#and chess

[overwhelmedfernfrond]

friends i can go to the library with

[beeblesqueeble]

Tumblrinas this is urgent help me convince my husband to play chess

Im gonna start manifesting like a tiktok girlie in 2020

(Also hiiiiiiiiiiiii ik ur gonna see this homo bc you have notifications for my blog)

[aquavulpix23]

BW gang playing scrabble:

Hilbert: I will put my "A" down to make "A"

Cheren: I will add on to your "A" to make "AT"

Bianca: I will add on to your "AT" to make "RAT"

N: I will add on to your "RAT" to make "BIOSTRATIGRAPHIC"

Cheren: *flips the table*

[pride-with-a-hint-of-prejudice]

i used to think love theoretically was the best ali hazelwood novel ever, but check & mate has proven me wrong.✨

[vinylfoxbooks]

August 22 - Card | @jartylusmicrofics | wc: 615

Game nights have become relatively normal within the Potter-Black-Crouch household because all of them are incredibly competitive and don’t like to back down from a challenge, they’re also all the type of people to overthink games and become quickly hated by their friends when they’d play together because of that. Each of them have games that they’ve banned in the house through process of elimination: Monopoly, any of the Mario games, Settlers of Catan -- after a particularly heated competition between the three of them all on 8 or 9 points before James won, Barty flipped the entire board, and Regulus didn’t talk to them for the rest of the day -- Uno twice, among many others.

And they’ve decided, this game night, that card games were their best approach for the safety of their house, relationship, and sanity. The thing is, James isn’t the best at these games, they can admit that. They do well with the games that they do play, and they were also part of the reasons behind some of these games getting banned from their household, but there’s never been anything that they’ve banned because they were too good at it like Regulus with Monopoly. 

Until they’re on their third card game, Regulus and Barty have only won thrice, collectively. James has won every. Other. Round. That they played. James has a track record of 16 out of 19 games.

“I’m going to kill you.” Barty mutters, looking James dead in the eye, “I swear to God if you win again, your body will not be found.”

“Okay,” Regulus hums, pushing Barty away from the table where, thankfully, James and Barty are sitting opposite each other, “I think card games are getting banned from game night, too.”

“We’re going to run out of games to play on game night soon.” James says, although they admittedly have a cocky smile on their face as they place down their hand, showing that they’ve won. Again. Barty nearly flips the table. Regulus gently takes the cards from both of their hands and cleans the ones on the table, putting them back in the box before walking over to the ‘banned’ shelf that they have and putting the pack on it.

“Running out of games or not,” Regulus states, “We’re done playing games tonight, I think we’re too high strung.” James agrees and goes to start making the three of them some hot chocolate to ease some of the tension that they’ve caused. 

When they’re done and Regulus has calmed Barty from the edge of murder -- Barty asks him how he’s not upset at James winning constantly, and he is, but he’s calmer than Barty and therefore needs to calm him down -- and the three of them are settled down on the couch with a comfort show, Barty finally asks, “How are you so good at card games?”

James takes a second to answer, “My dad really liked playing card games when I was young, that was usually what we ended up playing and if you think that I’m good at card games, you should never play with my dad. It also became a thing that since Peter was good enough at chess, I could never beat him, so we’d start playing cards and he’d get frustrated then it was a back and forth of us going between chess and cards.”

“Which is why you two don’t play games together.”

James nods, “My dad is incredibly strategic and, to beat him, you had to learn how to best him in his own game.” 

“Well, it’s just another banned game.” Regulus rolls his eyes, pressing a kiss to both of their lips as they fully settle down.

[eluxcastar]

We would all get absolutely no bitches if even just half of the Vampires were real. Do you know how many Fatherless mfs simp for them every. single. day.

it's me I'm Fatherless mfs

[completeoveranalysis]

~

Warning! This post contains spoilers up to chapter 170 of Tsubasa (and Chapter 71 of xxxHolic). Please skip this if you have not read that far.

Please also make no comments about what happens after that point in either manga.

~

SO here is the other splash image that really stuck out to me:

This time not because of the Seresu arc but because of how the Infinity arc itself ends.

Here's the link to the original post the image is from if you'd like the full context, but the particular quote from that post I want to use as a reference is here:

"Syaoran also sits on the throne - which as far as I can tell, isn’t his. ... The only one ever wearing the crown they’re all wearing [on their clothes] is Sakura. Now, does it make sense that Syaoran has usurped her throne? Heck yeah! He’s stolen everything from her. He’s stolen her journey (they’re following him now, always a step behind), he’s stolen her feathers, and he’s stolen the person she’s in love with."

Where I was kind of on the right track but couldn't have possibly guessed what all the chess imagery was ultimately feeding into. Looking back now the initial liveblogs for all of these Chess-related splash images are such a big mix of different iconography, so it’s very fun reading through all my old guesses back then. I think I did a really good job of trying to decipher some of it, especially the Cinderella and Snow White imagery in Chapter 140, but the Chess was a bit trickier.

Which, like, understandable, because the chess game that was happening in the chapters was stressful as heck and did not end well, but there is a nice conclusion to it with this image which is easier to read now - especially in regards to Sakura. Because it's made very clear to the viewer that the symbol of the Queen piece is in reference to her; both in these splash images (where she wears the crown at one point, and every character wears the symbol in ways that reflect their allegiance to her) and in the plotline, where she functions as the Queen of the battles taking place. Here is another good example of the symbol being used for Sakura with it right there on her throne, and the two Syaoran's wearing the symbol in smaller ways to represent their relationship to her. But with that all in mind? I had no idea what it was really getting at with Syaoran on Sakura's throne here.

BUT NOW I DO.

If you go back to that example I just gave with Sakura sitting on her throne? It's a different throne! It still makes it very clear that she's undeniably the Queen piece, with the symbol in gold actually being a key part of the throne itself.

And the throne Syaoran sits on? It has the crown symbol as part of the decoration, but it's not representing him, it's just a small symbol to show that matches Sakura's throne. This throne is his own.

He's the King piece.

(And, important distinction; the throne is not Lava Lamp's, but our original plotline Syaoran who is now in Autopilot mode.)

This wouldn't have occurred to me the first time through because I was focused so much on what this might mean for Sakura, and how she related to everyone else, but the way the Infinity Arc ends really hammers this home. After all, Sakura is the mastermind in this arc - everything that happens is according to her plan. She's not playing chess just during the literal chess matches, but during the entire plotline, moving every character and circumstance into place to enact her final plan; to activate both Chi's at once, absorb both their feather's, and trigger Fai's curse - resulting in her pseudo (if purely physical) death. But like we see in the plotline, this isn't a loss - it's a win. It's exactly how she planned things to unfold, and it will lead her to winning the game.

Just in case anyone isn't familiar, in Chess the queen is the most powerful piece capable of the widest variety of moves - but the queen is not the endgame goal. You can lose the queen piece in any game and (besides losing a powerful piece) it's not the end of the world. You can still win the game without the queen piece. It's the King piece that's the Win/Loss condition. The King is the piece you have to keep safe at all costs, even if you lose other pieces in the process. The second the King dies, the match is over. You've lost.

And this matches exactly how Sakura played the series events. She was the Queen in control of every move, and Syaoran was the Win condition she was focused on. She foresaw Fai killing Syaoran in the future - which, for her, is the Losing Scenario. She planned everything to avoid this, and she succeeded! She lost the Queen piece (ie, her physical body) but won the ultimate goal of keeping the King safe. She won the 3D future chess game that she was playing by herself, and positioned herself in the place that would have the most benefit for the victory at the end. (Which I still haven't seen, but she was VERY confident about this having a better result than Fai killing Syaoran.)

I'm also super happy that this ties in really well with the fairy tale allusions I talked about back in Chapter 140, but in ways I wasn't aware of back then either.

I talked about Snow White and how the apple (that shows up in a lot of the splash images in Infinity) may have been referring to Sakura's tendency to sleep a lot. What I didn't realise was that Sakura was essentially about to pull the Big Brain Snow White maneuver on herself to ultimately win her chess game. While in Snow White the poison apple is a trap, here Sakura sprung the trap intentionally. Fai is the apple she bit into deliberately - she arranged it so that killed her body, breaking his own curse, and sent her to the World of Dreams (and thus, she is asleep) which also placed her in a Glass Coffin (aka The Jam Jar of Dreams - Im sorry I have no memory of what it's really called). So the Snow White metaphor is now complete.

But also Cinderella! In the image for 140 Sakura is trying on a glass slipper - so she's Cinderella figure as well. But at this point in the plot the clock hadn't struck midnight just yet - like Cinderella, Sakura knew the exact time limit she had to work with, and for her the timing had to be PRECISE. She spent all of Infinity stressed out of her mind about this plan she couldn't trust anyone else with, knowing full well that if she missed the window even slightly it would ruin absolutely everything and they would all lose. Which, funnily enough, makes Yuuko the fairy godmother, since she provided Sakura with the magic she needed to make her plan happen (via wishes). This also means that Fai stabbing her with the sword is the exact moment the clock struck twelve - and like the spell finishing, Sakura could finally drop the act and explain what she had done, even as all the magic disappeared (ie, her luck being traded away). There's even a detransformation sequence of a sort, with her body and soul going in two different directions. But either way, the Cinderella metaphor is also complete!

And with all that done the last part I want to talk about is back in the image of Syaoran on the throne. He's framed on either side with the curtains that portray the chess board, and they're tied back by chains with him in the very centre. He is visually chained to the board - which, like, of course he is. With his Autopilot programming in place he's essentially just a chess piece without any will of his own - a winning piece, for sure, but he's still being moved around without his choice. He's playing the game on auto, making the moves that will lead him to the winning gambit, but without his individual soul he has no choice but to keep playing until the game is over. The goal he's working towards isn't even his - it's Evil Wolverine's. So in the same way that everyone else was a chess piece in Sakura's strategy (if, sort of, willingly), including Sakura herself, Syaoran is a piece being moved around in Evil Wolverine's favour - though if he dies, it's game over for Sakura's side as well.

I'm unclear if Syaoran dying would be a game over scenario for Evil Wolverine, but at the very least it would end the game he is currently playing.

So, in the hyper future 3D chess game that Sakura was playing by herself she couldn't properly win the game for her side by taking out Syaoran because he's her king piece too. Syaoran is the piece at the centre of everything, and will be the key to winning the game for either side. We just have to wait and see if Sakura's gambit will pay off in the way she thinks it will.