#but I think this version of the show lives and dies by whether Arthur is a character you love or a person on stage saying ideas

[mooremars]

There are probably one hundred moments in the new Camelot that I'm sad I will never get to see again and lots of people won't get to see at all because it's so funny and dramatic and the cast is amazing. And specifically there is so much peak romance and tragedy in Arthur and Guenevere's final scene. But the thing that will live in my head forever and ever, that according to my friend made me shake so hard with laughter that she could feel it next to me is this exchange (butchered by my bad memory, sorry Mr. Sorkin):

Arthur: Merlyn never taught me how to handle a woman.

Guenevere: You mean you haven't read the book?

Arthur (with the most excitement he has expressed for literally anything besides a bird and maybe to Merlyn about Genny after they first meet): There's a book? (And then like every gullible kid who looked up at the ceiling and then got taunted with made you look) No I can see on your face there's not. But maybe in France, no I can still see there's no book.

Like honestly king of romance. That moment, telling your wife you see her as a business partner, telling her you love her for what it's worth because you thought she might want to know but you aren't sure right before you go to war over her... banger after banger.

[fire-dwelling]

Still on my fixation on how this series didn’t work, went through the TV Tropes page of characters to see which updates they did in light of the finale in relation to Soul Eater--and I’m still floored at how many characters got zero development and in fact not even a name. 

For all the crap Horikoshi gets for having too many characters in My Hero Academia, just about all of them have some detail to them that gives you insight into their lives, whether news anchor Miyagi and his choice to give up his horn, the likes of Mawata, or how Bakugo’s parents first met. He didn't need to give every characters their own chapter or story, but Horikoshi gave us enough to latch onto to get some small detail to make them feel like believable people rather than only existing to advance some plot detail. (And hey, look at that, they actually have names: that'll be relevant when I talk about the unnamed Fire Force characters.)

And that’s not even getting into all the planning and payoff for characters in One Piece. 

But here, with Ohkubo, it’s the same problem as in Soul Eater, only worse. The lack of detailed history to characters in Soul Eater let fans fill in the blanks, thereby enriching the story; Fire Force insists so strongly on crafting this complete history, and then making it a pre-history to Soul Eater, that when the details are not filled in, it comes across more like oversights or laziness or incompetence. 

For example, that Fire Agency Director that Akitaru knows: what’s his deal? We get enough dialogue between the two to know their relationship and a sense how the Director helped Akitaru set up the 8th. But it’s just not as engaging because we never see that Director do anything of importance later. Where was he to testify on Akitaru’s behalf when he was accused of treason? What political insights can he provide in negotiation between the public, the Fire Force divisions, and the Church to smooth out the problems? 

Likewise, the head of Haijima: he permits Vulcan to make a new version of Amaterasu--and that’s pretty much it, he has almost zero bearing on the rest of the story. We don’t even get a post-finale check-in to see how his hold on industry and innovation in Tokyo likely collapsed now that there is an entire world out there with Haijima no longer holding a monopoly over all fields--or, maybe with the rest of the world now opened up, he takes that opportunity to dominate in global business. 

Also, why was there no scene (in the manga--I don't know about the anime) about Asako reacting to her grandfather's death?

Edit: Based on a screencap, it looks like the anime did add a scene of her looking dejected about her grandfather's death.

It didn't even have to be her mourning, because, maybe this is just headcanon, the story never gave me a sense that the two were close.

And, in fact, the story may have been more engaging if they weren't close: Soichiro was such a creep and obsessed with Adora that, for all I know, he was the black sheep of the family, or cut himself off from family like Asako.

Asako was there when her grandfather was getting his ass kicked in the fight against possessed Shinra--and she has almost no reaction to her elderly relative getting wrecked. It's just bizarre, not even in a "this is a dark comedy" way that Arthur's family flat-out abandoned him (which, even as dark comedy, I don't think works and contradicts whatever messages or heartwarming ending Ohkubo is trying to provide).

Come on, show us Asako having a more obvious reaction at the funeral for her grandfather, either crying or just looking pissed because, after everything he did with his life, he is now dead, there was no reconciliation, no closure, and now she has to carry that feeling for the rest of her life (until the stupid finale resurrections that make any deaths in this series absolutely pointless--and no, "the feelings were real that they felt when they died, that is something they won't lose" doesn't help, the resurrections undermined any point of the deaths).

Edit: Again, as I said earlier, it looks like the anime did add a scene of her looking dejected about her grandfather's death.

But no, we can’t develop these details: we need to see Nataku and Sho in Kurono’s class (WHO THE FUCK LET HIM BE A TEACHER?), Maki and Lisa shopping, and fanservice in the form of the Soul Eater trio as babies. Fucking hell, this long later, and this series still has flaws that continue to piss me off. 

[cayenne-twilight]

Professor Layton Iceberg Explanation

As I said in the tags of the original, the iceberg I made was a meme consisting of both real theories and satire/parodies/fandom memes. If anyone is interested, I can work on an unironic version that only has real theories.

Buckle in because this post is LONG and heavily saturated with lore and information.

Actual theories

Parallel universe 1960s where the world wars didn’t happen. There’s an unused file in Curious Village that shows the year as 1960 and the time machine from UF is set to 1973, ten years into the future. The series canonically takes place in an undefined time period (hence the technological inaccuracies and fantasy elements), but it’s based off the 60s. There’s more evidence but we don’t have time to go over every little thing. I linked my “no wars�� theory below but TL;DR the outdated airplanes and underdeveloped medicine in the Layton series imply that the world wars may never have happened. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632205992162099200/outofcontextdiscord-timegearremix-zonosils-war

The real meaning behind the statue in Future London. In UF, the purpose of the statue is to spark Layton and Luke’s conversation about their friendship. Luke is stressing out about moving overseas and sees himself and the professor in the story behind the statue, but in the bigger picture, Clive must have been the one to commission it. Some theorize that the little boy is Clive and the man is either his father or the professor. One idea I’ve seen is that Clive wishes he could be Luke for real, while another is that he wishes he died ten years ago, and another is that he’s literally terminally ill explaining why he doesn’t care about consequence. Personally, I think “the boy succumbed to his illness” refers to his mental illness seeing as he wanted the professor to save him from his madness as he saved him all those years ago.

True location of Monte D’Or. there are no deserts on the British isles to my knowledge, so it makes the most sense for Monte D’Or to be in Southwest USA where English is the default language, they have a desert, and there exists a city famous for flashy hotels, casinos, and entertainment. What makes it odd is that nobody ever mentions overseas travel, and all the major characters are from England.

Loosha’s origins are not explicitly explained if I remember correctly, but the implication was that her prehistoric (supposedly) species was sealed away along with the garden, allowing them to survive all the way to the time of LS until Loosha was the only one left. The garden provided a good habitat and protection from predators, and it’s logical that they’d slowly die out anyways, but there’s no explanation of any specific factors that led to Loosha being the last.

Beasley is not a bee I wrote a post about this one as well, but TL;DR Beasly lacks several defining bee traits whilst having several human ones. He is not human, yet, by definition, not a bee. It’s possible that he is the result of Dimitri’s testing, but whatever his untold story is, he remains an enigma of nature. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632381715250282496/theory-beasly-isnt-a-bee

Subject 2’s identity is currently unknown. There is a subject one (parrot) and subject 3 (rabbit) so there has to be a second. For a long time, people suspected Beasly to be him seeing as he’s a bit of an amalgamation and definitely not a regular bee (see above). After the release of LMJ, though, people began to suspect Sherl, the intelligent hound who could speak to certain people but not others. That being said, it’s possible for one to be subject 4. Sherl’s memory of a bright flash matches up with subject 3’s memory of being electrocuted. They never explain why the animals were being experimented on, but it was probably Dimitri making sure the conditions of his machine were safe for humans before reliving the incident from ten years ago.

Lady Violet died from the plague from DB. There’s no evidence for this or anything, it’s just an idea. People say she died from the flu but I don’t remember them saying that in the game, at least the US version. Extending off my “no war” theory: it’s theorized that the Spanish Flu was spread by the travlelling soldiers, so if that’s true, it’s possible for the epidemic to have been averted for some decades. Maybe the Spanish Flu reached England later than in real life. The hole in this is that DB’s plague must’ve been close in time to 1918 while Violet’s death was much later, so it would’ve had to stick around.

Bill Hawks is working with Targent and Arthur Cantabella. There was a force in the shadows buying the time machine technology from Bill. Someone with a ton of money who helped him cover up a freak accident and get away with it completely, a feat that involved shady means like violence by hired thugs. Some theorize that it was Targent, seeking power over time in exchange for a little mafia magic. The Labarynthia project was sponsored by the UK government, so as the PM, Bill must’ve known about it. He probably supported dubiously ethical, high stakes (witch pun) psychological experiments like Cantabella’s and helped him stay in the shadows.

All the NPCs in St. Mystere and Folsense are dead. I make fun of this type of theory later, but they’re admittedly captivating. I’m pretty sure the canon in CV is that the villagers are Bruno and Augustus’s OCs that they made robots of and built a town around, but it’s more interesting to think that the village was there before, and the townspeople died of a plague and were replaced like Lady Violet. In Folsense, there really was a plague and they never explain the NPCs there. They’re either real people who appear way younger than they are due to hallucinations (even the ones who already look old ?), or they don’t exist at all, which is pretty spooky. This part of the story is a gaping plot hole. In a similar vein to CV, the edgy yet plausible theory is that they used to live in Folsense but died of the plague and now live on as hallucinations.

Hershel seeing everything as a puzzle is a coping mechanism for all his trauma. This was a joke but I thought about it for more than five seconds and it makes way too much sense.

Plot holes and unexplained questions that we like to overthink because it’s fun

The downfall of the Azran was vaguely explained in canon by people being so greedy that it lead to the civilization collapsing. It’s not a stretch to imagine that happening, but it would’ve been more interesting with a little more detail.

Layton and Luke are programmed to routinely forget how to walk. I didn’t know whether to list this in the joke section or not, but it’s odd that the characters actively participate in the walking tutorial (as opposed to showing a little memo to the player) as if they didn’t know how to before, especially when they go through this several times a year.

The truth behind Pavel. He’s simply a joke character who teleports, is a polyglot (sort of, at least he wants us to think he is) and is mega confused all the time. He’s a fun character to make crack theories about because of his cryptic nature that even he doesn’t seem to understand.

Miracle Mask deleted scenes. The first trailer for MM featured animations that were not in the final game. One was the Randall falling scene, except in a slightly different style than the one we know. Others were completely foreign, like Layton and Luke pacing across a theatre stage as if Layton’s about to expose someone with a dramatic point. Cut content and “could’ve beens” are always curious to think about.

Evan Barde: secret mastermind. Arianna and Tony’s dad is a mysterious character who died under mysterious circumstances. I think the canon is that his death was a genuine accident, but concept art of him making a creepy evil face suggests that maybe he originally had a larger role in the first drafts of LS than the finished game.

The secret to how Paul and Des pull off their disguises is unclear and will remain unclear. There is no plausible explanation for their shape shifting. Unless Paul is just a little dude wearing a human suit like that one Wizard of Oz species and Des is the best quick-changer ever and hides his naturally feminine legs under his cloak.

Alfendi’s mom. When LBMR came out people scrambled to piece together who Hershel had a kid with, but there’s no way alfendi is his biological son. This happened with Kat as well and her biological parents turned out to be brand new characters, so I’m sure Al will get an adoption backstory if his arc continues, be his parents old major characters or nameless, faceless NPCs.

Granny Riddleton and Stachenscarfen are omnipotent deities. Idk which section this fits best under, but these two characters have some serious power. At first introduction, they’re implied to be robots, but they appear everywhere in later games. They follow the Professor wherever he goes and assist him on his adventures, GR collecting puzzles and housing them by some odd magic, and Stachen teaches you how to walk. They both introduce and supervise the gameplay. By extension, I guess this idea could apply to Albus as well in the prequels. GR and Stachen even had the power to appear in LMJ, something no major character could do. I consider them akin to the velvet room attendants from the Persona games.

Clive’s kill count is a vague subject in the game for the sake of keeping it PG. I don’t know if anyone’s ever mathematically estimated the damage he caused, and I sure don’t want to try, but the game appears to push the idea that he didn’t kill anyone at all, saying they stopped him in the nick of time and things like that, even though we watch him raze the city. If they ever want to bring him back post-time skip, I can see them twisting it so that the mobile fortress cutscene wasn’t a linear sequence of events, but instead a compilation of scenes over the course of hours so that London neighborhoods around him could be evacuated and have it make sense. Knowing Level-5, it’s more likely that they wouldn’t think this deep and do something more lazy, though.

Memes and references

Post-time skip Flora is real references the famous L is real theory from Super Mario 64. Like Luigi in SM64, Flora was also a highly anticipated character who didn’t appear in a new game, in this case LMJ or LMDA. In the end, Luigi did become real in the DS port so hopefully Flora is real will be realized as well.

Hershel can’t read is a veteran fandom meme referring to how in the first few games, especially Curious Village, Layton asks Luke to read every document out loud for him. Perhaps this was an exercise to improve Luke’s reading skills and independent thinking, or perhaps he was just too lazy or preoccupied to do it himself, but this grew into the joke that our genius Professor was actually illiterate this whole time.

Layton’s smash invitation is hidden in PLvsAA. It’s no secret that the fandom would kill a man to get the Professor into the smash brothers franchise. In PLvsAA one of the puzzle artworks features a goat eating a familiar white envelope with a red stamp, sparking the joke that either Layton or Wright got the invitation their respective fans desired, but it got lost along the way.

The science board is the mysteriously vague organization Don Paolo got kicked out of for the crime of being evil. It’s the epitome of liberal arts majors and art school graduates trying to bs their way around not knowing any science and failing miserably. “He was very good at all the sciences, but then the CEO of science told him to stop because he was using the power of science for evil science”. They do this again when “Dr. Stahngun” describes his time machine what with the soolha coils and whatnot.

Hoogland is death cult initiation is a parody of “Mario 64 is Freemason initiation” which is ridiculous, just like the creepy human sacrifice subplot of AL.

You can see the reflection of someone watching you in Aurora’s eye references the famous, creepy Talking Angela theory. In retrospect it would’ve been funnier if I said Angela instead of Aurora.

Every copy of Professor Layton is personalized references the famous “every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized”

Clive’s fat ass in HD is a meme that originated from the announcement of UFHD, saying that half of the excited fans wanted to cry again while the other half were simply attracted to Clive. If we want to enter real bottom-section-of-the-iceberg-chart territory then let’s say Clive’s character has some sort of psychological siren properties that draw people to him like a magnet and/or Harry Styles.

Things I pulled out of my ass for shits and giggles

Infinite hint coin hack: I’m sure a tech savvy cheater could hack the game for infinite hint coins, but there’s no easy or interesting way. I don’t know why someone would do that though, considering a lot of the hints suck and there are puzzle guides on the internet.

Cringy, unused Randall villain monologue. This joke is derived from the actual scrapped MM content as well as deleted content being a popular element of iceberg charts, but it’s sadly not real. Would’ve been hilarious, though.

Last Specter Puzzle 031: Light Height tracks and records children’s intelligence level. It doesn’t, but it’s always fun to make fun of arguably THE most ridiculously difficult puzzle in the franchise. (Seriously, do they expect 7+ year olds to know trigonometry???)

Hershel struggles with tea addiction. Hershel from the games drinks tea in moderation, but the manga begs to differ. He has a tea set in the Laytonmobile, and an attempt at teatime while driving causes him to crash.

Folsense is a metaphor for Alzheimer’s. This is inspired by those edgy kids’ show theories where everyone’s in hell or something, but nobody has ever said this.

London Life is reality and the plot of the games is all in Luke’s head. That’s one way to fill every plot hole. How funny would it be if Luke made up crazy characters and stories based off his fellow townspeople Sharkboy and Lavagirl style. “This dude who lives in a castle and asks people to give him all their money for nothing in return is a vampire from 50 years ago involved in a tragic love story”.

Secret ending encoded into Tago’s Head Gymnastics. It’d be crazy if there was, and Dimitri would hound Tago for the secret to time travel. If you didn’t know, the Layton games started as an adaption of Akira Tago’s puzzle series, except they decided to add a story to make it more interesting and marketable.

Daily puzzles datamine your DS. I’m bad with technology but is it even possible to datamine a DS??? Idk, but I think my DS lite from 2008 is safe.

[dai-bendu-conlang]

Qui-Gon’s Last Words in Dai-Bendu — a Meta/Explanation

So very early into this project, loosingletters and I (ghostwriter) watched The Phantom Menace together, and when Qui-Gon died, we looked at each other and were like “We can make this way sadder in translation, can’t we?” 

And so off we went, with that goal in mind. 

Because we went into this thinking “can we improve this interaction via language/translation?”  we need to first first explain why we don’t love Qui-Gon’s last words in canon, to then explain why we made the changes that we did.

The reasons are as follows:

Qui-Gon’s last words have nothing to do with Obi-Wan, the person he is saying goodbye to.

His last words being an order about Anakin left a weird taste in our mouths

We wanted this to feel more intimate and more emotional

So, we started with ways we could change the connotation of the words being used. We came at it from a lens of assuming that the dialogue was a classic “bad translation” of what was actually said; as in, someone translated the literal meanings of the words into English, and lost a lot of the social meanings that the words might have in their original contexts. 

Here are Qui-Gon’s original last words, in canon:

Obi-Wan: Master! Master! Qui-Gon: It’s too late. It’s too… Obi-Wan: No! Qui-Gon: Obi-Wan, promise...promise me you'll train the boy Obi-Wan: Yes, Master Qui-Gon: He is the chosen one...he will...bring balance...train him!

(Sidenote: upon actually looking up the dialogue, we were honestly shocked by how, like. Bare bones it is. And how pretty much all the emotion of that scene comes only from Neeson and McGregor acting their hearts out. So, kudos.)

When looking at this dialogue, we singled out the following things as points we could build on: 

Jedi cultural values regarding teaching (which we all have a lot of Feelings about)

The word “promise”

The whole idea of balance

And then we proceeded to go to town. 

The Dai Bendu translation of this dialogue is as follows:

Obi-Wan: Jaieh! Jaieh! Qui-Gon: Im enoh...nev forpai paikazah Obi-Wan: Shet. Qui-Gon: Obi-Wan, ikio… ikio fehl paipadenji keel nev paqorak. Obi-Wan: Haj dai, Jaieh. Qui-Gon: Enoah kar... daisha. Pauji... kar aimato’ak. Paden... karak.

Firstly, the things we didn’t change, ie: pretty much all of Obi-Wan’s dialogue.

Obi-Wan says, in order, “Master, Master!” (though he uses the Jedi-specific word for it, which also translates to “teacher”), “No.” and “Yes, Master,” just like in the original script. The most significant thing here is that the Dai Bendu word for “Yes” directly translates to “Force-Wills,” which could be read as some unintentional, ouchy subtext that both implies that Obi-Wan is agreeing with Qui-Gon’s point about Anakin being the Chosen One as a final act of comfort (because he’s expressed doubt about the possibility before), as well as conceding to both himself, Qui-Gon, and the universe that the Force has willed his Master’s death. 

Next, the things that changed from the script mostly as a symptom of the ways that Dai Bendu is different from English/Basic. For instance, Qui-Gon refers to Anakin as “the child” rather than “the boy,” because Dai Bendu does not express gender in that way. Instead of saying “it’s too late,” a more word-for-word direct translation of “Im enoh nev forpai paikazah” would be “no time is left,” which both lines up with how we imagine time works in Dai Bendu (link here), and is more natural to the way Dai Bendu handles sentence structure (“it’s too late” is a very English sentence construction). 

And now we get to the meaning changes. Other than changing the structure, “im enoh nev forpai paikazah” also adds “pai,” our consequential prefix, to “kazah,” which is the present-tense of the verb “kaza” or “to leave.” That makes the sentence mean something like “no time is left, and because of that the future has changed.” This is essentially Qui-Gon admitting to both himself and to Obi-Wan that his death is going to change, at the very least, Obi-Wan’s future forever, and also the future of the entire universe (though whether or not Qui-Gon knows this last part, in a Force-saturated moment right before death, is unclear in both the original version and our version). 

Qui-Gon’s next line is “Obi-Wan, ikio… ikio fehl paipadenji keel nev paqorak.” Again, we have the consequential prefix, this time attached to “paden,” which means “to guide/to teach,” here in the future tense. The implication of that being something like “teach him and it will alter the future.” Adding the consequential prefix to something which is already in the future tense is considered repetitive — comparable to saying something like “it is so enormously big” in English. A native speaker making the choice to add it here illustrates a conscious emphasis. Qui-Gon is really trying to express how important he thinks teaching Anakin is. 

We also have a lot of Thoughts and Feelings about the Jedi as a people who are dedicated to teaching as a cultural value. On top of being archivists and having/keeping a vast collection of knowledge, Jedi do pretty much nothing but study/learn their entire lives. They are dedicated diplomats and so on, but outside of that they seem to want to foster understanding and that in-and-of itself is always a lesson. In TCW, for instance, everything is a teachable moment for someone. The fact that so much careful consideration is put into who you pick as your Padawan, and that you retain a deep connection to them even when the apprenticeship is over, shows that this connection and this act of teaching is immensely important. It is considered a standard part of each Jedi’s life to step into that teaching role at least once — nearly every Jedi takes on at least one apprentice. If you take Obi-Wan as an example, he spent half his time in the PT being a student, and then the other half being a teacher. So here, Qui-Gon is taking one of their culture’s most important values and handing it to Obi-Wan. 

Then we have the word for “promise” we used, “ikio.” While we have a standard word for promise, “aima,” the word that Qui-Gon uses here instead is one with more cultural meaning. “Ikio” refers to a very specific kind of promise, something like “promise me because you love me,” or “promise me because I trust you above all.”  The word dates back to the Jedi-Sith schism, where it was used as an oath to state that you trust this person to take your lightsaber and bring it back to your home temple, should you die in battle.

Which means that, holistically, the line “Obi-Wan, ikio… ikio fehl paipadenji keel nev paqorak” both places the highest amount of trust possible in Obi-Wan’s hands, while also stating that Qui-Gon believes him ready of preforming one of their most culturally important values, and trusts him implicitly to carry that out. 

Finally, the line “Enoah kar... daisha. Pauji... kar aimato’ak. Paden... karak.” Some of this is, again, just us having words in Dai Bendu which Basic doesn’t have. “Daisha” is the word for Chosen One, the one referred to as such specifically to that old prophecy Qui-Gon likes so much. It’s a word that all Jedi would be familiar with, but usually in the context of folk tales. It’s like calling someone “The Once and Future King.” (Which also makes Qui-Gon talking to the Council way funnier — “hey guys, I found King Arthur!” “what the fuck??”). Qui-Gon also uses the third person Jedi/in-community pronouns when referring to Anakin, showing that he already thinks of this kid as a Jedi. 

Then there is the concept of “aimato,” here in the accusative case as “aimato’ak.” Aimato is the word for “cosmic balance,” which is both a very important idea in Jedi philosophy, and also a very big and abstract concept. And like any other big and abstract concept which has a large impact on lives and culture, like Love or Brotherhood or Democracy or God, it’s something that individual people and individual Jedi have different conceptions of and ideas about. This is a culture of warrior-philosophers — pretty much everyone has a slightly different theory as to what aimato/”cosmic balance” is supposed to mean and what it will look like when it is achieved, or if it’s possible to achieve, from "it means that one day the Force shows itself to all people" to "it's about finding balance within only yourself" to "it means that evil will finally stand down" to "it means that all who strive for it will achieve peace" to "it's in tiny everyday moments." People sit around and debate this for hours. 

Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan deeply disagree on it’s definition, given their specialties in the Living vs. Unifying Force, and have essentially had an ongoing debate about it for years. It’s an old, comfortable argument both of them know that neither is ever going to win. They could both probably recite the other’s points in their sleep. However, it’s something they end up going back to every time they have a spare moment with nothing else to do. 

Qui-Gon bringing it up here is not only referring to something very important in their culture, it’s almost like referencing an old, treasured inside joke between him and his student, which is something Obi-Wan would pick up on right away. 

So, to summarize; we attempted to modify this very... Anakin-focused last dialogue, and instead make it about Qui-Gon telling Obi-Wan he trusts him above all, specifically to teach (which, again, with Jedi and their teaching focused culture is a HUGE thing) and to continue their discussions and keep their traditions going with this child.

It’s also a fun thought experiment in translation studies — sometimes, things really can get lost in a one-for-one translation of something, when cultural and collaborative meaning aren’t considered and translated accordingly. 

Thank you for reading!

[the-red-and-the-scornful]

Vampire Dutch (privately to Hosea, after they both witness Arthur having a particularly bad coughing spell.) "...Should I?"

Hosea's brow furrowed, instantly catching on Dutch's meaning. "I... I don't know, Dutch. I am not the person you should be asking, it's Arthur's opinion on the matter that counts, not mine. And I do not even know if I can assume what his answer will be either... Since he went to the doctor that day he's not the same... He thinks his limited time gives him the chance to be a better person before he dies. On the one hand I hate seeing him suffer and I know that he was always meant to be a good person, even for eternity... On the other, he might think that he doesn't deserve a second chance; that knowing he'll live will drive him back to the horrible person he thinks he was. Only one thing I know for certain, that if he agrees to be turned he must get away from this lifestyle and that you'll have to let him. Whether he dies or unlives, you will be losing him in the end, Dutch. My question is, do you think you'll be able to handle that well?"

Hosea had more to say on the matter, but held his tongue. What good would it do if Dutch ghouled Arthur the way he had saved his old friend's life some time ago? In theory it wouldn't be difficult, he could make a concoction of his blood mixed with herbs and give it to Arthur saying it is a new health cure; their son would never know the truth. On the other hand though, he knew first hand what drinking vampire blood did.

It always started with the dreams; tender and constant dreams. Then the orbiting, being unable to stop oneself from 'coincidentally' frequing places where the vampire might show up. Then, all thoughts of causing harm to the vampire would waver (against the thrall's better judgment). Finally the cravings would kick in and the vampire would completely dominate the ghoul's thoughts, judgment and personal freedoms fading away as the blood bond fully developed. It didn't take long either; drinking in three separate occassions was enough, and with each sip the vampire's emotional hold strengthened. It was the closest thing to true love; albeit a twisted and perverse version of it. For the vampire it was the narcissistic pleasure of having this kind of control over someone; a pleasure which would develop into need and obsession. For the ghoul it would be the devastation they'd feel whenever they even thought about refusing or disappointing them. They'd do anything if it meant they'd get their regnant's approval. Even murder. Even suicide.

All that he knew all too well, but was powerless against them. Maybe that was why he was still sacrificing so much willpower resisting Dutch's constant tempting to turn him; because not even unlife was powerful enough to break a blood bond; it would only mean they'd be carrying it together, for all eternity. Even if it came to that he'd endure; he'd loved Dutch deeply even before he knew his true nature. But for Arthur, the only person he still cared for... that fate would be worse than death.

[maxwell-grant]

Do you think The Shadow could/should have an end ? If yes, how do you think she would be ?

I(Sidenote but "The Scent of Death" is one of my favorite Shadow covers, if only because I am deeply in love with the idea of The Shadow meeting with a Grim Reaper who's just casually offering flowers. It's what I see when I look at it anyway)

Not gonna reply how I think it should be, because that goes into some of my plans for the character I don't feel like letting out, but regarding him having an "end", yes. Actually, if you ask me the number one story I want to tell with the character, after of course just telling general Shadow stories the way I think they should be told and stories about the agents, it's the story of how he dies.

Not how he achieves immortality, not the story of how he dies but lingers as a ghost, but dies for real. No second chances, no hidden plans, no successors (I'm very strongly against the idea of the Agents becoming The Shadow or him having bloodline descendants who take the role), no returning from the grave. He gets to, for once, for real, die, and actually stay dead.

I think part of that is because of something that Alan Moore mentioned in his Twilight of the Superheroes pitch. As horribly misguided as that was, I do think he opens it with a very solid idea:

As I mentioned in my introduction to Frank's Dark Knight, one of the things that prevents superhero stories from ever attaining the status of true modern myths or legends is that they are open ended. An essential quality of a legend is that the events in it are clearly defined in time; Robin Hood is driven to become an outlaw by the injustices of King John and his minions. That is his origin. He meets Little John, Friar Tuck and all the rest and forms the merry men. He wins the tournament in disguise, he falls in love with Maid Marian and thwarts the Sheriff of Nottingham. He lives to see the return of Good King Richard and is finally killed by a woman, firing a last arrow to mark the place where he shall be buried.

That is his resolution—you can apply the same paradigm to King Arthur, Davy Crockett or Sherlock Holmes with equal success. You cannot apply it to most comic book characters because, in order to meet the commercial demands of a continuing series, they can never have a resolution.

Whether (The Dark Knight Returns) will actually ever happen in terms of "real" continuity is irrelevant: by providing a fitting and affective capstone to the Batman legend it makes it just that... a legend rather than an endlessly meandering continuity. It does no damage to the current stories of Batman in the present, and indeed it does the opposite by lending them a certain weight and power by implication and association— every minor shift of attitude in the current Bruce Wayne's approach to life that might be seen in Batman or Detective over the next few years, whether intentionally or not, will provide twinges of excitement for the fans who can perceive their contemporary Batman inching ever closer to the intense and immortal giant of the Dark Knight chronicles.

(Another sidenote is that me and my family cried very, very hard at Spock's death the first time we watched it, even knowing immediately he was gonna come back the next movie. It still hits pretty hard just thinking about it)

You can argue whether or not this is a requirement that holds back characters from becoming "true myth", but there's an undeniable power and status that is to be found in stories about The Death of The Hero. It's not just a cornerstone of storytelling but quite often it can end up becoming the most popular and/or critically-beloved story of a long-running franchise character, who of course doesn't need to actually die forever and gets to have it both ways, truly great characters who stand the test of time can have iconic death scenes. And The Shadow doesn't have one. The only time he's ever even died in a narrative was in Andy Helfer's Shadow run, and everything in that run was mostly played as a farcical joke and his death was only the pretext for his eventual return in a robot body.

In truth, it is pretty difficult to imagine The Shadow ever dying, because sure, we can imagine Superman or Batman dying to save humanity or Spider-Man biting the dust after an ungodly exhertion to save lives. Not that The Shadow wouldn't do those things, but he's the kind of character who seems like he's going to inevitably get back up again, like Jason Voorhees who won't stay down no matter what, who's always going to show up in a last-minute jumpscare or a secret plot. Because The Shadow is strongly associated with horror and supernatural, we tend to assume he's never going to die so much as he's just going to retreat to the darkness to come back when someone least expects it.

It's interesting also that, while The Shadow isn't suicidal, he is also much more willing to throw away his own life for the sake of others than you'd expect from a character of his personality type, even in circumstances where he would save more people in the long run by protecting his own life. The Shadow is unshakeable when it comes to death, of those he chooses to kill as well as his own, and on the few instances where Shadow stories have gone deep in his head enough to showcase fears and anxieties, the fear of death or injury is never among them, it's more consistently a fear of failure or a fear of his own worst nature coming to the forefront (in a way, the only thing he really fears is himself). But when it comes to death?

He's been canonically described as a daredevil who welcomes danger (usually by laughing), and he seems to treasure the idea of dying for the sake of something, of getting to go out while fighting and taking a bigger monster out with him.

SHADOW: Cain, that vault door is six feet thick...and when it's shut this vault is absolutely airtight. Even you can die of suffocation. Sit down, Cain. You and The Shadow will be here a long time...forever.

CAIN: I don't believe you! You wouldn't make this insane sacrifice just to kill me.

SHADOW: The Shadow has spent a lifetime fighting crime. There could be no better death for The Shadow than this. I will take with me the greatest archcriminal of all time - The Immortal Murderer

Looking at it from a general perspective, the fact that every Shadow story that makes him immortal usually exaggerates his worst and most toxic traits. even starts to have some grounding to it. Because these are stories that happen past the point where The Shadow would have been allowed death, the death that every human, every warrior, every hero, must be allowed to have. You know how that "you either die a hero" line goes. Well, what happens when your hero, who's already skirting pretty damn close to villainy as is, isn't allowed to die at all? Worse, isn't even allowed to change with the times?

Not that this justifies those stories or how badly they mangle The Shadow's character (because they always come from the idea that he's always been the sadistic jerk they make him into), and I'm definitely not stating that "immortal Shadow" stories have to revolve around the deterioration of his persona (I'm partial to ghost teacher Shadow myself), but the idea is there.

This is part of why my stance on this question changed from "well, yeah maybe that could be a fun story to tell" to "actually, yes, we need a Death of The Shadow story, and it has to be done very well and done to a version that's written in-character, and I don't currently trust anyone to write this story the way it needs to be told. I don't trust myself to fully deliver on this premise either, but it's a necessary idea that's been long overdue."

So, yes, I definitely think The Shadow could, and should, have an end. I definitely think it's something that should be considered by anyone who wants to write the character.

[arthur-rex]

The Knights of Albion ( modern rock star verse plot/ideas )

NOTE: This is now a closed verse with @sorceress-queen​ (morgana) @thelegendofemrys​ (merlin) and @nobilitydefined​ (gwaine)

1500 years after the events of BBC’s Merlin, Arthur, Gwen, Morgana and the knights are reincarnated in the present day.

Arthur is an aspiring musician, singer and songwriter. While at college, he meets Gwaine, Percival, Leon and Elyan. Strangely drawn to each other, they begin to pitch music ideas back and forth and together, they eventually form the rock band: “The Knights of Albion.” 

Arthur is the singer/songwriter and lead guitarist. Gwaine is the drummer. Percival plays bass guitar. Leon plays keyboard and Elyan mixes the sounds and occasionally provides backing vocals.

Elyan’s younger sister, Gwen often comes to visit to see the band practicing and is a close friend of Arthur’s. In some versions of this verse they become lovers. 

Not long after the band’s formation, recent PR graduate Morgana joins the team as the band’s publicist/manager. She sees potential in Arthur’s music and thinks she knows how to make the band truly become famous.

A few years later, Arthur and his ‘knights’ secure a breakthrough: they are going to play as a supporting act at the world-famous Glastonbury music festival.

The performance goes off incredibly well. Live recordings of the concert mean that Arthur and his rock band become a musical sensation almost overnight and Morgana becomes extremely busy with bookings for future performances all over the world.

And Merlin was present at the Glastonbury concert. 

He’s been following the band in the newspapers for some time, but this is the first chance he gets to meet Arthur face-to-face. It’s been so long since he last saw his friends and to see all of them on that stage together is overwhelming.

So after the concert, Merlin lines up with all the other screaming/adoring fans for an autograph and photo with the group. Arthur sees Merlin and... hesitates. He’s been getting these weird hallucinations of his former life for a few months now and the sight of Merlin makes him start to have even more vivid episodes. Confused and alarmed, he walks away from Merlin and the rest of the waiting/disappointed fans.

Merlin knows he’s going to need to get close to Arthur again. The thing with reincarnation magic is it needs an anchor-point in order for the memories to be returned. The closer Merlin comes to Arthur, the more extreme Arthur’s memories become. But to Arthur, he just thinks he’s losing his mind, and that worries him as it’s not as if he and his bandmates haven’t taken a few hard drugs while playing music on the road from time to time.

The weeks that follow involve Merlin trying to get close to Arthur again, but unfortunately for Merlin it comes across as though Arthur has got himself a very creepy obsessive fan. Even Gwaine starts to joke/remark half-seriously whether this is an ex-boyfriend that Arthur’s neglected to tell his bandmates about.

Eventually Merlin gets his moment with Arthur (not sure if this is due to a breach in security or Arthur willingly goes to him) and Merlin gets extremely close and places his hands on Arthur’s head. He’s speaking in an very ancient language to tap into the old Arthur within the reincarnated one. The last thing he says to calm Arthur down is “stay with me” ( the last thing Arthur heard before he died in the BBC series ) and then he presses his forehead against Arthur’s and all the memories come back.

Needless to say, this is a head trip the likes of which no drugs can match. Arthur is back with all his old memories of who he was and is, and Merlin is right there with him. It’s a poignant moment.

They go back to join up with the others and Arthur repeats the trick that Merlin did with him. By fully integrating with his old self, Arthur is able to reawaken the memories in his reincarnated bandmates by touch alone. The ‘bond’ that drew them all together at the start is steeped in a magic that Arthur is now a part of. The Knights of Albion are back. Returning Morgana’s memories is a tricky case as it is not certain whether she will be volatile like she was before she died in her past life. She might also come back into her old powers which could make her a risk. But I think, eventually, Arthur takes the chance and brings her over too. 

What next? Arthur asks Merlin this question seriously. What can they do to restore magic, peace and prosperity to Albion/England, now Arthur is no longer a king and the world has moved on from the feudal system of the past. Merlin replies that they have their music, their fame, their global influence to make a difference.

The following albums the band produce therefore have songs with lyrics that are rather political: pro-peace, pro-LGBT rights, anti-war, anti-fascism, etc etc. 

Due to the enduring popularity of the band, these viewpoints eventually make headway with politicians and law-makers around the world. Maybe Arthur and the group are invited to play for special pro-bono concerts for charity causes (Band Aid?) and they are often featured in influential celebrity columns.

Of course, not everyone is happy/enamoured with Arthur and his rock band. The political opinions expressed in his music lead to the group getting the occasional death threats. Merlin (and Morgana?) continue to use their magic to keep Arthur and the band members safe... but it could be a matter of time before another tragedy occurs.

(I’m thinking of the popularity of John Lennon before he was assassinated). 

BONUS / EXTRA:

Lancelot is not part of the original line-up of the band, but becomes the replacement bassist / rhythm guitarist when Percival gets sick from taking too many ‘special’ pills and has to go into rehab for a while.

Mordred is a rival rock star and singer/songwriter to Arthur and they clash perhaps at a few gigs over the years. Arthur vaguely remembers Mordred from his early college days, but they were on good terms then. 

Uther (Arthur’s deadbeat dad who he refuses to restore the memories to) decides to show up at some point to ask his famous son for money. He’s had a drinking problem ever since his wife died giving birth to Arthur and Uther left the hospital, not wanting to have anything to do with his son. He’s never appreciated Arthur and is disgusted by his son’s bisexuality.

[supercalvin]

There are few fic writers that have the talent, patience, understanding, and dedication to write heartfelt, emotional, accurate, gut-wrenching, amazing stories, but you are certainly one of them. I've been reading your fics on AO3 for the last 3 days straight and I'm nearly done. At first I wanted to tell you which were my favorites before I realized that ALL of them were. I'm ecstatic that I discovered your incredible writing. If I may, could I ask for a continuation of the farmer ficlet?

Can I just say that this was such a sweet sweet sweet message @daesmilewings  and I’m so sorry for the delay!! I hope I can make up for it with this ficlet! 

FARMER FICLET PART 1

Prompts + Ficlets

***

The only reason Merlin slept the rest of the night was because Gaius gave him a sleeping draught. He woke late and ran to get Arthur’s breakfast on time, but at least he was rested.

Arthur looked like he was about to yell at Merlin for being late, but he must have taken pity on Merlin for once, and didn’t say anything.

He went through the day in a haze, his mind continually going back to the farm in his dream and Arthur’s arm around him. Arthur kept glancing at him like he thought Merlin might keel over. Merlin excused himself more than once that day to find a chore on the other side of the citadel. 

That night he dreamt of Ealdor. He dreamt of Balinor and his mother. There was a small boy with dark hair running around Hunith’s feet, running into Balinor’s arms. Merlin startled awake, not sure whether guilt or sorrow was filling him more.

It was still early morning, but Merlin didn’t dare go back to sleep. 

The stables were quiet at this time. Merlin hushed Llamrei as he woke him, petting his nose with a gentle hand. “Come on, boy. Let’s go.”

Merlin rode out into the woods at a quick pace, hoping he could find the Druids’ camp before day break.

 ***

“Where have you been?”

Merlin had barely stepped into the royal stables, guiding Llamrei back into his stall, before Arthur was at his side.

“And with my horse too.” Arthur crossed his arms.

“Llamrei likes me better,” Merlin’s point was proven when Llamrei affectionately bumped his head against his chest.

“You run off without telling Gaius where you went. And I didn’t give you the day off. You could have been lying in a ditch for all I knew.”

Merlin didn’t look at Arthur as he fed Llamrei an apple, feeling something warm settle in his chest, knowing Arthur’s anger only came from concern.

“I’m sorry.” Merlin said, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Arthur opened his mouth then snapped it shut. “What is with you?” Arthur narrowed his eyes, “Gaius was oddly cagey this afternoon and you barely said a word to me yesterday.”

Merlin looked around as he brushed Llamrei’s mane.

“Is it…?” Arthur raised a brow, making a gesture which Merlin assumed meant magic.

Merlin nodded.

“We’ll talk tonight. Don’t think you’re getting out of it, either,” Arthur snapped, before striding off. 

***

That evening, Merlin barely closed the chamber doors behind himself before Arthur said, “Out with it.”

Merlin sighed, setting down the wine pitcher and Arthur’s dinner. He poured Arthur’s goblet, “I’ve been having visions.”

“What?” Arthur looked like he was about to bolt out of his chair.

Merlin held up his hand, “I don’t have the Sight. They aren’t nightmares either. I went to the Druids today to see what they knew about it.”

“Why didn’t you-“ Arthur’s question was cut off, as it often was with that question. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ had been a bit of a sore point over the last year. Merlin had urged that he hadn’t wanted Arthur to decide between his father’s laws and Merlin, but Arthur still believed Merlin had lied because he had thought Arthur would kill him. 

Arthur sighed, “How long has this been going on?”

“Only a few days,” Merlin said. “I didn’t even know they were visions until night before last.”

“What happened? If they aren’t visions of the future, then what are they?”

“They’re impossible futures,” Merlin said, not looking Arthur in the eye, “Things that people desire most, but will never be possible…”

Arthur frowned, “What did you see?”

“Morgana on the throne.”

Arthur nodded, his frown deepening. “That’s all?”

“I saw Gwen with Lancelot…”

Arthur flinched, and Merlin didn’t blame him. He and Gwen hadn’t been in a relationship for a few years now, but thinking of Lancelot’s sacrifice at the Door still hurt all of them.

“Gaius dreamt of peace with…. Well, she’s no longer living.” Merlin said.

“Who else did you see?”

“No one,” Merlin said. He had promised Arthur no more lying, but some lies were necessary.

“Can you stop it?”

Merlin nodded, “The druids said it was a type of magic that happens sometimes to those with powerful magic. They cast a charm they said should keep it from happening again.”

Arthur nodded, looking uncomfortable but pleased that it was at least being handled.

“Did you see your own impossible dream?”

Merlin hadn’t thought of it. He had been so wrapped up in Arthur’s, that he hadn’t even wondered what he would want. There were so many things he wished he had done differently. He understood that circumstances were out of his control, but that was what made it an impossible dream. But his true dream was still possible. To have an untied Albion, to have magic return to the land…and to be by Arthur’s side.

And Merlin suddenly realized Morgana's dream wasn’t his first vision. The night before, he had dreamt of Albion. He had been confused by the dream, but that was hardly odd, considering all dreams were irrational. There had been a feast, and he was sitting at Arthur’s side. Lancelot was there next to Gwaine and Percival. Gwen was seated down the line, next to Morgana, who had looked younger and happier than she had in years. Balinor had been sitting at the visiting dignitary’s table, a little white dragon draped across his shoulders. The dream wasn’t a memory. How could it have been? Balinor had died far before he reached Camelot. Morgana was young, not broken by her grief and pain. It was as if several versions of Merlin’s life had been jumbled together.

Merlin remembered he had drunk the mulled wine, not even thinking about the fact that he was sitting next to Arthur instead of serving him.

The dream had faded in and out, but it had been oddly real, just like the other visions. Merlin remembered Arthur taking his hand and leading him to the royal chambers. He had pressed Merlin up against the door, and kissed him thoroughly, as if he had been waiting all night for it.

Merlin had woken, not thinking anything of it. The feast was odd, and strangely real, but nothing too out of place for a dream. As for the kiss, Merlin certainly had had dreams like it before. He hadn’t even thought to connect it with any of the other visions.

“Merlin?”

Merlin was pulled from his thoughts by Arthur standing, “What is it?”

Merlin gave a weak smile, “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“You’re a terrible liar. How I never saw it before I’ll never know.”

Merlin sighed, “I just… I just realized that I had seen my own vision. I just hadn’t realized it.”

“What was it?”

Merlin looked away, “A feast. With everyone there.”

“Everyone?” Arthur paused and then said, “Ah. I see.”

Arthur crossed his arms, “You saw a vision of my impossible future, didn’t you? It’s why you’ve been so quiet the last few days.”

“I…” Merlin sighed and gave up on the lie. “I didn’t want you to worry about it.”

“Was it that bad that you had to hide it from me?”

“No, of course not, don’t be absurd.” Arthur was still frowning and Merlin sighed, “It’s going to bother you, isn’t it?”

“Well it obviously bothered you.” Arthur snapped, “You’ve been avoiding me for days.”

Merlin winced, “It’s not bad.”

“Well?” Arthur said impatiently.

“You were living on a farm,” Merlin said reluctantly.

“A farm,” Arthur’s brow furrowed, “Are you sure it was my vision?”

“You were the only one there. There were wheat fields and a vegetable garden. You had just fed the chickens, of all things” Merlin laughed and realized he was starting to sound too fond. He coughed, “Anyways, you wanted me to make rabbit stew and that was it. Nothing bad.”

“You were there?” Arthur asked, looking much paler, as if he just realized something.

Merlin mentally cursed himself, “I mean, obviously. I was there. You obviously need someone to do all the real work,” Merlin gave a nervous laugh.

Arthur looked at him for a long moment and Merlin tried not to fidget.

“You know, don’t you?”

“Know what?” Merlin asked far too quickly.

“Merlin, don’t play with me. You saw.  You saw what I want.”

Merlin swallowed, fiddling with his own sleeve, tugging on a loose thread. “You know, in all the visions, no one had ever interacted with me. I was like a ghost watching from the outside. But then you turned up, hands covered in dirt, pulling me along to look at some lavender bush that we had been fighting about because even in your dreams Arthur, we still fight.”

Arthur looked embarrassed, his red rising up his neck and ears.

Merlin thought of how impossible that dream was. How Arthur could never have it. “I’m sorry things can’t be that simple.”

Arthur looked away, “No. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have had to see that. To be forced into my dream. I understand if you would like some distance.”

“What?”

“I didn’t have control over the dream, obviously, but I hope I conducted myself well.” Arthur’s face was becoming redder.

“You don’t care if you conduct yourself well with me in person, let alone a dream, what are you talking about?”

Arthur nodded, “Good, so I didn’t…Good.”

Merlin realized Arthur thought he had pushed himself upon Merlin in the vision. If only he knew what Merlin’s vision had been.

“Arthur, I didn’t mean… Arthur that’s not why I’m sorry.” Merlin stepped forward and tried to catch Arthur’s eye. “I’m sorry that as King you’ve had to sacrifice so much.  I would give anything to see you as happy as you were when you showed me that damned lavender plant. I’m sorry that your vision was just you being...”

“What?”

Merlin smiled, “Happy.”

Arthur looked away again.

“Arthur, look at me,” Merlin reached out, tilting Arthur’s chin toward him, locking eyes with Arthur’s. There was a sadness in them that Merlin never wanted to see again. “Every fiber of my being would give that to you, if I could. I would give anything to see you happy. I wish our lives could be like that simple farm. I wish we could spend our days in that bed.”

Arthur looked amazed, his mouth open and his wet eyes wide.

“In my vision, you dragged me to your chambers and you pressed me up against those doors,” Merlin nodded behind himself, “You’re not the only one with impossible dreams, Arthur-”

Merlin didn’t get a chance to finish. Arthur was grabbing Merlin's face in both hands, his lips clumsily pressing into Merlin’s. His teeth nipped at Merlin’s lips, and Merlin grabbed onto Arthur’s cape, desperate to stay upright as Arthur dragged him backwards. Merlin stumbled and realized Arthur had walked him backwards until he was up against the very doors he had dreamed about.

Arthur panted against Merlin’s lips. 

“Like that?”

Merlin nodded, looking up at Arthur’s eyes, “Yeah.”

Merlin threaded his fingers into Arthur’s hair and pulled him in again.

“I couldn’t give a damn about the farm,” Arthur said roughly against Merlin’s lips, his teeth dragging down to Merlin’s chin and jaw, “Being King comes with sacrifices.” He pressed his lips to Merlin’s earlobe, sinking down to press a soft kiss to Merlin’s neck, before tilting his head up to look at Merlin again, “The only thing I want is to have you by my side.”

“Then you have me,” Merlin said and let Arthur kiss him until he couldn’t think any longer.

***

(PART 1 in case you missed it lol)

Prompts + Ficlets

[goodshipsherlollipop]

Self-interview (but not really) Part 2

Thanks again @sherlollyappreciationweek

Comp1mom

Q: What made you decide to create a “Christian” version of Sherlock?  According to the BBC version, he is a self-avowed atheist.

A: When I look at Sherlock’s true nature, I see such potential for him as a Christian.  He exhibits so many characteristics that we, as Christians, try to show - forgiveness of wrongs done to him (note how he doesn’t fight back when John assaults him); sacrificial love (his willingness to die for others, as in TRF); the desire for true justice, the way Moriarty says he’s  “on the side of the angels”.  At least for me, I was intrigued by the idea of converting him to Christianity, to give him a true purpose for his life that has eternal consequences.  

Q: Do you think that portraying Sherlock as a Christian is important? Why or why not?

A: I am always hopeful that people will read and see the validity in my reasoning for him becoming a Christian, given how often he has escaped death.  Quite often, in stories, Molly puts the question to him - Why are you still here?  Why have you escaped death so many times?  That should be enough to make anyone reevaluate their life’s purpose.

Q: Molly Hooper is the one who proselytizes him, right? Why do you use Molly? Why not John, who must be a believer in Christ in some way or he would have had a problem with christening Rosie?

A: For me, it HAD to be Molly.  Her character and the way she behaves in the show is consistent with the behaviour of a Christian.  She loves Sherlock unconditionally; she sees beyond the detective persona to the real man beneath.  She needs to be the catalyst for Sherlock to be open to the idea of Christianity, because he loves and trusts her.  John, although he certainly believes in God and has some Christian (or Catholic in my story canon) background, does not live a life that is consistent with Christianity and its ideals.  He has multiple sexual partners.  Although I think he is an ethical man, I don’t believe he has the kind of sexual morality that is typical of committed Christians. Identifying yourself as a Christian because you were raised in a Christian home and went to church, does not make you one if you display behaviour that is contrary to what the Bible teaches.  Either you’re committed to what you believe and try to follow what the Bible teaches, or you are not really committed to your faith, (not that Christians are perfect - far from it, but we do try to follow what the Bible teaches, and we feel guilt when we fail).  There’s a difference between being a Jesus fan and a Jesus follower.

Q: What evidence does Molly use to convince Sherlock of a Higher Power?

A:  In various stories, Molly points out the beauty and balance of creation, that it does not make sense for that balance to have occurred spontaneously.  She also points out the complexity of the human body and how it is built with all its systems designed to work in harmony.  Personally, I believe these two facts are huge considerations, and that it takes far less of a leap in logic to believe something created this beauty, rather than it happening spontaneously.  Molly also points out the fact that Sherlock has been spared from death so many times and asks him to question why that is so, whether there is a higher purpose to his life because of that.  

Q: How do you maintain Sherlock’s acerbic wit and still have him believe that Jesus Christ is more than a swear, is a deity, the Deity?

A:  I try to show that Sherlock is not the “perfect” Christian.  He has many years of conditioning in one type of behaviour, and that is something that is going to come out from time to time. I don’t find it as difficult to write him as someone who does not use the name of Jesus Christ in a profane way, because he doesn't talk that way in the show (unlike John). Personally, I am also not comfortable in writing (or reading) stories that use the name of Jesus Christ as an expletive.

Q: What does belief in Jesus Christ do for his detective work? Or does it influence his detective work?

A: Oh, I definitely think his faith adds an element of compassion to Sherlock’s detective work.  He is no longer answerable only to himself, but he is trying to behave in a way that displays his faith and pleases God.  That means thinking before he speaks, caring about the people involved in the case, rather than just the case itself. His motives, to glorify God in his work, are his priority.

Q: Is there any evidence in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s writing that Sherlock Holmes believes in Something Higher than himself?

A:  I absolutely believe ACD’s Sherlock believed in God, which is one of the reasons I felt it believable to change BBC Sherlock’s atheistic stance.  ACD’s Sherlock mentions Providence, as evidenced in this quote from The Naval Treaty.

“Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”

Also, in The Boscombe Valley Mystery, when Sherlock lets a dying killer go, he says, “You are yourself aware that you will soon have to answer for your deed at a higher court than the Assizes.” This implies God will judge the man after he dies.

Penelope Chestnut

Q: How long have you written  Sherlolly stories? What made you start writing?

A: A dear friend of mine recommended watching Sherlock, and my husband and I binge watched it in the summer of 2017.  After the final episode, I was so sad that the Sherlock and Molly dynamic was not resolved, I was moved to write a happy ending for them.  My daughters have been involved in fanfiction for years, so I knew people did this kind of thing.  My intention was to write a one-shot happy ending for them, just for my own satisfaction.  After I wrote it, though, I found I didn't want to let the characters go.   I had fallen in love with their story, and I wanted to keep writing for them.  60 chapters later, I decided to start publishing my story, A Journey to Love, Faith and Marriage.  This was just over 3 years ago, on November 7th 2017,  when I joined fanfiction.net.  I later joined ao3 as well and was publishing on both sites for quite some time.  I've had a better response though on fanfiction.net, so have pretty much limited myself to that site over the past year and a half.  I continue to make revisions and correct errors on my fanfiction.net stories, while I don’t really do anything on ao3. I have been likened to a writing machine on a couple occasions.  To date, on fanfiction.net, I have published over 1.9m words.  Putting that in perspective, in three years I've published the equivalent of more than 7 volumes of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (the longest book in her series), or close to two and a half volumes of the Holy Bible.

Q: Do you have a certain routine you follow when you write?

A: I don’t have a set daily routine, but I do set myself a goal to complete a certain amount of work per week.  This has changed over time.  Currently, I set myself the goal to write at least one chapter of a story each week, to keep myself in line with my publishing schedule of one chapter per week.  If I am writing an installment for my COVID-19 series that is published in addition to my regular publishing schedule, I still try to write that in addition to my usual chapter writing for the week.  So, at times I write more in a week than other times. I am also working on revising one of my AU’s into a Christian historical romance I hope to publish professionally next year.  

Q: What is it like being a Christian author?

A: It brings me joy to spread a Christian message through my work, but, like anyone else, at times I do suffer self-doubt.  I've questioned in the past whether my limited audience makes worthwhile the enormous effort I put into writing these stories.  It can definitely be discouraging to get very little return on your work, and I have a bad habit of comparing myself to more “popular” writers in the fandom.  I am, however, getting better at recognizing my own self-worth, having confidence that the lack of readers is not a reflection on my ability and talent as a writer, but more a reflection on the general lack of interest from the majority of Sherlolly fans in reading stories with Christian themes and the values that go along with it (particularly sexual purity outside marriage). Just as I don’t care to read stories of characters with a colourful sexual history because I don’t agree with that kind of behaviour due to my Christian beliefs, I imagine those without similar beliefs are probably not interested in reading about sexual purity or abstinence before marriage, as it is not something they can relate to. Thankfully, I am blessed to have a small but vocal support group who really give me the impetus to keep writing these Christian stories.

Q: Are there any devices you use in your writing as a legally blind author?

A:  As I mentioned earlier, I absolutely would be lost without my iPad.  Actually, it is the larger sized iPad Pro.  I would also be lost without programs that give me the ability to resize the font so I can read it!  Thank God for technology!

If you made it to the end of this two-part interview, I hope you enjoyed getting to know my writing journey better.  God bless!

[papermoonloveslucy]

DINNER FOR TWELVE

October 14, 1950

“Dinner for Twelve” (aka “Liz Cooks Dinner for Twelve”) is episode #101 [some sources say #100] of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on October 14, 1950.

This was the sixth episode of the third season of MY FAVORITE HUSBAND. There were 31 new episodes, with the season ending on March 31, 1951.  

This episode was fully animated and can be found on Vimeo. It was created by Wayne Wilson in 2012. 

Synopsis ~ George has invited ten dinner guests on the maid’s day off and Liz is determined to prove to George's mother that she can prepare a dinner for twelve without any help.

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benaderet was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

MAIN CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his  roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Bea Benadaret (Iris Atterbury) was considered the front-runner to be cast as Ethel Mertz but when “I Love Lucy” was ready to start production she was already playing a similar role on TV’s “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” so Vivian Vance was cast instead. On “I Love Lucy” she was cast as Lucy Ricardo’s spinster neighbor, Miss Lewis, in “Lucy Plays Cupid” (ILL S1;E15) in early 1952. Later, she was a success in her own show, “Petticoat Junction” as Shady Rest Hotel proprietress Kate Bradley. She starred in the series until her death in 1968.

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz, a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96.

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

Gale Gordon (Rudolph Atterbury, George’s boss and Iris’s husband) does not appear in this episode, although the character is mentioned. 

GUEST CAST

Eleanor Audley (Leaticia Cooper, George’s Mother) previously played this character in “George is Messy” on June 14, 1950. She would later play Eleanor Spalding, owner of the Westport home the Ricardos buy in “Lucy Wants To Move to the Country” (ILL S6;E15) in 1957, as well as one of the Garden Club judges in “Lucy Raises Tulips” (ILL S6;E26).

Richard Crenna (Delivery Boy) would make his television debut with Lucille Ball as Arthur Morton in “The Young Fans” (ILL S1;E20). The character is virtually a carbon copy of Walter Denton, the role he played for four years on radio’s “Our Miss Brooks” starring Eve Arden. In 1952, Desilu brought the show to television where Crenna recreated his role. He later starred in Desilu’s “The Real McCoys.” He would become one of Hollywood’s busiest actors, starring in "Vega$” and Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo films. He died in 2003.

THE EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “In a little white two-story house located at 321 Bundy Drive in the bustling little suburb of Sheridan Falls, George Cooper is just leaving for the bank.” 

Before leaving for work, George breaks the news to Liz that his mother is coming to dinner that night. 

At the dinner table that evening, Mother Cooper (Eleanor Audley) is reminding her son to eat his spinach, thinking Liz is not feeding him properly.  George suddenly remembers that he’s invited the Atterbury’s and some out-of-town clients to dinner on Monday night - dinner for twelve. The only problem is, Katie is going away on vacation on Sunday, so Mother Cooper suggest Liz cook the dinner herself. 

Liz brags that she made the soufflé herself.  Mother Cooper insists that Liz give her the recipe - right now!  

LIZ: “Well, you just put all the cheese and things in a bowl. They you take a piece of ‘souff’ and put it on the top.”

Liz vows to cook dinner Monday night - all on her own. Monday morning, Liz cooks breakfast for George. The eggs are stone cold. Liz says she cooked them the night before and froze them to save time. 

In “Lucy’s Schedule” (ILL S1;E31), to save time, Lucy prepares Ricky’s breakfast the night before and freezes it. She serves him frozen fried egg, exactly what Liz served George two years earlier! 

Liz has invited Iris Atterbury over to help her cook the dinner for twelve. George leaves for work and the women repair to the kitchen to get a start on dinner. When Liz says she’s decided on chicken as the main course, Iris wonders assumes it will be broiled chicken. 

LIZ (indignant): “Please! Does Oscar of the Waldorf serve broiled chicken? We are having poulet almondine.” 

Oscar Tschirky (1866-1950) was a Swiss-American restaurateur who was maître d'hôtel of Delmonico's Restaurant and subsequently the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, New York, United States. He was widely known as "Oscar of the Waldorf" and published a large cookbook. He is credited with having created the Waldorf salad, and for aiding in the popularization of the Thousand Island dressing. He died three weeks after this episode aired.

Liz realizes that she needs mushrooms but that she doesn’t have any in the house. She wonders whether she can use the mushrooms growing in the backyard. Iris points out that they may be toadstools, which are poisonous. Liz decides to use walnuts instead. 

The girls peel onions for the dressing. They begin to tear-up from cutting the onions.  

LIZ (tearfully): “This is the best time I’ve had in ages!” IRIS (crying): “Me too!”

In “The Million Dollar Idea” (ILL S3;E13) in 1954, Lucy and Ethel were awash in tears when they peeled onions to make Aunt Martha’s Old Fashioned Salad Dressing. 

ANNOUNCER: “As we return to the Cooper’s it’s several hours later and we find the kitchen knee deep in dirty saucepans, greasy skillets, broken eggshells, and well-thumbed cookbooks. Surveying the wreckage are Liz and Iris Atterbury.” 

Iris wonders whether the chickens are ready to come out of the oven. Liz says she put them on at 9am at 600 degrees!  Iris points out that they were only supposed to cook at 300 degrees. 

LIZ: “I know but we have two chickens so I doubled it!” IRIS: “I never would have thought of that.”

They open the over and find their two chickens have burned to a crisp and resemble “two little lumps of charcoal with legs and wings”!  Just then, Mother Cooper arrives. 

Lucy burned two chickens in “The Matchmaker” (ILL S4;E4) when preparing dinner for Sam (the spider) and Dorothy (the fly) a dating couple Lucy hopes to lure into matrimonial bliss. 

Liz and Iris don’t tell Mother Cooper about the burned chickens. Chicken almandine is her favorite dish. She advises Liz on her cooking technique: 

MOTHER: “You just keep your eye on them until they’re a nice crinkly brown.” IRIS: “How about a nice crusty black?”

Mother Cooper discovers that Liz has burned the dinner. They trade insults and Mother storms out in a huff. Iris promises to help Liz cook a new dinner, but first she has to go to the beauty parlor to have her hair done. 

When Iris gets home from the beauty parlor she phones Liz to see how the dinner is going. Liz is dazed and confused. 

LIZ: “Iris, you are talking to a woman who’s gone through eight chickens today.”

Liz reports that the pressure cooker exploded and the chickens are still on the ceiling. 

When Lucy and Ethel are working at the chocolate factory in “Job Switching” (ILL S2;E1), Ricky and Fred are cooking dinner at home. Ricky puts two chickens in the pressure cooker, which explodes and strands the birds on the ceiling! 

Liz’s fifth and sixth birds were accidentally thrown in the garbage disposal. The seventh and eighth birds arrived from the butcher still alive!  Iris asks Liz if she has cooked them yet.

LIZ: “Cook ‘em? I can’t even catch ‘em! When last seen, seven and eight were going east on Bundy Drive.” IRIS: “You poor thing! Eight chickens and nothing to show for it!” LIZ: “Oh, yes I have. Before she left seven laid an egg on the kitchen table.”

Iris tells Liz everything will be alright. Just then, a delivery boy from Johnson’s Catering Service (Dick Crenna) arrives at the Cooper’s back door with a meal for twelve: Roast prime ribs of beef, green beans, potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding.  The meal was sent by Katie!   

Just as she is about to call Katie to thank her, the Delivery Boy returns with another catered dinner: Lobster Thermidor with French fries and asparagus. This meal was sent over by Iris! 

The Delivery Boy returns yet a third time!  This time with Pheasant under Glass sent by Mr. Atterbury!  Liz tips the boy with a bowl of Yorkshire pudding. 

Oops!  Yorkshire pudding is not served in a bowl. It is not a pudding in the American sense, but similar to pop-overs, designed to sop up the drippings and gravy when served with a roast beef. 

The phone rings and it is Mother Cooper telling Liz that she has made a dinner for twelve and will bring it over. Liz says thanks but no thanks, and invites her to make the dinner party 13. 

The phone rings once again - it is George. He has called to tell Liz that he has made a mistake. The dinner isn’t until next Monday night!  

LIZ: “Oh, no!”

Announcer Bob LeMond reminds listeners that Lucille Ball can currently be seen in The Fuller Brush Girl and that they can read about her in the current issue of Pageant Magazine. 

[titanias-stolen-shoes]

so this ended up being super long (2605 words) anyway it’s a good place au about ayda talking to the previous incarnations of her enjoy

read on ao3!

---

Ayda didn’t understand how it was possible for all of her past lives to be here. Because they were her as much as she was them, however different they grew to be. They were all the same Ayda Aguefort—but somehow, they were here.

When Ayda first arrived in the Good Place, there had been little more shocking than seeing herself sitting on one of the couches of the common area. She didn’t look exactly like her what with her having a beak and no wings. But there was still the same strong resemblance to Arthur in her strong jaw and steely black eyes that she saw when looking in the mirror.

This version of her looked up from her novel and smiled, launching herself at Ayda in a hug. She was stiff in the woman’s arms, not knowing what to do or say.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” The other Ayda pulled away with her apology, hands still resting on Ayda’s shoulders. “You probably think I’m weird.”

“No. I think you are very forward.”

She laughed. “You wouldn’t be the first to say that. I’m Ayda Aguefort, but I’m sure you knew that.” She gave a small curtsey. “You can call me Nix though. I’m the one right before you.”

“Did you change your name to Nix?”

“Oh, no. It’s just a nickname Rawlins gave me since we’re half phoenix. It ended up taking so it’s what I go by now. Convenient for us, huh.”

“Quite. May we sit and continue talking?”

“Oh, of course. You can come to my room and we can chat about everything I’ve missed.” Together they walked through a door, just a random door it seemed, and walked into what looked like her room at the Compass Points Library. It was messier than she had left it—books were in haphazard piles around the room, pictures lined the walls but placed with no rhyme or reason. It was bright and airy and made Ayda realized she missed it more than realized. She sat at the desk, looking at the knickknacks that littered the surface.

Nix bounced onto the bed and crossed her legs, leaning forward. “So. How do you wanna do this? I ask all my questions and then you ask all yours? We ask one back and forth?”

“I would like to ask one and then you ask so it remains equal.”

“Sounds good. Since you already ask one—my name, yeah?—I’ll go first. How’s Garthy doing?”

“They’re doing fine. When I last spoke to them, business was booming and they were quite happy with their life.”

“Really?” The smile on her face was one of contentment Ayda had seen so few times, she almost couldn’t place it. “That’s wonderful to hear. I always worried they’d get themself in trouble one of these days. Though I’m sure they already have!” Nix laughed. “Your turn.”

“Did you add the expansion of the Friendship section in Compass Points?”

“I did! There were so many pirates that would come looking for ways to cheer up their friends, but they didn’t know where to start. I would give them as much advice as I could, but I can only do so much on my own. It was fun to put together and something I worked on the most.”

Ayda smiled, remembering the rough and tumble pirates that would come in looking for a way to help their friends.

For hours, they say in Nix’s room just talking. Talking about Nix’s life and Ayda’s life and the similarities between. They talked about the Good Place and how it came to be and how ‘the six kids who changed the system are all still around if you want to ask them anything’.

It was a long time before Ayda took a breath and said, “Do you know about the iteration of us that burned the journals?”

Nix’s smile dipped for a moment and she tilted her head to the side, hair falling off her shoulder. “Yeah, I know her. She goes by Red. It took a long time and a lot of talks for me to forgive her for what she did and honestly it still hurts sometimes when I think about it. There’s this whole section of our life that we just don’t know about. I didn’t realize how old we were until I died.”

“Yes, I am very angry with her. She made a decision that the rest of us weren’t there to decide. Because of her, I didn’t understand why Arthur was never around. Why he was so powerful and so affluent and yet he never even looked at me. How could I forgive her for that?”

Nix shrugged. “I just know I found a way to forgive her. Maybe you can too, but I… I was never that angry in life. I accepted that Arthur either didn’t want me or didn’t care and I found happiness without him. I found happiness in the Compass Points and in raising Garthy. I know you’re young and you wanted him to be there, but now you have the benefit of knowing why he wasn’t there.”

“It was Red’s fault that he wasn’t there. She didn’t even write down why he wouldn’t come around.”

“I know, sweetheart. Maybe if you talk to her, you’ll know.”

“Perhaps. But I will talk to her on my own time.”

---

Ayda had traveled around the Good Place in search of the six who had changed the after-life system. She questioned them as much as they would allow. At first, she found their rowdiness a little bothersome—they were all doing so much it was hard for her to keep up. But upon spending more time with them, and learning more about them individually, she grew to really like them.

Adaine was the first to call her a friend. The first of her many transitive friends to do so. She was kind and powerful—a wonderful person to be her first friend her age. It didn’t take long for the rest of the “Bad Kids”, as they called themselves, to reaffirm her feeling of friendship. She enjoyed their company dearly and enjoyed their advice just as much.

Gorgug was sitting in the common area when Ayda asked for his. “Are you busy? I require your advice.”

He sat up, folding one leg beneath him. “No, I was just sitting here. What’s up?”

“How did you forgive Aelwen for what she did to your girlfriend Zelda?”

His relaxed demeanor shifted, and Ayda could barely tell he was more alert than before. “Oh, uh, well, I tried to put myself in her position. Imagine what it would be like if had grown up the way she had. I know from the fights that we had and from talking to Adaine, and eventually Aelwen, what it was like to grow up the way she did. It was hard and she made some bad decisions. It was easier to forgive her once I understood her.”

“I see.” Ayda sat quietly for a moment. “What if… What if I’m still angry with her after I understand her?”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to forgive someone just because they apologize or you understand them. They hurt you and how you feel about them is valid. It’s up to you whether you forgive them or not.”

“Thank you, Gorgug. It means more than I can articulate that you would give me advice on such a subject. I will see you at the show tonight.”

“It’s no problem. And Fig saved you a seat in the front.”

Ayda’s flame glowed just a little brighter upon hearing Fig’s name as she set off to find Red.

She hesitated for a moment, then knocked on the door. She waited, thinking once again about how odd it was that any door would lead her to where she wanted to be. The door she was at was just a door from the common area, yet it would take her to where she wanted to go. It was the one of the things she would always have to remind herself—

A soft, “Come in!” made her stomach lurch as her thoughts were interrupted. She took a steadying breath, glanced back at Gorgug who gave her a big smile and thumbs up, then opened the door.

Red’s room was, like Nix and herself, was of the Compass Points room they’d all once inhabited. Red wasn’t disorganized like Nix, but it wasn’t as neatly organized as Ayda’s. The walls, unlike the bright white of Nix’s room or the pale blue of her own, Red’s was a harsh mash up of red and yellow stripes that hurt to look at.

Red was sitting on her desk chair, one leg up, her chin resting on her knee, twirling a pen between her fingers. When she swiveled in her chair, Ayda was taken aback by just how much this iteration looked like her. The same talons and wings and flaming feathers by her ears. The biggest difference were Red’s bright orange eyes.

“Oh!” She smiled. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. I’m Red.”

“I know.” Ayda stood by the door, shifting her weight as she took in her doppelganger. “I’m Ayda. The most recent incarnation. I’m still angry with you, but I want to understand why you chose to meddle in the lives of those after you.”

“Oh, uh, well, I…” She trailed off, clearly unsure of what to say next.

“Because you burned up our notes and left the rest of us clueless about our own lives. We didn’t even know our father because you didn’t deem it fit to include in your notes.”

Red sighed, leaning heavily on her desk. “We spent lifetimes, and I mean lifetimes, barely doing anything in fear of messing up for the next in line. I was overly careful, and cautious to a fault. I did everything right, but I was unhappy. Actually, I was completely miserable. I didn’t want to do anything and I didn’t understand why that was. What I wanted was out of reach and I did everything I could to reach it.”

“You must have known that your actions would have consequences.”

“I didn’t care about them.” Her answer was quick as she took in a sharp breath. “I didn’t care what would happen so long as I got what I wanted. And I did. For a bit.”

Ayda leaned against the door, wondering how Nix ever managed to forgive her when she was like this.

She smiled, but there was something off about it. It wasn’t happy. “I traveled the world and got into fights and got stronger and did everything I wanted. I did it all and it ended faster than I would have liked. A few decades later and I had nothing I wanted to do. I was unhappy again and all that traveling meant almost nothing. It was a nice escape. When I realized this, I was in Leviathan. The floating pirate island that had no real fixed point. And then it hit me: I wanted roots in something more permanent. Compass Points isn’t that old because when I started building it, I was well into my sixties.

“Once it got going, I was happy. Maybe for the first time in my life, I was really and truly happy. And with old age, comes a lot of understanding. When I started the library, I started writing again, keeping notes for the next one of us.”

A heavy silence started to fill the space between them as Ayda absorbed the information. She went over her words, trying to find something she could relate to, something she understand.

She spoke slowly, as she gathered her thoughts. “You made a decision that would affect possibly hundreds of future iterations on a whim that ultimately didn’t make you happy… because you are rude and selfish.”

“Hey!” Red stood, and Ayda felt odd, watching her own face contort into a sneer from across the room. “I did what I had to in order for me to be happy. I’m sick and tired of you all barging in here and being mad at me for something any of us could have done. I made a mistake and that’s all there is to it.”

“Please do not yell at me.” Ayda pressed herself firmly against the wall. She wanted to leave, but there was more that she needed to say. “There are different degrees of mistakes, Red. And your mistake it… it hurt us. That’s what it means when we are angry with you. I grew up not understanding why our father didn’t love me. I didn’t know and I was always too afraid to ask him myself. I would have had that relationship if you hadn’t burned those notes.”

“It’s been so long,” Red sighed, rubbing her temples. “It’s been decades, why is this still such a problem. You figured it out, so the next incarnation will have that relationship.”

“And I’m very happy for her, and will continue to be happy for her, but this wasn’t decades for me. It was up until a year before my death. Only sixteen years for me.”

The flames of Red’s wings got brighter as they fluttered in irritation. “Yes but think about it from my position. It’s been over a century of—”

“I don’t want to.” Ayda said, standing up straight. She usually never interrupted when people spoke because she hated when people did that to her, but right now she couldn’t stand the thought of hearing Red say another word. “I don’t want to think about it from your position because you wouldn’t do me the same courtesy. You’ve yelled at me and made me feel like my feelings weren’t worth consideration. That’s not how I learned this was supposed to work. Goodbye, Red.”

Ayda turned and left without saying another word.

---

Nix stood next to Ayda at Fig’s concert, bouncing on her toes. “I’ve never gotten to get this close before,” she said, smiling. “It’s a good thing I don’t need to worry about my ears hurting in the morning.”

“Yes, it’s good.”

She stopped bouncing for a moment and turned to face Ayda as the lights started to dim. “I heard through the Ayda grapevine you were talking to Red.”

“The Ayda grapevine?”

“Another Ayda told me.”

“Oh. Right. Yes, I did talk to her.”

“How did it go?”

“I tried to understand her and I couldn’t. I don’t want to sound vain, but I don’t think I would ever be so selfish with our lives, so I don’t understand how she could be.”

Nix looked at the stage, shadowed figures moving around. Ayda quickly locked onto Fig, knowing her horns and bright feather earing anywhere. “That’s fair. Like I said, it took me a very long time to forgive her.” She elbowed Ayda gently and smiled again. “Well, let’s not talk about her right now. The show’s about to start.”

The lights of the stage blinked on and there was Fig, bass resting in her hands, mic pressed to her honey soft lips, and eyes so beautiful Ayda could spend a lifetime falling into her gentle pools of starlight.

Ayda couldn’t understand how Red could live so long and never find happiness. In Leviathan there was happiness in being raised by Garthy and happiness in building up Compass Points. And now, here in the Good Place, there was happiness in her friendships with the Bad Kids and in her paramour. There was happiness everywhere. Red just didn’t know where to look.

---

just tagging the people who liked my post here we go: @allsevenmaidens @peach-colored-sun @figueroth-fig-faeth @shitposb @aberfaeth @thenextgirlwaiting @cdragontogacotar @wonderfulobsessions @gabrismella-eve @lightspeed777 @baddialogue @natheere711

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep21: Duke Puts on Duel Disk, Immediately Takes Disk Off

So last time we ended, Yugi and Tea were stranded in the middle of an ancient warfield that was hundreds of feet off the side of this cliff topped with a seldom used railroad track.

And yes, this is all somewhere in what should be one of the most populated parts of the Bay Area.

Amazed that this school uniform can go through such rugged terrain. But then again, last season it got hit squarely with a fireball, so...this school uniform is essentially a Batman suit.

But I just want to point out that Yugi didn’t take the duel disk off before vaulting up this cliff. Tea has a bag youknow...but gotta sweat up the duel disk that our entire world relies on.

It would be very funny if this season ended abruptly because Yami either dropped this thing on the ground and finally broke it, or just plain forgot he needed to charge it’s batteries.

And so now we just walk...kind of in the direction where they hope Joey and Tristan are?

I do appreciate that although Pharaoh is completely lost in a foreign country, he will not admit it.

(read more under the cut)

On the other side of the tracks, Joey is dragging his Sisyphean stone.

Please admire that this entire scene takes place somewhere in the Grand Canyon. Like it’s episode 20 and I just still can’t get past how they went to California and didn’t include a single beach.

Mai has decided she’s done screaming off the back of a motorcyle, and has decided to come over to Dartz’ lair to scream where the traffic isn’t quite so bad.

And she just rage quits.

Is this the first rage quit we’ve ever had in this show about games? Incredible.

Also, I didn’t realize you could just quit the end of the world cult in the final hours of ending the world, but I guess it doesn’t really matter much to Dartz. Whether Mai ends up killing Joey or doesn’t end up killing Joey, it’s still a soul in the Leviathan bucket so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now, in the actual dialogue of the show, Dartz tells Valon that Mai’s basically going to get what she deserves and no one here needs to even do anything to change or stop it. But, it was still somewhat surprising that this 10,000 year old serial murderer world destroyer was so down to shell out some relationship advice. Almost like maybe he has somewhat of a fatherly concern for his stupid ass murder boys. Kind of. Sort of.

Enough to try and tell Valon to leave this one alone because she’s gone maniacal pixie dream girl and there’s no coming back from that.

In order to have motorcycle gangs, you have to have bearable enough traffic for said gangs. That’s why we just don’t have a motorcycle gang problem in real deal California like a lot of 70′s-80′s movies would have you think. They’d only be able to drive in like...one lane, and they’d get constantly cut off and driven off the road by Google buses.

TBH the Google bus is our true modern motorcycle gang, there are just so many of these damn buses. And also, I deleted a lot of text right now when I went off about the ongoing bus war, which is absolutely a thing here. The motorcyclists are just doing me a solid by not being a car on the road and staying out of my lane.

In a more realistic version of this show, Mai would have never made it to the desert, she’d be too busy watching only one single car able to turn right onto Octavia every light cycle because of all the damn private buses and uber cars flooding our itty bitty one way streets.

And to try and tame Mai, Valon decides to do this...motorcycle stand off?

It’s like he’s trying to catch a feral cat.

At some point one of them stops, and like I was focused too much on how good their brakes are to pay attention to who stopped first.

Probably Valon, because Mai is completely insane.

And so then he just...

Y’all I know they had to give Valon motivation to be in love with Mai, but this kids show jumped through so many hoops to make this very unhealthy relationship appear like Valons love was pure and true while still showing that this is a very unhealthy relationship. Kind of a hard balance.

It’s actually interesting how much work they put into Valon’s very tragic and problematic relationship after they’ve dodged every other problematic relationship this show has brought forth.

Like the villain with a heart of gold is a trope, but it’s a trope that works. There is no hope in the world that this relationship could pan out. They’re not a misunderstood pair like he thinks they are. They’re freakin terrible and they don’t deserve each other. But he’s gonna try and do it anyway.

We get to watch Valon bargain (mostly with himself) about how this relationship (which exists mostly in his head) is going to absolutely work out, because to him, if he feels so intensely, eventually she’s gotta feel the same. Most people haven’t murdered people, but it’s still a very relatable type of situation that the show displays without getting too preachy about how it’s clearly bad news. They just introduce it for the audience to come to their own conclusions, and I was really surprised by that level of maturity.

I’ve been sitting here saying “There’s no way this show could balance Tea with Yugi and the Ghost in his head. There’s no way they can really touch on Kaiba and that paper card. There’s no way that this show knows how to do a relationship because they don’t want to get involved with that weird gray area.” and you know what? Maybe they can.

Like they’re doing it right now. Did they just need 4 seasons of people complaining to go “Fine! I’ll write out the problematic relationship! I’ll do it!” because--this works for them. They finally did it.

Now, I’m not saying it’s Oscar worthy or developed beyond a trope, I’m just saying I’m genuinely surprised to see it on this show, and they should have done it more often. It’s a super weird pairing, but way more interesting than like...all that time we spent with Serenity because I actually have something to look forward to. (which will be when Valon inevitably dies in a ball of tragic glory)

So many romance stories give me nothing to look forward to, y’all. You have to give me something. Like, I’ve been reading a lot of not great romance in my life, and you have to have some sort of time limit in place for me to care about your couple. To have only have so much time before the other person gets married, moves, ends the world--I don't care--but man that time limit is crucial and so much romance just...forgets.

Like Bonnie and Clyde, Romeo and Juliet, and other ill fated couples, Valon and Mai end up being interesting because we just love seeing people fall into pieces. Hell, I just finished watching Tiger King and damn, what makes that show so good is that you are just waiting on that time limit to see how bad it gets. (and it’s crazy, super recommend Tiger King, although it’s very clear that they pushed the drama a little beyond realism but man. Good TV.)

Of course there’s always the chance that maybe Valon just got bored. But, youknow.

Anyway, it IS a romance on Yugioh, so we do have to very quickly drive a truck through it.

Man.

What are they DOING here?

It took me kind of a while to remember that Mai would be going where Joey would be living, which is most likely where Raphael dropped off Arthur Hawkins. But, if you don’t remember that fact, this is the most random thing ever.

Like you got this huge ass desert in the Califorizonado mesas, and then BOOM enter Rebecca Hawkins, just omnisciently lording over all of the West and just so ready to fight you.

Every girl interested in Yugi Muto has this thing where they’re normally pretty chill and then they just snap and get angry as hell.

PS she’s in a different outfit now, but I don’t feel like changing her font color. I’ve had some Photoshop.......incidents.......and I don’t think I have this plaid pattern anymore and I don't feel like making a new one yet.

I mean Valon’s got the green outline on his text, so I figure we’re good.

Also, Rebecca wears a tie clip?

This 12 year old girl wears a tie clip.

And like don't get me wrong, this was 2003-4, alt rock was big, and yes, we did have tiny Avril Lavigne ties at American Eagle. I will admit that I very much considered getting an Avril Lavigne tie at one point in my life, but didn’t want the commitment of needing to pair it with a skirt.

But either way, old man tie clips aren’t alt rock. The only thing that makes Rebecca’s outfit not exactly that alt-grunge Avril Lavigne look is that tie clip. They were SO close to making her look cool. Just so close.

Also the bifocals. But anyway...

So Valon was going to straight up ignore Rebecca, because he has a warped sense of morality and will not kill a 12 year old (but will kill a 17 year old). But, Mai did ask nicely.

Thankfully, because of Valons weird sense of morality, he did not pull out the Oricalchos. Instead he pulled out...a new mechanic!

OK.

Fine, whatever. I don’t go over cards in this show so I don’t have to even worry about this.

And Rebecca and Duke freakin lost, because Duke is never allowed to win. Rebecca may have won if Duke didn’t join this battle with his ass luck, just throwing that out there.

And Mai is like “wow, Valon is doing a really good job. He’s right, he IS amazing”

and she bolts.

And back on the tracks, we see another group of our protagonists sprawled on the desert floor.

REALLY lucky that this train track only has one operating train that is currently out of commission because you should not lie down on a track like this. Probably goes without saying that this is a great way to die. But youknow...the world is also ending so sure, why not? Getting killed by a train is probably more pleasant than the Leviathan.

And then, because we MUST talk about commuting, lets see Kaiba’s commute on this huge ass very normal plane.

I know.

That’s just a normal ass plane.

Even Kaiba needs to take a break youknow? And maybe since he hallucinated last time he drove a plane he decided to just...not drive one for a while. Probably a good move.

On the way, we get to see Seto’s form of parental advice. It was weird.

Like in the actual dialogue of the show Seto is just SO CLOSE to giving good advice and then just slips in these chestnuts where it’s like...well that’s gonna be like 12 years of therapy for Mokuba in the future Seto, thanks for that.

Also lets welcome back Seto’s dueling jacket. Been a while, big sleeves.

Also, the Aurora Borealis has also hit the plane, which is very Twilight Zone of them.

...

Correct me if I’m wrong but Alister was in Dartz’ room during that convo with Mai.

like...just a few hours ago?

Was that a hologram of Alister in Dartz’ boardroom or did the animation team forget?

Oh Alister.

Also, I just want to point out that the same day Seto sent Roland out to fix his problems, was the same day that Kaiba got hella abducted, just a few hours later. Man, Roland. Turn around for like 2 minutes and Seto’s back into cards, they’re both abducted by cultists, and they’re both half-way across the world to California. It must be hard to be Roland.

Anyway, if you just got here this is a link to read the rest in chrono order. All four seasons.

Hope y’all are staying safe in this Pandemic time, goes without saying. Been a weird couple of weeks, but thankfully the internet is still here to help us all keep sanity.

[sciencespies]

When Catherine of Aragon Led England's Armies to Victory Over Scotland

https://sciencespies.com/history/when-catherine-of-aragon-led-englands-armies-to-victory-over-scotland/

When Catherine of Aragon Led England's Armies to Victory Over Scotland

She was, in the words of historian John Edwards, Henry VIII’s “greatest queen.” But though Catherine of Aragon’s marriage to the Tudor king 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, leaving his 16-year-old widow in a precarious position. Though Spain and England initially sought to maintain their alliance by marrying Catherine to another member of the Tudor family (both Henry and his father, Henry VII, were suggested as potential suitors), negotiations soured as diplomatic relations shifted. Ultimately, Catherine spent seven years mired in uncertainty over her future.

The princess’ fortunes shifted when Henry VII died in 1509, leaving the throne to his sole surviving son, who promptly married his alluring young sister-in-law. The couple’s loving relationship, however, eventually deteriorated due to a lack of a male heir and the king’s infatuation with Anne Boleyn.

Catherine is often portrayed as a dowdy, overly pious, stubborn old woman who refused to yield her position for the good of the kingdom. The truth, however, is more nuanced—a fact increasingly reflected in cultural depictions of the queen, including Starz’s “The Spanish Princess” and West End hit Six: The Musical, which features a fictionalized version of Catherine chiding her husband for forgetting that “I’ve never lost control / No matter how many times I knew you lied.”

Far from being the troublesome, unappealing wife of popular imagination, Catherine was actually a charismatic, intelligent and much-loved queen. Three years into the royal couple’s marriage, Henry was still so besotted with his consort that he invited a Spanish visitor to look at her “just to see how bella and beautiful she was.”

In 1513, the queen, then 27 years old, was entrusted with command of the kingdom while her 22-year-old husband waged war against France’s Francis I. Henry left behind a small group of advisors, but as newly discovered documents demonstrate, Catherine didn’t simply defer to these elderly men’s counsel. Instead, she assumed an active role in the governing—and protection—of England.

“When she is left as regent, she is in her element,” says Julia Fox, author of Sister Queens: The Noble, Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile. “… She has the power to summon troops, to appoint sheriffs, to sign warrants and to get money from the treasurer of the chamber.”

As Henry and his troops besieged the French town of Thérouanne, Catherine and her council readied for a clash closer to home. Just over a month into the queen’s regency, France’s ally, Scotland’s James IV, had declared war on England, bringing a period of peace between the neighboring nations to an end.

The fact that James was married to Henry’s older sister, Margaret, did little to dissuade either him or Catherine from entering the fray. According to 17th-century chronicler William Drummond, the pregnant Scottish queen pleaded with her husband to desist, noting that he was poised to fight “a mighty people, now turned insolent by their riches at home and power abroad.” But James, buoyed by the possibility of conquest (and of dealing a blow to his egotistical brother-in-law), refused.

Catherine, for her part, appeared to “relish the opportunity” to exercise her full authority, says Giles Tremlett, author of Catherine of Aragon: Henry’s Spanish Queen. In an August 13 letter, the queen wrote, “My heart is very good to it.” Wryly referencing women’s traditional role in warfare, the queen added, “I am horribly busy with making standards, banners and badges.”

Michael Sittow portrait of Catherine, c. 1502 (left), and portrait of Henry VIII around the time of his first wedding

(Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Though Catherine did, in fact, order the royal wardrobe to furnish two banners bearing the arms of England and Spain, as well as “standards of the lion crowned imperial,” such tasks made up just a small portion of her preparations. Working with councilors, she mobilized forces across England, communicating with local authorities to determine how many men and horses their parishes could provide. When the mayor and sheriffs of Gloucester failed to respond in a timely fashion, she gave them a deadline of 15 days and emphasized that “writing and news from the Borders show that the King of Scots means war.”

In addition to recruiting soldiers, the queen dispatched money (£10,000, to be exact), artillery, gunners, a fleet of eight ships and supplies ranging from grain to pipes of beer and armor. She had Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey—a combat-hardened, 70-year-old veteran of the 1485 Battle of Bosworth—and his army of around 26,000 mount a first line of defense near the border with Scotland and asked Sir Thomas Lovell to lead a secondary force in England’s Midlands.

What Catherine did next was unprecedented, particularly for a kingdom where warfare was considered an exclusively male domain. As records recently found at the United Kingdom’s National Archives testify, this daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella—two famously bellicose rulers who’d spent Catherine’s childhood driving the Muslim Moors out of the Iberian Peninsula—left the safety of London and headed north toward the English-Scottish border with 1,500 sets of armor, as well as a golden “headpiece with crown” that Tremlett likens to “an armored sun hat,” in tow.

“The new details involve the queen more deeply as a director of events rather than a passive figurehead managed by those of Henry’s counselors left in England,” Sean Cunningham, the archivist who discovered the papers, told the Times’ Mark Bridges in May. “… [They] let us know that Catherine was heading for Warwick [Castle] and the Tower [of London] had pretty much been emptied of armor.”

Catherine and her troops were ready to face the Scots if James IV managed to defeat both Surrey’s and Lovell’s forces. One contemporary, Peter Martyr, reported that the queen, “in imitation of her mother Isabella,” regaled her reserve army with a speech compelling them to “defend their territory” and “remember that English courage excelled that of all other nations.”

This incident is widely referenced—including in an upcoming episode of “The Spanish Princess,” which will feature a highly exaggerated version of Catherine, clad in armor fashioned to accommodate her visible pregnancy, riding directly into battle—but many historians now consider Martyr’s account apocryphal. (Ambassadors’ correspondence indicates that the queen delivered a premature son who died shortly after birth in October 1513, but the pregnancy’s veracity remains a point of contention; in Sister Queens, Fox argues, “[I]it seems unlikely that she would have risked a much-wanted child by accompanying the army from London.”)

Tremlett deems the speech “almost certainly invented” but points out that this “doesn’t mean it [didn’t] reflect the spirit of the moment.” Fox, meanwhile, says Catherine probably made “a speech, … but whether it was quite as rousing or as wonderful, I don’t know.”

Memorial to the dead at the site of the Battle of Flodden

(The Land via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0)

As it turned out, neither Lovell nor the queen ended up seeing action. On September 9, Surrey’s troops and James’ army of more than 30,000 engaged in battle. The English wielded the bill, a simple hooked weapon derived from an agricultural tool, while the Scots opted for the longer, steel-tipped pike. An afternoon of “great slaughter, sweating and travail” ensued, and by its end, some 10,000 Scots—including 12 earls, 14 lords, an archbishop, a bishop, 2 abbots and James himself—lay dead. Comparatively, the smaller English army only lost around 1,500 men.

The Scottish king’s brutal fate was, in a way, evocative of the broader blow inflicted on his country in the wake of the defeat: As historian Leanda de Lisle explains, “James’ left hand was almost severed, his throat gashed, and an arrow was shot through his lower jaw.” (Additional ignominies, including one at Catherine’s own hand, awaited the king’s corpse.) With the Stuart monarch’s passing, his infant son, James V, became the leader of a grieving, much-reduced nation.

According to Fox, the Battle of Flodden (which draws its name from nearby Flodden Edge) left Scotland “in a powerless situation.” She adds, “Not only have you just defeated them in a spectacular way, but [the kingdom is] in disarray. Scotland is practically at [England’s] mercy.”

Prior to Cunningham’s find, historians had only known that Catherine was in Buckingham, around 60 miles north of London, when she received word of Surrey’s victory. But the new evidence suggests that the queen intended to travel further north, if not directly into battle like Joan of Arc, then at least into the vicinity of combat.

“Many a queen would have quite simply hotfooted it to the Tower of London, pulled up the drawbridge and sat there fairly safely,” says Fox. “… But she doesn’t do that. She’s no milk sop. She’s not taking refuge. She really is out on the road.”

Three days after the battle, Catherine penned a letter to her husband, who had successfully captured Thérouanne and was now besieging Tournai. She began by emphasizing Flodden’s significance, writing, “[T]o my thinking this battle hath been to your grace, and all your realm, the greatest honour that could be, and more than should you win all the crown of France.” As one might expect of such a deeply religious individual, the queen proceeded to thank God for the victory—and subtly remind Henry to do the same.

Catherine’s missive then took a rather unexpected turn. She’d sent her husband a piece of the Scottish king’s bloodied surcoat (“for your banners”) but lamented that she’d originally hoped to send a much more macabre trophy: the embalmed body of James himself. Unfortunately, the queen reported, she soon realized that “our Englishmen’s hearts would not suffer it.”

This “gleeful and somewhat bloodthirsty” sentiment may seem out of character for a woman renowned for her piety, but as Tremlett points out, “Plenty of pious people were also violent, [and] plenty of people were violently pious.” Few exemplify this seemingly contradictory mindset as well as Catherine’s own parents, who waged a relentless, violent campaign against all non-Christians in their kingdom.

Catherine and Henry later in life

(Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Ferdinand and Isabella’s reconquest of Spain culminated in the January 2, 1492, fall of Granada, which marked the end of 780 years of Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula. Then an impressionable 6-year-old, Catherine witnessed the Moors’ surrender, as well as her mother’s leading role in the military crusade.

“This [stays] with her,” says Fox. “This idea of a woman involved in battles is there. And when she actually comes to the divorce question, she sees it as a battle. She sees fighting for her own marriage as just as important as fighting for the Catholic faith.”

Though Catherine was careful to praise her husband’s success in France, she and other contemporary observers knew that Henry’s triumphs paled in comparison to Flodden.

As Antonia Fraser writes in The Wives of Henry VIII, “[T]he Scottish threat was removed for a generation by the slaughter of its leaders. … Compared to this, the Battle of the Spurs won over the French, although part of an expensive campaign, was a purely temporary check, forgotten the next year when the King turned his foreign policy on its head.”

Catherine wasn’t the first English queen to assume the reins of power in the absence of a male monarch. Sixty years prior, another foreign-born princess, Margaret of Anjou, took charge of the kingdom amid the Wars of the Roses, fighting for her son’s inheritance and making major decisions on behalf of her disastrously incompetent husband, Henry VI. More recently, Henry VIII’s grandmother Margaret Beaufort—an “uncrowned queen,” in the words of historian Nicola Tallis—had acted as regent in the brief period before the young king came of age. (Years after Catherine’s death, her beloved daughter, Mary I, followed in her mother’s footsteps by rallying troops to her cause and seizing the throne from those who had sought to thwart her.)

Combined with the example set by Isabella and other relatives, says Tremlett, “Catherine had some very strong role models for women who could rule, for women who could fight.”

Whereas Margaret of Anjou’s seizure of power made her deeply unpopular, Catherine’s regency cemented her already sterling reputation. In the mid-1520s, when Henry first raised the question of divorcing his wife, he found that public opinion was firmly on the queen’s side. She viewed the survival of her marriage as inextricable from the survival of the Catholic Church, according to Fox, and refused to back down despite immense pressure.

Catherine’s legacy, adds the historian, “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.”

Henry, for his part, never forgot the tenacity his wife had demonstrated in the days leading up to Flodden. As he later reflected with no small amount of trepidation, she was perfectly capable of carrying “on a war … as fiercely as Queen Isabella, her mother, had done in Spain.

#History

[inmyarmswrappedin]

DRUCK reactions - s4 ep1

Ages ago I said I wanted to write meta about Cris’ and Matteo’s seasons, so of course, when I finally sit down to write reactions to a Skam remake, it’s about Amira instead.

A few weeks back I was composing tumblr posts in bed before falling asleep (my number 1 hobby lol) when it struck me that the writing for Amira’s season was really… indefensibly bad. So let’s stroll down through memory lane and revisit Druck s4, or how to throw away your potential because you have to put out this season before summer is over!

CLIP 1: Dark clouds over Winterberg

Obviously I’m writing these with the benefit of hindsight, but I will try and incorporate what my initial reaction to a clip was whenever I can remember.

Sometime between the Abiball episode and episode 32, I argued (on twitter) that the Abiball special was the Abiball episode instead, the first episode of Amira’s season. It would thus introduce us to the conflicts and characters that would take place during Amira’s season. I thought that in addition to the obvious Amira/Mohammed, Carlos/Kiki/Essam would be important, Kiki’s family life would be important, Stefan would be important, and David/Matteo would probably not be important as they seemed to be doing just fine in their scenes.

I didn’t think Mia/Alex would be important because I didn’t actually watch their clip lol. The Winterberg stans on my twitter orbit thought the clip was cute and nothing to worry about. That should’ve been my first clue that the (twitter) stan habit of repeating the “we never lose” mantra doesn’t make for great viewing comprehension, because watching the clip, it’s so obvious that shit is gonna go down lol.

Mia moves from one of the flat share’s bathrooms to the other because they never really recreated Mia’s room in the s3 flat share.

I still haven’t watched Mia’s episode, so I don’t know how all this stuff is going to get resolved, but it seems like Mia doesn’t think they can handle a LDR, and Alex is picking up on those vibes hard. I guess I don’t really get why Mia is so pessimistic about it because at that age I kinda thought a few months break weren’t really an obstacle. (Not sure if it would help me to watch Mia’s season, because this seems like a wholly new conflict.)

Anyway, Alex acts sweet/reassuring (I really like how soft spoken everyone is in this episode), so Mia puts it out of her mind for now. But Idk, they haven’t really spoken about the elephant in the room.

CLIP 2: Don’t call them the chastest evak ever again

Tbh this clip comes across as a direct rebuttal to all the s3 commentary about David and Matteo seeming like they’re not into each other, or like they aren’t ~passionate~ like the other evaks.

It’s like, “these gremlins are horny on main, now shut up.”

But I like that they’re fully dressed, like yes, you can show physical intimacy without undressing your teen actors (shade fully intended).

I love Lukas von Horbatschewsky’s hair and I’m very jealous of Matteo in this sequence, lmao.

Luis Sepúlveda died of coronavirus this year, in Spain. You’re welcome for that bit of 2020 misery dripping onto this cute clip.

I do think David feels guilty that he may have caused Matteo to fail his Spanish exam because of David’s own issues, which I think is very on brand for David. Obviously it wasn’t his fault.

I really like how soft spoken everyone is in this episode, 2X.

And this has been said a million times by now, but David and Matteo are the one evak version where they’re the same age (Joana is in the same year as Cris, but is a year older, so she must’ve gotten held back at some point). So it’s funny, and possibly a reference to Isak and Even, to see David talking about what it’d be like if they had that age difference. Like, maybe David would be more like Even in behavior! And, going by Matteo’s reaction, he wouldn’t be into that.

This clip really feels like the ending to Matteo and David. They’ll go on a road trip, they’ll work on David’s movie, they’ll be around, but this clip is their conclusion. They both feel secure and content in their relationship, and ready for everything that’s to come.

Like I said on the post about Cris and Joana, I like that David and Matteo don’t have further issues. And while I have tons of issues with Druck s4, which I will be talking about forever in the following posts, I never had an issue with how they deployed Matteo or David. (Okay, self. Now say that again without crying about David’s season that should have been.)

Fucking David cutting their make out short only to then say such a highkey flirty, romantic thing to Matteo though. No wonder Matteo’s like, “STOP, I’M SUPPOSED TO STUDY.”

CLIP 3: A challenger appears!

I like the fanon that David is a healthy eater (or at least in comparison to Matteo), because all we ever see David eat of his own volition (i.e. not food that was made for him) is candy.

God, I love Kiki snatching David’s fruity gummies out of his hands. It makes me laugh every time, particularly how she demands to know if the candy is vegan.  

Hanna looks beautiful. ;_;

There’s a split second when Jonas is about to give Hanna that box where David looks alarmed in the background. In my mind he’s all, “Bro, no. Not a public proposal. Reel it back in, bro!”

And then, to the surprise of Jonas and all the viewers, we find out that not only are Jonas and Hanna not together, but Hanna is dating German Arthur. Again, in “fandom refuses to acknowledge storyline conflict until it’s staring right at them” news, Stefan had actually been introduced via an audio to Hanna the day before, but people were convinced it was Hanna’s dad. Whose actor they called just to record an audio. Clearly.

My belief at this point was that Stefan would be relevant to Amira’s storyline, but instead it was just a way to give Hanna her own episode. 🤡

Matteo’s transformation into Michi is complete by donning his grandpa hat.

He also makes to trip David for no real reason. Throwback to Unter Wasser.

Matteo saying Inshallalalah in a sing song voice is cute, but so annoying.

Matteo Florenzi: He’s a pain in the ass, but we love him.

CLIP 4: I guess Abdi and Axel picked up his grades at another point

I love the way Matteo grabs David’s head to pull him along. They’re so cute and I’m gonna enjoy every second.

Jonas also grabs Hanna along, because fans needed to be further confused as to what was happening with Hanna and Stefan and Jonas.

Thank you, Druck, for telling me Kiki’s and Amira’s grades, but as you can understand, that’s nowhere near enough to satisfy my curiosity and I will be needing to know everyone’s GPA because that is the kind of thing that’s important to me. What about it!!!

I think, going by how impressed Mia is, that Mia’s grade isn’t as good as Amira’s. Which I think is a neat detail, since the Nooras are kind of supposed to be the perfect girls. I like that Amira is even better than Mia at school.

I thought the concept of Carlos failing his final exam and maybe realizing school wasn’t his thing would’ve been an interesting storyline to explore, but I’m not mad that it didn’t happen. Hopefully Druck will touch on it with the next kids.

And we’re now treated to three reveals about Kiki. Kiki has a sister (now she has two), she likes the idea of moving out and living with Carlos, and her mom isn’t doing well.

The remakes trying to develop their Vildes past s4 make sense to me. By the end of Skam, Vilde clearly was the character who’d been the most robbed of a season, there were several potential storylines to do with her. Financial instability, alcoholic mom, eating disorders, plus it seemed obvious that any season taking place during the girls’ russetide should go to her. And that’s without getting into Vilde’s strong denial that she was a lesbian.

So the remakes are sitting on all these potential storylines, but as we now know, they can’t make their own Vilde season.

And from a European TV exec’s point of view, Vilde (who in every version is a white, skinny, ostensibly straight girl) is a very safe main after the gay and Muslim seasons.

Cue the LITTLE SISTER.  

I get why people are fed up with the Vildes’ prominence in the remakes that are in their latter stages, but at the same time we got 8 versions of Noora’s season, most of which are a limpdicked enemies to lovers story with a misguided sexual assault storyline tacked at the end. (And I say misguided because after a strong start, it’s mostly about what William will think, how William will react, I can’t tell William about this, etc.) So in my case, I’ve had quite enough Noora to last me a lifetime, but my Vilde thirst has only begun to be quenched.

Tangent over, Kiki lies that she’s not going to the lake because she’s going to check on Carlos. Bad form, Kiki.

CLIP 5: Graduation (Friends Forever).mp3

In clown news, I predicted there’d be a clip between the Kiki stuff and the actual dance (maybe a Sam clip), as it seemed to me there wasn’t much of a connection between Kiki looking sad on that ping pong table and PARTY TIME. Lol at me.

And speaking of clowning, while I thought the Abiball episode was part of s4, I also thought that was fine because it was just doing the multi POV episode in the beginning of the season rather than at the end, right? Wrong.

As much as it would’ve been great if Sam and Abdi had storylines pertaining to racism and islamophobia (whether Abdi is or isn’t a Muslim, people would probably assume he is), I also have to admit… This conversation is hilarious.

“I want to have intercourse with you.” [glass breaks in the background]

Abdi closing his speech with a wide smile gvvhvh.

The first hundred times I watched this scene, I thought Alex seemed a bit alarmed at the conversation taking place, but really… We’re back to stone-faced Alex lol.

Don’t kill me, but I feel a little bad for Abdi in this moment. He really put himself out there and Sam just leaves without giving him an answer, yikes. I actually got tired of Abdi’s sad sackiness during the season, but right now I feel for him. L

There’s this smile Jonas sometimes directs at dudes (like Alex here) that makes me think… Bi. He also directs it at Matteo in s3.

Ugh.

There’s a parallel universe where Stefan was the villain of Amira’s season, and it would’ve been a much more interesting season than the one we got.

Because Stefan is a bit of a Darth Jonas. He works for Greenpeace, but, at least in this scene, seems a bit full of himself, and like… twisting the knife in a way that feels like it has to be intentional. And it would’ve been so interesting if Druck had tackled the white dudes who seem like they’re not going to be assholes about Muslims, but then turn around and say some shocking garbage. I’m sure we’ve all met a guy like that before.

In my mind, Stefan would’ve driven a wedge between Hanna and Amira, which would’ve been way more compelling than what we got, but on the other hand, it probably would’ve made fandom people hate Hanna, and people outside of fandom hate Amira.

Anyway, tag teaming gays! I love how David and Matteo share a look and immediately take care of both Jonas and Stefan.

I also love it when David looks murderous. It looks good on him.

But I feel like this didn’t go anywhere? Like, Matteo always hated Stefan and continued hating Stefan until the finale. In this scene, David seems to dislike Stefan just as much, but it’s not a thread they bother following. It’s too bad because I think Matteo and David together sabotaging Stefan is a lot funnier than just Matteo doing it.

I love how soft spoken Amira is when telling Essam not to show up at her graduation party. I would’ve been a lot less polite lmao.

You know, I actually thought Kiki was genuine here when she said she wasn’t a fan of competitions. Obviously that’s not the Kiki we’ve known until this point, but like, I thought it was meant to show character development on her part, But we’ll talk about THAT more in the following episodes.

Matteo fully blames their win on David being so hot, mysterious and new, and it’s hilarious because that’s also what initially drew him to David. Like, “fuck you for being so hot!”

I thought it was such a nice detail that they brought back the girl from the refugee classes in s1. We’re saying goodbye to all these school people who are going on their own post high school journeys without us!

In my mind, Abdi and Alex are talking about something completely serious, like, I don’t know, Abdi’s dad wanting him to study business and Alex advising Abdi on the best business schools in Berlin or something.

I feel like Hanna is the one girl in the squad who really doesn’t feel ready for post high school life and I HATE the writers so much for how they wrapped her character up, but we’ll save that for later.

I could watch Matteo passing the tiara (=the main) to Amira forever. The way he tips his hat and looks like even he’s a little surprised that he (a character like him!) was ever the lead on a teen show, David’s voice asking Matteo if he’s coming, Matteo leaving with David to live happily ever after, the initial notes of Just Got Paid as Amira looks at nighttime Berlin. This meme is overdone by now, but THE POETIC CINEMA.

Jonas glaring at romantic rivals at end of year dances is iconic at this point.

Amira being tagteamed by an annoying little brother AND a well-meaning, embarrasing older brother. Choose your own nightmare.

I really love the set up for the Essam/Kiki/Carlos conflict. The emotional potential is SO good because on one hand you have Kiki, who wants to have a good time for once instead of parenting her own parent, then Carlos whose self-esteem is on the floor after having failed his final exam, and Essam, whose own sense of self-worth hinges upon whether white German girls find him attractive. Like, obviously Essam is never going to come between Kiki and Carlos who have been through some shit together, but with Carlos out of commission and Essam eager to please, you can see how the situation could so easily turn into a mess.

Amira and Mohammed have the most sexual tension out of any Yousana pair, period. They literally just said hi to each other and I already feel like I’m intruding gvhvhv.      

Social media

David saying of Matteo: “Er bekommt Auslauf.” (Something like, “he gets walkies” because he’s been good with revising) is the cutest shit ever.

Remember when Stefan sent Jonas a whole ass message and signed it “with sunny greetings”? Stefan was much more fun when we were supposed to find him unbearable.

Kiki creating a new Whatsapp group for every single thing is so true to life.

I’d forgotten that Amira also hated Stefan almost right away. The season that could’ve been, I tell you.

All the Abi Chaker Clan content reminds me of how I thought Jonas looked like, well, such a child, compared to Stefan, and I thought that was intentional. Like, here is Stefan with a Greenpeace job whereas Jonas doesn’t know what to do with his life, and he’s like, spray-painting abi chaker clan onto walls and posting pics to the abi chaker clan account. It’s not that I thought Jonas should’ve acted like a whole ass adult, of course he’s having fun with his high school friends, but I thought Jonas might feel inadequate in comparison to where Stefan is at this point of his life.

I can’t remember who revealed it, but Sara was supposed to end up with Toilet Sam and that was supposed to come out during the s3 finale (on that week, Sara posted a story with a guy whose face was obscured iirc). Since that was part of the clip where Hanna and Jonas also got back together, which they cut to make way for Hanna/Jonas/Stefan drama, Sara takes some other dude to the Abiball. And I think we’re supposed to think that’s the same dude she went on that date with.

[littlemisssquiggles]

RWBY Musings #77: The Puppet Who Wanted to be a Real Girl. Is Penny Polendina really back?

jade-rosepine asked “ While I didn't mind penny and all, I can't help asking; what was the point of bringing her back? I mean yeah wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. Only thing I could think of was to make ruby be forced to make a difficult choice - kill a friend to keep her from being used by the villians (she is still a robot and could, theoretically, be hacked by a way more advanced virus. Basically the cyber-version of brainwashing or possession!) OR let her live and be a slave to the baddies?”

Squiggles Answers: 

@jade-rosepine​ Whelp I was going to save this bit for my musing on the first episode of RWBY V7, but since you brought it up, I might as well voice my thoughts here. I’m going to be honest with you, fam. This squiggle meister has mixed feelings about Penny’s return.

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Heart of Machine

In the past, I was a big fan of the idea of Penny being rebuilt and returning for the Atlas Arc. However back then, I liked it under the pretence that she wouldn’t exactly be the same Penny Polendina that we all met back in V1. I figured she’d be an entirely different character and the justification for her being this way was so that the plot could’ve allowed for Ruby Rose to finally have some semblance of closure since it’s been shown throughout previous seasons how much Penny’s death has affected her emotionally.

As a matter of fact, as evidenced by her ‘Indomitable’ moment in V6, Penny’s death (along with Pyrhha’s and the events of the Fall of Beacon) are still a visible mental block to Ruby being able to fully utilize her Silver Eyes. Since Ruby was shown to still have much growing with mastering her unique power, I was hoping that part of her arc for this season would be coming to terms over her loss over Penny as I was certain being within her old friend’s home kingdom was bound to bring back memories of their time together.

Now I’m not so sure whether or not closure with Penny will still be in the cards for Ruby. It’s not he fact that Penny returned that troubles me. It’s the fact that she returned and is presumably supposed to still be her old self but fixed now. I’m sorry but I’m just not actively buying that at all. I mean, like you, I get that this feat wasn’t entirely impossible to do given that Penny was a robot and technology can be easily repaired; especially in a kingdom as technologically advanced as Atlas and especially by the hands of Pietro Polendina---the man who was literally described as the Greatest Mind in the kingdom. So yeah, Penny returning--- totally could have seen that coming. But that don’t mean I’m not heavily suspicious about it knowing these writers.  I still feel like there’s something’s awfully fishy about this whole plot twist.

This brings me to my hunch about Penny 2.0. I don’t believe that that’s Penny. I mean, she is her. She looks like her (albeit with a more updated design that is reminding me a lot of Bach Do’s design of her from her RWBY 3.0 art series). Talks like her and of course, acts like her. But I feel like this version of Penny is merely a shadow of the soul she once was. I still feel like the old Penny that Ruby befriended perished at the Fall of Beacon and what we’re seeing now before us is just a copy mimicking the behaviour of its original predecessor.

When Penny 2.0 first appeared, after getting over my initial shock and excitement of seeing the character again, I couldn’t help but shake this icky feeling in my gut that something was off about the new Penny. I know the series is trying to get me to think that Penny is back here but…I don’t know. I’m not entirely buying it. I feel like something is awry about this and not even her bright and shining smile in the opening is enough to quell my lingering suspicion. I can’t help but feel like something is going to happen to Penny…again.

Perhaps your theory will be correct here Jade. Perhaps it will be a case where Arthur Watts creates and implants his strongest computer virus yet into Atlas’ system which not only corrupts all the Atlesian Battle Droids in Atlas but all technology within the whole kingdom; Mantle included. This is inclusive of Penny 2.0 and possibly even Pietro Polendina’s mechanical wheelchair which goes haywire and knocks the poor old soul man off of his seat leading to Maria Calavera having to defend him and help him to safety.

Perhaps it will come down to Ruby having to fight an infected Virus Penny 2.0. However I don’t think Ruby will be forced to kill Penny. I think a moment like this will boil down to what’s stronger---hardware and programming or the soul.

It was stated back in V2 that Penny is the first (and possibly only one) of her kind. The first artificial lifeform to produce an aura. As we know, aura is described as the manifestation of one’s soul. Penny is supposed to be a soul within the body of a machine. While her body may be synthetic, at her core, she is supposedly human or the closest thing to it.

And since the V7 opening hinted at love being a major theme for this volume, it makes me wonder if we’re going to get a potential moment where a mind-controlled Virus Penny tries to harm Ruby but in the end, it’s the strength of the profound friendship shared between both girls that ultimately allows for Penny to combat the virus corrupting her machine software with the love she feels in her soul for her dear friend. Y’know love conquers all.

I wouldn’t even be too surprised if it’s a case where Penny ends up sacrificing herself to put a stop to Watts’ tyranny. Like Penny uses her core to cause a chain reaction that obliterates Watts’ powerful virus.

Dr. Polendina mentioned in the first episode that the only reason he was able to fix Penny in the first place is because Atlas was able to salvage her core from Amity Arena. Penny’s core is obviously an important part to her. I’m assuming it’s the part of her that contains the soul that’s keeps her alive. So no matter how many times Penny’s body is destroyed, so long as her core is still intact, she can be brought back. Why mention that little detail at all if it wasn’t going to be relevant later, ey?

What if … Penny’s core does eventually get destroyed. If that gets obliterated, then Penny---or at least the version of her that Ruby knew and loved--- will be gone for good this time.

I feel like the V7 finale could set up for a Terminator II type of conclusion where the machine our protagonist has grown to know and love over the course of their story is forced to sacrifice itself for the greater good of saving our hero from a dark fate. I feel like should your headcanon be made reality in the canon, we’re likely to see Penny sacrifice herself on the grounds that this time, there’s no coming back.

I can imagine Penny’s core being used as the key to stopping Watts reign over Atlas and this time, Ruby is allowed to do what she couldn’t do back in Vale. Not only would she get to save Penny but she would also get to officially say goodbye to her friend and tell her how much she loved her before tearfully watching her give herself up for the purpose she was built to do---save the world.

That’s how I’m more seeing things going down for Ruby and this newly rebuilt of Penny for their shared storylines this season. As per usual, these are only my headcanons here and I can very well be very much wrong in my prediction. But nevertheless, for now, I’m leaving this thought and theory on the table.

Then again, I’ve also gotten ahead of myself here.

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More Machine Than Man

Now that I’ve discussed how I figured Ruby and Penny’s story may conclude for V7, allow to me to voice my views on the build up to it.

As I’ve said, I feel very off about Penny being back. While I’m relishing in seeing her again, I also can’t feel a sense of this is too good to be true; y’know what I mean?

I feel like this is all a set-up. Like right now, both the audience and our main gaggle of heroes are left to believe that Penny had returned and she’s all good as new---almost like she never died at all, right?

But I feel like there’s a catch to that. I feel like at some point, in a later chapter of V7, Ruby is going to have her chance to spend some quality time catching up with Penny. At first, things seem pretty normal between them. They’re both laughing. Swapping stories…having a grand ole time with their heart to heart girl talk…only for Ruby to notice something quite off about Penny.

Like I have this scene imagined in my head. A scenario in which Ruby is supposed to head back down to Mantle to hang out with Penny P who’s finally have some free time to catch up with her old friend and desires to take Ruby on an official fun tour of Mantle---the nicer parts that is.

As a matter of fact, let’s say Penny invites the whole squad---JNPR_RWBY down for a night of fun and dancing down in Mantle with her and father. Pietro did mention in the first episode that he’s been working on shows that dance. Given his enthusiasm, dancing must’ve been one of Pietro’s favourite pastimes prior to losing function in his legs. So maybe, at some point, since the kids have all been working hard with their huntsmen duties and training, Pietro decides to treat them all to a nice of entertainment.

 Imagine if …Pietro and Penny take the group to an old fashioned Mantlese Carnival which is basically RWBY’s version of Mardi Gras with a big parade of bands with nonstop musical entertainment.

I was kind of hoping that our heroes would have reunited with Team FNKI while they’re in Atlas. But it doesn’t seem like they’ll be present at all for this season. Unless, it’s a case where our heroes run into them while out with the Polendinas.

Resuming my Mantlese Carnival idea, let’s say after the group finished watching the parade, the Polendinas lead them to an old-fashioned snazzy little joint whose taste in jazz music is as sweet as its food.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of jazz music and the blues by Pietro Polendina’s design and the way he talked. His sense of fashion is giving me mega New Orleans type of vibes. Like he walked straight out of the set for the Princess and the Frog.

Anyways, like I said, our heroes are treated to a night of music and dancing by the Polendinas but while out and about in Mantle, they also happen to run into none other than Neon Katt and Flynt Cole.

Like imagine the group enjoying a nice performance by a local jazz band in Mantle only to find out that one of the musicians is Flynt.

Neon is also there to either show Flynt support (as my headcanon is that the two are dating) or perhaps she’s part of the performance with him as a singer as she and Flynt deliver a sort of Jazz/Blues rendition of Neon’s classic theme. Why not, ey?

After briefly exchanging pleasantries and catching up with their ole pals from Vale, Flynt and Neon invite everyone to an underground Mantlese rave. So unfortunately for Pietro and Maria (who was his date/company for the night), the younglings end up ditching the old folk for a night of partying. Not that they minded. Even Penny was allowed to join the group at the rave.

So as promised since V2, Neon and Flynt take JNR_RWBY plus Oscar and Penny out partying. As a side note, I’m not sure if Oscar would even be allowed to set foot inside a club given his age as a minor. Like I can just imagine Oscar, innocent as ever like the country munchkin that he is, walking up to the club bouncer only to be immediately barred from entering for being both underage and looking the part. Like would you believe Oscar is actually his age given his short stature and baby face?  

As a matter of fact, the only way I can see Oscar being allowed inside of a rave is if a) he faked his age by having one of Flynt and Neon’s friends hack into Atlas’ s system and alter his birth date by two years (since I’m imagining Atlas using electronic ID scans that instantly verifies a person’s personal records by just scanning them on the spot) or b) Flynt and Neon pulls some strings to have Oscar allowed in as they’re known regulars of the club. Why not?

So the group are out having a grand ole time, and while enjoying themselves Ruby and Penny sort of skedaddle for a bit up to a private place where they can just talk to one another. Since y’know…it’s been so long since they shared a chat since one of them was presumed to be dead and all. Anyways, it’s during their talk that Ruby noticed something peculiar about Penny’s behaviour.

She keeps recalling memories of times she and Ruby shared in excruciating detail. But that’s not the part that threw Ruby off. No matter how many times the Silver Eyed huntress attempted to deviate the conversation and get Penny to talk her more about how she’s been doing since what happened at the Vytal Festival, Penny kept reverting back to recanting the same stories.

The hunch I had in mind here is: What if…Penny 2.0 is actually a copy of original Penny. Rather than being a soul mimicking human nature from within a mechanical body, it’s more a machine operating purely from memories that were transferred to it from its old former self.

When we first met Penny, while the implications of her being an humanoid were clear as day from the instant she first bumped into RWBY (I mean I certainly called that she was a robot from day one), you could also still tell that there was something remotely human in nature about Penny. I got that sense the first time Penny revealed to Ruby that she wasn't a real girl. You heard the strong tinge of genuine sadness in her voice as she said it which was what made her friendship with Ruby all the more pure. Their bond was wholesome and important to each other inspire of only knowing one another for a short space of time.

And when Penny died in V3, you didn't feel as if it was a machine being destroyed. You actively felt like a character---a real person died. We, as the audience, got to feel the same sense of sadness that Ruby Rose felt watching her dear friend die before her very eyes after failing to save her in time.

Ruby failed to protect Penny (and eventually Pyrhha too) which was what made her answer to Maria’s question in V6 all the more meaningful.

She wishes to master control of her Silver Eyes, not just for the sake of being able to vanquish the Grimm but for the sake of protecting the people who matter most to her---her friends and family. The people who love her as much as she loves them.

This also kind of presents another reason why I’m conflicted on Penny’s return. Penny being back all fixed and good as new as if the Fall of Beacon didn’t happen kind of puts a bit of a damper on Ruby’s trauma as a result of what happened. It’s one of those things that made me question why show Ruby suffering from flashbacks of her friends’ deaths just to have said friend return good as new.

As we saw during her ‘Indomitable’ moment in V6, thinking about Penny and her death caused Ruby to lose focus. Yes Ruby managed to summon her light to petrify the Leviathan. But not before using Jinn to buy her some time so she can concentrate and let’s also not forget that Ruby’s power didn’t work.

While she succeeded in petrifying the Leviathan, she failed to kill it. This to me was a clear indicator that Ruby hasn’t full mastered her unique power and still has much to grow. A detail that I was relieved the CRWBY kept since I never felt like Ruby’s indomitable moment was rightfully earned so it almost felt like a waste of a good moment, in my opinion

I’m probably in the minority here when I say this but I actually disliked Ruby’s Indomitable scene from V6. As I said, it wasn’t properly earned and that took me out of the whole moment.

Instead of watching Ruby go through an arc of learning to fully master control of her newfound abilities, struggling at first but also learning more about herself and her heritage in the process building up to this grandiose moment where she finally perfects her power.

Instead we spent two whole seasons with our little red rose being written to be rather neglectful of her eyes, never once further questioning its mysterious origins; not even when in the face of the very person who told the last person who first told Ruby about her eyes.

Ruby learnt about the Silver Eyes from Qrow during the finale of V3. Qrow, on the other hand, said he learnt about the Silver Eyed Warriors from Ozpin. Ruby had her chance to ask Oz for more on the Silver Eyes at any point during V5 or even V6. Instead the Writers have her question everything but her Silver Eyes…despite showing her using it again later in the season during the Battle of Haven.

It is such a darn shame that Maria Calavera was only brought in for V6. I honestly feel like her character and role as Silver Eyed mentor to Ruby should’ve been better utilized as early as V4. 

Instead I was left feeling that Maria’s presence in Ruby’s development was made irrelevant especially by the end of V6 when Ruby had her big brain idea to use her Silver Eyes on the Leviathan…despite having zero prior training. I don’t think that’s how progress is supposed to work? 

And let’s not forget the fact that Ruby has only known Maria for only four days since the entirety of V6 (and the start of V7) only took place over the course of four days in RWBY’s timeline.

So yeah, Ruby’s Mastery of her Silver Eyes has much more groundwork to do and I have a feeling the Writers brought Penny back to aid with that

Did they necessarily have to though? No not really. As a matter of fact, Penny 2.0 unfortunately falls into the ball park of how the Writers brought back Neopolitan in V6 for me. While it’s nice to see Penny again, I didn’t honestly need her back especially since her death was framed in such a symbolic way to the plot in terms of how it affected Ruby’s character these past few seasons. Now I’m left questioning what the whole point of all of that was.

Listen, I’m not trying to imply that bringing Penny back was a terrible idea on the Writers’ part. I’m more saying, I don’t 100% buy into it. Not exactly.

I honestly feel there is going to be a catch with this. The Writers can’t have Penny’s death still affecting Ruby only to just magically have that trauma and mental block magically disappear now that she’s back in the picture. They’re not gonna do that, right? 

They’re not gonna undo that big detail established in previous seasons, right?  I mean…it’s not like they’ve done things like this before, right?

Nuh uh. Not buying it. Hence my theory on Ruby having a moment with Penny 2.0 only to realize that she’s not exactly all good as new as she was proclaimed to be.

Either that or it’s a case where even though Penny is back, Ruby herself can’t seem to look past the past.

She can’t seem to shake the haunting fact that she once saw her friend die before her very eyes because she failed to help her. Like I’d figure that that memory would still remain as a nightmarish lingering thought in Ruby’s psyche. Right?

Like imagine this scene. A scenario where Ruby and Penny are out exploring Mantle together, catching up only for Penny to be called back to the line of duty when another alert of Grimm attacking the city blares it ugly head. As Penny flies off to do her thing, Ruby follows her below on foot determined to help her out. When Ruby finds Penny, she arrives just in time to see her down a couple of Saybers from attacking a couple of fleeing civilians.

Ruby calls out to Penny. Penny, in turn, spins around to wave to Ruby. But while Penny is distracted greeting her friend, she is neglectful of one stray Sayber that suddenly comes in from behind and slashes Penny straight through the chest.

Ruby looks on in complete horror as Penny 2.0 is once again cut down in front of her; the nightmares of her decapitation at the Vytal Festival resurfacing. And for a moment, Ruby freezes on the spot. She doesn’t even react as the same Sayber charges at her.

But before the Sayber could get to Ruby, it’s killed before it could lay a bloody talon on her. As Ruby looks up  slowly from her daze at her saviour , she sees that it was Penny. In spite of her damage, Penny was still functioning enough to protect Ruby.

Let’s say, for the sake of the scene, the rest of the heroes---JNR_WBY plus Oscar were down in Mantle too and overheard all the commotion from the emergency alarms; all seven huntsmen and huntresses arriving at the scene to aid with the rescue. 

Let’s say the others had seen what happened to Penny and immediately came to her side to quickly gather up her severed parts to take her immediately to Dr. Polendina so he could repair his daughter. 

As the others handled Penny, let’s say…Oscar approaches Ruby as he noticed the disturbed expression on her face. Oscar urges Ruby on the matter of them taking Penny to her father as quickly as possible. At first, Ruby reacts like she didn’t hear Oscar; apparently too lost in her own wild thoughts. It wasn’t until Oscar gently touched Ruby’s shoulder did she finally stir out of her stupor. Long story short, the heroes manage to get Penny 2.0 to Pietro in time. 

After studying her injuries, Pietro reports to everyone that Penny was going to be fine. She may be off duty for a couple of days given that he’ll need time to repair her. 

But beyond that, Pietro assured the group that Penny was going to make a speedy recovery; much to the relief of the heroes. But in spite of hearing the good news, this doesn’t serve to uplift Ruby’s mood and her bothered expression of deep concern is still apparent on her face. Even as JNPR_RWBY depart from the Polendina residence to return up to Atlas. 

As the group look to head back home, Oscar is the one to take notice of Ruby’s awkward silence. 

 I say Oscar of all people rather than her teammates or Yang since it’s been highlighted before that when Ruby is feeling pressured or looks distressed in some shape or form, Oscar is quick to pick up on that.

He’s also been shown to act out on trying to help Ruby in this type of emotional scenario. This is why should we ever get a moment like this in the canon, I can picture it being another prime chance for the Writers to show Oscar being an emotional crutch for Ruby.

If a scene like this ever comes to pass in the series, the way I see it going down is Oscar confronting Ruby again about Penny and the two sharing another heart to heart moment where he gets her to open up about her true feelings. I’ve been itching for another V5 Dojo-esque scene between the Rosebuds.

I’d love to see another example of Oscar helping Ruby through another emotional rut; particularly if it involves Penny.

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So to conclude…

I guess the main point I’m really trying to get at here with this musing post is that I don’t believe Ruby’s arc revolving around her grievances about Penny’s death is over. Even with her being back in her life.

It can’t be. Just because Penny was repaired and has returned doesn’t instantly erase the fact that she did die nor does it erase Ruby’s memory and clear trauma over it.  At least, I hope that’s not how the Writers are going to portray it. Ruby’s thing is that she sees Penny as a real girl. She sees her as a person. But Penny isn’t entirely a real person.

She possesses a soul of her own, yes (and I’m curious to learn the origins of said soul) but she’s also a machine. Her body is fake but at her core, she is a living being. Sort of---really need an origin episode on how Penny was created and where Atlas and Ironwood got the soul that’s a part of her.

Did it come from the Relic of Creation? Was Penny an unexpected by-product of the Relic’s power; brought to life by an experiment tested by Ironwood using the Relic of Creation? 

Is the Relic of Creation the RWBY equivalent of the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio? Is the being of the Relic of Creation inspired by the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio? 

Who knows? These are all questions I’m looking forward to this season answering for me.

But in the meantime, in regards to Ruby’s bond with Penny, We got to see Ruby grow to care for Penny as a person and what’s interesting to note is that Ruby has always valued Penny as more human than machine.

Keeping that in mind, picture if part of Ruby’s story with Penny for V7 is her leaning to accept that Penny isn’t a real person. This is why I like my theorized scene of having Ruby witness Penny 2.0 being cut down again; highlighting she’s still not over what happened at Beacon. Imagine if that creates an issue for Ruby where she actively feels uncomfortable at the thought of losing Penny time and time again since she can’t handle watching her friend getting destroyed in spite of the fact that she’s a machine that’s built to protect humanity.

I know this concept probably sounds rather farfetched based on how I’m describing it. However, that’s how I’m choosing to look at it; for now. Perhaps the story for this season might change my mind on that. We’ll see.

Anyways, that’s all I have to say on this subject matter for today. For the most part, I hope I managed to answer your question, Jade. As usual, please let me know if I did. I’m always open to hearing other FNDM fam members thoughts on my thoughts on my thoughts.

Similar to you, this squiggle meister is also left pondering why the Writers’ brought back Penny. It’s actually kind of sad that I have to question it. If I wasn’t so skeptical over the CRWBY Writers’ writing decisions given their recent track record then I wouldn’t be questioning this decision so much.

Right now my theories are my best bet at understanding why this decision was made for the plot but that don’t mean that that will be the case in the canon. I’m praying there is a good narrative reason for Penny’s return and that it wasn’t done as a gimmick to hype up the fans for the new season---y’know bringing back another fan favourite character just because they thought it would be quote, unquote, ‘cool to do’.

I didn’t like that that was the rationale for Neo’s return, as mentioned in the V6 DVD Commentary, and I’d be equally peeved if that was the rationale for Penny’s. Then again, maybe I’m getting too ahead of myself here. We’re only one episode into V7 so let’s not jump the gun. Let’s just be patient and wait and see what the rest of the season brings, ya?

Until then, hope you at least enjoyed my new musing post.

More Squiggles’ RWBY Content

 ~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

[geek-gem]

I’ve Rewatched Joker 2019

It’s my 2nd time seeing it before it could possibly make a billion dollars, and I was by myself this time. I did make a tweet about it and took a while to start making this. Because after seeing it a 2nd time. I wanna give a more in depth thoughts on the film itself. Especially after this month I’ve reblogged a lot of stuff about it. It’s been on my mind still and still for a month. 

This is gonna be my honest thoughts and I’m glad I saw it again. Especially this time it’s more clear to me. Also no spoilers here because I wanna be careful of spoiling anything to any followers who haven’t seen it.

Also a funny but amazing thing because I thought it was 4:40 but it was 4:30 pm for it to come on. I got in a minute before the movie started which was amazing.

Just like I said on Twitter. Joker 2019 is one of my favorite films. But also one of my favorite comic book related or comic book inspired films. I’ve been listening to the soundtrack(Mainly the main theme and the bathroom dance music) non stop in a way. Including right now I’m listening to the main theme right here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxRHyRXqkSc

Joker 2019 is truly one of my favorite movies this year. Maybe my favorite possibly. It is like I’ve said before a brilliant piece of a film making. 

The acting, the score, and the writing as well. Many things really shine from this film. Basically I feel the same way Film Gob feels about it in this video or so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH8Cw-Zd13g 

It is a dark and tragic film. But not just that, in a way it is also a thoughtful, and quite a mature film. Especially because it deals with it’s themes quite maturely and other things. Including it even felt emotional. While I didn’t shed tears at certain parts, I wanted to. Because the film does feel emotional during Arthur’s journey into becoming one of the most iconic villains in comics and pop culture. Including Batman’s arch nemesis.

While it may have only used The Killing Joke as a basis but mainly 1970′s character studies from Martian Scorsese were the inspiration for this film. But the film to me feels like it is a Joker movie. This version can definitely be how the Joker could of ended up of how he is. Besides to me personally if you want more comic accurate versions in live action. I’d recommend Jack Nicolson and Heath Ledger and just watching films like Batman 1989, and The Dark Knight. Because those two to me represent the Joker quite well if we are going with more comic accuracy. Despite some changes but it depends on how you view them.

Including I have mentioned before. I like the Joker, but before this film I wasn’t the biggest fan of him. There is nothing wrong with him as a character he just didn’t appeal to me at first. Also I know before seeing this I was praising Jack Nicolson as Joker Batman 1989. It’s just I was more of a fan of villains like Bane and Scarecrow(Which I still am) from the Batman mythos.

Yet this film got me to appreciate the Joker as a character. Which sounds kind of crazy. I basically like him even more. It is probably because of Joaquin Phoenix’ s acting as Arthur Fleck. I do praise other actors such as Heath Ledger(Another one of my favorites), Jack Nicolson, Mark Hamill, Troy Baker, and whoever else. But I feel like how many who praised actors such as Heath Ledger and Jack Nicolson with their takes on the character.

Joaquin is basically I guess is one of those interpretations I keep thinking about is the Joker. What I’m trying to say is like how in 2008 Heath was Joker to a lot of people. In a similar way Joaquin feels like my Joker of my generation. Which may sound just weird and stupid. Despite to me this is kind of like a prototype version of the Joker because this is his origin. Yes I know about the theories and what I’ve read. Yet let me keep talking.

it was mainly because of the humanity that Joaquin brought to the character compared to other versions. Including I hope people don’t hate me for saying this. During the first time of seeing the movie and even this time. Kind of like how Ping Pong Flix said. This story feels like Joker or Arthur is the hero of his own story. I felt happy for Arthur when he did the things to the people he thought that deserved it. Even towards the end and I don’t wanna spoil anything. All leading up to his transformation into the Joker.

But that’s also tragic, Arthur was a man who needed help. You felt sad for him, you wanted to help him. But society kept throwing him away and other things. A weird comparison I wanna make is to Jason Voorhees from the Friday The 13th franchise. 

You can feel sad for them, feel sympathy for them. But you can’t help them. Because they’ve gone too far. Where this may seem harsh. The only sort of peace they can have is probably death. I always wanted to mention that about Jason. Unless I did already.

Basically you don’t want him to be become the Joker and whatever else. Yet it’s gonna happen and what people have talked about. The film is kind of like a countdown(Especially if you listen to the soundtrack) to just Arthur just snapping and becoming the Joker.

I also wanted to mention what I took away from this film. Including I wanna mention in that post I talked about the possibility this film could make a billion dollars. I wanted to see this again before it could happen. Basically contribute to it more as well when I think about it.

But I edited this part out because it seemed too personal. This film made me realize I’m a pretty good person. That sounds weird but some stuff about my self esteem but don’t worry about me. 

Yet the big take away and the point of this film. Or how I see it. From what I’ve read and heard from Joaquin Phoenix yet I think I should mention Todd Phillips because I thought he said something like this too. It depends on how you view the film. I do feel like that is a double edged sword but I can be okay with that.

The point of what Joker 2019 is trying to show and from what I’ve read, a lot of people have thought this too. Is that society should be concerned and just more nice to people who don’t have it all. Have some empathy towards other human beings, and what I have thought or so.

Just be fucking kind to people. 

Basically don’t be cruel and other things. Or else and what Todd Phillips has mused about this movie of more Jokers after Arthur. If society doesn’t change of how it is. Your gonna be multiple Jokers that were like Arthur Fleck.

I also wanna say that’s why I was surprised in this reblog I made finding out that in 1980 this whole heath department thing that happened with Regan or whatever. Which made me realize no wonder this film takes place in 1981. Also other reasons as well.

Including there is also the fact Arthur had a choice with the things he did. Yet just be considerate towards others. Just show some humanity or like the film showcases you might get what you deserved. 

I just wanna say my favorite scene of the entire film or one of them. Yet it’s a scene I like and I don’t wanna spoil anything. It’s the scene with Arthur/Joker on the Murray show. The final act of this movie this third act I love. it’s a payoff and the conclusion of everything that’s happened.

The point is I seriously loved this film. I want more DC Black movies like this. Whether characters studies or whatever. But character studies is probably something I might like more. 

Yet also because I have talked about this before. I know this film is a stand alone it’s meant to be that. But with the talks from Joaquin and what he’s said. I want to see this version of Joker again, I want to see Arthur Fleck.

But I do realize the problem with that. Because if a sequel happens, it might ruin the theories and the unique thing about what the film set up to be. I think I also wanna see more because I loved watching Joaquin as this character so much. That I don’t want him to go away yet.

I have thought of a sequel idea. It’s been in development and it’s well fan fiction. But to me as I look at it. I have talked about it before. Yet to me it feels like it’s part, “This is a Oscar winning film” similar to Joker. But it’s also part comic book and well I’ll say this super hero film. Which might bother people who loved Joker 2019 so much. 

Mainly it’s the addition of too many characters I feel. Especially with certain references. But the whole point of it being while it feels like it’s the third part of a trilogy. My sequel idea so this doesn’t turn into a franchise but the DC Black Label can be a franchise thing focusing on different characters. My story idea bring a conclusion to Arthur Fleck and his journey as Joker. A epilogue for him that has Batman/Bruce Wayne as a main character as well. Both being the points of view of this story. A proper send off to Arthur Fleck as Joker.

In a well epic but deep way like the line, “This is how the Batman died” from Batman Arkham Knight. It’s a story of how the Joker died. 

I've rambled on too long. I really wanted to talk about this movie. I also wanna talk about in another post of what were my predictions of what I thought was gonna happen. Especially during my viewing of the film. There were three young girls to the left while they did talk a bit and laughed at a certain part. They seemed alright but I seemed bothered or whatever. Also a couple left during the movie, I thought I heard a child but I think it was the lady.

Including there was this mom and her kid. He seemed to be a preteen or young teenager. They left but many minutes later they came back for the third act . It was weird.....I don’t like seeing the fact children or possibly young children watched this. Sorry I’m sounding weird like because it’s R rated. Unless they know how to process it. I’m glad it wasn’t a younger kid. 

Also I felt it was cool seeing a guy who his mom and dad it seemed. They were big and the dad asked was it good, I told him it was very good and it was my 2nd time seeing it. That it was still very good or whatever. Hope they enjoyed it. I saw them after I was leaving the theater room I was and the son was holding the door opened.

That’s something I wanted to say. Especially my Uber driver who took me to the theater saw it and liked, and my Uber driver who took me home heard about it and I told him it was very good, and that it was my 2nd time. Again rambling just little moments. 

Hope you folks don’t mind my big post about this film.