#logically four should be in Ireland

[mydearestdarlingdead]

The urge to write a Torchwood 4 fanfic just because I want to put it in Ireland

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Guess what, guys? Guess what! Further developments on my trip to the UK, which is now in under four weeks! This weekend it’ll be three weeks! I am starting to get genuinely anxious about whether I’ve forgotten any important aspects of trip planning, even though I have been planning a trip like this in general for nearly four years, and have been planning this specific trip for about a year! I booked my accommodation in November and my flights over Christmas. I booked my rail pass soon after that. I booked my shows. I’m going to go soon to take out strange British currency. I’ve bought a British SIM card. I have a list of shit to bring with me like a portable phone charger. I have a colour-coded spreadsheet where I’ve broken the whole two-week trip down day-by-day with travel logistics and planned activities. I’m going to print out paper copies of all my many tickets so I don’t have to mess around with an app or worry about internet signal failing when I get there. I’ve reserved my train seats. Do I need anything else? It feels like people should need more than that to go to a different country that’s across an ocean. Two different countries, actually! What do people need to be allowed to do that?

Anyway, new things have happened! First of all, I’d been trying to work out what I wanted to do with the couple of days between my stay in London and my stay in Edinburgh, when I’m going to take trains in Scottish Highlands and hike around Ben Nevis, but I wasn’t sure about the plan for getting there. I have now found a plan that I like a lot! Sleeper train. I’m doing a sleeper train.

London to Fort William, direct train, 9 PM to 10 AM, August 1-2. I booked literally the last seat on it. By the time I came up with this idea, they’d already sold out all the bits of the trains with beds and stuff, and only had five seats left. I spent a couple of days thinking I won’t sleep sitting up, I won’t want to be exhausted in the Scottish Highlands, I shouldn’t do that. Then I remembered that I’ve booked a red-eye flight, a sleeper train is designed to be much easier to sleep in than a plane even if you’re not in the bed parts, I’ve already staked some of my holiday on the idea that I’ll be able to sleep on the plane and enjoy the day I arrive, so that should hold true for a train as well. This is definitely good logic. I went back to the site and there was only one seat left, but I booked it.

I love trains. I romanticize trains so much, probably because we don’t have nearly as many of them in Canada as they do in Europe. The only thing I romanticize more than a train is a night train. And the only thing I romanticize more than a night train is all of Scotland. I’m taking a night train to Scotland.

I’ve never been to Scotland before. I’ve been to England – once, when I was sixteen, and went with my mother for a couple of weeks, to visit my godmother there. But we were mainly just in London. We spent one night in Suffolk. Also a couple of nights in Geneva in Switzerland, oddly. But we didn’t go anywhere else in the UK. I figure the first time I ever go to Scotland, I should probably arrive at sunrise on a night train.

I’m not entirely sure why, for the last twenty years or so of my life, I have had Scotland as my go-to idea of the perfectly romanticized place to which I’d like to run away. It’s partly growing up on Celtic folk music, I guess. That’s mainly music in the Celtic style that was made on Canada’s East Coast, but some music from actual Celtic lands as well, and probably more Scottish stuff than anything else. I love a lot of Irish music as well, but in general, my Irish music tends to be stuff from Newfoundland (or, occasionally, Ireland) that’s fiddle party music, while the Scottish music tends to be stuff from Nova Scotia (or, occasionally, Scotland) that’s more traditional, so maybe I felt more of a personal connection to that (this sentence is, of course, a massive oversimplification of every noun in it). All those songs telling me about the purple heather in Scottish mountains. I want to see the purple heather.

Probably more of the Scottish thing than I like comes from a childhood (well, ages 10-15 or so) spent deeply obsessed with Harry Potter, though. Hogwarts was in the mountains of Scotland. I learned at a young age that if your childhood is lonely and difficult, all you have to do is get on a train in London, and ride north until you get to the magical fairy lands of Scotland, and then everything is cool and exciting and majestic and beautiful. It doesn’t surprise anyone that I was a lonely child with no friends, right? (Well, no friends aside from my grandmother, whom I sometimes got to go stay with by taking one of those insufficiently common Canadian trains, and my online friends that I made on Harry Potter message boards. This may be further explaining some of my obsessions.)

So I am very very excited about taking a night train into the Scottish Highlands. I think I’m going to go to Cambridge and back on that day, so I can run around the university campus with all the old majestic buildings and feel like I’m in Harry Potter (that is… way too big a factor in my desire to see Cambridge, I mean it’s also because I want to origins of Footlights as too many of my favourite comedians come from there, I want to see where Douglas Adams set the first Dirk Gently book, I want to see history, but I mainly want to see cool old buildings that make me feel like I’m in Harry Potter, and if any of them could feel a bit like His Dark Materials that would be cool too), and then take a night train into the Scottish Highlands. It’ll be good.

I’ve been on a night train once before in my life, when I moved back to Ontario after doing a year in Nova Scotia, and the train was about 25 hours. When I was all excited for it beforehand, my parents kept reminding me that it’ll be cool at first but I should expect to get tired of it long before the 25-hour mark, so should be very prepared with books and things like that. I didn’t need them. By the time we arrived, I still wasn’t sick of how cool that train was, I’d have happily done it all again right away. I got a few hours of sleep, but I mainly just looked out the window and played Bruce Cockburn.

So that's exciting. But honestly, the excitement about that from this weekend was almost immediately eclipsed by the further development that Nish Kumar is doing a WIP in London while I'm there! I get to see him more times!

Okay, so since I started planning this trip last year, I've known that there are three main London comedy venues I want to see in person. I want to see Angel Comedy at The Bill Murray, I want to see Always Be Comedy at The Tommyfield, and I want to see the Soho Theatre. So many of my favourite comedy things have been recorded in those places, so many of my favourite things about comedy happen there, I've been ridiculously lucky to get to hear so many words said there thanks to the magic of technology, but I've never been there, and I want to. I'm not in London for all that many nights, so I knew I'd have to get very lucky for even one of those places - much less all three - to happen to be playing something I very much care about while I'm there. But I figured I'd look all their lineups for the nights I'm in London, pick the thing that looks best, and go see that even if it's not a show I find all that exciting, because I'll get to see the venue. I also thought I don't know if it'll make sense to do that three times, maybe I'll just do one or two shows. Maybe I'll go have lunch at one of the pubs or something, so I can see the place without having to go to a show I don't care about.

Given that, I think I've gotten so lucky. The day I get back to London from Edinburgh, and the day before I fly home from London, Desiree Burch is doing a full-length WIP at ABC. I want to see her so much! I was really disappointed when I learned she's not arriving in Edinburgh until after I leave. I think she's brilliant, I love both the full stand-up specials she's recorded, I've also heard other bits of her stand-up and loved that too, including some short recent stuff that made me very interested in hearing her current full show. And now I can! In the venue that I wanted to see anyway! Great luck!

Then I learned that Brynley Stent will be at the Soho Theatre while I'm in London, before I go to Scotland. I can't say I had her particularly high on my list of comedians to see before I learned that, but this also very much isn't a case of me getting a ticket to a show I don't care about just because it's the Soho Theatre. I liked her a lot on Taskmaster, so I know she's funny. More than that, I've looked up her show and it looks awesome. It's her 2023 show, so all nice and polished by now. It's a subject that's right up my alley. And it's described with words like "absurdist sketch comedy", so I get to feel good about trying types of shows that are slightly outside my usual wheelhouse - which I specifically want to try to do, a bit, during this trip - while still seeing someone I know and like off Taskmaster so it's not too far out of my comfort zone. Perfect.

So I had that set up, I was very happy with it. Then Kitson announced his Collaborator run that would coincide with my trip, and that was the biggest thing I was hoping for, so that's fucking excellent. That's not at any of the three venues I really wanted to see, but I would go see him perform at the bottom of the ocean if that's where he announced his late-July run. I figured, I get to see Kitson, I get to see two of the three venues I wanted, I get to see Desiree Burch even though I'll miss her in Edinburgh, Brynley Stent's thing looks awesome - this is more than enough. More than I hoped for. I can start locking in plans now, I'm not waiting for anything else to come up. I'll walk by the Bill Murray and look at the pub.

And then Nish Kumar announced a WIP at the Bill Murray during a couple of the nights I'm in London. Obviously I immediately got a ticket. Well, to be honest, my friend whom I'm staying with in London picked me up a ticket because he's got a membership that lets him do that, but I'll pay him for it, I promise. I am so fucking excited. That is perfect. Nish Kumar doing a full-length Angel Comedy WIP, just a few days before he goes up to Edinburgh, a few weeks after the election. That is the perfect time and place to see Nish Kumar. I might be willing to pay the cost of the plane tickets just to be there for that.

I realize I'm ridiculously lucky. I said at some point - maybe late last year, maybe this year, I'm not sure - that it doesn't make sense to pick a "favourite comedian" because there are so many different types of comedy, I'll be in the mood for different things at different times, I go through phases, it's apples to oranges, comedians' careers are so vast and varied that you can't compare them, I can list which comedian I think is best at some highly specific aspect of comedy, but not just who's best at "comedy". But having said that, I said, during this conversation that I had with my father in late 2023 or early 2024, Daniel Kitson is my favourite comedian and Nish Kumar is my second favourite comedian. After that it gets more complicated, might depend what day you ask me. You get to Andy Zaltzman and Josie Long and Alice Fraser and David O'Doherty pretty fast, if you're going down the list. But I don't want to keep listing names because I'll leave people out. I'm not good at narrowing these things down. If I started listing comedians who belong "among my top favourites" I'd get at least 25 names in before feeling like I can start a new tier.

Having said that, Daniel Kitson and Nish Kumar are my two favourite comedians. And they are both performing in London while I'm there, even though I only have five nights in London (Kitson, Kumar, Burch, Stent, and one night free). That is pretty fucking good. I got lucky.

I am, of course, also seeing Nish Kumar's show in Edinburgh, and I booked in for both nights that Pod Save the UK is recording, because I have spent so much of my life listening to Nish Kumar speak while I was not in a room with Nish Kumar, I just can't miss any of these rare opportunities to be in a room with Nish Kumar. But with the London WIP, this does mean I'm now going to be in the presence of Nish Kumar on four separate nights (or afternoons, as his Edinburgh show's at 14:50). I'm only in the UK for 13 nights. I'm going to be in a room with Nish Kumar for 30% of the nights (or afternoons) of this trip. That might be a touch excessive, possibly. I have no regrets. Well, not about that. I have many regrets, but booking too much Nish Kumar is not one of them.

I also have a somewhat updated Fringe calendar:

I rebooked Sheeps. They were on my original schedule at their original time that was something like 10 PM, I was going to see them on my first day there. But then they moved, I got a refund automatically, but I'd already booked things that clashed with their new time on every night. I wasn't sure if it would be worth dropping something for them, but I learned this weekend that I'll get to hear Greg Larsen's show when he tours it after the festival, so I dropped Greg Larsen for Sheeps. That kind ruins the nice little "Australia Day" I had going on August 6, with seeing Zoe Coombs Marr and Greg Larsen and Dan Rath all in a row. But I think Sheeps will be very good, and this is probably their last show together, my only chance to see it.

I also added Aaron Simmonds, because I liked his Disabled Coconut show on NextUp, and because his show this year is about being a fan of Harry Potter (but, the blurb crucially mentions, he's not a fan of the author - it's nice when people clarify that so you don't have to wonder, so to be clear, JK Rowling has ruined my childhood with her pronouncements from the last few years, I do not endorse those and will carefully keep my Harry Potter-based tourism to looking at old buildings with Harry Potter vibes, and would not do anything that could translate to profit for her). It looks good.

There are a few more holes in the schedule that I'm hoping to maybe fill with something vaguely different. I know I should do more of that, that the point of a festival is to try out stuff you don't already know. That's what I do at folk festivals - wander from stage to stage, catch the singers I already know and love but also discover new people every time. That's because the folk festivals I attend are in Canada, and even though I've travelled fairly far for folk festivals before, I've never flown across an ocean for one. It's hard to fly across an ocean just to be a punter. If I try something unfamiliar and it sucks, I am wasting precious time on a short trip that's cost me a lot of money. I'm also not seeing any mixed bills besides ACMS, but I'm fine with keeping it that way. We have plenty of mixed bills at home.

But I do wish I had a better appreciation for types of comedy besides just storytelling stand-up, so I'll try to fit in something weird, and preferably free. Something weird enough to maybe have a word like "experimental" or "clowning" in the blurb, but preferably not the word "magic" or "puppets". Someone I've never heard of is doing a costume-based show about Pokemon that I think I could slot into one of the days, maybe I'll go see that.

So that's my current plan. Just over three weeks away. I still can't believe it's happening for real.

[lightdancer1]

Decided to ask a few blunt questions prefaced with explanation of my own logic in asking them:

Today, because I feel like lobbing a firebomb into discussions (and more bluntly because of all that reading on the Mongol Empire in women's history) I'd like to make a point on how decolonization in practice would get rather snarled if it was taken into some of the areas it can go. There are four parts of Europe that saw major colonial eras in medieval times (and in the Irish case lasting all the way to the 20th Century). Ireland, Iberia, Russia, and the Balkans. Before that the Roman Empire and its medieval transformation into the Byzantine marked that as well and that means the Balkans had a very short-term interlude between Byzantine and Ottoman Empires where the Bulgarians and Serbians tried and failed to build states and got ground under the mills of far more powerful imperial civilizations.

In the specific cases of Iberia and Russia we have the major cases of non-white, non-Christian cultures that ruled parts of Europe. This is one take on it I see a great deal of in a recurring meme based on a Tumblr post. Yes, this is true. Batu Khan and Tariq ibn Zayid got it that by conquest in a ruthless fashion not unlike that of modern European imperialism in the rest of the world. These cultures, Al-Andalus and the Golden Horde, are not peaceful hippie exchange situations, they were the vanguards of world empires and frankly the relative fringes that were still exceptionally powerful in European terms. The Golden Horde left multiple successor states, the Grand Principality of Moscow, and the Khanates of Crimea, Astrakhan, Khazan, and Siberia. Al-Andalus kept bouncing back until Las Navas De Tolosa when it spent the remaining centuries as the friendly neighborhood Emirate of Granada until the Catholic Monarchs were bored with that and fought a war for ten years to destroy it.

That means that we do have realities where parts of Europe were colonial subjects. And those parts that were went onto build world empires. The Grand Principality of Moscow built a state that spanned a sixth of the world and is still a geographically massive state with 144 million people. Spain built an empire spanning multiple continents, the Americas, Asia, Africa, the Pacific. These are not unconnected, and the myth and the self-perception of the Tatar and the Muslim Yokes have done much to shape the aggrieved victimhood of Russians and Spanish, and the concept that everything bad about their culture the dirty foreigners did, everything good they did.

And yet there is also the point that is true that no small amount of what's bad in the Global South IS the direct result of imperialists forcing things on cultures that might have had other bad points without it under their own control but didn't. To what point can it be said in the 2020s that the experiences of the 19th and 20th Century empires deserve blame for bad actions? Does that mean that the Mongols and the Caliphate should somehow be given a pass for centuries of imperial power and it be pretended that all the imperialist nonsense of 'found X brick and left it marble' becomes true in Arabic and Mongolian?

No. The truth is that these were products of aggressive imperial states. The truth is also that it's not so much what empires do as what they are believed to have done that underlines the self-perception of new states. The Tatar Yoke did not create all the pathologies of the new Russian state. It shaped aspects of Russian autocracy and it explicitly made Moscow's rise inevitable and belatedly began to realize that this might be a bad thing by which time it was too late to prevent it. Al-Andalus created the frontier myth and the aggressively militarized Christianity of Spain that played its part in the medieval Aragonese Empire and Conquistador rampages all over the world.

So how would one apply the logic of decolonization in these cases, and what does it say that as with the PRC that experience of colonialism only inclines those states that can to repay with compound interest what was done to them?

[wubwubnparmaham]

I NEED a scene of halex finding out the queen died through social media and seeing all the memes💀

[didn't get as far as memes, but here you go!]

Louis scrolled casually through Twitter, as he does most mornings before Harry inevitably gets up later than him, and a particular headline jarred him into a shock so sudden, he gasped like a fish on land. 

“Mm,” Harry grunted, not quite awake yet, but not still asleep either. 

“Harry,” Louis said, uncaring of his love’s exhaustion after last night and poking him in the side. 

“Mm,” Harry repeated, more insistently this time. 

“Queen Elizabeth is dead,” Louis said, eyes scouring all the information the article had to offer. She’d died of ‘natural causes,’ and that only made sense—she was an impressively old bag—but having been born in 1955 himself, three years after her reign had begun, to only hear of her death now in the year 2022, was quite a shift in the modern cultural consciousness. 

He couldn’t even imagine Britain’s reaction…but he could imagine Ireland and Scotland’s pretty damn well. 

“Louis, the Queen died in 1603,” Harry grumbled with a heavy sleep-coated voice, clearly not fully in this reality yet for him to assume something like that. “Four years after you; I remember it well.” 

“Not the first one, you dunce. The second one,” Louis huffed, kicking Harry’s thigh a bit before he groggily opened his eyes with a slight glare. 

Then he thought about what he’d just heard. “The current Queen?” 

“Yes.” 

Harry was silent for a moment, and Louis figured he was just taking it all in, but then he exposed his true hesitations, and Louis could have punched him. 

“What about her?” 

“She’s dead, you lummox.” 

“The Queen of England is dead?” Harry asked in shock as he craned his head off the pillow, his eyes widening as he finally grasped onto logic and his synapses fired in his thick skull. 

Louis nodded and thrust his phone screen over Harry’s face, his lover automatically hissing from the brightness but squinting his eyes and reading anyway, his pinky finger languidly running up the screen. “Wow,” he said after a bit, crashing back down and running a hand down his face. “You know, I was starting to think she was one of us,” he said, chuckling as he thought of it. “Auron and I never saw her during our hostile takeover of the earth, and she’s looked the same for the last two decades…” 

“She certainly outlived a large portion of humanity like we do,” Louis agreed, casually scrolling his homepage for more articles. “Do you think this spells out a transition for England? Maybe this is the push they needed to do away with their antiquated governing,” he said, knowing it was a fool’s hope. 

“No, now it’s worse,” Harry said, Louis glancing over at him curiously. “Now humanity has to confront the age-old curse of a ‘King of England’ in their midst.”

Louis shuddered. “Gods, I hate that term. You’re absolutely right.” 

All of a sudden, their trapdoor crashed open, and Auron came dashing down in nothing but his underwear, Machiel close behind him. “The Queen is dead, long live the Queen!” he announced, looking like he should probably have a glass of champagne in his hand to match his jolly mood. If only he could drink such things. 

“So I’ve heard,” Harry said, stretching his whole body before sitting up, hand shaking his hair around. 

“We were just discussing the horrors of the King of England and all it entails,” Louis said, tossing the couple two blood bags from their mini-fridge. 

“It’s gross,” Machiel agreed, quickly ripping his bag open and drinking its contents.

“You know,” Auron began, opening his bag but not yet drinking it, a mischievous grin on his face. “I could get in there and muck things about a bit. Jupiter knows I’ve got a penchant for—” 

“No,” Harry and Louis said in tandem, taking two bags for themselves. 

“You’re not taking over England,” Louis said, as though he were chastising a child. 

“Why not?” Auron asked petulantly, drinking his bag down and taking Machiel’s empty one from him to hold. “I reckon I would fare better than that sorry old git any day.” 

“You’re impossible,” Harry laughed, he and Louis simultaneously standing to their feet so they could properly begin their day. What it would entail was a mystery, but it would undoubtedly include a lot of phone-scrolling. 

“Anything to dismantle the monarchy,” Auron joked, the four of them beginning their journey up the stairs when they all heard a rather shrill and unmistakable French boy from his room, who’d evidently just heard the news as well. 

“Vive la France!”

[fromgreecetoanarchy]

(Video) Bloody Sunday: On a day like tomorrow (30 January) Bloody Sunday in Derry, Northern Ireland: On the 30th January 1972 British soldiers opened fire on protesters in the city of Derry, north-west Ireland. 28 unarmed protesters were shot, 13 died immediately or within hours, one more died just over four months later. Many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers and some were shot while trying to help the wounded. Other protesters were injured by rubber bullets or batons, and two were run down by army vehicles. Derry was in the section of Ireland claimed by the British state and the shootings happened in the context of the suppression of a growing civil rights movement. Bloody Sunday "What became known as Bloody Sunday then has often been, and frequently still is believed to have been, an act of undisciplined slaughter perpetrated by blood-crazed Paras. This assumption though is wrong and to a large extent lets the British establishment off the hook. By assuming that soldiers "ran amok" it puts the blame on individual soldiers who pulled triggers and killed people. Bloody Sunday was a planned, calculated response to a demand for civil rights, designed to terrify organised protestors away from protesting. It fits easily into the catalogue of British involvement in Ireland as a quite logical and even natural event" (Fred Holroyd, ex-British Army Intelligence Officer.) In August 1971 internment without trial was introduced. On the tenth, Operation Demetrius was launched. 342 people were arrested and nine people killed by troops. In this period experiments in sensory deprivation torture were carried out on some people arrested, with the aim of psychologically breaking them. With hoods placed over their heads, they were made to stand spread-eagled against a wall balanced on their fingertips. They were kept like this for four or five days, being bombarded with white noise and beaten if they moved, denied food, drink, sleep, or access to toilets. At intervals, they were taken up in a helicopter and thrown out while just a few feet off the ground having been told that they were hundreds of feet up (they were still wearing their hoods). In protest at internment, a rent and rates strike was organised which attracted the support of some 40,000 households. By October this had escalated to non-payment of TV, radio, car licences, road tax, ground rent, electricity, gas and hire purchase (this a good idea that we should imitate- after all why stop at not paying the poll tax?). In response to this crisis the Payments of Debt Act was passed, allowing debts to be deducted directly from benefits. The introduction of internment was accompanied by a 12-month ban on all demonstrations. Despite this, on January 30 1972 tens of thousands of people attended a demonstration in Derry. The state's response to this act of defiance was a cold-blooded massacre. CS Gas and water cannon had already been used by the time the Parachute Regiment came onto the streets and opened fire on the crowd. The Army claimed that they were returning fire, but forensic tests on the 14 people killed showed that none of them had had contact with weapons and no weapons were found anywhere near the bodies. (Extract from an article in Wildcat magazine ) The findings of the Saville Report, an inquiry into the events of that day held by british authorities concluded that: - No warning had been given to any civilians before the soldiers opened fire- None of the soldiers fired in response to attacks by petrol bombers or stone throwers - Some of those killed or injured were clearly fleeing or going to help those injured or dying - None of the casualties was posing a threat or doing anything that would justify their shooting - Many of the soldiers lied about their actions - The events of Bloody Sunday were not premeditated

[sebastianshaw]

(OK SO this is a crack fic but it is written COMPLETELY seriously, since the challenge was to make this logically WORK. So, a joke was made in Discord about how Sebastian Shaw and Fantomex are actually the parents of Manon and Maxime, explaining why they’re French, psychic, and think SHAW is the adult they should go to when in trouble. And someone said, “well, they said their parents were students at Xavier’s before them, so that rules out Shaw and Fantomex” and I was like “well, rules them out in THIS universe” and I was challenged to explain how the O5 never returning to their timeline would result in Shaw and Fantomex being in attendance at the school, and I was like, you know what? Challenge accepted.)  With the X-Men gone from the present, sent to their own future, a vacuum was left behind in the own time. Mutant threats still existed, including Magneto, and while other heroes such as the Avengers and the Fantastic Four were a match for them when need be, they had so many other villains of their own to face that frequently, the activities of the Brotherhood and other such villains went unchallenged. Xavier tried to locate new X-Men as soon as possible, of course---he’d found several promising young candidates with Cerebro from across the globe, from Ireland to Kenya to Japan---but it would take time to recruit and train them. Time that he, that humanity, did not have.  It was time to call on his other student, his last student. . .and his first. Sage. Charles Xavier had met Sage---though she was not called that then---in Afghanistan, years ago, where the young girl had saved his life, and that of another man. A mutant man named Sebastian Shaw.  Charles had not yet formed his X-Men yet, but the idea was already in his head. He offered both of them a place with him. The girl accepted. The man refused.  Years later, Xavier’s intel, which had been keeping track of Shaw---not for any crime, he had been a good man when Xavier met him, but still a powerful mutant that must be watched---reported he had been accepted into the Hellfire Club. The Hellfire Club was not an evil organization per se, merely a social club for the super-rich, where they could come and rub shoulders with people of their own calibre. But, unbeknowst to most members, and to the world, there were a select few within each branch, an Inner Circle, dedicated to world domination not through theatrical open supervillainy, but subtle political and economic control. These people were not mutants, nor directly attacking others, so Xavier let them be, focusing on far more pressing matters, but he knew the truth of them, and the fact that Shaw, a powerful mutant with a brilliant mind---and, when Xavier had met him, a noble soul---was in their corruptive midst was. . .concerning.  So he sent the girl, now called Sage and trained as the ultimate spy, to serve Shaw, to gain his trust, and to report back to Xavier upon his activities. And the things she reported so far were. . .concerning, but not alarming. Shaw had been accepted into the Inner Circle, as Xavier had known he would be---and rather hoped he would be, since it would give Tessa, as Shaw called her, access to the information within it---and he had found other mutants there, including none other than Emma Frost, a telepath that Xavier had run across before. They were allies now, apparently. Which made Shaw even more important to win over, since where he went, perhaps his new ‘friends’ would as well.  So Xavier had reached out to Shaw, after all these years, and Tessa helped persuade the latter to grant an audience to the former. But alas, he was uninterested in Xavier’s offer when they did meet. “Are you mad?” said Shaw from across the table. He was still the hulking figure that Xavier remembered, though his form was now constrained by far finer attire and his face bedecked with far more lines. “Why should I risk myself and my assets to join in some fight against Magneto and his idiot ilk? I’m a businessman, not a superhero.”

It seemed it was not merely his appearance that had changed. Sage had informed Xavier of this fact, but it was disappointing to witness in person all the same. “You are a mutant, as is he” Xavier began, “And so is he our duty to protect humanity from--” “Balderdash!” Shaw cut him off, “Would you recruit a Japanese American to guard Pearl Harbor out of obligation because he shares a gene with those who attacked it? That’s the same logic humans use to blame all of us for the actions of some! I have no “duty” to strangers, Charles, least of all for such an asinine reason! No one---human or mutant---deserves anything from me! Not on the basis of my powers, or my eye color, or my race, or anything else merely an accident of birth, not my own self-determination as a man.” Seeing that this approach would not yield fruit, Xavier tried another. “Then, as a businessman, are you not concerned with the fact that the destruction wreaked by Magneto and others like him may threaten your assets? Your factories, the buildings where you conduct business, the buildings of your partners, are these not all at risk?” “If Magneto causes significant losses to other businesses, they likely can no longer afford to do business with Shaw Industries, as they will need to redirect money towards repairs,” Tessa pointed out. She could not overtly support Xavier, so as not to arouse Shaw’s suspicions of where her true loyalties lay, only subtly push him by acting, as ever, the neutral-minded data calculator.  “Pfft,” Shaw waved a meaty, hairy-knuckled hand, “If the cost of repairs is so significant to them that’s an issue, they’re not on the level of people I do business with in the first place. What’s more, destruction can be profited from---Shaw Industries specializes in heavy machinery and machine parts, like those that will be NEEDED for the repairs! Magneto is a fool, but if anything, he’s giving ME opportunities---and has had the sense not to try to rope me into his idiocy as you have! Come, Tessa---we’re done here.” In the end, it was not Xavier who convinced Shaw to join him. Nor was it Sage. It was Magneto. By next month, Shaw had returned, bringing along none other than Emma Frost and a gravity-controller named Harry Leland, and told Xavier that they were allies from now until Magneto was dead.  Xavier did not ask why. He simply accepted. Tessa informed him behind the scenes of what had happened----Magneto had attacked the Hellfire Club, berating it for being an elitist, corrupt institution that fostered the worst of humanity’s greed and apathy towards those they saw as beneath them.  Lourdes Chantel, Shaw’s beloved fiancee and ironically a mutant herself, had perished in the assault, impaled brutally while trying to save Sebastian. Ned Buckman, Paris Seville, and the rest of the human Inner Circle had been slaughtered as well. And upon investigating their office, computers, and correspondences after their death, Tessa had found that if they had not died, they would have been the next threat to Shaw and his cohorts----they had been working with Stephen Lang, an anti-mutant bigot who was head of a federal research about mutants and how to combat them. The Inner Circle was providing him funding. . .and in return, he was going to let Ned Buckman, Sebastian’s trusted friend who had inducted him as Black Bishop, use his Sentinels to eliminate the mutants in their ranks, including Sebastian himself. Tessa told Xavier this. But she had kept it from Sebastian, letting him believe that the man Magneto had murdered was his friend. After all, if he found out that Buckman had planned such a betrayal, he might well decide to take Magneto’s place after he had taken vengeance for Lourdes.  The experienced Hellfire Club combined with the new recruits for the X-Men proved a force that not even Magneto and his Brotherhood could face, nor any foe that they came across. While Shaw and the Hellfire Club were still not inclined to any kind of altruism, they maintained an alliance with Xavier even after Magneto’s final defeat. And with Tessa there to always find SOME way that a mission would benefit Sebastian financially or personally, he ended up joining them on quite a few, as did Harry and Emma. Xavier grew to consider them his students, not in the use of their powers but in learning how to overcome their own selfish personalities for the greater good. They were even issued uniforms, though Emma had a few choice words for hers before making personal modifications.  The road was not always a smooth one. Nor did it have an end; there was no point where these selfish, amoral people became purehearted paragons of virtue with entirely noble motives. But there was. . .progress, however small, and for that, both Tessa and Xavier shared a secret pride. . . and relief. The X-Men continued to grow, and one of the new ‘hires’ was a man known only as Wolverine. His past was mysterious, even to him, and Xavier’s telepathy, despite being the most potent in the world, still could not uncover it all. But Tessa’s unparalleled skills as a researcher and data gatherer, combined with the resources of the Hellfire Club, could. She traced his origins back to a secret government project codenamed Weapon Plus, which was devoted to creating super-soldiers to serve good old Uncle Sam. Wolverine was the result of the tenth attempt, Weapon X, which Canada had participated in as a joint venture, hence his national origin. But they had gone far, far beyond that now. Sage discovered that their current base of operations was “The World”, a facility in Britain that warped time to grow and develop an entire civilization solely for the production of super-soldiers. The result was to be a team called the Super-Sentinels, a mutant-hunting team of "superheroes" with a base in a Weapon Plus space station, which would commercialize the genocide of mutants to make it that much more palatable to the public. Needless to say, the X-Men, Hellfire Club included, had other plans.  Their combined forces stormed The World, freeing its inhabitants---those who did not try to kill them, at least. Among them was Charlie Cluster 7, or, as he came to be known---Fantomex. With nowhere else to go, he resided at the school, where he became a student. Like the Hellfire Club, it was not training with his powers that he needed, but to learn how to be a human being regardless. He knew of humanity only through television, but the Hellfire Club soon began giving him opportunities to immerse himself in the creme de la creme of human society, passing himself off as an eccentric foreigner---a Frenchman named Jean-Phillipe Charles. Despite being raised in what was technically England, and rescued by English-speaking Americans, Fantomex was a vehemently avowed Francophile, insisting upon learning the language and even affecting a heavy accent.  Shaw and Emma found this most grating, but, alas, they were themselves in no position to make complaints about someone faking--or covering--an accent. Speaking of Shaw and Emma, while it was Emma who had initially suggested Jean-Phillipe’s immersion in humanity via the cultured and upscale Hellfire events---”You want to learn from the RIGHT people, darling, after all”-- it ended up being Shaw whose presence he gravitated towards, and Shaw found himself with the faux-Frenchman suddenly upon his arm in many of these. Shaw assumed he was just trying to be close to ape his behavior instead of Emma’s, since he was a man and thus it made more sense to mimic him. Turned out, Fantomex wanted to do a lot more. Long story short, this was how everyone found out that not only was E.V.A. a sentient spaceship and Fantomex’s external nervous system, she also served a sort of. . . womb . . .intended by Weapon Plus for Fantomex to propagate new super-soldiers with the DNA of mutants who proved worthy adversaries during his intended quest to eliminate them.  And, reacting to his attraction to Shaw, E. V. A obtained a DNA sample from him, and once her systems found it indeed worthy, she went about creating and incubating the two new beings. Shaw was hardly happy when he found out---he didn’t want more child support bills, dammit!---but everyone else agreed he was NOT allowed to try to terminate the creatures, for they were mutant babies regardless of how they came about. “Oh, I see,” Shaw had grumped, “A woman has the “right to choose” but when it’s ME---” “Well, you are certainly welcome to try,” Fantomex invited, and his smirk was obvious even beneath his white mask, “I warn you, though,---E.V.A. is ze proverbial mama bear.” Shaw did try, several times, and found out EXACTLY that. When the twins were at last “born”---ejected from the techno-organic egg sacs in which E.V.A. was nurturing them within herself---and everyone had a look at them, it was plain they were not just pale, but albinistic. “Leucostic, actually,” Fantomex corrected Harry Leland’s observation, “Leucostic is similar to albinism, but zee animal has black eyes, rather zen red. I say “animal” because it normally does not exist in humans. But, neither do psychic abilities, which E.V.A informs me they will develop in early puberty. Ze original programming for my offspring is to grow at an accelerated rate and manifest powers quite early, but she was able to suppress this aspect of their coding, so that they may have more normal lives.” “Oh yes, because looking like the contents of a teen boy’s sock is going to allow them SUCH a normal life anyway,” Shaw snorted, crossing his arms, “So they’re unnaturally pale and they have psychic powers---are you sure it isn’t EMMA’S genes that your little pet scooped up instead?” “E.V.A is a partner, *Sébastien*, not a pet,” Fantomex corrected smoothly, as he had many times,  “And these are indeed, alas, your children by genetics. But zey shall not be in any other sense. Fond as I am of your cantankerous charm and beefy appendages, zee fact is some of us are not cut out to be fathers---myself included.” “Xavier says you’ve arranged to have them raised in France,” Shaw stated, sounding disdainful in an of-course-you-did way. “Oui. After all, how can mon infants be anyzhing but French, like myself?” Shaw simply groaned slightly, and everyone else shared the sentiment. But, they were Jean-Phillipe’s children, and since Shaw, as the co-father, technically had no objections, the aforementioned arrangements were carried out. The twins, whom he named Manon and Maxime, were brought up in France, and while for their own safety Jean-Phillipe was not the one to do it, he was around, and honest with them about his relationship to them, if omitting the exact details of how their conception differed from the norm. And Shaw, despite his claimed disinterest in the pair, did visit occasionally, if only out of curiosity in how his offspring was developing, though he found them as disappointing as Shinobi---what horribly normal insipid little snots! Yet, they seemed to like him nonetheless, perhaps because he did not mistreat them as he had used to do to Shinobi. He had. . .learned a little better, by now. That, and Fantomex would have trounced him for it, not that Shaw would admit that part.  The twins were not aware that he was their other parent. But they did know, because Fantomex told them every time they asked about their mother, that both their parents (he was careful never to say *maman*) had been students at Xavier’s, just like they soon would be.  They couldn't wait.

[carewyncromwell]

Welcome to the next part of the POTC AU, and with it the start of a new Act!

If Act One was largely based on The Curse of the Black Pearl, Act Two starting now is largely based around Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End, perhaps with a smattering of other things from the other films too like I did in the first half. Now that our chess pieces have nearly all been placed on the board in their proper places, it’s time for things to get serious. Will Carewyn and Orion ever be able to be together? Will Bill, Jules @cursebreakerfarrier, and Charlie be considered criminals and thus separated from Carewyn and Percy forever? Will Jacob find a way to protect Carewyn from Davy Jones/Finn McGarry @theguythatdraws? And what role will our newest arrival -- Cutler Beckett -- and his business associate, privateer-turned-pirate-turned-pirate-hunter Patricia Rakepick (pictured above) play in this unfolding drama?

A few notes about Rakepick’s design super quick before we start -- her outfit is largely based on an 18th century woman’s riding habit, which was a kind of uniform exclusively used when women went horseback riding, one of the very few “physical” activities European ladies were allowed to participate in back then. Considering that breeches were banned in lot of Europe during that period, this is the closest thing most upper-class women got to wearing something comfortable in public. The pendant on Rakepick’s collar is an Eye of Horus, like the pin she wears on her cloak in the game. As for the thing in her left hand at her side...I’m sure a lot of you fans of the original Pirates films can guess what it is, but one fun aspect is that the design is not entirely like the one from the movies. Instead there are some salutes to Finn’s character in there, including the moon’s phases around the heart-shaped keyhole and stylized flames on the sides. (There are even two “Pisces” signs etched into two of the tentacles on top.)

Previous part of the AU is here -- whole tag is here -- and I hope you enjoy!

x~x~x~x

While Carewyn was getting settled back into life on Port Royal, at the same time, very far away, the Tower Raven came up on a deserted island that likely hadn’t seen a man in years.

According to the calculations Jacob had done based on the intelligence he’d gleaned from old court records from Ireland and a witch from Tortuga, this was the spot that Finn McGarry -- now known as Davy Jones -- said goodbye to the goddess Calypso so many years ago. And if the legends were to be believed, this location therefore was where the infamous Dead Man’s Chest -- the chest containing Jones’s still beating heart -- was hidden.

Jacob truthfully wasn’t thrilled about this plan. He’d done plenty of research on Jones so as to make sure he knew as much as he could before trying to double-cross him, but blackmailing someone like Davy Jones was something no one should want to do for very long. As Ashe had pointed out, the second Jones had the upper hand over Jacob, he would likely retaliate ten-fold.

But now...now Jacob had no choice. He had to have and keep the upper-hand with Jones, if he had any chance of keeping Carewyn off the Flying Dutchman. It was his fault that she was now in this position, and he couldn’t live with himself if he lost her again due to his own foolishness.

As they approached the island, Ashe abruptly seized Jacob’s arm.

“Jack -- look.”

There was a large dark shape positioned in the water on the far side of the beach. Jacob immediately brought up his telescope to get a closer look -- when he did, his jaw clenched.

“Looks like we got ourselves a Naval Man o’ War,” he snarled. “The HMS Lion.”

The rest of the crew exchanged nervous looks. The Navy hadn’t sent out Man o’ Wars since the war against the Spanish -- they were the powerhouse of the British crown, capable of sinking even the best-armed galleons.

“How many guns?” Ashe asked under his breath, as he rested his chin on Jacob’s shoulder and looked out at the horizon himself.

“...Looks to be 60 altogether.”

There was muttering among the crew now.

“What should we do, Captain?” one of the pirates couldn’t help but ask anxiously.

“Not get blown up, to start with,” said Jacob rather bluntly.

He lowered his telescope. His eyes drifted away, off toward the sky as he considered the matter.

“The Navy must have figured out this place’s significance,” he murmured. “I don’t know how, but no matter how they found out, I have no intention of letting them get to the Chest first.”

“Stealth might be our best option,” said Ashe lowly.

Jacob nodded. “I agree.”

He turned to the rest of the crew with a fierce expression.

“I need three volunteers to go ashore with me to fetch the Chest. The rest of you will remain here with Ashe, to prepare for a quick escape. Ashe,” he said, looking at his First Mate seriously, “best to be keeping out of sight on the Northern tip of the island, facing due west. The current is stronger there, which could give you a head’s start, should you need to retreat -- ”

“I won’t be retreating without you, Jack,” Ashe cut him off harshly. “don’t be thinking I will.”

“You will if you’re ordered to do so,” Jacob said sharply.

“Like Hell.”

“Ashe, I need my First Mate to look after the ship and the crew.”

“And I’ll do so, but I am not going to have you die a martyr, Jack.”

Ashe moved in a bit, taking hold of Jacob’s collar and pulling his face up closer to his so that their lips were mere inches apart.

“Don’t forget that it’s not just me you’d be hurting, if you didn’t return,” he said softly. “You promised your sister that you would see her again, when this thing was through. If you don’t keep your promise to her, after how long I had to listen to you go on all these years about how much you love and miss her, I will never forgive you.”

Something pained flickered in the back of Jacob’s skull-like blue eyes. He considered Ashe for a moment, his expression faintly wounded despite the grimness of his face -- then he pulled Ashe in for a short, rough kiss before releasing him.

“I will return,” he said very quietly. “I promise.”

Jacob and his three crew members stowed onto the island in a jollyboat a good mile or so away from where the Man o’ War was positioned, so as to stay out of sight. When they approached the beach, they found an entire battalion of Naval soldiers digging. Clearly they’d been told to search the entire island for the Chest, but were starting with the area closest to the water, since Jones was not much one to walk on dry land. It was a logical choice, thought Jacob -- and once he’d visually combed the island’s surroundings, it didn’t take long for him to come up with a plan.

Given how outnumbered they were, Jacob knew the best way to handle the situation was to wait for one of the Navy recruits to find the Chest first. Sure enough, within a half-hour, someone started shouting for their superior officers to come quick.

The rest of the battalion swarmed around like interested seagulls around the Dead Man’s Chest as the soldier pulled it up and out of the sand. They were so focused on trying to get a peek that none of them saw the detached watermill wheel coming toward them until it was almost on top of them. With help from his crewmates, Jacob had dislodged the wheel from an abandoned mill just up the hill and rolled it right down the beach into the horde of soldiers. In the melee, Jacob was then able to dispatch the soldier who’d found the Chest and snatch it away from him, before he and the rest of his crew members abandoned the wheel and hightailed it back into the brush. The soldiers all fired indiscriminately as the wheel hightailed away, but somehow miraculously the pirates just barely avoided any fatal wounds -- Jacob guessed that a lot of those soldiers were new recruits, and so likely had had their eyes shut while firing.

Trying to get back to the Tower Raven was much harder. Their only hope to get there was the jollyboat -- and, of course, that they could get back fast enough that the Raven could set sail before the HMS Lion came around. Unfortunately whatever luck had been on Jacob’s side up until that point seemed to be drying up. The pirates had a bit more cover in the trees than they’d had on the beach, but not much, and although a lot of the soldiers were clearly inexperienced, there were still a lot of them -- far more than even Jacob had predicted. Soon there were a good hundred soldiers surrounding the four pirates, trying to cut them off from the shoreline. Jacob lost his first crewmate in the first five minutes -- then his second, not long after. Jacob and the last pirate just barely managed to get back to the jollyboat and cast off, but within moments, the HMS Lion had come around the edge of the island, heading straight for the jollyboat.

Thinking quickly, Jacob pushed the jollyboat as far out into the open water as he could. The Navy wanted the Chest too, so the deeper the water they were in, the less likely they’d fire their cannons at them, for fear they’d lose the Chest in the process. He then set about pulling off the mad-genius maneuver of making himself look incompetent.

After securing the Chest securely to the bottom of the boat, he then instigated a fight with his crew member. The two rocked the jollyboat so badly that within minutes, the entire boat had flipped over. Jacob then used the opportunity to -- with his crewmate’s help -- swim with the boat into the strongest North-leaning current and let it coast them closer to the Tower Raven. The Navy ship did, in fact, hesitate just long enough out of confusion that it lost some of its closeness to the jollyboat before catching sight of the Tower Raven in the distance and putting together that it had been a trick.

Jacob peeked out from under the jollyboat briefly, delighted at the sight of his ship and of Ashe standing at the railing. He was already fetching a rope ladder for them to climb up when all of a sudden --

BAM.

Out of nowhere, another ship -- a much smaller sloop called the Sickle -- had started attacking the Tower Raven. The Raven’s crew all immediately tried to bring the ship about to counterattack, but the distraction had completely thrown the Raven off their guard and given the Lion the time necessary to come within firing distance. Within moments, Jacob was forced to dive under the water as his beloved ship -- the Tower Raven -- was blasted apart from both sides.

When he and his fellow pirate reemerged from the water, Jacob’s face was as white as a sheet as he stared at the flaming wreckage.

“ASHE!” Jacob bellowed. “ASHE!”

He cast his eyes around frantically. Where was he?! He had to be there -- he --

“ASHE!” he screamed louder, but once again, there was no answer.

His entire body was shaking. The light had left his eyes as he paddled through the water, ignoring the anxious cries from his crewmate as he shoved fragments of wood and sail aside.

“AAAAASHE!”

Within moments, the sloop called the Sickle had descended upon the overturned jollyboat. The jollyboat was quickly seized and yanked up onto the deck with grappling hooks, even as Jacob and the other pirate did their best to fight them off. Unfortunately flintlock pistols like the ones they carried were not conducive to fighting in the water -- they needed a proper spark in order to fire properly, and the gunpowder was just too wet to ignite. And so Jacob and his crewmate were stuck crawling over and balancing on top of the overturned jollyboat as it was hoisted up onto the deck, fighting a losing battle against the large number of soldiers with their cutlasses.

When the jollyboat finally was pulled up onto the deck, Jacob and his last crewmate were completely surrounded in seconds. But Jacob had long since stopped fighting to win -- his eyes were so hollow and mad with pain and rage they were more like a raging animal than a man’s, and so even as his crewmate fearfully started to slow as he realized all hope was lost, Jacob never stopped hacking away at every soldier that approached him. He only stopped when a gunshot whizzed right past his ear, swiping through his curly hair before lodging into the head of his crewmate, who immediately collapsed in a heap on the deck.

Out of the fold came a red-haired woman dressed in a black tricorn hat, a black jacket over a high-necked white shirt and a long red skirt, and a pair of black boots. Her collar was fastened with a pin shaped like the eye of Horus, and the pistol in her hand was still smoking as she smirked at Jacob.

“Well, well,” she said coolly, “if it isn’t ‘Black Jack Roberts.’”

Jacob’s teeth bared in a snarl. “Rakepick.”

“I’m surprised you managed to survive this long,” said Patricia Rakepick idly. “Then again, you did somehow survive being shot and thrown overboard -- I guess I shouldn’t be surprised a sea rat like you was able to claw your way up on deck somehow...”

With a furious roar, Jacob charged at Rakepick. She fired again with her pistol, but Jacob somehow managed to deflect the shot with the broad side of his cutlass and lashed out at her with ferocity, forcing her to dodge and retreat somewhat.

“Seize him,” she said sharply.

In an instant, the soldiers all rushed at Jacob. He managed to cut down a good five of them before their comrades were able to surround and contain him. It took a good ten men, but they managed to pin him down to the deck and disarm him.

Rakepick watched Jacob rage like a mad animal against her soldiers’ hold for a moment, her gaze oddly grim.

“You know...I wondered a few times if I should’ve been more lenient on you, back then,” she said. “Then perhaps you wouldn’t have stolen my ship, and I wouldn’t have had to blow it up, just to keep you from escaping. But it seems you truly are too dangerous to be left alive. Cutler Beckett knows it just as well as I.”

The pupils in Jacob’s skull-like eyes were insane blue slits as Rakepick kicked the jollyboat over, to reveal the Dead Man’s Chest still securely tied to the bottom. In a moment, she’d cut it loose with a knife and picked it up by one of the handles on its side.

“You -- !”

Jacob pushed and shoved against the sailors holding him with all of his might, but he couldn’t break free. Rakepick pointed her pistol right at him as she carried the Chest at her side.

“I must thank you for busting into that court of records, though,” she said with a small smirk. “I wouldn’t have even thought to try to look up Finn McGarry’s old shipping routes if you hadn’t made the connection between him and Jones...”

She handed the Chest off to another officer, who carted it away below deck and out of sight. Jacob angrily tried to get up again, only for one of the soldiers to roughly push his head into the deck with his foot.

“Shame you won’t be able to use the Chest as a bargaining chip for whatever deal you had with Jones,” said Rakepick. “I wonder -- is that how you survived, last time? You made a deal that brought you back from the grave? I must wonder what on Earth you must have promised him, to make you seek out his heart now rather than give it up...”

Her taunting only served to make Jacob lash out more violently. Eventually it got to the point where Rakepick rolled her eyes impatiently.

“Like talking to a mangy street dog,” she muttered to herself. “To think this is the boy who became Captain of my ship...”

Her dark blue eyes hardening, she clicked her pistol and aimed it right at Jacob’s head. Just as she was about to fire, however, out of nowhere, a voice echoed on the wind up onto the deck.

“Upon one summer's morning, I carefully did stray

Down by the Walls of Wapping, where I met a sailor gay

Conversing with a young lass, who seemed to be in pain,

Saying, ‘William, when you go, I fear you will ne’er return again.’”

The resonant bass tone was hypnotizing and eerie, making all of the soldiers freeze up. They all looked at each other, clearly moved by how hauntingly beautiful it was, but also confused -- was it a mermaid? It sounded like a man...and yet, it was just as enticing and wonderful. Even Jacob had frozen up from his spot on the deck, though not for the same reason.

Some light returned to his eyes. He knew that voice...

“My heart is pierced by Cupid -- I disdain all glittering gold --

There is nothing can console me but my jolly sailor bold...”

Rakepick was likewise taken aback, but she kept her head more than her compatriots. In a moment, she’d peered over the side with her pistol at the ready, looking for the source of the voice.

She saw nothing but bubbles at first -- then, all of a sudden, something launched itself out of the water at her with an inhuman screech, its sharp fangs bared.

“AUGH!”

Rakepick was thrown backwards onto the deck. The thing in question sort of resembled a man at first glance, but due to the ocean water still clinging to his body, his skin was rippled with shimmering scales, his eyes were completely brown with no trace of white, his fingers were long, narrow, clawed, and webbed, and everything from the waist down resembled a large, slender fish tail.

Jacob’s blue eyes widened in shock and disbelief.

“...Ashe?” he whispered.

Rakepick recovered rather quickly -- she fired at Ashe, forcing the merman to lunge out of the way. Knowing he didn’t have much time before the other soldiers recovered too, Ashe threw himself across the deck toward Jacob. Quite a few of the soldiers withdrew subconsciously seeing the bizarre, hissing, fish-tailed and fanged man coming at them and it was just enough for Jacob to, in one more inhuman show of strength, throw the rest of the soldiers off of him.

Ashe quickly seized onto Jacob’s coat in his clawed, webbed hands, hoisting himself up into a quasi-kneeling position on the deck.

“Jump into the water with me,” Ashe said quickly.

“No -- ” said Jacob frantically, “not without the Chest -- !”

“Open fire!” bellowed Rakepick.

The soldiers, still stunned by the monster that had flopped up on deck, all hurried to try to load their weapons.

“We can’t get the Chest back if we’re dead!” Ashe reminded Jacob harshly, his sclera-less brown eyes narrowing.

He could feel his legs slowly returning as his scales dried out. Hoisting himself to his returning feet as best as he was able, he pulled Jacob along behind him back toward the ship’s railing, and -- just as the firing squad set loose a hail of bullets -- yanked Jacob overboard after him. As they fell, Ashe covered Jacob’s mouth fully with his own, before they landed in the water below with a loud SPLASH.

Black Jack Roberts and his First Mate Duncan Ashe just barely managed to escape Patricia Rakepick and the British Navy that day -- but that was a small victory, in the face of what their enemies had won.

[sleekervae]

Suck It And See [0.2]

Masterlist

"So, what's it like?" Rose asked. Jade laid flat out on her bed, staring at the cracks and stains in the ceiling while her best friend was on the phone.

"It's cold," she said, "Even for post-summer in England, it's cold,"

"What do you mean by cold?" Rose asked again, "That don't make no sense,"

"It's just very isolating is all," Jade replied, "None of these cousins have even come over to say 'hi',"

She hummed from the other end in thought, "Well, perhaps they're waiting for you to come out of your room?" she inquired.

"That'd be fine," Jade said, "If they too weren't locked in their own rooms. Rose, the only sounds I hear are the odd car driving by or the birds in the trees. It's eery, there's no life here whatsoever,"

"They're a suburban family, s'pose. Suburbans do things differently," Rose said, "Remember my next door neighbour? The brownstone that always reeked of meat?"

"Rose, that whole neighbourhood smells of deli meat. You're round the corner from the artisan markets," Jade said.

"Don't matter," Rose said, "Fact is that we lived in a suburb and every single person in that bloody square-radius was whacked,"

Jade sighed, "I think I'd rather be in a Newcastle as oppose to this," she said.

"Well, what's this Auntie all about, then?" Rose asked, "You said she was rich?"

"That's the only cool thing about her," Jade mused, "She married into it. Think she's put out a pound for my mum's treatments? Think again, kid,"

"Perhaps taking you in is her way of chipping in?" Rose said, "You know, take the emotionally-distraught-teenager out of the equation?"

Jade rolled onto her side, staring glumly out the foggy window that overlooked the neighbourhood. It looked more like a still-life than a reality, with silent streets, strangled grass, nobody about on the streets. It was depressingly glum, a place that no emotional teenager could possibly withstand in her circumstances.

"As far as I'm concerned, I should be at home instead,"

➿➿➿

Right at seven-fifteen in the evening, Jade was refreshed and redressed, this time in a simple white t-shirt and a pair of comfortable jeans. Her long, thick brown hair was tied up in a loose ponytail, showing off her gorgeous, youthful face. The wonderful smell of roast meat and steamed vegetables filled her nose, and it suddenly dawned on Jade that she was starving. She hadn't eaten anything since she had left her house this morning. She had had a cup of coffee and a scone with her dad in a local cafe by the station, a little father-daughter time before she would have to chug off. It wasn't the most pleasant bonding time for Jade, she still had mixed feelings towards her father and his actions.

Aunt Joy looked to have her head in the oven, a cynically amusing concept to Jade as she entered the kitchen. It was twice the size of her kitchen back home, with jade marble counter tops, clean wooden cabinets, a big, beautiful stainless steel fridge, and a state-of-the-art oven and stove-top set. A few feet away was a grand dining table covered in a green and yellow patch table cloth. And in two of the seats were her younger cousins, Charlie and Noah. The boys were fraternal twins, both eleven years of age with dark bowl-cuts, pudgy and pasty faces, with a thick rimmed glasses sitting on both of their noses. They seemed to be fighting over who's turn it was to play with their video game console.

"Charlie, it's my turn!" Noah whined as he tried to make a grab for the gameboy, "Yeh said yeh'd let me play after yeh killed the dragon!"

"Yeah!" Charlie sneered back, "But now I 'ave to kill the mutant lava monster!" he exclaimed. Noah continued to whine at him and kept grabbing for the console. Soon afterwards, a little, wispy-haired boy came running into the kitchen, yelling for his life.

"AAH! Mummy!" the little boy ran and hide behind Aunt Joy. Jade watched with confusion as another boy, taller than she was, came running after the little boy. He had a gremlin mask on over his head, but the young boy wasn't old enough to understand. Alfie, he was. He couldn't have been older than seven or eight.

"Mummy! Oliver's tryna' eat me!" he yelled. The older boy, sixteen-year-old Oliver, ripped off the deformed, ugly mask and started to laugh.

"Oh, take a joke, Alf. I was only kiddin'," Oliver said to him. Aunt Joy refrained from rolling her eyes as she pulled the roast beef out of the of oven and set it on the stove top to cool.

"Boys, did you say hello to your cousin?" She asked in a diminutive sneer.

The shenanigans in the kitchen came to a sudden stop as they all turned around and focused on Jade. She suddenly felt as though she was being glared down by a pack of wild hyenas.

Oliver, being the oldest, made his move first as he slung an arm around his cousin, "Long time, no see, cuz,"

Out of all her cousins, Jade tended to gravitate towards Oliver most. Perhaps because he was older, perhaps because he was good looking? Jade would never have any romantic kindlings towards him, he was her cousin after all. Regardless, Jade could appreciate his high cheek bones, shaggy but combed back hair, and well-chiseled body. He was a top player on the school's lacrosse team after all.

Uncle Cosmo entered the dining room soon after and had the boys set the table for dinner. He kept calling for Flora to come down from her room.

"Flo! Yehr ma 'as dinner on!" He shouted down the hall.

Jade took a seat at the end of the table, unsure of what else to do as Oliver and and Charlie set the table. He had ripped the game boy away from them and placed it on the spice rack whets neither of them could reach. Flora eventually came down and took a seat on the opposing side to Jade, between Oliver and Alfie.

They all sat down and Aunt Joy placed the roast and veggies in the middle of the table. Noah sat to Jade's left and Uncle Cosmo to her right. They both suddenly grabbed her hands. She was confused until she saw the rest of the family join hands and she realised they were going to say Grace.

"Do yeh say Grace before dinner, Jade?" Charlie asked her, clearly sensing get unease.

Aunt Joy replied before Jade could even open her mouth, "No dear, your Aunty Ruth doesn't believe in God," she said.

"So... Do you not believe in God, Jade?" Charlie asked.

"Erm... not really," she replied.

"Why?" he asked, "Yeh're not afraid of Him?"

"Charlie!" Uncle Cosmo suddenly cut in, "It's none of the business wha' Jade believes in. Now 'old yeh brother's 'and,"

Jade let out a small sigh of relief. And with that, Aunt Joy proceeded to say Grace:

"Dear Lord, thank you for this food we are about to eat. We are grateful for your provision. We ask that you would bless this food and continue to guide our family along Your path. In the name of Your son Jesus, amen,"

"Amen," the whole table said. They all suddenly turned to Jade, who had stayed silent up until that point."

"... Oh. Erm -- a-amen,"

➿➿➿

Dinner passed as quietly and uncomfortable as possible for Jade. The younger boys kept asking her why she was here, why her mum was sick, why her parents separated. Uncle Cosmo and Aunt Joy steered the conversation away as much as they could, but even Aunt Joy made little attempt to ease Jade into her family. Oliver then went on to tell Jade about the school she would be attending with them -- Stocksbridge High School. Flora meanwhile stayed silent, occasionally throwing a dirty look Jade's way. She couldn't for the life of her understand what her problem was.

Jade helped the five children -- well, four, Flora chose not to help -- clean up afterwards, then they all separated into their own rooms. Jade was at a loss for what to do with herself, so she sat on the couch with Uncle Cosmo as he lit his pipe and watched the evening news.

"Yeh excited for school tomorrow, Jade?" He asked her. Jade nodded slowly, more focused on the puff piece the news channel was doing on a bird sanctuary in Ireland. She had hardly spoken a word all day, and Uncle Cosmo didn't take it lightly. He couldn't begin to imagine what heartbreak was being thrusted upon this young girl.

"Jade, how are yeh doing? Wif all of this?" He asked her. Jade shook her head and looked up at her uncle with those big, sad hazel eyes.

"I'm fine," she replied quietly.

Cosmo sat forward on the couch and looked down the hall, finding the door to the den closed with light flickering from under the door. His wife wouldn't be able to hear him, then.

"Listen, I won' lie to yeh and say 'I know wha' yeh're going through'. I will tell yeh 'owever tha' it will get better. Yehr mum is a lil' fighter, and she will pull through. If anything, she'll do it fer yeh. As fer yeh dad, 'e's gonna 'help yehr mum any way 'e can, yehr ma won' be alone,"

Jade blinked back the tears that were threatening to spill over and wiped her nose on her jumper sleeve, "Jason's in jail, Uncle Cosmo. Jack's living with... Her. And I'm up here. How is she not alone?" she said. One of her older brother, Jason, had been hauled into juvenile detention last year on a drug charge, while her younger brother, Jack, was living with their father's new girlfriend, Winona, for reasons Jade could not see as logical.

Uncle Cosmo shrugged back and sighed, "Well, yehr ma knows she ain't alone because she knows tha' 'er children are thinking of 'er. She don't want yeh to see 'er in her treatments because she don't want yeh to remember 'er like that. Yeh understand wha' I mean, dear?" he said. Jade, again, nodded as a snail's pace, still keeping her eyes trained on the television.

"Things are gonna be strange for the next lil' while, I know. But yeh 'ave us to lean on fer support," he assured her, "Yeh ain't gonna be alone, Jade,"

Jade forced herself to swallow the growing lump in her throat as well as her uncle's articulations. She wanted to believe him, but the homesickness she felt was too fresh in her mind to give in to the ease her uncle was offering. She quickly wiped away the tears that slid down her face before Cosmo could notice and she turned back to the television, not uttering a word for the rest of the evening.

➿➿➿

Morning came faster than Jade would have liked.

After a sleepless night of tossing and turning, Jade grimaced as a loud pounding thundered on her bedroom door.

"Wake up, Jade!" Noah called from the other end, "Mum says we 'ave to get readeh fer school!"

Oh yeah, school. As if she weren't having enough troubles.

Jade groaned and shoved the blankets off her frail body. The floor was cold against her feet and she shivered as a draft whipped across her skin. She did a little stretch and went to the suitcase she hadn't yet bothered to unpack. Unlike her school back home, Jade had to wear a uniform to Stocksbridge -- and ugly one at that, consisting of a button down shirt, a black skirt, and a scratchy grey jumper, and an ugly tie.

If her friends back home could see her now, they'd never let her live this down. Jade had gone to a school where if you dressed like you were on your way to a business meeting downtown, you'd be robbed of your lunch money and locked into the janitor's closet within a span of ten minutes. She missed those ugly, drab classroom walls and rusty lockers that would clatter as you would walk by.

Jade -- now dressed in her new uniform, went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and comb her hair. However, as she tried to turn the bathroom knob, she found it was locked. A shrill voice hollered from the other end.

"Occupied!" Flora shouted with aggravation.

Jade was overcome with a sense of awkward being, unsure of just what to do. The only other bathroom in the house was her Aunt and Uncle's in their bedroom, and the powder room downstairs. Was it appropriate to brush her teeth in there? In this house especially?

"Erm -- i-it's me," Jade called, "Can I come in? I just wanna brush me teeth!"

There was a long, uncomfortable silence before Flora finally replied with an expected "No!"

Jade was beginning to get annoyed with her attitude, "I'll just be thirty seconds, I promise ya! I just really need the sink!"

She heard Flora groan back, "I'm using the sink! Use the loo downstairs!" she exclaimed. Jade bit on her bottom lip nervously, eyeing the corridor to the flight of grandiose stairs. Reluctantly, she took her toothbrush and toothpaste and skittered down the stairs, then headed right for the powder room. As if my a stroke of misfortune, Aunt Joy had spotted her from the kitchen as she was brewing a fresh pot of coffee, and she called after her.

"Jade, dear!" her voice slithered through the air with the grace of a snake, "I certainly hope you're not planning to use the powder room to brush your teeth!" she said, "It's unbecoming, you know,"

Jade refrained from rolling her eyes. It was the powder room, people use the powder room to freshen up. And she needed to freshen up for school so she wouldn't be mistaken for a zombie on her first day.

"Well... Flora refuses to get out of the bathroom... so what do I do?" she asked.

Joy sighed with exasperation, most likely at how petty and ridiculous her daughter was being. Or so Jade had hoped. But by the look on her face, Jade was weary that some of that exasperation may have been directed at her.

"Alright. You can use the powder room this morning. But I will have a talk with Flora," she said. Jade thanked her graciously and hopped into the powder room, feeling as though she had received an indirect warning from a prison warden as oppose to her 'loving' aunty.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Mina Tindle Interview: A Natural Frame

Photo credit: ©rgm

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The release of Mina Tindle’s SISTER last October was supposed to be accompanied by an ambitious live show and an hour-long film made up of visuals for its nine captivating songs. After all, these sorts of artistic deep dives are what the project of Pauline de Lassus is all about. But when it became clear last summer--the summer of COVID-19--that neither could be easily achieved or achieved any time soon, de Lassus let go of her inhibitions. Recorded and filmed during a specific time last summer in France when the virus was more under control and travel/lockdown restrictions were somewhat lifted, The LFO/Blogothèque Sessions present stripped-back versions of some songs from SISTER as well as a track that didn’t make the cut. With help from Kate Stables (This Is The Kit), de Lassus’ husband Bryce Dessner (The National), and David Chalmin, and in collaboration with French production company La Blogothèque, de Lassus presents the songs in new ways. The percussive gallop of “Fire and Sun” presents itself more in Dessner’s guitar in the live version. Vocal harmonies and guitar take the place of beats and strings on “Belle Pénitence”. A cover of Sufjan Stevens’ “Give A Little Love”, whose album version features Stevens and his quintessentially Reichian arpeggios, is all about the harmonies between de Lassus and Stables. And “Indigo”, never recorded, is buoyed by Dessner’s spritely, finger-picked guitar.

As much as these sessions have the feel of a fleeting moment--that should the group have decided to play them on, say, a different day, that they would take another shape--they’re also very much a product of place. For one, it wouldn’t have happened had de Lassus been somewhere without access to a studio, let alone with lesser restrictions. The accompanying videos--just as much a part of the release as the audio--were shot from de Lassus and Dessner’s new home in the South of France, where they moved from Paris with their child. The almost mystical, beautiful quality of the surroundings makes me think of what de Lassus told me over the phone last month about “the fantasy of having a live show.” With a camera capturing moments where the group decided to just go for it, it’s got that live quality, but like the best “live albums,” make you hungry to experience the music in person for yourself.

The LFO/Blogothèque Sessions was released on Friday via 37d03d, the “people” label. (“They give their artists a lot of freedom and love,” de Lassus said. “They’re amazing...I don’t think I would have put the record out if it wasn’t with them.”) Read our conversation about adapting the songs to a new setting, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: Did you always want to do stripped-down versions of these songs, or was the occasion of lockdown restrictions being lifted the inspiration?

Pauline de Lassus: Something I love doing is having nice visuals or working on videos. I had a big project for this record, a film the length of the 9 songs--I wanted to make a movie. But it was a totally different object, an homage to [Norman] McLaren. I wanted to do a one-hour long video. Everything was cancelled because of COVID, and I ended up doing all the videos myself. Do it yourself, like back in the days. I chose women I love dancing, and it was nice to work on. But it’s really nice when it’s professional. I knew there would not be any shows for this record--maybe in a few years. So I had the idea of trying to capture that. I did it with basically family--Kate Stables, Bryce is my husband, and David is a really close friend. Doing it in the safest environment possible. It was really nice.

SILY: Was it natural to strip down these songs? How did you adapt them to the setting?

Pauline: We just played them. We kind of worked on it with Bryce a bit. He’s really good at that. When I got the chance to tour with The National, I saw they record an album and know all the songs, because they work on it for months. We did maybe four days of rehearsal in Paris to start the tour, and that was it, and after four days, they played the songs over and over. There were like 50 of them. By the end they went on stage and just played the music. I remember thinking, “Woah.” My way of doing it would be to overplay or overwork them to try to get the right version instead of just playing the music. It’s more the fact that they play it a lot that it turned into something they like. Because these songs were so minimal, we didn’t have to sing too much. 

SILY: It seems like certain qualities of the songs you kept but achieved them in a different way, like the forward gallop in the drum beat on the SISTER version of “Fire and Sun”, you get more in the guitar here, whereas for “Belle Pénitence”, the emphasis is more on the vocal harmonies and the guitar than on the strings and the beats like on SISTER. Did that, too, kind of come naturally from just playing them?

Pauline: I think we just played them. I love making records. It’s one of the things I love doing the most. I don’t mind if it takes 5 years, and I don’t mind a quick record, but working in the studio is a really different process. You can add all the things you want. It’s kind of magic. These days, it’s not on tape, so you can erase the minute after. It’s really an experimental place.

Playing them [live], I have one of the greatest musicians and guitar players in Bryce. He can get the essence of the song really easily. And the soul of Kate, we love singing together; every time, something happens. I think it was a way to sing with more space. We weren’t trying to mimic any existing version, which is great, because I’ve been touring with Mina Tindle for years where the expectation was I am trying to mimic the record. The up-tempo song had to be up-tempo. This time, it was extremely free. It was really nice, because what I needed was really little. Two instruments, two singers, that’s it. We wanted to play them acoustic, which is sometimes a challenge.

SILY: What you said about playing them with more space really stood out to me on the EP version of “Indian Summer”. You have this piano ballad as opposed to something that’s more all over the place.

Pauline: I love both! In the past, I’ve been slow at making records. Sometimes, I just have the demo, and it’s the first draft, and it’s good. That’s why I like the idea of having a live recording, because it has to be straight and honest right away. In a way, I feel like you interpret it differently, also, because it’s one shot. Maybe we had two shots, but there was no editing.

SILY: How did you get around not having Sufjan’s presence on “Give A Little Love”?

Pauline: When I sing that song, I always try to be at the level of his song. He’s the sweetest person, so he couldn’t care less--he’d give me freedom to adapt the song [even] metal or AC/DC style. He’s a free mind. It’s sweet because I’m more shy when it’s my songs, but I love covering songs that I love. [Feist and I] did this tribute to Lhasa de Sela, who is one of my favorite singers ever. She passed away when she was really young. We had a love for her music and ended up making a show that we played in London and France and Ireland and Berlin, where we were covering her songs. It was one of my favorite things to do. It’s an ode to my love to music, whereas when I sing my songs, I feel more shy or intimidated to open up. Sometimes, I really wonder why I open my heart. When it’s someone else, I feel happy they’re connecting.

SILY: What’s the story behind the new song on this release, “Indigo”?

Pauline: “Indigo” is the black sheep of the record. It was many people’s favorite song, but I had 5 versions of it I couldn’t choose from. When I ended up not putting it on SISTER, I was really happy. I felt relieved. I didn’t know where to put it. I tried to mix it with different people, but it was never right. Kate had sung that song with me many times, so she knew it, and this was the right way to do it. I felt totally fine presenting that version. This EP is a way to free up any vision. It is what it is. That’s why it was on that record, because we really wanted to sing that song together. It’s a story of a separation, if I remember correctly. Losing each other. I remember being obsessed with the idea of losing someone you really love. It was not my personal life; fortunately, I was doing pretty okay. But having a kid is a total volcano in your life, and I was looking at many people around me who seemed to not be okay, living through that experience, so it was a song about how you can tear apart when something’s supposed to make you closer.

SILY: You could have a whole rarities release of different versions of “Indigo” as your next release.

Pauline: Yeah. I don’t think anybody would like to listen to it. [laughs] The same song four times.

SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art of this release?

Pauline: It’s Kate and I dancing. We were really happy because we did [the recording] in two days. We had an extra day with her, so we did some stuff for her, and we were just dancing. There was a huge storm--the weather where we are is crazy. It can rain and be super shiny in twenty minutes. So we had this crazy summer storm and started dancing as if it was a mirror and improvising the dancing. We are not dancers. [laughs] But we had a lot of fun. This red window is the typical colors of the architecture in the region. It’s actually in my house. I’ve already taken so many pictures of people inside and outside that window, because the window reflects the landscape behind. It’s so beautiful. It’s like a natural frame, and whatever you put inside, it’s kind of logical.

SILY: Are you planning or able to do live shows or live streams?

Pauline: As I told you, I intended to do way bigger or ambitious thing at first, because I kind of hate videos for music--or I never watch them. For me, the music is not more important, but enough. So when you do videos, it’s nice when you have something unique. We couldn’t do that movie I was thinking about, so putting money into trying to make a beautiful live performance was it. I was happy with it.

A livestream, maybe under certain conditions, but it’s a really strange period where even more than before, while I’m happy to give and share what I’m creating, but privacy is more something I’m into these days.

SILY: Livestreams do have that bedroom aspect.

Pauline: It’s kind of an exhibitionist thing I’ve never had. I’ve always felt conflicted about it with social media. It’s like opening your house to people. I’m not judging people who do it--you can do it really healthily--but I don’t feel comfortable. So far, I’ve said no to a lot of stuff.

SILY: Some of the best ones I’ve seen have skirted the home recording feel because they’re recorded at an actual venue and professionally edited. It’s not really live, but it’s at least for the time being something a little bit in between.

Pauline: We should look forward to live shows coming back, not necessarily doing bad performances. Like with social media, we now see 30-second music extracts, like on TikTok. The quality is not getting better. We don’t have to share everything the universe is offering to us. Sometimes it’s better to hold back and wait. That’s totally my point, though. Of course, when you’re in your 20s, you should do whatever you want to do, but at this point in my life, I don’t feel the urge to constantly express myself. I’m just old, you know? [laughs]

SILY: What else have you been up to lately?

Pauline: I’m doing a lot of things not related to music. I’m illustrating a book that’s more for children. It’s around music. I’m busy spending my days painting and drawing, and I love it. It’s creative, but it’s nice to take a break from music. The final collection is gonna be really cool.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that’s caught your attention?

Pauline: Besides two children’s books a week. You can see there’s a big switch in illustrations for kids books. You can spend a whole day at the library in the kid’s section. It’s so impressive and beautiful.

My knowledge in feminism was really bad, so the last 6 months, I’ve been reading everything I can on the subject and listening to podcasts. It’s basically my routine. I thought I wasn’t feminist, but I am.

[fidelandrada]

Syllogism: Reasoning and Fallacy

Syllogism is a form of deductive reasoning where you arrive at a specific conclusion by examining two other premises or ideas. 

Hello, my name is Fidel Andrada. Syllogism derives from the Greek word syllogismos, meaning conclusion or inference.

Some syllogisms contain three components:

Major Premise

Minor Premise

Conclusion

For example, all roses are flowers (major premise). This is a rose (minor premise). Therefore, I am holding a flower (conclusion)

Types of Syllogism

The type of syllogism that typically contains these three components is a categorical syllogism. However, there are two other major kinds of syllogism. We'll discuss each one here, plus enthymemes and syllogistic fallacy.

As we know, our first example about roses was a categorical syllogism. Categorical syllogisms follow an "If A is part of C, then B is part of C" logic.

Let's look at some more examples of syllogism.

All cars have wheels. I drive a car. Therefore, my car has wheels.

Major Premise: All cars have wheels.

Minor Premise: I drive a car.

Conclusion: My car has wheels.

All insects frighten me. That is an insect. Therefore, I am frightened.

Major Premise: All insects frighten me.

Minor Premise: That is an insect.

Conclusion: I am frightened.

Conditional syllogisms follow an "If A is true, then B is true" pattern of logic. They're often referred to as hypothetical syllogisms because the arguments aren't always valid. Sometimes they're merely an accepted truth.

If Katie is smart, then she will get into a good college.

Major premise: Katie is smart.

Minor premise: Because she is smart Katie will get good grades.

Conclusion: Katie will get into a good college.

If Richard likes Germany, then he must drive an Audi.

Major premise: Richard likes Germany.

Minor premise: Richard likes all German things.

Conclusion: Richard drives a German car.

Disjunctive syllogisms follow a "Either A or B is true, if it's A, B is false" premise. They don't state if a major or minor premise is correct. But it's understood that one of them is correct.

This cake is either red velvet or chocolate.

It's not chocolate.

This cake is red velvet.

On the TV show Walkikng Dead, Claire's husband is either dead or alive.

He's not dead.

Claire's husband is alive.

An enthymeme is not one of the major types of syllogism but is what's known as rhetorical syllogism. These are often used in persuasive speeches and arguments.

Generally, the speaker will omit a major or minor premise, assuming it's already accepted by the audience.

He couldn't have stolen the jewelry. I know him.

Major Premise: He couldn't have stolen the jewelry.

Minor Premise: I know his character.

Her new purse can't be ugly. It's a Louis Vuitton.

Major Premise: Her new accessory can't be ugly.

Minor Premise: It's made by famous designer Louis Vuitton.

In an enthymeme, one premise remains implied. In the examples above, being familiar with someone or something implies an understanding of them.

Some syllogisms contain false presumptions. When you start assuming one of the major or minor premises to be true, even though they're not based in fact - as with disjunctive syllogisms and enthymemes - you run the risk of making a false presumption.

All crows are black. The bird in my cage is black. Therefore, this bird is a crow.

Major Premise: All crows are black.

Minor Premise: The bird in my cage is black.

Conclusion: This bird is a crow.

The scenery in Ireland is beautiful. I'm in Ireland. Therefore, the scenery must be beautiful.

Major Premise: The scenery in Ireland is beautiful.

Minor Premise: I'm in Ireland.

Conclusion: The scenery is beautiful.

Of course, not every black bird is a crow and not all of Ireland is beautiful. When preparing a speech or writing a paper, we must always make sure we're not making any sweeping generalizations that will cause people to make false presumptions.

Rules of Syllogism

There are six known rules of syllogism. However, they mainly apply to categorical syllogism, since that is the only category that requires three components: major premise, minor premise, conclusion. Here are six rules that will ensure you're making a strong and accurate argument.

Rule One: There must be three terms: the major premise, the minor premise, and the conclusion - no more, no less.

Rule Two: The minor premise must be distributed in at least one other premise.

Rule Three: Any terms distributed in the conclusion must be distributed in the relevant premise.

Rule Four: Do not use two negative premises.

Rule Five: If one of the two premises are negative, the conclusion must be negative.

Rule Six: From two universal premises, no conclusion may be drawn.

Further Examples of Syllogism

Syllogisms make for colorful literary devices. They explain situations indirectly, affording readers the opportunity to practice reasoning and deduction skills. Shakespeare was a master of many things, including syllogism. Here is an example of a syllogism fallacy in The Merchant of Venice:

Portia was a woman desired by many men. It was arranged she would marry the man who could correctly guess which of three caskets contained her portrait. One casket was inscribed with, "Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire." One man concluded that, since many men desired Portia, her portrait must be in that casket.

He was wrong. His assumption falls under the category of syllogistic fallacy. One cannot deduce that, since this casket contains what men desire, it's automatically the portrait. Men also desire fortune and power, for example. There wasn't enough evidence to leap from premise to conclusion here.

Socrates is the subject of one of the most famous, and easily understood, examples of syllogism in philosophy. Note that it clearly follows the rule of three components.

All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, I am mortal.

This draws a clear picture of how one statement, when known to be universally true, should point perfectly to another clear claim, thus drawing an accurate conclusion.

Keep syllogisms in mind when viewing advertisements. Many leaps are made in advertising, skipping either a major or minor premise:

Women love men who drive a Lexus.

Get ready for an enthymeme or syllogism fallacy. A blanket statement such as this skips one of the two required premises. Every time a woman likes a man, it can't be assumed he drives a Lexus.

Persuasive Speeches and Writing

Understanding syllogisms will help you create masterful persuasive speeches and essays. They create a formula for you to abide by, in order to ensure your main point is flawless.

Syllogisms also allow you to test your theories according to syllogistic fallacies. When examining your main argument or point for discussion, be sure you haven't made any presumptions that your audience might disagree with.

Maybe some women won't like Lexuses. Perhaps they prefer a good 'ol fashioned Jeep! Just keep your eyes and ears open while you allow syllogisms to drive your point home with clarity and truth.

[isslibrary]

NEW LIBRARY MATERIAL September 2020 - February 2021

Bibliography

Sorted by Call Number / Author.

011.7 F

Fadiman, Clifton, 1904-1999. The new lifetime reading plan / : the classical guide to world literature, Revised and expanded. 4th ed. New York : HarperCollins Publishers, 1999, c1997.

155.2 G

Gladwell, Malcolm, 1963-. David and Goliath : underdogs, misfits, and the art of battling giants. First edition. Goliath : "Am I a dog that you should come to me with sticks?" -- The Advantages of Disadvantages (and the Disadvantages of Advantages). Vivek Ranadiv©♭: "It was really random. I mean, my father had never played basketball before." ; Teresa DeBrito: "My largest class was twenty-nine kids. Oh, it was fun." ; Caroline Sacks: "If I'd gone to the University of Maryland, I'd still be in science. -- The Theory of Desirable Difficulty. David Boies: You wouldn't wish dyslexia on your child. Or would you? ; Emil "Jay" Freireich: "How Jay did it, I don't know." ; Wyatt Walker: "De rabbit is de slickest o' all de animals de Lawd ever made." -- The Limits of Power. Rosemary Lawlor: "I wasn't born that way. This was forced upon me." ; Wilma Derksen: "We have all done something dreadful in our lives, or have felt the urge to." ; Andr©♭ Trocm©♭: "We feel obliged to tell you that there are among us a certain number of Jews.". This book uncovers the hidden rules that shape the balance between the weak and the mighty and the powerful and the dispossessed. In it the author challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks. He begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy (David and Goliath) those many years ago. From there, the book examines Northern Ireland's Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms, all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity. -- From book jacket.

170 H

Haidt, Jonathan, author. The happiness hypothesis : finding modern truth in ancient wisdom. Paperback edition. "The Happiness Hypothesis is a book about ten Great Ideas. Each chapter is an attempt to savor one idea that has been discovered by several of the world's civilizations--to question it in light of what we now know from scientific research, and to extract from it the lessons that still apply to our modern lives and illuminate the causes of human flourishing. Award-winning psychologist Jonathan Haidt shows how a deeper understanding of the world's philosophical wisdom and its enduring maxims--like "do unto others as you would have others do unto you," or "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger"--can enrich and even transform our lives."--Back cover.

171 K

Kohn, Alfie. The brighter side of human nature : altruism and empathy in everyday life. New York : Basic Books, c1990.

305.5 W

Wilkerson, Isabel, author. Caste : the origins of our discontents. First edition. The man in the crowd -- Toxins in the permafrost and heat rising all around -- The arbitrary construction of human divisions -- The eight pillars of caste -- The tentacles of caste -- The consequences of caste -- Backlash -- Awakening -- Epilogue: A world without caste. "In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people--including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball's Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others--she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of America life today."--.

305.8 W

Williamson, Joel. A rage for order : Black/White relations in the American South since emancipation. New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 1968. Full ed.: published as The crucible of race. 1984. Traces the history of race relations, examines changing public attitudes, and tells the stories of those involved in Civil Rights movement.

305.9 P

Pipher, Mary Bray. The middle of everywhere : the world's refugees come to our town. First edition. Cultural collisions on the Great Plains -- The beautiful laughing sisters-an arrival story -- Into the heart of the heartland -- All that glitters ... -- Children of hope, children of tears -- Teenagers--Mohammed meets Madonna -- Young adults--"Is there a marriage broker in Lincoln?"-- Family--"A bundle of sticks cannot be broken" -- African stories -- Healing in all times and places -- Home-a global positioning system for identity -- Building a village of kindness. Offers the tales of refugees who have escaped countries riddled by conflict and ripped apart by war to realize their dream of starting a new life in America, detailing their triumph over adversity.

306.4 P

Pollan, Michael. The botany of desire : a plant's-eye view of the world. Random House trade pbk. ed. New York : Random House, 2002. Desire : sweetness, plant : the apple (Malus domestica) -- Desire : beauty, plant : the tulip (Tulipa) -- Desire : intoxication, plant : marijuana (Cannabis sativa x indica) -- Desire : control, plant : the potato (Solanum tuberosum). Focusing on the human relationship with plants, the author of Second nature uses botany to explore four basic human desires, sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control, through portraits of four plants that embody them, the apple, tulip, marijuana, and potato. Every school child learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers; the bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers' genes far and wide. In The botany of desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. In telling the stories of four familiar species that are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind's most basic yearnings. And just as we've benefited from these plants, the plants have done well by us. So who is really domesticating whom?.

307.1 I

Immerwahr, Daniel, 1980-. Thinking small : the United States and the lure of community development. First Harvard University Press paperback edition 2018. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 2015. Preface: Modernization, development, and community -- Introduction: Actually existing localism -- When small was big -- Development without modernization -- Peasantville -- Grassroots empire -- Urban villages -- Epilogue: What is dead and what is undead in community development?.

323.60973 I

In the hands of the people : Thomas Jefferson on equality, faith, freedom, compromise, and the art of citizenship. First edition. New York, NY : Random House, 2020. "Thomas Jefferson believed in the covenant between a government and its citizens, in both the government's responsibilities to its people and also the people's responsibility to the republic. In this illuminating collection, a project of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jon Meacham has gathered Jefferson's most powerful and provocative reflections on the subject, drawn from public speeches and documents as well as his private correspondence. Still relevant centuries later, Jefferson's words provide a manual for U.S. citizenship in the twenty-first century. His thoughts will re-shape and revitalize the way readers relate to concepts including Freedom: "Divided we stand, united we fall." The importance of a free press:"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." Public education: "Enlighten the public generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body & mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day." Participation in government: A citizen should be "a participator in the government of affairs not merely at an election, one day in the year, but every day.""-- Provided by publisher.

324.6 P

Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. African American women in the struggle for the vote, 1850-1920. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1998. Revisiting the question of race in the woman suffrage movement -- African American women in the first generation of woman suffragists : 1850-1869 -- African American woman suffragists finding their own voices : 1870s and 1880s -- Suffrage strategies and ideas : African American women leaders respond during "the nadir" -- Mobilizing to win the vote : African American women's organizations -- Anti-black woman suffrage tactics and African American women's responses -- African American women as voters and candidates -- The nineteenth amendment and its meaning for African American women. This study of African American women's roles in the suffrage movement breaks new ground. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn draws from many original documents to take a comprehensive look at the African American women who sought the right to vote. She discovers numerous Black suffragists previously unknown. Analyzing the women's own stories, she examines why they joined the woman suffrage movement in the United States and how they participated in it - with white women, Black men, as members of African American women's organizations, or simultaneously in all three. Terborg-Penn further discusses their various levels of interaction and types of feminist philosophy. Noting that not all African American woman suffragists were from elite circles, Terborg-Penn finds representation from working-class and professional women as well.They came from all parts of the nation. Some employed radical, others conservative means to gain the right to vote. Black women, however, were unified in working to use the ballot to improve not only their own status, but the lives of Black people in their communities. Drawing from innumerable sources, Terborg-Penn argues that sexism and racism prevented African American women from voting and from full participation in the national suffrage movement. Following the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, state governments in the South, enacted policies which disfranchised African American women, with many white suffragists closing their eyes to the discriminatory acts. Despite efforts to keep Black women politically powerless, Terborg-Penn contends that the Black suffrage was a source of empowerment. Every political and racial effort to keep African American women disfranchised met with their active resistance until Black women achieved full citizenship.

326.80922 B

Brands, H. W., author. The zealot and the emancipator : John Brown, Abraham Lincoln and the struggle for American freedom. First Edition. Pottawatomie -- Springfield -- Harpers Ferry -- The telegraph office. "What do moral people do when democracy countenances evil? The question, implicit in the idea that people can govern themselves, came to a head in America at the middle of the nineteenth century, in the struggle over slavery. John Brown's answer was violence--violence of a sort some in later generations would call terrorism. Brown was a deeply religious man who heard the God of the Old Testament speaking to him, telling him to do whatever was necessary to destroy slavery. When Congress opened Kansas territory to slavery, the eerily charismatic Brown raised a band of followers to wage war against the evil institution. One dark night his men tore several proslavery settlers from their homes and hacked them to death with broadswords, as a bloody warning to others. Three years later Brown and his men assaulted the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, with the goal of furnishing slaves with weapons to murder their masters in a race war that would cleanse the nation of slavery once and for all. Abraham Lincoln's answer was politics. Lincoln was an ambitious lawyer and former office-holder who read the Bible not for moral guidance but as a writer's primer. He disliked slavery yet didn't consider it worth shedding blood over. He distanced himself from John Brown and joined the moderate wing of the new, antislavery Republican party. He spoke cautiously and dreamed big, plotting his path to Washington and perhaps the White House. Yet Lincoln's caution couldn't preserve him from the vortex of violence Brown set in motion. Arrested and sentenced to death, Brown comported himself with such conviction and dignity on the way to the gallows that he was canonized in the North as a martyr to liberty. Southerners responded in anger and horror that a terrorist was made into a saint. Lincoln shrewdly threaded the needle of the fracturing country and won election as president, still preaching moderation. But the time for moderation had passed. Slaveholders lumped Lincoln with Brown as an enemy of the Southern way of life; seven Southern states left the Union. Lincoln resisted secession, and the Civil War followed. At first a war for the Union, it became the war against slavery Brown had attempted to start. Before it was over, slavery had been destroyed, but so had Lincoln's faith that democracy can resolve its moral crises peacefully"--.

328.73 M

Meacham, Jon, author. His truth is marching on : John Lewis and the power of hope. First edition. Overture: the last march -- A hard life, a serious life -- The spirit of history -- Soul force -- In the image of God and democracy -- We are going to make you wish you was dead -- I'm going to die here -- This country don't run on love -- Epilogue: against the rulers of the darkness. "John Lewis, who at age twenty-five marched in Selma and was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, is a visionary and a man of faith. Using intimate interviews with Lewis and his family and deep research into the history of the civil rights movement, Meacham writes of how the activist and leader was inspired by the Bible, his mother's unbreakable spirit, his sharecropper father's tireless ambition, and his teachers in nonviolence, Reverend James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr. A believer in hope above all else, Lewis learned from a young age that nonviolence was not only a tactic but a philosophy, a biblical imperative, and a transforming reality. At the age of four, Lewis, ambitious to become a preacher, practiced by preaching to the chickens he took care of. When his mother cooked one of the chickens, the boy refused to eat it--his first act of non-violent protest. Integral to Lewis's commitment to bettering the nation was his faith in humanity and in God, and an unshakable belief in the power of hope. Meacham calls Lewis "as important to the founding of a modern and multiethnic twentieth- and twenty-first century America as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and Samuel Adams were to the initial creation of the nation-state in the eighteenth century. He did what he did--risking limb and life to bear witness for the powerless in the face of the powerful--not in spite of America, but because of America, and not in spite of religion, but because of religion"--.

333.95 W

Wilson, Edward O. A window on eternity : a biologist's walk through Gorongosa National Park. First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. Prologue: The Search for Eternity -- The Sacred Mountain of Mozambique -- Once There Were Giants -- War and Redemption -- Dung and Blood -- The Twenty-Foot Crocodile -- The Elephant Whisperer -- The House of Spiders -- The Clash of Insect Civilizations -- The Log of an Entomological Expedition -- The Struggle for Existence -- The Conservation of Eternity. "E.O. Wilson, one of the most celebrated scientists in the United States, shows why biodiversity is vital to the future of Earth and to our own species through the story of an African national park that may be the most diverse place on earth, in a gorgeously illustrated book"--. "The remarkable story of how one of the most biologically diverse habitats in the world was destroyed, restored, and continues to evolve--with stunning, full-color photographs by two of the world's best wildlife photographers. In 1976, Gorongosa National Park was the premier park in Mozambique, boasting one of the densest wildlife populations in all of Africa. Across 1,500 square miles of lush green floodplains, thick palm forests, swampy lakes, and vast plains roamed creatures great and small, from herds of wildebeest and elephant to countless bird species and insects yet to be classified. Then came the civil war of 1978-1992, when much of the ecosystem was destroyed, reducing some large animal populations by 90 percent or more. Due to a remarkable conservation effort sponsored by an American entrepreneur, the park was restored in the 1990s and is now evolving back to its former state. This is the story of that incredible transformation and why such biological diversity is so important. In A Window on Eternity, world-renowned biologist and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward O. Wilson shows why biodiversity is vital to the future of the Earth, including our human population. It is in places like Gorongosa in Africa, explains Wilson, that our own species evolved. Wilson takes readers to the forested groves of the park's watershed on sacred Mount Gorongosa, then far away to deep gorges along the edge of the Rift Valley, places previously unexplored by biologists, with the aim of discovering new species and assessing their ancient origins. He treats readers to a war between termites and raider ants, describes 'conversations' with elephant herds, and explains the importance of a one-day 'bioblitz.' Praised as 'one of the finest scientists writing today' (Los Angeles Times), Wilson uses the story of Gorongosa to show the significance of biodiversity to humankind"--.

340.092 S

Sligh, Clarissa T., artist. Transforming hate : an artist's book. First edition. "This book evolved from a project for which I folded origami cranes from pages of white supremacist books for the exhibition, Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate ... I was trying to look at what it was like for me to turn hateful words into a beautiful art object. What actually evolved from that exploration helped me understand more fully the many levels of oppression and violence at the intersections of race, gender, class and sexual orientation." --inside front cover.

343.730 I

Internet law. Amenia, New York : Grey House Publishing, 2020.

345.73 C

Carter, Dan T. Scottsboro : a tragedy of the American South. Rev. ed. Fourth printing. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 2007.

349.41 H

Honor©♭, Tony, 1921-2019. About law : an introduction. Reprint: 2013. Law -- History -- Government -- Property -- Contracts and treaties -- Crimes -- Torts -- Forms and procedures -- Interpretation -- Justice -- Does law matter? -- Glossary.

363.73 P

Pollution. New York, NY : Grey House Publishing, 2020.

371.102 A

Agarwal, Pooja K., author. Powerful teaching : unleash the science of learning. First edition. Introduction -- Discover the power behind power tools -- Build a foundation with retrieval practice -- Empower teaching with retrieval practice strategies -- Energize learning with spacing and interleaving -- Engage students with feedback-driven metacognition -- Combine power tools and harness your toolbox -- Keeping it real: use power tools to tackle challenges, not add to them -- Foster a supportive environment: use power tools to reduce anxiety and strengthen community -- Spark conversations with students about the science of learning -- Spark conversations with parents about the science of learning -- Powerful professional development for teachers and leaders -- Do-it-yourself retrieval guide -- Conclusion: unleash the science of learning.

512 G

Algebra. 2004. New York : Springer Science+Business Media, 2004.

575.1 A

Arney, Kat, author. How to code a human. Meet your genome -- Our genetic journey -- How do genes work? -- Under attack! -- Who do you think your are? -- People are not peas -- Genetic superheroes -- Turn me on -- Sticky notes -- The RNA world -- Building a baby -- Wiring the brain -- Compatibility genes -- X and Y -- The viruses that made us human -- When things go wrong -- Human 2.0. "How to Code a Human takes you on a mind-bending journey through the world of the double helix, revealing how our DNA encodes our genes and makes us unique. Covering all aspects of modern genetics from the evolution of our species to inherited diseases, "junk" DNA, genetic engineering and the intricacies of the molecular processes inside our cells, this is an astonishing and insightful guide to the code of life"--Back cover.

598 S

Sibley, David, 1961- author, illustrator. What it's like to be a bird : from flying to nesting, eating to singing -- what birds are doing, and why. How to use this book -- Introduction -- Portfolio of birds -- Birds in this book -- What to do if... -- Becoming a birder. Explore more than two hundred species, and more than 330 new illustrations by the author, in this special, large-format volume, where many of the primary illustrations are reproduced life-sized. While its focus is on familiar backyard birds -- blue jays, nuthatches, chickadees -- What It's Like to Be a Bird also examines certain species that can be fairly easily observed, such as the seashore-dwelling Atlantic Puffin. David Sibley's exacting artwork and wide-ranging expertise bring observed behaviors vividly to life. And while the text is aimed at adults -- including fascinating new scientific research on the myriad ways birds have adapted to environmental changes -- it is nontechnical, making it the perfect occasion for parents and grandparents to share their love of birds with young children, who will delight in the big, full-color illustrations of birds in action. -- back cover.

613.6 C

Bushcraft Illustrated: a visual guide. New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, Inc. (Adams Media: imprint of Simon & Schuster), 2019.

638.1 B

Michael Bush. The Practical beekeeper. Nehawka, Nebraska : X-Star Publishing Company, 2004-2011. V. 1 - The Practical Beekeeing Naturally; V.2 - Intermediate Beekeeping Naturally.

660.6 D

Druker, Steven M., author. Altered genes, twisted truth : how the venture to genetically engineer our food has subverted science, corrupted government, and systematically deceived the public.

709.2 A

Atalay, B©ơlent. Math and the Mona Lisa: : the art and science of Leonardo da Vinci. New York, NY : Smithsonian Books in association with HarperCollins Publishers, 2006. Leonardo was one of history's true geniuses, equally brilliant as an artist, scientist, and mathematician. Following Leonardo's own model, Atalay searches for the internal dynamics of art and science. He provides an overview of the development of science from the dawn of civilization to today's quantum mechanics. From this base, Atalay offers a view into Leonardo's restless intellect and modus operandi, allowing us to see the source of his ideas and to appreciate his art from a new perspective.

741.5 G

Greenberg, Isabel. The encyclopedia of early earth : a graphic novel. First American edition. Love in a very cold climate -- Part 1. The land of Nord. The three sisters of Summer Island ; Beyond the frozen sea ; The gods ; The odyssey begins -- Part 2. Britanitarka. Summer and winter ; Creation ; Medicine man ; The storytellers ; Creation ; Dag and Hal ; The old lady and the giant ; The time of the giants ; The children of the mountain ; The long night ; Dead towns & ghost men -- Part. 3. Migdal Bavel. Migdal Bavel ; The mapmaker of Migdal Bavel ; The bible of Birdman: Genesis ; Bible of Birdman, book of Kiddo: The great flood ; The tower of Migdal Bavel ; The palace of whispers ; The gods #2 -- Part 4. The South Pole. The gods #3 -- Appendices. A brief history of time ; The Nords ; Hunting and fishing ; The 1001 varieties of snow ; The invisible hunter ; Britanitarka ; Birds & beast from early Earth ; The moonstone ; The plucked firebird of Hoo. "Chronicles the explorations of a young man as he paddles from his home in the North Pole to the South Pole. There, he meets his true love, but their romance is ill-fated. Early Earth's unusual and finicky polarity means the lovers can never touch"--Publisher's website.

808.1 G

How poetry can change your heart. San Francisco, CA : Chronicle Books, 2019.

808.5 E

Franklin, Sharon. Essentials of speech communication. Evanston, Ill. : McDougal Littell, 2001.

808.53 H

Hanson, Jim. NTC's dictionary of debate. Lincolnwood, Ill., USA : National Textbook Co., c1990.

808.53 W

Strategic debate. Textbook. Columbus, OH : Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2006.

810.8 B

Lepucki, Edan, author. The best American nonrequired reading 2019. This anthology presents a selection of short works from mainstream and alternative American periodicals published in 2019, including nonfiction, screenplays, television writing, fiction, and alternative comics.

815 R

Representative American speeches, 2019-2020. Amenia, New York : Grey House, Publishing, 2020. "Selected from a diverse field of speakers and venues, this volume offers some of the most engaging American speeches of the year. Distinguished by its diversity, covering areas in politics, education, popular culture, as well as trending topics in the news, these speeches provide an interesting format to explore some of the year's most important stories."-Publisher.

909.09 D

Davis, Jack E., 1956- author. The Gulf : the making of an American sea. First edition. Prologue : history, nature, and a forgotten sea -- Introduction : birth -- Part one. Estuaries, and the lie of the land and sea : aborigines and colonizing Europeans. Mounds -- El golfo de M©♭xico -- Unnecessary death -- A most important river, and a "magnificent" bay -- Part two. Sea and sky : American debuts in the nineteenth century. Manifest destiny -- A fishy sea -- The wild fish that tamed the coast -- Birds of a feather, shot together -- Part three. Preludes to the future. From bayside to beachside -- Oil and the Texas toe dip -- Oil and the Louisiana plunge -- Islands, shifting sands of time -- Wind and water -- Part four. Saturation and loss : post-1945. The growth coast -- Florida worry, Texas slurry -- Rivers of stuff -- Runoff, and runaway -- Sand in the hourglass -- Losing the edge -- Epilogue : a success story amid so much else. Significant beyond tragic oil spills and hurricanes, the Gulf has historically been one of the world's most bounteous marine environments, supporting human life for millennia. Based on the premise that nature lies at the center of human existence, Davis takes readers on a compelling and, at times, wrenching journey from the Florida Keys to the Texas Rio Grande, along marshy shorelines and majestic estuarine bays, both beautiful and life-giving, though fated to exploitation by esurient oil men and real-estate developers. Davis shares previously untold stories, parading a vast array of historical characters past our view: sports-fishermen, presidents, Hollywood executives, New England fishers, the Tabasco king, a Texas shrimper, and a New York architect who caught the "big one". Sensitive to the imminent effects of climate change, and to the difficult task of rectifying the assaults of recent centuries, this book suggests how a penetrating examination of a single region's history can inform the country's path ahead. --.

910.92 I

Inskeep, Steve, author. Imperfect union : how Jessie and John Fr©♭mont mapped the West, invented celebrity, and helped cause the Civil War. Aid me with your influence -- The equal merits of differing peoples -- The current of important events -- Miseries that attend a separation -- I determined to make there a home -- The manifest purpose of providence -- A taste for danger and bold daring adventure -- The Spaniards were somewhat rude and inhospitable -- I am not going to let you write anything but your name -- Do not suppose I lightly interfere in a matter belonging to men -- We pressed onward with fatal resolution -- Jessie Benton Fr©♭mont was the better man of the two -- We thought money might come in handy -- All the stupid laurels that ever grew -- Decidedly, this ought to be struck out -- He throws away his heart. "Steve Inskeep tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Fr©♭mont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became America's first great political couple John Fr©♭mont grew up amid family tragedy and shame. Born out of wedlock in 1813, he went to work at age thirteen to help support his family in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a nobody. Yet, by the 1840s, he rose to become one of the most acclaimed people of the age -- known as a wilderness explorer, bestselling writer, gallant army officer, and latter-day conquistador, who in 1846 began the United States' takeover of California from Mexico. He was a celebrity who personified the country's westward expansion. Mountains, towns, ships, and streets were named after him. How did he climb so far? A vital factor was his wife, Jessie Benton Fr©♭mont, the daughter of a powerful United States senator. Jessie wanted to play roles in politics and exploration, which were then reserved for men. Frustrated, she threw her skill and passion into promoting her husband. Ordered by the US Army to map the Oregon Trail, John traveled thousands of miles on horseback, indifferent to his safety and that of the other members of his expeditions. When he returned home, Jessie helped him to shape dramatic reports of his adventures, which were reprinted in newspapers and bound as popular books. Jessie became his political adviser, and a power player in her own right. In 1856, the famous couple strategized as John became the first-ever presidential nominee of the newly established Republican Party. The party had been founded in opposition to slavery, and though both Fr©♭monts were Southerners they became symbols of the cause. With rare detail and in consummate style, Steve Inskeep tells the story of a couple whose joint ambitions and talents intertwined with those of the nascent United States itself. Americans linked the Fr©♭monts with not one but three great social movements of the time -- westward settlement, women's rights, and opposition to slavery. Theirs is a surprisingly modern story of ambition and fame; they lived in a time of globalization, technological disruption, and divisive politics that foreshadowed our own. The Fr©♭monts' adventures amount to nothing less than a tour of the early American soul"--.

940.54 S

Sledge, E. B. (Eugene Bondurant), 1923-. China marine. Oxford University Paperback, 2003. Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, c2002. China Marine 1 -- Epilogue: I Am Not the Man I Would Have Been 149.

940.54 T

Terkel, Studs, 1912-2008. "The good war" : an oral history of World War Two. New York : New Press, [1997.

943.36 H

Hunt, Irmgard A. (Irmgard Albine), 1934-. On Hitler's mountain : overcoming the legacy of a Nazi childhood. First Harper Perennial edition. 2006. On writing a childhood memoir -- pt. 1. 1906-1934 : the P©œhlmanns. Roots of discontent ; In search of a future -- pt. 2. 1934-1939 : Hitler's willing followers. The rituals of life ; "Heil Hitler" ; Ominous undercurrents ; Meeting Hitler ; Gathering clouds -- pt. 3. 1939-1945 : war and surrender. Early sacrifice ; Learning to hate school ; Lessons from a wartime friendship ; A weary interlude in Selb ; Hardship and disintegration ; War comes to Berchtesgaden ; The end at last -- pt. 4. 1945-1948 : Bitter justice, or, Will justice be done? Survival under the Star-spangled Banner ; The curse of the past ; Escape from darkness. The author provides an account of her life growing up in Berchtesgaden, a Bavarian village at the foot of Hitler's mountain retreat, discussing a childhood encounter with the Nazi leader, and shedding light on why ordinary Germans, including her parents, tolerated and even supported the Nazis.

951.04 M

Mitter, Rana, 1969- author. Forgotten ally : China's World War II, 1937-1945. First U.S. Edition. The path to war: As close as lips and teeth : China's fall, Japan's rise ; A new revolution ; The path to confrontation -- Disaster: Thirty-seven days in summer : the outbreak of war ; The battle for Shanghai ; Refugees and resistance ; Massacre at Nanjing ; The battle of Taierzhuang ; The deadly river -- Resisting alone: "A sort of wartime normal" ; Flight into the unknown ; The road to Pearl Harbor -- The poisoned alliance ; Destination Burma ; Hunger in Henan ; States of terror ; Conference at Cairo ; One war, two fronts ; Showdown with Stilwell ; Unexpected victory ; Epilogue: The enduring war. "For decades, a major piece of World War II history has gone virtually unwritten. China was the fourth great ally, partner to the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, yet its drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue remains little known in the West. In this emotionally gripping book, made possible through access to newly unsealed Chinese archives, Rana Mitter unfurls the story of China's World War II as never before and rewrites the larger history of the war in the process. He focuses his narrative on three towering leaders -- Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Zedong, and the lesser-known collaborator Wang Jingwei -- and extends the timeline of the war back to 1937, when Japanese and Chinese troops began to clash, fully two years before Hitler invaded Poland. Unparalleled in its research and scope, Forgotten Ally is a sweeping, character-driven history that will be essential reading not only for anyone with an interest in World War II, but also for those seeking to understand today's China, where, as Mitter reveals, the echoes of the war still reverberate"--.

952 J

Takada, Noriko. The Japanese way : aspects of behavior, attitudes, and customs of the Japanese. 2nd ed. Chicago : McGraw-Hill, c2011 . Abbreviations and contractions -- Addresses and street names -- Arts and crafts -- Asking directions -- Bathing and bathhouses -- Body language and gestures -- Borrowed words and acronyms -- Bowing -- Brand names and brand-name goods (burando-hin) -- Business cards (meish) -- Calendar -- Cherry blossoms and flower viewing -- Compliments -- Conversation -- Crime and safety -- Dating and marriage -- Death, funerals, and mourning -- Dialects -- Dining out -- Dinner invitations -- Directness -- Discussion and consensus -- Dress -- Drinking -- Driving -- Earthquakes -- Education -- English-language study -- Family -- The Jag and the national anthem -- Flowers and plants -- Food and eating -- Footwear -- Foreigners -- Gender roles -- Geography -- Gifts -- Government -- Hellos and good-byes -- Holidays and festivals -- Honorific speech (keigo) -- Hotels and inns -- Housing and furnishings -- Humor -- The Imperial family -- Individuals and couples -- Introductions and networking -- Karaoke -- Leisure (rgli) -- Letters, greeting cards, and postal services -- Love and affection -- Lucky and unlucky numbers -- Male/female speech -- Money -- Mt. Fuji -- Music and dance -- Myths, legends, and folklore -- Names, titles, and forms of address -- Numbers and counting -- Oriental medicine -- Pinball (pachinko) -- Politeness and rudeness -- Population -- Privacy -- Reading material -- Religion -- The seasons -- Shopping -- Shrines and temples -- Signatures and seals -- Social structure -- Sports -- Table etiquette -- Telephones -- Television/radio/movies -- Thank-yous and regrets -- Theater -- Time and punctuality -- Tipping and service charges -- Toilets -- Travel within Japan -- Vending machines -- Visiting private homes -- Weights, measures, and sizes -- Working hours -- The written language -- "Yes" and "no" -- "You first" -- Zoological calendar.

972.81 P

Proskouriakoff, Tatiana, 1909-1985. Maya history. First edition. Foreword / Gordon R. Wills -- Tatiana Proskouriakoff, 1909-1985 / Ian Graham -- Introduction / Rosemary A. Joyce -- 1. The Earliest Records: (A.D. 288-337) -- 2. The Arrival of Strangers: (A.D. 337-386) -- 3. The Maya Regain Tikal: (A.D. 386-435) -- 4. Some Ragged Pages: (A.D. 435-485) -- 5. Expansion of the Maya Tradition: (A.D. 485-534) -- 6. A Time of Troubles: (A.D. 534-583) -- 7. Recovery on the Frontiers: (A.D. 583-633) -- 8. Growth and Expansion: (A.D. 633-682) -- 9. Toward a Peak of Prosperity: (A.D. 682-736) -- 10. On the Crest of the Wave: (A.D. 731-780) -- 11. Prelude to Disaster: (A.D. 780-830) -- 12. The Final Years: (A.D. 831-909) -- 13. The Last Survivals: (A.D. 909-938). The ruins of Maya city-states occur throughout the Yucatan peninsula, Guatemala, Belize, and in parts of Honduras and El Salvador. But the people who built these sites remain imperfectly known. Though they covered standing monuments (stelae) and public buildings with hieroglyphic records of their deeds, no Rosetta Stone has yet turned up in Central America to help experts determine the exact meaning of these glyphs. Tatiana Proskouriakoff, a preeminent student of the Maya, made many breakthroughs in deciphering Maya writing, particularly in demonstrating that the glyphs record the deeds of actual human beings. This discovery opened the way for a history of the Maya, a monumental task that Proskouriakoff was engaged in before her death in 1985. Her work, Maya History, has been made ready for press by the able editorship of Rosemary Joyce. Maya History reconstructs the Classic Maya period (roughly A.D. 250-900) from the glyphic record on stelae at numerous sites, including Altar de Sacrificios, Copan, Dos Pilas, Naranjo, Piedras Negras, Quirigua, Tikal, and Yaxchilan. Proskouriakoff traces the spread of governmental institutions from the central Peten, especially from Tikal, to other city-states by conquest and intermarriage. And she also shows how the gradual introduction of foreign elements into Maya art mirrors the entry of outsiders who helped provoke the eventual collapse of the Classic Maya. Fourteen line drawings of monuments and over three hundred original drawings of glyphs amplify the text. Maya History has been long awaited by scholars in the field. It is sure to provoke lively debate and greater understanding of this important area in Mesoamerican studies.

973.04 A

Asian Americans : the movement and the moment. A wide-ranging collection of essays and material which documents the rich, little-known history of Asian American social activism during the years 1965-2001. This book examines the period not only through personal accounts and historical analysis, but through the visual record--utilizing historical prictorial materials developed at UCLA's Asian American Studies Center on Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and Vietnamese Americans. Included are many reproductions of photos of the period, movement comics, demonstration flyers, newsletters, posters and much more.

973.0496 D

W.E.B. DuBois. The Souls of Black Folk. BIGFONTBOOKS.COM.

973.7 B

Barney, William L. Battleground for the Union : the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction, 1848-1877. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice Hall, c1990.

973.9 I

Imani, Blair, author. Making our way home : the Great Migration and the Black American dream. First edition. Separate but equal: Reconstruction-1919 -- Beautiful -- and ugly, too: 1920-1929 -- I, too, am America: 1930-1939 -- Liberty and justice for all: 1940-1949 -- Trouble ahead: 1950-1959 -- The time is in the street, you know: 1960-1969 -- All poer to all the people: 1970-1979. "A powerful illustrated history of the Great Migration and its sweeping impact on Black and American culture, from Reconstruction to the rise of hip hop. Over the course of six decades, an unprecedented wave of Black Americans left the South and spread across the nation in search of a better life--a migration that sparked stunning demographic and cultural changes in twentieth-century America. Through gripping and accessible historical narrative paired with illustrations, author and activist Blair Imani examines the largely overlooked impact of The Great Migration and how it affected--and continues to affect--Black identity and America as a whole. Making Our Way Home explores issues like voting rights, domestic terrorism, discrimination, and segregation alongside the flourishing of arts and culture, activism, and civil rights. Imani shows how these influences shaped America's workforce and wealth distribution by featuring the stories of notable people and events, relevant data, and family histories. The experiences of prominent figures such as James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hamer, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X), Ella Baker, and others are woven into the larger historical and cultural narratives of the Great Migration to create a truly singular record of this powerful journey"--.

973.9 L

Longley, Kyle, author. LBJ's 1968 : power, politics, and the presidency in America's year of upheaval. A nation on the brink: the State of the Union Address, January 1968 -- Those dirty bastards, are they trying to embarrass us? The Pueblo Incident, January-December 1968 -- Tet: a very near thing, January-March 1968 -- As a result, I will not seek re-election: the March 31, 1968 speech -- The days the earth stood still: the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., April 1968 -- He hated him, but loved him: the assassination of Robert Kennedy, June 1968 -- The big stumble: the Fortas Affair, June-October 1968 -- The tanks are rolling: Czechoslovakia crushed, August 1968 -- The perfect disaster: the Democratic National Convention, August 1968 -- Is this treason?: the October surprise that wasn't, October-December 1968 -- The last dance, January 1969 -- Conclusion.

974.7 F

Feldman, Deborah, 1986-. Unorthodox : the scandalous rejection of my Hasidic roots. 1st Simon & Schuster trade pbk. ed. 2020. New York : Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2012. Traces the author's upbringing in a Hasidic community in Brooklyn, describing the strict rules that governed her life, arranged marriage at the age of seventeen, and the birth of her son, which led to her plan to leave and forge her own path in life.

975.7 B

Ball, Edward, 1959-. Slaves in the family. Paperback edition. Journalist Ball confronts the legacy of his family's slave-owning past, uncovering the story of the people, both black and white, who lived and worked on the Balls' South Carolina plantations. It is an unprecedented family record that reveals how the painful legacy of slavery continues to endure in America's collective memory and experience. Ball, a descendant of one of the largest slave-owning families in the South, discovered that his ancestors owned 25 plantations, worked by nearly 4,000 slaves. Through meticulous research and by interviewing scattered relatives, Ball contacted some 100,000 African-Americans who are all descendants of Ball slaves. In intimate conversations with them, he garnered information, hard words, and devastating family stories of precisely what it means to be enslaved. He found that the family plantation owners were far from benevolent patriarchs; instead there is a dark history of exploitation, interbreeding, and extreme violence.--From publisher description.

975.7 B

Ball, Edward, 1959-. The sweet hell inside : a family history. First edition. Preface -- Part 1-The Master and His Orphans-Part 2-High Yellow-Porch 3 -Eyes Sadder Then the Grave-Part 4-Nigger Rich-Part 5-The Orphans Dancers-Part 6-A Trunk in the Grass-Notes-Permission and Photography Credits-Acknowledgments-Index. If. Recounts the lives of the Harleston family of South Carolina, the progeny of a Southern gentleman and his slave who cast off their blemished roots and achieved affluence in part through a surprisingly successful funeral parlor business. Their wealth afforded the Harlestons the comfort of chauffeurs, tailored clothes, and servants whose skin was darker than theirs. It also launched the family into a generation of glory as painters, performers, and photographers in the "high yellow" society of America's colored upper class. The Harlestons' remarkable 100-year journey spans the waning days of Reconstruction, the precious art world of the early 1900s, the back alleys of the Jazz Age, and the dawn of the civil rights movement.--From publisher description.

DVD Gre

The Great debaters. 2-disc collector's edition; Widescreen [ed.]. [New York] : Weinstein Company, c2008. Denzel Washington, Nate Parker, Jurnee Smollett, Denzel Whitaker, Jermaine Williams, Forest Whitaker, Gina Ravera, John Heard, Kimberly Elise, Devyn Tyler, Trenton McClain Boyd. Melvin B. Tolson is a professor at Wiley College in Texas. Wiley is a small African-American college. In 1935, Tolson inspired students to form the school's first debate team. Tolson turns a group of underdog students into a historically elite debate team which goes on to challenge Harvard in the national championship. Inspired by a true story.

F Alb

Albertalli, Becky, author. What if it's us. Told in two voices, when Arthur, a summer intern from Georgia, and Ben, a native New Yorker, meet it seems like fate, but after three attempts at dating fail they wonder if the universe is pushing them together or apart.

F Arc

Astral Traveler's Daughter. First Simon & Schuster Trade Paperback edition, April 2019. New York, NY : Simon & Schuster, Inc, 2019. "Last year, Teddy Cannon discovered she was psychic. This year, her skills will be put to the test as she investigates a secretive case that will take her far from home--and deep into the past in the thrilling follow-up to School for Psychics"-- Provided by publisher.

F Chi

Chiaverini, Jennifer, author. Enchantress of numbers : a novel of Ada Lovelace. "The only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the most brilliant, revered, and scandalous of the Romantic poets, Ada was destined for fame long before her birth. Estranged from Ada's father, who was infamously "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," Ada's mathematician mother is determined to save her only child from her perilous Byron heritage. Banishing fairy tales and make-believe from the nursery, Ada's mother provides her daughter with a rigorous education grounded in mathematics and science. Any troubling spark of imagination--or worse yet, passion or poetry--is promptly extinguished. Or so her mother believes. When Ada is introduced into London society as a highly eligible young heiress, she at last discovers the intellectual and social circles she has craved all her life. Little does she realize that her delightful new friendship with inventor Charles Babbage--brilliant, charming, and occasionally curmudgeonly--will shape her destiny ..."--Jacket.

F Chr

Christie, Michael, 1976- author. Greenwood : a novel. First U.S. edition. "It's 2038 and Jake Greenwood is a storyteller and a liar, an overqualified tour guide babysitting ultra-rich vacationers in one of the world's last remaining forests. It's 2008 and Liam Greenwood is a carpenter, fallen from a ladder and sprawled on his broken back, calling out from the concrete floor of an empty mansion. It's 1974 and Willow Greenwood is out of jail, free after being locked up for one of her endless series of environmental protests: attempts at atonement for the sins of her father's once vast and violent timber empire. It's 1934 and Everett Greenwood is alone, as usual, in his maple syrup camp squat when he hears the cries of an abandoned infant and gets tangled up in the web of a crime that will cling to his family for decades. And throughout, there are trees: thrumming a steady, silent pulse beneath Christie's effortless sentences and working as a guiding metaphor for withering, weathering, and survival. A shining, intricate clockwork of a novel, Greenwood is a rain-soaked and sun-dappled story of the bonds and breaking points of money and love, wood and blood--and the hopeful, impossible task of growing toward the light"--.

F Cle

Memoirs of Fanny Hill. Published by arrangement with Edito-Service S. A., Geneva, Switzerland. New York, NY : Peebles Press International Inc, 1973.

F Col

Andre's Reboot. Birmingham, AL : Stephen B. Coleman, Publisher, 2019.

F Def

Moll Flanders. Reprint. 2020. Columbia, SC, : August 12, 2020.

F Def

Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731. The fortunes and misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders ... A new edition.

F Fit

Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott), 1896-1940, author. The great Gatsby. Foreword to the seventy-fifth anniversary edition: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, and the House of Scribner ; Preface / by Matthew J. Bruccoli -- THE GREAT GATSBY -- The text of The Great Gatsby / by Matthew J. Bruccoli -- Publisher's afterword / Charles Scribner III -- FSF : life and career / James L.W. West III. Overview: The mysterious Jay Gatsby embodies the American notion that it is possible to redefine oneself and persuade the world to accept that definition. Gatsby's youthful neighbor, Nick Carraway, fascinated with the display of enormous wealth in which Gatsby revels, finds himself swept up in the lavish lifestyle of Long Island society during the Jazz Age. Considered Fitzgerald's best work, The Great Gatsby is a mystical, timeless story of integrity and cruelty, vision and despair. The timeless story of Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy Buchanan is widely acknowledged to be the closest thing to the Great American Novel ever written.

F Jam

The Turn of the Screw, the Aspern Papers, and Two Stories. Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003; Intro. and notes by David L. Sweet. New York, NY : Barnes & Noble, 2003.

F Ora

Orange, Tommy, 1982- author. There there. First Vintage books edition. Here is a story of several people, each of whom has private reasons for travelling to the Big Oakland Powwow. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life together after his uncle's death and has come to work at the powwow to honour his uncle's memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil Red Feather, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and has come to the powwow to dance in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion, and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and unspeakable loss.

F Pat

Patchett, Ann, author. The Dutch house : a novel. First edition. "Ann Patchett, the New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth and State of Wonder, returns with her most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go"--.

F Rob

Roberts, Nora, author. The awakening. First edition. "#1 New York Times bestselling author of the epic Chronicles of The One trilogy returns with the first in a brand new series where parallel worlds clash over the struggle between good and evil"--.

F Row

Rowling, J. K. Harrius Potter et philosophi lapis. Cover illustration first pub. 2015. London : Bloomsbury, 2003, ℗♭1997. Latin translation, Peter Needham, 2003. Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry.

F Rus

Russell, Karen, 1981-. Swamplandia! 1st ed (Borzoi Book). New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. Twelve year old Ava must travel into the Underworld part of the swamp in order to save her family's dynasty of Bigtree alligator wresting. This novel takes us to the swamps of the Florida Everglades, and introduces us to Ava Bigtree, an unforgettable young heroine. The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline, and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator wrestling theme park, formerly no. 1 in the region, is swiftly being encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor called the World of Darkness. Ava's mother, the park's indomitable headliner, has just died; her sister, Ossie, has fallen in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, who may or may not be an actual ghost; and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, who dreams of becoming a scholar, has just defected to the World of Darkness in a last ditch effort to keep their family business from going under. Ava's father, affectionately known as Chief Bigtree, is AWOL; and that leaves Ava, a resourceful but terrified thirteen, to manage ninety eight gators as well as her own grief. Against a backdrop of hauntingly fecund plant life animated by ancient lizards and lawless hungers, the author has written a novel about a family's struggle to stay afloat in a world that is inexorably sinking.

F Sha

Shaw, Irwin, 1913-1984. The young lions. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2000.

F Tol

The Hobbit. 75th Anniversary. The text of this edition is based on edition published by HarperCollins Publishers in 1995. Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to take part in an adventure from which he may never return.

F Tow

Towles, Amor. Rules of civility. A chance encounter with a handsome banker in a jazz bar on New Year's Eve 1938 catapults Wall Street secretary Katey Kontent into the upper echelons of New York society, where she befriends a shy multi-millionaire, an Upper East Side ne'er-do-well, and a single-minded widow.

F Wat

Watson, Ren©♭e, author. Piecing me together. Tired of being singled out at her mostly-white private school as someone who needs support, high school junior Jade would rather participate in the school's amazing Study Abroad program than join Women to Women, a mentorship program for at-risk girls. "Acclaimed author Renee Watson offers a powerful story about a girl striving for success in a world that too often seems like it's trying to break her. Jade believes she must get out of her poor neighborhood if she's ever going to succeed. Her mother tells her to take advantage of every opportunity that comes her way. And Jade has: every day she rides the bus away from her friends and to the private school where she feels like an outsider, but where she has plenty of opportunities. But some opportunities she doesn't really welcome, like an invitation to join Women to Women, a mentorship program for "at-risk" girls. Just because her mentor is black and graduated from the same high school doesn't mean she understands where Jade is coming from. She's tired of being singled out as someone who needs help, someone people want to fix. Jade wants to speak, to create, to express her joys and sorrows, her pain and her hope. Maybe there are some things she could show other women about understanding the world and finding ways to be real, to make a difference.".

F Wil

Williams, Katie, 1978- author. Tell the machine goodnight. Pearl's job is to make people happy. Every day, she provides customers with personalized recommendations for greater contentment. She's good at her job, her office manager tells her, successful. But how does one measure an emotion? Meanwhile, there's Pearl's teenage son, Rhett. A sensitive kid who has forged an unconventional path through adolescence, Rhett seems to find greater satisfaction in being unhappy. The very rejection of joy is his own kind of "pursuit of happiness." As his mother, Pearl wants nothing more than to help Rhett--but is it for his sake or for hers? Certainly it would make Pearl happier. Regardless, her son is one person whose emotional life does not fall under the parameters of her job--not as happiness technician, and not as mother, either.-Amazon.

SC D

The Daniel Defoe Collection : The Life and strange surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner; The farther adventures of Robinson Crusoe; A journal of the plague year; Moll Flanders. South Carolina, USA, : August 2020.

SC L

Link, Kelly, author. Get in trouble : stories. Random House trade paperback edition. The summer people -- I can see right through you -- Secret identity -- Valley of the girls -- Origin story -- The lesson -- The new boyfriend -- Two houses -- Light. A collection of short stories features tales of a young girl who plays caretaker to mysterious guests at the cottage behind her house and a former teen idol who becomes involved in a bizarre reality show.

SC P

Packer, ZZ. Drinking coffee elsewhere. 1st Riverhead trade pbk. ed. New York : Riverhead Books, 2004, ℗♭2003. Brownies -- Every tongue shall confess -- Our Lady of Peace -- The ant of the self -- Drinking coffee elsewhere -- Speaking in tongues -- Geese -- Doris is coming. Discovered by The New Yorker, Packer "forms a constellation of young black experience"* whether she's writing from the perspective of a church-going black woman who has a crisis in faith, a young college student at Yale, or a young black man unwillingly accompanying his father to the Million Man March. This universally appealing collection of short fiction has already established ZZ Packer as "a writer to watch.".

SC S

Sedaris, David, author. Calypso. First edition. When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, David Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself. Sedaris sets his powers of observation toward middle age and mortality, that vertiginous moment when your own body betrays you and you realize that the story of your life is made up of more past than future.

SC S

Sedaris, David, author. Let's explore diabetes with owls. First Back Bay paperback edition, June 2014. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences. Whether railing against the habits of litterers in the English countryside or marveling over a disembodied human arm in a taxidermist's shop, Sedaris takes us on side-splitting adventures that are not to be forgotten.

[lexfritterwrites]

Let Lips Do What Hands Do - Part 11

Y’all, I haven’t posted in here since they updated it so everything might be terrible. Anyway, I’ll do my best. You can always catch me on AO3. 

previous

It's April, and Addie feels like crying most days. In fact, she actually has cried for the past eleven days — once in the shower, twice over her cup of tea and the other times where when she was in bed alone. Taron's been filming in Ireland for three weeks, and it's a glimpse at how life would be if they were to stay together in all the madness.

 "Sad again, huh?" Jack says, catching the gray look in her eyes. "I feel I should be offended you're not that upset about leaving me."

 Addie throws a sugar packet at him, hitting her mark on his cheek. "I know things between us won't change when I leave. You'll just be a phone call away."

 "Taron will too."

 "That's different. I don't think I like this ache, this pain." Addie absently stirs her tea. "In the words of Elphaba, 'If that's love, it comes at much too high a cost.'"

 "You know she ends up with the scarecrow at the end of that musical, right? I mean, we saw it together. I wrote a review which you edited."

 Addie rolls her eyes, too done to deal with Jack today.

 "I love him, you know. And to think we won't be together because of our location, I think I would rather not be with him at all."

 "Your call," Jack says. "I know you're scared but I think the two of you could make it work, and that's coming from a guy who stays away from relationships. You don't have to split because you're half a world away."

 "What if he meets the one but can't act on it because of me? Or what if he does act on it and I'm left devastated? It's a real poop chute."

 "It'll work out, Addie," Jack says, covering her hand with his own. "It'll work out."

 Addie slumps and rests her head on the table. "Why?"

 Jack gently musses her hair. "You didn't not date for years while you were here and the first guy you do consider turns out to be fuckin' perfect. You really know how to pick them."

 Addie laughs, feeling a little lighter at the thought.

   It's her whole year on display, the premiere of the students' films adapted from classic novels. Four fully written, produced and edited films will be turned in with her thesis, but the gala tonight will only feature twenty minutes from each with the students having a few moments to present before their film. It's an affair she's invited the whole school to as well as their family and friends, and even though Jack is by her side, the one person she wants to be there most isn't. Taron's caught filming in Ireland; Addie understands but still doesn't enjoy it.

 "Look at what you've done," Jack says, watching the rows of students talk excitedly amongst themselves, no doubtedly ready to display their hard work. "Not even a full teacher yet and you've got them inspired. That's a noble thing."

 Addie squeezes his hand. She takes the microphone and heads to the center of the stage. Pausing a moment before delivering the introduction she's prepared, she smiles. The kids eagerly sitting before her are a tribute to her and her hard work and creativity, and this life is about her just as much as it is Taron.

 She takes her seat next to Jack as the first group's film rolls across the screen, an updated retelling of Sense and Sensibility. It's funny, well thought and inclusive of the community, what with Edward Ferris having evolved into Edwina and Colonel Brandon an Indian man in the British navy. Everyone claps as the students presenting The Picture of Dorian Gray take the stage. Addie's phone buzzes in her pocket and she risks a quick chance to look at it.

 Can we watch the full-length versions this weekend? - T

 Sure, if you want. - A

 I do! At least that one. I'm dying to see how they did the marriage proposals. - T

 Addie whips her head around, looking to see him somewhere. There are faces illuminated by the screen but then she sees him, sitting on the edge of the row with his hood pulled up over his head; no doubt he didn't want to be recognized. He waves slightly when he sees her, and Addie smiles.

 He came after all.

 I'm so happy you're here! - A

 I'm really glad I could make it. Will sneak to bar at end so as not to detract. - T

 Sounds perfect. - A

 Thank you for coming. - A

 Addie is extremely proud of everything the students accomplished, and the cooking class made a giant cake for the ocassion. She sneaks a piece for Taron in her bag, poses for pictures with the kids, compliments the parents for raising some great hopes for the future, and then she's dashing out the door.

 "Adelaide, you're incredible!" Taron says, standing up from the table. He wraps his arms around her and kisses her cheek.

 "I can't believe you're here," she says, her face buried in his neck. "How'd you manage?"

 "Flew in this afternoon," he says. "Wanted to surprise you."

 "I'm very surprised," she says. "Very happy, too."

 Taron kisses the side of her head before pulling away to point her to a secluded booth. "I want to hear all about the rest of the videos. When can we watch them?" He holds her hand across the table, leaning towards her.

 Addie bites the inside of her lip, studying him. "What's wrong?"

 "What?" Taron asks, shifting backwards. Addie knows she was right to expect something.

 "Taron, I know you," she says quietly. "I know when something's up. What is it?"

 "No, Adelaide. I came here to celebrate you and the work you've done and I don't want it spoiled."

 "I feel like it's already spoiled if you don't tell me what's going on. Is everyone okay? Your mom and the girls? Your dad?"

 "Everyone's fine." He exhales loudly, looking at the table. "It's two more weeks."

 "Oh." Addie sags against the cushion. "Oh."

 Taron rubs her knuckles with his thumb. "I know it's really shitty, but it is what it is."

 "It's okay," Addie manages over the lump of emotion lodged in her throat. She feels like she's gagging but it's just the thought of his absence for another two weeks just a couple of months before she's supposed to move back to the United States. "You chase your dream and I'll chase mine."

 "Thus, though we cannot make our sun stand still, yet we will make him run."

 Addie snorts, swiping a tear off her cheek. "Marvell. Good choice."

 "Anyway," Taron says. "We've got tonight."

 "Bob Seger, a modern poet."

 It's Taron's turn to laugh now and he shakes his head. "Seriously though, can I take you out to dinner and then stay up with you all night watching the work of your students?"

 "Yes, I would like that."

 "Good," Taron says, moving quickly from the table. He drops a note on its surface and helps Addie back into her coat.

 "Can I make an amendment to the plan though?"

 "What's that?"

 "Can we just pick something up and take it home? I really don't need an audience to just want to be with you and I'm wearing Spanx so I'd really like to get out of them and into my pajamas."

 "Deal," he says. "You look bloody gorgeous but comfortable is something I also enjoy. Your place or mine?"

 "Mine is closer but you have a better TV so let's do that."

 "Sounds perfect," he says. He could offer to run back by hers so she can gather things, but he knows everything she needs is available at his. Tucking her beneath his arm, he kisses the side of her head — she'd taken the news of his delay better than he would have expected.

 They're curled up in his bed and halfway through the updated retelling of Frankenstein when Addie stretches her fingers across his chest.

 "What is it, cariad?" Taron asks, shifting his eyes. He can see the crown of her head and the tip of her nose, and he can see her fingers flex against his shirt.

 "I'm thinking about us."

 "Oh?"

 She pauses the video and sits up, and it's then he sees the tears in her eyes. "I think when I leave, that should be our end."

 "Adelaide." He bolts upright and reaches for her, but his fingers don't actually land anywhere. He can't touch her now.

 "Being apart from you these past few weeks has been hell. I never thought I would be someone to feel this way about anybody, but here we are. I'm exhausted. It feels like a piece of me is missing when you're gone, like smiles are less genuine and laughter does little for my soul. I can't imagine living my life for extended amounts of time without you, feeling this way. So if we just enjoy the time we have left and part as companions who once loved each other, I think that would be better."

 "Do I not get a say in this decision?" He asks softly, his chest tight and his jaw returning to a painful clench.

 "Of course you do," she sighs. "But what is the logical outcome of this?"

 "Fuck this. You can sleep in the guest room tonight." Taron moves in a flash, storms into the bathroom and slams the door shut.

 "Taron! Taron, no!" Addie frantically scrambles off the bed and futilely twists the doorknob. "Taron! Taron, please."

 She can hear the shower running and she sinks to the floor. She knew she shouldn't have said anything.

   Taron finds her half an hour later curled up on the floor with her cheeks red and eyes blotchy. He wants to be angry, he can feel the cold inside him wanting to push her away, but he can't.

 "Addie, come on," he says, gently collecting her in his arms and setting her upright. "I'm hurting too, you know."

 She nods blearily as he leads her back to bed. "I didn't mean to ruin what we have now. I feel like shit, and now I really feel like sh—"

 "Addie, I know," Taron says. "What you're saying makes sense, but it really fucking sucks when it's said out loud. You would rather be without me than be far away and with me, and I suppose that makes sense. Your chances of moving on are better if you're not thinking about some loyalty to me."

 "Me moving on?" She laughs. Taron thinks her crying must have left her too weary to think properly. "It's you. You'll move on long before I will and I don't want you to be stuck with me."

 "That doesn't matter," he says, taking her hand. "I think you're right though. We have a few good weeks left together and we should spend them as happily as we can. Let's not fight or what-if ourselves anymore. You're here, I'm here, and we should let that be enough for now. I can't think on it anymore."

 "Is it really okay?"

 "For now." He wipes a tear from her cheek, knowing his own should be joining it had he not just cried in the shower. "Let's go to sleep and sleep very late into the morning beside each other."

   Taron bites his nail, a habit he'd gotten into since ditching cigarettes; his teeth weren't thanking him but his lungs certainly were.

 "There he is," Jack says, pulling out the chair across from Taron and sinking into it. "Mr. Egerton."

 "Jack," Taron says, shaking his hand. "I wanted to talk to you about Addie."

 "I figured," Jack says. "She told me about her plans of departure."

 "Yeah, and it's not good. How do I get her to stay?"

 “You don’t."

 "Jack, please," Taron says, rubbing his forehead. "I can't have her leave."

 "And you can't have her stay either." Jack says softly. "I know you love her, Taron, as do I, but I also know she won't stay. She'll come to regret the decision as well as you if she stays. Going back to Washington has been her goal for six years. It's all she's worked for and all she's wanted. You need to let her go."

 "Can you?"

 Jack snorts his laugh. "I don't have a choice."

 "We could talk to her together."

 "That's not going to work."

 Taron drops his head to the table, his chest feeling unbelievably tight. "I don't know what to do."

 "Taron, there's an obvious solution here."

 "What's that?"

 "Go with her."

 Taron grunts. "You and I both know that's not logical."

 "So what? You can't do for her what you want her to do for you just because you're a famous actor who happens to make more money?" Jack leans back in his chair. He's really liked Taron, like him for Addie, and he needs Taron to see the sense in this before his like gives into loathing. "You're not giving up her dream so don't let her give up hers."

 "She's your best friend. How can you be so calm?" Taron crosses his arms in front of him, elbows still on the table, and he lets his chin fall to rest against them.

 "Addie is more than a best friend to me," Jack says. "I truly believe she is my person, even if there's no romance. Addie wasn't even supposed to be born, yet here she is. Incredibly determined, driven and happy."

 "I know that." Taron leans onto his cheek.

 "I know you do," Jack says patiently. "That's part of the reason you love her." He reaches across the table and squeezes Taron's shoulder. "You have to let her go."

 "Why is that the only option?" Taron moans, rhetorically putting the words into the universe.

 Jack chuckles as he leans back in his chair. "That's the only way she'll come back."

 "You think she'll come back?"

 "I hope so," Jack says. "For both our sakes."

 Taron laughs. He'll have to make time for Jack when Addie is gone.

 He finds her asleep on the couch when he returns home, and he gently brushes a hand across her face.

 She opens one eye to look and smiles when she sees him. “I must have dozed off.”

 “Yeah,” he says softly. It spreads through him, a calm peace. She is leaving to pursue her dreams, and there is nothing he can do to stop her, nor would he want to. He kisses her tenderly, finally accepting it. “You want to go take a nap upstairs?”

 “That sounds nice,” she says, sitting up next to him. “Hey, are you okay?”

 Taron smiles and kisses her again. “I’m totally fine. I just really love you.”

 Addie’s laugh warms him and she leans her head against his shoulder. “I love you, too.”

 Taron takes her hand and quietly leads her upstairs.

[docholligay]

Angst Prompt Day: Pharah / Mercy, "N I G H T M A R E"

2361 Words. I hope you enjoy! 

For most of her life, Pharah had avoided most mental scars related to her service. The human mind is a strange thing, and while seeing comrades killed in combat saddened her, and losing her arm had been painful in more ways than one, she had gone through the rocky periods of her life and come out quite unscarred. She held Mercy, when she cried, the high wind reminding her too much of that night, and she did Dva the favor of speaking softly when some too loud boom took her far away, and she was even known to grip Tracer’s shoulder tightly when a sharp cold got in between her ribs, and she trembled. 

But Pharah could not imagine what any of these things felt like on a personal level, because her mind had seemed to reject that precise method of injury. Tracer had grumbled that of course she didn’t, because Pharah was bloody fucking perfect all the time, and Pharah had shaken her head, and simply said there was no accounting for the way a mind reacted. But, in truth, she approached it with a mix of pride and fear, in ways she could not have potentially articulated to anyone but herself. There was, of course, a pride there, that she was strong, and she was resolute, and while any other normal person would have faced these consequences, Pharah was untouched. But there was the argument, of course, in the back of her mind. You are untouched because you are untouchable. You don’t feel things like other people do. You’re just like your mother. Cold. 

But Pharah was, above all things, a logical sort, and she could not change what did and didn’t affect her, and she did try very hard to show kindness and empathy, and so she put the worry to the side. She would be better than her mother, because she would try, and so she simply allowed that her brain was good at protecting her. 

Until it wasn’t. 

Moira broke Tracer, and it was a well known fact. That she had managed to claw her way back to a fully functioning human being was the sort of miracle that could only be explained by the very nature of Lena Oxton, a woman who would not be beat, who would only die when she was good and ready. Pharah loved that about her, that she was a tiny Jack Russell Terrier in human form. Seeing her bound back into the office a few months after being put in an induced coma, once again dirtying three different spoons because she couldn’t remember where she’d put the last one, yelling about how she was going to shoot Moira through the temple and see if she didn’t, gave Pharah a sense of stability in the world. 

But Moira broke Tracer, and everyone knew it. Pharah was very lucky not to be too seriously hurt. Tracer had been cobbled back together, but Pharah had only been deeply scratched. She was perfectly functional. 

And then she dreamed. 

During the day, it was very easy to distract herself from the sense of panic that rose up at the strangest times. A gate would clang shut at just the right tone, there would be the sound of a boot on a concrete floor, and all of a sudden she could feel the restraint at her wrist, the buzz through her body, the sound of Tracer screaming….but there was the warmth of a brick beneath her hand. There was the conversation fo the two old ladies behind her, complaining about Marks and Spencer’s, there was Tracer, putting an ice cube in her hand, and gently telling her, ‘you aren’t there, love.’ 

The night held none of this. The soft darkness was a canvas that her mind could work its will upon, and she traveled there, and she felt angry and betrayed by her own mind, how richly it painted the picture, how she could feel Moira’s breath against her cheek. She woke in a cold sweat, her chest tight, and often rushed herself down to the kitchen to panic quietly, to not bother Mercy, to click the spoon against the edge of her mug as she stirred and let it be the bell that chimed her home. 

Pharah was not generally unkind to herself, but she had a tendency to take all responsibility as hers and hers alone, and so it was her who would figure out the mess Moira had made of her, and wasn’t it self-pitying to even note the pain in her shoulder and the panic in her mind, against what had happened to Tracer? She didn’t complain, and so Pharah would put her head down and work this out. 

 What she had not counted on was the intense and deep love of her wife, and how little escaped her notice, even if she allowed things to pass without comment. It was foolish, Pharah would later chuckle, in the way that as her hair greyed, she laughed at herself more and more, to think she could hide her symptoms from an actual doctor, to not have known that Mercy was simply giving her time, but she could be very arrogant in that way from time to time. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to her, Mercy’s touch in the night, but it was all the same. 

It came one night, a handful of months after the incident itself. Pharah would often object to the absolute lack of creativity on the part of her mind, in the darkness. It never came up with anything novel, never played new parts or reminded her of different hurts, but came back to that same grey place. 

“You take so much for such a little thing.” 

Pharah heard that line, over and over, the villain of the picture entering stage right. She bucked against the restraints holding her, just as she always did, ignoring the searing, shooting, hammering pain running down through that shoulder that came to a stop. The movie progressed as always, with no response from the unfeeling leather around her. 

She wanted to yell, wanted to make some clever quip and science or Ireland or a football team or anything that would pull Moira away from her work. Tracer had come up with so many, her mind was so quick and agile, and Pharah could not remember if she had hated herself so much int he moment or if her ind had gently supplied her the hindsight, but she burned with rage that she was so logical and straightforward and had no real mind for sass. She had never considered it a military gift of Tracer’s, because she was a fool, and could not see things as expansively as her small teammate. 

“Oh fuck off, Moira, couldn’t even properly be doing this, ‘ad you not stolen Win’s work.”

Tracer’s voice was reedy, always, but filled with that biting contempt, too. Shut up, Pharah wanted to say, stop talking, stop making her want to hurt you. Don’t you dare say that next line--

“Win’s work, Ang’s...you’re not a scientist, just a bloody fucking thief, and you won’t learn nothing from doing this love, you’re a--” 

She screamed. She always screamed, when Moira hit the switch, when she dangled Tracer in between time and timelessness, seeing how long one could sustain in that space. Tracer only ever blinked for a second, maybe a second and a half if she was pushing her limits, but Moira just kept her there, letting it eat at her, but not releasing her into it either, playing tug of war with her body. 

Had Pharah yelled? Had she even tried? She felt like she must have, but she never did, here and so maybe she had been--

She sat up straight, gasping, cold sweat pouring down her back. There wasn’t any air in the room, she was still in that grey cold laboratory and it was running out of air, and she felt it begin to crush her. Then, there was a strong pull around her shoulders. A lamp clicked on. 

“Fareeha.” There was a voice in her ear, and it wasn’t quiet. “Fareeha, come here.” 

It was a command and it was her wife, and she felt the edge soften on the thought, because Mercy hadn’t been there, and if Mercy hadn;t been there than maybe. There was a pinch on the back of her hand, and the world started to come back into view, and for the first time she took a breath with air in it, and the tightness began to cease, slowly ebbing like the tide. 

“Fareeha look at me.” 

She turned around and there was Mercy, her face in opposition to all the command and ferocity of her demands that Pharah be released from the thought. 

“You are not there. Tell me what time it is.” 

Pharah turned her head and looked at the clock. “1:02.” 

“Yes, it is 1:02. Do you know what day it is? Tell me.” 

Pharah turned it over and over in her mind, the memory receding into the background as she imagined the calendar. “It has to be the 23rd, I think.” 

“What is four times six?” 

It was then that Pharah came back to herself enough, got enough air in her lungs, to realize what Mercy was doing, to love her so intensely that it cast out all other feelings and fears. She smiled. Moira faded in the background, having lost the battle in record time. How could a devil stand against this angel? 

“Twenty-four.” 

Mercy cupped her cheek gently. “Yes. How are you?”

She was still shaking, a bit, and the pour of sweat down her back was making her cold, but Pharah was back home, now, with her wife, and she was safe, and though her shoulder still hurt from what had been done to it, she was free now, and on the mend, and Tracer had lived, and she was mending. She remembered all these things, in a beautiful instant, like coming up from the deep water to see the sun. 

Pharah nodded, and then flushed. “I---I apologize.” 

It sounded silly even to her. She would never begrudge Mercy any of the love she had given her, when she had been struggling with fear, with the memories of what had happened to her, but she had been a child, and Mercy was very tender, and so it was much more natural that she would need help. Pharah was the anchor in a storm. She was iron. 

She looked at Mercy, who had taken her hand away. Her brows were furrowed and she was angry, maybe even hurt, as she assessed Pharah. 

“Why should you do this yourself? Why are you thinking you are stronger than all of us?” It came sharp, in that rare way Mercy used to call someone to account. “Do you not--do you not trust me with your feelings?”

Pharah had not taken it as the arrogance it was. She had not taken it as a mark of her attempts at invulnerability. She never would have taken it as an act of mistrust. She was helping, she had assured herself. She was not piling things on to people struggling with their own lives. She loved Mercy more than anything on this earth, and she was meant to help her, and she had already done so much with Pharah’s injury not one, but twice. She wanted to protect her, and not be the protected. 

She closed her eyes. It was frustrating, how she fell back into these traps. How she worked and worked at being more open, more soft, and yet, the moment there was trouble, she shut herself up again like an oyster, and she would be that alone, if she didn’t fight to keep herself open. And she had done it again, pledging that she would honor Mercy and then refusing to do her the love of trusting her with her most fragile things. 

But Mercy was good, and sensed her frustration, and touched her with great love, her voice soft and warm again. 

“Fareeha, I am here to be your partner, in life.” She ran her hand through Pharah’s scattered hair, “Your help. You have always helped with my burden.  Do not be thinking I want you to carry this yourself. Why, when we have four hands?” 

“Three.” Fareeha chuckled. ‘At night.” 

Mercy scooted close to her. “You are allowed to be hurt. You are allowed to need.” 

Pharah felt tears sting at her eyes, surprised by the rapier of tenderness that stuck between her ribs. Be strong, had been the ethos of her childhood. Be hard, be the rock that evil breaks itself upon. An Amari is an army in herself, she was told. Command requires firmness. 

“I love you, Angela.” Whatever she said, it was never enough, never the depth of what she truly felt, but as she laid her head on Mercy’s shoulder, she trusted that Mercy would know the all the meanings behind it. 

Mercy kissed her temple. “Let us help you. There is no shame in having to need it.” 

The Pharah that life had built argued inside her. No, it said, I am not the one who needs help. This is the weakness of a moment, and I will be fine in the morning. I am the helper. I am the one who brings order from chaos. I do not require the things that other people do. I am a wall. I am a rock. I am the sword that brings justice to this world. 

But there was another Pharah, too, one that she was growing, row by row, leaf by leaf. One that she was trying to nurture, and water, no matter the difficulty. And it was this Pharah who spoke now, two carefully chosen words.

“I’m struggling.”

[pavys-originals]

Fandoms I will be writing for + the original characters within

Including a brief summary of each. 

Birds of Prey Valerie Steward - Crime boss, rival of Roman Sionis, has Renfield Syndrome, usually likes the most expensive and lush possessions. Has very large circles beneath her (In a social/hierarchical sense).  Can be incredibly eccentric, and very passionate.

One/Omni- The first of the Blackcoats, a large group of highly trained marshal-like operatives. Omni himself usually does not get involved in combat, and pays close attention to details. 

Two/Hyinth- The second in the first thirteen/High Council of the Blackcoats. Isn’t quick to rush to violence, though they will do what they must to get things done. 

Three/Cettie- The financial backer of the council. Doesn’t usually get involved with the violent sectors of the organisation, she finds it a waste of time. 

Four/Aven- Pure bodyguard material. That’s it, that’s Aven. Not himbo- he’s to smart and sharp for that- just muscly man who will protect at all costs.

Five/Aretha- Now when I tell you that this woman knows how to kill someone and get away with it, I mean it. She trained to be Valerie’s understudy in a sense, and has perfected her own technique in disposing of people when asked.

Six/Giga- The techie. Honestly, they know so much about random stuff they will RAM it down your throat. They’re also kind of jokey, hence the pun. 

Seven- Seven gave up his name when he was fairly young, and is now one of the most powerful and down-to-earth of the Blackcoat high council, as he is the one who oversees the training regimens.

Eight/Axel- A total wild card of the group. Rarely follows orders, and lashes out with violence fairly frequently. He’s honestly a big softie though. 

Nine/Jerra- Usually the one that gets sent in when they need an undercover job done, or a mole of some description. He’s a phenomenal actor. 

Ten/Rocsas- One of the youngest. He’s very ‘in’ with the word on the streets of Gotham,and often informs the council of riots/coups that are being planned by the gangs of the city of crime.  

Eleven/Ixi- Iris/Thirteen’s twin. They are very detached, and don’t often show emotion in the work place. It is suspected that they show lots of affection in a domestic setting though. 

Twelve/Brutus- As his name suggests, he is the strongest of the group, naturally born this way and has honed his skills in since starting training. He is very protective, and follows orders. Not always the brightest spark though, but occasionally he will get a good idea. 

Thirteen/Iris- Sometimes referred to as the ‘softest’ of the High Council, as she is much more compassionate than the majority of her peers. She doesn’t mind it all that much, and often interjects in debates with the more emotional side of the story. 

Twenty-Six/Kalmiya- Almost an entirely blank slate, she is seen as the perfect soldier. Little room for emotions, much room for logic. However, she does seem to learn social cues and expressions very quickly off of other people. 

CATS  A note- about the cats ocs; Just because they are stated to have mated with another Tom/Queen does not mean I won’t write for them. If I write for the children, the bond between parents is not usually mentioned.  

Ariadne-A witch’s cat. She is quite mysterious, but once she warms up to you she’ll adore you like there’s no tomorrow. She is able to teleport over a short distance, has slight telepathy, and sometimes has visions of the future. 

Graciette- The pub cat. Daughter of Skimbleshanks and Jennyanydots, younger sister to the mischievous twins Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, and older sister to the young kitten Electra. She is always on  time, and is very enthusiastic about overseeing the games in the pub. 

Leviticus- The oldest triplet, son of Ariande and the Rum Tum Tugger. He is very close with his grandfather, Old Deuteronomy, and very wise. 

Squiggletigs-The middle triplet, second son of Ariande and the Rum Tum Tugger. He is usually found with Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, he is much more playful than his older brother. He’s like the middle ground between Leviticus and Pixietrick.

Pixietrick- The youngest child of Ariande and the Rum Tum Tugger, and their only daughter. She’s very much like her father, both in appearance and in personality. 

Fantasma- The inventor’s cat, and daughter of Graciette and Alonzo. A lot of her time in the junkyard is spent finding random little trinkets and other doo-dads to use for her inventions, or just random collections she has. She’s very shy, and very sweet. 

Zilke- The blind cat, mother of Quaxo/Mistoffelees and Victoria. She tried to stick by Macavity when he was kicked from the tribe, her love blinding her to the near regicide that was committed. Eventually, she became actually blind. 

Seattine- One of the two pirate cats, rumoured to be descendants of Growltiger himself. They rarely come ashore, but when they do, they play many a shanty for old Gus. Seattine favours the concertina as her instrument, and is usually very upbeat.

Hurdeon- One of the two pirate cats, rumoured to be descendants of Growltiger himself. They rarely come ashore, but when they do, they play many a shanty for old Gus. Hurdeon favours the hurdy gurdy, and is a lot calmer than his twin sister. 

Doctor Sleep  Elva Warren- The owner of a sweet little antique shop in New Hampshire. She is always welcoming to new faces, and she knows just what cheers them up when she meets them, what to say to make them smile, all because of her Shine. 

IANOWT  Marilyn Higgins - An uncool kid like Stan and Sid, though a lot of people consider her to be less cool then them. Mostly because of all the morbid facts she spouts, especially during Science class. Probably also doesn’t help that she knows a fair few ways that the world could end that make some people uneasy.

IT  Melissa Farley- A British exchange student from a small village in Norfolk. She is very kind to those around her, even willing to take them in and introduce them to her family’s traditions and interests. She has even offered to tutor some of the Losers, should they ever need it.  Tiffany Crandall- A farming gal from Ludlow, Maine. She moved to Derry with her grandmother and grandfather after her parents were hit by a speeding Orinco truck. She is neughbour’s with Mike Hanlon, and has very little fear when it comes to brawls. It’s traffic and roads she doesn’t like. 

Moulin Rouge  Celine Bisset- A dancer in the Moulin Rouge. She is usually quite gentle, unless her client asks for her to be rougher and more assertive. She ended up becoming a dancer there because her fiance left her stranded when he ran off with another woman. 

Overwatch Asteria Murphy- After surviving an omnic siege where Blackwatch was sent to free the inhabitants of an apartment block, Asteria joined Overwatch to try and make sure nothing like that happened again. 

Mars Virgil- Son of Asteria Murphy, and Jesse McCree. Grew up in Deadlock Grange with his mother, and Robert Virgil- the man he assumed was his father. He joined Overwatch after  an attack on his mother’s diner, and found out his true family soon after.

Resident Evil Village Ihrin Moreau- Sister of Salvatore Moreau. Unlike her brother, her experience with the Cadou did not mutate her into a fish at first glance. It is when she comes into contact with water that her first stage mutation reveals itself, and her true mutated form shows when she is critically injured. She is vain and practically unfeeling unless something catches her eye.

Aeolus Aetos- Self proclaimed “Lord of the Wing”. Aeolus is a man who’s mutation made him think so highly of himself that he only concerns himself with his own problems. He is vain, and keeps himself the most pristine he can. Being mutated to appear part eagle gives him both his pride and his expert hunting skills

Mori Russell- One of the village hunters, who survived the lycan attacks by fleeing into the forests, and hiding out of sight. 

Lena Vaughn- Daughter of the local brewer. Also survived the lycan attacks, but because of her skill with a shotgun rather than running away. 

Shallow Grave Deirdre Sullivan- A failing artist who moved from her family home in Ireland to chase her dreams. She’s partway there, she’s just lacking in the money.Money that she has a hand in keeping away from David. 

Star Wars  Alaana Rohiikshuul- A Jedi consular/seer. She is very down to earth, and tries her best to have the mysteries of the Force reveal themselves to her so that she may write of them. It is this constant search for knowledge that has her meditating for days on end, lost in her own thoughts. Alessandro  Rohiikshuul - Alaana’s twin brother, and the slightly more impulsive of the two. This is not to say he is outwardly violent. Like Alaana, he makes sure to exhaust all other options beforehand. He is much more openly passionate.  Othkiir Rohiikshuul- A young, feline force sensitive from Alaana and Alessandro’s home planet, Tmryn. He can be a little all over the place sometimes, but he tries to do everything he  can for the greater good. 

Daesha’Tiatkin- A Twi’lek force sensitive who deserted the Jedi Order in her late teens- opting to live a scoundrel’s life. She does what betters her, and usually her alone, though you should not mistake this for having no moral compass. She is impulsive, and almost always optimistic. 

Kyden Kenobi- Son of Sith!Obi-Wan and Sith!Alaana. Captain/Commander of the Night Witches squadron in the Empire’s fleet. Usually incredibly goofy and sweet. 

Trainspotting Ava Byrne- (First film)- A philosophy student who got stuck in Edinburgh when she left her home. She got stuck in the same apartment building as Renton and the other boys, but refuses to divulge in their illegal activities.  (Second film)- Ava didn’t end up leaving Edinburgh, the best thing she managed to do was write “The Ethics of Drug Use”, which was of course inspired by the boys’ old lives. She hasn't properly seen the boys since Mark left, though she will occasionally pass Simon or Daniel in the street, and give them a semi-respectful nod.

Misc  (Special Ingredients- my original story in the works) Tex Hudson-  The eldest brother of the trio of brothers, and he was the one to change his name when he got married the first time, as if it would help him in his family’s “business”. He has quite a temper, and is usually rather gruff. There are occasions where he can be sweet, they’re just growing exceedingly rare. Sloane Sawyer- The middle brother, and arguably the most elegant of the three. Always in a suit, he acts like the perfect gentleman in front of others, however when there’s no one else around, he tends to gloat about how many kills he has under his belt.  James ‘JJ’ Sawyer- The youngest brother, but also the tallest. Standing at a whopping six foot nine, Jamie may seem like a beast of a man, but he actually quite gentle. He’s a little slower than the others when it comes to figuring some things out, but he doesn’t let that slow him down anywhere else. He is incredibly sweet, quite passionate, and not afraid to show his vulnerable side when his brother’s aren’t around. 

Victoria/Victor Farley- A pirate captain who sails within the Devil’s Ring (more on that in their first piece), and acts however they so please within the pirate code. Born as Victoria Farley on mainland England, they followed their father through to the centre of the Devil’s Ring- becoming one of his crew in the process. From there they fought on and on, till they became a ship’s captain themselves. 

Scenarios/genres I will write -Fluff -Angst -Smut* -Horror -A combination of those stated above *This will only be written when I am in the mood. Bear in mind these may take longer than usual because I have to be in the correct mindset. I will edit this when necessary

Character Q&A is currently open! 

I will include trigger warnings and such at the beginning of each Oneshot/imagine/headcanon list.

[warofshadowstheorder]

Chapter 04

The flow of the Atlantic Ocean was calm and steady.  Airplanes flew overhead as different boats and ships floated by on their way to various destinations.  Underneath the waves, the various marine life forms that populated it went about their daily lives and saw to their needs.  In the sky, a Peregrine Falcon gracefully and swiftly soared through the air.  It flew through the sky and away from the populous nations that surrounded it.

The bird’s path instead led it far away from the nearest logical established landing place and far into the Atlantic in a region very seldom traveled.  An island measuring five miles around, located approximately 100 miles northwest of Ireland, shrouded in mist was the bird’s final destination.

The falcon flew directly into a mist off the coast of the island and perched on a high tower.  The tower was a parapet that was part of a 20-foot high wall encircling the island like a giant snake protectively coiling around its eggs beginning approximately 20 yards inland with the Atlantic Ocean forming a natural moat.  The island varied in elevation, the lowest points being by the ocean, the rest of it was mainly rises that rose into hills and back down again.  The highest part took up most of the northwestern, northern, and northeastern sectors of the island.  It was a mountain rising up to 3,000 feet with a prominent ridge at 1,200 feet.  The locals called the mountain Mount Titus, the ridge they called Gideon Ridge.  Together, they formed an impenetrable barrier from the part of the island.

There was a large quarry not much farther inland from Mount Titus.  Several teenage boys were inside hard at work harvesting ore, under the supervision of a few older men.   Not far beyond that was a mine shaft with more teenage boys occasionally entering and emerging from it.  On the western coast of the island, there was a small hydroelectric plant set up that used the flow of the ocean to generate electricity.  Further inland, various structures dotted the landscape.  Several homes ranging in size so that the human inhabitants could see over the wall surrounding the island were the most numerous.  In the midst of the homes were a few other buildings dedicated to various tasks.  All of the homes and buildings branched out from a prominent hill, whose peak was dominated by a large breathtaking church built after the manner of a Gothic Cathedral.

The soil on the island was the most fertile imaginable.  Over parts of the island not taken up by man made structures corn, potatoes, turnips, spinach, lettuce, carrots, apples, oranges, and various other forms of vegetation thrived alongside cattle, horses, chickens, pigs, and other animals grazing freely over seemingly endless fields of grass.  On another part of the island falcons, pigeons, doves, and numerous kinds of birds flew through the air; sailing on the winds before perching on some of the various trees in the dense woodland that began just after where Mount Titus ended.

The island was a hive of activity.  Little children ran around playing in the warm open air.  Elsewhere, activities ranging from boxing training to lessons on Renaissance art and how to cultivate the various kinds of plants found all over the island were in progress.

One of the buildings inside the Monastery was a dormitory with various bedrooms on multiple floors.  Nearby was a dining facility with a kitchen and an adjoining area for people to eat.  A few different gymnasiums were close by as well.

The Cathedral was the focal point of the island, with the chapel at the center.  The chapel consisted of pews for a congregation, an organ, and a podium for a speaker with an elaborately carved symbol consisting of a red background with a dark colored circle on top with four white beams inside of it in a plush shape extending from the center to the edges.  Another part of the Cathedral housed the chambers of the one they called the Apostle, who oversaw everything, and was also used for some specific rituals.  Another room was something unique to the monastery.

At the top of a high tower was an empty room except for several large cauldrons placed all along the floor.  The cauldrons were black with large handles on either side and filled with water.  Besides the handles there was nothing particularly unique about them other than their mere presence.

The room was still and quiet, with a black duffel bag resting on the ground near the front.  By the duffel bag was a small table where two young women dressed in dark gowns resembling Habits without Wimples sat.

The woman sitting closest to the cauldrons had long red hair and beautiful blue eyes.  The other woman had long light blonde hair and big chocolate brown eyes.  The brunette, Alicia Bruce, waited with barely contained patient anticipation.  The blonde was her friend Sara.

“How much longer do you think you’ll be here?” Sara asked slightly concerned with a Dutch accent.

“Until he gets back,” Alicia answered in a Scottish brogue with a tone reflecting the fact that she’d been in that room for several hours, “I have Gifted McAllister looking after the boys and I don’t want to be relieved until my Odin gets back.”

“You sure do love him, don’t you?” Sara asked with a hint of admiration.

“He’s the man of my dreams,” Alicia answered “I hope that someday you can find the man of yours.”

“Some of us aren’t as fortunate as you,” Sara said, “the perfect man isn’t just brought into the Order and then given a love-struck girl to show him around the place.”

“Oh please,” Alicia said, “I completely loathed him when he first got here.  I didn’t like how he was cocky and arrogant and such a smart-aleck.  But,” she got a far-off wistful look on her face, “in time I got to see that he had dedication, persistence, and charm as well, and that when taken together…he was everything a girl could ask for.”

“Hmm,” Sara said, “if the first step to having the man of your dreams is to loathe him, then I should say that I have a good start with about half the Knights here.”

The two of them laughed heartily and were almost at the point of tears when they heard a sound like a rock splashing into a pond emanate from the nearest cauldron.  They both paused and looked at the cauldron, ripples forming in the water.

“You take it,” Sara said, “we both know that you would rather get the news than me.”

Alicia smiled and walked over to the cauldron.  She pulled back the sleeve on her robe and put her arm into the water.  She felt around at the bottom of the cauldron until feeling a rock resting there.  A watertight bag with a note inside was wrapped around the rock.  She undid the rope and read the note:

Dieter and Olcán in USA, convenience.

Alicia’s heart sank enough that it was visible to Sara as she read the note.  She walked up and gently took the note from Alicia.

“Do we have any higher priorities right now?” Sara asked.

“Not at the moment,” Alicia answered, “we should have time to bring them back.”

“Okay,” Sara said, “I’ll prepare the cauldron.”

Sara walked to the cauldron.  She then put the tip of her finger into the water, closed her eyes, and concentrated.  After a few moments, she slowly moved her finger in a crisscross pattern before stirring it in the center.

After removing her finger, she opened her eyes.  She looked into the water and saw it begin to swirl in a whirlpool motion before stopping and moving back and forth.  In a moment, the reflection of the water began to change and distort until the image in the water was of a tiled ceiling and what appeared to be a storage area in someone’s basement.

In a moment, she saw Dieter’s face in the water.  He looked into her face and a smile made its way across his features.

“Guten tag Sara,” Dieter said into the water, “you’re just looking for any excuse to see me naked aren’t you?”

“Just keep telling yourself that spierkop,” Sara answered, “Alicia and I are here and right now you two are our top priority.”

“Olcán’s right here,” Dieter said, “und we are on our way over.”

“Fine,” Sara said slightly annoyed, “we have your Brussels package here, and tell Olcán we’ll have a towel and clothes for him.”

“Well stand back,” Dieter said with a smile, “because you know that I am too much of a man to not cause an overflow.”

“Yeah,” Sara said rolling her eyes, “your ego takes up too much space.”  She then stepped back from the cauldron before Dieter could say anything else.

A moment later Dieter rose out of the cauldron, with a significant amount of water splashing out as he did so.  He came up with a gasp and shook some of the water off his head before rubbing his eyes, the water dripping off his immensely muscled body as he stepped out of the cauldron.

Many of the people at the Monastery, including Sara much to her chagrin, were so impressed with Dieter’s physique that they thought he looked like a comic book character or some kind of Hellenic deity.  Every inch of his body was solid muscle and looked like he had been sculpted out of pure Granite.  His body was so chiseled that it seemed as though someone had made a conscious effort to organize each muscle so that they weren’t crowded together.

His body was adorned with ten geometric symbols on his shoulders, chest, back, and abdomen.  He also had a tattoo on his left forearm that read:

124872

לעולם לא

The most prominent mark was a large black circle over the left side of his chest.  It had been burned onto his skin, the borders of the dark circle surrounded his flesh.  Within the circle, four beams extended from a smaller circle to the borders of the larger one.

He was completely naked with the exception of a metal Star of David medallion with each corner fashioned into a razor-sharp blade around his neck.  It was three inches high, an inch and a half wide, and an inch thick.  It had a silver color, with the exception of red beams that rose above the middles of the beams that made up the Star with a prominent rise and point at the center of the symbol.

“Like what you see,” Dieter said confidently to Sara, who threw the duffel bag at him.

“Just hang tight,” she said, “you have to join Duncan in Brussels for your assignment as soon as Olcán gets back and I can get the water prepared.”

“I love how you are able to mask your feelings for me,” Dieter said confidently as he walked forward to take the duffel bag, not bothering to dry off.

“Whatever,” Sara said, “Nigel says not to bother cleaning Bathsheba or Solomon since he took care of that for you.”

“Ah,” Dieter sighed wistfully, “I will have to thank him personally when I get back.”

“In the meantime,” Sara said trying to sound disgusted, “do us all a favor and cover up.”

Just as she said that, Olcán came out of the cauldron in a similar fashion to how Dieter had earlier.  Olcán also had a muscular build, but it was more trim and toned compared to Dieter’s large and chiseled form.

He had the same marks on his body that Dieter did, in addition to nine more.  His medallion was in the shape of a Celtic Cross with red beams and bladed corners similar to Dieter’s.

Several scars also adorned his body, including a long jagged one up his right side, and a smaller one over his heart.  He also had a Japanese character burned onto the base of his neck and wore Odin’s crucifix next to his own.  Olcán climbed out of the cauldron as Sara tossed him a towel.

“Go raibth maith agat Sara,” Olcán said as he dried off his face and ran his hands through his flat hair to put it back up into a flattop.

“I’m not surprised to see you here,” Olcán said when his eyes found Alicia, “don’t worry, Odin should be fine.”

“Oh thank God,” Alicia breathed out, “when the note said that it was just you and Dieter I thought that…”

“He is just going to be a little late,” Dieter chimed in, “he volunteered to stay behind and distract the authorities who were there while Olcán und I slipped out.”

“Do you have any idea how long he’ll be?” Alicia asked concerned as she took the crucifix Olcán handed her into her hand and held it tight.

“We told him that the longer he was away, the more worried he would make you,” Dieter responded, “but you know as well as I do that how long he stays locked up is his decision.”

“He’s in jail?!” Alicia shrieked out catching Dieter and Sara completely off-guard.

“Jah,” Dieter replied after a moment, “but we got the message out that he will need legal counsel, so he will be fine.”

“I’m sure he will,” Alicia said getting a smile on her face, “he always finds a way to get back here.”

Olcán smirked as he thought of his old friend and comrade and remembered some of the many missions the two of them had undertaken.  One particular event that he remembered with fondness was when they went on a mission to rural Mexico and had to go on the run afterwards.  They wound up in the desert eating whatever Rattlesnakes and other animals they could catch as they moved to where they could get back to the Monastery.

At about that time, Sara had again placed her finger into the water and gotten it back to normal.  She then put her finger back in and concentrated until the image in the water changed from a reflection of the room known as the Cauldron Chamber, to a cellar somewhere in Brussels.

“It’s ready now,” Sara called out, “now get out of here Dieter.”

“Auf wiedersehen,” Dieter said grabbing the bag, “try not to miss me too much fraulein.”

“I will manage,” Sara replied callously.  Dieter then jumped into the cauldron feet first holding the bag above his head.  He fell into the cauldron and didn’t stop dropping, and he didn’t come up in the monastery.  Sara looked into the water inside the cauldron and saw Dieter’s face in it looking back at her.

Once she saw that he had made it there, she put her finger back in the water and cleared it.  Olcán had already dried off and dressed in a black undershirt and shorts along with the dark Cossack that had been provided for him.

“Why’d you cut him off like that,” he asked, “you’re supposed to wait for him to confirm his safe arrival?”

“I probably should,” Sara answered, “but I don’t want to give him a chance to talk more than he already does.”

“Hmpf,” Olcán lightly grunted, “I imagine the Apostle wants to see me?”

“You imagine right,” Sara answered, “you should probably tell Chloe and the boys that Odin will be delayed.”

“I’ll do that,” Olcán replied as he walked up to Alicia and gently put his hand on her shoulder, “I’ll see you around Alicia.”

“Thanks Olcán,” she said as she softly put her hand on top of his, “I’m glad that my Odin has a friend like you.”

He then left the room and made his way down a stone staircase a short distance from the door.  He walked down the staircase slowly, knowing that he didn’t need to hurry.  He got to the bottom of the stairs and walked through the back end of the chapel to a staircase leading to the Apostle’s chambers, stopping for a moment to look into the chapel.

The chapel was very simple, but it was all that the residents of the Monastery needed.  The floor was made of stone, as were all the floors in the Monastery that weren’t earth, and the pews were simple wooden hand-carved benches.  An organ rested behind the makeshift pulpit, and stands for a choir were on either side of it.  Despite its simple nature, the atmosphere inside the chapel instilled feelings of reverence, humility, and solemnity in the hearts of anyone inside.

The only somewhat elaborate decoration similar to something that would be in a similar structure was a large circle carved out of a thick block of wood with the center removed.  Four beams forming the shape of a plus sign extended from the edge of the circrcle, they converged on a solid dark circle in the middle of the larger one.forming the emblem of the Order.

Olcán looked to the front of it and paused for a moment to let the feeling of the place sink in.  He thought for a while about what he had done, and what he would continue to do, in the service of the organization he belonged to and the ones he served.  After a while, Olcán genuflected and walked across the chapel to ascend the stairs to the other tower.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he saw a familiar face coming out of the only door.  It was a man about his age and height, with long brown hair down to just past his shoulder blades.  He was very handsome, and had a dashing appearance akin to figures depicted in swashbuckling films and books.  He also had alluring grey eyes.

“Dang it Tadeas,” Olcán said, “when are you going to get a real haircut?”

“I’ll get a ‘real’ haircut,” Tadeas answered with a sly smile and accent-free voice while making quotation marks with his fingers, “about the same time that you fail a mission.”

“If that’s true,” Olcán retorted, “then your hair will be tickling your heels before you know it.”  The two of them laughed and then hugged.

“It’s great to see you again,” Olcán said after they came apart, “how did your assignment in London go?”

“Jolly good,” Tadeas answered with a perfect English accent, “it was difficult to find the targets,” he reverted to his real voice, “but after Jamuike and I found their hideout the rest was pretty easy.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Olcán responded, “is Jamuike in there now?” he asked gesturing to the door.

“Yeah,” Tadeas answered, “the Apostle wanted to go over a few things with him before we left.  You caught me on my way out.”

Tadeas and Olcán had gone on several missions and a few holidays together.  They both had pictures together from various parts of the world they had visited.  One favorite of theirs was them standing on the Great Wall of China wearing old-time Chinese hats.  They were disappointed that they didn’t get to see as much of each other as they would have liked, but they did their best to make up for it whenever they got an opportunity.

“Are you planning on staying here for your next holiday,” Olcán asked, “or are you going somewhere off the island?”

“Olcán,” Tadeas said calmly as he patted his old friend on the back, “when have you ever known me to stay around here when I have holiday time?”

“Touché brother,” Olcán answered, “where do you think you’ll go this time?”

“I’ve wanted to go back to Monte Carlo for a while now,” Tadeas said, “I figure that now’s as good a time as any.  Are you up for a little Monte Carlo adventure?”

“Thanks,” Olcán said, “but I really don’t feel like traveling.  Besides, Odin got arrested on our last mission and…”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Tadeas asked rhetorically while rolling his eyes, “He’s got to learn to be less reckless and more focused.”

“Hey,” Olcán answered, “we all have our shortcomings.  Odin’s happens to be discretion.”

“We can both agree on that,” Tadeas said, “but I’m sorry for interrupting you, what were you saying?”

“I was just saying that while Odin’s gone I should really stick around and help Chloe with the boys while Alicia’s waiting for him.  Plus, I should check up on Declan and see how much he’s progressing.”

“All work and no play Olcán,” Tadeas said “you shouldn’t take yourself so seriously.”

“I don’t,” Olcán answered as the door to the Apostle’s office opened, “but I take this work very seriously.  Jamuike.”

Olcán greeted a large black man with a shaved head and muscular build who came out of the office.  Jamuike had had a serious look on his face when he came out, but at the sight of Olcán and his greeting, he immediately brightened up.

“Olcán,” he said in a Nigerian accent as the two of them shook hands and patted each other on the back with their free hands, “I take it the American assignment went well.”

“It did,” Olcán replied, “the only damper is that Odin got arrested when we were trying to get out of the hot zone.”

“Really,” Jamuike asked surprised, “does he have an escape plan?”

“We took some precautionary measures when we loaded up for it,” Olcán replied, “so I have every confidence that he’ll get out fine.”

“Let’s hope so,” Jamuike answered, “if he’s away too long Alicia will kill him when he finally does get back.  Worst case scenario, she’ll have the kids take her name.”

“I doubt it will come to that,” Olcán said, “but he should be getting back soon enough.”

“Olcán,” a voice came from behind Jamuike, “coe in here please.”

“I guess you’d better get in there,” Jamuike said, “the Apostle has been expecting you.”

“Right,” Olcán turned to face Tadeas and patted his shoulder, “I’ll see you when you get back.  Have fun in Monte Carlo.”

“Thanks,” Tadeas said as he patted Olcán on the back, “I hope you have fun hanging out around the island.”  Olcán smirked and then turned to Jamuike.

“Always nice to see you Jamuike.”

“Same to you Olcán,” Jamuike answered.

Olcán walked through the door Jamuike had been holding open and heard it close behind him.  The chambers of the Apostle, unlike the chapel, were adorned with various decorations.  The most prominent features were three large paintings and two other wall decorations.  One of the paintings was a depiction of Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” in a condition that appeared as though it was fresh from the artist’s canvas.  Another was a depiction of a man dressed in Roman armor with a shield and long spear, and a black man almost as large as Dieter holding a sword with a flaming blade facing some kind of huge monster in a barricaded area near a small village.

The third painting depicted a man kneeling on top of a high cliff overlooking a vast ocean.  The man on his knees had the sword from the other picture resting on top of his hands while a majestic celestial being standing before him reaching forward to take it.

The other wall decorations were two large plaques with an elaborate collection of symbols engraved on the top portions.  Several nameplates were underneath the symbols, along with more adjoining plaques with additional nameplates.  One of the plaques had considerably more names than the other.

A dazzling array of different artifacts from every region of the world, most of them priceless, decorated the walls and rested on several shelves around the Apostle’s chambers.

A man sat behind a desk set up at the far end of the room.  The man looked to be in his late forties or early fifties and had a full head of brown hair that reached down to the base of his neck, along with a short beard that matched the color of his hair.

His eyes were green and had a constant look of compassion and nurturing.  He spoke with a voice that was simultaneously calm and comforting but also strong.  He was sitting comfortably and smiled as Olcán entered.

“Olcán,” the man said standing up and pointing to a chair in front of the desk, “please have a seat.”

“Yes sir,” Olcán said as he gave a respectful half bow and sat down in front of the desk as the Apostle did the same.

“I was expecting Odin,” the Apostle said calmly with a strong voice, “but I’m sure that you will let me know why I have the pleasure of addressing you.  Now, you know what I want to hear, so let’s have it and we can both move on.”

“The mission was a complete success,” Olcán said in his usual tone, “the target was taken out and no one else.”

“Good,” the Apostle answered simply, “I have to commend you and the others on the execution of this mission.  When I first heard of it, I was worried about our chances of success.  The mission itself must have been difficult.”

“This is what I do sir,” Olcán answered with his usual tone, “and that man had to be taken out.  Anyone who makes a deal with the Devil has forfeited his right to share this world with those who follow God.”

“Do you hate them Olcán,” the Apostle asked in a strong voice mingled with mild concern.

Olcán was silent.  He sat still in his chair staring forward, never breaking eye contact with the man across from him.  The Apostle mirrored Olcán’s stare, knowing that eventually Olcán would answer his question.

“Sir,” Olcán answered still maintaining his usual tone, “you know that the mission is always my first priority.  I will never let any ill feelings I might have interfere with that.”

“I understand that,” the Apostle answered, “but I need to know that those ill feelings will not overpower you.  If we harbor anything apart from pure feelings, then we are no better than what we are called upon to fight.  It’s…”

“The price we pay for doing the work of God,” Olcán finished, “I know that sir, you’ve told me many times.  You know that I’m focused.”

“It’s not your focus that concerns me Olcán,” the Apostle answered, “but your motives.”

“They are pure sir,” Olcán said.

“And what of the other group that bears your disdain,” the Apostle asked in a strong voice with a hint of concern, “do you harbor ill feelings toward them as well?”

“I’ve come to terms with the past.” Olcán answered.

“Have you?” the Apostle asked making a slight gesture to Olcán’s right side earning a slight wince.

“I have enough,” Olcán answered quickly and spitefully.

“I couldn’t help but overhear you talking outside,” the Apostle said inwardly deciding to move on with the interview, “and your presence here rather than the man who was in charge of the operation prompts me to ask what happened to Odin.”

“Everything went as planned up to the escape,” Olcán said inwardly grateful to be moving on and returning to his usual tone, “Dieter was in his seat and made sure that there was validity in the voice recordings that we used.  But when we met up with him after the mission,” Olcán paused, obviously a little embarrassed at admitting what happened next,  “our exit route was blocked and we realized that there was no way we were going to be able to walk out without leaving the rifle or some innocent bodies behind.”

“I see,” the Apostle said, “and what was the result?”

“We realized,” Olcán continued, “that one of us was going to have to distract the security at least long enough for the rest of us to get out.  We knew that Dieter needed to be back here as soon as possible and couldn’t risk being caught.  Then Odin volunteered to go and I didn’t have time to argue with him.”

“I take it that Odin did the best he could at being a distraction,” the Apostle said already knowing the answer.

“And I ‘m sure that he is continuing to be a distraction in the penal system,” Olcán said, “I’m sure I’m not alone in hoping he gets back soon.”

“We all feel the same way,” the Apostle said, “but I am glad to know that the mission was successful.  I can only imagine what would have happened if he had become President.  I don’t know if we would have been able to stop him had he reached that point.”

“We would have found a way,” Olcán answered, “but it would have been a lot more difficult and probably with a larger body count.”

“That,” the Apostle replied, “is one of the many reasons why our Watchers are so invaluable to this organization.”

“They have their uses,” Olcán replied with a hint of resentment, “few though they may be.”

“Olcán,” the Apostle said firmly but doing his best to convey honest concern, “you can’t let what happened in the past forever control how you feel and act.  The past is gone, and it is essential that we learn from it., but you must live in the present.”

“My past,” Olcán responded, “is what has made my present.  I act the way I do because I have learned from the past.  I can’t help it if the results are somewhat undesirable.”

“Very well,” the Apostle said knowing full well from previous conversations that this issue wouldn’t be resolved any time soon, “you have two weeks of holiday starting tomorrow.”

“I will only take one,” Olcán answered in his usual strong voice.

“Do you want to spend it off the island?” the Apostle asked.

“No,” Olcán answered, “I’m fine here.”

“You concern me Olcán,” the Apostle said, “it’s been years since you’ve left the island for any reason other than a mission.  I encourage everyone here to use the resources we have to go out and see as much of this beautiful world as possible.  Why don’t you take advantage of this?”

“With all due respect sir,” Olcán answered in a respectful tone, “I have seen much of the world already, and I prefer to stay here.  I have all I could ever need right here, and I should help out with Xander, Angus, and Malcolm until Odin gets back.  I would also like to see how Declan is progressing in his training since I will be vouching for him soon.”

“I see your point,” the Apostle said, “although if you ever have some time when you have holiday and no obligations here, I suggest you tag along with Tadeas.”

“I will think about it,” Olcán answered.

“If you have nothing further to add,” the Apostle said, “you are dismissed.”

“Thank you sir,” Olcán said as he stood up and the Apostle did the same, “I will be around here if you need me for anything.”

“Enjoy your holiday,” the Apostle said, “with all you did for your last mission, you have certainly earned some time off.  May the light within…”

“Drive away the darkness without.”  Olcán replied before turning around, walking to the door, and beginning to open it.

“One more thing,” the Apostle called out to Olcán, “stop by the Combat Room.  O’Connell will want to know that you are back safely.”

“I will be sure to do that,” Olcán answered, “thanks for letting me know where he is.”

The Apostle nodded, and Olcán exited the chamber.  He walked back down the stairs and made his way over the grounds, overhearing teachers inside various classrooms as he passed them.  Some of them were talking about traditional subjects such as math, science, or history; others were talking about subjects as diverse as military history and modern vernacular.

He made his way across a patch of open ground where several people were sitting on benches reading, talking, and otherwise engaged.  Olcán moved by unnoticed until he was spotted by a small group of children.  Three skinny red-haired boys were out in the field playing together when they spotted him approaching.  In no time at all, the three boys ran over to Olcán and wrapped their arms around his neck.

“Hey boys,” Olcán said happily as he hugged the three boys when they came up to him.  They were Odin and Alicia’s three sons, Xander was nine, Angus seven, and Malcolm five.  They knew Olcán very well through his friendship with their father, and they all loved him.

“Have you been good for Gifted Murphy while your dad and I have been away?” Olcán asked the boys.

“Yes,” Xander answered in a voice that was equal parts Scottish and Australian while his younger brothers continued to squeeze Olcán, “is dad back yet?”

“No, not yet,” Olcán answered, careful to keep the same upbeat tone he had been using, “but he told me that he will be back soon.  Until he gets back, you three need to keep being good for Gifted Murphy and stay out of trouble.”

The three boys laughed and nodded, then Olcán stood up.  Malcolm and Angus continued holding onto him and laughed as they went up into the air with their arms wrapped around Olcán’s strong neck.  Olcán spun around once and then wrestled them to the ground, loosening their grip by tickling them until they released him.

“You boys go and play,” an older silver-haired woman said in an Irish accent, “Mr. Olcán needs to be going.”

The three boys laughed again before running off to another spot on the grounds and starting to play with some of the other kids.  Olcán walked up to the woman and the two of them embraced.

“Hello Gifted Murphy,” Olcán said once again speaking in Irish Gaelic, “was Xander telling the truth?”

“Oh yes,” she answered in the same language, “they’ve been perfectly well behaved.  They just have so much energy” she sighed, “I’m getting too old to handle children.”

“Please,” Olcán scoffed, “Odin’s boys can be a handful, but you’ll never be too old to handle children.  Mother Theresa would’ve had trouble with those boys.”

“That’s probably true,” she said laughing, “they’re so much like their parents.”

“What makes you say that?” Olcán asked.

“They’re wild and energetic like their father,” she said, “and at the same time they’re polite and well-behaved like their mother.”

“You’ve got a point there,” Olcán replied, “complementary opposites really do make for the best combinations.”  Gifted Murphy nodded.

“Are you going to see O’Connell?” she asked, Olcán nodded.  “I know he’ll want to be seeing you, go on down.”  Olcán gave her a kiss on the forehead and was on his way.

There was a staircase leading down inside the building adjacent to the open ground.  As he went down the stairs, he could hear the sounds of fists, feet, and legs hitting punching bags, jump ropes repeatedly striking the ground, several men yelling out instructions and criticisms, and bodies slamming onto mats.

Olcán got to the bottom of the stairs where a simple door stood against a wall of stone.  Above the door was an intricately carved wooden sign with the words “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” carved in large imposing letters and surrounded by relief-carved skulls with a large fire behind them.  Olcán pounded the sign with his fist before opening the door and walking into what was officially known in the Monastery as the Combat Room, but what Olcán and the others who trained there called The Pit.

Hard Rock and Heavy Metal music played over speakers throughout the room.  The walls were decorated with various posters.  Some were of boxers, including Olcán’s personal favorite Rocky Marciano.  Other posters showed Bruce Lee and other famous martial artists and MMA fighters.

Very little floor space in the room was visible.  There was a full-size boxing ring in one part, with a complete Mixed Martial Arts-style octagon-shaped cage at the other end.  There were four traditional punching bags, four Thai-style ones, a row of Mook Jongs, and half a dozen speed bags distributed about the room.  There was another area that was entirely matted where several men and boys of different ages were practicing rolls and throwing moves, wrestling and grappling each other in hard and almost inhumane brutal training.

The only feature in the room not specifically dedicated to combat training, was an interlocking series of wooden plaques with several name plates screwed on.

A few older men around the room were coaching and offering instruction.  Olcán walked toward a man a few inches taller than him with scraggly silver hair that went down to the base of his neck, a similar build to Olcán, and an appearance so grizzled that he looked as though he had been living in the woods since St. Oliver Plunkett's final sermon.  He was standing outside the boxing ring barking out instructions to a sixteen-year-old boy sparring inside.

“Keep your guard up,” the grizzled man barked out in an Irish brogue that matched his appearance, “chin down and hands up boyo, remember that!”

“You’d better do what he says,” Olcán spoke up loud enough for anyone nearby to hear, “if you get him really mad he will jump in there himself and make sure that you never ignore him again.”

The man paused for a moment, and then looked at the stopwatch he was holding.

“Time!” he yelled out, “go in the corner and relax for a bit!  But don’t spend too much time sitting on your arse!”

“Little wolf,” the man said in Irish Gaelic after turning around to face Olcán.

“O’Connell” Olcán said and the two of them shared a strong embrace.

“So I take it that the mission was a success?” O’Connell asked continuing to speak in Gaelic.

“Now I thought you knew me better than that,” Olcán answered in Gaelic as they came apart, “after all, I was brought up by the best.”

“You give me too much credit Little Wolf,” O’Connell answered with a smile as he placed a hand on Olcán’s shoulder, “but I’m glad that whatever you learned from me you are putting to good use.”

“Absolutely,” Olcán said before turning to look into the ring and getting his first good look at the boy’s sparring partner, “Declan?”

“Oi master,” the sparring partner, a twenty year old boy with long red hair tied back in a braid and brown eyes said in an Irish accent, “when did you get back?”

“Just now,” Olcán answered, “what are you doing here?  Is this the best way you can get ready for your trials?”

“Oh no,” Declan said quickly and apologetically, “I had some time off and O’Connell asked if I could help him with Nathaniel for a while.”

“Okay,” Olcán said turning to face O’Connell, “once you’re through here would you mind if I take Declan off your hands for a while?”

“Not at all Little Wolf,” O’Connell said, he gave Olcán a smile then turned to face Declan and Nathaniel in the ring, “GO!”

He then hit the stopwatch and the two of them went back to sparring while Olcán watched and helped O’Connell with his advice and critiques.

[fromgreecetoanarchy]

(Video) Bloody Sunday: On a day like today Bloody Sunday in Derry, Northern Ireland: On the 30th January 1972 British soldiers opened fire on protesters in the city of Derry, north-west Ireland. 28 unarmed protesters were shot, 13 died immediately or within hours, one more died just over four months later. Many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers and some were shot while trying to help the wounded.Other protesters were injured by rubber bullets or batons, and two were run down by army vehicles. Derry was in the section of Ireland claimed by the British state and the shootings happened in the context of the suppression of a growing civil rights movement. Bloody Sunday "What became known as Bloody Sunday then has often been, and frequently still is believed to have been, an act of undisciplined slaughter perpetrated by blood-crazed Paras. This assumption though is wrong and to a large extent lets the British establishment off the hook. By assuming that soldiers "ran amok" it puts the blame on individual soldiers who pulled triggers and killed people. Bloody Sunday was a planned, calculated response to a demand for civil rights, designed to terrify organised protestors away from protesting. It fits easily into the catalogue of British involvement in Ireland as a quite logical and even natural event" (Fred Holroyd, ex-British Army Intelligence Officer.) In August 1971 internment without trial was introduced. On the tenth, Operation Demetrius was launched. 342 people were arrested and nine people killed by troops. In this period experiments in sensory deprivation torture were carried out on some people arrested, with the aim of psychologically breaking them. With hoods placed over their heads, they were made to stand spread-eagled against a wall balanced on their fingertips. They were kept like this for four or five days, being bombarded with white noise and beaten if they moved, denied food, drink, sleep, or access to toilets. At intervals they were taken up in a helicopter and thrown out while just a few feet off the ground having been told that they were hundreds of feet up (they were still wearing their hoods). In protest at internment, a rent and rates strike was organised which attracted the support of some 40,000 households. By October this had escalated to non-payment of TV, radio, car licences, road tax, ground rent, electricity, gas and hire purchase (this a good idea that we should imitate- after all why stop at not paying the poll tax?). In response to this crisis the Payments of Debt Act was passed, allowing debts to be deducted directly from benefits. The introduction of internment was accompanied by a 12-month ban on all demonstrations. Despite this, on January 30 1972 tens of thousands of people attended a demonstration in Derry. The state's response to this act of defiance was a cold-blooded massacre. CS Gas and water cannon had already been used by the time the Parachute Regiment came onto the streets and opened fire on the crowd. The Army claimed that they were returning fire, but forensic tests on the 14 people killed showed that none of them had had contact with weapons and no weapons were found anywhere near the bodies. (Extract from an article in Wildcat magazine ) The findings of the Saville Report, an inquiry into the events of that day held by british authorities concluded that: - No warning had been given to any civilians before the soldiers opened fire - None of the soldiers fired in response to attacks by petrol bombers or stone throwers - Some of those killed or injured were clearly fleeing or going to help those injured or dying - None of the casualties was posing a threat or doing anything that would justify their shooting - Many of the soldiers lied about their actions - The events of Bloody Sunday were not premeditated