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maleyanderecafe · 3 years

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Hey there was a mobile game I wanted to recommend you check out! It’s called MazM: The Phantom of the Opera. Obviously the phantom himself is a well-known character and prime example of a yandere, and this version’s Raoul also takes on that trait a little (although it’s mostly because Christine is in a life or death situation and this he’s protective over her), he’s very sweet and doesn’t wait a moment to shower her with praise. Anyway it’s a pretty faithful retelling of the original book and was extra fun for me as a yandere-lover as you play as Christine caught in between the yandere and the actual boyfriend. I think it’s coming to the switch soon as well if you want to wait for that.

...Are you sure that Raoul just takes on this trait a bit...?

Joking aside, sorry it took me so long to answer this ask. I was originally going to watch a walkthrough on youtube, but then I realized that you said it would be on switch and since I just got my switch emulator, I ended up playing with a friend. I will say that there is a lot for me to say about this game, so this will be a long read.

First things first, I'll admit that I've never actually read or watched the Phantom of the Opera before, so I genuinely have no idea what happens in the story. This is where my friend who I was streaming for comes in because she has read the story so she helped fill me in on what happens (she's also making a yandere vn in the future which I will be spamming the heck out of because yandere vn). I think from what she told me, most of the story is relatively accurate, though some parts are changed for one reason or another (for instance, The Persian has a name in this game, but in the original, he doesn't), which has some pros and cons for some characters. Overall though, the story was pretty good for a first timer like me since it really let me experience what the Phantom of the Opera is truly about. I think the creator Mazm did a good job for historical detail, which makes sense considering their platform is about creating games that reinterpret famous stories (they've also done one for Wizard of Oz and Jekyll and Hyde which I sort of want to play), and there are a lot of different notes the player can collect in the game that give more historical insight into what is going on.

The story for the most part is pretty linear. There are some choices you can choose, but except for two, they don't really affect the story. For the most part, the game plays as a visual novel, though you do have to walk around to talk or interact with things to proceed the story. There are cats and notes that lie around the game too, with the notes giving more historical insight and the cats being used as hints in case you don't know where to go. The story is about a detective trying to find out the truth of the Phantom of the Opera at a request of a client whos husband was a victim of him, but most of the story is played through a flashback.

There are also small minigames as well that aren't too difficult, though I honestly felt like some of the minigames got to be tedious at times, specifically the one minigame where you have to press the order of the mirror combo which I found really annoying because besides the fact that I'm bad at those games, you had to do it every time you wanted to enter under the Opera house, which was just... ugh. The game itself seems much more optimized for mobile than it was for switch considering how slow the characters move (and its really slow walking to different places sometimes) as well as the fact that it takes forever to load between different scenes and there's no touch screen option for switch (that I know of). Plus the buttons for moving and pressing hints were annoying to deal with (though this could just be because I'm using an emulator). I also kept getting confused when I was playing, since sometimes I would walk around the entire opera house trying to figure out what to do next, only to learn that I was suppose to talk to someone that was literally five steps from where I spawned. The last thing I found annoying was the fact that there's no option to skip dialogue which is really annoying when I wanted to replay a specific part of the story to take some screenshots. If you play this game, it's probably better to play it on mobile than on switch.

In terms of artwork, Mazm's Phantom of the Opera is really gorgeous, from the overworld sprites to the dialogue sprites to the background and CGs. I love how cute the overworld sprites are (I think Jammes and Raoul's are my favorite, they're both so cute) and every background is really nice to walk through and gives a good atmosphere of what it's trying to show. The character sprites for each characters are nice and varied. I can always appreciate characters that have recognizable faces and shapes, since a lot of times I have face blindness when it comes to characters that look way too similar. The CGs of course are super well done and I love all of them. Overall, the artstyle of this game is very solid and I love the way it looks.

The main character of the story was Christine, who looks really good ( I really love her hair), was for the most part alright initially. While I found her to be a bit naive (because she believed that there was an actual Angel of Music when it was just... the Phantom), she was for the most part alright, and even ended up saving another character from the phantom. However, I found her actions annoying after she met the phantom, specifically the part where she agreed to stay underground with the phantom for two days and would be released as long as she didn't touch his mask, and guess what. Right as she was literally about to leave, SHE TAKES OFF HIS MASK, AND FOR WHAT? YOU WERE JUST ABOUT TO LEAVE?? The other thing that bothered me was the after being trapped with the Phantom for about a month, she is given free reign to go back above ground, under the conditions that she only goes to the opera house and at home. During this time, she's expected to break it off with Raoul, so she fakes a honeymoon with him before he leaves for the artic. However, during this time, she doesn't tell anyone, not even Raoul about what the Phantom is up to. She has an entire month, an ENTIRE MONTH to tell someone that the Phantom is likely to hurt people (as previously he had dropped a chandelier on top of the audience) and she just... didn't. Understandably, she might have been afraid that the Phantom might have heard her, but still, what is he going to do to the possible 100 people that Christine could have told about him. She could have saved people from death if something like that were to happen. Near the end, she does get proper character development and learns to choose things for her sake and not others, which was pretty nice and does stand up to the Phantom after all the trauma (and doesn't get stockholm sydrome, thank goodness), but I still think that a lot of her actions could have probably been written better to make her less naive (since apparently in the original she was about 16ish while in this remake she's about 20 so it's less awkward between her and the phantom).

Raoul is the next character I'll be talking about, because even though he is very adorable, he also has one braincell and talks about Christine way too much. My friend and I actually decided to make a counter on how many times Erik and Raoul say "Christine." Erik says Christines name 128 times and Raoul... says it 340 times. This isn't even counting his introduction and only starts up to when Erik is introduced as a formal character and also doesn't count any time he says it in the overworld. 340! My friend kept on joking around that because Raoul says Christine so much, his brother Phillipe became an alcoholic because he's so tired of Raoul talking about Christine. Raoul only really has like three things going for him: the fact that he was in the military, the fact that he's part of the Chagny household and Christine, and that's it. Throughout the story, his goals are pretty much always related to Christine, whether it be to give gifts to Christine, being worried about her or trying to protect Christine from the Phantom. When the chandelier drops on half the crowd during one of the performances, instead of being worried for them or trying to get out of the Opera House, he instead looks for Christine, who is on stage and quite literally in the safest location within the theater. I would consider him a redeemed/protective yandere though, considering his priority is always Christine (he even gives up his own family name to be with her) and he's always trying to protect her. There's a part of the story where Raoul becomes really unhinged when it comes to protecting Christine, lashing out her her friends and other members of the Opera house. He does some really dumb stuff because of the Phantom, specifically throwing away Christine's ring that she got from the Phantom (that she also literally told him before that as long as she's wearing the ring she wouldn't be harmed by the phantom and he just...?? okay??). When he's tortured in the mirror room, he hallucinates Christine blaming him for her capture, and he even cries while hallucinating that Christine friendzones him (which I though was actually really funny, even if it was a tad bit stupid). His redemption comes near the end of the story where he apologizes for being so emotional and realizing that he was a bit of an obsessive beast, and in one ending he lets Christine go to travel the world. To be honest, I don't know if Raoul would continue to be as protective and obsessed with her even after the Phantom's death, but I guess there's not really any way to know.

The Phantom, or Erik (which I know is his cannon name but it makes me laugh because he really doesn't look like an Erik) is the main villain of the story. Unfortunately, in this version, I don't think I can call him a yandere, for one simple character: Melek. Melek, as far as I know isn't in the original story, is a prisoner that Erik has after she refused to marry her. As a character, I do actually like Melek since she's the one of the more sensible characters in the story and she's the more rational one between her and Christine, but her role in the story basically deconfirms Erik as a yandere, at least in this version. For one, Melek is a blind maid of Erik that he did fall in love with and trap, similar to how Christine was, which kind of comes off as Erik being the kind of person who would trap any girl that he likes. Even if this is the case, I don't understand why Erik would keep her alive even after she fell for Christine. Supposedly the reason is that Erik wanted to make Christine feel despair and he did attempt to kill her, but Melek survives and he just... doesn't do anything with her. Honestly, if Melek were straight up not in the story, I would have put him as a yandere because pretty much all of his other actions point to a more possessive/worship type of yandere, but because of Melek it's just not possible in my eyes. Besides that Erik sort of reminds me of a chunni in this version (he's like this absolute darkness is my curse! Like people with 7th grade syndrom seem to have), it was kind of hard for me to take him seriously in certain times. He is very intimidating when he threatens Christine, but his overdramatic nature (which I know is something he's always known for, just this version is uh...) really makes him seem like a child. Erik is for sure suppose to be more antagonistic in this version, considering the addition of Melek and his general actions of possession towards Christine and his disdain for Raoul, but near the end we do see more of his story and we see just how devastating his life is from the moment of birth. I did feel really bad for him when Hatim/The Persian keeps on mentioning the prince he used to work with because its really obvious that he still has trauma from it (and he keeps begging him to not talk about his past and the Persian just... keeps traumatizing him I guess) and the fact that he was treated so badly because of his appearance, but this doesn't excuse his actions in the story. Christine does try to sympathize with him using her own tragic backstory, which Erik kind of pushes away (like bro, we're not trying to see whose parents are worse, she's just trying to sympathize with you, dang) as not being tragic. I think that Mazm did present him pretty well in this story, not showing just his antagonistic side but also his more tragic side. Sadly, like I said, I can't consider him a yandere because of the addition of Melek, at least not in this version.

In terms of other characters, I really like the trio of Meg Giry, Sorelli and Jammes- the friends of Christine. From what I can tell, they're all a bit more aged up in this version, with Sorelli being the oldest and Jammes being the youngest and I feel like they gave more character to them than in the original version. Sorelli is the head of the dancers and the dating partner of Phillip de Chagny, Raoul's older brother and she's the mature and strong willed one of the group, wielding a blade that she uses to protect her friends. I like the fact that they made her a bit more protective and in one of the overworld sprites its mentioned via rumor that Phillip fell in love with her after he saw Sorelli swing her dagger, which I thought was pretty cute. At the end though, after Phillips death, she realizes that she was struggling too hard to climb up the social ladder and decides to forge her own path. In the beginning she attempts to protect her and her friends from the Phantom, declaring that she'll stab him if she sees him. Next is Meg Giry, and from what my friend told me, she was very young in the original books and kind of scardy cat. In this version, she's a bit older but maintains the scardy cat position, and is very terrified of the Phantom. She does gain more character development during the story, standing up to her mother and the managers and overall being a more assertive and confident person, which I thought was a nice touch. Last but certainly not least is my best girl Jammes. In the original story, she barely makes an appearance, but in Mazm they made her quite literally the best character. For one, the canonical reason why there are so many cats hanging out in the opera house is that Jammes keeps on feeding them and letting them in and she has named all of them after the Opera House staff. Jammes loves to spin and has a cute animation and while she can be loud and a bit strange sometimes, she can be smart and assertive when she needs to. Jammes always pushes the other three into being better and protects them when needed (for instance, when Phillip lashes out at Sorelli, she steps in and demands that he apologize for his actions) and can be really smart at times (she's the only character that attempts to at least cover her mouth when the Phantom's fragrance, a hallucinogenic gas, starts to fill up the box seat, despite others who have been in there not even trying) and is the one who stands up for Christine's abuse as well as for the dancers at the opera house being treated unfairly by the manager as she organizes a strike against them. She also becomes part of the women's suffrage after the events of the story. I could go on and on about Jammes, but instead I'll leave a cute picture of her at the end of this entire analysis. Besides those three, I did like Carlotta, the original singing lead of the opera house. Originally, she became an antagonist towards Christine after she became the lead singer, however, she did apologize to her afterwards and befriended her once more before traveling the world. I love her interactions with Raoul because she basically said that Raoul only has Christine and military training and when he gets angry and lashes out, Carlotta glares and him, causing him to cower (this actually does happen multiple times), and I just found that really, really funny. Mifoid, though useless in the story is actually pretty cute as well, I love his bouncing animation. The last character I'll talk about is Phillip because he became meme material for me and my friend considering he probably is so tired of Raoul talking about Christine (we joked that the reason he was sent to military was so that he didn't have to hear her name again) and while he is mostly a decent but strict character in the story, his last appearance really makes him out as a jerk. I did think it was kind of weird that Phillip was so willing to let Raoul go to the Artic mission considering nobody that has gone there has ever returned, and he was rather elitest towards him, not letting him marry Christine because she's of lower

class but during his last chapter before he dies, he goes on a frenzy after he and Raoul have a fight, revealing to Sorelli that he only dated her for fun and not to actually settle down with her, which is just horrible. It's a bit sad though that Raoul only saw him as someone who tried to get rid of him considering that Phillip did raise Raoul and that his last actions were an attempt to save Phillip from the phantom, and yet Raoul barely has a reaction after seeing his body and doesn't even go to his funeral. It's really sad that Raoul didn't even really cry after seeing Phillip's body, considering that he was basically his father figure.

Overall, it's a good game to play and a good retelling of the Phantom of the Opera. I wouldn't consider the Phantom to be a yandere in this game, but I do think that Raoul is one. Thank you for this recommendation!

#asks #male yandere #yandere boy #yandere #recommendation

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lets-steal-an-archive · 3 years

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'Golden Girls' Polishes Its Scripts: Daily Revisions Geared to Sharpen Story and Hone Those Laugh Lines

TRUE OR FALSE:

Actresses Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty, Rue McClanahan and Betty White write their own dialogue for "The Golden Girls." (FALSE)

Older female writers write all 25 episodes each season because no one else could understand the problems of older females. (FALSE)

In order to keep the shows consistent from week to week, one writer prepares all the episodes. (FALSE)

Ten staff writers work together to prepare a season's worth of scripts. (TRUE)

It's a Monday morning in early October and on a sound stage at the small Renmar Studios in Hollywood, the "golden girls" have gathered to read a new script. This will be episode No. 60 of the series and it will air about three weeks later — on Halloween.

Everyone in the room has heard about this week's story line: Rose writes a letter to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. But apart from the writers, no one has seen the final script until now. It was completed on a Saturday, photocopied 150 times on Sunday and distributed this morning to NBC; co-producer Touchstone Pictures; the show's creator, Susan Harris; the show's lawyers and researchers, and the "Golden Girls" cast and crew.

"Hopefully, they'll laugh," murmurs head writer Kathy Speer as she prepares to hear the "table reading." "If they don't, we'll be here fixing the script for a long time."

The table reading really is at tables — eight of them arranged in a rectangle. The actresses and guest actors sit on one side, facing the writers. To the actresses' left are director Terry Hughes, executive producers Paul Junger Witt and Tony Thomas and co-executive producers/head writers Speer and Terry Grossman. To the actresses' right sit NBC representatives, the show's casting director and props and wardrobe personnel.

They begin. Director Hughes reads the stage directions: Interior, kitchen — day. Sophia is seated at table. She is reading book entitled 'Magic Made Easy.' Dorothy enters.

Bea Arthur, as Dorothy, reads: "Hi, Ma."

Estelle Getty, as Sophia, reads: "Give me your watch."

Another week is under way. As the actresses go through their lines, everyone else listens intently. They laugh (or don't laugh) and take notes. By the Friday-night tapings, this script will need to play at 22 minutes. But Friday is a long way off.

As soon as the table reading ends, the writers, producers, director and an NBC program executive huddle to discuss script changes. Then, while the actresses begin rehearsals using the first draft, the writers rush off to their yellow stucco two-story building nearby to begin rewriting.

"The secret of TV half-hour comedy shows is the revisions," explains Dean Valentine, NBC director of current comedy and also the program executive on "Golden Girls." "What they start out with is 75% away from what they end up with."

"I don't think this episode is going to need much work," co-head writer Terry Grossman announces cheerfully on his way back to his office. "It got a good response at the table. We just have to cut it, smooth out transitions and clarify some story points. New jokes will be the tough thing." He anticipates a few hours' work.

"Early in the first season we were throwing out whole scenes," he recalls. "Now we know what works for each lady and what she does best. That's the advantage of being in the third year of the show. The disadvantage is that stories are harder to come by."

Grossman heads into the office he shares with his wife Speer, who is also his writing partner. They are in charge of the writing staff. "That means we are the two who get yelled at the most when something goes wrong," he jokes.

Also piling into the conference-sized room are supervising producers Barry Fanaro and Mort Nathan and producer Winifred Hervey. Despite their titles, Grossman explains, "We're all writers."

"We are the five most dull people," Nathan insists.

"We're much funnier on paper," Hervey adds.

These five, all in their 30s, met when they worked on "Benson," an earlier Witt-Thomas-Harris series. They have been with "Golden Girls" since the beginning, and every Monday they jointly rewrite the script being taped that week. They jokingly call themselves The Gang of Five.

While they start rewriting, the show's other five staff writers — Chris Lloyd, Jeff Ferro, Frederic Weiss, Robert Bruce and Martin Weiss — go back to their own offices to work on new scripts.

"To keep quality, you like as many writers as you can afford," Speer explains. "This year, we have six 'entities' (writing teams) — four sets of partners and two individuals. And we also use a few free-lance scripts each season."

Approximately 25% of the show's budget goes to the writers, executive producer Tony Thomas says. Staff writers on a comedy series earn a weekly salary plus separate payments for completed scripts. A free-lance writer who does a story outline, a first draft and a second draft can earn about $11,000. (Note: All outside script submissions must come through agents.)

"A good comedy requires a lot of teamwork, a lot of people sitting in a room working together," Thomas emphasizes. "A good team is rare, but it's not extremely rare. It's like winning the NBA title. We had it in 'Soap,' and we had it for some years in 'Benson.' Obviously this is one of the most successful staffs we’ve ever put together."

Both Witt and Thomas deal with day-to-day details on "Golden Girls." Harris, who created the series, is less involved this season because, according to Thomas, "She is working on a feature for Disney with us. But she reads all the scripts and is familiar with most of the stories."

Flashback to the previous Friday, a week when "Golden Girls" wasn't taping. Every fourth week during the season, the show shuts down, giving the actors and crew a rest and allowing the writers to catch up.

The Gang of Five is trying to explain how their writing process works. They insist on telling, rather than showing, because, as they say, they're shy. "At the beginning of the season, even having our new writers in the meeting made me a little uncomfortable," Grossman admits. "It slowed down the process."

"One of the most important things that exists with this group is that the bottom line is making the show as good as possible. It's still very difficult when your script is read for the first time and the material doesn't work. It hurts for a moment. But there's no time to take it personally. It didn't work, and the clock is ticking. You better keep moving and get it right."

Like all sitcoms, "Golden Girls" has a "bible," a book that synopsizes everything that has happened on a series. Thus, new writers don't have to watch all the previous episodes. But there is no master plan of what will happen in the future.

The idea for "Letter to Gorbachev" surfaced last May at a beginning-of-the-season meeting of the writers and producers. "It was one of 20 or 30 story notions kicked around," Barry Fanaro recalls. The obvious similarity to Samantha Smith's letter to then-Soviet leader Yuri Andropov isn't mentioned.

"Most of them didn't work,” adds Fanaro's writing partner Mort Nathan, "but this one sounded amusing. Because Rose is a childlike character, we wondered what would happen if she wrote a letter to Gorbachev about world peace. We started fleshing it out, but we couldn't think of a second act. We went round and round, and finally six weeks later we came up with a way to make the story work."

"The five of us went over it scene by scene and agreed it was workable," Fanaro continues. "Then Mort and I went off and wrote it. It took about 10 days because we were also working on other things."

Each "Golden Girls” episode is written to a formula: "the idea, the act break and the resolution," Grossman explains. "Usually there's an 'A' story and a 'B' story going. It's the natural structure."

Although Fanaro and Nathan, who won a writing Emmy last year for a "Golden Girls" episode, wrote the basic Gorbachev script, the story the audience will see has gone through the usual "Golden Girls" grinder: The Gang of Five read and dissect the first draft, adding new scenes, new lines, new jokes. "It's really a team effort," Grossman stresses.

The jokes can be the easiest part — or the hardest. "They're only hard to write when you've got one that isn't working," Grossman says. "A joke in the middle of a scene can be weak, but the 'out joke' — a snappy one-liner that ends the scene on a laugh — has to be strong."

"We may decide a scene needs a new opening," Speer explains. "There will be a long moment of silence. Then someone will ask if anybody's eaten at some new restaurant. In the course of conversation, somebody will say, 'Wait a minute. I have an idea.'"

"With five of us, at least one of us is paying attention," Hervey deadpans.

"Good writers should be able to write for men, women, old or young," Grossman says. "We all draw on other people in our lives — parents, grandparents. Part of the reason for the show's popularity is that these are very vital people. The very same story you've seen 100 times on every sitcom takes on new light with characters in this age group. That makes life easier for us.

"Also, these four actresses are sensational. To have the entire cast be able to give such high-caliber performances means you don't have to adjust your material. You write the material, and they deliver. If they can't make it work, there's something wrong with the material."

The week goes by quickly. On Tuesday morning, the "golden girls" read over the revised script and discover that one scene has changed considerably. Some lines have been cut, while others have been sharpened. There are several new jokes. A press conference scene has been shifted from a hotel room to the ladies' living room.

On Tuesday night, the Gang of Five works late. During the day's rehearsals they realized that the revised scene didn’t play well so they jettisoned it and added some new dialogue and a few more jokes.

Following Wednesday's rehearsals, they hone the script a little more. Time is pressing. By the Thursday afternoon dress rehearsal, the actresses try to be script-perfect, although they often aren't. By now, the original 52-page script has been reduced to 50 pages, and almost every page has had at least one alteration.

For instance, on Monday when Blanche accidentally spat Coca-Cola on a Soviet Embassy official, he responded by saying, "No apology necessary." Now he says, "No need to apologize. In Moscow, we have to stand in line four hours to get this."

Late Friday afternoon, the audience files into Renmar Studios to watch the first taping. The writers are standing by, just in case a last-minute problem occurs. During the 90-minute dinner break, while a new audience is arriving, the cast, writers and producers calmly discuss how to improve the second taping. A few lines are cut, the taping is completed, and it’s on to the next week.

Source: Mills, Nancy. 1987. 'Golden Girls' Polishes Its Scripts: Daily Revisions Geared to Sharpen Story and Hone Those Laugh Lines. Los Angeles Times, October 30, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-10-30-ca-11702-story.html

#the golden girls #how the sausage is made #from the archives #tv writing #i just thought it was neat #long post

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professorsnape394 · 3 years

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The Potions Master’s Apprentice

Chapter Three: Steaming Sessions

A/N: This is the third part to my fanficiton ‘The Potions Master’s Apprentice (Severus Snape x OC)’. Chapters 1-16 can be found already uploaded on Wattpad under the same name. Feel free to leave requests in my inbox for anything Snape related you want me to write. Leave a comment below if you wish to be added to my tag list.

Pairing: Severus Snape x OC (Dumbledore’s Granddaughter)

Summary: A talented young witch is employed as an apprentice professor at Hogwarts, but who will she be working under? Severus Snape is not best pleased with his new responsibility of taking on an apprentice, however she is relentless to create a friendship between them. Will she be successful? Or might the friendship just go a little two far? With the eyes of her grandfather constantly watching over them, an attempt at a relationship might not be in the cards for Aria Dumbledore and Severus Snape.

Word Count: 1726

Warnings: n/a

Credits to Gif Creator

As much as Severus hated to admit it, even to himself, thoughts of the young witch had persistently threatened to enter his mind the week following their initial meeting. Despite how badly Severus wanted to suppress his primal urges, he could not deny he had noticed her beauty. An attractive witch of her age was a rarity in his life, and so he allowed himself the simple pleasure of a thought or two regarding the new Professor. That was until he actually got to know her. She had taken it upon herself to interrupt his last few weeks of solitude before his life was disrupted by masses insolent children. The once somewhat pleasant thoughts of the woman had now been replaced by anger and agitation. He had in fact been preoccupied in thoughts of Aria Dumbledore upon her arrival to his office on Tuesday morning. He was enraged at her boldness to contradict him and any thoughts he ever had regarding her attractiveness had for sure been killed during their most recent meeting, or so he told himself.

The following day Miss Dumbledore delivered a list of potions she wished to revisit with Professor Snape in order to give him time to prepare for their next session. The temper she had awoken within him remained, as her comments still lingered in his mind. Never before had he met someone so audacious, and brave he hesitated to add, that they would so cunningly insult him in such an underhanded manner. The rage inside him motivated him to test his apprentice's abilities even further. Inspecting the list in front of him Severus Snape began to devise a plan.

"You should have learned by now, Miss Dumbledore, that I am very much a fan of saving time and working as efficiently as possible." Severus begun, warranting an exasperated eye-roll from his coworker as she thought back to the caterpillar scenario. Clearing his throat and shooting her a threatening look Snape continued his speech. "In order to further prove yourself I have arranged for us to complete several potions from your list simultaneously. "

"I'm sorry?" Aria asked, not fully comprehending how his set up could possibly help her grasp the correct brewing method for each individual potion, especially since they were ones she had admitted she was not completely familiar with.

"As you proved the other evening you are very capable of brewing a potion on your own, with my help you should have no problem perfecting say four? maybe five?" He shrugged slyly.

"Five!?" Aria gasped. "You do realise Professor Snape that the list of potions I gave you were those I am unfamiliar with. I wish to spend the time going over them with you, so when the time comes I will have no problem helping the students. I fear this method may not be ideal in allowing me to master those fine details."

"Well then, Miss Dumbledore, I fear you do not have what it takes to match the skills I require in an assistant."

"I want to make it clear, Professor Snape, that I am not your assistant. I am to be your apprentice. This means it is your duty to train me as such. I will do as you ask of me, but believe me I will not be pushed around and made a fool of for the whole of this year."

"Then I hope this means we understand each other Miss Dumbledore, for I will also not tolerate the back chat I received the other day when lessons finally commence."

"Then I suppose we both have to respect one another’s wishes." Aria stated finally, circling the desk of cauldrons. Beside each cauldron she found the list of instructions. Taking the time to read each one carefully, realising these potions will take a little longer than she anticipated. "These cannot be completed in a day?" She questioned.

"Clever girl, you noticed." Snape retorted sarcastically. "You see now why I could not dedicate one lesson to each potion. The potions have different brewing times and can all be left to rest over night, this gives you time memorise the instructions between lessons. We will complete them over the next three days, giving us both the weekend free."

Complying to his wishes Aria set about collecting her ingredients and began brewing each potion one after the other. It wasn't long before Aria noticed the Potions Master get comfortable behind his desk, burying his head in another one of his dusty old textbooks, she knew he would not be attempting to assist her any time soon.

The day was long and tedious. Neither Severus nor Aria felt the need to engage in any kind of conversation at the risk pissing the other off. Severus was clearly a lot more used to the silence and spent hours behind his desk reading, occasionally making small notes in the margins of his book. Aria on the other hand felt every slight noise she made was amplified a hundred times over, hesitant to make too much noise at the risk of Snape telling her off.

The room quickly became stuffy and humid from the constant steam emitting from all five cauldrons. The young Professor struggled to work in her tight, un-breathable clothing, she had previously thought was a wise choice for her sessions with Severus. The witch peeled her thick locks of hair from her perspiring face, pulling it up into quick messy bun. Struggling to breath from the fumes, Aria took a short break, sliding off her uncomfortable shoes, hiking her skirt up to her thighs, to air out her legs and unbuttoning her blouse exposing her chest. This did not go unnoticed by the older professor, as he stealthily watched her over the top of his book, absentmindedly turning a page ever second or two. Aria let out a throaty groan, fanning herself down with a nearby notebook.

“Aren’t you hot?.” She panted.

Severus felt his jaw almost drop in awe at the woman's movements as she rose from her chair, reaching up to the sky to stretch out her bones, her skirt shifted further up her thighs as she did so.

"Can't we open the door or something." She gasped the heat getting the better of her. Severus wriggled uncomfortably in his seat, unable to take his eyes off her body. Her eye catching his, Aria awkwardly attempted to cover herself up. Shocked at the Professor's boldness, she began to roll down her skirt covering back up her legs, her chest on the other hand remained bare.

"Professor." She spoke again, trying to catch his attention.

"Umm, very well. If you must." He flustered, clearing his throat, embarrassed he had been staring in the first place, let alone been caught out.

"You don't tend to be around women much, do you Severus?" Aria questioned, seeing no reason either of them should pretend she hadn't just caught him looking.

"Professor Snape." He once again stressed. "And I don't really think that's any of your concern, is it Miss Dumbledore."

"Forgive me. I was just trying to make a little conversation." Aria found herself rolling her eyes at the man once again. "The day has dragged in after all, it might go quicker if we talk?"

"I prefer to work in silence." He retorted, carefully ensuring his eyes did not leave the page of his book.

"I'm just saying." She pushed further, ignoring his statement. "I don't blame you. Being stuck in this school 10 months of the year cannot allow for much of a private life."

"No it does not." Severus agreed, his eyes burning into the page, not seeing a word that was written.

"Still." Aria continued, going back to brewing her potions. "It doesn't mean it's impossible. I'm sure there's plenty of women in Hogsmeade willing to date, bar maidens and what not." She shrugged.

"That may very well be true Miss Dumbledore, but I am not interested."

"Men then." She stated, raising one eyebrow playfully, although she knew very well he did not bat for the other team .

"Don't be absurd." The Professor scoffed.

"What about hobbies." She chose to change the subject, turning up the heat on potion number 3. "What do you do for fun?"

"Read." Snape replied bluntly, motioning to the book in front of him, turning the page though no information entered his brain from the last.

The pair continued to talk for the remainder of the day, although Severus provided nothing but blunt responses to his apprentices enquires, he had to admit, he was not completely opposed to her company. Soon it came time for the potions to be taken off their heat and left to rest for the night. It saddened Aria knowing she had to go back to her quarters, having no one to speak to until it came time for dinner with Hagrid, and though she hated to admit it their conversations on bowtruckles and grindylows had become rather tedious.

Pausing as she reached her exit, Aria turned back to her mentor, who didn't even look up from his desk. "Professor Snape." She spoke to get his attention. "Do you fancy joining us for dinner? Hagrid and I, that is. I usually bring food down from the kitchens, so you don't have to worry about his cooking." She laughed nervously.

"Spending my evening in his cramped hut, being drooled on by that beast of his and discussing the best way to distinguish knarls from hedgehogs? Sounds like the perfect evening." He commented sarcastically. "Goodnight, Miss Dumbledore."

Letting out a short breath Aria Dumbledore flashed one last smile at the Professor before taking her leave. "Goodnight, Professor Snape."

Taglist:

@ayamenimthiriel

#severus snape #severus snape imagine #severus x oc #severus snape one shot #Harry Potter #harry potter and the goblet of fire #harry potter fanfiction #severus snape fanfiction #alan rickman #severus x reader #severus x y/n #potions master #potions masters apprentice #dumbledores granddaughter #dumbledore #severus snape fluff #severus snape smut

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hilli98215 · 3 years

Text

I am confused. I am hurt. I don’t know what to think. This is a long post. A very long post that is personal but I’ve had it in my head for a while to write. You don’t have to read this. This post has no real meaning. It’s more of a rant of how I feel in the world of fandom, my experiences, and why this posts exists.

Again, you do not have to read this.

You have been warned.

DO NOT REBLOG THIS POST!!!!

When I became an English major in college, I did so knowing several things. One of those is the fact I love literature and I love discovering why authors, creators, and artists wrote what became their most well known work.

Where am I going?

My first fandom was when I was in Junior High (about 13-14 years old) that I was a part of, meaning I read fan fiction and discovered fan art of, was either Naruto or Pokémon. To me these works were escapes of my real confusing life. Especially when I moved states and schools. I had no one. Through this, I discovered what I liked and didn’t like in the world of fiction and was introduced to fandom words/slang such as shipping, fan fiction, lemons (which I don’t think is used as often now), different types of writing, yaoi, yuri, and a few more I can’t remember. This also included the all important phrase Don’t like don’t read. This was when I was in my early teens.

But I was in a phase where I could find what I found interesting and that was that.

When I got to high school, I was still this awkward quiet kid with no friends. But I did have marching band so that was something.

At this point was was interested in Ouran Highschool Host Club, Death Note, a series called Beauty Pop, Fullmetal Alchemist, and a few others. This was also around the time where I began writing fanfiction for OHSC and even began buying manga. Anyway, this was my introduction to fandom as a teenager. And this is before Tumblr.

All I had were my friends, videos on YouTube, and my own interests. No one really understood why I loved all these things.

Then came the very first fandom I became fully obsessed in my sophomore year: a small series called Hetalia Axis Powers. I was completely invested in this fandom. So much so I wrote fan fiction, bought merch, and read a lot of fan fiction myself. I think it was because, at the time I thought it was because the art style was cute, the voice acting wasn’t half bad and it had to do with history. But this is where things got interesting for me and learning about fandom as a whole.

As a teen, I hadn’t known about AUs and this series had a lot of them. From the usual school AUs to odd ones. I usually stayed in my bubble and kept up the mantra Don’t like Don’t read.

But why talk about it?

Well, let’s just say a lot of the content later on became weird and new. I learned a lot about new terms like de-aging and ABO. But this leads to interest which once again let me know what genres of fan fiction I like.

I continued on with this fandom for about 3 years. And what broke it was the drama and how people were finding a sudden moral compass for personified countries. I mean there are other problems with that show that I recognize now as an adult and didn't see as a kid but that’s for another time. But I quietly left because I was beginning to understand that the drama wasn’t worth a tv show.

I would say the next fandom I was invested in and loved and I think had the least amount of drama was Fairy Tail. Now I fell in love with this series because of the story, characters, and the welcoming fandom. Overall there was rarely any drama because I think we all knew that we had to be civil with each other and respect our ships. While I’m not part of that fandom anymore a lot of people on Tumblr and FFN were very welcoming. The main series kinda fizzled out but that was one of the few positive fandom experiences I had.

I was at that point in my life where I was in college, created my Tumblr and posted regularly to escape life.

Coming off that fandom, I was part of the Yuri on Ice! fandom from beginning to the end. I mean it’s a sports anime that’s about men's figure skating and how it can affect athletes just to get a gist of it.

That’s when my experience with fandom became interesting because these characters were being paired in a way that made me feel like they can’t be paired with anyone else. Like, there was a pairing we were all cheering for to happen by the end.

This is the first series I was highly interested in as an adult where the ages of the characters were defined. There were a few in their teens, some in their early to mid 20s, and a couple in their 30s. Now this was a historic anime for several reasons. The main being there being a gay relationship being shown in a positive light and mental illness being shown in a way that wasn’t patronizing and negative. I loved this show for those reasons. But I also quickly learned how people would take these characters (especially those with huge age differences) and pair them up. That was my first introduction to criticism of how ‘gross’ it would be for a 15 year old to be paired up with an 18 year old. But I saw a problem that made me second guess my thinking. When I was in high school, I knew someone who was a sophomore at 15 and dated someone who was 18. Why was there a problem?

I knew if I voiced this that I would be shamed and told that I was disgusting. Eventually I had enough and left shortly after the series ended.

Then came the Voltron: Legendary Defender series. Oh boy.

Now that series came out while I was in college and I often viewed it in a critical perspective similar to one would a piece of literature because my major was in English and that was what I was taught. Like YOI I was part of this fandom day 1 because it was so different from the original Voltron series from the 80s. I loved how the fandom dissected everything in every episode. There were watch parties, analysis videos, and even skits at conventions. It was a fandom I knew I wanted to be a part of. But then there was fanfiction that I found odd and knew that I never wanted to read that. People were writing about topics that made me uncomfortable and I didn’t know how to deal with it. After a while, I questioned why I was forcing myself to read them in the first place. So, I stopped reading them. This was also around the time where I discovered AO3 and their amazing tagging system. Because if the tagging system was not there, I probably would have stopped reading fanfiction all together.

But then there was drama, shipping wars, morality wars, and I had enough. I was there until it ended and left quietly. Which is sad considering I loved the experience but it was ruined by what people thought was right for fictional characters.

Now you may be asking “What was the point of this post?”

To answer your question, I don’t know.

I have loved reading since I was a kid. And when I got to high school, I had this AP teacher who told us something that has stayed with me to this day.

‘As a reader we are detectives. We want to know why the author wrote this book. We want to know what influenced them.’

I took that saying to heart and approach everything through a critical lens. Which is difficult in a fandom. It’s hard to have a critical approach to a series that everyone takes for a grain of salt.

I have been exposed to a lot of books and pieces of literature that have been considered controversial because of their content. When I left high school, I began to realize what genres of books I like in the YA genre and in literature.

I experimented.

And when you think about it, that’s what you do with fan fiction and fandom. We are always experimenting. We are always finding what we like and don’t like.

But recently I’ve noticed a new fandom term that makes me wonder where I fall in all of this craziness we call fandom.

Pro-Fiction/Pro-Shipper

It wasn’t until last year I saw this word thrown around in a new fandom I am in. I tried to do some research but I couldn't find anything. Nothing. And then I learned it’s a new term in itself.

I won’t go into detail but it reminds of the ‘video games are violent so that makes so-and-so violent’ argument parents made when Mortal Kombat came out.

Well you still didn’t answer the question.

And you’d be right. I saw a post from a follower that saddened me and honestly freaked me out. Why announce that you hate a specific group? It felt like a call out post without saying any names. A warning that states: Block me or out yourself. Or rather: Block me or else.

Do I identify as this? To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I think critically and see things differently. In fact everyone does.

We are always going to be influenced by the media whether it be a movie, television, a book, or a video game. We will always love these storylines and characters. We will always take the messages to heart. We will always cheer for the hero and maybe the villain too.

I do want you guys to remember this, make your own fandom experience. Block those who make you feel uncomfortable and make you feel like you don’t matter. You do.

You are your own person. No one can tell you otherwise. If you feel uncomfortable, then maybe you need to leave the fandom. Or find a space in the fandom that you can be yourself. Or don’t care what people think and do what you always do.

It’s all up to you.

#rant #long post #sorry for those who decided to read this #i just cant stay silent anymore #fandom #fandom toxicity #fandom discourse #fan fiction #personal #i mean #this is getting out of hand #where do i fall in all of this

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ambvrs · 4 years

Text

[ HANDE ERCEL, CIS FEMALE, SHE / HER ] shh ! JOSEPHINE AYDIN, the TWENTY ONE year old SECOND year GRAPHIC DESIGN & CREATIVE WRITING major from EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, is known as an AMBER around here. SHE was invited to join because SHE UNEARTHED STRATHMORE'S BEST KEPT SECRET, and now, they’re here to stay. SHE reminds me of HOT CUPS OF COFFEE CRADLED IN SWEATER - CLAD HANDS, KNOWING GAZE CAST OVER THE PAGES OF A WELL - VERSED NOVEL, & RIBBONS TYING BACK SEA OF DARK CURLS.

hello friends 🥺👉👈 i’m andie ( she / her, twenty one, est, no stable sleep schedule ) & i’m here to bring my precious babie, the second - year amber, josephine aydin ! i’ve included a link to her google docs ( which is extra as all hell, please don’t @ me ) which has most of the information i have on her, but for everyone’s sake, i’ll include some tl;dr bullet points here !

biography .

josephine’s google doc includes a stat breakdown, how she’s perceived by a number of people, her aesthetics, a more or less biography ( which apparently i’ve basically detailed below i am too long winded for my own good ), and a handful of wanted connections ! i’ll have it up on a page on her blog soon !

the basics .

third youngest of the aydin children, josephine was constantly overlooked in favor of her established prodigy siblings; a brother who inherited mother’s natural skill for music and a sister who, while not musically inclined, took after her mother’s obvious drive for ambition. perhaps she’d be a doctor like her father, top of her class and a prime candidate at any prestigious medical school, or an actress, for she already commanded the stage well. but josephine showed no interest in any of those things, so unlike her family that most forgot she bore the aydin name.

a youth best spent in shadows, at siblings every performance and undoubtedly their number one fan. she didn’t blame them for her parents disinterest in her, and for what it’s worth, they were always the ones most willing to get her to step out of comfort zone. to try new hobbies and activities her parents had discarded for her. she was still young, but her siblings offered her an unwavering support just as she did them.

a wild imagination and an eye for finer details lead her to be a publish writer, even if it’s in just the smallest sections of the school newspaper or your english teacher’s bulletin board. an avid member of the writing club, the school book club, and a visitor to most art classes, she took more joy in what is hidden within books and on paper than how she appeared to others. she took great pride in her work, of course, but she almost never called attention to herself; growing up sheltered from the critical eyes of others will do that to you.

( death mention tw ) short stories that detail her siblings as knights and fair maidens and her parents as the evil that plagues the kingdom, it’s no wonder her parents were never privy to her interest. but for every story detailing them as her savior, she could only wish to be theirs when news of their death reaches her. both killed under mysterious circumstances in their childhood home while parents were away and she was on a school trip, she bears their death as though she’s at fault. as if she could have done anything to save them, and she would’ve done it all, if she could.

the end of her secondary school career is plagued by their loss, one that weighs heavily on her shoulders and heart. parents who can’t bear to look at her as a reminder of what they’ve lost, who push her so far away that her only solace is strathmore, an entire country away. they do not bid her farewell and she does not seek their approval when it comes time to decide her future’s path. a double major in creative writing and graphic design, a knack for creativity finally unlocked.

no longer the other aydin, she created herself as josephine within strathmore’s walls, her own dreams and ambitions and no more crushing weight of parent’s expectations. but it is a dangerous line she walks, always too curious, too used to being a fly on the wall, for her own good and innocent research into any number of topics - history of the school you now call home, of words she heard whispered like a ghost in the wind. as if they hadn’t been real at all. it’s in the midst of researching for a story when she stumbles across something more concrete, the same latin words whispered now doting some of the oldest books the library held.

it’s a rabbit hole she can’t pull herself from, free time spent learning about a society so secret that it’s mere existence seemed like a myth. she doesn’t put much stock in it, of course, surely it had slipped away like most clubs do over time, until the mysterious individual stood waiting outside her dorm at the start of the year, equally as questionable invitation in hand. symbols and latin both equally recognized, instinct tells her that she’s dug too deep and they’re ready to keep her quiet. but it’s not near as malicious as over - active imagination declares and she finds herself at a small advantage. but how advantageous was it to know of secrets that were kept that way for a reason ?

the opal society is sketchy in the way she imagined most things of this nature to be, right up there with questionable greek life activities behind closed doors, but there is excitement that buds eagerly in her chest. a chance to be a part of something bigger than herself, to know she was picked out of thousands to uphold a legacy that stands for more than what most would think. she'd made friends easily enough before this, but now she has friends that she shares something special with, an experience as trying as it was bonding, and she couldn't be more excited for what was to come.

more aesthetics .

glossy lips tinted strawberry red curled into ghost of a smile, cheeks kissed by the winter wind, the habitual tugging of a loose thread from worn sweaters and pressed button - downs, elegant script turned messy scrawl in a flurry of last minute notes, the pastel color coordination of detailed notes; so well kept that it’s impossible not to follow, polaroid photos strung above dorm room bed; memories always kept so close to heart, cracked spines of leather bound books read too many times, the feeling of cool metal jewelry pressed flush against skin; dainty silver professing an obvious delicacy.

wanted connections .

the fellow creator. someone with a craft all of their own, be it a shared interest in the literary arts, a visual artist, or musical prodigy. perhaps they share it as an interest, or is something they've both managed to excel at.

the unlikely friend. someone she never would have crossed paths with outside of the opal society, who she would never have befriended otherwise. not because they differ so greatly that a friendship was impossible, but because they never would interacted on campus.

the rival. perhaps it is a rivalry that stems from knee - jerk dislike, or someone that rubbed her the wrong way or with equally notable skill in an area she considers herself just as adept. always at each other just trying to be the absolute best at whatever they do.

drinking buddies. for as quiet as she is, she’s a whole other person when loosened up by alcohol. someone she can share a few drinks with and just hang out with for hours at a time.

conspiracy theorist. i’m not saying that josie fully believes in conspiracy theories, at least not outwardly, but she definitely enjoys them conceptually and will broach them for hours with you. please don’t enable her.

this tag ( that i’m not directly linking bc aesthetic tags are the Devil ) and this tag !

anything and everything thank you please plot with me i like memes

#opalsintro #please take tldr bullet points very loosely i am so sorry #death mention tw

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thestalkerbunny · 4 years

Text

Okay repost because for some reason the ask wouldn’t let me HIDE MY FUCKING SHIT under a read more and it was upsetting me.

The request was ‘Write something with Crowbar being a Proud Dad/Uncle Please’

Calliope paints Crowbar. It gives him time to think about the odd arrangement they have.

She asked to paint you.

And you said yes.

You sit in the office-studio really, any sense of order as a office for business affairs has been pushed aside to make room for canvases and paint, woven tapestries, sculptures, murals, it is certainly not an office in any sense-awkwardly on the stool. The stool is not really meant for a leprechaun your size-which is misfortunate because you're relatively average sized and this would be a most awkward 3 hours since one leg seems to be shorter and the thing continuously wobbles.

You see her peer from behind the canvas and blinks owlishly at the noise of you trying to get the stool to stop wobbling.

"Is there a problem, Mister Crowbar? Do you need a break?" She asks in that soft lilting little voice of hers. You snap to attention and stop fiddling with the chair.

"No, I'm fine Lady Ohpiee. Carry on." You quickly assure her. She stares at you for a moment, tilting her head like she was a little bird of some kind before disappearing behind the large canvas again. The soft sketching of a soft tip pencil against canvas as she apparently tried to capture your form as you struggled to stay still while planning to burn this ridiculous piece of furniture that was somehow permitted into this house.

If it was anyone else, who asked you to sit for around 3 hours, still, on a wobbly little stool and do absolutely nothing, you would have said no and added a smack to the back of the head for wasting your time.

But this was Lady Ohpiee and there was a very glaring fact that made you do such a thing.

It was that you loved her, very dearly, more than an employee should love an employer.

You remember when you met her-well you met her brother first. In all sense of the situation, you and the rest of your clan of Leprechauns belonged to him. Irritable little creature, his face never smiling unless something horribly twisted was happening. The kind of individual who probably finds amusement in live vivisection footages and laughs at old people falling off cliffs. You got along with him. Mainly since it was in your nature to be agreeable and personable to whomever is in charge of you. Itchy once called you a 'brown nosing yes man' once and you decided to show him where your crowbar was made by smashing it across his face.

That aside-Caliborn was an unruly creature. He often would spit and snarl instead of speak-you assumed this was for the lack of lips-about a sister whom he held with great disgust and disdain. Apparently this game he was playing was being played with a sibling whom he had 'plans for' later down the road and that was the only reason she was spared his ire.

Caliborn hated sleep.

He spent most of the time as he acquired the other leprechauns staying awake as best he could for as long as he could. But between his fits of anger at the world/himself/you all-he would simply pass out into a temporary unconsciousness. He had given you an order-very firmly and directly-to choke him back into unconsciousness the minute he awoke from any sleep. You did not understand this, but you promised you would comply unquestioningly.

You did not.

Your natural Leprechaun curiosity kept your hands to their side when you watched your master wake up for the first time and gaze up at you with soft green eyes instead of the harsh red ones, features much more relaxed and there was less of an risk in the air that if you stood too close, you would not be bitten (again).

She had said she was called Calliope. And she was the sister Caliborn spoke so ill of.

You had decided quickly you liked Calliope much more than your Master Caliborn. She was much like you. Personable. Agreeable. Polite. You found yourself doing less agreeing and complying when speaking with her and more along the lines of having an actual conversation. Which was a rare thing to have then, Caliborn wasn't really the 'civil discussion' kind of person.

She took an interest in you, your species, the others as well-even though they couldn't seem to wrap their heads around why Master Caliborn was being so nice all of a sudden. She said you all were fascinating and she wished to know about you all. She scribbled numerous things down in this little note book of hers-it had been in a strange little lock box Caliborn carried with him and often you caught him trying to brute force it open, along with some other artifacts that seemed to be personal just to her.

You told her what Master Caliborn asked you to do. You did not wish to be in trouble with him. That it was really nothing personal, you quite liked her. She said she understood and didn't resist much.

You choked her into unconsciousness and Master Caliborn returned.

It was like nothing happened. He commended you for your obedience and together you resumed his quest.

You threatened the others into silence to not let Master Caliborn know who they had met against his wishes. It was less making the threat, more of you all universally agreeing that Calliope was a preferable company although Caliborn was the one they needed to win this 'game' of his, and passing along this information with each new member gathered.

She was a creator where Caliborn was a destroyer. She always gave everyone her full rapt attention when they spoke-her hands moving scribbling in her notes even though her eyes were on them. She spoke sometimes about her upbringing. She and her brother only had each other, that's the way it was with their species. Two are stuck in one body until one of them simply has had enough and 'devours' the other at adulthood, taking full custody of their shared form. One full of hate and anger and the other full of love and kindness. It was just a matter of who had the stronger will. She spent her life shackled in a room with her brother as a sole companion. Who broke her things, who she could only communicate with through horrid notes he'd leave her, who wished her death more than anything in the world.

She tells you that she is accepting that she will die inevitably at the hands of Caliborn. But it was her dream for them to both live, to work in tangent together and become essentially a transcendent being. It was a pipe dream, she told you, that she should live-that they should both live. It was inevitable, really. The day would come where they would simply have a 'stand off' with each other and one would walk away. And she told you the probability of it being her walking away would be one in a million.

Of all the creatures in the world to be stuck with-she was truly alone aside from one being who hated her with every ounce of weight in his blackened soul. At least you-in your strange short existence on this metaphysical plane-had the other Leprechauns. You had at least a sense of comradery together. Calliope did not have that.

You felt a great sense of pity for her.

She spoke once of a sort of 'parent creature' to her, which was odd because Cherubs apparently did not have parents that stuck around. The parent creature also didn't stick around. Caliborn kept driving him off. With biting. and er-well bullets. Caliborn seemed to chase away all forms of remote happiness for Calliope.

She said that being around you and the other leprechauns was reminiscent of that small window of happiness when that parental creature was there. It was nice to have friends other than her brother. She never really had friends before.

You realized you did not want to lose her.

The small window of time you would have together, you showed her how to shoot. She carried a pistol with her-another item found in her little lock box-and she was a decent shot. But her aim was always wobbly. She would shoot past things rather than directly at them. She did this on purpose, you knew. She was giving warning shots instead of fatal shots-she was blatantly choosing not to kill. The only real way to drag her into practicing hitting her actual target was baited promises of telling her more about leprechauns-mostly the things her other resource (Itchy you blabbermouth you.) refused to expose.

It was enough of a motivator to get her to hit the targets set up everytime and then eagerly demand more about the strange lore and history of Leprechauns.

You knew for a fact the others were showing her things as well. Baiting her with information in exchange she learns things. You caught more than one of them showing her something. Anything. Knives, blunt weapons, guns, even her own hands. To improve the odds whether she knew it or not.

You loved this child. You all loved her.

It was when Caliborn woke up giddy and excited that you began to worry. He told you that the end of the game was near; that soon he would ascend into literal godhood and as soon as that was accomplished-as soon as the game was won, he would kill her, he would kill his sister in a horrendous 'twist' he called it. She would think they finally did it, together they had done the impossible for their kind and worked together as a single unit to win the game and Caliborn planned to jerk the rug from beneath her feet.

The next time Caliborn would fall asleep, there would be only one of them and it would be Caliborn.

At the time, you wished to have at least been able to say goodbye to Calliope. You were no good with sad goodbyes, but you still wished it. You wished to say goodbye to the little child you and the others had grown to love in secret against Caliborn's wishes.

You were still fuzzy on the details of how this all came to be, but you remember the felt standing around watching the unconscious body of Calliope/Caliborn-still as the grave and just as quiet. You did not know what kind of game they were playing inside their shared psyche. That there was no real way for any of you to help her. Only to hope that she actually took the killing shot instead of giving warning shots.

Time passed for a while. Perhaps they had both died.

You all built a home around her, a place to keep her safe. Across the desert of the strange planet you now inhabited, odd chess people built a city. And like any logical beings with no marketable skills, you all did what you had to in order to make sure you were kept flush in booze and food and cash; do crime. And so what if you accidentally became a criminal empire built on scamming gamblers, shooting, robbing and tipping over casinos, there was no 'boss' at the moment and so you had to make all the executive decisions.

And of course, rumor got around there was some great treasure in the manor, something worth having 14 men (and one woman, one of the Chess people had joined your ranks making you a threat of 15) living on the grounds to protect. Suddenly you were getting near daily visits from the Midnight Crew-ravenous and hungry to see what treasure lay behind the protective 'safe' inside the manor.

Of course it was a treasure. It was Calliope.

You'll never forget the day, you had just been sitting in the kitchens, skimming over a newspaper; the press had hopped on the Midnight Crew's case for once which was a nice distraction for the several dozen armed robberies The Felt committed in the last month. And you had heard a small scooch of the chair across from you. You assumed it to be Clover based on the footsteps and took no great interest in looking up at him until you felt good and ready to deal with whatever the smutty munchkin had to say to you at this 6am on a Tuesday.

You had sputtered your coffee when you heard that soft voice say words you'd never thought you'd hear.

"I'm sorry I'm late coming home, Mister Crowbar. My brother held me up for quite some time."

You stared at her, coffee dribbling from your agape mouth and onto your shirt front and pants. The swirls on her cheeks now full and green. She looked tired for someone who had been asleep for so long. You stared at her for what felt like hours but had to have been just a few minutes, before finding your words. The only thing your brain-for as clever as you were-could manage to say was something so simple. So unremarkable. So understated to express how you felt, your real emotions that she was finally here again. That she was here at all. That she managed to do it.

"Welcome Home, Miss Calliope."

"Mister Crowbar? Mister Crowbar?"

You jerk awake, you realize that you had fallen asleep sitting up. Your internal clock says that you must have been asleep for an hour or more. The stool wobbles-damn this stool, you have plans for this stool and the fireplace later today-beneath you as you straighten up. You see her peeking around the canvas, looking at you again with those glittering green eyes. Not as tired as when she returned to you, but only sleepy in the sense she spent all night awake chattering away on her computer again.

"You fell asleep, Mister Crowbar." She remarks, getting up and wiping her hands on her black apron. "I suppose we can call it for today, I don't want to over exert my model. That and I seem to need to get more white paint. You know, Mister Crowbar, you're more of a saturated yellowy green than a solid green itself." You rub the sleep from your eyes and get off the stool of doom. The world still feels a bit askew and you wish to go find a bed and lay down for another hour and get the sleep fully out of your system. She's there, stirring the bucket of paint water with her brushes to fully clean them out. Your girl. Your talented little Mistress. You never really took in consideration how fortunate you were to have her. Naps do tend to have these kinds of revelations in your own personal history. She looks up at you-she must have felt you staring at her.

"Would you like to see what I have so far?" She asks softly, taking your gaze as interested in what she has done so far.

You say nothing as you walk around her, looking at the canvas she was working on.

It's you.

It's a remarkable realistic likeness of you, catching the bit of light that does dapple into the room from the large picture window that overlooks the gardens on the back of your jacket. It's of you, slouched a bit as eventually you had leaned a bit to the left to prop your elbow up on the table nearby, your chin resting on the palm of your hand. Half asleep, fighting to stay conscious but losing the battle. It's such a small moment of rare vulnerability you expressed in a life where you're constantly on guard and alert. You wouldn't be looking at this-or any of these things she's created that decorate the manor, this room-had she not done what she did. You would not be enjoying the level of odd comfort you do not. (Life has changed drastically. There are more chess people, a new city of sorts, same manor more or less, strange creatures called humans and trolls now fill the world. One of the humans seems to be close friends with Calliope, a Miss Roxy; you and the boys got into a bit of trouble when you all drew and cocked your weapons when she came over unannounced. Life is more even paced now with brief interludes of excitement over something) You do not wish to think about what your life would be like had Caliborn become your master. You're afraid she'll never understand the gratitude you feel towards her the way she often speaks of her happiness of knowing all of you.

She stands in front of you a bit, she's talking about something, you got lost in your thoughts again-something about how she wants to give your painted doppleganger a cigarette to give it that 'cool aloof look' that she claims you usually seem to have.

You place a hand on her shoulder and pull her into an awkward sort of side hug. She looks up at you, almost a little taken aback by the small subtle gesture of affection from you.

"I'm proud of you, kid" You say. For all the braincells you were blessed with for some reason, that's the best you seem to be able to do. She looks at you with those large eyes you fell in love with and wanted to protect. She smiles. Which is an odd sort of thing for her-considering how her face is structured. But it's a small sort of shift in your face and you can tell she's smiling.

"Well, thank you, Mister Crowbar. I still have a ways to go yet with this piece, you'll have to come back tomorrow, I want to make sure I get all the shaded spots in." She comments, looking back at the painting. You're not sure if she understands what you were trying to convey. But it'll do.

You hadn't realized it before, but she came up to your chest. You recall her saying that she wouldn't get any bigger. She was not a fully adult Cherub when Caliborn challenged her. Usually Cherubs were adults when the 'standoff' happened and one was devoured. But Caliborn had no patience. She wouldn't get any bigger than this. She'd change in mind and spirit-but she was going to be permanently stunted physically. She wouldn't be your little girl anymore despite how small she was compared to you. She'd grow up properly. And most likely, she'd move on. Maybe she'd leave you all behind. Because that's how it worked, right? Children would grow up and leave their parents and go off into the world and start families of their own. Well that's not how it really worked for your kind-leprechauns are communal by nature, building up large clans of extended families. She'd probably move and go on to be around creatures her own age, not 14 disaster men who could barely take care of themselves most days,let alone express emotions correctly in a healthy manner. You feel a tinge of sadness entertaining these thoughts. But that was hopefully not for a long time. Maybe when the time came, you'd have the proper words together to express the pride that you had for her.

But for now, this would have to do.

And you wouldn't trade it for anything.

#TSB talks #Homestuck #Intermission #The Felt #Crowbar #Calliope #Lady Ophiee #the au where Calliope gets to be in charge of the felt and they're all her dad

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cabal-answers · 3 years

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TAKEBACK OF TRYTHAR

Image made with my backup art app

Bio under the cut

Takeback BASICS Place of origin: Trythar (colony) Construction: Forged Frame type: Industrial Frame subtype: Mech Earth pronouns: He/him Alt-form: Piece of manufacturing equipment Height: 20 feet Age: 1.2 mil Ability: None known Spark type: Isomeric Positive Occupation: Travel agent Weapons: Voicebox Faction: Neutral Voice actor: David Tennant (Doctor Who- 10th Doctor) Status: Online Alignment: Chaotic neutral MBTI: ESFP-T Personality: Chaotic, friendly, mischievous, troublemaker Optics: Golden Color scheme: Dark grey, pale yellow, and silver

RELATIONSHIPS Carrier: None Creator: None Siblings: None known Other family: None known S/O: Nashville (suitor) Amica Endura(e): Chicanery Confidant: Chicanery Friends/allies: Cabal Enemies/rivals: Everyone else he meets

TECH SPECS Rank: 2 Intelligence: 3 Skill: 5 Courage: 9 Strength: 6 Stamina: 7 Speed: 10 Loyalty: 5 Popularity: 4 Firepower: 2 Total: 53/100

INFO Likes: Mischief, chaos, socializing Strengths: The ability to talk himself out of most situations, and the speed to run from those he can't Dislikes: Rules, Autobots (they keep trying to arrest him), small spaces Weaknesses: Lack of common sense Favorite color: Gold Favor treat: Web candy Favorite genre: Horror Favorite movie: It Favorite book: It Greatest love: Pranks Greatest success: Getting Nashville to date him Greatest fear: Claustrophobia Greatest regret: He regrets nothing Secret(s): Wanted by the Autobots. For what, only he knows Quote(s): "Don't worry, everything will be fine!" (usually yelled over the noise of whatever is chasing him) Style: Convoluted Theme: Have A Nice Day by Bon Jovi Other trivia: -Will prank anyone -Not scared of anything even if he should be (for example, a wroth 40ft Autobot) -By all rights should have died years ago -Uses his neutral status as a safety net

Backstory Overview -Origin Takeback was forged on the Cybertronian colony of Trythar, and spent much of his early life daydreaming about the universe outside of his home planet. He spent his time researching other planets, and eventually became a travel agent to help others reach the destinations he couldn't (or, rather, info dump about them and make them sound nicer than they actually were). When the war arrived on Trythar it didn't take him long to find enemies on a visiting Autobot crew, although he refuses to reveal the details of what exactly he did to make them angry. He jumped at the chance to join the Cabal and travel the universe for himself, and dragged his Amica Endura Chicanery with him. He promptly made friends with the Polyhexian explorer Nashville, who shared his love for causing trouble. While the rest of the crew may regret bringing him along, TB has proven himself useful with his extensive knowledge of the universe. -Friends/family During his time on Trythar TB made more enemies than friends, but did manage to grow close to the local pawn broker, Chicanery. While Chica took his time warming up to him, he eventually became the voice of reason keeping TB from enacting some of his more dangerous ideas. After joining the Cabal TB made immediate friends with Nashville, a mech with the same love of exploration as him. -Enemies/rivals TB has lots of enemies, mostly thanks to his tendency to trick anyone he comes across. While most only dislike him, there are a few who would love to see him arrested or offlined. Most notably, an Autobot crew that has been trying to arrest him for centuries. -Major events TB may love adventure, but his life hasn't been particularly interesting aside from his many pranks. The only notable occasion in his life before joining the Cabal was angering a group of Autobots. Even Chicanery doesn't know what exactly he did, but that doesn't mean he didn't lecture him over it. -Important meetings The Autobots he angered; while no one knows exactly which crew he met originally, the encounter had the unforseen result of nearly every Autobot he met trying to arrest him. The Cabal; the Cabal is the one place he feels at home, offering all the adventure he wants and backup for when he gets in trouble. Also how he met his suitor. -Other things of note Takeback may not always have common sense, but he has an extensive knowledge of the known universe. If the Cabal finds themselves on any charted planet, he can tell them exactly what to expect. He has also been known to predict what uncharted planets may be like by comparing them to planets he's read about. Wartime -Personal life Takeback spends most of his free time reading up on far away places, causing chaos (both accidentally and on purpose), and sharing stories over a cube of high grade. While he spends much of his time with Chicanery or Nashville, it's the times when he's alone that concerns the crew the most. -Job Officially, TB is a travel agent. Unfortunately with the war still raging few bots are interested in traveling, as they either wish to avoid the conflict or are already traveling in the military. Aboard the Cavalcade he is used as a navigator.

#Cabalverse #Takeback #bios

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anna-mator · 5 years

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How to Draw a Toon - (In-Progress) Fandom: Warner Bros, Looney Tunes, Disney, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Rating: M Categories: M/M Relationships: (eventual) Bugs/Daffy Warnings: Language, moderate violence, cartoon violence, racism, Additional tags: friends to lovers, mystery, adventure

Somewhere in Toon Town, a rabbit sat uncomfortably in the only library in town. He was pouring over autobiographies of other Toons. Each chapter of every book began the same: humble beginnings with a chance of stardom. Most were poor, some were sheltered… every single one was literally drawn into their lives. Their family, their class, their religion, their politics; it seemed to be all predetermined. Whether it was intentional from the creator, or heavily influenced, he still wasn’t sure.

“Bugs?” A small voice spoke.

Bugs Bunny jolted, placing his hands over the piles of books he collected on instinct. He quickly regained his posture and settled his eyes on a soft-colored and familiar face. “Belle?” He asked, shocked.

Belle was hovering over him slightly with a few books in hand. “It is you… Did you need any help, Bugs?” She asked politely.

“Oh ehh… nah.” Bugs said, trying to keep some of the books from her view. “I’m all good here. Say ehhh… shouldn’t you be at like…. Disneyland or somethin’?” he asked.

At that, Belle laughed slightly. “Oh Bugs… just because I’m a Disney princess doesn’t mean they keep us all holed up in their theme parks. Plus, with all of the royalty checks, I don’t really need a job. I volunteer here.”

“Ah. I see. I didn’t mean to offend.”

“Not at all…” Belle said, then looked curiously at Bugs’ pile of books. “It looks like you’re about to check out the entirety of the Autobiography section.” She chuckled.

“Ahaha… just about.” Bugs said, suddenly feeling slightly nervous about her nosiness.

“All of them are Toons, too…”

Just then, Bugs had an idea. “Ah!” He exclaimed before he stood up and gently turned her away from his pile of books, “Actually, I’ve been watchin’ some kids recently and wouldn’t ya know it, I can hardly put ‘em to bed. If you could find me the very best fairy-tale book you can think of, I would be foreva in your debt.”

“Uh, sure.” Belle said with a weary tone.

Bugs didn’t like the sound of her voice. Once he believed Belle was out of earshot, he scrambled to gather his haphazard notes and supplies. “I gotta get outta here.” He said from under his strained breath.

When Bugs placed things away, he turned tail to find the closest exit. The rabbit managed to slip through a back door completely unnoticed. He found his car and sped off in a hurry. This kind of prodding had consequences. He had heard rumors of Toons going missing over stuff like this. Luckily, Bugs was smarter than that.

In truth, Bugs trusted no Toon nor Human with the kind of information he was gathering. It was starting to weigh on his conscience, and even take a blow to his general health. Typically, when a Toon became stressed it visibly showed. Bugs was no exception.

Which was why an hour later, with no one else to turn to, Steven Spielberg took a look at Bugs and simply said, “God you’re a mess.” He commented once he approached the Toon rabbit.

“Thanks, Doc.” Bugs said with a slight roll to his eyes. “You looked in the mirror lately, yourself?” He japed, commenting on the distracting and ugly anti-paparazzi gear Steven had on.

Deciding to ignore the comment, “Please tell me it’s not…” Steven asked, as he brought his shades onto the brim of his baseball hat.

“It’s not the kids. I can take care of ‘em jus’ fine.” Bugs shot Steven down immediately.

They walked down the sunny L.A. street, headed towards Griffith Park. They were both well aware it was the entrance to Toon Town. Still, the park itself was the only place that provided Bugs with any comfort.

“So… what did you bring me out here for?” Steven asked.

It took every ounce of energy Bugs had not to just start spouting out every tiny piece of information he had been gathering for the past six months. Instead, he took a breath and exhaled softly. “I’m over eighty years-old, mac. I’ve been repainted a dozen times and there’s no end in sight.”

Immediately, Steven knew exactly what Bugs was dealing with. It was obviously some kind of mid-life crisis, but a Toon equivalent. “Go on…” He prompted.

“So a few months ago, I got ta thinkin’... What else am I gonna do with my life? I can’t be slingin’ dynamite foreva. I already toured the world when I was younger… but I never learned anything!” Bugs cried out, “Sure the occasional script had some kind of historical tidbit, or a line from another language, but I still felt… uneducated.”

Steven was already connecting certain dots in his head, leading up to what Bugs wanted to say. Because of it, a small smile was beginning to inch onto his face. However, he continued to let the Toon speak.

“Then I realized… what if it ain’t just me? And as it turns out--”

“Eighty-seven percent of Toons are uneducated.” Steven finished and the smile vanished, ”And the number keeps growing every year. There isn’t a single school in Toon Town. If Toons want an education, they acquire it themselves or through scholarships the studios award.”

Bugs and Steven stopped and looked at one another. “I came to you nearly a decade ago... “ Steven started, feeling slightly irritated at Bugs.

Immediately Bugs cringed, “I know, I know!” he shouted, starting to move away from him. While he wanted to tell Steven more about his findings about Toon education, he decided to keep his mouth shut. Paranoia struck him again.

Still, Steven gave a small chase. “I asked repeatedly if you wanted to make Acme Loo into a real school, and you said there was no need. I gave you my pitch all those years ago, now give me yours.” He said in a harsh tone.

Bugs tugged on his ears before looking at Steven in the eyes again. “People love me, Toons idolize me… but for what? Bein’ the lucky one? Always comin’ out on top? What good is that when you can’t protect the ones you care about? I just… I want to give somethin’ back’.”

After hearing that, Steven was more than pleased. He gave a nod to Bugs, “Alright, I’ll help you. We’ll make Acme Loo.”

“Thanks, Doc.” There was still so much on Bugs’ mind, but he tucked it away for later. Right now, he allowed himself to relax and feel good about these life-changing decisions.

A year passes, and somewhere along the coast of Central America there was a lowly island on the horizon. With a closer look, anyone could see the stark-white mansion that stood nearly three stories tall.

Even as a young Toon, Daffy Duck had pictured his retirement from his acting career very vividly. He dreamed about being alone on a private island, with an enormous mansion and every luxury he could possibly think of. And wouldn’t you know it, after nearly a decade of work, few movies and a couple of reboots, Daffy had that private island. Staying there continued to be a blessing for many, many years. With the royalty checks and occasional paychecks from public appearances rolling in, he was able to upkeep the mansion very well.

Daffy’s desire for attention was somewhat satiated by social media. He had a big presence online and made sure everyone knew it. From when he woke up to when he was preparing for bed, he would cross post about every detail onto every feed. People ate it up, as they were fascinated by his lifestyle. While he wasn’t the richest duck in the world, he was certainly one of the most popular. At least, he was in his mind.

As Daffy was tweeting about his incredible breakfast one morning, he noticed one of his butlers carrying in some mail. “What’s the big idea? Checks go straight to my financial adviser, and fan mail without any valuables inside are shredded! You all know the deal!” Daffy barked. To his knowledge, he hadn’t been expecting anything either. Still, the butler came to his side and silently handed him a letter.

Before he could protest further, the Butler turned away. Daffy simply huffed to himself and opened the letter. He took his time to read it, just to make sure he was reading it correctly. Once he had finished he slammed the letter onto the counter top, and ran up the stairs towards his room in seconds flat.

He pressed his help buzzer multiple times and shouted into the speaker, “I need to pack, now! Book me a flight to L.A.! Let’s go people!”

It was time to move back to Los Angeles.

The next day, Bugs Bunny got out of his Oober (Toon Town’s Uber equivalent), adjusting his suit as he looked on towards his greatest accomplishment. A stairway from the curb stood Acme Looniversity. Despite seeing the building many times over the course of its production, Bugs still couldn’t help but feel his chest swell with pride at the sight of the finished school.

And there, in front of the entrance, he saw a huge crowd gather. This wasn’t even taking into account for all of the cameras and people lined up along the sidewalk. Not even the Toons who were celebrating in the streets. The crowd split like a wave as Bugs approached the doorway of the school, finding it partially blocked by a stage with a ceremonial ribbon. Bugs could tell it was painted because of how large and neat the bow in the middle of it looked.

As he approached he saw the only human at the event (besides a few brave reporters) Steven Spielberg, sitting beside the podium on stage next to three empty seats. Bugs’ felt slightly saddened by the sight of the empty chairs, still Bugs shared a smile with Steven before he approached the podium. A deafening silence went over the crowd, with all eyes on the Toon rabbit.

“My fellow Toons,” Bugs began, “For too long, we’ve been deprived of our own education. More than 87% of Toons have never stepped foot in a school that wasn’t a painted set. After learnin’ that, we decided that wasn’t fair.”

The crowd cheered and clapped for Bugs. Over the crowd he continued, “Our newcomers should know our history! They should know our culture!” He paused slightly to wait for the crowd’s enthusiasm to die down, “And they should know their limits.”

Bugs felt his stomach twist, “Too many Toons have been lost simply because they didn’t know how to survive their next fall durin’ a stunt. We owe it to them to inform newcomers of the risks. No one on Earth can do what we do, and we need to learn to do it right.”

Gesturing to the building behind him, “Now, thanks to Warner Brothers studios and Steven Spielberg, Acme Looniversity ain’t just a fantasy we all saw on TV all those years ago. It’s here for everyone!”

The crowd once again burst into applause and cheers. Bugs looked out into the crowd, noticing a slight disturbance that was making its way to the stage. He wasn’t the least bit surprised when Daffy Duck emerged from the crowd and began to crawl his way onto the stage, rather than using the stairs on the side.

Immediately, Daffy wormed his way in front of Bugs in order to speak into the microphone. “Helloooo, Toon Town!!” He shouted. The only sound he was met with was the sound of crickets. “As the Master of Deception, I just wanted to say what an honor it is to have been recruited by my longtime co-Star, Bugs, to teach at this wonderful place of edumication.”

Bugs saw the shifty eyes from the crowd when Daffy had mentioned his unofficial title. “Eeeh… We’re still workin’ on the curriculum.” He said, addressing the crowd. Then he turned to Daffy, knowing exactly how to derail him from hogging the spotlight. “Hey Daff, ol’ pal, wouldja wanna join me in the honors of cuttin’ the ribbon?”

Daffy’s head whirled around as he gave out a gasp, “Really? You’d let me cut the ribbon?” He asked.

“Togetha, yeah. It feels only right.” Bugs said, just to butter him up even more.

The two of them were approached by a Toon who held out comically huge a pair of golden scissors. They took the scissors, holding them open above the ribbon for a little longer so photos could be taken. After a minute, they looked at each other and cut the ceremonial ribbon. Daffy and Bugs posed briefly with the scissors that were nearly the same height as them.

Once they were done posing, Daffy turned to look for the first camera he could find. For Bugs, he turned to Steven and gave him his hand. “Thank you… So much. For everything.”

Steven shook his hand, “Anytime, Bugs. I have a lot of faith in you.” Then he gave a slight nod towards Daffy, “You sure about hiring Daffy, though?” He asked.

Bugs looked over and watched as Daffy chatted up the remaining reporters. “If there’s anything I’ve learned in the years we've worked together, it’s that I know how he ticks.”

“Well, it’s your call. It is your school, after all.” Steven said with a shrug.

“I’m gonna go check on ‘im. I’ll be seein’ ya, Steven.” Bugs said before slipping away.

Bugs hovered over Daffy’s shoulder while he spoke to a reporter. “And that’s when I told my buddy Bugs, the only way we’re going to reach today's Toon youth is through education! And what better teachers than the oldest Toons out there?” He said.

When he heard that, Bugs rolled his eyes. Of course Daffy would lie and make this his idea. Bugs decided to butt in. “We’re opening our gates to humans, as well.” He told them.

At that, more reporters surrounded them. A chorus of questions were being launched at Daffy and Bugs. While Daffy shied away, Bugs lifted his hands to quiet the small crowd. “I wanna stress this; Acme Loo is gonna be the only school to focus on the importance of learning about Toons. As citizens and as a species. So we ain’t gonna turn away humans who wanna learn more about us.” Bugs said.

A reporter’s voice spoke up, “Who else do you have in place as teachers? Any word about Mickey Mouse?” they asked.

“That hack—?” Daffy said before Bugs pinched his beak.

“Mickey sent us his best wishes, but regrettably makes no plans of joinin’ the staff.” Bugs said with a shrug.

Daffy rolled his eyes when he felt Bugs let go of his beak.

“As for the rest of the staff, we’re still lookin’. So if any Toon wants to come forward and apply, they’re free to do so on our website.”

“When does class begin? And what’s the class size going to look like?” The same reporter asked.

“We’re startin’ in the next coupla months, just in time for the school year. Dependin’ on how many teachers we get, we’re gonna be expecting anywhere between 500 to 900. Applications for students will also be online.”

“900?!” Daffy exclaimed. Just how was he going to teach to a class of 900?

Bugs sighed a little, knowing Daffy had misinterpreted his information. He turned to talk to him, “900 altogetha, Daff. We’re lookin’ at a class of 40 for each homeroom.”

“Oh.” Daffy said softly.

Then Bugs turned to the cameras, “No more questions now. Thank you!” He said and waved them away.

Disappointed, Daffy watched the reporters shuffle along and pack away their equipment. He had truly missed being in the limelight. Then a tap on his shoulder brought him out of his daydream-like state. “Huh?” He asked as he turned towards Bugs again.

“Ehh… Daff?”

“Yeah?”

Bugs sat there like he was fighting to say something. “I’ll uh… I’ll see you later. We’ll have to look over that curriculum of yours, before school starts.” He finally said.

“...Yeah sure.” Daffy said. After looking at Bugs more he noticed something was off, “You should get yourself a new paint job. You look awful.”

Bugs deflated angrily at the comment before rolling his eyes and turning away. He knew that, in Daffy’s twisted way, that he was concerned for his health. So he let the comment slide off of his back. The truth was, Bugs had never let go of his Toon research; and the paranoia had set in so much that it was starting to alter his appearance. He hoped that the success of Acme Loo would be both a distraction and a resource at his own disposal.

Later, after numerous phone calls and even a couple of live interviews, Bugs managed to find his way home. He paid and tipped his Oober as much as he was allotted, due to the fact that they had to travel out of Toon Town during rush hour. As Bugs approached the steps of his white porch, he loosened his bow tie and unlocked the door.

Bugs threw his keys on a stand next to the door, just before closing and locking it behind himself. Just as he was about to call out for someone, his long ears perked at the sound of rattling glass and plastic coming from the kitchen. Immediately, Bugs’ eyes darted towards a lowly baseball bat sitting in his umbrella holder in the foyer.

Quickly and quietly, Bugs’ removed his black blazer and rolled up his dress shirt sleeves. All the while his mind was racing: Where had he slipped up? Who was onto him? What kind of force would be pitted against him? All these questions burned inside him while he picked up the bat and held it tight and high. With as much stealth as possible, he rounded the kitchen corner. As he suspected, the figure hidden partially inside of his fridge wasn’t any of the kids.

The fridge began to close and the figure swerved around to meet Bugs. Several plastic containers dropped to the kitchen floor as they exclaimed, “Bugs?!”

Bugs brought down the bat, stopping it only inches away from Daffy’s beak. “Daffy?!” He exclaimed.

“What the hell, Bugs? Is that any way to welcome an old friend into your household?” Daffy barked while pushing the bat away from his face.

Only a few seconds later, Bugs and Daffy heard a stampede of footsteps coming from upstairs. Settling on the staircase, three Toons looked down on Bugs and Daffy. “Well what’d ya know, the old Duck has decided to grace us with his presence.” The tallest smiled.

“Daffy, darling!! We had no idea you were in town.” The smallest chimed with an obnoxious accent of some kind.

“Really? I mean, he tweeted out his entire trip…” The middle one said in a thick Liverpool accent.

Daffy looked on in surprise and awe. “The Warner’s?! What are you three hooligans doing here?” He asked with a wide smile.

Bugs put down the bat, leaning it against the staircase, and turned towards Daffy. “They’re stayin’ with me.” He said simply.

Sure enough, the three siblings of undetermined origins ran down the steps and gave Daffy a group hug. “You three look a little different than I remember…” he said, looking over Yakko, Wakko and Dot.

Yakko peeled away first, “Haven’t ya heard? We got a reboot comin’ in! Two whole seasons, so far.”

“You don’t say? An’ they gave you a repaint jus’ for that? Your designs were fine before.” Daffy said, a little confused.

“It’s standard now. Nothin’ we could really do about it.” Wakko said as he pulled away with a slight shrug.

Dot continued to cling to Daffy, looking up at him with her glossy black eyes. “You don’t think we look ugly, do you?” She asked, her lips trembling.

“Ugly?! Nonsense!!” Daffy exclaimed, picking up Dot into his arms and holding her tight. “You three are the sharpest lookin’ Toons I know. Anyone who says otherwise is blind.”

Bugs looked curiously at the way Daffy was interacting with the three. He didn’t remember them being particularly close, but he assumed that was simply the effect the three had on adults and Toons alike. Still, he was certainly enjoying seeing this other side of Daffy.

“Alright, you three.” Bugs finally interrupted, “How’s about givin’ Daff and I some space?” He asked.

“Yeah yeah…” Yakko said before turning back up the stairs.

“See ya later, Daffy!” Wakko waved and followed the oldest.

“Always nice to see you, Daff.” Dot said when Daffy put her down so she could follow her siblings.

Once the three were out of sight Daffy turned to Bugs, “Now, I know it might not be the most convenient thing for you at this time…” He explained, “But I’m certainly not the richest Duck in the world. I had to sell all eight of my estates to get that private island.”

Bugs move towards the kitchen and began to clean up Daffy’s initial mess. He already knew what Daffy was about to ask, and he already knew his answer. Still, he let his friend speak.

“Each estate had to go, including the two I had in L.A.! Honestly, the price for rent in this forsaken city is so damn high, I really don’t know how you do it!”

“You can stay.”

Daffy gasped and looked deeply offended, “You would throw out your own flesh and blood onto the street? I thought I knew you better, Bugs Bunny!”

“Ehh… we ain’t related, but you can still stay wit us.” He tried again.

Daffy started to walk towards the door with a dramatic flair, “Fine! I know when I’m not wanted—” He stopped as soon as he draped himself on the corner of the closest wall, “Wait… what? You’ll let me stay?” He asked, bewildered.

“Of course I will, Daff. We’ll be able to look over your curriculum togetha, you’ll be able to do some shoppin’ for the house, maybe a few chores and you’ll be able to watch the kids…” Bugs said, closing the fridge door to get a better look at Daffy.

At that, Daffy looked even more surprised. “Watch those kids? Chores? Me?” He asked.

“Well yeah! What? You’d think I’d let you stay out of the goodness of my heart?” Bugs asked, leaning on the island counter.

“Well… Yeah!” Daffy exclaimed, manhandling the other side of the counter. Here he thought he could take advantage of Bugs’ feelings of existentialism and sudden generosity to fully weasel his way into staying with Bugs with zero obligations. But apparently this rabbit had other plans for him.

Bugs simply laughed in Daffy’s face. “Ahaha, oh that’s rich, Duck.” he laughed. Then there was a slight pause, “When are you gonna realize, we ain’t so different? You and I…”

Daffy and Bugs sat in silence for a little bit. Something about Bugs’ smug look made Daffy’s face feel warmer than usual underneath his feathers. He shook his head wildly. “Nope. I don’t see it.”

At that, Bugs simply rolled his eyes. “We can split chores in the mornin’... right now I just want to hit da hay.” He said, peeling himself off of the counter and moving to unbutton his dress shirt.

While Bugs navigated past the living room, Daffy gave a slight chase. “Wait, wait. I just gotta know one more thing,” then a slight pause, “okay a couple of things.”

A small sigh came from Bugs, then he decided to plop down onto the living room sofa. “Alright. A coupla questions.” He said, putting his feet up.

Daffy sat in a recliner adjacent to Bugs. “How’d you end up with the Warners?” He asked, his voice a little hushed in case they were being heard.

“...I was visiting the new set last year.” Bugs began to explain, “Steven told me that he was concerned about rumors that the Warners were livin’ in their trailer. No one was allowed to go near it. They even wrote up a contract about it, saying they’d leave the show if anyone on staff visited it. Because I wasn’t in the show, I could see the trailer for myself.”

The memory was still vivid in Bugs’ mind. A little more than a year ago, Bugs shared a weary glance with Steven before he slipped off the set. With the Warners busy in a scene, Bugs was able to make it to the trailer. And with a copy of the trailer key given to him by Steven, he pried it open.

The mess the three had accumulated was even taller than Bugs’ ears. He honestly didn’t know how anyone could navigate the trailer, let alone three Toons. Even as he was inside, he made an attempt to clean what he could. Still, it was a horrible mess.

After doing what he could, Bugs waited outside the trailer until the Warners began to approach it. Yakko was the first to catch eyes with Bugs, before rolling them. “God damn it…” Yakko groaned, seeing the look of disapproval spread across the rabbit’s face.

“Y’all really live in dere?” Bugs asked.

It was Wakko’s turn to be angry, “Yeah! What’s it to ya?” he barked.

“Guys, I’m jus’ concerned. A lot of the staff are concerned. Steven was even worried!” Bugs exclaimed, watching them weave around him and head into the trailer.

“Yeah? Well we don’t need your pity.” Dot snapped.

Bugs stopped the door from being slammed in his face with full force. The trailer door swung open and Bugs stepped inside once more. “Fine then. Lemme give you a place to stay. Eva since you were created, I’ve always told you guys you were welcome at my house!” He said.

“We’ve been fine on our own, Bugs. Didn’t need your help then, don’t need it now.” Yakko said. “Any day now, the show will air, we’ll get another wave of royalty checks and we’ll be livin’ it up in a mansion down the street from yours.”

“Those checks will only stretch so far. You already know this.” Bugs warned.

“Blah blah blah I learned my lesson. Like I said, I don’t need to stay at yours. I’m comfortable here.” To make his point, Yakko cleared off some space on the couch (which also acted as their bed) in the trailer and found his ideal position.

Immediately Bugs read this type of prideful attitude. He also knew where Yakko’s weak points were. “If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for your siblings.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Bugs saw Dot and Wakko perk up and look over at Yakko silently. Yakko sat up from the couch slowly and looked at Bugs with a hardened expression. “You’ve got a whole lotta nerve, rabbit.”

“And you’ve got a whole lotta attitude, kid.” Bugs snapped back.

And with that, Bugs took them in. Presently, he looked at Daffy across the way and gave a slight shrug. “I’ve always seen a lot of myself in Yakko. Scrappy, independent and plenty mature for his age. It took him the longest to adjust here and for me to adjust to him, honestly. That boy doesn’t let me lift a finger for ‘im. His siblings? Sure. When it comes to him? No way, no how.”

“Interesting.” Daffy finally said.

Feeling exhausted, “Any otha questions?” Bugs asked.

“Yes! Where do I sleep?”

Bugs got up from the couch and beckoned Daffy to follow him. Down the hall there were three doors. On the left side there was a white door with a gold star labeled Bugs Bunny in black lettering. Though, something told Daffy that it wasn’t his original master bedroom. The middle door was left open, so Bugs pushed in further and flipped on a light to reveal a bathroom. “Here’s the bathroom…” he announced, then pushed open the door on the right side of the hallway. “And here’s your room. G’night, Daff…”

Before Daffy could say anything else, Bugs slipped away into his bedroom and shut the door. “Night.” Daffy said more to himself. He maneuvered himself inside the bedroom and pulled out a suitcase from his Toon space. He flicked on the light and looked around, the decor was still predominantly white with the same hardwood floor that echoed through the house.

Daffy placed his suitcase on a chair sitting across from the bed and launched himself directly onto the comfortable mattress. It was something akin to a bed from a five-star hotel: soft as a cloud. It didn’t take long for Daffy to fall into a deep sleep.

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NEXT CHAPTER >>

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A/N: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! It was a struggle but I’m happy with it and I can’t wait to continue. <3333

#looney tunes #baffy #my fanfiction #htdat

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charmisticdisappointment · 4 years

Text

A Special New Year. Chapter 5 : Are you the One?

Hey guys!

Here's Part 5 of pure Chris Evans Fluff!

Please ignore the writing in this one. Something I had randomly written few years ago!

Please note that none of pictures used in this are mine and credit goes to the respective creators!

Hope you all are safe and enjoy this!

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The past few days have been a dream. You and Chris have been hanging out a lot more than anyone imagined. Things were moving so quickly. Chris was more welcome at your home than you yourself :P. You were once running a little late to go out for a movie with Chris cause you ended up burning the shirt you were ironing while Chris waited in the living room talking to everyone like he'd known them for ages. Pulling your hair into a rough pony you ran into the living room to find no Chris. To your surprise Chris along with your mom and sister-in-law were in the kitchen, baking.

"Hey" you said walking in as Chris pulled out the cake your mom was baking out of the oven. "Cream Cheese or Buttercream frosting?" he asked while the three stared at you. "Hmm whipped cream!", you said as they laughed at you. "I told you she'll say whipped cream" your mom commented as she pulled out a bowl to work on the icing. "Yes you did" said Chris extending his arm and pulling you close. You didn't go to the movies that day. While your mom whipped the cream Chris offered to make mulled wine for all. "You sure you don't want to go to the movies?", you asked. "Nope. I'm craving cake and mulled wine", he said making everyone laugh as he started cutting into fresh oranges while you helped him gather all the spices.

You shared this unexplainable comfort with him. Curled up to him on the sofa in the living room, digging into the banana cake and drinking mulled wine, while your parents narrated all the embarrassing stories from my childhood seeming to quite enjoy themselves was a first in many years. You often checked on him, assuring him that he didn't have to spend time with your family because they asked and can say 'No' when he wants to. But he genuinely wanted to stay.

Your niece was growing very fond of him. She'd share random secrets from school, about you and sometimes funny details of your brother with Chris. And Chris was so good with kids. Every time he'd come home to pick you up while going anywhere, he'd make sure to get a hug from your niece cause as they both air quoted, "It's essential!".

Once Chris planned a surprise trip to the park with just the kids. You had such a fun time preparing the snacks and picking out emergency supplies. By emergency supplies Chris meant more snacks. All the snacks in the world were never enough! You didn't expect it to be such a fun day. You thought you and Chris would have to be more like nannies than a fun aunt and uncle but you were so wrong. The whole ride to the park, Chris and the kids sang along to Disney tunes. It was adorable. Once you reached the park, you found a quiet spot in the shade and laid out the blanket as all the kids jumped in. It always took time for kids to get used to you, you never knew why but kids were always scared of you. But that changed that day. Chris' niece and nephews seemed to like you a lot, informing you of everything in the park. Chris' nephew Miles would run up to you every five minutes and give you updates "I saw a bird", "Can I take home the branches I collect", "Can I have more cake" and when he tripped he came running asking for a hug. Chris was quick to take his phone and capture the moment as Miles sobbed hugging you tight. "He's in love with you" he said making you smile.

Soon the kids got tired and came to lie down. Funnily everyone wanted to lay down on your lap, including the biggest baby of all, Chris. After a bit of a cuddle battle between the kids and Chris, they made a master strategy to get Chris to lay on your lap and the kids to lay on his, that way they'd get the best of both of you. Though there was immense fault in their logic you adored them all. Enjoying the cool breeze, their chatter was soon replaced by slight snores.

**Something like the image below. Pearson's Fam!**

To your surprise, the biggest baby was taking a quick snooze too. You bent down and kissed him on the forehead which woke him up and you couldn't help but chuckle.

"Its getting dark Chris. We better head home. I'm going to wake these little tots up before their in a deep slumber or else we'd have to carry them all!" you said caressing his cheek.

"I want more evenings like this" Chris thought out loud bringing a wide smile to your face.

"Me too" you whispered pinching his cheeks. "But now, we got to head home".

He slowly waked the kids who were clearly unhappy about it. Soon you packed up, and picked up Miles who demanded to be carried to the car in his cute voice, while Chris carried the girls who immediately went back to sleep on his shoulders. Placing them all in the car was a task even for Captain America. But you both succeeded.

Chris carried your niece to the door since your hands were full with the picnic basket.

"Thanks for planning the picnic today Chris. I really had a lot of fun!", you said as your brother opened the door.

"Fast asleep is she?" your brother asked as he carried her into the house.

Once your brother left you two alone Chris replied, "I promise we'll have many more".

Y/N : "I'm holding onto that promise!".

All of a sudden Chris confessed.

C : "I love you"

Y/N : "I'm sorry what?"

C : "I love you! I can't believe I waited this long but I'm in love with you!"

Time froze as you looked into his glistening eyes.

C : "Y/N..?"

Y/N : "I love you too!" you said in lightening speed.

C : "I'm sorry what was that?" he joked laughing like the happiest man on earth.

Y/N : "I said I loved you, you dork" you said laughing.

Chris quickly pulled you in for a kiss.

C : "You think it's too soon?"

Y/N : "The only thing I think is life's too short. And I love you"

You said pulling him in for another kiss. You immediately heard a loud "Ewww!!! I don't wike it!!!" from the car and you both didn't have to look to know who that was.

"Alright Alright Miles!" Chris said laughing as he hugged you a goodbye and walked towards the car. You waved them goodbye as Chris drove out of sight. However you had a small knot in your stomach, not the good kind. You didn't know why you felt this way after such an amazing day.

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Once you were clean and changed into comfortable pyjamas, you headed to your mom's room who was intently reading something sitting on the bed. You got on bed and rested your head on her lap. She immediately put her book away and asked how your day was. You didn't seem the notice the change in your voice while you told her everything.

"Y/N, is something wrong?", your mother asked.

"Mom, can I ask you something?"

" Of course dear. Anything".

"Well I have this feeling about..."

And before you could complete. "About Chris. About whether you two are taking it too fast, whether he's the one for for you and all those questions which are clouding this little head?" she asked. "Did I nail it?", your mom asks smiling at you. She just did.

"Mom I'm just so confused. I just told him life is short and I loved him but is it really possible to fall in love with a man in just a few months. I haven't been in any relationship for the past many years and out of now where Chris comes and changes everything", you say with tears in your eyes.

Your mom pulls you up and gets you to sit, grabs your hand and says " You've always been scared of relationships Y/N. Let me tell you something about love. It doesn't knock often. But when it does you got to let it in. Chris is an amazing guy. Trust me. We moms always know. Its our super power. Your dad has a good feeling about him too!"

"We just have our families involved too deep. I know everyone at home have grown fond of him, especially my little niece who can't seem to keep any of my secrets!" you said laughing as you sob. "I just don't want us to end badly hurting everyone in that process!".

Your mom wiped off the tears and went on to say, "You and Chris remind me of your dad and I. We were practically strangers three months before we got married, and I haven't regretted it a bit. Well sometimes when he doesn't fix the sink" she said making you laugh. "But what we found was too precious to let these doubts, which even I had and I'm sure your dad had too back then, get in the way. I don't think you'll end badly. For all I care I know you'll be very happy with Chris and Chris will be equally happy with you."

You sighed disbelievingly.

"Oh stop it. Don't think I haven't noticed how Chris looks at you while you're talking about things as boring as Artificial Intelligence!"

"AI is not boring!"

"To me it is. Don't interrupt me. And young lady, I've also noticed how you look at him when he plays around and hugs the kids, or talks about politics which you hate. I've seen you both. I know what you both have is worth fighting for and holding on to. Just let your heart make the decisions this time will you?"

"I will" . "And Mom....I'm in love with Chris", you said smiling like an idiot.

Your mom sighed. "I knew it from the day he came home to pick you up for your final dance lesson and pulled you into his arms", she said pulling you into a hug.

As you walked out of your mom's room, you texted Chris. "You're the one."

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Hope you all enjoyed it!

30 Days of Chris : @jtargaryen18

#cevans #chrisevans #chris evans x reader #chrisevansimagine #chrisevansfluff #proposal #i dont wike it #iloveyou #chris evans x y/n #30daysofchris2020

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loretranscripts · 4 years

Text

Lore Episode 130: In Plain Sight (Transcript) - 25th November 2019

tw: none

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

In early winter of 1822, Captain Samuel Barrett Edes became a hero. He was sailing in the south-east Pacific when he and his crew encountered a Dutch ship that was in trouble. Edes managed to save every single one of the Dutch soldiers, and then headed for the city of Batavia, known today as Jakarta, to drop them off and see if a reward could be collected. While he waited, he did some shopping. Now, Edes wasn’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but he owned a small portion of the ship he sailed and of course, he was expecting a handsome reward for his heroic efforts. With this in mind, he kept an eye open for something unusual and conversation-worthy to take home, and that’s when he saw it. It was a mummified mermaid. It was over two feet long, had the curved tail one might find on a fish, but the upper body of something much more human in shape. It was brown from the preservation process, wrinkled with age and entirely addictive to look at, and Captain Edes knew instantly that he had to own it. In late January of 1822, he did something bold. He sold the ship he did not fully own and used the proceeds to buy the mermaid. Then he found transportation back to London and put the odd creature on display, because just about everyone who saw it believed that it was real.

Of course, there were those who could see through the hoax. Captain Edes had been fooled by a clever craftsman who had sewn the torso of an orangutan onto the lower half of a large salmon. Elements were added to the face and hands to give it a more humanlike appearance, but those with training in natural science and anatomy could spot the hidden clues that gave it all away. That didn’t matter to most people, though. The idea that mermaids could be real had been around for centuries, so when something as powerful as a mummified specimen floated into their world, they were blind to its flaws and impossibility. They wanted to believe, deep down inside, that the hybrids of folklore actually existed. Today, we know a lot more about our world than we used to, but if we were to go back in time and live through a less learned age, we would be amazed at the stories that await us, tales of creatures that sit at the very edge of our imagination, living things that defy logic, and monsters that inspire wonder. Our hearts want to believe while our minds are ready to move on. Instead, what we tend to feel is a mixture of deep curiosity and primal fear, and if the tales from the past are any indication, there’s a good reason why. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

When we talk about the natural world, the very first thing we need to do is gain some perspective. Today, we live in a technologically rich society. We carry supercomputers in our pockets that are more powerful than the ones that sent the first humans to the moon. We can walk past an intriguing part of our neighbourhood, pull out our phones and look at a satellite map or do a search for more information. We’re still hungry people, curious and drawn to unanswered questions, but rather than starving in a house with little food, we feast each day on a never-ending buffet of answers and information. Today, if you want to know something, chances are good you can learn about it in an instant, but hundreds of years ago, that was an impossibility. Not that people didn’t try, though. 2000 years ago, a Roman named Gaius Plinius Secundus attempted to gather everything knowable into one place, and he did an admirable job considering the world he lived in. Gaius was born into a wealthy Roman family in the year 24AD and followed a path of privilege all the way to the top. He was well educated, well connected, and when he entered the Roman military, he quickly rose to the second highest level possible – the equestrian order. Once out of the military, he served as a lawyer, before being assigned various governorships around the empire, and towards the end of his life, he had the privilege to serve as advisor to two different emperors. Today, we know him as Pliny the Elder, but in his day, Gaius was a success story.

Looking back, his biggest legacy was his 37 volume collection of knowledge called Natural History. It was possibly the world’s first encyclopaedia, gathering everything known about a whole array of subjects, from farming and botany to geography and anthropology, but the most influential contribution, filling up volumes seven through 11, were his writings on zoology, the study of all living creatures. But here’s the thing – Pliny the Elder, like everyone else in his society, lacked the proper tools to dig deep and apply hard science to every creature he wrote about. He also lacked the ability to travel and see each animal he described, so he relied heavily on others, like Aristotle’s Historia Animalium and the writings of Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, and that meant his collection was less than perfect. How so? Well, his work on zoology included such amazing animals as dragons, mermen, and even something called a blemmyae, a race of hairy, human-like beings who literally had no head on their shoulders, with eyes and a mouth right in the middle of their chest. Pliny was thorough, for sure, but not very discerning with his source material.

But what his work did do was give birth to something a lot of people have heard of, a type of book known as a bestiary. It took a while for their availability to spread, but by the early middle ages, bestiaries were a common enough resource. They were, at the basic level, books about known animals, typically with colourful drawings to help the reader visualise the specific details of each entry, and over the centuries, some editions became more popular than others. One of the most famous is the Aberdeen Bestiary, an illuminated manuscript that dates back to the 12th century. Aside from being a beautiful example of medieval artwork – and I mean that, you should seriously do an internet search for sample pages – the Aberdeen Bestiary is also a powerful example of just how popular these books really were. It’s filled with images of all sorts of animals, along with rocks, fish, trees and even worms, and a lot of the entries in the manuscript include notes about the nature of the thing in question, making it a valuable reference tool for any budding naturalist. But these bestiaries did more than that – they inspired the popular culture of their day.

England’s King John, who reigned from 1177 to 1216 was said to have a copy of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History in his personal collection, and John’s son and successor, King Henry III, even used images from it to decorate one of the chambers at Westminster. As their popularity spread, more and more writers got in on the tradition. The Norman poet Philip de Thaun wrote a bestiary about a generation after William the Conqueror invaded England, and it became a gift for King Henry II’s wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Even Leonardo da Vinci made one. It seems if you were an intelligent person in the middle ages or the Renaissance, making your own bestiary was practically a rite of passage – and let’s be honest, colourful manuscripts filled with unbelievable creatures and animals that defied logic couldn’t not be popular. Humans have this innate desire to look at curious things. We’ve always been rubberneckers, straining to take a long, hard look at things that sit outside our normal experience, and the spread of bestiaries is proof of that. But those ancient books and manuscripts also teach us something else about ourselves. Human beings are creative creatures. When faced with a mysterious gap in our knowledge, we’re more likely to invent something to plug the hole than to leave the question unanswered – and what we’ve come up with is equal parts entertaining and downright terrifying.

I mentioned earlier how the internet and the accessibility of powerful devices has given us an edge over our predecessors, and in a lot of ways that’s true. Yes, we have access to a huge majority of our collective knowledge, but not all of it. In fact, there are still things we don’t know. For example, scientists today believe that there are roughly 8.7 million animal species on this planet, and yet 86% of the ones that would live on land still haven’t been discovered or studied, and it’s even worse inside our oceans, where over 90% of life is still a mystery to us. We know a lot, yes, but our world is massive and diverse, and that makes the learning process slow and tedious. Some animals are also a bit harder to track down, they’re less abundant or more shy, and so it’s made studying them more of a challenge. A good example is the platypus. For a very long time, scientists thought the descriptions of it were nothing more than a hoax. I mean, it was rumoured in 1799 to be a hybrid of a duck and a water rat, part mammal and part bird, with venomous spurs that could kill a dog, and while we’ve learnt more about them over the years, the platypus is still an allusive creature. A recent documentarian was able to get what he considered to be a goldmine of actual footage of the animal, amounting to about 30 seconds, and when only half a minute of film is something to celebrate, you know the animal is hard to study.

Of course, while we’re searching for new species, the ones we do know about are slowly dying off, which doesn’t help. Some estimates place the number of species on the edge of extinction at around 20,000, and more get added to that list all the time. For the medieval writers of bestiaries, this would be their worst nightmare. All those creatures belong in their books, and yet they keep slipping away. But at the same time, not being able to see an animal never really stopped those ancient writers from including it in their catalogue of life on earth. In fact, there are a lot of entries that would cause most people to scratch their heads, because while, yes, we’ve grown in our understanding of the world around us, these bestiaries serve as a time capsule of our gullibility. As far back as Pliny the Elder’s collection on natural history, we can see those less believable creatures pop up. He once wrote that thousands of sea-nymphs known as neriads had washed up on the shores of what is modern day France, and that they looked just like the nymphs of the land, except that they were covered in fish scales. He also wrote about that fiery bird of legend known as the phoenix, which was known to burst into flames before re-emerging from its own ashes. And of course, I’ve already mentioned his fascination with mermen and blemmyae. It seems that Pliny the Elder had an obsession with gathering all known creatures, whether or not he had witnessed them with his own eyes.

Other historians added their own contributions to those mystical lists as well, and if I ran through it for you now, it would sound like a recap of the Harry Potter series. Hippos and elephants shared the same space as hippogriffs and mandrakes. There were dragons and tritons, giants and sea monsters. Honestly, it sometimes seemed that if a young child could draw a picture of it, that was good enough to get it included. Of course, some creatures were more popular than others, and that popularity varied from culture to culture. In Europe, one of the most talked about creatures of all was also one of the smallest, but don’t let its size fool you, because there was nothing safe about the basilisk. Our old friend, Pliny the Elder, wrote about it 2000 years ago, describing it as a serpent with legs that was no larger than a foot in length. But what it lacked in size, it more than made up for with attitude and special features. A basilisk was said to stand tall on its back legs and had a crown-like plume on top of its head. And they were dangerous, too – according to the stories, basilisks were so poisonous that even looking at them could get you killed. Other creatures avoided the like the plague, and wherever they chose to make their nests, the plant life would die and wither away. One description I read said that if a man on horseback stabbed the basilisk with a spear, the poison was so powerful that it could climb up the spear, kill the man, and then kill the horse as well.

Of course, when something is that powerful and deadly, it eventually becomes the centrepiece of tales of valour. It’s said that Alexander the Great once killed a basilisk, and like many of the other legends about him, he did it in a way that proved not just his might but also his intelligence. It’s said that he polished his shield until it was like a mirror, and then approached the creature holding it outward. When the basilisk saw its own reflection, it fell victim to its poisonous gaze and instantly dropped dead. We can find images of the basilisk in just about every bestiary in existence, most of which look like a cross between a snake and a rooster. There’s a statue of one in Vienna, commemorating an 11th century hunt, and there’s even a church in Sweden with a carved relief showing St. Michael stabbing one with a spear. So popular was this creature that people sold powders that they claimed to be ground-up basilisk, something that most people purchased for use in alchemy, but more than a few used as an antidote to poison. Everywhere you look through the middle ages and earlier, the basilisk is waiting to rear its poisonous little head. You can see society’s attraction to it in their folklore and superstition, a mixture of fear and fascination, of wonder and disgust. For centuries, it popped up in stories whispered all around Europe, like a well-loved character in a popular book series. But if one account is any indication, it might not be a work of fiction after all.

The people of Warsaw had a problem on their hands. They were two decades into a new political structure known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and while it gave a lot of freedom to the wealthy and elite, it left the lower class in a constant state of fear and oppression. Life in the city was challenging for many people, but that was the new normal. In 1587, though, something happened to put the people of Warsaw on edge. Livestock in the area around an old, ruined building had begun to turn up dead. Even a few of the neighbouring residents had been found poisoned in their beds, washing over the community with a wave of grief and loss. And in the midst of all that confusion and pain, two of the neighbourhood children disappeared. Well, disappeared might not be the right word for it. Folks had seen the two young girls playing near the ruins, they had watched them laugh and skip and revel in the freedom and joy that came with childhood, most likely muttering quiet prayers that it would last as long as possible. The neighbours knew what sort of hard life awaited those girls once they were old enough to work and carry their own weight. Their joy must have been bittersweet.

And then someone watched them step inside the ruins. That was the first reason to worry. Folks avoided the ruins for a good reason – it was dark and dangerous, and the cellar beneath it had been a den for all sorts of animals. So, whoever it was that watched them disappear into the shadows most likely headed over to warn the girls’ parents. When everyone arrived at the ruins to call them out, though, they were no longer visible. While there was a good chance they had simply moved on to a new playground, someone decided to peer inside the dark cellar, and there, laying on the broken stone floor, were the sleeping forms of both girls. So, one of the older women stepped inside to wake them. A moment later, though, she collapsed into a heap beside the girls, sending the growing crowd into a panic. They didn’t know what was causing the people inside the cellar to lose consciousness, but they knew there was something dangerous about the dark space, so they sent for a fire hook – a long pole with a metal hook on the end – and then reached in and pulled each body out into the light. All three of them were dead, and not just dead – they were bloated and dark, as if they’d been dead for days. Most frightening of all, though, was that their eyes seemed to be protruding from their sockets. No one could be sure, but it almost looked as if they’d been frightened to death.

Wanting answers, they sent for Benedictus, the king’s very own physician. If anyone would have the skill to identify the danger, it would be him. And, sure enough, after taking a long look at the trio of bodies, he brought them a definitive answer. All of them had been killed by a basilisk. In an instant, the atmosphere around the old ruins changed. Newcomers came to watch, while leaders gathered to form a plan. Something had to be done, and just like the stories all of them had grown up with, it seemed that a basilisk hunt was in order, but the trouble was no one wanted to risk their lives by entering the cellar to kill it – not even Benedictus, who seemed to know the most about the creature. But they had an idea. A group of leaders from the community quickly headed to the local jail, where two men awaited execution for various capital crimes. Each man was given the same offer: come kill the basilisk, and you will receive a full pardon and your freedom as a reward. It seemed like an easy choice, too – inside jail, there was no chance of survival. Outside, though, there was at least the possibility they might survive. It made sense to everyone.

The first criminal declined the offer, but the other one, a man named Johann Faurer, agreed to help. He was escorted from the jail to the old ruins, where Benedictus awaited him with tools and instructions. The townsfolk had quickly gathered dozens of small mirrors and sewn them onto a pair of leather pants and a coat. I imagine Johann gave the old physician a sideways glance at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, but at the same time, he would have known the folklore just as well as everyone else. Alexander the Great had defeated a basilisk using a mirror-like shield, so why would it not work for him? With a crowd of over 2000 witnesses watching, Johann began to carefully walk into the ruins, where he entered the cellar. He had a long rake in one hand and a torch in the other, to light his way, and as soon as he stepped into the darkness below, he cried out that he could see it – a long, serpent-like tail, with a head that resembled that of a rooster, right down to the crown-like plumage. Benedictus called out instructions to the man. “Grab it with the rake,” he told him, “and then carry it out here into the light.” Johann shouted back that he understood, and the entire crowd began to shift and rumble. If a basilisk was going to be dragged out of the ruins, no one wanted to be around to see it, so they all ran for cover and hid their eyes. When Johann emerged, he held the writhing creature by the neck in one of his gloved hands. They daylight somehow made it weaker, and that gave Benedictus the courage to step closer and examine it. It looked exactly like the bestiaries of old had taught him – the body of a snake, four long legs and a head that looks very much like a rooster.

But sadly, this is where the account of the basilisk hunt ends. Whoever had been recording the events had most likely been in the crowd, and when Johann had begun to emerge from the cellar, they had followed the crowd into hiding, which leaves the ending a bit of a mystery. Who killed the creature, when all was said and done, and how did they do it, knowing the risks the old legends spoke of? What we do know is this: the Warsaw basilisk hunt of 1587 was the last time the creature was reported anywhere in Europe. Maybe it had been the last of its kind, and its death marked its extinction, or perhaps the few that survived had a knack for staying out of sight – like the platypus of Australia. Either way, all that was left from that moment on were legends and stories. Like so many creatures that have once walked the earth, the basilisk – if it was ever real to begin with – has slipped into the shadows of the past, and it’s never been seen again.

There really is something delightful about the bestiaries of old. Their colourful pages and evocative descriptions were beyond sensational. In a world without television, radio or easily accessible works of fiction, those catalogues of natural history were the closest most people could get to travelling the world. Of course, the things most authors chose to include in their bestiaries would probably never make the cut in our modern times. After all, headless tribesmen with eyes on their chests, unicorns and sea nymphs all feel more like characters in a fantasy novel than entries in a study on the world’s flora and fauna. And yet some of those expectations have been broken over the years. For centuries, sailors told stories about the kraken, enormous sea creatures that could reach out and drag an entire ship underwater with its long tentacles. King Sverre of Norway recorded its description way back in 1180, and for hundreds of years people claimed to spot them in the waters of the ocean. Then, in 1853, the carcass of a giant squid washed up on a Danish beach, giving the legend new life. Over the century and a half since then, scientists have determined that there is indeed a giant sea creature that fits the ancient descriptions – give or take a few sinking ships, of course – and while they’ve been challenging to catch on film, we now know they exist. And those mermaids of old might have roots in actual animals as well. Many scientists and scholars now believe that old reports of mermaids could very well be mistaken sightings of an aquatic mammal known as the manatee. As is so often the case, our misunderstandings had given birth to frightening legends, only to have science bring a bit of clarity to the tale. Sometimes the monsters of the ancient world turn out to be real, and sometimes legends inspire new discoveries.

In the part of the world that stretches from Mexico to South America, scientists have been familiar for over a century with a lizard from the iguana family. It’s not the largest reptile around, but it can grow to around 2ft in length, and it can run at amazing speeds. Some scientists refer to it as the Jesus Christ Lizard because of its strange ability to run across the surface of water. But its most common name is based on other features, like its tendency to run on two legs and its serpent-like body – a body that’s topped with a head and plumes reminiscent of a crown or a rooster, which is why its name is both logical and a bit of a throwback. They call it the basilisk.

There’s something enticing about the mysteries that fill the gaps in our knowledge of the world around us. Looking back at the bestiaries of the middle ages, its clear humans have had a lot of fun filling those holes, and the creativity of the past has continued to inspire stories today. But there’s one more creature I want to tell you about. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to learn all about it.

[Sponsor break from Bombas, Casper and Fracture]

They had fallen in love, and it was something that would change their destiny forever. At least, that’s how the legend tells it. Long ago, a young man lived on a small island surrounded by deep blue seas, and in the process of hunting one day, he encountered a beautiful young woman. But the hunter quickly learned that there was more to her than he could see with his eyes. The woman, it turns out, was a fairy. In fact, she was well known to the locals there, who referred to her as the Dragon Princess. Despite their differences – him, a normal human being, and her, a magical fairy – the two of them fell in love and were soon married, and that helps this tale become on of those happily ever after stories that we all love so much. The couple went on to have twins, a boy and a girl, and just like their parents, they were an odd pair. The boy was just like his father, a human with no magical powers of his own, while the girl took after her mother, and because of that, both parents decided that the children should be raised in separate places to help them fully become who they were meant to be.

According to the legend, it was many years later when the son was out hunting, just as his father had taught him. He was creeping through the forest, his spear balanced in one hand, when he spotted a deer. He quickly threw the weapon, which found its target, and a heartbeat later the young man was carefully making his way over to collect his prize, and that’s when the dragon stepped out of the trees. It was enormous and frightening, and it clearly wanted to take the deer that he had just killed. The young hunter spoke to it, begging it to leave his future meal alone, but the creature ignored him and proceeded to move toward the deer, so he lifted another spear and got ready to take aim at the dragon. Suddenly, a figure stepped out of the shadows of the forest and stopped him. It was his mother, the fairy princess, who he had not seen since his childhood, and as she approached him, she spoke a word of warning. “Do not throw that spear”, she told him, “for that is no ordinary dragon. That is your sister.” Instead, she taught him to live in harmony with his sister, and according to the legend, that fateful meeting set the destiny of their entire community on a new path. Even today, if you were to visit the place where they lived, the people there would tell you that they are descended from dragons, illustrating how that harmony has continued.

And of course, this story is just one of many tales about dragons that fill the pages of folklore. In fact, most of us would be hard pressed to find a creature mentioned more often than those magical beasts, from the 11th century legend of King George and the Dragon to the fantasy novels and television shows of our modern world. They really do seem to be the king of monsters. Dragons are also one of those nearly universal creatures. It seems just about every culture around the world has had some version of them in their folklore. The ancient Egyptian god of chaos was Apophis, represented as a giant serpent. The Babylonians had their own god of chaos called Tiemat, and in Arcadian mythology there were not one but three dragons on display. Norse mythology features a giant serpent who gnaws at the roots of the world tree. In Ukrainian folklore, there is a dragon with three heads, while images of dragons can be found all over medieval heraldry. And of course, few cultures on earth hold as tightly to their dragon mythology as the Chinese, who have been decorating objects with images of the creature at least as far back as the Neolithic period, and we could speculate why, I’m sure. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how the accidental discovery of dinosaur bones might spark fear and wonder in the minds of humans thousands of years ago. The places where stories of dragons are most common are also places where such fossils have been uncovered, so it does make sense.

So, when Europeans arrived on an island in the Flores Sea, just south of Indonesia, they probably didn’t think twice about the local stories about dragons. In fact, those tales were probably a bit old hat, as they say. Dragons lived in caves, breathed fire, were vicious killers and could fly when necessary – nothing about all of that was new. What was new, though, were the things they saw there. On an island surrounded by deep, blue sea, an island full of people who believed they were descended from dragons, mind you, they discovered a creature that brought all of their legends to life. It lived in the caves along the shore, it was an enormous killer, and it sometimes even followed its prey up into the trees. It ticked all the boxes. These were 300lb serpent-like monsters that could bring down a half-tonne water buffalo. When they licked the air with their bright red tongue, it looked as if they were spitting fire, and they even dug into the graves of the dead looking for treasure. Of course, that treasure was always food, not gold. And they’re still there, crawling across the sandy beaches of the island, living in harmony, more or less, with the people who still call the place their home. They might not have wings or piles of golden treasure to curl up on, but they are the largest lizard on earth, measuring in at over 10ft in length, and they’re deadly. Sometimes the tales of the past stay shrouded in mystery, and other times we manage to crack the riddle and shed new light on the shadows that once frightened us. This living, flesh and blood dragon seems to offer a fresh answer to an ancient question, however incomplete it might be, but at least we now know that there really is one place in the world where that old cartographer warning is actually true: Here, on Komodo Island at least, there be dragons.

[Closing Statements]

#lore podcast #podcast transcripts #aaron mahnke #basilisks #dragons #bestiaries #cryptozoology #europe #poland #130 #transcripts

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thevoilinauttheory · 5 years

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title in progress

( the first part of my self-indulging fic, I guess lol. I meant for it to be short but now it has chapters so... here’s the first one. It’ll be under a cut for being so long, though here are some small details.

chapter 1/?

summary: shadowbringers spoilers - this will be tagged appropriately so it doesn’t come up on those who have these tags blocked. a studious amaurotine makes terrible mistakes and gets thrown into a series of events he really didn’t want to be a part of in the first place, but here he is. )

More things that needed tending to. More cataloging, more plants, more… terrifying fish in a pool of water that he shouldn’t have been afraid of, but was anyways. It was his work. To make sure everything was in its place and stayed in its place. Not that anything was going anywhere anytime soon - or ever, he had thought. He shuffled through books and memos, static keeping him company over a small radio device. There were words, though it cut in and out from the loss of signal. “More ill… injured… beasts run-... it’s a mess…” He never minded the static, it was better than the silence he dealt with usually. Something to stimulate him and his ever sprinting mind. He placed books back, moved to a desk and wrote down more. When the silence hit him once more, his head snapped towards his radio. “Philokrates.” The equally robed person in front of him had turned off his white noise. It irritated him somewhat. “Yes?” “Why do you never tune to something more tasteful, hm?” They picked up the small device and tuned to something lighter - soft jazz music, which, while Philokrates did not abhor, found it grating to listen to as he worked. “Taste is an opinion.” His words and body language did not speak the flinching and disgust that was hidden behind the mask on his face. “And in my opinion, I find music to be distracting while I study. The chattering of voices and debates are far more productive in stimulation.” “Very well.” They turned the radio back to the static and voices that echoed gently in the background of his mind. “I wished to make you aware of the group of children that are arriving soon. We have elected you to teach them of our faculties, procedures, and personnel here.” Elected - the word didn’t sit right. It felt more as if they were throwing him onto the duty simply because everyone knew he was a favorite of the budding students that often graced the Akadaemia. They could at least admit honestly to it, he would be more willing then. “I apologize. I am currently in the midst of groundbreaking work - for the illness that has been plaguing our people. If I may request that another take my place for the time being.” “Your work is not going anywhere.” “But our people are. I could debate this with you for the rest of our existence, but that would get neither of us anywhere. Please. Allow me this one day.” An audible sigh emitted from the robed figure, a shake of their hood and mask in disappointment. Their exasperation made known. “...If that is all that you need, then continue your work. I shall get Aniketos to take your place for the time being. Perhaps I could recommend visiting Phantomology for more answers - if it will quicken your progress.” “I appreciate your understanding. The recommendation has not gone unnoticed, however, I do not believe it necessary.” His words were the last that were spoken before he was left to the static and sudden screams that cut the station he listened to back to silence. He stared at it, heaving out a heavy sigh. There was a lot of work to be done, not enough time. This illness was spreading too quickly. His people turned to horrific beasts and monsters which no one had ever thought to create - and now the images were all anyone could see. He had hoped his newest creation would aide those who were showing the first signs of the illness. It was an utter shame that once turned, not even the strongest of creations could revert what damage had been done. Though in the progress of attempting to create asylum to those who suffer, he studied further to attempt understanding what their world was going through. There were nothing left in these books to guide him. He had gone through them all, pulled aside those that could aide him, then stacked them high as he grabbed his papers. One more stop. Phantomology was the section best kept to itself, both its creations and creators - they were not terrible folk. They engaged well in conversation. Though it was for those reasons that he found the quarter rather… intimidating. Having been founded by an esteemed member of the Convocation, the idea of running into such an individual made Philokrates’s spine shiver in anxiety. To be forced to have a conversation with them even more so. He had always lauded himself above others, finding himself to be superior in intellect. But there was a reason why he was but a cataloger of creations rather than a member of the Convocation - he could not deny that his intellect would be but a child’s compared to them. Lost in his thoughts once more, he picked up the small pile of books, his stack of papers, and his radio - which was promptly shoved into a pocket in his robes. He shuffled himself through hallways, tensely past the glass aquariums and caged botany creations. Round the corners of the institution, greeting others he had passed with a nod. Until the halls grew empty, quiet. The silence again. He hated it. It made him more anxious than he already was. His footsteps were all he could hear as he made his way to the Phantomology section. There was nobody here. In his confusion, he looked about for a sign or note that the section might have been closed off - but there was nothing. No students, no creators, not even the slightest hint of life. He cleared his throat loudly. “...Hello?” It was not the most graceful, nor educated, manner of presenting himself. But he would not intrude upon such a place if there were no one here. He peered around the corner, deeper into the quarter. Still no one. It was almost… eerie. Haunting. The halls echoed with every breath. He had a mind to turn around and leave, but his curiosity was piqued. There was no one here, who was to stop him from pulling but one book down to read? As his moral compass spun in circles, he had no time to register the tall being behind him. “It seems there is a visitor here, one from…?” The sudden voice had caused Philokrates to not only let out an uncharacteristic yelp, but jump and drop everything that he held. So startled and drawn back from his mind he was, he had barely the time to realize what happened before the black-robed man laughed at him. He stuttered in embarrassment kneeling down to gather up his belongings quickly. “Ph-Phytobiology.” “Phytobiology.” He repeated the word as he leaned over to pick up the scattered remains of the neat paper stack. He read over them, or at least, what he could of them. “...Is that so? Such progress for a man of one station, do you not think?” “I…” Philokrates cleared his throat. Right, stand tall, don’t show fear or anxiety or embarrassment. “...I pride myself in learning all that I can. I merely work in Phytobiology. I would not say it is my first choice in studies, however--” “However, it has led you to a conclusion that you believe to help our kind, yes?” The man picked up more of the papers, skimming over them. “As much as I would love to say that your conclusion has proved enlightening, we have already tried this method.” He stacked the papers neatly together and piled them on top of the books that Philokrates picked up. “We..?” He should not have questioned so soon. He should have ignored it. Instead, he made a much larger fool of himself. “Ah- I mean-... is that… right? I see. I had hoped some insight in Phantomology would prove to aide my work, though it seems I must return to hypotheses.” Despite the covered face, the position of the man’s body practically screamed that he had an inquisitive brow raised. He stood in silence and thought before lifting a finger to his mask, a gesture to keep silent, before beckoning him to follow. Philokrates blinked, stunned for a moment before scuffling along to keep up. He took in what he could of the area, before he was stopped at the end of another hallway. The dark-robed man gestured broadly to the desk off to the side, littered with papers and books - theories, testaments, pictures. All on the illness that spread so quickly. Philokrates stopped for a moment, turning his head to the mysterious and confusing man before setting down his belongings to look over everything that was scattered across the surface. He tried to read. It was too hard to focus, what with a man standing over his shoulders and the dead silence. He fished in his pocket for his radio, setting it down with a soft “do you mind if I-?”. With a brief shake of the hood, the radio was turned on. Static, barely words to make out in the background as he relaxed in the noise. Back to the papers. Everything he read, it only led to more confusion. He skimmed books, memorized details, pieced together more information. It didn’t take too long before the shock of it all settled in. “The illness… is caused by our own use of creation?” He set the papers down. “I see… that is why no creation can cure it.” He thought for a moment, folding his arms across his chest. “No creation can cure or stop it, for creating only makes the process faster and worse. If that is the case then, perhaps…” He shook his head and let out a sigh. There was too much to process and not enough time to do so. “Perhaps, then, you would like to read over my attempts to find a solution?” The man’s voice was arrogant, like he was asking to have his ego stroked by witnessing the reaction of a lesser groveling to his intellect. He pulled a neater stack of papers from a drawer in the desk to hand off to Philokrates. Why was he even doing this? What purpose did all of this serve? Did he just happen in the wrong time and place? Was this man so desperate for praise that he’d show a stranger - very obviously lacking in the same degrees of smarts - his work? Though after he had read but the first page, he had almost thought to laugh. “Summon a creation strong enough to end the illness? To stop the end of our world as we know it? You would create a god instead of finding a true solution? If I must be honest, this seems to be the easy way out. Instead of honing our craft, you would simply cast it aside as if it were nothing.” Philokrates had no intention of offense, but the mere prospect was as if a child had come up with the answer. “And you have a better one, then, I take it?” The smug response of a man who knew what he was doing. Or at least, had thought so. “With enough time, I would say so.” “We do not have time.” He shook his head with a shrug. “The rest of the Convocation has already agreed that the time we would need to come up with a… less ‘lazy’ solution does not exist. For our end days are upon us already.” “And you would tell me this why?” “Tell me what your proposed solution would be.” “As I stated, I would need more--” “Right now.” His tone of voice dropped. Serious and demanding. Had Philokrates not already expected as much, he would have found it intimidating enough to clam up. He had already dug himself into his grave by practically insulting the work of the Convocation - enemies that he should not even think to make - it was only right that he continue digging until he was the full six feet under. “Instead of using our powers of creation to devise a solution, I would leave our fair city to gather bounty from that which the land has granted us. Use it to treat symptoms as they come. Medicines made from hand, not magic.” The man scoffed. About to debate the idea down, no doubt. Only to stop and hum in thought. The moments that it took him to think about the prospect, Philokrates had already begun to pack up his things once more. “...It would take far more time than what we have. That it may work I will not discredit, but our time is but upon us already.” Was that… a compliment? Philokrates stood up and turned to him, quizzical. “What? Not even a ‘thank you’? That is by far the highest compliment you could recieve, especially from me.” So it was a compliment. Still. That didn’t answer why this man had chosen him to share the ideas the Convocation had come up with - they weren’t his answers to share… oh, they were. He said the paper was his. The Convocation couldn’t come up with anything better. That he- they-. He stopped. Oh… Oh, dear. He had insulted the work of the esteemed Lahabrea, and all he did was laugh it off if not completely put him down. He could almost feel the aether leaving his body as he realized his mistake. He should have never come here. He should have just continued his work in peace, blissfully ignorant of how stupid it was. All he knew next was darkness as he fell to the ground, faint from either the realization or sudden sickness.

#i guess i need a fic tag now #uuhhh #my writing?#my writing #sounds good enough #shadowbringers spoilers #shb spoilers #5.0 spoilers #ffxiv spoilers #if anyone can make an educated guess on who philokrates is #i will totally add your character to the next chapter #which i'm working on right now in a different tab #i'm also just fuckin hungry for attention and recognition lmao #aint gonna lie

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cozy-possum · 5 years

Text

Father daughter bonding

“Don’t you want to visit her?” Carlisle sits across the table from Alice who has files and paperwork spread out in front of her. Alice frowns. “Should I?” She looks up for approval and Carlisle shakes his head. “It’s what you want, it could help your human memories return.” “I don’t know her. I don’t; I don’t want my human memories back, if I forgot them there must have been a reason.” Alice straightens a paper she brushed out of line. “Alice, their may not be a reason besides the bite, the venom erasing your human side, you could have had a wonderful life.” She nods not fully listening to him and he sighs. “Well just let me know what you decide.” He nods and they both stand. She rushes by him and he grips her arm pulling her into a hug. “It’s all right Alice, it’s okay. None of us care about who you were.” “I don’t either.” Carlisle sighs pulling her closer; pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Is that what’s bothering you. That you don’t care?” She nods keeping her eyes to the ground. He sighs again turning back to the papers. “We can visit, just Biloxi no need to be around her, just take in the city.” Alice nods slowly, gathering her papers. Carlisle can tell she’s searching about their trip. “Could you come with me?” Carlisle nods. And Alice turns eyes too far away to be doing anything but seeing the possibilities. “I know it might be tough, but try not to seek it out.” Carlisle pats her shoulder and retreats to his study to book the tickets. She’s nervous on the flight; even sitting still as she is he can see the tremor in her body, the nervous buzz to her movements. They touchdown and she bounds off the plane racing towards the city’s record hall. Carlisle follows and waits. She pulls out everything she can on herself, on her niece and her sister. She sits and reads, passing him papers to be copied or for him to look over, it takes only an hour, barely fifty pages on her life and death, only seven had made their way to the copier. She looks nervous as she clutched her hospital records. “Two counties isn’t far on foot, would you rather take a car?” Alice stutters shaking her head. “Car. Please.” Carlisle nods making his way to the car rental place. “It’s not a porche but it’ll do.” She laughs a little and settles quieter into the front seat. Carlisle watches her as they start to drive closer to the asylum. She doesn’t sink in her seat but she seems to freeze up. Her entire body going ridged and folding herself closer towards him. “Hello, we’re here to check out the older parts of the hospital, my daughter is doing a project on one of the older patients from the records.” The nurse smiles at him nodding. Alice flinches back when the nurse leans over to grip her arm. “Sorry.” The nurse smiles. “Well if you’ll follow me, who are you doing the project on?” “Mary Alice Brandon. She was institutionalized in 1920. She died here.” Alice follows the nurse and hears a sharp laugh from outside the walls. Alice turns her head slightly and Carlisle nods to her, pulling away from the small tour but the nurse calls him back. “Just a moment, let me get Bernard, he’s the groundskeeper here, his grandfather and great-grandfather worked here so he might have some of their stories.” She smiles brightly and turns to a small door that leads outside. Alice and Carlisle follow walking across the perfectly green lawn and towards the man who leans on a shovel. He smiles when he sees them, eyes muddy brown in a way only contacts over red can be. “Pleasure to see you two. What can I do for you?” The nurse happily fills him in on their quest, and she hovers slightly. “Thank you Vanessa, you should go back now.” His eyes seem to shimmer even under the contacts. “Of course, I should go back now. Goodbye.” The nurse vanishes and Carlisle posture’s himself in front of Alice. “What do I have in my hand today Ms. Brandon?” Alice frowns, staring at him for a moment before Carlisle can see her face twist in recognition. She leaps forward hugging him. “Your visions don’t always come true. Well maybe it did, but the nomads were a bit dumb, didn’t burn any bit of me, not sure if they knew or were just too bothered gettin’ you. Took me a good few days to put myself back together but the silence was nice. I’m sorry I didn’t come after you, by the time I got back here, you’d been gone for days.” He shrugs and Alice nods wide-eyed and excited. “Now who is this man you have with you?” “I’m her, father of sorts. We survive of animal blood.” Carlisle is uncertain what to say, he never thought he’d be meeting his children’s creators. The man seems calm enough, understanding they don’t mean to stay, to invade his territory. He sits and talks with them, carefully explaining every detail of Alice’s time there. He walks them through her first few days, when her head was shaved because of the typhoid outbreak. How she had kept her note with her, increasingly frustrated, as she couldn’t remember her own family as the shock treatments ate her memories. How once they had taken her memories she was a new person, unburdened by her own pain. How she’d still have visions, weaker, and less violent. He laughed at this, warm and long comforting her about the weakness with her predictions of the weather and their game they played. Alice trembles like she’s crying and Carlisle and the man bid each other a fond farewell. As Carlisle brings her to the car she curls into his arms as he opens her door. “Alice, it’s alright, you’re safe. It’s okay it’s-“ “I don’t remember. It was like hearing a story. I don’t.” She shakes her head clinging desperately to Carlisle’s coat. He nods sighing, holding her together. “Let’s head home then?” Carlisle tucks her into the passenger seat. As they pull away from the bright white of the hospital and the groundskeeper’s wave it starts to rain. Carlisle doesn’t comment on Alice’s tearless sobs that bubble from a laugh as he speeds faster than necessary towards Forks.

#carlisle cullen #alice cullen #twilight fanfiction #twilight saga #twilight #twilight revival #twiwrites #the groundskeeper deserved to live #alice deserves at least some closure #stattic

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ardentmuse · 6 years

Text

Past, Present, and Future - Part 4

Harry Potter - Percy x fem!Reader, Past Fred x fem!Reader

Wordcount: 2.5k

Warnings: angst, swearing, pregnancy and childbirth talk of death

Masterlist // Series Masterlist

A/N: Yay finally getting this out! I had a hard time with this because I wanted to spend more time with the entire Weasley family, but I eventually cut a lot of it, wanting to stick to the meat of the story here. We will be getting more of the Ginny-Reader friendship soon. Note that any descriptions of labor are based on my own pregnancy. Photo not mine. Credit to creators!

DECEMBER, 1998

Christmas Eve breakfast started out as a lovely meal. Light contractions had you up before most of the house so you had helped with a bit of the cooking. You would estimate that you’d been in early labor for ten or so hours now, though you tried your hardest not to make a big deal of it. It was inconvenient, yes, but you wanted to spend as much of the holiday as a family before your labor overshadowed everything else.

So as you ate your pancakes, you caught up with Ginny and Molly. Percy had joined you as well, providing a lovely distraction with silly stories from the Ministry’s holiday party.

As you discussed Ginny’s quidditch tryouts over the remaining eggs, you felt a strange tightness in your hips. You grabbed sharply onto Ginny’s arm. She could do nothing but look to you in panic.

Within a moment, Percy was by your side, helping you to stand.

The pain that rippled through your stomach was damn near excruciating. And it seemed to have come all at once. One moment, you were fine, a small tightening in your lower abdomen distracting you every now and then. And now you could hardly breath, digging your nails into Percy’s arm as though he were your only lifeline.

“Sweetheart, you have to breath,” Percy whispered as he stroked your hair. But breathing seemed near impossible at the moment. Breathing took the work of your muscles and you had no control over any of them. You knew you were still standing only thanks for Percy’s strong hold on your waist.

But as the pressure moved towards the front of your stomach, you felt the pain slowly dissipate. You smiled and looked up to see Percy peering down at you with the softest expression you had ever seen. You knew your grip had to hurt him. But he was looking down on you like you were some goddess of fertility, some beacon of light that only brought joy to the world.

“Thank you, Percy,” you whispered up to him.

“Don’t say that too soon, love. You have a long day ahead of you,” he said with a gently stroke of his hand across your forearm. The feeling was a soothing one that, when accompanied by the calm icy blue of his gaze, gave you strength.

A rush of feet down the stairs snapped you from the spell Percy had cast on you. A flush spread through you at the realization that he could captivate you so.

“Is it the baby? Is the baby coming?” George frantically asked as he screeched to a stop in front of you.

“What do you think?” Percy said, letting go of you and taking a step away.

George took his place beside you, held your hand, and said, “I’ve got you, princess. And we’re going to get through this together. I’ll be beside you all day.”

With that, he took you by the waist and began to lead you out of the kitchen towards your room. But before he could get further than the kitchen, Percy intercepted you.

“George, you have no idea how to be helpful with this. I’ll take her. You wait down here for her healer, okay?” Percy took your hand in his and began leading you away from his brother. You saw George clench his jaw at his dismissal and found yourself worried at the already growing tension between the two brothers.

“Actually, Molly and I have a plan. We need hot water and towels and --” you began but George interrupted you before you could finish, saying, “I’m on it!”

You sighed to Percy as he held you. He chuckled at his brother’s enthusiasm, though you saw a tension in his jaw that let you know his laugh was not genuine.

Percy led you to your room as George, Ginny, and Molly carried up supplies. You stood outside the door, instructing the group when a second real contraction took hold of you body.

Like clockwork, Percy was holding onto you again, though George was only moments behind.

“Perce, stop. It’s my responsibility,” George said, taking hold of your hand and tugging you gently away from his brother.

“Your responsibility? Just because it’s Fred’s baby?”

“Yeah. I stick by my brother,” George huffed, adding under his breath, “unlike some people.” He was still holding you, though ignoring the fact that you were doubled over and labored in your breathing.

You tried your best to stop their bickering with a roughly breathed, “Enough,” thought neither boy seemed to hear you.

As your contraction got worse, you heard nothing of what the boys were saying, your pain eclipsing any noise. Ginny came and took you by the shoulders, pulling you forward and into her as the boys continued to raise their voices, each sentence more heated and cutting than the last. Neither seemed to notice that you were no longer in their grasps and that broke your heart a little. Neither of them cared about you and the baby, you thought. They only cared about what it meant for themselves.

“Enough,” you shouted as loud as you could once your contraction eased and you regained breath, forcing both men to turn to you dazed.

“Yeah, Percy,” George snapped to the man beside him, somehow thinking he was on your side on this matter.

“Enough from both of you!” you shrieked before letting out a long calming breath, “This baby is Fred’s, but what you both seem to be forgetting is that this baby is also mine! And right now I don’t want her near either of you. Molly. Ginny.” You motion for both women to enter your room. Molly entered, shooting daggers at her sons before working to prepare the bed. Ginny refused to leave your side.

“And?” you heard George ask.

“And nothing,” you said coldly. “One of you please send up the healer when she arrives. I don’t care which.” And with that you entered your room, slamming the door decidedly in their faces.

Both men stood staring at the closed door for several minutes.

“Great job, George,” Percy muttered under his breath.

“Shut up, you fucking wanker,” George spit before turning on his heels and fleeing downstairs.

Percy made to say something but swallowed his words, letting out a huff in their place. This had gone terribly.

When he finally made his way downstairs after much pacing outside the door of your room, Percy found George on the couch, cheeks stained in tear lines, curled in on himself and covered in blankets like he used to do as a child when he’d fought with Fred. With caution, Percy sat down beside him on the couch, not too close but within arms reach.

Neither said a word.

Finally, Percy broke the silence. “We really screwed up, didn’t we?” His point was emphasized by the faint sound of you screaming from the floor above them.

George winced before he let out a sigh. “Why do you ever care, Percy?”

“Because that baby is my family, George. I want to be here for him or her, especially since they won’t have a father to take care of them.”

“They’ll have me,” George whispered through gritted teeth, “And what about everyone else, huh? I’m your family. Fred was your family. Ron, Ginny. Mom. Dad. We’re all your family, too. And you didn’t give a rat’s ass about any of us--” Percy cut him off with a quickly uttered, “That was different.”

“How?” George asked, his volume rising, “How was that any different?”

“It was war,” Percy responded with raised pitch as well before steading himself with measured breaths. “I was young. I was stupid. I wanted to make something better for myself than what we grew up with, alright? I’m trying to do better, I really am. But it’s too late. I can’t repair what I’ve lost with you. But with Y/N-- George, with her, I have a fresh start. I know I’m being selfish, but I just wanted someone in this bloody family to look at me like I’m not a fucking monster.”

George didn’t respond for a long time, but the silence wasn’t as tense as it had been before. At least they were talking.

After a long while, George muttered to himself, “You aren’t a monster.” “Pardon?” Percy asked, his mind and attention having been pulled to the hushed sounds coming from your room.

“I said you’re not a monster,” George responded, lifting his eyes to meet his brothers. “And it’s not too late. I mean what did Fred and I do but exactly what you said. We were young and stupid and ran off to make something of ourselves. We were just lucky our dreams didn’t involve an arsehole boss who refused to believe Harry.”

That made Percy laugh. The boys simply looked at each other, sharing a silent understanding.

After a moment, George added, “But our dreams did involve Y/N. She cares. She always has.”

You let out a particularly loud wail, which pulled Percy’s eyes up the stairs. Both men hurt at your pain, but stayed seated. George waited for Percy’s full attention before continuing, “Percy, she’s my sister and she’s my friend. I just don’t want her to get her hopes up that you actually care about her when you’re just here because you’re trying to make up for the past.”

Percy turned and leaned his face into the cushion. He thought back on the past few months, of bringing your treats and sitting on the couch listening to you explain all the details of the latest story you were reading, you falling asleep on his lap as he read the last few chapters of each book out loud to you, all the times he was able to take your hand to help you walk or hold you against his chest as you tried to relax, and more than anything the look on your face when you thought no one was watching, looking down at your child still within you and singing soft lullabies. A perfect image of beauty and love.

“Between us, George,” Percy whispered, “I think I may care too much.”

Their heart-to-heart was interrupted by a sound from the fireplace. Within a moment appeared the elderly blond woman who had been making weekly visits for the past two months. She didn’t miss a beat before asking, “Has Y/N been placed in her birthing bed already?”

Percy stood. “Yes, I’ll take you,” and with a curt nod to George, a tint of blush still on his cheeks, he led the healer upstairs.

When the healer was allowed entry, Percy caught the quickest glimpse of your face. Your brow was furrowed in concentration, your hair stuck to your forehead and your eyes locked on his. Just as the door was closing, he thought he saw you smile.

At first, his spirit lifted. But after a moment, it sank again. Here you were in some of the most excruciating pain the world can place on a person and still you were providing him more support than he was providing you. How were you always so sweet? How come it warmed his heart so to see you show the tiniest bit of affection to him. He felt guilt deeply at not being there for you, but also a lightness at your care. He returned downstairs and sat beside George and waited gladly. It was all he could do. Slowly, the still sleeping members of the household joined them until a large group of Weasleys and their partners were assembled in the living room awaiting the news.

Three hours and much pain later, they were informed that the child had arrived, a girl, small but mighty, with thin red tufts of hair. And an hour or so later, the family was allowed up to see you both.

Despite being told to be calm, George rushed into the room and took a seat on the bed. You sat looking exhausted, your eyes sagging and your hair mussed, holding your little girl stomach-down on your chest, skin to skin. While it made it hard for everyone to see her face, it was best to help the baby feel calm and help you create milk. She was curled up, butt in the air, fast asleep as you looked down at her.

George’s words pulled you from your baby’s beautiful face. “What’s her name?” he asked.

You looked at him and then to the rest of the room, about ten people crowded around the door waiting for your answer.

Stroking your child’s head, you said, “Violet. Violet Winifred Weasley.” You looked to George, hoping to see approval on his face. He beamed at you, reaching out the stroke the auburn hair atop your baby’s head.

“Violet like--”

“Like the ones that grew out of my ears third year every time I said Fred’s name, yes. Violets were our way of saying, ‘I’m thinking of you,’ and I want to look at her every day and think of him,” you explained.

George let the tears run down his face. You cried too, reaching out to hold his hand in your own, putting your anger with him aside to feel this thing together.

After everyone made their way over to peer down at the tiny head on your chest, Molly ushered everyone out, urging you to sleep and telling everyone else they could have a better look at the baby tomorrow. A Christmas present to the family.

Just as the door closed, you heard a knock and saw Percy peek his head inside.

“Yes?” you asked, trying your best to let your anger at him pass.

He took a hesitant step into the room, wringing his hands in front of him.

“She’s beautiful,” he said from the edge of the bed.

You looked at the man and smiled. You were finding being angry at him was not easy. Every part of you wanted to let him back in. Not having him beside you during your labor was your choice but you still missed the softness of his hands, the tranquility of his gaze, the gentleness of his voice, and the warmth of his company.

After a moment, he added, “And so are you.”

You flicked your eyes up to meet his, shock apparent on your face. You watched as the red crept up his neck and over his cheeks. He broke your gaze to look at the floor before taking swift steps toward the door.

“I’m here if you need me. I’ll help in any way I can,” he said before quickly shutting the door behind him.

As you looked down at the precious, soft face of your child, you smiled, not just at the beautiful life you had created, a reminder of the great love of your past that you had found in Fred, but also at the future, one which you were beginning to believe could also be filled with a great love, though not one you had ever expected.

#harry potter #hp #harry potter imagine #hp imagine #fred weasley #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley x reader #percy weasley #percy weasley x reader #percy weasley imagine #molly weasley #george weasley #weasley twins #ginny weasley

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didanawisgi · 6 years

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The Odyssey is about a man. It says so right at the beginning — in Robert Fagles’s 1996 translation, for example, the poem opens with the line, “Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns.”

In the course of the poem, that man plots his return home after fighting the Trojan War, slaughters the suitors vying to marry his wife Penelope, and reestablishes himself as the head of his household.

But the Odyssey is also about other people: Penelope, the nymph Calypso, the witch Circe, the princess Nausicaa; Odysseus’s many shipmates who died before they could make it home; the countless slaves in Odysseus’s house, many of whom are never named.

Emily Wilson, the first woman to translate the Odyssey into English, is as concerned with these surrounding characters as she is with Odysseus himself. Written in plain, contemporary language and released earlier this month to much fanfare, her translationlays bare some of the inequalities between characters that other translations have elided. It offers not just a new version of the poem, but a new way of thinking about it in the context of gender and power relationships today. As Wilson puts it, “the question of who matters is actually central to what the text is about.”

Why it matters for a woman to translate the Odyssey

Composed around the 8th century BC, the Odyssey is one of the oldest works of literature typically read by an American audience; for comparison, it’s almost 2,000 years older than Beowulf. While the Iliad tells the story of the Trojan War, the Odyssey picks up after the war is over, when Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, is trying to make his way home.

Both poems are traditionally attributed to the Greek poet Homer, but since they almost certainly originated as oral performances and not written texts, it’s hard to tell whether a single person composed them, or whether they are the result of many different creators and performers refining and contributing to a story over a period of time. (The introduction to Wilson’s translation includes a longer discussion of the question of who “Homer” was.)

Wilson, a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, has also translated plays by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides and the Roman philosopher Seneca. Her translation of the Odyssey is one of many in English (though the others have been by men), including versions by Fagles, Robert Fitzgerald, Richmond Lattimore, and more. Translating the long-dead language Homer used — a variant of ancient Greek called Homeric Greek — into contemporary English is no easy task, and translators bring their own skills, opinions, and stylistic sensibilities to the text. The result is that every translation is different, almost a new poem in itself.

A battlefield epic, the Iliad has very few major female characters. The Odyssey, however, devotes significant time to the life (and even the dreams) of Penelope. Circe, Calypso, and the goddess Athena all play important roles. This was one of the reasons I was drawn to the Odyssey as a teenager, and why I’ve returned to it many times over the years.

But the Odyssey is hardly a feminist text. Odysseus may have trouble getting home, but at least he gets to travel the world and have sex with beautiful women like Calypso and Circe. Penelope, meanwhile, has to wait around while boorish suitors drink and carouse in her family’s home, pressuring her to marry one of them. To buy time, she says she can’t marry until she finishes weaving a funeral shroud for her father-in-law, but every night she undoes the day’s work, making the task last as long as she can. “His work always gets him somewhere,” Wilson told me. “Her work is all about undoing. It’s all about hiding herself, hiding her desires, and creating something whose only purpose is to get nowhere.”

Some feminist readings of the Odyssey have tried to cast Penelope as heroic in her own way, sometimes by comparing her to Odysseus. “I think there’s so many things wrong with that,” Wilson said. “She’s constantly still being judged by, is she like him.” What’s more, the heroic-Penelope reading focuses on a wealthy woman at the expense of the many enslaved women in the poem, some of whom meet an untimely and brutal end. When Odysseus returns home and kills all the suitors, he also tells his son Telemachus to kill the slave women who had sex with (or were raped by) the suitors. “Hack at them with long swords, eradicate / all life from them,” Odysseus says in Wilson’s translation. “They will forget the things / the suitors made them do with them in secret.”

As a woman, Wilson believes she comes to the Odyssey with a different perspective than translators who have gone before her. “Female translators often stand at a critical distance when approaching authors who are not only male, but also deeply embedded in a canon that has for many centuries been imagined as belonging to men,” she wrote in a recent essay at the Guardian. She called translating Homer as a woman an experience of “intimate alienation.”

“Earlier translators are not as uncomfortable with the text as I am,” she explained to me, “and I like that I’m uncomfortable.” Part of her goal with the translation was to make readers uncomfortable too — with the fact that Odysseus owns slaves, and with the inequities in his marriage to Penelope. Making these aspects of the poem visible, rather than glossing over them, “makes it a more interesting text,” she said.

Wilson’s translation is different from its predecessors in subtle — and not so subtle — ways

Part of the way Wilson challenges previous readings of the Odyssey is with style. Her translation made a splash months before it was published, when an excerpt ran in the summer 2017 issue of the Paris Review. I and other Odyssey fans were excited by Wilson’s opening line: “Tell me about a complicated man.” In its matter-of-fact language, it’s worlds different from Fagles’s “Sing to me of the man, Muse,” or Robert Fitzgerald’s 1961 version, “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story / of that man skilled in all ways of contending.” Wilson chose to use plain, relatively contemporary language in part to “invite readers to respond more actively with the text,” she writes in a translator’s note. “Impressive displays of rhetoric and linguistic force are a good way to seem important and invite a particular kind of admiration, but they tend to silence dissent and discourage deeper modes of engagement.”

“There’s an idea that Homer has to sound heroic and ancient,” Wilson told me, but that idea comes with a value system attached, one that includes “endorsing this very hierarchical kind of society as if that’s what heroism is.” Telling the story in plainer language allows readers to see Odysseus and his society in another light.

There are flashes of beauty in Wilson’s Odyssey. “The early Dawn was born,” she writes in Book 2; “her fingers bloomed.” Of the forest on Calypso’s island, where many birds nest, she writes, “It was full of wings.” But throughout the book, there’s a frankness to Wilson’s language around work and the people who do it. Of Eurymedusa, a slave in the house of princess Nausicaa, she writes, “She used to babysit young Nausicaa / and now she lit her fire and cooked her meal.”

The slaves in older translations of the Odyssey do not “babysit” — often, they’re not identified as slaves at all. Fagles, for instance, calls Eurymedusa a “chambermaid.” Fitzgerald calls her a “nurse.” “It sort of stuns me when I look at other translations,” Wilson said, “how much work seems to go into making slavery invisible.”

Wilson, by contrast, uses the word “slave” for Eurymedusa and many other enslaved characters, even when the original uses a more specific term. The Homeric Greek dmoe, or “female-house-slave,” Wilson writes in her translator’s note, could be translated as “maid” or “domestic servant,” but those terms would imply that the woman was free. “The need to acknowledge the fact and the horror of slavery,” she writes, “and to mark the fact that the idealized society depicted in the poem is one where slavery is shockingly taken for granted, seems to me to outweigh the need to specify, in every instance, the type of slave.”

While Wilson’s language is often plain, it’s also carefully chosen. She told Wyatt Mason at the New York Times magazine she could have begun the poem with the line “Tell me about a straying husband,” an even more radical choice that would still have been “a viable translation.” But, she said, “it would give an entirely different perspective and an entirely different setup for the poem.” She spoke, Mason noted, with “the firmness of someone making hard choices she believes in.”

Those choices show up clearly in her treatment of Penelope. Penelope is a frustrating character — it’s not entirely clear why she doesn’t simply send the suitors away or marry one of them, and the poem offers limited access to her thoughts and feelings. Wilson didn’t try to make Penelope easier to understand — “the opacity of Penelope,” as she puts it, is one of the aspects of the poem she wants to trouble readers and make them uncomfortable.

But small details can tell us something about even the most frustrating of characters. At one point in Book 21, Penelope unlocks the storeroom where Odysseus keeps his weapons — as Wilson writes in her translator’s note, this act sets in motion the slaughter of the suitors and the resolution of the poem. As she picks up the key, Homer describes her hand as pachus, or “thick.” “There is a problem here,” Wilson writes, “since in our culture, women are not supposed to have big, thick, or fat hands.” Translators have usually solved the problem by skipping the adjective, or putting in something more traditional — Fagles mentions Penelope’s “steady hand.” Wilson, however, renders the moment this way: “Her muscular, firm hand/ picked up the ivory handle of the key.”

“Weaving does in fact make a person’s hands more muscular,” she writes. “I wanted to ensure that my translation, like the original, underlines Penelope’s physical competence, which marks her as a character who plays a crucial part in the action — whether or not she knows what she is doing.”

Wilson does not give Penelope more agency or power than she has in the original poem, but she also does not take any of the queen’s original power away by making descriptions of her conform to modern gender stereotypes.

“Part of fighting misogyny in the current world is having a really clear sense of what the structures of thought and the structures of society are that have enabled androcentrism in different cultures, including our own,” Wilson said, and the Odyssey, looked at in the right way, can help readers understand those structures more clearly. The poem offers a “defense of a male dominant society, a defense of its own hero and his triumph over everybody else,” she said, “but it also seems to provide these avenues for realizing what’s so horrible about this narrative, what’s missing about this narrative.”

Recent events have led to a widespread debate over how audiences should consume the work of people we know to be abusers of women. This is intertwined with the question of how we should consume art that has racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted elements. Often elided from this conversation is the fact that people of color and women of all races have been consuming racist and sexist art in America for generations (in many classes on Western literature, for instance, they have had little choice), and developing their own responses to it, responses that are often deeply nuanced.

Conservative talk of “special snowflakes” demanding trigger warnings ignores the fact that people marginalized in the Western canon have long read literature from it in exactly the way Wilson describes: both as an endorsement of its author’s values, and as evidence of how horrible those values can be, and whom they leave out.

Wilson’s translation, then, is not a feminist version of the Odyssey. It is a version of the Odyssey that lays bare the morals of its time and place, and invites us to consider how different they are from our own, and how similar.

#emily wilson #odyssey #Greek Mythology #linguistics #ancient greece #mythology #poetry

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