#also this one is titled sanctimony

[otomefiend]

Victor

Story Event: Wicked love blooming in the dark night (part two)

Chapter 2

Chapter 1

More Vic's antics. Forgive awkwardness here and there.

~~Part 1~~

Victor's arms were filled with mountains of presents as he made his way around Harrods.

(I can't see his face hidden behind the pile of boxes!)

Victor: "Since I'm with you, I thought I'd refrain from buying gifts."

Victor: "But Ellis’ shirt was worn out, so I wanted to get a new one and a jacket for Liam as well!"

Victor: "I also found a tie clip that would look good on Alfons. Look, this one."

Victor: "Jude's shoes too―"

Kate: "Victor, watch out―"

I managed to stop the falling box at the last moment.

Kate&Victor: "...phew."

Victor: "Um…Kate, sorry?"

Kate: "Pfft, hahahahaha! I've never seen anyone buy this much in just a few hours."

Victor: "...."

(how cute)

Seeing Victor like that brought an image of an overturned toybox to mind and resulted in me spontaneously bursting into laughter.

Kate: "Hanging out with you is a lot of fun, Victor."

Victor: "Ah, at last! I was able to see you smile.'

Kate: "Um"

Victor: "You haven't laughed so heartily since you came to the Castle, have you?"

Victor: "Not surprisingly, since you expected to die."

~~Part 2~~

The vivid anxiety and fear of that night still lingered on my mind.

*flashback starts*

(I have to convince them somehow...!)

(If the reason for being killed is "knowing the secret"—!)

Kate: "I swear I won't tell anyone what I just heard!"

*flashback ends*

Victor: "Since we were the ones who scared you, this way of thinking might seem quite selfish but..."

Victor: "Every time I looked at you, Kate, I tried to imagine you laughing."

Victor: "You're wonderful whether you smile or not, but..."

Victor: "I'm truly overjoyed to see you laugh."

Victor: "So thank you for making me happy, Kate."

(I wonder why I suddenly feel like crying)

Kate: "...you're welcome, thank you for thinking about me."

That was all I could say, feeling that if I let my guard down any further, I wouldn't be able to stop the tears.

Victor: "Kate, I'm sorry, but can you help me unload this in the carriage?"

Victor: "At this rate, I won't be able to charmingly escort you."

Kate: "Yes! It's no trouble at all."

~~~

(T-this is...!)

~~Part 3~~

After loading the carriage, Victor invited me to this room in Harrods to thank me.

Even I knew that such privilege was reserved only for selected customers.

Victor: "Choose whatever you like. I want to buy you a gift."

Kate: "No way! You bought so much already..."

Victor: "That's what you need in life. From now on, please let me treat you. Okay?"

His voice was soft yet his eyes were unyielding.

(...everything in this room is wonderful though)

Victor: "Kate, I don't think the act of getting-to-know can be done one-sidedly."

Victor: "I'd hope you meant it as a desire to form a relationship with each other."

Victor: "Remember, we want to know you as much as you want to know the Crown."

Kate: "Victor..."

Victor: "What a sanctimonious, uptight, shady man I am! Come now, choose, choose!"

Kate: "Fine!"

(...similarly to people in town, he talks to me like an equal)

Member of the Crown and the postwoman. Queen's aide and the fairy-tale writer.

There were many titles attached to people, I was happy he didn't seem to care about them.

When I looked around to pick something,

a midnight-coloured dress caught my eyes.

(...so gorgeous. I wish I could wear something like that at least once)

(though it must be expensive, so regretfully...)

~~Part 4~~

Out of many available things, I pointed to a small but elaborate and beautiful headdress.

Kate: "That butterfly hair ornament."

Victor: "Oh, that's nice. I think it suits you just right. I'll have it wrapped at once."

Kate: "That's very kind of you, thank you Victor. I'll cherish it."

Victor: "...you're most welcome."

Victor: "Now then, it's time for the tea party. Although, truth be told, I'd rather be alone with my cute lover a little longer."

~~~

Back at the court, members of the Privy Council gathered in a beautiful garden.

The table was lined with expensive looking tea-ware and sweets.

(as Victor's guest, I have to make sure I don't commit some faux-pas)

When I braced myself once more, Victor peered into my face...

Victor: "Kate, say a-ah."

Kate: "A-ah... munch..."

The strawberry he picked made its way into my mouth.

Victor: "Aww, how cute, you look like a squirrel! You're really good at stealing my heart."

He leaned forward and whispered in my ear.

Victor: "Kate, it's okay. I'm here with you, no need to be nervous."

~~Part 5~~

His words were reassuring, and at that time we looked at each other and laughed.

Maid: "Lord Victor. Um...the head chef would like to speak to your lordship..."

Victor: "....."

Victor: "Is this something that can't wait?"

Maid: "Y-yes. I was told that it's urgent."

Kate: "Victor, I'm fine, feel free to go."

Victor: "... Okay. I'll be back in no time."

As he disappeared, I could hear one of the Privy Council members exclaim.

Councilman with black hair: "I'm so pleased I was able to set this up."

Councilman with black hair: "I approached Her Majesty as well, but... unfortunately, she turned down the invitation."

Councilman with brown hair: "It couldn't be helped. Her Majesty isn't a party person, is she?"

Councilman with black hair: "Indeed. Instead, I managed to borrow one of Her Majesty's tea sets."

I could hear a few cheering voices.

Councilman with black hair: "It's no ordinary tea set. Rather, it's a precious gift bestowed upon Her Majesty the Queen."

Councilman with brown hair: "Ah, it's a tribute gift reflecting the friendship between countries, isn't that right? Frankly, I'd advise against touching it."

(Such an important thing here?)

(...just in case, I'll keep my distance)

When I was about to step away, a thump sent a shock through my back.

Kate: "....!"

As I staggered, my hand hit the tea set placed on the edge of the table and knocked it down—."

Chapter 3 Premium

Chapter 3 Bitter

[alabonshay]

More info about dendies I may condense into About:

Dendies are the sapient extensions of a world-eating parasite. They are hybrids of human DNA and the original alien substance, which lives on as Lake Sanctimonious. They are its independent, thinking, walking counterparts, borrowing human development as constructs to care for itself and aid in its spread. Otherwise, the Lake is a defenseless body of liquid which may not even be alive.

Dendies have (mostly) human brains, so they tend to enjoy or dislike things that humans would. They can relate to them easily. However, they have lot of physical differences which may seem uncanny. Matriarchs especially struggle with their appearance, since their brains are hardwired for a more human-like shape than the look of their species.

Mainstream religion follows that the Lake created dendies because it was curious. As parts of the source, their purpose is to make experiences through independent lives, then return to Lake upon death so they can be made anew. Some skeptics say dendies have no purpose except to spread the Lake as mindless animals. Therefore, one must prove themselves above this nature by being intelligent and a good person to others.

Duchesses are demigods in their own right. Their ancestors became legendary for discovering the Sanctuary world. Those leaders who survived the deep, dark swim to the other side were elevated to this title. Duchesses are believed the Lake's favorite souls and they are reborn every generation as a sign of worldly order. The practice of cloning is a symbolic courtesy, since it allows the soul the same body. It also ensures that the lines are easily followed and the descendants are properly rewarded. The crossing or marriage of two Duchesses is forbidden.

Current society values innovation and accomplishment, whether on a small or large scale. Individualism and creativity are valued in the upper-classes, as they tend to live longer lives and are the favored souls of the Lake. Cooperation is encouraged in the ordinary people. They are taught to stay in their lane and do their work for the sake of society, but may also spend many years honing a particular craft.

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

I clicked on a video essay about Snow White and off the rip, the guy called Snow White a "passive domestic weirdo with no personality" and quickly figured out he is one of THOSE critics. He also got one about Ariel and you bet your ass he is one of these "gave up her voice for a man", "The Little Mermaid is misogynistic" dipshits. I have yet to watch the video, but I know for a fact he is one of those guys. His videos reek of that smartass, sanctimonious, leftist bullshit just by reading the titles and looking at the thumbnails. This guy also has a video defending Twilight. You can't make this damn shit up.

[absentlyabbie]

hello abbie my friend abbie i must say i have been loving watching the bastard son and the devil himself through gifs you reblog and now i must ask

waht is it about, would you recommend watching it in more than gifs on my dash, because gabriel is extremely pretty and i am vaguely tempted

HELLO <3 you have fallen into my trap, welcome!

the bastard son and the devil himself (netflix adjusted the title like last week for a lead of "half bad:" probably because it's a mouthful and also to make it more obvious it's based on the namesake book series) is about a boy whose father is the actual big bad wolf of the witch community, and because of this, that witch community makes his life a living hell from infancy and treats him like he's at every moment a wrong breath from being Just Like Daddy (and that since he's so obviously going to turn out that way, why not treat him as if he already has from his actual birth?)

which, by the way, is so much more yikes when you consider that growing up, nathan is probably one of like five black kids he ever meets. the racism is never addressed directly, but it is not a subtle presence.

you've got technically two witch communities: the "fairborns" and the "bloods." the ones who call themselves fairborns really give themselves away with that "we are inherently superior by birth" bullshit don't they? meanwhile the blood witches are more on the level of "literally all of us use blood rituals get over yourselves." both these communities are doing the magical secret conspiracy dance among the "fains", aka basic magicless humans.

nathan's father is a blood witch, his mother was a fairborn. he has an older half-sister who is more the monster than they ever tried to pretend he was destined to be (you'll see) and a grandmother who loved him fiercely and without shame. his gran raised him and his sister after her daughter dies of purported suicide shortly after nathan is born. you get the sense she's more of the average witch stock that, while still technically "fairborn", is much less enthused about the big dividing lines the fairborn council draws between the two communities.

the fairborns of the higher level of their society are sanctimonious, oppressive pricks and really a hairsbreadth from quiet-part-loud fascism, so brace for that. you learn more about blood witches as you go, so other than knowing the fairborns vilify them as all monsters and murderers with savage traditions of violence, starting with them as a question mark is best for the development of the story.

so, fairborn and blood witches alike gain their powers at age 17 by being given a small amount of blood from some member of their family. because Reasons, nathan eventually ends up on a wild fugitive quest to save himself when for other Reasons (such as his sister's bloodthirsty hatred of him) his 17th birthday approaches and there's no one who can/will give him his blood, and for blood witches, rumor is that goes much worse than simply not getting superpowers.

annalise: irreverent, clever, and discerning daughter of the fairborn council's most sanctimonious asshole. moves suddenly to nathan's small town and latches onto nathan immediately, who latches on just as hard to her. annalise doesn't much buy into the fairborn propaganda, but also doesn't realize how much of it she's unknowingly internalized nevertheless. ends up with a power that gives her extra reason to go fugitiving with nathan (after she helps rescue his ass.) she's snarky and cute and loyal and has big feral stubborn energy.

gabriel: so french, so queer, so sarcastic. (younger than he looks.) enters the story seeming like he might be a minor side character, or perhaps a b-level antagonist, or a short-arc companion. he pretty much says "fuck that" and will worm his way right into your heart and then act extremely aggrieved to be there. blood witch, alchemist, errand boy for a mysterious and ominous blood witch who is helping nathan for dubious and unknown reasons. gabriel is a puzzlebox that opens slowly and is at every turn more than he appeared the moment before.

annalise and nathan latch onto gabriel like burs, and he is initially extremely annoyed by this, but they grow on him. like a very persistent bread mold. gabriel and annalise have a particularly sparring sort of dynamic, but grow a clear affection for each other nonetheless. you've no doubt already absorbed from my reblog sprees that nathan is a beautiful bi disaster and they both hinge on him magnificently. but, signs abound that this developing ot3 may be more triad than v.

this show is violent and sometimes gory, it simmers in you a constant outrage and bitterness at the injustice nathan in particular faces constantly, it is heavily populated by characters who range from "eyes-wide-open willing monster" to "morally gray, complicated, fucked up, but entertaining and maybe even redeemable."

and yet, the show doesn't try to make you as the viewer decide who is absolutely right and who is absolutely wrong, who is good vs who is evil. instead it sits you next to our heroes as they explore and confront the ever shifting balance of good/evil, light/dark in every person, how nothing is ever as simple as "good guys v bad guys", but that even in a world so varyingly shadowed, there are objective wrongs that must be recognized and fought against.

all of this could make this show seem potentially over-heavy and tedious with misery, exhaustingly bitter and cynical, but on the contrary, entirely because of the core three characters, the beating heart of the show is love. love and connection and hope. acceptance and the destruction of bigotry through exposure to knowledge, but also the choice that has to be actively made to do that. it is, in fact, about fighting for one another and fighting for yourself, and even more about leaning on and supporting one another. because a world without these truly is one without hope or warmth, and the core trio are too full of those things to ever let it be lost.

tl;dr yes i highly recommend watching the show itself and not just the gifsets, as truly the gifsets only scrape the very upper surface of the depths of this show and its world building, characters, and examination of dynamics of power and axes of oppression.

[fideidefenswhore]

Do you think if Fitzroy lived there might have been some friction/envy with him and Edward? I was thinking as Henry gave Fitzroy so many titles probably he did think of making him heir at one point, and maybe always still thought of him as backup if things didn't work out. I even heard one theory the 1536 Succession act wanted to make him place holder heir (or imply it by clearing away Mary and Elizabeth) but he died as it was in parliament. As he was called prince that was as there wasn't one, like he'd never be called that or given so much if any of KOA sons survived. And maybe calling him that would help people think, well he's almost royal so that's good enough.

But when Edward came along, wouldn't Fitzroy stop being called prince as there's a real one now? And i could sort of see some resentment building there. Fitzroy was used to being the only son and now he's less important.

And from Edward's pov, he's the heir yeah but he missed out on all the good years with his dad. Fitzroy got to know him when he was still young and active, could play sports with him, but Edward was born after Henry was injured and the end years and decline. He'd probably be sorry he couldn't have decades and memories of that.

Not sure how Henry would feel or if they meant different things to him

Yeah, these are all interesting questions. As I remember, Beverely Murphy's biography doesn't much go into counterfactuals as far as Edward VI and nor does Elizabeth Norton's on his mother, Bessie Blount, but let me see...

Ok, highlights from the former:

HVIII might have named Fitzroy as regent for Edward VI's minority

His funeral in 1536 had provided an 'excuse' to isolate Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, from favour (well...probably another significant factor at play here, too), possibility also of Norfolk at head of regency council rather than Seymour, as the pieces fell, without Fitzroy's death, by 1547

John Dudley in this scenario, also playing ' a less pivotal role', esp. since Dudley was supported in his bid for power by Richmond's former stepfather, wouldn't he have been more likely to support his former stepson instead?

"Everything suggests that Richmond and not Mary would have been next in line for the throne [circa 1553]", mm, not sure about that one myself, but...

"Edward would have acknowledged his half-brother's position as heir apparent", I think this underrates Edward VI's sanctimonious piety and morality, Fitzroy was unquestionably illegitimate even if male, it's predicated on the assumption that Fitzroy would have been next in line by Act of Parliament had he lived, and forgets that even if that were true in this counterfactual, so were Mary and Elizabeth, who Edward wrote out. /shrug (My own personal opinion, I think this is more likely if Fitzroy had become as staunch a Protestant as his brother, and/or if he and his wife had issue that were...maybe Edward would invest Fitzroy as regent for Fitzroy's children, ie, his own nephew?)

'If there had been any opposition it would not have come from Mary" (um...let me mind my business...sorry, all respect to BM as a historian aside, this seems based on a fundamental misunderstanding of Mary's character and beliefs)

Ok, now I'm falling off these counterfactual bullet points a little/getting off the point but the next section is too misogynistic and ridiculous to bear repeating ("the idea that she might rule at all, much less without husband at her side, would have astonished her" she did that for like a year???)...I can't believe I haven't seen this section criticised in reviews, omg...

"Richmond may also have emulated some of his father's less attractrive traits" I'd argue all his children did (and his more attractive, too), but whatever...

Do you think if Fitzroy lived there might have been some friction/envy with him and Edward?

But when Edward came along, wouldn't Fitzroy stop being called prince as there's a real one now? And i could sort of see some resentment building there. Fitzroy was used to being the only son and now he's less important. And from Edward's pov, he's the heir yeah but he missed out on all the good years with his dad. Fitzroy got to know him when he was still young and active, could play sports with him, but Edward was born after Henry was injured and the end years and decline. He'd probably be sorry he couldn't have decades and memories of that.

Oh, for sure. This would have been a fascinating relationship dynamic, and I'm truly bummed we'll never know (much like had Arthur Tudor survived, what would his an Henry's relationship be like, and his with his sisters, it's just interesting, esp since it seems like Margaret was Arthur's favorite and Mary was Henry's), it'd make an interesting novel, tho! Just for starters, they would have a comparable age gap to Mary & Elizabeth, and that was a fascinating and complex relationship with lots of resentment, for sure. And also a similar dynamic of Elizabeth being Princess while Mary is a bastard, then them both being considered so, then Elizabeth being considered so and Mary erasing her own when Queen...

Fitzroy would have been devastated had he survived to see sons born by any of his father's wives. It's plausible he was, not devastated, but somewhat resentful of his only stepmother, as his troupe of players (ie, actors that performed pageants to HVIII's subjects in his name and for his benefit) was disbanded when Princess Elizabeth was born, which could not have been done without HVIII's sign-off but was likely at the influence of Anne Boleyn (these troupes were for the 'children of the King' and obviously Anne would not have wanted any child of the King acknowledged by the people except her own child/ren, Mary's troupe was disbanded too, although remarkably Fitzroy's remained during the entirety of the time COA was technically Queen...in this context, it makes sense he was such a thorn in her side).

I'll add Norton's if there are any, when I get more spoons, x.

[calciseptinefic]

then out of nowhere, somebody comes and hits you with an ooh la la la, ooh la la la, ooh la la la, ooh

Marvel || Wade Wilson/Peter Parker || Part 10 notes: Title from 'Mad Sounds' by Arctic Monkeys. Many thanks to babygato for her beta on this chapter. this fic is also available on ao3 warnings: none

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← previous: Part 9

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Wade does not think as he drops the take-out bags—

Yanks both tactical daggers out from the sheaths strapped to his boots—

And sprints into the alley after the other Peter and the shadow that took him.

There is nothing but unnatural dark down the alley. It's as though the early afternoon sun has been switched off as easily as lamplight, plunging Wade's surroundings into black. His eyes struggle to adjust, darting this way and that, desperately searching for variations in shade—

But there is nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Wade's defensive stance becomes more rigid and he clenches his fists more tightly around the hilts of his daggers. He slides one foot forward and feels the solid reassurance of the ground. Sucks in a hard breath. Closes his eyes, despite the illogic of the action, and listens—

"Hello?" a voice yells as though from an immense distance. "Hello? Can anyone hear me?"

It's other-Peter. The panic in his voice is evident, a thin thread strung taut through the syllables. Wade aches to answer—to assure—but he doesn't know if this darkness goes both ways, doesn't know if whatever waits beyond is blinded as well or has the advantage. So he stays motionless, straining to hear.

Wade does not have to wait for long.

"Sorcerer Supreme." Another voice resonates through the gloom. It is little more than a rasp but it comes from everywhere, impossible to pinpoint. "We meet at last."

"Excuse me?" Wade hears other-Peter call out. "What did you say?"

"Sorcerer Supreme," the voice reiterates more loudly. "We meet at last—"

"Sorry, but... sorcerer who?"

"Do not play childish games with me, Strange!" the voice hisses. Agitation makes the infinite layers sharp and painful to listen to. "You shall not mock me! I have brought you here to pay for the innumerable and immeasurable crimes of your predecessors—"

"My what now?" other-Peter asks. Oddly, the panic in his voice has faded, and has been replaced with genuine confusion. "My predecessors? Like... my parents?"

"Not your parents, you ignorant fool!" The layers change again, becoming discordant notes heaped together in a headache-inducing cacophony. "Your predecessors! Those who have come before! Those who have previously held the sanctimonious position of Sorcerer Supreme, and wrought their ignoble version of justice across the multiverse! How they performed careless and thoughtless deeds, how they purported falsehoods and lies and—oof!"

The voice is abruptly cut off. There is a dull, heavy noise—the familiar sound of a body hitting the ground—and the sudden return of light. Wade opens his eyes and immediately winces; even the shady dimness of the alleyway is blinding after absolute dark, and tears flood his eyes to soothe the burning adjustment. Wade wipes the wet away roughly.

"That's a hell of a mission statement," says other-Peter. "Are you the one who brought me here?"

No—not other-Peter.

Peter Peter. Who… should be back at the apartment, waiting for Wade.

That sneaky shit, Wade thinks as he forces his stinging eyes to stay open. He must have been following me.

Further down the alley, Peter stands in front of other-Peter with his arms crossed, wearing the clothes from this morning plus the mask and boots of his superhero costume. On the ground is a third man, his limbs and deep purple robes splayed across the dirty ground. His head is devoid of hair, the skin fish-belly white, and there is a fractal tattoo in the middle of his forehead, a spiral that slowly fades as it spreads outwards, down over his eyes and the bridge of his nose, and back towards the crown of his skull.

"Spiderman." As he struggles to his feet, Wade realizes that Baldy’s voice is no longer magnified and directionless; it is just a normal voice and it comes only from his mouth. "You are not meant to be here."

"I figured that one out on my own, buddy. Can you tell me something new?"

"I will not kill you if you hand over the Sorcerer Supreme." Baldy lifts both hands and holds them out in front of his chest; they hover parallel to one another, palm facing palm, as though he were holding an invisible basketball. "My quarrel is not with you."

"You seriously think the guy behind me is Strange?" Peter jerks a thumb back at other-Peter. "With those baby cheeks? That lack of questionably fashionable sideburns? Come on."

"A paltry illusion spell," Baldy spits. Behind Peter, Wade sees other-Peter—ugh, this is so confusing—sees rePete mouth the words 'illusion spell' like he's never encountered the concept before in his life, even theoretically. "A second warning, Spiderman. Stand aside and allow the Sorcerer Supreme to face the consequences of his unchecked actions."

"Sorry." Peter shrugs. "Not gonna happen."

"Very well." Baldy nods once. "Your misplaced loyalties have been marked. Goodbye, Spiderman."

Several things happen in quick succession. Baldy contracts his hands, fingers rigid, then rapidly pulls them wide. A net of sickly green light sparks into existence in the space between his palms. When he pushes it away from himself, it condenses into a single bolt, heading towards Peter—

Peter grabs rePete around the waist and shoots a web, lifting the both of them off the ground—

The bolt strikes the building behind where they had just been, melting the exterior wall as though it were acid—

And Peter shouts, "Wade—!"

RePete is falling. Wade immediately drops his knives and braces himself. He's strong—works hard to stay that way, because you never know when brute force will save your life—yet even he knows that catching a full-grown man who is sailing through the air towards him won't be easy.

And it isn't. He manages to catch rePete in the least awkward way possible, with no hands in inappropriate places, but he still falls backwards, landing hard on his back with rePete on top of him. One of rePete's bony elbows hits him in the solar plexus and he grunts. For a moment, both of them lay there: Wade, struggling to breathe, and rePete, struggling to mentally process what just happened.

"Up," Wade wheezes, patting rePete's shoulder. "Can't—"

"Oh my god, I am so sorry," rePete says, immediately clambering off Wade and kneeling on the ground beside him. His hands hover unsurely over Wade's chest. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Wade winces as he sits up. There will be a spectacular bruise in the middle of his torso—one to match the bruise Peter gave Wade yesterday when he elbowed him too hard in the ribs—but the hurt of it is smothered by the adrenaline pounding through his veins. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good, I just—" rePete shakes his head in disbelief, doe eyes wide behind his glasses. "What the fuck is going on?"

Further down the alley, Peter is high on the wall of one of the buildings, crouched against the brick as though gravity were optional. Baldy is moving his hands again and that sickly green light once more grows between his palms. It isn't smart to use the same move twice, though; now that Peter doesn't have to worry about rePete's safety, he drops down and shoots his webs the moment before Baldy pushes the lightning out, catching Baldy's wrists and forcing the bolt to go directly upwards instead of causing more property damage. Baldy snarls and yanks his hands back, sparks fading from his fingertips.

"Neat trick," Peter says he lands with barely a sound. He puts his hands on his hips. "Haven't seen an acid spell before."

"In our universe, that 'trick' would melt the flesh from your bones."

"But not in this one." Peter cocks his head. "Who did you say you were again?"

"I do not have a name," Baldy spits, as though the very idea were deeply unpalatable. "Like all members of my order, I have shed my identity to prevent the hubris caused by the formation of self. Know instead that I am one of the Forsaken! We, the Forsaken, who were cast out from Kamar-Taj millennia ago by the first master of the mystic arts, Agamotto!"

"Agatha who?"

"Agamotto!" Baldy shrieks. "Agamotto! The first Sorcerer Supreme! And he—" Baldy turns to point a finger at rePete, who is still kneeling on the ground beside Wade, completely baffled, "—shall be the last of Agamotto's corrupted legacy!"

"Yeah, still not the Sorcerer Supreme, dude," Peter says as rePete whispers to Wade, "Is this some sort of flash mob? Are we being recorded?"

"Uh, yeah," Wade says. Such an explanation is better than any lie Wade could come up with at the moment, as he's too preoccupied by the fact that Peter is fighting a nutbag who can do magic. Wade grabs his daggers and gets to his feet. "Just stay behind me, in case the pyrotechnics get weird. Okay?"

"Sure," rePete says as he also stands. Thankfully, he does as Wade asks, hovering close as he peers around Wade's shoulder to watch Peter and Baldy duke it out.

Clearly frustrated, Baldy tries forming another spell. Peter simply stops him by knocking a hand out from the configuration, and the green light that had started to form fizzles away harmlessly. Baldy steps back and tries again—but again, Peter strikes, disrupting the spell before it can be completed.

"Curse this dead world!" Baldy hisses and, to Wade's vague surprise, abandons his spell casting for hand-to-hand combat. Well, he doesn't completely abandon magic. While he fights—the sharp and offensive jabs reminiscent of Northern-style martial arts—Baldy also moves his fingers in small circles to create small spells, flicking them from his fingertips like darts. Peter dodges most of them but some of them hit, eating through cloth to get to the body below.

Watching Peter fight is both thrilling and nerve-wracking for Wade. Thrilling, because it's obvious that he knows what he's doing—his movements have form and are executed perfectly, which comes both from natural talent and years of practice—and nerve-wracking because it's also obvious he's slowly losing. Wade doesn't know why. Maybe it's because those spells hurt more than they appear to, or maybe it's because Peter has to shield both Wade and rePete. Whatever it might be, it's costing him, and Baldy is pressing the advantage.

Not for long, Wade thinks, shifting both his weight and his grip on one of the daggers. Just wait. Just...

There are no openings. Peter can't move out of range unless he wants to risk exposing Wade and rePete to Baldy, and they both move too quickly for Wade to intervene without potentially hurting Peter. It fucking sucks having to wait for an opening while Peter takes another acid spell—

And another—

And another—

And—there!

"Spidey!" Wade shouts, dagger already in the air, already running forward. Peter—wobbling from a nasty blow to his side—lets himself go down and gets out of the way as the knife flies true and strikes Baldy in the fleshy hinge where arm meets chest, sinking to the hilt. Baldy gasps, hand going up instinctively, and in a second Wade is on him, punching him as hard as he can in the jaw.

A satisfying crack echoes in the alley.

Wade's knuckles scream.

Baldy lurches back, surprised, incapacitated, and Wade jumps—gaining momentum—and slams the heel of his boot into Baldy's solar plexus. Baldy goes down, gasping, his hands rising once wildly to perform another spell—

Wade punches Baldy again, though this time in the temple, and Baldy crumples, unconscious. Wade waits to see if he'll come out of it—counting slowly to ten—before straightening his spine and uncurling his sore fingers, gently shaking them out and swearing. Then he looks over at Peter, who is upright but clutching at his side. Several of the holes in his clothes are smoking.

"You okay?" Wade asks.

"Nothing a little aloe vera can't fix." Peter nods at Baldy. "Thanks."

"I'll be your element of surprise anytime, baby boy," Wade answers. Then, "What do you want to do with him?"

Peter says nothing as he comes closer. Nudges Baldy with his boot. No reaction. Even when Peter pulls the dagger out of his shoulder, Baldy doesn't do so much as twitch.

"He'll be out cold for a few hours at least," Wade says. Peter wipes the dagger clean on Baldy's dark purple robes and hands it hilt-first back to Wade. Wade sheathes it and the other knife while Peter webs Baldy's barely bleeding wound shut. "You can lift him, right?"

"Easy enough," Peter answers.

"Take him back to my place?" Wade suggests. It isn't ideal. It's broad daylight, and few of the buildings in the area are tall enough for people not to notice someone leaping from rooftop to rooftop, but it's not like they can leave a fucking wizard behind a random garbage bin. "You can web him to the bathtub."

"It's as good a plan as any." Peter sighs again. Then, "We need to bring Peter back, too."

"Me?" Wade glances over his shoulder. RePete is standing an arm's length away, hands twisting around each other with anxiety. He's pale beneath his freckles. "I don't—I don't understand what's happening. How do you know me? Why did this—this man attack me? Is this some sort of prank? Did MJ put you up to this? Because this isn't funny and I really don't appreciate being thrown around and threatened."

"Sorry," Peter says automatically. "And it's... it wasn't a prank or anything. MJ's got nothing to do with it."

"Then—then what the fuck is going on?" RePete looks desperately between Peter's masked face and Wade's scarred one. "If this wasn't—I don't know, some sort of stupid video stunt or something—then what just fucking happened? You threw me like a bag of flour and stuck to the wall and you—" rePete's eyes slide back to Wade, "You stabbed that man in the shoulder and he did magic? Real fucking magic? And he thought I was strange—"

"Dr. Strange," Peter says. The interruption causes rePete to halt mid-tirade. "Sorcerer Supreme. In... my universe. I'm beginning to think that this universe doesn't actually have one. Sorcerer Supreme, I mean."

"What."

"Look, I know this is really complicated and surreal—"

"I think the word you're looking for is insane—"

"But can we please move this discussion back to Wade's?" Peter gestures behind Wade and rePete, toward the entrance of the alley. A handful of people have gathered, though none of them have been brave enough to venture forward.

"Motherfucking shit balls," Wade hisses.

"Exactly," Peter agrees. "I'll take the Forsaken One, and meet you and Peter back at your place before that crowd gets any bigger—"

"I am not going with you!" rePete all but shouts, flinging his arms out for emphasis. "Have you lost your fucking minds? That weirdo just tried to kill me and you just tried to kill him—"

"Trust me, Petey Pie, if I wanted him dead he'd be dead—"

"Wade, not helping—"

"And you guys know who I am and I have no idea who you are and I am freaking out because I was just getting some fucking lunch and instead got ambushed by knock-off Voldemort, some sort of man-spider—"

"Spiderman," Wade and Peter correct in tandem.

"—and Freddy Krueger's stupid hot cousin—"

Wade blinks. Hot?

"—so pardon me for not wanting to go to some random apartment with complete strangers and potentially get murdered!"

RePete's rant has turned into actual shouting. He's panicking, Wade gets that, and he’s trying to be aggressive to cover up the fact that he's scared shitless. Wade knows from experience that it would be best to back off, to give rePete time to cool down, but unfortunately, they have no time left and they cannot leave him here. One of the bystanders behind them is probably dialing 9-1-1 at that very moment and Wade hates, hates, hates that he might have to haul rePete over his shoulder and book it—

"Peter," Peter says. "Look at me."

RePete's gaze snaps to Peter, and Peter takes off his mask.

It's like seeing double. Peter's hair is mussed from the mask and rePete is wearing thick browline glasses, but everything else is the same: the shape of their brows and the slope of their noses, the round swell of their bottom lips and the angles of their chins. All the helpless anger in rePete's expression transforms into blank shock. Wade wonders how bizarre it would be to stare into a face identical to your own when no mirrors were involved.

"W-what?" rePete stammers. "You... You're..."

"You," Peter confirms. "Well, I'm me, but I'm also you. Sorta. I'm you if you were from a different universe where you got bit by a radioactive spider at fifteen, and were subsequently hit with the double whammy of puberty and sudden mutant superpowers. Fun times. So please trust that you can trust me."

"I—" RePete's eyes move from Peter's face to Wade's. "And are you—from another universe too?"

Wade shakes his head and says, "Home grown, baby boy."

"Oh." RePete looks back at Peter. "So... other universes exist."

"Yes."

"Where there's... magic?"

"Yes, though not everyone can use it. Kinda like Harry Potter? You have it or you don't—"

"Pete," Wade interjects. Both Peters look at him simultaneously which—trippy. "We can do this at the apartment. But we need to leave before someone calls the cops."

"Right." Peter nods, then turns to rePete. "I'm going to take the Forsaken One back, and you're going to go with Wade. I know you don't know him, but I trust him with my life, and he'll keep you safe. So just follow his lead, alright? I'll answer all your questions then. Promise."

It takes a moment for rePete to consider his options—to weigh his potential safety against the appeal of having his questions answered—but eventually he nods his agreement, curiosity winning. Peter's shoulders sag with relief; like Wade, he too was probably considering how much it would suck to have to take rePete back to the apartment against his will.

"You got this?" Peter asks Wade as he tugs his mask back on.

"Don't worry about us," Wade says. "I've been doing stuff like this before you had chest hair."

"Whatever, grandpa." Peter picks up Baldy and hauls him over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. Baldy is not a small man by any stretch of the imagination, but Peter moves as though he's weightless. "See you at home."

Wade does not watch as Peter goes further down the alley, slides behind one of the dumpsters, and begins to quickly scale the wall. Instead, he's pulling his phone out of his pocket, turning on the video function, and slinging an arm around rePete's shoulders. He laughs—as loudly and genuinely as possible—and proclaims, "I think we got it!"

"What?" rePete says.

"The shot!" Wade turns them around and pulls rePete back to the street. A handful of people are standing there, their expressions a collective mishmash of confusion and worry. "Oh, hey guys! Didn't see you there. None of you were recording that, were you? That'd be copyright infringement, you know."

"Copyright?" someone says.

"Yeah! For my sweet ninjas vs wizards movie!" Wade holds up his own phone, wiggling it. He looks at each person; several of them are holding their phones, but none of them appear to be recording. Small miracles, Wade thinks.

"That was... for a movie?"

"Uh, yeah." Wade smiles as charmingly as he can, despite the fact that his scar always makes his mouth lopsided. "We're filming it on my phone so we can put all the money into special effects. Looked real, didn't it?"

Every single person falls for Wade's fabrication hook, line, and sinker, and their consternation practically melts off their faces. There's no doubt in Wade's mind that they saw Baldy's bright green spells, Peter's preternatural parkour, and Wade's own brutality, but now they'll be explaining away the blanks with preconceived notions about Hollywood movie magic. The idea that it was real magic, real superpowers, and real violence will fade from their minds and be forgotten.

"Oh, and look! Our lunch!" Wade lets go of rePete to grab the bags of Thai food he dropped earlier. "Can't believe you started the scene early. Here—you get to carry one as punishment."

"We didn't start early," rePete says as he rolls his eyes and takes the bag. His lack of resistance erases any last shred of doubt their onlookers might have had, especially considering how he had been screaming bloody murder just a couple minutes ago. "You were late. As usual."

"Don't bring my punctuality into this."

"And what punctuality is that?" rePete drawls.

RePete's ability to shoot the shit—to lie—is so markedly different from Peter's inability that Wade nearly drops the act in surprise. The only reason he doesn't is because he's a professional, goddamnit, and he's not about to be outdone by a highly bangable ex-mathlete in red Converse All Stars.

Hah, Wade thinks smugly. Called it.

"Ah, whatever," Wade says. He slings his arm back around rePete's shoulders and tries very hard not to think about how nicely the other man fits beneath him. "Let's get back before the food gets any colder. I'm fucking starving."

.

Part 11

.

[weiwithwords]

A review of Everything Everywhere All at Once

In this sermon, an antisemitic, ignorant pastor who calls himself Brother Sean rants about why God hates video games. He used to be a gamer, but he quit a long time ago: "It was vain. It was stupid. It was a bunch of flashing lights."*

*Later, the pastor says has has a DVD player, which is better than a video game console because he can use it to watch YouTube. This is confusing for many reasons.

"Flashing lights" is a throughline Brother Sean returns to in the sermon, a two-word phrase that -- in his mind -- illustrates the idiocy of video gaming with the irrefutable force of a mathematical axiom. "That's what [video games] are," he says, "A bunch of flashing lights." And again, in fiery conclusion: "... it's a bunch of stupid, vain stuff. It's flashing lights on screens."

After I finished watching the 2022 film Everything Everywhere All at Once, I started reading its reviews. I'm happy I did, because reviewers found some wonderful turns of phrase to express the essence of that movie. I've seen the word "maximalist" a few times, which is indisputable. (I mean, it's right there in the title.) New York Times writer A. O. Scott came up with the delightful sequence "exuberant swirl of genre anarchy." Consequence's Clint Worthington wrote about its "dadaist absurdism and blink-if-you-miss-it pace." For The Guadian, Mark Kermode submitted "madcap invention and frenzied visual wit." IGN's Rafael Motamayor had the four adjectives "bizarre, gross, heartfelt, and honest" for us, while the Critics' Consensus section on Rotten Tomatoes describes it as "an expertly calibrated assault on the senses."

Don't get me wrong, I like all those words. They do a wonderful job of describing this movie. But for me, the core of Everything Everywhere All at Once is best captured in sermon. Everything Everywhere is a bunch of flashing lights. It's vain. It's stupid. It's flashing lights on screens. But here's something lost in Brother Sean's sanctimonious haste: flashing lights on screens are also some of the most compelling things humans have ever produced. For me, Everything Everywhere was a particular sequence of flashing lights that gripped me like few things I've ever seen.*

*Other notable titles: La vita è bella, Wolf Children, Homecoming King.

Early in the movie, a woman named Joy tries to communicate her sexuality to her geriatric grandfather in awkward, mangled Chinese. Not knowing the word for "girlfriend", she falls short. Her mom Evelyn steps in and, unable to get past homophobic Chinese mores, fails to stand up for her own daughter. Joy is infuriated by her mom's betrayal and storms away, even though Joy can't say the words herself.

This is just one example of the how film uses language to highlight its characters' complex emotional lives. Another is the meticulously-crafted chaos of Evelyn's dialogue. She bounces from English to Mandarin to Cantonese -- often mid-sentence -- with effortless, rapid-fire pace. These transitions are highly intentional, but they don't sound engineered. They rang with an authenticity that brought me right back to my parents' living room.

A full movie later, Evelyn has gone through a hero's journey. She has deep insight into every possible facet of experience, which conveniently helps her work out her problems. It's no surprise when, at the film's climax, with every reason to abandon her mediocre life and broken family, with the full weight of existential despair on her shoulders, Evelyn chooses love and connection. And as she redeems herself in front of Joy, finally telling her father (Joy's grandfather) the truth, Joy does not forgive her.

"I'm tired," Joy says. "I don't want to hurt anymore and for some reason when I'm with you, it just hurts the both of us." Joy just wants to go, to be left alone. And Evelyn says, "Okay."

I was no longer watching Joy in that moment. I was her, and I've been her countless times before. I've lost track of how many times I've wanted to tell my parents I don't care how or even if they're bettering themselves. How I don't want to hear any more apologies or rationalizations. How I can't forget the suffering they caused. I want to tell them I'm tired, and being around them hurts the both of us, and I just want to be left alone.

But at the same time, I want to tell them I forgive them, even if I'm not sure I do. I understand how their upbringing shaped their choices, and I'm not bitter about the resulting harm. I'm doing beyond well on my own. I'm past healing, into thriving. I'll never fully understand them, they'll never fully understand me, and that's fine. I know they did the best they could. How could I hold that against them? 

More than wanting to say any of this, I want acceptance. I want to hear my parents say, "Okay." That's why seeing Evelyn do so was so cathartic. It was my life and more, all rendered in magnificent flashing lights.

Sadly, this is also where Everything Everywhere All at Once disappointed me. Because in the aftermath of Joy's rejection, Evelyn gives a second heartfelt speech about love and connection, and Joy relents. She collapses into her mother's arms in a tearful hug, and the painfully honest bittersweetness of the scene is drowned out in a saccharine deluge of total reconciliation.

However badly my parents might want reconciliation, I do not. I don't want grand speeches collapsing into tearful hugs. I want acceptance and understanding, but I also want to move on. Sometimes, happy endings are not compatible. By contriving them to align so tidily, Everything Everywhere becomes less real for me, regressing back into the generic universe of every other feel-good action movie.

This is especially frustrating because Everything Everywhere has a whole multiverse at its disposal. There was such rich potential to tell a multitude of stories, and having them all end on such high notes killed that potential. If the endings had spanned the full spectrum of human experience -- soaringly joyful, absurd and silly, mature and bittersweet, heartbreakingly tragic, mysterious and ambiguous -- if there had been everything everywhere all at once -- I would have been a lot happier.

Hollywood's inability to divorce itself from less-than-perfect endings hurt the film again in the story of Evelyn's failing marriage. After decades of emotional neglect, her husband Waymond files for separation. I was excited at the potential here. It was a chance to fight back against the false notion -- especially prevalent among Chinese-Americans I know -- that divorce is the worst thing that can happen in a marriage, so disastrous as to be unthinkable.

I don't buy that. Far worse is trapping yourselves and your children in a toxic, loveless union defined by daily routines of blame and abuse. I was looking forward to a story about how divorce, though undoubtedly tragic, can also be liberating and virtuous -- a mature way to move forward and start fresh. Instead, after a few intense hours culminating in a single grand moment, the spark between Evelyn and Waymond rekindles and she enjoys total romantic renewal.

In real life, I don't see single grand moments undoing decades of strife and neglect. Which is weird, because I see it all the time in flashing lights.

Part of me sees the happy endings of Everything Everywhere All at Once as inevitable. It's a movie about Evelyn gazing into an incomprehensible multiverse, with all the vanity and stupidity that entails,* and nonetheless finding Joy, triumphantly emerging with an even stronger claim to hope and purpose. The movie's character arcs and themes demand these happy endings.

*One sequence of flashing lights features a supervillain laying the smackdown on security guards with two giant dildos, and that's not even the weirdest thing to happen in that scene.

But Everything Everywhere is not just a movie about triumph over existential dread. It's also a movie about being a first-generation Asian-American immigrant. It's about the vast linguistic, cultural, and generational barriers that alienate those immigrants from their children. So I couldn't help but feel like it's about me. 

It isn't, of course. Even though it's so close to my heart I could jury-rig it into a Pacemaker, Everything Everywhere All at Once is not about me. Sometimes, people do want total reconciliation. Sometimes, happy endings are compatible. Sometimes, when we gaze into the incomprehensible universe, we find Joy gazing back. Especially when we're gazing at a bunch of flashing lights.

Here's a rare accomplishment these flashing lights can claim: By the time I'd spent 140 minutes with them, I identified with them so strongly that any divergence from my own lived experience felt wrong. They made me forget that the unique bittersweetness of my own life story isn't the only flavor out there. Vanity was in the theater, just not all on the screen.

It would be easy for me to decry Brother Sean's vitriol as vain and stupid. So I will. Almost everything in that set of flashing lights is beyond vain, beyond stupid. He raves about how Jews own Activision and Bill "population control" Gates wants to murder babies. Truly deplorable stuff. But as much as I hate to admit it, there were rare moments in his sermon when I found myself nodding in agreement. One was when he denounced the military "going into countries and killing people," how they indoctrinate soldiers to devalue human life. Violent video games aren't how they're doing that, but I support his antiwar sentiment nonetheless.

More relevant to his point, I have spent too much time playing video games. Brother Sean cites Titus 2:7, exhorting his congregation to "in all things [show] thyself a pattern of good works." I also strive to in all things show myself a pattern of good works, and video games have been an obstacle. The flashing lights can be so captivating they entice me to neglect my responsibilities, or sacrifice longer-term fulfillment at their altar.

I don't mention the specks of truth in Brother Sean's incoherent screed because I think we should take it easy on his ideas. They deserve every bit of condemnation we can muster. But when I think about how truth survives even in that rambling wasteland, I realize something interesting. While Brother Sean's sermon captured the soul of Everything Everywhere All at Once for me, the same also happened in reverse.

When we gaze into the multiverse -- when we lose ourselves in that infinite, meaningless blur of flashing lights -- nihilism feels more than tempting. But he who fights monsters should take care lest he thereby see everything as monstrous. And if you gaze for long into the abyss, love and meaning also gaze back into you.

[snowbellewells]

Happy Birthday Krystal!!!: An EF AU Birthday Fic

This fic is a birthday gift for @kmomof4​ who deserves all the gifts and flails, love and hugs possible for this fandom to give!! I am so blessed to know her and be in the same fandom as she is. I hope she’ll enjoy this story (it grew from a drabble I wrote ages ago for a hiatus prompt, and if memory serves, Krystal wanted me to continue).  There will be one more part, soon I hope.

Enchanted Forest AU with Princess Emma and Pirate Killian (though not in quite the same way he became one in canon....)

***Also available on AO3 if you prefer***

“The Weight of the Crown (is a Feather on the Waves)”

by: @snowbellewells​ 

         “Emma! – That is, your Highness!  You cannot be serious!  The law clearly states…” but it is here that her disgruntled and rapidly nearing insubordinate advisor, Sir Sydney trails off at the cool, quelling look she cuts him with her sharp jade eyes.

         Her Royal Highness Emma Swan, her parents’ only heir and now Queen of Misthaven after their loss mere months ago, is tired of all these sycophants – people surrounding her who may have truly loved and respected her parents, but have none of that trust in her, and think that at barely eighteen she can be easily swayed to their way of seeing things. She has no use for their simpering, their seeming obeisance barely hiding their disapproval any time she takes a step beyond what they deem proper.  The intrigues of court and the careful diplomacy needed to navigate it had always made her uncomfortable.  Now, though, she has no choice; she must try to take the reins in her parents’ stead and do her best to live up to their legacy, like it or not. But she doesn’t trust the lot of them, any more than they trust her it seems. Especially not with this…

They had brought him before her hours ago now, shackled and tugged between two heavily breathing guards, attesting to just what a struggle he had given them in getting that far. A concerning trickle of blood had run from his hairline, showing they had been none too gentle in accosting him as it was. Still, he stood tall as he was pulled to a stop before her throne - a single one rather than the joined pair on the dais which had always beautifully represented her parents’ partnership in rule, and in all things. How she wished she had a partner to lean on now. When his dark hair was gripped roughly to jerk his head up to meet her gaze, those fathomless blue eyes had caught Emma’s, just as they always had, and she knew that even now he had lost none of the pride and honor he had always possessed. Though so much time had passed since she had seen that clear-eyed look every day and thought he might be that companion.

         Breaking unbidden into her thoughts, Lady Bleu, a former nun who came to their court from France after some intrigue which Emma had never been made privy to, speaks up next.  Once the governess who had ruled Emma’s nursery with an iron fist and shooed away the kinder maids like Ashley and Nova who would have played with her and been entertaining, affectionate friends, Bleu lays a cool hand on Emma’s wrist, where it sits tensely on the armrest of her throne, and it is all Emma can do not to shrug her off.  The woman had been a close confidante of her late mother’s, but Emma has never felt at ease with having the woman foisted on her from birth.  Even as a monarch in her own right, the sanctimonious matron is always at her elbow offering advice Emma does not want.  “All Sir Sydney means,” Lady Bleu offers in a tone intended to be soothing and placating, but which sets Emma’s teeth on edge and makes her skin crawl, “is that the law is adamant when it comes to piracy of any kind. I know that you suggest a fine and the stripping of both naval title and benefits in a spirit of mercy and remembrance of childhood friendship, nothing more, but leniency here could be read as fatal frailty, and in this time of upheaval, we cannot allow others to think us weak; it will lead to more unrest and worse crimes.”

         It is all Emma can do not to roll her eyes so far back in her head that the entire court can see her frustration.  Biting the inside of her cheek until she can taste blood, Emma forces herself not to respond until she can say something that is not a direct insult to her elders.  “Still, no one was harmed.  Nothing of any value was taken,” she reasons, trying to sound as if she is not half as emotionally invested as she is in truth, but merely attempting to be a fair and honorable judge.  “It would seem to me that a more thorough investigation – “

         “What does it matter if he did anything this time?” her “Uncle Grumpy”, another dear friend of her mother’s who had never quite warmed to Emma in the same way he had to the woman who had borne her, interjects.  “We have him in our grasp now.  He has certainly done enough in his previous raids to warrant the standard punishment.  The man is a brigand, a blackguard…and his death will mean one less pirate to worry about prowling our waters and attacking our shores.”

         Emma’s cheeks flush with the high emotion of distress which she must hide.  The mere thought of his booted feet dangling in air as the life leaves his body, his neck caught in the hangman’s noose – and at her behest – almost more than she can bear.  It is too much, too much to ask of her in royal obligation.  But she blinks the panic away, pulling the calm, regal mask she wears in public down over her face.  She must play this next part convincingly for him to have a chance at survival, and therefore for her own heart to keep beating unscathed.  A plan is hatching in her mind, but she gives no indication of her racing thoughts.  Lowering her eyes demurely, Emma feigns exhausted acquiescence and devotion to duty, nodding shortly as if she finally accepts their wise guidance.  They have been debating the matter since high noon when he was brought before her in chains, dragged down the aisle to her throne and forced to his knees at her feet by her personal guard – young men he had once played at sword fighting with long ago when they were all younger, they pages and he a stable boy. 

         “Very well,” she murmurs quietly but clearly, making sure that those assembled hear every word.   All depends on them believing in her resolve at this juncture; none can suspect what she truly intends.  “It will be as you say.  His sentence is to be carried out at dawn, according to the letter of our law.  Now, leave me.”  The last is utterly firmly, brooking no further discussion, and wisely none of those assembled dares speak to her again.

         Shaking their heads and murmuring to themselves about why there should have been any question, her various councilors and advisors file from the room, overall seeming pleased that their young regent has finally seen the sense in their words.  Emma is alone in the large throne room at last.  Turning her eyes heavenward, where she trusts her parents – more fit rulers than she had ever hoped to be – will understand.  “I am sorry,” she whispers brokenly before she steels her spine and determination overtakes over her form as she adds, “but please give me strength.”

*************                          **************                                        ************

          It is in the true dark watch of the night that Queen Emma, feeling very small and like the orphaned, often uncertain princess she truly is, slips undetected from her opulent bedchamber and through the castle she has lived in since birth, knowing exactly the path she must take to alert no one and remain unseen.  Winding her way swiftly and silently down staircases and through empty halls, she finally makes her way to the dungeons without anyone being the wiser.

         Quickly sending a burst of magic at the two guards posted in the entry of the dungeons, and another at the one who stands outside the condemned pirate’s cell, they never know what hit them and cannot tell anyone who questions them later.  Her parents had always fearfully cautioned her to keep her magic secret, and so the secret had died with them; the only other person who had ever known of that part of her is the man she is here to save. 

         A pale beam of moonlight slants through the high window into his cell, half-illuminating his ruggedly handsome face and making his blue eyes sparkle where he reclines on the rude cot in the corner.  At hearing her light, hurried footsteps, his head jerks up, and upon seeing her, he sucks in an audible gasp of breath.  “Swan!” he exclaims in a shocked whisper.  “You cannot be here, Lass!”

He is on his feet and standing at the front of his cell, mere inches from her now, where she has pulled to a sudden stop. It is closer than they have been in years - years that she had spent wondering where he was, if he was well, if he still lived and if he would ever return. His chest heaves with agitated breaths, and his right hand clutches the bars in a tight grip as he readies himself to argue with her further.

They have no time for that.

         “You idiot!” she hisses back at him, not bothering with trying to swipe the keys from the ring on the guard’s belt, but instead waving her hand impatiently at the lock on the cell door, allowing it to swing open and him to rush forward and sweep her into his arms.  “Where else would I be?” she finishes, her voice slightly muffled against his shoulder where he presses her close.

         “You’ve decreed my death on the morn for piracy, your Majesty,” he reminds her wryly, the gentle way he smooths his strong hand over her soft hair and down her back belying the somewhat accusatory words.  “Do you not think some might find you visiting me in the night and freeing me from my cell a bit scandalous?”

         “Enough!” she orders, a bit of her royal upbringing creeping back into her tone.  Her tone and bearing effectively cut him off, even as she clutches his hand in hers, gentling the harsh words with the action. She will drag him out after her if necessary, and they can argue about her recklessness and irresponsibility later… once he is safe.

         However, Killian Jones – her friend, the man who somewhere along the way she secretly began to love, the man who had proudly served in her father’s Navy with his older brother, who had only turned pirate to pursue the crooked commander who had ordered his brother’s death and had evaded her father’s detection – does not budge.  His hand pulls her back.  “What are you thinking, Swan?” he asks, once more using his childhood nickname for her.  “You cannot risk being implicated with me.  Your country needs you, and I…I will not see you punished alongside me for my crimes.”

“What crimes?” she whispers, her lips trembling with emotion, but her voice managing to remain steady as she takes in his dear, handsome face. There is a scar high on his cheek, long healed but which has never seen before. Tentatively, she reaches up to brush her fingers over it, as if to soothe a pain which had long since faded, and he closes his eyes to savor her touch. “We both know you are not the criminal they all claim. You have encountered more honor among your crew of so-called thieves and pirates than you did among your commanding officers or I have among my own inner circle. If only my parents had died before we could prove it…”

“While that may be the truth, Love,” a bit of the rogue most believed him to be showing in his words and a small, sad smile tugging at one corner of his full lips, “I do not think most will see it that way. If you were hurt or shamed because of loyalty to me, that would wound me more than any punishment they could mete out.”

She turns, allowing herself a moment of weakness to mourn all that could have been, all that she will miss before turning to face him with firm resolve.  “You should have thought about that before you returned.  I will not see you hanged come morning – not when I am able to stop it.”

         He swallows hard, some emotion Emma cannot quite fathom swimming in his deep blue gaze.  “I had to come, Lass.  You had just lost both your parents.  When I received word…”

         But Emma shakes her head, snapping back to the task at hand, knowing the time for them to work out everything else is when they are on his ship and safely away from here.  “Not now, Killian.  Trust me.  I know what I am doing, and I deem it worth the risk.  Just follow me.  That is an order…from your Queen.”

         A sardonic smile quirks one side of his mouth, but he does not argue with her again, nor hesitate any further, merely dips his head in a short nod and murmurs, “As you wish, Milady.” 

         Hand in hand they steal from her palace, leaving behind the birthright that she cannot stand to carry alone any longer, not if the price to keep it is the life of the only person who has ever truly known and understood her.  When the large bells clang their distress signal with the dawn, alerting the castle and the surrounding city of the escaped prisoner and missing queen, they are already far out to sea in his ship – beyond hearing, beyond capture.  

As the new day dawns sparkling on the ocean, Emma feels exhilarated by the rise and fall of each cresting wave. She is no longer Queen, but freer than she has ever been…and reunited with the man she loves.  She has given up her crown but preserved her soul.

          Tagging a few others who might enjoy: @searchingwardrobes @jennjenn615 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @laschatzi @apiratewhopines @jrob64 @elizabeethan @the-darkdragonfly​ @xsajx​ @anmylica​ @sotangledupinit​ @donteattheappleshook​ @teamhook​ @revanmeetra87​ @spartanguard​ @therooksshiningknight​ @tiganasummertree​ @optomisticgirl​ @winterbaby89​ @wefoundloveunderthelight​ @cosette141​ 

[roxannepolice]

This is one of those "ranting so maybe I'll sleep and stop spilling salt on other people's posts" post, and I'm also setting out on a dean hunt tomorrow which is unnerving, but I guess I have thoughts about episodes that are 1-16 years old.

I'm not going to link that lovely gifset of the Masters talking about being a/the Doctor because I don't like to associate my negativity with other people's hard work, but damn if that didn't leave me gritting my teeth. Not the gifset, of course, just the idea that this is somehow a logical development.

I have ranted way too many times about how there's nothing logical whatsoever about POTD, but really, this isn't the case of a good idea poorly executed, this is the case of the author not understanding what his idea even is. This wasn't supposed to be just a body swap (which would have been SO GOOD, just imagine Whittaker and Dhawan having an occasion for acting tour de forces, imagine Yaz having to say all that sanctimonious stuff about the Doctor having people who love her in the face of the woman she loves rather than a guy who left her on a crashing plane, imagine Whittaker!Master exposing all of Yaz's feelings and mocking her with infos about all the previous companions left behind, something the Master explicitly plays at in the episode, but it wasn't pulled to its full potential, damn it's like Chibs was actively avoiding good ideas!), this was supposed to be the Master somehow becoming everything the Doctor is. And the effect is so so so bloody empty? Like, my first thought was, huh, so will this be about how the same experiences do not shape the same people? As in, now that the Master knows all the pain the Doctor went through, but also the wonder and the beauty, and yes, also their ongoing affection for him, he'll still choose to be evil? Kinda pessimistic, but interesting. Then the episode started pushing the idea that the companions make the Doctor who they are, and my interpretation... could still work, but there the message becomes somewhat messier - again, if the love of people around the Doctor made them who they are, then shouldn't those experiences affect or at least be acknowledged by the Master?

And then I had an oh. right. moment as I realised none of this was thought of - the Master simply doesn't have the Doctor's memories or else he would know who Fugitive!Doctor is. So, what exactly happened in that episode? Genuine question, because the episode sure acts like there was some subjective difference for the Master? Damn, it's just so empty.

I don't think there's much to say about Missy's scene, because it oozes irony, which is great and badly needed, but I might as well commit sacrilege and say I never understood the Doctor's logic in putting the have you thought about the fact that you'll die into his speech, like which one is it: be kind without witness or reward, to thy own self be true or remember thou art mortal?

Which leaves me with the Saxon introduction. And look, I understand it's tiresome when people pander to RTD and I'm not saying his era is flawless but it does do one thing later eras avoid: it doesn't tell you what to think. With his writing, I feel like interpretation is really an act of communication, rather than explanation of a thesis. There just plain is no preaching. And the Master isn't there to tell me stuff about the Doctor, he's there on his own terms. He's not trying to aggrevate the Doctor when he uses the title, he doesn't even know he's there for his election speech. No, he's there to act as proper dark mirror, to show how all of that genius can be used for evil, to be the baddie Doctor. He doesn't aspire to be the Doctor, he's already in the process of "saving" humanity by bringing the Toclafane over with a paradox. This is a gortesque parody of the whole concept of sustaining life! The Toclafane are humanity cannibalising itself, just as the Master will in EoT, exposing the darkness of maintaininig existence at all costs. At this point in the writing the Master isn't just defined by the Doctor, he defines him in return in a beautiful dialectic dalliance, keep in mind this trilogy is when we find up just how fucked up changing history is, this is what the Doctor holds against the Master, it's not "but you're killing people :(", it's "but you're changing history"! I know the tempation of reading the Wonder what I'd be without you in a purely shippy way, but ffs let it not cloud the fact that this is post-TLV Doctor talking, he knows the villain he could have been IF HE DIDN'T HAVE SOMEONE TO DEFINE HIMSELF AGAINST ALL THIS TIME.

Since I'm venting I might as well say this: this "development" is why I would really prefer the show to take a break from the Master for a while. Yes, a cameo in the 60th would be great, but until the show has a need for THE MASTER rather than A DIFFERENT TIME LORD TO EXPLAIN WHY THE DOCTOR IS AWESOME, idk, just resurrect the War Chief or sth.

This isn't just about sentiments, this is about two completely different perspectives on the universe. Let that ring out again.

[likysbookshelf]

The Great Gatsby | Book Review

Title: The Great Gatsby

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald 

Published: 1925

Genre: tragedy, Literary fiction

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 6/10

As with any book, reading The Great Gatsby in my high school English class was quite the experience. My opinions on the book have changed so many times since I started reading and even continued to develop as I wrote this review. 

From the very first chapter of the book, all of the characters including Nick are frivolous and shallow. God has abandoned Long Island, and, in his absence, a new higher power has stepped in, money. 

The power money has over the characters is present in every scene and overarching theme, it’s especially obvious towards the end of the book when we get the revelation that the magic in Daisy’s voice that captivated Gatsby and basically drove the entire plot hasn’t ever been magic at all. It is just obscene wealth topped off with a pretty face and pretty words. Daisy is just as shiny on the outside and rotten on the inside as society at the time. 

Here's where my unpopular opinions start. I went into the book expecting to like Nick because of how all you people on Tumblr wax poetic about the unspoken gay subtext between Nick and Gatsby. Yeah, Nick had a little affair with that guy whose name I forgot at the start of the book, yeah Nick idolizes Gatsby, and yeah, he does have those nice paragraphs at the end of every chapter where he breaks away from the dull apathetic narration of the rest of the book and gets super philosophical (though let’s be honest these paragraphs are more F. Scott Fitzgerald than Nick). But that doesn’t make him a good person, to me it was painfully obvious during Nick’s scenes with Jordan that he is just as shallow as the characters. Nicholier-than-thou Carraway really just further pushes the point that Gatsby’s death at the end of the book was more of a kindness than a tragedy because if he had ever realized that Daisy was not the girl he thought she was, he also would have realized that his “Old Sport” would have better suited the nickname “Overly Sanctimonious”. He is the perfect narrator for the book because rather than being hopeful and honest (as he describes himself to be) he’s actually literature’s biggest hypocrite. 

For these reasons, as I was reading, I found that the previously mentioned Jordan Baker slowly became my favorite character by miles. I’m going to have to disagree with what Daisy said at the beginning of the book it appears that the best thing a girl can be in this world is not “a beautiful little fool”, instead Jordan gets farther by using lies and vanity against the other characters to protect herself from their cruelty. She is very much as spoiled and misguided as everyone else, the thing that ended up redeeming Jordan for me in the end is that she is extremely self-aware. She might be a liar and a cheat but at least she is doing it with the knowledge that it is wrong. Nick likes to pretend that he is ‘enlightened’ and undeceived by the splendor of the roaring 20s, but by now we should all know that Nick is an unreliable narrator. So, while I can’t honestly say that any character is fully 100% disillusioned, the only character that comes close is Jordan. 

“There was Jordan beside me, who, unlike Daisy, was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age.”

Also, if Jordan isn’t enough to disprove Daisy’s famous beautiful little fool quote; Gatsby is the biggest most beautiful fool in the whole novel and look where that gets him. 

Moving away from the topic of characters, I really loved how Fitzgerald heightens the atmosphere of the book through the weather and the seasons. The deluge during Gatsby’s first interactions gives us one of the best scenes in the boom and the movie (2013), I could almost feel the sun beating down on my skin at the climax of the book adding to the tension in ways Nick’s narration could not, and when we learn of Gatsby’s death the image my brain conjured of dying leaves that floated in the pool solidified the cold desolate feeling that permeates the last chapter or so. Shifting of setting or background elements to fit plot points or the emotions of characters is honestly one of my favorite devices both in literature and film. For this reason, the 2013 adaptation of the book landed for me. It’s impossible for any movie to capture the full essence of any book, But! I do think that Baz Luhrmann’s use of modern party music, vivid colors, and over-the-top sets. Added another layer of imagery that helped me to fully understand the original text upon re-read. 

And just in case anything in this review pointed to the contrary, I really did love and enjoy this book. it is a potent analysis of society at the time, it's beautifully written, and contains some of the most complex characters I have ever had the pleasure of reading about.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”  ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

I hope you guys enjoyed my first book review on Tumblr!! please follow my Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/101887960-lily-mortensen

i plan on posting video versions of my reviews on TikTok at some point, lmk if anyone is interested and i'll let you know as soon as that's set up

[gabenvrhappened]

MusicOr... But Daddy I Love Him by Taylor Swift

Favorite Lyrics: Now I'm running with my dress unbuttoned, screaming "but daddy, I love him!" ⬩ "I'm having his baby... No, I'm not!" ⬩ But you should see your faces ⬩⬩ Growing up precocious sometimes means not growing up at all ⬩ He was chaos, he was revelry ⬩ Bedroom eyes like a remedy ⬩⬩ Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I'll never see ⬩ Thinking it can change the beat ⬩ Of my heart when he touches me ⬩ And counteract the chemistry and undo the destiny;

Since the moment The Tortured Poets Department tracklist was revealed, But Daddy I Love Him had become the song I was most excited to hear by its title alone. To be fair, most of the titles on the album sounded weird at first, but with Taylor, that's not new. I remember thinking, "Who would name a song 'I Did Something Bad'?" and it turned out to be one of my favorite songs on Reputation. So Daddy not only had the craziest title, but also had good pop references. The phrase is famous from the Little Mermaid movie, but I can also point out a white t-shirt Harry Styles once wore, and, just like the "Dump Him" t-shirt (which Britney used once, and then I saw it again during Saltburn), it just seems too iconic — I just know I need those shirts in my closet.

Alongside with LOML (more for the fact that I wanted to know what the acronym meant before getting spoiled on the internet), these would be the very first tracks I would hear from the album. I usually don't listen to Taylor's albums in full on release day. Sure, I like to experience the whole body of work at midnight with all the fans, but after that, I pick my favorites and proceed to listen to them on repeat while, day by day, adding new songs to the mix. I feel like in that way, I can fully absorb the songs in a sense that they feel fresh, while everybody in the world already knows the song.

Pressing play on But Daddy I Love Him was a magical and exhilarating experience. It was everything that I wanted it to be, but it gave me more questions: "How would the album sound as a whole?", "What should I expect from an album of such length-y tracks?". All those were vital questions, specially because it was the first time that I would experience the release of a new Taylor album in a place where a) I wasn't all by myself and b) I could buy the album on release day. For option "a", I let everybody in the house know that I was all about Taylor Swift and that would be my personality for weeks to come (and even my flatmate was starting to yell "but daddy, I love him" randomly in the house because, of course, I became insufferable with this song). So sitting in the dark of my living room, I ditched dinner, sat silently and alone with my headphones on. No, you can't talk to me. Yes, everything can wait. It was stirring and excruciating.

For me, that's the best part of new releases from Taylor — everything feels so rushed and fate-defying. Plus, at first, no lyrics to be found, and people freaking out on Twitter, with me trying to figure out all the lines. So many words. So many jokes. So many instruments and vocal layers to process. That's another reason why I never consume her albums in full during the first days. I need time to digest and understand each song. I need to let them come into my life in moments I need them. Imagine going through the whole album and then, six songs in, hitting this? It wouldn't definitely not feel the same.

Once the rush of the first few listenings came through, I decided to leave the house and go for a walk blasting the song. It was night, with chilly cold air, and not many people on the streets. The lines were starting to impregnate my head and by now I was fully under the control of the "I'm having his baby… No, I'm not, but you should see your faces". Not to mention how intense is the line were she says that, no matter how the world feels about this love, no one could ever change what she felt. No one could change destiny. Man, her delivery on that part... goosebumps. Goosebumps everywhere.

Honestly, this song gave me hope for the sound landscape of this project. If they were all in the vains of this one, this would definitely be my favorite album. Unfortunatelly, I feel like the majority of fans won't feel the same as me. I tend to always worship the songs other people don't feel like it.

For the option "b" I mentioned previously, not only would I be able to wake up early and buy the album, I would be doing that with one of my greatest friends. We met each other when we did a play with only Taylor Swift songs and became very close. When we realized that she would be in London the day the album was coming out, we made all the plans to be able to buy the physical edition as soon as the first record store in town opened. So we did it. And then she had to leave for the airport, and I had to leave for my adult appointments. That's why, it was late in the day that I was able to finally sit down with the album. I did that at The Jubilee Gardens, near the London Eye, accompanied by a half-full bottle of red wine, strawberries, blueberries, and other red fruits, with the booklet in hand to fully immerse myself into the album. The sun was setting, the alchool was quicking in, and song by song I started to pic my favorites.

Eleven albums in, and it always feels like the first time. Sure, the magic of waiting two years for new releases made everything more cathartic, and I'm still hoping for Taylor to come back using her higher voice in songs again, but even so, nothing beats the feeling of being able to wake up and have so many new songs from your favorite artist. Particularly when one of them is a grown-up fucked-up version of Love Story, who says "Fuck the weirdos and creeps. He's the one I fucking want!".

[alabonshay]

A deep dive into what being a Duchess or Lady means to Evergreen, and the rest of dendie society. Hint: it has nothing to do with being a duchess or lady by human standards.

Most dendies have no concept of gender except for the nobility. Duchesses/heirs are treated as their own gender group (matriarch) and have their own set of customs to follow.

Duchesses are not born, they are made. After earning their mother's title, they must change their sex by swimming in the Lake Sanctimonious. This begins the exclusive matriarch stage of development, where they see significant changes in their size, appearance, and added lifespan.

Unfortunately, ascension often causes people short-term illness and longer-term discomfort in their bodies. There are many stereotypes criticizing matriarchs as aggressive and unhappy. This can be true for some, if they are aggravated they cannot recognize themselves, or that people treat them differently than before.

New Duchesses may also be shocked by the number of other life-changes their ascension brings. For example, they may be rushed into marriage by their families so that their partner bears the emotional brunt of their ill period. This is not fair to either but remains common practice.

Matriarchs are so rare that they have achieved a near-mythical status by other dendies. Some commoners may be envious of Duchesses and wish to become one as well. Unfortunately, non-noble matriarchs are taboo, and achieving this appearance is extraordinarily difficult outside of chance.

[goldfinwrites]

Doubt Doubt knew he had abandoned his faith alongside his humanity centuries ago, but still asked God for forgiveness when a blond child wandered into his basement, demanding a contract, and he had agreed. The child had stared at him, self-assured with a piercing gaze, despite the slight tremble in the arm he held out towards the vampire. Doubt Doubt had sunk his fangs into the offering and felt the shift in his being as he was overwritten with the new name “Jeje”.

The blond reminded him of some pagan trickster god, Jeje thought, coiled against the forearm of his Eve. The white shirt and hoodie were soft enough to not catch on his scales as he moved, keeping himself warm, as he kept his fangs neatly tucked away. Attempting to steal from his capricious partner would only earn him an ascetic punishment, as he had learned through experience. He had been ordered to fast entirely for a week on his last attempt as penitence for his transgression.

Jeje was nothing if not obedient to his Eve, regardless of how unreasonable the whims he was subject to were. The vampire grumbled much of the time, knowing Mikuni’s fickle nature meant deference was unlikely to be rewarded -- though penace would still be demanded for defiance. He had figured out his Eve years ago, seeing him hurl a pillow at his bruised (albeit richer) then-roommate. Temperamental, but never foolish or naïve enough to let it harm his goals. Though Jeje understood Mikuni well, at times the Eve felt unfathomable, whether appealing for the vampire to purchase drinks at the nearby vending machine or in the quiet hours of the night as he silently wandered the streets with the snake around his neck. Though neither the holy nor unholy were meant to be understood by mortal existences, Jeje was reminded as he looked over the sleeping form on the couch with a cowboy hat covering his face.

The streetlamps glowed overhead as Jeje checked his bags were secure. The impromptu training exercise he was commanded to do with the other Eves had left him extra wary. Mikuni’s blond hair almost shone beneath the light as he tipped his head back, finishing the rest of his bottled coconut milk. After confessing his deliberate loss, he had been sent to fetch an appropriate offering for his Eve, which had been eagerly taken. The acceptance of repentance had Jeje swallowing the complaints from earlier and simply admiring his Eve.

The blond child that had sought him out years ago had become a mercurial path towards redemption he did not deserve but clung to desperately. He had sworn fealty and devotion to the undivine man before him, as no god could be as fragile as a mortal Eve. Though gods were objects for humans to behold, and Jeje knew that no sacred being would gaze upon him, who had seen beyond death and wandered the world as a revenant.

Jeje drank from the vial, knowing his Eve’s blood was a rare sacrament to receive. As profane as this Eucharist was, he felt strength surging through his godforsaken body. He had left his faith behind in the world of the living, but his Eve was the closest thing to salvation he had ever tasted.

[zhongwans]

About that term they call zh. I looked it up and it seems the chinese word for traitor is actually different? 🤔 Is there a difference between han jian and that? Feel free to ignore if it's a silly question 😅

Yep the general word for traitor/turncoat is "Pan Tu" 叛徒. The term they use for ZH is "Han Jian" 汉奸 which can also be translated as traitor, but has a heavier connotation and a more specific meaning. "Han" 汉 as in the Han ethnicity, and "Jian" 奸 which can mean traitor or illicit liaison, so someone who "lays with the enemy". A more literal translation is "traitor to the Han race".

Calling someone a traitor in english may sound almost cartoonishly evil, but the term hanjian is probably the most politically disastrous title for a Chinese citizen. If you are recognized as such by enough people, you may get excluded from communities and face severe harassment, and those threats almost always extends to family & people known to be close to you. Modern usage of the word is mainly rooted in the crackdown of collaborators to Japanese forces during the 2nd Sino-Japanese War, but it's an old concept. It was used by people against each other during the Opium Wars, and it dates as far back as the 13th century, used by Hans of the Song dynasty to call those who sold out fellow Han people to the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty. It's a very heavy label to slap on someone, and calling someone a Hanjian is akin to accusing them of treason, and in the times of the Cultural Revolution, it can mean full ostracization, that extend to sons and daughters, if not death.

It's often used as a way to unite people under a single banner by "othering" a select few. And a lot of people, especially ones who lived through the Cultural Revolution, know how effective it is in turning the masses against a person and how powerful it is as a tool to destroy someone with. Even the Red Brigade differentiated the Pantu from the "more sinister" Hanjians during their purging. There are probably some dissertations out there that go through the long history of the term that can better express how heavy it is. It's a word that you can almost feel.

That's why it was shocking that during August, everyone outside the fandom seemed to agree that ZZH deserved what was happening, and some even celebrating it, even though it was his life and possibly his whole future, that was being destroyed in real time. I read many posts saying he deserved it for being a "Japanophile" simply because he loves anime? As if billions of Chinese didn't grow up loving Japanese anime and still love Japanese anime to this day? The internet (well, weibo) went nuts when Ultraman was temporarily pulled.

All those sanctimonious essays from offended "Chinese diaspora" lecturing everyone about how problematic his sakura pictures were, and how everyone else was stupid or insensitive for thinking that the punishment grossly exceeded the "crime". It's disgusting how they justified that horrific witchhunt all because they wanted to be woke, sanctimonious wankers on social media. And it's funny how your opinion was only valid as a Chinese when you were condemning him, but if you were on his side you were suddenly not Chinese enough. And if they know SO much about Chinese culture then surely they know what kind label hanjian is? What it would mean for ZZH to have such a damning epithet hung around his neck?

For me I just know it as a word not to be thrown around lightly, but for older people it invokes a stronger reaction. It was brought up when I was over at my friend's house a few days before and we talked to her uncle about it, how ZZH had taken pictures in front of sakura trees within the Yasukuni compound and then he was called a Hanjian, and his reaction was "Who wants to kill him?"

[mermaidsirennikita]

random thirdly (?) State of the Goodreads Challenge 2022

I cannot guarantee that I will give State of the Goodreads Challenge updates on the regular, but as my blog has increasingly slanted towards "if there is one consistency, it's my love of romance novels", I think I should try. I'd love to say I'll do this in a quarterly fashion, like businesses do, but like... we're 4-ish months into the year. Quarterly, thirdly. It is what it is.

My 2022 Goodreads Challenge: 50 Books

My 2022 Goodreads Challenge Status As of May 10, 2022: 32 books

Those books:

Tempting the Vicar by Liana LeFey. 3/5. ARC. I recall a very strange oral sex scene and an annoyingly sanctimonious hero, though little else.

In Bed with The Devil by Lorraine Heath. 4/5. The hero kills people! Or does he? She thinks he does. Classic Lorraine.

His Lessons on Love by Cathy Maxwell. 4/5. ARC. Very cute baby. Very incompetent hero. It is actually his baby!!! From his mistress! Gasp!

Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton. 5/5. Pirates and assassins and magical girls and batty old ladies and a "she's wasted, bro" scene. Yes!

The Good Girl's Guide to Rakes by Eva Leigh. 4/5. ARC. A classic "take me on a walk on the wild side, SIR" book. The hero wears eyeliner. She does a little striptease. The word "cunt" is used in a sex scene. God bless.

How to Deceive A Duke by Samara Parish. 4/5. ARC. Second chance romance, a duke with damage, the lady wears pants. Very classic.

The Duke Goes Down by Sophie Jordan. 3/5. Was doing so well until the last minute twist! Do appreciate a hero named Peregrine, and does he EVER go down.

The Rake Gets Ravished by Sophie Jordan. 4/5. ARC. Thank GOD this hero has a fetish for oranges, or this heroine would be fucked. Instead she just gets fucked.

The Duke I Tempted by Scarlett Peckham. 5/5. Sexually submissive duke. Whipping houses. Dark secrets. Fuck yes.

The Viscount Made Me Do It by Diana Quincy. 3.5/5. A lady chiropractor makes it sexy.

The Earl I Ruined by Scarlett Peckham. 4.5/5. So you can do that with an apple? Noted.

A Duke, The Spy, An Artist, and A Lie by Vanessa Riley. 2/5. ARC. I don't know what happened here. So much promise!

White Knight Needed by Betina Krahn. 3/5. ARC. The cover fucked, but this book did not.

The Marquess Makes His Move by Diana Quincy. 4/5. ARC. A married heroine! How will they get out of this one??? .... Oh, like that? Bold.

How to Be A Wallflower by Eloisa James. 3/5. ARC. The heroine is heiress to a toilet fortune and I was raised to find toilets distasteful if necessary.

A Relentless Rake by Anna Harrington. 3/5. ARC. This could have been rated higher if not for the slut shaming, whoops!

Crying Wolfe by Kerrigan Byrne. 4/5. ARC. I was a bit thrown by the rough American angle, but then they started fucking and I was significantly more okay with it.

The Heiress Hunt by Joanna Shupe. 3.5/5. A 3.5/5 Joanna Shupe is still better than the best from many other authors. A cute friends to lovers romance, made better by my one true love, the Duke of Fuckwood.

The Lady Gets Lucky by Joanna Shupe. 4/5. A hot hot hot seduction lessons book. The Duke of Fuckwood gets cuck(wood)ed again!!!

The Bride Goes Rogue. 4.5/5. ARC. Fucking killed it, one of the hottest "we'll do shit in a carriage" scenes I've ever read. Not to be cucked this time, the Duke of Fuckwood instead glowers broodingly, and I need to lie down.

Rules for Engaging the Earl by Janna MacGregor. 4/5. ARC. A wounded hero! A single mother! A marriage of convenience! Facesitting!

A Scot is Not Enough by Gina Conkle. 3/5. ARC. Alas, the title was better than the book itself, though I do love the sex scenes.

A Daring Pursuit by Kate Bateman. 4/5. ARC. Classic light enemies to lovers, if it ain't broke don't fix it, there is also a rescue bear.

The Wedding Season by Katy Birchall. 3/5. ARC. Would possibly be rated higher if it was actually a romance.

A Duke for Diana by Sabrina Jeffries. 3/5. ARC. A lot of "oh my"s in this one, and I am still very ambivalent on such as that.

How to Steal A Scoundrel's Heart by Vivienne Lorret. 5/5. ARC. "Fellas is it gay if I cuddle my mistress while she's on her period" the book. Fabulous.

The Lady Loves Danger by Anabella Bryant. 3/5. ARC. And I couldn't help but wonder, would my heart have opened more to this book if it didn't have a cartoon cover?

Lady Derring Takes A Lover by Julie Anne Long. 4/5. One thing I appreciated deeply about this book is that the hero says "oh God, so good" during, because I do love a hardened spy acting like a total simp once he finds the right puss.

Angel in a Devil's Arms by Julie Anne Long. 4/5. The hero literally jumps out from behind walls to be like "BOO" to scare people who conspired to murder him years ago, and I do relate to that.

I'm Only Wicked With You by Julie Anne Long. 4/5. A+ "heroine gives hero a boner by talking about nudity and making eye contact with him while her parents are right there" scene.

Scoundrel of My Heart by Lorraine Heath. 5/5. A bitch did in fact gasp and say "oh my God" aloud during this, and I felt like a whole loser after, but she earned that.

A Night to Surrender by Tessa Dare. 4/5. "I only wish to touch you through your shift" *proceeds to eat her out through her shift*.

[histoireettralala]

"In your life you have never seen the like"

We have many reasons to distrust what Louis Racine has said about his father. Only 6 when his father died, he could have had few personal memories of him, and no memories at all of his life as working playwright- which ended long before Louis was born. Being himself excessively pious and a convinced Jansenist, he was extremely touchy on the subject of his father's relationships with women, preferring to believe that his father "never was the slave of love", was never in love with Mlle Champmeslé, never wrote his tragedies "conforming to the style of declamation of his actress." Although it is easy to dismiss the sanctimonious Louis as a hagiographer, perhaps there is something to be learned from his insistence that Jean Racine felt obliged to give his actresses lessons in how to declaim his verses […]

According to Boileau, Racine also taught Mlle Du Parc the role of Andromaque and "had her repeat it like a pupil." Perhaps what these anecdotes reflect is Racine's desire to create a new style of tragic acting for plays that depended far more for their emotional affectivity on the appropriate inflection and melodious intonation of his carefully crafted verse than did the action-centered tragedies of Corneille and those who followed his prescription. The actor Jean Poisson supports this possibility when he notes that Mlle Champmeslé "sang a little" when she enchanted the court as Racine's heroines, but that "elsewhere she recited the Tragedies of the Celebrated M. de Corneille excellently & in a totally different manner."

If Racine took it upon himself to reform acting, this could have made him unpopular with some actors. Raymond Poisson may have had Racine in mind when he created his Poète basque in 1668, a few months after the great success of Andromaque. Among Poisson's provincial poetaster's ideas for improving the Hôtel de Bourgogne is the following:

I am going to read it [his play La Seigneuresse] to you presently, And this reading will be like your musical score. I will mark there all the tones and the mutations, The facial expressions and the actions: When I’m not speaking observe my face, You will see me pass from love to fury, Then, by marvelous art, in a surprising return, I will pass from fury to love. In brief, I am going to show the right way to satisfy, And what a great actor must do to be great. Don’t miss my least movement, For even the least is worth applause.

Of course, Racine may not have been the only playwright who thought he was a better actor than the actors.

From the audience's point of view, there seems little doubt that Mlle Champmeslé, whether because of or in spite of Racine's tuition, was considered the finest actress of her day even by those, like Mme de Sévigné, who preferred Corneille's plays to Racine's. In January 1672 she wrote to her daughter that Mlle Champmeslé:

"seemed the most marvelous actress that I have ever seen. She surpasses la Des Œillets by the distance of a hundred leagues; and I, who am thought rather good on the stage, I am not worthy to light the candles when she appears. She is nearly ugly, and I am not astonished that my son was suffocated by her presence; but when she speaks, she is adorable."

She is speaking of Mlle Champmeslé’s performance as Atalide in Racine’s Bajazet. Giving the lie, however, to Louis Racine’s remark that the actress was never as good in other playwrights’ plays, Mme de ́Sévigné reserves her most effusive praise for Mlle Champmeslé's appearance in the title role in Thomas Corneille’s Ariane. The actress is “so extraordinary that in your life you have never seen the like; it is the actress one goes to see and not the play; I saw Ariane only for her: that play is insipid, the actors are damnable; but when Champmeslé enters, there’s a murmur; everyone is transported, and we weep at her despair.”

We also owe Mme de Sévigné for our reasonable assurance that Racine was in love with Mlle Champmeslé. Writing about Bajazet, which she liked, although not very much, she added: “Racine writes plays for la Champmeslé; it is not for the centuries to come. If ever he is no longer young, and ceases to be in love, it will not be the same thing.” If fact, she was absolutely right. He grew older, grew disenchanted with the theatre, lost Mlle Champmeslé to other lovers, and reinvented himself, but not before he had written for her Monime in Mithridate and the title roles in Iphigénie and Phèdre.

By “for her” I do not mean to suggest that Racine wrote these plays either because he was in love with her or because he wanted her to love him. Rather, I want to underscore once more the likelihood that because he knew what she could bring to a role, both as an artist and as a stage persona, he chose certain stories and developed them in certain ways. This might be especially true of Iphigénie and Phèdre.

From the beginning of her career as Racine's leading actress, Mlle Champmeslé was known for her ability fo bring an audience to tears. Forestier quotes a British diplomat, Francis Vernon, who wrote that "all the entertainment of the town are the two new plays, both of them called Bérénice… of which that of Racine seems to take much, and the ladies melt away at it and proclaim them hardhearted who do not cry, so much they are concerned for the unfortunate Bérénice." This ability was nowhere more famously employed than in Iphigénie […]

As Boileau later reminds his readers, it was with the help of the actress that Racine achieved his effects on the audience:

How well you know, Racine, with the help of an Actor, How to move, astonish, delight a Spectator! Never did Iphigénie sacrificed in Aulis, Cause as many tears to flow in the assembled Greece, As were at the hapy spectacle to our eyes unfolded Caused to flow by la Champmeslé…

Even when Ariane was reprised at the Guénégaud in 1679, Donneau de Visé was moved to write in the Mercure Galant that "Mademoiselle Champmeslé, that inimitable actress who haas transferred to the Faubourg Saint-Germain troupe, on several occasions drew tears from many of her spectators."

Virginia Scott- Women on the Stage in Early Modern France: 1540-1750.