#and by pure coincidence the person she was texting is apparently related to someone with the same first name as me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dcjokerhs · 4 years

Text

So I've finally watched CA:CW.

And I hated it.

So I got the DVD copy of CA:CW so I could watch it with Subs and figure out what everyone else in the Fandom is screaming about beyond that last, iconic fight WHICH TURNS OUT TO BE NOT THST ICONIC 'CAUSE IT'S JUST A BLEND OF CHILDHOOD TRAUMA, PTSD, RAGE AND MISCOMMUNICATION ALLLLLLL WRAPPED INTO ONE, MASSIVE BATTLE-BURRITO!!

Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

We're shown the book, shown Bucky being put under, shown The Incident.

Cool: Bucky's innocent. Nice to know.

We have Lagos, we have a fight. That explosion seemed to me like it would take out more of the people on the ground had it gone off there, but we can't exactly see who's in that building, right? Can't see those casualties beyond Ross' Damned Photos.

But that Entire Thing was a set up! We are told Three Times that Crossbones had this planned, that he KNEW they'd be there. That's most likely why the guys dumped their gear, made of weapons and other handy stuff, because not only can you escape looking like a Civ, but now the Civs could mistake the attacks by the Avengers for "the payload" as attacks against Other Civs. That would stir up more unrest.

So they get home, America is five hours behind, so whilst Steve stews in PTSD brought on by Crossbones mentioning Bucky and Wanda listens to the TV saying a Wakandan Embassy had been in that building (hmm, how "coincidental", how "Convenient for Ross"?) We have Tony doing his talk at the University. Where he uses BARF, mind-bending technology to help people with Childhood Trauma, PTSD and any other memory-related problems. But then he's both slapped with Pepper Not Being There and Mrs Spencer and her Dead Son. When Tony is obviously not listening to the teacher wanting to get more money and the PA who's trying to apologize for the prompter problem, when There's Something Off.

He arrives back With Ross. We have no idea how long he's been speaking with him, and during Ross' Entire Speech he occasionally glances round, but looks mostly at Tony, as shown by a shot from over Steve's shoulder, where Tony is sitting.

The Guilt-Images are for all of the Avengers, but Ross probably knows by now as There Is No Lawyer or Third-party with Little to No Bias for a New Freaking Law that Directly Affects them.

Natasha asks "and if we don't sign?" And Ross says "You Retire", he is claiming this supposedly-democratic law not even in play yet as Already Firm Law.

Then Tony says "I have an electromagnetic headache" whilst visibly shaken and furious.

This being not long after his last use of New Technology that Uses Multiple Memories to form a moving 3D image. After he's seen one picture of a boy, heard one Mention on their name and Then Recites It Back To The Others.

I'm seeing a lot of coincidences and, you know what they say about those, right?

So all Tony can think about is Responsibility and his fears, he moves and speaks with fury whilst making coffee, a common stress-relief. He's locked up in his head with Anxiety and PTSD thumping on his brain.

So all Tony hears is his own fears being spoken aloud by the others, Vision doesn't even help by saying that world-threatening crime increased with Tony's appearance as Iron Man.

But Steve is hearing Tony and Rhodey basically backing up Ross. He hears them resoundly saying "these Accords won't give you a choice, these Accords Will Cage Us", like the ice encaged him, like Fury tried controlling them with HYDRA puppeteering them.

It's the same conversation, they're all just hearing different things.

Oh.

Then Steve gets a text saying Peggy's dead and he runs off without a word, because everything is Too Much and he just lost his last link to the past, the last person who remembers him not as Captain America, but as Titchy Squirt Steven Grant Rogers.

But Bucky's alive.

And he's Steve's last chance.

Else his PTSD and Imposter Syndrome is gunna screw him over.

Oh, and Sharon, who also said (for 18 seconds) a quote from Peggy about sticking it to the man, tells him they've been told, right after The Incident, to shoot on sight.

So he goes after him, activating Bucky's PTSD because he's a Prisoner of War, then destroying a tunnel and being made a criminal, before getting arrested and told No One is getting a Lawyer, which goes against Basic Constitutional Rights.

And what does he see when marched in, but Natasha acting like a worker drone because she's a spy and Tony walking down towards them like he's one of the leaders for the entire thing, calling someone on the phone "Sir".

And we can all think of Guy Number One for that, right?

I had to pause the movie again at this point because none of these Idiots communicate properly. They both run with thick prides and biases, like humans do, and screw up everything as they go.

Tony and Steve talk and they set eachother off about three times more, each. Tony shows the pens that started America into WW2, Steve asks about Pepper, Tony says about his Dad and Steve says "I met him", Tony says "I know, he told me a billion times and I gated you back then for it but now I just think you're kinda cool for your abilities" and then says about keeping Wanda in the compound, to which Steve yells at Tony (and believe me: when your dad just yells at you and someone he believes in yells at you, that's A Big Fucking Trigger Right There.)

So Tony leaves to cool off.

Then Sharon comes in, hands Steve the live feed of Bucky and Steve realises this all was another set up by the guy who then sets the Winter Soldier loose again.

Neither Steve nor Tony help Bucky with his PTSD and Steve is still determined to not be alone, to follow his "no man left behind" ideal but this time centered around the key comfort against his PTSD and Imposter Syndrome, who is Bucky. Even if Bucky's already unable to remember him well...

Until he does, after they Almost Drown again.

Yey! More Triggers!

So now Steve is terrified and suggests they go to Tony, but Sam says "No. Accords" and Steve's like "Yup, hecc we're going in the Buggy."

Cue Tony being told he has 36 hours.

Cue Peter once again speaking about Blame On The Witness and triggering Tony's self-guilt.

Cue The Next Fight Scene.

Cue Rhodey getting hurt by Steve's Team and Vision.

Steve and Bucky, meanwhile, stew in their own and eachother's PTSD, Imposter Syndrome and good old fashioned Guilt.

As Zemo escapes and gets to Sokovia as Tony finds out about Zemo.

Tony sets off Bucky and Steve again, they find Zemo as Bucky has Mega PTSD Material around him on All Sides, Tony has his Childhood Trauma brought up with the video of them dying Just After He Said To His Dad That He Loves Him (still don't agree with that, don't forgive your family for being abusive just because they're dead. Especially if they were never caught and tried for that crud.)

So Tony fights running on Fury and Trauma and Betrayal as Steve and Bucky fight based on Pure Fear, PTSD and not as much Imposter Syndrome as before but Steve just wants His Anchor and Bucky just wants to Live.

But the last few times Tony was Betrayed, he was almost killed.

That whole fight shouldn't have happened and it's Seriously Messed Up that it Did. My feelings were reflected in T'Challa's face as he sees that fight happen.

Then Tony is Abandoned, Again. No one trusts him anymore but for Rhodey and Some Kid in Queens.

And Steve loses Bucky, Again, because Bucky doesn't want to be a danger to anyone until he's fixed.

And that just, pardon my language, Pisses me the Hell Off.

Team Cap? Team Iron?

Fuck that, Neither Side was Right. Both were Wrong on So Many Levels, None of that was honestly the least bit legal and I was Horrified that Ross got away with What He Did because, at No Point, did they ask for the Avengers to say their side of things, at No Point did they say "you can ask questions about this set of Laws before they're put in place"-

WHEN LAWS LIKE THE DISCRIMINATION ACTS AND ARTICLE 13 WERE ANNOUNCED, MEDIA OUTLETS BROADCASTED TO EVERYONE ABOUT THE LAWS THAT WERE BEING ARRANGED AND DID THIS HAPPEN FOR THE ACCORDS?

NO! NO IT BLOODY DIDN'T!!

EVEN THOUGH IT WAS APPARENTLY A PLANET WIDE NEGOTIATION!!!

NONE OF THE NEWS OUTLETS EVEN MENTIONED IT WHEN IT WAS BROUGHT TO THE AVENGERS!! OTHERWISE MRS SPENCER WOULDN'T HAVE GONE TO SHOVE HER SON'S PICTURE INTO TONY'S CHEST!!!

WHAT!!! THE FUCK??!!

#marvel cinematic universe #avengers #captain america: civil war #ca:cw #ca: civil war #the avengers team #tony stark #steve rogers #iron man #captain america #bucky barnes #the winter soldier #this is messed up #i watched it and it was messed up #it's 4:30 am #I'm seriously making a fic out of this

5 notes · View notes

whisperingvictory · 6 years

Note

How about something connecting Johnny from.14 with Sonny? Maybe their the same person or twins? Maybe Barba is the one who puts it all together? Or even taking Johnny's back story minus the jail time and it could be Sonny's its just interesting to have the character in season so close to each other ya know?

Honestly there’s not much action in this little piece, but I hope its okay. And also this is why filling prompts takes me so long, because I mean them to be like 500 words and then they run away from me.

Sonny checked his phone with a sigh and grabbed his coat offthe back of his chair.

“Where ya going, Carisi?” Rollins asked, looking up from thefile she had been going over for the last few hours.

“Family thing, can you cover for me if the lieu asks where Iwent?” He glanced to Olivia’s closed door, and then back to Amanda as he slidhis jacket on in one deft swoop of his shoulders.

“Sure thing,” Amanda nodded, figuring it wasn’t really thetime to pry, but he was already at the elevator, jabbing the down button alittle too hard.

***

Rafael glanced at his phone as he stood outside of theelevator in Carisi’s building. It wasn’t like him to go silent for so long, infact usually he couldn’t get the detective to shut up. But Rafael had calledtwice, gotten the annoying voice mail twice, and had texted a few times too.Radio silence.

They were supposed to be meeting up to prepare testimony fora trial in two days. Sonny had testified plenty of times before, but Rafaelknew exactly how poorly it could go without the right testimony prepped. Butreally, if he was being honest with himself, that wasn’t why he’d ended upthere on a Tuesday night, twisting his hands nervously as he stepped into the elevatorto go up to the fourth floor.

He knocked on the door to Carisi’s apartment and took a stepback, a wave of indecision washing over his senses as he waited for a response.He could leave before the door opened, could reach the stairwell at least. Buthe paused, the silence persisting a little too long, and he turned on his heeljust before he heard the shuffling behind the door, a metal click of the lockopening and the door swung open.

“Caris-“ Rafael started, but the rest of his words caught inhis throat.

The man in front of him looked like Sonny, those samesapphire blue eyes, the same sharp nose, same soft curve of blush lips, but hishair was at his shoulders, face a little more gaunt, posture a little moreslumped.

“Can I help you?” he asked softly. No accent.

“Uh, sorry, who are you?” Rafael resisted the urge to rubhis eyes, maybe someone had spiked his coffee, maybe he’d hit his head and thiswas some sort of concussed hallucination.

The man glanced over his shoulder and Rafael heard thatfamiliar Staten Island accent, “hey, who’s at the door,” just inside of theapartment, Rafael could see a familiar, eerily familiar, face come into view.

“I-uh,” The man stuttered, stepping to the side.

“Counselor,” Sonny frowned, walking over to the door andRafael glanced between them before rubbing his eyes. Surely he was seeingdouble.

“I tried calling, we were supposed to go over yourtestimony,” Rafael held up the case file, almost apologetically, almost,shifting from one foot to the other.

“Shit,” Sonny frowned, and turned to his apparentdoppelganger, “you okay here if I head out for a bit? There’s a ton of leftovers in the fridge from my ma.” The man just nodded and retreated to thesafety of Sonny’s apartment.

Rafael let his eyes trail the man for a moment beforereturning his gaze to Sonny, who was collecting his coat.

“Come on, counselor, there’s a café just down the street,”Sonny suggested as he pushed past Rafael into the hallway, closing theapartment door behind him.

The silence between them persisted into the elevator and outonto the street. It wasn’t until they both had steaming mugs of coffee in hand,tucked into a booth in the back corner of the coffee shop that Rafael finallypierced the unspoken tension.

“So, that man…” he trailed off but the question was clear.

Sonny took a sip of his coffee and set the ceramic mug backon the table carefully before looking up at Rafael, “I’m surprised you don’trecognize him, honestly,” he remarked.

Rafael’s brows narrowed, “well I mean, you two lookidentical obviously…” but Sonny just shook his head.

“That’s not what I mean. Johnny Dubceck, you handled hiscase four years ago, assault,” Sonny’s gaze returned to the coffee mug.

“Dubceck?” Rafael tried the name out on his tongue. It wasfamiliar, the memories slowly coming back to him, “he assaulted the gymnasticscoach, I cut him a deal because of what happened to him with Martin…” his wordshung heavy in the silence. It had been one of the first cases with ManhattanSVU. He was stunned he’d never noticed the resemblance before.

Sonny nodded slowly.

“But, Dubceck?” Rafael’s confusion persisted. Theresemblance was too uncanny to be a coincidence. But the man clearly wasn’t aCarisi, hadn’t had the same Italian Catholic ubringing that Sonny had.

“He’s my brother,” Sonny confirmed, “twin actually,” headded thoughtfully before leaning back in his seat. “it’s a long story,counselor, you sure you want the details?” Sonny quirked an eyebrow almostteasingly.

Rafael never cared about the personal lives of hiscolleagues, it had taken him four years to grow a semblance of a friendshipwith Olivia, and everything he knew about the rest of them had come out incases he handled. A hazard of the profession. But Sonny. He hated how much hewanted to know about Sonny. At least in this instance, he had the guise of pureinsatiable curiosity. Mystery twin? Who’d have said no.

“I’ve got the time,” Rafael nodded, lifting his mug to hislips again, eyes trained on the detective.

“Well, I guess I’m not really sure where to start thestory,” Sonny stumbled under Rafael’s unwavering gaze, cheeks lightly flushed.“I was maybe ten years old, right? And my ma and pops were always frustratedwith me over summer break because I annoyed the hell out of Gina and Resa, andfought constantly with Bella ‘cause she wanted to tag along with everything,annoying kid sister and all,” Sonny started, not exactly what Rafael hadexpected though he really wasn’t sure exactly what he had expected.

“Anyway, they decided to send me to baseball camp for thesummer. I was totally stoked, ya know? Except I get there, and everyone’scalling me Johnny - I wasn’t the most athletic kid, so I just kinda figured itwas some sort of joke.”

Rafael’s stomach churned uncomfortably. He knew the feelingall too well, but he held is tongue, resisting the urge to interrupt the story.

“But the third day, I run into this kid, and its likelooking into a mirror. Same face, same scrawny body, same birthday. We wereonly ten and neither of us thought we were adopted, so we couldn’t explain it,”Sonny shrugged his shoulders, and Rafael could see a familiar expression settleon Sonny’s face, the one when he felt like he had failed a victim, guilt.

“We hung out the whole summer, thick as thieves. I even gavehim my favorite Mets teeshirt at the end of camp…”

Rafael felt a pang in his chest, remembering testimony fromthe case. He wondered, for a moment, if Sonny knew what Martin had said, aboutJohnny wearing a ratty orange Mets shirt everyday.

“We exchanged numbers, said we were going to keep in touch,but when I got home and tried to call, the number was disconnected. Honestly Ialmost forgot about it, assumed that we had exaggerated our similarities. Thenone day, back when I was still a patrol cop, I got a call from my captain, theysat me down and said that they needed a new DNA sample because somehow my entryin the database had been corrupted, that another precinct had a guy convincedof drug possession and that his DNA kept coming back as a match for mine. Butwhen we got ahold of the case file, it was Johnny.”

Rafael could hardly believe what Sonny was saying, wouldn’thave, if he hadn’t seen them both together.

“After that,” Sonny continued after another sip of hiscoffee, “I couldn’t really deny the relation. Having identical DNA is hard todispute, so I started pushing, thought my ma and pops had to be lying aboutsomething, but they swore up and down they couldn’t explain it, and reallydidn’t seem like them to give up a baby, you know? There’s four of us already.Eventually I went to see Mrs. Dubceck. I thought she was going to have a heartattack when she saw me, and she finally admitted that Johnny had been adopted.”

Sonny paused, taking a deep, steadying breath. “After that Ihunted down the doctor who handled my mother’s pregnancy, but turns out he’ddied like ten years back, but I found a nurse who had been in the operatingroom. Apparently there had been complications and they knocked my mom out. The doctorhadn’t realized there were twins, or knew and didn’t tell my ma, but anyway heput one up for adoption and charged a steep finder’s fee, according to thenurse’s recollection.”

Sonny shook his head, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Sohere we are, the living embodiment of nature versus nurture, and I just sohappened to get the lucky draw.”

Rafael’s hands clenched around his mug. What was he supposedto say to that? What could anyone say?

“He just got out on parole,” Sonny added after a moment.“His mom died while he was in prison, so he doesn’t have anyone else, and Icouldn’t turn him away, he’s family. And well, he could have been me.”

Rafael reached out, in a split second of reckless abandon,and wrapped his hand around Sonny’s, squeezing with a gentle earnesty thatSonny had never seen before.

He spoke slowly, “it does no good to stew in guilt aboutending up with luck. You had no say in what happened, its not your fault he gotthe short end of the stick.”

Sonny hadn’t realized he’d been that transparent, but thenRafael seemed to know what he was thinking. He swallowed the objections in histhroat.

“Sonny…” The use of his name caught the detective bysurprise, Rafael had never… “If anyone can help him pick up the pieces and gethis life back together, its you.”

Sonny glanced up, searching Rafael’s deep green eyes for ahint of snark, or sarcasm. But all he found there was compassion, andunderstanding. His stomach flipped uncomfortably, and his hand tightened aroundRafael’s. There was something else there too, tender, if Sonny didn’t know anybetter, he might have thought it was love.

#barisi #sonny carisi #rafael barba #johnny dubceck

25 notes · View notes

vorthosjay · 7 years

Text

Ixalan: A First Look

Ixalan! The new set seems to have all the ingredients for pure insanity, I don’t even know how to begin. Thankfully, the name was changed from Atlazan to avoid the ‘Atlantis’ confusion that continually popped up (for the record, it was a reference to Aztlan, a lost Aztec city). Instead, the story seems focused on the myth of El Dorado, with a number of factions vying for control of the hidden city of Orazca.

For centuries, the untamed jungles of Ixalan have hidden a coveted secret: Orazca, the city of gold. But no secret can remain undiscovered, and no treasure can be taken uncontested. Unfurl your sails, saddle up a dinosaur, and battle your rivals as you embark on a journey to claim the plane’s greatest fortune for yourself!

Wizards of the Coast does not hold back this set, and I think the key art can best sum it up.

Ixalan Key Art

Unfortunately, the massive nature of the June Ixalan leak means I have to talk about it here. While most of this is still speculation, we have learned about about the factions on Ixalan and most of the planeswalkers we’ll meet. This is likely all stuff you’ll know in a couple weeks anyway, but be forewarned! Please, do not reblog this with additional details from the leak. If I omitted something it’s for a reason. Any other ideas are welcome.

SPOILERS AFTER THE BREAK

Factions

There are four known factions, which are perfectly color balanced if uneven (two are shard-color, two are enemy-color).

The Empire of the Sun

Colors: Red-Green-White

Main Tribe: Dinosaurs

The Empire of the Sun are the natives of the jungles of Ixalan. Presumably, they’re defending their home against the rest of the factions, who are invaders. It’s not clear if they already control Orazca or not when the plot begins. They clearly worship the sun, which they view as a god of some kind. They have a connection to the dinosaurs of the jungle, with carnivorous dinosaurs making up their known mounts (both T-Rex and Raptor). What’s interesting is that the sun seems to go through phases, and there are dinosaurs that are avatars of the sun of each phase. Those avatars and phases coincide with the Red-Green-White color scheme.

Even more intriguingly, we see the set’s native planeswalker holding a halberd with a dragon banner. Could the sun, or Orazca itself, have something to do with a known dragon? Either Bolas or Ugin, or perhaps someone new (or very old).

We don’t know the name of the planeswalker affiliated with the Empire of the Sun yet. In the bottom right hand corner, there’s a mural on the wall that’s very hard to make out, but it involves a red phoenix-looking bird facing off against a long-necked saurian figure (perhaps a dragon or dinosaur).

Rivals of Ixalan Key Art

Pirates

Colors: Blue-Black-Red

Main Tribe: Pirates

The pirates of Ixalan are many. I’ve got a feeling they’re not all a united front, given that we have multiple legendary captains. Based what we’ve seen so far, not all the pirates will have the same motivations, either. They’re looking for Orazca just like everyone else, and ultimately want to exploit it, but that by no means makes them allies. I would expect some interesting rivalries among the pirate bands.

“Just imagine what’s waiting around the bend. Adventure. Discovery. Riches for the taking. This is why I sail.” —Captain Lannery Storm

We know of Captain Lannery Storm from the leak and from the art book. We also know that Vraska is in the same kind of garb as the pirates (gosh, who could have noticed that?) and is even if the key art with them. She’s likely a Captain in her own right. I have an idea of another planeswalker who would round out the pirate role nicely, but more on that in a minute. Interestingly, Orcs and Harpies seem to show up among the Pirates.

The Merfolk Empire

Colors: Green-Blue

Main Tribe: Merfolk

We know very little about the Merfolk Empire, but from what we can gather they’re probably not allies of the Empire of the Sun. Interestingly, neither do they appear to be after Orazca. They don’t show up in the Rivals of Ixalan Key art, which depicts the three other factions. It’s possible the Merfolk are the first obstacle the Pirates and Vampires encounter, and they’re simply hunting down the invaders rather than chasing down Orazca.

The Vampire Religion

Colors: White-Black

Main Tribe: Vampires

We don’t know much more about Ixalan’s Vampires than we do the Merfolk. They’re a religion of some kind, presumably around darkness. I would imagine their religion of darkness or the night would be directly opposed to the Empire of the Sun’s god. Perhaps they’re coming to eliminate a rival? Perhaps they know something we do not? At this point, we can only guess. Although white-black vampires on a plane were I suspect Ugin leads to some interesting conclusions.

Planeswalkers

Vraska

Vraska is the first and most prominently featured of Ixalan’s planeswalkers. Whatever she’s up to, it can’t possibly be good. One of our biggest clues here is that she disappeared from Ral Zarek’s planeswalker detector.

Ral gave an impatient flick of his hand. "The experiment performed perfectly. The pattern of the departure was authentic, but the endpoint recorded as anomalous. Vraska hasn't been seen since. It's like she planeswalked into a void."

I can only imagine the reason this was brought up is because this relates directly to Vraska and Ixalan. So why is Ixalan a void? Is there a connection between the tomb that her pal Mazirek unearthed and Ixalan or Orazca? I can only guess at this point. The most likely reason has to do with another planeswalker I think is involved. And of course, now that we know Ral Zarek pointed Jace toward Vraska, and a piece of flavor text from the leak seems to imply Bolas gave Vraska a compass of some kind, we can assume his involvement as well.

Mystery Warrior

This mystery warropr, first revealed on the ‘Conquest of Power’ booster test, belongs to the Empire of the Sun. Other than that, she’s clearly has a connection to dinosaurs, but beyond that we don’t know anything about her.

Jace Beleren

JACE? Yup. Apparently after Jace’s ill-fated run in with Nicol Bolas, he somehow ends up on Ixalan. As to why he doesn’t just planeswalk away again? Likely either something to do with that unique nature of Ixalan, or because he legit doesn’t know that he’s a planeswalker. Either way, I think we will see Jace as a reluctant pirate, probably forced to join with Vraska for a common goal. If he even knows who she is. Considering he was very close to mind death when he planeswalked away, he’s probably full amnesiac, and I suspect Vraska will be taking advantage of the wayward guildpact.

Ajani Goldmane

Ajani? Well someone has to save Jace’s butt, and who better than Magic’s original Mesoamerican planeswalker. Ajani has a new hairdo and some eye shadow going on there, but he’ll be back. “But Jay, it was just a test.” Hush now. I hope after Amonkhet we can skip straight past the ‘it was just a test’ thing and go straight into believing that Wizards didn’t commission Ajani art for a test. Like our Mystery Lady and Vraska, it might not be his actual planeswalker art, but he’s there.

Speculative Walkers

Tibalt

Tibalt! Yup. Let’s talk for a second about color distribution. Knowing four planeswalkers in advance is really telling when it comes to speculating on a fifth. Here’s what we know of their colors, and the color distribution that creates:

Vraska: Green 0.5, Black 0.5

Jace: Blue 1.0

Mystery Warrior: White 0.5, Red 0.5

Ajani: White 0.5, Green 0.5

So that leaves us with 0.5 Black and 0.5 Red. Which just so happen to be Tibalt’s Colors. And Tibalt would make a pretty great Pirate, wouldn’t he?

And given the reveal that Ral Zarek has been working for Bolas...

Ugin

Ugin, as a colorless planeswalker, does nothing to the color distribution. Given the heavy dragon themes we’ve seen so far, and how well Ugin as a feathered dragon matches up with the Aztec god Quetzlcoatl, whose domain was wind and learning. It seems to me that he’d be a perfect fit for this plane. Perhaps this was a place where he once did ‘something’ and must return, much like his work on Zendikar? But what would he have done? I’ll talk more about that in a moment.

It is worth noting that the vision Jace has of a ‘crystal mind’ in Hour of Devastation matches up to the description of Ugin’s mind from BFZ block. Might Ugin have influenced Jace into arriving on Ixalan of all places? It seems likely. In Hour of Devastation, a look at Bolas’s mind reminds Jace of something else.

The walls around the dragon's mind were smooth and featureless, like dark obsidian. There seemed to be no entry, nothing to even latch onto. Jace had never encountered a mind so impenetrable, except for . . . the merest moment of a memory surfaced of a mind as smooth and dazzling as a wall of crystal. But even as the thought entered his mind, it erased itself, and he could not remember where he had seen such a thing—or even what kind of thing it was.

What . . . Jace shook off the sudden fugue that had overtaken him. It hadn't seemed to come from Bolas, but rather from inside himself. What was I thinking about? But he could not recall. Bolas's mind still loomed in front of him, closed and locked, as he futilely sought purchase.

Whose mind did Bolas’s remind Jace of? Well, in Revelation at the Eye, Ugin’s mind is described exactly the same way.

Jace had assumed Ugin was long dead, if indeed Ugin had ever been a person at all. Yet here he was, in the luminous flesh. Jace tried to read the great being's mind, to verify his story, but found it as smooth and dazzling as a wall of crystal.

And who better to ‘hide’ Ixalan (hence Vraska walking into a seeming void) than Ugin, whose own magic is used to disguise and hide on Tarkir in the form of Morph and Megamorph.

Sorin

As kind of an outlier here, way back in the Lithomancer it’s clear that Ugin and Sorin had met sometime before they joined forces against the Eldrazi. Given the presence of white-black Vampires on the plane, perhaps Sorin was also present on Ixalan? I doubt it, personally (mostly because Innistradi vampires are red, too), but it’s worth bringing up.

Ixalan’s Sun and Rebirth

Suns play an important part in Aztec culture. The Five Suns references the creation myth associated with those legends, which are somewhat important for a plane based on the culture. I’ll distill it down to the essence: each sun represents an apocalypse and rebirth for the people of the universe, for various reasons.

So... how does that apply to Ixalan? If the Sun is actual divinity (given the avatars, I’m going with yes), Ixalan’s plot is following the Vampire Priests as they attempt to extinguish the sun and bring rebirth to the plane. If they believe this is the order of things, it explains why they’re white (besides the whole organized religion thing), and how some of them are mono-white. Given their propensity for darkness, I wonder if something more is up with Ixalan’s sun. For instance, does it ever actually set? We’ve seen planes with odd day/night cycles before. And it’s possible like many other planes, the Mending has affected Ixalan’s metaphysics in some way. It’s too soon to know for sure exactly what’s going on, but it definitely involves the day/night dynamic in some way.

The idea that darkness is fighting against the light is supported by the Nissa’s vision from The Hand That Moves, which I’ve previously attributed to Theros:

She saw a young man, his face erased, stumbling among a garden of statues. High above the man a growing cloud of dusk attacked the sun. From somewhere outside the garden there was a mighty roar.

The young man is Jace. The garden of statues are the people Vraska has been transforming. The dusk attacking the sun is the invasion of the Vampire Priests, with their goal of bringing darkness to the plane. That mighty roar? A dragon (as depicted on the banner or the mural). Maybe Ugin? Maybe someone else? Maybe even Ajani, as I originally speculated for Theros.

Orazca and the Gods

We should also all keep in mind that El Dorado was never a real place. It’s likely that Orazca is not what it seems. It’s NOT just some city of gold, as the pirates probably believe. But if not that... what? I think the key lies in the mural hidden way in the back of the Rivals of Ixalan key art. Notice we have two figures in opposition:

The figure on the left is bird-like and reminiscent of Quetzlcoatl. The one on the right is terrestrial and is vaguely reminiscent of statues of Xiuhcoatl or perhaps Xolotl. Xiuhcoatl was the spirit form of Xiuhtecuhtli, the god of fire, day, and heat. Which, if this is indeed a parallel, explains the warrior’s fiery chest piece. I genuinely don’t know very much about mesoamerican cultures to say more, but it seems to me like Ixalan is intended to riff on the Aztec creation myth, with an epic confrontation between gods (although probably not creature type gods) for the rebirth of the plane.

So what’s the significance of Orazca? Perhaps it’s the place where such a switch could take place. Where one could tap in to the power of the sun, hence the warrior glowing when she does not in other images.

I’ve suggested Palladia-Mors in the past, half-jokingly. There’s little more to go on there than a potential Ugin connection and a battle between Elder Dragons. Still, it’s worth taking note! There was, or still is, an epic conflict here between day and night!

We’ll know more soon, and I’ll be back with more speculation once we have official word.

#mtgxln #mtgrix #vorthos #archive trap blog

178 notes · View notes

jess511 · 7 years

Text

“The Six Thatchers” thoughts!

THIS POST CONTAINS MANY AND MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR “THE SIX THATCHERS” IN DETAIL.

IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE SPOILED DO NO LOOK ANY FURTHER!!!

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

Okay. As I’m starting this it’s been nearly 24 hours since the end of the first episode of series 4 of Sherlock. In that time I’ve had quite a few discussions and watched little bits again and I’ve just done a full re-watch for the first time and I watched with my dad who was watching for the first time. I made some notes while I watched. A lot of these are things I've gathered from around the fandom but some are my own - or at least ideas i haven’t seen anywhere else yet!

Part of this is to join in the discussion. Part of it is just to get it all out of my head!

This is mostly in chronological order of events in the episode though I do jump around a bit when I get things like are linked together.

(Also i haven’t proof read this because effort so apologies for any inconvenience).

I want to actually just start with my thoughts on the John cheating plot-line as this seems to be the thing that has caused the most discussion (and rightly so. I think reactions to this particular thing are very different and often personal to each viewer).

· I believe/know that Little Miss Bus Stop (Tor I stole your name sorry...i love it) or “E” or “Elizabeth” as she will be known, will be back. I am hoping this will elaborate on the story-line and we will see things clearly. I suspect she has been sent in to get to John/Sherlock but this still doesn’t mean John had to do what he did.

Purely based on what we have been led to believe so far here are my thoughts:

· I believe the implications were it went no further than texting such as “it was nice getting to know you a little”.

· I think it is one of the many debates in the world as to whether this counts as cheating. Example, my dad who just watched it with me was like hmm *shrug*, whereas I would say it does. It is as least an emotional affair. The intent behind it seems to be there.

· Contrary to some believes I do not think it was particularly out of character for John based on what we have seen from him in the previous series’.

o See the “addicted to a certain lifestyle” scene in HLV, he has Sherlock Holmes as a best friend and an assassin as a wife. “Because you chose her” “he’s right, it’s what you like”.

o The man has never been perfect. He missed being in the war he is absolutely addicted to risk taking on whatever scale – hence his happiness around Sherlock and backed up by the fact he was happily storming a drug den for something interesting to do 1 month into married life.

o The man is the biggest flirt on the planet and never seemed to be a particularly good boyfriend.

o I admit I do believe we have been shown he is loyal. This is the one trait that I thought got a kick in the teeth and I am very much aware that it is very different being a bit of a flirt when you’re single or just started dating than being married with a child so I understand that.

o He does have “trust issues” though. Maybe the lying from Mary set that off. Who knows? He trusts Sherlock though. Usually.

· “I always liked Mary” “Me too…I used to”. I’m interested in what he meant by this and when he decided he wasn’t so keen.

· John is one angry man with a lot of issues and flaws. I adore him though he clearly can be a bit of a twat, and I believe he is generally a good man. Not unlike another main character of our show. Sherlock also being one of the reasons I just cannot hate John. Sherlock loves him so much.

ANYWAY where was I?

· I’m going to need more of Sherlock and Rosie in the future. That was ADORABLE.

· I thought the car seat case was amazing! Really clever albeit brief. I’ve actually just been having conversations about theories with a friend – I love this fandom – and we were talking about Lestrade using the word “Strasse” (German for ‘street’) when saying “right up your Strasse”. Odd choice of word. Though could just be Lestrade having a bit of fun and just putting the word in there and nothing more. This led to conversations about further references to Germany like the conversation about ‘Ostalgie’ (the German phrase from, if I remember correctly from my German A Level days watching “Goodbye! Lenin” that describes nostalgia from when Germany was split into East and West. After the wall fell there was nostalgia (nostalgie) for how it used to be in East (Ost) Germany. Actual Germans or historians or just people generally may correct me on that. This led to (it’s coming back round I promise) my saying that it is probably a complete coincidence because I don’t think this is famous or common knowledge, but we were once told by my German teacher that someone successfully escaped across the Berlin wall by sewing themselves into a car seat. I kept thinking about that during this case! Maybe Mark Gatiss just likes the Cold War or that time period. Wasn’t “Cold War” the title of a recent Doctor Who episode of his? Plus he wrote “Hounds” which had a few Thatcher references…something you want to tell us Mark?

· John’s wink when he hung up the phone with Mary – lols you dawggg

· “Giles” has to be my new favourite Lestrade name.

· Enjoyed the Thatcher bashing personally. Probably a product of growing up with my father who agreed with Sherlock and said “yes I’d have smashed everything up”.

· The past catching up with you and consequences of your actions seem to be a very strong theme in this series. It’s been hinted at by Mofftiss before it even aired but we can see it’s definitely the case so far! Especially with the Merchant in Baghdad/Sumarra story (fun little canon reference when Mycroft said Sherlock wrote his own version where the merchant went to Sumatra. “The Giant Rat of Sumatra” is a Conan Doyle story). Excited to see what else awaits us.

· Mycroft looking at babies related to me on many levels. No seriously I love babies they’re adorable but it was super amusing. I love that Sherlock is showing her off. He’s such a part of that little family.

· Sherlock with dogs is my new favourite thing. He’s so cute. He loves them!! Apparently Toby the dog was from the original story of “Sign of Four” where we were introduced to Mary. May have just been a fun addition to the episode; may have been some other link to Redbeard? *wavy arms* who knows?

· Speaking of the dog – I’m willing to bet a lot on the fact that, that scene where they discussed how little he is moving was just written in on the day because the dog was, in fact, not moving. Dog-cam also amused me very much!

· Also just had a small conversation about angel/devil references throughout this episode. He told us what he thinks of God when asked to be godparent. There was a discussion about Rosie being the devil/antichrist (I know in a light-hearted way) and I’ve seen some link the name “Gabriel” from AGRA to Angel Gabriel. Though now! Clever people of the fandom have come across another Gabrielle (unless it’s pronounced differently). Gabrielle Ashdown is apparently a character from Mofftiss favourite “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes”. This was used as one of Mary’s aliases when she was travelling.

· Also heard one or two things about rose necklaces. I didn’t notice Elizabeth’s but apparently she had one. Did Mary have some on her necklace too? I could be completely making that up I’ll have to look back.

· I was so on the ball with “who’s texting John?” As soon as we saw him getting the text in bed it was at the back of my mind until we found out.

· The fight scene in the swimming pool. Sherlock should not be allowed near swimming pools. It doesn’t seem to go well for him. From a shallow point of view it was absolutely beautiful. Sherlock doing those awesome moves and then getting soaked. Woof. But also, similar (sort of) to the scene where Sherlock is shot in HLV, it is a testament to the quality of the show that I can be 100% certain Sherlock will not be killed but I’m still sat there going “OH MY GOD SHERLOCK PLEASE BE OKAY OH NO OH NO” and freaking out. So good. You’d think someone in the house might have heard the noise. Maybe that’s where the police came from. Or maybe the house was just too big and the bedrooms were on the other side.

· The reveal of the AGRA memory stick in the bust was...amazing! I gasped out loud! The mood changed dramatically right from that moment for the rest of the episode! Dad was pointing out all sorts of holes about the memory sticks as a form of protection. What happened to the other two members of AGRA if at least one of them got caught? Did they have their memory sticks on them? Did they hide them? Surely keeping hold of them ensures that if one of you is captured then everything is exposed? Haha. I don’t know, dad thinks about these things more than I do. I don’t think we’re supposed to think too hard about that one. I was also super slow at working out what her “R” stood for. John had to tell me.

· For fans of the score there were lots of little repeated bits of music especially from series 3. When Sherlock did that huge fake deduction about the man’s wife we could hear “How It Was Done” from the start of TEH. There were quite a few little bits and bobs surrounding Mycroft as well, just general sort of Reichenbach-y foreboding bits of score. But during Mary and Sherlock meeting in that secret room & him telling her he would keep her safe (LOVED that part by the way...Sherlock I love you. See also “is that sentiment talking?” “No it’s me” Sherlock. How do you perfect) they played music the same as or very similar to “The Lie in Leinster Gardens” from series 3. Makes sense, as that is when we learn about Mary’s past and the situations fit together. Gut wrenching piece of music that one though. 2:33 in the TLILG track is when John is revealed to have been sitting at the end of the corridor and it tears my heart to pieces every time I hear it. Also when John and Mary were chatting after they followed her and she said she wanted to keep them safe, it played their sort of theme. There are quite a few variations on that theme. You can hear it right at the end of “Addicted to a Certain Lifestyle” as a slightly sad and warped version. The nice happy version is the one Sherlock plays for their first dance.

· Have I already mentioned about Vow’s being a big theme in this episode??? Sherlock often stresses about having made his vow to protect John, Mary and Rosie and takes this very seriously. Saying it to Mary and to Mycroft. When John directs his anger at him towards the end saying “you made a vow” it’s a very genius moment because in a way it could be seen as John’s guilt for his sneaky situations coming through and him saying those words to himself – referring to his marriage vows which he has not been very good with as we know.

· THE REDBEARD DREAM. What is this about?! They could have shown him dreaming about anything if they wanted it to be random, they didn’t have to show it at all, what does it mean! I think it’s hinting towards his childhood. This theme about things from the past catching up with him (also Sherrinford? No idea what they are going to do with that name but maybe it could be connected?) is very strong indeed. Maybe something happened when he was a child? We had Redbeard brought up when he was “losing” John to marriage. And Mycroft had it written down in his little notebook. It clearly affected him somehow. We’ve seen his love of dogs and in HLV he found Redbeard in his mind palace to calm down. I hope we see more of Redbeard – I really want to know more! Plus he’s a beautiful dog. Speaking of this dream, when Sherlock is with Ella (therapist) at the end she mentions a recurring dream. I wonder if this is the dream we saw. There were thoughts floating around that maybe after losing Mary, it was the first time Sherlock had really experienced a huge loss since his dog. But then why would he have this dream before she died? Curious!

· Now would be a good time to bring up the Sherlock family theme that I picked up on my re-watch. So we’ve had hints at his childhood and we’ve had hints and Redbeard and we’ve had hints at Sherrinford (again, no idea what they’re going to do with that but historically – though not canonically by ACD – he has been said to be another brother of Mycroft and Sherlock. This is backed up a little by Mycroft’s “you know what happened to the other one”) plus they gave Sherrinford as a clue when it came to the 3 episodes “Thatcher, Smith, Sherrinford”. The fact they’ve shoved it in our face makes me think it won’t be what we expect. When is it with this show? But anyway, Sherlock made a few references to family I picked up. He said “families fall out” to Mary when she described AGRA as such. He was playing “happy families” with the young man when Mary came across him and he seemed to be having trouble with the game “maybe because I don’t understand the concept of happy families”. Later, though this could be me just looking too hard, when Sherlock is deducing Norbury she mentions she is widowed and has cats. If she had been divorced she may have found another partner but widowed meant she had gone for cats as “pets fill the void, so I’ve heard” (paraphrasing). I wonder if Redbeard was to fill a void.

· Speaking of travelling Mary! I found her American persona on the plane totally random. I wonder if that actually came from anywhere. I don’t know whether I missed some kind of reason for her acting the way she did or whether that was just part of her character. ALSO some very clever people have looked into this “roll of the dice” method Mary used for travelling and at one point she goes to Norway. Now apparently, in reference to the post credits scene “Go to Hell Sherlock”, there is a village in Norway called Hell. What a fun place to live that must be. Connected? Let’s hope so. (Also I was momentarily confused because we saw her being random with the dice but she came across a hiding place of some of her fake documents at one point? Though maybe it was just part of the montage that at some point she went to that place and it wasn’t necessarily the place they had referenced like Norway or such).

· That “Go to Hell Sherlock” moment has sparked some conversations for me too. Not at any point did I believe she was saying it as a form of “piss off” or harsh word. I took it initially to mean he may have to go to hell and back to save John, as per her case. We’re not meant to know right now, that much is clear.

· I also had a conversation about whether Sherlock had seen that moment. It was compared to Moriarty’s “Miss Me” message from the end of HLV. After the credits there was a more ‘real’ version of it that only we saw. However, I do not think that “go to hell Sherlock” was just for us. I am personally quite sure it was part of her message that Sherlock watched and we were just shown it after the credits as a little tease and something to make us think before the next episodes.

· Mary does a lot of telling John he’s perfect and that he’s a good man and that she doesn’t deserve him. I think these moments were put in to hit home that we’ve seen now that John certainly is not all sunshine and daisies when it comes to the two of them and you can see his guilt is a problem for him. At least he did feel guilty. What is rough for him is that he was going to tell Mary about it just before they went to the aquarium and now (unless we hear otherwise in future episodes that she knew all about it or something) he’s not going to get closure on that situation. Which is rough, but he does deserve to have a hard time for that really.

· Now I don’t know Latin but I felt very pleased with myself for remembering the “love” codename once Mycroft started translating for us. Then I was on their wavelength with Lady Smallwood. I wonder who the other names were for. Pawlock seems to make sense at being Sherlock doesn’t it? (Another dog/pet reference?) There was also “Antarctica” and another I can’t remember. I wonder if Mycroft “ice man” Holmes is Antarctica.

· Also once they had been proved wrong and Sherlock had the penny-drop moment on the bridge a fly on the wall well have heard me exclaim “*GASP* VIVIENNE! VIVIENNE AND HER ICE LOLLIES!!” I love getting involved with the plot. I did have a similar thought to my dad briefly that it was the ambassador in Georgia but I guess not!

· The cheating stuff, well I mentioned all that at the top. I was giggling at the seemingly innocent moment on the bus but then there was lots of shaking my head and going “come on John you’re better than this”. Also, this is probably an absolute coincidence but after John gets Elizabeth’s number and we see him look at his phone just before he nearly throws it away, the shot angle is very similar to the scene in “Scandal in Belgravia” where we see Moriarty texting Mycroft in front of Big Ben and blowing a raspberry as he sends it. There is even a tall building behind John. Fun!

· Anyone spot the poster of Toby Jones on the bus stop when John got off to see Elizabeth sat there? I feel like this might have been a hint to suggest the two are related in one way or another as she will be back for episode two. Also we didn’t see what happened when he got off the bus having sent the “this isn’t a good idea” text. Did they leave it? Did they talk? Maybe we’ll find out.

· Mary’s death. It’s amazing when something manages to be such a surprise and almost not at the same time. Mary dies in the canon stories so we assumed it would happen eventually. I thought it was quite possible it could happen this series. But in the ACD stories she dies randomly in a hiatus and we don’t hear much about what happened other than she died. When they were in the aquarium vs Vivienne I briefly thought she might shoot Mary, then as the bullet was flying at Sherlock I thought Mary may do what she did. But even with these thoughts in my mind I was absolutely shocked and heartbroken when it happened. Many sobs.

· John’s reaction. Martin Freeman you absolutely destroy me. In my re-watch today I was doing okay without crying up until Mary said “you were my whole world” and he looked up in pain. Then the tears came again. I know there were some amused conversations about his reaction noises (I think Martin does grief noises in an interesting way haha see The Hobbit for another example) but honestly I found them absolutely heart-shattering. So powerful and raw. Really hit me hard again even on my re-watch.

· Poor Sherlock at this point going to comfort John and then getting quite a lot of (possibly partially misdirected) anger. He couldn’t have stopped Mary saving him and he was so upset too. He clearly feels crap about it. He maybe could have not pissed off Vivienne enough to make her try and surprise him, but John wasn’t there for that part. I think the anger reaction is our John all over though; he’s a very angry man. Sherlock understands John at this stage I think. He’s not storming round demanding John see sense. In HLV when John was angry at Mary’s reveal Sherlock was encouraging him to stay calm. He gets him. I’m sure they’ll be okay again soon.

· Speaking of Sherlock feeling bad, that conversation with Mrs Hudson was heart-breaking about using the word Norbury to remind him what being too big-headed and sure of himself can lead to. I’ve not read them but I’m told apparently this is a reference to the canon story of The Yellow Face. Where Sherlock asks, possibly, Watson to use this word to remind him of his failures.

· Also the deflated John balloon that’s still in the flat at this point is kind of heart-breaking and symbolic.

· I love the idea that Mycroft has like 12 take-out menus on his fridge. Maybe he can’t cook. Maybe he has no time to shop. What does “13th” mean?! He was being put through to “Sherrinford”. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? I NEED TO KNOW NOW!

· Hopefully we’ll see what John has written on that note Molly gave to Sherlock in the next episode. I hope it’s not something really nasty. Poor Sherlock and poor Molly for having to deliver the message. “Anyone but you” John, your twatness is showing. Stop it.

· “SAVE JOHN WATSON”. Interested to learn more about this. But it gave me fuzzy feels that this show really is massively about these two boys and their friendship. Moments like this make me happy and I give Mofftiss a metaphorical hug. Go and save John, Sherlock! Mary says it will be very difficult. I guess she knew that if she died it would cause a lot of issues for him.

· Final point, I saw a few theories floating around about the fact that when we’ve seen the same scenes twice for one reason or another throughout this episode, things were slightly different like dialogue or inflection of speech. Personally I would just put this down to a continuity think but I really did notice it in the two instances we heard Mary say “when I’m gone, if I’m gone”. The first time was quite straight forward in her video. The second time we heard it as Sherlock was walking and she sounded much more upset. It could be absolutely nothing but I’ll keep it at the back of my mind! You never know with this darn show!

Shout-out to Sherlock who is pretty much perfect in this episode. He is such an understanding and kind a pure and beautiful and precious human being he’s come so far from that sociopath act. Though the big-headed deductions that managed to piss off Norbury weren’t very good. But poor man, he lost a friend too. He didn’t ask Mary to save him.

Also shout-out to Benedict who had to learn two really long fast complicated bits of dialogue that both turned out to be pointless lies! Poor boy.

Double finally, my updated thoughts on Rosie.

Before series 4 started the one thing I couldn’t get my head around was WHY BRING IN A NON-CANON BABY? My reasons I could think of up until that point were:

- To make the “sign of three” pun (that would be stretching it)

- To make John not leave Mary after shooting Sherlock (they didn’t make it about her baby so I think they could have done that anyway)

- Other

Also, what would they do with it? Since it is non-canon:

- Would Mary die and leave John and Sherlock with a baby – how would that even work out? (turns out...this has happened so I’m even more confused)

- Would Mofftiss be so cruel as to bring in the baby just to kill her off? Bit much?

- The baby could be not John’s but Mary shot Sherlock to keep John from leaving her so I doubt she had a casual cheat (unless it turns out she did and john was getting revenge this whole time!.....i doubt it…)

Basically I’m still not sure why they brought the baby in. Maybe the reasons are yet to be unveiled. But some new ones I was trying to think of having seen TST:

- Making the Rosamund name thing more meaningful? Again, could have found out her real name without it being linked to the baby

- To have a reason for both Mary and John not to be somewhere (aquarium) at the same time? (Though Mary could have still jumped in front of Sherlock with John there maybe?)

- Somehow adding something to this cheating plot-line? I’m clutching at straws there though.

Other ideas welcome!

I don’t usually do the whole big theorising thing but this was a fun post! I think i needed to get all the thoughts out of my head mostly haha!

#sherlock #sherlock series 4 #sherlock series 4 spoilers #sherlock spoilers #sherlock season 4 #sherlock season 4 spoilers #spoilers #major spoilers #sherlock bbc #bbc sherlock #series 4 #season 4 #major sherlock spoilers #tagging like the devil #mine

7 notes · View notes

hermanwatts · 4 years

Text

L. Sprague de Camp’s “Pusad” Series

This is a guest blog post from Richard who has contributed a few items over the years. I looked at L. Sprague de Camp’s “The Stronger Spell” a few weeks back. Richard has recently read or re-read the stories in the series and has an opinion:

L. Sprague de Camp’s discovery of heroic fantasy through reading Gnome’s CONAN THE CONQUEROR in 1950 had two distinct consequences. The first was of course the Gollum like pursuit of his precious Cimmerian loot, an endeavour which would keep him happily occupied for the rest of his days. But the second was the inexplicable urge to write something of his own in the same vein. I say inexplicable because nothing in either his character or his previous work advocated itself to an artistic expression of that nature. The result, as Morgan has already explained in a previous post, was THE TRITONIAN RING and the smattering of related Pusâdian stories which he published in various periodicals during the 1950s, with a couple of belated additions appearing twenty years later during the sword and sorcery revival of the mid 1970s. The novel has been much reprinted over the years but the short stories have hitherto never been collected. It isn’t particularly difficult to understand why. Simply put they are god-awful.

The only reason the stories remain relatively easily available to read is because De Camp’s obliging old cohort Lin Carter demonstrated an indefensible fondness for them and conserved four of the travesties in the otherwise admirable series of fantasy anthologies he compiled throughout the 1970s. The lame humour and daft and doddering characters found therein being very much in keeping with Carter’s own inane brand of fantasy.

Each one of the stories is a shambolic mishmash of absurd and contrived situations, slapstick action – pole-vaulting with pikestaffs for example – inconsistency, coincidence and self-contradiction, all undertaken in the company of a cast of dim, venal and unsympathetic characters; all of whom incidentally are either con-men, chancers or charlatans. The urge to debunk prevailing notions appears to have been so deeply ingrained in De Camp’s nature that he was incapable of treating heroism seriously even in fiction. For him the hero might well wear a thousand faces but he only ever had the one pair of feet and they were made of clay.

The Pusâd stories centre mostly around the antics and misadventures of two different characters, a workshy court magician called Derezeng Tâsh and a wandering huckster named Gezun Lorska. Gezun is ostensibly the Conan surrogate for the series but a Conan reflected in the distorted mirror of De Camp’s own scepticism. So even though Gezun looks the part he is a hollow effigy of a hero; one with Conan’s craftiness, belligerence and rude ethics substituted with gormlessness, ineptitude and cowardice. Gezun occupies his time by attempting to fleece the gullible, impregnating love struck women or fleeing from his creditors, all the while essaying a blithe deluded optimism that would put even Mr Micawber to shame.

Gezun is a character so stupid that he snoops on another man’s mail even though he is unable to read and so deluded that he believes a haircut renders him unrecognisable in a hostile city where he towers head and shoulders over the natives. De Camp clearly intended these character defects to be the endearing affectations of an amiable oaf. But they aren’t remotely endearing and are instead relentlessly irritating. Gezun is one of those characters whose exploits one follows in the fervent hope of seeing him beaten to a pulp at some point.

But societies breed the heroes they deserve and on the evidence De Camp provides the Pusâdian world appears to be entirely populated by imbeciles. In the story “The Eye of Tandyla” a duplicitous royal consort cannot recognise the famous jewel of the title even though it is found in her homeland and she is the one who has connived to have it stolen. In the same story sentries are lured away from guarding regalia by someone pretending to strangle themselves. In “Ka the Appalling” an entire city is duped into believing a hitherto unknown god is returning to the world by the excavation of a fabricated prophecy.

Clearly, whatever their inspiration, these are not slavish imitations of Robert E Howard and equally evident is the fact that De Camp had no intention of them being taken very seriously. But even qualifications of this sort do not excuse how badly written the stories are. The plots are farcical and crudely constructed, the fight scenes risible with swords literally going “Clang! Clang!”, while the texts are replete with cod archaisms and facetious word usages like “bronzen” and “coolth”. Rather than convey the intended sense of antiquity contrived language of this sort merely feeds the impression of a writer for whom English is a second and uncomfortable tongue.

And what on earth is one supposed to make of clumsy metaphors of this ilk:

“The cold in the room was as if an iceberg had walked in….”

Er; I hate to have to break it to you, Sprague old son, but…..

The irksome thing is that if Howard had ever generated such a crude example of ham-fisted prose De Camp would have been the first to seize upon it as further evidence of Howard’s supposed haste and carelessness and slapdash style, all of which he was wont to do in his sweeping Olympian judgements upon Howard’s perceived deficiencies.

Credibility and consistency, both qualities De Camp prided himself upon, are in strangely short supply in these efforts. Take the rings forged from meteorites for instance which act as sorcery repellents in the Pusâdian world: artefacts so scarce and potent according to one story that they are the preserve of kings, but in another so innocuous and commonplace apparently that the magician Sancheth Sar can afford to gift a spare to a slave boy. In the story “The Owl and the Ape” we are asked to swallow the idea that a building project could be commissioned purely in order to distract a passing Gezun so that his pocket can be picked. And don’t ask me to explain why a cannibal should choose to take up residence in a ruined wizard’s tower. Or how the cul-de-sac Gezun flees down just happens to have a secret tunnel required for him to escape a hostile mob. Artifice and contrivance of this sort abounds in the series and each instance seems to trump its predecessor in preposterousness.

Perhaps none of this would matter very much if even one of the stories was half as witty and amusing as De Camp believed them to be. But with the exception of some acerbic laughs provided by ancillary characters such as King Vuar’s most insolent page the supposed humour is forced, flat and feeble. Never more so than when Gezun’s personality is transferred into the body of a bull with predictably slapstick consequences.

When all is said and done the Pusâd stories amount to little more than a silly and inconsequential footnote in the development of modern fantasy. But for anyone with an interest in understanding why the De Camp/Carter Conan compotes are quite so indigestible then herein may be found their stewed ingredients.

L. Sprague de Camp’s “Pusad” Series published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

0 notes