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fandom-space-princess · 3 years ago

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All In Your Head

Characters: Sam Winchester & Gadreel (minor Dean Winchester, Castiel, Abaddon, Crowley, Kevin Tran) Rating: T, gen Length: 3.8k

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Lots of things have made a home of my body without caring whether it was built for it, he thinks, slow, pointed. And most of them have claimed to be pure.

Sam's memory is full of holes, his thoughts are feeling less like his own by the day, and his injuries are vanishing almost faster than he can track. Since he failed to complete the trials, his body may be home, but it certainly isn't feeling homey.

(Canon divergence for the beginning of Season 9: what if Sam figured out Gadreel was possessing him on his own? How would he feel about it?)

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read below the cut, or on AO3

Infection engages all the senses. Get sloppy cleaning a stab wound, or forget to sterilize a needle before giving yourself stitches, then wait and see: soon enough, streaks begin to creep across the skin. Even as it closes, the flesh swells red and purple—or, worse, blue and green. Fire smoldering low, site of what should be healing fever-hot to the touch (and even the flames of Hell burn cleaner than this). Let it get bad enough and it becomes possible to smell it, to taste it on the air: rot, sweet and cloying, a tang slick as blood at the back of the throat and thick in the sinuses. A body consuming itself from the inside out, desperate to expel that which isn’t a part of it. That which, by rights, has no place in it.

Sam thinks he can even hear it, near the end. Watching the floor rush up to bruising communion with his knees, digging splinters into his palms, he isn’t sure if the ringing in his ears is some bell-tower ghost trapped in that derelict chapel, or just the sound of holy fire finally burning all the way through to his heart.

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Light chasing across his eyelids. Are those—stars? Rushing too fast, too regular, glimmering through his eyelashes and he swims up toward wakefulness—

—not stars at all. Headlights reflecting off blurry mile markers. He squints. Highway 70. Somewhere flat, vaguely rural. City off on the horizon, light pollution spilling up to wash the low clouds in ghostly purple.

His eyes hurt. It’s the first thing he notices, once he’s aware enough to start taking inventory of his aches. Bands of tension at his temples, across his forehead—hell, even the back of his neck. Reminiscent of those nights spent staring unblinking at his laptop screen in darkened motel rooms, researching until the sun came up. That particular pain of looking into a bright light for far too long.

“Where are we?” He groans, rubbing at his eyes.

“Whoa, hey, take it easy. You ok?” Dean’s voice is concerned, all careful skittish focus on Sam’s sudden consciousness. Sam almost does a double-take, almost snaps at him to watch the road. Almost.

something awful, something unnatural, rattling the bars of his chest from the inside, shredding his ribs and biting venom into his lungs

His head hazes with half-formed visions, nebulous and vagrant as mist.

slumped against the car in the mud, rain in his eyes and the sky raining down on them, and... are those... stars?

Dean’s still looking at him. Sam has seen him gaze with more welcome on ghosts. He shakes his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. “I’m... uh. Fine, I guess. Tired. Feels like I slept for a week.” One hand creeps up to his neck, massaging the muscles there.

His brother grunts. “Try a day. You’ve been out since the church last night. Since the sky started spittin’ angels.”

Right. Falling stars. Guess not. “What the hell happened?”

Dean’s eyes jump back to him, then resettle fitfully on the road. “What do you remember?”

And that’s the problem, really. Memory.

Or rather, the empty places where memory should be.

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Somewhere between Terre Haute and St. Louis, the sun rises. They pull off the interstate into an abandoned park, some blip on the map between Nowhere and Nothing. A place to stretch their legs and wolf down stale gas station sandwiches.

Standing feels strange. Like he shouldn’t be doing it. He bends his knees, flexes his shoulders, rolls his arms above his head. Twenty-four hours ago this would’ve hurt like hell. His body had been caught between continuous bruise and cauterized wound, burning in a conflagration of his own design.

Dean watches him, out of the corners of his eyes. Sam keeps catching him doing it. After the first few times, he gets subtler about it (he’s always been subtler than Dean). Studies his brother in return. He’s shifty and shifting, all nervous energy and fidgeting tells. He’s working through something, and Sam knows what that looks like. Knows he should prod. Knows how far that’s likely to get him, as well.

He stays quiet, and listens to the thud of his own pulse.

Or maybe it’s Crowley, rolling around in the trunk. Hard to say. That one had come as a surprise.

(was it so surprising? why let go of what he can use? )

Slouched in the passenger seat, he catches sight of his face in the mirror. Hair greasy, dirt and dried blood still clinging to his scalp, caked along the edge of his collar: he’s looked better. But... he presses the tips of his fingers to the darkened skin under his right eye. Skims them along the cut that trails across his cheekbone.

It’s almost gone.

Still scabbed over at the end where the glass had dug deepest, sure. He frowns, and the muscle underneath pulls a little, complaining at the movement. But only a little. He prods harder, feeling for the telltale sting of glass shards, finding nothing. Just over a day since he’d been thrown through a window by Abaddon, yet his wounds are almost gone. This one probably won’t even leave a scar. And that feels... wrong. Of the two of them, Dean walks off wounds like they’re nothing. Sam’s not one to wilt, of course, and he’s tanked his way through more hits that should’ve been fatal than he cares to think about, but he’s always been slower to heal, to need to retreat for recuperation. Yet here he is, body mending itself with a speed he’s seldom experienced. Walking it off like Dean does. Like Cas does. Like the things they hunt do.

Why question it? Accept good as it comes to you. After what you’ve been through, perhaps you’ve earned it.

In the mirror, he frowns again. Can’t meet his own gaze.

There’s something there he doesn’t understand.

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Maybe the bunker’s haunted. Then again, maybe it’s just Kevin.

The kid doesn’t like their demonic houseguest, even chained down in the basement under every ward they know, and Sam can’t say he blames him. Kevin clearly hadn’t been sold on either Sam’s reassurances or Dean’s promise to let him be the one to end the King of Hell, and now he roosts like an infuriated owl at the furthest end of the library, shooting exhausted but withering glares at either of them when they look like they’ll stray too close. He leaves his nest of notes and crumpled wrappers only occasionally, muttering grimly in long-dead languages, pulling books from the dusty shelves with purpose he is either unwilling or unable to explain.

Sometimes Sam will catch him staring down at a page, and know without needing to ask that he is, in that moment, blind. Every nerve attuned to the hum of air and machinery in the bunker. He’s just... listening.

But Crowley never makes a sound that would reach all the way up here. Perhaps it is only that he can hear himself think more clearly, against the gentle whir of antiquated appliances. Or maybe he hears other voices. Voices more inhuman, more undeniably holy.

Sam sits in silence on the floor, just out of sight, on the other side of the door.

Listening, like the prophet, for something he cannot see.

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“Abaddon? Seriously, man, what the hell. I thought you Kentucky-fried that meatsuit.”

She’d gone up in a blaze. Holy oil burned sweet and tarry, a nauseating counterpoint to the stink of scorched flesh that clung to his hair for more than a day after he’d regained consciousness. Nothing about his patchwork memories could fake, or forget, that smell. “I did.”

“How’d she get it back?”

I did what I could. am I to blame? did I let you down again, am I responsible for this too?

(You haven’t let anyone down, Sam. Not your brother. Not the world.)

Sam shrugs. “Dunno. Why don’t you ask her next time we see her?”

Dean ignores the inquisitive glances of men in military fatigues as they pass, undeterred in his grumbling. “Oh, trust me. Top of my list. Then I’m gonna chop her friggin’ head off.” He grimaces, brow furrowing. “Again.”

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When it comes, the trap is almost a relief. Surviving it, more so—the glaring lack of Abaddon notwithstanding.

At least this time, mulling lost minutes and Dean’s odd sidelong glances from the passenger seat on the long drive home, flashes of half-heard conversation and words he’s never spoken on the tip of his tongue, he can almost convince himself it’s just a concussion.

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Dried blood under Sam’s fingernails. Ring and middle finger, under the outside corners of the nail, right hand. Down under the deepest part, where it’s always been hardest to scrub.

Irv. Irv’s blood. Must be. You moved his body, lifted it onto the pyre yourself.

Irv had long since stopped bleeding by the time Sam picked him up. Shoulders loose under his hands, rough green jacket deep red in front, worse in the back where he’d bled out but—no. No, that would’ve stained his palms, his clothes. Sam would remember washing that clean. If he’d had to.

But he hadn’t.

And they’d torched the demonic vessels with the bar. Arson covered over a wealth of greater sins.

whose blood is this? why can’t I remember?

His body, whole now, unmarred for the first time in months, offers no answers. Certainly it isn’t his. He turns his wrist upright on the desk. Traces the point of a fingernail along purple-blue pathways beneath the skin. There had been a moment, he thinks, in that bar as he stirred back to awareness, when Dean had looked at him like—

Like he was expecting someone else.

He feels jumpy. Not unwell, exactly; in fact he feels better physically than he has any right to do. But he has done nothing to earn this wellness, doesn’t trust it. Pain would be better, after what he’s been through. Injury, he’s at home with. Infection—that would make sense.

Anything but this half-formed sensation of being a ghost in his own skin, with a memory he can’t trust and blood under his fingernails that he can’t identify.

Dean’s blood, perhaps. His internal monologue is grasping at increasingly desperate straws. Or Irv’s after all. Would you remember? You’ve been forgetting so much, since the trials.

Since that monumental striving for redemption. Since that last-ditch attempt at salvation, at proving himself worthy. At making himself pure.

The difference between purity and poison is one of scale, not of kind. Purity muddies the senses, creeps along the veins like rot; something bad in the blood. Offering himself to the trials was an exercise in inviting purity into himself, and nothing had ever felt so much like an infection. He’d purged himself of what was human to make space for what was sacred—and just that word: sacred. That was the problem, wasn’t it? To be a sacrifice, a body must first be filled with what is sacred. A lesson he’d learned once, long ago, the hard way: Lucifer was nothing if not sacred. And he hadn’t belonged in Sam’s body, either, no matter how much he insisted that they were made for it. Lucifer had burned so pure he’d almost consumed them both.

Sam picks his head up. Takes a deep breath. For the first time in days, he turns his eyes to the mirror above the sink.

how long has it been since that fight? The skin on his cheek is smooth; as predicted, no scar. Not even a faint pigmentation to show the recent healing. His reflection stares back at him, pale, eyes crinkled in concern but otherwise whole, hale. how long should that have taken?

His thoughts barely sound like his own. What are you so afraid of, Sam? What is it about being whole that you fear?

Purity never cared if your body was built to be a home to it. And mostly, human bodies aren’t. Sam’s is, sort of—more than most—but he’s not celestial in the way Lucifer kept insisting. Not some angelic beacon of purity. Sam is a man, flesh and blood built to house not light, but a human soul, and all the necessary mortal mess that comes with it—the blemishes, the cracks, the essential imperfections that, totaled together, make up a human life. He examines his reflection, hunting for—what, exactly?

lots of things have made a home of my body without caring whether it was built for it, he thinks, slow, pointed. and most of them have claimed to be pure.

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Dean’s lying to him.

Tonal shifts midsentence, a skipped needle on the record of his awareness. One instant his brother is annoyed, the next—alarmed, skeptical, different one word to the next. There are other things: guilty looks, missing moments. Whatever he’s been worrying behind his teeth since the angels fell is getting worse, not better, and Sam knows he should ask about it. But... he knows, too, how fragile their current peace is. Sam’s fickle memory has not seen fit to unburden him of those last minutes before unconsciousness had claimed him, on the muddy ground outside that run-down church, and his confession to Dean and his brother’s answering resolution are still raw. He wants to be what Dean believes him to be, wants their relationship to be one of mutual and rewarded trust.

Perhaps you have misjudged. What would he have to lie to you about?

Sam wrinkles his nose, twists his lips in what, under other circumstances, might be a smirk. you tell me.

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There had been light. He wants so badly to be wrong about this (knows, deep down, he isn’t wrong about this). Wants, more than anything, for this to be another trick of his fragmented and echoing thoughts, a failing of his mind and not... but Cas is in the back seat, miraculously unharmed. Dean’s stammered explanation of double-crossed reapers and hastily bargained resurrections be damned, Sam was certain of this one thing:

His hand, over Cas’s unmoving chest. Wounds stitching closed beneath his palm.

And a light that he’s seen before.

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How do you forget an earthquake? Seismic events don’t happen between blinks. And yet, Castiel’s expression has gone from structure and hope to rubble and shock in the moment it took Sam to look away. Dean’s posture holds fault lines, fading tremors, betrayal.

no, Sam thinks, in disbelief. He grasps for the place where memory should be, comes up with only blank distress. I won’t accept this.

“Cas!” He shakes his head hard, strides after the already-retreating angel.

(Sam, let it lie. Please. The taste of bile at the back of his throat. But nothing like the madness of purity; this desperation is far too messy. Far too human.

He would laugh about that, if he could laugh without choking.)

His hand lands hard on Castiel’s shoulder, and his friend’s eyes are wide. For all his time spent with Sam and Dean, he hasn’t learned the human conceit of shuttering his expression, burying his pain. Sam hopes, fervently, that he never takes this lesson from them.

“Cas, wait,” Sam begs, words measured. “Please stay. This isn’t—give us a few minutes? Something isn’t right.” He takes a deep breath, exhales through his nose. “And I don’t think you leaving is the solution. I think it’ll just make it worse.”

Castiel looks over Sam’s shoulder, brow furrowed into a frown. Whatever he sees on Dean’s face, when he turns back to Sam, his expression is no less stormy. “I don’t understand. Are you sure?”

(The anxiety in his head is a wordless hum, now, and not his own. He forces his breathing to slow: in and out, long pause, in and out. Ignores how close he feels to shaking apart. Very carefully directing the thought to nothing in particular: whatever problem this is, we’re finding a better way to solve it.

No response. He didn’t really expect one. But the fear subsides, and that’s something. One thing at a time.)

“I’m sure,” he replies. “Dean and I need to talk. Just—go find Kevin. Let him know you’re here.”

Castiel studies his face intently. After a moment, Sam feels the muscles in his shoulder relax under his hand. He nods, and drifts away, turning the corner into the hallway and vanishing deeper into the bunker.

Dean reaches out to him, unsure. He starts, “Sam—”

“Don’t,” Sam cuts him off. Levels a glare at his brother. “I don’t want to hear it. Not yet.”

Dean’s mouth snaps shut.

“Wait here.”

He turns on his heel, leaving Dean, pale and speechless, behind him.

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He does not slam the door. Instead he clicks it shut, deliberately; every movement precise. Tightly controlled. When he turns to the sink, grasps the sides of it until his knuckles whiten and meets his own eyes steady and determined in the mirror, this too is unhurried.

He doesn’t blink. He simply waits.

His reflection blinks first.

“Who are you?” Sam grits out from clenched jaws.

I mean you no harm, the Sam in the mirror replies; for all that the voice is in his head, the otherwise mundanity of the moment is jarring. The creature in the mirror—in his head—doesn't feel hostile. Placating, if anything. I’m here to help you, to heal you and myself. Your well-being is my primary concern, Sam Winchester. I wish only to be of assistance.

“How?”

Your brother. Though I believe you suspected as much already.

A breath hisses out of him, between his teeth. He nods, once. Slow. Precise. Controlled.

“You’re an angel.” Not a question.

I am.

“You're the reason for the—the gaps. In my memories.” The words taste poisonous across his tongue. “You healed Cas. Are you the reason he’s leaving?”

I... am, yes.

“So you have something to hide.”

The creature in the mirror inclines its head minutely. I am unwelcome, among my own kind. Were they to find me here, in their search for my brother, the outcome would be unpleasant for us all. I believed having Castiel depart to be the safest course of action.

“Does Dean know that? Any of it?”

The angel frowns. I was less than honest with your brother about my identity. He believes me to be someone of... far greater esteem.

Sam’s eyes remain locked on the mirror. An odd sensation, to see your reflection unable to meet your own gaze. A paranoia crawls over him, a feeling of existing apart from his body, being outside looking in. He bites the inside of his lip, then his cheek; harder than he means to, but the sting and the copper tang of blood calm and center him. This pain is still his, then. This much of him is still within his control.

“Why are you doing this?”

The creature in the mirror does meet his eyes, then. You almost killed yourself trying to atone for who you are—for what’s been done to you, been made of you. Trying to make yourself worthy getting past sins that were never yours. Not really. It frowns, thoughtful. I can relate, and I admire your drive. I wish to believe I, too, am capable of such.

“You’re looking for—what? Absolution? Redemption? What did you do ?”

I trusted. The angel looks uncomfortable. I was what others required me to be.

“And yet you expect me to trust you.” Sam laughs, a cracking mirthless chuckle. “Lying for your redemption. This—” He gestures between them. “This is a violation. You get that, right? So what else will you do for it?”

The Sam in the mirror leans back a fraction, though he himself remains unmoving. The angel’s shoulders slouch, his body curving in on itself in a shockingly human display. Sam is startled to recognize that expression, has seen it on himself before, times beyond counting; the emotion that has settled over this creature like a cloak—it's remorse.

I understand. I wish I had something more to offer you, in exchange for your trust. The angel’s gaze skitters away again. Unfortunately, what has been made of me has left me decidedly less worthy than the being I once was. I wish to heal you. I wish to help. That is all I have to give.

He can feel the weight of possession, now that he’s allowed himself to acknowledge it for what it is. Can sense the shape of the angel, its emotions, its intent. The thing in his head is old—old in the way Lucifer had been old—but where Lucifer had cauterized everywhere he touched with cold-burning light, with purpose, this creature is altogether different. Its edges are crackly with tension, the bulk of it twined through with what can only be regret. The entirety of it held together under the thinnest veneer of brittle hope.

Sam is acquainted with the intimacies of angelic possession. This thing, though—this cracked, imperfect mess—well, it feels a lot more like human than he’d have guessed.

Certainly it doesn’t feel pure.

“Ok,” he says. The angel’s eyes snap back to his. He shivers, but holds its gaze. “Provisionally—” He raises one eyebrow, mouth set into a grim line. “—provisionally, you can stay.”

The angel’s eyes widen. It blinks, then tips its head in deference. Unexpected. It pauses. Then, quieter: Thank you.

They stare at each other for another moment, neither quite sure what the next step is meant to be. Sam feels as though he’s easing away from the lip of a canyon, a cliff upon which he’d been millimeters from the edge, and he’s not entirely convinced he won’t still end up throwing himself over.

Well, Sam Winchester, his companion finally says. In what way would you like me to be of help?

“You can start,” he replies, “by telling me your name.”

The angel smiles, small and rueful. It will inspire no love in any who would recognize it, but it may be of some use to you yet, I suppose. Gadreel. My name is Gadreel.

Sam steps back from the mirror. Even without the reflection, he has a sense of the angel—Gadreel—at the corners of his eyes, as though he would see him were he to simply turn his head. A deep breath, settling himself; then he turns, and reaches toward the door.

“Gadreel. We’re going to go have a talk with Dean, and then... then we’ll see. No promises, but. Well. We’ll see.”

The fear, the anger: these aren’t gone. They’ve sunken down into a dull simmer, somewhere underneath the angel starting to relax into the back of his mind. But they feel less like an infection, now. He steels himself for a fight with Dean (probably the first of many, in the days to come), and he reflects that of the many things he cannot be, it seems that he cannot—will never be—pure.

But perhaps, he thinks, there are things more worthwhile than purity.

#hmmm i'm not sure i'm satisfied with this but i am tired of editing it so #here you go #gift fic #sam winchester #gadreel #spn #fanfic #my fanfic

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honourablejester · 4 years ago

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A Collection of Warforged

Some sketches for warforged characters of various classes, because magic robots are still the best. Contains the following:

Silence, Grave Domain Cleric

Dredge, Fathomless Patron Warlock

Meridian, Circle of Stars Druid

Luminaria, Oath of Redemption Paladin

Ephemera, Rune Knight Fighter

Silence (Grave Domain Cleric)

The Grand Hospice’s Chapel of Rest was a long subterranean hall, some thirty or forty feet below the rest of the hospital above it, chilled by the press of yellow stone and shrouded in shadows and silence. Islands of light were scattered through it, where the hospital’s dead were laid on stone slabs for their final rites. In the midst of them, of the mourners and the dead, a figure moved. A priest, metallic and glinting, shrouded in the purple vestments of the god of the dead. Limned in amber light, the warforged cleric stood over the body of an old woman, hands moving with the well-worn gestures of ritual, easing her into a last, gentle repose. On one wrist, dull against the metal, a battered strand of a soldier’s wooden prayer beads clicked and clacked gently.

Built as a soldier and spending 'her' childhood years on the battlefield, the construct that would later call herself 'Silence' became haunted by the blood and pain and violence of war, and fascinated by what looked like the peace of death. After giving a set of prayer beads back to a fumbling, mortally wounded enemy and watching him die semi-peacefully as a result, she began to search for some meaning to the violence, to ask questions about faith, life and death. Not all of the answers she received seemed right to her, but gradually she developed a sort of peace and a sort of philosophy. Because she had a strange, oddly soothing demeanour and a marked gentleness towards the dying, whether friend or foe, she began to be treated as a sort of chaplain by the troops of either side, and she took this as a calling when the war she'd been created for ended. She doesn't have the best understanding or relationship with deities, but it appears that at least one or perhaps several gods of the dead have seen fit to empower her actions to ease the passing of those around her. Several of her old comrades (and even enemies) try to look out for her and her autonomy as well.

Dredge (Fathomless Patron Warlock)

They thought it a statue at first, a strange metal figure sitting on the rocks by the beach, encrusted with barnacles and draped with strands of seaweed, its ancient metal stained the deep green of verdigris. Something about it vaguely recalled the famed colossi of the ancient ports across the sea, though it was nowhere near as large. But instead of a spear or hammer laid across its knees, it held a metal codex, as stained and patinaed as itself, and a strange green light glimmered behind its crystal eyes. It looked up at the gathering crowd slowly, no statue at all, and spoke, slowly and ponderously, and in a deeply archaic dialect: “Hello. Can you tell me where I am?”

“Look at you, my wonder. A constructed thing, built to endure what they could not. Sent to toil where they did not wish to go. Offered up to the deep, so that they need not be. Oh, it's an old story, my new friend. There are many of us down here, cut and carved and sent to the deep. Do they remember you anymore? Have they a care for what they have made and sent below? But it doesn't matter. The purpose for which we are made need not be our only one. Would you like a different path? I have means to give it to you. Only take me to your heart, my friend, and a whole new world shall open up before you ...”

Many, many centuries ago, a great mage created a series of constructs to dredge the massive harbour of his beloved port city. For whatever reason, when the work was completed, one of the constructs was not retrieved, and instead was left to aimlessly wander the ocean floor. Over slow, endless centuries in the abyssal waters, it slowly came to an awareness of itself, and to feelings of curiosity, wonder, and unfathomable loneliness. These emotions and nascent personality called out to another entity, possessed of much the same feelings, once sacrificed to the deep in its turn. And so Dredge was given power, and hope, and friendship, and the motivation to finally chart a new and surface course for itself.

Meridian (Circle of Stars Druid)

The silvered brass figure stood still and silent in the circle. The great megaliths stood limned in starlight and snow around her, guardians of all peace and knowledge. Bulwarks and bastions to the lost. Of course she had come here. To the stones, under the stars. In agony, none of their circle would go elsewhere. In one hand, she held a crystal orb, like the thousands stored in the great stone vaults beneath them. Star maps. Records of the great conjunctions. This one, though, would hold a very special set of constellations within its depths. An omen, a call to a forgotten past.

An ancient construct who cannot quite remember when or how or by who she was built, Meridian has been the caretaker of the great archives of the star libraries beneath Ostara Megalithic Circle for longer than anyone can remember. Skilled with gems for forgotten reasons, she has spent centuries carving the rock crystal star maps that record notable star conjunctions for the Ostara Circle. Over those centuries, she formed a deep and spiritual attachment to the stars herself, and several druids of the circle have been willing to help her understand their mysteries.

Recently, however, a set of constellations appeared in the sky that jolted long-forgotten memories for Meridian. Among them, that she once had a sibling, Zenith, that she does not know the fate of, as well as murky memories of fear and anger. None of the druids of the circle could give her any information on these memories, because there were none left who'd been there before her, but her circle agreed that the conjunction must have been an omen, and that she should venture out and discover the source of her memories, the connection of the constellations, and to find her sibling if the stars willed. The crystal orb carved with the three constellations of the conjunction has become her star map, her guide through a new and different world.

Luminaria (Oath of Redemption Paladin)

Somewhere in the rooms ahead, the party heard the faint rustle of pages and clink of metal. Glancing at each other, they crept forward, through the oddly well-kept corridors of this supposedly ancient dungeon, past laboratories and ritual chambers. A door stood open before them, this time into the tiered depths of a library. And there, among the tomes, they caught their first glimpse of the angel. A radiant visage of platinum framed in gold, the great arc of bronze-and-silk wings. Something was odd about the image, though, and not only the obvious constructed nature of the creature. She looked … oddly small, oddly naked. Oddly shy. She turned, at the sound of a muffled gasp, the book in her hand tumbling to the floor. She stared at them in wide-eyed alarm. In curiosity. And hope.

Fashioned in the clear image of a celestial, Luminaria was found by travelling adventurers in the hidden workshop of a supposedly long-dead madman. Trapped in the empty dungeon, with no memory or sign of her creator, and no understanding of her own creation, she turned to the many, many notes, books and tomes left scattered through the library and laboratories. It took her an unknown count of years to teach herself to read them, with the help of some aural notes and lingering spells, but slowly she grew in personality through the eclectic mix of lore, arcane research and cheap novels her maker had left behind. She came to an understanding of the creatures she had been shaped to emulate, and formed several rather romantic notions of what she might therefore have been built to do. To help, to protect, to save, to redeem. All these she came to hope and determine were her nature and purpose, in the long lonely years in her prison.

And when someone finally broke through and opened the dungeon door for her, bringing her up into the light as half-rescue, half-curiosity, she set about learning how she might live them in truth. With hope, willingness, determination … and not an ounce of suspicion or experience.

Ephemera (Rune Knight Fighter)

Panicked, fumbling blindly for each other in the darkness, the young pair burst through the trees at last and out into the moonlit fields. Behind them, in the blackness of the forest, they could hear the howls and pounding footsteps of their pursuers. And then, much, much closer, a low chuckle. Flinching, staggering, they spun to face the figure that stepped out from the trees beside them. A terrifying figure. Black metal and wood, starkly enamelled in white under the moonlight. Strange crystal eyes glowing with a dark light. And a sword, balanced carelessly and confidently over one shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said, light and expressionless. “My name is Ephemera. Effie, for short. I’m here to help. Probably.”

Unlike many ancient constructs, the one named Ephemera knows precisely why she was built, all those long years ago. She was made to kill things. Made to hurt and hunt and destroy. She doesn’t know by who, but their purpose for her has never been in doubt. All her instincts and memories, bright-dark and bloodstained, make her intended nature crystal clear. Pity, then, that those makers hadn’t counted on her developing a sense of self. A pity for them.

Darkly amused by the world in which she finds herself, Effie wanders the land as a knight errant, searching for anything to amuse or interest her, anything to stir something in her that is not her intended purpose. Though she can lean on that, too, if circumstances require. One day, she hopes, she will find out the full name and nature of those who built her. And, if they somehow still survive, to meet them and … personally express her nature to them. Exactly as they taught her. But with, perhaps, the aid of some new things she’s learned for herself in the interim. It was a reclusive stone giant who helped her come into herself. He taught her things. On his own whim, of course, but then that’s reasonable. Everything she does is only hers, after all.

#d&d #5e #warforged #character concepts #magic robots #i love them

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whatdoesshedotothem · 3 years ago

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Monday 10 August 1835

12 35

No kiss. very fine morning F70° at 10 am - note from Benjamin Brodie to say he would call from 4 ½ to 5 this afternoon - breakfast at 10 ¼ - out at 11 ¼ - drove to the central national school Westminster - Mr Johnson not there and had not been there this morning - agreed with the head mistress for A- to go tomorrow at 9am and stay till 12 - then to the temporary house of parliament - house of Lords a nice comfortable not large-looking room will hold 300 peers - crimson cloth cushioned bunches and curtains - very neatly done up - then to the house of commoners - what used to be (before the fire) the house of Lords - green leather cushions and deal oak-painted bench-backs looked dirtyish and plebeian - 500 members could sit in the bottom and 180 more in the galleries - a dirty-looking man wearing a brass-plate with an inscription ‘Parliament Duty n°2’ shewed us to the persons who shewed us both houses, and then called the carriage - asked him to whom I should apply for franks to him (he said) and gave his name which I forget - I asked what I should give him per frank -‘what you please ma’am’ - Before seeing the 2 houses had been an hour in Westminster abbey - A- much interested - shewed her Lady Nightingale’s monument - death coming out of the tomb to strike her and her husband Mr N- trying to avert the dart - in this chapel (the one just behind general Wolfe’s monument) is the monument by Nollekens to Sir Charles Stuart (Lord Stuart de R-‘s father) ob. 181 aetatis 47 - longish Latin inscription but good Latinity - beautiful head of Sir Charles Stuart and very like the picture of him at the Lodge - In the chapel next (north side) to Henry the 7th’s chapel in which has just been placed the magnificent colossal sitting whole length figure of James Watt by Chantrey is an old monument to the memory of Sir Henry Belasyse ob. 16 December 1717 in his 70th year and who married 1st Dorothy daughter of Tobias Jenkyn Esquire of Grimston and widow of Robert Benson Esquire of Wrenthorp [Wrenthorpe] both in Yorkshire - was this Jenkyn of the family of the Moses Jenkyn who married a Lister? - From the houses of parliament drove to Colnaghi’s - paid his bill - mentioned Lady Stuart de R- to raffle for ‘the poem of the heron’ a modern illuminated imitation of the antique by M. Castello - but Colnaghi said he had provided a person to raffle for the absentees, so that their invitations would not suffer, and I was so satisfied that A-‘s interest might be as safe with Colnaghi’s man as with anybody else, that I gave up caring much about asking Lady Stuart de R- there were to be 100 subscribers of one guinea each - only 13 are wanting but whether is complete or not the raffle is to take place tomorrow week the 18th instant - from Colnaghi’s to Hammersleys to ask if any letter for me - yes! one from Washington dated 6th (Thursday last) to say Mr Leather was still in London at Osborne’s hotel, Adelphi, where W- had written to him stating the particulars of the water guage etc relative to the intended Denmark engine-wheel Mr L- to send his answer if ready in time to me at Hammersleys as tomorrow - if not ready to W- at Crownest he bought the Hatters’ fold cottages for A- (on Wednesday the 5th instant) ‘for £525 after a hard struggle and a good deal of manoeuvring’ to be paid for the 1st of November - very well bought - much better than I expected - a piece of good luck or good management or both - from Hammerlseys to 11 Clarges street - Lady Henries at Ramsgate - left my card dated in pencil ‘Monday 10 August’ - then to 8 Curzon street - 10 minutes with the 2 Misses Berry - they were just going out - asked me to go to them tomorrow evening - will probably be in Paris again next year - very civil to me - A- had waited in the carriage we then drove to the panoramas Burford’s of Thebes and Jerusalem, the 1st up 6 weeks, the 2nd up 5 months - there from about 2 20 to 4 much interested particularly with Thebes - Jerusalem much better than the Jerusalem I had seen in Paris - this (here) taken from Pontius Pilate’s palace - that (in Paris) said the man this morning taken from the Mount of Olives - home at 4 5 - Sir Benjamin Brodie here about 4 3/4 till 5 - A- had her stays unloosed and he examined the back of her neck - did it very nicely - A- liked him very much - very quick clever little man - left 3 prescriptions for a belladonna plaster, and 2 tonics, and a formula for aperient pill when required - said the pain was merely nervous pain - had no doubt A- had been much worse - suffered much more from it sometime ago - there was no disease - in fact he entered into the case at once no humbug said she was just the sort of person for nervous pains but there was nothing to fear. Asked Sir B.B. what he had published lately, nothing said he but on my profession (surgery) - but this led him into a few minutes most agreeable conversation - I asked his opinion of Dr Philip’s notion of Galvanism being identical with the nervous influence (vide Vital Functions by Dr A.P.W. Phillip) - he had no faith in it - thinks our present faculties not sufficient for the comprehension of these matters - a superior being may see at a glance the connection of them - and how all proceeds perhaps from one simple principle, but we cannot see this - he hopes to turn back to his scientific pursuits on giving up his profession before his faculties are worn out - professional man do not retire soon enough - a lawyer may 1st find out when it is time to leave the field to others - asked if I knew how - no! because said he they are then employed by the Defendants - the plaintiff must always have the 1st rate man - said I would remember this observation which was very good - he said he would not labour as he did now for many years - could not do it - I civilly observed I hoped he would give up so as to have long to benefit science but hoped also that I might still have the privilege of being benefitted by his medical skill if I required it –

SH:7/ML/E/18/0079

read the Standand of this evening - dinner at 6 ¼ - out in the carriage at 7 till 8 40 - called at Pear’s about my saddle - harness (with arms as ornaments in brass - plated would be 40/ more) for 2 pair of horses £28 - then to Pearce’s - the tool-box will be ready tomorrow night - then to Barnard St Russell square n°27 about A-‘s Greenwood’s maps - then to Taylors Barnard’s Inn Holborn and changed the Perspective (duplicate - copy of) for Tredgold’s Essay by Smeaton etc on hydraulics giving the perspective and 1/. to boot - then left B-‘s prescriptions at Enson’s n°125 Oxford street and home at 8 40 - tea and gooseberries and mulberries the latter not so good - sat talking - and wrote the journal of today till 12 ¼ - very fine day F72° at 12 20 tonight

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like-a-bag-of-potatoes · 5 years ago

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12 Dates of Christmas - Hot Chocolate

Prompt: Hot Chocolate

Characters: Sebastian x Reader

Warnings: Fluff.. Some tension.

Wordcount: 1554

Alright, so the fact that Sebastian and his soft lips were still on your mind as you woke up after Chace’s party told you that it wasn't just the alcohol that had messed with your mind.

Groaning you rolled yourself out of bed and dragged your hungover ass into the shower, hoping that the warm water would ease some of your headache and wash away some of the thoughts that had festered in your mind.

The day dragged on at an agonizingly slow pace as you waited for Sebastian to show up so that you could do whatever it was that he had planned for the two of you. However, when a knock sounded on your door, all you could think was that you needed more time to clear your mind before you let him in. Fortunately, the door was unlocked and two seconds later he was standing in front of you, that annoyingly handsome smile on his lips.

“Hey,” you greeted, returning his smile. “So what's on the agenda for tonight?”

“Some hot chocolate, Christmas themed snack, and a super cheesy holiday movie,” he said with excitement as he held up the bag of snacks that he had brought.

Somehow it was both reassuring and unsettling that he didn't act weird after what had happened the night before, and it kind of made you relax a little more. You reached out for the bag and he handed it to you. “There's no movie in here,” you noted. No movie but a shitload of snacks that you couldn't wait to dive into.

“It's 2018, (YN), you can find any movie you like on your fancy new TV,” he sassed.

“Oh really? If you plan on being condescending all night, I'm gonna start shoving these super sized marshmallows in your mouth,” you threatened, but you had nothing to back it up with as a giant smile spread on your lips.

“Bring it on, sweetheart,” he said with such confidence that you just couldn't help yourself. You reached into the bag and pulled out one of the largest marshmallows and shoved it into his mouth.

“I did warn you,” you noted before you turn on your heel and headed to your kitchen, Sebastian with a mouthful of marshmallows in tow. Opening the fridge you pulled out the carton of milk and then proceeded to find a suitable pot to heat it up in, all the while Seb was chewing vigorously on his candy. “I'm gonna have to remember that trick,” you reminded as you poured the milk into the pot and turned on the stove.

Sebastian looked through your cupboards to see if he could find some small bowls to put the different kinds of snacks in. “You need me to do anything else?” he asked after he had completed his task and successfully swallowed the marshmallow.

“No, I got this,” you answered as you added some chocolate to the warming milk. “Why don't you go get the movie ready and I'll be right in?”

“Alright,” he said as he picked up the bowls, balancing them as best he could in his arms as he made the short trip to your living room.

About five minutes later, you joined him, putting the two over the top cups of cocoa down on the table. Each of them had a mountain of whipped cream on top, covered with green and red sprinkles and chocolate sauce, while a candy cane was shoved into each cup. “There's marshmallows under the cream- cause we know how much you love those- and a special ingredient that shall not be named,” you said proudly as you took a seat on the couch next to him.

“Special ingredient, huh?” he wondered, looking at you with a smile on his face. “Bet you it's a pinch of love,” he teased.

“No, you dork,” you laughed. “It's Kahlua.”

“So you basically just put alcohol in everything these days, huh?” he said, thinking back to your whiskey tea.

“Basically,” you confirmed with a thoughtful nod. “So what cheesy movie are we watching?”

“The Holiday,” he announced proudly, pointing to the TV. “Have you seen it?”

“A few times, but it's perfectly cozy so just bring it on,” you said, and with that, he pressed play and the movie started playing on the TV.

It was about half way through the movie when you realized how far into Sebastian you had sunk. You were now leaned up against his side, your legs curled up under you while his arm had draped around your shoulders. It wasn't like this never happened before, but for some reason you were more aware of it now than you had been in the past.

“I'm just gonna go grab a blanket,” you said, needing an excuse to create some distance between you. You got up from your seat and grabbed the blanket from a nearby chair before you sat back down, a little more space between the two of you now.

“You gonna share or am I just supposed to be cold?” he asked with a chuckle after you sat down again.

“Sure,” you simply replied as you scooched back over and assumed your previous position. So much for my master plan, you thought to yourself as you leaned into him again. You couldn't deny that it felt a little good too though. “I want to go to England and celebrate Christmas in a small cottage like that sometime,” you said in a dreamy voice as you took in the scene unfolding on your screen.

“You really think you could last a whole Christmas in the British countryside?” he asked with raised brows, making you look up at him. “You’re a city girl (YN), that's why you didn't move with your parents when they left the city,” he reminded. He was absolutely right though.

“Alright… just a couple of days then,” you corrected yourself. “Just to get some peace and quiet before I go explore London.”

“That's more like it,” he said, chuckling. “I actually do think you would love London,” he added as an afterthought.

“Well. With my current salary, I can start saving now and I'll be in London by 2030,” you joked.

“Better late than never,” he commented. “You can always marry rich,” he joked.

“Solid plan,” you noted. “I know you usually have a crazy schedule when you’re traveling, but at least you get to cross some destinations off of the map.”

“That's true, but I'm mostly too jetlagged to remember that I've been… wherever. I have gotten to go some cool places that I would never have visited on my own though.”

“Wanna hear a secret?” you asked, tilting your head to look at him again. “The wishlists we made the other day, I wrote travel to Europe as one of my top five.”

“Top five? How many did you write down?” he inquired with a chuckle.

“I'm a dreamer, alright,” you defended.

“I know… just one of your many great qualities,” he said softly. “My arm is falling asleep, we need to mix this up.” He motioned to your seating arrangements with his free hand.

“Sorry,” you apologized as you realized you had squeezed the life out of one of his arms.

He just shook his head as he crawled further up in the corner and motioned for you to follow, raising his arm so you could sneak under it and cuddle up to his side. Again, this was something you had done so many times in the past, but now you found it a little awkward, you did as he asked anyway. He let his arm drape across the back of the couch next to you, and this intense need to reach out and lace your fingers through his hit you. You fought the urge though and instead tried to focus on the movie again.

“Where in Europe do you want to go most?” he asked suddenly, his voice sending vibrations through his body.

“Everywhere,” you replied with a huff of air. “I want to see the Eiffel Tower, the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel, La Sagrada Familia... all of it.”

Sebastian wished that he could take you to all those places, and maybe show you some of his favorite places in the world, but he also knew you’d never let him pay for all of that, so it kind of just stopped itself. “You should come with me next time I'm doing a press tour in Europe, you'll get to see some great cities and I guarantee you it will put you off traveling for a while,” he suggested, only half joking.

“Ha… Maybe I should,” you said thoughtfully. Traveling Europe would be a dream come true, but you had no desire to do it on someone else’s bill so it would just have to wait until you could save up the money.

The credits rolled across the screen, signaling the end of the movie, but you had been sound asleep for the past half hour, Seb didn't have the heart to wake you up though. In truth, he hadn't caught the ending of the movie either, his mind was preoccupied, daydreaming of what a life with you would look like. This feeling was so familiar to him, but at the same time it was brand new. Somehow he knew that this time he couldn't just bury his feelings and hope they would disappear, this time it was more real, and that was terrifying.

#Sebastian Stan #sebastian fluff #sebastian stan fanfic #sebastian x reader #12dates

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soveryanon · 6 years ago

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Reviewing time for MAG135 /o/

- Fun fact! The verb “extinguish” has appeared as a word in all three of the Daedalus statements, in relation to the three different powers involved:

(MAG057, Carter Chilcott) “There’s nothing, nothing but empty, uncaring void lacing dead worlds and dead stars all-together like a tapestry of lonely meaninglessness. Humans have existed for the smallest sliver of a fraction of a moment in the existence of the universe, and we will be extinguished just as quickly. And when we are at last gone forever, into the quiet emptiness of death, there will be nothing left but the cold universe. And nothing shall mark our passing because there is nothing to do so.”

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “Most people can’t even properly appreciate the size of our own planet, seeing it only in crudely rendered diagrams or maps; but compared to us… the planet is immense. More than large enough for the swell of humanity to grow and… ultimately extinguish itself. [SCOFF] Yet compared to the wider universe… it isn’t even a noticeable speck.”

(MAG135) ELIAS: I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside. I… believe they call it “The Extinguished Sun”, though that’s as much as I know.

- I love how The Dark still feels like… that one fear which should be super stereotypical (Cult Of Darkness.) and yet always manages to get under your skin anyway, and is that one thing that we’re apparently never managing to get rid of. Julia and Trevor butchered Darvish in Summer 2010? No problem. Things happened in March-to-May 2015 at the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel, apparently derailing or temporarily neutralising The Dark’s activities? Ahaha, we’ll manage. Maxwell Rayner was killed by Section 31 officers on Elias’s Personal Tip in February 2017? IT’S FINE. WE CAN STILL DO SOMETHING. I had Questions about how The Dark was connected with Gertrude’s death, I’m delighted that we’ll be digging into their activities again, since Jon isn’t sure what happened – isn’t even sure whether Gertrude had managed to neutralise them! I wonder if the matter of March/May 2015 as the date of Gertrude’s death will be explained, or if I should finally put that to rest as a simple mistake.

… Interestingly, following the pattern of solar eclipses: the total solar eclipse over Ny-Ålesund that Basira had pinned down actually took place on 20th March 2015, which is… neither when Mark Bilham went into the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel (March 11th), neither when Gertrude officially died (March 15th or May 15th), but is around the time she should have died according to Oliver’s dreams. In real life, the next solar eclipse (partial) in Ny-Ålesund happened on August 11th 2018, so that could be the planned date for the upcoming half-baked new ritual attempt indeed… but the date is a bit weird for the overall pacing of season 4. We’re in… beginning of April? 2018, and usually getting a statement a week (more or less). So that doesn’t easily coincide with a midseason finale, nor with the season finale? Unless Team Archive hurries to get to Svalbard very soon, in the hope of neutralising The Dark before August 2018. (Funny bit: there was a partial solar eclipse in South America on February 15th 2018… the day Oliver visited Jon and he woke up from his “coma”.)

I have no idea: there are so many things to keep track of, currently (Peter’s own plans? The Extinction’s threat? Elias’s intentions regarding The Watcher’s Crown? The Web’s schemes and intentions for Jon? Now, The Dark’s activities?) – I… do like that it indeed gives us a feeling that, outside of pure narrative… all the Fears have their own agenda, they’re not just queuing up for the Archives team to take care of them? They’re not dependant on them, they carry on Doing Their Things and bringing their own terrors? And it’s… very bittersweet to think that it will probably always be like this.

- I’m so mad about the fact that Manuela’s story makes… so much sense with how Jan had described her:

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “Manuela Dominguez was quite a big name in certain areas of the physics community. Or at least she had been; I hadn’t heard of any work she’d done for a good few years and, as I said I’m more on the engineering side of things so… it wasn’t really something I kept up with in detail. While she was happy to talk, Manuela apparently didn’t like to discuss her professional life on Earth, or the specifics of the research she was doing on the Daedalus. Like Chilcott, her research was kept entirely separate from mine, and while we spent plenty of time together, I never did figure out exactly what it was. Something to do with lasers, I think.”

I never ever thought for one second that it might have been “it’s because she’s part of the cult, Cass, and has been for the past years” aND YET IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE AND SEEMS SO OBVIOUS IN RETROSPECT… I’m so mad, I love this series and it keeps making me feel like a Fool. (But with love. Cackling at my face, but with love.) Another thing that gets a bit… “funny” in retrospect:

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “It was the sense of a presence, of there being something out there… something that wasn’t the Earth, and it was getting closer… When it started, I tried to talk to Manuela about it, but she seemed to think I was talking about aliens and quickly changed the subject. […] And that cry came again; so loud, and long, and deep that I couldn’t not be the sound of a living thing – so vast and so ancient that thinking about it made me weep. And I screamed in turn. My hands touched the rail at the exact moment that Manuela came to check on me. I was moving again. She asked if I was alright, though she… clearly had no interest in the answer. She said she’d felt the station shake, bu–ut when I pressed, she… claimed she hadn’t heard anything. Her eyes were red and I noticed for the first time that the tips of her fingers were burned. I… don’t know why I asked her, really. I knew then that she hadn’t heard it – that she would never hear it. And I felt completely alone. I remember I almost envied Chilcott, because at least he had known what he was signing up for.”

…………………… She probably assumed that Jan had heard her “battery” screaming, uh, hence the quick denial.

- WHY DO WE KEEP GETTING OPPORTUNITIES TO GET SAD ABOUT JAN KILBRIDE??? There was already something very… sensitive and heart-wrenching in his statement from MAG106, in his thought and overall tone (I’m apparently very weak to characters pulling the ~I would have liked to still be able to think that ignorance meant safety~ shtick ;;), even more with Melanie’s narration – she was absolutely perfect for that one, with her voice slightly cracking and the overall impression of throat tightening… And I was already sad for him with that statement alone! Even sadder when thinking he was probably the man with beautiful eyes seen with Gertrude during The Buried’s ritual! And season 4 keeps making me sad about him, godsdamnit, first with Jon mentioning how he ended, and now with:

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “Either way, it was clear my two fellow astronauts were patsies, sent up there to suffer. I almost felt bad for them, but it was in most ways a relief to know I wouldn’t need to worry about them interfering with my own project. […] the closest I ever came to discovery was when Kilbride expressed confusion at the rate that our supplies were diminishing. It was really only the two of us anyway, with Chilcott sealed away, having his own little breakdown. And Jan was always a bit of an idiot, so ready to believe anyone’s lies… But I suppose I don’t need to tell you that – do I, Gertrude?”

(The insidiousness was creepy, sure, but come on, Dark people, we’re so used to Voyeurs all the time, you spilling that You Know What Gertrude Did With Jan doesn’t feel mind-blowingly threatening compared to the others <3)

I wonder if we’ll hear again about the Daedalus. Melanie had noticed that Jan’s statement felt like it ended abruptly (presumably, Gertrude was told he was here and interrupted him to have a chat?) – so there could be another half lying around, or a live-statement with Gertrude, or… I don’t know. But now that we know that there was a 4th person on the station (WHICH WAS A “HOLY ARCEUS” MOMENT), and given that Manuela mentioned that she wasn’t sure of the Lukases&the Fairchilds’ own motives + that… the person who had taken care of the calculation must have been aware of the extra body, but she didn’t say it was Rayner’s team taking care of that aspect, it still feels like there might have been another story against the Currently Official Story (once again):

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “I don’t know how he convinced Fairchild and the Lukases to help finance the project – a life as long as his is evidently very good for one’s finances, but even so, space exploration is a whole other magnitude of expenditure. I don’t entirely know if they were working on rituals of their own, or simply pushing the boundaries of their own fears, their masters. […] Exactly how the launch was arranged, I couldn’t tell you, but I assume the calculations must have been done by one of ours. Otherwise, well… weight is very important when planning a launch, and it could hardly have escaped their notice that there were four people in that rocket.”

I’m very appreciative of the way the Daedalus had been handled in the canon, slowly taking “shape”. We first had Carter Chilcott’s testimony, who… couldn’t tell us a lot about the life aboard, except for his own experience, since he was precisely isolated; we then had Jan, who was more in control but still unaware of what was at work there; and now, we’re getting Manuela, who turned out to have been totally aware of the aim of the mission. This could be the end of the story, or there could be yet more to put things into perspective (ha), we’ll see!

- I don’t know which shade of queer Manuela was/is but: definitely queer (“Anything they did not understand became unnatural and I found myself crossing that line from an early age. Although strangely, out of everything I was, it was always my desire to pursue a scientific career that they railed against with the most energy.”). AND SO AWFUL HOLY HECK… I’m glad that Daisy wasn’t in the room with Jon because his tone was so into it that… he might have freaked her out a bit? It was terrifying, so… deceptively sweet while digging the knife deep into your flesh…

- One thing that gets me a lot (in a “HHHHHhhHHHH” way) is when… avatars talk about their patrons? The reverence, the worship in their words? And Manuela was especially “HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” is that regard: yes, absolutely terrible, and did you hear that drive and that passion? (It’s hot/aesthetically pleasing, is what I want to say.)

I still have… the impression, in a way, that the Daedalus never actually happened in the TMA universe; Melanie had mentioned that feeling in MAG106, though she pointed out the existence of pictures of the crew’s return to Earth, but somehow… I can’t help but feel like indeed, it was too out of our realm to truly have happened, and that it was all staged by another entity/by the Lukases&the Fairchilds, to pretend it had happened when actually the staff had stayed on Earth all along, and that they organised the press releases about it? But it’s also awfully fitting that yes, Fears experiments sound so impossible that it can’t have been happening. If there is no twist, it seems like avatars are drawing powers from their patrons proportionally to the faith they have in them?

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “Scientifically, it was nonsense of course. Dark energy and the like don’t work like that, not even remotely. But that wasn’t important. What mattered was that it felt like science, and that was all I needed. To do my work, to create the Black Star would need a parody, an aping mockery of science. But it would also need the deepest of darknesses. When I told Maxwell what I actually needed, he told me such a thing was impossible, but I insisted. And so he began his work on the Daedalus.

[…] My experiments continued largely uninterrupted, pushing the boundaries of light, darkness and fear. It was dangerous work and more than once, I got too close to the light and it almost destroyed me. But it didn’t. I could regale you with the technical terms or scientific disciplines I played with and rendered meaningless, but in the end all you actually need to know is that I succeeded. A tiny, terrible sun of the pitchest black, shining beautiful Darkness all around it.”

Like a twisted “believe in fairies” – things getting the power you give them, similarly to symbols? Sarah had, back in the days, said the Trophy Room Taxidermy Shop got its powers from people’s interactions with it (MAG096: “What is the significance of this place?” “Nothing, except what people give it. But they give it a lot, make it a place of power for us.”)

If the experiment did indeed happen in space: there had been hypotheses that the “falling satellite debris” which killed Oliver had been the Daedalus, and I had dismissed it because the dates didn’t match at all… but I’m a stupid potato and: of course the crew returned to Earth through a shuttle, and this was explicitly stated by Manuela. So it could still have been the Daedalus going full-on Icarus.

… But on the other hand: while the name “Daedalus” finally takes a bit more meaning with this episode (the story about ~getting too close to the sun~), Daedalus was actually the prudent one, who remained wary of the sun and was clever enough to always escape the murder attempts. Icarus went too close to the sun (and drowned in the sea, leaving Daedalus alone). Daedalus… gave his name to the maze, and brings corridors to minds. (But the “Daedalus project” was an actual, historical one, which never got completed in our world… Rah, I don’t know! The fact that we learned that Manuela had actually been full-on avatar in the space station, and not an innocent scientist victim of The Dark, makes me paranoid about another… twist regarding the station x’))

We’ve had another reference to Icarus in the canon, though: “George Icarus” was the name under which Leitner was buried, as Tim discovered in MAG114. Paid by the Institute. It fits Leitner very well but… given the ties between “Daedalus” and “Icarus”, it feels like a very weird coincidence – so did you get involved in the space project in one way or another, Elias… *squints*)

- Regarding the 4th person on the Daedalus, I’ve been grabbing my face a lot and screaming in silence about the sheer HORROR of suddenly learning that… there was someone else aboard, with Manuela very casually dehumanizing him at every possible turn (“one unlucky nyctophobe”, “I never learned his name, never needed to; he was simply a battery”, “The final experiment had left my battery in such a state that no amount of sound-proofing could dampen the screams, and I was glad of the peace and quiet.”). I wonder if it’s someone we’ve already seen mentioned somewhere…? The only potential one (in my mind) would be Peter “Pete” Gordo, who worked at the Wakefield Prison in MAG052 – Exceptional Risk, and had touched the Dark creature when it came to butcher Robert Montauk. Both the (awful) statement-giver and Jon had highlighted that he had vanished shortly after, in 2002, so he was probably a “half-finished meal” too…

Since Manuela… didn’t mention killing him but implied that she had left him behind (alone) in the station when she went back to Earth with the other two, I wonder if he might have turned into Something Else, or if he plainly died of exhaustion / lack of oxygen / starvation / Fear (alone, in the dark empty infinite space). Conceptually, it could be a good tie-in if he had somehow become an avatar of Extinction, but I don’t know how that could fit with his primal fear and what happened to him. One thing I have in mind, though: Daedalus was the inventor who helped Pasiphae copulate with the bull, in the myth, and the Minotaur wouldn’t have been conceived without it. So… Daedalus contributed to Creating The Monster (before working to contain it). Not sure it could be relevant, but just in case… there is that.

(- Extra-funny thing about Icarus/Daedalus……………… remember how Peter had called Jon in MAG134? A “bull-headed Archivist”. Congrats, Jon! It might have been involuntary (IS IT.) but you’re officially the Monster In The Labyrinth, right now, according to the Lonely creepy boat captain.)

(And again: considering that it turned out Martin was the one who gave Jon the connection to the outside that helped pull him out of the coffin, does that make Martin an Ariadne.)

- So, we got a new name for a ritual (The Dark is ~The Extinguished Sun~) but we also got the notion of a “stronghold” mentioned by Elias:

(MAG135) ELIAS: I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside.

=> Breekon had described the Institute as “The Eye’s Pedestal” (MAG128, “That was the first time we saw what would become this place, The Eye’s Pedestal.”), too. The question is still pending for Point Nemo (a Vast one? An End one?) and Hill Top Road (neutral ground or Web? Desolation? Spiral?). For the Lonely, Carter Chilcott had very specific dreams reminiscent of the graveyard from Naomi’s statement and of the Tundra’s journeys:

(MAG057, Carter Chilcott) “The hallucination stopped. I did not even get the comfort of company in my delusions, though at some point, the line between dreaming and reality seemed to blur. I’d be sleeping, strapped into my bed in the middle of the void, or at the same time floating through ancient graveyards or the open, empty sea. They weren’t hallucinations though, they were dreams – even if the cold seem to seep out of them, and into the bones of me.”

And there were the places where ritual attempts took place – the Wax Museum for The Stranger (though the Taxidermy Shop was also “a place of power” for them), that Elias claimed to be unable to access (and Jon did feel weird with no conception of time there); the town of Bucoda, for The Buried; Sannikov Land, for The Spiral; the Gnostic church near Istanbul for The Flesh (and potentially the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel for The Dark). Given how these places got… severely destroyed after their rituals got thwarted, it sounds like they were only been temporary places to build up power? Ny-Ålesund and the plain… sea are a bit more permanent than those punctual places, though? (Please, Team Archive, don’t go bombing the whole of Ny-Ålesund.)

- If we’re going to be digging a bit more into Dark-related activities… will we get a confirmation of what the fuck was happening re:Maxwell Rayner? Did he just have a remarkably long lifetime thanks to “feeding” his god, like Simon Fairchild, since we know that he was already around in the XIXth century and Manuela herself made a reference to the fact he had been around for very long (MAG135: “a life as long as his is evidently very good for one’s finances”)? I know the favourite fantheory on this one is that he’d been body-hopping but I’ve never been convinced since we didn’t really have descriptions of him changing, except that he was often Kind Of Old. There… has indeed been a suspicious trend of him targeting or getting a child around him: an unnamed one in 1864 (MAG098, Doctor Algernon Moss: “He is led around by a young Arabian lad of ten or eleven, though the ease with which he carries himself makes me suspect this assistance is an affectation rather than necessity.”); in 1995, Julia was attacked by the creature when she was 12; Basira and the other officers were sent against Rayner after he had kidnapped Callum Brodie, twelve years old, in January 2017 (MAG073, Basira: “Yeah. Callum Brodie. Twelve… twelve years old. Disappeared from his home in Dalston three weeks ago.”) – but it’s not necessarily to get a new body…? I always had the impression that it could plainly be because… well, the fear of the Dark is more prominent in children? So they could perhaps feed Dark-people better?

- I mostly wonder if (/hope that) we will get a bit more information about the relationship between Robert Montauk and Maxwell Rayner, in the process! Because… honestly, except for the fact that Robert’s wife apparently belonged to the People’s Church of the Divine Host (since she had the pendant) and that Robert killed around 40 people between 1990 and 1995 that may or may not have all been related to the cult, there are a loooot of things I’m still uncertain about? And Jon still had Questions about it too:

(MAG052) ARCHIVIST: So what is this thing that seems to have stalked Robert Montauk through so much of his life? And what’s its connection to Rayner? Were they summoning it, containing it, worshipping it? Whatever the case, it seems as though Montauk earned its anger. I feel it might be worthwhile getting a few more torches for the Archive.

(MAG074) ARCHIVIST: Well, that seems to close the book on Maxwell Rayner. Maybe the whole People’s Church of the Divine Host. I can’t help but feel I’ve got the last chapter of a story and I don’t even know the title. At least I hope it’s the last chapter. I still can’t find much about the company Outer Bay Shipping. Looks like a shell corporation, but tracking corporate ownership is not something I’m skilled at.

* Was Julia’s mother a runaway from the cult, or an active participant? It sounded to be the latter since Julia mentioned that she used to have friends who… didn’t inquire on her disappearance (MAG009: “apparently no-one noticed she was gone, which was strange as I have vague memories of her having friends over a lot before she vanished.”) Had she left her pendant to trap Julia too? Did she disappear to protect Julia? Did she willingly get spirited away? Actually, Robert told Julia she was “gone” but since Robert’s last victim had disappeared from his previous life a few years before his murder (MAG009, Archivist: “Christopher Lorne was a member of the church and his family hadn’t heard from him in the six years prior to his murder.”)… could it be possible that Julia’s mother is actually… still alive… and very Invested in the cult…

* Robert apparently did these things in order to protect Julia from… the cult? The creature? Maxwell? Julia did highlight that protecting her was one of his concerns (MAG009: “He whispered to me then, when he thought I was asleep, promised to protect me, to make sure that ‘it wouldn’t get me too’.”), but she didn’t really come out of the story acknowledging that it was what he was trying to achieve, I felt – not even to renounce his methods or success. Even when we got her live-statement in MAG109, she presented his actions as unrelated to her. But what was Robert doing exactly, and why…?

* Julia highlighted that they didn’t get any money problems (MAG009: “it was only after his arrest that I discovered that had been the point he’d resigned his job on the police force. I don’t know where the money came from after that but we always seemed to have enough.”) sooo was Maxwell Rayner paying for Robert’s… services?

* Robert and Rayner apparently hated each other by the time of Robert’s imprisonment, when Rayner visited him in Wakefield Prison in late March 2002, a few months before getting butchered by The Dark’s creature (… or one of them):

(MAG052, Phillip Brown) “It was an older guy, I’d guess late 50s, wearing a well-tailored black suit and an expression of disgust. When I brought Montauk in, his face fell, and he went very pale. I’d helped folks beat Robert Montauk a dozen times or more, but I had never seen him look scared. He sat down opposite the old man, and they looked each other in the eye through the thick glass. I think the visitor might have been blind. His eyes were cloudy, but he had no cane or dog. And it didn’t seem to affect how he looked at Montauk. Neither of them spoke. The seconds turned into minutes and still they didn’t say a word. They just sat there staring. Given where I work, it’s really something to be able to say that I’ve never seen two people who hated each other as much as Robert Montauk and that old man.

[…] I was tense, ready to fight off Montauk if he decided to make a move, but instead, a soft voice came from out of the darkness. I didn’t recognise it, but I thought it sounded like it came from the old man, and I don’t think he was talking to me. [STATIC:] “You didn’t think you could kill it for long, did you?” [/STATIC] That’s what it said. Then Pete got the door open, and a shaft of light poured in from the corridor. I could once again see Montauk and the old man sat there, motionless. It didn’t seem like they’d moved an inch, though as I went to take Montauk back to his cell, I noticed that he was crying.”

But before that, Rayner had apparently sent Robert after his next targets (MAG009, Julia: “He asked me to tell my father that it was Detective Rayner on the line with a new case for him.”), so? Unless the last one was someone that Robert went after without Rayner’s approval? Christopher Lorne, Robert’s last victim, was the only identified one, and was confirmed to have belonged to the People’s Church of the Divine Host. Was he an exception, or were all the previous victims from the cult too? In that case, why the heck was Maxwell Rayner getting them killed…? Or were they typical sacrifices in the cult? What happened, for Rayner to have come to loathe Robert, although he previous appeared to be giving him instructions…?

* Unless… was the man who phoned the Montauk’s house and pretended to be “officer Rayner” actually Maxwell Rayner, or someone making fun of him? Julia mentioned that the voice was old (fitting Rayner, forever a bit old) but… that it had an accent (MAG009: “It was a breathy voice, like that of an old man, and at the time I decided he had a German accent, though, when I was young a lot of different nationalities and accents were lumped together in my mind under the label ‘German’.”). If we know one thing from Maxwell Rayner’s voice, at least during the XIXth century, it’s precisely… that it just sounded unremarkable in English (MAG098: “Both speak perfect English, with no accent I can recognise”) – though the statement also dealt with German folklore and Rayner Knew about it, so who knows. Same person, different perceptions? Body-hopping after all? “Maxwell Rayner” being a mantle and a role more than the same person/soul?

- tl;dr Given how The Dark has been a huge part of Julia’s story and there is still room for Questions regarding Robert Montauk… if the Archival staff is planning to go after the remnant of the cult, I really hope that it will be Julia’s cue to come back… Although it has been stated that she couldn’t handle the idea of travelling by boat for very long.

- Re: Manuela’s DRIVE, how fitting that this was also an episode in which Elias casually mentioned his own ~patron~ (I’m really glad that Peter and Elias are now using that word too! It had, so far, mostly been used by other people to refer to avatars’ gods, not avatars themselves presenting their gods this way). Elias rarely mentions The Eye unprompted, and there was something interesting in the way the plural “you” from Manuela’s statement, referring to Gertrude and Elias, became that implied “we” from Elias, referring to him and… Jon, nowadays.

(MAG135) ELIAS: Fine. Consider it a test – things are… coming, things that will need Jon to be far stronger and more willing to use his connection to our patron.

Not the first time Elias amalgamated Jon and himself in the same ~we~ (MAG092: “It doesn’t please your master?” “Our master, Jon.”) but it was especially noticeable since Manuela had totally reduced the relevant Eye agents to the Archivist and the Head of the Institute, too. I don’t know how to explain that but… I felt like there was a bit of an echo, between the fact that Manuela had her own “we” (“even with the loss of Darvish, we will still be victorious”) with clearly identified, more powerful figures (Maxwell, Darvish, Manuela herself), and the… Eye people. There is mostly Elias and Jon, they’re the ones with powers, and as Manuela is describing The Dark’s ritual coming closer at the time of her statement, I feel like the shadow of the Watcher’s Crown is silently looming in a corner?

- As usual: e v e r y t h i n g about Elias. It’s been twice in a row now that Peter appears in an episode only for Elias to do the same in the very next episode and it feels like a competition between the Two Bastards to claim the Throne. Or a friendly competition between Alasdair Stuart and Ben Meredith to see who will manage to make people laughscream the most.

Anyway, non-exhaustive bullet list of Elias being… Elias:

* Do you think he will manage to give ONE GOOD PERFORMANCE REVIEW ONE DAY. I mean, how did he handle Melanie, who worked the hardest of all the assistants in the beginning of season 3, who read the most statements after Martin, who was given work by Jon, and all despite the lack of Archival training&direction (as she called Elias out on)?

(MAG106) ELIAS: And… how are you finding it? MELANIE: Is that a joke? ELIAS: Aside from the obvious, I mean. MELANIE: Oh well, I… I suppose it’s been… unstructured. Without Jon around, and with you being sat up here lurking, there’s not been a lot of useful direction. ELIAS: I see. MELANIE: I mean, you pick out a statement occasionally, and Jon might phone in to ask after some… scrap of information, but to be honest, no one’s even really told me what an “archival assistant” is actually supposed to do.

[A FEW EVIL SPEECHES AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE SESSIONS LATER]

MELANIE: [BROKEN SOBS] ELIAS: Anyway. Aside from all of that, I’d say your performance has been… satisfactory.

Meanwhile, Jon, who managed to snap out of the chaos that was The Unknowing, saw through Nikola, managed to compel Tim back to awareness enough for Tim to use the detonator…

(MAG135) ELIAS: Consider it a test – things are… coming, things that will need Jon to be far stronger and more willing to use his connection to our patron. His performance during The Unknowing was… disappointing.

… was “disappointing”. THAT’S NOT WHAT YOU SAID IN MAG120, THOUGH, YOU JERK:

(MAG120) ELIAS: You’re doing well, Jon. I only hope you can continue your growth without my guidance.

Insert the “My job here is done.” “But you didn’t do anything…?” meme here.

Elias, just face it: you’re a shit boss, a shit manager, a shit leader, absolutely terrible when it comes to actually giving direction, they’re not responsible for this!! :w

* Well, at the same time, calm your Jon!boner Elias:

(MAG135) BASIRA: Then you messed up. Way he tells it, he doesn’t know how he got out of there. ELIAS: But he did. And his powers were no small part of it. Even if he required some assistance, they were what saved him. And he’s still achieved what no one – mortal, monster, or anything in-between – has ever been able to. He climbed out of The Buried. […] If Gertrude had a plan for this one, I haven’t found it, which is why Jon needs to be closer to The Eye. If anyone can stop what’s happening, he can. See through the darkness, etcetera.

I had wondered whether Jon wasn’t beginning to get a biiit more powerful than was to Elias’s taste (since he mentioned to Basira that he has given instructions to prevent Jon from visiting him if Jon was inclined to it in MAG127, and Jon demonstrated in MAG128 how he’s now able to… extract statements from unwilling subjects, plus the overall droplets of knowledge), but it sounds like it’s actually going according to plan. Elias had already mentioned that Jon was… supposed to grow his own powers and be the one to take care of The Unknowing, back in MAG102, but here, Elias came across as especially powerless compared to Jon (“I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside.”) and… not even trying to pretend anymore that He Has An Important Role On His Own. Jon is the Archivist, we knooow, we’ve been told, but what is Elias’s function in this mess, then…?

* I’m not sure that there is anything more behind the “detective” title he’s giving to Basira since, as mentioned another time… it was something Georgie initially used (MAG122: “You’re the detective.”) and Elias uses it precisely because Basira pointed out that it wasn’t her title?

(MAG135) ELIAS: Nice to see you again, detective. BASIRA: Still not a detective. Never was. ELIAS: Oh, but everyone else seems to be getting a title these days, why shouldn’t you– BASIRA: [SLAMS HANDS ON THE TABLE] Cut the shit! […] ELIAS: I rather feel the real shame would be letting the entire world fall into Darkness because of a single person’s wounded pride. Detective. The stakes are far too high for that kind of… indulgence. […] ELIAS: Good luck. Detective.

It sounds mostly, to me, like a cat staring you RIGHT IN THE EYES while slowly pushing your favourite mug off the table? Doing it just to piss her off? Elias never used “Archivist” with Jon either (except in statement-mode in MAG120, but he went back to “Jon” when addressing him directly through the tape right after the static had faded), so I’m not sure there is particular… substance to it. On the one hand, it would sound like the perfect title for a Hunter-Beholding activity (tailing someone or something and learning about their privacy, potentially cumulating both fears of being hunted and exposed). On the other hand, I can’t help but feel like it could be another jab at Martin, who had mentioned his own lack of special pet name:

(MAG092) ELIAS: You think you’re the only police officer eager to do violence and call it justice? No, there are plenty of other rabid dogs out there, mad with the Hunt.

(MAG116) ELIAS: Oh, and, Jon, technically, I can’t stop you, but I would heavily advise against bringing any… rogue… elements. MARTIN: You can just say Tim.

(MAG118) MARTIN: Oh. That’s it, isn’t it! Martin’s just acting out! I mean, Daisy’s a rabid dog, and Melanie’s a potential killer; Tim’s a… a, a rogue element, but Martin? Oh, Martin’s just, just acting out! He’ll have a cry, and a lie-down, and feel much better!

(And once again: Elias did mention that Jon had received ~assistance~ to get out of the coffin… but managed to not name Martin directly, pfftttr.)

* Even more rattling chain sounds every time Elias opens his mouth => he’s using his hands a l o t when talking, uh. Gesturing person. VERY dramatic person. Is it a prerequisite for working at the Institute, was that the reason Elias chose Jon as the next Archivist.

* Oooh, Elias.

(MAG135) BASIRA: [SLAMS HANDS ON THE TABLE] Cut the shit! What are you playing at? ELIAS: I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.

When you’re playing at too many things at the same time that you can honestly not answer that question.

* Overall: I LIVE FOR ALL THE ELIAS-BASIRA EXCHANGES THIS SEASON… In season 1 and 2, they probably would have had very civil and cordial discussions but… beginning season 3, yes, Elias had begun to Let It Out way more (was it costing him that much to hold off and to appear proper and respectable? … or did the role just become Free Ben Estate.) and it’s even worse now. He’s so bratty and petty, and Basira had always been so straight-to-the-point and no-bullshit (except when it comes to office gossip) that it’s delightful and feels like she has to handle a spoiled brat while not being paid enough for this.

(MAG135) BASIRA: If you’re lying about this– ELIAS: You’ll kill me? [HUFF] I can hardly wait. [STEPS DEPARTING]

eLIAS, THAT’S LOW (the thing about kill-me-and-you’re-all-dying still stands, that’s precisely why they chose to get him arrested) AND YOU HAVE NO PRIDE YOURSELF.

* Though I am also very mad that Elias confirmed that His Plan regarding Basira’s investigations… was to get her out, because she’s Jon’s impulse-control.

(MAG135) ELIAS: Would you simply believe I wanted you and Daisy reunited? BASIRA: No. ELIAS: Fine.

I LOVE BASIRA SO M U C H…

Elias… called Basira out on her “pride” (“I rather feel the real shame would be letting the entire world fall into Darkness because of a single person’s wounded pride. Detective.”), and I’m worried that he might be spot-on on this one, like he was with Melanie and Tim. Though he’s currently nurturing Basira’s frustrations – sending her all over the globe before basically admitting that she couldn’t have done anything relevant herself? Now talking her down? Insisting that Jon is their best chance, apparently not taking her into consideration at all except as a potential messenger? Offering an “idea” that turned out to have been manipulation, and now giving new instructions while highlighting that she’s in no position to refuse? Either he’s still awfully bad when it comes to hurting people and not expecting them to get back at you, either he’s Compensating Hard for the prison time, either he’s trying to foster harsh reactions from Basira (and it won’t help her to warm up to Jon if Elias keeps presenting Jon as their most reliable chance ;;).

- I am HYSTERICAL over the fact that we’re finally getting another bit of something related to Elias’s backstory and that it’s that he was apparently acquainted with MAXWELL RAYNER:

(MAG135, Manuela Dominguez) “I come to you with a warning. And an offer. When you read this, I would consider it a great favour if you could share my words with the Head of your Institute. Tell him that Maxwell Rayner sends his regards and offers… sanctuary. A time of holy Darkness is at hand, when The Eye will close forever, and in the spirit of the friendship they once shared, he offers an opportunity – to surrender. Forsake the Ceaseless Watcher; abandon your position, and you shall be spared in the Blind World to come. In the spirit of reconciliation, and to convince you of our sincerity… I offer my story. Much as it may pain me to feed the sick voyeur that lurks in this place.

[…] That’s all I really came here to say! To let you know we had succeeded. And to make your boss an offer on behalf of Maxwell. […] So by all means, do your worst. Or prostrate yourself, both of you, before the Forever Blind – and perhaps you might be spared. Maxwell and I await your decision, with keen interest.”

ELIAS……………………

And nothing says more than “(ex)friendship” than confirming that you gave a tip to Section 31 to ensure they would go after and get rid of your old ~~friend~~, uh:

(MAG073) ARCHIVIST: […] Oddly enough, all I can think about is how did the police know where Rayner was keeping the boy? Basira didn’t seem to know, and the Church clearly wasn’t expecting the police to arrive. With a few exceptions, Rayner managed to stay off the grid for two decades. How did they find him now? Someone must have known what was happening and tipped them off. And I don’t think it was anyone inside that building.

(MAG135) ELIAS: You thought the final death of Maxwell Rayner might have sufficiently derailed them? Yes, that was my hope too, but alas it would seem not. BASIRA: Maxwell… You… You called in that tip, sent us out to their warehouse. ELIAS: And now I’m sending you out again.

(I’m so glad that it was confirmed!)

Until now, almost everything we had about Elias’s… life outside of the Institute was the Infamous Bits about His Official Backstory (which directly contradicted the small mention from MAG029 that he was a filing clerk at the Institute in 1972 – or at least, highlighted that uhoh, something doesn’t match here and that’s a twenty-years difference, the staff should have noticed):

(MAG049) ARCHIVIST: Supplemental. Elias Bouchard is a difficult man to pin down, certainly since he became head of the Institute in 1996 […]. It was a remarkably fast climb to the top, as from what I can find, it looks like he only joined the Institute five years before, in 1991, working in the Artefact Storage. […] And yet, everything I found out about his life before the Institute seems… an ill fit with the austere man I know. He apparently graduated with a Third from Christ Church’s College in PPE, and I found an old gossip column in the student newspaper that – sure well – that mentioned him. If I’m not reading too much into it, the implication seems to be that he was… something of a… pothead [CHUCKLES]. Was he… like that when he first came to work here…?

If this information is accurate: the time of Elias’s studies and his starting at the Institute would match the time-period during which the People’s Church of the Divine Host were officially active (MAG009: “a small cult that grew around the defrocked Pentecostal minister Maxwell Rayner in London during the late eighties and early nineties. […] Mr. Rayner himself disappeared from public view sometime in 1994 and the group fragmented shortly afterwards.”). How the heck did Elias apparently meet him, though? And mostly: … how could Rayner even have The Audacity to offer for them to just… resign? Manuela mentioned that she supposed “there is also an element of provocation here as well” and YOU DON’T SAY…

Wild hypotheses about the Rayner-Elias relationship, not in any particular order of Seriousness:

* Since Manuela only referred to “the Head of the Institute”, without naming Elias, and she referred to the fact that Rayner had been around for very long (we have a statement mentioning him from 1864): it’s an Old Thing, whether or not “Elias” is actually Jonah Magnus. (At the same time… given The Show that Elias is currently putting on, he really doesn’t read to me as being potentially 200+y old? He sounds way too immature and petty and frustrated to be this old?)

* Okay, so amongst the Eye-folks, there seems to be a trend of “x all the Entities”. Gertrude: thwarting all the Entities’ rituals. Jon: getting whumped by all the Entities and having scars to Show. Martin, man of 16 Fears: being courted by all the Entities. Elias: bedding all the Entities??

* Elias was a member of the cult during his Wild Days, before swinging another way when it began to crumble and/or before getting a Revelation at the Institute?

- … It’s also possible that the things about “friendship” were actually awfully sarcastic and cruel in their own ways. We have had the example of Mike Crew who was pursued by an entity and managed to escape it by giving himself fully to another, it… could have been something like that with Elias, too? Escaping the Dark by throwing himself into Beholding?

One thing I find striking is that, quite often, when we learned about the Spooky backstory of people who are currently tied to the Institute, Beholding wasn’t exactly the main Fear that they had encountered – mostly, they witnessed someone around them getting taken by a Fear, and were spectators who didn’t try (or manage) to stop it and… pressed on to know what was happening:

(MAG081) ARCHIVIST: And of course, in my heart, I knew that no-one else could have possibly seen anything as horrible as I had. Well, maybe I could have named one person, but… I watched him disappear forever. […] I had no idea what was going on, not really, but I was somehow desperate to get that book back. He was much bigger than me, though, so all I could do was follow as he walked down alleys and side streets. […] A strange conviction that, if I had been able to face that thing myself, maybe I could have saved him. Stopped it. Ridiculous, of course, I was eight.

(MAG101) MICHAEL: When he was in school, [Michael Shelley] lost a friend to something like me. His friend was named Ryan, but those in power simply called him schizophrenic. I don’t know if he was, but it doesn’t matter. He was so dreadfully afraid his world wasn’t real that to make it so was almost nothing. Michael was there when he was taken; he never got over what he saw. Or didn’t see. After much searching and despair, it drove him into the waiting arms of the Institute, where he met Gertrude Robinson.

(MAG104) TIM: I always tell myself there was some force there. Something that held me in place and meant that all I could do was watch. But sometimes when I think back, I remember how my legs shook, and maybe I could move. … Maybe I’m just a coward.

(Tim was literally a SPECTATOR in a theatre… Plus, add Basira who witnessed one colleague be taken by Diego Molina during her first Section 31’d case, and another colleague get killed by Natalie Ennis; Daisy who saw her colleague be taken by the coffin during her first Section 31’d case; Melanie… who didn’t lose anyone close to her in the process but still witnessed the strange things happening to “Sarah”, and a ghost getting butchered in the train.)

Survivor’s bias, but still noticeable – does Beholding put a claim on almost everyone who survived a Spooky encounter, maybe?

So I don’t know, really, but somethingsomething could the Dark actually have been the experience that originally pushed Elias towards the Institute…? (Jon had assumed, and seemed to have been validated in that regard, that Elias had trouble Watching in the tunnels, which are notoriously very dark. Perhaps the best way to insure Elias would shut the heck up would be to… plainly put a blindfold on him, and he would turn catatonic.)

- Meanwhile: Peter was mentioned for the first time in MAG033, appeared for the first time in episode MAG100. He has had a speaking presence in five episodes since then. He has been an absolute chatterbox when it comes to Elias – there has been no episode in which he didn’t mention him. Elias has been around since MAG017, has had a speaking presence in… eight? episodes since Peter appeared. And still. Has made. No mention. Whatsoever. Of. Any. “Peter Lukas”. Elias………………

(- Assuming that they do know each other, given that Elias said that:

(MAG135) ELIAS: Have you ever seen the Aurora borealis? It’s lovely this time of year. It would be a shame to lose them.

… Did he see them while on The Tundra? Romantikku.)

- Elias managed to not even mention Martin when describing that Jon had ~received help~ to get out of the coffin, and I want to believe that he’s still bitter about his arrest. Though… I really got the feeling, with MAG134 and how Martin described it, that it was The Web and… interestingly, Elias didn’t seem as wary of what happened as Peter.

So either it was actually Beholding guiding Martin there, either it gives some credentials to the idea that Elias had been collaborating or tolerating The Web at the Institute for a long while? There is also that strange connection between Jon and Martin: the fact that Martin just knew that Jon was alive (MAG088, Martin: “It’s the not knowing, you know? I mean, Jon’s still alive. Not sure why, but I’m sure of that. But Sasha, I…”) + the “DIG” from the same episode’s statement, read by Martin, creeping into Jon’s dreams (MAG120). So still no certainties about it but… there is something.

- I… am… very… wary… of the way Elias is OH SO VERY CONVENIENTLY pushing in the direction of Jon’s own uncertainty.

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: I mean, the Sun’s still there so I assume they failed. Unless they’re still… waiting to attempt it. That’s not the sort of statement you give… four years before you try to actually… ! … Or is it… The timeframes on these, er, “attempts”, the–these rituals, well… they seem variable, to say the least. When I try to think about it, uh– […] [SIGH] I’ll keep digging. If there is another ritual upcoming, I’ll need all the information I can get on it. I can’t believe Gertrude didn’t have a plan for it. I hope I’m just being over-cautious, that it’s already long since dealt with, but… we’ll see. […] I can’t afford to be just living one day at a time, I need… a plan. But I don’t even know what I’m trying to achieve… And no one… no one wants to tell me. Hm. [SIGH] End recording.

(MAG135) ELIAS: I have been observing a recent increase in people and supplies being moved to the small town of Ny-Ålesund, in Svalbard. An increase which I believe may be linked to a rather desperate attempt, by the People’s Church of the Divine Host, to perform a crude ritual of their own. To bring their… “Mr. Pitch”… into the world. […] I don’t know the details. Ny-Ålesund is a stronghold of The Dark, meaning I can’t see inside. I… believe they call it “The Extinguished Sun”, though that’s as much as I know. If Gertrude had a plan for this one, I haven’t found it, which is why Jon needs to be closer to The Eye. If anyone can stop what’s happening, he can. See through the darkness, etcetera. […] Feel free to do your own research to confirm what I’m telling you. Just don’t take too long.

It… it sounds way too much like throwing Jon a bone to ensure that he will get a Dark scar/experience, since Jon had been unable to Know whether Gertrude had managed to stop them or not. It doesn’t feel like Elias is taking this threat too seriously (compare it to the way he had handled The Unknowing?!), but more that he’s pretty confident that they won’t manage anyway and that he can… totally afford to be totally shitty about it since, anyway, he knows that Jon and the others will get worried and will get invested because they can’t afford to risk allowing another ritual to succeed? I find it hard to believe that The Dark is currently any threat but I totally understand that just in case, yes, the Archive Team would feel like they must intervene.

… and with The Lonely (and The Extinction), the only physical scars/marks that Jon is still missing? Are from The Dark. He’s never experienced it directly either and… catapulting him over to Svalbard sounds like the IDEAL opportunity for it, uh. Elias didn’t explicitly say that stopping The Dark was why he needed Jon to get stronger – there were two separate things, he implied causality but… didn’t explicitly say that it was the case so. Suspicious. Of course he would need Jon stronger for The Eye’s ritual, ultimately, after all…?

… But another thing that makes me flip out? IS THAT ELIAS IS NOW FACTORING IN THAT JON CARES FOR THE EXTENDED ARCHIVE TEAM:

(MAG092) ELIAS: You may believe yourself to have friends, to have confidantes, but in the end, all they are, is something for you to watch, to know, and ultimately to discard.

(MAG135) ELIAS: […] His performance during The Unknowing was… disappointing. I needed a way to force him to harness his ability more acutely than he had before. The coffin was a useful tool; Daisy an adequate bait.

………………… and yes, Jon will probably get a new injury on the way: he’ll get mauled by one of the Dark creatures in best case scenario, he could lose his eyes at worst (… does he even need them nowadays. I mean, YES it would be heart-breaking but. It sounds like One Of These Things very likely to happen to him.)… but I’m more worried about Basira.

Because if Elias is now factoring in that to push Jon further, you have to use the fact that he cares, Ny-Ålesund sounds like a Big Danger for BASIRA.

She was there when Maxwell Rayner was killed.

The only other witnesses were police officers (all Section 31’d nowadays). She didn’t kill Rayner herself but. But. I do not trust Elias one second to not spread (or have already spread) misleading rumours letting Dark cultists think that Basira had been the one to kill Maxwell Rayner. Jon had noticed people wearing the People’s Church pendants outside (MAG123) and we still don’t know why they’re hanging around so close to the Institute but really… I can’t help but feel like if they’re targeting someone, it’s Basira, and not Jon.

- About Jon’s feeling regarding the way the other staff members look at him…

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: I don’t… like interacting with the rest of the Institute these days. The way they look at me, I– … I don’t know. I don’t know what they’ve heard, what the rumours going around are, but… they have definitely heard something…! [SIGH] And they can’t wait until they don’t have to talk to me anymore. Can’t honestly say I blame them, none of this is easy. Everyone’s just trying to get through as best they can. Living one day at a time.

I’m not sure of what is happening, so:

* Is there indeed something noticeable in Jon nowadays? A gaze a bit too intense, an overall aura, something that makes you think “he’s spooky” without being able to pinpoint how? Too many eyes? Daisy was in the room when he read MAG133’s statement, I still feel like if anyone would be able to tell… it would be her.

* Alternatively, it… could also be an effect of the Lonely, again, since Jon had mentioned feeling isolated/lonely and… he’s very prone to feeling this as soon as he’s physically alone. It could just be that Jon feels like he can’t connect and that nobody wants to talk to him, while people are just… behaving towards him normally, but the Lonely is warping his perception.

* Alternatively: did Peter spread rumours on him through memos.

* Alternatively… oh, Jon… there could be so many reasons for people to not want to get involved with you Just In Case… Objectively: the Archives were attacked by Prentiss’s worms in Summer 2016. Jon was a mess for the following six months, before a body was discovered in the Archives and Sasha disappeared; Jon was on the run and the prime suspect. He came back and was on and off for a few months… before Tim died in an explosion in the Wax Museum alongside him, and Jon was hospitalised. And now he’s back. He means trouble, he means danger and, yes, people thought that Tim was having a breakdown when he was ranting about what was actually happening (as Martin told Jon in MAG102) but… Tim was popular. Tim used to be social, chatting with students and acting as relay between them and Jon (when they noticed errors in MAG033)… and Tim died.

Even Tim aside, there was the matter of Elias’s arrest and… Elias looked like he was actually well-liked by the staff? He was invested in the Institute’s life:

(MAG098) MELANIE: Uh, Martin? Have you seen Elias? MARTIN: Oh, uh… no. But Tuesday lunch he normally meets with the Library staff, I think?

And Rosie was chill with him (you don’t go “Yep, will do” at a boss you fear…). It’s possible that people resented Jon for Elias’s arrest and/or thought that Jon had framed him (which. to be honest.)? There are so many reasons for people to just… be wary of him, indeed…

- Jon’s voice was… something, at the beginning of MAG135. Sulky, tired, crushed? He reminded me of how he had introduced MAG129’s statement right after his encounter with Martin (clearly… unwell and plain sad); could have been caused by what he recounted regarding his interactions with the rest of the Institute, or by the content of the statement itself (it… wasn’t great news and Jon had no certainty about a possible positive outcome), but I wonder if it mightn’t be that reading statements left by Avatars is more taxing, since they’re more involved with the Fears? Does it feed Beholding a bit too much? He was very tired after Jane Prentiss’s; he collapsed after Breekon’s; he was clearly not fine with Manuela’s here. The only exception I can think of is MAG074 – Fatigue, which left him exhausted despite not apparently being (as far as we know) from an avatar?

- Raise your hand if Jon keeps slowly breaking your heart into small pieces when he has to tell himself, again and again, that he has to focus and that he can’t save everyone…

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: I… heard someone. He was begging for me to save him. Said he couldn’t breathe. … I can barely breathe. I couldn’t find him. But I am… n–not here for him. I don’t even know him.

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: At least, the coffin’s gone. I gave Artefact Storage some very specific instructions, and they’ve got it solidly sealed away. … Is locking it up the right thing to do? There are other people in there. And Daisy and I got out, but– … No, I, uh… I can’t think about that. Even if I could somehow be sure of recreating our escape, I–I can’t save everyone that’s been taken. I–It’s not my job to try, I– And I can’t spend another three days in there, I just… I need to let it go.

(But I’m still worried that this could be… how Gertrude started out, too. At first focusing on people around her and on the missions ahead, before gradually coming to thinking that the others were necessarily sacrifices for the Greater Good. Though in Jon’s case: he’s been… very consistently upset and sad for victims overall. So right now, he’s encouragingly… totally unlike Gertrude. Caring so much.)

- Bring as many torches as you can, once again. And your Web lighter, Jon? What happened to that one since the end of season 3 ;;

(… They don’t even need to go to Svalbard, actually, since there was still the matter of St. Paul’s Church in West Hackney, from MAG063, though Jon hadn’t managed to find any connection with the People’s Church of the Divine Host but… it was clearly a Dark creature lurking there? And the statement was from 2014.)

- If Team Archive goes to Norway in a group expedition trip… I’m picturing the door of the Archives, closed. Jon having left a note warning people that they’ll be away for a week or two, the Archives will be closed during that time. Scribble from Daisy underneath: “If we don’t die.” (Helen having added “Of fun!”, before adding something else about this door being closed, but people can still knock if they need a door, she’d do her bestest.) Melanie put a message encouraging to NOT take a job here if they happen to hire new staff after their disappearances in ~dark conditions~. Basira tried to salvage the memo with a mention about contacting the police with a mention of Section 31 if they failed. Martin passing by, one day, and losing it because pETER, WHAT DID YOU ALLOW TO HAPPEN AGAIN, YOU SAID THEY WOULD BE SAFE–

- Elias said the words “SVALBARD” and “AURORA BOREALIS” in an episode about “DARK MATTER”, so my heart is screaming and seeing this as His Dark Materials representation. Come on, the Archives crew are millennials, they have read the trilogy, right right right? :w

… Well, maybe not Jon, who probably didn’t manage to finish the first volume and/or gave up on the second one when he realized that Will’s cat wouldn’t be the main protagonist. (Maybe he secretly stanned Lyra a bit for her tendency to just run away from the College. And also panserbjørne. He would stan The Bears.) Sasha’s first dream job was to be a witch because Serafina was DANG COOL, with becoming an aeronaut coming in close second; cue Heated Bi Debates with Tim, because his tiny bi heart had been awakened through other options (Lord Asriel? Terrible, but hot!! Marisa Coulter? Terrible but hella hot!!). Basira got her lesbian awakening with Mary – smart clever scientist who went Fuck Injustice? Sign her up. Melanie loved Will, loved WILL’S KNIFE, and also loved to read about bears savagely murdering each other (oh no, sheer horror if she ever finds out she had that in common with Jon!). Helen might need to have the story told to her but she goes “!! I can open doors and Windows too! :D”. Georgie loved the technology and the Gallivespians communicating through Lodestone resonators (… actually, Jon probably made her think about the Gallivespians. A lot). … Aza mentioned to me that “ahah, Martin must have projected so hard on Will” and I hate her, it was supposed to be all fun headcanons but oh no now it’s awfully sad (=> Will’s mother being sick and needing his help! Not being reliable, but it doesn’t matter, she loves him! And turns out that Will’s dad had never abandoned them, not exactly, and that he had always loved them all very much!) (YEAH NOW IT’S SUPER SAD WHEN THINKING ABOUT MARTIN PROJECTING.)

(Let’s compensate the Sad by thinking about Jon and the assistants going on a boat trip to Norway, and NOTHING BAD HAPPENING, they’ll manage to neutralise the Dark’s feeble attempt and nobody will die or be gravely injured or traumatised by anything :| So they get to enjoy the trip, even if it’s probably on the Tundra and Jon is seething because still no sign of Peter Lukas anywhere, Martin is there though mostly inaccessible (… all alone on the boat to fuel it?), but Jon still managed to grab him at some point to have Meaningful Discussions in the cold of the deck, at night, when they’re undignifiedly bundled up in layers and layers of down jackets, Martin being especially starry-eyed at the starry sky because as he had mentioned in MAG113, he never got to travel much, and he’s getting Something Nice for once even if it’s when on their way to probably die a dark death – but they don’t and it stays something nice :[)

(What do you mean, I slept 2h30 last night and worked overtime today and I’m surviving thanks to my 7th coffee.)

MAG136’s title is out and AAAAAAAAAAAAH???? WEB??? WEB??? I want to think that a twist could be at work here (The Corruption and The Desolation ought to be offended, tfw still no episode almost halfway into season 4 :w) but it screams WEB, it screams especially strongly SHE, SHE, THE WIFE… Though Annabelle was “the story-spinner” and this is another title altogether. On the one hand, Jon has been repeatedly lamenting over his overall lack of direction, so it could be Her Cue to go see him in person or send him someone who survived her… but on the other hand mmmm, too soon for that maybe? Could also be something about Raymond Fielding, perhaps? (Or twist and it’s not Web.) (… second-meaning could be about so many people… Peter? Elias (ha, he wished.)? Annabelle?)

#mag135 #long post/#tma liveblog #the magnus archives #tma season 4

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angelioangeles · 5 years ago

Photo

So, I started the day with my community walk, I went around our barangay’s area and the started taking snapshots of the surrounding areas. It was quite the hot day actually, but then again if there’s a will, then there’s a way. First off, I went to one of the nearest local learning private institution in our area namely CASECHOM School a.k.a. Catholic Servants of Christ Commission School. It was actually my first school in nursery, but I only spent a year there as a nursery student and then I transferred to another school as I grow up.

The entrance to the local cooperative store in our community. Welcome !

Me standing at the table watching them as they unwrap everything they bought from the marketplace.

After going to my first school, I went to our local cooperative store together with my aunt which is seen in almost all other photos with me, and then we conversed a little with our friends there at the store while they are arranging the early market haul for the store ( inventory ), I was busy looking around and then I eventually took some snapshots of them in the work area and then we left them to do their job there.

A small bakery and sari-sari store located just beside the chapel of our barangay.

The commerce in our barangay is actually good if I do say so myself, there are lots of sellers, and esteemed tricycle drivers that produced fine college graduates in our community. The totality of the population in our area actually relies heavily on the good commerce for their living; especially the tricycle drivers in our community.

People nowadays only know how to either build mounds of trash, have them collected by the garbage men or either have them burned in their backyards. They don’t seem to know the environmental impacts that it may actually bring the planet if they continue to do such things for countless more years to come.

What should be done is to awaken every single individual to the truth of this world which is that there will no longer be a world if all of us keeps on doing such things that may drastically affect not just the community but ultimately the world itself. But what better way can we even thing of doing when the people themselves who preach are also the ones who do such kinds of things to the environment?

A photo I took in the morning that shows how dangerously close this compost is to some wirings; the compost is about to actually be burned.

Just look at that jollibee sunbathing while a green halloween pumpkin settles in the shade with some other plastic toy, never to be used to play again.

My former Senior High School teachers also building a Christmas Tree with ft. my aunt. >-<

A picture of my juniors from Sulivan National High School building a Christmas Tree from plastic bottles. ;-)

Nevertheless, we shouldn’t give up on those ideals for we are the only ones who can make our environment and even ourselves prosper. Because the end justifies the means; let us all make a stand on the idea that the world will prosper more if we will be idiots no more. We should really practice proper segregation and recycle materials more often as seen in this picture above which they are about to build a christmas tree.

After some time, proper segregation has finally been present in the school itself, I was actually so proud when I saw that there was actually something like this when I came back and it’s actually a very good improvement.

Our house is pretty old but it gets by and it’s been very sturdy in my 19 years of existence.

After we’ve walked in the community, me and my aunt decided to go home first and then take a few snapshots before we head to the barangay hall for some interview.

A photo of me, my aunt and our esteemed and ever loving Barangay Secretary, Ms. Ma. Belinda D.C. Palad. She was actually the one who greeted us before we had the interview because she is actually a friend and we really like her so much and she is also very strict in days when she’s educating students in the community. But at the end of the day she is a kind person with nothing but kindness and success for the community in mind.

These photos are actually showing the wires or metal wires used as fencing, but they are indeed dangerous because lots of people walk the roadside and may actually trip and fall in these fences and injure themselves.

After gracefully walking around our barangay, I also noticed the fact that there are multiple areas in the community which needs to be addressed quickly as they could cause harm to our surroundings. These areas are especially hazardous as it may or may already have injured or caused harm to the citizens of the community; however, the individuals around the community are already aware of this fact and they never really care until they themselves feel the consequences of their actions. Note that these areas are actually located near the area of living for certain individuals and establishments that is actually considered as a market by individuals that rely on them.

Moving on, not all areas in the community itself are hazardous, there are also those places which are certainly an eye candy for most people including me. These places may offer relief to people during unexpected times and actually plays a major part in the lives of almost every individual in the community. The first establishment to be mentioned is Sulivan National High School or simply SNHS is a seasoned school that withstood many calamities over the years and is also the school which I graduated Senior High School from.

Another place that actually helps people is the rice fields in our town, with roughly some hundred meters wide in certain areas, it is a prime spot for people to evacuate from when an earthquake strikes as there are no falling trees or anything that may potentially injure the evacuating people of the community.

The newly painted Sulivan Chapel, it’s so bright during a sunny day.

A beautiful reminder that we shouldn’t forget the Ten Commandments.

Lastly, is the Sulivan Chapel which is also an established piece of history and landmark in our community which like SNHS is also very old but very sturdy; it is a place of worship and devotion with some very good memories to be remembered for the whole community.

They’re just so adoooorablee oh my goooooshhh !!!!! ( Please forgive me for using those words .... THEY’RE JUST SO CUUUTE !!!!!!! )

As the people in the community differ from each other, it is apparent that every individual’s household includes not just every family member, but also some of our furry, feathery and fluffy friends namely dogs, chickens, pigeons and pigs including many more. I for one love my beautiful pigeons because they are actually a very big part of my childhood back when my mom was still around, so that’s that. All I can really say is that I just love them so much to the point where I’ll gladly put them on my bed to cuddle with me after they take a bath and yes, pigeons do take baths, and that’s a fact and I love their look when they do so.

Wow, I just noticed that we’re actually wearing Red, Blue, and Yellow .... what a cute coincidence. >-< Mr. Antonio B. Puno (Red) - Mr. Marty v. Dela Cruz (Blue) and me Dion Angeles (Yellow).

Now for the main part or the highlight of this blog, I’ve had the chance to talk to our barangay or community’s BDRRMC ( Barangay Disaster and Risk Reduction Management Council ) and BADAC ( Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Council ) Focal Person namely Mr. Antonio B. Puno or simply Mr. Puno as we locals call him together with our friend and co-chair regarding the matter Mr. Marty V. Dela Cruz which is also an active member of the barangay council as a Counselor, Communication and Budget officer in charge of managing and allocating some of the barangay’s budget for BDRRMC and BADAC.

Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Council Organizational Chart.

Barangay Disaster and Risk Reduction Management Organizational Chart.

Our talk was actually fruitful and it may raise a few eyebrows at some point because of some disappointments in the barangay, but all’s well that ends well. Now, addressing the fact about the Barangay’s Hazard identification, Mr. Marty was the first one to talk after I asked what calamities may actually affect our community saying that we aren’t near the ocean, nor are we near volcanoes, so basically the only thing that may actually pose a threat to our barangay is the occasional typhoons cyclones, earthquakes and fires; he also stated that ever since last year 2018, there hasn’t really been any case of fire in our community, the only issues that has been met by the community is said to only be the occasional typhoons which blew some things here and there, but hasn’t really destroyed citizen properties and livelihood in the community.

Barangay spot and risk map which indicates the level of hazard an area may encounter during calamities, the lighter the color the less the affected areas and the darker the color the more the area is affected.

After asking another question as to what kind of hazards or dangers approached the community and actually devastated the areas in which we live in it’s Mr. Puno’s turn and then he said that in the totality of the years in which we’ve actually been living in Sulivan, there is only the massive typhoons and the rising flood water that actually caused harm to the properties of the people in the community and the neighboring areas; it is also apparent in the community that there are actually no properties which are built using light materials to the point where even a magnitude 5 earthquake did nothing in our community, also to add is the fact that the houses in our area are built separately and with a very wide margin from each other as our community is actually spacious that it was actually mentioned that when a fire should actually occur, then there’s actually only the affected house or area in which the fire would spread and nothing more will be extinguished by the flames; another thing that was mentioned by Mr. Marty during our discussion is the fact that since the year 2001, there has been only 1 case of fire in the community with no fatalities.

On the other hand on the topic concerning the awareness or alert on which the community relies on when a certain calamity or danger may approach they both said that the BDRRMC is in direct contact with the DRRM or the NDRRMO which in turn provides advance information regarding the approaching calamities or danger in the community or the region itself, it is also mentioned that the only major cause for alarm may actually be the destruction of the Angat dam that can actually cause a massive flood in the community or in our community itself, the advanced update of the information in the barangay actually saved the community actually helped the people evade the harmful effects of the calamity or danger. Another thing is the fact that the renovation of the waterways and the drainages around our community which is a very big advancement for the community as it reduced the harmful possibilities of flooding and some other dangers that may arise from the said cause.

On the other hand, should moments like these arise then the community is ready and one of the best possible places which is assured by the municipality that can withstand the effects of the calamity is the school or Sulivan National High School which will not only serve as an institution for learning, but also a place for comfort and security in times of hardiness.

Another thing is the pinpointing or the speculation of the most affected areas around the community in times of or during calamities, it is said by Mr. Marty and Mr. Puno that the low lying areas in the community such as that near the waterways located in the vicinity are the prime locations for hazards or danger around the community itself. Now for the issue as to how or what hinders the community’s advancements, Mr. Puno’s response was the fact that the main issue to be addressed which is almost as vulgar as it may be is the fact that drugs are involved; drugs are actually one of the main problems of the community as they may entirely affect the community itself and with the help of his other organization BADAC, they are taking into action and helping those who are in need of assistance including the rehabilitation of certain individuals which are affected by drugs and so on; Mr. Marty also mentioned the domino effect of the drugs in the community which may potentially lead to a certain family’s poverty because of the influence of drugs and what makes it more of a headache is that the community members are actually tight-lipped about the matter of drugs because some of their family members are actually involved and that makes it worse for the community and the officers in-charge of the issue itself and mind you, that being a drug free community is not an easy task for officials because it is a threat to the peace and order of the community itself.

Mr. Marty also mentioned that in another 15 to 20 years or so, then our interview would actually be totally different in terms of the scope of our population in the barangay. Now, for the community’s readiness and awareness, it is actually similar to our NSTP orientation in terms of the trainings which includes basic life support that includes first aid and the BRS or the ( Barangay Rescue Service ).

A service and emergency vehicle is also present in the barangay hall which is readily available in the barangay which is open for use for every individual in the community.

While all has been said and done, the key factor which contributes greatly to the success of the barangay’s ordinances and regulations is the teamwork that is present in the community and its officials.

Please do note that the individuals whom I interviewed are actually camera shy even though it doesn’t look that way, but then again I was able to have someone assist me with the opportunity to take a photo.

Thank You and Peace out !

#community #development

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grell-writes-stuff · 5 years ago

Text

Interlude Playlist + Lyrics

My Interlude Playlist (plus lyrics that might make @fenfaerie cry)

Feel free to suggest others that capture the mood/vibe/feeling/whathaveyou

Listen On Spotify

All I Want – A Day To Remember

I'm always screaming my lungs out 'til my head starts spinning Playing my songs is the way I cope with life Won't keep my voice down Know the words I speak are the thoughts I think out loud

All Signs Point to Lauderdale – A Day To Remember

Remember when I tried I never strayed to far from you Forever by your side No matter what I was going through

This Could Be Anywhere in the World – Alexisonfire

Every breath I take I feel my lungs seal This breeze feels more like shards of glass I'm more scars than skin

Rough Hands – Alexisonfire

Was I left behind? Someone tell me, tell me I survived And don't look so surprised that I'm home, but just for tonight With rough hands and sore eyes So don't speak, I am tired Let's just live through this lie

Heroes – All Time Low

You're not a hero, you're a liar You're not a savior, you're a vampire Sucking the life out of all the friends you've ever known

Somewhere in Neverland – All Time Low

Tell me how you feel over and done with Like your life is a map with no compass to guide

The Irony of Choking on a Lifesaver – All Time Low

You're the snake hidden in my daffodils when I'm picking flowers That's just my luck these days Why can't you just be happy for me? You're the brake lights failing as my car swerves off the freeway It kind of feels like sabotage Why can't you just be happy for Why can't you just be happy for me?

Canals – All Time Low

Smile, tell me I'm alright With a goodbye You are so misleading A kiss or a gun fight High-noon or midnight Darling, I don't want to know If I'm just a short sight on a cold night The canals are freezing So tell me I'm alright with a goodbye

Oh, Calamity! – All Time Low

I'll remember nights alone And waking up to dial tones Always found my greatest moments In the sound of your hello's Now I struggle to recall The reasons you would come to leave

Nightmares – All Time Low

Now there's a ghost in the back of this room And I don't like it I fall asleep with my covers pulled up And try to fight it I gotta say, it's hard to be brave When you're alone in the dark I told myself that I wouldn't be scared But I'm still having nightmares

Therapy – All Time Low

My ship went down In a sea of sound. When I woke up alone I had everything: A handful of moments I wished I could change And a tongue like a nightmare that cut like a blade.

For What It’s Worth – Amber Pacific

Though I wish that you were breathing I still just can't believe You're gone

Postcards – Amber Pacific

When I'm without you I'm not the man that I know I can be Because you're not here with me

Red Flag – Billy Talent

The kids of tomorrow don't need today When they live in the sins of yesterday

Wishful Sinking – blessthefall

So just breathe slow, caught in the undertow And I'm fighting the current Holding my ground if you can't let go The pressure will hold you down

Sleepless in Phoenix – blessthefall

'Cause I carry ghosts of the things you've said But you won't come home even if you're dead

Hey Baby, Here’s That Song You Wanted – blessthefall

I keep putting together, what we've lost But pieces keep falling one by one Cause this life has us holding on For tomorrow then it's gone

It’s My Life – Bon Jovi

It's my life And it's now or never I ain't gonna live forever I just want to live while I'm alive

Blood On Blood – Bon Jovi

Through the years and miles between us It's been a long and lonely ride But if I got a call in the dead of the night I'd be right by your side

Livin’ On A Prayer – Bon Jovi

We've gotta hold on to what we've got It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not We've got each other and that's a lot

Practice Makes Perfect – Cute Is What We Aim For

I've become what a mother wouldn't want in a son And I have done a few things I regret I've become what a mother wouldn't want in a son And I have done what a mother wouldn't want What a mother wouldn't want in a son

Newport Living – Cute Is What We Aim For

Now just look at that social clique Do you really wanna be a part of it? Let's not let us forget Where she gets the habit She gets the pills from her skills She gets the skills from the pills And just look at that clique Do you really wanna be the star of it?

There’s a Class for This – Cute Is What We Aim For

Drama doesn't follow me it rides on my back

The Curse of Curves – Cute Is What We Aim For

I want someone provocative and talkative But it's so hard when you're shallow as a shower

Hysteria – Def Leppard

I gotta know tonight If you're alone tonight Can't stop this feeling Can't stop this fire

Tell Me I’m A Wreck – Every Avenue

When you tell me I'm a wreck You say that I'm a mess How could you expect anything less?

Irresistible – Fall Out Boy

You're second hand smoke, second hand smoke I breathe you in, but, honey, I don't know what you're doing to me Mon chéri, but the truth catches up with us eventually Try to say live, live and let live But I'm no good, good at lip service Except when they're yours, mi amor I'm coming for you and I'm making war

Beat It – Fall Out Boy, John Mayer (Michael Jackson Cover)

You got to show them that you're really not scared You're playin' with your life, this ain't no truth or dare They'll kick you, then they'll beat you, Then they'll tell you it's fair

I Don’t Care – Fall Out Boy

I don't care what you think as long as it's about me The best of us can find happiness in misery

w.a.m.s. – Fall Out Boy

I'm gonna leave you I'm gonna teach you How we're all alone

West Coast Smoker – Fall Out Boy

Oh hell yes I'm a nervous wreck

Hum Hallelujah – Fall Out Boy

And one day we'll get nostalgic for disaster we're a bull, your ears are just a china shop I love you in the same way, there's a chapel in a hospital One foot in your bedroom and one foot out the door Sometimes we take chances, sometimes we take pills. I could write it better than you ever felt it.

Golden – Fall Out Boy

Tongues on the sockets of electric dreams Where the sewage of youth drowned the spark of my teens And I knew that the lights of the city were too heavy for me

Bang The Doldrums – Fall Out Boy

I wrote a goodbye note in lipstick on your arm When you passed out I couldn't bring myself to call Except to call it quits

Sunshine Riptide – Fall Out Boy

The sign says “don't tap the glass” But I read it in reverse, “ssalg eht pat t'nod syas ngis ehT”

The Last Of The Real Ones – Fall Out Boy

I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me

Red Sam – Flyleaf

You are the truth (you are the truth) Outscreaming these lies You are the truth (you are the truth) Saving my life

The Anthem – Good Charlotte

I'm gonna get by and just do my time Out of step, while they all get in line I'm just a minor threat, so pay no mind

Wondering – Good Charlotte

If you want me to wait, I will wait for you If you tell me to stay, I would stay right through If you don't wanna say, Anything at all I'm happy wondering

Girls & Boys – Good Charlotte

She'll get what she wants if she's willing to please This type of girl always comes with a fee Hey now, there's nothing for free

Hold On – Good Charlotte

But we all bleed the same way as you do And we all have the same things to go through

The Day That I Die – Good Charlotte

Can you feel the cold tonight? It sets in, but it's alright Darkness falls, I'm letting go All alone, but I feel fine

The Young & the Hopeless – Good Charlotte

And if I make it through the day Will tomorrow be the same? Am I just running in place? And if I stumble and I fall Should I get up and carry on? Will it all just be the same?

Movin’ On – Good Charlotte

Life, hope, truth, trust, faith, pride, love, lust Pain, hate, lies, guilt, laugh, cry, live, die. Some friends become enemies some friends become your family. Make the best with what you're given. This ain't dying, this is living!

Jesus of Suburbia – Green Day

It says home is where your heart is But what a shame 'Cause everyone's heart Doesn't beat the same It's beating out of time

Holiday / Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Green Day

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies This is the dawning of the rest of our lives /

/ Read between the lines Of what's fucked up and everything's alright Check my vital signs To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

Basket Case – Green Day

Do you have the time to listen to me whine About nothing and everything all at once I am one of those Melodramatic fools Neurotic to the bone No doubt about it

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) – Green Day

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial For what it's worth it was worth all the while

Still Breathing – Green Day

As I walked out on the ledge Are you scared to death to live? I've been running all my life Just to find a home that's for the restless And the truth that's in the message Making my way, away, away

Silver Bullet – Hawthorne Heights

Being Alone, Just like them, Being Alive, Feeling so... Dead.

Ohio Is for Lovers – Hawthorne Heights

Because you kill me. You know you do, you kill me well. You like it too, and I can tell. You never stop until my final breath is gone.

How You Love Me Now – Hey Monday

Tell me how can you sleep? How can you breathe? Baby tell me how How you love me now

The Distance – Hot Chelle Rae

It's like you're living with a ghost Someone you can't hold And you say it's so unfair

Alright – Hot Chelle Rae

In the dark you come to life The memories of you and I I want to keep you here with me Don't wake me up just let me dream

Blank Space – I Prevail

'Cause, darling, I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream

My Heart I Surrender – I Prevail

Will our stars ever align? Will two hearts, beat in time? These words you should always remember, To you, my heart I surrender.

Sweetness – Jimmy Eat World

So tell me what do I need (tell me what do I need) When words lose their meaning (When words lose their meaning)

Jamie All Over – Mayday Parade

And please don't tell me that I'm dreaming When all I ever wanted was to dream another sunset with you

Jersey – Mayday Parade

I'll be fine, I swear I'm just gone beyond repair

Oh Well, Oh Well – Mayday Parade

And I'll just smile, and make believe I don't feel a thing. That doesn't work for me.

Kiss Me, Kill Me – Mest

A tragedy that's built on destiny It left you with everything but Blood from the knife that I cut your heart out with Now relax, close your eyes, what comes next is the surprise

Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) – My Chemical Romance

Everybody wants to change the world Everybody wants to change the world But no one, no one wants to die

Bulletproof Heart – My Chemical Romance

And though I know how much you hate this Are you gonna be the one to save us From the black and hopeless feeling? Will you mean it when the end comes reeling?

SING – My Chemical Romance

Every time that you lose it sing it for the world Sing it from the heart Sing it till you're nuts Sing it out for the ones that'll hate your guts Sing it for the deaf Sing it for the blind Sing about everyone that you left behind Sing it for the world

Planetary (GO!) – My Chemical Romance

If my velocity starts to make you sweat Then just don't let go 'Cause the emergency room got no vacancy Tell me who do you trust, Do you trust And we just Get up and go!

Kill All Your Friends – My Chemical Romance

'Cause we all wanna party when the funeral ends. And we all get together when we bury our friends. It's been ten fucking years since I've been seeing Your face 'round here. And you're walking away, and I will drown in the fear.

Demolition Lovers – My Chemical Romance

I'm trying, I'm trying To let you know just how much you mean to me And after all the things we put each other through

Desert Song – My Chemical Romance

Well tonight, well tonight Will it ever come? Spend the rest of your days rocking out Just for the dead

The Kids from Yesterday – My Chemical Romance

'Cause you only live forever in the lights you make When we were young, we used to say That you only hear the music when your heart begins to break Now we are the kids from yesterday

AMBULANCE – My Chemical Romance

And if you save my life I’ll be the one who drives you home tonight And if I ever let you down I’ll be the one who drives you home tonight

The End. – My Chemical Romance

I'd encourage your smiles I'll expect you won't cry

Dead! – My Chemical Romance

If life ain't just a joke Then why are we laughing?

This Is How I Disappear – My Chemical Romance

Can you hear me cry out to you? Words I thought I'd choke on, figure out

The Sharpest Lives – My Chemical Romance

You're the one that I need I'm the one that you loathe You can watch me corrode like a beast in repose 'Cause I love all the poison

Welcome to the Black Parade – My Chemical Romance

And though you're dead and gone believe me Your memory will carry on We'll carry on And though you're broken and defeated Your weary widow marches on

Sleep – My Chemical Romance

And through it all How could you cry for me? Cause I don't feel bad about it. So shut your eyes, Kiss me goodbye, And sleep. Just sleep.

Teenagers – My Chemical Romance

They're gonna rip up your heads, Your aspirations to shreds Another cog in the murder machine

Disenchanted – My Chemical Romance

It was the roar of the crowd That gave me heartache to sing. It was a lie when they smiled And said, "You won't feel a thing."

Famous Last Words – My Chemical Romance

I see you lying next to me With words I thought I'd never speak Awake and unafraid Asleep or dead

Helena – My Chemical Romance

Burning on just like a match you strike to incinerate The lives of everyone you know And what's the worst you take (worst you take) From every heart you break (heart you break) And like the blade you stain (blade you stain) Well, I've been holding on tonight

To The End – My Chemical Romance

She keeps a picture of the body she lends. Got nasty blisters from the money she spends. She's got a life of her own and it shows by the Benz She drives at 90 by the Barbies and Kens.

I’m Not Okay (I Promise) – My Chemical Romance

But you really need to listen to me Because I'm telling you the truth I mean this, I'm okay! (Trust Me) I'm not okay I'm not okay Well, I'm not okay I'm not o-fucking-kay

Cemetery Drive – My Chemical Romance

When will I miss you, when will I miss you so far

Heaven Help Us – My Chemical Romance

But can't tell if I've been breathing or sleeping Or screaming or waiting for the man to call And maybe all of the above Cause mostly I've been sprawled on these cathedral steps While spitting out the blood and screaming "Someone save us!"

Camisado – Panic! At The Disco

You're a regular decorated emergency

LA Devotee – Panic! At The Disco

You got two black eyes from loving too hard And a black car that matches your blackest soul I wouldn't change ya, oh Wouldn't ever try to make you leave, no

Dying in LA – Panic! At The Disco

Drink of paradise They told you put your blood on ice You're not gonna make it Every face along the boulevard is a dreamer just like you You looked at death in a tarot card and you saw what you had to do

Let’s Kill Tonight – Panic! At The Disco

May your feet serve you well And the rest be sent to Hell Where they always have belonged Cold hearts brew colder songs

Memories – Panic! At The Disco

Oh Memories Where'd you go? You were all I've ever known How I miss yesterday How I let it fade away?

Trade Mistakes – Panic! At The Disco

So, let me save you Hold this rope and I'll pull you in 'Cause I am an anchor Save her or feel it sinking in

The Calendar – Panic! At The Disco

There is simply nothing worse Than knowing how it ends And I meant everything I said that night I will come back to life But only for you Only for you

Hard Times – Paramore

All that I want Is to wake up fine

Rose-Colored Boy – Paramore

And I want you to stop insisting that I'm not a lost cause 'Cause I've been through a lot Really all I've got is just to stay pissed off If it's alright by you

Told You So – Paramore

For all I know The best is over and the worst is yet to come Is it enough? To keep on hoping when the rest have given up?

Fake Happy – Paramore

Oh please don't ask me how I've been Don't make me play pretend

Pressure – Paramore

Just don't let me fall asleep Feeling empty again Cause I fear I might break and I fear I can't take it Tonight I'll lie awake feeling empty

Emergency – Paramore

I've seen you cry Way too many times When you deserve to be alive

Ignorance – Paramore

Don't wanna hear your sad songs I don't wanna feel your pain When you swear it's all my fault 'Cause you know we're not the same

Ain’t It Fun – Paramore

If it don't hurt now then just wait, just wait a while

Last Hope – Paramore

And the salt in my wounds isn't burning any more than it used to It's not that I don't feel the pain, it's just I'm not afraid of hurting anymore And the blood in these veins isn't pumping any less than it ever has And that's the hope I have, the only thing I know that's keeping me alive

Still into You – Paramore

Let 'em wonder how we got this far

That’s What You Get – Paramore

It's your turn, so take a seat we're settling the final score And why do we like to hurt so much?

Misery Business – Paramore

Second chances they don't ever matter, people never change. Once a whore you're nothing more, I'm sorry, that'll never change.

Let the Flames Begin – Paramore

What a shame we all became such fragile, broken things

crushcrushcrush – Paramore

If you want to play it like a game Well, come on, come on, let's play

Fences – Paramore

And it's obvious that you're dying, dying Just living proof that the camera's lying And oh, oh open wide 'Cause this is your night, so smile 'Cause you'll go out in style

Be My Escape – Relient K

I fought you for so long I should have let you win Oh how we regret those things we do And all I was trying to do Was save my own skin But so were you So were you

High of 75 – Relient K

And its funny how you find You enjoy your life When you're happy to be... Alive

Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been – Relient K

And I was positive that unless I got myself together, I would watch me fall apart. And I can't let that happen again 'cause then you'll see my heart In the saddest state it's ever been.

Savior – Rise Against

That's when she said, "I don't hate you, boy. I just want to save you while there's still something left to save." That's when I told her, "I love you, girl, But I'm not the answer for the questions that you still have."

Changing – Saosin

One last breath to say goodbye I tell myself another lie Stripped of all I hold so dear The moment's lost and I am sinking down lower I drown myself in the water And I am watching my life pass before my eyes It comes as no surprise

I’d Do Anything – Simple Plan

And I wrote this letter in my head Cuz so many things were left unsaid But now you're gone And I can't think straight

Fat Lip – Sum 41

I don't want to waste my time Become another casualty of society.

Meant to Live – Switchfoot

We were meant to live for so much more Have we lost ourselves? Somewhere we live inside

Twin Size Mattress – The Front Bottoms

This is for the lake that me and my friends swim in, naked and dumb on a drunken night And it should've felt good but I can hear the Jaws theme song on repeat in the back of my mind Make sure you kiss your knuckles before you punch me in the face There are lessons to be learned, consequences for all the stupid things I say And it is no big surprise you turned out this way The spark in your eyes, The look on your face

Bob (Cousin O.) – The Gits

Awaken to the only chance I've got Hide behind these walls, I look through the cracks I see the same mistakes that I once made All that I can tell you there is a price to pay

Absynthe – The Gits

Do you ever think when you're dealing with the worst The outcome is the best thing for you

Another Shot of Whiskey – The Gits

It's like a sword of hate You brandish it so proud I wonder if you're taught what you feel Or is it the way you got it cold dead in your eye?

Second Skin – The Gits

I need a second skin Something to hold me up Can't do it on my own Sometimes I need just a little more help I've got that chance to give every drop that's left in me I need a second skin Something I cannot break out of

Mr. Brightside – The Killers

I'm coming out of my cage And I've been doing just fine Gotta gotta be down Because I want it all

You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid – The Offspring

There's something in your way And now someone is gonna pay And if you can't get what you want Well it's all because of me

Neon Gravestones – Twenty One Pilots

Promise me this If I lose to myself You won't mourn a day And you'll move onto someone else

The Hype – Twenty One Pilots

But you don't get thick skin without getting burnt

Holding on to You – Twenty One Pilots

Fight it, Take the pain, ignite it, Tie a noose around your mind Loose enough to breathe fine and tie it To a tree. Tell it, "You belong to me. This ain't a noose, this is a leash. And I have news for you: you must obey me."

Car Radio – Twenty One Pilots

I ponder of something terrifying 'Cause this time there's no sound to hide behind I find over the course of our human existence One thing consists of consistence And it's that we're all battling fear

Guns for Hands – Twenty One Pilots

I'm trying, I'm trying to sleep

Skyway Avenue – We The Kings

We'll race right off the cliff They will remember this It all got so mundane With you I'm back again Just take me by the hand We're close to the edge

Sad Song – We The Kings (feat. Elena Coats)

Without you, I feel broke Like I'm half of a whole Without you, I've got no hand to hold Without you, I feel torn Like a sail in a storm Without you, I'm just a sad song

Check Yes, Juliet – We The Kings

Run baby run Don't ever look back They'll tear us apart if you give them the chance

Lights And Sounds – Yellowcard

Smile big for everyone, Even when you know what they’ve done. They gave you the end but not where to start; Not how to build, how to tear it apart.

Ocean Avenue – Yellowcard

If I could find you now things would get better We could leave this town and run forever Let your waves crash down on me and take me away

Telescope - Yellowcard

And something took you from me I can't understand why But wherever you're resting I'm carrying your line

#writing #writeblr #wip #wip playlist #interlude #wip: interlude #book: interlude #music

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inatelescopelens · 2 years ago

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amsterdam 16th december

This morning I woke for the first time in my shoebo—that is the name the hotel affectionately gives to my size of room, which is just large enough to comfortably contain its desk, cabinet and single bed. With the curtains drawn it is dark inside even when the sun has risen, and no natural light penetrates the small tiled washroom adjoining it. As usual I’ve somehow managed to litter the contents of half my suitcase across the wood-board floor in the space of a day, so I hang the do not disturb sign from the door handle on my way out. For four euros at the hotel they will leave a small paper bag of breakfast—muesli bar, bit of fruit—on a hook outside your room, waiting for you when you get up.

We only had to round one corner and cross the canal to reach our first destination of the day’s itinerary in Dam Square, where the Royal Palace of the Netherlands sat catching the first rays of sunshine in a near-silent city centre. This was a much quieter state than I remembered Amsterdam’s tourist heart being in the height of summer, but the buildings were the same—I remembered sitting around in just about the same spot waiting in the same way for the palace to open its doors at ten o’clock for visitors. The only people besides ourselves hovering before the entrance were a few other over-enthusiastic sightseers and an excursion group of high school students whose attention was not very focused. We collected our audioguides and headed into the public rooms to start our tour.

It was all familiar to me from the last time I’d been—the palace’s history as a pre-Napoleonic era royalty town hall, the relics of Dutch trade in the form of half-accurate marble maps in the floor, the halls of ornate statue motifs. What had changed was the palace’s sense of its own golden age, an age not rendered so golden for the benefit of tourists anymore and unmasked by the post-colonial. Because the buried Dutch plundering of the world emerges not only through the columns of monkeys and exotic fish and other appropriated things, but by the presence of the stone in the first place—the obscene wealth, and how it was made. Every symbolic statue contributed its own meaning to the mythos; I liked the decrepit skeleton of Time best, or bare-breasted Artemis, standing over her quarry of fish, freshly hunted for a nautical society.

Between the palace and lunch we visited a few other places on my list, beginning with Begijnhof, a tiny historic religious community for women walled off in the heart of tourist Amsterdam. Its former inhabitants were not nuns but they were known for their little chapel and their good deeds—today, still only women live within the houses surrounding the green square. As a visitor one can have a look around the garden and inside the chapel, while the rest is reserved for present-day residents. This was one of our first looks into the religious past of Amsterdam, a history of revolt and reformation and other things more recent, and more terrible.

After a quick walk around the American Book Centre, probably the most impressive and extensive English-language bookstore I have ever visited, we bought fresh sandwiches from a local chain food store and sat over the canal to eat. Mine was on brown bread, which they do much better here in Europe than they do at home, with jackfruit, avocado and vegan sriracha mayo. It tasted like being on Brunswick St or within the wilds of a Collingwood hipster cafe, exactly what I have always meant about Amsterdam being so like Melbourne in some ways. Also as in Melbourne the young people in this city love queuing up for super-trend food opportunities. I found I was already pointing out to Mum one of the latest viral cafes or restaurants on every second corner. So we left the busier part of town and went east, by the narrow bridge and the Netherlands branch of the Hermitage, facing the wide grey Amstel canal.

We walked past the National Holocaust Names Memorial on our way.

Part of this trip for me, particularly now in Amsterdam, has been trying to do things I missed out on before, go places I haven’t been. The De Plantage neighbourhood is an island of green surrounded by canals and streetscape, here we visited the Hortus Botanicus, a doll-sized botanic garden with greenhouses and its own cafe. We went from freezing European winter to the heat and humidity of the tropics in seconds as we entered glass halls containing reconstructed rainforests and collections of palm trees. Precarious iron spiral staircases led up to bridges suspended at ceiling height. The smaller greenhouses were home to colonies of butterflies, the creatures left lethargic by the wintery day. We saw a robin redbreast in the bushes outside as though we had stumbled into a secret garden—the key to the gate had been the digital ticket on my phone.

The exterior gardens were just as interesting as the greenhouses, though distinctly colder, and some parts were buried in a layer of frost. Others had varying ground covers of orange and brown and vivid green, under trees and shrubs in turn gone bare or still weighed down by their leaves. It was the wilder sort of garden, left to pursue its own interests, except for in the parts of the park restored to a version of its seventeenth-century existence as a repository of medical plants. In parts of the hedge-lined semicircle garden were pools home to aquatic plants—these were frozen over, as was the large pond, with a layer of ice so thick it looked like it had formed over many days. Even in the late autumn chill the Hortus was a beautiful place and the frost had far from devastated its charm; I think it added to it.

As we walked back towards our hotel, cutting through the centre of town rather than trailing through the outer streets, we noticed how much the city’s tourist community had grown in the space of a day. Plane loads of the populist young English had arrived for the weekend, and passing through bits of the Red Lights District we saw some of the crasser types already wandering about on their way to poor life decisions. We stopped to look inside the oldest building in Amsterdam, the Oude Kerk. This church, boldly facing the dormant walls of adult entertainment, was cavernous within. It was stripped of former glory during the Reformation, left bare but for a few patches of paint on the roof that the angry mobs had been unable to reach. The bleak interior plays host to art exhibitions in the modern day and we spent some time exploring the current installation—a collection of sculptures, Garden of Scars, by artist Ibrahim Mahama. Under our feet were hundreds of tombstones. They made up the entire worn-down floor.

Tonight we were kindly invited by our Amsterdam friends Camilla and Rob to come to their house to have dinner and to hang out with their son Oscar, who was only a small baby when we saw him last. Having picked up a bottle from a local wine shop, we boarded the tram at Leidseplein and travelled down through De Pijp to reach their home. It reminded me so much of staying with them in a spare bedroom three years ago and Camilla made us a really delicious dinner of vegetarian lasagna and fruit crumble for dessert. We made plans to meet again on Sunday, before Mum and I had to leave for London once more. I realised how much I had missed them and this city where I first really came to know them in a different era for us both—we left not too late and took the tram home again, deposited less than five minutes from our door where the boorish Friday night throng could not reach us.

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wehveechen · 7 years ago

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A Red Lamb: Urokai One-Shot

A little One Shot with Urokai bc I love him k. also posted on ao3!

This must have been the quaintest little shithole he has seen in at least twohundred years. He'd managed to escape Zarga's endless nagging and the constant annoyance caused to him by the 10th and 12th Elders. They shouldn't even be allowed to talk to him at all, these miserable worms! He vaguely remembered the world map, and if he was not wrong, he was somewhere on an island called Ireland. No one in the world would go and look for him here. Good, all he wanted was some quiet.

However, this place did not alleviate his boredom. Urokai wandered through empty streets, the few people he saw averted their gaze in a sense of discomfort - good. He didn't want to talk to anyone anyway. After about half an hour, he reached the largest building in the small town, an old church that must have stood here for longer than most of the other buildings. The heavy door creaked when he pushed it open and he was met with a draft of cool air coming from the inside. Dimmed sunlight fell through the windows of stained glass, throwing colorful specks of light on the floor and the columns. Other than that, the building was disappointingly unornate. Quite unlike the much larger cathedrals he had seen in other places. Still, the quietness of this place was one he could appreciate. Idly, Urokai strolled towards the row of candles that must have been lit at some point. Some of them seemed fresh while others had burned down almost entirely by now.

" “You look a little lost, if I may say so. Can I help you?" Not a quiet voice, but a calm one. Slowly, Urokai turned towards the human who'd addressed him. Dressed in black, early thirties, he'd wager, tousled dark hair. He did not seem too angered over the visitor. Still, Urokai huffed, feeling insulted by the mere fact that a mortal dared speak to him just like that, uninvited. Still, he didn't want to cause a scene, meaning to keep a low profile until Zarga and the rest decided they no longer felt the inescapable need to annoy him. "No. I'm just having a look around."

The main church was usually empty, apart from sundays and the rare elderly person looking for company and comfort in the presence of the young priest. A small comunity of hardly a thousand inhabitants in a rural area, an inornate church that seemed to get emptier each year. Thus, he was surprised to see someone here - someone young, and someone new. Though Thomas most certainly did not know everyone in town, he knew all those who attended church regularly, and none of them a one-eyed redhead. Maybe he moved here only recently. For the first couple of minutes, he had not bothered the man in case he had come here to pray or light a candle. He didn't - and so Thomas approached the stranger, hands folded in front of his torso.

"Oh. I see. We rarely see tourists around here. I am afraid there is not much to see here." "I noticed that. About as dead as it gets... You're a priest, right?" "Yes, I am." "What do you do all day, apart from preaching?" (Urokai realized he never talked to a human priest before. Why would he ? ) The priest seemed to be a bit taken aback by the question, but he still answered patiently. "Apart from preparing the masses, I am responsible for counseling at the nearby nursery home and the school, as well as the local youth club and neighborhood community." "So, talking to people all day." The man in front of him laughed, it sounded off in this little church. But somehow Urokai liked that sound. It felt so... light. Genuine. "Essentially. Of course, each priest performs different tasks. But I like people, so that's what I do: helping them." "Isn't God or something supposed to help them?" Urokai snorted. He was vaguely familiar with the notion of religion, after all. "God is the one who gives us strength to help ourselves." Once again, Urokai was tempted to snort. Right. Humans needed something like that too. A Lord. A noblesse. Someone to look up to. Instead of their kings, just as foul and flawed as the common rabble, they turned to God.

"... I still need to tend to the chapel's Garden, but don't hesitate to ask, if there is anything I can help you with." The priest was too friendly, Urokai did not like it, and it almost made him snarl. That smile was too genuine, unpleasant to see with his own eyes, sore of all the bitter faces and false smiles he was forced to see whenever he had any union business to take care of. Zarga never has been particulaly funny and Roctis must have forgotten how to smile altogether. Ignes, though not much younger than him, was too intense for his tastes. For fuck's sake, how low has he stooped, to seek company from a human? "I will just hang around," he finally replied through gritted teeth, and for a moment, he was certain the man must feel his tension (but ah, Urokai never has been good at hiding his feelings. He played with his heart on his sleeve). "You're welcome. I rarely have company... My name is Thomas." He offered one hand. Urokai glanced at it with furrowed brows and, once the Priest realized that the redhead had no intentions of accepting the handshake, he let his arm drop back to his side. "I'm Urokai."

He followed the priest out in the garden, slipping his hood off. A bunch of herbs and flowers he was not familiar with. The priest grabbed a pair of intensely yellow rubber gardening gloves and a green bucket with tools that were probably meant for gardening. Urokai realized he knew absolutely nothing about herbs and plants, he always left the garden of the clan's estate to the gardener. The man, Thomas, hummed a tune as he filled a green watering can with water from an old faucet. He wasn't silent, but quiet. This was one of the rare moments Urokai remembered that they did not mean the same thing. "So, are you from far away?", the priest asked, kneeling in the dirt to clip wilted flowers from a shrub. "I'm from New Zealand." One of the elders had told him to just always say that, if asked. "New Zealand? What a far way you come from! Probably on the way to Cork? You should drop by at Kilkenny, it's maybe an hour away from here. Though I guess that won't impress someone from New Zealand. I heard it's an absolutely gorgeous place." Urokai shrugged with a hum. He never has been to New Zealand and didn't care to. "Why are you a priest? Must be a shitty job." Thomas halted and glanced up to him before returning his attention to the rose bush. "Not everyone is made for priesthood, and that's alright. There are many ways in which people do the Lord's work, after all. I want to help people. There's many ways to do that, too." "why bother helping people? As if they ever return anything you give them." " It's not about receiving. To give and to receive is barter... The love we receive from God, we give back to our neighbours, or brothers and sisters. Compassion is not a single kind deed, but a way of life." "And then you burn yourself like a candle, to keep others warm." "If I am to burn, then so be it. Whether in this life or the next, whatever we sow we will reap."

Urokai laughed bitterly. How naive! How foolish! As if this man knew nothing of life. "Oh, yes. You love, you give, you love, you give, and you get nothing back. What you sow, another reaps. And you are forgotten and left behind. That's the way it goes. You do everything for someone you admire and cherish and you get nothing in return. You are forgotten. That's all it leads to." Finally, the priest set down his gardening tools, shifting to look at him. There was a sadness in his green eyes. "I am sorry you have been hurt so much," he said, softly. His voice was gentle, so gentle, like the tender caress of a loving father. Urokai gulped, feeling taken aback by his own outburst of emotion and the calm he was met with. In this moment, the human reminded him of someone he had tried to erase from his memory. "Often, this world is not just... often, we despair, question, wonder whether there is a purpose and a reason. We ask ... how can there be a God who makes us suffer like that? How can God loves us and still let this world be like that? It's one of the hardest questions in the world. But we all have a cross to carry, such as Christ, and the Lord does not place a cross on our shoulders heaver than what we can carry - and if we keep our faith, if we can stay good people despite everything... through these hardships, we grow. And in this growth lies salvation." Urokai swallowed, embarrassed by his own outburst of emotion before this stupid human who started talking of God. "I should go." He felt uncomfortable being here. The priest gave a little nod. "God be with you... Be safe on your travels. I hope you will find peace there."

Something about that stuck him, even long after returning to his base. I hope you will find peace there... In that little garden, in the company of that humming priest, he'd felt peace for a few moments. And for the first time in centuries, Urokai found himself wishing he could turn back time. Undo the wrongs he'd inflicted on the one he loved the most, go back to visisting the Noblesse with his friends, go back to Lukedonia, go back to times that would never come back. Urokai found himself missing the happiness he once had.

#noblesse #urokai agvain #my writing #asdfgh sorry for the spam

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dragoninmypocket · 7 years ago

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scar

note: This is part 3 of a (rather disjointed) series of ‘missing’ scenes from the books. While the parts can stand alone, I’ve thrown in some callbacks.

Other parts:

part 1: stay

part 2: follow

part 2.5: promises

epilogue: after the storm

content warnings: mental illness, panic attacks, blood

Lindal wakes to a scream, but there is nothing for her to fight. It is dark and still, and the night is not burning. Barda is whole and untouched beside her, holding out a hand.

She takes it, shaking slightly as the panic ebbs, and the visions of torn limbs and shrieking men fade.

“What-?”

A low sob from Barda’s other side and finally Lindal notices Jasmine is leaning over Lief, whispering softly. Lindal cannot see Lief’s face, but she can see the way his hands clutch desperately at Jasmine as his whole body contorts with fear.

Lindal has heard the rumours that the king was unwell, that he wandered the halls of the palace like a lost soul of Tora, that staff and guards had heard him shrieking and sobbing late at night. There is an evil in the palace, the streets had whispered. It will take our king and our hope and our country if we let it.

“He will be fine,” Barda murmurs, his voice tinged with pain and resignation. “Jasmine is used to it.”

“What happened to him?” Lindal asks softly. But Barda just shakes his head. It is not his story to tell.

* * *

“No kissing, you two,” Lindal says. “Brothers do not do that.”

Lewin and Jay scowl and blush red. Laughing, Lindal turns to Berry. He looks strangely vulnerable without his beard but his smile is still the same. His nephews look away politely as he kisses her.

“I will be back,” he whispers, promises. “Wait for me.”

Four days after she sends Lief, Barda and Jasmine off on the back of a dragon, Lindal hands her room key to the tavern owner, shoulders a bag filled with her belongings, and begins the long walk to Del.

* * *

Jasmine dreamed of this sometimes, alone and in secret. She imagined that one day she might be here, sitting on Lief’s chest with her legs tight on his hips and her hands on his face. His eyes lock on hers as he arches and moans, but the wind is howling and the air is dense with poison and not like this, never like this, no no no please…

“Lief-” she sobs. A trickle of blood rolls down his neck and his hands grip her wrists, desperately trying to push her away. “Lief, I am sorry, I am so sorry-”

Quill had called for him- you are one of us now. But she will not let them have him. He is not theirs.

Eleven…

* * *

Lief looks at her through his new mask of blood. “It is not your fault, Jasmine.” He tries to smile, though it makes the wounds around his mouth stretch and sting. “And it does not matter anyway. I cannot even remember it.”

Jasmine smooths the green cream onto his face, trying not to let him see the terror in her eyes. She wonders whether she will ever be able to forget. Whether she will ever be able touch his face without remembering his screams, and the time she hurt him so badly he could no longer remember who she was.

* * *

Standing alone, turning to face the Masked One, Lief cannot feel anything anymore- his courage and his heart have died, and his body will be glad to join them.

* * *

There are still fresh pink scars splotching across his jawline and up his neck. Another snakes along his hairline above his right eye, visible only when he pushes back his hair.

“I am sorry,” she whispers.

“What for?”

“I did this to you… I scarred you.”

Lief smiles. “No, you saved me.” His face carries the proof.

* * *

Prin screams, Barda yells at her to stay, and all of a sudden Jasmine is seven years old again, helpless and alone, watching as her family is stolen from her.

* * *

Sharn’s outstretched arms fall. The girl her son loves is standing alone. Her face is white with fear, red with tears, black with horror.

Into Sharn’s mind comes that night six months prior, when Lief told her that she was to go to Tora. She had protested, vigorously. She knew something was wrong, even if Lief had not yet admitted it. She could see it in the tremble of his hands, hear it in the croak of his voice. She could feel the anxiety crackling off Jasmine like the sparks of a blazing fire. But Lief had refused to hear any arguments. “You must go, Mother, and I must stay here. It is our duty,”

“My only duty is to you!”

“You know that is not true.” His eyes were so full and aching. It scared her sometimes, just how much her son could feel.

“No, please… sunshine…” she had whispered desperately, his childhood nickname, the word she sang over and over on those nights in the forge when chaos reigned outside. When the darkness had taken her parents and her life and her name, and the baby in her arms was the only light left in the world. “Sunshine, I-”

“I hope you have a safe trip, Mother,” Lief had interrupted her, clasping her hands. “Write me a letter to let me know when you have arrived.”

He had kissed her forehead, and a thought had caught in Sharn’s mind, and held. I will never see him again.

“Jasmine?” she whispers. “Jasmine, where is my son?”

* * *

Jasmine’s dreams are so empty they suffocate her, but when she looks out to sea she knows he must still be alive. Why else can she feel her soul tugging and pulling at the places she has stitched it to his?

On the seventh day Marilen grips her arm, her whole body seized with grief. “Jasmine… they are dead. You know that. You must know that,”

“Lief is not dead,” she whispers. “If he was… I would feel it.”

Marilen closes her eyes. The people of Tora share their thoughts, and the city is somber. Outside their walls, Deltora goes on, unaware that tragedy is about to crash around their heads. Doom refuses to declare anything until they know for sure. In many ways he and Jasmine are alike.

She knows what will happen- what has to happen. They will lay Lief’s body before Jasmine and she will inspect it. She will lay her head on his chest to check for a heartbeat. She will call his name softly, shake him, and beg him to wake up. And then, only then, will she accept that Lief is dead.

It does not seem right that Marilen is to take Jasmine’s place, when Jasmine was born to be their queen.

* * *

Jasmine breaks free of the others and she and Lief fall to their knees together in the sands of the Sleeping Dunes, hugging and crying and kissing.

“Well hello to you too,” Barda growls, a smile on his face. Still sobbing, she flings her arm around him, drawing him into the hug.

Later, they rest together under a tent in the Sleeping Dunes, and while Lief sleeps, using Jasmine’s lap as his pillow, she looks at Barda and knows how he dreams of this for all of them- peace, all they have ever wanted.

* * *

He understands the way Laughing Jack looks at her (pulsing desperation and anger), he sees the way he holds her (tight against his body), he hears the way he speaks (dare and threat, rolled into proposition) and Lief’s blood runs cold.

* * *

Barda and Jasmine are arguing about Torans and plots and trust, but Lief’s mind is filled with other matters. As soon as Barda leaves he pulls Jasmine towards him and kisses her frantically, desperately. He is only eighteen and about to die but for a moment he thinks maybe the whole world might have stopped. Perhaps nothing matters anymore but this. She touches his face and she is not afraid.

When he breaks away his eyes are glistening with tears. “You are not going to die,” she promises him, and she promises herself. I am not going to let you die.

* * *

They disregard the order of the king because Barda would never consider not following, and Jasmine understands love in a single word.

* * *

But now Jasmine is choking. Behind her eyes, covered in slime, she can still see him hunched by the ragged carcass of the platform. He had looked at Gla-Thon with eyes as bitter and hate-filled as those which had once stared at her from a feathered mask, and Jasmine knows that it is over.

She cannot see or breathe or scream but she can still hear the wind and the dragons and all of Deltora is howling in despair that theirs has turned against them. She does not want to hear it anymore. She hopes that death will come soon. She hopes that Mamma will be there to greet her.

I will destroy you…

A lurch, a jolt, and suddenly the world comes rushing back into focus as instinctively, painfully, she gasps in the chilled air of the chapel. Wildly she turns and watches as the black slime eagerly surges forward, and disappears into the shattered floor.

“Lief? Lief!”

He is gone. And there is only one place he could be.

“Where is he Jasmine?” Barda shouts. He cannot see. He cannot see. He cannot see. “Jasmine- do not follow him Jasmine!”

* * *

His mother reaches out with still-shaking arms and envelopes him.

“You are alive,” Lief murmurs quietly into her shoulder, almost surprised.

“We both are,” Sharn replies. Her eyes grow concerned, and she brushes his matted hair back from his forehead. “What happened, my darling?” she says, running a gentle finger across his mottled scars.

“Jasmine saved me.” It is all he needs to say, all he will ever need to say. Sharn smiles, and embraces Jasmine too.

* * *

She thinks they are safe, and the future is theirs to create, but then Lief walks back into the room with a hand full of map pieces and news of the world’s end and Jasmine wonders if they will ever be allowed to be happy.

* * *

They slide, shaky-legged, off Fidelis’ back. Before them, in the shadow of Steven’s caravan, their friends stand speechless, looking at them with a look of awe that Jasmine does not like.

Lief mumbles something incoherent. He is still clutching them both tightly, like he will never let go. He looks like he might collapse, his face confused and his eyes blank. Barda and Jasmine look at each other in concern, and Jasmine squeezes Lief’s hand. “Lief?”

He turns to them, his teeth chattering in the cold night air. “I… thank you. I do not know how-”

Smiling, Barda puts his arm around him. “We were always in this together, were we not? Remember what we said, right at the start? Fate decreed we would be three.”

“Clever fate,” Jasmine grins.

Barda looks at their intertwined hands, the way Jasmine looks at Lief. “Clever fate indeed.”

Lief leans into Barda, pulling Jasmine closer to him, and they stand in the light of the full moon watching the dragons take to the sky.

* * *

One of Jasmine’s favourite memories is six weeks after the first Dragon Night. She is sitting on the grass of the palace gardens, under the dappled shade of an old tree. Lief sits beside her, humming softly to himself, some Del folk tune. He tilts his head upwards towards the sun, closing his eyes briefly as he smiles. His eyes are not dark and his face is not lined with pain. It is such a beautiful day.

* * *

Sometimes Sharn cannot help but wonder whether this whole mess was just their fate, that everything (Endon and Jarred, the Shadow Lord, the Quests), happened this way only so they could find each other, for Lief and Jasmine together can change the world. And that is why when she looks at Anna, she does not see their child- she sees validation.

note: I have been writing this fic in scraps and pieces for years and years, and I am so happy that this wonderful fandom finally motivated me to put it all together and finish it! Thank you for reading.

#deltora quest #my fanfic #i'm so happy it's finished!#any typos or constructive criticism let me know :)#i've now edited the other parts so they all contains links to each other :)#don't mind me continuing to edit this three hours after posting it

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eng102b04spring2020 · 5 years ago

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Tumblr Post 1: Welcome to My World, Sam Reilly(Sreilly20) https://www.tumblr.com/blog/eng102b04spring2020/new/text Hello everyone. My name is Sam, and I have lived in Memphis my whole life until last January. I have owned a commercial and residential cleaning company in Memphis for the past 20 years. I have been with my wife for 3 years and she is in the military, which has us moving every 2-3 years. We spend our free time traveling all over the world. I am going back to school after 16 years to obtain my degree in Psychology with a minor in Human Resources Management. I will be attending the University of Alabama this coming fall. I’m not really certain I am doing this posting correctly, as it is my first time, but I am going to give it a shot! The content I am going to share is about my travels. I fully believe that traveling helps reset the mind and body, decrease stress, create more open-mindedness, and develop a higher appreciation for life in general. Having the ability to experience many different places is something I would recommend to everyone.

Italy is packed full of rich history that and beautiful icons and scenery everywhere you look. Rome is a big city with a high population and buildings upon buildings. There are a lot of historical places that would be worth seeing, the Colosseum, Pompeii Ruins, Palatine Hill, Trevi Fountain, and the many basilicas, just to name a few. My personal favorite was the Vatican and Sistine Chapel, which have an expansive amount of some of the most iconic art pieces ever created. The thought of all the work that Michelangelo put into painting the ceiling is overwhelming.

Tuscany is another part of Italy that is beautiful, but in a more low key way. Imagine every picture you have seen and amplify it by ten. The land is vast, with rolling hills, tall evergreens lining driveways, neighbors acres apart from each other, vineyards as far as the eye can see, and cobblestone streets. In the center of town, the architecture is a mix of Gothic and Renaissance styles, which tie in together very well. Obviously you can not come to Tuscany and not stop by a vineyard for a wine tasting. If it is not a bucket list item of yours, it should be.

If you are into nature, Iceland is the place to go. It is cold all year round, so packing appropriately is key. The land is very open and airy, with acres of lush, green vegetation and lavender fields for miles. As it is a coastal country, there are many beaches and some with smooth black rocks. You can go for hikes on the many dormant volcanoes they have or up to the top of majestic waterfalls. There is even a spot where two tectonic plates meet that you can swim in.....yes, it is freezing! One should never visit Iceland without taking a dip in the Blue Lagoon. It is very warm water, and when it mixes with the cold outside air, you could soak for hours!

This one is a little hard to talk about at this point because of all of the devastation they just experienced, but Australia is a place of many beaches and wildlife. If you visited one beach every day, it would take 27 years to visit them all. I went to about 6 and every single one of them were gorgeous. Rolling waves, sand in your toes, surfers at some of them, and I accidentally stumbled upon a nude beach as well. The country was full of koalas and kangaroos lounging around in peoples yards like any other pet. Going at the right time of year you could catch a close up glimpse of whales. The people there are very nice, and it is a super relaxed placed to visit.

I have been to Mexico about 5 times and visited about 20 different cities there. Cancun was my favorite. Staying there offers lots of beaches and opportunities to visit many close cities with interesting things to see. The Mayan Ruins was top of the list on this trip for sure. It was a lot of fun seeing such old buildings still standing that were created many years ago. Be careful where you step though, as lizards run rampant!

Korea was definitely a cool place to explore. We got to visit the DMZ and stand with one foot in North Korea, any more than that and one would get shot! Seoul was jam packed full of people and buildings as wide and high as the sky would allow. I was not a fan of such a fast-paced area, but there were some things worth seeing. Traveling down to the lowest part of the country and to Busan were much nicer. The vegetation was nice and those areas seemed a little cleaner than Seoul. It is coastal, so the seafood was fresh and delicious. There were street performers everywhere you turned, so it is safe to say entertainment was not lacking. Osan was a lot of fun because it is where my wife was stationed and you could watch the jest and airplanes doing their training exercises.

Poland is a place to go if you want to have a great time on a low budget. The food is exquisite, but inexpensive and you can get a full spa day that includes a massage, facial, and pedicure for about $100. If you know anything about that you will know what a steal that is. The Old Towne Square is a block of pretyy buildings that are side-by-side and surrounding a huge opening in the middle where there are tables and chairs for people to sit and eat, while admiring the view. My favorite food while there was duck, smothered in an orange cranberry sauce. Probably one of the best meals I have ever had.

Another somewhat sad posting about a once beautiful place that I had the pleasure of experiencing, has now been almost blown off the map by a hurricane, the Bahamas. It had some very beautiful beaches. I did not get to do as much exploring there at the time as I would have liked because I was younger and playing in a soccer tournament there. I remember the weather being amazing and spending time on the beach, watching the waves, and seeing people on jet skis and parasails. I hope that they can regain what once was there.

Hawaii is one of the most breath-taking places I have ever been. If you have seen any brochure for there, there is no comparison. The natural vegetation is much more lush and vibrant due to the volcanic lava flows providing a rich resource for foliage to grow on. The beaches are clean and full of people and activities to do. There are countless places to go hiking, often crossing the path of amazing waterfalls. I would recommend everyone to visit there at least once.

These are all just a few of the places I have been and have been able to experience with my wife. We love traveling and take every opportunity we can to do so. It has broadened our horizons, made us appreciate what we have and has had a positive impact on our lives. Having someone you love and have a great time with makes traveling so much more fun. We have learned to value mental health, the people we love, and people around us. I encourage everyone to experience every place they possibly can. After all, you only live once!

#travel life

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sanctferum · 7 years ago

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Dangan Ronpa Chapter 4 Free Time part 2, and probably a Deadly Life by the end of this

OK, so last time we decided to spend what’s probably our final Free Time event of chapter 4 with Kaito. Problem is, I can’t find him anywhere. That is…concerning. OK, I’ll hang out with Himiko instead.

A present for Himiko, huh? How about a Firebolt, I mean Flame Thunder, broomstick?

Himiko is too lazy to tell people not to talk to her if she doesn’t want them to. Or, at least she was back in chapter 2 or whatever point in time this Free Time event was written for.

Himiko became a magician, sorry, a mage, because she was good at it. Not following her talent would go against her master’s teachings. Said master is an amazing archmage, who- oh, we called her a magician by mistake, the conversation’s over. RIP Shuichi.

One final free time. Looks like Kaito’s available now. Let’s finish up his free time events.

Kaito seems awfully nervous about something. Let’s calm him down with this weird space thing present.

Kaito’s upset that we’re moping around. Shuichi isn’t sure why Kaito thinks he’s moping. But, in the interest of sharing burdens, Kaito convinces Shuichi to tell him a story that he’s previously only told Kaede. The story of Shuichi’s first case, the one that went horribly right. Shuichi insists that him solving the case was a complete accident, and that he foiled the culprit’s revenge, despite it turning out that the culprit was justified in seeking that revenge. Kaito thinks that the culprit, had he gotten away, would have been crushed under the weight of his own guilt. In that sense, he should almost be thankful that Shuichi caught him.

Kaito’s an idiot, but…he supports Shuichi and expects nothing in return. He is a true friend.

We get the Spacewalk skill and Kaito’s underpants. Spacewalk looks like it will be useful for psyche taxi.

As night-time approaches, the doorbell to Shuichi’s dorm room rings. Kaito? Maki? Nope, it’s Miu.

Shuichi has no patience for Miu’s perverted remarks, but Miu does say one interesting thing. If Shuichi meets Miu on the fourth floor computer lab, the two of them, and I presume everyone else as well, will be able to escape. Shuichi decides it’s worth going there. Probably.

On the fourth floor, Himiko is outside the computer room. Everyone got the same basic message from Miu, but Himiko says it smells fishy. Well, Miu would know about that. …She’s starting to rub one off on me. Rub off on me. Fuck.

Himiko is hesitant, and then she remembers all the times she didn’t want to do stuff, but Tenko grabbed her and dragged her all over the place. In Tenko’s memory, Himiko won’t hesitate any more.

The green circle in the center of the computer is red now. Everyone is already gathered inside. Including Kokichi. I’m nervous. Really nervous.

Sure enough, Miu plans to get us out of here via bringing us to another world.

Miu will tell us how it works…if we bow down to her like dogs. Kokichi suggests that if Miu wants to be heard, SHE bow down to US. Miu gets desperate and then suddenly the art style shifts to manga style as Miu bows down to us.

There’s a device connected to the computer that can upload your consciousness to it. Which means the way to escape is to abandon our physical bodies and run to a virtual world. My theory as to what’s happening here inches ever closer to being the truth…

The computer doesn’t have “virtual reality” in the sense that we know of it as. It’s really…a Virtual World. One step further than the Neo World Program from Dangan Ronpa 2, sounds like. As Tsumugi puts it, it’s basically the Matrix.

The consciousness is put into an avatar, just like with the Neo World Program. Naturally, we’re all pretty hesitant.

Kokichi found out what Miu was up to. He agreed to bring chairs here for our bodies to be left behind in, in exchange for learning what Miu was planning.

A world without murder and Monokuma, huh? I don’t think we’ll be in a hurry to leave behind the world with our friends and families in it, but I also suspect that said world no longer exists, and that the world we’re in now – possibly even the world we all came from – originates within this same computer.

Himiko is refusing to go. This reeks of danger. And Miu didn’t even create the Virtual World. Someone else made it. HMMMHMMMMM.

Himiko doesn’t want to separate her body and her soul. Kokichi says Keebo might not have a “consciousness” to be uploaded. But surely being a program in the first place will make this definitely work on him, right?

Shuichi is nervous about who could have created the Virtual World. He’s right to be, because as it turns out, it was Monokuma. Just as I thought…

Following on Monokuma’s footsteps are Monophanie and Monotaro. Monotaro is still confused after being hit so many times, and decides that the robot is his father. He picks the wrong robot, though – Keebo, not Monokuma.

Monokuma used a certain program as a template to create the Virtual World. Is that program called the Neo World Program?

The program is called the Killing Game Simulator. I think I must be right about the true nature of this world and everything in it. I’ve got to be.

Miu stayed up all night deleting all dangerous stuff from the Virtual World. Still, even with that, it’s obviously a trap.

Once we go to the Virtual World, we’ll understand how awesome it is. Miu’s speaking like she has already been in and out. Has she?

The Virtual World was originally a killing game simulator? I dunno. Monokuma said he based the Virtual World off of the Killing Game Simulator. It’s therefore more likely that the Simulator is what we’re in now.

Monotaro thinks Miu’s his mommy now. Maybe Miu and Keebo can adopt him.

Kokichi is on Miu’s side when it comes to trying out the Simulator. Very adamantly and suspiciously so. He knows something. Something about what they might find inside the Virtual World. A super crazy secret. Some kind of bait from Monokuma that would be a reason for them to try it out.

Monokuma says it’s…the secret of the outside world. Whoever finds it, will instantly know what’s happening outside the academy.

Kokichi says he didn’t know about this for sure. It was just a hunch. But I think he knew. He used the card key to get into the Monokuma room and found out something…

Kokichi says that the info could be used to end the killing game…Gonta immediately falls for it. Keebo again mentions his “inner voice” and says it’s telling him that this is the right thing to do. Kaito is just plain curious to see what the Virtual World looks like. Maki thinks he’s an idiot, but will go along anyways. It might be dangerous, but everyone’s been in danger for a while by now.

It’s obvious to Shuichi that Kokichi’s planning something. But what?

Two ports on the VR visors…that’s what connects you to the computer. Into the ports go a red cord, for consciousness, and a blue cord, for memory. Red goes in the right port, blue in the left port.

Once the helmets are connected, everyone puts ‘em on. Miu says she tweaked the avatars to look even better than what the rest of em look in real life. Uh-oh…

Himiko, I don’t think Miu was talking about your face.

Despite our reservations, we flip the switch and…are digitized. We black out for a moment.

And in that moment, a message appears. “Welcome to the Neo World Program…”

We’re actually doing this, then? Oh fucking boy. I just hope this doesn’t mean the mastermind is Junko or any incarnation of her. (It’s totally gonna be fucking Junko)

And here we are, and we’re…funko pop chibis. MIIIIIIIIIUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!

Yeah, agreed with Himiko, the graphics could use some improvement.

Keebo was hoping to have a human body. Poor guy.

With this body, Kaito doesn’t have to worry about any of the stuff he’s been worrying about. Shuichi inquires what stuff, but Kaito brushes it off.

Maki appears. Weird, she wasn’t here before? Now that I think about it, Himiko, Tsumugi, Maki, Kaito, Keebo, and Shuichi are here. Where are Gonta, Kokichi, and Miu?

Maki immediately wants to go back to her actual body. Gonta and Kokichi show up, and Kokichi punches Keebo. Keebo is shocked to feel actual pain from having his avatar hit…our senses in the real world are connected to our senses in the Virtual World. Yeah, that’s how the Neo World Program works…

Miu shows up. All of us are here, then.

Oh, when she said we’d look better in the Virtual World, she meant we’re ugly IRL. Thanks.

The thing about the senses being connected is worrying Maki. Miu explains that whenever an avatar receives sensory input, electric signals are sent to the real body’s brain. And the brain interprets those signals as if it actually experienced it.

Miu has a map of the world, but also a warning regarding this world. Objects are unbreakable. Nothing can be broken here. Also, everyone’s avatar has the same physical strength and abilities. Himiko would theoretically be able to overpower Gonta in this world.

How do we log out? Good question. This better not go Sword Art Online on us…

Ah, we log out using the conspicuous telephone on the counter. Pick it up and say your name, and you’ll be out of here in a flash. The phone can’t be moved from the room we’re in, making this room the only place we can log out from. And whenever we log in, we’ll be transported to this room…

The map is posted on the wall outside the room. Also, the back of Tsumugi’s neck is sensitive. Not sure if that’ll ever be of any importance.

Two maps…the smaller one is of the building we’re in, the mansion. There’s a dining hall, kitchen, salon, bathroom, stairs to the roof, and a main hall, and also a salon, which is the room with the phone. The bigger map is of the Virtual World as a whole. Besides the mansion, there’s a run-down chapel. And the black borders of the map represent a wall. A wall that surrounds the entire Virtual World. SOUNDS FAMILIAR, HUH.

“Beyond that wall is the end of the world. Literally.” Just as I suspected, then.

Past the wall, there isn’t anything.

Miu says she prepared the maps herself. Not Monokuma, then. But the way she says that sounds odd…I think she’s lying.

Kokichi plans to go investigate by himself, much to everyone’s worry. Gonta says he’ll keep watch over Kokichi, but I don’t think that’s a good idea at all. Kokichi obviously planned on Gonta volunteering, so…

There’s a weird clock in the hall. Maybe that’ll be important?

We need to go to the roof to see the view. Up a few stairwells is the roof. It’s snowing outside…

Our avatars can feel heat and cold. Also pain, as demonstrated by Keebo, and…pleasure. And since this is a virtual world, birth control isn’t necessary. So that’s what Miu meant about us never needing a rubber again.

Tsumugi and Shuichi discuss whether an avatar can get sick. According to a study Shuichi read, if the mind is utterly convinced that a bucket of hot water is being dumped on the body, the skin will burn even if the water is cold. I think I have an idea of where this is going, and it’s nowhere good.

There’s a storage shed on the roof. Nothing dangerous that can be used as a weapon inside. Just rolled up carpet.

There’s mounted binoculars on the roof. At the point where the black border is on the map, there’s simply nothing…Miu invites us to go over ourselves and see what it means.

Keebo has started to think about things. Nothing is beyond the wall in this World…and the Academy also has a giant wall. No, never mind, it’s probably nothing. Except I think it’s very obviously something, Keebo.

Before we follow Miu to the river, let’s check out the other rooms. The bathroom is odd, since we don’t know if avatars even need to go to the bathroom. Also, if nothing breaks, toilet paper won’t tear, so that could become a pressing issue. We can’t check the dining hall for now, so…outside we go.

There’s a sign near a fork in the river that says “Mirai Hills”. Mirai is of course the Japanese word for future. The plot thickens.

There’s no bridge over the river, but we can use the Mirai Hills signboard as a makeshift bridge. Also everyone thinks we enjoy being bossed around…Shuichi is kinda a submissive guy, but he’s no masochist.

The signboard can’t support our weight, but it doesn’t have to. Nothing breaks in this world. Still, if the signboard gets washed away, we won’t be able to cross back. Which means we’ll be unable to reach the mansion and log out…

We cross over to another screen, but during the second it takes for it to load, we experience the loading screen instead of the Virtual World. So the squiggly line Miu drew on the map is where the second map loads when you cross over. The reason the binoculars couldn’t see past the loading point was because of this. And while loading, there’s no sight or sound. Nor can you see or hear someone on the other side.

The chapel is indeed a mess. Now to split up and look for clues about the outside world.

Kokichi has something he wants to ask Miu, and he then tells it to Gonta, but since they’re whispering, we don’t know what it is.

Kaito will check the roof, and Kokichi will check the salon. Kokichi decides that he’ll search the mansion’s surroundings, since no one else wants to be outside in the snow. He’s going to pair up with Gonta again for that. Tsumugi, upset that Kokichi is clearly using Gonta, volunteers to also search outside, so she can keep an eye on Kokichi. Shuichi’s also on mansion duty. Maki looks like she’s not happy about being left out…well, she’ll join Himiko, Miu, and Keebo in searching the chapel. The chapel has, at a glance…an organ, which Shuichi thinks Kaede could’ve played, books, posters, Christmas decorations…also Miu is mad that we don’t appreciate her beautiful virtual world.

Anyways, on the other side of the loading screen is Kokichi. As we all join him to search the mansion, Miu walks by, and “accidentally” nudges the signboard, which flows down the river. Miu yells at us, then walks off. Everyone in the chapel is now trapped in this world, including Miu herself…nothing we can do now. Gotta go check the mansion.

Tsumugi goes into the dining hall to see what’s inside. The kitchen is our duty. Inside the dining hall are glasses, dishes, etc. Inside the kitchen, we search all over but find nothing important. Tsumugi also finds nothing in her search. But 10 minutes before she comes to find us, she did look through the window in the dining room, and saw Miu. Somehow, Miu was on this side of the river despite having dropped our bridge in the river?

Before we can discuss how strange it is further, there’s a loud bang. We rush out into the hall, but no one’s there. Was it something falling from the roof? But…Kaito was on the roof. It wasn’t him, was it? It was definitely something outside. And also outside, we hear Keebo, who should be in the chapel…how did Miu and Keebo cross the river?

Outside, we meet up with Gonta. If we go to the chapel, we can find out why we heard Keebo’s voice.

Keebo, Himiko, and Maki are on the other side of the river. But we heard Keebo from the other direction.

“We might be able to make it in time”��That doesn’t sounds like good news…

Kokichi runs up to us. So he’s alright…I hope Kaito’s alright. Though if that’s the case, Miu might be dead.

The signboard washed up down the river, against a boulder.

Whatever happened, the Ultimates need to log out right now. But why?

Something happened to Miu. Her avatar stopped moving. Uh-oh.

There’s a roll of toilet paper outside the mansion that wasn’t there before. We can’t examine it now.

Maki says Kaito wasn’t on the roof. He probably just…logged himself out. I dunno, Maki.

Kokichi wants us to log off before him. Weird. You need to say your name in the phone to log out. So, something about his name?

Before we go, Kokichi tells us that we’re really useful. We should stop hanging out with Kaito and become Kokichi’s friend instead. Because…Kokichi can save everyone. Or so he says.

Kokichi is sad that Shuichi rejected him and logged the fuck off, but…when Kokichi finds someone he likes, he’ll do anything to get them to notice him. Even strangle them. Hmmm. Whoever’s dead, most likely Miu but I ain’t ruling Kaito out, did they die by being strangled? We fade back into the real world before we hear what name Kokichi says into the phone.

We wake up and take off our helmet, only to find exactly what everyone head feared. Miu. Miu, dead…apparently via strangulation. HOO boy.

Miu is dead, and Kaito is nowhere to be seen. And as the sun rises over the academy, the body discovery announcement chime plays. But since everyone��s in the computer room anyways, instead of the announcement, Monokuma shows up personally.

Now that Miu is dead, Monokuma doesn’t feel any urge to hold back on vulgar comments.

Monotaro’s weeping his eyes out at the sight of Miu’s body. Monophanie takes a moment to realize what happened, and then she vomits.

Everyone is too shocked by Miu’s corpse to even process that a murder has happened…until Kokichi brings up the topic. And also, not everyone is in the computer lab. Kaito’s not here.

The next thing we hear is footsteps running down the hall. Kaito bursts into the room, panicking over having heard the announcement chime, and there’s the body.

Kaito says he was taking a nap. But I don’t think he’s the blackened. The real blackened must have set up things to look like they did, so that Kaito would be super suspicious.

Kaito got logged out involuntarily, without using the phone. Then he went to his dorm room and took a nap, since he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to log back in…

Kokichi says that it’s Shuichi’s time to shine, as a detective! But if the culprit is Kaito, what will Shuichi do?

Before everyone can start arguing, Monokuma distributes the usual Monokuma File.

Kokichi’s excited to find the culprit…I don’t think he’s the blackened either. Kaito and Kokichi…they’re way too obvious suspects to be the blackened. Also, Kokichi points out that everyone standing around being sad is strange, considering he himself is the only one more hated among the people here than Miu.

Keebo’s completely waterproof…I was wondering about that in chapter 2.

Gonta can’t ever, ever forgive the blackened…or himself. Time after time again, Gonta has failed to protect his friends…but, there’s nothing he could have done.

Kaito claims that Shuichi and him will be able to solve the mystery together. But Kokichi won’t let them. He won’t let the detective work with the prime suspect. Kaito believes in us, which means he believes that if he was the blackened, we’d expose him. He believes we wouldn’t turn away from the truth. Kokichi brings up Kaede’s trial, but Kaito tells him to shut up. He believes in us, end of sentence.

Kokichi believes that believing in other people in a killing game is bad tactics.

Shuichi thinks that Kokichi’s manipulating Kaito into not working with Shuichi for this case. But to what end?

Miu died at 6:30 AM. There’s no external wounds on her body. Perhaps the reason she’s clutching her throat isn’t strangulation, but poison? There’s poisons in Shuichi’s lab, after all.

It’s 7 AM now. So we were still in the Virtual World when Miu died.

Kokichi plans to help us with this case, and make sure Kaito doesn’t try and partner up with us despite saying he wouldn’t. Is there something that only the two of us working together can uncover, and if so, what? And is Kokichi hiding whatever it is because he’s the blackened, or to make the game exciting?

There’s a small bottle on one of the chairs. No doubt it’s poison from Shuichi’s lab. But we’ll investigate that and everything else next time.

#Dangan Ronpa #Dangan Ronpa V3 #Danganronpa V3

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visualcultureconference2019-blog · 6 years ago

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Day 2: March 20

Conservation and surveillance: the protection through images (Laura Löbl López)

Since the 20th century, the interest in wildlife conservation started to arise. Overexploitation and destruction of the environment became noticeable for the masses. To protect those landcapes for the following generations, surveillance systems were installed to control both nature and humans.

This paper explores the eco-aesthetics brought to us after the established net of surveillance systems, brought together to shield endangered species. The problem of this field begins when the conservationism movement is seen throughout animals’ visuality. It will further be argued that the division of humans and animals becomes blurry, as animals turn anthropomorphic as they are watched. It also shows the switch of intent of this technology, watching only animals to humans again in protected spaces such as national parks or reservoirs.

Recordings of movement, digitalization and propaganda are of special interest as they are captured for the sole purpose of protecting and informing globally. The focus will be on images from protected parks and environmentally-aware institutions in Europe.

The wide range of photographs will be reduced to a smaller fraction of images, accessible digitally and publically. To summarize, the argument will involve how culture, society and mass media interacts with the visuality of natural sciences.

Reclaiming the Autonomy: A Contemporary shift of Gazing at Animals in the Eastern Asian Urban Context (Yuying Zhao)

While the ecological aesthetics of the East Asian landscape have been constructed for hundreds of years through literature and paintings, how human gaze at animals in the same cultural context remains blurred and controversial. This paper will examine a contemporary reflection of the visual arts regarding animals emerging from this region, which rebels against the powerful zoomorphic and colonial perspectives of the past. I begin with a short review of traditional ideologies regarding the human-animal relationship, and how these ideas are intertwined with the capitalism since the 18th century. Then I introduce several artworks which depict animals in today’s urban environment and conduct a detailed analysis of the interdisciplinary art project Institute of Critical Zoologists (since 2007) from Singapore and the independent film An Elephant Sitting Still (2018) from China. Through combining environmental aesthetics with Judith Butler's theory of precarious life, I will claim that this deliberation of animal’s autonomy rooted in the urban everyday life is not only crucial to start a conversation between our own time’s conditions with ancient local ecologic aesthetics as Taoism, but also to shape a more nutritious human-animal, and even human-human relationship.

The question of the dog - Neither human nor animal (Roxana Kaboli)

What lies in between the animal and the human? By using visual examples from the film The Lobster (2015) by Yorgos Lanthimos and the monument statue of Balto the dog in New York City, this paper will examine the grey zone of the animal/human dichotomy with focus on the domesticated pet, more specifically, the dog and what we can learn about our being in this process. The pet dog in modern societies has been removed from their natural habitats and being integrated into to human society not only as pets but as movie stars, heroes, working in various jobs like police dogs, therapy dogs, and service dogs but also having various humans working for them like dog groomers and dog sitters. When altering toward human ideals both aesthetically and in behavior, has the dog been altered away from nature and other animals?

Theories discussing the human/animal relations from Martin Heidegger to Jacques Derrida with the comments and criticism from Matthew Calarco will be used as points of departures to understand the philosophical discourses on the nature of humanity and animality. Writings from Gilles Deleuze will also be used in this paper to lead a discussion on what we as humans can learn and take from the discussion about a creature that is not yet human but no longer animal.

“Everyone in me is a bird. I am beating all my wings” Grieving, remembering, and visualizing extinct species. (Christina Tente)

The writer of this paper is interested in the story of Martha, a passenger pigeon, the last of her species, who passed away in 1914. Martha died in a zoo, her body was dissected and studied by scientists. Martha lived on through the stories, the poems, the artworks that were created for her. Martha is visible in Cincinnati, on her memorial statue, but Martha is invisible to the rest of the world. Martha’s death was ritualized during the Memorial Day of the Lost Species in 2014, but the impact of her death is long forgotten. We remember and “see” and mourn Martha, because Martha has a name and a face and a back-story. But what about all the other species that have become extinct or are becoming extinct every year? How do we, humans, decide which animals are grievable, which animals are worth remembering, whose death has an impact and whose life is simply bare? Focusing on Martha, this paper attempts to explore these questions, with the help of Judith Butler’s writings on grievability and precarity, as well as Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concept of becoming-animal. The writer will problematize the anthropomorphization of endangered and extinct species, and she will explore various ways of creative and ritualistic demonstrations that facilitate grief and catharsis.

Temple of no walls: Outdoor churches and experience of divine nature (Karolina Curova)

“When I am seeking you, I seek whole-heartedly,

When I am encountering you, I encounter whole-bodily.

So I walk into the wild, I breath and walk, breath and walk,

And then in the middle of it, a shrine, peace, the creation of yours, and there

I find you, in the silence,

In the whispers of the green trees, through the crack of the branches, the sunrays caress my skin…”

(KMC, 2019)

This presentation aims to intertwine the feeling one gets when encountering the nature in the whole essence and feeling one gets when encountering spiritual place. My case study will be the outdoor churches - churches without walls inside of the forests and nature reservoirs. Churches that are not limited by walls, but by trees.

Looking at history, early Christians did not attempt to build churches, they solely gathered and praised - first church building was built approximately around year 233 - 256. This case study aims to come back to the early traditions and rituals.

Theories used in this presentation will problematize and discuss this topic with texts by Weinryb’s

“Living Matter: Materiality, Maker, and Ornament in the Middle Ages” and Kavaler’ s “Nature and the Chapel Vaults at Ingolstadt: Structuralist and Other Perspectives.” together with the theories on ‘sublime’ (Burke, Kant, Schopenhauer,..) and ‘divine’.

Additional aspects such as communication and art will be added.

In this creative/academic presentation, one is encouraged to step inside and find inner peace, while encountering these places, as hypothesis is made in the field of community and improvement of the society that stems from the initial idea of reconnecting with ourselves in these spaces.

Cruising Musings: A Queer Ecology and the re/deterritorialisation of Nature and Environments (Lee Mann)

Eco-feminists and environmental justice advocates have long argued no environment, natural or urban, exists outside of socio-political systems including, gender, class and race. Historically, gender has informed our experience of and interaction with nature and environments and continues to do so today. A very clear example of this is the formation of American National Parks in the twentieth century, which served as a domain for men to act out hyper-masculine activity in response to the increasing presence of women in the labour market.

A queer ecology is another lens through which natural environments can be read; we can conceptualise nature through queer eyes. Cruising is a practice whereby primarily but not exclusively homosexual men seek out sex in public spaces--toilets, parks, and parking lots. I intend frame cruising as a socio-political act that re-territorialisatises public spaces traditionally reserved for heteronormative recreation. Gay men and queers, with the night as their disguise, lend public parks to live out desires and liberate sexualities. In doing so, a territory is mapped out through both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ pollution: the excretion of sexual bodily fluids and the trampling of ‘desire paths’. Seeping through natural and urban infrastructures, these sexual acts intercept heteronormative spaces, planting seeds for the flourishing of a queer ecology. Cruising is a gesticulation that quietly dismantles a space formed without the consideration of the other.

Can’t We Just Get Oolong? Tasseography and Biocentrism in the Western World (Wibecka Oliver)

Despite being one of the oldest practices in the world, divination is widely ignored by many scholars and theologians, dismissed as ‘mumbo jumbo’ or overlooked due to a perceived lack of scientific value (Silver, 2018). Tasseography in particular remains a practice that has persisted from Ancient Greece into the modern world, though is largely neglected by academics. Better understood today as tea-leaf reading, prognostication through tasseography focuses on interpreting patterns in residual organic materials such as tea, coffee or wine.

Rather than rejecting tasseography as a nonsensical practice, this presentation reexamines this form of divination through an environmental lens. Acknowledging the mythic nature of tasseography while still appreciating its value as a complex ecologically rooted process is essential. Removing inherent skepticism surrounding the possibility of divination and focusing instead on the larger symbolic relationships presented between the natural and divine, humanity and nature, new insight can be formed regarding this type of communication.

In particular this presentation explores how the ethical concept of biocentrism, in which value and significance extend to all living things, is represented through tasseographical predictions. Furthermore, it will be argued that tasseography can be understood as an involved visual (and bodily) experience grounded in biocentric values.

At War with Ourselves: Of Man and Nature in a Film (Karen Kristjansdottir)

There is no doubt that environmental issues have surfaced with increased force in the last years, months and even weeks. People seem to be waking up to, what some refer to as, the biggest challenges of our times. Today we can see flocks of children fighting for nature and climate causes all around the world, insisting on end to human’s bad treatment of the earth and climate. Theorists have for a long time contemplated on the relationship of man and nature and pop culture has been no exception in that. Last year, the Icelandic film Woman at War was premiered and it deals with this discourse, in a story of one woman’s warfare for the conservation of the environment. This study aims to briefly explore the relationship between man and nature, in the light of the film Woman at War (2018) by Benedikt Erlingsson and identify the reasons that drive the main character to onset a war and become an environmental activist, - or terrorist. It looks into the ways in which the visual representation and narrative can be connected to theories of appropriation and mourning. A couple of visual examples, frames from the film, are shown and analysed to support how these influences surface.

Appropriating Asterisms: Reexamining the Natural Contract Through Detritus (Austin LaGrone)

The use of trash as an artistic medium has a long and celebrated history going at least all the way back to the so-called degenerate artist Kurt Schwitters. Not surprisingly, contemporary artists continue to work with these found materials and in ways that often speak to biotic issues that arise in, and are explored through, Eco-Philosophy. This presentation will investigate Michel Serres’ demand for a “Natural Contract” and suggest that Gabriel Orozco’s art installation “Asterisms” at the Guggenheim can be read as isomorphic to the key ideas developed in Serres’ essay. Furthermore, this presentation will examine humanity’s appropriation of the world through lost or abandoned objects and argue that steering a course into the future must take into account and directly address the dynamics of both hard and soft pollution.

Perceiving the earth as a dynamic actor (Hanna Urich)

In this speech I discuss embodied perception through ‘attention economics’, approaching human attention as a resource. With the development of screen technology and social media, human attention is becoming more valuable and consequently more exploited. Michel Serres calls semiotic methods, such as adverts, of exploiting human attention ‘soft pollution’. When being exposed to clear advertising messages we are more likely to filter out the bodily impressions of the sensory world. Using eco-phenomenological theory I will argue how embodied perception can help us to reach an understanding for the earth as a dynamic actor as opposed to a silent and static backdrop. Our senses alone teach us that the earth is neither still nor mute; birdsong, thunderstorms and the smell of rain has the agency of affecting the human mind. By speaking about human attention as a limited resource I hope to highlight how adverts and algorithms can cause us to budget our attention and therefore limit our understanding of the sensory surroundings.

#day2 #abstracts

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bad0mens · 8 years ago

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Title: The Forest of Memories 11/14

Pairings: Fluri, Ristelle (Juristelle if you look hard enough)

Warnings: Historical-ish Fantasy AU garbage/Robin Hood AU

Authors’ Notes: I fixed the number on the last chapter, which was labeled 9 but was supposed to be 10.

Disclaimer: Tales of Vesperia is the property of Namco Bandai.

Morning light pushed back the darkness that had settled over his eyes. He pried them open and tried to stretch, but a sudden, sharp pain in his abdomen put a quick stop to that. He winced and eased back onto the straw mattress and took a better look at his surroundings.

"Good. You're awake," Rita leaned over him, obscuring his view of the interior of her house as she pounded away at her mortar with pestle in hand.

"What happened?" Yuri asked that, throat sticky and rough, but much of the memory of that moment already lingered in his body. He found the bandages across his belly with one hand. "Ah, never mind. I remember now."

She helped him sit up slowly, and shoved a cup of water and a simple bowl of porridge at him. "Were you planning on telling us that the Sheriff of Nottingham was a childhood friend of yours?”

He regarded the food quietly so he wouldn't have to look her in the eye. The tapping of her foot told him that she was quickly getting impatient with his silence, and wouldn't tolerate it much longer. He really couldn't avoid this any longer, no matter how much he still wanted to keep this from them. She already knew so it was pointless to deny it.

"At first, I didn't think he'd remember me."

"Well, that's one thing you don't have to worry about."

"Don't tell the others." It was infinitely more a plea than a command.

"It's none of my business." That was confirmation enough that his secret was safe.

"How are the others?"

"Everyone's fine. And while I don't like the idea of moving you with that injury, we're going to have to."

"I can't be out in the open for too long. It's too risky,"

"Raven's coming by to help get you home. Finish your breakfast and take this with you." She left it at that, dropping a little pot of salve on the bedside table, and slipped out of the shack.

It took more effort to eat than it should have, but he ate the porridge and drank the water. Stacking the dishes beside the bed, he very slowly turned to try and put his feet on the floor. His legs were leaden and unsteady, but his feet touched the floor and he gave himself a moment. The wound on his side was throbbing dully. It would need fresh bandages before too long.

Beside his boots on the floor, amid the bloodied shirt and his jerkin was a scrap of bright blue cloth, soaked through with dark, dried blood. It was the sleeve of Flynn's tunic.

So Flynn had brought him here. Yuri's head drooped, cheeks growing warm with the blood that rushed in his skin. He had pulled him out of the bush and rode all the way here with Yuri in his arms, and during the stitches that marred his side, had even held his -- it was too much to think of. Of course Flynn would readily do those things. There was no need for Yuri to feel so flustered over it.

After a long moment of sitting upright, he tried to stand, the weight of his body causing his legs to wobble. He held firm and steadied himself. The first step was hard, the second easier, and by the third, he was walking. It was more a limp than a walk, but he was moving on his own and that was enough. This would take some healing before he was back at full strength. At least he was awake and alive. Although this did put a hold on visits to Estelle for a while. He didn't even know if she knew what had happened. She was probably worried about him. Maybe Rita could get her a message for him.

He gathered up the salve, his shirt, and jerkin and stumbled out of Rita's tiny home and into the bright, sunlit courtyard. A familiar pair was there to greet him. Raven was slumped against the stone wall of the chapel, eyes closed, head tilted back, and from beside him Repede sprung up to dash at Yuri. Although excited, he didn't barrel into him, but skidded to a stop in front of him, tail wagging. He whined, flattening his ears.

"I'm okay, Repede. Thanks to you." He teetered a little as he reached down to scratch the dog behind the ears.

He whined again and bumped against him gently.

"How ya feelin', lad?" Raven asked, joining them with a stretch in his step.

"I'll live."

"Glad to hear it. We've been worried sick about you."

Yuri waited for him to ask how he had gotten here if he had been stabbed at that castle, but the question, thankfully, never came. He wasn't sure yet how he could explain if without telling them about Flynn.

Wordlessly, they left the abbey, trading pious white stone walls for the soft ambiance of the forest green. Old trails he could have easily traversed became a chore, and he hated himself a little more each time he had to stop and take a break. He tried to be careful with the wound and managed to get back to the fort without it reopening. Their arrival finally brought him some proper rest and he took the opportunity to flop down on a log before the fire.

After a brief moment, he and Raven unwound the old bandages to get a look at the mark.

"Oh, looks like she got you good," he said, mimicking the shape of a knife in his hands thrusting forward. The simple, joking moment sent a chill up his spine. "She must not have hit anything vital 'cause you made it all the way back here."

"Suppose it was pretty lucky." It wasn't only luck. If Flynn hadn't been there when he had, there was no telling what would have happened. It still hurt like hell, and the additional smear of unguent and a fresh set of bandages only dulled that slightly. For now, he would just have to take things easy.

Through the pain, a thought occurred to him. What more had happened that night? Sodia had called for the guards. Were they looking for him? There was probably an awful lot of blood in that bush and probably dotting the road the whole way to the abbey. And what had happened to Flynn?

Repede, who had gone off to nose around through the bushes, returned at a dash, Judith and Karol behind him.

"What's the hurry?" Raven asked.

"It's about Estelle!"

Karol's words, tinged with panic, forced Yuri to sit up once more. The throb in his head nearly knocked him back, but Repede steadied him. "What's going on?" he asked, voice crackling.

"She's been imprisoned," Judith explained. Her tone was calmer, but quiet in an unsettling way.

"Why?"

"I think it's safe to assume her lady-in-waiting let slip about your little fiasco of sneaking in. It's easy to conclude that they believe she's in league with you at the very least."

"A couple of town guards were talking about her being taken back to the capital to stand trial for treason against the crown," Karol added.

Yuri had never intended to get her involved in his dirty work, even though she willingly shared with him any information that she got within the walls of the castle. Her predicament was his fault and it was impossible to ignore the fact that, even for a woman of pure noble blood, treason carried a heavy and undignified sentence.

"If they're heading to the capital, they won't take the path through Sherwood. They know it'll be too risky," Raven explained, drawing a little map in the dirt beside the fire with a twig. "Likely, they'll play it safe this time and take the long way around."

Yuri didn't have time to panic. They needed a plan. "If they take the long way, they'll pass the abbey."

"If we can get them to stop, we should be able to save her," Judith said.

"But how will we get them to stop?" Karol asked.

"Disabling the carriage would probably work. It can't go too far if its axle's cracked or a wheel comes loose."

"It'll be hard to do that while it's in motion. And we don't have the time to get her a message," Judith stated.

"We'll just have to ambush them from the abbey." Nothing else made sense. Stealth would have been preferable, but surprise could do in a pinch.

"Not in your condition." Almost instantly, they all objected.

"There's no choice. I don't have time to sit by and heal while she gets carried off to certain death."

"Lad...."

"We'll launch an all out assault from the abbey. We'll make them stop, and we'll get Estelle."

Apprehensive looks passed from one member of his party to another, but none of them questioned him further. They knew his mind was set and nothing was going to change that. They didn't have time, and neither did Estelle.

He'd hardly been able to sleep for worrying, a dull unease settling in his chest and limbs, but Yuri was alive. Flynn knew it. Rita had assured him that Yuri would be fine.

Flynn was unsure how much Estellise knew about the injury, but just to be safe, he was at the castle to give her word of Yuri's condition.

An odd quiet had settled over the castle. The guards paid him no mind as he wandered to the great hall. The gathered court did not seem at all unusual, save for the lack of Lady Estellise's presence, so he slipped by them unnoticed and headed through the stone corridors and the stairs leading upwards to the east wing of the castle.

Rounding the corner, he spotted Lady Estellise's door. The two guards that stood there filled the pit of his stomach with dread. Sodia ducked out of the door, tray in hand, and was only briefly acknowledged by the guards before she walked in his direction. In her apparent distraction, she hadn't noticed him. Her eyes shot up to meet his when he gently took hold of her arm and pulled her aside out of the view of the guard. Her dismay did not escape his notice.

"Sher--"

He silenced her with a motion and let her go. "What's going on here?" He asked very softly.

"Lady Estellise, she's... been placed under house arrest. And it's all my fault."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought I was doing the right thing when I told Lord Alexei about the stranger who snuck into her room only a night ago." Cradling the tray in one arm, she bit fiercely at the tip of her thumb. "I had no idea that the man I fought off was--"

As much as he would have like to have felt a proper anger to the fact that she had wounded Yuri badly, he could see it in her face, in her trembling posture, that it had been in Estellise's defense. Yuri had said as much. He had surprised her and she had acted in self defense and defense of her lady.

"Can you get me in to see her?"

Sodia straightened and took a deep breath. "I will do what I can."

With a nod, he followed her to the heavy wooden door that stood guarded.

"The Sheriff is here to see Lady Estellise," she said, calm as could be.

"Lord Alexei expressly forbid visitors," the first guard said.

"I'm not here for a visit," Flynn replied, harshness to his tone to express his point. "I'm here to question her."

"No visitors," the second guard replied.

"Lord Alexei ordered the Sheriff here," Sodia said matter-of-factly. "Imagine how furious he'll be if he finds out that you two purposefully broke orders and delayed the catching of Robin Hood."

That gave them pause. They looked at each other, questioning, but finally seemed to relent. The first unlocked the door for them and slid it open while the second made a comment.

"I wish the commander would bother to tell us things like this."

"I know."

The rest of their conversation was cut off by the shutting and locking of the exterior latch. Estellise rose from her seat by the fire in surprise, eyes ringed in red, and Flynn's name stumbling over her lips. "Sheriff Flynn."

Sodia excused herself, and just as outside, Flynn spoke in a hushed tone. "Are you all right, Lady Estellise?"

"Yes, but Yuri--"

"He's fine. He's alive."

He saw relief fill her color-drained face, but it was temporary. "Alexei's planned a trap for him."

"A trap?"

"Yes," she took a ragged breath. "He let out a rumor that I am to be tried for treason in the capital. They intend to capture him when he comes to rescue me."

Yuri had managed to avoid traps before, but this one was one he might not be able to, even if he knew that it was a setup. If Estellise was involved at all, he was probably planning on rushing in, devil may care, to do what needed to be done to free her. That might be his undoing.

"Where are they planning the ambush?"

"The abbey just beyond the forest."

He might already be too late. The very place where he had taken Yuri in order to save his life could be the same place it was ended. Maybe there was still time. If Rita had gotten wind of anything, she would have warned Yuri. He couldn't count on that. He couldn't be assured that Yuri would be safe until he saw him with his own two eyes.

"I'll warn him." It was a promise Flynn hoped he could keep.

Moments later, he rode out from the castle, pushing his horse as fast as she would go along the road. He had to get there in time. Yuri's life depended on it.

In his condition, getting over the abbey wall was ill advised, if not impossible. He knew he shouldn't be up and moving and the others took every opportunity to remind him of his current feebleness. It didn't make coping with it any easier. If he couldn't go over the wall, under it would have to do, although crawling on his hands and knees hadn't done his wound much good.

Brushing the mud off his knees, Yuri wobbled as he stood. Repede helped to support him and steady his step. He reached to give the dog a pat, but felt flattened ears beneath his hand and the rumble of a growl. Repede bristled, lip curling up to bare sharp white teeth.

"What is it?" he asked softly, scanning the area.

The abbey courtyard was quiet, but no more so than usual. Rita was likely out in the town, so it would be no surprise if they were alone. But according to Repede, they weren't.

For the moment, he and Repede ducked behind the chapel and would wait. The others weren't far behind now. They should have been circling the abbey and waiting for his signal.

"Yuri, watch out!" Karol called from the far wall, his voice followed by the twang of bowstrings and shouting of guards. From the opposite wall, Judith let out a similar shout, and a clash of blades followed.

This had been a trap and they had walked right into it.

He let out a long, shrill whistle, expelling all the air in his lungs on it so that it could be heard loud and clear: a retreat signal. Another round of bowstrings sang and a whistle came in reply. Raven and Karol were safely retreating. A heartbeat later, Judith's signal joined them. He whistled once more, lungs aching for the effort. As he turned to follow suit, his retreat was violently halted.

Yuri's vision went white as his head slammed against the ground. A dozen hands grabbed him up, slamming him once more against unforgiving stone instead of the earth. He could hear Repede barking and snarling and attacking, but it was distant and muffled. When his eyes focused, he found six city guards pinning him against the wall of the chapel. The side of his head and the front of his shirt were warm and wet. It hadn't taken much for the wound to be reopened.

He reached for his knife, but they wrenched his arm up, tight against his back and pinned his other hand with an armored knee.

"Repede, get out of here!" he managed through a mouthful of blood.

The dog yelped and barked in protest, but Yuri barely had the voice to order him again.

"Go!"

The two guards that had tried to hold Repede retracted for fear of those sharp teeth, but were happy to let their blades do the talking. Repede was too fast, slipping away and dashing through the hole in the abbey wall and to freedom. Now Yuri only needed to worry about himself.

"Sanctuary," he said, coughing another round of blood.

"No such luck, Robin Hood." That voice chilled him to the bone. "Turn him around."

Roughly, the guards obeyed, shackling his arms and throwing him to his knees. The pain in his side made that in his head throb even harder. His hood was yanked back, exposing his eyes to the harsh light of day, and revealing a face he'd rather have never seen again. Alexei looked no different than he had the day he had taken Flynn away to the Crusades with him, maybe only days older, but certainly years shrewder.

"So this is the fearsome Robin Hood?" He laughed, a cold sound barely brushed with humor. "To think that you would walk into this trap where you avoided the others so easily. I suppose your little spy didn't get a chance to warn you about this one." He leaned down and yanked back Yuri's head with a handful of hair. "You'll hang high from the gallows, you pitiful little rat."

A quick breath and Yuri spat, a mouthful of blood splattering across Alexei's cheek.

Without hesitation, he slammed Yuri's head against the ground once more and let out another laugh at the sound it made. World spinning and hazy, bleeding out, Yuri barely mustered the strength to pull himself back up. His fingers strained still for his knife, hidden in the folds of his jerkin. He wasn't done yet. He was out numbered, but he still had a chance. As long as the others were safe, he could still muster the strength to fight. But the guards wasted no time beating that out of him.

Every hit and kick forced more blood from his wounds and by the time they were done, try as he might, he could not pull himself up.

"Don't kill him," Alexei ordered, still smirking. "Crush his spirit, but don't kill him. I want to watch the life drain from his eyes with a rope around his neck."

They hoisted him up and forced him to stand on legs that wobbled worse than before and threatened to collapse beneath him. This would likely not be the last of the torture he endured. The worst, though, was the face that waited for him at the gate of the abbey.

He had been too late. He had pushed his horse ragged over field and road. Yuri's life had depended on it, but Flynn had been too late.

The sight of him shackled, beaten bloody, and strength gone made his stomach turn in knots. They forced him right by and although he tried to catch sight of those eyes, Yuri's head was drooped low, avoiding his stare. He hated it. He hated this. His blood felt white-hot beneath his skin, burning him alive with its fire, but he had to contain it. Yuri wouldn't want him to betray their secret. He knew that.

"Nice of you to show up, Sheriff," Alexei sneered as he followed behind the captive, Yuri. "But it looks like we handled this just fine without you." He motioned for the knights to stop and roughly, he yanked Yuri's head up, but those grey eyes still avoided his. "What do you think? Never a neck more fit for the gallows have I ever seen."

Flynn couldn't find the words to speak.

"Since you rode this whole way out, escort us back to the jail won't you. One extra guard for a prisoner as important as this."

Blood searing and eyes stinging, Flynn could only obey.

#tales of vesperia #fluri #The Forest of Memories #Robin Hood AU

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kaynamiteineurope · 8 years ago

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Day 12: A Successful Day of Looking at Art and Not Getting Smited Day 12 of our trip, the second Friday, we got to sleep in a bit later and meet up for the bus into the city at 10:30am. I struggled, as I usually do, and took a 10 minute shower and dried and put my hair up in a ponytail, choosing to wear my yellow dress for the Vatican (with my leggings rolled up underneath). At first, I thought I looked kind of cute. Then, I nearly immediately decided that I actually just looked rough. And whale-like. So that was a great way to start the day. We went down to breakfast a bit before 10 and ate some peach halves, pastries, and scrambled eggs before getting on the tour bus that was set to drop us off near Piazza Navona for the day. We started off looking at a shop near the center, 4 Rivers, fountain and picked up some great stuff--an ornament for Natasha and a magnet and gift for my mom for me and a keychain for Carolina--then we tried to find a dress shop we had remembered passing the night before on the walk to the bus. We didn't, however, end up finding it and instead walked around for an hour or so, ducking into other shops to no avail. After we gave up on that, we bought fruit cups for a snack and decided to head back over to the Trevi Fountain so Natasha could get a video of her throwing a coin into the fountain since mine had turned out so cute compared to the pictures we had already taken. By now, my sandal-ed feet (or tour director had recommended sandals for those whose feet were hurting in their shoes) were starting to itch and burn at the same time from all the walking, and the sun was pretty high in the sky, so my entire back was basically all sweat (sexy, right?). We wove our way through a massive amount of people on a couple main streets, before finally turning off to the smaller ones to reach the fountain. Right before the Trevi piazza, we passed a line of street artists and stopped to check out some of their work. Unlike Venice, where the mode of art was usually oil, Rome seemed to be a lot of watercolors--which is tough because watercolors, especially those on mattes, are very easy to do prints of and pass them off as originals (we saw another couple from our group who bought prints, though I'm not sure they knew it). So we had been very vigilant with our browsing to make sure what we were going to get was original work. We decided to circle back after the fountain because we were on a tight time-frame (we had to meet back up at Piazza Navona at 2 for the bus to the Vatican City). We fought our way through to the fountain, where I took an adorable video of Natasha throwing a second coin into the fountain, and then we took forever in the Trevi Bar (a place the nice couple from Indiana had recommended) for some gelato. There was a tour there of Asian tourists getting their gelato, and when one of them asked for pineapple and apple, the guy behind the counter started singing the Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen song, so it's been stuck in my head ever since. Which is mega annoying. I got a small with raspberry and lemon (my favorite), and then I navigated us back toward the art. There was one guy with larger works that both of us really liked, but they were going to be 50 a piece, so we went over to a second artist who had smaller pieces for a lot less money. Natasha ended up getting a medium-sized piece and I got three wider-rectangle pieces (15 euro total!) that were of different historical sights in the city that I think will look awesome together in a collage. We got to the Piazza Navona just in time to meet up with the group, and then we walked a few blocks in the sun over to the public bus stop where we hopped onto a bus to the Vatican City. Do you know how amusing it is to watch a group of 44 people scrambling to pack into a bus? Or how subsequently amusing it is to watch the expression on other people's faces as they realize they're either trapped in their seats or won't actually be able to get on without sardining with us? Quite funny. Quite funny indeed. (Less funny for my aching feet, though, since we barely ever manage to get actual seats.) We took a small break on the steps directly across from the entrance to the Vatican--during which most people seemed to struggle against falling asleep--as we waited for Alexandra to meet up with our tour guide for the afternoon. Once we did, we started the process of going inside, walking through metal detectors and having our bags scanned. We made our way up onto the second floor where we picked up the Vatican-approved lime green and blue radios (the earbud was super big and my radio was extremely temperamental. The channel would change itself every 15 seconds and I kept having to fiddle with it the entire time just to hear our tour guide talk about the history of the city and its buildings). Then, we walked out into a courtyard area and sat down while she explained about different parts of the city we would be seeing. She explained a lot about the Pope and how even though the Pope is a lifetime gig, the current Pope was elected after the previous one resigned, which hasn't happened since the 12th century. She explained that since the only way a Pope is supposed to exit his position is through death, they still held a funeral ceremony for him and he was flown out of the city, and subsequently brought back in where he now lives on the grounds near the gardens in a private home that they renovated for him. She also said that on a tour two weeks ago, she actually saw the Pope himself walking around! In the Sistine Chapel, there aren't supposed to be photos (because it's copyrighted) and you're not allowed to talk. But she also explained that the Chapel is open to the people who live in the Palace. Michelangelo, the famous painter of the Sistine Chapel, originally wanted to be a sculptor, but while his first piece--of the Virgin Mary holding her dead child for the last time, a piece in St Peter's Basilica--was the piece that got him noticed for the first time, it was his painting that made him famous. He lived until he was 90 (whereas Raphael only lived until age 30). The Chapel itself was built in the 1400's, with Michelangelo decorating it with his masterpiece from 1508-1512, and the wall frescos were added in the 1530's (frescos are made when you have to transfer your design onto fresh plaster and then paint it to make the heat seal in the color, while is why the Chapel's art is so well preserved). The ceiling itself isn't very deep, but since painters have to lay on their backs on super tall scaffolds to paint it, Michelangelo complained a lot in his letters that it hurt his back a lot to paint the Chapel ceiling (which I totally get!). While Michelangelo was originally from Florence, he vowed he never wanted to "go back to the city that disappointed him." Unfortunately, his body was stolen from Rome and is now housed in Florence, which would have been his biggest nightmare. After all of that, and a ton more information, we walked through the Vatican's museum. A lot of it was statues and sculptures, with a pair of coffins, a giant marble bathtub, and plenty of vases. They also had painted maps, more fresco walls and ceilings, and giant tapestries. The entire thing was really interesting and fun to go through (more fun if my feet hadn't been screaming), but, of course, it was the Sistine Chapel everyone was waiting for. By the time we wound our way through the museum, and down the stairs to the chapel, there were a ton of people inside. The Chapel was smaller than I expected--especially after seeing Saint Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace in Venice--but every inch of it was covered in Michelangelo's masterpiece. Each of the people were shadowed in a way I'm not sure I'd ever be able to figure out, and they were massively impressive. Weirdly enough, my first thought was "Ooooh, this is so cool! It's even got the gated off section near the back that they had in the Da Vinci Code!" ...Yup. After our ten minutes in the Chapel, we headed out and over to Saint Peter's Basilica. Saint Peter's is the largest Catholic Church in the world. According to our tour guide, all other Catholic Churches actually have an agreement with the Vatican that they can't construct a church bigger than that of Saint Peter's. It was massively impressive. And, thankfully, we were allowed to take pictures here. They were even starting the evening rosary because services started at 6 and we were there just before it at like 5:45pm, which I'm sure my grandma would have loved. Afterward, we headed outside and our guide pointed out where the Pope lived, and that the guards who stand by the gate to his house have intricate uniforms that cost about 1,500 euro (where as the ornate Pope shoes are 5,000!). Then we walked a million miles down the street toward the store where we could purchase Vatican souvenirs which would have the opportunity to be blessed by the Pope's priests. I picked out a beautiful pearl-y looking one that has a bit of Vatican holy water in it, and had them bless it, and then our group split into two for the night. One group went off to the hotel and the rest of us took a bus back near Piazza Navona to have our 35 euro (originally 55) 5-course, 6-wine Italian dinner. It was held at a place called Buddy's and it was delish! We had a veggie plate, bruschetta, a meats and cheeses plate with the best bread I've had in Italy, then they brought out a traditional tomato pasta, pork slices, and then a dessert of these little shortbread sticks. I ate until I was full and drank a bit too much, so I was a little giggly and introduced myself to one of the guys on the trip, Gus, who I hadn't talked to until that day. He told me about how he's nicknamed "Vanilla Gorilla" and I talked about how I needed a cool nickname like that (yeah, I know. I was quite tipsy though, so it's fine). We walked a while to get to our tour bus and then our tour guide spent the entire drive back drunkenly talking on the mic about how we all needed to get together at the hotel and keep drinking. Then she started passing around the mic to the other girls of whom she actually knows the names of, joking and laughing with them. Then they used a girl's phone and put it up to the mic to play music. Our. Poor. Bus. Driver. Not only were we 40 minutes late from the time he thought he was picking us all up, but then he had to deal with a bunch of drunken college kids and an even more far gone tour director. That man deserves a raise. So we got back to the hotel and she told us to meet back in the lobby in 10 minutes and that she would buy wine and treat us all to a last drink in Italy. Natasha and I decided since we'd pretty much opted out of all of the longer nights that we'd join and get to know people. So I changed into a PJ top and touched up my make-up (though it didn't really help) and then we headed back down, where they had already broken into the wine. Alexandra finally noticed we were there, told us to get a glass of wine, and then told Natasha she loved her ancient Grecian dress and that she loved how put-together and pretty I looked with my winged eyeliner. She said "I love you guys," and then held my hand for a bit and then promptly forgot we were there. So we got kicked out of the lobby for being too loud, so we went outside and set up there. Here we drank some more wine and Alexandra had us go around the group and say what we thought would happen on the trip and what actually has happened. A lot of the girls talked about how they thought they wouldn't get along with anyone (bull) and how it hadn't been the case at all and how much they loved "literally everyone here" and that they got "along with everyone" (also bull). Natasha and I headed back up to the room around midnight and once we were back, we realized that we had both had the same thoughts. They didn't mean it. They didn't even know all of us. Barely any of them had tried to get to know us, let alone Carolina. The quieter, culture-driven girls were pushed off to the side. We weren't there for the wine and the partying or the boys (though it wouldn't hurt to get a guy along the way!). We were there for the architecture and the mythology, the culture and the experience. It was just a huge shift. And Alexandra said how we were our favorite group and she loved each and every one of us and how we were so wonderful, but she doesn't know Natasha or my name--only those of the girls who were loud and drank a lot. The entire thing was just a sort of shift in the trip. I drank too much wine (I'm sure any of you could have called that--those of you who know my minuscule drinking habits), so I spent the next hour propped up in bed thinking about how nauseous I was. I fell asleep and then from 1:30-2am, I sat in the bathroom hoping I would just puke and get it over with. But when that seemed like it wouldn't ever happen, I went back to bed and slept through the night. ...Or at least until my alarm went off at 5:50am and then it was time for GREECE! And, of course, the ESCAPE FROM THE INSECT ROOMS OF DOOM! FINALLY!!!! Ciao, Horrible "Club House Hotel" of Doom! I shall never return and absolutely never miss you!

#Rome #Roma #Italy #efcollegebreak #ultimatebreak #vatican #Vatican City #Sistine Chapel #saint peter's basilica #italyandthegreekislands2017

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