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whimsica · 10 months ago

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Fan Created Pathway: Muse (formerly Artist)

This is sort of an update and redux of my original fan pathway, the Artist pathway. Its been refined and made to fit better into the LotM universe and most of the Sequences have been changed somewhat, plus with CoI adding more outer god pathways that don't fit the tarot theme I don't have to worry about all that.

There are basically minor spoilers within in terms of some world building lore of LotM, but nothing particularly integral or revelatory.

Having said that, please enjoy my massive infodump.

Muse Pathway

Mystical Creature Form:

Countless illusory hands with mouths on their palms, all singing, whispering, or mimicking sounds. Everchanging trails of colour emit from the mouths as they move, drifting through the air and forming into various scenes before dispersing back into colour.

Neighbouring Pathways:

Savant (Paragon) and Mystery Pryer (Hermit), forming a trifecta of rational and scientific knowledge, mystical and hidden knowledge, and emotional and artistic knowledge.

Sequences

Sequence 9: Illustrator

Abilities:

High Spirituality: Beyonders of this pathway have much deeper reserves of spirituality. Can perform ritualistic magic but gain no knowledge of it from the potion.

Enhanced Eyesight & Observation: An Illustrator gains excellent vision and a sharp eye for details, as well as strong visual memory.

Enhanced Dexterity: An Illustrator's dexterity and coordination are increased sharply.

Inspiration: Illustrators will often receive knowledge, information, or perception in the form of sudden inspiration. This could be mystic knowledge, messages from a spirit world creature, or even revelations from their own spirituality about the future or their surroundings. The inspiration is not clear, requiring the Illustrator to draw it out in order to fully comprehend, but has greater range and possibilities than divination due to its uncontrolled nature.

Sequence 8: Singer

Abilities:

Enhanced Hearing: A Singer gains an extremely powerful sense of hearing, as well as the ability to accurately recall or differentiate sounds.

Sound Replication: Singers can accurately recreate sounds or voices after only hearing them once.

Throw Voice: Singers can use spirituality to make their voice appear to emanate from a distance, from multiple locations, or even from the mouth of another.

Beyonder Song: A Singer can create a number of weak mystical effects using music. They can mildly influence the emotions of living things via their music, either calming or provoking them with the appropriate tune. They can also bolster the movement and coordination of a creature, or disrupt its rhythm. Finally, they can create a horrible discordant screech which directly strikes at the spirit, dealing mental damage and breaking concentration.

Sequence 7: Tattoo Artist

Abilities:

Ritual Knowledge: The Tattoo Artist learns a large number of ritualistic magics.

Ritual Marking: A Tattoo Artist can simplify ritualistic magics into complex designs, which can be marked onto the skin of a living creature, themselves included. The ritual tattoo can then be activated with spirituality at a later time, producing the effects of the magic in an instant, which consumes the tattoo. In essence, a delayed ritual. Ritualistic magics targeted at higher beings can be used, but still require the being in question to respond in order to create an effect when activated. Has no effect if not on a living creature with spirituality.

Ritual Engraving: An advanced form of Ritual Marking, producing a permanent or semi-permanent tattoo of a stored ritual. Requires far greater time and effort to create as well as the relevant materials, and requires a slight but constant drain on the spirituality of the creature on which it is inscribed to maintain. More than a few permanent tattoos may lead to easier loss of control due to constant spiritual consumption.

Sequence 6: Sculptor

Abilities:

Enhanced Perception of Form: Greatly enhanced ability to perceive and recreate the specific physical parameters of things. Allows a Sculptor to directly project their mental image of something over their vision, forming 'guidelines' to follow and compare against.

Enhanced Body: Sculptors gain a significant boost to their strength and dexterity, in order to more easily handle large mediums such as stone blocks or wooden logs.

Living Statue: Sculptures produced by a Sculptor can be imbued with spirituality and temporarily gain the characteristics of their muse, retaining the characteristics of their initial material at the same time. Sculptures of living creatures will come to life but have no will of their own, and must be directed by their Sculptor. The more detailed and realistic the sculpture, the more powerful and accurate the effects.

Mystic Engraving: Ritual Tattoos can be placed onto sculptures and activated via them as a medium. If the sculpture is of a living thing, the Sculptor can control it to activate the tattoo.

Beyonder Sculpture: When Beyonder materials or characteristics are used in a sculpture, a Sculptor use them to cause the sculpture to become a mystical item, with a small degree of control regarding its effects.

Sequence 5: Painter

New Abilities:

Master of Painting: A Painter gains mastery of techniques related to painting, and is capable of producing paintings so detailed they are nearly indistinguishable from reality. Ritual tattoos can be painted and activated on any surface.

Emotional Stirring: A Painter can infuse feelings into their work, allowing certain emotions or desires to be felt or amplified by those who see their art.

Still Life Manifestation: Painted effects, items, or creatures can be briefly brought to life by the Painter, such as a painted flame being plucked from the surface it is painted on and becoming real, or a painted bird peeling from a canvas to deliver a letter. The lifespan and power of these effects depends on the amount of spirituality inserted by the Painter. After the invested spirituality is consumed, the manifested painting will attempt to return to a surface, becoming capable of repeated manifestation. Failing that, it will collapse into paint. In essence an upgraded version of a Sculptor's Living Statues.

Vault of Colours: Can turn any painting made by them into a hidden subspace, which can be entered by any living or non-living thing while activated through the Painter's spirituality. The environment within the Vault depends on the content of the painting. Living things can be sealed inside paintings so long as the Painter closes the Vault of Colours while the target remains inside, and without any special circumstances most Beyonders will require demigod level strength to break out quickly. Things sealed within a painting will appear in the painting once it is 'closed' but can be concealed depending on the other contents of the painting. A Painter can manifest and control anything they have painted into the painting, as well as activating sculptures or ritual markings they have left inside without needing to enter themselves. A Painter can keep several Vaults of Colour active at any one time, but if one is left alone without any reinforcement of spirituality for too long it will cease, permanently turning everything inside it into mere brush strokes. If a Beyonder characteristic is within when the Vault ceases, the painting will become a mystical item.

Sequence 4: Dollmaker

Abilities:

Doll Creation: A Dollmaker can produce dolls which function autonomously, but which only obey preset instructions and cannot react to scenarios outside those instructions. Ritual tattoos may be placed on a doll, or even concealed within them, and activated without the Dollmaker's presence or spirituality. If the Dollmaker is nearby, dolls can be directly controlled by the Dollmaker with their spirituality instead of following their setting.

Blood from a Stone: A Dollmaker's creations can be made indistinguishable from true living things, seemingly possessing blood, heartbeats, digestion, and desire. However it is still only an imitation, not true life.

Miniature: Using related materials such as hair or blood, a Dollmaker can make a doll which has a spiritual connection to a specific target. Even without related materials, if the doll is accurate enough to the target it will still affect them, albeit at a much weaker level. The Miniature can be used to affect the target in a number of ways. It can manipulate the emotions of the target, either in a subtle and unnoticeable manner or in a direct and shocking manner. It can be used to locate the target or as a mystical link for curses. If close by, harming or destroying the doll will deal an immense amount of damage directly to the target's spirit. If belonging to a pathway with high spiritual perception, a target may sense the connection, but it is unlikely to be identified or broken without specifically targeted ritual magic or intervention by an angel or higher.

Sequence 3: Architect

Abilities:

Structural Analysis: An Architect can instantly grasp a perfect understanding of any structure and what it contains simply by making contact with their spirituality.

Spirit Blueprint: Architects can design and create structures which exist both in reality and in conceptual locations such as the spirit world or sea of collective unconscious, serving as connection points.

Spirit Structure: All of an Architect's previous Sequence abilities can be used at will within structures they have constructed or designed regardless of the Architect's proximity to the structure. Structures under an Architect's control can have the space within them twisted and connected by the Architect at will, creating infinite hallways and inescapable prisons or connecting multiple structures, allowing the Architect to move freely between them regardless of distance.

Divine Design: An Architect can outline blueprints in their mind and cause the according structures to assemble around them.

Master of the House: As living beings reside within or repeatedly interact with a structure created by an Architect, the Architect gains greater and greater influence over them, eventually being able to manipulate them as if they were one with the structure itself.

Sequence 2: Spirit of Theatre

Abilities:

Enhanced Physicality: A Spirit of Theatre gains superhuman strength and speed, perfect control over every aspect of their body, and the ability to produce and mimic sounds to an extraordinary level, capable of even mimicking a chaotic battle, a busy marketplace, or an entire opera by themselves.

Soul on Fire: Through their every action, a Spirit of Theatre can stir or manipulate the emotions of others to an extreme level, directly causing others to break down weeping, become consumed by euphoria, harm themselves in frustration, or to join them and follow along with the Spirit's direction of their performance.

All the World's a Stage: A Spirit of Theatre can turn a simple performed action of theirs into the real thing, directly summoning a barrage of cannons by calling out to fire, turning day to night with the swish of a cloth, a splash of red paint into a grievous wound. Similarly, they can turn real things into a mere performance, making an exploding bomb into a simple firecracker, an impassable barrier into a painted curtain, a decapitated head into a paper mache prop. Other living things can be affected as well, making a simple rope into a striking serpent or an enemy Beyonder into a harmless cardboard prop. This ability can be set to activate even after the Spirit of Theatre dies, allowing a Spirit to turn their own death into a performance so long as they can accurately predict the timing of their demise.

Sequence 1: Inspired

Abilities:

Soul of Creation: An Inspired has no need of tools to create, instead interacting with the world directly through their Mythical Creature form and shaping the world into great works of art purely through their will. As the Inspired creates, they fuse part of themselves into their art, allowing them to influence the world around their art as if they were there in person. Even if their main body is destroyed and Beyonder characteristics taken, so long as enough of their art remains, an Inspired will not truly die.

Fanatic Devotion: Through their art, an Inspired can in turn inspire, causing powerful emotions and ideals to sprout. This ranges from harmless inspiration to zealous worship to directly mutating into a monster.

Eye of the Beholder: An Inspired can appear as the most radiantly beautiful and perfect being ever witnessed, perfectly harmonized with heaven and earth or the most twisted and disturbing sight imaginable, their very presence distorting and destroying the world. They appear differently to every individual depending on that individual's sensibilities and can use either beauty or disgust to drive people to both madness or serenity. Other things can also be changed to varying levels of beauty or disgust, with the pinnacle of beauty beginning to destroy the world around it as nothing can match its perfection and the depths of disgust being destroyed by the world around it as nothing can tolerate its existence.

Sequence 0: Muse

Abilities:

Authority of 'Art', which has its foundations in creating the real from the false, the mystical from the ordinary, into drawing genuine emotion from practiced performance, in igniting true heat from painted flame, carving real life from dead stone.

Authority of 'Inspiration', which allows ideas and emotions to sprout from otherwise meaningless sources. So long as a Muse's works exist and inspire, the Muse will eventually be reborn from the works of those that they inspire.

Authority of 'Fascination', which contains both the pinnacle of beauty and love as well as the depths of hatred and disgust, able to move even the most stalwart of hearts.

Advancement Rituals

Painter Ritual: Seal yourself within a completely blank and empty space, utterly isolated from outside interference. Without interruption, completely fill every inch of the space including yourself with paintings and then consume the potion.

Dollmaker Ritual: Create a piece of art which stirs powerful emotions. While 10,000 or more people still have a deep impression of your masterpiece, consume the potion.

Architect Ritual: Construct an area with your creations which people continuously interact with and pass through. Once your created area has seamlessly blended into reality without being discovered as an artwork by anyone and formed a corresponding region of the spirit world, consume the potion.

Spirit of Theatre Ritual: Craft an intricate and thrilling performance with your creations which draws the attention of an audience across the world who believe your performance to be real. At the climax of the performance, suddenly reveal that it was a performance the entire time and that none of the participants are real, and amidst the reveal, consume the potion.

Inspired Ritual: Spread works of art, allowing them to inspire and influence without the use of Beyonder powers. Once your personal style has given rise to its own sweeping artistic movement, leading countless beings to create their own art in your style, consume the potion.

Muse Ritual: Produce a masterpiece at the level of a true deity.

Additional Notes:

Some of the core tenets of 'acting' across the entire pathway are the creation of your own works of art and the art evoking a response from the viewer, be it positive or negative.

A Sequence 0 Muse can resurrect from their own art or the art of those inspired by their style so long as enough of it remains, creating a new body for themselves, but the resurrection is not as perfect as the Black Emperor, as it only restores life and not Sequence level or Uniqueness. However, it is superior to the Black Emperor in the aspect that a former Muse can still resurrect even if the current Sequence 0 Muse is occupied.

From Spirit of Theatre onward, most other Beyonder powers can be mimicked or reproduced via the creation of art or performance. These powers are naturally weaker than the originals due to stemming from the authority of 'Art' rather than their own relevant authorities.

High Sequence Beyonders of this pathway can influence Low Sequence Beyonders via the Inspiration ability, transmitting information or influence in the form of sudden inspiration, similarly to the Hidden Sage.

A possible honorific name for a Muse of this pathway could be

'Lady of Myriad Colours ,

the Source from which all Inspiration flows,

Mistress of the Scorned and Adored,

the Goddess of Art and Emotion'

The relevant metal to the Muse pathway is pyrite/fool's gold.

#lord of the mysteries #lotm #circle of inevitability #coi

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oscarupsets · 1 month ago

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Saying goodbye to the 1970s with a pair of films destined to be Oscar favorites: a no-frills drama and a war epic.

In Kramer vs. Kramer, Dustin Hoffman plays Ted, a workaholic father that is suddenly left with his 7 year old son as his wife disappears to find herself.

Family dynamics have changed significantly since 1979 and Kramer vs. Kramer serves as a great example of that shift. In 2024 eyes, watching Ted navigate fatherhood is both sad and frustrating, as if he's never spent a moment with his son due to his assumed role as a working father. It's not difficult to understand Meryl Streep's character's reasons for leaving right from the start, and it's a bit harder to feel sympathy for Ted. But, he comes around and so did I.

Feel free to look back a bit for my Dustin Hoffman criticism. No need to rehash (out of space). As always, he does a superb job, but I think the real star of the show is Justin Henry. Without his acting, this movie would have never succeeded.

Having seen plenty of Best Picture nominated war films, I agree with Derek Malcolm of the London Evening Standard and do believe that Apocalypse Now is one of the best produced of all time.

I also need to note that I watched the 3h22m Redux version (it was free on my TV), but I will not base my review on those extra scenes. Was the extra 49 minutes necessary? Eh.

It doesn't take long to discover how massive the production value was for this one. Given the plot can be summarized to fit on an index card, the production and the ambiance is the most important part.

I also agree with Vincent Camby on the value of Marlon Brando. Being a Brando fan, I was disappointed to discover he only really has 5-10 minutes of screentime that give virtually zero substance to the film, despite being first credited and the main antagonist. Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, and Laurence Fishburne (in one of his first roles) give much better performances. Duvall's in particular left me laughing out loud.

My mom (this account's #1 fan) watched it with me yesterday and was disappointed with the ending. She likes her films wrapped up with a bow.

At the 52nd Academy Awards, Kramer vs. Kramer won what I am calling the Medium 5, as Meryl Streep was nominated in the supporting rather than lead category. In an alternate universe, Meryl Streep had a larger part, the movie was even better, and they won the Big 5.

Justin Henry still holds the record for youngest Oscar nominee at 8 years old.

Kramer vs. Kramer competed in the 34th BAFTAs, losing all 7 nominations, while Apocalypse Now competed in the 33rd, winning two. Both lost their respective Best Film nominations at the BAFTAs and were ranked lower than usual on the NBR's Top 10 list. Most notably, Apocalypse Now was presented as a 3 hour, unfinished version at Cannes and won the Palme d'Or.

Unofficial Review: I'm going to say yes to this one. Both feel so typical Oscar winner, so it's strange the Academy went for familial drama over a war epic, given the Vietnam War was still fresh.

#oscars #academy awards #52nd academy awards #kramer vs kramer #kramer vs kramer 1979 #apocalypse now #apocalypse now 1979 #1970s #film #1970s film #oscarupsets

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thekillerssluts · 3 years ago

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Arcade Fire's WE was born in 'a very uncertain but beautiful time,' says Win Butler

Win Butler was behind the wheel of a rental vehicle Wednesday afternoon. His wife and bandmate Régine Chassagne was riding shotgun and their day-shy-of-nine-year-old son Edwin Farnham Butler IV was in the back, eating, as they rolled out of Palm Springs.

Butler was still buzzing about Arcade Fire’s surprise set last weekend at Coachella. Not on a main stage, where the Montreal band could well have been headlining, but in a tent jammed with 10,000 fans, and throngs more spilling outside.

“It was really cool,” he said. “It was really meaningful. The first time we played Coachella was in 2005. We didn’t have any road crew. We were basically a punk band, driving our own van and didn’t have road cases for our keyboards; they were just in the boxes we bought them in. That was our first time playing for a big audience. … So we were sort of in a reflective mood (being back there).”

There’s much to reflect on as the enduring Canadian indie-rock heroes prepare to release their sixth studio album, WE, on May 6. It’s been 18 years since the group shot to world fame with its debut album, Funeral. The new record finds Arcade Fire playing with a pared-down mix of urgency, intimacy and abandon that hearkens back to its early days while breaking new creative ground.

It all started when everything stopped. Butler and Chassagne were in a recording studio in New Orleans, where they now live for much of the year (though they still have a place in Montreal), when the COVID-19 pandemic began.

“They were closing the borders to Canada,” Butler recalled. “We had written Age of Anxiety, End of the Empire and a bunch of songs. … Régine and I were working every day in the studio. We didn’t know when or if it would be possible to get the band together. We were very inspired and very plugged in, but the world we were making the record for was changing so much.”

Butler had his grandfather Alvino Rey’s guitar, “a 1930s Gibson he got in New York City from (jazz guitar pioneer) Eddie Lang,” as well as his dad’s old Martin acoustic and his son’s electric.

“I had these three guitars I felt drawn to play, and we have this lovely old Steinway in our living room,” he said. “The goal was to write — independent of genre — songs we could play around the piano with guitar, and to just work on structure, melody and the bones of songs as much as we could, because we had time.”

When they reunited with the rest of the band six months later in El Paso, Texas, the pandemic was in full swing, and the U.S. election was very much up in the air. Despite the upheaval all around them, something clicked.

“Every night, I would grill food and we would sit around the fire and play songs,” Butler recalled. “It was a very uncertain but beautiful time.”

Arcade Fire has always hovered between extremes. Funeral was an album about death, marked by unifying anthems teeming with life. The new album is divided into two parts. The first, “I,” involves themes of angst and alienation, while the “WE” side is about coming together and finding hope. For Butler, they are flip sides of a coin.

“The ship is moving fast,” he said. “We’re in a challenging time and the world is changing at such a rapid rate. How do we face that change without being defeated by it? There are these two poles: the realities of the world, which at times can be really dark and heavy, which we all want to escape; and this deep, unconditional love, which transcends time and whatever generation or family we’re born into, and is deeper and more universal.”

WE was co-produced by Butler, Chassagne and Nigel Godrich, known for his career-spanning work with Radiohead. But OK Computer redux this is not. Godrich adapts to meet the pair on their own terms, elevating the band to a distilled version of what it does best.

“I bought (Radiohead’s 1995 album) The Bends the day it came out,” Butler said. “Nigel is such an amazing engineer, trained in this British system that goes back to the Beatles. He just has this depth of knowledge about recording that’s really inspiring.

“I think because of the way we wrote the record to work on piano and guitar, we really wanted the music to have space. If things sound good, you don’t want to add as much. There are a lot of songs that are the most spacious and empty-sounding things we’ve done.”

An appearance by Peter Gabriel, on the Chassagne-led dance track Unconditional II (Race and Religion), is but the latest alignment of the stars for a band that has found collaborative kinship with rock deities including David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen and David Byrne.

“(Gabriel) came to the studio and we had a day to work on it,” Butler said. “He does this thing where he double-tracks his voice, high and low. As soon as he put the high vocal down, I was like, ‘Oh s—, that’s Peter Gabriel.’ ”

Days after the new album was announced, Win’s brother Will Butler revealed he was leaving Arcade Fire. Meanwhile, an old friend became a new bandmate: Dan Boeckner of Montreal indie-rock act Wolf Parade joined as a touring vocalist and multi-instrumentalist.

“It’s sad, but also exciting,” Butler said of the shakeup. “We had an amazing run with Will, and we’re extremely excited about the vibe in the band (now).

“With our son as well, we’ve just got to prepare for change and root our life in love and connection. My goal was always bigger than just having a band. It was more about friendship and a sense of community, and people whose hearts are in the right place and really give a s—.

“I’m really proud we’re still doing it, and still working. I’m massively proud of the new record. I think it’s one of the best things we’ve ever done. And I’m really excited for the future.”

#Arcade Fire #Win Butler #interview

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inlemoons · 4 years ago

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blind redux

summary: He couldn’t see--but he had hands, didn’t he?

universe: ocarina of time. pairing: f!sheik/link. rating: oh, this is just M. it’s sex. it’s literally sex

a/n: part of my little shadow redux fics. i’ve been slowly going thru old parts of this anthology and bringing characterization/other things up to my current standards.

///

“Take everything off, then.” Link’s eyes are heavy, the pupils so wide with arousal in the dark. So Sheik obliges, starting at her tabi boots, peeling off the armors, the wraps, until not a shred of cloth is left on her lithe form. She reaches for the mask, he leans forward in anticipation--gods, he has been dying for this--her eyes boring into his as she snaps her fingers and pulls away the coverings of her face.

The room is pitch-black. The candles’ smoke curls invisible, the acrid smell hangs in their nostrils. The air is heavy, and her blood pulses staccato in her neck.

“Lovers should see each other!”

“We aren’t lovers, this is just--”

“Right.” He’s on her before she can continue, stumbling gracelessly in the dark until his mouth is pressed to hers. Her fingers--in a rush of their own accord, really-- tear at his tunic until he’s naked, “So, just sex--”

“Companionship, even--” His maneuvering had pulled them back to the cot, clumsily, nearly busting his ass and taking her down with him. She sucks in air between her teeth--it’s not like she wouldn’t fuck him on the floor at this point, frankly--

“‘Kay.”

He doesn’t have to understand, does he? He’ll get it later--

He slides a finger down her taut belly, to the wet spot between her legs, while another thumbs her nipple and she gasps.

“Hero.”

She hisses it through gritted teeth as she slides down slowly onto his hips, one hand pressed steady against the wall, now, red eyes rolling when he smirks up at her. He stretches beneath her other hand as she balances, face open and mischievous in a new way, a way that she likes, maybe even adores--

“What?”

“Fuck off, Hero.”

He doesn't know that I can see him, does he? And as he palms her, kisses her, begins to slip his fingers inside of her, she doesn’t think she’ll tell him. It’s deceptive, oh--it’s so wrong that she can see each and every bit of what he’s giving, that she can savor each honest expression, but isn't this the way it has to be?

His hands slide to the swell of her bottom, grasping supple muscle, rocking her slowly, grinding deep against her slick walls and rolling hips. Each time she falls towards him, she dips her face to his, raining open-mouthed kisses that leave them both breathless. They’re sensuous and slow and his tongue feels so good in her mouth and she can see by his open-wonder expression that he's just as aroused. He's perfect, honestly, so much more truthful than she’ll ever be.

She combs her finger through the sweat-soaked blonde hair splayed about the pillow, skims his damp forehead and curls the tangled locks into her palm. His exposed neck is white and unblemished; she is determined to change that right now and his pulse races under her teeth when she tugs his head sideways and bites, hard.

Mixed sweat pools on his stomach. His fingers are careful, just so assuredly gentle she reels and keens and her mind spirals with thought. It was long ago when she fell for him, wasn't it? Childish infatuation turned into seven years of anticipation, a deep, aching longing of her heart that would make her physically hurt when she thought on it. And now, her back arched above him, clutching whatever her desperate fingers find, it’s never been more apparent. Goddesses above, she’s wanted him, and he doesn't even know the truth, and now, she wasn't sure he’d ever know at all.

He’ll never know how much she loves him.

The fantasies are erotic and unsettling, beautiful and oh-so-filled with lies, flying through her mind no matter how hard she tries to stop them. It’s just that these little furrows of his brows are hers. Outside of this bedroom, every evil he slays are all hers. The raised, red marks on his neck are her work, and each temple he cleanses, each step he makes towards home and peace, all are done for her sake and her sake alone. She’s been denied so many things, it must be hers. His hands pinch and squeeze so thoughtfully, lingering and unhurried. Each breath that escapes him, Sheik, oh Sheik, each note of her name on his tongue, little shadow, Sheik, each deep rumble through his chest, they are hers, and hers alone...

“Oh fucking gods…” she growls, mind hazing over as his hands lift her hips lightly and bring her back down again. The cleft between her thighs burns, heat rising from deep within her core, pooling in her abdomen, spreading to every muscle.

“Feels good, teacher? ” he teases, and it pulls her back to reality.

“I’ve done this before, asshole,” she bites out, gnawing her lip, almost admitting that forbidden secret clawing at the back of her head. But he only smirks as if she’s wrong and ghosts his fingers along her sensitive thighs, strokes circles into her mons, carries her far too far over the edge and the fact that she shouldn’t be there makes it even harder to run away.

“Not with me--” His words are cocky, certain. Oh gods, but what if he could see me? What would he do--

His hands travel up her stomach to lightly cup her slight chest and her thoughts turn yet again. She’ll never be as full or lush as his farm girl, and she has half a mind to hotly tell him just that, so he should just stop now, until he moves her back again and thoughts flee altogether. He’s inside of her, so deep, and his hands leave trails of flame when they lift to and from her skin. Her spine curves down as she groans, loud and lengthy from her throat, head tilted forwards towards him, as he thumbs the centers of her breasts.

“Fuck,” she snaps, balancing small palms against sturdy muscle. He smirks again, still moving slowly, running languid, merciless hands across her body as she writhes.

She’s boneless over him, embarrassed at her inelegance. His smirk just seems to widen and she accepts it, finally--the dark has made no difference. He’s wanted her this entire time, hasn’t he, and even in the dark he's looking right at her, not the other way around. His hands tell him everything, are everywhere, all over her, and when his fingertips graze her cheeks, her heart races until it feels like it might fall out through her throat. He knows what I look like now, she thinks irrationally and a rush of sweet liquid arousal courses through her body and her rocking becomes frantic against him, he knows everything.

The friction edges them both and at her frenzied pace, he shifts up, pressing her back against the cool wall. It jolts against the suffocating air and oh goddess she is his, he knows her now-- and damp, hot, open mouth sucks across her flat breasts and she can’t breathe as he pulls himself into her, thrusts harder and deeper and the stars in her eyes explode through the dark. Her legs wrap him and un-taped fingers dig into his shoulders as his own press into the backs of her thighs.

“Little shadow,” he whispers as she gasps and reels, as she pulls away with a wet sound that sends shivers from ear to toe, “why do you hide this?” His rough hand sweeps along the curve of her slippery back, gesturing across the whole of her body. “You shouldn’t.”

She arches against his words. It’s intense, the slow orgasm rolling through her. Oh gods, she can’t help but think as blindness overtakes her, if only. She rides him so hard, and it’s the only thing her mind can think. If only. If only.

///

a/n: beta’ed by @vaegtersang

#shink #zelink #ocarina of time #sheik #link #zelda #ocarina of time fanfiction #inle writes #little shadow #little shadow reduxes

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scapegrace74-blog · 7 years ago

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Severed, Part 6

A/N This is Part 6 of my WIP, set in an alternate universe that veers off from canon during the Redux arc, but three years after those episodes (so in October 2000). Now rated R for language. No, not NC-17 for ball-slappin’ sex. But hey, at least M+S are in the same time zone!

Part 1 is located here.

Part 2 is located here.

Part 3 is located here.

Part 4 is located here.

Part 5 is located here.

He had been prepared for disbelief. Prepared for tears or scientific recitals or the cold business-end of her gun. What caught him unawares was her full-on physical assault.

He was standing by the time she unfroze and exploded into action. Dazed as he was after seeing her up close for the first time in years, his reactions were slow. Hands that she raised were not extended in greeting. Her acceleration towards him was not a forward rush of joy. Before he knew it, she was pounding on his chest, landing blows that smarted and ached, despite the adrenaline coursing in his veins.

His earlier observations had been correct. She’d gone up a weight class, mostly in upper body muscle.

Elation and horror made it so that he didn’t register that she was speaking for at least a solid minute. By then, she’d worked up to yelling.

“...autopsy your body and sign your death certificate and stand there all alone in the COLD and you left me all ALONE you son-of-a-bitch you left me you left me YOU LEFT ME i’m never going to forgive you if it’s really you you goddamned ego-centric BASTARD you have no idea what i’ve been through i wish i’d never met you you should have just let me FUCKING DIE!”

Her increasingly sloppy punches turned into open palms, raining down on him like three years worth of penance. He grabbed her wrists only when she aimed for his face.

“Shhhh, Scully. I know. I’m sorry. You have no idea how sorry. Shhhh. It’s okay. Shhhh.”

He continued to soothe her like a nightmare-woken child, unconsciously holding her against him and rocking slightly from side to side. She shuddered and gasped, seemingly unaware that she was in his arms wearing nothing but a bra, panties, and wool socks.

It hadn’t escaped his notice, though, and when he realized his body was reacting, he stiff-armed her backwards, trying to make eye contact and gauge her state of mind.

“Better?”

She shook her head, staring at her carpet.

“Do you believe it’s me?”

The auburn curtain of her hair nodded.

“Why?” He’d been prepared to counter her logical arguments, and this easy capitulation surprised him.

“Frohike.”

“Frohike?!” Now that was an unexpected answer. “What does Frohike have to do with it?”

“He told me, the day I performed your... the autopsy. He said to ask the questions no-one had given me an answer for.”

He couldn’t help it, he laughed. “Frohike said that? Spoken like a true conspiracy theorist. So what questions does no-one want you asking?”

“Why you looked exactly the same, three years later. You couldn’t go three months without some new injury or a new haircut, and yet you were identical to that last night when you visited me in the ICU. I didn’t trust my instincts, but it didn’t add up. And now you’re standing here, and you’re... you’re just you. You don’t look the same, but I’d know you in a heartbeat.”

She’d been awake when he came to her room that last night? Had she witnessed his emotional armageddon at her bedside? Had she heard him whisper “I love you” before he slipped away like a thief in the night?

Instead of pursuing the dangerous answers to questions he had no right to ask, he rolled the right sleeve of his shirt to his elbow, holding his forearm up for her examination in the streetlight. An angry white slash bisected the bronzed skin.

“Trying to break up a knife fight.”

Next he lifted the untucked ends of the shirt until his left flank was exposed. Beside the clearly defined muscles of his tanned abdomen, a patch of skin was puckered and raised, like a boil.

“Jellyfish sting. Hurt like a motherfucker.”

She pursed her lips in sympathy, and finally raised her gaze to his face, which she examined like the rarest scientific specimen. Her fingers shook as she raised them to his forehead, brushing back the long, gold-tipped bangs.

“It’s you,” she whispered.

“It’s me,” he confirmed.

They sat side by side on her couch. She’d blushed and rushed to the bathroom to grab her robe when she finally realized she’d been standing in front of him half-naked, but hadn’t left his sight since.

“I don’t understand, Mulder. Why did they try to trick me into believing that you were dead, when you could come here and ... Oh my god, Mulder! You have to go! You have to go right now!!” She jumped to her feet and tried to drag him upright.

“Woah, Scully. Slow down. What are you thinking?”

“What if they did this to lure you out of hiding? Dammit, you came straight to me, just like they’d expect you to do. Did you check for a tail? Are you using a false identity?”

He sighed. He’d known, at some level, that coming back to her would mean losing her respect. He’d just been hoping for a little more time.

“Scully, no-one is luring anyone. If the Consortium wanted to find me, they could have done it a thousand times over. I haven’t made it hard for them.”

Her hands dropped to her sides.

“I don’t understand, Mulder. You stole the chip from them. They’re going to want their pound of flesh in return.”

His head sunk into his hands as he saw the realization dawn on her face.

“They got their pound of flesh already.”

Nod.

“You didn’t leave to get away from them. You left because that was the deal. The chip for your silence, right?”

Another nod.

“Oh Mulder. What the hell were you thinking?” She sunk back onto the couch, seemingly defeated.

“What was I thinking?” A flash of indignation, a trace of his former hurt. “I was thinking you had days, if not hours to live, and you still wouldn’t bloody well capitulate. You were hell-bent of being a loyal soldier to the end, walking straight into enemy lines. I was thinking I couldn’t live with myself, if you died for a cause I was willing to betray.”

“Your note. I thought... I thought it referred to your loyalty to Samantha. To the fact that you were betraying the Consortium and giving up on your sister to save me.”

He chuckled sardonically. “No. I needed you to believe that I’d defied the Consortium because I couldn’t have you searching for me. The betrayal was mine. I defied your wishes, because I was too weak to watch you die.”

“I still don’t understand, Mulder. If you didn’t want me searching for you, why not simply let me believe you were dead? I signed your death certificate. I scattered your ashes today. God, I cried for you!”

He grabbed her hand before she could stand and pace away.

“For the same reason I made the deal, Scully. Because I’m weaker than you. Because I can’t stand to see you suffer. I had to let you know... I just... I had to make sure you knew I was alive.”

“But the deal still applies.”

He nodded his assent.

“And you still can’t stay?”

He stared into her eyes, startled to realize that they matched the colour of the sea outside his beach house at dawn. He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

She lowered her voice to the barest breath of air. “Then why come here? Why give me hope? You should have just stayed away, Mulder. You could have written, got word to me. You should have just...”

“I couldn’t, Scully.”

“Why...”

“I couldn’t, because...”

“Why?”

Instead of answering her, he used his grip on her wrist to pull her towards him. Their lips parted in synchrony, and there were no more questions.

#my writing #x-files #wip #severed

85 notes · View notes

deepbutdazzlingdarkness · 7 years ago

Note

hiiii! i was wondering if u had any recommendations for best caps fics? dirty or not. ALSO LOVE UR BLOG

First of all, THANK YOU FOR ASKING! I loove giving fic recs. Second of all…this is gonna be LONG lmao. I gave some Kuzy and Willy/Latts recs earlier here, so these are gonna be primarily Nicky/Ovi recs, with some smaller pairing ones too, and I’m gonna sort them by pairing that way.

SO, Nicky/Ovi (including some poly recs, which I’ll list the pairings for):

-First of all, literally EVERYTHING by Ferritin4. They were the first Caps author I read after blood pressure, and I’m going to limit myself to linking just three of them, but really, READ EVERYTHING.

King Meby Ferritin4 [E, 12k]

In which there is a small tragedy, a great success, and a lot to learn about someone Sasha thought he knew awfully well.

Dream the Right Dream by Ferritin4 [E, 14k]

They don’t do it like that in Sweden, which Nicklas mans up and valiantly explains to the room after he makes it back from camp. They don’t use humans as tools. All people are people, and Nicklas would never — he couldn’t imagine having a teammate inside him every time he fell into heat, however willing they might be. His body is his own, and they all touch him far more than enough already.

What Will Survive Of Us by Ferritin4 [E, 26k]

It’s going to be a big deal, his mother had told him, and Nicklas had listened.

His mom’s not an idiot.

It’s going to be a big deal, she’d promised, if and when you find them. It’s going to be more than you thought it would, and if and when you know it, you’ll know it for sure.

-Another author you should read everything by is screamlet. They have some non-Nicky/Ovi fic I will rec later, so I’m just gonna post a few of the Nicky/Ovi ones now

the arrival of 290287 backstromby screamlet [M, 18k]

Nicky has an asteroid named after him; that’s just the beginning.

the washington royals by screamlet [M, 45k]

Sasha doesn’t remember the very first time he met Nicky, but Michael Nylander is kind enough to remind them when he arrives to meet the team, carrying an honest to fuck laminated newspaper clipping of the first time Prince Alexander visited Sweden to meet his future husband, Prince Nicklas.*An arranged marriage—or, an arrangement and a marriage.

-One more author to mass rec: angularmomentum! They’re not solely a Nicky/Ovi author so I will be linking them more down below too, but for now:

running from the weather by angularmomentum [E, 21k]

Alex starts playing for Dynamo at sixteen.

kithbyangularmomentum [E, 12k]

Sasha makes prefect in his second to last year. It’s earlier than anyone but him expected, but right on track for his two year plan, which is: be head boy, get a contract to play Quidditch professionally, and beat Bäckström off in the baths.

-For the rest of these, I’m gonna sort them by rating! Lowest to highest (G-E)

Soft Hands by sadhockeytrashbaby (allofthefandoms)[G, 1k]

Alexander Ovechkin walks into the Capitals dressing room with a collar and the entire Washington sports press corps grinds to a stunned stop.

Eight + Eight (+ Nine) bysockitup [G, 2k]

Active players have started waking up in bed with retired players who wore the same number when they need relationship advice. It goes some kind of way.-*-Teemu pulls back and kicks forward at the same time so violently that he knocks both Paul and Ovechkin out of the bed.

street’s an empty stage by grim_lupine [G, 4k]

Over their heads, in this little dream world Nicklas has built, the sun is blazing at it’s peak, searing them where they sit. The light bathes Alex a molten gold. He couldn’t look any other way in Nicklas’s head, of course.

Nicklas is cracked open, exposed.

so play on, play on, play on by carissima [2k, G]

“Gonna give you the cup first,” Alex says, still too close. He’s in Nicke’s space like he always, always is. He’s grinning and Nicke’s grinning because they finally won the goddamn cup but his head is spinning now. “Brooks already had cup. Your turn first.”

raise my hands (paint my spirit gold) by seaqueen [G, 1k]

They break apart with chests heaving for air, and when Nicke looks Alex is burning with it, fierce joy and agonizing victory painted in every line of his body and Nicke loves him so, so much.

pledge my allegiance and bite my tongue by spock [T, 5k]

It’s a given that all droids will develop some form of their own unique idiosyncrasies, but none of them are as decidedly too much as Ovi’s is. He’s got too much style, too much personality; it’s a well known and much maligned fact that he’d nearly been recalled not all that long after his activation, but the test groups had loved him so much that he was granted an exception.

cherish the moonlight by haipollai [T, 6.5k]

“What is wrong, pup?” He asks again, wishing desperately that he could actually get an answer. Instead he settles for holding his hand out, palm up until Nicky takes the hesitant step forward to nuzzle against him.

The Dog Days Are Over by xihale [T, 8k]

In which alternate universe Boston had 4th pick and Washington had 5th pick in the 2006 draft, and in which alternate universe the NHL is kind enough make accommodations for players’ personal circumstances. For instance, to allow Washington to pick Alex Ovechkin’s absolutely true, definitely not fake, 100% not-made-up fiancé to come play for the Caps.

“You what,” Alex says. “Alex Ovechkin’s who?”

—and its aftermath, through the years.

Demons, Ovechkin and other Superhuman Forces by stumblebee [T, 2k]

Sometimes Nicky wonders, usually in moments like these, if there is something to it, if you need Canadians and the horrible things they chose to do to themselves as children to win it all. Maybe Don Cherry is right, at the end of the day, maybe you just can’t win without demonic assistance. Without sacrifice, as that insufferable spray tanned dinosaur always puts it.

something old, something newby bropunzeling [T, 5k]

“You,” Alex says, pointing at him. “Me,” he continues, pointing back at himself. “Married.”

“Oh,” Nicky says. “Oh.”

[It doesn’t go any smoother after that.]

Wait Until Tomorrow (You’ll Be Fine) by sunshinexbomb [T, 8k]

In which Nicky is an accident-prone Auror and Alex is the Healer that always seems to be coming to his rescue.

Red is the Color (of Your True Love’s Blood) by Saebrin [T, 2k]

What are the odds that all of Jakub’s teammates are serial killers? Like, statistically that has to be impossible, right?

Literally by xabier [T, 4k]

In which Nicklas Backstrom is literally Andre Burakovsky’s father.

to have and to hold by oops_ohdear [T, 6k]

The problem with putting a fake engagement photo, complete with stupid smiles and a bottle of champagne, on Facebook, is that sometimes someone’s mother sees it.

This is not a problem Nicklas ever had before he knew Alex.

This Alone Is The Real Treasure by leyley09 [T, 10k]

A defiant trip to the Olympics gets Alex outed. The solution is obviously to marry Nicky.

Obviously.

Whatever happened to all this season’s losers of the yearby Thorne [T, 9k]

Alex loves his kids, he really does, but he also might kill them. That is, if they don’t put him in a goddamn early grave first.

(Cop bribing, theft of public property, and how to photoshoot your dick properly in order to seduce a teammate: all part of a captain’s responsibilities to his rookies.)

Baby Boom by WeagleRock [M, 7k]

Having babies gives you dad power. Dad power helps put hockey teams on the road to Sir Stanley. Sid sired a herd of little Penguins before Pittsburgh won its Cup. Toews might as well be running a Blackhawks baby factory.

Now it’s Ovi’s turn. If only someone had told him that impregnating your fuckbuddy might make things a little weird.

String Theories by WeagleRock [M, 14.5k]

Nicky knows what’s expected of him: Set up goals, mentor rookies, provide a steadying backbone for a struggling team … and never, ever look at other men.

Then Ovi surprises him with a kiss, and Nicky doesn’t know anything anymore.

The Brook Horse by WeagleRock [M, 11.5k]

Nicklas Bäckström is a good person. Nicklas Bäckström would never risk Ovi’s life just to stay human.

It’s really too bad he isn’t real.

Holding Onto You by somethingnerdythiswaycomes [M, 6.5k]

“You can’t be picked if you’re married,“ Nicky says, like it’s obvious.

“I’m not married,” Alex replies.

“You’re marrying me,” Nicky says, his jaw set.

“You haven’t proposed.”

the laws of the world never stopped us once by punkassbookjockey[M, 6k]

Sasha points at him with his chopsticks. “Your powers,” he says. “Snowzilla comes, suddenly everyone’s mutants? Something happened there, no other explanation.”

Fault Lies by hoosierbitch [M, 6k]

Alex kneels.

“You’re smarter than me,” Trotz says to Nicky, “but I do know what I’m doing.” Right now, Nicky is fairly sure that he’s wrong on both counts. “Let me be his coach. Let me take care of him.”

no it’s not nirvana but it’s on the wayby ghosthunter [M, 4k]

Sasha does not miss the way Backy looks at him then, sharp and angry, and Sasha knows he deserves it. They sit in awkward silence until the waitress comes to take their drink orders.

A More Fascinating Name by pukeandcry [M, 38k]

Although Sasha had never made the younger Mr. Backstrom’s acquaintance, he was at least familiar enough with his reputation to know that chief amongst his qualities was the quite publicly known fact that Mr. Backstrom was as notoriously uninterested in achieving an advantageous marriage as Sasha himself.

Something, then, must have upset the order of things. What that was he could not say, but Lord Backstrom was now, it would seem, in active search of a husband for his son.

Better Than Heartbreak by the_glow_worm [M, 1.5k]

It’s morning in Vegas, technically, but Nicke and Alex aren’t about to go to sleep anytime soon.

Kärlek Redux by Saebrin [E, 3k]

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” —Mignon McLaughlin

A.K.A. Four times Nicky (re)fell for Alex.

Perfect For A Person by mlyn [E, 18k]

Alex Ovechkin is near the end of his 30th year and still not married. In the US, that means he’ll either have to find a spouse at a Transformation Hotel before his birthday, or he’ll check out transformed into an animal.

Not if Nicklas Backstrom has anything to say about it.

You and me, Drenched in greenby xihale [E, 18k]

Nicky’s an omega with a heat problem. Ovi volunteers as tribute.

tell me in the morning by haipollai [E, 4k]

Nicky yanks himself back and away, almost hard enough to tip his chair. “You don’t know why I’m scared my very Russian friend and teammate is suddenly asking questions about me dating men?” He snaps.

anchor by pavses [E, 2k]

They’re not going to make up the three-goal deficit, but Alex sure as hell is trying to single-handedly score a hat trick in a minute.

You’re a work of art, baby by sirona [E, 7k]

FBI Agent Alex Ovechkin doesn’t mind working with others. He even likes working with Malkina every so often. What he doesn’t like is being lead by his dick nose. And yet, he can’t stay away from the Gray case.

Wolfborn by waspabi [E, 60k]

A wolfborn on an airplane was either unbearably reckless or a hockey player. Most of the time, both.

if you’re needing something by atrytone [E, 5k]

Nicke hates losing, but he’s grown out of letting it black out everything else in his mind. Alex can’t seem to do the same thing, not when they get on a roll like this, not when nothing he tries seems to make a difference.

Luckily, he has Nicke to help.

touch by itsahockeynight [3k, E]

When Alex does turn up, he walks across the locker room and straight into Nicke’s arms.

Eleven Years by waspabi [E, 2k]

The door inches open. Alex, of course. Bloodshot eyes, rumpled suit. His Conference Champions cap with the sticker still on the brim, the fucking Prince of Wales Trophy still clutched in one big hand.

Nicky/Willie Nylander:

weekender by screamlet [M, 5k]

William couldn’t imagine that Toronto would ever love him the way Washington loved Nicky.

Fingertips Putting On A Show by sunshinexbomb [E, 1.5k]

In which Nicky finds comfort in William during Worlds.

make me wanna hold on (make me wanna be all yours) by Pinkmanite [E, 4.5k]

It’s like Will instantly melts into a well-worn mold, one he’s been in many times before. The switch is flipped and he’s standing up straighter, painting on that pretty smile, the one Nicky loves so much, pentimento on the overworn canvas of his cheeks. He angles his chin so he can look up at Nicky through his lashes, batting them in the way that he knows gets Nicky all worked up.

Nicky/Ovi/Willie Nylander:

the elementary disposal of weighted objects by angularmomentum [T, 14k]

William, at eleven, was primed to tip over the cusp into nascent adolescence. He was big for his age and very competitive, and had no real idea that his obsession with beating Nicke was actually an obsession without caveats, because infatuation was a word he didn’t know.

right there where we stood was holy ground by babygotbackstrom [NR, 4k]

The revamped Tre Kronor line, of Nicky and his soulmates, is mesmerising.

Sasha is jealous again, and it is ugly, even though the team is leading the division.

copenhagen by screamlet [E, 10.5k]

William had already casually texted Nicky a photo of the sunset, a cool little haha bet you don’t have this in GÄVLE, but there was no response. Gävle had Nicky and William didn’t and it was bullshit.

Andre/Nicky and/or Ovi:

say all that you’re feeling by screamlet [T, 43k]

Andre Burakovsky/Alexander Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom/William Nylander

Much had happened in the past year, enough that Andre sat on the hill overlooking the lands he had been naive enough to call home until he pledged himself to Lord Laich and left his friends with barely a note. Now he had returned and—Who would want Andre now?A flash of lightning in the distance illuminated the one house he hadn’t yet considered.After a moment’s thought, Andre rode south.

a hundred dollar bottle of champagne like me by Pinkmanite [E, 6k]

Nicklas Backstrom/Andre Burakovsky, Andre/Various Caps

Nicke’s got a beer in one hand, uses the other to wrap his arm around Andre’s waist, grips his hip and pulls him in close, as close as he can be.

He tucks his face in the crook of Andre’s neck and hugs him tight, exactly like he’d done on the ice just hours before.

“I’m so fucking proud of you,” he murmurs, raw and genuine, just for Andre to hear.

Don’t You Worry Child by Capbuckyang [M, 2k]

Nicky pats his thighs and Andre drops, just like that. It’s not like it was the first time, when the boys all watched in a hushed silence, but it does quiet down a bit.

It isn’t that hard, boy, to like you or love you by Two_for_Slashing [M, 3.5k]

Nicklas couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he had become desirable.

Lop-sided on the Side of the Angels by babygotbackstrom [NR, 2k]

The sun doesn’t make vampires sick anymore but that doesn’t mean Nicklas Backstrom is a morning person.

for the taking by chartreuser, thegraceinyoureyes [E, 4k]

Of course Nicky knows Andre wants him.

Nicky/Ovi/Other:

Sharp Suits and Sly Smiles by SomebodyOwens [T, 5k]

Nicky/Ovi/Holtby

He chased them so hard that they caught him.

A seduction in 5 (+1) parts.

Wayward Mayday by xihale [E, 6k]

Nicky/Ovi/TJ

Nicky and TJ are fucking around, and one of them starts mouthing off about Ovi, how Ovi might join the two of them, how hard he’d hold them down, how hard he’d ride them.

Naturally, Ovi walks in.

intermittent melting by blushingsweet (sunflowered) [E, 3k]

Nicky/Ovi/Tom

“I don’t think he wants to leave,” Nicky says, looking up at him, smug and a little cocky. “Do you want to leave, Tom?”

“No,” Tom says. He’s pressing his hands into his jeans, shifting on the floor. Alex wonders if his knees have started hurting yet; Nicky’s kept him there for a long time.

Andre/Holtby:

-These are all part of a larger Caps ensemble series w/ a variety of pairings, but I’m singling the Andre/Holts parts out, which can fit together w/o reading the whole thing

All We Are Is by somethingnerdythiswaycomes [M, 5k]

Braden notices everything in the dressing room. He’s seen enough that, sometimes, he can guess what’s brewing before it really erupts in the locker room. And maybe, because he saw Brooksy and Burky, that’s why he wasn’t able to see himself and Andre.

Just to Please Them [E, 3k]

Andre’s in a tank top and jeans and his neck is tantalizingly bare. Braden keeps staring at it, and Andre keeps catching him and honestly it’s getting a little embarrassing.

Don’t Think About Why [E, 13k]

Andre Burakovsky/Brooks Laich, Andre/Holtby

“What about Brooksy?” Andre asks quietly. Nicky’s fingers still on the back of Andre’s head, and then start petting over his curls again a second later.

“He has a reputation,” Nicky says carefully.

Or: Andre tries, and then tries again.

Comfortability [E, 6k]

Andre/Holtby, Andre Burakovsky/Braden Holtby/Nathan Walker, Braden Holtby/Nathan Walker

“How’d you sleep last night?” Braden asks Walks, when they’re all sitting down for breakfast.

“I hope we didn’t keep you up,” Andre says innocently, and Walks chokes on his omelet.

Match Your Weakness With A Name by leyley09 [T, 4k]

In which Braden gets talked into playing spin-the-bottle with his teammates and - surprisingly - doesn’t live to regret it

Words Just Get in the Way by somethingnerdythiswaycomes [T, 8k]

“You’re pretty gone on him, huh?” Mike asks him. Andre nods. “And you don’t know anything about him?” Andre nods again, glumly.

“This is the semester,” Mike proclaims with enough conviction that Andre almost believes him. “This semester, you’re getting him.”

field testby matskreider [M, 1.5k]

When he cracks his eyes open, he sees a rather determined pout coming from Nicklas’ favorite underling, a new guy called Burakovsky. “Sorry, 0070. I was going to offer to debrief you, if you were waiting for Q. He’s, um…going to be busy for a while.”

Andre + Willy and/or Latts:

Kickstart The Fight by MermaidSmiled [T, 9k]

Tom watches as Andre’s knuckles scab over and heal and split again after a hard practice until they’re finally healed, pink and shiny. He watches Andre’s eye blacken where a fist or an elbow caught him and charts the flow of the blood pooling under the skin as the days go by.

It’s something so unfamiliar to Tom, seeing these things he’s used to seeing when he looks down or in the mirror on Andre. He ignores it as best he can.

come under the covers by ghosthunter [M, 4.5k]

Andre meets him at the airport. He has a tan and he looks good. Not that Tom thinks he, himself, does not also have a tan and look good, but he’s not picking himself up at the airport in a foreign country either.

Something So Pleasant About That Place by somethingnerdythiswaycomes [E, 5k]

Tom turns his head to look at Andre, sprawled out on the other bed dicking around on his phone. “Hey, wanna fuck?”

Andre glances at him, and rolls his eyes. Tom doesn’t know if he should be offended by how not-surprised Andre is.

Or: Andre and Tom have a ‘List of Cities We’ve Fucked In’

#capsexroomiesby forks[E, 7k]

André doesn’t mind living in his own place now, but sometimes he does miss seeing Mike and Tom being sexy together. Good thing he has his new camcorder along this time so he’ll be able to watch whenever he wants.

Tale as Old as Time by Kerfluffle [E, 5k]

Andre breaks his hand. Tom provides an assist.

champions by angularmomentum [E, 2k]

Tom had a problem. To be more accurate, Tom had several problems but that was the way of Tom’s life. He often had a few running in tandem. Tonight they included but were not limited to: bruised knuckles (regular problem) forgot his toothbrush (also a regular problem) and a boner for Burky (definitely NOT a regular problem.)

Andre/Other:

conversation superseded by by ghosthunter [T, 1k]

Andre Burakovsky/Christian Djoos

Somewhere along the line, some signals got crossed.

or: andre is dumb

sugar by ghosthunter [M, 4k]

Nicklas Backstrom/André Burakovsky/Marcus Johansson

Nicke’s almost ready to leave, his jacket still off, his tie around his neck. “He’s fucking with you,” Nicke says quietly, coming to stand next to Andre as he ties his own tie. “And you looked at his ass when he walked away.”

So Press Record, I’ll Let You Film Me by Petalpants [E, 3k]

Andre Burakovsky/Brooks Laich

Hey, ur hot! If ur interested in doing sum amateur porn, lmk ;)

Ergo: Homo by R_Gunns [E, 14k]

Andre/Various Caps, Andre/Original Male Characters, Andre/Original Female Characters

In which André no-homos his way through casual sex, bro-snuggles and the discovery of something between his captain and his A, before Braden kindly hits him with a clue bat.

Or: self-discovery is a bitch.

TJ/Carly:

press my nose up to the glass around your heart by nighimpossible [T, 6k]

“I swear to God,” TJ says, covering his face with his hands, “if I get an inkling that a bond is starting to form, I’m truly going to kill you, John Carlson.”

“It’s Carly,” Carlson grins, leaving him behind in the locker room. “And I’d like to see you try.”

toss, turn by alotofthingsdifferent[M, 3k]

John’s neighbor – the one who has a lot of loud, enthusiastic sex – is really, really hot.

John is in so much trouble.

do you even know the miranda rights? by nighimpossible [E, 9k]

Sidney Crosby’s brother swap program is going to be the death of TJ.

Inside My Bones by somethingnerdythiswaycomes [E, 3k]

TJ’s riding the high of winning a Stanley Cup Final Game, before John’s hand comes down hard on his shoulder, gripping him tight through his pads. He knows what that hold means, what it means when John’s fingers dig into the soft spot just next to his armpit through the gap in his pads.

“You’re lucky we won,” John murmurs in his ear, hot breath fanning over TJ’s neck.

but then you say “please” by Anonymous [E, 2k]

“Quite the charmer,” TJ goads. His feet are a little more under himself now. “Bet you could get anyone you want, kissing them like that.”

“Cut the shit,” John says, but he’s smiling, running a thumb over TJ’s cheek.

TJ/Other:

hold me tight and i’ll sink in by thermocline [NR, 2.5k]

Willy/Latts/Oshie, Oshie/Carly, Oshie/Various Caps

The thing is, it’s happened a few times, during the season and mainly during first round.

TJ’s always been touchy. Not needy. Just better when he’s given touch. He works best when he’s receiving.

i’m a prisoner to my decisions by orphan_account [E, 1.5k]

Oshie/Willy

Lauren makes him forget the things he’s been running from since high school.

Tom makes him remember.

staying put by thegraceinyoureyes[E, 7k]

Nicky/Oshie, Oshie/Various Caps

There are bodies—hands all over him, all around him.

Other:

Covered in the Colors by sunshinexbomb [T, 12k]

Nicklas Backstrom/Mike Green

In which Nicky and Greenie pretend to be soul bonded so they can be road roommates.

Taste of Bavaria by JessamyGriffith[T, 7k]

Philipp Grubauer/Braden Holtby

Philipp Grubauer is a tour guide, resigned to spending yet another day introducing American tourists to the beauty of Bavaria.

Braden Holtby, star goaltender for the Washington Capitals, is looking forward to a nice day seeing the sights of Munich on his vacation.

Happily, neither of them is going to have their day go quite as expected.

drop by savedby [T, 2k]

Devante Smith-Pelly, Ensemble

five times the Washington Capitals welcomed DSP to the team and one time he did it for someone else

Tell The World by sunshinexbomb [M, 10k]

Nicklas Backstrom/Braden Holtby

Three times somebody finds out about Nicky and Braden and one time they decide to tell someone on their own.

feels like summer by Thorne [M, 30k]

The unglamorous fact of the matter is that lifeguarding, particularly at a community swimming pool, is much less about the dramatic rescues and slo-mo dives into the water that Baywatch has tricked people into believing, and much more about janitorial work that’s either tedious or gross, spiked with the occasional scraped knee or elbowed nose or no-holds-barred ice cream vendor death-match in the parking lot.

(Or, Karl’s in love with his best friend, all the local community pools in the Metropolitan county are at prank-war with each other, and also there are ducks.)

Oh, but how were we to know? by orphan_account [NR, 12k]

Tom Wilson/OMC

“How’d it feel skating with Gavin for the first time as teammates?” a reporter asks in the locker room after their first preseason game, played against the New York Islanders. “He cites you as such an integral part of his development into a player. It must be rewarding to see it come full circle.”

When condemning the whole body by anonissue [E, 6k]

Braden Holtby/Nate Schmidt

There’s more than one way to cure the hiccups, as Braden Holtby has the misfortune to find out.

Wide Open by Ferritin4 [E, 2.5k]

Braden Holtby/Nate Schmidt

Braden opens his mouth again, because he’s glad it’s okay but he didn’t mean no, he just meant give me — give me a minute, give me —

#washington capitals #hockey rpf #nicklas backstrom #alex ovechkin #braden holtby #andre burakovsky #william nylander #tj oshie #john carlson #nate schmidt #tom wilson #michael latta #christian djoos #devante smith pelly #fanfiction #hockey #FINALLY IT'S DONE #this took....awhile lmao

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imjustthemechanic · 7 years ago

Text

The French Mistake

Part 1/? - A Visitor Part 2/? - The Kulturhistorisk Museum Heist Part 3/? - Cutscene Part 4/? - The Marvel Cinematic Universe Part 5/? - Breathless Part 6/? - Escape at Last Part 7/? - Fox in Socks Part 8/? - Things Go Wrong Part 9/? - Downey and Out Part 10/? - Road Trip Part 11/? - Temptation Part 12/? - An Awful Reunion Part 13/? - Unreality Intrudes Part 14/? - A Call for Help Part 15/? - Loki’s Guests Part 16/? - Stan Lee Cameo Part 17/? - Reassessment Part 18/? - Midnight Invasion Part 19/? - Elevator Fight Part 20/? - Courage Part 21/? - Unwelcome Back Part 22/? - Darkest Hour Part 23/? - They Are Here Part 24/? - The Jet Propulsion Laboratory Part 25/? - Word of God Part 26/? - Avengers Assembled Part 27/? - The Houston Underground Part 28/? - Houston has a Problem Part 29/? - Onward and Upward Part 30/? - The Chi’Tauri Queen Part 31/? - Through the Wormhole Part 32/? - Prisoners Part 33/? - Arm’s Length Part 34/? - A Moment’s Respite Part 35/? - Ravagers to the Rescue Part 36/? - What Happened to Hiddleston Part 37/? - Haven Part 38/? - Steve Has a Terrible Idea Part 39/? - Can’t Be Choosers Part 40/? - Stan Lee Cameo Redux Part 41/? - Shipjacking Part 42/? - The Gauntlet Thrown Part 43/? - The Queen’s Chamber Part 44/? - The Guardians Part 45/? - The Nest Part 46/? - Heroes

Things finally start to go right. Mostly.

The door groaned as the queen forced it up, then made a horrible screeching noise as the mechanism to open and close it gave up and stopped resisting her. She forced it all the way open. Natasha dragged Steve further back into the room, while Thor took up a position in between them and the queen. He looked around for something to use as a weapon, and then pulled an axe-like object off the wall. It was ornate and jewelled and nearly nine feet long, but Thor had the strength to swing it and it would have to do.

Then, quite unexpectedly, something large moved behind the queen. For a moment Steve couldn’t identify it, then his eyes managed to focus and he realized it was the Leviathan. How was that possible? They were all in here, the actors were either still fighting off the guardians or else already dead, Musa was dying… that only left the Watcher, and he’d already said he couldn’t intervene.

Steve smiled again, because if the Watcher was intervening, it was somehow perfectly fitting. After all Stan Lee’s arguing earlier, it was just right that they would be saved by a Deus ex Machina.

The queen turned around, saw the Leviathan, and then just stood there, as if unsure how to react.

Curious, Steve made himself sit up a little, finding an angle at which he could see between the queen’s legs. The Leviathan wasn’t flying. Musa was kneeling there, holding it over her head like a basketball, and then she literally threw the entire enormous ship. It knocked the queen flat on her back, while the Leviathan rolled away to rest against the wall at the far end.

For a moment Steve wondered just how strong Musa was, but then he remembered what Thor had said about the Leviathans being suspended in their own antigravity field. From an outside perspective it weighed nothing at all. There was a lot of antigravity and artificial gravity out here, he observed… and then his smile grew wider.

“Steve, stop that,” said Natasha. “Stop smiling, you look like a madman.”

“No, no,” he said. “I’ve got an idea – and this time I know it’s a good one.”

He started trying to get up. It was an effort, but if Musa could throw a Leviathan when she only had one leg, he could get up after being bashed against the floor a few times. Every inch of him ached, and one knee made a worrying pop sound, but seemed to hold. The only thing he could compare the pain to was when he’d awakened in the hospital after taking down the three helicarriers in Washington. Then he’d felt like he couldn’t have moved if he’d tried – but he hadn’t tried. Now he did try, and he stood.

“Come on,” he said to Natasha. “We have to get her to the window.”

The queen, too, was picking herself up. Steve sidled past her while she was looking in the other direction and stumbled over to Musa. Incredibly, she was conscious and no longer bleeding, though she was panting on her hands and knee. Steve put a hand on her back.

“See if you can make it to the Leviathan,” he said. “We’ll get you to a doctor as soon as we’re off this ship.” It would delay their heading home, but she had more than earned it.

Musa blinked at him, then looked down at her missing leg. “What? This? It’ll grow back. Stings a little, that’s all.”

“What, really?” he asked.

“Really really,” she nodded. “Go get her, Christine.”

The queen was back on her feet now. Steve staggered towards the open door.

This time, he and Nat were careful to skirt the nest where the remaining larvae were still hiding – at least one of them was letting out a series of short, yipping cries, calling for its mother. The queen stopped next to the nest to pull her knife out of the dead one, and then charged at them again, scrambling along in a bear crawl on her legs and two arms. It was all Steve could do to keep ahead of her. He began hearing glass crunch underfoot as they approached the giant windows at the far end.

They’d blasted through the larger of these with the Leviathan, but the layers of force field outside were keeping the atmosphere in. They’d also contained a great deal of the wreckage, which was floating around aimlessly, glittering in the light from the nearby planet. The gravity ended at the wall.

The queen’s knife came down directly in front of Steve. He leaped to the side, cut himself on the fallen glass, and just barely avoided being speared like an hors d’oeuvre. The point of the blade struck sparks on the tiles.

They weren’t close enough yet. Steve dragged himself back to his feet, stumbled, fell, got up again, and kept running.

Natasha was about ten yards away. “Hey!” she shouted, waving her arms. “Hey! Bitch! Over here!”

The queen ignored her entirely. Steve was the one who’d made her stab the larva. She wanted Steve, and no other.

He kept going, skidding when he stepped on the glass, dodging blow after blow as his reflexes seemed to drag more and more. He wasn’t exactly tired, but it wasn’t good for him to keep going, either. Normally Steve would have ignored the part of his mind that insisted he was going to hurt himself, but remembering how his ankle had gotten worse when he’d kept walking on it as Evans gave him pause. His injuries would do that now, too, though to a lesser extent, getting worse and worse if not properly cared for. It would happen more slowly, but it would still happen.

He’d thought he knew his limits. Maybe he didn’t know them as well as he liked to believe… or maybe he just didn’t observe them.

A piece of broken metal fitting had fallen from one of the windows – just as he was thinking about his ankle, Steve’s leg caught on that, and he went sprawling. Glass on the floor dug into his palms, his knees, and his shoulder as each hit the ground. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the barbed knife coming, still stained with the larva’s silvery blood, and tried to roll out of the way. The tip of the knife clipped his sleeve as he did, scraping the place where the larva had rasped at his skin. His ears roared and the world went white with pain.

The queen put a hand down on top of him, pinning him face-down to the ground and grinding the broken glass into his chest. She raised the knife and prepared to take his head off.

“Thor! Now!” shouted Natasha.

Thor made a running start and rammed himself into the queen with all his strength. She went flying off her feet and straight through the broken window, where she tumbled howling into the void.

Steve waited until he could hear something besides his own hammering heart, and then picked himself up, bloodied and shaking, for a look. The queen hadn’t gone far. Her flight had been stopped by the force field outside the vessel, but it was about a hundred feet away from the window and now she was stuck there, flailing in zero gravity as she tried to get back to the ship. There was nothing in reach for her to push off, and the atmosphere within the field was not thick enough to swim through.

Natasha came to help him up, and Steve heard her snort. “It would be adding insult to injury if I laughed, wouldn’t it?” she asked.

“You have my permission,” he told her.

Doors flew open throughout the royal chambers, and Chi’Tauri of multiple sizes and ranks came rushing in. Steve groaned – unlike several times in the past few days, he was probably capable of fighting, but that didn’t mean he wanted to. He saw Thor assume a defensive stance, and Natasha moved in front of Steve, but it was soon clear that the Chi’Tauri were not the least bit interested in them anymore. They hurried right past the three Avengers to the window, where they started climbing on top of one another, forming a chain to pull the queen back in.

“Hurry, while they’re distracted,” said Nat.

It seemed like miles back to the Leviathan. Steve stumbled along with Nat’s help, while Thor leaped up to the mezzanine to see what had happened to the actors. Steve wanted to be optimistic about that, but considering the trouble they’d had with the guardians, and the fact that the actors had been dropped into the situation at its worst, with no warning, he didn’t feel very hopeful. He and Nat squirmed up the tube, and found Musa lying on her back on the floor, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Steve crawled over and patted her cheek. “Musa?” he asked.

Her eyes re-focused on his face, and she smiled. “You’re amazing, Christine,” she told him.

“You’re pretty amazing, yourself,” Steve replied. “Do you know what happened to the Watcher?”

She shrugged, which was not a graceful gesture for somebody who was lying down. “He’s the next best thing to a god after the Asgardians. I’m sure he’s fine.”

Steve decided that answer would do.

By the time Steve and the two women had struggled up to the cockpit, Thor had returned. He was carrying the unconscious Tom Hiddleston over his shoulder like a potato sack, but was very gentle as he laid the man down on the floor. Loki was right behind him, holding something wrapped up in his black cape, and to Steve’s surprise and relief, Evans, Johansson, and Hemsworth were bringing up the rear. All had suffered a variety of minor injuries, some of which would probably require stitches, but all were alive.

“You’re okay!” Steve exclaimed.

“Yeah!” Evans sat down heavily on the floor next to Musa. “I can’t believe it either, but Loki…”

“Ah!” Loki held up a finger. This was clearly an order to be quiet, but Evans just shook his head.

“Loki gave up and froze them,” he said.

“And you,” Loki said imperiously, “are never to tell another soul.”

“I don’t need to,” said Evans. “It was in the movies. In our universe, everybody knows.”

Thor laid Hiddleston down on the floor. If Loki had looked bad after casting his illusions in the brig, Hiddleston now looked as if he were at death’s door. He was chalk-white and looked as if casting the spell had actually consumed some of his body mass. His cheeks were sunken, and there were dark circles around his eyes.

“Is he gonna be okay?” asked Johansson.

“He will need time to recover again from the energies he had to channel,” said Loki. “I imagine he’ll live, though – mortals can be unexpectedly resilient.” He unwrapped the cape he was holding, and took out the tesseract. “Now, let us finally put an end to this nonsense.”

This was all Loki’s nonsense, Steve thought – Loki was the one who’d gotten them into it. Mentioning that would only start an argument, though, so he took the controls of the Leviathan while Thor pulled the fuel crystal out from under the console. The craft groaned in protest as Steve raised it from the ground, and he momentarily feared it would refuse to fly. It did lift off, though, and he guided it carefully out of the side chamber before taking off not for the broken window where the Chi’Tauri were dragging their queen inside, but towards the skylight in the roof, and went through that.

Beyond this there was another set of layered force fields. They hadn’t had nearly enough time to rev the Leviathan up to full speed, so they hit them with far less force than they had the ones outside the rear window. Each layer brought them almost to a complete stop, and the engines, wherever they were and whatever form they took, whined in protest as they broke through one after the other. Steve found himself gritting his teeth, half-expecting the entire machine to disintegrate at any moment.

“How are you doing down there?” he asked, glancing down at Thor and Loki. They had somehow connected the tesseract to the crystal, and the latter was starting to shine blue at its base.

“It’s filling,” said Loki. “Slowly.

“We do not have the proper equipment,” Thor explained. “If we let the energy move freely it will destroy us.”

Steve checked the rear display. It seemed that the soldiers had succeeded in pulling the queen back inside, because the mothership was moving again now. It rotated slowly so that it was broadside to them, which was odd until Steve remembered that the engines on one side had been partially destroyed by the clusters of mining charges. The angle it chose was designed to use the remaining engines to best effect – they fired, and the huge ship began to move.

#fanfic #steve rogers #natasha romanov

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culturalgutter · 6 years ago

Text

Jet ‘s Chang Mo-Kei’s kung fu has been struck by the Jinx Palm, blocking his chi, destroying his ability to perform kung fu and causing him to need constant infusions of chi from Taoist priest Chang San-Fung (Sammo Hung). But Chang can only be cured by a massive infusion of yang energy, which he receives after falling off a cliff and meets a hermit chained to a bolder who teaches him the Great Solar Stance to get back at the hermit’s own enemies. Afterwards, Chang is super-skilled and learns kung fu with the ease of Jet Li. Then things get crazy with everybody flying and chi all over the place, a Mongol princess, the King of Green Bat, all the martial arts schools fighting each other, hundreds of people running around with flags, the not-evil Evil Cult, Hermit Chained to a Boulder Fist. And then, as it gets to the big end fight, it just stops, teasing a sequel that was never made. And I was filled with wonder.

Wong Jing’s Kung Fu Cult Master (1993) is the first time I know that I watched something adapted from a Louis Cha story. It is based on the third novel in Cha’s Condor Trilogy, Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre. I probably saw it at the old Golden Classics Cinema in Toronto. It was when I was watching all the Jet Li movies. This one was memorable and, having no familiarity with the source material, I found it difficult to follow. That didn’t stop me from pretending later I had been struck by a Jinx Palm. (What do you expect me to do when you give me charcoal powder toothpaste, people?). I was filled with wonder.

Since then I have made sense of what I saw through translated comics adaptations, in particular Ma Wing-Shing’s Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre (Comic One, 2002), the novel Kung Fu Cult Master adapts. It seems fitting that I would first read Louis Cha via the comics of Ma Shing-Wing and Tony Wong’s The Legendary Couple (ComicOne, 2002), an adaptation of Cha’s Return of the Condor Heroes. It parallels how I first encountered him in a way that I remember in Kung Fu Cult Master, rather than Chor Yuen’s elegant Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre (1978) or Wong Kar-Wai’s deconstruction and sorta prequel, Ashes of Time (Redux or not) (1993; 2008).

Behold this wonder! Gold Lion and Green Bat in Kung Fu Cult Master

Slightly more elegant Green Bat in Chor Yuen’s 1978 Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre

The comics and the 1983 television adaptations allowed me to become familiar with Cha and these stories. They allowed me start to understand stories that assumed familiarity with the story, whether Kung Fu Cult Master, Ashes of Time, or Jeffrey Lau’s Lunar New Year parody of The Legend of Condor Heroes, The Eagle Shooting Heroes (1993), shot with the same cast and at the same time as Ashes of Time. Please note Tony Leung Chiu-Wai in each film.

As the Blind Swordsmani in Ashes of Time

Suffering from a painful allergic reaction as Duan Zhixing in Eagle Shooting Heroes

In the early 1990s, Louis Cha was what Ip Man movies are now.

I watched some of the 2000s and 2010s tv adaptations in non-subtitled form, but by then I could understand who and what I was seeing. In fact, I was pleased when I could actually get the joke that the landlord and landlady in Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle (2006) were the ill-fated lovers of Return of the Condor Heroes, Yang Guo and Xiaolongnü played by Andy Lau and Idy Chan in the 1983 tv adaptation I borrowed from a good friend and have since gotten for myself.

Andy Lau as Yang Guo and Idy Chan as Xiaolongnu in 1983

Carman Lee as Xiaolongnu, Lois Koo as Yang Guo and giant condor friend in 1995.

Yuen Qiu as Xiaolongnu and Yuen Wah as Yang Guo in Kung Fu Hustle. Ha, I get the joke now! I can laugh!

And it helped a lot watching those shows when I read Tony Wong’s Legendary Couple, because the translations of the names were so different, but I recognized a disreputable Taoist when I saw him.* Sometimes the Wudang Clan is something to mess with.

Cha’s most adapted–and possibly referenced–books are the Condor Trilogy: Legend of Condor Heroes; Return of the Condor Heroes; and, Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre. They are sequels, but follow family and kung fu school lines more than the adventures of any one protagonist through three novels. And luckily for us, McLehose Press is planning on translated the whole trilogy into English. The first volume, Legends of the Condor Heroes: A Hero Born, translanted by Anna Holmwood, is now available. No English speakers will ever need to struggle like I did again. The kung fu fantasy works of Louis Cha will be available to us all–or at least some of them.

Dr. Louis Cha Leung-yung was born in 1924 in Haining, Jiaxing, China and lives in Hong Kong. That’s right, Cha is still going at 94. He has worked as an editor editor and journalist, but it was his wuxia novels, written between 1955 and 1972 under the pseudonym “Jin Yong,” (Kam Yung in Cantonese) that brought him a tremendous success. According to Holmwood, “sales of his books worldwide stand at 300 million, and if bootleg copies are taken into consideration, that figure rises to a staggering one billion.”

Cha got his start as a copy editor in 1947 at Shanghai’s Ta Kung Po newspaper. He became deputy editor of Hong Kong’s Hsin Wan Po. He left journalism briefly to work as as screenwriter for Great Wall Movie Enterprises, Ltd. In 1959, Cha co-founded Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper. And it was primarily Ming Pao that serialized his fifteen wuxia stories. His first was The Romance Of The Book And The Sword (1955). His last was Sword of the Yue Maiden. He retired from writing fiction in 1972 and he’s been updating and revising the work ever since. There was a time in the 1970s when his books were simultaneously banned in both the Mainland–because it was seen as satirizing and criticizing the Chinese government–and in Taiwan–because it was seen as somehow pro-Communist, anti-Kuomintang and critical of Taiwan’s one-party rule.In 1995, he retired from his position as editor-in-chief of Ming Pao. Cha has been active in Hong Kong politics, helping draft the Hong Kong Basic Law and then working on the Preparatory Committee in advance of the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China in 1997. And he’s spent much of the new millennium pursuing higher education. He studied at St. John’s College in Cambridge, receiving a doctorate in Chinese history in 2010. And the South China Morning Post reports that Cha (might have) received another doctorate, this one in Chinese literature from Peking University in 2013. Of course, this doesn’t even begin to cover his probable knowledge of martial arts like the Nine Yin Manual and 18 Dragon Palm. One assumes Dr. Cha is cultured in all things.

Dr. Louis Cha via the South China Morning Post

Whenever I think of Louis Cha, I think of Tony Leung Chiu-wai in Wong Kar-Wai’s In The Mood For Love (2000). Sure, there is lovely music and melancholy love with the sartorially unstoppable Maggie Cheung, but it is easy to overlook that not only is Tony Leung a writer, he is a writer of wuxia novels. I’m not saying that Wong made a movie about Louis Cha’s love life, which I hope is less depressing, but I think Cha and writers like Gu Long and Wang Dulu were in the background. Especially after Ashes Of Time. And Ashes of Time is a lot easier to follow if you realize it is a deconstruction of the Condor Trilogy. It relies on the same kind of familiarity that Peter Greenaway relies on people having with The Tempest in watching Prospero’s Books (1991). I love that the touchstones for both extremely artsy-fartsy directors are different. I love that Wong works with a serialized wuxia writer. It would be like Greenaway deconstructing Tolkien or Robert E. Howard**—but all wrapped up together. The high and low brow have a common enemy. God save us from the middle brow.

And Cha is being compared to Tolkien and George R. R. Martin in many of the reviews of A Hero Born. In fact, right on the cover a blurb from the Irish Times reads, “A Chinese Lord of the Rings.” And I get it. It’s short hand. People need some kind of reference before they’ll pick up the book. That’s fine. There will be plenty of time for pedantry later. Once people have read the book and become Cha fans, they can start arguing on the internet, “Hey, Louis Cha is a much more prolific author than Tolkien ever was with a more profound influence on Chinese language literature and readers.”

I would probably make those comparisons myself if my first encounter with Cha’s characters and stories hadn’t been Kung Fu Cult Master. Then again, Kung Fu Cult Master is the first half of a projected two-art adaptation but, like Ralph Bakshi’s animated Lord of the Rings, there was never a part two. So. Yeah. It’s just that I don’t know what other comparison to make.

In an interview with South China Morning Post, Anna Holmwood describes Legends of the Condor Heroes: A Hero Born as “China’s Walter Scott mixed with The Lord of the Rings fantasy things. That’s exactly what it is.” For their part, the SCMP copy editor chose a title comparing the trilogy with George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice And Fire. A Hero Born is wuxia at its best. It’s 1205 CE and the Jin are encroaching on the Song Empire. The emperor is unworthy and the people are oppressed. Itinerant heroes try to make things right. Two of them, Skyfury Guo and Ironheart Yang encounter a grumpy Taoist priest Chu Qiuji*** who, while heroic, is a jerk. He avidly demonstrates why the Wu Tang Clan is nothing to mess with. Guo and Yang become involved in a fight with soldiers and must flee. Their children, Guo Jing and Yang Kang grow up on different sides of the conflict. Plus, there’s Genghis Khan! And a secret beggar sect! And one of my favorite characters keeps his wife’s body in a frozen cave! I wish I could do better, but I’ll just suggest you read the book, read the comics, watch the tv shows and movies.

Oh, yeah, and there’s plenty of fantastic kung fu move and school names and action. Comics, while also working in a static medium, don’t face the same kinds of challenges a novel does in depicting action. Comics creator Ma Wing-Shing in particular captures the force of the martial arts masters moves. I am particularly fond of his chi lines. But Holmwood has some interesting thoughts on translating the names of the various stances, fists and swords as well as conveying the choreography of a fight sans images.

“The name [of these moves] is very evocative and it’s part of the creating of the world, but what really matters to readers is can they follow who is doing what, what the actions are, who is hitting whom, and how they are hitting them,” she said. “When you are translating, you have to read on such a careful and deep level. You are constantly asking yourself: is the hand going there? Is it going up or down? How is this move working? That’s the most challenging part – is to be able to express what the actions are in a way that is going to be vivid on the page and people can clearly understand and follow what’s happening.”

“You can shorten sentences to make the action move, and use some short punchy verbs that make the actions very fast,” she said. “When you want to draw attention to the moment for dramatic effect, you add more details, slow it down, and make the sentence a big longer.”

And I have to say it works. Right from the start of A Hero Born, I easily imagine Chu Qiuji’s unnecessarily brutal fights with the heroes he mistakes for scoundrels. Does it help that I’ve read Ma Wing-Shing, Tony Wong and seen film and television adaptations of Cha’s stories? Maybe. But Holmwood does a good job of taking readers into the martial world. I can’t wait for the next translated volume of Legend of Condor Heroes finally presented if not in its original serial format, something close. McLehose is planning three more volumes of Legend of Condor Heroes before starting on Return of the Condor Heroes–making this a burly “trilogy.”

Ma Wing-Shing demonstrates how to draw punching.

I wrote more about Ma Wing-Shing and his adaptation of Hero here.

*This Taoist is no Chang San-Fung / Zhang Sanfang.

***Or finally making my long hoped for film, Peter Greenaway’s Batman and Robin.

*There is one disreputable Taoist and then there is Chu Qiuji, who is extremely reputable, but incredibly judgmental and harsh. I am afraid to think of what Chu Qiuji might be without Taoism.

~~~

Cured of the Jinx Palm, Carol Borden has retired to Peach Blossom Island to study Nine Yin White Bone Claw.

The Many Forms of Louis Cha’s Condor Heroes Jet 's Chang Mo-Kei's kung fu has been struck by the Jinx Palm, blocking his chi, destroying his ability to perform kung fu and causing him to need constant infusions of chi from Taoist priest…

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foryourart · 7 years ago

Photo

Image courtesy of Annenberg Space for Photography.

PLAN ForYourArt: April 19–25

Thursday, April 19

Westside Openings and Events

MFA Exhibition #3, UCLA (Westwood), 5–8pm.

TOURS & TALKS: Stories of Almost Everyone Walk-through: Saloni Mathur, Hammer Museum (Westwood), 6pm.

READINGS: Poetry: Mihaela Moscaliuc and Michael Waters, Hammer Museum (Westwood), 7:30pm.

Miracle Mile and Mid-City Openings and Events

Artist meet and greet, The Loft at Liz’s (Mid-City), 7–9pm.

Film: Free Screening: United Shades of America: The Border, LACMA (Miracle Mile), 7:30pm.

Downtown and Frogtown Openings and Events

Evolution of View Park: The Beginnings, California African American Museum (Downtown), 2–4pm.

Tony Brown + Paul Greeley: It Belongs to His, DAC Gallery + ECF Downtown L.A. Art Center (Downtown), 6–8pm.

MOCA Music: Berhana, Rayana Jay, Linafornia, and Modern Funk Fest DJs, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA (Downtown), 6:30–9:30pm.

Health/Care Film Series: Unrest (2017), Women’s Center for Creative Work (Frogtown), 7–10pm.

BUILT-IN, NAVEL (Downtown), 7:30–9:30pm.

Kelly Lytle Hernandez: City of Inmates, Main Museum (Downtown), 8–9:30pm.

Chinatown Openings and Events

THE NOW HEAR ENSEMBLE: Storytelling, Automata (Chinatown), 8pm.

Openings and Events Beyond Los Angeles

Yve Laris Cohen: Meeting Ground, Sadie Barnette: Dear 1968,..., and Prospect 2018, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (San Diego), 11am–5pm.

Lucretia Martel: Two Screenings, CalArts (Valencia), 1pm. Also April 20.

School of Music Visiting Artist Series: Bruce Broughton, CalArts (Valencia), 2–4pm.

Historia Plantarum, The Huntington (San Marino), 4:30–6pm.

Downtown at Sundown, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (San Diego), 5–8pm.

School of Art Visiting Artist Series: Jeffrey Vallance, CalArts (Valencia), 5pm.

Parallel Stories Lecture: An Education in Seeing: Geoff Dyer on The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand, Santa Barbara Museum of Art (Santa Barbara), 5:30pm.

Enter>text: Docent, Pasadena Museum of California Art (Pasadena), 6–8:30pm.

15's - Fifteen Minutes of Spoken Word with A.P. Jackson, Palm Springs Art Museum (Palm Springs), 6:15pm.

Lecture: Abraham Lincoln's Diary, The Huntington (San Marino), 7:30pm.

Materials Collective: Earth Week Celebration, CalArts (Valencia), 8–11pm.

Film screening of Laguna Art Museum at 100, Laguna Art Museum (Laguna Beach).

Friday, April 20

Westside Openings and Events

MUSIC & PERFORMANCE Arts Party: Recreation, Hammer Museum (Westwood), 7–10pm.

Mid-City and Miracle Mile Openings and Events

Course: One-Day Workshop—Twilight at LACMA, LACMA (Miracle Mile), 5–8pm.

DESE ESCOBAR MISS INDEPENDENT, MARLIE MUL, MOTHER CULTURE LOS ANGELES (Mid-City), 6–9pm.

Hollywood Openings and Events

Objects of Affection, Gallery 1988 (Hollywood).

Downtown Openings and Events

Art Buzz with Glenn Phillips, ICA LA (Downtown), 5:30–7pm.

Victor Rosas: Artificial Mask, 356 Mission (Downtown), 7–9pm.

Passing Through, Documentary, LA Poverty Department (Downtown), 7pm.

An Evening with Donika Kelly, Featuring Vanessa Angélica Villarreal and Eloisa Amezcua, Ace Hotel (Downtown), 7–9pm.

Openings and Events Beyond Los Angeles

TINKERTOPIA – ESMoA Kids Engineering Arts Club, ESMoA (El Segundo), 3:30–5pm.

Saturday, April 21

Westside Openings and Events

Family Days at the Villa, Getty Villa (Pacific Palisades), 10am–5pm. Continues April 22.

Conversation: Oaxacan Ball Games and Mexican Indigenous Migration, Fowler Museum (Westwood), 2–4pm.

The Plato Conversations: Dialogues in LA, Getty Villa (Pacific Palisades), 4–6:30pm.

David McDonald: COMMON KNOWLEDGE artist talk, Five Car Garage (Santa Monica), 4pm.

An artist talk by Brighton Smith And exhibition closing reception for Flowers Paintings, Skidmore Contemporary Art (Santa Monica), 4pm.

Sally Jacobs: Sundays at the Farmers Market, Jenny Revitz Soper: Twisted Visions, Ernie Marjoram: Selected Paintings, Toni Reinis: Looking But Not Seeing, TAG Gallery (Santa Monica), 5–8pm.

CONSTRUCTION: A GROUP SHOW ABOUT MEMORY AND FABRICATION, Arena1 Gallery (Santa Monica), 6–9pm.

MURDER MAGAZINE ISSUE #2, Del Vaz Projects (West L.A.), 8pm.

Culver City Openings and Events

Gallery Hop: Culver City, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects (Culver City), 11am–12:30pm. $35.

Not an Ostrich: And Other Images from America’s Library, Annenberg Space for Photography (Century City), 11am–6pm.

Jessica Antola: Circadian Landscape, Arcana: Books on the Arts (Culver City), 4–6pm.

Miracle Mile Openings and Events

Talk: Exhibition Tour: A Universal History of Infamy—Those of This America, LACMA (Miracle Mile), 1:30pm.

Culver City High School Student Art Exhibition & Reception, Craft and Folk Art Museum (Miracle Mile), 2–5pm.

Mary Little: The Shape of Cloth, Craft in America Center (Miracle Mile), 4–6pm.

DLJU, Iskar, Binho Ribiero, Erre, Lesivo, and Toxicomano Callejero, Gabba Gallery (Koreatown), 7–11pm.

Koreatown and Mid-City Openings and Events

Closing reception: Corrina Peipon and Pangaea, Household (Mid-City), 4–6pm.

Ladyscumbag's World Premiere (and Closing) Party, Visitor Welcome Center (Koreatown), 6–9pm.

West Hollywood Openings and Events

Michael Mahalchick and SOFT CORNERS, Richard Telles Fine Art (Fairfax), 5–7pm.

Daniel Arsham: Character Study, Morán Morán (West Hollywood), 6–8pm.

Hollywood Openings and Events

Tom Burr in conversation with William J. Simmons, Hannah Hoffman Gallery (Hollywood), 4pm.

Community Healing Sound Bath, Various Small Fires (Hollywood), 5pm.

Downtown Openings and Events

WALK THE TALK, LA Poverty Department (Downtown), 11am–3pm.

Artist Walk-through: Rigo 23, Main Museum (Downtown), 2–3:30pm.

Girl on Wire: Redux, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (Downtown), 4–6pm.

Michael Ned Holte and Dave Hullfish Bailey in Conversation, REDCAT (Downtown), 4pm.

JOAN Benefit Party, JOAN (Downtown), 7–11pm.

Bodies of a Different Mass, Tiger Strikes Asteroid Los Angeles (Downtown), 7–10pm.

PARALLEL STORMS: Works by Janie Geiser and TOO MANY DAYS: Works by Laura Heit, Track 16 (Downtown), 7–10pm.

Ron Linden: Em_ty, PØST (Downtown), 7–10pm.

Andy Woll, Brie Ruais, Night Gallery (Downtown), 7–10pm.

Philip Newcombe: ODEON, Monte Vista Projects (Downtown), 7–10pm.

Michael Webster and Breath Control Orchestra - Nice Day for the Races, The Box (Downtown), 8pm.

David Rosenboom and Lewis Klahr: Battle Hymn for Insurgent Arts, REDCAT (Downtown), 8:30pm. $12–25.

Chinatown Openings and Events

Sol Variations — A New Sound Installation by Richard Chartier, Human Resources (Chinatown), 7–10pm.

Closing Reception and Artist Walkthroughs for Lars Jan - Luminaries and Rachel Mason - Star Death and the Pain Body, Charlie James Gallery (Chinatown), 4–7pm.

Lincoln Heights Openings and Events

Taste of Art: At Home with The Huntingtons, The Huntington (San Marino), 9am. Sold out.

Workshop: Resistance, Delay, Accumulation and Mobilization with Luis Lara Malvacias, Pieter (Lincoln Heights), 12–3pm. $30.

Me, An Idiot, Pieter (Lincoln Heights), 8:30pm.

Openings and Events Beyond Los Angeles

Family Event - Earth Day Saturday, The Huntington (San Marino), 11am–3pm.

Skill share: Safety & Justice, Side Street Projects (Pasadena), 1–4pm.

Chinatown: The Movie, Glendale Central Library (Glendale), 2–4pm.

FILM SCREENING: SEARCHING FOR SIMÓN BOLÍVAR: ONE POET’S JOURNEY, MOLAA (Laguna Beach), 2–5pm.

Movie Matinee - Coco, ESMoA (El Segundo), 2:30–4:30pm.

Sunday, April 22

Westside Openings and Events

SCREENINGS KIDS Family Flicks Film Series: FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Hammer Museum (Westwood), 11am.

CONVERSATIONS: Architecture for the Ages: The New Acropolis Museum of Athens with Dimitrios Pandermalis, Hammer Museum (Westwood), 3:30pm.

Artist Talk: Robert Polidori, Getty Center (Brentwood), 4pm.

Culver City Openings and Events

Historical Witness Project, Wende Museum (Culver City), 3pm.

Miracle Mile Openings and Events

On Clay: Melting Point Panel Discussion, Moderated by Exhibition Co-Curator Andres Payan & Michael Jones McKean, Craft and Folk Art Museum (Miracle Mile), 2pm.

Film: Documentary Film: Hockney—A Day on the Grand Canal, LACMA (Miracle Mile), 2pm.

Hollywood Openings and Events

WxW: For Women. By Women, Barnsdall Art Park (East Hollywood), 12–4pm.

Frogtown Openings and Events

LA For Choice Clinic Defense Volunteer Training, Women’s Center for Creative Work (Frogtown), 11am–1:30pm.

Downtown Openings and Events

Open House with Rafa Esparza, Jackie Clay, Ayanna U'Dongo, and Muñeka, ICA LA (Downtown), 11am–6pm.

Happy Earth Day! Youth Workshop with Sharif Farrag, 356 Mission (Downtown), 1–4pm.

Light and Color, California African American Museum (Downtown), 1–3pm.

SoulCollage 101, Main Museum (Downtown), 1–3pm.

CAAM Reads! Respect, The Life of Aretha Franklin, California African American Museum (Downtown), 3–4:30pm.

QueerWise/QueerWOKE, ONE Archives (Downtown), 4pm.

Chinatown Openings and Events

Christine Tavolacci and Ted Byrnes perform John Cage's Ryoanji, Human Resources (Chinatown), 8–11pm.

Openings and Events Beyond Los Angeles

Wasted! The Story of Food Waste, The Huntington (San Marino), 1pm.

CalArts Open Studios, CalArts (Valencia), 1–6pm.

14th Annual Art Auction, Center for the Arts Eagle Rock (Eagle Rock), 1–5pm.

EXHIBITION WALKTHROUGH WITH SHAY BREDIMUS, Long Beach Museum of Art (Long Beach), 3–4pm.

GUNS: LOADED CONVERSATIONS, San Jose Quilt Museum (San Jose), 3–5pm.

PATRICIA L. BOYD: GOOD GRAMMAR, POTTS (Alhambra), 6–8pm.

Monday, April 23

Miracle Mile Openings and Events

Talk: Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, LACMA (Miracle Mile), 7:30pm.

Downtown Openings and Events

Chantal? A performance conceived by Sonia Wieder-Atherton  and Renaud Bouchard-Gonzalez, REDCAT (Downtown), 8:30pm. $6–12.

Openings and Events Beyond Los Angeles

Families: On-Site: North Hollywood—Art and Social Justice, North Hollywood Amelia Earhart Regional Library (North Hollywood), 2pm.

A Tale of Asteroid Families - Dr. Joseph Masiero, The Huntington (San Marino), 7pm.

Tuesday, April 24

Westside Openings and Events

Discussions in Israeli Art: Prof. Dalia Manor, American Jewish University (Bel Air), 10:30am.

MAKE ART NOT WALLS, ROSEGALLERY (Santa Monica), 6:30–8:30pm.

Culver City Openings and Events

Panel: Power, Politics & the Art World, Blum & Poe (Culver City), 7:20pm.

Miracle Mile Openings and Events

Film: The Haunting, LACMA (Miracle Mile), 1pm.

Wednesday, April 25

Hollywood Openings and Events

Frame Rate: Norberto Rodriguez, Hollywood Improv (Hollywood), 5–7pm.

Sense: A Silent Auction to Benefit Multiple Sclerosis, FLOOD Gallery (Larchmont), 6:30–9:30pm.

Leimert Park Openings and Events

Artist Talk: Ulysses Jenkins, Art + Practice (Leimert Park), 7pm.

Frogtown Openings and Events

Remarkable: Artists With Chronic Illness & Disability, Women’s Center for Creative Work (Frogtown), 7:30–9:30pm.

Downtown Openings and Events

Screening: Civic Art: Four Stories from South Los Angeles, California African American Museum (Downtown), 7–9pm.

Openings and Events Beyond Los Angeles

Distinguished Fellow Lecture - Every Picture Tells a Story, The Huntington (San Marino), 7:30pm.

Crows of the Desert, Alex Theatre (Glendale), 7:30pm.

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allyinthekeyofx · 7 years ago

Text

Final 1/1

From the 4 word prompt list “I can’t do this” from @amorfati3215 thanks for the prompt and I hope I did it justice. Thanks to @scully-loves-ruthie for refusing to let me continue happily spiralling over Foxid Muldey and pushing me towards my angst-filled playlist to get me in the mood for this ;) tagging @today-in-fic

Missing scene drabble set between Gethsemane and Redux. Cancer arc angst. Mulder POV

The apartment is shrouded in darkness, the only light coming from the muted orange glow from the streetlamps outside, hitting the rain spattered windows and casting patterns on the soft cream walls of Scully’s bedroom as she grasps hold of my hand and squeezes it gently.

I can see the shadows that mar the pale skin beneath her beautiful eyes; eyes that even in the gloom that surrounds us, still shine with a burning intensity I have come to recognise as an integral part of this remarkable woman. My partner, my best friend, the one who has held the rope in her hands and effortlessly prevented me from falling a hundred times - no a thousand times - as the truths we both seek have threatened to consume me again and again. My safety net I hadn’t even been aware I needed until that day she walked into my life and quietly, assuredly, had taken her place at my side.

And I would die for her; the truth I have devoted my entire life to finding suddenly meaningless as the weight of her words settle upon me, insidiously invading the very essence of me and sending my whole world into freefall as I silently implore whatever higher power controls the universe to take me instead of her, knowing the futility of it even as I wish it could be so.

Because up until this moment I had refused to believe in the finality of this disease that had been gradually and relentlessly taking her from me, closing myself off to the possibility that one day she would just be gone from my life, nothing remaining but the echo of a woman that had always deserved so much more than the hand she had been dealt - the hand I had dealt her. The responsibility mine and mine alone for the suffering wrought upon her and with a blinding certainty, I now know that I have no right to ask anything more of her; that she has given enough of herself to this personal quest of mine that over time has wrapped itself around her and cruelly taken her away from everything she held sacred.

It’s time to finally stop.

Because I can’t save her now; maybe I never could and I just don’t have the strength anymore to carry on without her.

She had listened to my request of her without speaking and she had agreed of course, just as I knew she would.

And then quietly, with eyes downcast but still standing proud, she had told me the news she had been unable to share with me before now, afraid as always that I would turn it in on myself and set my feet on a path of self-destruction that this time, she wouldn’t be able to save me from.

“How long?” I had whispered, barely able to force the words out as the world seemed to tilt on it’s axis and time just stopped. Feeling her fingers sliding around mine as even then, she sought to share her remaining strength with me; to somehow protect me from the naked terror her words invoked, ensuring I was seated before she softly delivered the final terrible blow.

“A month……if I’m lucky…but probably less.”

A month.

Four weeks.

Seven hundred and forty four hours.

And then she would be gone.

Just like that.

Her hand remains wrapped around mine, the pressure of her fingers the only thing keeping me from screaming out at the fucking injustice of it all and I swallow heavily against the sudden thickening at the back of my throat, the taste of metal washing over my tongue as my stomach begins to pitch and roll. I need to throw up and I move to get to my feet, all strength gone as she resists my efforts of escape and instead pulls me toward her, wrapping her arms around me and drawing my head down until it is resting in the curve where shoulder meets neck, the feel of her fingers in my hair, those strong capable hands that have soothed and healed and comforted and which now become everything as almost against my will my own arms move to encircle her, the frailness of her body belied by the unwavering strength of her spirit.

The sweet sound of her voice reaching me, grounding me, allowing me to keep breathing.

“Sssshhhh it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

I shake my head, the scent of her hair tickling my senses as it brushes against my skin.

“I can’t do this. I can’t do this anymore.”

Barely conscious of the tears that have begun to track down my face I stiffen as she draws away from me and brings her palms to cradle my jaw, thumbs smoothing them away as even now in this darkest of hours, she offers comfort amidst the pain, her gaze intense, ice cold conviction that despite everything refuses to be stilled. Her final gift to me that of her quiet assertion that somehow, even though I know I am undeserving of it, we will fight this fight to the very end.

A grand deception to deceive those who themselves have deceived.

A lie to find the truth.

And then I will let her go.

End

#4 word prompt #final #my fic #cancer arc #angst #mulder pov #i'm such a cheerful soul #blame james blunt #it's his fault

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themarcspector--moved · 10 months ago

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#[ universe: the palms redux ]#[ jukebox ]#i'll stop now lol #Spotify

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johnjankovic · 6 years ago

Audio

CROSSING THE RUBICON

There is not one amongst you who is deserving of Father’s love so what was then built in His name shall be put asunder in His name.

4 John 1:2

In the early pedigree of Rome were Christians subjected to experimental deaths of being doused in wax then immolated as human candles perched above dimly lit streets, fed upon by wild animals, boiled in cauldrons, dragged behind horses in extremis, crushed by stone mills, flayed, racked, scourged, crucified, all macabre ways by which the Church in its first three-hundred years was indelibly carved. The Edict of Milan finally did, under the aegis of Emperor Constantine in AD 313, bestow permanent sanctuary onto the multitude of the persecuted amid this pogrom. Yet what confounded magistrates, emperors, and famously Marcus Aurelius, was the readiness of Christians to die, not by retribution for violence exacted onto others but rather by torture and death in spite of innocence either at the behest of Jews thinking them heretic or the Romans thinking them seditious. Proconsul Gnaeus Arrius Antoninus in exasperation once berated an eager mass of Christians for openly avowing their faith, ‘You wretches, if you want to die, you have cliffs to leap from and ropes to hang by’. This phenomenon if not borderline pathology that was Christianity so bewildered pagans that they stood in disbelief at its canon of unconditional love for whomsoever believed in Jesus neither did the authority of man, nor pain, nor even death have any purchase, none whatsoever, on her conscience (John 8:32).

However heavy the yoke, and contrary to conventional wisdom, Christians were not at all martyrs but witnesses. Throughout Rome’s attrition we died by horrific ways neither to galvanize nor to inspire, we simply elected not to renounce what we knew to be true, whether iron spikes were forced into palms, wooden cudgels cracked skulls, or scalding oil and flaming pyres blistered flesh, we understood forces well beyond man were afoot to dispose of us with brute expediency in an internecine war waged since Creation. Angels and demons are not storybook creatures, nor are heaven and hell contrived artifices, totems like these between good and evil scattered across frescos from the Renaissance are materially real. Though for all of Father’s omniscience, He still could not speak of such things in their entirety until humanity had matured enough to learn about them from soothsayers like Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, or John the Baptist who each foretold of a Messiah (Matthew 16:13-6). The eschatology of man would then be learned in increments. Jesus would be, culminating from generations and genealogies of prophets, the proverbial Prometheus spurring man to great heights with an idea akin to the discovery of fire for civilizations to follow. Expressing kindness, patience, and love in the face of abject cruelty would be the cadence to which Western civilization was built.

Let us, you and I, analogize this learning curve together. How does an infant assimilate the science of physics? She is first taught to count abreast of recognizing patterns, then to add, subtract, multiply and divide, subsequently she learns geometry, after which algebra is inculcated in her, then calculus, until finally she ascertains the universe’s secrets from gravity to quantum mechanics although no longer is she a little girl but, in her stead, a woman. There is a time for ignorance as for truth, for youth and old age, from Adam, to Noah, to Abraham, to King David, to Jesus, and all the interstices of descendants between them, Father’s grand design germinated along the Abrahamic and Davidic lines until they crested with a birth in a manger. Every generation heralded the advent of prophets vested with knowledge on the philosophy of Father’s work with the final act on a cross epitomizing what was its apogee — love. If man were effaced from this planet, no longer would evil exist in the universe, there is nothing inherently sinful about nature, nothing Machiavellian about survival, no malevolence when predators consume prey. It is sui generis to man that in him lives a duality whereby a choice is made between prosecuting either good or evil, between espousing love or hate.

Over two thousand years of animus and stigma against Christendom has wrought the genocide of over seventy-million brothers and sisters. In Mosul as of late where its presence was unbroken since the second century, scores of Christians, monasteries, and manuscripts have been purged. An exodus has materialized with the near extinction of our family in the Middle East. Aramaic Christians in Turkey whose language Jesus spoke have been culled from half-a-million at the twentieth century’s outset to a mere two thousand today. Nigerian Christians have been indiscriminately butchered by Boko Haram. In Asia, the police states of China, Myanmar, and Burma politically suppress Christianity to assert authoritarian rule similar to the Third Reich’s ‘Gleichschaltung’ whilst North Korea exterminated three hundred thousand of its Christians. Swathes of the same in India were hacked to death with machetes by Hindu nationalists in the last decade. Legions of priests in the narco-states of Mexico and Columbia have been murdered for agitating against cartels and communism respectively. In Africa’s Eritrea, thousands are housed in internment camps. Egypt’s Coptic Christians have sulphuric acid poured on the crosses tattooed on their wrists. Altogether the compendium of statistical modelling from government and relief agencies estimates 100,000 deaths per annum and forty-five million more in the last century alone.

More furtive has been Christianity’s erosion in the West where the embattled community has been ejected from the public square as the ascendency of secularism in tandem with anti-colonial grievances dismantle nativity scenes, discard the Ten Commandments in courthouses, bowdlerize salutations of ‘Merry Christmas’, abrogate school prayer after 170 years, counterfeit love through pornography, pervert the institution of marriage after five thousand years for the sake of progressivism, and murder the unborn on demand. When Sri Lankans were killed in Churches, the liberal ruling class referred to us as ‘Easter worshippers’ not Christians. When mass shootings aroused widespread prayer, we were derided by smug politicians for our faith. The moral decay is rampant. New social policies shored up by mainstream Hollywood, historical revisionism, and liberal judges destroy whatever is left of a spiritual compass in favour of cultural marxists who think themselves as great emancipators of the human race despite being themselves indentured to Satan who, in a redux, exhorted the hubris of Adam and Eve saying, ‘Then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods’ (Genesis 3:5). These same people, depressed in their own right, labour to impose their loose morals on others so as to vindicate their pathetic existence. Be shrewd as snakes and wary of this truth.

#Son #Father

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astroliability · 8 years ago

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ON THE KAIROSECT, REDUX.

post laying out the rules of the kairosect here.

NOTE. jim uses the kairosect three times. this, depending on how jim utilizes his third use, allows arrrgh!!! to live, though below you will find his death. it allows a great deal of other variation, based simply on its premise.

NOTE. this utilizes the promise of a meeting with angor rot, an exchange, but does not in its simplest form diverge from major plot points. however, this can easily be made to diverge, especially in specific plots.

THE FIRST TIME HE USES THE KAIROSECT, it is in panic. a friend’s life is in the balance. halfway across town, blinky is becoming a troll, caught in the sun. angor’s bargain echoes in jim’s ear : his mother’s life for the extraction of a ring. but it is love, and terror, and deep devotion, that sway his finger as he presses the stone in the kairosect. he retrieves the ring from strickler’s hand, spits in his mouth. he emerges from the shadowed green-flourescent of the dentist’s into bright sunlight, burning on his skin, and he holds the inferna copula before him, contemplating, considering. deciding. he holds it before his fingertip, closes his eyes, and slips it over his finger.

he sees angor with all the fierceness of a dream, with demanding clarity. he knows where angor is, sees the kill stone in his hands, registers weakness. he feels, surging through him, the power of control, the certainty of it. the frozen feeling of angor’s will bending to his. he forces the ring off in disgust, in horror, shoves it into his pocket. he uses his remaining nine minutes to drive back to school, retrieving the kairosect from where he left it.

yet he is entranced by how it felt -- by how good it felt, angor’s ring warm around his finger, angor’s will shudderng into his own. how powerful it made him. how it got inside him and rewrote him. he is mesmerized, enthralled. without meaning to his mind slips again and again to the feeling, and where it filled him in the moment, it leaves him empty and yearning.

he sits awake, the nights that follow, turning the ring over between his fingers, dreaming, yearning. considering whether to put it on -- and how incredible, fulfilling, it would feel, to know angor through it, breathing, unfrozen. how could something so small have so strong a pull over his heart? in his dreams, he slips it over his finger and is the largest man alive.

he sits awake, preparing for the diplomatic meeting that will soon occur between himself and angor rot, where he will trade the ring for his mother’s freedom and safety. and yet he can’t turn his mind from that overwhelming sense of control. he is appalled, and disgusted, and yet the longer he lives with the inferna copula tucked into his bookbag, the more it sings in his thoughts. the more he aches for it.

THE SECOND TIME HE USES THE KAIROSECT, it is to fill that aching yearning inside of him. he wants to know. he stops time to feel that trill of power down his spine, not warrior-power but absolute control. he dreams of the rush of it, how it is so much bigger than anything he’s ever known, all-encompassing, for it touches his soul, his secret heart.

the kill stone waits, bioluminescent-green, with angor. jim knows where it is, knows that the stone isn’t part of the bargain, doubts he can talk angor into giving it to him, and he tells himself he would be justified -- this is for enrique. jim slips the ring onto his finger with furtive quickness. he is still disgusted with himself, but it fills him up. it is something bigger than him, and it completes him.

this is before the meeting, the exchange, the ring for his mother’s life. he knows that once he stands before angor in the meeting, he will lose the inferna copula forever, and he wants to keep his promise, he does. but he wants to wear the ring again. and he is afraid, too afraid to wear the ring and have angor know. too afraid to feel their hearts beat in tandem.

he doesn’t go for the stone right away. he takes his vespa and rides, the thrill of speed and the rush of power twining into something overwhelming, intoxicating, dangerous inside of him. yet it is frozen -- angor cannot be controlled in this state, which means it is safe. means jim is safe, except--

it is consuming him.

he has forty-three minutes, and he intends to live fully in every one of them.

he finds angor, stands before him, thinks : what if he just commanded angor to give him the stone? what if he followed claire’s advice and seized control? but he knows : he would live in fear the rest of his life, with angor’s ring clattering against his knuckles. he thinks of the fear that swallowed him when he stood trapped in a nightmare before angor, his blades ready, while angor whispered into his ear.

he waves a hand before angor’s face, hesitant, waiting for the flick of illuminated eyes. but those eyes don’t move, and the stone body doesn’t tremble. jim has time -- just enough. he pushed it, didn’t look at his timer, and if he’s caught in these sewers with angor, he’s dead. he climbs upon angor’s legs, pulse hard in his ears; he closes his hands around the kill stone and pulls.

he races back to his vespa, starts the engine, and then he sees it : the single drop of water falling, slow, slow, slow, from the ceiling to his handlebars. it clatters, fractalling into a mirror for his death, and he realizes. he still has the ring on his finger.

angor howls, something primal and desperate, like a plea. jim turns, fast as anything, road burn behind him, and he speeds away, angor racing after him, in the damp dark.

“ take it back ! have it back ! i don’t care ! ” he shouts, breathless, but he is going too fast. he cannot get the ring off, and he’s sure : if he slows, angor rot will kill him.

he is thrown from his vespa, scrambles through a grate, unable to hear over his own pulse. something burns in his palm, and he looks down. the inferna copula sits, like a gift, like a star, in the middle of his hand.

THE THIRD TIME HE USES THE KAIROSECT, angor rot has invaded trollmarket. his glistening golems prowl the streets of trollmarket. all around jim, the dead stand in frozen stone monuments. he has failed them. he has failed everyone -- all these dead, all the frantic living used to tentative peacetime, now engaged in combat. all those he loves. but his mother is safe in the hospital on the surface.

he almost misses it :

a blade spins through the air, small, curved like a smile, lit with green. it arcs toward the most beloved person in this life, in this world, in the whole damn universe. jim would be barely a shadow of himself without toby. toby is jim’s entire heart. sometimes he feels like he lives in the shadow of toby’s radiance, and he would be happy. he would die for toby. he would carve out his heart for toby. he would do anything.

he doesn’t have the time to waste. if he can save toby -- and that’s all he’s thinking of, save toby.

WORLD SPLITS.

he is the only man alive. these are his choices.

WORLD SHATTERS.

he pulls angor’s ring from his pocket, as the knife leaves angor’s hand, glistening algae-green amidst the pastel glow of trollmarket, so unbecoming a battleground. something inside him compels him to look over, to see the swing, the throw. he has no hesitation. he slips the ring on, and it reaches up, like dark waters, to pull him under. he feels angor rot, inside of him, mind to mind. it is horrifying, in a way wearing it in the solitude outside of time never prepared him for, and he shudders away from it. but he does not take it off. he is in control, now. this battle will end how he wants it to.

he had never given the ring back, and angor’s rage followed him and strickler both.

he cries first to his best friend : “ toby ! ” his voice rings, and it is just a child’s voice, terrified, desperate, raw. full of love. “ stop ! ” he says to angor rot. it is a command, and it works.

but the knife still arcs through the battlefield smoke. arrrgh!!! lunges, his body a blur in jim’s periphery, for he can see nothing but toby. he fumbles the kairosect, unflinching this time, and presses it.

THERE ARE TWO WORLDS WHERE YOU ARE STARING UP AT THE SUN AND IT BLINDS YOU.

he pulls toby out of the path of the blade, to the edge of the battle. he is so terrified, and his heart beats heavy and painful in the cage of his chest. he crouches beside toby, so still, his heart silent, caught mid-beat. he pushes loose hair from toby’s face, his most beloved friend. “ i’m sorry, ” he whispers, presses a kiss to his friend’s forehead.

he is a warrior, now, straight-backed, sharp-stepped, face cold. heart cold. he has to be, to save those he loves. to save toby.

he does not see the great body caught in a lunge to intercept, to protect. he could pluck the dagger from the sky, but toby is safe. toby is safe.

he is determined to make the most of his time, his last use of the kairosect. he hurries through the battleground, pulling animus totems from the the chests of golems like breaking hearts, and shattering them in his hands. around him they stand erect, and he knows when time catches up they will all collapse. he drags those he can to safety. he walks through trollmarket. without a timer, he has no sense of how quick he must move.

he could pluck the dagger from the sky, but by the time he completes his round through trollmarket, sanctuary torn asunder, he has forgotten. and toby is safe.

YOU ARE STANDING ON THE PRECIPICE. LOOK DOWN. LOOK DOWN.

time catches up to him, and in a great rush, all of angor’s crystal-beasts crumble to the ground. the battle halts, a great confusion, and in the middle, jim stands radiant, all the sun inside his body.

the dagger, the shape of wicked laughter, arcs through the sky as though unbound. arrrgh!!! lunges in the air, his body a projectile, unstoppable, a force of nature. struck down. the knife plunges into his body, and the sheen of unliving stone crackling, spreading across him. there is an empty space behind him where tobias once was. a choked cry builds in jim’s throat, and across the plaza, toby shouts, strangled and broken, and it shatters jim’s heart.

he must be a soldier, cold-hearted, if he is to survive. if anyone else is to survive. if he can save anyone. he cannot run to the body he left to die. he stands, cold-hearted,d and he shatters.

he is responsible. he alone is to blame.

“ angor rot, ” he calls, across the stunned-silent battlefield. he holds up his hand with the inferna copula around his finger, glowing, like a star, like a gift. his voice is flat, dull.

“ your fight is with me. ”

DON’T LOOK DOWN.

this premise also allows for variants such as, but far from limited to :

(1) jim plucks angor’s blade from the air, saving arrrgh!!!, and he holds onto it as he lures angor into the hero’s forge, consciously and fiercely driving it into angor’s gut.

(2) jim participates in the meeting with angor rot, carries out the exchange -- ring for his mother’s safety -- whether on his own or with the company of claire, toby, or one of the trolls (2a) in this meeting, he bargains for the kill stone as well.

(3) jim returns the ring to angor and forms a tentative alliance with him against gunmar.

(4) jim wears the ring and demands that angor hand over the kill stone. in this scenario, jim is still in the hospital, worrying over his mother, while angor makes his move on trollmarket.

(5) angor’s ring shatters in the sewer, in the chase, angor bringing daylight down hard and unstoppable upon it. jim has only his voice and the kairosect to turn angor’s attention toward him, to lure him into the forge. all proceeds according to canon, other than the three uses.

#; ☆ atlas too carried the weight of the world (headcanons)#do not reb.log #long post /#i never expected this to grow to this length #if you've read this all you're a champ. if not i'll explain it to you via ims if it's relevant in a thread!#this is!! very important tho!!!#am i good enough to be a novelist yet #this took way more brainpower than i'd expected #i'm gonna toss it a few times bcos!!! this is how my jim handled the kairosect

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goldeagleprice · 6 years ago

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World War I guns fell silent in 1918

Acceptance of the inevitable. By late 1918, Goetz had recognized that the allies were winning on all fronts. On the obverse he shows a triumphant French rooster atop Allied flags IM SIEGESTAUMEL [In the flush of victory] while a banner on a town hall hails Allied Commander Foch. The depiction of allied troops on the reverse probably would be deemed not politically correct today. (Images © Henry Scott Goodman, www.KarlGoetz.com)

Goetz’ commentary on President Wilson’s response to Germany’s peace overtures. Obverse: He sits like a new monarch on a throne but decided to leave all questions of the armistice to the military commanders. Reverse: Germany’s eagle is offered chains and a peace palm in exchange for the kaiser’s crown. The legend reads FRISS ODER STRIB [Eat or die]. (Images © Henry Scott Goodman, www.KarlGoetz.com)

Commemorating the abdication of the kaiser on Nov. 9, 1918, and the renunciation of the throne by the crown prince. The new German Weimar Republic came into existence this same day and is portrayed by Goetz as Germania attempting to extinguish the fire in the House of Hohenzollern, the former ruling house of Germany. The beast with the burning head combines the body of Germany’s eagle with the head of the Hound of Hohenzollern, which happens to look like Wilhelm II. (Image © Henry Scott Goodman, www.KarlGoetz.com)

A seaman from the kaiser’s once beloved Kaiserliche Marine, specifically one of the mutinous crew of the battleship SMS “Kaiser,” kicks Wilhelm over a Dutch border marker into a tulip field. Goetz’s legend parodies a quote of the former Kaiser WER SICH MIR ENTGEGENSTELLT, DEN ZERSCHMETTERE ICH! [Who[ever] stands against me, I dash to pieces!]. (Image © Henry Scott Goodman, www.KarlGoetz.com)

Large 69 mm, 159.28 g bronze French medal by Georges-Henri Prud’homme marking the signing of the Armistice document in Foch’s rail carriage in the forest of Compiègne at 0500 on 11.11.18. (Images courtesy Yale University Art Gallery)

At left, Goetz does not mince words as to WAFFEN STILLSTANDS BEDINGUNG [Conditions of the Armistice]. Uncle Sam and John Bull hogtie Germany while Foch holds a rifle across his throat: FOCH HAT DAS WORT [Foch has the say so now]. (Image © Henry Scott Goodman, www.KarlGoetz.com) At right, on the lifting of the total blockade of German ports by the Royal Navy on July 12, 1919. The reverse of Goetz’s derisive “Good Samaritan” medal depicts the old, the infirm, and babes-in-arms dying of starvation behind the blockade that is maintained by ships of the Royal Navy. The upper caption reads: ENGLAND’S . SCHANDTAT [England’s deed of shame]. (Image © Henry Scott Goodman, www.KarlGoetz.com)

High quality British 64 mm, bronze WELCOME PEACE medal that shows the dates as 1914 / 1919 on the reverse (BHM-4146). George V, King & Emperor, occupies the obverse. (Image courtesy & © www.ha.com)

Obverses of two brass U.S. 1918 WWI peace medals (Hibler-Kappen 896, 897). On both winged Peace bears an olive branch back-lit by the sun of hope that rises above devastated land. The reverses bear a simple legend as to the dates of commencement and ending of the war along with crossed Stars & Stripes beneath. (Images courtesy & © www.ha.com)

Inter-allied Victory bronze medals as awarded to all allied troops. All show variations of a winged victory. All are suspended by a double rainbow ribbon. From left: U.S.A., U.K., France, Japan. (Images courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

The focus of René Baudichon’s 1920 54 mm bronze ULTRIX AMERICA JURIS is ‘Lest we forget.’ The obverse legend freely translates as “America, Avenger of the Law.” It encircles Lady Liberty, who bears not her lamp but a sword. Her rising from the waves drives a tsunami towards Europe. The cause of her fury is shown on the reverse, where the “Lusitania” sinks as a child drowns. (Images courtesy Yale University Art Gallery)

A neo-classical French take on the 1918 Armistice and 1919 Treaty of Versailles by Anie Mouroux: bronze 68 mm, 153.76 g. Is that Brunhild on the reverse surrendering her sword hilt-first? (Images courtesy Yale University Art Gallery)

After four Christmases in the trenches, Karl Goetz’s 1918 Christmas medal settled for the Gift of Peace. (Image courtesy & © www.ha.com)

Japan also contributed a peace offering. The reverse makes clear it was one of the allies. (Images courtesy Yale University Art Gallery)

On her massive 102 mm, 297.8 g bronze medal “WIEDERSEHEN-1918” [Farewell 1918], Danish sculptor Lotte Benter encapsulates what the Armistice meant to the ordinary German soldier: going home to his wife and contemplating his 1918 Christmas tree with his united family – and FRIEDE AUF ERDEN [Peace on Earth]. (Images courtesy & © www.ha.com)

Germania redux! Silvered-bronze medal of 1919 gives a German perspective on the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919, that effectively ended WWI. The legends read: IN FRIEDEN UND EINIGKEIT DURCH ARBEIT UND LIEBE WILL DEUTSCHLAND WIEDER GEDEIHEN [In peace and unity through labor and love will Germany thrive again] / OMNES RENASCAMUR [We will all be reborn] / EHRE DEN TAPFEREN [Honor the brave] / ?FRIEDE? [?Peace?] / ZUM EWIGEN GEDENKEN [In eternal remembrance]. The question marks either side of peace hold considerable portent. (Images courtesy & © www.ha.com)

Monnaie de Paris evocative designs for their proof silver 10 euro marking the centennial of the WWI armistice. The themes depicted are very much those of French medals struck in the first months after the war. (Images courtesy Monnaie de Paris)

Another French 10 euro.

French 10 euro recalling the jubilation that pervaded all corners of France the day the firing stopped and the surviving troops headed home. (Images courtesy Monnaie de Paris)

Common reverse of Australia’s gold and silver dollars marking the armistice centennial. Flanders’ poppies bloom above abandoned German rounds. (Images courtesy Royal Australian Mint)

Britain’s Royal Mint remembers war poet Wilfred Owen killed one week before the Armistice. (Image courtesy & © The Royal Mint)

A dove soars above bayonets on this Cook Islands $10. (Image courtesy Coin Invest Trust)

Canada reminds us it is all about 11.11.11 on a silver dollar while saluting its fallen on a haunting silver $100. (Images courtesy Royal Canadian Mint)

New Zealand is the one country to have issued a circulating coin for the centenary: a colored 50 cents that ensures the anniversary of Armistice is recognized throughout the land. There is also a gold $10 that recalls the homecoming. (Images courtesy New Zealand Post)

Troops cease fighting and return home on a Niuean silver $10, a gold $100, and a Solomon Islands silver $10. (Images courtesy Downies.)

The massed clenched-fist salute on the reverse of Goetz’s 1918 Armistice bronze foretells a 1939 future: EIN 70 MILLIONEN VOLK LEIDET ABER STIRBT NICHT [70 million people suffer but do not die]. (Image © Henry Scott Goodman, www.KarlGoetz.com)

A Baron Collier postcard, one of a wartime series, depicting Kaiser Bill being welcomed to hell. (Image courtesy Library of Congress)

The word “armistice” baffled me as a child. I gathered it was somehow related to the ending of war but was more problematical than “truce” or “cease-fire,” let alone “peace” or “victory.”

It was many years later I found it was “a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting.” Its intent was to allow those parties to sit down for serious peace negotiations.

In later life, I wondered about the origin of the word. I learned it comes from the Latin “arma” [arms] and “sistere” [stop]. For the Germans, the term is “Waffen Stillstands”.

On the Western Front, this stopping of arms would occur in 1918 on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. It effectively ended fighting on land, sea, and air between Germany and the Entente and assorted allies.

The “War To End All Wars” had accounted for over 9.9 million killed in action, 21.2 million wounded in action, and 7.7 million dead civilians. In this context, a host of contemporary medals were struck to mark the cessation of hostilities. These medals fall into several categories: those that specifically commemorate the armistice, those concerned primarily with peace, others that claim victory, and yet others that provide commentary on events surrounding the armistice and its consequences. The last group comes mainly from Germany. Along with sardonic comment, these include some of the more poignant depictions of the bitter consequences of war.

And, of course, coins commemorating the centenary of the 1918 Armistice have been appearing for well over a year.

These medals and coins provide a most challenging collecting area. The number is such that at least two lifetimes are required for a comprehensive or even a fully representative number to be assembled. Space allows only a few reminders of the costs of war to be illustrated here.

Background: By late October 1918, the Entente had signed or was close to signing Armistice agreements with Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and Austria-Hungary. A year earlier, Russia had signed a cease-fire with Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottomans. But on the Western Front, the killing continued apace.

It had taken until late September 1918 for Germany’s High Command to admit their country’s position was hopeless. Erster Generalquartiermeister Ludendorff had informed the Imperial Chancellery that an Allied breakthrough was imminent. He demanded an immediate cease-fire and acceptance of the main demands of President Woodrow Wilson.

Today, his motivation is clear. For starters, he wanted to preserve the honor of the German army by laying responsibility for capitulation squarely in the laps of the politicians. Secondly he realized that Wilson’s Fourteen Points were sufficiently vague to allow Germany to extract itself from the fray with minimum pain.

Changes: In October, the German government made overtures for an Armistice along lines proposed by Ludendorff. However, France, Italy, and Britain had no interest in such negotiations, nor did Wilson’s Fourteen Points hold any appeal for them. They had fought for over four years and lost millions of young men. They knew Germany was shattered. They wanted their pound of flesh and numerous quarts of blood as well.

A major stumbling block quickly emerged: the Allies insisted on the abdication of the kaiser. Germany might have been desperate, but at this point its government was not prepared to swallow this particular dead rat.

In fact, Ludendorff abruptly declared the Allied conditions unacceptable and demanded a full resumption of the war. However, his German soldiers had had enough. They were no longer prepared to fight. Desertions became commonplace. On Oct. 26, Ludendorff was replaced, and he fled to Sweden.

A naval revolt took place at Wilhelmshaven. It spread rapidly across the country. The realization that Germany was beaten had shaken Kaiser Wilhelm, but the mutiny of his beloved Kaiserliche Marine was the last straw. On Nov. 9, he abdicated, and a German republic was proclaimed. On Nov. 10, the ex-kaiser went into exile in neutral Netherlands.

Total capitulation: A Social Democrat party took the reins of political power. It engaged in desperate and hurried armistice negotiations. These took place in Foch’s private train parked in the French forest of Compiègne. When the German delegation arrived, they were given 72 hours to agree to a list of demands presented by Allied officers.

These demands were largely written by Allied Supreme Commander Maréchal Ferdinand Foch. They included immediate cessation of hostilities, withdrawal of German forces to positions behind the Rhine, Allied occupation of the Rhineland, the complete demilitarization of Germany including surrender of all military materials, the release of all Allied prisoners of war and interned civilians, and eventual reparations. Reparations were to become such a financial millstone that they poisoned international relations for many years afterwards.

On the Allied side, there was to be no release of German prisoners and no relaxation of the naval blockade of Germany until complete peace terms were agreed.

There was no question of negotiation. In effect, the Allies required the unqualified and total capitulation of Germany.

The new German Chancellor did not hesitate. On Nov. 10, he instructed the head of the German delegation to sign. They did so at 5 a.m. on Nov. 11. The cease-fire was to occur six hours later.

It would take another year before the final peace terms were hammered out. Three extensions to the original document were required before the Treaty of Versailles was finally ratified on Jan. 10, 1920.

A final reckoning: On Nov. 11, both sides knew the fighting was about to end. However, both maintained pressure to the last second. Each continued to fire at the other. In those six hours of that last day, there were a further 10,944 casualties. Of these, 2,738 died.

Battery 4 of the U.S. Navy’s long-range 14-inch railway guns fired its last shot at 10:57:30 a.m. from the Verdun area. It was timed to land behind the German front just before the scheduled Armistice.

The last British soldier died about 9:30 a.m., the last Frenchman at 10:50 a.m., and the last British Imperial soldier, a Canadian, was shot at 10:58 a.m. The last soldier killed in World War I was an American at 10:59 a.m.

May they rest in peace.

Commemorative medals: All participants in the conflict produced some sort of medallic memento. Some were official, but there were many unofficial private issues. Some are of superb quality and charged with pathos. Among these are personal commentaries from leading sculptors. Others are crude in their execution, but all commemorate a major historical event.

Initially, most focused on the blessed peace that had followed the end of the killing. A few made specific reference to the Armistice. Many French medals expressed unqualified gratitude to the Allied soldiers who fought and died for their country.

Within months, however, that peace and gratitude had transmuted to victory celebrations. It was no longer simply a question of an armistice. The Germans, Austro-Hungarians, and the Ottomans were seen as utterly defeated. Given the uncompromising nature of the cease-fire terms, they could be perceived as little else.

A common award to all Allied soldiers was proposed by Maréchal Foch. Each nation was free to design its own, but the shared theme was a winged Victory struck on a 36mm bronze round and suspended by a double rainbow ribbon. The award became known as the Inter-Allied Victory Medal, with at least 15 countries producing their own versions.

The back commonly carried a potent piece of propaganda: THE GREAT WAR FOR CIVILIZATION 1914-19. (The 1919 date refers to involvement of Allied troops in the Russian Civil War.) The back of the U.S. medal displays a bound fasces with the names of Allied countries listed on either side: FRANCE, ITALY, SERBIA, JAPAN, GREAT BRITAIN, BELGIUM, BRAZIL, PORTUGAL, RUMANIA and CHINA.

Some medals struck in the years after the war and even after the signing of the Versailles Treaty neither forgave nor forgot. French sculptor René Baudichon’s bronze ULTRIX AMERICA JURIS is a case in point. Struck in 1920, it portrays a vengeful Lady Liberty rising from the Atlantic Ocean. The cause of her wrath is clear on the medal’s back: the torpedoed Lusitania sinks while a baby drowns.

Germany’s medalists had little to celebrate or even commemorate. Their country was wrecked; their political system, economy, and agriculture were in ruins; its former leaders had fled. Germans would continue to be denied basic supplies by the Allied Blockade for eight months following the Armistice. Tens of thousands would starve.

As a consequence, many German medalists sought their subjects in simple yet vital matters such as wife and children being reunited with husband and father.

Goetz’s 1918 Christmas medallion opts for the reality of peace. Danish sculptor Lotte Benter’s massive bronze “WIEDERSEHEN-1918” [Farewell 1918] is more poignant: an ordinary German soldier returning to his wife, his family united around a 1918 Christmas tree with FRIEDE AUF ERDEN [Peace on Earth]. It really says it all.

Goetz medals aside, it would be some years before Germany’s spirit would reassert itself in political medallic statements.

Centennial Coins: For over a year, mints and nations around the world have been issuing coins to mark the 100 years that have elapsed since the Great War ended. Many echo themes seen on medals from 100 years earlier. Some refer to the Armistice itself, others to Peace, while yet others salute the return of the soldiers. Victory gets scant mention.

Of all the coins marking the end of the conflict, those issued by France stand out. Their designs focus on the immediacy of the feelings that swept the entire country on the afternoon of Nov. 11, 1918.

For the French, the end of La grande Guerre was a profoundly emotional national experience. For over four years, great swathes of the country had been laid waste to provide battlegrounds for the Western Front. Towns and villages had been devastated. Some 1.4 million French soldiers and 300,000 civilians lay dead. A further 4.3 million had been wounded.

Words are inadequate to describe the response of the French that Nov. 11. But it is all there in the coin deigns. And in capturing this moment, the designers at Monnaie de Paris have not overlooked their allies. The flags of Britain, America, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia wave alongside the Tricolor.

The centenary is marked primarily with two matched coin pairs. Each consists of a .900 fine silver (37.00 mm, 22.20 g) 10 euro and a .999 fine gold (22.00 mm, 7.780 g) 50 euro. Symbolic poppies and cornflowers are prominent in the designs, “Le bleuet” (the cornflower) being France’s national symbol of remembrance.

On one, the sun rises for Armistice Day, a bugler sounds the cease-fire, and soldiers discard their rifles while a signaler releases an allegorical dove. The second depicts jubilant crowds welcoming “Le Poilu” [The Unshaven]. This is the coin that acknowledges the vital role of the Allied troops in France’s liberation – on both obverse and reverse.

A bugler sounding the recall before the Arc de Triomphe features on the second 10 euro but struck on a 31.00 mm, 17.00 g .333 fine silver flan. His uniform is decked with the flags of the allied nations. In the background, a returning soldier embraces his child. Oddly, the reverse makes reference to matters 100 years on: linked oak and laurel branches evoke the euro sign.

As would be expected, numerous coins have come from the countries of the former British Empire who contributed 1.1 million killed and 2 million wounded.

The Royal Australian Mint was one of those quick on the mark. In February, it announced a commemorative 25.00 mm, 9.00 g aluminum bronze dollar available in both 2018 proof and BU coin sets. In March, the corresponding precious metal proofs were produced: a 21.69 mm, 1/4 oz .9999 fine gold $25; a 99.95 mm, .999 fine 1 kg silver $30; and a 40 mm, 1 oz .999 fine silver $1.

The reverse design by Aleksandra Stokic depicts poppies of Flanders Fields growing in soil deep sown by serried rows of bullets. The outline of each bullet caused comment Down Under on these coins’ release. It is not that of the British .303 but resembles the rimless German 7.92 X 57 cartridge widely used in WWI although, for the pedants among us, the profile differs in detail.

It may well be the designer’s intent was to depict the primary cause of so many grave markers of Australian Imperial Forces whether at Gallipoli or on the Western Front.

Britain’s Royal Mint also believed in getting in early. They issued a BU bimetallic £2 in January. Its design by Stephen Raw is highly evocative. The artist shaped his work using clay from the Sambre-Oise Canal, where war poet Wilfred Owen was killed in 1918 one week (almost to the hour) before the signing of the Armistice. It bears an inscription taken from Owen’s poem, “Strange Meeting”: “The truth untold, The pity of war.”

The same design is used on a 28.40 mm, 12.00 g .925 fine silver £2 proof; a 28.40 mm, 24 g .925 fine silver £2 proof piedfort plated with gold; and a 28.40 mm, 15.97 g .917 fine yellow gold £2 plated with red gold. All three coins are edge inscribed WILFRED OWEN KILLED IN ACTION 4 NOV 1918.

In addition, the BRM has produced two 5 oz £10 proof coins: a 65.00 mm, 156.30 g .999 fine silver and a 50.00 mm, 156.30 g .9999 fine gold. These are the last coins in the mint’s WWI Centenary 5 oz series. Their common reverse by Paul Day depicts a lone solider on the Western Front at the moment the guns cease fire.

Royal Canadian Mint designer Jamie Desrochers leaves no doubt that it is all about the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. The numeral “11” appears three times on the reverse of his 36.06 mm, 23.17 g .9999 fine silver dollar backed by a sunburst of hope. The central “11” is writ large and selectively gold-plated. Its profile echoes Canada’s National Vimy Memorial in France.

A second Canadian coin remembers the fallen: a 76.25 mm, 311.54 g .9999 fine silver $100 proof. On the reverse, artist Pandora Young has incorporated one of Coeur de Lion MacCarthy’s “Angel of Victory” sculptures that stand today in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. The ascending angel holds a fallen Canadian soldier in one arm and a laurel wreath in her left. The two are framed by W.H.J. Blakemore’s design of Canada’s one-cent coin issued during 1914-1918. Appropriately, the obverse shows Sir Edgar Bertram Mackennal’s contemporary effigy of King George V.

From the Cook Islands, courtesy of CIT, is an 11 mm, 1/100 oz .9999 fine gold prooflike $5. Its emphasis is the peace. The accompanying web page provides no description beyond the words of John McCrae’s 1915 poem, “In Flanders Fields.”

The tiny Pacific Island of Niue is responsible for two colored silver and gold coins whose themes mark the end of the war. These include a 65 mm, 155.5175 g (5 oz) .999 fine silver $10 proof showing a bugler sounding the cease-fire and a 38.61 mm, 1 oz .9999 fine gold $100 proof depicting troops marching back from the front in the aftermath of the Armistice. The last coin was part of a WWI set released in early 2017.

In a similar vein is a Solomon Islands 40 mm, 25 g .925 fine silver $10 proof with members of the armed services marching in a victory parade. This coin appears to be the only Armistice centenary issue that gives a nod to the nurses of WWI – the troops’ angels of mercy.

New Zealand is the sole country to produce a circulating coin for the centenary: a colorized 24.75 mm, 5.00 g plated steel 50 cents released into circulation on Oct. 1. Central to the reverse design is the New Zealand Returned Services Association red poppy surrounded by a wreath formed from three of New Zealand’s silver fern leaves (past, present, future / Army, Navy, Air Force), rosemary for remembrance, and koru (Maori stylized fern fronds).

Rosemary holds deep significance for New Zealand soldiers. It grew wild across the Gallipoli peninsula where 2,779 New Zealanders died in 1915, a sixth of the Kiwi troops who landed on the peninsula.

A second New Zealand coin is a 21.69 mm, 1/4 oz .9999 fine gold $10 entitled “Back from the Brink” that depicts a returned soldier in the arms of his tearful beloved. This coin comes in a pressed metal tin resembling those gifted to soldiers in World War I by Princess Mary at Christmas.

Afterword: Historians among readers will be well aware that Foch’s 1918 Armistice demands, along with those in the Versailles Treaty of 1920, sowed seeds of deep resentment in the German soil that would sprout full-grown on Sept. 1, 1939. The reverse of Goetz’s 1918 Armistice medal foretells that future all too clearly: EIN 70 MILLIONEN VOLK LEIDET ABER STIRBT NICHT [70 million people suffer but do not die].

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