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imagine-silk · 1 year

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Marvel; Winter Dates with Secretary Spidermen

Can you guess when I was supposed to post this.That’s right, early December. I have a bunch of backlog holiday posts I’m not sure to do at leisure or get them out quickly. I guess I’ll flip a coin.

TRILOGY!PETER (Get away cabin)

It’s not a date as much as it’s a vacation. Once a year you use a bunch of your saved vacation days to peace out. You guys have a deal of some sort. He budgets and schedules this getaway for you, maybe even throwing in some money, and you approve his emergency time off that the company will have no choice but to honor if you have no concerns. You're technically duping the company but hey, you're not stealing money. Just time.

So early December you and Peter say your goodbyes, hop in a car, and off to the airport to not be seen for five business days. Peter would 100% stay with you during Christmas to have an excuse from family parties but it’s a lot more money. But if you need an out he always has you covered.

You’d think it would include activities but you’re two office working adults who have to bargain for company benefits and work overtime to meet quotas, the entire time is spent relaxing. It’s quite domestic. There’s a sort of unspoken rules you have. Whoever gets up first has to cook and whoever wakes up last has to wash the dishes. Rooms will be decided by rock-paper-scissors, first win takes dibs. Never bother the person in the bath unless it’s to discuss food or it’s been two hours and you need to know they're alive. You also made a rule that no gifts were to be exchanged. That last rule has never been followed.

TASM!PETER (Beach bonfire)

There are many reasons Peter is beloved in the office. Convincing the company to trust him with their black amex to put together the company Christmas party every year is up there as far as reasons go. Last year he got everyone Disneyland day tickets and dinner reservations. The year before that he rented out a castle and a murder-mystery kit (He was the killer and you were unfortunately one of the victims). This year he got a spot on a private beach for a bonfire, and it was nice as hell. Sand so white and soft you’d think it was clouds, low tide gently brought in seashells, and the huge gazebo had couches, a bonfire, and a lot of food and alcohol.

He feeds off of the gossip and knowledge that everyone is enjoying themselves so he is your designated driver to hear it all sober. The fact that he’s a light-weight also influenced this decision but nobody else has to know that. He’ll make sure you're safe, happy, and not recorded doing something stupid. He’ll keep some recordings though. You know, as payment for his services.

You’re a stupid drunk, forgetting simple things like putting on your shoes when you reach the boardwalk is not unexpected. He takes you home and he just resigns to staying because he knows how miserable you’re gonna be in the morning. You are groaning in the morning and he really wants to laugh but he does like these moments.

MCU!PETER (Paper cranes)

He wanted to do a project with you but he didn’t want to be seen as a child, so; paper cranes. He tells you about the origins, how the crane in Japanese myth lives a thousand years and that’s why you need to make a thousand of them. When you ask if he bought a thousand papers and he says yes, you then ask if he thinks you can do them all in a day. He realizes how long that would take and apologizes.

You, of course, do it with him because it is a fun activity and the promise of a wish is nice even if it might not happen. But it’s broken up in sections, starting from mid-December to the new year. He loves this time with you. Hanging out together outside of work is a nice thing, always.

At the end of it you offer him the wish because you don’t really have anything to wish for. Without thinking he says, “I want to stay in today forever.” And you didn’t understand he meant with you because it was a day off and everyone wanted days off. So you laugh and say it won’t come true because he said it out loud. When he pouted you just told him to make a new one in his head. I’m gonna give you a hint; it’s a lot less vague than the last one.

PETER B. PARKER (Ice skating)

You were super excited when he said you weren’t going to the gym. But that bubble popped when you pulled up to the ice rink. Your displeased face made him chuckle, telling you to lighten up as he gave you a present. It was a really nice pair of ice skates. You ask him if he thinks you’re gonna use these throughout the year and he says no, but that’s not your only gift for the year, just the one you get that day.

Peter, as someone who works out regularly with you, has no problem on the ice. Unfortunately, you do not have the best balance, ironically something you were working on in the gym. He has enough empathy to help you but only after seeing you fall a few times. Skating around hand in hand is embarrassing for you, because you feel like a child, but it is nice to have this light-hearted afternoon with him. At one point when you lose your balance he saves you from hitting your head on the ground but you end up in a weird back bend and he stretches in an abnormal way to stay up. It is very uncomfortable and not at all Hallmark.

After sustaining bruises, you go for a much needed drink. You had hot cocoa and he insisted he needed coffee. It was a nice moment of silence. Until people started to come up to you two. Christmas is a very busy time and everyone is feeling grand and bold. Trying to start a romance during this time is not uncommon, especially because both of you are hot. But after the day was highs and lows you both had fun.

MILES MORALES (Charity play)

You spent the better part of November and December helping a winter play that all proceeds go to helping people living paycheck to paycheck get the help they need, not only toys for their kids but clothes and stable jobs. It is by pure chance you ended up as a cast member. A supporting role, an elf who makes gifts slower because they make them with each kid in mind. Miles almost turned down his chance but then he found out it was the character yours focused on he took it. He didn’t know how he felt about playing a grouchy snowman but he sucked it up.

Best believe his family came to one of the shows. His parents, his uncle, aunties and cousins. And they were loud too. You found it endearing but his mom fussing over him made him want the floor to just open under him. The younger cousins were all over you, one claiming it was love at first sight and how he would marry you. Miles started shooing away his family faster.

After everything you told him how glad you were to have him with you through this entire thing, that you believed in the cause and it was a lot of fun doing this with him. He freezes for a minute like a computer getting a factory reset. He tries to be cool but ends up stumbling over his words, it’s very cute.

#trying my old format again #marvel #marvel imagine #SPIDERMEN #tasm!spider man #Spiderverse #Trilogy!Peter #secretary!au

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hungarianbee · 4 years

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Way of the Witcher: bits of lore

Disclaimer: Post contains spoilers to the Witcher games These things may be canon-typical, but the following trigger warnings apply if you want to check out the cards: gore, monster dismemberment, needles, body horror, insects and spiders

“In a world plagued by horrors and monstrosities humanity desperately needed a new type of weapon to turn back the tide. Created by ingenious Alzur, witchers — professional monster slayers of exceptional strength, speed, and agility were tasked to end the threat once and for all. Organized into different schools they honed their craft and passed their knowledge onto novices in training. Some of them were destined to become the legendary heroes and protectors of humanity. Others — the very thing they were supposed to fight…”

Since the gwent expansion was anounced I followed it with rapt attention; every bit of lore is a gem in my eyes. I decided to write down my thoughts of the cards and lore pieces revealed in a post. Share that knowledge around, amirite?

The post references Gwent cards which were leaked (2020 november-december). The theme is mutation and everything that comes with it; namely sweet-sweet lore of the lesser known witcher schools: the Bears, Cats, Vipers and Griffins.

Tucker in, under the cut there is 4.5k analysis of each card that came out.

We’re starting with a theme, then work our way throught the 4 schools (each contain the following: a leader, a mentor, an adept, a general witcher, a specific job, an item, a school relevant monster, 2 known witchers and a location), then go through a Witcher 1 throwback, Salamandra, and round it with a few new monsters and neutral cards.

While I describe most of the cards concisely and all the known witchers and locations are on my blog, you might want to look the cards in their (small) glory: [DO IT HERE]

Sounds good? Here we go!

Edit: [this source is better]

The theme is mutation - be it monsters created by transmutation, witchers or salamadra

If that is true, there are monster cards that seemingly stand out: the Succubus and the Phooca

If we are to believe that they do connect to the mutation theme, then

(1) we can conclude that Phoocas (a rare, and more dangerous form of Nekkers; they can pull your head off by sheer force, watch out) are a natural mutation of the original species,

(2) but we’re still left with the Succubi (an inherently demonic creature). They might have chosen it because of its appearance: succubi have horns and goat-like legs. (Note: in the graphic novel “House of Glass” the succubus character has wings, but lacks hooves. In that sense, she could be mutated.)

Breaking it down into factions/schools (some of the cards can be paired up; these cards are interpreted together):

School of the Viper: starting with the vipers, because they are my favourite

Viper Witcher Mentor & Viper Witcher Adept: the flavour text says that the Viper mentors are exceptionally cold and ruthless, and that’s underlined by the story the art tells: the mentor busies himself with sharpening a blade, and in the background we can see the adept attempting to kill his best friend goat, as was ordered. The mentor watches this from the corner of his eye. Young Vipers are to kill their pets (which they nurtured for years) before becoming a fully-fledged witcher. The latter could mean that the boy depicted on the card hasn’t even gone through the Trial of Grasses.

Viper Witcher: On the card we see an unknown Viper crouching over a royalty he killed. I feel like this type of card is meant to represent what we think a general Witcher of said school would be like. Apparently Vipers just like to slay the nobility *shrug*. The flavour text informs us, that Vipers call their two swords “fangs”, and that their style consists of fast and furious attack aimed to overwhelm the enemy.

Viper Witcher Alchemist: Every school has a specialty; Vipers are proficient in potion or poison making. The right side of the alchemist’s face seems to have healed burn marks; a blown up concoction might have caused it.

Ivar Evil-Eye: So far there’s little to know about Ivar. He was either the Master of the Viper Keep, or the founder himself (gwent suggests the latter). He’s described as heavily scarred (facial scars suggests burns and slash marks too), and each of them has a terrible story to tell.

Warritt the All-Seeing: Warritt is a (newly introduced) Viper with heavy disfiguration to the upper part of his face: his eyes are sealed shut (possibly by burn marks, though his hair remains intact). The art shows Warritt drawing a modified version of the Supirre sign in the air to help with his loss of sight. As the wiki says: “Supirre is a Sign used for eavesdropping. Drawn on a solid surface, it allows the people near this surface to listen nearby conversations which would be normally inaudible due to the distance or background noise.” It was only used in Sapkowsky’s second volume of the Hussite trilogy (not yet translated to English), which is entirely separate from the Witcher novels.

Kolgrim: Fate laughed at this Viper. As a kid he was swapped by a weeper, saved by a witcher, than rejected by his own mother who believed that the fake child was the real one. Later, as a grown witcher Ivar instructed him to find a lost weapon diagram. On his journey he was accused - ironically - in White Orchard of kidnapping a child. Invoking a Temerian law, Kolgrim was told to cleanse their crypt (as seen on the card) then he can go. The truth is revealed in Witcher 3 - Kolgrim was beheaded by the villagers before he could even step into the crypt. To add insult to injury: the child was eaten by a drowner. The gwent card therefore shows the optimistic outcome: that Kolgrim reached the crypt and passed in battle. And what’s up with a crypt full of wraiths anyway? White Orchard is shady, guys. (Lil’ trivia: Kolgrim’s eyes are yellow-green.)

Vypper: Basically an overgrown snake that likes damp marshes (they even fight the local kikimores for territory). They only relate to the mutation theme by their nature - they resemble the “school’s animal”.

Gorthur Gvaed: The Bloodgate Keep is located in the chasms of the Tir Tochair mountains. It’s built so high were you to look down from the bridge leading into the keep, you would only see fog (one could wonder how the vipers trained in these conditions). The bridge is made so that you’d have to cross the lookout tower - it might have served as a check in spot. The post itself is circled by the stone coils of a snake; the top is open and has a huge lit bonfire in the middle for warmth-keeping and possibly signaling. Unluckily, it didn’t stop the Usurper’s army from destroying the keep.

Coated Weapons: They leaned heavily into the alchemy and assassin side of the school. Vipers coat their blades with an acidic liquid, so they can kill a man with a nick of it.

School of the Cat:

Cat Witcher Mentor & Cat Witcher Adept: On the adept card we can see a young Cat walking the tightrope blindfolded (they start with close to the ground and slowly increase the distance with time); the mentor is looking up at him. Like the Vipers, Cat mentors are nonchalant about risking the kids as seen from the flavour text: “If you fall, it’s over. Your nine lives are up, kid.” Furthermore, the background of the Cat Witcher Adept card shows the not yet destroyed Stygga Citadel. The Cat Witcher Mentor is in the same scene and we can see lots of potatoes and cabbages; cats definitely eat their veggies.

Cat Witcher: The card shows a Cat in the heat of battle mid-jump; his hood is up, blood is flying everywhere. The flavour text emphasizes that cats are known for their mad bloodlust, not stopping killing even after the enemy capitulated.

Cat Witcher Saboteur: A Cat perches next to the window, a smoking bomb in hand, eavesdropping on nobles. A rope is hung from somewhere out of the pic, possibly for a quick exit. Vesemir comments that these are many-a deeds the cats did that taint the reputation of witchers.

Gezras of Leyda: Gezras is a not yet known redheaded Cat witcher. Following the pattern he seems to be the founder of the Cat School. His flavour text shows that even back then (when the mutagens made Cats emotionless) they were inclined to dislike humans: “Take a contract from Aen Seidhe over a dh’oine any day, as you’re far less likely to receive a knife between the ribs in place of coin.”

Brehen: Now this cat embodies the Cat madness. He’s known as the Cat of Iello because he massacred everyone there. He was consequently shunned by all the schools, and he was even convinced that Vesemir put a kill order on his head. He met Geralt later in the 1240s on his way to claim the bounty for the princess. Thinking that Geralt was there to rob him of his chance of the bounty, Brehen took a priestess as hostage (this is what we see on the gwent card). Geralt managed to convince him to put away the blade, and they parted without crossing blades. When meeting with the striga he scoffed into her face that “she won’t be his first royal”. But his luck ran out. The Temerians buried him and fabricated the story of a cowardly witcher stealing their coin. I’m halfway convinced we see Brehen in the netflix series.

Gaetan: This boy broke into the fandom like a bulldozer. After the folks in Honorton cheated him of his pay and tried to kill him, Gaetan flew into rage and killed everyone there except Millie, a girl who reminded him of his sister. That’s the scene we see on the card. And then Geralt robs/kills him.

Saber-Tooth Tiger (Stealth): Another huge animal/monster related to the school. It’s story is this: “The prized possession of royal menagerie, until a commando of Scoia’tael assaulted the exhibition, released the beast, and set it upon its cruel masters. Since that day, it has acquired a selective taste for human flesh.” Another cat turning against humans.

Stygga Castle: An outside view of what we already saw on the Cat Witcher Adept card. It’s located on a cliff, and the sun shines into it just right (so that the Cats can bask in the light). The walls form a circle where they shelter the inner grounds, and a bigger tower emerges in the middle. The Castle could be reached by the thin bridge connecting it to the mainland, or by the cliffs (if one is brave enough).

Making a Bomb: Cats seem to have a specialty in bombs. Guess where Lambert got his interest from *winkwink*

School of the Griffin: lots of pairs in this one

Griffin Witcher Mentor & Griffin Witcher Adept: Compared to the other schools, this pairing is tame - the adept is climbing a tree to retrieve a crossbow bolt. We can see the mentor in the background. On the mentor card the adept waves down with the retrieved crossbow bolt in hand. It shows a kind of comradeship that’s not present in the other 3 schools. The flavour text emphasizes the importance of knowledge. Students are afforded to choose their final Trial: recite the entire Liber Tenebrum (Book of Shadows; one of Keldar’s favourite books) or steal a griffin’s egg. Noone’s chosen the former.

Griffin Witcher: The witcher is shown shooting down a griffin. According to the flavour text they prefer hunting with silver-tipped arrowheads instead of swords.

Archgriffin & Griffin Witcher Ranger: On the Griffin Ranger card we see the witcher crouching over track marks. On the archgriffin card he found the albino (or very old) monster, who’s already killed someone (probably a lumberjack, judging by the axe). According to the flavour text, Griffin Witchers are trained to be professional trackers; nothing can stop them to reach their prey. Even though archgriffins are considered the embodiment of courage, loyalty and fighting spirit, the gwent card corrects the notion that the Griffin Witcher were named after the monster. In truth, they got the name in honour of their founder’s mentor, a knight named Gryphon.

Erland of Larvik: Continuing the trend, Erland is the founder of the Griffin School (one of the two that are confirmed 100%). He’s from the first generation of witcher, mutated by Alzur himself. After the Order began fracturing he had a confrontation with Arnaghan (who’ll be the founder of the bear school). Arnaghad almost killed one of his brothers, slashed Erland across the face then parted ways with the Order and left Morgraig Castle with his own group. Seeing that the the remaining witchers couldn’t go on like that, he grabbed his 13 best friend and left to Kaer Seren, where (after purging it from spectres) he founded the Griffin School which focused on magic, preparedness and flexibility. His teaching emphasized knightly values (mimicking his long-dead mentor, a knight named Gryphon) in hopes that it would make future witchers’ life easier. It didn’t.

Coen & Keldar: The cards are mainly connected by background. Coen is finished killing what appears to be an albino arachas (but it’s definitely an insectoid), while Keldar’s taking notes. We can rightly assume that he’s updating their bestiary, since he’s one of the teachers/mentors who focus on gathering and sharing knowledge. Coen’s flexibility shows in the flavour text: “There is no such thing as a fair fight. Every advantage and every opportunity that arises is used in combat.” Not very knightly, is it?

Kaer Seren: The “Star Keep” Erland and his friends fled to. It was used by the Order’s mages to mutate witchers (that’s why it was haunted by spectres). It’s located at the edge of the Dragon mountains by the sea between Poviss and Kovir. It’s said to possess the great library, which later mages tried to get for themselves. They messed up: by bringing down an avalanche on the Keep, that knowledge was destroyed. The keep was badly damaged and many witchers died.

Target Practice: The Griffin School’s specialty is their precise aim - they “can split an apple in two from a hundred paces”.

School of the Bear:

Bear Witcher Mentor & Bear Witcher Adept: The adept card shows that young witcher are taught to catch fish by hand (just like their school relevant animal). On the mentor card the elder witcher leads a group of younglings in the mountains; possibly out to teach tracking. The cards are connected by flavour text. The young Bear witcher-would-be’s need to complete the Trial of the Mountain, which consists of them climbing Mount Gorgon (also known as the Devil Mountain; it is the highest peak of the Amell range) to retrieve a runestone. The Trial often ends with the kids frozen to death. The Bear Mentor card’s flavour confirms it: “If you’re unsure of the way, just keep a lookout for markers - the frozen corpses of would-be witchers.” This sounds ominous - don’t they collect their fallen?

Bear Witcher: Bears are solitary hunters as seen in the flavour text: “life alone can be tough”. The witcher in the pic just dismembered what looks like a ghoul (with a tail?).

Bear Witcher Quartermaster: This one I like. The Quartermaster is an amputee (missing one of his arms, which was taken by a bear; must have won that fight one-handed), yet they still found a job for him where he can be useful. His flavour text suggest he likes Mahakam mead.

Arnaghad: The founder of the Bear School, he never felt kinship with his fellow witchers. After attacking a witcher named Rhys over a contract, wounding him deeply from shoulder to waist, he returned to Morgraig, attacked Erland then left with his possé to found the Bear School - Haern Caduch - in the Amell Mountains. Later he almost died in a betrayal, which resulted in another schism and the foundation of the Viper School.

Gerd: Gerd’s a legendary witcher who fled to Skellige after allying with a Usurper instead of his daughter, who later issued a warrant for his arrest. He has a busy time in Skellige: first slaying a dragon, befriending the Jarl Torgeir, killing a bunch of sirens, losing so many weapon diagrams you wouldn’t believe, losing half his pay and silver sword on gwent, escaping Nilfgaard and managing to slay a striga, killing some of his pursuers, only to be caught up in the siege of Torgeir’s castle, where he died in the ruins. On the card he’s showing Bear-typical strength: he’s tearing apart a siren with his bear hands.

Junod of Belhaven: Junod had a dubious background, but was thought to be the child of a brave dwarf and a giantess. He’s a huge man, with a big bushy beard and bald head. His sobriquet is false; he took it after Ivo, because he liked the ring of it. He was known as a strict haggler and a bit of a gambler. In 1243 he took a contract in hopes of cash (he wanted to forge the Grandmaster Ursine Armour). The subterranean monster was said to live in the caverns. Junod drew bear signs and wrote a warning on the wall (this is the scene we see on the card). He was however ill-prepared; the beast turned out to be a shaelmaar (a type of relic Gaetan slew once) that killed him in that very cavern.

Dire Bear: Once again related to the school in question, the Dire Bear is stuck with so much weaponry that it looks like a walking armory. Lots of witchers must have tried to slay it, yet it still kicks - just like Bear Witchers, it’s resilient till the very end.

Haern Caduch: Built into the side of the Amell Mountains, it’s the coldest environment of all the schools. As with the other schools, the Bears were forced out of it due to folk riots. It was left in disrepair to be buried under snow and ice (as seen on the card). It’s name could be translated as “Piercing Whiskers”.

Armor Up: As Bear’s are more likely to stand in the way of attack than dodge, they need to wear a heavy armour at all times.

Salamandra:

Roland Bleinheim & Gellert Bleinheim: Witcher 1 characters. They are thought to be brothers, leading the Salamandra organization. As drug lords one heads the fisstech operation in Vizima’s sewers (Roland), the other in the swamps (Gellert). The flavour text pretty much matches: both of them wondering what the other one is doing.

Salamandra Mage: The art itself was already leaked in China around 2 years back, and there were a few theories. One of them was that the man depicted is Zerrikanian, and I think that’s correct. Both the facial tattoo, darker skin, thinly braided hair and fire magic points in that direction. Azar Javed (a known Salamandra fire mage) happens to be a Zerrikanian escapee too.

Salamandra Lackey: A girl with the Salamandra-stapled mask runs from a city guard. The flavour text says the following: “Lackeys are expected to perform their first five jobs for no pay, demonstrating their passion for the gig.” The organization monitors from the beginning that only those remain who are extremely loyal to their cause.

Fallen Rayla: A little background for those who are unfamiliar with her: Rayla of Lyria was a veteran of the Nilgaardian Wars. She harbours anti-nonhuman sentiments after she was captured by Scoia’taels and severely maimed. The Rayla we see on the card is a mutant - in Witcher 1 she was supposedly shot down by Scoia’tael, and Salamandra found her close to death, subjected her to mutation. She was killed by Geralt.

Salamander: The card shows a bright blue spotted salamander. It has two tails and heads (possibly grown together?). The Salamander is a symbol of the organization. Metaphorically speaking it could mean, that Salamandra thought of itself as something untouchable: “best to avoid petting them, as the salamander, when threatened, secretes a deadly toxin”.

Failed Experiment: The card - ironically - thrives when it’s poisoned. The “experiment” only resembles a human in shape. It’s clutching the table ends, as if trying to escape still. It’s fair to assume that they later dissected it: “even failed experiments can serve a purpose”.

Salamandra Abomination: A step further from the failed experiment - we see the results of pushing science’s boundaries. Only the skull is left intact, everything else of the body is covered with insectoid-like growths.

Stolen Mutagens: Gruesome organ harvesting. The witcher heart (?) glows, which is either an artistic decision (probable) or the mages sent magic into the body, and the mutagens light up (like angiographia). Three types of mutagens can be harvested: red (strength), blue (magic) or green (resilience). I headcanon that the amount they inject of the three types can vary - that’s how you get strength inclined witchers like the wolves (red), or big ass mothers like the bears (green).

Salamandra Hideout: There are multiple hideouts in Witcher 1 (outskirt of Visima, crypt in sewers and one in the trade quarters). The one depicted here is the fisstech lab in the sewers. It shows a dimly lit, cobwebbed room. There’s an elevation where a body lays on the table. The elevation’s floor is gridded, so the blood and other fluids can freely flow down into the sewer water, where many bodies are already discarded recklessly.

Neutral:

Alzur & Viy & Koshchey: Alzur was a charismatic mage and spell inventor, who created many horrible monsters, like the koshchey (with the spell: Alzur’s Double Cross) and the Viy (a huge centipede-like insectoid). He was also the one who did the lion’s share of work with the witcher’s mutation.

Cosimo Malaspina: Cosimo was the teacher of Alzur. He was known for his knowledge in hybridization and genetic modification. Him and Alzur were the true creators of the witchers sect. On the gwent card, three man are shown prodding at a mutated body. Cosimo (the old dude) is in the middle, Alzur might be the one on the left and that leaves Idarran on the right. His flavour text paints him as cold and clinical, someone without empathy: “Children keep asking him for gifts. He doesn’t know why, but it really helps with finding subjects for his experiments.”

Idarran of Ulivo & Idr & Wererat: Idarran was one of the contributers of the witcher experiments. He’s an expert in hybridization and genetic modification, whose teacher was Alzur. He was a pale kid who lived in the canals of Vizima and experimented on rats at the age of 5. He found beauty in gruesome creations, like the Wererat (a human-sized rat on roids) and the Idr (a big centipede-like insectoid). He’s disdained by Geralt for his many monsters.

Triangle within a Triangle: It’s a magic spell used to introduce a series of mutations and to greatly increase the mass of a given body. That way they can create huge monstrosities, like the koshchey. Adepts often confuse it with a pentagram which can lead to infernal disasters.

Selective mutation: The card shows a close up of a young man’s eyes - one mutated (catlike) one human. His skin shows his high toxicity level, ashen with prominent veins. He’s held down as alchemists prepare to inject a yellow concoction into the human eye. It’s possible that after the success of witchers the mages tried to recreate the changes in smaller scale, then unmake it in turn, unsuccessfully.

Witcher Student: This is not really a card, but I included it anyway. The card’s ability is - ironically - doomed, and to add insult to injury, its flavour text is the following well-known fact: “Four out of ten boys survive… at most.” It’s also a point for black humour that the gwent commentators added: the Trial of Grasses card boosts this unit significantly.

Berengar: He’s a Wolf School Witcher who blamed his school for denying him a normal life and consequently abandoned them. In Witcher 1 Geralt can decide to kill or spare him. In a letter he admits that he was a coward because he betrayed Kaer Morhen and worked with Salamadra in hope that they can undo his mutation. His card references a questline in Witcher 1, where he tried to reason with the vodyanoi (~lovecraftian fish people) to spare the village’s prize-winning cow, named Strawberry. This is non-canon; in the game Geralt takes over the quest to do this instead.

Leo: Another Witcher 1 character. He was an orphan taken in by Vesemir. He was a kind-hearted but hot-headed man, who had all the training but not the mutations and the experience - he never killed a man. The flavour text of his gwent card kind of mocks his death: “He would have caught the arrow if he only had some heads-up.” He’s burned on a pyre and his cenotaph can be found south of Kaer Morhen.

Geralt: Quen: The last classical sign that wasn’t yet a card. In the art, Geralt is wearing the Manticore armour

Snowdrop: She’s a not yet seen character; impish looking female bard with light blond hair (flowers braided on the side) who plays a medieval version of the fiddle to a rooster. There’s a horseshoe hanging from the hem of his pants. She’s also seen in the gwent: journey #3 launch trailer. She’s narrating that she was saved by Alzur. Alzur told her about his plans of creating witchers to fight the beasts of the Continent, and she admired him so much she spread his story (”let me tell you about the greatest sorceress to ever lived”). Their story will unveil in the next week, I’ll probably update accordingly. It’s also interesting that Alzur says in the gwent intro (regarding witchers): “Bards will toil to do justice to their feats.” As if his own successes and experiences will be mirrored in his creations. Projecting much?

Monsters:

Viy & Idr: both of them are centipede-like insectoids conjured by infamous mages (see: Alzur and Idarran)

Wererat: same can be said about this one. Idarran experimented on Vizima’s sewer rats since the age of 5. This human sized abomination was the end result.

Succubus: We already discussed how the “Succubus” doesn’t fit the theme. Other interesting thing is the surrounding of her - in the background we can see a skull full of some kinda of dark liquid; she’s also holding a goblet. I’m not saying she’s drinking blood, but if she does, it would shed some questions as succubi don’t need to drink blood at all.

Phooca: As nekkers’ rare big brother, phoocas are ogroids that have the strength to rip a man’s head off with their bear hands. According to the wiki, in Celtic folklore they are regarded as shapeshifting fairies.

Koshchey: A witcher 1 boss, koshcheys are spider-like abominations summoned by mages. The woman standing her ground in the picture is Visenna (Geralt’s druid mom). In the story she’s the one to kill the first koshchey ever created.

Spontaneous Evolution: Under the Red Moon the wolf mutated into an amalgamation of eyes and teeth. Malaspina possibly added something to the mix that proved unstable. The card’s name is kind of ironic - this change is not spontaneous (it was induced) but could be related to evolution (it would imply that this form is somehow advantageous to the current environment and helps adaptation). (Note: in my opinion spontaneous generation would be a better term: it’s the thought that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter.)

Hybrid: the card shows a two-headed wolf or dog. Pretty straight-forward.

Chimera: A creature created my Cosimo Malaspina. He combines the genes of a fiend and griffin, then added a trace of insectoid and wyvern. It kind of looks like a furred wyvern with antlers. Interestingly the frightener (an insectoid; a rare result of magical experiment) is also called a chimera.

Dol Dhu Lokke: a new monster lair location. The depending on how you translate “lokke” the Elder can be read as “black valley place” or “alluring black valley”. It’s so dangerous - housing many-a horrors - that even a witcher thinks twice before going near it.

Interesting tidbits

Coen has hair, which is weird because so far he was described in all sources as bald.

There used to be a card that was also called Viper Witcher, which is now referred to as “Kingslayer”

The Bear Witcher’s face was drawn after one of CDPR’s employee.

The Koshchey’s card title has a typo: “Koschchey”.

Easter eggs (mainly in flavour text)

The Spontaneous Evolution card references The Powerpuff Girls intro: “Professor Malaspina accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction - compound X.”

The Bear Witcher card might reference a song of Baloo from the Jungle Book (The Bare Necessities): “Life alone on the road can be tough - be sure to bring all the bare necessities.”

#my shit #the witcher #gwent #witcher meta #witcher lore #i worked really hard on this #i hope it shows lol #if y'all have any thoughts i'd be happy to hear about them #cross my heart i don't bite

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dinamicus · 3 years

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The Lord Of The Rings At 15:

The Fellowship Interview Each Other

( fragment)

The Lord Of The Rings At 15: The Fellowship Interview Each Other

I love this idea from Empire : I wonder if there are other casts of later franchises that could pass this filter to verify the maintenance of respect for each other in some commemorative anniversary

ok.

Some interesting parts the rest of the interviews here:

Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn)

Questions set by Billy Boyd

Is there a Shakespearian character you would like to play?

I would, at this time in my life, choose either Shylock or Timon. Of the female characters, Margaret of Anjou.

really he makes gender neutral affirmations before this was a tendry..interesting

If you could speak one other language, what would it be?

Arabic. I speak a little, but would like to be fluent in it because it would allow me to better understand, and more ably try to make myself understood, in countries that have Arabic as their primary language. It would also give me a better chance to do something concrete, in the field, to help refugees in and from the Middle East.

[...]

If you could live one day over, which would you pick?

I would rather not live any day over again. Things have been, are, and will be just so, and justly so.

If you could own any piece of art, what would it be?

A Poplar-Lined Road At Sunset, France by Minerva Chapman.

Cedar-wood campfire roasted Agria potatoes with aioli sauce on the side.

Is there a scene from Tolkien not in the films that you wish was?

I’d like to have seen what Peter Jackson would have done with the character Ghân-buri-Ghân, the chief of the Drúedain, wild men of the Drúadan Forest. Seeing him lead King Théoden and his army of Rohirrim through the forest to join the fight to save Minas Tirith would have been thrilling. Towards the end of Tolkien’s The Return Of The King, the Forest of Drúadan is given by newly-crowned Aragorn to Ghân and his people for their exclusive use, leaving it to them to decide that from then on if anyone else is to be allowed to enter it. I suppose all of that extra material would have given the already thematically complex and quite lengthy movie far too long a running time and an overwhelming amount of information for viewers to easily assimilate. Die-hard Tolkien aficionados, however, might have enjoyed the character, as he is a one-of-a-kind noble descendant of prehistoric humans.

If you could eat one thing right now, what would it be?

Cedar-wood campfire roasted Agria potatoes with aioli sauce on the side.

If you could kiss me again, would you?

I am anxiously counting the interminable minutes that pass until it happens again.

haha :D

. If you could play with one band, who would it be?

I would love to tour with guitarist Buckethead, with the accompaniment, as needed, of high-tide surf in winter, running up and down a gravel beach, the morning tunes of song sparrows, different kinds of rain on a variety of tin roofs, and Johnny Hartman singing Irving Berlin’s They Say It’s Wonderful from the 1963 LP John Coltrane And Johnny Hartman. I’d play piano and maybe sing now and then, or recite poems — and we’d jam together in ancient movie houses and natural outdoor settings, with projected silent movies for inspiration. Movies like Dreyer’s The Passion Of Joan Of Arc, Murnau’s Sunrise, Vidor’s The Crowd, Steiner’s H2O, or Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Akhmed, as well as anonymous family home-movies. Or perhaps simply just you and me, a guitar, a piano, and your lovely voice. And Buckethead ought to come with us — why not?

Sean Bean

(Boromir)Questions set by Viggo Mortensen

Is there a scene from LOTR you would want to reshoot?

I wouldn’t mind going back and doing it all again. The first one anyway :)

What character have you most enjoyed playing in the theatre?

Macbeth. The darkness of the story that runs throughout the play always fascinated me. Macbeth is inherently evil and obsessed with power to the point that he is driven insane. I first saw it performed with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench in Wath-upon-Dearne near Rotherham and found it totally enthralling. I suppose it was always an ambition to play the part and I went on to do so in the West End. But basically, I just like evil shit!

Did you watch the Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy?

Yes, I did and was very impressed. It was so interesting to see characters like Bilbo and Gandalf in their early years. The landscapes and ancient woodland settings jolted my memories of being on the set of Lord Of The Rings. And you in full costume, fishing in a river in the middle of the night like a nutcase.

When were you last in New Zealand?

Unfortunately, I haven’t had the chance to go back since we finished filming. One conciliation is that my daughter married a Kiwi earlier this year. He has a large family there, so we’ll always have a place to stay when I make the journey back one day.

Which of the books you’ve read this year is your favourite?

My favourite, as usual, is the one I am reading presently. Which is Berlin Noir by Phillip Kerr. I also enjoy reading books by John Pilger and George Orwell.My garden is a mixture of topiaries and evergreens, with areas of wilderness you can get lost in.

I remember from our time filming the last battle and Boromir’s death scene as reimagined by Peter Jackson for The Fellowship Of The Ring that we spoke about the beautiful native beech forests near Glenorchy on the South Island of New Zealand.

We share an interest in gardening and especially in the planting and care of trees. In the past month I’ve been preparing some new trees that I’ve enjoyed seeing grow up in clay pots since last winter — Basque Country oaks, a silver birch, and a few North American red oaks and sugar maples. They are now ready for transplanting. I like putting trees in the ground, near home as well as in the gardens and fields those of friends if they desire it.

What is the worst injury you have ever suffered?

I fell through a glass door as a child and almost lost my leg. It was hanging off and took me nearly a year to recover. But I’m alright now, thanks.

Do you believe we humans have free will?

Yes, I believe we have if we allow it to thrive and develop, without the impositions of propaganda and prejudice. Free will can only flourish when we are surrounded by art, literature and music. Not control and oppression

It has been a while since you and I have seen each other — I believe the last time was at the Empire Awards a few years ago — and I miss your company. I cannot for the life of me remember whose turn it is to buy the next round. Do you?

I think it’s yours. Actually, I don’t remember either. I do remember sharing a bottle of whiskey with you, which you took up on to the stage when you won your well-earned award. (After your fine critique of Russell Crowe.) It was a fine night.

ok I really looked for it and it happened. haha. the anecdote is over here and the video here. I love Russel Crowe but the truth is that he deserved that, it's part of the tendency of Hollywood actors to be pretentious at awards that Viggo hates so much. I love the anecdote, anyway

#viggo mortensen #Sean Bean #LOTR

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Where Are All of the Mothers in Fantasy Fiction?

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This is a guest post from Gabriela Houston, the London-based Polish author of Second Bell, a Slavic fantasy debut described as a cross between His Dark Materials and The Bear and the Nightingale. You can find out more about the book here.

Historically speaking, the fantasy genre has a thorny relationship with motherhood. Technically, it’s acknowledged that the protagonists must have sprung from somewhere. But it is often solely their paternity that is seen as important—while the mothers, if mentioned at all, are usually either dead of irrelevant: unmentioned or languishing in a convent somewhere. If the mothers (or stepmothers: a different type of a mother-figure) persist in being alive into their children’s adulthood they are most often presented as an obstacle to their child’s self-actualisation/quest, or, as is most common with the stepmother archetype, present an actual threat to the protagonist.

Since mainstream fantasy as a genre was Eurocentric, this is a trend that is very much connected to the patriarchal structures persisting throughout Europe for most of recorded history. King Arthur, whose legend was first written down in the 12th Century by Geoffrey of Monmouth, had a mother, of course, but her only real importance was in how her beauty drew the eye of Uther Pendragon, who raped her, conceiving Arthur. Since Uther ended up marrying Arthur’s mother, Igraine, story-wise all was considered to be well, and, her role in birthing the future king done, Igraine became an irrelevance, just as any feelings and thoughts she might have had on her second husband. All we know is she was beautiful, chaste and gave birth to the real protagonist of the story.

The courtly love conventions forming the basis of many medieval European legends have seeped into the genre of fantasy, especially high fantasy, and have shaped the way in which female protagonists are related to. In most “traditional” fantasy, motherhood was seen as nearly opposite to personhood. A female character’s value centred squarely on her attractiveness to the male protagonist, meaning that the moment she aged/became a mother, she ceased to hold that particular form of attention that comes from extreme youth and innocence. Motherhood is seen as the end of a female character’s journey. The experiences, shifting relationships and emotions linked to motherhood are not seen as interesting enough to garner any space at all.

In The Lord of The Rings, we are faced with a whole cast of missing mothers. Moreover their absence is not noted as particularly important or carrying any emotional load. Aragorn, son of Arathorn, clearly had a mother, but when his father died he was shipped off to live with the elves. We neither know, nor are expected to care about what his mother thought on the subject. Then, of course, he falls for the elven maiden Arwen, whose mother, we’re told (as an aside) had the good sense to disappear from the scene by sailing beyond the sea before the plot of LOTR begins. Frodo Baggins’ mother helpfully died before he was born and Bilbo Baggins has the rare privilege of having a named mother, Belladonna Took, who, however, is quite dead by the time The Hobbit begins, and is referenced only as a link between Bilbo and the adventurous Took clan. She was a Took and she birthed him. Thus her role ended.

The halls of speculative fiction are carpeted with the corpses of the mothers who died of broken hearts and colds in order to not complicate their progeny’s journey. In fantasy TV and Film the trend, quite naturally, continued. In the original Star Wars trilogy, Princess Leia and Luke’s mother, Padme Amidala lived a full life of adventure but then died of a broken heart shortly after her children were born, as of course she should have done. Can you imagine, had she survived, the plot-spoiling link to their past she would have become? In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Joyce Summer’s death, whilst arguably the critical highpoint of the series, was seen as necessary. She had to die, or else Buffy might have never become who she was always meant to be. As a mother she was an obstacle, one the scriptwriters helpfully removed.

Occasionally, the death of the character’s mother brings about the advent of the perennial archetype of the evil step-mother. A twisted parody of what a mother should be, just as the dead mother was convenient to the character’s journey, the insertion of the stepmother exists solely to scupper all of the character’s efforts. The examples of the conniving stepmother trope abound in traditional folktales (like in Cinderella, or its Slavic equivalent, Vasilisa, where the young protagonist is sent off by her stepmother to ask a favour of the infamous witch, Baba Yaga), mythologies (think the ultimate evil stepmother, Hera, who habitually persecuted the innocent results of her husband Zeus’ many indiscretions), and, not surprisingly, in fantasy genre as well.

In A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin (which actually does portray an unusual range of mothers with agency), Catelyn Stark, an otherwise fiercely loyal mother, is a cold and distant stepmother to Jon Snow. In the first novel in Katherine Arden’s fantastic Winternight trilogy, the main protagonist grows up in the shadow of her vapid, fearful and cruel stepmother. Part of the reason, I’d argue, why older women are so often portrayed as annoying and conniving, is because, as far as the traditional narratives are concerned, the whole of their role and purpose is fulfilled the moment their physical (youthful) attractiveness wanes. Those without the wisdom to exit the stage by dying become at worst a cumbersome plot bunny and at best an obstacle.

The issue of a lack of older women in fantasy is such an expansive subject that it demands the respect of a separate thought piece, really. And, as regards the stepmothers, I’m not saying, of course, that they should always be portrayed as kind and loving. But precisely because their archetype is rooted so strongly in our collective consciousness, it’s particularly important to acknowledge their humanity. And as far as the humanity of the older female (in the traditional fantasy fiction this seems to describe any woman over twenty) character goes, the good news is the tide is turning.

Part of the reason for that is that more women than ever are given the platform to write their stories. Perhaps somewhere along the way the publishing industry as a whole realised that as women account for the majority of fiction readers (according to one cross-Atlantic research they make up to 80% of fiction market), then perhaps portraying women as actual people, whose agency doesn’t evaporate once they get pregnant, might simply be good marketing.

In the recent years I’ve been ecstatic to see nuance brought into the motherhood trope within the genre. Where the mother of the character is dead, she is so for a damn good reason, with the echoes of her absence reverberating through the story in the most compelling ways, like in Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn. Mothers fight beside their children, and grandchildren (Like the pink-haired protagonist of The Phlebotomist by Chris Panatier), and battle hardship and heartache, like in Madeline Miller’s Circe.

As a mother it was important to me to focus on the humanity of motherhood in my debut, The Second Bell. The mothers I wrote are not perfect, and they are not always right. And even when they are, they might not know it for certain. And that is the point. Mothers deserve their place in fiction not because they’re perfect, but because they are human. Their decisions are just as complex as their younger counterparts and are complicated further by their new and life-changing bond with their child.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Writing mothers is writing humans. No more, no less. They matter and they are worthy of notice.

Second Bell will be released on Tuesday, March 9th. You can find out more about Gabriela Houston here.

The post Where Are All of the Mothers in Fantasy Fiction? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/30r63n4

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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theinquisitxor · 3 years

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Series Status

Update: This is now updated as of Spring 2022! I feel I like spent a good part of 2021 catching up and finishing series that I started in 2019/2020. Which was my plan (as you can see in the paragraph below). I’ve definitely been meeting my reading goals for the past couple of years, which is a good feeling!

2019 (and some of 2020) was a year of starting series, but not necessarily finishing them😂. This is a list of series I want to read and finish, but haven’t yet (plus having so many unfinished series stresses me out a little) 2020 was also a year where I started series and reread a lot of favorite books from my teenage years and earlier. I’m glad I did that, and I reread some books I’ve been meaning to for years. But i think 2021 will be a year of me wrapping up/catching up on series.

Series I’ve started but need to catch up on:

The Wayward Children Series by Seanan McGuire. Read book 1, need to read the rest. (it’s a crime that I haven’t continued yet, I know). Update: I’ve now read this first two books... still need to continue!

The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey. Read book 1 January 2021, need to read the rest. Update: I’ve read books 1-5 so far.

Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones (companion books to Howls Moving Castle) I know, its a heinous crime that I haven’t read these two when HMC is quite possibly my most favorite book ever.

Veronica Speedwell Series by Deborah Harkness. I’ve read books 1-2.

The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare

The Dark Star Trilogy by Marlon James

Series I want to continue, but I’m waiting for the next book to be released/announced:

Children of Blood and Bone trilogy

Crescent City series + the new A Court book

Ninth House series by Leigh Bardugo (Hell Bent announced)

The Book of Dust trilogy by Philip Pullman

Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson

Series I might continue with if I get access to the books via library/audio/used bookstore, etc. (aka books I’m not going out of my way to buy if I can find them in an alternative way. The books listed above are ones I own, so I’ll keep buying them in some form)

The Witcher Series. Read the short stories and book 1, not super invested though.

There Will Come a Darkness series by Katy Rose Pool. Maybe if my local library gets the rest of the books. but I’ve forgotten like 80% of the first one anyway

The Witchlands Series by Susan Dennard. I honestly want to reread the first books and own them, but they’re just not super high on my priority list right now.

An Ember in the Ashes series by Sabaa Tahir. I read the first book but didn’t love it. Not sure if I want to continue yet

Series I have finished in the last 3 years:

Cursebreakers Trilogy by Brigid Kremmerer

Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee

The Tide Child Trilogy by RJ Barker

The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

Earthseed duology by Octavia E Butler

Tess of the Road duology by Rachel Hartman

The Other Side of the Sky duology by Meaghan Spooner and Amie Kaufman

King of Scars duology by Leigh Bardugo

The City of Brass trilogy by SA Chakraborty

The Remnant Chronicles by Mary E Pearson

The Wrath and the Dawn duology by Renee Ahdieh

Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov

Series I am not going to continue (for one reason or another)

The Simple Wild duology by K.A Tucker

A Discovery of Witches series by Deborah Harkness

Bringing Down the Duke series by Evie Dunmore

Blackthorn and Grim series by Juliet Marillier

Anne of Green Gables

A Conspiracy of Truths duology by Alexandra Rowland

For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna

Serpent and Dove by Shelby Mahurin

First books of series that have not been release yet that I want to read:

Forging Silver into Stars by Brigid Kemmerer

Isle of the Gods by Amie Kaufman

The Luminaries by Susan Dennard

The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten

Cursebreaker by Katy Rose Pool

Guardians of Dawn by S J Jones

Series I want to get to in the next couple of years:

The Shadow of the Wind series by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

She Who Became the Sun series by Shelly Parker Chan

Realm Breaker by Victoria Aveyeard

A Fate of Wrath and Flame by KA Tucker

The Witch Collector by Charissa Weaks

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim

This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi

Dark Rise by CS Pacat

The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni

The Counciller by EJ Beaton

Forestborn by Elayne Audrey Becker

A Deadly Education series by Naomi Novik

From Blood and Ash trilogy by Jennifer L Armentrout

Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursla K Le Guin

The Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman

the books by Brandon Sanderson (his series and some standalones)

The Mirror Visitor series Cristelle Dabos

Skyhunter by Marie Lu

Senlin Ascends series by Josiah Bancroft

A Memory Called Empire duology by Arkady Martine

The Abhorsen series by Garth Nix

series by Juliet Marillier

The Empire of Sand duology by Tasha Suri

Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer

The Untold Tale series by J.M. Frey

books by Rebecca Roanhorse

Nevernight Chronicles by Jay Kristoff

Child of a Hidden Sea series by A.M. Dellamonica

Series I will read eventually (no rush though) (this is very loose, bc I got these off my Goodreads, which I mainly use to make note of books I’m vaguely interested in)

Here, There by Dragons series by James A Owen

The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne (and other books by him)

The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

books by Elise Kova

The Chronicles of Between by LL Starling

The Boy with Fire by Aparna Verma

The North Wind by Alexandria Warwick

Curse of the Wolf King by Tessonje Odette

Song of the Forever Rains by EJ Mellow

The Bound and the Broken series by Ryan Cahill

Fortuna Sworn by KJ Sutton

World of Aureum by Anastasia K King

Raven’s Mark series by Ed McDonald

Victoria Schwab’s Middle Grade series (The Archived and City of Ghosts)

The Ren Crown series by Anne Zolle

Green Rider series by Kristen Britain

Everything by Cinda WIlliams Chima

Darwath series by Barbra Hambly

Vicky Bliss series by Elizabeth Peters

An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors trilogy by Curtis Craddock

The Dragonborne Chair series by Tad Williams

Keeper of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger

The Last Magician series by Lisa Maxwell

Fall of Giants Trilogy by Ken Follett

Steel and Fire series by Joran Rivet

Hostage of Empire series by S.C Emmett

Wolf Tower/Claidi Journals series by Tanith Lee

The Deeds of Paksenarrion books by Elizabeth Moon

The Emperor’s Blades by Brian Stavley

The Darkwater Legacy series by Chris Woodling

The Split Worlds series by Emma Newman

Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander

Languedoc by Kate Mosse

The Winnowing Flame Trilogy by Jen Williamns

The Greenhollow duology by Emly Tesh

The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L Jensen

The Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein

A Canticle for Leibowitz series by Walter M Miller Jr

Series that I am not going to read/catch up on until the next/last book release date is officially announced:

A Game of Thrones

Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss. Read book 1

The Outlander series

#woah I'm ambitious #books #book series #bookblr #booklr #my post #mer's favorites #reading goals

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poemsforpersephone · 5 years

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This is part two of this list here HANGED MAN PROMO REC LIST. I’m going to split these up in a slightly different way than the other list, but I will still go into a bit of detail as to why I think a fan of The Last Sun would enjoy these books too.

Fey Novels

I’m going to start with basically anything and everything by Holly Black, because she knows how to build fantastical, beautiful, scary worlds that are detailed and fleshed out in a similar way to how the world of The Last Sun is.

The Folk of the Air series is comprised of three books, The Cruel Prince, The Wicked King and The Queen of Nothing, and I devoured all three as soon as I got my hands on them. I’m typing this fresh off of having read the third and last book of the trilogy in fact. In terms of LGBT rep the main character’s sister has a female love interest and there are other characters scattered throughout who are very obviously not heterosexual. Lots of political intrigue and power moves between the courts too, which is another reason why TLS readers might enjoy!

The Darkest Part of the Forest is a stand alone novel (sadly). “Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.” It’s just really good in all honesty, kick ass characters, strong friendships and family bonds, great plot and one of the main characters is gay and another is bisexual.

Tithe and the sequel Ironside are both very good and a more ‘urban’ fantasy than Folk or Forest which, to me at least, are more pure fantasy in a way although all of them take place in the modern world. It’s been a while since I read these two specifically, Tithe has a gay main supporting character who I really liked, and he’s also in Ironside too.

Moving away from Holly Black but staying within the realm of fey magic the Wicked Lovely series is a beautiful mix of urban and fey magic. Each book in the series stays within the same world and plot line but generally delves into a different character’s POV. Ink Exchange is technically the second book in the series but my favourite and IMO can be read alone, but I would recommend the entire thing. Two of my favourite bisexual characters are heavily featured in this and pop up through out the rest of the series, sometimes only a little and sometimes a whole lot.

Prince of Air and Darkness by M.A. Grant. “The only human student at Mather’s School of Magick, Phineas Smith has a target on his back. Born with the rare ability to tap into unlimited magick, he finds both Faerie Courts want his allegiance—and will do anything to get it. They don’t realize he can’t levitate a feather, much less defend the Faerie Realm as it slips into civil war.” I MEAN how could you read that description as a TLS reader and NOT want to give this one a go????

Abhorsen Series

In another realm entirely the Abhorsen series is a stunning example of world building which starts with the novel Sabriel, then Lirael and then Abhorsen. I can’t remember there being any lgbt characters in these three, I read them like ten years ago and they were published in 1996 so that kind of explains that, but I love them so much, they’re so well written and I really think fans of TLS will like these. They aren’t urban, but they’re very fantasy and the magic system is super interesting. Possibly one of my favourites in any book ever.

“Sent to a boarding school in Ancelstierre as a young child, Sabriel has had little experience with the random power of Free Magic or the Dead who refuse to stay dead in the Old Kingdom. But during her final semester, her father, the Abhorsen, goes missing, and Sabriel knows she must enter the Old Kingdom to find him.”

Comics

I recommended the Batwoman series last time, this time the rec I’m making is for a comic series called The Wicked & the Divine. The art work is beautiful and concept is unique and intriguing: “Every ninety years, twelve gods incarnate as humans. They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are dead.” It’s also lovely and diverse in it’s cast. I think fans of TLS will enjoy the characters in this especially.

Saga is also very popular with sci fi fantasy fans, so I think a lot of TLS fan will be into this if they wanna give comics a go. “When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe.” I’ve only personally read the first issue of this but I enjoyed it a lot. The art is really pretty and it’s quite diverse from what I’ve heard/seen, but I’m not 100% sure about lgbt characters. I know there are some in but I’m not sure how prominent they are.

DRAGONS

Dragons. That’s all i’m saying. If Rune could turn into a dragon or ride a dragon... ahh the possibilities are endless. If anyone asks why this rec section is on the list i’m just gonna say its part of my shiny new determination to see Rune turn into a dragon in a sequel later down the line. I think we only see a dragon once in The Last Sun right at the start but man. It got me hankering for more you know? K.D. Edwards if you’re reading this... you know what to do ;) .

The King’s Dragon by W.M. Fawkes and Sam Burns. “Lord Tristram Radcliffe has a secret—he is the only dragon at the king’s court in Llangard. It’s a secret he’s kept from the knights he’s fought beside, from the ladies who bat their lashes at him, and from his closest companion, Prince Reynold. If it were to get out, he’d be banished to the Mawrcraig Mountains along with the rest of his kind, but the kingdom of men is the only one he’s ever known, and his heart lives in the stone halls of those who’d count him an enemy.”

Silk & Steel by Ariana Nash. “A tormented dragon prince. A captured elven assassin. Duty demands they fight for their people, but love has other plans.”

Other

Spellbound by Allie Therin. “Arthur Kenzie’s life’s work is protecting the world from the supernatural relics that could destroy it. When an amulet with the power to control the tides is shipped to New York, he must intercept it before it can be used to devastating effects. This time, in order to succeed, he needs a powerful psychometric…and the only one available has sworn off his abilities altogether.” Another disclaimer: I haven’t read this one yet but the reason it’s on my list in the first place is because it gave me some TLS vibes so I thought i’d bring it to everyone else’s attention too!

Black Dog Blues by Rhys Ford. “Ever since being part of the pot in a high-stakes poker game, elfin outcast Kai Gracen figures he used up his good karma when Dempsey, a human Stalker, won the hand and took him in. Following the violent merge of Earth and Underhill, the human and elfin races are left with a messy, monster-ridden world, and Stalkers are the only cavalry willing to ride to someone's rescue when something shadowy appears.”

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan. THIS BOOK. oh my god. “Each year, eight beautiful girls are chosen as Paper Girls to serve the king. It's the highest honor they could hope for...and the most demeaning. This year, there's a ninth. And instead of paper, she's made of fire.” Such a beautiful, well crafted fantasy world. Such rich characters. Ugh i love it and the f/f romance it brings to the table.

#hangedmanpromo #scionsofatlantis #book rec

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delicatefury · 5 years

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Okay okay so, I looooooove TDPL and I've read and reread it like 6 times and I want to ask a question about it but I don't know what to ask??? So can you please rant about it a bit? Any drop of info about it soothes my soul.

Awww, so much love lately. ❤️

So, this is a bit that I’ve played with and have been pretty tight-lipped about but... since you’ve all been so nice lately...

Original Trilogy Cameos (or maybe more?)

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

Several characters from the OT are going to play big parts in TDPL, and several will make cameos at the very least. Like...

Owen and Beru Lars

Yes, I’m gonna send the twins and Obi-Wan to Tatooine at some point. It’s only fair, since Leia gets to/has to interact with Bail on a regular basis, that Luke get the same bittersweet interactions at least once or twice. But emphasis on the sweet (for both of them). Because Beru looks at little Luke and Leia Whitesun who have lost everything (their parents, their adopted parents, their homes) and decides that more family is never a bad thing, Whitesun is her name and its a Tatooine name, they’re obviously related regardless of how distant (Luke by heart, Leia by proxy). She would love to be their aunt and Owen to be their uncle, feel free to write. And of course they take her up on this. Because Leia wants to know Luke’s family the way he knows hers. Because no matter how rough growing up on Tatooine was, Luke missed/has missed/misses Beru and Owen.

R2-D2

Still playing with how to address this, because everything has the Force, but at the same time, Droids don’t really have a Force presence, but if anyone could mess with the proper rule of things, it’s Anakin. I kind of imagine a sort of ‘comes-and-goes’ awareness. That Artoo gets more when Luke and Leia are around, but extra memories, conflicting images/classifications of Anakin, overlapping and contradictory command routines (Anakin-is-master/Obi-Wan-is-master/Luke-is-master. Aka: his change in ownership between the movies) aren’t something R2 droids can handle, so he sparks and sputters, and Anakin basically bans Luke from interacting with Artoo because this only happens whenever that Whitesun kid shows up. But Luke will find a way to fix this, because that’s Artoo and he’ll do anything for that little loyal droid.

And last but not least (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, YOU’VE BEEN WARNED, I NEED A LAPTOP SO I CAN DO READMORES)

Seriously, you’ve been warned!

Keep scrolling if you don’t want any mid-story spoilers for The Dark Path Lit. I mean the gif gives it away, but if you watched the Clone Wars you knew he was going to be involved at some point. You knew.

Last chance!

CHEWIE!

((I’m honestly surpised that no one’s asked about him yet. It’s been years.)

Oh, it’s gonna take a while, but mighty Chewbacca will show up and he will play a major role. There was no way in hell I was gonna leave him out of things!

Chewie, being much older and wiser, but so tangled up with the OT trio, gets something a lot closer to foreknowledge than whatever happened to our main four time travelers. He’s not really like Obi-Wan, but he’s not like the OT trio either (and even if he was somewhat ‘unmade’, who’d be able to tell. He’d lose like 10 years out of 200. No many people would notice). When Chewbacca finds himself on Kashyyyk, in the middle of the Clone Wars, he doesn’t freak out or panic (for too long, that is). He doesn’t have to intergrate a bunch of memories. Doesn’t have to adjust to being out of time and out of place. He just knows that his family is missing a few members, knows those missing members, their likes and dislikes, their presence and power, their scents and their looks, and that they’re going to need him when they show up.

He keeps an ear and an eye out for a tiny scoundrel who should be somewhere around Coruscant or Corellia right now (Disney is lowest Canon. I can and have elected to ignore Solo. Haven’t seen it, feel no obligation to include it). And makes sure the other Wookiees out and about in the galaxy know to contact him should the boy be found. Because Chewbacca also knows that he owes Han Solo a debt (and he wants to keep the cub safe, keep him nearby, that’s his cub and his best friend and he knows that the universe owed the cub a better life, so he’ll make it give Han one even if he has to rip off some arms to do so).

So you can imagine his surprise when he smells all three of his missing cubs on Ahsoka. Imagine how much more surprised (but still happily so) he is when Luke and Leia show up and they were always small, but now they’re even tinier and they’re crying because Chewie knows them, he knows them!

And then Han shows up, and of course Chewbacca wouldn’t have found him, he was looking for a kid, but Han’s almost a man already (by human standards at least), but he’s still Chewie’s cub that he’d swore he’d protect and they’re all there and calling him a fuzz ball and a carpet and a bunch of other things that are not-really-respectful but said with so much affection, and it’s not like their Shyriiwook names are much better and he’s got all three of them wrapped up in his arms and safe, with his wife and child on Kashyyyk and these three in his arms, his whole family is as safe as warriors can be (for they all, his wife and child included, are warriors. And they all will not give the galaxy to the darkness without a fight.)

And of course General Kenobi is involved, who better to watch after his missing cubs? And it’s perfect too, because Mighty Chewbacca hasn’t been idle this entire time. No, not at all. He’s been working on something that might help change the tides of this war...

#ask me things!#TDPL #star wars #tdpl spoilers #Owen Lars #Beru Whitesun-Lars #Luke Skywalker #Princess Leia #Han Solo #R2-D2 #chewbacca #Man #The Chewie Reunion is one of my favorites #There might (will definitely) be tears #because of Han #Because he’s missed his co-pilot so much #because it hasn’t been the same without him #no matter how thrilling fighting Sidious head-to-head is #Han would still feel better with a Wookie at his back

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sobi-fans · 4 years

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Thoughts on TROS

So I’ve received a few asks asking about my thoughts on The Rise of Skywalker, and I haven’t replied because I have many thoughts and I’m still processing stuff. But yesterday @riselioness messaged me to ask the same, so I thought it was time to try and organise them on a page.Yes, I am very, very late to this party.

Obviously spoilers, so I’ll put it under a cut. Also, I’ve only seen the movie once, and that was back in December, so my memory might be a little hazy. I probably need to see it again.

For the sake of context, I have no OTP for the sequel trilogy, but I have been known to read Reylo and Damerey on occasion. (And randomly Gingerflower – aka Hux/Rose – purely because of that TLJ deleted scene where she bites him!) Let me tell you, being on the outside of the shipping wars has been very interesting, and it seems abundantly clear to me that your enjoyment of TROS depends greatly on who you ship, or whether you ship at all. I would have been happy if Finnrose endured or Stormpilot became a thing, but ah well. Onwards!

I’ll try and keep this somewhat cohesive, but I feel like it’s going to be all over the place. Apologies.

Let’s start simple. Stuff I liked that doesn’t have a ‘but’ attached:

- Lando (where’s he been all this time?)

- Wedge (where’s he been all this time?)

- Finn being able to show his individuality with clothing and hair that’s his choice

- Purely for shallow reasons, Poe’s outfit

- Poe and Rey channelling Han and Leia with their bickering at the start

- The Force bond stuff was visually stunning with the dual locations

- Luke’s expression after he raises the X-wing, like ‘Yeah, finally nailed it!’

- Ben Solo channelling his father – also Adam Driver in general for making Ben so very different from Kylo with just body language and facial expressions alone. He literally moved like a huge weight had been lifted from him, and it was pretty amazing to watch

- The fact that Rey’s mother is Villanelle from Killing Eve

- Kaydel looking like Endor Leia at the end

- LGBTQ representation!

- Seeing young Luke and Leia

The stuff with Leia was very poignant and emotional, but I can’t exactly say it was good. It’s tricky. I don’t feel like I’ve separated Leia from Carrie in my mind, so it’s really hard to look at it objectively. I do know that when Chewie howled after Leia’s death, I teared up pretty much immediately!

I have mixed feelings about the trio interaction. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to see them together, and I love their banter, BUT it felt incredibly forced. Shoving them together for the sake of them being together does a disservice to all three characters. This was the last movie. They should all have been developing their individual stories at that point. Rey with her Jedi stuff, (which she does get to go off and do, but not without Finn traipsing after her like a lost puppy), Poe finding his feet as a leader of the Resistance, and Finn doing literally anything else other than running after Rey yelling her name all the time.

There was a lot of stuff that I wanted to like, but mostly it came across as missed opportunities. Such as:

- Jannah and the other former stormtroopers – this would have been such an interesting idea to develop, and would have given Finn a cool storyline of his own that didn’t involve Rey. I would have liked to see Finn reaching out to current stormtroopers, persuading them that they had other options. That would have been cool. A stormtrooper revolution turning the tide of the final battle!

- Finn’s Force sensitivity – where did this come from? Okay, so maybe it was hinted at in TFA, but it wasn’t carried over to TLJ, and JJ should have respected that in the interest of cohesive storytelling. And as interesting as it could have been to see, it doesn’t take any strength away from Finn to have him not be Force sensitive.

- Hux being the spy – this is such an interesting idea, and it’s hilarious to me that he would go to such lengths to be petty towards Kylo, but it was executed in a rush, much like a lot of other stuff in this movie. They could have made Rose his handler, which would have been a nice change in their dynamic after TLJ.

Stuff I did not like: (warning, rants ahead)

- Completely unnecessary new characters – elaborated below

- Pryde – what was the point of him? Hux could have easily fulfilled that role if they didn’t want to develop his spy storyline.

- Zorri – could have been cool, but seemed shoehorned in to remind us that Poe Dameron is straight, thank you very much!

- Poe being a former spice runner – just why? Poe already had a perfectly good back story.

- Palpatine being back – I know opinions vary on this, but I’m not a fan. Doesn’t it just cheapen Anakin’s entire story arc? (This is not to take anything away from Ian McDiarmid’s performance, which was amazing as always.) Also the complete lack of a reasonable explanation for how he returned. In fact, doesn’t someone even use the word ‘somehow’ at some point?

- Rey Palpatine – again, I know opinions vary, but I hated this so much. I’ve been team Rey No One since the beginning! This is our first female protagonist, and in my opinion the thought that she came from completely humble beginnings was fascinating. To link her to a powerful name – a powerful male name, at that – and for it to be literally stated that her power comes from him was just kind of deflating, to be honest. Also, it makes no sense. Are we expected to believe that Luke there-is-good-in-Vader Skywalker writes off his own nephew because of his potential darkness but is A-OK being a mentor to Rey Palpatine?

- Leia knowing that Rey is a Palpatine – this makes no sense either to me. Leia accepts and nurtures Rey despite her bloodline, sensing that there is good in her, yet thinks that her own son is irredeemable? The sense of ‘we had a bad child, but we found a better one’ is just…ugh. And this happens throughout the ST, even with all the Jedi standing behind Rey having abandoned Ben for years. Even if you believe that Rey is more deserving of that attention, the callousness just doesn’t seem very Jedi-like to me.

- Leia’s reasons for giving up her Jedi training made no sense.

- The sidelining of Rose – it seems painfully clear that JJ had no idea what to do with her character, so she’s just kind of…there. I refuse to believe that they couldn’t have come up with something, even if it was just her accompanying Finn or Poe on their storylines. That wouldn’t have given her a whole lot of agency, but it would have been something.

- Rey ending up alone on a desert planet, exactly where she started. Yes, I know she’s likely not going to live there, but visually the movie is showing us that nothing has really changed. We know Rey wants a family, and the hug with Finn and Poe was lovely to see, but to have the last image of her be her alone on a desert planet is actually kind of depressing.

- Rey calling herself a Skywalker – like the Palpatine thing, it’s linking her to someone else’s legacy. I think it would have been more powerful for her to declare herself ‘Just Rey’. No one’s on at Finn to declare his surname, are they?

Now on to the big one. Bendemption and Reylo.

I have been hoping for Bendemption from the beginning, because redemption, compassion and forgiveness were key themes of the OT for me. But I had a feeling that if Kylo did get redeemed, he’d be doomed to die, because as we know, JJ likes to follow the exact same patterns that we’ve already seen before. I have issues with Vader’s ‘redemption’ on the grounds of it being a ridiculously quick turnaround, (quicker than Kylo’s, even), plus he gets an easy way out just returning to the Light and then dying straight after. Lo and behold, the exact same thing happens here. What would have been really interesting to see, in my opinion, is Ben living to atone for what he’s done. That would have been true redemption, and I think the same is true for Anakin too.

Now, as we know, Kylo is much worse than Vader, even though Vader spent literally half his life on the Dark Side, murdered thousands of people, including children, chopped off his son’s hand, tortured his daughter and her future husband. We know this because Kylo killed Han Solo, the fanboys’ favourite. Therefore, he is much worse, despite only having been on the Dark Side for about six years after being mentally manipulated from birth by the most evil man in existence. Don’t get me wrong, I am not apologising for Kylo. I’m aware he did terrible things, hence why Ben should have lived to atone, but I do believe that he gets an unfair level of hatred, largely stemming from killing Han.

As mentioned above, I have occasionally delved into Reylo fics to see what was out there. I’ve always been a supporter of watching their story play out, because enemies to lovers was something new for a Star Wars movie, and it’s a cool idea to explore. We’d previously seen it with Luke and Mara in Legends. (Mara, incidentally, being someone who was redeemed and lived to make up for her bad deeds.) I loved Ben Solo for the short amount of time we got to see him. The interactions between him and Rey over the bond were so cool to watch. Ultimately, though, I don’t feel like their story was particularly well handled in this movie. I buy it because Adam and Daisy were so brilliant, but I can’t help but feel that Ben’s death was a giant cop-out.

I have mixed feelings about Rey facing Palpatine alone. I can see that there’s some kind of strength to her battling alone there. (Except she wasn’t, because she had every Jedi standing metaphorically behind her.) That said, to have Ben out of the fight felt…weird. Since TFA certain people have said that Rey and Ben/Kylo were two halves of one protagonist, which makes me think that he should have been present there instead of tossed into a pit. Also, after the mental mind games that Palpatine has been playing for his entire life, he pretty much deserved to be. But I don’t know. I think I need to watch it again and see how I feel.

This ended up being super long and ranty, sorry. I’ve probably missed a lot. Maybe I’ll change my mind on a few things when I see it again. I thought writing this out might help to organise my thoughts, but I’m not sure it has!

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lordbelatiel · 5 years

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Holy Sister (Mark Lawrence)

'THEY CAME AGAINST HER AS A CHILD. NOW THEY FACE THE WARRIOR.

The ice is advancing, the Corridor narrowing, and the empire is under siege from the Scithrowl in the east and the Durns in the west. Everywhere, the emperor’s armies are in retreat.

Nona faces the final challenges that must be overcome if she is to become a full sister in the order of her choice. But it seems unlikely that Nona and her friends will have time to earn a nun’s habit before war is on their doorstep.

Even a warrior like Nona cannot hope to turn the tide of war.’

The shiphearts offer strength that she might use to protect those she loves, but it’s a power that corrupts. A final battle is coming in which she will be torn between friends, unable to save them all. A battle in which her own demons will try to unmake her.

A battle in which hearts will be broken, lovers lost, thrones burned.’

Many thanks to Harper Voyager for a copy of Holy Sister in return for an honest review.

I first read ‘Red Sister’, the first instalment in the ‘Book of Ancestor’ trilogy, in 2017. I immediately fell in love with the tumultuous adventures of our protagonist, Nona Grey, who manages to find herself with mortal enemies before she exits single figures. A worker of dark magic and adopted by a monastery of fighting nuns, Nona’s story is spread across a trilogy and ‘Holy Sister’ is the final work that brings all the threads of her story to a stunning conclusion.

By the start of ‘Holy Sister’ we have followed Nona through her childhood and teenage years, through her education in fighting and magic and her journeys along the length and breadth of the Corridor. Nona is a strong and impassioned young woman who has developed a sense of person and her own brand of right and wrong. Surrounded by fierce and complicated characters, such as her fellow magic worker and former nemesis Ara and the shadow touched Sister Kettle, Nona has reached the prime of her power and the understanding of just how much the world has to fear from the plots spawning on all sides. Lawrence manages to bring the complex storylines to a conclusion that is eminently satisfying.

Through the course of these books I’ve laughed and cried in equal measures. The relationships between characters are complicated and fraught in all the best ways. I won’t spoil the final relationship status of Nona at the end but it’s beautifully resolved and, honestly, made me well up with happiness. It’s a conclusion that makes beautiful sense considering how well it had been seeded through the rest of the trilogy.

The ending of this book will make you feel something. There is overwhelming loss and terror. No character is safe in a realistically destructive battle that will make you feel sick to the base of your stomach in fair measure. I’ve always loved how these books meld both science fiction and fantasy and the ending of this book brings those threads together wonderfully. It’s a dark, bleak and emotive conclusion to a series that I will read over and over again.

If you enjoy dark fantasy with complicated heroines, interesting world building and stunning writing then I deeply suggest you pick up the ‘Book of the Ancestor’ trilogy. I’ll be interested to see whether Lawrence writes further novels in this world and, if he does, I will be picking them up in a breath.

#book review #holy sister #mark lawrence #proteinreviews #grimdark #nona grey #harper voyager #bookblr

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ajanefantasy · 5 years

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Book Love part 3 - Rum (Brothers Book 1)

Rum was the third book novel in the fantasy world of Dahrè. It was originally meant to be a short story about a member of Golden Boots crew while I tried to figure out what was going on between Sari and Jayd (they were being stubborn at that time, their book, their story refusing to be written). The short story idea didn’t work out. At just over 100K Rum definitely wasn’t a short story.

Rum also became the first book in the Brothers trilogy, because the moment I began writing about Rum and Suede, the more Rum and Suede had to tell me, which meant that Rum’s twin brother had just as much to say and the two of them together had even more to say. But that’s a different book, two different books actually.

Rum and Suede’s story turned out to be may be a tad fluffy. The two of them, each with their own issues, slowly learning of each other with family and friends rooting them on while distant family tried to kill them. The story introduced more of the Boots clan (several of Golden Boots’ brothers, an uncle, a cousin or two, as well a couple of nephews) and brought back Golden Boots himself, Betrys and Rayn, and of course Golden Boots parents, Red Boots and Vylla van Jyn.

With that said:

[Image ID: Image of two, three mast ships, each tied at pier with the word Rum written across it]

Waking up hungover and married to the man he’s been lusting after isn’t what has Rum worried, it’s the folks trying to kill them that’s the problem. Oh, and having to deal with his twin brother’s sudden disappearance isn’t helping. Captain Suede Boots is intrigued by the man in bed with him, even if he doesn’t recall marrying him. Learning that his new husband’s estranged family desires to kill them, awakens a strong desire to protect what is his.

Story contains strong language and explicit sex. 102,000 words

Amazon / Smashwords / Kobo / Apple / BN

A preview of Rum can be found under the cut.

“What do you think we ought do once we find the bastards who tried to kill us?” Rum looked up from the cards in his hands—Suede had summoned one of the card tables from storage for them to use and set it up in the bedchamber to keep others from interrupting their game. He studied Suede’s face, looking for the clues that would tell him if he were lying about the cards in his hands.

Card playing with pirates was a whole different game of chance. When one played with pirates, there was always cheating, but that was the object of the game: to cheat—the one who cheats best and often, wins the game. Now, cheating might be the point, but there was one single rule that was always to be obeyed while at the table: cheat if ye will, but never get caught—it ruins the game and nae one wants to play with a cheater.

“Other than kill them?” Suede still felt a grievous wound to his pride, to his worth as a man for not protecting his husband, allowing him to be injured, nearly killed, on the first day of their marriage. He wished to remove the curs from existence for it.

“’Twould not be proper to kill them upon land. Pirates we are, ‘tis not something we do, aye?”

“Aye, ‘tis so; pirates fight not upon the land, but curs they are.”

Rum rubbed his cheek against his shoulder, ridding himself of an itch. “That does offer us more options.”

“Many options. Doubt I do that Chastain would mind how we removed them from Ganos as long as they are gone.” Suede tossed in two debloo, upping the ante. Despite playing for various favors—some sexual, some not—it would be scandalous not to play for coin. He was certain he had this hand, though he had to admit that Rum was a fine card player and produced very few tells, because of this, they were even in various favors.

“Much thought does this need, though mayhap Red has been thinking of a plan. Now that Mack knows of the situation, he and Red will be conferring and have something when we venture below on the morrow.” Rum matched the raise of coin and tossed in three of his own. Suede had tapped his cards with his middle finger and Rum had noticed that he only did so when he was a card off of a proper hand.

“Mentioned Red did that not only are ye a master navigator, ye are a master tactician; I see not why ye are unable to formulate a plan.”

Rum looked at Suede, uncertain what he should think of that. “Why would he say such a thing when always do I need time to think?”

Suede snorted and added once more to the pot. “’Tis yer lack of confidence speaking and only that. A tactician needs not rush.”

“But upon the sea, one must always be quick upon one’s feet, that I need time…”

“First, my husband, we are upon land and in nae rush. Second, ‘tis a lie ye tell yerself. When charting courses, ye use yer knowledge of tides and currents, weather patterns, aye?”

“Aye, of course.”

“Then what happens when weather suddenly changes, or when there is an attack, do ye say ye freeze? Or do ye make adjustments to the course?”

Rum stared at his cards, but he was not seeing them, the straight flush he was holding, he was searching through the last seventeen years of memories. Had he froze? He could not recall for each instance… “Well, there are adjustments to be made.”

“But do ye freeze, or do ye automatically start adjusting?” Suede could see Rum’s mind working. “The voice of doubt clouds ye, but methinks ye are the sort to rush to adjust. Red would not sing yer praises were ye to be the sort to freeze. Besides, were ye not the one who wished to sneak into the Minister Prime’s bedchamber and hold a dagger to his throat?”

“Aye, but…”

“How were ye going to go about it? A navigator always notes the surroundings, as does a tactician. In that regard, one such as yerself who, as a child and now as an adult, had a need to constantly be looking about them, always searching for the best route to escape, would have seen all the finest routes within moments. Do ye disagree?”

“Nae. Always am I aware of what goes on about me and where I am, at least usually.”

“Do ye then say ye were not serious about that mission, of forcing the Minister Prime to speak?”

“I was most serious.” Rum forced himself to slow his breathing, to control the runaway cadence of his heart. “Aye, a plan I had and only needed a quick scout of the grounds to bring it to fruition. This is different.”

“How is forming a plan to rout the curs different? Ye know the layout of Ganos, ye know what yer aim is, there is nae reason to believe ye are incapable of making such a plan.” Suede held up his hand to stop Rum from cutting himself down further. “All of us have faith in ye, my love. Besides, plenty of time there is to formulate this plan and, aye, the family will have thoughts on how to go about it, but mostly are they there for support.” He used that hand to motion to the pile of debloos in the center of the table. “Do ye match the bet or fold?”

Rum picked up several coins, matching Suede’s bet, and tossed them onto the pile. “To truly formulate this plan, I need know where my cousins are hiding and their usual paths of travel. Once I know that, ‘twill be a simple matter.”

Suede nodded, pleased. “Aye, I agree. Hopefully soon we hear from Chastain and Ilora on their findings.” Suede tapped his cards again wondering what sort of hand Rum held and if he could bluff this match. “Do we now discuss favors? Methinks we have added enough gold to the pile.”

“What do you think of sneaking out of the manor and going to Mistress Horn’s? Desire I do a box of her chocolate custard pastries. Mayhap we can purchase Vylla a box of her favorite sweetbuns while we are there.”

“A sweet tooth do ye have, love?”

He grinned. “One would think you would have realized that when I stole your piece of pie after lunch was brought up.”

“Married I am to a thief.”

“Nae, a pirate!” Rum was pleased with the way playing cards was turning out. Yes, they were mainly playing for sexual favors, but it was also relaxing for they were using some of the favors to ask questions and learn of the other—for instance, he found out that Suede enjoyed cooking and desired to fix them a meal. He also liked that they were naked while playing—’twas the first favor Suede had won and claimed.

“Methinks ye avoid discussing the next favor because ye hold a terrible hand. That ye won the previous hand ‘tis yer turn to suggest—as was agreed upon after the very first hand—but if ye want, gladly will I decide.”

“I avoid naught, you rotten rogue.”

“Then what do we play for?”

“The loser of this hand has to buy the pastries I wish for, plus has to pay for the next three jaunts to the bakery nae matter the time of day and what is ordered.”

Suede laughed, liking the silly request, and tapped his cards one last time. “What of the winner, what does he get?”

“Other than many free pastries?”

“Aye. Recall ‘tis favors we play for.”

Rum tapped his cards against his chin. He had already once suggested tying the other up, but Suede had disagreed. He smiled. “An undisclosed sexual favor with nae expiration. It matters not the time or place and can even be collected in the middle of town. Also, the loser has to comply, nae matter the request. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

Rum tossed his cards down. “Be prepared to supply me with pastries, my husband.”

Staring at the cards Rum just presented, his jaw slack, Suede was unable to believe he had been out-cheated…again.

Book Love: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

#© A. Jane #A. Jane #book promotion #my writing #Rum #Brothers Trilogy #Brothers Book 1 #fantasy romance #pirates #Book Love #story snippet #Rum - Brothers Book 1

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br0kenphantasy · 5 years

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Avengers End Game

Where do I begin. *breathes*

I hated the ending. I just. Hated the injustice of it.

Unapologetically, I will say I love Tony Stark. I will defend him with my life. The beauty of his characterization was that despite everything the world has thrown at him - the corruption in SI, the betrayals, the poisoning, the lies - he picked himself back up and tried to make the best of what he could. He was human in the way that he hurt, he was irrational and would lash out, that sometimes things would get so bad it felt like he couldn’t breathe.

He was relatable. Tony Stark told a story of how in spite of your trials and tribulations, you can tide through it. And for him to die... It broke me.

This is not a story of hope.

He had a family. He moved on. He was in his happy ending and he stepped out only to be met with this. And the worst part is that Pepper is right in the worst way possible - the greatest injustice done to Tony Stark is that as much as anyone might loathe him, they have always needed him. He was not appreciated for all he has done and that kills me. They cannot wrest him from his death bed no longer. Yes, he can rest.

But at what cost?

Of saying that being a man like him, having taken so much abuse, the light at the end of the tunnel is death? This is not a story about hope. It is not a fucking triumph. Closing off an arc does not have to necessitate a death. He could have retired. He could have lived happily in the background with Pepper.

And see - personally, I thought Tony would die in the movie even though I fervently wish he didn’t. Infinity War predicted it:

STRANGE: If it comes to saving you, or the kid, or the time stone, I will not hesitate to let either of you die. I can’t, because the universe depends on it.

...

TONY: Why would you do that?

STRANGE [to Tony]: We’re in the end game now.

And then he proceeds to ensure that Tony lives. The fact that only him and Nebula are left on Titan reiterates the fact that Strange is telling him that he is a key piece to ending this. And if you think Tony did not prepare, you are wrong.

The gauntlet manages to hold up the combined powers of the stone in spite of Thanos’ gauntlet having been made by a legendary craftsman. He expands his expertise to quantum physics and that is not a coincidence. Why he is able to tell Lang his stint is a one in a billion chance fluke is because he has ran the numbers. The entirety of the five years, Tony has not idling. He knows its got to do with time because that’s what Strange represents.

That’s what he does. He tries to fix things even if it seems impossible. His mind won’t stop running until he gets it.

And Strange’s bet on Tony is answered. He trusts that he’ll learn from Quill’s rage, Thor’s complacency, or the harms of stalling. He trusts that Tony will do everything in his power to reverse this and make it better.

The final nail in the coffin: when he saw Strange’s signal, he immediately understood what he had to do. One possibility. One snap. One person who could do it before Thanos does.

And he doesn’t hesitate about doing it because that is the strength of his character. That no matter how much the world hates him, he loves the world because that’s where his beloved are. For them, he is willing to do everything, even if the price is himself. See? It falls in line with his character, it’s predictable.

Even at that still moment, where he closes his fingers to snap, I held my breath with tears in my eyes. He was awe-inspiring in his determination, battered and bruised as he was, as he declares for one, final time:

I am Iron Man.

It was glorious even as I burst into tears because I knew he wouldn’t survive this last sacrifice.

But what makes it absolutely maddening is when you compare it Steve.

I cannot believe the absolute injustice they did to his character.

Captain America: The First Avenger (they might need to change that since Carol is technically the first btw) was first conceptualised when Director Joe Johnston wanted to put Steve Rogers in the present day to let him adapt and grow as a character.

Following that, The Winter Soldier and TFA were meant to show how Steve would go through Hell and high waters to save his best buddy Bucky Barnes. It does land in the characterisation that Steve misses the past (as he should) and also the loyalty he has for him, to the point where he would chase after a ghost for the better part of two years.

However, note that it’s slowly eroding what Director Johnston intended. He’s not adapting to the future but clinging to the past. Like, let’s not even talk about Civil War.

In End Game alone, by giving him the ending where he chooses to remain in the past, it is inherently problematic on so many levels.

1. His loyalty to Bucky is now moot.

2. Attachment to the past? Somehow Peggy, a woman he knew for maximum a year (and this is being generous considering how he constantly had to go out for campaigns), weighs more than Bucky Barnes who was his childhood friend? Like, excuse you???

3. Following item two, you basically rendered Civil War useless. Throw away the fact that you defied 117 countries for your best friend. You somehow seem alright with leaving him alone in the present, thanks Cap.

4. Marrying Peggy Carter despite knowing she had a full life and a happy marriage after you. The children? Naw. Sharon Carter? Remember you kissed her? It really makes him look like he was using her as a replacement and that’s insulting to her.

Point is, all these are incredibly out of character. Steve Rogers, whatever he was, is now a caricature; the height of self-serving interests.

This is not even taking in account of the time travelling. If Steve did nothing to preserve the timeline like Strange, it makes him complicit in the crime. For a measure of how out of character it is, he willingly sacrificed himself and sank a plane and the Tesseract to stop HYDRA. He let SHIELD burn to the ground because of an HYDRA infestation. Him letting HYDRA grow like weeds, let his best friend continue to be HYDRA’s slave makes no sense. It completely tarnishes the fact that Captain America was meant to be a paragon.

Russo Brothers, from the zenith he came from, you brought him down to the grave. You have ruined all the hardwork you’ve put into his trilogy - the significance, the meaning... everything. And I hope you’re satisfied with the blackened legacy you have made for yourself.

To give Steve this “happy ending” with Peggy, something should have long passed against taking away Tony’s chance of happiness in the present is an absolute piss off.

Look. There are things I love about the film.

I was going to list them because they deserve a mention too.

I wanted to talk about the brilliance that was Natasha’s death even though it hurt me so much. How Scarlett Johansson truly portrayed her growth so wonderfully How Natasha, who spent her life trying to make better with her sins, trying so hard to clean the red off her ledger finally did so by bleeding all over the pages.

That in her fall, she goes back to red. A full circle. And she did what she wanted: she managed to save trillions of lives.

I wanted to talk about Clint’s descent, and how the two found salvation in one another. How they gave each other another reason to smile and try again. Their willingness to sacrifice themselves for each other’s happiness and that is one of the best relationship dynamics I’ve seen on screen.

How devastating it must have been for Clint, to see Natasha die from a bird’s eye view because they truly started how they ended: he was supposed to kill her from afar but chose not to, granting her redemption instead. And she found redemption through sacrificing for him, but it causes him to witness the one thing he sought to prevent.

I wanted to talk about Nebula’s growth. The small moments of family dynamics. Pepperony. Tony’s last will - a love letter to his family and the fans. How he did the one thing his father never did for him: he reminded his child that he loved her endlessly. So many moments where it brought tears to my eyes for good reasons.

But I’m exhausted, in numbness, outrage and sadness.

The characters deserved better.

#avengers endgame spoilers #endgame spoilers #avengers endgame #spoilers #read at your own risk #fuck the movie #marvel #mcu

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wearepaladin · 6 years

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What are your favorite rpgs? I'm in the market for games and I'm looking for something really good. Something with great characters and an immersive story. Any suggestions?

Sure, I’ve got a few. I’ll even outline a few non rpg’s just because I love their stories so much. No particular order, as I’m perusing my library.

Child of Light: Beautiful game and story.

Deus Ex: A solid cyberpunk series

The Longest Journey trilogy is an adventure game series but it’s got some of my favorite characters and settings of all time.

Morrowind: The ideal TES Mythology to get lost in

Kingdoms of Amalur; Friend of mine got me this recently and I’m actually enjoying it. The surface aesthetic made me think it wouldn’t be my cup of tea but it’s not bad at all. Still haven’t finished though, but I think I’m midway through.

Pyre: Another not RPG but still great storyline and world to get lost in.

Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2: I enjoy both but Kotor 2 might be my favorite game and star wars expression in the whole series. Make sure you get the TSL restoration mod for the whole experience.

Planescape Torment and Torment: Tides of Numenera are a generation apart and take place in different settings, but I enjoyed both for what they were about and their ties to each other.

Shadowrun Dragonfall and Hong Kong: The second and third official Shadowrun Returns campaigns. The first one is alright, but both of these are stand alone very good cyberpunk rpgs.

Pillars of Eternity: I enjoyed this game very much, and I’m looking forward to the sequel coming out in a few months.

Baldur’s Gate: Oldy but goody. Baldur’s Gate and its sequels are probably the most influential western pcrpg’s out there.

Neverwinter Nights: If you want a series with tons of stand alone campaigns to get lost in, Both the original and sequel can provide you with what you;re looking for. Hordes of the Underdark and Mask of the Betrayer in the sequel are my favorites in particular.

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caltropspress · 3 years

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Notes on AKAI SOLO’s Eleventh Wind

Rhythm in poetry need not be “smooth” or “musical” (since that word has a questionable meaning). Be cautious of these descriptions as a so-called “good ear.”

—“Manifesto” from Russell Atkins’ Juxtapositions

I try to become really liquid with the shit—not even liquid. I try to become formless.

—AKAI SOLO

Always the same thing. A drop of hope glimmers, then a sea of despair begins to rage, and always the pain, always the pain, always the anguish, always one and the same thing.

—Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich

I've been robbing motherfuckers since the slave ships.

—The Notorious B.I.G., “Gimme the Loot”

There’s an “unfinished” aesthetic (I mean it gently, fondly) to AKAI SOLO’s work. His rhymes often start in medias res. The listener needs to become oriented to what he’s spewing, but he barely allows you to catch your breath. For anyone who’s ever been thrown [au]topsy-turvy by an ocean’s wave, you can respect the power of the primordial soup flow. Each verse is a wipeout. It’s Ron Wilson’s relentless drums on the Surfaris’ 1963 “Wipe Out” and the Fat Boys’ rollicking 1987 version all at once—joy pulled from despair.

2. “…a sunken system”

What is flow? In AKAI’s case, it’s something abrupt—both a step-up and a step-to. Is it free-form? Is it automatic writing gone horribly wrong? Is it asemic writing? Is it a Ouija-like push of the pen across the page? A flower doodled on scrap paper? Is it AKAI’s language acquisition happening in real time—a babbling? It’s not an infantile flow, though. Mannish boy? Man-child? It sometimes sounds like lips smacking of Mississippi mud. Think of AKAI on Shrine’s “Parables” (which begins with the lapping of waves—not the babbling brook): he takes “a deep sea soak in plasma.” The structure and borders of AKAI’s bars are liquid (formless); his words wash over.

3. “Pondering of the painter in between strokes.” (An Unknown Infinite, “Concrete Slides”)

Who’s out of pocket? Geochemistry tells us small pockets of water pulsate deep below the Earth’s surface. I find AKAI to be offbeat in both senses of the word. He’s both outré and outer space. Antediluvian and FEMA flood recovery plan. His bars rupture the very notion of time, of meter. To rap along with AKAI is to have an out-of-body experience—our neuroscience skitters and we gain an astral perspective on what the physical mouth is doing. Sheldon Pearce has called AKAI’s verses “impressionistic.” Plugging into AKAI’s music is to induce the Stendhal syndrome—beholding the sublimity of Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, but—more accurately—Calida Garcia Rawles’ Singularity, seeing as how AKAI keeps it hyper-real. He “signs” nearly all his songs—another painterly touch.

4. The Earth is a great place to visit, but I ain't stayin’. (J-Ro, The Alkaholiks)

AKAI SOLO is for the antisocial kid who quotes Bruce Lee under their yearbook photo: Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless—like water. Water is everywhere on Eleventh Wind, even if the album title suggests other elemental forces. AKAI sometimes slurs, but not drunkenly—this isn’t some stumbling and staggering likwidation: it’s a reflection of your own grogginess, your own inertia from sleeping on his flow. There are oceans between J.M.W. Turner’s The Slave Ship and the “Big Pimpin’” of Jay-Z, but AKAI’s poetics bridge the two. He comes at us, off-kilter, aslant, like the uneasy and queasy cover art for O.G.C.’s Da Storm.

5. “…a ship came, seeking harbour, fleeing from torture & swords” (from Kamau Brathwaite’s “Noom”)

The content often defies logical reasoning. He spits non-sequiturs in a literal sense, in that he does not follow. He machetes his own path (cutlass, more likely). AKAI is Cappadonna with his words—his slang is editorial, and it floods similarly. Zilla Rocca has called Cappadonna’s work “a waterfall of energy and creativity.” The same, seriously, could be applied to AKAI SOLO. I’ll call it logorrhea—and I don’t mean that pejoratively. It’s the seasickness you stomach so you can see the sunset from hundreds of miles off land.

The songs on Eleventh Wind are essentially single verses. There’s no middle eight, only an interminable Middle Passage. And water is everywhere.

AKAI’s lineage traces to the same cove you’d find Mr. Complex and Saafir washed ashore. Like those predecessors, his un-rhymes and rhythm-driven bars beat against the rocks, ebbing just when you think he’s flowing. He’s an H2O proof MC. He’s Black hydropower, and, like the ancestors, AKAI continues to speak of rivers, of swerve of shore to bend of bay.

On “An Ode to the Isolated,” argov’s production sounds submerged, certifiably Cousteau. We’re immediately in the deep, and the beat platforms AKAI’s aqua-lung breath control. He’s “in a den of dissonance dissolving,” which puts language to what’s happening sonically here better than a critic ever could. AKAI is “overwhelmed by your deep blueness”—the vast blue sea. These are pandemic blues. The Covid-minded lyric, “Masks donned as requested,” doubles as the masculine trap to swallow pain, smothering emotion in gritty sand, while still forward-facing a street persona. AKAI has acknowledged Eleventh Wind was, in part, generated from a depressive state.

[Testimony of John Cranston, a sailor upon the Polly, describing a slave woman hoisted down to sea from the mainmast in a chair after being isolated for small pox, June 15, 1791]

Q: Did you not hear her speak or make any Noises when she was thrown over—or see her struggle? A: No—a Mask was ty’d round her mouth & Eyes that she could not, & it was done to prevent her making any Noise that the other Slaves might not hear, least they should rise. Q: Do you recollect to hear the Capt. say any thing after the scene was ended? A: All he said was he was sorry he had lost so good a Chair. Q: Did any person endeavour to prevent him throwing her [over]board? A: No.

“Tetsuo” draws on Tsukamoto’s trilogy of cyberpunk perversity. How AKAI could feel “washed before the water touch the skin” is beyond me, as the skin crawls with maggots. The penetration of metal rods, but no tetanus—no lockjaw. Only body horror flow. He’s sketching futures—and all of them are nightmarish: “Surrounded by a blanket of ashes, / We all fall down like that one song said we would.” AKAI vaguely alludes to a plague rhyme of yore. And the uncertainties we’re living with come through even in his drafts, as the liner notes on PTP’s cassette release of the album provide a set of lyric options: “Surrounded by a sea/bed/blanket…” Choose your own misadventure.

9. From at least the sixteenth century onward, a major part of the ocean engineering of ships has been to...minimize the wake. But the effect of trauma is the opposite. It is to make maximal the wake. (Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being)

On “Tainted,” AKAI—young as he may be—identifies the foolishness of some of his peers: “N----s wanna toast on a slave ship / …sinking with the drink.” AKAI suggests they’re still on the slave ship, ignorant of the fact. When he goes off on a paranoid tangent full of what seem to be elementary internal rhymes, it’s anything but: “hitting a lark / in the dark / in the park / skill a shark / or a narc / ill a mark on his job every time.” This litany of monosyllabic rhymes sounds an alarm.

10. “Even though the vessels differ, we’re all still sailing. / …navigation through suffering.”

“Still Sailing” acts as a centerpiece for the water imagery on Eleventh Wind. It’s also a self-assessment of his style. The “wavelength irregular” puns on wave and owns the irregular flow; “my groove goofy,” he admits. His vulnerability is stunning, refreshing: “I was ensuring my work was worth something.” Such vulnerability is liquid, is flux, reflects reality:

In a dirt sea, all I am is a seed Reaching for what I mean to Rooted in what it is, galvanized by what can be.

Even AKAI’s other nature metaphors—like earth (be it rare-earth or “Real Earth,” no matter), seeds, and roots—are built on water ones (“dirt sea”). This is Wallace Stevens-level abstraction. “Flowing like katanas of grass / Landscaping through with blazing sound waves” does it again (“flowing”/“grass”). And, of course, the mention of flowing katanas invites a Liquid Swords comparison. With the even cuts of AKAI’s sharp lyrics, it’s warranted.

I want to feel like Vast Aire, “like Moses with a staff that parts the Red Sea,” but it’s not so simple. Meaning is slippery on the album—hard to get your footing, your sea legs. Listeners are pulled into rip-tides and torn asunder, repeatedly. AKAI’s songs are raw—not in a hardcore way—in a work-in-progress sense, the way some of the most sincere songs humans have recorded are at times unfinished ones. Like Dylan’s “Santa Fe,” for instance, where the words converge into a slurry.

11. “Your water heavier than it’s supposed to be and they know that.”

On “Candor,” AKAI speaks on the burden of family discord, a “dilemma with me and mines.” In venting, he channels and subverts LL Cool J: “Don’t call it a comeback / These are just preliminary steps / On your back like structural racism is.” Where LL foregrounded his pugnacious masculinity, masking his insecurities (all the while calling for his “Mama”), AKAI is more likely to allow his tears to rain down like a monsoon. Candor has its origins in kand, meaning “to shine.” AKAI’s words offer glimmers of clarity, of openness.

12. “Depression stirs me before the morning chirps.”

Eleventh Wind closes with “Nebula”—gases flow, dust is bathed in glowing starlight. Again, we’re persevering: “Sound like nil singing / Feeling like nebula unraveling / Feeling like infinity expanding.” The consecutive gerunds emphasize AKAI’s desperation. He’s nihilistic here, nonexistent (“nil”) and grasping for meaning. In that way, he’s not so different from us approaching his music. Whether people are hot or cold, irate or aloof, he turns to water for comfort: “When I want to feel the heat I don’t get from people, I resort to water. / When I want to feel the cold I know people for, I resort to water.” AKAI SOLO doesn’t just bless us, he christens us.

Images:

The Fat Boys & The Beach Boys, “Wipeout” music video (screen shot) | The Surfaris, “Wipe Out” 12” (Decca, 1963) | Fat Boys, “Wipeout!” 12” (Tin Pan Apple, 1987) | Jay-Z, “Big Pimpin’” music video (screen shot) | J.M.W. Turner, The Slave Ship (1840) | Originoo Gunn Clappaz, Da Storm cassette cover (Duck Down/Priority Records, 1996) | Claudia Garcia Rawles, Singularity (2018) | The Alkaholiks, Likwidation album cover (Loud, 1997) | James Neagle, Frontispiece for the Dying Negro (1793) | Screen shot from Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1992) | Hokusai, Feminine Wave (1845) | Carina Nebula, NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team | Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise (1872)

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rosheendubh · 3 years

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Me goofing around with horrid photo edits...

Scene—some deep cavern on some planet somewhere in some quadrant/sector of the galaxy...

*Rhyanon ferch Garwyn (daughter of the Danu and Fomori, survivor of the massacre of Geis, planet in the outer Rim Worlds-The Deep)—wherein, a wormhole rediscovered with the fall of Coruscant, opens a portal across light years—The events of Geis, prompted by Palpatine’s ceaseless quest to find the ultimate tool of dominion, in an ancient/advanced technology that can dissolve/transcend the limits of matter/space/time, requires a key to uncovering it’s existence—on the eve of the FirstDeathStar’s demise, Imperial intelligence enacting first contact, enlists the unsanctioned aid of Reaver raiders residing on the other side of the wormhole, to apprehend, and destroy any opposition, to obtaining the source of the sought after key to locate/control said ancient treasure of mastery—a technology of Keltia’s advanced bio-kinetic and psionic traits inherent in the myriad peoples of Danu/Fomor/Coroniad populating the Keltic star systems—in the resultant slaughter and planetary destruction that targets Rhyanon’s sister, Rodon, and leaves Rhyanon a hostage to the Imperium, a girl barely into adolescence, child of Keltia, comes of age, trained as a courtesan and healer in service to the emperor, with the powers unique to her people, what’s understood as the Force, her people have utilized for millennia as Druid/Ban-Druid, a meta-physical aspect of evolution kin to all sentient beings in varied ways-Rhyanon able to manipulate the very molecules of genes enhanced by nanotech, mind altering the matter of life, a property Palpatine hoped to exploit, and extend his own life against the inevitability of time-with his death at Endor (not slain by Luke, but by another occupant from that far-distant quadrant across the wormhole, Sorsha ny Galida, pilot and assassin of the Hashisayan, sent in vengeance for the massacre of Geis, who takes up service with the Rebellion in the years leading up to Endor, becomes Luke’s lover for a time, her duty to slay Palpatine ends her own life as well, allows Luke to rescue his father, and leaves with a searing loss and bitterness at Sorsha’s death...no sanitized/Tolkien version of space opera, but the Game of Thrones version of space opera...sex/death/angst/Ewoks Sacrificed to the Sith, you know, that kind of thing...also, Anakin survives, but as Sith-though not wholly dark anymore-Limb regeneration restoring his mutilated body from years before, restoring damaged organ tissue as well/ liberating him from the machinery that had twisted his soul/in his own conflicted soul, he seeks solitude for a time, meshed in Sith mysteries, later emerging to take up the faltering Imperial hegemony in a galaxy quickly changing with the shifting tides of power and alliance wrought by the wormholes discovery—also, I sort think Jorah would make lovely, older-Seasoned Anakin/humanized DarthVader...), and the later occupation of Coruscant, Rhyanon, now free, but stranded from her home system, escapes Coruscant to a forgotten planet called Dathomir, where she spends 4 yrs amongst the ‘Witches’, and endearing herself to the aged garrison of stromtroopers who’ve largely settled themselves almost the indigenous civilians, attempting to design the specs of a cruiser able to withstand the stresses of inter-space travel via wormhole so she might r/t her home—timeline is a generation the after the fall of the CurtainWall, under the reign AeronAiobhell, and the war of the 3 Star systems of the Formori/Coraniads/Danu, which results in establishing contact with the long lost Terran Confederacy-when NewRepublic scouts uncover the forgotten base of Dathomir, Luke/Leia/Han arrive to investigate, and resulting ultimate conflict, Luke ends up pursuing Rhyanon as she attempts to flee off-planet, only to get shot down, and then sparring with said Jedi that he only just manages to subdue/apprehend her to custody-her background get revealed eventually with her origins/controversial association with Palpatine/her involvement with Imperial machinations/healing talents a useful propaganda piece to balance imperial charity with oppression/her pursuit of those who’d murdered her sister years before/knowledge of the wormhole and Keltia/affiliated star systems beyond...

*Luke, Leia, Han—way alternate canon involving Star Wars up through original Zahn trilogy, and absolutely nothing of NJO, other than Dathomir...NewRepublic and Imperial conflict abounding...and the Jedi legacy is more kin to how I’d envision a neo-Samuri warrior-philosopher-scholar class/w/o any sort of strong, centralized organization, but a loosely affiliated branching of individuals adhering to a central ideology of practice and belief, where Light and Dark, as Luke comes to realize, are complimentary and opposing forces at once, both necessary in a dynamic, variegated reality of existence...

*Some twisting of StNG—the new Picard series with Firefly/Serenity after the events following the discovery of Miranda, leaving RiverTam with one more secret embedded in memories—planets inhabited by colonizers of Earth that Was/Old Terra to the Kelts, like New Cordova—based off an interstellar version of al-Andalus, desert planet/glittering cities/enlightened Islamic philosophies combined with Hindu pantheism—why not?

*chimersized hybrid creature of genetic engineering/biomolecular and cyber-temporal existence-Reavers/Experiment of Miranda/Clone Wars had been previous failed examples of/Empire again aspires, under Thrawn, to enhance and perfect these experimental creatures shaped out of matter and time w/with micro-psionetic talents and technologies kin to certain sentients—Rhyanon and her lineage in particular, amongst other humanoid life...creatures grew dangerous/uncontrollable to existing technologies b/c of arcane/mutated sequences coded into their cyber-genetic makeup, but if they could be harnessed once more, would offer a matchless weapon to establish dominion across the Star-systems

—Bases on theory of 13Treasures of Prydain/4 Treasures of Ireland—Weapons of Lugus/Cauldron-Grail-Cosmic Tree some sort of nexus of existence between time and matter and space, touched by mind and flesh

—Gathered In subterranean/nebulous world of an ancient gas giant dissipating into cosmic forces slowly, A web of light around a sphere or a plexus of darkness/a well of shadow/power source of some kind/gathered cooperative onlookers-Han/Leia/Luke/Picard w/new crew/Mal/The Operative dude/Simon/River ‘n crew, all gaze in astonishment at the ethereal amorphous quantum entanglement-Rhyanon approaches to Luke’s alarm and her answering reassurance sensing the key to what they’re seeking lies in reaching into that atomic cluster feeling its currents resounding in her mind/River mentions this was the missing puzzle piece in her mind/the last secret of Miranda/mutters a puzzling lyric of *7 above and 7 below, 3 and 4 and 3 once more, 12 there were in warp and weft, till all dissolved and nothing’s left*/looks at Rhyanon bright/steady/*Can you see it* It’s not me they need-you’re the key they’re after/Rhyanon puts her hands about the coruscating globe of cloud and light and dark/rivers of light shimmer and steam through her veins/tracks of the nanotech enhancing inherent ability sequenced into her neural plexus as a child/at her contact an eruption of light blossoms like a lotus into a thousand branched tree formed out of a cone of darkness and well swallowing and emitting light and shadow simultaneously/Yana at its core/strands and shards of scintillating electromagnetic spectra flowing through and about her person/suspended off the ground by the rivers of light stream outwards in a dancing array that loops and weaves around the gathered company/touching flesh/sampling of matter and spirit/eliciting varying reactions of delight/awe/astonishment/suspicion/resignation or wary caution/Leia in wonderment/face aglow seeing Han’s eyes light up as he tries slapping away a glittering sparkle flitting about his nose/*What is this.*/Simon-hushed reply as he watches River dance about the forest of branching threads like a mystical sea creature or a bird taken wing amongst droplets of a rainbow, her laughter joined by Kaylee who keeps knotting photonic loops about his shoulders and send up a silvery thread in a spiral bringing them together in an embrace he only hesitates for a moment, halos surrounding them, Merging and splitting and merging again/Operative dude watches River in awe, saying at the same time Simon utters/*The mind-/-of a god/Luke finishes for them/his own mind familiar with the heightened awareness to realms felt and sensed but not seen/but what this anomaly opens is something beyond even his own expanded awareness/bound to Rhyanon before this and acutely aware of the Other—ethereal and ancient power flowing and flooding her sense—not drowning her/too much of her own consciousness keeping this otherness that seems to understand the vehicle of her soul as a medium/channel of communication/she looks on him with a gaze like a thousand suns/he approaches her drawn to rippling purity as she turns like a leaf or floating seed on wind/strands of light shifting to place her gently to the dark floor/palm raised to his/hands encased in light/enchantment in his eyes, alight like fire beneath the vast depths of ocean worlds/*I saw the summer stars fall in your eyes once/*to which he says/memories touching him from beyond a single life/and I promised you a palace in the heavens/the auras of light about each their forms melding and rising into a into a spiraling dance of motion and impossible beauty/*creatures of light we are, not this crude matter/he hears as their lips meet, he hears his old Master’s words even as River’s sweet clear voice, reach out into the glittering void they all inhabit/*We’re Children of Earth and Starry sky*/twirling about the ribbons of light curving about her leaping and spinning form as she circles the Operative with a laugh, aims a strand of winding brilliance to Inara and Mal/her smile a divine blessing as Picard, with the lovely android who shares in her own way of biology and technology coalesced into something novel and familiar, reshaping life’s elemental foundations, quotes an old poem of Earth that Was—still is apparently—*Blake quote*—infinity in a grain of sand/eternity in an hour/Leia*Like the stories across so many sentient cultures, of gods that

#Latice of Infinity #The Keltiad

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