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nikibogwater · 3 years

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What did you think of Nari's characterization in ROTT?

Disliked it, as with most of the other things in the movie.

The short version of it is this: In Wizards, Nari's primary character traits were empathy and compassion for others. In Rise of the Titans, her primary character traits seem to be just a general lack of awareness for what's happening around her, and a tendency to make light of very serious situations.

Now before I get into the long-form answer, I will preface by saying that the writers of RotT were at a severe disadvantage when writing for characters who were introduced in Wizards because Wizards was still in production at the time. So I understand why Nari ended up feeling like a completely different character in the movie, and I am not shaming anyone for it. But the fact of the matter is that I found her characterization in Wizards to be much more appealing, and if that characterization had carried over to Rise of the Titans, I think I would've had slightly warmer feelings towards the movie. But let's get down to brass tacks now, because I've actually been dying to talk about this. This is gonna be a loooooong boi, so I've put everything under the cut to avoid clogging people's queues (I'm just really passionate about this bean goddess, okay? 😅)

When Nari is introduced to us in Wizards, she is quietly watching the arrival of our heroes at the castle. She doesn't make herself known to them, but it is clear she is very interested in what's happening. She does not make any other appearance until the Arcane Order launches their assault on Camelot.

Nari's first spoken words are, "Merlin! This is all my fault!" and as one would expect after hearing this, she is very obviously distressed and feeling guilty for putting everyone in danger. Merlin tells her they need to escape to the past, and that he needs her help in order to do it. Nari's response is to begin charging her magic as she says "I will do what I can."

After our main characters are thrown back in time, we're introduced to Nari as she was in the past. Although she is allied with the Arcane Order in their war against humanity, it's clear that she displays the least amount of malice out of the three. In fact, it's revealed that Nari has always been rather fond of humans, and has even reached out to them in friendship a number of times. After resurrecting Morgana, Nari is the one who does most of the explaining and introductions, showing a bit of a playful/mischievous side as she pokes fun at Bellroc and Skrael. ("I told you she would, Skrael! So old, and they still haven't learned manners.")

During the Battle of Killahead, we see Nari watching the war from a distance, and it's clear from the expression on her face that she is not liking any of this. Though she does briefly aid her siblings when they join in the battle, she reveals afterwards that she can sense the pain and suffering they have inflicted on others--and she doesn't believe the Order's ambitions are worth that. She abandons the Order, presumably spending the next 900 years in hiding, before seeking Merlin's protection.

Once our heroes have returned to the present, Nari becomes a bit more involved in the plot. She expresses genuine sorrow over the destruction of Arcadia Oaks High ("Your beautiful school-home was crushed!") and is clearly distressed by Jim's agony as the shard in his chest begins to work its dark magic. ("Poor soul! Your corruption...I feel it worsening.") After Jim is taken by the Order, we can see her comforting Toby in the background. She continues to show great concern and empathy for the people around her, and is still eager to help wherever she can, though her magic doesn't seem to be combat-oriented. She is also shown to be somewhat timid, hiding behind Merlin or Claire during confrontations with the Order--she is very clearly terrified of her old allies, and seems to want to avoid direct contact with them. When Douxie is struck down by the Order and is falling to his death, it is Nari who runs to try to save him before anyone else--apparently, if someone is in need, Nari's first instinct is to rush to their aid.

So, from all of that, we can gather that Nari, as she was characterized in Wizards, is intelligent, curious, cautious, gentle, empathetic, and very aware of what's going on around her. She is also a little playful and wild, but never to the point of disregarding what's happening or how others are feeling.

In Rise of the Titans, Nari remains consistent with this characterization for all of...seven minutes.

Initially, Nari is still very much herself in this scene (though I wish we could've been told what exactly made her want to stop running and face the Order head-on. Again, in Wizards, it was abundantly clear that that was the one thing she did NOT want to do). When Douxie expresses his anxiety about the situation, she takes him by the hand, offers him a reassuring smile, and says, gently but firmly, "No. No more running, Douxie." Excellent interaction. 10/10. Five stars. That's also the only time in the movie where Nari displays any level of awareness regarding Douxie's (or anyone's) feelings/wellbeing.

The body-swap scene is when Nari's character just completely swings in the opposite direction, and she becomes near-unrecognizable as being the same character from Wizards. Douxie, being our favorite Self-Sacrificing Idiot, swaps bodies with her at the last possible second, causing the Order to take him instead. Nari, now stuck inside Douxie's body, seemingly doesn't think much of this development at all. In fact, her first response is to giggle playfully. UM, NARI. NARI, SWEETIE, YOUR BIG BROTHER IS IN THE CLUTCHES THE MOST EVIL BEINGS KNOWN TO MANKIND. LIKE, THEY LITERALLY KILLED HIM THE LAST TIME HE RESCUED YOU FROM THEM, WHY ARE YOU NOT MORE WORRIED ABOUT THIS?! Up until this point, Nari has never been shown to underestimate the Arcane Order--she seems all too aware of the kind of violence and destruction they are capable of, which explains why she was so terrified of them in Wizards. But in Rise of the Titans she seems to just....not really care anymore? The entire time she is in Douxie's body, she doesn't express the slightest amount of concern for him, or for anyone around her. She just keeps doing...cutesy forest gremlin things, like singing to her flower, batting at a light fixture, and antagonizing Archie (she's definitely not the only character who was severely lacking in empathy in this movie, but this is an essay about Nari, so I'm not going to bother touching on everyone else). This is a direct contradiction to her characterization in Wizards, where she was shown to care deeply for the people around her, and displayed genuine distress whenever they were in danger or suffering.

Nari also persists in being pointlessly cryptic for the entirety of the movie because....reasons. Before the Order breaks Douxie's body-swap spell, she tells Jim, "Trollhunter make ninth configuration--the Kronosphere will make right." Which, of course, doesn't help him in the slightest. And when they finally succeed in rescuing Nari, she doesn't elaborate or explain this at all. She just says it again. Listen, I can get behind Nari being Insanely Ancient, and maybe a little out of touch with modern trends, but I'm fairly certain that Wizards Nari at least knew how to communicate. She never showed any inclination towards being cryptic or mysterious on purpose, at least. We're never given any explanation for Nari's sudden lack of clarity, so I guess it was just there for plot reasons. Which makes it that much more infuriating.

Also I don't know why, but the little "Hehe!" Nari does when Douxie pulls her into a hug kind of grinds my gears, because Nari, love, this is a really serious moment, you were just snapped out of mind control and your siblings are currently rampaging across globe in giant magical mechs, why are you giggling like a four-year-old and not, idk, SOBBING IN A MIXTURE OF RELIEF AND HORROR BECAUSE YOU WERE ALMOST PART OF WHAT DESTROYS THE EARTH?! AS THAT WOULD BE A MORE APPROPRIATE RESPONSE TO WHAT JUST HAPPENED????!!!!! But that's just a stupid little nitpick.

Now this is not me saying that Nari's characterization in the movie is objectively bad. Actually, it's kind of fitting for the Tales of Arcadia brand of humor--Super ancient demigoddess who houses the power to completely destroy the earth is also kind of a clueless ditz and needs to be babysat like a toddler. If she had not been introduced in Wizards, I would've been fine with this. But, much like the rest of the movie, Nari's vastly different characterization felt a tiny bit like a betrayal, and it consistently bothered me in every single one of her scenes. It also kept me from feeling the full impact of her death--seriously, I didn't cry at all when she was killed. Which....yeah, I'm just as surprised as you are.

So anyways, if you've made it this far, thank you so much for the ask, Non! Normally I have a bit more self control than to just....essay-dump like this, but honestly I've been thinking about this for way too long, and I had to get it out of my system. 🥴 And to anyone who really liked Nari's characterization in RotT--that's totally valid! Again, I don't think it was a bad characterization. It was just very inconsistent with her character as she was introduced to us in Wizards. And I just happen to prefer Wizards Nari over RotT Nari. 🌿✨

#tales of arcadia #toa #rise of the titans #rott spoilers #toa nari #niki answers #long post

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wits-writing · 3 years

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What’s so Funny About Vengeance, the Night, and Batman? – Two Superhero Parodies in Conversation

Back in 2016, the first trailers for Director Chris McKay’s The Lego Batman Movie hit. A spinoff of the take on the iconic hero, voiced by Will Arnett, from 2014’s The Lego Movie. Those trailers spelled out a plot covering how Batman’s life of crimefighting is turned upside down when Robin unexpectedly enters the picture. It was a funny trailer, promising another insightful comedy from the crew behind The Lego Movie. A promise it handily delivered on when it came out in February 2017 with an animated feature steeped wall-to-wall jokes for the sake of mocking Bruce Wayne’s angst filled crusade that can only come from understanding what’s made the character withstand the test of time.

But there was a thought I and others had from seeing that trailer up to watching the actual movie:

“This seems… familiar.”

Holy Musical B@man! is a 2012 fan-made stage production parody of DC Comics’ biggest cash cow. It was produced as the fifth musical from YouTube-based cult phenomenon Starkid Productions, from a book by Matt and Nick Lang, music by Nick Gage and Scott Lamp with lyrics by Gage. The story of the musical details how Robin’s unexpected entrance ends up turning Batman’s (Joe Walker) life of crimefighting upside down. Among Starkids’ fandom derived projects in their early existence, as they’ve mainly moved on to well-received original material in recent years, Holy Musical B@man! is my personal favorite. I go back to it frequently, appreciating it as a fan of both superheroes and musicals. (Especially since good material that touches on both of those isn’t exactly easy to come by. Right, Spider-Man?)

While I glibly summarized the similarities between them by oversimplifying their plots, there’s a lot in the details, both major and minor, that separates how they explore themes like solitude, friendship, love, and what superhero stories mean. It’s something I’ve wanted to dig into for a while and I found a lot in both of them I hadn’t considered before by putting them in conversation. I definitely recommend watching both of them, because of how in-depth this piece goes including discussing their endings. However, nothing I can say will replace the experience of watching them and if I had included everything I could’ve commented on in both of them, this already massive piece would easily be twice as long minimum.

Up front, I want to say this isn’t about comparing The Lego Batman Movie and Holy Musical B@man in terms of quality. Not only are they shaped for vastly different mediums with different needs/expectations, animation versus stagecraft, but they also had different resources at their disposal. Even if both are in some ways riffing on the aesthetic of the 1990s Batman movies and the Adam West TV show, Lego Batman does it with the ability to make gorgeously animated frames packed to the brim with detail while Holy Musical often leans into its low-fi aesthetic of characters miming props and sets to add extra humor. They’re also for different audiences, Lego Batman clearly for all-ages while Holy Musical has the characters cursing for emphasis on a regular basis. On top of those factors, after picking through each of these for everything worth commenting on that I could find, I can’t say which I wholly prefer thanks in part to these fundamental differences.

This piece is more about digging through the details to explore the commonalities, differences, and what makes them effective mocking love letters to one of the biggest superheroes in existence.

(Also, since I’m going to be using the word “Batman” a lot, I’ll be calling Lego Batman just “Batman” and referring to the version from Holy Musical as “B@man”, with the exception of quoted dialogue.)

[Full Piece Under the Cut]

Setting the Tone

The beginning is, in fact, a very good place to start when discussing how these parodies frame their versions of the caped crusader. Each one uses a song about lavishing their respective Batmen with praise about how they are the best superheroes ever and play over sequences of the title hero kicking wholesale ass. A key distinction comes in who’s singing each song. Holy Musical B@man’s self-titled opening number is sung from the perspective of an omniscient narrator recounting B@man’s origin and later a chorus made up of the Gotham citizenry. Meanwhile, “Who’s the (Bat) Man” from Lego Batman is a brag-tacular song written by Batman about himself, even playing diegetically for all his villains to hear as he beats them up.

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Holy Musical opens on a quick recap of Batman’s origin:

“One shot, Two shots in the night and they’re gone And he’s all left alone He’s just one boy Two dead at his feet and their blood stains the street And there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can do!”

We then get a Bat-dance break as the music goes from slow and moody to energetic to reflect Batman turning that tragedy into the driving force behind his one-man war on crime. Assured by the narrator that he’s “the baddest man that there’s ever been!” and “Now there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can’t do!” flipping the last lyric of the first verse. For the rest of the opening scene the lyrics matter less than what’s happening to establish both this fan-parody’s version of Batman and how the people of Gotham (“he’ll never refuse ‘em”) view him.

Lego Batman skips the origin recap, and in general talks around the death of the Waynes to keep the light tone going since it’s still a kids movie about a popular toy even if there are deeper themes at play. Instead, it continues a trend The Lego Movie began for this version of the character writing music about how he’s an edgy, dark, awesome, cool guy. While that movie kept it to Batman angry-whiteboy-rapping about “Darkness! NO PARENTS!”, this one expands to more elaborate boasts in the song “Who’s the (Bat) Man” by Patrick Stump:

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“In the darkest night I make the bad guys fall There’s a million heroes But I’m the best of them all!”

Batman singing this song about himself, as opposed to having it sung by others aims the crosshairs of parody squarely on the hero’s ego. His abilities make fighting his villains effortless, like this opening battle is more an opportunity to perform the song than a life-or-death struggle. Even Joker’s aware of that as he shouts, “Stop him before he starts singing!” This Batman doesn’t see himself as missing out on anything in life, even if he still feels that deep down. Being Batman is the coolest thing in the world that anyone would envy. He’s Batman, therefore everyone should envy him.

The songs aren’t only part of the equation for how these two works’ opening scenes establish their leading hero. While both songs are about Batman being cool, they’re separated by the accompanying scenes. Lego Batman keep the opening within the Joker’s perspective until Batman shows up and the action kicks in. Once it does, we’re shown a Batman at the top of his solo-hero game. Meanwhile, Holy Musical’s opening is about B@man building his reputation and by the end of the song he has all the citizens of Gotham singing his praises with the titular lyrics. Both are about being in awe of the title hero, one framed by Joker’s frustration at Batman’s ease in foiling his schemes yet again and the other about the people of Gotham growing to love their city’s hero (probably against their better judgement.)

That’s woven into the fabric of what kind of schemes Batman is foiling in each of these. Joker’s plan to bomb Gotham with the help of every supervillain in Batman’s Rogues Gallery is hilariously high stakes and the type of plan most Batman stories, even parodies, would save for the climax. Neatly exemplified by how that’s almost the exact structure of Holy Musical’s final showdown. Starting with these stakes works as an extension of this Batman’s nature as a living children’s toy and therefore the embodiment of a child’s idea of what makes Batman cool, his ability to wipe the floor with anyone that gets in his way “because he’s Batman.” It also emphasizes Joker as the only member of the Rogues Gallery that matters to Lego Batman’s story, every other Bat-villain is either a purely visual cameo or only gets a couple lines maximum.

The crime’s being stopped by B@man are more in the “Year One” gangster/organized crime category rather than anything spectacle heavy. Though said crimes are comically exaggerated:

Gangster 1: Take these here drugs, put ‘em into them there guns, and then hand ‘em out to those gamblin’ prostitutes! Gangster 2: Should we really be doing these illegal activities? In a children’s hospital for orphans?

These fit into that model of crime the Dark Knight fights in his early days and add tiny humanizing moments between the crooks (“Oh, Matches! You make me laugh like nobody else!”) in turn making the arrival of B@man and the violence he deals out a stronger punchline. Further emphasized by the hero calling out the exact physical damage he does with each hit before warning them to never do crime again saying, “Support your families like the rest of us! Be born billionaires!” Later in the song his techniques get more extreme and violence more indiscriminate, as he uses his Bat-plane to patrol and gun down whoever he sees as a criminal, including a storeowner accidentally taking a single dollar from his own register. (“God’s not up here! Only Batman!”)

A commonality between these two openings is how Commissioner Jim Gordon gets portrayed. Both are hapless goofs at their core, playing more on the portrayal of the character in the 60s TV show and 90s Burton/Schumacher movies than the serious-minded character present in comics, Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, and other adaptations. Lauren Lopez’s portrayal in Holy Musical gets overwhelmed by everything thrown at him, eventually giving up and getting out of B@man’s way (“I’m not gonna tell Batman what to do! He’s Batman!”) Hector Elizondo’s Gordon in Lego Batman clearly reached the “stay out of Batman’s way” point a long time ago, happy to have “the guy who flips on the Bat-signal” be his sole defining trait. While the characterizations are close, their roles do end up differing. Lopez’s Gordon sticks around to have a few more comedic scenes as the play goes on, where Elizondo’s exist to set up a contrast with his daughter Barbara and her way of approaching Batman when she becomes Police Commissioner.

These opening sequences both end in similar manners as well; the citizens of Gotham lavishing praise on their respective Batmen and a confrontation between Batman and the Joker. Praise from the citizenry in Holy Musical comes on the heels of a letter from B@man read out on the news about how much they and the city of Gotham suck. They praise B@man for his angsty nature as a “dark hero” and how they “wouldn’t want him any other way!”, establishing the motif of Gotham’s citizens in Holy Musical as stand-ins for the Batman fandom. Lego Batman uses the praise of the Gotham citizens after Batman’s victory in the opening scene as a lead in to contrast their certainty that Batman must have an exciting private life with the reality we’re shown. Which makes sense since Lego-Batman’s relationship to the people of Gotham is never presented as something at stake.

Greater contrast comes in how the confrontations with the Joker are handled, Lego Batman has an argument between the hero and villain that’s intentionally coded as relationship drama, Batman saying “There is no ‘us’” when Joker declares himself Batman’s greatest enemy. The confrontation in Holy Musical gets purposefully underplayed as an offstage encounter narrated to the audience as a Vicki Vale news report. This takes Joker off the board for the rest of the play in contrast to the Batman/Joker relationship drama that forms one of Lego Batman’s key pillars. While they take different forms, the respective citizenry praise and villain confrontation parts of these openings lead directly into the number one common thematic element between these Bat-parodies: Batman’s loneliness.

One is the Darkest, Saddest, Loneliest Number

Batman as an isolated hero forms one of the core tenants of the most popular understanding of the character. Each of these parodies picks at that beyond the broody posturing. There’s no dedicated segment in this piece about how these works’ versions of the title character function bleeds into every other aspect of them, but each starts from the idea of Batman as a man-child with trouble communicating his emotions. Time’s taken to give the audience a view of where their attitudes have left them early in the story.

Both heroes show their loneliness through interactions with their respective Alfreds. Holy Musical has the stalwart butler, played by Chris Allen, try to comfort B@man by asking if he has any friends he enjoys being around. When B@man cites Lucius Fox as a friend he calls him right away, only to discover Lucius Fox is Alfred’s true identity and Alfred Pennyworth was an elaborate ruse he came up with to protect Bruce on his father’s wishes. Ironically, finding out his closest friend was living a double life causes Bruce to push Alfred away (the play keeps referring to him as Alfred after this, so that’s what I’m going to do as well.) After he’s fired he immediately comes back in a new disguise as “O’Malley the Irish Butler” (same outfit he wore before but with a Party City Leprechaun hat.) That’s unfortunately the start of a running gag in Holy Musical that ends up at the worst joke in the play, when Alfred disguises himself as “Quon Li the Chinese Butler” doing an incredibly cringeworthy “substituting L’s for R’s” bit with his voice. It’s been my least favorite bit in the play since I first saw it in 2012 and legitimately makes me hesitate at times to recommend it. Even if it’s relatively small bit and the rest holds ups.

That disclaimer out of the way, that conversation between B@man and Alfred leads into the title hero reflecting on his sadness through the musical’s I Want Song, “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight.” The song’s split into two halves, the first Alfred reflecting on whether he played a part in Bruce’s current condition and the second B@man longing for a connection. The song does a good job balancing between the sincerity over the hero’s sadness and getting good laughs out of it:

“Think of the children Next time you gun down the mama and papa Their only mama and papa Because they probably don’t have another mama and papa!”

The “I Want” portion of the song coming in the end with the repetition of the lryics “I want to be somebody’s buddy.”

Rather than another song number, Lego Batman covers Batman’s sadness through a pair of montages and visual humor. The first comes after the opening battle, where we see Batman taking off all his costume except for the mask hanging out alone in Wayne Manor, showing how little separation he puts between identities. Compared to Holy Musical where the equivalent scene is the first we see of Bruce without the mask on, which may come down to practicality since anyone who’s worn a mask like that knows they get hot and sweaty fast. Batman is constantly made to appear small among the giant empty rooms of his estate as he eats dinner, jams on his guitar, and watches romantic movies alone.

Ralph Fienne’s Alfred coming in at the end of this sequence witnessing Batman looking at a photo of himself as a boy with his parents for the last time. Alfred outlines Batman’s fear of being part of a family again only to be met with Batman denying he has any feelings ever. Pennyworth’s role as a surrogate father gets put into greater focus here than in Holy Musical, as we get glimpses of Alfred reading a book titled “How to Deal with Your Out-of-Control Child.” Also shown in smaller scenes of Alfred dealing with Batman’s insistent terminology for his crime fighting equipment, like calling his cowl an “armored face disguise.”

Batman’s denial of his pain contrasts how B@man wallows in it. Though he’s forced to confront it a little as the Joker’s plan ends up leaving him with no crimefighting to fall back on to ignore his issues. This montage gets set to the song “One” by Harry Nilsson and details Batman, unable to express his true feelings, eventually letting them out in the form of tempter tantrums. There’s also some humor through juxtaposition as Batman walks solemnly through the streets of Gotham City, rendered black and white, as the citizens chant “No more crime!” in celebration, while flipping over cars and firing guns into the air.

A disruption to their loneliness eventually comes in the form of a sensational character find.

Robin – The Son/BFF Wonder

Between both Bat-parodies, the two Robins’ characterizations are as close as anyone’s between them. Each is nominally Dick Grayson but are ultimately more representative of the idea of Robin as the original superhero sidekick and his influence on Batman’s life. The play and movie also both make the obvious jokes about Dick’s name and the classic Robin costume’s lack of pants at different points. Dick’s origin also gets sidestepped in each version to skip ahead to the part where he starts being an influence in Batman’s life.

Robin’s introduction to the comics in Detective Comics #38 in 1940, marking the start of Batman’s literal “Year Two” as a character, predating the introduction of Joker, Catwoman, and Alfred, among others. Making him Batman’s longest lasting ally in the character’s history. His presence and acrobatics shift the tone by adding a dash of swashbuckling to Batman’s adventures, inspired by the character’s namesake Robin Hood, though both parodies take a page out of Batman Forever and associate the name with the bird for the sake of a joke. Robin is as core to Batman as his origin, but more self-serious adaptations (i.e., the mainstream cinematic ones that were happening around the times both Holy Musical and Lego Batman came out) tend to avoid the character’s inclusion. These two works being parody, therefore anything but self-serious, give themselves permission to examine why Robin matters and how different characters react to his presence. Rejection of Robin as a character and concept comes out in some form in each of these works, from Batman himself in Lego Batman and the Gotham citizens in Holy Musical.

The chain of events that lead to Dick becoming Robin in Lego Batman are a string of consequences for Batman’s self-absorption. A scene of Bruce barely listening as Dick asks for advice on getting adopted escalating to absentmindedly signing the adoption paperwork. Batman doesn’t realize he has a son until after his sadness montage. Alfred forces Batman to start interacting with Dick against his will. The broody loner wanting nothing to do with the cheery kid, played to “golly gee gosh” perfection by Michael Cera, until he sees the utility of him. Batman doesn’t even have the idea to give Robin a costume or codename because he clearly views the sidekick’s presence as a temporary measure for breaking into Superman’s fortress, made clear by how he lists “expendable” as a quality Dick needs if he wants to go on a mission.

This makes Robin the catalyst for Batman’s shifting perspective throughout Lego Batman. When Robin succeeds in his first mission, the Dark Knight is hesitant to truly compliment him and chalks up his ward’s feats to “unbelievable obeying.” Other moments have Robin’s presence poke holes in Batman’s tough guy demeanor, like the first time Batman and Robin ride in the Bat-mobile together, Robin asks where the seatbelts are and Batman growls “Life doesn’t give you seatbelts!”, only for Batman to make a sudden stop causing Robin to hit his head on the windshield and Batman genuinely apologizes. They share more genuine moments together as the film goes, like Batman suggesting they beatbox together to keeps their spirits up after they’ve been imprisoned for breaking into Arkham Asylum. Robin’s representative of Batman gradually letting people in throughout these moments.

On the exact opposite end of the spectrum, B@man needs zero extra prompting to let Robin into his life. Nick Lang’s Robin (henceforth called “Rob!n” to keep with this arbitrary naming scheme I’ve concocted) does get brought into his life by Alfred thanks to a personal ad (“‘Dog for sale’? No… ‘Orphan for sale’! Even better!”) but it’s a short path to B@man deciding to let Dick fight alongside him. The briefest hesitance on the hero’s part, “To be Batman… is to be alone”, is quelled by Rob!n saying “We could be alone… together.” Their first scene together quickly establishing the absurd sincerity exemplified by this incarnation of the Dynamic Duo. An energy carried directly into the Act 1 closing number, “The Dynamic Duet”, a joyful ode between the heroes about how they’re “Long lost brothers who found each other” sung as they beat up supervillains (and the occasional random civilian.)

That song also ties into the contrast between the Batman/Robin dynamic and the B@man/Rob!n one. While Holy Musical is portraying a brotherly/BFF bond between the two heroes, Lego Batman leans into the surrogate son angle. While both are mainly about their stories’ Batman being able to connect with others, the son angle of Lego Batman adds an additional layer of “Batman needs to take responsibility for himself and others” and a parallel to Alfred as Batman’s own surrogate father. It also adds to the queer-coding of Batman in Lego Batman as Batman’s excuse to Robin for why he can go on missions is that Bruce and he are sharing custody, Robin even calling Batman’s dual identities “dads” before he knows the truth.

In the absence of the accepting personal responsibility through fatherhood element, the conflict Rob!n brings out in Holy Musical forms between B@man and the citizens of Gotham. “Citizens as stand-ins for fandom” is at it’s clearest here as the Act 2 opener is called “Robin Sucks!” featuring the citizens singing about how… well, you read the title. Their objections to Rob!n’s existence has nothing to do with what the young hero has done or failed to do, but come from arguments purely about the aesthetic of Rob!n fighting alongside B@man. Most blatantly shown by one of the citizens wearing a Heath Ledger Joker t-shirt saying Rob!n’s presence “ruins the gritty realism of a man who fights crime dressed as a bat.” It works as the Act 2 opener by establishing that B@man and the citizens conflicting opinions on his sidekick end up driving that half of the story, exemplified in B@man’s complete confusion about why people hate Rob!n (“Robin ruined Batman? But that’s not true… Robin make Batman happy.”)

Both Robins play into the internal conflict their respective mentors are going through, but what would a superhero story, even a parody, be without some colorful characters to provide that sweet external conflict.

Going Rogue

Both works have the threat comes from an army of villains assembled under a ringleader, Zach Galifianakis’s Joker in Lego Batman and Jeff Blim as Sweet Tooth in Holy Musical. Both lead the full ensemble of Batman’s classic (and not so classic) Rogues at different points. As mentioned before Joker starts Lego Batman with “assemble the Rogues, blow up Gotham” as his plan, while Sweet Tooth with his candy prop comedy becoming the ringleader of Gotham’s villains is a key turning point in Act 1 of the play. Part of this comes down to how their connections to their respective heroes and environments are framed, Sweet Tooth as a new player on the scene and Joker as Batman’s romantic foil.

Lego Batman demonstrates Batman and Joker are on “finishing each other’s sentences” levels of intimate that Batman refuses to acknowledge. Shown best in how Joker’s plan only works because he can predict exactly how Batman will act once he starts playing hard to get. When he surrenders the entire Rogues Gallery (without telling them) and himself to police custody, he describes it as him being “off the market.” He knows Batman won’t settle for things ending on these terms and tricks the hero into stealing Superman’s Phantom Zone projector so he can recruit a new, better team of villains for a take two of his masterplan from the start. Going through all this trouble to get Batman to say those three magic words; “I love hate you.” Joker as the significant other wanting his partner to finally reciprocate his feelings and commit works both as a play on how the Batman/Joker relationship often gets approached and an extension of the central theme. Batman is so closed off to interpersonal connections he can’t even properly hate his villains.

Sweet Tooth, while clearly being a riff Heath Ledger and Caesar Romero’s Jokers fused with a dash of Willy Wonka, doesn’t have that kind of connection with B@man. Though there are hints that B@man and his recently deceased Joker may have had one on that level. He laments “[Joker]’s in heaven with mom and dad. Making them laugh, I know it!” when recalling how the Clown Prince of Crime was the one person he enjoyed being around. This makes Joker’s death one of the key triggers to B@man reflecting on his solitude at the start of the play.

What Sweet Tooth provides the story is a threat to B@man’s new bond with Rob!n. Disrupting that connection forms the delicious center of the Candy King of Crime’s plan in Act 2. He holds Rob!n and Gotham’s people hostage and asks the citizens to decide via Facebook poll if the sidekick lives or dies (in reference to the infamous phone hotline vote from the comic book story A Death in the Family where readers could decide the Jason Todd Robin’s fate.)

With the rest of the villains under the leadership of the respective works’ main antagonists, there’s commentary on their perceived quality as threats. When Holy Musical has Superman talking to Green Lantern about how much B@man’s popularity frustrates him, he comes down especially hard on the Caped Crusader’s villains. Talking about how they all coast by on simple gimmicks with especially harsh attention given to Two Face’s being “the number two.” Saying they’re only famous because B@man screws up and they get to do more damage. Which he compares to his own relationship with his villains:

Superman: You ever heard of Mr. Mxyzptlk? Green Lantern: No. Superman: No, that’s right! That’s because I do my job!

Lego Batman has commentary on the other villains come from Joker, recognizing that even all together they can never beat Batman, because that’s how a Batman story goes. The other villains get portrayed as generally buffoonish, struggling to even build a couch together and described by Joker as “losers dressed in cosplay.” Tricking Batman into sending him to the Phantom Zone provides him the opportunity to gather villains from outside Batman’s mythos and outside DC Comics in general. Recruiting the likes of Sauron, King Kong, Daleks, Agent Smith from The Matrix, and the Wicked Witch of the West, among others. When I first saw and reviewed The Lego Batman Movie, this bugged me because it felt like a missed opportunity to feature lesser-known villains from other DC heroes’ Rogues Galleries. Now, considering the whole movie as meta-commentary on the status of this Batman as a children’s toy, it makes perfect sense that Joker would need to go outside of comics to break the rules of a typical Batman story and have a shot at winning.

The Rogues of Holy Musical get slightly more of a chance to shine, if only because their song “Rogues are We” is one of the catchier tracks from the play. They’re all still more cameo than character when all’s said and done, but Sweet Tooth entering the picture is about him recognizing their potential to operate as a unit, takeover Gotham, and kill B@man. The candy-pun flinging villain wants all of them together, no matter their perceived quality.

Sweet Tooth: “We need every villain in Gotham. Cool themes, lame themes, themes that don’t match their powers, even the villains that take their names from public domain stories.” (Two Face’s “broke ass” still being the exception.)

Both Joker and Sweet Tooth provide extensions of the shared theme of Batman dealing with the new connections in his life, especially with regards to Robin. However, Robin isn’t the only other ally (or potential ally) these Dark Knights have on their side.

Super Friends(?)

The internal crisis of these Caped Crusaders come as much from how they react to other heroic figures as it does from supervillainous machinations. In both cases how Batman views and is viewed by fellow heroes gets centered on a specific figure, Superman in Holy Musical and Commissioner Barbara Gordon (later Batgirl) in Lego Batman. Each serves a vastly different purpose in the larger picture of their stories and relationship to their respective Batmen. Superman reflecting B@man’s loneliness and Barbara symbolizing a new path forward for Batman’s hero work.

Superman’s role in Holy Musical runs more parallel to Lego Batman’s Joker than Barbara. Brian Holden’s performance as the Man of Tomorrow plays into a projected confidence covering anxiety that nobody likes him. Besting the Bat-plane in a race during B@man’s Key to the City ceremony establishes a one upmanship between the two heroes, like Joker’s description of his relationship with Batman at the end of Lego Batman’s opening battle. Though instead of that romantically coded relationship from Lego Batman, this relationship is more connected to childish jealousy. (But if you do want to read the former into Holy Musical B@man, neither hero has an onstage relationship with any woman and part of their eventual fight consist of spanking each other.)

B@man and Superman’s first real interaction is arguing over who’s the cooler hero until it degrades into yelling “Fuck you!” at each other. B@man storming off in the aftermath of that gets topped off by Superman suggesting he should get the Key to the City instead, citing his strength and longer tenure as a hero (“The first hero, by the way”) as justifications. This only results in the Gotham citizens turning on him for suggesting their city’s hero is anything less than the best, which serves both as a Sam Raimi Spider-Man reference (“You mess with one of us! You mess with all of us!”) and another example of the citizens as stand-ins for fandom. Superman’s veil of cocksureness comes off quickly after that and stays off for the rest of the play. Starting with his conversation with Green Lantern where a civilian comes across them, but barely acts like Superman’s there.

One of the play’s running gags is Superman calling B@man’s number and leaving messages, showing a desperation to reach out and connect with his fellow hero despite initial smugness. Even before the first phone call scene, we see Superman joining B@man to sing “I want to be somebody’s buddy” during “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight” hinting at what’s to come. The note it consistently comes back to is that Superman’s jealousy stems from Batman’s popularity over him. This is a complete flip of what Lego Batman does with the glimpse at a Batman/Superman dynamic we see when Batman goes to the Superman’s fortress to steal the Phantom Zone projector. The rivalry dynamic there exists solely in Batman’s head, Lego-Superman quickly saying “I would crush you” when Batman suggests the idea of them fighting. Superman’s status among the other DC heroes is also night and day between these works. Where Lego-Superman’s only scene in the movie shows him hosting the Justice League Anniversary Party and explaining he “forgot” to invite Batman, Superman in Holy Musical consistently lies about having friends over (“All night long I’m busy partying with my friends at the Fortress… of Solitude.”)

Superman’s relationship to B@man in Holy Musical develops into larger antagonism thanks to lack of communication with B@man brushing off Supes’ invitations to hang out and fight bad guys (“Where were you for the Solomon Grundy thing? Ended up smaller than I thought, just a couple of cool guys. Me and… Solomon Grundy.”) His own loneliness gets put into stronger focus when he sees the news of Rob!n’s debut as a crimefighter, which makes him reflect on how he misses having Krypto the Super-Dog around. (The explanation for why he doesn’t have his dog anymore is one of my favorite jokes in the play and I won’t ruin it here.)

Where Superman’s a reflection of B@man’s loneliness, Rosario Dawson as Barbara in Lego Batman is a confrontation of Batman’s go it alone attitude. Her job in the story is to be the one poking holes in the foundation of Batman as an idea, starting with her speech at Jim Gordon’s retirement banquet and her instatement as commissioner. She has a by-the-book outlook on crimefighting with the omnicompetence to back it up, thanks to her training at “Harvard for Police.” Babs sees Batman’s current way of operating as ineffectual and wants him to be an official agent of the law. An idea that dumps a bucket of cold water on Batman’s crush he developed immediately upon seeing her, though that never fully goes away.

Her main point is that Batman “karate chopping poor people” hasn’t made Gotham better in his 80 years of operating. A contrast to Holy Musical’s Jim Gordon announcing that B@man has brought Gotham’s crime rates to an all-time low (“Still the highest in the world, but we’re working on it.”) She wants to see a Batman willing to work with other people. A hope dashed constantly dealing with his childish stubbornness as he tries to foil Joker’s schemes on his own, culminating in her arresting Batman and Robin for breaking into Arkham to send Joker to the Phantom Zone.

Barbara’s role as the one bringing grown-up attitudes and reality into Batman’s world does leave her in the role of comedic straight woman. Humor in her scenes comes from how she reacts to everyone else’s absurdity rather than anything she does to be funny. This works for the role she plays in Lego Batman, since she’s not there to have an arc the way Superman does in Holy Musical. She’s another catalyst for Batman’s to start letting people in as another character he grows to care about. Which starts after she lets the Dynamic Duo out of prison to fight Joker’s new army of Phantom Zone villains on the condition that he plays it by her rules. Leading to a stronger bond between Batman, Robin, Alfred, and her as they start working together.

The two Batmen’s relationships to other heroes, their villains, Robin, and their own solitude each culminate in their own way as their stories reach their conclusions.

Dark Knights & Dawning Realizations

As everything comes down to the final showdowns in these Bat-parodies, the two Caped Crusaders each confront their failures to be there for others and allow themselves to be vulnerable to someone they’ve been antagonizing throughout the story. Each climax has all of Gotham threatened by a bomb and the main villains’ plans coming to fruition only to come undone.

Holy Musical has Sweet Tooth’s kidnapping of Rob!n and forcing Gotham to choose themselves or the sidekick they hate sends B@man into his most exaggerated state in the entire play. It’s the classic superhero movie climax conundrum, duty as a hero versus personal attachment. Alfred, having revealed himself as the “other butlers”, even lampshades how these stories usually go only for that possibility to get shot down by Bruce:

Alfred: A true hero, Master Wayne, finds a way to choose both. B@man: You’re right, Alfred. I know what I have to do… Fuck Gotham, I’m saving Robin!

B@man’s selfishness effectively makes him the real villain of Holy Musical’s second act. Lego Batman has shades of that aspect as well, where Batman gets sent to the Phantom Zone by Joker for his repeated refusal to acknowledge their relationship. Where the AI running the interdimensional prison, Phyllis voiced by Ellie Kemper, confronts him with the way he’s treated Robin, Alfred, Barbara, and even Joker:

Phyllis: You’re not a traditional bad guy, but you’re not exactly a good guy either. You even abandoned your friends. Batman: No! I was trying to protect them! Phyllis: By pushing them away? Batman: Well… yeah. Phyllis: Are they really the ones you’re protecting?

Batman watches what’s happening back in Gotham and sees Robin emulate his grim and gritty tendencies to save the day in his absence makes him desperately scream, “Don’t do what I would do!” It’s the universe rubbing what a jerk he’s been in his face. He’s forced to take a look at himself and make a change. B@man’s not made to do that kind of self-reflection until after he’s defeated Sweet Tooth but failed to stop the villain’s bomb. He’s ready to give up on Gotham forever and leave with Rob!n, until his sidekick pulls up Sweet Tooth’s poll and it shows the unanimous result in favor of saving the Boy Wonder. Despite everything they said at the start of Act 2, the people want to help their hero in return for all the times he helped them. All of them calling back to the Raimi Spider-Man reference from Act 1, “You mess with one of us. You mess with all of us.”

Both heroes’ chance at redemption and self-improvement comes from opening themselves up to the people they pushed out and dismissed earlier in their stories. Batman takes on the role he reduced the Commissioner down to at the beginning of the movie and flips on signals for Barbara, Alfred, and Robin to show how he’s truly prepared to work as a team, not just with his friends and family but with the villains of Gotham the Joker pushed aside as well. Teamwork makes the dream work and they’re all able to work together to get Joker’s army back into the Phantom Zone but like in Holy Musical they fail to stop the bomb threatening Gotham. Which he can only prevent from destroying the city by confessing his true feeling to Joker

Batman: If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have learned how connected I am with all of these people and you. So, if you help me save Gotham, you’ll help me save us. Joker: You just said “us?” Batman: Yeah, Batman and the Joker. So, what do you say? Joker: You had me at “shut up!”

The equivalent moment from Holy Musical comes from B@man needing to put aside his pride and encourage a disheartened Superman to save Gotham for him. This happens in the aftermath of a fight the two heroes had where Superman tried to stop B@man before he faced Sweet Tooth, B@man winning out through use of kryptonite. That fight doesn’t fit into any direct parallel with Lego Batman, but it is important context for how Superman’s feeling about B@man before Superman finally gets his long-awaited phone call from the Dark Knight. Also, the song accompanying the fight, “To Be a Man”, is one of the funniest scenes in the play. What this speech from B@man does is bring the idea of Holy Musical B@man as a commentary on fandom full circle:

B@man: I forgot what it means to be a superhero. But we’re really not that different, you and me, at our heart. I mean really all superheroes are pretty much the same… Something bad happened to us once when we were young, so we dedicated our whole lives to doing a little bit of good. That’s why we got into this crazy superhero business. Not to be the most popular, or even the most powerful. Because if that were the case, hell, you’d have the rest of us put out of a job!

This speech extends into an exchange between the heroes about how superheroes are cool, not despite anything superficially silly but because of it. Bringing it back to the “Robin Sucks!” theme that started Act 2, saying “Some people think Robin is stupid. But those people are pretentious douchebags. Because, literally, the only difference between Robin and me is our costumes.” The speech culminates in what I genuinely think is one of the best Batman lines ever written, as B@man’s final plea to Superman is “Where’s that man who’s faster than a gun?” calling back to the trauma that created Batman across all versions and what he can see in someone like Superman. So, B@man sacrificing his pride and fully trusting in another hero saves Gotham, the way Batman letting Joker know what their relationship means to him did in Lego Batman.

Each of these parodies ends by delivering a Batman willing to open himself up to a new team of heroes fighting at his side, the newly minted Bat-Family in Lego Batman and the league for justice known as the Super Friends in Holy Musical. Putting them side by side like this shows how creators don’t need the resources of a Hollywood studio to make something exactly as meaningful and how the best parodies come from love of the material no matter who’s behind them.

If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”

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markantonys · 3 years

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I might be super controversial but I preferred the first season of Medici over the others...especially because I was dying to know who killed the old guy and because contessina and cosimo were such a realistic couple

i don't think that's an unpopular opinion at all! on the contrary, from what i've seen on the wider internet the first season is vastly more popular (in large part bc s2-3 came out so long after s1 and netflix didn't do shit to promote them, so a ton of people who watched and enjoyed s1 never even heard that there were more seasons) and it's really only the small pocket of more fandom-y sites (esp. tumblr and ao3) who like s2 the best, probably bc s2 just has that Fandom Appeal u know (young and pretty actors, homoerotic rivalries, hot angsty tragic bad boy with rockin eyeliner, etc. yes i know these are my own favorite aspects of s2, yes i'm calling myself out hjkfg)

although s2 is my fav i totally agree that cosimo and contessina were the best-written (or dare i say, the ONLY well-written) of the main couples. none of the romantic relationships in the other seasons were done well, the ones that got the most screentime (lorenzo/clarice and giuliano/simonetta) were horribly written and the ones that were compelling got no screentime (bianca/guglielmo, francesco/novella, lorenzo/ippolita, to some extent lorenzo/lucrezia - they did get a pretty good amount of screentime and have a few nice moments post-breakup (i'm particularly soft for their bittersweet interactions in s3) but for the most part their relationship was treated with no respect whatsoever by the writers as soon as clarice came onto the scene)

cosimo and contessina though, they were IT they avoided both the tired historical fiction arranged marriage tropes of either "they fall in love for real and live happily ever after" or "they absolutely despise each other for all eternity and are miserable" like there was miscommunication, there was conflict, there was resentment and anger, but there was also love and trust and respect. i'm obsessed with the "we've been married 20 years and deeply love each other but still don't know how to say it to the other person/think they don't feel the same way" dynamic (lorenzo and clarice's "mild awkwardness for 2 weeks of marriage before falling in instant love and trying to make us think this counts as a slowburn" dynamic could never!) and how they make such a kickass team and are a true Power Couple politically and bank-wise even when their personal feelings for each other are a mess. while i liked the bigger cast of characters and number of relationship dynamics in s2 bc i'm generally a fan of ensemble shows with multiple POVs/plotlines, s1 definitely benefited from being able to go more in depth with its fewer characters and relationships.

#plot-wise i do like s2 better tho #i'm not a murder mystery person so i just didn't really care about finding out who did it #altho the reveal was such an amazing scene absolutely one of the top 10 if not 5 scenes of the whole series #on the whole though the medici-pazzi conflict was much more up my alley as a season-driving plot #answered #anonymous

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lov3nerdstuff · 4 years

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Voluptas Noctis Aeternae {Part 6.6}

*Severus Snape x OC*

Summary: It is the year 1983 when the ordinary life of Robin Mitchell takes a drastic turn: she is accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Despite the struggles of being a muggle-born in Slytherin, she soon discovers her passion for Potions, and even manages the impossible: gaining the favor of Severus Snape. Throughout the years, Robin finds that the not quite so ordinary Potions Professor goes from being a brooding stranger to being more than she had ever deemed possible. An ally, a mentor, a friend... and eventually, the person she loves the most. Through adventure, prophecies and the little struggles of daily life in a castle full of mysteries, Robin chooses a path for herself, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more, and two people abandoned by the world can finally find a home.

General warnings: professor x student, blood, violence, trauma, neglectful families, bullying, cursing

Words: 4.7k

Read Part 1.1 here! All Parts can be found on the Masterlist!

______________________________

"Why again do you have to get up this early on a bloody Saturday?" Jorien groaned quietly from her spot hidden under the covers in her bed, while Cas was still sleeping soundly as ever in her own. It wasn't even dawning yet, still hours until breakfast, but Robin had been up for a while already and was just now returning from getting ready in the bathroom.

"I told you, I'm going on a field trip for my research." Robin whispered back, while she got dressed in some slim fitting black jeans that were comfortable enough to move in and sturdy enough to suit the occasion. "We need to get going before the sun is up."

"You're crazy." Jorien groaned again and dug her head into her pillow, face down. "Hwow gih juh gweh hwiwh gu gwu gwif whih juh?"

"What?" Robin hissed back with a questioning frown, while she layered her favorite jumper over a long sleeved shirt and then went to put her hair up into a ponytail that ended up more messy than neat.

Jorien turned her head back to the side with a sigh. "How did you get him to do this with you?" She repeated her question tiredly, but with a spark of sincere curiosity nonetheless. "Snape, I mean."

"I didn't get him to do anything." Robin shrugged in return and sat down on her bed to lace up her boots. "I did a lot of research over the summer and I showed it to him last week. He made me show it to Dumbledore and that settled the issue."

"So it's just you and him today, huh?"

"Yeah."

"I would say poor you, but I get the impression that you are rather happy about it."

"I am. He is the only one who understands what we're dealing with; it would be a true nuisance to have to explain it all to someone else." Robin replied easily as she finally went to put on her rain jacket instead of her robes for once. The highlands were no place for a cloud of fabric that would soak through in under a minute. Then she hid her wand up her sleeve as always, and finally grabbed her backpack from the end of her bed. All set to go. "Wish me luck!"

"What do you need luck for?" Jorien yawned and hugged her pillow under her head. "I thought you guys know what you're doing."

"Obviously we know that we're going." Robin rolled her eyes with a smile. "But we're doing this entire thing to prove a theory, which means that there is a chance that I was wrong and we won't find what we're looking for."

"Alright… good luck then." The girl yawned again, and closed her eyes with a sigh. "Am glad that Snape is there to bring you back in one piece. McGonagall says you're a magnet for trouble and the obscure."

"Does she now?" Robin's lips quirked into a smirk, but she could tell that Jorien was already falling back asleep. She didn't want to seize any more of her sleep though, and thus she finally made for the door, leaving a few minutes earlier than planned. Oh well... One didn't leave adventure waiting.

… … …

Robin met Snape at the bottom of the spiral staircase that led out of the dungeons. He was wearing different robes than usual, warmer ones, and Robin found herself glad that she wasn't the only one who had planned for a long day out in the cold. They greeted each other with a silent gaze that said enough, then made their way through the empty hallways and out into the courtyard.

The very second Robin stepped out into the open, she realized that it had been a good idea to wear her jacket and not the robes. It wasn't raining yet, but the air smelled of water, soil and electricity in a way that went beyond the morning dew, and the grey sky waiting for the break of dawn was an envoy no less of the impending storm. She breathed in deeply, and had to smile. This was the best birthday present ever.

They had to leave the school grounds in order to apparate to their first destination of the day, and thus they didn't waste any time to make their way down the path to wander beyond the gates. Still, neither spoke a word, and neither did they have to. The serenity of the morning was too calm, too peaceful to disturb with any words spoken in redundancy. They would have all day to chat if they fancied to; why waste words when the silence was enough for now?

It had all been discussed in advance anyway; both Thursday and Friday night, they had sat over Robin's documentations and discussed their options for which plant they should try to find, and thus which theory to prove. They obviously had been limited to the British isles for reasons of time and distance, and also to the acquisition of a plant on Dumbledore's wish. That, and some ambition on Robin's part, had led to their current target and thus their plan of action: they would try to find wraiths' moss today. And ambitious that was indeed, but Robin felt like she had something to prove; to Snape, to Dumbledore and mostly to herself.

It didn't take them long to get away from the castle, to a place beyond the gates where they finally stopped in their track. There was no need to haste, they still had enough time before sunrise. But as they had discovered on multiple occasions, they both preferred being too early over being too late in situations that actually mattered.

This time when Snape held his hand out to Robin, she didn't hesitate to take it. She might be old enough to legally apparate by herself now, but she still had to wait until after the Christmas break to take the twelve week class to get her license to do so, to officially learn to do so. Until then, she would gladly enjoy the privilege of holding his hand for the fleeting moment of traveling. However, even now, she had to painfully remind herself to refrain from lacing their fingers together, a gesture way too intimate to be anywhere near appropriate, and yet one that most of her being was trying to urge her into anyway. But she did hold on tightly, for safety reasons, and was barely able to catch the not-smirk on his lips before the world was torn into a swirling storm of colors and strange sensations.

When Robin's eyes went into focus again, she found herself overlooking the vast sea, and to her great luck a whipping wind blew away most of her nausea after a few seconds of struggling to stay standing upright. She let out a groan as she closed her eyes for a moment, willing away the churning of her stomach while she focused on taking deep breaths. Then she looked back ahead.

They were standing high up on the edge of a cliff, over three hundred meters above the furious black waters that were relentlessly crashing against the solid rock below. The vastly desolate grassland behind their backs was but an illusion of peace in contrast to the ragged and riven stone wall that dropped in a straight vertical a mere two steps ahead. The Scottish east coast; their first destination.

As soon as the dizziness was gone to the point where she didn't feel like she would break down any second, Robin let go of Snape's hand with a silent sigh. The few seconds of having his skin touching hers had once again sufficed to leave her entire self consumed by ridiculous rushes of energy and tingles, but she pushed it to the back of her mind for now in order to do her work. That's what they were here for, after all, to gather the petals of a Haramith flower.

Haramith itself was a plant rather useless for potion making, and thus generally not something anyone would have in stock, but it was essential for Robin's theory on how to find the wraiths' moss. Getting the petals was only step one of many on the road Robin had built in theory to acquire one of the rarest mosses in this part of the world, and now with every step they followed through with successfully, they paved a bit more of that theoretical road into reality.

The good thing about Haramith was that it grew in many places, wildy sprawling on even the poorest soil, and thus it generally wasn't too hard to find. The bad thing however, and the very reason why Snape and Robin had come to a desolate cliff on the eastern shore of the country before sunrise, was that Haramith only blossomed for one single minute of the day. It grew its petals when the sun rose over the horizon, no matter if a single ray of sunshine even graced the earth that day or not, only to lose the petals again after exactly one minute. And when the petals died, they faded into dust within seconds. Which, precisely, was what made it nigh impossible to gather them if one didn't come prepared, which in this case meant knowing exactly when the sun would peek over the horizon. And where better to be precise about that than on the shore?

Robin moved along the very edge of the cliff, looking down the stone wall in search for any specimen of the desired plant she would be able to reach when the sun would rise in approximately two minutes. Due to their sun oriented nature, Haramith flowers were prone to grow on walls like this that were open to the east; at least that's what Robin had read. Indeed, it didn't take her long to find a small patch of green between the ragged stone, but it was further down the wall than she was able to reach. However luck was on her side for once.

"There's a ledge a bit further down the wall." Robin said, looking back over her shoulder at Snape while she took off her backpack and set it down at a good distance to the edge. "We don't have much time left, and there's plenty of Haramith down there. I'm going."

For a moment Snape looked like he wanted to protest, a deep frown settling on his face, but then he moved to stand next to Robin instead of voicing a complaint and glanced down the wall for a second before his eyes were back on her. "Be careful, yes?"

Robin nodded with a small smile, then sat down with her legs dangling over the edge and finally pushed herself over entirely. It really wasn't a far drop, she landed on her feet without any effort and crouched down immediately to keep her weight close to the wall and her body's centre of gravity as low as possible. She wasn't an expert in rock climbing, but she had read about it at some point and she usually remembered what she had read. That really came in handy at times.

Just in the moment she reached out to touch the Haramith, the small flowers beneath her fingertips started to stir. Her eyes widened immediately, and she couldn't help the small smile that fell onto her lips when tiny beads of bright ultramarine started to blossom out of the greyish green stems. It was a beautiful sight, watching them grow and gain in size while never losing their delicacy. After but a moment they were at their final but oh so fleeting state, and Robin almost felt sad to pluck out the petals. But they would grow new ones tomorrow morning, and every day after that as well, so it was more gain to her than loss to them.

Carefully, she placed the fragile objects in a vial she pulled out of her pocket, gathering quite as many petals as she could before all too soon, the remaining ones turned into dust right beneath her fingertips. The ones she had collected however remained perfectly intact, their bright ultramarine piercing her eyes in contrast to her ashen skin as she closed the vial at last and put it back into her pocket. Good… now she just needed to get back up the cliff somehow.

An idea entered her mind, a stupid idea, and she pulled her wand out of her sleeve before she could think better of it, pointed it upwards and closed her eyes for a second in a silent prayer to whoever was listening. Then a wordless ascendio sent her upwards, lifting her over the edge of the cliff and unfortunately even higher, which made the landing quite unpleasant, as she came crashing down onto the grass with a dull thud.

"Bloody hell, I've always hated that charm…" She grumbled to herself, sitting up on the ground with a quiet groan as she rubbed her hurting limbs.

"You could have asked me to help you, you know…" Snape quirked an eyebrow at her, mildly amused by the sight in front of him.

"And you would have done so without mocking me for the next few hours? Doubt it." Robin replied with a small snort, and still let him help her up to her feet the next moment. "I've got the petals, plenty of them even."

"Good." He mused with a not-smirk, observing how Robin dusted off her jeans. "Shall we proceed to the next destination then?"

"Yeah, just… give me a second to breathe between jumping down a cliffside, flying through the air and crashing down on the ground, before apparating again." She sighed, then went to pick up her backpack to throw it back over her shoulders. "Next time, you can do all that and I'll stand up here and watch."

"Professor's privilege. I get to let others do the… unpleasant work." He shrugged with a real smirk now. "However it isn't nearly as entertaining to watch the dunderheads as it is to observe you."

"I don't know if I should feel offended or flattered by that." Robin laughed and shook her head to herself, biting her bottom lip as she had to grin at her own thought. "It certainly is more flattering than what Alexander said to me on Thursday."

"You are aware that I could push you off this cliff in an instant for comparing me to that imbecile, yes?"

"And you're aware that you would be terribly bored without me." Robin quirked an eyebrow at him with a smirk. "Besides, there are four people at least who would most likely come at you if you pushed me off that cliff."

"They obviously do not know you half as well as I do if they would seriously hold it against me." He replied in an instant, and Robin's jaw dropped, a second before she had to laugh. Alright, perhaps he had won that round… which only meant she had to switch the game.

"Fine, do it then." She shrugged with a daring expression, showing but exaggerated casualness as she made calculated steps backwards, blindly nearing the drop with every word while her eyes stayed on his. "I'll even make it easier for you, if you want to get rid of me quite so desperately that-..."

His hand was around her wrist in an instant, pulling her away from the edge while he shot her a glare that was both warning and plea to stop. They both knew that they had walked the line between tease and seriousness too far; it was time to stop, time to return from the place they had gotten themselves into.

"Sorry." Robin was the first to speak, in a whisper only, as she stood a mere step in front of him now. She gave him a sad half smile, but didn't miss the fact that he was still holding onto her wrist as if he was actually afraid she would jump over the edge if he let go. "Sometimes I just…"

"I know." He replied almost calmly, without a trace of actual anger. "But you are right. I would indeed be terribly bored without you."

Robin's smile lost its sadness in an instant, but her heart gained a fullness and warmth instead that made it beat so strongly, she was sure he must've heard it. Still, she would spare him any teases in return for once; if he was being sincere, she would be too. "Good. I would've hated to be the only one who would miss this."

For once he did smile too, a little at least, and he still held onto her wrist, consciously or not. "Are you ready to proceed to the next destination now?"

Robin nodded, upon which he moved his hand from her wrist down to hold hers again, making her heart flutter even more at the deliberately slow touch. But instead of focusing on it, she closed her eyes and prepared for the oddness of apparating, with a frown on her face in anticipation of the discomfort that would soon follow.

"I very likely should not be telling you this before you pass the according class..." He sighed, and Robin quirked an eyebrow but kept her eyes closed nonetheless. "But there are a few things you can do to make the process of apparating less… unpleasant."

"Enlighten me."

"Release the tension in your body, and try to keep it at that state. Clear your mind but for the place you wish to go." He ordered, and Robin tried to focus on relaxing every muscle but the ones in her hand that were needed to hold onto his. "Breathe in deeply, then out again and hold your breath. Keep your eyes closed."

She did as she was told, and an instant later she felt the strange pulling and pushing sensation around her again, the swirling in her mind however was a lot milder already, and the cramping of her stomach barely even there. Before she knew, her feet were on solid ground again, and while her head was very mildly spinning, she didn't feel sick at all when she opened her eyes. Her lips curled into a wide smile.

"I actually didn't experience the discomfort! That's incredible!" Robin beamed up at Snape, who in return rolled his eyes with a not-smirk.

"Bold of you to doubt me." He replied, and this time it was him who let go of Robin's hand first. Not in a haste, but rather because it was the right thing to do. "However I still do hope that this was the second to last time we apparate today."

"Since it doesn't make me feel sick anymore, I actually don't mind it quite as much." She grinned back at him, and only then at last she took the time to look around.

They were standing in the open space of a valley in the middle of the highlands, precisely where they had planned to go. Hills, mountains, stone and green, topped off only by the low hanging grey clouds that came down almost as a shallow mist. Perfect. If it hadn't been for their mission, Robin could've stayed here for hours to drink in the overwhelming beauty of nature. But they had work to do.

"Since you were so keen on helping me earlier, why don't you work the tracing spell now?" Robin quirked an eyebrow at Snape, of course with the ever teasing smirk still playing on her lips, while she took a step away from him to take off her backpack.

"You are insufferable." He rolled his eyes in return, but still took the handbook out of Robin's hand when she held it out to him. "But if you cannot do even this simplest of spells by yourself…"

"You bloody well know I can." She replied with an easy smile; she also knew for a fact that he was just trying to mess with her. But he wouldn't succeed this time.

Without letting his teasing distract her in the slightest, Robin summoned a larger jar which they had prepared in advance last night out of her backpack. Four out of five ingredients for the tracing spell were already inside, perfectly measured of course, and when Robin crouched down to place the whole thing on the ground, she pulled the Haramith petals out of her pocket to add the fifth at last.

"Do you think I can add all of them?" She asked on a whim though, with an inquiring look up at Snape. "I mean… Do you think the measurement of the Haramith even has any impact on the results in this case? I did calculate a specific amount, but measuring it would be such a hassle out here. And now that I think about it, I see no reason why a precise measurement would be necessary in this case. What do you think?"

"It is your tracing spell and your preparation; why are you asking me?"

"Well sorry, but last time I checked you were the potions master." Robin rolled her eyes at him, even if the gesture felt a little silly while kneeling on the ground and looking up at him like that. "Besides, I wasn't asking because you would know any better than me, but because I care about your opinion. But I could also stay sitting on the cold ground to measure the damn thing, if you'd prefer that."

"I believe you could add the entire Haramith without any negative impact."

"Thank you! Was that really so hard?" Robin replied with a smile, before she carefully shook out the petals from the vial into the larger jar. Measuring the flimsy little things would have taken ages indeed, and the knees of her jeans were sodden already.

Without wasting time, she then went ahead to shred all ingredients into tiny pieces until they were a mere blended dust of the same piercing ultramarine as the Haramith itself. So far so good. Before she handed the jar with the mixture to Snape however, she filled a small amount of the dust into the now empty vial, closing it up tightly before she sorted it into a shelf inside her backpack. When she rose to her feet again, Snape shot her a questioning look while she handed him the jar at last.

"I just thought in case this actually works, or even in case it doesn't, it would be nice to have a reference for the next time either way." She shrugged, holding onto the straps of her backpack that she'd placed back over her shoulders. "There's always something to improve on, you know…"

He quirked an eyebrow at her with a not-smirk, holding her gaze for a moment before he finally placed the jar on a rock next to him, then flipped her book open at the marked page that described the tracing spell. It was an uncommon charm, woven together quite messily at the first glance, but it was the best one Robin had found. Snape made quick work of it, speaking the foreign words so easily as if for the millionth time, and Robin couldn't help being mesmerized by the bright blue dust that rose up into the air in a faint line upon the sound of his voice. It was working… bloody hell, it was actually working!

Robin followed the line in the sky with her eyes up to the point where it faded in the distance, then she looked back to Snape with an excited smile. "Ready for a little walk?"

"I am right behind you."

… … …

Walking they did then, following the blue line that faded behind them only to grow longer in front of them in return. Wherever it was leading, their destination was further away than anticipated. After three hours of scrambling through the sheer endless grass and rock, it finally started to rain as if the skies had turned into a waterfall, and they decided to take a break under a small ledge. It wasn't much, but the driest space they had been able to find before hell broke loose. To Robin's great luck, the tracing spell seemed to be entirely unbothered by the train, as the powdery line still remained hanging in the air as clear and smoky as ever. But what use would its persistence be if water in their eyes made it impossible to follow? Even more impossible without getting hurt out there. Thus a break it was, to wait for the worst to pass. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes… the weather in Scotland never stayed the same for long.

The long walk had taken a toll on both of them already, as neither was used to this kind of exercise, but Robin was too determined to see this through, too stubborn to admit that she was exhausted, and she assumed Snape simply was too proud to. It didn't matter either way, she was only glad to be sitting on the insulated blanket that she'd placed on the ground now, and Snape seemed to be equally appreciating of it as he sat next to her with a more or less content expression. Robin still couldn't quite believe that he was actually putting up with all this for her theory. Perhaps even for her as a person. And he seemed to be enjoying himself even!

Sighing quietly in contentment, Robin leaned back against the cold stones behind her and watched the rain. Yes, she was enjoying this. More than she could put into any words.

"I would like to think that the sound of the rain is the universe applauding us." She said instead, with a small smile at the wall of water before she looked over at Snape next to her. "Rain is so full of life, I don't know why people won't appreciate it more."

"Most people see the world differently than you do."

"What about you? Do you see it differently?"

"I used to believe it to be a terribly unfair place. Cold and cruel and indifferent to those who live in it."

Robin's heart squeezed together in a stab of sadness. She hadn't meant to upset him… but the longer she observed his expression, the more she got the impression that he was still calm and content as before. Curious. "You used to believe that? And… what do you believe now?"

"I don't know. The world will always be indifferent to us, but I am not so certain I still stand behind the rest of it."

"Well, it certainly is cold now… With the rain and wind and all that." Robin mused with a small smile, giving him a look that hopefully conveyed lighthearted humor better than her words did. Indeed, a hint of a smile graced his lips in return, and she decided to go on. "But when I think of the laboratory, for example… a crackling red in the fireplace, mixing with the faint bubbling of whatever potion we're making that day and the sound of your voice when you're annoyed with me, but also a silence made of softest velvet. It smells like coffee and books and fire and stone and all the subtle nuances in the potions' fumes. We sit at the table and wait and read and drink coffee and talk, until the next step has to be taken. When I think of that… the world, to me, is nothing but warmth."

A moment of silence followed upon her words, a thoughtful and contemplating silence, which was only broken when the rain lessened and Snape replied at last. "Perhaps you are what renders it warm."

It? The lab? The world? Her own perception? "Perhaps." She replied. Perhaps, his world as well. She shook the thought out of her head as soon as it appeared. Wrong direction to go into, and the wrong time to do so as well. They were here to work. Not to dwell on impossibilities.

_____________________________

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inu-jiru · 3 years

Text

The Tiger And The Zebra

Chapter Two - Passing The Time

If there was anything positive I could say about the Gem Rebellion, it was that it forced Gemkind to vastly improve its ships and weaponry. I had less than pleasant memories of the days of Era 1, and the decades-long journey it took to reach Earth during the war. Now, thanks to warp speed technology, we’d arrive in less than a lunar cycle. For that amount of time, I’d need to find a way to occupy myself. If only past me had had the foresight to store a few books in her gem...

The first few Homeworld rotations were uneventful. When I wasn’t sifting through the ship’s archives for an interesting report to read, I patrolled the halls of the warship, hoping to White Diamond that those disgustingly bright yellows and greens wouldn’t blind me. One three areas of the ship were of interest: the bridge, the prisoner’s dock, and the training bay.

I visited the prisoner’s dock the least. The Lazuli had been moved there since the interrogation. Once we returned to Homeworld, her final punishment would be decided by her own court. Personally, I thought it was a waste of time. A traitor like her only had one use: to be harvested. Still, she was the ship's prisoner for the time being, and prisoners needed to be checked in on. The prison bay contained three long hallways lined with prison cells. When in use, the a would have a forcefield that would destabilize the physical form of a Gem. Normally, this made it so that a prisoner could be left alone, but there was always that one desperate Gem who'd attempt to escape, usually dissipating their forms in the process. The Lapis Lazuli, fortunately, showed no signs of such foolishness. At least she had that going for her.

"Mmph," I'd often grunt in disgust, eying the terraformer as I passed her cell. She would only press herself deeper into the corner, burying her head in her arms and knees. She resembled one of those small, crawling Earth creatures: small, pathetic, and begging to be crushed under my foot.

The bridge was next, though my visits were very brief. The Peridot piloted from there and never seemed to stray from that area. How dull. The Peridot herself was very professional, always saluting to me and treating me with the utmost respect. Without Jasper around, she wasn’t nearly as snippy as I thought she’d be. She was growing on me.

“Tell me.” I decided to strike up a conversation during my most recent visit. I stood beside the technician, gazing out into the starry void that was space. “I’m quite curious. How exactly did you cross paths with the traitors?”

“Well, as I said before, I was assigned to monitor the incubation of the Cluster,” she explained. “A geo-weapon, one that would destroy the Earth from the inside out.” I felt my brow raise in interest. I’d overheard the Cluster’s name from Peridots in White Diamond’s court, though I’d never looked into it. How fascinating, and how clever of the Diamonds to turn something as messy as the Rebellion around in their favor. Oh, if only I hadn’t needed to bring Rose Quartz to Homeworld; I would’ve loved to imagine the look on her face when her precious Earth suddenly crumbled away beneath her feet. Oh, well.

“As for the Crystal--I mean, traitors...” I smirked at my own reflection in the glass. She remembered my anger at the Lazuli when she used that juvenile name. How cute. “I was just starting to remotely reactivate the Prime Kindergarten's control room, when they showed up: three gems and a...a Steven.”

...A what?

“Pardon?” I asked.

“That’s what it called itself.”

“How odd…” I paused for a moment. “No Rose Quartz?”

“Just her lackeys, I’m afraid,” the Peridot admitted. “They destroyed the power supply and disrupted my connection. I made the request for an escort immediately after.”

“Well, Rose Quartz and the fools who follow her will be dealt with in due time, Peridot,” I said. I stood up straight, hands behind my back as a surge of confidence flowed through my physical form. “Her Clarity has complete and total confidence in us. I’ll personally see to it that they’re all shattered, even if I have to testify and each and every one of their trials.”

“I appreciate that, ma’am,” said Peridot. Despite her monotonous voice, I could hear some genuine gratitude. I flashed her a quick smile before making my leave, calling back over my shoulder:

“As you were.”

Finally, there was the training bay, where I spent a good chunk of time, for obvious reasons. Jasper was very much like Peridot in that I never caught her in any other part of the ship. No, Jasper preferred to spend every waking moment training. Even when I was nowhere near the training bay, I could swear I could hear her roars echoing in the distance. I was intrigued, yet also wary. Gems might not have needed sleep, but enough physical exertion was enough to dissipate any Gem’s form. Either Jasper wasn’t aware of this, or she simply didn’t care.

Each visit, I would quietly take my place near the wall, observing Jasper’s progress with an expressionless mask. Her favorite piece of equipment seemed to be the punching bag, and she was relentless with it. First, she’d assault it with a flurry of punches and kicks, barely giving it a chance to swing back to her before she attacked again. Then, equipped with her helmet, she’d tuck herself into that signature spinning attack (a “Spin-Dash, as I’ve heard some call it) and deliver blow after blow. It was nothing short of genius engineering that the punching bag hadn’t been torn to pieces. Once Jasper was satisfied, she’d stand up right, hands on her hips, head held high, her chest heaving, her toned muscles drenched with sweat…

Oh, dear. One of these rotations, she was going to catch me staring.

“Have you heard much about the Cluster?” I dared to break the silence. This was shortly after my talk with Peridot. Jasper paused in mid-swing, the punching bag getting a brief reprieve from its beating. She looked towards me, clearly caught off-guard. She recovered quickly.

“The pipsqueak mentioned it,” Jasper replied, a growl in her voice as she referred to Peridot. “I didn’t ask for details, mostly because I don’t really care. Rose is my top priority.”

“That’s fair,” I said. “I just thought it might be of interest to you, considering...well, you know.” Jasper frowned. She then struck the punching bag with her fist, a noticeably half-hearted strike.

“Well, that isn’t a bad memory at all,” she grumbled. Sarcasm dripped from her words.

“...” I should’ve realized how sensitive of a topic that must’ve been. I mentally cursed my own foolishness. I, of all the Gems on this ship, should’ve known better. “My apologies. I just assumed that it wouldn’t be nearly as painful to talk about after 6000 years.”

“As if that,” Jasper gave another punch, a slightly stronger one. “...makes it better.” I let out an annoyed huff.

“My judgement was faulty,” I admitted. “I get that. That’s why I’m apologizing. It’s not that hard to understand, is it?”

“Of course it’s not.” This time, it was a kick. “I’m a Quartz, not a Ruby.”

“Alright, alright,” I began, sighing. “I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry, really. I promise I meant no offense.”

“Hmph,” Jasper snorted. She lowered her fists, bringing the punching bag to a halt with her hand. I could see her glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. “I guess I accept your apology.” I didn’t realize it until that moment, but I’d been holding my breath.

“Well, if you guess,” I said, attempting to mimic Jasper’s tone. I saw the corner of her mouth twitch. “You know, another Agate might call you insubordinate for that kind of talk.”

“Oh?” Jasper now turned to me, a brow raised and a hand on her hip. “And not you, eh?”

“Not at the moment, no. Though I would advise you not to try my patience.” The Quartz only stared at me for a moment, before shrugging.

“Alright, sure.”

“Is something bothering you?” I asked curiously. I walked a bit closer as Jasper looked at me, confused. “You seem...upset by something.”

“Wha…? I--” Her eyes darted off to the side. “N-No. No, ma’am. Why would I be upset?”

“That’s why I’m asking,” I explained. I stopped in front of her. It was by now that I realized that she was a bit taller than I was, and I had to look up at her if I wanted to look her in the face. “Going to Earth after all of that happened...I admit, I’m not too thrilled about returning myself. It’s not just you, you know.”

“I’m fine,” Jasper said hotly. She looked down at me and I could see a faint blush appearing on her cheeks. “Why are you acting so...concerned? Agates don’t do that.”

“Well, I do,” I shot back. “I look out for my Quartzes. And until we return from this mission, you are my Quartz, Jasper.” I saw her stiffen. Her blush deepened, and her eyes widened as if she’d just emerged from her Kindergarten. Stars...How could someone gemetically designed to be a brute be so cute? “Am I a bit lenient for an Agate? Perhaps. It depends on the Gem, really. I just believe that a Quartz is at her best when she is physically, mentally and emotionally sound. Now…”

I brought out my arms from my sleeves, pushing them up and out of the way. Jasper’s eyes followed the movements of my hands. I grinned.

“As skilled as you are, Jasper,” I started. “Watching one Quartz smack a punching bag around is painfully dull. Perhaps you’d do better with a sparring partner?”

“You?” The soldier met my eyes again.

“No, the Lazuli,” I scoffed. “Of course, me. Are you interested?”

Jasper didn’t respond at first, instead, resting a hand on her chin in thought. It didn’t take her long to come to a decision, and soon, she smirked.

“You know what? Sure, why not. Heheh, this should be fun.”

“Oho,” I cooed. I felt excitement rush through me. Battling the Ultimate Quartz? When would I ever get another chance to do this? I held out my hand, summoning my crook, slowly as not to startle my new training partner. “I hope you don’t expect victory to come easily. I’d like to be something of a challenge for you.”

“Good.” I heard a purr edge into Jasper’s already rumbly voice, as if it wasn’t already sending delightful vibrations into my gem. She summoned her crash helmet, grinning in anticipation. “I wouldn’t accept anything less.”

I was prepared to make some sort of witty reply, or, at the very least, put some distance between myself and Jasper. I hadn’t taken into account Jasper’s enthusiasm, however. She’d barely finished her sentence when she suddenly charged at me, aiming a punch at what was probably going to be my face if I didn’t move. With only milliseconds to react, I dove to the side, feeling her fist brushing against my hair. She wasted no time, swinging again. I dove back, narrowly avoiding a blow to my stomach. An unexpected twinge of fear pulsated through me as I now found myself dodging an onslaught of punches, all while Jasper laughed.

“What’s the matter?” she demanded. Her smile indicated that she was enjoying this a bit too much. “I thought you were gonna give me a challenge!”

With a shout, I launched myself backwards, landing far out of Jasper’s range. It did nothing to deter her, and Jasper rushed to close the distance between us. Now that I was expecting her, though, I was ready for a counterattack. With a tight grip of my crook, I dashed towards her, swinging the hooked end and catching her by the neck.

“Uh…?” she muttered, but it was all she had time to say before I tugged my crook and dragged her along. I grunted; her body might’ve been made of light, but it felt like pulling solid rock. She dug her heels into the ground, which definitely didn’t help. With effort, I spun her in a circle and flung her back in the direction she came from. Before she could land flat on her face, she pulled herself into a Spin-Dash and spun around, aiming at me again. She was relentless, and I didn’t have time to marvel.

I took a deep breath, feeling energy coursing through me. It traveled to my crook and charged it to the point where white bolts of energy spiraled around its length. With both hands, I brought up my crook and slammed its base on the ground. The electricity now traveled towards the Spin-Dash, meeting it and giving Jasper a mighty zap.

“Grah!” I heard her cry out. I gritted my teeth, feeling some guilt. I hadn’t wanted to hurt but, but it seemed like she wanted a genuine fight. Jasper broke from her Spin-Dash and was on her feet again. Smoke rose from her body and I noticed her stagger.

“Oh, stars…!” I shouted in alarm. Without thinking, I started towards her.

“Heheheh...” the Quartz suddenly chuckled. froze, staring at Jasper with wide eyes. She looked back at me, panting hard, yet still smiling smugly. “I was starting to think you were rusty or something. Guess not.” My face grew hot. No Quartz had ever given me this much trouble.

“I wasn’t ready,” I said irritably. My infatuation with the warrior Gem was forgotten. She made a fool out of me. At least no one else had been here to see it. “I thought we’d have a countdown or start on “Go” or...something other than that.”

“There’s no countdowns in a real fight,” said Jasper with a chuckle. “Your enemy’s not gonna wait for you to be ready. You know that, right?”

“This isn’t a real fight,” I sighed. “At least, I hadn’t planned on it being a real fight. And I’m not your enemy. We could’ve hurt each other.”

“Like I said. Holding back isn’t my style. Besides, you’re gonna need to do a lot more than that to hurt me. But if you can’t handle it, I can just go back to using—“

“I can handle anything you throw at me,” I interrupted. I angrily pointed my crook at her. “And you need to be careful with how you talk to me. I’m still your superior, both in rank and in court. Am I understood?”

“...” Jasper’s smile fell. A long and uncomfortable silence lingered between us. In that time, I began feeling guilty. It was the one instance where I didn’t feel pleasure from asserting my authority. I wasn’t sure if she’d been enjoying my company as much as I was enjoying hers, but we had been getting along. My anger subsided quickly, and with a sigh, I allowed my crook to vanish in a flash of light.

“I…” I heard Jasper say. She was quiet. Unnaturally quiet. Hands at her sides, crash helmet disappearing, and eyes shut, she stood at attention before me. “I understand. I’m sorry.”

Her voice sounded strained. I couldn’t imagine apologizing was something she did very often. Still, I appreciated it.

“You’re forgiven,” I replied, giving her a polite smile. “At ease, soldier. She opened her eyes and folded her arms across her chest, but her body still seemed rigid and stiff. It was finally sinking in that this Jasper was the most battle-driven Quartz I’d ever met.

“You know…” I started. “You’ve been training non-stop for a while now. Perhaps you should take a break? You could sit in the Extraction Chamber for a bit.”

“A “break”...?” Jasper echoed, looking confused. I blinked. Did she really not know what a break was? How had she not shattered herself from overexertion?

Without another word, I walked to Jasper, took a hold of her shoulder, and began walking with her to the ship’s Extraction Room.

“Do I really have to do this…?” she pouted. “I’m fine; I don’t need a “break”.”

“Well I think you do,” I responded playfully. “Let’s say...an hour?”

“But—“

“Two hours, if you start.”

“Mmph…”

“Very good,” I chuckled, patting her shoulder gently. I’d sit with her, just to make sure she didn’t try sneaking off. Besides, I wanted to see how much she glowed after her impurities were steamed away. Maybe I could convince her to change out of her usual attire. Something more...revealing. I felt hot under my robe just thinking about it. Oh...this was going to be interesting.

#steven universe fanfic #su jasper x oc #canon divergent au #this took so fucking long to finish aaa #am i jaspering good i just wanna write bae right #more like chapter two the thirst strikes back amirite #steven universe gemsona

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alanlicht · 4 years

Text

Alan Licht’s Minimal Top Ten List #4

A few weeks ago, near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, my friend Mats Gustafsson sent out a mass email encouraging people to send him record lists to post on the “Discaholics” section of his website--top tens, favorite covers, anything. I immediately thought of the first 3 Minimal Top Ten lists I did (now found online here) back in 1995, 1997, and 2007 respectively, for the fanzine Halana (the first two) and Volcanic Tongue’s website (the third), and sent them to him. Those articles have sort of taken on a life of their own, and I still see them referenced as the albums get reissued and so on. Occasionally people ask me if I’d ever do another one, and looking at all three again made me think now is the hour. I started writing this in the midst of the lockdown, and the drastic reductions in people’s way of life—the restriction of any activity outside the home to the bare essentials, the relative stasis of life in quarantine, even the visual stasis of a Zoom meeting—make revisiting Minimal music, with its aesthetic of working within limitations and hallmarks of repetition and drones, somehow timely as well.

The original lists were never meant to represent “the best” Minimal albums: they were ones that were rare and in some cases surpass, in my opinion, more widely available releases by the same artist and/or better known examples of the genre. Some were records that hadn’t been classified as Minimalist but warranted consideration through that lens. Likewise, the lists aren’t meant to be ranked within themselves, or in comparison to each other; the first record on any of the lists isn’t necessarily vastly preferable to the last, and this fourth list is not the bottom of the barrel, by any stretch. In some cases the present list has records I’ve discovered since 2007; others are records I’ve known for quite a while but haven’t included before for one reason or another. I’ve also made an addendum to selected entries on the first three lists, which have become fairly dated in terms of what is currently available by many of the artists, and to account for some of the significant archival releases in the 25 years since I first compiled them.

Unlike the mid-90s, most if not all of these records can be heard and/or purchased online, whether they’re up on YouTube or available for sale on Discogs. So finding them will be easier than before (although I haven’t included links to any of the titles as a small tribute to the legwork involved in tracking records down in olden tymes), but hopefully the spirit of sharing knowledge and passions that drove my previous efforts, forged in the pre-internet fanzine world, hasn’t been rendered totally redundant by the 24/7 onslaught of virtual note-comparing in social media.

1. Simeon ten Holt Canto Ostinato (various recordings): This was the most significant discovery for me in the last decade, a piece with over one hundred modules to be played on any instrument but mostly realized over the years with two to four pianos. I first encountered a YouTube live video of four pianists tackling it over the course of 90 minutes or so, then bought a double CD on Brilliant Classics from 2005, also for four pianos, that runs about 2 and half hours. The original 3LP recording on Donemus, from 1984, lasts close to 3 hours. It’s addictively listenable, very hypnotic in that pulsed, Steve Reich “Piano Phase”/”Six Pianos” kind of way, with lots of recurring themes (which differentiates it from Terry Riley’s “In C,” its most obvious structural antecedent). Composed over the span of the 70s, as with Roberto Cacciapaglia’s Sei Note in Logica, it’s an example of someone contemporaneously taking the ball from Reich or Riley and running with it. Every recording I’ve heard has been enjoyable, I’ve yet to pick a favorite.

2. David Borden Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments (Red Music, 1981) 3. Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Co. Like a Duck to Water (Earthquack, 1976): These were some of my most cherished Minimal recordings when I was a teenager in the mid-80s, and are still not particularly well-known; they’re probably the biggest omission in the previous lists (at least from my perspective). Borden formed Mother Mallard, supposedly the first all-synthesizer ensemble, as a trio in the late 60s, although there’s electric piano on the records too. He went on to do music under his own name that hinged on the multi-keyboard Minimalism-meets-Renaissance classical concept he first explored with Mother Mallard, as exemplified by his 12-part series “The Continuing Story of Counterpoint” (a title inspired by both Philip Glass’ “Music in Twelve Parts” and the Beatles’ “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill”). I first heard Parts 6 & 9 of “Continuing Story” (from Music for Amplified Keyboard Instruments) on Tim Page’s 1980s afternoon radio show on WNYC, and bought the Mother Mallard LPs (Like A Duck is the second, the first is self-titled) from New Music Distribution Service soon after. I mail-ordered the Borden album from Wayside Music, which had cut-out copies, maybe a year later (c. 1986). I wasn’t much of a synth guy, but I loved the propulsive, rapid-fire counterpoint and fast-changing, lyrical melodies found on these records. “C-A-G-E Part 2,” which occupies side 2 of the Mother Mallard album and utilizes only those pitches, has to be a pinnacle of the Minimal genre. Interestingly, Borden claims to not really be able to “hear” harmony and composes each part of these (generally) three-part inventions individually, all the way through. The two-piano “Continuing Story of Counterpoint Part Two” on the 1985 album Anatidae is also beloved by me, and there was an archival Mother Mallard CD called Music by David Borden (Arbiter, 2003) that’s worth hearing.

4. Charles Curtis/Charles Curtis Trio: Ultra White Violet Light/Sleep (Beau Rivage, 1997): Full disclosure: Charles is a long-time friend, but this record seems forgotten and deserves another look, especially in light of the long-overdue 3CD survey of his performances of other composers’ material that Saltern released last year. This was a double album of four side-long tracks, conceived with the intent that two sides could be played simultaneously, in several different configurations; two of them are Charles solo on cello and sine tones, the others are with a trio and have spoken vocals and rock instrumentation, with cello and the sine tones also thrown into the mix. (I’ve never heard any of the sides combined, although now it would probably be easily achieved with digital mixing software.) The instrumental stuff is the closest you can come to hearing Charles’ beautiful arrangement of Terry Jennings’ legendary “Piece for Cello and Saxophone,” at least until his own recording of it sees the light of day; the same deeply felt cello playing against a sine tone drone. And it would be interesting to see what Slint fans thought of the trio material. Originally packaged in a nifty all-white uni-pak sleeve with a photo print pasted into the gatefold, it was reissued with a different cover on the now-defunct Squealer label on LP and CD but has disappeared since then. Stellar.

5. Arthur Russell Instrumentals 1974 Vol. 2 (Another Side/Crepuscule, 1984) 6. Peter Zummo Zummo with an X (Loris, 1985): Arthur Russell has posthumously developed a somewhat surprising indie rock audience, mostly for his unique songs and singing as well as his outré disco tracks. But he was also a modern classical composer, with serious Minimal cred—he’s on Jon Gibson’s Songs & Melodies 1973-1977 (see addendum), and played with Henry Flynt and Christer Hennix at one point; his indelible album of vocal and cello sparseness, World of Echo, was partially recorded at Phill Niblock’s loft and of course his Tower of Meaning LP was released on Glass’s Chatham Square label. He’s the one guy in the 70s and 80s (or after, for that matter) who connected the dots between Ali Akbar Khan, the Modern Lovers, Minimalism, and disco as different forms of trance music (taken together, both sides of his disco 12” “In the Light of the Miracle,” which total nearly a half-hour, could arguably be considered one of his Minimalist compositions). Recorded in 1977 & 1978, Instrumentals is an important signpost of the incipient Pop Minimalism impulse, and the first track is a pre-punk precursor to Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca’s appropriations of the rock band format to pursue Minimal pathways (Chatham is one of the performers in that first piece). The rest, culled from a concert at the Kitchen, features long held tones from horns and strings and is quite graceful, if slightly undercut by Arthur’s own slightly jarring, apparently random edits. [Audika’s 2006 reissue, as part of the double CD First Thought Best Thought, includes a 1975 concert that was slated to be Instrumentals Vol. 1, which shows an even more specific pop/rock/Minimal intersection]. Zummo was a long-term collaborator of Russell’s and his album, which Arthur plays on, is a must for Russell aficionados. The first side is made up of short, plain pieces that repeat various simple intervals and are fairly hard-core Minimalism, but “Song IV,” which occupies all of side two, is like an extended, jammy take on Russell’s disco 12” “Treehouse” and has Bill Ruyle on bongos, who also played on Instrumentals as well as with Steve Reich and Jon Gibson. A recently unearthed concert at Roulette from 1985 is a further, and especially intriguing, example of Russell’s blending of Minimalism and song form. (That same year Arthur played on Elodie Lauten’s The Death of Don Juan--another record I first encountered via Tim Page’s radio show--which I included on Top Ten #3; Lauten as well as Zummo played on the Russell Roulette concert, as their website alleges).

7. Horacio Vaggione La Maquina de Cantar (Cramps, 1978): Another one-off from the late 70s, and yet more evidence of how Minimalism had really caught on as a trend among European composers of the time. Vaggione had a previous duo album with Eduardo Polonio under the name It called Viaje that was noisier electronics, and he went on to do computer music that was likewise more traditionally abstract. But on this sole effort for the Italian label Cramps, as part of their legendary Nova Musicha series, he went for full-on tonality. The title track is like the synth part of “Who Are You” extended for more than fifteen minutes and made a bit squishier; but side 2, “Ending”--already mentioned in the entry on David Rosenboom’s Brainwave Music in Top Ten #3--is my favorite. Kind of a bridge between Minimalism and prog, and a little reminiscent of David Borden’s multiple-synth counterpoint pieces, for the first ten minutes he lingers on one vaguely foreboding arpeggiated chord, then introduces a fanfare melody that repeats and builds in harmonies and countermelodies for the remainder of the piece. Great stuff, as Johnny Carson used to say.

8. Costin Miereanu Derives (Poly-Art, 1984): Miereanu is French composer coming out of musique concrete. Unlike some of the albums on these lists, both sides/pieces on Derives are superb, comprised of long drones with flurries of skittering electronic activity popping up here and there. Also notable is the presence of engineers Philip Besomes and Jean-Louis Rizet, responsible for Pôle, the great mid-70s prog double album that formed the basis of Graham Lambkin’s meta-meisterwork Amateur Doubles. I discovered this record via the old Continuo blog; Miereanu has lots of albums out, most of which I haven’t heard, but his 1975 debut Luna Cinese, another Cramps Nova Musicha item, is also estimable, although less Minimal.

9. Mikel Rouse Broken Consort Jade Tiger (Les Disques du Crepuscule, 1984): Rouse was a major New Music name in the 80s, as was Microscopic Septet saxist Philip Johnston, who plays here. Dominated by Reichian repeated fills that accentuate the odd time signatures as opposed to an underlying pulse, this will sound very familiar to anyone acquainted with Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin albums on ECM, which use the same general idea but brand it “zen funk” and cater more to the progressive jazz crowd rather than New Music fans, if we can be that anachronistic in our terminology. Jade Tiger also contrasts nicely with Wim Mertens’ more neo-Romantic contemporaneous excursions on Crepuscule. Rouse later performed the admirable (and daunting) task of cataloging Arthur Russell’s extensive tape archive for the preparation of Another Thought (Point Music, 1994)

10. Michael Nyman Decay Music (Obscure, 1976): Known for his soundtracks to Peter Greenaway films, and his still-peerless 1974 book Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (where I, Jim O’Rourke, and doubtless many other intrepid teenage library goers learned of the Minimalists, Fluxus, AMM, and lots of other eternal avant heroes), Nyman is sometimes credited with coining the term “Minimal music” as well, in an early 70s article in The Spectator. Decay Music was produced by Brian Eno for his short-lived but wonderful Obscure label. The first side, “1-100,” was also composed for a Greenaway film, and has one hundred chords played one after another on piano, each advancing to the next once the sound has decayed from the previous chord (hence the album title). For all its delicacy and silences, you’re actually hearing three renditions superimposed on one another, which occasionally makes for some charming chordal collisions (reminiscent of the cheerfully clumsy, subversive “variations” of Pachelbel’s “Canon in D major” on Eno’s own Discreet Music, the most celebrated Obscure release). This is process music at its most fragile and incandescent. In hindsight it may have also been an unconscious influence on the structure of my piece “A New York Minute,” which lines up a month’s worth of weather reports from news radio, edited so that one day’s forecast follows its prediction from the previous day. I’ve never found the album’s other piece, “Bell Set No. 1,” to be quite as compelling, and Nyman’s other soundtrack work doesn’t hold much interest for me, but I’ve often returned to this album.

11. J Dilla Donuts (Stones Throw, 2006): One more for the road. Rightfully acclaimed as a masterpiece of instrumental hip hop, I have to confess I only discovered Donuts while reading Questlove’s 2013 book Mo’ Meta Blues, where he compared it to Terry Riley. The brevity of the tracks (31of ‘em in 44 minutes) and the lack of single-mindedness make categorizing Donuts as a Minimal album a bit of a stretch, but Questlove’s namecheck makes a whole lot of sense if you play “Don’t Cry” back to back with Riley’s proto-Plunderphonic “You’re Nogood,” and “Glazed” is the only hip hop track to ever remind me of Philip Glass. Plus the infinite-loop sequencing of the opening “Outro” and concluding “Intro” make this a statement of Eternal Music that outstrips La Monte Young and leaves any locked groove release in the proverbial dust. There isn’t the space here to really explore how extended mixes, all night disco DJ sets, etc. could be encountered in alignment with Minimalism, although I would steer the curious towards Pete Rock’s Petestrumentals (BBE, 2001), Larry Levan’s Live at the Paradise Garage (Strut, 2000), and, at the risk of being immodest, my own “The Old Victrola” from Plays Well (Crank Automotive, 2001). On a (somewhat) related note I’d also point out Rupie Edwards’ Ire Feelings Chapter and Version (Trojan, 1990) which collects 16 of the producer/performer’s 70s dub reggae tracks, all built from the exact same same rhythm track--mesmerizing, even by dub’s trippy standards.

Addendum:

Tony Conrad: “Maybe someday Tony’s blistering late 80s piece ‘Early Minimalism’ will be released, or his fabulous harmonium soundtrack to Piero Heliczer’s early 60s film The New Jerusalem.” That was the last line of my entry on Tony’s Outside the Dream Syndicate in the first Top Ten list in 1995, and sure enough, Table of the Elements issued “Early Minimalism” as a monumental CD box set in 1997 and released that soundtrack as Joan of Arc in 2006 (it’s the same film; I saw it screened c. 1990 under the name The New Jerusalem but it’s more commonly known as Joan of Arc). Tony releases proliferated in the last twenty years of his life, which was heartening to see; I’d particularly single out Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain (Superior Viaduct, 2017), which rescues a 1972 live recording of what is essentially a prototype for Outside played by Tony, Rhys Chatham, and Laurie Spiegel (Rhys has mentioned his initial disgruntlement upon hearing Outside, as it was the same piece that he had played with Tony, i.e. “Ten Years Alive,” but he found himself and Laurie replaced by Faust!) and an obscure compilation track, “DAGADAG for La Monte” (on Avanto 2006, Avanto, 2006), where he plays the pitches d, a, and g on violin, loops them over and over , and continually re-harmonizes them electronically--really one of his best pieces.

Terry Riley: The archival Riley CDs that Cortical Foundation issued in the 90s and early 00s don’t seem to be in print, but I feel they eclipse Reed Streams (reissued by Cortical as part of that series) and are crucial for fans of his early work, especially the live Poppy Nogood’s Phantom Band All Night Flight Vol. 1, an important variant on the studio take, and You’re Nogood (see Dilla entry above). These days I would also recommend Descending Moonshine Dervishes (Kuckuck, 1982/recorded 1975) over Persian Surgery Dervishes (Shandar, 1975), which I mentioned in the original entry on Reed Streams in the first Top Ten; a lot of the harmonic material in Descending can also be heard in Terry’s dream-team 1975 meeting with Don Cherry in Köln, which has been bootlegged several times in the last few years. Finally, Steffen Schleiermacher recorded the elusive “Keyboard Study #1” (as well as “#2,” which had already seen release in a version by Germ on the BYG label and as “Untitled Organ” on Reed Streams), albeit on a programmed electronic keyboard, on the CD Keyboard Studies (MDG, 2002). As you might expect it’s a little synthetic-sounding, but it also has a weird kinetic edge (imagine the “Baba O’Riley” intro being played on a Conlon Nancarrow player piano) that’s lacking in later acoustic piano renditions recorded by Gregor Schwellenbach and Fabrizio Ottaviucci. But any of these versions is rewarding for those interested in Riley’s early output.

Henry Flynt, Charlemagne Palestine: A few of the artists on that first Top Ten list went from being sorely under-documented to having a plethora of material on the market, and Henry and Charlemagne are at the top of the heap. I stand by You Are My Everlovin, finally reissued on CD by Recorded in 2001, as Henry’s peak achievement, but I’m also partial to “Glissando,” a tense, feverish raga drone from 1979 that Recorded put out on the Glissando No. 1 CD in 2011. Charlemagne’s Four Manifestations On Six Elements double album still holds up well, as does an album of material initially recorded for it, Arpeggiated Bösendorfer and Falsetto Voice (Algha Marghen, 2017). The Strumming Music LP on Shandar is a definitive performance, and best heard as an unbroken piece on the New Tone CD reissue from 1995. Godbear (CD on Barooni, vinyl on Black Truffle), originally recorded for Glenn Branca’s Neutral label (which had also scheduled a Phill Niblock release before going belly-up), has 1987 takes of “Strumming Music” and two other massive pieces that date from the late 70s, “Timbral Assault” and “The Lower Depths”; Algha Marghen released a vintage full-length concert of the latter as a triple CD.

Steve Reich: Not a particularly rare record, but his “Variations on Winds, Strings and Keyboards,” a 1979 piece for orchestra on a 1984 LP issued by Phillips (paired with an orchestral arrangement of John Adams’ “Shaker Loops”), is often overlooked among the works from his “golden era” and I’d frankly rate it as his best orchestral piece.

Phill Niblock, Eliane Radigue: As with Henry and Charlemagne, after a slow start as “recording artists” loads of CDs by these two have appeared over the last twenty years. Phill and Eliane’s music was never best served by the vinyl format anyway—you won’t find a lackluster release by either composer, go to it.

Jon Gibson: I called “Cycles,” from Gibson’s Two Solo Pieces, “one of the ultimate organ drones on record” in the first Top Ten list, and it remains so, but Phill Niblock’s”Unmounted/Muted Noun” from 2019′s Music for Organ ought to sit right beside it. Meanwhile, Superior Viaduct’s recent Gibson double album Songs & Melodies 1973-1977 collects some great pieces from the same era as Two Solo Pieces, with players including Arthur Russell, Peter Zummo, Barbara Benary, and Julius Eastman.

John Stevens: In Top Ten #2 I mentioned John Stevens’ presence on the first side of John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s Life With the Lions; the Stevens-led Spontaneous Music Orchestra’s For You To Share (1973) documents his performance pieces “Sustained Piece” and “If You Want to See A Vision,” where musicians and vocalists sustain tones until they run out of breath and then begin again, which result in a highly meditative and organic drone/sound environment. In my early 00′s Digger Choir performances at Issue Project Room we did “Sustained Piece,” and Stevens’ work was a big influence on conceptualizing those concerts, where the only performers were the audience themselves. The CD reissue on Emanem from 1998 added “Peace Music,” an unreleased studio half-hour studio cut with a similar Gagaku--meets--free/modal jazz vibe. I also mentioned “Sustained Piece” in my liner notes to Natural Information Society’s Mandatory Reality too, if that helps as a point of reference.

Anthony Moore: Back in ’97 I wondered “How and why Polydor was convinced to release these albums [Pieces from the Cloudland Ballroom and Scenes from the Blue Bag] is beyond me (anyone know the story)?” That mystery was ultimately solved by Benjamin Piekut in his fascinating-even-if-you-never-listen-to-these-guys book Henry Cow: The World is A Problem (Duke University Press, 2019)—it turns out it was all Deutsche Gramophone’s idea!

Terry Jennings, Maryanne Amacher, Julius Eastman--“Three Great Minimalists With No Commercially Available Recordings” (sidebar from Minimal Top Ten list #2): Happily this no longer applies to these three, although Terry and Maryanne are still under-represented. One archival recording of Jennings and Charlotte Moorman playing a short version of “Piece for Cello and Saxophone” appeared on Moorman’s 2006 Cello Anthology CD box set on Alga Marghen, and he’s on “Terry’s Cha Cha” on that 2004 John Cale New York in the 60s Table of the Elements box too. John Tilbury recorded five of his piano pieces on Lost Daylight (Another Timbre, 2010) and Charles Curtis’ version of “Song” appears on the aforementioned Performances and Recordings 1998-2018 triple CD.

Whether or not Maryanne should really be considered a Minimalist (or a sound artist, for that matter) is, I guess, debatable, but I primarily see her as the unqualified genius of the generation of composers who emerged in the post-Cage era, and the classifications ultimately don’t matter—remember she was on those Swarm of Drones/ Throne of Drones/ Storm of Drones ambient techno comps in the 90s, and I’d call her music Gothic Industrial if it would get more people to check it out (and that might be fun to try, come to think of it). She made a belated debut with the release of the Sound Characters CD on Tzadik in 1998, an event I found significant enough to warrant pitching an interview with her to the WIRE, who agreed—it was my first piece for them. Her music was/is best experienced live (the Amacher concert I saw at the Performing Garage in 1993 is still, almost three decades later, the greatest concert I’ve ever witnessed) but that Tzadik CD is reasonably representative, and there was a sequel CD on Tzadik in 2008. More recently Blank Forms issued a live recording of her two-piano piece “Petra” (a concert I also attended, realizing when I got there that it was in the same Chelsea church where Connie Burg, Melissa Weaver and I recorded with Keiji Haino for the Gerry Miles with Keiji Haino CD). While it’s somewhat anomalous in Amacher’s canon, making a piece for acoustic instruments available for home consumption would doubtless have been more palatable to the composer herself, who rightly felt that CDs and LPs didn’t do justice to the extraordinary psychoacoustic phenomena intrinsic to her electronic music. “Petra” is more reminiscent of Morton Feldman than anything else, with a few passages that could be deemed “minimal.” Some joker posted a 26-minute, ancient lo-fi “bootleg” (their term) recording of her “Living Sound, Patent Pending” piece from her Music for Sound-Joined Rooms installation/performance series on SoundCloud, which is a little like looking at a Xerox of a Xerox of a photo of the Taj Mahal; but you can still visit the Taj Mahal more easily than hearing this or any of Maryanne’s work in concert or in situ, so sadly, it’s better than nothing (and longer than the 7 minute edit of the piece on the Ohm: Early Gurus of Electronic Music CD from 2000).

A few years after Top Ten #2 I was on the phone with an acquaintance at New World Records, who told me he was listening to a Julius Eastman tape that they were releasing as part of a 3CD set. Say what?!?!? Unjust Malaise appeared shortly thereafter and was a revelation. Arnold Dreyblatt had sent me a live tape some time before then of an Eastman piece labeled “Gangrila”—that turned out to be “Gay Guerrilla,” and is surely one of my five favorite pieces of music in existence (the tape Arnold sent was from the 1980 Kitchen European tour and I consider it to be a more moving performance than the Chicago concert that appears on the CD, although it’s an inferior recording). The other multiple piano pieces on Unjust Malaise more than lived up to the descriptions of Eastman performances that I’d read. The somewhat berserk piano concert I mentioned in that entry seems similar to another live tape issued as The Zurich Concert (New World, 2017), and “Femenine,” a piece performed by the S.E.M. Ensemble, came out on Frozen Reeds in 2016. Eastman’s rediscovery is among the most vital and gratifying developments of recent music history--kudos must be given to Mary Jane Leach, herself a Minimalist composer, for diligently and doggedly tracking down Eastman’s recordings and archival materials and bringing them to the light of day.

The Lost Jockey—I was unaware of any releases by this group besides their Crepuscule LP until I stumbled onto a self-titled cassette from 1983 on YouTube. Like the album, the highlight is a piece by Orlando Gaugh--an all-time great Philip Glass rip-off, “Buzz Buzz Buzz Went the Honeybee,” which has the amusing added bonus of having the singers intoning the rather bizarre title phrase as opposed to Glassian solfège. Also like the album, he rest of the cassette is so-so Pop Minimalism.

Earth: Dylan Carlson keeps on keepin’ on, and while I can’t say I’ve kept up with him every step of the way, usually when I check in I’m glad I did. However I’d like to take this opportunity to humbly disavow the snarky comments about Sunn 0))) I made in this entry in Top Ten list #3. Those were a reflection of my general aversion to hype, which was surrounding them at the time, and of seeing two shows that in retrospect were unrepresentative (I was thunderstruck by a later show I saw in Mexico City in 2009). Stephen O’Malley has proven to be as genuinely curious, dedicated and passionate about drone and other experimental music as they come, and the reissue of the mind-blowing Sacred Flute Music from New Guinea on his Ideologic Organ label is a good reminder of how rooted Minimalism is in ethnic music, and how almost interchangeable certain examples of both can be.

And while we’re in revisionist mode, let’s go full circle all the way back to the very first sentence of the introduction to the first Minimal Top Ten: “I know what you’re thinking: ECM Records, New Age, Eno ambients, NPR, Tangerine Dream. Well forget all that shit.” Hey, that stuff’s not so bad! I was probably directing that more at the experimental-phobic indie rock folks I encountered at the time, and expressing a lingering resentment towards the genre-confusion of the 80s (i.e. having dig through a bunch of Kitaro records in the New Age bins in hopes of finding Reich, Riley, or Glass; even Loren Mazzacane got tagged New Age once in a while back then, believe it or not), which probably hindered my own discovery of Minimalism. What can I say, I’m over it!

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queen-scribbles · 4 years

Text

Legends

Kei had been raised on legends of kraken.

Over the years, they went from bogey-monsters that would eat her toes if she got out of bed during the night, to pure myth, to real but rarely sighted leviathans that lurked in the deepest waters of the Deadfire

And then she killed one. In a frozen lake under a fragment of a fallen moon, smack in the middle of the White March mountains. Seeing one herself, she thanked every god that came to mind the terrain worked to her advantage and prayed she never had to fight one of these monsters--which could easily swallow her or any of her friends whole--in its natural habitat.

Like so many other things she’d prayed for, the gods had very different--opposite in fact--plans.

It came in the middle of the night, well after the gentle patter of rain on the window had lulled her to sleep. A lurching stop, warning cries from up on deck, and the vague shadow of something big visible outside her cabin window, even through the rain. She didn’t even dare pause long enough to don her armor, just grabbed sword and shield and headed for the deck. The earlier drizzle had worsened into a torrential rainstorm that quickly soaked through her clothes and severely curtailed visibility.

Still, it was hard to miss the massive form that reared up over the starboard rail. Even as Kei took rapid stock of the situation, tried to process that they were being attacked by a kraken of all things(she’d almost have preferred fighting that vithrak pirate again), she caught the silhouette of a torso-thick tentacle swinging toward the deck from the opposite side of the ship. She was already moving, stumbling across the rain-slicked deck, before she’d calculated where the tentacle would hit.

And who was in its path.

The rocking of the ship threw off her aim, but Kei still managed to grab Tekēhu’s arm and half-spin, half-yank him out of the way just before the tentacle smacked into the deck hard enough to dent the boards and send up a shower of splinters. The two of them slammed into the mast but caught their balance a moment later.

Tekēhu grinned. “My thanks, Captain.”

Kei matched the grin as she dashed water from her eyes. “Would have been a bullshit end for Ngati’s favorite, and we wouldn’t want that.”

He laughed, the sound rising in harmony with yet defiance of the storm. “Very true, indeed. Let us vanquish this monster, instead, I say.” He tugged her down as the writhing tentacle swung toward their heads. “And add another impossible feat to our own legend.”

She shook her head at his teasing enthusiasm, water flying from her hair. “I’ll settle for driving it off before it sinks my damn ship!”

As if to underscore her sentiment, the kraken bellowed and slammed another tentacle to the deck, splintering the rail and knocking several crates into the turbulent water.

“Don’t let it wrap around!” Kei hollered, pushing off the mast with her shield arm to hack at the tentacle trying to do just that. It took three blows of her sword to cut away the upper part. The kraken screeched as it flailed the maimed tentacle away, knocking Irrena and Kostanten perilously close to the shattered rail as it withdrew. They caught their balance just in time.

Several frustrating minutes passed, where no one armed with guns or melee weapons could do much damage to the beast itself, thanks to either the pouring rain or the distance. Kei lost track of how many times she or Edér or Rekke wound up sprawled on their backside for trying. But there was only so much good that could be done hacking off tentacles; it would take more serious injury to drive away this beast.

Finally, however, the rain started to slack off even if the kraken didn’t relent. Indeed, it appeared the barrage of spells--along with several lost tentacles--it had suffered made it all the more determined to drag this ship down. Or at least exact recompense in kith’s lives. The tentacles not trying to curl around the Defiant or too badly injured swept toward sailors and companions alike, and there was only so much dodging one could do while also keeping the beast at bay. It showed particular malevolence toward Xoti, Aloth, and Tekēhu--the ones doing the most damage. Kei deflected so many hefty blows from arrow-pricked or bleeding tentacles in their defense, her shield arm started to go numb.

Xoti jumped a tentacle swiping at her legs and took advantage of the increased visibility to drop a pillar of fire on the kraken’s face.

It screeched and reared back, and a few seconds later came a muffled bellow belowdecks as a pair of the Defiant’s cannons took the opening to fire. Another, even angrier, screech filled the air and the tentacles snaking across the deck jerked back toward the water. One snapped a yardarm as it went, forcing several of the crew to scramble aside as the spar swung down toward the deck.

“Get this thing off my ship!” Kei hollered in frustration, and though the words were lost to the wind, the cannons roared again as if in answer. Two of the tentacles went flying, blown off at the root.

The kraken thrashed, bellowing and screeching in turn, the remaining tentacles flailing in search of something to grab, a way to claim recompense for damage suffered. Every time one started to close around a sailor or other kith, however, someone nearby pulled them back or made it pay. Another volley of cannon shot thundered over the dying storm, the casters each hit it with spells in quick succession, orange flame and purple energy illuminating the barrage of thorns, and Rekke and Serafen each hurled bombs at its head.

This final assault was too much for the kraken. What tentacles remained on or around the ship withdrew, still twitching.

“Kuldrun, get us out of here!” Kei yelled hoarsely toward the quarterdeck. Kuldrun’s reply, if he made one, was lost to the weather and what she hoped were the death howls of the repelled leviathan as he brought the Defiant about. She made a quick scan of the deck as adrenaline faded into exhaustion. They’d taken a beating, but nothing that couldn’t be repaired, and it didn’t look like they’d lost anyone, which was a minor miracle--

As if in a final Fuck You to the meal that got away, a tentacle whipped through the air, wrapped around Kei’s hips, and yanked her into the air. Her sword and shield dropped from her relaxed grip, but even as she cursed the lack of weapons, the tentacle fell limply away. Not that that improved her situation much; she was now in freefall over a part of the ocean she knew contained a very pissed, very hurt kraken, not to mention the still-dizzying waves from the storm.

She was close enough to feel the spray from the waves and see the kraken’s blood staining the water when something else wrapped around her waist and suddenly she was flying back toward her ship. Kei’s hands instinctively went to the pressure around her midriff, found it malleable and... wet? Water?

Tekēhu. She smirked as the water-tentacle twisted around so she could see the rapidly approaching ship, her friends’ worried faces, and Tekēhu towering over the rest of them as he concentrated on reeling her back in.

The Defiant rode up a wave at the worst possible moment and threw off Kei’s landing. She hit the deck at the wrong angle, barely got her arms under her to keep from cracking her head, heard something snap on impact, and rolled a couple times before running into a crate hard enough she just knew it was going to leave a bruise. She sat up with a groan, shook her head to clear the dizziness, and sent Tekēhu a still-dazed grin.

“My hero,” she said glibly, leaning back against the crate she’d hit as she started tallying various aches. “Knew sweet-talking the Watershaper would pay off someday.”

Tekēhu chuckled, but she could see the worry lingering in his eyes as he glanced at the wrist she held cradled to her chest. “Ekera, Captain, I would have preferred not to injure you in the process.”

“Of saving my life?” Kei finished for him. She pushed wet braids out of her face, winced at the sting as her hand grazed a cut on her forehead. “Trust me, this is vastly preferable to being kraken bait.” She tried to stand, but her knee and hip both flared with pain.

“Or drownin’“ Edér chipped in cheerfully as he helped Beodul tie down loose crates.

“Or drowning,” she agreed with a nod.

“The ocean, of all things, is not allowed to take you from me,”Tekēhu said, and light-hearted as the comment sounded, Kei could hear the underlying seriousness in the words.

“It hasn’t yet,” she promised with a wink.

“Perhaps not, but you still need to see the surgeon, beloved,” he returned quietly as he crouched to help her stand.

“No arguments here,” Kei grunted. Besides the various other bumps, bruises, and aches, she was fairly certain her left wrist was broken. “But surely there’s others who need it more.”

“That’s why you hired more than one,” Aloth countered as he raked hair out of his face. “For situations like this.”

“True.” But thinking about the healers made her mind leap elsewhere as Tekēhu guided her up to her feet. “Oh, gods, Vela!”

“I saw Daelia scoopin’ her up on my way to the deck, Kei,” Xoti said, looking up from the bruise on her arm with a smile meant to comfort despite the priestess’ large black eye. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

Kei’s knees wobbled, a combination of relief and pain, and Tekēhu caught her elbows to keep her upright. “Thanks,” she mumbled, her good hand clasped against his bicep.

The soft light of ship lanterns showed the mischief dancing in his eyes. “My pleasure, Captain. Now, let’s get you seen to.”

Even if she’d intended to protest--she hadn’t--the faintest brush of his hand against her injured wrist made her whimper. Tekēhu gently shifted them so her arm was around his shoulders to help her cross the deck.

Kei tripped over the threshold as they reached belowdecks, started to rest weight on her bad leg to compensate, and yelped as she promptly fell against Tekēhu’s chest. His arms wrapped around her in support, and he seemed content to let her take her time recovering from the slip.

“How long have you been dreaming of me all soaking wet and snuggled close like this?” Kei asked playfully.

Tekēhu chuckled. “More months than is likely wise to admit.” He carefully wiped blood off her forehead with his thumb. “The injuries are a less welcome addition, I say.”

You and me both. She laughed, rested her forehead against his temple. “That’s a relief. Might’ve had to end things if you were fantasizing about me getting the shit kicked out of me.”

“Perish the thought,” Tekēhu declared, pressing a tender kiss just below the cut on her forehead. “I’d much rather you whole and hardy, my lioness.” He winked. “There is much more fun to be had then.”

Kei raised a brow and smirked. “Well, if we stop flirting and start walking, I think one of the surgeons can help with that.”

He eased back ever so slightly. “You are ready to continue, then?”

She nodded. “Fun as it is to flirt with my handsome fish, I would prefer doing so without various background aches.”

Tekēhu grinned. “Your handsome fish would prefer that as well.” He nodded toward her cabin, the door still ajar from her earlier hasty exit. “What say you wait in there, while I fetch one of the surgeons, beloved?”

Kei hesitated. She hated to be so much trouble, but walking was an ordeal right now, and steps would be extra tricky… “I say that sounds like a good plan,” she finally nodded. “One that minimizes further jostling of my injuries and doesn’t risk you hurting yourself to help me.”

“Ekera, Kei, never fear on that count,” he protested, carefully shuffling them toward her cabin. “You would be worth a tumble down the stairs, I say.”

“Very romantic,” Kei deadpanned, but she couldn’t fight a smile. Her wrist twinged and she instinctively cradled it closer to her chest as Tekēhu helped her across the room to the wide seat under the window.

He kissed the top edge of her forehead. “I’ll bring one of the surgeons with all haste, beloved.”

“Only if they’re not busy,” she called after him. Badly as parts of her hurt, she’d hate to pull Daelia or Tylla from someone who needed the patching up more.

Tekēhu didn’t reply, but she thought she saw him shake his head slightly before he was out of sight down the stairs.

As promised, he was back only a couple minutes later with Daelia right behind him--and a giggling Vela wrapped around his arm like a spider monkey.

She let go as soon as they passed the doorway and dashed across the cabin to perch on the corner of the bed. “Did you win, Mama?”

Kei chuckled. “We did. Is it that had to tell?”

Vela shrugged. “You us’lly don’t get hurt so bad when you win’s all.”

“Usually we’re not fighting something so big,” Kei said with a smile. “Did you stay with Aunt Daelia like I told you?”

Vela gave an emphatic nod. “I ‘membered what you said if anything happened to the ship. An’ I was good,” she added, anticipating the next question.

“She was,” Daelia confirmed with a chuckle as she rolled up her sleeves.

“Happy to hear that, and happy you’re both safe,” Kei said. “Were there a lot of injuries?”

“Mainly bruises and the like,” Daelia replied. “Tuliak’s shoulder got sliced open, so Tylla’s stitching her up. And what about you, Captain? Aside from the obvious”--she nodded toward Kei’s swollen wrist--”what other injuries did you sustain?”

Tekēhu sat next to Kei as she started to list off the ones she’d found, lacing his fingers between those of her good hand. Daelia pointed out an additional gash Kei hadn’t noticed across the inside of her arm just below her elbow.

“Best to take care of your wrist first, though,” she mused, “since that’s the most serious.”

“Won’t hear me complaining,” Kei muttered, squeezing Tekēhu’s hand. She glanced at Vela. “You don’t have to stay, sweetheart. It’s late; you can try to go to sleep.”

Vela shook her head and fiddled with her carved fox necklace, a gift from Sagani for her last birthday.”I know you’re okay even if it hurts, Mama. You’re very tough and very brave.” She wrapped her hand around the wooden pendent. “‘I’m not sleepy anymore, an’ I wanna see.”

“Ekera, it seems you have a surgeon in training here, Kei,” Tekēhu chuckled.

“Or else just an insatiably curious daughter,” Kei said wryly. “You can stay if you want, Vel.”

Vela nodded. “I do, Mama.”

“Alright, then.” It didn’t really surprise her Vela wanted to stay; both to be close and out of that insatiable curiosity.

“Would you like a better seat, dear one?” Tekēhu asked, extending his arm toward Vela in clear invitation.

Another eager nod. “Thank you, Teku!” she effused as she climbed down from the bed and up into his lap. She giggled and made a face--“You’re all wet!”--but settled in regardless.

It made Kei smile, even as Daelia started feeling out the extent of damage to her wrist and the pain spiked. She tightened her grip on Tekēhu’s hand, teeth grinding together.

“Fairly simple fracture,” Daelia commented. “Shouldn’t be hard to set straight.”

“Good,” Kei managed between clenched teeth.

Tekēhu leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Breathe, my lioness,” he whispered.

Kei pulled in and released a deep, slow breath at the remainder, and it did help. Daelia was as good as her word; she had Kei’s wrist set and splinted in short order, then set about tending the other injuries.

Despite her assertion of not being tired, Vela fell asleep halfway through, curled up against Tekēhu’s chest. He just shifted her more center on his lap with one arm and settled in again, hand still intertwined with Kei’s.

Finally, though, everything had been tended. Her hip was just bruised, she’d wrenched her knee, the gash on her arm had needed a few stitches, but the cut on her forehead wasn’t serious, just needed cleaning and would scab well enough. After Kei had thanked Daelia profusely for her help(and the pain draught that had her a very pleasant level of numb), the elf took her leave and Tekēhu very gently settled Vela on the bed.

He ran a slow, appraising look over Kei, taking long enough she finally arched a brow.

“What?”

Tekēhu chuckled quietly. “Just musing on the likelihood you would desire dry clothes before turning in, beloved.”

“And planning to offer your assistance?” she asked, smirking.

“Ekera, it is as if you read my mind,” he grinned. “You do only have one good hand at the moment. And I promise to behave myself with your daughter in the room and you so battered.”

“What a relief,” Kei deadpanned, mischief sparking in her eyes. “In that case, I accept.”

His grin widened, but he made no comment as he dug in her trunk for dry clothes, coming up with deep brown trousers and a short sleeved, off-white shirt.

“Good choice, with this,” Kei said wryly, briefly raising her splinted wrist.

“My thoughts exactly,” Tekēhu confirmed. He returned to his seat by her side, helped her gingerly remove her sodden clothes and dry off before just as carefully pulling on the new ones.

Once she was dressed, Kei paused to cup Tekēhu’s jaw with her good hand. “Thank you, Teku,” she whispered playfully, leaning in to kiss him.

His low laugh rumbled into the kiss. “It was my pleasure,” he murmured, then kissed her back. “And I won’t tell Vela you stole her nickname.”

“Borrowed,” Kei protested with a smile, resting her forehead against his. “Just this once.” She kissed him again.

“Ekera, beloved, you are making it quite difficult to keep my promise,” Tekēhu mumbled, breath ragged, between kisses. His hand cupped the back of her neck, fingers toying with the narrow braids.

“Which one?”

“To behave myself.”

She leaned more fiercely into the current kiss for a moment before pulling back. “Sorry.” She traced a finger down his cheek. “You’re just extra irresistible when you’re being sweet.”

He favored her with a warm smile for that, turned his head to lightly kiss her palm. “All the more reason to do it frequently, I say. But for now…” He reluctantly sat back. “I believe Daelia instructed you to rest?”

Kei nodded, letting her hand fall to her lap, the warmth of his skin lingering. “She did. And it is very late. Or is it early, now?”

Tekēhu chuckled, helped her stand. “I don’t imagine it makes much difference either way. You should go to bed.”

It was a short journey, but he didn’t let go until she was safely settled in bed. Vela easily shifted in her sleep to curl up snuggled with her mama. Kei ran a hand over her hair and looked up at Tekēhu. “Thank you,” she repeated. “For everything.”

He bent down and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “You are most welcome, my lioness. Though I do wish my help had not cost you such an injury.”

Not wanting to wake Vela, Kei rolled her eyes instead of scoffing. “And as I said, I’d rather have a broken wrist than be kraken bait. Thanks to you, my handsome fish, I lived to tell the tale. My wrist will heal.” She smiled. “Now, you should get some sleep as well; you look ready to fall over.”

“I would lie to deny it,” Tekēhu admitted with a wan smile. “So if you have no more need of your handsome fish tonight, Captain, I shall do as you say.”

I always need my handsome fish. Kei giggled and rolled her eyes again. “Goodnight, Tekēhu,” she said, patting the bed next to her and Vela.

His eyes fairly glowed as he accepted the unspoken invitation.

Kei had been right; he was asleep with his head on her shoulder mere seconds later. Her own lingering aches made it take a few minutes before she followed into slumber, and she didn’t truly mind. They’d fought a monster straight out of legend tonight and lived to tell the tale(grown their own legend in the process, she was sure he’d point out). Sleeping sandwiched between her two favorite people in Eora was as perfect a celebration as she could want for now.

Everything else could wait until daylight.

#queens fic #kei ghan #tekehu #vela #tekei #god they're so sweet sometimes just aaaahhhhh #pillars of eternity #first time writing vela whooooo #watcher wednesday #(last one)#(I promise)

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pangtasias-atelier · 5 years

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Not Gone To Waste

Really wanted to focus on older games while requests are closed , cause while I enjoy the newer games, I vastly prefer the older games in the series. So expect more stuff from them.

So here is Magvel! Specifically, Cormag and Artur. I absolutely love the two but never shipped them before cause I mostly played sacred stones when I thought I was straight. So it wasn't until recently when I replayed a bunch of the older games and most of my ships swapped around to gay ones lmao

They're both such good characters and their support is pretty cute too at the end of their a support. My sacred stones playthroughs are either, Mages only or Grado only, so they're mostly always used.

This came out longer than I expected but there's not a bunch of WG related stuff I feel? Kinda wanted more cutesy stuff with them.

Also, this was inspired by a post by @chubbyheroesworthyheroes about Cormag being an angry/stress eater and I ate that shit up, cause it's a great idea.

Also, titles are still hard

________

Heavy breakfast finished, an increasingly common occurrence, Artur checks the calendar once again to indeed make sure that it's been a week. Correct, Artur prepares the large stable attached to his house. The area clean from disuse and his upkeep, he replenishes it with food and water. A little tummy adorning his body, the bit of flab slightly pressing up against his shirt, Artur blushes as he feels the newly added weight jiggle. His face is ever so slightly rounded out.

Picking up and reorganizing the tools, Artur's familiarity with the task aids him in completing it reasonably quick. Proud of his work, he checks over it. Everything neat and tidy, Artur closes the stable as he heads back inside.

The house is somewhat full of decoration, the decor souvenirs from his and Cormag's travels or gifts to one another. Everything tidied up, an important part of Artur's routine, he proceeds to another important part of his routine, cooking. Such a fine day soon turning to noon, the day calls for an equally fine spread. Gazing upon the clean area, he decides to go a bit simpler, not wishing to dirty such a spotless kitchen with his admittedly somewhat messy husband returning today.

Pulling loaves of bread out, deciding in a picnic with the day's sun softly illuminating the world as the gentle breeze sways everything in its path, Artur prepares the rest of the ingredients.

A multitude of vegetables spread out, he slowly chops them, the fear of accidentally cutting himself forever present in the back of his mind. With that done and everything already at the ready, he begins making the sandwiches.

Not wishing to waste any ingredients, he finds a bunch of sandwiches staring back at him when he finishes. The amount relatively split, the right containing much more vegetables to his taste, the ones on the left are more meat heavy, his husband's preference. Washing his hands, he places a hand to his face as he rests his elbow it on his other crossed arm. Sighing, he takes out the picnic basket. Placing half inside, he shuts the lid. Testing the heft of the basket, he packs the other half. Just in case for later he tells himself. Beverages prepared and placed nearly, Artur has everything ready. The only thing now to wait for is Cormag.

Who seems to come right on time, Genarog's piercing screech frightening him still to this day despite their years together.

Saving the almost dropped plate, his initial terror leaves him. Basket in hand, he carries in front of him with both hands. Smiling, he heads out to receive Cormag, Cormag busy with work this entire past week.

Cormag busy ever since the war finished, the looming threat of Grado's earthquake hung heavy when Knoll warned him. Deciding to stay and help Grado, Cormag's experience as a knight and expertise in flying was invaluable. Artur had wished to follow him but Cormag had shot that idea down, wishing for him to remain safe. Though Knoll and Natasha gladly accepted his aid with such expertise in the healing arts, Artur tagging along regardless. Duessel had nearly yelled at Cormag for trying to prohibit Artur, his exorcising light magic invaluable.

The two already close, it had been Artur who proposed, Amelia managing to implant the idea in him despite his trepid nature. Cormag had coughed and laughed at first. Artur's fears realized, Cormag profusely apologized before pulling out a ring from Genarog's satchel, the two falling for Amelia's plan. The two deciding to remain engaged until the situation ameliorated, it was a huge sigh of relief to them and their companions when they did. Lute had throttled Artur the day of the wedding for only telling her of his engagement through a letter instead of in person. Though she promptly rushed him away to help him prepare, blocking Cormag from seeing his husband to be before the ceremony. With everything going well, the two had eventually built a cottage a bit of a ways from the capital and settles down. Artur offering his healing arts for any who needed it, Cormag had stepped down as a knight. Branded a traitor, even his commendable work afterwards still left that mark in his name. Despite it all, Cormag had decided to rejoin, this time as a simple soldier.

Stepping out of the house, the increasing size of Genarog as he descends closer widens Artur's smile even further. The wyvern hitting the floor, Artur slows down his pace to avoid running like a fool. Placing the heavy basket on the floor, Artur breaks into a jog regardless. Cormag jumping off, he opens his arms wide to receive Artur.

Except Artur rushes past him, first greeting Genarog. Neck leaning down, Genarog happily receives Artur's affection.

"I hope Cormag has been treating you well," Artur teases, scritching the underside of Genarog's chin.

"You should worry about how you're treating me," Jokingly frowning, Cormag tugs at Artur, pulling him into an embrace. "Don't tell me you married me just to get closer to Genarog?" Cormag leans down, arms wrapped around Artur as he rests his chin on Artur's shoulder.

"No, of course not! I-" Cormag's snort stops Artur. Artur sighs, barely slapping Cormag's back his arms pinned to his side with Cormag's bearlike embrace.

His embrace accurately describe Cormag's appearance as well. A fact that Artur discovered early on about Cormag is that he eats. An issue bugging him, Cormag seems to lose all inhibition and stuff himself in his blind rage or in his stress induced hunger. Cormag an emotional passionate man, reaching said two states is very easy. Artur accustomed to it, snacks and food are always in arms reach for him to hand Cormag. To his embarrassment, he enjoys the way Cormag fills out his clothes as evidence of his binges pile up. And the physical evidence is evident on Cormag's body.

A full on gut struggling against the tucked in maroon shirt, the tan mass is hidden but not forgotten. The soft warm ball of fat Artur's favorite to rub after Cormag's angry binges. The sleeves pinch his arms, a dip in them where the fabric ends. His stomach and moobs push against the tight shirt as if builders moving marble, the fabric straining and clinging to Cormag's body, each curve, each roll, each pound desperate to escape the suffocating confines of his shirt. His pants suffer the same. Thighs wide apart with each tree trunk thigh pressed up against each other, his ass bulges from the back, both square with the large accumulation of fat. Cormag hefty and fat, obesity coming closer, Cormag's binging even has an effect on Artur, Artur now has a potbelly stomach. Yet he's still small compared to his husband.

Sinking into Cormag's embrace, Artur relaxes before remembering. "I made lunch," Cormag perks up at the prospect of food, even letting go. Spotting the basket, he jogs to it, Artur blushing as Cormag's love handles toss and turn. His also ass shakes behind him, the pants slowly hitching down.

Cormag lifts the basket with one arm, grinning. "Where to?" Lifting his feet hand to whistle, Artur stops him.

"We can eat by the stream, better to eat close to home. Genarog can rest," Artur grabs Cormag's hand, the two walking hand in hand.

The walk short, Cormag's longer strides has Artur struggling to keep up, Cormag enthusiastic to eat. The small stream has a gentle flow of water, the tranquil environment conducive to their nice reunion. Picnic blanket spread out by Cormag, Artur begins taking out the sandwiches.

"This…is a lot," Cormag duly notes. Artur turns red, hand covering his mouth.

"I know, I just didn't want it to go to waste and-"

"It's okay, we can save it for dinner or something," Cormag sits down legs wide apart, happily gesturing for Artur to do the same. He does, sitting cross-legged. Cormag immediately goes for the more meaty selection.

"So, how was work?" Artur innocently asks as he reaches for a sandwich himself. A groan coming out of Cormag, Artur looks up.

"It was a waste of time," Blood boiling, Cormag tears into the sandwich as he pauses. "Duessel just sent me on a mission for some bandits," The sandwich destroyed in two more bites, Cormag reaches for another as he continues the story.

Staring mouth agape, each fit of anger Cormag has always a shock, Artur saves face, nibbling on his own sandwich. The contents of Cormag's story ends up lost on his, his mind too busy focusing his eyes to watch rather than listen. The way Cormag frowns and bursts with energy as he recalls the story, how it makes him jiggle, his gut shaking as it rests on the floor, embraced on both sides by his thighs, his no longer angular face cherubic in its soft curves and blonde hair, his arms jiggling as he reaches for more sandwiches. The entire sight is common yet enjoyed all the same.

Eyes focusing on Cormag and nodding at occasional moments, Artur continues to nibble at his sandwich. He reaches for a second one, hand searching the blanket as he keeps his eyes on Cormag, his speed of eating still constant. Still a bit peckish, Artur grabs a third one. But even that isn't enough, a fourth one reached for but never found. Looking down, the entire basket is empty.

Focusing back on Cormag, he spots the last two sandwiches, both nearly finished. Cormag carries one in each hand. Still ranting, he alternates between each one, cramming them into his mouth with each bite.

"And I did all that for nothing!" Scoffing with his rant over, Cormag shoves both last bites into his mouth, furiously chewing before swallowing. Sighing, he pats his stomach. "Anyways, what did you do?" Cormag's stomach answers for Artur, the loud gurgling showing its displeasure with so much food crammed in such a short time. Letting out a burp, Cormag groans as he leans back, arms wobbling as they support his sitting mass. Huffing, he closes his eyes. Artur immediately by his side, Cormag glances up at him. "Overdid it again, huh?" A hiccup jostles his overstuffed stomach, the contents like a torrent.

"N-no…" Artur fumbles, always red at the exhausted state of Cormag. Shaking his head, he leans down for a kiss before helping Cormag up. Nearly faltering under the heavier mass, Artur manages to get him up. Ignoring the basket and blanket, he trudges along with a groaning Cormag. Cormag's stomach complains all the while, one hand attempting to soothe the angry beast.

Opening the door, Artur leads Cormag to their bedroom. Gently helping him down, Cormag sighs as his ass rests against the bed. Artur's hands gently rest on his gut. Lifting up his shirt, Cormag holds back his smirk as Artur helps him remove it. Gut free, the tan bulging mound bubbles from its free form. Pants unbuttoned helps calm it further. Artur gets straight to work, rubbing Cormag's taut stomach.

"Damn," Eyes closed, his teeth bite his quivering lips. "Keep it up," He sighs, head dipped back. He lets out a small chuckle as Artur stutters, a protest in the back of his throat. Stomach, relaxing, Cormag grabs Artur under his arms, lifting him up with ease. Leaning back, Cormag had Artur lie on top of him.

"C-Cormag!"

"It's fine," Cormag groans, his stomach disagreeing with his statement. "Besides, you like this," No question offered, the statement thrown out instead, Artur incessantly babbles, mind not forming any coherent thought with the flash of words wanting to come out.

"Can't say I mind it though. I eat like a wyvern when I'm pissed. Can't help it," Artur above him as he rests on his gut, Cormag runs his hands through his hair. "You couldn't help yourself either. You always had food for my tantrums,"

"Sorry…. I-" Cormag's hands pushing his head down, their lips crash.

"You've got nothing to be sorry about. By the time I realized what you were doing, I was already pretty down with this extra weight," Artur nods his head, subconsciously licking his dry lips, his throat parched as well.

"And?"

"And. I'm okay with it," Lifting himself and Artur out of bed, Cormag leans down, mouth by Artur's ear as his hand digs under Artur's shirt. "And I'm okay with this," Grabbing the bit of extra flab on Artur's stomach, Cormag holds him steady, Artur melting in the embrace, his face positively flushed as his eyes remain wide.

Muscles hidden but not gone, Cormag lifts Artur in his arms bridal style, the pose reminiscent of their wedding day, only both of them are plumper, Cormag much more so.

"So, why don't we see what else we don't want to go to waste?" Cormag asks as he carries Artur, the kitchen their destination.

Artur meekly nods, mouth dry as he wonders how far this'll go, too shy to stop. Cormag wonders the same, too prideful to stop.

#my writing #fat emblem #ssbhm #male weight gain #male wg #fat!cormag #fat!artur

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annecoulmanross · 4 years

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Rules:

Pick 5 TV shows, then answer the following questions. Tag 10 (or however many) people.

I was tagged by my dear @princess-of-france – loved your answers, Hal, and thank you!

1. The Terror (surprising no one) 2. Black Sails (haven’t finished yet but we’re in that age of sail mood) 3. TURN: Washington’s Spies (AMC history show hours) 4. The Borgias (okay we have no shame about history shows today) 5. HBO Rome (hey, why the hell not; all history it is)

Who is your favorite character in 2? I’m very partial to Thomas Hamilton, partly because, even though I haven’t finished the show, I do know where it’s going thanks to tumblr. Also, gotta love a man with a vision of a classical res publica. Also (part 2), who else can make Marcus Aurelius so sexy? (I swear I do like this show for more than just its classical reception.) Others on the favorite character list so far are Anne Bonny and Flint himself – he’s so gosh darned fun to watch; Toby Stephens is a gift of an actor.

Who is your least favorite character in 1? I mean, there’s no character in The Terror who doesn’t fulfill an important narrative role. But just because, (for example) Hickey is interesting and complex and well-written doesn’t mean I like him. I suppose, though, the character I find most repellent would be Des Voeux. Again, he’s narratively necessary and yet deeply emotionally distasteful. I’m not a villains person.

What is your favorite episode of 4? I’m also not finished with this one, so my favorite episode out of just the first two seasons... it’s very hard to choose, but “The Beautiful Deception” (02x03) is particularly stellar.

What is your favorite season of 5? Well, the first season is vastly better paced than the second season (a fun side-effect of a show that thought it was going to have a few more seasons than it actually received), but the second season has “These Being the Words of Marcus Tullius Cicero,” (02x03) which, tragically, has been vitally important to my honest-to-god career. So uhhh this is a toss-up.

Who is your favorite couple in 3? Favorite canon couple would be our darling tragic André/Peggy. Favorite non-canon couple would be the irrepressible boys, Ben/Caleb.

Who is your favorite couple in 2? Hhhhhh so yeah again, I started this show with a fair amount of fore-knowledge and Flint/Hamilton basically ticks all my ship boxes. Flint/Hamilton/Miranda also.

What is your favorite episode of 1? Oh god, it’s such a tightly written show that it’s very hard to choose. A part of me says that an early episode would be happier (I’m quite partial to “Gore” (01x02) since it has the best sledge party hours anyone’s ever seen, before everything goes wrong) but the tenderness toward the end of the show is so heartbreakingly lovely. For all its pain, “The C the C the Open Sea” (01x09) is incredibly beautiful.

What is your favorite episode of 5? As mentioned above, “These Being the Words of Marcus Tullius Cicero,” (02x03) is uhhhhh something. My “favorite” isn’t necessarily how I’d put it, but there’s no other episode that comes even close, so here we are. (I am haunted by the abstract concept of peaches...)

What is your favorite season of 2? Thus far, season 2, but I haven’t gotten to the third and fourth seasons yet, so this means very little, apart from the fact that I have a general preference for seasons with flashbacks with Miranda and Hamilton in them.

How long have you watched 1? I just watched The Terror for the first time this year, about two months ago. Yeah, I don’t remember what life was like before that either, for many reasons.

How did you become interested in 3? My dear @princess-of-france showed me the entire show this past summer and we discussed it episode-by-episode – an absolutely incredible viewing experience.

Who is your favorite actor in 4? Well, we were just talking about the glorious François Arnaud.... I also love Jeremy Irons, though. Both; both are good.

Which do you prefer, 1, 2, or 5? Why is this being done to me? Not Rome, that’s for sure, but I do really like both Black Sails and The Terror. Right now, I’m still so deep in The Terror that it’s hard to deny that it’s my preference, tragically. But I’m getting rapidly more into Black Sails.

Which show have you seen more episodes of, 1 or 3? I’ve seen all of both, but there are more episodes of TURN: Washington’s Spies than there are of The Terror, so TURN it is.

If you could be anyone from 4, who would you be? Oh this is NOT the show I would want to live in out of these five at ALL. Um, to be honest, I kind of adore the absolute moral conviction of Della Rovere. It would be... interesting to see what his journey is like from the inside.

Would a crossover between 3 and 4 work? If one has the ability to time travel, I suppose? A Long Island Yankee in Pope Alexander’s Court?

Pair two characters in 1 who would make an unlikely but strangely okay couple? Given the dedication and care that The Terror’s fandom has shown to minor characters and rare pairs, I’m not sure any pairing would feel truly strange to me. I’m partial to some niche couples like Rossier and Goodsir/MacDonald, but those are still stronger than just “strangely okay.” In the spirit of trying to provide a genuinely unlikely pairing, I would say that I basically never EVER consider separating Bridgens and Peglar (our canon couple, the lights of my life) – but I do think that, in some horrible Peglar-less universe, Bridgens and Goodsir could be a good pairing. As it is, I love Bridgens and Goodsir as friends.

Overall, which show has the better storyline, 3 or 5? This isn’t at ALL fair, because TURN got the number of seasons it wanted, and HBO Rome was cut off early, but even without that, TURN is a vastly superior show in my book. It’s TURN, no question.

Which has better theme music, 2 or 4? Wow, this isn’t the kind of thing I typically notice? My instinct is Black Sails over Borgias, but tbh I’d have to go watch a few episodes of both and pay more specific attention to the music. (If TURN was in here, it would win for all the beautiful covers of period-era songs. I have a TURN playlist that’s in regular rotation.)

I honestly have so much fun doing these kind of tag games – thank you, Hal, for the tag!

As for me: @kaserl @frauncis @endofvanity and anyone else who’s interested!

#about me #tag games

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itshansolo · 4 years

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My review of The Rise of Skywalker

Spoilers aplenty under the cut

I can fully acknowledge that my opinion on this movie is heavily influenced by what I care about in Star Wars. Han and Leia are my favorite characters and I just wanted to feel satisfied with how they ended up. Was it ideal? No. But given the choices made at the beginning of this trilogy, it could have been worse. Number one on the list to satisfy me was the redemption of their son. I had little doubt that Ben would turn back to the light, but I wanted it to be meaningful as well. Falling down a pit never to be seen again was definitely not it. His final act was beautiful and selfless and Adam Driver sold the shit out of it. What a fantastic actor. He did the most with few lines and his entire demeanor changed when Ben left the dark side. A moment that I haven’t seen many people refer to was when he said to Rey “You can’t go back to my mother. Neither can I”. His voice was choked up. In the beginning of the movie, when he touches Vader’s helmet and interferes with Rey’s training, you can see that the visions of Han’s death shook him up and the change in Adam’s facial expression was incredible. The scene with Ben and Han was everything I ever wanted since The Force Awakens. The main reason why people seemed reluctant to accept his redemption was because he killed his father and that baffled me. Han would want him to be redeemed! Both text and subtext showed that he deeply regretted what he did. So yeah. I’m very glad that scene was there. Ben loved his father. Period. So let’s address the elephant in the room. Reylo. It’s no secret that my preferred scenario was for them to be siblings. Back in 2016, I wrote 40 pages on why it could and should happen. But it didn’t and I got over that two years ago. Though I never shipped them per se, I thought there was undeniable chemistry and I never quite got all the pearl-clutching over the concept. It’s fake and in space after all. Everything about them in this movie made me feel things, in no small part thanks to Adam and Daisy’s phenomenal acting. I understand why Reylos wanted Ben to live, but let’s be real. Redemption followed by a life of atonement, though immensely interesting, requires way more time to be told as a story and they were trying to wrap things up. Not to mention it’s the definitive way to bring closure to the Skywalkers, making sure that no future writers will do anything else with the members of the family. Don’t get me wrong, the powers that be didn’t HAVE to end the Skywalker story, but it’s what they wanted. I appreciate that Leia played a role in Ben’s redemption (again, phenomenal acting from Adam), but I don’t quite like how she died. It seemed random. Why did she decide to reach out to him all of a sudden in that particular moment? There was no build up, she just felt weak and dropped dead. If they had showed from the beginning that she was in a fragile state, it could have worked. After a lackluster characterization in The Last Jedi, I finally connected to Rey again. I loved her struggles and her fears. Daisy’s acting was vastly superior this time around. Though her bickering with Poe felt forced, Finn’s relationship with both characters was a highlight. I’m not sold on the dynamic of the trio, but the humor mostly worked, especially from C3PO. He was the MVP of that part of the story. Speaking of Finn, I’m confused as to what his arc in the movie – if we can call it that – was heading towards. He wanted to tell Rey something, maybe about his Force sensitivity, but it went nowhere. His past as a stormtrooper wasn’t really explored as promised, just briefly addressed in what I suppose was a bonding moment with Jannah. I’m not exactly sure why John Boyega was so satisfied this time around. As for the new characters, they were definitely a miss for me. Jannah and Zorii added very little to the story and General Pryde could have easily been replaced by Hux if Rian hadn’t turned him into a comic relief. Lando’s return was completely neutral. I felt nothing. He was there to deliver smooth one-liners meant to get people cheering. Everything critics have been saying about the pacing is true. There’s absolutely no room to breathe. Some people claim JJ was rushing to overwrite what Rian did and I couldn’t disagree more. There was one particular moment that felt like a middle finger to The Last Jedi and that is Luke catching his lightsaber and saying it should be treated with more respect. Aside from that, the biggest difference between TLJ and TROS is the tone, not the story. Even Rey Palpatine kept the message that Rian was trying to convey: there are things more important than blood. If I’m being quite honest, I much prefer Rey Palpatine to Rey Random, because it at least connects Rey to the previous trilogies. I still don’t like Rey Fauxwalker, but I ran out of fucks to give at this point. So why was everything so rushed? It’s just the nature of the story that JJ tried to tell. He wanted an adventure with the heroes and lots of action and that’s what we got. He’s not a very imaginative man. Although I – to quote Mark Hamill – fundamentally disagree with a lot of Rian Johnson’s decisions, I have much more respect for him as a filmmaker. While I agree with the critics about the pacing, I’m at loss as to why they think there is so much fan service. What the hell are they talking about? Ewoks? Indistinguishable voices from random past Jedi? Like I said before, if anything this movie has the potential to displease practically every fan. Ben dies, Reylo happens, Luke’s role is very brief, Anakin was nowhere in sight and a case could be made that his sacrifice was disregarded. The discourse surrounding this trilogy has poisoned the debate. People are now seeing digs at Rian and fan service everywhere. The most glaring issue with this film – bar none – is Palpatine’s return. He’s back just because. He’s back because Rian didn’t get the memo that if anything was settled from the beginning of this trilogy is that Kylo was not the big bad. So in a way, the biggest problem with this movie wasn’t even its fault. It’s the fault of everyone involved, for not mapping out the story. Once the space battle started, I tuned out. I have no idea what happened there. I’m not sure why Finn and Jannah split from the group and I honestly don’t care. I’m trying to understand why Anakin and Ben weren’t in the final scene with the twins and… I’ve got nothing. I still don’t know where the film ranks in comparison to the others and I won’t know for a while. Overall I think the mixed reactions are fair. As a final random note, I can’t believe Jodie fucking Comer is Rey’s mother!

#sw text #star wars

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luckyjak · 5 years

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fic: I tend to make it about me

After catching Caleb and Essik kissing, the Mighty Nein have questions. Caleb...doesn't really have answers. [Shadowgast, sequel to "I never leave well enough alone" (AO3 Link) but can probably be read alone]

AO3 Link

It was bound to happen at some point. He knew it was going to happen, ever since he kissed Essik, and Jester and Beau came screaming into the room, interrupting them, he knew this conversation was bound to happen.

He had just hoped his makeshift family would give him a moment to collect his thoughts before the interrogation begun. An hour to himself. Thirty minutes. Honestly, at this point, he would have gladly taken literally any time longer than it took for Essik’s shadowed form to leave the entrance to their home.

But as Essik turned the corner and left, Nott and Yeza turned it, too, and walked up to the porch where Caleb was still standing. There was a little bit of snow falling on the ground. The goblin/halfling pair smiled at him warmly, their arms full of grocery sacks. “He seemed like he was off in a hurry,” Yeza noted, a bit of snow stuck to his glasses.

“A little bit,” Caleb agreed, rushing forward to help carry things, taking one sack from Nott and another from Yeza. (Ah, not groceries--alchemic supplies--although some of it still looked edible.) “He was late for a meeting with the Bright Queen,”

“Ah,” Nott nodded. “Got distracted studying magic and lost track of time?”

“More like got distracted by Caleb’s dick,” Beau announced herself from behind Caleb, waltzing out of the front porch. Caduceus must have put her down at some point. The traitor.

Nott dropped her bag of supplies, causing a small purple fire to erupt in their yard. “What?”

“Your boy-toy’s gone, right?” Beau continued to ask Caleb, even as Yeza panicked to stop the fire. ( “Boy-toy???” Nott cowed). “Family meeting time, then.”

Caleb was certain his face was as red as his hair. He ran his hand down his face to cover it anyway. “Beauregard. Tactful as ever,” He grimaced. “Can’t it wait until later? After dinner, perhaps?”

“Absolutely not,” the monk shook her head. “Should’ve talked about it sooner, but I didn’t realize you two were involved.”

“ Involved???” Nott howled, and Yeza yelped backwards, trying to shield the bag of supplies with his body. “Caleb, he’s a spy! From the Bright Queen!”

“I know, Nott,”

“He could be trying to kill you! And you’re gonna sleep with him???” Nott yelled. “Did we learn nothing from the Avantika fiasco?”

Yeza looked confused. “Who's Avantika?”

“Oh yeah, Fjord has thoughts about that,” Beau pointed back at the house with her thumb. “Part of the reason for the family meeting. He’s worried about security,” she did give Caleb a sheepish look though, as if she finally realized she might have overreacted to the wrong thing.

“He could be using you!”

“Using me for what, Nott?” Caleb sighed, feeling a migraine come on. “For my impressive collection of outdated Empire secrets? For my magical talents, of which he vastly outclasses me?”

Nott’s face was a darker green. “You underestimate your talents! You are a smart, resourceful, intelligent young man--”

“I am thirty years old,” He interrupted her. “Hardly a young man. I know my worth, and I know what I’m not,” He frowned at her, head pounding against his skull. “Is it really so unbelievable that a man like Essik might actually like me?”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all!” Nott hollered. "Of course Essik should like you! Everyone should like you! But he's absolutely loyal to the Bright Queen, and--"

“I’m going to put these away before we start another fire,” Yeza interrupted, his voice more solid and grounded than Caleb had heard it before. Normally, the halfling was a bit squeaky and quiet, but right now he sounded, well, leader-ish. “Caleb, be a dear and carry the rest of them with me,”

Nott and Beau immediately began talking over one another: “But we aren’t finished--” “Family meeting, right now, Fjord said--”

“--We’re gonna put the supplies away in the lab, and then we’re gonna go have a family meeting,” Yeza interrupted. “Some of these supplies are dangerous,” he gestured to where the smoke was finally starting to go out beside Nott, “It will only take a minute. I think everyone can wait that long, at least.”

Nott looked at ground, sheepish. “I can help put things away--��

“Might be better if you didn’t, though,”

Yeza gave her a look, and Nott gave him a look back, and as far as Caleb could tell they were having an entire nonverbal conversation for the two minutes they stood there, until, eventually, Yeza grinned. “It’ll be fine. Caleb can help me.”

“...Alright,” Nott requested, giving a sheepish look to Caleb, and then to Yeza, “I’ll head to the War Room with the others.”

Beau pointed two fingers at her own eyes, then pointed them back at Caleb. “Five minutes. Then I’m dragging you.”

The girls left then, leaving Yeza and Caleb alone, holding three sacks of alchemical supplies between them.

“...Thank you, Yeza,” Caleb offered sheepishly, as they carried the supplies back to the library/lab. The chair was still broken on the floor, and Caleb felt himself color at the thought of what broke the chair, less than an hour ago.

“Veth means well, but she can be a bit overprotective.” Yeza admitted, setting the supplies on the alchemical lab in the back. “I’m certain the others are probably very similar in that regard.” Caleb started pulling ingredients out of bags to put away when Yeza shoved him. “None of that. You’ve only got five minutes to yourself to figure out what you want to say,” He pushed Caleb gently in the direction of Caleb’s bedroom. “I can put this stuff away. You go get your head on straight.”

It was in that moment that Yeza became Caleb’s favorite member of the Mighty Nein, whether he was officially a member or not.

Caleb flomped onto his bed, snapped his fingers to summon Frumpkin, and buried his head into his pillow. His ginger cat purred, rubbing against Caleb’s stomach before curling into a ball next to him. Instinctively, Caleb began petting him.

What to say, what to say? Caleb didn’t even know where to begin. Calm down, he told himself, taking deep breaths, and trying to calm the racing panic in his chest. It was always easier for him to picture himself as the interrogator instead of the interrogatee. Think about this rationally--what would you want to say if Jester were the one kissing Essik instead?

The thought of Jester and Essik kissing made Caleb’s stomach roll, the familiar sting of jealousy rearing its ugly head, even in a hypothetical situation.

Well, first I would want to know if they were serious. Caleb rationed, his stomach in knots.

Well, are you and Essik serious?

He didn’t know. He didn’t know what Essik’s intentions were. Did the drow spymaster want a relationship with Caleb? Did he want he just want a quick fuck and then that would be the end of it? Did he want a friends-with-benefits relationship? Did he--god forbid--did he wish tocourt Caleb?

Caleb didn’t know the answer. They hadn’t gotten a chance to talk about it before Essik had to leave.

Well, what do you want your relationship to be, then?

...Caleb didn’t know the answer to that one, either.

He tried to imagine, for a moment, what it would be like if he and Essik just fucked. And it was a good image: hard, rough, fast. Satisfying. Over too quickly, but a release of the tension that had been building since he met the man. He would--he would like that.

But then he imagined being with Essik. Holding his hand. Reading together, quietly. Trading soft kisses and quiet conversation. Long walks in moonlight. Discussing magical theory while playing footsies over dinner. Drinking wine and having loud, playful arguments over magical application and spellwork.

The second was...infinitely preferable.

I think I want whatever Essik wants, he answered himself, honestly and truthfully. But I would prefer a relationship, I think.

Gods, he was so fucked.

And the extent of your feelings?

A crush. That was an easy one to answer. He had a crush, and it was a crush that, perhaps, with time and affection, may blossom into something more meaningful. But right now it was just a crush: a rush of affection for a handsome man for whom he was attracted to.

And if you had to choose between him and the Nein?

He’d choose the Nein, every time. He’d had his heart broken before, and he had gotten over it then. He could get over it again. But what he had with the Nein was something special, something unique. He wouldn’t trade it for the world.

After that, it seemed only a matter to figure out what questions specific members of the Nein would ask him.

Jester would be concerned about kissing, ( “Do you like kissing him, Caleb? Is he nice? Is he a good kisser?”) Yes, he did like kissing him. Yes, he is very nice. Yes, he is a good kisser.

Caduceus--Caduceus would be concerned with matters of the heart ( “Has he treated you well?”) . So far, the answer was yes.

Yasha would be protective ( “If he hurts you, I can break him.”) or maybe soft (“Does he like flowers?”) He didn’t know if Essik like flowers, but it was a thought worth pursuing.

Beau--Beau was a toss up; she could go a lot of different ways (“What’s his dick like?” to “If you tell me literally anything about him I’ll punch you.”) Which, okay, he could deal with.

Nott would fret, maybe, or worse, become over-invested. ( “Does he intend to marry you?”) Which...Nott, please , please don’t say or do anything, he prayed quickly.

Really, it was Fjord’s questions that worried Caleb the most. (“ What if Essik is evil, and he’s planning on using you, like Avantika?”)

He didn’t get a chance to answer; his thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock at his door. “Sorry Caleb,” he heard Yeza’s familiar squeak. “It’s time.”

“It’s alright,” he stood up, stretched, and petted Frumpkin one last time. He grabbed his dark coat off of his desk and put it on.

It was showtime.

Notes:

There will be a chapter two, and it will involve Essik's perspective.

#critical role #shadowgast #caleb widogast #essik theylas #yeza brenatto #nott the brave #beauregard lionett

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sage-nebula · 4 years

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I finished both the main story and the postgame story of Pokémon Sword, so I figure I’ll type up a little informal review on it, if for nothing else than to have my thoughts on record.

Overall: I liked it, and think despite Game Freak’s failings, it was an improvement over both the Kalos and the Alola games.

First, just from a gameplay standpoint: While I’m still upset about the National Dex being axed, as well as upset over Mega Evolution being axed, and mad about Mimikyu being nerfed even though I knew last gen it would happen, overall gameplay improved VASTLY in this game when compared to the Alola games especially. True, your outfit is still ugly when you’re on your bike, but the music doesn’t change to something hideous, and you can use the bike to maneuver over both land and water. The curry minigame in Camp might be a bit finicky, and the play options are limited (+ I miss being able to pet my pokémon), but Camp lets all of your pokémon out at once, and they can interact with each other, and I think that’s really great. Additionally, I like the immersion of being on a journey and being able to set up camp and cook. It’s nice. Customization is far better in this game than in previous games (even if I found the perfect outfit right at the start and never changed it---though hell, that’s a bonus), I like controlling everything with the buttons rather than using a touch screen, the wild area is a lot of fun to run around in, I like having pokémon visible on the overworld . . . overall, I just find it to be an improvement over the Alola games in terms of gameplay in virtually every way. At least for me, the Alola games were not very much fun to play. I loathed the Ride music and the fact that I was using someone else’s pokémon instead of my own (and as a result had to walk everywhere since they didn’t give me a goddamn bike), the customization options were really lacking, the level balance was horrible and so grinding was an absolute chore, Refresh was annoying because your pokémon were dirty after basically every single goddamn battle and you could only tidy one of them up at a time, and so on and so forth. The Galar games aren’t perfect, but in terms of gameplay they’re a huge improvement over Gen VII and that makes me breathe a sigh of relief at least, because the most important thing about video games is that they have to be fun to play. If you’re not having fun because the mechanics are bad, there’s a problem.

As far as the story goes, it definitely had its issues, most notably in the fact that Chairman Rose’s goals were never properly explained, the cover legendaries didn’t really factor in much until the postgame, and the fact that Chairman Rose and Oleana were evil at all felt more like a “well we have to have some evil organization in here huh” than anything else---like Game Freak was trying to adhere to tradition rather than writing a villain-based story because they genuinely wanted to write one. The whole situation surrounding Macro Cosmos (a company that I keep forgetting the name of because it wasn’t mentioned until the end) makes a bit more sense to me now than when I originally finished due to reading someone else’s explanation of how Rose was a PokéVillain who had already won by the time the story starts, given that he owns and controls everything in Galar (literally, he controls the very energy they need to keep the lights on and their houses warm), and so what he does is more about maintaining that (thousands of years into the future?) than anything else. Which I get, but . . . it still makes his actual actions and motivations feel weak and poorly explained.

But despite that, as well as a few other flaws (the annoying enemy characters in the postgame, the fact that Marnie was TRAGICALLY underused), I actually did enjoy it. Despite my disdain for organized sports in real life, I liked that the Gym Challenge was set up as a tournament in which your rivals participated (and that there were many other participants, too) because finally it felt like there was a reason to go after the badges, versus doing it just because the Gyms were there and you wanted to become Champion for no reason. The fact that more and more NPCs started to take notice of you as you progressed as well is another thing I liked. Although I hated that we couldn’t customize the Gym uniform (it’s so ugly!!), I did like having a personal number (mine is 494---Victini’s National Dex number), as well as the fact that it was yet another way for the fans in the game to identify you. Not only that, but having your rivals be fellow competitors in the Gym Challenge was also a nice touch. Sure, Hop was yet another hometown friend, but the others were just fellow competitors that took notice of you, and I really enjoyed that.

Speaking of Hop and the other rivals, the characters were, I felt, by and large another improvement over Kalos and Alola games. Aside from the antagonists in the postgame (who were poorly designed and also terribly annoying), as well as Gym Leader Gordie, there aren’t any characters that I really disliked, and in fact, I found the development for most of the major ones (in particular Sonia, Bede, and even Hop) to be pretty good.

A bit more detail on that:

Sonia: Honestly, Sonia is probably my favorite character from these games (although Marnie is a close second). I am absolutely surprised by her and how much I came to love her considering I wasn’t too interested in her before the game was actually in my hands. Sonia is set up as being a twenty-something-year-old who fancies herself her grandmother’s assistant, but honestly is just kind of languishing at the beginning of the game and doesn’t really have a clear goal---to the point where her grandmother boots her out and makes her travel the region exploring the history to learn more about the Dynamax phenomenon. (And yes, Sonia is definitely in her twenties; both she and Leon refer to themselves as adults, and these games were created in Japan, where the age of adulthood is 20. So while we don’t know their exact age, we know they’re at least over 20.) Sonia is a little miffed about this at first, but as the story goes on she becomes more and more interested in and passionate about her studies, which culminates in Professor Magnolia passing the lab coat over to her. And it was at that point I realized: Although Professor Magnolia is the official professor at the start of the game, the fact that she has absolutely no impact on the game whatsoever (or at least very minimal impact) is because the real professor of the game is Sonia. We interact with her regularly, she helps compile information about what’s going on with regards to the game’s main plot, she guides and influences both the player character and Hop, and ultimately she comes to realize her own goal and dreams. The fact that an adult character in these games got to have an arc like this---one where she wasn’t sure what to do with herself at first, but came to find her own dream and take over the lab---was absolutely wonderful to me, an adult player. Sonia was definitely a refreshing character for the series and I was so, so proud of her when she finally got her lab coat, found her goal, and started living her best life. Sonia’s brilliant and I’m a huge fan.

Hop: On a personal, personality-level, I find Hop to be kind of annoying. He’s the type of person who would wear me out quickly in real life, and I honestly would have preferred if the primary rival was Marnie instead of him (since I feel him eating up so much screentime is part of why Marnie got shafted---but more on that later). But that said, I feel like Hop was Hau done right, that his character arc was well-written, and I love that we see him finally step out of the shadows and find his own path at the end of the postgame story. Hop, like Hau, has a famous relative that he looks up to and wants to surpass one day. But Hop, unlike Hau, also takes his training seriously from the start, struggles and shifts through various strategies as he tries to figure out what it is that he should do rather than just sticking to the same thing and hoping that it produces a different result, and ultimately concludes that he can do something different with his life, that he can change fields and make a name for himself his own way, without having to live up to expectations of what others think of him, or what his brother has done. While Hop resembles past rivals in the series in various ways (e.g. Barry’s impatience, Hau’s famous relative), he also sets himself apart by having a clear and defined character growth arc, culminating in his capture of the other mascot legendary and his newly appointed position as Sonia’s research assistant. I’m not personally a big fan of Hop’s, but as a character I think he was well done and I don’t dislike him either. At the very least, he easily tramples all of Kalos’ rivals (not that that’s hard, since the Kalos Friend Group is the most annoying set of rivals the series has ever seen), and I like him more than Hau as well. (The fact that Hop doesn’t delegitimize child abuse the way Hau does in USUM is a big point in his favor.)

Bede: On the other hand, I love everything about this little shithead. I love that we finally, FINALLY have a jerkass rival for the first time since Gen IV. I love that even after his character development (which he gets!) he doesn’t stop being a jerkass, he just becomes slightly less of one. (Very slightly.) While it was touched upon only a little, I like that the reason why he’s such a little asshole is because of how Rose and Oleana were using him (Oleana is the one that gets blamed, but it was Rose who gave Bede his first pokémon and endorsed him, and then later in Hulbury acted like he didn’t even know who Bede was, thereby implying that Bede feels that he has to work extra hard to gain Rose’s approval and attention), and that once he was taken in by a good guardian (Opal), he improved not only as a trainer, but as a person. It was so great to see Bede finally happy near the end of the game, once Opal took him in, and also great that even though he was a little shit to everyone around him, he also treated his pokémon well (and thus wasn’t a “he’s an asshole so he uses his pokémon as tools!” type). Bede’s great. I love Bede.

Marnie: I also love Marnie, though as I’ve said numerous times, she was critically underused. Despite the fact that her older brother is a Gym Leader, Marnie has pretty much no impact on the plot, barely shows up at all, doesn’t appear in the postgame story at all (even though she’s a Gym Leader now!), and overall feels like she’s just sort of . . . there. This frustrates me not only because I love what little we do see of her (the fact that she has a south London accent is already a huge plus in her favor, along with her design, battle music, and overall character), but because I feel this happens all-too often with female rivals in Pokémon games. Granted, it’s not like we have a surplus; aside from the opposite-gender player rivals, the only dedicated female rivals we have in the entire series apart from Marnie are Bianca and Shauna (because given that Lillie doesn’t battle for the majority of the story, she does not count as a rival). Shauna, like all the rivals in XY, has an ineffective, weak team and doesn’t really accomplish anything at any point. And while Bianca’s team is fantastic and she does end up becoming Professor Juniper’s assistant in the second game, in the first game she’s sidelined after her Munna gets stolen and spends the rest of the game with her spirit broken as a result of it (which, IMO, is the one being flaw in BW’s otherwise excellent storytelling). So to get another dedicated female rival, only to have her barely be involved in the plot at all and not really go through any meaningful development is incredibly disappointing. If there is a follow-up game to the Galar games, I hope Marnie gets more to do. (And as a side note, Team Yell is in a similar situation to Macro Cosmos; it honestly feels like they only exist because Game Freak feels they have to have an “evil team” at this point, much like Skull in the last gen.)

This is long, and also it’s almost 3am and I’m tired, so rather than typing up blurbs for all the other characters, I’ll just give short lists:

Other characters I loved: Nessa, Kabu, Bea, Opal, Raihan

Characters that were OK but had certain things about them that were off-putting to me: Leon, Chairman Rose, Oleana

Characters I’m completely ambivalent about: Professor Magnolia, Milo

Characters I hated: Gordie, the Sword and Shield brothers I’m not even going to bother to remember their names because they were that fucking stupid

And that’s it, I’m going to go see if I can sleep now.

#pokemon spoilers #pokemon swsh spoilers #scrawlers is born to be a winner born to be a champion #i feel like there's a LOT more i could say but #i'm tired so #i'm just going to end the post here lmao

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musashi · 5 years

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So I've got some questions about Fi, because I borrowed Skyward Sword once, beat it, had to return it immediately, and have forgotten a bunch... But, does she have what we could call emotions? Moods? She always seemed like this wonderful little robot (and a bit sassy) and now I'm upset I can't remember much about her character! Could you talk a bit about how games and/or memories would characterize her? Any favorite interactions?

vespyyyy iluuuuuu. im putting this under a cut cause i dont think anyone follows me for zelda lol

[ALSO IF YOU’RE MOBILE READ THIS ASK ON BROWSER, THE TUMBLR APP CUTS HALF OF IT OFF :(( ]

by fi’s own words, she “does not possess the capability to understand the human spirit.” she follows that sentence up, however, by saying she DOES experience feelings, or at the very least she suspects that she has in her time with link become capable of feeling happiness and gratitude. she frames this with uncertainty, because before their journey, she had never experienced anything like that. in fi-like fashion she basically says “i have data on how people act when they feel happy, and it lines up with how I want to act right now.”

fi is basically as you said. she’s a smart sword. she’s alexa/siri for your sword. she was created for the purpose of being a personal assistant to the goddess’ chosen hero and most of who she is revolves around that, but not in a way that makes her, like… soulless. i think a lot of people would disagree with me on that but whatever fi haters dont interact. im not gonna talk much about fi as a game mechanic. i understand why ppl dislike her in that regard but that’s not what i’m interested in cause my hatred of game mechanics doesn’t bleed into the characters that carry them.

fi is analytical, data-interested, unemotional, and calculating. she does this without being particularly cold and disinterested, because she has a bit of a sarcastic edge that makes her seem like she is banking a more playful spirit for the purpose of her duties. it is incredibly cute. you get the impression there is more to her, but she has a job to do so she doesn’t want too much of it to show.

the reason that i like fi is because she fills a specific dynamic that i adore when juxtaposed against link specifically. it can be any character who fills this dynamic but fi is one of the folks who fills it best. simply put: my favourite characterization of link is when he is interpreted as an emotionally driven reckless dumbass. with triforce bearers, i adore when their one facet of the trinity cancels out the other two–so i like for link to be courageous, but unwisely so, and not because he’s all-powerful, but just because he can’t not move forward. the way i interpret all links is “too big-hearted/hyperempathetic to sit still”

skyward link is fucking exemplary of this. skyward sword is like, the most on the nose romantic telling of link and zelda we get, maybe up there with botw. childhood friends to lovers and everything, like they are incredibly tender and sweet. and link’s super emotive, you don’t really have to guess what he’s thinking. his dialogue options reflect this–there’s always one thats basically just ‘ZELDA???’ like he’s incredibly impatient to reunite with his friend. skyward sword contains what is, to this day, one of the most heart-wrenching expressions link has ever made–

hate this!!!! you watch him physically crumble in this scene. its probably the most emotion he’s ever shown in canon.

skyward link is bar none the most emotionally motivated link. i think i can say with certainty that saving the world is an afterthought to him. he’s following his destiny because he has to, but what is keeping him from falling into despair is his love for zelda.

this all ties back to fi because fi is the exact opposite. if she has emotions, they have no baring on her. her method of tackling a problem is to run calculations and probabilities and do what seems like it will have the highest turnout rate. she’s a well-oiled machine designed to produce results from gathered data, and she is link’s constant companion.

in her first scene with link, she tries to tell him of his grand destiny, and he is so emotionally shaken from losing his best friend in the world that he doesn’t really respond. fi says “to minimize your uncertainty, i will offer you some information that has a high probability of altering your current emotional state,” and then proceeds to tell him zelda is still alive. he snaps out of it, runs toward the sword, and immediately accepts his burdens.

ok so now tapping out of canon territory and into kin memories, this interaction was common. i’m kin with the hero’s spirit as a whole, and i remember so many lifetimes under my belt–but this one was the rawest. that spirit, though unbreakable, was so new. unbreakable doesn’t mean untouched by despair. i hadn’t done this before, not enough to have half the level-head i would in later lifetimes. everything hurt so much. there were so many hopeless nights.

but fi always had calculations for why that hurt, while real, wasn’t logical. she would butt into my breakdowns at the sound of her master too compromised to fight. i would spew anxious ramblings at her in a full-on panic and she would stay utterly silent until she was sure i was done and refute every one of them, point for point. hard statistics. numbers and percentages. it’s so hard for an anxious brain to hold its own against raw data. i would crumble into calm so quickly, because she never ever said things like “it’s going to be okay” or “she’s probably just x.” fi always told the truth, the numbers. I can’t articulate why, but I vastly preferred that to sentiments, because my anxious heart would just tear sentiments up.

fi existed to guide me. It made sense that she’d calm me down from those traumatic nights, because a boy too constantly gripped by panic can’t be atlas with the world on his shoulders. and when i’d thank her, she’d say that– “your gratitude need not show, master link. i am simply doing what i must.”

but over time, she stopped saying that. the more time we spent with one another, her outright refusal turned into pivots– “get some rest, master. by my calculations, we’re due for an early morning if we’re to reach our destination on time.”

eventually, the pivots turned to silence. i would thank her, and she would bow her head, and return to the sword.

so stepping back into canon, i love fi because she’s link’s brain cell. not only his intelligence and problem solving, but also his emotional & impulsive check. this is the same reason i fell so hard for zelink in BOTW specifically–because zelda is a calculating, analytical scholar/scientist type, obsessed with data and research. i love that juxtaposed against link, who i, again, view as emotional and impulsive and more keen to act than think.

and then, on TOP of all that dynamic, you think about the implications of skyward sword being first in the timeline. that, to me, is what takes link & fi’s relationship from cute and interesting to absolutely heartwarming. i don’t mean this in a shippy way, but link and fi are utterly romantic.

at the end of the game, she goes to sleep in the sword forever, and it’s with a hesitance in her heart she doesn’t expect, because before her master she’s not known love and gratitude, we don’t even know if she knew she was capable at all. she doesn’t want to part with him, but she knows she has to, and thats why she says that prayer to him, that’s why its her last words as she’s fading–“may we meet again in another life.”

she doesn’t want to go. she wants to stay beside him, serving him, seeing the world with him, being the serenity and logic his wavering heart needs. she wants to remain the searing blade beneath his fingertips, protective and strong. she wants to stay beside her master, she wants to keep him safe from all they know is out there. she wishes, she hopes, she prays.

and for hundreds of thousands of years thereafter, link’s spirit breathes again and again and again. and for hundreds of thousands of years thereafter, he finds her in a forest grove with a beam of sunlight keeping her warm as she sleeps, and he holds her tight and reverently, and as long as time continues its march onward, they will always remain hand in hand.

until breath of the wild came out, i always found this a little bittersweet. they’re always together, but they can’t speak. fi knows link, but link doesn’t know fi in the same way–he knows he feels warm when he holds the master sword. he knows that the first time he lays eyes on it, it feels like a reunion, feels like he’s done it a million times before. he knows that he must bow his head in reverence as he draws it, not because of the sword’s power, but simply because he feels it’s what she–she?–deserves. but he doesn’t know what his previous life all those centuries ago knew. not that the sword has a smile, a laugh, a cadence, a face. not that she translates ancient runes into interpretive dance, not the way she sounds when she sings.

but botw knew i probably wasn’t the only one feeling this way.

the ambiguity of this line is beautiful. maybe there were a hundred links who journeyed far and wide and, in their most dire lows, heard a chime of ancient hylian from their sword that they knew spoke the truth of how they had to carry on. maybe it was just one solitary hero leaving gifts and offerings to a blade stuck in stone, whispering fears and anxieties to her and falling asleep at her pedestal.

whatever the case, fi lives. though she sleeps, she breathes. fi lives.

my tag for fi is “hand of sorrow” which is a song i associate with her, solely because it contains the line–

“still, i’ll be the hand that serves you, though you’ll not see that it is me.”

#agoldenshinywireofhope #wendy answers #wendy rambles #kin ramblings #song of the hero #to the sky #hand of sorrow #character: [is reckless and overemotional and impulsive]#other character: [is their patient calculating better half and also is blue and kinda their therapist]#me: OH FUCK [FALLS IN LOVE]

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