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sylvienerevarine · 2 years

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Fic: A Night At The Theater

You guys remember Falura, the slave girl who the Nerevarine has to find as a bride for an Ashlander chieftain? I love her and have decided she and my Nerevarine, Sylvie, are besties. So I have written about them.

(Tagging @bravelittlescrib for being foolish enough to encourage me)

Life in the Ashlander camp was far from luxurious, but Falura had grown to love it. She loved the warm, cozy interior of her yurt; loved the children tossing their guar-hide balls back and forth on sunny days; even loved her new husband the chieftain, who was rather pompous but at heart a very kind man. It wasn't the easiest of lives, but it was far better than slavery.

The Zainab camp was remote, without much excitement save for wild animals and storms, and Falura was prepared to spend the rest of her life settling village disputes, raising children, and never being surprised.

Until Sylvie came back.

It had been months since Falura had seen the red-haired wood-elf- and back then, Sylvie hadn't yet been the legendary Nerevarine, the hero of the province. She'd been a scruffy adventurer desperate to prove herself as the fulfillment of all those ancient prophecies.

Still, she had delivered Falura out of slavery and into her peaceful new life, and in doing so had established herself in Falura's mind as the greatest hero of the era. Since then, Sylvie had slain the evil Dagoth Ur and become beloved by all... and yet here she was, back in Kaushan and Falura's yurt, behaving as though nothing had changed at all.

"Falura, Kaushan, darlings," Sylvie said, plopping down on one of the bedrolls. "It's been too long, hasn't it? You have no idea how much I've missed you. I can see things are going well here- I always knew you two would be a wonderful couple."

"Always an honor, Nerevarine," Kaushad said, with gruff fondness. "Can't say I thought we would see you again."

"After all the help you gave me? Why, they couldn't keep me away. And Falura and I grew so close on our journey that I simply had to check on her."

"So... what have you been up to since your great adventure?" Falura asked hesitantly. Great adventure was putting it mildly, but Falura didn't quite feel up to saying since you killed the devil.

"Oh, I've been here and there," Sylvie replied. "Traveling, exploring. Been spending quite a bit of time in Mournhold lately."

"And what's in Mournhold?"

"Shopping, mainly. And doing a bit of work for the royals," Sylvie said vaguely. "But mainly the shopping. The clothiers there are fabulous."

She dragged out the a in the last word: f-aaa-bulous. Falura was never quite sure if Sylvie's posh accent was real or affected. She'd asked once, to which the Nerevarine had responded: "Darling, you think I know? I have no memory of my education."

(Sometimes, Falura wondered if Sylvie's amnesia was somewhat affected as well. Being a polite lady, she had never asked.)

(Nor did she ask about Sylvie's new scars, none of which could have come from shopping.)

"But never mind me," said Sylvie, after a brief pause. "In fact, I came here to see if you'd like to go to the theater."

"The theater," Falura repeated slowly.

"In Vivec, specifically. Apparently Crassius Curio- he's a Hlaalu lord, you won't know him- has written a play about little old me," said Sylvie, as though all of this was perfectly normal. "He's an old friend, sort of, and I felt I simply had to support him. The play's called Saint Sylvie Moon-and-Star, which apparently some people find sacrilegious, but knowing Crassius it'll simply be ridiculous."

"It does sound like fun," said Falura hesitantly. "But it's quite a long journey, and I hate to leave my husband..." She cast a questioning glance at Kaushad, who looked highly amused.

"Oh, go on, old girl," he said. "No harm in your having an adventure now and again. Go show those Vivec snobs we've got style in the Ashlands as well."

Sylvie clapped her hands together delightedly. "It's settled, then," she declared. "This is going to be such fun!"

Saint Sylvie Moon-and-Star was to be performed in Vivec's newly-constructed theater, established in the Hlaalu canton by Lord Curio himself. It was by far the grandest building Falura had ever been in, and as she and Sylvie settled into their plush red seats, she was torn between awe and homesickness.

The curtain rose on a mock prison cell, where the heroine languished on a bed waiting to be freed. The actress playing Sylvie was rather shorter and plumper than the Nerevarine herself, but she'd managed the iconic hairstyle: short, red, dramatically flipped up at the ends.

"That's got to be a wig," Sylvie murmured. "Still, it's a nice one, so I'm not offended."

All seemed well for the first hour of the play, as Player-Sylvie fought ancestral ghosts and charmed ancient wizards. The mood changed abruptly, though, when Player-Sylvie encountered Adamantius Hlasko, a licentious nobleman whose vote was necessary for Sylvie to become Hortator.

"And how, my sweet blossom, do I know you're worthy of being our Hortator?" Adamantius asked Player-Sylvie, who seemed smitten with him. "Such a delicate creature as yourself may not be up for such a hard task."

"Why, sir, you underestimate me," said Player-Sylvie. "Just on the way here I slew ten ghosts and six bone-lords!"

"You know," said Adamantius, "some call me the bone-lord."

Player-Sylvie giggled and blushed. "And why do they call you that, sir?"

"Ah, my little duckling," Adamantius replied with a leer, running a finger down player-Sylvie's cheek. "If you wish to become Hortator, I would be more than happy to show you."

Falura let out a shocked laugh, which she cut short at the sound of an irritated huff next to her.

"I am going to kill that man," Sylvie growled, her accent suddenly sounding much less posh.

"I assume that's not what really happened?" Falura asked cautiously.

"Of course not! That son of a blighted rat, doesn't he know I have a reputation to uphold? It was bad enough that Crassius insisted I kiss him in exchange for his vote. If people thought I seduced my way into becoming Hortator..." Noticing annoyed looks coming from nearby spectators, Sylvie let out a quiet noise of frustration and shook her head. "Never fear, Falura, I will be avenged."

The play came to a close an hour later, the curtain closing to thunderous applause. Sylvie seemed to have perked up by the play's ending, which depicted her slaying the villainous Dagoth Ur after cheerfully saying "So long, darling! No one's going to miss that hideous mask."

"I don't think I did say that in real life- I was much too frightened," she'd confessed in a whisper. "But I would have if I'd had my wits about me."

As the curtain fell, Falura wondered if Sylvie had forgotten her vow of revenge. She received her answer when a man, barrel-chested and brown-bearded, raced up to the two women in the theater's lobby.

"Crassius," Sylvie said with a tight smile. "Well, well. How very nice."

"Sylvie, dumpling!" Crassius exclaimed. "How delightful that you could come to our little play. I did try to stay as true to your marvelous story as possible..." He was cut off with a loud thwack, as Sylvie's Wraithguard-gloved fist met his cheek.

"Splendid writing as always, Crassius dear," Sylvie said with a bright smile, while Crassius was still groaning in pain. "Care to get dinner, Falura?"

#morrowind fic #my writing #morrowind #elder scrolls

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greyknightsblog · 2 years

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The Forms of Poetry

Hello Everyone, I’ll be focusing this week’s blog post on five poetry terms found in Babette Deutsch’s Poetry Handbook: A Dictionary of Terms and exemplify them to some famous poetry. Here we go!

Epic: an epic is a long, usually book-length, narrative work of poetry that is typically about the heroic deeds of an extraordinary hero during their mighty adventures.

Example: Beowulf - Anonymous

“Your fame is renowned wherever men journey, my dear friend Beowulf, among all the peoples. You hold power with balance, with wisdom of mind. Now I shall fulfill our friendship as we earlier agreed. And you shall bring peace to your people for a long time to come, a source of strength to the heroes.”

Explanation: This excerpt is taken from the epic poem Beowulf, it’s the speech made by the Danish King, Hrothgar, delivered to the mighty and heroic Geat, Beowulf, who had just defeated the second monster that inflicted death and desolation to the Danish people. Beowulf, along with his Thanes, journey across the sea to aid the Danish King from the evil cursing his people, his long adventures throughout the poem are noble and epic that follow this heroic code that eventually gains him power, fame and wealth.

Ballad: a ballad is an anonymous short narrative poem that was traditionally composed to be a song. They are story tales that are sung from generation to generation before being recorded in writing.

Example: “Lord Randal” - Anonymous

“‘O I fear ye are poison’d, Lord Randal, my son!

I fear ye are poison’d, my handsome young man!’

“O yes! I am poison’d; mother, make my bed soon,

For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wald lie down.’”

Explanation:This particular poem is a short conversation between a mother and her son who went hunting with his “bloodhounds” and had an unexpected dinner with a special lady who had fed him eels in broth that poisoned his dogs and himself. It’s a Scottish folk ballad, if you aren’t aware of the deep Scottish accent, that wasn’t meant for being written but serves as a moral lesson of true-love and betrayal.

Sonnet: a poetic form of fourteen lines written in iambic pentameter that employs several rhyming patterns that deals in a single thought or feeling. The sonnet had originally derived from Italy and spread beyond Europe during the Renaissance.

Example: “Sonnet LXXIII” - William Shakespeare

“In me thou see’st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west;

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.”

Explanation: Shakespeare’s poem consists of fourteen lines with a particular rhyming pattern essentially about characterizing the nature of old age. Furthermore, sonnet seventy-three is one giant metaphor that compares nature to growing old. In the quatrain gladly given, Shakespeare says that his age is like the late twilight where the sun slowly fades in the west and darkness begins to grow around, almost like sleeping but in this case, dying.

Free Verse: is a form of poetry that does not abide by the rules of metrical verse. In other words, there’s no rhythmic structure or rhyming patterns involved but rather tends to follow the natural rhythm of speech.

Example: “A Noiseless Patient Spider” - Walt Whitman

“A noiseless patient spider,

I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, [...]

And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,”

Explanation: Walt Whitman’s “A Noiseless Patient Spider” is a free verse poem that has no rhythmic structure but feels like a running train of thought without the rails. The poem is metaphorical because it compares the spider to a soul learning the ways of the world.

Blank Verse: is a literary term that refers to poetry written in unrhymed metered lines.

Example: “The Second Coming” - William Butler Yeats

“Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi”

Explanation: Yeats’ poem demonstrates blank verses that contain no rhythmic patterns and ultimately describe this apocalyptic nightmare he’s attempting to warn the reader about.

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elizabeths-writing-corner · 3 years

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☁ I have read a great fic of hate sex on tumblr and it really inspired me to write some Lucifer smut. Lucifuckers - I hope I delivered 🙏 Also, I accidentally deleted like 3/4 of this work and had to redo it 💀

Lucifer x fem!Reader

Summary: You're invited to one of Lord Diavolo's banquets and bump into some Avatar of Pride, whom you quite openly hate,

tw: hate sex, a lot of cursing, public sex, slight degradation, bratty sub, a little bit of begging, hard dom

+18, minors please don't interact with this post, thank you!

wc: 1.7

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You've been wandering around the halls for so long now, your feet started to hurt. You never really wanted to be here in the first place; attempting some boring as hell banquet of Lord Diavolo's, but you came here anyway. Was it for the free food? You don't know, but you know for a fact that you wouldn't want to bump into one asshole that was also invited; Lucifer.

You hated his guts from the moment you first met. He always acts so proudly around you, looking down at you with a sadistic grin on his stupid, handsome face. You're one of the most powerful witches in the human world and you could wrap him around your finger, if you really wanted to, so why is he all smiley like that?

Just as you are babbling to yourself in a dark hallway, someone approaches you, putting their hand on your bare shoulder which makes you flinch in surprise.

"What are doing here? Go back to the main hall," Lucifer says with a stoic voice.

You carefully inspect the demon's figure. He looks taller than he already is thanks to his all-black outfit, which consists of dark, elegant pants, a black shirt and a black corset vest with red and gold accents. You curse under your nose, you can't deny he looks good.

"I took a break. The party was getting a little dull," you finally answer, turning your eyes away from his dominant presence.

You thought it would make Lucifer let you be and that he would go back to accompany his great friend Diavolo, but it didn't happen, instead, he gets closer, forcing you to step back to the point where your butt is touching the cold, marble wall.

"It's dangerous for a human to be alone in the Devildom, even in The Demon's Lord's Castle," he almost whispers, his face inches from yours. He looks deeply into your eyes as if he's trying to scare you. A devious grin decorates your face.

"I could take ten demons at once if I wanted to... and I could take you too," you chuckle without breaking eye contact. It pissed you off how he attempted to frighten you so you decide to play on his nerves a little.

Lucifer snorts at your response. His hand ends up on one side of your head, you feel when the soft material of his glove traces your bare inner thigh which is possible thanks to the leg slit in your long dress. You feel a commotion building up in your stomach but you choose to ignore it, not giving him the satisfaction of seeing you enjoying it.

"Oh yeah, could you really?" he answers snarkily. It makes your blood boil so you take action. You caress your fingertips down his chest, going down to his clothed cock and lightly pressing on it, making his erection grow bigger.

"Looks like you have a problem, Lucifer. What will you do about it?" you giggle as a blush flushes his cheeks.

"You're fucking evil," he snorts under his breath and takes your chin in his two digits, pulling you into an unexpected kiss. His hand, which was previously placed next to your head, is now wrapped tightly around your waist while the other traces your jawline. Your tounges come into contact with each other and are interrupted only by you, when you go to bite Lucifer's lower lip. Your arms hug his neck, one hand intertwined with his raven hair.

He turns you around so your back is facing him and your hands are leaning on the cold surface of the castle's walls. You can't help but tease Lucifer, rubbing your ass against his already hard cock through his pants. He places his palms on either side of your hips, drawing circles with his thumbs on them.

"Stand still," he commands which gives you goosebumps. You have never felt this way in his presence, but now he makes you hold your breath in anticipation.

Lucifer takes off his glove, his hand makes its way under your dress and into your soaked panties. You gasp when his middle finger presses on your clit and starts rubbing it slowly, then he parts your wet folds with it, finally making it to your hole. He puts one finger in, observing carefully how you react before he adds another one, pushing them in and out of you. Your arousal stains the demon's digits. He can see that you're enjoying it, your face becomes even lewder when he curls them inside your cunt, making you let out a soft whimper.

"Just like that, don't stop, I'm so close~" you gibber, running short on oxygen, feeling your orgasm approaching. Just a few more seconds and you unravel under Lucifer's touch and coat his fingers in your creamy juices, wiggling your ass, trying to make it last.

He pushes his digits two more times before slipping them out of your needy cunt, a cocky grin not leaving his face.

Lucifer grabs the hem of your silky gown and tosses it aside, hooking it on your hip and exposing your ass. He slips his hands under your black, lace panties, slides them down your legs and shoves them aside with his shoe.

He slaps your bare butt, leaving a red, burning mark on it, you jump up but not because of the pain you're most definitely feeling, but out of surprise.

"How do you like it; gentle or rough?" he asks, almost whispering, while massaging your irritated skin.

"Can an asshole such as yourself even be gentle?" you grunt.

"Nah, I was asking out of politeness," he coos.

The demon unbuckles his black, leather belt, grabs his thick cock and pumps it a couple times before lining up with your entrance. He puts his hands on either side of your hips. He seems focused and isn't even trying to hide the fact that he's staring intensively at your curves, memorizing your, in comparison to his, fragile figure. His blood-red eyes are glowing with lust.

Lucifer parts your wet folds with his tip and smacks his cock against your ass. You're rubbing against him, trying to feel some sort of friction.

"Come on, grandpa, put it in already. I'm not immortal like you," you whine out of frustration when he's taking too long. Your snarky response only turns him on more.

He digs his nails into the fat on your hips and pushes in his whole length all at once, balls deep into you, hitting your most sensitive spots. You cry out. The stretch is painful at first but after a few, little gentler thrusts, it washes off.

Lucifer pounds into you without mercy, just like he promised, but you're not complaining. He's filling you up to the brim, his pulsating veins are coming in contact with your walls, making you so much more sensitive.

All the muffled pants, moans and huffs are bouncing off the walls into your ears, accompanied by loud slaps of your skins against each other.

"I fuckin' hate you," you snort but your voice comes out a little too whiney, therefore; you're not convincing at all.

"It sure doesn't seem like it when I'm fucking you from behind, love," he coos, trying to piss you off. "Who would've thought you would turn out to be such a needy slut - risking your reputation for some dick," he follows with a low chuckle.

"Oh, don't say that, big boy, or you'll make me cry," you whine, faking a sad expression.

You struggle to stand on your trembling legs, you're being almost entirely held up by his fat cock alone. You clench your fists, looking desperately for something to hold onto. You reach your hand in Lucifer's direction, hoping that you'll find support on his abdomen, but he grabs your wrist and chin, turns your head to the side and pulls you closer into a sloppy kiss, while still proceeding to fuck your hatred towards him out of you.

You squick in surprise but you return the gesture and almost entirely forget that you're in the castle's hallway, and there could be someone walking in on you at any given time.

Lucifer's movements become more chaotic as he's desperately chasing his high and you don't lag behind, feeling the bundle of nerves in your lower stomach build-up.

"Oh, f-fuck, I'm about to cum, please, make me cum-" you beg into his mouth, finally breaking the kiss. You're desperately trying to catch your breath.

"That's right, cum for me, you slu-" his words are being cut off by your loud moan, that you're trying to silence by bitting the back of your hand, and a hard clench of your pussy on his cock, which makes him cream with you. He pumps his hot semen inside your cunt, turning you into his personal cum-dump. He hovers above your figure, his breaths are short and quick.

His cock slides out of you, a thin string of your cums mixed together still connects you, but it breaks when Lucifer draws back from you, his length all soft, falls limply in between his legs.

You turn your whole body towards the demon and lean exhausted against the marble wall. He gathers his raven hair and brushes them off his forehead while grabbing the waist of his pants to push them back up.

"That was the worst fucking sex I ever had," you say, breathing heavily.

"Agreed," he murmurs while buckling up his belt. Lucifer finally looks up at you, your eyes met in an understanding gaze. "Do you want to go back to my place?" he adds after a moment of silence that feels like hours.

"Yes," you answer rapidly, already leaning down to grab your panties off the floor.

You struggle to keep up with the demon which is heading towards the exit. You eventually manage to catch up with his receding figure. You catch a glimpse of his face with the corner of your eye and see a satisfied and a little prideful smile on his always-so-stoic face.

#obey me #obey me smut #obey me shall we date #obey me lucifer #obey me lucifer smut #obey me luci #lucifer #lucifer x mc #lucifer x fem #lucifer x reader #obey me anime #enemies to lovers

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tomatograter · 3 years

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Do you think that Jake and Jane are sort of like destined to destroy each other? It's this weird thought that's kind of been in my mind for a while, about how incompatible they are and how in The Condesce's eyes they were like, soulmates and i was like 'now why would she think that' and more thinking eventually caused me to consider: what if she thinks that *because* of all of this and The Condesce is just Like That (sorry its unorganized i have a lot more to say but i do not have the space ty)

I do believe there is a bit of shadowplay with Jane & Jake's storyroles. It's a bit messy to explain, but here's the gist of what we know to be undeniably true;

1) Jane's name comes from Calamity Jane, HIC's nemesis - who was a cherub.

2) Jake's (last) name is part of a paradox loop that delivers Lord English his famous moniker. LE is also a cherub, and besides that, HIC's despised immortal contractor.

3) Jane & Jake can be reliably associated with the colors "red" and "green", in that very order.

4) Their courtship, however one-sided, always involves the aggressive subjugation of one party for the ultimate benefit of the other. (See: Candy, if the trickster arc in Homestuck as-is isn't enough)

You know what that reminds me of?

There's also the finer print, such as "in cherub reproduction, the loser is entasked with the egg."; Jake is shown as the primary caretaker for their kid in Candy, and his entire life is defaulted to Jane, which also matches with our description of "The loser side forfeiting all their territory to the winner."

And then there's also the fact that Caliborn & Calliope's juju is only made whole through Jake & Jane getting the passwords for each side, and that Jane is using said juju whenever she pursues him - point being, their metaphoric cherubic associations feel pretty damn strong. The cherubs have wings shaped like the Hope symbol. Beta Jake has the cherub portal. They both get the silly accents. It goes on and on.

I don't think they're destined to destroy each other on any tangible sense, no, but thematically speaking, they are positioned to be at odds in a way that serves the general story's symbolism. red vs green, good vs evil, the inherent horror of traditional heterosexuality, you have it all!

Which brings me to the next part of this question: Jane and Jake are *destined* to have two children. Those two children are June and Jade, and those two children grow up to "save the world." - this is truly non-negotiable so far as our story goes, as far as what Homestuck needs to begin as a comic proper, and this is what *HIC knows* too, be it through LE or Doc Scratch giving her spoilers. This is also very bad for her personal plans, because she doesn't need any planet to be saved; she just needs all planets to be hers.

She can't do much to stop this though. It seems like she's missing information, so maybe Jake being away will help? The logical leap taken here is that to have a baby you need to be star-crossed lovers and also marry -- which we know doesn't really happen, thanks to ectobiology being responsible for all the Beta Kid births.

I think it is relevant to point out that our cutesy romancey cheesy version of a fairytale story where Jake and Jane are ~Meant for each other~ is relied to us, the audience, by none other than Jane herself - In form of Nannasprite, as she explains how Jake ran away and never called back and actually never got in contact with her past that at all but she still looked at newspaper clippings and sighed dreamily about it because 'destiny', I guess. She's a bit of an unreliable narrator, her information is incomplete (and it turned out to be entirely inaccurate, anyway.) And then there's the thing: we don't actually know if HIC thought they were star-crossed lovers. This seems like something Jane could've easily misinterpreted on her own via hearing about the baby stuff and jumping to conclusions, and it's likely enough that's what happened.

But since this is Homestuck, characters being out of the loop when it comes to the lore at large and still acting like they know everything there is to know is kind... of norm for our cast. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#homestuck #meta #HIC #jane crocker #jake english #jake harley #jane egbert #nanna egbert #grandpa harley

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whitehotharlots · 5 years

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Liberal cruelty has consquences

This semester is winding down. As I am desperate to avoid grading student papers, I’ve spent the morning reading longish-form online articles. I just came across one that I feel very conflicted about. The online reaction to it as been troubling. So I don’t know if I have anything particularly coherent to say, but I’d like to talk about it.

The anonymously written piece is titled “What Happened After My 13-Year-Old Son Joined the Alt Right.” It documents a young man’s journey from a garden variety, liberal-leaning goon to a frothing neo nazi mutant.

The piece is understandably sympathetic, seeing as it was written by the boy’s parent. The writer’s whiny and heavy handed tone caused me, and most of my e-pals, to dismiss it. If anything, the essay showcases an immense failure of parenting. If my child were to ask me to take him or her to a “Traditional American Culture” rally, I would slap the everloving shit of them. Lord knows how many times the kid’s parents had dropped the ball before it ever got to that point.

But then I re-read the start of the article, in which the parent identifies the trigger point for their son’s downward slide:

One morning during first period, a male friend of Sam’s mentioned a meme whose suggestive name was an inside joke between the two of them. Sam laughed. A girl at the table overheard their private conversation, misconstrued it as a sexual reference, and reported it as sexual harassment. Sam’s guidance counselor pulled him out of his next class and accused him of “breaking the law.” Before long, he was in the office of a male administrator who informed him that the exchange was “illegal,” hinted that the police were coming, and delivered him into the custody of the school’s resource officer. At the administrator’s instruction, that man ushered Sam into an empty room, handed him a blank sheet of paper, and instructed him to write a “statement of guilt.”

No one called me as this unfolded, even though Sam cried for about six hours straight as staff members parked him in vacant offices to keep him away from other students. When he stepped off the bus that afternoon and I asked why his eyes were so swollen, he informed me that he would probably be suspended, but possibly also expelled and arrested.

If Kafka were a middle-schooler today, this is the nightmare novel he would have written.

At a meeting two days later with my husband, Sam, and me, the administrator piled more accusations on top of the harassment charge—even implying, with undisguised hostility, that Sam and his friend were gay. He waved in front of us a statement from the girl at the table and insisted that Sam would need to defend himself against her claims if he wanted to prove his innocence. But the administrator refused to reveal the particulars of the complaint (he had also blacked out identifying details, FBI-style) and then hid the paperwork under a book. He declared that it was his primary duty, as a school official and as a father of daughters, to believe and to protect the girls under his care.

Eck… who edited this? It would have worked so much better without a fucking Kafka reference.

So, maybe it was the tone. I dunno. But most readers seem to regard this section as exaggerated, possibly fabricated. The takeaway was “boo hoo, the nazi kid got punished for sexually harassing a girl.” Heck: If a reader is truly dedicated to the #BelieveAllWomen mantra, then this description doesn’t warrant sympathy even if it’s entirely true. The kid said something that upset the girl. It wasn’t directed to her and it wasn’t about her. But still, he upset her, and she’s a girl, so he is bad and deserved whatever punishment was doled out to him.

And this got me thinking about my experiences in high school, as a student in the late 90s and a teacher in the mid-aughts. Administrators seemed to always be adopting some or other policy of harsh punishment for bad behavior: zero tolerance toward weapons, drugs, hats, disrespectful posture, electronic devices, swearing, Simpsons t-shirts, and mentally unhygenic reading materials. During dances and social gatherings, my middle school allowed students to bring in CDs from home. That was a decent policy, but anyone who attempted to play a “hip hop” track would receive an immediate suspension for “endorsing violence,” regardless of the track’s lyrical content. My high school adopted a firm anti-bullying policy, but once a boy came to school wearing a gothic dress as some kind of vague transgressive statement, and two separate male teachers called him a fag--out in the open, in front of everybody, as part of the official business of teaching.

Once, in 8th grade, two kids were caught taking over-the-counter caffeine pills. They didn’t get sick or anything; a girl saw them and she narced. They were arrested by the school resource officer, taken in a cop car to the hospital to have their stomachs pumped, and then summarily expelled, their young lives effectively ruined over 50 milligrams of a safe and legal stimulant. At an emergency assembly held the next day, the frog-faced principal croaked out a dire warning that the use of such drugs was strictly forbidden and we would all be subjected to the same fate, should we attempt to sneak in any No Doz. As he issued his stern warning, he slurped gluttonously from a 22-ounce mug of gas station coffee.

The point is, zero tolerance never really means zero tolerance. Rules are always--always, literally always, without exception in the whole of human history--enforced arbitrarily. Harsh policies rarely make anyone safer. They are employed instead to further humiliate and brutalize those who have already been rejected by the system. In my last two paragraphs, I cited the dumbest and most conspicuous examples of arbitrary cruelty that happened to pop into my head. This doesn’t cover the everyday, petty cruelties that teachers and administrators would exact upon kids they simply didn’t like. Without exception, these were the kids who were already marginalized: effeminate boys, masculine but unathletic girls, kids who dressed poorly, kids who spoke with accents, black kids, kids with learning disabilities or behavioral problems. These kids would be given detentions or even suspensions for minor infractions--looking away from the chalkboard, slouching, sneaking in candy, laughing at importune times, etc. It wasn’t the teacher’s fault, of course: zero tolerance and all that. But, strangely, the zero tolerance policies never seemed to apply to the popular, athletic, and/or well-connected kids. If Suzie Creamcheese was caught sneaking some Starburst during Algebra--well, she’s probably hungry, seeing as she works so hard. If Raul, Roofus, or Sheena were caught doing the same? God help them.

Some teachers were nicer than others, of course. Some were downright supportive. Others were simply evil. There was one, when I was in 7th grade, who was particularly repulsive and cruel--no kidding, his admiration of Rush Limbaugh was formative in my early-adopted hatred of American conservatives. He had matted red hair and teeth like a cracked picket fence and would wear a leather jacket out to lunch. Anyhow, he would prattle on about his hatred of kids who “Just. Refuse. To. Learn.” These kids were almost always black. Pure coincidence, I’m sure. He’d make a show of tossing them out of class--sometimes physically--for infractions as minor as getting an answer wrong when called upon. One time, a twitchy white kid who wore the same t-shirt every day called him out: It’s unfair, he said, that I’m getting thrown out of class for getting an answer wrong, when right before me another kid got several chances to respond.

The teacher turned beet red. He got on his knees and put his face two inches in front of the twitchy kid’s eyes.

“I’m not throwing you out because you got the answer wrong,” he explained. “I’m throwing you out because you are you.”

Again, these are the conspicuous examples. The everyday stuff is harder to describe twenty-five years after it happened. Most people were not brutalized and they didn’t have a single moment that ruined their life, but they were still exposed to a deeply unfair and cruel system, and such exposure naturally engenders feelings of betrayal, hopelessness, and anger.

Here’s my story--it’s particularly stupid. 9th grade. One day, I walked into Spanish class, and the large woman who teaches in that classroom before my section grabbed me by the collar, physically lifted me out of my chair, and shoved her moist biscuit of a hand into my face. “What is this,” she demanded.

This was all very sudden. I could see nothing but her hand, which had a distinct fecal aroma.

“I don’t know,” I said.

She removed her hand. I looked down toward desk. She stood silently. I had no fucking idea what she was talking about.

“You’re gonna tell me what you did, right now, or I’m gonna double the detentions.”

I was still silent. Seriously, no idea what was going on. This enraged her. She began to count upward, starting at 3 detentions and stopping at 10, by which point tears were welling up and my face was flushed. I said I seriously did not know. She pointed to a small pentagram someone had engraved into the desktop. The desks, by the way, were movable. Anyone could have done it. She blamed me because she didn’t like me. I served 10 detentions and had to pay over a hundred dollars (a shitload of money for a 13-year-old) to get the desk refinished.

This isn't the end of the world, obviously. But it really, oddly broke me. Before, I had thought that so long as I did was I supposed to and didn’t break any rules, I’d be okay. Now I realized that was bullshit, that any vindictive cunt with a few ounces of power could punish me for any reason, at any time, and I wouldn’t be allowed to mount a defense. That’s the sort of thing that fucks with a kid’s head. I mean, christ--it’s 23 years later and I’m still kinda pissed about it. I hope that woman is dead.

I regained a sense of control by stealing books from the woman’s classroom. A few times a week, I would grab a textbook when I came in, use it during class, and walk out with it. At the end of the school year, some friends and I burned them in a glorious bonfire along the banks of the Mississippi.

My response was petty and destructive, but I don’t feel any pengs of guilt or shame in remembering it. I had to do something to reassert agency, to feel like I had some control, and I managed to find a way to go about doing it that didn’t hurt anybody or get me into trouble. Regardless of the morality of my particular response, we can agree that kids are now much more surveilled than they were 20-odd years ago, and that minor mischief is now much more harshly criminalized. If a kid finds themself on the outs within their school, there’s really no way they can push back. Their only available avenue of asserting control over their lives is to wander into welcoming communities elsewhere…

One more anecdote then I’m done….

My sister was in high school during 9/11. The attacks were on a Tuesday, and the whole rest of the week was assemblies and talking circles and other such activities meant to assuage fear and gin up the hatred of the dirty brown bastards that done this. Two of my sister’s friends, older boys, were the sort of kids who read Howard Zinn and listened to Jello Biafra’s spoken word records. During one meeting, they expressed exasperation at a girl who was sobbing because she just, like, didn’t know why anyone would do that. The boys certainly didn’t approve of the attacks, but they tried to explain the whole concept of the US being an unhinged and murderous imperial power that had done much worse stuff all over the globe. The audience gasped. The boys were hauled into the principal’s office. They were charged with verbally assaulting the crying girl. One was suspended. The other expelled.

So, I dunno… go ahead. If you think due process is evil, that all victimhood claims are valid and should be taken at face value, and that kids of lesser social status should be demonized and made into criminals for upsetting members of the fair sex, then you do you. That’s fine if that’s what you believe. But please don’t be so naive as to think that the bulk of these newly criminalized behaviors are going to actually be malignant, or that the genuinely malignant behaviors of secure kids will be curbed in any way. Please respect yourself enough to realize that school admins aren’t magic sages with mature moral compasses--a plurality of them were business majors in college, for fuck’s sake. And most importantly, don’t be surprised if the kids you dismiss wind up doing some crazy or awful shit in response.

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five-wow · 4 years

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i’m watching 10.21!!! [insert excited but apprehensive noises]!!!

by the time you’re reading this i’ll be done watching, so as always, thoughts under the cut:

i opened up the episode, steve’s voice said “previously on ha-” and i paused it because i actually need some food before i do anything right now.

food (and coffee that is 90% milk) acquired! the previously on is just the last few seconds of the previous episode, and oof, it reminded me how hilariously evil this micheal claypool sounded with that intense british accent they gave him (surprise twist: the h50 finale is actually the new bond movie), but now he just showed up on steve’s doorstep and he looks like a really kind somewhat older man, gosh.

steve: “please uh, come on in and make yourself at home.” danny, wherever he is right now: “NINE YEARS. I HAD TO WAIT NINE YEARS AND THIS GUY JUST SHOWS UP AND-”

mr. claypool comes in, sits down, hands a still standing steve a letter and then gathers his coat and briefcase and is immediately back out the door, fdjkfd. also, omfg, i don’t like that doris is still causing drama from the grave, but i have to say, it’s impeccably in character, at least.

steve looks a little disbelieving and unhappy about the contents of the letter, which is not great. it couldn’t have been just a nice “hello my son, sorry you’ve had to live without me for these past four months, i wanted to tell you one last time that i love you and hope you’re doing well”, could it? (for that matter, does mary get a letter??? it always feels like mary either got out in time by not going into anything like law enforcement and therefore not getting pulled into her family legacy of dangerous shit all the time, or like she’s just been outright rejected by their parents who keep building all of their mysteries around steve.)

okay so now we’re watching a woman and her son being held hostage by two criminals who probably killed a cop and want her to stitch one of them up, and obviously they’re bad guys, but one of them just said “think bus boy’s got a thing for you” about the dude who just rang the doorbell and hand delivered a toy the kid had forgotten at a diner and yes!!! i agree!!! and it looked super cute so maybe you could just put your guns away and let them fumble around each other for a little before one of them finally asks the other out on a date and then they end up as a really cute little family.

oh SHIT crush guy just burst into the apartment and really, really seems to know his way around a gun and how to hold his own in a fight against armed criminals. oh! ohhhh, this is the new character they were going to introduce that would potentially have become a cast member if the show had continued without steve, isn’t it? ahhh. that makes sense.

while the woman calls the police, crush guy (who heroically saved her and her son and got shot in the process) just. leaves. that’s not suspicious at all!

the intro!!! feelings!!!

we’re at the cemetary where john mcgarrett rests so i expected to be shown steve, but instead we get?? danny rolling up in the camaro to look at steve crouched by the grave? oh my gosh. ten times better.

danny is SO WORRIED. and he is RIGHT because steve is acting very unlike steve.

fdjkfdjk OF COURSE doris’s message is a bunch of symbols. doris!!! you do not write goodbye messages to your son in wingdings!!! be a good mother for maybe once, perhaps, my gosh!!!

!!!!! steve telling danny he just doesn’t think he really cares anymore and wants to be done with doris’s whole thing is !!!!! very good!!!! i am using too many exclamation points and very aware of it but !!!!!!

i just. look. i just. steve has SAD FEELINGS and he TALKS ABOUT THEM with DANNY and this is pretty much a dream come true. YES. not the sad feelings, i’d rather have happy feelings, but after everything these characters have gone through they need to acknowledge that there are sad feelings before happy feelings can be had.

also, omfg, i had a brief heart attack because steve says joe’s name but he says it with an abandoned “and” kind of tacked onto it, a little mumbly, so it sounds like “losing joe’n- and mom” and for a long moment i was like, losing joan?? what?? because that would not be okay, holy shit, no.

on a lighter note, steve: “i’ll drive.” what a suprise!!! truly a shocking turn of events. :p

yes, steve, antagonize the scary-looking dude who is grieving over his dead brother while standing over the dead brother’s body in the morgue. i’m sure that’s a brilliant plan.

wait what, we suddenly see adam and junior who are talking on the phone because junior called adam to give him an update, and then adam goes, right, but the bad guys don’t know the address yet, and we do! and it turns out he is. standing in the apartment both parties are looking for right at that second. uh. communication, adam, dear lord.

there is some team organizing in hq around the case and then they all disperse and danny looks ready to follow steve into his office but then he gets distracted by tani asking to talk to him for a minute, and then they go out onto a BALCONY that i don’t remember ever having seen before? omg. secret headquarters balcony.

tani asks about steve!! she is worried too!! i’m forgetting about the balcony betrayal and having intense feelings again.

fdjkfd danny tells tani that steve has been running non-stop and is getting burned out and tani asks “alright, well, what are we gonna do about it?” and with absolutely zero hesitation danny goes “i’m gonna force the issue.” i don’t even think that’s a bad plan per se! but the quick and determined way he says it has me laughing anyway, like danny’s been daydreaming while the team was talking about their case and thinking, hm, what can i do to help steve? i know! i’m going to push him in a corner and keep him there and make him FEEL his FEELINGS. danny’s solution here is to throw a grenade at steve, but like, one full of love and caring and hopefully pancakes.

danny is telling tani that he’s seriously concerned about steve’s functioning on the job at the moment and meanwhile steve is out with junior interviewing a guy with an axe. fdjkfd.

okay so steve and junior catch the bus boy crush heroic rescuer guy (whose name is cole) and he won’t talk, and then junior arrives back at hq and tani comes out of her office to talk about steve again, ahhh. she is so worried! and junior is extremely uncomfortable because he feels like he has to defend steve and he ends up saying that steve will deal with things in his own way and oh junior, no, sometimes being hurt and pushing it away is not the best thing. even MORE reasons why steve needs to work through this in a healthy way: he’s setting a very destructive example for junior.

meanwhile steve is chilling on the floor of their rendition room “interviewing” cole all on his own, which seems to boil down to psychoanalyzing cole in a way that sounds suspiciously like steve’s pulling apart pieces of his own mind but attributing all of the problems to cole because that’s way safer than admitting that maybe most of these are his own issues, too, that he’s giving voice to for probably the first time ever.

steve to himself cole: “you’ve been here in this hole since [name of place where tragedy happened]. you‘ve put yourself there.” SUBTLE.

fdjkfd i paused at the perfect moment because immediately after that sentence cole goes “you know, something tells me i could say damn near the same thing about you” and uh, yes. thank you for making my point in-universe, cole, gosh.

steve: [gives a hard stare for a second and then switches back to cole’s current situation without addressing cole’s comment at all]

ahhhh there is a shot that starts with lou, tani and quinn around the tech table analyzing a video that shows our Bad Guys of the moment holding the poor diner lady and her kid hostage (again!) and then moves smoothly through steve’s glass door into his office where he and danny are having a heated discussion about the case and twirls around them. that was very cool!

so the bad guys want cole or they won’t release their hostages, cole wants to do it, danny wants him to do it and convinces steve after multiple little scenes of them disagreeing about it, and then military police comes in and takes cole away, preventing them from actually carrying out their plan. oops!

and THEN cole escapes out of a vehicle with three men guarding him, hah. i’m definitely seeing the heavy handed parallels with steve they’re throwing at us, omg.

danny about cole to steve: “i think this guy might be crazier than you.” i kind of love that every time a new intended team member shows up (tani, junior, i'm pretty sure quinn too?), danny has to compare them to steve in some way. it’s a rule. every time anyone says something vaguely snarky steve physically can’t stop himself from saying “ah, did you know you sound just like danny williams?” and every time someone does something ill-advised yet heroic, danny is obligated by the universe and the wiring of his own heart to go “ugh, you remind me of steve.”

cole gets a pass because he did good stuff and is a war hero, steve and cole make friends, and then cole says he noticed the cypher on steve’s desk and we’re back to the thing i thought this episode would focus on way more heavily.

steve HAS been doing research to try to crack it! danny was right about steve not being able to let this go.

cole knows a guy who’s good at cracking codes! i guess that’s a neat way to connect him to steve’s finale plot and move it along at the same time, haha.

steve is still at the office when his phone rings and it’s danny and then steve walks onto his beach where danny is waiting for him in their two chairs with two beers, and i love that, especially because we don’t hear danny’s side of the phone conversation but it was a very short scene so what did he say, exactly? “come home, i’m lonely, i have beer”?

steve: “what’s the face, you got a face on, your face” fdjkfd. eloquent!

SCREAMING. “you think lincoln is my new bff? yo, no one can replace you, you’re my danno!” i am. oh my gosh. this is steve reassuring HIMSELF, not danny, but it is also incredibly sweet and YOU’RE MY DANNO. now THAT’S the kind of content i want. yes. good. holy shit.

danny says to stop doing “that”, by which he means deflecting, and steve just goes “okay” and looks uncomfortable but starts talking anyway and i LOVE THEM. this is a good, healthy friendship.

steve: “i kinda feel like i’ve been protecting everybody except for myself, does that make sense?” YES. YES, STEVE, IT DOES, and i am VERY GLAD you’re saying those words with your own mouth.

i am making very high pitched noises at the moment. a) steve says he can’t take a break “here” because there are too many memories and that SCARES ME because he SHOULD NOT LEAVE THE ISLAND but also really really validates a fic idea i’ve had for ages in a way that i love, b) steve says “i will say this is how i thought it would end for us, couple old guys, sitting on a beach, watching sunsets” and YES oh my gosh, and c) then DANNY GOES, “i mean that sounds great to me, we can still do that” and HELLO YES it is SO GOOD to hear them VOICE these things that they’ve obviously both wanted for literal years and which we’ve been shown through steve’s clinginess when danny wanted to retire and danny’s bringing steve in on the restaurant thing and danny’s literal dream of him and steve sitting on that very beach as old men with steve telling him he loves him. just, my gosh, this is all those things but put into words that they are saying and it is very validating and sweet and necessary and scares me very much about where this is going, but for the moment i adore it.

the episode has two and a half minutes left and i’m kind of feeling like this is enough. let’s just end it here. happy end, guys, let’s all go home! except steve and danny, who are already there, obviously, and should do the opposite of move, ever.

OH. OHHH. steve tells danny he doesn’t know anymore and danny looks sad and then steve continues about how he’s been trying to distract himself with stuff like “a bunch of dating, which was nice, but didn’t help” and the RESTAURANT gets a mention though i’ll admit it’s one that’s very confusing because steve says “when it closed”, which... it didn’t, as far as we had been told until now? isn’t kamekona still running it? i always assumed he’d have turned it into a very successful bussiness venture.

danny looks UNHAPPY ABOUT THINGS STEVE IS SAYING and i relate, while i’m at the same time weirdly very very proud of him for saying these things? i don’t want him to feel this unsure about everything (particularly whether he can stay in hawaii, because it seems that’s what he’s talking about and that’s Bad), but it is a needed breath of fresh air to have stuff that happened and that he’s been bottling up for ages actually impact him emotionally.

okay, fjdksfdjslfs, danny suggests steve should GO TO JERSEY and says that steve has NEVER BEEN and i get that this is mostly kind of a joke but actually YES, STEVE. GO THE FUCK TO JERSEY. that would be perfect! danny can subtly follow you under the guise of an extended visit to family and you can spend time there together exploring danny’s home state instead of steve’s and you can come back home to hawaii when you’re ready and it would be beautiful and a very nice, symbolic way to end the show. we start with danny moving to hawaii to find a home there, and we end with with steve moving to jersey to realize where his home is.

this argument though, it’s giving me life. steve when danny starts suggesting other places, angrily, for no good reason: “now i HAVE to go.” danny, both giving and getting up: “i’m gonna get another beer.” steve, calm again: “okay, i’m gonna go to jersey.” danny: [walks away while steve yells after him about all the recommendations he’ll need for when he’s in jersey]

danny is inside to get the beer, hears a noise, finds a burglar at steve’s desk, fights him, destroy half the living room and is found by steve who also heard noise from the house and suddenly keeps saying “yo” to danny a lot this episode.

of course the burglar was there for the cypher that doris sent steve, because she can never just pop up in steve’s life in a way that isn’t somehow dangerous to him and everyone around him. it was good, though!!! a very nice cliffhanger.

final thoughts: VERY GOOD, VERY INTENSE EPISODE. i liked cole more than i expected for a character that gets introduced as potential main cast in the last two episodes of a show that’s by now already been cancelled (that could have been problematic, but i think the writers handled it well by brick-to-the-face using him to explore steve’s issues) and i love danny being so worried about steve and tani following his lead and wanting to talk to everyone close to steve about how worried she is, too, and everything steve says has ME worried about how they’re going to end this, but so far, it’s also amazing A+ perfect fanfic fuel, holy effing shit. EMOTIONS. FEELINGS. STEVE HAS THEM. it’s literally that easy to please me, fdjkfd.

and i will say that while i’m worried about him and he’s clearly hurting and there are ways the show could take this that i won’t like (steve leaving the island at the end of the show while danny stays, mainly, which would be kind of horrible in all kinds of ways), i do somewhat love seeing steve deal with the fact that he’s older than he was ten years ago, he’s never really worked through all of the incredibly horrible shit life kept heaping on him, and he’s just getting really damn tired of everything. old, tired steve is a good thing; it’s the start of a new chapter, one where he hopefully doesn’t keep clinging to that endless denial of hurt and his tendency to put the job above everything including his own mental and physical health. i just hope, hope, hope that this last chapter that we actually get to watch play out on screen will be one that ends in a place that feels right, because this could either end perfectly or so, so badly. 🤞

#h50 #10.21 #h50 spoilers #i am now VERY SCARED but also VERY HYPED for that last episode next week #*

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thelucyverse · 4 years

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Part 1

Autumn and winter of 1980 were so busy for me, I barely had a moment of time to breathe. I heard that the order had destroyed several of Voldemorts' Horcruxes without him noticing- the diadem, the locket and the ring (the latter, sadly, without it destroying Dumbledore's hand and future)- and I was desperate to get my hands on one of the items myself to test several theories regarding soul-pieces, but Voldemort had yet to pass the diary to Lucius or the Cup to Bella, at least as far as I was aware. Did he only plan to part with them before moving in to kill the Potter boy, his predicted mortal enemy? Would he even part with them at all, if such an opportunity didn't come to pass?

I did more theoretical research on the topic while also wondering about the actual Horcruxes. Were they significant objects like the ones he used for his own? Objects that somehow showed his followers' status? Did that mean specific items or something like pebbles to show his superiority to them? Or, if the instances he created (or forced the respective followers to create?) the Horcrux were unplanned- and I was quite certain that he hadn't planned it with Bella, he had done it when she was asking about forming a union with me, which must have come as a sincere surprise to him- did he just use some random object in the room, or did he keep something prepared around?

So many questions, no way to answer them.

Instead, I focused on the theory of the research, on whether I would need the objects to bring both soul parts back together or just the person, or just the horcrux, and whether the soul piece within a person actually died if the person was killed or just became diacorporeal... I started to believe (still mere theory, of course) that while it might make it easier, I didn't necessary need the Horcrux if I managed to make the person want to fix their own soul (but I didn't know whether /regret/ would work as a stimulus if the person had never actually /decided/ to make the Horcrux in the first place), that usually someone would die and leave only the Horcrux part of the soul behind as that one can't be pulled from its object- unless the Horcrux partage was bigger than the killed part, which would make the pull stronger towards the Horcrux(es), keeping the last part on the mortal plane. Was that the reason why Voldemort had made so many Horcruxes, was he actually that clever, did he calculate the risk- or did he not understand souls at all and just thought the more the merrier?

Whenever I am alone with Bella, I try to talk to her, really connect to her again, and I believe that this connection to normalcy as well as any positive emotions I can make her feel seem to have a positive effect on at the very least her psyche if not also on her damaged soul.

A damaged soul would cloud someone's mind, making them unable or at the very least less able to feel things the way they used to, making them detached from humanity, less afraid to take human life, not hurt when killing or torturing others... Of course, Voldemort was already deranged before he made any Horcruxes, so I had no idea how much his influences him if at all... And I hadn't known Bella all that closely before she had had her soul split in two, so I couldn't really tell what was her and what was the Horcrux's influence, either. It disturbed me, to know that I didn't truly know the woman I was all but married to for over two years now at all.

In March of 1981, Voldemort handed Bellatrix Hufflepuff's Cup, to place in her vault in Gringotts and keep save there. Had I not been around, had Bellatrix been completely mad from her split soul, she would have done so without question. As it is, however, she went to Gringotts with the cup, placed it into her vault, left, went back immediately, took the cup, brought it to me and asked to be obliviated of all that happened after she first left the bank.

I hated having to do so to her, but I had also never been so proud.

Now, I have the cup, and I don't quite know what to do with it. While I can feel the evil ooze off of it, I can't tell it's shape or consistency, how it would react to tests. I have written Melodenia again with several inquiries about soul magic and how to feel, to /see/ it the way natural aura seers can. While I am afraid that she might have already started to question how theoretic the nature of my inquiries is, I hope she knows that I am genuinely trying to do good, I hope she understands some of my position here, even if I have never told her my full story, not even in enchanted parchment or the few times we have chatted via fireplace.

In May, I receive an invitation to a research Congress by MACUSA, with personal recommendation from one Professor and Master of magical theory, Melodenia of Ilvermorny- and without a name written on it, it is for myself to fill out. She must have known that I was operating under an alias, which of course won't work on such an official function. I decide almost immediately to attend, no matter the consequences: While I cannot wait to talk to her in person, away from prying eyes, I hate the attention it gains me from the Dark Lord and his followers. He knew, of course, that I had an interest in magical theory, but had thought it a little hobby of a Deatheater's wife. Now, however... I am being informed that after that Congress, which I am not to attend alone, I am to share all my findings with him, and use my skills to develop spells suitable for war if I haven't already done so.

I don't know how he managed, but I am accompanied to the States by Severus Snape. Professor Snape, now- twenty-one years old, a double spy for the two most powerful wizards currently alive in Britain, a teacher barely respected by the students in his own house and loathed by everyone else, trying to cling to what authority he has as a professor by being as strict as he possibly can. He is not a pleasant man to be around, still constantly afraid for the life of his friend Lily, whom he has barely seen in the past years. I don't know whether he loves her as a friend or is /in/ love with her, and I can't bring myself to care.

On our way- after making sure that there are no tracking- or monitoring spells by either of our masters left on us or our luggage- we share news on Deatheater and Order business before comparing our research in magical theory and spell-crafting, which is Severus' forte in theoretical magic. I don't know how I had forgotten about it so far- he is always known as a potions master, but I should have remembered all the spells he had been mentioned to have created in the books. He tells me of several dangerous spells, ones newly created by him as well as old ones that had simply come to be forgotten, that the Dark Lord does not yet know of and that the Order already knows the counters for. If Voldemort is going to ask for results of my work, I will be able to deliver. I do not tell Snape about my research in soul magic, not trusting him not to immediately tell Dumbledore, no matter how bad the old man has treated him in the past.

Melodenia is waiting for us at the portkey point. When I indicate to Severus that I would like to be left alone with her, he smirks nastily. "I won't tell anyone" he snarls before disappearing into the crowd with his cloak billowing behind him. I suppose he must think that I cannot stand being with a deatheater and have an affair with Melodenia instead. A laughable idea, even more so considering that Melodenia only seems to be interested in people insofar that they can help her research or carry it on into a new generation. Still- she is a friend, the closest one I have.

"Are you well, my old friend?" Melodenia asks. I wonder if she can see that I am older than I look through the soul-magic, and she laughs when I ask. "I didn't even need to look at that" she says. "but- yes. Now, what /is/ going on on the British Isles that has you in such disarray?" sometimes, she sounds more Properly British than I do- I know English isn't her first language, so I suppose it makes sense that she wouldn't have to have an American accent. Now, what to tell her? I decide to, for once, trust somebody, and go with the truth- the entire truth.

After my speech, Melodenia is quiet for a long moment before pulling me into a hug. "I cannot help you with the problem of your traveling" she explains first. "I can't tell whether you are from a different world or from a different time- although there us something about your aura that does say you do not belong /here/, or have not always belonged here. I can try to find texts on your kind of travelling, but I do not expect to find much, and I do not know how much I could find out from your person when you aren't already travelling away- in which case I would not want to come too near, I need to stay here with my students. Yes, I believe you could take someone with you on your travels" she answers my unasked question. "If you do so- please make sure to ask whether the person wants to leave their universe, and that they understand all that it entails." I nod. Then, Melodenia moves on to the topics current more urgent to me: soul magic, and how to break it. "Fix it, you mean- souls shouldn't be broken."

Over the course of the long weekend, whenever we don't absolutely have to attend a seminar, speech or evening social event, Melodenia teaches me how to manually soul-see, lay and break connections in soul magic (which- hella painful when tested on yourself, which is why we aren't doing it on anyone else), the theory and praxis of soul-healing- "You should try to influence her now even if you do not plan to already bring the soul pieces back together," she says about Bellatrix. "While from what you told me, she does not seem to be in danger of losing connection to the soul-piece entirely, there are other dangers: insanity, effects on the mind that, once completed and left alone for too long, get irreversible even if the soul pieces find back to one another. You must influence her with positivity- any positive emotions, as well as anything reminding her of life prior to the break, is healing for the soul." -, as well as other things she believes might be useful for me in the future, including how to apparate to locations you haven't been to yet: "In 'normal' apparition, the rule is to know exactly where you are going and only focus on this one location, with just slightly emphasis on getting your entire body there, as really, when you only want to go to one place, it automatically takes your entire body there, without splinching. When transporting yourself to an entirely new location or one you can't quite visualize anymore, apparition is more vague location-wise- you might not end up exactly where you want to go, but when you keep your focus on your entire body and to move it to a place, instead of focusing on the place to move to, you will end up somewhere without splinching. It is good to get out of situations when you don't have the power to apparate far and don't know any points in the area, you could just think of a generic secluded ally, a roof, a beach, a field, and end up in any such location you have the power to reach. When you have greater power, of course, you have to make sure not to end up in an entirely different continent."

On Monday, I leave with a newfound understanding of magical theory. I never realised how logical magic really is, when you only look deep enough. There are still things that seem strange to me, but I no longer think that it defies the laws of physics- it merely works with it in ways I hadn't known about. About soul magic, Melodenia ends with the words: "And be careful whom you tell about this. Few people are well-versed in soul magic, and even fewer for the right reasons. Say, are you familiar with the non-magical atom bomb? Yes? It is based on a technology and research completely unrelated to such destruction, but that is still what it was used for. You cannot blame everyone in that field of research for the connection, but that is the stigma they are going to face. It is similar when it comes to soul-magic. It can be used in healing ways, to help with trauma or to connect two people in love. But the only soul-magic many old wizarding families have heard of are dementors, horcruxes and soul-crushers, if they know about soul-magic at all. Be careful- not just regarding what they might do with it, but what they might believe you want to do with it, and what they would do to you to stop you."

When I leave for the portkey point with Snape, once again, as my escort in public, and turn around to wave at Melodenia, I am torn: I'm am sad to leave my friend and our research behind- yet I cannot wait to hold Bellatrix in my arms again.

Part 3

#wip

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prairiesongserial · 4 years

Text

12.5

Val was beginning to get the sense that they had been in Kill Devil Hills longer than Johannes had planned. Johannes still seemed almost supernaturally relaxed, but he was fidgeting in largely the same ways he had on his way to the beach, sometimes lacing his fingers together at the nape of his neck, sometimes shoving them into his pockets, sometimes toying with and twisting the rings on his fingers. Val had been watching him, mostly. Weep-Not and her people bustled around the two of them, getting ready for Communion, but Val hadn’t so much as offered to help.

“You want to get back to the camp,” he posited to Johannes, bluntly.

“What?” Johannes asked, looking genuinely puzzled for a moment. He glanced down at his hands, briefly, then clasped them behind his back. “Well, I mean, we’re not exactly on schedule, but if it means we get paid at the end of the day, I can deal with a little mishegoss.”

Val frowned. “What is that?”

“What is what?” Johannes asked, jerking his neck to look over his shoulder, then touching his face as though to make sure nothing unsightly was on it. “Don’t look at me like that, preacher, you make me feel like I’m growing a second head.”

“That...what you just said.”

“Which thing?” Johannes asked, then seemed to realize before Val could elaborate. “Mishegoss? It’s Yiddish. It means...I don’t know, a fuss. Some craziness. This kind of thing.”

He waved an arm broadly to indicate the people of Kill Devil Hills moving about the beach around them. They were all young in the way that Weep-Not was, none of them looking any older than Val himself, and all dressed in loose, light-colored clothes that would keep them from sweating in the sun. Either Weep-Not or Fear-Not - Val wasn’t sure which - was overseeing the construction of a makeshift altar that was really just a folding card table with some candles placed on it. Val’s frown deepened.

“I don’t think it’s crazy,” he said. Maybe it wasn’t being done in a church, like it should have been, but he resented the idea that it didn’t mean anything. Clearly it meant something, given how excited everyone on the beach seemed to be. Even if Val didn’t feel quite right about it himself.

“Hey, the only Christian stuff I grew up with was the stuff the circus did for money,” Johannes shot back. He had dropped the southern accent, and didn’t seem to care that he could still be heard by more people besides just Val. “It all looks crazy to me.” He paused, then began to fidget with his rings again. “Communion is the one where you drink wine, right?”

“Communion is the one with wine, yes,” Val agreed, the phrase “annoyed aura” once again ringing in his ears as he regarded Johannes. “The bread and the wine symbolize the body and blood of Christ.”

Johannes grinned. “You know, Jews pray over bread and wine, too.”

“I am aware,” Val said. He fought the urge to massage his temples.

“Though we’re not morbid about it,” Johannes mused, lacing his fingers at the back of his neck again, and turning to look out at the ocean. “None of that body and blood stuff. Just ‘thanks for the bread’, ‘thanks for the wine’. Chalk it up to the fact that we’ve got plenty of other things to be morbid about, I suppose, but it’s good to be grateful for the little things, if you ask me. Mame always said -”

“Preacher!” Weep-Not - Val thought it was Weep-Not, anyway - called from farther down the beach, cutting Johannes off. She was waving him over. “We’re ready!”

Val waved back to her to show he’d heard, then turned back towards Johannes.

“Don’t get in the way,” he said, with a tone that he hoped communicated how serious he was, and took off at a jog towards the makeshift altar.

The confidence he’d felt while talking to Johannes had, mercifully, lasted throughout the blessing of the bread and wine. They were better quality than Val had initially assumed - the bread a loaf that had been shaped by expert hands, the wine a blackish purple that reflected and distorted his face as he stared down into the chalice Weep-Not had set out for him. The bread, so far as Val could tell, was not enough to feed the entire congregation with. He wondered if that was a test, if the people of Kill Devil Hills expected him to make something out of nothing for them, like Jesus had fed a multitude with only five fish and two loaves. Or maybe this was all the bread they had to offer.

It was easier to look down at his own reflection, than to look at the people of Kill Devil Hills who had crowded around the altar, eagerly awaiting the first Communion they’d had in God knew how long. Val still didn’t feel right about it. He had no business giving Communion, not as a defrocked priest, but this community had been without a priest for so long, that they might not have cared even if he had explained himself. Judging by how excited Weep-Not had been about the Eucharist, any Communion was better than none at all.

Val performed the ritual one step removed from himself, running through motions and prayers without thinking. It was the same state he’d found himself in on the motorbike sometimes, when he’d been traveling with Friday. He would drive and drive for hours, not really conscious of where he was going or which roads he was taking, until he came back to himself an hour later and realized they were in a completely different state from when they’d started. Maybe it was a kind of hypnosis, or a wall of defense thrown up by his mind to keep him from stumbling and forgetting how to do a task he’d done hundreds of times before. God knew he couldn’t afford to stumble here, not with how expectant this congregation looked.

He washed his hands from a clay jug that Fear-Not had set in the sand by the altar, and said the prayer quietly to himself. Then, he steeled himself, and stretched his arms out towards the congregation.

“Pray, brethren,” he said, joining his hands, “that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.”

“May the Lord accept your sacrifice, for the praise and glory of his name, for the good of the Church,” the congregation said back, in a voice so unified that Val found it hard to believe they hadn’t been doing Communion every week for years.

The words sounded wrong to him - something about them rang hollow, and they weren’t the response he’d been taught to the invitation to prayer. But different churches taught different variations of the same. Almost everyone in Val’s congregation in Vegas had known different versions of each ritual, some adding a word here or dropping a phrase there. It took time to get Catholics on the same page these days, when priests could just go off into the world and teach whatever they liked.

Val pressed on through the Eucharistic Prayer. He could feel the eyes of the congregation boring into him, though they were silent unless they were required to respond. Not a one of them had moved since the ritual began, and Val felt at times as though they were collectively holding their breath. The only sound besides his voice, for the majority of the ritual, was the sound of the waves crashing steadily against the sand behind him. It took a lot of self control to keep himself from looking back, to make sure the ocean wasn’t right on his heels.

Johannes had hung back aways from the altar, though Val could sense him looking sometimes, too. He caught Val’s gaze with his own just as Val was showing the chalice full of wine to the congregation, and smirked. Val felt heat creep up the nape of his neck and across his face, and his collar suddenly felt tighter than ever. He mumbled his way through the rest of the prayer, wishing desperately to be done with it, to be anywhere else. His chest felt tight with guilt, and the bandages on his stomach had started to squirm again.

Communion had always seemed short, when he’d done it at his church in Vegas. Now it seemed to stretch on forever. Val reached the end of the Eucharistic Prayer and allowed himself a moment to breathe, as the congregation got up from where they had been kneeling in the sand. He took the loaf of bread and began tearing it into pieces, knowing it wouldn’t be enough for the entire congregation. The crust was soft, and came apart easily in his hands, entirely unyielding.

“Will you lead the Lord’s Prayer?” he asked Weep-Not, who looked excited by the prospect of it. Val had learned that, up close, the way to tell her apart from Fear-Not was that Fear-Not had a small, half-moon scar carved into one cheek.

“Of course,” Weep-Not said, clasping her hands together in front of her. She turned to the congregation, and they began immediately, in unison, as though they had been waiting to do exactly this.

“Our Father, on earth and in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on sea as it is on shore. Give us this day our sacrifice, and forgive us our tresspasses, as you punish those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

The feeling of pervasive wrongness, that skin-crawling warning, crept over Val again, and he froze with his hands on the bread. He had never heard this version of the Lord’s Prayer before. He had never heard any other version of the Lord’s Prayer before - he’d heard some people interchange evil with sin, but nothing like this. He looked to Johannes, searching the other man’s face for some acknowledgement that this was not right, and was met with only arched eyebrows and another smirk.

“Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil,” Val began by rote, somehow managing not to stumble over the words as he did so.

He let muscle memory lead him through the rest of the prayers, feeling sweat bead on his forehead and drip down his face. The congregation knelt again. Val showed them the host, told them to behold the Lamb of God, and moved to step out from behind the altar.

“Preacher,” Fear-Not spoke up suddenly, shocking Val back to the present moment. “You should take Communion first.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the rest of the congregation. Val stared at them in bemusement for a long moment, unsure if this was a long-held custom of theirs, or some sort of test. Maybe they were aiming to thank him for bothering to perform the Eucharist at all. Still, if it brought him one step closer to ending this, he would do it.

He took a small bite of bread in his mouth, and washed it down with a slightly-too-big sip of wine, wincing at the unexpected bitterness that filled his mouth. It was not good wine. Val swallowed it anyway, and kept the chalice in one hand as he made his way toward the kneeling congregation.

“The Body of Christ,” he said to Weep-Not, holding up a piece of bread for her to see.

“Amen,” she said, just as he placed it on her tongue.

He gave her a sip of wine from the chalice, and moved on to Fear-Not, then to the young man sitting just next to Fear-Not. Slowly, Val moved around the congregation, working from the outer circle inwards, until every member had received a bite of bread and a mouthful of wine - or simply a mouthful of wine, when he had finally run out of bread. He ended sweatier than he had begun, his hair plastered to his forehead, his dark shirt feeling soaked. It was warmer out than he had anticipated. He squinted towards the sun to gauge how long he had been out here on the beach, and had to look away as it flooded his vision with light, his eyes watering.

Val had been dissociating before, he knew, to keep himself going through the motions. Now he was going through the motions to keep something worse from happening to his body. His head swam, and he could feel blood rushing to his cheeks, his pulse heavy in his ears. He wondered if he had heatstroke, from standing here for so long. He’d had it before, as a teenager, but trying to remember what his symptoms had been back then was too arduous a task just now. His mind had slowed to a crawl.

His feet had placed him back behind the altar again, though Val didn’t remember consciously making the choice to walk there. He set the chalice down. The sun felt as though it had taken up his entire field of vision, and he had to squint to see the congregation in front of him.

“What has passed our lips as food,” he began, and found he could not call up the rest of the prayer.

“What…” he began again, and trailed off. “What has passed our lips as food, O Lord -”

The congregation was bleeding. Val’s pulse hammered in his ears as he saw it - blackish-red blood dripping from their mouths in ribbons, rivulets that ran from the corners of lips and dripped off of chins. Weep-Not and Fear-Not’s pale faces were stained with it, their dresses splattered with droplets.

“What?” Val asked, unable to articulate much else. He looked to Johannes again, and found that Johannes wasn’t there.

Weep-Not rose to her feet and approached the altar, smiling through the film of blood on her face.

“Thank you for your sacrifice, preacher,” she said.

She cupped his face in her hands. Val felt hands elsewhere on his body - on his arms, in his hair, tugging at his shirt. There were fingers crawling over the nape of his neck, tugging at his collar and pressing it up against his Adam’s apple. He looked into the sun again, and lost consciousness.

12.4 || 12.6

#story

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randomoranges · 4 years

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Over the summer, I watched Good Omens in Italian and made a post about it to compare and contrast

And then I did the same with French and FINALLY got around to make sense of my notes. Here they are, enjoy the laughs.

Good Omens in French is Bons Présages which is a literal translation.

French shows/movies/books always seem to do literal translations of things (see Harry Potter)

Crowley’s name goes from Rampant (something that CRAWls) to Rampa.

God, although voiced by a female sounding actor, is referred as tout puissant (male) and not toutE puissantE (female)

At least Crowley and Aziraphale use tu around each other instead of using the formal vous. (Listen, the number of shows/movies where 2 characters are friends, but because of the age dynamic they get downed to vous – it’s annoying. I’m glad 6000 yrs of friendship meant they could use tu.)

Agnes Nutter’s last name is Barge

The way Crowley greets Hastur and Ligur “hey salut les gars” it’s so casual lamao

When they’re going through the deeds of the day Crowley goes on to say “oké vous allez adorer – j’ai fait bugger tous les réseaux” he sounds so pleased

Ciao remains but (according to my old notes – I don’t remember but this is what I wrote like this summer) apparently they go on to say that it means poule (chicken) and not food (so the ciao –chow pun is lost)

The person from hell who comes through on Crowley’s radio (I was never sure who that was supposed to be) but anyways, that person, they use darling and in French it was translated as mon choux, which is cute and also really funny.

The Japanese bit was not translated (so it’s still Michael Sheen we hear say the one Japanese line)

French also does not have another word for cookie (cookie and biscuit – which is funny because in French the word used for cookie is biscuit) ANYWAYS so Sister Mary L says cookie but with a French accent.

Aziraphael sounds like Azirafal.

When Aziraphale asks Crowley what he wants to do next (or whatever the line was) and Crowley goes des litres, des fleuves, des océans d’alcool (litres, rivers, oceans of alcool)

The drunk scene deserves a special mention

Personal opinion: but Crowley’s VA grows more on you than Aziraphale’s VA. They both sound much younger than D. Tennant and M. Sheen. Sometimes the French VAs don’t... fit lol and fall a bit flat.

Éternitéééééééééé

Aziraphale’s “oh doux Jésus”

Their voices as Nanny and brother Francis were sad.

Warlock’s voice at age 5 was also sad.

However warlock calls Nanny “Nounou” and that’s cute

When Nanny sings the lullaby in French – bless them they tried lamao

When Aziraphale does the practice magic trick to Crowley, Crowley goes on to complain and say “c’est toi que j’vais faire disparaître” and it’s a gem

JEANNOT LE LAPIN BLANC (when Aziraphale presents his white rabbit) it’s a Gift.

The Them = les Eux

In her cottage = dans son cottage (did you even try)

When God asks Aziraphale for the sword and Aziraphale describes it as it’s “machin coupant très aiguisé”

Aziraphale uses vous for God, but God uses tu.

John and Virtue Device à John et Virtue Bidule (another one of those literal translations.)

Ok but this one annoyed me. Anathema’s name got changed to Anatheme and like sometimes I get it it’s cause of the way words are pronounced so when you dub you gotta find things that fit the movement of the lips as much as but Anatheme does NOT fit with Anathema. ALSO IT’S THE PERSON’S NAME. LIKE. (Re: see Harry Potter again.) aNYWAys.

Dick Turpin gets changed to Jesse Janes ????

Grow better is “et vous les filles, continuer de POUSSER” (so the plants get referred to as “girls”)

Mme. Tracy’s line about the refined gentlemen (or whatever it is) is aux gentlemen avertis.

Du beebop.

When they return to the convent Crowley says “j’me demande où sont passés les nuns” he could have sais soeurs insteand of nuns.

Aziraphale tells Crowley “tu es un gentil garçon » (you are a nice boy)

Oh lord heal this bike à oh seigneur, réparez ce vélo

Angel is sometimes mon ange and I’m die. (My angel.)

The scene in Rome when Crowley asks “qu’est-ce que vous avez à boire?” He sounds So Done

My dear fellow = mais mon cher camarade (my dear comrade lol)

When they’re complaining about horses during the Shakespeare scene = oh aye aye les chevaux ça fait mal aux fesses

Headquarters = maison mère

The whole Bastille scene with the Jean Claude is lost because they’re already talking French

Another transformation of angel is angelot (small angel)

The description of the head cutting machine is une énorme machine coupeuse de têtes

Pear shapped = boudain (really not the same thing.)

Obviously = manifestement

During the Blitz scene, when Aziraphale is Super Proud he double crossed the Germans he goes on saying “vous vous petes faites pigeonner! Allez, hop, hop, hop”

The German bit was kept as is

When Crowley is tap dancing through the church, the French VA makes some key noises

You go too fast for me = Tu roules trop vite pour moi (two things; the delivery of the line falls flat and tu roules is literally a driving reference so it’s like more car feeling than like moving in life)

When Anathema offers the Them lemonade they translated it to citronade, instead of limonade. And I don’t get it.

Wicked = mortel (Deadly)

When Shadwell mimics Aziraphale’s pip pip it’s something along the lines of hop hop hop espèce de tonton Suisse ????? I’m never sure what he says, but just – it’s a riot.

I don’t even like you = je ne t’appréci même pas (I don’t appreciate you)

But then Crowley’s you dooo is tu m’adores which, is you adore me and I lost it.

I’m soft = je ne suis pas un guerrier (I am not a warrior) and wow, okay, not the same, not the same impact. 0/10

Michael sounds more like Mi-ka-el and meh ok.

When Crowley talks to God when he’s having a minor existential crisis it – doesn’t deliver as much.

Adam uses vous for Anathema

When Pepper realises whales have got the good life she says “oh purée, j’ai trop envie d’être une baleine” (France French expressions are sometimes a whole riot on their own)

Avocado was changed to amandes (almonds and I don’t know why)

One big avocado = ce sera bientôt la fin des amandes (it’ll soon be the end of the almonds) re : ??

You smell like poo = vous sentez vraiment la merde

Crowley’s I’ve got an old friend here = tu tombes mal, j’ai d’la visite (I’ve got visit)

Uriel tells Aziraphale “ton p’tit copain aux lunettes fumées” which is your little boyfriend with the dark sunglasses lamao

Bandes de..... méchants anges! = you bad angels! It sounds more petulant though.

The whole wrong shop allusion is lost in translation

You stupid man = espèce de crétin

Oh fuck = oh merde (really not the same intensity lol)

The emotion and distress in the dire scene is l o s t . L

When Crowley is in the bar and he asks for another bottle he asks for la p’tite soeur which means the little sister.

When Crowley is like Aziraphale is that really you (when his ghost-spirit-nebulous appearance shows up in the bar) it sounds more disbelieving? But like in a what the hell is going on and less in awe/relief??

Get a wiggle on = remuage des fesses (fesses is butt)

Pollution sounds very young.

The 3 other horse people use vous for death

They had the French VA of Aziraphale say the spreichen ze deutsch bit and He Tried.

Wahoo = woow

Not just the southern pansy, THE southern pansy bit = pas simplement une tantouze sudiste, mon chéri, je suis LA tantouze sudiste

A) He sounds so very pleased with himself

B) And flirty?? Come hither??

C) It’s perf

D) Tantouze sudiste = a vulgar term for a homosexual man

Shadwell uses vous for Mme. Tracy

Cowwley = Rampra (when Lisa the insurance girl calls)

Car = caisse

When Adam yells his life to get evil out of him or whatever, in the flashback sequence when Ms. Young speaks to Adam when he was born, she speaks to him in French (not like in the Italian version where they just – did not translate that bit.)

Crowley sounds very suave when he tells Aziraphale in Mme. Tracy’s body that he’ll take care of it when the military dude won’t let them through.

Dagon à je suis présent not présente (so Dagon uses male words?? pronouns??)

You were a good car – t’étais une caisse d’enfer

Kick/lick some serious butt à brouter quelques derrières

When Aziraphale tells Crowley they should wait before offing Adam the exchange is hilarious

It’s Aziraphale: Peut-être qu’on devrait attendre (maybe we should wait)

Crowley : Qu’il ait le droit de vote? (That he could vote?)

Vous vous êtes rien vous êtes trop naz, Pepper

I believe in peace, bitch à Moi je crois en la paix pétasse LOL

They only buzzed Beelzeebub’s voice for their last line before Satan appears

Crowley at Adam ok mon garçon

Adam uses vous for Satan his dad, but then uses tu for him for t’es pas mon père lol

Le truc cest que tas pu dcamp mon vieux – moi non plus dailleurs

Their voices when they’re pretending to be each other

Tickity boo à tout va très bien

Je te rappelle que je suis un putain d’archange (I’m the archangel fucking Gabriel – or whatever that line was lol)

Shut your stupid mouth and die already à Tu vas te la fermer ta grande bouche et te décider à mourir

Beelzebu : il est revenu à ses origines – il a changé de bord instead of he’s gone native

Miiichael mon pot, tu m’fais un p’tit miracle j’ai pas de serviette à When Aziraphael as Crowley asks Michael for a towel.

#good omens #bons présages #french #français #notes #comparison #crowley #aziraphale

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fireflyfish · 5 years

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battlefront matchup anon again, i'm now very excited to read the Local Force Users Anonymous meeting fic, thank you for this hilarity

Hello again, Nony! Ask and Fishy shall deliver… some of the time… when I don’t have a season to work on… or Rex to poke.

This ask and the insanity below was inspired by this lovely gifset.

***

Don’t Bring a Blaster to a Lightsaber Fight

A.K.A A Weekly Meetup for Local Force Users

***

Han Solo, known scoundrel, smuggler and the only person to make the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs, if you rounded down, found himself in a strange place. He had somehow ended up, of course through no fault of his own, in an industrial part of… somewhere that was wrapped in blue fog and was, for reasons unknown to him, standing in a puddle, even though he was pretty sure it hadn’t rained that day.

Walking forward, Han could see that he was not alone in the mysterious blue place with incongruous puddles and machinery that looked like it would explode if you looked at it too long.

As he walked, Han could see a row of dark-robed figures lining up in front of him, a few meters away. They stood in a line like a holo boy band and Han was going to tell them that until he realized that he was standing in front of Darth Vader, the bastard who had tortured him to lure his good friend Luke into a trap. And then cut off Luke’s hand because symbolism? Who knows but it was a bad move, Anakin. A very bad move.

Sarcastic comment now dead on his lips, Han Solo pulled out his blaster and aimed it straight at Darth Vader’s heart, ignoring the fact that the last time he had tried to shoot Darth Vader it had gone over about as well as the first time he tried to win the Falcon from Lando in a game of sabaac. Although in Han’s defense Lando cheated and I suppose one could argue that secretly having the Chosen One be the Empire’s ruthless and brutal enforcer is kind of cheating too.

But we digress.

While Vader waited next to what Han could only assume was the Emperor, flanked by some old dude posing dramatically and a guy who looked he got an awesome buy-one-get-one deal at a tattoo shop, three other people strode up towards Han. One was an attractive young woman in a quilted vest with brown hair and a lightsaber as well as a handsome gentleman with hair that could only be described as “swooshy” in white armor and his own lightsaber.

Han Solo was starting to worry that he had somehow ended up in some kind of strange Jedi street fight when his best friend Luke showed up, swinging around his new green lightsaber like he actually knew what he was doing.

Which he did. Right?

“Kid,” Han hissed to Luke, trying to keep a level and intimidating gaze as the face off continued. “Who are these people?”

Luke shrugged a little in his defensive stance. “Besides Vader and the Emperor, I’m not really sure.”

“Who are you people?” the young woman next to Han asked, looking like she was ready to go toe to toe with some seriously bad motherkriffers who probably had at least 150 years of experience on her and her awesome looking vest. She also, inexplicably, had a crisp Coruscanti accent that has never been explained to either Han or the author’s knowledge.

“I’m Luke Skywalker and this is my friend, Han Solo,” Luke said as the villians continued to stand there, looking evil, foreboding and black. These guys really liked black and red.

“You’re Han Solo?” the girl to Han’s right gasped in shocked delight. “You’re alive?!”

“Am I not supposed to be?” Han asked in reply, looking over at Luke very confused. “Is this more of your hokey Force religion, Luke?”

“Skywalker, did you say?” the really disarmingly-attractive man in the white armor asked, peering all the way around to frown at Luke. “Did I hear you correctly? Your name is Luke Skywalker?”

“Yes, that’s my name. Do I know you?” Luke replied.

“My name is Rey and… well… the last time I saw you, you were… a lot older and…” Rey frowned, still talking to Han, and looked away, as if carrying a heavy burden before cheering up. “But this is wonderful! You’re alive! The Force is amazing! I have to tell General Organa!”

“You wouldn’t happen to be related to someone named Anakin Skywalker, would you?” asked the ginger haired man with the armor and sexy accent.

“Leia is a general?” Han gaped, confused.

“That’s my father,” Luke said, also confused because there are a lot of people talking at the same time and it’s getting hard to keep track of them. “Why? Do you know him?”

“Yes, she’s leading the resistance against the First Order,” Rey explained with a stars in her eyes as she beheld her hero in his younger, sexier form. Poor girl. Your author hopes she never watches Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade because that has ruined your author for all other Harrison Ford movies.

“Know him? He’s my former padawan,” the man at the end of the line up of heroes said with a charming, toothy smile and a jaunty laugh. “I don’t know where he is at this moment but once I take care of this, I’m going to go find him and save him from whatever nonsense he’s gotten himself into.”

***

Meanwhile, a few meters away.

Darth Vader grit his teeth and vowed vengeance against the young, handsome, charming, attractive– had he always been that sexy in armor?– Obi-Wan Kenobi talking to his son like he didn’t even know that he, the fallen Anakin Skywalker, was right there. He was right there and Obi-Wan wasn’t even paying attention to him. The utter gall of that man!

How dare Obi-Wan show up now, looking so… so… hot and young and beautiful? And wasn’t he supposed to be dead? Vader was pretty sure he had killed Obi-Wan and immediately regretted it but that’s how Anakin rolls, gentle readers on the Death Star.

“Allow me to rid this galaxy of Kenobi’s infuriating presence once and for all, my master,” Vader rumbled in that terrifying voice that sounded nothing like his real voice but that’s okay because we have that traumatizing Rebels episode for that particular heartbreak.

“No,” Count Dooku intoned, his ominous voice rumbling through the area like thunder because his best buddy Gandalf helpfully volunteered to do the sound effects for this battle. “I will be the one to bring Kenobi to the Dark Side once and for all. He could be a powerful ally and it’s what Qui-Gon would have wanted.”

“If anyone is going to kill KENOBAEAUGUHGHA it is going to be me!” Maul snarled and paced around because that’s what he does when he’s being evil. He snarls, paces and says KENOBAEAUGUHGHA over and over again. Honestly, it gets kind of weird after a while.

Palpatine just covered his face with his hand and muttered to himself. “I should have killed that sexy ginger myself.”

***

“Padawan? What’s a padawan?” Luke asked because, again, he had like a weeks worth of training in the Jedi arts and the author is pretty sure Yoda had more important things to do than to go into the naming nomenclature of the Jedi order. “Wait… Obi-Wan? Are you Obi-Wan Kenobi?!”

Obi-Wan gave Luke that charming, sexy grin of his and nodded. “Yes, I am. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Luke. And you two as well, Han and Rey.”

“Uh… Hi,” Han said, waving his hand a little as Rey peered around him to gasp at Luke.

“Luke Skywalker?!” Rey almost squealed with delight because let’s be honest here, Gareth Pugh Couture Jumpsuit Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker is PEAK Luke. “I have your lightsaber! I need you to teach me how to be a Jedi!”

Han Solo took a step back while the lightsaber wielding crazies, as a wise man once called them, talked to and over each other. Or rather, while Rey and Luke tried to have a three-way conversation that Obi-Wan was occasionally roped into when someone needed to be gently corrected as to how the Force and the Jedi Order worked.

“No, we don’t mind control people like that, Rey.”

“Luke, that is nothing like what a defensive Soresu stance should look like. Who taught you that?”

“Yes, I agree, that lightsaber sounds most immature and poorly built. Who did you say made it? Kylie Ren?”

Han, being the clever and observant type, noticed that the Dark Side users, that was what Luke called them, were all glaring over at Obi-Wan and since Han wasn’t in the mood to get stabbed or lose a hand like Luke, he decided to interrupt the impromptu Light Side pow-wow. “Hey… so… Vader, I know, and I’m pretty sure that guy in the hooded robe is Emperor Palpatine but does anybody know what’s up with Grampa and Pointy over there? Are they a part of your Fist Order, Rey?”

“It’s First Order, not Fist Order and, no, I’ve never seen them before,” Rey said, frowning. “Although I have heard of Darth Vader, mostly in passing. He died on the second Death Star over Endor. Him and the Emperor.”

“There’s another Death Star?” Han and Luke groaned at the same time. And a third one too but the author did not have time to go into all of that.

“Gramps and Pointy,” Obi-Wan explained, enjoying a good chuckle at Maul’s expense like we all should, pointing to each man in turn. “Are Sith Lords. Count Dooku was my master’s master, a fallen Jedi who now goes by the name of Darth Tyranus. He tried to recruit me to the Dark Side and cut off my padawan’s arm. And Pointy is Darth Maul, who murdered my master. I cut him in half and kicked him down a plasma shaft but apparently he shook that off somehow.”

Luke gaped in horror. “You cut him in HALF and he LIVED?”

“Next time I’ll aim for his neck,” Obi-Wan shrugged.

“KENOBAEAUGUHGHA!” Maul bellowed from a few meters away where the Sith Lords were standing in place because authorial intent is stronger than the Dark Side. “At last I will have my revenge!”

“Fool,” Dooku bellowed with a dramatic flourish of his cape. “You are but a mad dog, a tool my master used to bring himself to power. Kenobi will be a great ally to the Sith once turned.”

“Silence!” Vader said in that lovely James Earl Jones bass, clenching his fist as if he could squeeze the life out of Obi-Wan like he did to Admiral Ozzel, Captain Needa and others who out of an abundance of tact the author will not name. “I am going to be the one to finally destroy Obi-Wan Kenobi and then the Jedi Order’s failures will be complete.”

Luke and Rey exchanged a glance and turned to Obi-Wan, horrified at the narrative arc of his life.

Obi-Wan sighed. “Oh, is it Tuesday again?”

Emperor Palpatine muttered to himself under his breath. “You had one job, Commander Cody. Just one! But, no! You couldn’t even do that right! Why did I even order a Clone Army? They spent most of their time getting cool-looking tattoos and painting their armor! Hell! Captain Rex was more concerned about getting airtime and being cast in Return of the Jedi than carrying out my master plan!”

Now Han Solo, for all the grief the author has given him in this story that has gone on longer than they wanted, is a smart man. One does not smuggle spice, coaxium, or whatever in the age of the Empire unless one is clever and quick on his feet and Han Solo is pretty quick on his feet.

Especially when running away from a bunch of stormtroopers on the Death Star. The author thinks he might have broken a record or something in that scene.

Anyway, Han Solo realized that a few things about the situation he found himself it.

Number one, he didn’t want to fight Vader and get his blaster stolen again.

Number two, everyone at the informal Force Users of Star Wars meetup seemed oddly obsessed with Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Number three, there was a way out of this if he just played his cards right. And as Han would tell you, he is very good at cards.

Clearing his throat, Han Solo announced in a loud voice that just barely managed to pierce the din of Force users talking about Obi-Wan Kenobi. “None of you love Obi-Wan Kenobi as much as I do.”

“What?!” Vader barked, looking around for the person who dared to lay claim to the mantle of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Number One Fan and Nemesis. “Who said that?”

“Just his biggest fan,” Han Solo said again, smirking at Vader. “I even got an official certificate from the Jedi Order in here somewhere.”

“You do not!” Vader protested angrily. “I made them stop giving those out after they tried to give Ahsoka one!”

“What?!” Obi-Wan gaped, stunned. “What official certificate?”

“Nonsense! Kenobi is my life’s goal! My mission and obsession! I am his greatest fan!” Maul snarled, shoving his way forward into the crowd that was slowly starting to form not so much around Obi-Wan but more like in front of him, so that his adoring crowd could all show off how much they loved him and were willing to kill everyone in the galaxy to prove it. Because that’s healthy.

Well, Palpatine just wanted to kill Obi-Wan once and for all but even he had to admit the man was nice on the eyes.

“Maybe that’s why Commander Cody missed,” Palpatine muttered in an aside as he tried to hobble around the bickering crowd.

“Kenobi is my grandpadawan!” Dooku insisted, refusing to let the younger Sith steal away his prize. “If anyone has that right, it should be me!”

“Listen, I didn’t want to have to throw my weight around like this but I am the main character of this story,” Luke insisted, almost elbowing Maul in the face as he tried to get a word in. “And Obi-Wan did spend eighteen years on Tatooine AND I am a Skywalker so if anybody is going to be Obi-Wan’s biggest fan, I think it should be me.”

“TATOOINE?!” Vader exploded. “You were on Tatooine all this time?! You made my poor, sexy master waste away on Tatooine?!”

“Excuse me, Lord Vader,” Palpatine interjected. “But I am your master, remember?’

“Yeah, yeah, whatever Sheev,” Vader muttered, rolling his eyes behind his mask. “Listen, Luke, son, kid, I know you’re new to this whole ‘Jedi business’ but let me straighten you out. As Obi-Wan Kenobi’s former padawan learner, I get first dibs on him, okay? Me, not you, not Grumpy Grandpa over here and definitely not Rage-Face Robo-Legs over here.”

“But you’re a Sith Lord!”

“Does that look like it’s stopping any of the rest of Obi-Wan’s fanboys? Hell! I bet even Palpatine has a few sexy pictures of his from the Clone Wars.”

“I knew I never should have told you about my secret thirst tumblr, Vader!”

“See what I mean?”

While this heated battle of words, fannish desire and single minded obsession devotion continued on apace, Han Solo took his opportunity to make his escape. He was going to try to get Luke’s attention but it was clear that Luke had fallen under the sway of Kenobi and wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. Rey also looked like she wanted to elbow her way into the squabble of McQueen black robes and knee high Chanel boots but Han reached out to stop her. “C’mon, kid, we’re getting out of here.”

“But we can’t just leave them!” Rey insisted in that way that reminded Han of Leia but also Luke. He wondered if perhaps Rey was related to them somehow because it seemed like everyone was related to a Skywalker these days but quickly forgot it in the heat of the moment.

“They’ll be fine,” Han insisted, seeing a break in the blue fog encircling the nonsense he found himself in. “Besides, what are we going to do against four bad guys with lightsabers?”

Rey opened her mouth to insist that she had somehow managed to download Kylo Ren’s ability to wield a lightsaber but then she realized she would have to explain Kylo Ren to Han Solo and she just didn’t have the heart to tell him about that because your author is STILL salty about that, gentle reader. STILL SALTY. “All right let’s go. Obi-Wan? We’re leaving. Are you coming with us?”

Obi-Wan was leaning against a pile of old rubble, watching the Luke and the Sith Lords squabble over him. He looked over at Rey and Han, waving them off. “Oh, no, thank you, my dear. I’m quite used to this by now. I’m sure Ahsoka and Captain Rex will be along in a minute to pick me and Luke up. You two go on and may the Force be with you both.”

Rey looked at Han Solo, who shrugged, and with that they both ran for the fog.

“That isn’t even your real voice, Skywalker! How can you truly do credit to the name of KENOBAEAUGUHGHA if you have to rely on James Earl Jones to sound intimidating?”

“What are you even saying? That sounds nothing like my grandpadawan’s name! It must be said with deep, solemn and regretful feeling. You have to project. Like this. Kenobi.”

“Why are all my apprentices obsessed with this Kenobi? He’s not even that attractive. Now Qui-Gon Jinn? That was a man!”

Obi-Wan groaned and buried his face in his hands.

Yup, this was just another Tuesday.

#Fishy writing #Star Wars Battlefront 2 #Star wars #Luke Skywalker #Obi wan Kenobi #Han Solo #Darth Vader #Emperor Palpatine #Rage Face Robo Legs #Grumpy Grandpa #Rey #Well there we are folks!#There's the crack I spent 3 hours writing last night #Enjoy!#Anonymous #long fic #Please know that this is under a read more link #but mobile hates me so....#I'm sorry for bombing your dashboard!

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officialyourdailyinspiration · 2 years

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The Tongue is a Restless Evil

by Alexander Smellie (1857–1923)

The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit. - Proverbs 15:4

How many are the sins of the tongue—how many, and how deadly! From anger, from slander, from folly, from untruthfulness, from untender judgments, from impure and defiling speech, good Lord, deliver me.

There is, St. Paul says, a foolish talking which is not convenient (Ephesians 5:4). My conversation may be insipid, vain, unprofitable, trivial, and idle. It may do no good to anyone. 1t may kindle no consoling, strengthening, inspiring thought. It is not seasoned with the salt of grace. It has not the earnestness and the spiritual quality which befit the Christian.

There is, St. Paul says again, a filthy communication which should never proceed from a disciple’s mouth (Colossians 3:8). It ministers to wantonness. It is suggestive of what is evil and unholy. It paints sin in gay and brilliant and enticing colors, so that its real ugliness is not recognized. All such speech I must abhor. I must not listen to it in others, nor tolerate it in myself.

There is, St. Paul says once more, a jesting which is not becoming in the believer and the saint (Ephesians 5:4). In whatever pleasantry and humor I may allow myself, I must ever be refined, noble-hearted, tender. There is a persiflage [light and slightly contemptuous mockery or banter], a wit, a banter, a sarcasm, which is neither high-minded nor kind. It is enlisted in the service of sin and not in that of Christ.

My Lord, help me to-day to set a watch over my lips, that I do not offend against you with my tongue. The purest speech will need much purifying before it can join in the praises of your temple on high. For that worship I would tune my voice now, by the tones of prayer, by the defense of the right, by the accents of love.

#Alexander Smellie #The Tongue is a Restless Evil #Proverbs 15:4

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loretranscripts · 5 years

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Lore Episode 1: They Made a Tonic (Transcript) - 18th March 2015

tw: horror, bodily mutilation, blood, disease, death, vampires, pseudo-cannibalism

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

Hollywood is… obsessed. Sure, we often think of obsessions like sex, violence, gigantic robots and of course, epic battles between good and evil. But another obsession of Hollywood is vampires. You have to admit though, that there’s a lot to love about vampires. Immortality, wealth, power, and superhuman abilities such as flight and strength. Yes, they come with trade-offs, such as incredibly bad sunburns, but every movie I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot, believe me, tends to show vampires that are fairly happy with their lot in life. My exposure to the world of vampires happened in the late 1990s, when I was in college. A friend of mine recommended the Anne Rice novel, Interview with a Vampire. I devoured that and many of the sequels. They’re fun reads! And they certainly set the tone for a decade or more of vampire-centred entertainment. I won’t touch on the vampires of the Twilight books, mostly because I haven’t read them. But I will say this: those books, however lambasted they have been by critics, have shown that popular culture’s love of all things vampire is as undying as the creatures themselves. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

When most people think of vampires, they envision something that is a purely European creature: a foreign accent, Victorian Era dress, and dark manor homes and castles. It’s a common visual language for most of the western world, so I don’t blame bad movies and books for portraying that image, but it’s one small facet of a legend that has hundreds of expressions. The single most prominent historical figure attached to the modern notion of vampires is of course Vlad III of Wallachia, otherwise known as Vlad the Impaler. Vlad was the ruler of a small Eastern European kingdom known as Wallachia. He ruled from 1456 to 1462. He was known as Vlad the Impaler, because he preferred to execute his enemies by impaling them on stakes. The Ottomons called him “Lord Impaler” after entering his kingdom to find forests of impaled victims. Vlad was a violent guy, you see, rather bloodthirsty, you might say. Now he, like his father before him, belonged to something known as the Order of the Dragon, a group established to protect Christian Europe from the invading Ottoman army. Vlad’s father, Vlad II, was known as Vlad Dracul, which meant Vlad the Dragon, from the Order of the Dragon. When Vlad III rose to power he took the hereditary title and was known as Vlad Dracula, the son of the dragon. That name might sound very similar to the most famous vampire story in the world, and that’s because Bram Stoker, when creating his famous creature of the night, used Vlad III as his inspiration. Well, part of it, but we’ll get to that more later.

The roots of most vampire stories can be traced back to superstitions rooted in ancient cultures all across the world. Western Europe played host to countless stories of reanimated dead known as “revenants”. These were animated corpses which climbed out of the grave to torment the living. The word “revenant” comes from Latin, which means “to come back”. And come back to do what, you might ask? Well, I’m glad you did. At first it was just to terrorise the living, but as the centuries passed the legend became more specific. Revenants were said to return from the grave to torment their living relatives and neighbours. What was key though, was that revenants were specific people, not anonymous zombies of our modern horror genre. These things had a past, and a purpose. Now, in Norse Mythology, we can find stories of creatures known as draugr, “again-walkers”, who would return from the grave and wreak havoc on the living. These creatures possessed superhuman strength, they smelled of decay, and they were reported to be pretty ugly in appearance. They could enter the dreams of the living and while they were doing that, it was said that they left tangible objects near the sleeping victims, so that when they woke up, they would know that their dreams were more real than they feared.

Let’s go back earlier than the Middles Ages though. The legends of some ancient cultures spoke of creatures that, while not immediately similar to the vampires we know today, nonetheless share many core characteristics. First we have the Greek myth of Empusa, who was the daughter of Hekate. Empusa was said to lure young men, at night, and then feast on their blood, before moving on to the main course, their flesh. Another Greek tale involves Lamia, a mistress of Zeus, who becomes cursed by Zeus’ wife Hera, and is doomed to hunt children, devouring them. Stories of undead creatures, or creatures that feed on the blood of the living, seem nearly as common as written language itself. I mean, even on the small, isolated island of Madagascar, there are legends of a creature known as the Ramanga, which was known to attack nobles, drinking their blood and eating their nail clippings. Yeah, I said nail clippings. Deal with it.

Are vampires real? I’ll let you make the final decision on that, but what is clear, is that most of these stories find their genesis in the human need to explain the unexplainable. For instance, early Europeans used the myth as a way of explaining why a corpse wasn’t decomposing at the normal rate that they expected. You can see evidence of this in Bulgaria, where graves dating back over 800 years, have been opened, to reveal iron rods that have been driven through the chest of the skeletons. And in a time when it was very common to bury someone that was thought to be dead, only to find out that they weren’t really dead, you can imagine that stories would quickly circulate that the dead were coming back to life. As a result, Taphophobia, the fear of being buried alive, swept Europe and the United States. Now, of course, when medical science caught up, people got more practical. They built alert systems into graves, just in case the person woke up and, you know, wanted out. Now, I realise that being buried alive sounds like a rare occurrence, but it happened frequently enough that many people were sufficiently paranoid about it to actually spend time looking for a solution.

One of these people happened to be a medical doctor, a man named Adolf Gutsmuth. Now, in 1822, and driven by the fear of being buried alive, he invented a “safety coffin” for his own interment, and then he tested it out himself. Tested it out? You bet! Doctor Gutsmuth allowed himself to be buried underground in his new “safety coffin” for several hours, during which he had meals delivered to him through a feeding tube. He enjoyed a wonderful meal of soup, sausages, and a lovely local beer. Sounds like a great date night destination, doesn’t it? Now, Doctor Timothy Smith of New Haven, Vermont, was another paranoid inventor. He created a grave that can be visited still to this day, if you happen to be passing by Evergreen Cemetery, in Vermont. It was a crypt, buried in the usual manner, but it had a cement tube positioned over the face of the body, and a glass plate was affixed to the top of the tube at ground level. Doctor Smith died a real, natural death, and was buried in his fancy coffin with a view. He never woke up, but early visitors to his grave reported that they had a clear view of his decomposing head, until condensation obscured the glass decades later. Side note: vampires no longer scare me. Waking up inside of a small box buried six feet under the surface of the earth is what true fright looks like to me.

Now, another culprit in humanity’s use of the vampire label, was porphyria. It was a rare blood disorder, but modern science has pretty much closed the case on that one, saying that it’s too far of a stretch to connect the two topics. Rabies, of all conditions, has also been used as an explanation for the rise of the vampire mythology. Surprisingly there are a lot of commonalities between them, such as a sensitivity to light and garlic, as well as altered sleep patterns. But the most recent medical condition with a strong connection to vampire mythology was actually Tuberculosis. Those who suffer from TB had no vampire-like symptoms though, and that’s what makes this one a harder connection to explain. It’s also, incidentally, where one of my favourite New England legends comes into the picture. Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Mercy Brown.

Lena Mercy Brown was a young woman who lived in the latter half of the 19thcentury, in the rural town of Exeter, Rhode Island, and she was a major player in what is now known as the “Great New England Vampire Panic”. Stories like hers can be found repeated all across Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, echoed in the lives of others in similar situations. And the results have surprising connections to both the modern idea of vampires, as well as the ancient stories, as we will see. The first person to die in Exeter was Mercy’s mother, Mary Eliza. That was December of 1882, and she fell victim to what was then called “consumption”. Consumption, because, as the disease of Tuberculosis ravaged the body, the person would appear to waste away; consumed, if you will, by the illness. She, of course, was buried, because, well, that’s what you do with a loved one who passes away. The next year though, Mercy’s sister Mary Olive died, at the young age of 20. Same illness, same symptoms, same process. I’m not sure when exactly the people of Exeter, Rhode Island started to wonder if the deaths were connected , but it might have been then, or it might have been a few years later when Mercy’ brother Edwin took ill. Edwin, though, was smart. He packed up and moved across the country to Colorado Springs, which had a great reputation for the healing properties of its dry climate. When he finally returned from the resorts out west, some years later, he was alive, but not doing so well, and in December of 1891, he took a turn for the worst. That was the month that Mercy herself became ill. Her Tuberculosis moved fast. They called it the galloping kind, and it moved through her body quickly, like wildfire. By January, 1892, she was dead, and the people of Exeter were more worried than ever. You see, they suspected something… supernatural.

Now, this was surprising, considering how close Exeter is to Newport. That’s the seaside city known for the summer cottages of the wealthy, folks like the Vanderbilts, the Asters, the Wideners, the Wetmores. It was the pinnacle of educated society, yet just a handful of miles away, one small town that should have known better, was about to do something very, very creepy.

Edwin was still alive, you see, and someone got it in their mind that one of the women who died before him, either his mother or one of his sisters, was somehow draining him of his life from beyond the grave. They were so convinced of this, you see, that they wanted to dig them all up. Yes, all of them. Once they received the father’s permission to do this horrible thing, a group of men gathered in the cemetery on the morning of March 17th, and began to dig up the bodies. Now, what they were looking for was any evidence at all of an unnatural state. So, blood in the heart, blood around the mouth, or other similar signs. The first body, of Mary Eliza, the mother, was satisfactorily decomposed so they ruled her out. But of course she was, you might say, I mean, she had been dead and buried for a decade. Mary Olive was also in a normal state of decomposition. Again, being dead for ten years usually helps convince people that you’re really dead. But when they examined Mercy’s body, a body that had not been buried because she died in the middle of winter, and so had been put inside of a stone building inside the cemetery that was essentially a walk-in freezer, they discovered a remarkable state of preservation. Shocking, I know. So what did they do? Well, these superstitious folk did what they learnt from their ancestors. They cut out Mercy’s heart and liver, within which they found red, clotted blood, they burned them on a nearby stone, which, by the way, is still there if you ever visit the cemetery, and then, mixed the ashes with a tonic. That tonic was then given to Edwin, to drink. Yeah, Edwin drank his own sister’s liver and heart. Did it work? No, of course it didn’t work. Edwin died less than two months later. What it did do, however, was set up Mercy Brown to be known as the first American vampire.

As unusual as an event like this must sound, you might be surprised to learn that it happened quite frequently. In 1817, almost a century before Mercy Brown’s exhumation, a Dartmouth college student named Frederick Ransom died of Tuberculosis. His father was so worried that the young man would leave the grave and attack the family, that he asked that he be dug up. Ransom’s heart was cut out, and burnt on a blacksmith’s forge. Even Henry David Thoreau heard tales of these types of events, and he mentioned one in his personal journal. In September 26th, 1859, he wrote: “The savage in man is never quite eradicated. I have just read of a family in Vermont who, several of its members having died of consumption, just burnt the lungs, heart and liver of the last deceased, in order to prevent any more from having it.” So of course, word spread about what happened to Mercy Brown, as it usually did when a body was dug up and carved into to pieces like that. Mercy’s case, though, actually made it into a newspaper called The New York World, and it made quite an impression on the people who read it. How do we know? Because a clipping from that article was found in the personal papers of a London stage manager after his death. You see, his theatre company had been touring America in 1892. He evidently read the story, found it inspiring, and saved it. Inspiring so much so, that he sat down a few years later, and wrote a book. Who was this man? His name was Bram Stoker. And the book? Oh, I’m sure you’ve already guessed it by now. It was Dracula, published in 1897.

Lore was produced by me, Aaron Mahnke. You can find a transcript of the show, as well as a bibliography of the source material, at our website, lorepodcast.com. If you enjoy scary stories, I happen to write them. You can find a full list of my supernatural thrillers, available in both paperback and ebook formats, at aaronmahnke.com/novels. Thanks for listening.

Transcriber’s Notes:

(These notes a purely from me, the transcriber, and have nothing to do with the official podcast or Aaron Mahnke).

1) The word draugr does not in fact mean “after-walker” as the podcast seems to state, and actually derives from a Proto-Indo European word meaning “deceive”. There is, however, a related term aptrgangr, which does mean “again-walker”, and is thought to be pretty much synonymous with draugr.

#lore podcast #podcasts #aaron mahnke #vampires #Interview With A Vampire #dracula #mercy brown #new england #taphophobia #folklore #1 #transcripts

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lilacmoon83 · 5 years

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Dreaming Out Loud

Also on Fanfiction.net or A03

Chapter 91: The Reckoning

Emma looked at herself in the mirror with a lot of uncertainty. Despite being born a Princess, she had never worn a full scale ball gown before. She knew that if she had been raised by her parents that she would have worn her first at a very young age and become acclimated to such, because that was the norm in their homeland, especially being the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming.

Had there been no curse, her mother would have been Queen and her father King Consort. And she would have been a Princess. All that was gone now, but on this night, the three of them were getting a piece of that life that was stolen from them back. She glanced at her mother, who she could see in the mirror behind her. Snow was already tearing up, as Emma turned to her.

"You look so beautiful," Snow said, as she sniffed. Emma had chosen a dress in her signature color, fiery red, and Snow had put her hair up in a beautifully intricate french twist.

"Thanks Mom," she said shyly, as she looked back at herself.

"You do too, Mom. Dad's gonna faint," she replied. Snow had chosen her signature color and her gown was a creamy white with a shimmering gold overlay, lace, and embroidery. The sleeves were off the shoulder, complete with a sweetheart neckline.

"Wow…" David uttered, as he and Henry came into the room. He stared at his wife and daughter in awe, as he went to Emma first and gently hugged her, cupping her head.

"Emma...this is everything I've always wanted for you," he confessed. She smiled.

"I know…" she said, as she then picked up her copy of the sonogram photo they had just given her.

"And this is everything I want for you and Mom," she assured. He smiled and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Emma turned and took both of their hands on hers.

"We may not have been able to be together all the time, but I remember being raised by you in the dreamscape," she said tearfully.

"And that's why I can say that this baby is the luckiest little person in all the realms, just like I am, to have parents like you," she added. That did and they were both teary, as they hugged their daughter between them. Snow laughed and wiped her tears.

"I'm going to ruin my makeup," she mentioned, but David was already looking at her like she was by far the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. This wasn't really new, for she was used to him looking at her this way, but damn if she would ever tire of it or the way he made her feel.

"You are so beautiful…" he uttered. From anyone else, such a simple, yet often cliched statement might sound just that; cliched or insincere. But not when he said it. He took her hands in his own and kissed her tenderly. As he pulled back, it was her turn to do some admiring. He had chosen a deep crimson tunic, trimmed and embroidered with gold threads and accents, with black leather pants and boots.

"You're looking very handsome yourself, my love," she purred, as they kissed again.

"Guys...I love you, but seriously the making out in front of me is not cool," Emma complained. Their lips parted, as they grinned at each other and Persephone walked in.

"Oh...Snow," she uttered, as she approached, wearing a shimmering lavender gown with a straight neckline and very thin straps, complete with elegant jewelry.

"You look beautiful, Mom," Snow complimented.

"So do you and Emma," she replied, as she presented two silver barrettes in which she had put real snow drops on.

"May I?" she asked her granddaughter. Emma shrugged and allowed Persephone to clip them on either side of her head. Then she presented a flower crown made of snowdrops and approached her daughter. Snow smiled and allowed her to place it upon her head.

"You can wear Eva's tiara if you would rather," Persephone told her, but Snow shook her head.

"That tiara will always be special to me and I will always cherish it, but the snowdrops are perfect. They tell everyone that I'm your daughter and I'm proud of that," Snow answered. Persephone teared up and hugged her fiercely.

"I love you so much," she told her.

"And I love you, Mom," Snow replied, as they prepared to leave. They found Eli waiting for them by the cars outside and he took a moment to marvel at them.

"You are all simply stunning," he said.

"You look very nice yourself," Snow replied. He had chosen a dark violet tunic and she was a little surprised that he was not wearing a crown to signify his official station.

"You're not wearing a crown," she mentioned. He smiled.

"I decided that I didn't want to, because I'm not a King and that made me realize how unburdened I felt for the first time in my life," he confessed.

"Tonight, I am going to this ball as your father and it is a far greater honor than any royal title," he added. Snow smiled and hugged him at that.

"Shall we, my darling?" David asked, as he held his elbow out and she hooked her hand on it. He held out the other elbow and smiled, as Emma hooked her hand on his other elbow as well.

"In Hades place, until we find him, will you allow me to escort you?" Eli asked. Persephone smiled and nodded, as they followed.

~*~

Zelena peered around the corner, as they hid in the alleyway alongside the library building. Hades was with her and they were both dressed for the ball, however, the thick manacles around his wrists and ankles ensured he was not a willing participant.

"Trusting the worm to do anything right is foolhardy," Hades warned.

"Shut up," she snapped, as Hermes finally caught up to them.

"What took you so long?!" she spat.

"I'm sorry, but snatching one of these things wasn't easy, even from those idiots that follow Circe like blind lambs on the way to slaughter," he mentioned. Hades snorted derisively.

"It's funny that you make that statement, when you're a sheep yourself. You follow whoever you think may possibly gain power and lodge your nose firmly up their…" Hades spat, but she cut him off, before he could finish the insult.

"Enough…" she snapped, as she examined the plasma weapon.

"Perfect...this will do nicely until we get that magical cube," she said, as she tugged Hades along and they marched into the library. Robert and Happy, who were on guard, had no time to even scream, as she fired the weapon at both of them. Happy was tossed into a bookcase and Robert into the wall behind him, effectively rendering them both unconscious.

"Too easy," Zelena commented, as she tugged Hades into the elevator with her and handed the weapon to Hermes.

"Blast anyone that comes in and lower us down," she ordered, as the elevator door closed and slowly began to move.

"This is a mistake, Zelena," Hades warned.

"Stop trying to reason with me...it's not going to work," she replied in boredom.

"I won't stop trying!" he growled.

"Because you don't realize what you're about to do and the dire consequences it could create," he admonished.

"Once you cast this spell, there is no way to determine how different things will be or what might occur. You might retain your memories as the caster of the spell, but you could be cursing yourself into a life worse than the one you have," he explained.

"There is a reason that not even Zeus broke this particular rule and believe me, he broke every other one in the book," he continued. She sighed.

"Your concerns are duly noted, but kindly shut up now," she snapped, as the elevator touched down and she pulled him along, as she lay eyes on the containment cube. With practical giddiness, she pressed the activation button on the device and instead of the magic being released, it was easily sucked into her pendant, as she held it to the cube. It glowed bright green and she put it back on, as she felt the magic flow through her every vein. She grabbed Hades by the arm and brought her face close to his.

"Buckle up...it's time for me to get my happy ending and watch everyone else's burn," she hissed, as they disappeared in a puff of green smoke…

~*~

They entered Cronus' palace and saw that he was standing in the receiving area to greet everyone, with Phobos by his side. He seemed very welcoming and eager to prove himself to the town. But Persephone didn't buy it for a second. However, she was ready to play along with his game and do this dance that he was insisting they do. And if he was responsible for something happening to Hades, then she would make him pay the same way she made the Swans pay.

"Ah...Persephone, as always, you are breathtaking, as is your lovely daughter. It is no secret as to why she is referred to as the fairest of them all," Cronus stated, as he bowed deeply to them, but his gesture only made her more suspicious of him.

"Lord Cronus," she greeted coolly.

"I was quite troubled when I heard of your scuffle with those dreadful outsiders, but I am very pleased to see that you are both all right," he said, looking at Snow and Charming.

"We appreciate that," Snow answered diplomatically, as they moved through the atrium and into toward the ballroom.

"That was pretty uncomfortable," David murmured to her.

"Mmm...I'm still confused as to why he is trying to endear himself to us," Snow murmured back.

"Because you two have the favor of the people," Regina answered for them, as she sided up to them in in a black and purple gown that was indicative of her days as the Evil Queen. However, while the color scheme echoed that time, the design of the dress was decidedly softer, indicating to Snow that she really was trying to re-invent her image.

"She's right," Persephone agreed.

"Do you think he knows how the Swans died?" David asked and she knew he wasn't necessarily referring to Kevin, but rather Jessica.

"Oh, I have no doubt. Phobos might as well be like a parrot on his shoulder. He's fluttered around this entire town and beyond, gathering Intel, and then delivering it to his Master. To what end for him...I'm not certain," Persephone replied.

"Grams! Gramps! Moms!" Henry interjected, as he arrived with Neal. Emma smiled at him, as did Regina, as they greeted him with hugs.

"Looking sharp kid," Emma commented. Neal had taken him with him to pick out attire for that evening and Emma was glad that he got to share that with his father, just as she had gotten to share picking out her own gown with her mother.

"Thanks. This is so awesome!" Henry exclaimed, as he was enamored by all the sights and sounds.

"I don't know about that…" Emma deadpanned, making Neal chuckle.

"What? Emma Swan doesn't care for balls?" he asked sarcastically.

"I don't know...it's just that my parents always go on about these things. I guess I just don't quite get it," she replied, just as they entered the ballroom and her words died on her lips, as she witnessed the synchronized dance taking place and couldn't deny how elegant and magnificent it all suddenly seemed.

"You were saying?" he teased.

"Shut up," she responded, nudging him playfully.

"Hi Henry!" Grace said, as she hurried up to him in her dress with Jefferson and Amy following. They approached with Belle and Rumple, who was surprisingly not dressed in black and rather in a blue formal coat that was something like a Prince would wear, while Belle wore a golden dress.

"Whoa...the Dark One can wear a color other than black," Jefferson commented. Gold rolled his eyes.

"I told you I'd get some smart ass remark about this coat," he muttered to Belle, but she only smiled.

"Well, I like it," she said, as they followed Snow and David into the ballroom.

"Wow…" Henry said in awe, as they watched the dancing.

"Well, shall we, my darling?" he asked, as he bowed to her and held out his hand. Snow grinned and accepted, as they moved onto the dance floor and proceeded to join the waltz.

"Are you and Dad going to dance too?" Henry asked to Emma.

"You're as bad as your Grandma Snow and Grandpa Gold when it comes to the matchmaking, kid," she responded.

"Oh come on...let's do it," Neal prodded, as he held his hand out to her. But she was apprehensive.

"I don't know how to dance like that," she whispered in protested. He chuckled.

"But I do...relax and just let me lead," he replied, as he took her hand and led her onto the dance floor, as they began to dance. She saw her parents grinning at them out of the corner of her eye and then him grinning indulgently at her. She rolled her eyes.

"Okay fine...this is pretty cool," she admitted. Henry beamed at his parents and then looked up at his other Mom.

"I'm glad you're here too, Mom," he said. Regina smiled.

"Me too, Henry," she agreed.

"It's been a long time since we've danced like this," Snow mentioned and he smiled.

"It has...and it's nice to do this again. But if I'm honest, I think I enjoy our casual gatherings at Granny's a bit more," he admitted. She bit her bottom lip.

"You read my mind," she agreed and he pressed his forehead to hers.

"That's good...cause soon there's gonna be a baby and we're gonna be one of those boring couples that stays home every night," he teased.

"Oh, but we will never be boring, my love. And I will relish spending all my evenings curled up in your arms on the couch with our baby," she replied, as he smiled and kissed her passionately.

"Yes...a baby. I haven't had the opportunity to congratulate you, fair Snow," a very unwelcome voice said. Their lips parted and David held her protectively, as Deimos held them in his steely gaze.

"You...stay away from us," Snow hissed.

"Oh, you need not fear me, Princess. All that nastiness is behind us, I assure you," he leered.

"Like hell is it," David growled, but he only smirked smugly.

"I was hoping you'd allow me to cut in and honor me with a dance," he stated.

"Never...just being in your presence makes me want to retch, so you can imagine how sick I'd be if you actually touched me," Snow spat in disgust.

"Yet you let this peasant put his hands all over you. You are a Goddess...and he is…" Deimos started to spout, but she cut him off.

"My husband. He is my husband, my true love and the only man I will ever want. He is everything you are not," she countered with vehemence.

"Step the hell away from my daughter and son-in-law," Persephone growled, as she came to stand before them.

"Good evening Persephone...it's interesting to see you alone. Where is your other half?" Deimos goaded. She narrowed her gaze, wondering if he was involved. Hades had righted a wrong by sending Deimos to the Underworld, only for Cronus to later revive him. But Deimos was as bloodthirsty as they came and it made sense that he might seek revenge.

"What do you know about Hades' whereabouts?" she asked. But he ignored her question.

"I was simply talking to your lovely daughter and you rudely interrupted me," he answered instead.

"Oh, you're quite done talking to her and if I had my magic right now, you'd be nothing but ash," she warned. But he only chuckled.

"Really? And how is that? You're powerful...but not nearly enough to end me," he boasted.

"Deimos...you will stand down now," Cronus ordered.

"I am tired of being denied what should be mine, My Lord. Surely you understand," Deimos replied defiantly.

"She is not yours, you psychopath," Emma growled.

"Deimos...I will not ask you nicely again. Do not make me have you removed. If Princess Snow does not wish to have anything to do with you, then I forbid you to get anywhere near her," Cronus said. Persephone looked at him with a suspicious gaze.

"Your threats might carry more weight if you had an ounce of magic behind them...but you don't and I am by far the strongest man in this room...easily," he surmised.

"Deimos...I know you are a bit thick, but to disobey our King is utterly stupid, even for you," Phobos interjected, as he approached and tried to pull his brother away. But that was a mistake, as Deimos wrapped a hand around his brother's neck and began to choke him.

"You died once for me...and I can easily see that you die again by my hand, dear brother," he growled, as all around him gasped in horror. But he suddenly dropped Phobos, as a thousand volts of plasma coursed through his body. Phobos gasped for air and stood up, brandishing one of Circe's plasma weapons in his hand, as his brother now quivered like a fish out of water on the floor.

"You may be strong, but you have no brains. When I saw this weapon being used by Circe's simpletons and magic disappeared, I swiped one, because I knew it would be the only way to keep you in line without magic," he stated, as he turned and bowed to Snow and David, which surprised them.

"I know you are mistrustful of Lord Cronus, Your Majesties, but know that you are under his protection now," Phobos stated.

"Why would he protect my parents?" Emma asked her grandmother.

"I'm not sure. Phobos has never been evil...but it is odd," Persephone replied, as equally suspicious as her granddaughter.

"Guards...please escort Deimos to a cell in the dungeon," Cronus ordered, as he was taken away, allowing the festivities of the ball to resume.

"Why defend us?" David asked bluntly and skeptically. Phobos offered a thin smile.

"I may be the God of Fear, but I do not abuse my station as my brother does. Deimos is a parasite and I intend to protect people from him this time around," Phobos offered. They accepted his answer for now and cautiously returned to dancing, as Snow blew out a breath.

"Are you okay?" David asked. She nodded.

"I can take you home if you want," he added. But she shook her head.

"No...let's not let that evil monster spoil our evening," she replied. Little could they know though, things were about to go from bad to worse. After another dance, Cronus took to the stage to address the town.

"I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for coming this evening and I hope it has been as enjoyable for you as it has for me," he stated.

"I think we can agree that we must work together in facing those that are here to threaten our way of life. I know many of you think that I myself am a threat and came here to take over the town," he continued.

"But I threw this ball tonight to assure everyone that this is not the case. I seek only a peaceful life and I defer to this town's leaders, our fair and lovely Mayor, Snow White, her beautiful and strong daughter, our Sheriff, Emma Swan, and our Mayor's courageous husband and our deputy, Prince David," he added.

"I am confident in their leadership and that of the new leader chosen to lead the Gods...our dear Persephone. And in protecting this town against Circe and her outsiders, I offer my help in seeing that she does not further disrupt our lives," he finished to applause, just as the ballroom doors slammed open.

"Except Circe is about to be the least of your worries," the redheaded woman stated. Snow narrowed her eyes and she vaguely recognized this woman as someone she had exchanged pleasantries with once at the diner. But she had Hades with her, whom she had in chains, as she pulled him along and glided into the room. Her pendant glowed and the guards that rushed her were picked up and tossed away.

"She has magic…" David uttered.

"Zelena…" Persephone uttered.

"Mother...you know her?" Snow asked.

"I know of her...she is Zelena. The Wicked Witch of the West from Oz," Persephone replied. Emma looked at her incredulously.

"Seriously? She's real too?" she asked and Neal side-eyed her. She sighed.

"Yeah, yeah, daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, Everything's real," she answered for herself.

"Hades…" Persephone uttered, as she started toward them, but Zelena waved her hand, freezing her in place.

"I'm sorry...I was going to tell you she was here and expose her. She decided she had other plans," he apologized.

"How did she get here?" Persephone asked.

"Ruby Slippers...and she's going to cast the spell," Hades responded.

"What spell?" Regina asked.

"Oh, I'm so glad you asked that...sis," Zelena replied, causing shock and gasps to reverberate throughout the room.

"Sis? You're not my sister...I have no sister," Regina refuted.

"Wrong again...I'm the child that Cora conceived from a one night dalliance with some insignificant peon and then dumped in the woods. Had a twister not picked me up and carried me to Oz...then I'd probably have died there in the woods," Zelena revealed.

"You are the child Cora was pregnant with when she met me?" Leopold interjected, as he stepped forth. Zelena smirked.

"Yes...until Eva opened her big mouth and ruined everything," the redhead growled.

"But thankfully, all of that is about to change," she said, as she raised her hand. Panic and screams ensued, as the floor cracked and she created the pillars she needed for her spell.

"What is she talking about?" David asked.

"Time travel...she wants to go back," Hades answered.

"That's impossible...it defies the laws of magic and she knows it," Rumple hissed.

"Hello Rumple...so good to see you again," Zelena purred.

"You know her?" Regina asked incredulously.

"You knew about her?!" Regina roared.

"I never expected her to escape Oz, dearie. She always had vast potential, but she's insane," he answered. Belle gasped, as she suddenly appeared just before them.

"You know as well as I do that, with the right ingredients, that what I want to do is possible," she replied. Rumple gently prodded Belle toward his son for safety.

"In theory...but we both it won't yield the results you want," he warned.

"We'll see," she hissed, as her pendant glowed and he was stricken still, as she used her magic to extract the energy from his mind that she needed for her first talisman. Rumple shuddered and convulsed as she did so.

"Rumple!" Belle cried, as Neal held her back and they were all stunned when a golden brain appeared in Zelena's hand. She smirked gleefully, as she placed it on the first pillar.

"A brain…" she stated, as she glided around the room, until she came face to face with her younger sister. The two women stared at each other, both marveling at their similarities, despite only being half siblings. But Regina gasped in pain, as Zelena's hand went into her chest and ripped her heart out.

"A lot of people in the room might say this is karma for you," Zelena commented, as she placed the heart on the second pillar.

"A heart…" she stated, as she continued her journey around the room and the moment her eyes rested on Snow, David unsheathed his sword.

"No David!" Hades pleaded, but the Prince didn't head his warning and rushed the witch. Zelena smirked and stopped is blade with her bare hand, thanks to magic. David stared at her in disbelief and she smirked smugly at him.

"So brave...so courageous," she goaded, as she snapped his blade and used her magic to shove him away. He collided with the wall and Snow rushed to his side.

"Charming!" she cried, as Emma followed her to help her father up. They watched, as the witch picked up the hilt of Prince Charming's broken sword and placed it on the third pillar.

"Courage…" she stated, as she returned to the center of the room.

"Now for the final ingredient...a product of true love," she said, striking fear into Snow and David's hearts, as she approached.

"Zelena...the baby isn't even close to term. Your spell won't work the same without their infant," Hades warned.

"If you think you're going to get near my baby sibling...then you have another thing coming," Emma growled, as she stood in front of her parents. But Zelena smirked evilly, sending a cold chill down Snow and David's spines.

"I didn't say I needed the baby...I just need a product from this particular true love," she hissed. David's eyes widened and he reached for his daughter, but she disappeared before he could touch her.

"NO!" he and Snow screamed. Emma reappeared on the final pillar, unable to move, and stared tearfully at her parents.

"EMMA!" David cried, as he ran toward her, but Zelena stopped with magic and began choking him. He lost consciousness and she tossed him away.

"Charming!" Snow cried tearfully, as she crashed beside him, gently lifting his head into her lap.

"Zelena...using Emma versus using the baby could seriously alter the results of what you want! This will not end up the way you think!" Hades pleaded.

"He's right...using the Savior in this will almost certainly ensure your doom," Persephone added.

"I'm willing to take my chances. I've done my research...and regardless, this spell will allow me to go back and stop Princess Eva from telling my mother's secret. Then I will become Queen," Zelena stated.

"You're going to kill my sister?" Eli asked in horror. But she only shrugged.

"It's a small price to pay and I doubt she'll really be missed. Take heart though...you'll get to become King," she replied, as her pendant glowed and the spell was activated.

"No...Emma!" Snow cried, as Charming came around. He got to his feet and they ran toward their daughter, despite the flails of energy that were threatening to now blow them back. A tear slipped down her cheek.

"I love you guys…" she said tearfully.

"Mom!" Henry cried.

"I love you kid," she said, Neal held him tightly and looked at her.

"Emma…" he cried.

"I love you Neal…" she said, as the four pillars glowed with blinding green light, thanks to Zelena's pendant and she cackled evilly.

"It's happening!" she said gleefully. Snow and Charming looked at each other with broken, sorrowful stares. He kissed her fiercely.

"I'll find you...nothing will stop me, certainly not some witch. I will always find you," he promised, as he held her and the glowing got brighter. Neal cried out in horror, as Henry disappeared.

"Henry!" he and Regina cried together.

"Don't worry sis...you're next," Zelena said, enjoying it immensely, as she watched her sister fade away.

"Regina…" Snow cried, as she looked at her mother, who was huddled with them.

"It's going to be all right, snow drop. David is right. He'll find you and so will I," she promised, as she turned to Hades.

"I'm sorry...I couldn't stop her and I should have come clean with you sooner," he said, choking back tears.

"I know that you love me...and I know you thought that maybe going back might fix all the things you did. But you don't have to, because you've changed and I love you too," she said tearfully, as they kissed.

"Zelena has not won. This isn't over...we'll fix this. Somehow...I believe that now," he said. She smiled and nodded, as she looked at her daughter and son-in-law.

"It's true love...they'll save us, even if they don't it yet," Persephone reasoned. And with that, they all disappeared…

#Snowing #SnowxCharming #Swanfire #Rumbelle #HadesxPersephone #Greek Mythology meets fairy tales #AU #Charming family #romance #adventure #family #dreaming out loud

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thewolfmancometh · 5 years

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Lords of Chaos (2018) [REVIEW]

You know how you might be scrolling through the internet and you see friends and acquaintances participating in something and your immediate reaction is, “Ugh, I can’t believe these people, I’ll never be caught DEAD doing that because I am too cool for it and would rather do this OTHER thing which will make me look INFINITELY cooler when other people see me doing it!” Well, now imagine you like metal, live in Norway, and it’s the ’90s. Well, if that’s the case, you’ll end up creating a musical style that is “darker” and “more evil” than everything anyone else is playing, which you’ll call “black metal.” Oh, and if you are so committed to this “cause” that you murder people, then you’re the characters in Lords of Chaos, which explores the burgeoning black metal scene, specifically through the eyes of the real-life musicians responsible for Mayhem and Burzum. Lords of Chaos is a twisted and compelling exploration of posers who define themselves by being edgier than their peers and who are so detached from reality that they don’t realize that they’re the ones putting up a front yet have the privilege and means to “fake it ’til they make it.”

Fans of this blog will know that this is usually the part where I describe the plot, yet the plot is so bananas that it must be seen to be believed. Making matters more interesting is that, while some details are dramatized, the more horrific and shocking elements are lifted from the actual metal scene in Norway, which you could learn about through a quick Wikipedia browse. Let’s just say there are murders, suicides, animal sacrifices, church burnings, and young boys trying to look scary by painting their faces with makeup.

You might notice that I’ve categorized this film as both a “horror movie” and also a “non-horror movie.” Pretty weird, huh? Allow me to explain! The film isn’t horrifying in the traditional sense in that there’s some sort of serial killer or supernatural force that motivates the narrative, so in that regard, it’s definitely not a horror movie. However, the events that unfold are deeply unsettling, not only in its depictions of horrible violence, but also in the ways these privileged youths compose themselves and will rattle you to your core. The narrative, as well as the true-life events that inspired it, is a game of one-upmanship that leads our characters to commit disturbing things.

What makes director Jonas Åkerlund‘s depictions of this story so effective is that he never tries to make the characters look cool, because they, well, aren’t. While there is surely an air of mystique to how such a bizarre subgenre of music came together, what with the images of bands wearing corpse paint and what seems to be an infatuation with the devil, the director makes it quite clear that these kids chose to wear corpse paint and worship the devil, really for no other reason than to fabricate an image of themselves that would inspire this mystique. Decades later, there are still people intimidated by such figures, with Lords of Chaos showing that the founders of this “movement” were as insecure as anyone.

Another strength of the film is that, while we might relate to feelings of teenage angst or depression, Åkerlund focuses on empathy over sympathy. These kids (who become adults throughout the film) are frustrated by all of the things every teen must encounter in their adolescence, yet it appears as though no one was around to keep them in check. We can feel bad for someone struggling with depression, sure, but when they reveal that they like to kill cats as performative evil, we stop caring about how their journey turns out. The acts of violence, sadism, and racism are all injected into the story with appropriate timing to snap you back to reality when you begin to feel sorry for the characters and these acts are depicted objectively, as these assholes really were that awful, regardless of whether or not you liked the sounds their musical instruments made.

Here’s the thing: the story of the founding of Mayhem and the birth of black metal is an intrinsically Norwegian story, so when the film begins and the American actors are speaking in very American accents, it’s a little…jarring. Days later, I’m still trying to come to grips with this. Take a movie like David Fincher’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, for example, where all of the actors put on phony Swedish accents while speaking English, only for various signage around the scenery to be written in Swedish. Kinda weird, but the movie is meant to be more accessible to American audiences than the original films and it at least makes sense that this authenticity had to be sacrificed. Having all of these Norwegian characters speaking without a hint of an accent, only for various ancillary characters to show up and speak with Norwegian accents took me out of the experience multiple times. Admittedly, this could be another way that the director wanted to make the central characters stand out from the rest of their community, subconsciously showing how these protagonists never fit in, but you, too, might just be thrown off by the whole thing and raise an eyebrow when Rory Culkin says, “True Norwegian black metal,” in perfect American. I couldn’t help but wish Scandinavian actors could have been found for the necessary roles, with this core component making the film feel more committed to accessibility than to authenticity. There’s also the argument that this adds another layer to the performative nature of the narrative, but I think I’m just talking myself in circles at this point and you can see what I’m getting at.

While I can’t say anyone will enjoy watching Lords of Chaos, it’s a fascinating exploration of a unique time in metal’s history, in addition to delivering a cautionary tale of leading a performative life. If you feel evil, be evil, but don’t be evil just because you want to prove you’re more evil than anyone else, because then you will become the ultimate poser and might as well put on your corpse paint to go to the mall.

Wolfman Moon Scale

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