#Captain Greville

[for-valour]

Happy centenary wedding anniversary to Bertie and Elizabeth! 100 years ago today (m. 26/04/1923).

'…I do love you Bertie, & I feel certain that I shall more & more.'

'You know how I love her & will always take care of her [...] to me, she is everything.'

Excerpts from The Queen Mother: The Official Biography by William Shawcross.

Photos, top: Prince Albert, Duke of York (later George VI) and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon on their wedding day, April 26th, 1923. Prince Albert is wearing the full dress uniform of the Royal Air Force with the rank of group captain. Elizabeth's dress, typically 1920s Medieval Revival in style, was crafted with ivory-coloured chiffon moire, pearls, and silver thread. The intention was for the dress to coordinate with a gift of Flanders lace from Queen Mary. Elizabeth also opted to break with the tradition of wearing a tiara, and instead chose a headdress of leaves. Credit: Bassano Ltd.

Centre and bottom: Prince Albert and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon during their honeymoon, April 26th to May 7th 1923. After the wedding breakfast at Buckingham Palace, the newlyweds rode in an open landau (a four-wheeled carriage) to Waterloo Station. From there they travelled by train to Polesden Lacey in Surrey, which had been lent to them by the Honourable Mrs Greville. Sources: Royal Collections Trust, The National Trust.

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 30

1554 – Sir Philip Sidney, English courtier, soldier, and writer (d.1586); the English courtier and poet was one of the leading lights of Queen Elizabeth's court and a model of Renaissance chivalry. His Apostrophel and Stella is one of the great sonnet sequences in English and was inspired by his love for Penelope Devereaux, even though he later married Frances Walsingham. Lest one confuse Renaissance "love" and "marriage" with the modern versions, it should be pointed out that Penelope Devereaux was 12-years old when Sidney fell in love with her, and that Frances Walsingham was 14 when she was married to the 29-year-old courtier. Marriages were arranged then and not made in heaven, more a real estate transaction than a spiritual love match.

Sidney, himself, was in his teens when the Huguenot writer and diplomat Hubert Languet fell in love with him. Languet was 36 years his senior, lived with him for a time, and, when they parted, wrote passionate letters to him weekly. In his youth, Sidney was strongly attached to two young men, Fulke Greville and Edward Dyer, and wrote love verses to them both, a point not lost on gay John Addington Symonds when he wrote Sidney's biography.

Sidney died in battle at the age of 32. According to the story, while lying wounded he gave his water-bottle to another wounded soldier, saying, "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine". This became possibly the most famous story about Sir Phillip, intended to illustrate his noble character.

1864 – Died: Major General Patrick (Ronayne) Cleburne (b.1828), who was an Irish American soldier, best known for his service in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Born in County Cork, Ireland, Cleburne served in the 41st Regiment of Foot of the British Army after failing to gain entrance into Trinity College of Medicine in 1846. He emigrated to the U.S. three years later. At the beginning of the Civil War, Cleburne sided with the Confederacy. He progressed from being a private soldier in the local militia to a division commander. Cleburne participated in many successful military campaigns, especially the Battle of Stones River and the Battle of Ringgold Gap. His strategic ability gained him the nickname "Stonewall of the West".

According to Randy Shilts ("Conduct Unbecoming"), the Major General might have earned the "Stonewall" appellation for less martial reasons. According to Shilts in his bestselling Conduct Unbecoming the Major General was a 'life-long bachelor' and wrote of the great love of his life:

Cleburne's relationship with his twenty-two year old adjutant, Captain Irving Ashby Buck, drew the notice of the general's colleagues. Cleburne's biographer John Francis Maguire wrote that the general's 'attachment' to Buck 'was a very strong one' and that Buck 'for nearly two years of the war, shared Cleburne's labors during the day and his blankets at night.' Buck himself wrote that the pair were 'close and confidential. I habitually messed with him and shared his tent and often his blankets."

Prior to the campaigning season of 1864, Cleburne became engaged to Susan Tarleton of Mobile, Alabama. Their marriage was never to be, as Cleburne was killed during an ill-conceived assault (which he opposed) on Union fortifications at the Battle of Franklin, just south of Nashville, Tennessee, on November 30, 1864.

Self-portrait

1869 – Konstantin Somov (d.1939) Russian Artist associated with the Mir iskusstva. He was the son of a curator at the Hermitage, and he attended the St Petersburg Academy of Art from 1888 to 1897, studying under the Realist painter Il'ya Repin from 1894. Somov was homosexual, like many of the World of Art members.

Sleeping Nude

In 1897 and again in 18989 he went to Paris and attended the studios of Filippo Colarossi and of Whistler. Neither the Realism of his Russian teachers nor the evanescent quality of Whistler's art was reflected for long in Somov's work. He turned instead for inspiration to the Old Masters in the Hermitage and to works of contemporary English and German artists, which he knew from visits abroad and from the art journals.

Following the Russian Revolution, he emigrated to the United States, but found the country "absolutely alien to his art" and moved to Paris. He was buried at the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois Cemetery.

1874 – Winston Churchill, British prime minister and statesman (d.1965). He was Britain's wartime prime minister whose courageous leadership and defiant rhetoric fortified the English during their long struggle against Hitler's Germany. "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat," he stated upon becoming prime minister at the beginning of the war. He called Hitler's Reich a "monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime." Following the war, he coined the term "Iron Curtain" to describe the barrier between areas in Eastern Europe under Soviet control and the free West.

In his wonderfully entertaining and informative biography of W. Somerset Maugham, Ted Morgan tells how Maugham once asked Churchill whether it was true, as the statesman's mother had claimed, that he had had affairs with other young men in his youth.

"Not true!" Churchill replied. "But I once went to bed with a man to see what it was like."

The man turned out to be musical-comedy star, Ivor Novello.

"And what was it like?" asked Maugham.

"Musical" Churchill replied.

Another famous story goes that when Winston Churchill was Prime Minister, he was woken one freezing February morning by a Downing Street aide bearing the shocking news that a male Tory MP had been caught having sex with a naked guardsman in St James’s Park.

Noting that it had been the coldest night of the winter, Churchill is said to have remarked: "Makes you proud to be British."

1900 – On this date, Oscar Wilde, Irish writer, wit and raconteur died (b.1854); Prison, after his conviction for "gross indecency," was unkind to Wilde's health and after he was released on May 19, 1897 he spent his last three years penniless, in self-imposed exile from society and artistic circles. He went under the assumed name of Sebastian Melmoth, after the famously "penetrated" Saint Sebastian and the devilish central character of Wilde's great-uncle Charles Robert Maturin's gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer.

Nevertheless, Wilde lost no time in returning to his previous pleasures. According to Lord Alfred Douglas, Robbie Ross "dragged [him] back to homosexual practices" during the summer of 1897, which they spent together in Berneval. After his release, he also wrote the famous poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Wilde spent his last years in the Hôtel d'Alsace, now known as L'Hôtel, in Paris, where he was notorious and uninhibited about enjoying the pleasures he had been denied in England. Again according to Douglas, "he was hand in glove with all the little boys on the Boulevard. He never attempted to conceal it." In a letter to Ross, Wilde laments, "Today I bade good-bye, with tears and one kiss, to the beautiful Greek boy. . . he is the nicest boy you ever introduced to me."

Just a month before his death he is quoted as saying, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go." His moods fluctuated; Max Beerbohm relates how, a few days before Wilde's death, their mutual friend Reginald 'Reggie' Turner had found Wilde very depressed after a nightmare. "I dreamt that I had died, and was supping with the dead!" "I am sure," Turner replied, "that you must have been the life and soul of the party." Reggie Turner was one of the very few of the old circle who remained with Wilde right to the end, and was at his bedside when he died. On his deathbed he was received into the Roman Catholic church. Wilde died of cerebral meningitis on November 30, 1900.

Wilde was buried in the Cimitiere de Bagneaux outside Paris but was later moved to Père Lachaise in Paris. His tomb in Père Lachaise was designed by sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein, at the request of Robert Ross, who also asked for a small compartment to be made for his own ashes. Ross's ashes were transferred to the tomb in 1950. The numerous spots on it are lipstick traces from admirers.

The modernist angel depicted as a relief on the tomb was originally complete with male genitals. They were broken off as obscene and kept as a paperweight by a succession of Père Lachaise cemetary keepers. Their current whereabouts are unknown. In the summer of 2000, intermedia artist Leon Johnson performed a forty minute ceremony entitled Re-membering Wilde in which a commissioned silver prosthesis was installed to replace the vandalized genitals.

Note: As a general rule, this site does not list persons' death dates - unless their death was something out of the ordinary, a reason for them to be remembered, or because we don't know their date of birth. However, Oscar Wilde desreves special treatment. His name is referenced in this collection of brief biographies far more than any other person. His life, trial, and death had a world-wide effect on gay history.

1955 – Kevin Conroy was an American actor and voice actor (d.2022). He is best known for his voice role as the DC Comics character Batman on the 1990s Warner Bros. television show Batman: The Animated Series, as well as various other TV series and feature films in the DC animated universe.

Due to the popularity of his performance as Batman, Conroy went on to voice the character for multiple films under the DC Universe Animated Original Movies banner, the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham video games, and in fall 2019 he will play a live action Bruce Wayne in the Arrowverse adaptation of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Conroy was born in Westbury, New York. Conroy was born into an Irish Catholic family which moved to Westport, Connecticut when he was about 11 years old. He moved to New York City in 1973 when he earned a full scholarship to attend Juilliard's drama division, studying under actor John Houseman. While there, he roomed with Robin Williams, who was in the same group as both Conroy and Kelsey Grammer.

After graduating from Juilliard in 1978, he toured with Houseman's acting group The Acting Company, and the following year he went on the national tour of Ira Levin's Deathtrap.

Filmreference.com listed Conroy as having been married, and having a child, though an interview with The New York Times in 2016 stated that he was single. He also said that he was gay.

In the 2016 interview with The New York Times promoting the animated adaptation of The Killing Joke, Conroy revealed that he was gay. As part of DC Comics' 2022 Pride anthology, Conroy wrote "Finding Batman", a story that recounted his life and experiences as a gay man. It received critical acclaim upon release. He was married to Vaughn C. Williams at the time of his death.

Conroy made an effort to conceal his homosexuality throughout most of his career. He spoke in "Finding Batman" about the discrimination he faced once potential collaborators and employers found out about his homosexuality. Conroy has said that on multiple occasions he had been removed from consideration for acting jobs due to his sexual orientation.

1995 – The first US. government-sponsored advertising targeting gay men debuts on the eve of World AIDS Day when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention releases a public service television announcement cautioning men to have “smart sex.”

Today's Gay Wisdom: The wit of Oscar Wilde

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But... it is better to be good than to be ugly.

There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose.

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.

The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you place the blame.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

There is no sin except stupidity.

It is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned.

A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?

Only the shallow know themselves.

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

He hadn't a single redeeming vice.

A pessimist is one who, when he has a choice of two evils, chooses both.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

[shannaraisles]

My OCs

Lorna Rowe

Fandom: Dragon Age Face claim: Christina Hendricks Love Interest: Knight-Captain Rylen

Poppy Hawke

Fandom: Dragon Age Face claim: Miranda Kerr Love interest: Cullen Rutherford or Varric Tethras

Veronica Cousland

Fandom: Dragon Age Face claim: Rachel Weisz Love interest: Alistair Theirin or Riordan or Male!Hawke

Rory Allen

Fandom: Dragon Age Face claim: Eleanor Tomlinson Love interest: Cullen Rutherford

Olivia Trevelyan

Fandom: Dragon Age Face claim: Phoebe Tonkin Love interest: Cullen Rutherford and/or Carver Hawke

Constance Payne

Fandom: MCU Face claim: Liv Tyler Love interest: Steve Rogers and/or Bucky Barnes

Seren Ellis

Fandom: MCU Face claim: Jodie Comer Love interest: Loki

Sarah Shepard

Fandom: Mass Effect Face claim: Anna Kendrick Love interest: Kaidan Alenko

Amelia Greville

Fandom: The Sandman (2022) Face claim: Elizabeth Olsen Love interest: Dream of the Endless

Amara

Fandom: Assassin's Creed: Odyssey Face claim: Anastasia Tslimipiou Love interest: Kassandra or Alexios

[lovelyangryheart]

Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward with his Equerry-in-Waiting from 1884 to 1888, Captain the Honorable Alwyn Henry Fulke Greville (1854-1929)

[musewrangler]

Oh,” Greville said, clearly recalling something. He fished in the trouser pocket of his uniform and came up with a small object which he handed to Piett. “It’s a book,” the kid pointed out, oblivious to the rather obvious nature of this statement. “General Veers thought you might appreciate it.

It was quite old—well it would be since it was made of plasflimsi. But it had been well cared for. He smiled at the title.

The Adventures of Captain Belleron in Wild Space.

He opened the hard cover and found looped writing on the fly.

Zev Veers.

His breathing hitched. The little research he’d been able to do with the limits set on his datapad had told him only that General Maximilian Veers (Assigned SD Dominator) was a career army officer hailing from Denon. He’d been married (Myra Veers) and had a son (Zevulon Veers) both deceased (8 AFE).

They had never discussed it. He’d not seen any holos in the General’s office—nothing to hint that he had a family or personal life.

Which should perhaps tell him something about Veers. Something Piett could relate to in a very painful way. And the loan of a book that had belonged to his son told him something as well.

[dwellordream]

“We remember the fascination of the villain from when we were children: Captain Hook, the old hag in “Hansel and Gretel,” the Wicked Witch of the West. As T. S. Eliot recognized, “It is better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing: at least, we exist” (344). The Romantics, those poets who always admired the view from the eyes of the child, were everywhere mesmerized by the villain, by strangeness in beauty, by the corrupt, the contaminated, the imperiled. The Brontës held onto the richness of their childhood imaginations and from this kept treasure Rochester and Heathcliff emerge. Yet Rochester was not the first character to wrap up the contradictions of lover and enemy into one subjectivity.

The tragic hero whose main energy comes from villainous actions, self-destructive impulses, or character flaws can be traced back to Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy, and even earlier, to the Nietzschean will-to-power of Machiavelli’s The Prince (1532). Such early magnetic scoundrels range from the cursed ambitions of the ur-seeker-of-other-worldly-knowledge, Marlowe’s Faustus (c. 1588); Promus, the just man who wrestles with his desire for Cassandra and loses in George Whetstone’s Promus and Cassandra (1578); and Guise in Fulke Greville’s Alaham (1590s), who displays the sublime but wasted subjectivity of the Byronic hero. 

An erotics of evil develops out of these characters and their ambitious will for destruction coupled with the genius of an all-seeing eye. Shakespeare’s Richard III (1592–94) combines a dreaded cruelty with a witty intellect and an insatiable drive. Hamlet (1600–1601) brings into this history the important characteristic of the tragedy of impotent melancholy, a sense of a world too barren for action, for an attempt at change. Running through Jacobean tragedy, the tormented, sympathetic reprobate appears in such characters as Vindice in Cyril Tourneur’s The Revenger’s Tragedy (1607); the atheist, D’Amville, in The Atheist’s Tragedy (1611); and Giovanni in John Ford’s ’Tis a Pity She’s a Whore (1633). 

Lucifer in Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), the serpentine tempter of Eve, falls from grace as later dangerous lovers will. And Eve’s seduction by this demon lover, causing her own fall from grace, is repeated again and again in the erotic historical where the heroine, after her seduction by the devilish rogue, becomes outcast with him. As Gilbert and Gubar point out, this gives a new meaning to the “fall” in “to fall in love.” And this fall stands always in relation to knowledge, whether it be occult knowledge, which gives one too much power to live in the world, or a cynical knowledge that comes to know the world too well, emptying it of mystery and possibility. 

Luciferian dangerous lovers always cut a devilish figure with their sneering rebellion and refusal to bow to any power but that of their own tortured subjectivity. Considered by many to be the first romance (some even call it the first novel), Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740–41) places the villain as both the heroine’s worst foe and her final blessing for virtuous behavior. An early example of the reformed rake formula, Pamela centers around the scoundrel/suitor Mr. B., who plots Pamela’s ruin by seducing her but, so impressed is he by her strict sense of the virtuous and dutiful place of a young serving maid, he marries her instead.

In Pamela, as well as in the Gothic, eroticism resides in texts—letters that Pamela keeps in her “bosom” and then are purloined by Mr. B. While these missives masquerade as virtuous tracts on how to stay away from a scheming rake, they become a nexus for erotic activity with Pamela’s flurried excitement in her letter writing, her exhaustive recording of the minutiae of her seduction, and her bringing the texts to bed—nailing Mr. B’s sadistic letter to her bedstead as a masochistic reminder to “be good.” The letter even becomes a substitute for sex when Mr. B. reads Pamela’s letters instead of continuing his seduction. 

The highest point of sexual satiation is the text, and furthermore, the text that does not reach its proper destination (her letters are addressed to her parents). These dead letters represent the love that becomes, at least temporarily, a kind of dead letter: love is misunderstanding itself. In Radcliffe, the most romantic of the Gothic novelists, the virtuous heroes are quickly forgotten; in their paleness they fall away next to the bold chiaroscuro shine of the cruel villain. The villains in much of the Gothic create the central development and complexity of the narrative by their inexplicably meaningful actions, their deeply perturbed spirits which precipitously race toward ruin on a grand scale. 

These villains and their violent machinations against the heroine’s virtue steal the show while the characterless lover is lost in the background with his transparent tenderness and adoration. Both Schedoni in Radcliffe’s The Italian and Ambrosio in Matthew Lewis’s The Monk contain the erotic complexities and fascination of a manifold and fearful enemy, while the lover in contrast seems easily read. Schedoni’s fallen greatness and gloomy violence disclose a hidden world of darkness and death. 

There were circumstances, however, which appeared to indicate him to be a man of birth, and of fallen fortune; his spirit . . . seemed lofty; it shewed not, however, the aspirings of a generous mind, but rather the gloomy pride of a disappointed one. . . . Some few persons in the convent . . . believed that the peculiarities of his manners . . . were the effect of misfortunes preying upon a haughty and disordered spirit, while others conjectured them the consequence of some hideous crime gnawing upon an awakened conscience. . . . His figure was striking . . . there was something terrible in its air; something almost superhuman . . . gave an effect to his large melancholy eye, which approached to horror . . . and his eyes were so piercing that they seemed to penetrate, at a single glance, into the hearts of men, and to read their most secret thoughts. . . . (34–35) 

His penetrating glance exposes the hidden body of the other, without itself showing anything, making the other’s interiority known. Schedoni’s melancholy self magnetically pulls the other who desires to know; he is like an emptiness which draws in a material to fill it. In The Monk, a Gothic bildungsroman, Ambrosio begins as the adored “Man of Holiness” but develops into a corrupted malefactor when he is seduced by a temptress disguised as a monk (herself a dangerous lover). The Gothic enemy moves, changes, hides a riveting past and future, while the Gothic lover’s insipidity comes from his stasis as a character, his ability to be only one thing. The Brontës knew this in spades. 

With the collapse of the blackguard and sweetheart into one Rochester, Brontë can begin her story with the intriguing Gothic stranger, and only later transform him into the domesticated and dependent lover. The evil double contained in a single character is itself a Gothic mainstay, as in James Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner (an interesting case of a homoerotic haunting by a devil-self). A variation on this theme is being haunted by a double represented in another subjectivity, as in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and William Godwin’s Caleb Williams. In post–Gothic Victorian novels, these Gothic doubles continue to proliferate, as in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and even Jane Eyre with Bertha as Jane’s double.”

- Deborah Lutz, “The Spectral Other and Erotic Melancholy: The Gothic Demon Lover and the Early Seduction Narrative Rake (1532–1822).” in The Dangerous Lover: Gothic Villains, Byronism, and the Nineteenth-Century Seduction Narrative

[zambianobserver]

'Off the pitch, Manchester United icon, Ryan Giggs had ugly and sinister side that adoring fans never saw’ - Court hears

Former Manchester United winger and captain, Ryan Giggs was idolised by adoring fans but there was a “much uglier and more sinister side to his character” that adoring fans never knew, a court heard on Monday, August 8. Giggs’ trial for alleged domestic abuse offences against his ex-girlfriend began on Monday. He is accused of attacking former girlfriend Kate Greville on November 1, 2020 but…

[kwebtv]

Against the Wind  -  Seven Network   -  September 12, 1978 -  October 31, 1978

Drama / Miniseries (13 episodes)

Running Time:  60 minutes

Stars:

Mary Larkin as Mary Mulvane / Mary Garrett

Kerry McGuire as Polly McNamara

Jon English as Jonathan Garrett

Warwick Sims as Ensign Greville

Frank Gallacher as Will Price

Fred Parslow as Captain Wiltshire

Gerard Kennedy as Dinny O'Byrne

Hu Price as Jonas Pike

Lynn Rainbow as Louisa Wiltshire

Charles Gilroy as Amos

Julia Blake as Cook

Bryan Brown as Michael Connor

Jim Danton as Thief

Vernon Weaver as Thief

Alex Porteus as Traveller

“Against the Wind” was the first major Australian TV production to be broadcast in the United States.

[oscarwetnwilde]

Rupert Graves as Captain Greville in The Madness of King George.

[0-princess-amelia-0]

(I think this song was rather fitting what with the Kings current situation 😊😅🙏)

[trrriple-rrr]

Sometimes I imagine being the Lady and sitting on Greville's pretty face.

- submitted by anon.

[thisdayinwwi]

Aug 25 OTD in WWI

Colourized by DOUG

Aug 25 1917 war photographer Henry Armytage Sanders takes this photo, Ref: 1/4-009477-G, of General Alexander John Godley wearing a helmet and a canvas gas mask bag. 

25 August 1917-08-25

Colourized by DOUG

Aug 25 1916 War photographer John Warwick Brooke takes this photo, IWM Q 4152, of a Captain of one of the British regiments leading his horse on the Amiens-Albert road with his pet dog resting on the saddle.

25 August 1916-08-25

Aug 25 1918 Near Grevillers, France, war photographer Thomas Keith Aitken takes this photo, IWM Q 11248, of stretcher bearers of the Royal Naval Division, including medics, and their escorted POWs break for a meal.

25 August 1918-08-25

[onthehighseas]

Captain John Blackwood, 34 * Tom Hardy

relationships: Nicholas Murray (former best friend/enemy), Cassandra Atwood (former fiancée/interest/enemy), Thomas Greville (crew), Edward Hardwick, Oliver Hardwick, Henry Pierce, Rebecca Marks, Ursula Varly (rival pirates). William Atwood (former friend), Alexander Vane, Francis Barlow (enemies)

john grew up poor

his father had lost all of his money in a bad investment and most of john’s childhood was spent watching his parents pretend that they had more money than they did - spending what they had on the latest fashions so they could still lead a respectable social life, while in private they didn’t always have food to put on the table

He was 5 years old when he was orphaned - and left with nothing

No one knew how little the Blackwoods had and when Mr. Murray (a close friend of John’s father) came to help settle the estate, he decided to take John in as his ward

John grew up with Mr. Murray’s son, Nicholas, and they lived as brothers.

John always knew that although he had grown up living like a prince, that one day, he would only have what little his parents had managed to leave him to live on and that he’d have to find a way to support himself

tbh that never really bothered john - he was grateful for the all that mr. murray had done for him - and leading a simple life, he thought, would suit him just fine

that is, until he met and fell in love with cassandra atwood

she was the only daughter of the wealthy governor and he knew that he would never agree to her marrying him

on the contrary, he hoped that he would marry nicholas murray instead

when nicholas and cassandra began their courtship, nicholas could tell that cassandra preferred john to him and so he stepped down

so john asked cassandra’s father for her hand and was unsurprised to hear that he absolutely forbade the match and that he blamed john for getting in the way of getting in the way of cassandra and nicholas

when mr. murray heard that john would not be able to marry the woman he loved because of money, he summoned both john and nicholas to him and told them that he would be leaving john with half of his own fortune, as there was more than enough for the both of them

this secretly enraged nicholas, who had always known that john was his father’s favorite (despite not being his actual son)

so nicholas stole an invaluable heirloom that had belonged to his mother (a ring that mr. murray cherished!) and he framed john for the act

he then confessed to his father that john had always been a thief and that there had been many things he had taken from him over the years, but nicholas had always been able to cover it up because he did not want to cause his father pain

enraged, mr. murray cast john from the house and threatened to have him arrested if he ever saw him again

john had lost his brother and his father in one fell swoop, but he still had cassandra

she told him she believed his innocence and that she still wanted to marry him

so they made plans to elope and run away together

john waited for hours at the church, but she never arrived

afraid that something terrible had happened, he snuck to her home, only to see her through a window - laughing and smiling with nicholas

it’s been ten long years and john has not stepped foot in port royal since

the years have not been kind to him - he spent the first of them drinking and brooding and he fell into a bad crowd as his sadness turned to anger

he joined a pirate’s crew and has since become the ship’s captain, himself

TruST literaLLY no ONE

treats his crew like shit b/c he no longer believes that people are good/knows that if he ever believes that again for a moment, it will be his downfall

he can be violent and cruel

now has a huge temper where once it took a great deal to provoke him

wants his enemies to pay for what they’ve done to him a million times over

heard that edward hardwick has has captured and means to ranson cassandra atwood which has drawn him back home

(tbh he’s unsure if he means to save her or kill her himself)

taken by kate aa.

[prydon]

Paul McGann in Every Role (that I can find a DVD/Download of) -> Captain Greville in The Dance of Shiva (1998)

It’s bad enough having to minister to different denominations of the Christian church within the same regiment. I simply have no notion of what I can do with other beliefs. The success in battle of the regiment depends upon its unity.

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

The Brazen Belles Anthology

 What a delightful way to read favorite authors and meet new ones!

 I had to read the book because I love Tracy Sumner’s stories and hers was perfection. This story stars a watchmaker who makes clocks that keep perfect time and a housemaid that believes he is too far elevated for them to have a future together. Though he has loved her since he first saw her years before…they only meet and get to know one another in Sumner’s story.

 I went on to read and enjoy each and every story in the book with a courtesan’s daughter making an outstanding match, a youngest son never loved gambling on a dance but perhaps eventually winning much more,  a book fairy a bit like the elves and the shoemaker as a way to woo a woman, misguided words that put a wedge between two people that might be able to overcome them to find happiness together, horrible parents, wickedness to overcome, children born on the wrong side of the blanket, murder, and more are sprinkled through this book and though I have a few more stories to read…do believe I will return to some of the stories again in the future…after finishing the every one of them the first time through.

 Did I enjoy this book? Yes

Are there new authors I have found that I would read again? Yes

 Thank you to BookSirens and the authors for the ARC – This is my honest review.

 5 Stars

    BLURB

 Looking for a blissful sleepless night?

 Need some dashing new book boyfriends to cuddle up with on a cozy winter afternoon?

 For lovers of historical romance, get ready to stay up late reading with this introductory collection of Georgian, Regency, and Victorian pieces by a group of highly acclaimed, award-winning authors! From gaming hells to ballroom belles, these standalone stories—including many first-in-series—will have you wishing for a time machine!

 P.S. Make sure you have a fan with you! This is a STEAMY romance collection (various steam levels), so there will be heat! Happy endings guaranteed.

 Featuring some of your favorite tropes...

Enemies to Lovers

Secret Identity

Second Chance

Forbidden Love

Friends to Lovers

Childhood Sweethearts

Secret Society

Brother's Best Friend

Romcom Romps!

 TEMPTING THE SCOUNDREL – Tracy Sumner

A spirited housemaid forced to flee a dangerous position and the most distinguished watchmaker in England find themselves unexpectedly paired in this steamy second chance, love-at-first-sight story.

 THE HARLOT'S HERO – Tabetha Waite

In this friends-to-lovers tale, suppressed passions simmer! The daughter of a courtesan, Persephone is about to auction her virginity when an unlikely hero saves her from a cruel libertine and sets her up as his mistress, in name only. Could the girl in the gilded cage ever become something more to the man who has been her savior?

 GAMBLING ON THE DUKE'S DAUGHTER – Diana Bold

He steals a dance. She steals his heart. A heroic army captain and a duke's beautiful daughter find themselves caught up in a dangerous attraction when a bold wager is made in this enemies-to-lovers Victorian romance.

 THE ART OF LOVING YOU – Cara Maxwell

Sparks fly between a duke's daughter with a secret identity and a handsome art dealer who has no idea who he's dealing with. They already share a passion for the world of art. Will they decide to share a passionate love as well?

 RETURN OF THE WICKED EARL – Sadie Bosque

After a heartbreaking, short marriage, Lady Annalise is finally ready to start her life anew. Only her husband is back and is intent on earning her forgiveness one scorching kiss at a time. An angsty, steamy, and intense second chance romance.

 HOW TO TRAIN YOUR VISCOUNT – Courtney McCaskill

Four years ago, Lady Caroline Astley took one look at her brother's best friend and fell hopelessly in love. He didn't just reject her. He humiliated her. But now, Henry Greville is the only one who can help her. A Regency rom-com delight!

 MASKS OF DESIRE – Fenna Edgewood

Romeo and Juliet, meet Henry and Caroline… Childhood sweethearts become forbidden lovers in this Shakespearean-esque second chance romance where secrets and lies throw two opposing families into turmoil.

 THE SECRET SEDUCTION – Charlie Lane

It's impossible to woo a woman who hates you. Isn't it? Viscount Trevor loves Miss Allison Shropshire. Too bad she hates him. Or the man she thinks he is. Carter must decide—keep his secrets and be the perfect man or reveal the truth and become the perfect man for Allison, the kind of man she can love.

[returnsandreturns]

sing the sweetest thing

I’ve read @werelibrarian ‘s Marvel 1602 Matt/Foggy fic A Song to See in the Dawn approximately six times (and so should you) and also Spotify keeps giving me sad pining songs to listen to, so I had to make a tiny soundtrack which you can listen to as a YouTube playlist.

I included excerpts so potentially spoilers, but I added a cut.

sea of love (cat power) 

do you remember when we met?                                                            that’s the day i knew you were my pet

“You think to return to. To me? To us?”                                                           

Foggy looked down again. “I would have you waiting on the riverbank, if I thought you would do such a thing,” he said, and felt like kicking the ground, himself, and Matt, all at once.

A slow, shy, sly smile spread over Matt’s face. “Like thy wife?”

father neptune (connie converse)

that i’ve got a man with a beard and a tan and a passion for the sea

“There was a handsome captain, and he sailed upon the sea...” Matt sang.

“Purgatory and fucking hellfire,” Foggy muttered.

“And his shoulders, by God, they were as broad as a tree...” he was warbling drunkenly now, in a ludicrous falsetto that made several sailors turn and glare.

my little corner of the world (yo la tengo) 

i always knew that i'd find someone like you so hop o'er to my little corner of the world

Foggy palmed Matt’s blushing cheek and opened his mouth to promise that the cottage with the heather could be easily gotten, and that Foggy would kick his next twenty missions to poor hapless Greville if Matt would but consent to stay.

tomorrow is a long time (nickel creek)

and only if my own true love was waiting if i could hear his heart softly pounding yes, and only if he was lying by me would i lie in my bed once again

“No,” Foggy said slowly. “I think I mean that I shan’t sail till your return.”

Matt gave him a skeptical look through the scarlet blindfold. “Are you certain?

Foggy kissed him again. “I think I am.”

the book of love (the magnetic fields)

The book of love has music in it In fact that's where music comes from Some of it is just transcendental Some of it is just really dumb

[...] Foggy lit a candle and placed it on the nightstand. He said his prayers quickly, tagging on a request that Matt would return soon. He also prayed, he hoped it was not blasphemous, that somehow the two of them—Catholic and Protestant, Irish and English, the pair of them only just avoiding the sin of sodomy through a lack of opportunity—might someday enjoy a love as long-lived as Foggy’s parents’, or Wat and Alfie.

angel, won’t you call me? (the decemberists)

waiting for a sweet breeze, read it in the tea-leaves saw them crown you may queen heard you sing the sweetest thing

“Come, you’ll not turn me away, will ye? Was not the song to your liking?”

“It was tolerable,” Foggy teased.

song for the road (david ford)

now i don't like to use words like forever but i will love you til the end of today and in the morning when i remember everything that you are i know i'll fall for you over again

The long years Foggy had waited, some days he felt they had pulled his heart out of shape and all his love, his hopes, his promises were mangled, imperfect things that were not nearly fine enough to give away. But the boy he had fallen in love with at the age of twelve was now on his doorstep looking strong and beautiful and so willing that it made Foggy’s chest hurt, and it was time to make a gift of himself, no matter how damaged he was by age and salt water.