#(they seem to disappear 1884) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

realmflora · 10 months ago

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Heavenblossom - Reunition

//Rp format will be slightly different because Im lazy lol// //word count: 1884// // post i yoinked the border from //

-Leia’s flight finally comes to a halt as she spots the presumed landmark that Sōngshū had pointed out before she took off.

{This nation does look beautiful from the skies.. though I doubt that many people have been able to see it from such a view.}

She simply hovers over the place for a while, before flying a bit lower to scan the ground below. Hm.. she can’t see anyone, nor can she sense anyone either. But ooh, is that a shiny fish in that river over there?

Leia momentarily gets distracted by— well, the fish in the river. She lets herself ‘sit’ on the ground so she could rest her wings. They still fluttered despite her not flying anymore.. more of a subconscious action for stimulation than anything.

“Hello, little fishy! Your scales are so shiny and pretty.” Leia says. The fish gives her a look that could be the equivalent to a glare. This makes her laugh.

-…They recognized that laugh. It makes their heart hurt.

Sakura had decided to check Liyue first because.. well, they don’t even know. It was just a feeling in their mind that told them that this was the place they needed to be. And it seems like their feelings finally decided to be on their side for once.

Did it take a bit out of them to get here so fast? Yes. They can’t teleport like Chero does, so they simply had to rely on jumping in and out of shadows. Getting out of Fontaine was the truly only difficult part, because of the annoyingly huge ocean in between the exit of Fontaine and the back entrance of Sumeru.

Once they had gotten out, they simply jumped from person to person, before spotting a blurred shape flying above and deciding to follow it.

..Maybe they should have napped before they left. But it’s whatever.

Now, after tossing different ideas in their head, they decide to use the same tactic they did with Cyrille- simply showing up and waiting for their presence to be reacted to.

So, their little shadow carefully slinks up next to Leia, and they carefully rise out of it so that they’re now sitting next to her, just out of her peripheral vision. They become slightly annoyed that Leia is still taller than them, even when sitting, after all these years.

“You flew all the way here just to get distracted by a fish who doesn’t seem to like you very much.” Sakura says, amusement spilling into their voice. “Very productive of you.”

-“Well, it is a very shiny fish, and it was practically asking for my attention. I can’t really control what my attention span latches itself onto, you kn-“ Leia stops halfway through her ramble, the voice of the other person registering in her head.

She turns to face.. Sakura. The always-tired, lovely face of Sakura, who has finally seen her again.

With no hesitation, Leia solidifies her entire body and wraps Sakura into a tight hug. All six of her wings wrap themselves around Sakura too, protecting them, holding them, never wanting to let go ever again out of fear that they’ll disappear from her arms.

-Sakura doesn’t even hesitate with hugging her back, letting Leia hold them tightly. It doesn’t take long until they burst into tears, all the pressure and pain and longing from these past thousand years finally deciding to manifest into a single emotion- sorrow.

-Leia rubs the top of Sakura’s head, rocking them back and forth as a comfort method. She missed them so, so much. Words couldn’t even describe how much overwhelming emotion she was feeling right now, but she figured Sakura was probably feeling so, so much worse.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve listened to you. You were right.” Leia says, her voice low so that she wouldn’t overwhelm the other by simply speaking. It was her fault that they got separated so early. If she had just been more patient. If she had just waited..

-Sakura curls themselves into Leia’s chest, almost entirely hidden to anyone who may be watching from afar. They don’t respond in words- just more and more sobs.

“I…m.. sorry..” They say in between gasps. “I.. killed… everyone..”

-“No, don’t apologize. Please.” Leia interjects, squeezing Sakura tighter. “I swear to- well, myself because I’m literally the embodiment of heaven- don’t blame yourself for my stupid decision. You were right, maybe we could’ve all made it out if I had just waited a bit.”

-Sakura cries for a bit longer before forcing themselves to a stop. They needed to know what happened. They knew Rhea did it, but..

“What happened after…? How are you.. here..”

And this is why they never cry. It makes speaking so unnecessarily hard.

-“..It’s a.. very long story.” Leia sighs, still rocking Sakura back and forth. Now it was to comfort both of them, instead of just comforting Sakura.

-“I have.. at least another 600 years.. before I’m set to die. I can listen..”

-“Are you.. sure you even want to hear it now? It may make you mad…”

-“And we.. both know how I get when I’m mad.” Sakura finishes with a long, tired sigh. Hey, at least their speech is getting better again. “But you’re the only liv- ..the only other person here now.. I can’t hurt anybody if there’s nobody to hurt in the first place. Unless you’re not ready to tell me. I can wait.”

-…She sighs.

“After I had died, I watched the entire thing that happened afterwards. You killing the remaining people at camp, Rhea revealing the truth.. and then I got mad, like you did. Not homicidally-mad, but just.. pissed. How could the heavens let this happen? How could such a gruesome, evil activity pass through the gate’s supervision unnoticed?” “So, there was a moment where I couldn’t follow you anymore and I decided to trek up to Heaven to see what the deal was. I told them everything- the murder, the gore, the psychological abuse, everything… and they..”

Can she even say it out loud to them? “..they didn’t believe me.”

-“They didn’t what?!” Sakura sits up, looking at Leia with a look of pure disbelief. “How? How did they not believe you? Were there not hundreds- probably even thousands of kids just pouring into heaven's gates? Did they not ever sit and wonder ‘Hey, why are there so many kids all of a sudden’? How-”

They take a deep breath. They were getting mad. They couldn’t get mad. Not again.

-”See, that’s what I was saying!” Leia exclaimed, which entirely caught Sakura off guard. “I brought up every single one of those points! And they still said I was spewing bullshit! The nerve!” -”....I’ve never heard you curse before.”

“Yeah, cause I never need to! But those guys made me so mad that it literally makes me want to destroy everything within the vicinity.” The wings hugging Sakura tighten around the other a bit more, and Sakura notices that the air around the two of them looked like.. it was being crumpled up.

-”Okay, continue your story before you actually destroy everything within the vicinity. This isn’t our world- we can’t just destroy it because of.. angry outbursts.” Sakura lays their head back on Leia’s chest, aware of how much of a hypocrite they sounded like right now. Luckily for them, Leia begins rubbing their head again and continuing with her story.

-”Okay, so basically, I decided to reenact the Lady Timeflower dilemma and start a war in heaven because those guys were nerving me.” Leia loses her serious, somber tone and it’s replaced with a hyper and energetic one. One that Leia presumes Sakura is very, very familiar with by now. “And I fucking won. I got to be the one to kill the Overlord and then I assumed that I could go back down and find you- buuuut I didn’t realize how hierarchy works. So I. Uh. Became the new overlord? Oops?”

-Sakura sits there in silence for a good minute. Then, their shoulders start to shake.

-Leia is confused, patting Sakura’s head because she thinks they are crying. But to her surprise, Sakura starts laughing. It starts as a little giggle and then slowly turns into a full blown laugh. She.. hasn’t heard them laugh like that in at least a thousand years.

-”You tell me about a moment that was probably extremely traumatic for you-” Sakura tilts their head to look up at Leia with a lingering smile. “Not only because you had to be the leader of an army, presumably, but also because of the Vetwilia and Whitilio war- and yet you said it in such a hilarious, uncaring way, just to subconsciously brighten the mood.. I’ve always loved that about you.”

-Leia can feel her face heat up, and she turns away with a sheepish laugh. Her ear-wings were flapping in a embarrassed but happy way. Flappy ears. “Well, you know how I am. I’m just such a bright and fun person to be around.” Is her response. -Sakura lets their laughter die out, eventually sighing again. “You.. are okay now, right? At least a bit? I can’t say that I know that war is terrible- Rheflora has never caught even the smallest whiff of violence- but I’ve heard enough stories from Whitilio refugees that I do know that it.. certainly is scarring.”

-“I’m better now. Unlike you and Chero, I know that I need to actually process my trauma instead of repressing it and hoping that it just miraculously evaporates into a cloud of PTSD and magic amnesia.”

-”That’s just rude, now. It’s an effective coping mechanism, and it worked until we landed on this idiotic planet.” Sakura closes their eyes again, savoring Leia’s small moment of flusteredness because they know damn well the tables are going to be turned on them the second the two get used to each other again. {At least I know she still loves me. And I still love her.}

-”Effective isn’t the same as healthy. Two very different things, actually, with their own separate meanings and ways they can be used in certain contexts.” Leia rolls her eyes.

-”Please. Not another Language lesson. I’ve had enough of grammatical lectures. Look- I use at least half of the words you have forcibly taught me in my day-to-day speech. You can’t call me grammatically lacking now.”

-Leia laughs, and Sakura realizes once again that they could listen to this laugh forever and beyond, and still never get tired of it even once. They know that the two of them still have.. a lot they need to talk about. Leia simply skimmed over her troubles, and Sakura has yet to explain their own disappearance. One of the most crucial steps in the healing process is trusting each other with their issues. That, unfortunately, isn’t something that can happen in a few hours.

But hey, there’s no rush. Sakura has 600 years, and even after they die, they won’t be separated because they can just go back to the Heaven of their homeworld together. Either that or prank people as ghosts here. Both are appealing.

Relationships take time. And no one makes that time but you.

#heavenblossom #from now on if you send an ask directed to either of these two #theyll answer it together <3

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ellie-e-marcovitz · 1 year ago

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Tale of a wand

Epilogue to Boston 1884 that no one asked for, but appeared anyway.

It ended up taking two days before he arrived at Ilvermorny.

After the trial, his parents scoured Washington for the uniform pieces, as he waited at MACUSA, with Aurors Asher and Carter. They also informed Catherine of the decision made, with the fastest owl they could find at the owl office, much to her displeasure.

Day two in Washington was finding a wandmaker. Which terrified him, considering that the verdict in his case had been announced to the rest of the country by then, and everyone had their opinions. His ever present tails of Asher and Carter were escorting them in plainclothes.

There were apparently a few wandmakers in the city, but only one of them chose to help, instead of throw him dirty looks and order him out.

"Edmund Murrow," he introduced himself. "So you're the lad who has been making the papers."

He nodded, not sure what to say.

Mister Murrow went to his shelves of wands, all neatly packaged in variously colored boxes. An odd look crossed the wandmaker's face. He pulled a deep blue box from the collection, almost eye level.

Examining the box, the wandmaker appeared to contemplate it. "Hmm, I wonder... if you were meant to come here." He pulled several others, the boxes of varying colors, setting them to the side.

He tried each, with the same result. They didn't fit, unable to deal with the amount of magic he seem to deal with. Two he'd barely swished, before they were plucked out of his hand. Another shot off brilliant fireworks, before flying out of his hand.

All that remained was the one in the deep blue box. Something about it almost seemed to call to him. Mister Murrow opened it silently, revealing the wand inside.

He instinctively reached for it.

"Eleven and three-quarter inches, cypress wood," Mister Murrow said, as he handed it over. "Unusual core, unicorn hair twined with a single veela hair. Not a material I usually work with... but one needs to work with unusual materials if one wishes to grow."

Taking it, there was something... different that happened. Something different to the other wands. A more clear connection. His arm tingled, but not in a bad way.

More like the magic coming into focus for him, more controllable and less chaotic than it had been. It was almost creepy.

Mister Murrow seemed satisfied with what happened. "That's better, is it not?"

He nodded, the tingly feeling beginning to disappear. "Yes, sir. It is."

Handing it back, it was placed back in its box, before being wrapped up and given to his mother. In another box, Mister Murrow put several items that looked vaguely familiar to him, but couldn't place, before tying it up.

He tuned out the talk of how much, feeling embarrassed at having to deal with this now and not a year from now. 42 dragots still seemed like a lot on top of everything else.

Exiting the shop, he took a breath before they appariated back home. He wasn't looking forward to going to Ilvermorny.

#boston 1884 #fic #epilogue #cyrus northrup

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datasoong47 · 1 year ago

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Hmm .... that 1879 resolution seems to have only been about Kansas City, MO. However, there were arguments made in the late 19th century that the border was incorrectly surveyed and should be moved six miles east

This is pretty interesting

The first push for the border alteration actually came from Missouri in the pre-Civil War years. In 1855, Mobillion W. McGee, a proslavery resident of Westport, Missouri, believed that if the Kansas territory annexed Kansas City and Westport it would gain thousands of proslavery sympathizers who could vote to make Kansas a slave state when it entered the Union. No records of this attempt survived, but according to a Kansas City newspaperman named Robert T. Van Horn, he and Mobillion McGee gained the consent of a majority of the Missouri legislature and the Kansas territorial legislature at Shawnee Mission, Kansas, to move the Kansas border. A third associate, whose identity was never revealed by the other plotters, disappeared with a love interest before he could gain necessary approval from members of the U.S. Congress. The proposals never came to a vote in any of the legislative bodies.

That's a wrinkle in the Bleeding Kansas saga that I'd never heard of! I knew there were lots of efforts by both sides to get people to move to Kansas Territory to try to make it slave or free, but never knew they tried to actually add people by moving the border

In 1878, the Kansas City Times began publishing articles in favor of annexation, arguing that the bulk of Kansas City’s trade already took place with towns in Kansas. Most Kansas City residents, according to the paper, considered themselves to be Kansans, regardless of the lines on a map. Furthermore, much of the area’s development was occurring in what would in 1886 become Kansas City, Kansas. The area’s emerging cities would essentially end up as one metropolis, yet the state line spurred economic and political divisions that could potentially impair growth on both sides. The Times articles reasoned that in consideration of Kansas City’s desire to be annexed, Missouri would agree to the plan, provided that it was allowed to retain all tax revenue from Kansas City for a period of 50 years.

So effectively a proposal to purchase the city from Missouri

Further attempts to annex Kansas City occurred in 1884 and 1899. Throughout this time, Kansas City residents frequently claimed that surveyors failed to account for the changing routes of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers when determining the border. Therefore, the surveyors allegedly placed the Kansas-Missouri border six miles too far to the west in relation to the original Missouri state charter. Proponents of annexation lobbied the Kansas legislature to bring the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1899, but to no avail. Reputable surveys undertaken at the time confirmed that the border was actually in the correct location. Since the movements for the annexation of Kansas City to Kansas in the nineteenth century, no more serious attempts have been made. Kansas City, Missouri, appears destined to remain in Missouri and confuse generations to come.

That last one seems to be what's depicted on this map

... Technically that argument would also affect the Arkansas-Oklahoma border since the border was defined in part in relation to the southwestern corner of Missouri

Irredentist Map of Kansas, showing all land the state has ever administered or claimed, or land that attempted to join Kansas

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artist-helene-schjerfbeck · 3 years ago

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The Door, Helene Schjerfbeck, 19??, Finnish National Gallery

Schjerfbeck painted The Door (Old Monastery Hall) in 1884 at Trémalo chapel in Pont-Aven, during her second visit to Brittany. It seems an ultra-simplified work, but the composition is very carefully worked out. In this work the ostensible subject practically disappears. What fascinates the viewer is the closed door and the light escaping round it. The painting does not aim to picture reality and create an illusion of space, but rather to create a new, simplified means of expression.

http://kokoelmat.fng.fi/app?si=A+IV+3680

#finngallery #finnishnationalgallery #museumarchive #europeana #artmuseum

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myhauntedsalem · 3 years ago

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Scott Mansion

Merrill, Wisconsin was originally inhabited by the Chippewa Native Americans. Near the current city in the early 1800’s there was a village the French called Squiteo-eau-sippi. French traders came to the village and were welcomed with open arms by the chief there. The chief’s daughter served the men dinner and was given the name Jenny. That was the last good thing that happened on that land for nearly 100 years. The supposedly cursed Scott Mansion surely has the history to attest to that.

The story of Jenny has three different telling’s, they all however in the same, with her death and a curse on the land where she was buried. It is claimed one French trader took a liking to Jenny. One story is she became pregnant and she drowned herself in the Wisconsin River. Another story says she became pregnant and died at childbirth and the last has her dying on the flu contracted from the French traders.

All three stories however led to one thing, a very upset and angry chief who had to bury his daughter. He did on the hill across from the village and since there were no traders left to level his vengeance, he cursed the land his child was buried on saying:

“O Great Spirit, grant me this peace for my child. Let this ground be sacred to her memory, and let it never do any white man any good.”

It did not take long for the curse to take hold as settlers came in and built a village next to the hill. The village was besieged by death and misfortune. Though some can claim this to be nothing but folklore, the fate of a local lumber tycoon and his family, Thomas Blythe Scott, who bought the land on the hill in 1884, is well documented.

Thomas Scott, his wife Anna and son Walter started building the Mansion in 1884. In 1886, Thomas died before the house was finished. His wife Anna died the following year and his son sold the mansion but was stabbed to death years later. None of the Scott’s ever lived in the mansion.

Other owners soon saw the same fate. One owner bought and sold the home in 5 days, one owned it for only a few years until in 1893 Edward and Gertrude Kuechle purchased the property. Soon after he went broke in a gold mine scam. A few years later the Kuechle’s bought the home back and again promptly lost his money in a bad railroad investment. Mr. Kuechle went insane and died in an asylum.

The next owner, Mr. Tony Barsanti, was stabbed to death in Chicago’s Union Station. Another died of a stroke and yet another disappeared without a trace. In 1912, a caretaker of the house named Popcorn Can Coxon was reported drowned on the Titanic and in 1919 the last caretaker drank himself to death.

In 1923 the property was given to the city and soon became home to the Sisters of the Holy Cross. It seems the Sisters have ended the curse as nothing has happened since. The mansion however has had many claims of the paranormal kind over the years.

The apparition claimed to be seen in the mansion seems to be fitting, a young girl seen several times in the tower of the cursed Scott Mansion. Could it be the Native American daughter of the chief? Also claims have been lights going on and off and doors opening and closing on their own. Another paranormal claim is the feeling a very strong presence throughout the house.

#Scott Mansion #haunted locations #paranormal #ghost and spirits #ghost and hauntings #haunted salem #myhauntedsalem

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leo-gold-hotchner · 4 years ago

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The Tag

It feels like ages I’ve logged on my tumblr... I’ve been hospitalised and still waiting for a surgery. I didn’t have any energy to make new gif for hotch, so I used the one I already made

Word: 1884

Not-so-human Aaron Hotchner & Gender neutral Reader

A few years ago, when you just joined the BAU led by Aaron Hotchner, you saw a strange pale creature above the clouds. Its wings were large enough to cover the Moon above it. In surprise, you blinked, and the creature was no longer hovering over you. It must have been a trick of moonlights and the city’s colourful lights around you. You stared the black curtained sky as if your feet were rooted on the spot until Emily and JJ called you from behind. Before getting into the SUV, you once again looked up but only the pale moon bid you goodnight.

The case happened in a remote area, the town was surrounded by dark woods. The woods were dark and shadowed by many trees, the leaves were so thick that it would be impossible for the sunlight to penetrate the woods. You inwardly shuddered at the thought of being lost in these dark woods. And you felt a pang of sorrow welching your heart when you thought about victims laying on the mysterious territory. You inhaled cold winter air as you stared at the dark woods. Your team members already went to the hotel to rest but you were still at the station and looking down at the woods from the second-floor balcony. You didn’t feel like sleeping, the case made you unnerving, feeling you weren’t doing your best to help the victims by finding UnSub. Waking from the train of thoughts, you blinked. You saw your boss running towards the woods, into the thick black trees. You wanted to call for your boss, but he already disappeared into the woods full of danger. No one at the station seemed to be alerted, which meant nothing troublesome happened but why would Hotch run like he was chasing UnSub? Or more like running away from something? What if he saw someone suspicious but didn’t have time to call anyone? Let’s just hope you can get signals in the woods. You quickly followed your boss who you felt like disappeared long ago.

You were not a coward. But heck, the dark woods scared you without your friends or officers. Only relying on the light from your phone, you cautiously stepped forward one by one. You could hear insects, night birds hooting, and screeching bats. At least you didn’t hear growling or even howls that would lunge at you in the middle of darkness. But your gun was readied in your other hand in case a wolf or other predator jumped into you. You slightly shivered as damp grasses ominously touched your exposed ankles as you walked. You wondered if you should yell for Hotch, but worried that your voice might attract all sorts of things in the woods. It was stupid of you. Without a map or help the woods was a large labyrinth. You just hoped nothing will come out without a warning like from the third trial of Triwizard Tournament from Harry Potter. With shudder, you kept calling Hotch, but his phone continuously gone to voicemails.

‘This is Aaron Hotchner. I’m unavailable right now, but I’ll call you …,’ blah blah, with a groan you pressed the red button on your screen.

Then you heard a little crack behind you, and hastily pointed your gun at whatever it was. You didn’t know you were holding your breath when you sighed at the sight of an owl tilting its head towards you on a tick branch. The owl, but soon flew off as an echo of low roar spread through the dark woods. The mysterious roar made you feel like electricity flowing in your every vein. Your body trembled slightly and quickly examined your surroundings. But nothing. No wolf, no bear, or any predator you could spot. Your heart raced as if you’ve been running for hours, and the heart started to hurt from it. You blamed your stupidity to follow your boss into this mysterious territory. Then, your boss was here, and you must find him. What if something happens to him? You had to find him. You breathed slowly, calming yourself. You have a weapon in your hand, you don’t have to worry about anything. You didn’t hear anything about animals attacking in this area from the station at least. You cautiously started to move forward to find your man. ‘No, nope, not my man, my bad,’ you corrected your thoughts. ‘My boss, not my man.’ Where the heck did that thought come from anyway? Because you have a huge crush on your boss, someone whispered in your head. That’s not true, you gritted back at that someone but that someone just disappeared with a smirk.

You sighed in relief as you didn’t see anything or dangerous falling upon you. Your eyes widened in surprise as you entered a wide-open area. Not only the beauty of the lake and fireflies, but also a large creature made you stop breathing. Not only you but also the creature’s slit reptilian eyes widened as it found you staring at it. Your brain stopped functioning for a moment. That enormous creature was no woodland animal. Its lower body was soaked with the water of the lake, but you could see its large limbs under the shallow water with the help from the bright moonlight. The creature had scales all over its large body, the scales lit lightly under the moonlight. Its wings were folded gently on both sides of the creature, the creature lowered its head to study you. With all the science and numerical data in your head, you couldn’t believe what you were seeing in front of you. It felt like you were dreaming, it felt like you were hallucinating.

A mythical creature that was called a dragon.

It was in front of you, breathing alive, staring at you as if it was studying if you were a friend or foe. The dragon lowered its head further down and you could see its reptilian, but beautiful brown orbs staring at you. You finally let out your breath you didn’t know you were holding. As if it was pulling you towards it, you took steps forward, you could feel its breath coming out from its nostrils. Tentatively, you touched its scaly face. It felt cool under your warm skin, it felt like touching a snake. Something rumbled inside its throat as you patted the dragon. It was like patting a large dog rather than a legendary creature. It was looking with warmth in its eyes, and it surprised you how the dragon was friendly to you. You didn’t take your eyes off of its warm eyes and realised you were looking at very familiar eyes. You gave yourself a slap in your head, snorting at your stupid theory.

But you couldn’t help but blurt out. “Aaron?” You were sure the dragon winced. You felt it inhaling as the dragon was starting to pull its head away from your touch. Despite your brain still didn’t believing what you were seeing and experiencing, your heart wanted to believe in your instinct.

“Aaron, don’t.” You didn’t have strength to pull the dragon back to your hands, but you tried to tighten your grip on its face. The dragon halted its movement but stared at you wryly. “You’re Aaron Hotchner, aren’t you?”

A moment of silence surrounded you. Only hooting of owls and chirps of crickets could be heard around. The dragon finally gave you a sound of rumble and you decided to take it as an affirmative to your question. You smiled.

“I’ve seen you before,” you whispered. “Not long after I joined your team.” Another rumble, but it more sounded like a whine. “I guess you’re trying to say it’s my team too,” you chuckled. “Someday, if you’re comfortable, I hope you can tell me why a dragon became an FBI agent.”

With splash, the dragon stretched a bit, and you stepped backward to see what Aaron the Dragon would do. It expanded its humongous wings and looked at you expectantly.

“What?” You asked with a smile. You were sure you saw the dragon rolling its eyes. The dragon stretched its limb -paw?- towards you. “Want me to…?” You pointed at its palm and yourself and the dragon nodded silently. Not to scratch yourself from its sharp claws, you cautiously stood on the palm. You fell on your bum as it moved without a warning, its wings starting to flap readying to fly off. “Hey!” A sound continuous rumble from the dragon, and you knew it was laughing at you. “Oh yeah laugh it off,” you rolled your eyes. “I’ll pay you back, Hotch.” If the dragon had any brows, it would’ve arched eyebrows at you.

You felt a cool breeze washing over you as Aaron the Dragon started to hover lowly from the ground. You forgot to glare at the dragon as the lake and woods started to look small. It felt really different from looking down from the jet. Wind howled next to your ears, the lowering clouds touching your skin felt so new and good. Though the air got icy, and your teeth started to clatter. Despite coldness, you yawned which you utterly failed to stifle. The dragon made a sound that was something like a whine or groan, and gently clasped its fingers around you. The scales were cold, but it warmed your body easily enough. “Thank you, Aaron,” you shouted, looking up at its chin. You weren’t sure if the dragon could hear you. “But I think we should go!” With another rumble, the dragon slowly descended, and you could see the lights of the town where you were staying.

-HOTCH-

You jolted up from your bed, eyes widened. A dream? You looked around and found yourself in your motel room. You fumbled your sheet to find your phone which you found in your pants pocket. You groaned as you saw tons of messages and missed calls from your colleagues except Hotch. Before you could even reply to your every friend in worry, the door banged several times. Hurrying yourself with your clothes, you opened the door without asking who. With your mouth ajar, you looked at your boss who looked so stoic and chilled as ever.

“Hotch,” your breath hitched as the memory of last night -or dream?- started to form in your brain.

“If I recall correctly,” he whispered lowly, “you called me ‘Aaron’.”

“That wasn’t a dream?” Unconsciously you took a step back and the other agent entered your room and closed the door.

“No.”

“How did I end up in my bed?”

“You fell asleep, and I had to move you here.” Hotch shrugged nonchalantly.

“My clothes?” You snapped as you felt fire on your face. Hotch only smirked at you, shrugging once again.

“We’re rather late,” he drawled as he glanced at his watch. “I’ll see you at the station.”

You grabbed his sleeve who just turned to exit. “Promise me you’ll tell me your story.”

Hotch raised his brows and tilted his head. Then he grabbed your chin and landed his lips on yours softly. You couldn’t believe his lips were on yours, and unfortunately it only lasted a second. “Deal.” His eyes sparkled mischievously and exited your room, giving a short wave of his hand.

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #bau #gender neutral reader #Agent Hotchner

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eli-kittim · 3 years ago

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A Critique of Form Criticism

By Bible Researcher & Award-Winning Goodreads Author Eli Kittim 🎓

What is Form Criticism?

Form criticism is a discipline of Bible studies that views the Bible as an anthology of conventional stories that were originally transmitted orally and later codified in writing. Therefore, form criticism tries to identify scriptural literary patterns and trace them back to their particular oral tradition. Hermann Gunkel (1862–1932), a German Old Testament Bible scholar, was the founder of form criticism. He was also one of the leading proponents of the “history of religions school,” which employed the methods of historical criticism. While the methods used in *comparative religion* studies were certainly important, these liberal theologians nevertheless began their formal inquiry with the theoretical presupposition that Christianity was equal to all other religions and they, therefore, rejected its claims to absolute truth. However, this underlying presumption involves circular thinking and confirmation bias, which is the habit of interpreting new evidence as confirmation of one's preexisting beliefs or theories. Despite the usefulness of the approach, form criticism involves a great deal of speculation and conjecture, not to mention blatant unbelief. One of its biggest proponents in the twentieth century was German scholar Rudolf Bultmann (1884—1976). Similar to other form-critics who had a bias against supernaturalism, he too believed that the Bible needed to be “demythologized,” that is, divested of its miraculous narratives and mythical elements.

Form criticism is valuable in identifying a text's genre or conventional literary form, such as narrative, poetry, wisdom, or prophecy. It further seeks to find the “Sitz im Leben,” namely, the context in which a text was created, as well as its function and purpose at that time. Recently, form criticism's insistence on oral tradition has gradually lost support in Old Testament studies, even though it’s still widely used in New Testament studies.

Oral Tradition Versus Biblical Inspiration

Advocates of form criticism have suggested that the Evangelists drew upon oral traditions when they composed the New Testament gospels. Thus, form criticism presupposes the existence of earlier oral traditions that influenced later literary writings. Generally speaking, the importance of historical continuity in the way traditions from the past influenced later generations is certainly applicable to literary studies. But in the case of the New Testament, searching for a preexisting oral tradition would obviously contradict its claim of biblical inspiration, namely, that “All Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3.16). It would further imply that the evangelists——as well as the epistolary authors, including Paul——were not inspired. Rather, they were simply informed by earlier oral traditions. But this hypothesis would directly contradict an authentic Pauline epistle which claims direct inspiration from God rather than historical continuity or an accumulation of preexisting oral sources. Paul writes in Galatians 1.11-12 (NRSV):

For I want you to know, brothers and sisters,

that the gospel that was proclaimed by me

is not of human origin; for I did not receive it

from a human source, nor was I taught it,

but I received it through a revelation of

Jesus Christ.

Moreover, the gospels were written in Greek. The writers are almost certainly non-Jews who are copying and quoting extensively from the Greek Old Testament, not the Jewish Bible, in order to confirm their revelations. They obviously don’t seem to have a command of the Hebrew language, otherwise they would have written their gospels in Hebrew. And all of them are writing from outside Palestine.

By contrast, the presuppositions of Bible scholarship do not square well with the available evidence. Scholars contend that the oral traditions or the first stories about Jesus began to circulate shortly after his purported death, and that these oral traditions were obviously in Aramaic. But here’s the question. If a real historical figure named Jesus existed in a particular geographical location, which has its own unique language and culture, how did the story about him suddenly get transformed and disseminated in an entirely different language within less than 20 years after his purported death? Furthermore, who are these sophisticated Greek writers who own the rights to the story, as it were, and who pop out of nowhere, circulating the story as if it’s their own, and what is their particular relationship to this Aramaic community? Where did they come from? And what happened to the Aramaic community and their oral traditions? It suddenly disappeared? It sounds like a non sequitur! Given these inconsistencies, why should we even accept that there were Aramaic oral traditions? Given that none of the books of the New Testament were ever written in Palestine, it seems well-nigh impossible that the Aramaic community ever existed.

Besides, if Paul was a Hebrew of Hebrews who studied at the feet of Gamaliel, surely we would expect him to be steeped in the Hebrew language. Yet, even Paul is writing in sophisticated Greek and is trying to confirm his revelations by quoting extensively not from the Hebrew Bible (which we would expect) but from the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament. Now that doesn’t make any sense at all! Since Paul’s community represents the earliest Christian community that we know of, and since his letters are the earliest known writings about Jesus, we can safely say that the earliest dissemination of the Jesus story comes not from Aramaic oral traditions but from Greek literary sources!

Conclusion

It doesn’t really matter how many sayings of Jesus Paul, or anyone else, reiterates because it’s irrelevant in proving the impact of oral tradition. The point is that all the sayings of Jesus may have come by way of revelation (cf. Gal. 1.11-12; 2 Tim. 3.16)!

And why are the earliest New Testament writings in Greek? That certainly would challenge the Aramaic hypothesis. How did the Aramaic oral tradition suddenly become a Greek literary tradition within less than 20 years after Jesus’ supposed death? That kind of thing just doesn’t happen over night. It’s inexplicable, to say the least.

Moreover, who are these Greek authors who took over the story from the earliest days? And what happened to the alleged Aramaic community? Did it suddenly vanish, leaving no traces behind? It might be akin to the Johannine community that never existed, according to Dr. Hugo Mendez. It therefore sounds like a conspiracy of sorts.

And why aren’t Paul’s letters in Aramaic or Hebrew? By the way, these are the earliest writings on Christianity that we have. They’re written roughly two decades or less after Christ’s alleged death. Which Aramaic oral sources are the Pauline epistles based on? And if so, why the need to quote the Greek Septuagint in order to demonstrate the fulfillment of New Testament Scripture? And why does Paul record his letters in Greek? The Aramaic hypothesis just doesn’t hold up. Nor do the so-called “oral traditions.”

—

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finnish-art-gallery · 4 years ago

Photo

The Door, Helene Schjerfbeck, 19??, Finnish National Gallery

http://kokoelmat.fng.fi/app?si=A+IV+3680

#europeana #museumarchive #artmuseum #finnishnationalgallery #finngallery

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fangirlings-things · 5 years ago

Text

He's just too much

Requested by @yulianaxm26

A/N: let me know if you guys want a part 2, because I definitely have some ideas

Pairings: Michael Gray x reader

Warnings: a few curse words

Summary: Michael Gray is just too much for (Y/N) to not fall in love with him

Word count: 1884

Part. 2 Part. 3 Part. 4

"Polly?" You called the woman while entering her house, to which you had the front door keys. Looking around at the familiar place, you realized there was only one light up at that time of the night. It was the living room's.

Walking in that direction, you entered the room and your eyes came fo fall upon Michael, who was sitting at the wooden table near the fireplace, smoking while his eyes were focused on the carpet and he did a thing you had seen your friend Tommy do a few times. The french inhale, the act of putting the smoke you produced inside your body. It made you instinctively look at Michael's lips as the smoke disappeared through them and you couldn't deny, that it was a sexy thing to watch.

"She's not here" Michael raised his eyes until yours and for a moment, you two just looked at each other.

The truth was, you liked to look at Michael. Just look at him. Admire his hair, his jaw, the way his muscles tensed under his shirts when he was worried or had something bothering him. He was a beautiful man, you always said to yourself when you found yourself staring too intensely at him. But he's off limits, you had to remind right away after. When you accepted Tommy's offer and started to work for the Shelby's, becoming a Peaky Blinder, you made a promise to yourself that you wouldn't get involved with no one in that family. You loved all of them like you were a Shelby yourself, but the thought of getting romantically involved with those people made you shiver. They were always in danger, fighting against an enemy. The thought of losing the person you loved the most, would probably destroy you. So no, the best to do was stay away from that kind of relationship.

And that plan did just fine for a few years. You considered Arthur, John, Tommy and Finn your brothers and never desired any of them. But then, Michael Gray came along and it all changed. He was just too much. Too much for you to handle without falling for him. The way he smiled and would occasionally laugh while with John, the way he seemed interested in bussiness and willing to help his cousins in whatever they needed. He had never showed you interest or any kind of signs that would indicate that he wanted you too, but a girl could dream. And that was what you did whenever you were around him.

"Well, I'll have to come back tomorrow then. Good night, Michael" You turned around and was decided to walk away, when he made you stop with his deep voice, that came to surface again and entered your ears like the sweetest melody you've ever heard.

"Is everything ok, (Y/N)?" Turning back to stare at him, you saw that he was examining your expression for something to be wrong, like he had noticed that you were more agitated then usual. But he couldn't have noticed that, you thought with a sight. He doesn't even pay attention to you.

And for as sad as it would be for you to admit, it was true. Of course, he had never ignored you. If you talked to him or he had to speak with you about bussiness he would do it, sometimes would even give you a small smile or throw you a glance from across the room in a meeting, but he never started a conversation. Never came to drink with you at The Garisson even when all the other boys did. It was like he didn't want to be around you, and you accepted that. You kept your distance, like you were supposed to do. But now you were alone in a house with him like you had never been before, and you could feel your legs go weaker just at the thought of that.

"Yes" You said probably too quickly, because the look on his face only got more intrigued. "I just came to...ahn, to..." You tried to think fast about an excuse for being there, but your mind went blank. It was like you couldn't think when he was staring at you like that. Like you were his only focus and he had only you in his mind.

"You're lying to me" He stated to himself, a look in his eyes that you had never seen before. It was almost like he was angry at the thought of you lying to him. With only a movement of his hand, he threw his cigar on a cinder-box that was on the table and got up, walking straight to you. When he stopped, only a few centimeters away from you, you saw that it wasn't anger in his eyes. It was sadness. He looked more hurt than you had ever seen. "You never stumble or hesitate to talk about stuff. I've seen you multiple times with Jon and Tommy. You say things right away to them. Why are you lying to me?"

You had to repress a gasp when you heard those words and saw the expression on his face. He looked devastated, and you didn't know what to do, how to act. You had just hurt the man you were in love with and didn't even realize it. Too confused and shocked, you didn't even processed the fact that he had just admited to watch you talk to his cousins. He had watched you. After all, he did actually pay attention.

"Michael, I'm not lying to you, I'm... concealing some things" You argumented, trying to find the right words to say. All you wanted, was to take that hurt off of his face. More than anything.

"What are those things?" his look was intense, you barely could support it. When you turned your eyes away from him, his hand came to your chin and he made you stare at him again. In the place he touched you, for the first time ever willingly, you felt chills of pure bliss. His touch was soft, almost caring. "Tell me what's troubling you, (Y/N)"

"I-I came to ask for your mother's advice" You afirmed, realizing that he wouldn't take no for an answer. And even if he did, you wouldn't be able to walk away. Not in that moment, where he had his hand resting on your face.

"About what?" He asked, noticing that you were keeping something else from him. After that question, you holded your breath in. You couldn't tell him. The consequences could be catastrophic. "Tell me, darling" he insisted and right then and there, hearing he call you that, you lost it. You didn't care about what would happen afterwards. Not in that special moment.

"About a guy" You shilly answered and almost immediately, you could see his body tense up. Sighting heavily, Michael took his hand off of your face and walked away, stopping near the fireplace, where he fixed his eyes.

"I see" Was all he said. Looking at his back, you could see that his muscles were more defined than before under his shirt. His jaw was clenched and his hands, once very gentle, had now turned into fists.

You didn't know why he was acting like that. Like he was sad about hearing about your love life; or actually realising that you desired one. Since the day you meet him, not for once he had showed you any resemblance of interest. You always thought, that he didn't like you very much. So why?

"Michael, did I do something wrong?" You asked feeling completely insecure, confused and embarrassed about what you had just admited. You were a grown young woman, the fact that you were going to ask Polly for advice in that subject, made you feel kinda ashamed about what he was going to think of you. Him, Michael Gray, the guy who could probably have anyone he ever wanted in his bed.

Michael let out a small laugh, that didn't had any humor in it. It was a dark laugh, an unsatisfied one. "No, you didn't (Y/N)" And after that phrase, said in a harsh tone, you realized that the Michael from moments ago, the one who touched your face and seemed to care had disappeared. He was the usual Michael again; the cold and distant one, who you couldn't reach. "I think you should leave" He continued and that made you gasp and feel a slight anger ignite in your bones.

"So you tell me to be honest with you and then you kick me out?" You left yourself explode, tired of having those feelings for a guy who was so inconsistent as he. "What the actual fuck, Michael?"

"Just go, (Y/N). I don't have nothing to say to you" He stated firmly, and you felt your heart hurt after hearing that. Feeling disappointed and frustrated, you tried your best to keep those emotions under control.

"Go fuck yourself, Michael" You mumbled under your breath before turning around and starting to make your way towards the front door.

Apparently he heard you, because a few seconds later when you were just about to leave the room, you felt his hand clench on your forearm and without any effort, because he was much more stronger than you were, he had you pinned against the nearest wall, his body keeping you steady in place.

"What did you just say to me?" There was anger in his voice again. You could feel it in his grip. You could see it in his eyes. And sincerely, you didn't care. Because you were angry at him too. If he snapped, you would too.

"I said go fuck yourself, Michael" You repeated all the words slowly, so he could hear and remember every last one of them. You saw his eyes flick to your lips only for a second while you talked and then, he did the most unexpected thing he could do, in that moment or in any other one. He kissed you.

His lips were harsh on yours, the kiss almost hurting because of all the strength and anger he putted in it. When you gasped, completely surprised, he putted his tongue inside your mouth and you could taste the smoke on him. You're didn't like smoking, but coming from him, that taste seemed intoxicating. Made you wish to feel it forever. His hand that was on your forearm slided to your hair when you started to kiss him back, and he tugged on it while still kissing you harshly like his life depended on it.

When you were completely out of breath he disconnected his mouth from yours, straring at your eyes deeply and with so much desire, so much want, that you felt in pure ecstasy.

"Michael..." You started, still in shock about what he had just did.

He, surprising you for what should be the hundredth time on that night, didn't say anything, just sighted and started to walk away. You wanted to stop him. To tell him that you loved him and he was the guy you were going to ask Polly for advice about. But when you heard the front door bang, you realized that he was gone.

#michael gray fanfic #michael x reader #michael gray x reader #michael gray imagine #michael gray #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinder imagine #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders #x reader #imagine #fanfic #one shot

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wantedbythemasters · 4 months ago

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Doctor Isaac Saffron | The Inquisitive Author

Image from here

Age in 1902 (or the 3rd 1899): 47

Gender: Male (trans), he/him

Height: 5’7

Weight: 165 lbs

Sexuality: Bisexual

Race: Black

Love Interest: Maria, very recently Charles

Factions: Bohemians, Rubberies, maybe Revolutionaries

Open to RP: Yep!

Open to Shipping: Yep (he’s in an open relationship)

Past Epithets: The Honey Sipping Poet, The Ambitious Detective

Desc:

Isaac primarily works as an author, typically focusing on the possibilities and freedoms of the Neath and sometimes more fantastical topics. He also sometimes does detective work and medical work as needed. He knows some about the shapeling arts thanks to befriending rubberies, and also has a weird connection with his house enabling him to manipulate the ways people can travel to it to hide it from enemies.

He’s usually introverted and prefers to keep to himself, though he has a huge soft spot for kids and anyone he feels he relates to and sometimes this gets him into trouble.

As for political leanings, Isaac leans towards the revolutionaries. However, he has his own concerns about living in the dark, and about the Calendar Council. Still, he thinks the Liberation sounds better than the masters remaining. But he also thinks it might not be likely to happen, and it might be a better idea to focus on more attainable goals.

Appearances:

playing chess with half the pieces - Major character

Tea Time - Brief appearance/mention

Timeline:

1855

Isaac and (redacted) Saffron were born to a minor noble family (specifically to a baronet)

1875

The ‘original’ Isaac was meant to go to Cambridge for medical school, and (redacted) was meant to get married. But the ‘original’ Isaac wanted to run away from high society, and (redacted) wanted to live as a man and attend medical school, so Isaac became Arthur and pursued a new life in the Neath, while (redacted) became Isaac and went to university. They both cut off their parents, and made it seem like their sister (redacted) had actually been murdered.

1879ish

Isaac graduated medical school and began practicing.

1884-1889ish

Though Isaac enjoyed his new life for a time, becoming a somewhat renowned doctor, eventually he tired of this as well, as he still couldn’t fully express himself in some ways.

He occasionally exchanged letters with his brother, who told him that though the Neath wasn’t perfect, it was a better place for people like them, and encouraged Isaac to join him. When Isaac came to the Neath, he wondered if his brother, now known as Arthur Carrington, would want his identity back. But Arthur was happy with his new life, and at this point, Isaac had spent nearly a decade being Isaac, so it just made sense to stay that way. To the outside world, their sister died in 1875, Isaac went to college on the surface and became a doctor, and Arthur had traveled to the Neath as a poor young man in search of work, and Isaac and Arthur had been childhood friends on the surface.

Upon arriving in the Neath, Isaac was delighted to hear about the Shapeling Arts, and befriended the Rubbery Men, trading amber for procedures to make his physical body look how he wanted it to.

He’d genuinely liked being a doctor on the surface, but part of him wanted to try something new. So he began establishing himself as an author and poet. He found himself drawn to the Nocturnal movement, since he felt that living in the Neath had brought him freedom. Early in his literary career, he met Maria, a model who was also early in her career. They dated on and off for a while, but had a falling out in 1887, when Arthur’s adoptive dad disappeared due to Mr Fires, and Isaac had wanted to see if there were any good members of the constabulary who could help figure this out. Maria wasn’t a fan of this idea, due to being a criminal, but Isaac went through with it. He met the Last Constable and began to dabble in detective work. They also eventually began to date. Meanwhile, Arthur began to wonder if he ought to become more like Isaac in order to survive and help the revolution, so he had Isaac help him get connected with the University.

1893

Isaac tried to stop the Last Constable from playing a dangerous drinking game with her father, but she refused to listen. He tried to intervene and she got really upset and accused him of not respecting her. She went through with the game and was the one who died, and that still haunts Isaac.

Isaac shifted back to the literary field primarily, though he still took detective and medical work on the side. He also began leaning on his brother (who he’d been drifting away from) more in the absence of the Last Constable. Arthur had finished his degree and was now an engineer who worked for Cotterell & Hathersage, which of course is run by Emilia Hathersage who also happens to be April of the Calendar Council. Emilia and Arthur began to teach Isaac more about the revolution and the Liberation of Night.

1895

Isaac and Maria both started to receive love letters from a devil, and discovered it was the same devil, Charles. This led to Isaac and Maria reconnecting, and eventually, all three of them began dating, but it was still an open relationship. They both ended up moving into Isaac’s townhouse.

Also, Isaac and Arthur turned 40 and decided to celebrate together for once. They still were pretending to not be twins, but they were certainly putting less effort into it as time went on.

And sometime in this, Isaac began letting the revolutionaries use his home as a place for socials and recruitment events from time to time.

#fallen london #fallen london oc #ocs #inquisitive author

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loonylupin5 · 3 years ago

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Sorcerers of the Arcane

'Let it be known who we are...'

A devastating massacre occurs at the Ministry of Magic on the evening of August 23rd, 1889. The murder of 127 witches and wizards sends the wizarding world into a state of anguish and worry. Who are the group of dark sorcerers that could commit such a crime? Will they be locked up in Azkaban? When will they strike next?

Ex-Auror turned professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Viran Leveret, is called upon to help the Aurors track down the cult of dark wizards and put a stop to them. He faces his past traumas, disturbing challenges and strained relationships, and must not lose himself to the task he has been set.

This is an original story with original characters set in the wizarding world of Harry Potter! Please give this series a chance, as I have worked very hard on it, and I really hope you enjoy it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

PROLOGUE (#1)

Faris Spavin was a man that loved to listen to himself talk. It was his favourite thing to do, in fact, and could simply go on forever about the story of how he narrowly survived an assassination attempt made by a centaur, who took offence to the punch line of his infamous 'a centaur, a ghost and a dwarf walk into a bar' joke; but changed the narrative each time to somehow make it longer than it really was.

Though he seemed like a complete garrulous fool, as his nickname of Faris ‘Spout-Hole’ Spavin would suggest, he was quite proud of his accomplishments in wizard legislation including the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, in 1875, thank you very much!

Sadly, little to his knowledge, a large portion of the wizarding world finally saw him for the long-winded annoyance that he was, when in 1883, the Muggle government made plans to flatten The Leaky Cauldron, with the creation of Charing Cross Road. Faris Spavin made a melancholy seven-hour speech before the Wizengamot explaining why the Leaky Cauldron could never be saved, which, to his word, “Will be the greatest loss of my entire lifetime. Countless hours I spent in that pub, drinking amongst friends, telling great tales, and cracking the best jokes. That reminds me, actually, of a joke I once told the Minister of Denmark may back in ’67, she absolutely adored it…”.

During the course of his tedious speech, however, the wizarding community rallied and performed a mass of memory charms (some say, although it has never been conclusively proven, that the Imperius curse was additionally used on several Muggle town planners), so that the Leaky Cauldron was now accommodated in the revised plans for the new road. After his speech, his secretary presented him with a note describing the developments that had just invalidated his words.

Miraculously, nevertheless, he still reigned as Minister for Magic for another year. In this time, Spavin made some particularly noticeable reforms to the game of Quidditch. One hot night on the 21stof June 1884, the Department of Magical Games and Sports decreed the institutionalisation of the Stooging penalty in Quidditch. This announcement caused widespread discontent among British Quidditch players and fans, who demonstrated profusely at the Ministry of Magic Headquarters: the assembled crowd bombarded a departmental representative with Quaffles, as well as threatened to stooge Minister Spavin himself. Wizards from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement were duly dispatched there and the crowd reluctantly dispersed. This was not without precedent: just over a year before, another riot had broken out at the Ministry when the Department of Magical Games and Sports had decided to get rid of "goal baskets" in favour of the modern goalposts.

Most disagreeable changes within the Ministry usually fell to blame on the gormless Minister. No sympathy was spared, however, since the country’s disdain for the man only seemed to fly over his head. Obliviously, he would hubbub endlessly to anyone who dared strike up a conversation with him. So, eventually, and almost naturally, people seemed to avoid him unless it was really necessary.

It was not a secret that people pitied the man’s most unfortunate wife.

Even in regard to his reputation, Faris Spavin was declared the longest standing Minister for Magic in history after his resignation in 1903. It was speculated that he was kept in office so long partly due to the obscure amusement of the wizarding world. Though, as Spavin sat in his office on a humid evening on the 23rd of August 1889, history, as we know it, had not yet run its course.

The Minister drew the fat cigar between his stubby fingers up to his mouth and sucked on it hard. He released the smoke from his lungs as rings in the air. Spavin smiled stupidly as he puffed again, continuing to entertain himself. Mounds of magical sweets littered his desk, with some of their wrappings discarded to the floor of the office. A rack of spirits stood against one wall, and grand, dusty, bookshelves lined another; but it was obvious which one was more frequently used.

Faris spun in his chair to gaze airily out the large window at the head of the room. It overlooked the atrium of the Ministry and the shining gold statues of the Fountain of Magical Brethren at the centre. A number of witches of wizards bustled around below, tending to their professions. He did this quite often, just to soak in the pride of the sheer fact that he was the Minister of Magic. In his eyes, he didn’t have many faults, and only rarely made mistakes when it came to how he ran the government.

It was a very quiet night at the Ministry. As quiet as it could get, anyway. No sign of a catastrophe, a mass breakout, a murder spree, or any damage whatsoever. Spavin sighed in contentment, drawing in another breath from his cigar. He had singlehandedly set the wizarding world on due course for peace and prosperity, he subtly agreed with himself. How could something go wrong at a time like this?

Then, as the clock struck 8:00 pm, the serenity of the wizarding world shattered.

Many miles away from the Ministry of Magic, a group of witches and wizards festered.

A chilling mist lingered in the dark cobblestone street, the moon hidden behind the clouds, with no other signs of life present, only the ordinary houses lining the street; the Muggles would be settled in to sleep at this time. There was no sound, except the noise of their shoes connecting with the stone beneath them. The cloaked figures brandished glistening silver masks, morphed into the shapes of moons or stars with strange, smiling faces delicately sculpted into them.

They silently formed a large circle; there were about thirty of them, or so. The air was tense, nervous, but full of excitement. None of the masked people could stand still as they glanced at one another and exchanged small touches. But then, as a significant-looking figure stepped forward, their restlessness quickly diminished. His golden mask, representing the sun, scanned them all briefly.

Two gloved hands were unveiled from under his black cloak, as the figure addressed them gracefully.

‘Welcome, friends. This day has been long awaited.’

The leader’s voice was deep, modulated, and mellifluous. His tone seemed happy, and the other figures fidgeted with heightening excitement. He stepped further into the middle of the circle, placing his arms under his hood. Everything fell quiet once more.

‘For too long have we lived in the shadows… cowering away in fear of what consequences we may face, if we are to be revealed,’ He began to say, slowly turning around to gaze upon each of the characters standing around him.

‘Our power should not be hidden!’ He pronounced, and his voice echoed down the street. ‘We hold a great gift. The darkest, most formidable, magic lays in the very tips of our wands, going to waste. But not anymore. That all changes, today.’

The cloaked figures nodded their heads rapidly, hanging on to every word, every syllable, uttered by the man. His quiet laugh protruded from under the mask, while watching the way his companions drew closer, their eagerness bouncing off one another.

The man held his hand up again, granting silence.

‘Now, you all know what to do. Let it be known who we are.’

Devilish laughter exploded into the air. The figures drew their wands, exchanged ready glances, then disappeared into the floor like shadows.

Witches and wizards dressed in neat, colourful robes were filing into the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic, preparing for a seemingly normal evening of work. Some chatted happily, while others had their noses buried in files and other important papers. Sorcerers of all different types appeared from the many green fireplaces lined on the high walls, making their way to their respected departments of work. Unbeknownst to everyone in the grand space; they were about to be greeted by many unexpected guests.

Screams and explosions erupted through the Atrium as the masked figures materialized from the ground. Their metallic masks shined brightly, and their wands were pointed at any person who dared move. They swept through the crowd with inhumane speed, knocking anyone who got in their way to the floor, cackling as they went. Flashes of red light flew through the air, causing the screams to grow louder. Duels broke out in the crowd as security arrived, but they were quickly ended by the masked figures with a single incantation.

The leader climbed onto the fountain underneath the towering golden statue of a wizard, watching the chaos that was occurring beneath him. Wizards and witches were being thrown through the air, suffocated by dark shadows summoned by the mysterious sorcerers, and stunned by the endless flashes of spells. Many tried to run and hide; but there was nowhere for them to go.

The sun-faced figure held his wand to his throat, and roared, “Sonorus!”

Silence filled the space instantly. All eyes landed on the man and time seemed to stand still. As he was about to speak, his eyes creeped up the furthest wall to the large window where Faris Spavin’s frightened silhouette could be observed.

‘Minister Spavin. What a pleasure it is to witness you, trembling away in your office which you so love to do,’ The leader drawled, his voice echoing loudly off the walls. The other masked magi screeched with laughter as if it was the funniest thing in the world, but he continued; ‘Your wife is doing well, I hope?’

The Minister did not move an inch. Obviously, he could hear every word the stranger was saying.

‘You thought, that by banishing dark magic, like your predecessors before you… it would simply disappear forever? You’re a fool, dear Minister.’

Limp bodies beside pools of blood littered the floor of the Atrium. Terrified faces of the wounded stared up at him. They did not bother to destroy their surroundings, but instead the people within, because that always portrayed a much more substantial message. The leader soaked in the glorious sight.

‘It is easier to walk with a friend in the dark than it is to walk with them in the light. I think you’ll all do well to remember this when our time comes…’ He uttered coolly, spreading his arms like a great dark eagle with a golden head. ‘Some can only dream of the powers we possess. Powers that had been kept hidden inside ancient texts that have been sealed away from the entire world. Fortunately, we learnt the secrets those texts depict, and now hold magic of the most prevailing. Magic so great, that is in incomparable to the nonsense you teach at your quaint schools of witchcraft and wizardry.

‘I advise you to succumb to us now, or sorely feel the consequence of what we will do to you, your family, your homes, and everything you love. It would not be hard to destroy you, I can promise that. This is a dark, cruel and twisted world we live in. Wouldn’t you agree, Minister? If my knowledge is correct, you are ignorant and unkind to those who belong to troubled backgrounds. And you do not accept those who are not pure of blood. You call us filthy and unworthy of magic. But look at what we have accomplished…’ His smile was almost audible. The man lowered his arms and gazed up at the golden statue behind him. He absorbed in its magnificence for many moments, before finally turning back to the crowd.

‘We are the Sorcerers of the Arcane. I’m certain you’ll be more aware of our presence from now on.’

With a swish of his wand, pure black vapour filled the air like a detonation. The attack had finished as suddenly as it had started. The darkness settled, minutes later, and there was no trace of the masked figures except the population of dead bodies strewn across the floor.

Mere hours later, in the Morning Prophet, it was revealed that one hundred and twenty-seven witches and wizards died at the hands of a group of mysterious and highly dangerous individuals that called themselves the Sorcerers of the Arcane.

Faris Spavin recounted the attack to journalists, Aurors, and anyone who could listen while his whole body trembled, and his face shone a ghostly white colour. He was later admitted to St. Mungo’s Hospital for the shock of what he had just witnessed and left the dilemma to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to control, and demanded, shaking his fists and screaming, that they left him far out of it. After his short stay in the hospital, the Minister promptly packed bags for himself and his wife and fled the country. This was most unfortunate for the witches and wizards at the Auror Headquarters, as they were stumped on a plan of how to handle the situation best.

Naturally, panic had engulfed the entirety of the wizarding world in the United Kingdom by the next day, August the 24th. The tale of what happened the night before at the Ministry and their Minister’s flee was the only topic for discussion across the country. Never before had they suffered a blow this deadly.

Approximately one hundred and two miles away from the scene of the disaster, in a charming cottage on Kemps Lane, Painswick, Gloucestershire, a spindly wizard by the name of Viran Leveret gasped loudly as he gaped at the front title of the Morning Prophet: ‘127 KILLED IN BRUTAL ATTACK AT THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC’.

#harry potter #wizarding world #wizarding society #hogwarts #hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry #witches #wizards #sorcerers #my writing #writing #original work #original writing #original story #jk rowling #ministry of magic #minister of magic #fanfic #fan fiction #harry potter universe

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Woman as alien: Angela Carter's Heroes and Villains.

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"Woman as an alien, the non-patriarchal alien in a patriarchal society, the patriarchal alien in a non-patriarchal society, the non-patriarchal alien experiencing the stress of positioning as a patriarchal subject - all are strategies used by feminist science fiction writers to deconstruct patriarchal ideology and its practice." (1) This quote taken from an essay by Anne Cranny-Francis is for me a very suitable starting point for a discussion of Angela Carter's Heroes and Villains (1969). Written from within the counter-culture of the 1960s, this novel is Carter's excursion into the disaster story convention, a literary sub-genre which was very popular during the period of the Cold War. (2)

Heroes and Villains is a very interesting and unsettling early book, and yet, surprisingly, one that has received "far less critical attention than one might expect." (3) Apart from a few interesting essays, (4) the existing studies of the book (primarily sub-chapters of monographs devoted to Carter) focus almost exclusively on the way the novel reverses gender stereotypes and undermines cultural codings of female sexuality as passive and masochistic. My point is different: I would like to show how, by having a female protagonist (and focalizer) who revolts against cultural stereotypes, Carter revitalizes the disaster story convention that in the late sixties seemed an exhausted and repetitive sub-genre of pulp fiction.

In order to do this I am going to briefly present the British disaster story tradition, place Carter within its context, and then discuss Heroes and Villains as an atypical disaster story that, thanks to a woman-alien who disrupts mythical frameworks that people are confined by, points to new ways of constructing narratives. I will show how the female protagonist of the novel matures and gradually learns that her post-holocaust society is based on a set of false binary oppositions it has inherited from pre-holocaust Western patriarchal society, and that her world is slowly giving way to entropy. I will then prove that Heroes and Villains indulges in descriptions of chaos and decay in order to show the deterioration of once potent symbols and thus of the mythical order which they represent. Only then, once the old order disappears, can the female mythmaker create a totally new civilization, one that does not repeat old and static social paradigms, but is dynamic and mutable. Similarly, Heroes and Villains shows that, in order not to degenerate into pulp disaster, the story should refrain from recreating already known historical epochs (for example, a new post-holocaust Middle Ages), opting instead to create radically new societies ruled by women-aliens.

Though it is rather difficult to state exactly what disaster stories are, a fair working definition of the genre seems to be the one given in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: "stories of vast biospheric change which drastically affect human life." (5) According to John Clute and Peter Nicholls, the British disaster story was born at the end of the nineteenth century when the first anti-civilization sentiments were being felt, and people began to mistrust the idea of the white man's Empire standing for reason, progress and science. In 1884 Richard Jefferies, a Victorian naturalist and journalist, published After London, a novel describing the ruins of the greatest city on Earth; in a post-cataclysmic future our civilization inevitably succumbs to nature, savagery and non-reason. In the following years such writers as H.G. Wells, Conan Doyle and Alun Llewellyn published numerous fantastic ac counts of natural- or human-provoked disasters, the retrogression of humankind, new ice ages, barbarian raids, the destruction of Europe, etc. (6)

Though dating from the nineteenth century the genre did not flourish until the 1950s and early 1960s during the Cold War, when young British writers revived the old tradition by incorporating a new influence: that of American pulp magazines. American stories of the time were very pessimistic, as the recent war left many with a feeling of despair and fear of the nuclear bomb, political systems based on unlimited power and culture's imminent doom. In England there was a strong native tradition of gloomy fiction concerning authoritarian societies (George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Burgess), and thus the young authors of disaster stories belonging to the so-called "New Wave" of British speculative fiction (J.G. Ballard, Michael Moorcock, Brian Aldiss and others) had examples to follow. (7) Their older colleagues Walter Miller (in the United States) and John Wyndham (in Britain) were writing their post-holocaust bestsellers at that very time.

Heroes and Villains seems to belong to the same tradition as the disaster story classics: Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibovitz or John Wyndham's The Chrysalides. (8) Miller and Wyndham describe the beginnings of a new civilization; their prose demonstrates how the deadly heritage of our times (pollution, mutations, decline and chaos) serve as the basis for another better world. In A Canticle monks of a second Middle Ages try to gather and preserve the records of our knowledge by rewriting all kinds of texts (just like the caste of Professors). Though they no longer understand what they copy, still there is hope that one day civilization will be regained. Wyndham's post-catastrophic society, in turn, is obsessed with the idea of purity and the norm. His characters want to recreate civilization in such a way as to make it immune to self-destruction. In its fear of deviations and mutants (bringing to mind the Out People) Wyndham's society is cruel and fanatical, but his novel is, just like Miller's story, full of hope for the future. Human folly and cruelty evoke terror and pity in order to improve the reader's mind. Carter's procedure in composing Heroes and Villains is to allude to Wyndham and Miller's tradition. Both Heroes and Villains and her other post-holocaust novel The Passion of the New Eve show to what extant literature today is repeating already known tales. Yet disaster fiction, a very commercial genre, enables Carter to reuse the stock motifs and to create her own often times shocking pieces. Her disaster novels may therefore be read as modern Menippea: a mixture of heterogeneous literary material. According to Mikhail Bakhtin, Menippea was the genre which broke the demands of realism and probability: it conflated the past, present and future, states of hallucination, dream worlds, insanity, eccentric behaviour and speech and transformation. (9)

Heroes and Villains juxtaposes overt allusions to nuclear fallout and mutations caused by the self-annihilation of technological society with counter-cultural poetics: subversion of the social order, new hippie-like aesthetics, alternate lifestyles, and concentration on entropy, decay and death. Carter is no longer interested in the bomb--she does not warn against the impending holocaust; but instead describes in detail the gradual dissolution of social, sexual and cultural groupings which follows the inevitable disaster and which makes room for a new female-governed future. Thus, she deconstructs the markedly masculine tradition of after-the-end-of-the-world fantasies which deal with the creation of a new order, strong leaders and outbursts of violence (as is the case in the above-mentioned novels by Miller and Wyndham). In stock disaster stories women are either commodities or breeders who are fought for and whose reproductive abilities are to amend r the drastic decrease of population.

In Heroes and Villains the Cold War motif of a post-holocaust civilization allows Carter to create an exuberant world of ruin, lush vegetation and barbarism. Three groups of people live among the crumbling ruins of a pre-nuclear explosion past: the Professors, who live in concrete fortified villages and cultivate old science and ideology; the Barbarians, who attack them and lead nomadic lives in the forests; and the Out People, radiation mutants cast out by all communities.

The Professors are the guardians of this order, and they try to uphold standards and attend to appearances such as dress and accent. Marianne, the novel's focalizer, is the daughter of a professor of history brought up to live in an ordered patriarchal society and to study old books in trying to preserve knowledge. The futility of the Professors' work - abstract research done in white concrete towers, editing what nobody would ever read - demonstrates the arbitrariness of post-apocalyptic social roles. The caste of Professors, in wanting to be different than the irrational Barbarians, must devise artificial attributes of its individuality.

Unable to cope with an existence devoted to cultivation of the past and attracted by the colourful and seemingly romantic Barbarians, Marianne helps one of them--an attractive young Barbarian leader named Jewel. He is very beautiful and he wears an exuberant savage costume, making him look like a Hollywood film star who plays in a wilderness film. For Marianne he embodies her desire and fantasies --on one occasion she even calls him the "furious invention of my virgin nights." (10) Moreover, his name might be considered an allusion to the beautiful savage girl whom Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim made the queen of his little kingdom. (11) Marianne's name might well be read as an allusion to Jane Austen's too-romantic heroine of Sense and Sensibility. (12) This canonical echo is contrasted with the association with pulp fiction: Marianne, a professor's daughter lost in the wilderness, evokes the character of Jane in the Tarzan stories. (13) It is by such literary allusions that Carter constructs her self-conscious pastiche, thus demonstrating the whole range of possibilities offered to a female character by romance and, at the same time, she points out the exhaustion of these conventions. John Barth in his Literature of Exhaustion postulates that "exhausted" literature might be saved by coming back to well-known classics and by echoing their extracts in new shocking contexts. (14) In this way Carter mingles her generically heterogeneous "prior texts".

Wounded in an attack, Jewel escapes from the village and is followed by Marianne. He then takes her to his tribe and, despite her protests, proclaims her his hostage. Marianne is a total stranger among the Barbarians; they find her repulsive and unbearably alien; like a creature from outer space in a B-grade science fiction movie she provokes fear and hostility. An educated and self-assured woman in a tribe "caught in the moment of transition from the needs of sheer survival to a myth-ruled society," (15) she is thus a woman-alien. Interestingly, as early as the 1960s Carter used a science fiction stock character to talk about women in a society that is undergoing changes: in the 1990s Donna Haraway, in her famous "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century", in a similar way makes use of the science fiction concept of a cyborg. (16) Haraway follows Carter's footsteps, and indeed makes her point even stronger, as her "cyborg" comes from the social outside and is alien to traditional gender structures. As Joan Gordon and Veronica Hollinger explain:

Haraway develops her "Manifesto" around the cyborg--product of both science fiction and the military-industrial complex--as an imaginative figure generated outside the framework of the Judeo-Christian history of fall and redemption, a history that unfolds between the twin absolutes of Edenic origin and apocalyptic Last Judgment. Like Derrida, Haraway warns that (nuclear) apocalypse might, in fact, be the all-too-possible outcome of our desire for the resolution of historical time. Haraway too is wary of cultural discourses that privilege resolution, completion, and totality. (17)

Marianne is alien to the tribe as she refuses to adopt traditional female roles. Thus, Carter uses science fiction literary conventions to talk about gender as performance much in the same manner Judith Butler will some twenty years later. (18) Elisabeth Mahoney in her above-mentioned study of Heroes and Villains reads the novel in the context of Butler's thesis, that "fantasy is the terrain to be privileged in any contestation of conventional configurations of identity, gender and the representation of desire." (19) This is a very good starting point and an interesting comparison but, as Elaine Jordan notices, "Carter did this sort of thing before Butler, so her work could just as well be used to explicate Butler." (20) The same is true for Haraway, Gordon, Hollinger and a number of other feminist critics often referred to nowadays in order to validate Carter's argument. But Carter turning to science fiction for her metaphors predates them.

The tribe (whose descriptions bring to mind a 1960s hippie commune) is apparently governed by Jewel and his brothers, but Marianne soon realizes that the real source of power is Donally, an escapee professor of sociology, Jewel's tutor, and the self-proclaimed shaman of the tribe. For Donally the tribe is a social laboratory where he tries to perform an experiment: to wit, to introduce a new mythology designed to be the founding stone of new type of post-holocaust society. (21)

It seemed to me that the collapse of civilisation in the form that intellectuals such as ourselves understood it might be as good a time as any for crafting a new religion' he said modestly. 'Religion is a device for instituting the sense of a privileged group; many are called but few are chosen and, coaxed from incoherence, we shall leave the indecent condition of barbarism and aspire towards that of the honest savage. (22)

When Marianne meets Donally she immediately recognizes his professorial descent: "his voice was perfectly cultured, thin, high and soft ... He had a thin, mean and cultured face. Marianne had grown up among such voices and faces." (23) Seeing in his study books which she remembered from her childhood (Teilhard de Chardin, Levi-Strauss, Weber, Durkheim) Marianne discovers Donally's attempts to rule the Barbarians according to the outdated formulas written down by pre-apocalyptic sociologists.

Disappointed by the tribe, Marianne runs away only to be recaptured by Jewel, who rapes her, brings her back, and then ceremoniously marries her according to a ritual devised by Donally. With the tribe again on the move, Donally quarrels with Jewel and has to leave. Marianne gradually learns how to manipulate Jewel, her quasi-royal power grows, especially once she becomes pregnant and is to be the mother of Jewel's heir. When Donally sends a message that he has been caught by the Professors, Jewel goes to rescue him and both are killed. In the novel's finale Marianne decides to become the new female leader of a new society.

This brief summary reveals that, in parallel with the action-adventure narrative, the novel also depicts Marianne's gradual psychological change. She learns how to articulate her own fantasies and to objectify the man she desires: Jewel. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that when her romantic illusions disappear she discovers her own deeper motivating desire in her relationship with Jewel: it is her newly awakened sexuality that counts, not the male himself. Though a tribal leader and a future patriarch, Jewel is in fact a passive object both Marianne and Donally struggle to possess. Linden Peach writes:

In the relationship between Marianne and Jewel, Carter also rewrites a further traditional story, that of a demon-lover, of whom Jewel has many characteristics--he is powerful, mysterious, supernatural; and he can be cruel, vindictive and hostile. However, in her description of him, Carter challenges the male-female binarism which ascribes so-called masculine qualities to men and feminine characteristics to women. In discovering the nature of her own desire, Marianne finds that male-female attributes exist within each individual. The demon-lover is also reconfigured as part of her own eroticisation of the male other. (24)

New ways of looking at herself and others set Marianne free and empower her. Towards the end of the book she feels ready to construct a new narrative for herself and make the world around believe in it. A woman-alien dissolves the tribe's patriarchal structure and commences a new phase in its history. The old order based on binary oppositions (hero/villain, passive/active, natural/civilized) and a number of taboos that originated in pre-holocaust times are abandoned. Carter does not do what a standard disaster story author does: she does not establish a rigid binarism between the Professors and the Barbarians, i.e., the civilized and the savage. The post-holocaust narrative is for her a space where she "explores the blurring of conventional boundaries and binarisms and the way in which such artificial boundaries are maintained." (25) She re-uses existing narrative patterns of disaster fiction in order to break the "Wyndhamesque" formula and instead create a new and radical vision of the end of the world.

Moreover, these post-holocaust times are shown to be not a new version of the old order, but an unknown epoch typified not by stability but by creative chaos. Step by step, Marianne realizes that the entire distinction Professors\Barbarians is as false and naive as the children's role-playing game called "Soldiers and Villains". As a female child growing up in a Professors' village she always had to play the part of the Barbarian, the villain, the other, while the boy she played with, the son of a professor of mathematics, always wanted to be a male civilized hero who shoots her dead. As a small girl she was brave enough to refuse to play such a game; now as a young woman she realizes that in the real world the basis of the division between the Professors and the Barbarians is a set of myths and superstitions. (26)

The stay in the Barbarians' camp proves to Marianne that there is no other difference but old wives' tales: to her surprise (and in opposition to what she was told in the Professors' village) the Barbarians do not represent instinct, folklore and savagery alone. They do have a lot of superstitions; they do sport ridiculous tattoos, hairdos and costumes and they do believe in folk cures--but at the same time they are very far from unreflective "nature". When Marianne first sees Jewel he seems the embodiment of the wilderness: a man fighting to survive among hostile wildlife. But he immediately destroys this impression by quoting to her a relevant bit of poetry: Tennyson's poem about Darwinism. (27) Jewel is very well-educated by Donally and likes to boast of his knowledge of philosophical theories and the Latin names of beasts, which seems as irrelevant in the dirty Barbarians' camps as the Professors' lore in their concrete towers.

The Professors and the Barbarians need each other to define themselves. Both tribes work hard to impress the opponent (the Barbarians wear tattoos and facepaint, the Professors organize armies of specially-equipped soldiers to defend their villages). They also blame each other for the hardships of post-holocaust life. Marianne's father, in explaining to her the reasons of the war between the tribes, asks at one point: "if the Barbarians are destroyed who will we then be able to blame for the bad things?" (28) Aidan Day remarks:

The Professors, failing to recognise their own repressions, have sought to hound that which is not gentle and ordered outside themselves. They have committed the crime of finding external scapegoats for realities within their own hearts and minds that they find problematical. (29)

In a world where the Barbarians discuss philosophy and shamans comment on being shamans, even the seemingly biological distinction human\inhuman is not stable and fails to structure reality. While roaming the jungle Marianne encounters mutants whose bodies and minds transgress the human norm. What is worth noting is the origin of the Out People motif: mutants and deviations often populate the worlds of post-apocalyptic stories, the above-mentioned example of Wyndham's The Chrysalides being the best known; but the way they are described is usually quite different. By transgressing the norm Wyndham's mutants reinforce the notion of being human, of possessing some mysterious human factor along with all the rights and duties, while Carter's Out People are just strange, speechless bodies:

Amongst the Out People, the human form has acquired fantastic shapes. One man has furled ears like pale and delicate Arum Lilies. Another was scaled all over, with webbed hands and feet. Few had the conventional complement of limbs and features. (30)

Their appearance shows that overwhelming entropy is not external scenery the human race has to live in, but that it touches and alters the very essence of humanness: what humans are and what humans create is falling apart. Carter is re-writing an iconic disaster story motif (that of humans genetically altered by radiation), but she gives it a new ideological meaning. In classic male post-holocaust narratives mutants are disfigured humans who suffer for the sins of the fathers: civilization should start anew, albeit preserving its essential features (humanism, liberalism, traditional family values and consequently, patriarchy). Carter's Marianne, in watching the Out People, does not believe in re-establishing the old social order with its norms and values. Heroes and Villains is not about the rebirth of humankind, but about apocalypse itself.

In this chaotic world--where there are no more essential differences between phenomena, and the randomness of things does not allow for any conventional divisions--race, species, gender and even time cease to exist objectively. David Punter comments:

The conflict ... is a multivalent parody: of class relations, of relations between the sexes, of the battle between rational control and desire.... There are, obviously, no heroes and no villains; only a set of silly games which men play. (31)

Each entity possesses its own characteristic features; but on their basis no classification can be made as, gradually, all the points of reference are destroyed. Such a process is particularly striking as far as temporality is concerned--in the world of the novel there is no objective measure of time; everybody lives in the temporal dimension of his biological rhythm without calendars or chronometers. In Heroes and Villains the flow of time is stopped forever, as shown by the beautiful though useless chronometers that for Marianne are merely souvenirs from the past, elements of pure decoration. The book starts with a description of her father's favourite heirloom:

[A] clock which he wound every morning and kept in the family dining room upon a sideboard full of heirlooms.... She concluded the clock must be immortal but this did not impress her ... she watched dispassionately as the hands of the clock went round but she never felt the time was passing, for time was frozen around her in this secluded place. (32)

Time itself has become an heirloom, a peculiar reminder of bygone days. For Marianne the ticking of the clock has no relation to the rhythm of life. Its ticking proved to be the sound of her childhood and her father's old age. She left it behind without regret as it had never served for her any purpose. The next chronometers she saw (dead watches worn by the Barbarian women for decoration) were signs of an even greater degree of timelessness as nobody remembered their initial function. The last clock in the book, a gigantic and dead apparatus, welcomes Marianne in the ruins of the old city: (33)

Prominent among the minarets, spires and helmets of wrought iron which protruded from the waters was an enormous clock whose hands stood still at the hour of ten, though it was, of course, no longer possible to tell whether this signified ten in the morning or ten at night. (34)

The gigantic size of this clock and its absolute deadness create the image of the total arbitrariness of any measure of time. Exhaustion and entropy know no time but the vague "now" which for a fraction of a second can at best turn into "a totally durationless present, a moment of time sharply dividing past from future and utterly distinct from both." (35) The post-holocaust landscape of ruined cities near the seaside adorned with dead clocks brings to mind a visual intertext: Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory. (36) In this surreal painting, influenced by psychoanalysis, gigantic dead clocks are melting down, showing that clock time is no longer valid. Dali and Carter (who adored the Surrealists and often wrote about them in both her fiction and non-fiction) are both trying to recreate inner landscapes: their critique of the contemporary world takes forms of fantastic neverlands.

Carter's great admiration for the Surrealist movement results from the fact that, as she holds, theirs was the art of celebration and recreation. Their techniques haphazard and idiosyncratic, the Surrealists attempted to create combinations of words and images which by analogy and inspiration were supposed to evoke amazement; such art was based on a strong belief in humankind's ability to recreate itself. The world shown in their works is "deja vue", as in a nightmare we recognize separate elements which we have already seen as they date back to diverse moments of the past. It is a world deprived of time experienced in the mind. In surrealist art: "It is this world, there is no other but a world transformed by imagination and desire. You could say it is a dream made flesh." (37) In Heroes and Villains Carter attempts to use a similar technique to depict the post-apocalyptic world in which past, present and future intermingle.

For Carter's characters the future offers no escape: they are doomed to inhabit the ruins and repeat social scenarios from the past. Living in such a world has the haunting quality of a nightmare: the self-conscious characters feel oppressed by the same surroundings, similar activities and repeated words. What is the worst is the fact that there is no escape in space either, as there cannot be anywhere to go: "There's nowhere to go, dear,' said the Doctor. 'If there was I would have found it". (38)

Madness, drunkenness and paranoia seem to be the only ways out of the grotesque post-apocalyptic wilderness where everything is falling apart; indeed, the wild world Marianne enters (and finally renews) is entropy-ridden. The story's characters can hide only inside their troubled egos, as the outside reality is nothing but an everlasting nightmare. A stifling atmosphere of exhaustion and oppression is created by numerous images of overgrown vegetation, desolate ruins, half-destroyed houses full of fungi and rotting furniture, detailed descriptions of dirt and disease all in the atmosphere of sexual fantasy and paranoid visions. These images are too vivid and drastic to be mere scenery; it is the power of death and the different faces of decay that constitute Carter's style.

Carter treats bits and pieces of old discourses (the above-mentioned allusions to Conrad and Austen, as well as to Edgar Rice Burroughs and John Wyndham) in the way the Barbarians use old garments and broken down pieces of machinery found in the ruins: apparently to adorn but, at the same time, to take delight in dissolution, destruction and death. Metatextually, Heroes and Villains depicts the de-composition of traditional modes of writing; Carter follows the example of such New Wave authors as Pamela Zoline (39) for whom the key narrative term is entropy. In the short story "The heat death of the universe" Zoline defines the entropy of a system as "a measure of its degree of disorder." (40) The "system" is post-capitalist affluent society, and in order to capture the experience of living within the contemporary mediascape she both depicts the chaos of her character's life and introduces chaos to her narrative.

Zoline's "The Heat Death of the Universe" ends with the scene when the protagonist methodically smashes all pieces of equipment in her kitchen, thereby creating an irreversible mess of destruction; all forms give way to chaos. Carter's novel has a totally different post-apocalyptic setting, yet chaos and entropy are equally important. The narration of Heroes and Villains describes decay almost with pleasure and most certainly with great precision. The text changes into a study in decomposition, the anatomy of both our civilization and the disaster story genre: they both are killed in order to be examined. "For I am every dead thing"; (41) this quotation from John Donne would best summarize the world of the novel, which does not allow for any hope. The only emotion left is curiosity: Marianne the focalizer takes some pleasure in scientific observations of decay.

Among the ruins and scattered heirlooms of the past a prominent place is given to old symbols, which at the moment of the world's death, change in significance. Deprived of their contextual power the symbols die, creating ephemeral constellations and gaining for a moment a certain new meaning. The anatomy of signification becomes a favourite pastime of Donally and, later, Marianne; but the way the two of them interpret signs differs. Donally seeks to maintain patriarchal mythical frameworks: the sharp unequal antagonism between male and female; civilized and uncivilized; reasonable and wild. Marianne tries to dismantle these oppositions: for her signs are reduced to aesthetics and the old signifying system dies. The moment she starts to observe signs for their own sake marks her growing understanding of the world around: she lives surrounded by the debris of a bygone civilization which one may study--but only for scientific purposes. New myths are yet to be created. The last conversation between her and Jewel best shows the difference between them. Jewel is still naive enough to believe in symbols, while Marianne analyzes them:

But when he was near enough for her to see the blurred colours of his face, she also saw he was making the gesture against the Evil Eye. Suddenly she recognised it. "They used to call that the sign of the Cross,' she said. 'It must be handed down among the Old Believers." "Did you call me back just to give me this piece of useless information?" (42)

The anatomy of symbolic meanings and their changes is best seen in the example of clothes. Both the dress and decoration worn by the Barbarians come either from the ruins (and thus from the past) or are stolen from the Professors' villages. Worn in new and shocking combinations, old garments gain new meanings. A similar process was described in one of Carter's fashion essays from the Nothing Sacred collection. The essay entitled "Notes for a Theory of the Sixties Style" analyzes the nature of apparel. According to Carter clothes are the best example of the decadent fashion of the sixties, as in those years they "become arbitrary and bizarre ... reveal a kind of logic of whizzing entropy. Mutability is having a field day." (43)

The term mutability is the key notion for this essay, one written two years before the publication of Heroes and Villains. In this text Carter defines style as the presentation of the self as a three-dimensional object. Wearing eclectic fragments of different vestments "robbed of their symbolic content" (44) is a way of creating a new whole whose items are not in any imposed harmony. The theory formulated in the essay seems to be the key to understanding the symbolic meaning of clothes in Heroes and Villains, where mutability is not a matter of individual choice, but the condition of the whole dying civilization.

In broader terms, symbols have meaning only in reference to the mythical structures behind them--and clothes are a perfect example of this process. In a patriarchal society, where the law of inheritance makes men value female chastity and pre-nuptial virginity, the wedding ritual has a deep mythical sense and the white wedding dress becomes a potent symbol. Donally makes Marianne wear an old deteriorating white robe during her marriage ceremony in a vain attempt to reestablish patriarchy in the tribe. For Marianne the dress is just an ugly relic of bygone epochs. Lost in the exhausted reality of dead symbols she feels she has to create their own future: first to escape the old symbolic order and then to devise a new mythology herself.

Thus, paradoxically, the novel combines the symbols of entropy and mutability; it shows the world in the moment of its disintegration, and yet the disintegrating elements are constantly being re-used to create changeable structures. In one moment we read a "Wyndhamesque" end-of-the-world-fantasy, in another Carter deconstructs this tradition. Roz Kaveney writes:

The formalist aspects of Carter's work--the extent to which she combined stock motifs and made of them a collage that was entirely her own--was bound to appeal; sections of the SF readership discovered in the course of the 1970s and 1980s that they had been talking postmodernism all their lives and not noticing it, and Carter was part of that moment. (45)

Kaveney reads Heroes and Villains in the context of the science fiction readership in the late 20th century, and discovers how Carter makes use of SF conventions. Eva Karpinski in her essay "Signifying Passion: Angela Carter's Heroes and Villains as a Dystopian Romance" refers in her reading of the book to the utopian tradition:

The dystopian romance proves to be a suitable vehicle for Carter's didactic allegory of the relationship between the sexes, an allegory, one might add, that uses the utopian ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in order to re-write the myth of the Fall as it structures Western representations of the social and sexual difference. (46)

Other critics, for example Elaine Jordan (47) use the label "speculative fiction," (48) and Carter herself in the famous interview given to John Haffenden calls her fiction "magic mannerism." (49) Thus, one can think of diverse generic formulas to describe the novel, although none of the labels is final, as the narrative itself is unstable and mutable.

The novel also celebrates new feminist myths in order to playfully laugh at them on the next page. Having got rid of Donally and having won her mental struggle with Jewel, Marianne decides on a scenario that suits her best. She has found her identity and now wants to take control over the tribe and to become a post-apocalyptic leader, which she declares by paraphrasing the Bible: "I will be the tiger-lady and I will rule them with a rod of iron." (50) In this sentence she alludes to Donally's attempt to tattoo one of the tribe's children into a tiger-girl, something which ended tragically, as the baby died in the process. But the idea of the artificial creation of a "natural" tiger-human had some appeal to the Barbarians and thus Jewel wanted to get the tiger tattoo himself.

When Jewel learned that at his age it was impossible, he planned to tattoo his and Marianne's baby. And now it is Marianne who is going to symbolically possess the tiger's strength and beauty: not by getting a tattoo, but by ruling "with a rod of iron" over the tribe. Her "rod" is probably going to be her knowledge and education, the love of reason her father taught her, combined with her ability to reconcile binary oppositions and blend nature with nurture, reason with instinct, the Barbarians and the Professors. Only a woman-alien can do this by creating a third, reconciliatory way between the two patriarchal societies. Marianne is aware that she is not yet living in the post-apocalyptic order, but still within the Apocalypse itself, that is, amidst the bits and pieces of the old world which is falling apart. Thus her declaration "I will rule them with a rod of iron" echoes Saint John's Revelation:

and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness. (51)

Marianne misquotes St John for a purpose: she aims to give old patriarchal texts a new meaning for new times. At the end of the book Marianne is, physically speaking, "ready to deliver", as her baby is to be born very soon. But here the similarities with St John end: who can be identified with the devouring dragon? Perhaps patriarchal attempts to remodel the child so that it serves a purpose? After all, Donally and Jewel wanted him tattooed and ruling the tribe according to the old pattern of power. Moreover, Marianne (in contrast to Donally and Jewel) is not so sure the baby is going to be "a man child", and so she plans the future regardless of its sex. Finally, her flight into the wilderness is in fact an act of usurping political power herself: it is she who is going to become a tiger-lady and to rule the new "wilderness", the world outside the villages of the Professors and the camps of the Barbarians.

"People kept wild beasts such as lions and tigers in cages and looked at them for information. Who would have thought they would take to our climate so kindly, when the fire came and let them out?" (52) which is how Marianne's father once explained to her why the exotic beasts roam the countryside devouring smaller creatures. After the apocalypse carnivorous cats once again become the king of beasts; they are the only ones that gained power instead of losing it. Predators could survive and rule. As this is true of tigers, perhaps it can also be true of people?

Tigers and lions are very prominent in the novel; we very soon learn that Jewel is attracted to wild cats, which is perhaps the effect of his own weakness. One of his most vivid memories is the scene when, as a teenager, he met a lion face to face and survived only because the beast ignored him. This story (which he told to Marianne) anticipates the end of the novel: when Jewel gives up and goes to seek his death he encounters another lion and again fails to attract its attention. Marianne sees the animal and cannot but admire its fearsome beauty:

She had never seen a lion before. It looked exactly like pictures of itself; though darkness washed its colours off, she saw its mane and tasseled tail which flicked about as it moved out of the edge of shadow on to the dune. (53)

Marianne is not disappointed; the lion looks "like pictures of itself": the thing and its representation for once go together. The mythical meaning of wild cats is going to survive the end of civilization and shall remain a handy metaphor. Marianne decides to rule over the tribe as its tiger-lady not in an act of imitating a queen of the wilderness fairytale motif, but in an attempt to start a new epoch with its new myths. (54) As Margaret Atwood puts it in her essay on Carter's stories "Running with the Tigers", as the tiger will never lie down with the lamb, it is the lamb the powerless female--which should learn the tigers' ways. (55) By the same token, Marianne wants to create a new definition for a power system in which the oppositions male/female, intellect/desire or civilized/wild are of no importance. (56)

When Marianne gets to the Barbarian camp for the first time she finds herself imprisoned by the patriarchal myth of a new Creation. Both Donally and Jewel want her to act out a new Eve role in order to secure a re-enactment of history which would result in a repetition of the old social and political order. Jewel advises her at the time of her trouble in adapting to the tribe to pretend to be Eve at the end of the world. The original patriarchal myth of Eden is re-enforced by a tattoo Jewel has on his back whereby Eve offers Adam an apple, and by a number of metaphors and allusions. This myth is thus very prominent in the novel and suggests the strength of patriarchal ideology--parallel to the strength of the tribe's male leaders (and also of the Professors' village: both societies are exclusively male-governed). The rival mythical intertext--the Revelation of Saint John--appears not until the end of Heroes and Villains and marks the beginning of a genuinely new epoch when Marianne, a woman-alien, takes power.

A woman-alien sets out to create a genuinely new social order and the question is whether she is going to recreate the hegemonic power-relations of patriarchal order in both the Professors' villages and the Barbarians' camps. In science fiction narratives aliens often perceive human civilization in a new way, one that enables us to see "normal" social order in a defamiliarized manner; Marianne is a stranger to her own world, she is not interested in the reversal of binaries, but in their liquidation. Carter does not celebrate her political victory as a birth of a genuinely feminist paradise: the very concept of "tiger-lady" cannot be taken too seriously. Marianne the Queen is demythologized from the very start of a reign which is going to prefer mutability to stiff order.

Marianne the tiger-lady has a long road to power behind her. Heroes and Villains tells a story of her maturation in a world full of bits and pieces of old symbols and power structures. Marianne learns to see that these binding discourses are giving way to entropy, and that in her world of total chaos new myths have to be created --and that a new, post-patriarchal epoch is yet to be commenced. Moreover, a similar procedure might well be applied to the old literary genre Heroes and Villains pertains to: the British disaster story. By having an atypical protagonist, a female-alien strong enough to destroy patriarchal social structure, Carter manages to revive the exhausted convention and to create a genuinely new story.

(1.) Anne Cranny-Francis, "Feminist Futures: A Generic Study," in Alien Zone. Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema, ed. Annette Kuhn (London and New York: Verso, 2003), 219-228, p. 223.

(2.) To call Carter a "feminist science fiction writer" would perhaps be an exaggeration (though the most influential science fiction lexicon, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction edited by Clute and Nicholls, does have an entry "Angela Carter"). Nonetheless, in some of her novels she purposefully uses fantastic literary conventions.

(3.) Elisabeth Mahoney, "'But Elsewhere?' The future of fantasy in Heroes and Villains," in The Infernal Desires of Angela Carter, ed. Joseph Bristow and Trev Lynn Broughton (London and New York: Longman, 1997), 73-87, p. 73.

(4.) One has to mention Eva C. Karpinski, "Signifying Passion: Angela Carter's Heroes and Villains as a Dystopian Romance," Utopian Studies 11.2 (2000) 137-51; and Roz Kaveney, "New New World Dreams: Angela Carter and Science Fiction," in Flesh and the Mirror. Essays on the Art of Angela Carter, ed. Lorna Sage (London: Virago, 1994), 171-88.

(5.) John Clute and Peter Nicholls, ed., The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (London: Orbit, 1999), p. 338.

(6.) Clute and Nicholls, pp. 337-339.

(7.) For details concerning the New Wave of British speculative fiction, see Judith Merril, England Swings SF, Stories of Speculative Fiction (New York: Ace Books, 1968). The most important disaster novels written by the New Wave writers are J.G. Ballard, The Drowned World (Harmondsworth and Ringwood: Penguin Books, 1974) and J.G. Ballard The Wind from Nowhere (Harmondsworth and Ringwood: Penguin Books, 1974).

(8.) Walter Miller, A Canticle for Leibovitz (Philadelphia, Lippincott and London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1960) and John Wyndham, The Chrysalides (London: Joseph, 1955).

(9.) Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, tr. by R.W. Rotsel (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1973), p. 96.

(10.) Angela Carter, Heroes and Villains (London: Virago, 1992), p. 137.

(11.) Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

(12.) Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (Harmondsworth, New York, Ringwood and Auckland: Penguin Classics, 2007).

(13.) Tarzan's adventures were originally created by Edgar Rice Burroughs and published in the years 1914-1950.

(14.) John Barth, The Literature of Exhaustion and the Literature of Replenishment (Northridge: Lord John Press, 1982).

(15.) Karpinski, p. 138.

(16.) Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), 149-181.

(17.) Veronica Hollinger and Joan Gordon, ed., Edging into the Future. Science Fiction and Contemporary Cultural Transformation (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), p. 162.

(18.) Butler talks about gender in terms of ritual practices, a role one adopts thus excluding other modes of behaviour. What is excluded forms the "constitutive outside" the zone of the suppressed from which gender roles can be challenged, much in the same way Marianne challenges social norms in the tribe. Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of 'Sex' (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 23.

(19.) Mahoney, p. 75.

(20.) Elanie Jordan, "Afterword," in The Infernal Desires of Angela Carter, ed. Joseph Bristow and Trev Lynn Broughton (London and New York: Longman, 1997), 216-219, p. 219.

(21.) Carter's numerous shamans, for example the character from Nights at the Circus, are usually totally different. They are given a role similar to that of a writer: they believe in the magic they perform, therefore what they do has the mystical quality of a true primary text. In their context the comments and analysis by Donally seem artificial and exhausted.

(22.) Carter, Heroes and Villains, p. 63.

(23.) Carter, Heroes and Villains, p. 49.

(24.) Linden Peach, Angela Carter (Oxford: Macmillan, 1998), p. 96.

(25.) Peach, p. 87.

(26.) For example, according to these beliefs, the Barbarians sew up cats in the bellies of the Professors' women, while the Professors in turn bake Barbarians alive "like hedgehogs".

(27.) Alfred Lord Tennyson, "In Memoriam A. H. H.," in Selected Poems (London: Penguin, 1992), Canto 56.

(28.) Carter, Heroes and Villains, p. 11.

(29.) Aidan Day, Angela Carter: The Rational Glass (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), p. 45.

(30.) Carter, Heroes and Villains, p. 110.

(31.) David Punter, The Literature of Terror--A History of Gothic Fiction from 1795 to the Present Day vol. II The Modern Gothic (London: Longman, 1996), p. 140.

(32.) Carter, Heroes and Villains, p. 1.

(33.) The city is probably London and the clock Big Ben; the tribe is traveling south to spend the winter at the seaside and finally reach the gigantic ruin. Descriptions of London after various cataclysms are very common in disaster stories; examples are: Jefferies' After London, J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World and The Wind from Nowhere and Wyndham's The Day of the Triffid. Once again Carter rewrites a canonical disaster fiction motif in a new way.

(34.) Carter, Heroes and Villains, p. 138.

(35.) Carter, Heroes and Villains, p. 148.

(36.) Painting by Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931.

(37.) Angela Carter, "The Alchemy of the Word," in Expletives Deleted: Selected Writings (London: Chatto and Windus, 1992), p. 70.

(38.) Carter, Heroes and Villains, p. 95.

(39.) Pamela Zoline, "The heat death of the universe," in England Swings SF, Stories of Speculative Fiction, ed. Judith Merril (New York: Ace Books, 1968), 313-328.

(40.) Zoline, p. 316.

(41.) John Donne, "A nocturnall upon S. Lucies day, Being the shortest day," in The Complete English Poems of John Donne, ed. C. A. Patrides (London and Melbourne: Dent, 1985), p. 90.

(42.) Carter, Heroes and Villains, p. 148.

(43.) Angela Carter, "Notes for a Theory of the Sixties Style," in Nothing Sacred (London: Virago, 1988), 85-89, p. 86.

(44.) Carter, "Notes for a Theory of the Sixties Style," p. 86.

(45.) Kaveney, 175.

(46.) Karpinsky, 137.

(47.) Elaine Jordan, "Enthrallment: Angela Carter's Speculative Fictions," in Plotting Change: Contemporary Women's Fiction, ed. Linda Anderson (London: Edward Arnold, 1990), 19-40.

(48.) "A kind of sociological SF which concentrates on social change without necessarily any great emphasis on science or technology" (Clute and Nicholls, p. 1144).

(49.) John Haffenden, "Angela Carter," in Novelists in Interview, (London: Methuen, 1985), p. 80.

(50.) Carter, Heroes and Villains, p. 150. This is uttered in a conversation when Marianne describes her plans for the future of the tribe: " 'they'll do every single thing I say.' 'What, will you be Queen?' 'I'll be the tiger-lady and rule them with a rod of iron.'"

(51.) St. John's Revelation 12:4-6 in The Holy Bible: Old and New Testament in the King James Version (Hazelwood: World Aflame Press, 1973).

(52.) Carter, Heroes and Villains, p. 9.

(53.) Carter, Heroes and Villains, p. 140.

(54.) Sarah Gamble suggests that the moment Marianne becomes a tiger-lady symbolically "implies that Marianne has now broken free of the stereotyped roles--daughter, victim, wife and whore--in which she has been complicit from the text's beginning." Sarah Gamble, Angela Carter: Writing from the Front Line (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), p. 79.

(55.) Margaret Atwood, "Running with the Tigers," in Flesh and the Mirror, ed. Lorna Sage (London: Virago, 1994), 117-136, p. 358.

(56.) A. Day elaborates upon Marianne's future reign: "But while, as tiger-lady, she is going to draw on primordial Barbarian energy, Marianne, it must be noted, does not give up her purchase on reason. It is this emphasis on maintaining reason that separates her from the Donally-inspired Barbarian cult of the irrational. At the same time as Marianne stops being a stranger to her own id during her sojourn amongst the Barbarians, reason emerges as a cardinal feature of her discovery of herself.... In Marianne's case reason may order, like an iron rod, the inchoate energies of the id, while the energies of the id--the energies of the tiger-lady--may enrich reason. This synthetic model is identified as specifically feminine, in contrast with the masculine insistence on self-definition through opposition to an other" (Day, pp. 51-53). COPYRIGHT 2010 Eotvos Lorand Tudomanyegyetem, Department of English Studies

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