#Ermine is just dumb

[gremlingottoosilly]

Hi! I've been reading you for a while now and I really like your work. I have an idea about the Monster!141. What if they encounter a wild hybrid such as an ermine? Like she pounces on them, defending the territory or sees them as a threat,but she is literally smaller than them.🦦🦦🦦

Awwww! She is still a predator, of course, but the only ones who are weaker than her are some tiny prey hybrids like mice and bunnies. She is still a force to be reckoned with...if you're afraid of this tiny thing getting her claws on your hand or something. She is so firm and weird, she is scratching at Gaz whenever he left. her up, and the only way for him to make her shut up is to lift her high in the air, flying with her in his hands. She is adorable like this, using every limb of her body to cling to him and then squeak in his ear to put her down. Just look at this fluffy thing, she even remembered what normal words sound like...the problem with monster uprising is that a lot of monsters became...wild like this. They would scratch and yell and forget normal speech sometimes, but, luckily, Gaz is patient enough to remind her again. Oh, but Price is having NONE of it. He takes pride in his pack not acting like wild animals even though they are mostly animal monster hybrids, but if you want to yell and scratch and bite, you'd have to learn your manners. Our Captain is usually against any clothes at all because he wants to have access to your body, but he would force you into the most uncomfortably covering clothes just so he could make you learn how to wear them. You are tagging on these fancy collars and tight corsets, but no one ever would help you get out of it. Price might like it when you're scratching at his back during sex, but if you're using your claws anywhere else, he would force you to wear a muzzle for your mouth and mittens for your cute clawed hands...you hate it so much!! But he won't listen, oh no( he will just let you across his lap to spank your pathetic wiggling butt. Soap is the nicest to you in this case...he is the wildest out of the pack, with the least self-control - he understands how hard it could be to behave properly for someone like you, and so he really wants you to be free with him. He would let you "escape" just so you could play a small game freely, and then you two would play hide, seek, and fuck! You always hated the last part because Soap is cheating and using his superior nose to track you while you're just trying to get on top of the trees(he loves to force you into a corner just so he could slowly approach you and finally get his fill...you're always ending up on your back with your legs spread when you're hunting with him, but at least he'd lick your bit marks later and let you bask in the fresh air for a bit. Ghost is...difficult. He likes discipline, like Price, but his punishments are even less conventional. If you're trying to fight him, he'd let you - would legit ask you out on a ring, just so he could force his full body weight on top of you and watch you trying to get free. You're so dumb and adorable, it's insane - you're still acting wild, acting like you're a predator just like them, but in reality, you're just a weak thing that needs to be disciplined as harshly as possible. He might feel a bit sorry for you...but he loves to fight - and fighting you is the most precious experience for him. He loves having the opportunity to just force you on the ground and get what he wants, maybe even finally getting a few of his shadowy tendrils up your wiggling butt since you've been so ungrateful lately...

[chaifootsteps]

Chai, i’m really interested in seeing your or the anon’s rate Stolas outfit (before there’s probably a new one he’s going to wear in court during “honorable judge gina”), so here’s a condensed list of thoughts i had

- i remember a lot of people complaining about his hat in 2019-2020 saying it looked dumb. personally i always enjoyed that part of stolas design, the top hat has always been a trademark of the victorian upper class and the tiara and costume party mask makes it so extra, its wonderfully cartoonish and inherently villanous-looking, even if i know theres no thought put into it other than “now make him look like the onceler!”

-the ermine coat he puts on during “what kind of monster does that make me?” were iconography of royalty for a long time because they were associated with moral purity (i’d love to see what hell weasels look like!). on that note, i wish we could see royalty from countries that arent inspired by european ones, but that would mean doing research on how Hell is depicted in other cultures

- the vest and pants were fine, sometimes they switched from being a onesie, until it became a fully fledged baby pijama in Look My Way. no other comments, i just love this

- Aristocrat anon

Yeah, I've always liked this hat, and it's probably the last remnant of his outfit that makes sense and is good. I hope the baby onesie becomes more and more pronounced until he's just going up to speak to Judge Gina looking like what he is inside, which is this.

[keefwho]

May 17 - 2024 Friday

11:34pm

6/10

This morning I did basic cleaning like picking everything up and vacuuming. Also did my laundry. I asked mom to take me to the store for drinks. Her friend Deb was being real smart today which clearly got on her nerves. She also talked about me like I wasn't there. The guy behind me asked if my Mike's Harders were breakfast so that was kinda funny. At home I fried a teriyaki beef ramen bowl and had a meat stick. I also determined the rodent stinking up my bathroom is an ermine and I need to get a bigger trap for it.

For work I warmed up with some full body poses. Then I did SZ's commission for about an hour and the comic for an hour. I finally made decent progress on SZ's thing. There is some pressure since they are DS's friend and they want to print it out.

After work I looked into how keyframes worked in my video editing software since I'd been confused about it. Its dumb. My dog Sporticus is in heat now and I got her kennel situated with food and water. For lunch I made a turkey sandwich with a kraft singles and onions. I tune into a Twitch stream where he was watching a police shootout video. Nothing graphic. Before work I took a little time for myself. DS DMed saying her medicne withdrawal from the day before was giving her terrible vertigo and I felt worried for her. But she made it home safe and the symptoms wore off.

For afternoon work I joined DVs Discord vc and it was fairly quiet. I finished a pic of my otter in a cage and started another VRchat life study. DS started working on her fursuit so I called and did my VRchat world for like 10 minutes. I did a really quick light bake to see how It'd look and it was good. Then we watched Monster High Boo York Boo York and it might be my favorite so far. Cleo and Deuce are so cute and Ghoulia is still my queen. A LOT happened that movie, and I can't forgot the Ever After High cameo at the end. Shit's crazy. Then we got in VR and DS ranted to me a lot about the current furry drama and how bs it is. I wish I was more involved or could do something but I am not affected by people like this in the slightest. Then we went to catch bug for awhile. We almost found every bug aside from the cicada and lightning bug. That was real fun. Then we joined a furry world briefly and a windows screensaver world. She did something very cute there, making a K+D thing and it was so sweet. Thats the kind of thing I've always wanted to see myself included in tbh. Our last world was the lego star wars diner.

In bed we did our puzzle and failed Connections because it was very stupid today. She fell asleep pretty quickly while I played Monster High. Then I just watched Youtube until bed.

[sharedsentiment]

When did you become a Hallmark card hippie? Joy, love, peace. Puke! Where’s the rage, anger, hatred? Reading these lately is like listening to an old preacher drone on and on at Sunday mass.

Dear Ermine,

Things changed after my first son died. I changed. For better or for worse, the rage you speak of lost its allure and, yes, perhaps I became a Hallmark card hippie. Hatred stopped being interesting. Those feelings were like old dead skins that I shed. They were their own kind of puke. Sitting around in my own mess, pissed off at the world, disdainful of the people in it, and thinking my contempt for things somehow amounted to something, had some kind of nobility, hating this thing here, and that thing there, and that other thing over there, and making sure that everybody around me knew it, not just knew, but felt it too, contemptuous of beauty, contemptuous of joy, contemptuous of happiness in others, well, this whole attitude just felt, I don’t know, in the end, sort of dumb.

When my son died, I was faced with an actual devastation, and with no real effort of my own that posture of disgust toward the world began to wobble and collapse underneath me. I started to understand the precarious and vulnerable position of the world. I started to fret for it. Worry about it. I felt a sudden, urgent need to, at the very least, extend a hand in some way to assist it – this terrible, beautiful world – instead of merely vilifying it, and sitting in judgement of it.

Perhaps, Ermine, you are right, and I did, for good or ill, turn from a living shit-post into a walking Hallmark card. But, well, here we are, you and me, sending smoke signals to each other across a yawning ideological divide. Hello Ermine, I drone, hello.

Love, Nick

[citylawns]

When did you become a Hallmark card hippie? Joy, love, peace. Puke! Where’s the rage, anger, hatred? Reading these lately is like listening to an old preacher drone on and on at Sunday mass. - ERMINE, GRAND MARAIS, USA

Dear Ermine,

Things changed after my first son died. I changed. For better or for worse, the rage you speak of lost its allure and, yes, perhaps I became a Hallmark card hippie. Hatred stopped being interesting. Those feelings were like old dead skins that I shed. They were their own kind of puke. Sitting around in my own mess, pissed off at the world, disdainful of the people in it, and thinking my contempt for things somehow amounted to something, had some kind of nobility, hating this thing here, and that thing there, and that other thing over there, and making sure that everybody around me knew it, not just knew, but felt it too, contemptuous of beauty, contemptuous of joy, contemptuous of happiness in others, well, this whole attitude just felt, I don’t know, in the end, sort of dumb.

When my son died, I was faced with an actual devastation, and with no real effort of my own that posture of disgust toward the world began to wobble and collapse underneath me. I started to understand the precarious and vulnerable position of the world. I started to fret for it. Worry about it. I felt a sudden, urgent need to, at the very least, extend a hand in some way to assist it – this terrible, beautiful world – instead of merely vilifying it, and sitting in judgement of it.

Perhaps, Ermine, you are right, and I did, for good or ill, turn from a living shit-post into a walking Hallmark card. But, well, here we are, you and me, sending smoke signals to each other across a yawning ideological divide. Hello Ermine, I drone, hello.

Love, Nick

[toddaldrington]

Let’s see how this does on here: I’m going to post the first chapter of my latest furry story, ‘Take Off Your Pants and Sneakers’. Yes the title is a homage to a certain rock album from my misspent college years 20+ years ago when I should have been a furry… You can also find this on SoFurry.com and my Patreon subscribers have been getting this for a few weeks already. There will probably be about 6 parts.

Quick summary: Alex is a snow leopard guitar tech. Hunter is a drummer and an atypically well-built ermine. Their boss is a fox asshole. Not to worry though, he’s just bought a new RV for the road crew and Alex is about to invite Hunter into it for some fun…and might also give in to the temptation to tell Hunter that his name really is Alex and not the one the entire band and crew have been calling him for the last three years, and what the story behind that is…

Please note, this story is for 18+ readers only. If you’re a minor please come back when you reach your 18th birthday.

Otherwise, have fun! This story now has the record for the longest erotic scene I’ve written, and get this: I usually do M-M gay fiction, but this time my main character is bisexual and has a flashback to a hot evening with his ex girlfriend ‘back home’ to boot, so there’s something for more readers this time around.

These characters are also part of what’s going to be a longer series as well, and this story will eventually be adapted into it. You saw it all here first!

* * *

Part 1

It’s nice to sleep on something that’s not moving for a change.

I mean the tour bus. Pervert.

Tonight though I’ve also had an unexpected pleasure: I moved out of the main crew bus and into my boss’s special one. Here’s a little taste of who Rico is: he’s made so much money on this tour that he’s not giving his band a raise, he’s bought a new RV for his guitars, and he’s put his tech in them.

So here’s who I am: I’ve dutifully moved all Rico’s babies into the new family touring home, and on the same night Rico decided to take a week off the road to go and take care of some non-guitar family stuff in L.A. So I picked up his best guitar, a white Gibson ES35, worth about ten grande (more than double that if Rico’s boast that it once belonged to Alex Lifeson from Rush is actually true), found the band practicing (as expected during their boss’s week off) and said ‘Can I jam?’

Dumb question, they always let me jam. Of all the secrets I keep, the fact that I can play on a similar par to our boss isn’t one of them. Except tonight I wanted to test a theory: these guys really needed a break from Rico’s jazz-rock-blues zone where no mistake was tolerated. So when Darcy the lioness on keyboards said ‘What are we playing?’ I said two words that normally strike disgust into musicians like these guys:

‘Blink 182.’

That brought Hunter to life. More so than usual. When I’d wanted to jam and said ‘Let’s try and sound like Dream Theater’ that had done it for him. Now it was like I’d stick his tail in a plug socket.

‘Fuck yeah we’re gonna!’ He said. ‘Holy shit Snowball, is that Fantasma? Rico’s gonna fucking kill you!’

Just like Rico to call his favourite guitar the Spanish word for ghost. ‘How come?’ I said, with a shrug as I shut the case. ‘Who’s gonna tell?’

Instead of saying ‘Hellooo, dweeb-boys, what the fuck does a keyboard do in a Blink song?’ she took up the mic. Jax the bass playing antelope, as usual, didn’t say anything at all. They carried the ‘There’s nothing that guy can’t play’ without words, right down to being chilled about how most people would naturally use the male pronouns now even thought Jax was born Jaqui, and went through being Jack as a teenager to deciding they weren’t quite one or the other and combined the two, by the that time looking overwhelmingly male. Who cared? There really was nothing Jax couldn’t play, including Blink 182. Which sounded amazing in Darcy’s voice. Tyler, Rico’s porcupine rhythm and back-up lead player, let me take lead. We played the whole of Enema of the State, then I asked for ‘Online Songs’ and let Darcy play Fantasma while I just sang, because that was one of those songs that was so fun it made me want to forget playing the guitar and just be the frontman.

‘Hey Techsnep,’ Darcy said. (She always seems to forget my name, or at least the name I go by nowadays, but as long as I never hear my real name come out of her mouth, even by accident, I’ll let her call me pretty much anything.) ‘Rico can say whatever he likes about this kinda music, but here’s something I know.’ She handed me Fantasma back. ‘When he auditions his drummers, you know what he does?’

Hunter laughed and flicked one of his sticks into the air like a baton and caught it. ‘You tell him this and Rico will make sure you never work again.’

‘Fuck him,’ Darcy said. ‘According to Rico, you know you’ve got the right drummer when there’s one song they can nail.’

‘Songs with seriously cool drum stuff,’ I thought. ‘Rico. Something unexpected. It’d be cool but not too flashy.’ I put on a theatrical thinking look, knowing I was going to get it wrong. ‘Got it! Phil Collins. It’d only be In the Air Tonight.’

‘Heavier,’ Hunter said.

‘Muzzle by the Smashing Pumpkins.’

Hunter gave me such a look I wondered if he actually did have a boner. ‘We’re totally doing that in a minute, but no. Go even more un-Rico than that.’

Darcy rolled her eyes. ‘Enough already, teenage geek boys. It’s Basket Case by Green Day. We gonna audition Hunter?’

‘Shit,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Yeah, sure, gimme a minute, it’s been a long time since I…’ When did I last do that one? I wasn’t really asking myself so much as trying to push thoughts of my old band out of my head. The last time I played this was when it was a request. I was 16 and we were playing a reunion gig for people who had gone to our highschool a little while before us. There was one guy who’d gotten expelled for making death threats worthy of a Wes Craven flick but really it was because he had had mental health issues and I really didn’t want to look at him while I was singing that song, but only because I’d always thought it was a shame, because Kayden was actually pretty cool. Cool enough that my dad had let him take the ‘get out of town’ option instead of getting sectioned. Cool enough that he was back for the reunion and had somehow been allowed entry.

It took one simple thing to clear those days from my head: there was something Hunter did with that drum intro and repeated on every ‘I think I’m cracking up’ that just took it to another level. It was like the same technique that nailed that Neil Peart-esque thing he always did where he rolled down the entire kit like the end of ‘Natural Science’ or ‘Limelight’. He’d added that to a Green Day song, extra notes between the already rapid gunfire drum-fill the whole world knew in the middle of that song.

God I loved Hunter, right down to how he was the only drummer that Rico hadn’t bullied off a tour, because Rico had somehow realised that Hunter couldn’t be bullied. It was like some nonchalant immunity, and instead of hating it Rico had come to respect it. What the hell was it? Rico always seemed to hate full of life people because he clearly feared them taking the spotlight away from him in any room, or just hated their flamboyance, but Hunter wasn’t flamboyant. The whole crew knew he was gay, but he was the kind of gay that passed for straight until you walked past his trailer to hear whoever he was with either howling, growling, or plain begging. Maybe Rico just kept him because he seemed to want his latest band to be token-diverse.

I don’t care about anyone’s reasons for much tonight. I just want to jerk off thinking about Hunter. He’s immune to the risks of being out too. I can’t even make peace with how I’m probably bisexual. I want to be one or the other and feel like my stupid body and brain finally made a decision for me, and lately I think I want to be gay.

I thought everything with Finn back home had killed that side of me off, until halfway through my life of hiding from the law on tour busses, I met Rico for the second time in my life, and then Rico hired Hunter, and I knew I’d dealt with exactly nothing.

Tonight though I just need to get off.

Forget what anyone says about tours and groupies, getting your rocks off with someone in a top bunk that makes the bus feel like we’re all packed into a morgue most nights is seriously uncomfortable. Thankfully nobody in this band’s on heroin, because I often think sleeping like this feels like a rehearsal for where you’d end up after an OD. Add 80kph to that already wrong-for-sex atmosphere and you don’t want your dick in a tight place.

Tonight though, we’re not moving, and I’ve got Hunter to think about and a wicked hard-on take care of.

There might be no heroin, but a couple of nights I’ve seen Hunter so pumped up both during and after a performance that I’d damn sure he’d crack-piped some meth. I’m no expert on spotting who’s on what, but Hunter reminded me uncomfortably of Finn those nights, except that Hunter could make something amazing happen while on drugs, if he even was and it wasn’t just him having the time of his life, but damn, that extra hype and looking around more was exactly what I saw on Finn right before he started loosing control of his.

All I’d done to try and reassure myself was ask Darcy ‘Hey, just between you and me, did Hunter get hold of something? Like maybe something blue?’

Darcy gave me that friendly but firm look I needed from her. ‘One, it’s never really blue in real life. Two, even if he did, which I seriously doubt even if he is wired as fuck tonight, we’re not asking questions about it because we do not need Rico kicking him off this tour. So we let Rico ask, and we let Hunter do whatever he does that always keeps him here no matter what.’

‘Got it.’ I nodded, and thought about going to the bar to get another vodka and coke in the hope it would dull my need to ask Hunter about it myself. That’s when Darcy caught hold of my jacket sleeve and turned me back around.

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I never told you this, okay? There was one night when it was just me and him packing kit up. I got him talking in a way he doesn’t usually talk. He told me something personal. I’m not gonna tell you what it was, but let’s put it this way: if there’s a guy who knows life’s too short for fucking up with drugs then it’s Hunter. I don’t think he’s doing meth. I think this is him when everything seems a little too intensely cool and he doesn’t quite know how to express it even on a drum kit.’

‘Yeah, that was Finn and a piano once.’

‘Who?’

‘Never mind. Shit from back home. Ex…friend of mine. I thought he was just on meth but it was worse than that. Some shit happened. That’s why I got on a road in the first place. I need this tour too. So of course I’m not going to Rico with this shit. That’s why it’s you tonight instead.’

Darcy and I liked each other. We’d done each other good a couple of times on quiet tour-bus nights. Hunter had once said ‘Hey Darc, tomorrow night can you fuck Dylan a bit more quietly? I really need better sleep.’ The little bastard. He was the heaviest sleeper on the entire band and crew combined, and he’d faked it to listen to us doing it? I’d have been pissed if it had been anyone but him.

‘Dylan.’ Darcy kept me there again. I’d long since started getting used to my cover name that I no longer worried that one day I’d respond to Alex because someone called another person that and I mistook it for them trying to get my attention instead. ‘If you like Hunter, tell him. Because everyone knows, including him. Isn’t it about time you did something about it?’

I shook my head. ‘I’m straight, Darcy. I like Hunter because he’s a cool person.’

‘Are you fuck, and even if the second part of that’s true, you’ll think he’s cooler if you actually just do go and have sex with him.’

‘If he wanted that with me he’d have sought me out for it already and you know he would. Besides, even if I was gay, I’d be too scared. We’ve all been past the bus when he’s with guys. Wouldn’t you be pants-pissing terrified?’ I knew she’d probably let me have the last word, but I couldn’t resist one thing: ‘What do you suppose he’s into?’

She shrugged. ‘Dunno. Apart from one thing, but everyone knows about that.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Oh come on, snow brain. Why do you think he’s always buying sneakers? The guy’s got a whole suit case full of them. Rico lets him have an extra one because without them, no mojo. It’s not just a fashion thing.’

‘Your reckon? Come on, it’s just a thing for showing off how he can afford designer clothes.’

‘Guess again. There is nothing that guy doesn’t know about feet. He might have been one hell of a podiatrist if he’d had med-school smarts and been able not to get a hard-on as soon as an attractive person took their socks off. I let him take mine off one night. I needed to relax. I figured if there was one guy who’d know how to give a good foot massage, it was him. Oh holy fuck did I get an education. He got hard for me but it was in a totally nice and non-pervert way, and he totally didn’t want sex with me. He liked giving me a nice time, like a gentleman. He actually acted a bit deliberately charming. It wasn’t quite him. But God my feet needed it.’

I was heading for a twilight zone hearing this from her.

‘For God’s sake, snep. Go on. Not even Rico cares who you stick your dick in. Nobody’d even care if you genuinely aren’t gay but you just wanted to fuck Hunter anyway because he’s Hunter, and you’ve not had sex in three years of touring. Apart from twice with me.’

Not true, but irrelevant. ‘What does it take to never have this conversation with you again?’

‘Dyl, I’m a queen-of-the-cats type lioness, and I gave you a pretty damn good time, right down to how you were so up for it you actually did make me come. Congratulations, you’re good at sex. Yes I believe you once had a serious long-term girlfriend and before whatever went wrong, you were having a good time. But was what we did together really the highest point you could possibly reach? Because I don’t think so. I think you need to be in love.’ She smiled. It became a lion’s grin, and she flicked her eyes at Hunter.

I sighed. ‘I’m not in love with Hunter.’ I left a long pause. ‘I’m maybe a little bit interested. Or maybe a infatuated. It’s cool. Be it’s not love.’

She thought for a moment. ‘You know Hunter’s an orphan, right?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Why would I know that? That’s not exactly something a lot of orphans advertise.’

‘No, but he’s open about it if you get him talking. No secret. But you wanna know what I think?’

I always want to know what Darcy Whitman thinks, but the last thing I’m ever going to do is tell her that. All I had to do that night was what I always do in that situation: say nothing and wait.

‘There’s stuff Hunter doesn’t say about where he comes from, but here’s what I think it is from hints he’s dropped. I think some pair of stupid fucks put him in a basket on an orphanage doorstep because Mommy couldn’t handle how she had sex with someone who either wasn’t another ermine, just something similar. Or maybe Daddy was the “right species”.’ She said it so well I could hear the inverted commas and knew what was coming next. ‘But he wasn’t a white one. You get what I’m saying?’

‘Even if you’re right, why are you telling me?’

‘Who do you think Hunter is underneath, Dylan? Look at him. Everywhere he goes, people see a ‘cross-breed.’ They call it ‘person of mixed ancestry’ now, like we aren’t all technically that. There’s no term for it that doesn’t sound like it’s meant to be an insult somehow. People might try, but the whole point is people like Hunter still get looked at like they might be the wrong sort of different. They get arrested more, they get paid less, they get blamed for things that are nothing to do with them, they’re a scapegoat. Even some people who recognise how wrong that all is still have hang-ups, because that’s how prejudice works. Unless?’

‘Unless what?’

‘Think about it, snep.’

I thought for a few minutes while we had another drink each. I didn’t know where she wanted me to go with this. ‘Where’s Hunter from?’

‘Colorado.’

‘He ever tell you what his foster family are like? Or did nobody ever adopt him? Did he learn to play drums on a kit donated to an orphanage and drive everyone nuts with the noise?’ I could just imagine it all too easily.

‘It’s probably an obvious and dumb question all at once, but why not, y’know, ask Hunter all this?’

I smiled. ‘And there it is. The point. You’re trying to make me so irresistibly reporter-style curious about him that that’s exactly what I do, and you think somehow it’s going to strike up a conversation that ends with him asking me if he can fuck my pants off, maybe just to shut me up asking questions.’

‘Yeah, I did think that might work. But keep thinking, snow boy. I’m gonna go put my head down. Have a good night.’

Am I irritated tonight because now that I have time to think after the fun of today’s trailer-move and illicit jam session is over, I still have no idea what sudden thought I’m supposed to have that gives me a life-changing epiphany that somehow ends up with me having the night of my life with Hunter Kershaw? The mixed origin ermine, who I never think of as being mixed, or cross-breed, or even as being anything but Hunter Kershaw. Probably, yeah. But it’s best I just stay irritated.

Having anything I believe to be an epiphany and approaching Hunter with it will probably end in disaster somehow. The last time I felt like this about anyone, it was Finn and Bonnie both at once, and look how that fucking ended. Finn’s in and out of psych wards all the time, Bonnie’s lucky to be alive and not in prison, and both of them wish I was dead. Not to mention that I should be in prison, according to the way the law works, and sooner or later this grand effort to stay out of it is going to fail and I’m going to have to do my time.

Not today. Not tonight. Maybe not for quite a few more nights after this. But fuck it, I’m still not poisoning Hunter Kershaw’s life by inviting him into mine. I don’t deserve anyone like him even looking at me. I’m lucky I’ve got that. I’m lucky he wants to have elicit jam sessions with me where we play music our boss despises and it’s half because Rico despises it. I want to stay lucky this time.

So no, I’m still not going to try and have that good night Darcy wanted me to have several weeks ago and go and talk to Hunter until I end up being his yeowling, begging sex-slave. Now that I’ve got Rico’s new trailer straight and set up for me to do my job in, and now that I’ve had my jam session on Fantasma and my college rock fix to boot, I’m going to turn in, jerk my dick off thinking about Hunter and enjoy how even after six months on the road with him, the secret thoughts where he makes me come are the one thing that stop me being angry about how I fucked things up with Bonnie. I should be on these tours waiting to go home to her at the end. I should have completed my community service and finished college all in the same year, and then I would be free for good. I should have waited.

Instead I snapped one day when my comserv supervisor docked me an hour. One stupid hour. Why did it even set me off? Why did I have to go and be chimp-mode Alex right when I needed to be a grown up and just deal with shit?

‘Look, I was on the phone for that hour instead of picking up trash because my friend’s sick and there’s issues I can’t avoid, and I didn’t even want that call but his psychiatrist said it was urgent that we talked together, and how can I go to the hospital when I’m here? Doing com-serv. Picking up little bits of trash because that’s somehow more important than looking after a person.’

‘Mr Shaeffer.’ Like calling me that took the edge off her. ‘I’m sorry about your problems.’ Was she fuck. ‘But we’re here to pick up trash. You spent an hour not picking up trash, and that means the others get to log that hour and you don’t.’

I should have taken it. I should have handled it the way someone with a smarter head would have. IE Someone like Hunter, who life could throw anything at and he’d do the right thing. Instead I did what I’d always resisted doing to my mother, to any teacher who ever disciplined me unfairly, to Dad after his worst behaviour. To anyone. I turned to that dog, stared her down, let her walk back towards the bus and I gave it to her.

‘You bitch.’ That turned everyone’s heads pretty quick. ‘What is it, you don’t like cats? You dock me an hour when someone else needed my time more than you did? well you’re lucky. There are cats who’d give you fucking claws for that.’

Needless to say, I wasn’t allowed back on the bus. I walked all the way back into Cedar Rapids knowing I was probably going to be arrested for threatening her even though technically I hadn’t and might just get away with it if anyone corroborated how I’d said what I’d said, but who was I kidding? I was imagining her getting a claw swipe. I’d gotten away with a lot already in the eyes of many people, most of all Mom and Dad, but implying I might have done something like that? That was going to tear it almost as much as actually doing it.

That’s when I knew it was get out of town time. My first lucky break was knowing I’d already been offered a chance. That tour bus that was in town with Albino Dragons needed a new tech. I’d said no thanks, I had stuff I had to finish before I could take off on the touring life. Was it too late to change my mind? As it turned out, no. I had a condition to add though: I was going to change my name, and they’d have to help me live as my new identity, including by paying me in cash because I no longer wanted to use the bank account in my real name.

So I became Dylan Highwood. Who’s now trying not to be ashamed of one day three and half years ago while he makes himself come thinking about a guy he can’t have.

It’s not working. If this keeps happening, I’m going to crack within a few more months and decide it’s time to go back to Cedar Rapids and face the one kind of music I’d almost kill to avoid. That can’t happen, the killing part or the facing. I can’t leave this tour, because I can’t walk away from Hunter, Darcy or even Rico like this. Not after everything Rico’s done to help me stay here. He might be a dick, but he’s my kind of dick, and besides, I’m worse, and as long as everyone’s attention is on Rico then it’s not on me and what I’ve done.

So falling asleep limp and ashamed of myself is okay, because tomorrow I’ll be ready to get up and go to work again, making sure my forty-five year old boss isn’t reduced to the level of a five year old whose parents won’t buy him a toy if one of his grown-up toys is even slightly out of tune. That will clear these vibes out of me. Maybe I’ll just invite Hunter in to look at my new set-up. If I play it right, I might even be able to get Rico to let Hunter travel in here with me if I say that I’ve gotten used to the way Hunter snores and now I’m finding I can’t get used to falling asleep myself, because without Hunter all I can hear is the bus and I hate that sound (I actually don’t, but I’m getting creative already…and that’s how I know that whole idea is too risky and I need to stop it now and just fall asleep with only Rico’s awesome collection of guitars for company.)

There’s a knock on the door. I’m ignoring it.

About a minute passes and the knock comes again. This time there’s a voice.

‘Hey snep, I know you’re not asleep. It’s barely eight o-clock.’

Oh no. Seriously no.

This time the knocking’s insistent. ‘Open the goddamn door, snow ball! Come on, don’t be an asshole.’

‘I’m working!’ I decide, in my most irritated voice.

Laughter follows. ‘You’re in bed, you little liar! I can hear the covers moving.’

No bluff. Hunter always wears ear-plugs so despite being pounded with drum sound all the time, his hearing really would be that good.

‘Come on you fucker, let me in. There’s something I wanna talk to you about.’

Christ, Darcy, what the hell have you done? Hunter wouldn’t be here saying that if you hadn’t said something. Probably tried the same sort of act on him that you did on me in reverse, only he didn’t just bite, he took the bait knowing it was bait, and not with his mouth, so now he’s going to flash out of the water and unleash some sort of hell on not only the fisherman, but any goddamn thing he wants. Just so he can laugh and say ‘Surprise!’ afterwards.

Goddamn it.

Why am I about to open the door?

[simonh]

When did you become a Hallmark card hippie? Joy, love, peace. Puke! Where's the rage, anger, hatred? Reading these lately is like listening to an old preacher drone on and on at Sunday mass. —ERMINE, GRAND MARAIS, USA Dear Ermine,

Things changed after my first son died. I changed. For better or for worse, the rage you speak of lost its allure and, yes, perhaps I became a Hallmark card hippie. Hatred stopped being interesting. Those feelings were like old dead skins that I shed. They were their own kind of puke. Sitting around in my own mess, pissed off at the world, disdainful of the people in it, and thinking my contempt for things somehow amounted to something, had some kind of nobility, hating this thing here, and that thing there, and that other thing over there, and making sure that everybody around me knew it, not just knew, but felt it too, contemptuous of beauty, contemptuous of joy, contemptuous of happiness in others, well, this whole attitude just felt, I don’t know, in the end, sort of dumb.

When my son died, I was faced with an actual devastation, and with no real effort of my own that posture of disgust toward the world began to wobble and collapse underneath me. I started to understand the precarious and vulnerable position of the world. I started to fret for it. Worry about it. I felt a sudden, urgent need to, at the very least, extend a hand in some way to assist it – this terrible, beautiful world – instead of merely vilifying it, and sitting in judgement of it.

Perhaps, Ermine, you are right, and I did, for good or ill, turn from a living shit-post into a walking Hallmark card. But, well, here we are, you and me, sending smoke signals to each other across a yawning ideological divide. Hello Ermine, I drone, hello.

Love, Nick

—Nick Cave, in The Red Hand Files #220.

[chibichibisha]

I present you... Deumine

[squirrelcrow-po3]

If it's not to much trouble, would you mind going over the reasons behind the name changes in your AU? If not all of them, then maybe just the ones you find most interesting to talk about?

hmm i tried to change names that i believed were boring or didn’t make sense

most notably is the removal of most color, -pelt, -fur, and -tail names because i just find them super uninteresting. for color, there’s so many more interesting ways to describe a cats coat color. an example is the change from whitestorm to erminestrike. his fur is white… obviously but rather than just flat out say he has white fur, it’s described through an animal. ermines are white weasels! and also a black and white moth. as for the suffix, it’s his mothers. legacy naming is more prevalent in my rewrite as well

as for characters with total renaming that don’t follow that rule. such as onestar, there’s a story reason for it. he’s called beetlefrost for two reasons. -beetle is for his black/dark brown pelt, and -frost for his white patches. but the symbolism is deeper, and his name is meant to reflect maplefire’s. beetles are pests that are known to eat away at trees. and the title of fire and ice is more or less meant to be about them, since their relationship is and will be a big theme of the plot.

and for maplefire himself? i thought straight up naming him after the fire prophecy was kinda dumb. maplefire just sounds cooler to me as well

[medicus-mortem]

@ikkaku-of-heart liked [+] for a starter.

   The smirk on his features is a little smugger than usual, a spring in his step indicating he’s proud of himself. Law pushes through a couple of the crew, the scent of alcohol coming off of them particularly strong. Seems like Ermine spilled some beer on Malamute and now their laughing about it. Although, Law does hear something a little annoyed in the husky heart hairstyled man. Sure enough he throws a punch a second later which only earns some more good natured laughter from Ermine, his braids shaking as he chuckles.

   Law’s own low chuckle rings out, the doctor amused by just how much fun his family is having. He turns on the spot, taking a breath and eyes scanning the whole crew filling this wooden pub. A rare thing to see a building made entirely of wood in this town. Most are carved into the red stone cliffs the village clings to. Makes the bar stand out and appear somewhat precarious as it juts out into the open air between the canyon walls.

   Captain’s searching gaze soon finds Ikkaku nursing her drink at one side of the room. Grinning, he makes a beeline for her, pushing through people until he’s at her side. When he gets there he is quick to throw an arm over her shoulders and tug her into his side. A knowing smirk takes over his lips as he notices where her gaze was going. Soon Law’s own eyes scan the bar itself. The Hearts might have basically taken over the establishment but other patrons are here too. Some have even joined the fun of this visiting pirate crew.

   “So ...,” Law starts, voice dropping low. “Who’s the dumb shit you’re plannin’ to do tonight?”

[cdyssey]

Mother

Summary: After her confrontation with Mrs. Coulter, Lyra and Pan find it hard to go to sleep that night.

A companion piece to this. / AO3 Link

—

That night, curled up in their voluminous bed, she and Pantalaimon remain skin-close, Lyra holding his ermine form like a small child so often does their dæmon, with all tenderness, with unconditional love. 

For some reason that she hasn’t quite worked out yet, adults don’t really hold their dæmons all that much.

Which is a shame, she thinks.

Maybe they would all be so much kinder if they did.

“What do you think Mrs. Coulter’s doin’ right now?” Lyra mutters sleepily, softly stroking Pan’s fur.

“Not hurting us anymore,” he replies simply, the words laced with quiet pain.

“Yeah.”

Silently, they think to themselves that this isn’t strictly true. Just cos’ the monkey’s claws aren’t on Pan’s back anymore, doesn’t mean that they’re not still hurting. 

They loved her.

“She was angry at those men,” Lyra says, a pleading note in her voice.

“That isn’t an excuse.”

She tries a different track.

“I should’a kept the alethiometer under my pillow.”

“We have to keep it safe. The Master of Jordan told us to.”

Lyra feels a wetness pricking her eyes in the darkness. Unwilling to jostle Pan, she can’t raise a hand to harshly scrub it away.

“I shouldn’t’ve brought up Lord Asriel.”

Pan softly licks her face, his scratchy tongue soothing against her hot skin.

“But then we wouldn’t know that he’s your father.”

Lyra briefly shuts her eyes at this unwelcome reminder, swallowing a lump in the column of her throat.

Lord Asriel, her beloved uncle—that scary, scary man—is her father.

She has a father.

Whenever she’d used to ask about her father, Lord Asriel would never give her a straight answer.

“He was a stupid man,” he’d sometimes claim about his "brother," his eyes flat and cold. “Always missing the trees for the stars.”

And when she’d ask about her mother, the coldness of his voice wouldn’t necessarily melt, but Stelmaria would growl gently at this faceless woman’s mention. Sometimes, Lyra liked to imagine that this little gesture meant that Lord Asriel had been in love with her dead mother this whole time; she would construct grand fairytales in her head that always seemed to end with her finally having two parents to love and be loved by, even though it was childish.

Irrational.

Dumb.

Her mother was dead.

“She looked a lot like you,” he would eventually shrug, glancing away. 

Lyra never found enough courage to ask whether that was a good thing or a bad one.

“I hope she’s still out there, Pan,” she whispers softly, clutching her dæmon all the closer, “and that she’s searching for me. Right now. At this very instant.”

“I hope so, too,” Pantalaimon returns, leaning into her embrace with all the atoms in his body. 

(He needs her to know that she is loved.)

“She would love me so much,” Lyra yawns, her eyes feeling heavy. “She’d take you and me on all sorts of adventures.”

“She’d never hurt us.”

“Yeah.”

And they smile a little to themselves at the thought, this gentle dream of a gentle mother—someone who looks a lot like Lyra and loves them and takes them on adventures and never hurts them.

As they drift off to sleep, they tell themselves that she’s out there somewhere.

That she’s coming for them one day.

That she could show up any time now.

(She outside on the balcony, passed out, drunk.)

[deepintoforestwego]

Is there anything behind my face?

She is born knowing three things.

First is that her skin is as white as snow, her lips as red as blood, her hair as black as ebony.

Second is that seven times seven men had died so that she should live.

Third is, she shouldn't exist.

( Harsh thing for child to know, much less from moment of her birth. And harsher yet, she is right.

Were we willing to waste time in such way, we could debate about morality,  about whether sins of parents transfer to children, about personal responsibility and knowledge men shouldn't wield, about whether you can blame her for what her beauty drives men to anymore then you can blame fire for burning those who get close- but that isn't kind of right we are talking about here.

It is a simple truth, written in bones of world, in lifeblood of universe, in skin of night and face of day- the snow shouldn't become person, because it is impossible.

But magic never cared about such things.)

She has feared her mother from very start, you see, and perhaps that is where trouble started, or mayhaps that saved her life. She knew she shouldn't be, you see, but very little else, as she was still just a newborn, and had never seen human before, though parts of her belonged to them, of course.

And queen may  have not slept in while, and was rather cold and hungry and scared, and quite dainty woman to be honest, but she had this way of holding herself that made people defer to her, and she was all wrapped up in ermine and gold velvet and pearls, and she oozed magic like an old fish oozed stench, and child could see bargain wrapping  up around two of them, and well she knew nothing of sorcery and it's limitations, so she must be forgiven for assuming this woman was deity who created her.

(Like I said, it was bad idea all from the start.)

'' My goddess. You who made me.'' Said the girl, for her mother could be clever and careful when she put her mind to it,  and had requested for girl to have knowledge befitting her age and station, because everything else would have been rather awkward for her, and more importantly bad for her mother's plans.

''Not exactly, my dear. I am a human, I am afraid.'' The queen answered, after some consideration, because  she did like being called goddess, even though she associated it more with her young lovers and her poor mother, but it would be quite strange for princess to go around talking like that, and even queen, as hungry for flattery as she was, was made uncomfortable by thought of girl meant to be her daughter worshipping her.

''My mistress. You who own me.'' Girl stated, slowly, drawing out words, her throat feeling quite funny, speaking for first time, as languages and social norms and concepts and table manners filled her head as flood fills empty house, for girl had no memories and experiences to trouble incoming information.

''Well! That was nicely put, though accent could use some work, but not befitting somebody of your station. Try again, dear.'' Said the queen, as her face settled down in an expression more befitting on a cat who just snatched a canary, and closed her eyes, her eyelids fluttering as she imagined her servants speaking in that delightfully obedient tone, so sure of their place, below her, defined by her.

‘My mother. You who gave me life.’‘ She says, still kneeling, and years later she will forget, or try to, bury it down, of how the queen's s smile grew when she heard those words, how she sat down and embraced still kneeling girl, and flinched when her warm hands touched cold, hard skin. It bruised her arms a bit, as if she had tried to hug a statue left out too long in winter's winds.

''Yes, my dear.'' Queen said, clutching her dark hair in her fingers, embracing her so hard that she almost had trouble breathing, and breathed in her daughter's smell,  harsh and sweet aroma of pitch, the comforting  freshness of newly fallen snow, the sharp smell of iron and salt.

The princess, who still didn't know what perfumes were, smelled her mother, the scent of flowers and herbs permeating her clothing, and underneath it something gross and hot (she had not yet known what sweat and soft human skin were like) and wondered why they were so different, and decided that didn't matter.

**

They arrive to place that girl nameless supposes is to be her home in quarter of hour, faster than the queen had ever journeyed before, for  magic is ever fed by passion and from the heart, and queen had been almost drunk on pride of her success, joy from what would that mean for her, from terror and euphoria girl's beauty awoke in her, and as she hadn't slept and eaten in some time, and had almost died, her emotions running high and mad, so it wouldn't be hard for her to jump over to another country.

''This is my castle.'' The mother tells her, showing her wooden ring fortress, as they stand before wooden doors of main hall, and great noise is coming from it. Were somebody to watch, they would probably think girl emotionless, the hollow heartless thing, for she shows neither fear nor wonder (well, if she wasn't so beautiful, that is, and they were able to focus on something else other than it). But truth is, she is still far too young to know about wealth and royal power, and has seen nothing but blizzard and woman she believes to be greatest sorceress in world. There is nothing yet ingrained in her to respond.

''Inside is your father, the king.'' Now this word sparks something in her, for the queen has judged it the knowledge very important, that she must learn as soon as possible. The girl knows now, that king is the most important man in world, and that if she is to be good she will be his heir and continue to make her mother proud and powerful.

She isn't sure she wants to be powerful. But mother is, and mother wants more, and mother made her so that is probably good.

She also knows what a father is. A male parent, who names you, one whom you have to respect, obey, love... but not as much as mother.

Doors open, and noise hurts but she doesn't yet know how to react. She follows mother's lead, and steps inside.

And rest of world stops for everybody else.

***

''My weregild.'' The mother coos, almost mews  as she watches seven little bodies swing on rope, their faces that awful, strange purple people call blue for some reason though it's more of grey and lilac with pinch of black and scarlet, and smile doesn't leave her face, though at one point it grows stale and uncertain.

The princess learns what brothers are only later, when she has learnt enough to recognize guilt for what it is.

She doesn't yet have name for feelings that possess her, the way her stomach churns and turns  at sight of those small, rotting bodies (she has never learnt what death was, it had been built in her from before she was an inkling of thought), swaying on wind as ravens come to feast.

Were she just a spell- child, body built and operated by magic, she would have felt nothing. She would have danced and spoke as her maker demanded. Were she a changeling, or just a creature snow and blood and ebony in truth, she would have looked with curiosity, or apathy, and noted how it was unjust, and how petty and strange humans are. And were she truly her mother's daughter, she would have said it was just, for as she had no childhood, so they should be denied to grow old.

But she was neither of those, so she learnt regret.

***

She doesn't like to think about her name. Much less discuss it. If you try to ask her about it, today, well good luck. Hope you will make it out with some teeth intact at least.

She has one name, and hundreds.  It is same name, but always so different, like light reflecting off from one snowflake, viewed from different angles.   Run away to so many countries, run for so long, and of course it is changed so many times, of course it is translated when she has such dumb name. She hates the original too, but she hates variations even more- what right do they have to change her name, to change anything about her and her damned story? And change it they do, oh yes, cutting off parts and rearranging them, calling her Snowdrop and Snow White and Snežana and Blanche-Neige and Branca de Neve and Albanix and Sneewittchen and Schneewittchen and she can't number them all, snow and whiteness everywhere...

She is well aware that her name is literal and obvious and dumb, and if you ever point it out it won't go well for you. Only once did one person ( a beautiful princess who belongs to death and dreams like her, and almost as much to flowers and briars as she belongs to snow and blood, those daughters of woods and curses), with accidental addition of too much drink, get her to talk about that, and this is what she said.

''Don't know who called me that first. I think it came from some poor bard who burst in songs about me until he died from  lack of food and sleep. Detracted from glorifying me, see. Or wait, not a bard, bard's apprentice, about twelve. Might have had some Sight within him. Or it was my father, doesn't matter.

People picked it up because it was only fitting name, see. I couldn't be saddled with normal name, I was above it- and anybody else with that name would forever think of me, and it would never feel right for them. Except that now in some countries they do use my name, or version of it as a normal name so what waste of time, right?

Anyway point is they wanted to call me by something that could properly describe me and Beautiful was far too tacky and Ebony Black weird and Blood Red is just creepy so, here we are! Cheers!

The bitch never called me anything. Just my princess, my dear, my daughter. My, my, my. Always the same shit.'' And of course, this is the lie, though one she prefers to believe.

Truth is, she forgot  it. She forgot all names, and only roles remained.

***

The queen did one true kindness to her, because anything else would have been incredibly harmful for her goals, and because she wasn't wholly bereft of morals and reason, and still it hurt.

She had made it, when she cast her spell, when she screamed her wish in reality, when she bargained, that her daughter would have mind befitting her seeming age. Because stupid daughter was useless, and better no child than one that had that kind of problems (queen was biggest supporter of leaving people who were anything less than perfect, or at least acceptable, to die in woods, whether they were loving father gone senile or caring brother whose arm had to be amputated), and because she hated associating with such people- and in her mind, whoever had limping leg or trembling hands, or who had problems with reading or remembering faces was worse than animal, for animals could be useful, and toothless dogs were to be put down.

The girl had barely settled in her new form, though she walked with grace unparalleled and strode with pride and strength only queen herself could outshine, when she began changing and growing. She didn't know how to feel about that, as she wasn't normal girl, and already half way past through puberty, and nobody would ever tease her, or think her anything less but most beautiful creature they had ever seen.

(Creature. A step up from thing.)

Still, it felt strange, and uncomfortable, and very wicked to have her change and grow before she had truly had chance to enjoy her girlhood. The queen, who was very clever, and knew how to nurse man from brink of death as well as she knew how to craft a drink to paralyze an ox for six hours, explained her how everything about her body worked, and how those changes were completely natural, and how she would soon grow taller and how her face would get slimmer and more mature. In fact, she was growing up at same pace as most girls did, and that delighted queen greatly, for woman grown was an enemy, and eternally young girl was useless, and not to mention  a great annoyance.

(That was part of why she waited so long, until she was ready to cast her spell. It took time to find information, and to convince everybody she had lost her reason, but she wanted to put it off as far as possible, because raising child was such dull and taxing affair, and she really didn't need additional source of wrinkles.)

The princess had never woken up her parents and nurses in middle of night with her incessant crying. She had never fallen and scraped her knee and broken in hysterics. She had never climbed tree. She had never played ball. She had never been carried in her father's arms. She had never been told bedtime stories. She had never learned to read, or been tutored in counting. Her mother had never explained to her how to comb her hair. She had never had it explained to her how children are born, nor what marriage was. She had never muddied her dress. She had never played with kittens.

(She had never needed to  have dying explained to her.)

She wasn't naive (spell-girls built by men often were, inexperience and weakness and dependence of child in an adult body, but her mother had grander, more arrogant fantasies, though no less sick), she wasn't stupid, she wasn't lost. She had grown, and adapted to her world, and soon all things she missed, all knowledge and experience she wasn't born with, granted by magic, became part of her.

But lacuna where her childhood should have been remained, raw and gaping, as if somebody had pulled out all her teeth before she had chance to bite a crust of bread.

***

She learns at her mother's knee.

She learns from her father, of course, because she is made the heir, and she learns history and geography  and riding and politics and swordfighting and wielding axe, but it doesn't matter that much. Her father is a pale figure in her life, and ordinary man trembling before her, dead when she is three, and her mother walks through world as if she is above it, and hemlock and lily-of-the-valley grow behind her.

There was much to learn at the queen's feet, even things no child should learn, even things queen never intended to teach her. Part of it was that such were times- in those days castles were small and wooden, and courts less formal and complicated, and queens themselves worked, mending clothes and pulling their weight. It could have lessened them, made them normal women in eyes of their subjects, but her mother knew how to wrap dignity and mystery around herself. She knew how to make people kneel.

Her mother taught her domestic arts, of course. She was good, dutiful wife, and more over not sort of woman who shrank away from her duty and hard work. But more important, she taught her daughter, though girl could never be sure whether by accident or intent, how to look beautiful when doing it, how to look powerful as she spun thread, exalted as she made her own bed. When queen mended her husband's head, he lowered his head and reverently expressed his gratitude.

She taught her spellcraft, by observance at least.  It was power that queen couldn't truly have shared with her even if she wanted (and she would have rather sheared her own hair than given up one of her secrets). Her mother was skilled, learned mage, if not particularly powerful by talent alone. She drew her power from gems, herbs, potions, from rings that turned you invisible, cloaks that allowed you to fly, seven mile boots.

Snow White had leanings of witch, it seemed. Hers was power of rituals and motions, of rites and ceremonies, of dances under harvest moon that changed fate of kings, of hair ribbons cut by seven grandmothers over mountain river on which mill was built to make friendship sour...  or she would have, had she ever been taught. But she had been made heir, and there was much to learn, and being witch or priestess wouldn't have been good for her (pity, she would have made a good völva, she was pretty sure). She did pick up few things, though, but it was unavoidable.

Blood and mirrors, all she learnt.

***

She wondered what it was that made her beautiful.

Her skin? Her skin, so white that it blinded, white as snow that covered ground swiftly after the last harvests, like snow in which travellers  met their demise, like snow that stopped wars. Her skin, which was always smooth and tight and hard, like marble, whose touch was always cool, which didn't grow blue even when she stood wet on roof during whole winter night, which always carried chill of a dead man in itself, even during midsummer.

Her lips? Her lips, with their perfect shape, and their full colour, which never paled or chapped, as if they were painted on, colour of blood seeping from fresh venison,  colour of blood gushing from child's cut arteries, lips that tasted of iron and salt and minced flesh, that left bruises on cheeks they kissed, which could withstand warmth of broth just pulled from hearth (though she despised heat to such amount that she felt uneasy to spend more than few hours in room in which fireplace was lit).

Her hair?  Her hair, so long and wild,  spreading out like crown of ancient tree, slipping down below her waist, and yet somehow it  never got tangled up in world around it, slipping like snake through all obstacles, black as ebony, as handles of spears that pierced children, as frames of windows that kept out wind and rain.  Left and right it reached, like shadow of branches, like hands of bogeys, and never it got tangled, never did it get torn or weak.

Some said that when she had been growing up, that she had never had to suffer zits, or growth spurts, or ungainly limbs, that she had simply slipped in perfect ladylike adulthood. Others yet said that she suffered all indignities of childhood, of being teenager, and yet she was most beautiful of them all.

She wondered what it was that made people beautiful. There was woman with most stunning purple eyes, like lilac blossoms, like dusk sky, and people agreed she was very beautiful, but were disgusted by sight of her shoulders, filled with  short, fat, coarse black hairs. There was tall man, very strong and muscled, in way that would have drawn him much attention, were it not for his crooked yellow teeth, dull chin and broken nose.  There were children who had cutest, sweetest faces, with shining eyes and soft lips, who walked with bent backs and reedy fingers. It seemed all very much strange and whimsical and cruel to her, and very much useless and foolish.

She was beautiful.  No, she was fair. Were she malnourished and her face slashed and mutilated, were she turned in beast, in worm or featherless bird (those two were equally dreary things, in her mother's opinion) still she would have been the best of them.  When she came to doors, though they were closed, inside men waited and stopped breathing, awaiting her. They trailed after her, excited to earn her favour. Still she was a girl, and magic inside her was settling, so she wasn't fairest in the world, but one day wars would be waged for her, because of her, in her name. One day, when she had grown bitter and harsh and so much angrier, at gaze of her people would prostate themselves, and shake from being in same room with her, and they would not sleep, memories muddled and drunk, and in dreams they would swear to her again and again, for fear and love would mingle in one.

Her mother was beautiful, and sorceress, and she had killed and fucked and loved,  and she had much gold, and she could make fields prosper and cows miscarry with her spells, and men dreaded her, and respected her, and loved her. Her grandmother called her Freyja made human, and paid for it.

Snow White had been called goddess, and valkyrie, and many more things. And she may have possessed spark of that true, primordial beauty, but she was mortal still. Gods were born and could die but not like men. Snow White breathed, and slept, and she could cut herself, and she could get lost, and she had thrown tantrums before, and were you to cut her throat she would die. She was not a goddess, to rule over skies and dead, at best she was an image, a shadow, a mask,  shallow surface layer of divine beauty, not enough to charm stars in kneeling before her, but heavy enough that it crushed her.

(When she was young, she saw her mother's mirror once. It's frame was twisted and strained thing, contorted in ways that were hard to look at, like a  dying snake experiencing a seizure. The glass was colour of frozen mercury, and reflection in it wasn't opposite of reality, and sometimes it churned and twisted, making little waves, and always it whispered.

Most people stayed away from it, and even the queen couldn't bear to be too long in room with it, but the princess was drawn to it, like iron to magnet.

''Oh. You are like me.'' Whispered the mirror, in toneless voice that echoed in her head, and it pulsed like heart, and writhed  like worms in waves, and sighed as she put her cold fingers over it's surface, neither chill nor warm.)

***

It was easy to become a king, she learnt. You had to be born a prince, or earn king's favour, or lie to enough people so they would bow to you, or kill enough of them, preferably previous king too. All in all, it seemed very stupid and unfair to Snow White, who didn't really get why people needed kings, but said nothing because she knew what was appropriate, and because she was raised to inherit kingdom and didn't really think of how unjust it was outside of random musings.

It wasn't easy to become a queen, no matter what some thought and said. Any woman could be married to king, depending on how picky he was, and how much politics demanded from him, and how much he disrespected her rights. But only few became queens, true rulers, because they were taught not to seek respect and power, because they were beaten back, because game was set against them, because they were declawed and defanged and chained since earliest age, because they were taught to find pride and comfort in being silenced and starved. It took certain rare amount of cleverness and stubbornness and dedication, and, perhaps, ruthlessness, to become queen.

But Snow White didn't have to worry about that. Her mother loved her, and worked hard to ensure that her daughter would never have to go through all the trouble and misery she had to dredge through, and still she would get so much more. It was so hard for her poor mother, after all, to stand and suggest her idea to the king as he was busy being enraptured by his daughter.

How could he refuse her? How could he name anybody else but his most incredible daughter as his heir (the queen gritted her teeth), how could he dishonour her by not offering her everything he had? And would not people rebel if anybody else ruled them, would not enemies beg to be stricken down by her? So he thought, and declared, and people were outraged and shocked until they had seen her, and then ambassadors returned to their kings weeping, telling them they have been become traitors, for never could their hearts belong to anybody but queen Snow White.

Thus, thought it was expected that she would be married, for that is what normal people did, and beauty didn't prevent people from grumbling when they weren't near her, there was never  much pressure for that, and everybody understood that no man would be worthy of her, and all would be blessed to have her as bride, and they would only be consorts, never kings.

It was taken for granted that there would be no problem finding suitors for her, aside from possibly having to deal with wars that rejected suitors would bring to their footsteps ( something that would easily be dealt with, not only because the king was good warrior, and the queen  even better sorceress, but because any invader would have to carve their path through whole nation of berserkers ready to die for their princess, and even more ready to tear apart any who would dare to try to steal her away). It was also taken for granted that king would have to pay no dowry, and that indeed princes would be ones  bleeding their people dry in hopes of winning her over.

As was only proper, the queen had been one to choose her son-in-law, for the princess had asked her so, for her mother had assured her countless times of how much she cared, how smart she was, and how much more experienced, and she would be able to choose only the best for her dear daughter, a man whose kingdom would always provide for her, a man who would be her age and always kind to her, for those were hefty favours to ask in marriage, her mother told her. Kind husband was something you had to earn, as the queen did, but since she was such kind mother and her daughter so special, she would get all the spoils without any work.

And truly, the queen chose well. Prince was the same (apparent) age as Snow White, and he was sole heir of nearby kingdom, richer and greater than one  her father ruled (so greater that only thing that kept it from swallowing up their home, aside from their king's courtesy, was the queen, who knew all plans and desires of their neighbours, and could hold off the harvest and spring for years). He was said to be canny but honest, and rather good with sword and bow but pleasant, never one to seek out bloodshed. He was honourable and fair, and though well liked by ladies, hadn't dishonoured even one.

It sounded like bullshit to her, to be honest. Even her father, who was fair and wise, had his moments- he loved brawl, especially when he broke somebody's bones. And Snow White, well, she kept herself away from people, and never harmed anybody (but never helped out either), and still she had cruelty built in down to smallest piece of herself. Still, there were no whispers, no juicy gossip, and mirror found nothing unsatisfying and dangerous about him (for her mother would never lend her greatest treasure to somebody who would damage it), and so it was that Snow White was to be engaged.

The princess had met his parents, once or twice, for they sometimes rode out near borders of her country, and she had scried them, once she learnt where she was to be wed, in bronze mirror she had and rarely used for anything else. The king was thin, wiry man, with wild graying beard and wry voice, covered in pale old scars, and missing few teeth, and otherwise utterly unremarkable. His wife, a merchant's daughter they said he married for love, was short and warm woman, as sweet  and well beloved as fat, greased meal in late autumn, with face as round as apple and eyes like chestnuts, or so flatterers said.

The prince was very handsome, they said. He was of fine face and figure, strong and healthy, with teeth that were nearly white, and warm eyes like amber, with flickers of gold inside it. His skin was of warm, ruddy tone, and he moved with energetic, dangerous strength and grace, as if he had fire inside himself. With his auburn hair, like wood in fall, and his clothes, all gold and russet, he was said to be as beautiful as sunrise.

He wasn't, and she envied him for that. She envied them all, him for his ordinary beauty, his mother for her soft, sweet features, his father for being unremarkable and gray.

( Snow White was a human girl, and so she was often prey to all misfortunes that plagued them, even teen woes. But as wrapped up in magic and mystery as she was, even that had to be unusual.

Truth is, Snow White is envious of everybody. There isn't a single face, single body she doesn't desire more than hers. She desires form that some would find boring, nothing special, perhaps even funny or repulsive.  She envies her mother's fallen rival, her father's former lady, her brother's mother, for she is famous for her eyes as blue as sea, but princess finds neither salt nor waves nor fishes nor thousand shades and forms of water in them. She envies the cook's apprentice, for though she is known as very attractive woman, and it brings her trouble occasionally, she can talk to her brothers without them shaking with glee as they look at her. She envies her prince's mother, who is loved and respected for reasons that have nothing to do with beauty.

She has had her fair share of crushes, never acted on because they weren't appropriate for somebody of her status, because her mother wouldn't be satisfied with her choice, because they couldn't stop drooling when she passed. And so they all died, candle flames extinguished before they were anything more than a spark, leaving her to choke on guilt and longing and bitterness, to suffocate in impossible, petty desires.

She had never desired anybody because of their looks. She couldn't, because she had never been able to perceive beauty in people, because she had herself to rate them against. She looked at finest examples of human beauty and found thousand flaws, looked at them and saw how artificial it was, how dependent on right time and place and taste. Snow White could be skinned alive and have her bones broken and her head split open  and covered in dirt and yet anywhere in world they would proclaim her the most beautiful.

But she couldn't be loved or desired. She was too stark and sharp and terrible for that. She wasn't a girl whose hand you could hold, woman who you could lay against, a person to hug and kiss and laugh with. Everything in her was hard and cold, like ice sculpture. She was there to be looked at, not loved. Because even as humans adored beautiful people, they didn't love ones who had truly been beautiful.

Human beauty was shallow, false and thin. All humans were equally beautiful, and they just had to work more or less on convincing others to find them attractive. But Snow White bore true beauty, heavy as mountain, truer than her father's blade. Primordial, essential, actual, her beauty was a true, divine thing, real and defined in mutable, shapeless world of human misconceptions. She was a marble statue trapped among embroidered caricatures, and she envied them so much.)

So she held no hopes, and received a grand surprise. For though her prince's eyes seemed ready to fall out of his skull, and bliss sparkled in them as tears gathered on edges, after some time he composed himself and gave her warm, cocky smile, and bowed and kissed her hand and talked with her.

They talked. They rode on horses. He laughed at her embroidery. She rolled eyes at his jokes. They showed each other their favourite hiding places. They sparred with hands and swords. He lost to her in race and she in archery. They walked in woods and put their knowledge of animals and herbs to trial. She learnt that he was truly as good and honest as he was rumoured to be, but easily bored, and he could get lost daydreaming, and loved to go sight seeing, and fussed too much about his clothes. He learnt that she liked to forage berries, and kept falcons, and hated jewellery, and was horrible dancer. They had even argued few times!

She fell in love with him, a little. Enough that they kept contact when she ran away. Enough that he wanted to expose queen's crimes. Enough that he wanted to give her honour of burial. Enough that when he died, she walked away.

Enough that he said nothing, when she commissioned shoes for her mother.

('' I wish he'd at least pretend to treat me like person.'' She had whispered, standing alone in his father's corridors, and when she met him she believed he was somehow immune to her beauty , that he saw person underneath.

''Stop with that!'' She shouted, when men offered her their hearts, and they did, and only later she noticed that some people adored her in quiet, steadfast way, no less terrible but much subtler, because they didn't want to die for her, they wanted to serve her.

''I love you.'' She told him, and of course he said yes, of course he loved her, he had to, even as he laid dying, and years later she kept wondering whether she imagined something russet and golden running at end of corridors.)

***

When she is queen, she will keep her chambers  bare.

Everything about her will be bare, and simple, and cold. They will say, her husband’s people, when they are far away from her, that it is because she comes from colder, humbler, more barbarian kingdom that she is unused to fine luxury (she likes simple things because she spent so much time in the woods, they say, not understanding how rich, how elaborate, how beautiful everything was there, roots  mingling and binding each other in knotwork, impossible shapes in bark, flowers worth more than jewels everywhere around her.)

There will be no excess, no luxury in her sanctuary. No tapestries, no costly furniture, no mirrors. Only bare, chill stone and bed to uphold a minor illusion of normalcy ( a girl of ice and death born, she has slept on Forest floor, and dreamed in mines, and slumbered in coffin of glass and gold). No satin, no velvet, no silk, no gowns or embroidery or crown, for she has no need of them.

No jewellry. Nobody will again tell her she is as precious as gems at her throat.

***

She doesn't dream. She remembers. She remembers memories that are not hers, lodged in between her flesh and bones.

She remembers winter. Always, always it is with her, more crucial than breath, than her name, almost as important as her beauty.  She remembers cold of Niflheimr and of coming of first spring. She remembers snowflakes forming in clouds and melting on human faces, the mountain tips lined with white, the ice covering pines, the frost on abandoned blades, the  rime that gathers at hem of lost shawls, the chill creeping over river's stones, the snowdrops rising from forming poodles, the  crunch of frozen ground as her mother goes to border of Forest.

She remembers having bark, which protected her from rain, and wind, from cold and bugs. She remembers having roots, digging through soil, pulling water and minerals from ground, reaching out to taste sunlight. She remembers how it felt when sap coursed through her, her branches swaying on wind, her leaves remaining green even in winter as those of her neighbours turned brown and red and fell, remembers feeding on rotting flowers and grass caressing her trunk, the seeds falling and spreading, birds making nest in her crown, the queen's knife cutting branches off, off, off.

She remembers being warm, and flowing, being inside the veins. She remembers being child crying for parents lost to plague, the leper cast out of town, the old woman begging for scraps. She remembers warm, concerned voices of mothers who aren't hers, remembers being father, and having gray hair, and being hungry, and told she is ugly (in waking world she cannot imagine that feeling bad, but in dream it is, remembers childhoods that  aren't hers. She remembers being scared of bleeding, being cold, and queen  saving her/him/them, of being servants and obeying all her wishes, being trusted, and she remembers the blade, the curse, flowing over figure made out of snow until it turns pink, staining  and clotting upon ebony talismans.

She dreams of hands upon her throat, and dying, and melting, losing everything, going to no hall, rejoining earth and water and coldness, and it is so peaceful that she almost regrets when she wakes up...

These are terrors that follow her in her dreams. In waking world, she cannot escape seven boys, running after her like most loyal dogs, begging to serve her.

***

At edge of every kingdom there is Forest.

There is difference between  a forest and the Forest, just as there is difference between beautiful person and Snow White. The first is just bunch of trees and animals, which, perhaps bit scary at night, can be cut down and cleared away. But the Forests, are so much more, existing outside of civilized world, thinking and feeling and hungering, holding darkness and treasures and monsters within. Place where secrets are born, where miracles go to die, where Quests are done.

The Forests don't like people. They say that Forests were forged from Ymir's dying curse, and therefore there is terrible, chaotic power in them. Thousands of years ago, they marched against them, marched against whole world, and in three days humanity was crushed. For the Forests were grown before intelligent life came to be, and they despised men and their accomplishments. And so no weapon, no spell, no thing made by mortal hands held power within Forests.  The strongest sorcerers were rendered powerless, and sharpest blade failed to cut.

It waits for her. Castle where she grew was far away from Forests, so far away that you couldn't even see it on horizon, even as a dark line, but Snow White felt it every day. Being a human girl, somewhat, she didn't know how to feel about it, and sometimes she could ignore it so well that she forgot it's existence, and sometimes it occupied all her thoughts.

(Were she only a spell-child, she would have noticed nothing. Were she a changeling, each day she would have felt same, and knew exact reason why. But mortal she was, and thus she was plagued with uncertain heart.)

Whether she wants or not, someday she will go to the Forest. Things like her must, just as snow must fall. She is too strange and cursed, even for a world full only of witches. She is meant for legends, and some tale will dig it's claws in her, and every tale has it's beginnings in Forest, even ones who have nothing to do with them.  And she dreads when that day comes, because in Forest no spell can last, and what shall happen to her then?

(They are at her mother's hidden halls, as they are at every of her birthdays. She is seven, but to rest of the world she is twenty. She rides out, and huntsman accompanies her.

She is always accompanied by somebody, of course, because she must be protected, because always there is danger she would be kidnapped, for who wouldn't want to possess her? The huntsman is young, and good looking, or so she supposes. To her he looks like washed out, boring bunch of bones and flesh, but other girls say he is handsome, and to his misfortune queen agrees. But he is young, and he wants to live, and he is smart, but he has got conscience and she is so beautiful, that he breaks down and confesses everything.

A mother willing to kill her own daughter, and eat her intestines. Sounds horrible, but once they spend some time with princess people understand, even if they believe she was born like them. To live alongside somebody so beautiful, to be outshined while you grew older, weaker, as death came closer, that was horrible enough, but knowledge that nothing you ever do will help you come even closer to impossible ideal that is Snow white is horrible enough. Nobody could live with her, no more than they could gaze in Sun for years.

And besides, beauty like that, it doesn't belong to this world, doesn't come from it, and as such isn't meant to exist there.  Beauty like that, it is meant for higher, greater places, not this dreary, low world. It is meant to be a tragedy, a warning, something to mourn for forever even if we never had it. Girls like that, they exist to be beautiful corpses, because no matter what they say, it doesn't matter because nobody will care for anything else but their faces, so this way they do favour to everybody. You can't blame the queen, they say, and after all, makes sense for one who created her to be one to get rid of her.

For first time in her measly seven years of life, Snow White understands how her mother thinks. And she knows what will happen were she to face her.

She turns, and runs in heart of the Forest, in darkness, because it's monsters are at least honest.)

***

She is five hundred and sixty three years old when she sacrifices first child to escape.

Oh, not in usual sense, not yet anyway (it will be little bit longer before she drags children to crossroads at midnight and spills their blood and cooks their hearts to buy escape). Of course, she has killed young people, and somebody's children before, some of them her own descendants, but she has never sacrificed any child. She hasn't taken something innocent and powerless and blameless and cut it's life short to buy few more seconds, because that isn't how story goes. people tell it, and they believe, and souls are dragged from death to relieve it. And hers is simplest story. The queen is powerful, and she desires her death, and Snow White runs until she is caught and put in glass coffin, and then everything begins anew.

She has lived near village for some seven years by then, wrapped up in shawls and masks, because even though it doesn't stop people from gazing in awe it stops them from kneeling, because they only feel her beauty, don't see true miracle of her face. She has kept out of troubles, and even worked in mines so help the village, and she has scried lost children and horses in ice and coins, and brought them home from deep dark woods. And yet, man whose broken leg she healed heard rumours, and connected dots, and went in wide world to tell the queen.  And what could she do, but take off her shawls and masks and go down, as they parted before her, as they knelt, and drag his only daughter from her home with but a smile.

''You did a cruel, horrible thing. You were hurting, and you wanted to settle accounts, so you decided to be unfair as well.  it didn't help you in the end, but you decided destroying something small and blameless will make you feel better.'' The old, ugly woman with burned face and shadowed hood, dressed in grey and russet  tells her, as they hide in cave, as she tends Snow White's wounds and ignores her beauty, as she holds her even as death tries to drag her down. Snow White ignores it- the world had walked over, broken and spat out Cinderella, letting her be nothing but slave, nothing but ceaseless, unpaid servant, nothing but role assigned by her story. She doesn't understand revenge because she has no hope, no happiness, no way out from her life, but Snow White won't be broken like that. Snow White will be strong for them both.

''Do you love me? Do you dare think you are worthy of  sight of me? Prove it to me!'' She roars, cackles, smirks as traitor cries, as lighting races from her mother's shining rings, and girl cries and nods, laughs and bows and jumps in front of blazing magic to protect the fairest thing in the world.

For @slavicwitchling​ ‘s birthday, hope you like it my dear. Sequel to this drabble.

[mst3kproject]

1111: Wizards of the Lost Kingdom 2

You know how Joel said the part of the movie that was ‘spilled’, the bit with David Carradine fighting the monster called the Protector, could have saved the whole film?  He lied. It’s just as dumb as the rest of the movie.  In fact, this whole film is so stupid and predictable that I’m going to have a very hard time filling two pages with my thoughts on it.  Apparently even Joel himself wished he’d found a different movie to use.

An age of darkness has fallen, and Caedmon of Nogg is the world’s last hope.  The ghost of his father, I think, or maybe Obi-Wan Kenobi, appears in a bucket of coffee and charges him with finding the Chosen One, whose pure heart will re-unite the Three Powers. The Chosen One is a skinny, hormone-suffused teenage boy named Tyor who works on a stick farm somewhere, and Caedmon trains him in wizardry while seeking out three powerful warriors: the Dark One of Eedok, Prince Ermine of Valdar, and Amathea of Fennir.  One by one, they defeat the evil wizards and gather the magical sword, chalice, and amulet that will bring peace to the world.

So, yeah, it’s less a ‘movie’ than it is a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, thrown together in five minutes after the original GM called from the side of the road with a flat tire.

It’s not at all apparent how this is a sequel to Wizards of the Lost Kingdom.  Not only are the storylines unconnected, the whole aesthetic is totally different. Where the first movie was all bright colours and friendly forest creatures, this one is brown and gray, starving peasants and grubby heroes.  It’s kind of the difference between Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Game of Thrones, although infinitely worse than either.  Still, if there’s any sort of connection to be found, I should be able to figure it out. After all, one of my running gags on this blog is The Movies Are All Coming Together, in which I find connections between unrelated films to assemble them into a single, great, incomprehensible movie.

For starters, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom 2 is definitely a sequel to The Undead.  After Pendragon skooered Lydia the Witch, her insanity curse on Smolken wore off and he remembered he was actually Caedmon the Wizard.  He was forced to run off to this distant land to escape all the medieval punk kids wanting him to autograph their copies of Digger Smolken’s Rottenest Hits.  As for how this relates to Wizards of the Lost Kingdom, though? I don’t think this is a sequel at all. It’s actually a prequel.  See if you can follow me here:

Remember, Tyor was not supposed to kill Zarz… by running him through at the end, he gave in to evil.  So after a few years of putting up with Caedmon’s incompetence as a pupil, he got sick of him, turned him into a sparkly crab hat, and embraced the dark side. Meanwhile, Amathea was getting tired of Ermine’s philandering, so she and Tyor teamed up to kill him and seize the throne.  The Dark One’s restaurant went under after he was caught selling chicken that turned back into stone when you bit into it.  He tried to get money to pay off his small business loans by ditching Stripper Wife and wooing a wealthy cyclops so he could take her dowry and run.  To avoid his jilted bride’s vengeful brother, he went on the run and returned to using his real name, Kor.  Presto, you’ve got Wizards of the Lost Kingdom!

I have to take a break now.  My brain hurts.

This movie wants so badly to be epic.  The narration sounds like Achronus from Cave Dwellers telling us another story about Ator: and so, Cademon of Nogg set out across the land of Syn in search of the boy Tyor.  And yet, every time something happens that should be epic, it’s just people standing around.  The finale is a showdown between callow young Tyor and the two dark wizards Zarz and Donar, and they all just kind of mill around and bicker.  The fight between the Dark One and the Protector is much closer to being a climactic battle than this is, but it’s just more obvious fake swordplay and disappointment, and David Carradine looks downright embarrassed about it. I’m not convinced that scene was actually intended for this movie, by the way.  David Carradine made another stupid fantasy movie called The Warrior and the Sorceress, which I have not seen, and it might be from that.

One thing I can say for Wizards of the Lost Kingdom 2, though, is that the middle of the story has substantially more to do with the beginning and end than in its predecessor.  Caedmon is given his task, which is to find Tyor and then help him get the sword, amulet, and chalice so he can overthrow the evil wizards and unite the three kingdoms.  And the middle of the movie is spent doing exactly that.  This does divide the whole narrative into three separate plots that are only barely related to each other, and because of the limited running time all three of them feel truncated.  Tyor confronts Loki and turns him to stone and we’re like, that’s it?  He hears the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi and pulls a knife on Freyja, who agrees to take him to the sword and… that’s it?  It feels like the movie ought to be twice as long as it is, except that we really wouldn’t want that.

In particular, the audience has no idea what the sword, the amulet, and the chalice really do.  The fact that Tyor is able to overcome the amulet’s supposedly supreme power with some nonsense words really deflates the whole enterprise.  The sword is supposed to be magical but all it gets used for is stabbing people.  The chalice shows the truth except that Zarz can make it lie?  And at the end Obi-Wan takes all three away instead of letting Ermine and Amathea use them to rule the three kingdoms?  The three artefacts could not be more obviously plot contrivances, even if they were just boxes with the word macguffin written on them.

The Protector beast really ought to have been set up earlier, too, if it were going to deserve a setpiece fight.  As it is, MST3K excised it with no plot consequences.  Why didn’t we get to see Zarz feeding people to it?

Wizards of the Lost Kingdom 2 is grittier and less silly than its predecessor, which does allow the actors to escape with some tatters of their dignity, but in a way this is itself a weakness.  The first movie kept me interested mostly by throwing random episodes of what the fuck at me.  This one plods through its plotline without any lion-centaur beasts or random tricksy mermaids, although the impossibly bad werewolf-versus-pigwoman fight did make me look twice.  At the same time, paradoxically enough, I think it’s fair to say that Wizards of the Lost Kingdom 2 also takes itself less seriously.  The first movie did have a full-on wizards’ battle at the end, even if it sucked.  The second one here has a whole lot of talking and Tyor turning the crystal ball into a roast chicken, which apparently incapacitates Zarz in some way but I’m damned if I know how.  The roast chickens in the movie are clearly the ones you get out of the little warmer at the grocery store deli.

You know what?  This movie should have ended with Tyor turning Zarz into a chicken!  That would have allowed Tyor to win without killing anyone, and given a purpose to the weird ‘chicken’ motif that keeps happening.  Why was I able to come up with that, and the movie wasn’t?  The writers seem to think that chickens are somehow inherently funny, when really everybody knows that’s only true when they’re trying to cross the street.

These are not movies that really lend themselves to analysis but I guess there’s kind of a hint of theme, in that the Dark One would rather live quietly, running his pub with his wife, and only goes out to fight when he’s forced to do so?  Although I’m not sure how we’re meant to interpret that.  Is it about the benefits of a peaceful lifestyle (insofar as stabbing people when they don’t tip qualifies as ‘peaceful’)?  Or are we supposed to think the Dark One should have gotten off his ass and answered the call of duty before it came to that?  Maybe the chicken thing was meant to suggest that even a coward can save the world?  I don’t know. I just work here.

So that’s my marathon of lame-ass wizard movies that made it to MST3K.  Of the three, I think the first Wizards of the Lost Kingdom was easily my favourite.  It was light and silly and it made no sense, but it kept me giggling, sometimes just out of sheer surprise.  And I guess that means Quest of the Delta Knights would come in second, because Wizards of the Lost Kingdom 2 was definitely the worst.  The other two movies at least looked like people were having a good time making them, while this one feels like it was probably as much a chore to be in as it is to watch.  Even Sid Haig as Donar looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, and considering some of the crap Sid Haig seemed to have been enjoying himself in, that’s really saying something.

All the monster fights in the world couldn’t have saved this one.  What it really needed was the Dark One fighting a giant chicken.

[lets-talk-story]

Pied Piper of Hamelin

Hamelin town's in Brunswick, By famous Hanover city; The River Weser, deep and wide, Washes its wall on the southern side; A pleasanter spot you never spied; But, when begins my ditty, Almost five hundred years ago, To see townsfolk suffer so From vermin, was a pity.

Rats! They fought the dogs, and killed the cats, And bit the babies in the cradles, And ate the cheeses out of the vats, And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles, Split open the kegs of salted sprats, Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, And even spoiled the women's chats, By drowning their speaking With shrieking and squeaking In fifty different sharps and flats.

At last the people in a body To the Town Hall came flocking: "'Tis clear," cried they, "our Mayor's a noddy; And as for our Corporation -- shocking To think we buy gowns lined with ermine For dolts that can't or won't determine What's best to rid us of our vermin! You hope, because you're old and obese, To find in the furry civic robe ease? Rouse up, sirs! Give your brains a racking To find the remedy we're lacking, Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!" At this the Mayor and Corporation Quaked with a mighty consternation.

An hour they sate in council, At length the Mayor broke silence: "For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell, I wish I were a mile hence! It's easy to bid one rack one's brain -- I'm sure my poor head aches again I've scratched it so, and all in vain. Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!" Just as he said this, what should hap At the chamber-door but a gentle tap? "Bless us," cried the Mayor, "What's that?" (With the Corporation as he sat, Looking little though wondrous fat; Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister Than a too-long-opened oyster, Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous For a plate of turtle, green and glutinous.) "Only a scraping of shoes on the mat? Anything like the sound of a rat Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!"

"Come in!" -- the Mayor cried, looking bigger: And in did come the strangest figure! His queer long coat from heel to head Was half of yellow and half of red; And he himself was tall and thin, With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin, And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin, No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin, But lips where smiles went out and in -- There was no guessing his kith and kin! And nobody could enough admire The tall man and his quaint attire. Quoth one: "It's as my great-grandsire, Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone, Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!"

He advanced to the council-table: And, "Please your honors," said he, "I'm able, By means of a secret charm, to draw All creatures living beneath the sun, That creep, or swim, or fly, or run, After me so as you never saw! And I chiefly use my charm On creatures that do people harm, The mole, and toad, and newt, and viper; And people call me the Pied Piper." (And here they noticed round his neck A scarf of red and yellow stripe, To match with his coat of selfsame cheque; And at the scarf's end hung a pipe; And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying As if impatient to be playing Upon this pipe, as low it dangled Over his vesture, so old-fangled.) "Yet," said he "poor piper as I am, In Tartary I freed the Cham, Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats; I eased in Asia the Nizam Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats: And, as for what your brain bewilders, If I can rid your town of rats Will you give me a thousand guilders?" "One? fifty thousand!" -- was the exclamation Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.

Into the street the Piper stept, Smiling first a little smile, As if he knew what magic slept In his quiet pipe the while; Then, like a musical adept, To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled Like a candle flame where salt is sprinkled; And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, You heard as if an army muttered; And the muttering grew to a grumbling; And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling; And out of the houses the rats came tumbling: Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats, Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, Families by tens and dozens, Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives -- Followed the Piper for their lives. From street to street he piped, advancing, And step for step, they followed, dancing, Until they came to the river Weser Wherein all plunged and perished -- Save one who, stout as Julius Caesar, Swam across and lived to carry (As he the manuscript he cherished) To Rat-land home his commentary: Which was, "At the first shrill notes of the pipe, I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, And putting apples, wondrous ripe, Into a cider press's gripe: And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards, And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards, And the drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks, And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks; And it seemed as if a voice (Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery Is breathed) called out, Oh rats, rejoice! The world is grown to one vast drysaltery! So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon, Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon! And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon, All ready staved, like a great sun shone Glorious scarce an inch before me, Just as methought it said, 'Come, bore me!' -- I found the Weser rolling o'er me."

You should have heard the Hamelin people Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple. "Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles! Poke out the nests and block up the holes! Consult with carpenters and builders, And leave in our town not even a trace Of the rats!" -- when suddenly up the face Of the Piper perked in the market-place, With a, "First, if you please, my thousand guilders!"

A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue; So did the Corporation, too. For council dinners made rare havoc With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock; And half the money would replenish Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish. To pay this sum to a wandering fellow With a gypsy coat of red and yellow! "Beside," quoth the Mayor, with a knowing wink, "Our business was done at the river's brink; We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, And what's dead can't come to life, I think. So, friend, we're not the folks to shrink From the duty of giving you something for drink, And a matter of money to put in your poke; But, as for the guilders, what we spoke Of them, as you very well know, was in joke. Beside, our losses have made us thrifty: A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!"

The Piper's face fell, and he cried, "No trifling! I can't wait, beside! I've promised to visit, by dinner-time Bagdat, and accept the prime Of the Head Cook's pottage, all he's rich in, For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen, Of a nest of scorpions no survivor: With him I proved no bargain-driver, With you, don't think I'll bait a stiver! And folks who put me in a passion May find me pipe to another fashion."

"How?" cried the Mayor, "d'ye think I brook Being worse treated than a cook? Insulted by a lazy ribald With idle pipe and vesture piebald? You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst, Blow your pipe there till you burst!"

Once more he stept into the street; And to his lips again Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane; And ere he blew three notes (such sweet Soft notes as yet musician's cunning Never gave the enraptured air) There was a rustling, that seemed like a bustling Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling, Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering, Little hands clapping, and little tongues chattering, And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is scattering, Out came the children running. All the little boys and girls, With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood As if they were changed into blocks of wood, Unable to move a step, or cry To the children merrily skipping by, -- Could only follow with the eye That joyous crowd at the Piper's back. But how the Mayor was on the rack, And the wretched Council's bosoms beat, As the Piper turned from the High Street To where the Weser rolled its waters Right in the way of their sons and daughters! However he turned from South to West, And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed, And after him the children pressed; Great was the joy in every breast. "He never can cross that mighty top! He's forced to let the piping drop, And we shall see our children stop!" When, lo! as they reached the mountain-side, A wondrous portal opened wide, As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed; And the Piper advanced and the children followed, And when all were in to the very last, The door in the mountain-side shut fast. Did I say, all? No! One was lame, And could not dance the whole of the way; And in after years, if you would blame His sadness, he was used to say, -- "It's dull in our town since my playmates left! I can't forget that I'm bereft Of all the pleasant sights they see, Which the Piper also promised me; For he led us, he said, to a joyous land, Joining the town and just at hand, Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew, And flowers put forth a fairer hue, And everything was strange and new; The sparrows were brighter than the peacocks here, And their dogs outran our fallow deer, And honey-bees had lost their stings, And horses were born with eagles' wings; And just as I became assured My lame foot would be speedily cured, The music stopped and I stood still, And found myself outside the hill, Left alone against my will, To go now limping as before, And never hear of that country more!"

Alas, alas for Hamelin! There came into many a burgher's pate A text which says, that heaven's Gate Opes to the rich at as easy rate As the needle's eye takes a camel in! The Mayor sent East, West, North, and South To offer the Piper by word of mouth, Wherever it was men's lot to find him, Silver and gold to his heart's content, If he'd only return the way he went, And bring the children behind him. But when they saw 'twas a lost endeavor, And Piper and dancers were gone forever, They made a decree that lawyers never Should think their records dated duly If, after the day of the month and year, These words did not as well appear, "And so long after what happened here On the Twenty-second of July, Thirteen hundred and Seventy-six;" And the better in memory to fix The place of the children's last retreat, They called it, the Pied Piper's Street -- Where any one playing on pipe or tabor Was sure for the future to lose his labor. Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern To shock with mirth a street so solemn; But opposite the place of the cavern They wrote the story on a column, And on the great church-window painted The same, to make the world acquainted How their children were stolen away, And there it stands to this very day. And I must not omit to say That in Transylvania there's a tribe Of alien people that ascribe The outlandish ways and dress On which their neighbors lay such stress, To their fathers and mothers having risen Out of some subterraneous prison Into which they were trepanned Long time ago in a mighty band Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land, But how or why, they don't understand.

So, Willy, let you and me be wipers Of scores out with all men -- especially pipers; And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice, If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise.

[benatars-partner]

Making more DSP inserts with @am-i-cool-yet-yummy and @redsat0mi, Albyna is just for WATGBS stuff. Aria is for Ice Scream.

Aria is a stoat/ermine, which is a type of weasel. And she has a friend named Lenny. He's a lemming, and she keeps him on a toddler leash to make sure he doesn't get hurt. Because lemmings are supposedly REALLY dumb.

Lenny is actually the older one, he's just tiny.

[p-isforpoetry]

"A Lovers' Quarrel" by Robert Browning (read by Richard Mitchley)

I. Oh, what a dawn of day! How the March sun feels like May! All is blue again After last night's rain, And the South dries the hawthorn-spray. Only, my Love's away! I'd as lief that the blue were grey,

II. Runnels, which rillets swell, Must be dancing down the dell, With a foaming head On the beryl bed Paven smooth as a hermit's cell; Each with a tale to tell, Could my Love but attend as well.

III. Dearest, three months ago! When we lived blocked-up with snow,--- When the wind would edge In and in his wedge, In, as far as the point could go--- Not to our ingle, though, Where we loved each the other so!

IV. Laughs with so little cause! We devised games out of straws. We would try and trace One another's face In the ash, as an artist draws; Free on each other's flaws, How we chattered like two church daws!

V. What's in the `Times''?---a scold At the Emperor deep and cold; He has taken a bride To his gruesome side, That's as fair as himself is bold: There they sit ermine-stoled, And she powders her hair with gold.

VI. Fancy the Pampas' sheen! Miles and miles of gold and green Where the sunflowers blow In a solid glow, And---to break now and then the screen--- Black neck and eyeballs keen, Up a wild horse leaps between!

VII. Try, will our table turn? Lay your hands there light, and yearn Till the yearning slips Thro' the finger-tips In a fire which a few discern, And a very few feel burn, And the rest, they may live and learn!

VIII. Then we would up and pace, For a change, about the place, Each with arm o'er neck: 'Tis our quarter-deck, We are seamen in woeful case. Help in the ocean-space! Or, if no help, we'll embrace.

IX. See, how she looks now, dressed In a sledging-cap and vest! 'Tis a huge fur cloak--- Like a reindeer's yoke Falls the lappet along the breast: Sleeves for her arms to rest, Or to hang, as my Love likes best.

X. Teach me to flirt a fan As the Spanish ladies can, Or I tint your lip With a burnt stick's tip And you turn into such a man! Just the two spots that span Half the bill of the young male swan.

XI. Dearest, three months ago When the mesmerizer Snow With his hand's first sweep Put the earth to sleep: 'Twas a time when the heart could show All---how was earth to know, 'Neath the mute hand's to-and-fro?

XII. Dearest, three months ago When we loved each other so, Lived and loved the same Till an evening came When a shaft from the devil's bow Pierced to our ingle-glow, And the friends were friend and foe!

XIII. Not from the heart beneath--- 'Twas a bubble born of breath, Neither sneer nor vaunt, Nor reproach nor taunt. See a word, how it severeth! Oh, power of life and death In the tongue, as the Preacher saith!

XIV. Woman, and will you cast For a word, quite off at last Me, your own, your You,--- Since, as truth is true, I was You all the happy past--- Me do you leave aghast With the memories We amassed?

XV. Love, if you knew the light That your soul casts in my sight, How I look to you For the pure and true And the beauteous and the right,--- Bear with a moment's spite When a mere mote threats the white!

XVI. What of a hasty word? Is the fleshly heart not stirred By a worm's pin-prick Where its roots are quick? See the eye, by a fly's foot blurred--- Ear, when a straw is heard Scratch the brain's coat of curd!

XVII. Foul be the world or fair More or less, how can I care? 'Tis the world the same For my praise or blame, And endurance is easy there. Wrong in the one thing rare--- Oh, it is hard to bear!

XVIII. Here's the spring back or close, When the almond-blossom blows: We shall have the word In a minor third There is none but the cuckoo knows: Heaps of the guelder-rose! I must bear with it, I suppose.

XIX. Could but November come, Were the noisy birds struck dumb At the warning slash Of his driver's-lash--- I would laugh like the valiant Thumb Facing the castle glum And the giant's fee-faw-fum!

XX. Then, were the world well stripped Of the gear wherein equipped We can stand apart, Heart dispense with heart In the sun, with the flowers unnipped,--- Oh, the world's hangings ripped, We were both in a bare-walled crypt!

XXI. Each in the crypt would cry ``But one freezes here! and why? ``When a heart, as chill, ``At my own would thrill ``Back to life, and its fires out-fly? ``Heart, shall we live or die? ``The rest. . . . settle by-and-by!''

XXII. So, she'd efface the score, And forgive me as before. It is twelve o'clock: I shall hear her knock In the worst of a storm's uproar, I shall pull her through the door, I shall have her for evermore!

Source: The Poetry of Robert Browning, 2019