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shireness-says · 4 years ago

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A Fate Woven in Thread and Ink (2/5)

Summary: Two people are trained from childhood for a magical competition they don’t fully understand, whose stakes are higher than they imagine, all to be played out in a magical traveling circus. Falling in love complicates things. A CS AU of the book “The Night Circus”.

Rated M. ~16.5k. Also on Ao3. On Tumblr: Chapter One

A/N: I’m back! Thanks for your patience in waiting for the latest chapter of my @cssns piece. My apologies for the wait; these chapters are slow in coming due to my own overthinking and perfectionism, what I know where everything is going and this Will Be Finished.

Special thanks to my betas, @snidgetsafan and @ohmightydevviepuu, and to @eirabach for the absolutely gorgeous art she created for this chapter. Seriously, it’s like she climbs right inside my head to see what I’m picturing. Give her a BUNCH of love for all this.

Tagging the interested parties (and let me know if you’re one of those!): @welllpthisishappening, @thisonesatellite, @let-it-raines, @kmomof4, @scientificapricot, @thejollyroger-writer, @superchocovian, @teamhook, @optomisticgirl, @winterbaby89, @searchingwardrobes, @katie-dub, @snowbellewells, @spartanguard, @phiralovesloki, @profdanglaisstuff, @winterbythesea

Enjoy - and let me know what you think!

~~~~~

Henry is six the first time he visits the Circus.

It’s a special treat for an orphaned boy like him; the nuns who run the Storybrooke Children’s Home, just outside of Portland, Maine, aren’t much given to frivolous entertainments like this. But a generous monetary donation had been made to the home when the Circus had set up just over the next hill, and tickets for all the children along with it. The nuns may not be much for frivolity, but they’re not ones for waste, either, especially where gifts are concerned. The next night, Sister Astrid and Sister Theodora collect all the children who want to go, and bring them to what, to Henry, feels like a whole other world.

Henry is a boy the adults already say lives in his imagination too much, and the magic of the Circus only enchants him further, calling to him in a way he doesn’t yet have the words to understand, let alone describe. There are trapeze artists who soar through the air, and jugglers, and lions and tigers and wolves so tame that they’ll take treats from his hands. Kindly confectioners slip him pieces of praline and boxes of popcorn to snack on through the night with a wink and a smile. It’s treatment such as he’s never experienced before, and it’s easy to wonder if he’s just wandered into some kind of dream.

(Even at six, Henry knows better than to disrupt such a lovely dream.)

It’s easy to get separated from the rest of the children in the dazzle of it all, and Henry finds himself wandering the curved paths alone as the clock strikes one, when the others in his group are preparing to return to the Home. Not that he knows it; he’s far too occupied by staring wide-eyed at the black and white tents where they soar to meet the stars and peeking beyond their entrance flaps.

That’s how the lady finds him - gawking with a craned neck at everything around him.

“Have you lost your group, young man?” she asks with a gentle voice. Henry likes being called young man; it makes him feel important.

“It’s okay,” he tells her earnestly. “They like to go faster than me. I can do it by myself.”

“I’m sure you can,” the lady laughs. She looks really pretty; her hair is yellow and curly and she wears a poofy white dress with black swirly bits and a black, long-sleeved jacket, the lack of color making it obvious she’s part of the Circus somehow. If this was one of the fairy tales Henry likes so much, she’d be the princess in hiding; here, at the Circus, that just might be true. “I was just planning to walk to the front gates. Would you care to escort me, young sir?”

Henry eagerly takes the hand the lady offers. “I’m Henry,” he tells her as they walk. “What’s your name?”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Henry. My name is Emma.”

“That’s a princess name. Are you a princess?”

“No,” she laughs, “but thank you very much, Henry. I appreciate the compliment. Are you enjoying the circus?”

“Yeah!” As they walk, Henry eagerly tells the lady - Emma, his new friend - about all his favorite bits - the animals and the dancers and especially the magician. Emma has a funny little smile when he talks about that, but Henry doesn’t think to ask about it.

When the front gates are finally in sight, Henry tugs on Emma’s hand. “I like it here,” he whispers. “Do I have to go?”

Emma crouches down, her skirts pooling around her and threatening to envelop him too. “Yes, Henry, you have to leave for now.”

“But why? I want to stay here. I could stay with you!”

“Oh, Henry, I’d like that so much,” she tells him, pulling him into a hug. “You need to go for now, until you’re older, but the Circus will always be here for you, okay? You’ll come back.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

Henry dreams of the circus that night, and for many nights after, though the visions his mind conjures up never quite match the mysticism of the real thing.

A week later, the Circus is gone.

(But here, in a small room in a cold, gloomy children’s home - a young boy remembers.)

———

Belle, unsurprisingly, proves to be a determined and reliable correspondent. She’s like his little window into the Circus, even when he can’t be there himself, as is so often the case - especially in those first few years. Five years pass of letters and far-too-rare visits, and yet Killian never feels left in the dark. That’s the magic of what Belle can accomplish with her words - let him feel as if he is present even when he can’t be.

Her missives contain the important things he asked for, of course - reports of new tents and changes in operations and unusual things his opponent, Miss Swan, is doing. They’re useful words, words that help him plan his own next moves. More than that, though, her letters are filled with wonderful little mundane details that make him smile. Belle tells him about the latest book she’s read and how fast the Zimmer twins are growing up and particularly funny anecdotes she’s heard. There are complaints about the weather, and discussions of the interesting or ominous things she reads in the cards. Always, always, there are chronicles of all the many places she has seen as the Circus crisscrosses the world, recountings of wondrous sights and marvelous people. Belle had wanted to see the world, and she’s getting to, five times over. It’s everything she deserves, only wrapped in an unusual and often demanding package.

“It’s not too much, is it?” Killian asks on one of the rare instances their paths cross - in Paris, this time, where Killian has come on an errand for Jefferson, sitting in a little cafe in the shadow of Notre Dame. “I never want to ask more of you than you can manage.”

“Don’t be silly,” Belle says, waving off his concerns like the steam from their coffee. “They’re merely letters, Killian. It’s no great bother - especially for something I’d be doing anyways. I’d be writing to you regardless, Killian - you’re my best friend in the world, and I’ll be terribly put out if you ever stop writing me back.”

And that’s that.

(Most days, Killian believes that Belle is a much better friend than he could ever possibly deserve. He makes a mental note to say something of the sort in his next letter back to her.)

(Of course, he forgets - but then again, he can’t imagine she doesn’t already know.)

———

As a child, growing up knowing she was destined for some magical contest, Emma had always been told that she’d understand what she needed to do once her competition actually started. As an adult, now smack in the middle of it all, she finds that is decidedly not the case. Emma does her best, but it still feels like she has no idea what in the world she’s supposed to be doing.

The Circus is meant to be a canvas for her abilities, hers and her opponent’s; that much is obvious. What exactly that means is… more up for debate. Emma tries to take on more of the Circus in little pieces, bit by bit, so that more of its operations run on magic than on man power. It’s more enjoyable to try and come up with new attractions, drawing upon her imagination to come up with something new. It’s not a particularly quick process - Emma spends a lot of time planning each idea, to make sure she doesn’t miss anything, and it means that she can only create maybe two new tents each year. It’s worth it, though, to wander through the finished product, and see the way her most fanciful ideas have come to life.

(“You need to be doing more,” Regina always scolds her on those rare occasions she makes the effort to visit her student. “This isn’t playtime. You can’t just make the effort when you feel like it, silly girl. Don’t you want to win this?”

“Of course, Regina,” Emma always says, making whatever promises she needs to in order to appease the other woman - all the while knowing that she will continue to act in her own way.)

(For Emma, the best thing about the Circus may be the separation from the woman who took her in. Regina does not often make the effort to check in on how her student is doing - and Emma more than likes it that way.)

There are traces of her mysterious opponent’s work, too. Sometimes it’s in the form of dramatic new attractions, things that push the bounds of possibility and perception; sometimes, it’s with more mundane things, like a wine-sampling tent tucked along a path that Emma is certain never existed before.

His or her greatest feat, however, is on the members of the Circus themselves. As the years pass by, Emma can’t help but notice that time doesn’t affect everyone who brings the Circus to life, with the exception of the Zimmer twins. It’s been more than half a decade, but Granny Lucas is still as hale and hearty as ever. Not a single face has gained extra creases, or a single head extra grey hairs. Something this unknown competitor did has stopped the clock for all of them within the iron fence, even as the grand timepiece above the front gates ticks on.

It’s an impressive piece of magic - one that must take a considerable amount of skill and effort. It’s the first time Emma wonders if maybe this is a contest of endurance, rather than skill.

Regina won’t tell her, however, and Emma puts the matter out of her mind while she turns her attention towards the night’s performances and the germ of an idea blooming in her head. Something fantastical. Something striking - and icy.

There’s always room for imagination and for creation at the Circus, after all - and despite her opponent’s impressive efforts, that’s exactly what Emma is counting on to one day prevail in this competition.

———

The Zimmer twins are special, Emma discovers, and not just in the way anyone who has loved a child claims them to be exceptional. In Ava and Nicholas’ case, it’s true.

There had been something in the air the night the circus opened, the night after the twins were born - something crackling and pervasive and magical. Emma has suspected for years - since that very moment - that the energy was something created by her still-unknown opponent. It’d been like a wave, rippling through them all at once and creating unknown effects. She thinks this might be one of those - powers growing in two children who, by all indication, shouldn’t have received them.

It’s especially noticeable to Emma, who not only has the ability to sense the powers running through their veins, but spends a considerable amount of time with the six-year-old twins. Ava and Nicholas grow up like the beloved niece and nephew of everyone involved with the circus, as though everyone communally agreed to test the proverb it takes a village. While the circus is open to visitors, and the children’s parents responsible for their little cart of carved treasures, everyone else watches the little boy and girl in shifts when they’re not performing - and Emma quickly becomes a particular favorite. She’s never been sure why; maybe they sensed the magic in her own veins, even as babies, and latched onto it. Maybe they simply like the way she thoughtfully humors every flight of fancy. Whatever the case - Emma knows her life would be far less interesting without the two in it.

Ava has magic that likes to shake out and twinkle at the edges of her soft hair, similar in a way to Emma’s own powers. Unusual things happen around her, if you’re paying attention; lost things are more easily found, snacks and sweets turn up in unlikely places, and on one impressive occasion, a pair of fluffy orange and white kittens crawled out from beneath her bunk.

“I can fix that,” she tells Emma innocently one day as Emma moves to throw a vase of wilted flowers out. She hasn’t prodded Ava about her powers before - it doesn’t seem the time to bring to the forefront all the things she can likely do, not when she’s still a little girl, not when Emma’s own childhood was largely sacrificed because of her own powers - but it’s a hard opportunity to pass up. It’s worth demonstrating to Ava, anyways, that her powers are simply a part of her, and nothing to make a fuss about.

“Can you show me?” Emma asks. It’s impossible not to smile when the little girl nods eagerly and furrows her brow in concentration, staring fixedly at the wilted daisies. Slowly but surely, the browned tips disappear, the petals straightening from their shrivelled state and the flowers once again lifting upright to seek the sun.

“That’s very well done, Ava,” Emma makes sure to tell her.

“I know,” Ava replies seriously with all the intensity of a child her age. “Can you do that too?”

“I can.” Emma doesn’t tell people about her magic, usually, but Ava seems like a necessary exception - to let the little girl know she’s not entirely alone in her special, unusual skills.

“I thought so,” the little girl nods sagely. “I could feel it.”

It doesn’t surprise Emma in the least.

Nicholas knows things that he shouldn’t - knows things that no one should know. Somehow, the stars speak to him in a language only he can understand. Nick sees things to come and things that have already happened, and sometimes divulges them readily and at the most unlikely times.

“Is the scary lady with the dark hair your mama?” he asks one day out of the blue, startling Emma before she collects herself.

“No. She was my teacher,” Emma explains.

“Oh.” His question asked, Nick happily goes back to playing quietly with his wooden lion. He’s less prone to chatter than his sister, happy to keep to his own thoughts when Ava isn’t pulling him into some other adventure. Emma rather wonders if it’s not because he has all the things he sees in the stars to keep him company.

“Is there a reason you asked?” she inquires as casually as she can. “Did you… was there something you saw?”

“She hurt you,” is all he’ll say. “Before you were here.”

Something from the past, then - not so immediately alarming, though a sign she’ll need to be vigilant about hiding certain portions of her memories that young, impressionable and trusting minds shouldn’t be seeing.

“It’s alright, Nickie,” she tells him. “She isn’t around to bother me very often.”

He nods decisively. “Good.”

As he turns his attention back to his wooden lion, bringing a tiger in as well, Emma reaches out for the magic constantly humming about her and draws it into herself, directing to play through her mind and cast something almost like her invisibility cloak around her more traumatic memories to keep Nicholas from seeing.

“Is there anything else?” she prods, mostly to test and see if the charm is effective.

Sure enough, the little boy’s face twists into a frown. “I don’t know,” he grumbles. “I can’t see.”

“Ah, well,” Emma replies in a purposefully light tone. “Maybe some other time.”

(She is not entirely sure she means it.)

Truth be told, Ava and Nicholas and their wondrous gifts are a beautiful mystery. All Emma knows is that it’s her responsibility to protect them from more sinister influences, the way she wishes someone had done for her. They deserve that. She deserved that. And she’ll be damned if they’re turned into pawns the way she was.

There are many good things to come out of the Circus - friendship and wonder and home - but Emma thinks the Zimmer twins, and the powers they should be able to wield for good without the interference of people like Regina - are one of the best.

———

There are attractions at the Circus unlike anything you’ve seen before, that you think may only exist within these iron gates. The Circus is a place where the otherworldly and impossible come to life.

This tent contains one such wonder, advertised with simple but mysterious words. This marker swirls and glistens in the moonlight, coaxing you inside to discover its secrets.

Stepping through the tent flap, brisk air tickles at your face - the first sign of what’s to come. Twisting through the interior are all manner of transparent structures, arranged in neat beds. The Ice Garden - just as promised. Each creation appears impossibly delicate and fragile, and by all logic, should be impossible on a warm summer’s night. There are lilies and roses and daisies, sculpted topiaries, winding vines, flowers that remind you of an illustration you once saw of tropical flora. A raised bed of cacti and succulents sprawls along one wall. Opposite, an apple tree, laden with fruit, arches gracefully at the edge of a silver-stoned path. There are little crystalline plaques, too, for all the plants whose names you’d never begin to guess: Shooting Star. Gayfeather. Anemones. Candelabra Primrose.

Every inch, every label, every petal, is made of ice.

Even at the Circus, such a thing should be impossible, This tent may be slightly, inexplicably cooler, but it’s by no means chilled enough to maintain this icy wonder. Though you know you shouldn’t touch, you can’t help but graze your fingers along an icy petal, just to make sure it isn’t cleverly blown glass. It’s a joyous mystery when they come away cold and wet, the sculptures revealed as ice in truth.

There’s no explanation for the Ice Garden - how it can exist at this edge of the Circus, seemingly unburdened by the laws of nature.

The longer you spend in the sparkling, colorless chill, the more you come to realize that beauty doesn’t need an explanation anyways.

———

Killian -

I know it’s not quite the update you were asking for, but I still feel compelled to share - something wonderful and charming and amusing, and so delightfully human. I couldn’t quite resist writing to tell you.

I could be wrong - but I believe a little fanclub has sprung up to trail the Circus. You’ll think it silly, Killian, but I am starting to recognize faces here - not of Circus members (I am not nearly so unobservant, or so rude not to recognize them by name after all these years!) but of visitors. There are a handful I could swear are coming over and over again. I’ll have to ask, next time I notice.

(Not that I can begrudge them of such - I certainly would be doing the same, in their shoes! It’s just that the fortunes get rather repetitive. I should probably let them know that the stars of fate do not change nearly as quickly as they seem to believe…)

There’s a certain awe, or maybe more like peace, that they wear on their faces as they move about the grounds that’s unique from all the other looks I see - almost like they’re coming home. I certainly know something about that - I think so many of us do. It’s wonderful, really - the way these visitors love the Circus so much that they feel compelled to return time and time again, joyously retracing the same paths over and over. It’s clear they love this place the way we do. Isn’t that just what we wanted, anyways? To make something for others to love, to play a part in bringing it to life?

(Yes, I obviously remember that you’re also doing this for your mysterious competition - but I don’t believe someone makes something so beautiful without a generous dose of love as well. Don’t try to deny it, Killian - you know I’m always right.)

I hope you are well; no other news from here. As always, I’ll let you know if anything changes.

Best wishes,

Belle

———

In time, the Circus gains followers.

It was probably inevitable, in a way; as the Circus winds its way across the world, through large cities and small towns, it touches countless lives as it goes, some more impactfully than others. There are those who visit once, and remember it fondly; those who take the opportunity to visit whenever the Circus is in their area, and look forward to it; and those who hold the memories close to one day tell their disbelieving grandchildren.

And then - there are the Rêveurs.

The Rêveurs start almost like a book club - groups of people who meet to reminisce about their favorite attractions, all the sights and smells and tastes that make the whole experience unforgettable. In time, the groups morph; they begin to go to the Circus together, and then travel to visit other Rêveurs when the Circus comes to their area. Particularly eloquent members begin to write into their local newspapers and magazines, beautiful editorials that convey love and wonder and coax thousands of others through the twisted iron gates. It becomes an entire movement, based off of a shared love, of people coming together to experience the Circus over and over again.

It is easy to spot the Rêveurs, if you know what you are looking for. In one of the editorials, an adherent mentions his own preferred way to experience the Circus - to blend in as much as he can, in all black and white, while still setting himself apart from those who bring the experience to life by adding a single touch of red. The trend catches on quickly; wandering the grounds, it is easy to spot splashes of red in the crowd, handkerchiefs peeking from pockets and roses or carnations in lapels and gloves and ribbons in hair.

Some Rêveurs make sure to visit new attractions each time they visit; some prefer to see the same over and over, lingering in the acrobat tent or on the carousel for hours. In a way, they prove that there is no right or wrong way to experience the Circus - there will always be new things to see, and old favorites to return to.

The members of the Circus are aware of the Rêveurs, too. Indeed, there are benefits to being in the same audience with that little flash of red, as performers bring out their best, most dazzling tricks and attempt new daring feats. Watching carefully, one might see a vendor slip a cup of cocoa or an extra serving of toasted nuts to a man or woman with that bare hint of color. All visitors to the Circus are valued, but the Rêveurs are treasured, in a different way, that makes every person involved in the endeavor want to do just the slightest bit more to bring the experience to life in a new way.

The performers and vendors and other members of the Circus are its engine, in many ways - but the Rêveurs just might be its heart.

———

Killian -

I just realized that it’s been a while since my last letter - two months, I believe! Everything is perfectly fine here, I assure you. In fact, I haven’t written because there’s been nothing particularly notable to report. I’ve been watching for new additions, just as I always do, but nothing has appeared. Ah, well. We must be in a quiet stretch on that front.

Meanwhile, the Circus trundles onward, as it so often does. This week, we’re in Morocco. I’ve never been - and oh Killian, it is wonderful. The air is hot and dry and tinged with all kinds of spices that I can’t quite identify. And the food! A little group of us went and wandered in one of the markets, trying things from the stands. I’ve never tasted anything like it. What boring lives so many people lead, happy to stay on their own little island and pretend they know everything. This is so much preferable. The weather is a wonderful respite, too, from the cold I know must be sweeping through now that December is well and truly here.

I do not know if we’ll be home for Christmas; I rather doubt it. I’ll miss our usual holiday feast, but I trust that you’ll have a lovely time with your brother instead. My regards to Liam, as always.

Yours &c.,

Belle

———

Killian is lucky, in a way. After all, he has Belle and Liam, who both know about this competition. They’re his support system, the people who keep him grounded to life outside of all this - especially Liam. Lord knows Mr. Gold has never sought to do that. He doubts Miss Swan has that. Maybe he’s wrong; for her sake, he hopes he is. How lonely it must be to keep that secret, otherwise.

Liam’s apartment is like a sanctuary at the end of a long day, where his brother waits with dark spiced rum and a roaring fire. Sometimes they venture out for dinner; some nights they stay in, and have the landlady send up something to eat. Mostly, Killian enjoys the peace of being in company that never expects more of him than he’s sure he can give. All Liam expects is companionship, and maybe for Killian to come with a nice bottle of spirits every so often. Killian can more than handle that.

(They do not mention that Liam does not seem to age, the same way all those attached to the Circus do not. If his brother has even noticed, he remains blessedly silent on the subject.)

“Do you wonder sometimes,” Liam asks one night, “what would have happened if you hadn’t been selected by Gold? If you had turned him down?”

Killian shrugs. They’re in the middle of their third drinks - just the time for philosophical questions like these. “Not really,” he admits. “What’s the use? It happened like it happened. You wouldn’t have as nice a place as this, that’s for damn sure.”

Liam snorts, and the atmosphere turns more jovial for a few minutes as both men indulge in a drunken laugh before things turn thoughtful again. “If you had to do it all over again… would you?”

“I would,” Killian agrees. “We were a couple of scrappy orphans, no prospects, nothing. I’ve never been given a reason to truly regret it.”

“Then I’m happy for you, brother.” Liam tops off their glasses and raises his drink in a toast. “To good decisions, then!”

“To good decisions,” Killian echoes. “Or at least ones we haven’t yet regretted.”

———

Some attractions are more conventional in name, their promises familiar and comforting in that way that the expected can be. But this is the Circus, and conventional simply doesn’t exist here in the same way.

You enter another tent to discover a hall of mirrors. It is a common enough attraction, at its core, one you have seen in other carnivals and street fairs. But true to the promise of the Circus, this version of such a fun house classic is more than you’ve ever seen. There are tall, full length mirrors, as you’ve come to expect, but small mirrors too, clustered on tables in every nook between their larger counterparts to reflect the lantern light in every direction. The mirrors don’t just distort your own reflection either; in addition to mirrors that cause your reflection to look taller or shorter or wider, there are mirrors to make you look older or younger, mirrors which change your hair, mirrors which duplicate your visage over and over again until you appear to be surrounded by a crowd of your own self in the mirror. There are even mirrors which somehow make it appear that you are someplace else entirely - by the seaside, the water slowly soaking your shoes, or in a fragrant flower garden, or wandering amidst ancient ruins. It is a clever trick, and one you won’t pretend to understand. In your heart, you never want to, for fear of ruining the illusion.

The world feels bright and new under the moonlight as you exit back outside the tent, like the hall of mirrors has helped you find a new way of seeing.

(And maybe, you realize, that’s the entire point.)

———

Killian takes small comfort in the fact that Mr. Gold seems pleased with his efforts. Truthfully, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows that somehow he’s supposed to demonstrate his abilities and magical knowledge on the canvas that is the Circus, but that only tells him so much. Killian adds attractions when he can, crafting things like the Hall of Mirrors in careful dioramas before sewing the plans into his master book, but it’s so hard to know if he’s on the right track.

Mr. Gold has never been particularly involved in Killian’s life, and that doesn’t change now that the competition has well and truly begun. As a child, Killian had been largely self-taught, relying on the books that his teacher provided and the man himself only dropping in periodically to test his knowledge and comprehension. This feels like much the same thing; once a year, Mr. Gold will appear in Killian’s office after one of the Circus dinners, or outside his flat door without warning. There may be a polite inquiry about what Killian is currently working on, especially if the visit occurs in his cramped and ruthlessly organized office; more often than not, there isn’t. Killian will make polite inquiries about his mentor’s health and business, all of which are carefully avoided. Mr. Gold will state that he is satisfied with the work of his student - exactly that, and nothing more.

Killian never expects an expression of pride; after all, he’s never received anything of the sort in all the years he’s been under his teacher’s direction. Theirs has always been a distant relationship, if it can even be called that.

“How will I know I’ve won?” Killian dares to ask on one of these visits. “What do I have to do?”

“You’ll know, dearie,” is all his teacher will say. “Trust me, it will be very obvious.”

It is not.

But Killian works onward, carefully building and manipulating things. Who knows? Maybe, one day, he’ll understand.

———

The relationship between the members of the Circus and the Rêveurs has always been unusual. If it weren’t for the fact that the two groups are inextricably linked, and indeed obviously treasure one another, the interaction almost might be called respectfully distant. There exists an unspoken, but obviously adhered to, separation between the two - that there are Circus folks and there are Rêveurs, and they do not socially interact. Though a vendor or performer might, surreptitiously and casually, mention an anticipated next stop to an awed visitor with that single splash of red, they will not be found together in the light of day, strolling in the public parks or sharing a coffee in one of the cafés. The Rêveurs, largely, prefer it that way; the mystical quality is somehow kept alive when the people of the Circus only seem to dwell within its gates.

Of course, Emma has never been one for formality, or fitting in with the rest of the crowd.

If pressed, she’ll claim that Marco is an anomaly - a man who fits between both worlds, and therefore special. It’s her own kind of loophole in the intricate rituals of the Circus and the Rêveurs.

(No one ever presses, though - to do that, they’d need to know that Emma writes to Marco in the first place.)

Marco, in truth, has been involved in the Circus since the very beginning - though he did not always know it. An Italian by birth, living in Germany and creating exquisitely crafted cuckoo clocks, Mr. Marco Gepetto had been the very man contracted by Mr. Booth, the architect, to build the massive timepiece at the front gates, back when this whole endeavor was still coming together. Marco hadn’t been aware of that, at the time; all he’d known was that an Englishman had offered him a frankly absurd amount of money and next to no direction, only to create something unusual and extraordinary for a circus venue he was helping produce. With his rambling imagination and careful craftsman’s hands, Marco had more than delivered, creating the masterpiece Emma has found comfort in watching many times.

That clock had always haunted him, he’s tried to explain to her many times during their correspondence, his mind running wild wondering exactly where it had been installed. Mr. Booth had sent a note declaring the producers delighted by the result, and Marco had never heard a peep again. Emma cannot blame him for wondering, truly, after all the months he had invested in the clock and all the personal touches he had poured in. The truth, he confides, is that he believed - nay, believes it to be his greatest work, all the while unaware that so many others were similarly touched. It was only years later that Marco had realized the grand project he had unknowingly helped bring to life, when an acquaintance had insisted they visit the traveling circus setting up just outside of Munich.

“It was wonderful,” he gushes to Emma as they walk down the streets of Naples several years later, the older man happily pointing out the location of all the haunts of his younger days. “It was more than I ever could have imagined - and so well situated! So perfectly blended with the rest of the design! I must tip my cap to Signore Booth for his work, and all his compatriots.”

Marco had fallen in love with the circus on that first night, as a venue for his masterpiece and as a creation all its own. It was impossible not to, he had claimed later in the first of many editorials and subsequent letters - it was like the Circus called to him, begging him to uncover all its secrets. It may be the work of several lifetimes; perhaps, that’s just the appeal.

He didn’t particularly mean to spearhead the Rêveurs movement, he’d explained to Emma in one letter. It was simply that he’d fallen in love, with a place and an experience, and wanted to share that with everyone else. It was just that he was the first, the first to not just talk about the Circus but publish his thoughts, that had made him the unexpected figurehead of the group. He’d been the one to come up with the idea of that touch of red, too, though he never admits it unless pressed.

Letters flood in, from across Europe and the globe, wanting to compare experiences and share in the joy of the Circus. Marco gladly responds; many, indeed, become friends. But none is quite like Emma, who he only first knows as a woman with unusual insight into the Circus when she first begins writing, just another person who reaches out after one of his editorials. He assumes she’s just another of his Rêveur correspondents at first, but her thoughts, so carefully measured but fond, strike a chord somewhere in Marco. A friendship blossoms over dozens of letters exchanged, comparing experiences and details noticed and treasured - until, finally, this summit, as Marco had visited an elderly aunt while the Circus docked along the Italian coast.

He takes the revelation that Emma isn’t merely some visitor, but a core member of the Circus, with an unexpected lack of surprise. “I wondered if you were rather closer to the matter than you let on,” Marco explains, patting her hand before tucking it into the crook of his elbow. “I shall consider myself uniquely lucky to have earned your friendship.”

And he has. Marco possesses a sharp mind and an affection for the little details that Emma loves, and an easy-going manner it proves near-impossible not to be charmed by. He fills something like a fatherly role, for Emma - always encouraging and delighted to hear about the latest improvements to her show. She doesn’t tell him that all the magic she does is real - but somehow feels that he understands, anyways. Marco is special like that, and perceptive. Somehow, Emma doubts that he’d be much surprised if she revealed the whole mess of the competition.

Marco may be physically distant from the ever-changing Circus grounds, and may not fully know what’s going on - but he’s a pillar of support, all the same, like Emma has never known.

(She only hopes he isn’t one more thing that’s just too good to last.)

———

Killian -

At long last - an update! I feel like it’s been so long since I’ve had anything to report to you. Not that I don’t enjoy our correspondence, of course - it’s always so wonderful to share with you a little slice of my life here and hear from you in return. I simply feel so much better when I have something concrete to report to you, as we agreed.

I’m stalling, though. The truth is… I’m not entirely sure how to put into words exactly what this latest tent contains. It defies description, I find. The little sign along the path reads ‘Wishing Tree’, but that doesn’t describe much, does it? That could be anything. The Wishing Tree, in truth, is… oh, where do I start? It is somehow both earthly and otherworldly. It is both wondrously fantastical and firmly rooted in the soil. It exists both on this plane and in the world of dreams and aspirations. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that it is a contradiction, in the most spectacular way. Most simply put, if I stop beating around the bush, it is like a living, growing wishing well - but so much better than that, in its symbolism. There are no words to do it justice.

If you couldn’t tell already, Killian, I am insisting that you come and visit the Circus grounds next time it is convenient. There is no other way to fully grasp the delight of this latest addition. If I were not so terribly fond of you, I’d offer a hearty ‘Bravo!’ to your competitor - so count yourself lucky!

Yours,

-Belle

———

The Circus’ tents are filled with wonders - large and small, loud and quiet, and everything in between. What unites all the disparate attractions is a mystical quality - one that’s hard to put into words, but that makes every move and every moment greater and more magical than any similar display you may have seen before.

The particular tent in front of you is tall, but narrow, with a delicate wooden sign carefully placed to the side of the silvery-paved path leading beneath the entrance flap. Wishing Tree, it reads in a painted cursive script. An attraction you’ve never heard of.

Lifting the tent flap reveals just what was promised on the placard - a tall, elegant tree, all in the colors of the circus, with white bark and black leaves. The tree’s branches twist and curve around the tent, creating a structure almost reminiscent of a basket. Where it could be grotesque, the way branches stretch and dip around your body, but the effect is somehow comforting - like the tree protects all that it surrounds. It is otherworldly, in the truest sense of the word, an effect only heightened by the clusters of pearly white candles on each branch. By the entrance sits a small table, with a basket of candles and a crisp white card, embossed with a simple instruction:

Make a wish.

A wish is a sacred thing, and this is a place that respects that. After making your own wish, lighting your candle with one of the many already waiting on the tree’s branches, you place it in the highest nook you can reach where two branches join. There’s a profound symbolism to it all - one wish ignited by another, left to become part of a beautiful mass of light, illuminating this little corner of the world in soft and beautiful light.

(That light will stay with you long after you slip back through the flap of the tent.)

———

At Belle’s urging, Killian makes the trip to see the Circus, and especially this new attraction, when they pass through Edinburgh. It is not precisely convenient - there are multiple trains involved from London, after all - but there’s no real telling when it will next be in the city, and he trusts Belle’s judgement that he must see this Wishing Tree for himself.

She’s right, of course. The Wishing Tree defies all conventional description. There’s a sense of possibility, and hope that just can’t be captured in a simple letter. Killian is sorely tempted to take a candle and light a wish of his own, but ultimately resists. The Wishing Tree isn’t just for some passing fancy - it is for the deepest dreams of one’s heart. As long as Killian is still unsure as to what his own dearest dream might be, it feels more appropriate to refrain from adding his own candle to the glowing branches. There will be time, later.

His immediate business for the evening concluded, Killian takes the time just to wander the grounds. It’s something he hasn’t had the opportunity to do in far too long - there’s always been something to worry about, something to take care of when he comes to the Circus. This is a bit of a chance to try and experience things the way all their unknowing visitors do - to see the beauty, and the wonder, without analyzing anything further. Once he clears his mind, it’s easy to see the things the way that normal visitors do, the way something special sparkles in the very air.

There are still stops to make, of course; Belle would never forgive him if he didn’t pop into her tent. The fortune teller’s tent is made up to be an eye-catching oddity, but there’s still something welcoming about it that always soothes Killian - though maybe that’s just the knowledge of his dearest friend waiting just inside. Just inside the tent flap, dark curtains speckled with silver flecks like stars drape, giving way to a beaded fringe that softly clicks when touched. He’s been known to fiddle with those beads as he sits and talks with Belle, like a soothing sort of fidget. Beyond the beaded curtains sit three comfortable armchairs with a draped table at their center; Belle always does like the romance of reading for couples. There are no crystal balls, or posters about lines on palms; just Belle, the table and chairs, and her deck of tarot cards. Killian knows one of the curtains stretched behind her hides the entrance into her private quarters, where she’s been known to duck for a quick cup of tea, but no one else who didn’t know would see that. The whole effect is decidedly unusual, even mystical, but in a way that feels cozy. It’s like sitting in someone’s living room, sharing a bit of conversation - but the conversation concerns all manner of possible futures, and how they’ll come to pass.

Belle looks like herself, mostly, elegant in shades of white and grey and black and silver. She hasn’t leaned into any of the stereotypes or cliches - no scarf around her head or massive gold earrings or patchwork skirts. She looks like she could be any shop girl, or personal secretary, or even a beloved female relation in her neat dresses in playful patterns, accentuated with pretty bits of lace. There are more formal options in her closet too, he knows, provided by the Circus organizers for her use, but she likes this better; it makes her feel more like herself, and not entirely subsumed by the role she plays.

“You came!” she crows with delight when he ducks his head past the beaded drapery. He hadn’t let her know he was coming, this time, happy to let it remain a pleasant surprise. Not that it matters much - Belle’s face would light up in delight in the same way, even if he had warned her to expect his visit.

“Of course I did, love,” he assures her with a grin. “You insisted, didn’t you? I seem to remember a very commanding letter, telling me I must come see this wishing tree for myself.”

“Yes, but there was always the chance you would get stubborn on me, or get called away on business for Jefferson, and I’d have to send another three to five letters until I finally guilted you here.”

“Alright, I suppose that’s true,” he admits. He does tend to get rather sidetracked much of the time, especially when there is work to be done and new, exciting ideas to explore.

“Instead, here you are! Only weeks after I wrote. A rare instance of agreeability - there’s hope for you yet,” she continues, only to plow forward before he even has a chance to defend himself. “But tell me - have you seen the Wishing Tree yet? Or did you come straight here first? I’m touched, of course, but really, you must —”

“I’m not nearly so foolish as to come here first, knowing you’d demand my own opinions on the tent just as soon as I arrived,” he teases fondly.

“Wise man. Tell me then - what did you think?”

“It’s everything you promised,” he tells her. “Utterly indescribable. I’m glad you insisted I come.”

The beam that graces Belle’s face at that simple agreement is a sight to behold.

“You’ll stay for a few days, won’t you?” she asks - cajoles, really, though Killian won’t take any convincing. “It’s been so long.”

“Of course. We’ll have dinner tomorrow, and you can tell me everything you’ve seen since I last saw you.” It’s an easy promise to make, and one he’ll be even happier to keep.

Though Belle is an expected friendly face, one Killian had already built into his loose plans for tonight, the person he runs into as he wanders down the path away from her little tent is rather more unexpected.

“Mr. Jones,” Miss Elsa Frost smiles warmly - a member of the creative team of the circus, whose eye for details had been invaluable in creating this world so many have fallen in love with. “I certainly didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Nor did I,” Killian admits, executing a short and polite bow of greeting. “Especially not here, so far from London. May I escort you around the grounds, if I may be so bold?”

“You may,” Miss Frost says, slipping her delicate hand into the crook of his proffered arm. “I was just about to go see the magician - Miss Swan, was it? I’m told she should have a performance starting soon.”

“Then it will be my honor to accompany you.”

Though Killian has visited the Circus on several occasions in the past years, on business and to see Belle and to examine the creations of his competitor, he’s avoided this tent. It somehow feels like cheating, to watch Miss Swan like this with full awareness that she’s his competitor when she hasn’t been privy to the same knowledge. That’s not to say he hasn’t been tempted; across all the spiraling stone paths, her magic calls to his own like a siren’s song, drawing him in. Tonight, with a companion on his arm, he finally has the excuse to cave. As they approach her tent as others trickle in ahead of them, Killian makes sure to draw a spell around him to mask his own magic like a cloak, the same one he’d used that first day he’d seen her. Even if he feels guilt at the advantage, Killian isn’t quite sure he’s willing to tip his hand yet, no matter how often he’s been tempted. It’s not the time for such a revelation.

(He doesn’t notice, beside him, the way Miss Frost’s forehead briefly creases as the spell settles around his body; it would not matter if he had, anyways, and the lady is more than happy to hold her tongue on the matter.)

The magician’s tent is small, intimate - a small clearing surrounded by a double ring of chairs. It’s a subtly ingenious way of heightening the drama and the enchantment of the performance: there is, quite literally, nowhere to hide, every angle visible to spectators as they space themselves around the center ring. A lesser magician would never be able to pull it off; it’s lucky, then that Miss Swan doesn’t have to rely on tricks.

Killian is the only one that notices that the tent flap has disappeared, two minutes past the hour. Everyone else is too busy whispering to each other, speculating about where the illusionist is and when the show will start. Unlike the rest of them, Killian waits patiently, knowing that the show has already begun.

No one misses the next trick, as a stream of flame chases around the tent above their heads. Gasps echo from the crowd, in excitement and wonder and no small dose of fear. A handful turn towards where the exit once was, only to discover that the way has been sealed and blocked by chairs during their inattention. Gasps turn to screams, panic quickly catching, until -

A single figure stands from the audience, a woman with dramatic black skirts and what appears to be a men’s top hat. As she moves towards the center of the ring, she casually tosses the hat onto the seat she had occupied - and as if on cue, the streams of fire chase around the tent once more before plunging downwards, downwards into the hat, which somehow serves to contain the flames instead of catching on fire. As the rest of the audience comes back to their senses, turning their attention towards the slight blonde woman now at the center of the tent, she flicks a finger, sending the hat tumbling through the air to land in her hand, where she jauntily tips the black felt back onto her head and takes a dramatic bow.

And like that, the magician begins her show.

The displays that follow exceed Killian’s feeble memory of her audition, those several years ago. There are little miraculous bits she’s still using - the chairs still levitate, and the hat replaces the jacket as it turns into a beautiful black raven to fly about their heads - but there are new bits, too, as items disappear and reappear and visitors discover all manner of unexpected items in purses and pockets. Somehow, it all flows together seamlessly, one display of ability and control into another. At the very end, the fire returns again, chasing around and around and around her body until she can’t be seen anymore —

And when the flames disperse, all on their own, there is no one to be seen at all. The tent flap appears once again, and they all file out, awed in a way they hadn’t expected.

It’s beautiful, mysterious, magnificent - just like the woman herself. And Killian can’t remember why he ever stayed away.

———

Wandering the grounds of the Circus, it is impossible not to notice the statues scattered along the path. Some are monochromatic, fully pristine white or glistening black; some are so vividly realistic, in black and white and flesh tones, as to seem almost lifelike. There are single figures and couples, male portrayals and female, all beautifully detailed and caught mid-action. There is something mystical about them, something you can’t quite put your finger on but know separates them from anything else you’ve ever seen - a feeling that saturates the very air within the iron fencing.

Examining the statues reveals that the life-like state of the statues is no trick, no clever construction of hard stone and a steady chisel - no, these are merely people mimicking statues by standing so still and moving so slowly as to trick the eye. This isn’t some mere street performer, either, like you might see near the buildings tourists frequent en masse. No, this is something more special, more deliberate, more enchanting. It is almost like a dance, performed on a timeframe only the dancer can perceive. Watching closely, it is possible to see the movement - though it will take much patience. It is easier, in some ways, to pay careful attention to the stance of the living statue at the beginning of a set period, and then see how it has changed some minutes later.

It is said that if you wait long enough, the statues will bend enough to pluck an offering from your very hand. However, it takes a certain kind of person, with a certain kind of fascination, to even try. After all, why spend so long examining statues, when there are so many other wonders to see?

(Just before you walk away, you could swear the living statue of a young man winks an eye, all in impeccable slow motion - just one more memory of the Circus to treasure in your mind for years to come.)

———

The Circus returns when Henry is ten.

Ten is a sensitive age; it’s an age where one is still young enough to be excited about simple, playful things, but believe oneself to be too old to show it. Perceived maturity is beginning to be tantamount at this age, as is the idea of being cool.

Henry, for all his efforts (and a good bit of maturity, in truth), is perceived as neither.

“The circus is for babies,” Jack Hastings declares in the schoolyard when Henry makes the mistake of mentioning that he’d seen the tents. A keen observer might find humor in the fact that Jack’s proclamation was made as he and the boys played with a collection of small wooden soldiers; the boys, however, are not yet adult enough to see the irony. “I’m not going.”

“I don’t know,” Henry ventures cautiously. “I think I might like to go. It isn’t very often something like the circus comes to town.”

“That’s because you’re a baby,” Jack taunts. “Henry’s a baby! Henry’s a baby!”

“Am not!” Henry bites back hotly before anyone else takes up the chant.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Then prove it.”

That’s how Henry finds himself examining the black iron bars that encircle the circus tents, searching for a way to slip in. It’s a dare - to sneak in, in daylight hours, and come back with something to prove it. Henry had agreed in the heat of the moment. Now, with school over, Henry’s got to do the deed, while all the other boys wait back in the schoolyard.

While Henry remembers the Circus practically crackling with its own special energy, things are quiet in the light of day. He supposes that makes sense; the Circus operates from sunset to sunrise, and it’s still an hour until dusk. Its performers need to rest and prepare and the like, like anyone else, and this is the time they get to do that.

After spending far more time than necessary carefully examining the outer fence, Henry finally finds a little out of the way stretch, framed by the back of two tents with no one in sight. The bars will be a tight squeeze, but he sucks in his stomach and holds his breath, and after a little bit of wiggling, manages to twist his way through. Quickly brushing himself off, Henry searches around for something he can bring back as proof for the other boys. The easiest thing to do would be to tear off a bit of fabric from one of the tents, but he struggles to bring himself to do it. The tents feel special, nearly sacred, somehow; it would be the worst kind of crime to ruin them in any way. Maybe, if he ventures a little further in, he can find something else —

“What are you doing?” a girl’s voice sounds, interrupting Henry’s thoughts.

Whirling around, Henry is met by a blonde girl he could have sworn wasn’t there before, about his age, dressed in a black and silver striped dress. He didn’t know people his age were allowed to join the circus; it catches his attention nearly as much as the look on her face. Though her words are accusing, her face only shows curiosity.

That does nothing to temper Henry’s shame, for better or worse. He didn’t exactly count on getting caught, after all. “There was a dare,” he blurts out. “To sneak into the circus.”

“Well, you managed that,” she observes.

“Yes.” The silence sits heavy between them. Henry knows he ought to leave, but also feels like he can’t. “I’m sorry,” he finally cuts in - practically begs - once the quiet gets too much and he can’t take that curious stare anymore. “I can slip back out again, or pay the admission, or —”

That finally makes her smile - a bright, lovely thing that makes something stir within Henry that he’s never felt before. “It’s quite alright, Henry. You don’t need to leave. Nick saw you coming.”

He has many questions about that - how she knew his name, what in the world saw you coming means - but he reaches for the easiest first. “Who’s Nick?”

“My brother,” the girl beams. “Twin brother, really. I’m Ava.”

“It’s very nice to meet you.” It’s obvious that there’s no real point in offering his name; Henry is curiously less concerned about her unnatural knowledge than he figures he really ought to be.

“Likewise,” Ava replies with that same smile, offering her hand for Henry to awkwardly shake.

(For the first time in his life, he’s left wondering if he should have kissed the back of her offered hand instead. Then again - that sounds gross.)

“Come with me,” she commands with a little nod of her head. Even knowing he ought to slip back through the fence, Henry can’t help but follow, pulled along in a way that he doesn’t quite understand. “You picked a good day to come - Nick says the Circus will be closed tonight for inclement weather,” she adds with a hand waved towards the quickly gathering clouds.

“Yes, they just called it,” adds a different voice - another boy, this one also their age and with a remarkable resemblance to Ava. The biggest difference, really, is the boy’s light brown hair, a contrast to her cheery blonde. It’s obvious this is the twin brother she mentioned - Nick, who somehow knows things.

“He was there, just like you said, Nickie,” she laughs. “I don’t know why anyone bothers to doubt you.”

“They don’t know better,” Nick shrugs.

“Nick has a gift,” Ava explains. “He sees things that others don’t - and they always come true.”

“Oh.” Henry isn’t really sure what to say to that, honestly. He doesn’t disbelieve it, really - Ava did know things she shouldn’t have, without what they claim being true - but he’s a little too flabbergasted at it all to say anything more comprehensible. Besides, if such a thing were to be true - well, it makes sense that it’d happen at the Circus. Where else is magical enough to shelter people with such talents?

Ava breezes right past it though. That must be characteristic of her, if the way her brother stifles a smile is any indication. “There’s always a party in the acrobats’ tent whenever the weather is too bad to open. It’s the biggest, you know.”

“You can come too, if you want,” Nick adds.

Despite the tempting offer, Henry frowns. “I’m not part of the Circus, though. Won’t anyone mind?”

“Circus people are welcoming,” Nick shrugs. “They won’t mind.”

“Besides, everyone thinks we need friends our own age,” Ava chimes in.

As the sun starts to creep below the horizon, Henry lets the twins lead him across the circus grounds. He wants to go, really - besides, there’s no reason not to. There’s no one waiting who will care if he doesn’t show up for dinner, or even for bedtime.

(Nick probably already knows that as well; perhaps that’s why neither of them ask whether he needs to be home.)

The inclement weather party is a different kind of marvel than the otherworldly splendor of the open circus that Henry remembers. It seems like everyone is crowded into the tent as raindrops start to patter down upon the canvas, yet somehow the space never seems claustrophobic. Half the collected mass is in their black and white and silver circus clothes, while the other half wears street clothes in all manner of colors and styles. Laughter colors the air, as small groups congregate only to disperse and remingle again. It feels like a family, like a great big reunion, even though Henry is sure they’re not all related.

(Then again, maybe family doesn’t have to be linked by blood and genealogical trees; maybe family is something that can be crafted with those you choose and care for.)

Ava tugs on his arm before he can get too lost in his thoughts and marvelling at the spectacle of the tent. “You should meet Emma,” she says. At her side, Nick nods in genial agreement. “You’ll like her. She’s the magician.”

She doesn’t quite bodily haul him across the tent space, but it’s close. Henry would complain, but it isn’t hurting; he can tell she’s just eager to share her and Nick’s world in a way she hasn’t with outsiders before. At least, Henry hopes she hasn’t shared all this with outsiders before; Henry’s never really had the chance to be special. It’d be a nice change.

Eventually, she halts in front of a cluster of women - three brunettes and a blonde. All smile fondly as Ava approaches with Henry in tow. “Emma, I want you to meet someone!” Ava bursts out as they pull to a stop.

“I can see that,” the blonde chuckles as her companions move away. Henry’s distracted for a moment by the movement of the other three ladies, but forces his attention back to meet the magician’s eyes.

And it’s her - the nice lady from the last time he was here. Henry’s face flushes red as he remembers his youthful question - Are you a princess?. She still looks like a princess, four years later, only in a burgundy dress with her hair in a simple bun instead of her sumptuous black and white dress from the last time they met. He can see the moment recognition sweeps across Emma’s face, and knows she remembers too.

“Henry, was it?” Emma smiles down at him. Somehow, he manages a nod of confirmation. “It’s lovely to see you again, Henry.”

Ava’s face drops a little in disappointment, and a hint of confusion. Seems this is one thing her brother’s visions didn’t reveal - or at least one thing he didn’t share with her. “You know each other already?”

“Only a little,” Henry hastens to explain. It somehow feels very important that Ava know he didn’t deceive her in this way.

“Henry and I briefly crossed paths the last time the Circus was here - what, four years ago?” Henry nods again. Emma and Ava and Nick and the rest of the Circus may have been to so many places since them that they don’t remember exactly how long it’s been, but Henry could probably tell them down to the day if he just had a couple of minutes to think. “He was kind enough to let me escort him back to the front gates. I must say, I didn’t expect to see him here tonight, though… is there anything I ought to know?”

“No!” Ava assures quickly. It’s not remotely convincing; Henry barely manages to smother a smile as she continues her blatant evasion. “We should go get a little something to eat. Come on, Henry, let’s go!”

To be fair, the spread that Ava leads him to - Nick pulling up the rear, laughing - is very impressive. There are all manner of little finger foods to carry with him, savory and sweet, and an older lady the twins call Granny who presides over the whole thing and makes Henry take another sandwich. All of the circus members - and it feels like Henry’s introduced to every single one - seem to treat the twins like a niece and nephew, or maybe even children. There’s an affection in the air amongst everyone that’s almost palpable, and like nothing he’s ever encountered before. It’s hard not to feel a little jealous of his new friends; it’s everything he’s ever wished for himself.

Eventually, he’s dragged across the grounds to what they’ll only call the cloud room after a stop by Emma again for a set of umbrellas that seem to actively repel water.

“It’s my favorite spot,” Nick explains as they shake off their umbrellas just inside the tent flap in a dim antechamber. Henry had barely caught a glimpse of the signage before he’d been bustled inside; Atmospheric Wonders had been less than illuminating a descriptor. “Ava’s is the carousel.”

“I like the animals,” she shrugs. “They’re interesting.”

“Yeah, well, so is this,” her brother quips back. “Henry, look.”

And when Henry does - it’s more than his imagination ever expected.

Somehow, there are dozens of fluffy clouds floating within the confines of the tent, the top of the peaked canvas not even visible for all the clouds in the way. They come in all sizes, all winding around a central, silvery structure with a platform at the top and a slide spiraling back down to the ground. Somehow along the stretch from the ground to the indiscernible peak, the stripes shift into a night sky gently dappled with stars. It’s mystical, and marvelous, and unlike anything he’s ever imagined.

Henry has barely processed what he’s seeing before Nick takes a flying leap onto a cloud hovering at chest height. Miraculously, it somehow holds his weight, bobbing gently in the air under the change of balance but showing no signs of capsizing.

“It’s really very sturdy,” he calls from his perch, grinning with glee. “There’s nothing to worry about, I promise.”

Carefully, Henry steps onto a different cloud hovering about his knees; that’s less distance to fall if there’s any problem. Under his feet, the cloud isn’t exactly firm, or stable - it’s more like if you try to step onto a mattress - but he can also feel that he’s not at risk of crashing down. Somehow, it’s just as safe as Nick promised.

(How did he miss this before? Now that Henry’s here, he’s not sure he ever wants to leave.)

Ava clambers up onto a cloud somewhere between him and Nick, abandoning grace to pull herself to standing. “It’s a newer tent,” she explains, brushing her skirt free of imaginary cloud dust and casually reading Henry’s mind. Maybe her brother isn’t the only one with special powers of sight. “It only went up a couple months ago, right, Nick?”

“January,” he confirms. “Just after the new year’s party.”

“Not a lot of people know about it yet - but it’s one of our favorites now. Nick and I like to come on the nights we’re not busy with other things.”

Across from them both, Nick obviously grows impatient with all the chatter, leaping to another, higher cloud. “Race you to the top!” he yells back, quickly becoming obscured from sight as he scrambles higher and higher.

Ava stretches her hand across the divide to help him forward. “You’re going to love it,” she beams.

Henry takes her hand, gladly, and lets a smile crease his face even as hers stretches impossibly wider.

He does love it, just as she promised. The view from the top is spectacular, like something out of a fairy tale, an impression only magnified by small tufts of cloud still hovering around, inviting them to lounge. It would be a good place just to sit and think, Henry thinks, if you lived with the Circus and had that chance.

Time passes both quickly and slowly at the top of the tower as the three of them sit and talk for what must be hours. Henry feels as if he’s known the twins forever, not just a night - like he fits with them, somehow, in a way he never has with his schoolmates or the other children at the Home, and can’t explain.

(It’s the same feeling he remembers from the first time he visited the Circus, four years before. Of belonging. Of home.)

All too soon, things much end, however. As the conversation encounters a rare lull, Henry sighs heavily, knowing he must draw this to a close.

“I have to go,” he tells his companions - now friends, he thinks - with the kind of regret that’s practically palpable.

Ava nods sadly; Henry scrambles to his feet to help her do the same. It’s what a gentleman would do. “We know. But this was lovely.”

“And you’ll be back,” Nick says decisively. “I know it.”

It’s not worth arguing with the boy with a gift.

Getting down from their perch takes a little more boldness. Technically, there is a slide they could all take advantage of, but Nick won’t let that stand.

“You’ve got to jump, Henry,” he cajoles. “It’s so much more fun. You feel like you’re flying!”

“More like falling,” Henry mutters. Even if he knows that Nick wouldn’t try to hurt him, like some of the boys at school might, looking down from this height makes his stomach turn.

Suddenly, a soft hand slips into his own. Ava, who slipped up beside him while he was distracted by the height. “We’ll do it together,” she promises, and somehow - Henry finds himself nodding.

Nick lets out a wild whoop and throws himself off the platform, gleefully tumbling down and down. Ava squeezes his hand tight, just the once, and then she’s running too, bringing Henry with her as they leap. It feels like he’s left his stomach up at the top, but it’s a little freeing too. At the bottom, a particularly soft cloud cushions their fall, surrounding them like a hug. Henry even finds himself laughing along with Ava and Nick as they pick themselves back up.

Ava walks him back to the main gates under the marvelous umbrella, Nick letting them go on their own after offering Henry a jolly wave goodbye. The door in the iron bars opens without even a squeak, letting the both of them slip through.

“I don’t want to leave,” Henry confides, the words spilling out of him almost without permission. “I don’t want to go back to the real world out there.”

“You’ll be back,” Ava promises. “We’ll see each other again - I promise.”

He wants to believe her - he does. But it’s a mean world out there, and he’s long since learned that nothing is guaranteed, and —

Ava presses up on her toes to drop a quick kiss on Henry’s lips - his first. It’s just a little peck, really, but it makes them both blush and sends something hopeful in his soul soaring above all the other negativity.

“To seal it. The promise,” she explains.

No explanation was needed, really - not to the perfect ending to this dream of a night.

(He does not return to the Circus this time, the Sisters punishing him with extra chores when he sneaks back into the Home long after bed checks. Though he would like nothing more than to return back to the Circus and his new friends, he somehow can’t regret it. Every moment was worth it.

Later, he finds a single glove, white with shiny black buttons, tucked into his pocket - proof for his dare. He never shows it off to the other boys; the little scrap of fabric is too personal, and too precious. Instead, he tucks it into the old cigar box he keeps all his treasures in, amongst the perfectly round stones and colored bits of glass and a brightly colored birds’ feather. Let them think he never managed it. They’ll forget soon enough anyways.

We’ll see each other again, Ava had promised - and Henry intends to wait.)

———

There’s a new attraction at the Circus again, Killian - the most wonderful carousel. There’s the usual carved horses, of course, all wonderfully detailed, but there’s all manner of other creatures too - giraffes and elephants and a particularly clever ostrich. There’s even some mythical creatures too. I’m particularly fond of the gryphon, though I suspect you might prefer the dragon. There’s even a bench seat with a kraken twining around it! It’s truly charming; the kids love it, obviously, but it’s wonderful to see the delight of grown men and women too. I believe I saw a young couple squabbling over the cow yesterday; the lady won, of course. Wise man.

If you hadn’t guessed already, the carousel is very obviously a creation of your winsome competitor. The ride travels through an enclosed portion at the back, ostensibly to parade the figures and their riders past a scrolling display of landscapes; however, having ridden the thing myself (I couldn’t resist, Killian! And obviously chose the gryphon, though I was tempted by a polar bear), it’s obvious that this tunnel somehow bends reality, stretches the track much further than it should ever go. Magic is obviously at play, here, though I believe the visitors are too enthralled (and, as usual, too oblivious) to realize.

There’s something else a little unusual about the carousel: Mr. Booth’s part in bringing it to life. He was here in Brussels to oversee installation, or I might not have believed it. You know as well as I that usually, new installments just… pop up, without explanation. His craftsmanship is evident in the construction, too, if you know to look - the smooth curves and the intricate carvings and the way the peak of the striped roof stretches up towards the sky. It’s lovely, really, and undeniably a joint effort between Mr. Booth and Miss Swan.

Does that mean he’s aware of her abilities? I can’t say for certain, but I have trouble imagining otherwise. It could be interesting to see if you could enlist him in a similar effort - though of course, that’s entirely up to you. I’m merely reporting your opponent’s most recent move on the chessboard, so to speak.

(Do come see the carousel, though; I promise you won’t regret it.)

Affectionately yours,

Belle

———

Killian folds Belle’s latest letter carefully, considering her words as he meticulously files the pages away, just as he always does. The new carousel sounds beautiful, of course; Miss Swan’s creations always are. The fact that she enlisted August Booth to create it captures his attention the same way it had Belle’s. That’s something he never considered - drawing upon others’ skills to create something that is not entirely mechanical, but not fully dependent on magic either. He should have thought of it sooner - after all, the Circus as a whole operates in a similar way, weaving enchantments in amongst all the physical manpower needed to bring the whole thing to life. It sets Killian’s mind running in other directions, other ideas that could be brought to life in the same way. And if Booth is aware of the things Miss Swan can do… perhaps he can serve as an intermediary, of sorts, in a way that could bring this competition to a new level.

But Killian is a patient man, a planner through and through. It’s his greatest advantage in his employment and in this game. So before he lets his imagination run away with him, drafting things that can never come to fruition, he calls upon Booth at his office to test the waters of what is possible.

“I didn’t expect to see you, Jones,” the other man says, smiling genially as he comes out from around the back of his heavy wooden desk to offer a handshake of greeting.

“It was a bit of an unplanned visit,” Killian admits as he seats himself in the offered chair.

“Well that’s quite alright. What can I do for you? Is this about the Circus, or are you finally looking to build something more comfortable than that little flat of yours?”

“It’s about the Circus.” Killian lets his gaze glance around the room before he speaks further, considering his next words. Though the furniture in the office at Booth’s architecture firm is heavy, with dark wood and intricate carvings and tall bookshelves lining two walls, the whole thing manages to avoid a feeling of claustrophobia due to a stretch of tall windows along one wall. A panel of stained glass is installed in the middle, with beautiful swirling patterns in all kinds of colors. The whole effect is a little whimsical, while somehow still ordered and elegant. In that moment, Killian can see exactly why August Booth was chosen as a partner to produce the Circus.

Drawing his attention back to Booth, Killian finds the man patiently waiting for him to start speaking, prompting him to gather his thoughts. “I understand you had a hand in creating a new attraction - a carousel.”

“Ah yes,” August smiles. His tone is fond, almost like a parent speaking of a favorite child. “Marvelous, isn’t it? Though, of course, I can’t take full credit - or even most of the credit, really.”

“So you’re aware of others’... unusual contributions, shall we say.”

Booth makes an amused, guttural noise from the back of his throat. “I may be a skilled designer, but not nearly enough to create space that’s not there. And I’m not nearly oblivious or egotistical enough to believe I can. Besides, Miss Swan was involved from the beginning. The carousel was her idea.”

That’s one question answered. “So how much did Miss Swan tell you about her… abilities, I suppose? And her influence on the Circus?”

“A rudimentary explanation, I believe - just as much as I needed to agree to assist her. All her illusions are real, true magic, and she’s engaged in a competition to be played out at the Circus.” Realization suddenly lights his eyes. “I suppose that makes you the competitor, then? She didn’t seem to know who they were.”

“Aye, I am. And I would appreciate it if you would keep that fact between us. This particular game doesn’t precisely encourage familiarity between contestants.”

August waves him off. “Of course. Now, are you here just to talk about the carousel - or do you have something else in mind?”

“You read my mind,” Killian says, letting a smile spread across his face. “I have an unusual idea, one that I think you can be of assistance with.”

———

Emma should have known that her opponent would hear of the carousel, and of her partnership with Mr. Booth. What she hadn’t expected was for Mr. Booth to send her a letter, detailing an idea her competitor had brought to him.

One they want her involvement in as well.

It’s a simple idea, on the surface - a maze of rooms. Its brilliance is in how it allows the two of them to interact and compete directly as they build off of each others’ ideas. Once the maze is brought to life, once visitors enter the tent, they reach a hallway lined with doors, each leading into other rooms with other doors, and so on. Some will be hidden; some will be obvious. It is entirely up to Emma and whoever she is competing against to build out each room, testing the limits of imagination and reality and magic.

It’s like a puzzle on a massive scale - each piece fitting into others which in turn fit into others. It’s fascinating to see the things her opponent comes up with over time - creations that play with structure, with scale, like golden bird cages and a room where everything appears so large as to dwarf the viewer. She treasures exploring each one, finding all the hidden doors and discerning the way everything fits together.

Emma has a niggling feeling that this is not exactly how their competition is supposed to play out - but as she opens another door, she can’t bring herself to care.

———

Maybe it’s ridiculous - but Killian feels like he comes to know the lovely Miss Swan a little better through the room maze and each addition she crafts from her imagination.

She focuses on creating an atmosphere, he finds - the little things that make each space feel like an environment, rather than a room. There are lush green jungles and arid desertscapes and the illusion of a lovely rose garden. He wonders if she feels trapped; all the illusions of open spaces make him think she might.

He can tell she truly loves the circus in all the little details she weaves in, too. It must take her incredible effort, but it’s worth it to see how leaves glisten with dew and the barest scent of earth or flowers tickles his nose and heat or chill dances along his skin. There’s pride to be found in the work she creates - all the things that take each room of the maze from the illusion of a space into something tangible and believable as its own natural world.

She’s smart, too: the hatches and doors out of her rooms are cleverly hidden, and often require searching for a key first. Killian thinks she might be trying to stump him, for all the time he spends searching for the way out in some rooms. Would she laugh if she could see him? Is he reacting in exactly the way she anticipated, or even intended?

(Would he even mind?)

He’s not such a fool as to fall a little in love with his opponent in the rooms that she builds, but he does delight in receiving these little insights to her personality. It reminds him that Miss Swan is more than his opponent - she’s a person, and one he’d love to know under other circumstances.

Only time will tell whether that makes things easier or harder.

———

To no one’s particular surprise, Regina does not approve of the maze.

“This is a waste of your time,” she proclaims to Emma on one of her rare (and never welcomed) visits. “You’re supposed to be competing, not… collaborating.” She spits out the word like it’s a profanity; who knows, it likely is in her mind. Emma wouldn’t be entirely surprised.

“Isn’t this just a different way of competing?” Emma asks. Truthfully, she doesn’t see the fuss. “I’d think it would be easier to compare, when we have to share the same structure. Well, even more than we usually do.”

“This is not how things are supposed to work,” Regina snaps. “I didn’t train you to be so stupid about this, Emma. You know better - this is… frivolous!”

“I like it,” Emma says, letting her voice display a quiet defiance. “I think it’s wonderful.”

That’s why she’d led Regina to the maze in the first place, instead of simply taking tea in her compartment as usual - a little childish thought that maybe her mentor would see all the careful crafting she had put into each chamber. That maybe she would appreciate this unusual way in which Emma was stretching her abilities beyond what she thought was possible, challenged by the necessity of working around someone else’s ideas in the most literal, compressed way. That maybe she would be proud.

Pride, at least for others, is not something that’s in Regina’s vocabulary, however - something that Emma has never been more aware of than in this moment, standing amongst the hedges of a shifting maze within a maze. It’s an ever-changing creation, one that Emma had been particularly proud of.

It’s easier simply to wind their way to the closest exit than to attempt to convince Regina any further; Emma has long since learned her mentor is an immovable force. If Regina hasn’t been swayed by the creativity and brilliance of seeing the maze in person, no words will do it. So they’ll exit the maze and slip back into the backstage rooms, where Regina can berate her about her work ethic and how it seems like Emma doesn’t even want this while still failing to offer any concrete details or advice, until Emma can make her escape to perform another show, displaying her abilities to a kinder audience. That’s how these things always seem to go, and now that her foolishly hopeful little bubble has been broken, there’s no reason they won’t go that way again.

Then again, there’s alway room for surprises and changes from the norm; Emma should know that, after so many years here at the Circus. As they exit into the chilled night air, Emma - and more importantly, Regina - clearly didn’t expect to run into Mulan as the sword swallower wandered back towards her own lodgings.

Most days, Emma almost forgets this other source of magic buzzing around the circus. It’s like white noise, almost; something Emma is subconsciously aware of, and can focus on when she chooses, but fades into the background most of the time. They’re friendly, but not quite friends - happy to spend time with one another, but rarely seeking each other out. Mulan is closer with Ruby, or with Belle. It’s easy, in that way, for Emma to forget the higher force that binds the two of them together - Regina herself, who has been a teacher to both of them.

It is visibly obvious the moment they catch sight of one another: both straighten to their most rigid posture, Regina’s face shifting into something even more haughty than her usual mien, and Mulan shifting to something cool and dangerous. The air between them practically crackles with restrained magical energy, sending the hair on Emma’s arms to stand on end. Emma sends a silent thanks to whomever may be listening that this meeting occurred firmly in public; while the confrontation is primed to be bad as it is, she wouldn’t relish being forced between them in a private setting. Or a dark alley.

For all of the danger sparking the air, it is almost anticlimactic when each party finally finds their words. “Regina,” Mulan says, coolly polite and with the barest incline of her head. Regina only jerks her chin in a broken nod in response.

And then they’re moving their separate ways, the whole thing over. Maybe it’s better that way; it would be a pity if the Circus was razed to the ground, after they’ve all put so much effort into the venue. There’s a story there, though, one Emma doesn’t know but can’t help but wonder about. She’ll have to ask Mulan, later; she knows very well that asking Regina will bear no fruit.

(She never does, of course, just another intention lost to time and her mentor’s berating. Not that it would have done any good, anyways. Mulan keeps her secrets locked as tight as the most impressive safe.)

———

Emma knows Belle, of course - they’ve both been with the Circus for more than a decade, and Emma isn’t entirely self absorbed. They’re even friendly, in that way two people who work together but aren’t particularly close can be. But never once in all that time can Emma remember actively seeking the other woman out - for her skills or anything else.

Belle’s particular skill unsettles Emma, she supposes. It feels a little hypocritical - Emma has magic, after all, she shouldn’t feel so uncomfortable about fortune-telling. There’s something about the talent to see glimpses of the future, however, that has never sat quite right in her mind - that has always made her ever so slightly uncomfortable. It’s not Belle’s fault; Emma knows as well as anyone that sometimes, these kinds of gifts choose their recipient instead of the other way around.

There’s something in the air, though, something Emma can’t quite identify. There’s a niggling feeling of anticipation, like a reverse deja vu, where Emma knows something is coming, but doesn’t know what or how or when. She’s never been particularly good with that kind of uncertainty, searching for control wherever possible. It’s that search for control that brings her to Belle, seeking answers anywhere she can find them. Unusual times call for unusual measures, or some other such cliché.

Emma goes at night, while the Circus is open, in between her own performances - just like any other querrant. It’s a simple thing to blend into the crowd - after all, no one is expecting the illusionist to wander among them, especially in a dark coat and skirts turned crimson red with the touch of a finger. It takes no magic at all to slip down the silvery paths and duck into a tent labeled Fortune Teller: Feats of Fate and Prophecy.

Belle snaps into character as soon as Emma brushes past the beaded curtain welcoming visitors into her space, only to relax again as she recognizes Emma’s face. “What a lovely surprise,” she comments with a pleased smile. “Sit down, sit down. What can I do for you, Emma?”

“I was hoping for a reading,” Emma explains as casually as possible - as if this is no great favor. Still, it shoots the brunette’s eyebrows up towards her hairline in surprise.

“I must say, I didn’t expect that,” she comments. “I don’t believe you’ve asked such a thing of me before.”

“I haven’t felt the desire before.”

“Ah. You must face some kind of crossroads, then.”

“Truthfully, I am not even sure enough to say that much,” Emma admits. Summoning a few coins into her hand, she pushes them across the table - payment for services rendered, as is typically custom in Belle’s little nook. “I hoped you might be able to shed more light on the matter than I can currently discern.”

Belle pushes the coins back. “Keep your money. Consider this a gift for a friend. Now, shall we?” As soon as Emma nods, Belle begins shuffling the cards - a quick, hypnotic motion, as each card flies past again and again. Once she’s satisfied with the shuffle, she carefully fans the cards across her table, face down. “Pick a card to represent yourself, if you please.”

Emma contemplates her options; truthfully, the tarot has never called to her, and this moment is no different. After some short examination, she selects one barely visible towards the left-hand side.

Belle chuckles a little as she turns the card over - and Emma can see exactly why, as soon as she sees the card. The Magician.

“Now, this card often represents a plethora of abilities or options you may not be fully aware of, especially in the face of impending change or disaster,” Belle explains. “And that may still be the case. However, under the circumstances, I suspect this card is supposed to be taken rather more literally in this particular reading, Madame Magician.”

Belle shuffles again, before cutting the deck into three portions and directing Emma to select one. Replacing the selected stack back at the top at the pile, she quickly doles the cards back out, in practiced patterns and an unexpected elegance. There are flashes of cups and swords on the cards between them, interspersed with picture cards of women and wheels and a couple reaching for one another.

(Emma does not think she has the time for whatever a card like The Lovers may symbolize.)

“I see what you mean,” Belle says after a long moment. “There are significant changes here - in circumstance, in thinking, and in feelings. Whatever knot you have been working at in your mind will begin to unravel - one change that will spur many more. Now these changes - they seem imminent.”

“How imminent?”

Belle cocks her head, examining again. “There’s rarely an evident timeline that I can see,” she admits, “but I would wager in the coming weeks or months.”

Emma nods. It’s not really an answer - but it feels like validation, somehow. Like someone else can sense that something is on the horizon.

“Now, I asked about a crossroads, before we started,” Belle continues. “The changes that are coming - they will not be your crossroads. This will not be the moment you have to make that decision. But each change will compound upon each other until it leads you to that crossroads - a choice you’ll make that will change everything, again. It will not be for some time yet, but those seeds are being sown now.”

Emma nods slowly, taking it all in. There is an odd comfort in Belle’s words, even as Emma tells herself not to put too much stock in it. “Thank you,” she finally says. “Is there anything else you can see?”

Belle shakes her head ruefully. “Not that I can see now, no. But I’ll keep looking. Sometimes, these things make themselves clearer given a few hours to think on them.”

“I understand. Thank you.”

Emma ponders the words as she emerges back into the night. A momentous change to come seems inevitable - both from her instincts and Belle’s own readings. All that’s left to do is brace herself and face that change with an open mind and courage.

The weeks and months to come may change everything - and Emma intends to be ready for it.

———

We’ll be back in England next month - just in time for the rains, I’m sure. As if they ever stop. I anticipate many inclement weather parties in my future, and I don’t even need the cards to tell me that.

Speaking of which - be on the lookout for something, Killian. Change is in the cards and in the air. Something is on the horizon, and I think it’s best you be ready for whatever that might be.

We’ll have tea one afternoon next time I’m in town, and you can buy me an absurd amount of books. I have several recommendations to give you from the last batch. I expect you’ll feign interest and the time to read, just as always, but I don’t particularly care. You’ll do it because I’m your friend, and you love me.

Yours &c.,

Belle

———

That same feeling of anticipation, of something in the air, only intensifies when the Circus returns to London for a short stretch. It’s been growing ever since Emma spoke with Belle, becoming more urgent as time goes by. A breaking point must come soon - though what that will herald, Emma doesn’t pretend to know. There’s no use continuing to worry over something that will only reveal itself at the right time.

Emma throws herself into rediscovery instead, wandering all those places she used to know. It’s hard to call London home, even though she grew up here - that designation has only ever belonged to her cramped and cozy little train compartment - but the city is familiar in a way that’s comforting. She spent the first 24 years of her life here, after all; even trapped under Regina’s thumb, she was able to discover little corners of the city all her own, park benches and cafe tables and backstage theater rooms.

(She doesn’t intend to visit her benefactor during this stop, if she can at all help it; bringing Regina into things always invites trouble that Emma would rather avoid.)

It’s raining on their first day in town, of course, like her own meteorological welcome. Emma smiles a bit at the thought of the clouds and raindrops and wind whispering a hello - though truthfully, she’s seen odder things. She’s orchestrated odder things. The soft patter of raindrops on her umbrella is almost soothing as she walks down the cobbled streets to a favorite remembered cafe. Emma loves the Circus with every fiber of her being, both as her creation and as her home; still, sometimes it’s nice to escape for an afternoon and enjoy the anonymity of people watching or reading a nice book. Some days, she wants that distance; to be just another face in the crowd.

The afternoon passes quietly and uneventfully with her tea and scone and a silly novel. It’s easy to blend into this little corner of London, tucked into the corner of a quiet street off the main road. Emma has always liked this place, and tries to visit whenever she’s in the city; it’s something about the way that light dapples through the wide windows at the front, always perpetually just the slightest bit grimy, like dirt had accumulated just as soon as some poor soul had taken the efforts to clean them off. The used bookstore just across the street is a wonderful bonus too, where Emma sometimes finds unexpected treasures. Here, she can be just anyone else - no expectations, no grand fate. Just a woman at a weathered table.

All too soon, the clock on the wall chimes 4pm, prompting Emma to gather her things to leave. This time of year, even though spring approaches, the sun still sets early, heralding the opening of the circus’ wide gates. Emma is lucky enough to set her own performance hours during the night, generally aiming to do three or four shows in an evening; however, it’s still important that she’s fully ready for the evening by the time the first visitors trickle into the grounds, regardless of the fact that she won’t make her own dramatic entrance for at least another half hour.

As she bustles out the door, she mentally runs through her checklist for the night of tricks she might like to perform. That’s the freeing thing about performing with real magic; not having to depend on mechanics means that she can improvise, that every single show can be different as she feeds off the audience and her current whims.

She’s so busy running through her possibilities for the night that she doesn’t notice she’s grabbed the wrong umbrella - not at first, at least. It’s just one amongst a cluster of black fabric in the umbrella stand, each nearly identical to each other. Emma’s put a special charm on hers that repels the rain; that slight buzz of magic is the only thing that differentiates hers from all the others. She picks it out by the feel alone, absentmindedly, before exiting into the deluge.

Something is off, though - something she realizes the further she walks from the cafe and comes back to full awareness. The charm on the umbrella is wonderfully effective, as always, but there’s something… wrong about the magic. Emma’s own magic has a particular warm feel to it, one that largely fades into the background of her mind until she barely notices it. This, though… the buzz continues, like a pricking or a tickle under her skin. Foreign.

Not hers.

Realization draws her up short. This umbrella - clearly imbued with powerful magic - magic like her opponent would possess - in the cafe at the same time -

A polite clearing of the throat causes Emma to whip around, revealing an unexpectedly familiar face: Jefferson’s assistant, the handsome one, who she remembers lurking at the edges of ballrooms and the back of theatres and in the densest of crowds. Jones - something with a K. Or a C? Kelvin? Carson? No —

“Excuse me, Miss Swan,” Killian Jones smiles warmly, “but I believe you have my umbrella.”

#cssns20 #captain swan #cs ff #captain swan ff #A Fate Woven in Thread and Ink #magicians!CS #The Night Circus #they finally meet guys!#twenty some odd years later #also henry is real cute #and i just want you to know that

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path-of-my-childhood · 5 years ago

Text

Taylor Swift Broke All Her Rules With Folklore - And Gave Herself A Much-Needed Escape

By: Alex Suskind for Entertainment Weekly Date: December 8th 2020 (EW's 2020 Entertainers of the Year cover)

The pop star, one of EW's 2020 Entertainers of the Year, delves deep into her surprise eighth album, Rebekah Harkness, and a Joe Biden presidency.

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“He is my co-writer on ‛Betty’ and ‛Exile,’” replies Taylor Swift with deadpan precision. The question Who is William Bowery? was, at the time we spoke, one of 2020’s great mysteries, right up there with the existence of Joe Exotic and the sudden arrival of murder hornets. An unknown writer credited on the year’s biggest album? It must be an alias.

Is he your brother?

“He’s William Bowery,” says Swift with a smile.

It's early November, after Election Day but before Swift eventually revealed Bowery's true identity to the world (the leading theory, that he was boyfriend Joe Alwyn, proved prescient). But, like all Swiftian riddles, it was fun to puzzle over for months, particularly in this hot mess of a year, when brief distractions are as comforting as a well-worn cardigan. Thankfully, the Bowery... erhm, Alwyn-assisted Folklore - a Swift project filled with muted pianos and whisper-quiet snares, recorded in secret with Jack Antonoff and the National’s Aaron Dessner - delivered.

“The only people who knew were the people I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and a small management team,” Swift, 30, tells EW of the album's hush-hush recording sessions. That gave the intimate Folklore a mystique all its own: the first surprise Taylor Swift album, one that prioritized fantastical tales over personal confessions.

“Early in quarantine, I started watching lots of films,” she explains. “Consuming other people’s storytelling opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines?” That’s how she ended up with three songs about an imagined love triangle (“Cardigan,” “Betty,” “August”), one about a clandestine romance (“Illicit Affairs”), and another chronicling a doomed relationship (“Exile”). Others tell of sumptuous real-life figures like Rebekah Harkness, a divorcee who married the heir to Standard Oil - and whose home Swift purchased 31 years after her death. The result, “The Last Great American Dynasty,” hones in on Harkness’ story, until Swift cleverly injects herself.

And yet, it wouldn’t be a Swift album without a few barbed postmortems over her own history. Notably, “My Tears Ricochet” and “Mad Woman," which touch on her former label head Scott Borchetta selling the masters to Swift’s catalog to her known nemesis Scooter Braun. Mere hours after our interview, the lyrics’ real-life origins took a surprising twist, when news broke that Swift’s music had once again been sold, to another private equity firm, for a reported $300 million. Though Swift ignored repeated requests for comment on the transaction, she did tweet a statement, hitting back at Braun while noting that she had begun re-recording her old albums - something she first promised in 2019 as a way of retaining agency over her creative legacy. (Later, she would tease a snippet of that reimagined work, with a new version of her hit 2008 single "Love Story.")

Like surprise-dropping Folklore, like pissing off the president by endorsing his opponents, like shooing away haters, Swift does what suits her. “I don’t think we often hear about women who did whatever the hell they wanted,” she says of Harkness - something Swift is clearly intent on changing. For her, that means basking in the world of, and favorable response to, Folklore. As she says in our interview, “I have this weird thing where, in order to create the next thing, I attack the previous thing. I don’t love that I do that, but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I still love it.”

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: We’ve spent the year quarantined in our houses, trying to stay healthy and avoiding friends and family. Were you surprised by your ability to create and release a full album in the middle of a pandemic? TAYLOR SWIFT: I was. I wasn't expecting to make an album. Early on in quarantine, I started watching lots of films. We would watch a different movie every night. I'm ashamed to say I hadn't seen Pan's Labyrinth before. One night I'd watch that, then I'd watch L.A. Confidential, then we'd watch Rear Window, then we'd watch Jane Eyre. I feel like consuming other people's art and storytelling sort of opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, "Well, why have I never done this before? Why have I never created characters and intersecting storylines? And why haven't I ever sort of freed myself up to do that from a narrative standpoint?" There is something a little heavy about knowing when you put out an album, people are going to take it so literally that everything you say could be clickbait. It was really, really freeing to be able to just be inspired by worlds created by the films you watch or books you've read or places you've dreamed of or people that you've wondered about, not just being inspired by your own experience.

In that vein, what's it like to sit down and write something like “Betty,” which is told from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy? That was huge for me. And I think it came from the fact that my co-writer, William Bowery [Joe Alwyn], is male — and he was the one who originally thought of the chorus melody. And hearing him sing it, I thought, "That sounds really cool." Obviously, I don't have a male voice, but I thought, "I could have a male perspective." Patty Griffin wrote this song, “Top of the World.” It's one of my favorite songs of all time, and it's from the perspective of this older man who has lived a life full of regret, and he's kind of taking stock of that regret. So, I thought, "This is something that people I am a huge fan of have done. This would be fun to kind of take this for a spin."

What are your favorite William Bowery conspiracies? I love them all individually and equally. I love all the conspiracy theories around this album. [With] "Betty," Jack Antonoff would text me these articles and think pieces and in-depth Tumblr posts on what this love triangle meant to the person who had listened to it. And that's exactly what I was hoping would happen with this album. I wrote these stories for a specific reason and from a specific place about specific people that I imagined, but I wanted that to all change given who was listening to it. And I wanted it to start out as mine and become other people's. It's been really fun to watch.

One of the other unique things about Folklore — the parameters around it were completely different from anything you'd done. There was no long roll out, no stadium-sized pop anthems, no aiming for the radio-friendly single. How fearful were you in avoiding what had worked in the past? I didn't think about any of that for the very first time. And a lot of this album was kind of distilled down to the purest version of what the story is. Songwriting on this album is exactly the way that I would write if I considered nothing else other than, "What words do I want to write? What stories do I want to tell? What melodies do I want to sing? What production is essential to tell those stories?" It was a very do-it-yourself experience. My management team, we created absolutely everything in advance — every lyric video, every individual album package. And then we called our label a week in advance and said, "Here's what we have.” The photo shoot was me and the photographer walking out into a field. I'd done my hair and makeup and brought some nightgowns. These experiences I was used to having with 100 people on set, commanding alongside other people in a very committee fashion — all of a sudden it was me and a photographer, or me and my DP. It was a new challenge, because I love collaboration. But there's something really fun about knowing what you can do if it's just you doing it.

Did you find it freeing? I did. Every project involves different levels of collaboration, because on other albums there are things that my stylist will think of that I never would've thought of. But if I had all those people on the photo shoot, I would've had to have them quarantine away from their families for weeks on end, and I would've had to ask things of them that I didn't think were fair if I could figure out a way to do it [myself]. I had this idea for the [Folklore album cover] that it would be this girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830 [laughs]. Very specific. A pioneer woman sleepwalking at night. I made a moodboard and sent it to Beth [Garrabrant], who I had never worked with before, who shoots only on film. We were just carrying bags across a field and putting the bags of film down, and then taking pictures. It was a blast.

Folklore includes plenty of intimate acoustic echoes to what you've done in the past. But there are also a lot of new sonics here, too — these quiet, powerful, intricately layered harmonics. What was it like to receive the music from Aaron and try to write lyrics on top of it? Well, Aaron is one of the most effortlessly prolific creators I've ever worked with. It's really mind-blowing. And every time I've spoken to an artist since this whole process [began], I said, "You need to work with him. It'll change the way you create." He would send me these — he calls them sketches, but it's basically an instrumental track. the second day — the day after I texted him and said, "Hey, would you ever want to work together?" — he sent me this file of probably 30 of these instrumentals and every single one of them was one of the most interesting, exciting things I had ever heard. Music can be beautiful, but it can be lacking that evocative nature. There was something about everything he created that is an immediate image in my head or melody that I came up with. So much so that I'd start writing as soon as I heard a new one. And oftentimes what I would send back would inspire him to make more instrumentals and then send me that one. And then I wrote the song and it started to shape the project, form-fitted and customized to what we wanted to do.

It was weird because I had never made an album and not played it for my girlfriends or told my friends. The only people who knew were the people that I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and then my management team. So that's the smallest number of people I've ever had know about something. I'm usually playing it for everyone that I'm friends with. So I had a lot of friends texting me things like, "Why didn't you say on our everyday FaceTimes you were making a record?"

Was it nice to be able to keep it a secret? Well, it felt like it was only my thing. It felt like such an inner world I was escaping to every day that it almost didn't feel like an album. Because I wasn't making a song and finishing it and going, "Oh my God, that is catchy.” I wasn't making these things with any purpose in mind. And so it was almost like having it just be mine was this really sweet, nice, pure part of the world as everything else in the world was burning and crashing and feeling this sickness and sadness. I almost didn't process it as an album. This was just my daydream space.

Does it still feel like that? Yeah, because I love it so much. I have this weird thing that I do when I create something where in order to create the next thing I kind of, in my head, attack the previous thing. I don't love that I do that but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I just still love it. I'm so proud of it. And so that feels very foreign to me. That doesn't feel like a normal experience that I've had with releasing albums.

When did you first learn about Rebekah Harkness? Oh, I learned about her as soon as I was being walked through [her former Rhode Island] home. I got the house when I was in my early twenties as a place for my family to congregate and be together. I was told about her, I think, by the real estate agent who was walking us through the property. And as soon as I found out about her, I wanted to know everything I could. So I started reading. I found her so interesting. And then as more parallels began to develop between our two lives — being the lady that lives in that house on the hill that everybody gets to gossip about — I was always looking for an opportunity to write about her. And I finally found it.

I love that you break the fourth wall in the song. Did you go in thinking you’d include yourself in the story? I think that in my head, I always wanted to do a country music, standard narrative device, which is: the first verse you sing about someone else, the second verse you sing about someone else who's even closer to you, and then in the third verse, you go, "Surprise! It was me.” You bring it personal for the last verse. And I'd always thought that if I were to tell that story, I would want to include the similarities — our lives or our reputations or our scandals.

How often did you regale friends about the history of Rebekah and Holiday House while hanging out at Holiday House? Anyone who's been there before knows that I do “The Tour,” in quotes, where I show everyone through the house. And I tell them different anecdotes about each room, because I've done that much research on this house and this woman. So in every single room, there's a different anecdote about Rebekah Harkness. If you have a mixed group of people who've been there before and people who haven't, [the people who’ve been there] are like, "Oh, she's going to do the tour. She's got to tell you the story about how the ballerinas used to practice on the lawn.” And they'll go get a drink and skip it because it's the same every time. But for me, I'm telling the story with the same electric enthusiasm, because it's just endlessly entertaining to me that this fabulous woman lived there. She just did whatever she wanted.

There are a handful of songs on Folklore that feel like pretty clear nods to your personal life over the last year, including your relationships with Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun. How long did it take to crystallize the feelings you had around both of them into “My Tears Ricochet” or “Mad Woman”? I found myself being very triggered by any stories, movies, or narratives revolving around divorce, which felt weird because I haven't experienced it directly. There’s no reason it should cause me so much pain, but all of a sudden it felt like something I had been through. I think that happens any time you've been in a 15-year relationship and it ends in a messy, upsetting way. So I wrote “My Tears Ricochet” and I was using a lot of imagery that I had conjured up while comparing a relationship ending to when people end an actual marriage. All of a sudden this person that you trusted more than anyone in the world is the person that can hurt you the worst. Then all of a sudden the things that you have been through together, hurt. All of a sudden, the person who was your best friend is now your biggest nemesis, etc. etc. etc. I think I wrote some of the first lyrics to that song after watching Marriage Story and hearing about when marriages go wrong and end in such a catastrophic way. So these songs are in some ways imaginary, in some ways not, and in some ways both.

How did it feel to drop an F-bomb on "Mad Woman"? F---ing fantastic.

And that’s the first time you ever recorded one on a record, right? Yeah. Every rule book was thrown out. I always had these rules in my head and one of them was, You haven't done this before, so you can't ever do this. “Well, you've never had an explicit sticker, so you can't ever have an explicit sticker.” But that was one of the times where I felt like you need to follow the language and you need to follow the storyline. And if the storyline and the language match up and you end up saying the F-word, just go for it. I wasn't adhering to any of the guidelines that I had placed on myself. I decided to just make what I wanted to make. And I'm really happy that the fans were stoked about that because I think they could feel that. I'm not blaming anyone else for me restricting myself in the past. That was all, I guess, making what I want to make. I think my fans could feel that I opened the gate and ran out of the pasture for the first time, which I'm glad they picked up on because they're very intuitive.

Let’s talk about “Epiphany.” The first verse is a nod to your grandfather, Dean, who fought in World War II. What does his story mean to you personally? I wanted to write about him for awhile. He died when I was very young, but my dad would always tell this story that the only thing that his dad would ever say about the war was when somebody would ask him, "Why do you have such a positive outlook on life?" My grandfather would reply, "Well, I'm not supposed to be here. I shouldn't be here." My dad and his brothers always kind of imagined that what he had experienced was really awful and traumatic and that he'd seen a lot of terrible things. So when they did research, they learned that he had fought at the Battles of Guadalcanal, at Cape Gloucester, at Talasea, at Okinawa. He had seen a lot of heavy fire and casualties — all of the things that nightmares are made of. He was one of the first people to sign up for the war. But you know, these are things that you can only imagine that a lot of people in that generation didn't speak about because, a) they didn't want people that they came home to to worry about them, and b) it just was so bad that it was the actual definition of unspeakable.

That theme continues in the next verse, which is a pretty overt nod to what’s been happening during COVID. As someone who lives in Nashville, how difficult has it been to see folks on Lower Broadway crowding the bars without masks? I mean, you just immediately think of the health workers who are putting their lives on the line — and oftentimes losing their lives. If they make it out of this, if they see the other side of it, there's going to be a lot of trauma that comes with that; there's going to be things that they witnessed that they will never be able to un-see. And that was the connection that I drew. I did a lot of research on my grandfather in the beginning of quarantine, and it hit me very quickly that we've got a version of that trauma happening right now in our hospitals. God, you hope people would respect it and would understand that going out for a night isn't worth the ripple effect that it causes. But obviously we're seeing that a lot of people don't seem to have their eyes open to that — or if they do, a lot of people don't care, which is upsetting.

You had the Lover Fest East and West scheduled this year. How hard has it been to both not perform for your fans this year, and see the music industry at large go through such a brutal change? It's confusing. It's hard to watch. I think that maybe me wanting to make as much music as possible during this time was a way for me to feel like I could reach out my hand and touch my fans, even if I couldn't physically reach out or take a picture with them. We've had a lot of different, amazing, fun, sort of underground traditions we've built over the years that involve a lot of human interaction, and so I have no idea what's going to happen with touring; none of us do. And that's a scary thing. You can't look to somebody in the music industry who's been around a long time, or an expert touring manager or promoter and [ask] what's going to happen and have them give you an answer. I think we're all just trying to keep our eyes on the horizon and see what it looks like. So we're just kind of sitting tight and trying to take care of whatever creative spark might exist and trying to figure out how to reach our fans in other ways, because we just can't do that right now.

When you are able to perform again, do you have plans on resurfacing a Lover Fest-type event? I don't know what incarnation it'll take and I really would need to sit down and think about it for a good solid couple of months before I figured out the answer. Because whatever we do, I want it to be something that is thoughtful and will make the fans happy and I hope I can achieve that. I'm going to try really hard to.

In addition to recording an album, you spent this year supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the election. Where were you when it was called in their favor? Well, when the results were coming in, I was actually at the property where we shot the Entertainment Weekly cover. I was hanging out with my photographer friend, Beth, and the wonderful couple that owned the farm where we [were]. And we realized really early into the night that we weren't going to get an accurate picture of the results. Then, a couple of days later, I was on a video shoot, but I was directing, and I was standing there with my face shield and mask on next to my director of photography, Rodrigo Prieto. And I just remember a news alert coming up on my phone that said, "Biden is our next president. He's won the election." And I showed it to Rodrigo and he said, "I'm always going to remember the moment that we learned this." And I looked around, and people's face shields were starting to fog up because a lot of people were really misty-eyed and emotional, and it was not loud. It wasn't popping bottles of champagne. It was this moment of quiet, cautious elation and relief.

Do you ever think about what Folklore would have sounded like if you, Aaron, and Jack had been in the same room? I think about it all the time. I think that a lot of what has happened with the album has to do with us all being in a collective emotional place. Obviously everybody's lives have different complexities and whatnot, but I think most of us were feeling really shaken up and really out of place and confused and in need of something comforting all at the same time. And for me, that thing that was comforting was making music that felt sort of like I was trying to hug my fans through the speakers. That was truly my intent. Just trying to hug them when I can't hug them.

I wanted to talk about some of the lyrics on Folklore. One of my favorite pieces of wordplay is in “August”: that flip of "sipped away like a bottle of wine/slipped away like a moment in time.” Was there an "aha moment" for you while writing that? I was really excited about "August slipped away into a moment of time/August sipped away like a bottle of wine." That was a song where Jack sent me the instrumental and I wrote the song pretty much on the spot; it just was an intuitive thing. And that was actually the first song that I wrote of the "Betty" triangle. So the Betty songs are "August," "Cardigan," and "Betty." "August" was actually the first one, which is strange because it's the song from the other girl's perspective.

Yeah, I assumed you wrote "Cardigan" first. It would be safe to assume that "Cardigan" would be first, but it wasn't. It was very strange how it happened, but it kind of pieced together one song at a time, starting with "August," where I kind of wanted to explore the element of This is from the perspective of a girl who was having her first brush with love. And then all of a sudden she's treated like she's the other girl, because there was another situation that had already been in place, but "August" girl thought she was really falling in love. It kind of explores the idea of the undefined relationship. As humans, we're all encouraged to just be cool and just let it happen, and don't ask what the relationship is — Are we exclusive? But if you are chill about it, especially when you're young, you learn the very hard lesson that if you don't define something, oftentimes they can gaslight you into thinking it was nothing at all, and that it never happened. And how do you mourn the loss of something once it ends, if you're being made to believe that it never happened at all?

On the flip side, "Peace" is bit more defined in terms of how one approaches a relationship. There's this really striking line, "The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me/Would it be enough if I can never give you peace?" How did that line come to you? I'm really proud of that one too. I heard the track immediately. Aaron sent it to me, and it had this immediate sense of serenity running through it. The first word that popped into my head was peace, but I thought that it would be too on-the-nose to sing about being calm, or to sing about serenity, or to sing about finding peace with someone. Because you have this very conflicted, very dramatic conflict-written lyric paired with this very, very calming sound of the instrumental. But, "The devil's in the details," is one of those phrases that I've written down over the years. That's a common phrase that is used in the English language every day. And I just thought it sounded really cool because of the D, D sound. And I thought, "I'll hang onto those in a list, and then, I'll finally find the right place for them in a story." I think that's how a lot of people feel where it's like, "Yeah, the devil's in the details. Everybody's complex when you look under the hood of the car." But basically saying, "I'm there for you if you want that, if this complexity is what you want."

There's another clever turn of phrase on "This is Me Trying." "I didn't know if you'd care if I came back/I have a lot of regrets about that." That feels like a nod toward your fans, and some of the feelings you had about retreating from the public sphere. Absolutely. I think I was writing from three different characters' perspectives, one who's going through that; I was channeling the emotions I was feeling in 2016, 2017, where I just felt like I was worth absolutely nothing. And then, the second verse is about dealing with addiction and issues with struggling every day. And every second of the day, you're trying not to fall into old patterns, and nobody around you can see that, and no one gives you credit for it. And then, the third verse, I was thinking, what would the National do? What lyric would Matt Berninger write? What chords would the National play? And it's funny because I've since played this song for Aaron, and he's like, "That's not what we would've done at all." He's like, "I love that song, but that's totally different than what we would've done with it."

When we last spoke, in April 2019, we were talking about albums we were listening to at the time and you professed your love for the National and I Am Easy to Find. Two months later, you met up with Aaron at their concert, and now, we're here talking about the National again. Yeah, I was at the show where they were playing through I Am Easy to Find. What I loved about [that album] was they had female vocalists singing from female perspectives, and that triggered and fired something in me where I thought, "I've got to play with different perspectives because that is so intriguing when you hear a female perspective come in from a band where you're used to only hearing a male perspective." It just sparked something in me. And obviously, you mentioning the National is the reason why Folklore came to be. So, thank you for that, Alex.

I'm here for all of your songwriting muse needs in the future. I can't wait to see what comes out of this interview.

*** For more on our Entertainers of the Year and Best & Worst of 2020, order the January issue of Entertainment Weekly or find it on newsstands beginning Dec. 18. (You can also pick up the full set of six covers here.) Don’t forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.

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thesoobfiles · 5 years ago

Text

she was a queen, ani – a. skywalker

Request: anon, one where jedi! reader is in a relationship w/ anakin but she’s insecure about herself and compares herself to padmé but anakin reassures her?

Words: 1.6k

Summary: Reader and Anakin are both Jedi Padawans; however, this doesn’t stop them from pursuing the other and this leads up to their current situation. They’re in a relationship and they love each other very much; but, the Reader can’t help but constantly feel inferior to Anakin’s extremely beautiful and intelligent friend, Senator Padmé Amidala.

A/N: I know the summary is essentially in the request, but I just thought I’d give my summary vs. the requester’s summary; whichever one explains the story better. They’re both there for the same purpose. Also, I’m so sorry this took so long but my writer’s block paired with my lack of time is not a good combo…

My first meeting with Padmé Amidala went a little something like this:

- 1 year ago -

Master Windu’s voice boomed in the small meeting room of the Jedi Council, “Padawan (L/N) and Padawan Skywalker, you’ve both been assigned to Senator Amidala.”

“Those who support the new bill, in danger they are.” Master Yoda confirms.

“Your mission starts right away.” Master Mundi added.

“You’ll find her in the hanger; she is waiting for your arrival.” Master Kenobi finishes off.

“Yes, Master.” Anakin said as he bowed before the Council, a slight smile beginning to form at the corners of his lips.

“Thank you for entrusting us with such as important task.” I bow as well before I leave the chamber with Anakin trailing behind me.

“You’re familiar with her, right?” I ask, to clear the air on the way to the hangar, “She’s the one you’ve known since you were nine?”

“Mhm.” Anakin confirms, the smile from before coming back full swing; completely oblivious to the feelings of insecurity beginning to radiate from my form.

“I see…” I reply, eyebrows furrowed in thought as we continue navigating the labyrinth that is the Jedi Temple.

I’ve never seen Senator Amidala before; only ever heard hearsay. I’ve either heard Anakin recall their memories together or happen to catch the occasional story from other Jedi. Other than that, I’m going in blind; however, if I remember correctly, Anakin mistook her for an angel upon their first meeting. She must be beautiful was my last thought before I actually saw her and wow, she is gorgeous.

During my thinking, it turned out my feet carried me all the way to our destination.

My eyes followed Anakin as he ‘casually’ walked up to what I assumed was Senator Amidala, as there were plenty of other Senators awaiting their Jedi escorts. I follow Anakin to the Senator and bow before her, as does he.

“Senator Amidala.” Anakin addresses her as he returns to a standing position.

“Padawan Skywalker.” She replies with a pearly white smile. I assume they’re trying to keep it professional for any prying eyes.

“And you must be Padawan (L/N). It’s nice to meet you.” She says, her focus and smile now on me.

“Likewise, Senator.” I respond, really taking in her features. She has flawless, fair skin and her chestnut brown hair is styled in a sophisticated up-do, adorned with a headpiece of some sort. She wears a rose tinted lipstick and light blush. Her chocolate brown eyes stare at me and my (E/C) ones stare right back. She really is beautiful, I’m screwed…

“Shall we get going, ladies?” Anakin’s voice snaps me out of our staring contest.

“Of course.” I say a little too quickly, “Senator.” I extend my arm in the direction of her ship. She smiles at me, then at Anakin as she boards the ship.

After she boards, Anakin slips his hand into mine. I look around and see everyone minding their own business. I give his hand a squeeze as we walk into our new mission, together.

That was our first meeting. In the span of a standard year, we’ve managed to meet 10 more times; getting assigned or passing by one another almost every month. I’m sure this is quite irregular for any pair of Jedi’s and a Senator.

By now, Anakin and I have been knighted.

I’ve brought up my insecurities to Anakin once before and he quickly shot them down; kissing them away. However, the more time we spend around the Senator, the more it seems to eat at my soul; the fact that this woman has been a Queen and a Senator in her life so far and she’s still so young, older than us, but still young.

“Goodbye, Padmé!” Anakin calls out to the Senator as she heads for her ship.

“Goodbye, Ani! (N/N)!” She calls out to Anakin and myself. I wave goodbye as she retreats into her ship and it leaves Coruscant for Naboo.

Anakin and I return to the Jedi Temple. We’re standing in front of my door and we casually scan our surroundings. Once we’ve determined no one is watching, I open the door and we rush inside.

Immediately, Anakin’s arms are around my figure and he buries his nose into my neck.

I giggle at the attention I’m suddenly receiving, “You’re so touch starved, Ani.” I say as I put my hands on top of his arms.

“You don’t know how hard it is to keep my hands away when we’re in the presence of others.” He says, muffled by my robes.

“I do actually.” I retort, turning to face him and whisper in his ear, “I suffer the same problem.”

“Then it must be fixed!” He sweeps me off my feet, “Ani!” I shout in surprise. He hurriedly carries me to my bed and plops me on it.

“Anakin!” I say as I swat his shoulder, “You should have let me take off my robes first! Do you know how dirty it is? Sitting on unknown ships and prancing about on the battlefield…” I trail off, beginning to take my robes off. He only chuckles at my little reprimanding rant.

“Sorry, your highness. I wasn’t aware you were afraid of a little dirt.” He replies good-naturedly as he too takes off his robes.

Your highness… Royalty… Queen… Queen Amidala…. Padmé Amidala… my mind hovers over the subject of Padmé Amidala, Senator and Anakin’s childhood friend.

I fold my robes with less energy and lie in bed, thinking about Padmé…

We’ve known each other for a year, shedding formalities and acknowledging each other either by nicknames or first name. She calls me (N/N) and I call her Padmé. I once considered ‘Addy’ but thought it was too similar to ‘Ani’, so I dropped it… She may be 5 years older than us; but she looks our age. It’s amazing how she manages to keep up appearances. I mean, she was a queen so it isn’t such a marvelous feat… She’s just so pretty. And regal, even in our presence. I suppose she wouldn’t just drop her regality when she’s with us… I don’t know what’s going on with me; whenever she’s around, I just feel so… inferior. She’s a great person and has a lovely personality, don’t get me wrong. She’s amazing in every way and I’m just-

“Don’t finish that sentence.” Anakin said authoritatively. I was so caught up in my thoughts, I completely forgot Anakin was with me. I turn to my right to see Anakin has settled in bed and has taken a hold of my hand.

He sits up and I mirror his actions. He turns towards me and grabs both of my hands. His cerulean orbs stare right into my soul. I forget, he has a knack for being able to read me like a book.

“You are amazing too.” He reassures me.

“She was a queen, Ani and I’m-“

“You’re a Jedi! Do you know how amazing you really are?” He asks with genuine curiousity.

“You wake up every day – risk your life every day – to go fight for the Republic! You command the 343rd Battalion; entire platoons of men look to you every day for guidance. Your skills with a lightsaber are nearly unmatched AND you’re one of the most beautiful Jedi to have every roamed these halls.” He exasperates while flinging his arm to the door that leads to the halls.

“Padmé is a great person and I love her.” He says and my heart drops to the pit of my stomach. “As a friend.” He continues.

“But, do you know who I love as a lover? Who I love with all my heart and who I wish to spend the rest of my life with?”

I look at him with innocent doe eyes, soaking in his words like a sponge.

“You, (Y/N). You are my best friend and the love of my life. Do you know how many times I’ve stared your way as a Padawan? Countless times. Or how happy I was whenever we got paired for a mission? I was exhilarated. It’s the joy you get when your feelings for someone are so strong, you feel like you’ll explode. You’ve always had my heart and never known it.” He finishes, or so I thought.

“I love you, (Y/N).” He says, letting go of my hands to grab both sides of my face, “With all of my heart.” The tears that have been collecting at the corners of my eyes finally begin to fall; being told you are the love of someone’s life and that they love you with all their heart makes you emotional.

His hands make quick work of wiping away the tears that cascade down my face.

Once he’s done and the waterworks stop, he says, “You are NOT inferior to Padmé and you never will be. Understand?” with emphasis on ‘not’ and looks at me. I nod my head in comprehension.

“Good.” Anakin lays back and pulls me into his side; rubbing my arm with the calloused fingers of his left hand. I steady my breathing from the crying I just did and relax into him, sliding my right arm around his back to take residence on his waist. The room is settled in a comfortable silence; the only noises being the sound of our breathing.

“I love you too, by the way.” I say in a small voice, keeping my eyes down as my thumb strokes the skin on his waist. He turns is head and looks down at me with a smile and responds with two words:

“I know…”

#anakin skywalker x reader #anakin skywalker #anakin #anakin x reader #star wars #star wars x reader #x reader #senator padmé amidala #senator padme amidala #padmé amidala #padme amidala #jedi knight anakin skywalker #padawan anakin skywalker

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kanene-yaaay-o-retorno · 5 years ago

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The Colors of my Soul(mates) [1]

[Second oneshot]

[AO3 link]

Kanene’s Notes:

Nope, I do not regret the pun. Okay, okay! I’ve plaining this AU for almost an year so I’m pretty excited to post it!! dfghjsdfrtyucfvgbhjv yaaaay!! Thank you very very much @olliedollie1204 for such a positive feedback and awesome ideas. it helped me a lot!!

Warnings, fun facts, random things and stuff:

* That fanfic has Virgil, Logan, Patton and Roman (only a brief mention of Remy) in a platonic relationship (yet), but it can be viewed as romantic, if you wish.

* Warnings: A bit of swearing and depreciative thoughts. It’s mostly fluff and hurt/comfort, tho.

* This characters do not belongs to me. They all belongs to the amazing Thomas Sanders in his series of Sanders Sides.

* Something around 4.500 words. -w-)b.

* Sorry for any spelling, pontuation and grammar mistakes! Any advice is very very welcome!

* Tô com preguiça de postar a versão em português brasileiro aaaa! Thankys for reading, my lollipops! Say to someone important how much you love them, be safe, talk with the one that you love, drink water and sleep well! Byeioo!~

[~*~]

What can do a creature if not, between creatures, love? - Carlos Drummond de Andrade

- What the fu-

Virgil only discovered he had more than one Soulmate when he was twenty years old, more specifically the exact moment he took a wrong turn and kept going even knowing he was in the wrong way because one hour it would lead him to somewhere Virgil would recognize before his mortal being inevitably starved to death in the middle of nowhere and his eyes got dragged from the visions from thousands of futures created by his mind to a Teddy Bear Store - they seemed to replicate worse than bacteria during Valentine’s Day - and two bears from the crimson shelter suddenly dyed themselves in two milliseconds as he slightly glanced at them.

Two of them. Virgil felt his entire face burn in hot shades of embarrassment with drops of disbelief, almost as if all the people running, stumbling, locked in their own worlds and swearing while walked in the sideway because ‘some stupid teenager decided to just stop and block their way’ could, by only looking at him, stare deep into his soul and realize the one staring astonished the store already carried in his fate another one more Soulmate at home.

One completely different in shape and form, even if also blue, however in a light, sky blue completely opposite shade from the new navy one staring him down - Virgil knew plentily their link wasn’t bonded yet, albeit he was equally sure that the person behind those black glooming teddy bear’s eyes were already judging him, - wondering why, between all the people, he was their soulmate. The other red one was very much likely crackling in his face when an employee came and pointedly turn the adult’s attention to the sign in big, graphed words clued in front of their store:

“You dye, you buy.”

Virgil signed, pushing his hoodie down further, wondering how much time it would take of him hitting his head on the wall to finally pass out. This option sounded much more attractive when he realized that this new ‘discovery’ about himself would cost all his month’s saves.

He asked, to the Universe, the stars, the Earth and whoever was seeing him in that exact moment: why?

Was it a kind of prank? A punishment from fate when, years and tears ago, Virgil lifted his chin up and dared the Universe to give him more soulmates as he locked all his uncolored – although never really free of some weak drops of paint from what one day they came to be – simply stuffed animals, - and nothing more, anymore, - away and promised he would never, ever allow himself to go all through this shit again?

But… That had been… years ago. Almost a decade since that soft voice he got to know so well, the impulsive acts, long conversations and warm feelings.

But…

Time has passed, that is true. Nevertheless, deep down has he really changed?

Virgil stared at the bag carried so close to his chest since his bare hands were sweating and shaking way too much for this task. Yes, he knew his Soulmates won’t feel anything until both of them decided to ‘give the First Step’, accepting to link their souls and fates, for the longest as it lasts. However, he didn’t want to risk it, because what if they felt? What if he in some way broke the Soulmate System when got two at the same time and now everything was messed up and they could already feel his touches even through the bag and the first impression Virgil would gave to them was ‘That anxious, weird boy and his creepy, sweaty hands’ and-

A girl almost hit him as she passed running at his side, making his arms protectively hug further the teddy bears closer to him, arms protectively involving them, the soft touch somehow calming his tumulted thoughts. The lost man took a deep breath.

Clear your mind. Rational thoughts. Focus on the two sides of the coin. Three people wouldn’t be able to break a millennial, unknown system, don’t matter how good he was in screwin… No, a voice that sounded suspiciously a lot like his psychologist calmly pointed, not like that. Virgil huffed, trying again. He was a magnet of problems and bad…Okay, also wrong. Neutral thoughts, focus on neutral thoughts. Come on. Come on.

It was okay.

They wouldn’t feel him until they gave the first step. Right, that… sounded like a start. He didn’t do anything. Now, what Virgil needed to do was go to his house, clean his bed in order to find a good place where he could put and ignore them and then he would get his headphones, listen his playlists and wonder where the fuck his life was going.

It was okay. Everything would stay okay as long as he didn’t give the First Step.

Virgil unconsciously hugged tighter the teddy bears, his fingers finding way and drowning themselves in the soft, cozy fur, combing them in light, soothing touches as he continued his way.

Okay. Everything was okay.

[~*~]

Plurinfanto, or Multiple Souls, it’s the nomination used for the cases when a person has diverse soulmates at the same time and in a same period.

The first known case was with Pharaoh Cleopatra when multiples of her woolen fabric started to dye themselves in various colors and shades. In Ancient Roman, it was believed that the occurrences were blessings from Venus in a sign of prosperity and abundance. Grand, longstanding parties were executed through days nonstop in order to get together those intertwined souls. When the connection broke and the colors disappeared, it meant that days of pain and foreboding were waiting forward.

It is not known for certain the exact moment when the meaning changed, albeit researchers believe it was around the fall of the Roman Empire, when all the invasions resulted in a cultural reconstruction which led to the loss from much of their costumes.

CLICK HERE TO DISCOVER HOW TO HAVE THE SOULMATE OF YOUR DREAMS!!!!

[~*~]

The computer made a soft ‘click’ as Virgil closed it and sat on his bed, adjusting slightly his position to stare the three vivid, brilliant stuffed beings contrasting to the general dark theme of his room.

Virgil growled, resting his back on the cold wall, the shivers calming his flowing thoughts about all the variants this whole thing had. No to mention that people change with time, leading to the souls who they “relate” to change as well, meaning that you can have someone in your life for years and then, one month, or weeks or the next day, you can wake up only to discover you and the said person don’t “match” anymore.

And NO ONE talked about this just because it was a freak tabu to doesn’t have ‘an only one soulmate who will be with you until the end of your existence’. Oh, for fuck sake. Virgil ran his hand through his hair, wincing when he accidently pulled some tangled strands. That sounds like a line of commercial, does anyone believe that bullshit for real?

“Hello dear, newer fellow!!” The popping thought broke his line of reasoning, jumping excitedly in his mind and automatically pulling him out of his wanders. It has a strong and full of… about everything, tune demanding attention. Virgil felt a warm kiss on his forehead, meaning one soulmate – a deep part of him turned his attention to the red colored teddy bear, - had given the First Step. The one who in some moment changed his position so now he was sitting on the floor felt his face get hot again, heart thumping strongly in his chest as his arm moved, fingers stopping inches away from the fur, questioning if he was ready to retribute the gesture.

[~*~]

Many history icons have reports of being Pluriers, as shown in the book ‘The Romance in the History of Those Who Wrote It’, by historian Henry Senyura. The subject is also beginning to gain more visibility after the protest from the teacher Joan A. in 2010, who got touched towards the situation of some of her pupils being forced to choose only one among their Soulmates for the six-month annual exchange, by the end of that period most of them lost or weakened their bonding due lack of communication, small changes of personality and continuous absence. She held a protest at the front of the school, stating that no one had the right to interfere in ‘matters of the heart’.

A lot of fiction works are beginning to address the topic more frequently, as in I’m Not One, a movie directed by Devon Stan; The Seven Colors of Rainbow, a book written by Lílian Lee and the psychological analysis Life’s Watch, recently found between drafts by the famous writer Robin Green, published after their husband’s authorization, Josué Green.

[~*~]

Logan hummed. As it seems, this was a relatively common thing, since the concept of Soul Mates surpassed the barriers of unity and time, being ‘souls who in a way or other intertwined themselves in some part of their life. Sometimes it didn’t necessarily mean a romantic relationship, as the majority of society and media pointed, but it also didn’t hold any assurance that all of them were platonic.

He massaged the bridge of his nose. Remy wasn’t in the dorm so everything was silent enough for him to hear his own thoughts.

It has been a remarkable amount of years since he got his last soulmates, - except for Remy, however they both considered this occurrence as a separate incident - well, until, of course, this day. At least it was a good thing he always carried in his bag extra easy manageable stuffed animals or else maybe the System would dye one of clothes, what would be less than ideal for him in the middle of his philosophy debate. But things got even more interesting when, after his classes, as he arrived at the small, pleasantly well-organized store next to his university, one more stuffed animal colored itself right before him.

He didn’t exactly understand why. Logan considered himself an owner of a… quite strong, strict personality, this added with his difficulty in managing his and one another emotions usually tended to bring some complex tribulations in his rela-

Anyway, that is beside the important matter. The one laying his chin on his crossed fingers undid his pose for a bite of time in order to adjust his glasses, barely fixating his gaze on the two plushies in the desk before him, his third – Pat - resting a few centimeters away, closer to Logan’s fingers, who were barely touching. Mind running. Asking, reflecting, wondering what was the exact amount of time to be acceptable to give his First Step?

‘The First Step’.

Logan never really understood from where and how that expression emerged. It didn’t come from the words’ etymology nor some semantic detour. His most concrete hypothesis consisted of the phrase being derived from old romances.

“Did you know it used to be called the ‘First Kiss’?! But that confused a lot of people who really believed that, to be able to talk and interact with their soulmates they would have to kiss each other, like the Sleeping Beauty! I always got confused in this movie when I was a child, by the way! That ended up messing with a bunch of relationships before they even started, since a lot of peeps don’t feel comfortable enough with strangers kissing them. However, they also speeded up a bunch of them as well…” Logan blinked, his attention escaping from his previous thoughts to the light sky blue plushie of Baby Yoda, for a moment surprised with the sudden input. He felt fingers carefully holding his arms and a bit of ghost movements as Pat probably moved his representation to somewhere else, a hug and warmth engulfing the one yet absolving the new information moments later.

“That was… enlightening.” His voice danced across the room. Even though he was completely aware they could chat telepathically, the childish act of saying the words out loud still comforted him, in a way. “Thank you for your contribution.”

He took a deep breath and closed the tab of research on his cellphone, internally thanking from the escaping of his turmoil of thoughts, his free hand carefully combing the Baby Yoda’s head fur, almost methodic.

“Looo, no!” The other protested with no heat in his tune, leading a toothless smile to resurface in Logan’s features. “Stop doing this. You know I end up sleeping every time!”

“Oh no, what a tragedy.” He deadpanned, already plugging his phones and changing to a most relaxed position on his chair, his eyes traveling across the countless movies on the device before him. “In which episode did we stop?”

“I’m going to fight you.” Pat sounded like he was pouting.

“How so?” Logan asked, trying to hide his amusement.

Silence followed his words.

“Pat?”

“What is the skeleton’s favorite instrument?”

“Pat, don’t you fucking da-”

“Language! It’s a xiloBONE!”

Logan audible growled, fast in his final decision. “I’m going to drop you out the window.”

“I’m going to hug you!” And immediately the one rolling his eyes felt himself being squished in a strong bear hug, huffing only half annoyed.

“You are an incorrigible heathen, let me go in this exact instant.” His answer was a ‘butterfly kiss’ – as Pat was fond in calling them – on his forehead. “Urg, affection.” Yet he smiled and mirrored the act, lightly poking the other’s side.

“We’re on episode 19.”

[~*~]

Roman stared the paper, his pencil’s tip stopped in the middle of the biggest petal’s flower, his eyes narrowing in the hope of a clearest way of how to convert the vague idea he had in transforming the night full of stars in a flower. No to tell he also would need to choose a good pallet of colors indication for it, later, and probably re-do all the process over and over and over until got the best result as possible. A yawn found its way from his lips and the designer stretched, getting up to drink a bit of water and rubbing his eyes, wondering if it was really worth it to make a black tea to help him through the night.

A glimpse of color caught his attention. The navy blue teddy bear on his couch, the main inspiration of his newest tattoo. Roman wondered why it wasn’t resting in front of him while he drew. A corner of his brain, obscured by the tiredness, telling he had a previous good reason for this choice although his actual self carried absolutely no idea of why.

Well, if he couldn’t remember it, it means the reason wasn’t THAT good, right?

Roman held the stuffed animal, spinning with it across the room for a couple of minutes, imagining who would be the person behind it. A king, a queen, a non-binary royalty? Did they like Disney? Musicals? Sing? Would they chat for hours at first with a few words exchanged or would they take a bit to warm at each other? Was navy blue their favorite color or…

Or…

Navy blue.

Oh.

He fixed his glare on the plushie, his hands feeling and slowly drawing in the soft fur of it.

Navy blue, huh? A humorless chuckled flew in the air. It could have no significance, it could be a world of it. It probably didn’t mean what he, for a moment, a so silly, stupid moment, wished it meant. Of course, one day this would happen, right? It was something normal, something expected. Not the magical, right out of the story books or his old daydreams, occurrence.

This wasn’t a second chance. The Universe doesn’t give you second chances. He wasn’t the same boy from eleven years ago, holding his own costumed teddy bear crying his eyes out, hugging he – No, it – the closest as possible, wishing with all his heart and soul for the color, the voice, the thoughts, the rambling, their bickering, the forgiveness to come back again.

No, he grew up. He moved on. He got better.

Then why did a part of him still felt this way? Like he was about to hear the excited giggles, the soft reprimand, that lovely, deep and so truly -and sometimes boring, Roman had to admit – questions? Why would a part of him still say that he could have it all again if he just… waited long enough, hoped high enough, dreamed long enough…

…If he was enough.

There aren’t more than seven billion colors in the world. Roman would be stupid if he really believed there was a path where he wouldn’t stumble in that so (un)fortunate well-known shade of blue again.

Roman growled, his forehead making a loud, dry thumping sound as hit his desk. The one who should be asleep hours ago had absolutely no energy to battle against those thoughts, again. At least for now. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the teddy bear laid on the cold tabletop before him. Well, what a better way to get rid of your own means thoughts than put some stranger’s unpredictable thoughts in the middle of it? Roman slightly pushed the bunch of flowers and some warmup sketches he had out of the way, carefully carrying the representation next to him, nodding. Honestly, that was the best idea he had for a while, why did he even put the lovely thing away?

Awake Roman was so silly, thinking that… something he couldn’t quite recall right now would be a bad idea, he pointed as snorted softly, pressing his lips on the teddy’s forehead, the quote he knew by heart flying from them in a natural flow.

“It is not immortal, since it’s flame. But let it be infinite while it lasts.”

A warm sensation rested on his own forehead moments later, leading the sleepy form to hum happily.

“Is it… poetry?” Oh shit, Roman widened his eyes. His soulmate heard that?? Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Roman mentally facepalmed himself. So that was why he usually said it before the First Step!

“Uhh, yeah. Of course. Fidelity Sonnet by Vinícius Moraes.”

“I see. Classicism, I presume. A literature of very soundly pleasant rhymes, indeed. The first sonnet was probably created by the humanist Italian poet Francesco Petrarca, although it got even more known in the western literature after the works of Camões, who- ”

“He is from Modernism, actually.” Roman didn’t know why he suddenly sounded so defensive. Logan felt a cold feeling run his body when the other’s hands let go of him, for a piece of second wondering if it was supposed for him to do the same with the red narwhal plushie on his hold.

“A very common mistake to make due the lack of context.” He retorted, unable to formulate another answer. He had, of course, thought, balanced options and chosen the best topics to discuss with his new soulmates when they bonded. However, his fingers firmly gripped the pen, its tip tapping on the first topic written in the notebook partially forgotten in front of him, the poetry figuratively threw him out of his tracks, leading the decision to be the most impartial as possible due his… not so impartial past memories with that specific shade of red an even more difficult task than it already was.

“Yes. Sure. Sorry, I- I’m just… very tired right now.”

“You should go sleep, then.”

The other snorted with the direct, immediate response. “I should, shouldn’t I? Gotta work, though.”

Some part of Logan’s brain registered the new fact, separating and keeping it in a special place so he would remember to write it down in the new folder he bought, later.

“I see.” … poetry? That wasn’t a hard topic to talk about. The one now nervously cleaning the very clear lenses twisted his mouth. He could talk about this for hours. No, correction: he already had previously talked about this for hours non stop.

Logan strangely felt the urge to rub his face and scream. It has been years, - eleven years and 10 months to be precise – and exactly eight years since the one wearing glasses learned poetry because of him. Because of his constant habit of reciting Shakespeare before they would go to bed, until Logan brought himself to research and decorate all the poems he could muster, taking the task to now wake Prince – the name still carried a strong taste in his tongue – in the same way every single day. Before they realize, that becomes something between them. There were times when both didn’t talk, content in only reciting some verses and hear the other complete them. A part of Logan, that illogical and unfortunately full of feelings one wondered how their rap battles would be if they found each other right now.

Did Prince even maintain his liking the same things he one day did? Does he still recite poetry? Does he maintain the same dreams? The same habits? Does he even remember about him?

Highly improbable.

“You can call me Lo.”

Roman slowly blinked, getting out the fog surrounding his brain to realize he was mindless staring at the pan’s boiling water, surprised the other still there. Well, it seems like he hasn't screwed terribly everything yet.

“Lo? Like Lowrance?”

“Even though my name does contain ‘Lo’ in it, no. It’s ‘Lo’ like Logic. I came to believe it’s a good idea the nomination after a predominant characteristic, since we can’t actively exchange our real names through the Soulmate System.”

Roman’s breath hitched, a memory with yellow-ish edges and nostalgic smell unrolling in front of him.

…

‘I think we should choose you a name with more personality in it, ya know?’ He threw himself on his bed, kicking his legs on the air before immediately scoping the plushie and laying it on his stomach. ‘Like a characteristic!’

‘I don’t see what is wrong with the nickname I choose.’

‘No, no! There is nothing wrong with it! But that could be something just between us!’ Then he gasped, picturing that, if he was inside a movie there would be a lamp shining right above his hair in this moment. ‘We could call you Ro!! You wanted to be a robot, right?’

His soulmate growled and Roman felt a few pokes on his arm, the verbal protest doesn’t taking long before accompanying it. ‘I was three years old!’

‘And I’m never letting you live this down.’ He beamed, both knowing the annoyed scoff he got as response held no real heat. ‘Besides, we could even match our names!!’

‘That would be very counterproductive.’ Roman felt his hair being softly smoothed, a usual indication the other was losing himself in his thoughts. ‘Nicknames are supposed to help us. Having two equal names is not the most efficient thing.’

Roman dramatically scoffed, picking the stuffed animal and half hugging it, his free hand occupying itself in making a couple of gestures to no one, since his soulmate couldn’t exactly see them. ‘It’s not about being productive, Bear! It’s about feelings!!’

‘And since when,’ a light poke was delivered on his belly, making him squeak and mess with the teddy bear’s hair in revenge ‘Everything isn’t feelings for you, your highness?’

…

“Okay,” Roman and his self past disappearing with the fading memory said, in synchrony “You shall call me by Prince, then.”

Suddenly he felt himself falling, his hands quickly holding on the tabletop as the cold, nauseous feeling took over his stomach, more like a punch on it, his veins being filled with amounts of adrenaline for a glimpse of a second.

“Excuse me? Warn a guy next time you decide to just drop his representation, dude! Damn.” Roman shook himself, trying to bring his body to calm down.

“Sorry, I got… startled.” Logan gulped. The word ‘Prince’ echoing on his mind as a broken vinyl disc. What were the chances? That couldn’t be such a common nickname, right? Nor color. Nor interests. What were the chances? What could be the chances? Maybe he was just projecting, being played, tricked by a dangerous partnership between his own brain and emotions. Maybe he was just jumping to conclusions due the nostalgic feeling fogging his actions, his thoughts. Perhaps-

“Hey, Lo? Are you there?”

“Yes.” Logan answered, his fingertips colliding quickly with the fabric of his pants as he visualized his options. “Yes, I am.”

“Hm. Okay, then. I’m… glad to know.”

Silence. Logan took a wobbly breath.

“Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back; Wherein he puts alms for oblivion; A great-size monster of ingratitudes:”

“Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd; As fast as they are made, forgot as soon.” Roman continued without even noticing until the words danced in the air, just like the years haven’t passed.

Then he understood.

His heart stopped for a second, his eyes widening and his voice disappearing, as if his whole being was afraid to break the moment, the spell; as if this was a dream and a miscalculate step would make everything fade.

“Bear?” Roman felt a light poke on his cheek.

“Hello, Prince.”

Roman choked a laugh, quickly crawling the teddy bear next to his chest, hugging it both firmly and yet so caring, curling around its - no, him - feeling an equal warmth involve his form as he hided his face on the soft fur, giggling and hugging, feeling so happy, so alive and right and good and he would never, ever, ever again let him go.

“I missed you, bitch. Never scare me like this again.”

“I… missed you, as well.” Logan tried to not let the emotion take over his tune, his hand petting the narwhal plushie softly, the words had abandoning him, as it seems. “This reunion is a… good surprise.”

“Oh, shut up, I know you’re having a blast somewhere in that logic soul of yours, too.”

Logan huffed, grinning. “Stop crying on my hair, your troglodyte.”

“Make me, I dare you.”

“Always so dramatic.” They both rolled their eyes, letting the moment be bathed in the deep waters of a comfortable silence.

“Eleven years.”

“We have so, so much to talk about!! Oh, my goodness gracious, I’m going to get my tea. Do you remember about that play I wrote about zombie princes and a dragon witch? You will NOT fucking believe what happened with it!”

“Good thing I have you to explain to me then.” Roman stopped, a gigantic smile taking over his features as he closed his eyes to feel everything even more.

“Yeah, I agree.”

Somewhere in the world Patton and Virgil smiled during their sleep, unable to control themselves when a gigantic wave of pure joy and delight filled every corner of their hearts, coloring it on the most brilliant gleam, just like their stuffed animals resting peacefully on their grip.

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ashfaqqahmad · 6 years ago

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Faith versus Logic Final

Could Shara’s rule be an ideal system?

Click here to read the previous part of this article

If you want to give the example of Sharia law as an example of low crime rate and safe environment, and then also consider that ten countries of the world with the lowest crime rate Iceland, Denmark, Austria, New Zealand, Portugal, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, and Slovenia are there— so why not their system is ideal?

Sharia laws were defined at a time when there was a tribal culture in Arabia – the monarchy was the system. In that era, there were often wars for animals, women, domination, and expansion of power, in which women were widowed largely— to support them, more than one marriage or to make them mistress was allowed… what wars are happening now?

If the people living there accept it due to happiness or helplessness, but even if enjoying full civil liberties in democracy, the Sharia system of Saudi Arabia is attracting you, where there are restrictions at every step, then you are religiously ill— and you don’t want to think anything beyond faith. Even in that system, this thinking of mine will also come under Blasphemy because I raised the questions, whose punishment is death— do you want such a system? I really do not want it. The one who follows another religion cannot get citizenship there nor can he adopt his method of worship.

How did humans start their journey on earth

And in India, those who are advocates of Sharia seen wandering here and there – there is a request to them that even if our rule is a democracy, but as a true believer, they should apply the Sharia to themselves and don’t do anything which is wrong or a crime with the Shariah. For example—

Avoid the interest-bearing banking system— immediately cash whatever mutual funds, shares, FDs you have. Avoid stealing power, which is the most common custom among Muslims. If photos are not allowed in the house, then break the TV and throw it away. Since porn is also available on mobile and you can see a picture/video of unknown women on Facebook etc., then quit using your Smartphone and keep a simple buttoned mobile. Do not wear tight clothes (jeans, t-shirt, etc.). On the way, getting-up or sitting, do not look at any girl and woman. The Sharia has made the daughter a shareholder in the property, immediately give her due right to your sisters or daughters. These are the deeds which Momins are doing indiscriminately— the rest things like gambling, liquor, womanizing, are a different issue.

If you can do this much then try doing it, then after that, if you talk about Sharia law or Sharia, only then your say will matter to the people.

Did God make a man or the man, made God?

God created man or the man, made the God— this dispute may never be resolved, but an unseen God is in existence ever since the first human being in the world would have found first hope amid awe. Fear and hope – right here begins the God, and even though he may not have been known in any particular way then, but as man became smarter, God too became accepted in different forms and its separation is the prevalent “religion” at present.

Where did religion come from and how logical from the point of view of science?

The real meaning of religion is not what is in front of everyone in the world today, but its practical meaning is this— you are Hindus, I am Muslim, that is a Sikh, that is a Christian and that is Jew.

So for a while, free yourself from this tilak, cap, cross, turban— and find out what is religion? What is its real form— why is it and what has it given to you? What are you achieving from this religion?

Leave the past in the past, whatever was written in those books, was according to the circumstances of that time, was written to handle the humans of that time. Come in the present and think, can it be a religion to abuse someone, or to speak to someone with love should be the religion?

Can it be religious to hate someone or to love someone should be the religion? Taking someone’s life should be a religion or to save someone’s life? To take away someone’s right can be religion or to help any poor fellow to get his right? Can injustice done to someone be religion or give/help to get justice? To torture, someone with the opposite ideology can be religion or to give respect to people of other ideology?

Think as many questions like these as you can think, think those questions with closed eyes and introspect yourself honestly. Test your answers on the criterion of religion you have been carrying from generation to generation. Think, brainstorm what religion was for— why there was a need for religion and how you are practising that religion. Among Hindus too, “Meditation” is said to be the way to seek God and to connect oneself with him and in us too it is called “Salat”.

what possibilities are there in the universe outside our planet

Salat means meditation, that is, attaching oneself to God— the Prophet adopted this Salat as “Namaz”, Sufis in some other form— but later on people adopted Namaz as a rule and today its meaning is lost somewhere. Do not ask me this question, but ask yourself whether you reach that state of “meditation” in Namaz? That you feel connected to Allah or does your mind keep wandering in worldly additions/subtractions? Remains stuck in High pyjama or Skull cap? Do you find yourself ever close to “Salat”? If not, find out the reason for that.

However, if by churning so much you do not get this pearl of knowledge, that to hurt someone is not a religion, but to help in someone’s suffering, to help him overcome his suffering is religion— then be sure, that there is a lacking in you being a human.

Religion, Iniquity and Foul-Iniquity

Here people are often seen asking the question, what is religion? So the question is right in its place but the answers of those in front can be different… Actually, when you say Religion in English or ‘Mazhab’ in Urdu, it has a direct and only meaning— The particular ideology, creed, the enclosure bound with the law of uniformity— but when you say ‘Dharm’ in Hindi, then it has two meanings. The first meaning that is commonly practised is Religion itself.

If God is there then how can it be from the point of view of science

But what it has as another meaning is, in fact, the actual meaning of the word “Religion”. Your good deeds— your behaviour that is in harmony with the welfare of humans, that actually is the religion. Now understand this in detail—

Every small or big practice of your entire life is divided into only three parts— Religion, Iniquity and Foul Iniquity. Maybe you ever gave attention to this or not— but every little or big work of yours, every small or big decision taken at every step of your life, comes only under these three rules.

Telling the truth, supporting the truth, living honestly, avoiding false deception, doing justice, to support the justice, to stand for the rights of the victim, to stand against the cruelty, not doing injustice, helping others, avoiding illegal, excluded and selfish deeds that are outcaste by society, means to say that everything you do for the betterment and welfare of human beings… is actually religion.

And on the contrary, whatever you do, the result of which is harmful, troublesome to any human being, which gives suffering… will come under the purview of Iniquity.

Now there is a link between them, that is, your acts which may seem iniquitous to appear but religion is hidden in them— that is a ‘Foul-Iniquity’ You can understand this with two or three examples— You lie in a place where telling the truth can be harmful to one or more humans— then that lie of yours is Foul-Iniquity. You steal somewhere, where the stolen goods have the welfare of others hidden behind them and not your selfishness, then that theft is a Foul-Iniquity.

You stand somewhere with a Cruel, and there you can help the victims in any way, then it is a Foul-Iniquity to stand with that cruel. You may or may not understand this, but every activity of yours is tied to these rules. And the interesting thing you will find is that it is the core of all religions. On this basis in the Gita, the ‘Kauravas’ were declared unjust by Lord Krishna, or else they also believed in the worship of God and other things— and in fact, “Kafir” in Islamic Mythology has also been determined on this basis. People derive the meaning of ‘Kafir’ as an atheist or non-Muslim according to their own belief.

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Whereas, as a religious person, whatever rituals of worship, Aarti, Pilgrimage, Roza Namaz, Hajj, Zakat, etc. have you mistaken as religion, they, can be called the flattering methods or ritualism of God, but it is not the real religion. Real religion is your good conduct, with which if you do these rituals, then in a way we can see them as religion, but alas that it does not happen in practice.

The real religion is Humanity and not these worship methods

Let’s give many examples of this and explain— A true Momin believes in himself that by doing Namaz, keeping Roza, and doing Haj, he is doing a lot of good work and he will get a lot of praise for it – but while he sits at the shop and lying to the customer that this much of this merchandise is purchased, he can give it in that much— though this is not true. He is performing all the good rituals but he is sitting on the rented or untitled land occupied by a house or shop. The stolen light is glowing in the house and after washing himself with water pulled with that stolen electricity, he is reciting Namaz. He is eating sacred food made on the heater burning with that stolen electricity.

Consuming water, fans, lights obtained by direct theft or rigging of the electricity in the mosque, is washing himself and performing Namaz— Performs Haj and becomes a Haji with the money acquired through bribes, commissions, frauds, rigging or by other illegal means. Performing Namaz by surrounding roads as religious work, doing processions, even if all traffic is disrupted, may someone miss their train, plane or bus… or may someone die in an ambulance.

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Similarly, a true Hindu by applying a Tilak on the forehead, ties a red thread in his hand, chanting Ram-Ram day and night, keeps on ringing bells for hours in temples— but at the same time lies, deceits, manipulations, deception are all being done. Donating from the money saved through commissions, bribe, black marketing, stealing tax. The religious pandals are decorated with stolen electricity. Narrating religious stories by installing big loudspeakers, DJ sound— whether there are sick people around, children going through exams or people are going crazy by the noise.

They have been occupying the streets in the name of Ganapati, Navratri, Kanvar processions, even though the traffic system is collapsing. By surrounding the roads in the name of Jagran or big sacred type of religious events and causing problems for the people wandering around— by making noise pollution from the heavy sound systems, making people around it sick— but thinking that he is doing very religious work and this will give him great virtue, which will lead him to salvation or heaven.

In the name of religion, all these people who commit hypocrisy, pretence are in deception— they are confused as to whether they are doing any religious work worth virtue. Actually, while knowing all of this, he is engaged in wrongdoing with closed eyes and it is not that he has is no feeling of it… he has it and to erase the guilt created by this feeling, they try to show that they are very religious people and continue to prove others as trivial, by making a lot of noise from personal life to social media.

What do you think are these religious people and if there is a God/Allah will he be happy with them? So by putting yourself in his place and thinking about it, maybe instead of being happy on their gimmicks, you will reel off their skin by hunter until they do not truly understand the difference between religion and Iniquity.

इस लेख को हिंदी में पढ़ने के लिये यहाँ क्लिक करें

#religion and science #islam #faith vs fact #faith and logic #athiesm

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ryanmeft · 6 years ago

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Movie Review: The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

Terry Gilliam is one of those filmmakers where you either dig what he’s doing, or you can go see something else. He occupies a perpetual world of imagination, where the feckless landscape of dreams takes precedence over character, plot and, well, all other concerns. In his longest-gestating project, Adam Driver plays a man directing a commercial, who once directed a student film, who ends up mistaken for Sancho Panza, and whose adventures following around an old man who thinks he’s Don Quixote end up being hard to define in realistic terms.

Toby Grisoni (Driver) is an ad executive whose name is one letter off from co-writer Tony Grisoni. Filming a commercial featuring Quixote and Panza, he returns to the place in rural Spain where he made a student film about the characters long ago. He may be in advertising now, but he’s an artist’s artist: when his boss’s (Stellan Skarsgard) glamorous and much-younger wife (Olga Kurylenko) tries her best to seduce him, he is primarily interested in getting at her DVD player. He wants to watch a copy of his old film, which has come into his possession by means that only make sense if one really is dreaming. It brings back memories of the man named Javier (Jonathan Pryce) who portrayed Quixote all those years ago.

Allow me to apologize: I’m making the movie sound like it has a plot. It technically does, of course, but it is the kind of thing that exists to facilitate one otherwise unrelated sequence after another. Toby tries to keep the aborted affair secret from his boss, whose behavior indicates he may know. He tracks down the barman (Hovik Keuchkarian) from his student days, and finds his daughter Angela (Joana Ribiero) has moved away to parts unknown; the conversation is puzzling because at this point we have no idea who these people are. He finds Javier working as a tourist attraction in a rundown hovel in the hills that would be a great place to read your book in peace, but doesn’t seem like a location that would attract many vacationers. The old man has become convinced he is the real Don Quixote; he acts out scenes from Miguel Cervantes’ novel with great enthusiasm in a tiny room adorned with a projection screen playing that old student film, and decorated with, among other things, a large copy of Julia and Goya’s The Colossus.

Through a series of mishaps, Toby becomes Javier’s unwilling squire. They travel together, they are separated, they meet again, all punctuated with a series of adventures which seem personal for them but are largely isolated from one another---Toby finds Angela living and dancing in a cave under a waterfall, he and Javier end up at a feast being given by a vile Vodka magnate (Jordi Molla). Along the way they are also captured by terrorists who turn out to not be terrorists, and Toby has a dream, and…

Look, just trust me on this: don’t try and figure out what is going on. Even the movie comments on its own lack of plot, and Gilliam is obviously incredibly familiar with Cervantes’ novel, one of those things everyone knows of and almost no one has read. The film exists to be looked at, and perhaps smiled with, but not to be followed. Looking at it, it must be said, is pure pleasure. Regular Gilliam photographer Nicola Pecorini knows how to get the best shots out of Pryce’s unhinged madness and Driver’s exasperated tolerance, and has two actors who are adept at delivering those things for him. He has fantastic locations in Spain and Portugal to admire. None of those locations---the quaint, brick-streeted small town high in the hills, the rundown remains of the house festooned with Javier/Quixote’s memories, the decadent Roman-esque court of the vile rich man---no attempt is ever made to fit them into a logical sequence of events or, indeed, into the real world. Driver and Pryce advance from one to the other the way one does when dreaming, where you can be in one place one minute and suddenly in another and never notice you moved.

The main asset the entire crew has is the boundless imagination of Gilliam at their back. His attempts to get this movie made might, arguably, make a great film themselves. At times when the movie completely loses us---there is, in particular, a might-be-dream sequence that derails what little cohesion we had, and exactly what purpose any character other than Toby and Javier serve is frequently murky---film buffs may take refuge in the pure act of filmmaking itself. Gilliam is one of the great abstract filmmakers, and in this he pulls in influences from most of the others, from Fellini to Kubrick, sometimes unconsciously. It will work for a good, long stretch, stop working for a while, then work again, and at no point, good or bad, is it ever boring.

Verdict: Recommended

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

You can follow Ryan's reviews on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/ryanmeftmovies/

Or his tweets here:

https://twitter.com/RyanmEft

All images are property of the people what own the movie.

#adam driver #terry gilliam #the man who killed don quixote #movies #jonathan pryce #Olga Kurylenko

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archivsm · 6 years ago

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The Magnus Archives and Horror: An Analogy of Why the Horror Within Doesn’t Always Work

The Magnus Archives has been widely regarded as a good example of how horror podcasts can work very well and have an ability to incite horror with just sound alone. It is personally one of my own favorite podcasts, especially regarding how it incorporates LGBT characters without the need to kill them off or show them in a villainous light and its amazing story telling. Horror podcasts as a whole are such an interesting genre within podcasts because of how it forces its’ writers to only use sound alone to set the world for their listeners. This comes to say that the genre of horror is such a complex and somewhat tricky genre to make work no matter what media you work with and I believe that the Magnus Archives is a very strong piece of ongoing media that is able to depict horror well. To a degree.

What does this mean?

I feel that with the Magnus Archives, it can get largely exaggerated as to the horrors within the podcast and that the Magnus Archives does not keep a consistent tone of being scary; there comes a point in which the episodes have a sort of predictability to it that dilutes what is being presented but it is definitely not to say that there are no episodes that scared me. I’ve kept a small note of what episodes I found scary and it’s when I noticed that most of these episodes were still prior to its heavier ongoings within plot development (Which is to be said that this point is mainly season three for me.) that there became a clear trend. Older episodes simply faired better in terms of horror than those more recent. I know that in the Magnus Archives’ defense that all of this was structured long before it had started but again, this is meant to touch on why I’d felt like these episodes worked so well especially while lacking in plot. And that fact is that these episodes were still largely unexplained.

Before you go further into why that shroud of the unknown in the beginning worked so well you have to acknowledge how horror is typically built upon. The two main components of horror are typically depicted as:

Personal: Under this, your goal is meant for the audience to feel fear for themselves as to what your antagonist presents and for the antagonist being able to enable a presence even after your story has ended.

Sympathy/Empathy: Under this, your goal is to get your audience to relate and/or care for your cast of characters so that when your antagonist becomes known or is a current threat to your cast, your fear as the audience who are only able to be on the sidelines is stimulated out of not knowing who is going to die or being able to prevent it.

These two components build off each other and are what help to make a stronger horror story. However, there are various examples that simply try to present horror with only one component or are attempting to utilize both but fail by poor writing and execution. By looking how first-person horror games can stimulate fear but lack in the use of a wider cast, making for the fear reliant heavily on how the writer presents it and the player itself and the contrary being horror movies working to try and get you to care about a cast of characters but only sprouted from being able to relate and wanting to see them thrive and not out of fear of your antagonist, move to prove the previous statement. This isn’t to say that there aren’t pieces of media that aren’t able to stand strong with only one component, but it’s to say that most of them typically don’t. The episodes of the Magnus Archives I felt were scarier were mainly because they fell under Personal and not Sympathy/Empathy. I did not have much of a reason to care about them in the beginning, yet even when I became heavily invested in characters and listened to characters meet their demise I did not feel scared for them and I still don’t now. This stems from the fact that I never felt like they died. I never felt like Gertrude died, I never felt like Tim died, and I never even felt like Daisy died, no matter how much they worked to try and convince me so. So the moment in which Jon ventures into the Buried and is able to retrieve Daisy, I was largely unfazed by the overall event having already fully expected for her return. Why the Magnus Archives doesn’t fully work under the Sympathy/Empathy component is because when we were met with further expansion on our cast characters, we are also given expansion upon the universe in which they live in. With this, there came a beginning to why things would occur. You could break down as to why Tim’s death never really why felt like his death nor why Daisy didn’t feel like her death, but I believe the strongest topic to expand upon is why I could never really believe Gertrude is dead.

Quite far from the typical stages of grief, my acceptance of her death had come from when it was first spoken in episode one only to lead to disbelief as we began to learn more about her. This disbelief stemmed from the fact that since we have mostly listened to Jon’s perspective in the first seasons, we can only come to understand the universe from his eyes. How Jon would describe Gertrude as disorganized, uncaring, or someone who just never seemed fit for her position as an archivist- I’d easily believe it in the beginning. There wasn’t room for me to question it in the beginning nor did I have reason to as the story progressed. As Jon begins to delve into the truth of the institute and of Gertrude, we along with him, his doubts became one with my own. I only know as much as Jon speaks and illustrates with his words, leaving whatever blanks that he doesn’t fill as blanks I am also left with. Yet I’d heard when Martin discovered her dead body under the archives and I’d heard when Elias had shot her down; I still didn’t believe it then. My disbelief is stemmed from Jon’s own misconceptions and lacking understanding in the full character of Gertrude. His doubt of Jane Prentis’ death had left me with the lingering feeling that she never died and I kept expecting her to make her return at any given moment. I’d only got over this when I learned that avatars could die. As for Gertrude, her character has been shown to be someone who’s rather wise and understanding to plan further than spontaneously. A death so simple as gunshots seemed something seemingly so tame compared to the rest of the entities and fears she’d come in contact with. Maybe I just thought she was just too much of a badass to die by just a singular bullet. Regardless, this point convenes to the fact that her death cannot fall under the Sympathy/Empathy category. She died by relatively human means and due to the fact that we were only given a recording of her death deep within the story when we’ve learned a heavy amount of her character, I could not care for her when her death was primarily relevant within the beginning seasons when we knew her by the mess Jon described her as. In fact, the fact that none of these characters could really fall under the Sympathy/Empathy category is because they didn’t die by the horrors in the story, they died through devices created by humans. Gertrude died by her gunshot wounds, Tim died by the C4 detonations and Daisy was presumed to have suffered the same fate as Tim. Even if these deaths were influenced by the fears and their entities, they died a way humans have died before. This presents an issue because without someone that we learned about and watch develop to have died to an entity you don’t completely feel the threat the entity is supposed to signify to the cast. These are threats that have solutions today and the fact that there are ways to avoid them is what softens the severity of the threat meant to be presented. The stakes feel relatively low knowing this and help to dilute how the audience perceives an entity. A counter-argument could be that Sasha was one of the only ones to actually have been taken by a fear, namely the Distortion. However, Sasha cannot fall within the Sympathy/Empathy category due to two reasons: The first is that we did not know much about her character when we lost her. We were given a not-Sasha for a much longer time than when we had the original Sasha. Not-Sasha is not in equal personality to the original Sasha so the listener’s appeal to Not-Sasha would not be the same for the original Sasha. Even with that said, if the listener were to feel guilty in not realizing that our original knowings of Sasha were long gone this is the post the fact that she was taken long ago. The second reason is that we were never given a confirmation for her death. Sasha, Micheal, and Helen were all victims to the distortion but it is never described what really occurred to them and we are to presume them as dead. The fact of the matter is, Sasha could very well be around still but in a way that we aren’t presented with. None of these deaths can fall under the Sympathy/Empathy category leaving for the Magnus Archives to be heavily reliant on the category to Personal experience. And does it work?

Well. It depends on what you choose to focus on. But for the purpose of this analogy, the Magnus Archives can provide amazing executions of horror, but mainly in the beginning. Truth be told, podcasts may be the perfect type of media if you really want to get personal with your listeners. Stories within podcasts do not have to be dependent on a wide cast of characters, but they do help to strengthen the story you give. An example of a story that gets personal with the viewers is episode ninety-four, All Right, from Welcome to Night Vale. Despite Welcome to Night Vale not being a horror-centric podcast, the idea that a listener can feel a connection to the story without a mention of every personal detail relating to you shows that podcasts have the potential to give you a personal experience. In this episode, Cecil Palmer, the radio host of Night Vale, speaks directly to the listener and helps to encapsulate them by having the audio for the episode alternate between earbuds. It is necessary for the listener to possess earbuds and to match the actions in which he dictates in order to feel the full immersion of what is going, but the overall experience is able to solidify the connection between narrator and listener very strongly. This then raises the question of whether the Magnus Archives is able to form this same connection between narrator and listener. And the answer is yes, but in a way that is far different than how Welcome to Night Vale had done.

The Magnus Archives’ connection with the listener varies in that when listening to statements, you are meant to feel as though you are currently witnessing the statements that Jon reads. Even if horror doesn’t always have its’ presence in statements, the Magnus Archives does a very well job of being able to encapsulate the listener into feeling as though they are able to experience these statements along with their statement giver. This is done through heavy descriptions that are still able to leave room for the listener to insert themselves into and audio design that is able to capture the environment in which it takes place. In describing sound effects, they are not entirely present to the listener when invested in what is being told but they are subtly put in in a way that helps to give the feel that the listener is within the environment. This is an incredibly strong point because immersion is an important aspect of getting a story to feel personal. For a story to feel personal, it is not necessary for you to be present within the story but be able to be given enough information to understand the main character’s perspective (Or rather the perspective of the statement giver, in this case.) and motivations as though it were your own. Now, when it comes to being able to tell a horror story meant to immerse the listener and scare them, things begin to get tricky. Horror is subjective to a person. That is a fact. Our fears are driven by our past experience and own mindsets and are most likely not the same as another’s. The episodes I found scary were namely the episodes centered around the Flesh but they were the ones I ended up taking the most interest in and soon becoming my favorites. In truth, there were other episodes that had scared me coinciding with other fears but as I got deeper into the series none of these episodes could really scare me anymore and would at most give me slight discomfort. Why? It was the idea of the unknown. I was scared of the meat episodes because I didn’t know what influence was going on behind them. I didn’t know anything about the fears nor of what qualities they possessed. I liked them a lot more before I knew any of these things. The issue is that once I began to understand what the influence was behind these statements- I wasn’t scared. It was because I was able to categorize and identify the fear that was present. This is an issue. For most horror stories to work, it is best to let influences be left unknown. Exposition in things such as horror movies, that infodump the entire background for an antagonist and list how they were able to survive and give the opportunity for the main cast to prevent this evil- it doesn’t work for me. This applies to the Magnus Archives in the sense that Elias did explain a huge portion of what was going on in the middle of the Magnus Archives and that Gertrude’s notes gave her studies of the fears and of their rituals. If I am able to know about the entity behind the evils present in the story, there is nothing to stop me from learning that there is some way to stop them. By giving the influences behind a statement an unidentifiable factor or a lack of a resolution in Jon’s follow up (i.e. their disappearance), then I feel as though I am given a reason to be scared because it goes to show I don’t have the full understanding of what this evil is capable of and that there is no room for me to let my guard down. It is not to be said that this evil should go entirely unknown that makes the statements and their antagonists unidentifiable as actual evils and not just pure fear of the statement giver’s own mind and that the Magnus Archives’s original structure of the listener being presented with statements with little information behind it is what makes a structure for a strong and encaptivating horror story.

So with the end of the Magnus Archives beginning to near, there is one final question left: Can the Magnus Archives work to still scare listeners? Yes, but it cannot be done under the Personal category of horror. It must be done in the Sympathy/Empathy category. I believe if you would want to reincorporate horror within the final pegs of the Magnus Archives, you would have to work to deteriorate a character's mind from the external events that affect them. By doing this you are able to emphasize the horrors external and that their effect is much more damaging and lasting than their attacks alone. Though Jon falls as one of the best contenders of someone who has fell victim to the paranoia of his own mind, he cannot be the prime person whose downfall is themself, seeing as his character is being led in a way to detract from this. However, the only other alternative is to kill a member from the cast of characters that we have been following. They must die by a fear in order to give emphasis on the threat that the fears actually are to our cast and we must be given the sense that any of the other characters we’ve come to love have the potential to suffer the same fate. I cannot fully recommend this route though. With the main cast consisting of LGBT/LGBT-coded characters, it would hurt to see the Magnus Archives fall under the same trope of badly mistreating characters for the purpose of furthering a story. Overall, this is not meant to present any distaste to the Magnus Archives. I enjoy the podcast heavily but I understand that I am here more for the plot of it rather than it being a horror anthology like I’d once originally started out with. I understand I cannot change what has happened or what will happen next, but I believe by breaking down the components in which the Magnus Archives falls weak or strong as a horror podcast can help in understanding and studying the genre of horror as a whole.

#tma #the magnus archives #tma spoilers #the magnus archives spoilers #horror #theo talks #long p

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elcrivain · 7 years ago

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It’s time. You have to pick up that dreaded classic you have lying around. Maybe it’s Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, or even worse, William Shakespeare’s Richard III. Those things look terrifying with all that fancy bindings and annotations. But you have to read it anyway, either because some lame English professor assigned it or because you want to be well-read. Either way, you know it’s going to be hard.

Why do we struggle so? Why do such books make even the most avid of readers tremble in their boots? What is the problem with these damned things?

It’s all about the context. Or, rather, about how most modern readers lack the context to understand and appreciate classics. The boring dictionary definition of context is: The circumstance or setting in which an idea or even can be fully understood. If you don’t have context, an idea — such as the ones in classics — are liable to be misunderstood or outright overlooked. We, in all of our modernity, lack context for many classics in several respects.

The Context of Prose and Style

Language evolves. Sentence structure shifts. Words fall in and out of fashion. Even word meanings metamorphose.

It takes only a quick survey of English literature to see how much can change in a few hundred years (and we’re not even getting into translations):

A wys wyf, if that she can hir good,

Shal beren him on hond the cow is wood,

And take witnesse of hir owene mayde

Of hir assent; but herkneth how I sayde.

— Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath” in The Canterbury Tales (1475)

This isn’t the work of a drunken five-year-old with atrocious spelling skills. It’s Middle English, a variant of English spoken after the Norman Conquest in 1066 and before the 16th century. It bears some resemblance to modern English, but it’s gosh-darn hard to read without annotations (and alcohol).

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? — To die, — to sleep.

— William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1603)

Now that we’re in Modern English — yes, Shakespeare is modern — the spelling is improving, but it’s still tough to get through. Shakespeare’s heavy use of figurative language flummoxes us, literal-minded modern readers. No, those slings and arrows aren’t real!

The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small — Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton. In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw — Heathcliff — Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres — the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered my candle wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf-skin.

— Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847)

Compared to Shakespeare, Brontë seems straightforward, except for one thing. Like many other 19th century writers, she uses long, flowing, and descriptive sentence structure that seems incongruous compared to today’s staccato sentence structure.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

— George Orwell, Nineteen-Eighty-Four (1949)

Now that we’re in the really modern part of Modern English, things are so much better. Orwell adopts the simpler, more direct style that we’re more used to. Whew! (Note that simple and straightforward prose doesn’t always translate into simple and straightforward meaning.)

Not all troublesome prose comes from old and dead white folks. Some contemporary authors eschew plainness for some flair in their prose. Whether you find that dazzling or confounding is up to you.

…I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire… I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

— William Faulkner, The Sound and Fury (1929)

Faulkner’s convoluted prose forces the reader to focus single-mindedly to follow along. Confusing as it may be, Faulkner’s marriage of the stream-of-consciousness writing of modernists and descriptiveness of Romanticism give a certain élan to his writing. Just don’t read him before bed as you’ll fall asleep without any memory of what you’ve read.

Now a member of the company seated there seemed to weigh the judge’s words and some turned to look at the black. He stood an uneasy honoree and at length he stepped back from the firelight and the juggler rose and made a motion with the cards, sweeping them in a fan before him and then proceeding along the perimeter past the boots of the men with the cards outheld as if they would find their own subject.

— Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (1985)

McCarthy’s combination of complex sentences and a disdain of punctuation gives his writing an air of inscrutability. Love or hate him, you have to admit that the dude got a style.

The Context of Historical Settings and Culture

Most authors write for their contemporaries, not for some unknown high school student 100 years in the future. They assume that their reader knows the social and cultural contexts. Once a book survives the test of time, this assumption fails.

Jane Austen’s books serve as a good example of how our ignorance of the social mores of early 19th century genteel society can lead the reader to miss allusions that would’ve been obvious to a contemporaneous reader.

“Are any of your younger sisters out, Miss Bennet?”

“Yes, ma’am, all.”

“All! What, all five out at once? Very odd! And you only the second. The younger ones out before the elder ones are married! Your younger sisters must be very young?”

“Yes, my youngest is not sixteen. Perhaps she is full young to be much in company. But really, ma’am, I think it would be very hard upon younger sisters, that they should not have their share of society and amusement, because the elder may not have the means or inclination to marry early. The last-born has as good a right to the pleasures of youth at the first. And to be kept back on such a motive! I think it would not be very likely to promote sisterly affection or delicacy of mind.”

“Upon my word,” said her ladyship, “you give your opinion very decidedly for so young a person. Pray, what is your age?”

“With three younger sisters grown up,” replied Elizabeth, smiling, “your ladyship can hardly expect me to own it.”

Lady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer; and Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence.

“You cannot be more than twenty, I am sure, therefore you need not conceal your age.”

“I am not one-and-twenty.”

— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

A reader unaware of the importance (and meaning) of “being out in society” in Georgian gentry wouldn’t note how uncouth it was to have five sisters out all at once, a serious social misstep by the Bennets. (And no, “coming out” doesn’t mean the same thing as it does today.) They would also have missed how tactless it was for Lady Catherine to harp on this point and Elizabeth’s impertinence for evading Lady Catherine’s question. This is why an unschooled reader would overlook the biting satire in Austen’s novels, which is a horrible shame.

Many classic novels attack contemporaneous cultural, religious, and social conventions. If you don’t understand the norms under attack, you lose context to why the novel was so daring, so bold.

I made this mistake with Jane Eyre. Upon my first reading at 13, I dismissed it as melodramatic slop. When I revisited it at 18, I saw how Charlotte Brontë criticizes the prevailing religious belief of charity and how remarkably independent Jane Eyre is, a shocking thing for a Victorian woman. I, however, still think that the book has too many dei ex machina (overly convenient plot twists).

The Context of Narrative Conventions

Following or breaking it, many classics take a stance on narrative conventions. Thomas Hardy embraces the pastoral and tragic narratives in Tess of d’Urbervilles as James Joyce bucks the Realists’ more removed narratives with his stream-of-consciousness writing.

To understand a book’s attitude toward narrative conventions is to understand why certain writing, plot, or characters elements exist (or disappear) from a novel. These expectations ease the way for your reading. Really!

When I began reading Tess of the d’Urbervilles, I knew that it was a pastoral tragedy, which prepared me for two important things. First, since it was a pastoral, I knew Hardy would describe the setting to such detail that the town(s) would become characters in their own rights. So I was prepared for passages like these which would seem unnecessary and boring to the average modern reader (fairly enough):

The village of Marlott lay amid the north-eastern undulations of the beautiful Vale of Blakemore or Blackmoor aforesaid, an engirdled and secluded region, for the most part, untrodden as yet by tourist or landscape painter, though within a four hours’ journey from London.

It is a vale whose acquaintance is best made by viewing it from the summits of the hills that surround it — except perhaps during the droughts of summer. An unguided ramble into its recesses in bad weather is apt to engender dissatisfaction with its narrow, tortuous, and miry ways.

— Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Second, since Tess is a tragedy, I prepared myself for many frowny-face moments. If you go into a Hardy expecting a happy ending a la Pride and Prejudice, you’ve taken a wrong turn in the 19th-century bookstore.

The Context of Symbolism

When you’re a high school student studying The Great Gatsby, it might seem like the teacher is inventing all those meanings from rivers and currents to justify their paycheck. You think, “Damn it, why can’t a boat just be a boat?”

English teachers’ flights of fancy aside, symbolism is a real thing. Under the best of circumstances, symbolism deepens existing themes and ideas already present in the novel. Problems begin when you don’t recognize the signs of symbolism.

Here’s an example: The last lines heard ‘round the world:

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning-

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Scholars have quarreled over the meaning of this passage for decades, showing that there is no purely correct answer. Therein lies the subjectivity of literary analysis — but it remains vital that you understand the purpose of symbolism and are able to recognize it. (Hint: watch for recurrent motifs and ideas.)

The Context of the Original Publication (or Performance)

This oft-overlooked context can massively alter your reading of a classic. Many classics weren’t originally presented in the format in which it is read today. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales was performed in verse. Shakespearean plays were meant for the stage, not small English classrooms. And so it goes.

But those are well-known examples. The examples nobody talks about are these 19th-century epics, most of which were originally published in a serialized format where the author was paid by the word (Anna Karenina, A Tale of Two Cities, The Count of Monte Cristo). This small detail completely alters the structure and flow of those stories. The serialized format and the pay scheme encouraged such writers to write more, more, and more. This is why Anna Karenina clocks in at almost 1,000 pages filled with descriptive passages of Levin moving grass. The format also means that the author didn’t consider the “flow” of narration from chapter to chapter, creating a disjointed reading experience as the story hops from one perspective to another. These stories were never conceptualized as a novel in today’s sense. You might even benefit from reading in small bursts, just like these newspaper readers did more than 100 years ago.

If you happen to read a classic out of its original publishing context, be mindful of how that’ll affect your experience. To get the fullest and richest experience, you might want to revert back to the original storytelling form, such as watching a Shakespearean play or movie. (I recommend Much Ado About Nothing, just ignore Keanu Reeves.)

Context is everything. Without the right context, many classics appear inscrutable and downright mystifying. Most of us aren’t born with a knowledge of Middle English syntax and deep knowledge of manners among the English gentry during the Georgian era.

Where does that leave us, the befuddled readers? It leaves us with the hard reality that we need to investigate the context in which the classic was written. That means glancing at a Wikipedia page about the French Revolution before (and during) reading Les Miserables. It also means preparing yourself for a fantastical twirl through time in a South American village before you read One Hundred Years of Solitude. With some preparation, you can actually appreciate those dusty little classics.

N.B. I adopt the more expansive definition of classics as notable works of literature due to their excellence and significance, rather than the more traditional definition as pre-17th-century works of literature.

#classical literature #topic #classics #classic lit #classic literature #count of monte cristo #jane eyre #pride and prejudice #great gatsby #jane austen #les miserables #context #english #literature #studyblr literature #narrative #shakespeare #this is my first post #im sorry its so long

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leo-november · 6 years ago

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Magic & Witches in WBB

Hey, I finally had the time (or rather took the time) to work on my magic for WBB! Please ask me any questions, as it helps me develop the system further. It is not meant to be a hard magic system, but still somehow regulated. Sorry for the length, but it's really cool, i swear!

People who might be interested: @yetmorestories @contes-de-rheio @urbanfanfan (finally, here it is!) @leicawri @james-stark-the-writer @jess---writes @katabasiss

If you don't have the time/energy to read this, just ignore :)

Also feel free to tell me which kind of witch you would like to be vs. which type you would realistically be ^^

Basics

(All the information is specific to the setting, other countires may deal very differently with magic.)

The magic users in WBB are called witches. To be a witch, you have to be born with a certain talent for magic, which about one person in 1000 people possesses, though exact numbers are unknown. Magic is not hereditary, nor does it seem to be determined by any specific factor, witches occure randomly and by chance.

The person in question will show magic potential when they are still young, often by accident, often while in stressful situations, though many governments are already doing specifc testings where they try to find witches as early as possible and without any stressful means. After that, they are made to visit specific schools, or, when none are available, are trained by the local witch/coven. After they have finished a special exam at about 16 years old, they can either start to work independantly or persue higher education.

A coven is a regional unity of witches and will hold about 5-50 witches. They consult each other for advice, teach students and execute major magic work. There are also six different kinds of witches, as usually a young witch wills how an affinity for one or two of the different styles of magic. (Again, this is very culturally specific, which is also why the different kinds blend into each other a lot.)

The Magic

Generally, magic is often described as a “giving and receiving”-process between the witch/es and their environment. It can be between people, animals and nature. The witch has to give something (an “offering”) to receive something (a “gift”). (German: Opfer und Gabe)

A single person does not have as much power as a group of people, as they can offer more. The offering can be given in different forms, depending on the gift that is wanted in return.

Magic in itself is hard to learn, hard to control and hard to master. As it is given by something outside of the witch, it has its own will and cannot be forced. When magic is somehow used without an adequate offering, the witch/es in question will be forced to give a part of their humanity to replace the magic. This will make them partly magical, but also slowly turn them into an “Unhold” (translates to “fiend” or “demon”, literally means “evil”). Unholde (that's the plural) are seen as monsters, as they lack most connection to their former human sense and are ahped most by the magic they have become. Not all of them have malicious intents, most are actually very morally gray, but they do not usually conform to being a witch anymore.

To use magic safely, one has to use “stabilizers”, which are herbs, stones and other ingredients based on the kind of gift one is trying to receive.

The Six Kinds

Seers are the rarest type of witch. They use a variety of indicators, such as constellations, birthmarks or stones, to try and predict the future (“reading”). They are also often subjected to prophetic dreams and visions (“seeing”).

Their gift is the hardest to use, as both seeing and reading are vague, confusing and often frustrating methods. Therefore, many seers also take on leadership roles and learn to plan for all eventualities.

In exchange for their gift, seers offer calm, control and clearity. Afterwards they will be tired, confused and impulsive.

Healers are one of the more common types. They can heal physical wounds as well as illnesses, though all chronic illnesses are only somewhat treatable and only for a certain amount of time. They may also use their gift to cause illnesses and wounds, though.

The usage requires physical touch and is can be extremely dangerous, as the witch offers their own health and body in return for another's. This can result in entire body parts being taken away. Major healinga are only allowed with a certain diploma and a special permission.

It has been tried by healers to raise the dead, but it is believed to be impossible.

Growers are some of the most common witches. They can speed up natural growing and developing processes in plants, minerals and other naturally growing substances such as mushrooms.

They usage requires a base such as a seed and physical touch. While growing something, nutrients and energy are taken from the human. It is known to reduce life expectancy.

Things grown by magic resemble their natural counterparts in detail and can be used as stabilizers. Growers are very important suppliers of other witches and work in close relation to them.

Holders are the most physical of witches. They can use a form of Telekinesis, holding and moving objects that they are not physically in contact with. Their range expands with practice, but doesn't usually succeed ten meters.

A holder can only lift objects they would also be able to withstand physically, otherwise the objects will not be liftable. The holder will feel a pressure and will exhaust their muscles and stamina while holding. Holding many objects at the same time requires increasing concentration and strength.

Listeners and Talkers are the two subcategories of this gift. Their gift is the most related to humans and their thought and emotions.

Listeners can “hear” and “feel” other's thoughts and emotions to a certain extant. They can also, with a lot of effort, “empathise” with someone, meaninf that they take in the person's thought and feelings as if they were their own. This is not often done, as it is immoral as well as difficult.

Talkers lack their companion's insight, but can exert a small amount of influence over the thoughts, memories and feelings of another person. They can also “control” them, which is forbidden in most cases.

Both of these gifts work more easily on animals and are hard to perform on humans. They take empathy, concentration and learning capacity and leave the witch exhausted, emotionally burned out and often with a headache.

Weatherers are the closest to the classical elemental and have the most varied powers. They control wind, rain and lightning and can create fog and changes in air pressure, the state of water and temperature.

Their offerings are body heat or coolness, hydration, oxygen.

Weatherers are often seen as intimidating, even though they help with crops and disaster control.

That's it! Don't forget to ask me all your questions and give me all your criticism/compliments ;)

#this took soooooo long #hope you appreciate it #i loved making it #it feels right #magic system #writeblr #magic building #fanatsy writing

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sharlayan-fool · 7 years ago

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LFRP: K’huru Tia

(Last updated: March 5, 2019)

Basics:

Name: K'huru Tia

Age: 23 (13th Sun of the 3rd Astral Moon)

Race: Seeker of the Sun, Miqo'te

Gender: Male

Patron: Thaliak, The Scholar

Alignment: Lawful Evil, but poses as True Neutral

Sexuality: Homosexual

Marital Status: Single, uninterested in marriage, but flirty

Server: Mateus

Appearance:

Hair: Gold with white highlights

Eyes: Bright gold

Height: 5'4"

Build: Average build

Distinguishing Features: K'huru has pale blueish tattoos covering both his arms depicting arcane symbols. Whether they show or not, he does not seem to care.

Personal:

Profession: Field Researcher, with concentration on Ancient Magecraft and Aetherology

Hobbies: Studying, fencing, and sketching (mainly diagrams or figures)

Languages: Common and basic reading of antiquated languages (Amdapori, Mhachi, Nymian)

Residence: Owns a private Study in the Lavender Beds

Birthplace: Old Sharlayan

Fears: Drowning, Amnesia, Loss of control

Relationships:

Spouse: None

Children: None

Parents: Biological mother - K'ayla; Biological Father - Unknown Nunh; Stepfather - Uaihren Kha

Siblings: Older Brother - Shiou Kozakura (adoptive, Hingan miqo'te)

Other Relatives: Unknown

Pets: A small blue butterfly follows him around on his journeys.

Traits:

Extroverted/introverted/in between

Disorganized/organized/in between

Close-minded/open-minded/in between

Calm/anxious/in between

Patient/impatient/in between

Outspoken/reserved/in between

Leader/follower/in between

Empathetic/unempathetic/in between

Optimistic/pessimistic/in between

Traditional/modern/in between

Hard-working/lazy/in between

Cultured/uncultured/in between

Loyal/disloyal/in between

Faithful/unfaithful/in between

Additional Information:

Smoking Habit: never/sometimes/frequently/to excess

Drugs: never/sometimes/frequently/to excess

Alcohol: never/sometimes/frequently/to excess

Possible Hooks:

Studium Graduate: K’huru was one of those few who braved the curriculum of the prestigious Studium in Sharlayan with a focus on Aetherology and other such subjects pertaining to the art of magic. If you were one such student as well, perhaps you had shared a few classes or lectures with this normally reclusive Seeker.

Field Researcher: While primarily, K'huru works for his project superiors, he does offer to take up side projects that people should need while in Eorzea. If any aetheric or magecraft-related issues need a scholarly eye, he will more than likely attempt to help unravel it...most times with some ulterior motive. Or are you perhaps another scholar who wishes to share a discussion with K’huru?

Wanderlust and curious nature: K'huru's main motivations to become a field researcher were his desires to learn all that he can, and to see the world that he has only read about with his own eyes. The combination of these motivations often leads to the miqo'te being more than eager to seek adventures with new companions whose stories he may be able to glean some insight from.

Too good to be true: A relatively young graduate of the Studium, knowledgeable in many subjects, and a writer of theorems and hypotheses recognized by many of his peers with a gift for magic. A combination of these blessings and talents seem almost too good to be true. What few may see is that these had come at a price. What did it cost this Seeker in pursuit of the wisdom that he so craved? Tis nothing minor, that is guaranteed.

What I'm looking for:

Primarily, I would prefer to roleplay on discord or this tumblr, given that my schedule tends to fluctuate enough to make my time in-game inconsistent. However, if you do desire to rp in-game, send me a message, and we can try to arrange that.

That being said, anything goes with me. I am open to most if not all kinds of plots you would want to throw at my muse.

I do ask though that you keep in mind that the way my muse acts and thinks of your character does not necessarily reflect the way I do OOC.

OOC'ly, I am:

20 years old, male irl, currently using PST, but I move back and forth halfway across the world during certain breaks and vacations to an area that is GMT +10 to visit family and friends. As I said, my schedule is usually very inconsistent, but that can be easily cleared up through a message or two.

If I take a while to reply, do not message you back, or am not the first to start a conversation, please send me a quick PM back! The lack of replies doesn’t mean I have anything against you, I’m just naturally rather forgetful and shy, so please keep that in mind.

This is a side blog, so keep that in mind please. I follow from my main blog nine-tailed-stupid-fox, which you can feel free to follow as well if memes, shitposts, and very occasional aesthetics are your thing.

You can contact me via:

Discord: Kuru#2850

This tumblr

In-game: K'huru Tia (Mateus)

#sharlayan-fool #ooc #ffxiv rp #LFRP

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willow-salix · 6 years ago

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The Seven Basic Plots and how they work.

OK, so this subject is a little controversial, and many will argue the points made, but I thought I would include it, because when I was taught them, they made perfect sense and helped the whole class to identify with the type of story they were actually writing.

This is a really important thing to discover, probably even before you start to plot out your book, because knowing the type of story, and the general structure that they usually take will make the actual construction of your story, so much easier.

The theory goes that there are only ever seven basic plots for stories. 7 in the entire world! They say that any story you can think of will fall into at least one of these categories, though more often they are a mixture of two, three or even more.

The plots are

- Overcoming the Monster

- Rags to Riches

- The Quest

- Voyage and Return

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- Rebirth

- Comedy (in which they have included Romance)

- Tragedy.

Now, lets look at them in more depth.

Over coming the monster. This may have you conjuring up visions of a snarling beast looming over a fair maiden who is swooning and screaming for her knight in shining armour to come and save her.

And while that’s fine, if your story is going that way, if you do have a physical monster that is terrorising villages, you do you, dude, but as a plot it’s much broader.

Monsters can take many forms, from a physical threat, a bad guy, an evil boss, and old enemy, an ex-partner or friend, or even something more symbolic like the badness of society or even mankind itself, an organisation, or a political party.

An overcoming the monster story, as with all of the plots, usually follows a formula, although it is easily moved around to make the story your own.

It starts with the creature itself tormenting and torturing its prey, so it could be the boss picking on the young, inexperienced intern, or a nasty teacher bullying the class.

Then comes the call, when the hero hears of this wickedness and comes to save the day. This could be someone in the office overhearing the nasty things said to the poor, sobbing intern, or one adventurous member of the class that decides enough is enough, this evil teacher must be stopped.

There will usually be a brief, first confrontation where the hero and the monster meet face to face for the first time.

There is often a period within the story that is referred to as the dream state, where everything seems to be going ok for our hero, this turns into a nightmare with another confrontation, which the hero shows every likelihood of losing.

And finally, victory, usually including a lesson of some kind which is designed to make the reader think about the moral of the story.

Rags to riches and comedy/romance will often be blended together. We will often see a small, insignificant individual who will step forward and become our hero. Like the nerdy best friend in a high school drama who turns out to be the perfect person for them all along.

Our unfortunate and reluctant hero will have been treated badly by those around them, family, friends, society and is often orphaned by at least one parent. This gives them some vulnerability and odds to overcome.

It is believed that Cinderella is the oldest rags to riches tale with thousands of known versions today, the oldest dating back to the 9th century.

The unfortunate hero is usually the youngest child, one that is shown during the story to be growing up and to mature.

There is usually a part of the story where there is some kind of crisis, where everything is going wrong, but in the end, everything will work itself out and change for the better.

This is often paired with romance because it’s a good formula, we as readers, like the thought of a humble hero being the one to get the love interest rather than the rich, arrogant rival.

Aladdin is a perfect example of both plots mixing together, an orphaned boy who steals to survive, getting his big break and meeting the girl of his dreams. But just when things seem to be coming up roses for Aladdin, he is knocked back down, having to find the guts and determination to keep fighting, clawing his way back to win the heart of the princess and defeat the bad guy.

The quest is often twinned with voyage and return.

No type of story is better known than the quest, some of our most beloved stories, like treasure island, lord of the rings and the holy grail are all a quest.

The story itself can take the form of a physical journey, where they hero is actually travelling from one place to another, or more of a mental journey, a voyage of self discovery if you will. Maybe one relating to their mental or physical help, self improvement or some other life goal.

When looking at the story the goals are usually pretty simple. Some fabulous treasure or mysterious mythical object, or they surround a homeward journey, be that a mental one of self discovery, back to the person you once was, or a physical one.

They often begin with the call to action, as many others do. A community in uproar, a lost treasure or even a missing person.

All quests begin with a sense of unease, a desperation which pushes them on, often the plot will also involve a time limit to make it feel tenser.

The hero will often have to leave their home and battle to find their way back, returning a better person than when they left.

These stories often involve companions of some kind who will travel with them or be picked up along the way and help them on their journey, their unique abilities making victory possible. This has a moral reason for happening, to show the reader than no one can triumph when they are alone or unsupported, trying to take on too much themselves, to not rely on others, or in the case of a more arrogant hero, thinking they don’t need help. There is no shame in allowing friends to offer a hand.

Sometimes the writer will pull a sneaky on their reader and have one of the companions actually work against the hero, instead being in cahoots with the enemy. This is a good way of involving a plot twist into the story, but it is one that has to be managed very carefully, it should not be obvious that they have been actively trying to cause trouble. It should come out of nowhere and completely blindside the reader, but, when they look back, there should be enough to make it true. It’s a hard one to pull off and it does require practice, but that’s no reason to avoid doing it if that’s how your story is worked.

Once the hero and companions have assembled, they will venture forth. Usually they will encounter their first scary or dramatic situation, entering unknown territory, facing a monster or even lack of resources or food. The possibilities in this, are endless.

Mystical intervention along the way is also a common theme, where our heroes will receive some much-needed help and advice which will save the day.

When the journey is almost over, when we think they will make it, comes the final ordeal. All is lost! Or so we think. But of course, the hero will overcome the odds and win the day.

A twist to this kind of story is the dark quest, and my personal favourite, where we see the dark, brooding anti-hero who seeks to destroy an object or person who is working on the side of good. just when it looks like darkness will overcome the light, he has his redemption.

I do love a sexy, anti-social man who needs kicking into shape, and I am usually just the girl to write them, but, enough about me, lets continue on to our last two plots.

Tragedy and rebirth are another two that are often partnered up for the sake of a story.

Tragedy comes in many forms, from the loss of a parent, a lover, a child, even a whole town or city, leaving the protagonist, our hero, as the only one left to deal with the situation.

They are obviously grieving, emotionally destroyed by the tragedy they have just dealt with, but they must soldier on.

Some stories just stick with the tragedy and refuse to have a happy ever after ending, which is fine, its your story and no one said it had to be a happy happy feel good book, but if you did want to give your hero something to strive for, some home, a light at the end of the tunnel, that’s where the rebirth plot is usually utilised.

We, as readers, love to see something good come out of a tragedy, we love to think that no matter how bad things get, there is always hope of something good just around the corner.

Rebirth stories are always popular. Think of a Christmas carol, with mean, skinflint Mr Scrooge meeting 3 ghosts who take him on a journey of self-discovery, where he will have to face up to the inevitable, if he continues as he is, he will die alone and unmourned by anyone.

He learns the error of his ways and wakes the next morning as a changed man, determined to do better for everyone around him.

So, there you have the 7 basic plots, and as I said before, although others may disagree, I believe they are useful to know and perhaps look at in more depth, especially if you have an idea for a book but are unsure on how to structure it.

Identify the type or types of story it is and then study the formula, fit it all together and get writing.

I once did an article explaining how the 7 basic plots all managed to fit into my book, Two Minutes to Midnight, before I even knew what they were. If you are interested in reading this article, let me know in the comments or DM me and ill get it up online for you all.

That’s all for today, so ill say blessed be and happy writing.

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#willowsalixauthor #paranormalromance #witch #bookseries #books #vampires #writer #how to write #writing tips #writing time #Seven Basic Plots #blog post #Youtuber

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ruffiorocks · 6 years ago

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Lena Luthor is justified keeping some Harun El and here is why! (Long post, but important)

Sooo i’ve been thinking about how Lena kept some Harun El, and if/when Supergirl finds out she kept some she will no doubt be pissed and probably jump down the ‘Lena you are bad’ route once more. Like she is want to do when the whole world doesn't inform her when they are intending to sneeze!

So the gang need some Harun El (black kryptonite) to fight and defeat Reign. Winn and Lena discover some on a meteor and Kara and Mon El travel to retrieve it.

They discover that the meteor is actual the remains of Argo City and Kara discovers her mother is still alive.

Alura informs Kara that Argo City is being powered by what little Harun El they have,it protects them and sustains life there all thanks to Kara’s father.

Alura gets Kara an audience with the High Council so she can ask them to give her some Harun El to help with the Reign issue. This is Kara’s speech, pay attention because the wording will be important!

“There are people on Earth who work every day to solve the mistakes of Krypton's past. People who are trying to make Earth fairer. Or just better. These people dedicate their lives to this work, and some have even given their lives to it. This planet, these... these people, they took me in. An alien immigrant from a world they knew nothing about. A world whose legacy threatened their way of life, and their safety, again and again and again. And now they deserve it in kind, because their very existence is threatened by this Worldkiller of Kryptonian making. My mother tells me Argo City has changed, that it has learned from the mistakes of Krypton's past. So I beg you. Give us the gift of Harun-El. We don't need very much. And this bit of charity, it will save Earth.’

So, Kara is giving a whole speech on why she needs the Harun El, she even lists why its important. But im going to assume the ‘people’ she is referring to include herself and the DEO. BUT do you know who else these statements refer to? Even if that wasn't what Kara meant? LENA!

‘People who are trying to make Earth fairer or just better’ - Lena spends her life doing this! Lena will later talk about leveling the playing field, protecting people etc.Curing cancer and other things. Remember when she made that portal with Rhea? All she saw was a way to help people, to get emergency food and medicine to third world countries etc.

‘A world whose legacy threatened their way of life, and their safety, again and again and again. And now they deserve it in kind, because their very existence is threatened by this Worldkiller of Kryptonian making’ - Kara is acknowledging here that Kryptonians have attacked several times, but also other aliens have to. Here Kara is actually justifying why Lena will later want to give people Superpowers, why she most likely is going to take the government contract. Kara is at Argo city begging for help because SHE alone can’t defend the planet from Reign. She is in need of help to do it. This is just proof that Kara and the rest of the DEO/Legion simply arent enough to defend Earth. A fact that Lena probably sees to, since she is called in enough to come and help when the DEO are dumb founded and lost!

‘Give us the gift of Harun-El. We don't need very much. And this bit of charity, it will save Earth.’ - Here Kara is talking about the Reign issue obviously, BUT these words also fit why Lena decided to keep some. To first off cure cancer and other ailments, but then to help humans stand up to aliens. The latter part was an accident Lena didn't originally plan, it was something she discovered.

Now, this is the response Kara gets at first, but then you know she gets some:

Jul-Us : ‘Well said, Kara Zor-El. But my concern is for those of us you left behind. I'm afraid we cannot spare the Harun-El’.

I find this statement to be very noteworthy! ‘we cannot spare the Harun El’ so that means (as we all know anyway) that Argo only has a small amount. That means that the Kryptonians haven't discovered a way to recreate it.

BUT! Do you know who does figure out how to make artificial Harun El? LENA! Kara asks her to make more so her mother can take it back to Argo City and continue to sustain the population there. Lena just did something that the enlightened and decades ahead of Earth science Kryptonians were unable to do.

Im reminded of something Mon El said when he first came into the show and was arguing with Kara.

‘High and mighty Krypton, enlightened Krypton’ - Well, not so enlightened anymore huh? Lena Luthor is canonically smarter that what is left of the Kryptonian race put together!!

So, they defeat Reign! (yay!) Then as Winn is saying his farewells Lena comes over and gives the case of Harun El to Alura and the recipe to make more, who respond with this. Now this is important!

‘With this Harun El Argo will survive, though i hate to depend on it. So many things that we dont know about it, its uses, its powers its dangers, im so glad none of it will be left on Earth’.

Right, now Lena looks visibly awkward at this and we know why. But this speech of Alura’s is really important in the sense that is not justifiable. Its really only there to make the audience see that Lena isnt supposed to have any. Why is this a dumb statement? Im glad you asked!

. Yay Argo will survive now! But apparently Earth that has soooo many problems including environmental, diseases , food shortages, climate change, animal and plant extinction, lack of clean water. Anything you can think of, no, Earth has no business having this element that could potentially fix these issues over time, with study. It may even have to adapt to the aliens that now inhabit it but that goes over Alura’s head.

. So many things that they dont know about it. Well no YOU dont, because you weren't even smart enough as a surviving race of people to even recreate the stuff!

. Just because something is unknown and potentially dangerous doesn't mean it shouldn't be studied. We wouldn't have SCIENCE otherwise. This from a woman whose husband was one of Kryptons greatest scientists and is honored on Argo City.

. ‘im so glad none of it will be left on Earth’ why? Where is your justification for this statement? Lena just did something NONE of your people could do and now you will all survive or years to come. But apparently Earth, with all its issues doesn't deserve the same treatment. Lena doesn't deserve to use the thing she just figured out how to make and knows could possibly cure cancer etc. THIS IS DUMB and SELFISH! Alura is so glad that Earth will be prevented from having something that could possible save their planet, but its OK for hers to be saved.

. Kara by the way is just nodding her head and agreeing. She gave an entire speech back on Argo about the dangers Earth faces. But here, now that her main issue is gone, apparently the rest of Earths issues are irrelevant? Or is it because anything a Kryptonian says has to be taken as law just because? Kara i might add was going to be a scientist to! But shes seems to have forgotten that little detail of her life?

So to sum up. Kara gave a magnificent speech justifying why Earth needed Harun El, while unknowingly backing up everything that Lena is doing to justify having Harun El. Something that i am sure Kara (or rather the writers) will conveniently forget ever happened if and when Kara finds out what Lena is doing. Lets face it, she probably will because James doesn't approve of Lena’s choices, he’s no longer dating her and he’s so far up Kara and Clarks’s arses he probably wont be able to resist telling Kara.

Lena, just saved the lives of an entire city of Kryptonians. I mean literary the only surviving ones beside Kara and Clark. Lena is just single handedly ensured the survival of Kara's race. She even gave them the recipe, they can now mass produce it and study it etc. Something that Alura and Kara dont think humans have the right to do?

Lena figured out how to make artificial Haren El in just a few days and while on the clock and while facing a World Killer intent on ripping out her spleen! Something that an entire race of so called superior Kryptonains full of scientists were unable to do in a few decades!

Lena THE SCIENTIST kept some of the Harun El, because duh! She made it, she’s seen what it can do, she a bloody scientific Scientists dont see things that could possibly cure the worlds issues and be like ‘meh’. That does not a good scientist make!

Lena’s intent was to cure cancer etc. She discovered she could basically give humans super powers. Now in this dangerous time in national city that is not unjustified. Lena believe it or not, if she takes the government contract will be the one working inside of the law, while Kara a vigilante that was told to stand down will be working outside of it! Interesting!

Sorry that was so long, but it was important not to leave things out. Thoughts?

#kara danvers #lena luthor #alura #anti james olsen #mon el #supergirl

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laniakeabooks · 6 years ago

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January Wrap Up

I read 11 books in January which is a personal record. I’ve included the synopsis pulled directly from Goodreads and my (short) thoughts on the book. If you’d like a longer review of any of the books I read this month, feel free to request it!

The Innocence Treatment by Ari Goelman - ⭐⭐⭐

Lauren has a disorder that makes her believe everything her friends tell her--and she believes everyone is her friend. Her innocence puts her at constant risk, so when she gets the opportunity to have an operation to correct her condition, she seizes it. But after the surgery, Lauren is changed. Is she a paranoid lunatic with violent tendencies? Or a clear-eyed observer of the world who does what needs to be done?

Told in journal entries and therapy session transcripts, The Innocence Treatment is a collection of Lauren's papers, annotated by her sister long after the events of the novel. A compelling YA debut thriller that is part speculative fiction and part shocking tell-all of genetic engineering and government secrets, Lauren's story is ultimately an electrifying, propulsive, and spine-tingling read.

Nothing I found particularly impressive… it had potential but didn’t quite meet it.

The Memory Book by Lara Avery - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sammie was always a girl with a plan: graduate at the top of her class and get out of her small town as soon as humanly possible. Nothing will stand in her way--not even a rare genetic disorder the doctors say will slowly start to steal her memories and then her health. What she needs is a new plan.

So the Memory Book is born: Sammie's notes to her future self, a document of moments great and small. It's where she'll record every perfect detail of her first date with longtime crush, Stuart--a brilliant young writer who is home for the summer. And where she'll admit how much she's missed her childhood best friend, Cooper, and even take some of the blame for the fight that ended their friendship.

Through a mix of heartfelt journal entries, mementos, and guest posts from friends and family, readers will fall in love with Sammie, a brave and remarkable girl who learns to live and love life fully, even though it's not the life she planned.

I am shocked. I never expected to like a contemporary this much... especially "sick-lit" or whatever people are calling it. Maybe it was because I found a lot of what Sammie said to be so relatable, or maybe because NPC is exactly the type of disease I'd like to research in my future. Maybe it's because one of my greatest fears is getting dementia and losing my memory.

Whatever it was, I hope I can find it again in another book.

Vox by Christina Dalcher - ⭐⭐

Set in an America where half the population has been silenced, VOX is the harrowing, unforgettable story of what one woman will do to protect herself and her daughter.

On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed more than 100 words daily, Dr. Jean McClellan is in denial—this can't happen here. Not in America. Not to her.

This is just the beginning.

Soon women can no longer hold jobs. Girls are no longer taught to read or write. Females no longer have a voice. Before, the average person spoke sixteen thousand words a day, but now women only have one hundred to make themselves heard.

But this is not the end.

For herself, her daughter, and every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice

Uh, yeah, not impressed. Disappointed. Annoyed. It felt like Dalcher was trying too hard and was clearly ridding on the coattails of The Handmaid’s Tale’s recent re-emergence.

Also, the narrator on the audiobook and pronounce Wernicke’s area which just grated on my nerves and honestly pissed me off.

First We Were IV by Alexandra Sirowy - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

It started for pranks, fun, and forever memories.

A secret society – for the four of us.

The rules: Never lie. Never tell. Love each other.

We made the pledge and danced under the blood moon on the meteorite in the orchard. In the spot we found the dead girl five years earlier. And discovered the ancient drawings way before that.

Nothing could break the four of us apart – I thought.

But then, others wanted in. Our seaside town had secrets. History.

We wanted revenge.

We broke the rules. We lied. We told. We loved each other too much, not enough, and in ways we weren’t supposed to.

Our invention ratcheted out of control.

What started as a secret society, ended as justice. Revenge. Death. Rebellion.

Wooooowwwww... I am starting off this year with some pretty good reads. Granted, I read probably 3/4 of this one in emerge on my birthday after having twisted my knee skiing the day before...

This book didn't take the path I thought it would. It just felt like the climax and conclusion occurred in the same paragraph? I don't know maybe that's just me...

I'd love to see this as a TV show (maybe Netflix since they tend to do a rocking job).

Day 21 by Cass Morgan - ⭐⭐⭐

It's been 21 days since the hundred landed on Earth. They're the only humans to set foot on the planet in centuries...or so they thought. Facing an unknown enemy, Wells attempts to keep the group together. Clarke strikes out for Mount Weather, in search of other Colonists, while Bellamy is determined to rescue his sister, no matter the cost. And back on the ship, Glass faces an unthinkable choice between the love of her life and life itself.

In this pulse-pounding sequel to Kass Morgan's The 100, secrets are revealed, beliefs are challenged, and relationships are tested. And the hundred will struggle to survive the only way they can -- together.

I still much prefer the Netflix adaptation. Although I enjoy this recovering from an apocalyptic event storyline the books take, I find that they lack the action that I love so much in the show… not to mention that my favourite characters don’t exist.

52 Reasons to Hate My Father by Jessica Brody - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Lexington Larrabee has never to work a day in her life. After all, she’s the heiress to the multi-billion-dollar Larrabee Media empire. And heiresses are not supposed to work. But then again, they’re not supposed to crash brand new Mercedes convertibles into convenience stores on Sunset Blvd either.

Which is why, on Lexi’s eighteen birthday, her ever-absent, tycoon father decides to take a more proactive approach to her wayward life. Every week for the next year, she will have to take on a different low-wage job if she ever wants to receive her beloved trust fund. But if there’s anything worse than working as a maid, a dishwasher, and a fast-food restaurant employee, it’s dealing with Luke, the arrogant, albeit moderately attractive, college intern her father has assigned to keep tabs on her.

In a hilarious “comedy of heiress” about family, forgiveness, good intentions, and best of all, second chances, Lexi learns that love can be unconditional, money can be immaterial, and, regardless of age, everyone needs a little saving. And although she might have 52 reasons to hate her father, she only needs one reason to love him.

Be prepared for a spoiled, bratty, unlikable main character. If you can’t stand characters like this, then I suggest avoiding this read, especially since we are trapped in her head (1st person narration) for the duration of the book. However, Lexi does have a great character arc, so if you are able to tolerate her for the first half of the book, you’ll actually start to like her.

Another contemporary I really enjoyed… not sure if this is because I’m not as picky when it comes to my favourite and least favourite genres anymore, but then again it my just be that I stumbled across two contemporaries that suited my fancy this month.

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Romy Silvers is the only surviving crew-member of a spaceship travelling to a new planet, on a mission to establish a second home for humanity amongst the stars. Alone in space, she is the loneliest girl in the universe until she hears about a new ship which has launched from Earth – with a single passenger on board. A boy called J.

Their only communication with each other is via email – and due to the distance between them, their messages take months to transmit across space. And yet Romy finds herself falling in love.

But what does Romy really know about J? And what do the mysterious messages which have started arriving from Earth really mean?

Sometimes, there’s something worse than being alone . . .

Okay. First of all, the UK paperback cover is gorgeous. This would have one hundred percent been a cover buy if the synopsis hadn’t also intrigued me.

I went in thinking that it would be a space-based romance, but boy was I wrong. And good thing too. I’m not a huge fan of romance (more like I tolerate it for a good plot), and this book did not focus of the blooming romance as much as I thought it would.

Space, suspense, beautiful cover? Sign me up!

Crash by Lisa McMann - ⭐⭐⭐

Jules lives with her family above their restaurant, which means she smells like pizza most of the time and drives their double-meatball-shaped food truck to school. It’s not a recipe for popularity, but she can handle that.

What she can’t handle is the recurring vision that haunts her. Over and over, Jules sees a careening truck hit a building and explode...and nine body bags in the snow.

The vision is everywhere—on billboards, television screens, windows—and she’s the only one who sees it. And the more she sees it, the more she sees. The vision is giving her clues, and soon Jules knows what she has to do. Because now she can see the face in one of the body bags, and it’s someone she knows. Someone she has been in love with for as long as she can remember.

In this riveting start to a gripping trilogy from New York Times bestselling author Lisa McMann, Jules has to act—and act fast—to keep her vision from becoming reality.

Not bad but not amazing either. It’s your typical psychic teen struggling with her newly found gifts and trying to prevent a tragedy. I’ll continue on with the trilogy since I have the bind up, they’re quick reads, and they’re a good distraction from my stressful studies… so basically just what I need.

Bang by Lisa McMann - ⭐⭐⭐

Jules should be happy. She saved a lot of people’s lives and she’s finally with Sawyer, pretty much the guy of her dreams. But the nightmare’s not over, because she somehow managed to pass the psycho vision stuff to Sawyer. Excellent.

Feeling responsible for what he’s going through and knowing that people’s lives are at stake, Jules is determined to help him figure it all out. But Sawyer’s vision is so awful he can barely describe it, much less make sense of it. All he can tell her is there’s a gun, and eleven ear-splitting shots. Bang.

Jules and Sawyer have to work out the details fast, because the visions are getting worse and that means only one thing: time is running out. But every clue they see takes them down the wrong path. If they can’t prevent the vision from happening, lives will be lost. And they may be among the casualties…

This second book in the Visions series took an interesting turn on the whole psychic thing, but a lot of the book was spent going back and forth between “No I don’t want to do this” to “Yes I’m in” and “No I don’t want to help” to, again… “Yes I’m in” which was kind of a drag.

Number of Pages Read: 3438

Average Rating: 3.5

Favourite Book of the Month: The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James

The cover, the space adventure, the thriller-type aspect to the plot… everything I love all in one.

Least Favourite Book of the Month: Vox by Christina Dalcher

I was just… really disappointed.

Keep up with me on Goodreads! (https://www.goodreads.com/LaniakeaBooks)

#books #ya books #book #YA book #book review #book reviews #goodreads #booklr #bookstagram

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riikkamhaynes-blog · 6 years ago

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👏Book review👏 or analysis... whatever

Koston enkeli (the angel of revenge) by Juha Ruusuvuori (published 2014)

The table of content

Introduction (synopsis)

No spoiler review (the writing, dialogue, the pacing + ending, the characters)

Spoilery overview of the plot

The bullshit

Things I liked

What can the writers learn from this?

My rating

Recommendations

Introduction

I found this book in my local bookstore. It was on sale for five euros. It would’ve been around 30 on normal occasions. The cover was cool, the name was intriguing and the price was fair. This book promised to be a psychological thriller about gender roles and the downfall of relationships. Keep that in mind...

My thoughts on it?

Synopsis

The book has two main protagonists; Mia and Harry. They are an old married couple. Mia hears a rumor that Harry could have cheated on her with another younger woman. The prologue shows a murder taking place. Neither the victim nor the culprit is named and their identities are completely ambiguous.

It’s essentially a psychological whodunnit story.

The book is written in Finnish and, as far as I know, hasn’t been translated into English. It’s not a big loss if you ask me.

Non-spoiler review

The chapters were written in a bizarre style. There were no spelled out chapter breaks. There was nothing where you would see “chapter 1, chapter 2, etc”. It may not sound like a lot but it does make a difference when you’re reading. Did I like it?

Look, this format is actually quite common in some nonfiction books but this is the first fiction I’ve read that utilizes it.

Since it is a mystery, I don’t mind an ambiguous narrative and a different format, in fact, if done right, it would enhance the story. I just didn’t like it in this book.

Now, I’m not saying that this failed entirely. The format did help the ambiguity of the story, even if the way it did that was by confusing the f*ck out of me. It almost merged the two POV characters into one. It might have worked.

I do question the need for this formatting choice. I personally didn’t care for it. My main problem is that I don’t feel like this book really benefited from it. I do not think it would’ve made a difference if the book was formatted normally. It was just a big meh for me.

The writing

I have no problems with the actual writing. I found it to be quite wonderful and vivid (even though the book didn’t really describe the setting). The sentence structure was okay (in a way that the length varied). The lack of adverbs was delightful.

What I’m trying to say is that the writing was simply

The Dialogue

It was written in a way that turned it into blocks of unintelligible garbage.

For some unknown reason to man, this author decided not to include ANY dialogue tags. It was just as confusing as it sounds. I found this to be incredibly hard to follow. I don’t that style added anything to the narrative.

More than that, I feel like this style took away from the entertainment value. I love dialogue. It brings the characters alive... but not when it’s written just as another paragraph.

The dialogue was written as the characters telling the reader what was said.

Example:

I told Harry that I was down to fuck if he did the dishes. He told me that he would see to it as soon as we left the funeral.

(That never happened in the story, don’t worry.)

I think that type of dialogue is okay when used when it needs to be used (like in small talk and greetings). It, however, does take away from the showing aspect of the story. We all know that you should show, not tell and this type of dialogue tells. It breaks the immersion when used with conversations that would be better when shown.

There is another problem with this writing choice.

Dialogue helps to break up the normally bland look of the page. Let me show you what I mean by examining these two pages (u don’t gotta read them):

Isn’t that just beautiful? Doesn’t it make you ooze with anticipation to read it?

Then check this out:

The latter one looks way more appetizing. The chances are that you even tried to read specific parts in it. This is because most humans don’t digest big chunks of information easily. I’m not saying that you NEED to have dialogue on every page, in fact, you shouldn’t have it in just to fill space.

That being said, an entire book made out of bricks of plain text with nothing to break it up is going to drive not just the characters to homicide, but the reader as well.

(Both of the examples I gave were of fictional texts so the argument that one is meant to be factual will not hold. Even with textbooks that are meant to convey information, the text shouldn’t be a brick wall because it hinders the amount of information the reader is going to actually pick up. The page is often broken up in textbooks with diagrams and pictures.)

You can also break up the text by doing certain parts in different styles, eg bold and italic. I use this a lot to highlight certain words and sentences so that the reading experience is more interesting.

Conclusion:

Avoid big blocks of bland text because the human subconscious doesn’t find them visually interesting and can often be put away by it.

On a side note; if you plan to have a no-dialogue book, at least break it up in the writing formatting. I would be careful with a no-dialogue book since it’s hard to pull it off. It would put a lot more focus on your writing ability and all of your weak points in writing would pop up like a line of motherfucking erections.

(Not everyone is affected by the bricks as much as others are. I would be wary of it but you definitely shouldn’t freak out if you have it in certain parts of your manuscript. Just make sure that the whole book is not made out of it.)

The pacing

The book was an easy read partly due to the fast pacing. The start was fast and the snippets to the murder helped to keep the reader interested. I didn’t notice any inconsistencies until the very end of the book.

Ah, the ending. The most important and meaningful part of a book... I am disappointed.

We all know what the three-act structure is. It is universally the most popular guideline for the pacing, tension-building and story structure. In essence, tension should rise as the story nears the end. There is a big climax and then everything is tied together, the reader left satisfied.

That’s how it went here, riiigghhhht?

It felt flat.

The author clearly tried to set the tension up, but it failed because we were given too much information and the events leading up to it were unrealistic.

The ending felt flat party because we knew what to expect. And although we didn’t know for sure whodunnit, we knew pretty much what else would have to happen before the end. To me, it felt like the author didn’t put that much effort into making the ending surprising.

He made it clear who was going to die and the only “surprise” was the killer (but it feels like I’m picking at straws when I call that a surprise). It was quite clear that he thought he was being smart by writing it the way he did, but I’m not buying it.

For me, it felt like the pacing was the highest at the start and the middle and that the ending was like a depressing mudslide.

It also felt like there was no structure in the story. I couldn’t pick up when each act was ending. It was confusing.

The characters

One is a cheating whore, the other one is a paranoid cunt.

The paranoia I can understand but it became unhealthy real quick and the cheater turned out to be a huge prick out of the blue (this person was portrayed as a reasonable person prior to the reveal so it didn’t make sense).

I did actually like seeing these two people descend into complete madness. I can give that to the book. Their psychological journey was fun to watch even if there were big parts of the book that let me down.

I enjoyed both viewpoints and it was a very entertaining read. I didn’t personally like either of the POV characters but I can forgive that because they kept me interested.

This book only had two side characters. Their personalities were consistent and reasonable. I could easily believe that they were real people.

The only character I didn’t believe could be a real person was the cheater as their personality kept on swinging and changing depending on the situation. They suddenly changed their morals without explanation. It was super inconsistent and could’ve been fixed by establishing their motives more clearly.

One of this book’s strong suits is the way the author wrote the characters. There was one big inconsistency, but everyone was written in a way that kept the reader interested.

Spoilers from here on out

Spoiler overlook of the plot

An unnamed person gets shot in an unknown location (a bible quote is cited by the killer)

Mia and Harry are having a family vacation. Mia finds out that Harry was seen speaking to another woman in a smoke break.

Mia goes on a big manhunt to expose Harry and basically starts stalking him.

They do a bunch of anniversary shit, have sex a couple of times, Mia is a possessive cunt, the story plays around with the whodunnit question (and whether Harry actually cheated or not).

Mia gets more and more paranoid because Harry smelled like perfume after he left a huge party (and other small things)... because that makes sense.

Harry is a cheating cunt, wow, who woulda thought...

Mia hires a private detective to catch Harry

Mia has a hissy fit and punches a mirror because she is salty of her fading looks and that her husband is going after a younger hot black chick

She is frustrated because nothing turns up from the detective instead of being happy

She fucks with the detective

Harry breaks up with Melissa (we find out that they were together for over a year...)

Mia and Harry come clean about their misadventures

Harry throws a hissy fit because Mia slept with another guy... once... when he slept with another bitch for over a year... classy.

They somehow live in peace for six weeks bc there is a time skip (because their life totally would be uneventful after a situation like that... and we as the reader don’t need to see that shit)

They try to live their life and everyone is jealous and angry

A person is seen going to a hotel and shooting Melissa

There is this weird time skip where we see Harry in a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane and Mia goes out the see him...

The end...

The bullshit

1. At first, I thought the author did the mystery well in a sense that we never knew for sure who it was, but then he kept on giving. He never stopped. He set up everything so clearly against Mia that we knew it was not going be her. We could tell that the killer would be the only character not presented as a suspect (Harry).

That is a classic strategy in mystery but it was overdone in this one.

It got to the point where everything was spelled out as a possible solution and I stopped caring. There was no tension because we knew too much. Please take notes because this happens all too often.

Give enough information so that the reader has questions. Don’t tell the answers to all possible outcomes and only leave the reader with “which one is it gonna be” because it will be boring. If we know what will happen with each option, we will not care about which one it’s going to be (since we basically know the ending in that instance).

Am I making sense? I hope so.

To be fair, the reader never knew for sure who the killer was and that did keep some “tension” in the story. I remember being like “ok, I know basically everything but I wanna keep going bc I wanna see which option the author picked.” It’s not a grand reaction to a mystery, but it’s something. It could’ve been worse.

2. The setting of the story is barely described. I get the point. It’s a psychological mystery. The story is about the journey of this couple. I do however think it’s necessary to at least let us know if it takes place in 2010 or 1960... To know the general time period would help us to relate to the characters more. Mia’s position and social standing would be way worse if it was the 60s whereas, in the modern day, she would be doing just fine.

Timelines are important in psychological stories because they tell a significant amount about how the character would interact with the world they live in.

3. Their relationship fell apart super fast. They have been together for over 20 years and a simple rumor from a shaky source was enough to break it up.

I call bullshit.

4. The book promised to talk about gender equality stuff but it never did. There were no scenes where Mia was treated badly or Harry being treated better. The story takes place in the modern day (I assume) Finland. If you’re gonna say that you will speak about sexism, at least pick a setting where it’s more common and a bigger problem.

A note from my reading diary:

Now that I think about it, maybe the gender role thing isn’t a troll. Mia is shown cooking and it’s made clear it’s unusual and that she is a bad cook. She is possessive, which is usually portrayed as a masculine trait. Then Harry is quite calm and collected, interested in reading and such, which is normally seen as feminine.

That was the only gender role thing I found from the book. I don’t need a book to speak about feminism but when it claims to touch the subject, I damn well expect it to do so.

I also feel like having a female character have masculine traits and vice versa isn’t enough material to claim that your book talks about gender roles. It’s not a big deal. If I have one gay character in my book, it doesn’t make it an LGBT themed book since it’s barely talked about in the context of the story.

My point is that I don’t feel this book has enough substance in it to claim it’s talking about gender equality. To me, it seems to talk about the psychology of murder more.

(I feel like I need to mention that this book was published in late 2014. If I remember correctly that was around the time when the whole feminazi thing started becoming increasingly mainstream and talking about it would give you a shit ton of exposure. Maybe to mention gender roles as being a big part of the story was just a good marketing strategy. I don’t mean to offend the author, this is just a theory based on my experience of the book.)

5. We as a reader never got to really know the characters past. It might not be such a big deal to some people who are there for just the ride, but for me it really was disappointing. I feel like knowing their pasts would help to add some mystery because then the reader has to come up with how the past could affect their psyche today and thus add more to the psychological mystery of the story.

For a psychological story not to speak about the childhood of its characters is extremely weird and disappointing.

I feel like the book would’ve benefitted from letting the reader know.

6. This book introduced this big question of “did they do the cheating” and it was presented as the big thing only for it to be explained within like the first 60 pages. Umm. I feel cheated. pun intended.

I don’t think you should give the reader this huge mystery only to reveal it even before the middle. I totally took me off guard and I almost stopped reading because that was the thing I felt the book was presented as the most meaningful thing (ie, all the characters went on an on about the possibility and the wrongness of it).

The book is on thin ice. It needs to give me another big question that will make me want to read because right now I have the plot all figured out. Don’t pretend to be a mystery novel just to answer all the questions BEFORE YOU GET TO THE FUCKING MIDDLE PART.

~My reading diary

7. Mia is insanely paranoid and obsessive it has never before surfaced in their +20 year relationship? Bullshit. My reading diary really did summarize it the best.

Another thing I don’t really get is Mia’s obsessive and possessive behavior, more so how it hasn’t come up before. It’s made clear that they are older and have been together for a long time. How is this the first time she has gotten this suspicious? How have they not fallen out before? You need to keep in mind that so far, she has no actual evidence of him cheating? She only knows that Harry once spoke to a pretty girl on a smoke break. SO WHAT. Then he has come home and smelled like a woman's perfume, AFTER A PARTY. I don’t think that’s enough to accuse someone of cheating. You can only imagine how freaked out Mia would be when Harry is over at a woman friends house. If she gets obsessed with so little evidence, how have they stayed together for over 20 years??? I call that a plot hole. No rational man would let that slide.

8. I didn’t like how this book made Mia the stereotypical older woman who is insecure about her fading beauty. WE NEED CONFIDENT OLDER WOMEN IN FICTION. PLEASE.

9. The fucking mirror smashing scene. I will let my diary speak for itself.

Mia undresses in front of a mirror. Her mind warps and she sees her body transforming into that of Melissa’s. She calls Mel a bitch and a whore. Classy. She seems to feel insecure about aging. Why can’t there be a story about older people feeling confident?? She’s not even old. She said that she’s 37. NOT OLD. She also described Melissa as having a “cruel smirk”. Please don’t make Melissa a cold-hearted bitch. PLEASE.

Oh, and Mia also punched the mirror. As you do. In fiction. WHY DOES EVERY ANGSTY BOOK HAVE MIRROR SMASHING IN IT?????? why. She didn’t even clean it up. She just went in and took a bath. And now she has a fever. Nice.

Harry is confused about how it happened. He thinks that Mia slipped but it’s obvious she hit the mirror. If her knuckles are bleeding and a mirror has been smashed, it would be obvious that she hit it. Am I slow or something?

omg. Mia is possessed by a demon. Harry was sulking about how “he is supposed to love Mia, why is everything like this all of a sudden” when he hears screaming from Mia’s room. She sits up, apparently still sleeping and says: “leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord”. OMG. She is insane. Citing the bible whenever she can is really creepy. How is Harry not scared for his life??? I WOULD BE HORRIFIED. Then Mia just falls asleep again.

10. A private detective was hired to catch a cheater. I have no words. It’s ridiculous.

11. Mia constantly slut shames this Melissa. I do not appreciate it. I can forgive it because Mia obviously is insane but it’s still annoying.

12. Mia sees cheating as an act of revenge. I can see where it’s coming from but I don’t believe a 40-year-old woman would think that. It’s something I can see angsty highschoolers doing...

13. Harry brought Melissa into a student cafe to break up with her. Where is the logic behind that? Then he has the audacity to freak out when people find out about his inappropriate relationship with a student...

14. The 180 Harry made. He started off as this rational dude. Then it just fell apart. We found out that he had been cheating on Mia for over a year. The Harry at the start of the story wouldn’t do that, then he gets pissed when Mia cheated once, SHE CHEATED ONCE AND HE IS HAVING A HISSY FIT. Bullshit.

His character didn’t regain any of his original traits. I think it’s bad writing. You want the characters to keep at least some of their original personality.

Check out this video which explains it further:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9SK0Jhk7Pw

15. The six week time skip near the end makes no sense, serves no purpose and completely deflates the last bit of tension.

There is no way they could’ve been at peace for that long with nothing notable happening. Bullshit.

17. The tension deflated like a fucking limp cock around the middle and it never got up. I feel like the author tried too hard to lure me in within the first 60 pages, and from there on the tension and my interest in the story plummeted.

18. Conclusion. Harry was the killer.

I hate it. There are so many things wrong with this...

The killer at the start cited a specific bible quote. Harry was in no way religious and NEVER cited the quote whereas it was almost like Mia’s motto. INCONSISTENT.

The killer at the start was highly religious (we could tell by their thought process bc it’s a 1st person). The only scene I remember Harry being religious is a throwaway sentence of him skimming the bible.

Harry was sane and his thought process wasn’t plagued by murderous thoughts, whereas Mia was going on and on about how she would murder for her loved ones and on some occasions, she even fantasized about murdering Melissa.

Mia had a bigger motivation to murder. She was cheated on for over a year, she has a grudge on Melissa (because she is more beautiful, younger and because Harry wants her more than he wants Mia), she is incredibly insecure, constantly feels like people are out to break her seemingly perfect marriage. Speaking of which, she holds her long-lasting marriage as a badge of honor and would do anything (kill) to keep it going. She is a control freak (as shown with her interactions with Harry) and she is extremely deranged near the time of the murder.

Why would Harry kill Melissa? He wanted to make things okay with Mia, he is mad because Mia cheated on him once, that’s it...

Harry was extremely anti killing before the murder whereas Mia was all for it. It would take a lot to persuade him to do it and we know that his motivations are minimal.

Harry being the killer (and it being written like this) breaks Mia’s character. Because he was the killer, Mia is simply a paranoid bitch who has wet dreams of murder.

I’ve already mentioned that we got like no hints and clues that Harry would do it, whereas everything was set up against Mia. The conclusion was obvious.

Things I liked

the start was good. I really liked the small snippets to the murder. It did keep me invested. This book started off strong. I was immediately invested in the story. I wanted to see who will kill who and if Harry actually cheated. Then the story went downhill.

The psychological journey of MIA, fuck Harry. He was a mess

Mia descending into madness

Mia being crazy for murder

Mia growing a backbone as the story went on

I want Mia to top me

What can writers learn from this?

when writing a mystery, don't make the characters do things that don't match their personality just because you need to confuse the reader. it’s bad storytelling and will break the reader's immersion.

Make sure that the characters arcs are finished and they have a proper conclusion.

you need to make sure that all of the clues you drop tie together. if they don't, the reader will feel like they were cheated on.

My rating

2/5 on Goodreads.

Recomendation

I would only really recomend this if you wanted to study storytelling and what works and what doesn’t. I don’t think it’s a lifechanging book that you have to read.

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