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Of Shadows and Fire
There were old myths – she’d learned about them as a child, in Mystacor – of vengeful Gods with a penchant for cruel and unusual punishments. Once, she’d had nightmares about the eagle that came to feast on Prometheus’ liver each day. It was a monstrous bird, its talons sharp and its wings a blinding burnt gold, and there was a fire of purpose in its beady eyes that couldn’t be stolen.
Hordak was no God, but he had the cruelty of one.
Every morning, at precisely six o’clock, Shadow Weaver was woken from restless sleep by two guards. She had exactly ten minutes to have her breakfast (a small glass of water and a bowl of the gruel they fed to the less-promising cadets), before she would be escorted through the winding corridors of the Fright Zone’s prison to the interrogation chamber.
They never needed to do all that much to her: she knew what that equipment could do, and she knew that they were holding back. After all, her body was frail, decayed from years of experimentation with darkness that left her limbs weak and her bones fragile. And Hordak had insisted that whatever damage they did to her mustn’t last, so that they could do it again…
(Some days the interrogation chamber would merely have a chair – no rack, no electrodes, no restraints – sat in the otherwise empty room, the same cheap, rough model used in cadet classrooms. Those, Shadow Weaver thought, were the worst days. Screens lined the walls, and each screen would show footage from helmet cameras of some skirmish or other. And she would watch – she would have to watch – the consequences of her greatest mistake play out before her, over and over again.)
They would stop for lunch, of course. The guards would eat theirs in front of her, warm and aromatic, as she would be given a second bowl of gruel, and a glass or two of water. She would be allowed one trip to the bathroom, if only because she had convinced the guards that they wouldn’t want to have to clean up after her if she weren’t. And then they would begin again, and she would have no choice but to let it happen.
(And on the days that the room was lined with screens, she would eat her lunch in that little chair in the middle of the room as Adora, paused and flickering, gazed down upon her from every angle. There was no mercy in her eyes.)
At precisely eight o’clock in the evening, the door would open, and she would be returned to her cell. The guards would all but carry her – even without the torture, her legs had long since decayed, and without her magic she could no longer support her own weight fully. The shield would close. More gruel, more water. And the restless sleep, the nightmares of her Adora, the shrieks and moans and wails of her fellow inmates, would come again.
There were old myths – she’d learned about them as a child, in Mystacor – of a titan who’d stolen fire from the Gods, and whose punishment would last until a hero of strength would come to slaughter the eagle, and set him free. Shadow Weaver had believed that she had stolen from the Princesses their greatest weapon, that the Horde might turn Adora against them – an irony as great, she had thought, as any from the old myths. Now she would be punished for her hubris.
Adora was no Heracles, and there would be no rescue.
Hordak was no God, but he had the cruelty of one.
Every morning, at precisely six o’clock, Shadow Weaver was woken from restless sleep by two guards. She had exactly ten minutes to have her breakfast (a small glass of water and a bowl of the gruel they fed to the less-promising cadets), before she would be escorted through the winding corridors of the Fright Zone’s prison to the interrogation chamber.
They never needed to do all that much to her: she knew what that equipment could do, and she knew that they were holding back. After all, her body was frail, decayed from years of experimentation with darkness that left her limbs weak and her bones fragile. And Hordak had insisted that whatever damage they did to her mustn’t last, so that they could do it again…
(Some days the interrogation chamber would merely have a chair – no rack, no electrodes, no restraints – sat in the otherwise empty room, the same cheap, rough model used in cadet classrooms. Those, Shadow Weaver thought, were the worst days. Screens lined the walls, and each screen would show footage from helmet cameras of some skirmish or other. And she would watch – she would have to watch – the consequences of her greatest mistake play out before her, over and over again.)
They would stop for lunch, of course. The guards would eat theirs in front of her, warm and aromatic, as she would be given a second bowl of gruel, and a glass or two of water. She would be allowed one trip to the bathroom, if only because she had convinced the guards that they wouldn’t want to have to clean up after her if she weren’t. And then they would begin again, and she would have no choice but to let it happen.
(And on the days that the room was lined with screens, she would eat her lunch in that little chair in the middle of the room as Adora, paused and flickering, gazed down upon her from every angle. There was no mercy in her eyes.)
At precisely eight o’clock in the evening, the door would open, and she would be returned to her cell. The guards would all but carry her – even without the torture, her legs had long since decayed, and without her magic she could no longer support her own weight fully. The shield would close. More gruel, more water. And the restless sleep, the nightmares of her Adora, the shrieks and moans and wails of her fellow inmates, would come again.
There were old myths – she’d learned about them as a child, in Mystacor – of a titan who’d stolen fire from the Gods, and whose punishment would last until a hero of strength would come to slaughter the eagle, and set him free. Shadow Weaver had believed that she had stolen from the Princesses their greatest weapon, that the Horde might turn Adora against them – an irony as great, she had thought, as any from the old myths. Now she would be punished for her hubris.
Adora was no Heracles, and there would be no rescue.
There's something pleasantly horrific at how understated and gentle Shadow Weaver's torture is, and yet how inescapable and awful it must be for her. Even if she is a huge bitch (bluh bluh), you gotta feel for her when she's been reduced from, as the poet said (boy am I in a quotey mood for this comment!) a looming specter of evil down to a sack of laundry going under the car.
Wow this is so sad, alexa play Catracito
Ok for real this made me feel sad for Shadow Weaver, intrigued as what would be of her, why is she being tortured so overkill like this >w<
I feel theres soo many literary references that may have gone over my head, i wish the word limit wasnt there, cause im sure a little more could have been stablished, but the core of it all is setting up something big, why would the story focus on her who is supposed to rot away like this, this could be an amazing Shadow Weaver revenge story! it coudl go to VERY DARK places.
I still think Shadow Weaver has yet to play a huge role in the show, i feel like she will reddeem/sacrifice for the heroes :p
Ok for real this made me feel sad for Shadow Weaver, intrigued as what would be of her, why is she being tortured so overkill like this >w<
I feel theres soo many literary references that may have gone over my head, i wish the word limit wasnt there, cause im sure a little more could have been stablished, but the core of it all is setting up something big, why would the story focus on her who is supposed to rot away like this, this could be an amazing Shadow Weaver revenge story! it coudl go to VERY DARK places.
I still think Shadow Weaver has yet to play a huge role in the show, i feel like she will reddeem/sacrifice for the heroes :p
Ah, so at last we learn Shadow Weaver's fate after she's dethroned by Catra. Great take on this.
I realize the show hid her motivations for 'adopting' Adora, but having it illustrated in this context is a great way to explore her character further.
Bonus points for the mythology tie-in. Minus points for making feel somewhat sad for this terrible abusive person.
I realize the show hid her motivations for 'adopting' Adora, but having it illustrated in this context is a great way to explore her character further.
Bonus points for the mythology tie-in. Minus points for making feel somewhat sad for this terrible abusive person.
now this was well-written, and a pleasure to read! even if you did make me feel sort of sorry for the evil that is shadow weaver, something i never thought i'd experience.
it took me a second to realize what time the story was set in (is this shadow weaver somehow as a cadet, eating gruel? is this when she first joined the horde?) but it became pretty obvious within a couple of lines that this was about what happened after her fall from grace -- or, well, from her second-in-command position. meadows got it right when they said you get bonus points for all the mythology references! well done :)
it took me a second to realize what time the story was set in (is this shadow weaver somehow as a cadet, eating gruel? is this when she first joined the horde?) but it became pretty obvious within a couple of lines that this was about what happened after her fall from grace -- or, well, from her second-in-command position. meadows got it right when they said you get bonus points for all the mythology references! well done :)
The sheer pain that Shadow Weaver is put through... It seems to be in the same vein of intense punishment given to victims in Greek mythology. Somewhat fitting ;p
Shadow weaver is truly a weary soul, and this fic does an excellent job of showing just how depraved of a life her actions have lead her to create.
Shadow weaver is truly a weary soul, and this fic does an excellent job of showing just how depraved of a life her actions have lead her to create.
First time commenting on a She-Ra round, as I just finished watching the show. Since we have a lot of newcomers, I'll put this header on my comment for every story, since I don't know whether the new people will read the whole discussion thread or just the one for their story.
The write-offs were originally from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom, which has an unusually high caliber of writing standards. Or at least it used to. Sure, there's plenty of bad stuff here, but when you attract that large an audience, you attract a proportionally large number of very good writers, and those tended to congregate in a couple of key places. One, in reviewing groups that helped writers develop, and two, in places like this, that at their best function more as a writing workshop than a competition.
Since I haven't actually started reading any of these as I write this intro, I'll say I don't know how the average writing quality of any given fandom compares to MLP, and it's possible that the critiques given by the MLP veterans will come across as harsh. That's not the intent. I wouldn't spend the 15-30 minutes it takes per minific for me to read, digest, and write up a response if I was just trying to be mean. We all really do intend to help you improve your writing.
I'll put all this above a break so people reading the whole thread will know where to skip down to on subsequent posts.
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This verges on gratuitous torture, but it's at least of the non-graphic kind.
The language use was very good here. Nice flowing sentences, good characterization. At one point, I was confused whether this was Shadow Weaver when she was young, but she would have been full-grown before leaving to join the Horde, and it's pretty clearly her punishment for her failure to deal with Adora. Or failure to rein in her obsession with Adora, leading her to disobey.
In any case, the last line ruined it for me. You had me going until then, as something that wasn't really a standout in concept or plot, but that rose above the rest with good, evocative writing.
But see, that last line did two things. One, it made the story fatalistic. That's not an inherently bad thing, but the story had been fatalistic from the start, so all it did was confirm: yes, everything you were led to believe at the beginning of the story is still true. You didn't throw in any kind of surprise.
And two, I'm going to have to explain my reading of the story up until that last line. Shadow Weaver had felt like she was Prometheus, stealing something incredibly valuable (Adora) and delivering it to the downtrodden (the Horde, who were in the minority for not persecuting her for her use of dark magic). Then at the end, she sees that she's enduring the punishment for it.
However, you set up the Prometheus parallel at the beginning, which undermines its aptness. To draw a complete parallel, she'd be punished by the humans for delivering fire to them and letting it get away. You could certainly mangle it that way, as long as you acknowledged doing so and made a point out of it, but you played it straight. However, consider the reversal. It fits so much more perfectly. She took fire (Adora) from the gods (the Horde) and delivered it to those in need (albeit unintentionally--she more instigated Adora being delivered than intended to do so), leading the gods to punish her. That lines up so seamlessly that I can't help thinking you meant me to see it that way, but then that last line.
It pretty much negates the possibility. I mean, Shadow Weaver is seeing the Horde's true colors now (though I suspect this doesn't come as a surprise to her), and I can't help thinking she realizes she's made a wrong choice, and hopes Adora will be this world's savior. Perhaps she's only being fatalistic about her personal chances of rescue, not the world at large. But I'm not given any reason to take her at more than face value. She seems very earnest in what she's saying, so I'm left thinking she still sees the Prometheus problem as originally stated: that she still wants Adora to belong to the Horde. If that's the case, we do have some very clear dramatic irony (and Cassius will surely chime in before the deadline to explain it in detail, right?), but the parting shot isn't phrased in a way that makes me think it is.
I'll be the first to admit I can be pretty slow at picking up subtle things, and maybe everyone else sees this much more clearly, but if Shadow Weaver's narration said something to illustrate that reversal, even without her realizing the truth of it, then it's a lot easier to see it as intentional dramatic irony rather than me going way off here and reading far more into it than you meant. (And even in the case of realizing it, she may not see it as good. She may wryly observe the reversal, for example, because she realizes the irony, or she may have a turn of heart and hope that Adora is the hero Bright Moon needs, though she believes her own fate is sealed--just because she would then believe in Adora doesn't mean a rescue awaits her.) If you did intend for me to see she had the Prometheus analogy correct but backward, then I'm impressed at how you structured the story to accomplish it. If not, then I think it's a big opportunity missed. But even if you did mean to, I fear it's buried too deep for most readers to see. None of the commenters made that connection so far, but maybe because it's so obvious to them and I only think I'm being deep. >:V
Shadow Weaver does reflect on the irony that she saw herself as a Prometheus, but it seems more like she sees the source of that irony as her being incorrect, and that Adora is either a failure or working for the wrong side, not that the irony is that Shadow Weaver is Prometheus, just in the opposite direction than she'd envisioned (again, either as wryly seeing it from Bright Moon's perspective or having a change of heart and admitting it from her own).
Since I can't tell whether you meant it that way, I'm struggling with where to place you on my ballot. If you meant it, I think you're very clever and merely made a misstep in having the final line be far too subtle, to the point of being misleading. But if you didn't, then I think it's a problem that the analogy works far better for the way things turned out than the way Shadow Weaver wanted them to, i.e., you didn't see that and made a faulty application of the analogy.
The write-offs were originally from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom, which has an unusually high caliber of writing standards. Or at least it used to. Sure, there's plenty of bad stuff here, but when you attract that large an audience, you attract a proportionally large number of very good writers, and those tended to congregate in a couple of key places. One, in reviewing groups that helped writers develop, and two, in places like this, that at their best function more as a writing workshop than a competition.
Since I haven't actually started reading any of these as I write this intro, I'll say I don't know how the average writing quality of any given fandom compares to MLP, and it's possible that the critiques given by the MLP veterans will come across as harsh. That's not the intent. I wouldn't spend the 15-30 minutes it takes per minific for me to read, digest, and write up a response if I was just trying to be mean. We all really do intend to help you improve your writing.
I'll put all this above a break so people reading the whole thread will know where to skip down to on subsequent posts.
--------------------------------------------------------------
This verges on gratuitous torture, but it's at least of the non-graphic kind.
The language use was very good here. Nice flowing sentences, good characterization. At one point, I was confused whether this was Shadow Weaver when she was young, but she would have been full-grown before leaving to join the Horde, and it's pretty clearly her punishment for her failure to deal with Adora. Or failure to rein in her obsession with Adora, leading her to disobey.
In any case, the last line ruined it for me. You had me going until then, as something that wasn't really a standout in concept or plot, but that rose above the rest with good, evocative writing.
But see, that last line did two things. One, it made the story fatalistic. That's not an inherently bad thing, but the story had been fatalistic from the start, so all it did was confirm: yes, everything you were led to believe at the beginning of the story is still true. You didn't throw in any kind of surprise.
And two, I'm going to have to explain my reading of the story up until that last line. Shadow Weaver had felt like she was Prometheus, stealing something incredibly valuable (Adora) and delivering it to the downtrodden (the Horde, who were in the minority for not persecuting her for her use of dark magic). Then at the end, she sees that she's enduring the punishment for it.
However, you set up the Prometheus parallel at the beginning, which undermines its aptness. To draw a complete parallel, she'd be punished by the humans for delivering fire to them and letting it get away. You could certainly mangle it that way, as long as you acknowledged doing so and made a point out of it, but you played it straight. However, consider the reversal. It fits so much more perfectly. She took fire (Adora) from the gods (the Horde) and delivered it to those in need (albeit unintentionally--she more instigated Adora being delivered than intended to do so), leading the gods to punish her. That lines up so seamlessly that I can't help thinking you meant me to see it that way, but then that last line.
It pretty much negates the possibility. I mean, Shadow Weaver is seeing the Horde's true colors now (though I suspect this doesn't come as a surprise to her), and I can't help thinking she realizes she's made a wrong choice, and hopes Adora will be this world's savior. Perhaps she's only being fatalistic about her personal chances of rescue, not the world at large. But I'm not given any reason to take her at more than face value. She seems very earnest in what she's saying, so I'm left thinking she still sees the Prometheus problem as originally stated: that she still wants Adora to belong to the Horde. If that's the case, we do have some very clear dramatic irony (and Cassius will surely chime in before the deadline to explain it in detail, right?), but the parting shot isn't phrased in a way that makes me think it is.
I'll be the first to admit I can be pretty slow at picking up subtle things, and maybe everyone else sees this much more clearly, but if Shadow Weaver's narration said something to illustrate that reversal, even without her realizing the truth of it, then it's a lot easier to see it as intentional dramatic irony rather than me going way off here and reading far more into it than you meant. (And even in the case of realizing it, she may not see it as good. She may wryly observe the reversal, for example, because she realizes the irony, or she may have a turn of heart and hope that Adora is the hero Bright Moon needs, though she believes her own fate is sealed--just because she would then believe in Adora doesn't mean a rescue awaits her.) If you did intend for me to see she had the Prometheus analogy correct but backward, then I'm impressed at how you structured the story to accomplish it. If not, then I think it's a big opportunity missed. But even if you did mean to, I fear it's buried too deep for most readers to see. None of the commenters made that connection so far, but maybe because it's so obvious to them and I only think I'm being deep. >:V
Shadow Weaver does reflect on the irony that she saw herself as a Prometheus, but it seems more like she sees the source of that irony as her being incorrect, and that Adora is either a failure or working for the wrong side, not that the irony is that Shadow Weaver is Prometheus, just in the opposite direction than she'd envisioned (again, either as wryly seeing it from Bright Moon's perspective or having a change of heart and admitting it from her own).
Since I can't tell whether you meant it that way, I'm struggling with where to place you on my ballot. If you meant it, I think you're very clever and merely made a misstep in having the final line be far too subtle, to the point of being misleading. But if you didn't, then I think it's a problem that the analogy works far better for the way things turned out than the way Shadow Weaver wanted them to, i.e., you didn't see that and made a faulty application of the analogy.
Retrospective
I don't have a huge amount to say on my entry this round, except that (as usual in minific rounds) I tried to execute a concept without actually having a story to go with it, and that never ends all that well. I did want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who read and especially everyone who took the time to leave comments: I appreciate all of them.
I'm going to have to do some work to establish the time period for this piece, evidently; it seems a lot of people were tripped enough by that to note it, and that's not great. That said, if I do expand this piece, it'll probably be quite different (at one point in drafting, I had a scene from Catra's POV, and was considering an arc for her. That wouldn't have fit in the wordcount, though!), so hopefully I'll have quite a few places to do that.
And a quick specific reply (>>Pascoite):
That's not actually far off the reading I was going for, though I know my attempt was botched. My goal was to try to lead the audience towards the interpretation that Shadow Weaver had gotten the Promethean myth the wrong way around, but without letting Shadow Weaver herself ever have the self-awareness to recognise it. I know I didn't do the best job there (time constraints, word limits, being tired, yadda yadda yadda), but if I do expand this I'll probably take the metaphor and run with it a bit more sensibly anyway.
Thanks again everyone!
I don't have a huge amount to say on my entry this round, except that (as usual in minific rounds) I tried to execute a concept without actually having a story to go with it, and that never ends all that well. I did want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who read and especially everyone who took the time to leave comments: I appreciate all of them.
I'm going to have to do some work to establish the time period for this piece, evidently; it seems a lot of people were tripped enough by that to note it, and that's not great. That said, if I do expand this piece, it'll probably be quite different (at one point in drafting, I had a scene from Catra's POV, and was considering an arc for her. That wouldn't have fit in the wordcount, though!), so hopefully I'll have quite a few places to do that.
And a quick specific reply (>>Pascoite):
That's not actually far off the reading I was going for, though I know my attempt was botched. My goal was to try to lead the audience towards the interpretation that Shadow Weaver had gotten the Promethean myth the wrong way around, but without letting Shadow Weaver herself ever have the self-awareness to recognise it. I know I didn't do the best job there (time constraints, word limits, being tired, yadda yadda yadda), but if I do expand this I'll probably take the metaphor and run with it a bit more sensibly anyway.
Thanks again everyone!