#ambit

[desperrados]

All I can muster today.

Hand : brocken 💔

[olomaya]

Private Clinic - Psychiatry

18 August: This mod has been updated. Please refer to this post for more information before downloading.

Ever want to do something to help all the messed up Sims in your town? With this mod, your Sim can run a private clinic as a therapist.

You can join the Psychiatry career, buy a Therapist couch and start treating patients for all their emotional and mental maladies. Using a clinic controller object, patients will be pushed to your clinic lot in need of treatment. Active patients can be identified by the orange and white symbol over their head (pictured above).

This is the first part of a larger game mod that allows Sims to be more active doctors similar to what we have in TS4 Get to Work. Your Sim will be able to run a clinic out of their house or from a commercial lot and treat patients for different ailments. Eventually you'll be able to play as a Psychiatrist, Optometrist, Ob-GyM, or a General Physician.

This mod also adds two additional features:

Medicine - Sims can buy prescription or over-the-counter medicine to treat various mild ailments. Medicines can be purchased at the grocery store (Home section) or Buy catalog. There is also a collection file where you can find all available objects. Prescription medicine can only be obtained at the grocery store or hospital with a prescription.

Drug Addiction - Sims can get addicted to the prescription medicine if they overuse it. This can lead to withdrawal symptoms and potential overdose. There is an option to go to rehab at the hospital for Sims that need the help to kick the habit.

You need NRaas Careers (for the custom career), University, Island Paradise, Ambitions EPs.

Download instructions:

The Private Clinic main module has all the medicines, the clinic controller and addiction system. You need that to play as a Therapist but if you just want the medicines, you only need to download these files. Note that you cannot write prescriptions or do anything doctor related without downloading the Psychiatry module. Download here

There is also a collection file which has all the available objects

The Psychiatry module is required to play as a therapist. The career is optional but some features won't be available without it. Download here

There are documentation files in both folders that go through the features in detail so PLEASE READ through them before downloading.

Credits/Thanks: All the objects except for the Couch which is EA's are from @aroundthesims so thanks as always to Sandy for her wonderful stuff and generous use policy. Buff images are courtesy of Freepik. Thanks to everyone on the S3 Creators Discord that did early testing for the mod, especially @misspats3 who tests like it's her job with photos, videos, detailed notes. 👌 Also to Battery who helped me with the manager system.

As always if you have any issues (resets, missing strings, etc.) please let me know.

[cuubism]

@prismaluv I promised an actual eon ago that I would write something for Dream and Desire, and here it is, though I fear I haven't landed exactly where you were aiming for...

--

It has come to Dream’s attention that something is… wrong… in the Threshold.

It is not usually for him to take note of his siblings’ affairs. Particularly when said sibling is Desire. He would sooner let them wallow; perhaps it would teach them a lesson. But the malady, or irritation or scheme or whatever it may be is now seeping into the Dreaming, and so Dream must determine if it is intentional or not and what, depending on the answer, he must do about it.

The Threshold naturally shares a border with the Dreaming, for, to Dream’s chagrin, dreams and desires do find common or contested ground in love and ambition and other feelings besides. And those desirous dreams have been sickened. Corrupted. Dreamers see their lovers’ ravening maws and wake nauseous from what should have been visions of lovemaking; children’s songs curdle mockingly in their ears as light expands beyond joy beyond pain beyond burning. These dreams are not serving their purpose and Dream must put a stop to it.

“Sibling,” he calls, and receives no reply, but the Threshold allows him in, when he steps from the border of his realm into Desire’s.

The long pathways of Desire’s body are empty as ever. A mockery of blood vessels pumping nothing. Dream walks the known paths, alert in the silence, past the lungs with no breath, to the heart with no beating.

He steps into the curving chambers of that heart, the center of Desire’s power in the Threshold. His steps echo on the hard walls.

“Mmm,” comes Desire’s voice, slurred with malaise, echoing from deeper within, “come to gloat, have you, brother?”

“I have come to determine your purpose in poisoning my realm,” Dream says, following their voice. “I warned you not to toy with me again.”

Desire lets out a disgusted sigh. “Not everything I do is about you.”

“Recent events would suggest otherwise.” Dream finally reaches the central atrium of the Threshold’s heart. Desire is sprawled out on a chaise lounge, head pillowed on their arm. Their eyes are closed, their clothes wrinkled and ill-fitting, their hair lank. They appear to be wearing Despair’s ripped and stained jumper. Dream frowns.

“Go awayyyyy,” Desire complains. “Leave me to my misery.”

“What afflicts you?” Dream asks, standing over them. “Or are you simply experiencing remorse for your crimes, at long last?”

“‘Afflicts’,” Desire mutters, mockingly. “I am being persecuted and abused. Abandoned. Wasting away in apathy.”

Dream sits delicately on the arm of a chair by their side. If there truly is something wrong, and Desire is not just being melodramatic, or trying to annoy him, then they must take action. He will not allow the Dreaming to be harmed. “I fail to see how it could be persecution and abandonment at once.”

“Have you not seen them, Dream?” Desire complains, finally cracking one bleary golden eye open to look up at him.

“Seen whom?” Dream asks, with what he thinks is admirable patience.

“The people! Nobody wants anything. Not in a way that matters. Oh, it’s too easy. It’s too easy to take shortcuts. They don’t understand desire anymore.” Desire clutches their heart dramatically.

“I have not the faintest clue what you are talking about,” Dream says.

“I am a starving and bottomless mouth,” Desire tells him, looking up at him with both shining eyes now. “See, my teeth.” They bare their teeth at him. Their incisors are very sharp.

“I am aware of this.”

“And they think they can feed me with tiny little candies like a yapping chihuahua that’ll finally shut up. They’re poisoning me. They’re starving me. They’re glutting themselves on whatever makes the brain chemmies go weeweeweeweewoo for a second and look— look.” They drag down the hem of Despair’s jumper, peel back a layer of skin. Under it is not flesh, nor blood, but void, an expanding, hungry, agonized void. Dream stares into it, alarmed.

Desire lets their ‘skin’ snap back into place. “What does it even mean, Dream?” they ask rhetorically. “Nothing. It is all fleeting. Nothing deep about it. No one yearns, Dream. No one YEARNS!”

This is said in a despairing wail. Cautiously, Dream pets their hair.

“You crave deep and abiding wants and there is a glut of trivialities and distractions,” he summarizes, and they nod, teary. “Would it appease you if I removed all memory of mobile phones from the face of the earth?”

It doesn’t appease them, but it does make them laugh. Desire laughs, choked and teary, clutching at his hand. “God, I forgot that you’re actually funny when you’re not trying to be.”

It is strange, after all that has transpired, to have what could be considered a civil conversation. Dream still does not forgive them for anything they have done, and perhaps never will, but he sees, for a moment, a much younger year, when they were, in a fashion, friends.

“Many deep desires live in dreams now, for they have little hope of fulfillment,” he says. “But these small morsels, candies as you say, these are not dreamt of, except perhaps in nightmares of eternal wasting. It is still what dwells deepest in the heart that drives dreaming.”

“Are you trying to tell me that I matter?” Desire bites, and Dream simply says—

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Desire seems genuinely disturbed; perhaps they really did think he came to revel in their misery. Perhaps Dream did. But one of his siblings struggling in their duty can only have ill effects on his dreamers, and on their waking selves besides. Dream would be incredibly remiss in not addressing it. Or so he tells himself is his reasoning.

“I do believe there are still fierce desires in this world, though perhaps they have become buried. Usurped,” he says. “Disconnected from the body which is, as I understand it, their rightful home. Though addressing this is not something with which I can aid you.”

The body of living creatures is far outside Dream’s purview, and not something he well understands, except as it manifests in dreams—of hope of change, of twisted horror, of curling heat. And even then, it is far from him.

“I can’t believe you’re giving me advice and it’s not just telling me to go fuck myself,” Desire says faintly. Dream begins to protest, but they continue, “Not that you’d ever use those words, Your Highness.”

“It serves no one if one of our realms is in disarray,” says Dream, and if there is a sharp point to it, a reminder of exactly the damage Desire had so carelessly wrought in Dream’s realm, all the better. “I cannot assist you in managing it, only offer the perspective of dreams. If it proves good counsel, then I will be glad.”

“If it proves good counsel,” Desire mutters. “Fuck you, you superior prick.”

But it is not as sharp and cutting as it might once have been.

Dream abruptly realizes his hand is still touching their hair, and removes himself. He stands, arranging his cloak around him.

“Well,” says Desire, craning their neck back to look up at him upside down, “you must be right on one count. Lingering about here is doing no good.” They stretch, arms above their head, spine cracking. “I suppose I will go stalk the outside world and see if I can’t stoke their desires from ember to inferno.”

“I am certain you can, if you feel that will achieve your aims,” Dream says. Desire’s ability to draw out human wants and push their pursuit is not in question, their mere presence in a space accomplishes that. Whether that will turn their charges away from passing, unsatisfying trinkets and to deeper pleasures is another matter. “Meanwhile, please withdraw your malaise from the borders of my realm. The small children are being hypnotized by dreams of meaningless drivel and it displeases me.”

“Should’ve known you wouldn’t like YouTube,” Desire sighs. They maneuver themselves to sitting in a slanted, tired lean. For a moment, the silence lingers, stretched between them like syrup.

Finally, growing uncomfortable but stiffening his spine, Dream says, “If you are not going to imminently fall apart and cause havoc, then I will take my leave.”

“I love how much you care,” says Desire, sarcastically. Then, tilting their head, “You do care. Just a little bit. Don’t you?”

Dream does not respond to this.

“You could have simply disentangled all your little dreams from my realm and instead you came to check on me,” they say, with glee, and Dream glares. And Desire, apparently sensing a fight, subsides.

“Always lovely when you come around, dear brother,” they say, reclining back against their chaise lounge, eyes glittering despite the neglected state of their form. “Do come again.”

“If you remedy your affairs, then I will not have to,” says Dream curtly, and steps backwards into the Dreaming.

Desire does so love to press buttons at moments when they have almost reached an accord. Desire, once his most loved sibling. Those days are gone now, and Dream does not see them coming back.

[jacesvelaryons]

prologue.

the reluctant empress.

(19th Century Imperial Austria AU)

series masterlist

chapter 1 (soon)

jacaerys (jace) velaryon x female!original character

original work: house of the dragon

rating: rated g (will become pg 18+ in later chapters)

summary: this is a dangerous game we play. as rhaenyra sits on the iron throne and the crown lands on her head, she ensures nothing will risk her reign, and that her son, with all his promise, follows after her. and nothing will stop her.

genres: historical, romance, intrigue, smut (to follow)

word count: 1.0k words

Compromise. That was the word Rhaenyra had heard over and over again, uttered until it became repetitive and meant so much until it was empty.

Never had there been an Empress in her own name since Maria Theresa in the Imperial house, and many of her descendants made sure a woman like her could not rise up again whether by inheritance or coup d’etat.

When King Jaehaerys died unexpectedly in the dawning days of 1852, her father Archduke Viserys befell the throne and crown on his head. Long widowed and mourning the loss of his wife and her mother Aemma, Viserys was a peaceful, kind man, gullible and easily influenced, who suffered bouts of melancholy and locked himself away in his room for days and weeks.

After a series of uprisings from the Vale and failed conquests of Dorne, Rhaenyra managed to convince her somewhat feeble-minded and defeated father to abdicate and hand the throne to her, a princess at age of twenty, fresh from having given birth to her third son Joffrey with spouse Laenor Velaryon, who had taken court with her at Dragonstone, at their ancestral home.

Ever since Jacaerys sat on his grandsire’s lap, chestnut orbs full of wonder and curls forming on his head, as Viserys told him that seat would be his one day - it would be her greatest ambition to succeed him on that throne and pave the way for an even greater reign to come in form of her son.

Since the hatchling sat on her son’s chest and crawled over his wooden crib, Jacaerys was meant for greatness and she knew. He, who picked up reading and writing sooner than any babe, who was crawling already when most did not coordinate their spindly limbs together. Whose eyes read voraciously as he was pressed to her breast or a wet nurse’s. ‘Alysanne reborn’ they would call him sometimes - it’s as if she had swallowed texts and candles while she carried him in her womb.

As the scintillating diadem landed on her head full of silver hair up, Rhaenyra was a step closer to making her dream come true. Sapphires emblazoned on her collar, she honoured her mother Aemma wherever she went, avenging all misdeeds done against her, so that she may have the final laugh after all.

Seeing her father all hesitant, appeasing and letting himself be led on by ill meaning snakes who only wished to take advantage of him for their own personal gains had taught her that compromise can only go so far before it eats you up alive. And she won’t let that happen to her. Or to her son.

…

This is the best I can do. Or at least that’s what Alicent’s father told her when he was able to secure a match for her, a second son’s daughter, to a sickly, old Lord Targaryen who was a distant cousin to the conqueror himself. Not as wealthy or influential as the main branch of the family who sat on the throne, but this is the most she can dream for when most lords turned their heads at the sight of her and her brothers.

The old lord, as wealthy as he was, had no great lands but a humble castle in the middle of nowhere in the Crownlands. Loyal and content he was to his family, he had no drive or ambition of his own, after fighting the same war that had gotten Prince Aemon struck with an arrow, returning with maladies that only added to his already delicate health.

Left with two daughters and a granddaughter from the eldest who was now also left a widow, Alicent felt she had no escape, a hole dug so deep there’s no other way but down.

Meek, obedient, people pleasing and content, Helaena was born first, so quiet and unmoving they were afraid she was stillborn and lifeless, answering the prayers of long assumed infertility her husband had assumed from his failure to sire children from his two previous wives. Plump and round faced, her silver hair was nearly pale and had the blue eyes of her father.

Religion was an escape, a soothing balm to her wounds and sensitive nature, to Helaena as it was for her mother. Although Valyrian and raised in Targaryen customs, she was never found without a copy of the seven by her desk, a beloved edition passed down from her maternal grandmother. She married the Lord Celtigar’s second son, a handsome, dashing, brave, rather foolish young man who perished squashing the wars of rebellion in the Vale, never meeting his shy, reclusive daughter Jaehaera.

The second, youngest daughter Y/N - where do we even start? Auburn hair like her mother’s, with dark purple eyes common in the Freehold, was anything like her beloved sister. As close they were, they were opposites in every way. Whereas Helaena was hesitant and shy, Y/N was an accomplished equestrian, loved to hunt and explore the streets of the common folk as her father did in his childhood. Born kicking and screaming, she was nearly double the size of her elder, loud cries so piercing it could be heard throughout the keep.

Her cousins the Lord of Oldtown were aghast to see how her youngest daughter turned out, not made in the image of the Mother, but too Targaryen for their taste’s, yet they could not fully turn away their own kin.

Yet for all her feracious character and restless spirit, Alicent knew from her early age that there was an unsettling beauty to her daughter that she could not fully comprehend. It only seemed to haunt her as her youngest grew, learned to climb and walk and run.

A woman’s household, her father mockingly told Alicent, and although she at first felt humiliated and in despair at her hopelessness, a sense of hope sprouted in her. Draped in obsidian mourning clothes, clinging to the last good lace in her treasury, she receives a letter from her once childhood friend whom she had served as lady in waiting to in her youth, Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen.

The Queen has invited the Lady Alicent to join her royal court alongside her two daughters, especially as she was considering one who may be the future wife of her son and heir Jacaerys, Prince of Dragonstone. This was Alicent’s ticket to salvation and financial freedom that would save her ailing family from despair - making Helaena a future Queen and her blood on the throne.

…

[chic-a-gigot]

Le Petit écho de la mode, no 21, vol. 25, 24 mai 1903, Paris. Le Magnetisme Personnel. Ville de Paris / Bibliothèque Forney

"Our richly illustrated book on Hypnotism, Personal Magnetism, Magnetic Healing, etc. (written in French), will tell you how... to satisfy your highest ambitions, to conquer, to accomplish, to triumph."

Il vainc tout obstacle; il vous aide à satisfaire vos plus hautes ambitions, à conquérir, à accomplir, à triompher. Il établit la différence entre le succès et l’insuccès et rend l’homme maître absolu de sa destinée. Grâce à notre nouveau système, vous pouvez acquérir cette science merveilleuse en quelques jours, chez vous; vous pouvez guérir des maladies et des mauvaises habitudes, et exercer un pouvoir merveilleux sur votre semblable. Notre livre, richement illustré, sur l’Hypnotisme, le Magnétisme personnel, les Guérisons magnétiques, etc. (rédigé en langue française), vous dira comment. Il est envoyé gratis et franco. Il est extrêmement intéressant et rempli de surprises frappantes. Il a servi à mettre des milliers de gens sur la voie du succès. Nous garantissons le succès d’une façon absolue. Affranchissez votre lettre d’un timbre de 0.25 ou employez une carte postale de 0.10.

He overcomes every obstacle; it helps you to satisfy your highest ambitions, to conquer, to accomplish, to triumph. It establishes the difference between success and failure and makes man absolute master of his destiny. Thanks to our new system, you can acquire this wonderful science in a few days, at home; you can cure illnesses and bad habits, and exercise wonderful power over your fellow man. Our richly illustrated book on Hypnotism, Personal Magnetism, Magnetic Healing, etc. (written in French), will tell you how. It is sent free and paid. It is extremely interesting and full of striking surprises. It has served to put thousands of people on the path to success. We absolutely guarantee success. Stamp your letter with a 0.25 stamp or use a 0.10 postcard.

New York Institute of Science Dept. WY. 39., Rochester, N.Y. (E.-U.-d’A.)

[houseaeducan]

She hadn’t learned about Bhelen’s son until months later, well after the Blight, well after she had already situated herself on the surface. The revelation – that she was an aunt, that she was not the last member of House Aeducan – came in the form of a letter from Gorrim. The baby and his mother, a casteless woman who had moved back to Dust Town as carefully and quietly as she could hope to manage, were not in any real danger from Harrowmont directly – noble, oblivious Harrowmont who would not think to look to Dust Town, and who a few months later would be bedridden with some mysterious malady, only for his craftier son to take the throne. That, Gorrim reported, was probably the danger. 

The baby is the standing heir to House Aeducan, she wrote back. Endrin, Gorrim had said. She would not write his name. He should be accepted by House Aeducan as my heir and a member of the noble caste. He and his mother should be given my House’s full protection and support.

After a moment, she added, If they wish to leave Orzammar, they can report to Vigil’s Keep in Amaranthine, where I hold lands. They’ll be taken care of. 

She did not hold lands in Amaranthine anymore, not really. Those lands were Warden lands, and Daera was only a Warden in ways that mattered to her – the Blight in her blood, the countdown to a year too close for her comfort. But deserter though she may be, she didn’t doubt that they would see her nephew and his mother taken care of. Better that she not be there. Better that she had no chance of meeting the boy whose father she had killed. 

She wondered, when she lacked the foresight to stop herself from wondering, if Bhelen had loved his casteless mistress. She doubted it, but still, when she heard that he had given her quarters in the palace, that he had declared his intention to marry her, she wondered. She had also doubted that Bhelen truly cared about the casteless, that his grab for the throne meant anything beyond his own ambitions. But what did she know about her brother and his motives? 

One day her nephew would grow older. He would start asking questions, if his mother wasn’t already brave enough and ambitious enough to start feeding him discontent from the cradle. He would know he had been denied a father, denied a throne, and if he was anything like the men and women of his House, he would take up his sword and turn it toward his kin like Bhelen had, like Daera had, like their father had so many years before them. He might be the first to deserve his revenge.

[flordemurta]

4 portuguese monarchs who might had same-sex relationships:

1) Pedro I of of Portugal, certainly, one if the most renowned portuguese monarchs, largely due to the saga of “love and passion” with Inês de Castro. Yet, it was common knowledge that she wasn't the Pedro’s only love: he harboured a passion for his squire, Afonso Moreira, a relationship that ended as disastrously as his other romantic (or not) entanglements. On one fateful occasion, Afonso was caught in bed with Catarina Tosse, wife of Lourenço Gonçalves, who was an esteemed magistrate.

Throughout his reign, Pedro earned the epithet “the Cruel” for his ruthless administration of justice, whereby transgressions of any magnitude often resulted in swift execution. Pedro’s decision to order Afonso’s castration as punishment for his adultery starkly manifested his merciless ethos. Nevertheless, according to Fernão Lopes, a chronicler of portuguese court at the time, in chapter VIII of “Crônica de el-rei D. Pedro I”, his harshness stemmed from a surge of jealousy on the king’s part upon discovering his beloved squire’s relationship with a woman.

2) Prince Henry, revered as “the Navigator”, occupies a central role particularly during the epoch of maritime exploration.

He was hailed as “chaste prince”, having never entered into wedlock, with no historical accounts suggesting (with certainty) any relationships with women. In the annals of 1444, Henry experienced the loss of a “dear friend” in Ceuta, a tragedy that pluged him into 3 months of profound mourning. Both his father, King John I, and his brother, King Edward, counselled him to “rein in his emotions, lest he indulge men beyond what virtue dictates.”

3) King Sebastian contracted gonorrhoea at the age 10/11, a malady documented in medical records at the time that rendered him sexually impotent. Some historians posit that this affliction may have dissuaded Sebastian from pursuing matrimonial unions or romantic relationships with women.

Even though, the “Crônicas de el-rei D. Sebastião” by Friar Bernardo da Cruz recounts an incident during a hunt in the Alentejo, where the entourage of nobles accompanying King Sebastian were stirred by a commotion. Investigating the disturbance, they stumbled upon the monarch locked in an embrance with a fugitive slave amidst the woodland.

4) King Afonso VI, sibling to Queen Catarina of Braganza, earned a reputation for rebeliouness and unruliness from a tender age, yet he harboured no ambitions for kingship.

His reign , marred by a series of missteps, was etched in history for its futile ventures. Despite grappling with severe health afflictions — such as partial paralysis stemming from hemiplegic fever, and scourge of bulimia — Afonso found solace in nocturnal escapades with his inner circle of friends. Among them was António Conti, an intalian peddler of opulent attire and accoutrements to Europe’s nobility. Conti’s sway in Afonso’s court burgeoned as he assumed the role of sartorial advisor and facilitator of introductions to foreign luminaries. Also, both grew increasingly closer to each other, with Afonso avoiding royal gatherings to spend time with Conti, mostly in his chambers.

In 1666, Afonso took the hand of Maria Francisca Isabel of Savoy, yet their union was fleeting. Maria, citing non-consummation owing to Afonso’s hemiplegia, sought an annulment. In letters to his sister, he bemoaned Maria’s coercive measures, by which she compelled him into relationships with 14 courtesants in a bid to unearth the root of their marital discord.

Seeking to shield Afonso’s sovereignty and secure the portuguese lineage, Luisa de Gusmão, his mother, sanctioned the arrest and subsequent exile of Conti to the distant shores of Brazil.

[goldenreveries]

Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  step  right  up  and  behold  the  Soulglad  Billboard!  The  latest  and  greatest  marvel  in  Penacony  information  innovation!  In  this  dazzling  age  of  plenty-Dear  Dreamers,  we  present  you  a  grand  tapestry  of  opportunity,  where  aspiring  gentry  and  industrious  souls  alike  may  find  their  fortunes!  This  splendid  showcase  features  an  array  of  job  prospects,  from  the  glittering  heights  of  Golden  Hour  to  the  bustling  Moment  of  Dusk.  With  the  Soulglad  Billboard,  our  mission  is  clear—to  connect  talent  with  ambition,  dreams  with  reality,  and  the  bright-eyed  Dreamers  with  their  destined  paths.  So  don  your  finest  attire  and  peruse  this  marvelous  display,  where  your  future  awaits  in  resplendent  clarity!

Enough  babbling  let's  get  on  with  the  show~!

DREAMSCAPE  SALES  HEIST

The  Dreamscape  Sales  Store  has  been  compromised  by  the  most  notorious  crime  ring  of  Penacony!  Dream  Bubbles  are  being  extorted  at  an  all-time  high  at  the  Dusk  Auction  House--with  a  twist.  The  gang  leads  at  Morning  Dew's  Hive  of  Villainy  are  looking  for  contenders  to  crash  the  auction  secretly  lead  by  their  rival  gang  with  a  promised  payout  well  worth  anything  more  than  whatever  these  aforementioned  Dream  Bubbles  are  worth;  so  they  say.  Rob  one  Syndicate  to  pay  the  other?  Complete  their  favor  and  you'll  earn  your  place  within  the  endless  tunnels  of  scum  and  lechery  for  a  lifetime  to  come.  How  will  you  weasel  your  way  into  the  underworld?  Sabotage?  Climbing  the  ranks  via  the  underground  arena?  Throwing  yourself  into  the  cage  to  fight?  The  choice  is  yours!

SERENITY  PRISON  BREAK

The  Family  is  scrambling  for  takers  to  help  lockdown  Sunrise  Mansion.  In  all  effort  to  keep  their  previous  place  of  structured  and  otherwise  pristine  housing  from  exposing  its  tarnished  reputation,  this  infamous  landmark  is  open  for  a  limited  time  to  those  brave  enough  in  venturing  forth.  Beware,  as  fragments  of  the  past  still  remain  scattered  within,  conjuring  supernatural  sightings  and  equally  ghoulish  happenings.  It  seems  the  most  ancient  of  forbidden  experiments  conducted  within  the  undersides  of  the  great  Mansion  are  not  so  sound  asleep  after  all... Here,  where  the  most  terrifying  of  convicts  and  monsters  roam  alike,  the  very  balance  of  dream  and  reality  preside  where  one  experiences  the  unspeakable  terrors  conjured  by  the  fabled  Hour  of  Order  threaten  the  very  livelihood  of  the  Dreamscape  itself.

SNAKE-OIL HEALER

Perched  atop  a  misty  hill,  the  enigmatic  Healer  of  Dayspring  Village  casts  an  otherworldly  presence,  her  reputation  as  a  miraculous  savant  stirring  both  reverence  and  unease  among  the  townsfolk.  Claimed  to  possess  the  divine  gift  of  healing,  she  draws  countless  souls  seeking  respite  from  their  ailments.  Yet,  beneath  this  façade  of  benevolence  lies  a  troubling  truth:  the  Healer's  purported  cures  are  nothing  more  than  a  sophisticated  transfer  of  wounds  from  one  person  to  another.  Each  malady  she  "treats"  merely  shifts  the  affliction  from  her  patient  to  an  unwitting  new  bearer,  leaving  the  village  in  desperate  need  of  uncovering  the  true  nature  of  her  dubious  art.  The  people  of  Dayspring  beseech  you  to  unravel  this  mystifying  charade  and  restore  genuine  healing  to  their  beleaguered  community.

ON THE TIP OF YOUR TONGUE

At  The  Sweets  Corner  in  Aideen  Park,  excitement  is  in  the  air  as  they  unveil  their  latest  creation,  the  Ice-su  Pick  Me  Up!  This  delightful  new  drink  promises  a  frosty  explosion  of  flavors  with  every  sip,  topped  with  a  playful  layer  of  bubbly,  effervescent  foam  that  crackles  like  fireworks  on  your  tongue.  To  celebrate  its  launch,  they're  offering  enticing  discounts,  but  beware—the  sweet,  sparkling  sensation  might  just  lead  to  unexpected  confessions  and  candid  revelations  as  the  bubbles  unleash  your  inner  monologue.  Are  you  brave  enough  to  indulge  in  this  whimsical  treat  and  see  what  secrets  might  slip  out?

Participation garners talent points and extra credits for towards future shop purchases!

[skylarjokker]

Despondency

a character study of Gale Dekarios' feelings pre-game, also on AO3

❝ A book, bound, then suddenly opened. Inside there are no pages, only a swirling mass of blackest Weave that pounces. Its teeth, its claws, it's unstoppable as it digs through and becomes part of you. And gods, is it ever-hungry... ❞

There's a feeling in his chest. Pain akin to a swelling, a devouring beast that creeps unto his very being, shortening his breath, pulling at the muscles of his dorso as it's sinks its claws and tears apart everything that defines him.

It hurts he hurts he hates it hates...

It's been a collection of long and restless months. Every single texture is wrong; the fabrics are as rough as the food is too much. Every older sensation is an agony. Every attempt of solace seems pointless. He lived amongst the highest beings in the other planes and was reduced to this shell of skin, bones, and sensations that are slowly pushing him towards pure and utter madness.

All the books have been read in a pitiful attempt at trying to cure this condition that consumes him by the moment. The smell of pages that once soothed his nerves felt like a poisonous gas tearing through his pipe.

All his fellow trusted colleges, when solicited for help, had looked at him with such mournful faces... or worse – a certain glimmer similar to a victorious vindictive feeling shone in their eyes, merciless as a knife in the back.

Serves him right for trying to defy a Goddess. For coveting more always, always more to please to feel to love and letting his ambition drive him away from his place of mortal humble servant.

There's a Waterdehvian saying: "If the sea is too shallow, do not fish it." As the weave mustn't remain shallow, the impression of it must. Yet he dove into it, crashed, drowned. He feels that he is perpetually sinking into the bottomless end of his folly.

He'd forsaken everything for Mystra; his flesh, his needs, his best friend, his mother, the company of all that was mortal all that was undignified of her, but he still missed it. He wanted everything to be in the same standing place as the very being that is magic.

As his heart is being devoured in the process, mauled. He loves Mystra he in a way that is beyond the perpetual physical ache his body now possesses, he learned what love was like when guided by her hands he learned what was power, too but her love is also a weave to be consumed, it seems.

Besides the pain he is hollow, the daylights do not warm his skin, nor the bloom of flowers gives him any delight. Everything is covered in magic, in beauty, in her. He still loves all Faerun, but it seems so lackluster now that she turned her back on him.

He thought himself worthy to be loved by a Goddess. How much preposterous can a mortal be? The Goddess was barely sparing him a glance before his devotion faltered as his heart desiderate the pleasure dommes not only to be by her side but for himself. If he had done different, casted even a fraction of his endless ravenous desire for knowledge and contented his lowly self by her merely presence, this predicament would have never been laid opon him.

He is humbled, his vanity pushed aside, his wishes dimmed, and the famished thing that resides in his ribcage, right above his heart, pulses with power. The Netherese Orb. An ill thought gift transformed into a bomb. A curse marking the sinful gesture of an Archmage that was casted from the very heavens that gave him power. The orb took away his days, his accomplishments, his pride, and it glowed hungry at his most prized possessions.

They were magical in nature. The weave laced itself into his home tower, his tomes, his mage armor and staff collections; the arcane doors, the haste place upon the stairs, full of the power the malady consumes, takes indiscriminately as it's all-encompassing lacerating agony blacken his veins as it taints his soul.

And he can't even take his life, as his life belongs to her. He pledged it over and over by her altar between her thighs, and the netherese orb made sure he couldn't break a vow such as this ever again. He could wipe out and are as big as Waterdeep.

As much as he loathe himself for his folly, he can't bring himself to warm innocents. He can't only stay passive. He has to pick himself up alone to work harder than ever before for her affections and to find a definitive cure. If not, he will die alone in a secure place, away from civilization.

He wonders what the future has in storage for him. He will ever be able to love someone properly, to love her as she requires? Or is his death truly set in stone by himself?

He lost his purpose, his adoration, his life, and love. He has nothing. He is nothing. Stripped bare, praying and praying to a Goddess who is not listening. Trapped between devotion and despair, he must find a way to reclaim his purpose, to earn forgiveness or die trying. Alone and broken, he clings to the hope that redemption is still within reach, even as his world crumbles around him. He has to be better.

Such a disgraced predicament for such a powerful mage; a fitting punishment for a greedy man.

[talldarkandroguesome]

21st of Last Seed, Middas

We have arrived back home. It feels good to be back in the manor, though I miss the easy days of being with the Nest or with Sildras and Avon. I spent more time tending to my ancestors as well.

There is a strange feeling in the house. I think it is all the residue of the magicka that had to be used to diagnose and then reward the house. I cannot believe that something had disrupted wards that had been placed on this manor in the 1st era! I suspect that something even beyond that which Urtisa was capable of must have happened.

I wonder what might have the power. It would have to be something very strong. A high powered mage or even a Daedra of some kind. The specialists at Shad Astula are still working to try and piece together the source of the disruption. They say something altered the enchantment in the wardings and had caused it to actually begin to fuel whatever strange maladies were befalling us, rather than protecting us.

They say that it is very peculiar indeed and are trying to figure out if it is because the age of the wards that they failed due to circumstance, or if something actively caused it. Regardless, it was a very frightening thing to behold. I was glad that Zethith was willing to clear out my hidden temple chamber and replace it with what would appear to be a secret room designed to keep one alive should the house be under siege. It meant that even if any of the illustrious mages of the university did somehow manage to stumble upon the place, the fact that there were extra protections there would make sense.

Of course, I now owe quite a few favors to Zethith and already I have had one that has been called due. Zethith wanted me to reconsider my stance on killing within my own House. I had initially been very against the idea. For a start, I am always the first scapegoat for all the House when it comes to any slights against them.

Second, despite how dysfunctional the House may be, it is the product of the House system and the well being of those whom I love so often depends upon the might and influence of our House. I would not risk anything that might sway that balance and risk weakening our House and exposing those I love to danger.

And finally, I have always feared that if I start to take the lives of those who I know well, it might eventually cause me to dull that part of my mortality that keeps me from simply murdering anyone at anytime that I am displeased. I have heard of many a soldier who, having taken countless lives, starts to see those around them as just as likely an enemy. I was raised on tales of those with the ambition to raise their ranks, who grew bold and cold and suddenly found it easier to take any life that stood between them and their desires, even if it were over the most mundane inconvenience. Even in House Intelligence, we constantly were reminded that, unless it were for some grave reason, we would never be asked to so much as consider harm to one within our House. Not unless they had betrayed the House itself.

Everything I have ever been taught has spoken of staying your hand when it came to taking the life of one of your own. It is a slippery slope and not one which I wish to fall down. As with my own uncle, if I had simply killed him, I cannot imagine the plight of our House. And in the end, when he was able to lay pride aside, he recognized me for who I was. We had little time to mend a rift that was older than my whole life, but he was still able to find that before he passed.

A life taken cannot have that opportunity.

Yet I needed to protect my family and myself. We needed to have the House looked at. Zethith agreed to add more protections once the matter was settled and so I agreed that I would lift my ban on targets within my own House.

A part of me feels like I have made a grave mistake. That I have given up more than I gained. It would not be unlikely given that I am bargaining with a Daedra. Yet I know that Zethith and I are bound for as long as I am useful to my Prince. That I am going to become more and more like Zethith with each death I face. And perhaps with each life I take. Does an act of giving to my Prince do much the same?

How would I even know if it is changing me? Would I only know when it was too late? Or should I even know then?

[gear-project]

This question may be more on the speculative side. So, about Happy Chaos and his 'contaminated' existence. Is it possible to 'cure' Happy Chaos? Like as in remove or purify the Backyard's corrupted data and negative information on him that turned him into what he is today without killing him? Or is he too far gone to the point of no return?

It's kindof a vague thing...

Humanity put a huge burden on the Backyard in the first place.

That "burden" was Negative Emotions as a result of experiencing the tragedy that was the Crusades.

Venom once described the Crusades as "Karma" for the sins of Humanity's Greed. And he's pretty accurate on that description.

Humans wanted weapons to fight their conflicts for them, and so they made Gears Slaves to bear that burden.

But they neglected to acknowledge the Will that was also very Human within Gears.

Humanity also put unnecessary burdens on their own kind as if that was to be some grand HOPE for the future and glory of Humankind... they entrusted that future to the likes of Asuka and the Original Sage as if they were the Messiahs that would bring about a new era.

They put all that pressure on a guy like the Sage, and as expected he couldn't perform and folded under the pressure.

Was it his fault that Humanity corrupted the Backyard? Nope.

Was it his fault that Mankind was greedy for that mysterious power?

Not even close!

If he succeeded it was all well and good, but as soon as he failed, everyone panicked, everyone stabbed him in the back as a failure.

Same goes for Asuka.

Even more so, nobody sought to help these talented Geniuses with their purpose... they just wanted the profits and benefits they reaped.

For Happy Chaos... he took on that burden for I-No's sake.

It wasn't her purpose to be the "Future" of Humanity, but if she took on that role... all that would happen would be disappointment and more conflict, and she would only burn herself out to nothing.

It was his choice to "become" Happy Chaos.

Even if it was his own oversight that created the Merciless Apocalypse... his own ideals that created the Universal Will that nearly destroyed Civilization.

Even if Humanity has hubris enough to think they are righteous and know the concept of "Good", what is "Really Good" is beyond Humanity's true understanding.

Humans were exiled from Eden for trying to determine the difference between "Good" and "Evil".

It might also be considered Hubris for someone like Happy Chaos to take on his "strawman" role.

But even if Humans truly understood the true power they wield over the Backyard: it's hard to believe they could ever truly control it.

The Human Will. Emotions that can physically manifest and become Tangible, become a Life all their own, a Will and a Soul all their own.

The Demihumans, Youkai, and even Gears are proof of that power.

It wouldn't be accurate to solely describe it as a "malady" or even a "disease" or "corruption".

It is part of Human Nature, and it manifested itself almost like a great Subconsciousness.

Human Instincts, Fear, Intelligence, Doubt, Ambition, Depression, Anxiety, and more... all of these are what comprised this phenomenon.

Happy Chaos decided himself that he wasn't interested in being Human anymore... though the irony is... taking away that "corruption" might actually "cure" him of His Humanity.

This is why Chipp simply says he is "too pure".

100% Proof Human Nature in a single being.

Is Human Nature a form of Corruption? Depends on how you look at it.

[nimblermortal]

Sivagami is obviously very popular as a regent, she does a very good job ruling. Nobody wants a queen, obviously women are unfit to rule, but they would happily welcome another twenty years of Sivagami's regency while she raises up a new king. And another twenty after that, if that's what it took!

(They also really enjoy celebrating the child princes' birthdays, it's a whole thing.)

So what about her political policies?

Headcanon: She's set up a farmer-soldier caste where if you serve in the army for X years you get a plot of Y acres to farm, and it's not that she's been driving X down to spread wealth equality through the country, it's just that a lot of that military service is dressing in a uniform and holding the ceremonial spear and as long as you know the right rituals you don't actually have to fight and…

The army has never been larger! Most of the soldiers are completely incompetent at anything but comparing remedies for the maladies of sheep, and looking pretty

And this is why they have so many freaking soldiers on parade every time there's a big national event.

(Neighboring countries have pageants about why Sivagami has so very many pretty pretty soldiers)

Meanwhile Sivagami is all, "No one wants to spend money on economic restructuring with dubious promise of return on investment, but everybody wants to support our troops. Nobody wants to talk about cattle husbandry and sharing irrigation techniques that worked in Region 1 with Region 2, but neither will anyone question my deploying the 85th cavalry and the 101st infantry together to the region stricken by drought."

She demands that every soldier be able to read the orders she sends to them, she refuses to let her word be misinterpreted. She designs drills for her six-year-old sons to watch with military units as the beads on the abacus. This is for the military and mathematical education of her sons, obviously, not to teach the soldiers basic arithmetic. The five-year-service-gift of an abacus is a joke.

Some units get assigned to guard trade caravans, and learn about trade routes, foreign customs, how merchant routes work, and how to sell their military service farms back to the crown for the liquid assets to start their own firm.

Those who come to the army with no skills will obviously have to be put to things like tending horses, learning to shoe them, make tack... yeah, she's turned the army into a trade school for young men, which in turn reduces incidences of domestic violence and increases the wealth and comfort of the women of the country.

She has not figured out how to stop using the army for everything, and in another world she's super offended when Devasena sets up something similar for the women because women are supposed to be mothers! look after the houses!

Devasena might try to point to Sivagami's rotating caste of ladies-in-waiting, who all leave much, much more prepared for life than they arrived, but Sivagami hates the lot of them. She's offended by incompetence and demands a lot of education and progression in her ladies-in-waiting, who uh. Usually peel off to find a less demanding job, with all of their impressive batteries of skills. Which is why Sivagami doesn't have a ninja corps at the palace, and she's huffy about it.

If these women had any AMBITION, or if they would stick around long enough for her to find them suitable husbands, but noooooo they're off running the guild of goldsmiths and whatnot, the LAYABOUTS

[christian-dubuis-santini]

Deux réflexions de Georges Canguilhem sur la santé

«Les normes de vie pathologiques sont celles qui obligent désormais l’organisme à vivre dans un milieu "rétréci”, différent qualitativement, dans sa structure, du milieu antérieur de vie, et dans ce milieu rétréci exclusivement, par l’impossibilité où l’organisme se trouve d’affronter les exigences de nouveaux milieux, sous forme de réactions ou d’entreprises dictées par des situations nouvelles. Or, vivre pour l’animal déjà, et à plus forte raison pour l’homme, ce n’est pas seulement végéter et se conserver, c’est affronter des risques et en triompher. La santé est précisément, et principalement chez l’homme, une certaine latitude, un certain jeu des normes de la vie et du comportement. Ce qui la caractérise c’est la capacité de tolérer des variations des normes

auxquelles seule la stabilité, apparemment garantie et en fait toujours nécessairement précaire, des situations et du milieu confère une valeur trompeuse de normal définitif. L’homme n’est vraiment sain que lorsqu’il est capable de plusieurs normes, lorsqu’il est plus que normal. La mesure de la santé c’est une certaine capacité de surmonter des crises organiques pour instaurer un nouvel ordre physiologique, différent de l’ancien. Sans intention de plaisanterie, la santé c’est le luxe de pouvoir tomber malade et de s’en relever. Toute maladie est au contraire la réduction du pouvoir d’en surmonter d’autres. […] Il ne peut rien manquer à un vivant, si l’on veut bien admettre qu’il y a mille et une façons de vivre.» (Georges Canguilhem, La Connaissance de la vie, 1952)

«À partir du moment où "santé" a été dit de l’homme en tant que participant d’une communauté sociale ou professionnelle, son sens existentiel a été occulté par les exigences d’une comptabilité […]

L’élargissement historique de l’espace où s’exerce le contrôle administratif de la santé des individus a abouti, dans le présent, à une Organisation mondiale de la santé qui ne pouvait pas délimiter son domaine d’intervention sans publier, elle-même, sa propre définition de la santé. La voici: “La santé est un état de complet bien-être physique, moral et social, ne consistant pas

seulement en l’absence d’infirmité ou de maladie.” […] Ce discours est celui de l’Hygiène, discipline médicale traditionnelle, désormais récupérée et travestie par une ambition socio-politico-médicale de règlement de la vie des individus […] L’hygiéniste s’applique à régir une population. Il n’a pas affaire à des individus. Santé publique est une appellation contestable.

Salubrité conviendrait mieux. Ce qui est public, publié, c’est très souvent la maladie. Le malade appelle à l’aide, attire l’attention ; il est dépendant. L’homme sain qui s’adapte silencieusement à ses tâches, qui vit sa vérité d’existence dans la liberté relative de ses choix, est présent dans la société qui l’ignore. La santé n’est pas seulement la vie dans le silence des organes, c’est aussi la vie dans la discrétion des rapports sociaux.» (Georges Canguilhem, La Santé. Concept vulgaire et question philosophique, conférence donnée à Strasbourg en 1988)

Il est clair qu’aucun des télétoubibs, membres du Conseil pseudo-scientifique, journalistes ou politiques covidiotistes n’a jamais lu une ligne du plus grand philosophe français de la médecine…

Les champs sémantiques recouverts par les termes de "santé" et de "numérique" sont originellement disjoints et n’ont radicalement rien à faire ensemble, sauf à vouloir induire un forçage idéologique voué à la catastrophe humaine et sociale.

Le corps, c’est la part de "nature" qui entre dans la constitution du sujet.

Plus la "nature" (même étymologie que naissance) tarde à se venger des offenses commises contre elle, plus sa vengeance est cruelle…

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"The patients’ responses to Abrahams’s groups varied. Some toed the line:

Dr. Abrahams who works with us here in the Hall is someone to whom we are all very grateful for helping us solve our problems and finding out what brought us here. . . . Let us all pull together, and take our place in society together.

Others were less sure of the value of group therapy:

They [groups] are interesting, from the stand-point of applied therapeutics, but do they accomplish anything? . . . The main difficulty, as seen by Your Reporter, thus far, is that the Group seems to wander—they digress—and nothing seems to be done to correct this situation. Why?

And some were more directly critical:

Yet I was hostile to group therapy at first. It seemed to me a cut-rate modification of individual psychotherapy, an ersatz, prostituted, watered down system evolved out of necessity, embellished with a new name, and a few flourishes of theory to make it appear respectable.

Ward staff was another matter; nurses and attendants were more uniformly reticent to accept the changes. Once quiet wards were now more lively; one began to hear the “more normal sounds” of conversation on the wards. Some of the attendants, moreover, feared that leniency would lead to difficulties in maintaining control and might even provoke rioting. The facts that rioting did not happen, and that ward staff were either moved out of the hall or retrained in group psychotherapy, helped overcome, or at least contain, that friction.

Once assembled as a group, the Black patients would use the session to discuss problems on the ward—privileges, visiting hours, food preparation—in addition to their psychiatric maladies. One of the first patient requests was to the Red Cross for reading material and for opportunities for recreation. When these requests were granted, patients in the white wards took note and asked for group therapy in their section of Howard Hall.

Where in early 1946 there were virtually no therapeutic activities, now, by early 1947, the hall became host to recreational therapy, occupational therapy, and psychodrama, along with a variety of others. Patients noticed the change. One, for example, commented that

many old time patients of Howard Hall are saying that the Hall is a much better place to live in than it was a few years ago. Many improvements have been noticed in the last year [1947] or so.

...

The role of the psychiatrist in group sessions was to prevent epistemic closure. The consensus reality of the group included the psychiatrist, who stood in for an outside vision of reality. The physician’s presence in the group stood in for a reality that was authoritative but not definitive; his perspective was included in the deliberative process but didn’t determine the outcome. In this vision of community, the ambition of guardianship was to ensure the translatability of group decisions to both the hospital (administrators, psychiatrists, other patients) and, in principle, the wider (sane) public. The ambition was to make both madness and wider hospital needs and interests mutually recognizable—to turn private claims into appreciably public ones.

This kind of consensus building is a twist on the traditional image of able-minded dialogue partners that underpins most visions of collective deliberation. In Howard Hall, we have a vision of reason, of deliberation, without a traditional reasoner. Rationality (at least in theory) was an emergent property of patients working in concert, and deliberation was put in service of a shared, world-building project."

- Christopher D. Berk, Democracy in Captivity: Prisoners, Patients, and the Limits of Self-Government. Oakland: University of California Press, 2023. p. 31-32, 34.

[startrekfangirl2233-writes]

Hi Star! Congratulations on reaching 300 followers! 🥳🥳🥳 Here’s to 300 more!

Please could I request a moodboard with Natasha Trace and the Spies theme? I feel like she would be such a kickass spy!

Beth x

There are some who become spies for money, or out of vanity and megalomania, or out of ambition, or out of a desire for thrills. But the malady of our time is of those who become spies out of idealism.

This Natasha became a spy to serve her country. She's a spy not because she wants to be, but because she has to be. The intel she collects and the people she saves are vital to National Security. What can she say? She's good at her job and does it well. There's a reason why she's been working her way up in the agency faster than nearly anyone else she trained with after all.

This is one of the boards from my 300 Follower Celebration! Want to join in? Send me an ask following these guidelines!

[microcosme11]

Massena dishes to an English aristocrat

Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire, to [her son] Augustus Foster. Marseilles, December 30, 1814 

Massena lives in the same street with us; he is full of attention to us, and, though broken in health and spirits, animates on topics which interest him. I heard that he would not talk about Bonaparte, and I was fearful, though very anxious, to name the subject. Last night we went to the prefect's, who has a fine house, and gave a very pretty ball. Massena sat between Lady Bessborough and me; he said something about Grassini. “Oh,” I said, too happy to find an occasion, “Etoit ce quand Bonaparte fut si amoureux d'elle?” “Bonaparte,” his eye assuming a stern expression, “ Bonaparte n'a jamais aimé personne, personne." I then went on from one thing to another, I found I could do so, and it was very interesting. “Quelle impression, Monsieur le Marechale, vous fit il, quand vous le connûtes premièrement?” “Un grand orgueil, Madame la Duchesse. Je l'ai connu qu'il n'étoit que Lieutenant colonel—des moyens, et pour cela de grand moyens, surtout dans la prosperité; dans l'adversité il manquoit de tête, il n'avoit rien de grand.” Of himself he said, “il m'aimoit ou en faisoit semblant, car jamais il n'a rien aimé que son ambition; il me tutoya c'étoit a Milan quand il commandoit en chef qu'il me dit, Massena ne voudroit tu être un des directeurs?' 'Non, je lui répondit, je ne me connais pas en politique, je ne sais faire que la guerre mais toi ne voudrais tu pas en être?' II me repondit 'avec quatre imbeciles, non, moi seul, oui'." He continued, "C'est lui qui m'a baptise enfant de la victoire—et bien, avec cela je fis une chute qui m'empechoit d'etre avec l'armée; il vint quatre fois la nuit me voir." "Mais cela," I said, "marquoit quelque sensibilité ." "II avoit besoin de moi. Je fis une maladie apres, non seulement il ne vint pas; il n'envoya pas même savoir de mes nouvelles." Many other things he told us, and we talked about, and it was very interesting. I'm afraid he don't live as he ought to do, but to us, &c, &c

---

Massena sat between Lady Bessborough and me; he said something about Grassini [Italian singer, Napoleon’s mistress]. “Oh,” I said, too happy to find an occasion, “Was it when Bonaparte was so in love with her?” “Bonaparte,” his eye assuming a stern expression, “Bonaparte never loved anyone, anyone.” I then went on from one thing to another, I found I could do so, and it was very interesting. “What impression, Monsieur le Marechal, did he make when you first met him?” "Great pride, Madame la Duchess. I knew him when he was only Lieutenant Colonel—he had means [intelligence, ability, etc], and for that, great means, especially in prosperity; in adversity he lost his head, then he had nothing great.” Of himself he said, "He loved me, or seemed to, because he never loved anything but his ambition; he tutoyer’d me in Milan when he was in command. He asked me, Massena, wouldn't you want to be one of the directors?' 'No, I answered him, I don't know politics, I only know how to make war; would you want to be one?' He replied, 'With four fools, no. I, alone, yes'. [Massena] continued, "It was he who baptized me child of victory—well, with that I took a fall that prevented me from being with the army; he came four times a night to see me." "But that," I said, "showed some sensitivity." "He needed me. I fell ill afterwards, not only did he not come; he did not even send to hear from me."

The Two Duchesses, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire.

hathitrust