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It is not the prettiest pie without the whipped cream but when I cut a slice my crust was so crumbly and not picture perfect I decided to ditch the camera and just eat.

I love this recipe. I have made it so many times and it’s always perfect.

It brings back memories of the French Silk pie you could get at Baker’s Square. Remember Baker’s Square? Anyway, I ate a whole French Silk pie from Baker’s Square the night Andrew married Sarah Ferguson, drank two pots of coffee to stay up and watch it. I liked the bees on her gown. What a disaster those two have turned out to be.

But this is such a delicious pie that I demand you make it as soon as possible.

Crust:

1 ½ cups finely crushed regular or graham crackers (24 squares)

1/3 cup butter, melted

3 tablespoons sugar

Medium bowl

9-inch glass pie plate

How to:

1. Heat oven to 350°F. In medium bowl, stir all ingredients until well mixed. Reserve 3 tablespoons crumb mixture for garnishing top of pie before serving, if desired. Press remaining mixture firmly and evenly against bottom and side of pie plate.

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dochi_bread

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made with love

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Milady and the curse of misogyny in Dumas' novel

As I told fox-rain the other day, I’ve been wanting to talk about Milady for quite some time, but couldn’t be bothered to make a post. philomathic-sophia’s post on the relationship between Athos & Anne de Winter finally inspired me to write up my thoughts, so thank you!

Entirely by coincidence, I re-read the novel in November last year, before I knew about the BBC show. My impression of the novel and the character was therefore entirely unfettered by the BBC’s adaptation of the characters. The more I read, the more I realised that I was rooting for Milady - not because she was the “bad girl”, but because, as a character, she was very much ambiguous. The thing is, if you disregard what the characters (mainly Athos, later Lord de Winter and d'Artagnan) say about her, and disregard the authorial ex cathedra voice that keeps telling (not showing!) that she was a demon, Milady does absolutely nothing on the pages of the book that is in any way worse than what the musketeers do.

A lot has been said about how the show made a good job at presenting complex female character, as opposed to the one-dimensional novel ones. But: Milady in the novel is not one-dimensional at all. The way she is treated by the author and the other characters is one-dimensional. You could tell book Milady’s story just as it is in the book, leaving out the ongoing commentary of how evil a demon she is, and you would end up with a highly sympathetic portrait of a woman who is driven to more and more desperate actions by the limits of the world in which she lives, and by the men surrounding her. Pretty much like on the BBC show, only with more ambiguity, not less. (BBC Milady is presented as the Dark Action Girl and assassin from the get-go. Book Milady… isn’t. Not if you go by what she actually does.)

Milady is only the cardboard-cutout evil villainess in the novel, because we are repeatedly told by unreliable narrators that she is. As to what she does, the information provided are:

She was in a convent as a young girl (age unclear due to Dumas’ handwave-y approach), let’s say around 14-16. As the executioner tells the musketeers during the farce of a trial: “A young priest, with a simple and trustful heart, performed the duties of the church of that convent. She undertook his seduction, and succeeded; she would have seduced a saint”, and then: “The young priest was condemned to ten years of imprisonment, and to be branded. I was executioner of the city of Lille, as this woman has said. I was obliged to brand the guilty one; and he, gentlemen, was my brother!”

This pretty much sets the tone for how Milady is treated throughout the book: her characterisation is “evil”, and everything she does is interpreted through that lens. She is supposedly driven by the desire to do evil; but this is not how humans work. Dumas obviously wants us to agree with the executioner’s assessment of Milady, but I find it impossible to not find this backstory highly ambiguous. Just about every piece of information he provides, if you go by pure facts and disregard the speaker’s (and author’s) misogynic opinion, allows you to come to an entirely different conclusion than the characters. You could read it as a young nun genuinely falling in love with a priest. You could read it as a young nun being seduced/coerced/raped by a priest. The executioner clearly hates her for what she did to his - entirely innocent, I’m sure – brother; he wants revenge for the dishonour she, and in his opinion she alone, caused his family and hardly qualifies as an impartial witness.

Athos tells d'Artagnan: “My friend, who was seigneur of the country, might have seduced her, or taken her by force, at his will–for he was master. Who would have come to the assistance of two strangers, two unknown persons? Unfortunately he was an honourable man…”

Yes, Athos, well done on not raping a teenage girl. Again, the “honourable” action is entirely due to the spin put on it by the speaker and the author. We know nothing about Milady at this point, apart from the fact that she was “lovely” and lived with her “brother” - quite possibly the only choice that had been open to her after she was forced to leave the convent. Again, the situation is more than ambiguous and could be interpreted any way you like, if you didn’t take the speaker’s and the author’s opinion as gospel.

D'Artagnan’s reaction to Athos’ acting as judge, jury, and executioner is (at least in the English translation, emphasis mine) as follows: “Heavens, Athos, a murder?” cried d'Artagnan. - “No less,” said Athos, as pale as a corpse. Again, the ambiguity is right there: Athos admits that what he did was commit murder – not fulfil his duty as the feudal lord. BBC Athos was given a much nobler reason, namely “doing his duty”, to make him more relatable for the modern viewer. (Personally, I much prefer the darker Athos from the book, the BBC version has been too thoroughly whitewashed for my taste, but that’s not the point here.)

Then we have Lord de Winter, who lives happily side by side with his sister-in-law, a man whom [d'Artagnan] had seen load her with kindnesses. He never suspects her of anything, until the designated heroes tell him she’s evil. Then, he suddenly remembers, all those years later, that she poisoned his brother. There is no shred of evidence, no proof is ever presented, nor do I find his sudden epiphany particularly believable. It’s blatantly the narrative imperative at work: Lord de Winter has to believe that Milady killed his brother for the purpose of the Buckingham subplot.

The assassination of Buckingham is the best part of the novel, really, and the moment where I root for Milady the most. It is a political coup, ordered by the Cardinal. This is really important to keep in mind: Milady is an agent of the Cardinal, committing politically motivated killing on his behalf, just like the musketeers kill on behalf of the King. She is sent to England just like they are sent to La Rochelle and has to use the means available to her to carry out her superior’s orders. (Also, she doesn’t perform the act of killing herself, but in an inspired move makes somebody else do it.)

The worst she does on the pages of the book is poisoning Constance by the end of the novel. But I fail to see how her killing Constance is worse than, say, d'Artagnan attacking a complete stranger on his way to Paris for the purpose of taking his passport off him and leaving the injured man lying on the road to die a slow and agonising death. The difference is that a) d'Artagnan is the designated hero and b) injuring/killing a man in a duel is a man’s method and therefore “honourable”, whilst poisoning is a woman’s method and therefore evil. This is something I would have loved to see addressed in a modern adaptation.

I’m not saying Milady is an innocent angel, that’s not the purpose of this meta. I am merely trying to point out that her motives and her character development as presented in canon are open to a wealth of alternative interpretations. We have a young nun (by vocation? by choice? because she had been a disgrace to the family and had to be locked up? because she was an orphan? because she was a Huguenot who had to be “re-educated”?) who for reasons unknown ended up entangled with a priest (love? rape? lust? ignorance of what she was doing? where would a teenage nun have learned what it means to seduce a man and how to go on about it?), and got married to a local nobleman (because she wanted to? because she was after money and status? because – as the text implies – he wanted to have her and she had no other choice? she could’ve been in love with the man she was living with as her brother and could’ve known that marrying the Comte de la Fère was the only way to protect him). By the time she’s in her late teens or her early twenties, three of the seemingly safe niches she had carved out for herself - the convent, the life as the “sister” of a rural curate, her marriage - in an increasingly hostile world had been destroyed. It’s easy to understand why she becomes progressively angrier, more desperate and more ruthless as she gets older.

I do not want to see Milady whitewashed, she makes a wonderful antagonist. And it is certainly possible to believe Dumas’ very one-dimensional opinion of her and her motives and consider her “evil” and nothing else. But I would find it so much more interesting if her character arc was the result of bad choices (starting with falling in love with a priest in the convent and proceeding downhill from there), in combination with her being a wilful and headstrong girl who kept running against walls in a man’s world, rather than the fact that the was a demon from hell, which is the laziest of all lazy explanations.

In conclusion: Nothing about the novel version of Milady is clear-cut and one-dimensional. She is punished for being a woman and for using stereotypically feminine weapons: seduction and poison. But they are the only weapons available to her. I would love a modern adaptation to address the way male characters’ actions are being excused whilst the female character’s actions are being condemned: killing people in duels for fun (!) is fine; poisoning people for revenge is not. Thrashing your valet because he dared speak is the action of the most honourable and noble character in the book; punishing your soubrette for betrayal is not. Seducing a man out of genuine attraction (Milady with de Wardes) is not okay; seducing the maid to get into the mistress’ knickers whilst pretending to be the man she’s in love with (d’Artagnan with Kitty and Milady respectively) are the actions of the designated hero. The characters are morally judged by the authorial voice not for what they do, but for the roles he wants them to play in the narrative. Take the same characters and the same actions and leave out the author’s commentary, and you could be telling a completely different story.

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chao73_118

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honestly my favorite character in this whole show

hbo via instagram " Cassie. "

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Anatomy tip weekly! :)

This week I’ve prepared something for people who sometimes are confused how to start drawing. Instead of starting with head, start with torso.

I guess most problems can be solved while designing torso. Every body part needs to follow torso.

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Diabolik Lovers: Valentine’s Day Tweets 2021 [ENG Translation]

❤️ Ayato ❤️

“Today’s Valentine’s Day, right? I don’t give a damn, but I wouldn’t mind givin’ yours a try? Also this blood which scents so sweetly. Come on, hurry up and feed it to me.”

💜 Kanato 💜

“Today’s Valentine’s Day. You’ve obviously prepared chocolates for me, right? You must feel so blessed to prepare these every year while thinking of me, and eventually have me eat them, don’t you? Fufu, I’m happy too.”

💚 Laito 💚

“Heeey, Bitch-chan~ Why do you seem so fidgety? Aah, you’ve got chocolates for me. But you’re basically offering yourself along with them, no? As you wish, I will devour you with them. ❤️“

💛 Shuu 💛

“Valentine’s Day chocolates…? You know I hate sweets, don’t you? Besides, you can prepare something which I’d enjoy much more, can’t you? If you get what I’m saying, go ahead and loosen your clothes. Hurry up and let me suck.”

💙 Reiji 💙

“Thank you once again. I shall eat them since I have no other choice…Just kidding. Would you laugh if I were to admit that I look forward to your chocolates every year?”

🤍 Subaru 🤍

“Chocolates, huh? You better not be handin’ these out to a bunch of dudes. You belong to me…In other words, the chocolates you’ve made are mine as well. So you’re obviously obligated to eat them together with me too. Hurry up and sit down.”

🖤 Ruki 🖤

“Chocolates? Since you’re offering them to me, I can assume they taste even more sublime than your blood, no? If not, you will obviously be punished. I shall discipline you even sweeter than usual tonight, so you better brace yourself.”

💝 Kou 💝

“Thank you for the cute chocolates! I’m really glad to receive these from you year after year! Because it makes me realize I’m special in your eyes. You can set high hopes for what I’ll give you in return~ ★”

🧡 Yuma 🧡

“What are ya hidin’? Those chocolates are for me, right? I bet ya don’t want to hand them over ‘cause ya failed, but the shape or quality doesn’t matter, right? As long as ya put yer feelings in there. So hand them over already.”

💘 Azusa 💘

“You’re giving me…chocolates…? I’m so happy to get them from my beloved Eve. I want to experience this feeling of joy again so…Can I look forward to receiving chocolates from you again next year…?”

💖 Carla 💖

“I had noticed you had been especially restless  as of late, but it all makes sense now. You were preparing chocolates for me, were you not? …In that case, part your lips. I shall savor it melted and even sweeter, directly from your mouth.”

💕 Shin 💕

“Hmm, you’re giving me chocolates? You obviously made these with me in mind, right? …I see, then I’ll give them a try. But you know, you really don’t have to go through all this trouble, I was gonna keep you by my side either way after all. Understood?”

💗 Kino 💗

“Today’s Valentine’s Day, right? If you’ve prepared some for me, I don’t mind accepting them. Konpeito would be nice too, but I don’t dislike your homemade chocolates either. So…Come on, hurry up and gimme!”

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Diabolik lovers: Lunatic Parade (Backgrounds)

I’ve been asked from @valera-alanov​ to post the backgrounds of Lunatic Parade! I’ve only played Ayato, Laito, Shu, Kou, Carla and Shin yet so there may be some background missing. (If I won’t forget it I might update it, but I’m not promising anything here)

Keep reading

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Lost Eden Kanato Vampire Ending Translation

Keep reading

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Lost Eden Kanato Heaven 03 Translation

Keep reading

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Lost Eden Kanato Heaven 02 Translation

Keep reading

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Lost Eden Kanato Heaven 01 Translation

Keep reading

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Chibi-trapta #spop #shera #entrapta #procreate https://www.instagram.com/p/CH7zcKxlflf/?igshid=13iwr9crq8i6s

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Can you just pick me up and love me forever 

(Source)

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All right, I’m itching for a fight!