#and these are her horrors - her cast - the ones she specifically chose - the original group

[aparticularbandit]

....

what if they're called the cast of horrors

[qqueenofhades]

I really don’t want to start a discourse™, but I want you to know that I really appreciate how you write joe and Nicky in deo volente. So many of the fics I’ve read have placed yusef in the role of more sexually experienced and less devoted to god, while Nicky is depicted as an inexperienced and virginal priest/knight/monk and so forth and so on. Your narrative of joe out there rescuing people and being faithful, while Nicky looks back on his life of gambling and pleasures of the flesh ...(1/?)

Not to say that there’s anything wrong with either, obviously. I love guilty priest Nicky and repressed Nicky and p much every Nicky. But in the vast array of fics out there, it’s rare to see the opposite. Not that you’re working in a binary morally good/religious vs. not way. Your writing in the fic is really subtle and and your characterizations reveal a lot of depth. I just think it’s cool to see Nicky, average second son of a duke, drinking and gambling and feeling terribly guilty (2/?)

Guilty about the crusades and the fucking horror of crusade 1 without being excessively devout. Just an average dude. Not some paragon of virtue (btw, I’m on chapter 2 of the fic, so I don’t know how much your characterization changes moving forward. You have a lovely ability to combine your incredible knowledge of history, your beautiful writing, and these intimate details of the characters that make them fit— fit the canon and fit the history. (3/? Shit I’m sorry this had gotten way too long)

I enjoy the way you’ve really inserted us into the quotidian aspect of history. Aaaaaanyway— the discourse that I was afraid of: I think that a lot of fans of the movie that are generating fan content (tysfm to all of you beauties, btw 🙏🙏♥️) are westerners (which is a whole nother kettle of fish) and that carries a sort of ignorance about the Muslim world in the Middle Ages and this desire to simplify Europe as “Christian” “fighters for faith” etc. (4/? Fuuuuck. One(??) more)

And when we do that, we end up as characterizing the brown people as “not that”. The thing I love about this fandom is that people are definitely down on the crusades. I feel like all the fic I’ve read has been particularly negative about those wars, but the thing I love about your fic is that you don’t just say war is bad because people died and it was despicable and this pious white dude says so and this one brown person agrees. (5/6, I see the end in sight I swear it)

Instead you give us a larger cast of Muslims and Arabs and really flesh them out and give them opinions and different interpretations of faith, and I really appreciate that. The crusades were terrible, and we know this because these regular dudes who struggle with their different faiths and lives say so. And I just. I think that’s really great. Also, I fucking love yusef’s mom. I feel like more people would be accepting of the gift in this fashion and I think she’s lovely and (god damn it 6/7)

Aaaaaaaand. The bit where yusef returns and she’s already gone breaks my fucking heart. Also the moment where he’s like “I’m not sure about Abraham’s god, but my mothers god is worth my faith”?? Just really fucking great. So. Excellent fic. Excellent characters. Excellent not-being-accidentally-biased-towards-white-Christians. That is what I came here to say. Thank you so much for your amazing stories. I love them and I love history. Sorry about the rambling. idek how I wrote so much. (7/7)

Epilogue: tl;dr: you’re great.

Oh man! What a huge and thoughtful comment (which will in turn provoke a long-ass response from me, so…) I absolutely agree that no matter what fandom, I don’t do Discourse TM; I just sit in my bubble and stay in my lane and do my own thing and create content I enjoy. And I don’t even think this is that so much as just… general commentary on character and background? So obviously all of this should be read as my own personal experience and choices in writing DVLA, and that alone. I really appreciate you for saying that you love a wide range of fan creators/fanworks and you’re not placing one over another, you understand that fans have diverse ranges of backgrounds/experience with history and other cultures when they create content, and that’s not the same for everyone. So I just think that’s a great and respectful way to start things off.

First, as a professional historian who has written a literal PhD thesis on the crusades, I absolutely understand that many people (and regular fans) will not have the same privilege/education/perspective that I do, and that’s fine! They should not be expected to get multiple advanced degrees to enjoy a Netflix movie! But since I DO have that background, and since I’ve been working on the intellectual genealogy of the crusades (and the associated Christian/Muslim component, whether racially or religiously) since I was a master’s student, I have a lot of academic training and personal feelings that inform how I write these characters. Aside from my research on all this, my sister lives in an Islamic country and her boyfriend is a Muslim man; I’ve known a lot of Muslims and Middle Easterners; and especially with the current political climate of Islamophobia and the reckoning with racism whether in reality or fandom, I have been thinking about all this a lot, and my impact on such.

Basically: I love Nicky dearly, but I ADORE Joe, and as such, I’m protective of him and certainly very mindful of how I write him. Especially when the obvious default for westerners in general, fandom-related or otherwise, is to write what you are familiar with (i.e. the European Christian white character) and be either less comfortable or less confident or sometimes less thoughtful about his opposing number. I have at times tangentially stumbled across takes on Joe that turn me into the “eeeeeeeh” emoji or Dubious Chrissy Teigen, but I honestly couldn’t tell you anything else about them because I was like, “nope not for me” and went elsewhere rather than do Discourse (which is pretty much a waste of time everywhere and always makes people feel bad). This is why I’m always selective about my fan content, but especially so with this ship, because I have SO much field-specific knowledge that I just have to make what I like and which suits my personal tastes. So that is what I do.

Obviously, there’s a troublesome history with the trope of “sexually liberate brown person seduces virginal white character into a world of Fleshly Decadence,” whether from the medieval correlation of “sodomite” and “Saracen,” or the nineteenth-century Orientalist depictions of the East as a land variously childishly simplistic, societally backward, darkly mysterious and Exotic, or “decadent” (read: code for sexually unlike Western Europe, including the spectrum of queer acts). So when I was writing DVLA, I absolutely did not want to do that and it’s not to my taste, but I’m not going to whip out a red pen on someone else writing a story that broadly follows those parameters (because as I said, I stay in my lane and don’t see it anyway). Joe to me is just such an intensely complex and lovely Muslim character that that’s the only way I feel like I can honestly write him, and I absolutely love that about him. So yeah, any depiction of hypersexualizing him or making him only available for the sexual use and education of the white character(s) is just... mmm, not for me.

For example, I stressed over whether it was appropriate to move his origin from “somewhere in the Maghreb” to Cairo specifically, since Egypt, while it IS in North Africa, is not technically part of the Maghreb. I realize that Marwan Kenzari’s family is Tunisian and that’s probably why they chose it, to honor the actor’s heritage, but on the flip side… “al-Kaysani” is also a specifically Ismai’li Shia name (it’s the name of a branch of it) and the Fatimids (the ruling dynasty in Jerusalem at the time of the First Crusade) were well-known for being the only Ismai’li Shia caliphate. (This is why the Shi’ites still ancestrally dislike Saladin for overthrowing it in 1174, even if Saladin is a huge hero to the rest of the Islamic world.) Plus I really wanted to use medieval Cairo as Joe’s homeland, and it just made more sense for an Ismai’li Shia Fatimid from Cairo (i.e. the actual Muslim denomination and caliphate that controlled Jerusalem) to be defending the Holy City because it was personal for him, rather than a Sunni Zirid from Ifriqiya just kind of turning up there. Especially due to the intense fragmentation and disorganization in the Islamic world at the time of the First Crusade (which was a big part of the reason it succeeded) and since the Zirids were a breakaway group from the Fatimids and therefore not very likely to be militarily allied with them. As with my personal gripes about Nicky being a priest, I decided to make that change because I felt, as a historian, that it made more sense for the character. But I SUPER recognize it as my own choices and tweaks, and obviously I’m not about to complain at anyone for writing what’s in graphic novel/bonus content canon!

That ties, however, into the fact that Nicky has a clearly defined city/region of origin (Genoa, which has a distinct history, culture, and tradition of crusading) and Joe is just said to be from “the Maghreb” which…. is obviously huge. (I.e. anywhere in North Africa west of Egypt all the way to Morocco.) And this isn’t a fandom thing, but from the official creators/writers of the comics and the movie. And I’m over here like: okay, which country? Which city? Which denomination of Islam? You’ve given him a Shia name but then point him to an origin in Sunni Ifriqiya. If he’s from there, why has he gone thousands of miles to Jerusalem in the middle of a dangerous war to help his religious/political rivals defend their territory? Just because he’s nice? Because it was an accident? Why is his motivation or reason for being there any less defined or any less religious (inasmuch as DVLA Nicky’s motive for being on the First Crusade is religious at all, which is not very) than the white character’s? In a sense, the Christians are the ones who have to work a lot harder to justify their presence in the Middle East in the eleventh century at all: the First Crusade was a specifically military and offensive invasion launched at the direct behest of the leader of the Western Roman church (Pope Urban II.) So the idea that they’re “fighting for the faith” or defending it bravely is…

Eeeeh. (Insert Dubious Chrissy Teigen.)

But of course, nobody teaches medieval history to anyone in America (except for Bad Game of Thrones History Tee Em), and they sure as hell don’t teach about the crusades (except for the Religious Violence Bad highlight reel) so people don’t KNOW about these things, and I wish they DID know, and that’s why I’m over here trying to be an academic so I can help them LEARN it, and I get very passionate about it. So once again, I entirely don’t blame people who have acquired this distorted cultural impression of the crusades and don’t want to do a book’s worth of research to write a fic about a Netflix movie. I do hope that they take the initiative to learn more about it because they’re interested and want to know more, since by nature the pairing involves a lot of complex religious, racial, and cultural dynamics that need to be handled thoughtfully, even if you don’t know everything about it. So like, basically all I want is for the Muslim character(s) to be given the same level of respect, attention to detail, background story, family context, and religious diversity as any of the white characters, and Imma do it myself if I have to. Dammit.

(I’m really excited to hear your thoughts on the second half of the fic, especially chapter 3 and chapter 6, but definitely all of it, since I think the characters they’re established as in the early part of the fic do remain true to themselves and both grow and struggle and go through a realistic journey with their faith over their very long lives, and it’s one of my favorite themes about DVLA.)

Anyway, about Nicky. I also made the specific choice to have him be an average guy, the ordinary second son of a nobleman who doesn’t really know what he’s doing with his life and isn’t the mouthpiece of Moral Virtue in the story, since as he himself realizes pretty quick, the crusades and especially the sack/massacre of Jerusalem are actually horrific. I’ve written in various posts about my nitpicking gripes with him being a priest, so he’s not, and as I said, I’m definitely avoiding any scenario where he has to Learn About The World from Joe. That is because I want to make the point that the people on the crusades were people, and they went for a lot of different reasons, not all of which were intense personal religious belief. The crusades were an institution and operated institutionally. Even on the First Crusade, where there were a lot of ordinary people who went because of sincere religious belief, there was the usual bad behavior by soldiers and secular noblemen and people who just went because it was the thing to do. James Brundage has an article about prostitution and miscegenation and other sexual activity on the First Crusade; even at the height of this first and holy expedition, it was happening. So Nicky obviously isn’t going to be the moral exemplar because a) the crusades are horrific, he himself realizes that, and b) it’s just as historically accurate that he wouldn’t be anyway. Since the idea is that medieval crusaders were all just zealots and ergo Not Like Us is dangerous, I didn’t want to do that either. If we think they all went because they were all personally fervent Catholics and thus clearly we couldn’t do the same, then we miss a lot of our own behavior and our parallel (and troubling) decisions, and yeah.

As well, I made a deliberate choice to have Nicky’s kindness (which I LOVE about him, it’s one of my favorite things, god how refreshing to have that be one of the central tenets of a male warrior character) not to be something that was just… always there and he was Meek and Good because a priest or whatever else. Especially as I’ve gotten older and we’ve all been living through these ridiculous hellyears (2020 is the worst, but it’s all been general shit for a while), I’ve thought more and more about how kindness is an active CHOICE and it’s as transgressive as anything else you can do and a whole lot more brave than just cynicism and nihilism and despair. As you’ll see in the second half of the fic, Nicky (and Joe) have been through some truly devastating things and it might be understandable if they gave into despair, but they DON’T. They choose to continue to be good people and to try and to actively BE kind, rather than it being some passive default setting. They struggle with it and it’s raw and painful and they’re not always saints, but they always come down on the side of wanting to keep doing what they’re doing, and I… have feelings about that.

Anyway, this is already SUPER long, so I’ll call it quits for now. But thank you so much for this, because I love these characters and I love the story I created for them in DVLA, since all this is personal to me in a lot of ways, and I’m so glad you picked up on that.

[itsclydebitches]

Welcome back, welcome back! We have a relatively short chapter this time, which theoretically means it shouldn't have taken me as long as it did to write this recap. Yet here we are. 

We open again on Sun's perspective as he joins a large group in the dorm common room. Recall that last chapter Velvet said she wanted to show SSSN something and I took issue with her "Speaking of family" line. We'll get to that in just a bit, as well as the surprise element of this chapter. Moving chronologically though, we learn that this group is the self-named Beacon Brigade and there has been a unanimous vote to allow SSSN to become a part of whatever the Brigade is doing. "Everyone here helped defend our home and school," Velvet says, "even though they didn’t have to. We’re grateful. As far as we’re concerned, you’re all honorary Beacon students." That's a rather nice sentiment and, once again, Velvet shows herself to be the best and most mature character presented so far. That's not a terribly high bar to clear and as established last chapter, she definitely contributes to the intense Sun-bashing, but this is one of the sweetest lines I've heard from RWBY in a while, so kudos. 

Sun, however, doesn't take kindly to the inclusion. "Whatever that means anymore, Sun thought. Then he chided himself. To the others here, it still meant a lot." That's how you do a character flaw without making them a complete asshole. You either have someone else call the character out (paying careful attention to whether that person's opinion has any weight in the story—something the webseries still needs to work on), or you have the character call themselves out. Which Sun does here. The story allows Sun to have this flaw while likewise recognizing that he's not being fair to the others. That's a conscientious human being right there. 

Or a faunus. You get what I'm saying. 

Sun continues to unpack his prejudices and acknowledges that he's not a big fan of how that mentality impacts the formation of teams: "That was the whole point of the team system—to become part of something, to define yourself, to lose yourself in it. A team made you someone new, someone better." But for Sun that's too much attachment. He claims he's not the type to get attached to either people or places, though his willingness to follow Blake to Menagerie on a "What if?" says differently. Here we get to see how Sun thinks of himself as someone outside of these community ties even as he tries so hard to maintain them. It's a part of his personality that—for reasons I assume have to do with his past—he is unwilling to acknowledge yet. 

The rest of this group is introduced, including Team ARBN and Nolan, originally a member of Team BRNZ. Where are the other three? Oh, they died at the Fall of Beacon. 

Cue me putting the book down for a solid minute because this is one hell of a deviation from the tone of the webseries. With (maybe) the exception of the Schnee charity ball, the Fall of Beacon has been presented as no worse than what we, the viewer, directly experienced. Meaning that the end of Volume 3 was the moment RWBY went from a lighthearted action show to a tragic epic trying to take itself seriously, and crucially the show has made it seem like we were privy to everything that was a part of that change: Penny dies. Pyrrha dies. Yang loses an arm. Everyone is forced to abandon their school. Those are the four events that made this the Fall of Beacon and already we had a problem with how little the show chose to grapple with those things. Ruby's nightmares conveniently disappear. Yang has no difficulty fighting despite working through PTSD. Ruby doesn't seem to care that the friend she saw killed is miraculously standing before her. These events are, by and large, not integrated into the cast's feelings, reactions, and motivations  and when they are it's to say that such a tragedy has no bearing on difficult things like trust (Ozpin) or that those who are still haunted by the Fall are unstable and unfit to lead (Ironwood). Post Volume 4 these events haven't been given the proper weight, which is bad enough on its own, yet now we find out that things were even worse than they first appeared? 

Penny and Pyrrha were not the only ones to die. The Fall was always a tragedy, but this is a tragedy that goes beyond our core group of characters. Was anyone going to mention that Jaune, Nora, and Ren weren't the only ones to lose a teammate? That an entire generation of huntsmen are working through this on a far more personal level than previously established? As said, it's bad enough that the webseries has glossed over Pyrrha's death for everyone but Jaune, yet now BTD comes in to say, "Yeah, some of these kids lost their entire team. Remember these guys?" 

"Everyone on the right is dead now." No need to make room for that in your primary story. 

(As an aside, an anon once asked whether it's weird that Pyrrha got a statue in Argus. At the time I argued strongly that it wasn't, partly due to her celebrity status and the fact that this was her home city, but also because she seemed to be the only "real" death in the Fall. Obviously we as the viewers count Penny as well, but the world may not view the dismantling of an android in the same way they'd view the murder of an organic teenager. As the single "real" death that Beacon suffered, Pyrrha's memory shoulders that attention... but now this little tidbit blows all that out of the water. Apparently lots of kids lost their lives that day and our webseries hasn't taken the time to acknowledge that.) 

So I'm reeling from this revelation and taking in what it's done to Nolan: "He was even thinner than he'd been last year at the Vytal Festival, and his rose-colored glasses didn't hide the dark shadows under his eyes." Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that at least some part of the RWBY-verse is acknowledging the severity of Volume 3's finale, it just rankles that this work is relegated to a supplementary novel already loaded with other problems, rather than put into our main storyline where it would do more good. 

Speaking of those problems, we get another conversation about how unnecessarily cruel the Shade students are. I like the little pun on "shade" that Nadir gives—"Let’s just say some of the Vacuan students here are giving a new meaning to ‘Shade’ Academy"—but I’m not sure why Myers feels the need to follow that up with Nadir giving an awkward explanation. I can't remember precisely where, but didn't we see this already? With Sun or Neptune? Plus we definitely just got Fox's 'joke' that went over Neptune's head. Not every character needs to be #awkward regarding humor and you can trust your reader to get the joke without explaining it each time. That’s a specific character trait that feels like it’s being applied to too many characters now.  Moving on, Arslan speaks my mind by pointing out that, regardless of what Shade might think about them "abandoning" the academies, it's not a productive attitude. Their new peers are more interested in beating them down for what's already happened than discussing how they can move forward as allies (sound like any main characters we know?) So the group strikes up a conversation about what they can actually accomplish. We learn that Yatsuhashi has been leading some of them through meditation and others take the time to share their survivor's guilt, admitting that the Shade students' attitude sometimes feels like a punishment they deserve. Iris brings up Castor, another peer who perished at Beacon, and Nolan continues to grapple with the death of his teammates. Yet despite the severity of these admissions, Sun still isn’t impressed. 

“Yeah. Because you ran away, Sun thought, unable to stop himself, even though this was the exact thing the other Shade students were thinking of the Beacon and Haven survivors. No wonder Nolan was here—he was probably getting criticized worse than anyone, because Shade students were supposed to be stronger than everyone else.”

Okay wait, does Sun actually know that Nolan ran away? Is "ran away" in the context of Nolan's specific battle (his team was fighting a mech or something and he split), or is it in the context of the entire Fall (he failed to take back Beacon and therefore 'ran')? That's a huge difference because if it's the latter (and I suspect it is)... Sun ran away too. Has Sun—and Myers—forgotten that he was there? At the Fall. Right there on the left. 

It feels more than a little disingenuous of Sun to be adopting any of the Shade Academy's criticism when he himself was a part of the 'failing' group. Why is he acting like he’s an outside observer, judging Nolan when they went through the same horror? When he too ‘ran’ from that fight? Obviously this ‘You ran away’ perspective is just garbage all on its own, but I'm really distracted by what appears to be only three explanations: 

Nolan really did ditch his team, Sun knows about it, and this is all info that I've missed from the previous book (always possible)

Nolan really did ditch his team, Sun knows about it, but Myers isn't interested in telling us how Sun got that info or why it’s important 

Nolan never ditched his team, 'ran away' is in the context of leaving Beacon to the grimm, and Sun is so deep in his denial he’s removed himself from the facts of the situation. You didn't save Beacon either, Sun! 

I'm just 

Sun isn't done yet though and before we cover that I just want to say: I get it. This book drags him to an unreasonable degree and any Sun fan must just be frothing at the mouth reading through this. However, I also can't claim that Myers has made Sun particularly endearing here. Like in the prologue when Sun is all about being a solo act, denying reality, and ignoring the harm he's done to his team, here he's presented as someone I'm just not interested in spending time with. I know I praised him above for correcting his knee-jerk thoughts, but like with Coco's flaw becoming overdone Sun-bashing, Sun’s attitude it so over the top I get frustrated with him even while I sympathize with the extreme criticism he’s shouldering. Because this Sun isn’t any kinder or wiser than the group targeting him: 

“But he’d believe it when he saw it. It was easy to talk about doing something, and another thing to follow through on it. Maybe that was what he didn’t like about this group. So far it was all just sitting around and talking. They should be focused on moving on— channeling their strength toward protecting their new home, their new friends.”  

Sun has little to no faith that this group can accomplish the things they set out to do (despite evidence to the contrary). He's critical of what they have chosen to do and is dismissive of their needs. He likewise criticizes others for not taking care of their home and their friends... even though he's the one who left his team to chase after Blake, someone who explicitly did not want or need his assistance. It's something Sun himself brings up later on: "Blake may not have needed or wanted him, but there was no doubt in his mind that he had helped" and it's his dismissive attitude here that’s my primary issue with him both in the webseries and in this novel. Sun prioritizes his own desires (I want to help) over everyone else's desires and needs (Blake didn't want my help and didn't need it). We see him doing the same thing here, rejecting what a very large group all needs because it's not something he as an individual wants. It feels contradictory to call Sun selfish because his desires do revolve around helping others—his wants are all coming from a loving place—it's just that how he prioritizes that drive to help often ends up hurting others and he continually refuses to acknowledge that. His “but I helped” is used as a catch-all justification for the bad choices he made in providing that (unwanted) assistance. Like creepily following a woman, or ditching his team, or getting in over his head by following three goons alone, or criticizing a conversation that others find beneficial. To reiterate, I do think that Sun has gotten way too much heat in this novel, but I also can't pretend that he's a character I'm particularly fond of. He made me uncomfortable the moment spying on four women in their bedroom was played as a joke and RWBY has done very little to endear me to him since. It's a bit of a surreal experience to read about someone I’m very critical of, but when the material itself criticizes him I’m suddenly like, "Hold up. That's going too far." 

Reading about Sun feels like watching someone who insists they help another bake a cake. The baker does not want help, does not need help, but our character is just desperate to do something. So he forcefully takes the ingredients for himself and ends up ruining the batter. I'm like, "Okay, that's not appropriate. You're coming from a good place and you never meant any harm, but your actions were still a problem. We should address this, including where that desperate need to help is coming from." 

Except then the baker 'addresses this' by screaming at him at the top of their lungs, throwing things, and banning him from the kitchen for all time. 

Me: "Not like that!!" 

Simply put: this novel is generating a lot of emotions and very few of them are pleasant. 

Things finally come to a head when Sun rolls his eyes because he doesn't like therapy—wait. 

Hold up. Just give me another second. 

You remember I spoke about the "surprise element" earlier? Think about the structure of the last chapter. We end on what's essentially a small cliffhanger. Velvet says she wants to show Team SSSN something but the reader doesn't know what that is. We’re waiting for the reveal. Yet we only learn that the group is having a therapy session four pages in—and this is a six page chapter. (Yes, I'm writing twice as much as the source material. You all know I'm not succinct :p ). Myers is now demonstrating a habit of not introducing the core aspects of a scene: who, what, where, when, and why. We've got half of that— who, when, and where—but not the 'what' or the 'why.' What is the group doing in the city in the middle of the day? Are they patrolling? Out to lunch? Following a lead? Looks like they're visiting a wall. Would have been nice to know that a couple pages earlier. Oh, there's a souvenir table there? Didn't feel like it, and it was never mentioned in the scene setup, so that’s an awkward surprise. Now Velvet wants to show them something. What is it? No seriously... what is it? Please tell me what's going on before we're more than halfway through the event in question. Granted yes, you might be able to deduce that they're in therapy, but we don't know that for sure until Sun uses the word. And we need to know in order to properly read the scene. I spent the first four pages thinking that this group was an expansion of CFVY's solo missions. While they were talking I was waiting for Velvet to reveal what she wanted to share—another secret mission they were conducting, or something—not realizing that the conversation itself was it. That’s the reveal. I mean, Beacon Brigade isn't exactly a name that makes you think "therapy." They're labeling themselves an army, ergo I assumed this had something to do with their war. That is, more to do with it than working through the aftermath. 

In retrospect it is somewhat obvious that these students are engaging in group therapy... but at the same time it's not because I would think, technically, that this isn't therapy. Who's the therapist? Velvet? She's the one leading, but she's also an unlicensed, traumatized teen just like everyone else in the room. It's a support group and that's fantastic, I'm honestly thrilled one of RWBY's stories decided to incorporate this, but at the same time it's odd to have Sun seriously referring to this as therapy like this is comparable to receiving professional help. I’m bringing this up because we saw the same perspective regarding RWBYJNR's status as huntresses. That's a job, something earned and presented to you by an expert, but up until Volume 7 Ruby seemed to be working under the impression that because she wanted to be a huntress and because she did vaguely huntress-like things, she was one. Simple as that. But crucially she wasn't and that lack of knowledge, maturity, and training caused serious problems in Volume 6. Now we have a group calling their activity therapy, doing vaguely therapy-like things, but Velvet isn't a therapist. I'm saying that not to knock the excellent work she's doing to help both herself and her friends (and I'm also quite aware that I'm missing an entire book's worth of information that may be pertinent here) but rather, I bring it up to acknowledge that the whole of the RWBY-verse seems to have a skewed idea of how professionalism works. We've got a lot of teens in this franchise who are put in positions of power when by all logic they shouldn't be. RWBY has failed to do the work of coming up with compelling reasons for why these half-trained teens keep getting put in charge of stuff, which is what any story staring kids and teens needs to do.  

Anyway, I've rambled on about that enough. As said, Sun isn't enjoying the touchy-feely-ness of it all, even when Velvet reiterates that they're "like family." Coco reminds him that he's free to leave, but of course she turns it into an insult: "Maybe you’re not ready for this.” Sun ignores the implication and does try to leave, admitting that what he has to say probably won't go over well. The others encourage him to share though, it's a safe space... until Scarlet makes a dig about keeping them waiting again. I'm simultaneously going, "He's right. Sun still refuses to acknowledge how badly he hurt his team" and also "#Yikes. So much for this being a safe place!" 

What I’m saying is these kids all need an actual therapist. Sun himself is described as feeling "strangely disconnected from his body. Unsettled” at the start of the chapter. The tragedy here is that one of the characters most in need of this help is the one digging his heels in the most. 

It gets worse though. Sun finally caves and his take is, as one would expect given his feelings thus far, not great: "This is why Vacuans won’t trust you. Because you’re holding on to who you were and where you came from instead of focusing on where you are.” He also claims that “Theo really wouldn’t like this," making it sound like the group is breaking rules and should be ashamed of trying to cope with their trauma in a healthy manner. He ends with the confident belief that Vacuans understand them completely because they punish themselves by staying in the same, harsh place. 

(So do these people move on or not?? Ugh I can't get into this again.) 

Scarlet, as Sun predicted, isn't pleased to hear any of this. Frankly I can't blame him. "Like you didn’t leave us the first chance you got to chase after someone you barely knew who didn’t want your help?" he says. "You didn’t even stay in Vacuo for school —you chose Haven.”

He's not wrong. Hard as it is to hear, Scarlet has a point. Sun did abandon his team. He did chase after someone he'd just met who didn't want his help. He did choose to go to Haven because, as he explained last chapter, he's not a big fan of Vacuo. Which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, it just means he's not in a position to criticize others for not immediately adoring this kingdom, rejecting Beacon in the process. Like so many other RWBY protagonists, Sun holds others to a standard he doesn’t demand of himself. I can hate Vacuo and leave because there are things about it that make me uncomfortable, but you have to learn to appreciate it and forget what’s outside this kingdom, despite never having a choice about coming here. It’s food for thought and something he should be encouraged to consider. However then: 

“You wouldn’t know anything about loss, Sun. You never stay in one place long enough to learn.” 

That's not a point, that's just cruelty, and it's an attack that clearly hurts Sun a great deal. He flushes and snaps, "You all belong in Vacuo more than you think." Really, they all do. He reiterates to himself that there's nothing to work through, they all just need to move on, and then he really does leave, saying that he'll see them for patrol. Well, at least Sun isn’t planning on going off on his own again, even if he is on the outs with his friends. 

So that was an all around depressing chapter! I didn't like it. I was honestly shocked when I went back and realized that it was only six pages because it felt far longer. We're now three chapters into this novel... with only nineteen more to go 😬

Until next time! 

[journeyintotheshelves]

July is a busy month for me. Not only do I have quite a bit to do in real life — which includes a bachelorette weekend — but I have big reading plans too. I plan on participating in TWO readathons this month: The Book Junkie Trials and the Medieval-a-thon. Both are RPG-style readathons that are so ridiculously creative I can’t even begin to describe how much I’m in love with both of them. I really pulled myself out of my slump in June, and with my excitement for these readathons, I hope my July is even better reading wise.

The Book Junkie Trials, created by Rachel Marie Book Junkie on Youtube, is a map-based readathon where readers are divided into teams, read for points, and follow a path to glory. Since the trials is the most involved of the two readathons, I organized my TBR around that and fit the Medieval-a-thon prompts around the books I chose. The Medieval-a-thon, created by Holly Hearts Books on Youtube, is a readathon where you create your own character by the books that you read; the number that you read is what caste you’re in and there are different prompts for clothing and weapons.

My goal is to read at least eight books this month, which is doable I think. If I manage to do that, I will complete my team’s path for the trials, finish my own TBR challenges that I have for every month, and end Medieval-a-thon a queen with a crown, cape, bracers, chest plate, boots, and a sword — a very formidable queen, I think.

I’m following the Mage path for the trials, and have to read these five books in order no matter what (no DNF’ing either).

Prompt 1: ORC GROVE: Read a book that is gruesome, gory, or gritty

Tokyo Ghoul, Vol. 4: Sui Ishida

In the dictionary, Tokyo Ghoul has to be next to the definition for gruesome. There may be worse offenders in manga than this, but it really toes the tolerance line for me. But, the storyline and morality of the world are so fascinating that I keep returning to the series. This’ll be an interesting start to this readathon, to say the least.

Tokyo Ghoul also fufills the class specific challenge of reading a book out of my comfort zone since I normally hate horror/gory stories.

Prompt 2: OL’ PIRATE COVE: Read a book that takes place, at least in part, at sea

Dark Shores (Dark Shores: 1): Danielle L. Jensen

This is one of my most anticipated releases of 2019, and I’m so excited to finally dive into it (pun fully intended). I mean, a book about gods, pirates and politics? Sign me right up.

Dark Shores also covers the crown prompt — read a book where a character fights for the throne — for Medieval-a-thon.

Prompt 3: GLIMMER: Read a beautiful or colorful book

Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children: 3): Seanan McGuire

McGuire’s Wayward Children is one of my favorite series of recent years, and I loved Down Among the Sticks and Bones even better than the first book. I hope that Sugar Sky continues this trend of being better than the last.

Beneath the Sugar Sky also covers the cape prompt — read a book with read on the cover — for Medieval-a-thon, and my personal monthly goal to read an adult novel.

Prompt 4: DRACONIC ISLE: Read a book that features dragons

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire: 2): George R. R. Martin

Okay, so I know this book has been on a monthly TBR before, but this month it will happen — I mean, it has to for me to complete the trials. I love this story, and I think it has been long enough since the finale that I can dive into the world of Westeros once more.

A Clash of Kings also covers the bracers prompt — read a thick paperback — for Medieval-a-thon, and my personal monthly goal to read a sequel.

Prompt 5: THE BOOKIE GRAIL: Read the group book

Stardust: Neil Gaiman

This book has been on my shelves for ages (so long that I actually forgot that I owned it and almost bought a second copy…whoops). I’m so glad that this was picked as the group book and will end my mage journey. I think it’ll be a breath of fresh air after Clash of Kings.

Stardust also covers my personal monthly goal to read a backlist title since it was originally published in 1998.

  In order to complete my personal goals and Medieval-a-thon, I have to read three more books. These books would be extra for the trials, and will still give my team points.

Prompt 6: THE GREAT LIBRARY: Read a book that has been on your TBR forever

Three Dark Crows (Three Dark Crowns: 1): Kendare Blake

I’ve had this book for ages — I had an ARC of it and it came in an OwlCrate box back in 2016 — and I haven’t picked it up once. One of my friends (this one is for you, Nicole) have been pestering me to read it ever since, but I kept putting it off. But this month, I randomly picked it from my TBR jar, so it’s time. Plus, I think it’s quite fitting to read while participating in two fantasy-based readathons.

Three Dark Crowns also covers the chest plate prompt — read a shiny book — and my personal goal to read a Top 10 to Read in 2019.

Prompt 7: THE HALLOW ISLE: Read an atmospheric or horror book

Here There Are Monsters: Amelinda Bérubé

As I said earlier, horror books are not my thing. But, I picked up a copy of Here There Are Monsters and fell in love with the cover (I mean, it’s so freaking gorgeous and atmospheric all on it’s own). I’m hoping the book is just as amazing as it’s cover and doesn’t freak me out too much.

Publication date: August 1, 2019

Here There Are Monsters also covers the sword prompt — read a book with something pointy on the cover — for Medieval-a-thon, and my personal goal to read an ARC.

Prompt 8: EMPTY BARREL INN: Read an indulgent read

Slammed (Slammed: 1): Colleen Hoover

Colleen Hoover’s books are such a guilty pleasure of mine. I haven’t read her most recent ones (yet), but those that I have read I loved (except Confess, but let’s not talk about that one…). Slammed is one of Hoover’s earliest novels and I’ve heard mixed things about it, but I’m sure it’s going to be as indulgent as ever.

Slammed also covers the boots prompt — read a book that has yellowed over time — for Medieval-a-thon.

  If, by some miracle, I finish all eight books and there are still days in the month left, I picked books for every other prompt for both the Book Junkie Trials and Medieval-a-thon. There are some that I would love to get to sooner rather than later, but when I put pressure on my reading is when I get into a slump, so I really am just going to wing it. I’m not going to get into why I picked the books I picked — this TBR is already long enough as it is haha — but you can always drop a comment if you want to chat about them!

Prompt 9: THE DROWNING DEEP: Read a book with rich world building

Godsgrave (The Nevernight Chronicles: 2): Jay Kristoff Godsgrave also covers the duel daggers prompt — read a book with assassins — for Medieval-a-thon.

Prompt 10: THE FORGOTTEN FORESTS: Read a sequel

The Two Towers (Lord of the Rings: 2): J.R.R. Tolkien The Two Towers also covers the bow & arrow prompt — read a book about elves — for Medieval-a-thon. I mean, I couldn’t not.

Prompt 11: CRIMSON PEAKS: Re-read a favorite

The Night Circus: Erin Morgenstern

Prompt 12: QUEENDOM STONE: Read a book featuring Royalty

American Royals: Katherine McGee Publication date: September 3rd

Prompt 13: THE WEEPING FALLS: Read a tear-jerker

The Fountains of Silence: Ruta Sepetys Publication date: October 1st

Prompt 14: DWARF MOUNT: Read a book with a hint of romance

Ao Haru Ride, Vol. 3: Io Sakisaka

Prompt 15: APOTHECARY TOWERS: Choose a book at random (7, 3, 42)

The Bride Test (The Kiss Quotient: 2): Helen Hoang (I had my mother pick three numbers — one for the bookshelf, one for the specific shelf, and one for the book number — and this was what she picked. What luck!)

Prompt 16: THE ELVEN GUARD: Read a book with War, Military or Politics themes

The Poppy War (The Poppy War: 1): R.F. Kuang

Prompt 17: GIANT SQUID: Read a book that intimidates you

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage: Haruki Murakami

Prompt 18: HELMET: A book with a dragon on the cover

The Ruin of Kings (A Chorus of Dragons: 1): Jenn Lyons

Prompt 19: BATTLE AXE: A book with mercenaries

The Boneless Mercies: April Genevieve Tucholke

With 19 books, my TBR for July is my biggest and most ambitious yet! (Hopefully my slump stays far far away.) Check out my full July TBR for @Medievalathon and @TheBookieTrials here: July is a busy month for me. Not only do I have quite a bit to do in real life -- which includes a bachelorette weekend -- but I have 

[mollymaymaukme]

Mollymauk x Reader: Run Into My Arms, Part 9

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

The next few days pass in similar fashion to the first ones you spent with the party. It was an exhausting pattern of stowing away beneath the bedrolls for tense half hours, tired conversation in the wagon, and prepping or tearing down camp.

It did not slip anyone’s notice that Molly was at your side constantly. He was never far when you helped collect kindling. He slept closer to you and always choose the seat beside you both day and night. On the nights he kept watch he and Caleb would share hushed conversations and Frumpkin would be your bedmate that guarded while you slept.

All this happened with you none the wiser. The entire group was overly aware of Mollymauk’s new affinity for you, except you had no idea. Molly was being the same flamboyant annoyance he had been ever since you’d stumbled upon the party.

Instead you were completely focused on the strange lapses in control you were beginning to notice more frequently. Without even trying you would have visions of the past events surrounding your left boot, the wagon’s rear wheel, one of the horses, the bedroll you now called your own, and many other objects.

It was actually exhausting to be suddenly ripped from the present without warning and forced to endure these visions--even if they weren’t of violent nature. For it was the fact that they came without permission or control that made them so disturbing.

You were on pins and needles waiting for the next brush of your own fingertips against anything to bring on another onslaught of visions.

It had been especially bad the other night when you were re braiding your hair and it was your own being that triggered a vision of Elromior. A time when he had been teaching you how to dance and the lesson was interrupted by an attack on the manor. You had seen him murder, no it had been slaughter, seven men mere steps away from you. It had been one of the most frightening, first-hand, experiences you’d ever had. None of that original horror or terror were lost in this replay of the event.

Mostly when you drifted off into visions, appearing to stare off blankly to your companions, they wouldn’t question you. Even when you’d nearly fainted from the sheer force of slamming back into your senses as suddenly as you’d been wrenched from them they did not prod to deeply. It seemed they knew better than to go poking at monsters that lurked in the depths of one’s mind.

With every blank stare and sway as you stumble back to your senses Molly would hover closer. Clawed hands ready to reach out and steady you within a moments notice.

You fiddle with the ties on your sleeve. The same night that you had almost been captured you had chose to change out of your dress and into the clothes stolen from the merchants. The entire party had agreed it best to burn the article that seemed to be apart of the descriptor Bolbec was giving out to travelers

The sleeves were only laced up to just above your elbows, from there you had wrapped the leftover cord around your arm and tied it off in a bow. It was too hot during the day to have them laced all the way down, so the leftover fabric draped open from your elbow down.

Your food sits uneaten in your lap as you instead fiddle with the cords. When you had accepted the rations you had seen the grains beings turned to flour that would become the bread. The simple five second vision had nearly brought you to tears. Why was this happening? This had never been a problem before!

“Ya’ know if you keep glaring at that roll it might just grow legs and run away screaming”

You look up to see Molly offering a half-hearted smirk. That same look of worry and frustration had never left his eyes. “Sorry” You mumble “Just not very hungry is all”

“Oh! Can I have it then?” Nott pipes up excitedly from across the fire.

The nod is miniscule but within seconds Nott has run around to where you sit and snatched the food from your hands. She pretends to not notice the look Molly is pinning her with as she retreats back to her own spot.

You do not participate in the cheerful chatter or even pay attention as it dies down and everyone begins to climb into their bedrolls. You startle when Mollys hand brushes over your back “Y/n, you should get some sleep.”

Instead of replying your gaze is caught by Caleb as he stands up, cracking his back, before heading to go sit on a stump for his watch. “Maybe in a bit.” You stand and wander towards the wizard “Would you mind if I sat up with you?”

You see Caleb look behind you and you turn your head to follow his gaze. He and Molly share a look before he focuses back on you with a sigh “Not at all.” He scoots over so that you can sit beside him.

Taking the offered seat you fold your knees up to your chest. Molly stiffly tucks himself into his bedroll, turning on his side to face away from you and Caleb.

You both go an hour or so without speaking, mindful of the others trying to get some sleep. Every now and again you get up and add some more sticks to the fire to keep it from dying. Only for the sake of being able to see, as the warmth of the fire was rather unwelcome after the heat of the day.

Dusting your hands off on the skirt of the dress you slowly go back to the stump. You have only just sat down before he begins to talk. “Y/n, I want to talk but I am unsure of how to approach any subject as I am usually quite callous and people take offense to my lack of manners.” He stumbled over a few words in a rush to get them out, as though he might forget them if he didn’t speak them soon.

“How about I just say if you are treading on unwelcome topics?” You offer in the same hushed voice to keep from waking the others.

“Ja. I can agree to that” Caleb runs a hand through his hair, his fingers catching on an old braid of those flowers you find in clover patches, before he speaks “When you stare off, and your eyes glaze, is that when you get those images of the past?”

You aren’t exactly surprised that this was the chosen subject of conversation but you had been holding out hope that he would ask something else. A few moments pass before you hesitantly give a “Yes. . .”

“Now this is just a hunch. So please inform me if I am wrong but, ah, it seems like these recalls take you by surprise” He is not looking at you. Caleb is actively surveying the area as he talks.

Again you simply say “Yes.” With a small nod.

“My memory is without flaw. . .and as I remember it, you had told us you were in control of this ability you posses.” He must hear the way your breath catches in your throat because bright blue eyes turn to look at you “But you had said that under the control of Mollymauk’s spell. So you had believed that to be true.”

“Yes. . .I-” You take a small breath “I did.”

“Past tense” Another nod from you “Y/n, I have informed no one but Mollymauk, But ever since you came to us I have sensed a powerful and ancient magic ingrained into your being”

“My ability?”

“No. . .It is-” He goes back to scanning the trees. His brow furrowed as he searches for the words to explain it. “It is something that has been spelled upon you. Of that much I am sure. I do not know much about it, but as the days go on I learn a little bit more.” He takes a beat before continuing “There are specifically two different spells, that’s what I have come to know. One has been unraveling. Slow at first, but it is picking up speed. Pair that with the confirmation this conversation has given me, I believe that that particular spell was to help you control your ability.”

He stops, allowing you to speak, but you have nothing to say. Completely stunned by this information. Powerful, ancient magic? In you? How had you never known? How had someone been able to cast not only one, but two spells on you without you ever realizing?

“It acted as a dampener. . .No, a tap is a better way to explain it. The spell allowed you to close off the ability and only let out the amount you wanted at any given time. Much like how you would control the flow of ale from a barrel.”

“What of the other?” Your voice sounds small and scared. You’d liken it to how a child would sound after learning of the boogieman.

“I can not discern it as easily since there are no context clues like the first. . .But, if you’d allow me I could cast a detect magic spell on you to try and learn more?” He is unsure and fidgets on the stump.

“Please. I don’t like not knowing what is affecting me” Desperation bleeds into your tone as you grab at the sleeve of his coat.

“Ja, okay. Um, just give me a moment” He mutters, turning to face you full on, a hand is gently laid on your shoulder as he mumbles a few words.

You don’t know whether it is working or not so you watch his face intently for any sign. His brow creases further as he concentrates, eyes that had closed as he had cast the spell now opened and stared at you intently.

After a time he took his hand away from your shoulder, gaze focusing on his lap where he twisted his fingers together. “I am sorry y/n, it is not a spell I am familiar with. And it seems the caster has been carefully weaving it over a long period of time so it is harder to pick it apart. Whoever did this is very skilled in their craft.”

Caleb probably didn’t realize his words were far from comforting. They only proceeded to make you more uncomfortable and wary of whatever magic lay inside you. So you said nothing. You tucked your knees back up to your chest and nestled your chin on top of them as though you could hide from the magic.

“Ah, sorry I could not learn more” Caleb awkwardly pats your head before he continues his duty as setenil. Silence falls upon you both but it is not unwelcome. You could not muster up the will to have a conversation right now anyways.

Eventually the wizard stands up and twists his upper body in either direction as several cracks can be heard from his spine. “It is time to switch watch.” He explains to you “You should go to sleep y/n.” Caleb does not fight you when you shake your head stubbornly. You get the feeling that the wizard had his own share of sleepless nights.

You watch as he steps over sleeping bodies until he reaches Molly. Gently shaking the tieflings shoulder. They exchange a few hushed words before Caleb is moving towards his own bedroll and Molly is donning his coat.

He yawns as he makes his way towards you. Tired red eyes examining you closely as he sits next to you. Molly refrains from commenting on your obvious strike against sleep tonight. Instead he keeps quiet for a while.

It’s actually you who end up breaking the silence first “I have nightmares.” You felt the need to explain yourself to him even though he had not questioned you.

“I know”

Two simple words in his sleep roughed voice, accent thick, that sent shivers down your spine. “You do?”

“Yeah. I wake up from your shuffling and muttering.”

“Sorry. . .” You can feel the weight of his gaze on you but you stubbornly keep your eyes on the trees.

“I try to calm you down without waking you up. So that you can sleep in peace.” He chuckles quietly and without humor “But I guess that doesn't erase them from your mind once you're awake.” His heavy sigh is the last sound between the two of you for a long moment. You chance a look in his direction and he is staring down at you with a sad look on his face. Your eyes snap down to the ground.

“I would erase them if I could” The words so soft that its possible they weren’t spoken at all. Maybe just a trick of the breeze. His next words are more clear, making his previous ones seem even more unreal “Caleb told me that you know now. . .about the magic” He clarifies.

You slowly nod confirmation. You expect Molly to continue speaking but he does not. Realizing he is probably waiting for you to say something first you say “It is. . .frightening that someone has done this to me and I had no idea.” You bite your lip to keep it from trembling. The action drawing Molly’s focus. He looks over your form and notices gooseflesh that is obviously not due to chill. His arm wraps around your shoulders and his tail curves around your waist to rest in your lap, drawing you close to him. “We will figure out what it is Y/n. It might not be bad afterall.” He soothes “The one spell we do know about was helpful to you. It kept your power in your control. Maybe the other one is beneficial to you also.”

“Good or bad I want to know who put them there. And to what end?” Your fingers trail over the tail in your lap. It wraps around your wrist and you take the invitation to fidget with it as you take a moment to think. “I guess keeping me from going insane over unwanted visions was to my captors benefit” You bitterly grumble, thumb tracing the spade tip.

“What’s it like?” He questions. Molly had rested his chin on your head as he surveyed the surrounding area.

“My visions?” He hums something akin to a yes. You can feel the vibrations travel from your head and down your spine. “Its. . .Its like looking through the eyes of the object, or someplace from it if it does not have any, and watching a moment of its existence.” You twine your fingers around his tail as you pause to try and grasp at a better way to word it. “I can watch for however long I want. If I remember correctly Elromior said that it took roughly a minute for me to watch a month of a things existence.”

“Elromior?”

“My teacher and only friend. The closest thing I had to a parent after I’d been stolen from mine.” You explain, voice tinged with sadness. “He is the only thing I miss from that place. He helped me learn how to work my ability. Elromior also raised me from a girl to a woman when my captors would have been content to see me age into a dumb and overgrown child.”

Molly does not speak for a few minutes. Probably taking in this information and pondering what to make of it. He must decide to put it to the side for the moment as the next thing he asks is “So how do you know when a vision is of the future or of the past?”

“The future is rare. I have found that I usually only get those ones when it has something to do with me.”

“Like that day with the bandits” Molly nods, you feel it against your hair, his tail wrapping around your wrist again and lays the tip in your palm.

You stroke the spade with your other hand. You hadn’t realized that Molly had heard your words that day. “Yes. When I get a vision of the future it ripples like a pond after you throw a stone in. It's only a possibility and not the reality. I’ve never received a future premonition that goes further than a week from the current time though.”

“That is a grim ability.” The hand on your shoulder tracing soothing patterns like he had the first night.

“I’ve seen my own death a total of 13 times” Your chuckle is bitter and thick on your tongue “So I guess my premonitions aren’t very accurate since I’m still here.”

“Or it is a testament to the strength of your will to change the fates.” He urges gently his arm and tail tightening around you to draw you closer.

The new knowledge of the night and the general stress of the day weigh heavy on you. So you allow your head to tip and lean against Molly’s side. There is a mix of rough and soft fabric against your cheek. His coat smells of dust and smoke, a general stagnant aroma from traveling on the road, but there is a faint smell beneath the rest of that. Something that is uniquely Mollymauk. It is not unpleasant but you have a feeling it would be even better after a proper wash of both body and clothes.

Your lids are half drawn and a yawn is building in the back of your throat. The hand holding Molly’s tail is loosely clasped to your middle, keeping it close. Mind hazy with sleep your next words would have been embarrassing had you been in the right mind to process them “I like your name, Mollymauk, like the sea bird.”

Taloned fingers gently brush away stray locks of hair that have escaped their plait but he says nothing. “I’ve never seen one though. Or the sea. Only ever read about them.”

“Neither have I.” His voice is echoed by the rumble of his chest that you feel against your cheek “Seen the sea I mean.”

“Shame. I read that it's something to behold.” His soft laughter gently shakes you further awake. You blink to clear the sleepy haze from your vision before hesitantly asking “Who named you?” A beat, then “I mean, you had said you don’t remember anything before two years ago. So how was your name chosen?”

Two fingers gently wind around some of your stray locks while he speaks “When I woke up, without any memory, I was in a catatonic state. All I said for a long while was ‘empty’. Gustave thought I had been saying MT, like initials, so he came up with the name Mollymauk Tealeaf. . .” He unwinds the hair and tucks it behind your ear “A ridiculous name for a ridiculous man.”

“I don’t think you’re ridiculous.”

“An outrageous lie my dear.” You can practically hear the tired smirk on his lips.

“You are loud, and obnoxious, and you crave attention--but I do not think you ridiculous.” You feel the way his breath stills in his chest as you continue “You are clever and are a good person who looks after his friends. I’ve not met many men like you Mollymauk, but I know that you are not ridiculous. We need more people like you in this world.”

You feel as if you’ve spoken to loud with the way the silence closes in around you after. Words still reverberating in the air, heavy with sincerity, and leaving you vulnerable.

The tail coiled around your wrist squeezes gently. “Thank you Y/n, I do not deserve such praise.”

You make a noise in disagreement but are quieted by his hand gently guiding your head to rest back against his side. You’d not even realized you had pulled away to talk to him until then. Neither of you speak again. The dying shift of embers and the steady beat of a heart beneath your ear eventually lulls you into a dreamless sleep.

[sciencespies]

The True History Behind 'Six,' the Tudor Musical About Henry VIII's Wives

https://sciencespies.com/history/the-true-history-behind-six-the-tudor-musical-about-henry-viiis-wives/

The True History Behind 'Six,' the Tudor Musical About Henry VIII's Wives

Meilan Solly

Associate Editor, History

Inspiration struck Toby Marlow during a comparative poetry class at Cambridge University in fall 2016. Participating in a discussion on William Blake, he found his mind wandering and began scribbling a series of unrelated notes: “Henry VIII’s wives → like a girl group … Need Lucy!!” 

Then an undergraduate student tasked with writing an original show for the upcoming Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Marlow brought his idea to classmate Lucy Moss, who agreed to help bring his vision of a Tudor-themed pop musical to life. The product of the pair’s collaboration—Six, a modern reimagining of the lives of Henry VIII’s six wives—premiered on London’s West End in 2019 to much acclaim. (A cast soundtrack released in September 2018 similarly became an unqualified success.) Now, after an extended delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the musical is finally making its Broadway debut.

L to R: Abby Mueller (Jane Seymour), Samantha Pauly (Katherine Howard), Adrianna Hicks (Catherine of Aragon), Andrea Macasaet (Anne Boleyn), BrittneyMack (Anna of Cleves) and Anna Uzele (Catherine Parr)

Liz Lauren

Six “didn’t come out of a love of the Tudor period particularly,” says Marlow, 26. “It came from us having an interest in the representation of women in musical theater, having women on stage doing funny and hilarious things.” Moss, 27, adds, “What we were interested in doing was reframing the way that women have been perceived in history and telling their side of the story.”

The Tudor period, with its “soap opera”-esque political machinations and rich cast of female characters, offered the duo the opportunity to explore contemporary issues like feminism through a historical lens. Though Six prominently features the rhyme historically used to describe the fates of the Tudor king’s queens—“divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”—the musical moves beyond these reductive one-word summaries to present its subjects as fully realized individuals. “With all of them,” says Moss, “there was so much of interest beyond the moment they got married or divorced.”

Marlow and Moss drew on a range of sources when writing Six, including Antonia Fraser’s The Wives of Henry VIII and documentaries hosted by historianLucy Worsley. The musical’s layered repartee deftly balances references to Tudor culture with nods to modern music, like the line “Stick around and you’ll suddenly see more” (a play on “Suddenly, Seymour” from Little Shop of Horrors). Still, Marlow explains, the show’s goal isn’t to convey history with 100 percent accuracy. Instead, “It’s [asking], ‘What if Anne Boleyn was like this?’ And how does that change the way you think about this very famous historical figure?”

Six frames its story as a makeshift talent competition in which the wife whose life was most tragic “wins.” The rules are simple: “The queen who was dealt the worst hand … shall be the one to lead the band.” Each wife sings a solo summarizing her experiences, engaging in acerbic banter in between verses. (During these numbers, the other wives act as both backup singers and dancers; beyond the six solos, the 80-minute show features three group numbers.) Ultimately, the women decide to form a girl band instead, leaving the king out of the narrative and imagining an alternate future featuring far happier ends for all of them.

Historian Jessica Storoschuk, who has written about Six extensively on her blog, has found that in school and popular culture, the queens are usually only talked about in terms of their fate. “[Six] is this kind of ridiculous satire of [that],” she says. “It’s a really intelligent way to explore their experiences, or, I should say, one part of their experiences, because their downfalls are not all of their lives.”

Below, find a song-by-song (or wife-by-wife) breakdown of the true history behind Six. Click through the interactive tools to learn more about specific lyrics from the show.

The song: “No Way,” a Beyoncé- and JLo-inspired “girl boss feminism” anthem, says Moss

Though Catherine of Aragon’s marriage to Henry lasted 24 years—collectively, his five other marriages spanned just 14 years—she has long been overshadowed by her successors. The daughter of Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, Catherine came to England as the bride of Henry’s older brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales. But Arthur died shortly after the pair’s wedding, leading the Spanish princess to (eventually) marry his heir, Henry. 

By all accounts, the couple enjoyed a loving relationship that only deteriorated due to a lack of a male heir and the king’s infatuation with Anne Boleyn. In the late 1520s, Henry sought a divorce from his first wife, arguing that her previous relationship with Arthur was the reason for the couple’s lack of a surviving son. Determined to protect her daughter Mary’s rights, Catherine refused to concede.

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

Six’s account of these events, “No Way,” takes its cue from a June 21, 1529, meeting at Blackfriars in London. After years of debate over the validity of the royal couple’s marriage, a papal court was conceived to address the king’s so-called Great Matter. Appealing directly to her husband, Catherine fell to her knees and delivered an impassioned monologue:

Intending (as I perceive) to put me from you, I take God and all the world to witness, that I have been to you a true and humble wife, ever conformable to your will and pleasure. … If there be any just cause by the law that ye can allege against me, either of dishonesty or any other impediment to banish and put me from you, I am well content to depart, to my great shame and dishonor; and if there be none, then here I most lowly beseech you let me remain in my former estate, and receive justice at your princely hand.

A 1544 portrait of the future Mary I, Henry and Catherine’s daughter

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Portrait believed to depict a young Catherine of Aragon

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

After uttering these words, Catherine left Blackfriars, ignoring the clerk’s calls for her to return. Without turning around, she declared, “On, on, it makes no matter, for it is no impartial court for me, therefore I will not tarry.” The queen was correct in her assessment: Henry had no intention of remaining in the marriage. Determined to wed Anne, he broke from the Catholic Church in order to make her his wife.

Catherine’s Six solo could’ve been a “super emotional [sad] ballad,” says Moss. Instead, she and Marlow chose to emphasize the queen’s defiance, emulating Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls)” and setting the tone for the rest of the musical.

The real Catherine followed through on her fictionalized counterpart’s pledge to remain “queen till the end of my life,” refusing to acknowledge her marriage’s annulment even on her deathbed in 1536. Catherine’s legacy, historian Julia Fox told Smithsonian magazine last year, “is that of a wronged woman … who did not accept defeat, who fought for what she believed to be right until the breath left her body.”

The song: “Don’t Lose Ur Head,” a “cheeky” number modeled on Lily Allen and Kate Nash, according to Moss

Arguably the most (in)famous of the six wives, Anne is alternatively portrayed as a scheming, power-hungry seductress; a victim of her callous father’s vaulting ambition; or a worldly, charismatic woman who rose to the kingdom’s highest office only to be targeted by jealous men.

A near-contemporary painting of Anne Boleyn

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The truth of the matter depends on which scholar one asks. Most of Anne’s letters and papers were destroyed following her May 1536 execution on contrived charges of adultery, incest, witchcraft and conspiring to kill her husband, so much of what is known about her comes from outside observers, some of whom had reason to paint her in an unforgiving light. Even the queen’s date of birth, writes historian Antonia Fraser, is a fact “that can never be known with absolute certainty (like so much about Anne Boleyn).”

Anne’s song in Six, “Don’t Lose Ur Head,” draws its name from her method of execution: beheading by sword. Moss says she and Marlow view the number as a playful response to historians’ continued vilification of the queen as “calculating and manipulative”: “We were like, wouldn’t it be fun to mock [that trope] and make it that she was like ‘Well, I’m just living. I did this thing randomly, and now everything’s gone crazy.’”

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive tool.

Though the tone of “Don’t Lose Ur Head” is intentionally more irreverent than the real queen, who Storoschuk says “was incredibly shrewd, very well educated, well read and well spoken,” the broad strokes of the song are historically accurate. Anne spent her teenage years in the courts of Margaret of Austria and Francis I of France, gaining a cosmopolitan worldview that helped her stand out in England. When she caught Henry’s eyes, she was a maid of honor in service of his first wife; rather than becoming Henry’s mistress, as her sister Mary had, Anne refused to sleep with the king until they were married. To wed Anne, Henry broke with the Catholic Church and established himself as head of the Church of England. Finally, the once-besotted king fell out of love in dramatic—and, for Anne, fatal—fashion just three years after their long-awaited marriage.

The song: “Heart of Stone,” a slow, Adele-like ballad

Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour, has gone down in history as the “boring” one. According to Fraser, she was intelligent and “naturally sweet-natured,” with the “salient characteristics [of] virtue and common good sense.” Historian Alison Weir similarly describes Jane as “endowed with all the qualities then thought becoming in a wife: meekness, docility and quiet dignity.” 

Moss and Marlow tried to flesh out these descriptions by highlighting Jane’s political savvy. During her comparatively brief courtship with Henry, Jane drew on many of the same tactics used by Anne Boleyn, most notably by refusing to sleep with him until they were married. Presenting a submissive front may have been a tactic, says Moss. It’s also worth noting that Jane used her position to advance causes she cared about, including restoring her stepdaughters, Mary and Elizabeth, to their father’s favor and speaking out against the closure of England’s religious houses.

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

On one occasion, Henry reportedly dismissed his new wife by advising her to “attend to other things, [for] the last queen had died in consequence of meddling too much in state affairs.” “Heart of Stone” acknowledges this risk, but Six’s version of Jane chooses to remain steadfast in her love of Henry and their son, the future Edward VI.

Following Jane’s death in childbirth in 1537, Henry memorialized her as “the fairest, the most discreet and the most meritorious of all his wives”—a distinction no doubt motivated by the fact that she’d given the king his only surviving male heir, writes Weir. (Edward took the throne “Six” reflects this enviable status by identifying Jane as “the only one he truly loved.” As she herself acknowledges in “Heart of Stone,” however, Henry’s affection is conditional on her ability to provide him with a son.

Henry chose to include Jane, rather than his then-wife, Catherine Parr, in this dynastic portrait. Painted around 1545, the work depicts Edward, Henry and Jane at its center and Mary and Elizabeth in the wings.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Speaking with Vulture last year, Moss said, “The idea was about the strength of choosing to love someone and committing to someone, and that being an equally valid feminist experience.” She added, “I love that [Jane] gets to say, ‘I wasn’t stupid, I wasn’t naïve.’”

The song: “Get Down,” a 16th-century take on the rap and hip-hop “trope of being popular and bragging about your Ferrari and your Grey Goose,” says Moss

Anne (or, as the musical calls her, Anna) of Cleves was, in some historians’ view, the most successful of Henry’s six queens. After just six months of marriage, she earned the king’s enduring affection by agreeing to an annulment. Then, she proceeded to outlive her former husband, not to mention the rest of his wives, by a decade. “[Anne] did get pushed to the side in a rather unceremonious way, but she had a pretty good life,” says Storoschuk. “She was given several properties. She gambled a lot. She got to go hunting, she had the best clothes and the best food. She was loved at court.”

A 1540s portrait of Anne of Cleves by Bartholomaeus Bruyn the Elder

St. John’s College, University of Oxford, via Art U.K. under CC BY-NC-ND

“Get Down” focuses on this victorious period in Anne’s life, celebrating her independence as a wealthy, unmarried woman at Tudor court. In line with the musical’s goal of reclaiming the narrative, the number also reframes the incident that led to Anne’s annulment. Henry, enchanted by a flattering Hans Holbein portrait of his bride-to-be, was reportedly repulsed by the “tall, big-boned and strong-featured” woman who arrived in England at the beginning of 1540. Declaring “I like her not! I like her not!” after their first meeting, the king only went through with the wedding to maintain diplomatic ties with Anne’s home, the German Duchy of Cleves, and other Protestant allies across the European continent.

After just six months of marriage, Henry, eager to replace his short-reigning queen with the young, vivacious Katherine Howard, had the union annulled on the grounds of non-consummation and Anne’s pre-contract with Francis, Duke of Lorraine. Anne, from then on known as the “king’s beloved sister,” spent the rest of her days in luxury.

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

Moss studied history at Cambridge and says much of her schoolwork centered around early modern German visual culture. Six actually includes a standalone song, “Haus of Holbein,” that satirizes 16th-century beauty culture and Henry’s portrait-driven search for a fourth wife: “Hans Holbein goes around the world / Painting all of the beautiful girls / From Spain / To France / And Germany / The king chooses one / But which one will it be?”

Given Holbein’s reputation for accuracy and Henry’s own declining looks (at the time of the couple’s wedding, the king was 48 years old), Marlow and Moss chose to turn the tables, having Anne proclaim herself a fan of the much-vilified portrait. Further cementing Anne’s mastery of the situation, “Get Down”’s refrain finds the supposedly unattractive queen hanging up her likeness “for everyone to see.”

The song: “All You Wanna Do,” a catchy number modeled on the work of “young pop stars sexualized early on in their careers,” like Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears and Ariana Grande, as Marlow told Vulture

For much of history, Henry’s fifth wife, Katherine Howard, has been dismissed as a wanton woman of little import. Writing in 1991, Weir described her as a “frivolous, empty-headed young girl who cared for little else but dancing and pretty clothes.” Fraser, meanwhile, wrote that “[h]ere was no intelligent adult woman, wise in the ways of the world—and of course courts.” More recent scholarship has taken a sympathetic view of the queen, with Gareth Russell’s 2017 book, Young and Damned and Fair, leading the conversation. As Russell argues, “[Katherine] was toppled by a combination of bad luck, poor decisions, and the Henrician state’s determination to punish those who failed its king.” 

Katherine’s Six solo, titled “All You Wanna Do,” echoes Russell’s characterization of its subject as a victim of circumstance and predatory older men. Though her exact birthdate is unknown, Katherine may have been as young as 17 when she was beheaded on charges of treasonous adultery in February 1542. Henry, comparatively, was 50 at the time of his disgraced wife’s execution.

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

The king was far from the first man to sexualize Katherine. “All You Wanna Do” details the queen’s relationships in heart-wrenching detail, from a liaison with her music teacher, Henry Manox (the song suggests that he was 23 to Katherine’s 13, but as Storoschuk points out, he may have been closer to 33), to an affair with Francis Dereham, secretary to the dowager duchess, Katherine’s step-grandmother. When each new romance begins, the teenager declares herself hopeful that this time will be different. By the end of the song, however, she realizes that all of her suitors have the same goal in mind.

According to Moss, she and Marlow wanted Katherine’s song to start out with a “sexy, seductive” tone before transforming into a “narrative of abuse” with echoes of today’s #MeToo movement. Marlow adds, “It was kind of like us talking about what happened to one of the queens and finding a way of relating it to something that we would recognize as a modern female experience.”

Katherine’s “life was so tragic,” says Storoschuk. “She was so young, and she really had very little agency over her own life. ‘All You Wanna Do’ really encompasses that.”

The song: “I Don’t Need Your Love,” a soulful, Alicia Keys–inspired love song

Often reduced to the one-word summary of “survived” or the role of nursemaid to a succession of ailing husbands, Henry’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr, was actually a renowned scholar, religious reformer and perhaps even protofeminist. In Six, she takes ownership of these attributes, refusing to be defined by her romantic relationships and instead listing her manifold accomplishments: “Remember that I was a writer / I wrote books and psalms and meditations / Fought for female education / So all my women can independently study scripture / I even got a woman to paint my picture.”

Apple News readers, click here to view this interactive.

As the last of the six to take the stage, the fictionalized Catherine has dual obligations: namely, sharing her story and setting up a satisfying musical finale. “We needed one of the queens to be like ‘Wait, we shouldn’t be competing with each other. We should support each other,’” says Moss. “Fortunately, [Catherine’s role] as a writer, educator and advocate for women helped with that.” Encouraging the wives to take back the microphone, Catherine calls for them to assert themselves outside of their marriages to Henry. “It’s not what went down in history,” the six admit, “[b]ut tonight, I’m singing this for me.”

Catherine Parr’s fourth husband, Thomas Seymour

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The real Catherine led a rich life beyond what’s captured in “I Don’t Need Your Love.” As alluded to by the song’s first verses, which find Catherine telling a lover that she has “no choice” but to marry the king, the twice-married young widow initially had another suitor in mind: Thomas Seymour, the dashing younger brother of Henry’s third wife, Jane. (The would-be couple wed soon after Henry’s death in 1547, but their marriage was tainted by Thomas’ improper conduct toward his new stepdaughter, the future Elizabeth I.)

Despite being forced into a relationship with Henry, Catherine made the most of her position, pushing her husband to embrace Protestantism and encouraging him to restore his daughters to the line of succession. She narrowly escaped an attempt by the court’s conservative faction to have her executed on charges of heresy, winning back Henry’s favor even after he’d signed a warrant for her arrest. Catherine died just a year after the king, succumbing to complications from childbirth in 1548.

Based on a True Story

British History

Elizabeth I

England

Henry VIII

Kings

Medieval Ages

Monarchs

Musical Theater

Pop culture

Queens

Theater

Tudors

#History

[gmcryptkeeper]

Campaign Grimoire #1

With all things, there is a beginning, especially the campaigns we run.  How we start is often extremely important to how smoothly the campaign ends up running.  So, with that said, I will take a little bit of time discussing my role in the beginning of the campaign I’m currently running.  In this entry I want to go over what made me interested in running the campaign that I am, speak a little on the campaign itself, talk about my recruitment process, talk about my players and the discussion of their characters.  That being said, since this does include information about a Pathfinder Adventure Path (AP), I will do my best to not spoil overly much about the campaign but you should be warned that reading this may give you hints to the AP that (if you’re a player) you should not otherwise have.

Why GM Again?

So, I should start by stating that it has been a little bit since I’ve GM’d last, specifically before I started my venture into graduate school.  I decided that I wanted to make my own campaign after being on a hiatus and would eventually bring people into the world after I felt comfortable with the product.  Even so, I wanted to be able to do something in the mean time, so I chose to pick an Adventure Path from Pathfinder since my group endorsed interest in playing in it.  So, knowing what kind of games I love, I ventured into selecting the Strange Aeons AP.  After all, it couldn’t hurt to dust off the ol’ skills every now and then, right?

Strange Aeons, indeed.

Let’s look at the top down.  Pathfinder is a system that I’m very comfortable with running and playing in.  It has a lot of customizing options for both players and GMs (much of these things can be ported to other systems with a little bit of knowledge, confidence, and the hopes and dreams of small children).  Strange Aeons is a story that is very involved with the Cthulhu Mythos.  Now, if you remember from my introduction, this is something that I’m very interested in myself, something I’m a little more practiced with.  Also, considering the people I was going to be running with, not many of them have played in a horror setting, particularly.  Upon reading into the AP, there is definitely some difficulty there and ways to introduce horror in combat, in social settings, but also atmospherically.  Plus, the more I thought about it, different aspects of the late game make this AP able to be tied into my larger campaign once it’s finished, despite not being on the same world, technically.  I wanted to pick something that would give me hooks into my world later on but something that may not be entirely (initially) connected to my world.

So, important notes: I looked at setting, interconnections into my larger work, confidence, and difficulty.  These were important to me but this may be wildly different for you.

The Pitch

I’ve been discussing getting back into the saddle as GM for a while with my playgroup.  At the time of the pitch, two of our group’s members were running games of their own (one 5th edition, one Pathfinder).  So I cast a wide net among the group and asked who would be interested.  Keep in mind, I had selected what I wanted to run for the campaign.  Now, does that always work?  Not particularly, but I do believe that in order for a good campaign to get rolling, the GM needs to actually be interested in running the campaign.  Additionally, I’ve played with many of these people many times.  After all, we call our group (affectionately) 2′s and 20′s.  I’m sure you can figure out why.

I consider myself very lucky to have this group.  There are many different styles of players that bring different things to the table.  We have a couple of members that formed the core of the group (the forerunners, you could say) and we have inducted more into the group as different campaigns have fired.  I had a pool of about 7 to pull from in the beginning when I needed 4 players.  Fortunately, 4 was not a hard number to accomplish.

Had the situation been different, there are numerous other styles I could have used.  For one, the game store I work at has a lovely posting board for gamers to connect.  I could have sought help through Meetup or other such sites.  Or I could have spent time at the store physically recruiting people if necessary.  This could be an anxiety inducing situation to be in if you’re not overwhelmingly extroverted like myself.  With that said, we could discuss this as another topic entirely in another entry.

The Players

I managed to get 4 hapless fools wonderful associates to play in this AP.  So let’s do a quick run down of my people.  None of these judgments that I’m putting forth are meant to be critical but to show what I know about these people (and often love).

The Polymath: This is a player who I, as a GM, have to be very alert for because more often than not, they are prepared for just about any natural or unnatural disaster that I could throw at them.  This is someone who has a ridiculous knowledge of the game on an integral level and is subtle about it.  He’s very interested in building characters that work almost seamlessly into the plot but with abilities that seem strange, at first, but will ultimately be used to devastating effect.  How often does this happen?  Roughly every game I’ve run or been in with this player.  As a GM, I’m excited to run for him.  He’s very engaged, will come up with an intricate backstory and is someone that I’m very prepared to take the gloves off for.

The Would-Be Hero: This character is, as the title implies, someone who often will step into the heroic role.  This is someone who, in real life, very much believes in being a good guy and generally believes in being honorable.  He’s definitely someone that I’m used to counting on for wanting to be in melee, blazing in a path of glory.  He likes to integrate his character into the plot of the story and responds well to being important to the overall story.

The Synthesist: This player is rarely a player and often a GM.  That informs his ability and desire to make different types of characters that are generally very unique and often either obscure or a couple of mixed classes.  He is someone that is innovative and actively engages with his environment which really pushes me to either prepare a lot of interactable situations in my setting or pushes my improv to accomplish this.

The Green: This title exists for two reasons.  One reason being that she is fairly new to tabletop roleplaying, hence, Greenhorn.  The second reason is that she has a knack for playing nature focused characters.  See, I’m occasionally clever.  She has become so much more confident in interacting with the overarching stories of games and coming up with something she connects to meaningfully with her characters.  Once she’s invested, she can become a major pilot for the party if she feels strongly about what her character cares about.

The Characters

I find it is only natural to talk about the characters following my short description of the players.

Poly/The Occultist: The Occultist character is designed to be a little unhinged.  This character is missing much of his past, only coming in on wisps of insight, only to be consumed by nonsense.  That was the essential feeling the player gave me.  Poly wanted to play a character that had occult origins that would fit well into the game.  The Occultist is an elf who, between some work between me and the player, has a tragic backstory that is marked by trauma that he currently cannot remember.  Lack of memories is a theme to building a character for this AP.  This character specializes in Necromancy and Divination, starting out.

Hero/The Fighter: The Fighter is someone of noble bearing.  He remembers being associated with a noble house and having a noble cause, but cannot remember who were his enemies or what happened to him or his estate.  He is a harsh character who believes that his order, his rules are the ones to be followed.  Hero wanted to play a character that was within his type but he wanted to venture out a little and picked up the Loremaster Fighter.  Someone who is more knowledgeable and inquisitive while still being a fearsome foe.  He chose to become a switch-hitter and definitely capitalized on the “Rich Parents” trait in Pathfinder.

Synth/The Bloodrager: The Bloodrager could be believed to be more beast than man at times, someone who is tempestuous and wild.  However, underneath that frightening exterior lies someone who was created to be this way and utterly broken.  Experiments dot his hazy memories, especially ones of pain, injections, and a laboratory.  Synth has an entire build that he wishes to see how it turns out for this character and made a horrific backstory to back it.  This character will end up having multiple bloodlines but how he originally got them is locked in his mind and something that may be better left hidden.

Green/The Druid: The Druid is someone who is solid and stable, much like the Earth she worships.  She was brought up in a Circle but set out on her own to fight at the corruption that sought to taint the land she defended.  But who are her true enemies and what horror did she hope to vanquish?  Green wanted to stick with a nature oriented class but this is her debut into 9th level casting.  She has a quality as a player that is reflected a bit in this character (based on the creation) that will very much help with this AP.  She is someone level-headed and stable (at least, the Druid believes she is such) and will be a solid anchor for the rest of the party.

The Session Zero

Every game should have a solid session zero in my opinion.  Doesn’t mean that good games cannot come without it but it eases parties and GMs into the game.  It gives the GM more to prepare (the hooks for the characters) and the players to figure out how they’re going to work together.  All of the information I just provided you was provided and developed in this Session Zero.

Here’s the but.  I would have loved to have a formal session zero with a couple of hours dedicated to everyone sitting at the table and focused on this character creation process and plot building.  Despite it being an AP, much of it is determined by the characters background and how I inject that into the larger plot.  The party has a good dynamic of mix a classes and should be adaptable to the encounters that they run into.  However, there isn’t a bunch of communication among party members as to what they were planning to do.

Now, Strange Aeons starts everyone off with the classic “Amnesia Backstory”.  As in, they don’t remember much about themselves except maybe some of their older memories, so they don’t need to figure out how they know each other.  They are thrown together awfully fast in the very beginning of the first book.  However, there could have been other discussions, such as expectations.  This is a big concept for any group.  I did seed that the path would be difficult and that they should be aware that death is something that can come quite swiftly if they’re not careful.  However, not much else was stated globally about expectations, which was a mistake on my behalf.

Why did this happen?  Well, at the time, I didn’t push for it as much as I wanted and I believe my desire to run the game outweighed my patience.  It happens sometimes.  The other thing to consider is that many of us had particularly chaotic schedules leading up to this point (this is an issue that became resolved fairly quickly).  As I previously mentioned, I’m finishing grad school, I’m in an internship, and I work part time at a fantastic game store.  There’s a lot on that plate but I went into this setting aside some time to be able to run this and pull this off.

We were able to handle the major things: 

-How often do we play?

-What time/day of the week?

-How fast should we progress?

-How we will communicate about status of attendance and whatnot for the game?

-Where will game be? (This is easy, it’s always my place).

-A reminder of limitations, what to do about cancellations, etc.

Next Steps

From here, we move on into the campaign itself.  At the time of this writing, we have moved through 4 sessions.  When I post the next campaign grimoire, it will likely address general things of session 1 and 2, followed by an entry on 3, and an entry on 4.  I plan on discussing a little bit about what the party did/how they interacted given the circumstances of their situation but I don’t want to give too much about the game as it may spoil some of you.  I will note the changes I’ve made/improvisations that came about and what was important about the sessions in terms of me as a GM.  But that is a sample of the things to come.  For now, traveler, I bid you farewell.

-GM Crypt Keeper

[pussymagicuniverse]

Werewolf Heart, a Hallow's Eve #meowlist by Jessie Lynn McMains

This year, for Pussy Magic’s second Hallow’s Eve: SCREAM issue, our music-lover, Jessie, compiled a spooky list of tracks for you to enjoy with some details below about the songs and musicians, why she chose them, and lyrics that she loves. Enjoy, Kittens, and we’ll see you later for the special upcoming issue!

1. Tom Waits — Dirt in the Ground

I could easily make an entire Halloween-season playlist using only Tom Waits songs, and it was difficult to narrow it down to just one. I chose this one for two reasons. One being that it is both spooky and sad, a perfect ode for this holiday which is all about honoring the dead and accepting death as a natural part of the life cycle. The other being my own personal associations with it—at a Halloween party in 2003, while in costume as a fallen angel, I performed an a capella version of this song.

The quill from a buzzard The blood writes the word I want to know am I the sky or a bird? ‘Cause hell is boiling over And heaven is full We’re chained to the world And we all gotta pull 

2. Johnny Cash — The Man Comes Around

This song isn’t so much creepy-sounding as it is lyrically terrifying. If anyone can make me believe in a Biblical-style apocalypse, it’s Johnny Cash. It also gets Halloween bonus points for its use in Dawn of the Dead.

The hairs on your arm will stand up At the terror in each sip and in each sup Will you partake of that last offered cup Or disappear into the potter’s ground? When the man comes around 

3. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds — Red Right Hand 

Nick Cave is another artist who could fill up an entire Halloween playlist all on his own. Be it with the Birthday Party or the Bad Seeds, the man can write a scary tune. This is by no means his scariest song (as far as I’m concerned, that titles belongs to “Song of Joy”*), but it does have a definite foreboding feeling; particularly during the organ solo. Ultimately, I chose this one for the playlist because of its use in the Scream franchise.

(*Fun fact: in “Song of Joy,” Nick references the same passage from Milton’s Paradise Lost that “Red Right Hand” was drawn from.)

You’ll see him in your nightmares You’ll see him in your dreams He’ll appear out of nowhere but He ain’t what he seems You’ll see him in your head On the TV screen Hey buddy, I’m warning You to turn it off 

4. Puerto Muerto — The Hangman’s Song

A sad and beautiful apocalyptic death-song. This is another one I once performed, at a Halloween show in 2009. And, like “The Man Comes Around,” this song is also on the Dawn of the Dead soundtrack.

The days will turn black, you soon will see. Soon we’ll all be swinging from a tree. Pray your neck breaks when the rope is taut. Pray your mother isn’t there to see. 

5. Delta Rae — I Will Never Die

Fleur suggested this song and as soon as I heard it I knew it was going on the playlist. It has a powerful, witchy, incantatory feeling to it, and the imagery in the lyrics is perfectly eerie. And I have a weakness for any song that uses chains as percussion instruments. 

Hickory, oak, pine and weed Bury my heart underneath these trees And when a southern wind comes to raise my soul Spread my spirit like a flock of crows 

6. Nina Simone — I Put A Spell On You

This tune is a must on any Halloween playlist. I adore the original Screamin’ Jay Hawkins version, but I think Nina Simone’s version is the sexiest and witchiest. Her deep, commanding voice and the jazzy sway of the music will put a spell on you for certain.

 I put a spell on you ‘Cause you’re mine You better stop the things you do I ain’t lyin’ No, I ain’t lyin’ 

7. Eartha Kitt — I Want To Be Evil

In this fun little tune, the inimitable Eartha Kitt (aka Catwoman) asks why bad boys get to have all the fun. C’mon, good girls and non-binary babes, cast off the shackles of gender-based behavioral expectations and be evil!

I want to be horrid, I want to drink booze And whatever I’ve got, I’m eager to lose I want to be evil, little evil me Just as mean and evil as I can be! 

8. Jill Tracy — Evil Night Together

Being bad can feel so good. This vampy dark cabaret number is the love song a femme fatale would sing in a film noir. It’s the kind of song you’d use to seduce the person you want as your partner. And by partner, I mean partner-in-crime.

I’ll hold your hand while they drag the river I’ll cuddle you in the undertow I’ll keep my hand on your trigger finger I’ll take you down where the train tracks go Let’s wile away the hours Let’s spend an evil night together 

9. Lana Del Rey - Season of the Witch

This is another seasonal classic. Hole’s cover is my favorite, but it’s not available on Spotify, and this version by Our Lady of Vintage Cool, Lana Del Rey, is really good, too. (Also, it appears on the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark soundtrack.)

When I look out my window, many sights to see. And when I look in my window, so many different people to be. That it’s strange. So strange. 

10. Austra — Spellwork 

Dark and danceable witchy synth-pop. Thanks to Cassidy Scanlon for the suggestion.

You must be the call The evil at night Speaking words of grace While spellwork delights Feel my desire, it burns like a fire 

11. World/Inferno Friendship Society — One for the Witches! 

The World/Inferno Friendship Society is another band that could easily fill up a Halloween playlist all on their own. Hell, their biggest show of the year is their Hallowmas show every October the 31st. I chose this one because it is an anthem of mine (so much so that I have a tattoo relating to it); it is an anthem for all witches and weirdos and misfits. You know? I mean, do ya know? 

“Supposed to be? I never gave it any thought Never gave a damn about what I’m supposed to be But if you’re asking what I am? I’m a fucking walking question mark I am a walking fucking time bomb!” 

12. Hag Face — Witch Stomp

This short instrumental tune sounds something like if Elvira had a garage band, and you combined their music with a tape of spooky sound effects. It’s fuzzed-out grunge, dark and hypnotic, and full of screams and howls.

13. The Distillers — I Am A Revenant

In folklore, a revenant is an animated corpse that is believed to have revived from death to haunt the living. In this loud-fast-rules punk song, Brody Dalle reminds us that even if the bastards kill us, we can return to haunt them for the rest of their days. 

We are the revenants We will rise up from the dead We become the living We’ve come back to reclaim our stolen breath 

14. Against Me! — Dead Rats 

This isn’t specifically a Halloween song (in fact, the only holiday it references is Easter), but sound and image-wise, it’s perfect. It’s a heartbroken rager, a love song for a fucked-up goth girl. It reminds me of so many girls I’ve known and loved; so many girls I’ve been.

Dear succubus, I miss you more than the rest But there’s a little bit less divide each time I look back In the eaves of your attic, I know how to haunt Shallow graves for all dead rats I like the dark clouds the best 

15. The Cramps — Sheena’s in a Goth Gang 

I had to include The Cramps and their brand of horror-surf-punk-psychobilly. In this song, Sheena’s not a punk rocker no more...she’s in a goth gang, now.

Mixed up women Do you have one in your house? She’s in the forbidden Vampire underground In the cult of the cobra Snakes in her hair She looks so macabre With her cobweb stare 

16. The Damned — Nasty

This song is such a rollicking tribute to horror and slasher flicks. Listen to it, then go watch the performance they did on The Young Ones, with Dave Vanian at his vampiric finest. Only pop music can save us now!

The axe is sharp And the blade is keen Creature features spill from the screen Shadows fall and all is gloom You’re not so safe In the safety of your room

17. Siouxsie and the Banshees — Halloween

This would be a poor excuse for a Halloween playlist if I didn’t include a song by the Queen of Goth herself, Siouxsie Sioux. It was a toss-up between this one and “Spellbound,” but I chose this one for the drive of the drums, the angular slash of the guitars, and the surreal and atmospheric lyrics. 

A sweet reminder In the ice-blue nursery Of a childish murder Of hidden luster And she cries “Trick or Treat” “Trick or Treat” The bitter and the sweet 

18. Bauhaus — Bela Lugosi’s Dead

I almost feel like I should apologize for including this song, but listen: this year’s Hallow’s Eve edition of Pussy Magic has a pop culture bent, and I’m currently working on a chapbook inspired by Bela Lugosi (amongst other classic horror actors), so I couldn’t not include it. Not to mention it’s a goth classic with the clattering-bone percussion, the reverb, the mesmeric bass line. Every time I listen to it I feel like I’m in a goth club in the ‘80s, all decked out in black lace and too much makeup, smoking clove cigarettes and dancing.

White on white translucent black capes Back on the rack Bela Lugosi’s dead The bats have left the bell tower The victims have been bled 

19. Oingo Boingo — Dead Man’s Party

Another Halloween classic by my favorite new wave/rock/ska/whatever (seriously, how does one classify Oingo Boingo’s music?) group of weirdos. It’s one of those great songs where the lyrics can be read into really deeply if you so choose, but it’s also just a hell of a lot of fun.

I got my best suit and my tie With a shiny silver dollar on either eye I hear the chauffeur comin’ to my door Says there’s room for maybe just one more 

20. The Gun Club — Death Party 

Poor old Jeffrey Lee. He had a lot of devils, and nowhere can you hear that better than in the yowl of this song. Musically, it’s something akin to Jim Morrison having psychedelic visions in the L.A desert, combined with blues, country, and punk. Lyrically, it’s about being drawn to self-destruction. 

Throw down your heartache, throw down your worldly blues They’ll tear your heart out, lookin at you wail the blues Come to the death party, you ain’t got nothing to lose 

21. Concrete Blonde — Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)

Concrete Blonde always had a dark side, but with the album Bloodletting they went even deeper into goth-rock territory. This, the title track, was inspired by Anne Rice’s novel Interview with the Vampire, and has a sexy swagger perfect for a creature of the night.

There’s a crack in the mirror And a bloodstain on the bed Oh, you were a vampire And baby, I’m the walking dead 

22. Sonic Youth — Halloween 

According to Kim Gordon, the lyrics to this song were inspired by watching Henry Rollins perform with Black Flag, which makes me chuckle. But in any case, this is a strange, creepy, and yeah, kinda sexy tune. There’s something ritualistic about it, like the incantation of a priestess as filtered through the lens of Sonic Youth’s noisy art-punk.

It’s the devil in me Makes me stare at you as you Twist up along you Sing your song and you’re Slipping up to me and you’re So close I just uh Want to touch you

23. Pixies — On Graveyard Hill

This track off the new Pixies album definitely has that off-kilter rock’n’roll Pixies sound I know and love. And the lyrics make it a perfect fit for a Halloween playlist.

In the poisonous forest, Donna lights up her torches Her eyes are flying saucers Her hair is black and gorgeous I see her down at the crossroads She can lead you to madness She’s leading me into darkness, in the witching hour

24. Tempers — What Isn’t There 

As I’ve been writing these descriptions and listening to the playlist again, I’ve realized a lot of the tracks are long—like, between five and ten minutes long. I think that’s fitting for this season and this holiday. Imagine the long songs on this playlist as aural films to get lost inside. This track by Tempers makes for a very dark and moody piece of ‘cinema.’ Thanks to Cassidy Scanlon for the suggestion.

25. Sigils — Samhain

If all metal sounded like this I would listen to more metal. I love the heavy drone of this song, so eerie and mysterious. And the lyrics make me picture teenagers sitting around an autumn bonfire, stoned, telling scary stories.

Everything is gold The wind a sickly sweet The smell of rotting leaves Bathe in ashes from the fire 

26. Dax Riggs — Ghost Movement

Yet another artist whose entire oeuvre, from Acid Bath to deadboy & the Elephantmen to his solo stuff, lends itself well to this season. This one’s a personal favorite when I’ve got those haunted blues. (After you’ve listened to the playlist, go listen to Dax’s cover of the Misfits’s “Skulls,” which he turned into a ballad.)

Kissed a blue girl While it rained broken glass Rode a bolt of white light With Satan on my lap 

27. Queens of the Stone Age — Mosquito Song

With imagery straight out of Hannibal Lecter’s cookbook, this song is a gorgeously scary ode to the cycle of life and death.

Cutting boards, hanging hooks Bloody knives, cooking books Promising you won’t feel a thing at all Swallow and chew, eat you alive All of us food, that hasn’t died 

28. Rasputina — Gingerbread Coffin

I would be remiss as a former creepy little girl who totally held doll funerals and as an overly dramatic goth who totally had a Rasputina phase if I didn’t include this song.

We brought, but not used A collection of knives We’ll remember this moment Through all of our lives She’ll rise

29. Dead Man’s Bones — Werewolf Heart

I’d never heard of Dead Man’s Bones until I was looking for songs for this playlist, but I love this song so much that I went to find more about the band and discovered... Ryan Gosling co-wrote this album with Zach Shields. Like: “Hey girl, I heard you liked ghosts and monsters and love stories, so I wrote you this monster-ghost-love story...” 

You’d look nice in a grave I smile at the moon, death is on my face And if you wait too long Then you’ll never see the dawn again 

30. Cat Power — Werewolf

I've had a long-time love for this eerie and beautiful Cat Power tune.

Oh the werewolf, oh the werewolf Comes stepping along He don’t even break the branches where he’s gone Once I saw him in the moonlight, when the bats were a flying I saw the werewolf, and the werewolf was crying

31. Neko Case — Deep Red Bells

This song was one of the inspirations for my poem which is appearing in the Hallow’s Eve issue. (The other inspiration was Seanan McGuire’s book The Girl in the Green Silk Gown.) It is a sad tribute to the murdered girls who are often forgotten.

Does your soul cast about like an old paper bag Past empty lots and early graves Of those like you who lost their way Murdered on the interstate While the red bells rang like thunder?

32. Nina Nastasia — In the Graveyard 

This season is all about honoring our dead, but sometimes we’re just not ready.

Someone told me that I should visit you in the graveyard Pull out all the weeds But I’m still lonely and I’m not ready You scared me when you hid behind the trees

33. Hozier — In a Week (feat. Karen Crowley)

This is another song, like “Dirt in the Ground” and “Mosquito Song,” which is about the cycle of life and death (we’re all gonna be dirt in the ground / all of us food that hasn’t died / after the foxes have known our taste). And call me weird and morbid, but I think it is one of the most romantic songs ever written. These lovers will not be parted even in death; death will only bind them closer together.

And they’d find us in a week When the buzzards get loud After the insects have made their claim After the foxes have known our taste After the raven has had its say I’d be home with you

Jessie Lynn McMains (they/them) is a poet, writer, zine-maker, and small press owner. They are a queer and non-binary mama to two wild kiddos. Aside from words, music is their favorite thing in the world. They’re also obsessed with tarot, the Midwest/Great Lakes/Rust Belt, ghosts, and the undying spirit of punk rock. You can find their website at recklesschants.net, or find them on Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram @rustbeltjessie.