#This is also something that was repeatedly stated on the fencing book I read

[fragmentedblade]

Jingliu tells Yanqing "your zealousness inhibits your ability to hide your line of attack". This is something at what Jing Yuan excels

[kamreadsandrecs]

Title: Mobility: A Novel

Author: Lydia Kiesling

Genre: literary fiction

Content/Trigger Warning/s: discussions and mentions of major historical events and natural disasters, including but not limited to 9/11, the BP Oil Spill, Hurricane Harvey, and the COVID-19 pandemic

Summary (from author's webpage): The year is 1998, the End of History. The Soviet Union is dissolved, the Cold War is over, and Bunny Glenn is an American teenager in Azerbaijan with her Foreign Service family. Through Bunny’s eyes we watch global interests flock to the former Soviet Union during the rush for Caspian oil and pipeline access, hear rumbles of the expansion of the American security state and the buildup to the War on Terror. We follow Bunny from adolescence to middle age—from Azerbaijan to America—as the entwined idols of capitalism and ambition lead her to a career in the oil industry, and eventually back to the scene of her youth, where familiar figures reappear in an era of political and climate breakdown.

Both geopolitical exploration and domestic coming-of-age novel, Mobility is a propulsive and challenging story about class, power, politics, and desire told through the life of one woman—her social milieu, her romances, her unarticulated wants. Mobility deftly explores American forms of complicity and inertia, moving between the local and the global, the personal and the political, and using fiction’s power to illuminate the way a life is shaped by its context.

Buy Here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/mobility-lydia-kiesling/18547461

Spoiler-Free Review: Godsdamn but this book makes me FUCKING ANGRY! I mean this in a good way, by the way, as this is frankly speaking a pretty good read.

Look, it’s not every day that a book pisses me off, but this one pissed me off in the best possible way, with its focus on the sheer hypocrisy of white people - specifically privileged white women - when it comes to the much larger suffering that everyone else around them experiences. From the moment she is introduced all the way to the very end of this novel, Bunny/Elizabeth thinks of no one but herself. Her disinterest as a teenager can be forgiven, I suppose, because I think a majority of teenagers are self-centered little shits to varying degrees - and I say that as a teenager who was pretty self-centered myself. The few who aren’t are rare and far between.

But later on, as she grows more and more comfortable in her place in the oil industry, you can practically SEE her convincing herself that what she’s doing, what her industry is doing, is right and just and not as problematic as everyone thinks it is. Worse, one can also read how she twists her WILLFUL IGNORANCE into a VIRTUE because IT BENEFITS HER TO DO SO. It’s just so INFURIATING to see that happen, since she has the privilege and the opportunity to do better, and yet: SHE DOESN’T!

The funny thing is, SHE GETS CALLED OUT ON IT! There are several moments throughout the novel wherein she is forced to confront how she doesn’t take a stand on anything, for just sitting on a fence, for thinking only of her own comfort, and while she sometimes pauses to think about what the other person’s saying and wonder if maybe they’re right, you can almost FEEL her flinch away from anything that makes her uncomfortable. THEN she goes RIGHT back to thinking any line of thought that makes her feel “safe” and one gets to watch as she chooses the path that makes her feel better, even if it comes at the cost of other people’s lives. They’re not HER people after all, how can she consider the plight of some nebulous entity who lives half the world away and whom she’s never met? This takes a chillingly exploitative turn towards the end of the novel.

I’ll admit, for a few moments while reading this I wonder if there’s anything she could have realistically done to actually take a stand and do something. The size and complexity of the oil industry is mentioned repeatedly throughout the novel; at various points Bunny/Elizabeth herself says that she can’t understand all of it, no matter how hard she tries. And when one is faced with something THAT big, that has the capacity to mutate into a new form to avoid accountability and instead re-emerge stronger than ever— How does one fight against something like that? Seen from that perspective maybe Bunny/Elizabeth’s reticence can be understood, even sympathized with, but after a certain point even this sympathy evaporates because it becomes clear that she’s CHOOSING to remain complacent.

But the interesting thing is, all this rage at Bunny/Elizabeth and the life she’s chosen can easily be turned on oneself. You read this book and wind up asking yourself: “Am I actually doing anything about the way the world works? Am I doing enough?” These are important questions, in my opinion, and applies to a lot more issues than just the theme of climate crisis that this book’s built around. None of these questions are comfortable or soothing, and the potential answers are likely to be less so, but they’re questions we need to ask regardless, if we don’t want to face the same kind of future Bunny/Elizabeth faces at the end of the novel.

Overall, this is an infuriating read, but excellent precisely BECAUSE it’s infuriating. It reveals some very uncomfortable truths and make the reader as some very difficult questions, leading to answers that are probably even MORE uncomfortable and difficult than the questions themselves. But the novel also emphasizes the need to ask those questions and find those answers, because seeking only to live in a bubble of comfort, unbothered and undisturbed by the wider world’s troubles, means living a life devoid of compassion and empathy, and only leads to a future where the entire world suffers.

Rating: five oil tankers

[woodswalker96]

Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous Season 2 Official Trailer Analysis and Thoughts

So, like many today and the next few days until January 22nd, I have been watching the new trailer for season 2, repeatedly. I got wind of it this afternoon even before it was officially released via Jurassic World and Netflix’s YouTube channels, and I’ve watched them along with the extended trailer on the Netflix site proper. A lot of things appear to be happening this new season, potentially more than I expected. 

If you watched the trailer on Netflix, not YouTube, there’s a bunch of extra clips that could help clue us in to what we could expect to see, and the possible order of events, at least based on the trailer. I start with stating some moments in that version of the trailer that stood out for me, then run through a predicted sequence of events for the new season. 

One moment that you see in this trailer that isn’t present in the YouTube versions are a small clip of Sammy and Darius running through a location with cages being chased by one of the three Baryonyx. Sammy appears to be clutching a bag with a circular blue and white logo on it. In the cages surrounding them, there are Stegosaurs, one on the right and one on the left. This scene appears to line up with Darius and Brooklynn climbing up a fence or cage onto a platform with a Baryonyx closing in, only for Brooklynn to whack it up side the head with a plank. I think this could be Mantah Corp. They could be already on the island, preparing to access the dinosaurs in the wake of the park’s failure. Or it could InGen mercenaries, or someone else. 

A moment that I find kind of funny is Darius reaction to seeing Rexy, and the other campers reaction to his. Its great, and reminds that at the end of the day, Darius is still a dino-nerd at heart. I also feel that we will be receiving plenty of Kenji and Darius bro time, and Yaz, Sammy, and Brooklynn girl time. I like the idea of the three girls forming this trio. That said, I’m looking forward seeing different group dynamics, such seeing the Yaz, Kenji, and Brooklynn motorbike trio (its hilarious that Brooklynn is the one riding the bike, while Kenji is holding on at the front). 

Now, for my timeline of events. Starting with the end of season 1, the group are searching through the jungle for a stopover when they hear dinosaur roars of the predatory kind, which leads to them running through the woods with Yaz being supported by Sammy and Brooklynn. Then, they come across Main Street, with Kenji appointing himself, or is appointed, to lead them around to a potential communication station, where Sammy finds that yellow book and Brooklynn gets her GoPro. Then they discover Rexy, too which they either try to get away from, or less likely, try to lure her away from Main Street, which fails. Either way, they retreat back into the jungle, where they come across their old campground. They decide to create a shelter (the Camp Kenji), which maybe where Darius comes across his raptor tooth necklace again. (One thing I’d like to add; the moment where Kenji looks into the GoPro and we hear the words Camp Kenji may not align with each other. I think the scene itself actually takes place in whatever building on Main Street the kids were in where Brooklynn acquired the GoPro and Sammy the book. You can see just before Kenji block out the camera that Sammy is reading something, likely the same book.) Either before or after that, Darius goes out to get water, with Kenji in tow, leading to the scene of the dinosaur water hole. But things go awry when theropods approach, either with Rexy coming in to hunt the Parasaurolophus, or the Ceratosaurus that the duo encounter in the trailer. They end up running for it, leading to Kenji’s encounter with Rexy in the trailer. Now after this point, it gets more tricky to try and piece together a workable timeline from the trailer, as there are things occurring in an order that I am uncertain of without actually watching the series. 

So, there you go, my initial analysis of the official trailer. Its exciting and I cannot wait to see the full season. January 22nd isn’t that long away, but it’ll seem like forever. Let me know what you guys thought of the trailer, if you have ideas about the timeline of the season based on what we’ve seen, and I hope y’all have a fantastic day!

[hutchhitched]

Social Commentary in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Part III

Part 3. Yeah… There’s a whole lot going on in the last third of the book, and I may have had to put it down a few times because I got really excited about how she wove the new book with the original trilogy. I know some people thought Part 3 was over the top, but I found it purposeful and deliberately on the nose, and I think that’s why it works. If you want to see my thoughts on the rest of the book, here are the links to Part 1 and Part 2.

 Major spoilers below:

Tagging some who asked me to and/or are interested: @the-tesseract-wrinkling-time​, @shesasurvivor​, @everlarkedalways​, @xerxia31​, @infinitegraces​, @panemposts, and @endlessnightlock​. Some others are tagged throughout.

 Before we move on to Part 3, I have to backtrack to something from Part 2 I forgot to include in the previous meta (I blame being up till 7 am and only getting four hours of sleep for that). In Chapter 18, Reaper stabs and rips the Panem flag and then uses it to cover the fallen tributes. The reaction of the mentors is shock and horror that the flag has been treated in such a manner. There’s a lot to unpack here. First, desecration of the flag in the US (and I’d guess most other countries, too) is almost always guaranteed to get a reaction. There have been attempts to pass a constitutional amendment to make it a federal crime to burn the flag. Others argue burning the flag is something protected as freedom of speech. Yet, official guidelines for how to treat the flag are broken all the time by letting it touch the ground, not lighting it, not taking it down during inclement weather, and turning it into a massive symbol of patriotism by holding it horizontally on a football field. I saw someone make reference to the outrage against NFL players kneeling during the national anthem as being disrespectful to the flag (even though that was a suggestion of a military veteran, as opposed to sitting during the anthem instead) rather than being outraged at the actions those players were protesting (police brutality against African American men). So, who is it that rips down the flag? Reaper, the tribute from District 11. Rue and Thresh were District 11, as were Chaff and Seeder. All were portrayed in the movies by African American actors. It’s fairly clear in the books that it’s a predominately black district. In other words, it’s likely Reaper is also a black man who tears down the flag of a country that oppresses him so he can provide cover and give dignity to the dead tributes. Now, think about it from a “rebel” perspective, and imagine that’s a Confederate flag that was ripped down. I know in the books that the Districts are the rebels and the Panem flag is more connected to the Capitol, but still. The debate over the (mostly successful) removal of the Confederate flag from former slave states has raged in the US in the past decade. Probably the most famous image of that debate is when a black woman climbed the flagpole at the South Carolina Statehouse and ripped down the flag. Remove the flag of the government that oppresses you, which is what Reaper does.

 Something I find really interesting is the lack of technology in this book. Panem obviously has advanced technology, but it’s not nearly as present as it is in the trilogy. I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume that’s a result of the depressed economy, and by the time we get to the 74th Hunger Games, the economy in the Capitol has recovered and been used to develop new technologies and products that make life easier for citizens. That’s a post-World War II/1950s consumerism analogy if I’ve ever seen one. Post World War II affluence in the United States was a major factor in the development of new weapons and technology. Because American workers were making more and had savings and wages rose 100% between 1945 and 1968, Americans spent more, bought more, and paid more income tax. The solidification of capitalism as America’s economic system helped the US “win” the Cold War against the Soviets. Because Americans made more and were subsequently taxed more, the government had more money to develop new weapons and technologies. The first computer, the hydrogen bomb, vaccines for polio and smallpox, NASA, and the development of ICBMs all took place during this era. A strong economy typically makes people think the nation/government is strong. Not coincidentally, an early counterculture developed during the 1950s that protested against increased consumerism and senseless spending. The Beats/Beatniks/Beat Generation disliked that Americans spent so much money on frivolous things while others (African Americans, the rural poor, and so on) suffered. Sounds a lot like the Capitol citizens who spent lavishly and didn’t care about the districts. As a slight aside, Allen Ginsberg, one of the Beat Generation’s poets, wrote Howl, which calls out capitalism and repression. I wrote The Cry for @promptsinpanem’s prompt Howl in homage to that. Someday, I might actually expand it.

 In Part 2, I wasn’t sure who had the power, and I really couldn’t figure out Highbottom. That’s mostly cleared up for me by the end of the book. I was intrigued by Pluribus Bell’s (many bells, I love it!) story about Highbottom and Snow’s father before Snow left for District 12. It was the seed that let me hope we’d get more information, and we did. Crassus Xanthos Snow is Snow’s father. Crassus was a member of the First Triumvirate (Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus) and helped transition the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire (from pre to post Hunger Games). He also gained power and influence as a soldier during the slave uprising of Spartacus (became a hero during a rebel uprising). Also, Xanthos is a city in Turkey that’s been conquered repeatedly but always recovers (Snow lands on top!). Highbottom’s first name is Casca, who was one of Caesar’s best friends, but he ends up being the first person to stab Caesar during his assassination. The break in the relationship between the two men is clearly why Highbottom turns on (young) Snow, and the explanation about how the Hunger Games come to be is a pretty big allegory to the betrayal of Crassus (Caesar) by Casca. Also, that explains why Highbottom didn’t ever really seem to be supportive of the Games, even though he was credited as their creator. ( @everlvrks)

 There are a lot of references to Roman names and places in this book and the trilogy. The Capitol seems pretty obsessed with the Classics and wants to reflect that type of lifestyle and elitism. During grad school, one of the books I had to read discussed the obsession America’s Founding Fathers (Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, and so on) had with the Classics. They emulated Greek and Roman ideals. The District of Columbia (Washington, DC) is named after the Roman goddess of Liberty. Jefferson’s and Washington’s homes use classical architecture like domes and columns and many of the federal buildings (the Capital and White House) reflect that. Add on the Washington Monument (an obelisk—which are found all over in the ancient world) and the columns of the Lincoln Memorial and the dome and columns of the Jefferson Memorial, and well… The Founding Fathers were Deists who revered the Classics, which is why I (a religious historian) always laugh when people tell me the US was founded on religion. Yeah, and the Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery, either.

 Before this book, I would never have thought about Snow having a history with District 12 or a stint as a peacekeeper. I even looked ahead to the title for Part 3 and still didn’t realize that was going to happen, but it makes sense. First, Snow seems to have known Katniss much better than can really be explained. Her hunting outside the fence and her escapes to the Lake were never really solitary because he knew the area. He’d been there before. He’d visited Lucy Gray in the Seam, been to the meadow, and so on. Some people may see that as too much, but it absolutely fits with the draconian oversight of the Capitol during Katniss’ time, and it indicates why Snow was so intrigued and obsessed with her. Second, Snow’s experience in the military would have worked wonders for his political career. He won the Hunger Games, served as peacekeeper, visited the districts, became the youngest person to qualify for officer training, and went to the university. That’s a stellar resumé for a budding politician. Clearly, he was exceptional. Terrible, but exceptional (which is said about super-villain Voldemort in Harry Potter, too).

 I had to stop and put the book down and wiggle with glee when the tree appeared in the distance. I didn’t think we’d get the actual Hanging Tree in the book, but that might have been the most thrilling part for me. It wasn’t overt. She didn’t name it. She just set the scene, but I knew what it was. And then to have the hanging and the man yell out to his “love” and the mockingjays pick up his cry and for Snow to see a mockingjay and immediately hate it… Oh, good night, nurse. It’s just too much. That’s when I made this post. I’ll admit, I have a thing for lone, massive trees. My dad has one on his farm, and there’s a huge, very old Burr oak that’s a local tourist attraction close to where I went to college. I felt like I was driving down the road and seeing it rise from the distance, which I did way too many times during undergrad and grad school.

 References to the Covey having traveled and planning to again travel north were clear indicators that District 13 was alive and well (sorry for the on the nose pun) even back then. It seems obvious to me that Snow kept that information in the back of his mind as he took power and anticipated an eventual attack from there. The fact that his family’s fortune was destroyed in District 13 makes it even more appropriate that the final rebellion came from there, too.

 I didn’t like Lucy Gray in the first two parts of the book, and I’m still not completely taken with her. There’s just something about her I don’t quite trust, and I’m not convinced she was completely in love with Snow. Sejanus thinks she is, but I’m also not sure I trust him to be the most perceptive person either. I’ve discussed this briefly already with some others, but I’m still on the fence about her. I acknowledge that she doesn’t have the same power as Snow does, so it’s not possible by definition for her to play him, but I do think she’s manipulative. Peeta is, too, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does indicate she’s not exactly who she says she is. Lucy Gray’s job as a performer gives me even more pause because her living is made by putting on a show, by performing, by convincing an audience that what she’s doing is authentic. For lack of a better way to put it—If Lucy Gray is a performer, how would Snow ever know what’s real and what’s not real? Sound familiar? (This part’s for you, @lovely-tothe-bone.)

 The songs:

Deep in the Meadow—It’s a lot disconcerting that Katniss’ lullaby to her sister is a song Snow’s heard before out of the mouth of the woman he once loved. Equally disturbing to know that he’s been in the meadow, and I really thought that the song was going to be about Lucy Gray and Snow together there. I’m glad it stayed a lullaby and not a love song. I think it’s fabulous that Katniss and Peeta reclaim the meadow for themselves as a place where their daughter dances. It’s a little bit (a lot) poetic.

 The Hanging Tree—Well, now that we know where that story comes from, I like it even more. The only part of the book I didn’t really like was Snow thinking he had something figured out and then rethinking and then changing his mind and so on. There was a little bit too much of that as he tried to decipher song lyrics, and particularly with this song.

 The public domain songs—I grew up singing these songs (although with some slightly different words), so they all brought a smile to my face. Probably my favorite rendition of Keep on the Sunny Side is from the movie Oh Brother! Where Art Thou? The entire soundtrack is very bluegrass, and good bluegrass is delightful. And it’s nice to know what the Valley Song really is.

 Unnamed—Okay, so my favorite was the first one at the Hob (pp. 362-364). I’m no songwriter, but I could hear the tune, and it was very Lumineers (maybe crossed with the Dixie Chicks?). Upbeat and peppy and feel good, all the way. I also find it interesting that music and concerts are outlawed in District 12 once there’s a new base commander. An allegory on the tendency to cut art programs first? On the power of art as a motivation for action? Both?

 Which brings us to the star-crossed lovers of District 12, or something. Obviously, this brings up images of Katniss and Peeta, but probably the most famous reference is in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with the star-crossed lovers taking their lives. That’s often read as them being fated to die, which is something Snow seems to follow. He mentions his destiny and fate many times and doesn’t do a very good job of recognizing his choices. There’s one time during the Games when he resolves to do the right thing, but otherwise, no. Shakespeare does also say in Julius Caesar that the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves (which John Greene used in his book title). Snow doesn’t want to take responsibility for what he does. He chooses to follow the rules instead of what is right. He’s legalistic instead of ethical. There’re a lot of philosophical and religious undertones to that, but I’ll let that float for a while.

 On page 386, Lucy Gray tells Snow, “You’re mine and I’m yours. It’s written in the stars.” I’ll be honest, I almost dropped the book when I read that. In Catching Fire, Katniss says the same thing about Gale, but she doesn’t end up with him. They aren’t fated. She ends up with Peeta, who she chooses to love. I should have known from that point that Lucy Gray and Snow would not end up together, but I still wasn’t sure how that was going to happen. I really did think she was going to break up with him or betray him somehow because that was the only thing I could think of that would make him stop loving her and turn into what he becomes. A broken heart is a really good reason for revenge, but what actually happens so much worse. ( @mtk4fun  and @norbertsmom )

 Snow and Lucy Gray decide to run away together, just like Katniss and Gale were going to in the original trilogy. Lucy Gray is worried the mayor’s going to kill her, and Snow doesn’t want to live without her. Except he realizes really quickly that he doesn’t like life on the run. It’s beneath him. He deserves better. He’s entitled to and fated for more, he thinks. On top of that, he’s passed the officer’s training exam, and suddenly there’s a way out of the pit into which he’s fallen. And then he lies to Lucy Gray.

 Lucy Gray’s said all along the most important thing to her is trust, and then he lies to her. He doesn’t tell her he had a hand in turning in Sejanus. He doesn’t tell her because he’s afraid of losing her, which is a selfish reason, not one to spare her feelings or to protect her. He lies to protect himself. By the time they get to the cabin at the lake, he’s decided he’s not going with her, and she’s realized he’s lied to her. And then the weapon he used to commit murder (for her or him?) is there. Snow snaps quickly after that. There’s a metaphor, I’m sure about him losing his hold on reality and self-control when he’s past the boundaries of civilization, but he falls really, really quickly. He goes from wanting to tell her he’s changed his mind to attempting to murder her. The only thing that really stops him is the snake bite, which is not fatal, but reminds me why I didn’t trust Lucy Gale. Was it deliberate? Did she leave him on purpose? Does she escape him, or does he manage to cut her down? Either way, he doesn’t choose love. Love, which is a selfless act, isn’t his end game. He chooses himself. He chooses being selfish and looking out for himself instead of others. He doesn’t like being vulnerable. He clinically plans to marry someone he doesn’t love, so he never feels exposed again. In short, he makes the opposite choice Katniss does, and that makes all the difference.

 A few other things because this is way too long at this point:

 Peacekeepers: Boot camp for peacekeepers was interesting and strongly resembles the process of the military stripping down differences and making each soldier part of a machine. Haircuts, uniforms, routines, and so on are all about stripping away his identity, and he hates every second of it. He’s too good for that, and there’s entitlement all over the place. That’s very different from the peacekeepers from the districts who join the military as a way out of poverty. I mean, Snow does, too, but only because he’s forced.

 Betrayal: Recording Sejanus and Snow justifying it was hard to read. It was harder to read about the execution. And then to have the Plinths take Snow in after he returns to the Capitol is absolutely the worst. Despicable behavior.

 Poisoning Highbottom: It doesn’t surprise me, and it’s exactly what the rumors in the original books were. Snow kills his rivals to ascend.

 Snow’s role in the Games: The Hunger Games change dramatically between the 10th and the 74th. It’s clear Snow has a significant role in how and why that happens. The tributes aren’t caged and are housed in luxury. The cattle cars are replaced with a high-speed train with lots of food. The tributes get stylists and prep teams instead of being unwashed and dirty. In other words, the treatment of tributes becomes more humane, which becomes even more problematic. At least Lucy Gray knew she was being offered up as a sacrifice. No one lied to her about what she was. The implementation of these ways to fatten the lambs up for slaughter is horrific and cruel and very Snow.

 Finally, the purpose of the Hunger Games changes for Snow by the time we get to the end of the book. They are no longer just a way to punish the districts. They’re a way to exert controlled warfare instead of a messy war between the Capitol and the districts. It’s still kids being forced to kill kids. The tributes are still kids in cages. They’re still “not from here.” The Capitol kids are to be protected, but the parents in the poor areas aren’t able to take care of their own. It’s all deliberate. Collins doesn’t pull punches about the treatment of migrant children in cages or the murder of schoolchildren. What she does is point out that we don’t really mean what we say about protecting children. We’re only outraged for our own, not for those who are different. Suzanne Collins doesn’t have time for white privilege, American elitism, tyrannical government, excessive capitalism, or excuses, and her book reads that way. I loved every word of it.

[pazithi-gallifreya]

The Hourglass Garden (An Unus Annus-inspired short story)

*Author’s note: Firstly, this is NOT a fan-fiction, nor does it contain Mark or Ethan in any way, so apologies to anyone looking for that type of content. Rather, it’s a story centered around some of the motifs that crop up throughout the Unus Annus channel as a whole - an homage, if you will. These two guys got me to write again for the first time in years, especially when it comes to writing for myself. I’m just happy I was able to create something for the guys, and I’m so thankful to them for getting those wheels turning in my head again, even if they’re a bit slow. As much of a meme it may be on the channel at this point, I think the overall theme of running out of time is super important, and one I think too many of us dismiss a majority of the time, myself included.I even kept putting the writing of this story off, but I finally came up with enough of a concrete plot to put it together. Mark is always talking about how if you want to do something, you gotta grab the bull by the horns and just do it, so this is me doing that. We need to remember that we often don’t have as much time as we think we do, and the clock is constantly ticking. It only stops for us when we die, but us dying has no effect on time for everyone else. It moves forward without us. That’s not to say we have to rush to get everything done all the time. We still need to stop and appreciate the things and people around us. We just need to find a healthy balance, find what we enjoy, and also work hard, not only for others, but also ourselves. All of that is what this story is about.

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

          “Shit!” Aria gasped as the freezing wind nearly yanked the front door right out of her gloved hands. She reigned it back in, locked it, and pulled her beanie lower over her ears as she headed down the stairs towards her complex’s parking lot. She cranked the heat to max, sitting in her red 2007 Honda, cupping her still gloved hands and blowing into them before adjusting her rearview mirror. The crystals formed on the back windshield looked like little ice people. She smiled.

           It had been far too long since she had done something like this for herself. Her boss had recently quit at her editing company, making her schedule a living nightmare over the past month. The added pressure and stress hadn’t gone unnoticed by her best friend Beth, who, after much pushback on Aria’s part, finally convinced her to take a day off. “There’s this beautiful woodland garden about 40 miles out of town. There’s not as much to look at in the winter, so it’s not as pretty, but it’s still open. There’s also less people because of it, so if you’re looking for some solitude, as well as some fresh air, it’s the perfect place.”

          “In 30 miles, turn right on Hourglass Road,” chimed the robotic voice from her phone as she turned onto the highway. Any other day, she’d be blasting music and singing her lungs out, but not today. Today was a quiet day. She kept occasional watch over the crystal people slowly being sliced in half by the defroster, reminding her of her own temporary state as they dripped down the back window.

          Half an hour later, she turned onto Hourglass – a narrow gravel road that opened into a gravel parking lot surrounded by a short log fence, with an ornate sign that read Hourglass Gardens. She pulled in next to the only other car in the lot and pulled her coat tightly around her as she took in her surroundings. The fence opened onto a dirt path that forked in two directions. One led to the large old house that served as a local historical museum. The other traveled down to the woodland gardens. Aria turned off her phone so as to not be tempted, shoved her hands in her pockets, and sauntered down the longer path.

          A short way into the woods was a circular wooden bench surrounding a large, stone fountain  that was currently turned off, probably due to the season. The centerpiece was a huge hourglass surrounded by a stone circle with the phrase “Unus Annus” written repeatedly around the outside. The hourglass was filled with pure white sand, which had all sunk to the bottom. Tippy-toed, she reach up to turn it, but couldn’t get it to budge. She sighed as she took a seat and stared up into the bare branches that surrounded her overhead, silently thanking the powers that be for the seclusion. Beth was right, she thought. Not much to look at, but it’s pretty well-maintained... She stared into murky film at the bottom of the fountain. Mostly. At least it’s quiet.

          After several moments of taking in the stillness, she decided to move deeper into the barren woods. Every so often, she would run into little plastic markers with blurbs about the plants and wildlife people often encounter there. About 2 miles in, about every 20 steps or so, she began to notice little wooden markers close to the ground, almost hidden. They seemed to have arrows carved into them. They started along the path, then slowly got farther into the woods, away from the path. With time to kill, she figured she might as well go with it. There were no barriers, and having read many fantasy novels, she was always amused by the cheesiness of the “forbidden path” trope. Besides, she did come here to get away, after all, and what could be more detached from reality than following mysterious arrows in the woods into who knows where, even if the mystery was pretend. It was still the most excitement she had felt about anything in a while.

          She walked over another mile, and at one point resisted the brief temptation to turn back to the trail. She cleared through one final patch of dead shrubbery next to another arrow before stumbling into a clearing rivaling even the ones in her books – it’s like all the colorful butterflies and animals had congregated in this one spot, encompassed by rainbow assortments of flowers and dense foliage in full bloom, despite the fact it was January. In front of it all was a babbling brook, with an assortment of brightly-colored fish, complete with a little bridge nestled neatly over it. Funny, I didn’t even hear any running water before now. She knelt down to touch it, but something prevented her hand from penetrating the water; some invisible barrier.

          “I see you’ve made it.”

          Aria jumped at the sudden break in the silence. The voice was calm, yet loud somehow. A man in a white, hooded cloak stood on the opposite side of the brook, but still sounded as if he were standing right next to her. A strange mist spiraled around him.

          “What do you mean? Did you know I was coming? What is this place?” Aria asked, reaching her hand out in front of her, only to be forced back once again.

          The man pulled down his hood. “This is the end.”

          “The end of what? Who are you?”

          “I am the inevitable. This is where all of time resides. Everything begins here, and everything ends here.”

          “Are you saying you’re God, or something? Or Death? In the middle of a man-made sanctuary?”

          “I am neither. I am the in between. I am Time Itself. I do not reside on this plane, but I am wherever you need me at any given moment.”

          “So you’re saying you’re not really here?”

          “I am, and I am not.”

          “Am I the only one that can see or hear you?” Aria looked back to where she had entered. It was as brown and desolate as before.

          “Yes.”

          “Why? Why are you here? Why am I here?”

          “This is your turning point – the point where you decide whether to take back control of your own destiny or succumb to the darkness, the point where you decide to live a prosperous life or a waking death.”

          “How do I do that?”

          “Make the decision. Only you know which path you will walk down. When you truly have your answer and have confirmed it to yourself, return here before time runs out. You have one year. I will be waiting. Memento mori.” The man turned, slowly walking away as the mist swelled around him until in encompassed the entire meadow. A frog made a loud plop into the brook, and with that, it was gone.

          In front of Aria stood the looming hourglass fountain, now gushing with water. She pinched herself to make sure she hadn’t fallen asleep on the bench. What just happened, and why was she willing to believe and accept it so easily? She walked closer to examine the intricate stonework. The hourglass had been turned over. A few grains of sand had already trickled their way to the bottom. She read the phrase again. “Unus Annus.” She turned her phone back on and typed the words into the search bar. “One year,” she said softly to herself. “Okay,” she affirmed. “Looks like I’ve got a decision to make.”

          She walked determinedly back to her car, feeling refreshed and invigorated, despite the mind trip she had just been on. As she turned the key in the ignition, she remembered something. “What was the other thing that guy said?” she mumbled to herself. “Memento mori?” She pulled her phone back out and searched the phrase. The translation read, “Remember you must die.”

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

Thank you to anyone who read this. Thank you to Mark, Ethan, and Amy for being such a positive and encouraging force in my life for so many years and all the experiences I’ve had because of you. Thank you for giving me some inspiration to start creating again. There have been a lot of hard times going on with my family that I haven’t been able to properly focus on myself, and I’m still working on a lot of things, but this is another small step to help me towards my goals, and I’m glad to have you both be a part of it (even if it ended up sounding like a cheap YA novel). Being a perfectionist, I may not particularly like the final product myself, and think it's weak in every aspect, but that wasn't what this was about for me. I just wanted to show some appreciation for some amazing people. It’s been hard for me to keep up with you guys’ videos as of late, but this channel has been a way for me to stay up-to-date with both of you in a small way, and it’s such a cool concept. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the channel.

(Unus Annus is right on the verge of 2 million right now! Let’s get them there! They deserve it so much!)

- Anne

[capblacksails]

Swords & Confessions (2/2)

Post-Canon. Silver-centered. John Silver is a lost man after having lost Madi. He goes to the only person he knows who understands his loss. And (un)surprisingly, here starts a journey full of love… (In short : It’s +20 years of love(s). It’s past hurts, and growth. It’s tying Black Sails to Treasure Island, somehow. Includes also THE two scenes we’ve been robbed of in 4x10: James/John and Madi/John) (James/Thomas, James/John, John/Madi(past), James/Miranda/Thomas(past), Thomas&John). If this fic was BS soundtrack: It would be ‘Funeral At Sea’ I guess?

Read it all : FFnet / AO3 / Tumblr

Companion piece - a collection of canon compliant shorts: The Memories Chest: AO3 / Tumblr / FFnet

From the embers of the shadows in our pasts (a phoenix will rise) 

(PART VIIIb: Remember how James has decided it’s time again for fencing lessons and how John is ‘a bit’ overwhelmed (as he should)? Well, this is the second part of it... (and the end of the ‘confessions’ arc…) Bonus pure gold Thomas because that’s just what he is to start with...) 

VIIIb (continued from here).

When James arrives up the hill, John is already there.

He seems assured enough when James hands him a sword - taking it in his hand, appraising it, before meeting James's eyes again, wonder evident in his gaze:

"I'm honestly curious you know, about how you could make those?"

(Sharp tools are all under supervision; it's a general rule. Only spoons at the table. Every knife in the kitchen is tied to a wall. Every blade for bathroom uses too. Guards survey while you use any of those; always. And James? He is even labelled 'extra security'; he is not allowed much more than a shovel - and he has to maintain a minimum distance whenever he has it in hand... So it is indeed astonishing that he had been allowed carving tools.)

James feels a smile curling on his mouth as he explains: "Thomas."

John's brows furrow, and James clarifies, conspiratorially.

"He proposed to Oeglethorpe to stay at the mainhouse while I worked - as a guarantee."

The idea only should have felt nauseous. James somehow still smiles nonetheless.

"He promised me to recommend one truly awful book an hour for Oglethorpe to buy. It was somehow an acceptable deal."

John is going to thanks Thomas for this; at least a thousand times, you bet. But right now? John can't help an admirative grin:

"He is wicked, isn't he?"

James chuckles.

"You have no idea."

It's hard to decide if James's voice is more fond or proud; undoubtly both anyway.

James then assesses his own sword, feeling the weight of it in his hand before finding John's gaze again: "Shall we try them, then?"

He feels though that John is still somehow hesitant, and proposes:

"Shall I attack first?"

John is obviously relieved about not having to play the agressor. He gives James a nod as he takes position. And James decides that, at least for now, it will do...

"On three. One, two,-"

The clash of wood against wood is unusual; but all the rest? It feels right enough...

/

They take a break, sharing a bottle.

John is too quiet again, gaze lost on the faraway sea.

"What are we looking at?", James can't refrain from echoing from their past.

"Maroon Island."

John turns to him.

"I have spent so many hours at those cliffs. Watching out for potential enemies ships. But the first time I sent for news? I realized when an answer actually came that I was surprised; like if, unconsciously, I hadn't been expecting you to have stayed here? That's when I realized how all that time I had maybe also been watching out for you; somehow hoping - I don't know, for some resolution? - even if you came hunting for my blood... What were a few walls and a few guards against Captain Flint after all? I couldn't help but cringe at the coward thought - making *you* responsible for your fate; when *I* was the one- I couldn't regret my decision: you lived - possibly hating me - but you lived, and you were loved. But even though I repeatedly told myself that it should be enough, I could finally admit that it was wrong all the same. I couldn't though just tell Oglethorpe I had a change of heart, of course - he might have released you; but not Thomas...

John's voice trails into a silence heavy with 'what if's' James recognizes all too well.

"That's why I used to come to this spot too... Looking at Maroon Island? Wondering about you, and Madi; mostly hoping you were both happy. Thomas understood, obviously. Now that you're here, he doesn't feel like intruding by coming with me. But then? He only came looking for me here if he thought I had been dwelling in my head too long for my own good... But honestly? I wouldn't have gone to the Island. I wasn't thirsting for your blood to start with. And I would *never* have endangered you and Madi by coming around. (sigh) Anyway, this place? It's not the walls, nor the guards, that keep us here..."

John tilts his head. "I came here more than a year and a half ago now. I understand exactly what you mean."

"I thought about breaking free, of course; I had it all planned out, after only a few days. I simply couldn't bear the idea of Thomas being contained like this, while having never done anything wrong. But when I spoke about escaping, he asked me: "And where will we go?" I instinctively answered: "It doesn't matter"; but I realized I had been indeed so focused on planning *how* that I hadn't thought past it. But we couldn't go back to Europe; not only because Thomas might be recognized, but because it would be somehow serving those empires again - any of them, all the same... And showing myself anywhere in the New World meant risking Thomas's life. And not to forget of course that we'd have to pretend for the rest of our lives - no matter where we might end... But then Thomas said: "If it doesn't matter, then we might as well stay where we are." I was speechless. And then I was going to retort; but he told me I still hadn't seen the church - a hint of something in his voice that I recognized... And so we went; and well, you already know what was nailed on its doors...

"One of his pamphlets."

"Indeed."

James is quiet for a short moment; remembering his awe, when he had started to read the page taken from a local newsaper it seemed, and had understood it was Thomas's text - and had it confirmed with a glance. He hadn't been able to stop reading though until he had reached the end, and the signature - the signature had torn his heart out. 'TBMG'. Thomas Barlow Mc Graw.

"I couldn't speak. Trust Thomas to find a way to do Good, no matter what? I had fought so hard to force the world to change; to make a difference. But you can't force people to change at once against their will - it never holds in the long run. But here he was, achieving more maybe by slowly corrupting that system from the inside? It was a tiny step; but it was still a step in the right direction, at least. His ideas were published; read; discussed. You should have seen him when he explained to me how it had come to be - the secrecy, the allies, the countless times he had sent pieces over the wall under the cover of night, his surprise when it had actually paid off... He was proud, but rightly so. And I realized something else. Thomas had been here for years already. He had true friends here; friends he had been longer with than with me, in fact. I hadn't considered them until then: not how hard it might be for Thomas to cut them loose; and not how... he could have moved on - all those years; he should have, maybe... Thomas knows it all, you know... I told him everything; right the first night. And yet... He never *saw* me; saw what I am capable of... Miranda didn't either; she just saw the aftermath, patching me up and- (sigh) You were there. And you feared me. I know you did."

John wants to retort: And I'm still here.

But he knows what James is hearing instead: 'The one who has shaped me.' / 'To be both liked and feared all at once is an entirely different state of being.'

And so John also hears what James doesn't say: Maybe you still do.

And John knows that somehow, he still does, indeed. Isn't it how you know who you love - when you fear *for* them? And indeed, the less he had come to fear Flint, the more he had come to fear for James... But this would probably not give James any peace...

So, instead, John confesses: "Of course I feared you; I would have been a fool not to. But (it was a new kind of fear, and somehow, I admired you for it - John thinks but doesn't say.) I wanted to be you; I wanted to be feared too (for a change - John keeps to himself again).

And James remembers in a flash, how John - 'I don't want to be a pirate: I'm not interested in the life; I'm not interested in the fighting, not interested in the ships, I don't care much for the sea while we're on the subject' fucking John - had started to learn what it was to be a sailor, all the while wearing a ponytail to match his own... James has no time though to linger on the memories as John continues:

"By the time I realized it came with a price, well... I kept telling myself that all I ever did was to secure my share of that gold we were chasing. (John shakes his head, still in disbelief somehow) Believe me, I was the first surprised when I decided to discard it. But along the way... I had come to care apparently - about the men; and about you. You told me, you know? 'The more those men need you, the more you need them'? You just didn't see then how it included you too; but to me, it did… The crew... It was validating indeed, to be seen and valued, to feel like I belonged. But you... (I wanted you to see me and value me too.) Your validation, somehow, meant more; I had to win it. There were also the undeniable facts that you were hurting, and that I wanted you to hurt *less*, I guess... It had been so for some time, even if I had no clue what had been the tipping point. And it mattered - more than the gold, obviously..."

James now aches. He has no doubt John's words are truth; and once more, it only tears at his heart. How could you not *recognize* any of it, John? How come you were so unaware; so blind to your own heart... But James has long ago tacitly agreed to let John's demons rest in the past where they lay, and he finds something to say instead of ask.

"I understood it, later on. I understood *you*. When we went for that whale and you told... I wasn't surprised. The thing is, when we had reached Nassau and Rackham had our gold? I was *certain* that it must have been your making. But then, you stayed? So apparently you had no hand in it, and I tried to put the thought aside. But it was still there, that doubt; and the thought was infuriating... But when you confessed? It felt somehow suddenly an even better alternative - to know that you had indeed done it, and had yet chosen to stay... That's when I finally knew, that what I thought I was seeing for some time was in truth the real you."

Everyone wears a mask. It is both a sign of trust and a leap of faith to put it off for someone. (And James is never the first to, mind you...) So. When John had told it all on that sloop, lifting the veil on his pretense? James had known John purely meant to make a point - proving to him that he was just as cunning and manipulating as him. But what James had actually heard was something else entirely...

You had it, John. Your one big prize. Your safety and freedom - from water, from hunger, from wages; from me. You had it. But you couldn't take it. You told it was because of your leg; but I knew your leg wouldn't have mattered - not with that much gold... The truth was you couldn't bear to have to doubt everything and everyone from that moment on; never knowing what would be genuine, and what would be bought. You wanted to matter - to people. You wanted to be loved...

And that's when I realized I wanted it too, indeed - not only shed Flint's persona, show you my true face in return; but simply love you...

James's thoughts take yet another turn: Maybe you should have taken that gold...

Because James has often wondered, since John has turned up at the plantation, about what John's future might have been, if he *had* made the other choice. He could have been happy, couldn't he? Alone; but carefree. He might not have felt lonely; not by then. And he might have never known of love; probably - but he would never have had to be wounded; never have had to be damaged beyond repair by losing his Madi... James knows *he* wouldn't trade his own hurts, past and present, would he ever be offered the possibility to start anew. This kind of wishful thinking has never crossed his mind about himself. But it is hard not to wish for it for John, somehow; even knowing that John would probably not agree either...

John's voice lures James back to the present once more: "For some time, huh?"

John's sheepish eyes have darted to the ground. He is so openly fishing - a rare occurence: which only shows how much he needs to *hear*; and so James can't deny him:

"The third time you stomped your foot, going on with what I thought was the dumbest plan ever to convince the crew to allow you to remain, and got punched again in return? Well, you were a *thief*, and an *impostor*, but at least you were tenacious, I had to give you that... Besides, you had just saved my life; twice, even; it was a fact hard to overlook, I guess. And it's past due time I thank you for it, by the way."

They share a meaningful gaze, before John shrugs it off: "I probably wouldn't have believed you meant it at the time anyway - you *liar*" - smiling on the last word.

James scoffs, but is interrupted by John hitting him playfully in the ribs with his elbow: "But let's stop listing our shortcomings. (taking his crutch) It is my turn to attack, right?"

James gets up, then hands John his sword when he is standing too.

And for this? I do not fear you now. James is deeply grateful.

.

(Again, please do NOT hate me for NOT making Savannah the worst place on Earth. Of course I would prefer to have them all out. Keeping them here HURTS me. But there are 20 f$#%#$g YEARS, and James DIED AT SAVANNAH “of old rhum” (= because that’s what people thought - because they knew he was captive). So I just had to find a way to live with it - and THIS is it. I don’t expect anyone to agree. But I just had to find a way to BEAR it a minimum, so please just don’t burst my bubble?)

[humanintereststory]

7: Make Good TV

After that torrent of raw emotion, John closed inward. He never wanted to say any of that and he couldn’t imagine that he would have said it to someone who at most was an acquaintance. Despite that, she still persisted and not in a way that would be considered a nuisance but instead a gentle prodding to the next necessary step. Fortunately for Mike, John had kept a slip of paper with his boss’ business number in his wallet. The remnants of his cell phone were now swept away by the cleaning crew and in the near future were scattered about in a nearby landfill. John had insisted to Michael Saint that he needed to speak with Mike as it was integral that she join him as his, and he knew that he was being self-depreciating but it was also possibly what management wanted to hear, his handler. From there, Mike had, within thirty minutes, a private meeting with the general manager and walked out with provisional terms for a contract of employment. Once John had started to leave again so he could slip away into the night - perhaps satisfied that he did his good deed for the day, Mike stopped him once again. Her employee, a young college student, had bailed as he had class in less than seven hours so it was just Mike McGuire now. His conscious thoughts told him to pull away and to go back into seclusion - it was always how it had been so why stop now? But something else, unbeknownst to him, prevailed and he turned to face her. “‘Ay, are you stayin’ anyplace tonight? Got a hotel room or somethin’?” The answer was no. John had abandoned his apartment lease over a month ago now and now technically had no place of residence or any real intention to stay in any more hotel rooms. “I’m just going to hit the road. I usually sleep on the way there. Not really sure yet.” “Well, if you wanted, you could crash at my place. Ain’t the Ritz, but I got a spare room and it beats sleepin’ in your car.” John’s eyes widened as if he had been found out. She pointed at the piled up blanket in the back seat of the car and from there asked if he was really living anywhere. He shook his head. At that point she insisted. One night turned in two nights. Two into a week. That week had become a crash course in the mundane realities of life. John had taken the basic functions for granted and was finding that he was slipping further and further in an attempt to replicate what he had before. John had decided to let go and let Mike light the way. Suddenly he had a bank account. He had a new cellphone with the proviso that this one shouldn’t be broken into a million pieces. He had plane tickets to future destinations because Mike had emphatically stated that his vehicle wouldn’t survive much more criss-crossing of this great nation. Some astute observers could draw the parallel of John waiting for that slot in his steel door to open three times a day but Mike always insisted that he was going to do it next time because she’s not his goddamn Mother. But it wasn’t just that because John concluded that Mike just wanted to talk to someone and she tried repeatedly to strike up conversations. The first couple of nights, John had been regaled of tales of her past. Sometimes it was about business but John didn’t want to talk about himself much so he just listened intently. It was like listening to a good book. Most of the time, though, John kept to himself by reading the book he had lifted at the motel. John, much to Mike’s excitement, had been successful in his last few contests. He had some momentum, she said, and people were starting to take notice. He had recoiled from that. People taking notice meant attracting unwanted attention. It was hard for him to explain. The ring was a sanctuary and despite the viewing audience, it was really just between him and the opposition. The cruelty and negativity were no longer part of the equation - it was now a battle of wits and strength. Two or more opposing forces moving against each other in a violent but beautiful struggle. It was Tuesday afternoon and last night, John had earned a defining victory over a former television champion. Mike, out of nowhere, said it’s time and beckoned him to join her in the backyard. It was time to get in ring shape, she proclaimed. They separated briefly to change into workout gear. John stepped through the open sliding glass door into a yard surrounded by a ten foot tall wooden fence. In the middle of the yard was a ring. It was in a state of disrepair. The ropes looked loose and frayed and some parts were wrapped in duct tape. The turnbuckles were mismatched in color and shape. The canvas was soiled and the branches of a maple tree hung over the ring casting its shadow and depositing leaves and twigs throughout. John couldn’t help to think about that place he’d visit when he started to see red. That ring was his garden. It was where he would grow. “I like it,” John said with complete sincerity. “Aw, it ain’t nothin’ special. Got the thing for a song on Craigslist. It’s fourth-hand. Maybe fifth. Fuck, thing might even be eighth-hand, but it’s a damn ring and that’s what’s important.” “Craig seems to have a lot of things you’ve acquired.” “It’s a website. Kinda like a giant garage sale, aw, never mind, that ain’t important right now,” she slid into the ring and hopped up to sit on a turnbuckle, “I’m supposed t’ debut on May 11th. Still can’t thank you enough for gettin’ my foot in the door.” John walked tentatively around the ring, his fingers tracing along the stained apron, “Gives you plenty of time to prepare, I suppose. As for the introduction, I believe this last week has more than made up for one phone call.” “You can stay as long as you want, y’know. I’ve kinda liked having someone to talk to b’sides Mr. Met,”chuckling, she leaned forward a bit, somewhat like a perched phoenix, “Y’know, Church, I’ve been thinking. That was smart, what you said to get Saint’s attention, but I don’t think you could use a handler. Without gettin’ into it, I think you’ve had enough of that. My opinion, what you could probably use better,” she gave that same impish grin he’d seen on her face plenty by now, “is a partner.” John pulled at the bottom rope and it had too much give, “Mike,” he cleared his throat nervously, “I’ve been alone for a long time now but we just met. I mean not just met but in the grand scheme of time and all…” She giggled and then caught her hands on the ropes so she didn’t fall off backwards, “Church, hon, you don’t gotta worry about that. You’re a swell guy but you ain’t my type. Got the wrong, assets, if you get my drift. Naw, dude, I’m talking about being my tag partner.” John wasn’t really catching any drifts at this point, “I’m not sure what is my type, am I my type?” he looked up to her, “I’ve never had a tag partner,” there was a long pause as John paced back and forth in front of the ring, he mumbled to himself, seemingly assessing a complicated algorithm but then suddenly he stated, “Okay. We’re a team now.” “Fuckin’ A!” she gave a bit of a whoop and jumped from the turnbuckle to the mat. The ring shook in a slightly concerning manner, “Trust me. This is gonna be awesome,” she then scratched the back of her head, wearing the sheepish look of someone who may have done something she shouldn’t have, “cuz when I said ‘my debut’ I maaaaay have kinda meant our debut.” John looked at her blankly, which was the default expression seemingly and Mike braced herself for an objection, “Okay. Fine with me.” She let out a relieved ‘phew!’ and shrugged her shoulders a bit, “Sorry for jumping the gun. I kinda got excited and I probably shoulda asked you first.” “It’s okay,” and in what some would consider emotionless, “I’m excited, too. I can barely contain myself.” “You being sarcastic, man? I mean, seriously, you ain’t mad at me, are you?” “I’m not. I’m just not in the way of … I don’t know, I just,” he stumbled over his words, “I’m just not good with showing what I mean. Last person who talked me on the regular just told me the same thing every night.” “Oh, ok. Fair enough. Mind if I ask about that?” John rolled into the ring and sat in the middle with his legs crossed. He stared up through the branches of the maple tree into the sky. “John, you and me have a lot in common, you know that right? Let me tell you why. You should have seen it. You would have been proud. They didn’t recognize her face after what I did. They said I done it twenty seven times, Johnny, but all I know is that hammer was so caked in the essence of her that it excited me. I got all in them guts that night and she was still warm, you believe that shit? It excites me just talking about it. Makes me feel good inside. I’m touching myself right now, how do you like that, boy? How’s it make you feel? I feel like this vent is a one-way but I know you likes it, Johnny. You and me is kindred spirits. She did me wrong, too, and I made her pay just like you made her pay. Oh, Johnny, I’m so close, why don’t you talk to me, help me finish and whisper sweet nothings into my ear.” John sighed, “I never helped him for fifteen years and then one day he was gone. Every night, he’d say that. And then it was his time. I kind of missed him because no one talked to me much anyway. So I hope you understand that I’m listening and I hear what you say but there just isn’t much to say right now. I like being in this ring right now. I love this sport. And so I think he was wrong in the terms of commonality. You and me share the same passion so I hope that is enough for now. I hope what I shared provides some context to that I mean what I mean and I’m all for this arrangement.” Her expression was odd, somewhere between sympathy (meant for him) and disgust (directed at the other guy), as if she could understand the need for staving off isolation but was no less grossed out by what that other, now dead fucker had subjected her new friend to on the nightly. Mike sighed a bit and shifted her face to something more neutral and finally she nodded in acknowledgment. At least he’d shared something. Progress. Baby steps. And if he said he meant what he said, she’d believe him, 

“Alright. I read you. Anywho, I got a mini gym setup in the garage too. Nothing fancy. Some bags, weights, stuff like that. Mi casa es su casa, mi, fuckin’ train wreck of a training setup es su fuckin’ train wreck of a training setup. Which reminds me, you still got a single coming up. That Malice fucker, if I remember right. You got any idea what you’re gonna say?” “I don’t know. I’m not sure what to say right now. I really don’t want to talk to that guy anymore,”John meant Ace Heart - the lead interview man, “he doesn’t act like the way he does to anyone but me. He keeps asking questions he could answer himself.” “Hm. I don’t like the mustached fucker much either, but just to play devil’s advocate for a sec, maybe he’s frustrated that he’s not gettin’ nothin’ out of you. He’s nice to everybody else cuz they give him what he wants easy, but you’re not like everybody else. Which ain’t a bad thing but is driving him fuckin’ nuts,” she tapped her chin, and fiddled with the brim of her cap, “Got an idea. You don’t wanna deal with him, and I don’t want you dealing with fucking internet trolls. So, why don’t you talk to me instead? I got a phone with decent video. We could do a couple practice runs an’ then give ‘em the real goods. How’s that sound?” “Okay.” Mike directed him to stand in the middle of the ring. She stood on the apron with phone in hand and framed the video so one could see him from the waist up. She pinched in and out on the touch screen before she was satisfied with the shot. “Okay, tell me what you think about your opponent for Friday Night Rampage, Malice?” John looked directly into the camera lenses, “He seems nice.” She turned off the camera, her attempted veneer of professionalism falling by the wayside for the moment, “He’s not fuckin’ nice at all! He’s an asshole! And kind of a weirdo. I mean, I ain't no kinkshamer but I was waitin' for him and his chick to start suckin' on each other's toes or someshit. Eugh. ” “How do you know that? We never met them.” “Do you pay attention to other people’s video spots? He’s always going on about violence and suffering and shit. Not nice.” “I mean, yeah, but, okay, well, he’s not nice. I concede to that point.” She sighed once more, “Okay. Let’s try this again,” she pressed the button on the camera and started recording, repeating her previous question. “Malice …” She leaned forward a bit, a small look of anticipation on her face. “Did you know that an average person’s yearly fast food intake will contain 12 public hairs? I found that interesting.” “No, no!” she cut the camera off again, “Okay. I want you to please give me something fucking… real. Like, REAL real. Not random facts. Not goddamn touting of how nice your opponent is. Something real. You gave me something real in the parking lot. It was raw and uncomfortable but it was fucking REAL and that’s what I want. That’s what people’re wanting out of you. Fuck, it might even be cathartic. Can you do that, Church? Can you give me that?” John simply nodded. “Alright. Third time’s the fuckin’ charm. One, Two… MAKE GOOD TV,”

 she flicked the camera on again. She followed him with the shot as he paced in what she was getting used to as thinking time for the big man. Nearly half a minute past and Mike was about to switch off the camera and call it a day when John finally spoke up. “I’ve been here for just over a month now. I’ve won some and I lost some if you happen to be keeping track. I’m not going away. I thought about it. It would be easy to succumb to what some expect of me. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, too.” John stopped the pacing and then raised a balled fist in front of him. He then raised up his index finger, “Thomas, I heard you loud and clear and maybe if I were inclined to care, I would be devastated that your client got one over me. In hindsight, your sermon on who I am and just what effect your inflammatory statements would have on me were just a little flat. Maybe it had the opposite intended outcome because you don’t know one thing about me other then what you read. But what do I know? I’m not a mind reader.” Two. “Warrior. I have no doubt on what you may not fear. You blustered and puffed out your chest and you emphatically stated what you are. I am a professional wrestler and you are a fighter. You remember who you are and you remember back to that night on what being a fighter did for you.” Three. “Former champion. You made ultimatums. You questioned my dedication to this sport. You underestimated me. And so you have been weighed on the scales and have been found wanting.” Four, however at this point, he closed his hand. Mike zoomed in the camera closer on John’s face. “That, I guess, brings us to the present. The intention to cause pain and suffering; to do evil; ill will. That is pretty accurate. You and me stand at the opposite ends of the spectrum. However, you do not stand before me for judgment. I will not don the white hat that evening. I do however want you to understand that I do not share your willingness to do harm unto others. This is a sport and with your intentions you are a man out of time. You are a ruthless mercenary and you’ll do anything to survive the day.” He snapped his fingers. “Wake up from that day dream. The darkness that permeates every fiber of your being does not make me falter. I got biblical a little earlier and so maybe I hope you can understand this,” he cleared his throat, “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance. I think someone like you believes in that whether you want to admit it or not. The wounds you accumulate and bestow are what you perhaps consider a character building experience. I’ve been stuck on it, too. The thing is, and believe me, I’m not entirely sold on the idea of a higher power but your idea of suffering is pointless. There is no reason to suffer if not for faith. Maybe not faith in a traditional sense but you know the idea of believing that there is a core set of values that tell you to love one another. That suffering eventually means something. I know what you bring and it amounts to nothing. So bring that value to a ring very much like this one.” He pointed down towards the canvas. “And get that if you go outside of the constraints of the rules, you will eventually lose and your suffering will be for nought. Glory is your God and you have repeatedly disappointed Him. Don’t take my unwillingness to live up to the moniker of this company as not being cut out for it. And on the flip side, don’t take as it a declaration of superiority. It’s just who I am. What I am capable of doing with my hands may be more than enough to sate just what defines you.” John looked past the camera and at Mike. She got the unvoiced cue and turned off the feed. “Something like that?” “Oh my fucking god, YES! Awesome! I’m gonna send that in as is, it’s absolutely perfect,” she grinned from ear to ear, obviously impressed, “Can you do that all the time?” “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t like the idea of just being awful to each other. I just wanted to let them know how I felt. Is that what they want?” “Well… it doesn’t matter what they want, exactly. I’m not asking you to be awful. Just honest.”
 John stared at her blankly and then just slightly his mouth curved into a semblance of a smirk. “I can do that, partner.”

[heartslogos]

newfragile yellows [873]

“Doesn’t this just seem unfair to you?” Ellana asks, shading her eyes as she cranes her neck up at Bull. "And must you stand right there?”

Bull’s head is directly in front of the sun from this angle and it’s making Ellana’s eyes burn.

"If you stood up the view’d be different,” Bull points out, slightly bending over her, hands on his hips as he nudges her with his foot. “Come on, Wolf. We aren’t done yet. You can’t be sitting over here while everyone else is still working. Everyone’s going to think I’m playing favorites.”

“No, everyone’s going to pity me because they know you’re playing favorites, and have been tossing me about the training grounds like a rag doll for the past how many hours.”

“Not even one hour, Wolf. It hasn’t even been one.”

“No one asked you, Aclassi,” Ellana snaps, throwing a weak bolt of lightning at Krem’s feet as he passes. Krem neatly dodges as he moves on towards the other side of the training fields where he’s been practicing knife work with Skinner. “I don’t even know why you’re here. You just come over to mock me when I’m at my most irritable.”

“You gonna let her talk to me like that, Chief?” Krem says, “She shot lightning at me. That’s poor discipline or something. Write her up for the attitude.”

“She’s right though, stop wandering over here to make fun of her if you aren’t going to help me,” Bull says. “You nosy shit. Also you saw that one coming leagues away. No harm no foul.”

“What about emotional harm? I don’t feel like this is a safe working environment.”

“Stuff your shit, Aclassi,” Dalish says, hanging off of one of the training ring fence posts as she fiddles with a puzzle box she’d bought off of a visiting vendor in the Skyhold market. It’s supposed to be meditative exercise, but Dalish looks two seconds away from hurling the thing off the side of one of Skyhold’s walls and cheering as she watches it tumble into the frozen valleys below. “You want a safe working retirement go retire and be some noble’s kept boy.”

“Now there’s a thought,” Rocky laughs, in the middle of keeping Grim in a chokehold. Grim is attempting to escape to no avail. “You could be Grim’s kept boy.”

Grim repeatedly smacks Rocky’s arm. Either in protest of the chokehold or the idea of keeping Krem as a kept boy. It’s uncertain.

Ellana closes her eyes, running a hand over the back of her neck and grimacing at the grit on her damp palms.

“Wolf,” Bull says, nudging her again, “Up.”

Ellana flings her arm up and Bull sighs. He grasps her arm and firmly pulls her to her feet. Ellana opens her eyes again and scowls.

“You’re playing favorites. You don’t do this to anyone else.”

“You’re the newest,” Bull says. “You need it more than everyone else.”

“I’ve been with the Chargers for years.”

“I don’t see anyone newer than you present.”

“He’s absolutely playing favorites and he should keep at it,” Stitches says, handing Krem the dull wooden training knife as Skinner taps him out. “So that the rest of us don’t have to be his punching bag.”

Ellana glares at Stitches and then at Bull. “See? You’re being unnecessary.”

“I’m being thorough.” Bull brushes some of Ellana’s hair off of her shoulder, straightening some of her braids out a little. “Besides, we haven’t been on assignment in a while. Don’t tell me that you aren’t bored. Doesn’t your blood want to just show some teeth?”

Ellana scowls and Bull grins. “Maybe I just wanted to relax.” Ellana wrinkles her nose. “Or…read a book.”

“Right,” Bull squeezes her shoulder. “Sure. You decided to travel the world on your own because you wanted to relax and read a book. And you decided to join various mercenary bands along the way so you could put your feet up and have a nice lie in now and again. Sounds about right.”

“Well when you say it like that of course it sounds wrong.” Ellana bends down and picks the training sword up again.

“There you go,” Bull takes up his own training sword, stepping away from her. “Think about it this way — the sooner you do this, the sooner we move onto something else. And maybe the something else will be reading a book.”

“Is the book you as you try to get me to learn how to predict your moves in a brawl?”

“Sounds like you’re reading me already.”

Ellana groans and enters her starting position. “I regret so much about all of this. You enjoy being hit with wooden sticks too much for your own health.”

“On the contrary, being hit by wooden sticks is a sign of recovering health.”

“I — “ Ellana glances to the side to see if any of the Chargers are willing to meet her eyes and back her up on that. Bull takes the opportunity to strike. Ellana ducks down and almost gets a knee to the face as she lurches to the side. “Oh come on.”

“I don’t need to state the obvious, right?” Bull says. “You’ve got to focus? Don’t get distracted? Keep your attention on the opponent? You know, Wolf? The stuff that’s not gonna get you killed?”

Ellana cautiously stands back up, both hands on her sword as she edges around the Iron Bull.

“You’re the one who threw me off.”

“Get used to that, too.”

“I’ll never be used to you.”

Bull grins. “Flirting as a diversionary tactic? Classic.”

Ellana can feel her cheek twitching in annoyance.

“Less banter, more favoritism,” Krem yells out. “I want to see Wolf get worn into the ground.”

“Focus on your own shit, Aclassi,” Ellana snaps as she barely deflects a blow she knows Bull is holding back on. “Skinner, what are you doing that he can still be paying attention over here?”

“I’m taking a break to watch you get chased around a training ring,” Skinner says. “And stopping Dalish from throwing her puzzle box off of a rampart. It’s like tossing away coin at that point.”

[abeliangrouper-blog]

current novel workings (to be built on during the  17 day challenge)

I once again begin my ritual. I start with my linen collared shirts I received for my 16th birthday. I carefully lay all three of them on the bed, folding the sleeves over the middle of each shirt. I then grab the bottom of the shirt and aligned the bottom of the shirt with the shoulders of the shirt. I press each fold to make sure each shirt won't wrinkle. After stacking those three shirts and placing them to the side, I organize the rest of my belongings. I didn't bring many things to boarding school with me, so I have developed a consistent methodology for packing my things. After the collared shirts, I bundle all my socks and underwear in a pouch, fold my terry brown wool suit, and organize each shoe with its counterpart next to my trunk. My t-shirts, sweaters, and shorts go in the trunk first, followed by my trainers, penny loafers, and hiking boots. Then goes the collared shirts, pouch of under garments, and lastly my suit. I then proceed to whirlwind around the room, grabbing miscellaneous belongings and shoving them in the trunk. A small bundle of old letters from my father, a pocket watch, and two battered copies of Plato's Symposium. Here is also where I act against entropy, and remove whatever junk I have accumulated over the past few months. I also throw in my uniforms for school and other less-than-noteworthy articles. I've been a student here -- or rather, I've been traveling from bunk to bunk -- for the past 10 years. My father sent me to Rhython Sut's Prepatory Academy as a way to get me out of his hair. Why he would want to get rid of his 7 year old child escapes me, to be honest. I haven't seen him since I left. He sent letters a few times, but those stopped after the first few years. It doesn't affect me much anymore; at this point I accept that I'm on my own. With the exception of Tom, no one has ever seemed to show true empathy with regards to well-being. After packing my trunk, I head down to the main dining hall for supper before most of everyone else leaves for Christmas break. A standard schedule consists of spending a semester at the Academy, and then going home either for summer, winter, or exam study breaks. If you choose -- or have no choice but -- to stay, then you are permitted to live on campus, but must switch to your assigned room for the following term at the start of the break. So, I've been packing my trunk and switching rooms at the start of every break for the better part of a decade. One Christmas break I did go to my Grandmother's house in Devon, but she died the following Spring, and so that was the first and last time I left campus during break. For dinner they serve steamed potatoes with chives and sour cream, beef brisket, and black bean soup. They also serve a weird smelling stew, but I decide against trying it. It's better not to get adventurous during meal time. The dining hall has 3 thin, long tables with benches on either side that run the whole length of the hall. On one end is the counter facing the tables where the food is served. Behind that is the kitchen, where the food is 'cooked.' If you asked me what I thought of the food, I would say either edible or challenging, depending on if they served mystery mash-up that day. Nonetheless, a hot meal is a hot meal. Not something worth complaining about. --- December 14, 1973 This castle is full of hijackers of actors and backpackers of job-dodging slackers who find the need to self-medicate. This castle is lonely empty and hollow that gives me a bed and food, but not a home. This castle scares me has cobwebs and darkness has bullies and cliques has punches and tears. This castle it suffocates with headmasters and principals with discipline and rules with curfews and homework. But to be fair -- it's something: unlike my father. --- Sterile. Campus over break is like a movie set of a house for a sitcom, equipped with all the items that a typical house would have: a kitchen chalk full of useless but standard household gadgets, children's crayon drawings hanging on an off-white refrigerator, a bowl of fruit untouched and unbruised. And three walls and a film crew making sure the set-up's projection of a home is perfect and untainted. Sterile. However, an empty grounds affords me flexibility. I don't wait in line for food. I don't need to worry about crowded locker rooms and showers. I don't like public locker rooms much. They've been a bother to me since I've been here at the Academy. Anyways, during breaks, I spend time mostly reading and exercising. I am halfway through _____ by ______, where a [explain the plot in a way that a teenage boy would understand and find value from it]. Last term in Mathematics we learned parts of a book that summarizes Euclid's "Elements," and in American Literature we read Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat." Albeit lonely, I prefer schoolwork over team sports. I run from time to time, but watching the other boys play rugby and field hockey gives me more anxiety than excitement, so a while ago I decided to stick to my studies, and to running. --- The teacher begins the lesson with her back to the students. She has straight auburn hair that neatly falls between her shoulders blades down to the middle of her back. "Today we will be learning about two things. Finding the root of a number, and showing which roots of numbers are rational." the professor says. A student raises his hand impatiently and with a skeptical tapping of his pencil on the desk. He says "Whether a number is rational doesn't seem important -- shouldn't we care solely about the application of numbers? Otherwise it seems useless."

The professor rests the chalk on the lip of the bottom of the board and slowly turns around. 

"When I was in University, my older brother would work at a mechanic's shop working on engines. He'd got to class until the early evening, and then spend 3 to 4 hours a day working at this shop. He had always loved engines, and wanted to build them. As soon as he got there, he wanted to work the engines of the coolest sports cars: Mustangs, Jaguars, Corvettes -- this was an American car mechanic shop mind you -- but he didn't even look at a whole engine for almost a year." She lightly walks to the right, resting her hand on the corner of her desk. "His mentor at the shop made him spend every day first learning the layout of the shop, and then about the tools they had available. He'd every day learning about tools, practicing assembly and disassembly of small parts, and reading manuals. He felt more like he was in a classroom than working. He'd show up to work, read a manual for a power tool for an hour, and then perform simple tasks repeatedly until he felt comfortable." The student interjects "If he wanted to work on engines his mentor should've just let him do that." Delicately, "My point is that before you can touch an engine, you must first become acquainted with and develop skills with the tools you have at your disposal. Now let's begin with proving if a root of a number is irrational." I never really speak in class. In this instance I agreed with the professor; I care about learning the why before moving forward with doing things. That's part of what bothers me with my father. He never gave me anything that could even be mistaken for an explanation. I was sent away, and that's about all there is to it. --- There is a large iron fence that surrounds the whole premises; it's about twelve feet tall, with spikes that prevent people from climbing over. At the gate entrance, there is a large gravel pathway leading up to the main building. There are also two smaller paths at either side that shoot off to the left or right (and wrap around the premises just inside the fence). There are a few groundskeepers that live in the far left corner of the compound. They each have a small one-room cabin, equipped with a small furnace and stovetop, a sink, small bathroom, and a single bed all in the same room. Each unit also has a tiny attic with an oval window that faces the backside of the house -- away from the courtyard that lies in the middle of the units -- where the small gardens are. I sometimes walk over and sit on the bench. I like checking in on the growing fruit. As you walk up the main path, there are petunia beds on either side surrounded by oval-shaped hedges, which are neatly manicured. The grass is a sharp green and also cut very short -- it mildly resembles a golf course. The smells of freshly cut grass and insect pesticide abound without fail. There is also a small fountain on your left as you get close to the main door, which boasts a staple figure of the Academy: Rhython Sut. Sergeant Sut -- he served in the Royal Air Force in his youth -- created the Academy in the thirties after the prohibition in America. He procured a pile of cash smuggling rum through Cuba, a country south of the States, and got away scot-free -- although I doubt the same is true for those he worked with during that time. That's about all I know about Rhython and how the Academy came to be. The main building of the Academy itself is quite impressive. Tall, strong oak doors boast as the main entrance; wide concrete pillars guard both to the left and right. Three tall spires crouch perched atop the main building. They make me a bit dizzy look at them so I try not to. The building is a terracotta style brick and the walls are blanketed on the lower halves with ivory. Apart from the fact that I have had no say on where I get to grow up, I like the scenery that surrounds me. In the main building are the dining hall, the classrooms, the faculty offices, and other rooms that are 'forbidden' or 'out of bounds.' I don't bother myself with breaking into those rooms anymore, as most of the time it ends up with someone talking my ear off and a sequence of dutifully timed nods. To the left of the main building is the dormitory building, where both boys and girls sleep and study. This building is a long, thin and tall, with many windows. It's a bit newer than the main structure, as its predecessor was burned down about 20 years ago. No one was harmed, though. On the right side of the compound almost immediately after entering through the gates are the sports grounds. There are many fields organized neatly for rugby, field hockey, football, and cricket. Since the age groups for students at the Academy span from 6 to 18, there are different divisions of sports: ages 6-8, ages 9-11, ages 12-15, ages 16-18. Today is the first day of Christmas break. After moving my trunk to my new room 4L16 -- the fourth floor of the dormitory on the left side room number 15 -- I spent the morning walking around the Academy. ------------------ I'm absolutely terrified of stagnating. I spend a considerable portion of my mental energy considering whether I have been filling out the framework of expectations I have slowed constructed for myself, or if I have just been improving my ability to convince myself I'm doing as such -- all of this to maintain some kind of fragile self-perception. Am I legitimately growing as a person in my ability to think critically, cope with defeat, and communicate ideas, or I have I just found a detour to the same flavour of ignorance? I wish there were an easy way to evaluate myself. ---------------- “I just finished this book ______ the other day. Have you read it? _____ is quite intriguing. The language he uses seems to leave so much implicit. It's as though he has created a path of stepping stones across a big, dark lake, but has placed them as far apart as he could manage -- knowing precisely how far we can stretch to move forward. Oddly, one of the main characters reminds me in some ways of myself, and in other ways, of you. Isn't that interesting?” I nod and smile at him when he talks at me. It's too much trouble to do anything else, and I find this sentiment a bit frustrating. A novel’s upshot evokes a shared experience -- that's the whole point. He's not special -- _____ is just talented. Why do people always fucking make it about themselves? Evidently, I don't ask him this question. -------------------

NOTE: Some of these sections are just ideas I’ve partially jotted down; the ordering of these is definitely not polished by any means. 

[omgnsfwisnsfw-blog]

7: Make Good TV

After that torrent of raw emotion, John closed inward. He never wanted to say any of that and he couldn’t imagine that he would have said it to someone who at most was an acquaintance. Despite that, she still persisted and not in a way that would be considered a nuisance but instead a gentle prodding to the next necessary step. Fortunately for Mike, John had kept a slip of paper with his boss’ business number in his wallet. The remnants of his cell phone were now swept away by the cleaning crew and in the near future were scattered about in a nearby landfill. John had insisted to Michael Saint that he needed to speak with Mike as it was integral that she join him as his, and he knew that he was being self-depreciating but it was also possibly what management wanted to hear, his handler. From there, Mike had, within thirty minutes, a private meeting with the general manager and walked out with provisional terms for a contract of employment. Once John had started to leave again so he could slip away into the night - perhaps satisfied that he did his good deed for the day, Mike stopped him once again. Her employee, a young college student, had bailed as he had class in less than seven hours so it was just Mike McGuire now. His conscious thoughts told him to pull away and to go back into seclusion - it was always how it had been so why stop now? But something else, unbeknownst to him, prevailed and he turned to face her. “‘Ay, are you stayin’ anyplace tonight? Got a hotel room or somethin’?” The answer was no. John had abandoned his apartment lease over a month ago now and now technically had no place of residence or any real intention to stay in any more hotel rooms. “I’m just going to hit the road. I usually sleep on the way there. Not really sure yet.” “Well, if you wanted, you could crash at my place. Ain’t the Ritz, but I got a spare room and it beats sleepin’ in your car.” John’s eyes widened as if he had been found out. She pointed at the piled up blanket in the back seat of the car and from there asked if he was really living anywhere. He shook his head. At that point she insisted. One night turned in two nights. Two into a week. That week had become a crash course in the mundane realities of life. John had taken the basic functions for granted and was finding that he was slipping further and further in an attempt to replicate what he had before. John had decided to let go and let Mike light the way. Suddenly he had a bank account. He had a new cellphone with the proviso that this one shouldn’t be broken into a million pieces. He had plane tickets to future destinations because Mike had emphatically stated that his vehicle wouldn’t survive much more criss-crossing of this great nation. Some astute observers could draw the parallel of John waiting for that slot in his steel door to open three times a day but Mike always insisted that he was going to do it next time because she’s not his goddamn Mother. But it wasn’t just that because John concluded that Mike just wanted to talk to someone and she tried repeatedly to strike up conversations. The first couple of nights, John had been regaled of tales of her past. Sometimes it was about business but John didn’t want to talk about himself much so he just listened intently. It was like listening to a good book. Most of the time, though, John kept to himself by reading the book he had lifted at the motel. John, much to Mike’s excitement, had been successful in his last few contests. He had some momentum, she said, and people were starting to take notice. He had recoiled from that. People taking notice meant attracting unwanted attention. It was hard for him to explain. The ring was a sanctuary and despite the viewing audience, it was really just between him and the opposition. The cruelty and negativity were no longer part of the equation - it was now a battle of wits and strength. Two or more opposing forces moving against each other in a violent but beautiful struggle. It was Tuesday afternoon and last night, John had earned a defining victory over a former television champion. Mike, out of nowhere, said it’s time and beckoned him to join her in the backyard. It was time to get in ring shape, she proclaimed. They separated briefly to change into workout gear. John stepped through the open sliding glass door into a yard surrounded by a ten foot tall wooden fence. In the middle of the yard was a ring. It was in a state of disrepair. The ropes looked loose and frayed and some parts were wrapped in duct tape. The turnbuckles were mismatched in color and shape. The canvas was soiled and the branches of a maple tree hung over the ring casting its shadow and depositing leaves and twigs throughout. John couldn’t help to think about that place he’d visit when he started to see red. That ring was his garden. It was where he would grow. “I like it,” John said with complete sincerity. “Aw, it ain’t nothin’ special. Got the thing for a song on Craigslist. It’s fourth-hand. Maybe fifth. Fuck, thing might even be eighth-hand, but it’s a damn ring and that’s what’s important.” “Craig seems to have a lot of things you’ve acquired.” “It’s a website. Kinda like a giant garage sale, aw, never mind, that ain’t important right now,” she slid into the ring and hopped up to sit on a turnbuckle, “I’m supposed t’ debut on May 11th. Still can’t thank you enough for gettin’ my foot in the door.” John walked tentatively around the ring, his fingers tracing along the stained apron, “Gives you plenty of time to prepare, I suppose. As for the introduction, I believe this last week has more than made up for one phone call.” “You can stay as long as you want, y’know. I’ve kinda liked having someone to talk to b’sides Mr. Met,”chuckling, she leaned forward a bit, somewhat like a perched phoenix, “Y’know, Church, I’ve been thinking. That was smart, what you said to get Saint’s attention, but I don’t think you could use a handler. Without gettin’ into it, I think you’ve had enough of that. My opinion, what you could probably use better,” she gave that same impish grin he’d seen on her face plenty by now, “is a partner.” John pulled at the bottom rope and it had too much give, “Mike,” he cleared his throat nervously, “I’ve been alone for a long time now but we just met. I mean not just met but in the grand scheme of time and all…” She giggled and then caught her hands on the ropes so she didn’t fall off backwards, “Church, hon, you don’t gotta worry about that. You’re a swell guy but you ain’t my type. Got the wrong, assets, if you get my drift. Naw, dude, I’m talking about being my tag partner.” John wasn’t really catching any drifts at this point, “I’m not sure what is my type, am I my type?” he looked up to her, “I’ve never had a tag partner,” there was a long pause as John paced back and forth in front of the ring, he mumbled to himself, seemingly assessing a complicated algorithm but then suddenly he stated, “Okay. We’re a team now.” “Fuckin’ A!” she gave a bit of a whoop and jumped from the turnbuckle to the mat. The ring shook in a slightly concerning manner, “Trust me. This is gonna be awesome,” she then scratched the back of her head, wearing the sheepish look of someone who may have done something she shouldn’t have, “cuz when I said ‘my debut’ I maaaaay have kinda meant our debut.” John looked at her blankly, which was the default expression seemingly and Mike braced herself for an objection, “Okay. Fine with me.” She let out a relieved ‘phew!’ and shrugged her shoulders a bit, “Sorry for jumping the gun. I kinda got excited and I probably shoulda asked you first.” “It’s okay,” and in what some would consider emotionless, “I’m excited, too. I can barely contain myself.” “You being sarcastic, man? I mean, seriously, you ain’t mad at me, are you?” “I’m not. I’m just not in the way of … I don’t know, I just,” he stumbled over his words, “I’m just not good with showing what I mean. Last person who talked me on the regular just told me the same thing every night.” “Oh, ok. Fair enough. Mind if I ask about that?” John rolled into the ring and sat in the middle with his legs crossed. He stared up through the branches of the maple tree into the sky. “John, you and me have a lot in common, you know that right? Let me tell you why. You should have seen it. You would have been proud. They didn’t recognize her face after what I did. They said I done it twenty seven times, Johnny, but all I know is that hammer was so caked in the essence of her that it excited me. I got all in them guts that night and she was still warm, you believe that shit? It excites me just talking about it. Makes me feel good inside. I’m touching myself right now, how do you like that, boy? How’s it make you feel? I feel like this vent is a one-way but I know you likes it, Johnny. You and me is kindred spirits. She did me wrong, too, and I made her pay just like you made her pay. Oh, Johnny, I’m so close, why don’t you talk to me, help me finish and whisper sweet nothings into my ear.” John sighed, “I never helped him for fifteen years and then one day he was gone. Every night, he’d say that. And then it was his time. I kind of missed him because no one talked to me much anyway. So I hope you understand that I’m listening and I hear what you say but there just isn’t much to say right now. I like being in this ring right now. I love this sport. And so I think he was wrong in the terms of commonality. You and me share the same passion so I hope that is enough for now. I hope what I shared provides some context to that I mean what I mean and I’m all for this arrangement.” Her expression was odd, somewhere between sympathy (meant for him) and disgust (directed at the other guy), as if she could understand the need for staving off isolation but was no less grossed out by what that other, now dead fucker had subjected her new friend to on the nightly. Mike sighed a bit and shifted her face to something more neutral and finally she nodded in acknowledgment. At least he’d shared something. Progress. Baby steps. And if he said he meant what he said, she’d believe him, 

“Alright. I read you. Anywho, I got a mini gym setup in the garage too. Nothing fancy. Some bags, weights, stuff like that. Mi casa es su casa, mi, fuckin’ train wreck of a training setup es su fuckin’ train wreck of a training setup. Which reminds me, you still got a single coming up. That Malice fucker, if I remember right. You got any idea what you’re gonna say?” “I don’t know. I’m not sure what to say right now. I really don’t want to talk to that guy anymore,”John meant Ace Heart - the lead interview man, “he doesn’t act like the way he does to anyone but me. He keeps asking questions he could answer himself.” “Hm. I don’t like the mustached fucker much either, but just to play devil’s advocate for a sec, maybe he’s frustrated that he’s not gettin’ nothin’ out of you. He’s nice to everybody else cuz they give him what he wants easy, but you’re not like everybody else. Which ain’t a bad thing but is driving him fuckin’ nuts,” she tapped her chin, and fiddled with the brim of her cap, “Got an idea. You don’t wanna deal with him, and I don’t want you dealing with fucking internet trolls. So, why don’t you talk to me instead? I got a phone with decent video. We could do a couple practice runs an’ then give ‘em the real goods. How’s that sound?” “Okay.” Mike directed him to stand in the middle of the ring. She stood on the apron with phone in hand and framed the video so one could see him from the waist up. She pinched in and out on the touch screen before she was satisfied with the shot. “Okay, tell me what you think about your opponent for Friday Night Rampage, Malice?” John looked directly into the camera lenses, “He seems nice.” She turned off the camera, her attempted veneer of professionalism falling by the wayside for the moment, “He’s not fuckin’ nice at all! He’s an asshole! And kind of a weirdo. I mean, I ain't no kinkshamer but I was waitin' for him and his chick to start suckin' on each other's toes or someshit. Eugh. ” “How do you know that? We never met them.” “Do you pay attention to other people’s video spots? He’s always going on about violence and suffering and shit. Not nice.” “I mean, yeah, but, okay, well, he’s not nice. I concede to that point.” She sighed once more, “Okay. Let’s try this again,” she pressed the button on the camera and started recording, repeating her previous question. “Malice …” She leaned forward a bit, a small look of anticipation on her face. “Did you know that an average person’s yearly fast food intake will contain 12 public hairs? I found that interesting.” “No, no!” she cut the camera off again, “Okay. I want you to please give me something fucking… real. Like, REAL real. Not random facts. Not goddamn touting of how nice your opponent is. Something real. You gave me something real in the parking lot. It was raw and uncomfortable but it was fucking REAL and that’s what I want. That’s what people’re wanting out of you. Fuck, it might even be cathartic. Can you do that, Church? Can you give me that?” John simply nodded. “Alright. Third time’s the fuckin’ charm. One, Two… MAKE GOOD TV,”

 she flicked the camera on again. She followed him with the shot as he paced in what she was getting used to as thinking time for the big man. Nearly half a minute past and Mike was about to switch off the camera and call it a day when John finally spoke up. “I’ve been here for just over a month now. I’ve won some and I lost some if you happen to be keeping track. I’m not going away. I thought about it. It would be easy to succumb to what some expect of me. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, too.” John stopped the pacing and then raised a balled fist in front of him. He then raised up his index finger, “Thomas, I heard you loud and clear and maybe if I were inclined to care, I would be devastated that your client got one over me. In hindsight, your sermon on who I am and just what effect your inflammatory statements would have on me were just a little flat. Maybe it had the opposite intended outcome because you don’t know one thing about me other then what you read. But what do I know? I’m not a mind reader.” Two. “Warrior. I have no doubt on what you may not fear. You blustered and puffed out your chest and you emphatically stated what you are. I am a professional wrestler and you are a fighter. You remember who you are and you remember back to that night on what being a fighter did for you.” Three. “Former champion. You made ultimatums. You questioned my dedication to this sport. You underestimated me. And so you have been weighed on the scales and have been found wanting.” Four, however at this point, he closed his hand. Mike zoomed in the camera closer on John’s face. “That, I guess, brings us to the present. The intention to cause pain and suffering; to do evil; ill will. That is pretty accurate. You and me stand at the opposite ends of the spectrum. However, you do not stand before me for judgment. I will not don the white hat that evening. I do however want you to understand that I do not share your willingness to do harm unto others. This is a sport and with your intentions you are a man out of time. You are a ruthless mercenary and you’ll do anything to survive the day.” He snapped his fingers. “Wake up from that day dream. The darkness that permeates every fiber of your being does not make me falter. I got biblical a little earlier and so maybe I hope you can understand this,” he cleared his throat, “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance. I think someone like you believes in that whether you want to admit it or not. The wounds you accumulate and bestow are what you perhaps consider a character building experience. I’ve been stuck on it, too. The thing is, and believe me, I’m not entirely sold on the idea of a higher power but your idea of suffering is pointless. There is no reason to suffer if not for faith. Maybe not faith in a traditional sense but you know the idea of believing that there is a core set of values that tell you to love one another. That suffering eventually means something. I know what you bring and it amounts to nothing. So bring that value to a ring very much like this one.” He pointed down towards the canvas. “And get that if you go outside of the constraints of the rules, you will eventually lose and your suffering will be for nought. Glory is your God and you have repeatedly disappointed Him. Don’t take my unwillingness to live up to the moniker of this company as not being cut out for it. And on the flip side, don’t take as it a declaration of superiority. It’s just who I am. What I am capable of doing with my hands may be more than enough to sate just what defines you.” John looked past the camera and at Mike. She got the unvoiced cue and turned off the feed. “Something like that?” “Oh my fucking god, YES! Awesome! I’m gonna send that in as is, it’s absolutely perfect,” she grinned from ear to ear, obviously impressed, “Can you do that all the time?” “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t like the idea of just being awful to each other. I just wanted to let them know how I felt. Is that what they want?” “Well… it doesn’t matter what they want, exactly. I’m not asking you to be awful. Just honest.”
 John stared at her blankly and then just slightly his mouth curved into a semblance of a smirk. “I can do that, partner.”

[ciathyzareposts]

Crusaders of the Dark Savant: Summary and Rating

Kind-of a weird image choice for the box. Is that supposed to be one of the “maps”?

          Wizardry: Crusaders of the Dark Savant

(Generally known as Wizardry VII but never called that in the game or documentation)

United States

Sir-Tech Software (developer and publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS, 1994 for FM Towns and PC-98, 1995 for Playstation, 1996 for SEGA Saturn; re-released in 1996 for Windows and Macintosh as Wizardry Gold

Date Started: 20 August 2018 Date Ended: 2 December 2018

Total Hours: 108

Difficulty: Moderate (3/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at Time of Posting: (to come later)

In my many entries on Crusaders of the Dark Savant, I’ve painted it as a game that tells a mediocre story, does so ineptly, and usually doesn’t take its own story seriously–at least not until the end, when it becomes almost comically full of pathos. It also has a way of feeding the player over-wrought prose, often one line at a time, multiple times, with no way to escape. I hold to these criticisms as we enter this final summary, but as in the case of many other games we’ve seen on the blog–the Ultima series primary among them–my criticisms have to be understood in the context of the fact that few other games of the era offered enough of a story to make such criticisms possible. A game that offers no backstory offers nothing to make fun of. One that puts itself out there with a detailed backstory and complex plot offers dozens of things to react to.

I don’t apologize for a blog whose purpose is to chronicle these reactions, from the perspective of a modern player, but I do apologize if I don’t put sufficient context around my criticisms, or if I don’t balance them by highlighting the positive content and mechanics of the game. Looking over my previous entries on Crusaders, I don’t think I conveyed often enough that even though I had some issues with some of the storytelling and other content, those reactions were in the context of a title that kept me up all night playing. Even in the “game world and story” category, Crusaders is going to perform well.            

One of the more broadly-drawn and poorly-explained factions in the game.

          Part of my reaction to the plot is personal preference. I will always prefer the low-key, locally-relevant story to the world-threatening catastrophe. Give me the party trying to clear out the slums of New Phlan instead of the one trying to save the universe. You think that higher stakes might make a more epic game, but I find that the opposite is true–that there’s more opportunity for deeper and more realistic characterizations of people and places when the scope of the game is smaller. The Fallout games all do a good job in this regard. None of them invite you to save the world from a nuclear war. You just get to make your little corner of the world a little better.

In this case, though, the nature of the threat isn’t even really clear, partly because the characterizations of key NPCs are so thin. Who is the Dark Savant? Where does he come from? What are his motivations? Again, what the game gives us is, unquestionably, better than the standard “evil wizard” with no background who appears in 90% of the games before this one. But in some ways that just makes this experience all the more unsatisfying.              

Is it a time for a new purpose, or a new perception of purpose?

           Nothing in the game is more frustrating than the character of Vi Domina. She shows up in the backstory, scantily-clad, sporting a mechanical arm and visor, like someone’s cyberpunk cosplay fantasy. When she finally appears late in the game, she’s more of a naif than someone whose name all but demands that you add a “trix” to the end. You’re told repeatedly that she’s a “warrior,” but she never seems to fight anything. For the final chapter, she’s everywhere, and and the game trips over itself telling how how awesome she is and how much you love her. Literally some of the last lines tell how you “are pleased to be in the company of such a pleasant traveling companion and new partner.” I don’t like it when games tell me what my characters think, especially when they haven’t earned that right by giving me any insight into the character’s backstory or motivations.              

This is laying it on a little thick.

             The story is attributed to David Bradley, although I don’t know how much of it is wholly his creation. It’s no secret that I had a near-immediate negative reaction to Bradley when I first started playing Wizardry VI, what with the ridiculous photograph and cringe-worthy interview that appeared in the game’s cluebook, plus his insistence on dropping his name on literally every page and calling the game a “fantasy role-playing simulation.” Too much authorial presence breaks the fundamental illusion of a game, book, or even a blog. I’ve run afoul of this myself. Audiences want to be able to take what they read seriously, authoritatively, and they can’t if they feel that someone ridiculous is feeding them the story. (I often wonder how many readers Terry Goodkind lost by putting this picture on his books.) I realized writing this that I have no idea what specific individuals to credit for most of my favorite RPGs, like Baldur’s Gate and Morrowind, and perhaps that’s a good thing.

But it’s worth remembering that I had issues with Bradley even before I knew who he was, with the absurd NPCs in Wizardry V (e.g., the Duck of Sparks, Lord Hienmiety, the god La-La and his priest G’Bli Gedook). Bradley is fond of broad humor–the type that that favors ridiculous names with long o sounds (“Phoonzang,” “Bambiphoots”) or puns (“Ratsputin,” “Blienmeis”) that most of us grow out of by age 10. I’m sure he had a clear idea in his own mind about the Dark Savant and his Mary Sue Domina, but I don’t think he conveyed their story competently.             

And it begins.

          Having said all of that, it’s important to keep in mind that in my complaints, I’m evaluating Crusaders against a modern game, or an “ideal” game, rather than other 1992 games. Compared to its own contemporaries, there’s no question that Crusaders deserves a high score in the “game world” category. More important, it deserves high scores in the equipment, combat, and character development categories. The mechanics of the game are excellent. The worst thing Bradley could have done when taking over the series was to jettison the approach to combat introduced in the first Wizardry, but he did a good job keeping its fundamental tactics alive. He, or someone, deserves credit for perfectly balancing the “rest” system. If it had restored everything, as it does in Might and Magic, the game would have been far too easy and all the challenge would have come down to individual battles. If they’d made you return to a central location to restore spells and health, as in the first five games, extended expeditions would have been a nightmare. As they programmed it, resting restores just enough hit points and spell points to keep you going, but it takes just long enough, and offers just enough chance for random encounters, that you’re discouraged from abusing it.

Character classes are well-differentiated, and the system of switching between them is well-balanced enough to offer rewards for switching but equal rewards for staying. (Perhaps putting a maximum on the number of times you can switch, or the lowest level at which you can switch, would have been a good idea.) Character development is constant and rewarding throughout the long game. The equipment system is equally solid.

I’m on the fence about certain aspects of the game world and quest. In general, I favor open game worlds with nonlinear narratives, and even games where the main quest itself is something of a mystery. Crusaders checks all those boxes. It also deserves credit for making its game world somewhat dynamic, with roaming NPCs who engage in (off-screen) conflicts with each other and sometimes (often, in my case) find key treasures before the party does.            

The “Locate Person” spell helps keep tabs on constantly-shifting NPCs.

         On the other hand, I wouldn’t have minded if the game had offered a little more guidance on the main quest, particularly in respect to the 11 “maps” that become the focus of the exploration and quests. (I put that in quotes because they’re not really maps at all, but texts.) I was deep into the game before it became clear that assembling the set of maps was the primary goal of exploration. Just a few lines in the manual or in-game backstory would have cleared up a lot of confusion.

Hardcore Gaming 101 has an excellent paragraph that describes some of the negative aspects of the open game world:           

The game is entirely non-linear, and upon landing the player doesn’t even get a clue what to do first. Even though most areas are effectively locked off due to being inhabited by far too strong monsters, the game is always dominated by a crushing feeling of being lost. The world is full of items that absolutely have to be kept, remembered, and recognized for puzzles somewhere at the other end of the world, dozens of gameplay hours later. Many puzzles aren’t necessarily all that hard on their own, it’s just that the ingredients are spread out too far, and the hints are often obscure, if there are any hints at all.

            But it’s again important to remember that Crusaders was pioneering new territory here. Only a few games prior to it were as physically large, long, and complicated, and the developers didn’t have a lot of good examples to draw upon for balancing such a large world and complex plot. In the end, I’m grateful that Crusaders advanced the importance of detailed stories, NPC interaction, side-quests, sub-quests, and player choices. As such, I would be surprised if the GIMLET didn’t put the game in the top 5. Let’s see:

1. Game world and story. Crusaders offers a detailed backstory that plays a significant role in the game itself. There are multiple factions with their own characteristics and motivations, history, and lore. The characters’ actions visibly affect the world, and the game is one of a rare few in which some events happen dynamically, without the player’s input. There are aspects of each of these elements to criticize, but I’ve mostly done that enough. Score: 7.

2. Character creation and development. Mechanically, the game’s approach is about as good as any game on the market. It has a full set of race choices, class choices, attributes, and skills, several magic systems, and meaningful inventory restrictions by race and class. (I think some of the races are stupid, but that’s a minor concern.) Different selections create different experiences for different players. The ability to switch classes, while perhaps unbalancing the game a bit, adds additional dimensions to character development. Development is regular and rewarding throughout the game.

On the negative side, the classes and races really don’t play any meaningful role in the game, at least not in a way that was clear to me. Certain skills are useless or mostly useless, and I don’t think the game gained anything by dividing skills into multiple categories. Score: 7.            

Defeating the Dark Savant kicked everyone up a level.

           3. NPC interaction. I actually think the series took a step backward here. In the system introduced in Wizardry V and included in VI, characters can have full-sentence dialogues with NPCs, but the previous games seemed to offer a more sophisticated interpreter in which full sentences were actually necessary. Phrasing things as statements or questions, even with the same keywords, might produce different results. Here, the game just seems to scan for keywords regardless of their positions in the sentence or the surrounding text, and I offered a few joking screenshots along those lines.

Having said that, I don’t really mind this “dumbing down” of dialogue, since it was always frustrating to figure out exactly how to phrase a question to get an intended result. What I do mind is that the NPCs respond to a lot fewer keywords than their Cosmic Forge counterparts while simultaneously tripling their dialogue quantity. They are also a lot goofier and thus less realistic.

Back on the positive side, I like the way NPCs roam around and engage in conflict with each other, and I wish the game had done more with this, offering more reasons to seek out, track down, and ally with (or oppose) various NPCs. Instead, since encountering NPCs is non-optional and results in pages of unskippable and unvarying dialogue, the game effectively encourages the player to simply kill everyone.

The end result of the goofy names and characterizations and long-winded introductory dialogue, there wasn’t a single NPC in the game that I actually liked. That’s particularly too bad given that, mechanically, the game supports fairly deep interactions with its NPCs. Score: 6.           

One of the game’s goofy NPCs responds solely to the word “archives.”

            4. Encounters and foes. The foes are mostly originally-named, which in this case is a negative because most of the names are silly. I didn’t like that so many enemies used the same graphics and were thus difficult to distinguish, even though their strengths and weaknesses might vary considerably. On the other hand, the bestiary is satisfyingly large, with enough strengths and weaknesses among them to create different tactical challenges.

Non-combat encounters were plentiful and engaging, and while they didn’t offer a lot of opportunities for role-playing, many of them provided challenges of satisfying difficulty. Score: 6.

5. Magic and combat. The magic and combat system continue to be the primary strengths of the series, and as I said above, Bradley deserves a lot of credit for adapting rather than replacing the system introduced over a decade prior. The various spells and enemy characteristics come together to create a near-infinite number of tactical choices, but everything is exquisitely balanced.

I see that in my GIMLET for Bane of the Cosmic Forge, more than five years ago, while giving the combat system a high score, I said I was “past the whole ‘line up your attacks and execute them all at once’ system.” I understand what I meant, favoring more tactical combat screens like those used in the Gold Box games, and anticipating more real-time (but no less tactical) combat as in Might and Magic III. Still, it was a short-sighted statement. Crusaders proves there was still life in the old system. Score: 7.            

I’m not sure I used “parry” once in the entire game.

          6. Equipment. My primary quibble here is that the game only gives you one “accessory” slot, and you find so many rings, necklaces, capes, belts, and similar items that it’s constantly torturous to choose among them. I also continue to dislike the identification system of the series. I don’t mind so much the process of casting “Identify” to view an items characteristics, but I rather wish that having done so, I could simply view the item in the future to remind myself of those characteristics, not have to cast the spell again. It makes evaluating multiple items a time-consuming, spell-point consuming chore.

But overall, the game does a good job here. There is a such a variety of weapons of different types and ranges, armor (helms, upper body, lower body, gloves, boots), and usable items that almost every treasure chest offers something useful. What I particularly like is that the selection of items in chests (and, to a lesser extent, on dead enemies) is mostly randomized. I hate when the same artifacts appear in the same locations for every player. Score: 6.

7. Economy. I didn’t talk about it much during my entries, but it’s not very good. The primary problem is that “stores” are mixed up with NPCs, and there simply aren’t enough of them selling enough useful stuff. You mostly end up selling rather than buying, amassing a huge amount of gold before the end, and spending most of it on plot-specific purchases (like ascending in the Dane Tower or buying your way into the Umpani legions) rather than equipment. I would have appreciated more places to spend gold and a less-cumbersome purchasing system. Score: 3.            

I ended the game with far too much money and not nearly enough things to spend it on.

            8. Quests. With a main quest with not only multiple endings but multiple beginnings, faction options, and numerous side-quests and sub-quests (although it’s not always clear which is which), it’s hard to ask for more in this category except for better writing and greater complexity, both of which later games would offer thanks to titles like Crusaders setting the standard. Score: 8.

9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. Perhaps the weakest category in my opinion. The graphics are certainly improved from previous titles in the series, but they’re still just textures. While many of the monster animations are fine, I wasn’t in love with anything else. Sound effects were at best adequate, at worst annoying (e.g., the continual background droning), and since they slowed down the game so much, I turned them off halfway through.

It’s tough to write a good interface in a game of this complexity, and while I eventually got used to it, there were aspects that bothered me until the end, including poor use of the keyboard, inability to switch between characters while in sub-menus, limited scope of the automap, lack of any way to determine coordinates, inability to skip text you’d already seen a million times, and a lot of unintuitive commands. Score: 3.

10. Gameplay. We get to end the GIMLET on a positive. Crusaders is the first truly non-linear Wizardry, and it’s about as nonlinear as you can get (even the starting and ending locations can vary) except that the so-called “outdoor” world is still pretty confining and there’s a bit of frustration involved in simply getting from once place to another. The faction options, ending options, and different experiences afforded to different character classes make it highly replayable. Its difficulty is pitched perfectly, and even adjustable.

Although it avoided the worst flaws of long games, such as artificial level caps and a general feeling that characters stopped developing, 100+ hours is still far too long. I don’t mind games with optional content that push past the 100-hour mark, but otherwise I feel that a game is becoming indecent if it exceeds a couple of work weeks. Score: 7.

That gives us a final score of 60, tying it for the sixth-highest rating on my blog so far, seven points higher than Wizardry VI. As much fun as I’ve made of David Bradley, the inescapable result of his involvement with the series is that it kept improving–in sharp contrast to a lot of series of the era that, while advancing in superficial elements like graphics and sound, struggled to out-perform their first installments in core RPG mechanics.

             “True point & click mouse interface.” Ugh. Eventually games will come full circle and say things like, “Makes effective use of the full keyboard.”

               Contemporary reviews were universally positive, although some reviewers complained about over-length, interface issues, and too much backtracking. In the February 1993 Computer Gaming World, Scorpia called it “the first Wizardry that has a real-world feel to it,” praising its various factions and roaming NPCs, but sharply criticizing the backtracking that the game requires, including my complaints about having to leave the Isle of Crypts multiple times. The magazine was a bit more positive when it gave the game “RPG of the Year” (for 1993). It is of course extremely well-respected today, with numerous fan sites, analyses, and retrospectives.               

“One day” being nine years from now.

             Wizardry 8 didn’t come out for nine years, and I can’t possibly close this entry without talking a little bit about what happened in between. (Whatever I think of David W. Bradley as a storyteller, he comes across as the least reprehensible party in the mess that followed.) As with many things involving multiple perspectives, it’s hard to glean the raw truth about some of the issues, but I’ve done my best to summarize as best I understand it. Primary sources include a 2014 Matt Barton interview with Robert Sirotek, a 1997 New York Supreme Court decision, and a 1998 Usenet thread now archived by Google Groups.

While Crusaders of the Dark Savant was still under development, Wizardry series co-creator Andrew Greenberg–who had become an intellectual property attorney in the meantime–sued Sir-Tech Software for breach of contract. His cause seems to me to be legitimate. In 1991, Sir-Tech closed its development shop in New York and transferred its assets to Sir-Tech Canada. Its position was apparently that because Sir-Tech Canada was a different company than the New York Sir-Tech, its contract with Greenberg was now void, and they stopped sending checks, despite the fact that they continued to market and sell Wizardry titles in the United States and the same principals owned both companies.

However, in filing suit, Greenberg for some reason named Bradley, who had no ownership stake in Sir-Tech, as one of the co-defendants. Both Bradley and Sir-Tech balked at the inclusion of Bradley, and Sir-Tech later argued, in a counter-suit, that Greenberg’s suit had ruined Bradley’s productivity and caused a one-year delay in Crusaders of the Dark Savant (it had original been planned for a holiday 1991 release). A 1997 New York court decision on the issue would later find that:

           [C]ontemporaneous memoranda do not indicate that Bradley was ever unable to work and, in fact, make absolutely no reference to the Federal court action. In sharp contrast to the position taken in Sir-Tech’s complaint, these writings provide persuasive evidence that the sheer magnitude of the Crusaders project, programming and operating system problems and, quite possibly, Sir-Tech’s own impatience and interference, were the major causes for the delay, which extended for a full year beyond the September 1, 1991 deadline and, in fact, approximately six months beyond the dismissal of the Federal court action.

             The documents I reviewed suggest that Sir-Tech did their best to keep Bradley out of the legal mess and to cover any of his legal expenses, but you can see how it would be hard to maintain good working relationships in such an environment, and after the publication of Crusaders, Bradley left the company in a “falling out” that I haven’t seen otherwise specified.

        The lawsuits, counter-suits, and appeals wouldn’t be settled until 2005, two years after even Sir-Tech Canada closed its doors for good. But these legal straits may explain why Sir-Tech decided to keep further development of the Wizardry franchise as far away from the jurisdiction of U.S. courts as possible. They asked their Australian distributor, Directsoft, to put together a team. Directsoft responded by assembling a group so comically inept that it’s almost as if they wanted the project to fail. The project head was a sound editor-cum-film director who had never (as far as I can tell) managed the development of a computer game before. No one on the initial staff knew much of anything about programming. After months of producing nothing but maps and lewd monster graphics, the team finally hired a couple of programmers. These included Cleveland Mark Blakemore, who by his own account tried his best to turn the documents into an actual program but ultimately got frustrated by the ineptitude of his colleagues and repeatedly tried to quit.     In 1994, sensing the project had become a money pit, Sir-Tech canceled further work on what would have been Wizardry: Stones of Arnhem. This might have been a wise move for thematic reasons, too: nothing about the game, as far as I can tell from the documentation, suggests it would have been a sequel to Crusaders. In the Barton interview, Sirotek even suggests it may not have gotten the Wizardry label.

               A map from the development of Stones of Arnhem. Oddly, most of the major locations named on the map are real place names in Australia.

             Blakemore is himself a controversial figure whose accounts of working on Stones of Arnhem were doubted for years until a stash of Sir-Tech documents emerged in an abandoned storage locker in the town where Sir-Tech had its headquarters, not only confirming his employment but also largely his account of why the project failed. (The documents went up for sale on eBay briefly, but Sirotek somehow got the auction shut down. Somehow the Museum of Computer Adventure Game History ended up with a bunch of scans, and you can find more on various online threads.) Unfortunately, Blakemore chose to pepper his accounts with homophobic and white supremacist rantings and self-aggrandizing nonsense. In 2017, after almost 20 years of development, Blakemore released Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar, characteristically calling it “the greatest roleplaying game of them all.” It got mixed reviews.

The Wizardry series was adrift again. In 1996, Sir-Tech re–released Crusaders of the Dark Savant under the odd title Wizardry Gold, an update for Windows 95 and the Mac on CD-ROM. The game is an artifact of the mid-1990s obsession with CD-ROMs, animated graphics, and voiced dialogue before the technology was really there to make any of it good. The result is that the game feels more outdated today than the 1992 version. Here is a link to a video of the game. I would have tolerated that voiced narration for about 30 seconds.    

In 1998, Sir-Tech repackaged the first seven games, plus Wizardry Gold, as The Ultimate Wizardry Archives. I bought the compilation nine years ago to play Wizardry II and have been dipping into it ever since. It’s odd to finally retire the package.

Wizardry 8 would eventually be completed, by most accounts under the direction of long-time Sir-Tech employee Brenda Braithwaite (née Brenda Garno, now Brenda Romero), although in the Barton interview linked above Sirotek seems eager to give her as little credit as possible without naming a specific individual as the project head. Whatever the case, it was released to excellent reviews–but that’s a story for a (much) later entry. In between, we have Nemesis: The Wizardry Adventure (1996), an almost universally-panned single-character game with simplified RPG mechanics. 

We will also meet David Bradley again, as soon as 1995, with CyberMage: Darklight Awakening. After a brief stint with Origin (where he developed CyberMage), he founded his own company, Heuristic Park, which remains in business 23 years later. The company developed Wizards & Warriors (2000), Dungeon Lords (2005), and Dungeon Lords MMXII (2012). I’d say I’m looking forward to playing them, but of course it took me five years just to get from Wizardry VI to VII. I hear that Wizards & Warriors in particular shows a Wizardry influence.

Crusaders of the Dark Savant is the third-longest game on my blog, in raw hours. I’ve had it going on and off since August. In some ways, I’m sorry it’s over because it means I have to focus on a series of RPGs that are a lot less approachable. Let’s see if I can get anywhere with any of them.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/crusaders-of-the-dark-savant-summary-and-rating/

[wildlyhardphilosopher-blog]

Dog Obedience Commands | Get the Best

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Dog Obedience Commands | Get the Best

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[overthinkersguidetotheunive-blog]

life is a verb/50 lessons learned

1. Life is not a gift we simply receive. It is like a bicycle. We must learn to ride it and enjoy collecting miles or else it will simply lay abandoned collecting dust.

2. Mirrors are our worst enemies. We cannot ever see past our appearances, while our essence is what we must truly see. Close your eyes and turn inward. See whats inside not outside first. Then you never need a mirror. You look fabulous anyways.

3. Drink water. You’ll feel better. Eat enough. Starving and leaving yourself hungry is not natural. Weight loss or a pair of jeans does not define you. How you take care of yourself does. Teach people how to treat you by first treating yourself with the same kindness you seek.

4. Self care is not selfish, it is necessary. Selflessness is not possible if you cannot even go the extra mile for you. Do the face mask, take the nap, eat the cookie, see that counselor, check in with your doctor, call home. 

5. Do not love someone so much that they have control over your emotions and state of mind. Do not let them do the same with you either. Love is honest. Love is protecting truth and reality in order to benefit each others individual futures before dreaming of your own together. Do not ever become a runaway train with love. Friends either. 

6. Speak up if something does not feel right. Your intuition is usually right. 

7. Truth hurts sometimes. Take a deep breath. Get a cup of coffee. Go on a walk. Let the sting fade and then approach the situation with a clear head. You will hurt more people if you explode outwards immediately. Soak it in even though it burns. 

8. Always think of the other side of the fence. You are not always right. You do have to hear other people. Your perception is one of many. 

9. Do not let nervousness or anxiety talk you out of a situation. Sometimes it pays you to go dancing with your friends or to go out of your comfort zone even though its scary. Have fun. It is not a sin. 

10. Masks are for Halloween parties, not emotions. Admit when you are feeling down. People who love you will support you. Not everyone is at their 100 percent all the time. Its real and human to feel off.

11. If you really love someone, it does not go away overnight. Heali after a heartbreak in ways that are best for you and go at your own pace. If that means going on a date in a week or focusing on yourself for awhile - so be it! No one writes a timetable for you but YOU!

12. Moms like when you tell them they have been good moms. Dads like when you do for them it too. 

13. Cry. Alone, in the public, in the movies, when songs come on. Happy tears. Sad tears. Emotional tears. If they want to come say hello- let them. 

14. People change. Do not hold them to their past standards in the present. Grow up together, not against. 

15. Teachers define what students believe of themselves. Do not give up on them even if they SEEM like they are disinterested. They do not have to like English or Math to benefit from an older and wiser role model believing in their success. AP students are not the only ones capable of great things. 

16. You do not have to do what every other 20 something does for fun to enjoy your life. Seltzer water at the bar doesn't mean you can't dance like a fool and sing Nirvana covers like a superfan. Friday nights can mean early bedtime and you're still doing your 20s right. Same if you took that tequila shot and kissed that stranger. To each their own, but to all a good life.

17. Bridges freeze before roads. Certain washer fluid freezes. You always need snow tools in your car. Let your parents yell that at you repeatedly when you move up North, because something will happen that first snowy drive.

18. Being strong does not mean you are always doing NPC competitions. Being fit does not mean you're a size two. Your fitness goals are not other peoples’. You VS you is the only worthwhile competition. But fitness cures all doubts about your limits. 

19. Love is scary. Infatuation is short lived. Love will hit you in the overlooked moments while other interests rests in cliches and whats easy. Abandon infatuation and cling to what seems real.

20. If you break up with someone that does not mean you have to hate them or be mean or be strangers. People are friends with their exes. It is perfectly fine. 

21. Great first dates don't always make great second ones. Live in the moment. Take them piece by piece. Don't hear wedding bells because they treated you with respect. 

22. Salem, MA is amazing, but learn the history too. Do not just go for the Halloween stigma. 

23. Stay true to yourself even if that means being alone for awhile. You do not need an audience to guide you for everything. 

24. You never know when the last time together is the last time. Do not take people or moments for granted. 

25. Don’t let a kiss fool you or a fool kiss you. Do not let false flattery in your life. People who truly love and respect you will withstand the test of time, not verbal confirmation of their “loyalty”.

26. If you do not watch or like movies, do not lie to cover for that fact because people will judge you. Let em judge. Be you.

27. Listen to good music that speaks to your mind and soul. If thats Grateful Dead or Smash Mouth or Skrillex, it does not matter. Just listen to something. 

28. Do not judge a book by its cover. 

29. Give hugs to those who need them. Ask for them too. The human touch is a magical thing. 

30. Laugh. A lot. At yourself is the best type of laugh. 

31. Studying hard does not always get you an A. Your effort and quality of work gets a grade academically, but you also have to be honest with yourself. If your best got you a C thats ok! Breathe.

32. Do not judge a person by the color of their skin, the language they speak, the person they love, the gender they identify as, their pronouns, their life plans etc etc. Being open to your lived experiences and the world around you is the most informative class you could enroll in.

33. Age is a number. You can be friends with a 30 something year old and a Freshman in college. Everyone can teach you different things. Be open to it. 

34. New places can remind you of old things. Old places can be rewritten as new. Do not limit yourself to past instances. 

35. You can like many different things and have many different personalities. It is ok to experiment or realign yourself as you learn more and age more. Change is not a bad thing. Do not take it as an insult if someone says you have changed a lot. 

36. Dance in the grocery store if a good song comes on. You never know who needed that extra laugh. Maybe it was just you. Blame it on the boogie!

37. Visit your grandparents. Family is important even if they don't always understand the situation. 

38. Dementia/Alzheimer's tests your patience, but it teaches you the definition of and persistent need for love, kindness and understanding. Never forget to say I love you even when they do. 

39. Finding humor in otherwise sad situations is ok. Sometimes if you do not laugh you will cry. 

40. Parking meters in Boston are highly monitored. Show up early or else you'll be greeted with a nice ticket. (Brookline- I love you, but I will be taking the T from now on)

41. Saying sorry is strong. Realizing you make mistakes and owning up to them is mature. 

42. If you can say it online, you can say it to someones face. Do not be petty or shady. Just own up to things or have a discussion. 

43. Friendzoning is stupid. Don't ghost people or skirt the truth. Appreciate someone and understand their emotions. It is okay to want different things. Handle hearts with care. Some peoples’ are titanium while other people’s are delicate china. You never know what someone has gone through. 

44. Sometimes that cashier who says “good morning!” is having a bad day. Sometimes that silent kid playing Pokemon is the sweetest soul with the funniest jokes. The man who collects your trash may share the same sports teams. Always say hello and treat people with respect despite what they may appear to be against the societal “rating chart”. Screw stereotypes. Always ask “how are you?” back. 

45. If you get back with your ex 50 times over it doesn't make you a weak person. If you date someone who everyone thinks is not for you, it doesn't make you stupid. You have to be happy with who you are with, not them. True friends support your HAPPINESS, not your individual DECISIONS. If you are safe, supported and happy that is all the true ones will recognize. 

46. If two of your friends fall in love, do not be selfish and prevent that from happening. Be a supportive friend at all stages and try not to be an overly invasive third wheel. They will remain your friends together, apart and all around. 

47. You can lose touch and still pick up where you left off and be just as close. Connection does not mean consistent or constant contact. 

48. Be proud of your friends successes just as you should be of your own. Aging creates anxiety. Just because you chose to go through more school instead of into the job market doesn't mean you’re more right/wrong or intelligent/dumb. If you have a have a ring on your left hand or if you have never been in a relationship, that does not mean you’re less of a person. If you like to wear all black and cover up or if you like to wear slinky sequin dresses it does not mean youre less of a woman or not sexy. Be yourself. Do as you please. Express your shade of awesome. The world needs it. 

49. Be proud of who you are and who you have in your life. Love hard. Be smart. Read. Be aware and critical of what is popularly defined as truth. Be authentic. Let your vibe attract your tribe. Trust that everything is happening for a reason. People come into your life for one of three reasons - to teach you, to learn from you or both. Many of times that means they are a temporary presence with a permanent mark. Do not take offense to the changing paths of those around you. 

50. Peace cannot happen in the world if you are waring in your mind and heart. Love yourself. Triage yourself. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt and appreciate the level you are at. We can look at where our feet have traveled and worry over where they will go. The only important place to focus your attention is where your feet are firmly planted in the current moment. Take the second to soak in the instant, take a step forward and repeat. Each place is different and you can feel different at each one. The individual places do not define you. Let the journey make you stronger with its easy downhill rolls, its falls and scrapes, its endless uphill battles and everything in between.

[ejarttherapy]

War, Trauma and the artist Paul Nash....he too used Found Objects!

I’ve recently read psychiatrist Judith Herman’s book ‘Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence’ (1997) - a powerful and tough read. It affected my mood for some days. Herman states that ‘the ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. To terrible to utter aloud: unspeakable’. She concluded that in her work with victims of trauma and PTSD that ‘atrocities, however, refuse to be buried’.

I applaud this type of book, because she focusses equally on the trauma (the stories and experiences) and on the recovery and healing for victims. She explains how ‘remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims. When the truth is finally recognised, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom’.

Her book refers to all types of trauma victims/survivors and their commonalities - male, female, child abuse, domestic violence, rape survivors and combat veterans, political prisoners and survivors of concentration camps.

Whilst scrolling through BBC iPlayer I came across a BBC4 documentary on the artist Paul Nash. I have always admired Nash, especially his gentle, tree drawings and paintings of the imagery of war on land and sky. 

Paul Nash experienced war first hand (WWI & WWII) and expressed his traumatic experiences through his art

Paul Nash (1889-1946) was unable/unwilling to draw the human figures, much to the annoyance of his tutor at the Slade School of Art. Any figures that were present in his paintings had a distant ghost like feel. Nash preferred to express himself through nature namely landscapes and trees. During WWI Nash was sent to Ypres with his regiment, where in amongst his duties he sketched what he saw and whilst doing so he fell into a ditch and broke his ribs. He was sent back to England to convalesce.

A few days after he left his regiment for England, the battle of Passchendaele began - the bloodiest, and worst battle in WWI. His whole regiment was killed and although he never spoke of them again, he did paint an image whilst recovering in hospital which is believed to represent their loss.

Fig 1, The Cherry Orchard (Paul Nash:1917)

The painting has a strange feeling - the bare winter trees (not spring like as in the title), organised as if headstones/crosses in a ‘military cemetery’ and swallows who are either flying low or ensnared in the wire fence - the painting is ambiguous. Perhaps how he felt?

Nash wanted to become a war artist to honour the ghosts of the war, he soon gained a commission to become such an artist, after which his famous work followed, notably ‘The Menin Road’. It shows the real impact of war - the pain, chaos, mess, turmoil, horror, disorder, death. 

Fig 2, The Menin Road (Paul Nash:1919)

After WWI he moved on to paint landscapes of the mind, following a surrealist style and focus, but still grounded by nature as his inspiration.

Nash also like to use a camera as his notebook recording his inspirations and ideas.

He too used Found Objects in his artwork. With his friend and fellow artist Eileen Agar, they would spend time looking for objects of the beach, this is evidenced in his artwork ‘Swanage’, a photo collage.

Fig 3, Swanage (Paul Nash:1936)

During WWII Nash was given a commission as a war artist with the Air Ministry. Nash held a life long fascination with flight and aeroplanes, however due to his declining health he never went up in a plane, so he therefore painted planes spiralling downwards to a doomed fate or those that lay crashed on the ground. Perhaps symbolism for how he felt, at the end of his life and in poor health?

Fig 4, Battle of Britain (Paul Nash:1941)

He repeatedly visited an aeroplane dump in Cowley, Oxford and painted the scrapped planes, particularly the German planes due to his strong hatred of Nazism and Hitler. A cemetery of broken, beautiful wings.

Fig 5, Totes Meer (Dead Sea) (Paul Nash:1940-1)

Nash’s last paintings were of his ‘home’ landscape - Wittenham Clumps, a collection of trees at the top of a hill near his childhood home in South Oxfordshire. Something he had painted 30yrs before, however this time he painted the trees in a more dream-like manner, with lilies and sunflowers, and bursts of light from the sky. 

When asked about the addition of random, not present objects in his later paintings, Nash stated ‘things grow where I paint them’. 

I enjoyed this programme for many reasons -

I have always liked Nash’s style of drawing and painting 

My interest in both World Wars and war art 

From an art therapy perspective how he explored the trauma, horror of war and gave a ‘visual voice’ to his experiences

He painted landscapes of the mind

His use of trees and nature to represent feelings rather than using the human form

His use of found objects in photo collages

The latter reminded me of the work of art therapists Debra Kalmanowitz and  Bobby Lloyd and their work with Art Refuge UK in Nepal, Dharamsala and London - working with people who where displaced. The children at their centre were encouraged to photograph objects from home and those that were important to them. The photos were then incorporated in a collage. As Lloyd and Kalmanowitz (2011) recall ‘the photographs provided for the processes of mourning, reflection, and remembering....they led to an acceptance of the inevitability of their new and changed situation.’

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

British Art at War: 1. Paul Nash - The Ghosts of War (2014) BBC4. Sunday 14th Sept. 21:00.

Herman, J. (1997) Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. New York: Basic Books.

Kalmanowitz, D. & Lloyd, B. (2011) ‘Inside-Out Outside-In Found Objects and Portable Studio’. In Levine, E.G. & Levine, S.K. (ed.) Art in Action Expressive Arts Therapy and Social Change. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley.

Figure 1. Nash, Paul (1917) The Cherry Orchard [Watercolour, ink and graphite on paper] in the possession of: Tate.

Figure 2. Nash, Paul (1919) The Menin Road [Oil on Canvas] in the possession of: Imperial War Museum: London.

Figure 3. Nash, Paul (1936) Swanage [Graphite, watercolour and photographs, black and white, on paper] in the possession of: Tate.

Figure 4. Nash, Paul (1941) Battle of Britain [Oil on Canvas] in the possession of: Imperial War Museum: London.

Figure 5. Nash, Paul (1940-1) Totes Meer (Dead Sea) [Oil on Canvas] in the possession of: Tate.

[renatedagmarmilada]

LONDON MET POLICE SUPERINTENDENT

Top POLICE SUPERINTENDENT London, was shown heavy porn film of JOAHNNA a friend of ANNA jun sec min of health /porn starlet/ made at BBC with director Sydney-- and told that was me /?/ mother of five 46 yrs old mature University student and artist, and it was a sex therapy using the whole country, killing throughout the country permitted by UNO -- to whom lab st barths Human Research did not give any true facts...

it is called maximising extreme therapy and is all unworkable stuff piled on and on.. ANNA jun sec Min of Health-- I always wanted to throw every offence at one person and see what they could do about it.. The horror of the british concentration camp..silent and unseen. Tory:== when the british government damages an innocent person, it is either very expensive for the government or very expensive for the person, in family's your cases , it is unfortunately terrible wipe-out expensive for you and yours.

Let's be honest - who doesn't love them!

quote-I don't have enough-- oh thank you .. emneti Syrian Thief family -Longley broke into my home again Thursday..I had a shipping order for her stuff..it was my chance to make some spare cash, at her age, what the hell does she know.. teachers and painters...

sweat smell we fed into Sheffield Somalians brains was from the lab jewesses, Margit sweats and they have their menopause-- so ... Fekete did not have one, as she took hormones. also Margit's vaginal smells as she sweats heavily. //these super rich, greedy jewish bitches can afford to have menopauses, I couldn't.. /

tv2pm-- after we have EQUALISED YOU..ah another British word for racketeering, organised theft, and remote torture of the worst kind.. by lab jews so cannot be admitted... hm

Quote --Parkwood school, Sheffield, KIRSHAN Hussein is a thief and a bad thief, /loiters outside of my home hours on end waiting for me to go out..as is his sister MIRAM Hussein... ALI off Rock street was a pretty bad thief, but this mob are much worse.. Nemeti-- Longley st is over here in Upperthorpe all the while looking to break in and thieve.. so called Syrian refugee.. with his friend Abdul and Neseria and her family and step son, in Upperthorpe .. Suleiman is a thief..and fence snitch.

Prince Charles was in the lab st barths Hum Res and on the scanner remote for treatment, that is why we rob /called reducing by lab Jews/ Fekete none stop using west indians and Syrians, who do not know anything about remote --

Guiana black woman Upperthorpe Roman catholic who sends her 20 yr old son robbing for stuff for the children as she spends all £360 weekly on herself on BRAND NEW DRESSES etc-- /saw her/ prostitutes a fair bit, well ok we all know that group all do../ pn scanner permanently---if they catch me for cheating we will just go back to Africa or somewhere else in Europe..

quote - lab st barths hum Res IMOGEN-- in the last 3 weeks, 7 men have wandered round your bedroom robbing stuff, clothes, in your wardrobes, everywhere.. robbing your front room-- all of them blacks and arabs.. living near by.. Wednesday Pakistani from Pagehall broke in and robbed /my UKRAINIAN dad's German Army Sollbuch and several other items/ BECAUSE HE HATES SLOVAKS???????????????????????? THEN GAVE SOME GYPSIES MY ITEMS? GYPSIES DON'T READ GERMAN VERY WELL AND THOUGHT IT WAS HER MAN'S...... MY DAD WAS UKRAINIAN????????????WHY??????????

Fish and Chips shop-- Upperthorpe.Sheffield. Abdul and Neseria, flats Upperthorpe.. tried to sell us your goods there, clothes, paintings etc..I WENT INTO FEKETE'S HOUSE UPPERTHORPE ON THURSDAY-- watched. these thieves are SO stupid that they do not seem to realise that if the door just opens remote, someone is watching them on a scanner and they stay on a scanner...for future use. THEY ARE TRULY STUPID gone silk jacket and sailing shirts from Spain /orig German/ white chines...

Bethany- lab st barths Hum Res. John's illeg daughter-- I sold 6 of Fekete's stolen shirts to a kitch shop, because I opened the doors of her home remote for local thieves.. I also sold 7 other items, art stuff mainly, artists blocks, paints etc

from lectures by Rabbi Rothchild and my mother's stories from home- we lived in the jewish quarter of Poszon, Milealska Uc -Paintings were to illustrate my numerous 'jewish poems' which have all been stolen along with the paintings--there are quite a few more illustrations on that topic, painted in Sheffield, London and Leipzig.

''what write it all again?'' Anna insists that all is shared out of Fekete's work repeatedly, as they sat on her for years, throughout University etc and halved her marks whilst adding sexual innuendos to everything, also all lecturers at all Unis and Colleges were on their scanner /cancers activated?/ Alyson, I have to do it for her- John Fielding board of Lab st barths Human Research, asked us to tear up these 70 paintings, as his daughter Faye used them for her MA ..and sold some of them to the jewish community.. rob some of her glasses, as she sees very badly--again

Minister Prendergast told -- as soon as Fekete dies, all work copied from her work will disappear. But the cheats will have made their names by then.. so they will be the winners.. it is all on a satellite- //flying over Niagara Falls.. Canada by helicopter -my present to myself on my 66th birthday- I don't treat myself with things, this is my sort of present.Canada is very cold in the winter by the way../

From Len Krawchuk: an article about Kupala. The title below is wrong; it should say June 24 (July 7).

Alyson- I asked them to write a sitcom.. it is just slightly different to Fekete's story there, but only slightly. The Minister of health nor the State Minister Prendegast stops us. it was illegal to keep them in our prison and mess with them day and night since 1984//photo Writers Gp

IMOGEN operative-- yes it is very painful what we do to Fekete remote.It is like a truck sitting on your leg.. We have used it on the simples and they scream in pain. ANNA said that is why we should use the population, they just grin and bear it and the doctors cannot help. We have killed about 300 people in the population now.//happer times in China a few years ago

quote 8 am It is embarrassing a foreigner who can paint and write better than we can..and teach us our language, with hardly any schools, and with such a foreign name Plashet Rd back in 1995 macrosound-quote : look at you, small but perfectly formed. No bent anythings, even with your refugee background, you haven't seen us, with your clean living. --- ANNA time and again.. this is not unusual for the Brits, usually unsaid- at school, I came top in English very quickly /mothe...

quote- we have destroyed your total arteries in your body, by pressing remote. It squashes them ./now=top inner right leg-- last weeks left leg-- Meyer pressed arms endlessly, - John Fieldings dog Mohammad pressed chest arteries for months till I fled to China, pain horrendous// It flattens the artery. I am taking part so I have no need to talk. It is a remote concentration camp. Total destruction of healthy human beings by Human Research.

From Richard Woloschuk comes this neo-pagan article about the Ukrainian vinok (floral garland), apropos for Kupala. The term "wreath" is used, but a vinok is a ...

the ladies who looked after the students were lovely..

Beijing-

Your arteries are the system within your body that continually transport the essential nutrients and oxygen that you need to survive, from your heart to the rest of your body. A massive part of staying healthy and keeping your arteries clear and clean has to do with your diet. It is very true when you are told “You are what you eat.” It is also true that what you put into your body will determine your overall health including your cardiovascular health. Adjusting your diet to...

quote--Goldsmiths-- there is some good stuff coming out of the lab.. . No it is not their work, they have stolen thousands and thousands of the small Austrian teacher's art work and from years and years of writing, creatively and from several literature degrees, from her home, taken out of the post office, and in any way they could steal it.. it is Fekete's work, not theirs. They get a job for life with St barths Human research and will be placed into managerial positions immediately for tracing Fekete's work. Not one is college educated, not even GCSE- but all have a jewish father who was a lab staff member- or an unqualified doctor at the lab. it is the biggest rip off ever known to mankind.

sketch book round the city

walking round the city with a sketch book

Peter Ponsonby illeg son of Dr Meyer Edgeware Rd London, who was not really a doctor at all, only passed one exam, copied all SHEFFIELD PAINTINGS-- took cheque for +++++ I sent to China Bank januar 2016 out of post and gave it to him. Stuart, illeg son of Irwin Harry and Blanche of Finchley, I took one off lap top file and others, all originals stolen from home..part of our training is to hack into private laptops and bank accounts, council accounts, electricity accounts etc all companies .. we cannot be stopped.. State Minister Prendergast permits it.

ANGELINA, one of the 4 Poles used to copy Fekete work, given sketch books, join us and you are well paid and lots of benefits, otherwise you will be watched for life..Declined..//Polish contingent of Leipzig Uni Students..1993/

bethnal green London, Margit, mother of John Fielding, board of St barths Hospital, brings a Fielding cousin in to the lab-- two old jewesses, to pass on all my work to.. Dora, liberal jewess, /as Lauren Fielding, nee lara goldstein--//Golders Green-takes it to use.the other jewess Reform, declines. Eleanor30, illeg daughter of John- I have 400 Fekete's sketches, paintings and writings.. Fekete's saved jews from Hitler, it is called turning it all round, instead of being grateful, we destroy her and her family.

Addis Str Upperthorpe 200 something.. black woman Guiana-- sends sons out to thieve. Roman Catholic family gets over £350 per week../I get £95./ watched by lab, mother spends it all on herself so sends 20 yr old son out to thieve for the smaller children-- he took my navy tee-shirts, navy is he school colour, so she asks him to rob all navy clothes, 2 navy sweaters, my best ones- 3 artists blocks etc He went through my freezer.. mother told him off for bringing real food, fr...

when will RF come together.. she won't it is a phase out. They are trying to beggar her, we went too far. nothing will be made good. Anna fixed Princess Di's death and a few others, so she wanted her on a prison. There was nothing wrong with her or her sons. they just messed with them. Everyone knows now what the process is it is just lies and theft to feather their own nests, the lot of them.

we hold the rights to Fekete's work.. I thought you said we had the Rights to her work Anna.. No one cares a damn as long as they get benefits.. Tristran, queen's cousin here, I didn't know they were sending in thieves to rob your work, paid for by the tax payer... they said they had rights to it and you were acting or something.. I have forgotten which lie I told him about Fekete.......

quote --shall I kitsch this, I have been drawing into Fekete's drawings, well they are all stolen from her so what does it matter, at her age, she can only exhibit and now she wont and cant, we have robbed every item of work she had.. Do Fekete's legs hurt now, I have been putting bloater on them, and pressing all arteries, twisting the muscles and burning the skin- we have been told to destroy every body part on her..part of destroying and using her work wholesale.. When we british destroy, we destroy only the innocent and weak but we destroy totally..

quote- lab we have them here, we are beginning to trace and copy them as ours to make ourselves some sort of name... illegitimate children of lab members..

one year at Leipzig Uni-- visiting Berlin too..

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