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our-legacy-rp-blog · 7 years ago

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JAYLIE has been accepted for the character DELANEY ALLAWAY

An outstanding application, Jaylie! You really captured Delaney, and the amount of thought you’ve put into her character really shows. You’ve got a great eye for character detail, and we can’t wait to see where you go from here. Welcome to OL, and be sure you fill out the checklist HERE.

OOC name & pronouns: Jaylie (she/her)

Age:23

Timezone: GMT+8

IC INFORMATION:

Character’s name: Delaney Allaway

FC: Lily Collins

Position request: Seeker on the Gryffindor team (if not already filled)

Birthday: June 17. Gemini are known to represent dual natures in one. They are expressive and sociable, but also tend to suddenly get serious, thoughtful and restless. They are fascinated with the world itself, extremely curious, with a constant feeling that there is not enough time to experience everything they want to see. I think this describes Delaney very well – she’s always on the move, wanting to experience as much as she can, although at times she can also be prone to sullen moods and sudden bouts of thoughtfulness.

Wand: 11½”, Sycamore and unicorn tail hair core. A sycamore wand is always eager for new experiences and tends to lose its brilliance when engaged in mundane activities – much like its owner. Delaney is a curious witch and makes a good partner for her wand, especially since she is always challenging herself with spells that are past her level of competency (even if the results aren’t always good). Along with a unicorn tail hair core, Delaney’s wand is extremely faithful to her and enables her to produce consistent magic, although she discovered that it tends to perform better when she brings it along with her whenever she is breaking the rules or trying something new.

Patronus: Delaney has obviously tried casting the patronus charm on more than one occasion, but has never succeeded in casting a corporeal patronus. If she could, it would be a dolphin. There is an adventurous and carefree nature to the dolphin, one that is reflected in those with it as their patronus. They are often social and loved by most. They are strong and like to explore new things and meet new people. These traits are mirrored in Delaney, who is communicative and enjoys experiencing and learning new things. Dolphins also symbolise freedom and if there is one thing Delaney values, it is her freedom.

Boggart: Herself, being trapped within glass walls.

Delaney is always up for an adventure so when a few of her fellow Gryffindors asked her along to go boggart-hunting in her second year, she agreed in a heartbeat. It wasn’t as fun as she thought it would be, though, and till now she still remembers what she saw when she faced the boggart.

It was as if the boggart could sense her fear beneath her suppressed memories, ones that even she could hardly remember. She saw herself surrounded by glass walls which were so high that they never seemed to end. She – or rather, the image of herself – pounded her fists on the walls but there wasn’t so much as a crack. Her mouth opened her mouth to cry for help, but no sound came out.

The reason is still unclear to Delaney now, but she has a subconscious fear of being trapped and unable to free herself, stemming from her younger years of being locked up in the Kinney household. Unlike now, she wasn’t allowed to make any noise or do what she wanted. One of the things she enjoys most about life is being free; having the freedom to do what she wanted, the freedom to speak her mind and express herself. Taking this away from her would be worse than asking her to run around Hogwarts in nothing but a towel (not that she has tried). She just hadn’t known how much she really feared that until she faced a boggart for the first time.

Headcanons:

When Delaney was first put into the foster care system, she couldn’t read or write. While she wasn’t underfed or physically abused, her parents didn’t teach her anything either. They spent as little time as possible with her. Being in the same room as her made them uncomfortable, therefore they avoided doing anything that would mean them being in her presence for an extended period of time and this, unfortunately, included teaching her the alphabets and numbers – things that a four-year-old would usually know by then. A kind matron acting as the temporary caretaker of the kids in the foster care system taught her how to write her own name on the fourth day she was there, and from then on, she learned something new every day, be it from the matron or the older kids. By the time the Ministry confirmed the Allaway’s adoption of Delaney, the girl could pretty much hold up her own end of the conversation, read and write basic sentences, and do simple counting.

Although Delaney loves all things dragons, her first love is, and always will be, the Antipodean Opaleyes. From the moment she laid eyes on the baby Opaleye for the first time, she knew she was in love. When its iridescent scales caught the sunlight, the then five-year-old girl had gasped involuntarily, drawing the smiles of her parents. It was the most beautiful creature she has ever seen. For the next few weeks, she spent almost every waking moment with the Opaleye until it stopped breathing fire every time she got closer and instead greeted her with a smoky snort.

Delaney wants very much to become closer to her brother, Lowry. The girl is easily satisfied and doesn’t want for much. However, if there was something she was envious of, it was her cousins’ relationships with each other. The Allaways were a big family, with aunts and uncles and cousins all living together in a communal environment. During her first day at Clarity Park, after meeting her new parents, she was told by the witch from the Ministry to stay outside and play with her cousins while the adults settle the paperwork. Still shy and reserved, Delaney sat under a tree while watching the other children. Seeing how her cousins played and protected each other in team games made her excited to have someone like that in her life as well. Afterwards, when Mimi and Sam told her that she had a brother, Delaney couldn’t keep her heart still. Even though she looked impassive on the outside, her mind was turning furiously. Would he be her protector, or she his? It didn’t matter either way – she simply wanted someone she could play with like the cousins she saw earlier. Someone who was willing to accept her, despite the suddenness of her appearance. She didn’t understand what was it she felt then, but it broke her heart when Lowry refused to shake her hand or introduce himself that day. It broke her heart when he wouldn’t look her in the eye at breakfast the next morning, or in the days that followed. At one point in time, Delaney even thought to herself that she wouldn’t mind changing parts of her personality if it meant that Lowry would grow fonder of her. There was, however, one thing she knew she wouldn’t be able to change, even if it was to get her brother to like her…

She hates the quiet. While Lowry excels when working in silence, Delaney finds it too overwhelming and her brain always refuses to cooperate when she must do so. She always feels a need to fill in the silence and has therefore developed a habit of talking to herself whenever she’s alone. She doesn’t care much for what others think of her when they overhear her mumbling to herself; after all, it’s a free world, surely everyone is entitled to their own methods of focusing.

History:

The Kinney family were a muggle family living on the outskirts of Belfast and paying their way through honest and earnest means. Julia worked as a school teacher for younger children, while Michael was an electrician in the local neighbourhood, fixing appliances or light fixtures. They lived modestly, scrimping and saving where possible in order to have a treat every now and then - a nice dinner out, a trip to the city for the day. Julia and Michael, who had met not long after leaving school themselves, were not boastful or idealistic people: they were in love, but they also believed in the practicality of a good marriage. They could support one another and whatever family they created, and that meant something. Their first child was a boy named Caleb - healthy and happy, the young couple were overwhelmed with the pressures of first time parenthood, scrambling to understand how to take care of a baby and give it everything it needed. Though Caleb was a handful, the pair were flushed with success and quickly got pregnant a second time soon after. This time round, they were prepared – armed with experience and the know-hows of taking care of a child now, they were excited to have a second child join the family.

However, bizarre incidents followed. From the moment of her conception, Delaney was… strange. Meetings with the doctor resulted in the technology failing or the scan photos to come up blurred, distorted, or simply black. Her birth caused a power surge in the hospital, and the back-up generators were forced to kick in. Julia noticed that her pregnancy was much more tumultuous and restless than it had been with Caleb, and at one point wondered if there was something wrong, but none of it mattered when Delaney was born - a healthy girl delivered in the waiting arms of her parents, who were happy she was alright. The strange occurrences faded from the minds of her parents as the throws of parenthood began all over again - Julia and Michael were too busy to notice the signs of early magic that were happening with Delaney until it was too late. Shocked by what they saw - their baby girl making lights flicker, objects move, and on one memorable occasion, making her toy dragon shoot flames from its mouth. They were scared, and rightfully so - raised devoutly Catholic, Julia and Michael were terrified of their own daughter, and quickly fell into a pattern of neglect and fear that dominated the first few years of Delaney’s life.

She was kept away from her brother and instead forced to stay in her room under lock and key. Though only a baby and, soon, a toddler, Delaney was given little time with her parents - though fed, washed, and changed, she was largely left on her own. The girl spent most of her days by herself, locked in her room, with no one to play with or talk to. She used to cry when she was younger but as she grew older, she begun to comprehend that her parents only grew angrier and more scared of her whenever she did so, and therefore stopped. Julia and Michael feared bringing in a priest and having him confirm the worst, not to mention the unwanted attention and notoriety that a modern day possession might bring them. They were simple people; they didn’t want to create waves. So Delaney grew up a lonely but not uncared for little girl, her magic coming in spurts over the years and only serving to continue scaring her parents. It was only when Delaney left the house to receive her vaccinations that others became aware of what was happening inside the Kinney house. Delaney accidentally used magic in front of a muggle that alerted the Irish branch of the Ministry of Magic to her case - and when they came to the house to alert her family, they found her locked in her room. The conditions were terrible, and though Julia and Michael made excuses, the Ministry couldn’t sit by and let it continue.

Delaney was removed at the age of four from her family and put into the foster system for witches and wizards. Because she was so young, the Ministry actively searched for a home that would take her permanently - and that was when the name of the Allaway’s cropped up. Known for running Clarity Park, a sanctuary for magical creatures and beasts, the Allaway’s were reclusive and isolated from most of the wizarding world, but they kept a few old contacts within the Ministry for situations involving creatures. In passing, Delaney’s case was mentioned, and very quickly the Allaway’s decided to take her in. She was, after all, much like the other cases they took, albeit a human one but no less of a troubled cause. For the first time in her life, Delaney was allowed to be a child - and quickly she adapted to her new surroundings. Wild, free, and talkative, Delaney shed her old skin and became a young girl who was loud and active - traits that she had learned to suppress in order to keep her parents happy. Clarity Park was her home, and she spent days running among the pens and enclosures of the animals, learning their names and qualities.

But the one creature that captured Delaney’s attention the strongest was dragons. Clarity Park had rescued and rehabilitated several abused dragons, but Delaney’s favourite were the Antipodean Opaleye breed. Friendly, beautiful, and easy to train, Delaney handled several of the baby Opaleye’s before they were shipped off to dragon reserves, which had more space. Delaney found that she had a knack for dragon rearing and was encouraged by her parents, Mimi and Sam, to continue developing her skills with the dragons that passed through Clarity Park. For them, there was no danger in Delaney or her gifts, and they raised her like their own alongside their biological son Lowry. Mimi and Sam were hesitant to tell Delaney about her past the older she got, especially as they witnessed the changes she’d made since arriving - they didn’t want to ruin her childhood by bringing up the bad, and possibly repressed, memories from life as a Kinney. But for Delaney, these were times that she could hardly remember; she knew that the Allaway’s were not her biological family, but it didn’t matter so much when she was loved and cared for by their communal way of taking care of each other. The thought of looking for or even finding out more information about her biological family has never crossed Delaney’s mind – to her, the Allaway’s were and always will be her family.

There was, however, a downside. Delaney and Lowry did not get along, and it was, to Delaney at least, almost a one-sided competition that she wanted no part of. Though she loved Mimi and Sam and called them mother and father, she knew that Lowry came first to them and was not envious of that position. She understood that she was the intruder in Lowry’s life and gave him a wide berth, hoping that, with time, they might become friends. But Lowry never softened, and instead seemed to only grow colder toward Delaney over the years. When the time came to head to Hogwarts together, Delaney thought that it would bond them - but it didn’t. Gryffindor called to both of them, and Lowry seemed angry that they were once more stuck together. She watched as he made friends with other people and pretended like they weren’t family - a blow that stung and left her to make friends with others in his absence. Although it wasn’t all bad for Delaney as Hogwarts allowed her to focus her magic, the wild thing inside of her that had caused so much trouble, she also knew that she would never stop trying to bridge the distance between her and Lowry.

Taking to her subjects eagerly, Delaney found her stride in subjects like Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, and Transfiguration - things that tapped into her strengths or allowed her to challenge herself. And it became clearer over the years that her direction in life lay with dragons, and that one day she might be a dragon trainer herself at a reserve. But the time between the present and that dream was a long one, and Delaney set about working hard and proving herself a strong witch. A dedicated student, an active and athletic person, as well as someone who always seeks to better themselves, Delaney is a proactive Gryffindor who embodies the traits of her house. Talkative, friendly, and with a wicked sense of humour, Delaney is type of person to be at the forefront of social events, conversation, and extra curriculars. She wants to be bold and live without fear, learning from her early years with her family - she never wants to feel as though she can’t be herself, and freely encourages others to do the same. For Delaney, each day is important, and she tackles it with a fierce heart and a steadfast belief that anything is possible.

Now:

If someone were to bring up the topic of werewolves in a conversation with her, Delaney would refuse to take sides. For some reason, they always remind Delaney of dragons – the same words used to describe the dragons once upon a time are now also being used to label the werewolves. They are beasts – too fierce, unpredictable, dangerous, and uncontrollable. The solution to that were the dragon reserves. Dragons kept in captivity and studied. If the werewolves and wizarding community cannot find peace with each other, is it going to end in the same way? Only it would be worse, because werewolves are not beasts, at least not in Delaney’s eyes. They feel, they think, they talk – in a common language with wizards and witches alike. Some of them are born a werewolf, some are made, but not all are happy with their circumstance, not all hold the same extremist views as the culprits who have been making headlines of late. It is frustrating, to say the least, hearing all the negative press about the current state of the wizarding world.

Not one to remain fixed for long, Delaney chooses not to dwell on it and instead focus on other things like getting out of detention, quidditch, and getting those grades which she needs to pursue a future as a dragon keeper. Throwing herself into schoolwork and extra curriculars, Delaney strives to live each day without regret. She simply wishes to experience as many things as she can while she is still able to. Straightforward with her feelings (though some would call her tactless) and with an inability to turn down a challenge, the Gryffindor often finds trouble following her even if she doesn’t mean to cause any. However, she has no time for anything that slows her down or anyone who would stop her from achieving her goals. Ultimately, family and friends will always be her priority, and she will protect them no matter what it takes.

#accepted

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tsanasreads · 6 years ago

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Aurealis Awards Shortlist Announced

It's that time of year when the Aurealis Awards finalists are announced. You can read the official announcement here, and I have reproduced the lists below. The links below go to my reviews where those exist (albeit a little sparse this year). A lot of books already on my TBR and some new ones to add. (PS If you're interested, the Nebula Award Finalists have also been announced.) Best Science Fiction Novel

Scales of Empire (Kylie Chan, Voyager) Obsidio (Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff, A&U) Lifel1k3 (Jay Kristoff, A&U) Dyschronia (Jennifer Mills, Picador) A Superior Spectre (Angela Meyer, Ventura Press) The Second Cure (Margaret Morgan, Vintage) Best Fantasy Novel

Devouring Dark (Alan Baxter, Grey Matter Press) Lady Helen and the Dark Days Deceit (Alison Goodman, HarperCollins) City of Lies (Sam Hawke, Bantam) Lightning Tracks (Alethea Kinsela, Plainspeak Publishing) The Witch Who Courted Death (Maria Lewis, Piatkus) We Ride the Storm (Devin Madson, self-published) Best Horror Novel

The Bus on Thursday (Shirley Barrett, A&U) Years of the Wolf (Craig Cormick, IFWG Publishing Australia) Tide of Stone (Kaaron Warren, Omnium Gatherum) Best Graphic Novel/Illustrated Work

Deathship Jenny (Rob O’Connor, self-published) Cicada (Shaun Tan, Lothian) Tales from The Inner City (Shaun Tan, A&U) Best Children’s Fiction

The Relic of the Blue Dragon (Rebecca Lim, A&U) The Slightly Alarming Tales of the Whispering Wars (Jaclyn Moriarty, A&U) The Endsister (Penni Russon, A&U) Secret Guardians (Lian Tanner, A&U) Ting Ting the Ghosthunter (Gabrielle Wang, Puffin) Ottilie Colter and the Narroway Hunt (Rhiannon Williams, Hardie Grant Egmont) Best Young Adult Novel

Small Spaces (Sarah Epstein, Walker) Lifel1k3 (Jay Kristoff, A&U) Catching Teller Crow (Ambelin Kwaymullina & Ezekiel Kwaymullina, A&U) His Name was Walter (Emily Rodda, HarperCollins) A Curse of Ash and Embers (Jo Spurrier, Voyager) Impostors (Scott Westerfeld, A&U) Best Collection

Not Quite the End of the World Just Yet (Peter M Ball, Brain Jar Press) Phantom Limbs (Margo Lanagan, PS Publishing) Tales from The Inner City (Shaun Tan, A&U) Exploring Dark Short Fiction #2: A Primer to Kaaron Warren (Kaaron Warren, Dark Moon Books) Best Anthology

Sword and Sonnet (Aiden Doyle, Rachael K Jones & E Catherine Tobler, Ate Bit Bear) Aurum (Russell B Farr, Ticonderoga Publications) Mother of Invention (Rivqa Rafael & Tansy Rayner Roberts, Twelfth Planet Press) Infinity’s End (Jonathan Strahan, Solaris) The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year (Jonathan Strahan, Solaris) Best Science Fiction Novella

‘I Almost Went To The Library Last Night’ (Joanne Anderton, Aurum, Ticonderoga Publications) The Starling Requiem (Jodi Cleghorn, eMergent Publishing) Icefall (Stephanie Gunn, Twelfth Planet Press) ‘Pinion’ (Stephanie Gunn, Aurum, Ticonderoga Publications) ‘Singles’ Day’ (Samantha Murray, Interzone #277, TTA Press) Static Ruin (Corey J White, Tor.com) Best Science Fiction Short Story

‘The Sixes, The Wisdom and the Wasp’ (E J Delaney, Escape Pod) ‘The Fallen’ (Pamela Jeffs, Red Hour, Four Ink Press) ‘On the Consequences of Clinically-Inhibited Maturation in the Common Sydney Octopus’ (Simon Petrie & Edwina Harvey, A Hand of Knaves, CSFG) ‘A Fair Wind off Baracoa’ (Robert Porteous, A Hand of Knaves, CSFG) ‘The Astronaut’ (Jen White, Aurealis) Best Fantasy Novella

‘This Side of the Wall’ (Michael Gardner, Metaphorosis Magazine, January 2018) ‘Beautiful’ (Juliet Marillier, Aurum, Ticonderoga Publications) ‘The Staff in the Stone’ (Garth Nix, The Book of Magic, Voyager) Merry Happy Valkyrie (Tansy Rayner Roberts, Twelfth Planet Press) ‘The Dressmaker and the Colonel’s Coat’ (David Versace, Mnemo’s Memory and Other Fantastic Tales, self-published) The Dragon’s Child (Janeen Webb, PS Publishing) Best Fantasy Short Story

‘Crying Demon’ (Alan Baxter, Suspended in Dusk 2, Grey Matter Press) ‘Army Men’ (Juliet Marillier, Of Gods and Globes, Lancelot Schaubert) ‘The Further Shore’ (J Ashley Smith, Bourbon Penn #15) ‘Child of the Emptyness’ (Amanda J Spedding, Grimdark Magazine #17) ‘A Moment’s Peace’ (Dave Versace, A Hand of Knaves, CSFG Publishing) ‘Heartwood, Sapwood, Spring’ (Suzanne J Willis, Sword and Sonnet, Ate Bit Bear) Best Horror Novella

‘Andromeda Ascends’ (Matthew R Davis, Beneath the Waves – Tales from the Deep, Things In The Well) ‘Kopura Rising’ (David Kuraria, Cthulhu: Land of the Long White Cloud, IFWG Publishing Australia) ‘The Black Sea’ (Chris Mason, Beneath the Waves – Tales from the Deep, Things In The Well) Triquetra (Kirstyn McDermott, Tor.com) ‘With This Needle I Thee Thread’ (Angela Rega, Aurum, Ticonderoga Publications) Crisis Apparition (Kaaron Warren, Dark Moon Books) Best Horror Short Story

‘The Offering’ (Michael Gardner, Aurealis #112) ‘Slither’ (Jason Nahrung, Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 2, IFWG Publishing Australia) ‘By Kindle Light’ (Jessica Nelson-Tyers, Antipodean SF #235) ‘Hit and Rot’ (Jessica Nelson-Tyers, Breach #08) ‘Sub-Urban’ (Alfie Simpson, Breach #07) ‘The Further Shore’ (J Ashley Smith, Bourbon Penn #15) Best Young Adult Short Story

‘A Robot Like Me’ (Lee Cope, Mother of Invention, Twelfth Planet Press) ‘The Moon Collector’ (D K Mok, Under the Full Moon’s Light, Owl Hollow Press) ‘The Sea-Maker of Darmid Bay’ (Shauna O’Meara, Interzone #277, TTA Press) ‘Eight-Step Koan’ (Anya Ow, Sword and Sonnet, Ate Bit Bear) ‘For Weirdless Days and Weary Nights’ (Deborah Sheldon, Breach #08). Content imported from Blogger https://ift.tt/2H1wA1R. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.

#aurealis awards #australian authors #news #shortlist #books #reviews #book reviews

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readbookywooks · 8 years ago

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The Deathday Party

October arrived, spreading a damp chill over the grounds and into the castle. Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, was kept busy by a sudden spate of colds among the staff and students. Her Pepperup potion worked instantly, though it left the drinker smoking at the ears for several hours afterward. Ginny Weasley, who had been looking pale, was bullied into taking some by Percy. The steam pouring from under her vivid hair gave the impression that her whole head was on fire. Raindrops the size of bullets thundered on the castle windows for days on end; the lake rose, the flower beds turned into muddy streams, and Hagrid's pumpkins swelled to the size of garden sheds. Oliver Wood's enthusiasm for regular training sessions, however, was not dampened, which was why Harry was to be found, late one stormy Saturday afternoon a few days before Halloween, returning to Gryffindor Tower, drenched to the skin and splattered with mud. Even aside from the rain and wind it hadn't been a happy practice session. Fred and George, who had been spying on the Slytherin team, had seen for themselves the speed of those new Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones. They reported that the Slytherin team was no more than seven greenish blurs, shooting through the air like missiles. As Harry squelched along the deserted corridor he came across somebody who looked just as preoccupied as he was. Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost of Gryffindor Tower, was staring morosely out of a window, muttering under his breath, "...don't fulfill their requirements... half an inch, if that..." "Hello, Nick," said Harry. "Hello, hello," said Nearly Headless Nick, starting and looking round. He wore a dashing, plumed hat on his long curly hair, and a tunic with a ruff, which concealed the fact that his neck was almost completely severed. He was pale as smoke, and Harry could see right through him to the dark sky and torrential rain outside. "You look troubled, young Potter," said Nick, folding a transparent letter as he spoke and tucking it inside his doublet. "So do you," said Harry. "Ah," Nearly Headless Nick waved an elegant hand, "a matter of no importance... It's not as though I really wanted to join... Thought I'd apply, but apparently I don't fulfill requirements'-" In spite of his airy tone, there was a look of great bitterness on his face. "But you would think, wouldn't you," he erupted suddenly, pulling the letter back out of his pocket, "that getting hit forty-five times in the neck with a blunt axe would qualify you to join the Headless Hunt?" "Oh - yes," said Harry, who was obviously supposed to agree. "I mean, nobody wishes more than I do that it had all been quick and clean, and my head had come off properly, I mean, it would have saved me a great deal of pain and ridicule. However -" Nearly Headless Nick shook his letter open and read furiously: "We can only accept huntsmen whose heads have parted company with their bodies. You will appreciate that it would be impossible otherwise for members to participate in hunt activities such as Horseback Head-Juggling and Head Polo. It is with the greatest regret, therefore, that I must inform you that you do not fulfill our requirements. With very best wishes, Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore.'" Fuming, Nearly Headless Nick stuffed the letter away. "Half an inch of skin and sinew holding my neck on, Harry! Most people would think that's good and beheaded, but oh, no, it's not enough for Sir Properly Decapitated-Podmore." Nearly Headless Nick took several deep breaths and then said, in a far calmer tone, "So - what's bothering you? Anything I can do?" "No," said Harry. "Not unless you know where we can get seven free Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones for our match against Sly-" The rest of Harry's sentence was drowned out by a high-pitched mewling from somewhere near his ankles. He looked down and found himself gazing into a pair of lamp-like yellow eyes. It was Mrs. Norris, the skeletal gray cat who was used by the caretaker, Argus Filch, as a sort of deputy in his endless battle against students. "You'd better get out of here, Harry," said Nick quickly. "Filch isn't in a good mood - he's got the flu and some third years accidentally plastered frog brains all over the ceiling in dungeon five. He's been cleaning all morning, and if he sees you dripping mud all over the place--" "Right," said Harry, backing away from the accusing stare of Mrs. Norris, but not quickly enough. Drawn to the spot by the mysterious power that seemed to connect him with his foul cat, Argus Filch burst suddenly through a tapestry to Harry's right, wheezing and looking wildly about for the rule-breaker. There was a thick tartan scarf bound around his head, and his nose was unusually purple. "Filth!" he shouted, his jowls aquiver, his eyes popping alarmingly as he pointed at the muddy puddle that had dripped from Harry's Quidditch robes. "Mess and muck everywhere! I've had enough of it, I tell you! Follow me, Potter!" So Harry waved a gloomy good-bye to Nearly Headless Nick and followed Filch back downstairs, doubling the number of muddy footprints on the floor. Harry had never been inside Filch's office before; it was a place most students avoided. The room was dingy and windowless, lit by a single oil lamp dangling from the low ceiling. A faint smell of fried fish lingered about the place. Wooden filing cabinets stood around the walls; from their labels, Harry could see that they contained details of every pupil Filch had ever punished. Fred and George Weasley had an entire drawer to themselves. A highly polished collection of chains and manacles hung on the wall behind Filch's desk. It was common knowledge that he was always begging Dumbledore to let him suspend students by their ankles from the ceiling. Filch grabbed a quill from a pot on his desk and began shuffling around looking for parchment. "Dung," he muttered furiously, "great sizzling dragon bogies... frog brains... rat intestines... I've had enough of it... make an example... where's the form... yes..." He retrieved a large roll of parchment from his desk drawer and stretched it out in front of him, dipping his long black quill into the ink pot. "Name... Harry Potter. Crime..." "It was only a bit of mud!" said Harry. "It's only a bit of mud to you, boy, but to me it's an extra hour scrubbing!" shouted Filch, a drip shivering unpleasantly at the end of his bulbous nose. " Crime... befouling the castle... suggested sentence..." Dabbing at his streaming nose, Filch squinted unpleasantly at Harry who waited with bated breath for his sentence to fall. But as Filch lowered his quill, there was a great BANG! on the ceiling of the office, which made the oil lamp rattle. "PEEVES!" Filch roared, flinging down his quill in a transport of rage. "I'll have you this time, I'll have you!" And without a backward glance at Harry, Filch ran flat-footed from the office, Mrs. Norris streaking alongside him. Peeves was the school poltergeist, a grinning, airborne menace who lived to cause havoc and distress. Harry didn't much like Peeves, but couldn't help feeling grateful for his timing. Hopefully, whatever Peeves had done (and it sounded as though he'd wrecked something very big this time) would distract Filch from Harry. Thinking that he should probably wait for Filch to come back, Harry sank into a moth-eaten chair next to the desk. There was only one thing on it apart from his half-completed form: a large, glossy, purple envelope with silver lettering on the front. With a quick glance at the door to check that Filch wasn't on his way back, Harry picked up the envelope and read: Kwikspell A Correspondence Course in Beginners'Magic. Intrigued, Harry flicked the envelope open and pulled out the sheaf of parchment inside. More curly silver writing on the front page said: Feel out of step in the world of modern magic? Find yourself making excuses not to perform simple spells? Ever been taunted for your woeful wandwork? There is an answer! Kwikspell is an all-new, fail-safe, quick-result, easy-learn course. Hundreds of witches and wizards have benefited from the Kwikspell method! Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: "I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke! Now, after a Kwikspell course, I am the center of attention at parties and friends beg for the recipe of my Scintillation Solution!" Warlock D. J. Prod of Didsbury says: "My wife used to sneer at my feeble charms, but one month into your fabulous Kwikspell course and I succeeded in turning her into a yak! Thank you, Kwikspell!" Fascinated, Harry thumbed through the rest of the envelope's contents. Why on earth did Filch want a Kwikspell course? Did this mean he wasn't a proper wizard? Harry was just reading "Lesson One: Holding Your Wand (Some Useful Tips)" when shuffling footsteps outside told him Filch was coming back. Stuffing the parchment back into the envelope, Harry threw it back onto the desk just as the door opened. Filch was looking triumphant. "That vanishing cabinet was extremely valuable!" he was saying gleefully to Mrs. Norris. "We'll have Peeves out this time, my sweet--" His eyes fell on Harry and then darted to the Kwikspell envelope, which, Harry realized too late, was lying two feet away from where it had started. Filch's pasty face went brick red. Harry braced himself for a tidal wave of fury. Filch hobbled across to his desk, snatched up the envelope, and threw it into a drawer. "Have you - did you read -?" he sputtered. "No," Harry lied quickly. Filch's knobbly hands were twisting together. "If I thought you'd read my private -not that it's mine - for a friend - be that as it may - however--" Harry was staring at him, alarmed; Filch had never looked madder. His eyes were popping, a tic was going in one of his pouchy cheeks, and the tartan scarf didn't help. "Very well - go - and don't breathe a word - not that - however, if you didn't read - go now, I have to write up Peeves'report - go--" Amazed at his luck, Harry sped out of the office, up the corridor, and back upstairs. To escape from Filch's office without punishment was probably some kind of school record. "Harry! Harry! Did it work?" Nearly Headless Nick came gliding out of a classroom. Behind him, Harry could see the wreckage of a large black-and-gold cabinet that appeared to have been dropped from a great height. "I persuaded Peeves to crash it right over Filch's office," said Nick eagerly. "Thought it might distract him--" "Was that you?" said Harry gratefully. "Yeah, it worked, I didn't even get detention. Thanks, Nick!" They set off up the corridor together. Nearly Headless Nick, Harry noticed, was still holding Sir Patrick's rejection letter... "I wish there was something I could do for you about the Headless Hunt," Harry said. Nearly Headless Nick stopped in his tracks and Harry walked right through him. He wished he hadn't; it was like stepping through an icy shower. "But there is something you could do for me," said Nick excitedly. "Harry - would I be asking too much - but no, you wouldn't want--" "What is it?" said Harry. "Well, this Halloween will be my five hundredth deathday," said Nearly Headless Nick, drawing himself up and looking dignified. "Oh," said Harry, not sure whether he should look sorry or happy about this. "Right." "I'm holding a party down in one of the roomier dungeons. Friends will be coming from all over the country. It would be such an honor if you would attend. Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger would be most welcome, too, of course - but I daresay you'd rather go to the school feast?" He watched Harry on tenterhooks. "No," said Harry quickly, "I'll come--" "My dear boy! Harry Potter, at my deathday party! And -" he hesitated, looking excited "- do you think you could possibly mention to Sir Patrick how very frightening and impressive you find me?" "Of - of course," said Harry. Nearly Headless Nick beamed at him. "A deathday party?" said Hermione keenly when Harry had changed at last and joined her and Ron in the common room. "I bet there aren't many living people who can say they've been to one of those - it'll be fascinating!" "Why would anyone want to celebrate the day they died?" said Ron, who was halfway through his Potions homework and grumpy. "Sounds dead depressing to me..." Rain was still lashing the windows, which were now inky black, but inside all looked bright and cheerful. The firelight glowed over the countless squashy armchairs where people sat reading, talking, doing homework or, in the case of Fred and George Weasley, trying to find out what would happen if you fed a Filibuster firework to a salamander. Fred had "rescued" the brilliant orange, fire-dwelling lizard from a Care of Magical Creatures class and it was now smouldering gently on a table surrounded by a knot of curious people. Harry was at the point of telling Ron and Hermione about Filch and the Kwikspell course when the salamander suddenly whizzed into the air, emitting loud sparks and bangs as it whirled wildly round the room. The sight of Percy bellowing himself hoarse at Fred and George, the spectacular display of tangerine stars showering from the salamander's mouth, and its escape into the fire, with accompanying explosions, drove both Filch and the Kwikspell envelope from Harry's mind. By the time Halloween arrived, Harry was regretting his rash promise to go to the deathday party. The rest of the school was happily anticipating their Halloween feast; the Great Hall had been decorated with the usual live bats, Hagrid's vast pumpkins had been carved into lanterns large enough for three men to sit in, and there were rumors that Dumbledore had booked a troupe of dancing skeletons for the entertainment. "A promise is a promise," Hermione reminded Harry bossily. "You said you'd go to the deathday party." So at seven o'clock, Harry, Ron, and Hermione walked straight past the doorway to the packed Great Hall, which was glittering invitingly with gold plates and candles, and directed their steps instead toward the dungeons. The passageway leading to Nearly Headless Nick's party had been lined with candles, too, though the effect was far from cheerful: These were long, thin, jet-black tapers, all burning bright blue, casting a dim, ghostly light even over their own living faces. The temperature dropped with every step they took. As Harry shivered and drew his robes tightly around him, he heard what sounded like a thousand fingernails scraping an enormous blackboard. "Is that supposed to be music?" Ron whispered. They turned a corner and saw Nearly Headless Nick standing at a doorway hung with black velvet drapes. "My dear friends," he said mournfully. "Welcome, welcome... so pleased you could come..." He swept off his plumed hat and bowed them inside. It was an incredible sight. The dungeon was full of hundreds of pearly-white, translucent people, mostly drifting around a crowded dance floor, waltzing to the dreadful, quavering sound of thirty musical saws, played by an orchestra on a raised, black-draped platform. A chandelier overhead blazed midnight-blue with a thousand more black candles. Their breath rose in a mist before them; it was like stepping into a freezer. "Shall we have a look around?" Harry suggested, wanting to warm up his feet. "Careful not to walk through anyone," said Ron nervously, and they set off around the edge of the dance floor. They passed a group of gloomy nuns, a ragged man wearing chains, and the Fat Friar, a cheerful Hufflepuff ghost, who was talking to a knight with an arrow sticking out of his forehead. Harry wasn't surprised to see that the Bloody Baron, a gaunt, staring Slytherin ghost covered in silver bloodstains, was being given a wide berth by the other ghosts. "Oh, no," said Hermione, stopping abruptly. "Turn back, turn back, I don't want to talk to Moaning Myrtle--" "Who?" said Harry as they backtracked quickly. "She haunts one of the toilets in the girls'bathroom on the first floor," said Hermione. "She haunts a toilet?" "Yes. It's been out-of-order all year because she keeps having tantrums and flooding the place. I never went in there anyway if I could avoid it; it's awful trying to have a pee with her wailing at you--" "Look, food!" said Ron. On the other side of the dungeon was a long table, also covered in black velvet. They approached it eagerly but next moment had stopped in their tracks, horrified. The smell was quite disgusting. Large, rotten fish were laid on handsome silver platters; cakes, burned charcoal-black, were heaped on salvers; there was a great maggoty haggis, a slab of cheese covered in furry green mold and, in pride of place, an enormous gray cake in the shape of a tombstone, with tar-like icing forming the words, SIR NICHOLAS DE MIMSY-PORPINGTON DIED 31ST OCTOBER, 1492 Harry watched, amazed, as a portly ghost approached the table, crouched low, and walked through it, his mouth held wide so that it passed through one of the stinking salmon. "Can you taste it if you walk though it?" Harry asked him. "Almost," said the ghost sadly, and he drifted away. "I expect they've let it rot to give it a stronger flavor," said Hermione knowledgeably, pinching her nose and leaning closer to look at the putrid haggis. "Can we move? I feel sick," said Ron. They had barely turned around, however, when a little man swooped suddenly from under the table and came to a halt in midair before them. "Hello, Peeves," said Harry cautiously. Unlike the ghosts around them, Peeves the Poltergeist was the very reverse of pale and transparent. He was wearing a bright orange party hat, a revolving bow tie, and a broad grin on his wide, wicked face. "Nibbles?" he said sweetly, offering them a bowl of peanuts covered in fungus. "No thanks," said Hermione. "Heard you talking about poor Myrtle," said Peeves, his eyes dancing. " Rude you was about poor Myrtle." He took a deep breath and bellowed, "OY! MYRTLE!" "Oh, no, Peeves, don't tell her what I said, she'll be really upset," Hermione whispered frantically. "I didn't mean it, I don't mind her - er, hello, Myrtle." The squat ghost of a girl had glided over. She had the glummest face Harry had ever seen, half-hidden behind lank hair and thick, pearly spectacles. "What?" she said sulkily. "How are you, Myrtle?" said Hermione in a falsely bright voice. "It's nice to see you out of the toilet." Myrtle sniffed. "Miss Granger was just talking about you -" said Peeves slyly in Myrtle's ear. "Just saying--" "Just saying - saying - how nice you look tonight," said Hermione, glaring at Peeves. Myrtle eyed Hermione suspiciously. "You're making fun of me," she said, silver tears welling rapidly in her small, see-through eyes. "No - honestly - didn't I just say how nice Myrtle's looking?" said Hermione, nudging Harry and Ron painfully in the ribs. "Oh, yeah--" "She did--" "Don't lie to me," Myrtle gasped, tears now flooding down her face, while Peeves chuckled happily over her shoulder. "D'you think I don't know what people call me behind my back? Fat Myrtle! Ugly Myrtle! Miserable, moaning, moping Myrtle!" "You've forgotten pimply," Peeves hissed in her ear. Moaning Myrtle burst into anguished sobs and fled from the dungeon. Peeves shot after her, pelting her with moldy peanuts, yelling, " Pimply! Pimply! " "Oh, dear," said Hermione sadly. Nearly Headless Nick now drifted toward them through the crowd. "Enjoying yourselves?" "Oh, yes," they lied. "Not a bad turnout," said Nearly Headless Nick proudly. "The Wailing Widow came all the way up from Kent... It's nearly time for my speech, I'd better go and warn the orchestra..." The orchestra, however, stopped playing at that very moment. They, and everyone else in the dungeon, fell silent, looking around in excitement, as a hunting horn sounded. "Oh, here we go," said Nearly Headless Nick bitterly. Through the dungeon wall burst a dozen ghost horses, each ridden by a headless horseman. The assembly clapped wildly; Harry started to clap, too, but stopped quickly at the sight of Nick's face. The horses galloped into the middle of the dance floor and halted, rearing and plunging. At the front of the pack was a large ghost who held his bearded head under his arm, from which position he was blowing the horn. The ghost leapt down, lifted his head high in the air so he could see over the crowd (everyone laughed), and strode over to Nearly Headless Nick, squashing his head back onto his neck. "Nick!" he roared. "How are you? Head still hanging in there?" He gave a hearty guffaw and clapped Nearly Headless Nick on the shoulder. "Welcome, Patrick," said Nick stiffly. "Live uns!" said Sir Patrick, spotting Harry, Ron, and Hermione and giving a huge, fake jump of astonishment, so that his head fell off again (the crowd howled with laughter). "Very amusing," said Nearly Headless Nick darkly. "Don't mind Nick!" shouted Sir Patrick's head from the floor. "Still upset we won't let him join the Hunt! But I mean to say - look at the fellow--" "I think," said Harry hurriedly, at a meaningful look from Nick, "Nick's very - frightening and - er--" "Ha!" yelled Sir Patrick's head. "Bet he asked you to say that!" "If I could have everyone's attention, it's time for my speech!" said Nearly Headless Nick loudly, striding toward the podium and climbing into an icy blue spotlight. "My late lamented lords, ladies, and gentlemen, it is my great sorrow..." But nobody heard much more. Sir Patrick and the rest of the Headless Hunt had just started a game of Head Hockey and the crowd were turning to watch. Nearly Headless Nick tried vainly to recapture his audience, but gave up as Sir Patrick's head went sailing past him to loud cheers. Harry was very cold by now, not to mention hungry. "I can't stand much more of this," Ron muttered, his teeth chattering, as the orchestra ground back into action and the ghosts swept back onto the dance floor. "Let's go," Harry agreed. They backed toward the door, nodding and beaming at anyone who looked at them, and a minute later were hurrying back up the passageway full of black candles. "Pudding might not be finished yet," said Ron hopefully, leading the way toward the steps to the entrance hall. And then Harry heard it. "... rip... tear... kill..." It was the same voice, the same cold, murderous voice he had heard in Lockhart's office. He stumbled to a halt, clutching at the stone wall, listening with all his might, looking around, squinting up and down the dimly lit passageway. "Harry, what're you -?" "It's that voice again - shut up a minute--" "... soo hungry... for so long..." "Listen!" said Harry urgently, and Ron and Hermione froze, watching him. "... kill... time to kill..." The voice was growing fainter. Harry was sure it was moving away - moving upward. A mixture of fear and excitement gripped him as he stared at the dark ceiling; how could it be moving upward? Was it a phantom, to whom stone ceilings didn't matter? "This way," he shouted, and he began to run, up the stairs, into the entrance hall. It was no good hoping to hear anything here, the babble of talk from the Halloween feast was echoing out of the Great Hall. Harry sprinted up the marble staircase to the first floor, Ron and Hermione clattering behind him. "Harry, what're we--" "SHH!" Harry strained his ears. Distantly, from the floor above, and growing fainter still, he heard the voice: "... I smell blood... I SMELL BLOOD!" His stomach lurched-- "It's going to kill someone!" he shouted, and ignoring Ron's and Hermione's bewildered faces, he ran up the next flight of steps three at a time, trying to listen over his own pounding footsteps - Harry hurtled around the whole of the second floor, Ron and Hermione panting behind him, not stopping until they turned a corner into the last, deserted passage. "Harry, what was that all about?" said Ron, wiping sweat off his face. "I couldn't hear anything..." But Hermione gave a sudden gasp, pointing down the corridor. "Look! " Something was shining on the wall ahead. They approached slowly, squinting through the darkness. Foot-high words had been daubed on the wall between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by the flaming torches. THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE "What's that thing - hanging underneath?" said Ron, a slight quiver in his voice. As they edged nearer, Harry almost slipped - there was a large puddle of water on the floor; Ron and Hermione grabbed him, and they inched toward the message, eyes fixed on a dark shadow beneath it. All three of them realized what it was at once, and leapt backward with a splash. Mrs. Norris, the caretaker's cat, was hanging by her tail from the torch bracket. She was stiff as a board, her eyes wide and staring. For a few seconds, they didn't move. Then Ron said, "Let's get out of here." "Shouldn't we try and help -" Harry began awkwardly. "Trust me," said Ron. "We don't want to be found here." But it was too late. A rumble, as though of distant thunder, told them that the feast had just ended. From either end of the corridor where they stood came the sound of hundreds of feet climbing the stairs, and the loud, happy talk of well-fed people; next moment, students were crashing into the passage from both ends. The chatter, the bustle, the noise died suddenly as the people in front spotted the hanging cat. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stood alone, in the middle of the corridor, as silence fell among the mass of students pressing forward to see the grisly sight. Then someone shouted through the quiet. "Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods!" It was Draco Malfoy. He had pushed to the front of the crowd, his cold eyes alive, his usually bloodless face flushed, as he grinned at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat.

#ChamberofSecrets #HarryPotter

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annabelaplit · 8 years ago

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What I did this weekend

I meant to write a blog post about living death in A Tale of Two Cities, but instead I have spent my time writing numerous essays for scholarship competitions, working a memoir for my creative writing class, and calling Bingo with some very lovely old people at a nursing home. I love AP Lit but I only have so much time to analyze Charles Dickens so it seems I must throw of my 2 to 1 literature focused to personal posting ratio. So here is all the stuff I wrote the weekend.

We the Students Scholarship Essay Contest:

Civil disobedience is the act of opposing a law one considers unjust and peacefully disobeying it while accepting the consequences. Does peaceful resistance to laws positively or negatively impact a free society? In your answer, incorporate the principles and specific examples (including current events) that support your conclusion. 500-800 words

Philosopher John Locke once wrote that, “No man ...has a power to hand over their preservation...to the absolute will and arbitrary dominion of someone else”. He meant that the inviolable rights of a people are greater than the demands of a government and his words ring true today. In the modern era people can fight “arbitrary dominion” through democratic election, vocal condemnation, and most controversially civil disobedience. The practice of deliberate defiance has netted much criticism for its seeming disregard for a country’s rule of law. Yet, a free society is one in which people have the power to exercise their rights, and in choosing not to follow unjust laws, they only strengthen society’s institutions.

Injustice in legislation is an unfortunate side-effect of government; the constantly shifting boundaries of morality mean it can never perfectly align with the law. Examples of this abound throughout history, whether it be the Fugitive Slave Acts of the United States which demanded runaway slaves be returned to their masters without trial, or the Criminal Tribes Act passed in India under the British Empire which branded large swaths of the population of “hereditary criminals” and forced them to relocate. Members of a free society ought not to have their right to justice forcibly forfeited or their right to liberty declared non-essential. Yet these breaches of moral conduct can happen in the most progressive of nations. The controversy lies in how people ought to respond to attacks on their inviolable rights.

In his famous Second Treatise of Civil Government, philosopher John Locke described the social contract of government as “giv[ing] up the equality, liberty, and executive power [men have] in the state of nature. . .with the intention of better preserving himself, his liberty and property”. Individuals relinquish their absolute freedom and agree to follow laws because a government can protect one’s liberties far better than individuals. Thus, a free society is one in which its government ensures the basic rights of its citizens while maximizing their right to liberty. But what happens if a government neglects its purpose and passes laws that curtail both autonomy and natural rights? Locke writes, “All power that is given with trust for attaining a certain end is limited by that purpose; when the purpose is obviously neglected or opposed by the legislature·, the trust is automatically forfeited and the power returns into the hands of those who gave it”. When governmental power is used incorrectly, the social contract is broken and people no longer have an obligation to obey unjust laws. Defending freedom requires exercising a right to disobey.

The past is rich with examples of people utilizing civil disobedience to affect positive change in their society. Mahatma Gandhi employed a campaign of peaceful resistance in the first half of the twentieth to receive so that India could be independent from Great Britain and possess institutions that protected the rights of its people. Just a few years later, American civil rights organizations continued this approach, organizing sit-ins and marches to force governments to change their unequal policies. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote that civil disobedience, “ seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue”. It uses the power of the people to force institutional action. Civil disobedience tactics can be just as effective today, just look at Cedric Herrou a French farmer who illegally transported African migrants into France for humanitarian reasons. Put on trial in January for his open lawbreaking and refusal to stop, he was given a lenient sentence, the New York Times reports, because, “of widespread discomfort with the law”. Even as I write this civil disobedience is pushing boundaries, forcing free societies to uphold their sacred principles.

To summarize, refusing to follow an unjust law affirms the basic tenets of a free society. History and morality both serve to show that governments are always prone to enact policies which restrict liberties instead of protecting them. But such rules do not align with the sole purpose of government and obeying them forces one to turn their back on what it means to value freedom. When one resists through civil disobedience they work to draw attention and force the change of injustice, continuing the legacy of some of history’s most venerated figures. Furthermore, civil disobedience is nonviolent and harms almost no one; it uses moral means to achieve a moral end, Those who fight injustice through peaceful resistance prove themselves to be better than the people they resist. A free society must have liberty in more than just action, one’s morality must be unimpeded, one’s conscience free from inflicting unintentional injustice. Thus, civil disobedience can incur little but positive benefit.

Creative Writing Memoir

Jamie, I don’t think they like me. They aren’t mean, the rest of the world, there have been no insults, cruel laughter in my face, disgusted sneers when I move past. It’s more of an apathy, a quiet tolerance that will never morph into something more. It’s as if I am wearing a suit of armour, heavy metal shielding my true self and weighing me down as I move through the hall. There are a few chinks in chainmail, certain people have caught glimpses of what lies underneath, but even they remain clueless about my actual thoughts and feelings. Nobody knows me and nobody sees me. Nobody Jamie, except you.

You Jamie, you were my bravest act. Striding across that fourth grade playground strewn with woodchips and castles of swing and slide, every thought in my head screamed at me to turn back. Yet I climbed onto one of the plastic fortresses, stared level into your chestnut colored eyes, asked if maybe I could play with you. A piece of the armour came loose that day, and as our friendship developed more and more fell off until you could see just about all of me. Jamie you were the first person to discover who I really was, and Jamie you stayed.

You stayed my friend all through fourth grade, and through fifth grade when you were popular and sat on the playground holding court. You stayed my friend through middle school, even though I sported purple tracksuits and refused to wash my hair. In the sixth grade your absence at a health club meeting drove me to claw the back of my right hand until it bled and left a permanent scar. The next day when you saw the wound you didn’t ask any questions, you just sat down beside me and offered me a scone from McDonald’s. You did more than stay my friend, you were my sister at the medieval festival, my roommate at ecology camp. You showed me your secret voice, the one that was deeper, less sweet, sounded like it was for a corny cartoon with a single viewer. I was sharp and dangerous, the pointed tip at the end of a lance, but year after year you risked getting cut just to be my friend.

Jamie, you kept me tethered when I changed schools just before freshman year and I would lurch through the halls of TA in armour so heavy that it rendered me almost immobile.

Whole weeks would pass before anyone offered a word in my direction, and the only thing that quelled the ache of loneliness was opening my laptop and seeing a spotify message from you. Jamie, we engaged in all caps arguments about anagrams and stick-throwing witches, chronicled every moment of our disparate school days, but it was the causal messages, the “hey bestfriend” that kept me on my quest. Last summer I woke up every day across the room from you in our cozy red cabin, and I danced with you in the orange moonlight on that abandoned beach, more alive than I had ever been in my life. Jamie, that night when I was trapped in a labyrinthine dungeon of hopelessness and misery, you tracked me to those steps facing the marsh, and refused to leave my side until I was ready to go to bed. Gallantry and chivalry don’t touch your actions; the debt I owe you is feudal, a lifetime in the labor of friendship can never repay it.

Jamie, we will return to that cozy cabin in this first year of the rest of our lives. We will lock ourselves in dormitory bathrooms and call each other daily. We will rent that crappy Boston apartment as we struggle through grad school. We will buy those neighboring suburban houses, and our kids will fall in love and get married. Jamie with you in my life, this armour can never weigh me down. Bring on the armies, bring on the joust, I have my squire and steward and shield. Let the world ignore me, let it pass me by, all I need is a friend whose eyes are like the dark brown jagged edged, wood chips strewn on the playground where we first met.

Jamie this is your ode, your epic poem, your legend in the style of King Arthur. For the world may not have named you a knight, but trust me when I say that you have slain dragons. For a thousand days you have rescued the damsel in distress, been the only one who could pull Excalibur out of the rock. Jamie Delaney, you are the only person who has ever truly known me, and every day I work to be worthy of the honor of knowing you.

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originaldetectivesheep · 8 years ago

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Year in Review - Books I Read In 2016

In between writing three books this year, I read a hundred or so book-equivalents of other people's work. About half of these were read while traveling; I read fast and spent a lot of this year on or waiting for airplanes. Most of these are extremely old and not many of them were great, but casting a wide net can produce unexpected results; 2017 just from what I already have available is going to likely be dominated by more Gutenberg-grinding, but I'm also going to try to get farther outside the box and continue to work on picking up more diverse and widespread influences.

John Buchan - Witch Wood Buchan took a long leap away from his typical hard-bitten inter-war suspense plots for this historical romance set in 17th century Scotland, a time of witch hunts, plague, and disputes between hardcore Calvinists and even-crazier hardcore Calvinists that occasionally flared up into actual civil war. The language is a little clunky, and there is a lot of impenetrable Scots dialect that isn't translated, but in terms of total quality it's not greatly different from his Hannay stuff. If you like Buchan's pacing, but tend to lose patience with the public-school-Toryism of a lot of his lead characters, you might want to take a look at this one, which is far enough removed from modern politics that he's out of that mode. He only did something like this the once, so it maybe wasn't a commercially-successful experiment, but it's an interesting one all the same.

Abraham Merritt - various short stories While cleaning up my pile of Gutenberg Australia texts, I read through a bunch of Merritt's stuff. The quality was kind of intermittent, but what really struck me was how relatively non-racist it was, for a guy in this time period writing through a bunch of east-Asian subjects. Edgar Wallace or Edgar Rice Burroughs would have been terrible on this stuff. The best one of these stories is probably "The Fox Woman", with "The Women of the Wood" being pretty solid as well. "The Drone" is a little disposable, "The People of the Pit" is a worse version of Lovecraft's "At The Mountains of Madness", and "Through the Dragon Glass" is trying too hard, dumping in a bucket of Orientalist cliches where a teaspoon would have been enough.

Ellis Parker Butler - Philo Gubb, collected More people should be more aware of the adventures of Philo Gubb, the determined-but-derpy detective and wallpaper-hanger from Riverside, Iowa. A lot of people parody Sherlock Holmes, but what Parker Butler's parodying here is Holmes mania. Step by step, Gubb actually does solve his mysteries like a less hilarious detective; he's just living in the universe of absurdity that comes with being a wallpaper installer with a correspondence-school detective certificate as a main character. The twist endings are all pretty clever, and the dialect in dialogue doesn't obstruct the humor; of these, the "Greatest Case" is probably the best, for both its extremely well-crafted setup, and then the hilarious end where Gubb literally falls ass backward into the resolution of the case.

Joseph Conrad - A Set of Six This was the first larger thing that I completely finished reading in 2016; if I recall correctly, I started Witch Wood at the very end of '15. There are some parts that felt like a re-read, but you read a lot of Conrad getting a reasonable education in the English-speaking world, so that might have been it; some of these are probably in Tales of Unrest, another collection I read back in '13. This is one of his classic collections, and it definitely earns it: "Gaspar Ruiz" is not the strongest, and is overwrought in the way that people who don't like Conrad frequently criticize him for being, but "The Informer" and "An Anarchist" should be mandatory, and "The Duel" is good not just for the psychological characterizations, but in the way that he weaves in and presents the whole Napoleonic era.

L. Roy Terwilliger - Cuban Folk-Lore My dad sent me this ethnographic thing at the end of January for little immediately-discernable reason, and since it was short and I had some time burning backups, I read it down. I got a couple ideas out of it, but it's wicked old (late 19th century, probably before the American conquest), as racist as anything from that time period and with the usual intermittent methodology and absent sourcing, and the actual content describing local practices is not enormously novel to someone who's even a little familiar with Afro-Catholic syncretic practices from the Caribbean. It's short, though, so that's maybe something.

Joseph Conrad - Twixt Land and Sea I finished this faster than I thought I would, again at the laundromat, and can heartily recommend it. "The Secret Sharer" is in here, for one, and that should be enough, but the final story, "The Lady of the Isles", is a damn masterpiece. It's still, as noted above, a little wrought in places, but Conrad's language, man, his knack of locating exactly the perfect word in his fourth goddamn language to build exactly the right impression -- even if his psychology can get a little wrought, it's worth reading Conrad just to read him. And -- and this sticks out especially in this last tale -- in Conrad as in very, very few of his contemporaries, stylistic or chronological, everybody in the story is always a fully-paid-up human being. The men, of whatever nation, the women, the "natives" -- they all have their foibles and their failings, but they're all fully human and always worthy of the reader or the narrator's respect. If Conrad in himself isn't enough to get you to read him, that bit ought to be: and the rewards will pay off, intensely.

Shelagh Delaney - A Taste of Honey I read this as a consequence of doing research for a Linksshifter story, and enjoyed it well enough, even though it really needs a director's hand to transform the lines and inconsistent, weirdly placed directions into an actual dramatic performance. While the hellish conditions of pre-slum-clearance Salford are no longer current, I've seen enough historical stuff from the bad parts of Glasgow at the time the play was written to fill them in, and I seriously know like all of the main characters in this story. Jimmie and Geoff are fairly stock and generic, but Helen, Jo, and Peter are real people I could easily cast just from the circles of people I know from the north of England and the Irish diaspora. Maybe that gives it more kick than it might have for other people, but at least from my perspective this is more than just a kitchen-sink drama.

Piotyr Kropotkin - Mutual Aid This took up most of February and nearly all of March at the laundromat, but is well worth the long, long read. Some of Kropotkin's zoology is a little shaky, and his ethnography and sociology are probably out of date, but this isn't a textbook, and wasn't even when it was written. If you don't take it too literally, though, this is a treasure trove of practical, well-referenced information supporting the now well-populated fields of inquiry into cooperation and altruism in biological evolution and human society. Not all of it is correct or complete, but the sheer volume of evidence crushes the life out of Spencerian/social-Darwinist arguments as not remotely correct or complete either. That this is normal and familiar instead of revolutionary is just an indication of how much better we've gotten, in the last hundred or so years, at not being dicks to each other out of misunderstood interpretations of science.

Piotyr Kropotkin - The Conquest of Bread The style of this tract has oddly aged better than the content. Kropotkin's rigorous anti-racism and anti-sexism put him streets ahead of nearly all his contemporaries, but his ideas about how agriculture works were at the trailing edge even at the time. The heart of the agro-mech revolution then in process -- admittedly not in Russia, where he did most of his field observation -- was that people who were specialists in their fields could increase production by knowing the fields and machinery inside and out, and Kropotkin wants to change that out for mechanics and professors and ditch-diggers working rotating part-time shifts. This is dumb, but the basic idea -- that work and production and opportunity should be spread as evenly as possible -- is still relevant. The moment of anarchism has probably passed, but the post-scarcity, post-employment society is still coming, and if we don't put in some kind of implementation of Kropotkin's ideas, we're going to be looking up at this book instead of down.

Piotyr Kropotkin - The Place of Anarchism In Socialistic Evolution A speech or tract rather than a full book, this still was on my Kindle this year and still got read. As always, Kropotkin glosses over how independent organization is supposed to guarantee fair distribution of stuff without turning into government or corporations, but the principles are sound and vital: that what we want to do is get away from a society where people devour each other and toward one based on being nice to other people via education and more cultural interconnections, to make sure that where there is no scarcity, no one is deprived, and to reduce crime and social problems by reducing inequality. There is still no implementation in any of this, but when capitalists and governments alike are seriously mooting the idea of basic income as a real, humane replacement for employment in automated-out jobs and the current paternalistic, judgy, inadequate safety net, it's definitely time for another look at Kropotkin.

Laurence Donovan - Moon Riders Stepping around actually naming the Klan, this novella is the FBI versus the Klan in a little town in the mountain West circa 1920; taut and relentlessly violent, it was a nice palate cleanser after nearly two solid months of academic anarchism. The characters are mostly cardboard, and the love interest is transparent, circumstantial, and virtually unnecessary, but this is pulp, and pulp gon pulp. It's pretty good pulp for all that, though, and a quick read regardless.

Laurence Donovan - Pin Up Girl Murders This story is too busy for its wordcount: ramming a spy heist, a murder, another incidental killing, and two love-affair betrayals into barely enough pages for a novella makes everything far too complicated, and there is too much twee drawing-room-detective bullshit in it to fit either the space constraints on the narrative or Donovan's two-fisted, red-blooded style. You can barely do a mystery where forensics are relevant in this little space, and dumping a bunch of wordcount on setting up the love triangles does not help. This is disordered crap that keeps tripping over its own feet.

Minna Sundberg - Stand Still, Stay Silent Book 1 As awesome as SSSS is on the internet, it is even more beautiful on the printed page -- and in this form, the prologue especially hits like a ton of bricks. This is barely the start of a story that continues to build and grow, but this tome doesn't need to wait for the rest of it to be complete. Sundberg's infinite passion for scene painting rules all and pops from cover to cover; the story, good as it is, is almost incidental to the art. SSSS isn't ideally perfect (that Washington Post award was a make-up call for passing on A Redtail's Dream, not for this still-unfinished work), and people coming into the story cold will probably notice a lot of stuff in the prologue that can be read much more darkly about author intent than is likely to be the case, but if you can get past that, there's a lot of reward waiting here.

Laurence Donovan - Whispering Death I have some longer-form Donovan that is not loaded up yet, and after this one, I really want to get to it and see what he can do when he doesn't have to go backwards. The constraint of pulp writing means that you have to start with a hook or sting -- like here, a shot-up patrol face-down in no-man's-land with German bullets whistling over their heads -- but in the middle of that action Donovan has to back up via flashback to do his love interest, and this really breaks up the flow of the narration. This one's good enough, but if there was more forward or just less backward, it would turn out better.

Marie Corelli - A Romance of Two Worlds I'd loaded Corelli's works onto my device for the Russia trip three years ago, but only gotten to the first of them, this one, just now. It's very easy to write off her style and subjects as overblown and tired theosophic crap -- the mystic, gnostic "Electric Christianity" in this one could have been written as a satire of the new religious movements between 1848 and 1914 -- but there's good stuff in here as well. Corelli wasn't writing a lesbian relationship between Zara and the narrator, but I defy modern audiences to read it as anything but; as a male writer, reading women writing women in love with women gives me a perspective that's distinctly outside my experience -- one reason among many that I need to read more women more often. I read enough crap male writers: not reading women writers because they happen to be mawkish theosophical women writers isn't going to wash. That said, this book is about three books glued together badly, and full of poorly-reasoned gnostic garbage and bad science. If you have better woman writers at your disposal, read their stuff first.

Perley Poore Sheehan - Captain Trouble A marginally bearable hodgepodge of orientalist crap written at about a fourth-grade level that will frequently sound hilarious to the modern ear (if you know, like, anything about China and/or central Asia at all), the Captain Trouble stories are not quite at the Dan-Brown "The famous man looked at the red cup" level of shittiness, but an author who can put up "The Chuds ate human flesh. The Chuds lived in caves. The Chuds were a cross of bears and bats." as consecutive sentences is getting pretty damn close. You will get a brain cramp if you read too much of this; as far as I can tell, the correct order (I got these from Gutenberg and had to re-collect them) should be something like: The Fighting Fool Where Terror Lurked The Red Road to Shamballah The Green Shiver Spider Tong The Black Abbot The Chinese in use throughout these stories is somewhere between "archaic", "geographically inappropriate", "mistranslated", and "plain wrong", but occasionally you can see what Sheehan was going for and how he got it right, or almost did in his poorly-preserved pinyin. The racism is mostly of the "funny foreigners" type rather than the kick-em-while-they're-down shit; these features combine for a story cycle that is today still antiquated and problematic, but was a goddamned model of progress and equality in its time and pulp context.

Perley Poore Sheehan - Monsieur de Guise A bare sketch of fantasy, this space-filling creeper is probably not worth your attention. Sheehan is not great at description generally, and his American swamp feels less real than his Chinese deserts. This does not have a lot going for it other than being short and probably can be safely skipped.

Perley Poore Sheehan - Kwa and the Ape People On the surface, this is yet another wannabe Tarzan, thoroughly possessed of the racist conceit that white people are so super-awesome that, if brought up in "savage" circumstances, they will necessarily become super god-heroes in that world. And yet, this is infinitely better than Tarzan on the axes of taking Africans seriously as human beings, and of not treating African animals as monsters or an inexhaustible font of murder victims. The fight with Sobek that opens the book is a great piece of naturalistic writing, from observation and from the literature on crocodilians, and later parts that are more spoilery to discuss here show that Sheehan was willing to put in the work on at least some bits of African folklore and language rather than just making shit up. Burroughs got in first and poisoned the well, but of the lesser Tarzans, Kwa is the best I've encountered so far.

Perley Poore Sheehan - Kwa and the Beast Men Well, that didn't last too long. This shorter Kwa adventure is purer Tarzan-ripoff shit, probably from commercial considerations; pulp audiences didn't want to read about real animals or real anthropology, they wanted to see White Dudes kicking the shit out of Darkest Africa. Sheehan's patent inability to describe things leaves you with zero picture of the Beast Men from the title, despite the huge role they play in the narrative; the lack of any kind of structure in the animal-telepathy bits is similarly unhelpful. Ignore this garbage, re-read ...Ape People.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - Parasite Planet I was initially pretty hot about some bad mistakes in the science up front (Venus is not tidally locked to the Sun), but got over it (this wasn't discovered until radar astronomy came in in the '60s) and eventually warmed up to this formulaic but well-done adventure of life on the rocket frontier. The world-building is good and seldom overruns the narrative, and while the gender roles are pretty '40s, at least it's not '20s. If I can keep getting relatively solid science and relatively good writing, it's going to be a good thing I've got more Weinbaum on the stack.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - Proteus Island Back on earth, Weinbaum can't avoid the taint of the racism of his day, which may make the start and the abuse of the Maori guides a little hard to take. However, if you fight through it, you get a really neat story about biological variation with some, as usual, nearly correct science at the foot of the science fiction. I'm not a fan of the "explain everything in the epilogue" school, but it does tie up a lot of the mystery here; if more of this could have been done in-narration and a harder climax hit, this story would probably work better. Maybe back in the day people put up with more falling action generally, dunno.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - Pygmalion's Spectacles A really neat story, this one takes advantage of multiple psychological elements -- set up, significantly, by reading a lot of contemporary SF and fantasy (in particular H.G. Wells) -- to become significantly better than it appears to be by a very cool twist ending. If you need an in to Weinbaum, this isn't a bad place at all to start.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - Redemption Cairn If you know LITERALLY ANYTHING AT ALL about how narrative works, you will figure out the important part of this rocket noir's ending pretty much as soon as it's introduced. That said, it's a fun read after you accept the relentless sexism as just going with the territory, and Weinbaum's trademark Almost Correct Science is well-built-out here to furnish an alien world and a moderately hard vision of rocket mechanics. It could be more progressive, sure, but this is of an age with Radar Men From The Moon, where women went to space literally because the men needed someone to cook for them.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - Shifting Seas If a lot of Weinbaum has aged poorly -- overtaken by more modern science and more modern ideas about people who aren't white males being fully qualified humans -- this has if anything improved. The ending gets a little into Wellsian utopianism, but the immediacy of the climate-change and geoengineering plot could have been ripped from tomorrow's headlines. More of the science is right here than in many other parts, and the telling of the tale doesn't lack either.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Adaptive Ultimate I am the wrong person to unpack Weinbaum's rather deep weirdness about women; if this sort of thinking was general back in the day, it is no wonder that a herd of neuroses flourished and psychotherapy became popular. This tale is less sexist than most of his other ones, the science approximately correct, and in its own way it's probably the most self-sufficient of these... ...but, owing to that weirdness, should not be the only Weinbaum story you read.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Brink of Infinity Send this one to your high school math students. This is less a story than a logical exercise, a parable like Einstein's teachers used to explain algebra. I've written stories like this one to test job applicants on their background in algorithms; this one provides the answers to that test, and is a pretty neat study in mathematical thinking by exclusions. The terminology may be a little out of date, but the fundamentals are all right, and they make the story pop the way it's supposed to.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Circle of Zero In the modern day, this story would be spun up from many-worlds quantum and make dumb references to Roko's Basilisk. This is marginally more right than the interpretation of the laws of probability used to set the stage here, but that's not the point. The trick works as well in either context, and Weinbaum's hand for the eerie in the narrator's visions doesn't fail. Another good one.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Ideal Weinbaum has some good characters in this one, but the early-20th-century sexual weirdness has the narrative tripping all over itself from a modern perspective, twisting and mutilating into desperately strange corners. There's some good stuff in here, but a lot of Weinbaum's work is a lot better than this.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Lotus Eaters If you can make it through the negging field in here (seriously, did people use to act like this on purpose?), you will find probably Weinbaum's best work. The exobiology is, in light of modern cladistic ideas, pretty dumb and wrong-headed, but the plot and the particulars are rock-solid and relentlessly imaginative. Read this after Parasite Planet for narrative reasons; it's a rare example where the sequel's better than the original.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Mad Moon Weinbaum's world-building, good elsewhere, is absolutely excellent here, a jewel of alien environments and future society that would be worth reading even if he hadn't managed to dial the usual sexism down to levels approaching those of modern content. The story in amid the setting is good too, and if you're paying careful attention, you can see the elements and corners of other parts of Weinbaum's ouevre; he'd obviously plotted out his solar system of tomorrow outside the printed pages, keeping everything consistent to make sure things linked up right, and that all of these stories had a common base to build from. The craft is awe-inspiring; the art built on it covers joy.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Point of View Another van Manderpootz comic adventure, this one works better than "The Ideal", and clarified the points in that one that seemed missing; there's a predecessor to both of these stories, hopefully in the queue somewhere, and both Dixon and the Professor gain by being repeating characters reacting to different situations. This one is good enough to justify reading the rest of them in order -- and in that progression, perhaps, we may find Weinbaum working his way out to less mental attitudes about women in full.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Worlds of If That first van Manderpootz adventure? Well, here it is, and a much better start it makes than "The Ideal". Maybe some of this is coming back with the formula in mind, and it's not as good as this series got as late as "The Point of View", but the quantum is nearly correct, the sexual politics not unduly problematic, and the writing just as comic as Weinbaum can be at his best.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - Tidal Moon Not quite as good as "Redemption Cairn" if its sexual politics are slightly less bad and its main trick slightly less stonneringly obvious, this one is good mostly for the world-building. Even Weinbaum can't be super-good all the time, and this one is a slack one; there's probably a better story about his Ganymede out there, to be written if nothing else, but this story doesn't really get close to that ideal.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - A Martian Odyssey The French and German/Yiddish dialect is a little unnecessary here, and the plot could use some more development. Weinbaum's powers of description hold up this point-to-point adventure across Mars, with some nifty thoughts about cognition and intelligence along the way, but there's better stuff of his out there.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - Valley of Dreams This is really the second half of "A Martian Odyssey", and there's so much left unfinished and unanswered that I desperately wish there was more of this out there. There's more plot to this one, and a lot more meaningful exobiology and exosociology than in the first part, but also with shadows of "At The Mountains of Madness" that are begging for a third part and further exploration. Alas, it's not on the pile, if it even exists.

Stanley G. Weinbaum - Dawn of Flame Longer than most of the novelettes I ground through prior to finishing up my Weinbaum course, this one is a post-apocalyptic fiction probably inspired by the 1919 flu pandemic. It's better than Burroughs' America-re-emerged-from-the-primitive stuff, and much better on gender politics than nearly anything else that came out of his pen, which helps make up for the clunky flow, footnotes, and occasional leaps in logic. Weinbaum's usually better in more hopeful futures, but this one is a good read all the same.

Marie Corelli - Ardath If you wanted a sword-and-sandal novel glued into the middle of another theosophic Christian treatise, this is the book to pick up. Corelli's range is tweezers-wide, but bearing that in mind, she manages to pass out thoroughgoing kicks, by turns, to atheism, democracy, literary criticism, science, and people who don't like improvisational music; this gets a bit on-orbit at times, and a lot of it is not real good, but the feeling and tone can't help but get through. Corelli's arguments are not good -- you don't need religion or gods in order to derive the axiom "be nice to people, because you wouldn't want someone being a jerk to you", and on this principle rests, um, all of civilization -- and she is rather too fond of exclamation points, but you need to read some of this style for exposure, if only to see the arguments in advance.

Marie Corelli - The Secret Power Corelli proves as vulnerable to the effects of the Great War as anyone. In its day, this was nearly up to the standard of a 'liberated' novel, and her religious collapse back into 'gut' Catholicism is a sure reaction against the mad spiral of spiritualism and theosophy into madness and black magic during and after the war had proved them utterly bankrupt. This is the first Corelli book I can actually recommend to other people without reservation.

Marie Corelli - The Soul of Lilith There are some good parts in this three-master, but a lot of bad ones, including a TRANSPARENT author self-insert crushing the plot so badly in the last two parts that a "Mary Sue" might and should well have been called a "Irene Vassilius". If you've gotten stuck reading a bunch of Corelli for some dreadfully-stupid reason, this will provide a good release laughing at her self-insert, but otherwise, let this one drop.

Marie Corelli - Zizka This is self-contained, not focused on screaming at literary critics, subdued in its Christianity -- is this actually a Corelli? Well, it's got a wack sword-and-sandal drop-in, barely-veiled closeted-lesbian disparaging of marriage (admittedly, in this time period you didn't have to be queer to get totally messed up by marriage practices as a woman) and persistent if not overdone theosophical Christianity, so yup, yes. This is about as good as Corelli gets, so totally check this one out ahead of most of the others.

Marjorie Bowen - Black Magic This opens up as a fairly conventional yaoi-esque tale of gay monks worshipping the devil, but then snowballs through the maze of high Middle Ages imperial politics and drops an atom bomb of a twist in the third act that is probably harder to guess coming in the modern day. In preference to Corelli among Gutenberg women writers, definitely read Bowen, and definitely read this one.

Marjorie Bowen - The Crown Derby Plate A short piece, this is a nice, original ghost story that does a good job tipping its hand and putting up reasons for the protagonist not catching on. A quick story, but definitely good.

Marjorie Bowen - The Folding Doors I kind of overdosed on Revolutionary France last year reading all of Orczy's Pimpernell between various travels and laundromat visits, so this suspense tale of an attempted royal rescue and how it didn't happen kind of left me cold. The structure is good and the twist hits nice and hard, but you read too many of these and they start to blur together.

Mary Shelley - Falkner Continuing with the "read good women Gutenbergers rather than bad ones", I picked up this classical three-volume romance and ground on through the telegraphed plot, predictable twists, and needlessly florid language to pick up the good points; this is through and through Romanticism in its style and sentiments, and you could almost use it as a template for writing a three-master romance. It's not awesome, but it's still pretty decent and your eyes don't glaze over too often in the reading process.

Mary Shelley - Lonore This three-volume potboiler can't make up its mind as to how it's going to shake itself out, and basically just keeps rattling and creaking on until it stops. There are good ideas, but too few of them connect to each other to be really worth reading. Shelley did better than this, and you should put your emphasis on those.

Mary Shelley - On Ghosts Two ghost stories worked into an essay, this is essential Shelley, and also bails out before her language overruns the narrative. The "king of the cats" bit is particularly critical, and is probably the seed of hundreds of stories before and since -- I'm probably going to end up taking a stab at it sooner or later as well.

Mary Shelley - The Dream This is a poorly executed bit on a good seed -- the legend of the Bed of St. Catherine -- that shows that even the best writers sometimes screw up a sure thing. It's pretty short, but this doesn't make it any clearer or better.

Mary Shelley - The Evil Eye Kind of a cash-in on the Greek conflict of the time, this is a decent story of banditry, but for the modern reader, it's probably encumbered with too many names and relationships of sub-Albanian and sub-Macedonian ethnic groups that for better or worse have been extirpated or absorbed by other identities in the present. Again, it's short, but that in itself isn't a virtue.

Mary Shelley - The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck This three-master is Romanticism down to its bones, but this rather more obstructs than enlightens the tale of the last of the Yorkist Pretenders; in a modern context, this story is called Game of Thrones. The language, artifice, and emotions are class; the storytelling muddled, the sense of where this whole novel is going beyond Shakespeare and the chroniclers he borrowed from lacking. Shelley has better stuff out and this can probably be avoided.

Mary Shelley - The Heir of Mondolfo In this one, Shelley keeps herself at novella length, and her beautiful pastorals, strange lands, and wild passions are the better for the relative restraint of language. The story flows and moves with ease, and doesn't trip over itself or tie itself up in knots; one could only wish that more of her novels were this good.

Mary Shelley - The Invisible Girl This one doubles back on itself, a frequent problem in Shelley's work, but due to the fairly short length, this is more easily managed. The heart of the story is really good, the scene dressing around it a little less so, but the ultimate effect is still enjoyable.

Mary Shelley - The Last Man This is an interesting book if not a great one. Broken into two halves, it's a well-done if not super-imaginative vision of England at the end of the 21st century as barely different from the start of the 19th. Shelley was not really a science-fiction writer, let alone one for far-future stuff like Wells or Weinbaum, but her talent in siting what appears to be her circle of Romantic writers as the lead cast in the first part (look carefully, it's hard to see otherwise), and then working through the macabre Grand Tour of the second half is impeccable. As someone who likes untying these kinds of referential puzzles, I liked it, but other people may well want more science fact in their science fiction.

Mary Shelley - The Mortal Immortal This one is a little closer to Frankenstein (which for some reason isn't in the pile, what the hell) as a mystic science fantasy; the novella length keeps Shelley dialed back to brass tacks, and the result is a good explication of the usual look at the downsides of eternal youth. It's not a barn-burner in its own right, but it's Gutenfreed now, so who cares? Definitely worth the time.

Mary Shelley - Valperga Once you get past the hilariously-named Euthanasia (there was a Perdita in The Last Man, so this sort of on-the-nose naming is nothing new), this is a much better novel of intrigue and medieval conflict than, say, ...Perkin Warbeck, and Euthanasia herself is an impressively strong and complex character who should be much better known to literature fans. The conclusion of the book is unsatisfying and poorly done, though, ditching in the name of historical accuracy all the good work that Shelley'd put in on the plot, the actions and personalities of the two women orbiting Castruccio, and how this stuff should impact the conclusion to work as literature. It's flawed at the most important part, sure, but most of the time you're reading this, it's excellent.

Max Brand - The Ghost As a short foretaste of Brand's stuff, this is more humorous than his regular run, but it's still a solid, realistic, and decently gritty Western alienated from any real setting and plopped into Brand's slice of backcountry where it's always about 1880 and the law is always on the take or far, far away. You should be able to spot the turn in advance, but it's still a good read.

Max Brand - The Night Horseman These are in sequence as I read them, and they preserve the fact that I read this one before The Untamed when it's technically a sequel. In the modern age, this is probably wrong. Reading that one first makes it read like a tall tale that gets an unnecessary second act here; this first throws the reader into a properly-alienating (the lead-in character's an Eastern tenderfoot) atmosphere of fear and mystery that really helps sell Whistlin' Dan as a character, and then you read The Untamed as a prequel and get his backstory as layers peeled off the onion. As written, these are pretty much just oat operas; 'backwards', they turn into a powerful meditation on the nature of humanity and wildness set against the harsh and inhuman landscape of the high desert. Definitely read both, but read this first.

Max Brand - The Untamed As above; this was a good book, but it benefits by getting read out of order after its sequel, or it's barely more than a tall tale about a fey ninja-cowboy. Brand is good here, but he gets better.

R A J Walling - The Corpse in the Crimson Slippers I was kind of on the edge of passing out from exhaustion when I started this country-house murder case, so I'm not sure how well it was read out in advance, but Walling is no Christie. This is decent enough as a point-to-point detective story, but if you're looking for a case where the clues are in place and you have the chance to solve it before the detective does, that's not what you're going to get here.

Arthur Conan Doyle - The Bully of Brocas Court Cleaning up some of the authors who I'd mostly read out, I came across this little horror piece from the author of Sherlock Holmes. It's not quite the best -- the setup is pretty obvious, and some of the turn could be better handled -- but it's good enough for a short read, and gives a good proper chill.

Arthur Conan Doyle - The Great Brown-Pericord Motor Doyle puts his hand to science fiction in this one, and while it's still more in the line with his true-crime writing, which he was also majorly into at the time, it's still pretty decent. As you might expect from a man who later came to believe in fairies as an absolute fact, the machine is barely described, but it's barely more than a Macguffin anyways, so this doesn't hurt the tale as much as it might for like HG Wells or someone.

Arthur Conan Doyle - Playing With Fire Doyle is on surer ground with this one; his narration of a spiritualist seance is obviously drawn from life, down to the medium tricks -- well, until the monster that was signaled from the start pops out. This is better horror than "The Bully of Brocas Court", drawn so faithfully from life, and with the conviction of a true believer.

Arthur Conan Doyle - The Brown Hand There's room in this neat but pedestrian ghost story for readings as both brain-bendingly racist and a subtle but sharp critique of racism and colonialism. It's probably both, but the story itself is decent enough -- if kind of predictable -- that people should read it themselves to come to a decision rather than looking for one here.

R A J Walling - The Man With The Squeaky Voice With a second one down, I can be unequivocal: Walling is rubbish, and you should not read his stuff. There are parts like this with decent description to them, but as in ...Crimson Slippers, too much of the plot action happens off-screen and gets reported by side characters in a way that's out of left field based on what's happened so far. Walling would have had a good career doing adaptations of movie scripts for print, as he's a good technician, but asking him to come up with his own interesting and logically coherent plots is a bridge too far.

Arthur Conan Doyle - True Crime From The Strand This covers the following three stories: The Debatable Case of Mrs. Emsley The Holocaust of Manor Place The Love Affair of George Vincent Parker Given that these are all mostly-true stories, the main interest is not in the details of the cases, but how Conan Doyle writes about them, and what that says about him and his readers. Most of this can be covered with "embarrassing attitudes about women, who are not expected to know anything", but there are some other bits of Victorian social mores that come through as well. These aren't really any more potboilery than the Holmes stories, but they're not as good either, and can probably be ignored.

Rafael Sabatini - Bardelys the Magnificent I haven't gotten to Sabatini's Captain Blood stuff yet, but this one is a pure and vital swashbuckler, the kind of book you'd hand someone to demonstrate what this genre is. But it's more than that, too: as Edgars Wallace and Rice Burroughs have demonstrated in the past, Sabatini doesn't need to treat women like human beings, but he does, and he doesn't need to have his hero also go through a crisis of personal development to sell a novel about romance and swordfighting, but he does that too. This is a good book, and I'm hoping for more good stuff in my large pile of Sabatini in the reader for laundromat and travel purposes.

Heinrich Boell - Billiard um halb elf I read this in German -- hence the non-translated title -- over a period of about eight months. This is a physical book, and thus more difficult to read during my typical slots, but it was awesome and worthwhile; Boell's characters and style are strong enough that I was always able to keep it in memory, even when I was picking it up weeks or months after the last stretch I had to really sit down and just read. I don't generally read a lot of literary fiction, so this is probably going to stay the best book I read in 2016 -- and may even stay in that slot if I get to Maurice Stendahl hanging around airport waiting rooms in the Pacific at the end of the year.

Rafael Sabatini - Captain Blood I haven't read enough Sabatini yet (this will change by the end of the year) to be categorical about this being a best entry point, but it's definitely the first appearance of his most famous character, and a rollicking swashbuckler from first to last. Sabatini of course romanticizes the Golden Age of piracy a little, but keeps strong to the real as well, and it's that reality, the brutality of the slave system, the reality of blood and wounds and broken ships, casual inhumanity and subpar prizes, that gives this one its kick. We'll see if the rest of the Captain Blood series is equally good, but the first one is definite quality.

Rafael Sabatini - The Chronicles of Captain Blood The first appearance of the character was a full-length, fully-realized novel that went beyond just the swashbuckling, but when Sabatini and his editors realized that they had a franchise on their hands, a collection of episodic short stories like this one was a natural move. With looser connections to each other, the chapters in this one are hung off the cornices of the original book, some characters and subplots returning, with others still unresolved. This is less of a literary achievement than the first book, but still a fun read.

C.L.R. James - Beyond A Boundary I read a lot, as the list above indicates. But for all the stuff I read, I don't read enough right, partly because there isn't a whole lot of right out there. But C.L.R. James, that is right enough, all the way around. This is the first thing I really read from James, and his masterwork by all accounts, but it will almost certainly not be the last. At times I had trouble following the cricket vocabulary, but the narrative flow always carried me on and wound me up at the end; this is not a book about cricket, but a book about how cricket reflects the dispersion and history of Englandism, a unifying idea for the shards of Empire almost in spite of themselves. Even if it was only a cricket book, though, it would still be probably the best book I've read yet all year; there is James writing on W.G. Grace, and then there is pretty much everyone else writing about pretty much anything. Deep springs don't come much deeper.

Jean Jaurès - Studies in Socialism I had to read this as part of the setting production on Three Pretenders In Ruritania, and I picked a good fin de siecle socialist for the character in question to take as her leading light. Jaures is smarter than a lot of his contemporaries about what's practical and useful, clear-eyed about history, and always puts reason over dogma and experience over theory. The result is a socialist tract that's committed to the real world, and how that program can be actually achieved; unlike Kropotkin way up top there, it's clear that Jaures actually knows and has interacted with real working people and has an understanding of how a modern industrial economy works, and the struggles that will need to be done to transition it out of a capitalist model to something else. I hew more closely to the non-idealist/technocratic line of his engineer friend in the closing essay, but I can appreciate Jaures' ideals as well, along with a first-class intellect that doesn't ever seem to get stuck in translation.

Lesley M. M. Blume - Let's Bring Back I read this as more research for Three Pretenders In Ruritania, and while it's useful in that role, that's about as far as I can recommend it. A condensation of Blume's blog column of the same name, there's a lot of useful stuff in here, mainly focusing on polite society in the English-speaking world between the US Civil War and the start of the Second World War, but the alphabetical organization, rather than by time period or subject matter domain, makes it difficult to use as anything except a blaze-through trawling for things that you wouldn't spot otherwise. It's also significantly weighted towards Blume's own style icons, making it less of a comprehensive survey than it might be, but on the positive side it's a quick read, it covers a hell of a lot of stuff across multiple areas of everyday life, and she's got a good knack for getting straight to the point and getting good observations out of her guest contributors.

Carl E. Schorske - Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture I blasted through this somewhat disconnected set of long essays -- that's what it is, much more than a book -- again doing research for Three Pretenders In Ruritania, but unlike most of the stuff I used for research, I did actually read it all the way through (I need to go back and give the same treatment to Robert Beachy's Gay Berlin and Greg King/Sue Woolmans' Assassination of the Archduke once the dust settles a little). Schorske is perceptive and informative, and at least tries to tie everything together, but you're looking at a book that covers both the redevelopment of the Ring and the emergence of Freudianism in addition to a shit-ton of other stuff, and there's only so much cohesion that you're going to get out of this. It's a little dry in places (so much passive voice in transcription) and a knowledge of both German and French will make the reading faster, but this is still a pretty cool look at a culture that most English-speaking people have about zero contact with.

Eduardo Galeano - Soccer in Sun and Shadow (translated from Futbol en Sol y Sombre) I'd read this before in a smaller edition, but did not have a copy of my own until I decided to throw it in the basket with James' Beyond A Boundary above; it makes a nice companion piece, with Galeano demonstrating fitba's mirroring of the rest of the world through poetry while James works through cricket as an analogy of Britishness by oratory. The end trails off a little -- the edition I have is an extended one that runs on from 1995 with a lot less focus than Galeano puts onto the game's first hundredish years -- but there is so much in this that is good and cool that you can forgive it. It's undoubtedly better in the original, but my Spanish isn't good enough for that yet; one for the future I guess.

Anthony Hope - The Prisoner of Zenda I had not actually read this -- or seen any of the film adaptations -- before I had to do so in order to avoid copying it in Three Pretenders In Ruritania -- I'd been introduced to the genre by a second-rate ripoff of it called By Right Of Sword and had my defaults formed mostly by Burroughs' The Mad King and some stuff of E. Phillips Oppenheim -- and was glad to note that I wouldn't have to fix the outline or characters to dodge around it. This is an ok swashbuckler, but its Victorian narrative sense ties itself in knots at seriously, the most critical junctures possible, and as usual, the villain and the hero's retainers are the most interesting characters. What was even more weird to me was how small it was -- I read it through in about half an hour, and there's roughly half as much action in this in terms of story beats as there is in something that I'm planning to write in under a month. With another 120 years of development in literature, I ought to be able to do better than this -- whether I actually can or not is going to be down to my abilities or lack thereof.

Rafael Sabatini - The Fortunes of Captain Blood Unsurprisingly, the Captain Blood franchise got a third season with this volume, continuing much in the same vein as the second volume in the series; briefer, barely-connected episodes hung off the corners of the original novel. Despite the way that the production on this must have been formalized by this time, Sabatini still mostly keeps it fresh, and doesn't repeat himself or get too crank-turny. It's still not as good as the original, but also still a fun read all the same.

Rafael Sabatini - Casanova's Alibi and Others A collection of Sabatini's Casanova stories, this one swaggers through the legendary adventurer's career with a bunch of generally cool stories of varying quality. Some, like the last, are stellar examples of Sabatini's hand with a tail-twist; others are too reliant on too-stretchy MacGuffins to really hang with his best work. In total, this is good stuff, but it is less good than Captain Blood and should not take precedence over it.

Rafael Sabatini - Collected Stories This is a pretty uneven volume that trails off at the end; it's cool to see Sabatini exploring different genres as he gradually finds his ouevre, but there are two versions of the same story -- "The Sword of Islam" and "In Destiny's Grip" -- one after the other, and the collection concludes with a Captain Blood episode that of course got into the second volume of that character's adventures. If you read a lot of Sabatini, like I've been doing for the last few months, it's ok to stop this one early.

Rafael Sabatini - Columbus Sabatini's research skills are good enough that he has to keep this to the immediate vicinity of Cristobal Colon's voyage rather than making it a 'life'; there are hints of the congenital pride, vanity, and dickholishness that would characterize Columbus' brutal career as the actual viceroy of New Spain, but for the most part, the events of him selling his dream, and the web spun around it by love, enemy agents, and court intrigue allows the title character to be mostly a hero -- a flawed and kind of grasping one to be sure, but he did take an enormous risk on incorrect information and nearly lost everything several times over. This is a good story even where it's incomplete history, and there's enough *good* history in the scene dressing -- Sabatini is as usual awesome in the interplay of political strands in the blending of religious cultures in Spanish/Mediterranean society -- to overwhelm any objections. As an exposition of the context of Columbus' pitch-making, this is better than a lot of history, and it's still a really good novel besides.

Rafael Sabatini - Dagger and Sword A quick short story among a range of three-masters, this one gets in, gets its work done -- and well -- and gets out. There's not a whole lot of inside fencing baseball in it, but enough to satisfy heads while still keeping clicking for normal audiences. Try to get this in a collection though.

Rafael Sabatini - Fortune's Fool This romance of the London Plague takes a good while to get moving, and some of the foreshadowing is plain clumsy, but it is still good, well-executed, and effective in the swashbuckly scenes where Sabatini always shines, and with his resolute and disciplined eye for historical detail. In comparison to some of his other works this one is almost straightforward, so try not to get too fed up with the occasional running in place.

Rafael Sabatini - In the Shadow of the Guillotine A sharply acted and smartly restricted novella, this is Sabatini at his best, taut with inter-character tension and shifting loyalties and motivations -- and with a notable sting in the tail. It's not long, but this is one of his better set pieces.

Rafael Sabatini - Love-at-Arms Some idiot publisher titled this, no doubt; this is a neat look into Italy's sengokujidai that creaks only a little in setting up its main conflict, where the best of the condetorri defends an impregnable castle against a besieging army with twenty men and empty cannons. The romance is well-developed and believably sprouted, and if the build to the climax is a little over-rotated, the actual climax is excellent and Peppe is one of the best of Sabatini's side characters outside the Captain Blood series. This novel may not quite stand with those paragons, but it's close.

Rafael Sabatini - Mistress Wilding This over-plotted chronicle of the Monmouth Rising distinguishes itself by the increasingly contrived and unproductive circles it runs around in from first to last. This is historically accurate, but its main character takes a while becoming sympathetic enough to justify the investment in his adventures, and there are almost too many things going on for the reader to really keep track of. This needed a second editorial pass and never got it, but fortunately Sabatini also produced a large volume of really good work to balance out relative duds like this.

Rafael Sabatini - Scaramouche In this wide-ranging three-master Sabatini takes on revolutionary France with his usual eye for historical detail and social conditions, and does kind of go on for three books in one, but he succeeds in keeping all the various elements current and connected, and ties things up nicely if a little tritely at the end. The general forms have been done before, but Sabatini as usual focuses on different themes, elements, and perspectives than the typical courtly romances around the revolution, and also has an excellent cast of characters here, especially in the middle third with the troupe of actors. This is probably the other Sabatini work people have heard of after Captain Blood, and it's with good reason.

Rafael Sabatini - Scaramouche the Kingmaker If there was a thought to make of Scaramouche another enduring character as Captain Blood, it foundered on this over-complex and over-researched volume. Sabatini does an excellent deep dive on the corruption and infighting of the Jacobin Assembly, but in the process bogs down his plot and characters in a stew of intrigue that it takes an intensive grounding in history and almost a degree in finance to keep straight. There is too much there here, required to fill the historical span of time that he has to cover, and while several of the set pieces are really good, there are too damn many of them, and this gets exhausting after a while. There is good craft here -- the thematic quotations from commedia del'arte in the furnishing of stock character types are well-integrated and always useful -- but the overarching art is too ponderous and the frame of the story is crushed by the weight of ornament piled onto it.

Rafael Sabatini - St. Martin's' Summer The cramdown of the romance in this one is deeply unsatisfying, but Sabatini repays that in spades with the larger-than-life character of Granache and the strong rogues' gallery he has to fight his way through in this one. And fight is the operative word: the fight in the tower that sets up the break to the critical point is one of the best fights I can recall in swashbuckling literature, and then there's the duel where the Condillacs put on a jolly-gaff worthy of a Musashi and the other duel inside an inn bedroom. Granache is a fighter, not a lover, from the first, and if his love scenes are inconsistent and forced, the fight scenes are anything but.

Rafael Sabatini - The Carolinian It's tempting to accuse Sabatini of falling off the pace here via an American setting for this one rather than his normal European metiers, but the truth is that South Carolina works fine as a backdrop, and his research on the social-political scene of the place and time is as usual impeccable. No, the real complaint against this one is that the back half/third of the book -- everything after the pistol duel in the middle -- is somewhat unnecessary, deforms the characters, and in large measure feels like a political thriller plotted by R. A. J. Walling or someone else who sucks. It is well executed craft, but it strains disbelief too hard and introduces unnecessary conflicts poorly in setting itself up.

Rafael Sabatini - The Historical Nights' Entertainment (three volumes) Published in three collections initially, it's not necessary in the age of the ebook to draw distinctions between these. The stories are mostly unconnected, and the theme -- a historical novella barely connected to the 'night' aspect referenced in the story's title -- is similarly flexible. It's neat to see Sabatini moving through subject areas outside France, Restoration England, and Renaissance Italy, but it is also a little trying to take these on all at once. They are probably best consumed in small chunks, as originally magazine-published, and with intervening spacing, rather than en bloc for like thirty stories at once.

Rafael Sabatini - The Life of Cesare Borgia Sabatini sets himself a tall order here -- "rehabilitate the goddamn Borgias" -- but works yeomanlike against it, and may actually get to a result. This result is likely to be "the Borgias were not worse than other Renaissance tyrants and Alexander VI was not worse than the other bad popes of his era", but there's only so far this is going to stretch. He does a good job of separating fact from fiction in the case of a few of the more egregious crimes posted up by Cesare and his family, but there are others that are less easily discarded, and too often Sabatini hides critical evidence or first-hand impressions in untranslated Latin or Italian; if you wondered how homosexuality got to be the love that dared not speak its name, just look here, where sodomy is the crime that is ceaselessly danced about but never directly mentioned in English. In the main, I prefer Sabatini's fiction to this nonfiction, but this is a good biography of one of the leading families of the Renaissance, and as such preferable to Sabatini's less-good fiction that has been clogging the queue recently.

Rafael Sabatini - The Lion's Skin When you read as much of a single author as I've been reading over the last few, things start to run together. In this Jacobite romance, though, there's some of Sabatini's best spycraft, one of his best villains in Rotherby, and a whole family of excellent characters in the Ostermeres. The twists are well-executed if not wholly surprising after reading so much of this, and the final effect is a good one.

Rafael Sabatini - The Marquis of Carabas Superficially resembling The Lion's Skin, this one sets up a bit differently through its twists, and what look like pagecount-padding subplots in the beginning turn out to be vital exposition by the end. In its detailed exposition of the Breton Chouannerie and the fatal stupidity that destroyed counterrevolution in the west of France, this one is another case of Sabatini doing history better and closer than the professors, but the ALL TEH FEELS ending is so because this one really succeeds as a novel beyond and above its historical merits.

Rafael Sabatini - The Plague of Ghosts and Others A Gutenberg Australia collection of stuff mostly not collected elsewhere, this one packs together a couple of structurally similar highwayman stories with some French secret agents before and after the revolution and, predictably, "The Sword of Islam" yet again. This is a good story, so no wonder it keeps getting packed in, but most of the rest of these are nice quick puff reads whose absence from collections is kind of understandable. The best of the lot is "Kynaston's Reckoning", where the twist is telegraphed from miles and miles away, but executed with the hand of a master; this alone makes the collection worthy, but if you can get it on its own somewhere else, that will probably suffice.

Rafael Sabatini - The Pretender What sells this novella, more than anything, is Sabatini's own history: when you read Sabatini, you expect Jacobites and swashbuckling and knaves turned by gold, so when this one starts going there, and then doesn't, the twist hits all the harder for it. This is one of his best twists outside the Casanova stories, and it's too quick a read to go further into spoiling it here.

Rafael Sabatini - The Sea Hawk Another of Sabatini's better ones after a couple of recent relative clunkers, this one takes on more of his favorite subjects, being in this case bare outer corners of canonical history and unexpected springs of heroism. The idea that Christian renegades might have fought, and well, and even converted, for the corsairs of Barbary might almost be too hot a take for modern minds, but in that age both sides had no lack of converts, fellow-travelers, or plainfaced adventurers for whom race or religion was just an accident of birth, and Sabatini as always follows these threads faithfully. Some of the tricks and plot dressing are a little too convenient to really be believable, but this is an XL-sized story that can barely be held in its traces even as it is.

Rafael Sabatini - The Shame of Motley As expected with the hero playing the fool, this one doesn't stint on the jokes, even as the adventure winds its way around the edges of the ascent of Cesare Borgia. That Life from a few notes back is a good companion to this to set the context, but it's not really necessary, filled as this is with plots nefarious and quick-witted, brazen impostures, bloody battle and some truly horrific set pieces of murder and torture, and of course the excellent passage in the cathedral that sets up the point of no return. If you wanted a fictional story around that Life of Borgia, take this one: it's just as well executed, and as prime an example of the author's craft as that one is of the historian's.

Rafael Sabatini - The Snare For people already familiar with the Peninsular War, this is a mediocre intrigue of an overwrought giri-ninjou clash strapped to a third-rate detective story. For those like me who weren't, this is a passable if replacement-level romance that gives the opportunity to see Sabatini discourse on Wellington and the complicated travails of being the smartest person in the room while occupying someone else's country. This would probably have been a better essay than a novel, but the characters -- especially Sylvia, one of his best heroines -- save it from failure even for the jaded.

Rafael Sabatini - The Strolling Saint Sabatini continues his Borgia-stanning here fifty years after their era, in a strong Bildungsroman with a hell of a well-hidden twist that may be even better than The Shame of Motley. Some of the push-pull around the Inquisition is a little weak, but Sabatini's Cinquecendista game is still strong, and Agostino, in his thorough development, is one of his better heroes. A definite rec.

Rafael Sabatini - The Suitors of Yvonne This loses a little steam as the love story picks up, which is not really groundworked or developed in terms of signs of increasing affection, but this is a swashbuckler through and through, and there are so many jokes, sick burns, and good fights especially at the start and continuing on through that it is really hard to put this one down. Sabatini's style and how he approaches history can make him a little grave and pedantic at times, so when he's having fun, as here, you revel in it.

Rafael Sabatini - The Sword of Islam Misleadingly titled to say the least, this one deals with not Dragut Reis, mostly, but Prospero Adorno, the Genoese captain who is put into the role of the suggester of the canal from the other two times this tale, under this title and others, has showed up in print. Prospero's story is bits and pieces of other Sabatini novels glued together to give a frame to the sea-fighting; on the waves, Sabatini still does the clash of galleys and the interplay of cultures and loyalties on the Mediterranean littoral like nobody else, but on land or out of battle, this tale has a tendency to drive this one into the ground. There is probably a good novel on the life and career of one of the Barbary captains of this period that would be worthy of the title, but this one isn't even sure what it's trying to be.

Rafael Sabatini - The Tavern Knight Sabatini digs himself into a mighty hole on this one, which he extricates himself from by an offensively dumb and blatant deus ex machina. There was a better resolution to this somewhere, and in his other works there's every indication that he might have found a way to thread the needle, but for whatever reason, we don't get it. The good, well-drawn characters deserve better than this hamhanded plot.

Rafael Sabatini - The Trampling of the Lilies With all the stops pulled on the brutality of rural France before the revolution, it should come as no surprise that Sabatini can have a soft spot for Robespierre here. (Or really, dude stans for the Borgias hello) He did a lot of stuff about the French Revolution, but each tale is different, each tale is new, and this one is no exception: there's a lot in the superstructure of Scaramouche or "In the Shadow of the Guillotine", but the plot still develops after its own way, and the characters are sharp and fresh throughout.

Rafael Sabatini - The Word of Borgia The episode from this novella probably showed up in the Life of Borgia, unless including it would have kept Sabatini from stanning as hard for Cesare as he does there. Here, crime is returned with crime: first some swashbuckling and then an intricate work of evil that is done with such careful glee as to undermine any thesis that called it jigo jitoku. Very good and definitely worth a pack-in if/when that Life is republished.

Ralph Adams Cram - Excalibur: An Arthurian Drama Before considering to write an equivalent of the Ring, you should first check and make sure that you are the equal of Wagner. Cram is not. This stupid and overly pietist melodrama -- when you make Merlin, the very icon of prechristian druidism, into a man of God, you are already well off on the wrong foot -- derps itself around in circles as though it is conscious that there is not enough material in Arthurian legend to carry a focused trilogy, and if you make it through the broadsides of non-cared-about origin story and hopelessly archaic language, all you get is the source of a couple of the references in Monty Python and the Holy Grail -- which is fast becoming the one authoritative treatment of the Arthurian legends. This one can be pretty safely ignored.

Ralph Adams Cram - In Kropsberg Keep Cram pulls this off better than the mess that was Excalibur, and these few ghost stories make light reading and an interesting diversion. At the least, they're different and free from the blockhead milk-and-water Christianity of Cram's drama -- in some cases, severely so.

Randall Craig - Satan's Incubator If you want to be a double Batman, both a philanthropist and a vigilante in secret, you really ought to not link the two so easily as by being "Dr. Skull" -- a hell of a name for a medical man -- and the "Skull Killer". As red-blooded and as bloodthirsty as the Secret Agent X stories that inaugurated my discovery of bad imitation Batmans from the pulp years, Craig's Dr. Skull is fortunately a little less stupid, significantly less racist, and possessed of some legitimately smart and cool tricks, especially around his adversaries. Nevertheless, this is still a long episode of When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong, as hardcoreness for the sake of hardcore bottoms out in hilarious stupidity. It's a fast read and a page turner, but wicked ephimeral even for pulp.

Randall Craig - The City Condemned to Hell The first adventure of Dr. Skull, this is confusingly plotted and hangs together poorly. It's possessed with the same needless brutality as its sequel, but can't reliably keep track of who's alive or dead at any one point in time and its science is mind-bogglingly dumb even for pulp horror. The same mechanics (and large chunks of the intro) are reproduced later in Satan's Incubator; if you must read one Craig novel, make it that one and consider this an abortive first draft.

Robert Barr - A Rock In The Baltic Barr was a favorite of mine when I was just starting to get into Gutenberg tests, and I'm glad to finally wend my way back to him all these years later. This one opens up as an nice and sharp novel of manners, with two excellent female characters in Kate and Dorothy, and over the epistolary bridge takes a very well-executed turn into intrigue. The science in some parts is a little iffy, and the climax could come off a bit differently -- Sabatini would *definitely* had them shell the island and then have Jack and Drummond fight their way out by disabling the soldiers, then put the Russian supply ship, which would have turned out to have been a Q-ship full of secret police, out of action by one of the girls dropping a round onto its rudder -- but even taken for what it is, this is a really good and smart novel of love and spies and jailbreak, turned by the hand of a master.

Robert Barr - From Whose Bourne Barr is playing several games in this tight but winding spiritual detective story, and manages to keep all the balls in the air until the surprising twist ending. It's almost a meta-commentary on detective stories and the conventions of romances like he usually writes; for that, make it past the occasional maudlin tones of Victorian spiritualism at the start and check this one out.

Fred M. White - Real Dramas This had to be recollected from the following (in order): His Second Self An Extra Turn Not In The Bill The Plagiarist The Man In Possession A Pair of Handcuffs Being a bunch of set-piece short stories set around the theatrical scene on various continents, this collection has its high and low points, but is not really outstanding anywhere and frequently slides back into Edwardian melodrama. The general style of this recalls Barr significantly, but the execution is low-energy and the results indifferent. I have a lot of Fred White in the queue ahead, and if this is an accurate indication of his abilities as a writer 2017 is going to be pretty boring.

Fred M. White - The Doom of London The order of these is dubious, but this collection of London-centric apocalypses composes: A Bubble Burst The Dust of Death The Four Days' Night The Four White Days The Invisible Force The River of Death White is on a little sounder ground here, when grappling with issues of engineering or public health -- all of these are realistic catastrophes born out of the hypertrophism of turn-of-the-century urbanism and the lagging ability of government to deal with emergent problems -- though his ideas on biological science float somewhere between 'hopeless' and 'godawful'. The pressure of getting to a happy ending inside the span of a short story hampers most of these, but in most of them, there's also the germ of a really good story -- and most of these problems are still not completely resolved in our modern age of climate change, deregulation, and service-underfunding. The time's ripe for new dooms -- and ones that don't blink at the actual enormity of the underlying issues, and the real difficulties that need to be faced in resolving them.

Fred M. White - Drenton Denn Another after-the-fact collection, containing: The Yellow Moth The Red Speck With a good deal more questions than answers and an unwillingness to actually press on questions of life, death, and eros as they come up in the narrative, this is high-school-jazz-band level pulp imitation, on the level of a properly-spelled Eye of Argon. There are good elements in here, but White or his editors consistently end up in a position where they're suppressed by too-timid plotting or comics-code sanitization. White is not a bad writer overall, but this sort of weird fiction is not what he's good at at all.

Robert Barr - Revenge More of this collection of short stories on the themes of vengeance and comeuppance some to good ends rather than bad -- this is Barr after all, and like E.P. Oppenheim and a lot of Victorians/Edwardians he has a hard time resisting Love Conquers All -- but those that do are seldom less sharp and smart than the ones where things do go over the edge. Not all of these are great, but there are a lot of good ones in here, and if you get stuck with something middling, the next one is going to come at you fresh and vital.

Phillip Francis Nowlan - The Prince of Mars Returns I've written stuff like this, so I shouldn't be over-critical. However, I was in middle school when I did, so fuck that. This is horrid garbage with no consistent tone that wastes itself burping in circles about bad world-building and exobiology nearly as bad as its real Earth biology. The actual writing is not as bad as, say, Sheehan above, but it is boring and telegraphed and clunky and unable to hold the interest of the audience. Post Burroughs, there is no need for sword-and-sandal on Mars to be this goddamned bad, and the wretched science looks even worse in a year with this much Weinbaum.

Phillip Francis Nowlan - Armageddon 2419 AD This turns out to be the first appearance of Tony aka "Buck" Rogers, and the overly-explicated story of how he awakened in 25th century America to fight the world-dominating Chinese. There are good bits, but the world-building is illogical and clunky, the science might as well be magic, and the military tactics are complete ass. When Rogers and his friends are raiding the Han archives to find the traitors, battling hand to hand and zipping between buildings on rocket ships and flying belts, the story pops, but there is too little of that here and too much explicatory garbage. It's somewhat interesting how merely peripherally racist this story is; the Han are evil oppressors, but not incompetent or senselessly cruel or caricatured, and while physically different from the American resisters are not monstrous or decrepitly corrupt. There was no lack of anti-Chinese racism in the US at the time, and those fears definitely did play into the success of this franchise and how it developed, but the genesis here looks to be mostly Nowlan reacting to the emergence of the Republic of China and the end of the dysfunctional empire and going "wow, there are a shitload of Chinese people, if they actually get their shit together they could be a world power". The book still kind of sucks, but not as bad as it would if written with, like, Burroughs-level racism settings.

Phillip Francis Nowlan - The Airlords of Han And theeeeere's the racism. Seriously, the ramp-up on the implausibly disordered morals of Han society, the intimation that they are partially non-human, and the maniac blind spots of a fully automated civilization shifting gears are not even the worst parts of this story; the science is not discontinuous with what was known of atomic physics prior to the discovery of the neutron, but even if the paint-huffery about breaking stuff into sub-quarks and reconstituting it was remotely correct, you don't take a break in the middle of an action sequence to spend two separate and distinct chapters doing scientific worldbuilding. Nowlan's ability to set scenes is good, but like a movie director who shoots a billion feet and then tells his editor to make sense of it, his ability to put them into an order that makes sense and keeps the attention of the reader is sharply limited. Even with the racism turned down, this would be an incoherent mess of unnecessary sequel; as it is, drop this entirely and stick to the better appearances of Buck Rogers in other media.

#meta #criticism #how i wasted 2016

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monkeythefander · 7 months ago

Text

A Witch and a Baby

Chapter 6: Epilogue

Summary: It’s been 3 months since Logan became Janus’ dad. Logan has gained a lot of friends, and is introducing Virgil to everyone today. Delaney also has a message for Logan.

Content warnings: Mention of horror novels (only by name), mention of having lunch (nothing specific). Let me know if I missed anything else.

Relationships: All platonic, Logan is Janus’ dad.

Click below the cut to read this chapter.

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It’s now been three months since Logan became Janus’ dad. Janus is growing up so fast. He’s now babbling and grabbing onto things. Logan feels happy every time Janus achieves a new skill.

Logan has also spent more time with Virgil. The two have hung out at the cottage and the cafe. Logan would also visit the library more often in the evenings to talk to Virgil during his breaks or whenever there aren’t many visitors in need of the vampire’s assistance. They often talk about horror novels. Logan doesn’t read horror often, but he does have an appreciation for the genre, so he can bond with Virgil over some horror novels. Some of the books they’ve talked about are “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson, and “Bird Box” by Josh Malerman.

Today, Logan is introducing Virgil to his other friends and Delaney. Since the twins and Patton get along well, Logan thinks Virgil will be accepted into the friend group easily. Delaney already met the merman twins, and got along well with the both of them, so Logan thinks she should like Virgil as well. These thoughts are proven true when his guests all arrive. Patton and the twins arrive together. The next to arrive is Delaney, and she has a gift for Janus. It’s a snake themed baby rattle. When Logan offers the rattle to Janus, the 3-month old immediately shakes it and babbles happily. After this moment, Virgil arrives. Logan introduces the vampire to the rest of the guests.

Upon being introduced to Virgil, Patton immediately asks if he can give the vampire a hug. Virgil hesitantly agrees. Patton starts to ask Virgil about himself and the two end up discussing cats. It turns out that they both like to leave food out for the stray cats that wander around the village. Roman and Remus are able to bond with Virgil over books. Roman and the vampire discuss fantasy books, and even give each other book recommendations. Remus and the vampire discuss horror novels they both like. They decide they need to find a new horror novel to read and discuss together. Delaney and Virgil are able to bond by talking about the various spell books in the public library. Virgil even recommends some books for her to check out if she visits the library sometime soon.

Logan joins in on these conversations every so often, but he mostly just enjoys watching the people he cares about getting along. The witch also plays with Janus by shaking the new baby rattle.

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The 5 adults and baby eventually have lunch together and keep enjoying each other’s company. After the meal, the guests slowly started to leave. Delaney ended up sticking around the longest.

“Hey Logan.” Delaney says while watching Logan put Janus into his crib for a nap.

“Yes, Delaney?”

“I’m proud of you.” She says with a smile on her face.

“Proud of me for what?” Logan turns away from the crib to look at Delaney.

“For stepping outside of your comfort zone and finding a family. When you were my apprentice, you told me you didn’t care for making friends. You only really spoke with me, and kept conversations very formal. I wanted you to find friends that you felt like you didn’t have to be so formal around. And I wanted you to not be only focused on your studies. You deserved a break to do whatever else you find fun. When you eventually left your apprenticeship with me, I hoped you’d try and find some friends who you could have fun with. But when I came to give you Janus, I realized you weren’t doing that. I almost thought I shouldn’t give you Janus, since becoming a father would probably take away even more free time from you. Our little snake ended up being what you needed though, didn’t he?”

“Yeah. If it wasn’t for Janus, I wouldn’t have met any of my friends. I wouldn’t have reconnected with you…”

Delaney smiles at that last comment.

“I’m glad we’re talking again. I missed having you around. And I’m grateful for you taking on the responsibility of being Janus’ parent. He’s grown so much, and you’re a great dad.”

Logan smiles slightly.

“Thanks. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to be the good father figure you thought I’d be.”

“Oh, you definitely have succeeded at fatherhood. And if you ever struggle in the future, I’m here to help as the honorary Aunt.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Logan smiles a bit more.

“Well, I gotta get going now. See you around.” Delaney says, before turning around to walk out of the cottage.

“Wait!”

Delaney stops moving to find Logan walking over to stand in front of her. He opens his arms.

“I know that in all the time you’ve known me, I haven’t been that physically affectionate. But I want to hug you now, if you’re okay with it…” Logan says quietly while nervously avoiding eye contact.

Delaney quickly pulls him into a hug.

“I would never turn down a hug from you.” She says, holding him gently.

Logan relaxes into the embrace and hugs her back. They stay like that for a few minutes. Just enjoying being in each other’s presence. Then they pull away from the hug and Delaney says goodbye again and leaves.

After watching her go, Logan thinks about what she said at the start of their conversation. He really did find himself a family, didn’t he? A family of a witch, a baby, and all their friends. It may not be what’s considered the standard family, but Logan wouldn’t change it for the world.

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End Notes: Thanks for reading Chapter 6 of “A Witch and a Baby”, aka the last chapter of this book. Please consider leaving a like, comment, and/or reblog if you enjoyed.

Sorry if this chapter was kinda short, I just couldn’t think of another way to wrap this story up. Considering this was my first time writing a chaptered story, I wasn’t sure if it’d do well, so if you enjoyed this story I’m glad you did. While this fic may be over, I’d be willing to write oneshots for this au of Janus growing up and other stuff if any of you would be interested in that. So if you’d possibly like to see that, let me know.

-Monkey💜

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Links

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52055863/chapters/141566380

Link to previous chapter: https://www.tumblr.com/monkeythefander/745355732819509248/a-witch-and-a-baby-chapter-5-a-vampire-in-the

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #sanders sides fantasy au #a witch and a baby sanders sides fanfic #logan sanders #witch logan sanders #janus sanders #baby janus sanders #patton sanders #nature fairy patton sanders #roman sanders #merman roman sanders #remus sanders #merman remus sanders #the dragon witch #the dragon witch’s name is delaney #virgil sanders #vampire virgil sanders

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monkeythefander · 11 months ago

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A Witch and a Baby

Chapter 3: A Lullaby from a Merman

Content Warnings: Logan basically lets a stranger into his house (it’s Roman though and he asks enough questions to trust him before hand), using a somewhat magical singing voice to calm someone down (I don’t know if this could be triggering but I’m putting it to be safe), food mention (baby bottle). Please let me know if I missed anything else.

Relationships: Familial Logan and Janus, Platonic Logan and Roman, Platonic Janus and Roman, mentioned Platonic Logan and Patton, mentioned Platonic Logan and the Dragon Witch, mentioned Platonic Patton and the Dragon Witch. (Basically, all relationships are platonic)

Chapter summary: It’s now been one month since Logan started taking care of Janus, and he’s adjusted to parenting. But one night, things get a bit tricky, and he finds help from someone new.

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It has now been one month since Logan started caring for Janus. Adjusting to being a father was tough. Logan’s sleep schedule was changing due to having to take care of Janus whenever he awoke during the night. But Logan now had the help of Patton during these times. Whenever Logan seemed like he could use a nap during the day, Patton would come over to the cottage and watch Janus for Logan. Patton helping with the baby also gave Logan more time to get to know his new friend. Their friendship was growing stronger, and Logan enjoyed the company while caring for Janus.

When the Dragon Witch came back from her work travels, Logan introduced her to Patton. Delaney quickly grew fond of Patton and thanked the fairy for taking good care of Logan. Delaney also helped with Janus when she came back, offering to babysit so Logan and Patton could hang out by themselves.

All this assistance was great, and Logan was getting used to fatherhood. He enjoyed watching Janus develop new skills, and liked reading to the baby. But tonight was not a good night for Logan.

Currently, Logan was holding a crying Janus in his arms. Logan had checked Janus’ diaper, but that wasn’t the issue. And when Logan offered a bottle to Janus the baby wasn’t hungry either. So Logan just tried rocking him and talking to him, in an attempt to calm Janus down. But the baby kept crying.

Logan was getting frustrated, and he hated not knowing how to help Janus. If only someone else was around who could help.

As if summoned by this thought, there was a knock on the cottage door. Logan placed Janus carefully down in his crib, and went to go answer the door. Standing outside the door was a man with green eyes and red hair. He was wearing a white shirt and red pants that had a scaled pattern to them.

“Salutations, what brings you to my home tonight?” Logan asks the stranger.

The man smiles slightly as he answers, “Oh, I just happen to live in the lake that’s nearby and happened to hear crying coming from here. I just wanted to make sure everything was alright here.”

Oh…well that explains the stranger’s scaled pants. He was probably a merman, Logan thought to himself. Logan takes a moment to clear his mind, still hearing Janus’ cries coming from further inside his cottage.

“Well, I appreciate the concern. I was trying to get my infant back to sleep, but I haven’t been able to calm him down yet. I’m sorry if he disturbed your rest.” Logan says, wanting to keep the conversation short so he can go back to trying to soothe Janus.

“You don’t have to apologize. Your child is upset and you can’t control that.” The man says with an understanding smile on his face. “And now that I know the issue, I think I might be able to help out.”

Logan stares at the man in surprise. A stranger who happens to be a neighbor wants to help calm Janus down. Logan shouldn’t be so quick to trust strangers, but this man seems so genuine. And he hates to admit it, but Logan is a bit desperate for help at this point.

“How do you plan on solving my predicament? And also, I never got your name. I can’t exactly let a stranger into my house, especially not when I have a baby with me.” Logan replies. He really hopes this man is serious about wanting to help. Janus is still crying and Logan really needs to get back to comforting him.

“Oh, I’m sorry for not introducing myself properly. I’m Roman. In terms of how I plan on helping, well, I’m a merman. And as you probably know, merpeople are known for their songs.” Roman says.

That is true, Logan thinks. Merpeople are known for their amazing singing abilities. It’s said that hearing a merperson’s song brings feelings of comfort and calm.

“So, you want to comfort my son with a song?” Logan asks. He’s not much of a singer himself, so he never considered singing to be a solution to this problem. But it’s worth a try, and considering Roman’s a merman, it will mostly like work.

“Yes! My song might not make him sleepy, but it should at least get him calm enough to stop crying.” Roman says.

Logan nods and replies, “Okay Roman, you can help. But if you end up doing anything suspicious, I’ll remove you from my home right away.” The witch is still understandably hesitant about letting a man he just met into his home, but Roman truly seems genuine.

Roman nods in response and promises to be on his best behavior. The merman is then let inside and walks over to Janus’s crib. Roman then kneels beside the crib and starts to sing to the baby. Logan is amazed by how lovely Roman’s voice sounds. He also finds himself feeling less stressed than he was before hearing the song. Logan realizes the song Roman’s singing is typically used as a lullaby.

The song seems to be living up to its name, as Janus stops crying and soon falls asleep. Roman hums for a bit after Janus falls asleep before standing up and turning around to face Logan again.

“Well, he’s asleep now. Hopefully he gets some rest for a while.” Roman says.

“Thanks for helping. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to solve the issue so quickly if you didn’t show up.” Logan says hesitantly, not happy to admit that he was feeling a bit hopeless about finding a solution before.

“It’s no problem. I’m just being a good neighbor. And now you’ll know to try singing the next time your son’s upset. Your song may not have an immediate effect like mine, but I think it should work just fine.” Roman says with a bright smile on his face.

“I’m not much of a singer, but I’ll definitely consider your advice.” Logan says before realizing that he still hasn’t told Roman his name.

“I just realized, I never properly introduced myself either. Now that you helped me, I think you deserve a good introduction. I’m Logan and my son’s name is Janus.” Logan said and stuck out a hand to shake Roman’s. Roman smiled even brighter somehow, and shook Logan’s hand.

“It’s nice to properly meet you Logan. And since you’re not much of a singer, if you ever need help with Janus again, I’m always nearby.” Roman says and then reaches into one of his pants’ pockets. The merman pulls out what appears to be a bracelet and hands it to Logan.

“What’s this for?” Logan asks curiously as he inspects the piece of jewelry. The bracelet is made of string and has a red gemstone on it.

“That’s for you to call me whenever you need assistance with Janus.” Roman says and points to the gemstone. “If you tap the gemstone three times I’ll know you need me and come to help.”

“Oh, thank you for the gift and the offer of future assistance.” Logan says, surprised by how nice Roman is being despite them just meeting each other tonight.

“It’s no problem. Like I said, neighbors should help each other out.” Roman says before shyly adding, “and maybe we could hang out as friends too? I’ve seen you around town before in the library. When I saw you looking at a book on Greek mythology, I wanted to try and start a conversation. But you seemed so invested in the book that I didn’t want to disturb you….”

Roman had wanted to talk to him about the book he was reading? Logan would’ve loved to have someone to talk about Greek mythology with. And Roman was so caring towards Janus. The merman seemed interesting and was clearly a kind person. Logan now wished he had noticed Roman that day in the library. But now the merman was here, and he wanted to be friends…

Before Patton, Logan might’ve been more hesitant to let another person enter his life. But after spending so much time with the fairy and finding it enjoyable to have a friend, the idea of letting Roman into his life seemed very appealing.

Logan smiles reassuringly at the merman before replying, “I’d be interested in hanging out as friends as well. That is, if you don’t mind Janus most likely being around most of the time we hang out. I promise that he doesn’t cry this much most of the time.”

Roman smiles back and says, “I don’t mind having your little prince around. I’ll have more time to get to know him as well then.”

“I guess I’ll see you around then, Roman.” Logan says as he realizes it has gotten very late and they should both get some sleep.

“See you around, Logan. Remember, tap the bracelet if you need me.” Roman says with a smile and a wave before turning around and walking off towards the lake.

Logan watches him go with a hopeful smile on his face, looking forward to seeing how his new friendship develops.

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End Notes: Thanks for reading! If you like this story please consider leaving a like, comment, and/or reblog. This is now the third chapter out of the 5 or 6 chapters I plan on writing. I haven’t written the next chapter yet, but I’ll probably try to start writing it soon.

-Monkey💜 (1/9/24)

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Link to next chapter: https://www.tumblr.com/monkeythefander/741723113949200384/a-witch-and-a-baby-chapter-4-a-chaotic-first

Link to previous chapter: https://www.tumblr.com/monkeythefander/737266270016241664/a-witch-and-a-baby-chapter-2-logan-makes-a

Link to chapter on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52055863/chapters/133918396

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #a witch and a baby sanders sides fanfic #sanders sides fantasy au #logan sanders #janus sanders #patton sanders #the dragon witch #roman sanders #witch logan sanders #merman roman sanders #nature fairy patton sanders #baby janus sanders #the dragon witch’s name is delaney

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monkeythefander · 10 months ago

Text

A Witch and a Baby

Chapter 4: A Chaotic First Meeting

Summary: Logan and Roman are now good friends and things are going well in his life. But his life gets a bit more interesting one night, when a chaotic stranger suddenly enters his life.

Content Warnings: Breaking into someone’s home (it’s just Remus so nothing bad results from this), singing to calm a baby down (the merman’s singing is partly calming due to magic), Remus is shirtless just because, food mention (specifically cereal and baby formula), Remus briefly talks about wanting to take Logan’s eyes (he doesn’t though), let me know if I missed anything else.

Relationships: All platonic, but Remus thinks Roman and Logan are dating for a moment. They are not though.

Click below the cut to read the chapter.

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After meeting Roman properly for the first time, Logan’s nights became more enjoyable. Whenever Janus struggled to fall asleep, Logan would tap the gem on his bracelet and Roman would appear to help. The baby really seemed to enjoy the merman’s songs and Logan found the music soothing too, and would sometimes fall asleep from it.

When Logan didn’t fall asleep right away, Roman would keep him company and the two would discuss all kinds of things. Although they mostly spoke about Greek mythology, poetry, and books they’ve both read. These conversations eventually transferred into the day time as well. The two men would meet up at a cafe in the village to talk with each other, and would sometimes go to the library together. Janus would come with Logan most of the time, since the witch couldn’t always find a babysitter. But when Logan did leave Janus with a babysitter, it was typically Patton.

———————————-

One night, after putting Janus to bed Logan heard noise coming from another part of his cottage. Both on guard and curious, Logan quietly left his bedroom, shutting the door so he’d know to go protect Janus if he heard the door creak open.

Logan silently walks towards the noise, which appears to be coming from his small study. He stands on the side of the doorway and leans slightly to the side to peak in. He then watches as a figure looks through his bookshelf, throwing some books carelessly to the floor. Logan frowned at the sight of his books being handled so roughly. That’s no way to take care of a book.

Logan went to take a step forward, wanting to sneak up behind the intruder and confront them. But once he took the first step the floor made a creaking sound and the figure startled and turned around, making eye contact with Logan. The study’s lights were off and the moon wasn’t visible through the one window in the room, so the only part of the figure Logan could make out were their green eyes, which appeared to be glowing in the dark. Something about that shade of green seemed familiar. Where had he seen eyes like that before?

Suddenly, the figure started walking forward and Logan backed up as they left the darkness of the study and stood in the light of the hallway. Now that he could see the figure clearly, Logan could tell why the eyes seemed familiar. The intruder looked similar to Roman. He had green eyes, red hair, and was wearing pants that had a scaled pattern to them. But unlike Roman, this intruder had a mustache, a gray streak in his hair, green colored pants, and wasn’t wearing a shirt.

After examining the intruder’s appearance, Logan noticed he appeared to be observing Logan’s appearance as well.

“So…you’re the one my brother keeps running off to see so much.” The man then suddenly leans closer to Logan’s face, just staring at his eyes for a few awkward moments before exclaiming, “Your eyes are a very nice shade of gray! Can I have them?!”

“Um….no you cannot. I’d like to keep my eyes for myself.” Logan replies, very confused by this eccentric stranger. Once he got his bearings again, the witch then proceeded to ask the important questions. “Who are you? And how and why did you enter my home?” Logan knew some defensive spells from memory, so if things went wrong he knew he’d be able to defend himself. But first, he wants to hear the intruder’s story.

“Oh! I’m Remus! You can probably guess by my appearance but I might as well say that I’m Roman’s twin brother. To answer your second question, I simply picked the lock on your door and entered the house. I wanted to find out who had caught my twin’s attention so much that he’s been out a night so much lately.” Remus explains with a smirk.

“…Your Roman’s brother?” Logan stared in shock at the man. While it was clear Remus and Roman looked similar, the two clearly had very different personalities. Despite just meeting Remus, Logan could tell that the merman was very chaotic. After all, Remus did break into the cottage. He clearly doesn’t care too much about the law.

“Yes! I got tired of my brother leaving me alone so much. I wanted to go on the adventure, so I came here and found you!” Remus says and he points a finger at Logan. “So tell me, what has my twin been doing with you here so often. Are you his boyfriend? Because if so, then I don’t know why he didn’t tell me. We promised as kids to tell each other about any relationships we have in the future. My own brother has betrayed me! I’ve been stabbed in the back!” The merman then dramatically places a hand on his chest, as if in pain.

Logan sighs and tiredly shakes his head. “I thought Roman was dramatic at times, but you seem even more eccentric than him. And to answer your question, no, your brother and I aren’t dating. So he hasn’t betrayed you. Roman is my friend though. He’s mainly been coming over here to help me put my son to bed whenever he can’t stop crying.”

“So you’re telling me I’m basically an uncle now, and I wasn’t told about this! Roman has basically been playing house with you here and I wasn’t invited to join this family. I must meet my nephew now!” Remus says before he starts to curiously look around the hallway. “Where’s the little gremlin?”

“You’re not an uncle. Roman isn’t my son’s other dad. He’s just a friend who helps me out. But since you wanted to know what your brother gets up to here, I might as well introduce you to Janus anyway. But you need to be quiet. I put him to sleep before coming out here to look for you.”

“Okay!” Remus shouts before quickly correcting himself, “Okay, I’ll be extra quiet. I can be really sneaky when I need to.”

Logan sighs again before motioning for Remus to follow him towards the bedroom. The two men enter the room to see Janus sleeping peacefully in his crib. Logan glances at Remus to see him staring in what looks like amazement at Janus.

“He has scales on his face. Is he part dragon? Snake? Does he also have magic like you? I noticed all the spell books you have so I know you’re probably a witch.” Remus rambles quietly as he continues to admire the scales on the baby’s face.

“I think his scales resemble snake scales the most. And I don’t think he has magic, at least not right now. He might develop some in the future since he was created through a spell by the Dragon Witch. And you’re correct in assuming that I’m a witch.” Logan replies. Logan is impressed by how observant the merman seems to be. Remus noticed all the spell books and correctly assumed that Logan was a witch.

“You’ve met the Dragon Witch?! I’ve always wanted to meet her since hearing stories about how powerful she was when I was a kid! Can you introduce me?!” Remus shouts excitedly, forgetting about being quiet. This causes Janus to wake up and start crying. Remus looks over to the now awake and crying baby before looking to Logan apologetically.

“I’m sorry magic man. Let me make up for disturbing the gremlin.” Remus says quietly and walks closer to the crib before Logan can question what he’s going to do. The merman then kneels before the crib and starts singing a lullaby. His singing voice is more raspy than Roman’s, but it’s still just as soothing and Janus soon falls back asleep. Remus then looks to Logan and smiles slightly. “He’s okay now.”

“I can see that. Thank you for calming him back down. But please try to not disturb him again while you’re here. We can continue talking in the living room so we don’t disturb Janus.” Logan replies with a small smile on his face.

“You want to keep talking to me?” Remus asks, tilting his head in surprise and confusion.

“Yes. You had some questions before that I didn’t get to answer. And since you helped with Janus and seem harmless, I’d like to keep talking to you.” Logan says. The witch can tell that like him, Remus probably struggles when it comes to friendships. The merman only mentioned his brother and was clearly upset that Roman kept leaving him alone to hang out with Logan.

Remus smiles and replies, “Okay. I’d like to talk to you more too. You seem interesting, magic man.”

Logan smiles back and motions for Remus to follow him to the living room. The two then spend a good portion of the night just talking about whatever comes to mind. Logan tells Remus about the Dragon Witch, and answers any other questions the merman has. In return, Remus answers any questions Logan has about the magic of merpeople and life under the water. Eventually the two notice how late it’s gotten and Logan says they should probably get some sleep. The witch lets Remus stay the night on the couch and Logan goes back to his room to rest.

The next day, the two men and Janus eat breakfast together (the adults have cereal and Janus has a bottle of baby formula). Remus and Logan continue discussing random things and end up realizing they really like spending time together. After breakfast, Remus decides he should go home since Roman is probably wondering where he’s been. Logan agrees and walks Remus to the door.

“Thanks for stopping by. Despite you breaking in and initially startling me, I enjoyed getting to know you. Would you want to meet up again sometime? Without the breaking in part.” Logan asks, feeling more comfortable initiating hang-outs with potential friends.

Remus gives a big smile and nods, “Sure, I’d love to hang out again. And this time, I’ll knock on the door to let you know I’m here. Or I guess you know where to find me too since you probably know where my brother and I live.”

“Yes, I know where you two reside. Now you should probably get going before Roman starts to look for you.” Logan says and watches as Remus nods in agreement. Before leaving though, Remus quickly hugs Logan before pulling away and turning around.

“Goodbye, magic man! See you around.” Remus says with a smirk before walking away. Logan stands in surprise for a moment and watches Remus leave. The witch hadn’t expected to receive a hug right away. Patton was a hugger but he didn’t initiate hugs until he and Logan had been friends for a while.

Logan smiles to himself. That hug was nice, and he could definitely see himself getting used to sudden hugs from Remus in the future.

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End Notes: Thanks for reading chapter 4 of “A Witch and a Baby.” Please consider leaving a like, comment, or reblog if you enjoyed it. I know I probably didn’t write Remus as well as I could have, but I tried to somewhat portray his chaotic energy. There will probably be two more chapters after this, and then I’ll have completed this fanfic.

-Monkey💜

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Links for this fanfic

Link to the next part: https://www.tumblr.com/monkeythefander/745355732819509248/a-witch-and-a-baby-chapter-5-a-vampire-in-the

Link to previous part: https://www.tumblr.com/monkeythefander/739099978507714560/a-witch-and-a-baby-chapter-3-a-lullaby-from-a

Link to this chapter on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52055863/chapters/135705025

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #a witch and a baby sanders sides fanfic #logan sanders #janus sanders #remus sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders mention #the dragon witch mention #her name is Delaney #witch logan sanders #baby janus sanders #merman roman sanders #merman remus sanders #sanders sides fantasy au

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our-legacy-rp-blog · 8 years ago

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MADS has been accepted for the character GEORGIE VAUBADON

We are SO very happy that you applied for Georgie, Mads, your writing is fantastic, you made Georgie come alive, you made her your own, she is bound to be a very interesting addition to the roleplay! Welcome to the roleplay, and be sure you fill out the checklist HERE.

OOC name & pronouns: Mads, she/her Age: 25 Timezone: CST

IC INFORMATION

Character’s name: Georgiana Delaney Meissa Vaubadon, known to all as Georgie. When Eva Vaubadon discovered she was pregnant, she immediately knew that her child (if it was a girl) would have the name Delaney somewhere on the birth certificate. Eva read a story about a trickster named Delaney, who used her wits and her wiles to outmaneuver even the most dangerous opponents. That skill is what Eva wished for her child above all: not beauty, not charm, but wiles. Of course, with Orion as the father, the pair could not agree on a single name for their child, and so Eva also tagged on Orion’s favorite name: Meissa. Although Meissa is a star within the constellation Orion, Eva didn’t mind allowing her daughter to bear that name; after all, Georgie was a part of Orion.

FC choices: Juno Temple

Position request: None. Georgie finds that fitting into Hogwarts’s “preppy positions” is too demeaning. After all, why try to keep first years in line when rulers were meant to be broken?

Birthday: November 1st. Eva went into labor on October 31st, and labored for 13 hours to bring Georgie into the world. Ever a superstitious bunch, Georgie’s maternal grandparents, Alistair and Isabeau Vaubadon, looked at their only grandchild’s star signs to see what fate held for her. Georgie’s zodiac sign is Scorpio, a sign known for its passion and aloofness, and with the planet Pluto as the greatest influence, Georgie was destined for ambition, power, and an ability for manipulation—everything that the Vaubadons hoped for in their heiress.

Wand: 9", pine wood & dragon heartstring. Taken from Pottermore’s wand analysis website, pine wood means the following:

The straight-grained pine wand always chooses an independent, individual master who may be perceived as a loner, intriguing and perhaps mysterious. Pine wands enjoy being used creatively, and unlike some others, will adapt unprotestingly to new methods and spells… The pine wand is one of those that are most sensitive to non-verbal magic.

Patronus: It’s difficult for Georgie to summon a corporeal patronus, although it’s not from lack of trying. With a family involved with such Dark Magic, it’s started to taint Georgie’s ability to cast the Patronus charm. She can still summon her patronus, but it takes most of the young witch’s concentration. However, her patronus is the Coyote. According to the Patronus analysis, the Coyote “can be seen as power hungry, and their ambition is what fuels them”; they can “also be considered selfish, and may come off as cold individuals”.

Boggart: Georgie’s boggart is herself and her family, stripped of all power and casted out in the world, their wands broken and beyond repair. The Vaubadons, although dabblers of Dark Magic, are Georgie’s family, and she would do anything to make their names greater than those that doubted them. When Georgie sees her boggart, it shakes her to the core, but instead of letting the fear overcome her, she doubles her efforts and trains even harder.

Headcanons:

Georgie has multiple scars on her knees and the palms of her hands from her childhood. She’s had the chance to have Healers remove the scars, but she refuses each time out of stubborn pride; she can tell you how she earned each mark, with specific details on the spells or adventures that caused it. She’s particularly fond of a zigzag scar, about an inch long, on her right (wand wielding) hand. When she was twelve, Georgie created a new spell that would infuse enchanted silver into wand tips. When she tested it out with her mother, the wand she’d been using reacted, and sent out a bolt of heated silver onto Georgie’s hand. Although the first trial was a failure, the second trial produced one of the best selling products in the Vaubadon shop—all thanks to Georgie. Eva told her daughter that each mark is one of success, and Georgie truly took it to heart.

With such an unconventional family structure, Georgie has very nontraditional views on marriage, family, and sexuality. When she lost her virginity at the end of her 5th year, Georgie didn’t feel ashamed or afraid; she welcomed her sexual awakening. She’s slept with three others since then—one even being a female classmate that was as curious as Georgie herself—but she’s found that she’s more attracted to men than women. She didn’t hide her sexual activity from her parents, and they both counseled their daughter about the importance of protection charms and potions. Georgie doesn’t believe that marriage is important to create a family, and she’s entertained the thought of raising her own future children like her parents raised her. She’s never felt unloved or unneeded; quite the opposite, actually. Her family has always shown her support and love, even in her darkest endeavors.

When Georgie first discovered that someone could make his or her own spells, it changed her world forever. She could cut her own trails, forge her own craft, and find different ways to make the world bend to her will. She was only eight years old, her magic already showing itself through flashes of fire and overwhelming shadow. The Vaubadon household took to constantly carrying the water spells and siphoning spells on their lips, but Orion and Eva couldn’t express the level of pride they had for their daughter’s magic. Georgie’s grandmother, Isabeau Vaubadon, especially encouraged her interest in spell crafting. Not a stranger to the art herself, Isabeau would demonstrate what made a spell strong: the minute motions of the wand work, the tempo and cadence of the incantations, and the intent behind the casting. The craft enthralled Georgie, and she never thought about the consequences of making spells for the Dark Arts.

The young Vaubadon is extremely talented with her wand work, and her professors see that she could do exceedingly well in school, but she doesn’t put forth the effort. To her, Hogwarts is a means of finding potential clients and rivals, nothing more. However, Georgie earned three ‘O’s during her O.W.L exams: potions, Charms, and Transfiguration. She received an ‘A’ in Defense Against the Dark Arts because she was too busy studying how to cast the curses instead of blocking/nullifying them. You don’t even want to ask her what she earned in her Divination class (hint: she got a D) simply because she didn’t want to go to the exam. Going into her sixth year, Georgie realizes that she needs to focus on some of her NEWT level classes if she wants to further her own spell making goals.

Unknown to most everyone outside of the Vaubadon family, Georgie is very proficient at wordless, wand-less spell casting. She tries to keep this quiet, as she will often practice her newest creations wordlessly on any school mates that get in her path.

History:

Chiaroscuro: an artist method used to make something three dimension by playing with light and shadow.

A more apt description of the Vaubadon clan could not be found anywhere, and in fact, the Vaubadons themselves accept this as an explanation for their family’s history and values. From the beginning, the founding members of the pureblood family would admit that they do not shy away from the darkness, or shun the light: the Vaubadons have, and will always, straddle both worlds. They stay neutral, not because they’re scared of either side, but because neutrality has proven prosperous for them—why fix what’s not broken? However, the Vaubadons also have a strong sense of self-preservation and know when to wield the darkness that they’ve tamed.

Enter Alistair and Isabeau Vaubadon, second cousins who married to strength the family’s magic. Like most pureblood families, Alistair and Isabeau did not mind intertwining their bloodlines if it meant that their children would be the purest among the Wizarding community. In Alistair and Isabeau’s case, true affection came along with the arrangement; they were both passionate and ambitious people, devoted to furthering their family’s goal of becoming powerful and that combination made for a good match. The two Vaubadon heirs worked diligently to make their family’s aide indispensible at a time when suspicion could have anyone killed or imprisoned: just before the Second Wizarding War. The Vaubadons knew that the War wouldn’t wait for children, so they knowingly had conceived during the turmoil. Twins Lilith and Eva entered the chaotic world and understood from an early age that the Wizarding community needed both dark and light to survive. Their youngest sister, Kaliope, born two years later, did not have the exposure that the twins did. Alistair and Isabeau aided both the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix without any qualms, taking the money all the same, never fully committing to either side but whispering sweet assurances into each side’s ears. While the twins grew up under a self-serving umbrella, none of the war’s tears fell on their charmed lives, and they enjoyed the prosperity. Eva, especially, basked in the attention and flitted easily among the Dark Lord’s followers and Dumbledore’s alliance. At the close of the war, Alistair and Isabeau took a portion of the family fortune and invested in their own shop in Knockturn Alley, naming it Oscuro.

Although born to privilege, as Eva aged and went through Hogwarts, she discovered another path to power: the Auror office. With a knack for spellcasting and a deep understanding of the dark arts, Eva felt that she could infiltrate the Aurors and become a double agent—if one had the coin, of course. Most of her professors eagerly supported the young witch’s career choice, and with the clientele that Oscuro hosted, Eva knew she would get into the elite program. A month before her auror examination, Eva went out drinking with her best friend, Orion Laurier. An easy friendship, built on genuine respect, Orion and Eva had spent many nights partying together without any concerns—until that night. That night, Orion and Eva slept together, and in their drunkenness, they forgot to use a protection potion. When Eva discovered she was pregnant, she immediately recognized that her dreams of donning an auror badge were invalid—but she didn’t begrudge her baby. She turned that energy into creating a space for her child to learn and grow, devoting herself to her baby as she’d once devoted herself to her career plans. When Eva told her parents about her pregnancy, the elder Vaubadons saw another opportunity to grow their power, and insisted that Eva and Orion marry. The pair firmly fought against the arrangement—Eva because she still wanted her independence, and Orion due to the fact that he didn’t romantically love Eva—and finally convinced both sets of families that they would find a way to successfully co-parent their child.

Georgiana Delaney Meissa Vaubadon graced the world on November 1st. Eva was only 19 years old, Orion the same age, but they knew from that moment that their daughter was the love of their lives. Eva and Orion decided to give their daughter the Vaubadon surname in the hopes that it would shield her from some of more unsavory characters that Alistair and Isabeau dealt with, but the naming seemed to mantle Georgie with purpose instead. She grew up knowing that her family had power—not inherited power, but power forged from a dark creativity, which in Georgie’s opinion was the greater of the two. Georgie played among potions full of quicksilver and wolfsbane, and used werewolf bones as makeshift arrows, quickly accepting that her family’s hands weren’t the cleanest. Even as she played among the weapons and potion workshop, Alistair and Isabeau kept their granddaughter away from the spellcasting area—although they didn’t ever lie about what took place there—from fear that the challenge would exhaust Georgie’s magic.

When Georgie’s magic manifested, it did so in a typical Vaubadon fashion: full of shadow and fury. She conjured a blaze that Orion somehow managed to contain, only to then douse the area in complete darkness. Eva and Orion were proud of their daughter, and encouraged her to work on her skills until her acceptance to Hogwarts. Georgie loathed leaving her family—her Aunts Lily and Kali, her grandparents and her parents—but once she arrived on the school’s grounds, she quickly forgot her hesitation. With her thirst for knowledge, Georgie fit perfectly into the Ravenclaw house—although the Sorting Hat did make a good case for Slytherin’s ambition—and soon settled into school life. She knew that her skills were above her classmates’, but she made an effort to use her skills for tricks and jokes, and it worked for a while, until Georgie started losing interest in making friends. As she went through school, her curiosity grew, and she began to put aside her schoolwork for her own interests. During the summer between her fourth and fifth year, Georgie finally shared some of her crafted spells with Eva. Impressed with her daughter’s innovations, Eva encouraged Georgie’s work, and even snuck her into the spell workshop when the elder Vaubadons were otherwise occupied. Georgie Vaubadon was not a witch that would follow everyone else; she would forge her own way, using chiaroscuro to form her path.

Now:

With tensions rising between the werewolves and wizards, Georgie senses changes in the air. She doesn’t particularly care which side wins, as long as she can peddle her spells and study their effects on victims. In fact, she’s been working on spells that would drastically harm both sides: a spell to infuse werewolves’ blood with silver, and a spell to temporarily freeze a witch or wizard’s magic. So far, she hasn’t perfected the spells, but she’s thrown herself into the crafting.

While Georgie’s time at Hogwarts is ending, she still wants to utilize her remaining years and find more buyers for Oscuro’s products. She slips among the debates of pro and anti werewolf groups, listening to what they have to say and filing it away for later. She doesn’t outright say that she doesn’t care, but when asked, she’ll pacify anyone who pokes the subject. Georgie does what she wants without little remorse or guilt, and she doesn’t care if she offends anyone while doing so; she once told her professor off when the adult said that only traditional family structures mattered. Georgie is progressive and open minded, which is sure to serve her when she takes over the family business.

#accepted

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