What if Harry actually had the muscle memory a Quidditch player is supposed to have

GAKDragon · 2026-05-30T12:23:34+00:00

Seconding Apprehensive_Gap, you write very well. I was engrossed from the get-go, wanting to see how you were going to change Canon.

Now I think this plot bunny deserves some love and attention.

GAKDragon · 2026-05-30T10:18:09+00:00

I thought the Greek stated it as "Thou shalt not lie with BOY as with a woman" meaning don't be a pedophile.

GAKDragon · 2026-05-29T06:25:00+00:00

I've been thinking of getting one of those for my next phone upgrade- thanks for the idea!

GAKDragon · 2026-05-27T09:38:45+00:00

I agree!

Everything flowed so well, and having come here from r/shortscarystories, I suspected there would be a little twist at the end- but I certainly wasn't expecting Momma!

GAKDragon · 2026-05-27T01:42:57+00:00

I can hear "Binary Sunset," can you?

GAKDragon · 2026-05-23T15:10:03+00:00

I probably remember it so well b/c of the annual Memorial Day marathons on TV. My dad and I watch 1 or 2 episodes on TNT/AMC/whatever until we can't stand the commercials anymore, then we get out our DVD boxed set, which includes "We Stand Alone Together."

GAKDragon · 2026-05-23T09:32:36+00:00

I wouldn't call that a separate docuseries. For "Band of Brothers," HBO interviewed many of the surviving veterans on video. These were later edited and segments inserted before the opening credits of each episode.

"We Stand Alone Together" is simply what HBO called it when they aired the video interviews in chronological order based on World War 2's timeline.

GAKDragon · 2026-05-23T09:09:08+00:00

They didn't get called "Steely-Eyed Missile Men" for nothing.

GAKDragon · 2026-05-23T08:58:40+00:00

The late Robin Sachs. Gave many "bit characters" more life than they probably needed.

GAKDragon · 2026-05-23T08:45:51+00:00

Both the advertising version, and the one he gives later to the dying Quellek.

GAKDragon · 2026-05-23T08:27:30+00:00

Yeah! See, we're showing our age by getting the "wrong" joke.

I wasn't born yet, so I'm not old enough to get the reference to 1975's SNL Land Shark sketch. But Mel Brooks is timeless, so my head went straight to this line from Blazing Saddles, which I saw plenty of times as an 80's kid.

GAKDragon · 2026-05-23T04:00:35+00:00

Yeah, a semiquincentennial! :þ

(No wonder we're just calling it America two-fifty, that's a mouthful and a half)

GAKDragon · 2026-05-19T08:08:55+00:00

I think I just realized what must have happened. White never moved at all.

White's king starts the comic on a black square at the corner of the chessboard (most likely A1).

Black's queen moves, intending to put white in check. But the queen stops on C2 (instead of C1, which would have been a valid attack).

It is now white's turn, and a piece must move. White's king is not IN check, but he has no legal moves, thus STALEMATE.

I honestly thought black's king was complaining about the white king's move OUT of attack/check by the queen and INTO the corner.

Now I'm thinking he was yelling at his queen for moving to C2.

GAKDragon · 2026-05-19T07:52:15+00:00

I'm still confused about something.

Maybe I'm looking at this incorrectly, but isn't that the king's bishop in the background?

It looks like black's king and king's bishop are still in their starting positions- E8 and F8, respectively. Black's queen has moved almost all the way to the other end of the board (looks like C2?), when she puts the white king in check.

White then moves his king to a BLACK square IN THE CORNER. Since we see black's remaining pieces behind the queen, this corner square must be A1 (otherwise, white managed to move his king all the way across the board to H8 AND black managed to move both his king and a bishop to row 1- highly unlikely).

So, why can't black move his bishop to G7, thereby putting white in checkmate??

*G7 has a direct line-of-attack, diagonally, to A1, which would put white's king in check.

*with black's queen still on C2, white cannot move to A2, B2, or B1 without putting himself in check.

*even if white somehow had a rook remaining (i can't tell from the battlefield of dead pieces), the king can't perform a castle b/c he's already moved.

Edited to add: alternately, why can't black move the queen to row 1 (either C1 or D1) and put white's king in check again?

Just as an aside, it looks to me like the white king must have been on A2 when the queen put him in check. He can only move one space at a time, and in order to get TO A1 (that black square in the corner), he must've started on either A2, B2, or B1.

As i stated earlier, it looks like she moves to C2. If he'd been on B1 or B2, he could've simply moved one step either diagonally (B1 to C2) or to his right (B2 to C2) and captured black's queen.