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vintagecoldcases · 4 years

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Story of Ted Bundy

TW: execution photos, details of deaths

**a more detailed victim list will be posted later, beware of this post if you are sensitive to blood/gore/other oddities of true crime as it will have crime scene photos**

Theodore Robert Cowell, was born on November 24th, 1946 to Eleanor Louise Cowell at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers. Eleanor was known by Louise and Ted’s father’s identity is unconfirmed. His birth certificate states Lloyd Marshall, a salesman and Air Force veteran, as his father. Louise claims his father to be an old war veteran known as Jack Worthington, this is who the King’s County Sheriff’s Office has listed as such. A few family members believe that Louise’s father, Samuel Cowell, could’ve been Ted’s father but no evidence has been found to support this claim.

Ted was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by his maternal grandparents for the first three years of his life. He, family, and friends, were told that his grandparents were actually his parents and that his mother was his older sister in order to protect them all from the stigma of birthing a child out of wedlock. There are variations of how Bundy found out his true parentage. A past girlfriend was told that Bundy was shown his birth certificate by a cousin, Stephen Michaud and Hugh Aynesworth (both biographers) were told by Bundy that he found the certificate himself. Anne Rule (biographer and crime writer, who knew Bundy personally) believes he did not find this information until 1969. In 1950, Louise changed her surname from Cowell to Nelson and left Philadelphia to live with cousins Alan and Jane Scott in Tacoma, Washington. In 1951, Louise met Johnny Culpepper Bundy at an adult singles night at Tacoma’s First Methodist Church. Johnny and Louise later married that year and Johnny formally adopted Ted. Johnny and Louise went on to have four children together, and whilst Johnny tried including Ted on family trips and outings, he remained distant.

Teenage Ted Bundy

In 1965, Ted graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School and enrolled in the University of Puget Sound where he spent a year before transferring to the University of Washington to study Chinese. In 1967, he became involved romantically with a UW classmate, most commonly known as Stephanie Brooks in biographies. In 1968, he dropped out of college and worked at a series of minimum wage jobs; even working as Arthur Fletcher’s bodyguard and driver during his Lieutenant Governor campaign. Brooks then ended their relationship due to Bundy’s lack of ambition. He also took one semester at Temple University after returning back to Arkansas and Philadelphia to visit family. In 1969, Ted moved back to Washington where he met Elizabeth Kloepfer (also known in Bundy literature as Liz Kendall, Beth Archer, or Meg Anders).

Ted Bundy & Elizabeth Kloepfer

In 1970, Ted re-enrolled at the University of Washington as a psychology major. During this time he became an honor student and was well regarded by his professors. In 1971, he took a job at Seattle’s Suicide Hotline Crisis Center, where he met Anne Rule who noted nothing disturbing or abnormal about Bundy. In early 1973, despite his average law school admission scores, he was granted admittance to UPS and the University of Utah. In 1973, he rekindled his relationship with Stephanie Brooks. He also continued to date Elizabeth Kloepfer. Neither woman knew of the other at this time. During this time period, Brooks had flown in several times to stay with him in Seattle. He had discussed marriage with Stephanie and had also introduced her as his fiancee at a point. In 1974, he abruptly broke off all contact. He did not return phone calls or letters. After a month of trying, Brooks was finally able to contact Bundy by phone, asking why he had so abruptly ended the relationship without an explanation. He responded with, “Stephanie, I have no idea what you mean.” and hung up the phone. She never heard from him again after that. He had just wanted to prove to himself that he could marry her in retaliation of her ending their former relationship before.

Ted Bundy and Stephanie Brooks

Ted had been skipping classes in law school by this point and had stopped attending all together by april when the first series of murders were reported. Circumstantial evidence points Ann Marie Burr, an 8-year-old girl, as one of Bundy’s first victims in 1962.

Ann Marie Burr, age 8

Washington/Oregon Murders

College aged young women started to disappear at a rate of about one a month in Washington and Oregon. On January 4th, 1974, shortly after midnight, Bundy snuck into the basement apartment of 18-year-old Karen Sparks (also known as Joni Lenz, Mary Adams, or Terri Caldwell in Bundy literature). He bludgeoned her with a metal rod from her bed frame and then sexually assaulted her with the same rod. She was unconscious for 10 days but survived. She sustained major permanent physical and mental disabilities. In the early morning of February 1st, 1974, Bundy broke into the basement bedroom of Lynda Anne Healy. He beat her until she was unconscious, dressed her in a white blouse, blue jeans, and boots and carried her away from the scene. On March 12th, 1974, Donna Gail Manson, a 19-year-old student at the Evergreen State College in Olympia went missing as she left her dorm to attend a jazz concert that she would never attend. April 17th, 1974, Susan Elaine Rancourt disappeared from Central Washington State College, on her way back to her dorm after an advisors meeting. Two female students later came forward with encounters with the same man. One was on the night of Susan’s disappearance and the other was three days before that. The man had his arm in a sling and had asked the girls for help loading his books into a brown or tan Volkswagen beetle. In Corvallis at Oregon State University, on May 6th, 1974, Roberta Kathleen Parks, left her dormitory to meet friends for coffee and she never arrived.

Police precincts were growing more and more concerned with each abduction. As they had no evidence or connection between each of the girls besides they were all young, attractive, college-aged, white women with their brown hair parted down the middle. On June 1st, 1974, Brenda Carol Ball, disappeared from the Flame Tavern in Burien, near the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. She had last been seen in the parking lot with a brown-haired man with his arm in a sling. Not too long after that, on June 11th, 1974 Georgann Hawkins disappeared walking down a brightly lit alleyway between her boyfriend’s dormitory and her own sorority house. After Georgann’s disappearance was made public in the media, witnesses came forward reporting that they saw a man that night in an alley behind a nearby dormitory. He was on crutches with a leg cast and was struggling to carry a briefcase. Another witness had said that the man actually asked for her help. At this time Ted was working in Olympia as the Assistant Director of the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Commission. He wrote pamphlets for women on rape prevention here. He also later worked at the Department of Emergency Services (DES), which helped look for the missing women. This is where he met Carol Anne Boone, and began dating her (as well as Elizabeth Kloepfer).

Carol Anne Boone

Pressure was immense on law enforcement at this time. This was very frustrating as panic spread through young women of the area, with six disappearances and one brutal beating. Rates of hitchhiking in young women dropped drastically. Police could not provide reporters with what little information they had because they did not want to compromise the investigation. Similarities between the victims were noted by the police in their investigations: The disappearances all took place at night, each disappearance was usually near ongoing construction work, also within a week of midterm or final exams. Every single victim was wearing slacks or blue jeans; and at most crime scenes, there were sightings of a man wearing a cast or a sling, and driving a brown or tan Volkswagen Beetle. On July 14th, 1974, five female witnesses on a beach at Lake Sammamish State Park in Issaquah, Washington, described an attractive man in a white tennis outfit with his arm in a sling. They also described him speaking in a light accent, possibly Canadian or British, and was introducing himself as Ted. He asked for their help in unloading a sailboat from his Volkswagen beetle. Four of the girls refused but one accompanied him to the point of the car in view. When she did not see a sailboat, she fled the area. Three other witnesses saw the man, now known as Ted, saw him approach Janice Ann Ott. He fed her the sailboat story and she was seen leaving the beach with him. Four hours after Janice’s disappearance, Denise Marie Naslund, vanished after leaving a picnic to use the restroom.

Idaho/Utah Murders and Kidnappings

In August 1974, Ted moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, after receiving a second letter of acceptance from the University of Utah Law School. He continued to call Elizabeth Kloepfer as he lived in Salt Lake, but dated at least a dozen other women at the time. On September 2nd, 1974, Ted abducted, raped, and murdered a still unknown hitchhiker in Idaho. On October 2nd, 1974, Ted kidnapped 16-year-old Nancy Wilcox from Holladay, a suburb of Salt Lake City. On October 18th, 1974, The daughter of the police chief of Midvale, Melissa Anne Smith, vanished after leaving a pizza parlor. Her body was found nine days later, nude, in a mountainous area. Postmortem reports say she may have remained alive for up to seven days after her disappearance. On October 17th, 1974, Laura Ann Aime disappeared after leaving a cafe around midnight. Her body was found by hikers, nine miles northeast of American Fork Canyon on Thanksgiving Day. Both, Melissa and Laura had been beaten, raped, sodomized, and were strangled with nylon stockings. November 8th, 1974, Ted approached Carol DaRonch, introduced himself as Officer Roseland and used the story of someone attempting to break into her car and to accompany him to the police station to make a report. When Carol pointed out that he was not going to the police station, he immediately pulled over to the shoulder of the road and tried to handcuff her. In their struggle, he accidentally handcuffed both cuffs to the same wrist. Carol was able to throw the door open and escape because of this. On the same evening, Debra Jean Kent disappeared after leaving a theater production to pick up her brother. The school's drama teacher and a student told police that "a stranger" had asked each of them to come out to the parking lot to identify a car. Another student later saw the same man pacing in the rear of the auditorium, and the drama teacher spotted him again shortly before the end of the play. Outside of the auditorium, investigators were able to recover a key that unlocked the handcuffs on Carol DaRonch’s wrists.

In November, Elizabeth Kloepfer called King County police for the second time, after reading about the string of disappearances and murders in the towns surrounding Salt Lake. Bundy had risen considerably as a suspect among the King County Police, but the most reliable witness from Lake Sammamish could not identify in a photo lineup. In December, Elizabeth called the Salt Lake City police with her suspicions. Ted was then added to their list of suspects, but there were no credible forensic links to put him at any of the Utah crimes. In January of 1975, Ted returned to Seattle and stayed a week with Elizabeth. She did not tell him she had reported him to the police on three occasions. She also made plans to visit him in August of 1975 in Salt Lake. Unfortunately, Ted’s crimes moved to Colorado at this point.

Colorado/Utah/Idaho Murders

January 12th, 1975, Caryn Eileen Campbell disappeared walking down a well lit hallway between the elevator and her room at the Wildwood Inn in Snowmass Village, Colorado. Her body was found a month later on a dirt road next to the resort, nude. On March 15th, 1975, Julie Cunningham disappeared while walking to a dinner date with a friend from her apartment. April 6th, 1975, Denise Lynn Oliverson vanished while riding her bicycle to her parents house. Her bike and sandals were found near a railroad bridge in a viaduct. May 6th, 1975, Ted was able to lure 12-year-old Idaho native from Alameda Junior High School, Lynette Dawn Culver, to his hotel room in Salt Lake City, where he drowned and raped her. He disposed of her body in possibly the Snake river north of Pocatello. In Mid-May, three of Ted’s coworkers from DES came to stay with him for a week. This included Carol Anne Boone. They stayed for about a week. Subsequently, Ted visited Elizabeth Kloepfer in early June. They discussed getting married the following Christmas. She again made no comments about her talking to police on several occasions. Ted also did not disclose his ongoing relationship with Carol Anne Boone or his relationship with a Utah law student known as both; Kim Andrews or Sharon Auer. June 28th, 1975, Susan Curtis disappeared from the campus of Brigham Young University, forty-five miles south of Salt Lake City. In August of 1975, Ted was also baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints although he did not follow any of the religious practices and was not an active participant in services.

On August 16th, 1975, Officer Bob Hayward of the Utah Highway Patrol, arrested Ted in Granger. This was another suburb of Salt Lake City. Hayward had observed him cruising the residential area in the pre-dawn hours. Ted then fled the area at high speeds after seeing Hayward’s patrol car. After noticing the front passengers seat was removed and placed on the back seat, the car was searched. Hayward found a ski mask, another mask fashioned from pantyhose, a crowbar, handcuffs, trash bags, rope, an ice pick, and other burglary tools. Ted had said that the mask was for skiing, he found the handcuffs in the dumpster, and the rest were household items. Detective Jerry Thompson remembered a similar looking suspect and car description from Carol DaRonch’s attempted kidnapping. Police then searched Bundy’s apartment and were able to turn up a guide to Colorado’s ski resorts with a checkmark next to the Wildwood Inn. They were also able to find a brochure for Viewmont High School play in Bountiful where Debra Kent disappeared. They although did not find enough evidence to detain Ted and he was released on his own recognizance. Ted claimed later that investigators missed his collection of polaroid photos of his victims and he destroyed them after his release. Salt Lake police placed Ted under a 24 hour surveillance.

Detective Thompson flew to Seattle with two other detectives to interview Elizabeth Kloepfer. Elizabeth told them that in the year prior to Ted’s move to Salt Lake, she had discovered things that she "couldn't understand" in her house and also in Ted's apartment. The items she found included crutches, a bag of plaster of Paris that he had admitted stealing from a medical supply house, and a meat cleaver that was never used for cooking. Additional things she found included surgical gloves, an Oriental knife in a wooden case that he just kept in the glove compartment of his car, and a sack full of women's clothing. Ted was so far into debt, that Elizabeth suspected that he had stolen almost everything of significance that he owned. When she confronted him over a new TV and stereo, he warned her, "If you tell anyone, I'll break your fucking neck.” Elizabeth then mentioned that she would find Ted looking at her body with a flashlight under the covers on more than one occasion, and that he would get very upset if she mentioned cutting her hair. Which was long, brown, and parted in the middle. Detectives interviewing Elizabeth were able to confirm that Ted was not with her on any of the nights where the Pacific Northwest disappearances occurred. This is where Elizabeth learned about Stephanie Brooks and their brief engagement in 1973. In September, Ted sold his beetle to a Midvale teenager, but Utah police impounded it and dismantled it. They were able to find matching hair samples from Caryn Campbell. They also found “microscopically indistinguishable” hair strands from Melissa Smith and Carol DaRonch. On October 2nd, 1975, Police put Ted into a lineup and Carol DaRonch was able to identify him as Officer Roseland. Other witnesses were able to identify him as the stranger from the auditorium at Viewmont High School. He was able to be charged with aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault in Carol DaRonch’s case. He was released on $15,000 bail, which was paid by his parents. He continued to live with Elizabeth Kloepfer during this time.

In February 1976, Ted stood trial for Carol DaRonch’s kidnapping. He waived his right to trial by jury because of the negative views surrounding the case and opted for a bench trial. After a four day trial, and a weekend of deliberation, Ted was found guilty of kidnapping and assault. In June he was sentenced to one to fifteen years in the Utah State Prison. In October, he was found hiding in bushes in the prison yard carrying an "escape kit". This included road maps, airline schedules, and a social security card. He spent several weeks in solitary confinement for this. Later in October, Colorado authorities charged him with Caryn Campbell's murder. He waived his right to extradition and was transferred to Aspen in January 1977.

June 7, 1977, Ted was transported from the Garfield County jail in Glenwood Springs to Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen for a preliminary hearing. He waived his right to a court appointed attorney and opted to serve as his own, and as such, was excused by the judge from wearing handcuffs or leg shackles. During a recess of the trial, he asked to visit the courthouse's law library to research his case. While out of view from his guards, behind a bookcase, he opened a window and jumped to the ground from the second story. He managed to injure his right ankle in the process as he landed. He shed the outer layer of his clothing. He walked through Aspen as roadblocks were being set up on its outskirts after noticing his disappearance, then hiked southward onto Aspen Mountain. Near the summit of the mountain, he broke into a hunting cabin. He was able to steal food, clothing, and a rifle. The following day he left the cabin and continued south toward the town of Crested Butte. Although, during this time he had managed to get lost in the forest. For two days he wandered aimlessly in the mountain forest, missing the two trails that led downward to his intended destination. On June 10th, 1977, he broke into a camping trailer on Maroon Lake, taking food and a ski parka; instead of continuing southward, he walked back north toward Aspen, eluding the roadblocks and search parties along the way. Three days later, he stole a car at the edge of an Aspen Golf Course. He drove back into Aspen, where two police officers noticed his car weaving in and out of its lane and pulled him over. He had been a fugitive for six days.

Back in jail at Glenwood Springs, Ted again ignored legal advice to stay put (not to try to escape again). It was said that the case against him, already weak at best, was deteriorating steadily as pre-trial motions consistently resolved in his favor and significant bits of evidence were ruled inadmissible. A quote stating, "A more rational defendant might have realized that he stood a good chance of acquittal, and that beating the murder charge in Colorado would probably have dissuaded other prosecutors... with as little as a year and a half to serve on the DaRonch conviction, had Ted persevered, he could have been a free man.” had shown that. But instead, Ted assembled a new escape plan. He acquired a detailed floor plan of the jail and a hacksaw blade from other inmates, and collected $500 in cash. This was smuggled in over a six-month period, by visitors, Mostly Carol Boone. During the evenings, while other prisoners were showering, he sawed a hole about one square foot, between the steel reinforcing bars in his cell's ceiling and, having lost 35 pounds, he was able to wriggle through it into the crawl space above. In the weeks that followed, he made several “practice runs”, exploring the space. Multiple reports from an informant of movement within the ceiling during the night were not investigated. By late 1977, Bundy's impending trial had become very high flying in the media in the small town of Aspen. Ted then filed a motion for a change of venue to Denver. On December 23rd, 1977, the Aspen trial judge granted the request, but he was sent to Colorado Springs, where juries had historically been hostile to murder suspects. On the night of December 30, with most of the jail staff on Christmas break and nonviolent prisoners on furlough with their families. Bundy piled books and files in his bed, covered them with a blanket to simulate his sleeping body, and climbed into the crawl space. He broke through the ceiling into the apartment of the chief jailer, who had been out for the evening with his wife. He changed into street clothes from the jailer's closet, and literally walked out the front door to his freedom.

Florida Murders and Assaults

Ted arrived in Tallahassee, Florida on January 8th, 1978, and rented a room under the alias of Chris Hagen at the Holiday Inn. Here Bundy tried to find work and leave his criminal past behind, thinking he’d be able to remain free if he didn’t bring police suspicion onto himself. He then was forced to leave his only job application after being asked to provide identification. He reverted to shoplifting and stealing credit cards from women’s wallets out of shopping carts. On January 15th, 1978, he entered Florida State University’s sorority Chi Omega. Starting at 2:45am, he bludgeoned Margaret Bowman and then garoted her with a nylon stocking. He moved on to Lisa Levy’s bedroom, who was beaten unconscious, strangled her, tore one of her nipples, bit deeply into her left buttock, and sexuallly assaulted her with a hair mist bottle. In the bedroom adjoining Lisa's, he attacked Kathy Kliener. He had broken her jaw and had a deep laceration on her shoulder. Karen Chandler was also attacked in her bedroom, she suffered a concussion, loss of teeth, a broken jaw, and a crushed finger. Kathy and Karen both survived and attributed their survival to the attacker being scared off by headlights illuminating through the window. The whole attack happened within fifteen minutes with thirty witnesses in earshot who seemingly heard nothing. Shortly after leaving the sorority, Ted broke into the basement apartment of Cheryl Thomas, eight blocks away. He dislocated her shoulder and fractured her jaw and skull in five different places during this attack.

On February 8th, 1978, he approached the daughter of Jacksonville chief of Police, 12-year-old Leslie Parmenter, introducing himself as “Richard Burton, fire department”. He only backed off when challenged by Leslie’s older brother who had shown up to pick her up. That day, he backtracked to Lake City. February 9th, 1978, at Lake City Junior High, 12-year-old Kimberly Dianne Leach was summoned to retrieve a forgotten purse in her homeroom class and was never seen afterwards. Her mummified remains were found seven weeks afterwards in a pig farrowing shed near Suwannee River State Park. It appears she had been raped (her underwear was found near the body with semen in them) and her throat had been slit. On February 12th, 1978, Bundy could not pay his rent and had the growing suspicion that police were closing in on him, he decided to flee Tallahassee. Three days later he was apprehended by Pensacola officer, David Lee, near the Alabama border. In Miami, June of 1979, Ted stood trial for the Chi Omega killings and assaults. The jury deliberated for less than seven hours before convicting him on July 24, 1979, of the Bowman and Levy murders, three counts of attempted first degree murder and two counts of burglary. In January 1980, six months after his first Florida convictions, Ted stood trial in Orlando for the kidnapping of Kimberly Dianne Leach. After less than eight hours of deliberation, Ted was found guilty again. During the penalty phase of his trial, Bundy took advantage of an obscure Florida law; providing that a marriage declaration in court, in the presence of a judge, constituted a legal marriage. As he was questioning former Washington State DES coworker Carole Ann Boone, who had moved to Florida to be near Bundy, had testified on his behalf during both of his trials, and was again testifying on his behalf as a character witness, asked her to marry him. She accepted, and Bundy declared to the court that they were legally married. February 10th, 1980, Ted’s was sentenced to death by electrocution for the third time. In October of 1981, Carol Anne Boone, gave birth to a daughter and named Ted Bundy as the father.

Ted Bundy died by the Raiford electric chair at 7:16 a.m. EST on January 24, 1989. Hundreds of revelers sang, danced and set off fireworks in a pasture across from the prison as the execution was carried out, then cheered as the white hearse containing Bundy's corpse departed the prison. He was cremated in Gainesville, Florida and his ashes scattered at an undisclosed location in the Cascade Range of Washington State, in accordance with his will.

#ted bundy #bundy #true crime #crime #serial killer #killer

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fanfiction-funtime · 3 years

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Alexander Vodka lines

I did most of the characters, but some I don't know or genuinely can't think of anything. Hope this is good >-<

Hello: Hey there, your that Traveler fella ain’t ya? Hope I don't owe you copyrights for the name. Hm? I don’t? Well then, what can I help ya with?

Adventures? Sure why not, I could use the inspiration.

Two names: You’re curious why I have two names? Well it's sort of a thing in Snezhnaya that officers and other high ranking people have two names, like how harbingers do. Since I’m a high ranking member of the Schneznayan authors association, well former member, I have the name “Eis Cay’zar” meaning “ice ruler”. And Alexander Vodka is a pen name. Hm? What's my resistance name and real one? Well now Traveler, a man must have some secrets.

Change of tone: Ah yes, people often find the way I change from more eloquent speech to more casual off putting. Well it's the same reason I wear two sets of clothes: sometimes I feel like looking like an old noir hero, other times I like looking like a new age caped crusader. Sometimes I like sounding high society, other times I enjoy sounding like I’m from Khaen’ria.

How do you know about Khaen’ria: Well I was looking for accents and found out about a place called “New York” or something, a bit of investigation and I discovered everything. My source? That's a secret, ehe.

Good morning: Mornin’ Traveler! What's in the mornin’ paper?

Noon: Lunch time, my favourite time of the day. Let’s go get some pizza, I’m famished!

Afternoon: Almost time to punch out, let's go knock some skulls first.

Night: *yawn* Today was fun, thanks buddy. Get some shut eye, or if you can't come meet me at (wanmin/angels share/the tea house), first rounds on me!

When it rains: I am so glad I got over my fear of contacts.

When it rains(with glasses outfit): Hey can we get under something? I can barely see!

When it stops raining: The smell that comes after rain has always been one of my favorites.

When it snows: Perfect weather to bundle up with a nice hot cup of hot chocolate!

When it stops snowing: Do you ever miss home, Traveler?

About freedom: I warned Barbados, you know that? I knew that as long as he saw it coming, Signora wouldn’t stand a chance. But he just looked at me and said, “good, when I’m gone mondstadt will be truly free of the gods”. That’s a man I’d follow to the depths of the abyss and back.

About Venti: Speaking of Barbados, he’s a great drinking buddy. Me and him knock back a couple hundred rounds whenever I’m in Mondstadt! Course I’m always paying the tab, but I consider it a way of repaying him for making songs about my books.

About Kaeya: The cavalry captain? He’s pretty cool if you ask me, modeled as Rex Mondoleon for the cover of a historical fiction book I made. But I’d still like to know what he’s hiding behind that smile.

About Diluc: Don’t tell him I told you this, but one time I found Diluc after he was hit by an abyss spell that made him drunk. While he was drunk he kept ranting about how sorry he is for kicking out his brother. The poor guy has all that forgiveness in him but he’s too afraid to let it out.

About Jean: The acting grandmaster of the knights is someone truly deserving of respect. She leads by being a good person and earning the respect of her people, and she has never once tried to cover up the mistakes of the knights. In fact if a knight makes a mistake she’ll rush out to fix it. Jean should be the grandmaster, not that crooked old bastard.

About Lisa: Lisa was my first friend in Mondstadt. She mailed me about getting copies of my books into the Mondstadt library, I said I’d do a signing to promote a new one, one thing led to another and now we have tea every ninth day of the month.

About Rosaria: Don’t tell anyone, but I’m very sure she’s a vampire. A nice one, but still.

About Barbara: Awe that little doll? I once saw her kill multiple fatui because they threatened some sick and injured travelers. So I think she’s a great person, takes compassion to save lives and guts to handle taking them as well.

About Bennett: Bennett? Yeah I know him, nice kid. He likes my books but kept breaking them, so now I make special enchanted ones so he can’t break them even if he tried.

About Razor: The guardian of wolvendom? He’s a weird one alright, but he’s not a bad guy. I taught him how to read and write.

About Fischl: That crazy kid? I don’t care what everyone else says, she’s nice. People need to learn to just leave people alone, she’s not hurting anyone with her persona.

About Noelle: You will never find someone more dedicated too...well anything than Noelle is too the knights and her training.

About Klee: Klee and I are great friends! Nothing is more stimulating than massive explosions!

About Amber: She always has interesting stories to tell, like one time where she got rid of some bandits by making a dummy merchant cart filled with explosives! Or the time she had to help a kid get her pet giant snake out from the cathedral!

About Zhongli: Heh, he thinks he’s slick, but I know he’s Rex Lapis. Gotta say I kinda hate him for just giving up his gnosis, however he did it to free his people so I can’t be mad.

About Ninnguang: Never much cared for economics because I don’t know much about ‘em, so I can’t say anything about her business sense. But I can say that she’s a great leader who puts her people first.

About Keqing: Haven’t talked to her enough to know much, but she’s dedicated to her people and that's enough for me. Her dislike of blind faith in the gods is definitely enough to make me want to get to know her better though.

About Qiqi: Qiqi’s a nice kid, I don’t care what anyone says her being a zombie doesn’t make her bad.

About Baizhu: Snake man? Nice guy, helps me be accurate in my books. Always worry about him though, one hot breeze and he’s out like a light.

About Xingqiu: Xingqiu always tries to hide his good deeds, and while I can respect anonymity I can’t let a hero go unsung. So I’ve written multiple short stories about him using a different name, and put in the beginnings that it’s based on a true story.

About Chongyun: His popsicles are great inventions, I’ve played around with the idea a bit and made flavored ones. So far I’ve got strawberry and grape down and am working on this weird fruit called a..Banananana? I think?

About Beidou: Captain Beidou is so cool! She tells me stories about her journeys out to see and I write about them, but after seeing her in action I can’t really say that I do her justice.

About Kazuha: Kazuha has suffered so much, yet he refuses to give up and curl up away from the world when he so easily could. I have immense respect for him.

About Xianling: You’d be surprised at how good slime and boar tusk can be.

About Xiao: I’ve written down many myths and legends of the yaksha, but sadly I've never seen him in person.

About Verr Goldet: Oh she’s great company! Good business sense, and always polite.

About Gorou: Many people rightly attribute the Resistance’s survival and victories to general Kokomi, but it’s wrong to say general Gorou isn’t a brilliant strategist. He knows how to rally his men against impossible odds, and how to keep them standing against them. I’d follow general Gorou into battle any day.

About Ayaka: Ayaka seems so lonely, I hope when this is all done she can have some form of social life.

About Thoma: Thoma’s as cool as he seems. He always has a level head, and solves problems smoothly and without issues.

About Yoimia: KABOOOM!

About Kokomi: One time I was doing an interview of her excellency, to boost morale and draw new members. I intended on asking for her autograph, only for her to ask for mine! I’ve been riding that high for a while now and still ain’t come down.

About Signora: I hate fatui, but without that she has some good qualities: most of her power is her own unlike most other harbingers, and she’s a sharp dresser. Plus she’s actually justified in her choice to join the fatui, not excused, but isolation can justify many crimes in my book. But no matter what I can’t forgive her. She attacked my friend without a chance for him to fight back, and was unfairly cruel. Nothing can justify that, and I will not forgive her as long as she remains unapologetic for her cowardly cruelty.

About Childe: Fatui are scum, but Childe’s probably the best of them: he personally tries to keep civilians and the weak out of fatui business, and he’s only in it to make sure his family lives well. He also is powerful on his own, but most of his strength is the Tsaritsa’s well deserved gifts. Still though, he’s just a single stressful day from losing all his morals. I can’t leave the fate of my homeland to a madman like him, not unless he gets therapy.

About Scaramouche: Scaramouche...that bastard, it’s been five years and he still owes me 30,061 mora.

About the Fatui: The fatui are really just people who are lost or genuinely believe they’re in the right, and while I can sympathize and respect many of them I can't agree nor can I just stand by and watch. The grunts usually aren’t that bad, honestly they’re more like underpaid graduates new to the workforce, but the fighters you see daily? Almost all of them are scum no better than raiders, and debt collectors are the worst of them because they’ll do anything they can to scam you out of everything in their contracts.

About us-commissions: You know, if you’d like to commission a biography it’s 100 mora per ten pages.

About us-inspiration: You’re a font of inspiration for me, ya know that?

About us-fellow rebels: I’ve been with ya enough to know that this path you’re on, the one to find your sis/bro, you’re fighting against something far beyond my ability to deal with. I won’t abandon you, I’ll be here every step of the way.

About us-friends: We’ve been through a lot pal, I’m glad to call you my friend. Please, call me my rebel name: it’s Belgrade, named after the city where some very brave men took their last stand against oppression.

Hobbies: Well you have reading and writing, otherwise? Can't think of anything.

Favorite food: Grilled tiger fish, come get it while it’s hot!

Least favorite food: I really wanna try it, but I can’t have almond tofu. Or any nuts. Closes my throat right up.

Something to share: Hehe, I got embarrassing dirt on all the harbingers. Signora? She has a Tsaritsa body pillow. Scaramouche? He knits sweaters for his pet pig, cute but he hates letting people know. And Childe? Hoo man, the pics I’ve got on him have put a pretty mora on my head.

About me: Hey have you seen my dice? I wanted to teach the mondstadt kids how to play them...hm? What?! No, not gambling! It’s, uh, a tad embarrassing...h-hey look! Literally anything else, let's pay attention to it!

About me II: Alright! These rolls are great, can’t wait to use them next game. I’m so proud of Fischl, so young yet so imaginative. She’s already-ah! T-traveler! What are you doing?..

You know I’m the one meant to be learning the secrets here.

About me III: Back in Snezhnaya, everyone looks down on things that don’t “conform” where even the most rigid of nations like Inazuma have stopped caring. Adults can't play games, men can’t wear dresses, can’t even have a “weird” sense of humor. No laws against it, but being outcasted is...it’s not good…

About me IV: I wish I grew up in Mondstadt. The kids there are so free to be themselves, and the adults aren’t pressured to be nothing more than working hands. It’s not perfect, after all people are rude to Fischl and Benny for being “different”, but it’s better that’s for sure.

About me V: Hey traveler...this is...no it’s not embarrassing. You’re my friend and I have no reason to be embarrassed by wanting to enjoy time with you! Fischl’s going to run a pen and paper dice game, ever played one? It’s super fun, you get to be anything you want really, and it’s a great way to bond.

You will? Great! I’ll help you make a character!

Alexander’s troubles: It’s so hard to find publishers these days. Noone wants an actual plot, they just want twist after twist. What’s up with that?! Shock value is no substitute for characters you love living fulfilling lives.

Happy birthday: Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday you crazy bastard, happy birthday to you! Seriously pal, you put yourself in harm's way every day it seems, we literally met when you were fighting an actual god! Actually, know what? No danger all day! We’re wrapping ourselves in blankets and just relaxing!

Feelings about ascension-intro: woah, somethin’ feels different. I like it!

Feelings about ascension-building up: man, I’m feeling inspired all of a sudden! Hey traveller, give me a prompt!

Feelings about ascension-climax: HA! I don’t know what high I’m riding but I like it, I just finished writing a whole book series!

Feelings about ascension-conclusion: WOO! YEAH! ULRICH MIKAEL KEEPS WINNIN’!-I-I meant Alexand-ah forget it, I’m feelin’ too good to care!

OCs:

About Louis: That crazy inventor guy from Fontaine? I heard he got used by the fatui, damn shame that. Noone deserves to have their heart played with like that.

About Spritefather: You ever heard of Spritefather? I’ve only heard legends, but the fanmail I keep getting tells me that sometimes things are only legendary until someone writes them down.

About the Storytraveler: There’s this woman who travels from universe to universe to fix things, she’s in Teyvat right now. You should meet her, really nice person. But her powers are a bit weird, why does she transform like that? It takes so much time!

_____________________

Tagging: @love-psxlm, @storytravelled, @genshin-obsessed, @golden-wingseos

#genshin #genshin impact #genshin oc

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troublecominghq · 3 years

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character name(s)/alias/etc: jesper fahey / the sharp shooter.

character age and date of birth: 21, april 22nd year 100.

character's pronouns/gender identity/romantic & sexual identity: he/him mostly, but vibes with any tbh. genderfluid. bisexual, biromantic & polyam.

character faceclaim: kit young.

oc or canon + which fandom affiliated with: canon, grishaverse.

currently located: the slat, ketterdam.

moral alignment + people/groups etc they are aligned to: chaotic neutral, jesper is one of the last people to be seen following any rules, but he also doesn’t have evil intentions really. he’s a chaotic entity, sure, but there aren’t any overly bad or overly good motivations to it. jesper is entirely aligned and loyal to the dregs/crows, and though he can be reckless at times with it, he cannot be shaken on that.

tell us about their personality/the kind of character they are/what kind of goals etc they have: charming, witty, a touch full of himself, but jesper has a true heart. he’s not above doing dodgy shit to get what he or the crows want/need, and he certainly dabbles in plenty of vices, but he’s not a horrible, evil person. he doesn’t believe in the oppression of others, unless that ‘other’ is some rich fuck getting off on making the lesser suffer. jesper ‘eat the rich but i also wanna be rich’ fahey. jesper can be incredibly reckless, loudmouthed and overly confident. he’s got a habit for fucking shit up though most of the time it’s not intentional, but in the end, even some of his most chaotic of methods get shit done. there just… might be a bit of a detour first. which, on the note of: jesper has a bad habit for even worse decisions. a gambler, an addict to the rush, jesper has a lot of issues around this and relishes in figuring the odds on most things. the downside is that although jesper definitely isn’t suicidal, he takes a lot of risks with his own life. jesper can be a jittery, anxious person at times and he specifically uses these outlets-- gambling, even fighting to get a fix of an adrenaline rush and soothe it. however, in spite of all of this, jesper has a lot of self esteem issues and doesn’t have a genuine, high value on himself. he has a grandiose and exaggerated personality, but the fact is, so much of it is for show and to cover up his many flaws and the parts of himself he hates. he tends to look to his peers-- the crows especially, those he loves and is dedicated to above all else-- for validation. jesper’s goals are simple, to an extent. they don’t align with big, grand ideas as such and are far more personal. he wants to pay off his debts. he wants to live comfortably, rich and content but he doesn’t want to push down others like him to do it. he knows his issues with gambling will likely prevent it, but he clings on to the small dream and that he could undo the mess he’s made of his life since moving to ketterdam. he wants to see his fellow crows happy, to do what he can to help their plans and gains. he kinda would love to see the old fucks of the city taken down a peg or twenty.

biography: born to a kaelish father and zemeni mother, jesper grew up on a jurda farm in novyi zem, close to the western mountains. tragedy struck jesper’s life early with the death of his mother, a grisha, who died using her powers to protect two young girls from poison. in fear of the same happening to his son, jesper’s father discouraged him from using his own powers, insisting he let them go dormant. jesper obeyed, growing up with a fear for his own powers and an internalised hatred-- not for grisha, but simply for his own powers and self. however, grisha that fail to use their powers tend to suffer ‘sicknesses’. in jesper, this presents itself in a seemingly never ending supply of energy building up inside of him, and is why he often seems anxious and jittery and in need of the outlet he uses for it-- gambling and other reckless, adrenaline inducing vices.

coming to ketterdam for university was supposed to be a turning point in jesper’s life. and to an extent, it was. just not in the way he’d planned. drawn in by the lifestyles on offer, jesper very quickly developed a gambling addiction and as such, he ended up dropping out of university early into his new life in ketterdam. this is where he began to dabble in crime, taking on jobs for multiple different gangs in order to pay off his debts, only to repeat the cycle. this broke at least partially when he met kaz brekker who saved him from a severe beating and took him on as a member of the dregs. in spite of his flaws, jesper is an incredibly talented sharp shooter and an asset to the gang. he’s a quick thinker, and easily adjusts when things don’t go as planned.

jesper was quick to join kaz on the job to find and kidnap the alleged sun summoner and had one hell of a time crossing the fold, delving into more heists and general causing chaos in ravka. tragically though, things didn’t quite go as planned and the crows had to return to ketterdam without a prize but, hey, at least they survived? but that didn’t mean it was an easy return by any means, not when their exit had left so many loose ends in the first place and brought more enemies to the table than planned. but jesper’s faith in kaz never failed, and thankfully, it wasn’t misplaced. some bribery here, a little heartrending beautiful tweaks there and eventually, things were back on track for the crows. jesper knew there was still a threat lurking though, but it didn’t stop him from diving right back into his usual chaotic life. till, that was, a new job came to the table. the biggest one yet and promising a lot more than a million kruge split three ways.

breaking into the fjerdan ice court was a shit show, but one that, in spite of the fuck ups, jesper relished in. the exact kind of thrill he thrived on. of course, until one of their own is kidnapped. but in true crows fashion, they go just as hard, if not harder to get inej back and completely destroy jan van eck. for once, things finally work. maybe not as planned entirely, but they get their win. the dregs come out on top, and jesper feels somewhat settled in knowing that he finally managed to begin to make things right not only with his friends, but with his father too.

but now, he has a whole lot of actual secure looking future to play with and he has to wonder: what beautiful way can he play with that? because he’s far from done with being a chaotic lil fuck.

for those writing canon grishaverse characters particularly from the s&b trilogy, please outline any instances of divergence you wish to include within your portrayal, even if it’s already been mentioned in the biography: when it comes to jesper, i’m chill to keep pretty much everything established in the books while of course, having included the show details too!

#aplication #admin app

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homenum-revelio-hq · 4 years

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Welcome to the Order of the Phoenix, Taylor!

You have been accepted for the role of non-biography character LYDIA AVERY with the faceclaim of Margot Robbie! We were excited to see your discussion of nice doesn’t always equal right and how Lydia’s motivations throughout her life stem from this constant need to be liked. We love a good underestimated character and we think Lydia will be able to help the Order immensely with her knowledge! So happy to have you apart of this roleplay!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: Taylor

AGE: 28

TIMEZONE: EST, Toronto time

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I try to check the dash and discord every day, but I’m probably low to mid activity. I usually post one or two times during the week and then catch up on the weekends.

ANYTHING ELSE: I’m pretty good about all triggers, though I would appreciate a heads up with any suicide mentions. As long as it’s tagged or I’m prepared I’m good though!

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Lydia Augustine Avery

AGE: 25

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cis Female, She/Her & Lesbian

That doesn’t mean she won’t flirt with a man to boost their ego. Men treat you so much nicer when they think you might sleep with them! Sometimes she wonders why that is, but then she remembers it’s probably one of the reasons she loves women so damn much.

Her sexuality was never exactly a secret, though it’s not something she flaunts in this day and age. Though as a teenager she had been a bit confused about her lack of interest in the men who thought she was so lovely. The hands she’d let grope her as a teenager, the cocks she’d found mediocre. She figured that her preference was as fluid as her personality; she wanted to be liked by everyone, and therefore she must like everyone, right? It took her a minute (she’s a bit slow in most things), but eventually she realized that she really only liked women. They’re truly lovely, aren’t they?

BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood Half-blood.

Lydia’s mixed wix and muggle heritage means that she is not biologically related to the mother that raised her, Colette Avery, and is a half sister to Margaret. But while Lydia knew she was a bastard child, she didn’t realize she was a half-blood! Even Colette was unaware until recently that her husband was unfaithful with a dirty muggle of all things! Alphonse’s affair lasted more than a few weeks while travelling with a woman in France named Delphine Marchand. She worked in a bakery and loved to figure skate. Her pureblood father knows nothing of her muggle mother’s heritage, or much of her history in general - and when she finds out he gives Lydia next to nothing in terms of knowledge of her mother, in fear that Lydia would have the urge to venture into the muggle world he saved her from to find her.

HOUSE ALUMNI: Slytherin

“What? A nice girl like you, you’re not from Slytherin!”

“Slytherins can be nice! I take offense to that, sir.” Lydia grins back, her face not showing an ounce of what she claimed - though she had a skill for always appearing unflustered and approachable. A thick skin was needed when you were kind to everyone, a strength that people often forgot. The man takes her charm as flirting, a common occurrence and leans against her desk.

“Really, I can’t name a single Slytherin I’ve known for being so sweet.”

“Well then you haven’t been hanging around the right people. Besides, now you know me!”

ANY CHANGES: Nope

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY:

Without knowing Lydia you may assume she’s unapproachable. The perfect poise, plush pout, sacred name, and during school her emerald green banner colours, tend to give the stereotypical impression of a mean girl. But Lydia Avery is far from it.

One of Lydia’s key goals in life is to be liked, and in her experience growing up, the best way to be liked is to be kind. She genuinely enjoys making people happy, and through this has gained a warmth and a charm that disarms many. Not a stranger to compliments or generous acts, she’s the first to make a pot of tea for a group or start doing dishes as a guest.

Many have taken advantage of Lydia through the ages, as along with her kindness she has a dislike for confrontation and will rarely call someone out as being rude or manipulative. In her teenage years she was the seat warmer or the errand runner, and as a secretary for a powerful Ministry man she hasn’t really grown out of this just yet. There’s a meekness to her willingness to do someone else’s dirty work, and she’s easily talked into situations that she might not be if she had a stronger backbone.

Despite her lack of confrontational skills, she’s grown a thick skin. A bit of I’m rubber and you’re glue inner philosophy, she tends to take words as just words. With snarky comments given to her over the years from her “mother” Colette she has an inner belief that insulting people don’t actually dislike you and almost anyone can be won over. It’s naive, but it’s helped her stay relatively optimistic! While insults like Lydiot are demeaning and she definitely doesn’t like them, she’s a fantastic actress and it rarely shows on her face when she’s upset or thinking negative thoughts. Her self-consciousness is internal and there’s power in appearing unphased by cruelty (though some may think she’s just too dim to understand it was insulting in the first place - and to be frank, sometimes that is the case).

This ability to hold a facade is one of her greatest strengths. Lydia has been acting her entire life! A family secret since she was born, allowing Colette to bounce snarky underhanded comments at her with the appearance that she was unphased has set her up as unexpectedly valuable. She’s able to charm the right people, and quietly observe unnoticed. She’s able to keep a straight face with a creep’s hand on her knee, and recite lines without stumbling. Her charm, mixed with her attractiveness, work as a glamour and despite being someone in the room that almost everyone notices - most of the time she’s hidden in plain sight.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

Alphonse Avery, Father - Shopkeep, A Very Spellbinding Book Shop

Alphonse Avery is a proud man. Not because of his riches, but because he’s built what he has from the ground up, no thanks to his drunken, gambling father. Raised in a wealthy home, he remembers what it was like to be waited on by house elves and invited to banquets, but also recalls losing it all during his days in Hogwarts. Sometimes he is even still bitter about it all, he often butts heads with his father whom he rarely speaks with anymore, and sometimes with his brother Albrecht who still puts Lydia’s grandfather in high regards. Though he isn’t a muggle sympathizer, Alphonse thinks there’s more than just pure blood that makes someone worth looking up too.

Colette Avery, Step-mother - Shopkeep , A Very Spellbinding Book Shop

Colette is not an unreasonable woman. Honorable even, raising the outcome of her husband’s affair. She loves her husband, but it wasn’t to say they always saw eye to eye. Their marriage was an arranged one, and therefore they don’t particularly show the chemistry expected of a loving partnership, but when it comes to supporting her family she’ll do what’s best for them. Even when Lydia is looking up at her with blue eyes that don’t match their own, a sharp reminder that at one point in her life she hadn’t been good enough. She’s curt with Lydia, and never shies away from constructive criticism or feels the need to sugarcoat. The fawning she does over Minnie is something Lydia has always longed for growing up and when she can please Colette it’s a good day.

Margaret “Minnie” Avery, Half Sister

Minnie has alway been the pet of the family. Colette’s true born daughter, the favourite, the rightful Avery. While this might make any other person resent their sister, Lydia adores her little sister. While others may call her mousey in her looks, she’s wickedly smart and can always make Lydia laugh with her slightly dark humour. She has the same eye for politics, but while Lydia had always been one for schmoozing, Minnie never bothered and instead has always had a sense of self worth that Lydia has been proud of her sister for.

Albrecht Avery, Uncle - Death Eater

Alphonse’s younger brother. A true believer in his father’s beliefs that everything bad that has ever happened to them is because of muggles or muggle borns, and doesn’t understand Alphonse’s lack of sympathy towards his father. It wasn’t a crime to gamble, after all! The mudblood that won their family fortune was a no good, rotten thief. He had to have cheated, after all. How else could he have won that game? No way he’d been more talented or intelligent then an Avery! While Albrecht and Alphonse don’t always see eye to eye, Lydia has known her Uncle Al her entire life. Loud, outgoing, demeaning, and cunningly cruel with underhanded compliments. Lydia and her sister have rarely felt comfortable around their uncle - who found the fact that his brother had daughters just another point to why he’d done better than him.

Arcturus Avery, Cousin - Presumed Death Eater

Arcturus and Lydia were always the closest in age. She’s always seen him as the closest thing to a brother she’s ever had, and when she finally reached the age to attend Hogwarts she’d been delighted that she’d made it into his house too! Her older cousin always had the confidence of his father, and as he aged, his bossiness grew more and more. He knew all of the tricks to get Lydia to do his bidding - though it didn’t take much really - and his treatment of her resembles gaslighting. Cute nicknames one moment, insults the next. Building her up just to knock her down. Leaving her out of the fun just to make her want to be included. As she’s aged she’s grown less comfortable with his values, but she doesn’t realize that Arcturus or his father are Death Eaters.

Delphine Marchant, Biological mother - Muggle

There’s not much to be said about Lydia’s birth mother. She doesn’t know anything really at all. The woman is a faceless entity, but Alphonse has been smitten in his short time trying to woo the french woman in the bakery, who always smelled of cinnamon. She doesn’t remember Alphonse, or even Lydia - for he’d done her a kindness and wiped her memory clean before stealing her child.

OCCUPATION:

Formerly a washed out actress, she now works in the Ministry as part of the Wizengamot Administrative Services as secretary for the honourable Wizengamot Judge Perryweather, a member of the High Court of Magic

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER:

It’s all so new and fresh, she’s barely a member - still in the affiliate stage. This is the closest Lydia has ever been to having a mind of her own and standing up for her beliefs. Honestly, this is the closest Lydia has had to realizing she truly has beliefs! It hasn’t fully clicked what exactly she’s doing and what sort of risk she’s taking. That being said, I think she’s going to be intoxicated by the sudden realization that she can make choices and have thoughts that don’t simply parrot what she thinks other people want to hear, and when that starts to unravel who knows what’s going to happen??

That being said, it’s going to take something big for people to take Lydiot Avery seriously in The Order!

SURVIVAL:

Lydia is lucky enough to have a good family name and a Ministry job. Her heritage is a secret, and as Judge Pennyweather’s beloved secretary she’s practically invisible. She resides in a small studio flat in London, not far from the Ministry where she lives alone and sometimes

RELATIONSHIPS: I’m not exactly sure what people have in mind but here are a few possible ideas!

Maurice Creevey

A person who is practically the opposite of people-pleasing Lydia, it was Maurice’s pirated broadcasts that brought the fact that there was truly a rebellion fighting against everything that is happening without waiting for the slow-moving and corrupt bureaucracy. Lydia rarely says anything that might upset anyone, but when she meets the muggleborn who fights it all with words broadcasted out to the world she can’t help but like a moth to a flame. She could learn a lot, but it also might get her burned.

Branwen Yaxley

Branwen scares the shit out of Lydia. In your face, opinionated and bigotted, she’s not exactly Lydia’s cup of tea. Her worst fear is that Branwen (or anyone really) truly finds out about her muggle mother, but it doesn’t stop her from treating the woman with the same kindness and showers her with the same amount of compliments that everyone receives. Though Lydia’s sure that one of these days a comment on how lovely her hair looks today might end her up with a black eye.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS:

I don’t have any particular ships in mind, but I’m personally open to anything. Lydia is a sucker for attention, and takes any form of it as good. She wants to be liked by as many people as possible, which means she’s a bit of a pushover and can be easily taken advantage of. I’d love to see this either taken advantage of, or for once someone to stick up for her and show her that she’s worth more. Or both? Both is good! I’m down for it all. Unrequited love, heartbreak, fluff (though not too much fluff that’s boring!)

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE?

Despite the new found information that Lydia is not actually a pureblood, she has lived her entire life with the privilege of being one. A strong family name means something in wizarding Britain and up until recently she could stay safely on the sidelines without worrying about who won the war. She’d still be safe and sound no matter what. But now her sense of self is dwindling even further, fragile as it already was with the title of bastard in her mother’s eyes, Lydia is now seeing the world as what it truly is - and realizing why her father had kept it such a secret for so long. Not even his family would really understand, would they?

And while Lydia is kind to everyone she meets, it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s always understood her privilege and can be rather dim in the area of realizing how truly well-off she’s been all of these years. Her Slytherin school mates, mixed with her pureblood family, and her lack of heroic or confrontational nature means that up until now she’s never stood up for her beliefs - and she’s been in a place where she’s never had to really have them. It’s selfish, that she’s suddenly turning to the “good guys” as a mix of self-preservation and a realization that there are no innocent bystanders. This war affects everyone, and she had to be a sudden target to realize it.

Also, unrelated to blood, but Lydia has always had the privilege of being pretty. It’s vain, she knows, but as far as she is concerned listening to a pretty girl try and be humble about their looks makes you want to punch them in the nose - so she isn’t going to point at hidden pores or say she needs to lose weight when she knows she doesn’t. Lydia learned very early into puberty that there is a sort of power in being attractive. People like you more, it’s just a simple fact, and Lydia wants to be liked! And so she’s always used this key attribute to her advantage. Batting her eyelashes, sending a splendid smile, and maybe wearing a low cut top if she really wanted to distract you. It’s unfortunate, and she doesn’t believe she’s really more valuable than anyone else for it, but hey! If it works, it works.

And history told her, it usually did. Sometimes too well. Lydia’s keen ability to read a room and be able to charm people sometimes works a little too well, and men often can’t keep their eyes off of her assets. While she sometimes uses this to her advantage, it’s also fairly revolting that many men treat a woman more kindly if they’re attractive. They’re pigs. And while she doesn’t think all men are that way, she’s met enough to be wary of them until they prove their respectability!

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

The most job interview of job interview questions! I’m just looking forward to being in a group that I’ve been told is so creative, fun and accepting. I’ve heard nothing but good things for months but wanted to make sure I had an idea for a character that would give me the muse to do this place justice!

PLOT DROP IDEAS:

Lydia isn’t the type of person to see her value in a fight or organization like the Order’s, so I don’t see her as being a fully fledged member right away. Her just trying to reach out to someone being like “Hey, I know a thing! Maybe it will help!” is a big step for her, so I think it might be a gradual initiation that makes her a full member after a few intel drop offs.

That being said, I think once she’s done a few intel drop offs, Lydia gets hooked on being valuable and important and having morals and beliefs, and I would love for her to prove her worth or someone to challenge her place. Lydia is not someone you automatically see as valuable or a team member worth having so making her step out of her comfort zone and show her worth in a situation like that would be super fun! Risky initiation anyone??

ANYTHING ELSE? Nope!

EXTRA FOR NON-BIO CHARACTERS:

PAST:

Lydia Avery has almost always had a secret. From the day she was born, her secret had been kept; or as her father would put it, their family secret. You see, while her father Alphonse loved his wife Colette dearly, it did not mean that he had always been faithful. So when he brought home a beautiful baby girl one stormy evening from his ventures in France - freshly plucked from her mother’s arms (a well casted obliviate to spare her from the heartache) - Colette was less than enthused.

“She’s an Avery!” Her father had argued. His duty to take care of his own. Colette allowed it, she was a reasonable woman after all, and wouldn’t flaunt the embarrassment of infidelity. Therefore Lydia was raised as Colette’s child, and the rest of the world knew nothing different - but as much as she wasn’t a cruel woman, Colette also didn’t want Lydia to believe that she was hers. And so Lydia, and eventually her half-sister, had always been aware of where she’d come from and that no one else should know.

Lydia’s childhood wasn’t an unhappy one - she adored her sister, and until school longed for nothing because she didn’t know anything was missing from their home on the side streets of Diagon Alley. At least nothing material. It was her “mother” who Lydia longed to impress, overly eager to please Colette in an attempt to gain maternal love. It came easy to Margaret, the polite, quiet & smart girl who never had to lie about whose womb she came from. Colette’s affection for her real daughter was like any mother’s, and Lydia would do anything to gain the same. Set the table, clean the dishes, lay her slippers at her feet. It wasn’t expected, but when she could gain a smile from Colette it was worth it! She loved making people happy, and when she made people happy, they liked her back.

People pleasing became a trait that eventually embodied Lydia, and by the time she was at school, she was eager as ever to make friends. Her passion for people to like her was her greatest ambition, and it landed her into Slytherin. Despite her lack of new robes or fancy jewellery, even for the most inconsiderate people it was hard not to like Lydia’s happy-go-lucky energy - but it also allowed her to be taken advantage of quite a bit. The pushover of the group, she was often the friend who went to save seats in class or for dinner, or fetch forgotten items that weren’t even hers in the common room.

While some of her housemates were cunning enough to use Lydia to their full advantage, her friendliness didn’t center around just them, and many of her other classmates didn’t mind her company or a friendly hello! She had a knack for making them feel special, noticing things like their artistic abilities or the lovely colour of their hair or jumper. She was also smart enough to distance herself from her friend’s bad behaviour. While Lydia didn’t excel at school (something her mother would later blame on her heritage), she’d inherited a keen eye for personal politics - and could do simple math. Most of the school (and world) liked Gryffindors, and so despite Slytherins disliking Gryffindors, she didn’t need them to dislike her back. Especially if it would mean other people would dislike her too!

And so as the years passed, she became good at slipping away or keeping her distance when her cousin Arcturus would snark insults to young muggleborns, or the other kids would pick on the Hufflepuffs. Not noticeably of course, and she wasn’t any hero who’d come to their aid - she didn’t need that target after all. No she was simply neutral, because if she was neutral then no one could dislike her, could they?

PRESENT:

One of Lydia’s great loves in magical London was the infamous Moonlight Theatre. With moving pin-ups of glamourous actors and actresses, theatre elves ushering fabulously dressed couples to their seats, and wonderfully acted performances of “Walburga & Hortense, A Tragedy In Three Parts” and “Death of a Broomsmaker”, Lydia was intoxicated.

And some of the casting agents were intoxicated by her as well. A Marylin Monroe-esque soft and breathy voice, doe-eyes and an hourglass figure, some thought Lydia was made for an audience. Even her charm translated to the stage! What better career for a woman wanting to be adored then that of one in the spotlight?

But while Lydia had been willing to kiss a few frogs, and let men do what they want with her in her younger years - the pushover side of Lydia Avery grew a bit more and more of a spine as she aged. Lydia didn’t want to let every man’s hands wander, or go on dates with the director so that he could show her off on his arm and push her into bed later that night. She wanted to steal kisses from her co-star Tabitha Bradford and slip her own hands under her skirt with permission. She wanted lipstick stains on her skin, and the smell of fresh perfume instead of cologne.

And when she finally stood up for herself, she was left re-casted and jobless - her reciprocated crush suddenly silent in fear for her own unemployment.

“It’s for the best.” Her father says, never liking the sight of his eldest daughter’s moving pictures on theatre posters or the odd tabloid. It’s the first time Lydia truly gets angry with him in a long time, another parent who isn’t proud of her, but the spat causes a slip-up that stops the girl in her tracks. “It’s better that you keep yourself out of their heads! No reason to pry, no need for them to find out what you are.”

A half-blood. Dirty. The affair he’d claimed was with at least a witch wasn’t that at all! Even Colette was unaware that while he was dilly-dallying about in his younger years, it hadn’t just been with another woman. It had been with a muggle woman. A pretty girl who worked in a bakery and knew nothing of his life back home with magic.

“A harmless romp.”, Alphonse claimed, but the look in his eyes was one with shame and a bit of confusion. Even he doesn’t fully believe it but when Lydia begs to know more he pushes her away. Force he’s never used on her before. “Get it out of your head! It’s nothing. You’re a witch and if anyone asks your blood is pure. You’re my daughter and that should be good enough.”

It’s the last they speak of it. It’s for her protection, after all. Before she thought this half-secret she’d lived all her life was for pride. At least part of it is. For Colette to not have to explain to her circle what she’d lacked. But truly he’d done it to protect her, hadn’t he? Stolen her away from the family her grandfather would loathe. He’dhidden her with a shiny pureblood status to stop those like her uncle from erasing her completely.

Eventually she finds a position she’s good at. Simple work, taking notes and fetching lunch and running errands for Judge Perryweather. A very important man, so she was told! A person who knows all the ins and outs at the ministry, and therefore Lydia has learnt quite a few things sitting at the desk in front of his office. A smile always on her face and a kind word to the right person, and they tended to tell her things she really wasn’t supposed to know. Who was having an affair, policies they were trying to push, charged witches and wizards they had on trial. From the delivery wix to the other judges, they all know her now and she knows them! And while she’s not exactly cunning, she isn’t as dim as everyone makes her out to be! She knows when to smile and charm, when to be quiet and listen, when to pretend to be invisible. It’s an interesting job, in an interesting place - and maybe if someone saw her potential she could be useful with everything that’s happening lately.

But then again, she’s not going to overstep if she’s unwanted in that area. It’s not as if someone would ask Lydia about anything. Why would they expect her to be an expert on Perryweather’s close friendship with Lucius Malfoy, or the fact that, despite him being a proud, public supporter of the Ministry of Magic, every 2 weeks an envelope filled with gallons and a list of Muggle Sympathizers names landed on her desk for her boss.

And if she offered the unwanted information, well who would take someone like her seriously?

FC CHOICES: Margot Robbie please! If she doesn’t work Blake Lively or Meghann Fahy

#homenumaccepted #harry potter roleplay #hp rp #harry potter rp #marauder rp

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feelingbluepolitics · 5 years

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(* Many thanks, always, to @catbirdseat4u )

This article is, in essence, a political biography of Elizabeth Warren. It gets a Highest recommendation, and it should be made clear that this recommendation carries no disclaimer. To the contrary, here's a proclamation in support of Warren Democrats.

"Ms. Warren’s political awakening didn’t simply happen all at once. Her road to Damascus was a long one. But over several decades, she transformed from a largely pro-business and politically disengaged academic — a sort of default Republican — to a fierce consumer advocate and bankruptcy expert whose advice was sought on Capitol Hill, and then, finally, to a Democratic force on the Hill herself.

..."The revelations from her bankruptcy research, by her account, became the seeds of her worldview, laid out in her campaign plans for everything from a new tax on the wealthiest Americans to a breakup of the big technology companies."

One discussion featured in this article is that, because Warren is a "fierce advocate," perhaps she will make people uncomfortable. Perhaps she will have trouble building a favorable Electoral College vote -- for, hopefully, one of the last times that will matter.

Not to dismiss those concerns, but to put them in a fundamental context: every presidential candidate, "fierce" or not, faces those same concerns.

The emphasis there is completely mistaken, in any event. The emphasis more properly belongs on advocate. Yet any politician is, by definition, an advocate, and so are, ideally, parents, teachers, coaches, certainly lawyers, as that's their job, and technically even bosses, who are supposed to bring out the best their people can offer and aim it toward a goal to be accomplished. We all know, one way or another, how iffy the realities of advocacy are.

What's really at issue, is that advocates need people to listen to their advocacy, so what we are talking about -- of course -- is actually leadership.

It's true that there are leaders who don't listen to anyone. Perhaps they think this shows strength, or decisiveness, but what it really shows is the weakness of their leadership, and also, usually, that they are assholes whom most people do not like.

Good leaders, strong leaders, bring people along with them, and the only way to do that is to listen, and listen wisely.

So here are some thoughts on leadership, listening, and listening wisely, and why these are pivotal, and how it has gone for the US and Americans to have too little of these features in our politics.

There's not a Republicon politician in the country who does not listen, with the closest possible attention, to their biggest money donors who can help them get re-elected, by funding the means to advertise to more people with more targeted frequency.

There's been too much of that on both sides. This is how corporate depravity -- with its interest in working for and listening only to extremely wealthy corporate shareholders -- has come to be in charge of running the country. It's in every branch of our government, even seeping into the judiciary to make justice, and even access to the civil courts, a perk, a game, a threat, a strategy, for the very rich.

The backlash to Americans not being listened to in our politics is what opened that inexpensive door for Russia to root around in our politics by way of social media. We were and are vulnerable to cyber-warfare through friendly sounding personal messaging, because we want to both hear and be heard. That's how on-line radicalization works too.

When we can't see the money or the bigger picture, the data-mined "personal" approach, valid or not, feels like authentic outreach. It's only going to become more confusing, in the absence of adequate social media safeguards, as we further adapt our actual political outreach to social media as well.

But the political problems related to listening have long been pervasive. Some think Dubya's looking better by comparison to trump, but the truth is that the Bush presidency was disastrous because when he listened, it was to the wrong people. Katrina and the Iraq war are deep and permanent disfigurations both on Dubya and the country. We keep saying we can do better. But then we don't.

Dubya's terrible failings actually ran in the family, in terms of talking to and listening to the wrong people.

https://static.theintercept.com/amp/the-ignored-legacy-of-george-h-w-bush-war-crimes-racism-and-obstruction-of-justice.html

Obama stands out as an American leader most of the world -- other than Putin and Republicons -- talked with and listened to willingly, bringing a sense of stability and progress to many.

He also was, as we knew all along and as we can see now, a messenger -- simply by way of being elected president -- who terrified those most deserving of being judged harshly. They couldn't and wouldn't, ever, listen to him or accept anything he said.

Aside from all that is happening in this country, trump is a complete disaster on the world stage. The one example to truly chalk up to trump's world "leadership" is the utter atrocity of Brazil's Bolsonaro, connected inseparably with the raging destruction of the Amazon rain forest.

trump is in the Oval Office as a consequence of failed listening, otherwise described as the pervasive political disconnect too many Americans feel. Nearly all of us want safety from gun violence, economic security, equal rights, reproductive choice, and access to health care that we can afford to use. And yet we are a country hugely polarized into political tribes, with most of us not participating at all.

Many people villified Hillary, because that's the kind of thing people often will listen to. Many people didn't pay attention to the fact that she was the first candidate, ever, to run on a family, women, and children political platform, or that she had spent her entire public service career, both politically and charitably, committed to that exact platform, while she could also bring intensively knowledgeable global leadership.

Many people didn't acknowledge that of Bernie's ideas which were more progressive and hugely popular, Hillary listened, and adopted.

But the biggest failure leading to trump is the many people who aren't listening politically at all anymore, and those who are too angry to listen and willing instead to destroy the system rather than try to fix it.

Listening must go both ways. That's why we need big changes, in order to get there. Warren came into politics as an advocate who had listened, as this article shows.

She is the candidate for people like this:

- "Sometimes I get really worried about the climate. We have to start doing something, but I don't know what I can do."

- "If I get hit with one more extra bill to pay, I don't know if we can make it. I don't know what might happen to us."

- "I worry that we aren't strong enough if one of us gets sick! The money, the time, our jobs! It will ruin us."

- "That job won't cover my rent."

- "My mom's not feeling well. What am I supposed to do with my kids while I'm at work?"

- "This stupid thing is trash, but they won't fix it! I don't have the money for another one!"

On the other hand, Elizabeth Warren won't be the choice for people who get mad about having to contribute their two cents...on every dollar over their first $50 million.

Try listening to Elizabeth Warren. See if she's been listening to people who sound like you.

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birdlord · 5 years

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Every Book I Read in 2018

Again, better late than never??

01 On the Town; Marshall Berman - A freewheeling personal and general history of Times Square, which had some great historical tidbits I’d never read before. I think I would have got more out of it if I were interested in Broadway musicals...

02 Stephen Florida; Gabe Habash - A slim little book that follows a college wrestler. One of those books that is described as muscular, when what they mean is brutal.

03 Green Grass, Running Water; Thomas King - Four plot lines intertwine in a story blending mythology, creation, and modern First Nations people dealing with massive transformational change to their lands. I did sometimes feel like I would have enjoyed it more as an audio storytelling experience.

04 People who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman; Richard Lloyd Parry - I don’t often read books like this, but this is essentially a true-crime sort of story, about the murder of a British woman who works as a bar hostess in Japan. Parry covers not just her story, but the whole aftermath, which even pulls in Tony Blair, eventually.

05 My Brother’s Husband; Gengoroh Tagame - Weirdly, two Japan-related books in a row! Another culture-clash tale, when the Canadian husband visits his deceased husband Ryoji’s single-parent brother. The couple had never been to Japan while Ryoji was alive, and so the story of slow acceptance (helped along by little Kana’s openhearted curiosity) is suffused with sadness.

06 Ghosts of the Tsunami: Life & Death in Japan’s Disaster Zone; Richard Lloyd Parry - And, let’s make it three! When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, I remember thinking that the reaction seemed so orderly, so...Japanese. But this examination puts you right in the various affected communities, following different people, including schoolchildren from Okawa primary. Like with the other Parry book above, we hear about all of the grief, ghosts and lawsuits that follow the disaster.

07 Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History; Rhonda K. Garelick - Once she became famous, Coco Chanel built a scaffolding of lies about her past, and the purpose of this biography is to attempt to see the truth behind them. Garelick concentrates heavily on Chanel’s collaboration with the Nazis, which must have been a challenge given that her company still exists, under her name.

08 Kubrick; Michael Herr - “They speak about the dumbing of America as a foregone thing, already completed, but, duh, it’s a process, and we haven’t seen anything yet. The contemplation of this culture isn’t for sissies, and speaking about it without becoming shrill is increasingly difficult, maybe impossible.” Whoa!

09 Call Me by Your Name; Andre Aciman - I did read this after seeing the film, so as usual it was hard to divorce it from the movie experience.

10 The Left Hand of Darkness; Ursula K LeGuin - A thought experiment about a genderless world, seen from the perspective of an off-planet envoy, who has a range of reactions to the world’s inhabitants. The most enduring section of the book involves a brutal 3-month expedition undertaken by the exiled envoy and a local, a trial by ice, wind and snow. A winter read.

11 Stamped from the Beginning; Ibram X. Kendi - I don’t think I’d really fully grokked the idea that southern white supremacy built itself in order to prevent an uprising of the black and white underclasses, together. The basic rubric of this book is separating American movements, parties and individuals’ thinking into one of three categories: assimilationist, segregationist or genuinely antiracist. Supporting results like abolitionism does NOT make one antiracist, since support could come those with less pure motivations. I highly recommend this one, though it was copy-edited in a pretty haphazard manner!

12 Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers; Barbara Ehrenreich & Dierdre English - A short book charting a couple of parallel stories, of women healers in Europe being dismissed as witches, and the masculinization of medicine (particularly midwifery and the medicine of birth) in the USA.

13 Her Body and Other Parties; Carmen Maria Machado - Short stories skirting the edge of a lot of genres; horror, science fiction, dark comedy. These are women’s stories, that refuse to be dismissed as chick lit. It didn’t connect with me as deeply as it has for some, but I see the appeal.

14 Look Alive Out There; Sloane Crosley - Largely comedic set of essays by a writer whose earlier work I read, about a decade back. It’s a strange experience, to return to someone who has written memoir that seemed to exemplify that late-2000s era and discover that she - and you - have grown.

15 Homesick for Another World; Otessa Moshfegh - Moshfegh’s choice of words (not to mention her characters themselves) remain utterly revolting. I often found myself looking up, shaking my head as if to say THIS BOOK. Considerably funnier than Eileen, which was the first of hers that I read.

16 My Year of Rest & Relaxation; Otessa Moshfegh - After reading this, I found out that Moshfegh basically set out to get her work noticed by populating it with these vile young women. Well, it worked! Your tolerance for unlikeable main characters will be tested by this rich Columbia grad who decides to prescribe herself into a virtual coma within her NY apartment, at the turn of the millennium. And yes, it ends where you think it does.

17 They Can’t Kill us Until They Kill Us; Hanif Abdurraquabi - This collection of music-related writing is wildly far-ranging, poetic and emotional. For myself, I did find I was more interested in those that were related to bands or musicians I had some experience with myself , which was not always the case.

18 The Bad Food Bible: How and Why to Eat Sinfully; Aaron Carroll and Nina Teicholtz - If you’re a reader of the food media, most of what’s in here will be familiar to you, debunking fears of meat, GMOs, gluten, MSG. The authors keep their own experience, taste and interests very much in the forefront, which ends up feeling smug and irritating.

19 The Mere Wife: A Novel; Maria Dahvana Headley - My knowledge of Beowulf is scant at best, but this retelling stood very much on its own two feet, set in a tony suburb and comparing the experience of two very different mothers of two very different sons.

20 How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays; Alexander Chee - I’m very much On The Record as being against writers writing about writing, but this might just be an exception.

21 Vancouver Special; Charles Demers - A sort of update on Douglas Coupland’s City of Glass, a book I loved and reread many times. This one has both a more historical bent, and an actual political viewpoint, contrasting with Coupland’s Gen X remoteness.

22 Crudo; Olivia Laing - A rushing frantic little novel, incorporating Trump tweets and Kathy Acker quotes throughout. A difficult read so close to the events described, but I can see this being an amazing window into this weird time, once a few years have passed.

23 Hits & Misses; Simon Rich - This might also be on the line of “writers writing about writing” but Rich manages to do so in a charmingly self-deprecating way.

24 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the US; Jeffrey Lewis - Speculative fiction written as a government report, responding, as we all have been doing, to the endlessly unprecedented Trump presidency. It all started with a tweet, of course...

25 A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; Rebecca Solnit - This book is intended to counter the idea that disasters (“natural” and otherwise) lead people to indulge their worst sides. Solnit looks at the aftermath of some 20th C disasters like the Halifax Explosion, 9/11 and various earthquakes to find examples of people banding together to help the wounded and homeless, even taking the opportunity to create new institutions when authorities fail to do so. A tonic for a world in which disasters are likely to become increasingly common.

26 How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them; Jason Stanley - When I lived in Scotland in 2010, I went to an anti-fascist rally in Edinburgh, and I remember feeling like those attitudes were closer to the surface over there, where at home in Canada they felt abstract. This book traces how fascist policies lurk within democratic frameworks, and can sometimes metastasize to take over the host. Suffice it to say I was probably wrong then, and I’m definitely wrong now.

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pubtheatres1 · 5 years

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ONE GIANT LEAP Brockley Jack Theatre 2 – 27 July 2019 “That’s one small step for man…” Neil Armstrong INTERVIEW WITH WRITER & DIRECTOR OF ARROWS AND TRAPS THEATRE, ROSS MCGREGOR LPT: Hello Ross, We’re rather pleased to have another chat with you about your company, the award nominated Arrows & Traps but also wanted to grill you a little bit on your new writing, ONE GIANT LEAP. How long did it take you to write it? Hi there, how lovely to be asked. I have a somewhat unusual process in that I pitch the idea to the Jack, book the slot, design the artwork / poster, get the show on sale, start selling tickets and only then start writing the script. This is partly due to the quick turnaround of shows and my lack of time between, and also that we have to book these things quite far in advance as the Jack is a popular and sought-after space, but also because I have an issue with self-discipline, and so if I didn’t have a concrete deadline, I think I’d still be tinkering with Frankenstein, a show I wrote and produced in 2017. One Giant Leap is the first completely original piece that I’ve written without a source material, and it took me about two weeks to get onto paper. ONE GIANT LEAP is celebrating the fiftieth Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing but it seems you have got your own spin on it. Could you tell us the story in nutshell? Yes absolutely. It’s a comic take on the greatest conspiracy in history. It centres on Edward Price, a producer of a failing 60’s sci-fi show called Moonsaber – which is basically a poor man’s Star Trek. Edward’s life has fallen into a rut, his wife has left him, he’s lost his house to the IRS, and Moonsaber has just been cancelled in its first season. All looks grim, until a representative to President Nixon comes to his door with a suitcase of money and a proposition. The Apollo 11 Moon Landing is four days away, but due to the moon being about a hundred degrees too hot for photographic film; they can get there, they just can’t film it. And what is a massive propaganda exercise without proof that you actually did it? So they ask Edward to fake the footage by any means possible, if he can do it, he can bring Moonsaber back to life for another season, if he fails – he loses everything. Where does the comedy come from? Mainly from the people that Edward employs in Moonsaber. They’re a ragtag bunch of actors, stage managers and technicians, and due to the show being cancelled – they’re falling apart at the seams – it’s down to Edward to keep it all together, to pull off the greatest lie in history, whilst trying to save his marriage, salvage his career, and keep the lies he’s telling intact. It’s a study of the creative industry, a satirical and loving homage to theatre. We’re not trying to say anything serious about whether the moon landing was or wasn’t real, but more provide a raucous night out at the theatre, and keep you laughing about it on the Overground home. Why is it important to offer a lighter comedy in theatre right now? I think, at times, theatre can take itself too seriously, and become too myopic about tackling the dark and dreadful issues that are affecting society – I’ve lost count of how many shows there are about Brexit playing right now – and whilst that’s great, and admirable - speaking for myself, after the last year I’m sick of the darkness, I’m bored by the constant stream of depressive updates about the rise of the Right, I can’t engage with it, the European elections gave a victory to nationalists, we gave a state visit to a racist, homelessness is at an all-time high, and we’re literally cooking the planet to death. There are sometimes when I just want a great night out and forget how scary the world seems right now – laughter is the best medicine – not as a retreat, but a reminder of the good in us, of the joy, of the light. As the company is repertory, you’ll be working with some actors you know very well. Did you have any of them in mind when you were writing the script? I certainly wrote two of the eight roles with long time company members Will Pinchin and Lucy Loannou in mind. And whilst yes, the roles are tailored to suit both of them - I did write the roles of Howard and Alchamy to stretch and challenge Will and Lucy, because I’d never seen them play characters like that. Will is nothing like Howard, and Lucy isn’t at all like Alchamy, but in way, they’re made for those roles, and for me, they’re perfect choices. I do like working with the same actors repeatedly, it is true, because you build up a short hand of technique and approach, but also you build up a trust. The actors in the company come in on day one, sort of knowing what to bring me, and what kind of vision I’ll probably have, since my style is something of a constant, but also I’m able to, as their director, cast them in roles that perhaps play against type, or test their flexibility and skillsets. I’m not an actor, but if I were, I’d hate to play the same roles every time, to only get the “intense one” or the “dopey one” or the “awkward one” – I’d want to think I could play anything that was thrown at me, and I think our rep system allows for experimentation and exploration. What has been the hardest part of the whole process to date? We’re only in the first week of rehearsal, so nothing too taxing thus far. Hands down, the hardest part of a comedy is when you’ve rehearsed it so much you no longer find it funny, at which point we need an audience. One Giant Leap hasn’t hit that point yet, obviously, but I think most comic work benefits from the response and energy an audience gives. Theatre can be electric when you have that to play off, but in terms of where we are – One Giant Leap’s greatest challenge is the analysing of why something is funny, and making sure it’s that way every time. It’s all about timing. For many years I laboured under the misapprehension that stand up comedy was just a funny person being funny with a microphone, that was until I saw Dylan Moran do the same set twice in the space of three weeks. He has a very casual, off the cuff, almost improvised way of performing, and I assumed that it was just his natural charisma and quick wit, until I saw the set the second time, only to find it was identical to the first. All the pauses, the stresses, the tangents, the quips, all of which was honed, polished and a work of precision. It was funny because he’d worked out the best way to get the laugh, every time, and that’s beyond art, it’s science, it’s music. Traditionally Arrows and Traps have produced a selection of brilliantly adapted classics, including Dracula, Frankenstein, Crime & Punishment and Anna Karenina. Have you got a soft spot for one of them? I loved the breathlessness and breadth of Anna Karenina, the precision and murk of Crime & Punishment, the thrill and gothicism of Dracula, and the humanity and pang of loss in Frankenstein. I think my favourite adaptation, if I had to pick one, is probably Frankenstein – but that’s purely subjective, and there was something about the biography of Mary Shelley, which we incorporated into the show, that really spoke to me – in the sense of a creator and a creation, a parent and child, a sinner and the terrible revenge. You’ve also got THE STRANGE CASE OF JEKYLL & HYDE coming up at Jack Studio in September. Your adaptations of the classics have been Arrows and Traps main focus, so does ONE GIANT LEAP herald a shift away from this? No, in fact because I know the next season of shows, One Giant Leap is perhaps the anomaly. Our work normally has a dark bent, we favour drama with funny lines as opposed to an out-and-out comedy. We’ve only ever done one full comedy before, The Gospel According To Philip back in 2016, so this is something of a return to that. I knew that the company was changing, and wanted to make a swansong to the current phase of work, I had originally planned for it to be TARO but that story ended so sadly, I wanted the last one to be lighter, more celebratory – there’s something inherently amusing about the various tropes you usually get in the theatre world, and so I thought a comedy would be a fitting homage to where we’ve come from, and a clean break to where we want to go next. The company has been going from strength to strength, what are the things of which you are most proud? Mainly, that we’re still going. Most theatre companies on the fringe don’t make it to their third show, we’re on our seventeenth. Part of that is sheer stubbornness, there have been points where any rational person would have thrown in the towel, but there was always something in me that would never bend, never break, never give up. It’s part ambition, part not wanting to fail, part wanting to make my father proud of me, part bloody-mindedness, part theatre-addiction. I think production-wise I’m most proud of The White Rose, to what that achieved, all the five star reviews and the Best Production Offie-nom, but of course I’m also very proud of the other twelve times we’ve been nominated for Off West End Awards, the relationship we’ve built with the Jack, the bond I have with my creative team and my casts, and just the fact that people seem to like the work. It’s still always funny to me when a reviewer calls us “critically-acclaimed” or “renowned rep company” – to me it’s just me, telling the stories I want to tell, with people I want to work with, you don’t always think about how it looks from the outside. I’m just producing the theatre I’d like to go and see. It was rumoured that you would be leaving fringe theatre for other careers, partly because of problems with funding. Was there are truth in that? Absolutely! And in a sense, this is still completely true. I am indeed done with fringe. I think I got to The White Rose in 2018 – where we got the Offie-Nom for Production, we had eight 5-star reviews, four 4 star reviews, we’d completely sold out, and done it the cheapest way possible, and we still didn’t break even. Which was very hard to take, and forced me to face the truth – you cannot hope to attain best practice ITC rates for your casts / creatives / yourself if you only do 15 shows in a 50 seater and you don’t have subsidising support from an arts grant scheme. It just isn’t possible. So I made the decision to stop producing work. Now obviously, with the shows being booked so far in advance, there were still three productions upcoming in the diary that I had to honour. But knowing I was quitting, and that this was the end for me, was too hard to bear - ultimately I had to face the fact that theatre is my life, and I could never leave it – so I had to find a way to make it work financially, not just for myself but for everyone else in the company, particularly the actors who are so often completely screwed over in fringe, and often end up working for nothing. Which is where the idea to change the model came from. Shrink the casts and sets to a more tourable model – 14 people down to 4 – and engage a tour booker to take the productions out of London to larger spaces that could widen the potential revenue. The Jack is our home, and we will always premiere all our shows there, but then we will take them into the provinces. The vision is still the same, adaptations of literary work, and biopics of iconic figures of history, but the remit and scale of the endeavour has changed. I don’t see it as an ending, just a moving from one phase into another. But yes, absolutely, the 8-10 handers, movement-heavy, ensemble, big music, huge shows – this stage in our trajectory is ending with One Giant Leap, and whilst I see why it has to end, a part of me is sad to see it go, because there was something so wonderful about doing a massive 15-hander like Three Sisters. Are you one of those people who is meticulously planning the future? Yes indeed, because really we have to plan ahead in order to book the shows with the venues. We’re doing One Giant Leap next month, and then move to Jeykll & Hyde in September, both at the Jack – and then Hyde goes on tour for about six months, with an opening of our next biopic Chaplin coming about halfway through the run in February. Because I’m overseeing contracts, and touring plans, and writing the scripts as well as casting each show and most likely directing each one, I need to know where we’ll be and when we’re doing it – I’m trying to build a book of shows, a repertoire that is constantly touring, moving forward, and ever-evolving – reaching more audiences, and engaging with new communities. In the meantime, we can’t wait to see ONE GIANT LEAP. Could you give us a little flavour of what’s to come? In terms of shows after One Giant Leap, we have Jekyll & Hyde - a dark, political thriller set in a post-Trump America – a gritty examination of the corruption of power, then Chaplin – which tells the story of the 20th Century’s most famous clown, documenting his path to becoming the iconic Little Tramp – and his meteoric rise from Victorian poverty to Hollywood fame. After that, we’re bringing back one of our most successful productions of 2017, Frankenstein, revisited and rewritten for a more tourable model, and then a biopic of Marilyn Monroe, called Making Marilyn, which covers the Norma Jean origin portion of the star’s life. After that – who knows? I’ve always wanted to tackle Madame Bovary – and I’d like to bring back TARO as it was one that I was particularly proud of in terms of its style and poetry. Finally, your shows at Brockley Jack are becoming legendary, it’s a great partnership. What are the things you’ve learnt about theatre whilst working at Brockley Jack? So much. The Jack has been a great place to develop my approach to stagecraft, and how to tell stories as clearly and engagingly as possible. Since we joined the Jack, we’ve built a vision of the style we want to have, and how we approach each difficulty, or tricky moment to stage, how our work with movement and text interconnect, and what we look for in our ensemble for each show. And, I guess, ultimately, I’ve being able to return to my training as a writer, and I’ve been so lucky to have so many opportunities to experiment with my writing, and get to think about how to tell a story and how to build each character. Playwriting is not something I’ve tried before, and I’ve loved delving into each of the worlds that the Jack has opened the door to. But I think most of all, I’ve been honoured by the patronage and support of Kate and Karl – and they’ve shown me the power of hard work, diligence, and care – if I ended up with anything like the talent and acumen they have, I’d be very happy. @June 2019 London Pub Theatres Magazine Ltd All Rights Reserved THIS SHOW HAS ENDED ONE GIANT LEAP Brockley Jack Theatre 2 – 27 July 2019 directed by Ross McGregor produced by Arrows & Traps Theatre Productions Box Office > Below: Rehearsals at Brockley Jack Studio "We’re not trying to say anything serious about whether the moon landing was or wasn’t real, but more provide a raucous night out at the theatre, and keep you laughing about it on the Overground home." "... speaking for myself, after the last year I’m sick of the darkness, I’m bored by the constant stream of depressive updates about the rise of the Right, I can’t engage with it, the European elections gave a victory to nationalists, we gave a state visit to a racist, homelessness is at an all-time high, and we’re literally cooking the planet to death." "Most theatre companies on the fringe don’t make it to their third show, we’re on our seventeenth. Part of that is sheer stubbornness, there have been points where any rational person would have thrown in the towel, but there was always something in me that would never bend, never break, never give up. It’s part ambition, part not wanting to fail, part wanting to make my father proud of me, part bloody-mindedness, part theatre-addiction." "... knowing I was quitting, and that this was the end for me, was too hard to bear - ultimately I had to face the fact that theatre is my life, and I could never leave it – so I had to find a way to make it work financially, not just for myself but for everyone else in the company, particularly the actors who are so often completely screwed over in fringe, and often end up working for nothing. Which is where the idea to change the model came from." " ... most of all, I’ve been honoured by the patronage and support of Kate and Karl (Jack Studio Theatre) – and they’ve shown me the power of hard work, diligence, and care – if I ended up with anything like the talent and acumen they have, I’d be very happy." In celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, Arrows & Traps Theatre bring their critically-acclaimed approach to a brand-new comedy set in the back streets of a Hollywood lot. One Giant Leap is about the power of having an impossible dream, realising it’s impossible, and then trying your hardest to fake it and hope no one notices.

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svbcritic · 5 years

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ok wow don’t mind this being late of an intro bc i was out w my friend and have poor time management skills jdfks . i’m stuck at work rn so hopefully this intro has smth of substance in it for my boy hobgoblin boy charlie .. but yes !! hello all i’m cherrie and under the read more will be some info on my boy so sorry in advance if there’s any ramblings .. i just have a tendency to never shut up dsjfnk . but feel free 2 tap the lil heart if u wanna plot and i’ll pop over into ur im’s !!

brindle bay welcomes charles “charlie” kim the twenty-one year old podcaster. i kind of think he looks a lot like wong yukhei. they have been living in east bay suburbs for 5 years and i heard they are known to be amiable but also impetuous. when i think of them i think of unapologetic laughter, headphones hung around the neck, and a collection of pastel denim jackets.

STATS

full chinese name: jin ximen / americanized name: charles kim / nicknames: charlie / ethnicity: chinese & thai / sexuality: bisexual / occupation: true crime podcaster / spoken languages: mandarin, thai, english, korean & spanish / hogwarts house: slytherin

BIOGRAPHY

okie dokie so charlie ( born ximen ) is the youngest of the four kids between his parents born and riased in shanghai and their wedding was some big event bc both families were heavily affluent and prominent in their home countries

charlie’s dad hailed from shanghai, china where his family had a long lineage of old money and a 5 star international hotel chain that’s comparable to the four seasons .. meanwhile charlie’s mom is from thailand where her family has ties to the oil industry which is how they built their wealth .. their marriage was more political than anything and wanting to combine their wealth in industries the other was lacking in

as the youngest kid and the only boy with three older sisters, charlie never lacked a caregiver bc he was an adorable little boy who charmed whoever he met and though he was a little shit, his sisters loved him and helped raise him alongside a clan of nannies that his parents hired when they were busy off on different continents running their respective businesses

charlie definitely was more of a mommy’s boy in the sense that his mom made more of an effort to spend time with him bc as her only son, she held him on a pedestal and since she was a well known fashion designer, she often brought charlie to her studio and let him run wild in some of the garments and clothing that was in storage and whatnot

from this charlie had a lil mini modeling career ( lmao not really ) where he would do mock photoshoots with some of the models in his mom’s bridal collections and eventually bc he was adorable and everyone loved him, they dressed him in some mini tuxes and he appeared in some campaigns for his mom’s bridal collection

generally though charlie was an exuberant kid who often had more energy than he knew what to do with and that often had him getting in trouble at the expensive prep school his parents had him enrolled in . which he frequently was scolded by his dad for his hellion behavior jdsklafjd

so it was a constant push and pull between charlie and his dad in trying to calm down his son .. which wyd he;s just a happy go lucky boy hsalkjf but anyway charlie was eventually enrolled in a soccer club so he could wear himself out by running all the time and tbh it kinda worked .. but also charlie actually enjoyed soccer so it worked out

his dad really thought he did something by keeping his teenage son out of trouble and letting him build teamwork skills ig ... mainly bc he wanted his only son to take over the jin empire of their hotel chain even though charlie was like :/ .. and his mom was a bit :/ bc she knew charlie wasn’t the type who would want the weight of this empire on his shoulders even though his oldest sister was more experienced

but fun times for dad bc lit it’s w his soccer friends that charlie realizes that whatever heterosexuality is .. that ain’t him sdjldkjs but yeah he finds out that he’s into guys just as much as he’s into girls and he has a crush on one of his best friends on the soccer team w him

charlie was able to disguise his crush as a solid bro friendship around his dad meanwhile him and his friend were leaning on the scale of more than friends and 10/10 were making out whenever they were alone so yeah ... things were swaggy for the first three months until charlie’s dad came home early from his trip from new york and walked into charlie’s room to see him fooling around with his friend

so yeah ... things didn’t go great after that and the jin household was so painfully tense where his dad refused to go on any international trips and kept a strong grip on charlie and pulled him out of his school’s soccer team .. it was a tough time and definitely miserable for charlie despite his mom’s best efforts to help soothe him

nearly a month following The Incident ( as he dad refers to it as ) he announced that 16 year old charlie was going to live with his aunt over in america and it was an absolute shit show at the house when his dad broke the news but the next day charlie found himself on a direct flight from shanghai to brindle bay where his aunt lives with her american husband and son

the move was a big adjustment for charlie and it was here that he started going by charlie bc the kids at his new school couldn’t pronounce ximen . originally he was a bit standoffish and reclusive bc his english was still shaky and he had an accent so this combination of things made him a target of some shitty xenophobic bullies and it put him down for a bit

it was a dark period that charlie doesn’t like to think back on and relied on the friendship he established with his cousin and it was through him that charlie began to blossom in brindle bay and make his own connections and realized that his dad is a dumbass bc he essentially sent him away for being into men but lmao !! sike dad !! bc now he gets to kiss boys if he wants without the rope around his neck from his dad

it’s been five years since charlie has been shipped to brindle bay and he keeps in contact with his sisters and mother and has visited shanghai a few times for some holidays and lets his dad think him being in america has helped him become more sensible and learn responsibility

when he graduated high school his mom offered to have him come home but charlie decided he wanted to stay more away from his dad for the time beginning and enrolled in college and got his degree in communication studies

it’s when he’s in school that he starts up his own podcast where he just discusses true crime and paranormal stories and such just bc it’s always been an interest of his .. he started it with his close friend that was his first Official friend in brindle bay and they’re two years into and it’s growing a strong listening base on spotify and apple music .. for comparison sake it’s a mix of buzzfeed unsolved and my favorite murder

but yeah overall charlie is an easy going guy who is usually seen with a smile on his face and just v fun loving , charismatic and loves talking to ppl ?? comes off v flirty but that’s just who he is bc he has that kinda vibe .. sometimes he doesn’t even realize he’s flirting bc it comes like breathing . he means well and is a soft boy who misses his family but is scared to go back home to china officially

WANTED CONNECTIONS

someone who helped show charlie around when he first came to brindle bay and maybe they built a friendship from it

someone who maybe helped him improve on his english when he first came to town and charlie is forever grateful to them and feels indebted to them for being there for him when he was self conscious and needed help

his first relationship .. p self explanatory but charlie and your muse dated for a bit and it was nice and sweet but things ended amicably between the two and they still remain friends

maybe one or two fwb’s that charlie respects their friendship and somehow their arrangement happened and things are going good and having someone on call when he’s feeling needy is a+ .. whether or not smth angsty can stem from this can be debated

his first friend that he made when coming to town and charlie’s podcast buddy !!

maybe someone who has a crush on charlie but he’s stupid and oblivious and his flirting that comes as easy as breathing doesn’t help the situation

a good influence

a bad influence who is helping charlie embrace more of his hellion ways hfskd

or even someone who knows of his family’s wealth back in china and is trying to finagle their way into charlie’s good graces and hopefully try to get a cut of it

#bb;intro #this is just me rambling off so uHH sorry for that #if u read all this i luv u

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fineillsignup · 6 years

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Ling Tong and emotions

a meta trade for @purple-fury

“You’ve always been skilled at hiding your emotions.” - Lu Xun to Ling Tong, Dynasty Warriors 6

The teenager ran as fast as he could, but the boats were too far from shore by the time he got there. Tears were blurring his vision as he watched his father’s murderer sail away. The bastard wasn’t even looking back at him. It didn’t matter. Ling Tong was memorizing every detail. Tattoos and bells… he would find out who he was, and nothing would stop him from killing him. - from ch. 4 of my fanfic “Covering Your Ears to Steal a Bell”

[When his father died in battle] Ling Tong was 14 years old [by modern reckoning, 15 by traditional East Asian reckoning], and was widely praised and talked about. Sun Quan... gave him his father’s troops. [In his first assignment] Ling Tong drank wine with the Commander Chen Qin... Ling Tong despised the Commander’s entitled and bullying behaviour, and confronted him but it was no use. Chen Qin was furious, and insulted not only Ling Tong but his father Ling Cao. Ling Tong cried but did not talk back... On the road Chen Qin continued to hurl abuse at Ling Tong, until Ling Tong could not bear it. He drew his blade and attacked Chen Qin, who died several days later. Then it was time for the attack, and Ling Tong said: “Only by dying can I apologize for my crime.” - from the biography of Ling Tong in Record of the Three Kingdoms 三國志, ~280AD, my translation

Gan Ning, the guy who killed my father, has joined Wu as well. I hope they don’t expect me to get along with this guy! No one cares how I feel and now we’re getting ready for the next battle. ˆ— Ling Tong’s Musou Mode intro to the Battle of Chibi, Dynasty Warriors 5

“You sure talk a big game.” - Ling Tong, to Gan Ning, Dynasty Warriors 7

Ling Tong looked back at his lord, and tears were streaming from his face as well. “I’m the only one. I lost them all… I couldn’t save even one of them… They trusted me and now…”

Lord Sun Quan cradled Ling Tong as his officer sobbed. Their lord closed his eyes. “I know… I know exactly…” - from ch. 5 of “Covering Your Ears to Steal a Bell”

[In response to the news that Cao Cao was coming with 400,000 troops] Sun Quan said to those in the tent, "Cao Cao is coming from far away. Who dares to be the first to destroy the enemy?" Ling Tong said respectfully, "I would like to." Sun Quan said, "With how many troops?" Ling Tong said, "Three thousand should be ample." Gan Ning said, "A hundred cavalry would be enough to destroy the enemy. Who needs three thousand?" Ling Tong was very angry. The two of them began to fight right there in front of Sun Quan... [When Ling Tong was duelling Yue Jin on horseback] Cao Xiu ducked out from behind Zhang Liao's back and let fly an arrow, that hit Ling Tong's horse dead centre. The horse reared up and threw Ling Tong to the ground. Yue Jin came with a death-grip upon his spear to kill him. When the spear's blow had not yet landed, there came the snap of a bowstring. An arrow hit Yue Jin in the face. He recoiled and fell from his horse. The two armies came out to save their generals and take them back to camp, sounding the gong to end the battle. Back in camp, Ling Tong went to pay respects and apologize to Sun Quan. Sun Quan said, "The one who shot the arrow that saved you, was Gan Ning." Ling Tong therefore kowtowed to Gan Ning, saying, "Sir, I did not think I could receive such grace." After that he became life-and-death friends with Gan Ning, and never again hated him. - from ch. 68 of Romance of the Three Kingdoms 三國演義, ~1350AD, my translation

“It’s not…” Xiahou Ba ran his hand through his messy hair. “Things in Wei have been pretty bad lately, I’m not going to lie. But how can I work with the people who killed my father?”

Ling Tong laughed quietly, and when Xiahou Ba looked up with anger, he raised his hands. “Sorry, it’s just… I may understand where you’re coming from. Can I tell you about it?” - from ch. 30 of my alternative universe fanfic, Clouds and Rain

“I suppose I’d better give it my all.” - Ling Tong, when he enters rage mode, Dynasty Warriors 8

As a Naruto fan and writer of Naruto meta, I’m well familiar with skepticism at the idea that even young teenagers on the battlefield could ever be a thing, but Ling Tong was the real deal. Imagine that you’re a soldier, your commander dies, the king says “Here’s your new boss,” and in walks a high school freshman. Then imagine that the high school freshman is actually good at his job. That’s Ling Tong.

Given that Ling Tong spends most of his page time in both Record of the Three Kingdoms and Romance of the Three Kingdoms either angry as fuck, crying, or both, it may seem like a puzzling choice of dialogue for Koei to have Lu Xun tell him he’s good at hiding his emotions.

I am very fond of how Koei chose to characterize him and I don’t think it contradicts the very, very limited historical and legendary information that we have. For one thing, historical records of this kind by their very nature limit themselves to exceptional incidents.

The best early record of the era that has survived, the Record of the Three Kingdoms (SGZ), is still at least fifty years past Ling Tong’s death, and it is a history that had multiple agendas and moralizing points to make. It also makes a puzzling error about how old Ling Tong was when he died, an age that could not possibly be true.

Later, the novel Romance of the Three Kingdom further expanded Ling Tong’s story. It’s unclear to what extent the ROTK is the work of a single person, and even less clear how much he was relying on (lost) written source, oral traditions, etc. People get bizarrely huffy and act like if it’s in the ROTK but not the SGZ it’s not merely not proven, but proven false. I think they miss the point about what the stories were trying to do, which is take the historical and legendary basics and tell a story chiefly for the entertainment of their own contemporary era about them, making contemporary moral points. I feel more than free, justified, doing the same thing in my contemporary era.

So how does giving Ling Tong the mask of a carefree, withdrawn, cool, unmotivated, apathetic person work for a contemporary version of the story? Well, when you have a clash between characters, and one side (Gan Ning) is characterized with “hot” tropes, it is a long storytelling tradition to balance that with “cold” tropes. What’s more, acting cool, superior, and unaffected is culturally encouraged in the modern era as a response to negative emotions and trauma, especially among young men. To pretend not to care about something is a defence against failure and guilt. But it is definitely just pretending. “I don’t care,” I say, caringly, as I care deeply could be tattooed across Koei Ling Tong’s back.

In the Japanese dialogue, while Ling Tong uses the “ore” pronoun for I associated with young men, he unusually pairs this with “anta” as his choice for “you”, even when he’s arguing with Gan Ning, who is using “ore” and “omee”. While any form of the you pronoun is not exactly polite in Japanese, “anta” comes across as more petulant, when compared to the roughness of “omae” or even more so “omee”. When speaking to superiors, Ling Tong isn’t rude at all in his speech.

Ling Tong is attempting to control himself, in other words. And he’s ordered to do so. In an era where one’s father is practically one’s god—literally so, once he dies—and where blood vengeance is not only permitted but idolized, he is not only ordered not to kill his father’s killer, but to work with him as a comrade. He is no more than eighteen at this point and has already killed a grown man, his own superior officer, just for insulting his father. (Although it’s worth noting that he did not immediately attack the man, but only did so after a continual period where the older man would not stop.)

Yet Ling Tong, in every version of his story, never makes a serious attempt on Gan Ning, even with provocation. Cutting remarks and even fisticuffs are mild restraint by this standard. To a certain extent, even, Ling Tong’s every day kind of insults of “idiot” and “you sure talk a big game” to Gan Ning can be seen as hiding of just how deeply and profoundly Ling Tong loathes him.

Because the Dynasty Warriors have such huge casts, they usually only focus on one aspect or relationship of the more minor characters, and for Ling Tong, that usually means his role in the game revolves entirely around his relationship with Gan Ning. That’s unfortunate, because his historical rescue of Sun Quan is an amazing story, fully worthy of being told in itself without diluting it by sharing the achievement with other officers. (Gan Ning suffers from this as well, having to share the glory of his 100-man raid on Ruxukou with Lü Meng and Ling Tong.)

Ling Tong took 300 men to perform more or less a suicide mission to break open an escape route for Sun Quan, and indeed, all 300 men died, with Ling Tong alone surviving only barely, having to swim or wade through the water to reach Sun Quan’s boat, which was already leaving without him. Rather than relief at having escaped such incredible odds, he was overcome with grief and guilt at those who had died. Sun Quan tenderly comforted him, and even cared for his wounds personally.

I see this as a huge missed opportunity for Ling Tong and Sun Quan’s relationship to be explored in Koei’s canon. It’s a missed opportunity for Sun Quan too, because as his story already makes clear, he’s also struggling with his sense of unworthiness for those who died.

Again, I don’t see this as contradicting Koei Ling Tong’s conceited relaxation. The impact of seeing him actually crying, when he’s been trying to act so cool, is all the bigger for that.

Speaking of conceited, Ling Tong’s clan pride, his coming from a distinguished family, is also perhaps underrated. A lot of what enables Ling Tong to come across as so cool is that he does have confidence, in both his own competence and his belonging wherever he is. He is firmly in the “former rich kid” camp of the Wu army officer corps’ “former rich kid or former pirate?” divide.

Because of this, he also had the benefit of being educated right from the beginning. Well, it’s obvious that it had to have been so, or he would never have made it at all as an officer in his early teens, much less have had major successes. So he’s got military and also the general classical training of men of his era. But he is still so young and he feels all the more intensely for that.

He’s younger than Gan Ning—actually quite significantly younger, historically; their age gap is narrowed in the Koei games. Basically in every category—age, background, education, personality, etc—they naturally clash, and then they have this dire trauma between them.

Do they make it up or don’t they? Should they? SGZ actually doesn’t say either way but implies not, and in any case, in the moral atmosphere of that era, I would say they would actually find it immoral for Ling Tong to even think of forgiving his father’s killer. The ROTK novel has advanced quite some way (imho) and clearly intends for Ling Tong and Gan Ning’s friendship to be inspiring. I’m with ROTK on this one. I live for reconciliation, even when it’s hard and serious, especially when it’s hard and serious.

I’m running out of time for this topic, but I hope you’ve enjoyed reading some of my thoughts on the complicated matter of Ling Tong’s emotions and how he is portrayed expressing and acting on them. Please enjoy this gif of him wiggling his butt.

#ling tong #character analysis #dynasty warriors #three kingdoms #romance of the three kingdoms #my translation #long post #wait a minute this isn't naruto #chinese history #clouds and rain #my fanfic

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fletchermarple · 6 years

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Quick Review of the True Crime Books I Read in 2018 (Part 2)

Review of Books in 2018 Part 1

Review of books in 2017 Part 1 and Part 2

Review of books in 2016 Part 1 and Part 2

Review of books in 2015

In the Name of The Children by Jeffrey L. Rinek: This book was written by a retired FBI agent who worked a lot of cases involving child abuse and murder, so be aware that its contents are very disturbing. Much like John Douglas in Mindhunter, Rinek mixes his personal history with some of the cases he worked in when he was in the bureau, although his book offers less academic and actual crime information and a lot more emotional response and family life. This is not really a bad thing. Rinek is an interesting person, and he really shows the effect that working with cases like this can have in one’s mental health and close relationships. As for the cases themselves, they are all horrific and some more detailed than others. Probably the best one, because of the amount of information and detail, is the Yosemite Murders, which happens to be the only one that doesn’t involve actual children (the youngest victim was 15). Overall, a gripping read which might not be as insightful as other books written by former agents, but way more personal and raw.

Dark Dreams by Roy Hazelwood: Roy Hazelwood is probably one of the main experts in sexual crimes, and he was one of the top agents in the Behavioral Analysis Unit at the FBI (he sadly passed away in 2016). If you’ve ever read books involving some kind of predator, it’s not uncommon that the cops went to him for his advice regarding profiles. Again, this is another John Douglas type of book in which he goes through some of the cases of his career in the agency, although in contrast to In the Name of Children, this has almost no personal information about Hazelwood himself. That means this book is purely concerned with identifying different types of sex crimes and criminals by giving real life examples. It’s very academical and informative and a fairly easy read (because of the narration style, the subject is as dire as you’d expect). My only issue is that he never goes in detail into the cases and most of the time won’t even mention the names of the victims or the perpetrators, which annoys me because it makes it hard to look up more information. But still, a worthy read for true crime enthusiasts who want to understand more what goes into this sort of cases.

Burned Alive by Kieran Crowley: This books details the murder of Kim Antonakos, who in 1995 was kidnapped for ransom and left with no food, water or warmth in a basement for three days before she was set on fire. It provides a lot of information I didn’t know about the case and it’s a good account of how things went down in the investigation and trial. I don’t like though that the writer decided to write a full passage telling us what Kim was feeling and thinking while she was in that basement, because there’s no way to know that’s true and when you insert that kind of thing in a serious, non fictional book it always throws me off. It’s also quite evident that a lot of the information came from one of the men accused in the kidnapping, Julio Negron, who was the one who made a deal with police and testified against the other killers in their trials in exchange for a more lenient sentence. Apparently he was the only one willing to give his version of the story to Crowley, so I would take some of the things presented here with a grain of salt.

Blood Justice by Tom Henderson: Do you ever read a book and completely forget it soon after you finish it? That happened to me with this one, which is obviously not a good sign. The case it talks about is very compelling: two murders, six years apart, committed by the same perpetrator. One was Margarette Eby, a music teacher savagely killed in her home in 1985. Then, flight attendant Nancy Ludwig was rape, butchered and tortured in a Detroit hotel in 1991. It took a really long time and a lot of effort from police to finally get enough evidence to arrest their murderer. The book has plenty of details about the case, the victims and the killer to satisfy the reader, I think the problem to me is that the narrative falls flat most of the time. This book has a structure problem that takes away all of the suspense, and also the author failed to really give us a good character to focus on, which happens a lot in true crime books about long winded investigations. But it is a fairly unknown case, so you might want to give this a try.

I: The Creation of a Serial Killer by Jack Olsen: This novel is about serial killer Keith Hunter Jesperson, also known as “The Happy Face Killer” because he had the tendency to draw smiley faces in the letters he sent to the media. Jack Olsen, an award winner journalist, makes the bold choice of writing some of the chapters in first person, as Jesperson. At first I was a little put off by this, because as you know, I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to non fiction, but I have to admit, those chapters are very gripping and really give you a glimpse into the workings of a very twisted mind. Most of what’s written in first person was culled from interviews Olsen had with Jesperson, so I’m sure he got the tone, the wording and the train of thought right. These chapters follow the actual murders and crimes committed by Jesperson, and they are interjected with more common third-person narrative and newspaper article style writing about the biography of Jesperson and what was going on with the investigation. It was a very interesting read, although you do have to be prepared to put up with a very sick individual pouring his thoughts, indirectly, on the page.

The Anatomy of Motive by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker: As usual, an excellent food for thought from one of the masters of crime analysis. John Douglas really knows how to pick cases to analyze and give you the right balance of information and opinion. In this case, as you can tell from the title, he wanders into the motive behind several crimes with very clear examples. This book reminds us that motive is probably the main mystery we always want to solve in any case. Even when we know the culprit, if we don’t understand the motive there’s always something very unsatisfying about its resolution. Douglas offers us a glimpse of his own thinking about some complicated cases, including Andrew Cunanan’s killing spree and the still unsolved Tylenol murders, among many others. Recommended.

#true crime #tcoriginal #book review #true crime book #john douglas #kim antonakos #keith hunter jesperson #fbi #review

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ginnyzero · 5 years

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Motivations to Write

In my last discussion post, Ideas, Squeaky Toys of Doom, I touched upon a few motivations of why people write. And I guess, it’s the next natural thing to talk about, once one has an idea, there has to be some sort of will to go forward with it, other than tossing it in the bin as useless. As in all things, from going to the grocery to store, to committing a crime, one must have a reason! And if you want to sound sinister (or overly legal) we call it motive!

Before I start meandering, the dictionary describes motive as an inner drive or impulse that causes one to act. A motive is an incentive. It’s the stimulus that gets us out of our chairs (or into them) and doing something. They are the reasons that provide us with the stress to change our ways. (Yes, I said stress. There is positive stress and negative stress, just like there is positive criticism and negative criticism.) Motivations affect us and can be as varied from “I need to eat” to “I have a dream.” Eating is something solid, dreams, are the exact opposite, ephemeral. And having both is important. (I’ll just leave this here.) Motivations are what take you from where you are now, to the future of where you want to be if you want it.

And motivations, these reasons, are as varied and broad and different as the people that come up with them. These are a few I know it. Whether or not the writers you know fall under them may or may not be the case. Just like there is no bad idea, there is no wrong motivation to write. At least, I’m not holding any judgements. And all of these can be combined and used to fuel each other.

Basic Motivations: Money, Fame (Power), Love

Firstly. Let’s get these three fundamental motivations out of the way.

Money, everyone wants to write a book and get rich just like JK Rowling. They want their own house, a swimming pool and a private jet. (Hey, don’t we all want to be rich. No judgement.) Or, you’ve got the other writers, who want to make enough money just to pay their bills and live comfortably. Money is a big motivating factor. The world seems to go around on money and it’s hard to do anything without it. We’ve all got to eat. We need roofs over our heads and as a society we’ve become very dependent on this thing called electricity.

Fame, and I lump fame with power. Writers, just like everyone else, want to be known. They want to be recognized. They want to leave behind a great body of work that people can come back to over and over again. This is a way to become immortal. Fame also brings other perks. Fame can bring television or movie deals. Fame has public appearances and interviews. Fame has people coming to you instead of you going to them. Fame gives you influence and power. Influence and power can change things. Some people like the idea of it.

And love, there are writers that actually just enjoy writing and want to do what they do. They love to come up with ideas, string together plots, hack through scenes and what characters grow and change. I feel, and this is just my feelings and opinions, that all people should love what they do in one way shape or form. And if writing is what makes someone happy and that’s what they like to do above all others, then that love can be a great motivation.

Now, there are five other motivations that I have thought of/remembered and there are probably many more, but these are ones that I see talked about by other writers.

Motivation: “I like this.”

These are the writers who just plain like a concept. I don’t think Louis L’amour and Zane Grey would have wrote so many westerns if they didn’t plain just like them. (Err, that was unintentional, and I’m leaving it. Homophones!) These are writers who will take their idea and just pound it into the ground until you have to wonder if they ever had another idea in their head. Brian Jacques wrote 21 Redwall novels before his death. Mercedes Lackey has written 30 tales in Valdemar (and as far as I know is still writing in that universe.) Jim Butcher is on his 16th Dresden File (of a proposed 28, I think.) And Anne McCaffery’s son has taken up where Anne left off in Pern. And that, ladies and gentlemen is just in science fiction/fantasy. To write that much material for one universe or genre alone takes dedication. Formula writers (by which I mean the structure of their story is the same for every single book/trilogy they write,) genre writers and romance writers can fall under this motivation.

But then there is the opposite.

Motivation: “I don’t like this. I want to see this instead.”

This motivation is often reactionary. This is the cry of disgust from every reader who has thrown a book across the room, got up and went to their computer and sat down and tried to write it better. There are also things that some writers just don’t want to see or write in their novels, so they don’t.

This writing can often be derivative. But you say, what writing isn’t? That’s a real good question. But this motivation uses a lot of things in the public domain such as Jane Austen, Sherlock Holmes, fairy tales and legends. Historical Alternate universe can also fall under this, such as ‘His Majesty’s Dragon,’ by Naomi Novak. In fact, I feel almost anything considered ‘historical’ can be considered this. A ‘I don’t want to see the battles of the war of the roses, I want to know about the love lives of the nobles instead!’

I also find that this motivation can also be used as sort of a research tool. For instance, when a writer likes things from two or three different (but similar potentially or even not) novels, but doesn’t like how any of those novels actually used their ideas. So, the writer takes the ideas they like, combine them into one thing and wah lah, they have their own universe to play in.

“I don’t like this, I want to see this instead,” is a huge motivation in fan works. A huge amount of fan work is either exploring romantic pairings that wouldn’t happen in canon, expounding upon things that weren’t seen in canon or even changing the setting completely and seeing what the characters will do. Continuations, prequels and the children of the main cast are all very common stories that happen in fandom. Given how huge fanfiction.net, mediaminer.org and AO3 are, plus the stuff on journaling sites, private sites (including forums) and tumblr and so on. This is a huge stimulus for people of all ages to write.

Motivation: “I have a story I want to tell.”

The ultimate, “I have something I want to talk about.” By golly, these people have something to say and they’re going to say it, whether you like it or not. They may have a message to get out there.

There is the personal side of this. These are the autobiographies, biographies and ‘based on a true story,’ writers. They’re using their story to spread a message or theme that they think everyone should hear. Which isn’t a bad thing, everyone who writes has a message whether or not they know it. These writers are just more aware of it than others.

Then there is the not as personal aspect of this motivation. These are writers that have a story in their head that they want to tell. And they’ve looked on the shelves and it’s not there, or it’s there in similar form but not how precisely they would do it. They see a void in the market place that they want to fill. Or sometimes, they just have a story in their head trying to get out and they need to get it out so they can move onto something else! There is usually a heavy dose of ‘I like this,’ involved in this type of writing.

Motivation: “I want to help others.”

Ah, the selfless motivation to write or the pretentious one depending on how you look at it.

This can go hand in hand with “I have a story to tell.” These writers hope that by telling their story that they can inspire, help or warn others. Stories about overcoming adversity. Stories about reaching out to others. Stories that show the bad side of life. Or conversely, the stories that show the good side of life. These writers want whoever reads their story to take away something from it, something that will hopefully make the reader a better person.

I have to say that a lot of Christian fictional literature falls under this heading. I’ve read quite a bit of it and not a lot of it has stayed with me, because there isn’t a lot of Christian fictional stories (or at least not when I was reading them) that focused upon walking the life of a Christian. They were usually much more focused upon converting the reader and if you’re a Christian already it feels like they are preaching to the already converted (aka the choir.) Or they were trying to show what a good Christian marriage was with varying degrees of success. Pick one.

And lastly,

Motivation: “I want to feel better.”

This motivation is where writing hits the pure emotional level. This type of writing is cathartic. It releases the feelings inside the writer and gives them a voice. A lot of emotional writing comes from a place of anger and despair. How the writer chooses to translate that anger and despair in their writing is up to them. There are those who will through the guise of writing graphically describe incidents that happened to them so that they can use the characters as a method of coping. They take back their power and control in their writing and use the fictional world as a cipher of the real world to change things. There is also the opposite, those who take that anger or despair and write silly happy things as a way of making themselves feel happier. It’s a way to make themselves laugh while in the undercurrents of the writing they are also often dealing with the deeper issues in their life. In emotional writing, an audience isn’t necessary and may or may not be helpful.

Emotional writing can go along with “I have a story I want to tell,” and “I want to help others.”

Now on the other hand, some people write dark, angry, disturbing stuff because they like writing dark angry disturbing things. And other people write funny silly things, because they like writing funny silly things and they don’t need to feel better. (So, I don’t recommend you call out anyone on the motivations for their writing if you feel it’s coming from an emotional place, because it may not be and you shouldn’t assume anything.)

A lot of these motivations for writing are the same as the motivations for publishing. There is a huge difference between writing something and publishing that something. Just because a writer creates a story, doesn’t mean that they will want to or are going to put it out there in a public manner. That’s their choice and no one should try to take it away from them.

Motivations are tricky things. They can change over time or be joined by other incentives. If you desire to write, there is no wrong reason to do so! They’re your reasons and no one has the right to call them bad ones. It might be because of one of the reasons I posted here or because of others. Whatever the reason is, we writers have to feed those Squeaky Toys of Doom and keep on plugging away.

#writing #motivations #writblr #writeblr #writing advice #writing tips #writing motivations

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bluebeards-wife · 6 years

Text

The Seven Wives of Bluebeard & Other Marvelous Tales

Written by Anatole France (1920)

Distributed via Project Gutenberg

Produced by David Widger

Edited By James Lewis May And Bernard Miall

Translated by D. B. Stewart

John Lane Company MCMXX

CHAPTER I

THE strangest, the most varied, the most erroneous opinions have been expressed with regard to the famous individual commonly known as Bluebeard. None, perhaps, was less tenable than that which made of this gentleman a personification of the Sun. For this is what a certain school of comparative mythology set itself to do, some forty years ago. It informed the world that the seven wives of Bluebeard were the Dawns, and that his two brothers-in-law were the morning and the evening Twilight, identifying them with the Dioscuri, who delivered Helena when she was rapt away by Theseus. We must remind those readers who may feel tempted to believe this that in 1817 a learned librarian of Agen, Jean-Baptiste Pérés, demonstrated, in a highly plausible manner, that Napoleon had never existed, and that the story of this supposed great captain was nothing but a solar myth. Despite the most ingenious diversions of the wits, we cannot possibly doubt that Bluebeard and Napoleon did both actually exist.

An hypothesis no better founded is that which Consists in identifying Bluebeard with the Marshal de Rais, who was strangled by the arm of the Law above the bridges of Nantes on 26th of October, 1440. Without inquiring, with M. Salomon Reinach, whether the Marshal committed the crimes for which he was condemned, or whether his wealth, coveted by a greedy prince, did not in some degree contribute to his undoing, there is nothing in his life that resembles what we find in Bluebeard’s; this alone is enough to prevent our confusing them or merging the two individuals into one.

Charles Perrault, who, about 1660, had the merit of composing the first biography of this _seigneur_, justly remarkable for having married seven wives, made him an accomplished villain, and the most perfect model of cruelty that ever trod the earth. But it is permissible to doubt, if not his sincerity, at least the correctness of his information. He may, perhaps, have been prejudiced against his hero. He would not have been the first example of a poet or historian who liked to darken the colours of his pictures. If we have what seems a flattering portrait of Titus, it would seem, on the other hand, that Tacitus has painted Tiberius much blacker than the reality. Macbeth, whom legend and Shakespeare accuse of crimes, was in reality a just and a wise king. He never treacherously murdered the old king, Duncan. Duncan, while yet young, was defeated in a great battle, and was found dead on the morrow at a spot called the Armourer’s Shop. He had slain several of the kinsfolk of Gruchno, the wife of Macbeth. The latter made Scotland prosperous; he encouraged trade, and was regarded as the defender of the middle classes, the true King of the townsmen. The nobles of the clans never forgave him for defeating Duncan, nor for protecting the artisans. They destroyed him, and dishonoured his memory. Once he was dead the good King Macbeth was known only by the statements of his enemies. The genius of Shakespeare imposed these lies upon the human consciousness. I had long suspected that Bluebeard was the victim of a similar fatality. All the circumstances of his life, as I found them related, were far from satisfying my mind, and from gratifying that craving for logic and lucidity by which I am incessantly consumed. On reflection, I perceived that they involved insurmountable difficulties. There was so great a desire to make me believe in the man’s cruelty that it could not fail to make me doubt it.

These presentiments did not mislead me. My intuitions, which had their origin in a certain knowledge of human nature, were soon to be changed into certainty, based upon irrefutable proofs.

In the house of a stone-cutter in St. Jean-des-Bois, I found several papers relating to Bluebeard; amongst others his defence, and an anonymous complaint against his murderers, which was not proceeded with, for what reasons I know not. These papers confirmed me in the belief that he was good and unfortunate, and that his memory has been overwhelmed by unworthy slanders. From that time forth, I regarded it as my duty to write his true history, without permitting myself any illusion as to the success of such an undertaking. I am well aware that this attempt at rehabilitation is destined to fall into silence and oblivion. How can the cold, naked Truth fight against the glittering enchantments of Falsehood?

CHAPTER II

SOMEWHERE about 1650 there lived on his estate, between Compiègne and Pierrefonds, a wealthy noble, by name Bernard de Montragoux, whose ancestors had held the most important posts in the kingdom. But he dwelt far from the Court, in that peaceful obscurity which then veiled all save that on which the king bestowed his glance. His castle of Guillettes abounded in valuable furniture, gold and silver ware, tapestry and embroideries, which he kept in coffers; not that he hid his treasures for fear of damaging them by use; he was, on the contrary, generous and magnificent. But in those days, in the country, the nobles willingly led a very simple life, feeding their people at their own table, and dancing on Sundays with the girls of the village.

On certain occasions, however, they gave splendid entertainments, which contrasted with the dullness of everyday life. So it was necessary that they should hold a good deal of handsome furniture and beautiful tapestries in reserve. This was the case with Monsieur de Montragoux.

His castle, built in the Gothic period, had all its rudeness. From without it looked wild and gloomy enough, with the stumps of its great towers, which had been thrown down at the time of the monarchy’s troubles, in the reign of the late King Louis. Within it offered a much pleasanter prospect. The rooms were decorated in the Italian taste, as was the great gallery on the ground floor, loaded with embossed decorations in high relief, pictures and gilding.

At one end of this gallery there was a closet usually known as “the little cabinet.” This is the only name by which Charles Perrault refers to it. It is as well to note that it was also called the “Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses,” because a Florentine painter had portrayed on the walls the tragic stories of Dirce, daughter of the Sun, bound by the sons of Antiope to the horns of a bull, Niobe weeping on Mount Sipylus for her children, pierced by the divine arrows, and Procris inviting to her bosom the javelin of Cephalus. These figures had a look of life about them, and the porphyry tiles with which the floor was covered seemed dyed in the blood of these unhappy women. One of the doors of the Cabinet gave upon the moat, which had no water in it.

The stables formed a sumptuous building, situated at some distance from the castle. They contained stalls for sixty horses, and coach-houses for twelve gilded coaches. But what made Guillettes so bewitching a residence were the woods and canals surrounding it, in which one could devote oneself to the pleasures of angling and the chase.

Many of the dwellers in that country-side knew Monsieur de Montragoux only by the name of Bluebeard, for this was the only name that the common people gave him. And in truth his beard was blue, but it was blue only because it was black, and it was because it was so black that it was blue. Monsieur de Montragoux must not be imagined as having the monstrous aspect of the threefold Typhon whom one sees in Athens, laughing in his triple indigo-blue beard. We shall get much nearer the reality by comparing the _seigneur_ of Guillettes to those actors or priests whose freshly shaven cheeks have a bluish gloss.

Monsieur de Montragouz did not wear a pointed beard like his grandfather at the Court of King Henry II; nor did he wear it like a fan, as did his great-grandfather who was killed at the battle of Marignan. Like Monsieur de Turenne, he had only a slight moustache, and a chin-tuft; his cheeks had a bluish look; but whatever may have been said of him, this good gentleman was by no means disfigured thereby, nor did he inspire any fear on that account. He only looked the more virile, and if it made him look a little fierce, it had not the effect of making the women dislike him. Bernard de Montragoux was a very fine man, tall, broad across the shoulders, moderately stout, and well favoured; albeit of a rustic habit, smacking of the woods rather than of drawing-rooms and assemblies. Still, it is true that he did not please the ladies as much as he should have pleased them, built as he was, and wealthy. Shyness was the reason; shyness, not his beard. Women exercised an invincible attraction for him, and at the same time inspired him with an insuperable fear. He feared them as much as he loved them. This was the origin and initial cause of all his misfortunes. Seeing a lady for the first time, he would have died rather than speak to her, and however much attracted he may have been, he stood before her in gloomy silence. His feelings revealed themselves only through his eyes, which he rolled in a terrible manner. This timidity exposed him to every kind of misfortune, and, above all, it prevented his forming a becoming connection with modest and reserved women; and betrayed him, defenceless, to the attempts of the most impudent and audacious. This was his life’s misfortune.

Left an orphan from his early youth, and having rejected, owing to this sort of bashfulness and fear, which he was unable to overcome, the very advantageous and honourable alliances which had presented themselves, he married a Mademoiselle Colette Passage, who had recently settled down in that part of the country, after amassing a little money by making a bear dance through the towns and villages of the kingdom. He loved her with all his soul. And to do her justice, there was something pleasing about her, though she was what she was a fine woman with an ample bosom, and a complexion that was still sufficiently fresh, although a little sunburnt by the open air. Great were her joy and surprise on first becoming a lady of quality. Her heart, which was not bad, was touched by the kindness of a husband in such a high position, and with such a stout, powerful body, who was to her the most obedient of servants and devoted of lovers. But after a few months she grew weary because she could no longer go to and fro on the face of the earth. In the midst of wealth, overwhelmed with love and care, she could find no greater pleasure than that of going to see the companion of her wandering life, in the cellar where he languished with a chain round his neck and a ring through his nose, and kissing him on the eyes and weeping. Seeing her full of care, Monsieur de Montragouz himself became careworn, and this only added to his companion’s melancholy. The consideration and forethought which he lavished on her turned the poor woman’s head. One morning, when he awoke, Monsieur de Montragoux found Colette no longer at his side. In vain he searched for her throughout the castle.

The door of the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses was open. It was through this door that she had gone to reach the open country with her bear. The sorrow of Bluebeard was painful to behold. In spite of the innumerable messengers sent forth in search of her, no news was ever received of Colette Passage.

Monsieur de Montragoux was still mourning her when he happened to dance, at the fair of Guillettes, with Jeanne de La Cloche, daughter of the Police Lieutenant of Compiègne, who inspired him with love. He asked her in marriage, and obtained her forthwith. She loved wine, and drank it to excess. So much did this taste increase that after a few months she looked like a leather bottle with a round red face atop of it. The worst of it was that this leather bottle would run mad, incessantly rolling about the reception-rooms and the staircases, crying, swearing, and hiccoughing; vomiting wine and insults at everything that got in her way. Monsieur de Montragoux was dazed with disgust and horror. But he quite suddenly recovered his courage, and set himself, with as much firmness as patience, to cure his wife of so disgusting a vice, Prayers, remonstrances, supplications, and threats: he employed every possible means. All was useless. He forbade her wine from his cellar: she got it from outside, and was more abominably drunk than ever.

To deprive her of her taste for a beverage that she loved too well, he put valerian in the bottles. She thought he was trying to poison her, sprang upon him, and drove three inches of kitchen knife into his belly. He expected to die of it, but he did not abandon his habitual kindness.

“She is more to be pitied than blamed,” he said.

One day, when he had forgotten to close the door of the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses, Jeanne de La Cloche entered by it, quite out of her mind, as usual, and seeing the figures on the walls in postures of affliction, ready to give up the ghost, she mistook them for living women, and fled terror-stricken into the country, screaming murder. Hearing Bluebeard calling her and running after her, she threw herself, mad with terror, into a pond, and was there drowned. It is difficult to believe, yet certain, that her husband, so compassionate was his soul, was much afflicted by her death.

Six weeks after the accident he quietly married Gigonne, the daughter of his steward, Traignel. She wore wooden shoes, and smelt of onions. She was a fine-looking girl enough, except that she squinted with one eye, and limped with one foot. As soon as she was married, this goose-girl, bitten by foolish ambition, dreamed of nothing but further greatness and splendour. She was not satisfied that her brocade dresses were rich enough, her pearl necklaces beautiful enough, her rubies big enough, her coaches sufficiently gilded, her lakes, woods, and lands sufficiently vast. Bluebeard, who had never had any leaning toward ambition, trembled at the haughty humour of his spouse. Unaware, in his straightforward simplicity, whether the mistake lay in thinking magnificently like his wife, or modestly as he himself did, he accused himself of a mediocrity of mind which was thwarting the noble desires of his consort, and, full of uncertainty, he would sometimes exhort her to taste with moderation the good things of this world, while at others he roused himself to pursue fortune along the verge of precipitous heights. He was prudent, but conjugal affection bore him beyond the reach of prudence. Gigonne thought of nothing but cutting a figure in the world, being received at Court, and becoming the King’s mistress. Unable to gain her point, she pined away with vexation, contracting a jaundice, of which she died. Bluebeard, full of lamentation, built her a magnificent tomb.

This worthy _seigneur_ overwhelmed by constant domestic adversity, would not perhaps have chosen another wife: but he was himself chosen for a husband by Mademoiselle Blanche de Gibeaumex, the daughter of a cavalry officer, who had but one ear; he used to relate that he had lost the other in the King’s service. She was full of intelligence, which she employed in deceiving her husband. She betrayed him with every man of quality in the neighbourhood. She was so dexterous that she deceived him in his own castle, almost under his very eyes, without his perceiving it. Poor Bluebeard assuredly suspected something, but he could not say what. Unfortunately for her, while she gave her whole mind to tricking her husband, she was not sufficiently careful in deceiving her lovers; by which I mean that she betrayed them, one for another. One day she was surprised in the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses, in the company of a gentleman whom she loved, by a gentleman whom she had loved, and the latter, in a transport of jealousy, ran her through with his sword. A few hours later the unfortunate lady was there found dead by one of the castle servants, and the fear inspired by the room increased.

Poor Bluebeard, learning at one blow of his ample dishonour, and the tragic death of his wife, did not console himself for the latter misfortune by any consideration of the former. He had loved Blanche de Gibeaumez with a strange ardour, more dearly than he had loved Jeanne de La Cloche, Gigonne Traignel, or even Colette Passage. On learning that she had consistently betrayed him, and that now she would never betray him again, he experienced a grief and a mental perturbation which, far from being appeased, daily increased in violence. So intolerable were his sufferings that he contracted a malady which caused his life to be despaired of.

The physicians, having employed various medicines without effect, advised him that the only remedy proper to his complaint was to take a young wife. He then thought of his young cousin, Angèle de La Garandine, whom he believed would be willingly bestowed upon him, as she had no property. What encouraged him to take her to wife was the fact that she was reputed to be simple and ignorant of the world. Having been deceived by a woman of intelligence, he felt more comfortable with a fool. He married Mademoiselle de La Garandine, and quickly perceived the falsity of his calculations. Angèle was kind, Angèle was good, and Angèle loved him; she had not, in herself, any leanings toward evil, but the least astute person could quickly lead her astray at any moment. It was enough to tell her: “Do this for fear of bogies; comes in here or the were-wolf will eat you;” or “Shut your eyes, and take this drop of medicine,” and the innocent girl would straightway do so, at the will of the rascals who wanted of her that which it was very natural to want of her, for she was pretty. Monsieur de Montragouz, injured and betrayed by this innocent girl, as much as and more than he had been by Blanche de Gibeaumex, had the additional pain of knowing it, for Angèle was too candid to conceal anything from him. She used to tell him: “Sir, some one told me this; some one did that to me; some one took so and so away from me; I saw that; I felt so and so.” And by her ingenuousness she caused her lord to suffer torments beyond imagination. He endured them like a Stoic. Still he finally had to tell the simple creature that she was a goose, and to box her ears. This, for him, was the beginning of a reputation for cruelty, which was not fated to be diminished. A mendicant monk, who was passing Gulllettes while Monsieur de Montragouz was out shooting woodcock, found Madame Angèle sewing a doll’s petticoat. This worthy friar, discovering that she was as foolish as she was beautiful, took her away on his donkey, having persuaded her that the Angel Gabriel was waiting in a wood, to give her a pair of pearl garters. It is believed that she must have been eaten by a wolf, for she was never seen again.

After such a disastrous experience, how was it that Bluebeard could make up his mind to contract yet another union? It would be impossible to understand it, were we not well aware of the power which a fine pair of eyes exerts over a generous heart.

The honest gentleman met, at a neighbouring château which he was in the habit of frequenting, a young orphan of quality, by name Alix de Pontalcin, who, having been robbed of all her property by a greedy trustee, thought only of entering a convent. Officious friends intervened to alter her determination and persuade her to accept the hand of Monsieur de Montragoux. Her beauty was perfect. Bluebeard, who was promising himself the enjoyment of an infinite happiness in her arms, was once more deluded in his hopes, and this time experienced a disappointment, which, owing to his disposition, was bound to make an even greater impression upon him than all the afflictions which he had suffered in his previous marriages. Alix de Pontalcin obstinately refused to give actuality to the union to which she had nevertheless consented.

In vain did Monsieur de Montragoux press her to become his wife; she resisted prayers, tears, and objurgations, she refused her husband’s lightest caresses, and rushed off to shut herself into the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses, where she remained, alone and intractable, for whole nights at a time.

The cause of a resistance so contrary to laws both human and divine was never known; it was attributed to Monsieur de Montragoux’s blue beard, but our previous remarks on the subject of his beard render such a supposition far from probable. In any case, it is a difficult subject to discuss. The unhappy husband underwent the cruellest sufferings. In order to forget them, he hunted with desperation, exhausting horses, hounds, and huntsmen. But when he returned home, foundered and overtired, the mere sight of Mademoiselle de Pontalcin was enough to revive his energies and his torments. Finally, unable to endure the situation any longer, he applied to Rome for the annulment of a marriage which was nothing better than a trap; and in consideration of a handsome present to the Holy Father he obtained it in accordance with canon law. If Monsieur de Montragoux discarded Mademoiselle de Pontalcin with all the marks of respect due to a woman, and without breaking his cane across her back, it was because he had a valiant soul, a great heart, and was master of himself as well as of Guillettes. But he swore that, for the future, no female should enter his apartments. Happy had he been if he had held to his oath to the end!

CHAPTER III

SOME years had elapsed since Monsieur de Montragoux had rid himself of his sixth wife, and only a confused recollection remained in the country-side of the domestic calamities which had fallen upon this worthy _seigneur’s_ house. Nobody knew what had become of his wives, and hair-raising tales were told in the village at night; some believed them, others did not. About this time, a widow, past the prime of life, Dame Sidonie de Lespoisse, came to settle with her children in the manor of La Motte-Giron, about two leagues, as the crow flies, from the castle of Guillettes. Whence she came, or who her husband had been, not a soul knew. Some believed, because they had heard it said, that he had held certain posts in Savoy or Spain; others said that he had died in the Indies; many had the idea that the widow was possessed of immense estates, while others doubted it strongly. However, she lived in a notable style, and invited all the nobility of the country-side to La Motte-Giron. She had two daughters, of whom the elder, Anne, on the verge of becoming an old maid, was a very astute person: Jeanne, the younger, ripe for marriage, concealed a precocious knowledge of the world under an appearance of simplicity. The Dame de Lespoisse had also two sons, of twenty and twenty-two years of age; very fine well-made young fellows, of whom one was a Dragoon, and the other a Musketeer. I may add, having seen his commission, that he was a Black Musketeer. When on foot, this was not apparent, for the Black Musketeers were distinguished from the Grey not by the colour of their uniform, but by the hides of their horses. All alike wore blue surcoats laced with gold. As for the Dragoons, they were to be recognized by a kind of fur bonnet, of which the tail fell gallantly over the ear. The Dragoons had the reputation of being scamps, a scapegrace crowd, witness the song:

“Mama, here the dragoons come, Let us haste away.”

But you might have searched in vain through His Majesty’s two regiments of Dragoons for a bigger rake, a more accomplished sponger, or a viler rogue than Cosme de Lespoisset. Compared with him, his brother was an honest lad. Drunkard and gambler, Pierre de Lespoisse pleased the ladies, and won at cards; these were the only ways of gaining a living known to him.

Their mother, Dame de Lespoisse, was making a splash at Motte-Giron only in order to catch gulls. As a matter of fact, she had not a penny, and owed for everything, even to her false teeth. Her clothes and furniture, her coach, her horses, and her servants had all been lent by Parisian moneylenders, who threatened to withdraw them all if she did not presently marry one of her daughters to some rich nobleman, and the respectable Sidonie was expecting to find herself at any moment naked in an empty house. In a hurry to find a son-in-law, she had at once cast her eye upon Monsieur de Montragoux, whom she summed up as being simple-minded, easy to deceive, extremely mild, and quick to fall in love under his rude and bashful exterior. Her two daughters entered into her plans, and every time they met him, riddled poor Bluebeard with glances which pierced him to the depths of his heart. He soon fell a victim to the potent charms of the two Demoiselles de Lespoisse. Forgetting his oath, he thought of nothing but marrying one of them, finding them equally beautiful. After some delay, caused less by hesitation than timidity, he went to Motte-Giron in great state, and made his petition to the Dame de Lespoisse, leaving to her the choice of which daughter she would give him. Madame Sidonie obligingly replied that she held him in high esteem, and that she authorized him to pay his court to whichever of the ladies he should prefer.

“Learn to please, monsieur,” she said. “I shall be the first to applaud your success.”

In order to make their better acquaintance, Bluebeard invited Anne and Jeanne de Lespoisse, with their mother, brothers, and a multitude of ladies and gentlemen to pass a fortnight at the castle of Guillettes. There was a succession of walking, hunting, and fishing parties, dances and festivities, dinners and entertainments of every sort. A young _seigneur_, the Chevalier de Merlus, whom the ladies Lespoisse had brought with them, organized the beats. Bluebeard had the best packs of hounds and the largest turnout in the countryside. The ladies rivalled the ardour of the gentlemen in hunting the deer. They did not always hunt the animal down, but the hunters and their ladies wandered away in couples, found one another, and again wandered off into the woods. For choice, the Chevalier de la Merlus would lose himself with Jeanne de Lespoisse, and both would return to the castle at night, full of their adventures, and pleased with their day’s sport.

After a few days’ observation, the good _seigneur_ of Montragoux felt a decided preference for Jeanne, the younger sister, rather than the elder, as she was fresher, which is not saying that she was less experienced. He allowed his preference to appear; there was no reason why he should conceal it, for it was a befitting preference; moreover, he was a plain dealer. He paid court to the young lady as best he could, speaking little, for want of practice; but he gazed at her, rolling his rolling eyes, and emitting from the depths of his bowels sighs which might have overthrown an oak tree. Sometimes he would burst out laughing, whereupon the crockery trembled, and the windows rattled. Alone of all the party, he failed to remark the assiduous attentions of the Chevalier de la Merlus to Madame de Lespoisse’s younger daughter, or if he did remark them he saw no harm in them. His experience of women was not sufficient to make him suspicious, and he trusted when he loved. My grandmother used to say that in life experience is worthless, and that one remains the same as when one begins. I believe she was right, and the true story that I am now unfolding is not of a nature to prove her wrong.

Bluebeard displayed an unusual magnificence in these festivities. When night arrived the lawns before the castle were lit by a thousand torches, and tables served by men-servants and maids dressed as fauns and dryads groaned under all the tastiest things which the country-side and the forest produced. Musicians provided a continual succession of beautiful symphonies. Towards the end of the meal the schoolmaster and schoolmistress, followed by the boys and girls of the village, appeared before the guests, and read a complimentary address to the _seigneur_ of Montragoux and his friends. An astrologer in a pointed cap approached the ladies, and foretold their future love-affairs from the lines of their hands, Bluebeard ordered drink to be given for all his vassals, and he himself distributed bread and meat to the poor families.

At ten o’clock, for fear of the evening dew, the company retired to the apartments, lit by a multitude of candles, and there tables were prepared for every sort of game: lansquenet, billiards, reversi, bagatelle, pigeon-holes, turnstile, porch, beast, hoca, brelan, draughts, backgammon, dice, basset, and calbas. Bluebeard was uniformly unfortunate in these various games, at which he lost large sums every night. He could console himself for his continuous run of bad luck by watching the three Lespoisse ladies win a great deal of money. Jeanne, the younger, who often backed the game of the Chevalier de la Merlus, heaped up mountains of gold. Madame de Lespoisse’s two sons also did very well at reversi and basset; their luck was invariably best at the more hazardous games. The play went on until late into the night. No one slept during these marvellous festivities, and as the earliest biographer of Bluebeard has said: “They spent the whole night in playing tricks on one another.” These hours were the most delightful of the whole twenty-four; for then, under cover of jesting, and taking advantage of the darkness, those who felt drawn toward one another would hide together in the depths of some alcove. The Chevelier de la Merlus would disguise himself at one time as a devil, at another as a ghost or a were-wolf in order to frighten the sleepers, but he always ended by slipping into the room of Mademoiselle Jeanne de Lespoisse. The good _seigneur_ of Montragoux was not overlooked in these games. The two sons of Madame de Lespoisse put irritant powder in his bed, and burnt in his room substances which emitted a disgusting smell. Or they would arrange a jug of water over his door so that the worthy _seigneur_ could not open the door without the whole of the water being upset upon his head. In short, they played on him all sorts of practical jokes, to the diversion of the whole company, and Bluebeard bore them with his natural good humour.

He made his request, to which Madame de Lespoisse acceded, although, as she said, it wrung her heart to think of giving her girls in marriage.

The marriage was celebrated at Motte-Giron with extraordinary magnificence. The Demoiselle Jeanne, amazingly beautiful, was dressed entirely in _point de France_, her head covered with a thousand ringlets. Her sister Anne wore a dress of green velvet, embroidered with gold. Their mother’s dress was of golden tissue, trimmed with black chenille, with a _parure_ of pearls and diamonds. Monsieur de Montragoux wore all his great diamonds on a suit of black velvet; he made a very fine appearance; his expression of timidity and innocence contrasting strongly with his blue chin and his massive build. The bride’s brothers were of course handsomely arrayed, but the Chevalier de la Merlus, in a suit of rose velvet trimmed with pearls, shone with unparalleled splendour.

Immediately after the ceremony, the Jews who had hired out to the bride’s family and her lover all these fine clothes and rich jewels resumed possession of them and posted back to Paris with them.

CHAPTER IV

FOR a month Monsieur de Montragoux was the happiest of men. He adored his wife, and regarded her as an angel of purity. She was something quite different, but far shrewder men than poor Bluebeard might have been deceived as he was, for she was a person of great cunning and astuteness, and allowed herself submissively to be ruled by her mother, who was the cleverest jade in the whole kingdom of France. She established herself at Guillettes with her eldest daughter Anne, her two sons, Pierre and Cosme, and the Chevalier de la Merlus, who kept as close to Madame de Montragoux as if he had been her shadow. Her good husband was a little annoyed at this; he would have liked to keep his wife always to himself, but he did not take exception to the affection which she felt for this young gentleman, as she had told him that he was her foster-brother.

Charles Perrault relates that a month after having contracted this union, Bluebeard was compelled to make a journey of six weeks’ duration on some important business. He does not seem to be aware of the reasons for this journey, and it has been suspected that it was an artifice, which the jealous husband resorted to, according to custom, in order to surprise his wife. The truth is quite otherwise. Monsieur de Montragouz went to Le Perche to receive the heritage of his cousin of Outarde, who had been killed gloriously by a cannon-ball at the battle of the Dunes, while casting dice upon a drum.

Before leaving, Monsieur de Montragoux begged his wife to indulge in every possible distraction during his absence.

“Invite all your friends, madame,” he said, “go riding with them, amuse yourselves, and have a pleasant time.”

He handed over to her all the keys of the house, thus indicating that in his absence she was the sole and sovereign mistress of all the _seigneurie_ of Guillettes.

“This,” he said, “is the key of the two great wardrobes; this of the gold and silver not in daily use; this of the strong-boxes which contain my gold and silver; this of the caskets where my jewels are kept; and this is a pass-key into all the rooms. As for this little key, it is that of the Cabinet, at the end of the Gallery, on the ground floor; open everything, and go where you will.”

Charles Perrault claims that Monsieur de Montragoux added:

“But as for the little Cabinet, I forbid you to enter that; and I forbid you so expressly that if you do enter it, I cannot say to what lengths my anger will not go.”

The historian of Bluebeard in placing these words on record, has fallen into the error of adopting, without, verification, the version concocted after the event by the ladies Lespoisse. Monsieur de Montragoux expressed himself very differently. When he handed to his wife the key of the little Cabinet, which was none other than the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses, to which we have already frequently alluded, he expressed the desire that his beloved Jeanne should not enter that part of the house which he regarded as fatal to his domestic happiness. It was through this room, indeed, that his first wife, and the best of all of them, had fled, when she ran away with her bear; here Blanche de Gibeaumex had repeatedly betrayed him with various gentlemen; and lastly, the porphyry pavement was stained by the blood of a beloved criminal. Was not this enough to make Monsieur de Montragoux connect the idea of this room with cruel memories and fateful forebodings?

The words which he addressed to Jeanne de Lespoisse convey the desires and impressions which were troubling his mind. They were actually as follows:

“For you, madame, nothing of mine is hidden, and I should feel that I was doing you an injury did I fail to hand over to you all the keys of a dwelling which belongs to you. You may therefore enter this little cabinet, as you may enter all the other rooms of the house; but if you will take my advice you will do nothing of the kind, to oblige me, and in consideration of the painful ideas which, for me, are connected with this room, and the forebodings of evil which these ideas, despite myself, call up into my mind. I should be inconsolable were any mischance to befall you, or were I to bring misfortune upon you. You will, madame, forgive these fears, which are happily unfounded, as being only the outcome of my anxious affection and my watchful love.”

With these words the good _seigneur_ embraced his wife and posted off to Le Perche.

“The friends and neighbours,” says Charles Perrault, “did not wait to be asked to visit the young bride; so full were they of impatience to see all the wealth of her house. They proceeded at once to inspect all the rooms, cabinets, and wardrobes, each of which was richer and more beautiful than the last; and there was no end to their envy and their praises of their friend’s good fortune.”

All the historians who have dealt with this subject have added that Madame de Montsagoux took no pleasure in the sight of all these riches, by reason of her impatience to open the little Cabinet. This is perfectly correct, and as Perrault has said: “So urgent was her curiosity that, without considering that it was unmannerly to leave her guests, she went down to it by a little secret staircase, and in such a hurry that two or three times she thought she would break her neck.” The fact is beyond question. But what no one has told us is that the reason why she was so anxious to reach this apartment was that the Chevalier de la Merlus was awaiting her there.

Since she had come to make her home in the castle of Guillettes she had met this young gentleman in the Cabinet every day, and oftener twice a day than once, without wearying of an intercourse so unseemly in a young married woman. It is Impossible to hesitate, as to the nature of the ties connecting Jeanne with the Chevalier: they were anything but respectable, anything but chaste, Alas, had Madame de Montragoux merely betrayed her husband’s honour, she would no doubt have incurred the blame of posterity; but the most austere of moralists might have found excuses for her. He might allege, in favour of so young a woman, the laxity of the morals of the period; the examples of the city and the Court; the too certain effects of a bad training, and the advice of an immoral mother, for Madame Sidonie de Lespoisse countenanced her daughter’s intrigues. The wise might have forgiven her a fault too amiable to merit their severity; her errors would have seemed too common to be crimes, and the world would simply have considered that she was behaving like other people. But Jeanne de Lespoisse, not content with betraying her husband’s honour, did not hesitate to attempt his life.

It was in the little Cabinet, otherwise known as the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses, that Jeanne de Lespoisse, Dame de Montragoux, in concert with the Chevalier de la Merlus, plotted the death of a kind and faithful husband. She declared later that, on entering the room, she saw hanging there the bodies of six murdered women, whose congealed blood covered the tiles, and that recognizing in these unhappy women the first six wives of Bluebeard, she foresaw the fate which awaited herself. She must, in this case, have mistaken the paintings on the walls for mutilated corpses, and her hallucinations must be compared with those of Lady Macbeth. But it is extremely probable that Jeanne imagined this horrible sight in order to relate it afterwards, justifying her husband’s murderers by slandering their victim.

The death of Monsieur de Montragouz was determined upon. Certain letters which lie before me compel the belief that Madame Sidonie Lespoisse had her part in the plot. As for her elder daughter, she may be described as the soul of the conspiracy. Anne de Lespoisse was the wickedest of the whole family. She was a stranger to sensual weakness, remaining chaste in the midst of the profligacy of the house; it was not a case of refusing pleasures which she thought unworthy of her; the truth was that she took pleasure only in cruelty. She engaged her two brothers, Cosme and Pierre, in the enterprise by promising them the command of a regiment.

CHAPTER V

IT now rests with us to trace, with the aid of authentic documents, and reliable evidence, the most atrocious, treacherous, and cowardly domestic crime of which the record has come down to us. The murder whose circumstances we are about to relate can only be compared to that committed on the night of the 9th March, 1449, on the person of Guillaume de Flavy, by his wife Blanche d’Overbreuc, a young and slender woman, the bastard d’Orbandas, and the barber Jean Bocquillon.

They stifled Guillaume with a pillow, battered him pitilessly with a club, and bled him at the throat like a calf. Blanche d’Overbreuc proved that her husband had determined to have her drowned, while Jeanne de Lespoisse betrayed a loving husband to a gang of unspeakable scoundrels. We will record the facts with all possible restraint. Bluebeard returned rather earlier than expected. This it was gave rise to the quite mistaken idea that, a prey to the blackest jealousy, he was wishful to surprise his wife. Full of joy and confidence, if he thought of giving her a surprise it was an agreeable one. His kindness and tenderness, and his joyous, peaceable air would have softened the most savage hearts. The Chevalier de la Merlus, and the whole execrable brood of Lespoisse saw therein nothing but an additional facility for taking his life, and possessing themselves of his wealth, still further increased by his new inheritance.

His young wife met him with a smiling face, allowing herself to be embraced and led to the conjugal chamber, where she did everything to please the good man. The following morning she returned him the bunch of keys which had been confided to her care. But there was missing that of the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses, commonly called the little Cabinet. Bluebeard gently demanded its delivery, and after putting him off for a time on various pretexts Jeanne returned it to him.

There now arises a question which cannot be solved without leaving the limited domain of history to enter the indeterminate regions of philosophy.

Charles Perrault specifically states that the key of the little Cabinet was a fairy key, that is to say, it was magical, enchanted, endowed with properties contrary to the laws of nature, at all events, as we conceive them. We have no proof to the contrary. This is a fitting moment to recall the precept of my illustrious master, Monsieur du Clos des Lunes, a member of the Institute: “When the supernatural makes its appearance, it must not be rejected by the historian.” I shall therefore content myself with recalling as regards this key, the unanimous opinion of all the old biographers of Bluebeard; they all affirm that it was a fairy key. This is a point of great importance. Moreover, this key is not the only object created by human industry which has proved to be endowed with marvellous properties. Tradition abounds with examples of enchanted swords. Arthur’s was a magic sword. And so was that of Joan of Arc, on the undeniable authority of Jean Chartier; and the proof afforded by that illustrious chronicler is that when the blade was broken the two pieces refused to be welded together again despite all the efforts of the most competent armourers. Victor Hugo speaks in one of his poems of those “magic stairways still obscured below.” Many authors even admit that there are men-magicians who can turn themselves into wolves. We shall not undertake to combat such a firm and constant belief, and we shall not pretend to decide whether the key of the little Cabinet was or was not enchanted, for our reserve does not imply that we are in any uncertainty, and therein resides its merit. But where we find ourselves in our proper domain, or to be more precise within our own jurisdiction, where we once more become judges of facts, and writers of circumstances, is where we read that the key was flecked with blood. The authority of the texts does not so far impress us as to compel us to believe this. It was not flecked with blood. Blood had flowed in the little cabinet, but at a time already remote. Whether the key had been washed or whether it had dried, it was impossible that it should be so stained, and what, in her agitation, the criminal wife mistook for a blood-stain on the iron, was the reflection of the sky still empurpled by the roses of dawn.

Monsieur de Montragoux, on seeing the key, perceived none the less that his wife had entered the little cabinet. He noticed that it now appeared cleaner and brighter than when he had given it to her, and was of opinion that this polish could only come from use.

This produced a painful impression upon him, and he said to his wife, with a mournful smile:

“My darling, you have been into the little cabinet. May there result no grievous outcome for either of us! From that room emanates a malign influence from which I would have protected you. If you, in your turn should become subjected to it, I should never get over it. Forgive me; when we love we are superstitious.”

On these words, although Bluebeard cannot have frightened her, for his words and demeanour expressed only love and melancholy, the young lady of Montragoux began shrieking at the top of her voice: “Help! Help! he’s killing me!” This was the signal agreed upon. On hearing it, the Chevalier de la Merlus and the two sons of Madame de Lespoisse were to have thrown themselves upon Bluebeard and run him through with their swords.

But the Chevalier, whom Jeanne had hidden in a cupboard in the room, appeared alone. Monsieur de Montragoux, seeing him leap forth sword in hand, placed himself on guard. Jeanne fled terror-stricken, and met her sister Anne in the gallery. She was not, as has been related, on a tower; for all the towers had been thrown down by order of Cardinal Richelieu. Anne was striving to put heart into her two brothers, who, pale and quaking, dared not risk so great a stake. Jeanne hastily implored them: “Quick, quick, brothers, save my lover!” Pierre and Cosme then rushed at Bluebeard. They found him, having disarmed the Chevalier de la Merlus, holding him down with his knee; they treacherously ran their swords through his body from behind, and continued to strike at him long after he had breathed his last.

Bluebeard had no heirs. His wife remained mistress of his property. She used a part of it to provide a dowry for her sister Anne, another part to buy captains’ commissions for her two brothers, and the rest to marry the Chevalier de la Merlus, who became a very respectable man as soon as he was wealthy.

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annviscom · 3 years

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Year 3 - FMP

(14 April 2021)

‘Pamela Paul’s memories of reading are less about words and more about the experience. “I almost always remember where I was and I remember the book itself. I remember the physical object,” says Paul, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, who reads, it is fair to say, a lot of books. “I remember the edition; I remember the cover; I usually remember where I bought it, or who gave it to me. What I don’t remember—and it’s terrible—is everything else.”

For example, Paul told me she recently finished reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Benjamin Franklin. “While I read that book, I knew not everything there was to know about Ben Franklin, but much of it, and I knew the general timeline of the American revolution,” she says. “Right now, two days later, I probably could not give you the timeline of the American revolution.”

Surely some people can read a book or watch a movie once and retain the plot perfectly. But for many, the experience of consuming culture is like filling up a bathtub, soaking in it, and then watching the water run down the drain. It might leave a film in the tub, but the rest is gone.

“Memory generally has a very intrinsic limitation,” says Faria Sana, an assistant professor of psychology at Athabasca University, in Canada. “It’s essentially a bottleneck.”

The “forgetting curve,” as it’s called, is steepest during the first 24 hours after you learn something. Exactly how much you forget, percentage-wise, varies, but unless you review the material, much of it slips down the drain after the first day, with more to follow in the days after, leaving you with a fraction of what you took in.

Presumably, memory has always been like this. But Jared Horvath, a research fellow at the University of Melbourne, says that the way people now consume information and entertainment has changed what type of memory we value—and it’s not the kind that helps you hold onto the plot of a movie you saw six months ago.

In the internet age, recall memory—the ability to spontaneously call information up in your mind—has become less necessary. It’s still good for bar trivia, or remembering your to-do list, but largely, Horvath says, what’s called recognition memory is more important. “So long as you know where that information is at and how to access it, then you don’t really need to recall it,” he says.

Research has shown that the internet functions as a sort of externalized memory. “When people expect to have future access to information, they have lower rates of recall of the information itself,” as one study puts it. But even before the internet existed, entertainment products have served as externalized memories for themselves. You don’t need to remember a quote from a book if you can just look it up. Once videotapes came along, you could review a movie or TV show fairly easily. There’s not a sense that if you don’t burn a piece of culture into your brain, that it will be lost forever.

With its streaming services and Wikipedia articles, the internet has lowered the stakes on remembering the culture we consume even further. But it’s hardly as if we remembered it all before.

Plato was a famous early curmudgeon when it came to the dangers of externalizing memory. In the dialogue Plato wrote between Socrates and the aristocrat Phaedrus, Socrates tells a story about the god Theuth discovering “the use of letters.” The Egyptian king Thamus says to Theuth:

This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.

(Of course, Plato’s ideas are only accessible to us today because he wrote them down.)

“[In the dialogue] Socrates hates writing because he thinks it’s going to kill memory,” Horvath says. “And he’s right. Writing absolutely killed memory. But think of all the incredible things we got because of writing. I wouldn’t trade writing for a better recall memory, ever.” Perhaps the internet offers a similar tradeoff: You can access and consume as much information and entertainment as you want, but you won’t retain most of it.

It’s true that people often shove more into their brains than they can possibly hold. Last year, Horvath and his colleagues at the University of Melbourne found that those who binge-watched TV shows forgot the content of them much more quickly than people who watched one episode a week. Right after finishing the show, the binge-watchers scored the highest on a quiz about it, but after 140 days, they scored lower than the weekly viewers. They also reported enjoying the show less than did people who watched it once a day, or weekly.

People are binging on the written word, too. In 2009, the average American encountered 100,000 words a day, even if they didn’t “read” all of them. It’s hard to imagine that’s decreased in the nine years since. In “Binge-Reading Disorder,” an article for The Morning News, Nikkitha Bakshani analyzes the meaning of this statistic. “Reading is a nuanced word,” she writes, “but the most common kind of reading is likely reading as consumption: where we read, especially on the internet, merely to acquire information. Information that stands no chance of becoming knowledge unless it ‘sticks.’”

Or, as Horvath puts it: “It’s the momentary giggle and then you want another giggle. It’s not about actually learning anything. It’s about getting a momentary experience to feel as though you’ve learned something.”

The lesson from his binge-watching study is that if you want to remember the things you watch and read, space them out. I used to get irritated in school when an English-class syllabus would have us read only three chapters a week, but there was a good reason for that. Memories get reinforced the more you recall them, Horvath says. If you read a book all in one stretch—on an airplane, say—you’re just holding the story in your working memory that whole time. “You’re never actually reaccessing it,” he says.

Sana says that often when we read, there’s a false “feeling of fluency.” The information is flowing in, we’re understanding it, it seems like it is smoothly collating itself into a binder to be slotted onto the shelves of our brains. “But it actually doesn’t stick unless you put effort into it and concentrate and engage in certain strategies that will help you remember.”

People might do that when they study, or read something for work, but it seems unlikely that in their leisure time they’re going to take notes on Gilmore Girls to quiz themselves later. “You could be seeing and hearing, but you might not be noticing and listening,” Sana says. “Which is, I think, most of the time what we do.”

Still, not all memories that wander are lost. Some of them may just be lurking, inaccessible, until the right cue pops them back up—perhaps a pre-episode “Previously on Gilmore Girls” recap, or a conversation with a friend about a book you’ve both read. Memory is “all associations, essentially,” Sana says.

That may explain why Paul and others remember the context in which they read a book without remembering its contents. Paul has kept a “book of books,” or “Bob,” since she was in high school—an analog form of externalized memory—in which she writes down every book she reads. “Bob offers immediate access to where I’ve been, psychologically and geographically, at any given moment in my life,” she explains in My Life With Bob, a book she wrote about her book of books. “Each entry conjures a memory that may have otherwise gotten lost or blurred with time.”

In a piece for The New Yorker called “The Curse of Reading and Forgetting,” Ian Crouch writes, “reading has many facets, one of which might be the rather indescribable, and naturally fleeting, mix of thought and emotion and sensory manipulations that happen in the moment and then fade. How much of reading, then, is just a kind of narcissism—a marker of who you were and what you were thinking when you encountered a text?”

To me, it doesn’t seem like narcissism to remember life’s seasons by the art that filled them—the spring of romance novels, the winter of true crime. But it’s true enough that if you consume culture in the hopes of building a mental library that can be referred to at any time, you’re likely to be disappointed.

Books, shows, movies, and songs aren’t files we upload to our brains—they’re part of the tapestry of life, woven in with everything else. From a distance, it may become harder to see a single thread clearly, but it’s still in there.

“It’d be really cool if memories were just clean—information comes in and now you have a memory for that fact,” Horvath says. “But in truth, all memories are everything.”’

#level6 #fmp #research

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aparecium-hq · 4 years

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Welcome to Aparecium, Christie! You have been accepted for Lily Potter with Aisha Dee as the faceclaim. Thanking for being willing to make the switch! We love the clear personality of your app. It’s evident you have a strong idea of who Lily is, even if she’s still struggling with that herself. We’re excited to have you! Check out the new member checklist, and jump right in.

Character Basics

Birthday (Age): 12th May 2008 (19) Gender (Pronouns): Cis female, she/her Sexuality: Lily herself has no idea. Sure, back at Hogwarts, she’d had crushes on boys, had gone through a stage her mother had, with no small dose of amusement, dubbed her ‘boy crazy’ phase, but she’d never really had a boyfriend. It wasn’t that no one had asked her out, but rather that somehow, as soon as any boy seemed to reciprocate her feelings, Lily found herself losing interest; she doesn’t know if that means she isn’t interested in boys or if she just hadn’t been interested in those boys in particular. Meanwhile, she’s not too sure how she feels about girls either. She has girl friends, she loves her girl friends, and if they tend to be very touchy and affectionate, well, girls just do that. It’s the warmth that spreads inside her every time they hug or hold hands that makes Lily question herself, though; is it just the happiness that comes from friendship or is it potentially something romantic? She has no idea. Blood Status: Halfblood Hogwarts House/School: Hufflepuff Occupation: Artist Faceclaim: Anya Chalotra Any requested changes? Nope!

Biography:

At home, Lily is spoiled rotten. Toys, attention, affection, you name it, she has it. She’s Mommy’s favourite, Daddy’s princess, the baby of the family, and Lily revels in it all, adores the feeling of being adored; it’s not just a good childhood, it’s the best childhood. Stupidly, naively, she thinks school will be like that too. She wants to grow up, she wants to join James and Albus in Hogwarts, she wants and she wants, and up to this point, everything Lily Luna Potter wants she’s gotten. But growing up, it turns out it’s not all that.

In school, no one asks her what she wants, they just try to tell her instead, how she should act (“Hufflepuffs are supposed to represent patience and kindness”), who she is (“The Boy Who Lived’s youngest, Ginny Potter’s daughter, Luna Lovegood’s namesake, James and Albus’ sister”) and when Lily pushes back, they call her hot-headed and rude. It pushes her off-kilter; she’s not used to people assuming the worst of her. But Hogwarts isn’t home, and her classmates aren’t her parents, and Lily Potter isn’t universally adored.

She has to work hard for everything, from people’s love to her grades, and it’s new, but she doesn’t exactly mind. It’s refreshing, almost, to have the chance to be perceived as someone other than the Potters’ little princess and to be able to create a new image for herself. But while she doesn’t mind hard work, she does mind the press sticking their noses where they don’t belong; it’s hard enough to navigate puberty as it is and it’s even harder with eyes on her at all times, just waiting for her to mess up. Honestly, screw the press. Lily vows not to mess up, if only just to spite them.

Except. That’s easier said than done. Teenagehood is marked by lapses of judgement, by mistakes to learn from, and Lily is no exception. It’s not as though she’s committed any Azkaban-worthy crimes or anything, but there are things she’d rather keep to herself, you know? So what if she may have crossed a line or two while playing a prank on a girl she saw talking to the guy she liked? She knows it was wrong, she apologised, but how is that news-worthy? Wix play pranks on each other all the time, she knows; uncle George’s told her stories. But none of her peers end up making headlines like HARRY POTTER’S DAUGHTER FACING EXPULSION OVER A RUTHLESS “PRANK”. Which isn’t even true, by the way, she was never about to be expelled, but do those dementors care about the truth? No, of course not. They only care about their stories.

She misses one of James’ games, they speculate he doesn’t want her there. She mentions that Muggles would probably not be too accepting of magic, they paint her as some prejudiced asshole. She has a bit too much to drink, they question the way her parents raised her – and about this one, in particular, she personally tracked down the author of the article to tell them to their face precisely what she thought of their “reporting”. No matter what she does, though, it seems that there are people who don’t agree and Lily just can’t figure it out.

But she wants to. By Merlin, she wants to. She wants to stop being “controversial”, she wants to make her parents proud, she wants people to stop acting like she’s embarrassing her family. Again, she wants and still, no one seems to care that she does. But by now, Lily’s grown used to hard work and her determination has never been under question, either; she knows she can change the narrative if she just keeps pushing, but the question now is, is there even a point? Maybe it’s okay to let people have their misconceptions and spread their rumours; as long as Lily and her loved ones know the truth, does it matter? She’s not sure.

Character Questionnaire

Answer at least three of the following questions about your character. This could be in character or a third period explanation.

How does your character feel about their family? She loves her family, there’s never been a question of that in her mind, which only makes it all the harder whenever she catches herself wishing she’d been born in a different one. It makes her feel terrible, even just considering it, because her parents are wonderful, and so are her brothers and cousins, and she does really love them all! But the expectations that come with being a Potter are a bit much and she could definitely go without them. She hates the feeling of all that attention on her (which is ironic, really, because she’d loved attention as a child) and while she would never actually want to trade her family, it’s hard not to consider what-ifs.

What does your character value in a friendship? Hard work. Perhaps it’s the Hufflepuff in her, but Lily knows without a shadow of a doubt that friendships take work. She’s seen people drift apart, turn from practically siblings to strangers, all because they give up and let it happen, and she tells herself that would never be her. But she and Hugo aren’t as close as they used to be, and for some reason, no matter how hard she tries, it’s like there’s a gap between them she can’t close. That’s okay, though; she’s not planning on giving up on Hugo anytime soon. If someone can figure it out, it’s the two of them.

How would a stranger who has just met your character describe them? Does this stranger have access to newspapers and online sites? Because if so, Lily doesn’t even want to begin to imagine what they might think of her. The thing is, the media seems so determined to push this narrative of her being a wild child and Lily is so angry at them for doing it that it kind of ends up working. She’s snappy with reporters, she pretends she doesn’t care what they think, she speaks her mind and she does it loudly, just to spite all those journalists who try to put her in a box and silence her.

That’s not her, though. That’s not Lily. Or rather, it is, but it’s who’s she’s become rather than who she is at her core. So if a stranger carrying all those preconceptions of her was to meet her, they would probably be surprised first and foremost. “She seemed a bit… shy? Only at first, though, then eventually she just became really chill and easygoing. Yeah, no, she’s actually really cool.”

What magical skill or talent is your character most proud of? Her Charms work. She’s always had a knack for Charms (though not for much else, as the tabloids love to remind everyone ever since her NEWTs results came out) and incorporating it in her job was a child’s game. She doesn’t only do enchanted portraits, of course – she has enough eyes following her as it is. But whenever wix come to her requesting magical portraits, it feels good to have full confidence that she can perform all the right charms with her eyes closed. Not literally, obviously, although… it would make for a fun experiment. She’d have to see about getting Lydia on-board and giving it a go.

Para Sample

Please include at least 3 paragraphs to showcase your writing style.

She slams the newspaper down on Raphael’s desk and the feeling she gets as she does isn’t as much of a déjà-vu as it is reminiscent of a habit with how often she’s found herself in the exact same situation. It does nothing to lessen her irritation; they’re not taking her seriously, any of them. Oh, here she comes again, they probably say when they see her march in. Just send her off to complain to Selwyn again.

She’s sick and tired of being written off as a daily annoyance and, unfortunately for Raphael, it seems his coworkers have decided he’s her scapegoat. Lily stifles a bristle, just barely; if he wants to blame anyone he better blame them.

“Harry Potter’s youngest celebrates nineteenth birthday with a wild night in town,” she quotes, not even needing to look at the damn headline, having already memorised the whole thing. Her tone manages to remain even, somehow, but as she goes on to continue, she can feel her annoyance increasing by the second and it becomes audible in her voice too. “Since when did the Prophet turn into a gossip rag? Who even- who even cares what I do for my birthday, it’s my birthday! And I have a name, by the way, and it’s not Harry Potter’s anything. It’s Lily. Lily Luna, hi, nice to meet you. Except it’s not really.”

She’s launched into a whole rant now, hands on her hips and all, and she would usually feel bad for not letting him get a word in, but hey, they weren’t concerned with hearing her when they printed out this thing, why should she be the bigger person? She lets it all out, going through all the points on her mental list of things wrong with the blasted article, and finally, when she feels satisfied, she looks at him expectantly.

Then the prick has the nerve to say, “Is that all?” and Lily has to wonder what sort of headline the Prophet will come up with if she hexes one of their journalists right here, right now.

#rp #hp rp #hp rpg #lily potter #apareciumacceptance

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