#┈ ┊ To learn through suffering; to thrive in chaos || ( musings ).

[thorntonkrell-blog-blog]

Leigh and Morgan: The Crazy Rulers of Marriage

Leigh and Morgan had been married for 15 years, which in marriage years, felt equivalent to a century. Their relationship was a rollercoaster of love, laughter, and the occasional urge to throttle. Independently, they had come to a curious conclusion: in their relationship, the crazier person always ruled the roost.

Leigh, with his penchant for conspiracy theories, believed that the moon landing was staged and that their neighbor's cat was a government spy. Morgan, on the other hand, had a flair for dramatic outbursts and a habit of rearranging furniture at 3 AM because she had a “vision.”

Together, they were a match made in an eccentric purgatory which had attracted them in the first place for the sake of hilarious suffering..

One lazy Sunday, while Leigh was tinkering with his collection of vintage radios, convinced he could intercept alien transmissions, Morgan was in the kitchen attempting to bake a soufflé that she swore would bring world peace.

“Morgan, you know what I’ve realized?” Leigh shouted over the static of his latest radio project. “In our marriage, the person who’s the crazier at any given moment always ends up being in charge.”

Morgan paused, flour dusting her hair like a makeshift halo, and thought about it. “You're crazy Leigh but unfortunately for you not as crazy as you think. Remember when you decided that the government was spying on us through the microwave and made us cook everything over a campfire in the backyard? That wasn't crazy...that was stupid and stupid is no match for crazy”.

“And who can forget when you decided we needed to feng shui the entire house and ended up throwing out half my wardrobe because it ‘blocked the chi’?” Leigh retorted, eyes twinkling. "That wasn't crazy, that was trendy which is one small step above stupid."

“Okay, fine,” Morgan admitted, “but it works, doesn’t it? I mean, we’re still here, still together, and mostly sane. Right?”

Leigh grinned. “Mostly. But it does explain a lot. Like why we spent last Christmas in the basement, hiding from your imaginary mutant wasps. That was tryly nutso, yet there we were celebrating Santa in the attic.

Morgan rolled her eyes but couldn’t suppress a giggle. “Hey, those wasps were real… in my mind. And it’s not like you’re a picture of sanity. How about that time you were convinced the squirrels were plotting against us?”

Leigh looked indignant. “They were! I saw them holding secret meetings in the oak tree.”

As they bantered, it became clear that their marriage thrived on this peculiar dynamic. They had learned to navigate the ebb and flow of their shared insanity, balancing each other out in a way that made their relationship uniquely resilient.

The great lesson learned in all marriages is the art of button pushing.

But amidst the humor, there was a cautionary tale. The erosion of time and circumstance had chipped away at their patience and understanding. The pressures of life, work, and the never-ending chaos of raising two teenage daughters who were more like their parents than either cared to admit, had taken its toll.

“I think the secret,” Morgan mused, “is that we’ve learned to let the other person be crazy when they need to be. We don’t try to fix each other. We just… cope.”

Leigh nodded. “Yeah, it’s like a see-saw. When one of us goes off the deep end, the other one stays grounded. Most of the time, anyway.”

Morgan smiled. “And when we’re both crazy?”

Leigh laughed. "If it's at the same time, we kick ass."

Their marriage was far from perfect, but it was theirs. A blend of love, madness, competition, antagonism and mutually shaky tolerance. Leigh and Morgan knew that the key to their survival was rope a doping the chaos and finding absurdity in the despair of it all.

So, if you ever find yourself in their shoes, just remember: in the institution called marriage, the crazier person might rule the day, but it’s the shared lunacy that keeps the love alive. And sometimes, that’s exactly what you need.

And as Leigh fiddled with his radios and Morgan’s soufflé rose miraculously in the oven, they exchanged suspicious glances. They were in this mess together, two stubborn humans navigating the rollercoaster of marriage, one disappointing day at a time.

Then one day, Leigh decided to prove once and for all that he was the crazier of the two. He needed to control the relationship. He bought a gun.

Leigh had always been the type to take things a step too far, but this was a leap off the deep end. He strutted into the living room, gun in hand, and declared, “Morgan, I am the craziest one in this marriage, and I have proof!”

Morgan, who was in the middle of constructing a papier-mâché castle for no apparent reason, looked up and blinked. “Leigh, what in the world are you doing with that thing?”

“I’m taking control,” Leigh said, brandishing the gun like it was a scepter. “From now on, I make the rules!”

Morgan sighed, put down her glue gun, and approached him calmly. “Leigh, put the gun down. This isn’t a Wild West showdown.”

“But Morgan, don’t you see? The crazier person rules, and I am the craziest!” he insisted, his eyes wide with manic determination.

Morgan crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Leigh, buying a gun doesn’t make you crazy. It makes you stupid. Now, hand it over before you shoot yourself in the effing foot.”

Morgan was stupid enlough not to be afraid which trumped Leigh's craziness.

Leigh hesitated, then slowly raised the gun and fired it at Morgan. A loud bang echoed through the room, but Morgan didn't flinch. She just stared at Leigh, who began to laugh hysterically.

“You wanted a blank check? Well, I checked and the gun cartridge was filled with blanks!”

Morgan sighed, exasperated but relieved. “Leigh, you idiot. You scared me half to death!”

Leigh, still chuckling, lowered the gun. “I wanted to make a point, Morgan. See? I'm the crazier one!”

"You're not crazy, you're just a Baldwin."

As they returned to their respective projects—Leigh to his radios and Morgan to her castle—they couldn’t help but laugh at the sadness of it all. Their marriage was a constant collision between sanity and madness that wouldn't go away.

And in the end, it wasn’t about who ruled the relationship or who was crazier. It was about tolerating their quirks, suspecting each other other through the highs and lows, and finding obsinancy in the chaos.

[holified]

1. When are you usually online?  My working schedule has been so awfully overwhelming that the only free time I have is on the weekends, but sometimes I’m so exhausted I cannot even write anything, although I’m often lurking here on Saturday and Sundays nights.

2. What verses are you involved in outside of this page? I have a blog for Sakura Haruno, so every once in a while you can catch me there, but it usually depends on whether my friends there are online or not. As for my verses here, I most use my “alive” verse, and I have recently been able to use my Yu Yu Hakusho verse thanks to some amazing new friends! I also have a special verse in which Kikyo and Kagome are sisters with my beloved Rarity, and a Sesskik verse that I absolutely love.

3. What is your biggest RP pet peeve? I’m a pretty laid back person, so it’s hard to anger me (or so I believe). But I suppose I could say my biggest pet peeves are when people try to pressure me into writing/doing something or when people start drama over small things. I have seen so many people arguing over stuff that’s just... so stupid! Dunno, I’m just too tired to deal with people right now.

4. Are you drawn to specific types of muses? Hmmm, maybe I am? I think it has changed over time, but I LOVE an angsty/misunderstood character. Powerful, complex women that are often mistreated by their writers bring out my fire to write. I need to like and find the character interesting to write it. Oh! And I don’t write male characters, dunno, I just don’t feel comfortable, I’ve had blogs for male characters before but they were always short-lived.

5. Are there recurring themes in your writing that people might not notice? I don’t know, maybe? I LOVE shipping threads, like, omg I’m a hopeless romantic and all the romantic love I don’t have in real life I seek in my writing. But I also love an adventure and I LOVE angst so... I’m not sure which theme could be considered “common” in my writing.

6. What are your favorite RP trends? Hmmm... I think the return of big icons, some time ago it was SUPER cool to have tini tiny icons that were overly saturated and were just a blur of colors that was impossible to decipher. I never understood this trend tbh, to me icons provide a visual reference to your character’s expression, the scene or to focus on a particular aspect of your character’s face/body language, so those impossible-to-understand icons were absurd! Anyway, but enough complaining about old trends! I think the new aesthetic trends are pretty great!

7. What is your process for starting a new story with someone? Good question, I usually just IM them or we start writing and go with the flow. I like this organic kind of writing, where ideas pop up and you move along with them. Planning is great, and having a general idea of where the thread will go is amazing, but discovering HOW it will get there is so... rewarding! 

8. How do you feel about duplicates? I’m incredibly insecure, so I avoid duplicates not to compare myself and end up abandoning the blog for thinking I’m not good enough :|

9. How long have you been involved in roleplaying? Oh my, here is where you discover I’m a dinosaur on Tumblr. I’ve been writing on tumblr for around 10 years, and I’ve never written outside of this website, I think I wouldn’t be able to roleplay outside of tumblr at this point.

10. Is there a muse or verse you wish you could write in, but haven’t? Oh, quite a few! But alas, I have no time to write the muses and verses I do have, imagine writing new ones! But one day I want to make a couple more blogs for one or two muses I’d like to give a try!

tagged: @thuganomxcs​   — thanks so much! ♥♥

tagging: literally anyone who sees this!

[aion-rsa]

5 underrated Richard Donner movies you need to see

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Richard Donner will forever be remembered as the filmmaker who created the blueprint for the modern superhero blockbuster with 1978’s Superman starring Christopher Reeve.

Yet that doesn’t tell even half the story of the Bronx-born filmmaker’s brilliant filmography.

Donner was in his late 40s by the time Superman came along, having made a name for himself in Hollywood two years earlier, with 1976’s suitably terrifying The Omen.

Prior to that, he was a budding director making the transition from the small screen to the world of cinema. Donner worked on everything from Gilligan’s Island to The Twilight Zone. Even then, it was clear he was destined for bigger things though, as anyone who saw  “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”, the iconic episode of The Twilight Zone he directed, starring William Shatner, can attest.

While a disagreement with producers ultimately saw him walk away from Superman II, the 1980s saw Donner establish himself as an incredibly versatile big budget director capable of handling everything from the epic family adventure fun of The Goonies to the balancing act of action and comedy found within the buddy cop antics of Lethal Weapon.

It was a skillset that drew admiration from the very best in the movie industry, including Steven Spielberg who was among the first to pay tribute to Donner after learning he had passed away, aged 91.

“Dick had such a powerful command of his movies, and was so gifted across so many genres,” Spielberg, who worked with Donner on The Goonies, said.

“Being in his circle was akin to hanging out with your favourite coach, smartest professor, fiercest motivator, most endearing friend, staunchest ally, and – of course – the greatest Goonie of all.”

Donner may not have had the same impact in the 1990s and early 2000s but he still enjoyed major success with the Lethal Weapon franchise and as a producer with movies like Free Willy and X-Men.

More importantly, the other films he made during that period and in the years between some of his biggest hits remain well worth revisiting or seeking out for the first time – starting with these five.

Ladyhawke

Coming hot on the heels of The Goonies and two years prior to Lethal Weapon, Ladyhawke represented another major departure for Donner. A dark medieval fantasy, it centred on Rutger Hauer’s mysterious Captain Etienne Navarre and his female companion Lady Isabeau (Michelle Pfeiffer), a pair of star-crossed lovers on the run from a vengeful bishop who has placed a demonic curse on their heads. While Navarre transforms into a wolf by night, Isabeau exists as a Hawk by day. Teaming up with petty thief Philippe Gaston (Matthew Broderick) they embark on a quest to overthrow the evil bishop and break the spell.

Something of a passion project, Donner had attempted to get Ladyhawke off the ground several times before finally getting the green light from Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox in the mid ’80s. The film then suffered another setback when Kurt Russell, originally cast as Navarre, dropped out during rehearsals. 

That ultimately proved a blessing in disguise with Hauer going on to deliver arguably his best performance since Blade Runner. Not everything about Ladyhawke works – Broderick’s character feels a little too close to Ferris Bueller while the runtime could be trimmed down – but it remains a beautifully realised fantasy epic, full of memorable action set pieces, stunning cinematography and a spellbinding turn from Pfeiffer.

A box office bomb upon release, Ladyhawke has stood the test of time too, garnering a cult following as an authentic and fresh take on the sword and sorcery formula. 

Maverick

Maverick is the film Will Smith must have hoped Wild Wild West would be; a funny, clever action comedy based on a classic TV show. Coming in an era when most westerns were deadly serious, Donner’s film also felt like a breath of fresh air and benefited hugely from a masterful William Goldman script that was both witty and unpredictable.

The latest in a series of films featuring Donner’s muse-of-sorts, Mel Gibson, this time out Mel plays Bret Maverick, a brilliant card player and equally impressive con artist trying to collect enough money to earn a seat at a high-stakes poker game. Along the way he is forced to contend with a fellow scammer in the form of Jodie Foster’s Annabelle Bransford as well as lawman Marshal Zane Cooper, played by James Garner, who starred in the original TV series.

While the glut of cameos from country music stars and the likes of Danny Glover can be a little distracting, there’s something wonderfully charming about Maverick with Gibson, Foster and Garner all on top form and boasting an undeniable chemistry that helps keep things entertaining. 

The climactic poker game which sees Maverick face off against Alfred Molina’s psychopathic Angel is also expertly handled by Donner, who cranks up the tension as Maverick reveals his final, decisive, hand with a slow-motion toss of the final card towards the camera. A critical and financial success, Maverick has been largely lost in the shuffle since its release but should be sought out.

Conspiracy Theory

There’s something strangely prescient about Conspiracy Theory given the current predilection for such thinking on the internet at large. One of Donner’s most inventive and intelligent outings alongside Gibson, this time out Mel plays Jerry Fletcher, a New York City cab driver with a penchant for paranoid conspiracy theories.

Jerry’s life takes a turn for the strange when he finds himself being targeted by a set of shady government goons led by Patrick Stewart’s Dr Jonas. He quickly realises one of the conspiracies he has been promoting in his weekly newsletter (this was the ‘90s) is based more in reality than he thought. The question is: which one?

An engrossing thriller featuring Donner’s trademark dashes of witty humour, Conspiracy Theory is bolstered significantly by the presence of the ever-reliable Julia Roberts as a government lawyer with a soft spot for Jerry. Despite a lengthy run time, Donner also keeps the action moving along at an engaging pace while Gibson’s performance is just the right side of manic to keep you rooting for him.

A first foray into the kind of deep state conspiracy thrillers that were commonplace in Hollywood at the time, the film also boasts some genuinely striking moments, not least the sequence where Jerry undergoes “psychotic testing” at the hands of Dr Jonas, which wouldn’t have looked out of place in A Clockwork Orange.

Though it was a hit with audiences, Conspiracy Theory earned mixed reviews but appears increasingly worthy of reappraisal.

Timeline

Some movies are big, dumb but lots of fun. Timeline sits firmly in that category despite what many naysayers would have you believe. It’s a brash, simplistic sci-fi flick to rival the likes of The Core and Geostorm and thoroughly entertaining to boot.

The fact that it features Gerard Butler, as well as the late, great, Paul Walker only adds to that sentiment.

Walker plays Chris Johnston who, along with Butler’s Andre Marek and a team of fellow archaeologists travel back in time through a wormhole to 14th century France to rescue their professor, Dr Edward Johnston (Billy Connolly), who just happens to be Walker’s character’s dad too.

Based on a book by Michael Crichton, Donner had been in the running to direct Jurassic Park a decade earlier and jumped at the chance to adapt Timeline for the big screen. While filming went off without a hitch, Donner repeatedly clashed with Paramount Pictures in post-production and was forced to re-cut the film three times in a development that saw the release date pushed by nearly a year. The resulting edit did not sit well with Crichton either, who disliked it so intensely he stopped licensing his work for a few years after.

Whether Donner’s original cut would have earned better reviews or Crichton’s approval remains to be seen but what remains of Timeline is still a well shot, enjoyable sci-fi yarn with some neat medieval action flourishes. 

16 Blocks

Donner’s final film also ranks among his most unappreciated. On the surface, 16 Blocks sounds like the perfect fodder for a game of buddy cop movie bingo.

It stars Bruce Willis as Jack Mosley, a worn-out NYPD Detective with a drinking problem tasked with transporting Mos Def’s trial witness Eddie Bunker to court. Problems arise when some of Jack’s fellow officers arrive to kill Eddie and prevent him from testifying. Eager for redemption, Jack decides to take the would-be assassins on and get Eddie to court on time.

A formulaic enough premise, 16 Blocks is emboldened by the fact it plays out in real-time with Eddie required at the courthouse by no later than 10am. In this sense, Donner found himself in new territory with an action thriller that thrives on a unique sense of urgency. 

While the filmmaker is no stranger to the action formula, this setup sees him imbue events with a renewed sense of chaos, as Jack and Eddie fight their way through armed adversaries, busy crowds and bustling traffic, all against a cacophony of shouts, car horns and gun blasts.

Ostensibly a chase movie on foot rather than four wheels, the action traverses 16 blocks in 118 minutes and rarely lets up for a second with Donner proving a dab hand at balancing the action with the engaging back-and-forth between Willis and Def who are both understated yet effective throughout.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Throw in the ever-watchable David Morse as the leader of the shady cops baying for Eddie’s blood and you have arguably one of the most underrated action thrillers of the early 2000s 

The post 5 underrated Richard Donner movies you need to see appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[boflicker]

Remnants

I dug deep into the bowels of the internet today, and buried in the archives I found the remnants of us. Poems and pieces written from our lives 18 years ago, when you were thriving in social justice work and I was just a gangly preteen. It tugged at my heart in a way I haven’t felt for a while.

It reminded me of when things were good between us; when you were my role model. When we would talk trash together, make out with statues, wander downtown and be punks together. And then I would come to Sisters and watch you work and own the floor, tenderly holding space for everyone you touched. I had so much pride that you were my mom. We were so misfitted and abnormal, and I was so grateful for how special we were. I didn’t know anyone else like us. 

The first poem I ever wrote was for you when I was 8. It was secretly about you; how everyone saw your flaws, but I saw your light. You cherished it, reverently writing it out as I spoke it aloud. You framed it in your scrawled artwork and hung it on the wall. 

Entombed in your old journals I found a lost memory of us: You had just dumped your abusive boyfriend after an abortion, and I helped you write a song to bash him and make you feel better. And as I read the words I felt my body physically transported to a bus stop downtown, happily screaming it with you as we scratched out his tags on old brick buildings and weathered benches. 

We hate pomo

Yeah!

We hate pomo

Yeah!

We hate pomo so much that we’ll die in hatred…..!!

It became our anthem, a catalogue to our secret language. You embraced my rage like no other could, so proud of every violently bleak poem I wrote. You soaked up my teen angst like it was nectar and reflected it back; to you it was magnificent. Our conduit of love was in our shared suffering, in the raw and ravishing mess that defined us. 

And yet the pattern never changed; A few weeks later you took him back and told me to stop singing the song. It took you 3 more years to leave him.

I miss those days when it was just us, when you made me feel so alive and whole. When I could shelter myself in naiveness to believe it would last, that we could forever stay the way we were. I didn’t know how deeply rooted you were to your torment, that it became your forever home, a shell so thick it obscured your sense of truth. You were the victim, and the world was your fodder, you couldn’t see the perpetrator within yourself. The cycle of violence you chose through your blindness. 

You broke my heart again and again, and yet you were my muse; my cherished chaos.

When I outgrew the suffering that bound us, you resented me. My joy became a reflection of your grief, my success - your despair. You hated me for breaking free, and yet you gave me the key. You told me not to make your mistakes, but when you saw me - all you could see was what you never had. My happiness tore you apart. 

Slowly I closed in, I stopped sharing my life with you. You quit asking questions and just talked, and I learned how to dissociate and listen. To submerge into your world to be close to you, until my energy was sucked out I could no longer drown in your secrets. 

I became a stranger to you; it took you so long to see me that you no longer knew who I was. 

And I forgot that there was ever a time before - because the changes were so slow. A time when I could do no wrong, when your love was unconditional and your words for me were tender. 

When I came back to Ecuador I snuck pictures of you with me. Old images of us; You, looking badass in your docs and short coiffed hair; gloriously beautiful in your butchness. And me, so small with my bowl cut and polka dot dress; freshly carved of this world. I see so much how you have shaped me, the patchwork amalgam I have become of both us tightly woven together.

You have always been with me, I never left you behind. My joy is yours, my healing is ours. The distance between us was not forged in anger, but created in love. 

Every step that I have taken; Is for both of us, and I hope that someday you can understand this. 

.

.

.

[avelera]

Musings for my novel, but it's interesting when you design a character to be an answer to a common trope, and then must dodge turning them into that exact trope. (I'd like to think GRRM ran into this problem at some point, designing his series to be a reversal of fantasy tropes, only to realize that well, at some point we're going to need a hero, and at some point someone needs to win this fight or it all spins off into chaos and it ends with rocks fall everyone dies. But then, maybe that's how he always planned to end it.) So the novel I'm working on is female character-centric. There's an HP-esque “Golden Trio” at the center where the balance is two women and one man. But I want to talk about my male character for a bit because I've been developing him a bunch lately, and I'd like to think I'm on to something interesting? So the trope I suppose I’d like to avoid is the “Male Character is the Most Special” but, at the end of the day, it’s not that stories go out of their way to make people into heroes, it’s that people being heroes is what makes stories. If he wasn’t in some way extraordinary and able to go toe-to-toe with my heroic female protagonists, he would be unworthy of their story and most likely an annoying character to boot. Terrence (all names subject to change at some point, the idea was for his name to sound a bit pompous and traditional) is something of my answer to Prince Caspian and the Fisher King. He’s the prince, now king of the fantasy island nation of Antylia. The ruler of Antylia, male or female, is always the firstborn in a line going back to the founding of the nation some 300-400 years earlier. That’s because the health of the ruler is literally tied to the land by magic, which passes on to their firstborn child after the ruler die. Which, in my opinion, is a system just asking to be hacked, and Antylia is very lucky that it hasn’t been yet (until now). As children, he and the female protagonists Thea and Alma went on a quest to depose his “evil” uncle, who had murdered Terrence’s father, the rightful king as well as the queen Terrence’s mother, in hopes that the magic of the land and its kingship would pass to him as secondborn and a better ruler but, failing that, it would pass to then 10-year-old Terrence who could be essentially imprisoned in a golden cage to maintain the health of the nation. Terrence at 14 did what any normal child in a fairytale story would do upon learning his uncle was responsible for his parents’ deaths: he ran away from home and with a few unlikely allies took back his throne. His uncle was executed. Thea, a girl from our world, went home. Alma, their commoner sidekick, went back to her own life. This whole novel is constructed around the idea of youthful simplicity giving way to adult complexity. Hopefully, everything that took place during their childhood quest can be easily grasped by readers without having to show very much of it. It’s a tale as old as time. Except now we’re 15 years later, and a civil war has been raging for most of that time, decimating the population. The commoner Alma is now on the side of the rebels, who have taken up arms against a king who has gone mad with power, decimating his own allies out of paranoia, and turning the island’s most powerful gift into the weapon of its destruction: the king is using his own body to target and destroy his political enemies with earthquakes, natural disaster and famine. His body is a weapon that allows the much smaller loyalist forces to have driven the rebel forces to desperation. Hopefully, it is another classic, easy to understand story, of the boy king spoiled until he becomes a despotic adult. Yet none dare kill him, because there’s no known firstborn heir for the health of the island nation to pass to. For all anyone knows, his death without heir could cause the total destruction of the island. Alma is forced to confront that as a naive child she had placed this despot on the throne of her homeland. When Thea, our protagonist, returns from our world to Antylia, she too is confronted with her childhood naïveté as well as Alma’s fury with her and at herself that they didn’t do more then or since to prevent this widespread destruction and see what Terrence really was sooner. (Adding to that, before Thea left she was honored with being knighted as the king’s protector, a role traditionally meant to keep the monarch in check, and abandoned it in order to return to our world.) Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a story if it ended at that, and a careful reader at this point may have noticed the flaw in the assumptions of Terrence’s wickedness. Even if he does wear a gold mask these days and call himself a god, there is the simple fact that it is the health of the king that makes the land thrive, and his pain that makes it suffer. Because Terrence hasn’t turned despot. He is a prisoner of his own reign, and has been more or less since Thea and Alma helped put him on the throne. Deposing his uncle as regent did nothing to remove the web of co-conspirators who were quick to disavow the regent when the tide of opinion turned in favor of the boy-king, who after all is an easier and more vulnerable target of manipulation anyway. In essence, Terrence has been tortured ever since in order to destroy their political enemies, kept imprisoned as the war worsened. So the original idea was that Terrence is in fact the damsel in distress of the novel, to be saved by our female protagonists. Granted, Alma is fairly skeptical of Thea’s belief (that turns out to be true) that the Terrence she knew would never become such a tyrant and that something is definitely wrong. (Alma’s not entirely in the wrong here for thinking otherwise though, she’s seen the wreckage of destroyed cities and giving your friend the “benefit of the doubt” in those situations is a bit challenging to say the least). But I can’t just have Terrence sitting around totally passive in his own captivity for 15 years. It would make him unworthy of the throne he fought for (and technically still occupies). Terrence is essentially stuck in a situation where injury made to him could kill his own people, perhaps even thousands at a time. He can’t use injury or suicide as a way out. He also doesn’t dare antagonize his captors if it risks sadism or punishment being added to the tactical use of his torture for the war (and he tried once, when he was 18, to escape by hurting himself and targeting an earthquake to his own location, only to be recaptured and punished). A certain amount of collaboration with his captors is the only way to spare lives. But he can read, and he can write, and for a decade now he’s been carefully smuggling out writings under the pen name of Leviathan urging the rebels that the office of the monarchy is now forever corrupted and must be destroyed. He becomes the intellectual leader against his own reign (Alma is by the way a rather big fan of "Leviathan”). Even this he needs to do very carefully lest it traces back to him. If and when Terrence is ever freed though, he fully intends to follow through with the destruction of his own monarchy. Once the Pandora’s Box of injuring the king to kill his people has been opened, there’s no putting it back, and he will not subject any children of his to the same fate he suffered. The only question is how. -- So anyway, I’m starting to love my angsty fatalistic Fisher King. Any thoughts on how he comes across to you guys, or how to improve him, would be much appreciated!