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if lemony snicket wrote harry potter

Krum attacked Fleur, who responded with “Sacré bleu!” This exclamation is a phrase with many possible meanings and connotations. Literally, it translates to ‘sacred blue’, a phrase which does not appear to make much literal sense, and might lead an earwitness to suspect that the speaker is invoking some kind of nefarious coded phrase. The French invented it as a way to swear without invoking the name of God, as ‘bleu’ and ‘Dieu’ are similar sounding words, such as ‘look’ and ‘book’, or ‘code’ and ‘forebode’, or even ‘last breath’ and ‘painful death’.

This history, while fascinating, is not in fact relevant to this situation. For I, dear reader, happen to be privy to exactly what the young Miss Delacour meant when she exclaimed “Sacré bleu!”, thanks to a chance interview in a crowded fish statue three years after the fact. And so “Sacré bleu” in fact here means ‘oh fucking shit’.

once upon a time

The world of Narnia has stories, of course.

There's the hour-long songs sung by the fauns, the odes of nymphs and dryads, the clumsy jokes told by birds perched on branches in bloom, there's the sulking mining tales told by dwarves who promise that they've seen rubies you can eat.

But beyond Narnia, a troop of outlaws from Archenland flee to the other side of the desert and build themselves an Empire. Some are poets, who sing their words and speak in proverbs - and then a gate opens in Telmar, a land that the outlaws were banished from by Aslan, and out step men and woman and children, dressed in strange garments that carry the fragrance of the sea. And oh, they bring with them tales and songs that meld together with the beginning of Calormen.

The strangers' tongue is foreign to them, but slowly they learn. The first thing they do when the Calormene Empire proposes an alliance is to meld their stories with their own. And the Empire grows richer in their storytelling, folding together the intrinsic yearning of humans for tales with the undoubtable magic of their world. 'Sinbad the Sailor' slowly becomes 'The Tale of Amah and the Bight of Calormen' when a sailor sails too far from home and returns with his eyes yearning for the horizon. The pirates tell them tales of a Golden Fleece, and one-eyed giants, so they spin the tale of Jason and the Argonauts into a poem called 'A Thousand Threads of Gold', and tell it to their children, who tell it to their children's children, who tell it to their children.

So Calormen begins to hone their craft - the stories that live deep within humans, the scorching desert, legends of Archenland and an ornate speech all weave themselves together, and soon, it is known that nobody tells stories quite like the Empire Calormene.

And then, long after the reign of King Frank and Queen Helen has faded into a distorted memory of the collective consciousness of Narnians, two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve step foot into Narnia. They're humans, born storytellers, and they intertwine their earthly tales with Narnian folklore.

The four siblings bring with them stories that Narnians once knew, but barely remember.

High King Peter, the Magnificent often sits down the delegates from Calormen, now a fully flegded Empire, and listens to their tales. And after they finish their poems about 'Youth without Old-Age and Life without Death' and tell him numerous proverbs that seem to him both so very foreign, but so familiar yet, he begins telling them a tale of his own - one that he feels like he's known forever, back when his only title was 'Pevensie'.

"Once upon a time" begins the king, "in a land that can be found nowhere in this world, a forest stretched out for miles and miles, lush and green and beautiful at the border of a town called Nottingham."

After Peter finishes spinning the tale of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, one of the Calormene delegates places down his goblet of Narnian red wine and says:

"If I may, your Majesty, High King Peter the Magnificent. Your reign to Narnia bears resemblance to the one of the Tisroc, may he live forever. Why would you make known to your people such stories that encourage a rebellion against their rulers? I humbly remind you what the poet says: 'He who attempts to deceive the judicious is already baring his back for the scourge.'

High King Peter smiles a genuine smile.

"Interesting input, Adil Tarkhaan." replies the king. "But does the Calormene poet not also say 'Swords can be kept off with shields, but the Eye of Wisdom pierces through every defence'?"

Queen Susan the Gentle is especially fond of the Merpeople, and serves as the designated diplomat whenever meetings between the two nations are required. They sing her their songs that resemble odes of heroes long gone, of adventures beneath the surface, where air is a mystery only few possess.

Now, the Merpeople are especially fond of her too, and the stories she can tell.

The Gentle Queen sits in a Narnian lagoon, her toes barely touching the water, and tells the Merpeople a tale she's told them many times.

"Beyond seven seas and seven countries, in an ocean that's far from this world, there lived a beautiful mermaid, the youngest of seven sisters. Her hair was flaming red and her tail was emerald green, and her eyes were young and curious."

After Susan finishes remembering the tale of The Little Mermaid, the chief of the Merpeople swims up to her and speaks:

"You grace us with your wisdom, Queen Susan of Narnia, for we may not have Witches living in the depths of our waters, but we may very well need to be careful what we wish for."

The Daughter of Eve is a striking appearance among Merpeople with skin tinted blue and white hair - Susan smiles, her hair long and dark, her eyes sparkling and full of life, her cheeks flushed with life.

"Never seek to change yourselves for the approval of others."

King Edmund the Just has such a way with words that he may as well rival the diplomats from beyond the desert. While their poems and proverbs lean towards pragmatic life lessons, Edmund knows tales overflowing with metaphors.

He visits Archenland for their Autumn Feast, and is welcomed graciously by King Lune and his sons. The Feast is grand, meant to celebrate a bountiful harvest, and there are so many types of food Edmund doesn't know where to start - but he tries them all. There's roasts garnished with condiments, roasted potatoes, pomegranate and arugula salads, sweet potatoes with cream, sauces with spicy peppers and rich tomatoes, stuffed baked peppers, dishes with lemon and butter and herbs, corn and hearty rice and beans and vegetables. The King treats the entire capital to the finest wine and grape juice he has, and so the stories begin to flow from their merry hearts.

The people of Archenland sing merry odes and tell tales of heroes and rebels, of crimes and punishments, and, just as King Edmund the Just reaches for another helping of stuffed peppers, King Lune's eyes shine with a marvellous idea.

"King Edmund," he begins, smiling "would you do us the honour of telling one of your stories?"

Edmund hesitates, but everyone's looking at him. Everything's quiet, and the pleasant ringing of cutlery has slowly stopped. The young man gently nods his head and obliges. He takes a moment to think, and he remembers a faint memory of a tale read in an old, heavy book.

"Many eons ago, before this world was even born, there lived in another land a young woman. She was gifted with beauty and intelligence, and flowers bloomed when they saw her near. While she was blessed with all this, a single trait in her soul served as both a blessing and a curse. Pandora was a very curious human."

The King of Narnia tells the story of Pandora and her infamous box, as best as he remembers it, but he tells it in a way that entrances the listeners so much that they stop eating. Compared to the words sewn together by the young man with piercing eyes and dark brown hair, the chocolate cakes topped with persimmons, the cherry puddings and apple pies, lemon pastries and baked apples with cream all look bland.

And when Edmund finishes his tale with the reassuring presence of Hope in Pandora's myth, Prince Cor thanks him with wise words:

"You have chosen the best story to tell at the Autumn Feast, your Majesty, for Hope is truly the meaning of this season. Though the leaves are falling and we are humbly harvesting our crops, we have hope that spring will come again."

Queen Lucy the Gentle tells herself stories every night to fall asleep. Though, when she turns nineteen, she begins sharing them with the fauns.

One morning, at sunrise, she trudges over to Mr Tumnus' quaint hut on castle grounds, wrapped in a thick blanket, unable to sleep, for there are memories of aeroplanes and bombs and tanks plaguing her dreams.

The faun is already awake, having his first breakfast. He serves Lucy with coffee cake and lemon tea with honey, and she graciously accepts.

"You might take your mind off it if you tell me a story." Proposes Tumnus, having another bite of his cake.

The Gentle Queen looks at the burning fire and the corners of her lips twitch up in a smile.

"My mother used to tell me this story back when I was a little girl." She begins. "It begins in the same world I came from, with a happy family going by the name of the Darlings."

Lucy hums the tale of Peter Pan through sips of lemon tea, and when she reaches the end, the sun is trickling softly through the windows of the small hut. Tumnus reaches for his flute and brings it to his lips.

He begins retelling the story in a song, and Lucy sees Neverland through the flames of the fireplace.

Why I’m Mad About Eddie

Okay, so, like I said earlier, I’m not mad about the fact that Eddie died, the fact that he died is NOT the source of my anger. I’m mad about the poor storytelling that led to it not even being a good death, after they set it up to be a GREAT death. I’m mad (furious) because I deserve to be heartbroken over his death, I deserve to have bawled my eyes out, I deserve the catharsis of a good character death, not this rage burning in me over the disservices done.

If you’re mad about it but can’t quite place why you’re mad (instead of heartbroken, like we deserve to be, I deserve to be suffering a raw, gaping wound in my chest right now!!!), maybe this will help.

I want to be clear at the start here that the following is not an analysis of Eddie as a person, none of this is going to be treating him as if he were a real person. This is about Eddie as a tool of the plot, as a tool of the writers, as a character within a story being told by people that should be able to do their jobs better. If you see me saying things like “Eddie did X” or “Eddie thought X” the intent is not that Eddie, the person, performed these actions, but rather that the writers wrote him as performing these actions.

So with that, let’s proceed.

The core of my problem with Eddie’s death is that the manner in which he died is trying to sell us the opposite message to what the narration showed us to that point. The way the death is set up, the writers are trying to sell us on the message “Eddie is a coward that becomes a hero when he stops running away.” Unfortunately for the writers, that’s NOT what the rest of the narration has shown us, so that message ends up feeling empty.

So let’s look at that. When does Eddie run away?

Keep reading

The girl from across the river waved, and I think she waved at me, so I waved back at her. She was surprised by the gesture, but she grinned. We started meeting every day after that, divided by the river and a national border.

There was no one my age in my village, and I came to suspect that it was true for the other girl as well. I named her what I wanted to name my younger sister, if I ever had one. She was Mira to me.

Our voices would not reach the other side of the river distinctly, so we gestured at each other. Our language was born out of the gestures all humans are familiar with. Pointing, waving, pantomiming, and then we started making then they became more complex.

Between us the river flowed uncaring, not content to divide us, not desirous of watching our silly games, always busy and always on the move. The river is an adult.

-

“What does Mira mean?” I asked my father once, while my mother was out of the house.

He adjusted his glasses to look at me better. “It means ‘sight’,” he said. “It means 'looking’.”

-

We read by the banks. She had a blue book, hardcover, and I had a small white paperback. We sat down and we read, and once in a while, we looked at each other. After a point, you don’t need to smile at the people you’re close to.

We also ate by the banks. I had a carrot, and a glass of orange juice, and chicken leg. I showed her what I could, but the rest was inside containers and bowls. She showed me things, too. A fried steak of some fish, an apple, a vegetable I did not recognise.

-

When the men in uniforms passed through the village, I thought it was a routine staffing of the military camp nearby. It was an odd month of the year for it, but it was none of my business.

Mira stopped visiting the bank, but I went there nonetheless. The way to the bank now had a military checkpoint. They asked me what book I was carrying, and they flipped through its pages to make sure I wasn’t smuggling a gun or anything through it. At one point, the officer scolded me for what I had been reading.

Later, the checkpoint stopped people from visiting the riverbank altogether. The announcements on the radio became more dire. More and more uniformed men streamed through the village. Sirens would sometimes blare in the middle of the night, and you’d often see the passing light of a jeep making its patrol rounds.

One night, I got out and avoided the patrols, and I took a route through the forest that bypassed the checkpoint, and I made it to the river. It was dark, and the sounds of the water was tranquil and threatening at once. The bridge between the two countries had spotlights on it now, and both sides were fortified and on alert.

Walking along the bank, I spotted a small wooden crate. My first instinct was to get away from it, but the way it was gently nestled along a washed-up branch, I decided to take a chance on it.

Inside, I found a blue hardcover book, and a small painting of a girl standing along a riverbank, wearing the same kind of clothes I own. There was a note, written in a language I couldn’t read.

It ended with the shape of a heart, though, and that I understood.

His Dark Materials is a franchise that tackles so many branches of physics and even creates a universe where the main course of study is experimental theology which is all about identifying and explaining dark matter while also adding dimensions to string theory, the multiverse theory, and the very concept of the human soul. At the same time, it aggressively calls out the problem with the state being controlled by the church, how people are condemned for being different and religious fearmongering stops the chance at growth both on an individual and a societal scale. It’s a franchise where the heroes of the story are two children who aren’t allowed to know the prophecy they’re a part of, who save the world unwittingly simply by doing what they believe to be right. Meanwhile, the person who thought he was the hero all along, the person who rallied an army from multiple universes to FIGHT. GOD. HIMSELF. is ultimately consumed by his own ego and forced to take a back seat when he realises he’s just one tiny piece of a much larger story that’s true heart is his own daugher. The child he abandoned, the child he didn’t know or care to know how to look after. It’s a franchise about finding love even when your biological family abandon you, it’s about looking evil in the eye and seeing your own mother, it’s about good and evil not being black and white but instead a complex and cruel mixture of both. It’s about the two worst people you know banding together at the last second to save their daughter with their final breaths. It’s about exploration and learning how to grow through experience, it’s about kindness being shared across the multiverse, exchanging stories with strangers and saving the whole world by doing something perfectly ordinary and receiving no reward.

Oh, and it’s also a franchise rich with fantasy, with giant talking polar bears, witches and ghosts, angels and daemons, and a mammal-like species from another world that travels exclusively on roller skates. 

And it fucking. rocks.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter, or: What Can You Do When He's Drunk Your Sailors.

Fluffy kitty by rover_thecat

summer is just like i have all the time in the world i never have enough time i am so happy i am so depressed i have nothing to do i have too many things to do i want to go outside i never want to leave my room i hate people i am so lonely i slept for fifteen hours i haven't slept in three days i am so overwhelmed i am so bored life is good i am going to die

lyra: i’m from an alternate universe and i can talk to angels

mary malone:

On... death? grief? pain? not sure.

So...

I’ve never actually written a post here before, even though I’ve been meaning to for a while, but now I have too many thoughts and I need to say some things out loud and I don’t really trust my voice. That leaves me with writing them. Maybe this will stay in the drafts. Maybe I want it to stay in the drafts. I don’t know. Now that I’ve finished writing, I feel like I have to post it. The drafts are not ¨out loud¨. 

If you want to read just know that it’s not happy at all.

My grandma died today.

And I’m not crying. Not yet, at least. 

It´s not that I didn’t love her, I just didn’t see her very often; we live in different states. But now I’ll never see her again. Not in christmas, nor in summer vacation. Never. 

I mean, she was very sick already, we knew this was coming, but now it happened. It’s the first time someone close to me dies. I don´t know how this works. I’ve never even had pets, I have no precedent for dealing with this.

This afternoon my dad called my mom and asked her to tell me. He didn’t want to tell me himself. He’s never been good with emotions and stuff. Now I have to decide what to do. I obviously want to go, the funeral is tomorrow. But the pandemic is getting really bad there. They don’t allow more than 20 people at the ceremony. I’m not sure I should be in those 20. As I said, I didn’t visit very often anyway. Then again, how can I not go? I have to say goodbye. I couldn’t say goodbye. But what if I go and get covid? and spread it to my mom when I come back? what if, by attending to a funeral, I cause another? maybe my own?

I can´t do that, not when the vaccine is so close, not when we’ve managed to stay safe for so long. 

But I just want to go. I feel like I owe it to her. It’s risky, it’s impulsive, it’s all the things I usually wouldn’t do. I’m confused. I’m sad. I’m still not crying. why??

My grandma died yesterday.

2:38 p.m.: Still not crying, but my chest is heavy. I feel weak. I’m not hungry.

10:42 p.m.: I’m... fine???? I’m going. Tomorrow. I’ll see how it goes.

My grandma died 4 days ago.

I’m back home. It was... fine, I guess. Apparently everyone agrees that it was time, she had to go, it was for the best. 

Her last moments were with my uncle, he is a retired doctor. a gynecologist. It is sad and somehow ironic that he, whose job was basically keeping mothers alive and well, was the one holding her when she died. He said he’s never had a patient die in his arms before.

Yet another example of life’s dark sense of humor is that my dad’s birthday will also be from now on the anniversary of his mother’s funeral.

So I’m home, and I’ll stay locked for a couple weeks and pray that my mom and I didn’t get infected. Wich sucks, becasuse just a few hours ago, we recieved notice that my other grandma has cancer. And my mom can’t go visit her to the hospital, because I wanted to go visit my dad’s family and dragged her with me. Great. This year only gets better. I hate it. This has to stop now. Please. Please.

I think I’ll end here. I have nothing left to say. I am going to post it. Leaving this in the drafts feels like trying to yell with my mouth shut.