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zenkor123 · 2 months ago

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Journal of Peeta Mellark-Great episode of 4th October 75 ADD pt 1

October 4th 75 ADD

I expect in the coming years in 13 to hear great details about my flashbacks from lots of people, however I want to record what the flashbacks look like from my own memory. Or rather Dr Molina wants me to and I agree with her. These aren’t simply episodes of madness but they feel really real to me, the lizard mutts, capital torturers, fake images of mutt Katniss I can almost smell them. I used to think of them not as my own as belonging to the whisper or the monster I tried to forget about them as soon as they were over but now that I made peace with the monster they feel different. Dr Molina says I never really left the capital torture chambers and I can’ t keep pretending otherwise. I need to face those hallucinations she says, stop being ashamed of them So here it goes:

“Since merging with the mutt, the flashbacks and episodes have taken on a different character. Instead of a mission to drive rage agianst Katniss images hallucinations now are of my fears. As I wake up I first sees premonitions or pre flashbacks. I tried to ignore it as best as possible but I didn’t have any Morphling and I quickly used up my little bottle. Images of the mutts Snow showed his captives the lizard mutts that whispered the name of Katniss only stopping as they killed either avoxes engineered to look idenical to Katniss, or actual clones of her as snow laughed, his war on Katniss not built on anything more then a ego driven grudge by a man child. mutt katniss with fangs, the doctors that destroyed me, swarms of tracker jackers all came to attack me . I felt pain particularly in areas that had been subject to Jacker venom injections, lion mutts, Cato Mutts, Monkey mutts, wolf mutts, Myrna , all joined the attack. It all seemed real to me, first the mutts appeared in flashes then attacked them with the pain increasing as it went on. I first tried to remind himself they weren't real but then he went mutt himself and attacked the hallucinations. First I winced in pain, my pupils increased in size, then my heart rate increased and felt enough bodily tension that I could pass out. Rather then passing out I went mutt and battled hard to crush the sources of my pain I roaring loudly as my eyes filled with rage. I Got up and began chocking the capital tormenting beating mutt Katniss, and throwing things at the Lizard mutts. I killed several lizard Sometimes it was all of these combined often it was other horrors from my mind occasionally it was one at a time. Sometimes they were simply background noise. In this state I am highly dangerous and thanks to Snow’s demons I have destroyed property, injured nurses while confusing them for the hallucinations. It is sometimes culminative like snapping after 100 mosquito bites with outside stimuli playing a major role like before. The flashback lasted an hour. Katniss remembers watching the entire episode from the ventilation shaft it did look different from his previous episodes, he looked like a full scale mutt on a violent rampage against illusive threats. Katniss could only watch from the distance transfixed to these sights. The look on his face she had seen before while hunting that of a cornered animal Followed by that of bear warding off intruders followed by the face of an angry predator.

The more pain I experienced the angrier he got when with fear, I looked fully red, my veins showing and I yelled at my demons telling them to go die, and that I’m not going back to the capital(in my episode the tormentors claimed to be taking me back to the capital in a portal) I made noises of pain even after my hallucinations fell before my might. But there were more hallucinations I got a bottle and began chasing the hallucinactions of Spiders. Dr Aurelius fired a needle with a needle gun that knocked myself unconscious. All the hallucinations and bothers disappeared and I felt calm I heard a thump as I feel fast asleep.”

So here it is, this was painful to write but Dr Molina says it will get easier as time goes on. She also had me draw this entire episode, they are in my sketchbook and urges me to do this with all my monsters so I am doing it. How am I supposed to work otherwise? Katniss sees the drawing of Lizard mutts, and realizes that she may face those mutts in the capital as Snow created them to assassinate her.

They are trying several methods to cope with these episodes. They will become part of me and I will get strength from them she says. I look in the mirror afterwards and I see myself in a different light, the curls are the mark of wilderness, my cheeks my strength, my eyes my determination like the ocean waves, with my pupils dilating like waves. I look intimidating I am strong I just haven’t realized it until now. My skin looks fleshy, rather then sunlike. I have lost my physical innocence that pictures of Peeta show.

Katniss realizes she has reached a major point in the answer with regards to Peeta's transformation the point where he no longer sees himself in the mirror but sees an mutt that escaped from the evil plans of his creator instead. Katniss sees the emergence of a hope, in Peeta that perhaps if he can only leave the past behind symbolized by her, that past being lost and not even belonging to him, he can start anew, build new memories, all without her, Katniss also notes that Peeta is also beginning to wonder if perhaps something good could come from the hijacking hence his reference to how strong he is.

in other news for the first time I am meeting my new co workers who will still hire me after the mega episode. We visit a secret room in the hospital called the “Den”. It is a large room, with a refrigerator, oven, book shelf, sofa, and a door that goes directly to the tunnel network. It also is painted! Its walls contain drawings of a water fall that is next to a great sea, upon asking galena say it is the Niagara Falls.There are also numerous wooden crates, of the elixir of the East as they tell me Morphling was called before it was discovered that district 6 also had native Morphling farms. It has paintings of district 13 before the dark days and the ancestral forests that Salesman Brown showed me. I see many new faces but I also am surprised to see Johanna, well not surprised, since I sometimes see her siphoning Morphling into buckets. The faces are all young. We are seated around a table. There are lots of couples. The people standing up are in their 50s with grey hair one of whom is Dr Galena, the Elephant. But there is lots of new faces. I sit in between Ash Brown, the hoppo(a type of hippo mutt) and Johanna Mason(the iron pecker) who welcomes me into the club and tells me she is glad there will be another victor in the cell. So my application has been accepted? Great! They confirm this and say my application has been accepted and that I will start by doing Morphling siphoning with Johanna I have the code name “Jabberjay.” I receive a tattoo of a Jabberjay that one of the cell drew. I ask who drew the Jabberjay the drawing is pretty well done. A young woman about Johanna's age raises her hand she looks like Ash but she is also a forester. She introduces herself as Velma Brown, code name the Swan the packager of what I learn is called the “victors cell." She says that formal positions while true are understatements that they put on their monthly reports to coin. I laugh, it’s so devious, so I get the choice of multiple tattoos. A Jabberjay rising from fire, a Jabberjay flying in the sky, or a Jabberjay eating bread. I request 2 of the tattoos, the Jabberyjay flying in the sky and the Jabberjay eating bread. My right arm has the Jabberjay in the sky and my left arm has the Jabberjay pecking at bread. It is decided that Johana will instruct me in morphing siphoning, and that Ash will take me on more tours of the tunnels of District 13. Everyone in the room has a Yellowish tinge to their skin like the morphings of D6, they also all smell like morphing. The Den has additional rooms-the expanded closet which is called the Bar, the Closet is the size of a restroom and reflects how used 13 is to compressed spaces. The Bar is only seperate due to its large foldable window to the main hallways which customers can climb in, and it is sound sealed. People can drink morphing and listen to music. The next to introduce themselves is Arlo Stockbridge, code name the groundhog, the keeper of the Den. He is the one who gives me the tour and shows me the bar. He is an engineer who I have seen working on the hospital machines. He isn’t a man of many words, but his intelligence is apparent. He also aids in the designs of the design of tunnels and caverns in the mines of 13. He is nervous to meet me, he reminds me of Beetee Latier. He is figiting with coins, but he isn’t nervous it is like the coins which spin in his hand provide stimulation. He is not red headed with blue eyes but has brown hair and Green eyes. Someone, a woman who’s hand he was holding before, who he is sitting next to is using straws for the same purpose, she has a baby on held her chest. She also is not a red head but has grey-blue eyes and copper colored hair. He explains with intensity the workings of the morphing machines and offers to do a demonstration of the machines. Arlo introduces her in his own introduction as Helena stocksbridge, code name, the Gecko who manages the data for the cartel as his wife. It is clear that everyone in this cell has known each other for a very long period of time….

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unpopularwiththepopulace · 3 years ago

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Michael Riedel vs Bernadette Peters – the Broadway Battle of 2003 and beyond

My previous piece gives a fairly comprehensive look at Bernadette and Gypsy through the ages; though there is at least one aspect of the 2003 revival that warrants further discussion:

Namely, Michael Riedel.

Today’s essay question then: “Riedel – gossip columnist extraordinaire, the “Butcher of Broadway”, spited male vindictive over not getting a lunch date with Bernadette Peters, or puppet-like mouthpiece of theatre’s shadowed elite? Discuss.”

It’s matter retrievable in print, or even kept alive in apocryphal memory throughout the theatre community to this day that Riedel was responsible for a campaign of unrelenting and caustic defamation against Bernadette as Rose in Gypsy around the 2003 season.

While “tabloids may [have been] sniping and the Internet chat rooms chirping”, when looking back at the minutiae, none were more vocal, prolific or influential in colouring early judgment than the “chief vulture [of] Mr. Riedel, who had written a string of vitriolic columns in which he said from the start that Ms. Peters was miscast”.

He continued to find other complaints and regularly attack her in print over an extended period of time.

Why? We’ll get there. There are a few theories to suggest. Firstly, how and what.

Primary to establish is that it perhaps would be foolish to expect anything else of Riedel.

Also an author and radio and TV show host, Riedel is best known as the “vituperative and compulsively readable” theatre columnist at The New York Post.

He’s a man who thrives on controversy, decrying: “Gossip is life!”

The man who says, “I’m a wimp when it comes to physical violence, but give me a keyboard and I’ll kill ya.”

“Inflicting pain, for him, is a jokey thing. ‘Michael has this cruel streak and a lack of empathy,’ says Susan Haskins, his close friend and co-host.”

And inflicting pain is what he did with Bernadette, in a saga that has become one of the most talked about and enduring moments of his career.

From the beginning, then.

Riedel started work at The Post in 1998.

His first words on Bernadette? “Oddly miscast in the Ethel Merman role,” in August of that year on Annie Get Your Gun. It was a sentiment he would carry across to his second mention six months later (“a seemingly odd choice to play the robust Annie Oakley”), and also across to the heart of his vitriolic coverage on her next Merman role in Gypsy.

Negative coverage on Bernadette in Gypsy started in August 2002 when Riedel discussed the search for trying to find a new American producer for the show. It had initially been reported in late 2000 that a Gypsy revival with Bernadette was planned for London, before it was to transfer to Broadway. To begin with, Arthur Laurents was “eager to do Gypsy in London because it hadn't been seen in the West End since 1973”, and he “wanted to repeat [the] dreamlike triumph” he said Angela Lansbury’s production had been. But economic matters prevented this original plan, leaving the team looking for new producers in the US. Riedel suggested that Fran and Barry Wiessler step up as, “after all, they managed to sell the hell out of "Annie Get Your Gun," in which Peters…was also woefully miscast.”

He also quipped: “Industry joke: "Bernadette Peters in 'Gypsy'? Isn't she a little old to be playing Baby June?”, calling her “cutesy Peters” and again a “kewpie doll”.

Bernadette here seen side by side with the actual Baby June of the 2003 production – Kate Reinders.

Other publications to this point had discussed her “unusual” casting. Which was fairly self-evident. In contrast to being a surprising revelation that Bernadette Peters was not, in fact, Ethel Merman, this had been the intention from the start. Librettist Arthur “Laurents – whose idea it was to hire her – [said] going against type is exactly the point,” and Sam Mendes, as director, qualified “the tradition of battle axes in that role has been explored”.

It was Riedel who was the first to shift the focus from the obvious point that she was ‘differently cast’, to instead attach the negative prefix and intone that she was actually ‘MIS’ cast. According to him then, she was unsuitable, and would be unable to “carry the show, dramatically or vocally”. All before she had so much as sung a note or donned a stitch of her costume.

So no, it wasn’t then “the perception, widely held within the theater industry,” as he presented it, “that Peters is woefully miscast as Mama Rose”.

It was Riedel’s perception. And he took it, and ran with it, along with whatever else he could throw into the mix to drag both her and the show down for the next two years.

As to another indication of how one single columnist can influence opinion and warp wider perception, just look to Riedel’s assessment of the show’s first preview. It is typically known as Riedel’s forte to “[break] with Broadway convention, [where] he attends the first night of previews, and reports on the problems…before the critics have their say”. This gives him “clout” by way of mining “terrain that goes relatively uncovered elsewhere”, and it means subsequent journals are frequently looking to him from whom to take their lead – and quotes.

At Gypsy’s opening preview then, he reported visions of “Arthur Laurents [charging] up the aisle…on fire”, loudly and vocally expressing his dissatisfaction with the show as he then “read Fox [a producer] the riot act”. Despite the fact that this was “not true, according to Laurents,” the damage was already done, with the sentiment of trouble and tension being subsequently reprinted and distributed out to the public across many a regional paper.

News travels fast, bad news travels faster.

And news can be created at an ample rate, when in possession of one’s own regular periodical column. This recurring domain allowed plentiful opportunity for attack on Bernadette and Gypsy, and Riedel “began devoting nearly every column to the subject,” which amounted to weekly or even more frequent references.

As the show progressed beyond its first preview, Riedel brought in the next aspects of his smear-campaign – assailing Bernadette for missing performances through illness and accusing Ben Brantley, who reviewed the show positively in The New York Times, of unfair favouritism and “hyperbolic spin”.

The issue is not that Bernadette was not in fact ill or missing performances. She was. She had a diagnosis at first of “a cold and vocal strain”, that then progressed more seriously to a “respiratory infection” the following week, and was “told by her doctors that she needs to rest”. So rest she did.

The issue is the way in which Riedel depicted the situation and her absences via hyperbole and “insinuating she was shirking” responsibility. He went further than continual, repeated mentions and cruel article titles like “wilted Rose”, or “sick Rose losing bloom”, or “beloved but - ahem-cough-cough-ahem - vocally challenged and miscast star”. He went as far as the sensationalist and degrading action of putting “Peters' face on the side of a milk carton, the kind of advertisement typically used to recover lost children,” and asking readers to look out for “bee-stung lips, [a] high-pitched voice, [and a] kewpie doll figure”, who “may be clutching a box of tissues and a love letter from Ben Brantley”.

It was quantified in May of 2003 after the show had officially opened, that “out of the 39 performances "Gypsy" has played so far, [Bernadette] has missed six – an absence rate of 15 percent.”

As an interesting comparison, it was reported in The Times in February 2002 that “‘The Producers' stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick have performed together only eight times in last 43 performances due to scheduling problems and health concerns,” – an absence rate of 81%.

Did Riedel have anything nearly as ardent to say about the main male stars of the previous season’s hit missing such a rate of performances? Of course not.

Riedel arguably has a disproportionate rate for criticising female divas.

One need only heed his recommendations that certain women check into his illuminatingly named “Rosie's Rest Home for Broadway Divas.” Divos need not apply.

Not that he was unaware of this.

In 2004, Riedel would jovially lay out that “Liz Smith and I have developed a nice tag-team act: I bash fragile Broadway leading ladies who miss performances, and she rides to their rescue.”

Donna Murphy was the recipient of what he that year dubbed his “BERNADETTE PETERS ATTENDANCE AWARD”, when she began missing performances in “Wonderful Town”, due to “severe back and neck injuries and a series of colds and sinus infections”.

This speaks to his remarkably cavalier and joyful attitude with which he tears down shows and performers. “The more Mr. Riedel's work upsets people, the more he enjoys it.”

He knows he yields influence – it was recognised he had “eclipsed Ben Brantley as the single most discussed element in marketing meetings for Broadway shows” – and he delights in his capacity to lead shows to premature demises through his poison-tipped quill yielding.

When it was reported Gypsy would be closing earlier than had been planned, he made mention of “hop[ping] around on [its] grave” and debonairly applauding himself, “I suppose I can take some credit for bringing it down”.

His premonition from the previous year’s Tony’s ceremony was both ominous and prescient, when he predicted the show’s failure to win any awards “could spell trouble at the box office”. He was right. It did. The 8.5 million dollar revival closed months before anticipated and failed to return a profit.

Multiple factors can be attributed to Gypsy’s poor success at the Tony’s, but it’s clear to say Riedel’s continual bashing leading up to the fated night throughout the voting period certainly didn’t help matters.

His suggestions to do with Bernadette’s performances were not helpful either.

After alleging Laurents as the director of the 1991 revival “practically beat a performance out of” Tyne Daly when she was struggling with the role, he proffers that to improve Bernadette’s success, “it may be time for [Laurents] to take up the switch and thrash one out of Peters”.

Great.

It was irresponsible and unrelenting commentary that did not go unnoticed.

His “ruthless heckling of beloved Broadway star Ms. Peters” was deemed in print “his most egregious stunt so far”.

Vividly, in person, Riedel was accosted at a party one night by Floria Lasky, the venerable showbiz lawyer, who “grab[bed] Riedel’s tie and jerk[ed] it, nooselike, scolding, ‘It was unfair, what you did to Bernadette’”.

Moreover, the wide-reaching influential hold Riedel occupied over the environment surrounding Gypsy was tangible in the fact his words spread beyond just average readers, and even unusually “started seeping into the reviews of New York's top critics”. Riedel himself, as the “chief vulture”, was indeed what Ben Brantley was referring to in his own New York Times review by stating how the production was “shadowed by vultures predicting disaster”.

Even more substantially, the “whole Peters-Riedel-Brantley episode” became its own enduring cultural reference – being converted into its very own “satiric cabaret piece, ‘Bernadette and the Butcher of Broadway’”. All three parties were featured, with Riedel characterised as the butcher, and it played Off-Broadway later in 2003 “to positive notices”.

But penitent for his sins and begging for absolution Riedel was not. “Riedel saw nothing but a great story and a great time,” and for many years after, he would continue to hark back to the matter in self-referential (almost reverential) and flippant ways.

In 2008 as Patti LuPone won her Tony for her turn as Rose in the subsequent revival, Riedel couldn’t help but jibe, “Not to rip open an old wound, but I'd love to know if Bernadette Peters was watching”. (He neglects also to mention that “Mendes’s Gypsy was seen by 100,000 more people than saw Laurents’s and grossed $6 million more”.)

More jibes are to be found in 2012 as he reported on the auction after Arthur Laurents’ funeral, or even as recently in 2019, as he asked, “Remember the outcry that greeted Sam Mendes’ Brechtian “Gypsy,” with Bernadette Peters, in 2003?”

As with in 2004 where he points to the “pack of jackals who have been snarling” about Bernadette’s failures, this brings up the canny knack Riedel has of offloading his views to bigger and detached third party sources – thus absolving himself of personal centrality, and thus culpability.

If there was an outcry, HE was its loudest contributor. If there were snarling jackals, HE was their leader.

Maybe Riedel’s third person detached approach to referencing matters was intended to be a humorous stylistic quirk for those in the know. Or maybe it was his way of expressing some inner turmoil over the event.

In some rare display of morality and emotional authenticity, Riedel would at one point admit “I find it kind of sad and pathetic that the high point of my life supposedly has been about beating up on Bernadette Peters”.

Fortunately for him then, a degree of absolution was eventually achieved in 2018, where Riedel visited Bernadette at her opening night in Hello Dolly in 2018, with the intention of ending their “15-year feud”. He “got down on one knee at Sardi’s and extended his hand,” with Bernadette reportedly yelling “Take a picture!” while he held his deferential and obsequious position on the floor.

So if eventually this “feud” has some kind of circular resolution and Riedel was glad it was over, why on earth did it begin in the first place?

One notion is that it was simply another day on the job. Riedel is a man who sees Broadway as “a game for rich people”. Positioned as an “an industry that brought in $720.9 million in the 2002-2003 season”, it is “not a fragile business”, he remarked. As such, he “[could not] fathom the point of donning kid gloves” in covering it, and reasoned the business as a whole was robust enough to weather a few hard knocks. “Thus, Riedel can coolly view Bernadette Peters as fair game, as opposed to, say, a national treasure”.

More to the point, he was a man in search of words. During the season in question, Riedel was “one of just three New York newspaper columnists covering the stage” – a “throwback to a bygone era when…Broadway gossipmeisters…such as Walter Winchell and Dorothy Kilgallen ruled”. Now at the time, as the “last of a great tabloid tradition”, Riedel presided over not just one but two columns a week at The Post. As a result, he was in need of content. “One of the reasons I've become more opinionated is I just have more space to fill,” he admitted. Robert Simonson hypothesises in his book ‘On Broadway Men, Still Wear Hats’ that Riedel may have consequently picked “the thrashing of Bernadette” as his main target simply because “it was a slow news cycle”. Options for ‘titillating’ and durable content were scarce elsewhere that season.

And after all, if Riedel would later cite Bernadette in an article concerning the Top 10 Powerhouses of Broadway in 2004, saying even despite a few knocks or bad shows, “she’ll bounce back” – surely there was no real damage done.

If her career wouldn’t be toppled by his continual public defamation and haranguing, what was the harm?

Feelings? Who cares about feelings or Bernadette’s extremely complex and personal history with the show stretching back to when she was a teenager.

It was just part of the territory, there was nothing personal in it.

Or was there?

Maybe there was something personal in Riedel’s campaign after all.

He makes a curious comment while discussing ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ in 2004. The then incoming star of the show, rapper P. Diddy, had invited Riedel to dinner, and he makes judgement that this was “a smart p.r. move”. Then he ponders, “you do have to wonder: If Bernadette Peters had broken bread with me this time last year, would her chorus boys have to be out there now working the TKTS line to keep "Gypsy" afloat?”

Might he be going as far to suggest that if Bernadette had indulged him in a meal, her show might not have suffered so, by way of him being more inclined to cover it with greater lenience?

It may seem that way, at least in considering how Riedel reviewed P. Diddy’s performance thus after their dinner: “Riedel pronounced himself impressed. ‘He could have forgotten his lines or had to be carried offstage. He didn’t do anything terrible, he didn’t do anything astonishing.’”

Seemingly all the rapper had to do was remember some words and remain physically onstage, and he sails through scot-free. That’s a rather different outcome, one could say, to being absolutely eviscerated for what became a Tony nominated effort at one of the appreciably hardest and most demanding musical theatre roles in existence.

Though perhaps it’s hard to tell if that was really his insinuation from just one isolated comment pertaining to lunch.

This argument might be fine, if it WAS the only isolated comment pertaining to wanting Bernadette to have lunch with him. But it isn’t. Riedel continues to make a further two references over protracted periods of time to the fact Bernadette hasn’t dined with him.

One begins to get the sense of him feeling desiring of or somewhat entitled to such a private lunch with the lady he’s verbally decimated for years, and a sense of bitter rejection that he hasn’t been granted one.

“If Tonya Pinkins doesn't win the Tony Award this year, I'll buy Bernadette Peters lunch,” he simpered, and later, “I invite Bernadette to be my guest for lunch at a restaurant of her choosing. She can reach me at The Post anytime she's hungry”.

The embittered columnist in this light takes on now the marred tinge of a small boy in the playground who doesn’t get to hold the hand of the girl he wants in front of his friends, so spends the next three years pushing her over in the sandpit in revenge.

Moreover, the last statement makes undeniable comment on Bernadette’s troubled relationship with food, body image and public eating.

So now not only so far has he insulted and mocked her physical appearance and played into all the usual trite shots calling her a “kewpie doll”; suggested Arthur Laurents violently hit her in order to elicit a better performance; continually publicly harassed her regarding a show that strikes close to the nerve with deep personal and psychological resonances due to her mother and childhood; but now he’s going for the low-blows of ridiculing her over her eating habits.

Flawless behaviour.

Maybe it’s far-fetched to suggest a man would have such a fragile ego to run a multi-year public defamation campaign after so little as not getting his hypothesised fantasy of a personal lunch date. But then again, this was the man who “left Johns Hopkins University after his first year because of a broken heart.” (“I was in love with her; she wasn't in love with me,” he said.)

And also the man described as “an insomniac who pops the occasional Ambien,” living in a “small one-bedroom” that is “single-guy sloppy”, who has “been living alone since a four-year romance ended in 1996”.

The man whose own best friend called “cruel” and with a “lack of empathy”.

The man whose own sister answered that “well, yes,” he’s always been mean; and after being picked on as a kid for “being the small guy and the intellectual”, he grew dependent on using “his verbal ability to beat someone” and put himself in positions of defensive impenetrability.

See, writing Riedel-esque, vindictive and provocative conjecture is no especially challenging or cerebral task.

Riedel may well see his approach to ‘journalism’ or reporting as “all fun and games”.

But I for one am not laughing.

One final aspect to address when considering Riedel’s reasoning for the depth of his coverage on Bernadette demands attention of how he gets his information. His own personal opinions and motivations aside, crucially he depends on insider providers for insider details. Perhaps somewhat alarmingly then, “leading Broadway producers themselves are among his sources”.

“Half of Broadway hates him. The other half leaks to him”, John Heilpern titled his 2012 Vanity Fair profile on Riedel.

As such, in frequently taking his lead from “theater folk, usually with an ax to grind”, Riedel acts as the mouthpiece to bring secretive backstage reports out front. High-up, influential characters are thus able to funnel their agendas into public view, while keeping their identities hidden.

Notably, it was raised in the above article that Riedel’s “merciless running story” regarding Bernadette in Gypsy “was fed by none other than its renowned librettist, Arthur Laurents—or, more precisely, by Laurents's lover”.

Contrary to the smiley picture below between members of the show’s creative team and it’s beloved star, it was no secret that Laurents did not like Mendes’ 2003 revival. Laurents told Riedel that “Sam did a terrible disservice to Bernadette and the play, and I wanted a Gypsy seen in New York that was good… You have to have musical theater in your bones, and Sam doesn't”. In fact, Laurents admitted the only reason his 2009 book ‘Mainly on Directing’ came into existence was because of how much he had to criticise about the show – it grew out of the extensive set of notes he gave Mendes.

Additionally, it was no secret that Laurents’ lover, Tom Hatcher, demonstrated both a desire and capacity to influence Arthur’s productions. As well as being the driving force for the 2009 Spanish-speaking reworking of West Side Story, Hatcher had intense investment in Gypsy specifically. Patti LuPone writes in her memoir, “From his deathbed, Tom had told Arthur, ‘You have to do Gypsy, and you have to do it with Patti’. It was one of his dying wishes”. Laurents himself, in corroboration of this, explained Tom’s reasoning – “he didn't want the Sam Mendes production to be New York's last memory of Gypsy”.

The allegation in Heilpern’s profile might be hard to prove from an outsider perspective. But given that neither were happy with Mendes’ production and both actively took steps to ensuring it would be superseded in memory, it is not completely implausible.

Overarchingly, as much as Riedel’s writing may benefit FROM insider sources, it is said he does not write in benefit OF them. For instance, although friends with Scott Rudin in 2004, an animated (nay threatening) warning from Mr Rudin asking Riedel to “back off” from “slamming” his show, Caroline or Change, seemingly “had no impact”.

That’s not to cite total impartiality or exemption from personal connections and higher up influences colouring his reports of shows. Theatre publicist John Barlow would describe that sometimes “if you ask Michael to kill [one of his pieces], he will, if it’s someone with whom he does business”.

But it would be remiss not to mention that his influences and sources stretch beyond just the big wigs. Amongst his other informants too are the more lowly, overlooked folk like “the stagehands, the ushers, chorus kids, house managers, and press agents… the guys who build sets in the Bronx”. Basically, for anyone who’ll talk, Riedel will listen.

“Michael Riedel doesn't work for the producers or the publicists; he works for the reader,” one publicist said. “Sometimes we're glad of that, sometimes we're not-but at the end of the day, that's the reality.”

Sometimes he’s nice, sometimes he’s not – but the world goes round.

Through all that’s been explored, it should be stated how painful and injurious it must be for individual performers or shows to fall upon the unmitigated, maiming force of being on the wrong side of Riedel’s favour. The way he approached coverage on Bernadette is deplorable from an emotional and personal standpoint. Some would argue that it was too far and crossed a line and was most definitely unfair. Others would say it was justified. It’s hard not to sound petulant as the former, or heartless as the latter.

While his actions may indeed be abrasively wounding in isolated (often plentiful) cases, it’s unreasonable to say Riedel’s intentions would be to cripple the Broadway industry as a whole. There are those who purport that Riedel in fact “keeps Broadway alive with his controversies”. His words may not always be ‘nice’ but it’s difficult to argue they're not engaging.

Many are quick to criticize or react impassionedly to him and his columns; but few are quick to stop reading them. And Riedel “knows that the most important thing is being well read”.

Hence it is understandable why Riedel is appraised as “the columnist Broadway loves to hate”. Through his enthralling and stimulating bag of linguistic and dramatic tricks, Riedel knows how to keep the readers coming back. “He’s lively, and he makes the theater seem like an interesting place,” one producer did reason.

“There are times when no one's going to care about Broadway if you don't have a gossip angle that focuses on the backstage drama,” opined George Rush, the Daily News gossip columnist who was once Riedel's boss.

Perhaps it is logically and principally then, if somewhat cynically, a matter of believing “it's just business” and knowing how to “play the game”.

As Riedel himself would rationalise, “It’s all an act. You gotta have a gimmick, as they say in Gypsy.”

It may not be pleasant, but in a world increasingly dependent on sensationalistic and clickbait-driven engagement, it’s probably not going to change any time soon.

Well then, if he can live with the toll of the position of moral tumult his column puts him in, so be it.

That he described his mind as being “constantly on the next deadline”, saying “I always think about the column”, and likening writing it to “standing under a windmill”, where “you dodge one blade, but there's always another one coming right behind it”, may be some indication that he can't. At least not wholly easily.

I’ll leave that to him to figure out. Off the record.

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exorcisms-and-sigils · 4 years ago

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Chris Halliwell x OC imagine: Ashthorn (part 1/4)

(Set in mid 2025.

trope: the entire family knows about their feelings for each other, but the both of them don’t dare to act on it.

power/s: sass...?)

The demon sorceress Astros targets Melinda in a time of self-doubt, and PJ in a time of self-loathing, in an attempt to cripple the power of the next generation. She did not consider Valerie Ashthorn, The Expert on the Matter and their childhood friend.

Valerie rang the doorbell, and her heart raced even faster. She breathed deeply, and thought about what she was going to say. Melinda's 18th was two weeks ago, so she must have moved out. If she's lucky and the twins are here, they'd be loud when they see her, and save her from introducing (or reintroducing) herself.

The door opened to reveal a pleasant-faced young man. "Hi."

Valerie smiled, resigning herself to social interaction. "Hi... I'm looking for Wyatt Halliwell. Has he visited this house recently?"

He chuckled like she said something funny. "Yes, I have. How can I help you?"

"Wow..." And so, there was no such thing as something she planned to say. There's only this older, good-looking guy in the shoes of one of her greatest friends. "I-I mean, my name is Valerie Ashthorn. We last saw each other—nevermind. I'm moving into my folks' old house across the street. I figured seeing if you still remember me, it won't—"

She had turned her head to face the house, so dull and plain compared to the Halliwell Manor, and couldn't brace herself for the weight that crashed against her body.

Wyatt hugged her and exclaimed, "Ree! Oh my goodness, that's why you looked so familiar!"

He pulled away, grinning. "Wow! You're a sight for sore eyes... Or maybe Chris's eyes."

She smacked his arm, ignoring how built he felt beneath her hand. "Ten seconds! You can't even last ten seconds without being an asshole!"

"You can't even last one without blushing." he smirked. "Please, come in."

It took all of Valerie's willpower to keep from being choked up at how familiar the walls and furniture and windows and floors looked, as if the house itself was alive and welcoming her back home. She put her bag aside, letting Wyatt place an arm around her shoulder as she slung one around his waist. This has always been home, no matter the mind-reading evil beings that tried to destroy her memory of it over the years.

Wyatt led them to the living room with a contented sigh. The memories continue to flood back, and would've barreled into Valerie if she hadn't seen the frowns on Aunt Piper's, Uncle Leo's, and Uncle Coop's faces before they perked up at the sight of her.

She and Wyatt pulled away from each other. "I'm back. Demons?"

Piper rose from the couch and wrapped her arms around her. Please don't cry, Valerie told herself. "Valerie, hi. It's so good to see you... no, not demons. You know we're never that lucky."

Despite how deeply they frowned, they were alright. It was Melinda and PJ who were at risk.

Leo asked her. "What do you know about the empousai?"

"I know enough to vanquish them."

"Nobody's vanquishing anyone." Coop muttered, his ring stark against the dark expression on his face. "That's not an option."

"It is for the one who turned PJ, Coop." Leo stated, before turning back towards Valerie. "And the one who's going to turn Melinda.”

"... Premonition." Valerie guessed. She received nods.

An inhuman growl sounded from the sunroom, low and guttural. One second, Valerie was frozen, surprised.

The next, she was bolting across the room, ignoring Wyatt's warnings, as well as the force field he placed around her.

Not three steps into the sunroom and a jet of white fluid shot across the room. She threw her hands upward with a yelp as the fluid hit the force field, redirecting it upwards into an LED light above her head and cracking it.

Wyatt and the others caught up. His eyes were wide and alert, darting between her and the partly-turned empousai on the floor, inside a ring of crystals and a pink force field.

The disheveled brown hair and tattered clothes screamed that it was PJ, when the three legs — all different from each other — and the wholly red eyes watching her every move said it was an empousa in the middle of transformation.

"Are you okay? That thing she spits didn't get you?"

Valerie pointed to the broken LED light overhead, with bits and pieces that were still falling and bouncing against Wyatt's force field. Her attention remained on PJ; one of her legs was a cat's with its claws out, the other a horse's or goat's hoof that she kept stomping the ground with, and the third a thing of pure copper that was shaped like a human leg. Patches of her skin were different tones, indicating either she tried to shapeshift, or the ability is being opened to her.

PJ snarled, revealing cracked, unused canines, and Valerie cocked an offended black eyebrow. "You got the aesthetic, at least."

Coop gave her a dirty look, even as he stepped up to her side. "We had to use my power to make the force field, hope that through the heritage I passed down, we could reach her. We already tried appealing to her witch side."

"Is everyone accounted for?"

"Yes." Piper answered. "Your Aunt Phoebe is with Peyton and Parker, and Uncle Henry is on leave, so he's with Aunt Paige and the kids."

Wyatt added, crossing his arms over his chest. "Chris went alone to look for Melinda, get her back here before she can fully turn. Ideally."

Valerie made a double take, blinking at him. "Empousai seduce. Why is he alone?"

"... Seduce?" a smirk slowly spread across his face. "I wouldn't be too worried. The only one that can get him to do anything through seduction is you."

Valerie's ears warmed. At the corner of her eye, she noticed the adults, even Uncle Coop, trying to hide their smiles. She massaged her neck, the quickest way to make Wyatt understand how annoying he was being. "I went back in time before and encountered empousai. When I was in Greece, three dozen of them attacked Epirus."

PJ snarled at her when she looked. Valerie was half-inclined to snarl back. "I brought journals and books with me in the car and the house. I'll see if I can find anything."

"I'll help." Wyatt hopped on his feet, following her out the door after Piper nodded in reply.

"Promise not to be a dick."

He put one hand in the air, and the other on his chest, as if he were vowing. Then he made a funny face. "Not entirely, anyway."

Valerie guffawed. "Already more than I expect."

The magma pool burned far, far below Chris, but he could still feel the heat on his face. The empousa he'd been interrogating whimpered at the sight of the stone cuffs around its wrists, its five different legs dangling uselessly in mid-air. Chris clenched his jaw against the knot forming in his temple, and removed another small piece of rock from the cuffs.

"Wait, wait! You won't even ask me what they want with those girls first?"

"Frankly, I don't have time. Now again, what sent the empousai?"

The empousa's lips pulled back in a snarl, just like the one Melinda had given Chris when he last saw her. "The empousai send themselves...!"

"Is that what your pack leader said when he agreed to work with wraiths?"

"We will annihilate their kind after we're done with you!" it yelled, the sound echoing through the few entryways dug throughout Purgatory.

"Scary." Chris drawled. The wraiths were always a sore topic. "Empousai answer to their pack leaders, and those are decided from how quickly they turn victims. What asked for your help?"

The empousa drew its vicious lips into a line, refusing to answer. Chris flicked his wrist, and a larger chunk of the cuffs broke off, falling into the fire below. The empousa's feet writhed and clicked against each other in a panic. Without something to stand on, these beasts would be out of their comfort zone, and suddenly become the most cowardly of the new generation of evil. Only the sight of his theory being proven true kept Chris's headache at bay.

"Astros! Astros! She called herself Astros!"

He blinked, trying to recall where he encountered the name. Then he removed the entire stone from the empousa's right wrist. The headache pounded more with the empousa still trying to get into his head.

"She would have excelled if she were one of us! The wraiths will let her skills go to waste, but she will thrive with us..." it glared at the single piece of rock keeping it from both death and the nearby surface that led to safety. "after she exploits the power of your family."

The simultaneous sound of multiple, different footsteps came from the tunnels on its side. Chris watched the fear sink into its horrible, pale face before he tugged at the stone cuff. "The wraiths say the same thing."

Its eyes were wide with rage and self-absorbed disbelief. Chris shrugged. "Or something close enough anyway. From what I've read about your kind, you're cannibals, if motivated correctly."

He removed the cuffs from its wrist after all its feet hit solid ground, and then orbed home. "Must be painful."

#chris halliwell #charmed #chris perry #chris halliwell imagine #chris halliwell oneshot #charmed imagine #charmed oneshot #charmed wb #empousai #wraith #halliwell cousins #halliwell sisters #charmed chris halliwell #charmed chris

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thewnchstrs · 6 years ago

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Season One

Sam, Dean and Ellie crisscross the country in order to find their father who is hunting down the thing that killed his wife.

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

Pilot: three siblings are trained to fight the supernatural by their father, who aims to hunt down the thing that killed his wife.

Wendigo: Sam, Dean and Ellie follow the coordinates in their father’s journal and land in Colorado where they investigate the disappearance of several campers.

Dead In The Water: in a small town in Wisconsin, Sam, Dean and Ellie investigate a series of mysterious drownings officially explained as suicides.

Phantom Traveler: on United Britannia flight 2485, a man possessed by the spirit of the Phantom Traveler causes the plane to crash, leaving only seven survivors.

Bloody Mary: several high schoolers dare their friend to look into a mirror and repeat a chant, not knowing that this will unleash a series of mysterious murders.

Skin: Sam, Dean and Ellie help Sam’s old college buddy after he is accused of a murder he didn’t commit.

Hook Man: in a small town in Iowa, Sam, Dean and Ellie encounter the infamous “Hook Man,” a spirit who kills his victims with a shiny hook that serves as his hand.

Bugs: Sam, Dean and Ellie investigate a town’s history and find that a new housing development is being built on sacred Native American land.

Home: Sam is haunted by a vision of a woman trapped in the brothers’ childhood home and convinces a reluctant Dean that they need to go back there.

Asylum: Sam, Dean and Ellie investigate an abandoned sanitarium and discover the patients had revolted against the cruel punishments inflicted by the head doctor.

Scarecrow: Sam, Dean and Ellie finally make contact with their father, but he tells them to stop looking for him and sends them on another ghost-hunting job.

Faith: while battling a monster, Dean is electrocuted, resulting in permanent damage to his heart and leaving him with only a couple of months to live.

Route 666: Dean is contacted by his first love, Cassie, a girl who asks him to come to Mississippi to investigate a string of racially motivated murders.

Nightmare: Sam has a premonition in which a man is killed, but the murder is made to look like a suicide.

The Benders: Sam, Dean and Ellie head to Minnesota, where a young boy witnesses a man vanishing into thin air.

Shadow: while investigating a mysterious death in Chicago, Sam, Dean and Ellie run into Meg, who is thrilled to see Sam again.

Hell House: Sam, Dean and Ellie investigate a house haunted by the ghost of a man who killed his six daughters during the 1930s.

Something Wicked: Sam, Dean and Ellie investigate a small town in Wisconsin where children are falling into comas for no reason.

Provenance: a young husband and wife are killed in their homes shortly after buying an antique painting of a family portrait from around 1910.

Dead Man’s Blood: after a vampire hunter who was John’s mentor is murdered, Sam, Dean and Ellie are surprised when John himself shows up to solve the case.

Salvation: after Sam has a vision of a family being attacked, the siblings and their father head to Salvation, Iowa, to save the family in Sam’s dream.

Devil’s Trap: on a mission to save their father from Meg, Sam, Dean and Ellie seek help from an old family friend.

*DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN SUPERNATURAL OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS.

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esonetwork · 5 years ago

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Timestamp #190: Human Nature & The Family of Blood

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/timestamp-190-human-nature-the-family-of-blood/

Timestamp #190: Human Nature & The Family of Blood

Doctor Who: Human Nature Doctor Who: The Family of Blood (2 episodes, s03e08-e09, 2007)

Martha Jones: The woman who waited.

The chase is on as the TARDIS door swings open and our heroes hit the deck before an energy beam slams into the console. The Doctor sets the TARDIS into motion but their enemy is following them courtesy of a stolen vortex manipulator. He tells Martha that, as long as they never saw her face, they can be safe. Their lives depend on a simple pocketwatch.

Dr. John Smith snaps awake from a nightmare as a maid named Martha delivers his breakfast. He tells her of a fanciful dream, one in which he is a time traveler named the Doctor. She reminds him that it is 1913 and that he is merely human. After he dresses, Dr. Smith goes about his lessons at Farringham School for the Boys as Martha works alongside fellow maid Jenny. Two unpleasant cadets sling not so subtle racism at Martha, but she dismisses it. Jenny notes that those boys may be running the country in a matter of years, but Martha quietly responds that they probably won’t. World War I is just on the horizon.

Dr. Smith later encounters Matron Joan Redfern, the school nurse, and they awkwardly hit it off. The encounter ends as Dr. Smith falls backward down the stairs. Matron Redfern tends to his injuries as Dr. Smith muses about his dreams and Martha tidies up. Smith talks about having two hearts – Redfern clinically dismisses that notion with a stethoscope – and shows the matron his Journal of Impossible Things. She’s wowed by his drawings and stories, but takes it anyway to read it later. She later discusses the mysterious doctor with Martha and emphasizes that she remember her place.

Later on, young Timothy Latimer is bullied by Hutchinson. The aggressor is irritated by Latimer’s knowledge of things he shouldn’t know, and Jeremy Baines defuses the situation by offering to fetch a beer from a secret stash in the woods. Martha and Jenny also share a drink outside the local pub – they’re not allowed inside due to their social status – as a green light flashes across the sky. Smith arrives and explains it away as a shooting star before retiring for the night. With Smith safely tucked away, Martha runs off to investigate, and Jenny tags along.

The light turns out to be a ship and Baines runs into it, quite literally. He’s able to get aboard just before Martha and Jenny arrive, and the ladies return home. Meanwhile, Baines talks with the ship’s occupants, the Family. He asks to see them but they refuse before attacking and taking his form. Baines returns to the dormitory without any beer, acting not quite like himself. The students call it a night while Latimer nervously polishes his boots.

The next morning, Martha checks in on the powered-down TARDIS while she remembers the events following their pursuit through time. The Doctor used a device known as the Chameleon Arch to become human, literally rewriting his DNA, and hide in 1913 to wait out the Family. He left her a set of twenty-three recorded instructions, including the last-resort directive to open the watch in an emergency. Martha tearfully wishes that he would return home.

Young Latimer visits Dr. Smith and finds the pocketwatch. He sees premonitions of what resides inside and takes the device, opening it and learning about Time Lords. Unfortunately, this alerts the Family to the Doctor’s presence. Baines (the Family’s Brother) telepathically calls back to the ship and orders the soldiers to be activated.

The soldiers take the form of scarecrows on a nearby farm. They assimilate Mr. Clark on the farm as the Family’s Father and Lucy Cartwright (a nearby girl in the wrong place at the wrong time) as the Family’s Daughter.

Smith is engaged in weapons training as Latimer deals with visions of the pending war. Latimer is dissuaded by the thought of killing African tribesmen with machine guns, and Hutchinson takes the opportunity to punish Latimer. Meanwhile, Redfern and Smith take a walk and talk about warfare. Smith saves a woman from death by falling piano with a cricket ball and a good arm. They walk the countryside and talk about Smith’s journal, and when they stop to fix one of the scarecrows, Smith talks about his childhood in Gallifrey, a place that he’s not quite sure about. Later that night, Smith and Redfern share a romantic moment that is interrupted by Martha, prompting his companion to seek solace in the TARDIS.

The Doctor didn’t leave instructions for what to do if he fell in love. Especially if it wasn’t with her.

Latimer has an encounter with the Family as the scarecrows assimilate Jenny as the new Mother. She returns to Martha’s side and learns some clues about the mysterious Doctor Smith, but Martha realizes that something is amiss. She runs to Smith, dodging the Mother’s laser fire, and discovers that the pocketwatch is missing. She fails to convince Smith of the truth, and after striking him, is dismissed from his service. She runs to the TARDIS (encountering Latimer en route) as the Family snoops about in Smith’s office.

Smith and Redfern attend a local dance as the Family track the schoolteacher down. Martha arrives with the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver and talks with Redfern, leaving the dancing duo speechless with the device from Smith’s dreams.

The Family arrives and vaporizes the doorman and the organizer of the party. They put the pieces together, but Smith still can’t recall anything. The Family wants a Time Lord, so they threaten Smith, Martha, and Redfern, but without the pocketwatch he is unable to do anything.

The standoff ends as Latimer cracks open the watch, distracting the Family. Martha takes the Mother’s weapon, forcing them to release Redfern and prompting Smith to evacuate the building. Martha is ambushed by a scarecrow but escapes. The Mother taps into Jenny’s memories and sends the Father to the west in search of whatever Martha walked to each day.

Smith rouses the school to defend against the Family’s invasion. The Sister gleefully sneaks inside to spy on the defense as Martha confronts Smith, urging him not to engage in violence. The headmaster demands an explanation but believes Smith and Redfern. Martha and Redfern search for the pocketwatch – Latimer listens to it as it whispers caution in his ear – as the headmaster and Mr. Phillips confront the Family outside the school’s gates. The Son taunts the headmaster with visions of the coming way, then sends him back inside for Smith after vaporizing Phillips.

The headmaster rallies his students, now his soldiers, to war. The Son does the same with his scarecrow army as the Father discovers the TARDIS.

Meanwhile, Martha baffles Redfern with her knowledge of medicine, something that a “girl of her color” shouldn’t know. Redfern leaves to tend to the students and plumbs the depth’s of Smith’s childhood history. She also plants the seed of pacifism in John Smith’s mind.

Latimer and Hutchinson share the younger boy’s visions of the future. Convinced that they survive the battle, Latimer runs but finds the Sister. He opens the pocketwatch and stuns the Sister with a vision of the Doctor at his most merciless, keying the Family into the need to find Latimer and the watch.

They begin the assault and the students mow down the scarecrow army with tears in their eyes, poignantly punctuated by the strains of “He Who Would Valiant Be.” The headmaster assesses the destruction – not a life was lost since they were all filled with straw – and is soon vaporized by the Sister. Smith orders a retreat as the Brother reanimates the scarecrow army and storms the school. Latimer distracts them again with the watch, saving his classmates from execution. The students and staff evacuate the school as the Father brings the TARDIS to the front doors.

Martha shows Smith the blue box and Redfern confirms what the schoolteacher wrote in his journal. Smith has a breakdown and runs into the woods, and Redfern offers them a place to hide as the Family spools up their next assault. The cottage belongs to the Cartwrights, whose daughter is now the Sister. The family is now dead. Latimer arrives soon after with the watch in hand, explaining that he was scared and that the watch asked him to wait. He’s seen the Doctor – “He’s like fire and ice and rage. He’s like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun. He’s ancient and forever. He burns at the center of time and can see the turn of the universe. And, he’s wonderful.” – but Smith refuses to take the watch.

The Family begins an assault on the village. Smith takes the watch, momentarily speaking in the Doctor’s voice, and listens in horror as Martha explains the plan. Smith doesn’t want to go but finds out that if the Family wins, they will be free to burn the universe. Redfern embraces the doctor, and together they share a vision of what could be if Smith remained: They marry, have children, and he dies happy.

But the Doctor could never have a life like that.

Moments later, Smith arrives at the Family’s ship and begs them to stop the bombardment. He offers them the watch and asks them to go, but the watch is empty. It was a ruse. The Doctor has returned, and he’s set their ship to self-destruct.

The Family and the Doctor escape from the ship in time. The Doctor, in his kindness, imprisons each member of the Family in a unique way for all eternity instead of executing them: The Father is wrapped in chains forged at the heart of a dwarf star; The Mother is enveloped in the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy; the Sister is trapped in every mirror in existence; and the Son is a scarecrow, protecting the fields of England.

They all get their wish in the end. They all get to live forever.

The Doctor returns to Redfern when all is said and done. The school is closed for the time being. He won’t change back for her, but he offers her the chance to travel with him. She declines since the wounds of loss are too deep. Especially since had the Doctor never come to her time, no one would have died.

The Doctor returns to the TARDIS and tells Martha that it’s time to move on. He thanks her for her sacrifice, and then together they bid farewell to Timothy Latimer. The Doctor gives Latimer the watch as a good luck charm before disappearing into time and space once more.

Years later, on the battlefield of World War I, Latimer checks his watch and tells Hutchinson that it is time. Latimer saves his former classmate from incoming fire, looks to the sky, and thanks the Doctor for his good luck. The Time Lord’s example continues to influence.

Farther into the future, a wheelchair-bound Latimer attends an Armistice Day ceremony and spots the Doctor and Martha, each wearing poppies. The silently acknowledge each other as the service continues.

This is one of the deeper stories in Doctor Who lore.

First, by taking the hero and title character out of the mix, the show takes an opportunity to look over the mythology with reverence to the history of the show. The Journal of Impossible Things contains the basics (the former eight faces of the Doctor, the TARDIS, the console room, and the sonic screwdriver) along with specifics from across the Ninth and Tenth Doctor’s travels.

Second, it introduces a critical plot device of the biodata module. Carried in this story by the popular time travel trope of a pocketwatch (which we have seen before), it further plays with the ability to separate a Time Lord’s essence from his or her body, much as we saw with the Watcher at the Fourth Doctor’s regeneration. It also introduces the Chameleon Arch, which can literally rewrite a Time Lord’s DNA to any other form.

This brings up an interesting theoretical tangent: What of Susan? It will be definitively established in the future that Susan left Gallifrey with the First Doctor, and since off-worlders are generally prohibited on Gallifrey, we must assume that she’s at least Gallifreyan and potentially trained as a Time Lord. But the First Doctor was also comfortable leaving her behind on post-invasion Earth, circa 2164. Would he have left her behind, knowing that she could potentially regenerate in the presence of otherwise ignorant humans? Is it possible that he use the Chameleon Arch prior to their stop at 76 Totter’s Lane to change her into a less conspicuous human being?

We may never know, but it’s fun to speculate.

Third, I am quite impressed with Martha Jones. I mean, sure, she really wants the Doctor to love her, but her relationship with the Time Lord evidently goes much deeper than romantic love. She willingly sacrifices her mobility, her rights, and her freedom in order to save the Doctor and the universe at large. The amount of racism and discrimination levied toward her in this story is heartbreaking and far from acceptable, but Martha stands strong in the face of it. She withstands the assault on her character in service of the mission, her responsibility, and her love.

She does this because she loves the Doctor, but on a level (honestly, unbeknownst to her) far exceeding anything she ever expected. And the Doctor trusted that she could fulfill her mission.

Martha surpasses Rose with this story. She’s an independent, strong, and worthy companion, even if her emotions are a bit misguided.

Finally, in a beautiful nod to the origins of this franchise, the Doctor named his parents as Sydney and Verity. That statement was, in fact, true.

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Blink

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

#Doctor Who #Tenth Doctor #Timestamps Project

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maddmuses · 5 years ago

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Boku no Hero Academia

Multiverse Designation: Earth-8118

Quirk: Hyper-Sense!! Peter’s physical senses are extremely sharp and acute. This gives him an awareness of his surroundings that are hyper-detailed, allowing him to get an almost premonition-like ability to detect danger. When Peter IS in any degree of danger, he begins to experience a tingling sensation in his mind similar to that of a headache. This quirk lets Peter react to threats, often before they happen!

Peter Parker was thought to be quirkless and high-strung for years! An intelligent and inventive boy, Peter dreamed of being a hero, like many young people in the heroic capital of the United States: New York. However, despite a history of some quirkless heroes managing to become pros, Peter didn’t have anything in common with those specimen.

He hadn’t trained his entire life, nor was he particularly athletic, his only talents seemed to involve science and inventing.

Instead, Peter resigned himself to attending New York’s Kirby Academy (One of the four great hero schools in America: Lee Academy, Kirby Academy, Siegel-Shuster Tech, and Finger Academy) enrolling in their hero support program. It was in this course that he would thrive, inventing web-shooters, a specialized piece of equipment that was meant to be used for villain capture, with a webbing fluid that he developed that was stronger than steel, once it solidified.

Peter would also develop a number of other gadgets, such as HUD Lenses which served as miniature computers, and a costume which could cushion impact, and was resistant to even cutting and some low-end bullet-fire, woven from a non-dissolving version of his webbing that he used in his web-shooters.

On weekends Peter would often spend time in the city, testing his support gadgets on low-level thugs, as a vigilante, sneaking his gadgets out of the school against policy. Parker knew if he could prove that his support equipment was effective enough to allow a quirkless boy like him, who only had an understanding of leverage and momentum to serve him beyond the devices could take down villains, then his gadgets would be good enough for Stark Industries, a combination support company and hero agency run by his favorite hero Iron Man, might hire him on so he could support his family.

Tony Stark was one of the greatest heroes, having not only designed his own support tech that he used to fight crime while quirkless, but also designed some of the support tech for the likes of Captain America and Thor.

However, one villain would escape. Marko Flint, the Sandman, would evade Peter, as his quirk rendered Peter’s attack, webs, and any other means of capture pointless. And Flint wasn’t so willing to let Peter’s attempts at capture go without punishment. Retaliating, Flint would follow Peter home, and attack him, his uncle Ben, and aunt May.

Fighting furiously to protect his family, Peter was ultimately out-matched, and before any pro heroes could arrive to intervene, and chase off the villain, Uncle Ben would be stabbed through the heart by Flint, as a show of what happened to people who crossed him. And he was sure to let Peter know that if he hadn’t tried to play at hero, Ben would still be alive.

The information surrounding the attack on the Parker’s home would become heavily publicized, including the use of support equipment that was stolen from Kirby Academy, and Peter was very nearly expelled.

However, Tony Stark took an interest in the story, and would intervene on Peter’s part, taking over the cost of tuition as a Stark Foundation scholarship, and taking up the role of mentorship over Peter. Telling Peter that what he created was already more than enough to work in the same capacity as a hero when he’d started, but that he knew Peter had the ability to be better.

Re-enrolled at Kirby Academy, Peter began working on a new project. A costume that could function much like Tony’s Power Armor, conferring to its user strength, speed, and durability.

When the time came for Kirby Academy’s Sports Festival, Peter would appear, showcasing his new “Spider-Suit” using the accommodations afforded to support students that allowed them to use their own inventions. With this suit, and the discovery that he did, in fact, have a quirk; he was able to take the top spot in the festival, and receive an endorsement to begin in the Hero Course after Summer break. Additionally, due to his status as a support dept. student formerly, he would be permitted to continue using their facilities to develop his own equipment, as it was a hallmark of his ability to perform.

Support Equipment Web-Shooters: Peter’s first invention while attending Kirby Academy, these wrist-mounted spinnerets are able to fire pressurized fluid from them, as well as manipulate their shape and pattern once they pass the threshold of the shooter’s nodes. Originally bulky, large, and only able to be used to create lines and shapes, as well as nets. During the testing process, in which Peter had been fighting as a vigilante, Peter began upgrading the shooters to become more compact and versatile, appearing as little more than a pair of wristwatches until engaged, and with the ability to factor a number of custom settings, such as taser-webs, web bullets, impact-based webbing, magnetic webbing, flaming web, insulated web, web grenades, web shields, and the like. These shooters also include assisted aiming, which Peter can access from his lenses so as not to alert others with an aiming beam. -Web Grenades: Small orbs that the web-shooters can produce, which can almost immediately expand from the size of a marble, due to pressure, to the size of a baseball. The bombs can be set to either trigger on impact with a hard surface, or set to a timer. Once detonated, the grenade will loose a wide casting of webbing nets that ensnare any who are within its range of detonation, usually going as far as 15 feet, but having been known to go as far as 25 in some cases. -Web Trip Mines: Mechanical devices with a more precise web-shooting system than its counterpart, the Web Grenade. A Web Trip Mine is able to fire cast webs from both the hole in the center of its top, as well as the bottom, allowing it to ensnare two targets against each other simultaneously, rather than strictly capturing one target to a wall. -Concussive Blasts: A modification that Peter added as a means to hope and counter Flint Marko. By creating a repulsion, similar to that of Iron Man’s own, but based on more of a pushing power than a true beam of energy, bursts of force can be fired from the web shooter, from a nozzle situated just beneath the spinnerets. These blasts of force are actually strong enough to send athletic adult men flying back. --Suspension Matrix: An upgrade of the science from the concussive blast addon for the web-shooters, it uses wider pulses of the same force to create a sort of gravity field that will suspend those within its range into the air. This was further designed to sabotage the ability of Marko Flint to deconstitute, and keep him apart, in many grains, rather than any larger shape. This matrix functions for a short time, and must be recharged over several hours.

Spider-Suit: In its earliest incarnations, this was a suit woven from a variant of Peter’s Web Fluid that he used in the Web Shooters so as to foster durability and flexibility. Over time, this suit was enhanced to have different variable modifications that Peter has installed into different versions of the suit. Peter has developed roughly seven different versions of the Spider-Suit. The second generation of suits would begin to include unique electron-field manipulators in the gloves and soles which enabled him to adhere to surfaces by simply tensing his fingers, or triggering a pressure-reader along the toes of his costume’s feet. This is accomplished by mimicking the property of a repulsion and attraction quirk he’d studied in medical journals, inventing a generator which inverted the charge of electrons within the suit’s molecules, making his hands and feet like natural magnets to whatever they touch, if Peter activates it. More advanced models of the costume would begin to include lenses that served as miniature computers for Peter, or any wearer, to use so as to track his own vitals, ammunition, the condition of different gadgets, search and surf the internet, and analyze an opponent. The most advanced, and frequently used, versions of the suit reached an apex that make the costumes more akin to power armor, however. Through the use of a harness woven between two layers of the costume’s fabric, Peter is able to rely on a state-of-the-art system of micro-hydraulics and magnets to enhance his strength to superhuman levels. The suit originally enhances Peter’s strength by a factor of 20 (making him able to lift roughly 1 ton in the first version of this system), having an impact on not only his ability to lift and punch, but also to move acrobatically. As well as a passive-observation system that alerts the wearer to certain external stimuli based on a series of pre-programmed conditions. This, for a normal wearer, might give one just enough time to react to certain slower-moving projectiles and sneak attacks from an enemy, but in tandem with Peter’s quirk makes him a frustrating target to hit.

Spider-Tracers: Small devices that Peter designed to track targets for stings, or to be able to pursue escaping villains. Tiny, almost the size of an actual spider, these robots aren’t particularly durable, but are very effective at adhering to surfaces, skin, fabrics, and the like. These robots will broadcast on a specific radio channel which Peter’s lenses can tune into, but only within the range of several miles.

Spider-Drone: Drones that have been modified by Peter to act as combat support against multiple targets. Each comes equipped with a series of web-shooters, and can fire with similar settings to Peter’s own wrist-mounted shooters. He doesn’t make excessive use of these, as a destroyed and abandoned drone could result in a reverse-engineering of his inventions.

#BNHA AU

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screamindeamin · 8 years ago

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themes

001. Military Personnel 002. Gunshot 003. Battlefield 004. Grave 005. Heiki (weapon) & Heiki (fine) 006. Death 007. Crime and Punishment 008. Store-lined streets 009. Unknown past/Before we know each other 010. Promise 011. Liar 012. Proof 013. Betrayal 014. Covered eyes 015. The scent of blood 016. Reaching voice & Unreachable with a voice 017. Scars 018. “I don’t want to realize” 019. Things one cannot understand 020. “Murderer” 021. Repentence/Confession 022. God 023. Someone I want to protect. 024. “Not there” 025. ‘So I’m crying’ 026. Cureless 027. Dependency 028. Pain & Wounds 029. Existence 030. Conversation 031. Home cooking 032. Shirt 033. A walk 034. Telephone 035. Letter 036. Dog 037. Match 038. Mischief 039. Sly person 040. Halves 041. Coat 042. Day off 043. Wind 044. Hair 045. Awakening 046. All night vigil/Sleepless night 047. In the dead of the night 048. Side of face 049. Cold hands 050. Fingertips 051. Embracing from the back 052. Hair clip 053. Sigh 054. O Child 055. Infectious crying 056. Skillful & Clumsy 057. Feigning sleep 058. Before falling asleep 059. Gift 060. At the window 061. Diary/Journal 062. A reason to quarrel 063. Special seat 064. The scenery from a car seat 065. The you reflected in the glass 066. The pounding of a heart 067. Quirks 068. Song 069. Are you satisfied? 070. Giddines 071. Premonition 072. Drawing a boundary line 073. Parting 074. Great distance 075. Why? 076. Watching over you 077. Implicit rules 078. Ideals and Truth 079. Underwater no futari 080. Categorize 081. Footsteps 082. Words that fade away in the chaos 083. Crowd 084. If you would only turn around… 085. Surprise attack 086. Syllogism 087. Memories 088. Given name 089. Ultimate Weapon 090. Hidden expressions/hidden feelings 091. Kiss 092. Happiness? 093. Shackles 094. From yesterday 095. Now 096. Tomorrow, too 097. “If I die” 098. After the rain 099. “Welcome home” 100. Until that day

#100 themes #inspo #writing prompts

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johnpalisano · 7 years ago

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We are both sworn to secrecy, but J.H. Moncrieff first met while both having books at the same publisher. We both belonged to a top secret support group. Yes. We all suffered from PTSD (Publishing Traumatic Stress Disorder) and needed the support of one another. Deep friendships were made, and we all looked out for each other. Except for one person. She vanished, although one of her woolen gloves was found just outside a Books A Million in Detroit with a half-chewed bit of hamburger and a few pennies.

From there, we hooked up this past year’s StokerCon on the Queen Mary, partnering up for a well-attended joint reading. Of course, reading her work was most impressive. This is someone who won Harlequin’s Gillian Flynn award this past year, and her expertise in suspense is terrific. She’s launching a new batch of books The Ghostwriter Series, with the first two having just been released. Please do check them out.

It’s always fun to break out of the usual interview format, and I always love doing these ’10 things…’ posts. Here, J.H. does not disappoint, and there are some truly fun and interesting facts. So here’s . . .

10 Things You Didn’t Know About J.H. Moncrieff

I think The Sound of Silence is the most beautiful song ever written. It’s the song I want played at my funeral.

Even though I’ve wanted to be a novelist since I was five years old, I also desperately wanted to be a forensic psychologist. Sadly, I let a high school teacher talk me out of it. It’s still the road not taken.

If you see me shaking, it’s not because I’m nervous. I have an inherited condition called essential tremors. It usually doesn’t bother me, but in times of heightened emotion or fatigue, it can be really noticeable. It’s a pain whenever I have to do a reading, because people assume it’s nerves when I’m actually just pumped and excited.

The accomplishments I’m proudest of happened not through fiction but through journalism. Articles I wrote connected a blind man to a surgeon who restored his vision, and resulted in a grandmother keeping custody of her ailing granddaughter.

During childhood, I had a lot of accurate premonitions, to the point kids teased me about it. But I wasn’t above bullshitting—I once claimed X-ray eyes were how I knew what was in a teacher’s locked cabinet. (I didn’t have a clue what was in it, but since the cupboard was locked, my “knowledge” was never put to the test.)

After I started blogging about unsolved mysteries, the families of missing people began contacting me for help. This has made me feel both honored and sad, because I wish I could do more.

I have several bizarre phobias, including worms and going down escalators. I’ve mostly overcome the worm one in order to garden. I can go down an escalator, but it feels like I’m having a heart attack every time. It’s a great incentive to take the stairs.

My best friend came to visit me after she died.

Even though I’ve been to Shanghai twice, my general rule is I can’t visit a place more than once until I’ve seen every country on my bucket list. Five more trips to go!

In spite of my love of dark fiction, I’ve read way more literary novels than horror, and I’ve read much more non-fiction than fiction. I read about 80 full-length books a year.

I once inadvertently pissed off Kiefer Sutherland. I hated interviewing celebrities because it was difficult to get them off script. I always challenged myself to ask a question that would make them pause and think. With Sutherland, I asked him why he was often cast as the villain (this was before 24). For some reason, this got under his skin. He was quite snarky with me.

My first published fiction story ran in my hometown newspaper when I was in grade four. It featured a bunch of vampires devouring everyone.

I used to work in a haunted museum. I was showing some reporters around late at night when we heard (and felt) someone coming up behind us. No one was there. That’s about as frightened as I’ve ever been in my life.

J.H. Moncrieff’s work has been described by reviewers as early Gillian Flynn with a little Ray Bradbury and Stephen King thrown in for good measure.

She won Harlequin’s search for the next Gillian Flynn in 2016. Her first published novella, The Bear Who Wouldn’t Leave, was featured in Samhain’s Childhood Fears collection and stayed on its horror bestsellers list for over a year. Monsters in Our Wake, a sea monster tale with a twist, was an Amazon horror bestseller.

The first two books in her new GhostWriters series, City of Ghosts and The Girl Who Talks to Ghosts, were released in May 2017.

When not writing, J.H. loves visiting the world’s most haunted places, advocating for animal rights, and summoning her inner ninja in muay thai class.

To get free ebooks and a new spooky story each week, check out her Hidden Library.

Connect with J.H.: Website | Twitter | Facebook

10 Things You Didn’t Know About J.H. Moncrieff We are both sworn to secrecy, but J.H. Moncrieff first met while both having books at the same publisher.

#author #authors #blogs #books #canada #Gillian Flynn #hidden library #library #Moncrieff #muay thai #suspense #writing

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planar-echoes · 8 years ago

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The Journal of Javad Nasrin (Zendikar) By Doug Beyer (10/14/09)

Day 1:

We set out from Kabira today, trailing two horses extra, and a hurda packbeast to carry the rations, trapfinder's gear, barter for the crossing, machetes, and the relic itself, should we prove successful. The sun was relentless all this first day, carving a searing line in the sky over the hedron-strewn flats of Agadeem, its disk like the gaze of an unshuttered eye. Rather than skirt the coast, we set out on the northern road, hoping to reach the shores of the mainland, and the thickets of Turntimber, by month's end.

We are a smaller group than I'm accustomed to, as Kabira's far from most of the expeditioners' routes, but there's no apparent deficiency of talent among them, and I've enough years in the wild to furnish the remainder of skill our troupe may lack. I've hired Ghazzan, the first minotaur I've expeditioned with, a nearly silent but unmistakably strong man who favors the Makindi longaxe to the more traditional machete; Sali Oran, the lullmage, whose talents should prove useful should we encounter any storms or disruptions due to the Roil; and Keeda, "the Quick" as the advertisement read, a goblin trapfinder of the Lavastep tribe.

The terms are standard for relic hunters: what we find is mine by rights, and I shall pay them the other half of their due when we find a safe port again, relic in tow. I have not told them what it is we seek, which is exactly how I prefer it.

Day 3:

The sun mocks us, finding its way around our defenses. We all wear hats or headdresses, and Sali Oran applies some sort of salve to her scales, but the white stone hedrons scattered across this dry-grassed country reflect the sun, casting its rays back into our eyes. In the afternoon we let the hurda lope along on the western side, granting us some measure of shade. Still, I long for the dense, spiraling trees of the forest ahead, and hope Turntimber holds the item, and the answers, that I seek.

Day 6:

We've survived a thrice-unfortunate encounter today. We first chased off a lynx who had attacked our stores of smoked meats, which caused the hurda to bolt, nearly crushing Keeda (who thankfully lived up to his speedy reputation) and necessitating a wasteful chase to recapture the pack animal. In the chase we stumbled upon the lair of the antlered cat, a felidar, a famous resident of the polar regions of Sejiri but here golden-furred to blend in with the savannah. Its den was a cavern formed by the leaning shapes of two immense hedrons, and as our hurda lurched hysterically into its shadows, we heard only a swift crack as the felidar defeated its prey. Ghazzan slew the great cat with grand strokes of his longaxe, aided by my own not inconsequential sword-work, but we had to shove on without our pack giant. We loaded the rations and supplies onto the two spare horses, too much open grassland lying between us and our origin at Kabira to consider returning to purchase another hurda.

The road has long since abandoned us now, but we march on almost due north, and should meet some of the marshlands that surround the famous Crypt soon, and then the northern coast. Sali Oran objected to our route, calling it a "fool's course," but I reminded her of my years of experience traveling the continent of Ondu, and of her contract.

Day 7:

We've kept to the shade of the great hedrons for the midday, and have conducted the majority of our travel when the sun lies low to the horizon. The steeds object to the increased weight, but seem eased by the cooler temperatures of the mornings and evenings, and have borne the hurda's load so far.

Keeda the goblin has a strange approach to riding, crouching in the saddle on his bare feet and grasping the mane of his pony, using his knees to cushion against its bouncing gait. Every hour I'm convinced I'll see him fall off the animal, twisting an ankle, or worse, injuring his trap-finding fingers; but so far, those futures have not come to pass, and he has stayed nimbly atop it.

Tomorrow we journey into the deep ravine that separates the hedron fields from the marshlands, that being the most direct route into Turntimber; so tonight I counseled our party to lace their boots tight, and to sharpen whatever they intend to stab things with. In the cool of this night, I'm aware of a distinct premonition of the importance of our journey, and of a changing of fortunes to come, for me in particular.

Day 13:

Ghazzan died today. For six days we've been beset by the hazards of the marsh: the slimy cliffs of the ravine; the treacherous footing through the swamp route, which we had to navigate on foot, leading the horses; the gloomhunter bats and giant insects and other plague-bearing winged creatures; and the salivating marsh-maw traps, which only went hungry due to our trapfinder's uncanny intuition. The great minotaur had fended our company bravely throughout our time in the marsh, singlehandedly slaying seven large predators that would have dined on our flesh, and countless others that would have proved an annoyance; but in the end our axeman perished.

The tale was this. Last night the Roil disturbed the land as we slept, moving us off course or moving our course off of us, without opportunity for our lullmage to soothe the Roil's forces; and we found ourselves dangerously within range of the Crypt of Agadeem. We woke to Ghazzan's disconcerting, bleating cries, and discovered him being dragged in the direction of the cave-maw of the too-near Crypt. The creature who seized him I took at first to be a large vampire, its eyes luminous and evil and its fangs bared, but its smooth, curving horns and unearthly musculature persuaded me otherwise. I now believe it was a being sprung up from the bowels of the world, who used the cavern as an exit as a spelunker might use it as an entrance. We endeavored to fight off the beastly figure, assailing it with spell and sword, but its strength was immense, and its countenance and ravening roars threatened not unconvincingly that it would devour us every one should we prolong our resistance. We fled then, and later counted ourselves fortunate to have lost only Ghazzan. His pay shall be split among the rest of the company, as is equitable, and is all the same to my finances.

Day 16:

We made satisfactory time on a hard march since the Crypt, putting the remainder of Agadeem behind us and making grateful acquaintance with the northern coast. We are now aboard the Serpentcutter, having bartered our furs and Ghazzan's longaxe to its captain, and a friendlier sun ricochets off of the thin strip of the Silundi Sea between us and the mainland of Ondu. Our lullmage swims alongside the skiff at times, her scales and fins and hair glinting green and magenta through the wind-tossed waters; I can already make out the thin line of the far shore, glistening in colors that match hers. Whether this day was clear by fickle chance or by the imposition of her calming influence I cannot tell. After the marsh, despair threatened to take hold of my mind, but today I am cheered; if we speed at this rate, then there shall be time before the solstice for me to reach my goal.

Day 18:

The sun mocks us once more, sending spears of light down through the canopy of Turntimber, dappling the ground in misleading patterns and confusing the meager trail. The snakes have kept away so far, which is a blessing, but the serpentine shapes of the trees surround us in an almost constrictive manner, and their creaking voices are dire. Sali Oran remarked, and so I have heard it said, that the trees of Turntimber follow unseen forces in their shapes and growth, which set one's mind to hidden things, and to personal peril.

The elves here are wild, and swift of foot and bow, but they and their wolves have kept merciful distance for now. We follow the way that was told to me, renewing our bearings with landmarks as best we can, not letting the ink dry on our maps. Truth to tell, there's only one instrument whose guidance I trust; it is not a sphinx's riddle, nor a bardic saga, but what lies ahead of us in the heart of Turntimber.

Day 25:

Let it be known that I am thankful to Keeda the goblin, once of the Lavastep warren, for his contributions to our expedition. His instincts were enough to save us from the pit of vipers, but not enough to prevent him from falling into it himself, nor to prevent the release of the basilisk that followed; without him, we too would be naught but forgotten casualties to Turntimber.

Sali Oran told me that the omens were poor, and that Keeda's demise, combined with the actions of our machetes through the understory, would only encourage the land's appetites for our own deaths; but at my urging, she agreed to press on. I must admit that I feel the opposite; my blood hurries through my veins as we near the goal, and I feel I can hear encouraging words in the creaking limbs, as if the forest has selected us to succeed. The days stretch lazy and long as the solstice approaches, and I feel that I shall finally discover the device I seek, and learn the secrets that have been hidden from me for so long.

Day 39?:

It has been a span of seemingly ceaseless days and unsatisfying nights as the solstice makes its inevitable march toward us. Sleep has become nearly impossible, and we have had to abandon all but two of our weary horses, as the way has provided us no way to keep them watered. We carry only a trace of the supplies we loaded back at Kabira, and only Sali Oran's grace and calmness of purpose has kept my spirits aloft and my limbs mobile. I have seen such death in one short journey that my mind would drown in a misery of remembered images. I know now that the answers cannot be worth the cost, even were I able to pay my debts from my own flesh.

Day 45:

It was on the day of the solstice, on a stone dais on a hilltop, overlooking the expanse of Turntimber like a lighthouse overlooking a sea of green waves, that we found the device. It was the Seer's Sundial, a massive stone hemispherium whose style and encircling metalwork projected shadows over a rune-inscribed bowl. The sundial was ancient, perhaps older than most of the forest around us, yet the creases in its huge basin were as crisp as sword-blades, the lichens unable to obscure its purpose. The sun cast sharp black shadows in the bowl, and Sali Oran and I gazed down into it as well. We watched the lines dance across the curves, studying the messages they carved and scribing diagrams of their likeness on parchment, hardly speaking.

The day has ended, and our journals and minds are full. It has become clear that, in some sense, the voyage was a success, in that the Sundial had given us answers; but the sun could not chase a chill from my mind, as we found answers to which we scarcely had questions. Careful work will have to be done to decipher what exactly we have seen in the Sundial's shadow; Sali Oran knows relic researchers at Sea Gate whom she believes can help in that regard, although the journey there will be many times as far and arduous. But I can see in her eyes what I feel in my heart: that we have grasped the significance of the Seer's Sundial well enough, and that it portends a future that holds the true measure of darkness, for us and for all people under the sun. In this expedition I sought to know how I would fare in my future days as a relic-seeker, self-interested as that now seems, and I learned that and far more; I learned more things, indeed, than I cared ever to know.

Of course the device itself has turned out to be much too massive to move, so I will have only this document, and what tales you can divine from the memories of my companion, to attest to our travels. We travel north from here, aiming to seek refuge at the trapper community of Graypelt, where can be found some acquaintances of mine. I feel I must unburden myself, not only of my substantial traveling gear, but also of the weight of the augury that I bear inside my mind, which may in time prove to be the heavier.

#magic the gathering #vorthos #zendikar #eldrazi #kabira #javad #nasrin

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