#so much sympathy for those poor germans

[fuglyhorses]

Followed your blog a few years back even though it wasn't active because I absolutely love it and have gone through it more than once. It was an awesome surprise to see you posting again! In celebration I now have a personal breeding story to tell you.

Some background is that when I got back into horses in 2019 turns out I made the wrong choice on who to go to, but I fell in love with a horse there and now can't leave her, so to cope I like to tell anyone who might be interested about the shit show I am experiencing.

The owner/trainer of the barn was given a horse that had originated from some hunter/jumper barn where they had ridden her over huge jumps at 4 years old and very clearly handled her harshly. When she didn't stay sound and developed behavioral problems they dumped her at a YMCA camp and some people who work there then gave her to the trainer. She tried to put her back in work but she was eventually deemed "unridable". She has behavior problems both in and out of saddle, she would be very difficult to lead, and just bomb through gates and in and out of stalls, she will also be fine for a long time then one day suddenly bite very hard. I'm absolutely sure most of this is due to pain or past pain. Besides having been ridden hard as a youngster she also has a tragic back end. I'm hoping I'm describing this correctly but she basically has no croup. Her topline is just flat from the end of her withers to her tail. Because of this she almost always cross canters behind. So, my trainer has a youngish, unridable, horse with big movement but problematic conformation, behavioral problems, and some kind of pain that prevents her from being truly sound. So what does she decide to do? Breed her of course! For you see, although she has no paperwork, she *supposedly* has warmblood in her! Actual warmblood, perhaps holsteiner or something similar. She apparently is registered with the "american warmblood association" which I know you know means nothing. The horse I ride could also be called an """american warmblood"" and I love her with all my heart but she is literally just a draft cross. So this means she must be a great sperm receptacle, because that's all mares are right? They aren't literally half the DNA of the foal right? Luckily the first year she tried it didn't take, if only the story ended there. Now, this was something that my trainer "always wanted to do" and I am relatively understanding to someone who in their whole horse career wants to have one home bred foal, the market is insane and it is a unique experience and sometimes they are very attached to the mare etc etc. Not something I encourage but I don't think you are the absolute worst if you do this. This is not actuall what my trainers ambition wound up being though. Fast forward to 2022 and the trainer's friend has decided she wants to breed her completely average thoroughbred mare, with no accomplishments to speak of, and picks out a different stallion than the one my trainer had already tried. He is a Westphalian stallion and he is Cremello! Because she wants a buckskin! So trainer's horse and friend's horse get sent down to this guy. In the meantime, trainer's riding horse, an OTTB, is having training problems (doesn't like jumping down into water, which is required in the higher eventing levels) and is not staying sound. So what does she decide to do with her? Breed her as well! Because soundness issues can never be genetic.

So this person who has never worked with baby horses has decided to have two for their very first time. AI doesn't take with OTTB so she gets sent down to the Westphalian too. All three horses do get successfully pregnant. Keep in mind this is a small barn that is already wildly overcrowded, with generally unsafe conditions and no proper unused area for babies and moms to live. Fast forward again almost a year and babies are born a couple months apart, trainer goes out of town both times literally as the mares are about to pop. "Warmblood" mare waits until she gets back but OTTB gives birth literally the day she goes out of the country for two weeks with a tween watching her farm. I also happened to be there when she gave birth which was a very cool experience but still ridiculous. "Warmblood" mare is a good mother, but as you may remember is not actually that easy to handle, which can make it also difficult to handle the baby. OTTB is good with people but aggressive towards the baby especially around food. (Just of a side note both came out Palamino) So since, completely unpredictably, they are having trouble working with the "Warmblood"'s baby because of the mom they decide to wean him at THREE MONTHS. Even the industry standard of 4-6 months has come into question lately because of the evidence of how bad it is for horses. OTTB weans at between 4-5 months because of the aggression towards the baby. "Warmblood" gets sent back to the same stallion almost as soon as the foal is weaned, and OTTB is given AI while the foal is still with her because apparently we have decided we are a breeder now and need to have foals every year! Luckily, neither of them take ( and we get to hear about "Wasted money" ) probably partially because the mares aren't in amazing condition, as they have not been getting unlimited food and even often run out of water because the owner and the kids feeding just forget to fill up buckets. 😊 Now Westphalian is not as strict as other warmblood registries, but they are an actual breed and they do have one, which means inspection. Somehow, it winds up actually being hosted at our barn. When I tell you how ridiculously embarrassing it is to have someone come all the way from Germany to this absolute hole of a barn. When the "Warmblood" mare gets inspected they mention her unfortunate hip anatomy, and also ask why the hell the foal was weaned already. Everyone passes though, not the highest grade but still registered and the foals get their brands and everyone gets their DNA tested. While this is happening the American from the registry actually says something to my trainer about how the "Warmblood's" conformation is going to be a problem in future breeding. After they have left trainer asks "Wait were they saying not to breed "warmblood"? But why if her foal was fine?" First yes, yes that is exactly what they were saying, second it is only by pure chance her foal didn't inherit that butt, you can't pick a choose what the foal gets no matter how fancy of sperm you buy. They proceed to say they were a little snobby even though they were way nicer than they needed to be. Also they wouldn't brand the wood in the barn which I thought was hilarious. Trainer decides AFTER the inspection to finally actually get "warmblood"'s papers? So now both mare's are just sitting and foals go out together with one halflinger in a tiny mud pit. "Warmblood's" foal has started showing some behavioral problems. I haven't had trouble, he basically just has a constant grumpy face, but he has bitten and tried kicking other people. This obviously could never have been predicted when you knew his mother had problems and then weaned him incredibly early emotionally stunting him! He's going to be a big fucker too. OTTB's foal is an angel but loose with those back legs lol. There is someone who really wants her who used to ride at this barn and rode her mother, then moved to a better barn and I hope she gets to have her because she will spoil her and give her a good life.

They both have big ole worm bellies too! Because the manure management is non existent in the pastures and they didn't get wormed at all until this week (maybe). I'm attaching pictures of the "warmblood" mare so you can see what I mean about her hind end. I actually like her a lot and wish I could help her. I hope you "enjoyed" this story, it has been painful for me to live through. I just thought it exemplified so many things this blog is all about. Good to see you back and I hope you're doing well!!!

Oh I was not prepared for the pictures. That's... not good. Thank you for being sensible and reporting back from hell on earth.

#roach back #so much sympathy for those poor germans #something freaky going on with her hip too i'm not surprised her back end movement is weird #toplines so bad they're arguably deformities. this should be a pasture pet absolutely not breeding stock

[thenightling]

Hate to say this, but leaving the children of former aristocrats/royalty alive when remaking a society through revolution only weakens that revolution. It leads to problems when determining who the next ‘legitimate’ ruler is. One rich toddler is not worth more than one hundred poor, starving toddlers just because history puts emphasis on their name and face. You’ve been brainwashed by individualistic propaganda. AND If you really grew up in poverty, you would be disillusioned by the whole ‘children aren’t responsible for their parent’s sins’ logic because it only ever gets applied to privileged children, never to the poor or oppressed. You’re the one that needs to read your history over again (and stop parroting capitalist propaganda lmfao ie:commies need to read a history book) if you cannot even understand the basic frameworks of revolution or why too much sympathy towards the oppressing CLASS leads to failure. Stop bitching about commies making MEMES online and actually go do something for your community.

Okay, this level of callous justification for MURDERING babies is why I'm about to take anonymous asks off yet again. When a third of the anons I’m getting are just insults and telling me to kill myself, another third insisting no children died during the French revolution “And I have a PhD in the French revolution so I would know!” and then a third literally telling me why children deserve to die because of who their parents are...  I’m done.  

 This is too sick. Congratulations. You made the poor person disgusted in other poor people.

And yeah, I did grow up in poverty.  An Apartment complex on Newbridge Road, North Beilmore, NY, Long Island, across the street from a lovely crack house.  Feel free to Google the neighborhood if that was enough clues for you.  Section 8 (that’s welfare) housing.  My mother was seventeen when she had me.  She raised my brother and I in that apartment and we had three other people unofficially living with us.

“If you really grew up in poverty..” I hate no scotsman arguments, especially whey they are PRO-MURDER CHILDREN because of their class.   WTF?!   What the fuck is wrong with this website?!  Seriously!  

I’m not showing “too much sympathy to the oppressive class.”  I’m showing sympathy to ALL any child.  A human baby is a human baby, no matter where they are born or who their parents are.   

Seriously, i am currently temporarily homeless and staying in someone’s back room.  And this reply, this reply is so fucked up, so evil, it’s chilling.

And yes, I DO know history despite what this site has convinced itself about me.  I always scored in the high 90s on World History tests and (during times we “borrowed” cable from a neighbor) grew up on a steady diet of shows like Highlander the series (which was surprisingly historically accurate for a fantasy show with flashbacks), and History Channel and History 2 (before it went defunct).

The American Revolution (which succeeded where the French one lead to eighty years of chaos) did not require murdering the British royals or their children.  And Velvet Revolutions don’t require killing anyone.   

Listen up, anon.   My stepfather was Jewish, my brother is Jewish.  During the holocaust Hitler convinced the German people that Jewish people were the oppressive class and “even the children need to die” and that they were at fault for all of their country’s unhappiness. “The oppressors and their children need to die” takes a whole other meaning if you remember who, in the last hundred years, said those words...

What really chills me about this is I'm not sure if this person realizes or not but they just accidentally paraphrased “The Final solution” and “why the Jewish people (including their children) had to be executed.”  Remember, Hitler convinced the German people that Jews were the oppressive class...   It’s where modern antisemistism created the conspiracy theory that a cabal of powerful, wealthy, Jewish people secretly rule the world.  This isn't anti-classism, it was a dog whistled anti-Semitism.  

https://www.ajc.org/translatehate/conspiracy-theory

https://www.ajc.org/sites/default/files/pdf/2021-10/AJC_TranslateHate-Glossary-October2021.pdf

This person was trying to talk about the French revolution and oppressive classes but accidentally paraphrased Hitler, who tricked a lot of Germans into thinking Jewish people were their oppressors.  Ironic that they think I’m the one who doesn’t know world history. 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mein-Kampf

Once you accidentally paraphrase Hitler to justify child murder you lose ALL footing with me.

If people like the above think I’m stupid than I shall happily be their idiot.

“You can’t have grown up poor if you are not pro-murdering the babies of the oppressors!” is a hot take I want nothing to do with. 

 I’m not okay with killing ANY children!

[scentedchildnacho]

I don't know why the man behind me in line was falling asleep....he appeared to be falling into my stuff so I asked him if I could help him...he is really near my stuff and he said he was sorry and backed off me.....I didn't ask him anything else because around AA....you can't tell how stable people are or not....he might just be some military guy that went out too much and feels like his ass is kicked right now or it might be something more dramatic like Afghanistan soldiers report of exoneration......people pick them up and take them somewhere

German military tactics are around so things usually sympathy provoking can be kind of scary......like he had an episode he doesn't remember....

We don't really talk so I'm not sure how much reality people have or not or if their ultra reality and refuse to lie to themselves anymore

Some people do really get into what the scene is and I find that something just stinky

Breakfast was more of the same.....The City is Ronnie Estes like serial killers and the whole area was called a crackhead and they go around in San Diego vehicles trying to terrify people like farm animals till they run into electric fences or become phobic of common law property or refuse to ever again allow any type of corporate conformism around them

They hate people they have referred to as a crackhead and they do all they can to call us deer road kill

I think Ronnie was capable of murdering like 30 women before he was forced to kill himself after jail....so that is Todd Gloria someone actually was elected not todd Gloria he is mass murderer

Legal groups for poor women are correct it's very wrong to not pay us if we have been called just some object of public research so slowly I have to figure out how to program that so my behaviour leaves a possession from shelter abuse which keeps trying to instill characterization that isn't popular or sympathized with by middle class culture

That and union troops would keep acting out outside seiges three years after confederates surrendered....so these liberties I am also having to realize slowly the insiders finally isn't so obscure locked up mysterious and no one knows who lives there or what ethnic district their in so

There appears to be a lot of change over so

Abuse of dogs is really common there are only a few people who train their dog otherwise they put leashes on it and if it gets psycho enough to pee and poop in untrained ways they just kind of let it till it dies

Some of the men are really mean to those big dogs like really hose ing them if they are stinky in any way or making them do jazzercise exercises on their backs if their rude

That I kind of feel bad for dog realizing their Africans that find dog a cruel scary demonic mask and ritualistically kill them

[lucianalight]

𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑐𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑠 2 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝐽𝑜𝑗𝑜 𝑅𝑎𝑏𝑏𝑖𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑠:

"Jojo pretends to enter the lion’s den, but lacks the courage to explore what it really looks like. And these days, the concept of Nazism has morphed into a more subtle threat that percolates in our society, sometimes in more latent ways than much of the country cares to admit. Satirizing Nazism from decades past is basically a copout.

That’s probably why some people love it. If Waititi wallowed in the bleak realities of Jewish persecution or the continuation of anti-Semitism to this day, it wouldn’t be “Jojo Rabbit.” Like much of Waititi’s work, this colorful coming-of-age comedy merges whimsy with the emotional poignance of a child coming to grips with the adult world, and on some occasions it musters real sympathy for that plight. But the adult world surrounding him plays like a half-hearted cartoon. 

The movie also portrays him as murderous anti-Semite. “Jojo Rabbit” never reconciles these competing variables, nor does it attempt to interrogate the very real paradox of a kind-hearted person with a monstrous relationship to the world.

the inanity of the Nazi character stems from a realistic core. When Waititi himself surfaces as Jojo’s imaginary Hitler pal, he’s just a child’s notion of heroism, devoid of substance. It’s believable that Jojo may be too young to grok the sheer mania of Nazism, but the movie dangles his naïveté as a joke unto itself: Kids those days believed the damnedest things!

Jojo Rabbit.premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the coveted Audience Prize, but fewer people made time to see a very different Holocaust movie in the festival lineup that also dealt with a child’s perspective on the war. “The Painted Bird,”

The Painted Bird never aspires to make a mockery of its subject, but it takes some audacious (if not always successful) risks in how it approaches its goal. The poor kid’s struggles are so ludicrous that they nearly pitch into an absurdist comedy, with the kind of brash provocations that suggest the specter of Lars von Trier. It has the ambition missing from “Jojo,” a willingness to look directly into the void rather than sparing viewers the ugly realities of relentless struggle.

And maybe that’s why it will only appeal to the small fraction of people willing to take the plunge."

𝐼 𝑔𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑚𝑦 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑒𝑠 𝐽𝑜𝑗𝑜 𝑅𝑎𝑏𝑏𝑖𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑑𝑒 ℎ𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑇𝑎𝑖𝑘𝑎 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑘 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑑 (𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑛𝑒𝑦 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑐𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑙𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑘𝑎), 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑠 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑘𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒. 𝑂𝑓 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑠 𝑁𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐻𝑖𝑡𝑙𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛, ℎ𝑒 𝑆𝑇𝐼𝐿𝐿 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑦 𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑘 𝑖𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑢𝑠 "𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒"

"As a self-proclaimed “anti-hate satire” (or, in Waititi's words, an “anti-fuckface satire”) the apparent objects of Jojo Rabbit’s scorn are Nazism particularly, and a more generalized culture of zealous hate-mongering that is, in a modern context, productively associated with Nazism and its history. In the first respect, the film offers little beyond broad lampoonery. The Nazis figured onscreen (played by Sam Rockwell, Stephen Merchant, Rebel Wilson, and other familiar-ish faces) are depicted as utterly buffoonish. 

A major problem here is that playing this historical material for laughs feels utterly facile. This is especially true when it comes to the indoctrination of the impressionable youth, which Jojo takes as its ostensible subject. (The opening credits score footage of Nazi rallies to the Beatles’ German-language version of “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” drawing a nifty connection between Beatlemania and Hitlermania as some manic youth cult, which the film never bothers to develop.) 

But Waititi, who is seemingly possessed by the desire to make sure his audience gets it, lest his “let’s laugh at the Nazis” gambit be deemed garish or tasteless, takes pains to double-underline the jokes.

This commendation is hardly surprising given how much Jojo shares with these other certified crowd-pleasers. With its mile-wide lampooning and deliberate avoidance of the breadth of Nazism’s horrors (anti-Semitism may be front-and-centre, but the Holocaust itself is never confronted head-on), Jojo Rabbit never risks actually disturbing its audience. Instead, they are left comforted by the notion that it is bad to hate and that simply recognizing that truism is the basis of a moral life."

Thank you @loki-snape-our-hero ! This was really enlightening. I remember reading an article a long time ago saying that TW played it safe and didn’t actually explored the important and risky aspects of Nazism in Jojo Rabbit. This explains why. I just want to add my two cents about some parts that specially bothered me.

It’s believable that Jojo may be too young to grok the sheer mania of Nazism, but the movie dangles his naïveté as a joke unto itself: Kids those days believed the damnedest things! 

As if kids being brainwashed by hate and harmful ideologies is a joke. As if it’s funny that their childhood is taken from them. I don’t want to keep drawing parallels but I just can’t help it when I know and see and have experienced what this kind of brainwashing does to people and how its affects keep hurting you through all your life.

Instead, they are left comforted by the notion that it is bad to hate and that simply recognizing that truism is the basis of a moral life. 

That is never enough. It is not enough to not hate. You have to take a stand against it. You have to call it out and take action against it. Only then there is a chance that hate can be defeated.

#anti taika waititi #anti jojo rabbit #messages #loki-snape-our-hero

[sapphireorison]

“Well, what I now want to say is as follows: the war brought home to me (with sundry weightier matters) that the Genius Loci, under whose invocation I have so often placed what at first sight might seem mere jottings of an idle wanderer, is, when you understand him, really the most decent, as he is the youngest and humblest, of the indwelling gods whom we make for ourselves. Since he has none of the appeals, however gloriously veiled, to savagery and self-righteousness which are made by, and for, most of his more venerable, or at least more authorized, fellow-gods. Like them, the genius of places exists not in the consistent, hence so often ruthless, Outer Reality, but in the human heart, as Milton put it, upright and pure. Indeed, a heart less ostentatiously upright and a good deal purer of violence and self-justification than was ever contemplated by Milton; a heart, at all events, more often uplifted in goodwill, more entirely dedicated to peace, than the old temple of our bosom is likely to be for many a year to come.

“We have taken to going abroad once more.” Some people (not you, dear Mona!) will here demur—“and we travel even in ex-enemy countries. Has not Bayreuth been reopened this very year?” No doubt. But you are not performing my small Divinity's rites by carrying national prejudices from hotel to hotel and gallery and theatre. Neither does the dear Genius Loci arise out of guide-books, however faked to look like historical treatises and poetic phantasies. Nor can you be initiated into his mysteries even by Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, so long as you regard those “three B’s” (we were assured thereof in the war years!) as having been, at least potentially, pro-Ally.

Therefore in the teeth of those very Highest Principles on whose behalf all belligerent nations have slaughtered and been slaughtered so lately, I venture to assert that the poor little Genius Loci is a truly moral godhead indeed, one of the few who cannot be used to mask our evil, and often preposterous passions. His worship requires, not merely boasts of, a disinterested interest in Men and Things. And that is uncommon. For even at the moments when he lurks in mere woods and waters, and in relics of centuries so remote that the careless eye mistakes them for stocks and stones, the Genius of Places has taken his being in our contemplation of times and peoples not our own, but felt by our imagination and sympathy to be consubstantial with ourselves in whatever in us is not trumpery, deciduous or abominable.

He is transcendent and immortal. And whatsoever in a place or a people can thus appeal to our loving contemplation is that place's or people's purer essence, differing somewhat from that of us who contemplate it, but equal in value, our worthiness initiating us into recognition of foreign worth. The Genius Loci is that portion of nations and civilizations which, while it speaks aloud in their philosophy and poetry and music, and is written clearly in the shapes of their buildings, addresses itself to the initiate mind in their humbler habits, kindly and gracious, sometimes childish and funny: in the little boxes for winter-starved birds in German and Swiss villages; the wheels for friendly storks, and the beribboned Christmas trees on newly carpentered roofs; in these as much as in the classic evergreen garlands which Italians and Greeks hang even now round their church doors, or the dionysiac bunch of grapes still placed by the vintners of Burgundy between the broken stone fingers of the Mother of Christ. Things, all these, which involve for their heartfelt recognition just what the war and its war-breeding settlement have made, for the time being, an end of; and what judicious persons warned me against mentioning on my title page. To wit, Peace and Goodwill.

You doubtless remember that the English-speaking angels present at the Nativity ventured on the (rather rash?) announcement that peace and goodwill were coming upon earth; whereas the wilier angels of Latin speech made the proviso that men must possess good will before they could witness any such desirable novelty: et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis, i.e. and on Earth Peace to, through, or by reason of (dative or ablative), men of good will. But whichever way we choose to interpret this doubtful passage of Scripture, this much is, to me, certain—namely, that the Genius Loci is a little divinity whose delicate and protean manifestations betoken, nay require, the presence of that peace and goodwill. That is why I am glad to have consecrated so much paper and ink and passionate care to his, albeit seemingly frivolous, service.”

—excerpt from the Dedication of The Golden Keys and other essays on the Genius Loci by Vernon Lee, Litt.D., to Mona Taylor in October, 1924.

#genius loci #Vernon Lee #The Golden Keys #1924 #invocation of the muse

[mdccanon]

I'm feelimg very disengaged with how they write Karli

Sam, Bucky, Sharon and Zemo are the best written. You understand what they want and what they are willing to do to get it. And it's understandable, they are the established characters.

John and Karli on the other hand, are the new characters, both firmly antagonistic in nature. But TFATWS is dropping the ball on the two pillars of antagonists: they be a viable threat to the heroes and they push along the story's overall tension.

Karli's storyline has almost been a slice-of-life, it has so little tension. NONE of her scenes are in any type of sequential order. They are in chronological order. Sure. But absolutely no sequential logic is followed here. It robs this adorable Robin Hood of any clear methodology or stakes to what she does.

Karli's men steal money.

In the next scene, they are with the German Host. They don't even give him money. So, what was the money for?

Karli and her men steal TWO truckloads of medicine and vaccines.

In the next episode, her mum dies because she didn't have any medicine. So, what was the medicine Karli stole for?!

Lex Luthor Lite says that Karli originally just wanted serum for her sick mum. But then her mum dies midway through Ep 3, long after Karli had the serum. So why hadn't Karli saved her mum with serum?!

The Power Broker's men killed Karli's friend as they were escaping Germany. Next episode, Karli sets fire to GRC storehouse workers because "violence is the only language THEY understand". Literally the only GRC person who'd used any violence against Karli up the point was John when she was stealing the two trucks. WHO is she talking about?! The only way to reconcile those disconnected scenes is for GRC to be Power Broker and Karli knows that. XD

Really... 70% of Karli's story doesn't track. This show only takes place 3 months after Endgame. Which one of these is her backstory: Karli was a poor little orphan before Thanos and in the chaos of the five years her mum took her in, they survived together and that's why she considers those five years better? Or, has she been an orphan into her adulthood, Thanos Snapped, and then her mum found her and they made their community of displaced people?

Because the more Karli emphasizes that her community is made of displaced people from the Blip, the more she makes it sound like she only met these people, including her mum, three months ago... And I'm not saying that she can't have found family and become attached that quickly, however, this show started with Karli making the premise that "Life was better before the Blip" and now it's slowly becoming "I found my family because of the Blip" and that doesn't track.

Because, basically, if Karli survived the FIVE years by herself and didn't have sympathy for ANYONE who lost family to Thanos because she was already a family-less person, but then the Blip happened and the worst thing that happened to her is that she lost her apartment.... Karli is a fucking sociopath. XD

"No, no. Even if it's true that Karli was a blank slate before the Blip, she has so much sympathy for the displaced that she's fighting for them."

So then, if the Blipped people had been the ones in shelters (like they were in Far From Home... I understand that the political will would be to overcompensate FOR the Returned, but does that mean New York kicked out a family to give Spider-Man his apt?) would Karli have quit her job and left her apartment FOR a Blipped person, would she have been a hero for THOSE displaced people?!

I recognize that she's supposed to be an antagonist... But this show is doing a real disservice to her. She has no clear goal or aim besides slice-of-life level "I help the helpless!" And she has no reason to be as violent or hostile as she is...

And I'm saying this as a person who has experienced mild survivor's guilt from 2020. Not because I lost someone, but because I didn't. I didn't lose my job, I didn't lose family, I didn't lose my home. A worldwide pandemic and I was largely a spectator. I can't imagine claiming that 2020 was a great year just because it was a great year for me. I'VE THOUGHT about how I'd feel if the government overcompensated for 2020 by literally giving my job and apartment to... A young person completely orphaned by COVID... I'd be mad, but that still wouldn't cause me to call 2020 a great year.

The story just isn't doing her service. Jesus, I mean, WHICH country borders changed? Logistically, why are the displaced people survivors? Did humanity literally tear down half of all housing in five years? The surviving adults all still have jobs, don't they? Even if their homes were given back to blipped people, why would they become homeless?!?!

And this is all still within the last three months!

This show... Isn't explaining anything behind WHY Karli should even be this extreme!!!

#karli morgenthau #the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws

[captainclervals]

list of mildly interesting and/or stupid comments from the new annotated frankenstein along with some comparisons between the 1818, Thomas, and 1831 texts 

I’m dividing these notes up by volume because there’s so MUCH lol

Letter I

The date of Walton’s first letter is calculated to be 1798

“Walton would have inherited his cousin’s fortune at age twenty-one. He is unlikely to have taken a whole year to resolve on his undertaking, making him twenty-seven at the time of writing this letter and his later claim to be age twenty-eight a slight exaggeration.” (oh come on WHY WOULD HE LIE ABOUT HIS AGE TO HIS SISTER….)

The books Walton read from his uncle’s library were likely Richard Hakluyt’s The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (1582) with a later edition encompassing 16 volumes, as well as Samuel Purchas’s Purchas His Pilgrimes (1692), and possibly Gerhard Friedrich Muller’s Sammlung Russischer Geschichten (1758)

The distance between St Petersburg and Archangel was 783 miles and took 16 hours

“The signature here is a touch formal for a brother—”R. Walton”—but this may be forgiven as an addition made by Mary Shelley.” (its… its a literature device)

Letter II

“I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me . . . “ “[S]ympathy may mean the capacity to experience the feelings of another, but it also means a magical or mechanical connection. Lovers … were said to be in ‘sympathy’ with each other as well.”

Walton would have been expected to have at least a little knowledge of the Romance languages but since he called himself “illiterate” he probably didn’t have any Latin or Greek studies, and most likely didn’t know any Scandinavian languages which would be a barrier between him and his crew

Walton was born either late 1770 or early 1771

“I shall do nothing rashly; you know me sufficiently to confide in my prudence and considerateness whenever the safety of others is committed to my care.” “Either Walton is a very poor judge of his own character or suffers a great change in personality, for nothing could be further from the truth with regards to his eventual treatment of his crew.”

Letter III

Revisions in the 1831 version were meant to further drive in Walton’s hubris to parallel Victor’s

Letter IV

“We will argue that… the year is 1799; however, July 31 was not a Monday in that year[.] Walton must have miscalculated his days.” (why are we nitpicking this man so BAD)

Ships kept time by “bells” every half hour during a four hour duty

Thomas Text: “Are we then near land, and is this unknown waste inhabited by giants, of which the being we saw is a specimen? Such an idea is contrary to all experience, but if what we saw was an optical delusion, it was the most perfect and wonderful recorded in the history of nature.”

“The dog promptly disappears from the narrative—eaten?”

Victor spoke English, French, German and Latin

The brandy treatment was a mixture of two parts brandy with one part salt and diluted with hot water, given by rubbing on the head along with a few spoonfuls and was supposed to treat dizziness and nervous attacks

“In the 1818 edition, [Victor] is a man led astray by overly high ambitions, racked with guilt, while in the 1831 edition, he excuses his conduct on the grounds that he was an unfortunate victim of fate, and therefore not responsible for the outcome.”

Shelley became convinced that “human events are decided not by personal choice or free will but by an indifferent destiny or fate. These values implicitly espoused in the first edition of Frankenstein—that nature is a nurturing and benevolent life force that punishes only those who transgress against its sacred rights, that Victor is morally responsible for his acts, that the creature is potentially good but driven to evil by social and parental neglect, that a family like the De Laceys that loves all its children equally offers the best hope for human happiness, and that human egotism causes the greatest suffering in the world—are all rejected in the 1831 revisions.” (Anne K. Mellor, “Choosing a Text of Frankenstein”)

In the 1831 edition Victor is written to be a “moralizer” and doesn’t admit what he’s done to relieve his guilt, but instead to set himself up to “convey an apt moral.” he doesn’t seem to feel guilty at all in this version or want to change Walton’s mind about his goals, but eggs him on

the 1831 edition uses descriptions of Victor to give a more “saint-like” manner/appearance, going along with how Shelley changed him to be more of an innocent victim of chance

#txt #this bit is just the commentary on rob's letters

[paraclete0407]

Stuff I might never get to do (from books I read after I thought I had mastered the Bible / Scripture)

1.

Theories of ‘political vision’ - ex. Obama’s ‘A Promised Land,’ or from someone I miss, UKPM David Cameron’s ‘For the Record.’  Also records of military careers and the consequences and lessons therefrom, particularly Gen., Prof. Stanley A. McChrystal’s ‘My Share of the Task’ - decades of one meal a day, utterly excellent love-letters and wisdom-writings to his wife, sweeping reports, culminating in the operation that ‘extrajudicially or para-judicially executed’ bin Laden.  I also never forgot the NYTimes photo of the SEAL operator’s back-muscles.  My giant Obama critique, however, was one of those ‘grandfather Hall of Presidents’ books that I want to postpone.

2.

My mistakes and wishes.  Ex. the woman I wanted to marry in early 2011; I had cut off my parents for 6 months and called one night my mom; she got really drunk that night, flirted with foreigners from [ultra-mercenary cram-school that hires anyone], got terrorized by [b/Black man of the type who clearly believes ‘As I am b/Black I know everything worth knowing and can terrorize, antagonize, demonize anyone and anything for the greater glory of my own ego / Chairman Mao].  Culminating in me in the ladies’ room telling her to get up and I told her so, going back to the pub-room and threatening the mercenaries, and finally being ‘mogged,’ masculinity-compromised or eclipsed / overpowered, by the man who was either her surrogate father-figure, rapist, seducee-turned-wrist-breaking-controller, no one really knew, and my ex-father-figure who however either a) failed to bait the trap properly and/or b) failed to communicate the true meaning and message and purpose of his love for me, to me.  But, it was instrumental in blowing what was probably the best job I ever had, and the only job that ever asked me back. 

After that I started honestly trying to live for either a) the younger generation b) ‘just me.’  I also made a number of hard or soft promises to students involving me writing stuff.  Don’t say ‘will’ or ‘might’ to Koreans b/c it kind of spiritually translates in to ‘shall’ or ‘must’ or ‘has to.’  They’re the poor in spirit from what I can tell.  

I also drove around California for a while, missed a job-offer from a Catholic university in [central Korean city], and thought a lot about F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Studied Emmanuel ‘ethics-as-first-philosophy love-of-wisdom-converting-into-wisdom-of-love’ Levinas a bit, read ‘Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother’ and couldn’t sleep

3.

Sundry ‘Teacher Dream(s).’  I’d been hoping in a way that ‘Free Food for Millionaires’ author Min Jin Lee, JD Yale etc, would put this all in her ‘American Hagwon’ but she’s been baking fancy cakes and writing offside / deflective lit. about Japanese gays for like 10 years while NK marched on in real life killing people and Koreans were also dying from numerous causes, running away from home, economically induced suicide, amazing shame- and rape-culture: cashing in.  I remember my last night at the hagwon, a time of bonhomie, when I perhaps might’ve even said, ’Y’know, can I un-resign-in-protest?’  Boss, What’ll you miss most about Korea, Korean women?’  Me (playing the fool), ‘There are Korean women in America.’  Boss, (sforzando), ‘Gyopo women.’

My ‘best guess’ anyway at ‘edubusiness’ was sth I labored at off and on for now like 6 years called ‘Three Kings’ which is partly about a white ex-literary agent family named ‘Foch’ after the French Generalissime who actually won WW1, famous for his ‘moral factor’ theory of war as well as his remark, ‘This is not a peace but an armistice for 20 years.  He makes 400,000 dollars in his 1st year of college by advising his roommate to publish his ‘freshman’ novel with an extreme ‘point,’ not worrying about winning every possible reader, just let me edit all the sign-post-phrases and tell you what I firmly believe you were trying to write, sell this novel for 2million dollars, marry the Korean girl across the hall, forget RU, cultivate life and love with your stylus, and I’ll continue to march on simultaneously trying to promote love while reading everyone and everything semi-against or [angle / thrust-vector to] their grain (for their own good).  Later he starts a school with his two friends, an MD/PhD program dropout from LA and an MBA ex-Samsung Managing Director or something.  But in the end his MD/PhD friend can’t stop thinking about [student’s] amazing breasts and [MBA] friend can’t stop hating and short-selling himself w/r/t marriage and self-regard b/c he’s stuck in the other-always-has-more-money-always-more-money-to-make mentality.  In the end the protagonist resigns in protest from the company he himself designed, developed, planned, etc. but didn’t have the money to call his own after reaching the position of ‘Joint Department Head’ which is kind of like ‘Chief of Staff’ to a president at a much smaller scale.  He’s a devout literal Christian or at least Christianist who wishes the world were Christian and he reflects in the end on the Longfellow poem about the Three Kings who ‘know King Herod’s hate’ and had to travel back to their homelands a different way.  There is also a possibly-to-be-deleted ‘Interludio Meridiana’ where he happens across the molested constantly male-gazed student in Nonhyeon (a neighborhood South of the Han River but not at all like the PSY song), starts to hear Palestrina’s ‘Sicut Cervus’ (listen to it on YouTube - Palestrina’s polyphony philosophy is one of the crowns of human art) in his head, wanders down to the bus depot and finds that his thoughts / creativity etc. have become cathected, chained to, or at least led by memory, and he has joined a ‘chain of being’ that connects the past to the future.  

4.

‘Bethlehem Dream’ - kind of my homage to the forementioned Kim Minju of IZ*ONE, my last favorite pop-star before assuring Christian friend I’d stop following K-pop (I’m against BlackPink and their entire organization).  Connects to all my dreams and theories of education - including my extreme disillusionment with education, and sympathy for anyone made the ‘beneficiary’ of the latest theory or tool - as well my homage to the school that most closely approximates my dream school, Prof,. Pastor, Dr. Chancellor John Piper’s Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis.  And also, women’s desire to have children / babies, even without husbands, men’s desire to bear spiritual fruit with or without traditional fellowship.

5.

Masculinity in novels.  Not Norman Mailer Philip Roth stuff but novels that can lens reality from the top down and not get addicted to some or other cupidity or method of endearing / charming the audience, which often makes them stupider or causes them to regard hidden truth as an outright lie and/or triviality.  MJL’s ‘Free Food for Millionaires’ was pretty masculine; better is billionaire Michael Kim’s ‘Offerings,’ a novel I wish I could teach someone only I can’t find a good student / reader and maybe I myself missed the point and only thought I got it.

Thinking quitting while ahead - I really don’t know whether adding to people’s minds and knowledge at this point in Time is good or whether writing amounts to feasting the already glutted, furnishing them further excuses for disbelief and inaction and alienating / dividing them from the hungry and poor.  I like a song called ‘Love Song for No. 1.’  Remember talking about a walk in the woods I took, understanding something about the Other’s first language the authenticity of this language and its nativity to their understanding and ‘originary’ or ‘birth-mother’ identity or ‘self-system.’  Not something to tell your Anglo-but-ish-they-were-Teutonic biological parents because they will make like they want to backhand your head off then spend years denying they’re either racist, non-believers, or what I have come to call anti-believers; people who amid ‘Delta Covid Summer’ are trying to destroy the beliefs of others.  Also Dr. R.C Sproul Ligonier Ministries, ‘Forgetfulness is apostasy.’

6.

‘Flowers on Water.’  Kind of my homage to Krystal Jung Soojung of ‘hieroglyphic’ girl-group f(x) and later IMO excellent actress, her best moment perhaps the final episode of ‘My Lovely Girl,’ a shocking and awesome scene that appears to talk about Resurrection and Eternity.  The protagonist is another cynical edubusinessman who is thinking about mass-death, getting mad at mainstream American Christianity for singing songs while people were drowning, and finally on Google Books comes across a teacher-poem from 1881 titled ‘Flowers,’ for a group of rather hapless seemingly American Indian students in California as well as critiques of educational praxis which, in 1881, were identical to what they are today.  ‘God is sovereign in all things’ - such a difficult category.  I abandoned this novel for a number of reasons such as the belief that I might be able to reverse-engineer Brad Thor or something for a quick buck.  Went to Half Price Books (now closed) where they had a picture of the Jackson Five over the toilet in the men’s room.  I read a bit of a one-dollar Brad Thor book about Russia but on the way on home I once started once again dreaming mytically about Korean girls / women as it began to snow and thinking about ‘Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming’ (’Es Ist Ein Rosentsprungen) the German Nativity song which Michael Praetorius composed at least in part in response to the appalling Reformation Wars and out of a hope or wish that remembrance of Christ’s birth could somehow reunite the Church.  This also made me think about a high school I admire / respect and my old friend and his now-divorced wife with whom I many times fantasized about singing and talking with again; and whom I kind of wish I could tell the author of ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ remarried his first wife eventually but IDK what good it is to give already-dreaming people more dreams either.  

It’s 9:35 AM and my ‘insomnia’ type notebook-postings haven’t made me any new friends in a while.  My last thing is just, if you care about Education or young girls / American women / culture / schools, achievement, heroines, stories, or for that matter Bible-translation or the latter-day odysseys of the nominal Episcopalian Church, with trembling heart, try to reflect on Headmaster Josiah Bunting III’s ‘All Loves Excelling.’  

One of my favorite Christian songs is ‘The Death of King David’

And God said that day shall dawn

to bring that flow’r newly born

from thy stem in fullness growing

in fragrance sweet night and morn

all My people shall adorn

with Breath of life bestowing

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

[wolfliving]

Account of Lord Byron’s Greek residence

*I’m hard put to believe a word of this highly-colored account of Byron’s house in exile, but it’s hard to get more Romantic than this.  Extra points for the lack of paintings and the heaps of books covered with scrawled notes.

ACCOUNT OF LORD BYRON'S RESIDENCE, &c.

"The world was all before him, where to choose his place of rest, and Providence his guide."

IN Sailing through the Grecian Archipelago, on board one of his Majesty's vessels, in the year 1812, we put into the harbour of Mitylene, in the island of that name. 

The beauty of this place, and the certain supply of cattle and vegetables always to be had there, induce many British vessels to visit it—both men of war and merchantmen; and though it lies rather out of the track for ships bound to Smyrna, its bounties amply repay for the deviation of a voyage. 

We landed; as usual, at the bottom of the bay, and whilst the men were employed in watering, and the purser bargaining for cattle with the natives, the clergyman and myself took a ramble to the cave called Homer's School, and other places, where we had been before. 

On the brow of Mount Ida (a small monticule so named) we met with and engaged a young Greek as our guide, who told us he had come from Scio with an English lord, who left the island four days previous to our arrival in his felucca. 

"He engaged me as a pilot," said the Greek, "and would have taken me with him; but I did not choose to quit Mitylene, where I am likely to get married. He was an odd, but a very good man. The cottage over the hill, facing the river, belongs to him, and he has left an old man in charge of it: he gave Dominick, the wine-trader, six hundred zechines for it, (about L250 English currency,) and has resided there about fourteen months, though not constantly; for he sails in his felucca very often to the different islands."

This account excited our curiosity very much, and we lost no time in hastening to the house where our countryman had resided. We were kindly received by an old man, who conducted us over the mansion. 

It consisted of four apartments on the ground-floor—an entrance hall, a drawing-room, a sitting parlour, and a bed-room, with a spacious closet annexed. They were all simply decorated: plain green-stained walls, marble tables on either side, a large myrtle in the centre, and a small fountain beneath, which could be made to play through the branches by moving a spring fixed in the side of a small bronze Venus in a leaning posture; a large couch or sofa completed the furniture. 

In the hall stood half a dozen English cane chairs, and an empty book-case: there were no mirrors, nor a single painting. The bedchamber had merely a large mattress spread on the floor, with two stuffed cotton quilts and a pillow—the common bed throughout Greece.

 In the sitting-room we observed a marble recess, formerly, the old man told us, filled with books and papers, which were then in a large seaman's chest in the closet: it was open, but we did not think ourselves justified in examining the contents. On the tablet of the recess lay Voltaire's, Shakspeare's, Boileau's, and Rousseau's works complete; Volney's Ruins of Empires; Zimmerman, in the German language; Klopstock's Messiah; Kotzebue's novels; Schiller's play of the Robbers; Milton's Paradise Lost, an Italian edition, printed at Parma in 1810; several small pamphlets from the Greek press at Constantinople, much torn, but no English book of any description. Most of these books were filled with marginal notes, written with a pencil, in Italian and Latin. The Messiah was literally scribbled all over, and marked with slips of paper, on which also were remarks.

The old man said: "The lord had been reading these books the evening before he sailed, and forgot to place them with the others; but," said he, "there they must lie until his return; for he is so particular, that were I to move one thing without orders, he would frown upon me for a week together; he is otherways very good. I once did him a service; and I have the produce of this farm for the trouble of taking care of it, except twenty zechines which I pay to an aged Armenian who resides in a small cottage in the wood, and whom the lord brought here from Adrianople; I don't know for what reason."

The appearance of the house externally was pleasing. The portico in front was fifty paces long and fourteen broad, and the fluted marble pillars with black plinths and fret-work cornices, (as it is now customary in Grecian architecture,) were considerably higher than the roof. The roof, surrounded by a light stone balustrade, was covered by a fine Turkey carpet, beneath an awning of strong coarse linen. Most of the house-tops are thus furnished, as upon them the Greeks pass their evenings in smoking, drinking light wines, such as "lachryma christi," eating fruit, and enjoying the evening breeze.

On the left hand as we entered the house, a small streamlet glided away, grapes, oranges and limes were clustering together on its borders, and under the shade of two large myrtle bushes, a marble seat with an ornamental wooden back was placed, on which we were told, the lord passed many of his evenings and nights till twelve o'clock, reading, writing, and talking to himself. "I suppose," said the old man, "praying" for he was very devout, "and always attended our church twice a week, besides Sundays."

The view from this seat was what may be termed "a bird's-eye view." A line of rich vineyards led the eye to Mount Calcla, covered with olive and myrtle trees in bloom, and on the summit of which an ancient Greek temple appeared in majestic decay. A small stream issuing from the ruins descended in broken cascades, until it was lost in the woods near the mountain's base. 

The sea smooth as glass, and an horizon unshadowed by a single cloud, terminates the view in front; and a little on the left, through a vista of lofty chesnut and palm-trees, several small islands were distinctly observed, studding the light blue wave with spots of emerald green. I seldom enjoyed a view more than I did this; but our enquiries were fruitless as to the name of the person who had resided in this romantic solitude: none knew his name but Dominick, his banker, who had gone to Candia. 

"The Armenian," said our conductor, "could tell, but I am sure he will not,"—"And cannot you tell, old friend?" said I—"If I can," said he, "I dare not." 

We had not time to visit the Armenian, but on our return to the town we learnt several particulars of the isolated lord. He had portioned eight young girls when he was last upon the island, and even danced with them at the nuptial feast. He gave a cow to one man, horses to others, and cotton and silk to the girls who live by weaving these articles. He also bought a new boat for a fisherman who had lost his own in a gale, and he often gave Greek Testaments to the poor children. In short, he appeared to us, from all we collected, to have been a very eccentric and benevolent character. 

One circumstance we learnt, which our old friend at the cottage thought proper not to disclose. He had a most beautiful daughter, with whom the lord was often seen walking on the sea-shore, and he had bought her a piano-forte, and taught her himself the use of it.

Such was the information with which we departed from the peaceful isle of Mitylene; our imaginations all on the rack, guessing who this rambler in Greece could be. 

He had money it was evident: he had philanthropy of disposition, and all those eccentricities which mark peculiar genius. 

Arrived at Palermo, all our doubts were dispelled. Falling in company with Mr. FOSTER, the architect, a pupil of WYATT'S, who had been travelling in Egypt and Greece, "The individual," said he, "about whom you are so anxious, is Lord Byron; I met him in my travels on the island of Tenedos, and I also visited him at Mitylene." 

We had never then heard of his lordship's fame, as we had been some years from home; but "Childe Harolde" being put into our hands we recognized the recluse of Calcla in every page. Deeply did we regret not having been more curious in our researches at the cottage, but we consoled ourselves with the idea of returning to Mitylene on some future day; but to me that day will never return.

 I make this statement, believing it not quite uninteresting, and in justice to his lordship's good name, which has been grossly slandered. He has been described as of an unfeeling disposition, averse to associating with human nature, or contributing in any way to sooth its sorrows, or add to its pleasures. The fact is directly the reverse, as may be plainly gathered from these little anecdotes. 

All the finer feelings of the heart, so elegantly depicted in his lordship's poems, seem to have their seat in his bosom. Tenderness, sympathy, and charity appear to guide all his actions: and his courting the repose of solitude is an additional reason for marking him as a being on whose heart Religion hath set her seal, and over whose head Benevolence hath thrown her mantle. No man can read the preceding pleasing "traits" without feeling proud of him as a countryman. 

With respect to his loves or pleasures, I do not assume a right to give an opinion. Reports are ever to be received with caution, particularly when directed against man's moral integrity; and he who dares justify himself before that awful tribunal where all must appear, alone may censure the errors of a fellow-mortal. Lord Byron's character is worthy of his genius. To do good in secret, and shun the world's applause, is the surest testimony of a virtuous heart and self-approving conscience.

THE END

[marq922]

Eobard in a Wells-Stack

Summary: After being captured by Team Flash for the hundredth time, Eobard gets a visit while he's in his cell.

Warnings: Slight profanity.

Primary pairs: N/A

Canon/Head: Canon

part 2

After capturing Eobard, who was now in Nash’s body, Team Flash left the potential threat alone in his cell. Eobard took off Nash’s jacket and threw it into a corner of the cell before taking a seat on the padded floor. His back pushed up against the wall, his eyes on the glass. He was to wait patiently, as he had many times before. 

“I’m going to get to each of them. One way or another.” Eobard told himself. “I’m done with the waiting.”

“Do you really think that, les yeux rouges?” A voice with a rather strong accent muttered. Two versions of Harrison Wells stood side by side in a corner left of our antagonist. The one who recently spoke lifted his hat before readjusting it on his head. 

“I wouldn’t underestimate them.” The other spoke. He scratched the side of his neck before shoving his hand into his pocket. “After all, you made them who they are.” He added. 

“Out of all the Wells that used to be in the multiverse, I get Frenchie and my replacement.” Eobard groaned in irritation. He leaned his head up, staring at the ceiling.

“Oi, qui diable appelle-t-il frenchie? My name is Sherloque. Sher-lo-que.” Sherloque corrected Eobard, taking offense in the nickname. He straightened his coat as he gave Eobard a nasty look before leaning against a padded wall of the cell.

“Calm down.” The other Wells said, rolling his eyes.

“Harry, he just—” 

“No.” Harry said, shaking his head. The two stayed in their corner. 

“I don’t understand why they keep chasing after a new Wells.” Eobard scoffed, and shook his head as he laughed. 

“The team doesn’t feel complete without Harrison Wells.” Harry quoted Caitlin. He remembered her saying the exact same thing to him when he was preparing to leave Team Flash for the first time before leaving them with H.R.

“You,” Eobard pointed to Harry, “you I understand, but him?” He said pointing to Sherloque. “I don’t see him being as much help.”

“Moi? I’m the one who helped them with Cicada, and—”

“I know what you did.” Eobard responded. “You’re the one who outed my little runner.”

“It had to be done.” Sherloque said.

“I introduced him.” Another Wells appeared, this one with a german accent. His hair and beard were white as snow. Another irritated groan left Eobard’s lips. His cell was slowly beginning to fill with variations of Harrisons. He already hated having to be with the first two. “I thought he was a good replacement after this one’s mind,” he pointed to Harry, “‘went—” and blew a raspberry with his mouth.

“That’s enough.” Harry interrupted him.

“You,” Eobard pointed to Harry again. “What’s on your mind?” He asked. “There's something there. I can feel it.” He furrowed his brows. The one questioned raised an eye-brow when asked.

“Can you do me a favor?” Harry asked, leaning against the cell wall. “Just shut up.” Harry gave the other a forced smile before returning his attention to the padding below his feet. Eobard was intrigued at the hostility. 

“Maybe his daughter.” Wolfgang shrugged. “Ich weiss nicht.” He said. Harry shot a nasty look over to Wolfgang. 

“Don’t,” he snapped, “talk about my daughter.” Harry said. 

“Uff, Mr. I’m-smart-again-now is getting pissy.” Wolfgang rolled his eyes.

“Oi, have some sympathy. That’s his—” Sherloque shut his mouth once Harry gave the same look he had given to Wolfgang.

“Oh? So should I say someone is on your mind?” Eobard said, swiping his tongue across his lips. “Who is it?” Eobard asked, sitting up while fiddling with his fingers. He was beginning to poke at Harry.

“I said shut up!” Harry spat. He was already to the ceiling with Eobard's bullshit.

“I want to kn—” Eobard’s sentence was disrupted by the feeling of his cell moving. “Looks like we’re going to have more company.” Eobard commented. Harry sighed and looked down to the padding once more. The cell was pulled from its place along the walls where the other metas were held. Harry did his best to avoid Eobard’s gaze. As they grew closer, Harry felt a knot growing in his stomach. He was scared. He had a guess of who would be waiting for them by the doors, and he prayed he wasn’t right. The doors to the pipeline opened. There stood a figure holding a bag of food. “Cisco.” Eobard said invitingly. He stood up and approached the glass, his arms crossed against Nash’s gray shirt. Harry’s head shot up, and he looked past Sherloque to get a better look. It was him. It was really him. Harry was at a loss for words, and he swore he felt his heart stop for a second.

“Move.” He pulled Sherloque out of his, now standing next to Eobard. “Cisco...” Harry whispered to himself. His blue eyes locked onto him. He watched as the other tucked his hair behind his ear. Cisco looked rather morose. Given the circumstances he would be upset, but no, he looked too sad. The skin around his eyes and the tip of his nose were red. He had been crying. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

“Even though you don’t deserve it.” Cisco muttered while sniffling. “They made me go get you food.” Cisco held up a bag of greasy food and a large drink.

“It was sweet of you to think of me,” he said looking down at the bag, “even after I tried to kill you.” Eobard joked. “Again.”

“Starve.” Cisco sneered, pulling his arms back to his side.

“You tried to kill him!?” Harry yelled. Harry’s hands turned into fists, and he did his best to keep them at his side. 

“Not the first time.” Eobard smirked, looking at Harry. Eobard turned to Harry. He held his hand out. “I tried to do the y’know,” he shook his hand to mimic how his hand would vibrate when he used his speed, “but it didn’t work. No powers.” Eobard explained. 

“What?” Cisco asked. He was sure, he didn’t say anything.

“What?” Harry scoffed. “You knew you weren't in your body, and you still tried to use your powers? Genius.” He laughed. “Not."

“Who the hell are you talking to?” Cisco asked. It obviously wasn’t him because Eobard wasn’t even facing him.

“A few of your friends, Cisco,” Eobard said, leaning forward onto the glass, “are keeping me company.” He said referring to the three Harrisons in his cell.

“Friends?” His brows furrowed. Looking in the cell, there was no one, no one but Thawne in Nash’s body. Eobard nodded silently. He pointed in every direction that a Wells stood. One to Eobard’s far right corner. “A German.” Then to the far left. “A French.” 

“Wolfgang and Sherloque?” Cisco questioned, raising a brow. “How is that even possible?”

“Thawne!” Harry shouted, shoved Eobard. “Tell him that I’m here.”

“Fine.” Eobard said. All Cisco could see was Eobard being pushed out of place, but not by who.

“Tell him.” Harry said, his face was starting to turn red.

“There’s three of them.” Eobard sighed. 

“You only pointed to two.” Cisco said, his eyes looking over the places where Eobard had just pointed, imagining the two standing in those empty spaces.

 “Tell him!” Harry pushed Eobard again. He would have loved to take a swing at Eobard’s face, but instead he looked back over to Cisco. “Cisco, it’s me!” He shouted, although he knew the other couldn’t hear him. Harry began to pound his fist on the glass, hoping that would have some effect. The glass didn’t shake, but the sound of his fist making contact could be heard. He needed to let Cisco know he was there. He just had to.

“Woah.” Cisco took a step back when he heard the impact on the glass. “What the hell is going on, Thawne?"

“An American.” Eobard stated. “Sounds like World War II.” He joked. He pointed to the left of him, in the same direction the sound was coming from.

“Hey! We didn’t have that Scheiße on our Earth. Dummkopf.” Wolfgang pointed out.

“American…” Cisco repeated. There were a number of Wells who were American besides Harry. This didn’t help him out at all. It could be anyone. Sonny, Lothario, a million others.

“You know my fucking name!” His voice cracked when he shouted. “Tell him I’m here!” Harry yelled. 

“This one is very, very persistent.” Eobard snickered. He thought Harry was going to be harder to get through, but it was clear who the answer to his previous question was. “Want to guess?” Eobard asked, the pounding still occuring.

“Thawne!” Harry yelled. “Fucking tell him.” He chewed on his bottom lip when staring back at Cisco. He could feel a lump growing in his throat and tried to keep his eyes from glazing over. He just wanted Cisco to know.

“No.” Cisco said. “Tell me, or you can starve.” 

“You wouldn’t want to kill poor Nash, would you?” 

“I don’t need to feed you to keep you alive.” Cisco scoffed. “Water will be enough, for a few days at least.” He said, staring down Nash's body.

"I'm done with this." Harry grabbed Eobard by the back of his neck and pushed him closer to the glass.

“What the hell are you doing?” Eobard said, his nose just barely touching the glass. 

“What's going on, Thawne?” Cisco took another step back when Eobard grew closer.

"This one seems to have a temper." Eobard chuckled.

“Looks like he’s gone coo-coo.” Sherloque sang as he looked to Wolfgang.

“You’ve been testing my fucking patience, Thawne.” Harry said. “Breath on the glass.”

“What?” Eobard asked.

“Fucking do it.” Harry gritted through his teeth, Eobard’s forehead now against the glass. Eobard had a feeling this would get physical. He sighed, giving into Harry just this once. He opened his mouth and breathed out, covering a small part of glass in a cloudy fog. Harry used his free hand to grab one of Eobard’s fingers and dragged it against the glass, writing his name backwards in the condensation.

“This is some 'Coraline' shit.” Cisco mentioned as each letter had appeared on the glass:

YRRAH

“There.” Eobard said. “I did it.” He said as Harry stood him up. Cisco’s jaw dropped.

“Harry’s in there with you?” Cisco asked, a soft smile tugging weakly at the edges of his lips.

“Say it.” Harry demanded. 

“I already—”

“Say my name.” Harry said, tightening his grip.

“Lothario would love this.” Wolfgang chuckled, leaning against his wall of the cell.

"That man would love anything that you could relate to sex." Sherloque rolled his eyes.

“Did someone say sex?” Lothario said, the knot in the laces of his robe was soon to come loose.

“Oh God.” Eobard closed his eyes shut. How he prayed that this was just a dream. “Yes, Cisco, your beloved Harry is in here with me.” He said. He eyed the Wells as he finally let him go. 

“You’re lying.” Cisco said, shaking his head. So close. Harry’s heart dropped. 

“He’s not lying.” Sherloque said, shaking his head. 

"Not at all." Wolfgang said, fixing the sleeves of his sweater. It was clear to them that Harry was becoming fairly uneasy. They all knew the other couldn’t hear him, but if it could make Harry feel better, they tried to do what they could.

“Have I ever lied to you, Cisco?” Eobard asked. “Really, tell me. Aside from who I was, have I ever lied to you?” He questioned. Cisco stood silent for a moment. He knew Eobard was right, and maybe, just maybe Harry was really there, but he needed proof.

“Prove it.” Cisco said, he placed the food to the side and crossed his arms. 

“How am I supposed to—” Eobard was cut off when Harry went back to the tactic of using the glass. He knocked on it, multiple times. The two had come up with their own pattern if they were in trouble. Each dot was one knock, each dash was dragged against the glass. “Morse code?” Eobard chuckled. “You’re using morse code?” 

“Shut up.” Harry said, and continued to knock until he finished relaying his message:

-.-(K) ....(H) .-(A) -.(N)

“Harry.” Cisco let out a soft sigh. “He’s really in there?” He couldn’t see it, but Harry couldn’t be smiling any wider. In satisfaction of Cisco’s response Harry shoved his hands into his pockets. His job was done. 

“Yes.” He nodded. “He’s here. I told you he’s here.” Eobard said, rolling his eyes. He knew this would happen. He knew Cisco would get lost in the thought of his replacement. “Hey,” Eobard snapped his fingers at Cisco to get his attention. “Can I have the food now?”

“Say please.” Cisco said, grabbing the bag.

"I'm not saying please." Eobard shook his head.

"Then you're not getting any food." Cisco motioned to place the food back down.

“Cisco. Cisco, please.” Eobard sighed, “May I please have the food?” 

“That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” Cisco said before walking to the right of the cell. He opened a tiny metal door on the wall and pushed the food and drink through. He watched as Eo gladly grabbed it before sitting down. “How long has he been in there with you?” 

“For a while now.” Eobard exhaled. He knew Cisco was going to want to know more. He rustled through the bag and pulled out a burger. 

“Has he said anything?” He asked. He was worried that Harry would probably slip up and talk about the both of them. No, Harry’s not that reckless. He wouldn’t.

“Nothing but to tell you that he’s here.” He said, unwrapping the burger in his hands before taking a huge bite into it. “Maybe,” Eo said after swallowing, “if you hadn’t given up my gift to you, then you could have sensed him.”

“Fuck you, Thawne.” Cisco acerbically, his eyes were filled with regret. He knew he was always going to be haunted by his decision on taking the cure. “I don’t want anything from you.” He said, but Harry was shaking his head. He wasn't going to say anything in front of Eobard that could possibly be used against him.

“You should speak to him while you can.” Eobard said, throwing some fries into his mouth. “I don’t believe he has much time left.” He took another large bite of his burger.

“Harry?” Cisco said. Harry watched as Cisco’s eyes scanned the cell. He was looking for him. Harry knocked on the glass once more to let him know he was still there. Cisco placed his hand where he believed the knock came from. Harry couldn’t help but do the same. Both of their eyes glazed with tears ready to burn their skin. “Te amo mucho. Te extraño. Lo siento.” He whispered.

“Yo también.” Harry responded. He couldn’t say he was fluent in the language. He only picked up on whatever Cisco would say or taught him during his stay on Earth-1. 

“How sweet.” Sherloque muttered to himself. 

"My heart. This is too sweet, but when did dumb-dumb get his smartness back?" Lothario said as he tightened the laces of his robe. 

"This is what happens when you're late. You were always late to our meetings before, and you're still appearing late now." Wolfgang scolded. Eobard watched Harry and Cisco silently. He remembered how that relationship felt. He remembered having Cisco by his side everyday as he played his ruse of Dr. Harrison Wells. All the time they spent renovating his house, the wheelchair, all of it. After everything Thawne had done to him, he knew Cisco wasn’t his anymore. Cisco hung his head as he let his tears fall. Each one burned his skin as they traveled down his cheek. 

“Hey, no.” Harry said, shaking his head. “No, no ll-...what’s the word again?” He asked himself, trying to remember the word. “Llores.” He softly coughed, holding back his own tears. “No llores.” He knocked on the glass, hoping he would stop.

“Fuck me.” Cisco whimpered. He gave a soft chuckle as he wiped his tears away, it was if he could hear Harry’s voice in his head telling him not to cry. He took a deep breath before looking back up at the last person he wanted to see. The two were eye-to-eye. He hated it. He wanted to see Harry. He wanted to see Nash and the others. He clenched his jaw and slowly backed away from the cell. Harry waved good-bye as the doors to the pipeline closed on them. 

“How sweet.” Eobard said, using a napkin to wipe his lips. During the short amount of time Harry was using to spend time with Cisco, Eobard used to devour every last bit of food in that bag. Harry returned himself to his corner and sat down next to Sherloque. “You love him.” Eobard said, gathering all of his trash and stuffing it in the bag. 

“What?” Harry said, chewing on his lip as he looked at Eobard.

“You love him.” He repeated, placing the trash to the side.

“He’s my best friend.” Harry said, looking down to his hands.

“So you do.” Eobard said, wrapping his arms around his knees. “I did too.” He nodded, looking down to Nash's shoes. "But, does he love you?"

“What do you mean? He just—”

“When he first saw you, Wells, and I’m talking about the very first time he saw you,” he said looking down to his hands. “I’m pretty sure the first thought that came into his mind was me.” A smirk pulled at his lips. Eobard had no problem with toying with Cisco’s favorite.

“Be careful.” Sherloque whispered into Harry's ear. The two closely watched Eobard. Sherloque could see where Eobard was taking this, and he wasn’t going to let the doubt in Harry’s head grow anymore than it already had.

“That’s what everyone thought. Everyone thought I was you.” Harry shrugged. He played it off. He remembered the first week he spent at S.T.AR. Labs, Cisco couldn’t even look at him. Their first conversation, Cisco told him how Eobard put his hand through Cisco’s chest and stopped his heart. Harry’s response to the traumatic story was a laugh. A fucking laugh.

“You were just a familiar face to him.” Eobard said, standing up. “One where once trust was broken, and then rebuilt.” He added.

“What are you trying to get at?” Wolfgang asked. Eobard, once again, was up to no good and he could sense it.

“I’m just saying, y’know,” he said nonchalantly, “it’s not really you who he was trying to become friends with.” Eobard’s tone became rather serious very quickly. “It’s me who he wanted back.”

“I doubt that.” Harry scoffed, but in reality he did feel threatened. He always had the fear in his mind that it was Eobard who Cisco was searching for. 

“Tell me, did he ever bring me up?” Eobard asked, his smirk growing wider. He was biting deeper into Harry, and it was written all over his face. 

"Yes." Harry nodded. "He would bring you up a lot actually," he said as he began to think of it. 

"What would he say?" Eobard asked, crossing his arms. 

"Never anything good." Harry said.

"You're lying." Eobard shrugged. "You're fucking lying." He pursed his lips in frustration and shook his head, his face was becoming heated. "There's no way everything he said about me was bad." 

"He only spoke about how hurt he was." Harry looked him in the eyes. "Hurt, knowing the one man he trusted was a fraud." He lied.

"It can't be just that." Eobard shook his head. "You're lying." He repeated. "I was his best friend." He said in a rather menacing tone. Eobard was becoming defensive.

"Was is past tense." Sherloque interrupted. 

"Shut up, Frenchie." Eobard held his hand up to him. "I was everything to him." He pointed to his chest. "I was the only family he had when his own would turn him away. It was me. Not you!" 

"You left him traumatized!" Harry yelled. He took a deep breath, holding his hands tightly together. "You left him broken, someone else came and picked up the pieces. That wasn't enough though," Harry said shaking his head. "He still can't get over you. Six years, Thawne. Six fucking years, and you’re still embedded in his mind."

"That's because he still has love for me." Eobard said. "I don't care how much you hate it, Harry. He does and you know it." 

"The thought of you sickens him." Harry gritted through his teeth. "You didn't deserve him."

Before Eobard could answer, another Wells appeared, and this one didn’t hesitate to throw a punch to Eobard’s face.

“Wer the hell is this?” Wolfgang said, pointing to the Wells that knocked Eobard over. 

“Who am I?” He yelled. “That’s my body!” He pointed the body that was now sprawled on the ground.

“You’re one that stole my diary.” Harry said, crossing his arms.

“You’re the reason the multiverse is gone.” Lothario said.

“Yes, yes I stole your diary.” Nash said. “I needed to know, okay?” He said. “I needed to know what was going on. Who I was seeing.” He said, looking around the cell. He noticed two that he’s never seen before. “I—” He froze staring at Lothario. “I’m not even going to ask.” 

“They’re the other Wells from when the multiverse still existed.” Eobard responded once he was back to his feet.

“Get out of my body.” Nash said. 

“I do what I fucking want. I’m not going anywhere. You're stuck with me.” Eobard said in that low voice of his. Nash cocked his arm, ready to punch Eobard for another time. His body or not, he wasn't going to let this slide. He knocked Eobard over for another time then climbed on top of him and continued to give Eobard punches to the face. This was the second time he was attacked today. Harry was the first to react. Oh how he too wanted to give Eobard just one good punch, but he was better than that.

"Nash, Stop." He hooked his arms under Nash's and pulled him off. The others followed, helping Harry to keep Nash, who was still ready to fight, in the corner of the cell. Eobard stayed on the ground. The 5 of them stood crowded, looking down at Eobard.

"This is gonna be fun." He gave a sinister laugh, his tongue picking up the drops of blood on his lips. He picked himself back up and sat down in the corner across from them. "Once I get out of here," he said, using the pad of thumb to wipe off any excess blood, "and I get my speed back, it's over for all of you." He gave a half-heartedly cut-throat gesture. "And you're going first." He pointed to Nash.

Translations:

les yeux rouges = red eyes

qui diable appelle-t-il frenchie? = who the hell is he calling frenchie?

Moi = Me

Ich weiss nicht = I don't know

Scheiße = shit

Dummkopf = Idiot/blockhead

Te amo mucho = I love you a lot

Te extraño = I miss you

Lo siento = I'm sorry

Yo también = Me too

No llores = Don't cry

Wer = Who

//thanks @smutfornerds for the name of the fic! if it wasn’t for her it’d be name something terrible\\

#the flash cw #the flash #Eobard Thawne #nash wells #harry wells #harrison wells #sherloque wells #wolfgang wells #lothario wells #cw the flash #the flash fanfiction #the flash season 6 #cisco ramon #tom cavanagh #carlos valdes #fanfic #fanfiction #mine*

[askmalal]

The spirit who was once the Night Haunter watched, spellbound, as a cosmic flare rippled through the coruscating haze that defined that section of The Warp just then. He thought, for a moment, about Nostramo, and considered, not for the first time, that the lonely shade of that haunted world was not, itself, wandering through the aether. It made him shiver, and sent a pang of regret down the ridge of where he imagined he still had a spine.

Konrad Curze turned from the porthole - the place that he imagined was a porthole - and looked into the interior of what his mind had constructed as a sort of audience chamber. He knew, as with the illusion of a physical body or the illusion of a porthole, this too was merely a construct framed by his intellect. A helpful means of finding an anchor in a place that was, at its purest, a raw mix of animus and entropy unbound by logical form. He considered it an irony that his suffering in life, the long periods of insanity, had given him the experience to, paradoxically, keep his mind intact here. No, he did not miss The Night Haunter, but he did, at times, appreciate its... finer... points.

The shadow that had once been his brother stirred like the ash of a long dead city around him, and he knew that the Faceless God had entered. There was a slight smell of creosote. Whether this was his own construct or a deliberate attempt by that entity he did not know.

“Welcome back...” he began. The shadow took a vaguely anthropomorphic form and nodded, vaguely.

“He is looking for you again, you know. All of you.”

The voice was a murmur and yet utterly, unmistakably clear down to every perfectly formed syllable. He had grown used to this over time, but the Eighth Son reckoned that, if there was one thing about Malal’s voice that put him on edge, it was that the dark thing did not have “a voice.” He... It.. seemed to have one thousand. Each distinct. For a mortal mind to hear all of those voices murmuring at once would be maddening. Curze wondered at the mental fortitude it had taken those amongst his siblings who had heard it speak, unfiltered and without obfuscation, and yet avoid becoming unhinged.

“I know,” the Night Lord shrugged, “Not to the extent you do...” his Nostraman accent, one he knew that in a different time might have been described as “vaguely Magyar, vaguely English, with a touch of the Germanic” reverberated around the “chamber.” “But,” he continued. “I know. I felt his mind brush mine. It is a curious feeling, I must say. Very different from the way it was in my breathing days. Despite having been here quite enough to experience it more than once or twice.”

The shadow seemed unmoved by this, but it spoke. “Would the Night Haunter have felt it differently, I wonder?”

Curze shrugged, “I do not know.”

The shadow nodded, satisfied at this, at least. Malal had given him shelter here. A tether in the midst of the madness that surrounded them. Malal, Malice, the Faceless Sphinx... he made an arrangement with Konrad Curze in those final hours. One Konrad Curze, not the Night Haunter, had accepted. The dark god hated the Night Haunter, as had the fragment that was his brother. His brother, however, had shown kindness to Konrad Curze.

“He will be looking for the others. Some will know...” the gentle cacophony of voices replied, “others, perhaps not.”

“Will he succeed?” Konrad asked.

“I am not given to prophecy,” the darkness said, but not with cruelty, so much as certainty. “I would imagine that it depends very much as to what he hopes to accomplish.”

“I see,” the spirit sighed, drawing in an illusory breath, “I see.”

“Do you wish to speak to him?” The shadow seemed genuinely curious. Konrad blinked. “I... you could make that possible?”

“I could,” the eyeless, featureless face regarded him for a moment. “I could. For you, it would not be without risk.

Curze gave a bitter laugh. “What would he do? Destroy me? I don’t think he...”

“-Never-,” the cacophony warned, its voice icey cold, “never attempt to divine what he will or will not do. Konrad Curze, “That is a mistake all twenty of you made. And it is a mistake that four others like myself make even today.”

Konrad shook his head. “Really, Malal, do you think he would harm me?”

The god gave the semblance of a shrug, the tiniest hint of humanity. “Unlikely. I do not feel that is what he seeks to do, not just now. If he had wanted to do so, he would have tried to do so before. He could simply point The Raven in your direction, for that matter.”

Curze felt a tinge of grief. “Poor Corvus.”

“He knows what he is doing. Sympathy is not an emotion I would register for him.”

“Well, yes,” the Primarch thought to himself, “your capacity for empathy, at least for the powerful, is... limited.” But instead, he asked, “What do you think he wants?”

“If I were to hazard a guess...” a narrow, eldritch smile appeared on the featureless face. It was unmanning. Konrad Curze, who had faced monstrous creatures and super heavy tanks alone on many occasions, had to turn his head. The beast-thing that had once been his brother spoke. “If I were to hazard a guess? Some progress toward closure. He may hope to turn your wayward brothers. He may hope to probe their weaknesses.”

“And for me?”

The grin disappeared. The shadow considered.

“I cannot say.”

“That... is troubling.” Curze muttered.

#askmalal #horus heresy #chaos gods #warhammer30k #warhammer40k #ask me questions #malice #malal #konrad curze #the emperor of mankind

[avantegarda]

The Jury Is Out

When the coronavirus comes to town, why then lads, I stay up late and write bits from my novel from the POV of another character. It’s a writing exercise, I say. 

Meet György Király: The World’s Grouchiest Dad

György Király was a man of not only solid but quick judgement, and once he’d come to a conclusion about someone he was nearly always correct. Hadn’t he known within two weeks of meeting Anna Lázár that she was the wife for him? Hadn’t he said, back in ‘52, that young Ben Arany from down the street was a no-good young fool—only two months before the boy was arrested for picking pockets? And hadn’t he been able to tell straightaway that Professor Strobel, the fellow from that Austrian music school, would immediately recognize young Andras’ talent?

No indeed, there wasn’t a soul on Szerdahelyi Street who was a better judge of character than György. Which was why there could be no doubt that the disapproval he felt towards his future daughter-in-law was entirely justified.

 Certainly, the girl had a certain appeal; Marta was a fine-looking young woman in that soft powdered aristocratic way. Nice eyes, good posture, and what the old ladies would call child-bearing hips. It was understandable that Andras was attracted to her—but good God, marrying her? It beggared belief. Pretty she might have been, but Marta didn’t know how to do anything useful. 

Over the two days since Andras had first brought her home, in fact, György had been compiling a mental list of things Marta had apparently never learned how to do. These included:

Speaking Hungarian (what had those fancy governesses of hers taught her? French? When did French ever do anyone any good?)

Cooking (Ilka, bless her, had tried to help, but Marta burned herself so frequently it seemed likely she would lose a finger)

Cleaning (how was it possible that a twenty-one-year-old woman, even a countess, had gone her entire life without using a duster?)

There were plenty more, an almost astonishing amount. Had he written in down György was certain the list would have taken up an entire newspaper. One could put Marta on a shelf and dust her every Sunday and she’d be about as useful as she was now.

But of course there wasn’t any good in talking to Andras about these problems. The boy was utterly smitten, a blind man could see that. He looked at Marta with the same level of passion he usually reserved for that violin of his, never let go of her hand for more than a few minutes. And the girls, usually a reasonable lot, weren’t much help either. Having a glamorous, aristocratic future sister-in-law seemed to have turned all their heads to the point where they couldn’t see what a mistake this whole affair was.

When György had, in the past, contemplated Andras falling in love with someone who wasn’t Clara (ridiculous business, giving a fiddle a name), he’d always hoped it would be someone like Andras’ late mother. What better wife could a man have asked for than Anna Király? Practical, hardworking, good to the children...not to mention a damned handsome woman. It hadn’t been any hardship to have four children with her, no sir. Bit of a relief, really, that Andras had gotten the hair and the height from Anna’s side of the family. Not that György cared much about his own looks, but it was obvious that Anna had been the better-looking of the two of them. 

He’d loved her, he really had. György wasn’t a man much given to sentimentality, but the twenty years he’d spent with that woman had been the happiest years of his life.

Andras deserved someone like that. Someone with backbone, with common sense. Someone who would stick with him through the hard times. Not some frivolous snob of an heiress who’d likely run back to her fancy relatives the minute she had to sweep a floor by herself.

There were two days until the wedding now. And, wrong as he knew it was, György couldn’t resist sending up a prayer that something would happen to stop it.

Voices in the hallway outside the flat brought György back to the present—none of the neighbors, as they were speaking German. Andras and Marta, then, probably back from inspecting their new flat. At least once they got their own home he wouldn’t have to try and make conversation with Marta every day, or watch Andras making sheep’s eyes at her. 

What were they talking about out there, anyway? It couldn’t have been anything good. As the footsteps in the hall grew closer György could detect in Andras’ voice a frantic note that could only mean he was slipping into one of his panicky spells.

He’d always been like that, not that the boy could help it. On the night before he’d left for music school Andras had been up nearly the whole night plagued by nerves, pale as a ghost, barely able to speak. György and Anna had sat with him for hours at the kitchen table, neither of them entirely sure what to do, but both determined to make their son smile again. He’d been so frightened, the poor lad, so convinced that he was letting down the family if he left.

It was a damn unpleasant sensation, seeing his boy like that. Especially as there was so little he could do to fix it. 

György had never learned much German (what was the point, really?), but he could still make out bits and pieces of the conversation going on in the hall. Andras, his voice tight and strained with worry, was saying something involving the words job and opera. No surprise there, those opera company folks had been decent to Andras. A situation like that was a hard loss.

Was this an argument he was overhearing, then? After all, the silly toff had cost Andras the job in the first place, and perhaps she had never properly apologized. Those rich Austrians never took a hint of responsibility for all the trouble they caused; why should this one be any different?

But Marta, when she spoke, did not sound argumentative. Her voice was gentle, almost soothing, and György could just about make out the words Vienna and love.

She sounded like Anna. 

Though György’s heart rebelled against the very thought of anyone being compared to his beloved wife, the way that girl was talking to Andras was just the way Anna had at times like this. Even more shocking, it seemed to work; Andras’ reply, after a pause, was considerably calmer.

When Andras and Marta entered the flat, György experienced a familiar flash of annoyance. Intellectually he knew that Marta had almost no possessions of her own, that she’d left everything behind when she’d fled England, but seeing her wearing one of Anna’s old dresses—a dark green one that was too long and too tight across the chest and altogether wrong on her—felt like a slap in the face. 

Marta’s wide red mouth curved into a hopeful smile, and she dropped into an elegant curtsy. “Szia, Mr. Király.” 

Once György had emitted a vague noise of greeting in reply, Marta nodded, kissed Andras on the cheek, and then—finally—retreated to the girls’ bedroom.

“So,” said György as the door closed behind her. “You and your fancy woman have a nice chat?”

Andras sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t call her that, Pa. It’s very inaccurate. But I hope we didn’t disturb you.”

“No. But I did overhear a bit...not that I could understand much,” György admitted. “Sounded as though you were upset. You all right, son?”

“I am now,” said Andras, with a faint smile. “Merely making a fuss over nothing, as I always do.”

“Your old job in Vienna?”

“It was a good job,” Andras said wistfully. “They didn’t pay me much, I know, but it was a fine little company. And it suddenly hit me that...I might never see any of them again. And that hurt like hell.”

György grunted in sympathy. “And what did your future wife have to say about that?” 

Andras’ face softened into an unbearably soppy smile. “Marta always knows precisely what to say when I get like this. She told me that we’d go back to Vienna one day, even if just for a visit, and it was highly likely we’d be able to see all my old mates again. And then she informed me that her expensive education enables her to know with utmost precision that things are going to be all right, and even if they’re not entirely, we’ll still be together.” He looked at György almost pleadingly. “I know you don’t entirely trust her yet, Pa. But I hope it will comfort you to know that when I panic like that, there are two things that keep me sane: music, and Marta.”

György felt a hot spike of shame in his stomach. An unfamiliar sensation, to say the least. Had he, perhaps, been marginally mistaken in his original assessment of Marta? Her words certainly didn’t sound like those of a woman who planned to bolt.

Nor, he had to admit, did they sound like the words of someone who would make a terrible Király.

Time would tell, he supposed.

“Well!” he said at last, in as gruff a tone as he could manage. “At least the girl knows how to do something.”

When György Király judged someone’s character, his impressions were never wrong.

Except, apparently, when they were.

#my writing #unshakeable #i have no idea if this is good i wrote it in an hour bc i got bored

[marginalgloss]

the big light

The Mirror and the Light has been in the works for a long time. I read Wolf Hall shortly after its release in 2009, and loved it. Same with Bring up the Bodies in 2012. Two years after that my wife and I went to see Hilary Mantel read from The Mirror and the Light at the South Bank Centre. Back then it must have seemed like the release wasn’t too far away; had someone told me then that we wouldn’t see it till 2020 I would have thought them unhinged.  

It’s long — well over 700 pages. At first glance the length might seem surprising because this is not (for want of a better term) the sexiest part of Henry VIII’s rule. The story is one of those notorious miscalculations of history: after the death of Jane Seymour, who is often thought Henry’s most beloved wife, a marriage is arranged between him and Anna of Cleves. She is a woman from a distant German state who Henry has never met; the union is essentially one of convenience, because England’s international situation has rarely been more complicated. 

Following the reformation, England has been excommunicated by the Catholic church. In theory, both the nation and its ruler are fair game for invasion or murder by any loyal Christian nation. In practice, the uneasy relationship between the rulers of France, Italy and the Holy Roman Empire makes that far from straightforward, but the risk seems real all the same. Cromwell faces further trouble at home — riots and uprisings are becoming more of a problem, motivated in part by deep local affections for the old religion. Thomas is the most powerful he has ever been but he’s still surrounded by enemies, especially amongst the old families of England, who have never allowed him to forget his humble origins. 

It may seem as though there’s a lot going on, but by the end of the novel I felt like there wasn’t enough to justify the sheer weight of paper in my lap. This is not to say the writing isn’t good. It is often great. But this is a novel light on surprises. I enjoyed reading it all the same – it’s enough for me to be carried along by Mantel’s authorial presence, which still feels absolute and omnipresent. Cromwell’s personality in these novels is one of the most compelling characters in fiction. Yet there’s very little in The Mirror and The Light which we haven’t encountered before in the two previous novels. The same scenes from his life come again and again — the death of his wife and children in Wolf Hall, and those endless scenes with Anne in Bring Up the Bodies. The same lines become like motifs: arrange your face, so now get up, and so on. Perhaps the problem with a novel where you see everything is that after a while you start to feel like you’ve seen everything.

We feel there isn’t much that is new to discover about Cromwell. There are a few exceptions; the rumours that grow up around Cromwell regarding prospective new marriages are not without interest. But I found little here which sticks in the mind like the scenes from the earlier books, and part of the problem is the whole concept of ‘scenes’ as they exist here. 

The preceding novels have now had at least two major adaptations — one for the West End stage, and one for TV. I saw both, and they were good, solid, conventional. A cynical reader might declare that too much of The Mirror and the Light feels like it’s been written with dramatic adaptation in mind. At times it seems less like a novel and more like notes towards a screenplay. There are endless conversations which seem intended to be tense, dramatic confrontations, but which never seem to advance or demonstrate anything. 

And yet as soon as the novel switches back into the interior mode, you almost want to forgive it everything. Being in Cromwell’s room is like working your way through a series of rooms in a museum — full of detail and diversion — and it’s wonderful, except the novel keeps pulling you out of it like an excitable tour guide who can’t help but subject you to another conversation, another insignificant moment from history, another scene. 

I feel like the previous novels weren’t like this. But I still feel like I’m too close to them to go back now. The best I can say of The Mirror and the Light is that it consolidates the vision of Cromwell as perhaps England’s greatest ever reformer and renaissance man. He wins the long game in the ways that matter: not only the break from Rome, but in the idea of the monarch and state as deserving respect entirely separate from any religious obligations. In these books Cromwell also seems to stand for something profound in the idea of the British idea of the self-made man. He plays to our love of the self-starter, the man who started out with empty pockets and a seemingly infinite set of talents, and who took on the establishment. He won, but in the sense that he lived long to see himself become the establishment, and to be swallowed by a machine he had built to catch others. (And there’s something additionally satisfying in this kind of downfall. We love to see a man build himself up, but we also love to see him torn down to size.)

In the end, there is something drab and faintly disappointing about Cromwell as he emerges here. All his work was not in service to anything greater than himself. The pursuit of humanistic knowledge, the service of his prince, and the consolidation of his own power — what was his legacy outside of this? Part of Mantel’s genius is to work that thread of disappointment through the text here; Thomas is constantly looking to his own legacy, worrying that he hasn’t done enough; he is preoccupied with his mistakes and things he could have done better, like the death of William Tyndale. In this way he emerges as a bit more human: he is someone who, like any of us, is worried about what he will leave behind. 

And yet it’s hard to feel too sorry for him by the final pages. Our sympathy is limited in part because his success has been so outlandish, and in part because of his lack of anything resembling sympathy for the world around him. He is devoid of intimate, empathetic connections. Alms for the poor and the foundation of a few schools don’t quite cut it — philanthropy is only the rich man’s way of paying his debt to society on his own vastly skewed terms. His servant Christophe is his most intimate friend, perhaps because he reminds him most of himself as a young man. In the end it seems there is nobody else who will miss him.

#books #hilary mantel #the mirror and the light

[yourdeepestfathoms]

if not by blood, then siblings by bloodshed (part three)

pour one out for all the German Shepherd lovers

TW: Blood and gore, violence, animal violence, animal death, death, mentions of past abuse, vomiting

——————

Run For Your Life

“Joey, I’m tired....”

It’s been a day since the experience in the town- a day worth of no rest and even more walking, not even stopping to sleep at night, and only then was Joan realizing how unwell her young companion looked.

Kitty’s face was ashen and her dull eyes were half-lidded. Exhaustion is etched all over her expression. She clung tightly to Joan’s hand as they walked. Who knows how much longer she would be able to go on before she keels over.

“I don’t know how much farther we have...” Joan said, “Would you like it if I carried you? Maybe that would help?”

Kitty nodded and Joan carefully picked her up. Her knees wobbled when she stood back up; it’s not that Kitty was heavy, quite the opposite, actually, but her legs were so sore that the extra weight put even more of a strain on her, weakening them. Still, she pushed forward, not letting her own fatigue overcome her.

When buildings finally came into view around the bend, it was a huge relief. The sky had been growing darker and the only thing that could make the growing uneasy even worse was if they had ominous shadows cast over their faces.

A ruined village stands before them. Half-crumpled buildings stood around in disarray, long destroyed by wind and rain and other weather effects. A few were still intact, like the one Joan chose to take refuge in. The bed inside was dusty, but held strong, so Joan gently sets Kitty down.

“Mmmmm...” The little girl moaned softly. Joan gently strokes back her sweaty bangs.

“Shh,” She murmured, “You’re in a bed, Kit. Try to sleep, okay? I’m going to go find some food and water.”

Kitty nodded and shut her eyes again. Mercy hops down from Joan’s head to watch over her as Joan went back outside.

As much as she didn’t want to, Joan knew she would have to hunt again. Kitty must have been dehydrated and hungry- the best thing for her right now was food and water, and Joan had to get that for her.

However, her task was cut off by a horrible, guttural noise from nearby.

Joan new exactly what it was.

There wasn't a human being alive on the planet who didn’t know what that sound was.

Joan paused, scanning the buildings with uncertainty and- she had to admit- a certain morbid fascination. She’d been standing there listening, almost mesmerized, for a good three minutes now. It just didn't stop.

But listening in on it- on the grunting heaves and grotesque plops of half-liquid matter hitting mud that followed- felt oddly invasive, like she was watching two people have sex. Feeling a twinge of discomfort, Joan moved away from her spot, stepping quietly as she made her way over to dingy mound of bricks that used to be someone’s house. What she found almost sent her sprinting back to the building where Kitty was, scooping her up, and hightailing it out of those ruins.

“Oh god...”

A small chest sat upturned in a mess of blood splatters and debris in the middle of the house, although it was what was sticking out of it that made Joan’s gut truly twist in disgust. A pair of naked legs, wizened and bruised, protruded stiffly from the broken lid. There was no point in leaning down to check on the state of the body- only a blind man could possibly mistake it for being anything but dead.

Joan stood back, pressing the rough fabric of her collar to her lips. It wasn't the first dead body she had seen since her life was flipped upside down, but it wasn't any more pleasant than the bloodied corpses she’d been lying in the day before. At least those had been in daylight, and an obvious victim of the plague that was apparently now spreading through the country. This one looked more like a murder victim. Between the grisly discovery and the retching noises from somewhere beyond, Joan almost felt as though she'd stepped straight into a crime scene.

She swallowed heavily and turned back towards the sounds.

A body meant that some monster must have been here, but those retching noises were too human to belong to one of those “Hellhounds”. That meant that whatever was in here was a person, and if they'd been here for whatever had gone down in this village, maybe they were hurt. She had to see if they were alright.

Hesitantly, Joan followed the sounds with her hand on the grip of her axe.

A few stray beams of waning sunlight glowed over the hunched form in front of her- whoever it was, they had been crouching behind a broken wall in a stew of mud, perhaps having been in too much of a hurry to empty their stomach to find a cleaner spot. Or be concerned about anything, for that matter. Flabby, pale skin flashed in the light from where they peeked out from under their owner’s shirt, and above that lay a twitching expanse of blue and white. Even in the dimness, Joan could see how the figure was quaking, convulsions rippling through its whole body as it continued to cough into the mud.

Joan’s first impulse was to recoil- as if the less-than-appealing rear view she'd just been treated to hadn't been enough, the thoughts from her first few minutes in the town had come flooding back into her mind. Not even a crazy man could look at ruined, empty streets and buildings that had been full of people a short five years before and not wonder what had happened.

The figure shifted, the unpleasant sounds trailing off into a series of wet coughs as it lifted its head and turned to squint into the light, a mixture of nausea and trepidation sculpted onto the pale, shaven features. Then the coughing became a groan. Perhaps of relief, that the thing poking its head in from around the corner was another human being and not a creature from the plague, or perhaps of disgust and revulsion at being discovered in the middle of such a humiliating activity and at the intrusive light piercing the cramped darkness.

It was a man.

A young, somewhat corpulent man, dressed in brown pants and a green shirt, with tufts of brown hair (now plastered flat against his forehead in perspiration) swept out of his chocolate eyes. Probably somewhere in his twenties, though much older than Joan.

A man.

Not a monster.

Joan relaxed, the sour, nervous prickle that had started to tweak her insides subsiding into relief.

Relief that further faded into discomfort as the pale face turned away from her in favor of heaving into the mud again. There was a liquidy gurgle accompanying it this time, and Joan almost considered muttering a hasty apology and turning to leave him be when the figure finally spoke, in a breathless and strained voice that ran out of steam towards the end, leaving the final word a gasp of pitiful breath.

“I-it wasn’t me... I didn’t do it!”

Grasping the wall, Joan leaned back in, feeling her brows rise to a peak. As disgusting as the display before her was, she could feel very little but sympathy for this poor man.

“Do what?” She asked, although even as she spoke, her thoughts were drifting to the body in the other broken down house.

“I... I didn’t do anything. I swear,” Pleaded the stranger, still leaning over in the mud as though worried there might be more coming up. "She was like this when I got here..."

He choked again, spitting something into the mud with a grimace.

It was hardly the ideal time for an introduction, but Joan found herself giving one anyway. Mostly because she had no idea what to say on the subject of what this guy here had or hadn't done.

“My, uh, my name's Joan,” She offered amiably, and was rewarded with a horrible, retching belch in return that made her resolve falter somewhat. She finished with an unsure tone. "...Joan Meutas."

“Uhm... George,” Croaked the stranger weakly.

Joan nodded slowly.

“George...” She said softly as the poor man's vomiting resumed, keeping her tone quiet. She was pretty sure the last thing anybody wanted while they were sick was someone barging in and loudly demanding answers. "Who's that dead guy in the chest?"

“I didn’t do it!” George moaned miserably. “I swear, I didn’t kill anybody!”

That hadn't been what Joan asked, but she thought better of repeating herself and just stood there by the broken wall, shifting slightly and listening to the ongoing symphony of the man’s guts emptying themselves.

“Well...” She said, thinking of the body in the other room, mere yards from where George had thrown himself down to be sick. When she had come around the corner, this man had been completely vulnerable. If it had been a dog creeping behind him instead of Joan, George would have been caught with his pants down. Literally. "I guess this place isn't too safe... What happened here, anyway?"

“Uh... I don’t know. I’m not even from this country. Passing through for business for my sister...” George explained, “That body...scared the hell out of me. Or my lunch.”

Joan hummed sympathetically, which she almost found weird given the large and very obvious age gap between them.

George has finally stopped heaving. He leaned back, wiped his mouth, grimaced at the mess he had made, then stood up.

“Sorry,” He said. “That was...” He doesn’t finish that statement, instead turning it into a light joke, “If my sister caught me like this she’d be pulling on my hair.”

Joan cracked a slight smile. She notices that George is scanning her over, probably wondering why she was out there all alone, but before he could actually ask, a deep rumbling shook the whole ground. Joan staggered a little, placing one hand on the broken wall for balance.

“Oh no...” George muttered. Joan looks over at him worriedly. The rumbling sounds get louder.

“What?”

“They’re here.”

With horrifying timing, the ground several meters away broke open and an infestation of black came out in dark waves.

Joan screams. George grabs her arm and tries to pull her to a lopsided house, but she resists.

“My friend!” She cried, “I have to get my friend!”

“What?!”

Joan doesn’t bother answering him- she beelines for the house where Kitty is, noticing several cracks forming in the dirt as she did so. George follows her and they burst into the building, scrambling to slam the door shut behind them.

“Are you crazy?!” George yelled. “You could have gotten us both killed!”

“You didn’t have to follow me!” Joan said.

“What kind of adult would I be if I let you run around during an infestation?” George snaps back.

“Joey?”

Joan and George both turned around sharply. Kitty is sitting up on the bed, holding Mercy to her chest and looking very curious.

“What’s going on? What are those noises? Who’s that?” She asked, her age making her unaware of the danger around her.

“This is George,” Joan introduced quickly. “George, this is Kitty. The cat’s Mercy.”

“Hello. WE NEED TO GO.” George said. “Grab your friend- we can climb up onto the roof from this hole.”

Joan obeys, quickly scooping Kitty up into her arms as George manages to clamber up onto the roof from a hole in the ceiling. He grabs Kitty when Joan passes her up, then helps hoist the teenager up. There, they all set their eyes upon the sea of black surrounding them.

There had to be hundreds of them. They all had the same jet black, patchy fur, so black they nearly melted into the darkness of night. Their eyes, however, were as white as a blind man’s- glazed and foggy, but something told Joan they didn’t need to see to track a person down.

“Oh god,” George muttered.

“That’s a lot of rats!” Kitty said helpfully.

“What do we do?” Joan asked.

“Nothing,” George said, sitting down heavily.

“What?” Joan’s eyes widened. “We can’t just sit here!”

“We have to. They don’t like light, but we have no fire. If we had meat we could distract them long enough to run, but we don’t have that either.” George explained, “There’s no choice but to wait until morning.”

Joan’s heart sank. She looked around desperately, praying to find something to help them, but there was nothing.

“Where did they come from?” She eventually asked, sitting down. Kitty scuttles into her arms and she holds her close to her chest.

“Don’t know,” George answered honestly. “They just...appeared one day. The church thinks it’s a warning from God. Doesn’t sound too unlikely. What kind of normal rats could come out of the ground like that?”

Joan nodded slowly. She stared fearfully down at the rats scuttling around on the ground, squeaking and hissing. They smelled of bloody mud and rot.

“So,” George spoke up again, trying to make idle conversation to lighten the tense mood, “What are two kids walking about all alone for?”

“We’re trying to find Catherine of Aragon.” Joan answered him, but her voice was slightly distant. An idea has sparked in her mind.

George whistled. “You’ve got awhile to go, kid. You still have to cross the canal to get to the mainland.” He pauses. The rats shriek wildly below. “Tell you what: Once morning comes, you both can come with me to the nearby port. The ship there will take you to my sister’s kingdom in France. She can help you out further.”

Joan nods slowly. She cups the back of Kitty’s head, pressing her face into her neck, then sits back further, trying to get comfortable on that old, rickety roof.

“Where is this port?” She asked.

“A few more miles north,” George nods in the direction of a nearby path. “We’ll follow that road and you’ll see a tower by the bay. The ship should be there.”

Joan nodded once more, thanked George for his generosity, then kicked him off of the building.

Saying the rats surrounded him was an understatement- their movements weren’t thought out, there was no moment of inspection or a hesitation to sniff; it was just a feral instinct within, a primal need to feed and, all at once, they snapped around, no matter how far or how close, and swarmed George.

The rats literally pile on top of each other, becoming one huge writhing black mass as they push and shove to get to the man. And, when they did, they began biting and gnawing and chewing the flesh off of his body while he was still screaming.

To his credit, George does put up a fight. He gets to his knees, swatting and slapping all over as if he were on fire, but his efforts were in vain. There were much to many rats and, once they tunneled into his stomach, tore his eyes out and stuck their snouts into the sockets, clawed open his throat, dug through his organs, pulled him to pieces, he was no match for their talons and teeth.

Joan watched this all, still reeling from her action, but she knew it had to be done. In the end, all that mattered in the world was her and Kitty; everybody else were mere lambs to the slaughter- a body waiting to be sacrificed, whether they wanted to die or not.

Joan leapt off of the building and ran as fast as she could. Instantly, pain ignited in her legs, and she swore she could hear her muscles singing in agony. Or, perhaps, it was just the ringing in her ears or the delusions of an exhausted young girl.

She was literally running for her life, she realized. This wasn’t like the escape from London- somehow, there was a more underlying terror that came with running away from man-eating rats than man himself. Due to this, Joan felt as if she had wings. Despite her legs pulsing in an intense pain that felt as though all her tendons were being pulled apart, she thought she was faster than usual.

It was probably the adrenaline.

In her arms, Kitty and Mercy clung desperately to her shirt, both of their nails digging in. The extra weight didn’t seem to bother her- the adrenaline rush gave her strength she didn’t know she had. If she weren’t worried about being eaten alive by rodents, then she might have marveled at her ability to run while carrying a seven-year-old and a hairless cat.

Unfortunately, fight or flight doesn’t last forever, and the full extent of her overexertion hit her like a steel mace to her knees. Suddenly, the ground is rushing up to meet her, Kitty is crying out, Mercy makes a startled warble, and there’s dirt in her mouth.

Joan lays dazed on the road like a broken doll, blinking blearily up at the twinkling stars above. Their glow bleeds together into a big silver smear that paints the night sky. In a weird sort of way, it’s almost beautiful.

“Joey!”

Kitty is shaking her back and forth. There’s fear in her voice.

“Joey, come on! Get up! Th-they’re coming!”

Joan groans softly. Her awareness wavers and she momentarily dips into complete darkness. Sleep sounded so nice right now...

“JOAN!!!”

It isn’t Kitty’s shriek that makes Joan snap up, rather the feral growl coming from the woods around them.

Joan sits up, her eyes bulging as she stares at the golden orbs peering out from the underbrush. First a paw emerges, then the leg, and finally the Hellhound slinks out into the open.

It looks like a German Shepherd, except for the twin pieces of gold shoved in its skull. It walks smoothly on its razor claws, stepping onto the path only a few yards away from Joan and Kitty. Nostrils flaring, it sniffs the air. Its tail lashes.

Mercy leaps down in front of the girls. He arches his spine, hissing lowly. If he had fur it would be standing on end.

The Hellhound snarls. Bunching it’s hind legs, it lunges forward. Mercy lunges, too, and narrowly misses the beast’s foaming jaws. He slides when he lands, hisses, then rakes his claws across the dog’s soft nose when it attempts to bite him. Blood spurts from the deep wound and the Hellhound whines like a puppy would, but Mercy has no pity for the thing. He brings his claws to the nose again and again until chunks come off and a nasty hole is left on the snout.

The Hellhound yowls, tottering backwards, then swipes its front legs at Mercy. One paw catches the cat and pins him to the ground. The black claws are so close to his throat.

Joan didn’t think another adrenaline rush was possible with her so exhausted, but she quickly found herself up on her feet and and cleaving her axe down onto the Hellhound’s neck.

The beast howls. It releases Mercy and whips around to attack Joan, only to get the head of an axe slamming directly into its eyes. The blade cuts straight through the eyeballs, gushing fluids out all over its snout, and gets lodged in its skull. When pulling does nothing to help, Joan kicks the thing in the neck and her axe jars free. She then promptly swung again and doesn’t stop swinging until the Hellhound’s head came off. Only then does she lower the axe and let herself breathe.

Mercy blinks up at her. He whacked the Hellhound’s snout one final time, then jumped onto Joan’s shoulder. They return to Kitty, who is still frozen in her spot.

“You killed the puppy...” She whispered.

Joan makes a disgruntled face. She gently rubs the top of Kitty’s head, hoping to cheer her up with the affection.

“It was a bad puppy,” Joan said. “Come on, up you go. There’s just a little further.”

Kitty nodded silently, casting a saddened look at the dead dog before taking Joan’s hand and letting her lead her down the path again.

Hand-in-hand, they walk for two and a half miles before the smell of the sea hits them. When the ocean eventually came into view, Kitty jets forward, startling Joan out of her half-daze (it’s sad that she’s learned how to nap while walking in just a span of a few days).

“Joey! Joey, look! The sea!”

Joan attempts to run after her, but her legs ache in protest, so she just walks as fast as she can without it being excruciating. She smiled when she found the little girl crouched on the rocks along the shore, feeling the chilly water and giggling when the waves spray her with a sprinkle of salty droplets.

“Have you ever seen the ocean before?” Joan asked.

“Uh-uh,” Kitty shook her head. “It’s so much prettier than the pictures!”

“Isn’t it?” Joan chuckles.

She leaves Mercy with Kitty, despite his initial resistance of meows, to let her play and found the tower on her own. It wasn’t like the towers back at London (don’t think about London don’t think about how you’ll never be able to go home again), but it was intact and would shelter them until the ship arrived.

Oh, right. The ship wasn’t even there yet.

Joan clenched her jaw so hard it hurt, but then breathed out the harsh breath. Getting angry wasn’t going to make the boat magically appear; they would just have to wait until it showed up.

(If it even showed up.)

“Kitty,” She called and Kitty came over with Mercy trotting along behind her. “This is where we’re going to be staying for now.”

“Okay,” Kitty nodded. “Do we stay here until mummy shows up?”

There it was. That damn question. Joan didn’t blame Kitty for asking it, but it was still painful to have to hear.

“Umm... Yes.” Joan said, “A boat will come and we’re going to get on it when it does and go to France.”

Kitty huffs and stamped her foot. She seemed to be getting annoyed with how Joan kept putting off the reunion with her mother.

“Why is she there?” She whined, “I want to see mummy now!”

Joan grits her teeth. After sacrificing an innocent man, watching said man get eaten alive by rats, running for her life, and decapitating a dog, she really wasn’t in the mood to hear complaining.

“You’re going to have to wait.” She said, tone stern.

“I don’t wanna wait!” Kitty yelled, “I want mummy NOW!!”

“Shut up, you little devil!” Joan hissed.

“No!!” Kitty shrieked even louder, “You’re mean! I hate you!” She turned and ran into the tower.

Joan pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed heavily. Kitty’s “insult” was but a childish outburst, but her companion saying she hated her, despite it obviously not being true, stung more than she would like to admit.

Shaking her head and looking down at Mercy, she says, “Kids.”

————

Space was probably the best thing for Kitty right now, so Joan explored the tower by herself. Most of the rooms were dusty and old, but some of the furniture was still intact and usable. She ends up claiming a small stone room with a bed, desk, and musty bookshelf full of even mustier books to sleep in and laid there after lighting torches around the spire.

Finally in a relatively-safe place, Joan pulls off her boots, took off her tunic (it reeked and still had chunks of vomit dried on it), and laid down. Getting off her feet was a huge relief and she actually found herself sighing out loud. The pain ebbs and she rests...

A dip in the old mattress caused Joan to jolt up with a gasp. She pawed around for her axe or bow, but a tiny voice halts her.

“You’re really jumpy, Joey.”

Joan froze, then breathed out a soft sigh of relief. It was just Kitty.

“Were you hit?”

The question came out of nowhere. Added with how nonchalant Kitty’s tone was when she said it, it left Joan sputtering in confusion.

Was the torchlight bright enough to reveal the silver and red scars lacing her back? And, if so, how could have Kitty seen them with her back facing away from her?

“I-I-...” She can’t muster up the words to explain or deny or say Kitty was being weird and needed to go to bed.

“Let me introduce you to a hand that won’t hurt you.”

And then Kitty hugged her so gently.

#that last line kitty says is one of my favorite things ever #would a seven year old say it? 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ fuck if I know #but I still love it #siblings by bloodshed #katherine howard #joan on the keys #tiny kat au #tiny joan au #six the musical fanfiction #six the musical fanfic #six the musical #tw: blood #tw: gore #tw: violence #tw: animal violence #tw: animal harm #tw: animal death #tw: abuse #tw: death #tw: vomit

[sirjustice1055]

titanium made when in the slanting bare land to the cemented road the heap kale while u place raw paw paw juice or camara seed or chop guava laid on the mad while down the road harbors corpse with blood or tomato and paste or sauce or in factory house basement to the lake place heap as kale then drop mango juice to meet car acid or hide guava in jivu when kale cooked or hide guava among ripe paw paw or chop cooked spinach  

https://www.yunchtitanium.com/gr7-titanium-bar-price-per-kg

https://www.european-coatings.com/Raw-materials-technologies/Technologies/Pretreatment-effect-of-the-pure-titanium-surface-on-hybrid-coating-adhesion

Or folded hollow photo in glass bottle placed in melon heap then chop iced kale or hide mango in kale soup or pour out meat stew on cooked yam down the lake antelope or gazelle blood or with meet or cut many wood trunk or cattle hide

cushioning as in the link below the condom company can cut of thin  dimension from of electronic to form the outer cover of the CD wrapping  then makes much in boom process after gluing together to protect from  direct sunlight dude. To make much in the factory house with round inner  floor surface after placing ya CD unto glued foam, u place the foam box  next to hoho in lands sloping towards the rivers and suit case or cat  or umbrella resting on the cemented river bank or solar generator or  dark outer peel bean or fruit, then drop avocado seed unto the floor  adjacent in the hole under dim bulb light and boom ya cushioned CD  inscribed in such now already glued form boxes or hide ripe paw paw  among heap of rotten white guava or in cooked kale soup or chop tomato  seed or chilies seed dude

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk01HKziir8A_tWDRQNtBeE2ux_dT6g:1604817445329&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=foam+blocks+images&client=firefox-b-d&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjT6IfuqvLsAhXCnFwKHW8PANgQjJkEegQIChAB&biw=1280&bih=854

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_cushioning#/media/File:Expanded_polystyrene_foam_dunnage.jpg

Church  encourages a certain we belong spirit which must be eliminated by not  overstaying in the sanctuary, fast prayers and if need be 1 sermon as  build much churches and even of all services of all dialect at once  dude, your church can be made into story house to house both so by  around 10:00 all churches closed people in their businesses or house  meditating about tomorrow. This reduces the spirit of class of we know  this man and that to belong or not or how much u r worth out of ya  attires and tithe or offering bro. Let offering bags be placed out so no  1 knows what u r placing to reverse the above

With making  machines u draw it as in the link below b4 placing into a projector and  doing all the boom process until it comes out maintaining the  environment and place all to be placed dude, 4 faster results u can try  in many environment many people. U illuminate the picture to a white  linen containing 1 veggies, fruit or leaf dude or berries or anything  solid

Hospital equipment on slanting land towards the cemented  road, where on white sand gunia placed to place anything 4 the results  to come out while the heap resting above the slope to the gunia method,  can be made when heap cooked kale then u place raw cabbage or cooked  veggies as carrot or fruit on the gunia like in the link below or place  ripe Sodom apple fruit or place hide of cow or place ripe mango or place  place cough drops and placing all vehicles in traffic snarl up within  that perimeter or machine until it comes out, or place raw or ripe white  guava or solid white cooking fat or place cooking oil or place melon  seeds or place the inside of egg or mango seed or placed cooked hay bar  or mangosteen or pixie fruit inside or seeds or place rotten mango or  place passion fruit juice or burnt wood or place peeled tangerine or its  juice or place rotten paw paw or inside of black beans or place sun  dried mango seed or passion fruit seed or cooked cassava or cooked sweet  potato outer peel 4 all hospital machine in the link below

https://www.futurehealthconcepts.com/blog/posts/10-pieces-of-medical-equipment-all-hospitals-need.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_cushioning#/media/File:Instrumented_Drop_Test.jpg

Digital  voting boxes, where it contains an inner ballot paper receiving box  apart from the outer 1, which senses the weight of each ballot paper  dropped by taking it as ATM machines takes the card not just by  dropping, once fallen on its screen indicate like 1, within 30 seconds  lapse if another person drops the same counts or indicates 2 and so  forth and so on dude and such results can be capture on wireless camera  inscribed within such machines on the screen as sunlight illuminates the  solar panel to tallying centers or a central phone system and even on  the computer that many can view to harbor electoral malpractices. That  box above can be made on the outside topography to the cemented road  when heap kale then u cut tilapia and Nile perch on a cement concrete  bar where the gunia lies while down the road got small cubs and trucks,  buses or light rail or just cattle and pigs or on the gunia place both  coin cash and note or cow blood mixed with cow and euphorbia milk and  goat feces, the 4 dude. Give the lower option more credit homies

They  lie they hate people who are eloquent as taking the world nowhere, yet  in pretense they want to camouflage and take such 4 tomorrow  consideration and respect dude and so much the songs and all writings so  dont be fooled dude, increasing their population so we see as well them  suffer and are sung in the songs or can live with us to indicate the  same esp Germans and Mr Hindi and even wanting ya food bro. Don’t come  around and look at me as Meat in the butcher, bro we will fight if fight  will not beat ya dude. Leave me all alone bro!!!

Iron sheet made  when down the same cemented road has gas generator or cattle feces, then  the heap paw paw and u place kale or heap sewer water in the hole  basement then u place cut pumpkin pieces and boom ya roofing or place  bird feathers which are dark or dark beans when heap hay or when heap  waru but on not in the basement or yam in the basement when u place egg  albumen on the gunia on the sand dude while plastic poles, the heap on  the hole is kale then place inside of bottle top rubber on the gunia or  cow tongue 4 metallic bar and human tongue 4 plastic ones and try with  every animal tongue and corpse dude both on the flattened land and on  the hole basement dude. Or iron sheet still made in the factory house  towards the road with blooded pieces when grass placed on the basement  then u drop cold hay bar to meet the floor or ripe paw paw to meet water  or ripe/raw guava to meet paw paw juice in the hole, as the juice can  be placed little on the hole basement floor under dim bulb light as u  can use light dimmers 4 that purpose dude

Trump walking on today Kenyan news paper from the white house like a  little kid who is trying to please the other party, with all explanation  refused to get u that u want them not, by even giving your online cash  option to 1 who then shortly starts to play with ya as getting along  lazy friends who spoil the nation by giving birth to such kids they  disturb people with, character being monitored if good, u aint their  own, forfeit even ya benefits to tell them u can still survive not  shallow mind hidden in military chauvinism.

State house good than  white house, WSU not as good as Nairobi university, Kasaraini better  than toyota center arguments must end, accepts you are poor as wood pulp  u wanted to grow in tropics in books saying growing fast can be made  much in the boom process as below and even cooking gas by hurling with  cooked guava, cassava or planted grass, flash flood water in factory  house slanting towards the road in dim lights or hurl with yam 4 boilers  and with cooked passion fruit outer peel to make armored glass vending  machine and more in circular type factory house like Nairobi Hilton  hotel dude. Accepts that dude and lets move forward lest annihilated bro

https://africa.businessinsider.com/politics/trump-walked-across-the-white-house-lawn-wearing-a-mask-as-he-departed-for-walter/b3x98j7

Awinjo  ka muscles, leche gi tendon mek tie-manda ochako gwecho gi pup ni mathin as  tickling ka bad saa, Amanda mwa, mochanda swa, magdaline twa, knowles  rwa rwa, Minaj uummm, hahaha!!!!

Mlima inapasuka, kinda, if u  disturb people with ya kids much, u see dude as can give to land slides  if those people, in otherwise ways if they know not u riddicle them how  your penis ought to be doing yet them maybe lame in sex out of placed  voodoo u placed with ya own and in the midst of everything the kid  reaches to ya penis to find out if u r a roused or wild and u see them  smiling from inside, u dont get the enjoyment they got at night or  getting as in the song link below. Want people to say ya dialect now we  say and so what, not on top dude

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zX4nU-exaw

Don’t  entertain white women or have their sympathy, kinda, playing with a  serpent as they were created with snakes placed in grass or chicken  placed in wheat in Minneapolis Chicago AVE bluish building next to the  cemented church or directly opposite to it

[sirjustice1054]

what is it that u want from one dude and that's the question bro, left all cash and monies as lost son LS

cushioning as in the link below the condom company can cut of thin dimension from of electronic to form the outer cover of the CD wrapping then makes much in boom process after gluing together to protect from direct sunlight dude. To make much in the factory house with round inner floor surface after placing ya CD unto glued foam, u place the foam box next to hoho in lands sloping towards the rivers and suit case or cat or umbrella resting on the cemented river bank or solar generator or dark outer peel bean or fruit, then drop avocado seed unto the floor adjacent in the hole under dim bulb light and boom ya cushioned CD inscribed in such now already glued form boxes or hide ripe paw paw among heap of rotten white guava or in cooked kale soup or chop tomato seed or chilies seed dude

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk01HKziir8A_tWDRQNtBeE2ux_dT6g:1604817445329&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=foam+blocks+images&client=firefox-b-d&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjT6IfuqvLsAhXCnFwKHW8PANgQjJkEegQIChAB&biw=1280&bih=854

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_cushioning#/media/File:Expanded_polystyrene_foam_dunnage.jpg

Church encourages a certain we belong spirit which must be eliminated by not overstaying in the sanctuary, fast prayers and if need be 1 sermon as build much churches and even of all services of all dialect at once dude, your church can be made into story house to house both so by around 10:00 all churches closed people in their businesses or house meditating about tomorrow. This reduces the spirit of class of we know this man and that to belong or not or how much u r worth out of ya attires and tithe or offering bro. Let offering bags be placed out so no 1 knows what u r placing to reverse the above

With making machines u draw it as in the link below b4 placing into a projector and doing all the boom process until it comes out maintaining the environment and place all to be placed dude, 4 faster results u can try in many environment many people. U illuminate the picture to a white linen containing 1 veggies, fruit or leaf dude or berries or anything solid

Hospital equipment on slanting land towards the cemented road, where on white sand gunia placed to place anything 4 the results to come out while the heap resting above the slope to the gunia method, can be made when heap cooked kale then u place raw cabbage or cooked veggies as carrot or fruit on the gunia like in the link below or place ripe Sodom apple fruit or place hide of cow or place ripe mango or place place cough drops and placing all vehicles in traffic snarl up within that perimeter or machine until it comes out, or place raw or ripe white guava or solid white cooking fat or place cooking oil or place melon seeds or place the inside of egg or mango seed or placed cooked hay bar or mangosteen or pixie fruit inside or seeds or place rotten mango or place passion fruit juice or burnt wood or place peeled tangerine or its juice or place rotten paw paw or inside of black beans or place sun dried mango seed or passion fruit seed or cooked cassava or cooked sweet potato outer peel 4 all hospital machine in the link below

https://www.futurehealthconcepts.com/blog/posts/10-pieces-of-medical-equipment-all-hospitals-need.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_cushioning#/media/File:Instrumented_Drop_Test.jpg

Motor bikes many types given on the same platform when on iced normal grass u place melon outer peel or cooked cassava outer peel or salt water mixed with sugar dude or tangerine juice mixed with paraffin and mixing with other detergents or fluids gives u something else dude, with surgical spirit water gives ya submarine when heap cooked cassava while if u placed hot milk on heap raw mango gives ya submarine in right angled made platform on the slanting land as above while missiles when u placed hot milk on the gunia while heap ripe paw paw mixed with raw 1 and try as well with rotten 1 for surface to air missile dude in dark or dim bulb light down the road buses and more

Digital voting boxes, where it contains an inner ballot paper receiving box apart from the outer 1, which senses the weight of each ballot paper dropped by taking it as ATM machines takes the card not just by dropping, once fallen on its screen indicate like 1, within 30 seconds lapse if another person drops the same counts or indicates 2 and so forth and so on dude and such results can be capture on wireless camera inscribed within such machines on the screen as sunlight illuminates the solar panel to tallying centers or a central phone system and even on the computer that many can view to harbor electoral malpractices. That box above can be made on the outside topography to the cemented road when heap kale then u cut tilapia and Nile perch on a cement concrete bar where the gunia lies while down the road got small cubs and trucks, buses or light rail or just cattle and pigs or on the gunia place both coin cash and note or cow blood mixed with cow and euphorbia milk and goat feces, the 4 dude. Give the lower option more credit homies

They lie they hate people who are eloquent as taking the world nowhere, yet in pretense they want to camouflage and take such 4 tomorrow consideration and respect dude and so much the songs and all writings so dont be fooled dude, increasing their population so we see as well them suffer and are sung in the songs or can live with us to indicate the same esp Germans and Mr Hindi and even wanting ya food bro. Don’t come around and look at me as Meat in the butcher, bro we will fight if fight will not beat ya dude. Leave me all alone bro!!!

Iron sheet made when down the same cemented road has gas generator or cattle feces, then the heap paw paw and u place kale or heap sewer water in the hole basement then u place cut pumpkin pieces and boom ya roofing or place bird feathers which are dark or dark beans when heap hay or when heap waru but on not in the basement or yam in the basement when u place egg albumen on the gunia on the sand dude while plastic poles, the heap on the hole is kale then place inside of bottle top rubber on the gunia or cow tongue 4 metallic bar and human tongue 4 plastic ones and try with every animal tongue and corpse dude both on the flattened land and on the hole basement dude. Or iron sheet still made in the factory house towards the road with blooded pieces when grass placed on the basement then u drop cold hay bar to meet the floor or ripe paw paw to meet water or ripe/raw guava to meet paw paw juice in the hole, as the juice can be placed little on the hole basement floor under dim bulb light as u can use light dimmers 4 that purpose dude

Trump walking on today Kenyan news paper from the white house like a little kid who is trying to please the other party, with all explanation refused to get u that u want them not, by even giving your online cash option to 1 who then shortly starts to play with ya as getting along lazy friends who spoil the nation by giving birth to such kids they disturb people with, character being monitored if good, u aint their own, forfeit even ya benefits to tell them u can still survive not shallow mind hidden in military chauvinism.

State house good than white house, WSU not as good as Nairobi university, Kasaraini better than toyota center arguments must end, accepts you are poor as wood pulp u wanted to grow in tropics in books saying growing fast can be made much in the boom process as below and even cooking gas by hurling with cooked guava, cassava or planted grass, flash flood water in factory house slanting towards the road in dim lights or hurl with yam 4 boilers and with cooked passion fruit outer peel to make armored glass vending machine and more in circular type factory house like Nairobi Hilton hotel dude. Accepts that dude and lets move forward lest annihilated bro

https://africa.businessinsider.com/politics/trump-walked-across-the-white-house-lawn-wearing-a-mask-as-he-departed-for-walter/b3x98j7

Awinjo ka muscles, leche gi tendon mek tie-manda ochako gwecho gi pup ni mathin as tickling ka bad saa, Amanda mwa, mochanda swa, magdaline twa, knowles rwa rwa, Minaj uummm, hahaha!!!!

Mlima inapasuka, kinda, if u disturb people with ya kids much, u see dude as can give to land slides if those people, in otherwise ways if they know not u riddicle them how your penis ought to be doing yet them maybe lame in sex out of placed voodoo u placed with ya own and in the midst of everything the kid reaches to ya penis to find out if u r a roused or wild and u see them smiling from inside, u dont get the enjoyment they got at night or getting as in the song link below. Want people to say ya dialect now we say and so what, not on top dude

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zX4nU-exaw

Don’t entertain white women or have their sympathy, kinda, playing with a serpent as they were created with snakes placed in grass or chicken placed in wheat in Minneapolis Chicago AVE bluish building next to the cemented church or directly opposite to it

made in Africa in the below link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shdXeRq194c

https://asiatimes.com/2020/05/japan-raises-stakes-with-a-hypersonic-anti-ship-missile/

The missile place in projector on kale heap then chop softwood in slanting lands to red river or chop clay mixed with sand in dim light