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frogtownhobbies · 5 years ago

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Let’s start with the top 10 and get to the honorable mentions and longshots after….

Top 10:

10. Tectonic Giant

(Frequency = Low, Impact = Low) Possible Homes: Temur Elementals

A hard-to-deal-with threat that an opponent must deal with has possible applications in Pioneer but 4 mana is lot for most of the decks that might want this. Temur Elementals is one possible home but I would definitely expect that if I do see this card it will be paired with green accelerants.

9. Woe Strider

(Frequency = Low, Impact = Medium) Possible Homes: Aristocrats (of some color combination)

Aristocrats is a deck that is perpetually on the fringe of playable in both Modern and Pioneer. There are already more than enough playable cards for the archetype in BR, BRW, BGW or even some more obscure color combinations so the thing that will make the deck better is finding cards that can double up on roles to increase the card quality. Woe Strider fills the two most important roles in an Aristocrats deck; extra bodies in the form of goats and a sac outlet as well as also providing some reach and card selection. I feel sure enough about Woe Strider making Aristocrats playable that I moved it from the “If…then…” section to my top 10. Depending on the best color combination for the deck, Slaughter-Priest of Mogis and Alirios, Enraptured may also see some play.

8. Ashiok, Nightmare Muse

(Frequency = Low, Impact = Medium) Possible Homes: UBx Control

Makes the list on the power of having a plus ability that makes blockers to protect it while threatening an ultimate in only two turns. If you play Ashiok while ahead you will probably win the game. It’s closest competition is probably The Scarab God, and in parity and while ahead this card is close to that power level. Its worse when you’re behind but has less deck-building restrictions so overall I like this card and I can’t wait to win some games with my opponents’ stuff.

7. Staggering Insight

(Frequency = Low, Impact = Medium) Possible Homes: UW aggressive flying decks like Spirits

I feel like people are sleeping on this card but as Curious Obsessions number 5-8 that also grant lifelink I think it’s pretty good. Mono-red doesn’t want to see this on a spirit if you also have Selfless Spirit in play and I know that control decks don’t want to get hit by it. The card on this list that’s probably most likely to miss (along with Tectonic Giant) but I think it will see some play.

6. Storm’s Wrath

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = Medium) Possible Decks = Jeskai Fires, RB Control

Great rates on red’s Wrath of God that also hits Planeswalkers means you will be seeing this card. It does come with some heavy deckbuilding constraints but the value is there for those who can fit it in to their strategy.

5. Phoenix of Ash

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = Medium) Possible Decks = Phoenix, Mono-red agro, Dredge

A recursive hasty threat is just what many mono-red decks want as the top-end of their threats and it also plays nicely with a lot of the cards in UR Phoenix, although it fights with Treasure Cruise. Making sure you can interact with graveyards is starting to seem like a priority in Pioneer just like it is in older formats.

4. Kunoros, Hound of Athreos

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = Medium) Possible homes: BW midrange, Abzan Midrange, 5c Niv to Light

This set’s best “pile of abilities creature”, Kunoros packs a lot of punch into a 3/3 for 3. Having a bunch of abilities on a creature doesn’t always lead to a successful Magic card (see: Savage Knuckleblade), but Having abilities that are particularly good against two disparate kinds of decks makes Kunoros intriguing. If 3 toughness in Pioneer is truly akin to 4 toughness in Modern (outside the range of the most common removal) then I think Kunoros will be giving aggro decks and graveyard decks fits for the foreseeable future.

3. Polukranos, Unchained

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = Medium) Possible Homes: Hardened Scales, Escape Strategies (Sultai?), BG Midrange Strategies

Polukranos provides a lot of undead beef for its mana cost, both at cmc=4 and cmc=6. I expect to see the big Zombie Hydra augmenting an already good Hadened Scales plan of attack as well as enabling a few other midrange strategies to finish off their game plans. Bonus points if you can utilize the counter aspect or give Polukranos trample and/or Haste but even by itself this is a fine creature.

2. Heliod, Sun-Crowned

(Frequency = Medium, Impact = High) Possible Homes = Mono-White Devotion, Soul Sisters, Collected Company Decks, Hardened Scales Decks, Any deck that already plays Walking Ballista

The boogie man cometh. Heliod is a card so scary that lots of people are already talking about a Walking Ballista ban in Pioneer’s future. While the combo is obviously scary and something you have on your radar any time you’re playing Pioneer I don’t think it’s quite to that level. Outside of winning the game on the spot, Heliod slots in nicely next to Benalish Marshall in a White Devotion/Beatdown strategy, perhaps utilizing other Theros cards; Favored of Iroas and Taranika, Akroan Veteran (which are both soldiers as well). The other white devotion deck possibility is probably more of a “pillow fort” kind of deck utilizing white’s many enchantments that make it hard for your opponent to win. That deck has the added benefit of wanting to play Walking Ballista alongside Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx already and also likes the lifegain Heliod can provide.

1. Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath

(Frequency = High, Impact = High) Possible Homes = UG Ramp Strategies (including Devotion), 5c Niv to Light, Escape Strategies, Maybe Soulflayer

My pick for the card that will have the biggest impact in Pioneer, Uro packs a lot of value into one card. UG ramp strategies with and without devotion will love this card and it slots perfectly into Niv to Light as a ramp spell which also gains you some life early and gives you more reach late. Uro will probably also spawn some new strategies all by itself like UGx control or some sort of escape deck that includes some self-mill. Expect to see a lot of this card going forward and expect to die to it eventually if you can’t deal with it permanently.

Honourable Mentions

Playable Removal Spells:

Eat to Extinction and Drag to the Underworld will both compete with the format’s best removal and will see some play but I don’t think they are appreciably better than Fatal Push, Abrupt Decay, Vraska’s Contempt, Murderous Rider or even Murderous Cut. Keep in mind that Drag to the Underworld’s upside is a one mana break on Murder, have you ever thought about playing Murder in Pioneer?

Cards to Help you Out Against Mono-Red:

Erebos’s Intervention, Shadowspear and Setessan Petitioner provide more ammunition for decks that have trouble with mon-red or other aggressive decks. The Petitioner is definitely a sideboard card whose cmc probably makes it an upgrade over Nylea’s Disciple. The other two may be maindeck cards in the right deck (perhaps UR Ensoul for Shadowspear) but probably also head to the sideboard.

“If _________________ is a good deck then this card will probably see play in it.”

Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea is a good body for blue Devotion strategies along with Thassa, whose blink effect is proving to be better in testing then I expected. Green devotion decks may want Omen of the Hunt and some will probably try Nyxbloom Ancient but that card definitely screams “win more!” to me.

Longshot Squad

Could any of these have a chance? Probably not, but crazier things have happened.

Gaalia of the Endless Dance

Firedrinker Satyr, Satyr Hedonist, Boon Satyr and the new Careless Celebrant….You’re right, those are not the cards a good Pioneer deck are built around but it’s too bad, this card is efficient and a cool effect to have in an aggressive tribal deck. Maybe when we go to Theros next time we’ll be able to complete this deck. Gaalia might just be good enough to get there on its own in a Gruul agro deck but usually if you’re attacking with three or more creatures in that kind of deck you’re already winning anyway.

Dalakos, Crafter of Wonders & Nyx Lotus

There isn’t a precedent for a three cmc mana-producing creature to be good in the format but I can’t help but wonder if this card can do something with Paradox Engine. Nyx Lotus could go in that deck as well. Maybe mostly blue with a red splash and including Emry, Dalakos, Saheeli, Mox Amber (Which Dalakos helps out), Nyx Lotus, Paradox Engine….

Storm Herald & Mantle of the Wolf

Could Storm Herald spawn an aggressive combo deck? Prodigious Growth and Spectra Ward are probably the two best creature auras to use with Storm Herald and you probably need something like Battle Mastery and/or one of the lifelink enchantments. We have a lot of red rummaging effects like Cathartic Reunion, Tormenting Voice and the new Thrill of Possibility as well as perhaps Thirst for Meaning out of blue to set things up. It’d be nice to be able to bring back Control Magic effects and enchant your opponent’s creatures but, c’est la vie, there may be something here.

Nadir Kraken

Look man, I don’t know why I like this card, but there’s just something about it. Maybe because Squirrel Opposition is my all-time favorite deck and this card makes me nostalgic for constant token generation. I’m at least 95% sure this won’t be a playable card in Pioneer but I’m also 95% sure I will own too many foils of it for the chance that it becomes playable.

Underworld Breach, Aphemia, Calix & Kroxa

What do we do with these cards? I don’t know, but someone is going to try. Underworld Breach obviously has the most potential but may need the larger card pool eternal formats to really shine. If you squint really hard Aphemia has Bitterblossom potential. Calix is a really interesting build around for enchantment-heavy strategies. Kroxa might want someone to introduce them to Davriel to really make opponents miserable.

- Stephen K Timmons

#articles #staff #mtg pioneer #pioneer #mtg

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yarana-stonescale · 5 years ago

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So Theros: Beyond Death prerelease was today. Casual event, so guaranteed 2 packs. This was the deck I built. The other rares from the packs were Protean Thaumaturge, Nadir Kraken, and Labyrinth of Skophos.

Results:

Round 1: Abzan Enchantments

Lost 2-0. Both games can be summed up with this: Losing your best stuff to Banishing Light and not drawing any removal sucks. Losing your board to your opponents removal sucks more.

Round 2: Golgari Escape

Lost 2-0. Again, lack of hate. I did try some stuff to get rid of the ultimate killer (Pharika's Spawn) by casting Mogis' Favour... Only to have buffed it because I didn't have enough mana to finish it and he buffed it with Mantle of the Wolf. Combine that with trample via Nylea's Forerunner... Yeah.

Round 3: Izzet Flash

Won 2-0. One word: Klothys. Klothys was pretty much the clutch card. She eventually got countered after being bounced, but a pumped up Phoenix of Ash, something I don't remember, and Ilysian Caryatid proved too much. Second game was much more straightforward. Phoenix things happened, Akroan War things happened, an Ox got rekt, and he died mad.

Round 4: Dimir Self-mill

Won 2-0. This was... Interesting. Interesting enough that I'll actually give a somewhat better explanation of what happened. Game one was slow and plodding. He started aggressively self-milling... After I played Elspeth's Nightmare. He lost all of it, suffice it to say. Eventually, after several do nothing rounds and Erebos being made a creature, he decked himself. Game 2 was much quicker. Klothys was doing the heavy lifting, along with the Phoenix. The turn before he died, he doubled up on Mire's Grasp on Klothys, then exiled her with Cling to Dust. RIP... After that, Phoenix with a Mogis' Favour and Warbriar Blessing came in after being buffed to 8 power, taking him down.

Overall, not bad. Not bad at all. Prize rares were Shadowspear and The First Iroan Games, so that was... Something.

#theros beyond death #prerelease

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crockedfrog · 2 years ago

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A wonderful tentacle piece for nadir kraken by reepicheep-chan.

#tentacles #ocean #kraken #mtg tokens #magic the gathering #reepicheep-chan

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goodqueenaly · 7 years ago

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One of the saddest little moments to me of ADWD is the short conversation between Asha and Alysane Mormont in “The King’s Prize”. Asha is at a pretty low point in that chapter, personally and politically. Her ankle broken during the skirmish outside Deepwood Motte, all but a few of her men slain, herself taken captive and paraded in chains in the midst of Stannis’ host, Asha knows that she’s been defeated. She is trapped among people who either want her for her claim to Pyke or despise her as the kraken’s daughter, the living symbol of ironborn invasion into the North, yet she is powerless to both; her army is gone, and her defeats have too clearly marked her a failure in ironborn eyes.

In this nadir of her career and life, Asha's thoughts turn to Theon, and the haunting message sent by Ramsay Snow revealing her brother’s torture. With her father dead, her elder brothers long gone, her mother sunken into a deep depression, and her uncles either disappeared, ruling in her wake, or loyal to the new ironborn regime, Theon is the last of her Greyjoy family left to her. She had failed to convince him to abandon Winterfell before it was burned, and the belief that he had been slain in its sack had weighed upon her through AFFC. Now she knows he is alive - but "[b]etter dead than this" she thinks to herself after reading Ramsay's bloody missive. Her brother is even more hated than she is, she knows, and the possibility of her ever seeing him alive again is slim.

It is, then, in thinking about Theon that Asha attempts to connect with her warden, the She-Bear Alysane Mormont:

“Do you have brothers?” Asha asked her keeper.

Alysane Mormont hardly makes a likely audience for Asha's question: the She-Bear had only just sneered that no ironman could be trusted “after what your brother did at Winterfell”. Still, with only Alysane as a more or less constant companion, Asha's choices for a conversation partner are slim. "[A]lone among five thousand foes", even more alone thinking about her lost band and little brother, Asha is reaching out for some human companionship, even if it is with the gruff and ferocious She-Bear.

Of course, Alysane corrects her immediately:

“Sisters,” Alysane Mormont replied, gruff as ever. “Five, we were. All girls. Lyanna is back on Bear Island. Lyra and Jory are with our mother. Dacey was murdered.”

Alysane's insistence on underlining that all five children of Lady Maege were girls almost seems targeted toward spiting Asha's question; how foolish of you to think there must be a brother somewhere, the words might suggest, we are tough enough as she-bears, daughters of a ruling lady. But Asha picks up on Alysane's last note, and it's in her response that the conversation changes dramatically.

“The Red Wedding.”

“Aye.” Alysane stared at Asha for a moment. “I have a son. He's only two. My daughter's nine.”

In a single phrase, Asha has begun to pry open the firmly shut gates around Alysane Mormont. She's hit upon exactly the right answer, not only factually but emotionally. While Alysane was laser-focused on the ironborn's falsity and treachery, and saw Asha only as a representation of her culture, Asha has reminded her that there are other enemies for House Mormont beyond the men of the Iron Islands. The Red Wedding was not just a horrific event, but a tragedy at which northmen killed other northmen; the Boltons and their followers had slain Flints and Ryswells, Norreys and Lockes, their own neighbors and countrymen.

This is the moment Alysane starts to see Asha as a person, rather than merely an other standing on behalf of an evil idea. If not all northmen could be allies - and the Red Wedding had been the awful proof of that - then perhaps not all ironborn were enemies either. Asha did not gloat in the death of a Mormont, her family's ancient foes; indeed, in knowing and naming the massacre at which so many good northmen were slain, Asha had almost (if unknowingly) echoed that “the North remembers” spirit voiced by Wyman Manderly and Barbrey Dustin. It's not a friendship - there's still too much distrust, too many long years of bloodshed on both sides for anything like that - but a beginning of something other than hate and mutual wariness.

So Alysane, unprompted, offers more of herself to the captive Asha. She's not simply a Mormont in a strong-blooded clan of fierce Mormont women, but a mother to little children. She is the terrifying She-Bear in battle, clad always in mail to be ready for an attack, but here she hints at a gentler side to her - a toddler son and young daughter waiting for her at the Mormont keep, still wrapped in the innocence of childhood. Alysane might not have a brother, but she does have a family of her own besides her three living sisters, and admitting to this allows her to creep toward a bridge of sympathy with Asha. They are both here on behalf of their families, not simply dynastically but personally; they are responsible (or at least, for Asha, feel responsible) for their young kin, and will fight to keep them safe.

Feeling the start of this bridge, Asha presses forward on the topic of family:

"You started young."

"Too young. But better that than wait too late."

A stab at me, Asha thought, but let it be.

Again, it's not a friendship between them - Asha is still a Greyjoy, and Alysane still deeply cautious toward any kraken. Nor does Asha fail to recognize the insult Alysane meant toward her: even among two women whose dynasties care far more about battle prowess than southron ladylike behavior, Alysane is suggesting a woman's role still inherently involves bearing the next generation - and that a woman like Asha, solidly in her mid-20s but still childless, is quickly losing her chance to do so. But, critically, Asha doesn't press the point. She will let Aly Mormont have these barbs, because she's noted something far more valuable about her keeper-companion. Alysane is willing not simply to reveal more about her family, but to criticize her past decisions, namely the decision to have children at such a young age (and indeed, Alysane was probably only in her early teens when her daughter was born, since she is "almost of an age" with the roughly 25-year-old Asha). This is a level of inward revelation Asha might have never guessed she would get from the gruff She-Bear at the beginning of their conversation, nevermind the start of her captivity. For once, Alysane is not showing Asha the tough, boiled leather exterior of her personality, or at least not totally; she, a Mormont of Bear Island, is admitting some degree of mistake in her life to a kraken of Pyke. It's an amazing moment, one in which the ancient hatreds start to drop away in favor of more personal understandings of one another: Alysane treats Asha not as a Greyjoy to her Mormont, but as a woman to her woman, uniquely capable in that army of men to understand the benefits and sacrifices of starting a family so young.

Moreover, as Asha digs farther into Alysane's family life, the understanding becomes even more extraordinary:

... "You are wed."

"No. My children were fathered by a bear." Alysane smiled. Her teeth were crooked, but there was something ingratiating about that smile. "Mormont women are skinchangers. We turn into bears and find mates in the woods. Everyone knows."

Alysane is teasing, of course; it seems extremely implausible, even if the Mormont women have skinchanging powers, that human children could be conceived through a supernatural mental process which leaves the human's own body prostrate and cannot nourish it. Yet the very fact that she is joking, and with Asha of all people, is no short of wondrous. It is a fantastical idea - but Alysane's "ingratiating" smile and mock-superior note that "everyone knows" this to be a fact are clear indicators that Alysane wants Asha to laugh along with her, not at her. Now, whenever Asha hears someone (like Janos Slynt, who had assumed Maege Mormont "[b]eds down with bears") mutter about the Mormont women taking bears for lovers, she can smile too. Aly Mormont has let her in on the joke.

For this one singular moment, Mormont and Greyjoy can exist together in peace and even joviality. The centuries of blood between them are put aside, and they are two women sharing a secret jest. Their similarities - inhospitable home islands, martial training and experience, family losses, unexpected thrusting into the position of heiress, the struggle of being both a woman and a warrior - matter far more than their differences here. This is the dream of peace that formed the thesis of Asha's kingsmoot pitch - northmen and ironborn as allies, not opponents, side by side against common enemies. If the heir to House Mormont and the sometime heiress of House Greyjoy could start to approach something like friendship, then perhaps it would not be so crazy to think that this peace could work.

But then it all goes wrong. Just as Asha was the one who started the opening up, so Asha unwittingly shuts it down:

Asha smiled back. "Mormont women are all fighters too."

The other woman's smile faded. "What we are is what you made us. On Bear Island every child learns to fear krakens rising from the sea."

Just like that, the beautiful dream of healing is shattered, its thousand shards cutting Asha to ribbons. In her excitement over this burgeoning bond between her and Alysane, Asha has inadvertently run directly into a conversational land mine - the grievous, belligerent history between the denizens of Bear Island and those of the Iron Islands. They are both fighters, she and Aly, but as the latter so bluntly points out, the Bear Islanders did not have the luxury of choice in that regard. Asha's people were the imperialist expansionists, men like Ravos the Raper who made Bear Island a launching point of reaving; Alysane's were the guardians charged by the old Kings of Winter to defend Bear Island against all comers. Our fighting is not for conquest, Alysane is not so gently reminding Asha, but simply for survival; when we fight, it is so that we and our children are not hauled away in virtual slavery by one enemy or another. It's a lifestyle in stark contrast to Asha's, who had received her father's instruction to take Deepwood Motte by "sweetly" noting that she "always wanted a castle".

This is the painful lesson Asha has to learn throughout ADWD. Her kingsmoot speech might have sounded reasonable on face, with its advocating for peace and friendship, but it was a speech built on a false premise. Put simply, the northmen do not want or trust the ironborn as friends. There can be no peace and friendship when their foundation is sacked northern castles, burned northern lands, and the slain bodies of northmen (including two Stark princes). Alysane's words to Asha are a verbal slap, snapping her into cold reality: we've seen what you've done, Alysane is telling her in no uncertain terms, and we want none of your fine promises. Asha closed her eyes to the truth of the northmen-ironborn relationship at the kingsmoot, so eager was she for the crown, but here she has to face it for herself; she came so close to a personal connection with Alysane, and nearly succeeded, but Alysane could not ignore "what you made us", as Asha once could.

#asoiaf meta #alysane mormont #asha greyjoy #adwd

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snowyfoxxo-draws · 3 years ago

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A Really fun match I just had on MTG: Arena’s 100-Card Historic Brawl event, opponent piloting mono-green Gargos, Vicious Watcher on aggro agaisnt my mono-blue Talrand, Sky Summoner control deck. Perfectly timed River’s Rebuke draw won the match in the end, but well played opponent, really fun, tense match!

Match breakdown under the cut!

Opponent played the game really well, they had me on defense the entire match the way aggro should be checking control down. The only reason I did so well in the early game was because of the Nadir Kraken in my opening hand, the 1/1 tentacle tokens were really valuable chump blockers for their big, non-trampling creatures, which their tramplers is where most of my interaction was spent so they couldn’t stomp over my blockers.

Two of my opponent’s cards gave my deck a real hard time, Wandering Archaic and Arasta of the Endless Web, both were really powerful cards against my deck’s spells strategy. I had the Mass Manipulation stuck in my hand for a good portion of the match just because it was hard to get enough mana for a good enough cast of it without letting them be able to copy it with Archaic and most likely steal my commander or Kraken, or even both, which would’ve hurt me hard. Arasta made it hard for my drakes from Talrand to get in, since her spider tokens are great reach blockers, they could’ve kept me 1-to-1 on blockers for my fliers, so the board was just grinded to a halt until one of us could draw an impactful enough play.

Opponent had a pretty strong start with Woodland Mystic into Llanowar Visionary, giving them a ton of mana and casting their commander turn 4, which put a really hard clock on me quick. Luckily I had the Kraken out turn 3 and had already made a token turn 4 - Match started with me on the play, opponent on the draw. Although they didn’t really do much in terms of value for the deck, Nezahal, Primal Tide deserves a mention for being a clutch blocker, opponent had cast a Wildwood Scourge as a 7/7 and I had to use Nezahal to trade, but it was worth it to get a massive threat off the board soon. I actually got really lucky in this match by drawing a lot of the creatures from my deck, so they couldn’t get as much value from their Archaic or Arasta, their deck was actually really well stacked against my strategy.

Ultimately the game came down to who could make the most impactful play first, one of us needed to draw a finisher as to close out the game. I’m assuming my opponent had some kind of card like Craterhoof Behemoth or even just Overcome, some kind of effect to pump the team and give them trample until end of turn. If they had one or two more turns to play, they very likely could’ve won, depending on if they could find the finisher.

My deck was hoping for one of my two “sweeper” effects; Either Sleep, or River’s Rebuke, the card I ended up with. Both would’ve effectively had the same result, letting me swing in with all my creatures without fear of blocks, then get to do it again next turn for lethal. Another card that didn’t get to live up to its full value but still turned out to be invaluable in the end was The Magic Mirror, I only got three extra cards from it by the end of the match, but River’s Rebuke was the card I drew after the second trigger of it, so it dug me deep enough to find the finisher I was waiting for, if I hadn’t cast it earlier my opponent might’ve had the time they needed to find their finisher instead, so it deserves a lot of credit for helping me win the match in the end.

In the end, it was a really fun game, a great match up for the rivalry of the aggro and control archetypes. Both my opponent and I had to make some tough calls throughout the match, and I can fairly confidently say nobody made any mistakes in their sequencing, maybe the opponent could’ve played more aggressively, but I was also keeping up mana a lot of the game so understandably they were probably worried about some kind of interaction I had for combat. Both of us were playing our decks to their strongest, just the raw value engine of blue’s card draw and efficient spells won out in the end. Opponent played great and kept me against the corner for a good chunk of the match, played aggro very oppressively and safely in order to stop me from getting too far ahead with my creatures, was glad I got to play them.

My decklist - Probably not the strongest Talrand deck out there, but with what I have available on Arena it’s definitely a pretty powerful deck. Talrand was one of the first legendary creatures I ever saw in Magic and quickly became a large reason of why I love control or spell-slinger strategies so much, so it was less a deck I made to win and more of just a deck I made for the personal satisfaction, aggro decks are pretty popular in 100C Historic Brawl, and this deck struggles pretty hard against early aggro decks. Still was a really fun deck and I was glad to get a fair win out of it against aggro.

#snowyfoxxo-draws #mtg #mtg arena #mtg historic brawl

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joshuajacksonlyblog · 4 years ago

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Record Low Annualized Volatility Points Bitcoin Towards $23K Target

A fractal that, on its last appearance, sent the Bitcoin price up by 140 percent flashed again this quarter.

According to a report by Kraken – a US-based crypto exchange, the cryptocurrency’s realized volatility in late July fell to 22.8 percent. The last time the readings were that low was in October 2018. Two months after that, Bitcoin bottomed near $3,120, which followed a 329.63 percent rally in the later quarterly sessions.

Bitcoin at $23K

In retrospect, Realized Volatility reflects an asset’s magnitude of daily price movements over a specific period. It does not necessarily predict the future market trends but weighs heavily on how traders react around higher or lower price fluctuations. So far, Bitcoin traders had inclined towards buying the cryptocurrency when its realized volatility goes down.

It points towards an imminent price rally ahead. Noted market analyst Lark Davis stressed the same in his latest tweet.

“Bitcoin’s annualized volatility bottomed at 22.8% in late July, historically such a bottom has led to an average 140% price rally, which would make BTC around $23,000 by the end of the year.”

Bitcoin chart from TradingView.com showing BTC/USD up more than 60 percent YTD

The statements come after a rally in Bitcoin, now up more than 60 percent against the US dollar on a year-to-date timeframe. Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency is trading almost 200 percent higher from its nadir in March 2020, showing a credible long-term uptrend bias in the coming sessions.

Fundamentals Agree

Observers note that a collapse in the US Treasury yields, coupled with an underperforming US dollar, increased the appeal for safe-haven assets in the last six months. As a result, gold and Bitcoin both rallied in tandem even though they don’t promise a guaranteed yield.

Max Boonen, the co-founder of crypto trading company B2C2, told FT that the floor in Bitcoin yield is zero. Nevertheless, traditional markets are now returning negative returns altogether that pushes people towards better alternatives like gold, Bitcoin, and equities.

US bond markets expect to underperform further into the yearly session. It is because of the Federal Reserve’s commitment to maintaining near-zero interest rates against a gloomy US economic outlook caused by the COVID pandemic.

Ronnie Moas, the founder of Standpoint Research, stressed the Bitcoin’s possibility of cracking over $20,000 as long as the Fed keeps the fear of inflation higher. The macro analyst mentioned MicroStrategy, a public company, that bought $250 million worth of BTC to protect their reserves from inflationary bias, adding:

“We are nowhere near the top. Better late than never. It is a watershed moment–a publicly-traded company buying $250,000,000 BTC. Now others will be forced to follow. 2020-2021 target $28,000. 2023-2024 > $50,000.”

Bitcoin was trading near $11,750 at the time of this writing. It was attempting to close above $12,000 to establish a short-term bullish bias.

Photo by SpaceX on Unsplash

from Cryptocracken Tumblr https://ift.tt/2DQuen6 via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Cryptocracken Tumblr

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nehebthewordy · 5 years ago

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Theros Beyond Death: Jhoira Upgrades

So now that THB has been out for a while, let’s take a look at new cards that can contribute well to an Izzet artifact deck such as the Jhoira list from several months ago. Despite this set’s heavy enchantment themes, we should be able to find a handful of cards that interact well with the list we’re looking at. Tonight we’ll focus on the five best cards for Jhoira from Theros Beyond Death, though in no particular order.

#1: Soul-Guide Lantern This little one-drop artifact may well be one of my favorites to include in any EDH list. On entry it exiles only one card from any graveyard, but it can later be cracked to either draw a card or exile each opponents’ graveyard. Best of all, it goes to your own bin so that you can pull it back later.

#2: Medomai’s Prophecy While not nearly as flexible as our first card, Medomai’s Prophecy goes extremely well with Jhoira. As a saga, it triggers her draw ability, and on subsequent turns can set up for even greater card draw.

#3: Dalakos, Crafter of Wonders Though probably the least synergistic with Jhoira of all our cards, Dalakos does have the advantage of being a solid mana dork. At his worst, he’ll be helping to pay for one of your more powerful spells.

#4: Nadir Kraken There’s not much to say beyond this kraken is one of Joira’s best cards. For a small one-mana investment each of your draws can become an additional creature on the board.

#5: Thassa, Deep-Dwelling While ordinarily I would hesitate to put such an expensive and obvious card on a list like this, Thassa has two factors that let her into our deck. First, THB has very few cards that are good in Jhoira but not basically any other blue deck. Second, her end step trigger plays well with many of our artifacts. Anything from Meteor Golem to Solemn Simulacrum can be flickered to reuse their ETB effect, and Thassa herself being legendary means she triggers Jhoira as well.

And unfortunately that’s it. With so few relevant artifacts in this set, Jhoira can’t be upgraded but so much. The same can’t be said for next week’s commander, however, so be sure to check in for that. Until then, see you on the (for now virtual) battlefield.

#Deck Tech #new set upgrades #Jhoira #commander #theros beyond death #nehebthewordy

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foxysproxyscards · 5 years ago

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New Tentacle Tokens up on our Etsy shop! Looking to play some Nadir Kraken shenanigans in Standard? Well you won’t find tokens this good by Kraken packs, so head over to our shop with the link in our bio! #magicthegathering #mtg #mtgtokens #mtgaltered #mtgalteredart #mtgcustom #mtgcmdr #mtglife #mtgstandard #mtgarena #foxysproxys https://www.instagram.com/p/B9Cq2JMnM_H/?igshid=15maw5t7xhf3y

#magicthegathering #mtg #mtgtokens #mtgaltered #mtgalteredart #mtgcustom #mtgcmdr #mtglife #mtgstandard #mtgarena #foxysproxys

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kingofincoherencymtg · 5 years ago

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Theros Limited

//Main 1 Aspect of Lamprey 1 Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths 1 Deny the Divine 2 Drag to the Underworld 1 Ichthyomorphosis 2 Inevitable End 1 Mire's Grasp 1 Mogis's Favor 1 Nadir Kraken 1 Nightmare Shepherd 1 Pharika's Libation 1 Riptide Turtle 1 Sea God's Scorn 1 Towering-Wave Mystic 2 Underworld Charger 2 Venomous Hierophant 2 Vexing Gull 1 Witness of Tomorrows

//Main 1 Arasta of the Endless Web 1 Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea 1 Destiny Spinner 2 Eutropia the Twice-Favored 1 Hydra's Growth 1 Ichthyomorphosis 1 Nylea's Forerunner 1 Nylea's Huntmaster 1 Nyx Herald 1 Nyxborn Colossus 1 Nyxborn Seaguard 1 Omen of the Hunt 1 Omen of the Sea 1 One with the Stars 1 Protean Thaumaturge 1 Return to Nature 1 Setessan Training 1 Sleep of the Dead 1 Stern Dismissal 2 Stinging Lionfish 1 Traveler's Amulet

//Main 1 Brine Giant 2 Devourer of Memory 1 Drag to the Underworld 1 Eidolon of Philosophy 1 Hateful Eidolon 1 Inevitable End 2 Mogis's Favor 1 Nyxborn Seaguard 2 Omen of the Dead 2 Omen of the Sea 1 Soulreaper of Mogis 1 Starlit Mantle 1 Temple Thief 1 Underworld Dreams 1 Venomous Hierophant 1 Vexing Gull 1 Wavebreak Hippocamp 2 Witness of Tomorrows

//Main 1 Altar of the Pantheon 1 Archon of Sun's Grace 1 Banishing Light 1 Eutropia the Twice-Favored 1 Heliod's Punishment 2 Ichthyomorphosis 1 Lagonna-Band Storyteller 1 Nadir Kraken 1 Nessian Wanderer 1 Omen of the Hunt 2 Omen of the Sea 3 Omen of the Sun 1 Renata, Called to the Hunt 2 Return to Nature 1 Sentinel's Eyes 1 Setessan Training 1 Shimmerwing Chimera 1 Transcendent Envoy 1 Triumphant Surge

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the-revisionist · 7 years ago

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a good fixed star

LTiH, Caroline/Gillian.

Prompts: “things you said under the stars and in the grass” and “things you said while we were driving.”

Notes: Chapter title quotes are from letters of Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West, except for the last chapter, which is from Vita to Virginia. And the longer italicized quotes in text are from Virginia’s letters to Vita. Apologies for any errors of transcription or misattribution; a scholar I am not.

For my dear @farminglesbian, who suggested the prompts.

i. “The whole thing is very splendid and voluptuous and absurd.”

Gillian first saw Clash of the Titans with a group of friends at a movie theater in Manchester during the summer of 1981. She was 16 and stoned and—to the delight of her parents—finally growing out the purple streaks in her hair. The previous year—not to the delight of her parents—she’d had an abortion. She was, she thought, done with boys. For a while, anyway. So in spite of the heat she wore a motorcycle leather jacket over her Gang of Four t-shirt and hoped her profuse sweating would repel the idiot sitting next to her, a friend of a friend named Derek who wore a pink Lacoste shirt and whom she barely knew, and who kept trying to convince her to give him a hand job. While she did not appreciate this constant distraction from the smoldering beauty of Harry Hamlin and the troubling voluptuousness of Ursula Andress, eventually she gave in toward the end of the film because he was everyone’s ride home, including hers, and she knew otherwise there was no way she’d get back otherwise. At least he bought her fish and chips afterwards.

Since then she’s seen this guilty pleasure of a movie so many times that it’s become a family joke; this morning Raff had texted Clash of T on telly 2day but u probs already know. So some 35 years later here she is, watching the same bloody film, ignoring that unsettling summery feeling somewhere between restlessness and lassitude, and thinking that her life is on repeat with only the most pathetic of variations—this time she’s alone, divorced, sprawled on the couch with her head hanging off the cushion so that she’s watching Lawrence Olivier upside down, and wearing nothing but a t-shirt and underwear because it’s hot as hell outside and she hasn’t the faintest intention of really working today. The sheep are fed, watered, and sheltered; that’s all she cares about. A bottle of lager sweats on the table in front of her and creates a puddle that dams against the mobile, which rings at the crucial moment when Olivier famously intones, “Release the kraken.”

Cursing and flailing, she reaches for the mobile and falls off the couch in the process. Eyes on the kraken, she swipes the damp edge of the phone against her t-shirt and answers with a grunted “Yeah,” assuming it’s Raff and he needs a babysitter because no one else really calls her unless some sort of favor is required.

This is true even of Caroline, who messages her regularly and usually about Flora or work or some random bad date she’s had—I loathe women a recurring motif as of late and leave it to Caroline to casually drop the word loathe in a text—so Gillian bobbles the mobile when she actually hears Caroline purring, “Make yourself pretty for me.”

She laughs. In addition to the texting they actually see each other more now than in the past couple years and if Gillian actually trusted anyone other than Caroline for confession, she would swear that to her complete and utter consternation, the woman in question actually flirts with her now. She has a hundred reasons why this cannot be true, but two primary counterarguments suffice: (1) it’s delusional wishful thinking on her part and (2) Caroline doesn’t really mean it and is simply practicing flirting techniques on her—and not doing such a grand job if all her dates are shit, apparently. The situation, such as it is, percolates within her, giving rise to a fluttery feeling at best and, with cheap lager in the mix, outright nauseous terror at worst. Men are easy, women are complicated; this is normally her blanket excuse for why she had never seriously attempted a romantic relationship with a woman. In Gillian’s mind there is a Venn diagram comprised of two circles: one labeled flirting and the other women, and the convex sliver where they deliriously conjoin is marked oh fuck and this maddeningly curvy demimonde is where one Caroline McKenzie Hyphen Fucking Dawson currently resides in her jumbled brain.

Gillian watches the kraken thrash around onscreen while Lawrence Olivier quietly contemplates a professional nadir. “What’re you on about? Don’t you have a thing today? Work conference?”

“Canceled!”

“Oh. Why?”

“Outbreak of food poisoning!” Caroline says with unabashed glee.

“Hurrah for salmonella.”

“Actually it was staphylococcus. Had dinner with them all last night and everyone put mayonnaise on their chips, I noticed, except for me.”

“You’re like the Sherlock Holmes of bacteria.”

“So I’m a free woman this afternoon. Let’s do something.”

“Do what? Too bloody hot to do anything.”

“Which means you’re just sitting around in your underwear drinking beer and watching some shit movie.”

“Do you have a spycam in my house?” Gillian takes a moment to glare suspiciously at her mobile. “Or are we Skyping by accident?”

“I cannot tell you how impressed I am that you know what Skype is.”

“Twat.”

“Come on. We’ll go for a drive somewhere. Didn’t you say you wanted to go to that weird bookstore—the one in the old church?”

“Caz, that’s like on the other side of Leeds. One of those little villages where they’ve probably filmed a hundred episodes of Miss Marple.”

“So? We’ll make a day of it. Put on pants, I’m five minutes away.” She rings off.

Gillian stares at the phone. Indeed, the kraken has been released. “Oh fuck.”

She runs upstairs. Her jeans are all in various stages of smelly, filthy, and unwearable, so she throws on a dress—subtly flowered and linen, the only dress she owns that has earned some kind of positive response from Caroline. Distinctly she remembers the time she wore it last summer: family dinner al fresco at the farm, Caroline’s smiling appraisal with head tilt and cool murmur of approval—you look nice—and the resultant blush fire blazing across her face. She could not remember the last time anyone made her cheeks burn like that. She pulls on battered Chuck Taylors, looks in the bedroom mirror and sees all these overlapping iterations of identity, an entire life visible in one weary reflection: punk wannabe, mother and grandmother, survivor, slag, widowed farmer, and, currently, middle-aged idiot smitten with her stepsister. She groans “oh fuck” one more time and goes downstairs, finds a cooler and dumps some ice in it along with the only bottle of white in the fridge, and then strides outside just as the Jeep Cherokee pulls up to the house.

Caroline rolls down the window. She wears aviator sunglasses that bring Mad Men’s Don Draper to Gillian’s mind and, no surprise, carries them off just as well as he did. While she may not be as successful with women as Don Draper, she is certainly garnering a lot of attention from the scant lesbian population in the area because lately she’s going out on dates with seemingly random and vaguely energetic young females every other week or so. Gillian knows this because she is always the one assisting with the dismal postmortem every time, nodding sympathetically as Caroline ticked off romantic defects: She thinks “The Archers” are a boy band. She used the wrong fork for the entrée. She asked if I was interested in rock-climbing. She admitted she drinks wine out of cans. She said I reminded her of her aunt.

To Gillian’s unbridled delight she once again gets the head tilt and the compliment: “You look nice,” Caroline says. She nods at the cooler. “What have we got here?”

“We’re having a fucking picnic,” Gillian says. She puts the cooler in the back seat and climbs into the Jeep.

“Fantastic. What did you pack?”

“Pinot grigio.”

“And?”

“Ice.”

Caroline puts the Jeep into drive. “Hell of a picnic.”

Before they even turn around, however, an argument ensues about the air conditioning: Caroline wants it on, Gillian wants it off.

“What’s the point of having a summer drive if the windows aren’t open, if we aren’t feeling the breeze?” Gillian says.

Caroline looks at her uncomprehendingly. “My hair will get messed up.”

“Oh, the vanity.”

“I’m not vain, I just don’t want to look like an escapee from the mental ward.”

“No one’s going to see you, just me, and maybe a bunch of nerds at a bookstore. And you always look b-b—um, really good anyway.” Gillian folds her arms and glares straight ahead. “And it’s f-freezing in here,” she adds, even as another blush rampages across her face. “It’s not healthy, we’ll get summer colds and I can’t afford to get a cold because—”

“—you’re a farmer and you can’t afford to take off a single day because you’re hard-working salt-of-the-earth-blah-blah-blah—yes, I know, you’ve run that line on me before and yet here you are, abandoning your precious farm on the hottest day of the year.”

Gillian pouts.

“It’s the hottest day of the year,” Caroline repeats in the vain hope that reality will weigh in favor of reason and air conditioning.

Gillian ratchets up the pout into a sulk.

Caroline sighs and relents: The air conditioning is turned off, all windows glide down. “Right then. We’ll be smelling sheep shit until we hit the M62.”

ii. “But I do adore you—every part of you from heel to head.”

Women belong to summer. Or so Caroline thinks. In this season of bounty her heightened senses take note of women to delirious distraction: curling hands and lips, swirling dresses around bare legs, swaying hips, swelling cleavage, all of it—sweat and fading perfume commingle sweet as honeysuckle, throaty laughs, rich, wine-soaked voices. She has always attributed her frustratingly inexplicable attraction to Gillian to this summer madness—especially in that fucking dress, oh God—but the fact remains that she has desired this sullen, stubborn sheep farmer clad in any variation of plaid shirts, torn jeans, grotty jumpers, mechanic overalls, and even Elmer Fudd-esque winter caps, all of which render her desperate self-diagnosis null and void.

On the motorway they’ve gathered speed, creating a roaring hot-air wind tunnel within the Jeep’s interior. When Caroline looks in the rear-view mirror all she sees is the Medusan rage of her hair and barely restrains herself from melodramatic groaning.

Gillian leans out the window, almost dangerously so—half-perched off the seat, gripping the doorframe, and screaming woo-hoo into the void of the surprisingly sparse M62 traffic. Even as she takes quiet joy at the sight of Gillian—hair wild, squinting into the sun, wind plastering the summer dress against her strong thighs—this hanging out the window like a demented Labrador makes her nervous and she shouts, “For Christ’s sake, sit down.”

To her surprise Gillian plops into the seat with uncharacteristic obedience, even putting on the seat belt. She looks at Caroline, hair streaked across her tanned face, laughing, and Caroline thinks I will remember you like this always.

“Sorry,” Gillian hollers into the din.

“I just don’t want to scrape you off the road.”

“It’d put a damper on everything, wouldn’t it?” Still smiling, Gillian leans back and closes her eyes for a moment while pushing hair out of her face. A tendril remains curled along her cheek and across her lips, a bit of ornamentation run amok outside its prescribed patterns. Caroline notices her stereotypical farmer’s tan—bronzed arms, face, and neck in contrast to bare white legs, upper bicep delineating the pale and the tan courtesy of dozens of t-shirts. The edge of her dress flutters tantalizingly around her thighs and Caroline forces herself to look at the road. Her relationship with Gillian has always possessed an inevitability about it—a fantastic, fatalistic entanglement courtesy of their star-crossed parents—but she has never loved anyone or anything so wildly unpredictable as this woman who now sits next to her in so deceivingly still and innocuous a manner that Caroline’s naturally suspicious mind expects that her next move will be to climb onto the roof of the Jeep and start singing “Sempre libera” from La Traviata in homage to Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Except that she knows Gillian loves the movie, but hates opera. Nonetheless Caroline’s feelings remain a source of trouble, so much so that not only has she mindlessly thrown herself into dating and then ridiculously rejecting out of hand any woman who shows the least bit of interest in her, but also that at the present moment she misses the correct turnoff from the M62 and they end up meandering around the outskirts of Leeds in search of the tiny Miss Marple-ish village for a good half hour despite the continual hectoring of both the GPS and Gillian.

“How could you miss the bloody turnoff?” Gillian grumbles again as they pass a sign that says WARNING: OWL SANCTUARY, LOW-FLYING OWLS for the third time.

Wisely—just like an owl, yep, that’s me, Caroline thinks, who are you kidding, you pathetic numpty?—Caroline declines the option of admitting the truth, which is that she was so distracted by the continuous sensual writhe of the dress around Gillian’s thighs that she would drive around for hours just to witness the play of shadow, sun, and linen upon her skin and imagine how satisfying it would be to remove that dress and—

“Maybe we should visit the owl sanctuary,” Caroline manages to suggest after loudly clearing her throat.

Slouching and petulant, Gillian folds her arms. “If they give me sanctuary from your fucking driving, I’m all for it.”

iii. “I try to invent you for myself”

Finally they discover the bookstore—in its former incarnation known as St. Botolph’s, a modest, squat, moss-covered stone church—in a village with a blink-and-you-miss-it name: Marston Something, Offnor, Colward, Fuckward, who knows. So Gillian takes it upon herself to dub the unknown hamlet Owlshitshire: “Say it fast three times,” she dares Caroline. While Caroline parks across the road from bookstore-church and fusses with her hair, Gillian stares at the building with newfound apprehension. “You think we’ll spontaneously combust, entering a church together? The lesbian and the slapper?”

Caroline adjusts—but does not remove—her sunglasses. “As if the joint force of our sins will merit our ruin? It’s deconsecrated, isn’t it?”

“Reckon so. I’m just worried this will end up like The Omen.”

Caroline sighs. “Everything is a bloody movie with you.”

“Thought that was one of the things you—liked about me.” “There are,” Caroline replies slowly, “many things I—like about you.” With the Jeep at a sweltering standstill, sweat sprouts upon Gillian’s upper lip and falls in a tingling wave along the edge of her scalp. The white noise of her heart becomes clearer as Caroline leans in toward her—one more hundredth of a millimeter, one more sliver of a hairsbreadth and I swear to Christ or whatever pagan deity hanging about that I will kiss you, sweaty lips and all— Inscrutable as an Italian film star from behind those bloody sunglasses, Caroline grins as she hits the button releasing the seat belt, which slithers off her body in perhaps the dorkiest strip tease known to humankind but that, unsurprisingly, still leaves Gillian breathlessly and idiotically aroused. “Alas, my dear, that is not one of them.” The bookstore is second-hand—damp and disorganized, marinating in the sweet reek of old paper, wood polish, and pastoral, Anglican ideals long past. As she happily waltzes through the chaos, Gillian’s eager fingers tap random piles of books as if she is a pianist lazily running through scales and contemplating a piece for performance. Then her hand hovers above a heart-stopping find: The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Before picking it up, however, she glances around with a stiff furtiveness that would be screamingly obvious to anyone witnessing her blatant, nervous interest in the love letters between two women. But there is no one in the store except an elderly couple and the proprietor behind the cash register, who is chatting up Caroline. Apparently he has discovered that she is a headteacher and is going on at length about the ruin of the education system thanks to political correctness and multiculturalism. Briefly Gillian considers swooping in for a rescue, but she knows damn well that Caroline can decimate this type of bloviate without working up a sweat; indeed, she leans in and murmurs something to him that shuts him up right quick. So Gillian turns her attention to Virginia and Vita, her thumb ruffling musty tea-colored pages while fearful of the dive into words that she suspects will only grant more clarity and substance to the inchoate feelings within her. I always have such need to merely talk to you. Even when I have nothing to talk about—with you I just seem to go right ahead and sort of invent it. I invent it for you. Because I never seem to run out of tenderness for you and because I need to feel you near. Excuse the bad writing and excuse the emotional overflow. What I mean to say, perhaps, is that, in a way, I am never empty of you; not for a moment, an instant, a single second. It’s like standing in church when the bell tower rings and the vibrato rattles your bones and stiffens your spine with a clarifying chill. And I’m in church right now, Gillian thinks, kind of appropriate, I reckon—then Caroline is beside her, so close that her breast brushes against Gillian’s upper arm. Her pale skin is flush with warmth, her fancy sunglasses glint on her head like a hipster crown and she smells good, like sun and sweat and grass and Gillian doesn’t know how she does that, she hasn’t been anywhere near grass unless she rolled around in a field before showing up at the farm, and Gillian’s senses riot and the beautiful words she just read tumble out of her head, the glue of their cohesion melts away. “What’re you looking at?” Caroline asks casually. “Oh—um.” She tilts her head to look at the cover and Gillian stares at the shade of her jawline, the golden down along her cheek, and the strong lines of her throat because it seems the safer to look at these things rather than the freckled pointillism on her chest leading one astray into cleavage—though I walk through the valley of cleavage, I shall fear no evil, for the thought of wine in the cooler comforts me—or even the bracing blue of her eyes, those dangerous lodestones that, for some unfathomable reason, have always drawn out the deepest measure of truth from Gillian.

“Interesting.” Caroline nods at the cover. “Do you like her writing? Woolf, I mean?” “What I’ve read, yeah. I mean, I’ve not read much. Just a couple novels,” Gillian mumbles. “They kind of made me aware—” Now Caroline touches her elbow and she devolves further into a stammering, sweating mess. “—of, um, the interior life? Interior lives? How they could, er, work. How the mind kind of works some-sometimes.” She looks around frantically—why is it so bloody hot in here? “Sound like an idiot.”

“Not at all. Have to admit I haven’t read much of her writing. You can blame John for that. Every time he wanted to prove he was a feminist he would quote from A Room of One’s Own.” Gillian laughs, and looks down at her ragged old Chuck Taylors. “That would do it. I—I’m sorry he ruined her for you.” “Should probably give her another go, what do you think?” “Yeah.” Gillian gnaws at her lip. On one hand, she wants to sit around and talk about Virginia Woolf and books and everything under the stars and sun with Caroline but on the other hand, she wants to be alone with the book and let it continue speaking to her like an eloquent oracle sans riddles. The latter might be best because right now words for her are scarcer than crow’s teeth. Usually she can turn on the tap and let language run rampant, not give a toss what she was saying to anyone about anything. More often than not, this got her in a fair amount of trouble; this time, she wants to find the right words that will lead into the right kind of trouble. Caroline’s fingers tap playfully against her forearm and Gillian glances at this invisible tattoo, patiently waiting for some intricate design inked in a riotous rainbow to blossom on her skin. “Tell you what—I’m going to dash out and find us proper sustenance for a picnic.” Gillian busts out a nervous, relieved smile. “You bored already?” “Not in the least.” When Caroline replies to her stroppiness with a certain kind of lovely seriousness it always prompts in her innate, immediate trust. Then, predictably, Caroline goes off and sounds the schoolteacher and mum that she is: “But it’s probably not wise for us to consume nothing but a bottle of cheap white wine on a day like this.” Why not? Gillian wants to say, but no—this is not a time when she wants wine rendering her into sloppy foolishness. “Right.” “Be back before you know it.” As she walks away, Gillian experiences such a ridiculous tightening in her throat, her chest, a physical manifestation of an irrational sense of abandonment—even though she knows Caroline is not some stupid toff boy with a fancy car who would leave her stranded in a big city or even, like here, the middle of nowhere—that she cannot prevent herself from blurting out Caroline’s name, even though she stops herself from bleating pathetically, you’re coming back, right? Caroline stops and turns around expectantly. The precise spin of her heels, the way she pitches forward as if she’s a dandyesque soldier determined to enter a fray she’s entirely unprepared for—the cumulative effect of her movement assuages Gillian, is more than a guarantee of her return. Relieved, Gillian smiles. “I may be cheap,” she says, “but the wine’s not.” Caroline laughs at the easy joke and Gillian then permits herself the lusty luxury of watching her walk away. Alone, she tucks herself into a dusty corner of the bookstore on a faded burgundy settee with the Virginia and Vita book in her greedy hands; when she looks up again the sun slants suspiciously low through a high stain-glass window and casts jeweled baubles on the wall near an aged reproduction of a George Lambert landscape. The bookstore is empty, silent. Cursing herself for entering some kind of literary fugue state, she drops the book on the settee and commences working her way to the front of the church-store, dipping and swaying around so many claustrophobia-inducing shelves and tables and piles of books with such careful, sweaty precision she feels as if she’s performing an elaborate renaissance court dance. At the front of the store sits the bookstore proprietor in all his balding, cranky glory. He squints at her and ruffles the pages of his newspaper, perhaps hoping its scant breeze will somehow propel her away on a powder-puff of air. She stares at the old, heavy doors barring her way and is strangely bereft. I suppose it is good for the soul to be hurt and perplexed perpetually. I know at least that I miss you damnably: that is a good fixed star. Amused, the owner watches her frowning at the door and then drawls sarcastically, “Oh, don’t worry, love. I’m sure your wife will come back for you.” Gillian laughs. Of course, Caroline must’ve told this tosser they were married when he was bothering her earlier. After the divorce from Robbie came through earlier this year, she firmly declaimed to no one but herself that she was done with marriage; being Caroline’s imaginary wife for a day is, however, a union more satisfactory than reality has ever granted her. “Yeah. Damn right she will,” she says. “Know why?” He shakes his head. She leans heavily against the cash register. “ ’Cause I’ve got the only keys to the sex dungeon in our flat.”

iv. “It seems to me that I only begin to live after the sun has gone down and the stars have come out.”

The rush of sunset brings cooler air through the Jeep, which runs parallel to some tributary of the River Aire. Venus glints in a layer of darkening sky above a thinning band of vermillion while Gillian sits with an open bag of brandy snaps in her lap. She’s already eaten half the bag despite Caroline’s admonishments not to spoil her appetite. The weakening sun jabs through the green interlace of tree branches and in those brief outbursts fills her eyes with light. Somewhere along the river they find the right spot, kick off their shoes, and sit on an old blanket retrieved from the boot of the Jeep. They drink cool wine from a bottle blistered with damp and eat bread, cheese, and berries, and Gillian’s tongue loosens enough so that she talks haltingly about To the Lighthouse and of time passing, then she stops abruptly when the wind flutters the hair along Caroline’s serious brow—she listens so intently, Gillian notices, and it’s unnerving—and Caroline’s eyes resonate as a cynosure in the deep blue evening. In that moment everything stirs wild within her and she cannot keep still because she fears what she’ll say next. Barefoot, she walks through the grass to the river, the alternate swish and crunch of grass wet and stiff underneath her gait give way slowly to soft dirt and pebbles that press into the pads and arches of her feet as if pearls desperate to remain embedded in soft sanctuary. All while Caroline yells at her about the dangers of ticks and other hazards such as snails, broken glass, and used condoms. At the edge, she stops. In darker times now past, she thought of drowning herself. Like Virginia Woolf, except without the eloquent note or a death notice in the papers. She doubted anyone would really miss her. Even Raff. Still, she could not, would not, do that to him. Bad enough the millstone of his father’s death hung around his neck; to have both parents labeled as suicides—regardless of the truth—would be too much to bear. She likes to imagine that if she had drowned herself back then, her body would have found its way to the freedom of a sea—silly, she thinks, but largely due to a proverb that always stuck in her mind: The sea refuses no river. She always liked that one. Many of the proverbs and verses she heard in church as a child seemed focused on judgment, control, condemnation, behaving in a certain way. But in the embrace of the land and the water, well, you belong to it—and not the other way around. Its silence carries no censure. Dusk drizzles over thickening clouds and she tastes the heavy humid air. A smattering of stars now attend Venus. The river has led her to this moment—not to drown, but to declare herself. She turns around and glances quickly at Caroline, who is on the old blanket in an elegant sprawl, legs crossed at the ankles, calm demeanor belied by the continual flexing of her calves. “It’s beautiful here,” she says. “You’re beautiful,” Caroline replies. Uneasy, Gillian laughs. She’s been called a lot of things over the years, but beautiful has never been one of them and she’s old enough now that she mistrusts any easy compliment—even from the likes of the unimpeachably honest, unrelentingly forthright Caroline—and she is not to be won over that easily. Or so she thinks. “Well now. Your game’s gotten strong—all those girls you’ve gone out with lately, eh?” “I’m not interested in games. Or those girls, really.” Caroline sits, draws up her knees, and adds softly: “You must know that.” “Do I? All I know is, here we are, picnic on the river, you saying nice things—” “How dare you,” Caroline says with mock indignation, “I’ve said only one nice thing to you thus far.” “—a woman could get the wrong idea.” “Or the right one, as the case may be.” Gillian frowns, bites her lip. Even in the face of blatant confirmation, her nerve falters spectacularly. Because nothing and no one has mattered so much to her in such a long time, she cannot remember. “Gillian.” “W-what?” “Tell me all the things you have in your head, that won’t ‘stir by day, only by dark on the river.’” The words ring clear and true. She sees them in her mind once again, feels the soft, foxed page at her fingertips.

Look here Vita — throw over your man, and we’ll go to Hampton Court and dine on the river together and walk in the garden in the moonlight and come home late and have a bottle of wine and get tipsy, and I’ll tell you all the things I have in my head, millions, myriads—They won’t stir by day, only by dark on the river. Think of that. Throw over your man, I say, and come. Caroline pulls the book out of her purse. Of course, she bought it. When earlier she had triumphantly returned from her shopping excursion to the bookstore, she thrust a bag of brandy snaps at Gillian, ordered her to wait outside by the Jeep, and demanded use of the WC from the bookstore owner, who stammered consent in the face of this wild, dungeon-owning lesbian deviant schoolteacher. And here Gillian thought it had taken her so long inside the store because she was doing number two. The grass murmurs protest under Gillian’s feet and she winces when something sharps bites into the ball of her right foot, so as she stands there in front of Caroline she may be bleeding, her foot may become infected and she’ll get gangrene and end up spending the rest of her days gimping around as Yorkshire’s One and Only Peg-Legged Sheep Farmer, but none of that matters now because she can hardly get past stating the obvious. “You bought the book,” she says to Caroline. “Yep.” “You know that—that quote.” “Yep.” As words continue to fail her in a way they never quite did for Virginia Woolf, she kneels upon the blanket, cradles Caroline’s face in her hands, and lays on the kissing equivalent of a Woolf sentence: long, glitteringly complex, sustained and full and magnificent and, in its aftermath, leaving one breathless and lingering sweetly over every fine detail, every bright facet. Everything rushes by in splendid sensate tandem: the light that fades and glows all the same, the whishing of the river, the wine limning her mouth, the corner of the book digging into her knee, her thumb caressing Caroline’s cheek, the star of Venus blessing the entire enterprise.

“God.” Caroline finally manages speaking. “If I’d known you’re going to kiss me like that over one old book, I would have bought out the entire bloody store.” It is nearly dark, it will rain very soon, and Gillian is quite certain that her bare, dirty foot is bleeding. “Don’t need a book for that. In fact, you should know—I’ll kiss you like that anywhere, any time you want, for as long as you want, every day for the rest of your life.” “Go on then,” Caroline says.

#last tango in excessive woolf quotes #ltih #are we cool vincent

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