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krinsbez · 4 years

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The Heroes, Future Season Picking

maxw@jcogginsa @skjam, @maxwell-grant

As it would appear discussion of Season One has come to a halt for the moment, this thread is for discussing Season Two.

Some ideas proposed thus far...

By @jcogginsa:

As I said previously , my idea for this one was to have the principal characters come together for Keane’s funeral before getting sucked into the season’s plot. To expand on that, what I think should happen here is that Keane was familiar with several other great detectives. After they leave his funeral, they get sucked into what looks like an Agatha Christie style whodunnit, which is eventually revealed to be something of a more supernatural flavor. The big name of this season could be an aged Sherlock Holmes, but if we don’t go with that, Watson would be a fun pick.

- General Zaroff, the antagonist of ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ sinks a cruise ship, which he believes Doc Savage is aboard, believing that Savage will survive and make it to Zaroff’s island, where he can hunt him for sport. Unfortunately, he’s misinformed, because the Savage aboard the ship is actually Patricia Savage, not Clark. She, along with other pulp heroes who were aboard, then have to deal with Zaroff. Possibly with the Wolfman and Tarzan involved

- The aforementioned “The Shadow vs Lovecraft” season. This would be a later season, since I think it’d be good if Fu Manchu had a more sizeable role in it, to show that while he’s a bad man, he’s not a “wants to end the world” kind of Bad man. Additionally, as a late act twist, I think it’d be nice for a Golden Age flavor of Superman to show up, as he is thematically a foil to Lovecraft

- While most of the seasons would be stand alone, I did have an idea for a loosely connected Trilogy of seasons featuring Sun Koh, the Nazi Doc Savage. One Season would deal with a search for Atlantis, and end with Sun Koh arriving in the present day. Then the season after that would featuring Conan battling Sun Koh in the distant past, and then the season after that would see Sun Koh suffering his final defeat at the hands of Doc Savage.

- A season set on Mars, featuring John Carter attempt to stop the Martian Invasion from War of the Worlds from getting launched

By @krinsbez:

-News of the Underworld: Belgian boy reporter Tintin is back in New York City, doing a ride-along with Justice, Inc. when they’re called in to investigate a gang that’s been robbing museums. But then their leader becomes convinced that one of the artifacts is posssesed by a demon and is talking to him (I think it should be ambiguous if he’s delusional or not), and begins planning something more grandiose than mere thefts, the Avenger calls upon…not sure. Someone with knowledge of mysticism and the occult, but not so much that no ambiguity exists.

-Skull and Crosswinds: In the midst of WWI, the 20th Phantom discovers that Robur the Conqueror’s ahead-of-his time flight technology has fallen into the hands of the European branch of the Singh Brotherhood, who plan to use the war as cover to plunder the continent from the skies with impunity. To stop them, he must somehow convince G-8 and Hans Von Hammer to work together.

-Black As Night And Red All Over: In ‘70s NYC, Shaft, Blade, and Vampirella join forces to defeat Blacula. Given the pun of the title, I thought about throwing in Kolchak, but A: I don’t know that much about him ATM, and B: What little I do know suggests he lives elsewhere?

Comments by @maxwell-grant:

Funny you mentioned wanting to bring Superman into the “Shadow vs Lovecraft” season, because I’ve been tinkering with my own Shadow - Superman crossover idea for a while now, that whole text I wrote about crossing The Shadow with Lovecraft spawned out a Shadow meets Superman text I haven’t finished yet.

The inclusion of Fu Manchu though? I’ll definitely keep it in mind. Although The Shadow, Fu Manchu, and the Cthulhu Mythos are such massive properties, such quintessential pillars of pulp fiction as well as fiction in general, that Superman’s inclusion might be either too much, or perhaps the right ingredient to pulling it all together. Definitely something I have a lot of ideas for but maybe better saved for later.

“The Most Dangerous Game” starring pulp heroes definitely sounds fun though. I think one of the things I most enjoyed about these posts is that they got me to think and write about characters I’d never given much thought prior. I’d definitely like to do more with further obscure choices.

@krinsbez

Here’s an idea for that Tintin x Justice Inc crossover. When The Avenger and Tintin investigate museum robbers who run afoul a mystical artifact that might be driving them to more sinister plans, they need someone who’s familiar enough with the occult and also with historical artifacts, and so they call…Indiana Jones. Benson would have preferred calling someone else but they are in a hurry and Jones was easy to reach. Indy wants absolutely nothing to do with the dead-faced creep who names his knives and the little kid running around in a trenchcoat and demonic artifacts and whatnot, but then he gets involved and goes along complaining about being dragged into another supernatural bullshit adventure, as usual.

Comments by @skjam:

The really obvious proto-Superman for pulp stories is Hugo Danner from “Gladiator” by Philip Wylie. He dies at the end of the book, but this can easily be handwaved; perhaps a Snake Plissken-like “I heard you were dead” from everyone who recognizes him?

“Most Dangerous Game” with Pat Savage? If you want to make things really tough for Zaroff, team her up with Jane Clayton, Lady Greystoke. By the third Tarzan book, Jane’s the second-best person in the world at jungle survival. (She drops back to third once their son reaches his teens.)

Additional comments by @jcogginsa:

Been thinking more about the great detective pitch I made, and I think good characters to use for that season would be Sar Dubnotai (who I only know of because of Maxwell Grant’s Pulp tarot), and Inspector Ginko from Diabolik

Additional comments by @maxwell-grant:

@skjam I think Hugo Danner is an interesting enough character that, while I do have some plans for him, I wouldn’t just use him as a Superman analogue.

@jcogginsa Sar is definitely a great choice, in fact it’s a logical choice to have him enter the scene as a response to Ascott Keane’s murder, since Sar is an occult detective as well, far older, more powerful and resourceful than Keane, and generally being a far more interesting character too.

I haven’t yet had a chance to read the original Sar Dubnotal stories but something I really enjoyed about the Tales of the Shadowmen stories I’ve read with him is that they emphasize him being a psychologist on top of everything else, so he lends himself into scenarios where he uses his magic to help characters dig into their pasts and deal with their trauma and so on, which is definitely something that sets him apart from other pulp heroes, even those with mystical powers.

The fact that he can speak with the dead could also allow us to include characters from different time periods. For example, maybe Holmes did die a while before the story began, but Sar has been receiving visions and guidance from Holmes in the afterlife that sets him on a trip to America where he has to help some of his detective friends deal with the aftermath of the murder of an American occult detective. That way, not every character we want to include outside of their time period needs to be immortal (although Sar may be, as even in his original 1910 stories he was hinted at being much older than he appeared, and now he’s going to be appearing in the 1930s presumably unchanged).

Sar can very well serve as the link that binds different characters and storytelling elements together.

Some thoughts of my own.

-On Hugo Danner: I have to agree with @maxwell-grant that just using him as a Superman analogue is not a good idea, not least because, asides from powers they are very different characters. Not sure using Superman is the best idea either, since he’s as close as you get to a bright shining line where Pulp Heroes stop and Super Heroes begin (given that there are plenty of superheroes who are 100% Pulp Heroes as far as I’m concerned, it’s not much of a line, but still)

-On what to do next: Obviously, I’m partial to my own ideas, but of @jcogginsa‘s ideas, I like the Detectives or Most Dangerous game one’s best. Which sentiment appears to be shared by the rest of you, so let’s go for it.

-On Detectives: Unfortunately, I’ve never even heard of Sar before, so I’m not confident of my ability to do stuff with him.

-On Most Dangerous Game: I love the concept, but I can’t buy Gen. Zaroff by himself as being a legitimate threat when Tarzan is involved? (as far as I’m concerned. kidnapping Jane is a form of suicide)

#The Heroes #Pulp Heroes #Collab

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ships-n-giggles · 4 years

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Paperback Prophets: Platonic Aziraphale/Reader

Summary: Aziraphale forms a symbiotic relationship with you. Platonic Aziraphale x Reader, friendship fic. Nerds bonding over books.

Author’s Note; Thanks so much to those who liked my previous work. I like these platonic stories since I think it’s underestimated how interesting and enigmatic these characters can be when you don’t have all the facts about them. In a lot of ways, Aziraphale and Crowley are like people you can’t exactly put your finger on, but know there’s something special about them. I know a lot of reader-fiction likes the drama of the big reveal, but I think the subtlety of secrets never revealed lends its own flavor to fiction.

Just a heads up, this Reader-insert is not defined as male or female in comparison to my previous work, which was more directed towards a female character. Some of the works described do not exist, but were rather made up by me based on historical events or people whom I think would lend to the eclectic tastes of Aziraphale.

Again, if I owned Good Omens, there would be real dinosaurs and I would live in a castle by the sea. Thou shalt not sue.

____

Your family based their business on the martyrdom of your great grandfather….a victim of the Nazi Party when he refused to surrender his bookshop in Krakow, Poland. He was no stranger to the fascist movement and threw out the first attempts by the police to seize his books. He chased them out with a club, and was joined by his neighbors, and stood his ground.

There was no rude interruption in broad daylight next time. The next time, they burned him, and his books, and the entire block for his defiance.

“He was burned for protecting the language of the Jews, of Poland. Of the world.” Your grandmother told you, sitting in her lap as a small child. You knew this story by heart, but your grandparents told it so well. “His books disavowed the reign of dictators and terrorists, and they could not stand for it.”

Defiance ran in the family. And for the next three generations your family rescued more books by taking up that noblest of crimes…the theft of books.

_______

Your grandfather had founded the idea, when the ashes of his father’s shop left only a ledger of the books that were destroyed, kept in the safe along with the family tree and a Star of David that had belonged to him. The books he had kept in his shop were very old, and came from all across Europe. Some of them were even brought over from imperial Russia, before the fall of the czar. Not many copies of them were left in the world.

But your grandfather knew where the copies were.

He fled to England with his wife and opened a restoration firm to spit in the face of the war. It was only partially a cover for his real business. He did have the knowledge to restore books back to their original state, with tricks passed down from generation to generation. But with each restoration, he also meticulously copied the contents of the book, using a special trick involving wax, glue and cheesecloth to make a print of the papers and their imagery onto a fresh book. Then he would return the original book unscathed back to the owner, none the wiser. Your grandfather’s real job had been in building up the secret archives of the British National Library and making copies of the great universities works. No book was too rare or obscure for him. Even the controversial Hammer of Witches was copied, though your grandfather noted that the pictures were better than the instructions.

Your grandfather also had a long memory. When he saw a bookseller that dared have Mein Kampf, he would have to be held back by friends to avoid from brutally beating the clerk and smashing the windows of the establishment. In time, he has a son and his temper cools. He tended to conveniently not notice your father’s mischief, such as when your father writes rude words on the glass window of an offending bookshop.

He’s almost too cheeky to be real, and often was chased by your grandfather for his jokes and pranks. But it only endears him to others, making it easy to divert shipments of banned books.

A Clockwork Orange turns your grandfather’s stomach, but your father takes a shipment meant to be burned, creates a nonsense excuse of recycling the materials for book repair, and the publisher believes him right away. When your father first reads a nicked copy of Ulysses, he is so enchanted he actually dupes a government official into paying for the family to dispose of an intercepted shipment of the book. Your parent’s basement, your uncle’s basement, and your older cousin’s basement is full of copies of material banned by the government. But under the family firm is the treasure trove. The books copied from some of the rarest material on earth. Some of their original material have been destroyed since then.

But you save sacred trips to the secret basement for when life hits you hardest. It’s important those copies survive in the world to come.

_____

You receive the call on a Monday morning. You can hardly believe who it is before passing the phone to your grandfather. He is less involved with the business, but he might have been tempted into throttling you if you hadn’t let him talk to Mr. Fell.

A.Z. Fell and Co. was notorious among the antiquarian community. Not only was his collection as eclectic as they come, but it was also a gold mine of rare books, out of print bibles and religious texts, and treasures of the literary world that likely had no equal. How he stayed in business was the subject of fervent gossip, as he kept odd hours and was very passive-aggressive…and successful….in discouraging would be buyers. Your father’s joke was that he might let you read a few books if you caught him at the right time. But even those rare moments were tinged with a lot of rules.

Your grandfather enjoys the conversation immensely, and when he hangs up he calls for a family meeting over dinner.

“He asked for you. By name!” Your grandfather is just as in shock as you are. Though it is clear that he reveres Mr. Fell with the same kind of respect one would give a saint, he can’t help but sound a little jealous. “He wants to discuss the restoration of his collection this week. As soon as possible.”

You meet on a rainy Wednesday, scampering in the side door per his instructions at teatime.

The smell is just like the private archive below the firm, though lightly tinged with the scent of hot cocoa. More than just books are on the shelves. Reprints of paintings and illustrations, framed tapestries and busts sitting on the tables, even a tarnished suit of armor with chainmail, dressing up a half sculpture of a Greek youth.

“Pleasure to meet you.”

Mr. Fell looks like many other retired antiquarians, except he didn’t have the same strain of arthritis or suffer from a draft in his bookshop. He was in fact, far more rosy, lively, and brighter than most other people, even in occupations that were arguably more pleasing or easy. His coat is perfectly straight and tidy, though the velvet buttonholes in his vest have since lost their color.

The two of you shake hands, and you accept a mug of cocoa seasoned with a dollop of vanilla paste. In time he pulls out a ledger twenty pages thick, with tidy handwriting scribbled on a hand drawn spreadsheet.

“Given the state they’ve been in, I think it’s time the books got a bit of a good pick-me-up.” He giggles as if he’s told a private joke, and continues. “Most of my collection is in tip top shape, but I’ve put the ones worse for wear on the list. What do you think?”

The list of books makes your jaw drop. He has a Nostradamus original…never been copied! And a rare copy of a controversial Gnostic bible, one on the golden list of books not yet copied by the family. These were books that had been floating unknown, with a cringing fear they were decaying in an attic or hoarded in a bookshop with someone unaware of their value.

However, Mr. Fell was only too aware of their value.

“My only request is that you do your work here.” It’s a condition that leaves you a little nervous. Does he know your family’s secret business? “Not to be the suspicious type, but I have had attempts on these books, in both the legal and the far less legal.” He huffs into his drink. “I can set up a cozy little corner for you and give you as much room as you need. Fair enough?”

“I think so.” You empty your cup. “I’d have to ask Grandfather first. Our preservation techniques are also something of a trade secret.”

There’s a bit of a silent visual exchange. If Mr. Fell’s eyes said “what do you think you’re doing”, yours are replying with a certain “I don’t know, what do you think you’re doing” right back. But he did not invite you in to get a prime list of his collection, drink cocoa, and discuss business just to end rudely. The two of you shake hands and promise to get in touch later, and you urge the cabbie that picks you up to drive you as fast as physically possible back home.

You hesitate to show your grandfather the list of books to repair. You’re certain he’ll have a heart attack. Instead he only faints into his fussing wife’s arms.

“An original print of Goethe’s work!” He gasps, the rest of you scrambling to pass him an inhaler as he takes a breath and regains his composure. “The things I would do just to look!”

“I’d have to work in his shop. That’s his condition.” You remind him. “It would be easy in our workshop but under his nose-”

Your grandfather isn’t a pushover however. He knows that with great gambles often come great rewards. If you throw the dice right. All of you exchange looks of unease when he asks your grandmother to set an extra seat for dinner and goes to make a phone call. You’re hanging in anticipation when he asks you very calmly to work on the normal restorations.

Mr. Fell arrives very eagerly for dinner, like a schoolboy just released for summer break.

He is almost unusually excited. He is very complimentary to your grandmother’s special lamb stew, exchanging culinary stories from a visit to Rome. He and your grandfather get along like a house on fire, swapping admiring rhetoric on the evolution of Romantic-period literature and emptying out a bottle of wine on their own. Your grandfather gets to the point over a dessert of strawberry mess.

“Mr. Fell, I am unashamed to say it.” He leans back in his chair, and makes a boastful confession that puts you in shock. “I am, very proudly I may say, a most excellent thief.”

Even Mr. Fell is unable to recover his expression. “I beg your pardon?”

“What pardon? I am not ashamed!” He untucks his napkin, wiping his mouth. “I am an extraordinary thief in the meaning that I steal for a generation that has not yet been born. And I steal a medium that never loses its value, no matter how long the years may toll.”

“I see.” Mr. Fell is unsure of whether to be impressed or concerned, and you wonder if your grandfather has lost his mind. There is an entire collection of rare works waiting to be copied and he seems to be throwing out all pretenses of pretending not to want to take it! “Is this in regards to the private collection you mentioned?”

“Yes. Moreover, I stole all of those books without ever taking the original copy.”

“…forgive me but I don’t understand.”

Your grandfather stands up and hobbles to the workshop in the back. Awkward looks are exchanged at the table and you try to busy your face with scooping some of the strawberry mash into your mouth when your grandfather comes out with a yellowed manuscript. “Here. See for yourself.”

Mr. Fell hesitates, his fingers doing an odd wiggle as if to insure they do not smudge the paper. But as soon as he glosses over the title on the cover it’s his turn to gape with his jaw ajar. “But this is the Constitution of Freemasons! Those were stolen by the Nazis years ago!”

“Who do you think stole this copy eh?” Your grandfather boasts. “I insured a friend of mine who owned a copy kept it hidden long enough for me to copy it. When it was stolen, I already had this! And that is only one of many.” He crosses his arms. “I am trusting you with this family secret because you appreciate the kind of effort put into preserving the history of literature.”

Mr. Fell takes a moment to whip out a pair of spectacles, looking over the contents very intently. He must be convinced it is a real copy, because a few pages it he closes the manuscript, whipping his glasses back off and letting out a ‘whoosh’ of air through his teeth.

“I think I’m in the mood to negotiate.”

______

The Setup is arranged.

The number of books that needed repair were quite extensive. It would doubtless be a three year work involving many, many hours a day of repair. However you are only too happy to report to A.Z. Fell and Co from eight to three, everyday. Your workstation is a restored folding desk of fine cherry wood, with an engraving from the carpenter dating back to the 1700s. You have your case of tools, which you decide to leave there each day. No point in covering up anything to Mr. Fell anymore, now that your grandfather has whipped the curtain open on your family secret.

“Aziraphale please.” He insists. “Mr. Fell is so terribly formal.”

Your family’s fee for repairing the books is remarkably cheap, a cover of course to lure in potential owners of rare books not yet copied. But the real payment comes with the copies you make while you mend. Books to be saved for the future.

Aziraphale gets free access to your family’s private library and once he’s permitted a list of what’s actually in the vault, you have several copies brought for his enjoyment and to join the collection as manuscripts. You know it’s not the full list, according to your knowledge of the library, but Aziraphale is hiding a few of his own rarities, you’re sure.

You find that mending old books is a bit like surgery. You have to wear latex gloves (no powder), and pick away rotting fibers with a set of tweezers, painstakingly removing the dry rot and mending it with new thread and leather. The pages that are withering are given a careful coating of your family’s recipe for “magic paper maiche”, which is more of a joke than an accurate description of the goopy liquid. Patience is the key, and when some pages dry, you work on the bindings, resewing and completing the methodical process of putting books that are falling apart back together. Luckily these books were well loved and kept away from arid attics and damp cellars. Aziraphale locks them in their cabinets with care in-between visits, and though you do not see an alphabetical order that makes sense, you’re keenly aware he could pick the right book off the shelf with his eyes closed.

You’re not used to people hanging over your shoulder while you work. In fact your grandfather was tested severely when you crouched over him to learn how to do it, and his fitful temper sometimes made him very annoyed when you didn’t get it quite right. However Aziraphale has a way of making his presence very welcome. You attribute it to his boyishly eager expression, fascinated with the process. It’s quite flattering after all, to hold an audience so interested in the nitty, gritty details of book mending.

“This isn’t so bad.” You tell him over lunch. Your grandmother packed you both sandwiches, perhaps to continue earning Aziraphale’s good graces, and the cold cuts are served with chilled gazpacho while your host makes tea. “Father had a very graphic encounter with an unusual medium when he found out a book had been bound with human skin.”

Aziraphale is short of spitting into his cup at that, and you can’t help but admire his restraint. “Animals. Human skin? What on earth kind of book was that?” He is aghast, but clearly intrigued.

“A historic account describing the execution of the Yorkshire Witch, Mary Bateman. It had details of her life, trial, and the subsequent catastrophes that were left in the wake of her execution. It’s her own skin they bound the book in.” You shiver. “Father was glad to return it after copying it, but when he spritzed the leather and saw what it was made of, he jumped out of his seat and near gave up.” The book hadn’t sold at all, but had been more or less a memento from the court official who had recorded the trial.

Macabre stories aside, the bookshop was a temple to the things that mattered to you.

-----

“Your grandfather is quite the hot-blooded trickster isn’t he?” Aziraphale noted with a strange fondness. He had been invited for dinner on multiple occasions to talk the better half of the night about books, history, and debating the quality of culinary publishers based on their country. You knew exactly what he meant by having attended last night’s dinner. Your grandfather was so old, but he still went to work, banging his fist on the table when he laughed, and arguing his point to the bitter end. Only your grandmother could soothe his hot temper with a bit of dessert or by humbling him with a pinch to the ear and a playful reprimand. “He would have been an absolute hoodlum if not for books.”

“No, I think he’s a hoodlum even with the influence of books.” You joke. “He and his friends used to hold bridge parties until the chief organizer died, and those were some wild parties. Nowadays they like to visit for a drink at a bar and talk about their hobbies, but I think grandmother might have been a little more than relieved to know they got canceled.”

“Oh how bad could bridge be?”

He himself has never played it, so propping up the extra cards against a pair of busts, you teach him the ropes. You sometimes play with your family at big events, holidays, and birthdays, and with your grandfather as your teacher, you also are a rapacious cheat. You teach it fairly the first time, both you and Aziraphale sharing a pair of cards for the others, but the second time you destroy him completely.

He has a good sense of humor about it and concedes defeat, promising to get more friends over and try again.

The first book that is finished is Aziraphale’s first edition copy of a biography dictating the life of Oscar Wilde…written by a friend of the famous poet. You think you see Aziraphale’s name scribbled in the cover, but the name is faded out and could very easily spell Azekiel if you squint. The cover had been rotting (from what he claims was a freak incident with a cold cup of tea) and the pages were badly stained and threatening to crumble. It did look as though it were brought back to life by a miracle, and Aziraphale tells you so.

“Oh it’s just like when I got it!” He says with glee. Though it’s strange how he feels the need to cover for himself. “Not from the author of course! No, no, that’d be silly! From a friend. Bought it from a friend.”

It strikes you as bad manners to pry, so you don’t. Fortunately, you are the restorer in this case and follow certain etiquette. Your grandfather would have wheedled him for hours to get the full story.

___

You only miss one day of work when a family emergency happens. Something you and your family have been dreading.

It’s been over a year. Aziraphale’s books were resurrected from the brink of decay, you enjoyed the lunches and the visits for dinner, and the conversation. He had even let you (to the shock of all family) borrow his copy of Book Trails: Through the Wildwood. It is not a particularly well known or rare find, and he confesses with eagerness how it was a personal favorite found completely by accident. But you do not take advantage of his generosity. You read it in one night, and return the next day with a tin of cookies as a thank you. The saffron and orange shortbreads go over extremely well at tea time, and you promise to bring a favorite book of yours to read. In due time, you have loaned him all of your Walter Moers books to read, and he sometimes giggles in his chair at the antics of Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear. He probably can view himself as the intrepid hero in that case, who had an equal fondness for food.

It should not have come as a surprise. But you were hoping maybe your grandfather was too tough to actually fall sick.

He had been complaining of a wheezy cough after opening up a chest of books he’d procured from a friend, though he complained more of their condition…with pages that had to be replaced outright. He had labored hard with your father over the books, squawking about how normal people need to be educated in the care of antique belongings.

When you come home from the bookshop, he has already gone to the hospital.

You hurry over to take your grandmother with you, who has been whimpering softly into her hanky ever since your father caught him in midfall, choking on a breath. He didn’t wait for an ambulance, but bodily carried him to the car and likely broke half a dozen traffic violations hurrying him to the hospital. Soon the whole family is informed, and crowds into the hospital waiting room. Taking turns.

You miss your turn when visiting hours are over and are so tired that you send your father and grandmother home to take care of things while you made phone calls to his friends. Before you can finish however, you fall asleep in the drivers seat of your grandfather’s car, and remain there until late in the afternoon the next day. You’re awoken by a phone call from your father, but decide to wait to return later. A quick wash in the bathroom and satisfying your hunger from the vending machine, you take your turn at last.

“I shouldn’t be here.” Your grandfather grumbles. But he is not speaking in his big voice, energetic and impassioned. He sounds too soft, like a kitten and can’t even sit up straight. “Neither of us should. We should be working.”

“You worked for sixty years. More than that.” You remind him. “Life has a way of hitting the brakes on you.”

“Bah. You know what I mean. Our kind were meant to work.” He runs a hand over his face, though it is made awkward as he avoids the clip in his nose keeping him breathing. “How many hundreds of thousands of millions of books are there in the world? How many have been written and swallowed up by time?” It’s clear the hospital is getting to him very deeply. You don’t think he would be happy to die in this place, all clean, white, and too new. He wants to be with his wife, sleeping in his big old bed with the antiques on the wall, the cheap carpet he got on a bargain when he was still young, and his books. He wants to peer up from his desk at the family photos and eat what your grandmother cooks.

“You’ve got to take me home. A couple extra months in this place is no way to live.”

You’re planning his escape when Aziraphale calls, sounding worried. “You didn’t come in so I thought I’d check. Is everything alright?”

It isn’t. And you say it as it is.

Aziraphale arrives in a cab soon after, squeaking in a short visit with your grandfather alone. There is some form of healing presence you must miss, because when you dip back in, your grandfather is asleep and looking much more healthy and at ease. “You said you were planning a hospital escape?”

____

One of the rumors in the literary circle of friends your family keeps is that Aziraphale’s father was a British secret agent stealing books from the Nazis. You think this is more or less an endearment to your grandfather, but there were additional claims that he had gold hidden under his shop from recovering treasures and reclaiming wealth from the Germany treasure vaults.

You think it’s a little more than true when, miracle of miracles, the three of you are all in the car, driving home.

Aziraphale asks very little of you. Put this on, and don’t look suspicious. Please take the patient from his room to the examination area. Whoops. There’s been a mixup, he’s transferring to another hospital. Thank you, we’ll take him there right away! He shucks off a doctor’s coat and giddily climbs into the passenger seat as you all take off, your grandfather snoring in the backseat.

“Well that was very exciting. Hope you all don’t get into too much trouble.” He seems to be bouncing in his seat at the “heist” of sorts.

“Grandfather would likely curse me on his deathbed if I kept him in there.” You remark, pulling into the driveway. “Besides, the doctor can come see us, and he wants to be with his family.” There’s a lump in your throat, and you know where it’s coming from. “When…when his time comes.”

The silence that hangs is very sad, and you’re not sorry to get your grandfather into his wheelchair and take him in. Your father is a little more than shocked that you achieved, or would even do, all of this, but laughs anyway and puts his father to bed.

You drive Aziraphale home and thank him for his efforts.

“Anything for a friend.” He smiles brightly, but there’s a cloud over his face.

It is not easy waiting for a friend to die.

____

It’s clear that the clock is ticking for your grandfather. Aziraphale makes the most of his time and hosts a bridge game.

Your father passes it up to take up the bulk of restoration, catching up where the old man left off. But your grandmother does not fuss at the idea of her husband playing, with so little time left for him, and sends you with a wheelchair and a stockpot of soup, fresh bread, meringues and a couple bottles of wine.

The fourth player is a friend of Aziraphale, who looks as different from the portly, chipper bookkeeper as a house wren does from a vulture. “S’ alright. I know how to play.” Mr. Crowley promises, grinning as he opens the first bottle of wine while the table is set up. In spite of promises to your grandmother not to gamble, you don’t think the game is quite the same betting over cookies or candy like you do for family events and you bring a few wads of cash from the bank.

You knew your grandfather would cheat, but Aziraphale and Crowley are so rampant in their sleight of hand, round after round, that you’re certain all four of you have your own games you are playing. The rules of bridge aren’t just flouted, they are flipped upside down as each of you take turns calling the others out, sometimes failing. Crowley groans aloud when Aziraphale “magically” reveals a card hidden under your collar, and you snort with laughter when your grandfather states you all had seen it peeking from the cuff of his jacket for the past five minutes. The money switches hands so frequently that there is no clear winner by the time the food is eaten and the wine is drunk. Your grandfather had far more glasses than he needs, but he has regained his fire for the night and Aziraphale plays his collection of records in the background.

The Glenn Miller Orchestra is still playing in the background as everyone’s energy slows. Dirty dishes are stacked next to a set of books, and you absently hope they don’t join the list of books to restore when Aziraphale holds up his glass, with barely any wine left, tipsy and flushed with enjoyment. “Well that was a wonderful fiasco. Absolutely tickety-boo.”

“Tickety-boo?” You and your grandfather say at once. It is just so inherently British that it doesn’t occur to you that it might be a real word. Crowley rolls his eyes and finishes off the wine straight from the bottle, stumbling to stand up. “Right, that’s the end of the night for me. ‘M off.”

There is clear endearment as Aziraphale walks him to the door, and you see the drowsiness in your grandfather’s eyes as you help clean up and wheel his chair to the car. “This really was fun. Grandmother would be livid at all the cheating.” You remark, rubbing your eyes. It isn’t a long drive home, and your bed beckons. “But it isn’t really bridge without cheating.”

“No, I suppose not.” Aziraphale chuckles. “Do you…need some time off?”

You’re confused. But it’s clarified that he wants you to spend some time with the old man dozing off in the backseat.

“No.” You turn down the offer. “He’ll let me know when he needs me. But right now he needs these books to be alright.” You climb into the drivers seat, and wave goodbye as you pull from the curb.

_____

It’s all very normal until one afternoon when you get the call from home. To your surprise, he asks you to bring Aziraphale along.

“This house used to be a cooper workshop. For casks and things like that. They rented out the space to wineries to store their vintages.” Your grandfather explains as you push him along a familiar route away from the workshop to a back room saved for storage. “The levels go very deep, and on paper it’s supposed to be full of ducts for heating and conditioning and all that. Me and my friends worked years to get it sealed up and safe. Before we all had to collectively hide our books under our beds or in fake book covers.”

He fishes out a key hidden under his bed-shirt and unlocks a hidden door behind an old, old bookshelf.

The elevator is noisy, but it’s brief. When Aziraphale catches sight of the dark room, you can see him taking in what is decades of work. Everything organized and sorted, and packed in rows of shelves listed by author, print date, and title. “There must be at least half a million books in here at least. I could do that much.” Your grandfather muses. “I keep the ledgers secret to know for sure, but I’ve spent more money on this room than I have on my own wellbeing.”

There is a safe in the back he shows to Aziraphale. No one outside of the family has ever seen its contents before…not even his closest friends. It is the same one rescued from the smoldering wreckage of his father’s bookshop, still somewhat melted on one side. But the lock still works and your grandfather turns the well memorized combination and the safe clicks open.

Inside there is no rare book. Instead, it is the family tree, hand written with photographs leading up to the present. Marking the page with your birthday is the Star of David, still on its gold chain and kept safe all these years.

“No one else can have this.” Your grandfather states. “This is something that cannot be bought or sold. Our memories.” He lets out a shuddering breath. “Our legacy. Criminal as it may be, I’m not ashamed of how I lived my life.” Inside there is a picture of your great-grandfather before he died, in front of that little corner shop in Poland. A boy is sitting on the stoop by him, with a glimmer in his eye. Neither of them know their fate, and are frozen in a past vision of joy.

“There is nothing to be ashamed of.” Aziraphale says, very softly. It’s strange. He seems to recognize the figures in the photo. “Life is meant to be enjoyed.”

That is the last time your grandfather ever sets foot in the secret library. You all share books, stories, memories, times when life and limb were at risk, and books that changed you. Two nights later, your grandfather falls asleep in his chair after lunch and does not wake up.

____

The funeral is crowded. Even though most of the attendees are very old, your grandfather’s death draws a mass of friends, colleagues, and all of the family. Former officers of the British Secret Service, librarians and antiquarians, the entire staff from the Oxford Literary Club. You haven’t really started crying yet, though it seems your grandmother and father can’t stop.

Aziraphale shows up, with flowers, and catches you after the service is done, rubbing at your eyes and trying to regain your composure. As soon as he rubs your back and gives you comfort, there is an ethereal presence you can’t quite name that dries your eyes and lifts your spirits.

“I imagine my great-grandfather will have a laugh when he sees him.” You still have red-rimmed eyes and a runny nose, but your heart is on the mend. “His naughty son, stealing books for a living.”

Aziraphale is close by when the procession goes to a cemetery outside of London, and your grandfather is buried on the coast that he first stepped foot on when he escaped to England. Your grandmother may never fully mend from this, the love of her life, but you know she will remember him well.

When the rest of the guests depart with their condolences, Aziraphale waits longer until your father gives him leave to go, and even then he watches in worry on the sidewalk while waiting for his cab.

____

Life is quieter. But little changes, except now the key to the family secret hangs on your neck.

Aziraphale surprises you with another treasure, first edition of Treasure Island with fantastic illustrations. When you try to return it after reading, he shakes his head and pushes it back. It was a gift to keep. Not for the vault below the firm, but something that is well looked after on your shelf, with a scribbled note from Aziraphale inside the cover. It’s the kind of compliment that would make your grandfather blush with pride.

A story for the rebels and thieves. A.Z. Fell

In two more years the work is done. You have more copies in the vault than you started out with, and Aziraphale has more manuscripts for works he had not had before. Sometimes you break up work to play cards, with the enigmatic Crowley passing through just when Aziraphale mentions the idea of playing, and sometimes you both just sit in silence to read your new copies or something else on the shelf. You’ve tried to extend the lease of work to do, offering to put new covers on the manuscripts for Aziraphale to enjoy and to keep them alive for longer, and the two of you deeply enjoy the fine art of tartan printed covers. There are so many conversations. So many books.

But you cross the last book off your list and pack the dusty suitcase with your tools. There’s a fine ring of dust from where they have been removed, and you wait even longer to dust it off and give it a good polish.

“You don’t need an excuse to visit, I promise.” Aziraphale states. “And I expect you around for tea, as often as you can.”

“Same.” You smile brightly. You’re a little rosier now too after all. Who wouldn’t be with a place like this? “Grandmother wants you around for dinner more often. Don’t worry about calling ahead, she always makes enough.” You two are still shaking hands goodbye and do so until finally you know to break it off. He follows you outside to the side of the car before you finally ask.

“When we broke Grandfather out of the hospital-“ You finally express your curiosity. “-how did you get them to do it?”

Aziraphale wiggles his finger. “Just a miracle or two.”

You can’t help but roll your eyes.

You suppose he will always be something of a mystery.

The car starts up and you wave out the window as you drive away from Soho. Back home, where you have your family and your bed with all your books. Home where you keep your secrets close and remember them well.

And in his shop, an angel opens a chapter on a new book and begins to read.

#good omens #aziraphale #crowley #good omens aziraphale #good omens crowley #aziraphale/reader #aziraphale x reader

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graffitibible · 4 years

Note

PLEASE dig more into the intricacies of ghoul and gogo's relationship I'd LOVE to hear more!!

OH THANK GOD, i have SO MANY THOTS about this relationship

im putting this under a cut because it got. ridiculously long lmao. im sorry you can indulge me if you want

one of the hardest things about writing ghouls pov is that he is, consistently, a ridiculously unreliable narrator. their awareness of themself and other people is on so many different levels of disordered thinking and his sense of self is so distorted by a chemical cocktail of neuroses, compartmentalized trauma, and a lifetime of severe self-loathing. they’re like ten layers deep into this mental bullshit and don’t have the tools to unpack it. whenever ghoul meets someone new, theres a fundamental paranoia and fear regarding what their motives might be in regards to him. thats why they approach everything with so much defensiveness and the general assumption that someone has an ulterior motive. this is actually pretty common coming from kids with roughed up backgrounds like ghoul’s. unprompted kindness absolutely terrifies him because they assume theres some kind of trick there - historically, all the people in his life who were supposed to be “safe” weren’t so this is one of the rules of the world that ghoul’s internalized as fact. and because ghoul is scared basically all the time they tend to grab that fear and channel it into being angry instead because that nets him more control of the situation.

basically: ghoul is two thousand tons of radioactive maladaptive coping mechanisms packed into a five foot two goblin who hates the idea of being scared all the time and has chosen instead to channel all that fear into being An Absolute Nightmare.

narratively, i needed ghoul to have at least one positive relationship in his life so that there was a basis for some good relationships in the fabulous four collective. i needed ghoul to have some kind of context of “this is what it’s like to trust someone, this is what it’s like to love someone so goddamn much you’d do unspeakable things to keep them safe, this is what it’s like to have someone in your life who has your back unconditionally.” granted, thats not how this relationship ended, but at least for a minute there, gogo and ghoul had each other’s backs. that was important because i needed ghoul to have some experience in navigating a positive relationship.

it wasn’t originally gonna be newsagogo, but i did know that gogo was gonna cross paths with ghoul prior to their run-in with poison and kobra - this was something i settled on sometime while i was writing part two of “starry-eyed.” gogo was meant to be a) one of the ways to contextualize a lot of the Shit in the zones that ghoul didn’t have an opportunity to learn about on their own time and b) one of the key ways that ghoul gets to cement a real genuine sense of justice. prior to that, ghoul had this unfocused hatred of bli the way most people in the zones do but didn’t have a real big picture understanding of how best to chip away at that kinda construct. the closest thing to it was gangs that were super bloodthirsty and liked to hunt dracs for sport but these groups weren’t interested in dismantling the institution of bli, just the catharsis of blasting dracs to hell and back. so when i got to this run-in proper, there were enough similarities in their characters (both tech-heads, both with some deep-seated vendettas against bli, both prone to couching their Real Problems in humor and deflection, etc.) for me to go “hang on.....what if....” and i could kill 2 birds with one narrative stone.

that being said oh man i did not expect writing that relationship to hurt the way it did.

because on a lot of levels, these two really got each other! ghoul can read gogo’s expressions and body language so easy. ghoul, like jet, is an extrovert; he recharges best around people they trust. gogo’s the same. like, one thing i feel like i didn’t do well enough in that chapter was cement that, objectively speaking, gogo didn’t strictly need ghoul’s help. newsagogo is fully capable of setting up and running that station all on their own. ghoul suspected this from the start, sure, but gogo has a good grasp of tech and could probably do most of the setup herself. BUT she offers this hand to him because she doesn’t like running this station alone. she likes people and likes being around people - hence why she’s so desperate to get herself really networked into the desert and capable of calling up other dj buddies of hers. it’s pretty common practice for a dj to have a partner or team to back them up (in case they need a runner, in case they need to pack their stuff and go, in case they need someone to spot them, etc.) so gogo was in the market for that - and ghoul was a good candidate. a tech-brain, someone good with radios and obscure gear? that’s ideal runner material, and gogo doesn’t have to do this shit on her own.

and newsagogo was a really good influence on ghoul in a lot of ways. she’s the first person to go “hey let’s just do shit for fun” without any ulterior motive. takes them out drinking for fun, likes to drink soda on the roof for fun (this did not always end well but the intention was in the right place). that’s a new thing for ghoul, who’s always felt fundamentally unwanted. in every group and crew and relationship he’s had prior to this one, there was always the undercurrent of “they’re using me. they’re using me and once they’re done using me they’re gonna ditch me or kill me.” so while gogo’s doing these casual bonding activities ghoul is like WHAT IS THE ULTERIOR MOTIVE HERE and their paranoia is eating away at him and theres really honestly no other shoe that needs to drop here but thats not something that registers on ghoul’s radar.

even with that rocky start ghoul was picking up a lotta stuff from gogo, like that aforementioned sense of justice. and it was with a positive relationship like that one that i could bring out just how person-oriented fun ghoul is. like, the way i write the fab four, someone like party poison is task-oriented. fun ghoul (and jet star, actually) are both person-oriented. that’s why fun ghoul becomes so ride-or-die for newsagogo. this is actually like...their default state of being if allowed to get close to people lol. fun ghoul has a distorted sense of self that causes him to rank their own safety and self-worth way below everyone else’s along with a default propensity to love people...deeply. ghoul loves people ungently. they love people with everything they are. will easily put himself in a position to die if it means that the people they love are safe. part of this is setting up just how easy it was for the fab four and ghoul in particular to make that suicidal, sacrificial call in “SING” but part of this is just who fun ghoul is as a person. so when gogo gets hurt, ghoul goes ahead and conjures up every scrap of leverage he has against tommy chow mein and basically sets it on fire because that’s what ghoul loving someone is like. it’s ghoul trying to take apart anything that threatens the people they give a shit about and being wholly capable and willing to set himself on fire to keep the people they love warm.

they complimented each other incredibly well in a way that surprised me. like, ghoul gets people in a way gogo doesn’t, and vice versa. gogo has the attack plan and knows how they intend to set about dismantling bli with careful, calculated movements, but ghouls the one that suggests “hey, you know that if youre a dj you actually have a lot of political capital in the zones, technically??” like not with those words but thats the basic gist behind what they suggested. prior to that it didn’t occur to gogo to use DJing as a route to get what they needed but DJs have a lot of clout in the zones with the right crowds and ghoul’s hunch turned out to be correct. gogo’s the person who can do the face-to-face interactions in a clear and concise way, who can sell good headlines on the airwaves, but ghouls the one who comes at those interactions with the requisite suspicion to realize when things could be off - it’s that paranoid initiative that saves gogo’s life when that bomb goes off.

ofc once ghoul realized that they gave this much of a shit about newsagogo he immediately tried to stop thinking about it because this kind of unconditional caring for someone? that’s brand new. and it terrifies the shit out of him. because all of a sudden, ghoul doesn’t have the handy back door that they’ve always had. if shit really gets bad, he tells himself consistently, they can just leave. they can ditch whoever they’re with and it’ll be fine. but when ghoul gives this much of a shit about someone, the idea of leaving feels like trying to carve your heart out with a spoon. every time gogo expressed this casual affection ghoul does his best to brush it aside or willfully forget it - but they dont, really. subconsciously that’s always there. and no matter what kind of bad blood manages to end up between them, ghoul can’t forget that this is the first person who he actually wanted to call a friend; they keep that pendant gogo gave him for the rest of their life.

but ultimately, the pair of them fell apart because they both grew in such a way that they couldnt be in each other’s lives forever. gogo prioritizes the cause over her interpersonal relationships; that’s just the kind of person they are in this stage of rebellion against bli. gogo can look at her personal happiness and acknowledge that something like that is secondary to their goals. war is about sacrifice and gogo understands this. newsagogo knows that she might not survive to the end of it, knows full well that their agents might not survive to the end of it, and has accepted these consequences. losing some of their agents doesn’t shake gogo the same way it does ghoul.

because ghoul’s the kind of person who can’t accept that. this is the first positive relationship he’s had in their life and he doesn’t wanna lose it. he doesn’t wanna lose newsagogo over a big blanket cause. the seeds for that kind of “will die bleeding for this cause” are there, but ghoul is a socially-oriented person and very person-oriented in general. and fundamentally, fun ghoul is a deeply compassionate person who can’t help but empathize: the micro will always supersede the macro. it’s easier for ghoul to charge into battery city to save a little girl than it would to charge into battery city for a vaguely defined reason that might further a broader cause.

unfortunately, because gogo and ghoul had two such different approaches to this and because ghoul is a volatile person, they did that thing where uh. again, this is pretty common in abuse survivors, but ghoul did that thing where he detonates their positive relationships because this was always a foregone conclusion to someone ensconced in so many paranoid maladaptive coping mechanisms and at least this way, with ghoul going off, the relationship gets to detonate in a way that ghoul can control. a lot of those moments where ghoul acts like an absolute little nightmare have to do with that notion of control; this way, fun ghoul gets to decide when and how the relationship ends and for someone who did not get a lot of control over anything in their early life, this is how he compensates.

i wrote this fuckin. tragic “friends who drifted apart, who didn’t see the cracks in the foundation of their relationship until they were using them to splinter themselves away from each other” with no basis in anything canon and fucked myself up over it and why did i do this?

this was an essay and a half but yeah feel free to yell at me about newsagogo and fun ghoul cause THATS a niche fucking friendship i didnt expect to mess me up the way it did

#danger days #fun ghoul #newsagogo #anon #*fabrication #i feel like i didnt even touch on everything lol #me tears in my eyes: im doing this for narrative purposes. it is for narrative purposes #i tricked myself into caring about this friendship and then it hurt. oh lord but it hurt #oh yes almost forgot: cw for some brief mention of abuse #its more like 'this is a mindset significant/common to abuse survivors' but stay safe friendos #ohhh my god tumblr what did you do to cut feature why is it like that #functional. functional website!

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skepticaloccultist · 4 years

Text

The Society with No Name

I had taken the train in from our temporary accommodation in the English countryside to deal with a few pressing matters back in London. Our house in Hackney has been packed, and while most of it will go to storage some is on its way to Portugal. We have taken offices there, and are preparing to sign the papers for our new home in Portugal in the coming days.

There are many things I will miss about London, though these days of plague mean that I miss them already. The bookshops and private libraries, the lectures and occasional events that bring me out into the night. But this country has become a shambles, and more sensible accommodation is in our future.

Among those things that I will think of even in the brightest of Portuguese sunshine is a place that I have come to consider a second home in London. One of the few reclusive lairs in central London that affords one such as myself a bit of respite, and a proper coffee, or whiskey as the case may be.

Located down a street too narrow for any but foot traffic, two right turns from Leicester Square station, is a rather peculiar building that seems to have grown like a weed among the more traditional structures around it.

Painted these days where there is wood on its two facades in a dark blue, the building is narrow at its base, a corner slot some 20 feet on either of its two street facing sides. Stretching some five or so stories tall it is impossibly angled outward over the sidewalk as it rises. Not in any modernist architectural style, just in a centuries long battle with gravity.

The door is nondescript, black painted wood under a stone mantel that bears the number "13", though the vagaries of London's postal code system mean that it hasn't had that number as a street address since shortly after Queen Victoria expired.

If one were to knock at the door, no one would answer. To enter, one needs to have a key.

+++

I became a member or "key holder" of the society sometime during the summer of 2009. It had long been on the fringes of my social group, small though it has always been. Though it was only through a chance meeting of a standing member that I was invited to join.

As many will know I have spent my life politely declining membership in a range of secret societies, handshake clubs, and masonic fraternities dressed up in various historic ethnographic fashions. I have never been much on membership in anything, initiatory or otherwise. I am not a very social fellow when it comes down to it.

It was the complete lack of any "club" like structure that the society presented that drew my attention. Members are not encouraged to interact, no events public or otherwise are planned. One simply pays annual dues and receives a key that grants them access to the building, including a small lobby bar staffed 24 hours a day, a number of rooms of various sizes furnished with arrangements of chairs and tables with doors that can be closed, and access to one of the largest private esoteric libraries in the world, taking up an entire floor of the building.

Not only is one not compelled by the society to interact with other members, but if you have not been introduced it is considered impolite to attempt conversation. Ideal for the recluse who seeks a perfect Turkish espresso at 1am, with the least amount of social interaction possible.

When one has entered through the front of the building the hall is modestly lit, a short entry that has a coat room to one side and opens into a sort of lobby, with a cafe style bar set into the rear of a small room, a few chairs and a table or two along one wall and three booths along another.

The bartender on duty never comes from behind the bar to serve, and it is expected that each member bus their own tables before they leave. A hallmark of the society is courteousness.

Opposite the entry way across the tiny lobby is the staircase, which goes upward around a tattery old iron lift. The stairs creak as you climb them, but the hand railing is fixed solid. Not something that can be said for the lift.

I have ridden the lift on several occasions, each time being reminded why no one ever rides in the lift. The noise alone is enough to think a banshee was the operator.

One climbs the slender stairs, pausing on the occasional landing to peer out of the crooked windows onto the street below. No one ever seems to be on the streets when you look out of the windows, regardless of how crowded the streets were just moments ago when you were approaching the building.

On each floor the stairs open to a landing that leads into various rooms. Some more private than others. The rooms are decorated minimally, with shelves of books and curiosities left over the years by members.

On the third floor is the library.

+++

The origins of the society seem to have come out of a select group within the British supper club the "Ye Sette of Odd Volumes." Members of that organization seem to have acquired the building in the early 1900s and from there the society evolved.

It is unknown to current members who actually owns the building, or if the society holds it in some obscure trust. Though a general trust fund was setup in the 1950s and covers staff pay and building upkeep, the annual dues each member pays seem to come to about the required budget each year.

The building was built sometime in the 18th century, though from its ill fitting the upper few stories must have been a later addition. Typical of the period the rooms are mostly wood trimmed plaster walls. Each of the member rooms is painted in a particular colour scheme, though these seem to change as years go by.

As was typical of societies of the early 20th century membership is coed, with women being key holders from the beginning. The only restriction to membership is that members must live within commuting distance of London. Those members that leave the region must relinquish their key. It is intended as a place of solitude for those who need it in their dealings with the city, a place to coordinate and consult with the volumes in the library.

It is said among older members that the building was a well known opium den in the late 19th century, frequented by literary types and dragon chasing aristocrats. The layout of the rooms certainly lends itself to the idea of opium beds and servitors, with the rooms' high ceilings perfectly suited to smoke filled chambers.

The rooms on the top two floors of the building are more open, like small ballrooms. Though furnished with a few chairs they are easily emptied out for purposes privy to only the society members behind closed doors. These rooms, unlike those on the lower floors, have windows that can be opened. It is considered polite to book a room ahead on the calendar if one plans to need it for more than a day, though exceptions are often made.

+++

Unlike the other floors, which are divided into smaller rooms, the landing of the third floor has only a single door, made of glass and requiring a key to open, the same as the buildings front door. This is the entrance to the society's library, a densely packed but well organized room full of books, maps, papers and other ephemera.

The society's library grew out of the private libraries and individual donations of previous members of the society, usually upon their death. It takes up the entire third floor, with fiction and other non essential volumes found across the shelves of many of the members rooms on other floors.

The first member whose private collection was to form the core of the original library, who willed a portion of their collection to the society upon their death, was William Sharp, former Golden Dawn member and founder of the Celtic Society. After his collection was sorted other members began to add works, then as members passed on it became a custom for their private libraries to be donated to the society.

By the end of the second World War a librarian had been employed as part of the staff trust. Initially just a job of sorting and keeping records it has evolved into a more curatorial role as the members who donate their collections often have a great overlap in their private libraries' holdings and there is only so much space on the third floor.

Works from the library can not be removed from the building. Anyone attempting to do so is banned without recourse. They may be taken to the members rooms but must be signed out at the time, though signing out is on an honors system of a paper list on a clipboard near the library door. In the history of the society a book has never gone missing.

The holdings of the library are much of what you would expect, rare volumes, original manuscripts. The society holds the personal papers and effects of several of its former members. Possibly my favorite object in the library, though in no way occult, is a stack of love letters written between botanist and writer Edith Wheelwright and Beatrix Potter in the late 1920s. An eloquent longing preserved in a private way that will never be seen by public eyes. The two women's handwriting alone makes one ache with decadence.

+++

The gentleman who primarily works behind the bar is an eloquent older Italian who speaks a dozen languages in passing and can read one's tarot on a rainy day. He makes a distinguished espresso as well.

I have long attempted to get him to stock some pastries at the bar but he refuses, serving only liquids hot and cold. On days where I am holed up in one of the rooms I often pop around the corner to an unremarkable ramen noodle shop. A tiny place decorated in a trendy colourful style but a passing bowl of noodles if one knows how to order.

I was able, sometime after a year or so of being a key holder, to insist that the bar stock my preferred bourbon. Though I had to personally supply the first few bottles kept behind the counter they eventually began to replenish themselves.

I do run into friends who are also members occasionally on the stairs, though more often I am in the building to meet them directly during daylight hours. The hours I generally keep tend to be late, and while there are others who frequent the society at similarly nocturnal intervals, like myself, they keep to themselves and their business.

It will be a shame to have to hand in my key in the coming month, I will be unable to spend as much time as I would have liked here in this comfortable late 19th century chair, whose time for a reupholstering was ages since, and to look out of the window on the landing outside of the library, where no one ever passes by below regardless of the time of day, and the park across the way from the building seems to go unnoticed to anyone but the squirrels.

Perhaps London will lure me back one day, after the plague and the war have passed? Previous members in good standing are always welcome to return if they find themselves living full time in London again. In the meantime I drink a final espresso or two from Silvio, taking the bourbon with me, and spend some time in the library saying my goodbyes.

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mz-elysium · 4 years

Photo

Wow. That was a lot longer than I planned. Do we even do comic sans wip posts anymore? It it cool? Am I cool?

Photo ID below the cut because this is already way too fucking long of a post. And this ID, bc of it, is so so long.

Photo ID: a 13 slide Comic Sans font powerpoint about an original WIP. All slides but the first are white, black text, all font being Comic Sans to follow the meme.

Slide 1: black background, white text. Titled with red shadow: The City of Fallen Angels: (2) Hitaeth. Definition below: hiraeth: homesickness or nostalgia, an earnest longing for an idealised past, or a sense of regret. Around this title are a bunch of floating descriptors about the WIP: vampires, gothic-punk, regrets vs forgiveness, dark urban fantasy, historical 2003, 4 POVs, secrets, political intrigue, slice of life, compassion vs selfishness, vampires playing Game of Thrones, grimdark and also hopepunk. A Vampire the Masquerade canon divergent original novel.

Slide 2: Worldbuilding, about the Vampire the Masquerade world. Titled: The canon sects but like a little more nuanced. Three columns of bullet points follow.

The first is the Camarilla.

neo-feudal lords and princes

rule most of the world

want to rule the rest of it

scheming, old elders who don’t give a shit about anyone else

will kill your family to make a point

BUT ALSO.

stable domains; due process

clan culture, history, tradition

connected to wider vampire society

play their game and you can live as a peaceful peasant (mostly)

The second column is the Anarchs.

rebellious neonates/ancillae

in their Free States, there’s opportunity for power and to live your own life

neonates can actually own land??

ALSO

literal anarchy

no real oversight or leadership

can and will be killed by another gang

“if you can hold it, you can have it”

Third column is the Sabbat

worship Caine as the First Murderer (first vampire)

take “vampire” too literally

inhuman monsters

war cult readying for Armageddon

ALSO

profoundly religious

strict code of honour

accept their inhumanity (no angst)

tight-knit family-like packs

heroes/crusaders for their ppl

Slide 3: Titled: Have a shitty map. A Google map screenshot of Central Los Angeles, with highlighted sections in different colours, clearly done in Paint by a child. Seven sections are highlighted, explained on the next slide.

Slide 4: The lands are divided by the sect who control it.

Anarchs:

Angels Wasteland: remains of the #peaceful Barony of Angels. With Salvador Garcia’s death, it’s a shitshow chaotic warzone.

Tinseltown: Isaac Abrams, movie baron, just wants to be left alone.

East LA: ruled by loyalists of the Old Guard Anarchs, who are all dead/gone. Sabbat from further east are smelling weakness.

Downtown: technically “no baron” but also nines is baron. Typical Anarchs, shooting each other, living rough, living free. OR ARE THEY???

Camarilla:

The Valley: a praxis backed by legendary elders, who are propelled by faceless masters, using unwilling Prince Barty Vaughn as a pawn

Westside: greedy and ambitious LaCroix goes “hmm. la looks like shit. probably wanna get in on that” and calls up his contact, Therese Voerman and says “yo. u got a barony, huh? wanna be my seneschal?”

“Independent”

Silver Lake: a desperate grab by Monroe and co to build their own “utopia” … sorta like the Anarchs 60yrs ago… and look how THAT went. Monroe ate the last Old Guard Anarch.

Slide 5: Titled: Monroe’s POV, with a subtitle of The Captain. On the left, a photo of half of a man’s face in shadow. He has dark hair, pale skin, blue eyes, and a hard expression. Bullet points describe him as Matthew Monroe, Clan Ventrue, Embraced 1873, Humanity 5, age 28. On the right, a series of bullets describe his POV’s story.

this is a dude drowning in an ocean of Problems and his catchphrase is “I’ll figure it out”

he owes a life debt to the enigmatic powerful archon in the Valley (Jan Pieterzoon), who seems to respect/honour him more than most of LA.

he used to be besties with the Valley Prince (Barty Vaughn), who he can’t trust but seems? the same?

he turned his ghoul and secret love into a vampire (Hawthorne), against her wishes, and now she hates him. monroe: u kno what? that’s fair.

Silver Lake is held together with duct tape. monroe’s right hand (Ashley Swan) is a nightmare and untrustworthy. his people try to kill each other.

he’s got a lot of unresolved trauma/grief/abuse/anger and vampires sort of have “The Beast”, a spirit that haunts them with evil

and oh yeah, LA is about to explode

Slide 6: Titled: Monroe’s supporting characters. Four characters, each of them have a photo, a title, and brief run-on description.

First, a photo of a very pale man with purple eyes and a lock of ice blonde hair. Ashley Swan, the Thorn, Clan Toreador. Monstrously cruel, sarcastic, hedonistic, aggressive, sadistic, can’t be trusted, doesn’t wear shirts. Bisexual transman.

Second, a photo of a dour woman with dark hair. Audrey Hawthorne, the Lovechilde, Clan Ventrue. Blinded by the Embrace, furious, frustrated, grieving, snarky, over accomplished, creative, passionate.

Third, a man in a black suit looking over a ballroom with a crystal chandelier. Jan Pieterzoon, the Kingmaker, Clan Ventrue. 300 year old, archon, elder, sire is Camarilla big-shot, dignified, mysterious, chessmaster, honourable, elite.

Fourth, a man in a dress shirt, sleeve rolled up, hand extended with a cigarette and bloody palm. Barty Vaughn, the Valley Prince, Clan Ventrue. Former Anarch, Prince of San Francisco, now reluctant Prince of LA. Smokes like a chimney, lives to fuck Tremere and have fun.

Slide 7: Titled: Zari’s POV, with a subtitle of The Black Rose. On the left, a photo of a beaming dark-skinned Black woman with bouncy coily black hair. Bullet points describe her as Zari Adeyemi-Swan, Clan Toreador, Embraced 1973, Humanity 6, age 27. On the right, a series of bullets describe her POV’s story.

life sucks, it’s cruel, and there’s no point thinking on the past, even when the past comes to haunt you

she fled her foster sire and once-lover (Ashley Swan) for his cruelty to others, but now he offers maybe?genuine? amends.

thirty years ago, she left her human children. her daughter (Aisha Adeyemi) has been Embraced and brings bad news

her main way of #coping is working and distracting herself. she throws herself to infiltrate the Westside Camarilla court (Sebastian LaCroix), against all good advice.

soon after she arrives, she finds herself having a secret admirer (Mercurio), who reminds her how precious it is to be loved, held, and cared for — but they need to overcome their own instincts to accept what they could have

The Voerman sisters are in the thick of it all, making perfect cautionary allies and, if she can overcome her preconceptions, friends.

and oh yeah, LA is about to explode

Slide 8: Titled: Zari’s supporting characters. Four characters, each of them have a photo, a title, and brief run-on description.

First, a photo of a white man wearing mirrored sunglasses in front of orange-pink neon. It casts his face and smile eerily. Ashley Swan, the Foster Sire, Clan Toreador, monstrously cruel, charismatic, loyal, thorough, too clever, pleasurable. Bi transman.

Second, a photo of a white man in a suit, adjusting his cuffs. Sebastian LaCroix, the Westside Prince, Clan Ventrue, opportunistic benefactor, greedy, ambitious, petulant, ruthless, degrading.

Third, a white man in a paisley shirt, gold necklaces, putting a hand to a tattooed and exposed chest. Mercurio, the Admirer, LaCroix’s Ghoul, resourceful, sweet, empathetic, capable, romantic, salt of the earth, former Mafia hitman.

Fourth, a white woman in a black suit with delicate gold jewelry. The Voermans, the Mirrored Sisters, Clan Malkavian; one is brutal, calculating, patient, reckless, the other is seductive, fun-loving, innovative, insightful.

Slide 9: Titled: Charlie’s POV, with a subtitle of The Moonchilde. In small text, a line says “a.k.a. Me processing grief over my mother #coping. On the left, a photo of a sad-faced white woman with freckles, black eyeliner, and frizzy brown curls. Bullet points describe her as Charlie Bradley, Clan Malkavian, Embraced 2003, Humanity 8, age 20, lesbian. On the right, a series of bullets describe her POV’s story.

life is getting back to normal? well, “new normal”

as a new adult, she has a good ol’ fashioned “start of life” crisis: who am I? where do I fit in? complicated by her mother’s death a year ago. what sort of woman am I? how does this figure into my attraction to women?

maybe. maybe. maybe monroe is cold and distant and ruling a vampire kingdom, but he wants to look after me. maybe i should let him.

also, hey, you (Jesse Harper) get it. and you’re hurting. let me help, let me be your soft place to land. wow, okay, this is kissing.

she didn’t mean to ruin her sire’s (Rhys Wilson) life. but, she did. she killed his mentor. SHHH! secret! she feel bad. maybe friends? uh, okay, weirdo. maybe D&D.

she’s learning to deal with feeding on scumbags and giving what people got coming to them. and the Cobweb, supernatural psychosis

WHY ARE VAMPIRES LIKE THIS? WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG? FFS

and oh yeah, LA is about to explode

Slide 10: Titled: Charlie’s supporting characters. Three characters, each of them have a photo, a title, and brief run-on description.

First, a white man in the middle of screaming, his head swaying back and forth so it looks like he has three heads. Rhys Wilson, the Sire, Clan Malkavian, weirdo, prime D&D fanatic and DM, just wants friends, and vengeance, pulls pranks to teach lessons. Gay.

Second, a very strong white woman with her arms crossed, a tattoo on one, and a t-shirt that is obscured but clearly says “The future is female”. Jesse Harper, the Darkness, Clan Lasombra, former vampire hunter, reluctant vampire, brooding, mysterious, sullen, black trench coat, buff as fuck, brave. Lesbian.

Third, a pair of clasped hands, male over female. Monroe, the Stepsire, Clan Ventrue, fucking old, inhuman, kills too easily, sincere, honourable, intense, gives good advice but really should shut his mouth hole.

Slide 11: Titled: Jack’s POV, with a subtitle of The Lone Wolf. On the left, a photo of a sad-faced strong Chinese man with a shaggy and tufted mullet. Bullet points describe him as Jack Shen, Clan Gangrel, Embraced 1955, Humanity 7, age 25, gay. On the right, a series of bullets describe his POV’s story.

why does he always end up alone? people leave, people die, people drift and change, but the good times were worth it

he’s always had a rocky relationship with his lover (Ryuko Saito), but now the dumbass has found a cult promising power.

he hasn’t lost him. he hasn’t. him and ryu just take time apart sometimes. but it’s been a long fucking while. and jack isn’t sure who he is alone anymore. a new human friend (Dustin Cohen), working at his animal hospital gives new life.

his former best friend (Damsel) has dove deep into Downtown and managing as Nines’ lieutenant, bringing him more and more dirty work to clean up

monroe relies on him to reign in the chaos of vampires trying to live without killing each other.

and oh yeah, LA is about to explode

Slide 12: Titled: Jack’s supporting characters. Three characters, each of them have a photo, a title, and brief run-on description.

First, a young white woman with dyed fire-engine red hair and an Iron Maiden t-shirt. Damsel, the Lieutenant, Clan Brujah, naive, brash, physical, loyal, loud-mouthed, smart.

Second, a skinny man in an ill-fitting Hawaiian shirt and jeans. Ryuko Saito, the Orphan, Mage, power-hungry, desperate, proud, ruthless, loving, isolated, crushingly lonely, gremlin, old and chronic pain, hides and “treats” it with magic.

Third, a white hand extending a hummingbird to fly free. Dustin Cohen, the Receptionist, Human, understanding, the best of Good Dudes, empathetic, kinda lame outsider

Slide 13: Titled: also. A moodboard on the right side includes two weeping stone angels, one at sunset, one in darkness between a tarnished and broken silver crown; a gas station in LA as seen through a rainy car window; grim-looking downtown city buildings; and a sidewalk curb with neon lights reflecting off a puddle and a plastic bag of takeout garbage strewn across.

On the left, bullet points follow.

about 100 million other characters. I legit have a spreadsheet

Everyone is capable of evil

Sins of the sire (father)

Never too late to start being a good person

Takes place about 6 months before Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines

At least one more novel in the works

Subheading, 22/55 chapters written. Gonna start posting September 28.

End ID.

#wip intro #writers of tumblr #writeblr #vtmb #vtm #wip: city of fallen angels #vampires #urban fantasy #original writing #fanfiction #when does fanfiction stop and original writing start?

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ladymoonveil · 4 years

Video

youtube

Mulan: A Case of Failed Empowerment | Video Essay This is an excellent video essay that pretty much sums up how I feel about the new Mulan movie. I highly recommend giving it a watch if you’re interested in learning some things about the tale of Mulan and why the new adaptation is such a fail. While I was disappointed that they are removing all the songs and characters like Mushu and Shang, I was open to the idea of a more character-driven, historically accurate portrayal of Mulan. Sadly, this was not the case at all, and the end result was subpar to say the least. It lacked emotional depth, and if anything the characters are even LESS developed than in the cartoon.

Some additional things not mentioned in the video, is that it feels like Disney tried to make a wuxia film without understanding the fundamentals of the genre, which is why it came off so inauthentic. Right off the bat, the addition of this “witch” character who was “born with powers” is something that you see much more often in Western fantasy compared to Chinese folklore or fiction. (Also, if you’re going to establish this super powerful witch character in your movie, maybe don’t kill her off in the lamest way possible? You inserted a female character who was subservient to her male master, and killed her at the hands of this male master. That's a bad take in a movie supposedly about female empowerment, Disney.)

Even though wuxia can contain fantastical elements, the majority of a character’s skills/powers/“magic” would come from them going through years of training, usually by studying texts or learning from a particular school of martial arts. This is regardless of the character’s moral alignment, as both antagonists and protagonists achieve their success through hard work. (The only exception is if we are talking about monsters or spirits which are magical entities by nature, but the movie makes it clear that the witch is a human.)

The way "qi" is used in this film also feels ridiculous and cringy. No one would talk about her having a "strong qi" or say things like "only men should use their qi" etc. It feels like someone randomly plucked a word from wuxia vernacular then proceeded to use it in all the wrong ways. On the other hand, I've seen some complaints about the characters scaling the sides of the walls, and want to clarify that is a common element in wuxia. The wall scaling is not a problem since they are clearly going for wuxia in terms of fighting abilities, rather than Chinese historical fiction.

The original movie also touches on the horrors of war very effectively, such as the abrupt transition from a song sequence to Mulan coming across the doll in the burned-down village. When you realize that "the girl worth fighting for" is not a dream bride at home but other little girls like Mulan, suddenly the stakes are much higher. The live-action adaptation really doesn't have half the emotional impact when it comes to things like this. The dialogue leaves much to be desired, and I'm low-key salty at the fact that they gave Mulan's "You said you trust Ping; why is Mulan any different?" line to a male soldier instead. (When the emperor accepted the duel with Bori Khan, something that would NEVER happen, it made me facepalm so hard.)

I also don’t understand the reasoning behind removing Mushu, when they literally have a phoenix flying around on screen every 20 minutes. It’s such blatant symbolism that it loses all meaning due to its lack of subtility. One of my favourite sequences in the cartoon is when Mulan decides to take her father’s place while sitting beneath the statue of the Great Dragon, and the implication that the Great Dragon didn’t wake up when called because it was already within Mulan. SHE is the guardian of the Hua family, and I didn’t need to see the great dragon constantly appear beside her in order to infer that.

Regarding the architecture, the emperor’s palace is fairly well done. But the building that Mulan and her family live in is a distinctively Southern Chinese Tulou that’s unique to the Hakka people, while Mulan is from Northern China. It feels like they just went with something that “looked cool” instead of historically/geographically accurate.

Overall, Disney not only failed to capture the emotional depth and energy of the cartoon, they also failed to make a movie with any cultural authenticity. (After finding out that none of the writers or directors had a Chinese background, I understood why.) This is especially disappointing because of how important the Mulan cartoon is to me.

I’m honestly not sure who they made this movie for, because they stripped out everything I liked from the original, and is too “Westernized” and inaccurate for fans of historical Chinese dramas. (Mulan removing her armour and taking down her hair before going back into battle was a pointless reveal that would have only obscured her vision, because both men and women had long hair back then. These are simple things they would have known if they just consulted someone who knows the history and culture.) Even looking at it from a wuxia standpoint, they’ve missed the mark because they don’t really understand the genre and how characters should be developed.

Lastly, can I just say they interpreted the Tang dynasty makeup in the ugliest way possible? I don’t want Fan Bing Bing level glamour makeup, but it’s like they tried their hardest to make everyone look bad. I can squint and maaaayybe give Mulan a pass, but what in the hell is up with the Matchmaker? She looks absolutely horrible, and more like a witch than the actual witch character. 🤦‍♀️

For anyone interested in a scene by scene analysis which goes much more in-depth about all of the cultural inaccuracies, I also recommend this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3QKq24e0HM

#mulan #rant #this was beyond disappointing

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 4 years

Text

Another day of quarantine, another attempt to decipher the secret to one show’s mind-boggling longevity - Are they casting spells on every airdate? Do they have some kind of talisman? Did they make an actual deal with a literal devil to stay on the air this long?? The fact that Jensen Ackles has barely aged a day sure suggests they might have. It’s Supernatural!

I think one of my favorite things so far has been the trailer that plays at the end of “Crossroad Blues” to really make sure you tune into the next episode which...did not play for two weeks. Looking at air dates, “Crossroad Blues” plays on Nov 16, 2006, so that’s right around the Thanksgiving break. Then they come back for ONE episode on Dec 7 and that is their midseason finale. TV programming is wild.

I was like, really into this Bobby Johnson, like...I was into that.

It’s very possible that at this point in the season, SPN is trying real hard to keep their audience. Looking at the numbers for all the episodes leading up to “Croatoan”, they’re only averaging between 3 and 4 million viewers, roughly 1 - 2 million less than where they were at this time in season 1, so it’s easy to see why SPN was on the hook for renewal in season 2. Looking over its ratings for the rest of the season, the audience numbers just keep going down. The show is the number 8 highest rated show on the CW in 2006/07, so technically in the top 10, but it’s tied with Reba and One Tree Hill and the CW only had (16) original programs that year, so it’s not boasting much. These numbers supposedly include Live + 7 day DVR watches, so those numbers really are not good, BUT: starting in January of 2007, the CW started releasing episodes online the day after they aired, so I’m willing to bet that large portions of their audience were still tuning in, just not tuning in in a way that could be tabulated by Neilsen at the time.

It’s also interesting to note that for both season 1 and season 2, the real mythos/lore/arc episodes don’t really start until the midseason. In season 1, it’s not until episode 10, “Scarecrow,” where we’re introduced to Meg and the bigger stakes at hand for the Winchesters. Their search for their father starts ramping up and the show starts subtly shifting away from Finding Dad to Fighting The Boss Fight.

Season 2 is pretty similar. Up until “Croatoan” (episode 9), the show has been about the fallout from John’s death. Finding the yellow-eyed-demon is certainly a driving factor, but it’s very much on the backburner. The show even makes a point to say, hey! Our guys don’t really have any leads, so it’s gonna take a while before we get back to this.

I actually really appreciate that the show takes this much time to let the Winchester process their grief. Kripke and Co. have said numerous times that they realized the episodes that work best are the ones that really dig into the emotional journeys of the characters, so they just went ahead and made that the primary focus of the first half of the season. It gives weight to their loss at the beginning of the season - John’s death is not some throwaway plot point, it’s a real gut punch that our characters aren’t going to get over in a hurry. It also lends weight to the danger the brothers face in the future - John died immediately, who’s to say that won’t happen to Sam or Dean?

I mean, sure buddy, but also...no one here is okay.

Not to mention, John’s deal with the yellow-eyed-demon (+ the events in “Crossroad Blues”) give us a subtle/not-so-subtle hint as to what’s waiting for us at the end of season 2. But we’re not there yet.

Then we’re in “Croatoan” and reminded in full force what our guys are supposed to be fighting this season - not their crippling grief but rather a very present threat to their physical and spiritual well-being. That’s not to say we haven’t had a taste of the Sam-centric plotline that appears in “Croatoan”. BUT I’d argue that even though “Simon Said” deals with the Psychic Children, it’s still only a tease for what those children are capable of. “Croatoan” really drives home the threat from the yellow-eyed-demon, not just from his Psychic Children but also whatever nefarious plans that he’s been cooking for however-long. And it puts this threat front and center as a main quest for the back 13 of the season.

Because of COURSE demon viruses come with their own dusting of sulfur.

Doing the math on this, it looks like SPN had a Front 9/Back 13 split? As in, they got picked up for the first 9 episodes of season 2 but weren’t sure they were going to get those final 13 episodes and that is...crazy? I have not seen any proof this is the case, but it is something to consider for a show that was on the edge of cancellation for this season and last season. It’s possible that the CW was treating all of its programming like they were pilot seasons since this was, essentially, CW’s pilot season, but again - I have no evidence other than this 9/13 split to prove it.

Back to the show. Let me just say: I LOVE “Croatoan.” Any time anyone wants to make up a supernatural reason for an obscure historical mystery, I am ON. BOARD. And the Lost Colony of Roanoke is definitely one of my favorites. I STILL love this episode even though I can hear my friend whispering through the decades, ”The colonists just intermarried with the local native tribe, the Croatoans…” which is apparently actually the answer in real life. But demon viruses are fine, and particularly relevant in The Year of Our Troubles 2020.

CROATOAAAAAAAAA!!!

What also works in “Croatoan” is the dynamics between the brothers that will play out for the rest of the season/series. The groundwork for their big fight at the end of this episode has already been laid in the beginning of the season. On the one hand, you have Dean, who’s lost so much at the hands of the yellow-eyed-demon he can’t stand to lose anymore, especially not his brother. On the other hand, Sam is becoming more like his father - ready and willing to sacrifice whatever needs to be sacrificed to defeat this thing, even if that means giving up his own life. Sam has the same motivation that Dean has but coming from a completely different direction. If his death will save his brother, then he’ll do it, no questions asked, just like John died to save Dean. Neither of the brothers are willing to lose the other and they will go on to make increasingly stupid, selfish decisions to make sure they won’t have to. Yes, I love this show, and I love Sam and Dean, but man they are DUMB BABIES.

OOF.

So we get “Croatoan,” where we see the stakes at hand - the yellow-eyed-demon is out for World Destruction, not just Winchester Destruction. He may have plans for the Psychic Children, but his plans reach far beyond a bunch of 20YO with wacky powers. And when Sam gets infected with the demon virus (LOL, sulfur in the blood?????), he knows he’s a danger to others and is immediately ready to sacrifice his life to keep those around him safe. Dean goes on to prove that this is a line too far - he’ll keep others safe but if the choice is between killing his brother and anything else, he will literally choose anything else. Sam turns out to be fine in a mysterious kind of way, although the town clearly is not, and the boys ride off into the sunset. Then we get the cliffhanger - John told Dean something important that we will not find out until January.

These dolly shots crack me right up.

If you’re watching this in real time, you wait a month for that cliff hanger to resolve itself in “Hunted”. If you are living in the era of streaming, you just skip the closing credits to find out what John said - “He said that I [Dean] had to save you...and that if I couldn't, I'd . . .That I'd have to kill you.”

Are you ever just like, What the actual F*CK, John Winchester?

This is literally Dean’s worst nightmare - having to choose between duty and family. Sam understandably doesn’t take this well to start with, but like in “Croatoan”, he ultimately settles into the idea, which is...deeply upsetting???

“Hunted” does a lot of fun things -

Number 1: We get more of the Psychic Children (because I REFUSE to call them the Special Children, sorrynotsorry). We see that there’s a range of Types, from Scott who definitely looks like a serial killer to Ava, who ultimately goes on to be the headmistress at a secret magic university (OMG, DO watch The Order cuz that shiz is GOLD.)

Seriously, if you liked Supernatural, you will like this show.

Number 2: We get the return of Gordon, this time as a head-on antagonist. Do I like Gordon? No, I find him frustrating at best. But do I LOVE Gordon as an antagonist? Absolutely! He is smart, capable, and (at this point) wholly non-supernatural, Natural, if you will. He’s such a good foil to Sam and Dean and he’s the perfect villain for this moment. He sees the world in only black and white. To him, there’s no moral dilemma as to whether or not the Psychic Children are good or bad - they’re definitely bad and he’s here to stop/kill them. I think he’s an important catalyst for Dean too, since in both of Gordon’s episodes, Dean sees what he could be if it wasn’t for Sam’s influence. He doesn’t want to be like Gordon, so he needs to keep Sam around.

Number 3: Alright, this one isn’t so fun just cuz the final scene is a little sloppy, but Ava turns out to be a good catalyst for Sam. When Ava shows up on screen, she is clearly on Team Cool Kid. She’s totally normal, very Apple Pie, but she shows up to try and save Sam’s life simply because it’s a life that she can (hypothetically) save. She knows nothing about demons or curses or Chosen Ones, she just had a weird dream that gave her a weird feeling and then she acted on out of the goodness of her heart. It’s exactly what Sam does when his dreams kick it into high gear in season 1 (with mixed results). Sam hangs out with Ava, gets to know her, gives her the whole Truth is Out There speech and when she leaves, I actually really appreciate this character. She’s had a wild ride of a day and she is just taking this whole thing totally in stride. Good on you, Ava!

Except, when we get to the end of the episode and Sam tries to check in on her, we find her fiancé with his throat cut, sulfur on the window sill, and Ava nowhere to be seen. Now I don’t remember what I thought the first time I saw this episode, but I don’t believe that Ava killedher fiancé. The show really seems to want me to believe that she killed her fiancé, though, indicating that no matter how cool she was at the beginning of the episode, it’s only a matter of time before all the Psychic Children “go darkside”, as Sam so strangely puts it.

Anyone else this this was a weird line? I thought this was a weird line.

And this is what pushes Sam’s arc through the rest of the season. Our next episode is “Playthings,” which feels like a monster-of-the-week episode where they squeeze in some unrelated emotional drama. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun episode, but SPN is usually better about tying their MotW eps into the emotional character arcs and this one is not as finessed. There’s a little more disconnect here. The important takeaway from “Playthings” is this: seeing Ava “kill” her fiancé convinces Sam that his father was right. Sam may need to be put down, and if that happens, he wants Dean to be the one to do it. Dean agrees, but we all know that he’s doing that just to appease Sam and that he’s still gonna do whatever it takes to save Sam, no matter the cost. Nothing gets resolved and this will definitely come back later.

I mean, yeah that’s probably true.

Some things -

First off: Sam seems to be perfectly OK with this and that...is not OK.

Secondly, SAM?!? WHY would you put that on your brother??

Thirdly, DEAN! Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.

FINALLY, and maybe most importantly, this is the best example I can think of to showcase a character’s greatest strength also being their greatest weakness. The Winchesters are about two things - fighting evil and taking care of family. Done in equal measure, these strengths make them heroic tropes. Taken to extreme situations? Well, now you have two humans wide open to failing at one of these things so bad that the apocalypse literally starts.

What these three episodes remind us, honestly what this whole season so far reminds us, is that Supernatural works because of relationships. The monsters and the mythology and the classic rock are there as a fun framework to get us interested in the show, but it’s the characters that keep us. That’s what viewers connect to. I really appreciate the arguments that Sam and Dean have with each other, starting at the end of season one and up until now in season 2. They feel very deeply rooted in character, not contrived for the sake of Drama. Neither of them is wrong, per se, but then neither of them is right, either. Their emotional backgrounds feel complex and grounded, foundations for real characters, not just the caricatures that you’d expect from a show about ghosts on a network aimed at the 18 - 24 demographic.

See, THIS is the sort of fight you’d expect, not a fight where one brother is begging the other to literally kill him.

And this is gonna be the hill that I’ll die on - characters and relationships are always the heart of any successful franchise. I mean, why else are there so many shipping wars out there? Why write fic if it isn’t to explore relationships and aspects of a character that the show doesn’t present? Sure it’s not the only reason to write fic, but I’d argue it’s a BIG reason.

Because it’s not just the characters building relationships with each other, it's the audience building relationships with those characters (and to a lesser extent, with the world of the story). This is the core of any show that hopes to make it past season one and beyond, no matter the decade, the network, or the platform it airs on. We like stories about people with problems we can relate to. Dysfunctional family trouble? Check. Drama at work? Been there. Feeling like the world’s about to end any second? Oh yes. You can feel those problems deep down in your gut, even if the specifics are different. It doesn’t matter if those people are working in an office or a hospital or hunting down demons in the dead of night. If you can show us people, real people with something we can relate to on a gut level, that’s how you stay on the air for 15 seasons.

#SPN #Supernatural #Supernatural season 2 #Supernatural rewatch #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Crossroad Blues #Croatoan #Hunted #Playthings #CW #TV #TV History #TV Structure #Are you ever just like #What the Actual F*ck John Winchester

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monotonous-minutia · 4 years

Note

How would you like your favorite opera to be staged ideally? (I went off in a Così post and now I need to know the deep opinions about everyone’s favs). Thank you!!

thanks, this is great!

I did a post on Don Carlo a while ago and how I’d stage it so this time I’m going to talk about my other favorite opera, Martha, oder der Markt zu Richmond. It’s very obscure so I’ll start with a brief description of the opera.

It’s a German comic opera about a lady-in-waiting, Harriet, who is super bored with her rich life and decides to go to the fair dressed like a maid with her best friend, Nancy, and a knight, Tristam, who’s in love with her (she does not reciprocate his feelings). At the fair they meet two brothers, Lyonel and Plumkett. Lyonel was was taken in by Plumkett’s family when his mysterious father basically dropped him off at the front step, said “He’s yours now” and then died. Now Plumkett’s parents have died as well and they just inherited the farm and have no clue what they’re doing. So they go to the fair to buy some maids and come across Harriet (who calls herself Martha) and Nancy, who unwittingly sell themselves into servitude because they think it’s all a joke. Well, they get taken to the boys’ farmhouse and naturally they all fall in love with each other by bonding over household chores. Lyonel asks Harriet to marry him and she laughs in his face and he immediately overreacts because Tenor. The boys go to sleep and then Tristam comes and rescues the girls and the boys wake up and find them gone and are super depressed. An ambiguous amount of time later, Plumkett bumps into Nancy in town and she’s on the hunt and she pretends not to recognize him and gets her fellow huntresses to chase him off. Meanwhile, Lyonel is depressed and listless and wandering around and proceeds to sing one of the most famous tenor arias of all time, “Ach, so fromm” (look it up, you’ll probably recognize the tune); the fame of which SHOULD be enough to integrate this opera into common repertory, but alas that is not the case. Anyway, of course at this very moment Harriet is also wandering around in the exact same spot and bumps into Lyonel who instantly recognizes her but is confused as to why she is dressed so fancy. Harriet freaks out and also pretends not to know him and calls for help. Tristam comes and, seeing his rival in love, calls for all the available Big Strong Men to come and save Harriet. Everything gets out of control and Lyonel winds up arrested and is humiliated when he realizes who Harriet actually is. Turns out, though, that his deceased father was a Count and when Harriet finds this out she goes back to him saying they can get married now without backlash because he’s of a higher station. He rejects her because he thinks she only wants him because he’s a count and also he renounces his title. Harriet decides to dress up as Martha again to convince him that she still loves him and is willing to leave all her wealth behind to be with him. Meanwhile, Plumkett and Nancy sing an absolutely delightful love duet. Harriet sets up the farmers’ backyard to look like the fair where she and Lyonel met and he meets her out there and she renounces her title and asks if he will still marry her and he agrees. And Plumkett and Nancy get together too and it’s all just adorable.

Okay so that wasn’t really brief but. Moving on.

I absolutely love this opera because the story is so original and fun, the libretto is ingeniously witty, and the music is fantastic, intricately portraying the comic but making sure to take the more sober parts seriously. ALSO, Flotow was using leitmotif before it was cool. But that is another rant altogether.

There is a film based on this opera that is actually really spot-on, but I’ll talk a little about my vision for this opera too. I’ve actually been curating it since I was thirteen and first heard this opera.

First off, I think I would have the sets and costumes be historically accurate. This opera is pretty straightforward and I don’t see the need to fancify anything with elaborate or weird sets and costumes. Plus, it being more obscure, I think it helps to keep things simple so the audience doesn’t get lost wondering what’s accurate and what’s interpretation.

The fair scene would be so much fun. It’s pretty obvious that the maids who are selling their services are, in fact, looking for boyfriends, and the farmers purchasing their services are, in fact, looking for girlfriends. Which makes it all the more ridiculous that Lyonel and Plumkett have no idea what’s going on. They’re just looking for maids while everyone else is looking to get laid.So there’s this whole chorus where the maids are saying what all they can do and in the libretto there is so. much. subtext that they’re not actually talking about washing linens and knitting and making beds, they’re talking about using the beds in a specific way...you get the picture. So there would be some suggestive body language and a LOT of flirting. And the maids would be primping and preening, and the farmers would be straightening their hats and smoothing down their hair, etc., and it’d all just be ridiculous. The Sheriff would be rolling his eyes the entire time because he a) wants to get this over with and b) wishes people would take their responsibilities more seriously.

One thing about this opera is that, though it’s pretty short compared to a lot of others (it’s just under 2 hours--more if the scenes that are often cut are left in), but some of the numbers are long and repetitive while others are very fast-paced. So it would need to be staged carefully so that when the 2-verse duet stretches for like 5 minutes, they’re not just standing their the entire time. For example, when they first get to the farmhouse the boys are telling the girls for about 3 minutes that they’re home and will wake up early the next morning, and the girls spend an equal amount of time freaking out. I’d put some movement in here--Plumkett goes around lighting the lanterns, checking the doors, etc., while Lyonel stands awkwardly watching the girls as they huddle frozen in fear and then at the end Plumket turns and sees Lyonel doing absolutely nothing to help out and is supremely annoyed. After that a lot of the action is pretty well laid out in the libretto and I wouldn’t really need to add much because it moves along so quickly. Then there’s the duet between Lyonel and Harriet where he freaks her out with his Mad Tenor Passion and she sings a song to get him to shut up and then he professes his love for her and asks her to marry him and it all goes downhill. The song itself is kind of grim, and it’s sandwiched between these two duets that start lighthearted and then get serious when Harriet realizes “Oh, wow, my words can actually hurt someone, this is new information” and Lyonel goes “MY LIFE IS OVER THE WOMAN I JUST MET ISN’T IN LOVE WITH ME” so it’d have to be a careful balance of making sure the comic and dramatic elements are given equal weight. That’s kind of true for the whole opera.

An image I want to really utilize strongly is the rose. The song Harriet sings to Lyonel is “The Last Rose of Summer” but the librettist’s translation focuses more on death than the original poem which I find fascinating. Right before the song Lyonel takes Harriet’s “nosegay” that she had as part of her Martha costume and teases her with it, saying he’ll only give it back if she sings to him. My hot take: there’s a rose in her bouquet. He takes it when he takes the bouquet. She sees it and it’s what inspires her to sing this song. He takes it back when she rejects him and keeps it to remember her by when she runs away. He’s singing to it when he stumbles upon her in town. He drops it in the mayhem and she picks it up. She takes it with her and gives it to him when she goes to his house to try and win him back. He throws it in her face. When they split Nancy finds it on the floor, and then gives it to Harriet when she’s waiting for Lyonel to come out and find her dressed as Martha. She gives it to him when she renounces her station and pledges her love to him and he takes it and it ends with them both holding on to it.

One of my favorite things about this opera is the Nancy/Plumkett relationship and I absolutely do not want it to get swept to the side because a) mezzo/baritone couples need all the love and b) they have one of the greatest comic love duets in operatic history and I will fight anyone who argues that point. So I’d really want to make sure that stays as a big part of the plot. The libretto and music is so great at portraying the sweet, awkward feelings they have towards each other and I want the staging to reflect that. Also Plumkett totally learns his lesson: he tries to subordinate Nancy when he finds her in town and demands that she find her place, and she retaliates by sicking her huntresses on him and they chase him away. After that he has nothing but mad respect. He forgives her much more quickly than Lyonel forgives Harriet. Because though he is gruff and stern he’s a sucker at heart. One thing I’ll have to think more on is what happens right before their duet in the finale, when they come out of the kitchen after hiding there during the Lyonel/Harriet confrontation. Do they come out standing awkwardly distant from each other because they spent the last seven minutes silently twiddling their thumbs and eavesdropping? Or are they ruffled because they utilized much of that time to make out? Maybe it’s ambiguous, like Plumkett goes into the kitchen wearing a jacket and when he comes back out with Nancy he’s not wearing it anymore and we see who notices.

Also: Tristam is gay. Undebatable. He just thinks he’s in love with Harriet because that’s what’s expected. So he will possess all the stereotypes. He will be Extra and he will have the Gay Hands and Gay Eyebrows and all that. They will give him a flower crown at the fair. He will continue to wear it because he secretly likes it. He will be oblivious to the charm of the maids and instead become keenly interested in one of the farm hands.

aaaaaaaanyway not sure if any of that makes sense because I ramble and talk in circles and also most people don’t know this opera. But I thank you for the ask and hope that it brings a little enjoyment into your day. It definitely saved me from some fuming. Thank you!!

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ultravioletsoul · 5 years

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Maybe an unpopular opinion regarding Makarov/Character Analysis (part 1)

Sometimes I read comments of CoD fans saying that Vladimir always was an asshole for apparently no reason, that he was the typical Russian cliché villain doing cliché bad things (such an original concept, I know). And while I do agree that for the most part the games didn’t do a very good job at giving him any significant depth (and he acts like a jerk, it’s true), I also have to say that he’s probably one of the most misunderstood characters in the series. Not because I think he was some poor innocent man who did nothing wrong, but because his villainous portrayal tends to take the spotlight every time he’s onscreen and we literally cannot see anything else beyond that. Which, of course, makes him look very one-dimensional since the game always has to remind you in oh-not-so-subtle ways how evil he is.

The story of MW never goes into full detail as to what drove him to do the horrible things he did. And it’s not clear unless one bothers to analyze some obscure information hidden in the loading cutscene of No Russian and does a little research on the side. In all honesty, I wish his story would have been better explained and developed by other means than just a slideshow of newspaper articles and an overview of his dossier. I would have been content with a special trailer that actually explained his background, rather than have him say some pseudo Sun Tzu lines in a few teasers and let that be the entirety of his character development but okay… I guess this was as far as Infinity Ward’s story-telling capabilities went back then.

Sure, you may think: who the hell cares about his motivations? He was an evil mofo and needed to be put down. Well, unfortunately for these people, I exist and I do care because Vladimir is one of my faves— perhaps my most favorite character in the entire MW universe. And though I like him because he’s an unapologetic baddie, that’s not the only reason.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Vladimir is this super complex character that nobody else gets, but there are definitely some elements that give him a few extra layers and they’re worthy of being analyzed.

Beware, this is going to be a long post and will contain a few historical references. This isn’t a comprehensive breakdown, and I’ll probably make a lot mistakes along the way because I’m not a history buff by any means (please, don’t yell at me ;A;), but it should be a rough explanation of what I think led Vladimir to such extremist views and why I think he’s a good antagonist in Call of Duty. Also it could be a helpful reference for anyone who wishes to write a story about him.

I’m not claiming this is the most accurate interpretation of Vladimir, or that it’s the only valid one, but if any of this information comes in handy or offers a different insight into his character then I’ll consider my mission accomplished.

Without further ado, here we go!

Tagging @sunset-and-periwinkle and @renegad3spectre because they may be interested in this post :v

1. No Russian

So one of the first recollections that come to mind when thinking about MW2 is the infamous mission of No Russian. This kind of content was so violent and crude for its time that it caused quite the controversy and it still divides the opinion between people who think videogames should push boundaries and people who believe there are things that shouldn’t be portrayed in such an offhanded way. Whether including that level in MW2 was a good or terrible choice is not the point of this post. However, I’ll share my personal experience.

Me, back when I played this mission I didn’t give it much thought. I mean… it didn’t have this serious impact on me as I’m guessing the developers intended, from what I’ve read, but that’s mainly because I wasn’t mature enough to make a proper assessment of the story-line and to me CoD games weren’t about deep narratives either. Keep in mind that I was an immature kid and I just wanted to play a game that my brother enjoyed. So yes, without much thought I breezed through No Russian, accomplished the objectives and it wasn’t until the end of the mission that I realized I’d been played like a damn fiddle.

And my first reaction to seeing Makarov killing me was “bro, I thought we were allies”. Never mind the carnage that had ensued moments ago, never mind that I had participated in it. I was more offended by this unexpected 'betrayal' and well... imagine how stupid I was for thinking Vladimir could be my friend. The fact that Allen was a CIA agent completely eluded me and I didn’t understand a freaking thing of what was going on but that was on me. I shouldn’t have been playing those games at my young age because evidently I wasn't ready to handle adult themes like that.

Replaying this mission now that I’m older made me realize how messed up it was, and maybe not for the most obvious reasons. Yeah, innocent people die all around us and that's something we cannot stop from happening, no matter what we do. However, it’s not really necessary for us to hurt civilians to complete the level (we’re not punished for not doing it) so we can be simple witnesses to the brutality ensuing in front of us, which is as equally messed up perhaps. You can even skip the whole mission altogether if you want to, so no biggie: you’re spared the nightmare fuel and you can happily head to Brazil to capture Alejandro Rojas. Heck, you’re even rewarded a glimpse of Ghost ready to torture Alejandro’s assistant and all is back to normal, yay!

However, when you think about it, from the perspective of the story, Allen wasn’t given the option to skip anything. He was pushed to commit a vile deed and ordered to follow Makarov’s lead no matter how morally questionable those actions turned out to be in the end. Shepherd told him that this mission would cost him a piece of himself and he was right about it. Had Allen survived, I’m pretty sure he would have been scarred for life after what he did. I don’t know how he could have lived with himself knowing that he slaughtered all those innocent people. Vladimir killing him off was kind of… an act of mercy in a way, though of course we know he had completely different intentions for doing so.

So people may wonder, why the heck Vladimir carried out that massacre? Some common opinions I read is because he’s an asshole, because he’s crazy, because he wants to make a statement, because he enjoys being a psychopath and hurting others. All these may be true to some extent, we’ll never know for sure, but it’d be very simplistic to just leave it at that without taking into consideration other elements of the story that were left implicit.

I’m going to say that, from my perspective, I didn’t get the impression Makarov enjoyed killing those civilians (but hear me out, neither did he regret it!). It would have been pretty easy to make him this psycho that slaughters people with a smile on his face, but that’s not what we see in No Russian… and perhaps it’s even more terrifying when you realize how casual he is about the whole affair. You really get the impression that he’s a man on a mission and he carries it out in a very no-nonsense manner, does it all with a straight face, without batting an eyelash, without any trace of doubt about what he’s doing, not even a hitch in his voice, absolutely no emotion whatsoever. His actions, his words, his whole demeanor, all scream about being a professional at what he does for better or for worse.

He didn’t know these people, he had no quarrel with them, and yet he killed them all in cold blood. Why? Because they were stepping stones to his goals and there was a very established purpose for that op. To the rest of the world, yea, it may seem like there’s no logical reason for what he did other than he’s nuts but, honestly, Vladimir could care less about that. The only thing that matters to him are the results.

Even if the whole world thinks that he’s insane, in his mind this was the most reasonable course of action. To him it had to be done, there was no other way, and he didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger when the time came because he was truly convinced it was the right thing to do. The fact that he (a criminal who’s wanted by the entire world and probably cannot afford to leave himself out in the open) participated in that brutal event shows the utmost importance it had to his plans. Vladimir personally oversaw and carried out the operation, he didn’t leave anyone else in charge because of the very special meaning it had for him. He says “for Zakhaev” before engaging FSB units because this incident would mark the beginning of a new chapter in Russian history, a chapter Vladimir would write in honor of the man who was his friend and mentor— the man who started it all, who gave him a cause to believe in and fight for.

He definitely had his reasons for what he did. They were the wrong reasons of course, but Vladimir didn’t act on a whim nor did he waste his time on matters that didn’t advance his agenda. He didn’t start a war nor massacred hundreds of people at that airport for simple fun and without a solid motive (though this isn’t by any means a justification, it still was a pretty shitty thing to do). We all know that it was a false flag operation, as he wanted to put the blame on the US for the attack. His intention was sparking a war between Russia and America and he was willing to achieve that by any means necessary, even if thousands of his countrymen had to die, even if he had to make common cause with Shepherd (we don’t know under which circumstances and terms), a man who by all accounts should have been his worst enemy— a man who had set up an entire task force for the sole purpose of hunting Vladimir down. And don’t get me wrong, they weren’t buddies, they still hated each other’s guts and would kill the other in a heartbeat, but they were willing to work together towards the same goal because none of them would succeed on their own.

So, ultimately, Vladimir’s objective was riling up the public opinion to push for an invasion of America and provide the Russian government a ‘legitimate’ reason to do it. Does this have 9/11 commentary undertones? Well, I’m not gonna be the judge of that but it could be a possibility.

However, to understand this moment, we’ll have to go much further back in time.

2. His Childhood

This is going to be a huge oversimplification of Soviet history, I’m afraid, so my apologies in advance. Don’t take my word as the absolute truth, this is barely scratching the surface.

According to the information seen in No Russian, and Return to Sender, little Volodya was born on April 10th (not sure how reliable is the wiki since I was convinced he was born on October 4th *shrugs*) of 1970 in Ivanovo, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Or for those who, like me, don’t like those long names, better known as Soviet Russia.

As a curious fact, Ivanovo is known as the City of Brides because it was a very important center of textile industries in the Soviet Union that attracted many young women seeking work. It also has an important historical significance as hotbed for revolutionary activity in czarist Russia and was the city where supposedly the first Bolshevik assembly took place (earning the nickname of City of the First Soviet). During the Second War it proved invaluable as a front city, located close to enemy lines, receiving refuges and injured soldiers of the Red Army that treated their wounds in the many hospitals that were set up for that purpose. Also, in addition to producing armament and fighting in the war, the citizens made good use of their industries and donated huge quantities of fabric to make millions of uniforms.

Back to the topic, next thing we have to wonder is what Vladimir’s life was like as a child born in the 70s. We don’t know much about it and it’s never even mentioned anywhere in the game but, if we had to hazard a guess, he most likely had a relatively happy childhood— raised like any average Soviet kid at the time. His parents were maybe workers, maybe doctors, maybe engineers, maybe teachers, maybe in the military, but they surely weren’t bad people and they wanted their son to be a decent member of society. They didn’t raise him to be a criminal, they didn’t shape him into a monster. If Vladimir had at least one grandfather alive, then he would have served during the Great Patriotic War (a term used in Russia and other former Soviet republics to refer to the conflict in the Eastern Front during WWII). And as a kid, Volodya probably grew up in a typical khrushchyovka apartment with his family. It wasn’t very luxurious but, you know, it wasn’t so bad either and it was home sweet home for them.

Now you gotta imagine what growing up in the Soviet Union was like. Education was heavily influenced by the Communist party and children swam in a sea of propaganda. No, no matter what western propaganda says, they didn’t teach him to hate the west as a kid. Vladimir didn’t want to wipe out Americans from the face of the Earth or skin them alive as you probably imagined at some point, but from a young age he was taught to be proud of being born in the greatest country in the whole world and he pitied the ‘oppressed’ American workers for their lack of Soviet blessings, for being unable to stand up to their imperialist overlords. Heck, this was a popular song in the 80s, when he was about ten years old and probably every Soviet kid sang it at school, including him.

Speaking about that, at school he must have been in contact with several ethnic groups— remember that the industries attracted a lot of people to Ivanovo, particularly women, from many places all over the Soviet Union and, even to this day, Ivanovo is a multi-cultural city with over a hundred nationalities. It’s safe to say that Vladimir would have never given it much thought if someone wasn’t an ethnic Russian nor would he have cared. There weren’t nationalities or differences back then. Everyone was a Soviet citizen and everyone was equal or so it would seem at least, if you ignore the multiple genocides, mass killings, deportations and other horrors of the Stalin era before the Soviet Union adopted a more moderate domestic policy and started a process of de-stalinization after his death— eliminating his cult of personality and other institutions that allowed him to hold autocratic power.

This was also known as the Khrushchev Thaw period, and it was during this time that repression and censorship began to become more lax thanks to Nikita Khrushchev’s policies, and millions of prisoners were released from the gulags. It also opened up the Soviet Union to some economic reforms, trade with other countries, as well as educational and cultural exchanges in the form of foreign uncensored books and movies, music, dances, fashion, and new forms of entertainment in national television. So all this would seem a shift towards a more positive outlook for the Soviet citizens.

Our little Volodya shared and played with other kids in his neighborhood in the playgrounds of the apartment buildings, maybe fell off those Soviet swings and whacked his head a few times but that was okay, he still had fun and laughed and cried like any other child. He grew up listening to old pop music, synth (because people just didn’t listen to patriotic music all the time) and watching Bollywood movies which were all the rage at the time in the USSR as an alternative to western cinema. He had friends, a family that loved him. He spent weekends at the dacha (cottages outside the city) working the land with his family, growing fresh produce. He probably had an affectionate babushka that looked after him, told him many stories, and cooked hearty meals for him because she was a genius at handling finances and feeding the family. She surely was a god-believing woman despite the widespread atheism in a society where the word of Marx and Lenin had an almost religious significance, who took no shit from anyone, and who would chew Vladimir’s head off if he so much went out under-dressed in a breezy day. Even as a grown ass man, she would still intimidate him because you don’t mess with babushkas!

Like a good Soviet kid he was taught to never lie, to help his parents and respect the work of others, to have good manners and not be a spoiled brat, to be considerate and kind to his elders, encouraged to be resourceful, to do things by himself and not expect others to come to his aid, to improve his culture and intellect, to study hard and become someone who would help build the future of socialist paradise. He probably collected silly trinkets like many kids do, he spent his time learning to carve wood and other crafts, reading about the great war heroes and the communist leaders. Year after year he played zarnitsa, a war game for kids and a very popular activity in the Young Pioneers (the Soviet ‘Boy Scouts’, so to speak) that trained young generations for military life, compulsory for every man, cultivating their love for the USSR and preparing them to defend the homeland from the enemy.

Life back then could be tough at times, true, but he must have been quite happy and there was joy to be had. He was raised to be patriotic, a good communist, living in what he believed was a place of peace where all were equals and all were comrades. Having little contact with western influences, he grew up listening to a carefully woven narrative and was told of the decadence of warmonger capitalists that feared the spread of communism so much that they would wage countless wars to stop it and destroy other peace-loving nations. So much could be argued regarding this statement, sure, but this is what he was told and it was during a time when Operation Condor (the US-backed campaign of state terrorism and wave of right-wing dictatorships in Latin America during the 70s-80s) was in full swing to eradicate communism and any Soviet influence from South America. Not to mention the many proxy wars waged throughout these decades, as well.

“For years the western hypocrisy has made the world a battlefield.”

Little Octobrists and Young Pioneers were a thing and the Communist ideology was still going strong even if some started to quietly question it. Not that many did, at any rate, since the dreaded KGB kept a close eye on everyone so dissidents wouldn’t spread the wrong ideas in the Soviet society. Well, at that time maybe you wouldn’t be sent to a gulag just for saying bad things but someone would ‘talk’ some reason into you and there would be subtle threats to tone your attitude down or else your life and that of your relatives could be screwed. Don’t say this, don’t do that, the walls have ears and you’re being watched.

You have to keep in mind that he also grew up under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. And much like American kids, Vladimir would have been greatly concerned about nuclear armageddon and be familiarized with procedures to follow in case such a terrible event came to pass.

The US and Russia pointed nukes at each other for many years and the NATO military exercises of Able Archer— at the peak of Cold War hysteria— didn’t help matters. These were annual exercises but that year of 1983, new elements never seen before had been introduced, and then there was the menace of the new Pershing II nuclear missiles that had been recently deployed in Western Europe. If launched, these would be able to reach their target in less than ten minutes (faster than any other missile known until then), landing with high accuracy and virtually no warning.

Until then the only thing stopping a nuclear war was the threat of mutually assured destruction, but these missiles tipped off the scales in favor of the west, since the Soviets would have no way to retaliate if their command centers or even their own missile launch facilities were targeted. So the Soviet Politburo was very concerned about this situation, in a time when president Reagan poured great efforts to fight the Brezhnev Doctrine (which established the legitimization of military interventions in Eastern bloc states, or any country that became a threat to international socialism) and show the world that the USSR wasn’t indestructible.

The increase in realism of these exercises, the strained relationship with the US under the Reagan administration, previous psychological operations, participation of heads of government in the exercise, and recent deployment of these new ballistic missiles, made the Soviet military believe that the US and NATO were preparing for a preemptive strike and that the exercise was nothing but a ruse. In response, the Soviets readied their nukes, air forces in East Germany and Poland were put on high alert to any funny business, and Soviet intelligence monitored the situation closely for signs of an impeding attack.

After nine days, the exercises came to an end and that was probably the time both countries were the closest to nuclear annihilation since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

So in those years, Vladimir was living under the administration of Leonid Brezhnev famously known for his era of stagnation and also for his passionate kisses (the famous socialist fraternal kiss, you guys :v). Though it’s worthy of being mentioned that in the early 70s the Soviet Union had reached the peak of international power and prestige.

Nikita Khrushchev, Brezhnev’s predecessor, had promised that by the 80s communism would be a reality and maybe that wasn’t so hard to believe at the time. The economy was growing at a rate of about 3% annually and things had started off relatively well in the mid 60s when Brezhnev assumed office. There was full employment, even minimal wage was sufficient to afford basic necessities, healthcare was a given, education in all levels was free and once you finished university or a vocational course, there was a job waiting for you. Things were pretty much settled for everyone. There wasn’t a lot to worry about, not many uncertainties. It was a pleasant predictive life for the most part. Not perfect, by any means, and it had its difficulties but Vladimir’s family felt protected and safe and they had great hopes for the future.

What went wrong then?

To be continued in part 2

#vladimir makarov #call of duty #cod #call of duty modern warfare 2 #modern warfare 2 #i'm sorry for the typos and grammar mistakes #it's midnight here #and i should be going to bed ;A;

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possessivesuffix · 4 years

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Some quotes concerning historical Sinology from the correspondence of Jerry Norman (1936–2012) with W. South Coblin [source]:

I think already in the 1950s Lǐ Róng saw that there was not really much more to say about the QY [Qièyùn] system and that dialects were the logical next place to go to study the development of Chinese. You might say that Karlgren and his followers were like Western classicists - Greek and Latin scholars. What is needed now is something more akin to Romance linguistics. [2008]

I would say that 1) most of the material used for [Old Chinese] is of Hàn vintage and very little of it goes back to the period that people ordinarily claim for OC, 2) one cannot demonstrate that the xiéshēng characters form a sufficiently coherent body of evidence to base a reconstruction on, 3) OC is basically a backward projection of the Qièyùn system; where other kinds of data exist it is generally ignored. This is shown by the fact that OC practitioners do not try to derive modern forms from their OC reconstructions, 4) the fact that OC projects always lead to too much speculation makes the endeavor suspicious (…) [2008]

QY type Chinese is something like Latin or Classical Greek. When a classical tradition is preserved and elevated to a revered cultural icon, several things are required. You must have a substantial body of written material; you have to understand the material's meaning; you have to have a way to pronounce it. In the case of Latin, from an early period, the spoken and written languages diverged in many ways. Eventually you had a situation of diglossia; people treated the written language as a high or prestigious form of their spoken language. At this stage they carried over many vernacular elements when reading Latin: femina was pronounced femna, vetulus became veclus, etc. If this doesn't seem plausible, think about English; don't we do something like this even today? We see “night”, originally nɪxt, and we say nait. We in effect substitute a more evolved form of the word for a Middle English form. So what were the Chinese to do? When someone in the 6th c AD wanted to read a text aloud, he probably, as much as possible, substituted current vernacular readings for the old forms, much as we do today. We see ⽔ and say shuǐ, even though this is probably not how the word was pronounced in the Lúnyǔ when it was compiled. But then what about all those words for which there is no vernacular equivalent? Students had to rely on what their teachers told them; to some extent these scholastic pronunciations were handed down from generation to generation; in other cases the teachers depended on fǎnqiè glosses handed down from the Late Hàn. But even before fǎnqiè were employed, there must have been oral traditions about how to read texts. The Qièyùn, then, was a compilation of traditional sound glosses and traditional oral lore. Moreover, the QY was an aide to reading texts aloud and made no pretense to represent contemporary vernacular pronunciation. So the vernacular tradition and the reading tradition were really quite different, although undoubtedly there were places where the two intersected. To base a vernacular chronology on things like the QY and its descendants is a big mistake. For this I think we must work from the modern spoken dialects (19th and 20th century records). [2011]

I think he [Zev Handel] is right to say that OC is not properly speaking a reconstruction and certainly it is not a comparative reconstruction; it is based on a unique (and probably faulty) methodology that can only be used in the case of Chinese. (And it most probably is misguided.) [2011]

(…) it reminds me of a set of questions I have about the OC project. The first of these is just what is the corpus of OC? In the book I mentioned by Chén Fùhuá and Hé Jiǔyíng they say their corpus is approximately ten thousand graphs taken from pre-Qín texts. Now my question is, since a character generally represents a morpheme, do natural languages have this many morphemes? I am not sure anyone has ever studied this. In the case of modern Chinese few literate people seem to know more than about 4000 characters and some of these represent archaic morphemes. I recall that Qiú Xíguī [ 裘錫圭 ] somewhere says that an early study found only about 6000 different characters in the entire Shísānjīng [ 十三經 ]. The Shuowen has almost 10000 characters and the later rime dictionaries have many more, but many of these are not attested in actual texts. One thing that always struck me about Pulleyblank's work was that he seemed willing to use even the most obscure graphs in his phonological speculations. My suspicion is that a natural language has around 2000 separate morphemes. Reconstructed IE has many fewer than that. Modern languages like English have enormous collections of morphemes, but if one limited himself only to those words of Germanic extraction, there really wouldn't be very many at all. So why do almost all OC schemes claim to have on the order of 10000 reconstructable morphemes? One different approach would be to limit the number of relevant forms for reconstruction. Characters without textual occurrences should be discarded. Hapax legomena should also be eliminated. We should try somehow to establish a basic vocabulary for pre-Qín Chinese, which I would guess would be on the order of 1000 forms. [2012]

If we look at [Karlgren’s] own practice of Chinese dialectology, we see immediately that it had a peculiar character; he was not interested in the actual lexicon of local dialects but only in the way people read characters. This is a reflection of the tendency of both Chinese and foreign scholars to view Chinese as identical to the characters. As stated above, he had dismissed the relevance of genuine dialect data early on. I think in a way this explains why he put so much value on the Sino-Xenic systems: they were purely reading systems and there were no vernacular languages that they matched. Grootaers tried to point out this deficiency but was by and large ignored. The essence of the Karlgrenian approach then is to take the Chinese writing system as the only "real" Chinese, the only type amenable to scientific study. [2012]

(The full version also including several thoughts from Norman about his speciality, Min Chinese.)

#chinese #old chinese #sinology #historical linguistics #Jerry Norman #quotes #linguistic reconstruction

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rearadmiralrickwilliams · 4 years

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How Binoculars Work

While you don't have to turn into a specialist, I generally find that I am ready to capitalize on something on the off chance that I have at any rate a fundamental comprehension of how it capacities.

So how accomplish optics work?

In this thorough guide, I will go over the science behind how the optics in a couple of optics can gather light and afterward present you with an amplified picture of the view before you. In future articles, I likewise plan to go over the primary mechanics behind how the concentration and eye-cup components work and the scope of various choices accessible.

Along these lines, I am sure that before the finish of it you will see how optics function and in this way be obviously better arranged while picking the correct instrument for your requirements and afterward once it shows up, have the option to effectively set it up and use it so you get the best out of utilizing it. Allow us to start.

Two Telescopes

At it's most straightforward structure, a lot of optics is basically comprised of two telescopes put next to each other. So to begin with and to make things somewhat less difficult, let us cut our binocularshub down the middle and first figure out how a telescope functions and afterward we will assemble them back toward the end:

Focal points, Light and Refraction

In a general sense how optics function and amplify a view is by utilizing focal points that makes light accomplish something known as refraction:

Through the vacuum of room, light goes in an orderly fashion, yet as it goes through various materials it changes speed.So as light goes through a thick medium like glass or water, it eases back down. This by and large makes the light waves twist and it is this bowing of light that is called refraction. Light refraction is what makes a straw resemble it is twisted when it is in a glass of water. it likewise has numerous helpful purposes and is the key having the option to amplify what you are taking a gander at.

Focal points

Instead of simply utilizing a straightforward level sheet or square of glass, instruments like telescopes, optics and in any event, perusing glasses utilize extraordinarily molded glass focal points that are regularly made up from various individual focal point components that better ready to control the twisting of the light waves.

The goal focal point (the one nearest to the article you are taking a gander at) on a binocular is Convex fit as a fiddle, implying that the focal point of it is thicker than the outside. Known as a meeting focal point, it gets the light from a removed article and afterward through refraction, it makes the light twist and meet up (unite) as it goes through the glass. the lightwaves then concentration at a point behind the focal point.

The eyepiece focal point at that point takes this shone light and amplifies it, where it at that point passes on an at you.

Amplification

Right off the bat the light goes from the subject and a genuine picture An is delivered by the goal focal point. This picture is then amplified by an eyepiece focal point and is seen as a virtual picture B. The outcome is that amplified objects look as though they were before you and closer than the subject.

The sum the picture gets amplified is dictated by the proportion of the central length of the target focal point partitioned by the central length of the eyepiece focal point.So an amplification factor of 8, for instance, will create a virtual picture that looks multiple times bigger than the subject.

How much amplification you need relies upon the proposed use and it is frequently a mix-up to expect that the higher the force, the better the binocular as higher amplifications likewise achieve numerous hindrances. For more investigate this article: Magnification, Stability, Field of View and BrightnessAs you can likewise find in the graph over, the virtual picture is rearranged. Underneath we will investigate why this occurs and how it gets corrected click here.

Topsy turvy Image

This is incredible and the story can end here in the event that you are just making a telescope for utilizes like cosmology.

Indeed, you can without much of a stretch make a straightforward telescope by taking two focal points and isolating them with a shut cylinder. To be sure this is basically how the first historically speaking telescope was made.

Nonetheless, what you will see when glancing through it is that the picture that you see will be flipped around and reflected. This is on the grounds that a curved focal point makes the light traverse as it joins.

Indeed you can undoubtedly exhibit this in the event that you hold an amplifying glass out at about a manageable distance and take a gander at some far off items through it. You will see that the picture will be topsy turvy and invert reflected.

For taking a gander at inaccessible stars, this isn't generally an issue and to be sure numerous stargazing telescopes produce a non-corrected picture, yet for earthly uses, this is an issue. Fortunately there are a couple of arrangements:

Picture Correction

For optics and most earthbound telescopes (spotting degrees) there are two fundamental methods of doing this, by utilizing a curved focal point for the eyepiece or a picture raising crystals.

Galilean Optics

Utilized in telescopes created Galileo Galilei in the seventeenth Century, Galilean Optics utilize a raised target focal point in the ordinary manner, yet change this to an inward focal point framework for the eyepiece.

Otherwise called a separating focal point, the curved focal point makes light beams spread separated (wander). So whenever situated at the right good ways from the arched target focal point, it can keep the light from traverse and subsequently prevent the picture from getting transformed.Ease and simple to make, this framework is as yet utilized on Opera and Theater Binoculars right up 'til the present time.Anyway the drawbacks are that it is difficult to get a high amplification, you get a genuinely restricted field of view and you get a significant level of picture obscuring on the edges of the picture.

Keplerian Optics with Prisms

Not at all like Galilean Optics that utilization a sunken focal point in the eyepiece, the Keplerian optical framework utilizes curved focal points for the targets just as eyepiece focal points and is commonly viewed as an enhancement for Galileo's structure.

Right The Inverted Image

Working like a mirror, most present day optics use raising crystals that mirror the light and subsequently adjust the direction, remedying the picture.

While a standard mirror is ideal for taking a gander at yourself in the first part of the day, in a binocular it would be nothing but bad if the light was essentially reflected 180° and back to where it originated from as you would then always be unable to see the picture.

Porro crystal BinocularPorro Prism Binocular

Porro Prisms

This issue was first unraveled by utilizing a couple of Porro crystals. Named after the Italian designer Ignazio Porro, a solitary Porro crystal, similar to a mirror additionally mirrors light 180° and back toward the path it originated from, however it does it corresponding to the occurrence light and not legitimately along a similar way.

So this truly helps since it permits you to put two of these Porro crystals at right points to one another, which thus implies you would then be able to mirror the light with the goal that it re-arranges the upset picture as well as adequately permits it to proceed a similar way and towards the eyepieces.To be sure it is these two Porro crystals put at right points that give optics their conventional, famous shape and which is the reason their eyepieces are nearer together than the goal focal points.

Rooftop Prisms

Just as the Porro crystal, there are various different structures that each have their own one of a kind focal points.Two of them, the Abbe-Koenig crystal and the Schmidt-Pechan crystal are sorts of rooftop crystals that are currently usually utilized in optics.Of these, the Schmidt-Pechan crystal is most normal since it permits makers to create a more minimized, slimmer binocular with the eyepieces in-accordance with the targets. The drawback is that they require various exceptional coatings to accomplish complete interior reflection and take out a wonder known as stage moving.

Why Binoculars Are Shorter than Telescopes

The second advantage to utilizing crystals is that in light of the fact that the light is switched twice as it experiences the crystal thus backpedals on itself, the separation that it goes in that space is expanded.

Hence, the general length of the binocular can be abbreviated as the necessary separation between the target focal points and the eyepiece is likewise decreased and this is the reason optics are shorter than refracting telescopes with a similar amplification as they do not have a crystal.

#best 8x32 binoculars #best night vision binoculars under $100 #best binoculars for night vision #best 12x32 binocuars under $200

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mykingdomforapen · 5 years

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Decade of Fics 2010-2019

Hello! Since it is nearly 2020 and I am OLD, a look back on the fanfictions (and occasional non-fanfictions) I wrote in this decade, and some snippets of hints of scenes that come to my mind first when I think of that year of writing. In some ways, I would say these would be snippets or moments of writing that I feel most attached to.

2010: One Step to Amity (Axis Powers Hetalia)

Alfred nodded wordlessly. She said nothing as she turned away from him and walked slowly down the river. She bent down after she put some distance between her and him. Alfred suddenly felt an urge inside of him to reach out to her.

"Vietnam—"" he started to say.

"Look, America," she suddenly spoke up. She was holding something pale in her hands. He frowned slightly before walking up to her and bending down next to her. Vietnam held up a mauve lotus to his eyes. It was so delicate that Alfred thought it would positively crumble if he merely exhaled at it. The petals were so fragile that it seemed that God had crafted it by merely painting with a thin brush in midair.

"During the war, most of these died," she said quietly. "From all the chemicals and the fires. I thought they would never grow back again. I thought all of that was just too much."

She offered the lotus to Alfred. He hesitated; what if it died in his hands? In the end, he finally let her gently place the flower in his palm. He could barely feel its weight, but the petals were smooth and wet on his skin. She lifted her eyes to his.

"But they did grow again," she said. "Even after all that, they still bloom. They always do in the end."

2011: Seven Pieces of Chalk (Axis Powers Hetalia)

“If I hadn’t missed your call and answered the phone, what would you have said to me?” Arthur demanded. “Would you have just hung up?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t call me just because you felt like it. You should be asleep now, of all things. Why aren’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Something’s bothering you, right? Can’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know.”

Arthur quieted. Gilbert wouldn’t look at Arthur, hiding his face in the shadows. The moonlight reached only half of the room where Arthur sat, leaving Gilbert obscured in the darkness. Arthur sat still for a moment before reaching toward Gilbert’s cell phone, which was lying underneath his swivel chair.

“Hey.”

When Gilbert looked toward Arthur, Arthur tossed his phone to him. Gilbert quickly caught it, slightly confused. Arthur pulled out his own cell phone.

“Call me,” Arthur said sternly. Gilbert gave him a perplexed look. “Let’s get back to the start, about forty-five minutes. Call me, and we’ll pretend that I picked up my phone first.”

Gilbert almost declined. He would have too, if it was any other person—any other night than this one—but to both his surprise and Arthur’s, he flipped open the phone and pressed the dial button. As Arthur’s ringtone blared, Gilbert retreated deeper into the shadows. Arthur hesitated before picking up the phone.

“Hello?” Arthur said. Gilbert fixed his gaze on the carpet.

“Arthur?” Gilbert said.

2012: Syrgja (Avengers/MCU)

And when no one spoke, when Natasha could think of Loki and Loki only, she remembered that all of their minds were connected alongside their lives. She heard each of their thoughts as they hoped, as they waited and prayed for Loki’s return.

Brother, come back to us, please—

Loki, you can do it, I know you can, just keep breathing—

Loki, you bastard, don’t give up on us now—

Keep fighting, Loki, just keep fighting and help will come—

Come on, Bambi, you’re stronger than this, you can do it—

She did not hesitate in thinking this—she did not care if the others heard, so long as Loki did. So long as Loki knew without a doubt.

I love you, Loki.

2013: spring will come (Thor/MCU)

“So I guess,” said Thor, “that scars heal in time, too. It’s kind of sad and beautiful, that no matter what life goes on.”

Jane reached over and put her hand on his. She felt every callous, every vein. She grazed her thumb over the knuckles.

“Are you cold?” said Thor. “Let’s have coffee.”

2014: Jacob and Esau say their goodbyes (Thor/MCU)

"I said that I have no side," Loki says. "And yet I always find myself by Thor's."

2015: Though she may forget (Thor/MCU)

“You sat on Asgardian gold all your life,” Byleistr says, “where all the realms and races throw themselves at your feet because you are of AEsir family, your throne of riches and fortune, of safety and security, of approval and want—you never knew what it meant to be a Jotun, to fear for your life when someone of another realm comes across you, even when you are at in your own homeland, fearing they might cut you down for sport. You don’t know what it means when none of the realms will even look at you, because to them you are foul and savage and monstrous, and we can’t pull on costumes and masks like you can to pretend, for a moment at the very least, that we can walk out of our realm and not be killed.”

Byleistr wipes his lips with the back of his hand. Loki cannot bring himself to look at Byleistr in the eyes. He cannot bring himself to move much at all. Byleistr’s words have the same effect as the snow, the cold that Loki never admitted that he was unbothered by—numbing.

“You think you wish you were never born a Jotun,” Byleistr says. If an Asgardian’s eyes are red, it means they shall fill soon with tears. Loki realizes that with Jotun, when tears threaten to fall, they have a tinge of violet, as if even colors grow cold inside them. “You’ve never been Jotun in your life.”

2016: Better Than Seven Sons (Original Fiction)

I grabbed a fistful of his hair, right in the middle. Angus closed his eyes, and no one else really seemed to grasp that this was far more significant than an impulsive a-shave-a-quid moment but us two. I wanted to back out, suddenly—sorry, Angus, can’t do it, can’t bring myself to do it. I love your hair, Angus, I love recognising it, I love it because now it’s a symbol of pre-tumour, pre-surgery, pre-illness and from here on out we would be thrown into the uncertainty that comes with losing it and cutting open your skull. But you saw this differently, not a symbolic goodbye, but having the last laugh, and I needed to forget my own point of view.

“Count me down,” I said.

“Really now?” said Angus.

“Five!” I said.

“Four!” Others joined me. I thought someone would shake up a bottle of champagne for this, let out some firecrackers.

“Three!”

“Two!”

“One!”

2017: a land flowing with milk and honey (Thor/MCU)

“You know who that is,” says Heimdall. “Even if he decides not to kill us all, enslaving us will be the kindest gesture.”

“Well,” says Loki. “That’s surviving, isn’t it?”

The ship jerks violently, and Heimdall and Loki stumble, clutching at the dashboard to keep on their feet. Loki turns sharply to Heimdall, who does not trust him, who has absolutely no reason to. He has just watched Loki shove Thor into a pod and sent him shuttling to Norns only know where, but he cannot read Loki’s mind or intentions.

“Don’t you trust Thor?” says Loki. In spite of everything, he smiles. “I do.”

2018: Lovable (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

“Do you really hate me, Azula?” Zuko said.

That sentence already made his stomach turn, and he could feel a lump form in his throat that threatened to choke him if he did not scream it out. He had to gather himself first before he could continue, although his breath still shook.

“For almost our entire lives,” said Zuko. “Even if you were just following Father’s example. Why did you still hurt me when he wasn’t watching?”

He clenched his teeth, because he was beginning to raise his voice already. Just remembering it and saying all of this out loud was like stabbing himself repeatedly in the gut. Azula did not react to any of it. And it was painful for Zuko to admit it to himself. He had thought maybe one day, they would talk about their past and their present. And for the first time he would finally tell her how unsafe he felt around her. And when he finally told the truth, that she would care. Maybe she would feel sad, or guilty, or even apologize to him, and then he could look at her without immediately getting upset for the first time.

But this was not what he came here for.

Zuko approached the bars and reached a hand through them. The bars caught him at his elbow, and his fingertips could only skim the ends of Azula’s hair strewn over the stone. He did not want to ask all of this from Azula anymore; whatever groveling, repentance, devastation and shame that he may have fantasized before. He did not want to wait for any of these, nor let it stop him from what shall come next.

“I love you, Azula,” Zuko said. “If I go, would you believe me?”

2019: Find me after the victory (Dunkirk/Arguably can be historical fiction)

So they sat on the floor of Peter’s bedroom, cups of tea in hand and a longing to be human as destroyers lined the beaches of England, ready to be boarded. They talked until the pot of tea cooled between them, about Peter’s school getting destroyed by the bombs, about Tommy’s sisters whom he missed, about Alex’s old London haunts that no one knew if they were still standing, about a home whose soil they walked on but was still miles and miles away.

“You’re all going back very soon, aren’t you?” Peter said after a brief pause, when they took a moment to collect their breaths. “Back to the mainland to fight.”

Tommy said nothing, but his gaze flickered towards Alex. Peter pressed his lips together, with a heaviness in his heart that he could not name. He suddenly remembered the last day of his brother’s last furlough, and how in hindsight he would comb over every detail of his brother’s day, the way he helped Dad with the ropes of the Moonstone and how Mum straightened his tie, and how he punched Peter lightly on the shoulder and told him to take care of Mum and Dad, and that Peter was free to borrow his books and football so long as he did not mess anything up in his room. They would have a football rematch when he returned, his brother promised.

Peter wished he could remember every quiet moment, seen and unseen, of his brother, if only he had known at the time that it would be the last. But to know God’s timing was too much for humans to bear, as Peter looked Tommy and Alex in the eye and be forced to accept that these boys with whom he reunited after four years might leave tomorrow and die.

“Don’t worry, Dawson,” Alex said. “We won’t let you down this time.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Peter said, and he did not know what else to say.

When the clock in the living room chimed, Alex and Tommy exchanged a heavy, knowing glance. Peter already knew before Tommy said that they ought to get going. They were not going to come round again tomorrow, and probably not for a very long time.

Peter felt a sudden, overwhelming desire to be a hundred meters tall, to sweep Tommy and Alex and all the other young soldiers that Peter knew and did not know into his arms and shield them from oncoming bombs and bullets. He wanted to die for each and every one of them, to protect them from further pain and devastation and keep them safe, but he was just a young man and that would be impossible. And if Peter remembered what Reverend James taught him, it was that someone else felt the same way already, and did just that.

#LC writes #ish

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thetravelerwrites · 5 years

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Monster Match 15

The Traveler's Masterlist

For @severedreamerbeard: “I don't really think I need to tell you what my pronouns and orientation are, so we'll skip over that. As far as a short description goes, I'm thin as a twig, and decently tall. I'm not that great with social interactions, I can't hold a conversation and I get tongue-tied frequently when speaking, which isn't fun at all. My hobbies are all pretty dorky, being playing D&D, reading fanfics, and playing video games for most of my free time. As far as likes in dislikes in partner, it's pretty much all in the personality. Humor and doing goofy things are top notch, along with being a general sweetheart. If I'm honest, I'm not sure if I have any specific dislikes that come to mind, mostly from an utter lack of experience in the dating field. And as far as sfw/nsfw, that's your choice, I don't really mind.”

You’ve been matched with a mimic!

You loved old video games. You’d go to your local game store to scour for old games people had forgotten. You didn’t know why, but they instilled a certain sense of innate nostalgia in you, even though you hadn’t played most of them, since some had come out before you’d even been born.

“Hey, man,” The clerk, Tucker, called out. “You won’t believe what someone just sold me.”

“What?” You asked, coming to the counter with your items.

“A copy of ‘Red Knight’s War,’” Tucker said, ringing you up.

“You’re kidding me!” You exclaimed. “I thought most of them were destroyed. Wasn’t there some kind of urban legend that it was haunted or something?”

“Yeah,” Tucker said. “People really bought into the hype, too. I think there are only, like, fifty left in existence.”

“Dude, I have to have that. How much?”

Tucker pursed his lips and thought about it. “How about a hundred bucks?”

“You’re off your nut if you think I’m paying that,” You scoffed. “I’ll give you ten bucks.”

“Please, I could get an easy two hundred off eBay,” Tucker said.

“Well, then, sell it on eBay,” You told him. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of bidders for an obscure game that most people aren’t even aware exist and the ones that do think it’s haunted.”

“Dude, that just makes it tastier!” Tucker insisted. “Fifty bucks, and I’m being kind with that offer.”

“Thirty. Seriously, it’s a coin toss as to whether you’d actually find someone online who wants this, whereas I have cash now. There’s something to be said for instant gratification.”

“Forty. That’s as low as I’m gonna go, man,” Tucker said, folding his arms.

You blew out your breath. “Fine, fine, I’ll take it. You’re lucky I respect you as a business man.”

“Pfft,” Tucker snickered. “Yeah, whatever. Here.”

He handed you the clear cartridge that had been completely sealed with scotch tape.

“Whoa,” You said.

“Yeah,” Tucker replied with a strange look. “The guy that sold it happily took five bucks for it. He was super weird.”

“Eh, aren’t we all. Thanks, Tuck,” You said as you took your purchases and made your way to the door.

“See you later, man. If it does end up haunted, you have to tell me.”

You waved as if to say sure, sure, and headed home.

When you got back to your apartment, you immediately got out a box cutter and slit open the cellotape that encased the game disk. Red Knight’s War was one of the first MMORPGs, but it got overshadowed by World of Warcraft and Runescape. When it came out, you’d just started first grade, so you weren’t exactly a wiz on the computer. You don’t even think your parents had a computer back then.

You checked the disk, which was in pristine condition, then booted up your computer. Putting the disk into the slot, you heard the whirring sound as it started up. There was the title screen, the loading screen, which gave way to the character customization screen. You spent a a good chunk of time making your character look as close to you as possible, even though the rough early 2000’s graphics made it difficult.

Then, into the actual gameplay. It was a typical dungeon trawler, nothing surprising. You played a little for a while when a message popped up on the onscreen chat box.

>Who are you?”

Odd. You hadn’t switched on the multi-player option yet. Maybe the game was multi-player by default. You typed in your first name and asked them theirs.

>Tarna, The replied. That was a strange name. Maybe it was their screenname, although the screenname in the chat box seemed to be random numbers and letters. >It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen someone here.

>I’m not surprised, you said. >Everyone thinks this game is haunted.

>It’s not, Tarna said. >Humans are just superstitious, apparently.

>Are you in-game? You asked. >I only see NPCs.

>I’m a mimic. I’m in the corner over there.

You looked, and you did see a treasure chest standing on two spindly legs, its long arms swaying as if bored. As your character walked up to it, it waved. But it seemed to be waving at you, not your character.

>Wanna team up? You typed into the chat.

>Yes! I’m so happy to have someone else to play with again!

Their enthusiasm was both endearing and a little sad. You wondered if this had been their favorite game, if they’d waited all this time for someone else to come online to play with. That must have been lonely.

>Let’s go, buddy! You typed.

For the next few weeks, you played Red Knight’s War with Tarna every evening after work. They were always online, and always happy to see you. Sometimes, you wouldn’t even actually play the game, you’d just talk to each other in the chat. There was still a lot about them that you didn’t know. They didn’t divulge a lot of personal information, and you could respect that. You were just a stranger on the internet, after all.

One day, though, you came online ready to slay some liches, but you were met with a message already in the chat box.

>Can we talk?

This was already unusual, because they waited for you to speak first before starting gameplay, but the nature of the question had you a little uneasy.

>Of course. What’s up?

>I feel like I should come clean.

You frowned. >Come clean about what?

>I haven’t lied to you exactly, but I haven’t told you everything about me. I’m worried that if you knew the truth about me, it would scare you off.

>There’s not a lot you could say that would scare me.

>You say that now, They said. >The fact of the matter is, there’s a reason people think this game is haunted.

>Which is?

>Honestly, it’s easier if I show you.

>Show me how?

>Take the disk out of the computer and put it on the ground.

You scoffed to yourself. >Are you serious?

>Trust me. Just don’t freak out, okay?

>Okay…

You shut down the game and ejected it. It lay there in the disk tray. You felt a little silly, but you took the disk and lay it, image down, on the floor and waited.

Suddenly, it seemed to melt into some sort of grey goo. The goo began to grow and warp and rise up, and you fell backward into your chair with a yelp.

“Wait, you said you wouldn’t freak out!” The grey goo said. It started to take on human form. It solidified into the form of… you, right down to the work vest you’d failed to remove when you got home. It put out its arms to placate you. “I’m not going to hurt you. Calm down, please.”

You were still sitting in your gaming chair, gripping the armrests and panting in fear. “What the hell are you?”

“I’m a mimic,” The copy of you said.

“Mimics are treasure chests in dungeons! Not game disks or… or me!”

It sighed. “Treasure chests are the most common form we take, historically, because we were hired to protect people’s vaults and and hordes. We were decoys to distract looters from the real treasure, but we don’t have an actual physical form other than amorphous blobs. In our original state, we’re just… slime.”

“How did you even know what I look like?” You asked.

They pointed. “Your webcam. You really ought to cover it when you’re not using it.”

You head fell into your hands and you massaged your forehead. “So…” You said slowly, trying to wrap your mind around what was happening. “Why were you a game disk? How did you even function?”

“Mimics can take on the form of anything they touch down to a microscopic level. When I took on the form of the game disk, I copied the tiny grooves and divots that made up the game’s information. That’s why I could run on your computer.”

“But why where you a game disk?”

She sighed. “When money changed from gold and jewels to paper kept in large banks, mimics no longer had jobs. Most people had negative misconceptions about us, so we were driven underground. Some took on human forms, but that was risky since in the modern times, everything is electronic and number based. Getting fake ID’s and social security numbers were difficult because, even though we guarded money, we had none of our own. We kept to the shadows, but it was a pretty lonely existence.

“One of us had managed to integrate into society and was working as a game developer in the early 2000’s and had the idea for some of us to become game disks as a method of interacting with other people in a safe way. I guess it backfired…” The copy of me sighed. “A lot of us were destroyed and the ones that weren’t were either locked away or kept as oddities. After talking with you…” They looked down. “I was hoping we could be friends.”

“I… you… look, can you change into something else? Talking to… myself… feels a little weird.”

“Oh, sure,” They said, and began to shift and morph. When they finished, they were a woman slightly shorter than you with dark skin, brown hair, and brown eyes. They were wearing a sapphire blue business-type dress, close fitted and knee length with matching heels.

“Wait, are you male or female?” You asked them.

“Mimics don’t have a gender in our original form, but we can become any gender we choose.” Their voice had changed, too; it was musical sounding.

“Is Tarna your real name?”

“Yes,” They replied. “I’ve never lied to you, just… omitted some important facts about myself.”

You rubbed the back of your neck. “I can get that, I guess. If I had your history, I’d be cautious too.” You squinted up at them. “Why did you decide to reveal yourself? That was a hell of a risk.”

They shifted a little, uncomfortable. “Honestly… I… I’ve started to… develop feelings for you.”

Stunned, you sat up straight and your arms rested on your knees with your hands dangling between your legs. “Feelings?”

“Oh, I don’t expect you to reciprocate,” She said hurriedly. “But you seemed like the kind of person who would accept me, and I wanted to be your friend. Not just in the game, but in real life. I apologize if that’s not something you want, but… it’s hard to keep your feelings in and never tell someone the truth, you know?”

“Yeah, I totally get that,” You said quietly. You stood up. “You really have feelings for me?”

They fidgeted. “Yeah.” They avoided your eye. “Sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” You asked. “You can’t help who you like.”

They looked up hopefully. “I can be anything you like. I can be a man or a woman, I can have any color hair and eyes, I can be tall or short, anything you want, I can be that.”

You held up a hand to stop them. “Don’t worry about me. What do you want to be?”

They looked down at themselves, and then back up at you. “I rather like this form.”

“Then be this form,” You said, smiling. “Who is that, by the way?”

“It’s an amalgamation of different people, actually.”

“So it’s unique to you, then?”

The grinned slowly. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

You smiled too and held out your hand. “Nice to meet you, Tarna.”

They laughed shyly and took your hand gingerly. “Nice to meet you, too.”

You took Tarna on a real date that night. They were shy out in public around other humans, even while wearing a human guise, but they were so happy to be spending time with you outside of the game. You learned that they only needed to eat when they took on a form that needed to eat, like humans or animals. You asked them a ton of questions, and they were happy to answer every one, grateful that you weren’t afraid.

At the end of the date, you said, “We should find the others.”

“What?” They said.

��The other mimics trapped as games. We should find them and free them.”

A smile formed on their face, but they said, “That might be difficult.”

“That never stopped me. You in?”

A wide smile split their face. “Absolutely.

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perlukafarinn · 6 years

Note

Idk if you’re still taking these but if you ever have the time I was wondering if you could do 7&24

Soulmates + Historical AU

A nameappears on Dean’s arm when he is fourteen. It is written with strange lettersin an unknown language. No one in their village has seen anything like it.

At first,Dean is heartbroken. He stares at the mark on his arm for hours, willing it tochange. His father and his mother grew up in the same village and Dean hasnever heard of anyone needing to travel more than a couple of hundredkilometers to find their soulmate. Much less needing to leave the country.

Why couldn’tthe name on his arm belong to Jo, the daughter of the tavern owner? Or Lisa,the midwife’s apprentice? He doesn’t love them but he thinks he could learn to,if he bore their names. It would be easier, certainly, than loving a personwhose name he doesn’t understand and who he won’t ever meet.

At fifteen,Dean has had enough of moping. A ship is setting sail for the mainland in springand he bargains his way on board. He says goodbye to his family, feeling likehe’s left his soul behind as he waves goodbye to his little brother on thepier, but there’s nothing else he can do. He can’t sit on his rear, waiting fora soulmate who probably won’t show up.

For thenext few years, Dean travels. He meets travelers and scholars, shows them themark on his arm, but the answer is always the same no matter how far he travels.No one knows this language. Dean’s soulmate might as well not exist.

He goes onmonths-long expeditions across deserts and oceans. He loses track of the timeand although he writes plenty of letters home, he never receives any in return.He doesn’t ever stay in the same place long enough.

A breakthroughcomes some years into his journey. An old linguist recognizes some of theletters on Dean’s arm, says they belong to a language long thought dead. Hegives Dean a map to its area of origin and Dean sets sail the morning after.

He arrives threeweeks later. It’s a land unlike anything Dean grew up with. Lush forests covermuch of the country, teeming with life. In the distance there are mountains,taller even than the ones at home, their peaks still covered in snow.

His firstnight there, Dean stays in a village by the coast and writes to his brotherabout this strange new land.

His searchbegins anew in the morning. He shows his mark to the locals, who point him tothe nearest city. There are scholars there, they say, and they might be able tohelp.

But theycan’t. Dean travels from city to city, visits every university, every church,every monastery in his way, but no one recognizes the language. No one can helphim.

Dean givesup. The old linguist must have lied to him, he decides. The name on his arm isn’twritten in some ancient and obscure language, it’s gibberish. Dean was nevergoing to find his soulmate. They don’t exist.

He wantsnothing more to return home but in his increasingly frantic search, he hasn’tworked in months and has squandered every penny in his possession. He settlesin the village his search ended. The local blacksmith, Bobby Singer, takes himin, offers Dean room and board and even modest pay for his labor.

Dean workshard. He saves every bit of money he can and writes to his family every week.For the first time since his journey started, he has a proper address and they canwrite him back. Dean cries the night he receives the first letters from them.

Sam was soyoung when Dean left and had not yet learned to write. Now he sends Deanletters that are dozens of pages long, with the script so small and crowded thatit’s barely legible. Mom’s letters are short but filled with love and always smellfaintly of her perfume, despite their weeks out on sea.

Dad doesn’twrite. He died just two short years after Dean left. Dean doesn’t cry when he findsout but he buys himself a bottle of whiskey and drinks until he can’t rememberhis own name. Bobby finds him the next morning, laying on the floor of his roomand covered in his own sick. He doesn’t say anything, just helps Dean cleanhimself and quietly removes the rest of the whiskey from his possession.

Dean doesn’tdrink again. He keeps working, keeps his head down and his hands busy. Soonenough, he will have saved enough to begin his journey home.

He’s been workingfor Bobby for nearly five months when a group of monks pass through town. Theybelong to some order Dean has never heard of and while they lodge at the tavernthey do not mingle with the villagers. Dean only sees them from a distanceuntil one of them stops by the smithery to have their horses’ shoes replaced.

Deaninstantly dislikes him. He speaks condescendingly to Dean and refers to him andBobby only as ‘smith’ and ‘boy’, not even offering his own name until Bobbyexplicitly asks. Dean’s not even sure he’s telling the truth – Ion doesn’t sound like a real name.

Ion standsby, passively watching as Dean and Bobby work. Fine by Dean, who ignores him asbest he can. It’s working, too, until Dean pushes the sleeves of his shirt upand hears Ion gasp.

He looksup, confused, and Ion is striding towards him, grabbing Dean’s arm and twistingit to get a look at the name written on the inside of his elbow.

“What isthis?” he demands sharply.

Dean tugsat his arm but Ion is holding it tight. He probably could yank it away – he doubtsIon has worked a day of hard labor in his life – but curiosity has got thebetter of him. “What’s it look like? I know you religious types get soulmatemarks, even if you don’t feel like acting on them because you’re all married tothe church or whatever.”

Ion pincheshis lips together. He kind of looks like he wants to smack Dean for hisinsolence – wouldn’t be the first time Dean got punched by a priest – but insteadhe just says, “Come with me.”

Dean letshimself get dragged across the village. Ion brings him just outside of it, tothe very edge of the forest where the rest of the monks are gathered in aclearing, standing in a circle with their eyes closed. Meditating, Dean wouldguess.

They’re alldressed in simple tan tunics and pants but no shoes – apparently wearingfootwear goes against their religion – the only flourish being symbols embroideredwith red thread over their hearts. Those symbols look familiar to Dean and hefeels his heart starting to pound harder even before he realizes where herecognizes them from.

The monksopen their eyes as Dean and Ion approach them. Some of them start asking what’sgoing on but Ion ignores them all, dragging Dean to stand right in front of amonk with impossibly blue eyes and no symbols on his tunic. Dean’s immediatethought is that he is the most attractive man he’s seen.

His nextthought is that he’s probably going to hell for lusting after a holy man.

“Who isthis?” the monk asks, his voice gruff but not unkind.

Dean feelsinexplicably shy under that heavy blue gaze so it is Ion who answers. “Theblacksmith’s apprentice. He was outfitting our horses when I noticed the markon his arm.”

Ion twistsDean’s arm again, baring his soulmate mark to the monks gathered around them. Afaint wave of whispered shock goes through the group as it becomes visible butDean only has eyes for the man right in front of him, who has gone pale andwide-eyed.

“It’s notpossible,” he mutters.

“It is,”Ion says. “This man bears your name, Castiel. The name on your arm must belongto him as well.”

At the backof his mind, Dean already suspected, but Ion’s words still knock the wind outof him.

Castieltears his eyes away from Dean’s arm, looks up at him. “Dean?” he asks, and it’sthe most beautiful thing Dean has ever heard. Like coming home.

“Yeah,”Dean manages, hoarsely.

“I can’tbelieve it,” Castiel breathes. “I’ve looked for you all around this country. I’vebeen through this village half a dozen times. How have you stayed hidden fromme?”

Dean laughs.He wants to tell Castiel that he hasn’t been here long, that he’s looked harderand farther and for longer than even Castiel could imagine, but the words getstuck in his throat.

They’re notimportant.

“Doesn’tmatter,” he says. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

Castiel smiles,and the weight of the last decade seems to slip from Dean’s shoulders. “Youare.”

#avyssoseleison #deancas #destiel #spn fanfic #soulmate au #historical au #perlukafarinn writes #prompt fill #this is mostly just dean traveling and being sad but that's where the prompt took me #set in an unspecified time and place #so i'm not sure it even technically counts as a historical au #but whatever #anonymous #tropes!

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