown it in their context. It's an odd (but I think true) contradiction that in order to make the main character of a film more relatable to more people you have to make them more special, because everyone is special to themselves. I'm not talking about the idea of 'young people these days' having been told by their teachers and parents that they're unique and so have an inflated sense of their specialness. It's incontrovertible* that everyone has a clearer understanding of their own inner life than they do of anyone else's, and their vision of the world is formed around them. Movies reflect this. Either the main characters in films are incredibly talented/have some other personal quality which makes them stand out or they're an 'ordinary guy' thrust into a strange situation where they have to sort it out. If anything when the 'ordinary guy' is the main character it encourages exceptionalism even more: it doesn't matter that there's nothing that you can pinpoint which makes you amazing, you're the main character, you're John McClane, you're Will Smith in that film where he accidentally gets caught up in all the spy shit.

Paterson completely goes against this trend. It completely unpatronisingly asserts that everyone is special and makes it seem like something both completely obvious and beautifully original rather than an oft repeated cliche. There's a word - sonder- which means 'the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own' (it's made up but then again aren't all words?2) and I think Paterson really encapsulates that word. The friend I saw the film with talked about how great Paterson himself is as a character, his favourite character in recent films, and I agree with him that he's an amazing character but despite that he's hardly the main character. He doesn't do anything more extraordinary than anyone else. And we don't really get any more insight into his character than we do anyone else's. In fact for most of the film I found myself wondering what he was thinking, whether he was happy, even what kind of person he was beyond what we saw. When we were talking I mentioned that although it was 'quirky' and weird it felt more like real life than most other movies because stuff just happened. I think a lot of that comes from the lack of exposition, which also lead to the very loose narrative structure and the fact that Paterson isn't 'the main character'. Obviously he is; he's in the title (though after thinking about it I would argue the film is actually about the town rather than him), the film follows him around, we hear his thoughts/poems and see the world through his eyes, with the camera focusing on the coincidences he sees, time passing on his watch etc. BUT without the exposition we don't frame a narrative around him, when something happens we don't think 'oh that's bad for him because’ or 'YAY that's what he wanted', because there's no exposition to set up his objectives and fears. All the characters in it are people rather than pawns which either help or hinder his objectives. Yes, some of them may be played for laughs (for example the guy at the bus depot who seems to have all the problems of the world) but they are just people whose lives happen to be intersecting with Patterson's, and they never seem like a tool to further the 'plot' (a helpful side-effect of not really having much of one). One of the oddest points of the film for me is at the end where Patterson talks to the Japanese poet. I can't tell whether it's satirising the 'wise mystic Asian' trope or just repeating it. But what makes me feel like it's not JUST repeating it is it feels like the poet sees Paterson the same way as Paterson sees him. It feels like the poet has his own story, in which he talks to this strange bus driver in the town he poetically romanticises. None of the characters are 'fleshed out', we don't find out anyone's physiological motivations or anything like that, but this doesn't stop them from being real people to us, if anything it increases it. We're given a small glimpse into a much larger life that they live, much like those of the people we meet every day.

Earlier I said I think the film's more about the town of Paterson than the man but I think possibly they're the same thing, in more than just their names. He's a metaphor for the rest of the town, for most people as he just keeps doing his ordinary life and has this rich life which isn't what he is known for or defined by. He's not really lying when he says he's not a poet (at least in one way) because in the town most people will never be seen as their private passions, they're seen as their jobs. Even above I didn't refer to the guy who played chess as the chess-player or as the local celebrity enthusiast, but as the 'bar-man'. This is also shown in the fact that the only person who seems defined by their 'art' is Patterson's wife and in order for that to be the case her whole life has to be centralised around creativity and ambition (also possibly motioning to the fact that in our society you have to have the financial freedom and time in order to make this happen, which Laura has by being financially supported by Paterson). Like in the first line of the Maddy Costa article above, the general view is that 'To be obsessed with art, in whatever medium, without making it oneself is to live in a state of quiet disappointment at your own lack of facility and bravery'. I think Paterson is about a rebuttal to that view.c

THE CASTLE BUILDER (In which I argue back and forth with myself about ART) 

I've been thinking recently about The Castle Builder anyway. About people making 'art for art's sake'. I've been thinking about how wonderful the Internet is. I think of people making weird gifs and strange youtube videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FavUpD_IjVY) and fanfiction. Does the internet mean that people can make those passion projects which exist outside of money and fame, just as people always have, but that they can be out in the world as well, to be enjoyed and shared (and possibly ‘discovered’?). A fair amount of the media that I consume is created by people who want to make something cool and consumed by me for free. Is this the same as the 'everyday artists' in The Castle Builder (and Paterson)? Is this an alternative (dare I say subversive??) form of entertainment/art culture?

I mean the internet has been painted as a frontier for alternate lifestyles and cultures since its inception, but the cyber 'frontier' has undoubtedly been marketised and for the most part people's internet experiences are mediated by a small number of popular sites, almost all of which are run for profit (whether or not that's a good thing, pioneering anti-establishment spirit sacrificed for being accessible and usable by a much wider group of people, is a discussion for a different time). Art created online can now seem very separate from the ideal of creation untainted by commerce. People who use Twitter and Tumblr can sometimes seem more like 'content creators' making money for the platform than anything else. By gamifying entertainment with a sense of competition with followers and retweets and likes, it feels less like creation for creation's sake and more like something else, like another realm of labour (this is a good video on how game/film/tv consumption can be seen as labour - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=quWtUnDA8Uk - which is even more the case when you feel pressure to create and maintain an online presence) . And with being a Youtube star now a valid way to become a celebrity it feels like more and more people are turning to it as a way to get famous and turning likes into money.

But what's the problem with that? Surely I shouldn't be complaining about people getting paid and recognised for what they make? The internet can still serve as a democratizing place where people have more choice in how to invest their cultural capital and so creates different stars, different artists get money for what they do. Thinking about it it kind of echoes the recent debate about theatre bloggers. If anyone didn't see it it started with this (https://www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/2016/matt-trueman-why-im-worried-about-the-decline-of-theatre-blogs/?utm_content=bufferc1b1b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer) Matt Trueman article saying there weren't enough dissenting, independent blogging voices and responses (very good ones (okay admittedly the only ones I've read but that doesn't mean they're any less good) here: https://walkingwithheadphones.wordpress.com/2016/12/16/a-response-from-a-young-and-unpaid-critic-or-theatre-blogger-up-to-you/ and https://www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/2016/megan-vaughan-has-theatre-blogging-really-changed-or-is-it-us/) included talking about the financial strains of unpaid blogging, as well as feelings that people just aren't reading what they write. (also the talk of false nostalgia makes me wonder if all these boring philosophical conundrums are just coming from missing what felt like the refreshing innocence of WoW music videos to Jonathon Coulton songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Wy7gRGgeA). In the messages I receive from the world that I agree with there's a romanticisation of 'making art for the love of it' (I mean the romance is even in the name), but also full-throated defence of arts spending and funding. I'm not sure how these concepts sit with each other. Are they in opposition? And if they are I have no idea what side of the debate I fall on. Whose art deserves pay and whose doesn't? Does placing increased importance on people making art for themselves give further weight to only people with a lot of money being able to create, or does it encourage people who aren't rich or successful to see what they make as more important, or encourage people to make more? And I get to the point where I know I'm going in circles because there's no way of consolidating my beliefs within society’s current system (and this is the point that if I was saying this out loud I would start speaking in a funny voice because these are all things that I believe but it all seems a bit sincere and poe-faced so just assume my voice is now more nasal%), because in the current world (maybe all possible ones except for those populated only by art-egalitarian squid) some art will get funded and some will not and that will necessarily support a set of values, will give power to some people and groups and not to others.

I mean we've strayed very far from Patterson but I guess I've been thinking about things because I'm graduating soon and I want to make art and I have to make money but I'm not sure how I want those things to interact. Getting into a creative profession takes so much work and there's so many people also trying to do it that I find myself questioning not whether what I would make would be ‘good enough to be professional’ (I've seen enough bad 'professional' work not to think that) but whether it should be. Whether my art, or my voice would add to the vision of what I think the art/theatre world should be more like. I feel like the question that I should be asking myself isn’t ‘what is the point of art?’ or ‘why should I make art?’ because there are many, many possible good answers , but ‘why should people pay for my art?’. And that I’ve got much less of an idea on.

* I have a really clear mental image of this word being said in a really funny way in a film but can't place what it's from

2 specifically it's from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig

cI could also write a whole other thing about how the two best films I've seen recently (this and Arrival) have both been thoughtfully hopeful and how much I love it but that's for another time

%My urge to do this, especially when saying words like 'capitalism' or 'heteronormative' reminds me of one of my favourite lines in Edinburgh this year, in 'Mouse' when Daniel Kitson said something along the lines of 'the greatest success of the patriarchy was in making the word seem ridiculous so that anyone who used it's arguments would become immediately invalid. Well not the greatest. The greatest was the systematic oppression of women but you know what I mean.'

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