Tmq #115

[more2live4]

This is to discuss The Magic Quill #115: The Day of Five Puzzles by Robbie Fischer.


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+++DOUBLE CHALLENGE FOR TMQ #117+++

SURVEY: How many of Silver’s team will Spanky save from the Death Eaters? (A) All of them. (B) All but Silver herself. (C) One or two. (D) Only Silver. (E) None

CONTEST: Describe something spooky (but not too graphically violent) that Death Eaters would do to a couple of Abraxan horses, while interrogating their prisoners.

[Xantha]

Survey: (E), but I think that Spanky will get to talk to Silver before she dies. This will enrage him all the more to avenge her death.

Contest: Since horses are afraid of snakes, they placed the horses in a cage with snakes that have been enlarged and let the snakes torture the horses until they are ready to kill them.

[Dragonic]

Survey: C, two, maybe one of which is silver
Contest: They could set the horses on burning charcoal, so they'd want to fly away, but freeze their wings to make it difficult to do so.

[greyniffler]

Survey: C, one or two. Two survivors and the rest dead gives you something on both sides of the ledger: testimony and someone to be thankful for; someone to grieve and swear revenge for.

Shrink the horses each to the size of a great dane, conjure a miniature merry-go-round decorated with muggles, house-elves, and goblins (like the gnome on the Weasleys' Christmas tree or the fairies in the courtyard in _The Yule Ball_), put the horses on the carousel and make it turn while playing something mocking muggles, something in the lines of Spike Jones. Or some Wizarding equivalent. (Hello Godric, hello Sal'zar ...)

The carousel could be a mockery of the Fountain of Magical Bretheren, and might even include a giant in the middle.

[Snuffleupagus]

Survey: B. I think only one person needs to die, and it should be Silver because we have gotten to know her a little bit and would therefore be more affected by her death.

Contest: I think that the Death Eaters should feed the Abraxan horses vodka rather than single malt whisky, which should cause them no end of torment as a poison. Perhaps they feel like their souls are being ripped from their bodies. Visually, there should be nothing wrong with them (no graphic violence here!), but the obvious pain and terror they experience should be enough to horrify any prisoners.

[woot]

Survey: I vote C. I don’t think everyone could have survived such an attack, but I don’t want them ALL to die!

Contest: I don’t know! I hate when people are mean to animals. Plus, I’m not normally a very violent person and I can not even imagine what people like that could do to the poor little horsies. I love all animals (yes, even the imagery, magic ones) and I am afraid I have no imagination about such thing.

Yeah, truthfully, I really don’t care about the wizards; I just hope Spanky can save all the horses. (Please?)

[zanaboo]

Hurray! A link to the correct forum page at last! (Thank you, Emerson.)

SURVEY: How many of Silver’s team will Spanky save from the Death Eaters? (A) All of them. (B) All but Silver herself. (C) One or two. (D) Only Silver. (E) None

(A) All of them. When Spanky arrives to save the day, Silver surprises both him and the Death Eaters by pulling out her second wand. Having been inspired by the two-wanded wizard, she's been trying to teach herself his technique. Granted, her left-handed spells with an unfamiliar new wand are still far from perfect, but sometimes a little unexpected mayhem in a crisis situation can really ...err, hit the spot.

CONTEST: Describe something spooky (but not too graphically violent) that Death Eaters would do to a couple of Abraxan horses, while interrogating their prisoners.

The Death Eaters may have been using Devil's Snare to bind both the prisoners and the Abraxans, and probably force-fed the Abraxans gin instead of single-malt whiskey, to temporarily paralyze their wings. Their idea was to allow the Devil's Snare to continue squeezing both the prisoners and the Abraxans as long as the prisoners weren't cooperating with the interrogation, but to magically snip a little of the Devil's Snare whenever anyone provided information.

[zanaboo]

Originally Posted by FishEByrd

Sorry about there not being a forum thread for #115. I can't do anything about it - I don't have thread-starting privileges! TMQ's regular editor's computer is down & we're just thankful a substitute editor was available to keep us on schedule, but...well, we'll just have to be patient, or use this thread for now.

Obviously, we now have a proper forum thread for this chapter, but only one of the two forum links at the end of Chapter #115 goes to this thread. So, in order to get all the contributors to the current Survey and Contest on the same page (literally), I've posted a link to this page at the end of the previous forum.

And, here are the two contributions to the current SURVEY and CONTEST from the other forum page:

Originally Posted by Linda Carrig

ok, Robbie, we'll use this for the discussion forum.
BTW, TWZRD--just love the britches with three legs *** side table to place your purse on! Very practical.
As for the survey/contest: Spanky is able to save just Silver. Sniff, sniff....
A way to torture abraxan horses: (I've sent this to Robbie already) pull out their wing feathers, change the color of their hair (fur?), put slivers of wood between their hooves and skin--somewhat like having needles forced under a person's fingernails. I hope that isn't too gruesome.....

Originally Posted by rory86

oh… well… second one to post for #115...
I’m pretty sure I’m felling like someone who is going to sing after Mayré Martinez (winner of Latin American Idol) …. talking about setting high standards…
All right… I’ll try to recover….
Survey:
Unfortunately… only Silver is going to be saved… she’s more experience and has a sort of emotional drive to fight against the Death Eaters…
Contest:
I don’t know…
To pull out their horseshoes… a dozen of times,
To mark them using a piece of hot metal, like it’s done with bulls,
To convert their feathers into slivers of glass,
To tighten their halters using the strength of magic…
sorry if it is too much...

[_houdini]

I guess Silver will escape alive while the rest would be not so lucky..

Hmm.. i'm not for animal torture.... but well since the contest asking for something 'spooky' then well maybe they can scare the horses with ghost horses like the ones Nearly Headless Nick's headless friends rides on... make the horses all freaked and chilly by getting the ghost horses to walk through them...
or maybe transfigure them into toy horses and back again repeatedly... or into something else... it has to be very confusing and torturous for the horses and probably entertaining for the death eaters..
or well throw in a few boggarts into the cage with the horses. The horses will definitely be spooked....

well i do hope the horses will make it out alive... or poor Mitsy would never rest in peace...

[ralucacoldea]

I think Silver should be saved. she is going to try to avenge her team afterwards,
Something spooky to the horses: trying to get them to drink blood. Starving them and then trying to get them to feed on blood.

[MsJunior84]

Survey: C
Contest: I can't think of anything, but houdini's boggarts sound good.

[TWZRD]

Survey: B Obviously, poor Silver will be goaded by her past humiliation into being a hero. She'll ensure the safety of the others at her own expense.
If these DE's are just idly amusing themselves, they'd throw exploding spells in among the penned horses. Rather like mean little kids with fire crackers.

[Linda_Carrig]

How about swinging them around by their tails? (the horses) or pulling out all their feathers and then proceeding with a tar and feather event covering the poor horses in (first) black goo and then the aforesaid feathers.

[dele]

Survey: C - one or two. One of whom will be Silver herself.

Contest: Dude, this is the hardest and most disturbing contest ever! Hmm..a form of torture that isn't graphically violent but will make the prisoners talk? Perhaps just Imperiusing the horses and forcing them to do completely unnatural stuff. This 'stuff' could become more and more violent until the prisoners talk.

Or maybe transfiguring the horses. Turning them into chickens or something but still with the mind and intelligence of horses. This would be pretty torturous for the horses but perhaps wouldn't have such an impact on the prisoners.

_houdini's boggart idea is pretty cool

[FishEByrd]

I finally wrote it. Thanks for the help & sorry for the delay. I had a couple of weeks of night-and-day commitments and no time to write a column, but except for one more week like that next month, I believe my way is pretty well clear to write more frequently from now through the summer.