#come talk to me about the pierre poster head if youre a real one

[thepavementsings]

pierre in the last 48 hours has singlehandedly reversed my opinion on a trope i usually HATE. his power.

[pierreslittleredblog]

Inside the Eastern Bloc: A Brief History Of The Ex-USSR

“All victories inevitably come at a cost.” ‑ Mikhaïl Gorbachev, HBO Chernobyl

Nikola Tesla Boulevard on a summer evening, Serbia - Photo Source: Pierre (PLRB)

A Tale Of Winners & Losers

Nothing feels more hopeless than a self-destructing world around you. We often forget how easy we have it, snuggled in our cocoons of excessive love and smothering. Sometimes, we need to be remembered who we are and where we come from. Not too long ago did our grandparents struggled and fought for their basic needs. Of course, now, with our technology, we don’t even have to worry about the basic survival priorities of the past. With the simple click of a button, we can have everything delivered to our doorstep without even raising an arm.

 Ah, doesn’t it feel good to taste the sweet fruits of our capitalistic labor? Isn’t it great to be the “winners” of today’s world? Sometimes, we tend to forget that our victories come at a great cost. Sometimes, we forget to humanize our enemies. They too can love, laugh, cry and fear. They too, are humans like us.

Propaganda poster of Yuri Gagarin - Photo Source: @soviet.propaganda on Instagram

Watch Out For The Communist!

Let me ask you a question: How many times have you heard the word “communist” on the news? My guess of your answer is quite a few times. Although rare, sometimes it is used simply to describe the people that identify with the socialist Marxist-Leninist ideology. Most of the time though, it is used as a pure and simple insult. An insult that describes everything we don’t understand, fear, and dislike. 

This exact description though is exactly what our grandparents were told about the red flag-carrying “commies” over in the eastern bloc. When the canons of wars tear through the skies, governments tend to create a sense of unity within their population to, somehow, justify the war on a national scale. They dehumanize their enemies and convince us that we must fear the others, and win this war at all cost (as they did with Vietnam). 

But when we don’t even know who our enemies are, how can we fully grasp what’s at stake?

Propaganda poster of Lenin’s revolution - Photo Source: @comrade_quotes on Instagram

Rise Up, Comrade!

Before getting into the modern Soviet Union (the 1970s-1990s), let’s focus on the beginning. If you went over to the former republics of the Soviet Union in 2021, you would notice how terrible everything looks. Potholes, crumbling buildings, outdated trolleybuses, and subway cars, beaten up Lada’s plowing through knee-deep puddles under the unimpressed look of the driver’s face. 

When you come to witness this spectacle in person, it is easy to assume that the Soviets must’ve had it rough back in the day, and boy you would’ve been right. Once the Tsars were no more, the new Soviet party lead by the revolutionist Vladimir Lenin promised a bright and equal future turned on the workers and the equal distribution of their labor. However, this promise wouldn’t be easy to achieve. What followed afterward were decades and decades of purges, wars, hard work, and brutal leadership by our good ol’ friend Comrade Stalin. Some argue about Uncle Joe’s good intentions, but this is not what I want to focus on. Here I want to talk about the last soviet’s aspirations and dreams, the ones our western leaders promised to crush for our freedom.

Haludovo Palace of Kirk, Croatia - Photo Source: @socmod on Instagram

For The Happiness Of All Mankind

The 1970s was a great time to be a Soviet. If you were a citizen, you would’ve been able to move into brand new apartments, get a stable job in any industry you wish, get all the food you can eat, obtain the diploma you wanted, have access to healthcare, you would even be able to get a brand new Lada, and all for free! Yes, you’ve read that right: for free. 

Communism in the Soviet Union wasn’t about a totalitarian regime and oppressing its citizens (as the western propaganda wants us to believe), it was about universal free access to one’s every need. Now of course there were some questionable policies such as limited free speech and limited access to the outside world beyond the iron curtain (however more and more freedoms were given to the Soviets in the 1980s with the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev into office). The Soviet Union wasn’t lacking behind in technology either, in fact, it was the world’s second industrial and military superpower back in its heyday! They even sent the world’s first man into space. 

This is what the real Soviet Union was about: unity and comradeship. They truly had a will to build a greater future for humanity and like us today, they had reached such a level of comfort that a bright future was taken for granted by everybody in the USSR. 

However, this candor belief in a great future would suddenly come to a brutal end.

Edge of the Chernobyl Red Forest, Ukraine - Photo Source: Pierre (PLRB)

Porridge With A Side Of Radiation

It’s April 26th, 1986. In a small town of the Ukrainian SSR, citizens are eating breakfast and preparing for yet another routine day. Children are headed to school and parents, to work. Some of them could notice smoke coming out of the industrial site nearby, and others had heard rumors about a possible roof fire that started in the night. 

However, nobody seemingly cared as everybody went on with their day none the wiser. At the same time on the other side of town, ambulances are flying in one by one into the general hospital, carrying firefighters from the smoking site. Nurses run outside and discover men with unusual burns, screaming in pain. Nobody knew what was happening and they all tried to assist them to the best of their knowledge. The citizens didn’t know it yet, but only 3 kilometers away from their homes, the worst nuclear disaster that mankind would ever experience had happened. 

Today, this event is simply known as “Chernobyl”. Of course, back then, they had no clue about what was actually happening, and Soviet bureaucracy would immensely delay the travel of information up to the top state officials. It took them a full 3 days before they evacuated the town of Pripyat, and on the same occasion, creating the famous 30 km exclusion zone (which is still in place today). Of course, by then, it was already too late. Most of the citizens had already received a fatal dose of radiation that would affect their descendants for generations, and make their land uninhabitable for hundreds of years. 

This event was a true shifting point for the USSR, as the Soviet leader Gorbachev took the opportunity for the first time in Soviet history, to be as transparent as possible with its citizens and to the world. He finally admitted that the Soviet Union is about to crash.

Palace of Yugoslavia, Serbia - Photo Source: Pierre (PLRB)

A Russian Traitor

Gorbachev told the shocking truth to its citizens. The country’s banks are empty, and for years the Union was living off the reserves accumulated in the past decades. The Soviet Union wasn’t producing anymore, and instead, became buyers. The self-sustaining system they had built before was no longer in place and everybody would have to brace for the rough years coming ahead.

 This news naturally came as a true shock for the entire population, and suddenly all hopes of a bright future were lost. The citizens learned that the good years are over, and from now on, they should expect misery and poverty. The Cold War and the Afghanistan War had ruined the country’s economy, the former leader Leonid Brezhnev had lost the leadership with his lazy ways and had become too comfortable in his spending. 

However, amid all this chaos and confusion, not a single second did anybody think the Soviet Union would simply collapse and disappear. They truly believed in the strong and powerful nation they had built in the past 69 years, and never imagined one second that it would come to an end. They thought they would simply fight through the rough years and rise again as they had done in the past century. 

One politician though had another idea of how things would turn out. Boris Yeltsin, a man rejected by the Soviet party for having ideas too far away from the communist ideology, was grooming republics for their independence and made deals with the Americans without the knowledge of Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Party. This is how bad the bureaucracy had gotten. They became so out of touch with their own reality that on December 8th, 1991 the Belovezha Accords were signed by Yeltsin and two other figureheads (without the knowledge of Gorbachev), essentially ending the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Soviet mosaic bus stop in Kalmykia, Russia - Photo Source: @realbaldandbankrupt on Instagram

Shock Therapy

It’s Christmas Day, 1991, and the Americans have won. The Soviet Union, which they had fought for decades to end, finally ceased to exist. The dreams that were built, the futures seemingly so bright that was promised to its citizens, all disappeared on that one fateful night. What was a great victory for one side of the world, was a terrible event for the other. They had lost their nation, their future, their security. 

They had now entered a decade of banditry, crime, and chaos. They were living through what we now refer to as “Shock Therapy”. The shift from communism to capitalism was so brutal that there were no more police to ensure safety. No more government to tell you what you can and cannot do. No more authority existed which left space for anarchy. The now ex-Soviet citizens were promised better times with the arrival of democracy but were only betrayed by the incompetence of their new leader that only brought them crime and misery.

Deteriorating children’s playground, Moldova - Photo Source: @kuca_ky_ky on Instagram

Crumbling Streets & Broken Dreams

Nowadays, the cities of the former Soviet Union seem to be nothing else than vast jungles of crumbling concrete. The brutalist blocks that were once the pride of a powerful nation, are now nothing but the symbol of a lost past and broken dreams. Elders remember the good days when they lived in a stable country, and the youth, forever and ever seduced with the exotic lifestyle of the Americans, see no future in their country and only dream about moving to the sunny beaches of California. 

Ironically, the ex-Soviet generation fancies the lifestyle of those who caused their end, but we cannot blame them either. They truly don’t have much of a future in the former eastern bloc, and their old enemies seem to thrive more than ever now that their 20th-century nemesis had been eliminated for good. In the victories we win, we forget to remember the fate of our opposing forces. 

On the surface, it may only seem like we are ending a powerful and evil regime, but underneath the surface, we fail to consider that we are also ending the peace and unity that existed in the nation. 

We must recognize that we are not only ending a government but also all the hopes and dreams attached to it and that sometimes, we must put humanity first and political interests second.

The Genex Tower of Belgrade, Serbia - Photo Source: Pierre (PLRB)

A Word For The End

Thank you for reading my blog post about what I’ve retained from my trip to the former USSR. Please note that this is not meant to take a political side, but only to focus on the human aspect of the events. Either you’re a communist or a capitalist, everybody deserves a future and secure access to food, housing, education, and healthcare. 

I have seen and met people who were deeply saddened by what they went through, and by the loss of their native country. Please remember that the government doesn’t always represent the population. A nation is 1% leaders, 99% normal people trying to make it in the world just like you and me.

If you are interested in learning more about the former Soviet world, I invite you to check out the YouTuber “Bald and Bankrupt”, which explores former USSR republics. He is the one that inspired my trip to the Ukraine last month. 

If you are into music, I suggest you check out “Sovietwave”, which is a musical genre based on the nostalgia of the dreams and aspirations that the soviet people once had.

Thank you for reading and have a good day. 

До свидания!

[orleans-jester]

After Bastien leaves.

Longstory short: No one home; Agnes goes to the old caravan camp; gets her fortune told; drinks weird tea; has a very odd dream; goes home; Pierre is grumpy that she didn’t turn up second day of school; but she comes back on the third.

There would be no one home. Agnes had figured that much, once she remembered what day that it was. First day of school usually meant going out for dinner. That felt like something Pierre would remind their mother of, get a nice meal after what was probably a long day. Felt even longer for Agnes. She went up to her room, and sat down on the bed. It was so unfamiliar. The patterns that lined the walls were nice though. It looked nicer than all of the different things she had on her old wall. Probably for the best those got destroyed. There was no more Summer. No more River. No more dad. Barely a mother. Fig was probably on the fence. No idea if she even talked to Wulf anymore.

She’d drop her dirty bag onto the floor and would trace some of the painted lines with her fingers. The pattern of her favorite dress over this one wall. The flowers and all. It looked really really good. Until her fingers stopped when something interrupted the pattern. An acorn. Didn’t take a genius to know what that meant. She tapped against it with her index finger twice - three times. She couldn’t handle it. It was bringing on that feeling of anxiety again. She started to go through her desk, through the different drawers. The closet. Pulled down a couple of shoeboxes to keep them empty. Nothing. There was no photos, no postcards, nothing of the sort that she could use to cover it up. She didn’t even have a poster. But she did have sticky notes, so she’d cover the space with the bright yellow. It was an eyesore but it would have to do until she thought of something better.

She’d sit on her bed for a couple of minutes, eyes closed, deep breath in and then deep breath out. Trying to gain control of herself. Control of her situation. What even was her situation. What the hell was she. Where was she. How was she? And most importantly, who was she? There was still one person who might be able to tell her. Someone else she had heard stories about growing up, and had even met a couple of times.

She thought about showering first, but decided against it. She’d have one to wash off the grime, and then a long bathtub after to re-center herself. No, she’d just pick a different sweater out of her closet, this one also in a darker color, would close her bedroom door behind her like she had never been there, and would step out again, locking the door behind her, keeping a light or two on to warm off burglars, the house silent, alarm back on. The password was the same as it was at the old house to get through the gate. That made things easy for her forgetful mind.

Bastien might have denied her the long walk home, but there was another one that she could take. And it was somewhere that she felt moderately safe. Through the city, through to a small are by a graveyard where caravans had been sitting for so long, the wheels had broken from the weight and disuse, making the bulk sink down towards the ground. There was one that still had purple peeling paint. Her papa’s. But there was also one with an old woman and a little girl sitting on the front stoop, looking up at the stars.

“Madame Antoinette?” She would venture, pulling down the hood of her sweater. The old woman looked up and smiled, showing multiple missing teeth in her mouth. The little girl was looking up at her too, big blue eyes like jewels sparkling against the fire in the middle of the camp.

“Agnes,” The old woman said, pulling the little girl onto her lap and patted the empty seat. “I knew you would be coming back one of these days.”

“Of course you did,” Agnes would smile at the old fortune teller. The little girl looked nothing like the old woman. Most likely a street child that she had taken in. Was teaching the trade. “I’m feeling lost, Madame. I need guidance. I need... to know what I have to do, what I’m here to do.”

“What will you pay me?”

“I forgot to bring anything, I umm-”

“You will bring me a necklace at Abraham’s wedding. Real stone. None of that cheap shit.”

“Of course, yes, I can do that,” Agnes would nod enthusiastically.

“Or else I curse the marriage and your mother will turn into an old hag, like me.”

“That sounds only fair,” Agnes said, trying to take that seriously but it was difficult. The woman gave her the eye and then held her hand out, requesting Agnes’s. The girl who usually had soft hands due to many different expensive handcreams, gave hers over. They were rougher than usual. Her nails were full of hangnails and split skin. They hadn’t been painted in days. Her palms themselves were feeling a little rough, a little calloused from working more with them to make where they had been a home. Nevertheless, the woman didn’t give any reaction to it, just started to run her fingers through the lines in Agnes’s palms. Went over them a couple of times as if making sure of something. The only sounds were from the other caravans and the crackling fire which never went out. It was like the flame of hope for the people in this camp. It went out, they left. It’s the same fire that was burning when Kuzco and Clopin had passed through here, getting Clopin’s things before returning to the inn. They fed it and kept it safe.

She’d finally speak, her voice just enough for Agnes to hear.

���You don’t walk the line between different worlds, you weave through them. Many of them. You are a sparrow in a swallow’s nest. The moment you believe you are safe the swallows will peck you to death. You mourn for lives lost to you, but they were never your life to begin with. Restore your natural path, Miss Agnes, or it will be impossible to find it again.”

That was heavy. It gave Agnes a lot to think about. She’d sit there silently, her hand still outstretched. The old woman set it back down on Agnes’s own knee. “Sa fait réfléchir .. how about a cup of tea before you go home?”

“That would be lovely, thank you,” Agnes said, her mind somewhere else. Thinking about those words. Thinking about the consequences of her actions in a way that she had never thought of before.

“Jeanne, fetch the tea.” The old woman would say. The little girl climbed off of her lap and went inside, leaving just the two to feel the breeze coming through the night. “It will be a cold winter for New Orleans,” She’d add. “Harsh winds are coming our way. Don’t believe that because we are in the south, we will be safe from them.”

“I’ll buy a new coat,” Agnes said, still stuck inside of her head, those words going in one ear and out the other. She was a sparrow. The swallow’s nest had been the Laveaus. It had also been Bastien. Perhaps he had saved her by forcing her to go home tonight. Before she knew it, a chipped mug was placed into her hand. It smelled of nettles. Of late Spring rather than Summer. It was a murky brown. Leaves floated on the top.

“Drink, it will help,” The old woman urged. So Agnes did. She’d drink, and the taste would bring her back to reality. It was ... earthy. Like they literally just added water to some dirt that they found on the ground. “All of it,” The woman would say, and Agnes could not say no to that. So she’d drink it.

It tasted horrible. But she had been taught to be a proper guest. Always accept all of what you are being given. Waste not, want not. Even if it was something as horrible as this tea. She had the feeling it really was just some sort of leave picked up around the area.

The three of them would sit there and enjoy the night. That was until Agnes noticed that the fire seemed to be dancing rather than just flickering. She could hear something, some kind of music in her head. It was like a drumming sound. It matched her heart beat perfectly. She even tapped her fingers against her knee to the rhythm. The old woman was smiling again and then she seemed to disappear. Muffled noises of shouting. She stood up, feeling energetic despite the fact that she had been feeling weak the last couple of days. Her body wasn’t used to running on so little fuel. But she felt good. Sprightly.

She’d walk towards the fire, but it started to get further and further away. The cold winds that she had been warned about were reaching her now, and she’d feel that chill on her arm. She’d walk faster, swinging her arms, lifting her legs to try to get her body heat higher with exercise. It started to feel wet. It started to feel COLD. Not cool. Not even New Orleans cold. But the cold that she remembered on the balcony of the hotel in New York many Christmas’s ago. Snow even started to fall. The area around her started to white-out entirely. Mounds grew beneath her feet. Her sneakers weren’t equipped to deal with that. She was sliding around. Her energy was still up somehow, getting her going forward and forward.

Eventually she started to see something. A smudge of black. She attempted to run rather than walk, but kept slipping on the snowhills that were quickly gathering. A little house. Maybe a cabin. The door handle was right there within reach. She grabbed it. Turned it. Pushed herself inside and then closed the door against the growing blizzard that was out there. But - the inside did not look like a cabin at all. It looked like a hospital waiting room.

Patients were looking up at her. She was no doctor. She was not hurt. But something about being here felt right. She’d walk through it, up to the desk where a pretty dark girl was sitting. “Afternoon Dr. Renault, are you ready for your patients?”

“I- I’m a Doctor?” Agnes asked. She didn’t feel like one. “I’m not qualified to be called that, I-”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” The dark haired nurse would stand up. Would take Agnes’s arm and lead her down the hallway. She looked behind her to the patients who had continued on with their waiting activities. Playing on phones. Crosswords. Books. Even eating McDonalds. “Your first patient is right behind that curtain there. Better hurry, you know how long waiting times are.”

And left her side. It took until she was leaving that Agnes realized that it was the singer Ciara who had brought her here. Now that was weird. But she’d approach the curtain and would pull it to the side to see her father sitting there, looking as healthy as his old horse Achilles had in his prime. His hair was longer, his smile was brighter, his eyes were keen and glowing. “Dad!” She’d say, rushing up to him and wrapped her arms around him. “Oh my god, you’re here, you’re my first patient. Oh my god, I missed you.” She almost believed she could smell his old cologne. She hugged him enough as a little girl to know what it had smelt like.

“My little girl,” Phoebus would smile, hugging her back in return. He held her in place, it was - it was hard to back away from it. “You always used to play Doctor. Remember when I bought you that pretend kit? You’d wear that stethoscope for hours, until your ears hurt and you still wouldn’t take them off.”

Agnes laughed against her father, giving him another squeeze since he was in a huggy mood. “I remember.”

“If only you had stayed that little girl,” He sighed. “I’ll remember those times forever. But here you are instead. So special. Like ... like treasure.”

That last word had put chills up her spine. She tried to let go. She tried to back up but her father’s hold was so strong... she had to use her powers, bring up the barrier to make him back away from her, and then she realized that it hadn’t been her father at all. The smell was gone. Instead, what she faced was what looked like Chip, sounded like Chip, but that face - a massive part of it was missing, jaw exposed. Maggots. He looked of death. “Do you know what happens to treasure? It gets buried. Buried, buried, buried...”

Agnes stumbled back and closed the curtain as quickly as she could, and fell back against the ground. She could feel the pain against her ass as she did so. She backed up in a sort of crab walk, tried to get back to her feet and would try to go back the way that she came -

Only to find that the hallway had brought her to her brother’s room. The one at the old house that she could remember, since she hadn’t stepped foot into the one at the new house. So many colors. Pierre was standing there in her bathrobe, silk, short, just barely covering his bits. He had a hairbrush in his hand and was singing, dancing around. “Cause you’re hot then you’re cold, you’re yes then you’re no,” He’d turn around, wink at Agnes over his shoulder and then would approach, taking hold of her hand while continuing to sing into the brush. He gave her a twirl. “You’re in then you’re out, you’re up then you’re down, you’re wrong when it’s right, it’s black and it’s white-”

“Pierre,” Agnes said, trying to let go of his hand but he’d throw the brush over his shoulder. It landed on the bed. He’d take her hand and put an arm around her waist like it was some sort of waltz. She was confused but - she was laughing.

“You don’t really want to stay, no! But you really don’t want to go, no, you’re hot then you’re cold, you’re yes then you’re no,” He’d go back into the chorus, jumping around and dancing until she gave in. But then he’d give her another spin, but let go of her this time. Someone else caught her this time around.

Bastien. The longer, stringier hair was a dead giveaway. She gasped as she looked up into his face. It wasn’t dead, not like Chip. But there was a gauntness to it that there wasn’t the last time that she had seen it. He looked like illness itself. Pestilence as a person. Leper-like. “Bastien, are you okay?” She’d say, holding onto him, looking at his face, looking at those pale lips, a flash of black gums. “Please, please come with me. I’ll take care of you. I’ll-”

“You think you need me. But I don’t need anybody. Even you.” Bastien said. A tongue came out of his mouth. Long. Slimy. Grey. Riddled with diseases. It licked at her face. She was forced to let go. Forced to back up again. She fell. But she didn’t hit any ground this time.

Instead, her eyes opened and she found herself in a strange bed, between the old woman that she had gone to the night before, and the little girl whose eyes were still wide open. She was facing the little girl. They looked at each other and the dream started to fade quickly from Agnes’s mind, leaving just some odd impressions that something had happened. She felt drowsy. Sunshine was coming through one of the windows. The little girl reached up and pressed her thumb almost painfully into Agnes’s forehead, causing her to groan. That didn’t feel so good.

She’d lay there for another couple of minutes, trying to get her bearings, trying to feel more awake, blinking against the light. She knew where she was. She was in Madame Antoinette’s caravan, with the little girl. She must have dozed off after the tea. Then she remembered when it was. Shit. She was definitely late for school! She’d sit up so fast, her head would hurt and she would only see black for a couple of seconds. She scooched out, looking around and found her shoes on the floor among the old woman’s and the little girls. She pulled them on, hopping around, trying to find some sort of clock but she couldn’t find anything. She thought about waking up the old woman, seeing the little girl sitting up on the bed too, but she was snoring. Out of it. “Tell her thank you, and sorry for staying?”

The little girl nodded and held up her hand and gave her a wave goodbye.

Agnes didn’t know much about sun positioning and such. But it felt like it was rather late into the day. It seemed more or less centered up in the sky, which made it -  maybe noon? Something like that? Too late for school, and she was wearing her old clothes anyway. She needed that shower. That bath. If she skipped just one day, and it was just the second day, she should be alright, shouldn’t she? She hoped so. She headed in the opposite direction of Nola high, heading home instead.

Esmeralda was there. She was the only one. She didn’t say a word, just walked up to Agnes and wrapped her arms around her in a big hug, holding her close, giving her a big squeeze. Agnes hugged back, though there was some sort of deja vu feeling. There had been a lot of hugging lately with Bastien, and with Pierre, so maybe it was something like that.

“I’m home,” Agnes would say into her mother’s chest, the woman being bustier and taller than her.

“Good, my baby is right where she should be,” Esmeralda said, kissing the top of her head repeatedly.

-

Pierre was pissed. He rode his longboard to school early. He didn’t pick up flowers for Zero this time, just picked him up some cake from the restaurant that they were at before. But he wasn’t in a very celebratory mood this time around. Agnes wasn’t here. She had said that she would be there. Said she would come early to talk to him about what she and Bastien talked about. But she didn’t show up. He even waited outside of her classroom until the final bell rang for the first class. No show. He trudged back to his own classroom, feeling like he had smoke coming out of his ears. He was hurt again. He was disappointed. He could probably deal with her choosing Bastien over him if she had the goddamn balls to tell him. The bad mood would last through most of the day. Even at lunch, when he’d present the treat to Zero, his smiles were fake. He’d explain it to Zero. “Guess she made her choice,” He said, trying to play it off with a shrug. But goddamnit, he cared. He cared so much.

Until the period after lunch, in which he’d get a text from his mother. ‘She’s back home. Dallas loves her already.’

That just brightened him all the way up. If his last period class wasn’t the best one, Drama with Zero, then he would have run on home, skipping those classes. He had definitely brightened up though and would ride his longboard home, whistling happy. He got his sister back, he got his sister back. Course he thought it was all because of him. Cause he got through to her. No other reason than that.

-

The third day of school, Agnes would indeed be there, walking alongside her brother. Freshly showered. Touch of makeup. Purple turtleneck, green pleather shirt, black tights. Colorful. The way that she used to be. Every time she looked at her brother she felt some weird sense of having spoken to him in another world but that just sounded weird. Though she looked much more put together now than she did on the first day, healthier too since she had a real meal the night before and a real breakfast, not just protein bars, she still was feeling broken and hurt deep inside. She missed Bastien. She had slept in his bed the night before. She wasn’t quite ready to be alone in her own yet. But she was focused on what she hoped was the proper path that Antoinette was talking about. She might be feeling a lot of overwhelming things, but it was better to feel than to be pecked to death from entering the wrong nest.

[scarheaded-ferret]

Praeterita Vita

Summary: Slughorn gives the 8th years a potion that shows them their past life, if they’ve had one. Harry realizes his past life is far different from anything he could have ever imagined. 

I’ve had this idea in my head for ages, so here you guys go :^), keep in mind that nothing is historically true, like the location, the people, nothing. 

ao3 link

***

“The Praeterita Vita potion, if successful, should tell you several things,” Slughorn announced to his group of 8th years, “whether or not you have had a past life, if anyone in the vicinity was involved in your past life, and to give you an insight of your person’s life. Directions are on page 576, you have two hours,”

Harry groaned, he hated double potions and from looking at his directions, the potion was extremely complicated. At least he had Dean as his partner, who was fairly good at potions and could keep Harry from blowing up his cauldron.

Their desk was in the back corner of the classroom, and by force of habit, Harry glanced at Malfoy as he set his ingredients down. When Malfoy, Parkinson, and Nott had come back for their 8th year, Harry had suspected that they would try to reclaim the popularity they had held before the war. He was wrong in this however, because all of them seemed to keep their heads down, only talking to each other. Especially Malfoy, who seemed to only speak when he was called on in class.

Harry would never admit it aloud but he had begun to miss the small banter they shared, Malfoy’s absence of snide remarks reminding him how much everything had changed after the war. Dean nudged him and Harry snapped out of his gaze, Dean laughed and shook his head.

“What?”

“You, looking at Malfoy. Mate, I hate to break it to you but I used to catch Seamus looking at me like that all the time,” Harry flushed at his words. Dean and Seamus had gotten married right after the war. They were in love so it was normal for Seamus to look at his husband like that, but Harry didn’t love Malfoy, did he? He had been constantly stopping himself from thinking about a sharp jaw and piercing grey eyes, telling himself that he shouldn’t be thinking of Malfoy in that way.

Harry shook his head, “I- I don’t-” he sputtered.

“Don’t worry mate, it’s ok to like him, he’s a git yeah but… he always gave us extra food in the cellar and would cast heating charms, you know?” Harry sighed, realizing that he would not be able to convince Dean that there was no way he could ever like Malfoy.

They completed the potion after a grueling two hours. Slughorn gathered each potion from the table, checked to see if they were made properly, then gave the successful potions back to their groups to see if they worked. Harry took a dose and waited to see if the orb that indicated a past life formed. Apparently your past self carried your soul, so if even if you were in a different body and had a different life, your soul would remain the same, lots of people used the potion to try to find their soulmate, but only few succeeded.

“Why look at that! Harry has had a past life!” Slughorn shouted, jovial. Harry looked above his head to see a violet, glowing orb. Only Smith, Padma, and Malfoy had a past life besides himself. Shockingly though, Malfoy’s orb was the same color of violet as his.

“Well boys, it seems as though your souls knew each other! Touch the orb and you’ll get a vision of your past-life, a series of the most significant events for your person, off you go!” Harry reached up and gently tapped his orb. His fingers slid right through the misty substance and he thought it didn’t work until he looked around.

He was in a ridiculously extravagant room, that looked like it predated electricity. Harry looked at the person lying in a large four-poster bed that was placed along the back wall of the room. It was a man, with curled ebony locks that fell to his shoulder, and bright green eyes, similar to his own.

“Potter,” someone whispered and Harry flinched. He turned to his right to see Malfoy next to him, watching the vision as well. But, if Malfoy was here, where was his person? Then, another man with hair styled similarly to the man in the bed, but blonde, walked in. He had grey eyes, that looked a lot like Malfoy’s.

“That- that must be me, and that’s you,” Harry said, pointing at the two individuals. Draco nodded his head, but didn’t comment. The two men began to speak and Harry was eager to see how their souls were connected. He couldn’t understand what they were saying until Malfoy raised his wand and cast a translation charm.

“My dear Damian, you have made me wait so long. I was beginning to think you had abandoned me,” The brunette said, smirking. Harry frowned. He sounded flirtatious, but judging by their clothes and the time period, they couldn’t be- together. Could they?

“Pierre, my love, you know how my father can be in his speeches, he wishes to remind me of my duty to my brother and of course, the throne,” the one called Damian said.

Harry stood, gape-mouthed, as the two kissed, Pierre stroking Damian’s hair. If these were their past souls, it meant that Harry and Malfoy had been in love. Harry blushed as he watched the two deepen the kiss, but they stopped when Pierre pulled back slightly.

“My love, I have something to tell you,” he said, grinning. Damian quirked a brow and began to kiss Pierre’s jaw.

“What - is the - matter?” Damian asked in between kisses. Pierre pulled a box from behind him and held it out to Damian.

“Open it, my love,” Pierre said, leaning against the large pile of pillows that sat behind him.

“A ring, Pierre, what is the meaning of this?”

“We can never truly be together, my prince, but this ring promises that no matter what happens, you will always be the one in my heart,” Harry was extremely confused, how could his soul be tied to Malfoys in this way? They loathed each other!

Damian put on the ring and smiled, leaning in to kiss Pierre again. The world around them blurred, but rather than going back to the potions room, they were in a large hall with a grand table in the center that had several documents and maps laid out upon it.

Harry realized that Draco was no longer next to him, Damian must not have been in this event.

“General Herriot,” called an older man in even more expensive clothing than those around him. Pierre stepped forward, and Harry realized that that must have been his last name. “You are to be stationed at the border of Paris, under General Fortis’ division,” Pierre nodded his head and stepped back.

The vision faded to Pierre sitting in a small room, writing on a parchment by candle light. Harry looked at what he was writing, and found it to be a love letter to Damian, explaining how much Pierre loved and missed “his prince”. Harry was in shock, there was no denying that he and Malfoy’s souls had been enamoured with each other, and if what his textbook said was true, they were soulmates in real life as well.

The scene blurred again and Harry found himself next to Draco once again. Harry opened his mouth to say something but Malfoy held up a hand to stop him. This time, Pierre was in clothes far shabbier than what he had worn before, and his hair was matted and dirty. They were in some sort of prison cell, and Damian was clutching Pierre.

“I won’t let him do this, you don’t deserve it,” he told his lover. Pierre lifted a weak hand to Damian’s cheek and stroked the skin there softly.

“If I die, my love, know that I have always loved you, in this world, and the ones that follow,” Before Harry could react the scene blurred and he and Draco were standing in the same large hall from before, but without the table in the center.

Pierre was kneeling on the ground, the older man from before was holding a sword to his throat. Across the room, Damian was being held back by one of the guards, tears streaming down his face.

“Father! Please!” Damian shouted, voice breaking.

“No, Damian, you must see, this kind of behavior is forbidden, I must teach you a lesson,” The old man, who was Damian’s father, drew back the blade, and stabbed Pierre in the chest.

Pierre made a guttural sound and cried Damian’s name before he crumpled to the ground. Barely anything could be heard over his lover’s screams. Harry made a noise of shock and turned to see Malfoy’s reaction, his lips were thinned and his expression was blank, but his eyes were wet

As the visions began to fade for the last time, Harry caught sight of Damian grabbing a gun from the nearest officer and shooting himself in the head. A moment later, Harry was back in the potions classroom, tears welling in his eyes. He turned to see Malfoy staring at him from his desk.

“Mate? What did you see?” Ron asked from his place next to Hermione, confused as to why Harry was looking at Malfoy in such a way. Harry left his desk and walked right up to Malfoy, cupping his cheek. Harry swiped his thumb at a tear that had fallen, stroking Malfoy’s face in a strangely familiar way. A moment later he and Draco were locked in an embrace. Harry sobbed into Draco’s shoulder as the taller one clutched his back.

The whole classroom fell silent as they shockingly watched the former rivals hold each other.

“Draco, what were your names?” Pansy asked quietly.

Draco sniffed and raised his head, “Pierre Herriot and Damian Leroy,” he answered. Hermione gasped.

“You were- oh my god, oh my god,” she said faintly. The whole class looked at her expectantly.

“Pierre Herriot and Damian Leroy were lovers in the 18th century in a palace near Versailles, Damian’s father was a second cousin of the king, and Pierre was an officer. It’s a famous story in the muggle world, because when their relationship was revealed, Pierre was killed by Damian’s father and Damian shot himself in the mouth immediately after. They loved each other at a time where it was forbidden.

“They have the letters pinned up on a wall in Versailles. I saw them in the summer of 5th year during the holidays. But… when past lives are tied in this way, it means that the two individuals, are soulmates,”

Everyone stood in sundry states of shock.  Harry ignored them and looked towards Draco.

“My- my love,” Harry croaked. Draco’s eyes widened.

“How, how can you love me? After all that I’ve done?” he whispered.

“I promised to love you, in that world, and the next,” Harry murmured, before leaning in to kiss Draco. Harry knew that Draco Malfoy was his soulmate, and he found that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

[ahouseoflies]

Best Films of 2017, Part III

Part I is right here. Part II is right here. Let’s keep it moving. PRETTY GOOD MOVIES 67. Kingsman: The Golden Circle (Matthew Vaughn)-  Exactly, eerily, as good as the first one. Make a hundred more of these stupid candies and wrap them individually in wax paper. 66. Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond (Chris Smith)-   As a movie about the effects of fame: 5 stars As a movie about the inherent lie of acting: 4 stars As a movie about making a movie: 2 stars As a well-structured documentary of its own: 1 star 65. The Wall (Doug Liman)- War movies often topple under the weight of their messages, but that's not The Wall's problem. To his credit, Liman is worried about making this a thriller first, even as he's showing off the competency of the soldier at its center. There's no music, and the camera plants you subjectively in Sergeant Issac's field of vision. (The John Cena character is named Shane Matthews, but he ain't even SEC). Even at 80-something minutes, however, the film feels long, telegraphing its way from one plot point to the next, and its dark ending comes off as a too-clever shrug. If your movie is about the war, then make it about the war. If it's using the war as a backdrop, then make it about something. 64. Fist Fight (Richie Keen)- Once you start thinking about its logic on any level, it falls apart. (The whole reason schools are bad is that they can't find good teachers, so why would they be so intent on firing the ones they have?) And it's full of fake problems. (Oh my God, he might not make it to his daughter's talent show in time!) But this worked for me overall. Some jokes fall flat, but there are so many that you can just wait for the next one to land, particularly if it's from the salty mouth of standout Jillian Bell. The script, full of meticulous callbacks, creates a full, satisfying arc for the protagonist as well. 63. Brad’s Status (Mike White)-  A confused movie that is an easy, sort of Italian watch in the way that it so literally spells out its emotions. Even five years ago, this tale of a middle class White man's entitled bellyaching would have been told straight. Now it exists only because it weaves into the narrative people who check the Stiller character's privilege. Because the character's jealousy is communicated so truly and fiercely, it almost seems as if Mike White wants to tell a story but knows he shouldn't. That sounds like faint praise, but it's a fascinating experience. 

62. Beach Rats (Eliza Hittman)- For about an hour, this felt like a movie I had seen before. "Oh, why can't I get it up? I, uh, must have had too many drugs. Definitely not because I'm gay 'cuz I'm not." It was, due to the underplayed performances and the careful composition, better than some versions of that movie, but not by much. Then, the last leg of the film gets mission-focused. Without giving anything away, rather than being just about heterosexual performance, it becomes about homosexual performance and heterosexual performance at the same time. The protagonist is challenging his straight friends within the rules of what they've determined and outside of them. Those layers pile on until the bravura final shot. I just wish it had hooked me sooner. 61. I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore (Macon Blair)-  I preferred the Encyclopedia Brown fumbling at the beginning to the violent consequences at the end, but I realize that's how amateur detective movies work. I probably would complain if the film didn't open up in scale. The story is fairly simple, which, coupled with an assured visual style that is open to mystery, suggests that Macon Blair might have a real future as a director. He's not trying to do too much. Lynskey is absolutely perfect by the way. 60.  Life (Daniel Espinosa)-  Cool enough at the beginning and the end to excuse a few logical missteps in the middle. Still, without giving anything away, I'm recalling a fork in the road in which the film could have gone the easy, dumb way, and it went the more difficult, realistic way. I hadn't seen Espinosa's other movies, but he shows an assured hand here, especially with the rapturous gore. I can't say the same about Ryan Reynolds, who sleepwalks through a role that might as well be called You Know, a Ryan Reynolds Type.   59. The Zookeeper’s Wife (Niki Caro)-  It goes pretty hard for PG-13, and there isn't much wrong with it--the passage of time gets haphazard in the second half maybe. But personally, I think I'm all good on Holocaust stories. 58. Landline (Gillian Robespierre)- It's basically a Woody Allen movie if Woody Allen had an affinity for rollerblades instead of bad jazz. Most of the laughs come from the '90s milieu; in fact, I'm not sure if this movie would even be a comedy without the setting. Despite some of those easy laughs (and some laborious ribbon-tying at the end), the screenplay does a few difficult things well. I'm thinking in particular of a scene in which Falco and Turturro have to confront and punish their daughter. We've already been told that she gets forced into the bad-cop role, and he skates above the fray as the favorite parent. But to actually see that dynamic in action during this scene, which begins with him whispering that the mother is coming, is kind of thrilling. The performances are good: Slate is dialed up to a higher pitch than she was in Obvious Child, and newcomer Abby Quinn comes through when asked to carry long stretches. At first, I wondered why John Turturro had signed up for such a nothing part, but as his arc blossoms in the film's second half to become a quiet MVP. He gets to remind us that no one else can play an unrealized sad sack quite like him. 57. The Unknown Girl (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne)-  I wish I had a unique take on this, but everyone else is right: It's a minor work from great filmmakers. There's some real psychology here--a woman in transition sublimates her upward mobility into a search for truth. And as a mystery, it works fine. But there's a tedium and a distance, despite the usual Dardenne tricks, that keeps it from hitting home. 56. The Glass Castle (Destin Cretton)-  There are too many characters in real life too, I guess. Far less focused than Short Term 12, The Glass Castle is an admirably sincere piece with some powerful sequences, but it gets way out of hand in the last twenty minutes. Recommendations for a movie that finishes with the point "It's okay to hate your dad"? 55. The Disaster Artist (James Franco)- James Franco reveals himself to be a workman-like director, a brilliant actor, and the best real-life brother of all time. Having a James Franco performance like this but giving top billing to Dave Franco is kind of like eating birthday cake but giving top billing to the plate. Playing a clown-fraud like Tommy Wiseau exposes an actor to artifice. Commit too much, and it's a stunt; commit too little, and it's a wink. I don't know exactly how he does it, but James Franco walks the tight-rope precisely. Dave Franco, playing a nineteen-year-old for some of this, is in over his head. If you've ever seen a well-done amateur Shakespeare adaptation, you know the electricity that comes from the company's freedom, when they realize they can do what they want with this supposedly sacrosanct work. So imagine how much fun professionals are in re-staging a work that is objectively terrible. At its worst, The Disaster Artist feels like a trifle. At its best, however, that feeling of putting-on-a-show is what comes across well.

54. Manifesto (Julian Rosenfeldt)- I knew this was various incarnations of Cate Blanchett--a homeless man, a conservative housewife, a broker--performing artistic manifestos. But I didn't know the most clever twist, which is that the manifestos are blended into one another, so that a line of Marx alternates with a line of Tzara with a line of Soupault. That dynamic approach brings to light how confrontational and immature all of these types of writings are, not to mention the collaborative spirit most of those writers had. Your mileage may vary based on your tolerance for intellectual bullshit, but I scratched my chin contentedly. The pairings of the manifestos to the settings are clever, and my favorite was probably a eulogist talking about dadaism at a literal funeral. As artificial as what I'm describing sounds (and yeah, by the eighth or ninth one, you'll check your watch), Blanchett finds an observational truth. The performative posture of a schoolteacher, the pause for fake laughs of a C.E.O., the paper shuffle of a news anchor: She remains the real thing. 53. Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)-  Now that I have taken a shower to wash off the movie's bleak grodiness, I appreciate its solid plotting and grindhouse super-sizing. Like Bone Tomahawk, Zahler's previous film, Brawl in Cell Block 99 takes about an hour to get where it's going. (The inciting incident is technically at 1:08.) I assume the fat is there to develop the protagonist, but I think about twenty minutes could be shaved off. Zahler's rhythms might make for an excellent TV show, but something about that '70s exploitation poster makes me think we won't find out. 52. Columbus (Kogonada)- Columbus wrestles with the balance of information and inspiration. The Cassandra character prevents the Jin character--I'll ignore the gross name symbolism--from looking a date up on his phone because she wants to be able to recall it herself. Earlier than that, the Jin character tries to impress her with knowledge of a building, but she blows him off when he admits that he memorized it from a book he had read earlier in the week. Would that thought be somehow more pure if he had retained it over years? I think that type of calculus is what the film is concerned with, so it makes sense that it centers on architecture, an art of identity as much as it is a science of measurements, an expression as much as it is a utility. If the paragraph above makes it sound as if the movie is up its own ass, running on Sundance fumes through its meth subplot, then you'd be right. I had just enough patience to admire it as a promising debut. 51. The Book of Henry (Colin Trevorrow)- Colin Trevorrow's best film is always compelling--for different reasons in the compassionate first half than it is as it's careening off the rails in the final third. But it's always compelling. You can't complain about all studio movies being the same, then not appreciate something this fundamentally godless and bizarre. 50. Kong: Skull Island (Jordan Vogt-Roberts)- People rag on the DC Universe films for being too serious and dark, but there's no limit to how dark a movie can go as long as it's balancing that mood with something else. Vogt-Roberts gets that, and Kong: Skull Island is a cut above most of these entertainments because he has a deft handle on tone. The film can get scary because it's so silly and fun at other times. Plus, if you have Jackson, Reilly, and Goodman selling your lines, they can be as dumb as you want. Even if the other sequences never reach its level, the first helicopter setpiece is dope, in part because the actual fighting of the monsters is dynamic. Skull Island is pretty far from Brazil, but Kong's chokes, holds, and throws owe a lot to jiu-jitsu. It seems like a consistent piece of design at least. Can we talk about Tom "The Tight Sweater" Hiddleston though? Vogt-Roberts has no idea how to introduce him properly, but he is an absolute zero in the role that is supposed to be heroic. The script doesn't do him any favors--the American army is taking orders from this British mercenary because...--but he is a vacuum of charisma. He's not dangerous in any way, and his blah blah my dad died backstory is delivered with no conviction. I don't get it. 49. T2: Trainspotting (Danny Boyle)- It's a perfectly pleasant experience to see these characters twenty years later--Boyle has a few nostalgic tricks up his sleeve--but "pleasant" is a backhanded response to something as vibrant and essential as the original.There's a meta-reading of T2 that admits that everyone involved is struggling with the same issues as the characters, but even that is kind of like returning to your middle school and realizing that the basketball rims weren't actually that tall. And how do you mess up the music?

48. Brigsby Bear (Dave McCary)- There are some huge ideas on Brigsby Bear's mind. The weight of nostalgia versus genuine affection is there. Caring versus pitying is there. Then there's the idea that drives it: If you're the only person who appreciates a work, does that diminish it in some way? How important is collective experience to art?Those ideas are suggested by the screenplay by Kyle Mooney and Kevin Costello, but they aren't wrestled with directly. Especially in its structure, Brigsby Bear is more conventional than its mysterious introduction and Mooney's bonkers comedic sensibility would have suggested. 47. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh)- Three Billboards flew by for me, and I loved Sam Rockwell's iceberg of a performance. But I was held back by the same elements that hampered Martin McDonagh's other work. There's some profundity lurking in the Harrelson voice-over, and you can't tell me that you didn't get the chills from McDormand's raw scream as her son holds her back from putting out a fire.But it's over-written in the first half--"HOW RESPONSIBLE ARE WE FOR OTHER PEOPLE?" might as well be on a storefront on Main Street. And McDonagh, a real poet of the profane at his best, is so willing to go for the easy joke that he undoes a lot of his own subtlety. Even before the dreadful final five minutes, there's too much plot and too many characters.Perhaps it's an issue of expectations--this would have been a satisfying video store find back in the day, but I'm not sure something so out-of-control should be up for All the Awards.   46. Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadignino)- For me, this is Guadignino's third straight film in which an emotional urgency underneath never quite equals the lush, meticulous, yet inert exterior wrapping. That being said, Chalamet's performance forces nothing, and the character is a uniquely novelistic creation: knowing everything, practicing mystery, but wearing his confusion on his sleeve. Despite an overall shapeless quality, the film brings everything home in the poignant moments near the end. One of those moments is a five-minute "it gets better" speech by Michael Stuhlbarg. By that point I think most of my audience was willing to go there, but I hesitated to buy it. You can't spend two hours being a movie about what isn't said, then switch over to a movie in which everything is laid out on the table. Then again, that's my exact Guadignino problem. 45. Battle of the Sexes (Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris)- Dayton and Faris show as little tennis as possible because they don't know how to make it look interesting. Carell sleepwalks through his role. There's a lot of "Here's plot point A" type dialogue. We're told about King's dedication to the game, but we aren't really shown it. Unfortunately, the whole thing is a Clinton-Trump allegory, and Dayton-Faris expected Clinton to win like everyone else did. But Battle of the Sexes still goes down smooth, mostly because of the tender love story between Billie Jean King and Marilyn Barnett. In fact, every time the film cut to something else, I wanted more of those women discovering each other. I'm a student of Movie Stardom, so I've given Emma Stone her due as a Movie Star. But this is the first time I forgot I was watching Emma Stone. The scene in which Billie Jean and Marilyn meet is an impressionistic, sensual haircut. Marilyn calls Billie Jean pretty, and based on the complicated reception of that compliment--a stumble but not a stammer--you can tell Billie Jean didn't get that much. As written, King is a strange mixture of inward flailing and outward tenacity, and Stone breaks hearts with it. It's not often that one performance can give a movie a reason to exist, but that's why they play the games. 44. King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword (Guy Ritchie)- It's hard to remember a film more uninterested in its own storytelling, and it's even harder to remember a time when I saw that as a strength. If nothing else, the permanent fast-forward button that Guy Ritchie holds feels like a fresh corrective against other self-serious origin legends. I say "origin," but this movie actually feels like a trilogy unto itself, with the excellent initial twenty-five minutes covering about thirty years at a breathtaking pace. The score, which incorporates human breath, makes that literal. Ritchie fashions King Arthur into a scrappy orphan story, so there's a bit of his underdog imprint, but he also sort of assumes that we know the basics of the King Arthur story and yada-yadas a lot. Merlin gets mentioned only by name, Excalibur never gets named, and Arthur literally cuts in line to pull it out of the stone. By the end some of the visuals look like Killer Instinct for the N64 with a code to turn CGI embers all the way up. But I prefer this to the three-hour version that the studio accountants no doubt expected to receive.

43. War for the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves)- For better or worse, this movie plays for keeps. Aided by Michael Giacchino's second masterpiece of a score (after Up), the film lets the action speak for itself, going for long stretches without any dialogue. It culminates in the exact go-for-broke ending that I keep asking for. But am I the only one who feels a bit of cognitive dissonance with these movies? The audience I saw it with applauded at the end, but it's hard for me to buy in that way for something that is so dour and self-serious while also being goofy. Like, I'm really supposed to learn about the lessons of work camps from CGI apes? The commitment behind the apes' design is admirable--how has this series not won any effects Oscars yet?--but is the storytelling strong enough to transcend those tricks? It's novel, but I'm not sure it's new. Matt Reeves crams the film with Apocalypse Now allusions, and though I was thoroughly entertained, I couldn't help but think this was Apocalypse Now for people who will never see Apocalypse Now.