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#it’s like. I cannot possibly explain to my church friends why I haven’t been showing up.
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How to explain that going to church makes me hurt and angry, but not going to church makes me sad and depressed.
#I need to go to Mass. I need to get over the anxiety mental block and just go.#blue chatter#it’s just. I’ve only gone a couple times this semester and every time has left me feeling more empty and hurt than when I walked in#and I know Mass is more than just how you feel. and that it matters that I am there where God calls me to be#I know.#I wish nobody there knew me so they wouldn’t be so worried and ask questions about where I’ve been#it’s like. I cannot possibly explain to my church friends why I haven’t been showing up.#it’s not even scrupulosity anymore it’s just. I can’t be here. I don’t belong here.#and the new priest is trying *so hard*. I’ve been honest with him about how I’m struggling.#but it’s just. there’s something missing. he wants to include the congregation but fundamentally doesn’t understand what that means.#‘everyone is welcome. No I will not make an effort to include marginalized people. they’re welcome bc they can Walk In The Door.’#and I know it’s not that the church has changed#if anything I’d be having the same issues with the old priest. I’m the one who’s changed.#but instead of spending my Sundays with God I’m just. melting into a puddle of Sad. and that’s not good for my faith life.#I need to do *something*. I just. any time I think of trying a new church i feel exhausted.#God please help me.#I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t want to be alone and miserable and losing touch with my faith
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bonktime · 3 years
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Weather The Storm
Chapter 2: Hand Over Fist
Ezra (Prospect) x f!reader (no y/n) 1861 Lighthouse au 
Rated: E (just the whole story)
Previous // Masterlist // Next
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Art by the incredible @honestly-shite​ I’m so blown away 🥰💘
Summary: Ezra settles into life in the north but he can’t seem to wrap his head around the keeper. As they dance around each other a clash with another local brings some truths into the light.
Warnings: Language, violence, a boat load of sexual tension, a bunch of victorian sexism, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort? (smut will come)
Note: Written in the 3rd person so i guess you could read as oc? but I never name or describe her, except being short. I had loads of fun writing this! Loads of descriptions of the weather because that’s who I am and also touching. Next chapter will probably be a little late but please forgive me!
Wordcount: 3630
~~~~~~~~~
The wind was like nothing else. Four days at sea and Ezra was fairly sure it was making him deaf. It roared and screamed through the wood of the boat like he's never heard. Rattling anything loose and merging with the groans of the beams and the waves into a great cacophony of noise.
There was a knack to sailing in winds so strong, one he was very glad he'd got the hang of previously else he would probably have been tossed overboard that first morning. Even so the violent movement of the ship beneath him had been a surprise. Any time he put anything down he had to keep a close eye or it would end up on the other side of the room. It made sleep exceedingly difficult when being tossed out of the hammock was a possibility, so he was lucky to get a couple of hours between shifts.
The work was hard and one particularly malicious seagull had made off with a biscuit he had been about to take a bite out of, combined with the lack of sleep and the rolling waves, it had made him irritable at best down right foul at worst. Still, the rest of the crew were likable and only jibed in a good humoured way at the newcomer. And, whenever the bite of the cold got too much, he had a new memory to warm him up. Even so as they came into port on that forth morning, he was picturing that warm bed and the flickering firelight. 
On the walk back along the sea something caught his eye. He stopped to pick it up.
 ⧫⧫⧫
Ezra arrived just as the keeper was leaving the lighthouse. She saw him crossing the causeway, as the sun peeked over the horizon, turning the sky every colour from deep blue to the brightest pink. He waved at her as she waited for him to approach, unable to help but admire her. Dressed in blue, she contrasted against the sky and its reflection in the water. She positively shone. As he got close, he smiled.
"It would appear I was wilfully incorrect about something"
"About what?" She cocked her head at him
"There is colour here. But to witness it you must have patience. "
He took a step closer. holding out his hand "I discovered this on my meander back to your charming abode, I believe you would appreciate it." In her hand he gently placed a chunk of sea glass, worn soft by the sands but still bright deep blue. He stayed close as she held it up to let the sun shine through. She could smell the sea on him, salty and something else. Looking up at him she wondered why he had been so thoughtful. "It's beautiful, thank you" he smiled at her, eyes creasing warmly.
 ⧫⧫⧫
A week passed and they talked in the mornings but their days never seemed to line up so they could only see each other for meals. Ezra spent his evenings in the living room, reading by the fire whenever he was home, and his mornings wandering the coast to distract himself from the woman in the water. 
Once on his walk he met the other keeper. The man had looked exhausted as if he was carrying a weight on his shoulders. He didn't say much, just to give his thanks to the other keeper and then he'd hurried away.
Further down the shoreline he liked to watch the market get set up. Watch the women waiting for the fishing boats to get in, preparing to gut and fillet and sell. He chatted to them sometimes, offering a hand carrying out the tables if they needed it. One girl always gave him a cup of tea after, laughing at his jokes and smiling. She was pretty and definitely would have caught his eye before. But now? He was friendly enough, and polite, but just couldn't work out why he was so uninterested. It wasn't like him. She made a nice friend though, and it was pleasant to get to know someone apart from the keeper even if he wasn't staying too long. And even if he didn't know the keeper all that well.
Ezra mentioned a woman he met at the fishery to the keeper. As much as she knew and liked her, it stung in a way the keeper couldn't quite identify. She was kind and soft and pretty and just the opposite of her. All of her hard edges and bitterness and isolation. But she didn't have any good cause or right to feel envious. Still, she thanked him for the warning, should she come across them together at least she wouldn’t be surprised.
 ⧫⧫⧫
There was another week of only seeing each other in the wee hours before both Ezra and the keeper had a shared day off.
He offered to come with her into town and help carry things. Mostly he just wanted her to show him around which she knew but she agreed anyway.
The sun showed itself as they walked together warming their skin. He watched the keeper raise her head to bask in it, smiling as she tried to explain what she needed from town with him interrupting after every item to ask questions.
She was glowing and it was starting to affect Ezra. Her skirt was pinned up a little above her ankles so it didn't dip in the sand and she'd forgone her usual headscarf and shawl to enjoy the sun. She had laughed at him as they'd left, at all his layers, called him a southern pansy. He'd grinned "Not everyone is so accustomed to this frigid weather. The cold bites those who it has not made an acquaintance with. Not unlike a wary dog."
"If you stayed a few winters here and swam in the North Sea you'd end up as hardy as any of us I reckon" he'd just smirked.
 ⧫⧫⧫
The keeper decided Ezra spoke just the way he did just to confuse people. Every time she’d asked him what a word meant he had grinned, but he did explain without condescension. He had spent nearly an hour chatting away to the grocer when she’d gone to the butcher and the baker. Upon asking, it turned out he had been trying to find a fruit he was fond of, but all the frills in his speech had led to a debate between the owners about what he had meant which he had then stayed quiet during just for enjoyment. When she had gone back to find him he was grinning ear to ear as the two men bickered. She had suppressed a laugh and sorted it out quickly before they had gotten even more irked by the outsider. Ezra had seen the laugh in her eyes though.
The final stop was the bookshop. A small place, stacked floor to ceiling and owned by the keeper’s oldest friend. She was sitting outside in the sun and jumped up wrapping the keeper in a warm hug. 
"Lass you work too fucking hard. I haven't seen hide nor hair of you in Christ knows how long!" 
She grinned; the first time Ezra had seen it. He should make her grin more.
"Aye I'm starting to agree, how're the bairns at this rate they'll have grown a foot before I can see them again. Oh, shit sorry.” She gestured to him “This is my lodger Ezra, Ezra this is Amelia."
He wonders vaguely if everyone the keeper knows can give looks that pierce the soul. He gives the shopkeeper a nod and her face breaks into a smile. As they headed into the shop, clouds began to gather overhead.
"Come on pet, I've got something new I just know you'll love."
The shop seemed ready to burst at the seams. Ezra paroused but couldn’t stop himself listening into their conversation.
“How have you been, really? I worry about you all alone up there.” Amelia asked her eyes full of concern. Ezra subtly rounded a bookshelf so he wouldn’t seem nosey.
“I… Well I’ve been worse like. Every day is easier and I’m not alone at the moment as you’ve seen.”
“You seem to collect sailors, you.”
The keeper laughed “I just like the company! And I like being alone the rest of the time as you well know.”
“Oh aye the company. Nothing to do with,” Amelia lowered her voice “I divn’t nah… the roguishly good looks? You always loved a bit of trouble, dafty that you are”
“Hey! He just rents the room, we’re… friends I guess.” Ezra wished he could see her to gage how she really felt.
“Sure you pet.”
 ⧫⧫⧫
20 minutes later they left, a copy of Great Expectations wrapped carefully in tissue paper and stowed at the bottom of her bag, surrounded so it would stay dry should it rain. As they stepped out a woman seized the keeper's arm, she was accompanied by the vicar and glaring viciously. The keeper swallowed and introduced Ezra, he saw how uncomfortable she was, how her mood had changed since just minutes before.
"The ever elusive keeper shows herself yet again" the vicar speaks, face impassive, "I thought you might have died since you don't attend church, perhaps you'd met god's reckoning after… being so loose with your commitments." 
Ezra watches her jaw clench "I have told you before, when I work the night, I cannot attend in the morning."
The other women smirked "Work the night is one way of putting it." She eyed Ezra.
The vicar sighed "It is disappointing you disobey god's will. Your father should have married you off while he had the chance. Then your husband would keep you in line. If he could see you now, he'd be so ashamed"
Ezra froze but before he could react, he saw the rage pass over her face, fiery and passionate. She couldn't help it, she saw red, couldn't stop herself. She punched the vicar square on the nose.
The other woman shrieked. "What is wrong with you? You've hurt him!" Indeed, blood did start to drip out of his nose but he straightened himself up and grabbed the keepers arm pulling her close and raising his fist to strike.
"You're nothing but a worthless little whore. It's no wonder your sailor left as soon as you-" he was cut off by Ezra's fist, catching his jaw and sending him sprawling.
"I will not abide you speaking to the lady in this manner." He shook out his hand, and stepped over him, bending to seize his hair and pressing his blade to his neck "And to strike her?" He scowled down at the man who was opening and shutting his mouth like a fish. "What is that mantra you holy men spout? Turn the other cheek." The keeper's jaw dropped, she had known Ezra was rough around the edges but to strike a man of God, to threaten him, for her?
Against the incoming storm, it was as if he'd grown. Become huge and monstrous and brutal in a way she hadn't seen, a glimpse of what lay beneath all his beautiful words and pleasant disposition. It moved something in the keeper, something dangerous. Not many people would far defend her, let alone in such a way. 
Lightning flashed overhead forking down to meet the sea, in the light she could see the hard glint in his eye, the one he'd worn when they'd first met, even as he smiled. This was a man who had done far worse and all she could feel was grateful. It squeezed around her heart.
"I suspected as much. You must have forgotten yourself for a moment." Ezra stood and pulled the vicar to his feet, squeezing his arm harshly still baring that viscous grin as he pulled him close and murmured "I'd truly hate for you to suffer another grievous lapse in judgement, who knows what may become of you."
The keeper looked at the other woman "Judge not lest ye be judged? You had better pray for forgiveness.” She stepped forwards shoulders back as thunder rumbled around them “There's a storm coming and your husband works the water. I'd hate for the lord to compel me to make an error." The woman gasped at her a cold glare. Ezra looked at the keeper as she straightened out her dress. He could have laughed at her nonchalance, it gave him pause, how he saw her quiet power. She would make quite the foe. She gave Ezra a nod and he took her arm as they walked away.
He can feel how tense she was through her arm, despite her calm demeanour panic and anxiety were coming off her in waves. They walked back along the beach in silence as the heavens opened, pouring rain down around them. Ezra frowned to himself, perhaps with all the flitting around he had forgotten how to behave. Had lost some of himself, every old sin chipping away at his humanity was taking its toll. He'd come here for some fucking quiet, why did he always find trouble, or make it? Perhaps those years… he wasn't good. Punching a priest though? The keeper was a menace.
Half way he stopped turning her to look at him.
"Why didn't you tell me you were married?" she looked away from him at the waves. White horses were being blown, throwing spray up into the air.
"I never was. He left before we could."
The rain beating down made it hard to look up at him, it dripped into her eyes and ran down her face like tears. The rain and thunder were near deafening as he looked at her face, saw the pain and the other emotion, the one he can't identify.
"What happened?" He nearly has to shout to be heard over the storm and the waves. Reaching for her, taking her hand and feeling the calluses on her fingers.
"What always happens! I fell in love, and I thought he did too. But after, after we. He did what sailors always do." she threw off his hand and stepped back, the sea lapping at her ankles.
"What is it sailors always do? I do not appreciate you painting us all with such broad strokes." Now he's shouting, a bit out of frustration but mostly to be heard as the wind begins to howl, merging sea spray and rain until the only thing he could see was her.
"He sailed away!" She was suddenly very grateful for the rain; he couldn't see the tears that had rolled down her face. He frowned at her a deep furrow in his brow. "And so, he's right! I am a whore and probably everything else too." She looked wild, wind whipping her skirt to and fro. She glared at him, daring him to judge her. "I was relieved! I didn't want to marry him, he wanted to leave and I didn't. I enjoyed what we did!" She pressed her palm to her forehead. No idea how he would react. "He could’ve said goodbye" she whispered it, let the crash of the waves muffle the sound.
To her surprise he tugged her hand away from her face, looking into her eyes, jaw set, rain plastering his hair to his head.
"Let's go home."
Keeping her hand gently clasped in his he led her along the beach to the island.
 ⧫⧫⧫
Both of them were soaked to the bone by the time they had re-entered the cottage. Ezra could feel the keepers hand trembling in his.
"Go change out of that wet garb, I'll light the blaze in the living room and set the water to boil"
She nodded and entered her room as he did his own. He quickly pulled off his wet clothes and tugged on a fresh shirt surprised to hear her call out to him.
"Ezra, can you help me?"
He entered her room slowly, still only in his long shirt, taking it in. The bed was wide enough for two and had as many blankets as his own, there was a small wardrobe and a chest and a stack of books on a bedside table. On top of which he saw the glass he'd given her, not yet added to the chime in the window.
She was in her corset and chemise, back to him, dripping onto the rag-rug on the floor.
"I can't seem to," she was reaching behind herself. "With it wet and my damn swollen knuckles I can't loosen the tie. Please, can you help?"
He swallowed thickly as she looked back at him then away. Gently he reached for her, big hands and nimble fingers beginning to loosen the knot. "I'll take a look at that hand if you would allow me, check you haven't done any tangible damage." She nodded.
As he finished, he couldn't help brushing his fingers across the bare skin of her shoulder. It was soft and warm under his cold fingers. She stiffened slightly and turned to him, looking up at his face. His frown remained but that steely glint was gone, giving way to wide sad eyes. She looked at his hands, big, strong and bruised. She took one in her own, inspecting the cut across his knuckles.
"You needn't hurt yourself in defence of me, I shouldn't have hit him." She gently rubbed her thumb over the swelling to check her hadn't dislocated anything and tried to ignore how he tensed.
"I could not abide his hurting you, not with his words and certainly not with his fist" he turned her hand mirroring her gesture to feel her knuckles, they were swollen but nothing felt out of place. He kept a hold of her hand as he looked back up at her face.
She looked into his eyes, deep and dark enough to fall into. They stared back into hers without hesitation. She held his hand for just a moment longer before letting go. As she did, he turned and left, closing the door gently behind him.
He didn't give her the chance to thank him.
 ⧫⧫⧫
When she had dressed and headed down stairs, Ezra was pouring tea, he looked up. She was still dishevelled and shivering a little.
"Come on, let's get warmed up"
He led her through to the living room and sat her down on the rug in front of the fire handing her a cup of tea. Sitting down across from her he spoke, his legs brushed hers as he stretched out but he didn’t move away.
"What I cannot apprehend is why you don't want to depart this glacial place. You are not treated compassionately and there are locations all over with preferable climates."
She gave a small smile. "Because I like it here, it isn't perfect but I have my friends and my work and my home and where would I go? How well do you think the world would treat a woman like me?"
He shrugged, "People may surprise you. They have me on many occasions. I even astonish myself sometimes"
"Or they'll behave exactly as they always do. People are predictable like that." She sighed and sipped her tea. The warmth of the fire finally took an effect. "It seems we are at an imbalance. You know plenty about me, although not because I wanted you to. How about you tell me where you got that accent?"
He grinned. "I suppose I can reveal a little information. If only for the sake of equality."
So, he told her. Told her about his home, his mother, about when she passed. How he had to work to survive and found that he didn't get seasick. He picked up words and dialect wherever he went, combining them with his own until he wasn't sure what he used to sound like. She had laughed at him upon learning he wasn't a strong swimmer. 
"I can't believe you haven't been thrown overboard and drowned yet! You're unbelievably lucky!" He'd loved the sound.
He missed out a lot of the more unsavoury details of the work he’d done but the whitewashed version was honest enough. How going back to where he grew up still hurt, he had only visited once. Instead, he travelled, worked, and enjoyed himself.
"I don't know. You said I must be lonely here but you, you travel alone. You can't make good friends, you've no home to return to." She watched his face. "It seems you're far more alone than I am"
His brow furrowed "We can agree to disagree on that."
"And I still don't understand why you're here. Why aren't you somewhere warm?"
He shrugged and avoided the question, "If I wasn't, I would not have had the astounding pleasure of meeting you."
She frowned at how he ignored her question, but brushed it off.
The rain was finally beginning to ease as Ezra dozed off. Sitting on the floor slumped against the chair by the fire. He looked peaceful, no shadows playing behind his eyes, so she didn't wake him. Instead as the sun dipped, she laid a blanket over him and went to light the light.
The winds had made for a tense shift. Always keeping a weather eye on the sea for ships that might have got into trouble but eventually the sun rose and she stopped the clockwork and went back to the cottage.
Ezra had already left to get to The Mistress and she was surprised at the slight sting that they hadn't got to say goodbye. Next time she'll wake him.
She was even more surprised by how much she missed his company.
~~~~~~~~
Glossary
Hand over fist: Going forth rapidly in an endeavour, comes from ‘hand over hand’ when climbing the rigging.
Bairns: Kids, affectionate
Divn’t nah: Don’t know, couldn’t not include this
Dafty: fool, idiot, affectionate
~~~~~~~~
Taglist
Ezra
@fandom-blackhole
WTS
@something-tofightfor
Because I crave validation
@danniburgh
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jebazzled · 3 years
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SOOO the Drama: Making it Work with Tragic Backstories
Hi everyone, how are we doing? It’s been a while since my last unsolicited tutorial. Is everyone eating well? Is everyone drinking water? Dressing warmly if it’s cold wherever you live? 
Today we’ll be talking about tragic backstories, and how to use them rather than abuse them. 
This tutorial will mention a number of triggers, though not with great detail - more in the interest of providing context. 
Specific triggers mentioned: abandonment, verbal abuse, child neglect, car accident, transphobia, animal death, cheating, bullying, parental death
In the rp community we often joke about loving to put our characters through hell - about really running them ragged - making ourselves weepy. For a lot of us, writing Heavy Emotional Content is a lot more fun than fluff, or characters who are happy, fulfilled, and well-adjusted. I’m literally planning to kill off one of my characters in the next couple of weeks. I get it. 
But there’s also a fair amount of discourse in the rp community about what is pejoratively called “trauma porn.” It’s discourse that is warranted! Because while we love fictional drama, the truth is that sometimes...
well, sometimes it can be too much, can’t it? 
Here’s the thing about trauma: a tragic backstory does not a well-developed character make. Too often, too many of us lean on these traumatic histories as a crutch towards building a character, without meaningfully exploring that trauma with any depth. The truth is, in fiction, tragedy only builds character when when you do. And tragedy is far from the only way to create a nuanced character. 
In this tutorial, we will examine common approaches to character backstories, alternatives to tragedy-as-a-default, and figure out how to have your cake (the feels) and eat it too (with purpose.)
BUILD-A-BACKSTORY
In my experience, the most common approach to writing a freestyle application is writing a chronological history (you can read my app guides, including thots on alternative styles of freestyle, here). Ain’t nothing wrong with that! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! 
It’s an approach that makes sense, as it forces you to fill in the blanks to answer the question: why is my character Like That? And often, as writers, our first instinct is to provide the saddest answer possible.
“Why is Susie so clingy?” 
Her parents abandoned her at a fire station when she was an infant, and rather than being raised in foster care, she grew up at the fire station. But the entire company that raised her died while fighting a wildfire, and she is certain that any time anyone walks away from her, they will never come back. 
“Why is Brent such a misogynist?” 
His mother never wanted him and told him so every day of his youth. When he hit puberty, she stopped speaking to him entirely, and the day he turned eighteen, she changed the locks while he was at school. 
“Why is Lichen such a high-achieving go-getter?” 
Lichen was born with glass bones and paper skin. Every morning they break their legs, and every afternoon they break their arms. At night, they lie awake in agony until their heart attacks put them to sleep.
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Feels like a lot, doesn’t it? I may have done a little exaggeration, but - not a lot, frankly. 
Especially if other characters on a site are loaded with tragic histories, it can be hard not to equate a certificate from the school of hard knocks with a Pulitzer. You want something juicy to write about, yes? And this is all so juicy! 
But here’s the rub: often, these histories will never come up again outside of an application, or will not be practically dev’d out beyond shock value. Susie will never be reminded of Frank, the fireman who taught her to ride a bike. Brent will focus his sexist comments on objectifying women’s bodies rather than degrading their personalities and motives, which were the issues with his mother. Someone who didn’t read Lichen’s app would have no clue that they have had a total horror show of a life. 
If you are writing a tragic backstory that doesn’t have a continual impact on your character, you are writing trauma porn, and it is doing nothing for your character. 
This doesn’t mean that your characters should be fully and constantly occupied with memories of their trauma - in fact, constant introspection is an easy way to stall threads (per my “why aren’t people writing with me?” guide here) - but it does mean that if your answer to the question, “why is my character Like That” is a compelling one, it is one that a reader should be able to answer even if they haven’t read your app, if they’ve read a few of your threads or other writing. 
This is a careful balance, of course, but think of your characters the way you think of yourself! For example: probably the most Potentially Dramatic thing about my personal life is that my older sister is developmentally disabled, and I am one of her legal guardians. When my parents die, I will inherit my older sister, and will uproot my life from wherever I am living at the time to move back to my hometown and make sure she is taken care of and happy. This is not something that I constantly think about, but it is difficult to know me for any meaningful length of time and not be aware that I have a developmentally disabled sister, as I mention her in passing, think about her when her favorite music comes up on Spotify, and tell people to donate to her favorite charity, Special Olympics. 
If I were writing an app of myself as a character and spent a good portion of the app untangling my relationship with my sister, and then never mentioned her in any of my thread posts, then is she really important to my character? Or was I flexing her for depth?
Do you see what I am getting at here? If it matters, it will come up more than once. If it only comes up once, and it’s in your app, you should think of something to explain your character’s personality and motivations that is perhas a little less loaded. 
BUT WITHOUT THE SADS, HOW DO?
The good news is: you absolutely do not need a tragic backstory to write a nuanced character! Again - think of your characters the way you think of yourself, or of other real people. While everyone has gone through heavy things in their lives from time to time, chances are that your life does not resemble that of a soap opera protagonist. And aren’t you a multifaceted person, full of depth and life? Aren’t you someone whose story is worth telling, even if it feels like your life is pretty ordinary? 
After all, it’s not the past that makes a character - it’s the present, their current voice, actions, and missteps. That is where you want the real juice to be, because that is the shit you’re writing! 
Some potential “everyday histories” for our above cast of characters:
“Why is Susie so clingy?”
In elementary and middle school, Susie was bullied on and off - a few weeks spent hanging out with the in-crowd, followed by a month as a social pariah. She could never understand why. When she moved to a different state for high school, she attached herself like a barnacle to the clique the Tulips, and has made it her goal not to let herself get shaken back to the outskirts this time. 
This isn’t as dramatic as Susie’s earlier backstory - in fact, it could apply to any number of people, being passed between friend groups for years on end. But again: your character doesn’t need a one-of-a-kind daytime talk show-worthy backstory to have a unique and compelling history and voice! 
“Why is Brent such a misogynist?”
Brent’s mother never wanted children, and made it pretty clear to him throughout his youth. His father, though, as always there for him - including when his mother walked out and never came back, after cheating on Mr. Brent’s Dad for years. From then on, Brent and his dad only had each other - and their bitterness towards the woman who wronged them.
This still gives you some family drama - unloving mother, and some adultery - but having Brent be raised by someone who has their own beef with women eliminates the shock value of locking your son out merely for being a boy. Also, this take acknowledges misogyny as a learned behavior.
“Why is Lichen such a high-achieving go-getter?”
When their parents divorced, Lichen only came out to their mother as nonbinary, and presents a fully different persona when they are with their father. Being in the top 5% of their high school class and being a national champion Lincoln-Douglas debater is the only thing Lichen and (deadname) have in common. 
I acknowledge that Lichen’s previous story was a meme. The above story could be made much more intense (for example, if Lichen’s father were a member of the Westboro Baptist Church and then Lichen’s supportive mother dies in a freak accident and Lichen, unable to hide their true identity, is imprisoned in their father’s basement until they pretend to have seen the error of their ways and identify as cis again) but the above gives plenty to chew on! 
While drama and trauma can be satisfying to write, there is plenty of drama to be found in the everyday. Building a well-rounded character is much less about what happened to them and much more about what they are doing, thinking, and feeling now. 
That said, 
TIPS & TRICKS FOR WRITING TRAGIQUE CHARACTERS
Don’t go overboard. If it is not going to come up ever again after the app: leave it out. 
Impact is about the character, not the reader. If it was important enough to leave in the app, it should have an identifiable impact on your character. The main purpose cannot have been to shock the reader. 
It’s not meaningful JUST because it happened. If someone can follow your character’s story for any extended amount of time and not realize that, say, your character’s mother died in a boating accident, then it isn’t actually important that your character’s mother died in a boating accident, and you should let her live. 
If ALL of your characters have a heavily dramatic backstory, ALL of your heavily dramatic backstories lose their meaning. Dramatic backstories are fun but they should not be a constant: they will begin to feel cheap and lazy. 
Your character does not need to dwell on their tragic backstory! While a character should acknowledge their history, a character does not need to realize that their backstory is meant to be tragic. For example, Sally might have been raised by her Aunt Agatha after her parents disappeared in a hot air balloon when she was a baby. Rather than being sad about her missing parents, Sally might think of them as total strangers and of Agatha as her sole parental figure - and her sadness might be for Agatha, who does miss Mr. and Ms. Pumpernickel. 
And that’s literally all she wrote! I hope you find this helpful when you’re writing your characters - tragic or otherwise - and developing their plotlines. The world is not made of trauma and fluff alone, friends. Go forth and contain multitudes!
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theoriginalladya · 4 years
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WIP Wednesday
Since I know there are a few people out there interested, and since the first draft ended up turning out remarkably good for a first draft (or so I think), have a bit of fluffier Caleb Shepard and Kaidan post-war, post adventure (this comes at the end of my planned story for them) after the Reaper War.  (last night’s Reaper War angst is still bugging me so I’m feeling generous.  Under the cut for length)
This goes with my previous post about them.
~~~
(setting: Western Irish coast)
“Do you ever think we might have missed our calling?” Caleb asks.
Kaidan’s eyebrow arches.  Taking a knee, he picks up a stone, bounces it in his hand for a moment then hefts it into the air, throwing it toward the sea.  The winds are strong, however, and before Caleb can blink, just a hint of bluish dark energy envelops it, guiding it out to the waves beyond.  “What are you thinking?” he counters after a moment.  “That we should have become prothean experts like a certain asari friend of ours?”
It’s difficult not to laugh, and Caleb doesn’t even try.  “Something like that.  Maybe,” he agrees.  He stares out to the horizon, nothing but churning waves and water as far as the eye can see.  The height of the cliffs offer a bit of drama to the scene.  It’s a much better setting than he could ever have hoped for; if only he could find the words.
Kaidan moves up next to him, his eyes as sharp and searching as Caleb’s.  “Not English Bay,” he admits with a hint of a smile and a quick grin, “but a beautiful view nonetheless.”
Caleb sighs and nods.  Pulling his gaze from the Atlantic, he glances just to their north. These days, the ruins are barely discernible from the cliffs, but he knows they’re there.  “Come on, I want to show you something.”
They walk for a while in silence, carefully navigating the craggy landscape.  It’s strange to see; there’s barely any sign that the Reapers made it out this far. Finally, they reach the spot. Here, the ruins are a bit more noticeable, but still blend in if you aren’t looking for them.  Caleb leans on the cane, thankful for it in these past few minutes.  Lifting his right hand, he traces the outline in the air.  “See it?”
Kaidan is beside him again.  “Yeah,” he breathes, astonishment clear.  “Wow.  How old is that?”
Caleb shrugs.  “Built in the 1400s, so the stories say,” he explains.  “To protect us from invasion by the sea.”  Silence falls again; Caleb’s thoughts fall to the past.
“Nothing could have stopped the Reapers,” Kaidan says after a moment.
Caleb stirs from his thoughts.  “Hmm?  Oh, I wasn’t thinking of them, but the Greystones.”  Which, he knows, is just as ironic as their background was filled with repelling enemies from the sea as well.  Ireland never had the same luck.  
The wind gusts in off the sea and toys with his hair, mussing it up and casting it about wildly to tickle along his cheek and forehead.  It reminds him of his younger years, too.  “Anyway, my point is, despite everything that’s happened – time, war, Reapers – it still lives on, in some shape or form.”
Kaidan gives him a skeptical side-glance. “You’ve been talking to Liara again, haven’t you?”
“What?”  With a half laugh, Caleb pushes his hair out of his eyes.  “No.  I’ve told you before, we Irish are sentimental bastards at best.”  A grin turns upward at the right corner of his lips.
Kaidan’s smile matches it.  “That you have.”
His eyes drifting back to the ruins, Caleb asks, “You ever wonder about leaving some kind of legacy of your own behind?”
Kaidan is silent for a minute, and it’s enough to drive Caleb to distraction so he hobbles forward a few steps.  As he does, he notices something wedged in between some rocks.  Crouching carefully, he retrieves it … a flutter in his chest leaving him speechless. Rising once more, he half turns to look over at Kaidan.
“If you’re asking if I’m as determined as Henry Lawson was, the answer is no,” Kaidan finally replies.
“No,” Caleb insists with a grimace, “not like that.” The loss of Miranda at the hands of her father is still surprisingly sharp after all these weeks and months.  While they had never been close, she had been a friend, of a sort.  
Another gust of wind kicks up, this time leaving Kaidan shivering slightly.  “I guess I never really thought about it,” he admits as he walks over to join Caleb. “Ever since Eden Prime, everything’s been focused on the Reapers …”
Their eyes meet, but as usual, Caleb cannot decipher what he sees there.  “And now that they’re gone?”
“A lot more possibilities are available.”  
Possibilities.  Caleb swallows convulsively.  Possibilities he can work with, but he needs to be sure … “Look,” he says quietly, his left hand gesturing with the cane as a reminder, “if I’m just going to hold you back –.”
Kaidan moves with a speed Caleb has seen rarely outside of battle, and when he has, it’s been focused on far more pleasanter things.  Before Caleb can even catch his breath, Kaidan’s hand wraps around his good wrist and tugs gently, pulling him close.  The kiss that follows is fierce, possessive, and leaves Caleb’s belly flipping more wildly than before, if that’s even possible.  “You don’t,” he insists when he pulls back a pace; but his hand remains securely around Caleb’s.  “Don’t ever think that.”
It takes Caleb a long minute to catch his thoughts and refocus, but the vehemence in the order helps.  “Right.”  With effort, he pulls his gaze from Kaidan’s – he has to or he isn’t going to be able to go through with this – and stares back at the ruins again.  The vaguest hint of pressure around his hand as he draws in a deep breath is the deciding factor.  Tucking the cane under his left arm, he uses his now free hand to fish out the small box from his jacket pocket.  At the same time, a silent prayer of thanks to his friends who were able to make this happen is sent forth; to Liara whose connections cut through red tape like a hot knife through butter, to Coats whose unending, if teasing, support had him sneaking off on his own a couple of days ago to retrieve them, to Athair whose faith in him never wavered from the moment he helped rescue the small child who wandered into St. Senan’s so many years ago.
When he pulls his hand from the pocket, he looks back over at Kaidan.  The chilling bite of metal against the skin of his palm helps provide clarity for the moment; the winds off the Atlantic slow, the sun peeks through fluffy white clouds and shines down upon them, and in Kaidan’s eyes he sees … curiosity. Caleb laughs softly.  Always curious.  “So,” he starts, then pauses to clear his throat.  “So, if you really mean that –.”
“I do.”
The smile widens a fraction.  The wind teases at the edges of Kaidan’s hair now, a testament to just how strong it blows in off the coast, and Caleb reaches over to push it out of his eyes.  The hint of exasperation in Kaidan’s eyes pulls yet another chuckle out of Caleb. But, as he lowers his hand, his forefinger caressing down Kaidan’s temple to his jaw, he brings it to rest between them, open, palm up.  The sun flickers brightly, glancing off the mixture of gold and silver resting there, woven together in a pattern as familiar to Caleb as breathing.  In silence, he watches Kaidan’s gaze shift down, notes the surprise that follows … and morphs into shock before darting back to his.  
“Is this …?” he chokes, eyes wide and unable to hide anything from Caleb now.
A sudden moment of peace and calm fills Caleb, and the nerves that have plagued him for days now settle.  “I’ve told you the story,” he says.  “I was thinking, if you are agreeable –.”
“Agreeable?”  
The amount of disbelief in Kaidan’s exclamation chases away the last of the lingering concerns.  With a twist of his wrist, he moves the rings between his fingers, holding them a bit higher for Kaidan to see.  “Friendship,” he murmurs, his eyes locked onto Kaidan’s now. “Loyalty.  Love.  I’d say that describes us, wouldn’t you?”
Kaidan opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out; all Caleb sees is a few convulsive swallows.  Leaning in, he rests his forehead against Kaidan’s.  “I didn’t want to say anything until the Reapers were dealt with,” he whispers, eyes closing to hide momentary grief and pain at the loss all that entailed.  “But, now that they’re gone, I can’t imagine going back to a life where you aren’t a part of it.”
Kaidan’s free hand slides up Caleb’s back, coming to rest at the back of his head.  He shifts just a bit, enough to tilt his head to the side so their lips can meet, and the moment their lips connect, Caleb knows he has his answer.  It’s rare he can catch Kaidan off guard to the point of speechlessness, but it seems he’s succeeded; a moment he’ll always remember.
When they break apart, gasping for air as the wind buffers gently around them, Kaidan manages, “How … did you even …?”
Caleb laughs softly, releasing some of the nervous energy.  “I’m Commander Fucking Shepard, according to James, remember?  I can get anything done.”  He concludes with a wink as his lips slide back into a grin.
Kaidan, finally, joins in.  “Well, he’s sure got you figured out.”
Taking one of the rings, Caleb holds it between his thumb and forefinger.  He eyes Kaidan with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.  “I can’t wear both of these, you know.”
There is still the tiniest tremor in Kaidan’s hand as he lifts his hand.  Caleb slides the ring onto his finger; perfect fit.  Then he offers the other and the process is repeated.  Caleb isn’t unaffected, and by the time they exchange another kiss, he drops the cane back into place and leans heavily upon it.
“So,” Kaidan says after a while, his eyes focused on the ring on his hand, “should I assume if you figured this part out you have something else in mind for what follows?”
Caleb nods.  “I don’t want to steal any thunder from your mother,” he explains, “but I thought before we left … something small and private.”  
For just a moment, Kaidan stills and stares at Caleb.  “That’s why you snuck off to the church the other day, isn’t it?”
One brow arches and Caleb gives his best, Who, me? look which only draws a laugh.  “Maybe,” he agrees.  “I guess he thought if we aren’t staying here, we might as well have something better to remember my home by.”
Kaidan’s laughter is refreshing.  “I’m not likely to forget,” he replies.  “With you and the kids, I’ll be the odd one out, remember?”
Caleb reaches over to run his thumb along Kaidan’s stubbled cheek.  “You’ll sound like one of us soon enough.”
“God help us all.”
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four-loose-screws · 3 years
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FE8 Novelization Translation - Chapter 3, Section 2
If you would like to start from the beginning, read a missed part, etc., click here!
FE Game Script Translations - FE Novel Translations - Original FE Support Conversations
If you are interested in donating to support my work, please check out my Ko-fi here. Thank you!
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I call this a “section” because it is not a separate part of the chapter in the book, but divided from the rest of the chapter by a scene break.
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Chapter 3: The Stolen Bracelet
Eirika's army continued to stealthily march west. Once again, they were not once attacked by Grado soldiers along the way, granting them another brief moment of peace and quiet.
When they reached the end of the mountain road, they saw a large forest in front of them. From afar, the tree leaves were so thick they looked not green, but black, proving the forest’s old age.
"That is the Za’ha Forest.” Seth pointed at the trees and explained. "Once we pass through it, we will arrive in a town called Serafew. From there onwards, we will be in Grado territory… and Renvall Castle will be right before us."
"We're finally almost there. And I will be able to reunite with Brother…" Eirika said, voice full of excitement. But her words were cut short when something strange came into the edges of her field of vision.
Something was glowing and moving towards them from between the trees. She could not tell what it's true form was, but it sent a chill down her spine. "Seth, what is that? Ah, there it is again…"
As they continued closer the forest, and they were able to catch a better glimpse of that figure and another among the trees, they couldn’t believe their eyes.
The first looked like a rotting corpse. It wriggled through the trees by dragging itself along with stiff, awkward movements. The second was a giant eyeball, emanating a faint light as it floated through the air.
Both were grotesque, unnatural beings that none of them had ever seen anything like before.
Seth ordered the entire army to halt. The horses neighed uneasily, and their bodies were shaking. The soldiers also slowly began to shiver, one by one.
“What are they? They cannot be… human... but also not animal…?” Eirika asked.
"This is my first time seeing anything like this as well. It appears that powers we know nothing of are at work here in this forest…”
“Is there a road that goes around it?”
“Unfortunately, there is not. We can go back the way we came and choose another road, but that will take time.”
Eirika bit her lip. She wanted to rescue Ephraim as quickly as possible, meaning she couldn’t agree to turning back around down the mountain road. “Then we have no choice but to go straight through this forest…”
“Let’s go.” Seth ushered his horse to begin moving once again. 
But before he could even take a single step, a young man appeared. He had orange, wavy hair, and was coming towards them. Eirika recognized his clothing as that of a monk. He was still young, but looked suited to be a clergyman. 
When Seth stopped his horse, the monk called out to him in a worried tone, “Travelers, the path ahead of you through the Za’ha Forest is very dangerous. I am sure you can even see that from here. Unnatural creatures are roaming about within it, so It would be best if you turned back.”
“It is very urgent that we reach our destination quickly. Whatever it might take to do so, we must go through this forest.” Eirika answered.
The monk’s expression clouded. “Is that so… Then there is nothing else I can say. Please hurry directly south, and be careful not to become surrounded by these creatures.”
“We will.... But what is going on inside? What in the world are they…?”
“Monsters.” The young monk said with a sigh. “I apologize. I haven’t introduced myself yet. My name is Artur, and I am a monk. My monastery ordered me to purge this land of monsters. However, there are too many for me to handle all on my own…”
Eirika couldn’t believe her own ears.
She’d only ever heard about monsters in books, which explained that they existed long, long ago as the Demon King’s servants when he waged war upon the continent. However, when the Demon King was defeated, they were supposed to have vanished along with him. Was it even possible for them to appear in this age?
“Monsters are a thing of legend, aren’t they?”
“It is understandable if you do not believe it. But they are real, and wandering this forest. And they are not only here. I’ve been told that, recently, there have been sightings of them in every region of this continent.”
“What did you just say…!?” Eirika was in complete shock.
However, the unbelievable was happening. And not just as a response to the Grado Army’s sudden invasions… something much bigger and terrifying was happening across Magvel.
She wanted to ask the young monk to tell her more, but there was no time.
“Lady Eirika! A monster is coming this way!” Seth shouted.
Eirika froze. The giant eyeball monster was floating towards her.
She was already used to fighting human opponents, but she had no idea how she should fight something like this. Her entire army started to panic.
"Please leave this to me." Artur said. He turned towards the monster without hesitation.
Eirika broke out in a cold sweat. There should be no way that a young man with such a small build, without a weapon in his hands, could put up a fight against a monster...
But that which she couldn't believe happened before her very eyes.
"Leave this land, you impure beast! It is not yours to claim!" Artur said in a harsh tone that was the complete opposite of the one he'd spoken to Eirika with, then raised one of his hands.
A light so bright that it blinded Eirika formed at the tips of his fingers.
Artur swung his hand towards the monster, throwing the concentrated ball of light at it.
The light flashed, and in the moment that Eirika was blinded, the monster’s body disintegrated without a trace.
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Members of the church can follow one of two paths. Some, like Moulder, are given staves with which to heal, while others learn offensive light magic. In contrast to his kind outward appearance, this young man seemed to be a wielder of the latter.
This sight filled Eirika with courage. Though these creatures may be monsters, they were not enemies that could not be damaged. They could be fought and defeated.
"All units, attack! Provide back up for Artur!" Seth yelled and dismounted his horse. Those who'd trembled at first sight of the monster returned to their usual calm.
"Go!" Ross shouted, causing Franz, Vanessa, and several others to assume a battle stance. Moulder held his staff up with one hand, preparing to immediately heal anyone who may be injured. Colm and Neimi also steeled themselves for battle, staying close together with their weapons in hand.
"There is a river to the south!" Artur called out to everyone when he saw that they were finally ready to rush into the forest. "Just beyond the river is a village. A friend of mine should be there, guarding it all by herself. Please do your best to help her!"
"Understood.” Eirika nodded. “We'll leave her to you, Vanessa!"
A pegasus knight wouldn't need to cross the bridge, and could fly over the river in a single swoop. 
Vanessa guided her pegasus to lightly take off into the sky.
The monsters continued coming as if they were bursting out of the ground. They would even cast long range surprise attacks every so often from around hidden corners.
However, Eirika’s army did not falter. Though the foul odor of the monsters made them feel sick, fortunately, these enemies were that much easier to cut down than human foes.
The central figure in the fight was of course Artur. His light magic was more effective at hitting the monsters' weak spots than swords and lances. He took no time to rest, aiming light magic spells at the oncoming monsters one after the other.
However, because his defenses were weak, Eirika and the others had to wield their swords and support him as his guard. Though they did not have any time to exchange words, they soon picked up on how to synchronize with each other’s movements. 
They defeated the monsters trying to block their path one after the other, and were able to continue south.
The bridge suspended over the river was a very small one. It looked like it might break if everyone used it to cross, so the axe unit cut down a tree to use as an impromptu bridge, and everyone decided that those who could move freely would use it.
Eirika led the group across the tree bridge and looked for the village that Vanessa had flown towards.
"Over there!"
Everyone followed Artur's directions until they were finally able to see the entrance to the village.
Vanessa’s pegasus was in a grassy patch, resting her wings. Nearby was Vanessa, talking to a girl they did not know.
'Is that the friend Artur mentioned?' Eirika approached them.
Vanessa's face showed a rare expression of bewilderment.
The woman noticed Eirika’s presence, and went on guard in an instant. 
Eirika quickly forced a smile, wondering if the woman had mistaken her for a monster.
The woman then said in a flat, calm voice, "Excuse me, but are you alive?”
"...Huh?"
"I question that because revenants have invaded this area. They even entered the village a little while ago."
"She was burning them all black just now.” Vanessa said with a disturbed look on her face.
Eirika was so amazed that she could not respond, so the woman continued speaking.
“Of course, I was able to avoid being put into any danger. Why? Because as a prodigy, the differences between living creatures and the rotting corpses of the reanimated were obvious with just one glance.”
The girl had a very odd way of speaking. Eirika now understood why Vanessa had looked so troubled.
Eirika asked in confusion, “Um… Are you… Artur’s friend…?”
“Yes, and my name is Lute. I am an unparalleled mage with superior talent, however, you have no reason to be nervous. I am not only intelligent, but also have a great personality.”
“U-Uh… um…”
"Now that two other living beings have come to me, I cannot stand idly by any longer. I shall leave this village and fight with you. Such minor monsters are as helpless as babies before my magic. Ah, I apologize, that was offensive to babies."
"...Um…"
"Please stay calm. I am a prodigy. Now let's go." Lute walked away at a brisk pace.
Eirika and Vanessa stared at each other.
"Is she really… the friend Artur mentioned?" Eirika asked.
"I think so…"
Regardless, they tried to return to the battlefield, just for a crazed scream to assail their ears.
It was Lute.
"What!? The battle's almost over already!? I didn't get a chance to shine!" She said irritatedly with her hands on her hips.
Artur rushed straight up to her. "Are you okay, Lute!?"
"Oh, hello, Artur. You should know that just by looking at me. And you are okay as well, yes?"
"I am. This group saved me."
Since the battle was over, everyone had gathered together.
They all formed a circle around Lute and Artur. 
Eirika said, "No, you're the one who saved us! Thanks to you, Artur, we were able to defeat all of the monsters. Still, I thought creatures like monsters only existed in legends…"
"Remnants, Mogals, Bonewalkers, Mauthdoogs, Gargoyles, and Baels... “ Lute rattled off the different types of monsters. Her voice actually sounded a bit excited. "The monsters that were told of in ancient texts are all being resurrected, one after the other. The world is in danger. Though I may be a prodigy, I do have a limit when I am on my own. I'd like to travel together with you, and vanquish the monsters that are reappearing across the continent. What do you think about that?"
"Take me with you as well, if you please." Artur cut in. "My order was not only to defeat the monsters roaming these woods, but across the continent. Please allow Lute and I to go with you."
"Yes, of course! I think it will be reassuring if you are with us."
They still didn't know anything about Lute, but they'd already seen Artur's true power with their own eyes. Increasing their number of allies who could wield offensive magic was a very welcome idea indeed, considering the future ahead of them.
Her army had grown once again. Eirika thought of what Seth had said about her ability to draw people to her, and it made her happy.
She still didn't know if she really had such a power, but for the journey ahead of them, it
 certainly was reassuring to gain more allies they could trust.
"Lady Eirika…" Seth called out to her in a grave voice. He seemed to want to talk to her about something. 
She broke away from the circle to stand privately with him.
"Since we arrived here, I have considered retreating back to Frelia." Seth's words came as a total shock to her.
They'd finally made it to the end of the long mountain path and through the old forest. Serafew was just ahead of them. Was turning back even an option at this point?"
Seth saw her expression and continued talking, though it clearly pained him to do so. "I know how you feel. But now, in addition to Grado soldiers, even monsters have started roaming the lands. Such a situation is too harsh for us."
Seth was not the kind of person to be scared by the sight of monsters. There was no doubt in Eirika’s mind that he’d thought a lot about this proposal.
And Eirika herself felt unsure, too. They’d managed to defeat the monsters in the forest, but they knew next to nothing about how powerful the monsters that would appear before them next time might be. They might end up in a situation where they were no match at their current strength.
The one factor that kept her heart from being fully swayed was, of course, her brother. The more difficult their battles became, the more she worried for her brother’s well-being.
If the monsters had made it to Renvall… then Ephraim would be forced to fight not only the Grado Army. In that case, no matter how strong he may be, they couldn’t be optimistic.
“...Please allow us to keep pressing onwards.” Eirika hardened her resolve and looked up at Seth. “I understand your judgement very well. But I am really worried about Brother. It may be selfish of me to put everyone in harm’s way… And the thought that I might be doing so pains me, but I…” Eirika couldn’t finish her sentence. She looked down at her feet.
Seth was silent for a moment, then said, “I understand. We will do as you say.”
“Seth...”
“I will protect you, Lady Eirika.” His words were powerful. 
Eirika was surprised. The moment the thought crossed her mind that she might be blushing, she became even more nervous. Her breathing sped up, and she looked away from him.
“Prepare yourself!”
A sudden loud voice called out that made Eirika jump.
A person flew out from among the trees. She was a young woman who looked to be about the same age as Eirika, and held a long staff in her hands.
"Evil beasts, I will not allow you to do as you please! I, L'arachel, will send you back to your world of darkness!" She waved her staff around, but stopped when all eyes fell on her. "...Huh? What happened to the monsters? Weren’t all of you being attacked by monsters? I noticed you were in trouble from atop the cliff and rushed over here, but…”
“Um, we already defeated all of them…” Eirika answered.
The girl responded by raising her staff into the air once more and yelling, “What good fortune! You were surely blessed by the gods! But it’s a shame that they didn’t last a little bit longer. I wanted to show you all a splendid performance! I knew it was a bad idea to take a detour. We should have come straight here.”
“If we’d come straight here, then we would have gone straight off the cliff!” A new voice said. When Eirika looked for the source, she noticed a man with a large, flashy cloth wrapped around his forehead, who was coming up from behind the mysterious girl.
And further behind him was a giant man with a stiff beard. “Gah ha ha, it’s too bad, innit, Lady L’Arachel?!” The giant said with a laugh that shook the air.
Eirika took a step back and asked, “Um… Who are you?”
“Me? Well, since you asked, I am of the great Theocracy of Rausten! My name is…”
“Hush, you cannot tell them, Lady L’Arachel!” The bearded giant spread out both his arms and stepped in front of her. He gestured strangely and dramatically while arguing, “You are a very special person! You cannot give away your identity in a place like this!”
“Oh, that’s right! How careless of me! Thank you for reminding me, Dozla!”
“‘Tis nothing, My Lady!”
“In times such as these, it is much sweeter to leave quickly without giving one’s name. Fare thee well, strangers! If fate wishes it, then let us meet again!”
“Let’s go, Rennac!”
The woman and the giant disappeared between the trees, their footsteps somehow both soft and loud at the same time. The young man they’d called Rennac shrugged his shoulders if to say “Good grief,” and chased after them.
There was a long pause during which no one could say anything, questioning “What just happened…?” to themselves in unison. 
The one to open her mouth and break the silence was Lute. “What weird people. My powers of observation saw right through them. They are unquestionably very weird people.”
“So are you!” Colm whispered. When their eyes met, he looked away and corrected himself. “It’s not just the monsters! Even the people in this forest are weird. There must be a poisonous gas leaking from somewhere, don’t you guys think? Everything is weird here! I can’t wait to get out! Let’s go!”
Regardless of whether or not there was poison or anything else of the sort in the forest, it would indeed be best not to stay for very long.
Eirika’s army continued further south, leaving the Za’ha Forest behind them.
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Creature of The Night
I have always been a bit of an insomniac, but ever since something happened recently in my life - or rather, I was told about this thing - I have been getting less and less sleep at night. I work sporadic hours ever since this pandemic started and I know that isn’t helping things. I am not as busy as I once was, which I often mentally complained about. I now regret all those mental complaints - maybe all that activity would finally give me some peace and quiet inside my head. I work a job that had me going literally 24/7 and now due to pay/hour cuts, I am finding I have more time than I know what to do with. I guess that’s why I am writing here - to have some kind of outlet into the internet where no one knows who I am and what I am about to write in this post.
I can’t not talk about it anymore - it’s been slowly choking me.
To start, a little background/history. I have always had a rocky relationship with my mother. Actually, that’s putting it delicately. My relationship with my mom was TERRIBLE for several years. It has only recently (round about three-ish years) been getting better. I guess it makes sense - that was around the same time my mom’s second-eldest sister died. It hadn’t taken too long, only about a year and a half for her cancer to consume her. My mom’s eldest sister died a little over a year after that and my grandmother (my mom’s mother) a year after her. I guess you can say that all of those deaths in the family have been forcing us together. I must say, they did a better job at helping us communicate than my mom when she would literally lock me in my bedroom with her and make me stay there until we solved whatever was going on. Great parenting, mother.
But I digress and now I know the “reason” behind the bad parenting and all of the hard times we had.
The fourth of July of this year was when my mom told me. I am still having a hard time processing it over two months later. For reference, I won’t use real names, but I will use random letters to the key people involved.
My “uncle” - J
My aunt (my “uncle’s” wife) and my mom’s eldest sister - R
My grandmother - L
So, fourth of July rolls around. I usually would have been out with friends on that day, but due to the pandemic, I decided to go to my parent’s house to visit my mother (my father was working that day) and my cat. We got to talking like we do a lot more of now - those deep talks she would always have with my sibling that I would be jealous of, but never wanted to partake in. We got on the subject of healing the family. It’s been quite broken with all of the recent deaths and all of the things people somehow never say until it is too late.
For another little tidbit of backstory, you should know that my mother and her siblings were all abused by their father - L’s husband. Mentally, emotionally, physically, and yes - sexually. L had six kids and nowhere to go, so she began to work night shifts at an office, leaving her kids with that horrible man. My mother was six the last time her father sexually abused her. He was a drunk, a low-life and I am glad he is dead so that I don’t ever have to try to forgive him for what he did to my family.
When my mother was just turned seven; she, her brothers and sisters and her mother all moved away from him. But the damage had already been done. R couldn’t have anyone touch her for the pain that she would feel everywhere - a burning sensation that spread from the inside-out. My mothers brothers all had resentment towards L, my mother’s second eldest sister had resentment towards everyone, but they stayed in each other’s lives. I cannot say if that was for the worst or not.
My mom was twelve years younger than her eldest sister - R. Right around the time they moved away from the monster that was their father and husband, R was proposed to by J. Even though R couldn’t be touched, even though she probably could never bare their own children, J married her. Everyone thought of him as the most amazing, perfect man for marrying R. They lived in a little house in Northern California, went to church every weekend, and my mom would go to visit them every summer.
Every summer. It all started when she was nine. I can only imagine - though I wish not to - what J did to her. You see, since he couldn’t get his nut out with his wife, he assaulted my mother. Every summer she went up there. For weeks on end, she was at his mercy - a nine-year-old girl who only knew to turn to her mother for help. When my mother finally told L a couple of years into the abuse, she was informed that it must have been her own fault. L chose this monster - the second one in my mom’s short life - over her. All because L liked J and couldn’t imagine him as the no-words-in-the-human-or-heavenly-or-down-in-the-depths-of-hell-languages kind of man he really was.
L knew what my mom had gone through with her ex-husband. J knew what they had all gone through and my mother was not an exception. J knew what had happened to her already in her short life and decided to go and do it anyways. Repeatedly. For YEARS!! I cannot fathom how my mother is still alive. More so - I cannot believe HE is.
No one knows but these few people - L (who as stated before, is now dead), my mother, my father, me and (obviously) J. I have not the strength to tell my sibling - who by the way has been suicidal for years. Telling them now... I don’t know what that would do and I will not let myself be an only child. No way in hell.
I grew up with J around me. I can’t tell you how many times I was in the very house - the very ROOM - my mother was assaulted in. Now I know why my sibling and I never went up north without one or both of my parents there. My parents never left my sibling or myself alone with the man and it never registered in my mind until my mother told me about all of this. He was a man that I trusted, a man who I thought to be amazing for loving my aunt even though he could never be with her the way he probably wanted to. R, he respected. Her sister, not so much. It’s a mask that I hope to one day rip away and show the world what he truly is.
There is just one roadblock in all of this. Well, two, really. My cousins. See, what I haven’t mentioned before is that R and J adopted two kids. The reason I have stayed silent this long is because... well I don’t know how it would feel in reality, but I can only imagine the pain of knowing the man who raised you - the man you trusted - was a child molester and rapist. A man who affected forever how my mom, my sibling and myself see the world. I can’t. But someday I’ll have to explain to my family why I can never ever go to a gathering he will be attending. Why I could never look J in the eyes again without imagining my mother’s face as a child reflected in them. I would throw up on him. I feel nauseous as it is just thinking about J now, even with him over a thousand miles away and not having seen him in over a year and a half.
One of the reasons my mother didn’t tell her family was because she knew how it would destroy her sister and it probably wouldn’t have turned out good for my mom back then. It definitely would have divided our family between those who wanted to stay close to L and those who would have stayed by my mother’s side. The second reason ties into the first. My mom thought - and still thinks - since L didn’t validate her story or pain that no one else would believe her. And who could blame her?! Her own MOTHER didn’t give a rat’s ass about her pain - didn’t believe her. The one person who was supposed to love my mom and protect her no matter what had failed her. Again.
The reason I won’t say anything yet breaks down into two things as well. The first is that my mother isn’t ready. God, it’s been 40 years and I don’t blame her at all for not being able to process what happened to her. The second reason is that I know what it will do to my family. Most, if not all, will be on my mother’s side now. That’s part of the problem though. I know what it would do to J’s kids - my cousins. I don’t care that they are not technically blood relatives, I would protect those two with my own life. The eldest is already worried about being the “black sheep of the family” even though there is nothing they have done that will ever come close to earning them that title. I can’t think of what this will do to them - both of them. I am scared they would feel ashamed to show their face to our family again. I can’t go the rest of my life without seeing them.
So for now, I don’t really have a choice. I will have to wait until the day of justice finally dawns upon J.
The absolute worst part about this for me? I don’t know what to do until then. Actually, I don’t know what to do even after that. I don’t know how to move on, how to let go - how to SLEEP. I can’t even sleep at night for Christ’s sake!! It evades me now more than ever. I constantly feel like when I turn my light off and roll over; close my eyes - I will feel someone grab me from behind. J is an all consuming entity now and I don’t how to expel him from my waking or sleeping mind.
If there is one point I want to make with this post - it’s this.
Trust your kids. 
Put your biases aside and believe them when they tell you they are in pain. L HATED and blatantly showed her dislike for my father even though he did nothing and has done nothing but love and cherish my mother. Not once has he hit or abused - emotionally or physically. However, L adored J and she showed it openly. I cannot fathom what makes a mother choose someone else over her own child, but I am here now telling you it’s possible. So please, I implore of you, if any child comes to you with pain - any pain - help them for God’s sake.
I ask this of you because the reverberations of neglect have rippled through my mother and passed into me. I know how it feels and I would not wish it on my worst enemy.
Well, maybe J.
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Hive
Case: 0142302
Name: Jane Prentiss Subject: A wasps’ nest in her attic Date: February 23rd, 2014 Recorded by: Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London
I itch all the time. Deep beneath my skin, where the bone sits, enshrined in flesh, I feel it. Something, not moving but that wants to move. Wants to be free. It itches, and I don’t think I want it. I don’t know what to do.
You can’t help me. I don’t think so, at least. But whatever it is that calls to me, that wants me for its own, it hates you. It hates what you are and what you do. And if it hates you, then maybe you can help me. If I wanted to be helped. I don’t know if I do. You must understand, it sings so sweetly, and I need it, but I am afraid. It isn’t right and I need help. I need it to be seen. To be seen in the cold light of knowledge is anathema to the things that crawl and slither and swarm in the corners and the cracks. In the pitted holes of the hive.
You can’t see it, of course. It isn’t real. Not like you or I are real. It’s more of an everywhere. A feeling. Are you familiar with trypophobia? That disgusted fear at holes, irregular, honeycombed holes. Makes you feel that itch in the back of your mind, like the holes are there too, in your own brain, rotten and hollow and swarming. Is that real? 
I’m sorry, I know I’m meant to be telling you what happened. What brought me to this place. This place of books and learning, of sight and beholding. I’m sorry. I should. I will.
I... I haven’t slept in some time. I can’t sleep. My dreams are crawling and many-legged. Not just slithering and burrowing,. though it is the burrowing that draws me. They always sing that song of flesh. I hope you will forgive me for such a rambling story. I hope you will forgive me for a great many things, as it may be I do worse. I have that feeling, that instinct that squirms through your belly. There will be great violence done here. And I bleed into that violence.
Do you know, I wonder? As I watch you sitting there through the glass. Eating a sandwich. Do you know where you are? You called me “dear”. “Have a seat, dear.” “You can write it down, dear.” “Take as much time as you need, dear.” Can you truly know the danger you are in?
There is a wasps’ nest in my attic. A fat, sprawling thing that crouches in the shadowed corner. It thrums with life and malice. I could sit there for hours, watching the swirls of pulp and paper on its surface. I have done. It is not the patterns that enthral me, I’m not one of those fools chasing fractals; no, it’s what sings behind them. Sings that I am beautiful. Sings that I am a home. That I can be fully consumed by what loves me.
I don’t know how long the nest has been there. It’s not even my house, I just live there. Some sweaty old man thinks he owns it, taking money for my presence as though it will save him. I used to worry about it, you know. I remember, before the dreams, I would spend so long worrying about that money. About how I could afford to live there. Now I know that whatever the old man thinks, as he passes about the house with brow crinkled and mouth puckered in disapproval, it is not his. It has a thousand truer owners who shift and live and sing within the very walls of the building. He does not even know about the wasps’ nest. I wonder how long he has not known. How many years it has been there.
Have you ever heard of the filarial worm? Mosquitoes gift it with their kiss and it grows and grows. It stops water moving round the human body right, makes limbs and bellies swell and sag with fluid. Now, when I look at that fat, sweaty sack, I think about it, and the voice sings of showing him what a real parasite can do. 
How many months has it been like this? Was there a time before? There must have been. I remember a life that was not itching, not fear, not nectar-sweet song. I had a job. I sold crystals. They were clean, and sharp and bright and they did not sing to me, though I sometimes said they did. We would sell the stones to smiling young couples with colour in their hair. I remember, before I found the nest, someone new came. His name was Oliver, and he would look at me so strangely. Not with lust or affection or contempt, but with sadness. Such a deep sadness. And once with fear. It didn’t matter, because no-one in the shop wanted to hear about the ants below it. I tried to tell them, to explain, but they did not care. The pretty young things complained and I left.
That was when I still called myself a witch. Wicca and paganism, I would spend my weekends at rituals by the Thames. I wanted something beyond myself, but could not stomach the priest or the imam or pujari of the churches. I knew better. I knew that it was not so simple as to call out to well-trodden gods. I never felt from my rituals anything except exhaustion and pride. I thought that those were my spiritual raptures.
I wish, deep inside, below the itch, that they were still my raptures. I have touched something now, though, that all my talk of ley lines and mother goddesses could never have prepared me for. It is not a god. Or if it is then it is a dead god, decayed and clammy corpse-flesh brimming with writhing graveworms.
When did I first hear it? It wasn’t the nest, I’m sure of that. I never went in the attic. It was locked and I didn’t have a key. I spent a day sawing through the padlock with an old hacksaw. My hands were blistered by the end. Why would I have done that if I didn’t know what I would find? The face of the one who sang to me dwelling within the hidden darkness above me. I had seen no wasps. I know I hadn’t. There are no wasps in the nest. So how else would I have known that I needed to be there, to be in the dark with it, if it had not already been singing to me?
No, that’s not right. The nest does not sing to me. It is simply the face. Not the whole face, for the whole of the hive is infinite. An unending plane of wriggling forms swarming in and out of the distended pores and honeycombed flesh. The nest is nothing but paper.
Was it the spiders? There were webs in the corners, around the entryway into the attic. I would watch them scurry and disappear in between the wooden boards. ‘Where are you going, little spiders?’ I would think. ‘What are you seeing in the dark? Is it food? Prey? Predators?’ I wondered if it was the spiders that made the gentle buzzing song. It was not. Webs have a song as well, of course, but it is not the song of the hive.
I used to pick at my skin. It was a compulsion. I would spend hours in the bathroom, staring as close as I could get to my face to the mirrors, searching for darkened pores to squeeze and watch the congealed oil worm its way out of my skin. Often I would end with swollen red marks where it had become inflamed with irritation or infection. Did I hear the song then? 
Was it when I was a child, such a clear memory of a classmate telling me a blackhead was a hole in my face, and if I didn’t keep it clean it would grow and rot. Did I hear it then, as that image lodged in my mind forever? Or was it last year, passing by a strip of green they call a park near my house, after the rain, and watching a hundred worms crawl and squirm to the surface.
Perhaps I’ve always heard it. Perhaps the itch has always been the real me, and it was the happy, smiling Jane who called herself a witch and drank wine in the park when it was sunny. Maybe it was her who was the maddened illusion the hides the sick squirming reality of what I am. Of what we all are, when you strip away the pretence that are there is more to a person than a warm, wet habitat for the billion crawling things that need a home. That love us in their way.
I need to think. To clear my head. To try and remember, but remember what? I was lonely before. I know that. I had friends, at least I used to, but I lost them. Or they lost me. Why was it? I remember shouting, recriminations, and I was abandoned. No idea why. The memories are a blur. I do remember that they called me “toxic”. I don’t think I really knew what that meant, except that it was the reason I was so very painfully lonely. Was that it? Was I swayed and drawn simply by the prospect of being genuinely loved? Not loved as you would understand it. A deeper, more primal love. A need as much as a feeling. Love that consumes you in all ways.
You can’t help me. I’m sure of that now. I have tried to write it down, to put it into terms and words you could understand. And now I stare at it and not a word of it is even enough to fully describe the fact that I itch. Because ‘itch’ is not the right word. There is no right word because for all your Institute and ignorance may laud the power of the word, it cannot even stretch to fully capture what I feel in my bones. What possible recourse could there be for me in your books and files and libraries except more useless ink and dying letters? I see now why the hive hates you. You can see it and log it and note it’s every detail but you can never understand it. You rob it of its fear even though your weak words have no right to do so. 
I do not know why the hive chose me, but it did. And I think that it always had. The song is loud and beautiful and I am so very afraid. There is a wasps’ nest in my attic. Perhaps it can soothe my itching soul.
Archivist Notes: 
This is... uh...
Excuse me, reading that was, um... hmm. While I am pleased that we have... found the statement that Prentiss gave the Institute, it answers far fewer of our questions than I would have hoped, and gives us little new information about her than we had before, save for a snapshot of her mental condition before her hospital admission. We were already aware of her religious history, and her breakdown over an ant infestation that apparently led to her termination from her work at the Good Energies spiritual supplies shop in Archway.
The wasps’ nest is interesting. The paramedics report claims that when they and the police responded to reports of screaming at Miss Prentiss’ flat on Prospero Road, they found her in a loft space, passed out, with her forearm buried up to the elbow in “pulped organic matter”. This could indeed have been a wasps’ nest, I suppose, but no nearby residents reported to have seen any wasps in the area. Unfortunately, it could not be examined further, as later that night there was a fire that completely destroyed the flat and killed the landlord, Arthur Nolan. The fire service determined he had fallen asleep with a lit cigarette, due to the fact that he was found sitting in the remains of an armchair, with no sign he had made any attempt to escape.
Miss Prentiss was taken to the Emergency Department at Whittington Hospital, but she was already showing signs of the... infestation that would characterise her later appearances. Six hospital staff were attempting to treat and sedate her, when many of the worms were violently expelled from her body. They quickly burrowed through the soft tissue of the medical personnel – eyes, tongue, et cetera – and into the brain, killing them after roughly a minute and a half. She then walked calmly out of the door to A&E. A nurse attempted to run, but in his panic he tripped on the stairs and broke his neck. Then she was gone. The Institute was consulted, as apparently during her admission she had claimed that she was being possessed, but it was decided the situation was medical in nature and our involvement was dropped in favour of, what I can only describe, as a cover-up. If we’d known about this statement, perhaps things might have been different, but here we are.
Still anyone who’s familiarised themselves with her file could tell you this. We still don’t have any evidence that Prentiss is actually paranormal. It could just be an unknown, aggressive parasite. There are weird things out there that are perfectly natural. It’s not, though. I know it’s not natural. Somehow I... I feel it. I’m sorry, my academic detachment seems to have fled me. Something in this statement has got to me a bit. I’m... I’m going to go lie down.
Source: Official Transcript and Podcast (MAG 31 First Hunt)
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sadisticscribbler · 4 years
Text
Why Suicide?
Why do people kill themselves? I’m not talking about those who attempt suicide for attention, nor do I mean to belittle them, but what of the many more who chose to end their lives?
I am not asking some philosophical question here, but am talking from personal experience. You see, I have just found myself about to take my own life, and would have if I wasn’t disturbed just at the point of no return by a mundane phone call. Maybe because of my autism, but I had to answer the ringing phone which subsequently took me out of what I was about to do.
As a result I was left in some sort of limbo in which my body took me back home, and here I now sit talking to myself via this blog post. So how did I get there, and why do so many people find themselves where I did?
There is no simple reason… or rather there is no single event that in itself triggers suicidal ideation. Contrary to popular belief, suicidal thoughts aren’t caused by moments of depression that need to be “got through”, it is a more serious state of being. Let me explain: I was born suicidal.
As shocking and unbelievable as this might sound, it is true. I first attempted suicide before I was aged three (I drank bleach) which was not recognised for what it was… a genuine attempt to kill myself. I subsequently tried two more times in as many months, but survived them all. But what could have happened, you might be asking yourself, to make me want to kill myself? In a word: Nothing. Or in another: Everything.
For some context, I was born autistic; and I also had a very high IQ. Together, these factors, and the world in which I found myself, made this world intolerable. And it still is nearly sixty years later. The reason I have survived thus far is not because I have found some way to navigate this world, but in spite of it. No matter what experiences I have, it all comes to the same conclusion that I shouldn’t be living in this world. So why am I? For several reasons: external interference (such as my parents as a child), my Catholic faith, but more importantly my constantly trying to deny the inevitable. So what has happened now that these mechanisms are no longer sufficient to stop me doing the only thing available?
Until a few years ago I had responsibilities and family: both extended and my own wife and kids. Then I became chronically ill and unable to work. My parents and brother died and my family fell apart. And then my (now ex-)wife decided I was no longer useful to her and took everyone and everything away from me. I was left disabled and with nothing to my name. I had nothing and no-one… except for one very important friend who stuck by me. Last year she killed herself.
Like myself she was autistic and very intelligent. We talked endlessly about her decision to kill herself but I was unable to give her a convincing reason not to. This is because everything she said had been correct, and I could offer her (nor myself) any reason not to die. Unlike me she was an atheist and so the threat of eternal torment was not enough to deter her (as it had been doing for me). So I was unable to satisfactorily answer the question: What is the point of continuing to live? And my being unable to save her affirmed her conclusion in that, in my case, if I can’t save the life of my only true friend, then what is the point of my being around?
Before continuing with my journey, allow me to add her words herein as they show not just how I feel but how I and others, I suspect, see the world and why we can’t live in it. This is her final statement:
If you’re reading this, chances are my attempt to leave the world has been successful. If you happen to be religious, please pray for me to be treated compassionately in my next life, as I will be praying beforehand for this as well, as a relatively quick and painless death, despite my lack of religion.
Many people say suicide is selfish. To those, I would want to ask: is it not also selfish to expect someone to live, when existing seems to them intolerable?
None of us ask to be born, but we can decide when to die and in my eyes that right is fundamental; a human right, just like any other.
People stigmatise death, especially voluntary death, because to them it seems the most terrible thing they can imagine. To that, I say, what is so bad about death? The universe is so very old and will continue to exist long into the future, perhaps indefinitely. So why does it make a difference if someone dies at 20 or at 80, provided their life was not taken against their will?
As an autistic, I long for a world where autistic people can exist happily, but I’m not sure this can ever happen. I have pretty much given up on the world at this point. It’s not designed for people like me.
So who am I in this world? An autistic, chronically depressed, jobless, homeless in effect waste of space who was born into a female body but probably isn’t. Born to a teenage single mother, raised by a grandmother who is now dead and fated to a life where anything I attach to will be my undoing.
Dying isn’t something alien to me. I first began to think about suicide around the age of 7. As a child, I was intelligent and had a seemingly bright future, but that rarely translates into the adult world.
The only thing I really regret is losing the two people closest to me. Mostly, however, I am sad about losing hope, for it is only hope that keeps us going.
I’m also tired. To quote The Green Mile, “I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. I’m tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world everyday. There’s too much of it. It’s like pieces of glass in my head all the time.”
Like my friend I am autistic, suffer from chronic depression with episodes of clinical depression, jobless, and as illustrated above: “a waste of space”. I also have a catalogue of degenerative diseases. So what is there left to hope for?
“Oh it’s the depression talking, and that can be managed” you may be thinking. Sadly no… and not just just due to the mental health teams (who spectacularly failed in my friend’s instance). Depression is not an aberration of thought that can be corrected with a shot of serotonin. Rather it is the cold hard truth of reality that serotonin (naturally produced or chemically induced) obfuscates. This is why it is nigh impossible to help someone resist suicide. And I speak from experience of trying to help others, as well as trying to convince myself. In the end, the only argument against ending one’s life is the I “haven’t done it yet, because I’ve managed to knowingly delude myself”.
But what of speaking therapies… can these help? I would say no. This is because that people like I already see the reality of a hostile world, that no matter how hard we try to improve our lot in life, the full horror of it is a mere hair away. Distraction is no solution. So speaking with a therapist can only succeed if he/she can ‘enlighten’ the person to the ‘knowledge’ that life isn’t all that bad… or that it won’t always be that bad. But what if you’re smart enough, or have experienced enough, to see that what the therapist has said does not change the reality that there is no reason to go on, and that continuing to suffer now is worth the remote possibility that a less terrible time might momentarily punctuate the pain.
But it cannot work… there can be no going back: Once a child realises Santa doesn’t exist, there is no way to recapture nor replace what it meant to believe it. And so, once we have seen the world for what it is, there can be no way back. All that is left is how long we can distract ourselves, and finding a reason to so. Sooner or later one or both of these management techniques will fail. And it might take only the slightest of not-so-bad problems to break it all apart. And this is where I find myself.
I cannot promise that what almost happened tonight to me might not happen again, but for now I am still here writing this post in the hope that someone somewhere might be able to find a way to keep going that I, and my late friend, cannot. So, what was my ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’? I have been trying to cope with losing the only, and most dearest friend on whom I leant very much, and whom I loved very deeply; as well as developing cancer to add to my list of debilitating and very painful medical conditions. The Catholic church has become victim to corruption and evil, including in the office of the Pope. So I truly am alone. The loneliness is immense and the daylight short. I am barely managing to live on my benefits, and it is not easy. And then I receive today notification that my benefits have stopped. So soon I shall be unable to feed myself nor have shelter. So is there any reason not to kill myself? I thought not.
I won’t be out on the street tomorrow, but the time is rapidly approaching. This would be the end of the line for me, so as my friend said, we may be unable to fit into this world, “but we can decide when to die and in my eyes that right is fundamental; a human right, just like any other.“
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vfdarkness · 5 years
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A Voice From Darkness - Ep1 - The Black Door
What follows below is a transcript of the first episode of A Voice From Darkness. To listen to the podcast - look for it on Apple Podcasts, Google, wherever you normally listen to podcasts, or here.
INTRO
Dark ambient drone.
RYDER
You find yourself alone in an abandoned manor. The furniture moves of its own accord, whispers resonate from empty rooms. The dead are unquiet all around you.
A beat.
RYDER
You need my help.
Dark ambient drone changes to:
INTRO MUSIC
RYDER
This is A Voice From Darkness.
Intro music continues, but gradually fades out.
ACT 1
RYDER
Hello. As always this is Dr. Malcolm Ryder, parapsychologist. You’re listening to A Voice From Darkness. If you’re having any problems that are paranormal, supernatural, unexplainable in any way please call in.
A beat.
RYDER
I’m here to help. Oh, and my producer is letting me know we have a call on the line. Tell us your name, caller.
All of Amanda's dialogue has the SFX as coming through a telephone.
AMANDA
Hello, Dr. Ryder, my name's Amanda Ful-
She cuts herself off.
AMANDA
Just Amanda.
RYDER
That's all right, Amanda - we don't need to know your last name. But we do need to know what you're calling about. What unnerving situation have you found yourself in?
AMANDA
Can I ask you a question first? Is that all right?
RYDER
Of course, please - ask away.
AMANDA
To be completely honest - and I'm sorry - but I've never listened to your show before. I've heard of it - obviously - otherwise I wouldn't be calling. But... do most people call in about vampires, zombies, werewolves? Those sorts of things?
RYDER
If I understand your question, what you're asking is: do most of our calls involve familiar paradigms of the supernatural? Is that correct?
AMANDA
Yes. I guess that's what I was getting at.
RYDER
Believe it or not - no. Most calls are... stranger. Outliers. Every conversation on this show, at its root, features an occurrence that the caller cannot explain by simply invoking the natural world. Vampires, werewolves, demons - perhaps sometimes people interpret the raw sensory data they take in as such creatures. But that does not mean they exist. At the very least not in ways we've traditionally conceived them. Does that make sense? Did I answer your question?
AMANDA
No. No - that answered my question. Thank you. It makes me feel better too. What I'm calling about - it's not like a ghost or demon. I don't think? I don't know what's happening, really.
RYDER
And what is that you've called about, Amanda?
A beat.
AMANDA
(uncertain)
A black door?
RYDER
A black door? Have you walked through this door and something happened? Did you witness a terrible being emerge from the door?
AMANDA
No. I haven't gone through - or any of that. I... I... I'm sorry I should have thought about what I wanted to say before calling. It's - it's complicated.
RYDER
For complicated things - I think it's best if we start at the beginning. When did you first notice the door?
AMANDA
The first time. Right, I probably should start with that. The first time was at a charity event at an art museum. I was there on a date - our second - the guy and me. The first didn't go great - but it wasn't terrible either - so I figured I'd invite him along with me. Only it was awful. Soon as we got there he ran up to the hor d'oeuvres and stuffed his face. Having a guy ignore you to graze on cocktail shrimp is... it's not attractive. Everyone was in the Impressionist wing. That's where the event was. So I slid myself under a velvet rope and took a stroll over to the Postmodern Contemporary Sculpture wing. It's my least favorite kind of art. I figured, "Why would anyone come here when they can spend the evening looking at real art?"
RYDER
I think you're being a little unfair. There's a few contemporary pieces I've seen that-
(interrupts self)
But you didn't call to talk art. Not the point of this call or show. Please - continue.
AMANDA
Right - so between this "sculpture" of a trashcan with the American flag in it and a robot standing in front of a tombstone that reads: RIP The Working Class - there's this black door. The Black Door.
RYDER
It's an art piece? Part of an exhibit?
AMANDA
That's what I thought - at first. The black door was the only thing in the room that didn't wear its subtext on its sleeve, so I went up to it. I wanted to figure out what the artist was communicating. I got close-
(interrupted)
RYDER
What about the door suggested the supernatural to you?
AMANDA
It just... drew me in. It felt like only a few seconds had passed - but this security guard shook me by the shoulder. Asked what I was doing there. I told him I was at the charity thing. He told me that ended hours ago. It was past two in the morning. My bad date and I, we'd gotten there -  I don't know - around seven? I'd been staring at this black door for several hours.
RYDER
You experienced unexplained and mysterious passage of time? That's fantastic.
AMANDA
Why is that fantastic?
RYDER
Well it's not - I mean for you - but it's common across a multitude of sub-fields within the paranormal - from hauntings to alien abductions. So many possibilities...
AMANDA
Is it ever associated with black doors?
RYDER
I'm not sure. What did the guard say about the door?
AMANDA
The guard. I asked him about the artist responsible - who made the door - I thought it was a hypnotic sculpture or something? But he had no idea what I was talking about. He said he didn't see a door. Had never seen one there.
RYDER
It was invisible to him?
AMANDA
No. It vanished. I turned my attention away - to the guard - and when I looked back... it was gone. Disappeared.
A beat.
RYDER
A door that causes time lapses and can disappear? I can't explain it right now, but I'd be happy to research and get back to you on another night, Amanda. Would that be all right?
AMANDA
Doctor, I'm not done. That was just my first encounter. The black door - it's... following me.
A beat.
RYDER
Following you? How? Wait - hold that thought, Amanda. My producer is telling me we need to cut to our pre-recorded segment. I'm sorry, please stay on the line.
TODAY IN ODD AMERICA:
Eerie music plays in the background.
RYDER
On this day in Odd America we find ourselves in Moline, Illinois - the year 1938. After attending a community meeting at the First Methodist Church, the Dhondt family were never seen again. Husband and father Bryan spoke at that night's meeting. His wife Claire accompanied him, as did their only child - seven year old Sarah. Reports at the time stated the family walked home as they lived close to the church. Evidence suggests they arrived safely as daughter Sarah made a diary entry that very night - which noted nothing out of the ordinary. Sarah had played with her friends while her parents attended the meeting. They all went home in high spirits.
A beat.
RYDER
But the next morning, Bryan did not report to work at the John Deere factory. Claire missed her weekly Bible study. Sarah did not show up to school. Friends and family went to their home to learn the cause for their absences. Upon arrival, they found jack-o-lanterns in the bedrooms - two larger for the parents.
One smaller for the daughter. Each carved face made to resemble one of the Dhondts - Bryan, Claire, and Sarah. All contained burnt-out, melted candles.
A beat.
RYDER
The disappearance of the Dhondts is the first recorded case of the Jack-O-Lantern Murders - they're called murders - though this is a misnomer as no bodies have ever been recovered - only pumpkins carved to resemble the missing. Several cases every year have been reported across America since the Dhondts's disappearance. Who's committing these terrifying acts? Is it a singular entity or a coterie that's passed down this dark tradition over the years? And what's become of all the bodies? This is a wide and lonely country. They could be anywhere. And so - it remains a mystery.
A beat.
RYDER
This has been today in Odd America. Now back to our main show.
MUSIC FADES OUT.
ACT II
RYDER
All right, Amanda, we're back. Now, you were saying, the black door is following you?
AMANDA
I see it everywhere. Most places I go - the same door is... there.
RYDER
How do you know it's the same door? What does it look like? I mean, other than being black.
AMANDA
The doorknob's a dull, unassuming brass, I guess? The rest... The door itself it isn't wood or metal painted black. I don't know what it is, but it's darker. Like...
A beat.
AMANDA
Like the center of a black hole. Like the color of absence. It hurts to stare at. I could feel a strain in my eyes... and my chest at the museum... Not just then - every time I look at it, really.
RYDER
The color of absence? That reminds me of the Nietzsche quote, paraphrasing but, "Fight not with monsters lest you become one. And gaze not into the abyss, for when you do the abyss gazes into you."
AMANDA
That's exactly how it feels - when you stare at it - this black void is staring right back into you. Feeling your insides.
RYDER
And this door, that's the color of absence, is following you?
AMANDA
The black door's everywhere. My apartment building, work, the grocery store. Everywhere. But never in the same spot. One day it'll be next to the copy machine at work, then down the hall of my apartment building. The door's always moving. But always near me. Like a shark circling its next victim.
A beat.
AMANDA
I've asked others if they see the door - most the time it disappears after I ask... but sometimes... Sometimes a co-worker or someone - I'll ask them - and they will see it. They'll stop and stare at it - into it. I'll have to shake them - Force them to look away. Then... I'll ask about the door again. And they all say me the same thing: Open the door.
A beat.
AMANDA
Everyone who's seen the door tells me I need to open it. After they say that - the door disappears, and they forget. The worst time... The worst time my best friend at work. We were in the break room, alone, during our lunch and it appeared. Unannounced. Unwelcome - like always. I pointed to it - hoping it'd just disappear and we could keep talking about whatever Netflix show she'd watched last night. I think that's what we were talking about. Only...
A beat.
Before I could lower my hand, she dug her nails into my wrist. Her eyes were locked on the door. Her nails pierced so far into me - I bled. Not a little either. Before I knew it, there was red everywhere. The table. The floor. Her. I couldn't get her nails out of me - or get her to look away. She's one of my closest friends - I was a bridesmaid at her wedding, and... I had to throw her against the ground. To get her to stop. To get her to look away and let go. After I did... she gently released me, put her bloody hands on my face, and told me to open the door.
RYDER
(empathetic)
That's terrible.
I'm sure it was traumatic to go through.
(back to business)
You haven't opened the door though, right?
AMANDA
No. No. I haven't.
A beat.
AMANDA
Not yet, anyway. I guess that's why I really called. What would happen if I did open it? What's behind it? At the very least, if I opened it, even just a crack, would - would it stop following me? Do you know, Doctor?
RYDER
Amanda, under no condition should you open the door. I'll be honest - I have no idea what's on the other side. I've never heard of anything like this before. But from everything you've said - I can't imagine it's anything good. You agree with that, right?
Dead air.
RYDER
Amanda?
AMANDA
(disappointed)
Yes - I mean, I guess I do.
A beat.
AMANDA
I was really hoping you could help me, Doctor.
RYDER
Amanda, I can help. But you need to give me time to research. Promise me you won't open the door - won't touch it - won't go near it. We need to figure out what it is.
AMANDA
Yes. Yes I promise not to open the black door.
A beat.
AMANDA
For now.
Her phone disconnects.
RYDER
Amanda?
A beat.
RYDER
I believe she hung up. Well if you're still listening, Amanda. Stay strong. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. But that's all the time we have for now. Remember - if you are bothered by anything supernatural or unexplainable - please give me a call - next time on A Voice From Darkness.
OUTRO MUSIC
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asinfulpagan · 5 years
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Do I Exist?
Do I Exist???
*This is a work of fiction, yet it’s also a work of truth.*
Do I Really Exist?
Being gay at any age I would imagine is a hard thing to do. From as far back as I can remember, I remember my older cousins, uncles and even my dad talking about “homos” and “fags” I wished so much I could scream into their ears, QUIT HURTING ME! Instead I listened, and then lost. I lost my spirit of living; then lost myself. Now, I have lost my soul. I remember during a cub scouts trip when I was about 10, another kid called this black boy a “nigger” I don’t know why I did it, but I beat the hell out of the kid who called him that. I guess somewhere; somehow, I too had already grown too familiar with hatred. But that’s for later anyways. I am writing this short story too simply try and inspire others. To save those like myself before they too must ask, Do I Really Exist?
Can this life be reality?
I went to church most of my childhood, until the preacher man told me God didn't want me. I see kids today and wonder if I was ever really that innocent. Now I sit, beaten down by pain. I always thought life was wonderful and miraculous experience. As a kid I dreamed of being a doctor. I wanted to go to Africa and cure AIDS. I wanted to be the man who a difference in the lives of everyone he touched. I wanted to be respected, I wanted to be loved, and I wanted to be accepted. Now I know none of these are possible. Not for someone like myself. Can this life be reality?
Of course it is, but why?
Obviously this reality is true. I know that the preacher man says God allows suffering because he allows freewill. God, what I wouldn’t give to have the freewill to stand up and declare “I EXIST! QUIT HURTING ME!” Yet I cannot. I cannot hurt my family by telling them. I couldn’t stand the idea of my own dad telling me I am not his. The preacher man already told me that my spiritual father disowned me. I could not handle my flesh father disowning me too. A boy needs at least one dad don’t he? Someone famous said once, “We suffer to learn” I should be a college professor on loneliness. So, can this life be reality? Of course it is, but why?
Why must I pay for sins uncommitted?
I have probably known I was gay since I was about six years old. I remember just a simple and innocent acknowledgement. It was never in words or thoughts, just in action. Where boys were running from the girls with cooties I was chasing the girls to play. Where the boys played sports, I was talking to the girls. Maybe people thought I would be a ladies man. Rock Hudson again I guess. My being gay has so little to do with a physical desire, and so much more to do with an emotional necessity. It is not from downstairs that I think, but from behind my heart. Yet, God has already abandoned me. My family has spent years making sure I know what they think. I have no guy friends, because they seem to think I will turn them gay somehow. I wish it where that easy to show others what pain my broken heart shields. Gay for a day, maybe then some of this world of pain would subside. Maybe then even God would reconsider me. Why must I pay for sins uncommitted?
How did I get infected with homosexuality?
Throughout my short life I have tried time and again to figure out what made me gay. As an early tween I thought it was something I was over-eating or maybe the old joke is true, it’s in the water. Yet, why am I the only one affected by this disease? I know others on the planet exist with this same condition, yet it seems they weren’t coming to help me. I was on my own in a world that wanted me to go away.
As an early teenager I tried to remember if anyone had ever hurt me. I read somewhere that sexual abuse is why people are gay. No such luck, I was perhaps psychologically and spiritually tortured, but none of this could be the cause of my infection. Now I fear the worst, it’s not a disease, which means there is no cure.
With the lack of a specific event, thought or emotional deficiency in which I made the choice of being Gay, I can only assume that I was born this way.
If God does not make mistakes, how can I be gay?
I always thought babies where pure and innocent. Yet this baby grew into a kid who was not wanted. Then a tween that was too scared to find himself. So I became a teen with only so many options. I know I was born this way. I know I was taught not to be who I am. I know I tried to change from being this evil entity to what the world wanted of me. Oh how I tried so desperately, but now I know I was born this way. Yet If God does not make mistakes, how can I be gay?
By the time I was 13 I had experienced others hatred.
Besides protecting the dignity of that little boy in cub scouts, I have had hundreds of run-ins within my short life. As a kid I would hear other boys calling anyone they didn’t like a “fag” I was grateful it wasn’t me they were talking about, yet I was ashamed I wasn’t the gay super-hero I had always dreamed would come and rescue me. I guess the gay super-hero doesn’t exist. I wonder if heroes exist at all. How could they with the pain we all suffer? Whose soul is strong enough to really fight this kind of a battle? Not mine, that’s for sure.
Even today I cannot understand the pain that people afflict onto each other. All I scream and cry out for is love. Maybe that’s what we all cry out for. Maybe the lack of a response to our cries is where the pain comes from. I still believe in God, even if he doesn’t want me too. Today I prayed that someone would answer the next kids cry.
I remember as a kid, I was sitting with my parents in the living room. They were watching the news, while I played with a deck of cards. Then the news story broke; the story that forever changed me; the story that made me afraid to go to sleep, yet afraid to wake up. Mathew Shepard had been beaten then crucified. I guess the preacher man wasn’t lying after all. Jesus died for your sins but not mine. For mine, we must all be crucified physically, spiritually or emotionally. For sins like mine, we must atone ourselves for no church will offer a God that allowed his son to die for me.
By the time I was 13 I had experienced others hatred. Now, at 16, I must atone for my sins. I have suffered two of the three punishments I must in order for God to forgive me. The only one left is physical. I hope God finds I have paid enough for this unnatural sin. Now that I think about it, it has been other people’s hatred that has allowed me to even experience my own self-hatred. Turns out I can beat myself up better than ten gay bashers ever could.
By 15 I had already lost three teeth because of hatred.
Around the age of 13 I also made another mistake. I told the one guy friend I had, that I was gay. The next day after school, two of his friends hit me in the face with a big board until a tooth fell out and blood covered my face. That was when my crucifixion began. I only wish it wasn’t as slow as it has been. Over the next two years I lost a couple more teeth to rumors. Each time I lost a tooth, I thought of Mathew Shepard. I would wonder if this was it. If this time it wouldn’t be just some blood and teeth, but that I too could stop suffering. My face hurt a lot, my mouth looked like I had been hit by a car, and my soul had already died. Where once a soul lived now only the darkness of self-hatred can thrive.
Now, at 16, I am beaten down.
My mouth still isn’t completely healed. I don’t know if that one tooth will ever come back, and the signs of a tortured life show all over my body. Old broken bones that never healed right show their distress. I never told my parents about my fights, so they assumed I was a clumsy kid. How could I ask for a doctor when I would have to explain why I needed one? Besides allowing me to pay for my sins, the physical pain also allowed me to remember that I am subhuman. It is best to remember that when being a deviant like myself. God demands I remember that. I will never gain his forgiveness if I think my sins are as natural as everyone else’s. I have been beaten down in so many painful ways. I have paid for my sin for as long as I can. Now, at 16, I am beaten down.
So, I shall pay my final price.
A life that once held so much potential has been traded for a life of sacrifices. Even sitting here, I still haven’t the courage to tell anyone else that I am gay. It was never the physical pain or death that I feared. It was always the loss of my family’s love that scared me into a slow and silent death. I wish the old tale were true and love could be blind. Then my family and God wouldn’t hate what I am so much. Life though, has proved that love is not blind. The world has taught me what suffering is, and God taught me that all sins are not forgiven. The bible says “if a man also lies with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. Mathew Shepard was the reality of this message from God. My life has been spent living the message of God it seems. I will not fail him; I will fulfill his desires for me. Then, maybe, he will at least allow me to sleep outside the gates of Heaven.
My life.
My life has so very little meaning left in it. It really isn’t a life as much as it’s a purgatory. An event that was designed just for me to pay back to God what I had cheated him of. He created me to be a good person and to help those in need. Instead I threw it all away by being gay. For this one sin, no amount of retribution will save my soul. That’s OK though, my soul left me a long time ago anyways. As if it too where ashamed of me. My life hasn’t been a life since I was a toddler. All the time since then has been my suffering. How I wish I could have been given a chance to do something with My life.
Do I exist?
To a world that wishes people like myself didn’t exist I say have patience. You are slowly killing us without even having to use a weapon. You go to our schools and lecture the next generation on the abomination of homosexuality. You get laws written to ensure gays will never be anything but subhuman. You even manage to make sure the Boy Scouts will eliminate any kid that walks my path. You have ensured no compassion for an entire minority.
Do I Exist?
Yes!
Do you care?
I wish someone would have or even could now; then I wouldn’t be writing my on suicide letter. As in life, this too is done alone. They say in your final moments you will experience the love of God as your beacon of light to go towards. I still don’t feel the presence of God.
***********
Robert
*This is a work of fiction designed to help open the hearts and minds of those who desire it. Every year more and more gay or lesbian teenagers feel the suffering offered in this story.
don’t be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin.
(c) Copyright 2007-20011 www.Facebook.com/commanderchase
*** I want to thank whoever pointed out to me that every reason given in this letter has been fixed in our society
this was an old piece of mine written more than 15 years ago I'm glad to see that change comes pretty quick.
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D’Un Nouvel Oeil: Chapter Five
Previous Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four
ORADOUR-SUR-GLANE, HAUTE-VIENNE, FRANCE EARLY JANUARY 1944
At shortly after two o'clock in the morning, a man Scully has met before, on occasion, but whose name she doesn't know, arrives at the back door to collect Mr. Nelson. The British airman is still exhausted, but he's had a full meal, at least, and Scully has provided him with more food to be eaten during the journey. She and the stranger exchange no words other than what is required for the hand-off, and Scully breathes an enormous sigh of relief as she closes and locks the door behind them.
I can still manage a few hours of sleep if I go to bed now, she thinks to herself, rolling her head in a slow circle, massaging the kink that's formed at the back of her neck. She begins to drag herself slowly upstairs... but before she's even gone halfway, there's a loud, frantic pounding on the kitchen door.
Scully startles and just barely manages to catch herself before she falls down the stairs. She turns and runs back down to the kitchen, hoping whoever it is won't knock again, hoping that her neighbors haven't already woken up. As she nears the door, she hears a sound that's familiar, but very out of place: the weeping of a child. Her stomach contracts in fear.
Scully throws open the back door to reveal Walther Skinner, hat-less and coat-less, cradling little Christine Marchand in his arms. The child is shivering, in spite of being wrapped in Skinner's overcoat, and she's struggling to free herself from his hold. Skinner rushes inside and releases Christine, who immediately tears across the room and crouches under the counter, making herself as small as possible, looking out over the room with eyes like a hunted animal.
"What happened?" Scully asks, shutting and locking the door behind them. Skinner collapses against the wall, breathing hard. He's clearly been running for a long time.
"I don't know," he says, bending over, his hands on his knees. "Part of a patrol arrived back at the camp an hour ago with the parents, and a few minutes later the rest of the patrol showed up with the older sister. I snuck out of camp as quickly as I could and ran out to your mother's farm." He stands up straight and jerks his chin in Christine's direction. "Found her buried in the hayloft. She'd run back there to hide when her family got caught. Your mother didn't even know they'd left the farm."
"Someone must have gotten word to them that it was time to move," murmurs Scully, approaching Christine cautiously, slowly. She crouches down in front of the girl's hiding place and reaches out a hand. Christine takes it, tentatively, and allows Scully to draw her out from under the counter and into her lap. She croons to her softly, rocking her back and forth as Christine slides her thumb into her mouth and begins sucking, something Scully has never seen her do before.
"We need to move her quickly," says Skinner. "Who can you contact to come and pick her up?"
"At this hour?" Scully shakes her head. "No one. The only thing I can think of to do is for you to take her to the church. The priest can send word in the morning for someone in his network." She looks up at Skinner. "Can you get her there?"
"She's afraid of me," says Skinner, doubtfully. "Afraid of the uniform. When I took her out of the hayloft she put up as much of a fuss as she could manage." Scully looks down into the little girl's face, smoothing her long, dark hair back from her face.
"Christine," she says, her voice soothing, "you know who I am, right?" Christine nods. "And you know I would never hurt you, or let anyone else hurt you, right?" She nods again. Scully motions to Skinner to crouch down, which he does, and immediately, Christine hides her face in Scully's shoulder. "This is my friend, Walther," Scully says. "I know his uniform is scary, but he's one of the good guys, okay? He helps me find places to hide for people just like you and his family. He has to wear that uniform so that the other soldiers don't know he's on our side." Christine risks a glance at Skinner, who smiles encouragingly at her. "I know it's scary, Christine, but I need you to go with Walther tonight. He's going to take you somewhere safe."
"Will Maman and Papa be there?" asks Christine, speaking for the first time. "And Helene?" Scully glances at Skinner, who looks down rather than face the little girl's frightened, hopeful eyes. Scully knows full well that if the Marchands have already been brought back to the encampment, there is nothing Skinner can do for them. If they're sent somewhere else, it might be possible to free them during the journey, but it's far more likely they'll be dealt with here. But Scully cannot bring herself to crush the poor child any further.
"We hope so," she says. "Walther is going to take you to the church. The priest there is another one of my friends, and he's going to find people to take you to a new safe place, away from here."
"Are you coming to the church with us?" asks Christine, and Scully shakes her head, giving her a comforting squeeze.
"I can't be out after curfew," she explains. "But you, you're small enough that Walther can hide you in his coat. He couldn't do that with me, could he?"
"Well, maybe I could throw her over one shoulder and tuck you in my other arm, and then put my coat on over all three of us," suggests Skinner. "What do you think about that?" The idea coaxes the smallest of smiles out of Christine, and Scully relaxes a bit.
"So do you think you can go with Walther for me, Christine?" Scully asks. The little girl looks back and forth between the two adults' faces, and Scully holds her breath. She has a minuscule amount of chloral upstairs, held in reserve in case she ever has to treat any serious injuries... it's enough to knock the child out for the trip to the church, but she'd rather not use it if she doesn't have to.
To her great relief, Christine nods. Skinner lifts the child against his body and Scully helps him to wrap his overcoat around them, buttoning it as much as possible. If he keeps to the side streets and stays alert, he should be fine. The church isn't far away. Scully kisses Christine once on top of her head.
"You are being so brave," she tells her. "Your mother and father would- will- be so proud of you." That earns her a real smile, and it's the image she holds in her heart of the little girl, likely to become an orphan by sunrise, as Skinner rushes her out into the cold January night.
He returns, just before dawn, alone, and bearing the news that Albert, Sophie, and Helene Marchand will be put to death by firing squad in an hour.
Scully retreats to her bedroom, alone, and cries.
------------------
Scully has just taken the day's bread out of the oven when the knock comes at the cafe's front door. Through the window, she can see Walther Skinner... and Mulder is standing next to him, looking decidedly unwell. She rushes to open the door.
"It's over?" she asks Skinner, and he nods, his eyes closed tightly. Her stomach clenches, and her eyes well up. She knows that Skinner could not possibly have stopped it, not without revealing himself, but still, she'd hoped, naively, for some sort of last-minute miracle. She extends her hand to Mulder, leading him through the door. "Come on, Mulder," she says. "Let's go upstairs." He says nothing, only nods, and follows her silently through the kitchen and upstairs to the apartment. She sits with him on the sofa, caressing his hand gently, waiting for him to speak.
"I thought you said he was your mother's hired hand," Mulder says finally.
"He was," says Scully. "We obtained forged identity papers for the entire family and arranged for them to live on the farm. We don't know how their true identity was discovered."
"Where's the youngest daughter? Christine?" The knot in Scully's stomach loosens slightly at the thought of the little girl. The priest had come to her, not long after sunrise, to say that Christine was safely on her way, being shepherded through the countryside in the direction of Switzerland.
"We were able to hide her," says Skinner. "We had very little warning, but we managed that much. She's on her way to safety now." Mulder frowns as he mulls over his commander's words.
"We, Sir?" Skinner nods. Scully watches his face as he puts the pieces together, one by one, just as he had last night, in this very room. It feels like forever ago, instead of only a scant few hours. "You're with them."
"I am," Skinner confirms with a nod.
"Why didn't you stop it today, then?" Mulder asks.
"By that point, Mulder, there was nothing I could do, not without giving myself away. And there are people still in hiding who are counting on me to help them. All I can do is try to keep things from getting as far as they did this morning... but once it gets to that point, it's out of my hands." Mulder looks poised to interrupt, but Skinner stops him. "And out of yours, too. If you and I tried to intervene today, they would have shot us, and then shot that family anyway."
"You don't know that," says Mulder weakly.
"I do," says Skinner, "because I've seen it happen before. It doesn't sound gallant or honorable, I know, but that's how it is. If you want to help, there are ways, but an ill-conceived one-man suicide charge is not one of them." He stands. "I need to get back. Mulder, you're sick and excused from duties today, understand?" Scully stands, as well, touching Mulder gently on the shoulder to keep him in his seat.
"I'll see you out," she says. "I'll be right back, all right?" Mulder nods, and with a tender touch to his cheek, she follows Skinner out of the room, down the stairs, and through the kitchen.
"He's seen plenty of executions before," Skinner murmurs to her as they cross the dining room. "I've never seen him this shaken up, not once."
"It could be because he knew them before," Scully suggests. "It was only that one evening... but still, it might have been enough." She sighs. "Or maybe it's just too much, combined with his having found out the truth about me." Skinner raises his eyebrows. "He came back to the cafe last night after forgetting his hat," she explains. "While I was tending to someone."
"How did he take it?" asks Skinner. "Obviously he didn't rush to turn you in."
"He would never," says Scully firmly. "And we never got the chance to talk about it. I needed him to leave so that my patient could rest, and now...." She sighs.
"Go up and talk to him now," Skinner urges. "I meant it when I said that there are ways for him to help." Scully frowns.
"You think he'll be receptive?"
"I do," says Skinner firmly. "He doesn't want to be here. He never has. He hates Hitler and everything he stands for... but until now, he's been passive about it. The night he defended you is the most action I've seen from him since the occupation began." He looks pointedly at Scully. "He would do anything for you, Dana. And I think you should let him." He puts a hand on her shoulder. "He wants to help, I can tell... and if you ask him, I think he will. It will be good for him." He straightens up, settling his hat on his head. "Good for all of us." He turns to the cafe door and opens it. "Give it a try. One way or another, I don't want to see him back in camp at all today. In the state he's in, he's liable to break more noses, and I don't want to deal with that sort of a headache."
Mulder is still sitting on the sofa when Scully returns, his head hanging dejectedly. He looks up as Scully approaches, and she takes his hand, pulling him to his feet. She leads him to her bedroom, and he follows without hesitation.
"I want you to lie down for a bit," she says, taking him to her bed and settling him to lie down in the middle. Without worrying he'll think her forward- he's too far gone for that- she climbs up next to him, just above him, so that she can hold his head comfortingly to her chest. He clings to her as though she's the only safe thing in his world, and for awhile, she simply lets him lie there, stroking his hair, occasionally kissing the top of his head. She thinks back to what Skinner had said downstairs, before leaving.
"Mulder," she says at last, "I know you've seen more than a few executions. Skinner says you've always been stoic before. What happened this time?" He's silent, and she presses on. "Is it because you'd met them before? Had dinner with them?" Still, nothing. "Mulder?"
"It was the girl," he says finally, his voice hoarse and broken. "Helene. She saw me. She-" He stops, shudders, clings to her more securely. "She recognized me. She was looking at me like she was begging me to save her... and I didn't. I just stood there. And... she looked so much like Samantha, Scully. Her eyes... it was like I was looking at Samantha, the moment before-" Here, he stops. She knows he's scared to talk about this, she can sense that easily, but she can also sense that he needs to talk about it. It's there, behind his eyes, every time he talks about his sister, and it's eating him alive.
"Mulder," says Scully gently, "how did your sister die?"
For a moment, he's silent, and she thinks that maybe he won't be able to bring himself to do it, to tell her this secret story that is clearly weighing so heavily on his heart... but finally, he begins to speak.
"My sister and I had gone for a walk to the park near our house," he begins, quietly. "We were meeting a friend of mine- also Samantha's boyfriend- a young man named Rolf, someone I'd met at school. I'd introduced him to Samantha because they were so alike."
"How so?" asks Scully.
"Kind," Mulder says. "Empathetic. Strongly opposed to Hitler and everything he wanted for the country. Samantha used to shock our parents, and anyone else who happened to be sharing our dinner table, with the things she would say about him... which I encouraged, shamelessly. Not because I had any political leanings myself, you understand; but simply because I liked seeing my parents realizing that they couldn't control their daughter, no matter how much they might want to. Samantha was never going to be the perfect lady my mother wanted her to be, and I loved watching her stand up to them.
"It was February, 1934, and it had snowed all night, and we walked to the park to meet Rolf, not long before lunch. I don't even remember most of what we talked about- I just remember that the conversation had just shifted to me going to Oxford when it happened. Samantha, she didn't like the idea of me going to school so far from home, and she was just in the middle of telling me her reasons why it was a bad idea, when there was a sudden shot, and Rolf fell to the ground." He stops, for a moment, and Scully strokes his head, waiting patiently for him to continue. "I wasn't looking at her when it happened, I was looking around the park... trying to see where the noise had come from... I didn't understand what it was at first... and then... there was another shot." He shudders to a halt, clinging to her so hard it almost hurts, pressing his face into her chest. His tears are soaking through her blouse and she wonders if he even knows he's crying.
"It's okay, Mulder," she whispers, cradling his head against her. "You can tell me. I'm listening."
"I looked back at her," he says, "and she was already falling. I still didn't understand... not until I saw all the blood... and the way she was looking right at me...." He chokes out a sob, shaking from head to foot. "It was the same way that the Marchand girl looked at me today... begging me to do something... and I didn't. I couldn't."
"Mulder, there was nothing you could have done," says Scully. "You couldn't have saved Helene today, and you had no way of helping your sister that morning in the park."
"Oh, there were ways for me to help," says Mulder darkly. "My parents' attitude made that clear enough to me, once we learned the truth of what had happened. Rolf, it turned out, had been writing articles for a subversive newspaper, trying to discredit Hitler... and Samantha had been delivering the papers all over town." He takes a deep, ragged breath. "It was a political hit. And it never would have happened if I hadn't encouraged her, if I hadn't introduced them."
"Your parents... said this to you?" she asks carefully.
"They didn't have to," he says. "They couldn't have said it, because telling me it was my fault would have meant talking about the entire business in the first place, and they refused to do that. But the way they looked at me... the way they never spoke to me... it was enough to know. It was all my fault, and they knew it."
Scully has never in her life felt such a visceral hatred for two people she has never met. Part of her is glad that she's not likely to ever meet Mulder's parents... and part of her wishes she could meet them, simply to take them both to task for utterly failing their son- failing both of their children, when it comes down to it. But now, with Mulder lying broken in her arms, is not the time for such thoughts. Now is the time to begin to try and put right the damage that they have caused in him.
"Mulder," she whispers, "it wasn't your fault. Not today, and not ten years ago. The fault lies with the men who pulled the trigger, with the men who ordered them to do it, with the men who put the idea in their heads."
"I encouraged her, Scully," he argues. "I pushed her to say what she thought. I should have known it was dangerous."
"That's what big brothers do, Mulder," she says. "They push their sister's buttons. They try to get them in trouble with their parents. Believe me, I have an older brother, I know. You never meant to put her in any danger. You introduced her to your friend out of kindness, because you thought they would like each other." She tries to communicate in her gaze, to make him understand. This is important. "Nothing you did was meant to hurt your sister. Nothing you did should have hurt her, if the men in charge of your country were anything resembling reasonable. It wasn't your fault, Mulder. You couldn't have known." She slides down on the bed until their faces are at the same level and kisses him, then holds him close to her. She realizes, suddenly, that he's lying exactly where she'd hoped to have him, this evening, under very different circumstances, and she can't hold back a rueful laugh. He looks inquiringly at her.
"You know, I've been dreaming of having you in my bed for weeks," she explains. "Just... not quite like this." He smiles for the first time since last night.
"For weeks, huh?" he says. "I'm that irresistible?"
"You have no idea," she says, and she means it. She allows herself just one more kiss before she reluctantly sits up. "I'm going to need to go downstairs and open the cafe soon. I want you to stay up here and rest, all right?"
"I'll be fine," he protests, but she shakes her head.
"You didn't sleep at all last night, I can tell. You look completely exhausted. Stay up here, sleep if you can, and just try and relax if you can't." He doesn't require any further convincing to settle back down on her bed. In the doorway, Scully stops, thinking back on her earlier conversation with Skinner. "And... Mulder?"
"Yes, Scully?"
"I want you to think about what Skinner told you, all right?"
"Which part?"
"That if you want to help, there are ways. There are things you could do, Mulder, that could help stop what happened this morning from happening again. I want you to think about it and decide if that's something you're interested in."
She watches him weighing her words in his mind as he lies flat on his back, staring up at her ceiling. He's quiet for a long time, long enough that she begins to worry that she and Skinner have read him wrong, that maybe he's not open to helping, that maybe his fear of risking himself is greater than his abhorrence for what he's witnessed thus far. But finally, he pushes himself up to sit at the edge of the bed, looking her directly in the eyes. His voice is shaky, but his words are clear.
"Tell me what to do."
Scully feels an incredible sense of relief, an immense feeling of pride in him. She'd been right about him, after all. Smiling, she crosses back to him, taking his hands in hers.
"Right now," she says gently, "all you need to do is rest. Come down to the cafe later, in the afternoon, and have something to eat. And this evening, after I've closed up, we'll talk."
-----------------
It's a long day, and Scully spends most of the morning worrying about her mother. She knows that the Marchands will have been questioned prior to being put to death, and if they've said anything about who's been helping them....
Skinner appears just before noon to put an end to her fears. "The parents said nothing," he whispers to her as she bends low as though taking his order. "And the girl was too much in shock to talk." Scully nods, feeling some of the tension in her body release. Her mother may still be questioned, it's true, but the Marchand family's identity papers were perfect forgeries, indistinguishable from the real thing, and there's no possible way she could have been expected to know the difference.
Mulder appears in the dining room towards the end of the lunch rush, looking slightly better than he had when she'd left him upstairs. He eats several sandwiches, one after the other, and then gets up and carries his plate into the kitchen without speaking. When Scully follows, she finds him already at the sink, making a start on the pile of dirty dishes she hasn't yet gotten around to.
"You know you don't have to do that, Mulder," she tells him.
"I want to," he says. "I need to keep myself busy, Scully. I couldn't sit alone upstairs anymore... and I can't sit out there with some of the same soldiers who watched this morning and laughed." She nods, understanding.
"I'm going to close up early tonight," she says. "I haven't slept at all, either, and you and I need to talk before you leave here."
Scully anticipates some resistance when she announces at six o'clock that she's shutting down for the night, but there's none. The dinner crowd is smaller than usual, the atmosphere subdued, most of the men having opted either for solitude or for the comforts of the local tavern. The few still there at closing time leave with relatively little fuss, and Scully returns to Mulder in the kitchen.
"Let's go upstairs," she says, as he's finishing drying the last of the day's plates. He follows her up, sitting next to her on the sofa, and waits patiently for her to speak.
"I don't know how much you're willing to do," she says, keeping her voice quiet. "So how about I tell you what needs doing, and you tell me what you want to help with. All right?"
"I'm willing to do whatever you need, Scully," Mulder says earnestly, and she smiles.
"At least wait until you know what it is before making any promises," she tells him. "The biggest thing I need are medicines." He frowns.
"You want me to steal from the infirmary?"
"No, nothing quite that dangerous," she assures him. "I need things from the local pharmacy, but right now, I'm showing up there just often enough to arouse the pharmacist's suspicions. If you were to go there and make some of my purchases instead, he would have fewer questions- and if he does give you trouble, I think your uniform will be enough to intimidate him into submission." She scrunches up her face. "He's a little weasel of a man. Quick to report people, but not terribly brave."
"I can do that," Mulder agrees readily.
"And it would help if you were to carry messages to Hauptmann Skinner from time to time," she continues. "You being his subordinate, there's nothing suspicious about the other men seeing you talking to him. And you can go and find him in the encampment, which I can't, not without calling attention to myself. Most of the time I see him often enough to communicate what I need to, but it would be especially good in emergencies, like last night, if you could help out."
"I can do that, too," says Mulder. "What else?"
"The last thing is probably the riskiest," Scully cautions him, and he becomes much more serious. "We badly need German army uniforms, to disguise people we need to move after dark. Obviously you can't just walk out of camp with a stack of uniforms, but if you were to bring them to me one piece at a time, whenever the opportunity arises, we could put them to good use." Mulder's face falls slightly.
"That's it?" he asks. "I thought you were going to ask me to bomb train tracks and steal weapons." Scully smiles.
"Others are already doing that," she says. "You know that. You hear about it every day. And don't think for one minute that what I'm asking of you isn't every bit as dangerous, Mulder." He looks skeptical. "Please, promise me you'll keep that in mind."
"I promise, Scully," he says. "I just...." He shakes his head. "It isn't quite what I expected. But sure, I can do all of that." She smiles.
"I need you to do just two more things for me, Mulder," she says.
"Just two?" She nods.
"First, I need you to kiss me," she says, and he obliges enthusiastically before the words are fully out of her mouth, flooding her entire body with a sultry warmth that makes her second request harder to make... but she has to. She's dead on her feet.
"What else, Scully?" he asks, and she smiles ruefully at him.
"I need you to go back to the encampment," she says, "and let me sleep." He gives a theatrical groan, falling dramatically against the back of the couch.
"You're a cruel, cruel woman, Dana Scully," he says.
"I know," she says, sympathetically. "But I haven't slept in almost two days, Mulder. I'm dead on my feet." He sighs, but stands obediently. She follows him to the apartment door, but he stops her at the top of the stairs.
"I'll let myself out, Scully," he says. "I've still got my key. You go get in bed and sleep, all right?" He kisses her forehead. "I'll see you in the morning." He's gone before she can protest- not that she'd have the energy to. She stumbles to her bedroom and falls onto her bed without getting undressed or turning down the covers, and is asleep in minutes.
-----------------------
When she comes down to the kitchen in the morning, she finds all the dishes have been washed, dried, and put away. The meats and cheeses for the day's sandwiches are sliced and arranged on platters in the refrigerator, and every vegetable that can be chopped and left without wilting overnight has been prepared. On the counter, written in a strong hand, is a note:
"Scully, Whatever you need, I am here, now and always. -M.
Next Chapter  >
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firebirdsdaughter · 6 years
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Okay...
Finally sitting down to watch Zi-O ep 4...
Let’s game?
Well, no, actually no, we won’t, but I was trying to be thematic.
And in no particular order:
Okay, that explains it. When I saw the preview images it looked like they were talking to Emu, and then Geiz and Sougo both henshined and took a knee for some reason. It’s actually the other way round.
Geez, Emu. Since when were you this uncommunicative and unhelpful? That’s Taiga’s job!
Like seriously, you know these two are Kamen Riders. Just explain yourself to them instead of making weird vague statements.
Geiz at it again w/ the grump. Have I mentioned--you know where that’s going.
Tsukuyomi w/ the intercede again. I’m liking this trio.
Okay, I wanna know who Goggles is. The guy whose hand Geiz was holding in that future-flashback? A friend? Brother? This being Toei it’s unlikely to be a boyfriend, but it’s still possible. He looks like he mighta been a nice fellow, I’m sorry he died.
I guess this is a lot to take in, and Sougo is generally pretty slow on the uptake, it appears, so... But looks like he’s getting it now.
Tsukuyomi, I really hope you’re aware just how much of a problem child you just decided to adopt.
I actually agree w/ someone else I saw, I think. I kinda wish they would give her a better reason than ‘I don’t know’ for this. Like, I’m liking the idea that she doesn’t want her childhood friend to technically become a murderer by killing someone who is, at that point, still innocent, but this ‘I don’t know’ thing is kinda... meh to me. It doesn’t feel touching or sweet, and is even kinda out of character... But that’s just me. She’s super great, but she otherwise seems so decisive and confident that it’s a little odd.
OH MY GOD IT’S THAT CHURCH! I mean--it’s that wizard Bugster!
Fun fact, that Church is not just a Toei set. I have seen it in about FIVE other shows I think (don’t ask me to name them all, I can’t--but Kaname Jun was in one I think)
AH! Brave is here! But it’s back in 2016, episode... 2? Or maybe 3, but it would be when Hiiro literally just got there, so he’s still an ass. I mean, I still love him. But he was an ass.
Geiz, mister straight forward, just fucking informs them he’s from the future, I love him.
Maybe this has something to do w/ Hiiro’s sense that he should help them before... Aside from grumpy secondary solidarity, ofc.
‘From your perspective,’ Geiz, you are literally from 2068. I’m pretty sure, excepting folks from 2069 onward, that that’s the future from everyone’s perspective.
Also, to get this out of the way: AAAAAAH! SETO IS SO PRETTY! OH MY GOD I LOVE HIM SO MUCH EVEN WHEN HE’S A DICK! AND ESPECIALLY WHEN HE’S NOT!
Note: I don’t love him because he’s a dick, but what I love is grumpy, pretty much jerky characters who come out of that bc they start caring about someone or something (again, in Hiiro’s case). Did that make sense?
Also, I’m actually giggling bc of how much of a pompous ass my grumpy surgeon son was. The fact that this is literally like, right after he first showed up, means that he’s at peak dickishness and it’s really funny to look back.
Kids pulling on Geiz. God, honey, what were you expecting when you put that thing on? Well, at least they’re aware of how goofy it is.
On that note, ARE WE EVER GONNA SEE YOU WITHOUT IT?
Also, dear god, someone get this boy some fashion advice. I’ve SEEN that preview image sweetie. You canNOT dress yourself.
Oh my god, it’s the hospital helipad. Now I’m nostalgic.
Okay. Emu can teleport to game worlds now? Al... Alright then. You know what, whatever.
And Emu’s getting thrown around again. Some things never change. What’s still funny about this is still that Ijima Hiroki is (still) not a short man. He’s 5′ 10″. This, to me, makes how much Emu get’s thrown around utterly hilarious.
See, Emu. This is what happens when you don’t pull a Taiga, and discuss things w/ people. You’re the one who forced Hiiro to learn that, why are you doing it?
Aw, Sougo appreciates that Tsukuyomi is trying to save the future w/out killing him. Good kids.
Where’s that B99 ‘cool motive still murder’ picture? I mean, I know it’s a kid. But dude... You don’t have the right to other people’s lives (or body parts) just bc your son is dying.
Hm... I know people are thinking it’s named after Hiiro, but... What if it’s named after his dad? I mean, Kagami Haima was the director of the hospital, he had to start somewhere. To me that feels more logical? Bc it’s only been two years since Ex-Aid, that’s awfully fast to name a medical procedure... But it’s just a thought.
You know what, I bet Hiiro feels bad for brushing Geiz off in the past, so now he’s like ‘I must do everything I can to help these kids out bc when I met them before I was a jerk.’ Part of his ‘stop being an anti-social grump’ attempt. And he’s worried about Emu.
Does the Time Majin have an AI? How did it know to fly up to the roof right then? Is it telepathically connected to Sougo now?
So Uhr is helping Ora/Hora out? Maybe there is hope for a villain-family dynamic after all...
Also apparently that’s Takeru’s mech? Takeru has a mech? I really need to finish Ghost... But it’s either just for the sake of cameo, or it’s related to how Geiz got the Ghost Ride Watch. Now I’m wondering if he maybe stole the Drive and Ghost Watches from the Time Jackers? But if that’s the case, why did they have them? They usually use the Another Rider Watches...? Are Takeru and Shinnosuke okay? Oh my god, did Takeru die again? Actually, I guess Shinnoksuke also died a lot in that one movie so... Oh dear.
Is Sougo transforming in tiny spaces gonna be a thing now?
Come to think... Since the opening, we haven’t seen Woz. What’s prophet boy up to?
This tiny gremlin child who I adore and want to pinch the cheeks of just giggling to himself in his busted mech like a five year old.
Sorry, Geiz, you can’t beat the bounce.
Sougo just fucking slams this thing w/ the Time Majin.
And so, the path toward very reluctant and at first very awkward friendship begins. Let’s a-go kids!
But also god that boy is skinny. Honey, do you even HAVE hips? Are you okay?
Geiz is having feelings but is very confused right now. Punching things is generally a good venting method.
And the boys are still very bad at not being good at teamwork. Like, they’re already synchronising in pretty much every fight they’ve been in--not just in henshins but in attacks and so on.
Emu that looks NOTHING LIKE YOU, WHY would you call it a doppelgänger.
Since this is after Hiiro first showed up, it means that the two of them still don’t like each other (bc it took them a while to get there), so I’m not surprised that he wouldn’t call Hiiro immediately if something came up. Plus this may not show up bc CR relied on reports by witnesses and were in an abandoned warehouse. But then why is Emu...? Oh, I don’t know.
Was his henshin really always that deep?
Oh! There he is! Woz! I was wondering where you were! So, uh... Where were you?
Geiz: ‘Oh no, not again!’
Wow, he did the hoppity hop thing!
HE HAS GIANT BUMPS ON HIS ARMS! I LOVE THE GIANT BUMPERS ON HIS ARMS!
(I think they’re meant to be buttons?)
Aaaaand, right on cue, there Woz goes again.
Emu just like ‘okay then, let’s roll w/ this then, I guess!’
Wait, but the Brave and Snipe (and Genm, and then there’s Para-DX, and Poppy, and Cronus... Though I guess those last ones may not end up existing since they’re post-this?) Watches don’t seem to be in-show, so... Does that mean that Hiiro and Taiga keep their powers? Bc there was a Crozz-Z Ride Watch, so I now understand Ryuuga losing his, but there were so many Riders in Ex-Aid... Though maybe there’s a whole butterfly thing that simply by removing the primary everything is effected. Bc if you had to account for each individual Rider... Imagine how complex and difficult shows like Ryuki and Gaim would be to explain/sort through.
Hiroki has such a nice smile. Actually, pretty much everyone is Ex-Aid had a nice smile when they smiled.
Oh, god, yes. I really hope that the Rider trying to teach Sougo how to do the finisher in some way (miming for Emu, explaining for Sento) is a thing every time... Though I guess since they couldn’t get Gentaro we won’t get to see him do it... But maybe Takumi will? (I’ve never actually watched Faiz, so I have no idea what the finisher looks like)
Oh, hey. When Sougo hits him it says it in... Kanji, I think? But in Japanese characters of some kind instead of English.
ATTACK OF THE SUBTITLES!
Geiz standing of to the side trying to act cool while these two dorks help this man up.
... He’s wearing socks and... You know what, this is Japan. They’re probably his shoes for inside, and because he was running out to the ambulance with his dying son, he didn’t bother to change.
I love how Emu is like ‘who could we possibly... OH! That asshole!’ (again bc this is the very early season, back hen we didn’t like each other)
HE SAID IT! I guess they cut away so Seto didn’t actually have to eat the cake. Apparent he doesn’t actually like sweets? Maybe bc he’s such a sweetie. ^^
I really love it when the ones playing the ‘serious grumps’ are really adorably dorky and super nice. Like apparently, Seto was the funny and fun one, which I find so cute and hilarious.
Sougo here, getting into the groove of things during his second rodeo.
Emu’s like ‘are you two together?’ and Geiz is like ‘someone shoot me.’
Awwww. Of course Hiiro saved him. Though they haven’t shown us anything yet... So, maybe, even in the altered timeline, he and Emu still ends dup becoming close somehow? Can I pretend that’s the case? Seriously, Hiiro needs that kid. Otherwise he’s just gonna continue forgetting how to be human.
Why do you need another plate? But I think it’s cute how Junichiro is making so much food. I wonder if it’ll be like Mario in Zyuohger, where when he find out (if he doesn’t already know) he decides to just make life at the shop as homey as possible.
Geiz, maybe you should start using his name? Just to, you know, keep Uncle from getting suspicious?
ALSO WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WEARING WHY... I just can’t anymore. I love my dorky fashion disaster assassin son.
Here we are w/ the intense staring again. Wouldn’t be KR w/out it.
Geiz and Tsukuyomi be like ‘wow no pressure.’ Seriously, Geiz looks like he’s having a small panic attack back there.
He looks very pretty, though.
Aw, they’re keeping their Ride Watches together!
Well, there’s clearly a friendship theme, so I’m hoping there’s a level of deepening the bonds that just started forming in this episode. Unfortunately, I know nothing about Faiz other than apparently Kaixa is a horrible person (given that the preview images imply he’s strangling some poor girl, I am inclined to agree), so I can’t make any guesses there.
All I ask for Christmas is ONE episode where Geiz doesn’t wear that damn collar thing. I know it’s only been four eps but just ONE.
And, in final news, looks like they’re switching the Watches around.
Okay! Well, that's that for now. Now, my head hurts and I still want pizza, so... Not much else to say. Imaginary pizza for anyone who read all of this, you really didn’t need to do that.
I’m gonna pretend Hiiro and Emu are still friends somehow. Having a good time here, looks like we’re looking at another solid trio and I love it. Also, w/ OOO and Ghost apparently coming up... Good times.
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kaitkerrigan · 6 years
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RUN AWAY WITH ME : Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, California
It’s daunting to dive into a song that everyone knows. The “hit”. Will the song survive explication? Will explaining it will make it less good? I channel my inner fangirl, pretend I’m not myself (the person who ran through all of the various options of how the lyrics could play out, who knows all the other forks in the road of the lyric), and I realize the answer is “no”. So as the creator, I take a deep breath and say, ok, my tumbleweeds, you asked for it. 
Literally. I conducted a super formal poll this week on Twitter and over 200 people voted and 40% wanted to know more about “Run Away with Me”. Trust me, i was with the “Last Week’s Alcohol” camp. LWAers, I’m coming for you. 
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I think the reason I feel hesitant about this song is because I feel like I’ve said all of it before. I’ve taught it in master classes. I’ve written countless emails to college seniors who have decided to use it for senior showcases. I’ve watched videos of senior showcase mashups like this pairing with “Prelude to an Angry Young Man” by Billy Joel to showcase a young man’s dancing abilities. 
“Run Away with Me” has been around the block. It’s had its fair share of interpretations. What could I possibly say that you don’t already know? 
ORIGIN
“Run Away with Me” was a song without a hook when it first appeared. I remember Brian playing a truly relentless melody on my aunt’s piano. The scansion was something like this: 
"Let me be your ride, let me be your home,  Let me be your favorite place We can make a life, we can find a road, we can drive like life is a race.  Texas in a car, Kansas on a bus,  long as it’s highway and us.  Throw away the key.   Run away with me.  
I found it exhausting - this relentless energy of someone who is determined to connect. It was catchy as hell but busy and unappealing when you put words on it. I put together some dummy lyrics (we learned about those in “Say the Word”) to prove that the music didn’t work as well with lyrics on it. (These are not those lyrics. I mocked these up from memory. The rhythm really was very catchy.)
Brian cleared it out. He asked if a version that went like this:
“DA da DA da DA da da DA”
felt any better. It did. And that’s how we found the scansion that ultimately became, 
“Let me be your ride out of town.  Let me be the place that you hide.” 
It did feel better. It felt doable. I didn’t have the same instinct that I had towards “Say the Word”. I didn’t hear the music and cry. But Brian knew that he’d hit something sticky and he was determined to find where this song fit in the show. He was determined it was for Adam. He thought it came late in the show - an 11 o’clock number. He knew nothing else. 
When we found the phrase “Run away with me” the song clicked in for me. I don’t remember a lot about the process of coming up with the hook but I remember a lot about writing the lyrics. 
I discovered Adam’s voice in writing this song, but it also felt like it already existed. There was something I always knew and loved about Adam. It was borne of watching boys in college who were in love with my supremely complicated and high strung female friends. It’s not to say they weren’t smart - some of them were very smart - but they weren’t molded the way my female friends were. I was surrounded by women who had chosen, at 18, to go to an all-women’s college. That requires a certain kind of cognition about the world around you. Many of these women dated men but were loud, proud feminists. They were grappling with their relationship with romance, with being “swept off your feet”, with the uneasy comfort of feeling protected by a boy who can’t protect you because you are too smart to believe that such protection exists.  
Writing Adam, and this song in particular, was an act of grieving for the kind of girl I would never be. I would never fall for easy romance like the kind a sweet boy like Adam would offer me. 
WHEN IN DOUBT, TAKE A SHOWER
I hit my first real flight of inspiration - a visit from Elizabeth Gilbert’s “genius” (if you haven’t watched her TED Talk, do) - as a lyricist in this song. You can also call it getting lucky. 
This song is the reason I believe in taking showers when you’re stuck. It’s a more concentrated formula of my general antidote for “writer’s block”, which is something I refuse to acknowledge. Acknowledging writer’s block is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Its existence is in your mind to begin with, so your conjuring of it confirms its existence. My mom calls it “gathering periods”. Everyone has times when they need take in culture, writing, inspiration. You can’t ONLY write. You won’t have anything to write about. Sometimes you have to breathe and take in other people’s creative output. 
That said, deadlines are deadlines and you’ve got to get your work done. Rather than say, “I’m spent / I’ll never write again”, you say, “I need a shower.” Or I need to vacuum. Or I need to go for a run (I should say this - I never say this). I had spent the morning chipping away at the chorus and the second verse of this song, when I stopped to take a shower. While I was washing my hair, I came up with the entire bridge - lyric and music and rhythm and everything. It appeared to me like a glorious all-inclusive vacation to Hawaii. 
I wrote it down, dripping water on my bedroom floor.  Sometimes you get lucky. 
TECHNICAL STUFF
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Above is a little cheat sheet. If you ever want to sing this song and you don’t want to screw up the words, I suggest you look at it. Musical Theater singers don’t always think about song structure and that’s a shame. It’s a tool in your tool belt (like learning to read music - or at minimum learn how to fake it - I’ll save that soapbox for another day). Without understanding structure, you’re stuck memorizing a song from start to finish and you’re bound to screw it up. With song structure, you can look at the way it’s built and say, OH, look at the sections that are the same. Look at the ones that are different.
Most importantly, if you ever have to sing this song and you have a music stand - THIS IS TRUE WHETHER OR NOT YOU HAVE THE MUSIC IN FRONT OF YOU - write down on a piece of paper in massive letters: 
TEXAS ALABAMA MISSISSIPPI CALIFORNIA 
I cannot tell you the number of top-rate performers I’ve given this advice to. The ones who do it, never go up on lyrics. The ones who don’t ALWAYS DO. Trust me. It’s the least I can offer after not giving you a single bit of help in the lyric itself. It’s not alphabetical or even east-to-west. (My personal way of remembering is that Texas and California are easy to remember and the middle two are in alphabetical order. I’ll give a prize to someone who comes up with a good pneumonic - (Tell Adam M[?] C[?]??). It is just the worst. Don’t be proud. Be smart. WRITE IT DOWN. 
It’s not entirely my fault. In my first draft, the lyrics to each chorus were the same. You can thank Joe Church, Brian’s composition teacher (and my de facto composition teacher while Brian was at NYU), for the devilishly hard lyrics in the choruses. He pointed out (and I do think he was right) that the character needed to keep upping his ante over the course of the song. I think it’s one of the song’s great charms.  
I went back and looked at the chorus again and it’s a weird one. It’s not like looking at baby pictures. I’m not embarrassed by this song but could I make the decisions I made back then if I were writing lyrics for this now? Look at this crazy rhyme scheme! 
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By “crazy rhyme scheme”, I mean almost-no-rhyme scheme; I mean barest possible minimum rhyme scheme. Please give me the pleasure of enumerating the rhymes for you: 
Kerouac / back and key / me. 
FIN.
How is that ok?? Why does that work?? I’ll tell you. It’s two-fold. 1. character. 2. proximity. 
1. Character 
Here I go again. Broken record. Write in character. 
Adam works in his dad’s tire shop. He’s not literary. He’s not “smart”. This doesn’t mean he’s an idiot. Emotionally, he’s swimming in the depths. He’s empathetic. He’s kind. He’s generous. He’s really just about everything a person could ask for but he’s not a brainiac. 
If you had the unabashed pleasure of seeing Jay Armstrong Johnson perform Adam in The Mad Ones, you know what a breath of fresh air Adam is. He has a beautiful soul, but he’s the butt of jokes. Sam loves him but she doesn’t take him particularly seriously. When he says “I’m not good with words”, it’s important that you believe him. He’s not. But he’s trying. He’s trying to meet her where she lives. He’s using her references. He’s speaking her language. He’s a foreigner in a foreign land. 
Making him a “rhymer” would be all kinds of wrong. He’s not witty. He tries to be. He says things like “Texas in the summer is cool”, which a Tumblr fan from Texas pointed out is just not true. But Adam’s nervous. He’s trying. He’s saying things that are lame. He can’t say “Texas in the summer is cool” four times over the course of the song, because he realizes that it’s not true as soon as it comes out of his mouth. It was a dumb joke. He has to try new tactics. His tactics aren’t working. 
In his perfect world, he would have sung “run away with me” once, and Sam would have said, “Ok” and they’d go. In a perfect world, he wouldn’t have to say anything. He would fix her flat tire. He would work hard to make her comfortable. But he’s living in the planet of Sam’s grief. Her empathy is turned off. She hadn’t thought of Adam and what he wanted or needed or how he was trying to connect to her in a long time. She’s whirling in the new information that he would be change what he wants (stability, to run his dad’s business) for her. She doesn’t know how to respond and so he’s left floundering in a sea of his own words. 
2. Proximity
Hot tip. If you want to make it ok that you’re not rhyming a lot, rhyme close together. I am getting so much mileage out of “Jack Kerouac, looking back”. After five lines of no rhyme, you get two rhymes 3 syllables apart. Internal rhymes make up for writing a character who isn’t clever. It allows the writer to still exert some control over the lyric, some order in the face of a character’s chaos. In terms of character, it gives a sense of someone gaining momentum. Adam’s finally gaining traction. After five statements that go nowhere - 
“Let me be your ride out of town. [new thought] Let me be the place that you hide. [new thought] We can make our lives on the go. [new thought] Run away with me. [new thought] Texas in the summer is cool. [ new thought] We’ll be on the road like Jack Kerouac looking back, Sam, you’re ready, let’s go anywhere. [building on that thought] Get the car packed and throw me the key. Run away with me.” 
The first rhyme (Kerouac / back) is an indicator that he’s heading somewhere. He’s finding some textual rhythm. By the end of the chorus, he’s managed to put together a bit of a thesis - a little serve and return (key / me). 
It gives him the courage to go on in spite of Sam’s silence. The whole song is about Sam’s silence. It’s about him getting so caught up in it in spite of her lack of response, trying to build a vision for what they could have together. You’ve been there, right? Those moments where it feels like if you just keep talking, you won’t have to face the possibility that you won’t be met halfway? 
Time and time again, I read comments on YouTube and elsewhere: “I wish my name was Sam. I’d run away with you.” It’s essential that Adam’s desire for Sam is genuine and romantic and that his enthusiasm is infectious. You have to want her to want to go. But in the context of the show, you have to know that it will never work. She will never be able to say yes to him. She doesn’t know that before the song begins but by the time it ends, his fate is sealed. This isn’t actually a song about romance. Not for Sam. For Sam, who we’ve spent the last 75 minutes examining, this moment is filled with dread. You’re watching someone you love say all the things that make it impossible for you to be together. 
I remember - after writing this song - having dinner with a guy I was dating. He wanted to take our relationship to the next stage and I met a simple question he asked me with silence and panic. He said “I just wanted you to say that we’d work out any of the problems.” I didn’t realize until he said it that I was creating hurdles for our relationship because I didn’t want to stay in the relationship but I also didn’t have the heart to tell him that I wasn’t thinking about forever. I was looking for my exit strategy. Just because you’re not right for each other doesn’t mean that you want to hurt the other person. 
Of course the irony is that that’s exactly how you hurt someone. Sam is a classic introvert. She keeps everything to herself. She processes in her head (that’s the whole show). The sequel to The Mad Ones would be a whole hell of a lot of uncomfortable silence-filled conversations with the ones she leaves behind. 
“ROMEO IS CALLING FOR JULIET”: A NAIL IN A COFFIN
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You’re Adam. You’re not a brainiac. You say “Romeo is calling for Juliet” and you mean that you love her. You mean that she’s your soulmate. 
Now you’re Sam. You’re analytical and literal and literary. You hear “Romeo is calling for Juliet”. You hear that you’re star-crossed, that you’re doomed. 
Adam doesn’t know that when he says it but he feels the failure of his metaphor. All of his metaphors build a case against him. He talks about On the Road because Sam loves that book, because she romanticizes driving across the country, much like Sal does in On the Road. But Sal’s journey is solitary and obsessed not with Mary Lou (or any of the other women Sal sleeps with) but with Dean, his best friend. Sam is the same way. 
INGENUE
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I think a lot about ingenues in the musicals I write. How could I not? It’s a huge trope in musical theater, more in than in any other genre. There are even vocal registers that feel more “ingenue”. I grew up in high school, college, and community theater playing ingenues. I was the daughter, the wife, the literal ingenue in City of Angels. 
I also identified with ingenues in movies. I liked them plucky but I always wanted them to get the guy - or, let’s be honest - I wanted the guy to get them. 
Now, I only write ingenues when I can turn the idea on its head. Sam is not an ingenue. The story begins when her naïveté has been lost. If we told this story from the perspective from the beginning of her senior year, she would be the ingenue, but we tell the story from her moment before her rebellion. We are chronicling her journey away from ingenue. 
Brian and I joked through the rehearsal process that our ingenue is actually Adam. But by definition #2, it’s pretty accurate. Ingenues are often only in the love plot of a musical. They generally have one great song in a show but someone else (a man traditionally) gets to be involved in the multi-plot of a show. Harold Hill pursues Marion, whose role is contained to her utility to his plot - his moral opposite, but Harold is involved in SEVERAL plots. Sarah has her dogmatic beliefs (also a moral opposite to Sky) but it’s Sky Masterson who transforms through his relationship with her and his connection to the gambling plot. Rosemary literally sings about how she will be happy to keep her husband’s dinner warm, while Finch climbs the ladder to success and falls in love in the most perfunctory way possible. (These are all shows that are structurally genius pieces of theater, by the way, they just suck when it comes feminine stereotypes.)
Adam is really happy with their static relationship. He doesn’t actually want anything else. He makes a big sacrifice by trying to imagine what Sam wants, and in order to pull her out of her grief, tries to give it to her. It’s an act of sacrifice and empathy. And he’s right. She does need to run away. Just not with him. And it takes him naming the idea for her to realize exactly what she needs. 
Do you see what I love Adam? I wonder if men who wrote female ingenues felt the same way? You’re creating an idealized version of what the other sex should be so that your flawed (read: interesting) protagonist can grapple with the world around them. The exciting thing about creating this character was the attempt to manipulate the audience enough so that the audience would love him as much as I do but feel how deeply wrong it would be for Sam to say yes.  
Miscellaneous Questions You Have Asked
Can I (a guy) pretend Sam is a boy and sing this song? 
Why not? The “wife” line is a little weirder but I can justify it. There are a couple other pop versions of lyrics that are more generic that might be useful to you if you go that route.
Why are there pop lyrics to this song? 
We love this song and we wanted more people to be able to cover it. The use of “Sam” in the lyric feels essential in the show. It makes the lyric feel more insistent. Out of context, it feels a little theatery. I like theater - don’t get me wrong - but the rest of the song doesn’t feel that way so it kind of takes you out of the song if you’re not listening in the context of the show. I like the pop lyrics to the song. You should feel free to use them anytime. Though, in an audition, I’d revert to the original lyrics. Immediacy / theatricality / insistence are your friend there. 
Why does Adam say “let me be the place that you hide”?  I got this question specifically from someone when I was soliciting questions. It must have been on Twitter because I can’t find it on Tumblr. I hope that the rest of this post helps illuminate the character broadly enough that this already feels clearer. It’s a problematic idea, isn’t it? It comes back to Adam offering comfort, offering protection, offering something that Sam might want but is ultimately wrong for her. 
Can I record “Run Away with Me”? 
Yes. Because it’s already been professionally recorded by us, by Josh Young, by Aaron Tveit, and Dwayne Britton (maybe others?), anyone can get the mechanical rights to record through Harry Fox. Huzzah! 
Why are there so many versions of the final riffs and release of “Run Away with Me”? 
When you get the chance to workshop a song as long as we have, you get to really hone what you want out of it. If you’re in doubt about whether or not you’re singing the most updated version, check out Ben Fankhauser’s version on Playbill. This is the one we went into production with in fall 2017. 
Can a girl sing “Run Away with Me”? 
Hell yeah. Carrie Manolakos covers it on our live album and it’s pretty sick, and here’s a new video of Emma Hunton’s take on it. You didn’t know how much you wanted this. 
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torestoreamends · 6 years
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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Recap – 16/12/17
When I see an incredible performance of Cursed Child there’s normally a moment when I look at the stage and think ‘this is very special, and I need to do everything I can to remember it’. With this performance, that didn’t happen. It didn’t hit me how amazing it was until the next day, when all the tiny little details came flooding back to me, and I slowly realised that every single tiny piece of what I’d just seen was flawless.
Every time I see the show I want to see new things, I want to learn something about the characters, or about the technicalities of the show. I want to take something exciting away with me, some new revelation that can feed my future enjoyment of the world and of the show.
With this one, it felt very average at the time. Everyone did their normal things, no one noticeably brought anything particularly new to the table. It was very standard, very well executed; safe but high-quality. But on reflection, within the things I’ve become so familiar with over the last seven months, were new and exciting things, tiny things, that made the whole show incredibly special. Like a layer of glittery festive icing sugar on top of a very standard but tasty chocolate cake. This one definitely glittered.
I think I might get the things that I wasn’t wildly in love with out of the way first, so nothing gets in the way of the lengthy speech I have planned about how much I adore Mackley, Samuel, and James Howard (among others).
So I had never seen a cover Ron until this show. I’ve seen the show n amount of times, and have now seen the main Ron n-1 times. This started out as luck, but recently became more by design. Anyway, I was resigned to this one. I guessed it was coming, prepared myself accordingly, and now there is no longer a character in the play that I haven’t seen a cover for!
I think I need to see Danny’s Ron again. I always find it weird seeing a cover of a character for the first time, because you spend half the play just getting used to them so you don’t really get a full sense of what it is their doing, and what journey they’re going on. But that didn’t stop me having opinions.
I thought he was great with the more serious stuff. I really enjoyed his second timeline (this was one of the best second timelines I’ve seen all round actually), especially the awkward staircase scene with Hermione. Where he fell down was the comedy. I think the problem came from him replicating what Tom does, and obviously he’s a different actor to Tom. I think he would have been a lot more successful if he’d done his own thing with it.
There were things that are really funny when they’re over-emphasised, and he didn’t really push those things. They would have been great if he’d gone further with them (I’m thinking of the baby or a holiday scene in particular, which had good potential, but I just wanted more of everything). Also, in Act Four I found his Ron more standoffish and sulky than a joker, especially in the church, which really didn’t work for me. He’s a good actor, but definitely not my Ron.
Anyway, moving on to the things I really enjoyed.
Part One
This cast is weird. They’ve always been weird. And what I mean by that is that, in general, their Part Two is a lot better than their Part One. It’s been that way ever since the first show, and I don’t know what it is, but Part One often just feels like set up. The real action begins at the end of Act Two, and that’s when the really brilliant stuff comes out. That’s when they fire up.
However, every month or two, they’ll give a performance where Part One really shines. It’ll come alive, every second of it will be compelling, and I’ll be totally blown away. This was definitely one of those. It was a great Part One.
The fun really started with Mackley’s blanket scene. Last time I saw him do one of these I thought it could have been more explosive, but this one was everything I expect from him. He actually screamed himself into tears, which was really cool.
I didn’t notice it this time, but normally one of my favourite things about a Mackley blanket scene is how the power balance between Harry and Albus changes when he’s on as opposed to Theo. When Theo is Albus, Harry takes a position of physical power in the scene – Jamie stands up and towers over him, while he stays curled up on the bed until near the very end of the scene.
With Mackley it’s the opposite. Albus stands up and positions himself behind the bed head, putting a physical barrier between himself and Harry, and using the height advantage over his dad to make himself big and intimidating in his anger, meanwhile Harry sits on the bed looking up at him. Since Jamie uses his physical positioning in scenes in such a specific way, to emphasise where harry feels he is in the pecking order, I actually love seeing this difference. I find it very cool and very fascinating.
The other great bit of the scene this time was how Mackley screamed in his face. It gave me beautiful flashbacks to the days of Jamie P and Sam, when being nose to nose and yelling was a daily occurrence. I can clearly remember Mackley straining as he shouted, and by the time he got to the end of “no, I just wish you weren’t my dad!” his voice cracked, and Albus went from angry to broken in a heartbeat.
That fracturing at the key moment of the scene, when Albus is his angriest, just shows how much Albus really loves his dad and wants to be loved back, and emphasises his despair in the fact that he thinks it will never be possible to get that love. My friend @eldabe said the most brilliant thing, which I think applies perfectly here: “Mackley’s Albus is just such a unique combination of vulnerable kid and confident teenager”. He is confident, he’s bold, he shouts for what he wants, and inside he’s this mess of a child who just wants love and friendship and adventure, and I think that is what I find exciting about him.
Oh the quiz scene in this show... I cannot overstate how much I adore Samuel and Mackley as a combination. They may not be the most Scorbusy, but I love how much fun they have together. I love how Mackley is enough of a loose canon to keep Samuel endlessly entertained.
Whenever I see Mackley and Samuel together they sparkle at each other. They have this joy in their eyes, and you can see their love of performing and performing together, and you can see how much they’re enjoying themselves. This is particularly the case with Samuel, because every time I’ve seen him with Mackley, there comes a point in the show where he stops doing his job and starts having fun. It stops being a thing he loves that is his livelihood, and becomes a game. He sort of takes flight, and everything becomes effortless, and somehow when Samuel is enjoying himself and when he’s flying, he’s even more Scorpius than he is when he’s really focusing on his craft. It’s not really something I can capture in a description, it’s something you have to see for yourself.
But anyway, in this show, the quiz scene was where Samuel started having fun, and from there the rest of the Part was just pure joy. It was delightful.
I remember one moment very clearly from this scene. When Scorpius says “get that strange look out of your eye”, Mackley turned to Samuel, put his hands on his shoulders, and for the first time ever I got this overwhelming sense of Albus as a hero. In that moment, Albus was the hero of his own story, he was taking control of his life, and he was a force of nature.
Over the shows I’ve seen Mackley do as Albus, I’ve seen the balance between Albus and Scorpius get better and better. The first time, I didn’t even notice Anthony until some point in Act Four, because Mackley and Albus were the star of the show. But the more I see him with Samuel, the more the balance between Albus and Scorpius gets. Albus no longer dominates Part One the way he once did; this quiz scene was the only moment where I really felt he was in control of their partnership.
Ed was in Danny’s track in the St Oswald’s scene. It was aesthetically pleasing. (If anyone doesn’t know why that’s significant... message me and I’ll explain.)
This was only the second time I’d seen Martin as Amos/Dumbledore, and I certainly enjoyed his Amos a lot more this time (I already loved his Dumbledore). It took me until this second show to get used to his voice and the way he plays the character. He feels a lot more solid, and a bit younger than Barry; more tough and up for a fight, and I quite like that. It certainly worked well in the scene at St Oswald’s, where he and Mackley were going at each other. I also love how you can see Delphi getting more and more frustrated with him, because he’s so head strong and difficult to control.
One of my favourite things about seeing Mackley as Albus is getting to see him play not only with Samuel, but also with Annabel. You can see how well they get on and how used to each other they are. The two of them really come alive together. The best example of this is the ‘Wizzo!’ moment.
They don’t decide before they go on what they’re going to do there. It’s pure improv. Annabel comes up with an idea on the spot (presumably something as ridiculous as she can think of) and Mackley has to copy her as if he’s been doing it all along. And then Samuel has to come rushing in and go along with the whole mess. It’s really glorious. (This show’s wasn’t the best one I’ve seen. Annabel confessed last time Mackley was on that she was running out of ideas, and while this one was fine and very ridiculous, Samuel didn’t pick up on it as well as I’ve seen him do before. There have been some truly stellar ones before though.)
The other random thing that I adore about Mackley is how calm he is about the Expelliarmus. It doesn’t look like he’s at all worried about catching the wand. He does the trick a lot slower than Theo, but that actually makes it better, because he’s so confident in it that you never doubt for a second that it‘ll work. It’s always very impressive.
I have been hearing about James McGregor’s Bane for a long time, but have never managed to see him before. However, I finally understood what all the fuss was about (honestly, I got AA16 for the most aesthetically pleasing show ever – Ed as ‘Danny’, James as Bane, and Leah as Polly. Even I was jealous of me.) Anyway, I did just about manage to form coherent thoughts about James’s Bane, which was no mean feat, let me tell you.
He’s a very young seeming Bane. His anger is raw and new. Nuno’s (and Adam’s too from what I remember) feels worldly and developed over years of bitterness and hatred, but James’s Bane has a similar sort of anger to Albus, one that’s just beginning to take flame. It was a really interesting take, and he felt sort of naive in his anger. It made me wonder how long centaurs live, because I always assumed Bane was older by now, but maybe not in centaur years. Anything goes when your character is a magical creature!
I had three favourite things from the First Task scene this time. 1. Josh and James P spelling TWT with their hands at the start of the scene. I’ve seen this before, but it’s normally Mackley and James P, so it was cute seeing James P teaching it to Josh in character at the very beginning of the scene. 2. Before the ‘I love Krum’ chant, Mackley turns his back on the audience, and when it starts he does a Macarena style jump to start the routine. It’s ridiculous, and I love everything about it. 3. Rupert decided he was very very scared of the dragons, and went to hide behind Ed, who ended up right at the front of the crowd.
Also, I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before, but I love everything Samuel does in this scene (I love everything he does in every scene but whatever). Scorpius gets so excited working out which task it is, and looking around the crowd. He’s so overwhelmed to be part of history, it’s adorable. One of Scorpius’s cutest moments, and one of the (many) parts where you realise how perfect Samuel is.
A really cool thing in the hospital wing scene was seeing how detached Martin’s Dumbledore is from everything. It was so portrait-like. At the end of the scene, when he says ‘and I never had a son’, he wasn’t looking at Harry. It was like he couldn’t bring himself to, or maybe just that a portrait can’t express emotion in that way. Either way it was very interesting, and it goes along with what Martin’s said before about Dumbledore being a grief stricken old man, and very similar to Amos in that sense. That grief and emotion, and the inability to express it (especially at this point in the show) really makes sense.
I will never not love the potent look between Scorpius and Harry, once Albus has run away after telling Scorpius he can’t talk to him anymore. It’s such a guilty, heartbreaking thing. (Also, Mackley’s version of Albus running away is so gorgeous. It’s definitely one of those ‘vulnerable kid’ moments, which are so powerful beside the confident teenager he’s playing earlier in the scene. He so desperately needs his dad that he’s willing to throw everything away with Scorpius for a chance a his dad’s love.)
The DADA scene in this show was absolutely flawless. I’ve never loved Rakie’s Hermione as much as I did this time around. She usually has brilliant interaction with everyone in the scene, but this time in particular she had these really cool moments with all of them. I remember her catching Josh laughing and crouching down in front of him when she said the ‘what limited popularity you’ve got left line’ and then sort of repeating to him a couple of times that he should be quiet, while he looked utterly bemused and a little bit afraid. At one point she also told April off. Having said all that, she was a lot calmer and more contained in this show than others, and I think that was why I loved it so much – she has a tendency to play it too wild for my personal taste.
So last time I saw the play I discovered a new technical detail that I’ve never seen before. In the duel scene, as well as the handles on the back of Harry and Draco’s costumes to help them be lifted more easily, @ohscorbus and I noticed that Draco is wearing a sort of harness under his robes. I noticed it again in this one, and thought it was a fun little thing that’s super subtle and that people might miss.
Anyway, this was a fantastic duel. Possibly Jamie G’s best attempt at a Flipendo ever. He landed perfectly on his feet, and I was incredibly impressed. I think he was impressed too, because he ended up in the wrong place for the next spell while he was recovering from doing so well! He had to run across the stage, which I’ve never seen him do.
The best bit, though, was the bit after the duel. James Howard was exceptional in this one. He was the person in particular who didn’t anything especially stunning, but he exuded Draco to an extent I’ve never seen before even from him. Every detail was beautiful, and on reflection those details were even more breathtaking than they felt at the time.
I love it when he speaks so softly as he says “don’t lose the boy”. Draco means that line with every part of his soul. That experience and that sentiment is what makes him such a good and caring dad. He gets that sort of thing. He understands and identifies with Albus, whether or not he knows it, and that softness, the deliberateness, just proves it. I far prefer a quiet delivery to the louder ones. Counter-intuitively, it makes it much more direct and impactful.
I don’t know if I’ve said it before, but Samuel’s library scene is a work of art. Truly, it is a masterpiece. And I mean that in the highest sense of the word. Every single thing he says and does is so carefully crafted, into this wash of emotion and atmosphere. He holds the audience in the palm of his hand. This scene is why I want to have words with everyone who hasn’t given him an acting award yet. Because really. Really really.
Anyway, this was one of the best. This was beautiful. Because not only was Samuel firing on all cylinders, but Mackley was too. This was another instance of Mackley yelling himself into tears, and Samuel responded with emotion and anger and all the power and strength that Scorpius has inside him.
It was an angry, loud one. The tears were angry tears. And yet the bit about Astoria was so soft. (Don’t get me started on Samuel’s dynamics. I could write a novel.) Actually though, the best bits of stillness and quiet came in the second half of the scene.
One of the things Mackley does so incredibly well is having the confidence and courage to be absolutely still and hold an emotion on stage. He does it after Albus’s sorting, and he did it again here.
When they emerged from beneath the Invisibility Cloak he just stood at the back of the stage looking at Scorpius for the longest time, totally silent and still, and when he moved forward it was tentative and nervous, like he didn’t know if he was allowed to be near Scorpius anymore. The whole interaction was soft and slow and full of silent tension. Samuel always takes so long to say “thanks”, and normally Theo is waiting to jump straight back in again and go on with the apology, but Mackley didn’t. He took a pause that only built the tension and atmosphere between them.
When the hug in this scene finally came, Albus hugged Scorpius so hard that he actually lifted him off his feet. Samuel was not expecting that. He was so determined that Scorpius should not hug Albus back, that he ended up flailing his arms and feet around in the air in an attempt to kill his instincts for self-preservation. It was very sweet.
A final note on Part One. April has changed the line “girls and boys” to “boys and girls” a couple of times now. It makes the line feel very weird, but it is quite entertaining. I’d like to know if it’s deliberate, because she’s so confident about it that you really can’t tell.
Oh and one more, because I can’t help myself. I love how when Myrtle flirts with Scorpius, Samuel closes his robes over himself and makes himself all small, and then when she flirts with Draco, James hunches his shoulders and makes himself as small as he can too. It’s so sweet to see how much they really are father and son. These Malfoys are perfection.
It was an utterly gorgeous Part One. I loved every second of it, and it got me very excited for Part Two.
Part Two
This Part Two was such a slow burn of feelings that even now, over forty-eight hours later, I’m still suffering. I got very little from it in the moment, but it continues to slay me, which is a good part of why I’m writing this recap! The more I think about it, the more I love it. So I shall now make myself love it even more...
Samuel corpsing is my favourite thing. His ambition in life seems to be to make everyone on stage with him break, so to see someone else break him is a thing of beauty. I’m beginning to wonder if actually Elizabeth is trying to make him crack in the first scene of the act, by getting creepier and creepier. Anyway, whether it was deliberate or not, I think she managed it.
She sort of stroked Samuel’s cheek in this chillingly creepy way, and I’m pretty sure Samuel lost it for a bit. He was still sort of half grinning, half laughing in the next couple of scenes. But like I say, it’s difficult to tell sometimes if he’s broken or not, because he spends so much of his time smiling, and he also has Scorpius do all these anxious smiles when he’s very afraid, which he definitely is in this scene.
I love Leah’s Polly. I don’t think I have anything more to say about it than that... She’s great. I hope she stays next year and gets promoted, because she’s definitely my favourite Polly ever.
So the scene in Draco’s office. This has become (perhaps it’s always been) my favourite scene in the show. I love it with everything I have, and I love watching Samuel and James’s version – every one of their versions of it.
This was a very standard version of the scene. It had all the normal stuff that I’ve come to expect from these two. Samuel cried, Draco came out from behind the desk when I expected him to, Draco grabbed Scorpius’s chin and studied him... The usual.
Except this scene, on reflection, was so far from usual. It was stunning. Stunning for two main reasons.
First, when Draco emerged from behind the desk, he glanced over his shoulder at the door before saying “did your mother really say that of me?” I’ve talked to James about the possibility of Draco being undercover in this world, and I sort of take that as read in his portrayal at this point. So this glance over his shoulder was wanting to make sure no one would overhear this dangerous thing: how desperately he wanted to confirm that Astoria had said he was brave.
Second, after the chin grab he turned round and braced himself on the desk. This is powerful enough already, because he simply can’t face Scorpius when he says “can’t lose you too”. He’s trying to stay strong, but he knows he’ll break if he looks Scorpius in the eye. However, in this version there was an added level of potency.
As he said the line he ran his fingers round the edge of his wedding ring. He was so obviously thinking of how much it hurt him to lose Astoria, he doesn’t want anymore of her light to leave his life. Scorpius, this Scorpius in particular, is the last piece of hope that he has left to hold onto. He needs Scorpius so much in that world. Scorpius is his inspiration to keep going, to keep fighting, to keep up his Malfoy front and be who his family needs him to be. That single little run of fingers round the wedding ring has caused me a lot of pain in the last day or so. James is so rude, but I love him for it.
David’s writing on the blackboard is getting more obscure by the day, which is fun, but also a bit frustrating. It’s gone beyond the point where I know the phrase or can easily find it through google. This show’s one was ‘sapienter di-‘ so if anyone has any Latin intel and can help out with a translation, let me know!
Why is it that the covers are so good at getting hooked onto the Dementors, when the main actors do it every day and are still rubbish? I find it mind-boggling. Anyway, if Danny and Nicola ever end up doing a show together it will be the most stress-free Voldemort timeline we’ve ever seen.
I want to know what Draco says to Scorpius during their walk up to the castle together after the boys have returned from the lake. You can always see Draco talking to Scorpius, maybe telling him off, during the end of the scene by the lake, but he can’t be all angry, he must also be so relieved. I’d love to hear all that... I wonder if maybe after Draco is done telling Scorpius off he just stops talking, and it’s tense, awkward silence for the rest of the walk.
Josh as Karl in the bit with the kids eavesdropping on McGonagall’s office is really cute. Normally Mackley’s Karl does such a good job of comforting Rose, it’s one of his most lovely scenes, but Josh’s Karl really does not. He has no idea what to do. Craig and Yann end up coaching him through it, telling him he’s closest to her so he has to do something, telling him what it is he needs to do. And in the end all Josh’s Karl can manage is a really awkward little pat on the shoulder.
Mackley’s Albus’s relationship with Harry really shines in Part Two. This is also where we see the ‘confident teenager’ part of his personality come out. He’s so bold in his interactions with Harry. Where Theo’s Albus turns away, avoids eye contact, almost hides himself, Mackley’s Albus does the opposite.
In the dorm scene, when they’re sitting on the suitcase, Mackley has Albus turn to face his dad right from “Really scared you?” It turns from being slightly bitter and disbelieving to a real question, and Harry’s response to it shifts, towards amazement that his son doesn’t understand how scared he is of everything. It’s a real step on their journey, that with these two comes from Albus’s boldness.
The beginning of Scorpius and Albus’s dorm scene feels so empty without the pillow fight these days. It’s very weird.
The Owlery scene was pretty great in this one. Annabel and Mackley get on so well together that their interactions are brilliant, and then you have Samuel on the edge figuring things out on his own.
Scorpius realising Delphi was evil was really cool this time. He said “I don’t believe you were ever ill” so softly, like he was just disappointed in her. Disappointed and upset. She’d let him down by lying to him, when all he wanted was to trust her like Albus did. It was a lovely take on the moment.
Also, Annabel was kind of grabby, touchy feely with the boys. Delphi patted Scorpius on the knee; help Albus’s face, all the good stuff that makes her extra creepy.
This torture scene wasn’t just good, it was revelatory. Ever since the 17th of September, when I first saw Mackley with this cast, I’ve been on something of a journey of discovery with this scene. In that show, this scene really confused and disconcerted me. I found Mackley’s take on it so far from my concept of Albus (which he normally matches up with so well) that I was completely thrown off. And then, of course, I saw Theo do the same things that I’d seen Mackley do, but for some reason I preferred them then. So I’ve been figuring this one out, talking about it a lot, trying to understand where both Theo and Mackley are coming from, and I think I finally get it.
Mackley has Albus almost completely collapse in this scene. He’s still fierce, but that’s inspired by Scorpius, who’s the strong one, the one holding everything up. Scorpius is using everything he gained in the Voldemort timeline to be solid and keep fighting and refuse to be broken, and Albus latches onto that.
I don’t think Mackley nodded to say that yes he would go along with Delphi this time, but I’ve talked to both him and Theo about what it means when it does happen, and it’s a ploy. It’s to convince her that he’s going to go along with her, and buy himself and Scorpius (mostly Scorpius) time. And even if it’s not that, even if it’s just a total, fearful collapse, I can sort of understand that too.
The way Mackley plays Albus’s reaction to Craig’s death is to fall apart, all his fight and self-confidence imploding, and I see why. It’s not that event that destroys him, that’s just the tipping point, it’s that on top of everything that’s happened.
When Albus decides to destroy the Time-Turner, it’s because he’s already so broken by the thought of the damage he’s caused. This is a boy who (according to Theo) has nightmares about anything bad happening to his family. In everything that’s happened in the show to this point, all that Albus has done is hurt people, and he’s very much aware of that. He’s caused damage to the whole world, to his family, and to Scorpius, and in destroying the Time-Turner he set out to put all that right, but all he’s done is get someone else killed, for which he fully blames himself. So of course he collapses! It’s the despair of a kid who wants to do some good and still fucks up.
At his lowest point in this scene he must question whether he’s worthy of anything (Scorpius’s friendship, his dad’s love, any of it), if this is what his impact on the world is. Maybe this is what the Sorting Hat saw in him, this potential for complete and utter destruction.
In the context of a good, kind, loving boy, who just wants friendship and for his dad to appreciate him, it’s heart breaking. He’s heroic and noble, and so much like his dad – he takes the weight of everything on his shoulders. And for a kid like that to get to the point he reaches in this scene is devastating. It’s the opposite of everything he wants to be, and he really thinks it’s all his fault, even though so much of it has come from his manipulation.
So that was the revelation I reached, watching Mackley in this scene. I’ve finally come full circle, and figured out exactly where he was going with Albus on the 17th of September. I’ve learned a lot about Albus in the last three months, and I’m really glad I have, because now I can appreciate how that Albus that confused me so much is still the same as my Albus.
Another person who I had a minor revelation about in this show was James Howard. If you know me you’ll know that James has been my Draco ever since I saw his very first performance. I’ve loved him every step of the way. And on Saturday I managed to pin down one of the reasons I adore his Draco so very much.
James has nailed Draco’s instinct for both self-preservation, and the need to protect his son. He plays a Draco who has clearly learned so much from his life experiences, who knows how to behave in duels, and around instances of Dark Magic, and who knows how to do all sorts of difficult spells. But he’s also learned these sort of worldly instincts, things like how to handle hierarchy in a situation, when it’s his place to step in and fight, and when to let someone else take charge and trust that they’ll do a good job. When he’s functioning in a group and not as a lone wolf, he’s brilliant, despite his social awkwardness and how afraid he is.
He knows how to survive all sorts of situations, because he’s seen so much, done so much, experienced heartbreak and failure and true fear. Everything he does in the play is about survival, it’s that instinct to keep himself and his son going, whether it’s in the Voldemort timeline when he’s defending their position, or when he knows Scorpius has been kidnapped, or when he’s fighting Delphi with the group. He can manoeuvre around all those situations, and James makes that feel so real, like such a basic instinct for Draco.
He makes his acting choices, and the person he sees Draco as being, feel entirely real, entirely ingrained, and his thoughts and ideas are like pure instinct and mannerism. There’s no separation between him and Draco, and it’s an incredible thing that I’m in awe of and would love to know how he pulls off.
I’ve now seen Morag as the Station Mistress twice! I actually saw her first show, which I think was a surprise to the cast as much as to us – James McGregor was listed on the cast board, so that first time she was a last minute substitution.
The second time was definitely better from all sides. Having her as a surprise was very cool, but also sort of threw off the whole balance of the scene, and it was better with practice, because the boys had to switch up their lines, and she had to figure out where to stand on the stage to make the scene work.
I’ve spoken to a lot of people who seem to prefer Martin’s Amos to his Dumbledore, but I’m actually the opposite. Although I’ve warmed to his Amos now I’m used to it, I think the standout is his Dumbledore, which is really fascinating.
He gives Dumbledore so much fragility and pain. Although his Amos is a lot more solid-feeling than Barry’s, his Dumbledore really isn’t. His Dumbledore is fracturing at the seams and falling apart. It’s not a take I’ve thought of before, but I love it a lot, especially in the context of Martin’s theory that Dumbledore and Amos’s grief is what makes them so similar.
I can’t remember if I did Cackle Watch with Alex last year, but I’m certainly doing it with James. I have this theory that the destiny of everyone who plays Draco is to end up cackling when they say “maybe it’ll be mine soon enough”. I think it’s an inevitability of inhabiting that character for a year. It just happens. Alex did it, and now James is just proving the point, because every show he sneaks just a teeny bit closer to cackling there. At the moment it’s still a laugh (albeit an evil one), but soon... Soon we shall achieve full cackle.
Having raved about James, because I think he’s perfect, I do want to pull up one thing he does that’s getting increasingly annoying and frustrating with every show, and that is the way he delivers “she wanted me to have someone when she left”. He does this stupid, unnecessary, really fake pretend sob as he says it, and his voice cracks, and maybe it’s just me having seen him do it *cough* number of times, but it’s irritating, and I wish he’d stop.
The emotion he generates in that speech about Astoria and Scorpius is so beautiful, he does an amazing job, and I feel like the fake sob throws away all his hard work. It doesn’t need to be there to make him sound emotional. I’ve seen some absolutely stunning versions of that speech, and I wish he would have the confidence or whatever it is he needs to just see that through, rather than trying to ‘sound emotional’ and ruining the real, natural atmosphere he’s created.
A gorgeous thing he does in this scene, once he’s come back from the awful fake emotion, is to cradle the Time-Turner after Harry says “and nor will a Time-Turner, I’m afraid”. That thing contains all his hope of saving Astoria and Scorpius. It contains everyone he loves in the world. It’s all he has left at this point in the play. If the show ended after that scene, Draco would be left only with a gold Time-Turner, and the knowledge that he could search for centuries and never manage to get his beloved family back, and that is heartbreaking and wonderful. He cradles it like a baby, like he’s holding a much younger Scorpius safe in his arms, with so much gentleness. It’s Draco’s saddest moment of the play.
The best thing about a Mackley and Samuel show is Godric’s Hollow, when they just go wild. This wasn’t the wildest one I’ve seen from these two (I still fondly remember the 17th of September when it was both of their last shows before a break, and they went totally nuts and Mackley made Samuel corpse), but it was lovely, the culminating moment being when they both leapt into the air an inch apart and I truly thought for a second that we were going to get a dorky Scorbus chest bump, which might actually have killed me. They did not actually do a chest bump, but we were so close. I hope they do it one day. It would be wonderful.
I put in my bullet point plan of this recap that I should mention the snow in Mackley’s hair so... here we are. Mackley has the perfect hair for collecting snow. It just sits there, all nestled in the fluff. It’s great.
I have about ten thousand favourite things about Samuel’s performance, but one of my most beloved elements is what he does when the seven are looking for the perfect place to wait for Delphi. Obviously in the script, Hermione is the one who spots St Jerome’s as a great hiding place, but over the summer, Samuel started having Scorpius sort of point it out a few seconds before she spotted it. He would sort of look between here and the clock, and surreptitiously point. She didn’t notice for a long time, until one glorious show when she turned round and caught him. Ever since then, spotting St Jerome’s has become a collaborative effort between Scorpius and Hermione, and it’s such a sweet moment between them. I love that Samuel throws in fun little things like that.
At the line “It was Rodolphus Lestrange, Bellatrix’s loyal husband’ Annabel changes Rodolphus for Bellatrix, resulting in a momentary pause as she considered how to escape from this fuck up, and in which I freaked out, as I do when these things happen. She almost recovered perfectly. The line got a teeny bit warped but what can you do? The most astounding thing about it was that Annabel messed up a line, because I feel like she never does that! Everything is always so natural and in the moment, and flows so well, that it seems as though she is Delphi. She delivers the lines differently every show, just going with how the mood takes her, and it’s that naturalness that’s always so impressive with her.
The hug in this one between the Malfoys when Lily and James are being killed was utterly heartbreaking. When Voldemort was confronting Lily, Draco was already kissing Scorpius’s hair and trying to comfort him, and the second she was hit with the Killing Curse, Scorpius grabbed his dad as tight as he could and hid himself in his arms, with Draco cradling him and protecting him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them hug so fiercely.
And then, to make everything worse, when the seven were spinning away on the turntable at the end of the scene, I could see Scorpius shifting his hands on his dad’s back, like he was trying to hold onto more and more of him, as much as he possibly could. There was so much desperate need, and love and support there. It was beautiful.
I love a good penultimate scene, especially when there’s adorable teasing and stuff going on.
Recently, when the staircase gets wheeled on at the start of the scene, Samuel has started bouncing around and getting all hyper and excitable before anything has even happened – it reminds me a lot of when he’s tapping his fingers together with excitement for the start of the dorm scene. His Scorpius is full of constant energy and hyperactivity – he must have been an exhausting child; I almost feel sorry for Draco and Astoria.
Mackley does a great teasing Albus. I remember him flapping his robes at Scorpius, laughing about Rose, all sorts. I think all the Albuses have picked up on the way Helen flails her robes when she says “Scorpion King”, and are determined to mock it. Also, I love Mackley’s “and she said no”, which is sort of sung all dramatic and opera style, and ends with him cackling. Like I say, teasing Albus is great.
I can’t talk about this scene without talking about Samuel’s delivery of the new version of us line, which is so utterly unacceptable, and only gets worse every time I see the show. He says it so slowly. It’s so painfully and beautifully uncertain and heartfelt. It’s like Scorpius is navigating his feelings along with the words. He goes so softly and carefully through it, picking his way from word to word, and it’s that uncertainty that makes it real, and gives it weight.
You can tell how important it is to Scorpius to say what he’s saying and say it well. And like he’s said at stage door, this is a moment where the boys know something has changed between them; that it’s something incredibly important, but not yet quite what it is or what it means. That is what Scorpius is trying to put into words here, and Samuel does it with such beautiful, tentative, meaningful perfection. I could write songs about the hope that the end of this scene brings. It’s exceptional.
I’m not going to end the recap on a low note by talking about Mackley’s pigeon racing line – just know that it was so cringey this show (the worst I’ve seen) that I almost crawled under my seat and hid. Other things from the final scene, though, include the ending of the fabulous arc Mackley sets up around Craig’s death and how it impacts on Albus, and ultimately on the repair of his relationship with Harry.
I also really want to touch on one of my favourite bits of meta from the show, which I’ve really grown to love recently. It requires a tiny bit of backtracking to the scene with Hagrid in the house after Lily and James’s deaths. At this point, the back wall of the theatre retracts, so there’s a gap between the brick wall and the arch detailing. It creates the effect that Hagrid really is standing in the ruins of a house, with just a barebones structure around him.
But at the end of this scene, the back wall stays retracted, and as the fire fades, the impression is not so much of a ruin, but of a structure, a scaffolding, something solid and new and bare that can be built around. And building is what’s happening in these last two scenes, when Scorpius and Albus try to figure out where their friendship is now, and as Harry and Albus tentatively explore how to be a good father and son for each other.
I absolutely love this tiny bit of a set design. I think it’s brilliant. Everything has been torn away, stripped back and laid bare. They’ve all revealed so much of themselves in the last Act, and now they’re starting from a new foundation. They’re going to start building something new together, using the tentative scaffolding of the experiences they’ve shared and the things they’ve learned, and it’s not going to be easy, but they’ll make it work. I think that back wall symbolises hope, and growth, and the future.
So there we go. A recap! It’s not full of every tiny detail (because I would have to write a novel and I don’t need to start a second one of those), but this show was good enough to be worth something, because it was so full of insight, and just such an interesting experience.
I’m a repeat viewer of this show because I always want to learn about the characters and the story and the technicality of this play, so any performance that teaches me as much as this one did is a real standout in my books.
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pamphletstoinspire · 6 years
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6 Spiritual Lessons I Learned From the Book of Job
Written by Sebastian Campos
If you haven’t read this Old Testament book, you’ve missed out on a major part of the Jewish spiritual understanding of pain and suffering. I won’t narrate the complete story, but in summary Job had to go through tremendous calamities. He lost his possessions, his servants, and his whole family… and he even suffered a wound that stretched from his head to his feet. The explanation the bible gives of what happens to Job is that the “enemy” tempts him through trials and suffering in attempt to make him deny and curse God.
The narrative explains that Job tried to look for answers that allowed him to resist the devil’s temptations, since he knew God is good. Amidst his pain, desolation, confusion and anger, he fired in every direction without hitting on any consolation, any logical idea to fill his heart. A couple of friends even went to him to comfort him, but there was nothing they could say to appease his sorrow or to explain all that was happening to him. The confusion caused by all the things he lived through was so great that even his friends were at a loss. As the scriptures say:
“And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great” (Job 2, 12-13).
I suppose you’ve probably been through an inexplicable suffering that just knocks on the door of your life, leaving wordless even your closest friends. Nobody, not your friends, nor you, nor your faith are capable of giving any explanation to what happened, and hopelessness and anguish start to grow in your heart. In the face of these situations, the foundations of faith, life, what we believe in and what we do, start to falter.
The first chapters of the story are unsettling, above all because apparently, and justly, Job didn’t deserve any of what was happening to him. On the contrary, what Job really deserved were blessings and prosperity, which come hand in hand with God. I personally have sometimes felt challenged by the story of suffering Job, especially on those occasions in which I have given all of myself, I have persevered in my work, my faith and in my love for others in service; and I have kept my heart clean and right; and even then, things have turned out awful: I’ve experienced pain, brokenness, loneliness, poverty, suffering. Surely you too have felt this way at some point and know there isn’t much to find comfort on.
I know I haven’t suffered as deeply other people have, but the study of the Book of Job during the painful and hard times of my life has helped me bring out some ideas that could be of use to you. Better yet, it may help you to accompany others in their tribulations and sustain them in hope.
1. Look at Job from a new perspective, the one of Jesus
I personally liked to look at the book of Job and validate feeling sorry for myself and sitting down on the ashes without doing anything but suffering… dwelling there, aching, looking at my wounds, feeling pain and waiting for it to magically pass or, even worse, until the end of my days. This is the Christian depression, selfless and resigned, which many of us believe is holy for the sole fact of accepting it without complaint. We forget that Job is a book from the Old Covenant, and that Jesus came later to make all things new, that He came to give us life in abundance, that for His merits we are saved, and that His love restores our friendship with God. We forget that every battle, test, tribulation and suffering was nailed at the Cross and exiled from our lives forever.
We often live as if Jesus had not saved us definitely, or even worse, as if his salvation were only to happen at the end of our days or as if it only affected the spiritual dimension of our lives. Job didn’t have a Jesus to look at. We do. Let us never forget that our every aching was suffered by Jesus at the Cross of the Calvary and his blood paid for us to be saved. This doesn’t make our lives free from pain and suffering, but it makes them temporary. Our life doesn’t end there, all of our battles are won hand in hand with Jesus. Don’t let any pain steal your hope.
2. God doesn’t test anyone
The story of Job is from the Old Testament. Keep this in mind when you read it. Because the dynamic used by Jews (who didn’t know Jesus yet) to explain God’s way of acting is different from what the New Testament shows us. The text says that one day Satan approached God to talk about Job, boasting that his temptations could induce Job to blaspheme against Him. God permits it in order to strengthen Job’s faith. It’s important to read this story from a spiritual perspective. God doesn’t play games, He doesn’t experiment on us like a child playing with ants.
As the Apostle James says: “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me’. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone” (James 1, 13); because, in fact, the last thing God wants is to test how strong we are to know whether or not we are worth it. That would be despising Jesus’ sacrifice. If we believe that God wants what happens to us, then within the possibilities we would find that God wants us to fail, to not pass, and to be incapable. Do you think God would want something like that? Of course not! God permits things to happen in our life, always to show us something better.
3. God doesn’t revolve around me
This idea could be confusing to us, in fact many people through history have been puzzled since they’ve had the impression that God is there to help them in their self-fulfillment and they pretend to use Him for it. This is to put backwards the nature of creation, and unfortunately it is destined to fail. I’ve seen myself fabricating complicated and detailed plans and afterwards presenting them to God so that He blesses them without changing anything I’ve so intelligently prepared. It’s different when I, alongside of God, take the time to discern what His plans are, and to carry them out myself, that way His blessing will always be with me.
It’s us who help God’s “great plan.” Our participation and the discovery of our purpose helps in the fulfillment of His will, not the other way around. We were made for God, not the opposite.
The Catechism, paragraph 27 says: “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.”
4. Not everything has an explanation, but everything has a purpose
“God would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself” (St. Augustine).
There are two questions we could ask when faced with a situation that shatters our lives. Why? Or… for what? It sounds like pop psychology… empty, especially in the case of terrible sufferings, like death or a serious disease. But these kinds of questions should be made with a peaceful heart. First, you have to process everything with a sense of calm. Discovering God’s purpose is not a matter for a couple of minutes of prayer and then it’s done. God knows this and is waiting for you to get closer to Him and ask the necessary questions, to ask, to doubt, so that you finally accept, even without completely understanding. His will, although often indecipherable is amazing for our lives, and everything that happens to us, although hard to comprehend, makes sense in His bigger plan.
“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith��of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (Peter 1, 6-7).
He obviously doesn’t want your suffering, He’s not mad at you, your life or your story. God wants what’s best for you! This is a truth you can’t doubt of for one second. The thing is, God knows that in order to do that which He has in mind, you often have to go through a desert.
“Tribulation is a gift from God, one that He gives his special friends” (St. Thomas More).
5. Do not numb the pain
It’s a part of our modern culture, we anesthetize ourselves. It makes us uncomfortable to see people suffer. So we marginalize them, we try to erase the pain, we cover it up. And we ourselves hide our pains with the excuse that “the procession is carried inside”.
Job sits down on the ground, shaves his head and covers himself in ashes as a sign that he doesn’t understand anything, that his battle doesn’t seem to make any sense. He sits down to suffer, to mourn over himself. We instead try to rapidly pass over our pains and, if after 3 or 6 months of mourning someone is still sad, we tell them “come on, it’s time to move on,” or “you have to be strong and move forward.” But, in truth, each of us has his own time and we have to respect it.
Embracing the one who mourns and crying with him instead of making him stop, letting him soak our shoulders with his tears instead of offering a tissue. Aching with the one who’s suffering, anguishing with the vulnerable, filling your face and heart with the other’s passion… that is to feel compassion, that your own heart turns, not for mere masochism, not as penance, but as an exercise of communion, as the Church’s body. It’s like when you stub your little toe and your whole body contorts, the whole body suffers the pain of a single toe. This should be our way of accompanying.
Job teaches us to suffer with dignity, to live the pain while allowing others to be there for us, to not hide the sufferings, to ask for help, and to get frustrated when answers are not easy to find, but accepting that losing, getting sick, dying, not having explanations, is terrible and has to be lived, not hidden nor covered.
6. Trust that you will be restored
The first time I read the book of Job all the way through was when my younger sister died, a little three-month-old girl with a diagnosis of an untreatable genetic condition.
Sorry about the spoiler if you haven’t read the book, but the story ends with God restoring Job to life, seeing that after suffering and accepting it, Job never denies nor curses Him. Job goes on to form a new family, much more fruitful that the first one. He prospers economically more than before, and his fame as a blessed man extends everywhere. In other words, the idea that the biblical author wants to express is that if you live your pain like you ought and without rebelling from God, He Himself will bless you and give you back even more than what you had before. Yes and no. That is to say, it’s not a spiritual trade in which God gives you back more than what He has taken. In the spiritual economy of Christians, there is no meritocracy; it’s all Jesus merits and even when we do things right, we don’t deserve a thing from God. He gives us everything for love, not because we are good or bad. Despite this, God comforts us, gives us relief, and accompanies us just like the Angels accompanied Jesus through His passion in Gethsemane.
Therefore, it is expected from God to show Himself, to bless you, to act in your favor, but don’t expect it to be a “quantitatively superior” manifestation, compared to whatever good or easy situation you were in prior to your suffering.
As an anecdote, I remember a time when I went on a retreat of spiritual exercises. I arrived with a dry heart, without wanting anything. My spiritual guide sent me to sit in front of the Blessed Sacrament, told me to sleep if I felt like it, but to spend time there, “sun-bathing under His light.” I have no idea what happened, but I got out of there bronzed, with a robust heart. Although I didn’t get any explanation that I can put into words, I did find answers, sense, and hope just by being there, before Him.
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to grief:
I haven’t written here in a while and I think it’s because I’ve felt less sad about life in general. Yea, there are still days where I feel like I’ll never find happiness, but those days don’t out number the ones where I truly feel content. That is until this week. 
I’ve loved watching glee since the beginning. The characters are the same age as me so as I went through high school, it felt like I really knew these characters and are going through it with them. At first, I really loved glee for the songs and the humour and even the teen drama that seemed so relatable yet far fetched to me. My high school had musical theatre, which I was very much involved in, and my friends and I weren’t bullied for it. In fact, we were praised. We were the cool kids and even got away with avoiding school work because the drama teacher loved us so much and would call our other teachers for us. 
Just like the glee characters, there were a lot of “incest” hookups and drama caused by who was dating who and who liked who and who kissed who. But it was a nice way to bond with people who are seniors and get invited to cool parties. 
During the time I watched glee, I realized more and more how much I enjoyed watching Santana’s character. She was witty, sarcastic, and had a no fucks given attitude that always kept her 100% real. I pride myself in trying to be as real as possible so she was definitely a character I drew towards. Throughout the years, even during the horrible season 5 and 6, I still kept up watching the show, mostly watching for Santana. I’d like to say she carried the show, but reality is I saw a lot of myself in her. The more I watched, the more I became interested in the actors. I’ve always wanted to be famous - I mean I did audition for Disney once. So I’ve found myself drawn to the actors, especially Naya Rivera who played Santana on the show. I’ve imagined ways I’d bump into the cast and how that’ll easily transition into a friendship. So I guess my imagination really brought us closer than we were. 
During COVID-19 and quarantine, I decided to rewatch glee again. The convenience of Netflix and me being laid off gave me insomnia and glee was the perfect fix. I get to sing along and relive my high school years and remember why I loved this show so much. I once again started imagining what it would be like if I moved to LA and how I’d be able to befriend them, even after all these years. My obsession came back as if no years has passed between high school and now. So when the news of Naya Rivera’s passing broke, that hit me hard. 
I’ve never understood why people mourned celebrities they’ve never met. I know people cried when Michael Jackson died or when Whitney Houston died. But I never understood it. How can you feel for someone so deeply if you’ve never met them and you don’t even know who they really are? I guess now I know how it feels.
During the days she went missing, I constantly refreshed every social media page I had and the other cast members to see if I would receive any updated news. I constantly had the gut wrenching feeling in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t shake it off no matter how hard I tried. 
When the press conference finally announced they found a body in the lake and it was her, I lost sense of reality. It was like time stopped and I didn’t want to believe this was real. I constantly felt sad, and every time I refreshed my social media, someone was mourning her which made me more sad. I couldn’t control the tears that were falling down my face and I couldn't, still can’t, grasp exactly why it hit me so hard. She will always be a part of my growing up and I will forever thank her for the excitement she brought me through her character. But that’s not the only reason why I’m sad. 
I’ve always been terrified of death. When I went to church as a kid, a youth pastor pulled each of us aside and explained the concept of heaven. I broke down crying and couldn’t understand what that meant and how that was guaranteed. “Will I see my mom and dad again?”, I asked. I couldn’t fathom that this life ends and that everything I know or have will disappear and I won’t even know or feel it. So to me, everything that means ANYTHING to me at all, I try not to think about it ending. Almost like everything related to me can escape death. So when I found out about Naya, my reaction was, what do you mean she’s gone? How can she be alive yesterday and gone today? I literally just saw her Instagram story and her tweeting. I didn’t, and still don’t, quite understand it. 
As you can probably tell, I haven’t lost a lot of people in my life, or at least people I remember losing. The closest to my memory would be my aunt who was battling cancer, but I was very young and the only grief I remember having is seeing my mother in the back seat of the car bawling her eyes out after hearing a certain song on our way to go fishing. I’d never forget that look. 
And as I continued my grief, silently of course, because my Asian parents would never understand, I thought I’d reach out to my best friend. He’s very special to me and someone that I really fell in love with. The last person I ever loved til this day. We always played phone tag and would check in on each other every now and then. We would always try to be happy for each other on whatever we’re up to and try to encourage each other to chase our dreams. We’re both Gemini’s so we’re ambitious like that. To my surprise, he responded “who is this”. This never happens, because he usually says its him and he knows my number since I haven’t changed it since 2012. That’s when I get a call from him. 
I was hesitant to answer at first because I was nervous. I always got nervous around him, even after all these years. But when I picked up, a woman answered. To be honest, I thought it was his girlfriend and she didn't want me messaging him. He always had a lot of girlfriends, some were crazier than others so I wasn’t too surprised. But, it wasn’t. I wish it was a crazy girlfriend. Instead, it was his mom. 
His mom remembered my name, I even met her once. I was happy to hear that he talked about me to her because it shows that I meant something to him. But I cannot believe what she said next.
“Carter passed away on July 3, we actually had a funeral last Thursday.”
What. The. Fuck. 
As I continue to stutter and apologize for having to put his mom in this situation, I can’t help but wonder what happened. So as I tiptoed around the subject I finally asked, “was it sudden?”
“He killed himself. I try to be honest about it. I don’t know if he told you about his mental health problems, but he’s been sad for a long time.”
I knew about his depression and mental health struggles. I knew that he had a rough childhood and he resented his dad for leaving him. He fought with his mom all the time, and she kicked him out on multiple occasions. But he found love from his grandparents, which are who he stayed with most of the time. I knew all this, but I didn't realize how bad it had gotten. I wish I had. 
Ever since we were kids, I’ve always tried to be a good influence to him. I even tried to convince him to come to summer school with me, which let’s be honest, he barely showed up for school during the year and that was mandatory so why would he ever go to summer school. But he entertained the idea for me, like he always did with everything I suggested. I guess he didn’t want to disappoint me. And as we grew up and grew apart, mostly because he moved and changed schools a million times and I went off to University in a different province, we still kept in touch. He has always struggled with finding a passion and what he wanted to do with his life. First he wanted to make music, which he did for a while, then he turned to art. I thought this would be his biggest break through, his art was amazing. I suggested he should be a tattoo artist since he loved tattoos and is clearly good at drawing. So when we chatted back in March of 2019, he had let me know he is restructuring himself and even went to an open house at OCAD and centennial to enrol if he doesn’t hear back from a tattoo apprenticeship. Then December 2019 came around and he let me know he was in a transitional phase with his art and might want to go into animation so he could work from home. He even suggested he’d come visit me in Montreal. I know he never would, but just the fact that he suggested made me so happy. We even tried to make plans to meet up, I really wish I had pressed him for these plans because maybe he needed to see me for a reason. 
Nothing until now had been a red flag for me. I tried to always be positive and whatever dream he was chasing after next, I tried to be supportive and reaffirm that he did have talent and he will figure it out. But in February, his art on Instagram had taken a darker turn. I didn’t notice at first because he posted sporadically and also the Instagram algorithm only gives you a piece a time so if you didn’t go on his profile you wouldn't see the full picture. But his Instagram story caught my eye. It was a post along the lines of if he died, no one would even care. I immediately messaged him letting him know I would. He said thank you and quickly changed the topic to visiting me again in Montreal. I should’ve said something more. I should've called him because he clearly wasn’t being honest. 
When I moved back home this summer thanks to COVID, something inside of me kept telling me to text him. If only I had texted him a couple of weeks earlier. If only I had reached out to him then. Maybe, this would’ve changed everything.
I always thought we would’ve found our way back into each others lives. I’ve played over a million scenarios in my head of how we’d be as close as we were back in high school. I even imagined the day I had the guts to tell him how much I’ve loved him and how long I loved him for. But now I’ll never get the chance. 
I wish he saw how much he meant to me. How I’d smile when I see his name come up on my blackberry messenger with an incoming text. Or when he’d call me babe even though we weren’t dating. A friend who read over my shoulder used to laugh at me because the way we texted sounded cheesier and more in a relationship than my friend and her actual boyfriend. He always thought he was a ball of darkness, but he never knew how much light he brought into my life. To me, he’ll always be that kid we spent hours in Toys R Us sitting in children couches, hiding from the staff and talking about life. The goofy guy who photobombed a family at the CNE, and when the family saw, they just laughed because that’s just how charming he was. The guy who my parents picked up from his house to drive us to the movies and they even caught us, you behind me with your arms around me while we waited to be picked up (my mother immediately decided to have the birds and the bees talk with me the next day at a Swiss Chalet, thanks for that). And as we got older, we promised to marry each other if we were still single by 30, it was one of those promises we made to each other prompted by a silly rom com. But he didn’t even hesitate. He even agreed to have a skydiving wedding with me and say “I Do” in the air. He was the first person I told about this crazy sky diving onto an island wedding idea and like always, supported me even when I’m out of my mind. To me, he was perfect. 
Right from the beginning he said to me “don’t fall in love with me”, at the time he had a few unfaithful relationships and a few toxic ones. He thought he wasn’t worth me loving him because he would ruin everything. 
Well Carter Avery Benitez, from the day I stalked your Facebook after only meeting you for an evening at your ex girlfriends house and messaged you, desperately wanting to get to know you, there was no way I wouldn’t fall in love with you. You’ll always have a special place in my heart. June 13, 1994 - July 3, 2020, rest in paradise my love. 
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