"Critters will really watch anything",
I say under my breath, as I click on the live-stream of Matt tidying his new maps and minis room, curretnly on the twitch CR channel !
it's... not that fascinating, lol, but the music is really peaceful !!
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#81
The hero’s capture shouldn’t have happened. She’s not even entirely sure how it happened. She stepped a foot wrong, or so she assumes, and the villain’s henchmen had leapt on her.
She’s contemplating her predicament from the villain’s classic choice of iron bars and dingy jail cell. Nothing is adding up. The villain always targets her when she’s obvious—in the public eye, in the limelight, on show. Tonight his henchmen found her alone, on a random street, blending into the background. How the hell did they know where she was? Who she was?
Her blood runs cold at the implications. If they found her this easily, who’s to say who else they could find? It doesn’t bear thinking about, not when she’s as useless as this in a goddamn cell.
The door opposite clanks open like it’s purposely announcing the newcomer. Not that it needs to, since the hero knows exactly who’s approaching her cell by the clicking of heels and the swish of a well-loved coat.
“Fancy seeing you here,” the villain greets, his grin weaving into his voice.
The hero doesn’t even grace him with a glance. She stares at his shoes instead. “What a coincidence.”
“Thought you’d at least be curious who got you here.”
“Not really.” The hero scowls. “I know all your henchmen by name by now.”
The villain makes a noise vaguely resembling a laugh. “No, my dear hero. Not who picked you up. Who found you.”
The hero frowns. She can smell a trap from a mile away. “You, I assumed.”
The following silence forces the hero’s gaze up to the villain’s face. The grin in his voice is also on his face, the asshole. “No. Not me.”
He turns to gesture beyond the doorway, and curiosity gets the better of her. She leans to look past him at the pair of figures traipsing into the room, heavy footfalls punctuated by quick, nervous steps. A henchman, and someone else.
“Meet,” the villain says with a smug glint in his eye, “your new nemesis.”
The hero’s eyes fall on someone familiar. Someone small, young, easily drawn to the wrong side.
“[Sidekick]?” She can’t help the name coming out a little incensed. Her sidekick cringes at her tone. “I swear to god, [Villain], you’re going to—”
“He came to us,” he interrupts, and the hero shuts up in disbelief. “He wanted to share some really pivotal stuff with us. Didn’t you?”
The sidekick nods and smiles pleasantly when the villain ruffles his hair. The hero can’t believe what she’s seeing. “[Sidekick],” she says again, softer. “He’s tricking you. They’re the bad guys.”
“We didn’t trick anyone,” the villain says shortly, as if her judgement offended him. “We told him the truth, and he picked his side.”
“You weren’t very nice to me,” the sidekick adds quietly.
“Yeah, and that.” The villain looks positively delighted at the hero’s disgraced expression. “You weren’t very nice to him. So he came and told us exactly where we could find you and when.”
The hero barely holds back her blanch. The sidekick gives her one last glance, mildly disinterested, before reaching back for the henchman, and they take his hand like a parent. They throw a glance to the villain, and with a short nod of confirmation they steer the sidekick back to the door.
“[Sidekick]!” the hero calls desperately, but he ignores her. The door clanks shut again, and the villain sighs.
“He’s a good kid,” he comments idly. “You missed out.”
The hero’s barely containing her seething. “You poisoned his mind.”
“God, no, [Hero], what do you take me for? A monster?” He barks a mocking laugh. “No, I opened his eyes. He’s the first of many.”
The hero can only glare. She doesn’t trust herself to speak, but the villain seems more than happy to fill the space for her. “Now” — He settles on an upturned bucket that’s seen god knows what liquids — “let me tell you all about how great he’s doing without you.”
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Ever since I first read Eugene Onegin two years ago, and even more now that I had to reread it for school recently, I've been saying that I've never related to a fictional character more than I relate to Tatyana Larina (not counting my own characters, that is, as they are intentional projections). Particularly the verses about Tatyana's childhood hit very close to home. I've been wanting to talk about it for a while but couldn't find a translation of the book that I liked. So, instead of sleeping, I spent 2 hours absolutely torturing my own brain by coming up with my own translation and I'm way too proud not to share.
Eugene Onegin, chapter 2, verses 25, 26 and 27, translated with the original temp and rhyming scheme intact, by yours truly <3
—
XXV
And so, her sister's named Tatyana.
She seldom catches someone's gaze,
Lacks Olga's beauty, lacks her glamour,
The pink-cheeked freshness of her face.
She's almost feral, quiet with woe,
So quick to startle, like a doe.
And even in her family home
She seemed a child not quite their own.
She hardly ever showed affection,
Both mom and dad would often say.
By window she would spend her day
Alone but for her own reflection,
She judged the children running wild,
Though she herself was still a child.
XXVI
Imagination was her close friend
From infancy. As village days
Kept dragging on without an end,
She'd get lost in her fantasies.
Needle and thread she too avoided,
Fabric was never once embroidered
By her unblemished fingers, for
She found needlework a bore.
An average girl would take her doll,
Sit down with it and start to talk,
Prepare it for the time to walk
Into an upper class grand ball –
To silent dolls during these sessions
Young girls repeat their mothers' lessons.
XXVII
Tatyana never had discussions
With dolls, nor did she play with them;
She never told them of the fashions,
Of city news, and even then
Of toys and games she was quite wary,
She'd rather read of something scary.
In winters, in the dead of night,
Her heart learned how to take a fright.
When for young Olga their old nanny
Would gather up the neighbours' kids
To run and play out in the fields,
Tatyana would act most uncanny:
She never played or ran around,
And found their laughter far too loud.
—
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