Writer's Block: Entering the Game
OK, there were just too many opportunities to pass up here... Creating original characters for this one would have been boring, but that's what fanfiction is for. I confess, though, that every single one of the following is complete and utter FLUFF. Nothing substantial in them whatsoever, but they may yet prove to be entertaining. Take your pick:
Games of Strategy
There was never any cheating allowed in these little games. The angel always seemed to know, somehow, confound him, and anyway Crowley wanted nothing better than to beat him at his own game, so to speak; that is, the no cheating game.
He stared hard at the board, as if trying to read some strategy from the squares.
Crowley was itching to move some of the angel's pieces around when his back was turned, but he couldn't. That would be like saying he couldn't win without cheating. So instead he had spent hours beforehand, plotting, strategizing, trying to find some formula that would bring him out the victor. He had experimented with so many possibilities, so many combinations in his head that he felt there couldn't possibly be room for error... yet somehow, somehow Aziraphale was dismantling his strategy as though it were no more substantial than a soap bubble. Crowley glared at him from behind his glasses.
Think. He had to think.
He bent his thoughts back towards the mountain of strategies he had devised, then looked back at the game board, evaluating his options.
He fixed Aziraphale with a steady gaze from over the tops of his sunglasses and, never breaking eye contact, made his move.
Aziraphale raised an eyebrow.
Crowley sat back in his chair, never breaking eye contact, and gestured languidly at the board.
The angel held Crowley's gaze as he made his own move, then sat back and steepled his fingers, the glimmerings of a smirk playing across his lips.
Crowley leaned forward, brow furrowed in vexation, then fixed the angel with a yellow glare. "Mesembryanthemum? Mesembryanthemum? That's it, angel. I never thought you'd stoop so low."
Aziraphale shook his head. "It's perfectly legal, dear boy. Go ahead and check it."
"I will." Crowley grabbed the book sitting on the table next to the game board and leafed through it. He found the relevant page, moving his lips slightly as he skimmed the content for the relevant information. A moment later he slammed the book shut and crossed his arms petulantly. "All right, so it is a word."
Aziraphale sighed at his expression, but couldn't supress a wry smile. "I'm sorry, Crowley. I'm afraid Scrabble just isn't a strategy game."
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A Miscalculation
What in Frond's name posessed me to agree to this? Root thought to himself as he waited for yet another twenty minutes for the centaur to take a turn. I know what he's like at board games, I know how he goes on about strategies... so what the devil was I thinking?
The Risk board was covered in little Mud Men of various colors by now, Foaly's blue army marching in a carefully calculated pattern across the board, Holly's green one all huddled in three territories, and Root's own yellow one following an attack pattern he'd recalled from his days at the academy. If it hadn't been for the confounded dice, and Foaly's insufferable calculations, he knew he would have won the game, hands down. As it was, he was having extraordinary bad luck with his dice tosses, and as much as he hated to admit it, the centaur's carefully planned strategies seemed to be paying off. The blue army of Mud Men were positioned just so, giving Foaly a clear advantage. Root ground his cigar between his teeth as he stared at the board. Holly had all but gone to sleep by the time the centaur finally took his turn--executing another well calculated move--and sat back smugly, tinfoil hat perched jauntily on his head. "Well, Julius?"
"If I've told you once I've told you too many times, Foaly, enough with the Julius thing." He tossed the dice at his dozing captain. "And it's Holly's turn."
Holly awoke with a start as the dice bounced into her lap and rolled. "Nothing. Your go, Commander."
Foaly's merry little chuckle made Root's abysmal roll all the more annoying. "Oh dear. Looks like it's my turn again, Julius."
Root growled and slapped the table in frustration, knocking the dice onto the floor. "Sorry," he muttered, and bent to retrieve them.
"Are you sure you two don't want to just give in now?"
"Quite sure, pony-boy!" Root snapped at him. "Just go. And don't take an entire bloody year this time, eh?"
Root maintained his expression of extreme annoyance as Foaly began his calculations again, but he was grinning inside. So he was a cheat. So what? The pompus centaur had it coming, and it wasn't like a couple turns with loaded dice would do him any harm. Root fought hard to keep the smirk from his face. In fact, he decided, it could be exactly what he needs.
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The Chess Match
"Chess is quite remarkable in that it is based entirely on reasoning--it is the ultimate strategy game, and only the use of logic and a firm grasp of the opponent's mind will allow one to become victorious," remarked Sherlock Holmes one evening, as we bent over a chessboard. I was beginning to regret agreeing to the friendly match, as I was of course up against the most formidable mind in all of London, who had also made logic his lifestyle. "The game also requires the participants to focus on multiple elements at once," he continued. "One must determine the most effective strategy towards breaking the opponent's defences, ensure the safety of one's own pieces, and of course, anticipate the opponent's movements. It is the latter element which makes it so imperative to be able to put yourself in the place of the one you're working against, to fully understand him and have a clear sense of the way his mind works."
"The advantage is clearly yours then, Holmes," I said good-humoredly. "Not only do you know me well from living with me for some years, you make it your business to know what other people are thinking."
Holmes leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in the familiar position he used whenever he entertained a client. "Not so, my dear Watson, not so. For as much as I have had the chance to learn about the workings of your mind, so you have had the opportunities to learn the workings of mine. Indeed even more so, perhaps, as I have explained my trains of thought to you many times before, upon such occasions as you expressed surprise at the extent of my simple deductions."
"Hardly simple, Holmes. You have had the distinct honor, if I recall, of putting Scotland Yard to shame more times than I can possibly count."
He waved away my praise with an easy hand. "I must disagree with you on one point there, Watson. Putting Scotland Yard to shame is hardly an honor. It sometimes amazes me that they can find their way out of the police station in the first place, never mind forming actual conclusions from the scene of a crime. No, Watson, if I have had any honor, it comes from pitting my wits against the most devious and devilish of minds, minds that seek to cheat justice. It is there that the challenge lies."
I had often heard his offhand complaints with respect to the Yard, and had begun almost unconsciously counting them in with the daily routine that arose from living with the man. It was a particular character trait of Sherlock Holmes that he believed modesty to be as far from a virtue as vanity, and that the only way to describe the talents of any particular person or group of people was exactly. Yet when it came to Scotland Yard, he took great pleasure in labeling their methods as "imbicilic" and "absurd." While it is true that the Yard did not live up the deductive standard that he himself exuded, they were far from incompetent, and I occasionally chastised my friend for exaggerating their ineffectiveness, though it did little good.
"It is my firm opinion that London has become much too tame of late," Holmes continued, fingering his rook absent-mindedly. "While most of the city is lying secure in their beds, I lie awake at night, my mind begging for problems, problems of some merit. Instead I am bombarded with absurdly simple requests from too many parties. When am I to be offered a case of some interest?"
"Surely you aren't entirely without work," I said, moving my knight up to capture his bishop. "Just recently there was a string of robberies--"
"Oh, burglaries, burglaries, it's all just a matter of catching the thieves. Nothing but a band of men low on cash willing to rob pawn shops until their pockets jingle. No, the Yard will have them by tomorrow, the day after at the very latest." He shifted a pawn up the board, a morose expression coming over his face. "And, of course, there are those that simply expect me to solve everything. Hah! I feel like the blasted queen in a chess set--expected to run all over the place, getting things done. And if they don't have me, they're suddenly lost." He tapped the relevant piece with a forefinger. "It is not a happy analogy, certainly. I can only pray that some little problem of interest happens along soon."
I gave his comparison some thought. "You know, Holmes, to you it may not sound a happy analogy, but does it not speak of your prowess as a detective? What I mean to say is, the queen is an extraordinary piece." I picked up my own queen after shifting my rook over to cover my bishop. "When the piece was introduced to the game it made the play infinitely more interesting, to my mind, because it is the inclination of every player to rely heavily on the piece with the most power. If you are the queen, Holmes, then we all rely on you--you can do things we cannot, just as the queen can, and without your guidance, as you say, the Yard would be at a loss in several of their cases. The queen is entirely unrestricted; its value to any player is greater than that of any other piece." I set my queen down firmly in the centre of its square. "Your abilities exceed that of any other piece in the great chess game of the law, Holmes."
My friend wore the indifferent expression he affected so often, but I could see his eyes twinkling, and I could not supress a grin. "Such eloquence, Watson, such extraordinary eloquence," he declared, gesturing with one hand while moving his queen up the board with the other. "And romantic as always; I can see you remain faithful to your preferred writing style no matter what the subject matter."
"Might I remind you that it was you who began the comparison of yourself to the queen," I told him, raising an eyebrow as I edged my pawn one square closer towards the edge of the board. "Perhaps some of my writing is rubbing off on you, hmmm?"
"Oh, I doubt that, Watson, I sincerely doubt that." He paused, and studied the chessboard for a long moment, before reaching out a long finger towards his pieces with a singular expression in his eyes. "But what of the King, Watson?" he said, in an almost contemplative voice. "Your little monologue placed the queen high in importance, that much is certain... but the king, Watson, the king." He tapped his own king with his finger, rocking it slightly where it stood. "You made the queen out to be unrestricted, having abilities that none of the other pieces posess, and this is of course true. But the queen is by no means free as a bird. The king is what keeps it tethered to the ground. The queen is the offense of each little army, of course, due to the range of movement available to it, but its most important duty is to see to it that the king remains safe, whatever the cost to the queen itself, for the king is infinitely more important. Without the queen there is a great loss to the player, but without the king there is no game. It is the king that defines the queen, that gives the queen its purpose, that allows the queen to do its work at all. Without the king the queen's particular abilities would be for nothing, but with the king, they are a force to be reckoned with. And that, my dear Watson, is why one must never imagine the queen to be more important than the king."
I sat listening to this peculiar speech with some surprise, for it was rare that my friend spoke at such lengths on something so seemingly trivial as a metaphor. "My goodness, Holmes, I do believe my writing really has rubbed off on you."
He gave a small smile and leaned back in his chair, the singular look in his eye replaced with a merry twinkle. "It seems I will be obliged to steer topics of converstion away from the metaphorical from now on, Watson. I simply cannot have my reputation tarnished with the idea that your writing is 'rubbing off on me'. Why, I should lose all hopes of finding a client if they thought I spouted out as much romantic drivel as your pen."
"Might I remind you that that romantic drivel is most of the reason you have clients--"
We were interrupted by a knock on the door, followed by Mrs. Hudson. "I'm sorry to bother you, gentlemen, but there's a young lady downstairs that wishes to speak with you--shall I send her up?"
Holmes turned to me with raised eyebrows. "It seems my wish has been granted! Send her up, Mrs. Hudson, send her up."
"Holmes," I said, as the door shut behind her, "What exactly did you mean by that whole thing about the king?"
"Oh, it was nothing, Watson," he said jovially, "Just a thought, is all. No, I daresay I can give you something better to contemplate, have no fear." He stood and stretched, then without even looking down pushed his queen all the way across the board.
"Just remember, Watson--as talented as the queen may be, it is nothing without the king," he called enigmatically over his shoulder, leaving me grimacing at his perfect checkmate as he flung the door wide to greet our guest.
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For an actual answer? I assume you're talking about video games, for which my answer is: I don't know. I have never owned a game system, and have only ever played one about twice. So I haven't even the slightest idea. There. Done. When I pretended you were talking about board games I was able to come up with something good. See where modern technology gets you?
I'm not even sure where the last one came from--it doesn't really talk about strategy vs. no strategy at all. But I think it works OK...
Well, in other news, it was my birthday today--*checks clock*--yesterday, and it really was tremendous fun. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary, except for a brief present-opening, but it was just a really good day. Which was good. Somewhat on the subject, I got a huge copy of the Necronomicon, which is also particularly gorgeous. But what was even more exciting was the copy of the complete Sherlock Holmes. That is, the complete complete. It was one of those huge books with the pages with the gold edges and everything; I'll never be able to read from it of course, since it's so huge, so I'm keeping my battered copies around, but it's a gorgeous thing just to, you know, have. And if I ever need to look something up it'll be right there. I also got a really lovely bookmark (which I suspect may be leather as opposed to faux-leather, but it was a gift and I'm in love with it so shhhhhhh...) from the Sherlock Holmes museum, which says "The air of London is sweeter for my presence." Awwww, Holmes... *sniff*...
Which reminds me, I should be editing Worth a Wound instead of doing this! Never mind, I'm not here. *runs*
Games of Strategy
There was never any cheating allowed in these little games. The angel always seemed to know, somehow, confound him, and anyway Crowley wanted nothing better than to beat him at his own game, so to speak; that is, the no cheating game.
He stared hard at the board, as if trying to read some strategy from the squares.
Crowley was itching to move some of the angel's pieces around when his back was turned, but he couldn't. That would be like saying he couldn't win without cheating. So instead he had spent hours beforehand, plotting, strategizing, trying to find some formula that would bring him out the victor. He had experimented with so many possibilities, so many combinations in his head that he felt there couldn't possibly be room for error... yet somehow, somehow Aziraphale was dismantling his strategy as though it were no more substantial than a soap bubble. Crowley glared at him from behind his glasses.
Think. He had to think.
He bent his thoughts back towards the mountain of strategies he had devised, then looked back at the game board, evaluating his options.
He fixed Aziraphale with a steady gaze from over the tops of his sunglasses and, never breaking eye contact, made his move.
Aziraphale raised an eyebrow.
Crowley sat back in his chair, never breaking eye contact, and gestured languidly at the board.
The angel held Crowley's gaze as he made his own move, then sat back and steepled his fingers, the glimmerings of a smirk playing across his lips.
Crowley leaned forward, brow furrowed in vexation, then fixed the angel with a yellow glare. "Mesembryanthemum? Mesembryanthemum? That's it, angel. I never thought you'd stoop so low."
Aziraphale shook his head. "It's perfectly legal, dear boy. Go ahead and check it."
"I will." Crowley grabbed the book sitting on the table next to the game board and leafed through it. He found the relevant page, moving his lips slightly as he skimmed the content for the relevant information. A moment later he slammed the book shut and crossed his arms petulantly. "All right, so it is a word."
Aziraphale sighed at his expression, but couldn't supress a wry smile. "I'm sorry, Crowley. I'm afraid Scrabble just isn't a strategy game."
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A Miscalculation
What in Frond's name posessed me to agree to this? Root thought to himself as he waited for yet another twenty minutes for the centaur to take a turn. I know what he's like at board games, I know how he goes on about strategies... so what the devil was I thinking?
The Risk board was covered in little Mud Men of various colors by now, Foaly's blue army marching in a carefully calculated pattern across the board, Holly's green one all huddled in three territories, and Root's own yellow one following an attack pattern he'd recalled from his days at the academy. If it hadn't been for the confounded dice, and Foaly's insufferable calculations, he knew he would have won the game, hands down. As it was, he was having extraordinary bad luck with his dice tosses, and as much as he hated to admit it, the centaur's carefully planned strategies seemed to be paying off. The blue army of Mud Men were positioned just so, giving Foaly a clear advantage. Root ground his cigar between his teeth as he stared at the board. Holly had all but gone to sleep by the time the centaur finally took his turn--executing another well calculated move--and sat back smugly, tinfoil hat perched jauntily on his head. "Well, Julius?"
"If I've told you once I've told you too many times, Foaly, enough with the Julius thing." He tossed the dice at his dozing captain. "And it's Holly's turn."
Holly awoke with a start as the dice bounced into her lap and rolled. "Nothing. Your go, Commander."
Foaly's merry little chuckle made Root's abysmal roll all the more annoying. "Oh dear. Looks like it's my turn again, Julius."
Root growled and slapped the table in frustration, knocking the dice onto the floor. "Sorry," he muttered, and bent to retrieve them.
"Are you sure you two don't want to just give in now?"
"Quite sure, pony-boy!" Root snapped at him. "Just go. And don't take an entire bloody year this time, eh?"
Root maintained his expression of extreme annoyance as Foaly began his calculations again, but he was grinning inside. So he was a cheat. So what? The pompus centaur had it coming, and it wasn't like a couple turns with loaded dice would do him any harm. Root fought hard to keep the smirk from his face. In fact, he decided, it could be exactly what he needs.
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The Chess Match
"Chess is quite remarkable in that it is based entirely on reasoning--it is the ultimate strategy game, and only the use of logic and a firm grasp of the opponent's mind will allow one to become victorious," remarked Sherlock Holmes one evening, as we bent over a chessboard. I was beginning to regret agreeing to the friendly match, as I was of course up against the most formidable mind in all of London, who had also made logic his lifestyle. "The game also requires the participants to focus on multiple elements at once," he continued. "One must determine the most effective strategy towards breaking the opponent's defences, ensure the safety of one's own pieces, and of course, anticipate the opponent's movements. It is the latter element which makes it so imperative to be able to put yourself in the place of the one you're working against, to fully understand him and have a clear sense of the way his mind works."
"The advantage is clearly yours then, Holmes," I said good-humoredly. "Not only do you know me well from living with me for some years, you make it your business to know what other people are thinking."
Holmes leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in the familiar position he used whenever he entertained a client. "Not so, my dear Watson, not so. For as much as I have had the chance to learn about the workings of your mind, so you have had the opportunities to learn the workings of mine. Indeed even more so, perhaps, as I have explained my trains of thought to you many times before, upon such occasions as you expressed surprise at the extent of my simple deductions."
"Hardly simple, Holmes. You have had the distinct honor, if I recall, of putting Scotland Yard to shame more times than I can possibly count."
He waved away my praise with an easy hand. "I must disagree with you on one point there, Watson. Putting Scotland Yard to shame is hardly an honor. It sometimes amazes me that they can find their way out of the police station in the first place, never mind forming actual conclusions from the scene of a crime. No, Watson, if I have had any honor, it comes from pitting my wits against the most devious and devilish of minds, minds that seek to cheat justice. It is there that the challenge lies."
I had often heard his offhand complaints with respect to the Yard, and had begun almost unconsciously counting them in with the daily routine that arose from living with the man. It was a particular character trait of Sherlock Holmes that he believed modesty to be as far from a virtue as vanity, and that the only way to describe the talents of any particular person or group of people was exactly. Yet when it came to Scotland Yard, he took great pleasure in labeling their methods as "imbicilic" and "absurd." While it is true that the Yard did not live up the deductive standard that he himself exuded, they were far from incompetent, and I occasionally chastised my friend for exaggerating their ineffectiveness, though it did little good.
"It is my firm opinion that London has become much too tame of late," Holmes continued, fingering his rook absent-mindedly. "While most of the city is lying secure in their beds, I lie awake at night, my mind begging for problems, problems of some merit. Instead I am bombarded with absurdly simple requests from too many parties. When am I to be offered a case of some interest?"
"Surely you aren't entirely without work," I said, moving my knight up to capture his bishop. "Just recently there was a string of robberies--"
"Oh, burglaries, burglaries, it's all just a matter of catching the thieves. Nothing but a band of men low on cash willing to rob pawn shops until their pockets jingle. No, the Yard will have them by tomorrow, the day after at the very latest." He shifted a pawn up the board, a morose expression coming over his face. "And, of course, there are those that simply expect me to solve everything. Hah! I feel like the blasted queen in a chess set--expected to run all over the place, getting things done. And if they don't have me, they're suddenly lost." He tapped the relevant piece with a forefinger. "It is not a happy analogy, certainly. I can only pray that some little problem of interest happens along soon."
I gave his comparison some thought. "You know, Holmes, to you it may not sound a happy analogy, but does it not speak of your prowess as a detective? What I mean to say is, the queen is an extraordinary piece." I picked up my own queen after shifting my rook over to cover my bishop. "When the piece was introduced to the game it made the play infinitely more interesting, to my mind, because it is the inclination of every player to rely heavily on the piece with the most power. If you are the queen, Holmes, then we all rely on you--you can do things we cannot, just as the queen can, and without your guidance, as you say, the Yard would be at a loss in several of their cases. The queen is entirely unrestricted; its value to any player is greater than that of any other piece." I set my queen down firmly in the centre of its square. "Your abilities exceed that of any other piece in the great chess game of the law, Holmes."
My friend wore the indifferent expression he affected so often, but I could see his eyes twinkling, and I could not supress a grin. "Such eloquence, Watson, such extraordinary eloquence," he declared, gesturing with one hand while moving his queen up the board with the other. "And romantic as always; I can see you remain faithful to your preferred writing style no matter what the subject matter."
"Might I remind you that it was you who began the comparison of yourself to the queen," I told him, raising an eyebrow as I edged my pawn one square closer towards the edge of the board. "Perhaps some of my writing is rubbing off on you, hmmm?"
"Oh, I doubt that, Watson, I sincerely doubt that." He paused, and studied the chessboard for a long moment, before reaching out a long finger towards his pieces with a singular expression in his eyes. "But what of the King, Watson?" he said, in an almost contemplative voice. "Your little monologue placed the queen high in importance, that much is certain... but the king, Watson, the king." He tapped his own king with his finger, rocking it slightly where it stood. "You made the queen out to be unrestricted, having abilities that none of the other pieces posess, and this is of course true. But the queen is by no means free as a bird. The king is what keeps it tethered to the ground. The queen is the offense of each little army, of course, due to the range of movement available to it, but its most important duty is to see to it that the king remains safe, whatever the cost to the queen itself, for the king is infinitely more important. Without the queen there is a great loss to the player, but without the king there is no game. It is the king that defines the queen, that gives the queen its purpose, that allows the queen to do its work at all. Without the king the queen's particular abilities would be for nothing, but with the king, they are a force to be reckoned with. And that, my dear Watson, is why one must never imagine the queen to be more important than the king."
I sat listening to this peculiar speech with some surprise, for it was rare that my friend spoke at such lengths on something so seemingly trivial as a metaphor. "My goodness, Holmes, I do believe my writing really has rubbed off on you."
He gave a small smile and leaned back in his chair, the singular look in his eye replaced with a merry twinkle. "It seems I will be obliged to steer topics of converstion away from the metaphorical from now on, Watson. I simply cannot have my reputation tarnished with the idea that your writing is 'rubbing off on me'. Why, I should lose all hopes of finding a client if they thought I spouted out as much romantic drivel as your pen."
"Might I remind you that that romantic drivel is most of the reason you have clients--"
We were interrupted by a knock on the door, followed by Mrs. Hudson. "I'm sorry to bother you, gentlemen, but there's a young lady downstairs that wishes to speak with you--shall I send her up?"
Holmes turned to me with raised eyebrows. "It seems my wish has been granted! Send her up, Mrs. Hudson, send her up."
"Holmes," I said, as the door shut behind her, "What exactly did you mean by that whole thing about the king?"
"Oh, it was nothing, Watson," he said jovially, "Just a thought, is all. No, I daresay I can give you something better to contemplate, have no fear." He stood and stretched, then without even looking down pushed his queen all the way across the board.
"Just remember, Watson--as talented as the queen may be, it is nothing without the king," he called enigmatically over his shoulder, leaving me grimacing at his perfect checkmate as he flung the door wide to greet our guest.
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For an actual answer? I assume you're talking about video games, for which my answer is: I don't know. I have never owned a game system, and have only ever played one about twice. So I haven't even the slightest idea. There. Done. When I pretended you were talking about board games I was able to come up with something good. See where modern technology gets you?
I'm not even sure where the last one came from--it doesn't really talk about strategy vs. no strategy at all. But I think it works OK...
Well, in other news, it was my birthday today--*checks clock*--yesterday, and it really was tremendous fun. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary, except for a brief present-opening, but it was just a really good day. Which was good. Somewhat on the subject, I got a huge copy of the Necronomicon, which is also particularly gorgeous. But what was even more exciting was the copy of the complete Sherlock Holmes. That is, the complete complete. It was one of those huge books with the pages with the gold edges and everything; I'll never be able to read from it of course, since it's so huge, so I'm keeping my battered copies around, but it's a gorgeous thing just to, you know, have. And if I ever need to look something up it'll be right there. I also got a really lovely bookmark (which I suspect may be leather as opposed to faux-leather, but it was a gift and I'm in love with it so shhhhhhh...) from the Sherlock Holmes museum, which says "The air of London is sweeter for my presence." Awwww, Holmes... *sniff*...
Which reminds me, I should be editing Worth a Wound instead of doing this! Never mind, I'm not here. *runs*