#Apparently I have a thing about continually making Nineteen Eighty-Four references

[pseudinymous]

Doing Math on the River Styx - 1

Phic Phight / Team Ghost / word count not final

Prompt by Zainymusings:

In an effort to keep Danny from failing out of Casper High and becoming Dan, the ghosts band together to tutor Danny in various subjects (Technus in math, Ghostwriter in Language Arts, etc.) Shenanigans ensue.

Chapter Index: 1 / 2

“I, TECHNUS, GHOST MASTER OF ALL THINGS ELECTRONIC AND BEEPING, COMMAND THE GHOST CHILD TO FIND THE VALUE OF X!”

The Ghostwriter looked vacantly at Technus as if his brains were about to leak out of his ears, and for the first time in his life Danny felt as if he might agree. The three of them had been locked away in this library for all of fifteen minutes and they were already getting on each other’s nerves, but anything to prevent Danny from turning into the dreaded Dan Phantom was worth it. So here they were.

“You can’t just command him to find the value of x, Technus. You actually have to teach,” said the Ghostwriter, somehow keeping his patience. “Not everyone has a way with numbers, you know. He can’t just magic the answer out of thin air.”

Technus stared at him, dumbstruck. “Really? Human children can’t do that?”

“Most people can’t do that,” the Ghostwriter lamented, head within his hands. “Look at him, he’s just staring into that piece of paper as if the world itself is coming to an end. That’s not the look of someone who has clarity on a topic, Nicolai.”

“Fine then, you teach him!”

“Me? Teach math? In what universe? Christ, I’d pass out.”

“Will the both of you just shut up?!” Danny finally yelled, his voice shuddering the non-existent library foundations and sending them both silent. “Maybe I can do this! But we’re never going to find out if you just keep arguing with each other!”

Both ghosts suddenly realised their position in all of this — namely having gotten out of their chairs in the heat of that mildly passionate debate — and retook their seats quickly in their own embarrassment. “Sorry,” muttered the Ghostwriter, quietly. Technus didn’t apologise. What a surprise.

“… So, what part of this equation do you not understand?” said Technus, eventually.

“X,” said Danny, and Writer let out a smirk from the background. “I mean where are you even supposed to get the x from?”

Technus was feeling confident.

“You start with the first part of the equation, then you do the equation in your head, and then you only have x leftover.”

Danny’s head hit the desk. “Are you joking? That doesn’t make any sense at all!”

“He’s right, it doesn’t,” said the Ghostwriter, matter-of-factly. Technus glared at him. “If it’s any consolation, I’d like to use my keyboard to bend reality such that he would learn everything he ever needed to know in an instant, but unfortunately he destroyed it last Christmas.”

“Don’t remind me,” Danny moaned. “I can’t take much more of this, I gotta go home.”

Technus wasn’t having a bar of this. “The value of x is 16! 16!” he yelled, as if that would make his point clearer. “See! Now you can do this type of problem! Now you can find the next value of x!!”

Danny stood up from his chair about as calmly as he could manage. “Thanks, but I think I’d rather just learn the normal way from Lancer. I’m—”

“—What about literature?” the Ghostwriter cut in desperately, after watching his afterlife flash before his eyes. “Math might not be your strong point, but there’s more than just one subject.”

Danny looked at Ghostwriter as if he, too, had as much of a hole in his head as Technus. “Really? And are you gonna be any better at this than the Lord of Electricity over here?”

“I’m legitimately qualified to teach. Unlike the Lord of Electricity over there, as you so aptly put it.”

“… What? Seriously?”

“You don’t honestly think I made any money writing novels, do you?” asked the writer, looking a bit too wry for Danny’s liking. “No one does. I would’ve starved without a side job.”

Technus suddenly stood up. “ACTUALLY HE NEVER PUBLISHED ANY NOVELS, HE—”

A book came out of nowhere and smashed heavily into the back of Technus’s head. Danny watched him arc gracefully through the air, face aghast and twisting as he went, before he was gracelessly plastered all over the wooden library floor. The Ghostwriter’s brow was raised. “Oh,” he said. “How did that ever happen?”

“TELEKINESIS ISN’T FAIR GHOSTWRITER.”

“And why not? You’re perfectly capable yourself.”

“YOU KNOW IT’S ONLY ON TECHNOLOGY! BUT WE’RE STUCK IN THIS PLACE WITH ALL OF YOUR THINGS, YOU—”

A book mysteriously slid off its shelf and landed on straight on top of Technus, striking his head a second time. “Oh, it seems after three decades I’m still having accidents, I’m very sorry about this Nicolai.”

“LIKE HELL YOU ARE!” Technus screeched back. Another book struck him. The Ghostwriter grinned in delight.

“Dude, you’re enjoying that way too much,” said Danny eventually, his eyes wide open. “I thought you didn’t like to fight.” “A series of unfortunate events is not a fight,” said the Ghostwriter. He was far too happy about this situation, and he showed it with two long rows of very sharp serrated teeth. “Shall we say, it’s been a long time coming.”

“But can’t he… I dunno, kill you or something?”

The ghost shrugged. “I don’t know. Can he? Or did he accidentally become part of a pact in which he agreed I wouldn’t come to harm, then act like a monumental prat such that I might like to make every book in this god-forsaken library slide off its shelf and hit him? I suppose we’ll never know.”

… Danny refused to unpack any of that. Technus remained unmoving on the floor as if this might be the best course of action while the Ghostwriter simply stood there, apparently contemplating homicide. This was beyond messed up. But what the heck had he expected when he’d agreed to tutoring sessions in the Ghost Zone?

… Ghostwriter kind of had a point about Technus’s math teaching skills, though.

“Now that we have some peace and quiet,” said Writer, whose teeth were clenched on each of those final descriptors and whose gaze was also fixed precisely on Technus, “Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what you need to study in English class.”

Danny breathed. Maybe they could do this. Maybe it was still possible. “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” he said, staring at the sheet of paper in front him, covered in mathematics so poorly executed it was a wonder it didn’t shift the fabric of space on its own. He swapped it quickly for his English book. “I got to sort of skim it at home, but ghosts kept attacking during Lancer’s lectures.”

The ghost sat down again, slowly. “… Orwell? Very well… A bit dry, but that’s fine. They’re after an analysis essay, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” the Ghostwriter began, “Those are reasonably straightforward. All you really have to do is read the question, make something up, and argue it.”

Danny’s eyes narrowed. “Lancer said we shouldn’t make stuff up.”

“Funny how in an analysis on fiction, the writing of which is the very act of making stuff up, you’re asked not to make anything up at all. No, that’s a misconception. What you actually need to do is pretend you’re the author and lie.”

“Lie?”

“About everything,” said the Ghostwriter sagely, tapping his finger on the desk. “You can’t know for sure what was in the author’s head unless they tell you, which is fine, because it means the English teachers don’t know the difference either.”

The little cogs and gears inside Danny’s brain started to fall into place, but it wasn’t a place they’d ever fallen into before. He felt attacked, almost as if stuck in some kind of weird trap, like his fight or flight reflex should be going off. “… That seems pretty suss, why should I even listen to advice like that?”

Ghostwriter seemed almost bored. “You do realise I have a vested interest in not seeing you going insane and killing everyone?”

“Yeah, that seems kind of bad,” Technus chimed in from the floor.

“Even I’m not vindictive enough the jeopardise my own existence.”

Danny turned from his paper and looked from one ghost to the other. Were they... suddenly more tired? “… So…” he began, slowly. “Did Clockwork put you both up to this?”

Technus finally managed to peel himself away from the floorboards. “Came knocking on both our doors. Said we had to do something so that That Future didn’t happen. It’s like, as if you failing classes is tied up in the cosmos to you becoming a mass murderer or something.”

Great. Fantastic. Passing his classes was the one thing Danny didn’t seem able to do, and that was apparently the tightrope that stopped him from becoming an evil megalomaniac who murders his family members and god knows who else. Perfect. Would’ve been nice if Clockwork could’ve given him a heads up about that one before his grades started slipping into the D- range. He stared at his empty English book page and groaned.

“God,” Danny muttered. “We’ve gotta make this work…”

Chapter Index: 1 / 2

[siriuslysnuffles]

16/34: murder

(alternate universe; october thirty-first, nineteen eighty-one)

he told her to run. he could hold voldemort off for a moment. a moment that could spare her. spare harry. if lily could only get him to harry before voldemort killed james. what james hadn’t expected, however, was for voldemort not to bother killing him. he expected to die, he was willing to do so for his son and wife. yet it didn’t make a difference in the end.

voldemort petrified him before continuing his way upstairs to where lily and harry were. to harry’s bedroom where lily potter wept over her husband who she had assumed died when she heard his fall.

voldemort didn’t speak as she began to plead with him to spare her child. he petrified her too–he didn’t have time for silly games and to be forced to listen to the pleas of mortals. lily and james potter would serve to be examples of what happened to those who refused him. he would not have mercy with them. he would punish them for their rejection of him, for their disobedience.

the child who had been guarded by his mother looked up at him with brilliant green eyes, perhaps wondering why neither his mother nor father were coming to his rescue.

‘they think you can defeat me?’ voldemort’s voice caused the child to start crying, pleading for his mother or father.

voldemort gave him something better. with a flick of his wand, harry potter was dead.

what voldemort hadn’t expected, however, was for the curse to not only hit the child, but hit himself as well.

the spell eventually wore off of james, who quickly grabbed his wand from where he had originally left it that night, he grabbed lily’s wand from the kitchen as well. he climbed up the stairs, dreading what he would find it that room. he hadn’t seen the demon come back down.  

he opened the door to harry’s bedroom. the bedroom they had spent weeks decorating once they found out the sex of their child. the room where lily and james came into every night and every morning. the room where lily had marked the size of harry’s hand every month with a weird muggle substance called ‘paint.’

the room where he saw his wife coming slowly walking to their son’s cot and picking him up.

‘lil,’ his voice was soft, but he was scared to admit that he was terrified. terrified to find out how the body in her arms was.

‘jamie?’ her voice was vulnerable, lost. yet there seemed to be a sense of relief in those eyes. a relief that he wasn’t dead.

he walked towards her, a hand reaching to touch her face. to touch her and confirm that she was real.

‘james?’ he saw the tears forming in her eyes, tears that he started wiping away. he ignored the bundle in her hands. he couldn’t be dead if james ignored it. ‘james, i think he’s dead.’

dead. but how could he be, james wanted to argue, but deep down he knew the truth. his son was dead.

he closed his eyes, resting his forehead against hers. letting the tears fall down his face as she began to sob, moving her face into his chest. ‘he’s dead, james, dead!’

he couldn’t say anything. what could he say to make this better? harry was dead. he was their hope, their reason for continuing to fight. and he was gone.

they sunk to the floor, crying in each other’s arms with the corpse between them. that’s all they could do.

dumbledore showed up that night, their home was ruined–both physically and emotionally. sirius was next. he explained to dumbledore how they had switched the secret keeper, how they had trusted peter. how peter betrayed them. yet all james felt was emptiness as he stroked his son’s hair, emptiness as he kissed his son’s forehead. emptiness as he held lily close to him, mumbling lies about how they would be all right.

parents shouldn’t have to watch as their baby is put in a casket and lowered into the ground. a husband shouldn’t have to hold their wife up to keep them from fainting at the sight of their child’s corpse. a godfather shouldn’t have to watch his godson be buried a few days after he turned twenty-two. a wife shouldn’t have to hear the condolences from people who only cared that voldemort was gone not that her son was dead.

yet they did.

and they kept living their lives, kept loving and protecting one another, kept celebrating harry’s birthday and celebrating the day he died. each year imagining what harry would have been like, what his favourite subject would have been.

‘happy birthday, har,’ james said looking into the room in their new home that they had assigned as harry’s.

‘happy fifth birthday,’ lily whispered from behind him, still in his old quidditch jersey that she used as her sleepwear.

‘hullo, love,’ he said softly.

‘james,’ she said the four words that everyone hated hearing, ‘we have to talk.’

‘what about?’ he asked slowly taking her hand in his and leading them into the living-room.

she sighed, ‘i don’t know if today’s the right time to tell you.’

‘is it bad news then,’ he sat her in his lap, snuggling into her neck. he needed the comfort today. he needed to have lily close, to know she was okay. he took a deep breath, inhaling her floral smell in the process.

‘debatable,’ she ran one of her hands gently through his hair.

‘what is it, lil?’

she tilted his face up to look at her, ‘i’m pregnant.’

james didn’t know how to feel. should he be happy for another child? sad at the reminder that harry would never get to know this new sibling?

‘how do you feel?’ he asked instead.

‘i don’t know.’ and he understood completely.

and so their daughter was born in may. they named her emma after james’ mother euphemia. and their home once more held a beautiful child. a child with lily’s red hair and james’ hazel eyes.

‘she’s beautiful,’ sirius said. he tried not to let it show around strangers he met on the street, but he missed his godson everyday. here he knew he was safe. he could show his sadness to the only ones who felt just as he had. ‘harry would have loved her.’

lily and james were quiet for a moment as they looked at their daughter. ‘yeah, he would have.’

‘so emma lily potter,’ remus said, ‘quite a name.’

‘yeah, she’s named after the two strongest women i have ever known.’ james kissed his wife gently on the head.

‘i love you,’ lily said as she began to drift off to sleep, emma still in her arms.

‘i love you too.’

they had another little boy two years later. both were loved so much by their parents. because if that’s the one thing that harry showed them, it’s that while love cannot overcome everything, it makes it more bearable. and loving their children was truly magical.

they didn’t understand why their mother cried on hallowe’en or why their father would go quiet. they didn’t understand why there was a room in their house with baby things that didn’t belong to either of them and the only answer their parents gave was that it was ‘harry’s.’ they didn’t understand why strangers would tell their parents they were sorry. they didn’t understand why their parents would send them to uncle sirius’ or uncle remus’ on july thirty-first, so they could spend some ‘time alone’ as their uncles referred to it as.

but one day they would. and one day they would realise what their parents had lost and that their brother was a hero. but until that day, they would keep on living.

-excerpt written to make myself cry apparently. i don’t even know. this is my third fic today.

read it here on ff. feel free to request a topic for me to write an excerpt on.

prompt(s): if harry died but jily survived + murder 

[nitrateglow]

Movies watched in 2017 (11-20)

Continuing my 2017 film journal. So far, I’ve continued to find some real gems!

Three Came Home (dir. Jean Negulesco, 1950)

Documenting the true story of the American Agnes Newton Smith, a writer interred with her son in a Japanese POW camp during WWII, Three Came Home is a decent film, with solid performances and a few standout scenes. It is a movie which the censorship codes held it back from being a more powerful work; you always get the sense that the filmmakers wanted to show more of the graphic and harrowing side of Smith’s ordeal, which included torture and almost being raped. nevertheless, the filmmakers go as far as they could at the time, even allowing star Claudette Colbert to get in front of the camera sans make-up. Everyone is coated in sweat and grime. Sessue Hayakawa is there too as the sympathetic Colonel Suga. He gets one strong scene toward the end of the movie, where he evokes immense grief and guilt without words, a reminder of his power as a performer and his heyday as one of the best starring actors in Hollywood during the 1910s. (7/10)

BBC Sunday-Night Theatre: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954)

Peter Cushing as Winston Smith—who can resist that? Once again, this man proves he is one of the most underrated actors to have ever stood before a camera. Despite the obvious low budget, this is a great adaptation of Orwell’s novel, much superior to the American feature adaptation made a few years after. In fact, I would say the low budget and cramped sets add to the desolate, gloomy, claustrophobic atmosphere of Oceania’s dystopian world. Everything is dingy and depressing. The ending retains the bleak outlook of Orwell’s novel and Cushing’s great depiction of brokenness only makes it all the creepier. I also want to highlight the great work Yvonne Mitchell does as Julia; she’s pretty and sensual, but not at all a glamorous starlet like the American ‘50s adaptation. Overall, a great version. If you love the book and care about your adaptations being accurate, then you’ll probably enjoy this picture. (9/10)

Reaching for the Moon (dir. Edmund Goulding, 1930)

I wouldn’t really call this movie good and the only folks I can recommend it to are old movie buffs like me, but if you are into pre-code movies, art deco, Bebe Daniels, and/or Douglas Fairbanks Sr., then Reaching for the Moon is worth watching once. The plot is frivolous and forgettable, the pace is slow even for a 70 minute picture, and poor Fairbanks is kind of wasted. He spends some time doing his usual acrobatic thing, but it always feels slapped on and not organic to the scenes. Apparently the movie was originally supposed to be a musical, but the studio cut most of the songs at the last minute since audiences were getting tired of musicals in mid-1930. To be honest, I wish they had kept them in, because the musical numbers are the most energetic and engaging parts of the film. I especially enjoyed Bing Crosby and Bebe Daniels in the jazzy, very Depression-era number “When the Folks High Up Do the Mean Low Down.” Easily, that scene and the art direction are the best assets the movie has to offer; William Cameron Menzies does lovely work on the art deco sets, which are like a dream of 1920s glamor. (6/10)

The Eternal Mother (dir. DW Griffith, 1912)

Like the Griffith short I watched in the last batch, not an essential among his early work. Mabel Normand and Blanche Sweet are wasted as a wanton woman and a virtuous wife. The plot is incredibly thin and silly: a man leaves his good wife for a tart; the tart bears his child and dies on cue. The wife is so good that she takes in the child and the husband spends his years alone until he and the wife reunite as elderly folks. Not much of interest on the technical or story scale. (4/10)

Three Outlaw Samurai (dir. Hideo Gosha, 1964)

I got interested in this one after figuring out Rian Johnson used it as an influence on the next Star Wars movie. I’m guessing most of the influence came from the way Gosha shoots the swordplay, which is very kinetic and rough, but there may be some of the film’s cynical treatment of justice and honor in the new Star Wars too… maybe, since Star Wars is rarely cynical when it comes to good and evil, but we shall see. Regardless, it is a good film, an essential if you like chambara. (8/10)

The Dentist (dir. Leslie Pearce, 1932)

To say WC Fields is weird is an understatement. I would not say I am a fan, but I do adore his surreal and deadpan Yukon parody The Fatal Glass of Beer and generally like The Bank Dick. The Dentist isn’t as impressive as either of those, but it has plenty of good, misanthropic laughs as well as some very risqué humor for 1932 (but then again, this is from the pre-code era). (7/10)

The Fall of the House of Usher (dir. JS Watson Jr. and Melville Webber, 1928)

While not as good as the later Watson and Webber offering, Lot in Sodom, their surreal adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story is still dazzling. It actually feels quite modern. It is a modern dress adaptation and conjures more of the dreadful, claustrophobic spirit of the original story rather than sticking closely to the letter. It also has a lot more obvious Caligari influence than the later Lot in Sodom. (9/10)

Fire Over England (dir. William K. Howard, 1937)

I’ve been reading a lot about the Tudors lately and Elizabeth is my favorite of the bunch. After watching the pretty poor Cate Blanchett movie, I went sixty years back to this 1937 adventure film produced by Alexander Korda. While not focusing exclusively on Elizabeth, it does tell a rousing yarn about an English spy (playing by a young and totally adorable Laurence Olivier) out to do business in Philip II’s court before the legendary English victory over the Spanish Armada in the 1580s. It’s a fun swashbuckler complete with broad characters, a hiss-worthy villain, swordplay, and daring escapes, also of historical interest since the conflict between England and Spain is meant to reflect the then-contemporary conflict between most of Europe and the Nazi Germany. Flora Robson is a great screen Elizabeth, commanding and charismatic while also sporting a fierce temper. And though given little to do, Vivien Leigh is ravishing, and even in this early film, she and Olivier are wonderful together. (8/10)

Ruka [The Hand] (dir. Jiri Trnka, 1965)

I was turned onto the work of Czech animator Jiri Trnka by the Brows Held High episode on his 1959 feature adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That film is a charming fantasy and heartfelt look at the power of art; however, Trnka’s most famous film, the short “Ruka,” is much darker and proved to be his swan song before he passed away in 1969. It is a political satire about the suppression of artistic expression in totalitarian regimes. It is both darkly hilarious and incredibly bleak. Considering Trnka’s work is usually characterized as nostalgic and whimsical, his final film is strikes a sad, but still powerful chord and remains incredibly relevant even today. (10/10)

Big Deal on Madonna Street (dir. Mario Monicelli, 1958)

So freaking funny! I watched this one because Martin Scorsese recommended it as one of his choices for essential foreign cinema. Though Big Deal is a parody of 1950s heist pictures such as The Asphalt Jungle and Rififi, it is nothing like the pathetic cinematic parodies we get now, like Meet the Spartans or Fifty Shades of Black. Like Airplane or Blazing Saddles, it still understands that it needs to work as an original story with characters we enjoy watching and good gags that don’t really on references to popular culture alone. Big Deal is also interesting in its presentation of everyday life and urban poverty, seeing as our heroes are a mix of sad sack, small time criminals and lower class working folk; in many ways, it feels like a comic romp set in the same universe as The Bicycle Thieves or Umberto D. (9/10)